#consider turning it off briefly to look at the art because it looks so orange with Night Shift mode on 😭

[lilliganart]

Art by Shun Saeki from Shokugeki no Sanji, colouring by me

[scuttling]

Happy Accidents

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 6,300 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Art, Neighbor Hotch, Shy and Oblivious Hotch, Flirting, It's soo sappy I'm sorry, Oral sex, Unprotected sex Summary: Aaron's new neighbor is out of his league for so many reasons: she's young, beautiful, artistic, unique, free-spirited, the kind of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. It's no wonder he ends up falling in love with her. *Requested by anon Link to A03 or read below! Against all of his better judgement, Aaron is kind of creeping on his new next door neighbor.

He is absolutely the type of man, any other time, to approach a woman he’s interested in and introduce himself, look for a way to connect, some common ground, but this is no ordinary woman.

She is out of his league in so many ways: young, beautiful, unique, free-spirited, the type of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. There’s not a chance in hell she would look twice at an old, stuffy, monotone suit with a seven year old son and perpetual bags under his eyes. That’s not him feeling bad about himself, it’s just the way the world works.

The first time he saw her, she was getting on the elevator while he was getting off of it, and they’d bumped into each other; she was wearing a short, flowy dress, and she’d smiled at him, apologized, eyes sparkling, smelling like she’d spent all day in the sunshine. It was the only time since Haley he’d ever entertained the idea of love at first sight.

She keeps to herself most of the time, gives off the air of being really cool and mysterious; their paths have crossed a few times since then—at the bank of mailboxes downstairs, in the hallway they share, once during a false alarm fire alarm—but he enjoys watching her paint more than anything.

They have balconies next to each other, and one night when he was tending to his herb garden—Jack enjoys watching the plants grow, and picking the herbs, Aaron likes to eat them—he spotted her standing on hers, facing away from him, in cut off jean shorts and a baggy t-shirt, barefoot. She’d been painting the city, the sky, with the sunset glowing behind her like she was the work of art, and he actually felt an ache in his chest, the feeling of missing someone he’s never really met.

Since that night, he’s started taking his work outside in the evenings after Jack goes to bed, and sitting in near silence while she paints, hums—sometimes songs he knows, sometimes songs he doesn’t. The first time he goes out before she does, she says hello when she drags her easel out, so he starts to say hello to her when she beats him there, too, but that’s pretty much the extent of their interaction. One evening when Aaron and Jack are getting home from dinner, she is lugging a canvas bigger than she is through the hallway and Jack almost runs headfirst into it; when he looks up, he exclaims about how big it is, and pretty—it’s covered with colors, something abstract and cheerful, and even if he’d seen it on the side of the road, he would have just known that she painted it. (That may be a good indicator that he’s getting in a little too deep.)

“Wow, that’s the biggest painting I’ve ever seen! And so many colors,” Jack says, awed. Aaron puts his hands on his shoulders to keep him out of her way; they’re already bothering her enough, when she’s clearly trying to get that giant thing home.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I carry bigger pieces around at my studio, believe it or not,” she says to him, poking her head around the side to look at him.

“You have a studio?” His eyes are wide with interest; his favorite subject has always been art, as evidenced by their refrigerator, which is covered in drawings. She offers him an even brighter smile.

“I do! It’s not far from here; it’s called Live in Color. There’s a big rainbow painted on the side.”

“That’s so cool; it must be awesome to have your own studio.” Aaron loves that Jack seems to be so passionate about this, but the way they are obviously holding her up has him feeling awkward; he tugs gently on Jack’s backpack.

“That is really cool, bud, but we should let her go. I’m sure that’s heavy.” She smiles, shrugs.

“It’s no trouble. Hey, actually, we have some children’s art classes at the studio, and you look like you’d fit right in with the Green group—ages 7-9?” She looks up at Aaron, who nods. “Maybe we can talk dad into bringing you down sometime. We do painting, drawing, and crafts, it’s really fun.” She’s still looking right at Aaron, gives him a little wink, and he swears to god he gets butterflies in his stomach.

He’s a grown man. A federal agent. With butterflies. It’s insane.

“Oh man, dad, please? Can I take classes at her studio pleeease?” Jack tugs on the sleeve of his suit, and he nods, smiles down at him.

“Yeah, absolutely, Jack. We’ll go down and get more information tomorrow?” he offers, to both placate him and finally free the poor girl from the conversation; he nods excitedly, and she smiles, looks sweet, genuinely happy Jack is so excited to take the class.

“Cool, I look forward to seeing you guys there. Actually, if you give me one sec, I can grab my card for you.” She passes them, carrying the canvas and looking effortless while she does it; she props it up against the wall to get her keys out, unlocks her door and heads in, pops back out with a business card in a vivid watercolor yellow. “It has the address and phone number for the studio on the front, and I put my cell on the back; I figured it couldn’t hurt, considering we live next door to each other. Now you know who to call if you ever have an art emergency.”

He takes the card from her fingers, flips it over just to see the handwritten name and number; he knew her script would be lovely, and it is, easy and flowing and natural. It suits her. He tries not to grin, or flush, or otherwise be awkward about the fact that she just gave him her phone number, however innocently.

“Thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” They turn to head for their apartment, and she clears her throat; he smiles a little, turns back, and she’s leaning casually up against the canvas with her arms crossed.

“You know my name now. What’s yours?” She’s just being polite, but he gets the goddamn butterflies again.

“Aaron.” She smiles, something beautiful and a little wild.

“Okay, Aaron. See you outside.” From then on, most of their free time, be it evenings or weekends, is spent at the studio. Aaron isn’t the only parent who sticks around—it’s an art class, not a daycare, he doesn’t feel right just dropping Jack off and leaving him there—and he’s also not the only parent, it seems, who is aware of his beautiful young neighbor.

“She’s incredible, right?” another dad says to him one evening, over by the coffee. Aaron looks him over briefly—it’s a job hazard, he sizes up everyone, but he already has a weird feeling about this guy. “I’ve been bringing my kid here for a month just to look at that little ass running around. My wife just thinks our daughter is just really into art.” He says it with a laugh, like that’s a ridiculous concept. Aaron feels himself start to boil.

“You shouldn’t be disrespectful. She’s doing a great thing here, for the children; she’s not doing it for you to ogle her.” He feels a little hypocritical, because he is also looking, but not like this guy. He knows guys like this. He puts away guys like this.

He glances over at Aaron, looking a little taken aback that someone actually commented on his behavior, then rolls his eyes.

“She doesn’t need you to defend her honor, buddy. She wouldn’t run around here in those overalls if she didn’t want us looking. It’s job security.” She’s wearing the overalls tonight, denim shorts with one of the straps unhooked, a t-shirt underneath, but it’s not as if she’s performing a striptease. She just looks like an artist, covered in drips of paint, smiling as she looks at the kids’ pictures over their shoulders. Aaron really, really hates this guy.

“In my experience, women usually dress for themselves; they probably have pockets, easier to keep things at hand that she may need, and it’s warm in here, so she’s likely dressing for comfort. She’s certainly not dressing for you.”

As if she can sense the tension, she looks over at them, flicks her eyes over Aaron, then the other guy, and walks over with a soft smile on her face.

“Hey, Aaron, Jack really wanted you to see what he’s working on.” She reaches out a hand, wraps it around his wrist and guides him over to Jack’s table. “I figured I’d save you,” she says when they’re out of earshot. “That guy sucks. He’s always saying creepy things to me and Alaina.”

“You should ask him to leave if he makes you uncomfortable,” he says, looking down at her with worry. “I can do it.” She shrugs.

“I would, but his daughter really does enjoy the class, and it’s not fair to her that her dad’s disgusting. It’s nothing we can’t handle.” She squeezes his wrist lightly. “Thanks, though. Hey Jack, show dad your project.” He peers over his shoulder, and it’s a pink and orange skyline, much like the one he saw her painting that first time on the balcony. “I asked the kids to paint my favorite thing today, and that’s sunset.”

“I saw you painting this one night,” he says, and then he feels abruptly like an idiot. She just smiles at him though, nods.

“Yeah, I’m a sucker for a beautiful sunset. It makes you feel like, just because the day ends, it doesn’t have to mean things are over; it’s just one of life’s beautiful natural transitions. And the colors are to die for: peach, coral, jasmine, rose, tiger’s eye.” He finds himself unexpectedly touched by her description, smiles softly to shake himself of the emotions.

“The way you see the world is extraordinary. To me it’s just kind of… orange.” She returns his expression, but softer, and squeezes his wrist again; he didn’t even realize she was still holding it.

“Sounds like you need some art in your heart. I give lessons for adults, too; you could even come over and paint with me on my balcony, some time. Special neighbor privileges.”

The thought of being with her on her balcony while she paints is almost overwhelming, which he finds funny, considering he currently sits no more than twenty feet away. There is an intimacy about it, while they both do their work in the cool, quiet breeze, but standing like this, close enough to touch, with the late day sun on her face while she talks about colors… he’s not sure he could handle it without falling in love.

She pats him on the back, moves on to another child, and he tells Jack what a great job he’s doing; his face is lit up, so happy, and regardless of the neighbor, he’s glad they stumbled upon this hobby.

When they pack up to leave, the jerk from earlier comes up to him, leans in to speak in a hushed voice. “You should have just told me you were fucking her. I would have backed off.” He blinks, but the guy and his daughter are walking out the door before he finds himself able to do more than that. About a week later, he goes over for that lesson almost by accident. Jack is at Jessica’s for the night at his request, and Aaron was planning to order takeout and have a paperwork cramming session, but when goes out onto the balcony, phone in hand to place an order, his neighbor is standing on hers like she’s waiting for him.

“Hey. I saw you don’t have Jack; I made some pasta with vodka sauce, if you’re hungry. I always prepare too much.” He sets his phone on the table, walks over to the railing to get a little closer.

“Uh. Sure. I have fresh basil growing here; trade?” She smiles, nods.

“Yeah, sounds delicious. I’ll be right back.” She ducks inside, returns a few moments later with two dishes of steaming, saucy pasta, sets one down on her table and gets right up against her railing, hands the other over to him across his. “That one’s for you,” she says, handing him an orange plate, and he sets it down, picks a few good looking leaves from his basil plant and tears them up, drops them on top. “And this one’s for me.” She reaches, holds a green plate over the gap between their porches, and he adds some basil to it before she pulls it back, takes a deep sniff. “God, it smells so good and fresh. Thank you, Aaron.”

“Thank you, it looks great.” He goes to sit at his table with it, but she scoots her chair closer to the railing, closer to his balcony, so he does the same. They make easy small talk while they eat, mostly about Jack, a little about her studio and his work.

“FBI, huh? I can definitely see that, with your suits, and your… neutrals.” She cringes when she says it, and it makes him laugh.

“I’m sorry I can’t wear paint covered overalls to the office,” he teases, and she shoots him a playfully affronted look, grins.

“You love my paint covered overalls—and for the record, you’d look great in them. You should find a pair. Preferably not black.” He flushes a little at that, but she doesn’t notice, just finishes up her pasta with a sigh of contentment. “That was so good, thanks again for the basil.”

“You’re welcome; thanks for feeding me something other than the takeout I planned to have.” He stands up, gestures to his apartment. “I’ll wash the plate and then hand it back over.”

“Why don’t you just bring it over and come paint with me for a little while? If you want,” she tacks on, and for the first time she seems a little nervous. “I’m not trying to be pushy, I just think it would be fun.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want to; it would be amazing to watch her paint up close and personal. He’s just also afraid he’ll pass the point of no return if he does it, and he can’t handle any more heartache. He only very recently got to a place where just waking up in the morning no longer causes him agony.

It’s the look on her face, though, soft and sweet and open, that makes his decision for him.

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” She grins.

“I’ll unlock the door.”

She’s dragging out her easel when he walks through the door; her apartment is stark white walls with vibrant furniture, artwork, canvases propped up against every bare spot along the wall, paints and brushes and charcoal and pencils on every surface. It’s exactly what he would have expected, warm and lived-in and comforting, very unlike the mostly black and gray interior of his own apartment. She smiles when she sees him.

“Hey! Can you grab that tray of paint on your way out?” she asks, and he picks up what looks kind of like an ice cube tray filled with many different colors, carries it out to the balcony with him. She has a canvas propped up, a little larger than a computer monitor, and she’s gotten started, but he can’t tell what it’s going to be just yet. When he hands her the paint she looks down at it, peers around the edge of the canvas like she’s comparing something. He’s so intrigued, curious about the way her mind works, what she’s thinking.

“What are you painting?” he asks when she picks up a brush, sets it down, picks up another. She smiles at him.

“Well, we’re painting that.” She points to the street, where there’s a rusty, pale blue antique car parked—he says that loosely, because it looks broken down—in the alley. Aaron chuckles softly.

“We’re going to paint that? It’s a little… grim.”

“Yes. It’s part of a series I just decided to create: ‘Beauty in the Ordinary.’” She sighs, and he’s surprised to see that her eyes are a little wet. She wipes the back of her hand over her eyes. “You know Bob Ross, right? Everyone knows Bob Ross.” He nods.

“Yes; the guy who paints the happy trees on PBS.”

“Right. I used to watch him growing up, and I vividly remember something he said once, about needing both darkness and light in life and in painting. ‘You have to have a little sadness once in a while to know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.’” She sniffles, exhales softly. “I’m waiting on the good times too. Sometimes looking at things like this car, and forcing myself to find something beautiful in it, is the easiest way to get through the day. Does that make sense?” He swallows hard when she looks up at him, because aside from Jack, she has been the lightest part of his life since the first time they passed each other on the elevator.

“Yeah, it really does.” She shoots him a soft, slightly sadder smile, and then explains about the paints a little, shows him the difference in the brushes, lets him feel the weight of them, the textures of the bristles.

She starts painting the car—the background is mostly finished—and he’s more than happy to watch, to hear her talk about her process. She asks if she can use his forearm to mix paints, and he turns it over, wrist up, tries not to smile too hard when she puts some dark blue on him, then white, mixing them and then comparing them to the car on the street. He looks down at her, the concentration on her face, the softness in her eyes, and is met with the sudden desire to brush a line of paint over her nose and make her laugh and kiss her breathless.

“Okay, your turn,” she says when she’s about halfway done with the car. She puts her hands on the backs of his arms, pulls him in front of the canvas so she’s between him and the railing. “You’ve been watching me, so you know what to do.” He has been watching her, but not necessarily for her technique, so he’s a little nervous; he dips the brush in the blue paint but hesitates to make a stroke. “I have faith in you, Aaron. Here.”

She wraps her fingers around his hand, guides him toward the canvas, and together they make a wide, curved line, rounding out the bumper. It doesn’t look half bad.

“It gets easier once you understand the relationship between specific paint, specific brushes, and your hands,” she says softly, and she helps him paint another line. “Are you having fun? You look stressed,” she teases, and he makes it a point to relax his face.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” he says, looking down at her; they make eye contact for a long moment, and she leans a little closer, and he leans a little closer, and then he accidentally dabs a blob of blue onto the canvas. He pulls back, grimaces, deflates. “I made a mistake. You can’t erase paint, right?” She laughs softly, takes the brush from his hand.

“No, you can’t erase paint, but as Mr. Ross would say, ‘There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.’” She gets her fingers close to the tip of the brush, makes a few quick movements, then grabs another brush, dips it in green. When she pulls back, there is a little blue flower growing out of a patch of grass where his blob used to be. He exhales, a little amazed.

“If only the mistakes we make in life were that easy to fix,” he says, and she nods.

“Yeah, that would be nice, but a lot of the time we find a way to turn them into beautiful things eventually. Are you willing to give it another shot?” He says yes, and she guides his hand for a while, then just hovers near it, then just instructs him on what to do. It’s dark before their painting is finished, and she carries it inside to dry, then takes him to the kitchen sink to scrub the paint off of his arm.

“Thanks for having me over; I had a really good time,” he murmurs as she dries his clean skin. She looks up, smiles softly, nods her head.

“I had a really good time too. I’m glad you came over; you’re welcome to join me any time.”

He says goodbye, heads home, looks at his stack of work with a groan, and brews a pot of coffee. He’s in for a long night, but he wouldn’t change his evening for anything. Life is much the same for the next few weeks: school and work, Jack’s art class at the studio a couple times a week, painting on the balcony on the weekend, with and without Jack. When Jack joins them for the first time, she pulls out a big box of markers and thick sheets of paper and he draws elaborate scenes while they talk and paint together. When Aaron makes mistakes, she’s never upset, just turns them into perfect little details that end up being his favorite parts of the paintings.

“What ever happened with your ‘Beauty in the Ordinary’ series?” he asks one evening while they’re painting some ocean waves. “Did I cause you enough trouble with the car to give up?” She looks down at the ground, looks a little shy, then shakes her head and smiles.

“No, you didn’t make me want to give up. I’ve been working on it at the studio. You’ll see it when it’s all done, I plan to hang them there.”

“Looking forward to it,” he tells her, and then Jack tugs on her shorts, shows them the picture he drew of the ocean, too.

Later that week, the team takes a case, and on the day he’s set to come home, Jessica drops Jack off at the studio with the plan that Aaron will pick him up when his flight lands. Due to some weather between where the team is and home, they get a little delayed; he doesn’t want to make Jessica head back out that way almost immediately after dropping him off, but he’s not sure who else he could ask to pick Jack up. It’s almost a stupid length of time before it dawns on him to call the studio.

“Life in Color, this is Alaina.”

“Alaina, hi, this is Jack’s dad—” He has his whole spiel prepared, but she cuts him off.

“Oh, sure, hang on a sec, she’s right here. It’s Jack’s dad,” she says, but it sounds further away, like she’s trying to cover the receiver. After a moment, his neighbor picks up.

“Aaron, hi. Jack said you were working.”

“Yeah, I was, and I’m supposed to pick him up after class, but our flight was delayed.” He doesn’t know how to ask for help with Jack; even with all the time they’ve been spending together, she still makes him a little nervous. Luckily, he doesn’t have to figure that part out on his own.

“Hey, that’s no problem. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just take him home with me. I’ll order pizza, we’ll draw, and you can just stop by when you’re home and pick him up.” He breathes a sigh of relief, runs a hand over the back of his head.

“That would be perfect. Thank you—I’ll owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Hanging out with your mini me is reward enough; he’s painting something special for you today, won’t let me see it.” That makes him smile, and he feels so warm at the prospect of picking him up from her bright apartment, seeing his artwork, her smile. After a long, draining day like this one, it’s exactly what he needs.

“I’ll have to remain in suspense until tonight, I guess. Can you let him know I said hi? And thank you, I’ll see you later tonight.”

“Of course. We’ll see you then.”

It’s late, after nine, by the time he makes it home. He doesn’t even take his bags inside, just drops them outside his door and knocks softly on hers. She answers with a smile, ushers him in, asks him if he’d like a drink and gets them each a beer.

Jack is in her room, asleep, so they have a little time to chat; she asks about his flight, his case, and he asks about the studio, and she gets a little shy when it comes to that topic, clears her throat.

“Um. I have Jack’s secret project, if you want to see it. He said I could show you.” He’s not sure why that would make her nervous—at least, until he sees it.

The background is all watercolors, a gradient of rainbow colors starting with pink at the top and ending with a soft purple at the bottom. Over that, in black marker, he’s drawn the three of them, with a big heart around them.

“Tonight’s theme was the thing that makes you the happiest, and he said he’s the happiest when the three of us are on the balcony together. It was… really, really sweet.” She looks up at him, brushes a hand over the crown of her head. “If I’m being honest, that’s when I’m the happiest, too.” He takes the picture from her hands, runs his fingers over it, and smiles, feeling a warm ache in his chest—not like before, not like losing someone he’s never really met, but like finding something he never really planned on.

“That’s when I’m the happiest, too,” he agrees, and when he looks up, she looks determined, like she does when trying to find just the right shade of paint. She takes Jack’s picture out of his hand, sets it on the counter, and then pulls him down by the lapels of his suit, kisses him long and slow. His hands move to her waist, keeping her close, and eventually she pauses for breath, looks at him again, and then wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him some more.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the first time I saw you—tall and dark and serious, striding out of the elevator. So intriguing, mysterious,” she breathes when they separate again. “I wanted to know everything about you.”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, huffing a laugh. “I’m boring, but you are so vibrant, so full of life; I felt like you were everything I wasn’t, and I wanted to know you so badly.”

“You know me now; would you like to keep getting to know me?” It’s one of the easiest questions he’s ever been asked; he nods, and she beams, and he lifts her into his arms and carries her to the couch, drapes himself over her while she leans back against the cushions, pulling him closer.

They make out like neither of them have a care in the world—god, how long has it been since he’s made out with someone?—her fingers scraping through his hair, his hands on her bare waist when her shirt rides up, and she’s in the process of pushing his jacket off his shoulders when they hear a sound from the other room that startles them apart. Jack.

“I’ll go check on him,” Aaron says, and when he goes into her room Jack is still snuggled up on her bed sound asleep. It looks like some canvases fell over, though, and he stoops to pick them up, then spots the car they painted together. He turns and she’s right behind him, skids to a stop. “I thought you said these were at the studio?”

“They were,” she says, and she looks nervous again. “But I changed my mind about hanging them there. They felt too personal.” He runs his hand over the car and sees where she’s coming from; this one feels personal to him, too.

“Can I see the rest?” he asks. “Only if you want to show me them.”

“You’re the only one I want to show them to,” she says with a soft smile, and she grabs a few more canvases, carries them into the light of the living room. “Beauty in the ordinary, remember.” He remembers, could never forget.

She turns one over, and it’s a kitchen sink, and in the kitchen sink is an orange plate with a fork resting on it—like the plate she’d given him with the pasta on it. She turns one over and it’s a man’s hand, holding a paintbrush, with pale blue paint on his forearm. The next one is a little herb garden on a balcony; the next one is a view from above, of a sandy haired boy with markers all around him. The last one is an open elevator—ripe with possibilities.

When he looks up at her, she’s got tears in her eyes, and one slips down her cheek.

“So, I think I’ve found my good times.” She smiles through her tears, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses the salt from her lips. “I love you,” she says when he pulls back to wipe her face with his sleeve, and he kisses her softly, again and again, and tells her he loves her, too. The next weekend, Jack is at Jessica’s for a sleepover, and Aaron has been enlisted to help with an art project. He walks next door, knocks lightly, and enters the living room; he is met with a very deep, passionate kiss and a smile, and instructions to help move the furniture out of the way.

“I’m really curious what kind of art requires this much floor space,” he says, shoving her couch back against the wall, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, a move he has been unable to resist since she did it the first time they had sex. She knows it’s a weakness, exploits it, and he loves every minute of it.

“You’ll see, but I promise you’re going to like it.” When they clear the floor, she grabs a large, rolled-up fabric canvas and lays it out in the middle of the room, then drops three bottles of paint—one is yellow (jasmine), one is orange (peach), and one is kind of pink (coral? He’s still not sure.)—onto it. “You can obviously say no if you want, but I wanted something over my bed with the sunset colors, and I found this…” She steps closer to him, runs her hands down his chest, guides him down for a kiss so delicious he loses his train of thought. “It’s sex art; we put the paint on the canvas, and on ourselves, and… you know, go at it. What do you think?”

He thinks he really, really loves art now, even more than he thought possible.

“So we have paint-covered sex and then you just hang it on the wall? Like regular art?”

“Yep, I got the supplies I’ll need to hang it; letting it dry will probably take the longest. I figured we could shower while it’s drying, maybe go for round two, if you’re up for it.” She moves her hand to his waist, slips it inside his shorts, and he pulls her closer to his body. “Are you up for it, Aaron?”

That is an understatement.

Undressing happens extremely fast, because this is really sexy and they’re kind of in a phase where they can’t keep their hands off of each other anyway. She pulls her hair up onto the top of her head to try to minimize the amount of paint in it, and then she pours paint on the canvas, turns around and drizzles some on his back and tells him to lay down.

“I think we should probably change positions often so we get a lot of motion on the canvas; I apologize to your old knees in advance,” she teases, but she soothes the sting of her words by pouring paint on herself and then laying between his legs and licking at his dick. “Do some stuff with your hands; I want to see those big handprints on my wall,” she murmurs, and he groans, puts his palms down in the paint and drags them through it.

She leans up a little, sliding her knees through some yellow paint, sucks him fully, deeply into her mouth for couple of minutes, and then stretches forward and puts an orange hand right in the middle of his chest; the look in her eyes is playful, and he reaches out with one finger, hooks it under her chin, and guides her off and up so they can kiss.

“Your turn,” he says with a smirk, and then he gets her onto her back and ducks between her legs, hopes she doesn’t grab for his hair like she usually does. He rubs his pointed tongue over her clit, waits for the mmm it always elicits, and looks up at her, covers each of her breasts with a paint-covered palm and squeezes. “Leave handprints for me,” he leans up and reminds her, kissing her stomach, and she plants her hands, then presses up and grabs his shoulder, smearing pink down his back. “Oh, you wanted more of that?”

“Don’t tease me, the paint will dry,” she whines, and he spreads her thighs wider with his elbows and licks her pussy quickly, until she’s squirming against the canvas and panting for more. “Come here, come here.”

He’s not ready for that, though, paint or not, wants her to come from this; he takes his hands off of her, dips them in the paint again and presses down, then puts his hands under her ass and brings her closer so he can fuck her with his tongue, quick and deep and slick.

“Aaron, Aaron, god.” She slides her hands down his arms, over his neck, digs her nails in when she comes moaning like music.

While she catches her breath, so gorgeous, she sticks her arms out like she’s making a snow angel, and he catches her while she’s off guard and turns her onto her stomach, puts his hands on the smears of paint he’s already left on her ass, and slides inside.

“Oh my god; I was trying to impress you with this sexy art project, but you’re rocking my world.” She’s breathless, pressing back into his thrusts and painting with her entire body. God, he loves her mind.

“You know I always take your projects very seriously,” he says, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, and she groans, laughs.

“Yes you do. From the side? Let’s lay diagonally.” They shift, and he hooks his chin over her shoulder, kisses her neck and huffs hot against her hair. “Hmm, love it like this,” she sighs, and she reaches back to press her hand to his hip, holding him while he moves inside her. “I love you.”

“Love you. I want you to finish on top of me,” he instructs with a wet kiss to her throat, and she nods against his lips.

“Yeah, next; I’m getting close.” A few more strokes and she gets up onto her knees, lets him lay back, propped up on his arms, and climbs on top of him; she kisses him slow and dirty and then runs her hands over him, sits back on his dick and glides up and down. “You wanna come like this too? I owe you a little world rocking,” she says with a flick of her tongue over his bottom lip, and he nods, squeezes her thigh.

“It’s the least you can do after making me move all the heavy furniture.” She rolls her eyes but kisses his chin, down his throat, and bounces harder on him, all delicious eye contact and moans. “Mmm. Just like that, baby, come for me.”

“Fuck. I will, I will.” She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, kisses him kind of rough and with lots of tongue, and then tips her head back and climaxes, clenches, wrings his orgasm out of him so quickly it’s almost jarring. “Oh, yes Aaron. So good,” she mumbles, and then he lays back, out of breath, and she slides out of his lap and lays beside him, out of breath too.

After a moment, she looks over at him, smiles, and swipes a pink fingertip over his cheek.

“This is the hottest thing I’ve ever done with anyone. I’m glad I got to do it with you.” He rolls on top of her, presses a kiss to her nose, and nods.

“Me too. You know,” he adds after a moment, “my bedroom could use some artwork, too.” She grins, wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight.

“You’re right; I think we should do yours in blue: liberty, that’s dark blue; periwinkle, that’s light blue; maybe steel gray, too.”

“You’re the expert. I’m just your paintbrush.” Her hands smooth up his back, and contentment washes over him like a warm breeze.

“Hmm. I like the sound of that. Want to get cleaned up?”

Cleaning up is almost as fun as making the mess, because they’re well and truly covered, and when the canvas dries, the sunset colors are almost as beautiful as the ones she used the first time he ever saw her paint. Taglist ❤️: @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc

[fbfh]

here’s to always finding each other

pairing: percy x gn child of calliope reader

wc: 1.6k

warnings: percy kisses reader following a prior agreement that they don’t remember but it’s 100% consentual, you work retail, a hell yeah, memory loss, I think that’s it

summary: You didn’t really expect to have to spend your entire eight hour shift organizing shoe wax any more than you expected your fictional crush from middle school to be real and your boyfriend. Only one of those happened (and the shoe wax was still very disorganized when you left).

song rec: this lofi mix, boba manifesto - chris flemming (mostly as a joke but it slaps)

a/n: i am wOrKiNg oN tHiNgS!!!!!! It’s going well!!! expect some fun surprises soon!!!!!!!!!

Crouched down on the ground, rearranging an end cap of shoe wax in the men’s department wasn’t really what you thought being a grownup would be like as a kid. You can’t complain too much, the pay is pretty good and working conditions are decent - as much as they can be in retail. You stand up to check your progress (and stretch your legs) and notice that guy is still there. He’s been hovering around the athletic shirts and pants for a while, and he keeps checking his phone and looking around. You’re sure he’s probably just waiting for someone, but you’re considering asking if you can help him find anything. 

He has a vaguely familiar energy, and your stomach drops for a moment, hoping you don’t know him from school or something. God, that would be a nightmare. That’s happened to you once or twice, bumping into someone you went to school with, and it’s always as bad as you expect. 

‘You know what,’ you think, trying to see if you can fit the last few containers of wax on the shelf without making them topple over, ‘he’s probably fine. If he needs help he’ll ask for it.’ 

You go back to scanning and adjusting the prices of the clearance shoe polish - the company had changed their packaging recently, so it’s out with the old and in with the identical - but you still can’t shake the feeling of familiarity. 

He turns around, holding up an orange shirt that says ‘go for it’ in a ridiculous font, and you get a glimpse of his face. 

You crouch back down so he won’t catch you staring, and the realization dawns on you. He looks a lot like Percy Jackson from the books you read in middle school. Or was it high school? Everything between 6th grade and high school graduation is kind of blurry and confusing in your memory. Man, you should really re-read those, you heard there was a TV series in the works and you want to remember all the details for when it comes out. You’re a little surprised at how nervous that revelation makes you, like the feeling when you’re a kid going to a theme park and you can see the roller coasters as you pull into the parking lot. Weird. Anyway, it’s not the first time you’ve seen a customer who looks like a character from something. One time you saw someone who you swore looked just like Pidge from the Voltron reboot that came out a few years ago, and a coworker saw a girl who looked like an anime character she loves… Raka something? Her name sounded like gravity, but that wasn’t it. You shrug, making a mental note to ask her about it later. 

You stand up once again to take one final look before you move onto the next end cap, and see that the guy is standing next to you. You look up at him, and all those weird feelings of excitement and something close to anticipation amplify, as you get a closer look at him. He really, really looks like Percy Jackson. Like if the Viria art was a real person. 

“Uh… hi, can I help you find anything today?” You ask, snapping out of your daze and into your customer service voice. He takes a second before answering, and you’re a little unnerved by the way he’s looking at you; warm and intimately, like he’s known you for years. 

“No,” he replies, a dreamy tone to his voice, “I’ve got everything I need.” You’re pleasantly surprised and a little freaked out that he even has the accent. Seriously, if he’s not already, this guy should really get into cosplay. Also, is he flirting with you? He seems to realize what he just said, and backtracks slightly. 

“Actually, um, I was wondering if you could help me out with something over here,” he says, and you agree, in your signature chipper tone. He guides you to a table covered in various sweatpants behind a mirror. 

He glances around again, and you have to ask. 

“You know, if you’re having trouble finding someone we can-”

“Walkie customer service to have my group meet me at the front desk.” He finishes seamlessly. 

“It’s not my first time at the rodeo,” he chuckles, and you get the feeling there’s more meaning behind what he’s saying, like an inside joke you’re not a part of. 

“Oh… yeah.” you say, and he can sense your surprise, “How did you…” you trail off, and he can sense the silent question in your voice. He lets out a breathy chuckle, cheeks flushed pink.

“Like this.” 

He catches your face in his hands, and presses his lips to yours. Your eyes widen in shock, mostly at the fact that you don’t feel threatened by his presence at all. You’re shocked at how comfortable you feel around him, how you feel in your bones that you’ve known him for years when the logical side of your brain is telling you that you first saw him ten minutes ago. He pulls away, searching your eyes for… something. 

“Uh…” you glance away, brow slightly furrowed, then back up at him, “what the fuck?” 

His expression softens, and he says gently, “Give it a minute.” 

You’re about to ask him to give what a minute, when a barrage of memories, feelings, people you don’t think you’ve ever met but seemed to be best friends with knocks you off your feet. You try to take in a breath, but the air in the room seems to have taken a temporary vacation from your lungs. 

You look up at him, eyes flared in understanding and shock. He mutters something in confirmation. Someone yells nearby, and you both look over to an adolescent boy asking his mom why he can’t wear neon basketball shorts to school. Percy looks back over at you.

“Is there somewhere a little more-” the mom starts arguing back and forth with her son at a louder volume, and he continues, “private… where we could talk?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll… I’ll get somewhere.”

A few minutes later, you’re sitting across from each other on two step stools in one of the stock rooms. You’re still surprised at how easily you had lied to your boss that your long distance boyfriend showed up a few weeks early after over a year of not being able to see each other, and you needed a moment to catch up. She had agreed readily, asking that you tell her when you’re ready to get back to your tasks. 

“I’m sorry about that,” he starts, snapping you out of your train of thought, and you look up at him, “I never would have kissed you without asking, but you made me promise last time that the next time you lose your memories I would get them back to you as fast as I can.” 

“Uh, it’s okay, I feel like I remember talking about that.” Your memories are still fuzzy, but coming back sporadically.

“It can take a few days for them to come back fully.” He adds. 

The most surreal part of this is you remember vividly what happened in the books - because you lived through it. You hold back a giddy laugh bubbling up.

“So…” you begin, and he looks at you, his gaze warm, “it’s all real?” you breathe the words, almost afraid of an answer. 

“Yeah,” he chuckles, looking away briefly, overwhelmed that you’re with him once again.

“The short version is, since your godly parent is Calliope, you sometimes get sent to other worlds. You kind of have to hop scotch from one place to another, like getting a goldfish used to a new bowl of water. The mist - or sometimes,” he glances up, pointedly and irritable, “other factors - usually take away a lot of your memories. They say it’s to make the transition easier, but who knows. Anyway, there are these waypoints, kind of like a time loop that you hang out in until you’re either ready to leave or one of us finds you first.”

“So this…” you motion around to the rows of cardboard boxes filled with plastic cups and paper towels. He nods and you let out a laugh of relief that you really won’t have to work here long term. 

“As soon as you’re ready we should probably head out to camp. It’s gonna be a bit of a drive.” 

“Wait, it’s all like… here? Like in this world?”

“Yeah,” he smiles again, once more sending butterflies through your chest. 

You let out a disbelieving, excited laugh.

“Alright. Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.” 

Before you can get up, he takes your hand in his. He watches his fingers skim back and forth for a minute before looking up at you. 

“You know that I’ll always find you, right?” there’s an overwhelming torrent of emotions he’s somehow managing to convey through his eyes. 

“It doesn’t matter where you go, or how long you’re gone, or if we even remember each other. I will always find you.” His hand comes up to your cheek for the second time today, and your head tilts into his embrace automatically. You somehow trust him more than anyone or anything else right now. You nod gently.

“I do.”

He glances away again, cheeks flushing red, and he sighs, kissing your forehead. 

You get up and head towards the exit together, and he wraps his arm around your shoulder.

“How about we get some bubble tea once we’re in the city?”

“Oh hell yeah!” 

You don’t remember the last time you had bubble tea, but it sounds really, really good right now. 

[not-all-dead]

"It’s not a surprise when the Chief of Police comes out. There have been betting pools for years, and the announcement is met with mostly indifference. What is a surprise, however, is the interview that comes out alongside the announcement. The interview that is complete with a photoshoot of Lin Beifong in civilian clothes, talking about the challenges of her position. No one can remember the last time the Chief has given an interview, and the photo becomes the talk of the town."

How do you think the interview goes? What would Lin say?

link to (what i believe was) the original post of this! with some amazing art that VERY much helped me write this :DD (by @mgthejerkbender)

i was originally just gonna write a dialogue or notes for this but uh- i got a little carried away so here’s a 3687 word fic of the interview oops

CW: implications of past trauma (mentions of r@pe/s*xual assa*lt, public humiliation, not graphic at all), homophobia, sexism

fic under the cut :)

Lin walked into the room in a soft green turtleneck and dark brown pants that almost looked black without the light. There was sound equipment set up all over the place, with two armchairs in the middle of it all. A desk sat over to the side, a typewriter and paper sitting atop it. Quite a few people were rushing around, making sure that everything was in place for the broadcast. She watched a young woman sit at the desk, prepping the typewriter to transcribe the entire thing.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Lin turned to see a man in his early forties standing with a small journal behind her.

He wore a plain suit with a pale orange tie, his greying hair slicked back neatly. His eyes flitted around the room, checking things briefly for himself before focusing on Lin. He opened the notebook to a page about a quarter of the way through and smiled at Lin, nodding at the chairs behind her.

“Care to sit?” he asked, moving toward the chairs.

She took the seat farthest from where they’d just been standing, shifting to get comfortable while she waited for him to sit and get things rolling. She didn’t want to admit it, but her heart was racing. She hadn’t done anything like this is ages, especially not so casually. The topic of discussion also made her nervous, both because her job was something she rarely spoke of with anyone outside a professional context, and because of the announcement that would come with the interview. She’d encountered plenty of bigoted people in the past, and had no doubt that her officially coming out would only press them to question her position more than usual.

She picked idly at the fuzzballs on her turtleneck until the man sitting beside her cleared his throat. Her head snapped up to look at him, her body tensing briefly before seeing that he was testing the microphones. She sighed and relaxed slightly, speaking into the microphone placed before her when the sound technician prompted her to do so. Once everything seemed to be in place and ready to go, the broadcast started.

“Welcome, listeners, to tonight’s special program. I’m your host, Kaja Posicopolis, here with our esteemed Chief of Police, Lin Beifong. So, Chief, how are you on this fine night?” he started, putting on his radio voice.

“Good, I’m good,” Lin responded, leaning slightly forwards in her seat.

“That’s good to hear. I think I’ll launch right into our questions if you don’t mind, we’ve got a lot to get through tonight,” Lin nodded when he looked over to her, giving him the go ahead.

“Why don’t we start with something positive. What’s your favourite thing about your position as Chief? What about the job brings you the most joy?” he turned to watch her while waiting for her answer.

She looked at the floor for a moment, thinking before speaking.

“I think I’d have to say getting to help people. Ever since I was young I’ve wanted to protect others as much as possible, and being Chief makes that a lot easier and a lot more… legal,” he joined her when she chuckled lightly, but her smile only lasted a moment.

“Of course, I’m not perfect, and there are always times when things go wrong. I can’t say that those times don’t affect me, but I try to think of the people we as a force have helped over the years and that keeps me going,” she took a deep breath and looked to Kaja as he glanced at his notepad.

“That leads right into my next question; how do you do it? Not even your infamous mother was Chief for as long as you’ve been, and her time was already impressive. You’ve given so much to Republic City already, why, and how, do you keep giving?” there was a look of wonder and admiration on his face when he finished the question.

“I grew up in Republic City. It always has been, and will be, my home. And who doesn’t want to protect their home? I think that as long as I live here, I’ll be working to do anything in my power to help the city. I hate watching neighborhoods suffer… actually, I’m working on a plan with President Moon at the moment with the hopes of helping out the poorer parts of the city, providing homes for the homeless, all that good stuff. I just want to see Republic City thriving, and I want to help it get to that point. As I said before, it’s my home; everyone here is part of a community, a family, if you will, and that means everything to me,” Lin leaned back, resting against the cushion behind her, setting her right foot on her left knee.

“That’s a beautiful sentiment, thank you. I love the idea of the city being one big family, and that project sounds like it’ll be very good for the future of Republic City,” Kaja turned his gaze back to his notes, stopping the conversation briefly.

“The next question I have here is less uppity; what has your biggest struggle been with regards to your job?”

“That’s a hard one,” she paused. “I’ve had many struggles with work over my years as Chief, but I think of everything that’s happened… being a woman, and a queer one at that, has definetly taken it’s toll. Other things have been more directly challenging, but that’s been present since day one.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that?” he prompted leaning slightly towards her.

She inhaled and held her breath for a split second before sighing lightly.

“Sure, why not,” she gave a small smile to Kaja before starting.

“When I was much younger, just starting out in the force, I could already see the inherent bias against women that so many male officers held. My mother wasn’t immune to their verbal attacks, though she would give them a good… sparring match, lets say, if they ever so much as laid a finger on her. After a few times, that generally stopped happening, but people would still talk. The number of disgusting, awful things I heard coming from some of those men…” she huffed and shifted in her seat, putting one elbow on her armrest and resting her head on her hand.

“Anyway, I started to pay attention to every little thing. I noticed how many male politicians talked down to my mother, and not because of her blindness. Even a few of the men on our own council at the time would treat her as less-than for no apparent reason.

“I saw it happening in my own life and career, too. How my male counterparts got the promotion before I was even considered, despite performing just as well as them, if not better. How I was never asked for input on supposedly collective decisions or plans, and if I was or tried to interject, I was almost always dismissed. It seemed like any man of higher or equal rank to me thought I was some… assistant to bring him coffee and reports and not do any actual work.

“Seeing that attitude so often pissed me off. I made it my mission to prove myself beyond what was necessary. I wanted to show them that I could do anything they could just as well, sometimes even better. My work paid off eventually and I began to climb the ranks, not letting myself rest for a second. And I wanted to help people as well, of course, but it started out more as wanting to teach those bastards a lesson,” she moved again, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward on her elbows.

“Once I became Chief, a lot of people seemed determined to put me down. Practically every man, be he politician or merchant on the street, told me something insinuating that I was handed the position just because my mother was Chief before me. Every time I wanted to yell at them, to show them records of how hard I’d worked to get there, how much harder I’d had to work than most of my colleagues. With the politicians and other major figureheads, how much harder I’d had to work than they probably had.

“It was frustrating, but I got used to it. It was a constant that came with working a so-called, and I’m not making this up, it’s been said directly to my face before, ‘Man’s job’,” she stopped for a moment and looked over at Kaja, who was staring at her in disbelief.

She couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at his expression before looking back down and continuing.

“There was also the issue of my queerness,” she shook her head and took a deep breath, sitting back as she continued.

“I started working as a proper officer when I was about eighteen. Within my first year working, I was-,” she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth for a second.

“I had an encounter with a man, an older officer who was overseeing the training group I was a part of. He tried to initiate certain… activities with me, none of which I wanted to partake in. I did manage to get rid of him and filed a report against him, but it wasn’t the last time it happened.

“I was a pretty regular customer at a few of the underground bars for people like me at the time. I did my best to hide my face when I left, but there were always times I was careless, or somebody saw me in the seconds I let my guard down. Usually it was no big deal, but occasionally it was someone from work. Once, it was that man.

“He found me at work the next day and asked me about it. Yelled at me, really. He tried to make it seem like that’s why I’d denied him, and the names he called me weren’t pretty to say the least. He started to physically attack me, throwing punch after punch and not giving me the slightest chance to fight back.

“After that day, I stopped going to those bars altogether. The first time I went back to one was actually just a few years ago. I started dating Tenzin a few years later, and though people weren’t so outwardly expressive of their opinions on my relationships, the disapproval was still present.

“By the time Tenzin and I split up, I think some people still suspected my queerness, but it wasn’t a widely adopted theory. I had my fair share of men approach me, some with better intentions than others, and turned down most of them. Some of them didn’t react all that well, and I ended up filing several more reports. I don’t think any of them actually got charged, though.

“I entertained short romances with some men, some women too. Nothing stuck, not really anyway. I kept every relationship very quiet, including those with men, just for the sake of privacy. When I was with women, it was also to avoid getting hate-crimed, but I really did prefer to keep at least some things private.

“In the context of work, there were also challenges. That first superior to try getting at me like that must’ve talked, telling anyone who would listen about my excursions to the underground bars. People looked at me oddly in just about any shared workspace there was, though a few times I made friends because of it. Those were always good times, even if few and far between.

“Some people just gave a judgemental stare or vaguely rude comment every so often, but a few others took it further. Much further,” she looked up to the ceiling as she recalled another story.

“I had a supervisor when I was probably about, oh, twenty seven or so. He was a few ranks below my mother, and I one below him. He decided that one day it would be absolutely hysterical to cover my desk in obscene printed images of women I didn’t recognize, along with toys of a certain nature. I was mortified when I came in and saw the spectacle. The worst part was that almost everyone working in that part of the building at the time laughed with him, and those who didn’t weren’t exactly helpful.

“I didn’t come back to work for a week after that. It was awful, his stupid prank making me so shamed of who I was, who I loved. I know now that my loving both women and men isn’t a bad thing, and is simply part of me. It was harder to accept that, to accept myself, when I saw people like him in positions of power over me.

“I kept working though, and there was never an incident quite like that one again. A few others were more directly hateful than most, but it was easier to deal with. As with people treating me as less because of my gender, I got used to it,” she turned to Kaja, a hint of guilt on her face after talking for so long.

He shook his head, disbelief still spread across his face. His eyes flitted back and forth between floor tiles as he searched for the right words to respond.

“That sounds awful. I’m so sorry you had to deal with people like that,” he looked back up at Lin.

“So am I,” she scoffed, her fingers picking at her turtleneck again.

There was a small silence before Kaja looked back down at his notepad and then at the clock on the wall.

“We’ve got enough time for one last question, so is there anything you’d like to tell young women and queer people living in the city?” His expression was almost hopeful now, desperate to end off on a lighter note.

Lin smiled in amusement at him before looking down at her hands, fiddling her thumbs in her lap. After a moment, she looked back up at him and started speaking again.

“Absolutely,” she began, her gaze drifting around the room and landing on each individual at least once.

“To all the women working your asses off in the workforce: stand up for yourself. Don’t let any man devalue you because of your gender. Be the best you can be and wipe the smiles clean off their faces as you do it. Start your own businesses, get that promotion, set goals for yourself and fly past them. You can do just about anything you put your mind to, despite what many men might say,” her voice was strong, almost commanding as she began her final statement.

“And to all the young queer people out there; you are so, so strong. Keep loving each other, keep being yourselves. I know how awful people can be, but their opinions do not define you. You are perfect exactly as you are, and nothing can change that. It might seem like it’ll never be true, but I believe we will live in a time when acceptance is the norm. I believe that that time, with hard work and patience with those who need teaching, will be here soon.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Chief,” Kaja said, looking at the clock again.

“Thank you for having me,” Lin replied, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“And with that, folks, we wrap up today’s special broadcast. I’ll be back in the studio tomorrow resuming our usual radio program. Until then, I’m Kaja Posicopolis, and this is eighty six point four, your favourite music station,” Kaja finished, staying silent for a few seconds until a man from across the room nodded at him.

He rolled his head around and got up from his chair, setting his notepad down behind him.

“How are you now?” he asked Lin as he stretched his arms out and cracked his back.

Lin scoffed and stood, going through a couple of her own stretches. She straightened her shirt and tucked a few stray hairs back before responding.

“I feel like I just stood naked in front of the entire city,” she said, unable to hold back a small smile when Kaja laughed.

“Well, we’re about to expose you even more. You ready for the photo shoot?” he grabbed his notebook and pen and closed them, watching Lin for an answer.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Lin sighed before following him out of the room.

They walked down several long hallways, eventually coming to a large open room. The walls and floor were a pale grey cement, and there were expensive looking lights set up all over the place. A dark green upholstered bench sat to one side of the room, a tall light shining down on it. A few people saw them coming in and rushed around, turning off almost every other light. One of them knocked on a door that was on the other end of the room, calling for someone inside.

“This seems a bit excessive,” Lin muttered, her eyes wandering the room.

“Only the best for you, Chief,” a man said from somewhere in the shadows.

Lin glanced behind her only to see Kaja talking to someone near the door. When she turned back to where the voice had come from, she had to bite back a laugh. She tried not to, but couldn’t help smiling at the absolute glow that radiated from the man in front of her.

“You like my outfit?” he asked with a grin, twirling around for her.

He had on bright red fit-and-flare pants with a stripe of gold sequins down their side; a matching red low-cut tank top; a purple feather-covered knee-length jacket; gold sparkly platform shoes that made him tower over Lin more than he already would have; and a top hat that belonged with a businessman’s black tie attire.

“It’s incredible,” Lin chuckled, crossing her arms casually over her chest.

“You look sharp yourself today, Chief,” he said with a grin, taking a few steps towards her.

Before she could object, he pulled her into a tight hug. His arms squashed her face against his lower chest, making Lin painfully aware of the extent of their height difference. She laughed and patted his arm, thankfully getting him to release her.

“I’m assuming you’re the photographer, then?” she asked, grinning up at him.

He nodded enthusiastically and spun on his heel, walking back into the darkness. She heard a couple of small crashes and a string of profanities before he came back, a large camera and it’s stand filling his arms.

“Uh- where am I going?” he asked Lin, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She let out a small laugh and stepped towards him, placing her hand on his arm. She guided him towards the bench setup, stopping them near where the light stood.

“Thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed, setting down the camera’s stand first and then fastening the camera to it.

“Of course,” Lin breathed, suddenly nervous to have her photo taken.

The photographer immediately noticed her mood change and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make you look,” he closed his eyes and blew a chef's kiss to the side.

Lin nodded and took a deep breath, filling her lungs as much as she could before letting it all out. The photographer made a few adjustments to the camera stand, making sure it would stay while he got her in position, and then led her to the bench. He sat her down in the middle of it and walked back to his camera, dragging the stand loudly over so he was more to her right.

“Don’t be so stiff,” he called, looking at her through the viewfinder and flapping his hand in the air.

“Just- pretend I’m not here, you’re just sitting at home listening to the radio.”

He stepped back from the camera and watched Lin as she settled her head on her left fist with her right elbow on her knee. The photographer gave her a big thumbs up, calling “Much better!” and going back to looking through his camera.

He shifted it a few times before taking any photos, wanting to get it right in as few shots as possible considering the price and rarity of film in stores. Lin looked at the camera for the first few, looking away because of her boredom growing steadily. When he seemed satisfied with the shots, he took the camera off the stand and walked over to the bench.

“Room for another?” he asked, not letting Lin answer before settling himself beside her.

The images printed slowly, one at a time. After each was out, he placed them in the shadow under the bench to protect them from overexposure. Once the last one printed, he reached down and grabbed the first. It had settled well, the colours coming out nice and bright.

“It’s perfect,” Lin gasped, staring in wonder at the photo that managed to make her alright with how she looked out-of-uniform.

The photographer grinned at her, holding the photo up.

“I agree,” he said proudly, forgetting his other photos and standing.

Lin watched as he brought the photo to Kaja, engaging the shorter man in a quick and lively discussion before handing off the photo and walking back. He grinned ear to ear at her, and she sighed before relenting and giving a small smile back.

“Nervous, Chief?” he asked, standing before her with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket.

Lin chuckled and shook her head.

“I just haven’t done something like this in ages… or ever, really,” she said, her hands moving to grip the edge of the bench.

“Hey,” the photographer moved to place a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to look up at him.

“You’re doing great, Chief, trust me,” Lin let out a breath and really smiled at him this time.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, meaning it with every ounce of her being.

[justarandomsideblog]

This is thrown together on the page with zero editing so there's probably many glaring mistakes but I wanted to get it out there so here ya go

oOo

Fundy falls in love with the piano when he is very young and L’Manburg is nothing more than a van, and it’s just a small keyboard he can play with on the floor while his father makes war plans but it’s how it begins. He plays it in the months it takes him to grow up, maturing faster than it takes for Tommy and Tubbo to reach adulthood.

He plays it until he’s old enough for his father to replace the keyboard in his hands with a sword.

He’s seven months yet thirteen years old when he’s allowed into the war room, fidgeting hands folded tightly in his lap. There is no time to play keyboard anymore, and it’s left forgotten in his nest of blankets and pillows when the whole thing goes up in a devastating blast.

The war ends and he plays again on a makeshift piano, given to him by his uncles who teach him to play more complex melodies in the quiet moments when they’re not working. Yet those moments become few and far between in the months it takes Fundy to age to sixteen, the same age his young uncles had turned before Fundy was even born barely ten months before.

He cherishes the moments before everything falls apart once more. Yet another war begins and he sets aside the keyboard again to fight. His fingers are calloused in ways soft paw pads like his should never be, raw and bleeding from the sword he holds the second time he watches his home go up in smoke.

Eret gifts him a piano one year after he was born, when he turns seventeen and his aging has finally begun to slow. They help him set it up in his home, way too large for the orphaned teenage hybrid, and it gleams beautifully in the flickering torchlight. His passion, lost with his father, flares up once more and he plays for Eret and Phil, a moment of peace. Finally peace. Finally, he thinks, the swords will be hung up on the wall and peace will reign at last- swords have no place in peace, as art has no place in war.

The moment shatters; Eret, having never received Fundy’s message, doesn’t make it to the adoption, and Phil leaves- the Butcher Army, Fundy and Tubbo’s subsequent disownment and Tommy’s exile leaving the angel nothing to stay in L’Manburg for. So now he plays for the silence, not even the music filling the emptiness he has always relied on, and there he realizes the truth that will always weigh heavily in his gut.

There will always be another war.

Doomsday carries with it the weight of this realization, and he grins painfully through the tears pouring down his face as his house is blown away, piano keys withering into nothingness, and he says to no one in particular, “There’s no place for art in war.”

And so, even though L’Manburg is gone, even though everything is over and done with, Fundy knows it’s not. He knows the next war is waiting around the corner, and so he quietly stays prepared- his sword always on his hip, a bow strapped to his back, armour settled into his holding bag ready to be pulled on at a moment’s notice.

He doesn’t own a piano anymore.

Phil doesn’t speak to him for a long time, except when Fundy forces him to. He forgives Tubbo- tentatively so, with a lack of trust- long before he’s even willing to acknowledge him and Fundy are related, and even when they’re speaking again- awkward, stilted, not natural like before- Phil doesn’t ask about the scars on Fundy’s hands. He doesn’t ask if Fundy is eighteen or twenty now, though Fundy no longer knows himself.

His grandfather asks only once if Fundy has learned any new songs.

“I don’t play the piano anymore,” Fundy answers, short and more broken than he sounds. Phil doesn’t press for more, and Fundy goes home to silence once more.

Then the nightmares start, and the silence is even worse than before- because now he wakes up and never knows if he’s awake, the song in his soul having died out long ago. He remembers bits and pieces, forgets others, and he tries to run away. He pulls the TNT he has ready for the next inevitable war and rigs his home- big and empty and echoing loneliness- with as much as he can fit up the stairs, in the walls, on and under the floor. He takes only what he needs most and puts it into a wagon, pulls out an arrow and sets it alight-

His grandfather messages him. Wants to meet up. Fundy is in no state to walk on eggshells but he goes anyway, because he wants his family back, and learns his father is alive. They search for him but by the end Fundy is ready to give everything up. He leaves Phil, mind made up, and waits until he knows Phil is through the portal.

This time when he watches his home go up, it’s by his own hand.

He leaves and speaks to no one for months, but the nightmares stay. He finds a kit. He takes the kit in, considering briefly calling Phil to let him know he’s now a great grandfather, but he decides not to- Phil hasn’t reached out at all, no one has, even though his home is no more than a crater in the ground... again.

So he says nothing and focuses on being a father, now. His kit doesn’t like being indoors, running out to play in the woods whenever he wants, and Fundy learns to keep up and keep him safe. He builds a nest on the porch, under the awning, a nice, dry and warm place where his kit likes to curl up and sleep at night, white fur standing out against the reds and oranges of Fundy’s once-favourite blankets.

He names the kit Yogurt, after arguing with the foxes that like to hang around.

Between the nightmares and the crippling loneliness, with no one but a child too young to understand speech and a rowdy skulk of foxes who come and go as they please, Fundy finds himself.

He doesn’t remember much of the nightmares but he does remember one big, important thing.

Quackity can’t be trusted.

Quackity appears to him just as he had in the nightmare, and Fundy already knows their conversation as it happens. Knows every little thing as they walk across the remains of L’Manburg. He knows what the next war will be.

This time, Fundy decides, he will pull the strings. Early the next day, while his skulk is out who knows where and Yogurt is bundled up, safe at home, Fundy dons his armour and grabs his sword and axe, and he makes his way to the place he knows Las Nevadas to be.

He arrives and stands on the hill overlooking the beautiful, daunting city, and he watches Quackity disappear into the casino while below him a totem god looks around.

In those few seconds, when Fundy sees the harsh gleam in Foolish’s eyes, a new plan forms.

They speak briefly, over the dune and out of sight of the casino, and they come to an agreement. With no witnesses, they shake hands and Fundy goes back home, and Foolish does not tell Quackity of his visit.

Later, when Fundy finally joins Las Nevadas with his skulk a few steps behind, he mixes truth in with the lies and hopes the skulk will not out him.

To gain the trust of one who doesn’t trust, it takes someone who also doesn’t trust.

Yet Fundy, who at his heart and soul is a fox- a trickster- a spy- knows how to play the part of one who does. One who doesn’t know that he will always be left alone.

When Quackity asks him about his war experience, he answers truthfully- “I have been in every army and every war.”

He is a soldier to Quackity, first and foremost, and so when Quackity presents to him the piano inside the casino polished to perfection, he looks on it with silent discontent.

“I don’t play piano anymore.”

There is no place for art in war.

-

“Your hands are made to create, not destroy.”

Fundy looks up from the dagger he is playing with, seeing Foolish standing in front of him. Purpled is off to the side, on guard for Quackity and pretending he isn’t listening.

It isn’t the first time they’re meeting like this and it won’t be the last. Plans have to be made. Escape routes planned. Snowchester and Las Nevadas will tear each other- and themselves- apart long before Fundy and Foolish could ever put their plan into action. Playing nice and trying to keep everything from blowing up too early is getting exhausting, but it has to be done. After all, Fundy’s family is in the crossfire now- he silently curses Tubbo and Ranboo for building the mountain outpost, and he outwardly curses Tommy and Wilbur for making their ‘country’ right across the river.

“A lot of things are made to do what they’re not supposed to,” Fundy says to the god, putting the knife down. Tonight he has messaged Phil, pleading with him to stay away from Las Nevadas- but it has remained unread, and similar messages sent to Niki and Tommy and Ranboo are all the same. “What are you even talking about, anyway?”

“Tubbo said you used to play piano,” Foolish says, gaze drifting past Fundy to the piano left, abandoned, against the wall. “He asked me to put one in the mansion big enough so you guys could play together.”

“I haven’t played piano in a long fucking time,” Fundy scoffs, drumming his fingers anxiously against his legs. As much as he wants to... “But I guess Tubbo wouldn’t know that. We haven’t had a proper conversation since L’Manburg.”

Tubbo isn’t much like his uncle anymore. Tommy, neither. They don’t come around or check on him, they haven’t since long before L’Manburg fell. Tubbo feels more like... that neighbor kid you play with because there’s no other neighbor kids your age. They mess around and talk and joke when Quackity sends Fundy to investigate the outpost but it’s only because they don’t want to fight anymore. They don’t want to be on opposite sides, anymore.

Fundy can’t even tell him that they aren’t on opposite sides.

Ranboo says to choose people, and they all play the part easily enough, him and Tubbo and Fundy, but Fundy has always chosen people. He chose his family in the past, every time, regardless of what side they were on, until suddenly the family was split. What did sides matter, when it came to love, to friends, to family, to acceptance? How do you choose between the uncle who raised you and the grandfather who was there when you needed him?

Well, it no longer really matters.

This time he chooses Foolish and Purpled, the two who care about and accept him without question, whether he needs them or not.

Purpled, who respects that he doesn’t want salmon to be eaten even when he isn’t here. Purpled, who knows how it feels to be forgotten, who knows how it feels to have nothing to his name.

Foolish, who understands his need for symmetry. Foolish, who knows how it feels to want to leave the past behind, who knows how hard it is to feel worthy of forgiveness and redemption.

No, Fundy still loves his legal-and-blood family very much, but he supposes Foolish and Purpled have become the family he had always wanted to have.

Laughing and talking with them never feels forced, or awkward, or like walking on eggshells. He never feels like he is one misstep from being banished.

It’s nice.

“There’s no place for art in war,” Fundy finally says, filling the space growing between the trio they’ve formed.

They fall into silence, none of them trying to protest- none of them saying what they are in now is not a war. Maybe in another life this beautiful city that they’ve poured themselves into building up in order to build trust with the president could have been home, but in this life it was one thing alone-

The way to end the war, to stop Quackity in his tracks.

“After the war is over, will you play for us?” Purpled asks now.

And he will, though Fundy doesn’t know it yet. Once the war is over and the nuke has been dismantled, torn to pieces by its own creator’s hands, and Quackity and Fundy have both been reduced to one last life each, Fundy will sit at a piano at Foolish’s Summer Home, with the friends and family he has left- with Foolish and Purpled, Tubbo and Tommy and even Wilbur, with Techno and Phil and Niki and Ranboo, with Slime and Yogurt, every person he has ever loved and cared about and will one day save- and he will play a melody Tubbo taught him when he was a kit, still playing on a clumsy piano thrown together from scrapwood and busted strings in the living room of a house long since rotted and burned away.

For now, though, not knowing what the future has in store, Fundy only smiles and says, “There will always be another war.”

[thathopelessromantic]

Reckless Good (1/?)

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Fic Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Teen+

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku

Note: Part of the @tododekubigbang for 2021! I'm super excited to share this AU with everyone. And please check out the awesome compaion art from @cryptidcatgod for chapter six!

Todoroki Shouto had accepted his fate as a public figure when he became a pro-hero, but there are some parts of his private life he would like to stay private. When he gets invited to be a speaker in a college lecture series, he goes to the meeting with one goal: to give the coordinator a piece of his mind and finally put an end to people hounding him for information about his family.

The last thing he expects is the curious, and quirkless, hero- and quirk-study professor, Midoriya Izuku, who has no interest in his family's history, and, somehow, even more ties to the hero industry than Shouto. Intrigued by the professor, Shouto tentatively agrees to the lecture series, unknowingly intertwining their futures.

But the more Todoroki sees of Midoriya, the more questions he has. When a villain attack leaves them living together until the culprits are apprehended, maybe he'll finally get some answers.

AO3: (x)

Dear Pro-Hero Entropy,

On behalf of Musutafu University, I would like to cordially invite you to be a speaker in our first annual Hero Talks series. We anticipate university students, as well as members of the public from all walks of life, will be interested in hearing from 10 different pro-heroes, over the course of ten-weeks between September and November, as they discuss their experience in the hero industry, the details of their jobs, and the unique quirks they’ve encountered or that helped them in becoming the heroes of today.

I would be extremely grateful if you were willing to share your expertise and be a part of the series. You would be an excellent addition to our program, and our line-up of great heroes that already includes current number one, Pro-Hero Lemillion, the Permeation Hero, and the well-respected, Youthful Heroine Recovery Girl.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

X 

“I think you should do it.”

Shouto pauses with his cup half-way to his mouth as the silence that had fallen over them is finally broken. Momo primly takes a sip of her tea, pointedly avoiding his astonished look.

“…What?”

Momo clears her throat, placing her teacup back on the table and sitting up, somehow, straighter in her chair. Despite the fact that they are in her home, she looks decidedly more uncomfortable than he feels, even by the bizarre direction of their conversation. “I think you should do it. I think it would be a good opportunity for you, Shouto.”

“Have you met me?” he asks incredulously. “There’s nothing ‘good’ about anything that includes me and talking.”

His phone, with the offending email still pulled up on the darkening screen, sits on the table between them. He doesn’t realize he is glaring at it until Momo plucks it up and away from his line of sight. Waking up the screen, she reads over the email again. He doesn’t know why she bothers – they must have poured over it together at least three or four times when he first arrived, dumbfounded by yet another invitation and nearly laughing over the ridiculous concept of him giving a talk on a college campus.

“It’s not like you would have to wing it, it’s still only April now, so the series won’t be taking place until the second term. You would have time to come up with a topic, write a speech, prepare.”

“No one wants to listen to me read from a piece of paper for an hour,” he replies drolly. “And I don’t have anything to talk about that long, anyways.”

It is her turn to stare at him incredulously from across the table. He resists the urge to squirm under the disbelieving look. Finally, Momo sighs, returning his phone to the table.

“I think you underestimate what people would be willing to listen to,” she clears her throat. “You have a unique perspective on the hero industry that very few have, or get to hear about-”

“Because my dad was a dick?”

“Due to being raised by a hero," she continues on, as if he hadn't spoken. "And not just any hero, but someone who was the number two hero for a very long time, and even briefly the number one hero. Very few heroes nowadays have children, and even fewer have children who go on to follow in their footsteps. You’re a legacy.”

“I’m the only one of any of Endeavor’s kids to become a hero. If they wanted to hear about hero family legacies, they should have contacted Iida.”

Momo sighs, rubbing her temples. He’s noticed her doing that around him with increasing frequency these days. “Well I believe they did, actually. And he agreed.”

Shouto leans back in his seat. “Then he can talk all about being a legacy. What would they need to hear from me for?”

Momo is quiet for a very long time. “…Well-”

“No.”

“You brought it up.”

“Not seriously. I’m not going to talk about that.”

“It was just a suggestion. You, your family, have kept things remarkably quiet after it all went down, and I understand wanting to protect your privacy, considering it really is none of their business, but people are always going to have questions. It’s been years since the trial and the media still asks you every year. At least this way, if you talked about it, you could control the narrative.”

Shouto looks away. The setting sun is just out of sight from the dining room window, but it paints the neighbor’s house and the trees along the road a warm orange. The anniversary of the trial, of his father’s fall from grace in the public eye was just a few weeks away, still looming over him, even years after the fact. He has no interest in ‘controlling the narrative.’ He’d rather not think about it at all, actually. But just like every year before, as the date grew closer, the media got more frantic, more invasive.

You would think after more than ten years of radio silence from the Todoroki family they would finally get discouraged, and yet…

Sensing he wasn’t interested in pursuing this topic of conversation any longer, Momo changes tactics, carefully pulling his thoughts from a dangerous spiral. “Or you could have a meeting with the person who invited you. See what topic they had in mind for you.”

Shouto glances at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Well they didn’t just mass invite heroes, the invitations have only gone out to a select few. I’m assuming the coordinator had some idea of what they thought those particular heroes would talk about.” There is a quiet click of her nails against the glass table top as she picks up his phone once more. “You could set up a meeting with him and see what he had in mind. If the topic is something you’re comfortable talking about, wonderful. If not, you can decline the invitation, and all you’ve wasted is an afternoon.”

Something clicks in his head and Shouto sits up again, an idea brewing. He turns his attention back to her. “I still don’t want to give a talk,”

“Shouto-”

“But you have a point. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Momo smiles, but her brows shoot up, a clear indication of her surprise at – and her suspicion over – his quick surrender. “I’m…a little shocked you agree.”

“Well you’d just keep bothering me about it if I didn’t at least talk to him, wouldn’t you?” She glares at him but doesn’t refute the accusation. “But isn’t it just the dean of the school that sent the emails? He’s probably not the sole coordinator.”

“No,” She shakes her head, handing his phone back over. “It says here he’s a professor.”

 Midoriya Izuku, Ph.D.

Professor of Hero and Quirk Studies

Musutafu University

midoriyaizu@mu.edu

X

It takes two days after his talk with Momo for Shouto to get around to even opening the professor’s response to his request for a meeting.

Kyouka watches him suspiciously from where she’s draped over his office chair as he paces in front of his desk. “What’s wrong with you?”

She takes an obnoxious sip of her coffee. The smell has permeated the entire room and it makes something in his stomach curl with longing, but his doctor made it explicitly clear that he was to take an extended break from the drink after letting it serve as breakfast, lunch, and dinner a few too many days in a row. Something more painful than longing – perhaps an ulcer he may or may not have given himself from his liquid diet – twists his stomach.

“Why are you even here?”

Kyouka sighs at his question, her head lolling back as she sinks deeper into the chair. He’s not totally sure what she’s doing. He knows for a fact those chairs aren’t comfortable. His best attempt to keep people from staying in his office longer than absolutely necessary.

“Kyouka?”

She takes another sip of her coffee. He has absolutely no idea how she doesn’t spill it all over herself in that position.

“Momo asked me to talk to you.”

He stops pacing long enough to determine that she’s telling the truth. “…Why?”

“Because she doesn’t think you’ve emailed the professor back about that hero series yet.”

He glances at his computer. At the unread email blinking at the top of his inbox, taunting him. “I’m not saying she’s right…but why does she want you to talk to me about it?”

She swings her legs off the arm of the chair to sit up right and glare at him. “I resent the insinuation that I am not a great candidate for making you get your shit together. But,” she stands up, dropping her cup onto his desk and crossing her arms. Her expression is fierce, but he recognizes the barely-there flush high on her cheeks and the nervous twitch of her earphone jacks. “I was also invited to be a part of the series.”

Shouto stops, sinking into his desk chair. Invitations like this were usually a pain for him. For one, he hated public speaking – or even extended conversations. As one of the top students at U.A., however, and as the son of a well-known hero, he had been getting requests for talks and interviews and special features for years. Most of which he usually ignored, knowing what it was they wanted him to talk about. But he knows an invitation like this can be special. Especially for someone like Kyouka, who doesn’t have particularly strong connections with the hero industry, even after graduating U.A. Her parents’ reputation and her internship with Present Mic made her more of a celebrity in the music industry than a well-known hero, despite all the great work she did.

“Kyouka,” he says quietly, earnestly, so that she pays attention to him. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she replies with a small smile, before her expression changes again. “But shut up, Todoroki. That’s not the point. Momo thinks you’ll be dragging your feet over getting back to the professor. But when she told me about how quickly you agreed, I got a feeling there was something else going on.” She braces her hands on his desk and leans into his personal space, jacks floating threateningly close to his throat. “You were gonna set up that meeting, and then just give him a hard time, weren’t you?”

Shouto freezes, caught. “Uh…”

It’s not exactly an admission, but Kyouka throws her head back and laughs, anyways. “I knew it. We’ve all been waiting for when you finally got fed up and picked a victim. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long.”

Shouto doesn’t mean for the quiet, astonished chuckle to slip out, but he supposes if it’s Kyouka, it’s alright. There’s a devilish glint in her eyes as she drops back into her chair.

“So,” she asks. “What are you waiting for?”

“You’re really not going to stop me?”

“We’re public figures, the media has never been interested in respecting our privacy, but we’ve all spent years watching you get hounded over your parents’ divorce and your father’s trial. If this is just another asshole trying to get a scoop, or recognition for finally getting you to spill, he deserves it. Everyone would agree. Well…Tenya and Momo might frown at your approach, but I still think they’d support the general idea. And well,” she shrugs. “If he is just an asshole, all the better for the rest of us to know now so we don’t support what he’s trying to do.”

He hesitates, mouse hovering over the professor’s email. “Are you sure?”

She scowls, though there isn’t any heat behind it. “If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t say it.” She comes around the desk to stand behind him. “Now hurry up, I have a patrol to get to.”

Reaching down, she opens the email before he can react.

Thank you so much for your interest! Of course we can meet to discuss the details of the series more. Below are my office hours when I will be on the Musutafu University campus. If you are not available for any of those times, please let me know when would work best for you and we can plan a meeting then.

Kyouka leans over his shoulder to read the email.

“Tuesday’s your day off next week, right?”

Shouto rolls his eyes but opens a new draft to reply.

Kyouka grins. “Good boy. I will report your excellent behavior to Momo.” She ruffles his hair before heading for the door, grabbing her coffee cup off his desk as she goes.

“Fuck off.”

She tosses her head back and laughs again. “Give ‘em hell.”

X

They make plans to meet in a few days, when Shouto has some time off, and the professor forwards his office room number and three different maps of campus “just in case.” Which Shouto found ridiculous….at the time.

Now he’s here, and has been wandering around for God knows how long. It takes approximately ten minutes for Shouto to admit he’s lost, and another five minutes for him to get frustrated over still being lost. He wasn’t sure what to expect of the university campus, but, clearly, he did not prepare enough in advance. The large, sprawling buildings remind him of U.A.’s campus, but rather than extra training grounds, the spaces between are grassy plots filled with students relaxing under the shade of trees or soaking up the sun on blankets. Instead of practicing hand-to-hand, the students sit in clusters pouring over textbooks or typing away on laptops. And they, of course, all appear perfectly at home amongst the labyrinth of lecture halls.

The paved plaza in the middle of all the activity hosts a large fountain and a statue of a man with large, curling horns coming from his temples that Shouto assumes has some kind of importance to the school, but that he doesn’t recognize.

He forwent his hero-suit for jeans, a button-up, and a leather jacket – in addition to sunglasses, a mask, and a baseball cap. The clothing seemed to blend in well enough with the other students, if not a tad understated, but his distinct hair and scar are not so easily hidden and soon enough he notices students staring, following his movements back and forth across campus or whispering amongst themselves.

Eventually, a few brave students manage to catch him as he is trying to reorient himself. Again.

“Um, excuse me, are you pro-hero Entropy?” a girl asks. Two friends flank her, staring with wide eyes.

Caught, he pulls down his mask. “Ah, yes. Hello.”

“Oh my gosh! Hi-Hello, I’m wow…I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s really great to meet you!”

“Are you here about the Hero Talks series!?” one of her friends asks suddenly, quickly slapping a hand over her mouth after the loud outburst.

Well…they aren’t wrong, and maybe they can help him. “It’s…something like that.” He agrees carefully.

The three light up with smiles, two of them jumping up and down in excitement.

“Dr. Midoriya is going to be so excited, oh my gosh!”

“You know the professor?”

All three nod excitedly. “We’re all in his Intro to Combat Analysis lecture! He’s been gushing about this series since he got permission last semester!” the third student finally chimes in.

Perfect. “Do you know where I could find his office? I’m supposed to be meeting with him, but I’ve gotten a little turned around.”

The three jump to help direct him to the right building, gushing all the while over the professor and his classes. By the time they finally part ways, Shouto feels a little guilty about his plan to give the professor a piece of his mind over the whole thing and misleading them about his intention to join the series. They were nice girls after all.

Someone bumps into him before he reaches the building, sending him stumbling off the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry,” a bright voice calls, gently pulling Shouto back onto the pavement. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you alright?”

Large, bright green eyes behind thin, wire-framed glasses give him a quick once-over, as if looking for injuries. The man meets his gaze through his sunglasses for a moment before glancing down at his wrist watch again. Somehow, he feels even more dazed meeting the man’s eyes than simply being booted off the sidewalk.

“…yes I’m fine, thank you.”

The man gives him a dazzling smile, flashing one dimple and further accentuating the smattering of freckles over his cheeks. “Good, good. Sorry again.” With a quick bow, the man is on his way again and headed into the building before them. The same building Shouto was headed.

Shaking off the strange feeling left behind, he waits a few moments, so as not to appear as if he was following the bright-eyed man, and goes inside. Along the wall there are signs directing visitors to particular room numbers or restrooms, and a bulletin board nearly as long as the wall is tall, full of posters advertising events happening around campus, and Musutafu, as well as ads looking for roommates or a reminder about signing up for a study abroad program. Right in the corner, as if attached as an after-thought, or a secret, there’s a small, handwritten flyer declaring the First Annual Hero Talks series could be counted as credits for Quirk or Hero Study students looking for an independent study if they met with Dr. Mirdoriya before the end of the term. Shouto almost takes the flyer before he realizes, realistically, that the students who might be interested in such a thing would probably benefit from it more than his brief curiosity needed to be sated.

Turning from the wall, he sets out for the stairs. The students instructed him to take the staircase on the far end of the east hall (the closest to the professor’s office, supposedly), to the third floor, where the professor’s office would be the third door on the left.

Midoriya Izuku is written clearly on a small sign hanging outside of the office. A small box sits under it, stuffed full of papers and folders that Shouto assumes are from students. The professor’s half-open door is covered in colorful posters and stickers – including, Shouto realizes, another copy of the flyer about the series and a poster of him, Pro-Hero Entropy, from his debut year. He looks away from his younger self and knocks on the door.

“Dr. Midoriya?” he calls, poking his head into the office.

The first thing he notices is that the hero-memorabilia on the door has absolutely nothing on what’s inside the office. More posters cover the entire front of the professor’s desk, and from the looks of it the top of his computer. Mixed between dozens of books on the shelves and filing cabinets filling two of the four walls are hero-figurines and framed pictures of heroes or preserved comic books. Even more posters and framed pictures cover the rest of the walls.

The second thing he notices, is that the broad-shouldered man dropping a beat-up, leather satchel to the ground besides the desk, is the same man who ran into him outside.

Dr. Midoriya whirls around, greeting him with another 100-watt smile. “Ah yes! Hello- oh! It’s you.”

“Ah, yes.” Shouto shuffles a little further into the office, he pulls his mask down under his chin and takes his sunglasses off, tucking them into the collar of his shirt. After a second's thought, he pulls off his cap as well, shoving the bill into his back pocket.

Dr. Midoriya’s jaw drops, his eyes comically wide, for approximately three seconds, before he comes back into himself, steeling his expression. His hands flutter nervously around his head for a moment and then he smiles again.

“Entropy! Welcome! I’m so sorry I did not recognize you before. Please, come in. Take a seat. Did you find your way through campus alright?”

Shouto gives a small bow, mumbling a thank you, as he comes further into the office to sit in one of the two small chairs before the desk. A poster of some of his old classmates is hung at knee-level, and even on paper, Momo's serious expression is judging him. Kyouka is egging him on.

Dr. Midoriya still stands behind his desk, staring at Shouto like he’s not sure what to make of him sitting in his office.

“Uh…Dr. Midoriya?”

The professor snaps back to life. “Yes! Sorry, sorry,” he sits down finally, pulling off his glasses and putting them to the side. “Welcome, again, to Musutafu University. And thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to consider our series! I really can’t tell you how thrilled I was to get your email.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. The professor talks with his hands, and every movement seems to pull the beige-colored cardigan he’s wearing even tighter around his biceps. Shouto isn’t usually one to speculate about others’ quirks unless in a fight, but he wonders now if the professor has some kind of strength-augmenting quirk – and if he does, how adept is he at using it if Shouto pisses him off? The potential of getting his ass kicked has never stopped Shouto before, but he can already hear the lecture he’d get from Momo, and probably Fuyumi, if he made the news for destroying a college building in a fight with a civilian professor.

Honestly, the property damage would probably be the least of their worries if he starts fighting with civilians.

“I know you don’t normally work with the media or make non-heroic work public appearances so I figured it was a long shot for you to even consider being a part of the series, but I really think you would make an amazing feature.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. Here it comes, he thinks. He really should have prepared what exactly he was going to say more, but he figured it would just come to him in the moment. Now, for some reason, he’s nervous. As if he would accidentally agree or something else equally absurd.

How this sweater had contained the man’s arms so far was a miracle, honestly.  

“…but quirks are mutating, or rather evolving, at an astonishing rate. Every generation we see quirks getting stronger than those of previous generations but more and more we are now seeing children with quirks that have little to no relation to their parent’s quirks, or a manifestation of some kind of combination of quirks. You gained attention early on for being one of the first heroes, or even hero-in-training, to have multiple quirks.

“Now that it’s becoming more common, hearing first hand from someone who has had to learn how to control and gain mastery over two separate quirks would be invaluable information, especially for many quirk-study students who will be working with parents and children who are going through this for the first time, and for those who may have some form of a combination quirk but did not have the benefit of a hero-course education that could teach them proper control.”

Wait…what?

“What?”

Dr. Midoriya startles, glancing between Shouto and something unseen in the air around him. “Oh…” he winces. “I’m sorry. Was I mumbling again? I apologize, sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth and I get carried away, where did I…never mind, I’ll start again…slower. So, when quirks first appeared-”

Shouto holds up a hand to stop the professor and his jaw snaps shut with an audible click. “You want me to talk about my quirk?”

“…Yes?”

“Not…my family?”

Dr. Midoriya lowers his arms to the top of his desk, folding his hands together. Shouto thinks it might be the first time he has seen him completely still since they first ran into each other outside.

Now that they’re closer, and his hands aren’t moving, Shouto can also see surprisingly large scars running over the professor’s fingers and onto the backs of his hands. Those definitely don’t look like something you would get as a teacher. At least not as a normal, non-hero course teacher.

“Do you want to talk about your family?”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. The professor’s serious attention directed all at him is suddenly unnerving somehow. “Well, no, I don’t.”

Dr. Midoriya nods, once. “Okay.” A pause. “Honestly, I was surprised to even hear you ask, I hadn’t considered broaching the topic for something like this.”

“You didn’t?” he asks incredulously.

Dr. Midoriya pins him with an expression he can’t interpret but inexplicably reminds him of Aizawa back in high school when he was frustrated with students or a lesson or even a fellow teacher. Especially All Might.

“Entropy, you have made it very clear in the past that you have no interest in talking about what happened to your family publicly. And that is your right. No one is owed anything about your personal life. If you suddenly decided you wanted to talk about what happened, and you wanted to use the Hero Talks series as your platform, you would be more than welcome to do so. Honestly, the publicity from that one lecture alone would probably be enough to guarantee the university allowing this series again in the future. But that is not why I asked you to be a part of it. You want to keep your private affairs private, and I respect that. I picked heroes who I knew the public would be interested in hearing from, but also who would have the most helpful information to offer to the students who are studying these topics, and, frankly, they would learn far more hearing about your quirk than your…homelife.”

“I…I wouldn’t know what to talk about.” Shouto admits awkwardly.

Dr. Midoriya smiles softly. “That’s okay. I can give you some general topics to consider, or more specific questions to think about as main points if that would be more helpful. Let me see…” he turns around in his chair, shifting to the side, and Shouto can see the shelves just under the view of the desk are stuffed full of identical notebooks, each with a carefully penned number on the binding. The professor pulls one out and flips through it. Almost every page is crammed with scrawling handwriting, some written sideways or upside down, squeezed into every blank space he could find. The slightly-less busy pages have drawings of heroes or costumes or diagrams Shouto can’t interpret from the quick, upside-down glance he gets of them.

From his seat Shouto could see there were, at least, two shelves of these notebooks. Were they all like that?

Finally, the professor finds what he’s looking for with a satisfied hum. He sets the notebook on the desk, turning it so Shouto can see. The page is marginally less chaotic than others he saw. At the top, in surprisingly neat handwriting and underlined three times, it reads: Questions for Multiple-Quirk Usage (Entropy).

The rest of the page is made up of dozens of questions about his quirk. Some, Shouto imagines, are just general questions for anyone with multiple quirks to consider (Do you activate both quirks the same way?  Can you use them both simultaneously?) and get progressively tailored to questions about his quirk, like if there are places he can’t use one quirk or the other and the temperature ranges of his fire and ice, if particular environmental factors affect his ability to use either of them.

“Uh…”

Dr. Midoriya scratches the back of his head sheepishly. He hides a nervous laugh with a cough before taking the notebook back and closing it. The light isn’t strong in the office, but Shouto is positive the professor is blushing.

“Of course, if a list of topics or questions is something you would be interested in, I can provide you with a neater – and shorter – list. This was just a-a demonstration that there is a lot to consider when it comes to multiple quirks. Of course, not all of that would be relevant for a lecture, and admittedly some are just personal curiosities, but…anyways,” he clears his throat. “I’m assuming if you came here thinking I was going to ask about your family…you don’t actually want to be a part of the series.”

Shouto crosses his arms over his chest, sitting back in his chair. Does he want to be a part of a public lecture series? No. But now he is undeniably curious about this professor and how the hell his brain works.

“Do you have a notebook page like that for every hero?”

“Every hero? That would be impossible…well maybe not impossible-” Shouto raises a brow and the professor bites his tongue. “Maybe…most Japanese heroes since…early Silver Age and well-known international heroes? And any American heroes who would have overlapped with All Might’s time either learning or working in America.”

“How long have you been making those?”

He looks down a little wistfully at the question, thumbing gently at the corner of the page. “I was probably four or five when I started my first one,” he admits with a quiet laugh. “None that are here are quite that old, though.”

Shouto has…so many questions.

There’s a quiet buzz of the professor’s phone going off. He excuses himself for a moment and pulls the cell out of his pocket. His case has the design of All Might’s Golden Age costume.

“I’m sorry, Entropy, I have another meeting and I teach a class after so I can’t talk much longer today.”

“I should be getting going anyways.” Shouto says, standing up and Dr. Midoriya shoots out of his chair.

“Right, yes, of course. I’m sorry we probably took up more of your time than you meant to. Thank you for coming in, it was an honor to speak with you.”

Shouto feels like “honor” is a bit much, he didn’t really even say much at all, and he came here with rather rude intentions but, he doesn’t really know how to argue with the professor’s enthusiasm.

His brain and his good sense, and the small bit of self-preservation he has left, all tell him to keep going, to accept the professor’s gracious dismissal and move on, but he finds himself hesitating in the doorway anyways.

“Uh…Entropy? Is everything alright?” Dr. Midoriya asks, looking at him curiously.

Oh hell.

“If you send me the list, of topics…I’ll think about it.”

Dr. Midoriya’s entire being lights up. “Really?”

Oh, he was really going to regret this.

“…Yes.”

“Thank you! I will forward it to you right away!” He drops into a bow so deep, so quickly, he slams his head into the top of the desk.

Both of them freeze at the resounding crack that echoes in the small room. Shouto takes a step back into the office, already reaching for the professor.

“Are you alright?”

Dr. Midoriya straightens, looking a little dazed but mostly just embarrassed. There’s a bright red mark on his forehead. “Oh my God.” He whispers.

Shouto is surprised, and a little ashamed, by how hard it is to keep himself from laughing at the horrified expression. “Dr. Midoriya, are you-”

The desk gives a sudden, heaving creak and tips sideways. The two watch helplessly as the desk collapses, sending the clutter on top flying across the floor.

Dr. Midoriya makes a strangled noise, covering his face with his hands. “Not again.”

Again?

There are rushed footsteps outside and a young woman with six eyes and lavender hair piled in a high bun peeks her head in through the half-open door. “Dr. Midoriya, did you break something again?”

“I’m sorry Kobayashi.” He bows his head again, though not nearly as low this time, and keeps his face covered.

Kobayashi tuts disapprovingly. “I’ll call for another,” she says, already turning on her heel to leave.

“Thank you, Kobayashi.”

Shouto bends down to gather some of the papers that scattered around his feet. Dr. Midoriya lowers his hands, immediately stumbling over the mess when he sees Shouto cleaning.

“Please Entropy, thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

“It’s fine,” he waves off the worries. “Where would you like these things?”

“Uh,” Dr. Midoriya looks around the office for a moment. “Here, thank you.” Taking the papers from him he makes a neat pile on his un-damaged desk chair.

It’s quick work for the two of them to straighten up the rest of the room, though the professor takes a moment to mourn his cracked eyeglasses, and then again when he realizes some of the posters were damaged by the desk’s fall.

“Thank you again, Entropy. I’m so sorry about all the trouble.”

“It’s…fine.” Shouto says dumbly. “Well I should…go, now.”

“Yes, of course! I’m sorry about taking up even more of your time. Thank you for coming in.”

Before Shouto can reply, two new people arrive, knocking once before they shuffle into the office. Shouto moves further into the room, out of the way, as they collect the broken desk and carry it out of the room.

For a moment, they stand in silence, Shouto coming up with about a hundred more questions about the professor, while Dr. Midoriya stands nearby, twisting his hands together in embarrassment. Finally, his common-sense kicks in enough that after another short good-bye, Shouto manages to walk himself out of the office and down the stairs without doing anything else stupid or impulsive.

He passes someone on his way to the doors, so focused on getting out of the building that he doesn’t notice until they call his name.

He recognizes the wild purple hair and slouched stance of the man approaching him, but nearly dismisses the similarities on principle.

“Shinso? Since when do you come out while the sun’s still up?” He asks.

Ignoring the jab, Shinso pulls off a pair of sunglasses and looks him up and down. Despite also being a part of U.A.’s hero course in high school, Shinso promptly went underground after graduation and has been working in the shadows long enough that only some other pros and hardcore hero-fans are able to recognize him out of costume. “What are you doing here?”

“I was…I had a meeting with a professor,” he admits.

Shouto doesn’t know Shinso well, but he swears he looks surprised by the admission.

And then he laughs. “I can’t believe he actually did it. Good for him.”

Shouto isn’t totally sure he heard him correctly, but when he asks, Shinso makes an expression he can’t figure out and changes the subject.

“I’ll see you later, Todoroki.” He says with a wave.                                                                         

Shouto waves back, unsure of what to make of the interaction, and watches as Shinso disappears up the same stairs he just descended.

Shoving the strange interaction out of his head, he pushes open the doors and steps outside.

Then he calls Kyouka.

She picks up after two rings. “Did you make him cry?”

He can hear Momo scold her from the background.

“No, but I think I fucked up.”

Kyouka is quiet for a moment but based on the noise he hears in the background, he thinks she’s moving further away from Momo. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Fucked up how? Like news crews are coming to report the damage and you might be going to jail for beating up an old, civilian professor-fucked up?”

Faintly, Shouto wonders what it says about him that both he and Kyouka assumed the worst-case scenario for this meeting was him fighting with a civilian.

“No, fucked up like…I didn’t tell him ‘no’?”

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Drifters ch.11 (spicyhoney)

Summary:  Final update! There's confessions to be had and choices to be made.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Violence, Rescued Child, Medical Experimentation, Babybones

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Now that his brother seemed to have made his point, with the harsh brutality that always came with his moments of pure honesty, he was in rare form. With a last pat on Edge’s skull, Red hopped briskly off the sofa and reached out again for the child. “hand over the kiddo, then go put some clothes on. little hard to chat in this weather with the wind blowin' up your skirt.”

It wasn’t exactly getting easier to hand the child over, but at least Edge was less reluctant to do so. The child didn’t seem to notice or mind being passed around like a side dish at the dinner table and he left her sleeping peacefully in his brother’s arms as he went upstairs to dress. His own clothes had yet to be washed and still stank of the twisted, burnt electronics from the lab. He had no choice but to borrow from Stretch’s laundry pile again, sweatpants that bagged at his ankles and a bright orange sweatshirt with the dark outline of a ribcage printed on it. A caution sniff revealed nothing, but the scent of laundry detergent and he dressed quickly, leaving the banana-speckled robe in the pile with his own clothes. If this went well, he could wash them later and if it didn’t, well, he’d end up washing them anyway, if only to be able to wear his own trousers again.

His half-hearted hope that Stretch would have come back in by now was dashed as he came back downstairs. To his surprise, the child was already awake and Red was on the floor with her, zipping up the front of a tiny snowsuit striped in pale blue and white.

“here ya go,” Red said, scooping her back up and holding her out for Edge to take. There were long floppy ears attached to the hood like those on a puppy, ruffed with soft fur. Edge looked at his brother, who shrugged. “don’t ask me, it was with the stuff the dogs dropped off.”

Edge took the baby, balancing her on his hip. The extra layer of padding did make her easier to hold. “After all that about helping me with her, you can’t watch her while I do this?”

“sure i could, but i figure she’s a good buffer.”

Possibly, or simply a reminder to Stretch of exactly what they were arguing about. “You don’t even know where he’s gone.”

“sure i do,” Red offered him a negligent shrug. “he went around the back of the house to smoke. shortcutted the second he went out the door.”

Edge still hung back and it was not out of reluctance, thank you, he simply wanted to have a proper plan in place before taking the child out into the cold. “He could have shortcutted from inside the house if he was going there.”

Red let out a loud snort, crawling back on the sofa and sprawling out. “and miss out on his grand exit? nah.” He laced his hands over his middle and closed his sockets, perfectly ready to nap as if he hadn’t a care in this world or any other, the little bastard. “now quit being a pussy and get out there before the dumb fucker freezes to death out of spite.”

There was a great deal Edge would have liked to say to that and might have if the little ears eagerly listening hadn’t already gotten plenty of profanity fodder for the day. He shut his mouth with a click and, baby in arms, headed out into the cold.

Just as Red predicted, Stretch was standing in the cleared area at the back of the house, his concession to how much his brother disliked smoking. His back was to the pathway and as Edge watched, he flicked the last bit of ash from the butt in his hand, crouching to extinguish it in the snow before dropping it into the rusty coffee can tucked up under the house eaves.

There was an unfamiliar slump to his shoulders and an unexpected urge came to Edge to soothe it away, but how could he, knowing that he likely caused it. Stretch told him from the beginning not to slap away a helping hand and he was afraid he’d struck a much harder blow than that. His brother certainly seemed to think so and now it was to him to heal it, if he could.

Edge didn’t disguise the revealing crunch of snow from his footsteps, but Stretch didn’t turn around. He shook out another cigarette, poking it between his teeth. “you two don’t need to be out here, i’ll come inside in a mo’.”

Edge stopped, holding the baby who was beginning to squirm in his arms. “I came out to talk to you.”

It was starting to snow, heavy flakes falling and dusting across Stretch’s shoulders. Stretch still didn’t look at him, his gaze was on the woods, on the side of the house, flicking anywhere but towards him. “like i said, i’ll be back in a minute.”

“This can’t wait.”

With the sharp rasp of a lighter, Stretch deliberately lit the cigarette. The lighter clacked loudly as he closed it, his words blurred around the filter as he said, “the smoke isn’t great for her.”

It wasn’t good for Stretch, either, certainly not in that quantity, but Edge held that back. “Nonetheless, we’re staying.”

“guess you know best, don’t you.” But he took a few steps to the side, the cloud of his exhaled smoke blowing away from them into the wind.

It was becoming a challenge to hold the wriggling child and Edge crouched down to sit the baby in the snow, scooping up cold handfuls and packing it up behind her back as a brace. She looked up at the falling flakes wonderingly, her sockets wide, her pink mittened hands reaching skyward. Her first snowfall, he realized, surely a strange and wonderous thing to even so small a child.

Perhaps Stretch was thinking the same thing. He looked down at her with a little smile, but the faint softening on his face hardened almost as quickly, a certain blankness falling over it. He turned away, taking such a long drag on his cigarette that half of it turned to ash in that one breath. “so what was so important it couldn’t wait.”

The temperature was dropping with the upcoming storm and Edge tucked his chilly hands into the hoodie pocket as he searched for words. Finally, he said, “I think I hurt you earlier, with what I said.”

“yeah?” Stretch chuckled darkly. “you think so huh? well, let me take the maybe out of the equation. can’t say i’m surprised, you do make being an asshole a fine art.”

Usually Edge would have sniped back, piled on his own insults as recently as yesterday. Today was a new day and he only nodded slowly. He looked down at the child who was nearly bouncing in her excitement as snowflakes fell on her cheekbones and forehead, fluffy whiteness almost the exact color of her pale eye lights.

“I'm no good at this," Edge said abruptly.

That cool blankness softened a little, some warmth bleeding back into Stretch’s expression. He rolled his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug, the tiny snowdrifts gathering there cascading to the ground. “eh, don’t be so hard on yourself, you're getting better. look at the little snow princess, all bundled up in her gear.”

Edge chose not to mention that Red was the one who dressed her. "That isn't what I mean. I'm not good at any of this.” He took a deep breath and plowed ahead, “My brother thinks you want us to stay here permanently. Here, in your house, with the child."

Stretch snorted and dropped his cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it beneath his sneaker. “yeah? you think?"

"You didn't say anything."

“didn’t know i was supposed to. what was i supposed to say?” Stretch said, frustrated. “when was i supposed to say it? i could use some cues, edgelord, i can read anyone’s expression at twenty paces, except you, i can never figure out what’s going on in that skull of yours.” He chuckled tiredly, rubbing the bridge of his nasal cavity as if his head ached. “maybe it’s too much like mine.”

“Then tell me what’s going on in your head,” Edge said, “What do you want?”

Stretch shook out another cigarette but didn’t light it, only turned it over and over in his fingers from tip to filter, watching it spin between his fingers. “you don’t wanna know what’s in my head.”

“I do.”

“Yeah?” He looked up then, briefly, his eye lights glittery and unreadable before he looked away, “you want me to tell you how i see you here all scared and struggling and lost, and it’s like a fucking dream come true for me?”

“What?” That was unexpected and Edge took a step back, shocked to his core. That was a confession he’d never considered, couldn’t quite believe he’d even heard it, not in Underswap, not from Stretch.

“no?” Stretch kept his gaze on his own hands, presumably so that he didn’t have to meet Edge’s shocked gaze. “didn’t want to hear that, did you. even better, what kind of manipulative asshole tells you all this when i know you don’t have many other options? you want to hear the really real truth? i want you here, dumbass. not just the kid, you.”

“Of course you do,” Edge agreed, perplexed. None of this was making any sort of sense. “we’ve been sleeping together for months, you’ve always allowed me to stay the night and now—"

“fuck, you really are thick.” Stretch groaned. He let his skull fall into his hands, his fingertips scraping against the hard bone. “i wanted you here to stay forever, not just the damn night!”

Perhaps he was as dumb as Stretch claimed, Edge thought, because he only stared at him in utter bewilderment. “What do you…?”

“i want you to stay!” Stretch shouted, the words carrying in the still, cold air. “i always wanted you to stay, but i played the game right, did it just how you wanted.” He shuddered, hands dropping from his skull as he wrapped his arms around himself, clenching fistfuls of his sweatshirt until the fabric strained in his grip. “didn’t get too attached, played the good fuckbuddy. just me, right, the lazy ashtray, undependable stretch, good for a lay and that’s about it. i could give you that if that was what you needed. and then you show up on my doorstep with a kid that looks just like you, all but begging me to help?” He shook his head and his visible despair made Edge’s soul throb in sympathetic harmony, “i can't do it anymore, okay? can’t pretend anymore. you may not want me, but you've got me, both of you. hook line and sinker.”

Edge could only stare at him, mouth open, gaping like a fool. “She doesn’t really look like me,” Edge said weakly. It wasn’t at all what he wanted to say, but other words refused to come, hovering just out of his mental grasp.

Stretch didn’t seem to have heard him. “you want me to beg? i can beg, i’ll do whatever it takes.” He dropped to his knees, reaching towards Edge, and seeing it hurt unexpectedly, the pureness of his desperation. “stay here, with us. all of you, we want you to stay, edge. you and the little snowflake and even red, package deal and all that shit. i want you here, in my bed, in my life, and i want to help you love that little sweetheart who didn’t ask to be created, much less anything else. i just…let me?” His voice cracked, but Stretch went on relentlessly through it, soft and shattered as he said, “maybe let me love you, too? just a little?”

That was the second person to mention love to him today, the same word with so different a meaning because Stretch wasn’t looking at the child; Stretch was looking at him, at Edge. He was supposed to be out here securing an agreement for help with the baby and instead, Edge was thinking of how Stretch looked when he cradled the little one gently in his arms. Thought of his laughter, loud and bright, and how hearing it always made his soul clench strangely in a painless spasm. He thought of how Stretch looked in his (their?) bed, not only flushed with pleasure, but sound asleep and as unpretty as he ever was, always with a limb draped over Edge as if to keep him within reach.

He thought of all of that in the space of a single moment and there was only one answer Edge could give.

“Yes,” Edge said simply.

Stretch stilled, his sockets going wide. Snow settled on his hectically flushed face along with disbelief, both warring with dawning hope. “yes. yes? you said yes, you...you really…”

Edge reached out to Stretch, pausing as he scrambled hastily to his feet, his sneakers sliding in the piling snow.

“don’t do this if you don’t mean it, i mean, really mean it.” Stretch reached out with trembling fingers to rest a hand over Edge’s sternum, pressing almost painfully hard. “right here, down in your soul. this isn’t about debts or fucking or anything like that, not anymore. you can’t give me everything i want and then take it back away from me, not this time.” His voice broke again, but this time it was held together with rising hope. “you can’t.”

“I mean it,” Edge said hoarsely.

“okay,” Stretch breathed out, closing his sockets, “okay, okay.” Edge didn’t know if he was reassuring himself or simply catching his breath and didn’t care. He stepped up to cup Stretch’s cold cheekbones in his warmer hands and kissed him, only a brief press of mouths before he drew back. And then his noise of surprise was muffled between them as Stretch surged forward and kissed him back fervently, and his teeth might be cold, but his mouth was hot, desperately eager as he poured all the emotions he’d bared directly into that kiss.

A happy squeal interrupted them and Stretch reluctantly withdrew, dropping down to kneel carelessly in the snow again, this time in front of the baby. She reached for him enthusiastically and he chuckled, scooping her up to cuddle her close.

“what, you want one too, snowflake?” he teased, and her babbling turned into a shriek as he buzzed a loud kiss against her cheekbone. “you’re about as cold as a snowflake, too, time to get back inside.”

Stretch held out a hand to Edge, palm up, and he took it. The three of them walked along the short path around the house together.

They were nearly to the porch when Edge said, “You always call her that."

“huh?” Stretch paused in his efforts to make ridiculous faces at the child, “what do i what?”

“Snowflake, snow princess,” Edge said, thoughtfully, “You always call her that.”

“guess so,” Stretch didn’t seem particularly bothered by his penchant for nicknames. “i dunno, i call people lots of things. she’s got those big ol’ white eye lights, the way they sparkle always makes me think of snowflakes in the morning, you know?”

He did. A rare thing of beauty even in Underfell. “All right, then.” Edge reached for the baby and Stretch handed her over willingly enough. Edge held her up, rubbing his nasal aperture against hers while she giggled happily, her mittened hands resting on top of his skull. Fat flakes were falling around them, dotting her chubby cheeks and forehead, and Stretch was right, they did look like her eye lights. That settled it for him and he announced, “Her name is Snow.”

Stretch had been watching them, smiling and now he blinked, tipping his head to one side. “snow?” Stretch said, considering. “huh. i like that.” He jerked his chin towards the door. “now let’s go inside before she lives up to it. c’mon, it’s cold.”

“We still need to work out a strategy,” Edge said, following behind him. “I’ll need to get a job to begin with and—"

“yeah, i know, i know, gotta have a plan.” Stretch stopped again, leaning in to press a kiss to Edge’s mouth and another to Snow’s little cheek, making them both smile. The weather might be cold but his soul was warm, fluttering in his chest and it only pulsed harder when Stretch took Edge’s free hand again, walking backwards as he tugged them both along. “can it wait until after lunch?”

“Yes,” Edge agreed, “after lunch.” They’d waited this long for their lives to come together, they could wait a little longer. Edge held Stretch’s hand in his own, their child snuggled in between them, and followed him back home.

-finis-

[gins-potter]

What are your winx and specialists tattoo headcanons? Who would have tattoos and which one would they have?

Heyo, as usual sorry this took me a little bit but I wanted to properly organise my thoughts and find reference pics as well. and tbh I could end up coming up with more stuff but this is what I have so far.  (under the cut because it ended up kinda long af and tagging @catlliecal​ because she also sent an ask asking for this).

Bloom:

Ok so my headcanons for Bloom’s tattoos have changed a bit over the years 

but at the moment I imagine her with a fairly large hip into thigh, full coverage piece of the Great Dragon

she chose it’s position because i imagine oritel is probably a conservative old man when it comes to tats (even tho i can so see miriam also having a dragon tattoo) so she puts it on her thigh so she can easily cover it by wearing a long dress for royal events

it would probably be in black and white but I can see the Dragon being intertwined with some flowers, probably Daphne flowers for her sister (which you can see in the two images on the right) and I can see those being coloured a pale pink kind of like in the middle reference pic

and because this is the magical dimension i imagine it’s been spelled so while it stays confined to the one area, it can move a little bit and change positions

so because bloom is both a basic bitch and completely extra i totally see her having more than one dragon tat

her second one would be a lot smaller and probably be a lot more simpler in design compared to her thigh dragon, so something more like the top two images in the second graphic

also in all black but maybe spelled to breathe red fire?

and it would also be enchanted so it can fly around her body, and unlike the bigger dragon it’s not constrained to any area - it’s favourite places to be are flying in circles around her wrist or sitting on her left collarbone over her heart

the other two pics in the second graphic are just older ideas i had for bloom’s tattoos, i was convinced for ages she would have it going down her back like the one on the left (i might eventually give this tattoo to either miriam or daphne) and i just love the design of the one on the right so i briefly considered her having like a shoulder/half sleeve dragon

Flora:

all of flora’s would be in colour i think and she would definitely have that sort of water colour effect on them that’s really popular now

her first two are similar in design to the pic on the left and she would have them on either side of her torso, sort of upper rib area, to the side/just underneath her boobs and they’re like a mirror image of each other

these ones probably wouldn’t be spelled to do anything special

the one on her back is similar in design to the pic on the right, but i can see it also being drawn more like a full tree

the writing down the centre would be her and helia’s family names (because i can definitely see them hyphenating when they get married) and then on each leaf is a name, first helia, then each of her children

i’m playing around with the idea of this one being spelled to change with the seasons, the writing would always stay the same, but the leaves change colour and eventually fall off during autumn and then grow back in the spring.

Layla:

for the moment i can actually see layla only having one tattoo

and that’s this yin yang/opposites fish design that you can see in the reference images (they’re all more or less the same i just found too many cute photos)

it’s actually based on a mosaic in the andros castle that layla loves, and she gets it because it brings her peace when she’s feeling upset or anxious about anything

they would be all in white, one fully white, and the other just a white outline

i think the fish would probably be on the inside of her forearm so she can see them and they would be spelled to swim in circles around each other

i can see her maybe getting nabu’s name somewhere after he dies but i’m not 100% sure where she would put it

Musa:

musa’s are actually the hardest to pin down for me just because i can see her having A Lot

like at least one full sleeve and maybe two

one sleeve would be mostly made up of the music notes for a song her dad wrote for her mother before she died and that would run down most of her arm and would be decorated with birds and flowers important to melodian culture (like the flower top right)

like bloom’s hers would be mostly in black with a few pale red and orange accents here and there

the music notes would be spelled so that when you touch them they play the song

her other arm is more just a collection of stuff she thinks is cool or pretty like the bottom two pics or the boxing art below

and i can eventually see her completely filling her arms so the tattoos spill onto her back

Stella:

stella in my opinion just has two

they’re very minimalistic designs, plain black, and on the inside of either elbow

she has a sun for solaria on one side and a moon for celestia (her mother’s home realm) on the other side

the moon tattoo causes quite the controversy when she gets it because some solarians think it isn’t right for their crown princess to show such strong ties for another realm but stella refuses to remove it

they aren’t spelled to move or change or anything but they do have the ability to glow a bright gold at night

Tecna:

like stella, tecna’s tattoos are rather minimalistic as well

but unlike stella, tecna’s are very meme-y

literally

tecna gets a QR symbol on the inside of her upper left arm that when scanned is actually a rick-roll

and she eventually develops a spell for it that allows the QR code to change so that it takes you to whatever meme tecna currently finds the most hilarious

her other tattoo, which is on her right forearm, is written in binary code and no one actually knows what it says

they can never get a straight answer out of tecna about what it is, and everytime someone asks her she tells them something different, so they assume it’s meme-y like her other one

but actually it’s a short sappy quote that reminds her of timmy but she’ll never admit it to anyone

(don’t ask me what that quote is i haven’t decided yet)

that one has a simple spell on it that makes it look like someone is typing out the code over and over again

kind of like musa i can see tecna having more tattoos than this, i just can’t decide what they would be, but i think they would all follow the same simple, minimalistic design

Specialists:

it was hard for me to find reference pics i liked for the guys so i’m just going to give a brief description of some of the tattoos i think they would have

i don’t know if i’ve written about this on tumblr before, but i have a long-held headcanon that heros have a big tattoo culture:

getting their first tattoo is part of their graduation ceremony from red fountain

they’re encouraged to get tattoos that remind them of their family/friends/loved ones - some yada yada about remembering who they’re fighting for when facing evil forces

and it’s very common to honour fallen team members by getting a tattoo of their name or something that reminds them of the person

Sky:

sky’s tattoos are mostly on his chest and back

his graduation tattoo is an eraklyon prayer of protection that runs down his spine

he doesn’t get any other tattoos after that until nabu dies which is when he gets his friend’s name on his ribs (right side) and that’s where he adds other names of fallen friends/team-mates

later after he and bloom get married he gets her name on his left pec (right over his heart the big sap) and then adds his kids names beneath it after they’re born

none of sky’s tattoos are spelled or enchanted

Brandon:

brandon’s grad tattoo is a list of his siblings names on his left forearm and Stella’s name on his right arm

eventually, like sky, he also gets his kids names added to stella’s

all his name tattoos are individually spelled to burn really hot when that person is in trouble

brandon struggles to decide for a while where to put nabu’s name but eventually decides on the centre of his back because he likes to think that wherever nabu went after he died, he’s still there in spirit watching his back

Riven:

riven shocks the fuck out of everyone when he graduates and gets the red fountain school motto (”live with courage and die with honour”) tattooed in giant fuck off lettering across his shoulders

they all figured he lowkey hated red fountain and maybe he did at first because come on he’s a rebel without a cause at what is basically a military school, of course he kinda hates it there

but he also acknowledges that red fountain more or less turned his life around as well as brought him into contact with the people who eventually he comes to regard as family (much more than his biological one)

like musa i can see riven getting a bunch of other tattoos just because they look cool and putting them all over his arms, chest, and back

but his right bicep would be reserved for tattoos of his fallen friends

unlike sky and brandon he doesn’t get names however, but instead gets symbols, the first being a likeness of nabu’s staff after he passes

Helia:

helia i think would have all of his on his back because he understands the importance of having them but also doesn’t need to see them every day

his grad piece is kind of unorthodox because he gets his favourite line of poetry to remind him that there’s still beauty in the world even when he’s facing evil

later i feel like he would get something like outstretched bird wings just below it

and under that he gets nabu’s name in really nice script

Timmy:

timmy is probably the least prone to tattoos of the group and he has to think for a long time on what to get for graduation

and people assure him that he doesn’t actually have to get one just because most everyone else is

but eventually he decides to get a small coloured blaster on the inside of his elbow

when he was in freshman year at red fountain he was lowkey ashamed when all his classmates took to using swords almost straight away while he preferred using his gun because he thought it meant he lacked the physical strength and courage to use a short range weapon

but he slowly came to realise that it wasn’t a weakness, but just that he had different strengths to his friends and classmates and that wasn’t a bad thing

so he decides that’s a good thing to remember

and when nabu dies again he debates whether or not to get a tattoo commemorating him but ultimately decides he will and gets ‘his name written near his blaster

[soradragon]

Sugary Comfort

Art’s not mine I found it and credit goes to the wonderful owners of this master piece of a drawing!

First Mikey x reader! I am proud and content with this one!

Thank you my sweet new beta reader for helping me edit this fic I love u and your amazing! <3

Warnings: sensory overstimulation in the beginning, lots of fluff, one pun

Mikey x f! reader

Check out my main masterlist if you liked what you read and wanna read more!

If you want to be tagged in the upcoming fics don’t be afraid to ask me! ^^

Anyway, enjoy^^

~~~~

You gazed at the reflection of a girl. She looked utterly exhausted; bags under her eyes like she hasn't slept in ages. 

Her lips were tilted up in a sneer; it was evident that she was repressing the urge to scream. But instead of giving in to the voice begging her to do just that, she drove her foot through the water's surface. Not only disfiguring the reflection of the girl, but also dirtying the dress you nitpickingly chose to wear this day. At the time you felt beautiful wearing it. Proud that you chose the right clothes to fit with the dress, completing the look you wanted.

Now, you just didn't care.

You didn't feel pretty nor proud.

You choked out a sob, rubbing the back of your hand against your face harshly.

You wanted all the white noise to stop, wanted the crying to stop, wanted the searing headache to stop. Why couldn't time freeze? Then, maybe the chaos in your head would finally end.

You had tried everything you knew that normally should have worked. Out of all of the times for those methods not to work, why did it precisely choose now when it actually matters?

You followed all the steps. You even rehearsed the steps as you did them.

Step one: When you feel an episode coming, go to a quiet place with dull, even colours. 

You had almost dropped your project when you felt everything becoming overwhelming, muttering an explanation to your teacher before almost booking out of the school building, to the most calming place you could recall; the park.

Step two: Once you have found a quiet place, go sit down and use your headphones to block out all of the sounds.

The headphones did not work.

Your never-ending trains of thoughts took the place of the noise and multiplied it by two. 

Images that flashed before your eyes every time you closed them were too bright. You were unable to figure out the meanings behind the words your mind screamed at you. 

All of it only worsened the already painful headache.

After only a moment you tore the headphones from your head.

Step three: Try even your breathing, and count to ten to ground yourself.

This was the only step that worked. You managed to calm yourself and stop your ragged breathing but it took effort. It took two attempts of counting to ten before it succeeded.

This whole fiasco petered you out mentally and physically. You just wanted this unnecessary sensory to decrease and quiet down to at least a tolerable level. But alas, the world did not want to cooperate this time.

You sighed, casting your gaze to the heavens. 

The sky was beautiful this evening - painted in orange and pink - and you would have taken the time to admire it, had it been in a different situation.

After hearing a familiar yet obnoxious 'ping' coming from within your bag, you cursed under your breath. You snatched your bag from behind you crudely, zipping it open with a huff. As you turned it on, you flinched at the bright light of your screen.

One unread message from 'Mom.'

She was worried sick no doubt. You felt guilty for worrying her, and wanted to reassure her that yes, you were safe, but felt like trash and were in the middle of an episode that wouldn't stop. No matter how hard you tried, all the obnoxious and illogical sensory your brain's been picking up did not stop. Though, on the other hand, you just wanted to ignore the message and skip the whole situation of explaining everything altogether and just turn off the screen and put notifications on mute. You sent a quick 'k' to whatever she had messaged you and moved on to the mute button.

Your finger hovered above it when a notification popped up, causing you to hesitate.

One new message from 'The great Mikester dude!'

Without thinking, you pressed on the notification, staring with big eyes at the message he had sent you: Guess who and where dudette. :P

"Mikey." You gasped out, manoeuvring your head in all kinds of directions, eyes skimming all over the park, trying to find the one in question. You felt the tingling and buzzing feeling of hope and glee pool in your body, replacing the sadness and anger.

All problems were forgotten or pushed to the back of your mind.

The white noise died down suddenly when you heard a low thud and the slight rustling of leaves. 

There was no other explanation; they were here...You were sure of it. 

Only they could stop the chaos when everything else failed, though you didn't know how, nor the logic in it. 

You guessed it had something to do with their ninja nature or something. (Even though Donnie told you multiple times that it might have been because of the aura they carried with, them, being half turtle and all that jazz had its side effects on some humans, like how a pet could soothe its owner simply by being near them. You still blamed it on them being ninjas.)

With your mind settled down, you could think clearly again. 

You briefly acknowledged the fact that you most certainly were a dishevelled mess. Puffy eyes from crying, clothes covered in mud, and hair all over the place, considering that you've pulled and tangled your hair in frustration. Despite all of this, you didn't care.

You were too busy thinking of a plan to lure them - you guessed it was all of them, though it could be only Mikey - out of their hiding place.

You accidentally placed your hand on your phone, making it vibrate, and your hand shot back as if it had burned you. A few seconds after, a song piped up.  A lot of curses could be heard from the tree where the music came from, the leaves rustled like no tomorrow. Mikey fell out of said tree not long after, hitting the ground with an 'oof' followed by a groan. You stared at Mikey for a couple of seconds before doubling over in laughter as the realisation hit you:

You had accidentally called Mikey!

Well, it sure helped you find him!

You counted that as a win on your part. And it seemed that Mikey was on his own, for normally one of the brothers, cough Raph cough would have jumped out from their hiding place and scolded Mikey.

He rolled into a sitting position, giggling with you.

"Yo, dudette! Fancy seeing you here. Don't mind me dropping in," he said, peering at you with an expecting smile, seeming to wait for a reaction. 

It took you a hot second or two for you to catch on, eventually groaning at the pun and face-palming yourself for your delayed comprehension. He did jazz hands and everything.

The great ninja Michelangelo just punned...

You wanted to kick yourself, you completely forgot that April had warned you about Mikey using puns. She had messaged you not too long ago about how it was a "Big" (with capital B) mistake of Casey to teach Mikey "The Art of puns." For Mikey had become obsessed with them. - Throughout the whole exchange, Casey had managed to steal April’s phone a few times and messaged you some words. Three guesses which one was Casey’s input on the matter. - 

You had no clue what they meant with "mistake" throughout that whole exchange. 

You appreciated a good pun.

This was not a good pun. 

You could just imagine the brothers’ reactions to Mikey's newfound fixation: Raph screaming desperately for Mikey to shut up. Donnie being hella annoyed with something pressed against his (ears?) to drown Mikey out. Leo would definitely try to ignore him, probably without success, because you knew...oh, you knew Mikey would take every chance he got to make a pun.

Your heart went out for them. Needing to go through such torture was horrid, yet it was a funny sight to be completely honest. Not that you would ever tell them, heavens no.

You were not going to poke three bears with a stick - in this case, mutant turtles. You were not ready to die three separate times.

"Dude, that was so bad,” you said, making a face as if you had just been forced to smell Raph's feet. You still regret going through with that bet.

"Dude!"

Mikey frowned, throwing his hands in the air. You knew he wasn't really offended, just a bit pouty.

"It's the truth, dude," you retorted absentmindedly, casting your gaze from left to the right before it rested on your bag. Smiling slightly, you snatched it, hauling it over your back before turning back to Mikey who sat contently against the tree. 

"But," you emphasised the word by pointing your index finger in the air, "you can get better,” your grin widened as you spoke.

 “And I, Y/N, know how it's really done."

Mikey's pout vanished and a wide, child-like grin overtook his face. You had his full attention, as he observed you expectantly from his cross-legged position. 

The long uncut grass rippled towards and caressed Mikey, the blades of green curling slightly forward and creating an image of what looked like nature sheltering Mikey from the harsh reality outside of this garden of paradise. 

The green-filled branches of the tree hovered above him, leaves gliding down every now and again, covering Mikey in small dapples of shadow.

Dusk's hew engulfed the image before you in a soft purple radiance. Mikey's skin practically glowed, making him look like a forest fairy.

It was a captivating sight. 

You could mistake it for a painted fairy tale that had come to life. Whoever the painter was had made sure that each tiny detail captured the magic and beauty of the image before you.

A magic-filled world coexisting in the harsh one you stood in... what you wouldn't give to cast all worries aside and join that world.

You were so lost in the moment that you almost forgot to continue.

Shaking yourself free from the enchanting sight, you carried on, albeit flustered, "a-and I could, um, teach you a thing or two. If...If you want me to, that is."

Mikey almost jumped right in your face before the words had completely left your mouth. There were practically stars in his eyes! He actually looked really adorable.

"Really!? You would!? Y/N, you are the best!!"

Mikey engulfed you into a hug, his body nearly covering your entire body from the world.

You gave a chuckle as he kept his arms circled around you, letting you sit in his lap. You didn't mind at all, feeling cosy in his arms.

"Of course I would Mikester. It would be my pleasure!"

You raised your hands to Mikey's cheeks, giving them a couple of pats before you continued.

"That way, you have a reason to end patrol earlier so we can spend more time together," and it would give the others a break from the barrage of bad puns, but you didn't voice that out loud. 

Mikey seemed to agree. He didn't waste any time to establish when and where this 'class-session', as he called it, would be taking place. He wanted it to become, without a shadow of a doubt, a weekly thing, like movie night at the turtles’ place with everyone.

Mentioning movie night brought up some nasty memories of last time -the movie night itself wasn’t bad, just one of your episodes got out of hand -  and Mikey changed the subject promptly after seeing you wince slightly. 

He told you about all kinds of new skateboard tricks he mastered and invented.

After a little while - when everything had been said about skateboarding - Mikey started to eagerly talk about random topics, bringing up stuff like how his training went this morning or what he encountered on patrol. Just little things to draw more time spending in this position. You kept in mind that this peaceful moment couldn't last forever, for both of you would have to separate sooner rather than later. 

You needed to go home to your no doubt worried sick parents, before they would start search parties. And Mikey...had to wait till the next time you two could hang out. (Which wasn't as often as both of you desired)

You listened to his voice silently, only humming a reply whenever Mikey asked for your opinion, snuggling deeper into his embrace as you lost track of time. Drowsiness tugged at your consciousness, beckoning you to close your eyes and let sleep take over. The way Mikey held you close to him made you feel loved and safe, with you resting your head against his chest to hear his heartbeat. He rubbed soothing circles on your left shoulder with one hand, making it impossible to resist the urge to let sleep take you away to dreamland. 

You vaguely heard Mikey's voice murmur in your ear, "Sweet dreams, sugar muffin..." You felt soft lips brush against your forehead before sleep took you over.

*(*)(*)*

Michelangelo stayed seated for a little while longer, looking at your sleeping form with loving eyes. If the world would have let him, he would have stayed like this forever. Alas, the moment was broken when your mobile pinged inside your bag, vibrating like crazy.

Mikey panicked. Jumping to his feet (surprisingly without stirring you) without thinking. He opened your bag in such haste he had almost dropped you trying to grab the vibrating phone before it would wake you.

He sighed in relief when the phone stopped its obnoxious buzzing after he managed to keep you from falling. He shifted you gently onto one arm to hold you delicately, yet tightly to his chest, as if he was protecting you from the world around you.

Once he made sure you were nestled comfortably in his hold,  he glanced towards the device lying in his palm. Mikey held it at an arm's length.

One question drifted inside his mind: Who in their right mind would call you this late in the evening?

It was a question where he could get an answer, but Mikey didn't want to pry into your private life without your permission.

But the curiosity gnawed at him like he would do with pizza.

He shook his head and chastised himself for goggling the device longingly. "No, bad Mikey...Be the better man, you can do this," he muttered, moving to put the phone in your bag until your phone buzzed again, displaying the number of notifications on the lit-up screen.

It made him halt in his tracks. 

Mikey knew you were having a bad day today. After all, he saw you crying by the pond in the centre of the park. It was a mere coincidence, patrolling around the park at the time. He had seen you crying and decided right then and there that he would cheer you up. But he had no idea you had that kind of bad day. 

There were seven unread messages and three missed calls from your mother. All of them showed how worried she was about you, asking where you were and if you had one of your sensory overstimulation episodes.

Without really thinking about it, he typed a reply to your mother: Batteries died, was with a friend. Coming home through the fire escape forgot keys.

It wasn’t a  grammatically correct message, he knew. It was the best he could do with one hand and one thick tumb.

Mikey glanced towards you with gentle eyes and a soft smile after sending the message and put your phone back in your bag.

He moved you gently, holding you with both arms again and cradling you against his chest.

You, in turn, stirred and snuggled deeper into Mikey's chest, making his heart soar.

"Time to get you home, sugar muffins..." he whispered softly, brushing a couple of stray hairs out of your face.

Mikey moved swiftly yet precisely, ensuring you did not wake or feel uncomfortable during roof-top-hopping. You needed all the rest you could get; the bags under your eyes made him even more certain of the fact.

Your home came into Mikey's field of vision far too soon. Opening the window and laying you softly onto your bed felt too fast for his taste.

Mikey took extra care to tuck you in. He even attached a little note to your bag for you to find when you would wake up. 

He really wanted to stay longer, but the sound of your parents coming up the stairs told him it was time to go. He opened the door of your room slightly so your parents would know you were home. Michelangelo climbed through the window before your parents could see him.

He watched your parents turn on the light from a rooftop across your window. Your dad gave you an extra blanket before the two of them turned off the light and left your room.

Mikey stayed there on the rooftop for a little while longer before leaving, looking over his shoulder one last time and then he sprinted over the rooftops towards home.

*(*)(*)*

You found the note the next day. You smiled brightly at the words hastily scribbled on the pape. You texted Mikey a reply before you went to look out your window. Your eyes draw towards the morning sky, which was painted in a soft orange hue.  

You repeated the words inside your head, making you excited for the next time you would see your turtle in orange...

Yoo, dudette! Can't wait for the pun-session upcoming Friday! 

I'll pick you up at ten alright? It's a date! ;) <3

~~~~

Thank you for reading, and keep soaring high!^^

Forever taglist

@theincaprincess​ 

[black-king-white-knight]

Cyber Files AU - Chapter One:

A/N: Okay, here’s Chapter One. I have no idea when other chapters will be coming, but I hope you enjoy and if anyone has any question, feel free to hit me up.

Warnings: Swearing, Death mentions, Medical mentions... I think that’s all for this chapter? But please let me know if anyone wants anything else tagged or if I missed anything.

“In steel as in flesh. Corpses leave clues.”

Dear You,

The body you are currently wearing used to be mine. The scar on the inner left thigh is there because you fell out of a window and impaled your leg running away from Badges at the age of nine. The four fillings are a result of you avoiding the dentist for most of your life. But the physical past of our shared body isn’t important to you right now.

I’m writing this letter for you to read in the future. Wondering why anyone would do such a thing? The answer is… both simple and complicated. The simple answer is because I knew it would be necessary.

The complicated answer is… rather twisted.

Do you know the name of the body you are in? It’s Remy. Remy Saros. It was my name, but it comes with the body, so I suppose it’s yours now. Changing it would be… unwise. But we’ll get to that later.

Before I tell you the story, there are a few things I need you to be aware of. First, you’re deathly allergic to bee stings. If you get stung and do not take quick action, you will die. I’ve always hoarded all the epi-pens I could find. Check all the glove compartments of cars, backpacks and jacket pockets you now own. If you get stung, flick the lid off, orange to the thigh, blue to the sky, wait for the click, hold for three seconds and remove. You’ll feel like shit, but you’ll survive.

Apart from that, you’re a non-photosensitive epileptic. There should be a sleeve of meds in the front right pocket of your trousers. Repeat scripts are loaded onto your Eye and spare meds will be available later when you need them.

Now, hopefully, you still retain your right hand, and everything it provides.

The fuck? Someone would have stolen my hand!? They thought to themselves, glancing down at their right hand and clenched it in relief before turning their attention back to the words hanging in the rain in front of them.

In your immediate future, the three most important are a Social Identity Card, Bank Chit, Medi-Sys Card, all of them belonging to Remy Saros. Except for four. Those physical cards in your wallet are, right now, the most important. Tucked away in there are a Chit linked to a different bank, a driver’s licence, a Medi-Sys Card and a Social Identity Card belonging to Alexandyr Morgan, a name that will not be linked to you.

The personal identification number for all of them is 160100. That’s my birthday, followed by how old you are. You’re a newborn! Get somewhere dry and safe, find a secure hotel, and check in. The AM accounts will have more than enough to cover.

You are doubtless aware of the next part already, since if you’re reading this you’ve already survived several immediate threats, but you are in danger. Just because you are not me does not make you safe. Along with this body, you have inherited certain problems and responsibilities. Go find a safe place, and the second letter will be waiting for you when you arrive.

Sincerely,

Remy Saros.

They stood shivering in the rain, watching the words on the holographic display dissolve into the downpour. Their hair was dripping, licking their lips under the face mask gave a burst of saltiness, and everything ached. Under the lights of reflected neon, the figure had automatically flicked their right hand out in a muscle-memory gesture to bring up the main menu on their Eyeformer Operation System, looking for some clue as to… anything.

When the Eye booted up a message simply titled To You had been sitting there in the main menu, blinking gently, waiting to be opened.

They shook their head angrily, but the spike in throbbing quickly diffused their anger. They looked up at the sky, watching the rain come down and lightning fork across the sky. Rummaging through the other pockets of their outfit turned up nothing other than a long, thin plastic box with medical instructions, chemical information, and a label printed on it. REMY SAROS.

The Epi-Pen, they thought, staring at it before returning it to the interior jacket pocket it had come from, patting it a couple of times for reassurance. Then they dropped a hand into their front right pocket and pulled out a fresh packet of red and white capsules in a standard plastic and foil medical sleeve. Epilepsy meds, I guess.

So this is who I am, they thought, unsure of how they felt. I don’t get the uncertainty of not knowing what my name is, but I’m not being given control over my own life. Whoever Remy Saros was, they managed to get me in a whole lot of trouble. They sniffed and brushed a dark lump out of their left eye. Wet hair slapped against their skin and Remy cringed slightly.

Ugh, okay, rain first. Get out of the rain, then… get a car, I guess. Yeah, find a car, find a hotel.

Remy looked around, searching for shelter, but since they were standing on a bridge, nothing was immediately available. Just expansive, smoke filled blackness all around, only broken by strings of indistinct neon in all directions and the sounds of sky-borne cargo lifters. Finally spotting an undercover shop doorway at the end of the bridge, Remy stepped out of the slight crater in the middle of the road, and over the ring of bodies that ringed it. They were all motionless, and wearing latex gloves.

They darted from shelter to shelter, staying in the dark wherever they could, contact lenses glowing due to the low-level night vision function built into the Eyes’ Pathfinder app. The only sounds in the smoke-filled night were the gradually fading sounds of main street traffic around the bridge, and the ever-present sounds of cargo lifters and the occasional Fire Bird.

Remy was hugging themself and shivering by the time they got off the main roads, and spent a minute shaking off as best as their throbbing head would allow. Reactivating the Eye, they opened one of the ride call apps and scrolled through. If the accounts contained as much money as the mysterious message said, Remy would gladly pay for the quiet and convenience of an automated cab.

Opening a new tab and selecting the bank account under Alexandyr Morgan’s name, Remy used the login details stored in an in-Eye app to log in, and looked at the account total and withdrawal amount. Both numbers almost short-circuited Remy’s newly born brain. There was… five million in the account. Even given the inflation of various economic crashes, that was a lot of money. Whoever Remy had been in that previous life… they clearly had a lot of cash to splash around.

Recalling the letter’s multiple warnings about finding somewhere safe, Remy kept scanning both ends of the street, as well as all the doorways and windows they could make out while waiting for the summoned car to appear. When it did, they scrambled inside, shut the door, and scanned their hand on the Chit reader built into the back of the “driver’s” seat. Remy then selected “Evasive Mode” from the drop-down menu in the app, clicked the seat belt in and sprawled as much as they could across plush seats that automatically warmed up in response to Remy’s wet frame. 

They briefly considered not sprawling like this, since it would give Future!Remy all sorts of aches, but Present!Remy was too comfy, so they just shut their eyes and let the swinging turns and passing neon lull them into a fitful, exhaustion-driven doze.

Remy’s Eye suddenly came to life and started to ping with alerts that they’d arrived at the marked destination, the messages dislodging the slew of automated ads from the earlier apps. They jerked upright then hissed in pain. The journey had been nearly half an hour to the other side and a deeper level of the city, bordering on one of the old mine shafts, turned closed off corporate enclaves when the mine was turned into a city.

Remy’s decision to sprawl all over the back of the car meant that climbing out was a flurry of spasms, aches and pins and needles. Mumbling in irritation as they got out of the car and wishing Past!Remy hadn’t been such a selfish asshole, they stumbled towards the five-star hotel. 

The hotel management students who had been unlucky enough to get saddled with door-duty on the graveyard shift stared at Remy’s face without moving a muscle as they opened the doors for Remy, who passed through with an exhausted nod at them both and walked through the gorgeous foyer.

The impeccably dressed and coiffed desk clerk (at three in the morning?! What. The. Fuck. Are you some kind of hideous automaton, man?) politely stifled a yawn and barely widened his eyes at the soaking wet person on the other side of the desk who had just left a wide trail of dirty water across the marble tiles and was now checking in as Alexandyr Morgan.

The hotel porter who appeared did a poor job of appearing awake, but still managed to guide Remy to the appointed room without incident. By now, especially after a heated nap in the taxi, Remy was so sleepy that they’d practically given up on all vigilance, barely remembering to thank and tip the porter before entering the room and searching for the bed. Having found something large and soft, Remy dropped, content to sleep on it until…

Remy was asleep too quickly to even finish the thought.

Notes: That’s all there is for now. I just wanna say a huge thanks to @milomeepit, and @pipapatton for helping me work out ideas and acting as soundboards, and @lucifer-in-my-head for designing artwork for it, which I’ll add next chapter as the art becomes relevant to the story.

[dunsbar]

do you see no further than this façade?

Word Count: approx. 2500

Notes: Happy Holidays, Jany (@hehimbo)! I was your @ambitionsource Secret Santa and it was such an honour! Please accept this short and sweet little canon divergent fic about AAA’s most ridiculous couple. I don’t know you as well as I’d like to, but I hope I wrote something that you’ll enjoy.

Summary: Riley finds a silver lining in her broken locker when someone starts leaving her thoughtful gifts. Secret admirer trope, canon divergent during Season 1.

—

The first time it happens, she doesn’t even realize it’s started.

Riley’s locker is not a place she usually lingers. It’s loved, yes, filled with photos— her and the techie crew, the cast photo for this year’s musical, a clumsy shot of her and Zay voguing. One of her and Isadora, the other girl staring dead into the camera, unamused, while Riley flashes her biggest grin.

Yet, it’s purpose is still mainly functional. Or it was functional, because unfortunately for Riley, two days ago she realized her locker was broken.

She’d been fumbling with it, the bell ringing loudly as students rushed past, singing, chattering, stomping through the hall. She was jostled a couple times, which is always annoying considering how small the student body is here— yet there are still people who find the space (or lack of) to bump into her. Her fingernails smacked painfully against the cold metal of the lock.

Finally, with the bell petering out, Riley just… made the decision to deal with it later. Nothing of monetary value in her locker, aside from the photo of Zay which will be worth hundreds when he inevitably makes it big.

Timing seems to have aligned itself with her enemies, seeing that in her next class, Angela informs the students that there is currently a stomach virus circling the sacred halls of AAA. It’s something Riley should have seen coming, as it’s winter, and Clarissa and Jeff were both noticeably absent that morning. Riley, not new to the concept of virus outbreaks in the school system calculates this in her head— Janitor Harley is going to be busy wiping up puke for… well, probably at least a week and a half. What’s the point of bothering the poor man about a broken locker storing nothing of value while he singlehandedly cleans up after stomach flu?

No, Riley thinks to herself. I’ll just wait it out.

Back in the present, Riley smooths out the corner of her picture with the techies and tucks away her copy of Leaves of Grass (her choice reading for an English project, and actually likes it) on the shelf up top, before pausing and putting it back into her bag, with the idea to read it at lunch— none of the techies mind if she doesn’t talk at the table, and she could probably get into a good discussion on it with Isadora. She makes a mental note to ask Charlie if he’s read it— he’s an English genius, and his insights are always thoughtful and well-detailed.

It’s only when she’s got one hand on the door, about to close the locker, that she notices a flash of violet, out of focus. Glancing over, she sees a purple pen, tucked into the vents by the clip. It’s simple, not fancy or even particularly good quality. But it’s… purple. Her favourite color.

Riley has never seen this particular pen before. She thinks. Well, she’s sort of sure. When your school’s primary dedication is to performing arts, you tend to not need as many “normal” school supplies as “normal” schools, so Riley has a pretty good idea of her catalogue of writing utensils. Still, she could be wrong. It’s not exactly like her pens take high priority in her mind. But this one is… nice.

Pocketing it with a beam, she decides to chalk this one up to fate.

Performance lab has just begun when Riley scurries into the auditorium, Angela pointedly raising an eyebrow from her spot on stage but thankfully saying nothing. Riley opts to sit with the techies— less attention drawn to herself. It’s kind of a moot point considering she caught the twin eyebrow raises Maya and Farkle turned around in their seats to send her, but she slides into a seat beside Isadora, Dylan and Asher on Isa’s other side. Normally Lucas would be there, but a glance around tells her he seems to have skipped out on the afternoon. She can’t stop herself from feeling a twinge of disappointment.

—

It’s the second day when she realizes that the pen was probably not a gift from fate.

Riley is just dropping off her coat and boots that morning, a quick stop before first bell to tuck her wet boots on the crimson metal of her locker floor. There’s a couple wet floor signs down the hall several feet, and Riley winces. According to the grumpy text she got from Isadora that morning, Dylan caught the bug last night. This means Asher’ll likely get it too, and the techies will be seriously understaffed, especially with Jeff gone.

Riley hopes briefly, selfishly, that it’ll mean no more skip days for Lucas.

Glancing up at the top shelf, Riley does a double take.

Glancing up at the top shelf, Riley does a double take.

A white paper bag is perched delicately up there, the bag instantly recognizable as the kind that her favourite bakery uses. She grabs it down, pries it open, and her jaw drops.

It’s her favourite kind of pastry. It smells heavenly, and it’s not exactly still warm but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that someone knew about Riley’s tastes in pastry and went all the way to her favourite bakery to get her one.

She knows she’s prone to gushing about (and recommending) the bakery, but she can only really remember mentioning it one time recently— oh. Oh.

Oh no.

—

Riley picks her way nervously through the cafeteria, echoes of the lunch bell still ringing in her ears. She prays to… something… that Zay is sitting alone.

He is, his lunch in front of him, tapping his fingers on the smooth tabletop. Riley sends a grateful thank you to this ambiguous higher power.

“Zay,” she greets him, her question tumbling out before any common courtesies can be exchanged. “Can I get your advice?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he says, raising an eyebrow inquisitively as Riley plops down next to him. “With what?”

Riley chews her lip, pulling an orange out of her lunch bag so she can do something with her hands. “Someone’s leaving me gifts in my locker.”

Zay blinks. “Like… a secret admirer thing?”

“Um.” Riley pauses. “I didn’t really think about it like that, I mean. Maybe?”

“What did they leave you?” Zay asks, in between bites of salad.

“A pen— my favourite color. And my favourite kind of pastry. It’s from this place in Greenwich.”

Zay looks at her. “Riley,” he deadpans, “That’s a secret admirer.”

“Fine,” Riley admits. “Maybe it’s a secret admirer.”

Riley is immensely grateful for Zay Babineaux when he does not laugh at her. Still, the reason why she came to talk to him hangs over her head, and she starts chewing on her lip again.

“What is it?”

“Okay, it’s just,” Riley says. “The last person I remember mentioning the bakery to was Charlie.”

Zay starts coughing through a mouthful of chewed greens.

Riley quickly places a hand on his arm, but he waves her off, even as his eyes water. Once his throat is clearer, he takes a long gulp from her water bottle. She lets him.

“Charlie,” Zay says. “Gardner.”

“Yes,” Riley says, wincing. It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?— Charlie was kind of flirty earlier in the year, there was that weird comment about the idea of them not being “the worst thing in the world”, oh, it’s all falling into place and Riley’s inner monologue is starting to derail. If it is Charlie, she—

“Are you sure it’s Charlie?” Zay asks, his eyes flicking to somewhere on the other side of the cafeteria.

Riley shakes her head. “Just a…suspicion. He’s a suspect. I suspect him.”

Zay’s mouth twitches. “So. What are you asking me for?”

“Well, you’re better friends with him than I am,” Riley says. “You’re always hanging out in class. And I’m not brave enough to ask Haley if Charlie likes me. That’s a storm I can’t weather.”

That gets a laugh out of Zay, but the look in his eyes is almost wistful. He shakes his head, smiling, all Babineaux charm. “So you want my opinion?”

“I want— Would… would you maybe ask—”

“No,” Zay says emphatically, pointing a finger at her. “No, I am not asking Charlie if he likes you. Do it yourself.”

I have before, Riley thinks. But she just sighs in defeat as Zay mumbles ‘white nonsense’, and finally sets about unwrapping her sandwich.

—

The third gift is a new copy of Leaves of Grass— not a school copy. Her own edition.

She really needs to talk to Charlie.

—

She catches him at the end of the day, out of the dressing rooms and in the middle of the main aisle of the auditorium.

“Charlie, um,” Riley says, and he slows to a stop, turning to face her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he replies, adjusting the strap of his dance bag on his shoulder. Someone’s bumps Riley’s back with an elbow as they walk past— probably Sarah. “What is it?”

“No, not here,” Riley says quickly. “Somewhere more private?”

Charlie’s eyes widen, almost imperceptibly. “Uh, I… um…”

Riley’s stomach sinks like a stone. Oh God, it is Charlie, she thinks, disappointment washing over her like the sea weathering a stone. She hadn’t— well, she’d allowed herself just the slightest hope… of hunched shoulders, sandy hair…

“Please,” she says. “Just one minute.” She catches his arm, gentle. Charlie won’t meet her eyes, but he nods.

Lucas stomps past in his big black boots. Riley turns her head instinctively to offer a smile, but he doesn’t even glance at her. She sighs, turning back to Charlie.

By the time they step into the empty classroom, Charlie seems close to hyperventilating. Riley feels so, so bad for what she’s about to do, but considering she’s already shut him down once this year, it seems like she has to really get him to take the hint. Gently.

“Charlie,” she begins, while he stares at the floor, “I just… I figured it out, okay? And... I don’t know what to say.”

Seemingly, neither does Charlie, because he continues to stare down at his feet in silence. He almost folds in on himself, as if he’s willing himself to not be seen. Riley plows on.

“Well, okay. So, thank you. For everything. The book and the pastry and the—”

Charlie looks up, lightning fast. His brow is furrowed in confusion. “What?”

Riley blinks. “The secret admirer thing.”

“What secret admirer thing?” He sounds genuinely bewildered.

This is not how Riley pictured this going.

“The gifts in my locker,” she says, carefully. “I thought maybe it was you.”

Charlie’s whole shoulders slump, like his body is exhaling. When he speaks, he sounds relieved and honest. “It wasn’t me, I promise.” There’s a tentative, awkward pause. “Um. Sorry?”

Riley laughs, feeling as relieved as he sounds. “No, no, I’m so glad it wasn’t you. I mean— no offense! You know I think you’re great. But just… not like that. So it’s... I’m glad.”

Charlie smiles too, and it looks so earnest. “So we’re good?”

Riley nods, feeling ten pounds lighter. “Yeah. We’re good.”

—

The dam breaks on day four.

Riley is speed-walking through the halls, almost late. The bell will ring literally any minute from now, but damned if she’s going to track city slush all over the auditorium’s nice flooring. With any luck, she’ll have just enough time to shove them in her locker and bolt for the auditorium. Riley rounds the corner.

Her feet and her heart stop in their tracks.

There, down the hall, unmistakably stands Lucas James Friar, attempting to hurriedly slip something in her locker.

Lucas.

Lucas.

Lucas closes her locker, and before she can do anything, turns in her direction.

Their eyes lock.

Lucas looks as frozen as Riley feels, an electric current between their stares. In that moment, as other students brush past her, she’s suspended in time, the only sound her heartbeat, thumping loudly in her ears. Neither of them can move. She’s pretty sure neither of them can breathe.

And then Lucas turns and takes off down the hall, disappearing in the crowd.

Riley takes a deep breath, feeling the air shake as it leaves her mouth. Go after him. Go after him. Go—

The bell rings.

—

Riley finds him the next morning, hanging— hiding?— in the booth. Lucas rather spectacularly managed to avoid her the rest of the day, by virtue of skipping again.

With Dylan and, yes, now Asher, off sick, Riley didn’t have a way to get a hold of Lucas. She had asked Isadora, faux-casual, but Isa had just shrugged and gone back to storyboarding her latest idea.

“Lucas James Friar,” Riley says now, determinedly. “I just want to talk. And honestly, I think you owe me that much.”

Lucas is quiet for a long moment. Then he nods, once, jerkily. He won’t meet her eyes.

“How did you know about the pastry?” she asks, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear, feeling suddenly shy.

Lucas pushes the toe of his boot into the ground. “Overheard you telling Charlie about it. I, um, I saw that your locker was broken that morning, too. I just wanted to—”

He cuts himself off. Riley waits patiently.

“Fuck,” Lucas hisses. “You— you weren’t supposed to find out it was me. I didn’t want… to be weird. I just wanted you to have… you weren’t supposed to find out it was me.”

Riley’s chest is fluttering. She coughs, trying to dispel the tension in the air. “Well,” she says, “I’m glad I did.”

Lucas looks up sharply, finally meeting her eyes. It’s a soft jolt of electricity— down her spine, in her fingertips. They’re a lot closer then she realized. Less than a foot of space between their chests— between their mouths.

“Can I kiss you?” she murmurs. Lucas blinks, like his brain is catching up with his ears, and splutters, taking an instinctive step back. His legs bump the booth’s equipment.

A rush of regret courses through her. “Sorry! I just…” she trails off. Not really any possible excuses to save her on that one— she made her intentions pretty clear.

“No, no—” Lucas blurts out. He kicks at the dirt with the toes of one scuffed boot, like he’s regaining his cool. “I mean. Um. Yeah. You can.”

Riley beams, and Lucas looks kind of dazed again, all of a sudden, and she tentatively leans in, feels his hands take hers, links their fingers together, and catches his mouth in a sweet, gentle kiss.

It’s really nice. Tentative— she’s pretty sure Lucas doesn’t exactly have any experience with this, and Riley’s own experience is limited to close-mouthed spin-the-bottle in middle school. But it’s nice.

When they break away, they don’t let go of each other’s hands. She can’t help but smile even wider.

“Hey,” she whispers. “Thanks for the pen.”

[juleswolverton-hyde]

Not by the Moon | 01

Genre: Smut, Romance, Strangers to Lovers, Drama, Tragedy, Werewolf AU, Supernatural AU, Bookshop AU

Pairing: Bookshop keeper!/Werewolf!JB x Reader

Warnings: Mild swearing, allusion to anxiety

Summary: Every story has a purpose or goal it is dedicated to, their authors at times going to great lengths to see the project they once started to completion. Nevertheless, the things the writers swore on to see their latest art piece to completion are static.

Unchanging.

None of them swore by the Moon nor Love because they can solely genuinely swear on all that changes like themselves.

And yet, a wolf in love foolishly swore by the moon.

That is when Time truly started ticking.

Next chapter

Masterlist

There is nothing quite like visiting a bookshop on a rainy autumn day, walking the pavements that will soon deepen in their shade of grey as the scarlet and burnt orange leaves will be decorated with tiny watery crystals. The fierce wind preludes to the sorrow of the gloomy clouds overhead, the chill creeping beneath the navy trenchcoat cooling the little skin bared by a simple ink black V-neck shirt. Caffeinated bordeaux sneakers hasten their step when leaving the district ruled by busy city life and entering the artisans district on the east side of town, where the boroughs are ruled by artists, individual shops, cafés and independent bookstores that each have their own vibe.

For a while now, a specific one has yet to be visited, intending to drop by ever since that long walk that lead through many a cobblestone street lined with brownstone houses and not a single business anywhere in sight. Except for Paper Souls, a hidden gem tucked away at the edge of the area where homes and commerce just meet and have resulted in a small store disguised as a proper worker’s house. As can be judged from the window display, the shop sells both well-known titles alongside more obscure ones, bound in editions fresh from the press and those having lived a ready life on someone’s shelves.

A second before the first tears of the heavens fall and make their presence known by ticking against the window, the bookstore is entered with a low sigh of delight. Nothing comes remotely close to the distinct scent of books, this specific combination of mustiness and ink laced with the fragrance of the weather outside and perfumes of customers. Or, in this case, solely the owner’s.

Here and there, a rumour about the man ruling the paper kingdom has been picked up and it is safe to say not all have been positive. A subject that has been frequently touched upon, oft causing more of a stir than the overall intimidating attitude, are the differently coloured eyes. One brown like hazelnuts at the end of the year and the other as blue as the ocean far outside the harbour.

The ones belonging to long blonde locks with dark roots looking up from the current read behind the counter and which are briefly met with a polite nod and casual greeting. At least one aspect of the groundless gossip is true because the disgruntled stoicism on the handsome face acknowledging the professional meaningless acquaintance silently makes the heart race and constricts the throat. It awakens the need to run and hide somewhere among the chestnut shelves, become a character in a tale so as to vanish and thus avoid upsetting the clerk by merely being present. Which might be the biggest problem, considering today’s goal of staying inside and spend it as is habitually done.

Don’t be silly. Just find a book and settle down somewhere to read a few pages. As long as you’re quiet, nothing’s gonna happen.

Thus, mayhaps repeating the self-chastisement once or twice, the creaking worn floorboards are walked upon as ghostlike as possible though every step makes the Body cringe due to the loudness disturbing the silence. 

And him.

The young man whose gaze is momentarily met before fleeing to the vintage couch in an incline with a gorgeous Penguin hardcover copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, which has been found in the poetry section across from the counter. Breath was held while standing on the tips of the toes while reaching for the thin volume on one of the highest shelves, hoping to not attract attention and refusing to use one of the nearby dark-wooden stools to climb atop because such acrobatics would likely not sit well with the person causing the hairs at the back of the neck to stand on edge.

A sigh of relief cannot be helped when loosening the buttons of the trenchcoat and tossing it over the arm rest before snuggling up in the corner of the sofa. Finally a moment devoid of stress, a chance to be carried off by the works of a beloved poet and artist embodying the truth of childhood and adulthood.

But being brought back all too soon from criticism on the corrupt Catholic Church by the oppressive presence of loose ripped jeans which are perceived just above the edge of the mustard cover. Despite being barely able to gather the courage to look away from the page, lashes nevertheless look up to hands tucked into denim pockets and non-matching irises peering down. Curiously, though it is also alarming, the gaze from above is awkward as if unsettled by the mere presence of a well-meaning bookworm which confirms the assumption about being a nuisance.

Although, the paradoxically misplaced inquiry spoken in a husky voice undermines the deduction. The lowering of broad shoulders does too, allowing personal defenses to waver a bit in the pursuit of kindness. ‘’How do you like your coffee?’’

Bewildered yet finding no clear reason for the kind question in the stoicism of two-toned locks, the simple reflex of asking for a repeat is acted upon with a sheepish tongue that does not know what to make of the situation. ‘’Sorry, what?’’

‘’Coffee. How do you drink yours?’’ A gruff slightly chubby thumb points toward the door, the glass decorated with autumnal tears. ‘’It might be raining, but I still need caffeine. Figured I might as well buy you something too. So, what should I get?’’

What do I do? Do I accept the offer? I mean, he offered it, but declining would still be polite. Then again, it’s free coffee.

‘’Oh, uhm, that’s very sweet of you.’’ The bundle is put down in the lap, flabbergasted shy hands tucked between the thighs while trying to stay as small as possible. It is a silly instinct, but the closeness of the intimidating bookshop clerk calls for it. Moreover, the deep slightly hoarse tone that sounds both as if still recovering from something and being exhausted with the world does not make matters better. 

However, albeit for a split second that is not credible enough, little will-o-the-wisps illuminate the entrancing wildness of an ocean and hazelnut forest as a quicksilver smile flashes over roseate lips. A beautiful fleeting sight which might never have arisen from the solemnity resting like a mask on the youth’s face.

A daydream.

Indeed, surely that is what it must have been. What other reason could there be to show a sign of being pleased with someone who does not feel particularly welcome and at ease in this paper kingdom?

Led astray by the unfocused train of thought, distracted by what may or may not have been witnessed, the actual answer comes out on a mumble. All the while boldly looking back, wondering. ‘’An iced vanilla latte... would be nice.’’

Acknowledging the order with a mere low rumble similar to a wolf’s, the clerk sets off on a caffeinated journey and leaves an affected soul behind. 

While still being highly uncomfortable with the lad’s presence, the thought of what just happened and the offer of a drink that was not in the slightest reluctant imprints a warm impression on a racing heart. Yet, before any ungrounded fantasies arise, the poetry bundle is quickly picked up again and later exchanged for a thick volume of Keats’s poetry that has been picked up in a rush to seemingly have never moved from the leather couch. To not leave a single trace of chaos which might trigger the wrath of the bookshop keeper and perhaps end up in being drenched by cold coffee. 

All the fear is evidently in vain because, when being once again engrossed by poetry, the ghost of a touch over the cheekbone breaks the spell. As if awakening from a dream, the suggestion of the outstretched cold drink passes unnoticed. Instead, it is replaced by a look at ripped jeans beneath a loose tartan blazer, resulting in the novel discovery of a little gem embedded in the right nostril. 

The rattle of ice entrapped in plastic fully awakens the senses as well as the sharp rustle of a paper bag bearing the logo shaped like an apple out of which a bite has been taken. ‘’Here. It’s on me. Don’t think anything of it, I just don’t want you to get dehydrated or hungry.’’

‘’Right.’’ With trembling hands expecting to have the food carelessly thrown into the lap and drink pushed into the palm, the surprising meal is accepted. Without the slightest sign of pushing. ‘’Still, thanks.’’

Once again, a beastly grunt is all that is received in return before checkered trainers retreat to the front of the establishment. Strangely, they soon return with the current read which was enjoyed behind the counter alongside the cold brew that was picked up to battle the fatigue that noticeably laces demeanour. Because, when sinking back into the sofa after having been gestured at to scoot over and haphazardly making room, lashes flutter shut for longer than a mere blink. Notwithstanding, they are awake enough to notice the shift in reading. ‘’Keats?’’

‘’Uh, yes. He’s one of my favorites alongside Blake, Donne and, on occasion, Wordsworth.’’ Personal enthusiasm takes over when mentioning the last poet with whom there is a love-hate relationship, erasing any anguish at being close to the keeper of the kingdom and thus making it possible to ignore the few centimeters of space between bodies. ‘’Even though he’s basically a fraud by turning his sister’s experiences into poetry. It makes one wonder whether he had any talent to come up with something himself. Now, I do believe some of his works are genuinely his, but not all. Sorry, I’ll- I’ll shut up.’’

Questioning chestnut and water reintroduce the silence disturbed by autumnal rain accompanied by howling winds, stretching out over the empty streets. Nobody likes a blathering fool, least of all the stoic who surprisingly has decided to join one’s company. 

Or, so was the original thought that is now nullified by a sliver of a smile and something inaudible smokily mumbled beneath breath. There is no courage to inquire about what was said nor ask for a reason for being evidently entertained, simply rapidly picking up the volume again to resume reading with an overheated, ashamed mind.

Here and there, however, sneaky peeks are thrown in the direction of bleached locks thoroughly enjoying Dante’s Inferno, a work that has been on the to-be-read list for the longest time and somehow has never been crossed off.

Come on, you can do it. Ask him how it is, whether he likes Dante. Don’t be a marshmallow. Okay, one, two... fuck.

‘’How’s Keats?’’ Beating the barely daring tongue to it, the young man interrupts the hardly focused enjoyment of poetry that maybe lasted about fifteen minutes.

‘’Good.’’ More wants to be added to the opinion, but cannot be shaped nor voiced due to the bafflement at seeing sincere interest pierce through an unwavering expression. On the other hand, another unnameable sentiment underlines attitude too, floating ever so slightly beneath the surface. 

‘’You haven’t touched your food.’’ Lips slightly pout when glancing at the paper bag that rests on the trenchcoat that had hastily been draped over the other arm rest when bleached locks sat down, colourful irises dimming. 

Worry.

Why does it affect him? What does it matter if I eat or not?

To hopefully grant a bit of reassurance, an absent-minded promise is made before diving back into the misery of a nightingale. ‘’I’ll eat in a bit. Just one more poem.’’

As fast as lightning, the volume flies from hapless palms and the scent of books mingled with musky mint suddenly leans over to grab the purchased treat, fingertips pressing against the side of the thigh. Every muscle tenses up at the new form of intimacy, inwardly praying for the tartan blazer to return to his place as soon as possible. ‘’No, it’s already two o’clock and I’m sure you had breakfast early. You should eat. Where’s your coffee?’’

A trembling finger points to the untouched iced vanilla latte on the floor, put just in front of the sofa. Hands rise even higher when the bookshop keeper’s heartbeat and heated broad chest can be temporarily felt when slightly chubby digits lean over to grab the plastic cup. ‘’I’m not…’’

‘’What?’’ Clearly not understanding the need to keep looking away, unsteadily focusing on the sides of the nearest bookshelf, the question comes out agitated as the retrieved items are pushed forward, unmistakably intended to be taken. The shift in behaviour is as little comprehensible as the likely appearance of warm rosy cheeks going paired with a fist pressing on the lips, tongue-tied.

Mentally chastising oneself for the awkward display, courage is forcibly gathered to face the puzzled grumpy young man and answer with a whisper. ‘’I’m not comfortable eating in public.’’

‘’We’re not in public.’’

‘’Or with people I don’t know.’’

This revelation is clearly unexpected, eyes widening when reluctantly elaborating on an irrational fear with folded hands tucked between the thighs. For a second, there is nothing but an uncomfortable hush in which the worst outcome is vividly painted in the mind. Fortunately and oddly, it is broken as the stoic’s attitude shifts to something that has not been witnessed before and which goes against any rumour floating around town. 

A gentle smile plays around the corners of the mouth as the tense grip on the food and drink loosens, gently putting the rustling bag in the lap and a warm palm grabbing one hand to place the lukewarm cup in it. ‘’There. I’m Jaebeom, JB for short. Now, can you please eat something? And I promise I won’t judge you.’’

‘’Shouldn’t- Shouldn’t you eat something too? You look like you could use some energy.’’ Up close, the fatigue has become visibly noticeable outside the moment of sitting down and closing eyes for a little bit longer than would suffice for a blink. Affected by the niceness of the gentle acquaintance and thoughtfulness, the croissant in the bag is torn in half to offer a part to the current company. ‘’How about we share this?’’

‘’You don’t have to.’’ A low breathy chuckle rolls forth at the gesture, strangely elating the heart and stirring up a storm of butterflies in the stomach. Again, the same unintelligible phrase that was muttered under breath earlier seems to be repeated.

A penny for your thoughts. What did you say?

Putting aside curiosity to not prematurely cross any boundaries of politeness, what wants to be asked is suppressed and reformed into a request for sharing. After all, the lack of energy outlined by vague dark circles beneath non-matching irises is truly a cause for concern. ‘’Please? I don’t have that big of an appetite.’’

With a resigning sigh, the offer is accepted. Much to the strange delight of the soul who still is not entirely trusting of the bookshop keeper yet already has the mental defenses down a little bit more than before. ‘’Alright, if you insist.’’

What follows is an absolutely adorable though also surprising scenario as the pastry is enjoyed in one bite, the food disappearing without any trouble. Nibbling on the other half, staring cannot be helped as a sip of coldbrew is enjoyed to wash the treat down. However, the unintended impolite mannerism, of course, cannot pass under the radar. Hence is why dark brows furrow in puzzlement when remarking upon being a point of attention. ‘’What?’’

‘’Nothing. You just…’’ a moment is taken to try and find the right word yet failing to think of one which accurately describes the eating manner, ‘’you just wolfed that down.’’

‘’Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. I can be a bit, well, unmannered at times.’’ The gaze focusing on the iced black coffee adds to the sorrowful side profile, unwillingly nostalgic, but unapproachable for comfort. ‘’I try not to be. I’m trying to, no, never mind.’’ Another sip. ‘’Forget it. Just eat and stay as long as you like.’’

‘’Jaebeom?’’ In a reflex, after swiftly wiping fatty fingertips on the coarse paper napkin, the bookshop keeper is grabbed by the sleeve as he tries to move away. Alarmed by the sudden bold move, non-matching irises briefly flare with an odd mixture of fear and annoyance before seemingly realizing something and thus calming down. All this goes hidden behind a badly enacted tolerating low hum. ‘’Can you, I mean, only if you don’t mind, could you... could you stay here? For a little while? At least sit down for a few more minutes. I promise I won’t stare as I did and actually read.’’

‘’You want me to... stay?’’ Dark brows furrow in a strange confusion, uncomprehending of the normal request. Although, perhaps it is not so casual seeing as it needs to be thought about. ‘’Stay? Here?’’

‘’If you don’t mind? I’m sorry if I freaked you out, I really didn’t mean to.’’

‘’You didn’t. I should be the one apologizing for being so distant.’’

‘’I don’t blame you. You barely know me.’’

‘’I don’t know you.’’ The observation hits hard, the sternness of the reply crucifying the heart and constricting the throat. How odd a fact should have this result. Withal, the misplaced hurt is a little soothed by the promise that follows. ‘’I’ll stay. But I’ll be closing in about two hours.’’

And thus, for one hour and a half, the paper kingdom falls quiet. Solely the tinkering tears of heaven decorating the glass of the windows, howling winds stirring the richly warm leaves into dance and occasional wandering lonely umbrella break the silence. Inside, the only noise to disrupt the hush is the turn of a page or sniffle that may or may not prelude to a cold. 

However, all tranquil beauty knows an end for Time always runs out. Henceforth, it is at half past four that a light tap goes paired with the barely audible comment “you have to go”. Likely due to the aftermath of being pulled from a world of poetic Nature into gloomy Reality, there is a wrong perception of Jaebeom’s voice. Surely, the sorrowful reluctance is imagined.

As you said, you don’t know me.

The mere thought pains Body and Soul when grabbing the navy trenchcoat off of the faux leather arm rest, stepping towards the bookshelf where Keats was found and the exit afterwards. No chance of wandering a little longer between the books is given, the clerk following closely behind and unconsciously guiding feet towards the entrance.

‘’Y/N? Will you, uh…’’ Restless trembling palms hover in the air like two bent paws failing to illustrate something, a rosy flush spread over the cheeks, ‘’Can I put your jacket on? I mean, let me help you put your jacket on. That’s how you say it, right?’’

With an affirming hum, big palms with slightly chubby digits are allowed to help dress into the piece of clothing.

Glide over the side of the neck when collecting hair to make it flow over the collar instead of being tucked beneath it, leaving a trail of goosebumps and sharpening breath. 

All the while maintaining eye contact, both our faces distorting with timidity. It is then that glances are haphazardly thrown around the empty store to avoid each other for a second wherein composure is hopefully found. 

And it would appear that the buff tall blonde youth is the first to do so, speech matter-of-factly when voicing an unspoken suggestion while holding on to the upper arms. ‘’I haven’t even asked your name.’’

Bashfully, the answer is uttered in a proper vis-á-vis with entrancing two-toned irises though the urge to bolt out the door remains. Nevertheless, the rapid loss of contact is disliked, JB realizing how the intimacy might come across when glancing at the fingertips digging into fabric, almost begging to stay. ‘’It’s Y/N.’’

The instinct to flee is lessened by the step forward thoughtfully repeating the name, carefully feeling out the syllables as if comprehending a siren’s song. ‘’I had a good time, Y/N.’’

‘’Me too.’’ It is true because, despite the distance that was endeavoured to be closed with food, reading and shallow conversation, the time spent together was actually quite enjoyable. Notwithstanding, too much of the clerk remains unknown to say whether all has been out of politeness or if any sincere trust has been shown.

‘’Even though you’re still scared of me?’’

‘’I’m not!’’ A sigh rolls off the tongue at the sight of a smug grin on roseate lips knowing better than to lie about genuine sentiments. ‘You’re just... just kinda intimidating.’

‘’Kinda? To me it seems like a whole lot more than ‘just kinda’. You almost seem eager to go even though you were hesitating earlier.’’ Bright hazelnut and the summer sea are overcast by lonely grief putting on the airs of suppressed rage, painfully re-establishing and enhancing the distance that was briefly shortened with a step backwards. ‘’To get away from me. Make up your mind.’’

‘’Yes, I’m intimidated by you. A lot.’’ The renewed cold emptiness is warily bridged, planning out the words to say to not make matters worse. ‘’And, to be honest, I don’t want to go. Still, it’s because you intimidate me I might seem uneasy and glad to go, but I can assure you I’m not. I really had a good time. We might not have talked a lot, but I still had a splendid afternoon. With you. And for that, I’m grateful. I’m sorry I confuse you, make you feel awkward because of my behaviour.’’

The waterfall of a confession catches the bookshop keeper off guard, but also manages to make tense broad shoulders lower their defenses as colourful eyes calm down. Digits rise from the pockets of loose ripped jeans to envelop the upper arms once more, this time rubbing them reassuringly and let the personal walls crumble too. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of me nor apologize. Look, we’ll talk about this another time. For now, you have to go and I have to close the shop. Get home safely and don’t catch a cold.’

‘’You too.’’ 

‘’Don’t worry. I won’t.’’

With a last nod and gentle smile relieved at the prospect of good health, warm palms are stepped away from.

The watery autumn chill cools the heat from being seen off by blonde locks.

I couldn’t get sick even if I wanted to.

When the enchanting scent of summer citrus, autumnal blackberries and juicy peaches has faded, the two volumes that were touched by it are picked from the shelves without a clear understanding of why. Neither is there a sense of comprehension when it comes to the sheer curiosity about what it is that the adorable shy doe so likes about these specific poets. Notwithstanding, both books are picked up and put on the counter alongside the current read to take upstairs after sweeping and properly closing the shop.

Which does not take long, soon after already stumbling up the metal stairs to the apartment above the establishment with a famished stomach and tense muscles, watching the oppressive concrete clouds slightly give way to the lilac dusk before heading inside. Fortunately, dinner has been prepared in advance so the various side dishes solely need to be warmed up in the microwave just like the rice in the cooker. The hair dye job, however, will have to wait until tomorrow. That is, if it is remembered like the face of the local historian who seems awfully fascinated by the affliction distorting identity.

Shedding off the weight of the day, clothes are removed and tossed on the couch to be replaced by the bathrobe that was put there in the morning after yet another long night filled with amnesia. Afterwards, bare feet trod to the kitchen to retrieve the cold dishes from the refrigerator and put them in the microwave to heat up. 

It’s getting late, but at least there’s still some time to read. Funny how my last thought is of you.

Just as the melancholic thought arises over a big bowl of bibimbap accompanied by William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, the screen of the phone on the counter lights up after a brief buzz. When getting up to check, the message appears to be from the supernatural scholar.

“Good luck tonight. I’ll be at your place around 7. Hopefully, you’ll be yourself again. If not, I’ll wait outside. Jinyoung.”

As always, the text is signed with the young man’s name to help ease the recovery of ever-fading memory. Even after living around three years among humans again, the ability to recall actual names alongside how to enact civilized behaviour remains hard.

And becomes more difficult with every passing day.

For now, I want to try. I want to speak to you at least one more time and explain myself. Part ways on good terms, let you know what I am.

A smile cannot be helped at the sight of the bowl next to the mustard poetry bundle, vividly re-imagining how it was held by small hands on the faux leather sofa this afternoon. 

How those same tiny digits tore off half of the croissant without hesitation and offered it to an animal, nibbling adorably on theirs while endeavouring to put on a human act and failing due to the hunger always preceding hell.

But a fantasy never lasts.

Time never stops. 

It solely ticks.

Runs out.

Hopefully, I’ll remember you.

And the moon cannot be sworn by for She cannot stay away nor remain the same. 

That night, the name of the bookish fawn is the last powerful word to recall before losing a grip on the world in the cold dark illuminated by artificial light. 

Naked and shackled beneath the concrete ground.

Hoping for a memory. 

Y/N.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

with you [chapter four]

Summary: Clementine pops the question, Louis has nightmares, Violet can’t let go of the past, Mitch doesn’t know how to handle gross feelings, Ruby’s a goddamn sweetheart, Willy doesn’t ever remember to knock, Aasim can’t dance, and James is here, too.

Nothing like a wedding to bring this family together.

Note: tbh working on this story at night is the only thing holding my sanity together while I’m taking care of my grams. But also this chapter was a huge pain in the ass to fix and I’m 0.02 seconds away from punching a hole in the wall. But it’s fine because it’s finished and I ran all the way home just to quickly post this. 

Anyway, thank you for reading and your constant support. It truly means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy ch4. ❤️

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4

Read on: AO3

---

The page remains blank.

No matter how much Violet wills the pen to move on its own, to put all thoughts both known and unconscious to paper, it remains beside the open notebook. As outrageous as it sounds, a small part of her hopes one day the pen will magically come to life and solve all of her problems with its problem-solving ink. Then everything will be okay. 

Though she has a feeling the walkers will go extinct before her pen develops a sentient personality or therapeutic skills. 

And she’ll be dead by then, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. 

“It helps if you pick up the pen,” Aasim said, not bothering to look up from his own work. “Just saying.”

She knows even by his deadpan tone that he’s trying to joke with her, even if he’s not good at it. Laying bait for her to bite back with a sarcastic remark of her own. 

“But then I’d actually have to write something down.”

“Oh no,” Aasim smirks, paying her a brief glance. “Effort.”

That cracks a small smile out of her, and for a fleeting moment, they’re smiling at each other as if that’s a normal thing. It’s hard to maintain that connection, so damn hard, so Violet hides her smile from him by turning away to look towards the gates.

The very same gates that Clementine, AJ, and Rosie pass through. Back from patrol, if she overheard correctly. Even from a distance, Violet can see the delighted grin Clementine wears, a grin only matched by AJ’s. Far brighter than Violet’s. 

AJ hugs her tightly before breaking away and bolting towards Louis, James, and Tenn. Clementine remains, though, arms folded over her chest as she watches the group of boys with such fondness that it damn near makes Violet want to scream.

Shit, just…. Shit . 

“Hey,” Aasim reaches over, tapping on the blank page of her journal with his own worn-out pen to grab her attention. “Lucy had her babies this morning. Seven of them. Well, eight, but one of them didn’t make it.”

Violet tears her glare away from Clementine to instead glare at Aasim. 

“Who the hell is Lucy?”

“One of the pregnant rabbits, remember? Not the one that had babies last week, the other one.”

“We’re still naming them?” Violet asks. Aasim made it very clear that no names were to be used when they started up the rabbit farm by the greenhouse. 

“They’re food, not pets. No names. No attachments.” 

That didn’t last long.

“ I didn’t name her,” Aasim corrects. “Willy did, even though I’ve told him again and again not to. Now when it comes time for us to put Lucy down, he’s not going to talk to me for another two weeks, as if I’m the only one at fault. Remember Albert?”

“Ah, Prince Albert,” Violet nods. “He sure was delicious.”

Everyone agreed that the lovely Prince Albert was one of the handsomest rabbits they had with his snow white fur offset by brown feet and ears. They also agreed that he made one of the best rabbit stews Omar’s ever created. 

Including Willy. That is until Omar offered him one of Prince Albert’s lucky feet and Willy realized just who he had consumed. 

The boy didn’t speak to Aasim or Omar for a week, but Violet believes that he still carries around one of Prince Albert’s feet for good luck, despite everything. 

“Yeah, anyway, did you want to come with me to check on them? Ruby’s out there now. Maybe you could stay with her and help out?”

Violet scoffs. 

“Look, I’ll take your night shift, too,” Aasim adds. “That way you don’t spend all day out there and then have to do a night shift.” 

“I like having the night shift.”

“Every night?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” Aasim taps his pen against the table, thinking loudly to himself. “I’m giving you the night off anyway. Ruby would appreciate your company.”

Oh, would she, now…?

It’s not that Violet minds Ruby. She’s the only girl Violet has left to talk to at this place- the only girl she’s willing to talk to, actually. 

Violet would say that she enjoys evenings spent with Ruby… most of the time. 

The problem with talking to or spending time with Ruby is she’s a lot. Not in the same way Louis is, but more in an overbearing mother sort of way. Always asking her how she’s feeling, asking about her day, if there’s anything she can do to help Violet out or if she wants to do this or that. She’s far too pushy sometimes, especially when it comes to shit she doesn’t understand. 

“Clem’s tryin’, Vi.”

As if Ruby has all the answers to make her happy. She always makes it sound so damn easy. 

“Why can’t ya just talk to each other?”

The problem is that Ruby tries to take care of everyone so that she doesn’t have to think about how to make herself happy. Why focus on your problems when you can bury your pains and wishes beneath fairy tales and other people’s problems?

At least, that’s Violet’s assumption. 

Maybe Ruby is happy. 

Maybe Violet just wishes she wasn’t. 

Fucking hell. 

Just when she thought she couldn’t be any more fucked...

“My company or yours?” Violet mumbles, finally picking up her pen, putting it to paper. 

“What? My company- oh, I see.” Aasim rolls his eyes, dropping his pen in the book before shutting it. “Ha ha, very funny. I get it.”

Violet nearly rolls her eyes, too. Speaking of those who don’t bother with their own shit-

“I was thinking that it’d be good for you to go out there and help her, that’s all,” Aasim says, tucking his notebook under his arm and standing from the table. He means to walk away on that annoying note but hesitates. Then, lowering his voice to one of disquiet, he says, “I’m worried about you. So is everyone else.”

“I’m fine, Aasim.”

“...Right,” he sighs heavily. “Please go help Ruby with the rabbits. I’m only going to be there for a little bit before heading out to check the traps with Louis, and she could really use the help. Please?”

“Fine.”

Aasim lingers, shifting his weight as he gives her a chance to say something more, a chance she refuses. 

“Thank you.”

With that, he’s walking away, leaving her by herself to finish a doodle of a pen with curly hair and fire for eyes with a speech bubble. 

“Why are ya still here?”

---

“Is my neck supposed to feel this stiff?”

“Yes. It’s a sign of a good, unmoving model.”

“Well, good to hear that my career is off to a good start.”

Louis is still sitting there at the table, cracking jokes and trying his best not to move while James and Tenn draw. James points to various parts of Louis’ face before motioning to Tenn’s paper, something that brings a grin to Clementine’s face. 

“Don’t worry, Clem,” says AJ as he hugs her. “I won’t say anything. Can I go draw now?”

“Have fun, kiddo.”

She can safely leave AJ to catch up on art lessons with James. He promised her he wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone- even Tenn- until she had everything all planned out.

Now that Mitch has the measurements, the ring is- hopefully- being taken care of, so all that leaves is how she plans on doing this. Several lingering thoughts follow her as she spends most of the day helping around the school, doing usual repairs to the gate and their walls. 

She would’ve checked on Lucy and the other rabbits, but Aasim warned her that Violet was there with Ruby and Louis. She almost pushed him aside and went in anyway, but damn it, she knows better by this point. 

Instead, she and AJ help Omar clean out the fire pit and gather fresh wood, briefly considering letting him in on her intentions. Omar’s a trustworthy friend and while she appreciates his opinion, she decides against telling anyone else until she has the ring. She’s found that battling her eagerness to be growing more difficult with every passing day. 

So much so that she also considers asking about the progress on said ring when she finds Mitch and James near the library’s entrance, speaking in hushed whispers that she couldn’t make out. All talk stopped when she approached them, and began again when Mitch became snappy with her before dragging James away. 

Odd, and not boding well for her, but she firmly believes that if there were any issues she should know about, Mitch would tell her.

When the sky finally turns a lovely mixture of pink and orange, AJ gives her a hug goodnight before making his way over to Tenn’s room for another sleepover. 

Before retiring to her dorm for the night, Clementine pokes her head into the music room to find it empty. A slight disappointment falls over her as she hoped Louis would be up for some piano lessons, but that dissipates when she finds Louis kneeling on AJ’s desk with a roll of duct tape hanging from his mouth when she walks in, a stack of drawings placed beside him. He’s taping up one of the portraits of himself on the wall.

“Ey!” He waves at her before spitting the tape out. “Look at these!” He hops off the desk and points at the one he just hung up. “That’s the one James drew. Charming, isn’t it?”

The amount of detail in the portrait is startling, a fully shaded-in head portrait of Louis that seemingly stares right at her. Even the little details, like his freckles and the scar on his chin, are noticeable.

“It’s way weirder than I thought it’d be,” he says, “having someone stare and dissect every part of your face. Did you know I have a very angular jawline?” He tilts his head up to prove his point. “And James said I have a nice eye shape.”

“He did do you justice,” she says, still admiring the picture. “Very handsome.”

His chuckle comes out loud and anxious, not having expected her to say that. 

“Hah, yeah, except,” then Louis pushes his jacket back to place his hands on his hips, “uhm, do you think my nose is big?”

“What?”

“James said I have a wider nose. He drew it bigger than it actually is, right?”  

“You have a very cute nose.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Clementine giggles. “Your nose is perfectly fine, Louis.”

He eyes the portrait, still uncertain, only to then gasp as if just remembering something. 

“Oh, wait though, ready for this?” He searches through the pile before plucking the one he wants out. “ This is the one Tenn drew.” He proudly holds it up.

She can’t say she’s not impressed. It’s nowhere near as proportional or advanced as James’, but Clementine can see the effort and charm within the lines. Definitely Tenn’s work.

“Wow,” Clementine smirks, nudging him. “I see it now. James is right, you do have a big nose.”

“ Hey ,” Louis reaches up and playfully pinches her nose, “big talk from little button nose over here.” Louis sticks Tenn’s portrait on the wall, next to James’. “There! We’re getting quite the art gallery.”

“One’s missing, though.” Clementine grabs Louis’ picture of Rosie off the desk and tapes it up with the others.

“Seriously?” he asks sheepishly.

“Oh yeah. We’re never taking that one down.”

“Terrific.”

Louis continues to look through the rest of the drawings. He hums to himself lightly, a tune she recognizes. He sticks more drawings on the wall; ones that AJ drew of him and Tenn, one he drew of Disco Broccoli.

He pauses when he comes across the one of AJ, Clementine, and him. The one with the beach ball. He smiles fondly at it before sticking it up there with the rest.

She sits on AJ’s bed, leaning against the frame to close her eyes and listen to his cheerful humming. 

One of the few things she loves in this world is the comfort she has when he’s around. 

It’s a comfort she never thought she’d find again. Before Ericson, she and AJ never had time for comfortable peace. When it was just them, there was always that lurking feeling, that bitterness, that lingered in her thoughts. 

Now, they have a place they call home. 

Clementine can’t imagine where they would’ve ended up had she not crashed the car. They’d still be out in the world, scavenging every little bit they could to survive. They never would’ve met the people she now considered family.

She and Louis would’ve never met, where she and AJ never met anyone at Ericson. 

That’s a really shitty thing to think about.

Finding this place, their home, was the best thing that happened to them. Meeting everyone here- Louis, Violet, Mitch, Ruby, Aasim, everyone - has done so much for them. For years, she worried about her and AJ, about always being on the road in a car that constantly ran on fumes, about running across assholes who wanted to hurt them, about the dead finally getting the best of them. Nowhere to go, no direction. A neverending search. 

 She sneaks a glance at Louis. He has no idea. 

He finishes up, shoving the duct tape in a drawer. Leaning against the desk with arms crossed over his chest, he looks at her with a tired grin, but says nothing. 

She raises a brow. 

“What?”

He shrugs.

It’s like the weariness of their previous night has caught up to him, like something triggered a sinking reality that weighs him down. The shadows along his face from the setting light do nothing to hide the sadness betraying his eyes.

She slowly approaches him and reaches out to grab his hand, tugging him closer to her.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hey.”

“You feeling any better?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” Clementine locks their fingers together. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had one that bad.”

He keeps his stare focused on their hands. “...It wasn’t that bad.”

“Louis.”

“Clementine.”

“It was about that woman, wasn’t it?”

He says nothing, but she can see the answer clear in his eyes.

Yes, Clem, you know it was. It always is.

The first and only living person Louis ever personally killed, and it was purely accidental. It frustrates her that it still haunts him, and even more so that it’ll always haunt him. Even when he expressed the relief of “having it in him” to protect those he loves, there’s always a suffocating weight that comes with the first. If anyone knew that, it’s Clementine. 

That kind of guilt, no matter how irrational, never stops. 

“Dorian.”

“Hm?”

Louis closes his eyes and leans forward to press his forehead to hers.

“Her name was Dorian.”

“Lou-”

“I know.” He pulls back, forcing a smile. “I know.” 

His gaze falls on her nose. He pinches it again. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” she smiles sincerely. “Just… want to make sure you’re alright.”

“You don’t have to worry about me so much, Clem. There are more important ways to spend your time.”

More important? 

She supposes that’s a good way to put it. 

“Y’know, I was thinking about what you said this morning,” Clementine smiles. “AJ’s having another sleepover with Tenn tonight, so we have the whole room to ourselves.” 

Louis raises a brow, a slow smirk spreading across his lips. 

“Wanna build a pillow fort?”

“You read my mind.”

Without any hesitation, she kisses him. It’s a quick, soft, comforting peck that catches him off guard.

Another kiss to his lips, and then another. Clementine holds onto the nape of his neck and moves to his chin, his cheek, placing soft, intimate kisses against his warm skin. 

He looks at her with lidded eyes before his hands caress her cheeks, his thumb brushing just below her eye.

He kisses her, eager for every press of her mouth. He doesn’t stop kissing her, even when she tightens her grip on his jacket and pulls him back with her. The desk hits her hip and he’s quick to lift her up onto the surface, almost knocking over her venus fly trap plant.  

A pleased sigh escapes her lungs as she desperately moves to his jaw, down his neck. Her hands move beneath his jacket, trailing down to the hem of his shirt before bunching the material up. His skin is warm. His breathing is quick, shallow.  

“Clem! Clem!”

Louis yanks back, their lips parting quickly with a loud smack as she nearly topples over from the force of him ripping away. 

The bedroom door slams open and in barges Willy. 

She’s disoriented, lightheaded, blinking rapidly and frantically searching for any sign of danger. All she finds is Louis, who’s now over at AJ’s desk, humming incredibly loud, and Willy hurrying in with a triumphant smile.

“Clem, guess wha-!” The second he sees Louis, he stops and gasps. “Oh no!”

“Oh, look, darling!” Louis stops pretending to look at the pictures and glares at the young boy. “It’s Willy, the boy who doesn’t know how to knock! Nice of you to pop in unannounced this late in the evening !”

Willy’s face flushes a scarlet red as his gaze darts between the two, falling down to Louis’ shirt, which remains lifted to reveal part of his stomach. 

Louis yanks the material down, fake coughing.  

Willy’s face is reminiscent of a fresh tomato at this point. It seems that even he got the sense of what was happening before he ran in. 

Clementine slips down from the desk and tries to casually straighten out her own jacket and adjust her hat with an unfazed face, even though she’s positive that her skin is blotchy and red, too. 

“I’m sorry!” Willy blurts out, covering his eyes. “I didn’t see anything! I’ll knock next time! I swear!”

“Uh-huh,” Louis frowns. “Said that last time, didn’t you?”

Now she’s not sure who’s redder, her or Willy.

“Willy, what do you want?’ Clementine sighs. She composes herself and approaches the boy.

His eyes went to Louis before meeting hers. That’s all she needs.

“Is it Mitch?” 

Willy nods.

Clementine’s heart flutters. Choosing her words carefully, she asks, “Is he done?”

Willy nods once more. 

“Done with what?” Louis asks. 

“Uh-”

“Watch,” Clementine interrupts. “I completely forgot that I have watch.”

“Seriously?” Louis asks, confused. “Wait, I thought Ruby had watch tonight.”

“I switched her,” she lies, moving towards Willy and adding, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Willy leaves without another word, staring down at the floor. Clementine holds back an annoyed sigh. The previous mood is completely gone and now she’s made a mess of lies that she’s gotta detangle before Louis gets suspicious. 

Damn it, Willy. 

Couldn’t have waited until morning. 

Louis gives a thoughtful frown. 

“I’m a little worried about him,” he says, “about Mitch, I mean.”

“Oh, uh, really?”

"Something weird’s going on with him,” Louis nods. “He’s been down in the basement every day for the past week and- ...Well, I went to check on him this morning before breakfast.”

Panic shoots through her stomach and into her heart.

Louis pauses, unsure if he should continue. 

“And?” Clementine presses.

 “...Well, when I tried going down the stairs, I think- well, it was probably nothing. I probably didn’t see what I thought I saw because I could’ve sworn I saw James down there, too-”

Clementine’s stomach drops.

“-and I don’t know what they were doing but before I could even get down the stairs, Mitch threw a shoe at me.”

“A shoe?”

Oh, goddamn it, Mitch-

“Yeah, right at my face! He about hit me in my big nose!”

Clementine rolls her eyes. “Again with the nose thing?”

“I’ve accepted its abnormally monstrous size,” he says. “Anyway, then I saw him again on my way to the greenhouse and he wouldn’t even look at me. Not that he’s one for conversation or anything, but it’s like… I don’t know. It felt weird. I don’t know what he’s doing down in the basement or what they’re doing if that really was James I saw. I’m not sure I want to know.”

“I’m sure it was nothing.”

“Probably… I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone shout ‘no!’ and ‘out!’ that many times in a ten-second time frame before hurling shoes at me. It was pretty terrifying.”

“Mitch is…” Clementine’s at a loss. While she’s thankful for Mitch’s ability to think on his feet so quickly, she wasn’t sure if she approved of the shoe method. “...Hard to understand sometimes, and he and James are friends so it’s not that weird that they’re hanging out together.”

Louis considers this, though she can tell he’s not completely convinced. 

“...Do you think they’re… I mean, it’s none of my business but if there was something going on between them-”

Oh boy.

Louis then shakes his head, changing his mind. 

“Y’know what? I’m sure it was nothing.”

She sighs. So much for not making Louis suspicious of anything. Then again, maybe this is her fault. She did tell James that Mitch was working on fixing the ring, and she should’ve known that would lead to him trying to help. 

“He’s working on a project,” she says lamely. “He probably wants a second opinion on it from James. ”

“A bomb project? I didn’t think James was a fan of explosions.”

“Firecrackers work as a great distraction for the walkers,” says Clementine, which isn’t a total lie. Mitch brought up the suggestion to James a while ago. They spent a long time discussing the idea if she remembers correctly. 

Well, better not let sweet Ruby know,” Louis says. “She’s still got a personal grudge towards Mitch’s bombs ever since that thing in the greenhouse, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” she smirks. “ ‘A bomb? I will whip his ass!’ ”

Her Ruby impression gets a chuckle out of him. “Hope he knows a shoe won’t be enough to stop her. If anything, that’s just provoking the beast.”

“He’ll have to learn that for himself,” she smiles. Clementine approaches him again, fixing the collar of his jacket and apologizing, “Sorry I can't stay and help you build an amazing, comfortable pillow fort. Will you be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, darling.” He grabs her hand and kisses her cheek. “We can always build a pillow fort another night, or, uhm, finish what we started. Maybe I’ll go tickle the ivories for a while before bed, so if I don’t see you before your finished or if I’m not awake, goodnight and stay warm.”

She gives him a long kiss goodbye before she leaves. 

One the door’s shut, she takes a moment to take a deep breath. 

Her face still feels warm after all the excitement. She’s still a little annoyed at the interruption, but if she’s right about what Willy was trying to imply, then she has to hurry. She can only hope that Mitch found a way to fix the ring.

The wait is starting to make her anxious.

[thrillingdetectivetales]

2020 Creator Wrap

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

Okay, okay, I know I’m late with this but the incredibly sweet @irolltwenties and the utterly delightful @anthrobrat were both kind enough to me in this bad boy and it seems really fun, so here we are!

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

According to my AO3 statistics page, I wrote just over 100K of fiction this year, across 17 different fandoms, a few of which won’t actually go live until after the New Year because they’re part of a gifting collection that hasn’t been revealed yet... Anyway, I picked my faves for a variety of reasons, listed briefly after each link. If you have any questions about works I’ve shared (or just in general) feel free to ask!

1. Front Row at the Gongshow

The Pacific, 16K, Rated G  Andrew ‘Ack Ack’ Haldane/Edward ‘Hillbilly’ Jones

Aside from being the longest completed work I produced this year, this is also the first fic I’ve ever written using the “found document” format. While there are parts of it I feel really conflicted about, I’m still incredibly proud of it and think it’s one of the better fic I’ve written...possibly ever. Which is doubly funny because I don’t usually do modern AUs of period fiction, but the hockey angle was enough to tempt and lo, here we are, lol.

[Excerpt from Deadspin]

"You all remember Eddie Jones, right? The corn-fed captain of the New Orleans Rougarou so wholesome he belongs on a box of Malt-O-Meal? The gentleman bruiser who spends his free time playing country tunes for kids with cancer?

Our favorite dapper D-man led his team to 97 points last night in a shut-out victory against the Los Angeles Kings, clinching a playoff spot for the first time in franchise history. Oh! And he also got caught on camera at the after-party, sucking face. WITH A DUDE."

2. Entremets

Hannibal, 8K, Rated E Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter

I have...so many Hannibal fic that I’ve started writing and haven’t finished because all my ideas lead to long plotty epics and also big name fandoms scare me. I did this one up for Eat, Drink, & Make Merry, and I’m really, really pleased with the way it turned out, considering it was my first foray into establishing new character voices and also a successful exercise in writing explicit content, which can be a bit of an Ordeal for me, so overall I’m incredibly happy with it. Plus! My deep and abiding love of writing characters cooking/eating/otherwise dealing with food finally paid off!

“The pâté was supposed to be more of a gesture,” Will explains, spreading a golden sliver of honeycomb out across a slice of sopressata with the blade of his pocket knife. “You don’t actually have to eat it. I’m not even sure if it’s any good.” He smears a healthy dollop of chȇvre across his meat-and-honey concoction and pops the whole thing into his mouth without ceremony.

“What better method exists by which to convey one’s appreciation of a gesture than to indulge it?”

3. An Ode to Matty Big-Time

The Good Place, 2K, Rated T Jason Mendoza/Original Male Characters, Pillboi

This one was actually a request made by my very dear @thesummoningdark, who wanted to see some bisexual Jason per that one fantastic Tumblr post about how everyone in TGP should be bi, and I’m really, really proud of the way it turned out. I love writing comedy and I very rarely get to lean into it as hard as I’d like, so delving into the whole wild craziness of Jacksonville, as explained in the show was really fun. I also love writing original characters, and this was a great excuse to indulge.

“We probably shouldn’t do any butt stuff,” Jason warns, with as much gravitas as he can muster. “I had two of Stupid Nick’s Disaster Buckets when I got here.”

“Yeah, your face is still kinda orange,” Mateo agrees fondly, bringing his other hand up to brush his thumb over Jason’s lower lip. It stirs a little frisson of heat in his belly that Jason is 68% sure isn’t just indigestion. “No chemical burns, though, so I think you came out on top.”

4. This and Who I Used to Be

The Tick (2017), 3K, Rated G Arthur Everest/Superian

Another new fandom I haven’t written in before, this was a fill for the Rare Male Slash Exchange that turned me on to a pairing I’d never even thought of before I wrote it and am now low-key obsessed with. It is also, to date, the ONLY Arthur/Superian fic on AO3 at all, which is a cool weird honor and fairly indicative of my life’s goal to eventually write my way into smaller and smaller fandoms until I come out the other side with original works. It was really fun to explore these characters, and to figure out some world-building for Superian’s backstory that fit within the tone and established canon of the extant Amazon!Tick universe. Also featuring an original character that nobody asked for but I’ve come to love unconditionally.

Arthur glances down to where Superian has one cheek pressed against his shoulder, humming something off-key and unintelligible with his eyes closed. Arthur sighs. “Let’s get you inside.”

He hauls Superian in until he can prop him against the wall while he shuts and locks the door behind him. When he looks back over, Superian is smiling at him, soft and lazy. He swings a finger in Arthur’s direction, a broad, sloppy motion, and announces, “I knew you’d say yes.”

“Technically I said fine,” Arthur rebuts. He gestures down the hallway toward the kitchen—which leads on to the bedroom, as Superian well knows—and sighs, “Come on. I don’t know what those handcuffs did to you, but you should probably lie down and have a glass of water or something.”

5. Rain in Its Season

Band of Brothers, 12K, Rated G Edward ‘Babe’ Heffron/John Julian

Oh boy. What to say about this one. It’s maybe not as polished as I might have preferred, but I feel that way about mostly everything I write and at the end of the day I do really love what I managed to do with this piece. Written for the Heavy Artillery Rare Pair Exchange, I managed to lean heavily into both my love for needlessly granular period research and original characters, which are abundant herein. Frankly, based on the very little we see of him in the show, Julian himself is practically an OC, but I digress. This was another of the longer pieces I’ve ever finished and I’m proud of it even if I’d’ve liked to write another 15K or so, time constraints notwithstanding.

“Tell me. Please. Why’re you here?”

Babe flinched, gaze dropping to the floor. His heart was a raw, swollen welt in his chest. He swallowed and licked his lips, slow and pained.

“Come on, Julian,” he rasped, low and quiet. “You know why.” He laughed, soft and hoarse, and shook his head, once. When he looked back up, Julian had taken a careful step into the center of the room. His eyes were very dark, his mouth very red, hope and fear warring in his every feature. Babe fisted his fingers in the cotton sheet underneath him, halfway to pleading as he insisted, “You gotta know.”

Julian sighed and came over to hover at the edge of the bed. Babe spread his legs to accommodate the intrusion.

“That was - ” Julian started. His voice failed midway through the protest, and he swallowed, took a breath, and regrouped at a lower volume. “You said that was just buddies, what we did over there. That it didn’t count. That you didn’t want it to.”

The TL;DR of this all being that while I didn’t write as much I wanted to this year in terms of volume, I feel like my quality has been improving consistently and hope it continues to do so into 2021 while I try to finish out some of my years-long WIPs and get into longer completed pieces.

I’m not sure who all to tag, so I’ll say @thesummoningdark, @blahblahblahclintnickiscanon, @thisbadge, @incognito-insomniac, and anyone else who’d like to join in and hasn’t been tagged yet! (If you’re the latter, feel free to @ me so I can see what you’ve written!)

Happy New Year everyone May the fanworks you create this year be prolific and soul-affirming!

[kumeko]

A/N: For the Bnha LBGTQ+ zine! Thank you for being an inclusive zine. 😊 I wanted to do some queer exploration for Nejire, grappling with confusion as she grows before accepting who she is.

…

…

…

…

“Kiss,” Nejire read aloud, her chubby fingers tracing the word in the picture book. Seated in her mother’s lap, she leaned closer to the book, eyes wide as she observed the image of a prince leaning down to kiss the princess.

 “You read it right,” her mother praised, beaming brightly. “The prince kisses the princess, breaking the curse.”

 Nejire glanced up at her mom, then at the book she was patiently holding open. “Kiss,” she repeated. “Mommy, what’s it taste like?”

 “Taste?” Her mother laughed, surprised. She hummed lightly. “Now that’s a question…what does it taste like? What’s your most favourite thing in the whole world?”

 Nejire snorted. That was easy. “Candy,” she replied immediately.

 “I should have guessed.” Letting go of the book with a hand, her mother tousled Nejire’s hair affectionately. “Then that’s what a kiss tastes like.”

-x-

 Her first kiss tasted like cotton candy. In the shadows behind her school, Nejire clumsy kissed her classmate and tasted the chapstick on her lips. In retrospect, it was a clumsy kiss, filled with fumbling hands, bumping noses, and clacking teeth. At the moment, though, Nejire noticed none of that. Her heart beat fast as she gripped Tohru’s shoulders. Her face, her hands, her everything was warm, almost hot, and she tried to remember how to breathe as their lips pressed one another.

 Tohru had the prettiest long, brown hair, and Nejire had spent hours fantasizing running her hands through it. Doing it now, her fingers felt awkward and sticky, like she would tear out her hair before her hand managed to comb through it all. The tips of her other hand brushed against Tohru’s neck, against the soft skin there. She was too nervous to raise them higher, to rest her palm on Tohru’s cheek.

 Breathless, they finally broke apart. Nejire panted as she tried to steady herself. A bright-red Tohru slumped onto her knees, chest heaving as she looked everywhere but at Nejire.

 It was cute. Terribly cute. Nejire slowly crouched down till they were at same height again and smiled. “Want to do it again?”

 Tohru squeaked.

 -x-

 Her second kiss was the sharp sting of a slap. Nejire reeled backwards, automatically clutching her cheek as she backed away from her classmate, Arisa. Unfortunately, in their eight-grade classroom, there was nowhere to go. Desks penned her in from her sides and behind her, Minako stood, her smile dark and malicious.

 It was afterschool. Her teacher and other classmates were all long gone, the classroom empty save for her and five girls. One in front, one behind; Nejire looked at her right, glancing at the remaining three as she hoped for help. None of them said anything. Arms crossed, identical glares on their faces, they might as well have been mannequins for the support they offered.

 Arisa shook her hand, wincing. “Damn, that hurt.”

 Nejire gritted her teeth. Fine, she could handle this herself. She growled, “What was that for?”

 “It was to wake you up,” Arisa replied, rolling her eyes. Not even paying attention to her anymore, she massaged her hand. “I should have just tossed water on you and been done with it.”

 “To wake me up?” Nejire frowned, perplexed. “The hell, I am awake.”

 “Clearly you’re not,” Minako snorted inelegantly. She stomped her foot on the ground. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

 “Done what?” More and more, she wondered if something was wrong with her hearing, if she had swapped bodies or timelines and didn’t know it.

 “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Arisa grimaced, her nose scrunching and brow furrowing. “You kissed Tohru.”

 Nejire looked at Arisa, and then at Minako. “Yeah?” She rubbed her ears, maybe she really did need to get her hearing checked. “What’s wrong with that?”

 “Whats…” Flabbergasted, Arisa stared at her for a long moment before massaging her forehead. “Are you serious?”

 “It’s unnatural!” Minako interrupted, obviously ready for this to be over. “You kissed a girl. You’re not supposed to do that.”

 “Why?” Nejire stepped toward Arisa and tried not to feel hurt when she stepped away. “Why not?”

 “I can’t believe we have to start there—no wonder your grades suck. Just like your Quirk.” Arisa laughed and as if on cue, the other girls chimed in. In the small room, their laughter surrounded Nejire, swirling around her as though it were alive. “Tohru’s a girl, you’re a girl. You’re supposed to kiss boys.”

 “But—”

 “No buts. You’re not that stupid, are you?” Arisa flipped her hair over her shoulder and strolled away. “Don’t worry, we talked to Tohru about this.”

 When Tohru stopped talking to her the next day, it felt worse than the slap.

 -x-

 Her third kiss tasted like peppermint, strong and sharp. Hidden in the trees by the playground, Nejire grabbed Hiro and kissed him. Just like with Tohru, she had to take the first step. Unlike with Tohru, there wasn’t any chapstick to taste, just the overbearing taste of peppermint, of a breath spray used a few too many times.

 It was strange. Really strange. Nejire opened her eyes, studying the boy in front of her. His hands rested nervously on her hips, his eyes squeezed shut. Part of her liked this overly worried boy, this boy who gave her the shyest of smiles. His voice had shook when he’d confessed to her.

 Would she have liked him if Tohru hadn’t stopped talking to her? It was a question without an answer. His lips were rougher than Tohru’s but the kiss was just as clumsy, just as awkward. Their faces fit together, somehow, but Nejire hadn’t figured out the placement just yet. Her skin burned, just like it had with Tohru’s, and her hands buried into his soft, dark tufts of hair. This time, her fingers didn’t get stuck in the short, curly locks.

 She felt the same rise of excitement, the same heat running through her spine and curling her toes. The thrill was the same, whether it was Tohru or Hiro she kissed. The thrill was the same, the joy was the same, and why did one get her attacked and the other ignored?

 It didn’t make any sense.

 -x-

 Her fourth to twelfth kisses were done secretly. Ever since that afternoon in the classroom, Nejire didn’t like getting caught with her crushes. In empty stairwells and locked classrooms, she tasted cherries and spearmint and the remnants of lunch on her peers’ lips. With each kiss, the taste grew more and more diluted, until all she could perceive was water.

 Each kiss grew easier, more graceful. She learned how to place her nose, how to press her lips. Her hands threaded through hair like it was silk and her tongue shyly peeked out of her lips as she mastered the art of French kissing.

 And when she grew weary of it all, she’d disappear into the library and quietly look up books on romance. Men saving damsels, women smiling at one another in coffee shops, two guys taking a ride to nowhere; she devoured each tale as though it were fact.

 Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Nejire repeated each label, but none of them sounded right. None of them fit quite right. She poured through books on gender identities and sexual identities—if girls tasted of lip gloss and boys of breath spray, what did non-binaries taste of? Did she hate her clothes or her gender?

 Whatever the answer, Arisa had been wrong. Utterly wrong. There was nothing strange about kissing a girl.

 -x-

 Her thirteenth kiss was a surprise. The moment she entered the Hero Academy, Nejire stopped thinking about kisses, about labels, about romance. There were too many new things to do, people to meet, and despite what her mother said, her kisses no longer tasted like candy. Besides, she had made two good friends in high school, two people whose quirks were just as bad as hers. Two people who were just as motivated to improve. They met up everyday after class, training in the yard until they had to crawl home from exhausted.

 So, she hadn’t expected anything when she’d jogged behind Mirio, building up her stamina. Hadn’t thought of what would happen when she’d tripped over a rock, yelping as she fell.

 “Nejire!” Mirio whirled around, his reflexes sharp as he reached out to grab her.

 Her own arms were windmilling, trying to keep her upright. It wasn’t enough and she crashed into him, slamming them both onto the hard ground. Their lips connected, their teeth hitting each other like they had in her first few kisses, and she briefly tasted oranges and sunshine.

 They lay there, groaning. Her forehead ached from hitting his and slowly she sat up, rubbing it. “Ouch.”

 “Y-yeah.” Mirio’s voice was an octave higher. Maybe it was because she was sitting on him, cutting off his air. “You o-okay.”

 “Yeah. You?” She glanced down at him, blinking in surprise when she noticed his cherry red skin. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Can’t breathe?”

 “N-no.” He laughed nervously, his eyes averted as he looked everywhere but at her. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was reminded of someone else having that same reaction, of someone else looking like a cute mess, but the memory was too distant and it slipped out of her fingers. “S-sorry.”

 “Why? I hit you.” She cocked her head, bemused.

 “B-because.” He blushed, turning into a tomato now. “We…we…k-k-kissed.”

 Nejire stared at him, her eyes wide. So that was what she’d tasted before. She hit her fist on her hand, comprehending everything. “OH!”

 “Y-yeah,” Mirio nodded, still looking embarrassed.

 “Oh.” Nejire licked her lips, remembering the tart taste. Unlike her last kiss, this one hadn’t been like water at all. Still sitting on his torso, she pressed her hands on his chest. Beneath her, Mirio’s eyes were wide, his skin red, his flyaway hair a mess. It was cute. Beaming, she asked, “Want to do it again?”

 In response, he turned an even darker shade of red and disappeared into the ground with a surprised squeak.

 -x-

 Her fifteenth kiss was on purpose. By the time she’d reached second year, she considered Mirio and Tamaki not just her favourite people, but her best friends. There was something about them that never failed to bring a smile on her face. Even when they were studying, which was her least favourite thing in the world. Sitting in the library, she resisted the urge to slump on the table as she stared at her math homework. They were at a school for heroics. She did not want to learn algebra. Chewing on her lip, she glared at the paper, willing the answers to come.

 Tamaki glanced at her nervously, his hands fiddling with his pencil. Despite how long they’d known each other, he never looked entirely comfortable when they were alone. “Are you stuck?”

 “Yeah.” Nejire sighed, annoyed. “Hey, hey, do we really have to learn this?”

 “Yeah. It’s a requirement.” He sunk into his chair slightly, looking depressed. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. Why am I here?”

 Nejire immediately wrapped an arm around him, knowing exactly what to say. “Because you’re amazing and a hard worker.” She beamed brightly at him. “Hey, hey, if you can beat these numbers, you can beat any villain.”

 Tamaki flushed at her praise and squirmed in his seat. He hunched over, trying to hide his face. “It’s not that amazing.”

 “It is,” she insisted. “Extremely amazing. Super amazing.”

 “You…” Flustered, he looked up at her, his expression shy. “I’m not...”

 Cute, she thought. So very cute. And then, without thinking beyond that, she leaned forward and kissed him. He tasted of octopus and cinnamon, of the meals he’d consumed in his earnest attempt to improve his quirk.

 Tamaki fell off his chair before she pulled away, and that was cute too.

 -x-

 Her fourteenth kiss was in gratitude. Nejire had three good friends in high school, and her third one was Yuyu. Now that they lived in dorms, they alternated every night over who’s room they visited, carrying with them an assortment of creams and nail polishes. Tonight they were in Yuyu’s room, surrounded by bright pastel colours and posters of fashion models.

 Yuyu held up a bottle in the light. Inside, blue and yellow swirled around one another, touching but never mixing. “This is an interesting shade. I wonder how they do that.”

 “Magic,” Nejire suggested, grinning as she carefully applied topcoat to her nails. The clear liquid gave her nails a glossy look. “Hey, hey, can I ask you something?”

 “Hmm?” Looking away from the bottle, Yuyu nodded. “Sure, what’s up?”

 “I…” Nejire chewed her lip. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t know where to start. She thought of cotton candy, of peppermint, of water. Of the sharp sting of a slap. “I…” Yuyu looked at her expectantly, no judgement on her face. “I don’t get it.”

 “Get what?” Yuyu raised a brow.

 “Kisses. Love.” Nejire waved her hands in front of her helplessly, not sure of what words to use. “I just don’t get it.”

 “Ooh, romance.” Yuyu sat down on her bed and patted beside her. “Tell me everything.”

 Nejire plopped down next to her, feeling immediately at ease. “I…I’ve kissed girls.” She paused, glancing at Yuyu, but she didn’t say anything, just impatiently gesturing for her to go on. Feeling emboldened, she continued. “And I’ve kissed boys.” She stared down her hands, at the topcoat drying. Her tongue felt heavy.

 “Hmmm.” Yuyu opened the nail polish bottle and gently took one of Nejire’s hands. Slowly, she started to apply a coat. Nejire felt a tingle run up her spine at the attention. “And what’s the problem?”

 “That’s just it, I don’t get what the problem is.” Now that she’d started, the words just poured out in a rush. “What’s wrong with kissing girls? It’s not the same as kissing boys, but it’s just as good.”

 Yuyu’s tone was as kind as her touch. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

 “Really?” Nejire blinked. Whatever words she’d expected, those weren’t it.

 “Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with it.” Yuyu looked up mischievously, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “If anything, I think there’s something wrong with kissing boys.”

 That was something she hadn’t heard before. Nejire knit her brow. “But it feels just as good.”

 “To you, yeah, but not to me.” Yuyu shrugged. “I think girls are just better.” Pulling back now, she let go of Nejire’s hand. “What do you think? How does it look?”

 She looked down at her nails to find they were coated in swirls of blue and yellow, each nail looking different from each other. Nejire held them up to the light, eyes bright as she admired the patterns. “Wow! Hey, hey, you’re great at this.”

 “Of course I am.” Yuyu puffed her chest with pride. “I know fashion.”

 “Thanks!” Nejire wrapped her arms around her friend tightly, making sure to keep her hands clear. After all that hard work, she couldn’t smudge the finish. Kissing Yuyu on the cheek, she murmured. “Really, thanks.”

 “It’s what friends are for.” Yuyu leaned her head against Nejire’s. “And don’t ruin those nails.”

 “I won’t,” Nejire swore.

 “Great. Now please tell me that wasn’t the only love problem you have.” Yuyu pulled away, frowning. “Come on, my love life is dead, tell me yours isn’t.”

 “Well…” Nejire hummed contemplatively before grinning broadly. “I like Mirio and Tamaki.”

 “Huh?” Yuyu’s jaw dropped and speechless, she gestured with her hands in lieu of words. None of those signals could be found in any sign language dictionary, which was a loss to the world. Recovering, she managed, “Both of them? Seriously?”

 “I like their taste,” Nejire replied, fanning her hand lightly to help it dry faster.

 “That’s…not really an answer.” Yuyu sighed, shaking her head. “Well, at least you’re getting enough love for the two of us.”

 -x-

 Her next kiss was unknown. It could be far into the future. It could be today. Nejire stood in Mirio’s room, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she looked down at Mirio and Tamaki. They sat awkwardly on his bed, fidgeting slightly as they tried to figure out why they were here.

 “Is something wrong?” Mirio asked, concern in his voice.

 Nejire shook her head. “The opposite.” Her heart was beating a million miles a second and her palms were sweaty, but she knew where she stood now. She knew what she wanted and so the words tumbled out of her easily. “Hey, hey, I like you. Both of you.”

 She smiled brightly. No matter what they’re reaction was, she was ready for it. Her nails were still painted that blue-yellow and Yuyu had hot chocolate ready, so even if she was rejected, she could handle it. Nejire was resilient and she was strong, and even if this didn’t pan out, there were other candy-like kisses out there. She just had to find them.

 Still, as she watched Tamaki’s and Mirio’s skin flush a bright red, she hoped the answer was yes. Nejire had always had a greedy streak, after all.

[victoria-daydreams]

Lost in the Stars - Part VI

Part V

AN: I don’t know what it was about the last chapter, but I’m pretty sure that is the most notes I’ve received so far lol, Not that I’m not happy or grateful, I just thought it was funny to see such a dramatic uptick.

Summary: When Sarela Reyes accepted a bounty to find some  missing child it should have been a simple job. What she got instead was  a chance meeting with a certain Mandalorian, and her world was never  the same.

The setting sun cast a fiery, orange glow on the various buildings that surrounded Sarela and the Mandalorian as they made their way to the docking bay where his ship was stationed. After the pair's mini brawl in the cantina, they managed to track down Jazen again and spoke with Mayor Vullen through her holoprojector. She told him of their progress so far, unsurprisingly, Mayor Vullen was infuriated at what had transpired between Lora and her "friends". Sarela wasn't sure if it was spur of the moment or if Mayor Vullen actually meant it, but he wanted all the culprits of his daughter's kidnapping to hang.

Jazen nearly fainted before the mayor finished his tirade.

It took Sarela a long time to calm the mayor down, to explain to him whole situation of what led up to Lora's kidnapping. By the time she concluded the end of her report, she knew that she managed to talk down Mayor Vullen from his threat, pleading Jazen and the rest of the children's case for leniency. Sarela and the Mandalorian had left the boy in the hands of the city guards who were to escort him to the Mayor's Mansion before departing themselves so Sarela could tend to her wound.

They entered the spaceport, the noise and bustle of the streets not reaching inside the docking bay. To most people, the Razor Crest looked like a big piece of space junk to most who encountered it, especially Sarela when she first laid her eyes on it.

She raised a brow at the sight in front of her, "What is this piece of junk?" she asked, clutching her injured arm.

The Mandalorian turned his head ever so slightly, "My ship," he responded dryly, before walking up the ramp.

She let out a half snicker, "Delightful," she commented, following behind him.

Sarela glanced around the cramped, dimly lit cargo bay, that held boxes filled with spare parts, emergency food supplies, and other cargo crates. It was untidy, in her opinion, she had definitely seen and piloted better ships in her time.

"Cozy home you have here," she remarked, still looking around, her eyes landing on the door of what looked like a smaller compartment.

"Sorry it doesn't meet the high standards you're accustomed to," he stated sarcastically, while searching through the ship's shelves.

Sarela chuckled lightly as she plopped down onto a crate, "Oh how I do miss my ship," she admitted wistfully. "It was equipped with the latest technology of the time," she remembered, removing her bloodied hand from her arm.

The Mandalorian turned around holding a medpac in his hands and walked over to her, taking a seat beside her on a nearby crate.

"You're gonna have to remove your shirt if I'm going to clean that wound," he stated, opening the kit.

Sarela placed her hand on her chest in faux shock, "Mando, buy me dinner first at least," Sarela quipped, a playful smile stretched upon her lips.

"T-That's not what I meant," he replied quickly, and Sarela just smirked as she slipped her arm out her shirt, proud that she made the warrior in front of her flustered.

Pulling at the tips of his gloves, the Mandalorian removed the thick covering from his hands, revealing the tanned skin underneath.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Is that allowed?" she asked, a hint of teasing in her voice. "Do I need to avert my eyes to preserve your creed?" she questioned, enjoying the fact that she was getting underneath his skin.

"No," the Mandalorian answered, his voice tight, clearly not appreciating that she was poking fun at his religion. "And you know that," he added, staring at her through his visor. "Do you want me to treat you or not?" he asked irritatedly.

She rolled her eyes, "Well of course I do," she answered, sticking her arm out and displaying the angry, red flesh.

He grabbed her outstretched arm, the rough pads of his fingers encircling her lower bicep. The Mandalorian took a damp cloth and dabbed it lightly at the sliced flesh, the two of them sitting in silence as she let her eyes wander. That was until her body automatically stiffened in pain due to the man next to her applying too much pressure as he wiped away the dried blood.

"Kriffin' hell!" she cursed, and the Mandalorian looked up from what he doing. "Be a bit more gentle will you?" she requested, in a snippy tone.

"You know this never would've happened if you didn't start that brawl," he pointed out, putting the cloth down.

"What was I supposed to do Mando?" she asked. "Let the scum hit me first?" she asked again, noticing that his hands slightly froze as he uncapped the bacta tub.

"How about maybe not antagonizing him," he suggested, spreading a light coat over her injury.

Sarela hissed at the cold painkilling gel interacting with her arm, "He was looking for a fight and I gave him one," she responded, staring over at the Mandalorian who remained focused on his work. "Him and his lackeys should be grateful I didn't kill them," she added, as he wiped his hands clean of the medicine.

He picked up a roll of bandages, "You say you left the Empire, but it seems it hasn't left you," he commented, winding the bandage around her bicep.

Sarela scoffed, "What the hell does that mean Mando?" she questioned, cocking her head to the side.

"Scum," he replied, echoing her words from earlier.

"Crix already believed the worst about me just from my accent alone," she stated, a chuckle escaping her. "Why not play into it?" she reasoned, slightly shrugging her shoulders and the Mandalorian looked up. "What?" she asked curiously. "Is that why you briefly tensed a few minutes ago? Because I used the word 'scum'?" she questioned, raising her brow. "Is it too close to 'rebel scum' for your liking?" she asked again, this time a small grin on her face.

"Every time you say it, I envision you in your Imperial uniform," the Mandalorian said, tying the bandage off.

"And what, that's makes you uncomfortable?" she inquired, with a chuckle as she inspected her dressing.

"Considering what you're side did in the war, would it be unreasonable?" he countered.

"Not everyone that served in the Empire is the boogieman the Republic makes us out to be, we're no different than them," Sarela said, shrugging her arm back into the shirt. "The Republic dirtied their hands in the war as well, as much as they don't want to admit it," she objected, adjusting her top. "I've seen the handiwork of their agents when their done dealing with their informants up close and personal," she explained, shaking her head.

Admittedly, Sarela herself would only be tracking down these informants to kill them as well, but at least she wasn't holding a 'holier than thou' attitude about what she was about to do or had done.

"Only one side blew up a planet, killings billions instantly,"

Sarela snapped her head in his direction, "You think I took pleasure in seeing Alderaan destroyed?" she asked, offended at his insinuation.

She could never forget the moment when she arrived in the Alderaan System. She had just returned from a mission and was on her way to Courscant, but decided to make a quick pit stop at Alderaan. But when Sarela dropped out of lightspeed, there was no Alderaan. Just a dark, empty space filled with millions of rocks. All she could do was stare out the window of her ship, a frown lining her forehead.

"What the kriff?" she thought.

"I was confused as you could imagine," she continued, snapping out of her memory. "I was in the system where Alderaan was, but yet no Alderaan," she stated, slightly throwing one hand up. "I thought my navicomputer was malfunctioning or something," she added, her lips forming a thin line.

Sarela had checked her systems, but it wasn't broken at all. How she wished it was though.

"When did you realize what happened?" the Mandalorian questioned.

"I received a call from a friend who was Alderaanian, an agent like me. When I answered, he was hysterical," she answered. "There were tears and snot running down his face, it was hard to understand what he was saying because of his sobbing," she went on, gesturing to her face. "Maker, they were heart wrenching to hear," she recalled, shaking her head again. "He told me he was speaking with his family by the HoloNet and then suddenly the call was disconnected. He tried calling them back multiple times, but to no avail. That's when his superior told him what happened,"

"Alderaan had been destroyed," the Mandalorian surmised, and she nodded.

The realization of the sight that Sarela was staring at were shards of Alderaan had struck her to the core. She would never get to see Alderaan's magnificent landscapes again. She would never see the greenery again. Or the snow, or the castle or anything again. Sarela had close family friends that lived on Alderaan and they were dead because of the Empire that she served.

"Alderaan, and all its art, literature, plants, creatures, and the greatest loss of all. Its people, were gone," Sarela breathed, her voice holding a hint of longing. "I lost my godparents myself that day," she informed, folding her arms against her chest and looking down at the floor.

"And yet you remained loyal to the Empire," the Mandalorian replied, almost mockingly.

Sarela's head snapped up, "What I was going to do, defect?" she asked back sarcastically. "Unlike the Alderaanians who had just lost everything, I still had a family on Courscant," she reminded, pointing to herself. "You can't just leave Intelligence, Mando. Who knows what kind of torture my parents would have been subjected to if I defected like the Alderaanians in the Imperial Military," she finished, leaning back against the wall.

A hissing sound released behind Sarela's ear causing her to jump and spin around, only to face a tiny, green creature with its hand outstretched to grab her tunic. Instinctively, she pulled her blaster from its holster and aimed it at the strange alien.

"The hell is this thing?!" she demanded.

"Wait!" the Mandalorian shouted, nearly hurdling over the crates to get in between her and the creature. "The kid's with me," he informed, shielding the child with his body.

Sarela glanced behind him and at the child, it let out an innocent coo as it stared up at her with its large eyes. It was such a small thing with its big ears sitting on top of its head. It was almost adorable. After a few seconds of tense silence, Sarela skillfully spun the blaster in her hand and tucked it back into the holster.

She lifted her finger in the green creature's direction, "This is the child you're taking care of?" she asked, staring at the Mandalorian.

"Yes,"

"You're kidding me," Sarela said dryly, staring at the messy crate that she assumed was the creature's bed. "A loner like you and this little one...can't be safe," she noted.

"It's not," he agreed, as the child watched the two humans with interest.

"Right..." she trailed off, her eyes scanning the interior again. "Jog my memory again Mando," Sarela requested. "You said you're being hunted down by guild bounty hunters, correct?" she questioned, her eyes finding their way back to the shiny helmet of the Mandalorian.

"That's right," he confirmed, taking a slight step forward.

Although Sarela couldn't see his eyes, she knew they were boring straight through her as the Mandalorian tried to figure out where her line of questions were leading.

"And it's because of this child?" she asked again, pointing at the child once more.

The child turned its head to the Mandalorian.

"Yes,"

"Who was the client?"

The question hung in the air for a few seconds, but within the blink of an eye, both of them had their blasters aimed at each other.

"You never really left the Empire did you?" the Mandalorian asked accusingly.

"You think the Empire would plant an agent on this backwater of a planet, in hopes of potentially coming into a contact with you?" she challenged incredulously. "More importantly, you're on the run from the Empire!" she exclaimed. "Maker, I should've never gotten entangled with you. I don't need a bigger target on my head,"

There was a long uncomfortable pause, the Mandalorian's helmet was facing in her direction, not saying a word. It bothered her that she couldn't see where his eyes were actually looking. It left Sarela feeling nervous, an emotion that she rarely experienced. The Mandalorian finally lowered his blaster and relaxed slightly.

"You're too jumpy Mando," she commented, lowering her arm as well. "Have you never worked with someone who's ex-Empire?" she questioned.

"I have,"

"And how did that go?"

"I ended up locking him up in a prison cell,"

"Oh..." Sarela replied. "How encouraging,"