#but he's struggling with taking care of his kid and juggling two jobs

[nausicaamusiclover20]

Omg you’re James works ❤️🥹😊😊😩😩I can’t figure out which era of him I like more so this is like a span? So maybe in 83, James and reader were dating but they broke up. Later, she found out she’s pregnant and she tried to get in touch but he thought she just wants money. Fast forward 10 years and James tries to make amends but then he finds them, it turns out his son hates him because the reader struggled a lot and although they have some money they live very very modestly? And the reader had to sacrifice her dreams as she had to take care of her son? And unfortunately the kid saw the reader cry over a gossip magazine where metallicas “showers with groupies” story was published? That made him despise James? So James has to try really hard to fix it? Maybe in the end he finally proposes? And his son is finally ready to accept him as father?

Thank you so much, I hope you like it❤

Love reclaimed

When James and I broke up, I told myself I’d move on—that I’d leave the memories behind, just like he had. But when I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. I dialed his number, feeling both hopeful and terrified. Maybe, just maybe, this would mean something to him.

When he picked up, his voice was edged with irritation. “Why are you calling?”

My heart pounded as I said, “James, I’m pregnant. This is your child.”

There was a silence, and then he let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Is this some kind of joke?”

I forced myself to stay calm. “No, James. I just… I thought you deserved to know.”

“You thought I’d buy this?” he snapped, his voice full of contempt. “You’re just after money, aren’t you?”

The accusation hit me like a punch. “Money? James, I don’t want anything from you. I just thought maybe… maybe you’d want to be a part of this.”

He scoffed. “You’re unbelievable. I’m not falling for this. We’re done, alright? Stop calling.”

He hung up, and I stood there, stunned, with his words echoing in my mind. The man I’d once loved had dismissed me and our child without a second thought. Tears filled my eyes, but I steeled myself. I was going to do this alone.

Ten Years Later

Life hadn’t been easy, but I’d done my best for Noah. Our apartment was small, but it was ours. We had a routine, a rhythm, and despite the sacrifices, I’d found a quiet kind of strength in it. But as Noah grew older, the questions started, and so did his anger

One evening, after a long day of juggling two jobs, I sat on the couch, exhausted. As I flipped through a gossip magazine I’d picked up to unwind, a headline caught my eye: _“Metallica’s Wild Nights: Hetfield Showers with Groupies!”_ My heart sank as I read the details, the images of carefree musicians living lavish lives while I struggled to make ends meet for me and Noah. I couldn't help but feel a surge of betrayal.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about all I had sacrificed. I had dreams once—ambitions that felt so far away now. I choked back a sob, feeling the weight of my regrets pressing down on me.

I didn’t hear Noah come home until I heard the magazine hit the table with a heavy thud. Startled, I looked up to see him standing there, his expression twisted in anger.

“Why are you crying?” he demanded, his voice sharp. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Noah. I’m just tired,” I lied, trying to wipe my tears away.

But he wasn’t buying it. He stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the magazine sprawled open on the table. “Is it about him?” he asked, his voice low and furious. “Is it about James?”

My heart twisted at the mention of his name, and I could see the anger boiling in Noah's chest. “It’s just stupid gossip. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does matter!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in frustration. “You shouldn’t be crying over some guy who doesn’t care about you!”

The truth in his words hit me like a slap. I struggled to maintain my composure, but the floodgates opened. “Noah, I didn’t want you to see me like this,” I said, my voice trembling. “I just thought… I thought he’d be different.”

“Mom,” Noah said, his tone softening, “I hate him. I hate him with all my heart. He’s the reason you’ve had to struggle so much. He doesn’t deserve you.”

I wiped my tears, forcing a smile, even as my heart swelled with gratitude for my son’s fierce loyalty. “I know, sweetheart. I know. But I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“You deserve better than him,” Noah said, his voice firm. “And if he ever shows up again, I swear I’ll make him regret it.”

—---------

Then, one gray, rainy afternoon, I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and there he was—James, looking older, worn, and regretful. My heart stopped. I wasn’t ready for this.

He spoke first, his voice soft. “I know it’s been a long time, but… I want to make things right.”

I crossed my arms, refusing to let him see the hurt that still lingered. “You think you can just walk back in here and fix everything?”

He shifted, uncomfortable. “I know I messed up, alright? I know I should’ve been there. I’m trying to make amends.”

“Amends?” I echoed bitterly. “You think showing up after ten years is going to make up for the hell you put us through?”

As Noah appeared in the hallway, he looked between James and me, his eyes filled with suspicion. I could feel the air grow thick with tension as James turned to him slowly, his face softening, and took a tentative step closer.

"Hey, buddy," he said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm... I'm your dad."

Noah’s expression shifted from confusion to anger, his jaw tightening as he processed the weight of those words. “My dad?” he repeated, voice dripping with bitterness. “You’re not my dad. My dad would’ve been here. My dad wouldn’t have left us.”

James flinched, visibly pained, but he held his ground, trying to keep his tone calm. “I know it doesn’t make up for the past, but I want to be here for you now, Noah. I want a chance to be the dad I should’ve been.”

But Noah’s face only hardened further. “You think it’s that easy?” He scoffed, crossing his arms defiantly. “You think you can just waltz in here, call yourself my dad, and everything’s fine?”

James took a deep breath, his eyes pleading. “I know it’s not easy. I messed up, and I can’t change that. But I’m not the same guy I was back then. I want to be part of your life, to make things right—for you and for your mom. I want to be a father to you both.”

I stepped forward, feeling the heat of the moment. “Noah, I know you’re hurt, and you have every right to be angry,” I said gently. “But James really is trying to make amends. This isn’t just about him wanting to be a rock star dad. He wants to be there for us.”

Noah shook his head, the anger in his voice rising. “What do you even know about my life? You don’t know how hard it’s been for my mom. She sacrificed everything for me while you were off living your rock star fantasy!”

“Hey, I’m not here to argue,” James said, frustration creeping into his voice. “I came to apologize and to be part of your life. I want to understand what you’ve been through. I want to be there for both of you.”

“Why should I believe you?” Noah snapped, his fists clenched at his sides. “You think a few apologies will fix everything? You left! You weren’t there for my first steps, my first words, none of it! I hate you for that!”

The room fell silent, the weight of Noah’s words hanging in the air. James took a step back, hurt flashing across his face. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he said quietly, “but I’m here now. I want to be a better man, for you and your mom. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust.”

I felt a surge of emotion as I stepped closer to Noah. “I know it’s been hard for both of us. James was part of my life once, and he was good to me. I don’t expect you to trust him immediately, but maybe we can take this one step at a time?”

Noah hesitated, his anger battling with a flicker of uncertainty. “What if I don’t want you in my life?” he challenged, his voice shaking.

“I’ll respect that,” James replied, his voice steady but vulnerable. “But I’ll be here, waiting, hoping for a chance to show you that I can be the father you deserve. I want to be there for your mom too. She’s had to carry so much alone, and I regret that more than you know.”

Noah's eyes widened slightly, the surprise breaking through his anger. “You think this is a game?” he asked, his voice lowering. “You think just because you’re famous, I’m supposed to want you in my life?”

“Noah, listen,” James said, desperation creeping into his tone. “This isn’t about fame. This is about being a father. I realize now what I lost, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to rebuild what we can. I want to support both of you in any way I can.”

I felt a lump in my throat as I glanced at Noah. “You have every right to feel what you feel, sweetheart,” I added softly, trying to bridge the gap. “But we’ve been managing. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve made it work. James can be part of that if we let him.”

Noah's anger began to falter, his voice trembling slightly. “This isn’t just about you, you know. If you want to be my dad, you have to prove it. It’s going to take more than just words.”

James nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “That’s all I ask for, buddy. I’ll be here, and I won’t give up on you or your mom. I want to be there for both of you, every step of the way.”

Noah looked between us, uncertainty still clouding his expression. “Fine,” he said at last, his voice trembling slightly. “But you have to earn my trust. I’m not just going to forgive you because you want me to.”

James took a deep breath, the resolve in his eyes shining through. “I understand that. I’m ready to show you that I’m serious about this. I’m committed to being a father to you and supporting your mom. It won’t be easy, but I’m willing to fight for it.”

The room was thick with tension, and I could see Noah grappling with his feelings. “You really think you can just come back after all these years and make everything better?” Noah challenged, his voice quiet but intense.

“I don’t expect it to be that simple,” James replied earnestly. “But I want to try. I want to make things right.”

“Then show me,” Noah said, his voice firm. “Show me you mean it.”

As I stood there, watching the two of them, a small spark of hope ignited within me. Maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of something new. Something better.

“James,” I said, breaking the silence, my gaze steady on him, “just remember that trust isn’t something you can demand; it’s something you earn. You’ve got a long road ahead of you, and it’s not going to be easy.”

He nodded, the weight of my words settling on him. “I know. I’m ready to do whatever it takes.”

I took a deep breath, trying to convey the seriousness of my thoughts. “Noah deserves to see that you’re sincere. He’s been through so much without you, and it’s not going to be easy for him to open up. But if you’re truly committed to making this work, you need to show him you’re here to stay—no matter how hard it gets.”

James looked at me, his expression earnest. “I will. I want to be there for both of you. I promise I won’t let you down again.”

“Good,” I said softly, allowing a cautious smile to creep onto my face. “Let’s take it one step at a time, okay? Show him you mean it.”

.........

As days turned into weeks, I watched as James made a genuine effort to connect with Noah. He was patient, attentive, and slowly, I could see Noah beginning to let his guard down. They would share moments of laughter, and I could feel the distance between them shrinking.

One evening, as we were all sitting together in the living room, Noah glanced at James and said, “I guess you’re not so bad after all.”

James chuckled softly, a hint of relief washing over his features. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Then, in a moment that took my breath away, James turned to me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

I followed him into the kitchen, where he took a deep breath, the tension palpable in the air. “I’ve been thinking about how much I want to be a part of your lives. And not just as Noah’s father, but as your partner.”

My heart raced as I watched him kneel down on one knee, pulling out a small velvet box. “I want to make this official. I want to be a family. Will you marry me?”

Tears filled my eyes as I looked at him, feeling the weight of everything we had been through together. “James…” I whispered, my voice shaky with emotion.

“Just say yes,” he urged, a hopeful smile on his face, his eyes glistening with sincerity.

Before I could even process the whirlwind of feelings inside me, I nodded vigorously. “Yes! Yes, I will!”

James slipped the ring onto my finger, and as he stood up, we turned to find Noah watching us, his expression a mix of surprise and understanding.

“Does this mean you’re really going to be my dad now?” Noah asked, his voice soft but steady.

“Absolutely,” James replied, his voice filled with sincerity, his gaze unwavering. “I’ll do everything I can to earn your trust.”

For a moment, Noah hesitated, uncertainty flickering across his face. But then, taking a deep breath, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around James. “I think I can give you a chance, Dad.”

The word hung in the air, both beautiful and heavy, and I could see the emotion washing over James’s face. His eyes widened in surprise before welling with tears. “Dad… that means so much to me, buddy.”

Noah stepped back, looking a little sheepish, but there was a flicker of hope in his eyes. “Just don’t mess this up,” he said with a small smile.

“I won’t,” James promised, his voice thick with emotion. He looked at me, his heart laid bare. “I want to be here for both of you. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”

In that moment, I felt an overwhelming sense of hope. Maybe, just maybe, we could build the family we always dreamed of. I stepped closer to James, taking his hand in mine, the warmth between us a silent vow to forge ahead together.

“Let’s do this,” I said softly, feeling a new chapter unfolding before us.

Then, with a surge of emotion, James pulled both Noah and me into a tight embrace. The three of us stood together, a little family forming in the warmth of love and forgiveness, ready to face whatever came next.

[yuuuume]

househusband au headcanons

Kensei ver.

| 1 | 2 |

rating: safe for work

reader prons: they/them

First off, Kensei? A dad? It’s likely. At some point he fell in love, got engaged, then married, then after that, all the baby stuff happened. He and his spouse decided before marriage that if they ever decided to have children, he would be the one to take care of the kids, mostly because he wanted to work from home anyway as a personal trainer. If you think he’d make his spouse quit work just to watch the kids, then you’re crazy. Kensei Muguruma shits on men that believe their spouse should stay at home while they work, he says it shows there’s nothing to that man aside from his job.

I’m 100% sure he wouldn’t think it was difficult if there was simply one baby involved but with his luck, two babies, a boy and a girl, blessed the Muguruma family at the same time! Even if his spouse were to offer to take a longer family leave, Kensei would tell them that he had everything under control and to go back to work. And so it truly began once they realized he was supposedly fine with taking care of the house and their two Mini Mugurumas, as well as taking personal training appointments. Kensei was just glad he put the most work into making his at-home gym as soundproofed as he could.

And since I can’t hold myself back, he’s the hottest Dad on the block. The other moms ogle the muscle man adorned with a baby bag and the double stroller housing his tots. Sorry to say it ladies, but the only thing on this man's mind is dinner plans, how long the twins have slept, and what he has scheduled for the day should it be for himself or the kids. He lets his little ones have playdates but if it's with the mothers on the block, he will be hesitant as he knows they like him. The only people he feels comfortable with when it comes to playdates are the grandma at the end of the street who watches her grandkids, his spouse's best friend, and Shinji, the struggling but very new stay-at-home dad. He’ll give Shinji pointers when they hang out purely because he knows how difficult being a Dad to a newborn was.

Now how does Kensei juggle being a homemaker, father, and personal trainer all at once? Well, I’ll tell you, but it’s a long day. Kensei is used to waking up early so he always has a head start in comparison to his spouse. In this timeframe, the Mini Muguruma’s are nearing seven months old so their schedule is also cut out for them but their father will make exceptions when needed. He and his spouse cut the chores 70/30 since they tend to have some energy after work so laundry mostly isn’t an issue. He gets it done by the time breakfast is finished and his spouse is up and ready for the day with their energized kids. Breakfast comes and goes as they both feed one twin as well as themselves and enjoy family time before his spouse leaves for work.

When that happens, Kensei will get ready for the twins’ bath time and has become a speed demon due to past experiences of him being peed on by his son one too many times. The twins then have their supervised playtime in the room and tend to take a nap, so Kensei just sits there with them waiting to be freed. He’s invested in sleeping mats for the room because it never failed for either kid to refuse to take a nap if someone picked them up. Once they’ve tired themselves out, Kensei is on his game, making sure he has everything ready for his first personal training session, preparing protein shakes for himself and his client.

The workday can go well, with the twins sleeping through the session or they can wake up and join the fun. When that happens, Kensei simply hopes it’s only one twin awake, and if that's the case, he’ll haul them into the home gym and continue supervising his client with a baby in tow. He has yet to receive any comments regarding the happening. Kensei keeps the personal training sessions to once a day so it spreads well for the few clients he has, leaving most of the weekend open for family, not to mention he can keep up with his figure, not that a ‘dad bod’ is something he’s avoiding.

Lunchtime means Kensei somewhat gets a break. He has to feed his kids (of course) but they’re at an age where he can start giving them more filling foods and is picky with what they ingest. Which means weekly trips to a very particular grocery store some streets down from home. Upon meeting Shinji and waiting the allotted time for the little one's immune system to build, Kensei will invite the fellow house husband out to nearly anything if he’s not in a rush. Women will mostly stare at Kensei and ask to view the children when in reality they want to chat him up, but he usually declines and continues talking to Shinji about good recipes since the latter started learning how to cook upon his regression to the homemaker scene.

Although he may get aggravated, Kensei does his best to help out a fellow Dad™ as the journey from then to now certainly wasn’t easy. Once he gets home, it’s time to put the little ones in their bouncers, turn on the TV, and finish picking up the house before he starts on dinner. His little boy has always been more interested in what Kensei does so he’ll be seated in a high chair, watching with the brown eyes he received from his father while his sister watched whatever children’s program was on. With dinner in full swing by this time, Kensei’s spouse finally returns home and greets the family they’ve missed all day before going to change out of their work clothes.

Dinner gets served and the solo routine finally comes to an end for the father. It gets easier as time goes on. The kids become less and less dependent on their father, which means Kensei watches them meet their most important milestones in early life. Fatherhood, in those moments, truly outshines the days where his kids are sick and can’t sleep, or are simply having bad days and don’t know how to express themselves properly. Regardless, he takes it one trial at a time and soon enough, his babies are now fully grown and starting to leave their toddler stage. This meant they were getting ready to take on the world with their Dad.

The father's routine hasn’t changed much as he and his spouse decided to not enroll the kids in kindergarten yet, leaving him with a full day of children until the following year but this age gives him more leeway. Kensei spends most of his week with Shinji as their kids play at the park with each other nearly every day. As a result, the Dads have become close friends with each other, with Shinji’s daughter referring to Kensei as ‘uncle’ and his kids referring to Shinji with the same title.

Muscle dad still rocks the double stroller, mostly when he feels the need to go for a run, and straps the kids in, which they’re completely ecstatic. His spouse expresses concern when he runs with them in their stroller but they enjoy the fast ride with a pair of glasses and a spill-proof cup in their hands, leaving everything on the concrete path behind them. The little girl is especially observant at this age when it comes to women still throwing themselves at her father and she’ll have whole tantrums that ‘magically’ go away when there is no one in sight. Whether or not she tells her working parent about that habit is another thing.

The year goes by fast, and eventually, it’s his twins' first day at kindergarten. Kensei won’t openly admit it, but he misses them that first day. Sure he has a free day and can take in more clients to help pay the bills but there’s just a gaping hole his children left. He feels inclined to have another kid but that goes out the window when he realizes it can always be this quiet and he can think for once without having either twin in his ear (cute as they may be). But of course, wherever he goes, the unsatisfied neighborhood mothers go, though his trips to the outside world are limited to runs, grocery shopping, and shopping in general, or going over to Shinji’s place. Kensei tries to remain cool for the most part but simply decides to stay home and invites Shinji over to relax considering his spouse told him their daughter was going to attend kindergarten, leaving them with a quiet neighborhood. That was until a new family moved in between their homes, the Aizen Family.

do not steal or repost my works anywhere

© yuuuume

[senashenta]

Title: Horror High

Pairing: Destiel

Rating: NC-17 (in future chapters)

Warnings: Sex, Violence

Summary: John Winchester plants his eldest son at Caspar High in Jacksonville because weird things have been happening there: people disappearing. People reappearing only dead and drained of all their bodily fluids. Cocoons. It’s up to Dean to figure out what’s stalking Caspar’s halls and deal with it accordingly; but then he meets the New Kid—newer than him, even, the New-New Kid—Castiel Novak, and all his plans get severely derailed. Now Dean has to juggle the supernatural case—a really hungry jorogumo—and also the fact that he’s very quickly falling in love, something that is absolutely forbidden by his dad.

Meanwhile Castiel, shoved into the third new school in a year because his adoptive father—Chuck Shurley’s—job has them moving around a lot, struggles to fit in at Caspar High, not only because he’s the New Kid but because he’s the weird New Kid. Dean seems like a saving grace, a harbor in a storm, someone who doesn’t judge him—that is until Cas finds out about Dean’s night job. Cas’s life just got a whole lot stranger—but that doesn’t stop him from falling for Dean, regardless.

Notes: This is my first time writing Destiel OR SPN (though I have written SPN AU in other fandoms) so please bear with me while I get my footing.

Also HH was originally supposed to be like a 10-page one-shot and the next thing I knew it was 79-pages-of-11-pt-Arial-and-counting and I was looking for places to divide it for chapters so. Yeah. This storyline kind of just took over my brain and became a THING.

Top Dean and Bottom Cas which I know is the reverse of how 90% of the fandom writes them, but I am tentatively planning a sequel to HH (depending on how well it does or doesn’t go over) that will flip them around so be patient shhhh.

Cas is younger than Dean in this AU by like… six months. Dean’s official birthday is January 24th, and I used Jimmy Novak’s birthday for Cas, which is July 10th. Since they’re both in the same grade that makes Cas younger. Just accept it and move on.

I have never been to Jacksonville or Florida, so everything contained within this fic is completely fictitious; business names, street names, school names, place names, everything except Jacksonville, Florida itself. :D

ALSO, before anyone corrects me on stuff, I am CANADIAN and I know the CANADIAN high school system/curriculum. I really have very little idea of how the US school system/classes work so like. I’m just making it up as I go. :D;; (Literally how many classes do US high school students have in a day?? Up here it’s FOUR.)

Please excuse my interpretation of jorogumos, I took a LOT of liberties.

Chapter Two will be posted next Friday, if you're into that sort of thing. You can also read this HERE on AO3.

HORROR HIGH TUMBLR MASTER POST HERE.

HORROR HIGH Chapter One By Senashenta

Dean Winchester crept up the steps of Caspar High School in Jacksonville, Florida, and ducked under the line of police tape that marked off the area, heading for the little tent that had been erected just to the side of the building, near the bushes. The whole scene was theoretically being guarded by the police—but the officer they had left behind was asleep in his police car out front.

Bang up job, Jacksonville P.D.

That aside, Dean was good at his job, so sneaking into a crime scene was no big deal for him, guarded or not. And this was just your basic body check, there wouldn’t be any fighting or anything to wake the cop up—or that was the theory, anyway. (Even if there was, it wouldn’t be his first time being caught and or arrested, either, but they would probably just chalk it up to him being a nosy kid regardless.)

This was the first time his Dad had trusted him enough to drop him in a town to take care of a case alone. Of course, Sam was in Jacksonville with Dean while their Dad headed to Utah to look into a recent spate of killings there, but Sam was pretty much confined to school and the motel on this outing, as per their father’s orders. Still, Dean was going to be keeping a close eye on him: Sam had been known to rabbit in the past and he didn’t want to have to call his Dad and explain that he had lost his little brother (again.)

Now, Dean stealthily unzipped the tent flap and stepped inside, letting it fall closed behind himself.

What he was confronted with when his eyes adjusted to the darkness wasn’t a body so much as a cocoon, an oblong, rounded object the size of a person and wrapped in layers and layers of what looked almost like off-white cheesecloth or gauze. Dean leaned down and tapped at it with his fingers. It was soft, like silk.

Well that would explain why the police hadn’t taken the body away yet; there was no body, per se.

“Let’s see what’s inside you.”

Dean pulled the buck knife out of the back of his jeans, unsheathed it, and got to work cutting the cocoon open. The wrapping, though soft, was tough and sticky, hard to slice through, but eventually he hacked a seam lengthways along the cocoon, at which point he set his knife aside to pull the damned thing open.

Inside was the actual body; male, probably, and curled in on itself, shrivelled and desiccated and dried to a withered husk. At least it didn’t smell. Dean still made a face, even as he released the cocoon and picked up his knife, tucking it away again before exiting the little tent and heading off down the street, making for the motel he and Sam were staying at.

The Seafoam Motel wasn’t exactly high-class, but then none of the places they stayed at ever were. But it had walls and a roof, good locks on the door, it was cheap, and nobody asked too many questions about the occupants of the rooms, and those were all the important things. The Seafoam Motel ticked all the boxes for a financially strapped Hunter—and for his kids, too. Not that you would know it from Sam’s complaining.

At least it had wifi, the kid would have pitched an absolute fit if it hadn’t.

When he got back to the room the door was predictably locked (good job, Sammy), and Dean banged on it a couple of times, calling out, “Sammy, it’s me, open the door!”

After a moment of silence there was the sound of the chain lock and deadbolt being unlocked, and then the door was yanked open. Sam stepped aside to let Dean in and then closed and locked the door behind him, just like it had been drilled into him so many times in the past. “What’d you find?”

“Cocoon.”

“Come again?”

“Cocoon.” Dean repeated as he crossed the room, pulling his knife out and setting it on the little kitchenette table, then dropping into one of the rickety chairs. “You know, like the movie? The body was inside it. Wrapped up in this tough, sticky… I don’t know what. But it sure looked a hell of a lot like a cocoon to me.”

Sam was already heading for his laptop. “That gives us a place to start, at least.”

“Oh no, no no.” Dean headed him off at the pass, practically diving over and snatching the computer before Sam could get to it. “You’re not doing research all night, we have freaking school in the morning.” And then, “…I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Yeah, because you care about school.” Sam rolled his eyes and made a grab for the laptop, but Dean held it over his head where he couldn’t reach. “Dean.”

“I care about the girls at school.” He informed his brother with a grin, then added, “and it’s nearly two a.m., we’re going to bed. Research tomorrow. Sleep now. Besides, I have to check out the school some more anyway, just a cocoon isn’t going to give us much.”

Sam grumbled, eventually agreed, but still held his hand out for his computer. Dean deposited the laptop safely into his grasp and then started stripping down, falling into bed once he was in just his boxers and a t-shirt. “Get the lights, Sammy.”

Sam flicked the lights off with a long-suffering sigh.

-- --

Castiel Novak wasn’t having a great first day at Caspar High. He was relatively used to being the New Kid, his father’s job had them moving around a lot so he switched schools on a regular basis, but the hazing at Caspar was particularly mean spirited, he was finding, not to mention the building itself was an absolute maze, and he had been late for literally all of his morning classes simply because he hadn’t been able to find them and no one had been willing to help him out.

Now he was seated in the cafeteria, by himself but surrounded by the rest of the bustling student body, unsure what to really do with himself.

This wasn’t his first time being the New Kid. He and his father moved around a lot for his father’s job and Caspar High was the third school he’d transferred to since September. It was now January. His father promised that the moving would slow down, though; he could see how much it wore on Cas, even if the boy never said anything about it. He was going to start travelling for his seminars, instead, now that he felt Cas was old enough to stay home on his own. So Cas could potentially be at Caspar for a while.

He probably should have been worried about making friends. For most kids his age that would have been top priority, but Cas had always been a little different, and he thought he was fine on his own, if it came down to it, especially considering the first impression he was getting of the other students so far. It figured that the High School he was likely to actually graduate from would turn out to be full of nothing but jerks.

He was also possibly a little jaded from all the moving around he’d done in the past.

For the time being he just dug his lunch—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple and a bottle of water—out of his backpack, unwrapped the sandwich and began to pick little pieces of it off and eat them, rather than taking proper bites as he usually would. He wasn’t really all that hungry, considering there were at least a hundred pairs of eyes on him at the moment.

And then—

“HEY NEW KID!”

When Cas looked up, a basketball was flying at his face and he had no time to duck out of the way—but at the last possible second hands shot out of nowhere, snatching the ball out of the air before it could hit its’ target. Blue eyes blinked, and his head swivelled sideways to take in the stranger that had just saved him from a black eye at the very least.

The guy wasn’t overly tall—probably around Cas’s height, give or take—with short, tousled brown hair. He was sporting a t-shirt and a flannel button-up under a worn black jean jacket. He was also wearing ripped jeans. But Cas was most taken by his eyes, which were a sharp, beautiful forest green. As he watched, the other boy eyed the kid across the cafeteria who had thrown the ball to begin with—then abruptly pitched it back at the offender. The ball slammed into the other kid’s head, sending him flying backward out of his seat and causing laugher to erupt all across the cafeteria.

Then his rescuer just looked down at him for a moment before dropping down to sit next to him, straddling the bench. “They tried that on me my first day here, too. Same thing happened then. You’d think they’d learn.”

“Thank you.” Cas offered with a blink.

“No problem.”

“I’m Castiel.”

“That’s a mouthful. I’m Dean.” And then, “the fact that you’re wearing a tie right now isn’t going to help your popularity. Also,” he reached over to physically pull the tie off Cas’s neck and dropped it on the table in front of them. Cas allowed it, somewhat baffled. “You had it on backwards. Honestly, dude, just wear t-shirts like the rest of us.”

“I can do that.” Cas agreed. He owned t-shirts. He grabbed his tie to stuff it into his backpack. Then he returned to looking at Dean, taking in his features and mannerisms. He was exceedingly good-looking, Cas decided almost absently. At the same time, Dean was looking him over as well, seeming to take stock of him, gaze alert and analytical. Scrutinizing.

Eventually Cas shifted a little and asked, “are you new, too?”

“New-ish.” Dean shrugged, “I transferred in two weeks ago.”

“That’s why you’re nicer than...” Cas trailed off and glanced around the cafeteria.

“Literally everyone else here?” Dean suggested with a laugh.

“I didn’t want to say it, but yes.”

“It gets better. After a few days they forget. They’re dumb like that, the masses.”

“Zombies.”

“Uh,” Dean hesitated, but then allowed, “yeah, sure, kind of.”

“You don’t sound very certain, Dean.”

“Well, Cas, I just think zombies are probably different than in the movies.”

Wait. “Cas?” He called himself ‘Cas’ in his head, but no one ever called him that out loud except his father.

Dean gave him a little amused look, “’Castiel’ is a lot.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“As long as it’s fine with you, that is.”

Cas nodded and offered a smile. “It’s fine with me.”

Dean gave him a little grin back. “Great.”

The rest of lunch hour was spent with Cas actually eating his lunch properly while he talked with Dean and they got to know each other a little. No one else bothered them for the rest of the time they were in the cafeteria, and Cas was hoping he would have at least one of his afternoon classes with Dean, but when they compared their schedules, it sadly wasn’t to be. Cas resigned himself to hazing throughout the day for at least the next week or so—until the rest of the student body moved on.

It was a novelty to talk with someone who overlooked his innate strangeness. Cas was so used to people giving him odd looks that Dean chatting with him as freely as he was now, was… almost baffling. Dean seemed like the kind of guy who could be popular, have tons of friends easily, and instead here he was wasting his time with Cas. It was… weird. Not that Cas was complaining.

When the bell rang to signify the end of lunch hour, Cas was mildly disappointed that their conversation had to end. He shifted in his seat a bit before asking tentatively, “you could sit with me again tomorrow, If you wanted?”

“I’ve already got a spot where I spend lunch hour, usually. Not in here.” Dean replied casually, making Cas wilt a little, then; “but you can join me if you want. Meet me by the gym tomorrow at the start of lunch, okay?”

Cas brightened again, nodding. “Okay.”

“Cool.” Dean stood up and brushed the nonexistent dust off himself with a grin, “then I’ll see you tomorrow, Cas.”

Cas smiled back. “Mm, see you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know where Dean was going, but he was off to calculus class—assuming he could find it.

-- --

“Hey, New Kid.”

Cas was really getting tired of being called that, but at least this time there had been no malice behind it. More curiosity, if anything. He was seated in calculus, having found it with (relative) ease, trying to keep his head down and out of trouble when the voice spoke up from in front of him. He reluctantly lifted his head.

The girl in the seat in front of him was twisted around in her chair to face him, a wide smile on her face. Her hair was the reddest red that Cas thought it could possibly be. She gave him a little wave. “I’m Charlie. What’s your name?”

Cas hesitated before offering, “Castiel. But just Cas is fine.”

“Wow, yeah, ‘Castiel’ is…”

“A lot.” Cas echoed Dean’s words from earlier in the day. He was starting to relax now that Charlie was turning out to be friendly. He sat up a little straighter. “It’s nice to meet you, Charlie.”

“Nice to meet you, too!” Charlie glanced around, “I know most of the population of his school are jerks, but calculus is a pretty safe class, so you can relax a little. Oh!” She gestured to the side at another girl, “this is Jody,” and then to the boy sitting in the seat beside Cas, “and this is Garth. They’re cool too.”

Jody had short brown hair and dark eyes, and almost a maternal smile; Garth was tall and lanky, kind of goofy looking but gave him a greeting grin that Cas couldn’t help smiling back to. He was definitely feeling more comfortable now, in this class, at least.

“I saw what happened at lunch,” Charlie said, pulling his attention back to her, “Dean Winchester saved you, which, like… what was he even doing in the cafeteria? He always vanishes at lunch time. No one knows where he goes. It’s a mystery.” She wiggled her fingers a little, “he must like you, ‘cause he usually just keeps to himself, or he has since he transferred in, anyway.”

“Mn, he said he was new, too.”

“Yeah, by a couple weeks. No one dares pick on him, though, he’d kick everyone’s asses.”

Cas coughed out a little laugh. “I got that impression.” Then, after a slight hesitation, “he said I could sit with him at lunch tomorrow. So.”

“Ooh, exciting! You’ll have to tell us where he eats lunch, then!” Charlie grinned at him, then rolled her eyes slightly, “aaaaaaall the girls have a crush on him. He’s handsome and mysterious and blah blah blah.”

“You think he’s over-rated.” Jody informed flatly, though her expression was amused.

“Over-rated?” Cas questioned.

“Charlie is gay.” Garth explained. “Like, so gay.”

“So gay.” Charlie agreed.

“Oh.” Cas shrugged. It didn’t bother him. “I’m not entirely straight myself.”

Charlie just grinned. “So you don’t think Dean Winchester is over-rated.”

He cleared his throat and glanced down a little. “He’s not unattractive.”

“Yeaaaah that’s what I thought.”

“I like girls, too, though, I just… I like who I like. I don’t care about their gender.”

“That’s valid.” Charlie gave him a reassuring smile, then just changed the topic entirely; “where’d you move from?”

Cas blinked. “Wichita, Kansas. My Father and I move around a lot for his job… or we did. Now that I’m older I guess he trusts me to stay home alone so he’s going to start travelling instead. So I’m stuck here.”

“It’s not so bad here once you settle in,” Jody reassured him.

“Yeah,” Charlie nodded, “and you’ve got us now, so it’s not like you have no friends.”

“You just have weird friends.” Garth laughed.

Cas couldn’t help the little grin that crept across his own face. He was actually perfectly okay with having weird friends.

-- --

In history class, after calculus, somebody tripped him on his way to his seat and Cas fell flat on his face. The rest of the students laughed. Cas just got back up and continued on, pretending nothing had happened. That was the best way to deal with bullies, he had learned, over his long and sordid history of transferring from school to school. Ignore them until they give up and go away.

Or, alternatively, have Dean Winchester throw a basketball at their face. That apparently worked, too.

In any case, after the incident in history, the rest of the day passed easily enough, until Cas found himself standing outside the school after final bell, just taking deep breaths of the fresh air and looking up at the sky—soaking in the fact that he was free, at least for the rest of the day.

“You going left or right?”

Cas blinked at the familiar voice and turned his attention to Dean, who had come up beside him while he was distracted with the general out-of-doors. He glanced toward the route he had to take to get home. “Right. Why?”

“Me too. I’ll walk with you.”

“Oh. Okay.” And then, “thanks.”

“Don’t gotta thank me. I’m walking that way anyway.” Dean nudged him to get him moving, and Cas headed off with the other boy by his side.

“No, I mean,” Cas waved one hand in an absent sort of gesture, “I mean for earlier. In the cafeteria. You really didn’t have to do that. And one of the girls I was talking to later said you don’t even usually go in the cafeteria, so I just… thanks. For going out of your way. I appreciate it.”

“You were gossiping about me?”

“I—” Cas began, then clapped his mouth shut again and shook his head in a quick negative. When he spoke up once more it was to mutter, “of course not.”

But Dean was already grinning, looking overly amused. “It’s fine, Cas, I’m used to being gossip fodder. What was she saying about me?”

“That all the girls here think you’re handsome.” Cas told him easily, but conveniently left out the part where he agreed with them. There was no sense in telling a guy he’d just met that he was already developing a crush on him, especially when he might be moving again any day. He really wasn’t sure he trusted his father’s promises that they were going to stay put this time. “And that no one knows where you disappear to at lunch time, apparently it’s a big mystery.”

Dean laughed. “Well you’ll know, starting tomorrow.” He pointed out, “you’re still gonna join me, right?”

Cas actually gave him a surprised look. “I didn’t think you actually—”

“—meant it?” Dean finished for him. His smile softened for just a second before returning to his previous jovial expression. “Mmm… I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it. And besides, you’re different from all those other assholes, I can tell.”

“I like to think I am, anyway.” Then, “you are, too.”

Dean grinned again. “I think we’re going to be friends, Cas, I really do.”

Cas offered up a smile of his own, “I’d like that, Dean.”

They walked together for a few blocks, until they got to James Street, at which point Cas paused and gestured down it. This was his turn off, he had to walk down James to get to King Street where he lived, and it was… well, the term “sketchy” came to mind. James Street was all run-down houses, broken fences, guard dogs and probably drug dealers. Dean looked down the street, giving it a thorough eyeballing, before declaring—

“Nope!” He gave Cas a little push toward the street, but then followed him, falling into step beside him as they headed down James. “No way are you walking down here by yourself, dude, that’s just asking to get axe-murdered. Or worse.”

“Worse than axe-murdered?”

“Oh, trust me there are so many worse things than being axe-murdered.”

Cas would have to take his word for it. He couldn’t personally think of any, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. For now he was just going over and over in his head how this guy he had just met was walking him all the way home through a dodgy part of town, even though he didn’t have to. His tiny, newborn crush on Dean Winchester was probably growing teeth already, and it hadn’t even been a day.

“When’s your birthday?”

“Huh?” Cas blinked back to reality at the question and actually had to fumble for a response before managing, “July.”

“January.” Dean was paying very close attention to their surroundings while also trying to maintain a conversation and that was obvious. “So I’m older.”

“Only by six months.” Cas pointed out.

“Still counts. Means you have to do what I say.” Dean grinned at him fleetingly, “those’re the rules!”

“I don’t like those rules.” The younger teen gave a token protest. “I think you made those rules up.”

“Possibly, but they’re important.”

“Why?”

“Could save your life one day.”

Cas laughed softly at that, but Dean didn’t, instead falling silent until they were past James Street and out of the sketchy area that Cas had very much walked through unescorted on his way to school that morning. Dean relaxed visibly as soon as they were back to “normal” neighborhoods, his steps easier and his shoulder slouching a little, where they had been tense and taut only a moment before.

Honestly, Cas wasn’t entirely sure what was up with Dean, but clearly something was going on inside his head. He would love to have picked Dean’s brain about it, but he really didn’t think Dean would be up for sharing. Maybe he had an incident in his past, something to do with a neighborhood like James that had him acting like he was now. Cas thought possibly once they got to know each other a little bit more, he might ask, but for now…

“I live on King.” He gestured down the street in question when they neared it, “I really can walk from here, I… um. But thanks. Again.”

Dean’s steps slowed to a stop and he glanced around, as if checking the surrounding neighborhood before deeming it safe. “Okay, Cas. I’ll see you tomorrow, right? Be careful walking that way on your way to school in the morning.”

“I will.” Cas gave him a little smile, “thanks, Dean. See you tomorrow.” Then he turned and headed across the street to King, where his father was likely waiting to hear a rundown of his day.

-- --

Lunch time the next day found Cas nervously waiting outside the gym, half expecting Dean not to show—that it had all been an elaborate prank.

Cas’s morning had gone alright, though, everyone seemed to be steering clear now that it had circulated that Dean Winchester was looking out for him. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, Dean had done to garner his reputation, but whatever it was it had been effective.

“Hey.” A hand clapped into his shoulder and when Cas glanced up, Dean was standing there, “c’mon.”

Cas just stared at him. “You actually came.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean gave him an odd look, then gestured for him to follow and headed into the gym. It was empty right now, except for them, and Cas trailed after Dean as they walked around the side of the bleachers—and Dean ducked into the back of them, then dropped down and settled with his back against the wall. He waved a hand for Cas to join him.

Cas clambered in behind the bleachers as well, taking a seat beside Dean and setting his backpack beside him. “This is where you spend lunch?”

“Yeah. It’s private. Quiet, usually.” Dean shrugged, “I don’t mind you being here, though.”

Cas blinked at that, not quite sure what to say. “I—thanks?”

Dean tossed him a grin. “You don’t have to thank me for everything, Cas.”

But it was the polite thing to do. Cas opened his mouth—then closed it again. After a moment he just shrugged almost awkwardly and dug in his backpack for his lunch, unwrapping his sandwich and beginning to eat. He was so severely unused to having friends that this was difficult for him—socializing. He didn’t really know how to do it.

“Hey, what’s your family like?” Cas glanced over when Dean spoke up. The other boy had his head leaned back against the wall, his hands laced over his stomach and his eyes were staring off somewhere into the middle-distance.

“My family?” Cas swallowed a bite of sandwich and resisted the urge to shrug again. “It’s just me and my Father. He adopted me when I was five, but I don’t remember anything before then. It’s always just been the two of us.”

Dean smiled a little and looked at him. “I’ve got me, and my Dad, and my annoying little brother. But we get by okay.”

So neither of them had Moms. That was interesting. Cas took another bite of his sandwich and asked, “how come you transferred here? Does your Dad move around a lot for work or something?”

“You could say that.” Dean agreed, “what about you?”

“Same.” The younger teen nodded, in-between bites of food, “my Father is a motivational speaker, and he does series of seminars all over the place. The last couple months we were in Kansas, and Oregon before that. Now we’re here.” Another bite of sandwich and he continued, a little muffled, “he says we’re going to stay here, though, now that I’m old enough to stay home on my own. He says he’ll start travelling for his work instead.” A shrug, “I don’t know if I believe him or not.”

“Your Dad lie to you often?”

Cas sighed. “No, it’s just… I think it’s a stretch. That he’s suddenly decided all this.”

“Mm.” Dean seemed sympathetic, though Cas wasn’t entirely sure why. “Sucks that it’s this school that you’d be stuck at, after everything.”

“That’s what I was thinking yesterday.” Cas admitted, balling up the wrap from his lunch and dropping it back in his bag. Then he hesitated before offering, “but then I met you, and… things got better.”

Dean grinned again. “Yeah. I think we’re gonna be good friends, Cas.”

Cas found himself smiling back—and then Dean lifted his arm to run his hand through his hair and Cas’s eyes caught on a tear in the cuff of his jacket. He tilted his head curiously. “What happened to your jacket?”

“Huh?” Dean lowered his arm to peer at the rip. He shrugged. “I don’t even know, honestly, half my stuff has holes in it and I never know where they came from.”

Cas was already digging through his backpack again, and this time came up with a spool of black thread and a needle, much to Dean’s obvious surprise. He waved one hand toward the older boy, “take it off and I’ll fix it for you.”

Of all the ways this lunch hour could have gone, this was not one Dean would have predicted. He looked at Cas almost blankly for a moment, then let his eyes flick down to the other teen’s backpack. It was covered in vibrant patches—a cartoon PB&J sandwich, a pizza box, an LGBTQ flag, angel wings, etc.—all obviously hand-sewn on. And oh. So sewing was a thing with Cas. Okay.

Dean pushed away from the wall just enough to shrug out of his jacket and handed it over, watching curiously as Cas measured out a length of thread, then snapped it off with his teeth, threading the needle and knotting the thread a second later. He was obviously practiced at this particular skill. So was Dean, but for different reasons.

A few minutes of concentration later and Cas was finished with repairing the rip in his jacket, knotting off the thread and snapping it with his teeth again, then tucking the needle and thread away before sheepishly handing the jacket back to Dean.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s much better, right?” He asked almost shyly.

Dean gave him a genuine, grateful smile. “Thanks, Cas. It’s great.”

Cas watched him pull his jacket back on, smiling himself now. “I like to sew. It gives me something to do with my hands when I’m feeling… I don’t know. Antsy, I suppose. Like some people play with pencils or fidget toys, I have a needle and thread…”

Dean was inspecting the newly-sewn spot on his cuff, and looked up with a grin, “I play with knives.” He informed Cas, only half-joking.

Cas, not knowing any better, laughed anyway. “Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for… being nice to me. Thanks for this. For… being my friend.”

Dean almost told him he didn’t need to thank him again. Instead he just smiled, almost fond, and said, “you’re welcome, Cas.”

-- --

“What do you mean you’re not going to tell us where Dean Winchester spends lunch hour?”

This was from Charlie, who had one hand clasped to her chest and a positively shocked and scandalized look on her face. The entire thing was an act and Cas knew it, even having only known Charlie for two days. “Charlie.”

“What do you mean you’re not going to tell me where Dean Winchester spends lunch hour?”

“Aaaaaand there it is.” Jody drawled. Garth chuckled.

Cas just smiled apologetically. “It’s kind of a secret. I don’t think he wants people to know.”

Charlie pouted, “you just want him all to yourself, that’s what I think.”

Cas coughed and glanced down at the same time as Garth commented, “as if you care. You couldn’t be less interested in Dean Winchester if you tried, Charlie.”

“Not true!” Charlie insisted, “he is, indeed, a mystery that I am interested in solving! Just… not in, like, a romantic sense. Because ew.” Then she paused before adding, “I mean, objectively I can see where you would find him attractive, Cas, but just… no thanks.”

A soft laugh from Cas, faintly embarrassed. “Sorry, Charlie. I’m still not going to tell you.”

The girl heaved a suffering sigh. “You disappoint me, Castiel Novak.”

Again. “Sorry, Charlie.”

“You are not.”

He wasn’t even a little.

-- --

It became habit that Cas met Dean outside the gym every day at lunch and they spent lunch hour behind the bleachers, talking and laughing and becoming better friends, Cas’s minor crush on Dean growing into a huge monster of one very quickly.

Dean never had anything to eat at lunch and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Cas, though he had thus far neglected to say anything. But the longer he knew Dean and the more time he spent with the other boy the more it bothered him. He wasn’t bringing anything from home, obviously, and never bought anything from the cafeteria, he just sat through lunch hour watching everyone else eat and going hungry himself, scribbling in a battered notebook that he carried in his inside jacket pocket.

And that didn’t sit right with Cas because some days it was obvious Dean was hungry from the way he watched Cas eat out of the corner of his eye. But why he never had food was probably a sensitive subject and Cas didn’t feel he had the right to ask.

He could, however, do something about it.

So the next time Dean plunked himself down on the ground behind the gym bleachers at lunch time, Cas sat down next to him, then swung his backpack around and fished out not one but two sandwiches, each individually wrapped in cling-film. He blinked at Dean and held one out. “Here.”

Dean just stared at him. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“Feeding you.” Cas stated matter-of-factly, and when Dean didn’t immediately take the offered sandwich, he just set it in the older boy’s lap and returned to his bag, digging out two apples and setting one next to Dean’s sandwich. This was followed by a pair of bottles of water. Then he shrugged. “Someone has to do it.”

“But—I—you—this is—”

Cas could sense where this was going. He headed it off at the pass. “It’s not charity, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s as easy to make two sandwiches as it is to make one.” He was already unwrapping his own sandwich, and paused to glance sideways at Dean before taking a bite; “we’re friends and friends help each other out, right?”

“We are, yeah…” Dean continued looking at him rather oddly while he started to eat, like he was having trouble with the idea of someone doing something so nice for him and not wanting anything in return. Eventually, though, he glanced away, as if suddenly shy, and carefully picked up his own sandwich, unwrapping it and taking a huge bite right off the bat. He was obviously starving. Once that was chewed and swallowed, he cleared his throat and offered, “uh… thanks, Cas.”

Cas shrugged again but gave him a smile. “As long as you don’t mind peanut butter and jelly, I don’t mind sharing with you.”

“…I am not eating the apple. Apples belong in pies.”

The next day Cas started bringing him a fruit cup instead. “It’s close to pie.”

“It’s not even.”

Despite his protests, Dean ate it anyway.

-- --

On top of eating lunch together, it had also quickly become habit for Dean to walk Cas home—mostly because he was very suspicious of James Street and that neighborhood in general, and he didn’t want his only friend to be snatched up by some monster, or even a common-place serial killer. A life of being a Hunter’s son had made him more than a little paranoid when it came to things like that.

Usually Cas made it outside first, and just waited around by one of the retaining walls until Dean emerged from the school a few minutes later, at which point they set out. Cas kept telling Dean he really didn’t need to walk him home, and Dean kept doing it anyway.

Because aside from his paranoia, he really did like Cas, and enjoy spending time with him, possibly too much, really—but walking Cas home also got him away from the crappy motel and his annoying little brother for just a little while longer, which was always a bonus. He was a Hunter, and he had a job to do, his dad drilled that into him all the damn time, but he was also not-quite eighteen and needed distraction every now-and-then.

“You’re quiet.” Dean was always quiet when they were walking down James Street. Cas always tried anyway. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking it’s going to rain.”

Cas glanced up. It was severely overcast, with storm clouds overhead and the humidity was through the roof. Dean was probably right. “Yeah, probably.” He agreed. “Hey, do you want to walk all the way to my house today? I could introduce you to my Father, if he’s in. We could hang out.”

Dean flashed him a little smile. “I can’t. I’ve gotta get home to Sammy.”

‘Sammy’ was Dean’s younger brother, thirteen from what Dean had told him, and attending Bedwin Junior High. Bedwin was Caspar’s affiliated Junior High, so if they were around long enough, Sammy—Sam—would go to Caspar as well. Dean seemed to feel that they wouldn’t be around that long, though, which was… disappointing. Upsetting, even.

Cas was used to moving around, himself, and in the beginning he had been young and hadn’t known better, he had made friends wherever he went, and then inevitably had to leave them behind. When he got a little older, he started purposefully avoiding making friends, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of losing them.

Now, at Caspar, he had dropped his guard again, and even if his father kept his word and they didn’t move again, and he was able to stay friends with Charlie, Jody and Garth, Dean… he and his brother were in the same boat as Cas had been in previously. So, Cas had gotten to be friends with Dean without even meaning to, gotten close to him, developed a huge crush on him—though he never let it show—and Dean could be leaving any day. It was only a matter of time, really.

Cas had thought that he had hardened himself to the reality of losing friends, considering how he’d grown up, but the thought of Dean taking off just… put a lump in the pit of his stomach. He really had it bad for the older boy, had since Day One, probably, Charlie was right about that much.

But Dean was funny and smart and so attractive, so of course—

Something heavy slammed into Cas’s back right at that moment, the blow cushioned only by the fact that he was wearing his backpack, and Cas yelped out a startled noise even as he tumbled to the ground, landing roughly on the hard pavement.

Whatever had crashed into him was still on top of him—a person, he thought—and scrabbling at him, one hand holding him down by the chest while the other grabbed at his hair and shoved his head to the side. Then they lunged forward and bit into his neck—Cas gave a sharp cry—and abruptly Dean’s voice shouted something unintelligible and he yanked the person off, flinging them away.

When Cas looked up, the person who had attacked him was standing a few feet away, wiping at his mouth and spitting. Dean was between him and Cas and had a huge buck knife in one hand (where had that come from?), holding it at the ready. When the stranger stopped gagging and lunged toward Dean, Dean braced himself and full-body tackled the man, knife flashing—first silver and then red—as he stabbed it into the man over and over again.

After that onslaught, though, and despite being stabbed several times, the stranger wrenched himself away and took off, fleeing into the oncoming storm.

Dean stood where he was for a moment, heaving, before wiping the knife on his jeans and tucking it into the back of his waistband, where Cas assumed it had come from to begin with. Then he hurried back over to Cas and crouched down, hands hovering uselessly. “Shit, Cas, are you okay?”

Cas brought one hand up to the side of his neck where he had been bitten, wiping there before dropping it again to look almost blankly at the blood on his palm. That was about when it started to rain. Dean reached to help him up, and together they got Cas back to his feet. He actually didn’t feel too bad, all things considered.

Dean was already checking out his neck, ignoring the fact that rain was pouring down on them now. “It doesn’t look too bad. It didn’t get you too deep. Could’ve ripped your throat out, you’re lucky.”

“It—what—he bit me—and—you stabbed him and he didn’t even—"

“Cas,” Dean looked him in the eye, deadly serious, and told him firmly, “that was a vampire.”

[peggingmegamind]

William Andrew Solace is okay. He has always prided himself on his ability to shake off the negative things in his life. His therapist, teachers, and mother all hailed him from a young age for being “resilient.” His mother used to call him her sunshine; during one of her particularly bad episodes, she took a sad little eight-year-old Will by the shoulders and said to him, “C’mon Sunshine! You’re the only one in this family who’s happy! We’re all relying on you, Don’t let your smile slip!” And since then, he was always sure to remain strong for his family. After Lee’s death, after Michael’s death, after losing countless patients during the Titan and Giant wars, he never slipped, never faltered. He was the strong eldest brother all his siblings needed. It didn’t matter to him that he was just going through the motions, living through profound numbness and fog, so long as he could keep his family at camp safe and stable. That was all that mattered. Taking care of people was all that mattered. 

Three days at the infirmary. Pretty typical, especially given everyone at camp is recovering from a war. Rather short, honestly, in comparison to some of his other patients. Will does what he’s always done. He stays steadfast and hardworking. Nico isn’t his only patient, not by a long shot, but somehow in the blur of IV fluids, ambrosia, and bandages, he manages to stand out. It might be his smart mouth and hatred of being cared for and under chthonic power arrest. More likely, it is Will's persistent crush on the guy since he arrived at the battle of Manhatten flanked by three gods. But who’s to say, honestly? 

It’s a moot point anyways. He’s got a clinic full of injured kids and a cabin full of siblings who need his guidance. He really does not need to add a pathetic, one-sided crush on a two-time war hero to his plate. It’s almost too much, but he can’t bend, can’t show himself struggling to juggle his responsibilities. He just needs to get through this month. It doesn’t matter that he’s been saying that since before the titan war. It’ll be true this time. He will heal everyone who needs to be healed, ensures his siblings are all okay and taken care of, and then everything will be fine. He will feel fine. 

Kayla keeps looking at him. It’s that weird combination of soft eyes and hushed “Dude, are you sure you’re okay? I can hold down the fort if you need a break.” But he doesn’t need a break. He especially doesn’t need to pawn this responsibility and duty onto his younger sister. He’s got this; he always has everything under control. 

Austin’s next. He’s more subtle. He brings Will food and eyes him with that same soft, careful gaze as Kayla. It’s infuriating. Austin takes up more boring jobs around the clinic, filling out discharge forms, cutting bandages, and making sure none of the Ares campers have a cow over being admitted to the clinic for what they call ‘minor injuries’ (It doesn’t matter how many times the Will says it, they insist broken ribs and concussions are injuries that can be fixed with an ice bath and some vics vapor rub). Will wants to protest having his little brother take over these tasks but honestly? He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to power through his forming carpal tunnel to get the records on par with his standards anymore. 

Really he should’ve anticipated Chiron having a talk with him. With everything going on, something had to give, and Kayla confided in Chiron that Will was working himself like a dog. 

The talk was awkward. Will had never been much for lying; quite frankly, he didn’t feel like he was lying. He felt fine. Or at least. A little under his base level of shittiness that he knew he could get out of. Probably. It was disconcerting to have a concerned adult staring at him, prompting him to share his feelings, unwilling to just let him loose and tie up the situation with a nice bow. 

“Sir, with all due respect, I am doing just fine. We’re just busy with all the injuries, and I’m trying to keep all my siblings in check.”

Chiron, compacted into his wheelchair, studied Will’s sleep-deprived face. His eyes were crinkled with knowing concern, and his lips pursed into a thin line.

“Will, your sister came to me concerned about you overworking yourself. Now I know you are tasked with many responsibilities, but I am still here to offer assistance when needed.”

“Yes, but-

“Please, I am not asking about the other campers right now,” Chiron held up a weathered hand, silencing the young healer. “I want to hear about how you are doing. You do not need to carry this burden alone.”

Usually, those words wouldn’t have impacted Will. Usually, offerings of support or help stuck about as well as water on a duck's back. But standing in the big house, exhausted, worn down, and disrespected by the very campers he was trying to take care of, he caved. He broke down. He told Chiron about how he felt he couldn't rely on anyone, how he felt like a ghost walking through life, and how he felt like an outsider just trying to keep everyone satiated and happy. He’s mortified, unloading all of these feelings on an activities director with whom he has a semi-friendly but not close relationship, but he just can’t seem to stem the tidal wave of emotions that spill from his lips. He tells him about what his mother said all those years ago. About how he must always be strong and happy for his family. To be the guiding light that leads them out of the darkness. It’s all so personal, and he feels naked and vulnerable, but he feels. Opening up feels like a gaping knife wound across his chest, but there is some modicum of relief because at least someone else knows. At least someone else was there to witness his pain. 

Chiron sits through all of it. He listens. And when Will finally ramps down from his word-vomit speech and says,

“Oh Gods, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to just unload all that onto you.”

Chiron scoffs good-naturedly and levels him a kind smile, and says,

“As I said before, you do not need to carry this burden alone. You have people here who care about you. I am always here to listen to you, Will. You need to learn to trust your siblings. They worry about you, and your refusal to talk with them about what troubling you hurts them worse than you know.”

They sit and talk a little longer. Chiron recommends some readings to help Will proceed from where he’s at. And then Chiron pats his hand and sends him on his way. 

And it’s not all better. Not by a long shot. He still feels numb and sad. He’s exhausted, and his eyes are swollen from crying, and his nose is raw from the kleenex they have a camp. Things are still as they were. But he feels a little lighter. Like maybe the world won’t end if he lets Kayla and Austin take over the infirmary this afternoon so he can nap and have a good meal. And maybe sometime after the hectic aftermath of the war has dispersed, they can talk about everything.

[liu-yu]

⟨ chen feiyu. cismale. he/him. 23. ⟩ We just saw Liu Yu entering King's College London. I heard through the grapevine that they are a post-grad student / hacker. Although they are civilian, they can sometimes be arrogant, imprudent, or even petty but I’ve also heard some people say that they were intelligent, meticulous and quite daring.

Statistics.

name: liu yu aliases: ph4ros, the london underground age: twenty-three d.o.b: december 16th gender: cismale pronouns: he/him orientation: heterosexual place of birth: wuhan, the people's republic of china current residence: london, united kingdom nationality: chinese religion: agnostic occupation: post-graduate, hacker/activist affiliation: none family: liu chao (father, deceased), liu hua (mother, deceased), mei taylor (aunt), arthur taylor (uncle-in-law), elliott taylor (cousin), louisa taylor (cousin) languages spoken: mandarin chinese, english

Biography.

{tw death during childbirth, poverty}

Liu Yu was born on a cold winter's morning though his mother never got to see her new son, dying ten minutes after he was born due to complications. Liu Chao was devastated by the loss of his wife, but vowed to keep going for her son, taking Yu home a few days later and quickly throwing himself into trying to care for a new born while trying to juggle his job as a software developer.

But he struggled, they were never a well-off family to begin with, but after Hua's death, money was even tighter than usual. Most nights, Chao went to bed with an empty stomach, putting most money towards trying to keep the lights on and making sure his son had enough food not to cry through the night.

Yu grew up with very little and when he was old enough to go to school for most of the day, his father took on a second job at a convenience store to try and make some extra money. It was clear his father was exhausted most days, but he tried to always have a smile, not letting his son know that he was struggling. It only became clear how bad his father was running himself into the ground just to survive when he ended up in hospital after collapsing at work.

Five days later, his father passed away when Yu was just fourteen years old.

He was taken in by his Aunt and her husband and two kids, Yu finding himself on the first flight over to the United Kingdom. It was a bit of a culture shock. Being in Devon was the first time Yu had ever seen the ocean before and for awhile he struggled with the language, making very little friends in his new school. So, it was no surprise he found solace in the online world, spending most of his time outside of homework learning the ins and outs of computer code, learning how to break things down and fix them up again. It wasn't long before he was quite proficient at it.

Over the years he grew more confident, getting to grips with English and scoring high in his tests. He was sixteen and in his last year of senior school when he hacked the school servers for the first time, exposing the Principle of his school for cheating on his wife. And the attention it brought caused Yu to become quite bold, turning his eyes on exposing even more secrets, taking enjoyment in taking down politicians and celebrities for their blatant lying, leaking data to the press and exposing them on social media.

He moved to London for university when he was 18, soon after setting up his new social media online presence as The London Underground. And from there he has grown from strength to strength, spending most evening trawling through the internet and hacking into servers to uncover all the dirty secrets of London. He's determined to take down every corrupt politician, celebrity and police officer he can dig up the dirt on, giving the public the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Headcanons.

While studying for his masters degree, Yu fixes computers for a little bit of extra cash on the side. It's not something he advertises very much, only when he needs the extra money.

He has splashed out on his own private anonymous server to run his 'london underground' accounts from, making them untraceable and giving him an extra layer of anonymity.

When in the zone he pays very little attention to anything but what's in front of him. You could be trying to have a conversation and it'll be like talking to a brick wall because he absolutely won't even register you're talking to him in the first place.

Though he is now fluent in English, he absolutely still pulls the 'I'm Chinese I don't understand' card when he wants a quick exit from a conversation or to get out of trouble. He even pulls it with people who know damn well he speaks English just fine.

He always had headphones in listening to music or podcasts. Yu just can't go without any kind of background noise when he's working.

Incredibly petty. Like incredibly. He's the sort of person to hack your PC and changed your home screen wallpaper to something stupid if you steal some of his food.

He rarely writes in English, still preferring to write in Chinese. The only written English is his media posts and his coursework. Notes and everything else are always in Chinese.

[infinityblaze]

The cafe you own is "quaint", some have described it. You were never sure what that meant. On the inside it had green walls and darker wood tones for the seats and counter. The outside is white with deep blue accents. There are a few tables outside and a large oak tree hanging over the front. The sky is in a constant twilight. You and your baking associate are the only two in this place.

You remolded the place after the Art Nouveau movement much to the dismay of your associate. You think it's wonderful! Fantastical. People seem to like it. You're sure they all think it's just a weird dream.

But this is the Cafe Between life and death. You take the drinks you make very seriously.

A new person came in, she didn't have to order, you already knew this older woman wanted tea and your associate knew she wanted a scone. You both walked up to the table together with her order.

"Thank you, you two!" She smiled, the wrinkles on her face seemed like paper bark. She had remarkably dry skin. You saw a vision of her using crutches as mobility aids.

"It's our job." Your associate said curtly.

"We're happy to serve you as long as you need!" You beamed.

"Where am I?" She asked after taking a sip of tea.

"Between the land of the living and the dead." You told her. And you saw her look grave. You tilted your head quizzically and took an elbow jab for your associate. You looked over at him and he was giving you a side eye.

She shook the look of her face and drank more tea. Your college stalked away back to the counter and started organizing his section. You pursed your lips at him and turn back to the woman.

"I have three grand children," She was looking past you, but also at you. Memories played at her mind. You could see them. Twins, born to her eldest, and a single child born to her youngest. The only girl, one of the twins, was inspecting the old woman's shelf of gemstones. Asking about all of the ones that caught her eye.

The brother, chasing the woman's dog around the yard at her house. He seemed to be having fun the dog maybe not so much.

The other boy was much the same as the girl, intrigued by the stones. He far more interested then the girl, as her life long loved lied elsewhere. Unlike this boy.

You saw visions of the twins preforming on stages, her reading books to them, the girl's dance concerts. The boy's juggling. The youngest's admiration for the two.

She was sad.

"If I go to the other side," She frowned, "I know I won't be there for some of their big achievements. The twins, they're graduating High school this year! And the youngest, I have so much more I want to teach him."

You smiled at her, and effort to comfort her. But it might not have worked as intended. You could see their possible futures laid out before you. The girl, a popular artist or struggling lover, the boy a well known writer or actor. The youngest a geologist or never leaving the nest.

"Your grand kids have to become people without you at some point," You sighed, "It doesn't have to be now, but you need to be able to deal with that." You watched the woman drink her tea, her white bobbed hair falling over her face. You saw her worrying about all of the volunteer and church work she did.

"You've left an impact on so many people," You've seen people be torn like this. Her life physically is painful, she can move around much anymore, and her fall at home that caused this was because of that. She knows she's done so much, but that it's enough for her to be happy moving on. It's the kids...

"Will they be okay? My daughters, my grand kids?" She looked at you with pleading eyes. You bite the inside of your cheeks. You focused for a moment and saw them.

"It'll hurt," You said, "Loss always does. But they're all strong enough to get to the other side. You can watch. They would want you to."

You could see tears well up in the woman's eyes. She blinked them away quickly.

"You don't have to make the dissension now," You smiled, "There's no limit. The doctors will take care of you for as long as you stay here, and we will as well."

"This isn't my first time here" She laughed, "But I had less to go back to that time."

"I remember," You nodded at her. She died on an operating table some 20+ years ago.

"I'll have to think," She frowned, "Thank you, Micheal."

"No problem, ma'am!" You smile and walk back to your associate.

"Do you think she'll go back?" He asked as you past behind him.

"No, I don't. Astaroth," You looked back at the woman, "She's tired. I think she'll be relived."

Astaroth nodded. "I'll keep an eye on her." He jabbed his head in the direction of the entrance and on the brick path you see a new person coming up. A hot chocolate. You get to work. A practiced rhythm. A choreographed dance as you and Astaroth work around each other. An Archangel and a Demon Duke and the cafe between Life and Death.

You still laugh thinking about it.

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

Dedicated to my Grandmother, I miss you.

You run a café on the edge of life and death. Souls who have been departed from their bodies temporarily, such as in comas or near-death experiences, can relax in your quaint cafe for as long as they need before they can either return to their bodies or begin their journey to the afterlife.

[toastfordogs]

Not So Berry - Gen 1: Mint - Part 1: Young Adult

Ivy is a young scientist who is enamored with the color green ! She loves playing video games and making people laugh in her free time. As a young adult, Ivy moved to and built her small home in Willow Creek.

She quickly befriended young mother and next door neighbor Bella Goth, she often invited herself over to Ivy’s house after they met at her welcome wagon party. 

Ivy started her career as a Live Chat Support Agent and quickly climbed the ranks as she started writing scripts for plugins and modding some of the games she was playing. In the evenings after work if she wasn’t gaming, she often went to the neighborhood lounge for a little dancing, tricking people with hand buzzers, and practicing her stand-up routine. 

There she met J Huntington the III who she quickly got along with, the two quickly became good friends after getting a little jealous that Bella hadn’t had time to come over in a while. 

Though not particularly interested in romance,  Ivy became pregnant with J’s baby. The two met and spoke about it,  J and Ivy tried to make a partnership work to make it easier to take care of little bouncing baby boy Vern. 

J moved in shortly after Vern’s birth to start helping around and to get to know his son, butJ has a fear of fatherhood and is generally unreliable. Ivy quickly found that inviting J to move in hadn’t really created any less work for her, despite being a good friend he was a terrible roommate and father. This not only caused her to slowly lose friendship towards J, but it quickly influenced her to rekindle her reliance and relationship with Bella. Bella was having problems with Mortimer as well, so the two decided to become partners and parents together. The two merged their households, creating a household of five: Ivy and Vern, as well as Bella and her child Milton. The two eloped without a public ceremony as Ivy is not romantic and Bella had already had a big wedding previously, they exchanged vows and rings to prove their commitment to one another at midnight under the magnolia blossoms in the park they often visited.

Shortly after while Vern was still in infancy, a Berry-Goth is born: Jett (note: Jett is the biological son of Mortimer, not Ivy’s. Bella was pregnant when they got married).

Bella quits her job as a barista and brought her divorce to spend more time at home, as two babies, with Jett being especially sensitive, was difficult for the pair to manage. Thankfully, the extra income isn’t needed as Bella got half of the Goth’s estate funds in the divorce, and Ivy, despite all the babies and drama, has continued to slowly climb the Tech career ladder. When Jett grew past being a newborn to becoming an infant, he moved into Vern’s room which they shared, near Ivy and Bella so they could sneak in some sleep when they could.

Both infants celebrate their birthdays, on the same day so they can grow up simultaneously.

Milton starts going to school and feels a little neglected because both of his moms are really busy and his father Mortimor Goth never comes to visit him, even at his birthday party because he is still so mad at Bella. Milton struggles at school and starts neglecting showing up to class because no one is forcing him to go while juggling two newborns, but with a little encouragement and after everyone got used to dealing with two babies all the time, he rose to be an A student. He also developed a good friendship with the Green kids.

With Vern and Jett aging out of infancy, Ivy’s focus returned not only to Milton but to her career; she had hit the ceiling at her old company, and decided to set out on her own start-up. Bella is able to go back to work around this time and turn her passion for romance into some simeleons writing romance novels. She also enjoys practicing her writing by writing books to read to her children. 

Ivy begins going back out to the lounge at night to let off some steam from her large young family and high pressure job, and starts practicing her stand-up again as well as telling ridiculous stories to whoever will listen. She occasionally gets into physical altercations over the preposterous things she says, but lying to strangers is a great escape from your reality when things get tense. There she became sworn enemies with Emilio. The two had a brawl, of which Ivy was victorious, but still took a lot of damage. She stopped going out as much after that.

Things were monotonous for a while, Ivy and Bella both working hard. Milton is excelling in school and his younger brothers continued to develop their skills, Vern veering towards creativity and Jett becoming increasingly talkative. The house was renovated. 

 Bella threw a sorta fun (bronze) birthday party for Ivy, who then aged up into an adult.

[biaswreckmepls]

Take my hands now

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16513562/chapters/38679014

Author: Aguacates

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Kim Namjoon/Jeon Jungkook

Status: Completed

Chapters: 4/4 (52718 words)

Tags: Single Parent AU

Summary:

“This is Jeongguk, my dad-friend.”

“Dad-friend?” Namjoon repeats from Jeongguk’s right.

“Friend who is also a dad,” Jeongguk says quietly.

Namjoon’s eyes widen, but Jimin didn’t hear Jeongguk’s response, so he says much more loudly, “Single dad solidarity club! That’s what we call ourselves.”

Is that embarrassing? That’s embarrassing, right?

(Jeongguk is a single dad, and Namjoon is the prettiest person he's ever met.)

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16513562/chapters/38679014

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Leafy 🍃 again! I loved that 💗! Marvelous ending. Making Thranduil the dancer was the best idea EVER! now I must request for Leggy because I feel like I betrayed him lol! 1. Night out 2. Nurse 3. Did you enjoy yourself last night? Please and thank you!

Hello 🍃 anon...How are you, my dear?

It is still my honour and pleasure to try and come up with something for you :D

So, here we go...Legolas this time, huh? I'm sorry, this got a little out of hand 😞

Words: 2,5 k

Warnings: blood, injury, cursing, harassment

“Come on,” the woman who was not only your best friend but also had been your only supporter through nursing school whined, “one drink.”

“Do you know if the Polo-team won or lost?” you asked distractedly as you stowed away your books onto the clean shelves in your living room while pride swelled in your chest.

“What does that matter? Since when do you care about those preppy boys?”

“When they win, they stay in the clubhouse, but when they lose, they come to the shady part of town to drink away their shame,” you explained with a sour quirk of your full lips; she was right, you held nothing but contempt for those rich kids who had – unlike you – been given everything in life to succeed.

You had had to claw yourself through your education, juggling two jobs just to make ends meet, and it was certainly not interest that made you ask about them; this one night, after all those trials and years of struggling, you wanted to celebrate in peace.

Originally, you had planned to stay in and open the bottle of top-shelf wine you had bought for the occasion, but your friend was decided that the diploma displayed on your flaky walls deserved to be toasted in a public setting.

“It’s just down the road,” she coaxed, “come on, babes, it will be fine. Polo-assholes or not!”

Unable to deny her – after she had been by your side through every setback and challenge – you slung your bag across your body and nodded slowly.

“One drink!”

Of course, they were there.

They won as often as they lost, so there had been a fair chance that you’d have the run-down pub at the corner of your street to yourselves, but – as was typical for your luck or lack thereof – this had to be one of the days where everything went just wrong enough to annoy you without destroying all your plans.

A bunch of mopey, spoiled brats would not take away the monumental victory you had hewn out of the unyielding mountain that was life.

“Hey poppet,” someone jeered behind you and your friend.

The sullen group of youngsters groaned; apparently, the winning team had been petty enough to follow them all across town to goad them some more over drinks about their recent victory.

Unfortunately, those childish metaphorical pissing-contests became secondary as soon as fresh meat appeared and – in this moment – that late-night snack were you and your friend.

“Do you want to drink something?” a big, burly man with short black hair asked, his voice sounding cavernous and badly articulated.

“No, we’re here for the charming décor,” you shot back, acid lacing your otherwise own overly sweet tone.

“Ah, come on,” he laughed, but there was something sinister in the sound that made both you and your friend retreat hastily.

For a good while, you chatted about your new job at the hospital you had interned in for your studies, trying to ignore the less than discreet posturing of the two Polo-teams who tried to murder each other with looks alone.

“Is that the silver boy?” your friend asked and nodded at a tall, elegantly lithe youth leaning against a jukebox that hadn’t worked since before any of you had been born; indeed, Legolas was some sort of a myth amongst all the single women in the local school system, and right in this moment, he waited his turn to throw darts at a woefully worn board.

Born rich and privileged, he was fabled to be excessively kind and righteous, and – which contributed much more to his reputation and fame than any golden heart – he was blindingly obviously handsome.

People said that he took after his father – the kind of man that made every woman within his direct vicinity fall over her feet whenever he appeared – with his long, sleek, almost colourless hair and those huge crystal-blue eyes that were changeful and deep as frozen lakes and summer skies.

“It is,” you muttered quietly; he was the star player of his team – fused to his horse, fast, and astonishingly strong – and you had already met him once or twice in the emergency room when you had been on duty.

He had never been anything but kind and patient with you, even when his teammates had been complaining about the delays and tiny errors or hesitations on your part; hence why you felt incredibly spiteful when you rolled your eyes behind his back as if Legolas was the worst person in the world.

The plain truth was that you were envious; his appearance, his status, his competence, and his general demeanour were benchmarks you’d never reach no matter how hard you worked or how much you changed. Some people were just not born with that kind of potential.

In the meantime, the other team had found a lone girl drinking away her sorrow in the corner of the room; the same idiot who had harassed you earlier was now aggressively flirting with her and – through the haze and under heavy lids – she tried to frown discouragingly at him.

As was usual with that type of self-enamoured prick though, her evident disinterest only spurred him on, and he redoubled his efforts to win you knew not what; some men just wanted to triumph independently of what was at stake.

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” you hissed under your breath, not sure if you were talking about the girl who had decided to get drunk in an unsavoury bar such as the one you were sitting in or the pompous ass who paraded around like a baboon.

“Maybe we should…” your friend started when he proceeded to poke the dazed young woman repeatedly.

“Leave her alone,” a cold, controlled voice cut through the ambient sea of noise, “she’s clearly not interested in you.” You had not noticed that

Legolas had stopped focusing on the dartboard and – instead – had made his way over to your side of the bar with the smooth, discreet movements of a predator on the prowl.

“Shut up, princess,” the man barked, annoyed by the interruption, “didn’t you have your fill of humiliation for today? Nothing better to do than to seek punishment?”

“There’s not much better to do at any time than to protect someone from being harassed by a dull meat-head such as you,” Legolas quipped, but you saw his fingers tighten around the single dart he was still holding; this was how all the stories you heard at work started and you tensed as all hell broke loose a single heartbeat after your prescient, almost prophetic thought.

As if nailed to your chair, you could but stare helplessly as that mooncalf of a man barrelled into Legolas at the exact same moment as he lifted his arm to deflect a potential blow, brow and elbow collided, and – grabbing onto Legolas’ shirt as he fell – the bigger fool of the two took down not only his opponent of the day but also an innocent table just doing its job.

Enmeshed and still struggling, both banged against furniture on their way down until they landed in a tangled heap of limbs on the dirty floor.

The cacophony of screams and grunts swelled and then was strangled into ominous silence.

“Jesus, Leg, you’re bleeding,” one of the silver boy’s teammates cried out as he extricated his friend from the human knot, “and you banged your head pretty good it seems.”

“Aren’t you going to check on him?” your friend asked you with a small nudge.

“I am off-duty,” you smiled mockingly, “and I’m sure he’ll be fine; he’s a sturdy fellow, I’ve seen him before…in the ER.”

Despite your words, you couldn’t help but throw a quick glance over at Legolas – swaying alarmingly – just to make sure that you had not completely underestimated the situation; also, there had been talk of blood and professional curiosity was rearing its annoying head.

A small snort of amused pity escaped you upon realising that this ridiculously sassy man had somehow managed to get his own dart stuck in his thigh.

Moreover, there was a visible bump on that fair brow now where Legolas had hit the edge of the crummy table on his way down; a smidgen of pity welled up in your heart and – when your friend announced that she’d make sure that the young woman would get home safely – you accepted that this jock was your charge for the night.

“We should take him to the hospital maybe?” one of his teammates mused aloud; the way he slurred his words told you that they had also indulged in more drinks than was reasonable to soothe their aching pride.

After a quick, perfunctory check, you shook your head: “His vitals are good; he needs to rest and put something cold on his forehead, but as long as he doesn’t get any worse than this, I don’t think that it’s worth spending hours in the ER.”

“But his leg,” the man whined, pointing at the dart still securely lodged in the muscular thigh, only – being slightly tipsy – he missed the moment to stop moving and nudged the thing hard enough for Legolas to grunt.

“Party’s over,” you finally declared after having assessed the damage superficially, “I live just up the street. I’m a trained and certified nurse as of today, and I’ll take a look at that leg. Good night, gentlemen.”

Legolas was considerably heavier than you had thought which turned dragging his dazed self along the pavement into the strangest choreography of your life.

“Hey,” he slurred, “you are my favourite nurse. I remember you from when my hand was…”

He held up said body part and you smiled at the thin, white scar crossing the back of it in a straight line; open fracture, not a pretty sight, but he had been very brave, and you had said so to your mentor at the time.

When he lay – stretched out and moaning quietly – on your couch, you frowned down at him.

“I am pretty sure that dart could transmit more illnesses than a damn mosquito,” you grumbled, “I’m going to take it out and you’ll get out of your jeans, please.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes, to get out of your slacks and let me see the wound,” you replied calmly, the professional persona taking over as you laid out your first-aid kit and carefully pressed a cold-pack that you kept handy for your wicked migraines on his swollen brow.

“Alright, beautiful,” he said with a lopsided grin and – without a moment of hesitation or the shadow of a doubt – he whisked off his trousers as if he was a professional stripper, revealing a pair of long, pale legs in an indecently tight pair of black boxer shorts.

The puncture was minimal and barely bled anymore, but you were meticulous in your efforts to clean the wound; it was a known fact that those darts were never cleaned, no matter what bodily or other fluids they might come in contact with.

“Am I alright?” Legolas asked after you had put a plaster on it and gave it a soft pat – out of habit more than real empathy – before getting up; in your concentration, you had almost – but not quite – forgotten that you had been bent over the open, naked legs of a stranger.

“Look me in the eye,” you demanded, shining a small flashlight into those blue depths that shimmered like underground caves in the garish gleam; his reactions were still very good, and you decided that it was most probable that all he needed was a good night’s sleep and plenty of hydration.

 “Drink this!”

The order – soft but decisive – fell easily from your lips and he complied immediately, downing the water and electrolytes obediently.

“You are very beautiful,” he whispered as you spread a light blanket over him, trying to get him to rest.

“Ok,” you laughed, “maybe we need to get you to a hospital after all.”

“Why? I was in hospital when I first noticed,” he answered suavely, wrapping his long-fingered hand around your gracile wrist gently, “I am feeling alright; believe it or not, I’ve hit my head before. Father always said that he’s dropped me once too often when I’m being foolish…I am not entirely sure that he’s joking.” The soft smile – affection and intelligence deepening it – on his face told you that he was lying, but he had achieved what he had set out to do for you relaxed and didn’t pull your hand out of his grasp.

“You should rest,” you heard yourself prompt him.

“Will you stay and make sure I did not split my fool head?” he murmured, fatigue and pain making his words sound blurry and slightly hollow.

“Yes,” you promised, “I’ll be right here. Just ring the bell if you need anything.”

Of course, there was no bell, and you spent your night sitting in your armchair – dozing off every now and again – and keeping watch over that fallen angel who seemed to shine with a silver light coming from deep within him in the semi-obscurity of your living room.

Two things were entirely clear to you: you had chosen the right job, and Legolas was indeed as handsome as they all said.

Early in the morning, you stretched your tired limbs and padded into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for your little patient who was still fast asleep.

Or so you thought.

“Hey, do you have a painkiller?” a voice – thick with sleep but smooth as silk – resounded behind you and you grinned to yourself before turning around and pointing at the glass of water sitting right next to a small, white pill on the kitchen table.

“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” you asked ironically, but – to your surprise – he gave the question some thought, digging into the eggs and bacon despite the headache, before answering.

“Let me see, I’ve got my ass handed to me at the game, I had to interrupt an asshole who was harassing a poor woman, and I had a minor accident that was not even a cool, sports-related, heroic incident…”

“I thought it was rather heroic…Well, it was at least decent and that’s rare and valuable,” you interjected and earned a warm smile for it.

“But then,” he went on, “that lovely nurse I didn’t catch the name of appeared and took care of me, so I guess…I’d give it a 4 out of 10. By far not the worst night out I had.”

“I’m not sure I even want to know,” you mumbled, sliding the rest of the food from the frying pan onto his plate.

“How about I tell you about it over drinks? No darts, no brawling, no Polo team?”

His smile was disarming, and you felt your heart flutter in your chest.

“I guess we can do that, 24-hour observation and so on…” you agreed with a serious face that did not fool him for a single second.

So, that was that...😇

Legolas being a drunk idiot...but a good boy :D

I hope you liked this, I am always happy to hear from you my beloved 🍃 anon...

Have a lovely evening ❤️

@fellowshipofthefics here's another one :D

[enjennie]

In The Limelight [chenle x reader]

Summary: Tutoring the CEO’s son, when you’re barely interested in business. And falling for him, when you knew nothing about love.

Genre: Fluff. Rich kid!Chenle Tutor!Reader

Warnings: None

a/n: not proofread! I’ve been in a slump lately ☹ my works haven’t been satisfying me but I hope you enjoy this! btw omg this is a reupload bc the first time... somehow, the paragraphs were jumbled up? 

 “Y/N, there are flowers on your desk,” your classmate gestures behind them to the classroom you were headed to before quickly passing by. You could only nod, a little taken aback by the sudden information you received. Flowers? As far as you know, Valentine’s had passed, so has white day and it’s definitely not your birthday.

But as you enter your classroom, the bundle of flowers catching your eyes, you knew one thing for sure was from who it was. As you approach your desk, you lift the thoughtful gift and inspect the small card attached to the string that tied it beautifully together. ZCH, it read in cursive.

 “How was your day?” Chenle’s voice can be heard from the other line, the smile on his face almost something you can hear along with it.

“It was great! Thank you for the flowers, by the way. They’re delightful,” you beamed, eyes landing at the arrangement that now sat on your vanity. Chenle chuckles, his laughter sending serotonin to run through your body.

“Not a problem, I’m glad you like them,”

“Though I’d appreciate if you gave them to me yourself,” you cheekily continued. Chenle could only smile, his face softening at your request. It was a simple request. Yet, he couldn’t do it.

When you notice the silence that follow, you immediately regret what you said. You desperately try to backtrack, sputtering out words. “Well- I mean-, It’s fine- Thank you, still! I love them,”

Chenle hums, “I know. Don’t worry. You’ll wait though… right? It won’t be long,”

You plant your feet to your carpeted floor and nod, even if he can’t see you. “Of course, Lele,”

 Zhong Chenle is the son of the most respected CEO of one of the biggest corporations in Shanghai the entire world. Chenle was the next in line to the company. After his brother had expressed how the business world didn’t interest him, the responsibility immediately fell into Chenle’s hands. And even if music was his love and calling, he had to let it go as to not disappoint his father.

Chenle had accepted it some time ago, going to school only for the degree so he could be eligible to own the business. He accepted the fact that he was going to be living the life his father made for him, not one he made for himself and it was the hardest pill to swallow. But things changed when he met you. There was more purpose to the things he does, it wasn’t just for nothing. Life had gone from monochromatic to colorful.

 “Miss, Y/N. Mr. Zhong just moved and he has to take this class to pass the semester. I trust you can fill him in with our module? Mr. Zhong, this is Miss. Y/N, she scored the highest during midterms,” your world economics professor had marched towards you after class, a tall boy following behind her. He looked just as oblivious as she did, to the sudden weight and pressure being put on you.

You merely nod and say a simple hello, not being able to say anything else. It wasn’t a question, this was a demand. Jeez if I was gonna teach your student I should get a portion of your pay. You thought bitterly. At the time, you were struggling to juggle a part-time job at a café while also maintaining your grades to keep your scholarship.

When your professor left you two, the boy kept his hands buried in his pockets. His clothes were semi-casual and his hair was styled nicely. Who the hell moves halfway through the year?

“So, Mr. Zhong-“ you take your books into your arms and lazily sling your bag over your shoulder, heading towards the door with him trailing behind you.

“Chenle-, You can call me Chenle,” he finally spoke, startling you a little with how cool and soft his voice is as opposed to his striking visual that intimidated you at first.

“Nice to meet you, Chenle,” you give him a smile.

You were gonna be around this guy for who knows how long, might as well try to be his friend. Maybe it’ll make the teaching less of a chore.

  “Wrong,” you huffed, marking his essay and adding in annotations. “Chenle, remember there is a specific way to start these essays and that’s by defining the terms you’re using,”

The boy sat opposite of you, arms crossed and back against the couch comfortably. You were in a café. The café you worked in, to be precise. Your schedule today overlapped with Chenle’s and as much as you didn’t want him to see you slaving around, you also couldn’t miss this paycheck at the café. You gave him an essay to write just to check on his phrasing and structure and left to buss some tables and serve orders. But when you came back, Chenle barely wrote anything and could care less about it.

“Can we not study today?” he whined.

You and Chenle have been meeting each other for a month now, and you’d soon learned about the type of boy he is, the life he led. In ways you didn’t expect to.

 The first time you found out about Chenle’s reputation was through the newspaper. No, not the school newspaper. Not even the local newspaper. But on the Wallstreet Journal, when you had to grab material from any recent article for a class. Chenle’s name floated along with the words ‘Young entrepreneur’ and their company’s name. You gasped so loud you had to excuse yourself from the library and leave in a hurry. That afternoon you smacked him on the shoulder with your thick world econ textbook.

“You’re from a family of business corporates and you’re learning world economics from someone who crammed the exam?” you exclaimed. He stared at you blankly, book in hand and pen in the other.

“And you don’t pay me!” you added. The fact that you’ve been tutoring someone as rich as Chenle just didn’t make sense to you. Why not go to a professional? Instead, he was here with a sleep deprived college student who sometimes mixes up business terms just because she couldn’t care any less. World Economics was a mandatory for you. You studied to pass, sadly.

“I could start paying you, name the price,” he said easily. But you shook your head.

“I didn’t mean it that way, sorry. I actually don’t care about the money,” You led him to the picnic bench with the table outside school grounds and propped your book on it along with your bag before taking out your bento box. “Just blows my mind how you won’t just pay for the classes. I don’t teach that well-” you continue.

“I like you, though,” Chenle calmly interjects. You look up at the boy, movements being halted by his bold statement.

“Pardon?” you felt the need to have him clarify what he said.  The boy leaned across the table, over your textbooks and notes. “I like you,” Chenle repeated himself, but the impact it had on you was just as powerful and hit you hard. Your heart was doing somersaults.

Chenle’s eyes grew thin as he smiled, backing away from you and sitting back down.

“So, chapter 12,” he starts flipping his book nonchalantly, leaving you out of breath with a heart hammering in your chest.

  “What do you mean not study today? You have an upcoming quiz with Mr. Byun this Friday and mind you, that man searches for wrongs, not rights,” you raised a finger at him, shaking it matter-of-factly.

“No, let me help you. Do you usually run the café on your own?” he closes the book and takes his essay from your hand. You’re left slack jawed.

“No. I- Johnny couldn’t come in today,” you explained. Suddenly, you were stammering as if explaining to your boss. At first, you were doubting if it was the same Chenle you were reading about in the articles. The boy you were tutoring didn’t come off as someone who would be running corporates and buying stocks or whatever. He was more laid back and relaxed. Aside from the way he dressed, nothing gave it away that he was indeed the CEO’s son. But there were times where you got a dominant feel from him. Times when he stood with much authority and didn’t accept no for an answer. In those moments, you realize how Chenle’s presence alone demanded respect.

Soon enough, you found yourself behind the counter with Chenle beside you tying the apron to himself. He looked cute, somehow. The way he smiled at customers and tried giving them their recommendations set butterflies run free in your stomach, you almost swooned. He didn’t get much studying done that day, but you surely did. You learned the fact that you falling slowly but surely with Zhong Chenle.

  There were two chapters you’re left to cover. In the short month and a half, you managed to teach Chenle six month’s worth of topics. Seeing him every other day made Chenle a familiar face to see around. Of course, you never actually got to see him around campus when you weren’t tutoring him. It left you wondering if you were actually teaching a ghost. But all doubts went away when the girls in your class started whispering about the cute boy waiting outside class. You quickly found out it was Chenle who they were talking about, and he was there for you. It was safe to say he wasn’t a ghost and is in fact real.

Carrying his book bag, he was stood against the wall with reading material under his arm.

“Chenle, we don’t have a schedule today,” you walk up to him, trying to avoid the dozen pairs of eyes that watched you. Chenle nodded, “Sorry, I won’t be here tomorrow. My father is bringing me on a business trip,” he states.

It wasn’t new for you to hear this coming from Chenle. Just the other week, his father brought him along to Japan for a company deal and Chenle came back with a little keychain souvenir for you. The same keychain dangled from your bag now as you both walked to the exit of the building. “Are you free?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t bring my book with me tod-“ you begin searching in your bag, even if you knew it wasn’t there. You were just trying to ignore the way his question made your heart jump.

“I mean… for dinner. Are you free for dinner?” he places a gentle hand on yours, stopping you from looking further in your bag. Chenle’s bold movements sometimes took him by surprise as well. He quickly retracts his hand, shoving it in his pockets. You let go of your bag, placing your hands on either side of you.

“Why?” you squinted at him suspiciously.

Chenle’s smile is small, but doesn’t go unnoticed by you as he turns his head towards his car then back down at you. “Listen, you don’t have to overanalyze this. I just want to treat you,”

  Chenle had thought about it a hundred times or more, before finally making a decision. Although you’ve been seeing each other in cafes and libraries for some time now, he didn’t want to consider those as dates. Sure, it gave him time to admire you up close and get to know you but he wanted you to know his true intentions. The only problem was boy, was he a wuss. And were you oh so dense!

Despite the subtle and not so subtle hints he’s given you, you remained clueless about his feelings. Unsure, confused and just downright oblivious. From the way he looked at you to how he vocally told you he liked you. You shoved everything under the rug, afraid that this boy was just toying around with you and having a laugh. He found it cute.

 It didn’t matter that you were in your school clothes, carrying about three thick books in your shoulder bag. He thought you looked stunning. You ate at a pizzeria just in town and he expressed how it tasted just like pizza from Italy. You said you wouldn’t know the difference since you’ve never been, and had a laugh about it.

The walk from his car to your apartment wasn’t that far, it’s just that he had to park a little further since there was no more space left in front. As you walked together, you noticed how the vibe and atmosphere between you two that developed as the night deepened, was different. More lax, comfortable. Like friends? You were both silent, until Chenle piped up.

“I lied, I didn’t just want to treat you,” he muttered, looking into the distance of your quiet street.

You turn your face towards him and you catch a glimpse of his face in the moonlight before looking away. He’d taken your bag from you and had it around his shoulder now. Him in his white polo shirt and brown suit jacket. He was always dressed like he was attending some kind of formal event. That’s Chenle for you. Mr. CEO’s son.

“Then?” you prompted him to continue.

Chenle averts his attention towards you as you finally reached the front of your apartment. You both stop walking, facing each other with the moon as your spotlight. You look at him from the light of the moon, it illuminated Chenle’s features perfectly. You would be able to inspect him when he studied, but each look at him made you breathless every time you had to look away. Much like right now.

“I wanted to take you out. Like, on a date,” Chenle confesses.

You could never wrap your head around how bold Chenle could be. Always leaving you flustered after saying such things, this boy was your weakness. But you didn’t give in. At least, you tried not to.

“Oh,” was your only response as you put your hands together, looking up at the tall boy. You hoped it wasn’t obvious that heat was rushing to your cheeks and ears by now. You could practically feel your blood flowing through your body, making you feel warm all over. “It was fun, I enjoyed it,” you shyly admit.

Chenle takes a step forward, raising his hand to palm your cheek gently. It’s the first time he’s ever gotten this close. “But I’m not sure you’re ready for my world yet,” his voice is lower, cool. Like wind.

You part your lips slightly, willing yourself to breathe. Your breath is unstable, shaky. This time, you take a step forward. “Are you underestimating me?” You don’t know where the surge of confidence came from, but you were thankful for it. The look of surprise is quickly melted into amusement as this was definitely the first time you ever made the second move to the dozens of times he’d left you flustered.

Chenle dips his head down close to your face. Eyes trained on each other, you tried to get yourself to breathe. He looked alluring, and you watch his eyes drop to your lips. Your head had become blank, nothing in mind. Just him. Chenle, and nothing else. His calm eyes, button nose and plump lips that you so very badly wanted to press against yours. “Are you sure?” he whispers.

You close the space between you and Chenle, lining your lips with his and connecting them together. The sensation almost sending you on your knees, you grab onto his shoulder for support and he holds you up by the waist, swiftly wrapping his strong arms around you. It felt like such a big relief, you almost sighed.

When you pulled away, Chenle’s smile comes into view as you fluttered your eyes open. He places his hand at the back of his head and scratches, suddenly becoming shy. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“You’re something else,” you giggle, smacking his arm before snatching your bag from his shoulder and turning on your heel to leave. You feel his hand against yours, forcing you to stop. “I’ll see you after my trip?” he asks.

“Same time… for class,” you reply, looking back at him with a cheeky smile. Chenle lets your hand go, a smitten smile on his face and a warm feeling in his chest. Zhong Chenle wished things were simpler. He wanted to give you the world.

 “It’s just a black tie party and my dad’s forcing me to come with a date,” he fixes himself in the mirror. He looked handsome, as always. In an all-black suit that fit him perfectly. Dressed like he had someplace to be, people to meet.

You sat on your bed behind him, arms folded and face scrunched up into a frown. A date. Probably someone from a rich family, better than you, his future spouse. They’d have perfect little babies together. All these bitter thoughts were flooding in your brain. When he notices your unusual quietness, Chenle turns to face you and gives you a goofy smile.

“What’s on your mind?” he approaches the bed, placing either hands on the side of you and leaning in close. Chenle could tell when you lied and knew exactly how to make you crack. You pull your knees to yourself and don’t bother hiding the scowl forming on your face. You couldn’t do anything about it. After several talks with Chenle, he explained how much pressure he gets from the media and his family. How dating even became a hassle because of how the pressure would then be shared with his partner.

For years, it wasn’t a problem. He didn’t find anyone that sparked his interest, and only had meaningless one night stands. He was fine with it, really. But all of that changed when he met you. For once, he wanted to go after something he loved. Not let it go, unlike what he did with his own passion for the sake of his father’s dream and business.

You shook your head, ridding the thoughts in your head and throwing them out. “Nothing. I know it’s just business. Message me when you get home?” you didn’t need to ask, but you still do. Chenle always kept you updated, whether if it was how the party he’s in has a chocolate fountain or if the bathrooms have automatic toilets. It was always bizarre hearing about his stories and taking a peek of what his world is like. The world of corporates. You weren’t ready for it, and Chenle knew.

 The secrecy of your relationship didn’t last very long, soon enough it’s got media questioning who Chenle was seeing and your status. After a few run-ins with the paparazzi, you both decided it would be best if your meetups were more discreet. Luckily, the cameras hadn’t captured your face yet, but it was only a matter of time until they did.

To top it all off, the news had spread across campus. Girls left and right claiming they were the one dating Chenle, it didn’t bother you too much. You had a scholarship to keep and a job to go to. Sometimes, you’d find a single rose and a letter waiting for you in class, or at the café. Of course, you and Chenle had wrapped up the tutorial classes and he was able to pass the exam. He was one step closer to his degree, but happy wasn’t the word to describe him.

He yearned to be with you, have you in his arms and spend hours together just like you used to before things got complicated. Chenle grew lonely without your presence as months passed. Nonetheless, you hung onto the string of hope that maybe one day people wouldn’t care so much. That you could take all the criticism, the heat.

 It was around 2am when your phone rang, disturbing your slumber. It was a Friday night and you took it upon yourself to catch up on some sleep after the horrendous exam week you just faced. Chenle had said goodnight hours ago. You wondered who could be calling at such an ungodly hour.

You pick up without checking the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Y/N,” Chenle’s voice filled your ear. Your eyes snap open and you shot up from your bed, pulling the phone away from your ear. Sure enough, it was him. Lele, with a little heart beside the name.

“Hey, are you alright?” You ask worriedly. His voice sounded slow and there was rustling behind him.

Chenle lets out a groan, and your heartbeat picks up its pace. You knew better than to think Chenle would cheat, but it was definitely worrying hearing this without any idea what was going on. “I miss you,” he breathed, voice raspy and low. You couldn’t keep the smile from appearing on your face. In the darkness of your room, your heart swelled with joy. “I miss you too, Chenle,” you whispered back.

Distinct voices come through the line, and you make it out to be Jeno and Jaemin. They’re bickering and you hear a guitar in the mix. “We’ll leave you here, Chenle,” Jaemin calls to his friend before you hear a door close.

“Why did you call?” you ask but you were happy that he did.

“Because I can’t be there with you. Even if it’s all I want right now,” he confessed. Your smile faltered and a hint of sadness falls upon your face as he continues. He was obviously drunk, but Chenle has always been really honest because he couldn’t lie. These days however, you haven’t had the time to talk much and you knew there was a lot on his mind. It hurt to know that it’s been this, and you couldn’t do much about it. “I just want to tell everyone about us. Screw what they think, YN. You’re perfect to me,”

Hearing his words gave you a glimmer of hope. You wished he was right, you wished you could believe it.

“Chenle-“ you sighed. “I want that too,”

There was a moment of silence before his voice came through again and you thought he’d passed out drunk already. “I love you, Y/N. I’ve sacrificed so much for my father, but you’re not going to be one of them,”

His words brought the smile back to your face, tears welling up in your eyes from how happy you were to hear them. It seemed at this moment that you could battle anything, because you were with Chenle. Everything would be alright. He was here and you are too, it’s the two of you against the world.

“Tomorrow, let’s make it official,” Chenle proposed.

You bring your hand up to your lips and bite on your nails, now fully awake more than ever. “Okay,” you agreed. Chenle grins, getting up from his bed. “I’m coming over,” you can hear him walking around now, keys jangling and shoes on his wooden floor.

“You can’t drive-“ you hurriedly try to stop him, keeping in mind his state.

“I don’t drive a Tesla for nothing,” he chuckles. “I’ll be there soon,” The outgoing beeping of the call followed afterwards as he ended the call. The realization hit you a moment later.

 The next day, you and Chenle arrived in school together. He stayed the night, carrying a change of clothes in his bag. For someone who was smack drunk, he sure did pack well.

From the moment you stepped out of his car, many students were around to watch. Exchanging whispers and staring, your cheeks set aflame when Chenle pulls you by the arm, your hands connecting between you and threading together naturally. It drew the attention of many onlookers and you chewed on your bottom lip, not used to the attention.

“They’re staring,” you whisper close to him.

“Let them,” He responds. Chenle tilts your head up to meet his gaze before planting a lingering kiss on your lips, confirming people’s already forming suspicions. “You’re my girl, aren’t you?”

[ganymedesclock]

a thing about your headcanons that really intrigues me is that, much as Knuckles seems to have originally been done as a contrast or rival to Sonic back in the Genesis days, your take on them has a opposite approach to the responsibility they feel, but done in opposite ways. Sonic runs from responsibility and doesn't want to think about it, while Knuckles feels guilty about NOT being responsible to an extreme, and since people don't often deal with how they're similar, i really like this

Honestly, this is a thread that is not exclusive to Sonic and Knuckles, but actually ties in heavily to a major theme I'm considering and working in Worlds AU.

Basically, "freedom" has always at least nominally been a theme associated with Sonic. It's in his motifs, it's in his attitudes, it's the quality that people tend to envy when they compare themselves to him- whether that's Knuckles who feels bound by fate and obligation, Tails who feels like he might not be enough or can only keep up, Amy who dreads the drudgery of her ordinary life by comparison. Hell, one could say it's even in the many one-off characters who are introduced with Sonic blowing into their life, changing things, inspiring them to grow, and then leaving- Elise, Merlina, Chris Thorndyke, Chip, Shahra.

But it's a theme that's kind of been weakened in the direction that the games took.

In Sonic SatAM, the concept of freedom vs. tyranny was rife in the setting. Robotnik had his boot down on 90% of the world and the remaining pockets are either actively dwindling, or struggling along as best they can through limited resources. All characters are- at any time- in danger of losing specifically their freedom; not their minds, but control of their bodies. And it's a compelling hook.

But the gameverse has very long not been that, and since Sonic Adventure, the world of the games has been very metropolitan. There's a bunch of cities and countries and everybody's going about their daily lives and Eggman's still a wannabe conqueror but he's now become abstracted, a supervillain, who might have this big scheme or that, but- basically until Sonic Forces- we have never had Eggman really decisively in control. And in his absence, there are not really ever any consistent or clear threats to freedom except that, yeah, we guess if we let someone like Solaris or Perfect Chaos or Black Doom run wild long enough that would kill people and then nobody would be free, but... that's an abstract and inelegant way to speak to one of your main center themes.

(and I personally don't like Forces basically trying to reinstate- even if temporarily- the SatAM status quo, even if I think some people like the IDW comics have done interesting things with that, but that's my personal relationship with the character of gameverse Eggman and how I view him distinctly from SatAM Robotnik, as absolutely iconic as the latter is)

I don't think you need an encroaching dystopia per se to make a meaningful discussion out of freedom- I think using the modern gameverse's more colorful, populated world opens up a lot of possibilities for that. So, a major thematic thing I've landed on is that abject tyranny- while the easiest 'threat to freedom' to scan and oppose- and an important one!- is not remotely the only thing that challenges freedom.

A big thing is responsibility.

Responsibility is the thing that most of us sacrifice our freedom to on a daily basis. That may sound dramatic, but it's true; we may have other reasons for it, but we don't just run off somewhere else or go have an adventure or leave our job because we feel responsible to things. And responsibility isn't a bad thing- it's good to feel reliable or trustworthy. If you enjoy your job or your coworkers, you want to do well at it. Having a house is a responsibility, we take care of them. Having a relationship of any kind is a responsibility; so is having kids. If none of us were ever responsible, society would fall apart and we'd all live lonely lives. Moreover, we'd have very little power- ironically a lack of responsibility can lead to a lack of freedom in some regards.

But also, it's very easy to give too much of yourself away and not have any left. I mentioned before that many characters are consistently depicted, across many continuities, idealizing Sonic- because Sonic's free! Sonic doesn't buy groceries or pay taxes or do boring stuff, he certainly isn't stuck in a frustrating or isolating situation, and this can even tie into one of Sonic's major themes- he refuses to be talked into accepting lesser evils.

In Sonic and the Black Knight, Merlina tries to explain to him why she's using Excalibur's scabbard- why she's doing bad things, trying to justify it that she can't just let the kingdom end, even if that means needing to twist it into a horrible place to live- to which she at one point, in frustration, asks if Sonic understands, to which he responds, "No, and I don't want to."

While it's not exactly a perfect moral stance (those don't exist), there is something to be said powerfully for the idea that Sonic as a person has a certain rejection of responsibility as a chain to let bad things happen. He rejects loyalty to a thing that drives you into cruelty.

And this is really interesting, when we consider- specifically in the very first game that featured Shadow and featured him explicitly as a dark antithesis to Sonic- that is exactly what happens to Shadow.

Shadow is not, by default, an amoral person. Pre-trauma, we see that he doesn't want to hurt others, and frankly, as much as "ow the edge" circles (and is somewhat warranted), we can often see that he's standoffish but fairly civil; someone who is dealing with a lot of stresses and problems, but doesn't often relish hurting others unless he's already desperate, frustrated, or looking for an outlet or solution. And in adventure 2, Shadow is led into nearly ending the planet on account of loyalty; to the idea of Maria, to what he believes she asked him to do (and what he believes is owed to the people who killed her)

It's kind of conspicuous that if you think about it, most of Shadow's arcs in various games that focused on him are about questions of what's owed- to him, or to the world. Does he owe a debt to Eggman? Rouge? Black Doom? Gerald? Maria? Does the world owe him a debt of anger and pain to be paid back in vengeance, or, is he the one who owes the world a chance? Does he owe himself a chance? These are questions of Responsibility.

So to bring this back to Sonic and Knuckles, I think that's an interesting context to set them apart, because both of those two definitely have a special relationship with the Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles is the guardian of the shrine that doesn't just have positions for the Master Emerald, but all seven smaller ones as well; and Sonic... well, Sonic consistently and regularly does stuff with the chaos emeralds nobody else does. He transfers super forms to other people, or even awakens them in people who haven't done it before (as implied with Burning Blaze in Sonic Rush). And at least according to Sonic 3&K, his arrival (?) was foretold.

But Sonic... does not feel responsible about the chaos emeralds. If something's happening with them he wants to know but it's about curiosity. When the chaos emeralds are corrupted, tarnished, and lose power, Sonic... juggles them, while he's confused about his own (related) corruption. It's weird, it's concerning, but it's not an obligation. He gets distracted buying ice cream in the same scene.

By contrast, the only time Knuckles feels confident shattering the Master Emerald, it's as an obligation- he has to protect it from Eggman even if it creates more work for himself, and he later freaks out and nearly crashes the shuttle he and others are on when a near-miss scatters the master emerald pieces he's collected across the ARK. I can only imagine half of the plot of Sonic Unleashed would've given Knuckles an ulcer if he'd been around for it. You did what to the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic????

Basically, I think while freedom vs. tyranny is definitely Sonic's brand, you can have a lot more fun and shore up the thematic strength by also factoring in "responsibility" as a secondary theme and this strengthens or illuminates many characters and their arcs.

[kiribaku-queen]

You’re Not the One

Pairing: Todoroki x reader, Bakugou x reader

Drama, Angst?, pregnant!AU, happy ending

Word count: 6.4K

A/N: I was supposed to upload this multiple Friday’s ago… But enjoy this quick but long oneshot I have made! Let me know what you think! Do you like having oneshots like this or the series better?

Summary: No one prepared you for motherhood. You didn’t even know the first step to being a parent. What’s even worse was that you were doing it all alone. Will you let a knight in shining armor save you from distress or will you let the father of your child come back in your life and have the perfect family you always wanted?

Bakugou arrived at your apartment all busted up. It was a rough day at work and all he wanted to do right now was lay in bed with you in his arms. He didn’t want to think about how he let a villain get away. Or how he had to defeat a group of people all on his own with no backup, causing all those cuts and bruises. Or how management came running and yelled at him for his attitude towards his fans. He didn’t need anymore chaos. He didn’t want anymore problems. But that’s not how life works does it?

“I’m pregnant.”

Of course you were. Bakugou took a deep breath in and violently let it out, running his fingers through his hair. No, he wasn’t happy. He was already overwhelmed with trying to become the best that he could be at his job. He didn’t need another inconvenience in his way.

You frowned upon seeing his reaction. That definitely wasn’t the reaction you were hoping for. You were expecting shock, for sure. But mad? Angry? Disappointed? Never in a million years.

“What’s with that reaction? Are you not happy?” you asked, shaking a bit. You already knew this wasn’t going to go well when you saw that he wasn’t scooping you up in his arms. He was pacing around the room now.

“I just can’t deal with this news right now.” He told you. You furrowed your brows in concern. Seeing how he was acting right now, you could tell it had to do something with work. Bakugou sat down on the edge of the bed and you joined him, gently holding onto his arm.

“Was it work again?” you asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah. I’m already stressed out. I don’t need this pregnant news stressing me out even more!” he started to raise his voice. It wasn’t the first time you heard him raise his voice. You know he doesn’t mean to sometimes, but it always frightens you. He never put a hand on you when he was mad but when he gets like this, you just never know when he’s about to snap and finally do it. That’s how scary he could be sometimes.

“Well, I was hoping that me being pregnant would lessen your stress? Because it should be happy news?” It made sense to you. Having a baby with someone you loved should be the happiest news of your life. And after having a rough day at work, you would think that coming home to good news would be the highlight of the day. But it looks like you were wrong. Did you just make things worse for him?

“I don’t even know how to take care of a baby,” he huffed. You got up from the bed and comforted him from behind. You wrapped your arms around his waist, pressed your chest up against his back, and laid your cheek on his back.

“You think I know either? We can both learn,” you tried to convince him. But it didn’t look like it was working. You started to become anxious and fidgety. This was not supposed to happen tonight. You pictured it so differently in your head and it was all going down the drain.

“No, I can’t take care of this baby,” he shook his head. That left a tight feeling in your chest.

“Cant? Or don’t want to?” you dared to ask.

“Don’t want to,” he replied softly.

“Katsuki!” you desperately called out his name. You heart was breaking. A lump was forming in your throat and tears were threatening to spill over.

“(y/n)!” he called out just as desperate. “I’m so overwhelmed right now! I’m loaded with paperwork. I’m constantly working over time. I don’t get days off. I don’t get breaks. I’m at the peak of my career right now. I can barely take care of you, how can I take of a child that requires more attention than you need on a daily basis?” That last one hurt. You stood there in awe at how he could say that so easily. You didn’t even know what to say. All of this was coming out of nowhere. You both stood still in silence. Bakugou was huffing and puffing by himself while you were trying to process everything he was saying and weighing out your options. If Bakugou didn’t want this baby, you had a few options ahead of you. But before you could think too much, your boyfriend said something that was beyond forgivable. “Get rid of it.”

“Bakugou Katsuki.” Your eyes snapped at him, sudden anger took over you. Out of all the things he could say, he just had to say the most hurtful thing. You could take the criticism. You could take all his anger, his confusion, and his fright. You could take his uncertainness right now because it was sudden news. Both of you never talked about having kids. It only makes sense that he was uncertain about his abilities about being a father. But this. This was going too far. It was unacceptable. No matter how much he didn’t like the idea of you being pregnant or how much he was unprepared to be a dad, he treaded across a forbidden place that was never meant to be crossed. “You take that back right now.”

“No. You either get rid of the baby or I’m leaving,” he gave you the ultimatum. But it was a no brainer.

“I’m keeping the baby,” you say confidently. You were more confident in your answer, more than ever. But that didn’t stop the crushing pain in your chest. The feeling was getting more intense the more you kept looking at him. Bakugou nods his head in acknowledgement. He picks up his work stuff and heads straight to the door. As soon as he opens the door, you scream out his name causing him to stop in his tracks.

“You walk out that door and I swear on my life, you will never see this child,” You threatened. You were shaking with anger, eyes glaring in his direction. Bakugou hesitates. He’s paused at the opened door. And for a split second, you could see a sliver of hope that he comes back to you. But you were wrong. He’s out that door, out of your apartment, and out of your life just like that.

 You were left utterly devasted and completely alone to raise the baby. Honestly, being pregnant was the easy part. What comes after that? Now that was a challenge. It was probably an understatement to say that raising your baby was a challenge. You were struggling. Raising a baby by yourself was hard. There were times when you didn’t know why your baby was crying in the middle of the night. Was he hungry? Did his diaper need to be changed? Did he just want to be held? But sometimes, you would do all that and he would still be crying, making you stay up all night and not get a wink of sleep. There are days were you can’t function properly because of the lack of sleep you would get.

And if that wasn’t enough, you were having a hard time financially keeping you stable. Diapers, formula, and other baby necessities were expensive. You were barely left with enough money to buy food or buy groceries. Maybe a few times a week, you wouldn’t get to eat anything because you didn’t have enough money. And you had to juggle between having a full time job and being a full time mom. You were constantly working around the clock. Everyday, you would be left physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. You can’t even spend time to yourself because you have to tend to your child.

You were rocking your child to sleep, watching as his eyes got heavier and heavier. A sad smile reached your lips but tears trickled down your cheeks.

“Mommy’s having a hard time,” you whispered to your son, sobbing. Yes, the pressure of being a mom got to you. It got to you so bad that you cried every night. God, you were so stressed out and miserable. But even though there were so many hardships that you faced, it was all worth it. It was worth going through all that just to see your son laugh and smile and grow. Despite all the frustrations you went through on a daily basis, you knew it was going to pay off in the end. You loved your son. He captured your heart as soon as he came out. Mommy was having a hard time but you wouldn’t change this for the world.

Just when life was about to get you down, things started to lighten up. You bit your lip and internally cheered when you found out that you had enough money for groceries. You actually had a lot of money left over to buy whatever you wanted. But you were starving. As soon as you got to the grocery store, you made up your mind to stock up on supplies in case you have one of those days again.

You put little Ryota in the seat of the cart and proceeded to go down all the aisles, getting everything you deemed necessary to store in your pantry. While you were at it, you might as well get ingredients to prep yourself a nice dinner for tonight. It’s been a while since you had an actual, homecooked meal.

“Alright, which one should I get baby?” you asked your son, Ryota. He wasn’t old enough to speak yet. Only babbling here and there. Yet, you were constantly talking to him like he could understand you. It was somewhat comforting. You held out two options for him to choose from. Ryota stuck out both his hands, gravitating to the one on the left. You smiled.

“Yeah, I thought so. Good choice, my love,” you squeezed both his cheeks and smothered him with kisses. You then put Ryota’s choice inside the cart and put the other option back. When you went to put that away, another hand was reaching in the same direction, making both of your hands bump into each other.

“Oh, I’m sorr – Shouto?” you began to apologize but once you looked up, you recognized that iconic hair and scar anywhere. He was tall. Taller than you remember. The middle of his hair was swooped backwards, showing his forehead. His build was as impressive as ever and he was carrying a basket of groceries.

“Ah, (y/n). It’s been a while,” he was just as shocked as you were. It’s been what, 7? 8 years? You haven’t seen each other since your school days.

“It has, hasn’t it? Have you been well?” you struck up a conversation. He gave you a soft smile and stuffed his free hand in his pocket. He hummed in response and looked over you shoulder to see your child.

“Looks like you’ve been doing well, too. What’s his name?” he asked, going up to your son and trying to make him laugh. It was working because Ryota seemed to look like he liked him.

“Ryota,” you responded, admiring the way Shouto was playing with your son. It was a weird feeling. You were the one always around your son. Sure, some people held him but it was rare for Ryota to be interacting with a male. It was weird, but a refreshing sight.

“He’s cute. Ah,” he stood up and faced you. “How’s Bakugou doing?” Ouch. He opened up a wound that you were trying to suppress for all these months.

“Oh, um… We’re not…” you tried to explain without it being too awkward, but it wasn’t working. Immediate regret showed on Shouto’s face. He looked back to Ryota and back at you, the realization sinking in. You guess you couldn’t blame him though. Ryota looked exactly like Bakugou. Dirty blonde hair and fiery, red eyes. A mini me of the man who broke your heart. But it’s okay, because now, a new man came into your life. Both of you also weren’t public about your breakup. It was messy anyway. Only a few people really know what happened.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“It’s okay!” You interrupted him, waving your hands in front of you. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know. “Where you trying to get this?” you changed the subject, lifting up the box that you were putting away. Shouto glanced at the box in your hands and nodded. He took it from you and added it to his basket. Now you were both awkwardly standing there together, not knowing what to say. Ryota was huffing and puffing behind you, letting you know that it was time to go. You excused yourself and headed towards the check out aisle.

You bagged all your groceries and groaned in agony. You walked to the store and you really underestimated how much you bought. How were you going to carry all those groceries and carry Ryota. He can’t even walk yet. But you got to do what you got to do. You grabbed one bag and all of a sudden, it was pulled away from your grip. You looked up to see Shouto grabbing all your groceries.

“What are you doing? I can handle it,” you reassured him, but he wouldn’t budge. He continued to grab everything, and soon, all of your groceries were in both of his hands.

“You need to carry him. I can carry this for you,” he offered. Well, it wasn’t really an offer. You bit your lip because you did need help, but you also felt bad for making him carry your belongings. But Shouto was already at the exit, waiting for you to catch up to him. Not wanting to waste any more of his time, you picked up Ryota and chased after him.

Thank god your apartment wasn’t too far. Shouto graciously carried all those bags for you, setting them down on your kitchen floor. You rushed to put Ryota in his crib since he fell asleep on your shoulder on the walk home. When you set him down and made sure he was comfortable, you returned to your kitchen where Shouto was standing.

“Thank you so much, Shouto. I really appreciate it,” you thanked him, still feeling bad and guilty for allowing him to do such a task.

“It’s no problem. It looked like you were struggling,” he says, letting you know that he didn’t mind at all. “Well, I should get going. Call me if you need more help.” He says before making his way to the door. Before he exits your apartment, you were quick to stop him.

“Do you want to stay for dinner? As a thank you for bringing up my groceries?” you offered. He stood there for a minute, debating on whether or not to take the offer. But you gave him those pleading eyes because you had no else to thank him. After much facial persuading, he eventually took up on your offer and stayed for dinner.

Halfway through to making dinner, Ryota woke up crying. You were about to go comfort him when you saw Shouto already on the move. He cradled Ryota in his arms and rocked him back and forth until he calmed down. That shocked you. You weren’t expecting him to take action like that.

“Ah, I can take him” you tried to take Ryota away from him but Ryota was holding onto Shouto tightly. Huh? Your son didn’t know Shouto yet he was hanging onto him like his life depended on it. You playfully frowned and Shouto chuckled.

“I can take care of him while you cook,” he said. You were reluctant at first, but eventually agreed. There was no use fighting Shouto when he already has his mind set on something. So you continued cooking, checking up on the boys once in a while. Bu seeing Shouto play and laugh with your son made you smile. And when you say smile, you’re smiling hard. Like grinning from ear to ear. The sight was cute and heartwarming. You couldn’t thank him enough for looking after your son because you finally got a break to yourself. Even if you were cooking, you were put into a state of mind where it was just you. And you could focus on yourself and just enjoy the cooking process.

Having Shouto over for dinner and letting him look over your son was a great break for you. But it was time to get back into the groove again. You were about to go grocery shopping again for tonight’s dinner when a knock was heard on your door. Strange. You weren’t expecting company. You opened the door with curiosity and was surprised to see Todoroki Shouto waiting at your door.

“What are you doing here?” you questioned him with surprise. He lifted a bag filled with different kinds of ingredients.

“Let me make you dinner,” he says. “To thank you for cooking me dinner yesterday.” You smiled at his kindness, but you had to respectfully decline.

“But dinner yesterday was to thank you for carrying my groceries!” you explained but he wasn’t having it.

“And now I’m thanking you for thanking me,” he shakes the bag, waiting for you to let him in. God, you couldn’t say no to that face. And so you let him in. From then on, he was coming over every day. Cooking dinner started to become a routine, both of you alternating nights on who cooks when. Sometimes you would even cook together. With Shouto coming over, you were able to get more alone time and relaxation from taking care of the baby. But that also means you were spending more time with him. The more he came over, the more you bonded with him. Let’s not forget Ryota. It was an understatement to say that he liked Shouto. Every time he’s over, your son would cling to him every chance he got. And soon, Shouto was coming over for more than just dinner. You thought it was because he wanted to spend time with Ryota. Afterall, he was treating your son like he was his own. But you soon came to realize that that was only half the story.

 4 years later

Bakugou had the day off so he made his way to his nearest grocery store for some snacks. He hadn’t heard from you since that day. After he walked out, he needed a while to get back to his senses and calm down. But by the time he was ready to face you again, you had disappeared from his life. You blocked all types of communication from him and moved apartments. He didn’t think of you often. But whenever he saw a child with their mother, that’s when he started thinking of what ifs. And if you were doing okay. Did you have the baby? Or did you end up losing the baby? Was it a boy or girl? What was their name? Did they look like him? Many questions ran through his mind that he knew won’t get answered any time soon.

He grabbed a basket and went straight to the snack aisle. On the way there, he noticed a woman was having trouble getting something from the top shelf. He was thinking about ignoring her and keep on his merry way. But there was something about her back side that seemed familiar. And he couldn’t ignore his hero instincts to help those in need. He went over to her and grabbed the she was reaching for and handed it to her. But when he looked at who the woman was, his heart skipped a beat.

It was you.

Looking at him with wide eyes.

“(y/n)…” he muttered your name out of instinct. You quickly grabbed your item and stuffed it in your cart.

“Bakugou… thank you,” you muttered right back. God, he hasn’t seen you in so long. And you looked great as ever. Healthy. Happy. He looked around you. No baby.

“You’ve been good?” he asked. Shit, why was this so awkward. You nodded, giving him a small smile that was obviously very forced.

“Mhm, you?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

The curiosity got the better of him. He just had to ask.

“What about the baby-”

“There is no baby,” you interrupted him very abruptly. Bakugou physically felt his heart crack. There… was no baby? Fuck, now he felt like the worst person in the world. He stared at you, completely and utterly devastated by the news. His eyes were wide with shock, his mouth hung low. He wanted to say something so bad, but the words just got caught in his throat. Bakugou just couldn’t believe that there was no baby. And after he said all those awful things to you. The end result was no baby?

“(y/n), I’m-” he wanted to apologize so badly, but was interrupted by the shouting of a young child.

“Mommy! Can I have this one?” the blonde child asked you, showing you the bag of chips he found. Both of you looked down at the child. Wait a minute. Blonde hair. Red eyes. It was like Bakugou was looking in a mirror. You, eyes wide with panic, looked down at your child then back at Bakugou. You grabbed the bag from your son and gave him a sweet smile.

“Sure, honey. Let’s go home now okay?” you told your son. You looked back up at Bakugou, giving him a curt bow and took your sons hand. Your son was looking up at Bakugou with big, curious eyes but eventually followed you out. Bakugou didn’t have time to react. All he could think about was, that was his son. He looked exactly like him. There was no way that wasn’t his son. And it was too late. You were gone. He was gone. He ruined everything. A single tear dropped down on his cheek as he realized what he missed out on.

 You took your son to the playground so he could get some exercise in. Sitting on one of the benches, hand-in-hand with your boyfriend, Shouto, you watched as your son played tag with a few of the other neighborhood boys. Since that day you ran into Bakugou, your mind was running wild. You straight up lied to his face about Ryota. But he didn’t say anything. Maybe he thought it was someone else? God, but he said ‘Mommy’ right in front of him. Maybe he thinks it’s not his? But they look exactly alike. You internally groan and leaned your head on Shouto’s shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” he chuckled at you, petting your head lovingly.

“Just things,” you reply shortly. You didn’t want to bring up the topic of your ex-boyfriend, who just happened to be the father of your child. Shouto would get jealous and you didn’t want to cause anymore drama.

“You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?” Gahh, he knew you too well. He squeezed your hand in his in reassurance. “Look, if he wanted to be in Ryota’s life, he would have tried to contact you by now. And even if did contact you and wants to be in his life, then, I would respect that.” You look up at your boyfriend with a pout and concern eyes.

“Are you sure?” you ask. He looks down at you and gave your cheeks a nice, hard pinch.

“Yes. Ryota deserves to have his biological father in his life,” he reasons. Okay, fair enough. But he didn’t even want to be in your son’s life in the first place. It was so simple for him to abandon you while you were pregnant. And after all the hardships you had to go through, now he wants to be a present father?

“He doesn’t have to know who his real father is,” you say, crossing your arms across your chest.

“(y/n),” Shouto says your name in a warning tone. But you put your defenses up.

“What? I don’t know if I even want him in Ryota’s life,” you confess. Shouto wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you in close.

“Well, think about it. And if Bakugou comes around, you can either accept or reject him. I will be there to support you every step of the way. And if he tries to make a scene, I’ll be there to stop him,” he promises you. That comforts you a lot to know that Shouto will be there for you no matter what. He was always like that. From the moment he entered in you and your son’s life.

“Okay, I love you,” you whispered, puckering out your lips. He laughs and kisses your duck lips.

“I love you, too.” And gives you a few more kisses. You look back at the playground to watch your son play. Panic starts to rise in you. You look to the left. Ryota wasn’t there. You look to the right. He wasn’t there either. You sit straight up and scan the playground one more time for your child, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Ryota?” you call out his name. Shouto also realizes that Ryota was missing. He’s already up on his feet, calling out your son’s name and searching the playground. Your lips began to quiver and your legs began to shake. This was not happening right now. Shouto frantically whipped his head around, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of Ryota running off. That’s when he saw him. As soon as he turned his head to the side, he saw Ryota heading into an alleyway. Immediately, Shouto was running full speed in that same direction. You saw Shouto running and ran after him. He was too fast for you to catch up, but you ran anyway

Bakugou was on patrol duty for the day. He hated these days because all he had to do was roam around the city streets to make sure everyone was kept safe. He would catch villains here and there, but patrol duty was so boring for him. Until today. He was walking down the sidewalk in his hero costume when a little boy suddenly came out of nowhere, almost making him fall on top of him.

“Oi, kid! Watch where you’re going!” Bakugou scolded the young one. The child looked up and Bakugou froze in his tracks. This had to be fate. His son… Your son just so happens to run into him. Today out of all days? The blonde boy is looking up at Bakugou in awe.

“Mister? Are you a hero?” he asks. Bakugou smirks and kneels down so that he’s at his level.

“I am. What’s your name kid?”

“Ryota!” Ryota says his name in full confidence, grinning from ear to ear. Ryota… so that’s his name. Bakugou could feel his heart warm up at the sight of the boy.

“Little Ryota, where are your parents?” he asked. He looked around but it looked like Ryota ran off by himself. Looks like it was his job to help find his parents. That means finding you. He was starting to get his hopes up. If he ran into you, then he could try to apologize and maybe, just maybe, start things over.

“Ryota!” a man shouted the boy’s name. Bakugou looked up and an old classmate of his was scooping up Ryota in his arms. “Don’t run off like that! You had us scared to death!” he scolded the boy, but was relieved that he wasn’t hurt.

“Sorry, daddy,” the boy apologized. Ha? Daddy? Bakugou looked at the man and scoffed. Both men looked at each other and the atmosphere got chillingly cold.

“Bakugou,” the man said his name as a greeting. Bakugou frowned.

“Half-and-Half bastard,�� What a surprise. So you were dating Todoroki now? It was like a staring competition between you two. A deadly staring competition. Todoroki cleared his throat and adjusted Ryota on his hip.

“Thanks for stopping my son,” Todoroki thanked the pro-hero. But he said it in the most monotone voice ever. No emotion behind it whatsoever.

“Tch,” Bakugou just scoffed and looked away. Todoroki’s son? Nah, that wasn’t right. That was his son. Todoroki took that as a sign of ‘you’re welcome’, and walked away with Ryota in hand. Bakugou just stared off in their direction. Thank god he did because Ryota laid his head on Todoroki’s shoulder, but he was waving at him.

When Ryota was returned to you, you held him in your arms, falling to the ground in tears. You scolded him for running off without telling anyone and to never do it again. But refused to let him go because you were so afraid for his life. You couldn’t let anything happen to him.

All three of you returned to your apartment. After a year of dating, you and Ryota moved in with Shouto in his apartment. You felt bad because his apartment was so big, nice, and fancy but he insisted you both move in. So that Ryota can have a better space to grow up in. If it was for Ryota’s sake, you couldn’t pass up on the offer.

Shouto was putting Ryota to bed while you were finishing up cleaning the dishes. You finished up the last dish and dried your hands when a knock startled you. You looked at the clock. Why would someone be here at this hour? You weren’t expecting anyone. When you opened the door, you were shocked to see Bakugou standing there.

“Bakugou! What are you doing here? How did you know I lived here?” you questioned him, stunned.

“He’s mine, isn’t he?” Bakugou ignored your question with a question of his own. He was staring at the floor. You wanted to deny, deny, deny. But you were too ashamed to say anything. So he tried again. “Ryota.” He said, this time looking up at you. “Ryota is my child, isn’t he?” You bit your lip and nodded your head. You heard him sigh and he ran his fingers through his hair. “You lied to me.”

“What choice did I have?”

“You could have said the truth,” he argued.

“And then what!” you raised your voice, your emotions started to get the better of you. “So you could come running back to be in his life?” your voice cracked at the end from your throat tightening up because you refused to cry. And you tried your hardest not to get too loud, in fear that your boyfriend was going to overhear. But little did you know, Todoroki was leaning against the wall in the hallway, listening to everything.

Bakugou didn’t say a word. Because it was true. He wanted to be in his son’s life. He knows that he fucked up big time. But now, he wanted to right that wrong doing. But you shook your head.

“No. No, I’m sorry Bakugou. That’s not going to happen,” you denied him.

“That’s not fair,” he whispered, his heart breaking once again. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but he didn’t know it was going to hurt his bad.

“Not fair?” you let out a soft laugh. Unbelievable. “You want to talk about not fair? You left me. Alone. While I was pregnant. And I had to raise that child all by myself,” you were sobbing now. You were remembering all those hardships that you had to face alone and it was all pouring out. “Do you even know how hard it was? How hard and exhausted I was every single day? And now you want to show up when he’s all grown now? That’s not fair.”

“I know. I know. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I messed up big time. But I want to make it right now. If you let me be in our son’s life, I’ll prove it to you that I can be a good dad. That you can trust me and-and,” Bakugou was so desperate. But you stopped him.

“You were my everything, Bakugou. I was so excited to start this small little family with you. But you destroyed all my hopes and dreams.” Bakugou bit his bottom lip to try to stop himself from crying, but was failing miserably. No matter how hard he tried, the tears wouldn’t stop coming. He violently wiped his teary eyes with the palm of his hand. You gave him a sad smile as you reminisced what you two had together. “I think it’s best if we… if you just forgot about us.” You suggested. Bakugou couldn’t accept that. At least not yet.

“Please, please just think about it?” he begged, his eyes telling all. When you looked at those eyes, you could tell how serious he wanted this.

“Fine,” you said after giving a bit of thought. “I’ll think about it. Go home, it’s late.” You told him. Agreeing with you, he nodded his head and went on his way. You gently closed the door and took a deep breath in. You weren’t expecting this. You guess you were, but not this soon. You turned around to go to you room, quickly wiping your tears away before Shouto could see. But when you looked up, Shouto was already there, arms wide open and eyes looking at you with concern.

“You okay?” he asked as you embraced him in a hug. He kissed the top of your head hugged you close.

“Yeah,” you breathed out, barely managing to say anything. But you weren’t. That night you couldn’t sleep. Your mind was racing with thoughts. This whole situation was bothering you and you couldn’t seem to think of anything else. There was only one way to relax your mind. Sneaking out of your shared bed with your boyfriend, you quickly put on your bathing suit and took a dip in the pool. Did you mention that his apartment came with an outdoor pool right next to the living room? It was convenient when you needed a place to clear your mind. You rested your arms on the edge of the pool, looking out into the city. You let the city lights and the noise of traffic distract you. So much that you didn’t even hear Shouto come up behind you. You squealed when you felt a pair of hands wrap around your waist. He laughed in your ear, slowly kissing the back of your head, making its way down to your neck and then you shoulder.

“Can’t sleep?” his deep, husky voice whispered in your ear.

“No. Did I wake you?” you softly asked back and he shook his head. He held you in silence, both of you looking at the city of lights. Now you were able to relax. His touch was comforting. It was as if his touch put a spell on you to make you relax.

“Hey,” Shouto started.

“Mhm?” you hummed in response. He took a pause.

“Let’s have a kid,” he proposed. You looked up at him and he was already looking down at you with the most loving eyes. It took you off guard, but it was somehow making your heart flutter.

“Us? Like you and me?” you asked, just to make sure you were hearing things right. He nodded his head and cocked his eyebrow.

“Why? Don’t like that idea?” he teased you. Your face flushed red and you waved your hands in front you, then rested on his chest.

“It’s not that! I was just thinking we would…” and you started to trail off. You’ve discussed this topic before but not too much. You were nervous what he was going to say. “…get married first?” You glanced up at your boyfriend and his expression remained unchanged. God, sometimes you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Finally, a smirk was plastered on his face.

“If you were just a little patient, maybe you wouldn’t have ruined the surprise,” he says which leaves you confused. You saw him take out a frozen block from his trunks. Confusion still prominent on your face, he unfreezes the block to reveal a beautiful velvet box. Shouto froze the box to keep it from getting wet when he was in the water. And when it was time, he would use his other side to unfreeze the box. He opens the box easily with one hand and a gorgeous diamond ring was sitting inside.

“Shouto,” you gasped, admiring the ring. He takes it out the box and slips it on your ring finger.

“Marry me?” he asks. You cup both of his cheeks to bring him into a smothering kiss.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” you kept repeating, every time giving him another kiss. You loop your legs around his waist and he traps you in between his body and the edge of the pool. Both of you spend the rest of the night making out and having a bit of fun in the bedroom.

 Bakugou shows up at your apartment the following week while you were eating breakfast. His eyes were puffy and he looked a mess. Your heart goes out to him and felt like you had tortured him enough. After talking to your fiancé about the whole situation, he convinced you to let him in and allow him to step up as the father to your child. But with conditions.

When you answered the door, Bakugou immediately saw the ring on your finger. He swore he didn’t see that before. If he was being honest with himself, seeing that ring on your finger broke his heart a little bit. Seeing you engaged to Todoroki, seeing you happy made him jealous that that wasn’t him. Because he should have been in his place. He should have been the one you were engaged to. He should have been the one you were happy with. He should have been there the entire time. And he wasn’t. For what? Because he was having difficult times in his work? At least he was relieved to hear the news that you were going to give him another chance at raising your son together. He was going to make up for what he missed out on. Todoroki joined you at the door and stuck his hand out for Bakugou to take.

“Welcome to the family.”

[writing-wrxngs]

Overnight Babysitting

(Heyo! Been a minute! I’m juggling like a shit ton of one shots along with the long form fic I’m desperately trying not to abandon so that’s why I disappear sometimes. Also being back with my parents is Not Fun so my vibes have been completely off for weeks. I do have something for you though! It’s fuckin massive too, it took forever lmao)

Phil turned to Techno and Wilbur one last time as he put on his coat to go. “And you’re sure you’ve got this?”

Techno nodded. “We’re sure.”

“Positive? I’m going to be gone all night.”

“We’ve got this!” Wilbur said, full of self assurance. “It’s not going to be much different than any of the other times we’ve watched Tommy.”

“Well yeah,” Phil agreed, “but it’s still a long time. I didn’t expect you boys to be alone this long ‘til you were older. This was unexpected.”

Wilbur scoffed. “We’re plenty old! Me and Techno are teenagers now!”

“Right, right. No matter what, I have to go so I suppose I have to trust you two,” said Phil. “You know everything you need to do?”

“Yeah,” said Techno. “We’ve got leftovers for dinner, keep Tommy entertained for a bit, make sure he gets ready for bed, put him to bed and get ourselves to bed.”

“And what does getting Tommy ready for bed entail?”

“Run him a bath, for one,” cut in Wilbur before Techno could answer. “Get him some clean pajamas and make sure he brushes his hair and teeth, then it’s bedtime.”

They actually remembered. Phil had been drilling that into both of the boys all day as soon as he found out he would have to leave, but he was worried they weren’t actually listening. It was quite reassuring really. By all means, leaving two thirteen year olds in charge of a child overnight was unwise, but it was necessary. Techno and Wilbur were capable boys. And clearly, knew what they had to do. Phil smiled proudly. “Alright, I actually think you two can do it now. I have to be going now,” he said. He called Tommy over and picked the boy up to give him a hug goodbye. “You be good for your brothers while I’m gone,” he said.

“I will!” said Tommy.

Both Techno and Wilbur knew that was a lie. They had been alone with Tommy before. As soon as Phil was out the door, Tommy would find some way to cause a problem for them. It was just in his nature. Neither of them could say anything about it, though. Instead, they shared the same doubtful silence and a glance of disbelief.

Phil set Tommy down, and opened the front door. “I should be back by morning, try your best not to destroy anything! Take care, boys!” He said as he left.

“We will!” Techno and Wilbur said in unison. Techno closed the door, giving one last wave to his father as he walked away into the evening light.

Wilbur leaned down to Tommy. “I know in a minute you’re going to become a thorn in our sides but can you do one good thing first? Run ahead and get the table ready for dinner. It won’t take me and Techno long to make dinner ‘cause we just have to heat it up on the stove.”

Tommy scrunched up his nose. “I guess,” he said, running off to the kitchen.

Watching Tommy run and disappear, Wilbur crossed his arms and looked at Techno with concern. “What do you suppose Dad meant by should?”

“Well, should typically means that it might not happen but he’s clearly fairly certain it will.”

Wilbur glanced to the direction of the kitchen. “And if it doesn’t?”

Exhaling, Techno paused in thought. “We deal. Act like everything is fine. Take Tommy to school, go to school ourselves, and go from there. If he’s not back by the time school lets out, then we worry.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Wilbur nodded in agreement.

“That’s not going to happen, though. He’s never not come back when he said he would. There’s nothing to worry about. What happened to the bravado you were showing off earlier?”

“Just a front, you know how I am. I don’t want Dad to worry about us. He’s clearly on some serious business. You’re right anyways. Like I told him, we can handle this, and I’m gonna prove that right now,” said Wilbur, shaking off the worry he had before. “Let’s get dinner now before the kid realizes something’s up”

The two joined Tommy in the kitchen, getting the soup that Phil and Techno had made from their garden vegetables last night and putting it on the stove.

“Look!” Tommy said, tugging on Wilbur’s sleeve.

Wilbur turned to the rest of the kitchen while Techno stirred the soup.

“I set the table just like you said! I even got matching bowls this time!” Tommy said proudly.

Smiling, Wilbur gently shooed Tommy away. “Good job, kid. Why don’t you sit down now, foods almost done.”

Tommy nodded and ran to his seat.

After that, the soup was done, and Wilbur sat down while Techno ladled out servings for the three of them. “Thanks,” he muttered to his brother.

Techno just nodded in response and sat down himself. “Careful Tommy, it might still be hot,” he cautioned.

“I know,” said Tommy. He blew on a spoonful of soup before eating it. After he swallowed he looked at both of his older brothers. “How come Dad had to leave all of a sudden?” He asked.

Both of them shook their heads. “He didn’t say,” said Techno.

Tommy shrugged in response. “Weird,” he said, turning his attention to dinner instead. He was only five, but he already understood his fathers idiosyncrasies. If Phil didn’t want anyone to know, nobody would be told, and that was the end of the story. It would work itself out, so why worry?

The brothers spent the rest of dinner just chatting and teasing each other, just spending time in each other's company without Phil there to reign them in. As much of a pain babysitting could be, it honestly was fun, just to have that freedom. Sure, Tommy’s usual little brother bothersome-ness increased without any real authority to stop him, but Techno and Wilbur could dish back out their older brother teasing more, too. Eventually, they all got done and piled up the dishes in the sink.

Wilbur stood at the sink. “Who’s on dishes tonight?”

“You, I think,” said Techno.

“Bullshit!” retorted Wilbur. “I did them last time!”

“No you didn’t!”

Wilbur stopped before he yelled back. “Wait, did you?”

“No, Dad said I helped out enough with dinner.”

“Then who did them last time? We’re the only ones who know how to wash dishes.”

“We’d know if Dad did because he complains when he does them,” said Techno.

“Did we-?” asked Wilbur, afraid to finish the sentence.

“Oh god,” Techno said, not needing the sentence to be finished. He checked the sink. “Well, the answer is nobody did the dishes and Dad’s been too busy with whatever’s got him occupied to notice.”

“Shit,” muttered Wilbur. “Split the work?” he suggested.

“Someone’s gotta watch Tommy.”

Wilbur shook his head. “No we don’t. He’s at that age where he thinks chores are cool because he can pretend to be grown up. We can rope him into this, easy. Watch,” he said, walking out to the living room, where Tommy was sitting. “Hey Tommy,” he said, putting on a grin. “Wanna help me and Techno with some big kid stuff?”

Grinning at the opportunity, Tommy nodded. “Yes!” he exclaimed, running out to the kitchen.

“Pull a chair up to the counter,” Wilbur said to Techno as he came in behind Tommy. “We’ve got a third set of hands.”

Techno did as he was told, and Tommy hopped up on the chair. “You know how to work this kid too well, Wilbur,” he joked.

“So what am I doing?” Tommy asked eagerly.

Tossing a dry dishcloth to Tommy, Wilbur said, “drying duty. I give you a dish, you dry it. Break one and we kill you.”

Tommy chuckled. “You can’t kill me ‘cause then Dad will kill you.”

“And it’ll be your fault we’re dead,” Techno said in response. “Let’s get to work now.”

The dishes eventually got done, with only one soap fight ensuing between them all somehow, and all the dishes clean. They were all dried too, and all unbroken, so no little brothers were murdered that night.

Checking the clock as he dried himself off, Techno turned to Wilbur in shock. “Wil. Tommy was supposed to be taking his bath like, five minutes ago.”

“What?” Wilbur said, also checking the clock. “Oh god,” he said.

Techno was already rushing to the bathroom. “I’ve got the bath handled. Get Tommy and get him clothes. If we hurry, we won’t be behind.”

Wilbur didn’t really have any choice but to agree. Techno had already set the plan in motion. The two of them had shooed Tommy off to the playroom while they finished cleaning up. He walked down, and found him there still, playing with some playset he had gotten for his birthday. Not even greeting him or saying anything really, Wilbur picked Tommy up, tucked him under his arm like a lumpy suitcase and went back out.

Obviously, Tommy struggled against his grip. “Wha- Wil!” he cried. “What’re you doing? Put me down!” he said, punching Wilbur’s ribs in defiance. “Wilbyyy!” he complained.

“You can’t baby-talk your way out of this, Tommy,” Wilbur said as he climbed the stairs. “We screwed up and now you missed you stupid bathtime.”

Tommy was finally released at the door to his bedroom. He scowled at his brother.

“Pick yourself out some pjs. Something you can dress yourself in, cause I’m not helping you and neither is Techno.”

“Fine,” Tommy said, running into his room. He returned with the clothes he needed.

Wilbur snatched them to make sure that they were a matching set, which they were, and that there wasn’t any reason Tommy would have trouble putting them on. No buttons, no long sleeves, all good. He gave them back to Tommy, and rushed him down the stairs to the bathroom.

By the time it took for Wilbur to get Tommy’s clothes and come back, Techno had filled the tub and already had the bubbles in. Him and Wilbur got Tommy in the bath and gave the boy his privacy after that, checking every so often just to make sure he hadn’t drowned.

Tommy came out of the bathroom, cleaner and in his pajamas. He still wore the same indignant expression he had from before. “Now it’s bedtime, right?” He asked, mustering up as much bite as a five year old could.

“Sure is,” said Techno.

“Wil, you didn’t have to pick me up like that,” Tommy said as he passed by the two and up the stairs.

Wilbur followed Tommy, as did Techno. “Well Tommy, the thing is, you have a penchant for being a brat and not doing as you're told,” explained Wilbur. “Sometimes it’s faster to just use force rather than try and talk you into something or fight with you.”

Turning back to Wilbur, Tommy said, “wait, what's a penchant?”

“It means you like something. Like how you like to change the subject when you’re being told off.”

Tommy just ignored that. He went down the hall to his room and waited for his brothers to come.

Techno and Wilbur just stood at the top of the stairs looking at him.

“Who’s gonna put me to bed?”

Both twins crossed their arms and looked at each other. Of course Tommy would pull something like this. “I handled the bath,” said Techno.

Wilbur sighed in annoyance. “You did. Fine. I’ll put him to bed,” he said, rolling his eyes as he followed his little brother into his room.

Tommy climbed into his little wooden bed and got underneath the sheets. He grabbed his favorite stuffed animal, a raccoon Wilbur had won at a fair and held it close. “Thanks Wilby,” he said.

Doing the obligatory tucking in, Wilbur couldn't help but let out a smirk. That kid knew how to press his buttons as much as Wilbur could press his. “No problem,” he said. “Aren’t you getting a little old for this though?”

Making a face in thought, Tommy nodded. “Yeah… but I wanted to tonight cause I’m kinda scared about going to bed without Dad. It’s lonely when it’s just us.”

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Wilbur said, ruffling Tommy’s hair. “He’s gonna be back before we even wake up, and me and Techno will be right in the next room ‘til then.”

Snuggling into his bed, Tommy smiled. “Okay!” He said. “Goodnight, Wil.”

“Night, Tommy,” Wilbur said as he turned out the light and left the room. He went to his and Techno’s room to get to bed himself. Or more likely, get in bed and stay up far too late for his own good.

Techno, who had already changed into pajamas and was in bed, looked up upon Wilburs arrival. Looking back down at the book he was reading, he greeted Wilbur but said no more.

Rifling through his dresser for a shirt to sleep in, Wilbur chuckled to himself. “Tommy’s something else, y’know? Poor kid just didn’t want to be alone at bedtime. It’s so weird,” he said, finding a shirt and changing into it. “You kinda just have to tell kids that it’ll be okay, but you don’t know that. It doesn’t feel like lying, though. It’s just… the right thing to do. You suppose Dad’s had to do something like that?”

Having closed the book due to Wilbur’s rambling, Techno nodded. “Well yeah, just think about it. I’m sure there’s dozens of things Dad’s covered up for us when we were little. We just don’t remember ‘cause we thought it was nothing.”

Wilbur got into his bed and hummed in agreement. “Oh, absolutely. I just think it’s odd how we don’t really think about it.”

“Well can you think about it quieter? I was reading before you came in.”

“There’s not much else to think about on that subject. I’m just gonna sleep anyways,” Wilbur said, taking his glasses off and putting them on his bedside table then rolling over to face the wall.

After some time, Techno too got tired, and set down his book before doing the exact same ritual. Glasses on the table, rolled over to face the wall. A mirror image.

The two fell asleep, despite Wilbur’s belief that he’d be up all night. Being around Tommy can be tiresome. They both slept peacefully in their room until a sound woke Wilbur up. Crying. Before he could get up himself, his sheets were ripped from him. Rolling back over, he fumbled for his glasses and put them on for a minute.

Tommy. He’d woken in the middle of the night, and was clearly upset. “Wilbyyy,” he cried, “I had- I had,” he hiccuped. “I had a bad dream and I can’t sleep.”

Annoyed, Wilbur pulled his blanket back up. “Tommy, you can if you try. Just get back in bed.”

The boy sniffled and pulled at Wilbur’s sheets in protest. “Nuh uh, I don’t wanna. I’ll be all by myself in there!” He said through tears.

Oh. Of course. The kid wasn’t scared of some dream he had or monsters under the bed. He was just lonely. Little brat melted Wilbur’s heart. “Lemme guess. You don’t wanna go to sleep alone?”

Tommy shook his head emphatically.

“Fine,” Wilbur said, already taking his glasses back off. He made some space on his bed. “Get in you little crybaby.”

His demeanor already changed, Tommy climbed in next to his big brother and snuggled in. “Thanks again,” he mumbled, already sleepy again.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wilbur said, also setting into bed. “Don't mention it.”

Finally, all three boys were to bed and asleep peacefully. Tommy wasn’t even a pain to share a bed with. Apparently, sleep was the only time that kid was completely still. Wilbur didn’t lose any sleep at all.

Like he had promised, Phil was back in the morning. It was still quite early, long before any of the boys would need to be up. He had stopped in the bathroom first, to get the first aid kit. His little trip had gotten him some bad injuries, but he could fix them up before any of his boys ever knew. And likely never would know. After that he went upstairs. It had been a sleepless night for him, and he was dying to see a bed.

Of course, he had to see if his kids were asleep first. Techno and Wil’s room was the first in the hall, and he popped his head in there first. Techno was asleep, his long hair splayed all around him and flowing onto his face. He looked over to Wilbur’s bed and couldn’t help but grin. Wilbur was asleep, a surprise of course, based on how sleepless the boy usually was, but there was another thing that took Phil by surprise. Tucked under Wilbur’s arm, fast asleep and smiling vacantly, was Tommy. For once in their lives, his sons weren’t fighting or getting up to something. Phil didn’t know what led to this moment, but wasn’t particularly worried with that. Whatever it was, it was just proof that his boys could handle themselves, and Phil was proud. Still smiling, he left the room and went to his own, collapsing onto his bed and finally sleeping himself.

[acecorvid]

I’m thinking either dance class or yoga class for Spideyfam or Spideypool...

It's been two years since I've updated the series "This Spideyfam Has Two Dads" so if you wanna start at the beginning: here ya go. This will be part 12 in the series of Spiderfam adventures.

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” Peter moaned, muscles stretching in ways that were going to give him trouble for the next month. Despite his morning stretches—that he performed most mornings, if he remembered, sometimes he remembered—he wasn’t feeling particularly fit anymore. “Aw, that’s why you gotta stretch out, old man!” Of course it was Gwen, the spider that moved like a graceful dancer with ballet slippers to boot, who pointed this out. She didn’t do it maliciously. All of the spiders were trying to help him get back into shape so he didn’t throw out his back at least once a month. Sure it healed but it wasn’t entirely pleasant every time. Hence, yoga classes instructed by some youtuber that Gwen had discovered. She was disappointed that a yoga youtuber from her verse didn’t exist in Miles’ verse (or she wasn’t a yoga teacher on the internet in this one), but she said this one had the most similar vibe that made her feel relaxed and productive. Peter found it to be a mild form of torture...

but the others seemed to enjoy it. Even Noir, still clad in their coat and mask, was happy to participate—and was much more limber than Peter could ever hope to be anymore. Surely it would be easier without the trench coat but Noir never took it off, but no one in the Spiderfamily questioned it. They all had their quirks, their secrets, and they respected everyone else’s. “You know, it’s not really fair to do yoga when one of us defies the laws of physics…” Miles grumbled as he shifted into a much more complicated pose that Peter decided he was going to sit out on. Pan to Peter Porker, body stretched beyond logic. Looking more like a pretzel than a man or a pig. “The problem is your minds are too narrow to understand the right way to break those laws,” Porker replied, moving to the next pose in a way that hurt Peter’s mind and spine to watch. “It’s like he doesn’t have bones…” There was a sort of fascinating horror in Porker’s cartoonish abilities. On one hand, it was amazing and hilarious to see the kinds of things he was capable of. On the other, it was downright mind boggling and disturbing to witness. They’d all accepted the multiverse and their many differences, but coming to terms with cartoon physics existing was a lot harder to accept than this verse saying “you PUNT miette” instead of kick. Peter still had no sweet clue how old Porker was, or if age mattered in the same way for a cartoon pig. Though to be perfectly honest, all of the spiders were toddlers from his perspective. A man closing in on his forties had no business being a superhero when there were other younger spiders (with essentially his powers) able to take over when he could barely manage to do intermediate yoga poses without wanting to detach his stiff and aching limbs. Keeping up with the kids was difficult sometimes but what it really came down to was Peter’s unwillingness to sit back and let a bunch of kids do his job alone. He remembered what it was like: sixteen, completely alone, the fate of a city resting solely on his inexperienced shoulders, juggling secrets and homework and nemeses. He couldn’t retire when he could still do his part to help, to be a support for this unusual family of vigilantes trying to heal from their trauma by making the world better. “You alright, Pops?” Peter blinked out of his reverie to see all the spiders gawking at him as he laid in defeat on his yoga mat. “Just taking a break,” he grunted, forcing his old body to co-operate and focus on completing the next yoga post. Next to him, Gwen didn’t look like she believed him but she didn’t press. They fell into a comfortable silence as they moved through the next round of poses. Peter tried his best not to get distracted but he caught Gwen’s eye after he pulled off a particularly difficult pose for him. There was a fierce proudness in her eyes and it was almost too much for him, seeing how much she cared about him staying active. She easily slipped into the role of surrogate big sister and somehow landed them in the ‘struggling dad needing to rely on the assistance of the eldest kid’ trope. Peter wouldn’t have been happy with this development except her version of taking care of him was similar to the snarky scolding he would get from Aunt May, combined with the soft understanding of a strangely shared trauma. Not to mention it was also their deal. Watch over each other. “Oh hey, family yoga?” Wade’s voice interrupted the yoga lady’s instructions as the door flew open behind them. No one was expecting him back today, but no one could ever really expect Wade. He showed up without any warning, texts, phone calls, but—which he found was lacking in the Deadpool from his old verse—he usually showed back up in one piece and not entirely as bloody as one would imagine for his line of work. He made a big effort not to worry the kids when he could help it and Peter appreciated that. “Dad Number 3!” Miles called out. He attempted to turn his body mid-pose to greet him but ended up falling onto his mat the moment he lost his balance. “Wow, lookin’ good B!” Peter

could feel Wade’s eyes on his ass without even turning around. He flushed immediately but that was mostly from the pose that had positioned him with his ass in the air right before Wade walked in the door. Of all the coincidences… Of course Gwen chose that moment to stand up abruptly and clap her hands. “Okay gang! Let’s pack up the yoga mats and break into teams to patrol the city!” “Gwen, it’s only three o’clock.” Miles looked up at her in confusion. “I know ‘crime never sleeps’ but the city’s probably-” “Oh, Miles,” Peni shook her head, walking over to pat his head. “So young, so naive.” “You’re like twelve, Peni.” “I’m fourteen. Now, let’s go! I wanna kick some early worm bad guy butt!” “That’s the spirit, kiddo!” Gwen high-fived her and ushered the rest of the spiders out the door before Peter or Wade had the chance to comment. “So,” Wade’s smooth voice was suddenly right behind Peter’s ear. His body a warm and solid presence slowly pushing up against him. “Working on your… flexibility, huh old man?” Peter had to admit, there were definitely other benefits to staying active that did not involve superhero responsibilities.

[ssfghfrrggf]

Heavy is the Head Chapter 5: Fight This

ao3 link

“This isn’t going away, is it?” Kelly asks and slips into Casey’s office as the group of white shirts file out.

“The guy is serious about his complaint about Kidd botching that rescue,” Casey replies, letting his gaze linger on the chiefs as they make their way through the bullpen.”It’s not going away and it’s looking pretty serious too. He’s hired lawyers and everything.”

“Serious how?” Kelly asks and closes the door. “What’s she looking at with this?”

When Casey had told him and Stella this was a possibility it had all just been rumor, nothing more than the guy she saved swearing that he was going to have her rank if not her job. Now it’s escalated to official accusations and lawyers, and the worst part Stella seems to not even care.

“Demotion at best. The guy is claiming she’s too incompitent to lead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Severide spits angrily. She did exactly what the rest of them would’ve done; he feels bad for the guy who lost his daughter but it’s in no way Stella’s fault. She did everything she could.

“I know,” Casey agrees, shaking his head. 

“The white shirts have to know that,” Severide declares loudly, pacing back and forth across Casey’s office. “They can’t be taking this seriously.”

“They do, but they have to take it seriously,” Casey replies, leaning against his desk. “But that’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is Stella.”

“What about her?” Severide demands and stops pacing.

“She doesn’t seem worried,” Casey says with a sigh and folds his arms over his chest.

“She’s not a worrier, Case,” Severide says defensively, but he’s right. When he first told them this could be happening she didn’t even seem a little worried that someone might be coming for her rank.

“I know, but you don’t think there’s something else going on?” Casey asks.

Severide frowns. “I don’t know. It’s been hard to get a read on her since she got back from that call.”

“Did you guys talk about it?” Casey asks, taking on a concerned expression.

“A little bit, but I didn’t push it,” Severide replies; he’s beginning to wonder if maybe he should’ve.

***

“So what are you going to do?” Sylvie asks, sipping her coffee and looking over at Stella.

“I don’t know, Brett,” Stella replies, not looking over at her friend. People can tell her a hundred times over she made the right call that night, but there’s a girl dead. A girl who was counting on her to save her, and Stella failed her. She failed her and her father; the truth of the matter is she’s not even mad at the guy for coming for her rank. There’s a part of her that feels like she deserves it or that it’s the right thing. She made a mistake and it cost someone their life, and she’s not sure how to start processing it. Helping people is in her instincts, it’s where her heart pulls, and if she can’t do that as a lieutenant, if she can’t make the right calls, then maybe she shouldn’t be one. Maybe that will help people in the future.

“Hey guys!”

“Oh hey Chloe!” Stella says and stands up where she and Sylvie are sitting on the top of 81 to wave to Cruz’s wife; she has Brian with her in a baby carrier. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to drop off Brian,” Chloe replies with pursed lips as Stella climbs down from the roof of the truck, Brett following her. “I have an appointment I forgot about and I don’t want to take him in with me, and the baby siter-”

“Say no more!” Stella says, guiding the mother toward the doors leading inside. She’s grateful for the distraction even if it’s only a brief. “We’ll-”

“Truck 81, lift assist.”

“Oh, duty calls, gotta run,” she says and ducks off toward the truck. Her chest feels unnaturally tight and it takes a second for her to remind herself to breathe. It’s just a lift assist. She can do that.

***

Sylvie frowns as she watches her friend climb onto 81, there’s something she’s not telling her, some feeling she’s keeping to herself. Something that’s eating at her.

“Here, I’ll take you inside,” Sylvie offers, and finishes guiding Chloe inside as 81 pulls out of the station, sirens blaring.

“Is Stella okay?” Chloe asks, glancing at the truck as they slip through the doors.

“She had a rough call the other night, and it’s gotten a little complicated,” Sylvie explains. “But she’ll be okay.”

Sylvie decides that Stella will be okay, she’ll make sure she is. She’ll make sure the truck lieutenant, her best friend, knows she did the right thing and that she’ll be okay.

“Chloe!” Joe rejoices at the sight of his wife as he runs over to meet her. “And my favorite baby! No offence Capp.”

“Hey!” Capp protests as Tony and Severide both struggle to contain snorts of amusement at the insult that flew so naturally.

“Come to daddy!” Cruz says and undoes the straps holding Brian in his carrier. He scoops the boy out and holds him. “So big!”

“What is going on?” A silence falls over the room as Casey comes in with his hands on his hips. He looks pissed, not necessarily about there being a baby in his station, he just seems to be having a bad day and this is adding to it.

“Chloe has an appointment so I said I’d watch Brian here for her. We don’t want him picking up any germs or anything-”

“And what if we get a call?” Casey demands, Cruz looks both hurt and surprised. “Who’s going to watch him then? You should’ve checked with me first, or gotten a babysitter.”

“I’m sorry Captain I thought it’d be okay…”

Sylvie catches a very brief yet meaningful exchange of looks between Severide and the chief, and Casey softens. 

“It’s fine, just… don’t let Tuesday eat him or anything,” Casey sighs and shaking his head, leaves the room.

Severide gets up and follows him. Sylvie is about to go after the squad lieutenant but he gives her a little wave that says he’s got it.

“I can take him with me if you’re going to get in trouble with Casey,” Chloe says hesitantly, glancing around the room. “I didn’t realize it’d be an inconvenience.”

“Nonsense, there’s just a lot going on with Casey right now,” Sylvie assures her. “We’ll take good care of Brian.”

“Yeah, we’ll let him climb the ariel,” Cruz says, cradling his son close. “Does he want to do that?”

“And I won’t let them do anything stupid,” Sylvie adds, as she and Chloe laugh at Cruz’s comment that could only be construde as a joke.

***

“Casey, what was that?” Severide asks following the chief into his office. They’re both stressed right now, but he’d come down on Cruz pretty hard, especially since it’s more than normal for Chloe to bring Brian to the house. They’re family.

“Don’t start Severide,” Casey says shortly.

“I’m not trying to start anything, Case. I'm concerned. I know you're stressed but what are you laying into Cruz like that for?” Severide says defensively. He’s beginning to second guess his decision to follow Casey into his office. Right now it seems a little like he’s decided to follow a hungry bear into its den.

“You ever feel like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew?” Casey sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustrated exhaustion.

“Yeah,” Kelly replies. With this conversationI he adds silently in his head.

“I don’t know how Boden did this. I’ve been chief for a couple weeks and everything’s gone to hell,” Casey huffs eyeing the mountain of paperwork on his desk.

“You’re having second thoughts?” Severide asks, raising both eyebrows. This is the third time Casey’s been promoted since Kelly’s known him. Each of the previous times he’s had his rough patches getting started, but he never once considered quitting or regretted his choice to accept the promotion

“Yes- no- I don’t know!” Casey cries and throws his arms in the air. “I feel like I’m juggling a million things, and none of them are getting my attention or the attention they need.”

“Well you gotta get it figured out man, or the house is going to start feeling it,” Kelly replies.

“That’s really not helpful.”

Severide is about to open his mouth to defend himself but is interrupted by the bell.

“Squad 3, engine 51, additional resource request. Structure fire.”

“I’ll be back,” Severide says as he heads for the door.

“Don’t bother,” Casey mutters.

“Come on chief-”

“You have a call, Lieutenant.”

“Yes sir.”

***

“And what could be through this door?”

Casey looks up at the sound of Brett’s soft playful voice and sees her poking her head around the door frame with Brian in her arms. 

“It’s the big grumpy chief,” she whispers and sticks her bottom lip out at Casey when she sees him looking at her.

Casey sighs and leans back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “I was a dick-”

“Not in front of the baby!” Sylvie scolds, standing upright and walking into the room, bouncing the baby on her hip. It looks so natural, like it’s second nature to her. Matt thinks he’d be the luckiest man alive if she’d one day do that with their kid. “What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing,” he says, and gives his head a little shake, but the daydream lingers. He wants to marry her.

“And yes you were, by the way,” she adds, but it’s accompanied by a loving smile.

Matt snorts in amusement. She’s definitely right, Cruz and Chloe didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of his frustration, and he really feels bad about it. Brian will always be welcome in this house, even on day’s when Matt’s feeling stressed out of his mind.

“Severide seems to agree,” Casey mutters.

“Matt, talk to me,” Sylvie says and sits down in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“I feel like I’m drowning,” Casey admits, like he’s trapped in heavy wet bunker gear that’s dragging him to the bottom of Lake Michigan. “I’m trying to juggle a hundred different things, and I’m also trying to stop Stella from getting dragged down by this mess with that call, because she isn’t, but I got nothing. I’ve been chief for all of like two weeks so I don’t even have any favors I can pull.”

“Have you thought about calling Boden?” Sylvie asks, picking Brian up so he’s resting on her shoulder.

“No, I’m not doing that,” Casey says. That's the last thing on earth he wants to do. He can’t just go crawling to his retired chief everytime he has a problem.

“I’m not saying you have to ask him to pull in a favor, but go to him for advice. No one’s expecting you to be perfect at this from the start. I can almost guarantee it took Boden a while to become the old wise chief we all know. You’re new, you’re learning. There’s nothing wrong with getting advice,” Sylvie argues. “If you’re drowning, it’s okay to grab onto the life line for help. No one’s going to judge you, and if they do, they’ll have to deal with me.”

“Thanks Sylvie,” Matt replies, but all the advice in the world isn’t going to do him or Stella any good if she doesn’t stick up for herself. They could have the best argument in the world, but if the lieutenant who made the decision doesn’t stand up to defend herself it makes her look guilty.

“Why don’t you take a break for a couple minutes and come help me change Brian’s diaper?” Sylvie asks. 

“I don’t really have-”

“Matt, come on. Take a breath, just for a couple minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” Matt agrees, knowing he’s not going to win this fight, and it seems like there’s something else on Sylvie’s mind. 

“What about you?” he asks, following her out into the bullpen. “What’s on your mind?”

“Now’s probably not the best time,” Syvlie says with a shrug handing Casey the changing mat to lay out on one of the empty desks.

“Come on,” Matt insists.

“Matt you just finished explaining to me how overwhelmed you are right now. You don’t need me throwing more onto your plate,” she replies and sets Brian down on the mat. She’s not upset or angry, just matter of fact.

“Hey, I don’t want this getting in the way of us,” Casey says and turns her so she’s looking up at him.

“Fine,” Sylvie sighs and turns back around to undo the baby’s diaper. “My family wants to come up for Christmas, and I want you to meet them.”

“Oh,” Matt says. He’d asked her for it and it’s even something they’ve talked about briefly before, but somehow it takes him by surprise and he’s not sure what to say.

“Chief, you have a call from chief Conway,” Kylie calls to him before he can reply to Sylvie.

“I gotta get that- we’ll talk…”

“Okay,” Sylvie replies and the disappointment and slump in her shoulders hurts him like a punch in the stomach.

***

“Squad 3 are you available to go back into service.”

“Yes, where do you need us, Main?” Kelly asks, picking up the radio. He was hoping to expend some energy on the last call, but it turned out to be not much of anything and they probably didn’t even really need the squad assist.

“Rescue assist from truck 81.”

“You got it main,” Severide replies and gives Tony the nod to hit the sirens.

“What are we looking at?” Severide asks, climbing out of the truck and putting his helmet on his head as he does so. 81 already has traffic blocked on the bridge.

“Guy hit the median, and got ejected,” Stella explains, then points to the other side of the bridge where a whole long section of the chain link fence to have been taken out. “He took out the fence and got tangled. Now he’s dangling from it over the water.”

Severide pears over the rail and sure enough their victim is hanging a good 10 or 15 feet down from the piece of fencing hanging down from the bridge.

“Damn, okay I’m going down to get him. Cruz get the rope rescue equipment, and I need 81 in position, we’re going to need the ladder to get me out over the edge,” Severide says, straightening up to give out his orders. Stella doesn’t say much of anything. She just waves to Mouch who starts moving the ladder truck, Severide can’t help but notice how willingly she was to relinquish her command of the scene; he’s so used to Casey who always seems to go overboard when it comes asserting his dominance.

Severide hooks himself into his harness as Mouch gets the ladder into position. Then before long he’s clipped in and making his descent to the unconscious man. He’s halfway through getting webbing attached to the guy to stabilize his position when the whole mess of wire hanging off the bridge shifts and the man shifts. He bites back a cry of pain as the man’s full weight is suddenly pulling his arm. There’s a terrifying second where he thinks the man’s dead weight is going to pull his arm out of its socket, and if the rest of the fence comes down, it actually will.

***

“Severide! Are you okay down there?” Stella shouts down to Kelly. She can see him struggling with the victim, but she can’t see exactly what he’s doing.

“Yeah,” he calls back, but it’s not very convincing. His voice is strained and it sounds like he’s hurting. “Pull him up, I’ve got him hooked up!”

“Pull him up!” Stella relays the order.

“Hey, what happened?” Stella asks once Kelly is back up safe.

“The fence shifted and pulled all his weight onto the arm I was holding him with,” Kelly explains with a nonchalant shrug and unclips his harness.

“But you’re okay?” she presses, looking him up and down. She knows he probably wouldn’t tell her if he was hurt, but she has to ask.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” he says, squinting at her.

“Why’s that?” she asks with a frown.

“I might not be the best with emotions and stuff, but I’m not blind Stella Kidd,” he replies, taking both of her hands in his. “There’s something bugging you and I have two guesses-”

“Kelly, I've got it handled,” she promises. She’s not sure how to explain to him, what needs to be explained to him, and part of her doesn’t even want to tell him she’s not planning on fighting the action against her. She’s scared of what she’ll see in his eyes, anger, disappointment, sadness, or worse that he’ll go cold and silent on her. Or he might try to fight her on it and she’s too tired to fight him.

“You know you can talk to me,” Kelly says, and looks a little hurt, like he doesn’t believe her and like he wants her to just talk to him, but he doesn’t push her. “I know I’m not the best with advice, but I can try if you’ll let me.”

This stops Stella where she stands. It hadn’t really occurred to her until now that he might think she doesn’t want to talk to him because he’s bad at talking. 

“We’ll talk, I promise,” she says and pulls her hands away from his. She turns and heads for 81, but Kelly stops her.

“Hey, you know you got this Stella Kidd,” he calls after her, and it stings. She wishes she shared that same unwavering faith in her.

***

“Smoke break?” Severide asks, holding up two cigars as he pokes his head into Casey’s office. Matt knows he shouldn’t, there’s entirely too much going on right now, but he really needs a break from everything… just 10 minutes. Just a 10 minute break to blow off steam with Severide.

“Yes, let’s go,” He says and stands up, trying not to sound too enthusiastic about it.

“Things not going well?” Severide asks as they walk outside, he sounds like he already knows the answer.

“Don’t even get me started,” he grumbles and leans against the front bumper of the squad. The higher up chiefs have been calling non stop, and even a couple lawyers.

“Case, what’s going on with this whole mess?” Severide asks, lighting up his cigar. “I tried talking to Stella at that last call but she blew me off. Like I know I suck at talking about feelings, but I just wish she’d tell me what’s going on in her head. I can tell she wants to.”

“Getting advice from you is like getting advice from rock,” Casey comments, not really sure what to tell his friend.

“Well you’re not much better,” Severide mutters and blows out a breath of smoke.

“Brett wants me to meet her parents,” Casey says, changing the subject.

Severide looks over at him with both eyebrows raised. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing yet,” Casey says and scratches his head. “Which I feel like might’ve been a mistake.”

“Probably sends the wrong message,” Severide agrees, which isn’t really helpful.

Before Casey reply two chiefs buggies pull up the house.

“Smoke breaks over,” Casey sighs.

“Let me know what’s up,” Severide as the white shirts get out of their cars.

“Will do.”

***

“You guys are so down in the dumps,” Nathan comments as he turns on the stove to start making dinner for everyone. He knows everyone’s a little on edge because the chief is stressed, and lieutenant Kidd is currently under scrutiny for the call she made the last shift, but the house could benefit from being a little more lively. Moral being down is never a good thing.

“It’s called laying low and not getting your head bitten off by your chief or two of the three lieutenants on shift,” Gallo says sinking a little lower into his chair and pulling his hat down over his eyes.

“Laying low takes the stress away,” Mouch adds from his spot on the couch. “I’ve weathered out more than one hurricane Caseys in my days, and laying low, being quiet and staying out of the way is the best way to survive.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of his anger,” Ritter says, letting Tuesday lick the peanut butter off his spoon. “Gallo can tell you all about that.”

“We need something to do around here other than sit around and watch tv,” Nathan says decidedly. He understands wanting to sit down and relax after a call, but it gets boring and he wants to be doing stuff. “We should get a ping pong table or air hockey table.”

Mouch, Herrmann, and Cruz all snort in unison. 

“No we shouldn’t,” Cruz is the first to actually say anything. “I’m pretty sure there’s still glass on the floor outside the briefing room from when we broke the door.”

“You guys broke the door?” Gallo asks, sitting up and lifting the hat from his eyes.

“We shouldn’t do anything competitive, unless it’s who can vent that roof the fastest,” Mouch says disinterestedly without offering much explanation.

“We have fun, but always goes a little too far,” Cruz adds.

“I thought Casey was going to choke Otis out when he went through that door,” Herrmann laughs to himself. “We had too much fun with that thing.”

“And the foosball table?” Cruz adds, laughing to himself and pats Brian on the back. “I’m surprised no one lost their job over that one.”

“What did you guys do?” Nathan asks, looking between the three older firefighters in bafflement. Foosball is an intense game, but he’s not sure how it could result in potential career loss.

“Cruz was spinning,” Herrmann says defensively.

“I was not!” Cruz objects, trying to keep his voice quiet and civil so as not wake the sleeping baby on his chest. “You just can’t admit that I was winning fair and square! And the refs didn’t call it-”

“Well that’s what happens when you make  Capp and Tony the refs!” Herrmann shouts and stands up angrily.

“Hey! We’re great refs!” Capp says indignantly.

“You know what,” Cruz says and stands up to face Herrmann. “Mouch, hold the baby,” he hands Brian off to the firefighter sitting peacefully on the couch. Then gets right up close to the engine lieutenant. “We need to settle this once and for all.”

“You’re on,” Herrmann says glaring down the much bigger firefighter.

“Probie, what did you do,” Gallo whispers to Nathan, who quite frankly has no idea what he just started. All he wanted to do was make things a little more lively in the house and boost moral a little. Not start a feud between Herrmann and Cruz.

“Molly’s, tomorrow night 7:00 pm,” Cruz replies without flinching.

“I’ll bring the foosball table.”

“And I’ll bring the ref.”

“What are you boys fighting about?” Mackey asks strolling into the common room, and probably interrupting what was about to turn into an all out brawl between the squad firefighter and the engine lieutenant.

“This cheating disgrace,” Herrmann says, gesturing to Cruz as he steps off.

“They’re fighting about a foosball match that happened like 12 years ago,” Mouch explains, bouncing Brian on his knees.

“I am the queen of foosball,” Mackey says and plops herself down into a chair. “I’ll face the winner… and win.”

“Those are fighting words young lady, better be careful with them,” Mouch warns.

“Herrmann’s too old and slow to beat me, and Joe can’t beat me because I’m like his kid sister.”

Herrmann looks like he’s about to blow a gasket, but before he can the bell rings and calls for the engine company.

***

Severide sees the chiefs leave and takes that his queue to head toward Casey’s office to catch the tail end of whatever conversation happened between him, the chiefs and Stella who’d been called into the office not long after the chiefs had showed up. Chief Conway has a smug look on his face that Kelly doesn’t like.

 He’s halfway through the bullpen when Casey’s door opens and Stella walks out, visibly upset. She pushes past him without so much as a glance. Severide looks to Casey and all the chief has to do is shake his head for him to finally understand, understand all of it, why Stella has been ducking around and why she hasn’t wanted to talk to him, not to mention how strange she’s been acting… she’s not fighting the action against her. Severide turns around and goes after her. 

“Stella, what the hell are you doing?” Severide says catching the door to her quarters with his boot before it can swing closed.

“I don’t want to hear it, Kelly!” She snaps back, spinning on her heels. There’s hurt in her voice and it’s not because he’s challenging her most recent life choice.

“Well that’s too bad! I’m not going to let you roll over and swallow this!” he retorts. “You worked too hard to just give up!”

“It’s not up to you!” she shouts.

“Stella! This guy is out of his mind. Any of us would’ve made the exact same decision. You made the right call! You have to defend yourself on this,” Severide insists. 

“I can’t Kelly!” she cries, throwing her arms in the air. “I can’t do that Kelly!”

“Why the hell not?!” Severide demands, trying and failing to regain his composure and return the calm into his voice. She worked so hard for her promotion and now she’s just letting it slip through her fingers without a fight. 

“How can I defend a decision that I don’t even know was right?” she shouts back, tears coming into her eyes. “A girl died because of the choice I made, Kelly. I am responsible for that. I was responsible for running that scene. Those victims put their trust in me and I let them down. I let them down… I can’t Kelly. I can’t defend myself if I’m not sure of my choice.”

Stella’s words take the wind out of his fight and he lets out a slow breath. “That’s why you're just taking this without a fight?”

“I can’t fight. I made a mistake,” she says, her voice softening to something heart broken and desperate. “I made a mistake and someone died, I can’t defend that. I can’t fight for a position that I’m not ready for especially since it will only put more people in danger.”

“Stella, any one of us would’ve made that same decision,” Kelly says gently and steps close to her, and reaches for her hand but she pulls away from him. “Stella-”

“Don’t lie to me just to get me to fight this.”

“Stella Kidd, I wouldn’t lie to you, especially about this. Moving the car could’ve caused spinal damage to both victims and it would’ve only saved you seconds. Seconds that wouldn’t have helped that girl, and if you’d waited any longer with the dad, he probably would’ve died,” Kelly insists.

“You don’t know that.”

“And you know for a fact that those seconds would’ve saved that girl?” Kelly replies, locking gazes with her. “If you can look me in the eyes and tell me that you know for a fact that those seconds would’ve saved that girl's life then I’ll drop it and walk away. I’ll let you give up.”

Stella closes her mouth.

“You can always go down the hole of what ifs, Stella. But you saved a life last night. Maybe it wasn’t the one that dad wanted you to save, but you saved someone so if you find confidence in nothing else, find it in that,” Severide says. “What if’s go both ways, what if you tried the other way and they both died? It’s easy to judge yourself after you know how things end, but it’s not so easy making choices when it’s in the moment. And in that moment you looked at what you had and you made the decision you could and you saved someone.”

Before Stella can reply, the bell rings.

“Squad 3, water rescue, ambulance 61 med stand by for water rescue.”

Severide hesitates before leaving. “We can’t save everyone. Don’t throw away everything you worked for because of it.”

Stella doesn’t say anything as he leaves.

“Is everything okay with you and Stella?” Sylvie asks, giving Severide a concerned look as they head for the trucks

“No,” he says bluntly, too angry to be quoi. “She’s not fighting the action against her.”

“She’s not what?” Sylvie demands, sounding shocked.

“She’s not fighting it. She says she made the wrong call and can’t defend her actions with a clean conscience,” Kelly replies, and swings up into the squad truck.

***

“Hey Maggie, can I get you to do a huge favor for me?” Sylvie asks, stopping the ED nurse as she finishes up her paperwork.

“Sure, what do you need?” the nurse asks, stopping whatever she’s working on to give Brett her attention.

“The dad whose daughter coded in our ambo last shift, what can you tell me about his condition?” Sylvie asks, leaning on the counter.

“I’m not supposed to share anything,” Maggie says apologetically.

“Look, Kidd is facing a lot of heat over this and she’s not fighting any of it because she thinks she made the wrong choice in not moving the car on the call,” Sylvie explains.

“She thought about moving the car? And she’s facing heat over all this?” Maggie says, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, why?” Sylvie asks cautiously.

“No one from the CFD has been by to get medical records, and they definitely should’ve. Especially if moving the car was an option.”

***

“Severide, calm down,” Casey says, trying weakly to talk down the squad lieutenant pacing angrily in his office. “The department is still planning on fighting the case on her behalf.”

“Yes, but if she doesn’t give a statement, the lawyers will eat it alive,” Severide argues.

“And what exactly do you want me to do?” Casey says helplessly.

“Hey, where’s 81?” Sylvie asks, poking her head into Casey’s office, interrupting their conversation. 

“Out fueling up, why? Casey asks.

“Because I need to talk to Stella,” Sylvie says. “I’ll go wait for her in the bay.”

Before Matt can say anything to her, she’s ducking out again and closing the door.

***

“Stella, we gotta talk,” Sylvie says to her best friend before she’s even all the way out of the truck.

“Kelly put you up to this?” the lieutenant asks flatley, looking unpleased with the notion.

“No, he’s too busy running around like chicken with its head cut off in Casey’s office. I’m not really sure how either of them ever get anything done to be honest with you,” Sylvie replies, and gets Stella to crack a smile. “I took matters into my own hands.”

“So this is about that,” Stella says with a sigh and closes the door to 81.

“Yes it is. And I am here to tell you, you can not throw your career away over that call, Stella,” Sylvie says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Brett-”

“C2 through C5,” Sylvie blurts, interrupting Stella. “Those were the vertebrae broken in the girl’s neck. And L3 and L4 were broken in the dad’s back and he had a punctured lung. If you’d moved the car it would’ve killed the girl by fracturing her neck all the way, the dad probably would’ve been paralized from the waist down, and extricating him last could’ve killed him.”

“Where-”

“While lieutenant dumb and chief dumber were busy panicking, I went to Med and talked Maggie into giving me the details on the victims. There was nothing to you or anyone could’ve done for that girl, and you saved the dad by making the choice you did.”

“You mean…”

“You made the right call, Stella,” Brett reaffirms her, and the look of pure relief that crosses Stella’s face is like nothing Brett’s ever seen. “Nobody is more deserving to sit in that officer’s seat. You have to fight this.”

Stella nods and opens her mouth, but gets interrupted.

“Truck 81, Engine 51, Ambulance 61, Squad 3, residential structure fire. Smoke and fire showing.”

“I will, Brett.”

“And you should probably talk to Severide before he loses what little mind he has left,” Sylvie jokes, already feeling lighter right along with her friend.

“As soon as we get back,” Stella promises, stepping into her bunker pants. “Come on girls! I’ve seen candidates get geared up faster than you!” she shouts redirecting her energy to her crew. “No offense Nathan.”

***

“81 I want you guys on ventilation and primary search with squad, 51 i want you guys to start knocking this mess down,” Casey orders as the trucks begin to roll onto the scene after him and people start getting off. There’s one minivan parked out front and no one standing outside the house, meaning people are probably home and still inside. And it’s a saturday which means the kids they probably have are most likely home too. The smoke hasn’t turned black and violent yet which means they’ve got time

“Mouch and Marks, I want you guys on the roof ready to go when I know what we’re looking at inside,” Stella orders, and she seems to have a new energy that she didn’t have this morning. There’s a spring her step and confidence has returned to her voice. “Gallo, you’re with me.”

“Tony and Capp take the 1st floor. Cruz you’re with me, we’ll take the 2nd floor with truck,” Severide says, and Casey catches the lieutenant casting a quick glance at his girlfriend. He seems to notice Stella’s change in stride as well.

***

“Fire department! Call out!” Gallo shouts, echoing his lieutenant’s calls as they work their way down the upstairs hallway, the squad 3 firefighters not far behind them. It’s dim and smokey, the only clear light around them is the fire dancing dangerously up the sides of the walls, but it’s wild and confusing and disorienting. It makes everything look the same, but he keeps his breathing slow and calm, and his ears pricked for the sound of anyone calling out for help.

“In here!” Comes a weak reply to their shouts that ends in a cough.

“That was off to the right, through that door,” Gallo says, patting Stella on the shoulder to get her attention. 

“Alright, let’s go get 'em,” his lieutenant replies and works her way carefully across the hallway, moving with ease and grace. Part of Gallo can’t believe she’d ever question her place on this job or as a leader. She’s a natural, fluid and thorough.

“Keep searching the rest of the hallway,” she calls to Severide before shouldering her way through the door. He’s not sure if it’s just that they’re on a structure fire which makes everyone a little happier, or if something else happened, but she seems more sure of herself and comfortable than she has all shift.

There’s three kids in the room, an older brother who’s maybe twelve and two smaller girls who look like twins.

“Hey, we got you guys,” Gallo promises and gets down on one knee with Stella in front of them. They’re wide eyed and terrified, the brother clinging onto the girls like their lives depend on it.

“Come here kiddos,” Stella says reassuringly and gently pulls the two little girls toward her. “You two are going to come with me.”

“What about buh-buh?” One of the little girls asks, her voice quivering in fear as Stella scoops her up .

“I got him,” Gallo promises.

“Yeah, I’ll be with the other firefighter, Lacy,” the boy promises as he ruffles his sister’s hair.

“You got em?” Gallo asks as he picks up the boy.

“Yeah,” Stella says, adjusting both kids so she has one on each hip. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Chief, this is Kidd and Gallo. We’ve got three kids and are heading out.”

“Tony and Capp, we’ve got the parents and are heading out too.”

“Cruz and Severide, we’re blocked off in the delta side corner, second floor.”

Gallo can hear Stella stop behind him, and he knows exactly what’s running through her mind.

“Lieutenant, we gotta get these kids out of here,” He says looking over his shoulder at her. The smoke is starting get darker and hotter. “They’re smart. They’ll figure their own way out.”

“Yeah,” she says swallowing. “Let’s keep going.”

“We’re bailing.”

“Chief, the roof’s getting soft,” Mouch reports when Gallo’s halfway down the stairs, Stella is a couple steps behind him. “We’re heading back down.”

No sooner has he spoken than the ceiling above them lets out a loud groan.

“Run!” Stella shouts.

Human instinct tells Gallo to look up, but his trust of his lieutenant is stronger. If she says run, then that’s what he’s going to do without looking back and without forethought. He’s known her long enough to where he’d follow her blindly- hell, he has followed her blindly through pitch black smoky hallways. He speeds up, skipping steps as he goes, and he’s only made it down about four when a massive wooden beam crashes down from the ceiling, only missing him by a couple feet. He can hear the girls with Stella scream, and he stops and spins around.

“No!” The boy in his arms shouts and starts fighting him to be let down.

“Lieutenant!” Gallo shouts, his heart pounding in his throat. She’s somewhere blocked off by the flaming beam completely blocking off the stairs.

“We’re all okay,” Stella shouts back, but Gallo still can’t get eyes on her. “I’m taking the girls back up to the room. We’ll bale out from there! Get out of here.”

Gallo hesitates, the boy in his arms still struggling to get free. “Copy that!”

“No! What about my sisters!” The boy protests, clawing at Gallo’s arms.

“They’re safe with my lieutenant,” Gallo promises and  turns his back on the stairs and heads for the exit.

***

“I need a ladder to the alpha side window. Stairs are blocked.”

Severide’s chest tightens as he hears Stella call come in over the radio. The second floor was in bad shape when he and Cruz made their bale.

“Mouch, Marks, get a ladder up there now,” Casey orders, but the two truck firefighters are already rushing toward the window with a ladder.

“Brett!” I’ve got a kid, smoke inhalation and minor burns!” Gallo shouts coming out of the house, holding a young boy in his arms. It grabs Severide attention away from the window and the danger that Stella is currently in only for a couple seconds. The young firefighter has a haunted expression on his face as he takes his helmet and mask off while Brett runs over to check out the kid he’s pulled from the house. Then the glass of the upstairs window is being busted out, and Severide returns his undivided attention to the window. He wants to be on the ladder helping Stella to safety, but Mouch has already beat him to it. Stella hands the first kid out the window and helps her find the rungs on the ladder with her feet; then Mouch begins his descent down the ladder, keeping one hand on the kid, helping her. Then Stella is coming out of the window with the other kid, and Severide allows himself to breathe.

***

“Hey, Stella,” Kelly grabs Stella’s arm and spins her around her to face him, interrupting her trek to the truck to rest for a couple minutes and get her nerves under control. She can still feel herself shaking. That beam had been less than foot from crushing her and the two little kids she had with her.

“Kelly-”

“No, just listen for a second please,” he says quietly. He always gets a little flustered and unsure when it comes to expressing his feelings, and she can tell that’s what this is. He’s worried, she can see it his concerned blue eyes. “I came at you harder than I meant to earlier-”

“Kelly, it’s okay-”

“I just need you not to give up. You’re meant to do this, you’re an amazing firefighter and great lieutenant. You already have it together better than me and Casey did this early into our command-”

“Kelly, I’m going to fight it,” Stella says, sliding both hands around the back of his neck.

“You-” He stops mid sentence like he didn’t quite register what she just said at first. “You are?”

She swallows and nods her head. “Yes. I am.”

“What changed your mind?” he breathes, relief flooding his face.

“Brett got the medical report from the call. Moving the car would’ve made things worse,” she says. “And I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. I was scared, I guess.”

Kelly just shakes his head a little and then grabs her and pulls her into a tight hug. “I meant what I said. You got this Stella Kidd, always.”

Stella hugs him back and runs her fingers through his short hair on the back of his neck. It’s good having him close to her again.

***

“Brett!” Casey calls to the paramedic, stopping her as she makes her way to the front of the ambulance. The other ambulances have already taken all the victims to the hospital. 

“What can I do for you chief?” she asks, stopping her hand on the door handle.

“You can tell your family I’d love to meet them for Christmas dinner,” Casey says, sliding his hands into his pockets and giving her an apologetic smile.

She lets her hand fall to her side and a ghost of smile slips across her face. “You’re sure?”

“Of course!” Casey says. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you think otherwise. I would love nothing more than to meet the people who raised you and helped you grow into the amazing woman you are today.”

The grin that comes across Sylvie’s face sends happy butterflies through Casey’s stomach, and for the first time since Chief Walker came into his office to tell him that there was an action being filed against Stella, he’s actually happy- like filled with real genuine joy that makes him feel warm and happy inside.

“Sorry I brought it up when I did,” she says, taking a step toward him and taking both of his hands in hers.

“I’m the one who asked,” Casey replies softly, and plants a kiss on the top of her head.

***

“I’m going to report to headquarters and give the chiefs my statement on what happened on that call, as soon as shift’s over,” Stella says, and Sylvie can see how relieved it makes Matt and Severide and she herself is very proud of Stella. It was a rough call, but she made the call all the way.

“Who’s the chief in charge of the case?” Sylvie asks. It’s been bugging her since she talked to Maggie at Med, in a case like this medical records seem like they should be the first that get looked into.

“Conway, why?” Casey asks, sitting back in his chair, and turning his attention in Sylvie’s direction; Severide and Stella do too.

“When I talked to Maggie earlier she said there hadn’t been requests from the CFD for the medical records regarding the call,” Sylvie says, Stella looks a little confused but realization dawns on both Severide and Matt’s faces.

“What…?” Stella ventures after a couple seconds.

“In a case like this the medical reports should be the first thing pulled in for review,” Casey says. “Half of these cases get tossed just after looking that far, and in this case it definitely would’ve.”

“So you’re saying Conway botched it?” Stella asks, looking between the three of them.

“Maybe he just missed it, but I’d be careful of him,” Sylvie says. “If he did it on purpose-”

“If he did it on purpose, he should get fired,” Severide jumps in angrily before Stella can express her own indignation.

Casey lets out a deep sigh. “I don’t want any of you guys trying to go talk to him. That could make whatever it is he has against Kidd worse. You guys need to let me handle this okay?”

“It’s me,” Severide huffs, visibly frustrated. “I’m what he has against her.”

Then before anyone can say anything else, he pushes his way out of the office.

“Kelly-” Stella calls, trying to stop him, but doesn’t quite say it fast enough. “Not this again,” she grumbles rolling her eyes. “We’ll be back.”

“Is it possible for someone else to take over this case?” Sylvie asks, watching Stella chase after Severide.

“I’m going to try my very best to get someone else on it. And I can be a real pain in the ass.”

***

“Kelly!” Stella snaps, finally catching up to him out in the bay. “Stop for five seconds.”

Severide clenches his jaws and swallows, but doesn’t say anything. He has that dangerous stark expression on his face that means things are about to get shot to hell, again. The face that says he’s about retreat into his unreadable shell of silence.

“Don’t shut down on me,” she says firmly. “Please.”

He opens and closes his mouth, but no words come out.

“Kelly.”

He closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath. “He’s coming after you because of us. I knew this would happen from the start. Right from the beginning.”

“No, Kelly,” Stella says, shaking her head. “He’s trying to screw this up for me, because I am a woman. If it wasn’t me being with you, it’d be something else. I lost my footing with this. I didn’t tell you what was going on at first because of it, and that was a mistake. But we’re stronger together, and if I have a chief gunning for me I need you to have my back.”

Kelly doesn’t say anything for a long time, and there’s a terrifying second where Stella’s scared he’s not going to say anything at all, but he finally opens his mouth and speaks. “I’ll always have your back, Stella Kidd.”

***

“You guys are seriously doing this?” Nathan asks as Herrmann, Mouch, Cruz, and Capp bring the foosball table into the bar through the back door.

“They better be, because if they aren’t that means I drove all the way here for nothing.” there’s a cheer from all the 51 firefighters in the bar, as Boden makes his presence known.

“Hey! Chief!” Gallo and Ritter both cry in unison and hop off their bar stools. A couple others give cries in greeting.

“Hey! I’m right here!” Casey protests jokingly, sending up laughs around the bar. The former chief flashes the new chief an amused grin.

“So that's the ref you brought in,” Herrmann says schematically, eyeing the former fire chief. “He didn’t bribe you did he?”

“Shut up and give him a proper greeting,” Cruz scolds and gives Herrmann a little shove.

“He’s a regular!” Herrmann protests.

Nathan smiles to himself. This wasn’t really what he mean when he said they all needed to be more active, and there was no way for him to see this as a possible outcome of the suggestion, but he’s glad he made it. Since coming to 51 things have seemed so tense and on edge, and this the first time people seem to be really letting lose, and he’s happy his suggestion lead to this. Even Chief Casey is laughing and he’s been the most tense of anyone. The only people not laughing and having a good time are Lieutenant Kidd and Severide who aren’t in the bar at all.

“Hey, I’ll be back in 20,” he says to Ritter and Gallo before heading for the door. The two lieutenants were on edge the whole shift, and they should be here for this. They should be laughing and having a good time along with everyone else, especially since things are starting to look up with the action filed against Kidd.

***

“What are you doing here kiddo?” Kelly asks, opening the door of the apartment for Nathan, who’s fidgeting in the hallway.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks, shifting slightly.

“Blackhawks and beer,” Kelly replies, glancing over his shoulder at Stella who’s sitting on the couch watching tv contently. She’d gone to headquarters and put in her official statement defending her actions on the call, and they’d both decided on taking it easy for the rest of the day. “You wanna come in?”

“No, and I have a better offer than Blackhawks and beer,” Nathan says, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Now this I gotta hear,” Stella says, getting up off the couch to come stand next to Severide. “Not much beats Blackhawks and beer.”

“How about a Herrmann vs. Cruz foosball match?” he asks.

“Your candidate drives a hard bargain,” Kelly says tucking one arm around Stella’s shoulders. He doesn’t want to make her go out if she doesn’t want to, goodness knows she deserves some rest and relaxation, but watching that match does sound like fun, and it’s something he’s seen since before he was a lieutenant of squad 3.

“And beer?” the candidate tries.

“A hard bargain, indeed,” Stella agrees with a smile. “And I don’t see how we can argue with it.”

“So you guys will come?” Nathan asks excitedly.

“Give us five minutes to get ready, and we’ll be there.”

***

“You by any chance want your job back?” Casey jokes as Boden sits down next to him at the bar during the so call half time of the foosball match between Cruz and Herrmann.

“Harder than you’d thought it’d be?” Boden chuckles and sips his beer.

“I don’t know how you put up with so much of everyone’s crap for so long,” Casey replies. He’s been chief for just under a month and he’s already more tired than he’s been over the course of his whole career. “What was your trick?”

“Not forgetting it’s family and remembering every day on the job is a gift and a blessing,” Boden replies, this time completely serious. “Very few people get to wake up and do their dream job. Don’t forget why you started doing what you do, and you’ll be just fine.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Casey says and clinks his beer against the old chief’s. Sometimes he wishes the man was still in charge of the house, everything seemed to go much smoother, but that may have just been because he wasn’t the person running the show.

***

“Hey man, you okay?” Ritter asks sitting down at the bar next to Gallo, who seems to have withdrawn into his own head space. It’s not like him to duck out when everyone’s laughing and having a good time; usually he’s laughing it up right along with the group. But tonight he’s tucked himself away.

“Yeah,” he says, quite unconvincingly and swirls his drink. He’s sipping on something harder than beer tonight, which means he definitely has something on his mind. 

“Come on, what’s bugging you?” Ritter presses. Really he’s been quieter than normal ever since the house fire call, which is also unlike him. Usually he can’t stop talking after a fire, especially one where he makes some great save. He talks it up, and even gets a little boastful, everyone does.

“Nothing, I’m fine. Just a little tired, you know? We had two late night runs last night,” Gallo shrugs and sips his drink.

“No, something’s definitely up with you,” Ritter says, decidedly. “What’s wrong? Bottling stuff doesn’t work in this job. It sounds sappy, but you gotta talk about it.”

Gallo exhales slowly and sets his drink down on the table. “Fine. That fire call, it kinda threw me for a loop.”

“Why’s that?” Ritter asks, searching his friend’s gaze for answers.

“That boy I pulled out. He was sheltering his sisters when we found him. He went to get them, then when me and Stella were bringing them out and the beam fell from the ceiling and separated us he was clawing at me to get free and go to them. He was trying to save them,” Gallo explains slowly and takes another sip of his drink. “He did all that, he was willing to face that fire to get them.”

“He’s a brave kid.”

“And…” Gallo trails off and slips back into his own thoughts again.

“And?” Ritter prompts.

Gallo keeps his gaze staring off into space as he replies. “And all I did was hide in a closet.”

[mdawritings]

Wanna Be Yours: Ch. 9

I.IX

Masterlist

Warnings: None

Song(s): "Fool's Gold" by One Direction

"Katie," Your heart is still racing from the kiss and the surprise of your friend coming up behind you. "I thought you said you were going to shower and go to bed." It’s a stupid comment. Obviously, she didn’t just go straight to bed.

"What is Professor Hotchner doing outside of our apartment?" Katie crosses her arms across her chest, "No actually, more importantly, what is Professor Hotchner doing kissing you?"

"What?" Just like that, your IQ falls about 80 points. Play dumb. That’s definitely the best choice in this situation.

"Y/N… please tell me you are not seeing our professor." Katie brings a hand up to hold her temples.

"Okay, I’m not seeing our professor," You attempt to push past her and she shoots a hand out to grab your wrist, pulling you back to stand in front of her. You hope your long drawn-out sigh is enough to warn her that you’re really not in the mood for a scolding or beratement or even to chat right now. It’s been a long week. "Please Katie just…"

"Just what? Let it go? Pretend I didn’t see it?" Katie’s eyes search your face but you roll your eyes, "No, we’re talking about this."

"I’m exhausted and I want to sleep," You groan, cursing the fact that your drunken buzz is quickly fading, "This doesn’t have to be a big thing."

"It’s already a big thing." She argues. You open your mouth to protest, to fight her off, but if you know anything about Katie, it’s that when she’s dead set on something, there’s no excuse, no possible escape. So you let out a sigh and move away from her to lean against the kitchen island, a small distance away from her. Where do you begin? How do you explain it all to her?

"How long has this been going on?" Katie’s body language loosens up and she pulls the towel from around her neck, drying her hair lightly as she looks over at you.

So you tell her. You tell her everything. Well, not every single detail of the sex, but you tell her how many times you’ve seen him, you tell her about the late night booty call, you tell her about the kiss with Charlie, you tell her about the weekend at his apartment. You tell her about blowing him off all week. You don’t tell her about him walking you home, you don’t tell her about the conversation the two of you just had outside your building. You leave out the fights with him. You leave out the way he kicked you on your ass this past weekend.

Katie shakes her head, and the words that you already know are coming fall from her lips, "Y/n, you can’t… you cannot keep seeing him."

Your eyes look away from her piercing, searching gaze. Deep down, you know she’s right. This isn’t a relationship and it’s not just a fling anymore. The way you felt all week being separated from him? It made you sick to your stomach. You couldn’t focus on anything, your mind always wandering back to him. Not just wandering back to the sex, but to his voice, his hands, his eyes, his laugh, his smile. The way his brows furrow deeply when he’s reading. That damned hand thing he does. The way he subtly bites at the corner of his lips when concentrating. "I really… I really like spending time with him. He understands me, you know?"

"I know it might feel that way but at the end of the day he’s using you." She argues, "It’s not right. He’s using the power he has over you as a professor to get you in bed."

You don’t come with anything to say back so Katie keeps going, "If you guys get caught… he could lose his job. Your reputation will be ruined. All that you’ve worked hard for, all this work to establish a name for yourself…"

"Don’t you think I fucking realize all that?" Your frustration and exhaustion bubble up into anger. You’re not a child, and right now Katie is lecturing you like one. "It’s not just sex anymore," You bite back, "It’s companionship. He listens to me. He indulges my mind. We enjoy each other's company. And he doesn’t treat me like a child, unlike you and all of our other friends." The last part isn’t really true. Katie, for the most part, treats you with just as much respect as anyone else her age. The rest of your friends baby you. It’s evident in their behavior, the way they tease you and laugh at you. The nicknames, ‘kid genius’ or just ‘kid.’

You’re tired of being treated like a child. You’re plenty capable of making your own decisions. This thing with Hotch, it feels like the first fully independent decision you’ve made. It’s not what your parents expect from you, it’s not what your friends want from you, it’s entirely what you want. And that complete freedom of choice? It feels fantastic.

"Oh my god." Katie’s voice has fallen to hush. Her hand comes to her mouth, covering it slightly.

You stutter out a quick apology, "I’m sorry, Katie that’s not what I meant…"

"Oh my god," She repeats, taking a few steps closer to you, "Oh my god. You’re… falling for him."

Your face flushes hot with embarrassment. You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, suppressing the small smile threatening to ruin your angry, frustrated facade. "No," You look up into her kind eyes, "Maybe. I don’t know."

"Oh, Einstein," She chuckles sadly. You can sense she feels bad for you. She pities you, like you’re some sad lovesick child, chasing after some unattainable ideal love that will never be requited, but she didn’t hear what Hotch said outside. She didn’t see the way the two of you looked at each other at the front door. She didn’t hear how soft his voice got when he apologized. He wouldn’t act this way if he didn’t care for you. You’re all I need.

He wouldn’t say that if he didn’t mean it. He wouldn’t. That would be… cruel of him, to play with you like that. And as much as he’s mistreated you, you know he’s not capable of such disrespect and manipulation.

"You know I’m always in your corner." Katie leans against the counter next to you.

"Then why do you make me feel like a teenager who snuck out past curfew?" You try to crack a joke, lighten the mood, pull yourself out of your own thoughts.

"I’m not angry with you." She rubs your shoulder comfortingly.

"It sure feels that way," You scoff and look down, picking at your nail beds.

"If anything I’m angry with him," She almost laughs, reaching for your hand, preventing you from tearing at the skin any longer. She wraps her hand around yours supportively, "He’s your superior and it’s wrong to use you like this," You shoot her a glare and she sighs, "If he’s using you."

"I don’t know what to think, Katie," You feel that pit in your stomach that makes you queasy, "Whenever I’m with him I feel like the most important woman in the entire world. I make him laugh. How could anyone possibly fake all of that?"

"Maybe he’s not," She wraps her other arm around your shoulders and pulls you in close to rest your head on her shoulder, "You’re so beautiful, inside and out, Y/N… it’s practically impossible for him to avoid falling for you too."

Her words give a small boost of happiness. It’s amazing to know she’s always on your side, but the doubts you have about Hotch don’t seem to be disappearing. He’s never made any real commitment to you. He barely shows any sense of care for you besides when you blow him off. But again, you decide that it all feels too authentic to be manipulation. He’s too enchanted by you, and you, with him. What you feel for him is real. He must feel the same… he has to.

————

You knock lightly on Hotch’s office door, but receive no response. You glance around the hallways to make sure that no student or professor sees you entering his office. It would be quite hard to explain why Hotch would let you go into his office if he wasn’t there. You push open the door, surprised to see Hotch hunched over at his desk, writing furiously with one hand, the other hand holding his forehead.

Your entrance into the office doesn’t even seem to draw his attention. "Aaron?" You call. He looks up at you and you can see his eyebrows plastered into that signature frown of his. "Sorry I didn’t mean to barge in. I can go if you-"

"No come in," He waves you in and turns his attention back down to his work.

"Are you okay?" You ask tentatively. You sit in the chair directly across from his desk, placing your bag on the floor and cozying up a little. You feel comfortable in his office. It’s always warm and the room smells like him. You’ve run your eyes over the hundreds of books on the walls, reading the spines, memorizing every single title that he has in his collection, making mental notes of ones that are missing that you think would pad out his collection properly.

"I just… my third-year ethical issues students are all struggling quite a bit and it’s a difficult class I’ll admit but I can’t help but feel like…" He sighs and shakes his head. "Like it’s due to my failings as a professor and mentor."

You find yourself at a loss for words. You can tell he’s stressed. His hand is tangled in his hair and it’s all messed up and fluffy. His grip on the pen is tight, his knuckles practically going white as he writes notes rapidly. You’ve never seen him so vulnerable… so normal and human. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I’m just trying to restructure the lectures and the curriculum. I’ve lightened the workload because I know all of them are scrounging for internships and job opportunities or are already juggling an internship but they’re just not getting it." He drops his pen, which causes a little bit of ink to spray out from the fountain pen nib and onto his notes. He holds his head in his hands, covering his entire face with his palms before rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up.

You bite your lip and put your things down, standing up to walk around and sit against the edge of the desk to the right of him. "Can I take a look?" You hold out your hand.

"How could you help me with this?" He looks up from his hands at you.

"Well, seeing as I am a student, I can probably help figure out what is and isn’t working for them, which weeks you’re assigning too much work for them to actually get done." You smirk and he leans back in his chair. There’s a small moment before a smile starts to spread across his face.

He places a warm hand on your knee, rubbing it gently. It’s not an inherently sexual gesture, it’s comfortable. He leaves his hand there, thumb tracing circles on your thigh absentmindedly, "I don’t think you’re a good judge of the average student. There’s no such thing as too much work to get done for you."

You roll your eyes, "Aaron will you stop being so stubborn and just hand me the damn syllabus." You stick out your hand and he reluctantly sits up, handing over the sheet scribbled with his notes. "You’re lucky I’ve learned to decode your horrendous handwriting."

"It’s not that awful." He mutters under his breath and leans forward to look over the sheet while it’s in your hands.

"I don’t even know what that says," You point to an especially atrocious line, "Seriously, Aaron, are you trying to make it harder for your students on purpose?"

"You seem to do okay," He teases, giving your thigh a light squeeze.

You chuckle, reaching across him for a pen, making marks all over the pages."Yeah well I work about three times as much as anyone else here."

"What are you doing?"Hotch leans further forward to get a better look at what you’re writing but you lean away from him so you can work on it uninterrupted, "Wait, you can’t just cross that out they need to—" He reaches out a hand, ready to snatch the syllabus from your clutches. You hold your arm fully extended out away from him, like you’re keeping a toy from a little child before placing a soft quick kiss on his lips.

"Now stop arguing and let me work," You smirk and pull away. Despite cutting him off, a small grin remains on his face. You sit there for a few minutes longer, crossing off items on the syllabus, rearranging the schedule, and writing down suggestions. Hotch resigns himself to the fact that you will not be relinquishing your hold on the paper until you’ve made it exactly perfect. He knows you too well, you won’t stop until you think you’ve nailed it.

After a few minutes, you hand the paper back to him, thoroughly satisfied with all the changes you’ve made. He takes it from you, eyes scanning through the notes, flipping through the pages at a steady pace, "Hm," He lets out a small hum and you lean forward, attempting to spot which line he’s reading, "These are… really good changes." He nods and turns to look up at you, your face much closer now that you’ve leaned into him.

"Really?" Your heart flutters as his eyes flit down to your lips and back to your eyes, "I mean… of course they are," You tease, putting on a fake air of arrogance, but deep down you’re heart swells with pride that he’s impressed by your help.

He runs a hand along your jaw, hand wrapping around your throat, but it’s not tight or dominant like usual. His fingers are light on your skin and he just pulls you enough to bring your lips to his for a slow, sensual kiss. Your eyes flutter shut and you run your fingers up to knot in his hair, tugging on the roots. You’re the first to pull away from the kiss, "Now get back to work." You point down at the stack of essays on his desk.

"But it’s Wednesday," He's practically pouting up at you, "I set aside this time to be with you." His hand travels back a little, cupping your face, thumb rubbing your cheek, his fingers at the base of your neck.

"You obviously have a lot to get done. Don’t worry about it," You give a reassuring nod and get up, digging around in your bag to take out a book. You hold it up, "I have ways to entertain myself."

"You can come back later in the afternoon once I’m done all of this," He starts but you hold up your hand to stop him, settling back onto the edge of his desk.

"Get your work done. I don’t mind just sitting here with you," You give a warm smile before opening your novel and diving right in. He takes that as a sign that it’s okay to go ahead and continue working, and you both seem to fall into a rhythm, the only sound coming from the occasional creak and groan of the heater working overtime to combat the cold wintery weather outside.

He rests his right hand on your thigh again, every once in a while giving it a small squeeze, while his fingers trail over your skin. He uses his other hand to continue grading papers. It’s a comforting position. You sit there, fully focused on the book in your hand, but enjoy the comfort of his warm hands on your skin.

You both sit there in silence for nearly half an hour before you come to the end of your book closing it with a small sigh. You glance at the walls of titles and stand up from the desk, drawing Hotch’s attention away from his work. You hold your book close to your chest, slowly strolling past the shelves and shelves of books.

"Take any one you want." He gestures with his head in the direction of the shelves.

"Really?" You’re giddy with excitement, just itching to take the first 10 titles down and dive into reading them. You step closer, taking a moment to read every single spine and cover carefully.

"Mhm," Hotch mumbles under his breath, attempting to look at his work but his eyes are stuck on you as you slowly drift from shelf to shelf, eyes wide, trying to take in every single title.

"You know my birthday is next Friday," You hum softly and run your fingers over the spines of the books on the shelf. You turn and lean back against them, wagging your eyebrows playfully at him, "What are you going to get me?"

"I-" Hotch seems at a loss for words, his smile faltering slightly, "I’m not really great at giving gifts. I don’t ever feel like I know the person well enough to give them a meaningful gift."

"I’m teasing you," You laugh at his slight stuttering and discomfort, "I’m not the type to make a big fuss about my birthday."

"It’s your 21st. That’s a big deal," He nods, eliciting a small scoff and roll of your eyes.

You turn back around and pull a book from the shelf, turning through the pages quickly, "Is it? I mean I’ve always thought of age as something so irrelevant." You put the book up onto the shelf. Your eyes travel up to the higher shelves. The books higher up are probably some of the ones he doesn’t reach for as often, but you find yourself spotting some of your favorites up on the higher shelf. You stand up on your toes, reaching for his copy of Dracula.

"Why’s that?" He stands up from his chair and comes up behind you, reaching up over your shoulder to grab the book and hand it to you. You look over your shoulder at him with a small smile.

"I just don’t think age is necessarily a marker of any sense of intelligence, maturity, sophistication, experience," You walk around the office as you read through the pages, ignoring the written words, focusing all your energy on understanding his annotations. The pages are littered with highlights and notes on every free space on the page. The grin on your face grows more as you read it.

"Sorry, I forget you’re such a kid genius sometimes," Hotch teases you playfully.

You barely hear what he’s saying, taking a moment to absorb the thoughts present in the margins of the novel, "You really don’t like this book, huh?" You close it shut in one hand and look over at him. "You missed some of the most important parts."

"Oh did I?" He chuckles and leans against the shelves, crossing his arms.

"Yes! You missed the complexities of the point of view changes and the greater metaphors for sexuliaty and female sexual prowess." You protest angrily. Your love for literature is coming out at this moment and his smug, arrogant smirk, that you know so well, demonstrates he’s not going to be receptive to your opinion and will continue to believe his ideas are correct.

"I understand those arguments and see their evidence in the literature but it’s taking such a modern view of a Victorian novel. That’s not what the implications are to the Victorian reader o in the historical context of the book," He shrugs, "It’s such a reach."

"But isn’t that the only way to enjoy literature? That’s the only way a work can be timeless. Can you take into a modern context and still enjoy it while deriving some greater conclusions about the world around you?" You tut at him disapprovingly, "Yeah, I'm not taking literature advice from someone who doesn’t even own a copy of The Great Gatsby."

"Classics are overrated." His words are like a knife to your heart. Your jaw falls slack with shock and you can sense him resisting the urge to make a dirty joke.

You shake your head firmly,"First of all, some classics are overrated, but some are worthy of the title of classic. Second, The Great Gatsby is my favorite novel of all time so I will simply not tolerate any criticism. I cannot believe you don’t have it."

"I never understood the infatuation. The writing seems so… simplistic, the imagery is predictable and cliched."

You whirl around to look at him, placing a hand over your chest, feigning hurt feelings, "First of all, I am now taking this as a personal attack," He chuckles and shakes his head at your dramatics, "And the simplistic writing is what makes it so amazing. It seems so simple on the surface, and you can take the cliched, surface level metaphors and imagery and derive some bored, tired conclusions about Fitzgerald’s opinion of the American Dream. But there's so much more!" You shake your head, struggling to reach to put the book back up on the shelf.

"Okay, okay," He walks around to take the book from your hands placing it back in its rightful position, "I get it. My literature analyses are not good enough for you."

As he turns his attention back to you, you maintain his eye contact giving him a small shrug of your shoulders,"If you spend all your energy attempting to divide everything into strict categories or make stark divisions. You miss the important subtleties of the world around you." His brows furrow as he attempts to understand your point.

"I just think your law background has forced you into taking on a black and white mindset." You continue, "But the beauty in life is in the grays." He pauses for a second, letting the smile grow wider on his face. He leans forward, again connecting his lips with yours. His hands wrap around you, pulling you closer to him, pressing your soft warm body against his. You glance at the time, knowing that you’re going to be late for your next class, but you continue to kiss Hotch. You don’t want this moment to end.

Everything feels so perfect. You’re so happy, so content. But nothing this good can last forever.

Chapter 10: I.X →