#drawing them smiling as if in canon they would not be scowling at their phones in a race to hang up on the other

[eggsdrawings]

dabihawks but like… cutesy-wootsy.

[ravenlking]

𝐕𝐈𝐋 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐓

"𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐄, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄." when your beloved is finally on stage until the very end

gender-neutral warnings: spoilers for book 5 genre: fluff a/n: please give me feedback :)

Let me know if you'd like more!

(Valentine is just a brief OC, not canon)

In the darkness of the room, you stood before your board. Pins and little notes taped to it as you planned out your great movie to date. But every villain needs a hero and you were down to two actors.

Neige LeBlanche or Vil Schoenheit?

Two of the greatest teen actors of the century; just having them both in your movie would give you the biggest box office income you've ever had. You've seen and worked with them on occasion, but seeing their characters come to life was beyond exhilarating.

Neige LeBlanche or Vil Schoenheit?

You took one last look at the character concept before smiling, picking up your phone to dial your agent.

"Hey, it's me. Mind ringing up Vil Schoenheit's agent? I have a role for him..."

"VIL!"

Epel dashed through the halls of Pomefiore, screaming his dorm leader's name with a frantically ringing phone in hand. He pushed aside his fellow dorm members, throwing out "Sorry!" and "Excuse me!" to them before stopping before the golden doors of Vil Schoenheit's dorm room, panting. The phone was still ringing excessively.

"VIL!"

Heeled footsteps were what Epel last heard before the doors opened, a scowl on the beautiful man's face.

"What," Vil snapped.

Epel hurriedly showed him the phone as Vil's eyes widened, dragging the petite boy into his room before locking the doors. Epel met eyes with a grinning Rook Hunt as Vil picked up his phone, a smirk on his face.

"Yes?"

"Vil, I have the greatest news!" His agent babbled to him as Vil winced, drawing the phone away from his ear. The call was on speaker and her voice was loud. Very loud.

"Valentine, speak properly," He hissed out, rubbing his ear.

"Apologies, but listen to me!" Valentine's excited tone could be heard. "You know the movie, Until Death Do We Part, the first one?"

Vil scoffed, looking at his manicured nails. "Of course. The second one, Raising Hell For You is going to be directed by Y/N L/N, right? The famous up-rising director?"

Y/N L/N, the youngest yet most talented director of the century. Some say you were the Neige/Vil version of director, comparing your success to the teen actors. You arose in the entertainment world not even two years ago, yet your movies have won Oscars left and right. It would be the greatest honor for any actor to be starring in your movie.

Y/N L/N, also known as his secret lover.

"Mhmm!" Valentine confirmed. "Y/N's agent rang me last night and Vil! They want you to play Lucian Dante! The male hero!"

Vil's knees nearly buckled as he held onto his makeup table to stabilize himself. Rook and Epel jumped to their feet to help.

No...it couldn't be true. Vil thought to himself.

Right?

"Valentine, you better not be kidding," He breathed out desperately. A laugh came over the phone.

"What about Neige? Did they not consider him?"

He spat out the actor's name as if it was poison.

Valentine laughed even harder. "The way Y/N's agent told me, and they quoted "Neige isn't even going to be in this show.""

Vil's breathed hitched. He knew the newspaper rumors like the back of his hand. Everyone spoke of them like a duo, a movie being incomplete without the other. To only have one would mean that the movie would only be half of its potential greatness.

To only have Vil Schoenheit in Raising Hell For You...Y/N L/N was making a huge gamble on the movie's success.

And all for him?

"I'm going to have to call you back."

"Wait-"

The phone shut off as Vil tossed it carelessly onto his bed. He collapsed onto his makeup chair, meeting no one's eyes.

"Roi des Poison," Rook proclaimed. "You should accept!"

Epel nodded.

"You've always said you wanted to play the hero, even after your..." He paused. "Your overblot."

"Do not," Vil hissed out, pointing a finger at the young boy. "Remind me."

Epel only raised his hands innocently. "I'm just saying, if the carrot is right in front of you, you should take it!"

Vil only motioned to have his phone back and Rook was quick to do so. He tapped on your phone contact before waiting.

"Hello?"

Vil smiled gently. It's a wonder how your mere voice was able to put him in the greatest of moods.

"Y/N, darling?"

"Oh, Vil!"

Epel scoffed. "There go the lovebirds again..."

Rook laughed.

Vil ignored them.

"Darling, why did you cast me as Lucian in your upcoming movie?" Vil waited patiently for your response.

"So you heard," You hummed. "Vil, I've known you since we both joined the entertainment. It's no secret that you want to play the hero. Epel and Rook was my main influencer after what happened at VDC. They told me how much the hero role was a dream to you, how much you have grown to despise the role of the villain. So, it was an instant decision to have you as Lucian Dante."

Your gentle words made Vil's entire day. No, his entire week.

"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I love you."

"This way, Vil, you'll be on stage until the very end. Like you've always dreamed," You cheered.

The Pomefiore dorm leader blew kisses through the phone before ending the call. He looked at Rook and Epel thankfully.

"Both of you, thank you," Vil smiled at them, for once not caring about the potential wrinkles that may form.

[fenmere]

This bit of flash fiction was inspired by @ayviedoesthings' dragon HRT comic series, and all the other spin off comics that other cartoonists are making. We wanted to participate!

But, we're burnt out on drawing comics, and yet we can write a lot of prose really fast, and that's our thing now, so here we go.

We're not asking that it be considered canon to the collective stories. We only felt compelled to write it, and hope that at least someone is entertained by it.

This is what we imagine would happen if we walked into the doctor's office:

---

The doctor's office is nearly featureless. There are white walls unadorned by the usual posters or framed credentials, marred only by outlets and a simple wooden door that opens to admit what looks at first to be a single human.

The doctor, who is balding with small circular glasses, looks up from his steepled fingers to visually evaluate what he assumes is his next patient. However, his eyes settle on a concerning accessory that they are carrying.

Although the visitor is dressed in a very typical outfit for a trans feminine person with a side cut, they are carrying a very stuffy looking brown leather suitcase.

The kind that lawyers all seem to carry.

It's very out of place, and alarming.

"Everything I do here is above board," the doctor says, reflexively. "I can show you my licenses."

"We are not concerned about that," the visitor says, sitting down in the guest chair and placing the briefcase on the doctor's desk. But they don't elaborate and just wait with an obviously self satisfied smile.

The doctor frowns and picks a script to use, "What am I seeing you for today?"

The grin broadens, "We understand that you administer something you've been calling 'Humanity Removal Therapy'."

"That is what some of my patients have been calling it. Yes," the doctor says. Despite having said this to so many people alread, he tenses. Something about this conversation feels off. But he explains anyway, "The therapies I offer, however, only change the body and mind, not a person's identity. If you're human before you start them, you'll be human when you complete them. And, if you're not, well. Then you already know why what I offer is so important."

"Yes, indeed," his guest says.

He hasn't yet gotten them to admit they're a patient. In theory, this appointment was set for a patient intake, but that suitcase and their demeanor has him reluctant to assume anything. That use of plural first person sure made it sound like they were a soliciter.

"Can we cut to the chase?" he asks. "Are you here as a patient like my schedule says? Or do I need to ask my assistant to see you out?"

The guest raises their hand and says, "We're sorry for the false pretense. We're new to your culture and do not know the proper channels. Also, we thought a demonstration of what we can offer your patients might be necessary. We know that you deal in the unbelievable already, but our abilities might strain even your sense of reality."

Scowling, the doctor reaches for his desk phone's intercom button.

"Oh, yes, let's give your assistant a donstration, too!" the guest exclaims.

His hand hovers over the phone, frozen in place. His scowl deepens. He thinks about the Manticor he'd just seen last week. It'd been just a couple years since he'd opened his practice, and in that time he'd developed a keen sense of when to not move, not provoke.

"What are you going to do?" the doctor asks.

"Well," the guest says, "Allow us to introduce ourselves first. We are the Inmara, or the Great Alliance in English. And we have developed a formula to help other beings, such as humans, take a physiological form identical to our own. We'd like to offer it to your patients."

The doctor narrows his eyes and points out, "You appear to be human. My patients rarely hold any interest in appearing to be human."

"Ah, that's where our demonstration comes in," the Inmara says, standing up and pushing their chair back. "This is just part of our protective coloration. We assure you that we are not remotely human."

Before he has a chance yo even feel alarmed, let alone protest, they shrug off their coat and step out of their Birkenstocks, and then begin to change.

Cheap, poorly made second hand Walmart brand clothing shreds easily as the Inmara's body bulges, writhes, twists, and grows fluidly into a truly terrifying monster with glowing frills and wings, and a maw the size of the doctor's torso.

The doctor finds he still can't bring himself to move. He had the chance to retract his arm, but that’s it. His own body knows better than to draw the eye of a predator by moving.

"We are Ktletaccete, doctor. And this is what we look like. We are certain a percentage of your patients will find this form desirable?"

"Cleh-tatch-a-whoozits?" his mouth blurts.

"Ktletaccete," they say. "Up until now, we've been a closed species, but we've been rethinking that choice."

"You look like a giant axolotl with antlers and an angler fish lure," he observes.

"Ah. There are some vague similarities to your tiny water dragons, yes."

"We already offer axolotl HRT. It's very popular."

The monster narrows their eyes and says, "This is just our juvenile form. When we reach maturity, we become a metamorphic species, and can take the appearance of any local life form. And more. Some of us have chosen to appear as wolves. Another has chosen the shape of a dump truck sized hare. You have already seen one of our human forms. We can even become various kinds of what you consider to be mythological beings. Dragons, hydra, mermaids, harpies, anything we can visualize clearly."

"Scary," he says.

"Freedom!" the Inmara says. "True bodily autonomy. We are offering your patients something no other therapy can afford them. The option to change their minds at any time!"

"Hm," he grunts. "You may be surprised. The number of patients who choose to lose themselves in full transformation is higher than you might think."

"Yes. But imagine how many more clients you could attract with the power we offer!" The bizarre draconic amphibian goliath settles back on their haunches. "We are certain that soon, even neurotypical humans could find the possibilities unimaginably enticing. Also, there really aren’t that many similarities between this and an axolotl. These aren’t gills."

Something about that raised alarm bells in every corner of the doctor's mind.

"Where did you say you come from, again?" he asks.

"Oh. Yes. We've been traveling across your galaxy for quite some time. We came upon your planet when we intercepted -"

"So, you’re aliens."

"Yes?"

"And you want me to help you turn Earthlings into more of your kind?"

"Well..."

"This sounds like the kind of invasion you'd see on Doctor Who."

“Now - OK. We can see that. But think about the benefits.”

“Sometimes I do wonder about the ethics of my practice,” the doctor says, putting a hand on his desk as he starts to stand up. “I always come around to how important it really is for people to be able to be themselves. But this? I’d feel like I was betraying my own kind.” He stops, partially standing, feeling like he’s taken a step too far. Fear chills him to the bone as his mind races through all the consequences that this huge shapeshifting monster could mete out upon him.

“So, that’s a ‘no’?” The Inmara asks.

He can’t bring himself to respond. Even more consequences and possibilities begin to haunt and torment him.

“We really have no interest in becoming competition for you,” the Inmara explains with a saddened tone. “Disrupting the ecosystem of this planet isn’t really in our interests, and that includes impacts to what you call your economy. But, it is important to us to bring true autonomy to all sentient species, and this is the way we know how to do so. And we do have the means to set up our own organization here and distribute this ourselves.”

They turn to leave and the doctor hears his mouth utter, “Wait!” His pulse quickening further, he pulls a sharp intake of breath and straightens up.

The manticore situation from last week keeps coming back to his mind. And he can’t help but consider how this being in front of him could have handled it with the capabilities they’ve demonstrated. That case could have gone so differently. So much better.

The Inmara turn to face him, mid-transformation back to human shape, coat in their left hand, “Yes?”

He is as surprised by his own words as he had been by anything else that happened today, as he says, “Could you leave a sample? A full regimen for a single person? I would like to… er… monitor a case... before I agree to this.”

After all, as he and his clients tend to agree, humanity, or the lack of it, isn’t in the body or the mind. Those things are just tools for the being that owns them.

And sometimes a tool could use an upgrade.

[scuttling]

Lean on Me

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Gender Neutral Reader Word Count: 4,717 Tags: SFW, Fluff, 5+1 Trope, Obliviousness, Mutual pining, Aaron Hotchner deserves good things, Canon typical injury Summary: Five times you want to kiss the frown off of your boss's face, and one time you actually do it. *Requested by Anon. Link to AO3 or read below! “It doesn’t make sense.”

You stick a tack in a photo of a murdered woman—unfortunately one of many you’ve stuck to this board—and turn to face Hotch, who is looking over your handiwork with a quizzical expression.

“What doesn’t?” He takes a few steps closer, crosses his arms in front of him.

“Why would the unsub leave his comfort zone? The first six abductions occurred within five miles of the college, so why did the seventh and eighth happen almost twelve miles away?” He reaches for the board, traces his finger along the circle Reid had colored in on the map. “We profiled that he’s disorganized and far from confident, so why would he do that?”

He looks over at you, frowns, and not for the first time your gaze is drawn to the little crease between his eyebrows that always forms when he is puzzled, worried, confused, stressed, or otherwise unhappy. In short, it’s there kind of all of the time.

For the first time, though, you think of how easy it would be to lean over, press your lips there, smooth it out, and maybe even get him to smile for a change. He has a great smile, when he lets people see it.

You shake the daydream, rewind back to the question he asked, and wrinkle your nose in thought.

“Maybe his circumstances changed? It's summer now, and there are still classes, but students aren’t living in the dorms. Maybe he moved back home or got an apartment off campus that’s within that area—or a job.” He sighs, runs a hand over the back of his head, nods.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. That’s good. I’ll mention it to the others.” He pulls out his phone, and you grab another photo, another thumbtack, but something stops you and you lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“You don’t have to think of everything, you know. That’s why you have us.” He exhales, his shoulders losing a little of their tension, and that forehead wrinkle gets a little less deep.

“Sometimes I forget that not everything needs to be done the hard way. Or by me.”

“What? You, Aaron Hotchner, doing things the hard way?” you tease, and you are gifted a glimpse of his rare, unfiltered smile.

“Okay, enough pointing out my flaws,” he says with a raised eyebrow, though he’s still smiling, and as he looks down to type out a text, you remember to pull back your hand.

“I would never.” He looks up from his phone at that—maybe at the conviction in your voice, which you hadn’t exactly intended—and his expression softens further.

“I know you wouldn’t.” You hold eye contact for a moment, and then turn to finish preparing the board, pinning up another photo of another woman and reminding yourself that they need you to focus on the task at hand. Two weeks later, you knock on Hotch’s office door, a stack of completed consults in your hand. He looks up, that familiar notch in between his brows, a scowl on his face; when he sees that it’s you, he tones it down a little.

“Draw the short straw?” he asks, and you figure that’s because everyone knows he is in a bad mood and they’ve been avoiding this office all day. You shrug.

“It was rock, paper, scissors, but yes.” He huffs a short laugh, and you smile, step toward his desk. “Anything I can do to lighten the load?”

“Technically you’re adding to it,” he says with a glance at the files in your hand, and you set them on one of the chairs with a purposefully loud thump and then take the other seat.

“Technically. But technically, you only need to review my consults; I can review theirs. Right?” He mulls it over a moment, like the thought never crossed his mind—of course Aaron I have to do everything myself Hotchner would never suggest such a thing, even as the team sits in the bullpen with nothing to do, seeing who can throw M&Ms into Spencer’s mouth from the furthest distance.

“Technically,” he agrees, and you pluck a pen out of his pen cup and take the first file off the pile, open it in front of yourself, careful not to cut into the workspace he’s occupying. You both smile softly down at your work, and you actively do not think about that wrinkle between his eyebrows.

About an hour later, he reaches for his mug out of habit but finds it empty; you stand, take it in your hand, and he makes a noise of protest.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know,” you say, and you walk toward the door. “I need some too. I’ll be right back.”

You pass through the bullpen—apparently the M&M contest led to a sugar crash, because Spencer is laying with his head on his desk—and grab your cup off your desk, take both to the break room to fill them.

Derek appears next to you as you’re stirring your sugar in.

“Coffee date with the boss?” he asks with a curious expression, and you shake your head.

“Of course not. I’m helping him with the overwhelming amount of paperwork on his desk so his mood improves, instead of just ignoring him.” You raise an eyebrow in challenge, and Derek scratches the back of his head.

“Never thought of that,” he admits, and you pat him on the arm and take your coffees back upstairs.

Hotch looks up at you as you set his mug down, says a soft thank you, and you grab the pile of files you brought up, separate them, and head back downstairs.

“You review mine,” you say to Derek, handing him a stack, “Emily take Spencer’s, Spencer take Derek’s, I’ll take Emily’s.” They look at you like they have no idea what to say, and you just smile, tap the top of Spencer’s head with a folder. “I’ll come back down and grab them in a little bit.”

“Yes, boss,” Emily says, and you grin on your way back upstairs. Hotch is standing when you arrive this time, looking out the window over the bullpen.

“What did you do?” he asks, turning to you, frowning again. You’re so close that kissing that wrinkle would be effortless. All you’d have to do is lean in.

You smile.

“I delegated, Hotch. You should try it some time.” You put your hands on his arms and guide him back to his desk. “Now what can I help you with?”

By the end of the day, his desk is clean and his bad mood is long gone. He closes the last of his files, sighs deeply, covers your hand with one of his, and says thank you.

The next morning when you come in, there is a steaming latte and a cookie on your desk, and you can’t stop smiling the rest of the day. Your next case is draining, children abducted and left for dead, and everyone is on edge, but no one more than Hotch. You’re fairly certain his face hasn’t relaxed since the initial briefing, and he’d be a prime candidate for the old ‘your face will get stuck like that’ joke, if anyone was up to joking.

The team catches the unsub, saves one child, but not until after three are dead; you take a late flight home because no one wants to stay another night in a town it feels like you’ve failed, and everyone curls up to get some rest except you and Hotch.

You try to read the book you brought along—a science fiction dystopian novel, something to get you out of your head and away from real life problems—but you’re a little distracted by Hotch’s sighing. It’s become an every-five-minutes thing, and while you’re definitely on board with sighing as a way to decompress, he’s not decompressing. He looks like he’s in pain mentally, exhausted physically; you’re not sure how everyone else was able to ignore it and go to sleep, but then you figure everyone else may not be as in tune with him as you are. As observant.

As in love.

Not that that matters: you know your issues, and some of his issues, and there’s the whole superior/subordinate thing which doesn’t really do anything for you except give you a stomach ache. It would never work out, even if he somehow, miraculously, were to love you back—and that’s a pretty big if in and of itself.

But still, you notice him, can’t help it, and the sighing is getting to be a little much. You sigh yourself, put your finger in between the pages of your book, and walk over to take the seat next to him; he looks over at you, frowning just like always, and you carefully close his file and set it aside.

Neither of you say anything to the other, just look each other over for a moment, and then you lean lightly against his shoulder and flip back to the beginning of your book.

“I still dream of the island. I sometimes approach it across water, but more often through air, like a bird, with a great wind under my wings. The shores rise rain-coloured on the horizon of sleep, and in their quiet circle the buildings: the houses grown along the canals, the workshops of inkmasters, the low-ceilinged taverns.”

You keep your voice low and soothing, and you are just turning to page fifteen when you feel the weight of his head drop onto your shoulder.

The crease between his eyes melts away in sleep.

You read until you make it home, and you wake him up with a gentle nudge before the rest of the team drifts back to consciousness. He looks at you, blinks slowly like he’s trying to remember where he is, and then gets a little sheepish when he puts two and two together, realizes he fell asleep on your shoulder.

You just shake your head, give his arm a squeeze, and head back to your seat to gather your things. You, Hotch, and Emily are catching the elevator to the parking garage—after staying two hours later to work on some rush consults straight from Strauss—when he looks at something on his phone that makes him groan aloud. You and Emily share a look, and you ask what’s wrong.

“I just remembered I’m supposed to have a treat for Jack to take to school tomorrow and it’s, what, seven thirty?”

“So just stop at the supermarket on your way home; no one can tell the difference anyway,” Emily says, but you and Hotch both shoot her a skeptical glance.

“It’s all about the treats at a school like Jack’s,” you supply, and Hotch looks over at you like he’s surprised by your comment. “If they’re not homemade, the parents talk. Plus there’s probably an allergen list a mile long: no nuts, no eggs, no soy, no dairy. You have to pick him up from Haley’s tonight, right?” You’re pretty sure, but when he nods he confirms it. “So pick him up, go home and get some dinner, put him to bed, and I’ll text you when I’m on my way over with the goods. I have a great recipe for vegan apple cinnamon muffins that will go over really well.”

“You really don’t have to do that; I’ll figure something out,” he says, but you just shake your head and pull up the recipe on your phone.

“Forget it, it’s already done. I have everything I need at home already; let me help,” you murmur softly, and when he looks at you with the furrowed brow that comes with accepting kindness from someone else, you almost forget it’s not just the two of you in the elevator. It’s only when Emily clears her throat that the eye contact breaks. He nods.

“Okay. Thank you; I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” The elevator dings and it stops at the parking garage; the three of you get off and head in separate directions for your cars. “I’ll text you.”

“Goodnight,” Emily says with a grin, and you wave at her, hop into your car, and head for home.

About two hours later, you show up at Hotch’s door with two dozen apple cinnamon muffins, and unbleached, whole wheat flour in your hair, and he has coffee brewing, a smile on his face.

“You don’t know how grateful I am,” he says as he ushers you into the kitchen, takes the boxes of muffins from your hands, and pours you a cup of dark, delicious coffee. You sip it slowly, savoring the taste—you should have known he’d have incredible coffee—even though it’s far too late for you to be indulging. Unless you’re working a case, you usually switch to decaf by three.

“I know you are. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think you’d appreciate the gesture.” You lean forward, open a box, and pull out two muffins, handing one to him. “I made a couple extra so we could taste test; if I accidentally put salt in instead of sugar, you’re on your own,” you joke, and you wait for him to taste it before taking your own bite.

“That’s delicious. There’s really nothing unapproved in here?” he asks, and you shake your head.

“Nope, it’s all healthy and allergen free, except for the flour, but that wasn’t on the list you sent.” He reaches a hand toward you, and you don’t realize, at first, that he’s brushing the flour out of your hair.

“Messy baker,” he teases, and your heart feels really full, being in his kitchen like this, warm muffins and fresh coffee, even if your hair is a mess. You smile, and he smiles back before dropping into that serious expression, eyebrow wrinkle and all. You think about brushing your lips there tonight, but this feels like two steps forward, and you don’t want to risk taking that step back. “Next time I’ll help you.”

“Oh, next time? You plan on needing my baking expertise again? Fair warning, this is the only recipe I know, so I hope you like apple cinnamon muffins.” You take a sip of your coffee, look up at him, and he takes another bite, nods his head.

“I do. Especially these.”

In a perfect world, what comes next would be a cinnamony, coffee flavored kiss, but the world’s not perfect, and you yawn instead. You look down at your mug like it’s betrayed you, and Hotch chuckles low.

“It’s decaf. I know you usually stop in the afternoon; I wouldn’t forgive myself if you were up all night because of me.” You have always been a person who falls in love with all the little details about someone, so the fact that he’s noticed this, remembers this, makes your heart beat a little faster. “I should let you go. You’ve done so much today, between staying late and baking for Jack—for me. You need to get some sleep.”

He’s right, it’s nearly ten, and you should be getting back home, but this is a moment you never want to end.

You just nod, though, and he reaches out to brush his hand over your back when he walks you to the door.

“Thank you again. I really appreciate that you did this for me,” he says, soft, like he still can’t imagine you would.

“You’re welcome, Hotch. Any time, really; I’m happy to help.”

You get home, clean your kitchen, and have a very late dinner, and the smell of good coffee and apples and cinnamon is still in your nose when you drift to sleep. “You didn’t hear what he said,” Hotch snaps almost a month later, with one hand splayed on his hip and the other on the table in front of him. The moment you saw him engaged in an argument with a member of the Sheriff’s department, fire in his eyes, you’d grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a small conference room, shutting the door behind you. It took almost three minutes of staring at each other for him to say something instead of just glaring at you for interrupting the pissing contest.

“I don’t need to know what he said. I know you, and I know you handle people like that with a quick, sharp remark and then you wash your hands of it. You don’t argue back and forth, you don’t draw it out. You would have regretted it if you did that today, so I stopped you.”

“You think you know me so well, do you?” he asks in an unkind tone of voice you can’t identify, haven’t heard from him before; the expression on his face is familiar, though, a scowl that only puts emphasis on his handsome features—it’s unfair, really.

You exhale, cross your arms.

“Yes, and I know you well enough to know you’re irritated with him, not me, so cut the shit.”

It’s the first time you’ve ever been quite that direct with him, and certainly the first time you’ve ever sworn at him; your immediate instinct is to apologize, but he surprises you by huffing a laugh. The angry lines of his face smooth into something softer.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. He just—I can’t stand people like that.” He scrubs a hand through his hair in irritation. “We’re here to work—to do a job they couldn’t finish on their own. Not to be… objectified.” He mutters the last word, so low you almost don’t hear it, and then there’s a knock at the door. Derek enters.

“Sheriff wants a word, Hotch; do you have a sec?” With one last look at you, he nods, brushes past him to leave the room. Derek gives you the barest hint of a smile. “He was defending your honor, you know.”

You frown. You didn’t know.

“That jerk was talking about me?” you ask, clarifying, and he nods.

“Something about assuming you’re an athlete because he likes your ass. Set the boss man off.” You walk over to him and leave the room together, heading back to your workspace.

“Well Hotch is right, we’re here to work, not to be objectified. I can see how he would get angry.” Derek shoots you a flat, questioning glance.

“You think he’d be getting that worked up if it was my ass that guy was talking about? Or Emily’s?” The two of you stop outside the conference room, and you cross your arms, lean against the doorframe, frown.

“So what are you trying to say? That he sees me as being weak, thinks he needs to defend me? I'm as capable as either of you.” That may not be strictly true, because you’re a little more brains than brawn, like Spencer in that way, but you can hold your own and you thought Hotch knew that.

Derek just laughs, shakes his head, and ducks into the room. You follow, so confused.

“I thought you were just playing it close to the vest, but you’re oblivious, aren’t you?”

“Oblivious about what?” Emily asks, pen between her teeth, feet kicked up onto a chair, and you shrug.

“I’m still not sure. Hotch got into an argument with a deputy about me, and I asked Derek if Hotch thinks I’m weak and that’s why he felt like he had to defend me.” She smiles broadly around the pen, pulls it out of her mouth with a grin.

“Oh, honey. That’s not it. You know that’s not it, right?”

“I clearly don’t know what’s going on at all, so no, if you’d care to enlighten me,” you say, sinking into an empty chair. “I hate it when you guys are cryptic.” You love your team, but they have a habit of doing this all the time, saying things to each other with their eyes, or just a few words that don’t have any sensible meaning that you know of. It’s like they live to talk over your head, to say things without actually saying them.

“Okay. Hotch has a thing for you,” Emily says simply, and you blink.

Well that’s the very last thing you’d expected to hear.

“He absolutely does not.” You look at Derek, who’s making a face like you’re the one being crazy; you laugh out loud, can’t help it. “He does not. I’m pretty sure Hotch doesn’t have things, and if he did, he wouldn’t have a thing for me.”

“Why not? Because that would be too convenient, since you have a thing for him too?” Derek asks, taking the seat across from you, and you grab the nearest case file, flip it open and focus your attention on it.

“I care about him, the same way I care about all of you, and he maybe needs a little more care—but you guys are reading into things.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to say anything more, because Hotch, JJ, and Spencer return, and you all have a lead to work.

You can’t help but wonder if you’re being obvious about your feelings, though, especially later, when you get back to the hotel and the group decides to have a drink at the bar.

JJ and Emily hit the pool table while Derek and Spencer head up for drinks, and you are left sitting with Hotch at the table, pressed together in the inside corner of a booth.

“Tired?” you ask him, because he does look worn out, his tie a bit loose, his eyes a little red. You know he doesn’t get much sleep when you travel, and you can’t imagine he’ll go to bed even when this little detour is over.

“Always,” he sighs, but when he looks over at you, he smiles, just a little. “Just can’t wait to get out of this town.”

“Yeah, it gives Southern hospitality a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” The people you’ve interviewed today are, on paper, quite respectable, but there’s a Desperate Housewives, ‘everyone is sleeping with someone else's spouse’ kind of thing going on, and it’s honestly exhausting. To your surprise, Hotch laughs.

“It really does. I don’t think I’ve ever missed the quiet solitude of my apartment quite this much.” You lean back against the vinyl of the booth, sigh.

“I miss my apartment, but it’s been too quiet lately. I prefer the sounds of someone else sharing space with me: the coffee maker percolating, the news in the background, the shower running, the sound of flipping the pages of a book or magazine.” You look down at your hands, because you’re getting a little more emotional than you usually let other people see. “Sorry. I’m not typically this open about being…”

You trail off, but Hotch looks over at you, concerned, the wrinkle between his eyebrows even more noticeable when you’re sitting this close. You think, just briefly, of running your thumb over it, but with your luck, Derek or Emily would see, and you’d never live it down.

“Lonely?” he finishes softly, and when you nod your head, he covers your hands with one of his own, bumps his shoulder against yours. “I get lonely too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” You look up at him, feeling a little vulnerable, and his expression softens. “When we get back, maybe you could come over for dinner some night. Nothing fancy,” he clarifies, and you smile, “just two lonely people being a little less lonely.”

“That would be really nice.” You can see Derek and Spencer approaching out of the corner of your eye, and Hotch must too, because he removes his hand, slips back into the slight, persistent frown you have come to know and love. Derek looks at you, raises an eyebrow, and hands you your beer. You try to tell him to shut up with your face, plan to follow up later to see if that actually worked. “We have an agent down on the second floor,” Spencer says into his comms, and you immediately want to slap him in the back of the head.

“Don’t say agent down, kid; I’m like, slightly wounded at best.” You hold a hand against the stab wound on your side—the unsub honestly just grazed you, and you’d knocked him out with a single punch, which made you feel pretty awesome—and reach out the other so he can help pull you to your feet. Your hand comes up to your own walkie button. “I’m not down, I’m fine—just slightly stabbed,” you add, and Spencer is getting his cuffs on the unsub when Hotch and JJ burst through the doors.

Well, Hotch bursts. JJ follows behind looking strangely winded for one of the most naturally athletic people you know.

“What happened? Are you alright?” he asks, and you lift your shirt to show him the sluggishly bleeding gash.

“I’m fine, see? It’s not even deep. Spencer saw blood and got a little ahead of himself.” You turn to Spencer, who sticks out his tongue, then back to Hotch, who looks haunted and pale, with that goddamn wrinkle between his eyebrows again. He’s bent down, looking over your wound seriously—you’ve had worse, so much worse, that you don’t understand why he’s so worried about it—and then he leans up, presses a hand to your cheek, and pulls you close for a soft, tender kiss.

If this were a movie, right about now a camera would be panning around you in a circle, as you wrap your free hand around his neck, pull him closer, melt against his body like it’s all you’ve been dreaming of for months, and the two of you would break apart smiling, maybe even kiss again.

It’s not a movie, though, so you just bleed out against your hand and freeze, because Hotch is kissing you at a crime scene and you almost got filleted, so you’re not sure if this is a you got hurt, so I’d better kiss you kiss or an I’ve been wanting to kiss you forever, and you got hurt so I have to kiss you kiss.

When he breaks the kiss, you’re both breathing a bit heavily, and you don’t know what to do, so you just lean in and press your lips to that wrinkle between his eyebrows that you’ve been thinking about so frequently since the first time you noticed it. You brush a hand through his hair, and when you pull back, he’s smiling.

“What was that?” He covers your hand on your side with his own and helps get you toward the elevator so you can be patched up by the EMTs; JJ and Spencer are left staring, open-mouthed in your wake, with an unconscious unsub at their feet, but neither of you are concerned about that.

“I’ve been thinking of doing that for months now: to kiss that spot between your eyes so you’ll stop frowning for a change. Since I couldn’t, I decided to find other ways to help you stop frowning so much. It kind of became my life’s mission.” He sighs, puts his arm around you and holds you close while you wait for the elevator to bring you to the ground floor.

“I stop frowning when you’re around because you’re around, not just because of the things you do for me,” he tells you, and he presses his lips to yours for another warm, soft, perfect kiss. “I’ve been thinking of doing that for months now.” You tilt your head, make a sound of contemplation, and he chuckles softly. “What is it?”

“I think those cryptic idiots we work with might be onto something,” you say with a grin, and when the elevator lets you off and Hotch helps you toward the ambulance to be patched up, Derek and Emily are waiting with concerned looks on their faces. They must be pretty confused to see you’re grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, you guys were right; Hotch does have a thing for me!” you call as you walk past them, and when your wound is properly dressed and wrapped, you put your arms around his neck and let him kiss you until the frown and accompanying wrinkle are nothing but distant memories.

*The novel excerpt is from The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta.

Taglist ❤️: @thaddeusly @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc @wishuhadstayed

[reanimationstation]

[ID: multiple sketches based on our dnd campaign.

picture 1- on the left there's a drawing of Sammy carrying toon Bendy on his hip, the both of them smiling. Sammy holds his crook in his free hand, and is also wearing his bendy mask. on the right there's a doodle of Sammy looking off to the side, unamused.

picture 2- the top has three sketches of human Bendy at different ages. the left has a baby Bendy, the age labeled as "???". the baby has his face scrunched and is wearing a Bendy themed onesie, the hood shaped like his horns. there's a little tail attached to it too. the middle sketch is of a 4 year old Bendy, he wears a hoodie that has his signature bow on it, as well as a beanie shaped like his horns. the farthest right is an 11 year old Ben, he wears the same horned beanie and a tux t-shirt. under those is a drawing of Sammy scowling as he tells Henry "I would sell you to Satan for one corn chip." A simplified Henry head responds "Point taken."

picture 3- A frazzled Sammy holding baby Bendy in one arm, his phone pressed against the side of his head as he talks into the phone, saying, "Wait, wait- I'm supposed to what? No Jack's not home,". Ben, meanwhile, looks mischievous as he pulls on Sammy's ponytail/End ID]

they're a family :']c

the only "canon" ones are in the top picture (he carries Bendy like that a lot), but i had fun brainstorming some stuff with human Ben and Sam

[noladyme]

La Cuervo - Chapter 11

She is used to the biker-life, having grown into a woman in the familiar embrace of SAMCRO. A bad decision and a gun-shot later, she gets whisked off to Santo Padre, and put under the protection of another club. What is supposed to be a short stint in the Mayan headquarters just north of the border to Mexico, turns into something more; when la quervo begins to develop feelings for el angel - and he seems to return them in kind...

TW: violence, blood, drug use, alcohol, smut, fluff, angst

In the spirit of "The Crown Princess of Charming", this is a story about O.C. Nina and Angel Reyes. It is obviously non-canon, as characters who have passed on on Mayans M.C. are present in it, and others have been excluded completely. Nina is written as a cis-female, but I have tried to keep her race and looks as ambigous as possible. Should you find any of this story offensive, please let me know.

Nina was seated at the table in Felipe’s small kitchen, having been brought there by EZ a few hours earlier. The sun was setting outside, and she was looking at the orange sky, becoming red, and then dark blue.

“You haven’t touched your food…”.

“Huh?”. She was deep in thought, and almost knocked her glass of lemonade over, when Felipe spoke. Managing to stop it from falling, she took a sip. “Sorry”.

Felipe got up, and walked over to the fridge, grabbing a can of beer. He opened it, and set it down in front of her.

“Looks like you need this”, he smiled. Nina took a welcome sip of the beer, and smiled at Felipe.

“Thanks…”.

She went back to poking at her food. It smelled delicious, and she forced herself to take a bite.

“EZ wouldn’t tell me what’s going on, but I’m guessing it’s not good”, Felipe said. Nina tentatively met his eyes. “Are you in trouble?”.

“I’m… I don’t know”, she replied.

“Pregnant?”.

Nina’s eyes widened.

“What? Fuck no!”. She took a big gulp of the beer. “Sorry…”, she added, embarrassed at using profanities in front of the man.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked”, Felipe said, looking down at his hands.

There was a long moment of silence.

“You seem almost disappointed at my answer”, Nina muttered. Felipe blew out a short laugh.

“Maybe it would get my son to settle down… And you’re not the worst choice of nuera…”.

“I don’t think we’re quite there yet”, Nina replied. Felipe shrugged.

“I don’t know… I saw how Angel looked at you yesterday. He cares about you”.

“Yeah…”, Nina breathed. She knew Angel cared; but she knew how the life was. His club came first, and she was quite sure that same club was getting ready to ship her back home to Charming.

EZ stepped into the kitchen with his phone in hand.

“They finished at the table. Angel’s on his way”. Felipe got up to get a plate from one of the cabinets; obviously aware of the state of the fridge in his eldest son’s house. EZ placed a gentle hand on Nina’s shoulder. “Are you ok?”.

“I guess I don’t know yet”, she said. “Do you think they’ll make me leave?”, she added, almost in a whisper.

EZ didn’t reply, seemingly unsure what to answer. He sighed, and went to grab a beer for himself.

Unable to stomach even a bite more of the food, Nina pushed away her plate.

“Do you mind if I smoke?”, she asked Felipe.

“Yeah, he doesn’t…”, EZ began, but stopped when Felipe placed an ashtray in front of her.

“Go ahead”, the elder Reyes said with a soft smile. EZ looked confusedly between the two, but ultimately shook his head, and settled in a chair.

Nina took deep draws of her cigarette, and stared straight ahead of her. If the Mayans wanted her gone, she still had a home in Charming; but as it was, the thought of leaving was extremely painful. Whatever Angel and she had, was something real and beyond what she’d felt for any other person. She didn’t want to go, but at the same time the thought of Angel backing the MC in the decision made her think it might be for the best.

She wiped away a stray tear, and Felipe handed her a napkin.

“Like I said, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I think it requires something stronger than beer”, he said, and moved into the living room.

“Oh no. Pap is bringing out the mezcal”, EZ said.

“Why oh no?”, Nina asked.

“If you thought the Ferris wheel story was bad…”. EZ looked terrified. Nina finally let a smile reach her lips.

“Can’t wait”, she said.

A short while later, they were on their third shot of mezcal and laughing, when Angel walked into the kitchen. He took one look at Nina’s cigarette and the liquor, and frowned in confusion.

“Is this a party?”, he asked. Felipe got up and gave his son a half hug.

“Let me get your plate”, he said.

“Sorry, pap. We gotta go”, Angel replied. The mezcal had gone a bit to Nina’s head, and she scowled at the biker.

“Sit your ass down and eat your father’s cooking. Taking me back to Charming can wait 20 minutes”, she grumbled.

Angel looked at her confusedly, and took the plate Felipe handed him, before pulling up a chair to the small table. EZ poured him a shot.

Felipe sat down again.

“Where was I…? Oh, right. So, we’d let Angel be in charge of filling the piñata for EZ’s birthday, but he’d gone into the wrong section of the drug-store…”. Angel groaned.

“Nah… Not this, pap. Please…”, he pleaded.

“You think I want to hear this story again?”, EZ said. Felipe waved their objections away with a dismissive gesture, and continued.

“He picked the most colorfully wrapped things he could find, and filled it before Marisol and I could see what he’d gotten. I got this, pap; he insisted… Come the party, Ezekiel is banging away at the poor piñata, and breaks it open…”. He halted to laugh to himself for a moment. “And a shower of condoms rains over him”. Nina had to hold her belly from laughing.

“I thought it was candy!”, Angel exclaimed.

“Sure you did”, EZ said disbelievingly.

“I was 12…”, Angel said. Felipe chuckled at his sons bantering.

Angel downed his shot, and began shoveling food into his mouth, while Felipe and EZ went to do the dishes. Felipe resolutely declined Nina’s help, and poured her another drink to keep her seated.

While the eldest and the youngest Reyes got on with getting the kitchen back in order, Angel finished his meal; his eyes on Nina the whole time. She did her best to avoid meeting his gaze, once again feeling the pain of their impending goodbye. He handed his plate to EZ, and got up; reaching out his hand to her.

“Let’s go…”, he said. She took it, and sighed deeply.

Felipe wiped his hands, and came over to her, pulling her in to a tight hug.

“Take care, mija”, he said, and kissed her cheek. He patted Angel’s shoulder, and Angel nodded at EZ, before he led Nina out of the house, towards his bike in the driveway.

“I just need my stuff at your place”, she rasped.

“Why?”, Angel asked.

“Because I’m not going back north without my shit”, she hissed.

Angel frowned at her, once again sporting the deep furrow between his eyebrows.

“Nina…”.

She let out a flustered groan and stomped over to the bike.

“Let’s go!”, she said. When Angel didn’t move, she walked back towards him, and pulled at his cut. “Take me the fuck back to SAMCRO. Let’s get this over with!”.

“You’re drunk, cuervo”, he sighed.

“Yeah… So?”, Nina said.

“Ma’, the only place you’re going is home to sleep it off”, Angel said calmly.

“Yeah, like I said. Take me back to Charming”.

“No. Back home to mine”. Nina tilted her head confusedly. He grabbed her arm and led her over to the bike. “Can you ride?”.

“Yeah…?”, she muttered. “But…”.

“Not here”. He grabbed her helmet from EZ’s bike, and put it on her head, snapping it shut under her chin, before getting on the bike. Nina simply stood, open mouthed and wide-eyed. “Come on! Jesus… Look, I’m not taking you back north; but we do have something we need to talk about. When you’re sober”.

Nina clambered on behind him, and Angel drove them off into the night.

---

The smell of coffee woke her up. She opened her eyes and saw Angel setting down a mug on the bedside table, next to a glass of water and a bottle of Advil. He was topless and sweating, and it looked like he’d been working out. Turning her head, she found she was right in thinking so, when she saw that his barbells had been moved around.

“How’s the head, cuervo?”, he muttered, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He pushed a lock of hair out of her face, and stroked her cheek.

“Fine…”, she lied. Angel took two pills from the bottle, and held them out to her.

“Here…”. Nina frowned and shook her head. Angel scowled at her, and straddled her waist; sitting over her hips. He picked up the glass, and held the pills to her lips. “Open… Don’t make me hold your nose, little miss lightweight”. Nina sighed, and held out her tongue to accept the pills, before taking the glass, and chugging it.

“Happy?”, she grunted.

Angel took the glass, set it back on the table, and kissed her forehead.

“Good girl. Now are you gonna tell me what that was about last night?”.

Nina shifted underneath him.

“Are you going to get off me? Maybe put on a shirt?”.

“Nah. It’s easier to talk to you like this. It makes you less smart”, Angel grinned, and flexed his pectorals.

“Yeah. Your sexy body makes me stupid…”, Nina scoffed, and pushed at his chest; trying her best not to show how stupid she was in fact feeling. “I gotta pee”.

Angel got off her, and let her get out of the bed. She walked into the bathroom without looking at him.

While she was washing her hands, she noticed Angel had set up her toothbrush next to his own. An overwhelming sensation of warm joy and ice-cold embarrassment washed over her. She picked up the toothbrush, and stormed out of the bathroom; straight into the arms of Angel, who’d been waiting for her by the door. She threw her arms around his neck, and buried her face in his chest.

“I’m sorry”, she whispered.

“For what?”, he chuckled.

“For being an idiot… and drunk… and throwing up in the bushes before we made it inside last night”.

Angel laughed, his chest rumbling against her ear.

“Yeah, that was a different kind of fertilizer than I usually use”.

Nina tilted her face to look at him.

“I thought you were… that the club would vote to send me away”. Angel grinned and stroked her temple.

“You think I’d let them do that? Fuck no. You’re mine, and you belong here”. Nina smiled, and went to kiss him, when Angel pulled back, grabbed the hand she was holding the toothbrush in, and held it in front of her. “Your breath stinks, ma’. Use this, and then I’ll kiss you all you want”.

She almost ran into the bathroom, and thoroughly brushed her teeth, before putting the toothbrush back next to Angel’s. Once back in the bedroom, Angel smilingly pulled her into his arms, and kissed her greedily. They were all tongues and groping hands, when suddenly he pulled back, and looked somber.

“We need to talk”, he said. Nina sighed.

“I have a feeling I‘m gonna need that coffee now”.

Angel put on a beater, grabbed her mug for her, and led her into the living room to sit on the couch.

“There’s a snitch in the clubhouse…”, he began.

In spite of not being surprised, Nina let out an exasperated sigh.

“Do you know who it is?”, she asked. Angel nodded.

“We think it’s Daniella. You saw how she was all over Sala at the party. She was there when they were talking about the inhaler, and EZ told Bish that she saw you use it in the trailer. Then Creeper had Camille in there…”.

“So it was my fault…”, Nina croaked. Angel grabbed her hand.

“No, Nina. That’s not on you”. He kissed her knuckles. “But we need to find out how deep in with them she is. What she’s been telling them. You know I can't tell you too much about club business; but... this isn't the first time Palo has made moves on our territory”.

“She only just met them that night…”, Nina began.

“Did she though? What about that stuff in the alley? That’s what brought the Vatos to San Pad”.

“She wasn’t there, Angel…”.

“No, but someone might have told her. This isn’t a big town, word travels…”, he said. “And why are you defending her? That bitch is…”.

“Someone you used to sleep with”, Nina said. Angel looked down and didn’t reply. “You did, and you don’t have to pretend you didn’t… Look, I don’t like her, but…”.

“You’re gonna like her even less in a minute”, Angel cut her off.

Nina took a deep sip of her coffee, and lit a cigarette.

“Tell me”.

Angel got on his feet, and began pacing the floor.

“This wasn’t my idea, you gotta know that, querida”.

Nina was growing more and more anxious.

“Just… talk”, she demanded.

Angel sighed.

“We gotta split up…”.

Nina shook her head, and blinked in confusion.

“We… what?”, she snarled. “One second you’re telling me you’re not letting me go. The next…”.

“It’s not for real, though. Just like an act”, Angel said. “I need to let Daniella think we’re done”.

Nina scoffed, and stubbed her cigarette angrily.

“With your dick”, she growled, and got up to stand. Angel looked almost desperate, trying to explain himself.

“No, I just gotta let her think I want to hang with her again. Spend some time with her; get her to talk. We need to know how much she’s been sharing with the Vatos…”.

“Fuck that! I’m not gonna sit in this house, while you let her rub her infected cunt all over the back of your bike!”.

Angel cleared his throat, and looked away; seemingly very uncomfortable at meeting her eyes.

“You won’t be here… You gotta go back to the trailer”. It felt like a, explosion in Nina’s head, and white, hot rage spread through her body. “You need to go back on lockdown, so the club can protect you. And, so it looks like we’re really over”.

Nina stormed into the bedroom, trying to get away from him.

“Shove it up your ass, Angel!”, she roared. She picked up a pillow from the bed and threw it at him as he stood in the doorway. “You want me to stay at that clubhouse and watch you two… hang? Fuck you!”.

Not thinking, she kicked at a barbell. A burning, blunt pain spread through her toes, and she instantly fell to the floor; holding her foot. Angel rushed over to look at the damage.

“Querida…”.

“Don’t!”, Nina hissed, tears streaming from her eyes. “Don’t fucking queridame… Fuck that hurt…”.

Angel sighed, and scooped her into his arms, to place her on the bed; before leaving the room. He came back a moment later, with a bag of frozen peas covered in a dishtowel. She tried to push it away, but he manhandled her hands away, and put the pack on her foot. He checked her toes.

“You didn’t break anything…”, he muttered.

Nina watched him gently put the pillow she’d thrown at him under her foot, to elevate it.

“I hate you right now”, she croaked. He met her eyes with a sad expression.

“I know… I might even deserve it”, he said. “Maybe I could have said or done something; come up with a better plan… But I’m not that smart. This was the only plan that made sense when we were at the table. I don’t know how else to get Daniella to talk”.

“Whose idea was it?”, Nina sniveled. He frowned slightly.

“I don’t think…”.

“Was it Bishop?”. Angel’s silence confirmed her suspicion. “Shit… Of course, it was. And here I thought he was beginning to like me”.

Angel gently began moving her toes back and forth. It tickled a bit, but Nina didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her smile.

“He does… This is for you as well”, he said. Nina scoffed and shook her head. “We need to find out if the Vatos are coming for you, and maybe…”. He didn’t finish his sentence.

“Maybe, what?”, Nina said. He looked at her reluctantly.

“Maybe, if I keep her happy, she’ll lose interest in hurting you, and she won’t tell them who you are”.

Nina scoffed, and drew her lips back in a sneer.

“Maybe you should just take me back to Charming. Keep me out of sight”, she said.

“We have to make her think we don’t know we’ve been made, by hiding you away”, Angel said.

He scooted closer to her, and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles.

“I hate this as much as you do. I don’t want you sleeping anywhere else than next to me… This…”. He pointed between them. “This is right. I don’t want no one else”.

Nina let him put his forehead against hers.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Angel…”, she said.

Angel pulled back and stared deep into her eyes; and seemed to make a decision.

“Te amo, cuervo… I know it’s still early, but I fucking do”. Nina gasped, and parted her lips to speak, but couldn’t find the words. “You don’t gotta say anything. But I needed you to know that”.

She wanted to reply, but couldn’t find the words to describe what she felt about him in that moment. She was hurt, and so very angry; but her heart also fluttered at his words.

In the end she sighed, and closed her eyes.

“When are you gonna…”. She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Tonight…”, Angel said. “I just gotta make a call. Get her to the clubhouse”. Nina nodded.

“Do it… Just, please go into the kitchen. I don’t wanna hear it”. He nodded shortly, and left the room.

She went to pack her bag. The house wasn’t so big that she couldn’t hear Angel on the phone; and she clenched her fists as she listened to him speak.

“Hey, baby… Yeah, I know… Look, I was thinking you could come by the clubhouse tonight. We could catch up… Nah, that’s over… I’m telling her tonight…”. He laughed a little. The sound made Nina want to break something, but she stayed quiet. “You looked hot yesterday… Yes, really. Fuck, Dani; you got me all worked up, when you… Yeah, ok. See you then”.

He moved back through the living room, and Nina pretended to ignore him as he entered the bedroom. She had to wipe away a tear, when Angel handed her her toothbrush.

“I’m sorry”, he muttered. Without another word, he pressed his lips against hers. Knowing she would probably regret it, she didn’t reciprocate the kiss; she simply didn’t have it in her.

They drove back to the clubhouse, Nina holding on to him harder than necessary. Angel didn’t once complain.

---

As plans went, Nina knew that Bishop’s was probably the best for their situation. That didn’t change the fact that she felt the urge to slap him across his face when she saw him on the porch of the clubhouse. He looked grave, but didn’t speak.

Angel squeezed her hand after she got off his bike, but she avoided being pulled into his arms; just turned her back to him, and walked back to the trailer.

She picked the .38 out of her bag, and sat for a long time on the cot; just holding it in her hand and looking at it. She was drained emotionally and physically, and so very tired. After a while, she put it down on the table, put her inhaler next to it, and laid down; falling into an almost comatose sleep.

It was dark outside, when a gentle hand shook her awake. EZ was standing over her with a solemn expression.

“Bishop told me to… Daniella is arriving in a few”.

Nina nodded, and sat up. She rubbed her eyes, and blew out a deep breath.

“Do you know what we have to do?”, she asked. EZ nodded.

“Angel filled me in. He’s not happy about it… There’s a dent in the table at his seat in templo, from where he stuck his knife in it”. A smile ghosted his face. Nina shrugged, and got up to stand. “This is going to suck, but if you need to talk to someone…”, EZ said.

“I know… Thank you”. She tried, and failed, to smile at him; then left the trailer, to get dumped by the man who claimed her loved her.

Angel was seated by the bar, drinking a beer with Gilly. He met her eyes for a short moment, but looked down at his drink quickly. The rest of the charter was spread throughout the room, chatting to hangarounds and each other; and doing their best to avoid eye-contact with her. Only Bishop came up to her as she entered.

“Nina, I know this is…”.

“Don’t… talk to me right now”, Nina said, trying to keep her voice even. “I can’t promise I won’t attack you with a broken beer bottle if you do”.

“That fair”, Bishop said. “But when you’re ready, I’ll be here to let you slap me around… I’d prefer without the broken beer bottle”.

Nina nodded shortly, and went behind the bar. She picked up a rag, and began wiping down the counter.

A few moments later, Coco came through the back door, and nodded at Angel. Nina watched as his face fell, and he met her eyes. His were pained, probably reflecting her own; and it was all she could do to keep from throwing herself into his arms.

Nina blew out a deep breath, as the door opened, and Daniella walked in. Angel’s face immediately grew indifferent.

“Sorry, I got other plans, ma’”, he said to Nina. He turned around and looked at Daniella. “And here they are now. How are you doing, baby?”. He smirked, and went over to hug the blonde tightly. Daniella gave Nina a smug smile over Angel’s shoulder.

Nina couldn’t help but gasp at the sight.

“Angel…”, she croaked. Angel led Daniella over to the bar, and looked at Nina like she was a complete stranger.

“Yeah, we’re gonna need a… screwdriver, right?”, he said.

“With ice”, Daniella gloated. Angel chuckled, and brushed his lips against her ear.

“You’re bad…”.

Bile rose in Nina’s throat, and she couldn’t contain it anymore. She dropped the rag, and ran out the door; only making it down from the porch and over to a trashcan, before she threw up. Even when she had nothing left in her stomach, she gagged, and it felt like the muscles in her belly tried to push out her very intestines.

EZ came running out after her, and held back her hair. He rubbed circles on her back to try to get her to calm down.

“It’s ok… It’s just an act, Nina… You’ll be ok”, he whispered. The sound of laughter from inside made Nina retch one last time, before she fell to her knees. EZ crouched down next to her, and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry…”.

Nina was heaving for breath, and was finding it hard to get any oxygen into her lungs.

“Inhaler… trailer”, she rasped.

EZ got her to her feet, and dragged her with him to the trailer. Once inside, she took a hit from her inhaler, and collapsed on the cot.

“Can I get you anything?”, EZ asked.

Nina looked up at him, and began sobbing. He sat down next to her, and pulled her into his arms; just holding her close and stroking her hair.

The last few months, years even – everything that had brought her up to this point – rushed through her head, as if what she’d just witnessed turned on a faucet of memories that had shaped her. It was overwhelming.

… Throwing up behind a dumpster, when a pair of white sneakers comes in to view. “Are you ok, darlin’?”…

… Picked up at school by the coolest guy in town, and speeding down bumpy roads; laughing and squealing in glee…

… Crying in a smelly cell, before being let out, and enveloped in Jackson’s arms. The scent of leather, cigarettes and mint chewing-gum. “You’re better than this, Nina"…

… Walking in to the clubhouse with his hands covering her eyes. “Surprise!”. Filip kissing her cheek, and handing her a lit cigarette. “Congrats on not being knocked up, luv’”. Tig nabbing the smoke from her lips. “She’s got asthma, you idiot. Get her a pack of condoms instead”…

… “You’re not my fucking dad, Jax!”. “No, but I am your brother. Dropping out is a shit idea”…

… “Hi. I’m Juice". He’s almost too cute to handle. Jackson grabs the collar of his cut, and starts dragging him away. “No". “But Jax…”. “Just no"…

… Holding Jackson tightly, as he crumbles in her arms. “He's so tiny, Nina… I don’t think he’s gonna make it”. She strokes his hair, and forces him to look at her. “Abel is your kid, Jax. If anyone can survive something like this, it's him”…

… Holding Thomas for the first time, hours after his birth. “Your daddy loves you. He’s gonna be out real soon”…

… “Thank you for being there for Tara, while I was inside”. “It’s what family does. You taught me that”…

… “This is how it has to be… I have to give my boys a shot at a life away from this��. “You can’t do this to them. To me!”. He kisses her forehead, and holds her close as she sobs, before pressing a leatherbound journal into her hands. “Give this to them when they’re old enough. I love you, little sister. So much. You gotta live for me; be happy”…

… His cut on the casket. No more tears to cry. Filip’s arm around her, unable to tell who is supporting who…

… Too much alcohol. Too many cigarettes. Too many makeout-sessions in dark corners of parties, before a strong hand belonging to Happy, Tig, Filip, or someone else pulls the guy away; and makes her get on the back of a bike. “We promised we’d take care of you, ‘luv”…

… Wendy’s excited voice over the phone. “Abel got an A on his book-report”…

… Stumbling out of the car, Gael at her heels. “You gotta follow through now”. “I don’t want to”. His ice-cold smile, as he presses her against the wall, and lets his hands wander up and down her body. It’s too much. She can’t push him away; he’s too strong. “What would Teller say, if he knew I was about to fuck his little sister?”. Her shaking hand as she manages to pull out the gun, and he takes a step back. “You’re not gonna shot me”. He rushes forward, and she pulls the trigger. It’s like a red cloud behind his head, and she gasps, dropping the gun on the ground…

… “Nina?”. Footsteps running down the alley. Filip looks down at her disheveled state, and then at the dead body on the ground; and his face drops. “She’s here”. “Shit, muffin. What happened?”. “Chibs, do you know who that is?”. “Not now, Hap’. Let’s just get her out of here. Get the gun”. One of them scoops her into their arms, she’s to rattled to notice who…

… A long ass ride south. A pair of dark and intense eyes. Butterflies in her stomach as he removes his hands from the handlebars. His warm and devouring kiss. “I want you to trust me”. Wanting and needing him. Him wanting and needing her. This is real. “Te amo, cuervo”…

Her breathing calmed, and she managed to pull out of EZ’s grasp.

“I need to be alone right now”, she croaked. The prospect nodded.

“Bishop said you need to stay on the lot”, he said.

“I know. I won’t go anywhere. I just need… quiet”.

EZ got up and went for the door.

“Breakfast tomorrow?”. She wiped her eyes, and nodded. He smiled sadly, and left the trailer; closing the door behind him.

Nina dug through her bag, and pulled out the journal. She hadn’t opened it since the night of her fight with Angel in the cage. Opening the page of her favorite and at the same time most hated paragraph, she sat back with her legs folded under her.

“I know you’ll face pain, suffering, hard choices; but you can’t let the weight of it choke the joy out of your life. No matter what, you have to find the things that love you. Run to them…

There’s an old saying. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I don’t believe that. I think the things that try to kill you make you angry and sad. Strength comes from the good things… your family, your friends, the satisfaction of hard work. Those are the things that will keep you whole. Those are the things to hold on to when you’re broken…”.

He’d been in such pain, and at the same time so optimistic. He’d trusted her with these words; maybe even meant them as much for her, as he had for his boys. It felt like everything she’d done since the moment of his death, had been like a big fuck you to his legacy. She felt ashamed and heartbroken.

“I’m sorry, Jax…”, she whispered.

Laying back on the cot, clutching the journal in her arms, she made a decision. She had to follow through with this plan Bishop had laid out.

They were going to get the truth about Palo’s plans. Both her families would be safe. Angel loved her.

Those were the things she was going to hold on to.

---

[dannypuro]

i have been in the process of adopting cats for like. months now. so it is on my mind obvs. anyways pls tell me about something telling gang and pets?? who grew up with them? who wants them? what kind of animals do they all vibe with? who feeds a colony of feral cats that lives outside of their apartment and needs to learn about TNR?

ohooohooohooo!!! yes!!! this is not actually what you asked for but it is what i felt like writing i think that it is what jehan deserves and this is my strongest pet opinion for the gang. i hope you are having luck on your cat search!!!

(Something Telling verse: modern au with canon-era, time-zapped enjolras. Takes place some time post-Something Telling, and probably after Something Else Telling, but honestly, the time frame doesn’t matter. Bon Appetit!)

Combeferre gets the call during his lunch break, and it’s a testament both to his dedication to friendship and to the lackluster nature of his sandwich that he doesn’t let it go straight to voicemail. 

“Hello, Combeferre,” Enjolras says, over the line, once Combeferre has picked up despite the best interests of his lunch break. “What do you know of cats?”

Um. 

He sets his sandwich down and scrubs a hand over his brow. “Like. In general?” he hazards. He’s no expert, but he’s pretty sure that cats have existed in France for a good long while. At least since before 1832. Not that he hasn’t been surprised before, but. Cats are cats, he’s pretty sure. 

“Yes, in general.” His voice is low, hushed, and Combeferre is… wary, to say the least. He’s not sure if he’s wary of Enjolras or of his situation, but it’s definitely one of the two.

He sighs, takes a glance at the clock in the corner of the break room. “Enj. Can you please be a little more specific? I’ve got about fifteen minutes left before I’m back on shift, I don’t have time to go through it all alphabetically.”

There’s a pause. “Are you at work?” Enjolras asks.

Combeferre hums. 

“Ah. I did not intend- I could call at you later, if you are occupied, my friend.” The worst part is that he sounds genuinely remorseful; the worst part is that Combeferre wouldn’t be able to say no to him, even if he wasn’t. 

The things he does for friendship, honestly. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, but he does resign himself to speed-eating his sandwich in the 45 seconds before the end of his break. “What’s your cat question?”

He can hear Enjolras drawing in a breath on the other end of the call. When he speaks, it’s in a whisper. “Jehan has obtained a cat,” he hisses. “I fear that it is horribly ill.”

Well.

That’s.

“What do you mean, ill?”

“It is very poorly,” Enjolras says, “I do not know much of animals, but it is not well, I can see that much. And I have tried to convince Jehan of that, but they simply do not seem concerned. And I am, quite frankly, concerned for its health.”

“Huh.” That’s- Okay. Combeferre can work with that. “I didn’t know Jehan was getting a cat.”

“Nor did I,” he says. “Nor did the cat, evidently. Given how very little it has mustered itself.”

Combeferre snorts a laugh. So does Enjolras, after a moment. 

“It is not humorous,” Enjolras says, once he’s stopped laughing.

“Of course not.”

They both take another moment to laugh, anyways. “I can come over to Jehan’s place to check the cat out after work, if you’re worried,” Combeferre offers. He’s not quite sure why he offers it, since he’s a human doctor, not a cat doctor, but such is life. 

He can hear Enjolras’s sigh of relief over the phone (and, oh, yeah, that’s why, actually). “Thank you.”

“‘Course.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Eat your lunch,” says Enjolras.

“Yeah, yeah,” he stretches, groans. “See you this evening?”

“Indeed.” 

There’s a pause.

“I know not how to stop the phone from calling,” Enjolras admits, after a few long seconds. 

Combeferre smiles into his palm. “Yeah, okay. Bye, Enj.”

“Good day.”

Combeferre hangs up, checks the clock, and starts eating his sandwich very, very quickly. It still isn’t very good, but at least it’s fucking soggy, now, too. 

Honestly.

That evening, Combeferre gets off the Metro at Jehan’s stop instead of his own and walks the two blocks to their apartment from there. Enjolras answers the door when he knocks.

“Good evening,” Enjolras says. He looks very, very frazzled; he’s wearing one of Grantaire’s old tee shirts and has a barrette in his hair that is distinctly Jehan’s. “Thank you for coming, my friend.”

Combeferre pulls him into a hug, brief but warm. “Where’s the cat?”

He frowns. “I will show you. You will- You will see that it is unwell.” He leads him through the hall to the salon, where-

Jehan sits on the sofa, talking softly to a hairless cat in a sweater. It doesn’t look particularly unwell, but it does look a little odd and very fleshy. They look up when Combeferre enters, smile. “Oh, hello!” 

“I heard you got a cat,” says Combeferre. 

“I did get a cat.” They hold the cat out for Combeferre to see. It’s a little scrawny. Combeferre’s pretty sure that the sweater it’s wearing is one that used to be Grantaire’s, and has since been upcycled. “Her name is Darling Béatrice.”

Of course. He sits down next to them on the couch; Jehan deposits Darling Béatrice onto his lap. She’s kind of greasy. He pets her absently as he contemplates the fact that a veterinarian would really be a lot more useful, right about now. 

Enjolras sits down in the armchair next to the sofa and scowls. 

“I mean,” Combeferre hazards. Darling Béatrice nuzzles against his hand. “She looks healthy enough. I think.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Jehan agrees. Combeferre wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to say that, but she’s definitely okay.

Enjolras makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Surely you jest, the both of you.”

Darling Béatrice yowls. Enjolras, if possible, grows a little tenser. Both he and the cat wear the same identical face of displeasure--Combeferre’s got the sinking feeling that he’s probably going to end up attached to Darling Béatrice, too. 

To mollify Enjolras, Combeferre prods at Darling Béatrice until he can feel a pulse. It takes a while, since he’s never had to find a pulse on a cat before, but he gets it eventually. It’s steady, and, he assumes, cat-tempo. “I really think she’s fine, Enj. All cats are a little weird.”

“It has no hair,” Enjolras grits out. “It is bald. Like an ailing old man! Cats have hair.” He leans in, peers at the cat. “It is clearly ill, if you would use your eyes-”

“She’s not supposed to have hair, I told you!” Jehan grabs the cat back from off of Combeferre’s lap. She burbles a little until she settles in their arms like a grey, wrinkly chicken. “She’s not sick!”

Enjolras looks to Combeferre, half-desperate. “All cats are meant to have hair, Combeferre, tell them that their cat is unwell.”

Combeferre sighs. “Enjolras.” He shuts his eyes, just for a moment. One day, he will successfully explain genetics to a Romantic-era revolutionary. Maybe not on this particular day, but one day. “I promise, the cat is fine. She’s- Some cats just don’t have hair. That’s the point of them.”

He grimaces. “Why?”

Huh. Well. That’s more of a Jehan question, Combeferre thinks. He turns to them.

“She does not have hair,” they say, primly, “because that is her natural form.”

Enjolras does not look particularly convinced. “Jehan-”

They bestow the cat upon Enjolras. Neither Enjolras nor Darling Béatrice seem particularly enthused by that decision. Darling Béatrice kneads at his thighs with her naked little toes; Enjolras winces, readjusts her gently. 

“Something,” Enjolras announces, “has gone awry in this cat’s parentage.” He scratches behind her ears, anyways. 

“She likes you,” Jehan offers. 

He huffs. “I imagine that she would like her natural pelt rather a lot better.”

“Don’t be rude to Darling Béatrice.”

“It does not matter either way,” says Enjolras, “as cats do not understand French, even the naked ones.”

Jehan sputters. Combeferre takes the moment of distraction to snap a photo of Enjolras and the cat. If anything, Grantaire will thank him for it. He’ll probably stick a copy of it up on his own fridge, too. 

[fific7]

That Swept-Back Hair

Billy Russo x Reader

@omgrachwrites 500 Follower Celebration

AU Prompt: Friends with Benefits

Summary: How will Billy Russo react when his FWB finds another lover? Bearing in mind that he’s a complete hypocrite.

Warnings: Swearing, jealousy, fluff with mentions of sex.

A/N: Loosely based on S1 Billy, it’s non-canon & set in my imaginary Punisher universe.

(My GIF)

»»———————————————　⚜　———————-————————-««

Your phone was jumping like a jack-in-the-box on your bedside table, the blue light of the screen illuminating the wall behind it every few seconds.

You rolled over with a groan, taking a moment before picking it up and looking at it. Of course it was Billy Russo, who else would it be at 1 AM on a Saturday morning?

The guy next to you in the bed also rolled over, covering his mouth as he yawned, eyes half-open.

“Everything OK, Y/N?” he asked.

“Yeah, Raf, just a needy friend.... gonna call them back, so do you mind staying hush-hush for the next few minutes?”

He yawned massively again, speaking through it, “Ahhhhrrrrr...yeah... no problem...”

You hit the ‘Favourites’ star next to Billy’s name in your contacts, hearing it start ringing.

It went to voicemail so you hung up, slid the phone onto the table and threw your head back down onto your pillow. Fucking Russo. Blows up your phone with missed calls & “Pick up!!” texts then doesn’t answer when you call back.

It rang two seconds later, just as Raf had turned towards you, opening his mouth to no doubt ask you about your ‘needy friend’. You rolled your eyes and grabbed it, but the screen went dark just as you did so.

You hit redial, it rang out, went to voicemail. “Fuck!” you ground out between your teeth.

Your head had touched your pillow again for about 5 minutes, when there was a staccato series of knocks on your apartment door.

You shot up in bed, quivering - ah hell, it couldn’t be, could it? Really?

Raf had dozed back off in the meantime & didn’t even stir when the knocks rang out sharply in the quiet apartment. Not much of a guard dog, you thought, quickly throwing on your discarded PJs.

You padded barefoot over to the front door, confirming via the peephole that Billy Russo was indeed outside in the hallway, leaning on your doorframe so he could place one eye right to it. You spotted an eyebrow wiggle as you made eye contact. Oh holy hell!

You straightened your shoulders, took the chain off and unlocked the door, swinging it open.

“Billy!” you said quietly, with a small smile, “What brings you here?” You hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for about three weeks. Not that that was anything new.

He moved gracefully past you like the panther he was, even though you’d been trying to subtly block him from coming in. He was dressed in one of his sharp suits, so you guessed he’d been at one of the never-ending stream of events he attended.

Your mouth drew into a line. Whoever he’d gone there with must have bucked the trend and bailed on him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have turned up at your place when, in his mind, the night was still young.

He turned towards you, placing both hands on your hips as he did so, pulling you up against his muscled chest.

“Now, Y/N, why do you think I’m here, holding my best girl in my arms?” the New York accented voice purred in your ear.

He leant in and kissed you hungrily, deepening the kiss immediately to a passionate one.

You pulled away, escaping his grasp. His eyes widened in surprise, a small frown making its way onto his brow. A few locks of his dark hair had fallen forward onto his brow and he swept them back up with his fingers, a reflexive gesture for him.

“I tried to call you back,” you mumbled, “I’ve... uh... got a friend staying with me at the moment.”

He shot his trademark smirk at you. “Hey, that’s OK. We can be quiet for once, yeah?” Grinning now.

In true romcom fashion, Raf picked that moment to come wandering into the lounge, clad only in his boxers, both hands ruffling through his short hair.

Billy’s mouth dropped open. He made a quick recovery, though. Gestured with a thumb.

“So... this your ‘friend’?”

He looked Raf up and down. He was a 6 feet 3 firefighter with the FDNY, and to put it mildly, he was ripped.

He topped Billy by a couple of inches, and by a few pounds. Billy scowled at him.

Raf eyed up Billy too, turning to you and asking, “This your ‘needy friend’ you were talkin��� ‘bout, Y/N?”

Oh crap.

Billy’s scowl turned to a furious glare, aimed right at you. “Needy?!! Ah, fuck this, Y/N! I think we all know who’s needy around here.”

Your mouth rounded into an offended O, but before you could reply, Billy was out the door and it slammed loudly behind him.

Great - now all your neighbours were gonna be mad at you too.

»»———————————————-　⚜　-———-———————————-««

You had then spent an uncomfortable half hour over a coffee with Raf, explaining the dynamics of your non-relationship with Billy.

“Now,” he’d said, brow furrowed, “let me get this straight. He’s part of your friend group, you see him every so often at a bar or at one of their places - but never his. He sees tons of other women but turns up here for booty calls whenever his busy schedule allows?”

He shook his head. “He’s using you, Y/N. What a selfish prick.”

You bristled, “Look, we go back quite a ways. Since he was in the Marines. I knew Frank first as we were neighbours when we were kids, and I eventually met Billy through him. He’s Frankie’s best friend, they’re Marine brothers.”

“And how long have you been ‘friends with benefits’?”

You muttered your response. “Sorry, what was that you said?” he asked.

“Three years,” you repeated reluctantly.

“Damn.” he said. “And what am I, exactly? Filler for whenever fuckboy isn’t calling?”

“No! Raf, you’re a really nice guy, and I love spending time with you.”

He stood up, heading to the bedroom. “Look, I’m gonna go. I need a few days to try and get my head round your fucked-up relationship with the suit-wearing Marine.”

He’d left shortly afterwards, saying he’d call. You weren’t sure that he would.

You met up with Karen for lunch later that day. You’d been co-workers first off, then had become good friends. She was currently dating Frank, your childhood friend.

You were so glad that he was back out socialising, in a small way, after losing his wife and kids in a brutal gang clash just over a year before. They and several others had been what the papers described, rather callously, as “collateral damage” while minding their own business in the public park the gun fight took place in.

Frank had understandably closed himself off to a large extent as he grieved and after a decent interval, you’d tried your best to draw him back out in a gentle way. You’d decided to indulge in a bit of Matchmaking Lite, and had invited Karen along to a night out with the rest of your friends. You knew Frank would be there and as you’d hoped, they hit it off right away.

You spilled what had happened the night before to her, grateful for a shoulder to cry on. She looked and sounded sympathetic, but you knew she wasn’t a big fan of your arrangement with Billy. She again voiced her astonishment that you still had it going on with him.

“Karen, without making you vomit by sharing too many details, Billy is just the absolute best in bed. He’s got the stamina of an ox. Several oxes, in fact.” You just knew your eyes had a faraway look in them.

Her mouth pursed in a ‘moux’ of distaste. “But still, Y/N, he’s just so damn selfish about it! It’s all on his terms.”

“You know he’s got commitment issues.”

She choked on her espresso martini. “Ya don’t say!!”

“It’s complicated.”

“Look, honey, I’m gonna be straight with you. It is anything but complicated. He spends 90% of his time at Anvil, 9.9% with other gals, and guess who gets the remaining measly 0.1%, the crumbs from his table?” She pointed her finger straight at you. “Coconut for the lady over there!”

You sat in silence for several minutes, turning over in your mind what Raf, and now Karen, had said to you. Eventually you nodded slowly. “You know what, Kar, you’re totally right. I just let the great sex blind me to all the rest of his fucking bullshit.”

Time to cut Billy loose.

Not that you ever had him tied down in the first place. If you were being brutally honest.

And you weren’t sure whether he’d even bother showing up at your place ever again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The next day being Sunday meant that some serious ‘Me Time’ was in order.

Sitting on the sofa, you stared off into space, thinking about the two men in your life. You huffed to yourself; you hadn’t heard from either of them so far, and that was probably for the best. You could do without being stuck in the middle of some kind of testosterone-fuelled conflict between the two of them.

Then you laughed out loud at yourself. Who were you kidding? You’d probably never see either of them again! You stood up, stretching out your shoulder and neck muscles. Time for a bit of self-pampering.

You had a long relaxing bath, gave yourself a leisurely mani-pedi, ordered in some pizza, and began to go through some layouts for work the next day.

You were a digital content editor at the newspaper both you & Karen worked for. It was okay as jobs went, but it didn’t set your world on fire. However, what did excite you was that the newspaper’s parent publishing house was about to launch a travel magazine, and you’d applied for a transfer.

What really made butterflies pop up into your stomach, though, was the fact that the magazine’s content editors would also be contributing instead of just collating. You’d already had an interview with the Editor in Chief, and should be hearing back within the next few days.

If someone else got that position you’d applied for, you’d just have to shove them out of your third floor office window at the very first opportunity.

While you were thinking of potentially becoming a murderer, there was a familiar pattern of raps at your door. Your heart sank straight through your boots.

You knew it was Billy before you opened the door. It sounded ridiculous but he had a certain way of knocking. Peremptory, demanding, with military precision.

He stood outside your door, tensed up and rigid, with a carefully blank look on his face.

“You alone?” he barked, by way of greeting.

You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at him. “Why, hello Billy. How are you? I’m fine, Y/N, how are you? Yeah, I’m great.”

He glared right back. “I asked if you were alone.”

“That’s highly unlikely, Billy, seeing as how I’m so needy!”

He huffed and marched inside straight to the sofa, sitting down and leaning his arms on his spread-apart thighs. He clasped his hands together, letting them dangle loosely between his knees.

“You said I was needy first.” Sulky face.

“Hey, are we back in school or something?”

He looked up at you, dark eyes staring into yours intensely. “Why d’you get with another guy, Y/N?”

Straight to the point, then. OK, you were going to return the favour.

“What, I’m not allowed to have a life? D’you think I’m going to just sit around, waiting to gratefully receive 5 minutes of your attention every few weeks? Like some kind of fucktoy, to be picked up and dropped at will? Seriously?”

He clenched his fingers until the joints went white. “I thought you were happy with the way things are between us!!?... our... our arrangement. You’re important to me. And you know I care about you!” Not meeting your eyes at this last comment.

“Huh!!!” You leant against your kitchen island, you weren’t going to get into Billy’s orbit. Too risky.

“So important that you spend all your time at work, while bedding half of Manhattan? Leaving me with the crumbs from your table, as someone put it recently.”

He shot up from the sofa, fury in his eyes. “Who fuckin’ said that?!”

You shrugged, “It’s not important. What is important is that our arrangement, as you call it, is over. Since you put it in such business-like terms, think of it as a contract which has been terminated.”

Billy stalked across the room until he was an inch away from you, eyes boring into yours. “No.”

You laughed in disbelief, eyebrows arching. “You think that just cos you say ‘No’ it’s not gonna happen? Because no-one ever says no to Billy Russo, is that it?”

He grabbed you, lips finding yours in a ferocious kiss. One hand crept up the nape of your neck, his fingers running through your hair, while the other hand pulled your hips to his. He had an impressive erection. You gasped as you felt the pressure of it against you, but pushed him away, escaping to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Just go, Billy. Please.”

He stared at you, wide-eyed, those dark pools of his looking suspiciously glossy. Was he...? No way.

Billy turned on his heel and slammed out of your apartment. Again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Billy knocked his beer bottle off the table with his elbow, as he leant forward to drunkenly wave a finger in his friend’s face. Luckily, it fell onto the grassy verge below, rather than the decked patio they were sitting on in Frank’s back garden.

Frank grabbed his finger. “Russo!!! Chill out, man.”

“She tol’ me... t’go, Frankie, I was kissin’ her an’ she jus’ said Go!” slurred Billy. Frank squeezed his eyes shut at the whiny tone then looked back at him.

“Bill! We all warned you she wouldn’t put up with your bullshit forever. You should’ve known this was comin’ bud.”

“Bu’ I... I... love her,” he blurted, then stared at Frank, eyes wide, part horrified, part terrified.

“Got a strange way of showin’ it, Bill. Picking other women over her, until you decide it’s time to hook up. Surprised she’s stood for it so long!”

Billy swayed slightly in his garden chair, just staring back at him, nodding repetitively like a bobble head every so often.

“I gotta get her back, Frankie.”

“Whooo,” Frank huffed out a big breath, “well, ya always did like to choose the impossible missions, Russo.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were beginning to understand what having a stalker was like.

When you left work the following day, the first person you spotted on the sidewalk outside your office building was Billy Russo.

You hesitated, shocked, then nodded and said quietly, “Hi Billy,” before continuing your short walk to the subway.

He fell into step alongside you. “M’gonna show you just how much I care about you,” you heard, then he was gone. Just gone, into the crowd of commuters around you.

That was just the beginning. Every morning, one single rose of the palest pearly pink would be delivered to your office, laying in a swirl of black chiffon within a silver gift box.

Texts would drop into your phone at unexpected hours. “Please forgive me. Let me back into your life. I love you, Y/N.”

The first time you saw those words, you nearly dropped your phone. What the....?

Gourmet meals and bottles of rosé prosecco would be delivered to your door, precisely 30 minutes after you’d get home. Was he watching you or something? A little shiver ran up your spine. He was still a sniper, after all.

You would catch glimpses of Billy when you left the office, and outside your apartment. Without a shadow of a doubt, he meant you to see him, he would never be so visible on a real surveillance job. But he didn’t ever approach you.

Then you got your dream job. You, Karen and a bunch of your colleagues went to your regular bar after work for a quick celebration. There was a toast proposed to your new job at one point, and one of your male colleagues grabbed you in a friendly bear hug after they’d all shouted “Cheers!”

You were looking past his arm as he hugged you, and found yourself staring into Billy Russo’s dark eyes. Casually dressed, he was leaning on a high table near the door, a beer in front of him.

Billy lazily pushed back from his table, strode over to you, swiped you out of the guy’s arms, wrapped his own arms round you and planted a kiss on your temple, with a nonchalant, “Hi, sweetheart.”

Karen, who had heard all about your last encounter with Billy, looked thunderstruck. You’d be getting interrogated later, that was for sure.

He, meanwhile, landed another kiss right next to your lips and said, “See you later at home,” giving you a quick squeeze before walking off.

Your female colleagues meanwhile were swooning over Billy, one of them commenting that she wasn’t surprised you’d kept so damn quiet about your hot boyfriend. You gave Karen a meaningful look and just smiled back at them all, neither confirming nor denying anything.

However the feeling of Billy’s body against yours, the delicious smell of him, his lips on your skin, had set your heart racing at a dangerous speed. You really did try to push those thoughts aside.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Flopping down onto your sofa when you got home, you laid your head back on it and thought about that evening. As expected, Karen had questioned you ruthlessly as you left the bar together, like the perceptive investigative reporter she was.

Talking as you walked to the subway, you’d given her every detail of all the deliveries, glimpses of him and texts you’d received in the last few days. Karen had stopped walking, looking at you in surprise. “Y/N, why didn’t you tell me about all of this before now? Hell, Frank told me he had some crazy plan to win you back, but I never really thought...” her voice trailed off.

“Is it working?” she asked next. “Mmmm, yes and no, to be honest,” you said. “Don’t let it!” she said firmly, “This is what he should have been doing all along, instead of treating you like a total afterthought.”

You nodded, “Can’t argue with ya on that,” you agreed. “Is he going to turn up at your place, d’you think?” she asked. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” you laughed, “I think that was Billy giving me a heads-up.”

So as you’d been 90% expecting, the familiar knock at the door came about 15 minutes after you’d got back. You got up and after checking the peephole, sighed and opened it. “Hi, Billy.”

This was like déjà vu. Billy brushed past you and sat himself down on the sofa, in the same pose as the last time. Head down, hair falling forward and hiding his eyes from you. This time, you bit the bullet and sat at the opposite end, leaning against the armrest so you were facing him.

“Well, Billy.... leaving aside the stalkerish overtones, I guess I should thank you for the roses, gourmet meals and prosecco.”

He swung his head towards you, eyes wide. “They were just to get your attention. Frankie told me it’s what I shoulda been doin’ anyway, all along.”

You nodded, “Yeah, he’s not wrong.”

Billy heaved out a big sigh, head dropping. “I know I’ve been a complete shit to you, Y/N. Took you for granted.” He met your eyes again, “Truth is, I was fallin’ in love with you, and I really didn’t know how to handle it. I thought it was... just sex to you, so I... I was a coward and tried to ignore it, and acted like I didn’t give a shit about you. I just couldn’t have you kick me to the curb if I told you how I felt.”

You were genuinely shocked - Billy had never talked about his feelings before. You’d accepted this in the past, telling yourself it was due to his upbringing in the system.

“So you meant what you said in your daily texts, then?”

He nodded, still looking straight at you, “Yeah...I meant it, I do love you, Y/N.” Then he quickly looked down again.

Before you could stop yourself, you’d leant along the sofa and your fingers were pushing that silky hair off his forehead. He looked up at you, taking hold of your wrist and kissing your pulse point softly. You stood up, saying “C’mere, you,” and took hold of his hand, pulling him up along with you.

He put his arms round you, burying his face into your hair and just holding you. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled. You laughed, “What?! Even though you hadn’t seen me for weeks before the night you landed on my doorstep?!”

“I know, I know, you don’t need to remind me I’ve been a complete prick. I’ll be honest, I think it took me seein’ you with that guy, and him actin’ like you were his, to give me that kick up the ass I needed.” The dark eyes looked down at you, and he sniffed, “He still around?” You shook your head.

“Nah. I think he thought I was completely insane for still being with you.”

Billy laughed, “Maybe he’s right....” he looked at you, serious again. “You willin’ to give me another chance, Y/N? I promise you I’ll do it right this time. The whole dating thing, asking you to be my girlfriend after three dates, all that stuff... everything.”

“Everything? Like, what if I say no sex to start with? And no running off to other women to scratch that itch? You’ll swear to all that? Really?!”

“I swear to you, on my Ka-Bar.”

“Wow,” you said, knowing that the knife was never out of Billy’s possession. It was an integral part of him. Maybe he was serious after all.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

A small kiss on your cheek woke you the next morning. Those eyes, those dark liquid pools, stared into yours, while a thumb ran over your cheek. “Mornin’, sweetheart,” smiling down at you. Reaching up, you ran your fingers into his hair, moving it off his forehead. “Morning, sweetheart,” you echoed, smiling back.

You and Billy had shared a bed but nothing else, except hugs and hand-holding. You were in your PJ’s - well, camisole top with matching shorts - and all Billy had on were his boxer briefs. You couldn’t deny you’d had thoughts of just leaping on him during the night... let’s face it, he was one hot dude. And he knew how to ‘look after’ a woman in bed, as he himself put it.

But no, you were determined he was gonna have to work for it, just like he promised he would. So you’d had to show some self-discipline, well, a lot of it, actually. He’d passed the first test - he’d actually stayed all night. Usually he was gone before the morning light stole through the curtains.

Now, he kissed your bare shoulder and leapt out of bed, like he was back in the Marines. He stood still for a moment, sideways next to the bed, having a leisurely full body stretch. Billy knew full well you’d be totally enjoying the view. A little tease from him to remind you what you were missing.

The sunlight, which stole through a small gap between your curtains in the otherwise dim room, picked out the sculpted muscles on his back & torso. Then he turned slightly more, ensuring you wouldn’t miss seeing the hard-on he was currently sporting. You shook your head, with a slight smile on your lips. The cocky big bastard.

“Where you off to, Billy?” you asked, thinking to yourself, if he’s headed to Anvil, he can fucking shove his second cha......

“I’m gonna make my beautiful almost-girlfriend a cup of good Italian coffee.”

You smiled at his departing back as he disappeared out of the bedroom. “Oh, Billy?”

His voice drifted back through from the kitchen, “Yeah, darlin’?”

“Can I please get some toast with that, too?”

“Sure, sweetheart.”

You stretched luxuriously, nestling your head into your pillows.

Looked like you were going to find out what having a panther on a leash was like.

[originalhybridloverfics]

Eda’s Robot, Serkan’s Fairy Girl: Chapter 3 - Don’t Let Your Star Die Out

Summary: Serkan gets a call that changes everything.

[Prompt: Hurt/sick Eda]

Post break up

A/N: Alright, so I first started writing this right after the break-up, so some things are different from canon.

I apologize for any mistakes in advance.

Serkan tried to focus on his work, he tried to draw, to sketch a landscape design but it was like every attempt was half-ass at best and he ended up ripping it up and throwing it away. 

It was like his talent and skills were suddenly gone. He pushed up from the work table, and walked outside leaning his arms on the banister, he looked up at the night sky, filled with stars. 

It never failed to make him think of Eda, and just like a star that disappeared from the sky so did she from his life. 

He wondered what she was doing, right now. 

Was she getting dinner with her aunt? Was she talking with the girls on the terrace?

Was she by some chance staring up at the same night sky, looking at the stars thinking of him?

He doubted it. She hated him now. She probably didn’t spare him a second thought unless she had to. 

They weren’t together and that was on him. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth and instead ended things, hoping it would save her from pain in the long run.

It hurt. It hurt so damn much to let her go. To let go of the plans and dreams he had for their future and now he was alone. He was miserable. Every day was a test of his strength and his love to do what’s best for Eda. 

He dreamed of telling her the truth. He dreamed of her being understanding and forgiving him. 

He dreamed of them running away together where no one can find them. 

Serkan dreamed of marrying Eda, waking up in the morning to her dark eyes full of life and her beautiful smile. He dreamed of holding her in his arms with her being heavy with his child. Their child. He dreamed of what their lives could be. 

However, fate was too cruel and instead had thrown impossible circumstances of the past at them that ruined any chance they had at a future together. 

There wasn’t much more fate could do to him at this point.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to see, Melo was calling him. 

He frowned. Why would Melek be calling him? He answered it. “Hello?” 

Melek's heavily breathing came over the line. “Serkan?”

Serkan tensed, Melek never called him by his name, it was always brother in law and he could hear her crying. “Melek, what is wrong?”

“There’s been an acc-accident.” She said through her tears. 

Serkan’s heart pounded in his chest, a feeling of trepidation spreading through him, hoping she wouldn’t say the name he thought she was going to say. 

“Eda, she-” Melo choked on her tears, her voice breaking. 

“Eda? What about Eda, Melek?!” Serkan asked sharply, every muscle tensing with the need to protect himself.

Melo let out a sob, her voice a strangled noise. 

“Melek!” Serkan snapped. “What happened to Eda!? Was she in an accident?!”

“Yes,” Melo cried. “Serkan, it’s not good.”

Serkan's phone crashed to the floor as pain tore through his chest that had him choking on his next breath. His legs gave out from beneath him, he hit the ground, his knees slamming on impact but he couldn’t feel it, all he could see was Eda. 

Every good memory he shared with her, all he could feel was what it was like to feel her lips against his, her scent surrounding him, the feel of her soft cheek, the light in her eyes when she smiled at him.

Eda was all he could see.

Worse he could remember the last words she spoke to him. 

I hate you, Serkan Bolat. 

With a jolt, he got back to his feet. He could not let that be the last words spoken between them. 

He rushed to his car, not stopping to pick up his phone from the ground. He was speeding down the road, not giving his mind the time to think the worse. 

She had to be at the hospital getting the care she needs. She had to be okay nothing other than that was an option. 

He pulled up to the hospital in record time, he barely even parked his car before he was, jumping from his car and running for the emergency doors. 

He burst in, not stopping as he headed straight for the reception desk, slamming his hands down on the counter. 

The woman working at the reception desk looked startled. 

“Eda Yildiz, where is she?!” his voice was rough, his desperation barely contained. 

“Are you family, sir?” the woman asked, cautiously. 

“I’m her fiance,” he declared without hesitation. 

“No, you are not.” A voice said from behind him. 

Serkan spun on his feet, turning to see Ayfer glaring at him just a few feet away. His eyes darted around the room and he saw Fifi, Ceren, Milo, and even Erdem, nearby watching warily. 

“You have some nerve showing up here after what you did!” Ayfer accused. 

“What I did?” Serkan repeated, taking a step toward her. 

“Yes, what you did!” Ayfer snapped. “You hurt Eda! Played with her heart! Toyed with her and discarded her when she no longer provided you with entertainment! Was any of it ever real or was everything just a game to you!?” 

“Stop,” Serkan said lowly, jaw clenched. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“I think I do and I want you to leave,” Ayfer said. 

“No, I won’t leave,” Serkan argued. 

“I will tell the authorities you are not to be in contact with Eda.” Ayfer threatened. “Leave before I have you escorted out.” 

“Then do it because I won’t do it otherwise,” Serkan warned. 

“This is not necessary,” Melo stepped forward. “Serkan has a right to be here. He cared about Eda.”

“He only cares about himself,” Ayfer accused.

Before Serkan could formulate a response, Efe stepped out from the emergency doors, his hand was bandaged, and a bandaid on his temple. 

“What is he doing here?” Serkan demanded. 

Ceren stepped forward. “He was in the car with Eda.”

“Tell us what happened,” Fifi said, eyes hard on Efe. 

Efe looked carefully at Serkan before focusing back on Afyer and the girls. “We were in the car and we were talking about work and we got into a disagreement, the next thing I know Eda’s asleep at the wheel and we’re driving through a red light and a car slammed into us. Eda took the brunt of the hit, she-”

Serkan’s fist slammed into Efe’s face and the other man stumbled back with the blow, stunned. 

Serkan’s anger surged to the surface with every word spoken until his vision narrowed down and all he saw was red. 

He grabbed Efe by the collar of his shirt and slammed him to the wall and pressed his forearm against Efe’s throat. 

Efe shoved at him but Serkan’s anger made him stronger, as used his weight and the power in his arms to keep Efe exactly where he wanted him. At his mercy, gasping for air. “This is your fault.” 

“Serkan, stop!” Melo moved forward along with Fifi, attempting to pull him off. 

Serkan shrugged them off, he slammed Efe again against the wall, making the back of his head take the brunt of the blow before releasing him. 

Serkan put his hands up and stood back as Efe groaned, attempting to stand up straight. 

“Leave,” Serkan ordered. 

“Stop, just stop,” Ayfer said. “You don’t get to come here and control everything. You need to leave. Now.” 

“I won’t.” Serkan squared his jaw. “As long as Eda is here, I’m not going nowhere.”

Ayfer glared. “Why do you care?”

“I love her,” Serkan said. “I ended things for a reason I can’t say but I have never stopped loving her. I need to see her with my own eyes, make sure she is okay or I will go insane.”

“Ayfer,” Ceren said. “Let him stay.”

Ayfer nodded. “I do this not for you but for Eda.” 

Serkan nodded and while the girls and Ayfer found a seat Serkan paced the floor. 

Serkan wasn’t sure how much time had passed but when a doctor stepped out into the waiting room, he was prepared to beg and plead for any news of Eda. 

“Eda Yildiz family?” The doctor in the long white coat asked, a clipboard in his hand. 

Serkan reached him before anyone else. “We are Eda’s family.” 

Ayfer not wanting to argue further when there was news of her niece said nothing to contradict his claim. 

“I'm am Dr. Demir. Eda is out of surgery. She lost a lot of blood. I’m afraid, we lost her for a few seconds.”

Serkan’s heart stopped in his chest, his knees felt weak. Melo pressed against his back keeping him upright. 

“We were able to get her back, she has a dislocated shoulder, collapsed lung, broken ribs, a large cut into her ribcage and a head wound, there was some bleeding on her brain but we were able to relieve the pressure. She is resting now in recovery. The rest will be up to her. We have done everything we can for her.” Dr. Demir concluded. 

“I want to see her!” Serkan’s words were not a request but a command. 

“No more visitors than two at a time.” Dr. Demir advised. 

“I will go,” Serkan said.

“I will be the first to see her,” Ayfer said, glowering at Serkan. “Alone.” 

Serkan wanted nothing more than to argue with her but this was Eda’s aunt. He forced the harsh words on the tip of his tongue down and followed behind Dr. Demir and Ayfer.

They were led down a series of halls, stopping in front of a room. 

“Here we are,” Dr. Demir said and offered a sympathetic smile before departing. 

Serkan reached for the doorknob but Ayfer stopped him. “You wait.”

“He said she could have two visitors at a time,” he argued. 

“And I said I wanted to see my niece alone. If I had my way you would not be here at all.” Ayfer scowled. 

“Then get used to not having your way,” Serkan warned. “Cause I am not going anywhere.” 

Ayfer turned her back to him and pushed her way into Eda’s room, closing the door on Serkan. 

Serkan paced in front of the door barely fighting down the urge to burst into the room despite Ayfer. 

It felt like hours, days even before Ayfer stepped out of the room and Serkan was ready to snap at her for taking so long, for keeping him away from Eda when all he wanted was to be at her side but the way she looked stopped him. 

Her shoulders were dropped in defeat, her eyes shining with fresh tears, her skin pale. 

“Ayfer?” 

“I knew it was bad but I have never seen her in such a state.” Ayfer's voice cracked with emotion. 

Serkan thought of what Eda would want and stepped forward, gathering Ayfer in his arms, hoping to console her. 

Ayfer to his surprise clung to him, her shoulders shaking as she cried. 

“She’s gonna be okay. Eda’s strong.” Serkan ran his hand up and down her back. 

Ayfer pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “Don’t hurt her further, Serkan Bolat.”

“I only want to be there for her,” Serkan reassured. 

Ayfer nodded slowly. “I’ll ask girls to come back later.” 

Serkan nodded. “I will go and see, Eda.” he nodded at her and walked around her, entering Eda’s room. 

Only when the door was shut behind him did he looked up his eyes landed on, Eda.

His breath caught in his throat. She always looked so perfect, so beautiful and she still was only her skin was pale, her head wrapped in a bandage, and she was hooked up to all these wires. 

It frightened him. He had never seen her looking so weak, so devoid of life.

He stumbled forward and gripped the rails on her bed. “Eda.” 

He wanted to see her eyes open, watch as her lips lifted into a slow smile, to see her eyes shine back at him with happiness. 

“Eda,” Serkan reached his hand out, the tips of his fingers, grazing the soft skin of her cheek. “Eda, please, you have to fight. I need you to be the strong woman I know you to be. The woman who burst into my life and set fire to my world, who made me feel again. Feel alive. I need you to be the woman I fell in love with. Be stubborn, fight, survive this, and become stronger for it.” 

Serkan cupped her cheek and a shiver racked through him. He looked toward the ceiling, blinking back tears as he tried to swallow his emotions down. 

He had to be strong and resilient. He could not fall apart. Not now. Eda needed him. And he was not going to be break when she needed him more than ever. 

“Eda,” he reached for her hand lifting it to his lips and holding it there. “I don’t know if you can hear me but I need you to wake up. Even if it's to tell me how much you hate me. I can take it. What I can’t handle is you not making it through this. Don't let your star die out.”

A tear slid down his cheek and he held her hand tighter in his own. “I need to tell you the truth. I need to let you decide where we go from here but more than anything I need you to know that there is nothing more important to me than you.”

Serkan reached in his pocket and pulled out the beautiful flower engagement ring. “I want you to have this.” he slipped the ring on her finger slowly. “No matter what happens it yours always. Like I am.” 

Serkan gently placed her hand back on the bed and leaned forward brushing a kiss against her cheek. “I’ll be here waiting for you, Eda Yildiz.” 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

Serkan refused to leave and had gotten the hospital staff to allow him to stay, he stayed by Eda’s side, resting in the chair, gripping Eda’s hand in his own. 

He drifted off in the night, watching her breathe and listening to the sound of her heartbeat. Knowing she was right there in reach was the only thing that allowed him to get any rest. 

However, his rest didn’t last. The abrupt sound of Eda’s heart monitor flattening and a warning code being called out had him jolting up. 

“Eda!” he leaned over her and check her pulse, fear took hold when he couldn’t find it. “Eda! Eda!”

A doctor burst into the room, two nurses behind him. “Mr. Bolat, you must leave the room.” 

Serkan shook his head no. “I won’t leave.”

“I can’t have any distractions!” the doctor said as he started to attempt to revive Eda.

“No!” Serkan fought as an orderly appeared. Serkan shoved him and he was knocked into the wall. 

A security guard appeared, following the orders, he was given to remove Serkan from the room. 

Serkan fought every step of the way. Refusing to be removed even resorting to violence. The hospital staff had no choice but to sedate him. 

Everything went black for Serkan as he lost consciousness, Eda’s name a prayer on his tongue. 

When Serkan woke again, he was disoriented. He looked around the strange white room and realized he was in a hospital, and with that knowledge came the memory of Eda’s heart stopping, losing her to a place she could not return. 

He clambered from the bed, the beat of his heart slamming against his ribcage. “Eda!”

Serkan left the room quickly, looking around he broke out into a run, finding his way through the hospital hallways, he didn’t care that people stared and pointed and called out to him. 

He didn’t care if he scared anyone.

He made a few wrong turns but somehow he found his way back to Eda’s room. 

He burst in and the sight that greeted him had him falling back against the door. His breaths coming quickly as an empty pit formed in his stomach, his veins icing over. 

Eda was gone. The room was empty. That could only mean one thing. 

“Brother-in-Law!”

His head snapped up to see Melo coming toward him, concern lining her face. 

“Eda,” he said, his voice breaking. “She’s gone.” 

“No, no, no, she’s okay.” Melo put her hand on his arm reassuringly. “She was moved upstairs to a private room. Leyla arranged it for you. I was staying with you until you woke up to take you there. I only left the room for a moment and when I came back you were gone.”

“She’s alive?” Serkan asked with a desperation that had tears welling in Melo’s eyes. 

“Come. I’ll take you to her.” She tugged on his arm. 

Serkan allowed it, following her without hesitation in minutes, they were riding the elevator to a higher floor and after walking down a few corridors Melo was pushing a room door open. 

Serkan stepped in, his breath hitching at the sight of Eda, he didn’t even see Ayfer, Fifi, or Ceren. 

He stumbled forward, moving to her bedside, his hand caressed her cheek. The warmth of her skin sinking into his, his hand moved further down, checking her pulse, he could hear the heart monitor but he needed to feel it beneath his touch.

A relieved sob tore from him that he could not hold back. He sunk to the floor, his knees hitting the hospital floor. 

A quiet gasped left Ayfer and watching Serkan she was faced with the very real notion that whatever ended things between Eda and Serkan it was not for lack of love on his part. 

The proud man before her was shattering before her very eyes. 

She placed her hand on his shoulder and felt him shaking as he cried. She squeezed it in an attempt to comfort before ushering the girls out, allowing Serkan to be alone with Eda and his emotions, allowing him to gather himself without an audience. 

Serkan pressed his forehead to Eda’s hand, as he felt tears streak down his cheek. “Eda, Eda, please, don’t leave without me. I am begging you.”

His shoulders shook harder when her hand was unmoving in his grasp and not hearing her voice responding back to him.

He could not lose her. He would not survive it. 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 

Eda’s eyes fluttered open slowly, sunlight streamed into the room. 

She let out a groan. Her head was killing her. She looked around the room. It was large and spacious, she could see an ocean view outside the glass window but the smell was an unmistakable clinical smell of a hospital. 

She tried to shift but couldn’t. There was a weight resting on her hip. Her eyes flitted down and she saw Serkan resting. He didn’t look good, more stubble than she was used to covered his face, his hair was wild and there was a paleness to his pallor. 

The beeping of the monitor increased with her heart as confusion took hold. 

Why was Serkan here? Things between them were over. He made sure of that when he ended things between them. 

What happened to her? The last thing she remembered was Efe driving her home. 

Instinctively her hand reached out to him with the arm that wasn’t throbbing with pain, her fingers trailing over his face. 

Serkan woke up to the sensation of fingers combing through his hair. His eyes settled on Eda and his heart stopped in his chest for just a moment before accelerating at a faster rate. She was awake and staring back at him. 

He caught her hand as she started to pull away. “Eda.”

Eda was surprised by the sound of his voice. It was like he was choked with emotion. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

“You were in a car accident,” Serkan stood so he could get closer to her. 

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here?” Eda said, she tried to sit up more but it was too painful. 

Serkan was there instantly, gently wrapping his arms around her and pulling her up. “Are you comfortable now?”

Eda nodded in answer to his question. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You were hurt. You almost died.” Serkan told her. How could he be anywhere else other than exactly by her side? 

“What does it matter to you now?” Eda asked, she could not have Serkan at her bedside, looking at her like she was everything he wants. Her heart can’t take it. 

“It matters to me because I love you, Eda,” Serkan said, his voice hardening. “I can’t see anything more happen to you.” 

“Love?” Eda glared, getting worked up. “You don’t love me. You love your work. I was nothing but a distraction.” 

“Stop.” Serkan shook his head. “You don’t understand.” 

“Then explain it to me because I remember you ending things because I was an inconvenience. If you ever loved me you would have never seen me this way.” 

“I lied!” Serkan snapped. 

Eda's eyes widened. “What?”

“I lied,” Serkan said, tone softening. “I found out something and I knew it would hurt you and I wanted to protect you from the pain. I thought if you just hated me it would be better this way. Easier.” 

“You broke my heart to protect me?” Eda's eyes flashed with anger. “That is so stupid Serkan. I don’t need you to protect me.” 

Serkan looked away from her. “I’ll always want to protect you.” 

“Let’s have it then,” Eda demanded. “What was so bad that you had to lie and break my heart?”

Serkan looked away from her and started to step away. 

“Serkan!” her hand snatched his and tugged him back. “If you ever loved me then you will tell me.” 

Serkan looked at the ceiling, he clenched his jaw and looked back at her, steeling himself. “My father is the reason your parents were taken from you when you were just a child.” 

Eda’s hand fell from him. She didn’t know what she was expecting him to say but it wasn’t this. “What? I don’t understand.” 

Serkan blew out a slow breath before telling her everything by the time he was done, Eda was openly crying. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you and I knew I couldn’t be with you. You would only be reminded of the worst day of your life every time you looked at me.” 

Eda sniffled her heart aching as she finally knew the truth. “I don’t know how….I can’t..I…” she couldn’t think.

“I’m sorry, Eda,” Serkan said sincerely. “I am so sorry. If you want me to leave, I will but I need you to know, none of what I felt for you was a lie. I’m so in love with you. It hurts. I understand you can’t be with me but I will always love you in a way that I didn’t know I was capable of.” 

Serkan blinked back tears and stepped back.

“Don’t.” Eda held out her hand for his. “Serkan, stay. I want you to stay.” 

Serkan stepped forward, he was scared to hope but how could he not as he took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. 

“I hate how you handled this,” Eda said. “It hurts to know the truth and it hurts that you decided for me like what I wanted didn’t matter.”  

“What you want always matters. I couldn’t imagine you, holding any amount of affection for me after learning the truth. I didn’t want you to suffer being face with your parents' tragedy every time you look at me.” 

“I don’t see my parents when I look at you, Serkan,” Eda said, with a shake of her head. “I see the robot who broke my heart and my trust.” 

“Tell me I can fix this. If you can see a future with me now after knowing the truth tell me what I can do to fix what I have broken.” Serkan pleaded. “I will do anything that you ask.” 

“First, I want you to apologize for making me think you didn’t love me and for hurting me.”

“I’m sorry for hurting you. The last thing I wanted was to be the reason for your tears. I hate it when you cry, the sight of your smile brings me more joy than you can imagine.”

“And I want you to promise to never lie to me again.” Eda continued. 

“You have my word, I will never lie to you again,” Serkan promised. 

“Okay,” Eda nodded and a smile pulled at her lips. “Then if you wish you may stay with me.” 

“Then I will stay for as long as you allow,” Serkan promised, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her cheek. 

After a long moment, he pulled back reluctantly. “I will go and get the doctor.”

“Wait,” Eda stopped him. “Can you just sit with me a little longer? I want to be alone with you. I..” Eda paused, she hated to admit it but it was the truth. “I missed you.” 

Even when she was furious with him, she had missed him.

Serkan smiled, a breathy laugh escaping his lips. “I can promise you that what I felt being away from you was more than just missing you. I was missing my other half. My love. My heart.”

Serkan's hand cupped her cheek and Eda leaned into his touch. 

Serkan settled onto the edge of her bed, his thumb brushing Eda’s cheek and smiling down at her. 

Eda, his angel was offering him a chance at forgiveness and he was not going to waste it. 

A/N: I will be writing a second part to this and be forewarned it will have SMUT.

If you would like to be tagged for further installments let me know. :)

[theres-a-goldensky]

26 + 2 Various BL Series Fic Recs

Fandoms included in this fic rec list: Love By Chance, TharnType, Until We Meet Again, My Engineer, 2 Moons, HIStory3: Trapped (plus a bit of bonus Theory of Love and WHY R U?)

I’ve found a handful of good fics for all of these tiny pairings that I am newly obsessed with, and I thought I’d share them with you if you’re also looking for something good to read. Please, if you have recs of your own, point me in the direction of any other good stuff!

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

IT chapter 2 list one and two - Reddie 

Good Omens - Aziraphale/Crowley

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

(All recs are complete) (I’ve noted pairings, length, and rating, but not any warnings or additional tags.)

** denotes personal favorite

LOVE BY CHANCE / THARNTYPE

1. the count up series by sweetiejelly - Tin/Can - ~34,000 words, explicit - A fix-it fic post-canon where Tin and Can slowly work out their issues with some missteps and learning along the way.

So two weeks later, when Can first does it, Tin doesn't know what to do. For the longest while, he just turns off his phone screen. And then turns it back on.

good night, tin. it's been a while but i promised to say good night. so, good night, sleep well.

Every damn time the text is still there.

In the end, Tin deletes it.

The next morning, Can does it again.

good morning, tin. looks like rain today. don't forget your umbrella.

Tin deletes it.

The texts keep coming.

2. ** LBC Aftermath series by Mara - LBC/TharnType crossover- ~6700 words, mature - Were you too horrified by Techno’s ending in LBC? This author feels your pain and did her part to get some justice for Techno. This fic has zero sympathy for Kengkla, which I deeply appreciated. This will help you work out some of your anger. It features LBC!Techno and the TharnType versions of Tharn and Type. Mind the warnings, since this deals with the serious consequences of Kengkla’s actions.

Kengkla stayed at the house through the morning and Techno was so jumpy he nearly leaped out of his skin every time Kla looked at him or talked to him. Even though Kla had explained what happened and how he wasn’t upset to be dating, Techno still felt weird. He kind of wished he remembered what had happened. A guy should remember how he lost his virginity, right?

Kla grabbed him in a big hug and Techno froze, managing a weak grin when Kla pulled back to smile at him. “I’ve got to go home now. But I’ll call you later. Let me know if you go somewhere.”

“O-okay.” Techno stared as the boy let himself out the front door.

3. 5 + 1 by strokeofluck - Tin/Can- ~3600 words, rated general - This is a sweet story about the times when Pete sees Tin having feelings for Can. 

Pete weighed his options as he glanced back and forth between Tin and Can. Can didn’t seem to be bothered by the whole thing, he even had a shy smile on his face. Or at least, Pete thought it was a shy smile, he had never really seen this kind of expression coming from Can before.

He could let this whole thing go, he supposed, but he didn’t really want to. It was time for him to finally say to Tin: I told you so.

“You were born in Bangkok,” he said, casting a wide net and hoping Can would find himself caught in it.

Can did.

4. That Testified Surprise by Mara - Techno/Tharn/Type - ~7000 words, mature - This is a LBC canon rewrite that stars the TharnType version of all three characters. Type realizes something is not...quite...right with Kengkla and invites Techno to stay with him and Tharn instead of going home drunk.

Pouring Techno into the passenger seat, Type sat down in the driver’s seat and pulled the phone out to check it, entering the passcode. (The passcode was the birthday of Thai national football team captain Siwarak Tedsungnoen, of course. Duh.)

Fuck, it looked like Nic had been either texting or calling every 20 minutes since they got to the bar. What was up there?

Scrolling back through the evening’s texts, Type scowled harder. Loving brother or not, this was fucking creepy. Going back farther, it looked like it was a pattern. Did the kid do anything other than pester his brother about his whereabouts?

THARNTYPE

5. everything he wants by minkit - ~5100 words, explicit - Type accidentally ruins one of Tharn’s shirts and agrees to do whatever Tharn wants to make up for it. Which means it’s porn stretched over the bare bones of a plot, and it’s great. 

Tharn’s hands moved across the bed, slowly, inch by inch and it was frustrating because Type knew they were heading to him, but Tharn took his sweet time. And then they were covering his hands and Tharn’s face was mere centimeters from his and Type could barely breathe. It took everything he had not to lean forward and capture those lips that also belonged to him, but he had a feeling if he tried, Tharn wouldn’t let him. He had that look on his face and Type knew what it meant.

He knew he was in for a long rest of the night.

6. You’ve Got Mail by perthbysaint - ~7800 words, explicit - Type sends Tharn nudes at the most inconvenient times.

A selfie? From Type? Tharn was thanking all of his lucky stars as he happily taps to load the image. The picture loads and Tharn’s phone slips from his suddenly lax grip. Convinced he couldn’t have just seen what he thought he just saw, he picks his phone up hastily and stares very intently at the picture.

It’s a mirror selfie, obviously taken in a changing room, but that thought comes secondary to thighs. Type is holding the camera in front of his face to take the picture, shirt clenched in his other hand and pulled up slightly to show off the shorts. The fucking shorts. He had seen Type in his soccer gear before and yes, Type has most definitely asked for the wrong size and Tharn is more grateful than he’s ever been for anything in his whole life. The shorts are riding up so high they can’t cover more than a few inches of skin, Type’s smooth, powerful thighs on full display. On the inside of his left thigh, there’s a tiny purple mark peeking out from under the bottom of the shorts. Tharn knows exactly what it is because he was the one who left it there just two days ago when he sucked marks into Type’s thighs for a half-hour before he slung Type’s legs over his shoulders and ate him out until Type was sobbing fat tears and begging Tharn to let him come.

7. pet names series by LokelaniRose - ~50,000 words, explicit - A series of post-episode fics that gives us the sex that the show only hinted at, starting with the shower scene.

Tharn prides himself on his self-control. All his passion and intensity is saved for his music, when he’s safely behind a drum kit and can let it all out. He’s never been as irritated by anyone else as he is by Type and all his playground bullying nonsense. Something about the other boy just shakes something loose inside him, rattles at Tharn’s iron discipline until he has to grit his teeth constantly not to just – what? Kiss him? Kill him? Tharn has enough composure (and pride) to put up a front that’s all smiles and wry amusement, but really he regularly skips between one of two daydreams – twisting Type’s head off or fucking him into the ground.

(Tharn is absolutely not going to admit to the third set of daydreams, of curling up around Type when he’s cold or cheering him on at matches or bringing him home to meet Tharn’s father. Nope, no, definitely not.)

2MOONS SERIES

8. ** The universe where we do not commit reckless, unlubricated buttsex by startledoctopus - Forth/Beam - ~8700 words, explicit - This is a great story about Beam giving in and trying to seduce Forth the same way he seduced all of those girls in his past. This Forth is great, and the story retcons their first time to something far more pleasant for Beam.

   "We're heading into a unit on disorders of the spine and I need to review my basic skeletal and muscular anatomy. But it feels stupid to keep studying these weird-looking diagrams and drawings." None of this was, strictly speaking, factual, but an engineering major wouldn't know any different. Beam gathered up all his bravado, walked behind Forth, and began rucking up his shirts as if this were completely normal.

   "What! I..."

   "Shut up, I need to look at a real back so I know what I'll be looking at as a doctor." Forth let him take the shirts off, glancing back at him several times but giving in meekly to Beam's stern look. Forth shuffled the papers some more.

   "All right. Okay, um...Ah!" Beam smirked at Forth's reaction as he ran his thumbs down the nape of his neck.

9. Good Things Come To by sweetiejelly - Ming/Kit - ~4300 words, explicit - Kit gets drunk and reveals more of his feelings for Ming than he probably means to.

"Hmm." Kit closes his eyes and leans his head back on the headrest. "Ming, Ming, Ming. Do you know your name's a kiss? I'm kissing the air everytime I say 'Ming'!" Kit pops his mouth and it pops Ming's mind a bit. "And then I think about kissing you. Why do you make me think about you so damn much? You're so annoying, Ming. No one's ever..." and Kit leans to the side, almost like he's going to conk out or throw up, only to straighten back up. "... made me this crazy."

Oh shit. Ming doesn't know what to do with all of this information. He knew somewhere deep down that Kit likes him. Kit's eyes can't lie. Kit's mouth can't either, the cusses coming out whenever he's keyed up and flustered, and then there are his kisses.

10 + 11. ** how to fail flirt your way into his heart (a guide by Kit) and a little conversation (and a little action please) by sweetiejelly - Ming/Kit - ~30,000 words, explicit in the second part - This story makes a tiny plot divergence. It has Kit put a little more effort into finding out if Ming is really into Yo and then from there, it loosely follows the plot of the show with some key differences. I really enjoyed this.

"Can I have your number?" Kit mentally face-palms. Why? Damn Pha. Damn Beam. Just damn everything, ugh. He has never flirted in his life. Pin asked him out, okay? He doesn't know how to do this. "I'm Kit, Phana's friend," he says, trying to make it less weird.

"I'm Ming. And of course, P'Kit!" Ming flashes him an easy grin and holds out his hand.

Oh right, the phone. Kit shoves it at Ming, nearly hitting him in the chest. Great, he's acing this.

Ming smiles at him, bemused or confused, probably both, and brushes his hand, totally unnecessarily, over the back of Kit's hand as he takes the phone. "In case of emergency, right?" Ming looks up at him from under his lashes and boy, this nong is brazen.

12. ** In Control series by LokelaniRose - Ming/Kit - ~27,000 words, explicit - Kit struggles to tell Ming that he wants something other than the careful, gentle sex they’ve been having. Ming discovers that Kit has some anxiety and panic problems. He also discovers what helps him feel better. [spoilers: these two things are connected.] I love how attentive and caring Ming is throughout this series. The anxious Kit also rings true to the character we saw on the show.

But now that Kit is fretting over things, he might as well fret over this as well. So Ming is great in bed. And let’s be honest, Kit probably isn’t. He hasn’t had a hundred previous partners – okay, tiny exaggeration, but still – and doesn’t know all the fancy moves and techniques and tricks…and just like everything else, in bed Ming is somehow casual and sincere at the same time. He never seems to want anything except what Kit wants, is always happy to do whatever, to take his time making slow, gentle love to Kit. Kit knows that he always comes at least – he secretly really likes it when Ming comes, he’s not quite sure why – but what if there’s more that Kit could be doing, to make it better for him? If Kit was better in bed maybe it would make up for being a shitty boyfriend in other areas, one who can’t be nice in public or talk about his feelings.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

13. another nightmare fic by itsmylifekay - Win/Team - ~2300 words, not rated - Team tries to sleep without Win and it doesn’t go well. 

Team’s room feels suffocating, the air too thick and the space too dark and the covers sticking to his skin with sweat. His breaths are too loud in the quiet, but the quiet itself is deafening. It reminds him of the water. The muted sounds. The frantic pounding of his heart. (The same one he feels now echoed in his chest.)

Flashes of the dream come back to him unbidden.

Everything is too dark, too bright, no way to see what way is up or what way is down. He’s trapped. Can’t get out. Can’t breathe.

14. ** Different With You by blackrose9212 - Win/Team - ~6900 words, teen - It’s open swim week, which means that the swimming club offers free lessons to any of the students who would like to participate. Team doesn’t understand why his teammates hate it so much - until he does. Great jealousy in this one from both sides. 

“Nice to meet you,” the boy gushes. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to join your group. Auntie said there needs to be at least three people, and no one was sitting across from you two. I’ve been paying attention so I already have ideas. Is that okay?” Team watches as he pulls out his books and drops them onto the table, pushing them a little farther out so they’re nearly touching Win’s notebook.

Team shrugs. “Sure, that’s fine. I don’t think Win has been paying attention so I’m glad you have an idea of what’s going on.”

Win hits him lightly at the back of the hand and Film giggles behind his hand. “Oh, no, P’Win looks very smart. I’m sure he’s been listening.” He looks at Win and smiles a little, blushing when Win gives him a smile back.

Team looks between the two of them. Then back at Film, who’s watching Win leaf through his literature textbook like he’s never seen anything so beautiful, and then past Film at the table he left from, where he sees three boys, laughing behind their hands and making cooing faces.

15. seven hundred thirteen by Kiranokira - Win/Team - ~6800 words, mature - Win spends two years abroad in England, and he and Team have to navigate a long distance relationship. It’s very sweet and written very true to life. 

“I kind of hoped you were going to show up at the airport tomorrow morning and chase the plane,” Win says. He kisses Team’s hair, lingering there to memorize the fresh, clear scent.

Team says, “Is it weird that I thought about doing that?” and Win feels him smile against his shoulder.

It’s late, nearly nine thirty, and Win had plans of how to spend tonight that can’t be realized anymore. He wanted to invite Team to dinner with his family. He wanted to play video games with Team and View. He wanted to talk about London with Waan and Team. He wanted to include Team in his family’s warmth in some small way, to make him feel less lonely.

He can’t do any of that now but he still wants to sneak Team upstairs and have him in his arms all night. He wouldn’t, but he wants to. It’s been a month since he moved off campus permanently, and weeks since he was last able to spend a night alone with Team.

16. ** You Can Cry by Kiranokira - Win/Team - ~19,600 words, mature - Win goes missing while on vacation with some friends. Team is left at home trying to handle it. I like the way the author built up to the accident happening. They did a good job creating tension and showing us exactly how Team felt about Win. And spoilers, this story has a happy ending.

“You’re going to fail out of university,” Team tells him. “You’re not really going, are you?”

Win rolls onto his side and perches his cheek on his hand. “What if I say yes?” he asks. “Will you miss me?”

Team’s warning look is more venomous than usual. “Not at all,” Team says, and Win smirks because that isn’t true and they both know it. “You still shouldn’t go. What if you miss the flight back? You’ll fail out and I’ll break up with you for being a dumbass.”

The very recent phenomenon of Team acknowledging that they’re a couple has its usual melting effect on Win’s heart.

2GETHER

17. ** Love Songs on Our Skin series by Kari_Kurofai - Sarawat/Tine - ~15,700 words, explicit - A soulmark AU where Tine is born with the notes to a song that hasn’t yet been written wrapped around his chest. I enjoyed how Tine’s obliviousness in the show carries over to this fic. 

Only Mr. Chic would have a song no one had ever fucking heard of permanently etched on his chest. For fuck's sake .

Still, he waves it off, and he tries not to look too closely at other people's marks. Tries being the key word. He doesn't envy the elegant watercolors of a guitar pick and an open novel he catches sight of on the wrists of some couple's interlinked hands when he's in town. And he certainly doesn't envy the dude he once saw in a coffee shop with the words " I hate you " scrawled across the back of his neck. But yeah, okay, he might be a little jealous of the people who are lucky enough to have something as simple as their soulmate's name on their skin. That definitely isn't fair.

"Why couldn't it at least have been a Scrubb song?" he asks the mirror as he wipes it clear shower-born condensation. The mirror and him are well acquainted with this conversation by now. In fact, the mirror sees the stupid mark more than anyone, so it might as well put up with his equally stupid questions. "It could have been 'Together.' Just think of it, how romantic it would be to meet some cute girl's eyes after bumping into them at a concert, my favorite song playing . . ." He draws a nail over the winding bars of the music on his chest, frowning. "That would be so much easier."

18. Drown Your Sorrows by HyacinthsSoul - 2gether/Theory of Love - Sarawat and Third meet at a bar and bond over being in love with oblivious men.

“No, he’s an angel,” Sarawat says. “Unfortunately he’s a very stupid, very straight angel.”

“Mine’s stupid too,” the other man admits. “But definitely no angel. I’m Third, by the way,” he adds, offering a slender hand to shake.

“Sarawat,” says Sarawat. “Can I buy you another? I think we’re drinking the same thing, although I can’t remember what it’s called.”

20. ** Your Body Is My Instrument by Kari_Kurofai - Sarawat/Tine - ~12,000 words, explicit - This fic does a good job doing what, in this reccer’s humble opinion, the series failed to: showing Tine attracted to Sarawat. There’s great first time sex and some fun sexual tension. Plus, we get to see them switch off, which is extremely rare in BL. And most importantly: hand kink.

It starts innocently enough. Or, well, innocently enough for a guy whose first words to him were, “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll kiss you till you drop.” So, you know. It starts kinda like that.

They’ve been officially dating for a grand sum total of three days and altogether not that much has changed. Except that Sarawat touches him more now. Normally this would be fine, no big deal, right? But Sarawat has magic, evil hands, and apparently all he has to do is glance Tine’s way to deduce the exact right places and ways to touch Tine to drive him up the fucking wall.

And the worst part is it’s almost never the same place or the same way twice, and the only warning Tine ever gets is that sneaky little glint Sarawat gets in his eyes just before he does it, the bastard.

MY ENGINEER

21. Cool Boy(friend) by HyacinthsSoul - Ram/King - ~22,000 words, explicit - So this is technically a WIP, but each chapter feels like a completed fic without a cliffhanger or anything. This is a very sweet, comfortable story about King and Ram getting to know each other as their relationship develops.

In the selfie King sends, he’s holding up a full shot glass while someone’s arm reaches into the frame to hand him another kind of drink, something tall with a straw and a paper umbrella. Ram frowns. Whose arm is that? The person is wearing a red long-sleeved shirt, which doesn’t match what any of their friend group was wearing, and the engineer bar doesn’t offer table service.

Frowning, Ram looks back through the previous photos until he spots a detail he’d overlooked before: a red-shirted man at a neighboring table. He’s visible in the background of two or three pictures taken by Tee, and in each of them he’s staring intently at King.

Not that it’s any of Ram’s business. Not that he cares.

HISTORY3: TRAPPED

22. it’s too late (to turn back now) by stebeee - Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei - ~7200 words, general audiences - Canon divergence fic where Tang Yi pushes Shao Fei away after he saves Hong Ye in order to try and protect him. Shao Fei reacts to that about as well as you’d expect.

“Tang Yi, what do you mean-“

“I think you’ve fooled around for long enough,” Tang Yi interrupts, his voice cold, nothing like the man who had dabbed at his lips with a cotton bud last night, the man who had smiled at him when he made the cannon joke.

“You’ve disrupted my life, and the life of my family and friends in the past few weeks, Meng Shao Fei. This has gone for long enough,” he continues, unwavering. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with you. Take a good rest here in the hospital, and I’ll get someone to pack up your things back at the house. Jack will deliver it back to your apartment.”

23 + 24. ** just waiting, waiting (on you) and between you and me by stebeee - Tang Yi/Meng Shao Fei - ~16,000 words, general audiences - These are stories about how Shao Fei and the rest of the gang deal over the years when Tang Yi is in jail. Found family fics are my jam, so I loved this.

The thing is, it’s been almost three months of this. 90 days, give or take. 2,160 hours. 129,600 minutes. And more than 7 million seconds of this — not having Tang Yi at his side.

Shao Fei wonders for a moment if he will ever stop seeing Tang Yi in every corner of the house. When he comes down the stairs in the morning, some part of him expects to see Tang Yi standing at the kitchen island with a bright smile, asking him if he wants jam with his toast that morning. Shao Fei sees Tang Yi in that apron he loves, cooking at the stove when he fixes himself dinner, alone in the spacious kitchen. Seeing Tang Yi’s favourite blue bathrobe, Shao Fei can almost see Tang Yi leaving the bathroom, his hair all wet and falling over his eyes.

25. amuse bouche by sarahyyy - Jack/Zhao Zi - ~2400 words, general audiences - This is more of Jack seducing Zhao Zi through food and attention. So basically an extension of the show. Mother hen Jack is the cutest.

“Jack?” Zhao Zi murmurs blearily. “Why are you here?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” Jack shoots back, herding Zhao Zi back into the house. He checks for Zhao Zi’s temperature with the back of his hand. “Fever?”

“Just the flu for now, I think?” Zhao Zi says.

Jack purses his lips. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“I had some bread earlier?” Zhao Zi says, but he also looks shifty enough that Jack mostly takes it with a grain of salt.

26. Absolutely Nothing Goes Wrong by anon - Jack/Zhao Zi - ~4500 words, teen - This is an AU where Zhao Zi is the son of a rival mob boss, but he’s still, you know HIMSELF. And when his father says he’s useless, he decides to prove him wrong by seducing Tang Yi’s second-in-command. It’s absolutely adorable.

The man pulled him by the arm, resisting Zhao Zi’s attempts to unhook his claws without causing a scene.

“Hey, stop grabbing me!” he shouted, as the other man played deaf.

“While I admit this is a very loud bar, I didn’t think it was quite so easy to mishear what this young man just yelled straight into your ear,” a newcomer who’d witnessed their conflict said lightly as he walked up to them. His words were accompanied by a wide, almost chilling smile. Zhao Zi blinked once and the odd peculiarity of that smile vanished, leaving just a regular smile in its place. He must’ve just been imagining things under the harsh shadows of the dimly lit bar.

AND +2

Because I’m shameless, I’ll add my own two fics to the end, if you’re interested.

WHY R U?

27. Sorry A Thousand Times - Fighter/Tutor - ~3200 words, explicit - This is a canon divergence for the series finale. I needed more catharsis after the intensity of episode 12.

Tutor narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides. He took a deep breath. “How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone before you listen?” he asked. I don’t know how many more times I can bring myself to say it.

“Only once,” Fight said and then added, “if you mean it.”

Tutor crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What makes you think I don’t mean it now?”

The corner of Fight’s mouth turned up and he took a step closer. Tutor stumbled back until he was stopped by his legs hitting the edge of the bed. Fight reached out a hand and gently ran the back of his fingers over the line of Tutor’s jaw.

Until We Meet Again

28. Dream On - Win/Team - 8900 words, explicit - Takes place alongside show canon, so that we see how the bed sharing began and how Win and Team’s relationship developed over that year.

“Do you want to do well tomorrow?” Win asked, throwing one of his legs over both of Team’s.

“Yes,” Team said as he did his best to put some space between them on the tiny mattress.

“Then you need to get some sleep. I’m helping.”

“How is this helping?” Team demanded.

“Would you stop…” Win said, shifting closer every time Team pulled away. “Five minutes, Team. Just be still for five minutes, okay?”

[abusybuzzingbee]

Bloody Mary | Supernatural Season 1 Episode 5 Rewrite | Dean x Fem!Reader

A/N:::: whew chile this one’s a doozy. it was honestly the hardest for me to write so far. i hope you all enjoy!

but very quickly, before we start, I want to bring attention to the fact that I haven’t posted in so long. In light of the black lives matter movement, I have been spending much of my time at protests and posting on my other social media accounts to advocate for the movement. Please take a look at this link to find out what you can do to help support our black brothers and sisters.

https://blacklivesmatter.carrd.co/

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Major Characters: Dean Winchester, Reader, Sam Winchester

Warnings: canon level violence, language, Dean and the reader being assholes to each other, TWs: drugs (mentioned), extreme anxiety

Word Count: 7,687

Summary: Tensions have only grown stronger in this chapter. Everything comes to a head in Toledo, Ohio while the Winchesters and the reader hunt down Bloody Mary.

Series Masterlist

Season 1 Masterlist

Click here for the series playlist!

“Hey, Sam--” you tapped the side of the young man’s face, “--wake up.”

“Sam,” Dean said simultaneously, “wake up.”

You caught a whiff of Dean’s arm as he shook Sam with it a few inches from your face. He smelled just like coconuts and tobacco. With wide eyes, you looked up at him.

Sam did not give you much time to wonder about the sudden change in Dean’s usual scent as he awoke with a start, causing you to quickly draw your hand back.

He looked around himself for a moment, seemingly confused as to where he was. 

“I take it I was having a nightmare,” he groaned. 

Dean nodded. “Yeah, another one.” 

“Hey, at least I got some sleep,” Sam said optimistically.

“You know, sooner or later we're gonna have to talk about this,” Dean told his brother.

Sam took in a breath, deciding to change the subject. “Are we here?”

“Yup,” Dean replied. “Welcome to Toledo, Ohio.”

The Impala was parked outside of the morgue about to investigate the death of Steven Shoemaker. You watched Sam look over Steven’s obituary that Dean had circled in the local newspaper. 

“So, what do you think really happened to this guy?” Sam asked you and his brother. 

"I don’t know.” Dean shook his head. “Let’s go.”

The three of you headed up to the morgue.

“You’re quiet,” Sam commented as you walked up the many stairs into the building. 

“Am I?” you asked, the tone of your voice and your body language indicating your head was not entirely in the conversation.

“Consider it a blessing, Sammy,” Dean remarked. “She doesn’t decide to can it very often. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Dude, can you leave me alone for once?” you chided. Your group headed down toward the room labeled “Morgue.”

“Aw, I would, but it’s fun watching you get all riled up,” Dean teased. He still smelled strongly of coconut and tobacco.

You scowled at him as you walked into the room. You looked over to a desk in the room with a nameplate that reader “Dr. D. Feiklowicz.” There was another desk with a man in scrubs sat behind it. You assumed he was the morgue technician.

“Hi,” you smiled brightly, walking ahead of the boys to stand before the man’s desk. You decided to put on your brave face and put the issue of Dean’s smell aside.

“Hey,” he responded. “Can I help you?”

“I sure hope so. We’re the med students,” you lied.

The man furrowed his brows in confusion. “Sorry?”

“Oh, Doctor Feiklowicz didn’t tell you?” you asked, mirroring the technician’s expression. “I talked to him on the phone. We're from Ohio State. He's supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse. It's for our paper.”

“Well, I'm sorry, he's at lunch,” the morgue technician stated.

“Oh,” you said deflatedly. “Is it okay if you show it to us anyway?”

“Sorry, I can't,” the bald man countered. “Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want.”

Dean took this opportunity to jump in. “An hour? Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then.” He looked to Sam for back-up.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“Uh, look, man, this paper's like half our grade, so if you don't mind helping us out—” Dean smiled.

“Uh, look, man--” the technician mocked, “--no.”

Your eyebrows shot up. ‘Uh oh,’ you thought.

Dean laughed a little and turned around, mumbling, “I'm gonna hit him in his face I swear.”

Sam stepped in, patting Dean’s arm before pulling a few twenties out of his wallet. He laid five of them down on the table in front of him. 

The morgue technician grinned and picked up the money. “Follow me.”

Dean grabbed Sam’s arm when his younger brother tried to follow the technician’s orders. “Dude, I earned that money.”

“You won it in a poker game,” Sam reminded him.

Dean shrugged, not understanding what Sam was getting at. “Yeah.”

“Oh, come on.” You pulled the two boys’ arms and led them after the technician. 

Dean ripped his arm out of your grip. 

Once you got to where the technician wanted you, he rolled “Now the newspaper said his daughter found him. She said his eyes were bleeding.”

The morgue technician pulled the sheet back that covered Steven’s face. “More than that. They practically liquefied.”

Sure enough, Shoemaker’s eye sockets were empty with trails of blood leading from his eyes down his temples on either side of his head. 

“Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?” Dean asked.

“Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone.”

Sam picked the conversation back up. “What's the official cause of death.”

"Ah, Doc's not sure. He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure.”

“Whatcha mean?” you inquired, looking over the poor man’s face.

“Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen,” the technician elaborated.

“The eyes,” Sam started, “what would cause something like that?”

“Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims.”

“Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?” Dean raised a brow.

“That's a first for me, but hey, I'm not the doctor.”

You took off your hoodie and tied it around your waist. 

“Hey, think we could take a look at that police report? You know for, uh...our paper.”

“I'm not really supposed to show you that.” The technician’s tone clearly suggested he wanted more money. 

Sam looked annoyed and went to grab for his wallet. You put a hand on his arm to stop him. You did not want Dean to throw another fit about his poker money, and you wanted to see if you could still seduce someone even in a t-shirt, hoodie, and jeans. 

“Please?” you begged. “For me?” You batted your eyes and smiled at the technician innocently. 

The stocky man’s eyes trailed down to your covered breasts before moving back up to your face. You winked at him, which was apparently all the convincing he needed. 

With his chest heaving as he let out an excited chuckle, the technician relented. 

***

The three of you decided to go talk to Shoemaker’s daughter to see what other information she could give you. As Dean pulled the Impala up to the Shoemaker house, you noticed the front door of the house was open.

“Funeral?” you asked.

“Yep,” Sam answered.

You and the boys walked into the house, looking around at the many people dressed in all-black cocktail attire. 

“Feel like we're underdressed,” Dean joked. He still smelled of coconuts and tobacco, and the smell had grown stronger.

You continued walking through the house toward the backyard. A funeral-goer directed you to Steven’s daughter Donna, who was sat with her friends and a younger girl that you assumed was Donna’s little sister.

“You must be Donna, right?” Dean asked the girl with short brown hair. 

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Hi, uh—” Sam spoke up, “--we're really sorry.”

“Thank you,” Donna nodded.

“I'm Sam, this is Dean, that’s (Y/N).” He gestured in between each of you. “We worked with your dad.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. This whole thing. I mean, a stroke.”

A skinny girl with blonde hair piped up next. “I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now.”

“It's okay. I'm okay,” Donna told her friend.

Dean continued with his questioning. “Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?”

“No.” 

The young girl next to Donna turned to face you and the Winchesters.

“That's because it wasn't a stroke,” she said.

“Lily, don't say that,” Donna scolded the younger girl.

“What?” you asked.

“I'm sorry, she's just upset,” the brunette told the three of you.

“No, it happened because of me,” Lily explained.

The older sister shook her head. “Sweetheart, it didn't.” 

“Lily--” Sam squatted down to Lily’s eye level, “--Why would you say something like that?”

“Right before he died, I said it,” the young girl stated. 

“You said what?”

“Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror.” She paused for a moment. “She took his eyes, that's what she does.”

“That's not why Dad died,” Donna countered. “This isn't your fault.”

“I think your sister's right, Lily. There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn't say it, did he?” Dean jumped in.

“No, I don't think so.”

You looked back at the girl. “Then there’s no about Steven. We’ll just be on our way now.” 

The brunette offered a tight-lipped smile to you with a short nod.

You led the boys away from the mourning girls and back into the shoemaker’s house.

The three of you managed to get up the stairs without being noticed and made your way to the bathroom where Mr. Shoemaker had died. The bright red blood staining the floor contrasted with the white color of the tile. 

“The Bloody Mary legend...Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?” Sam asked his brother, leading you and Dean into the bathroom.

“Not that I know of.”

You watched as Sam squatted down to the floor to touch the dark red stain. “I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it,” the brunet continued.

“Yeah, well, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening,” you shrugged. 

“The place where the legend began?”

“I don’t know,” you said as you opened the medicine cabinet above the sink with a mirror for its door. You started rooting through the medication in the cabinet.

“But according to the legend, the person who says-- hey!” Sam stopped you from taking more pills out of the cabinet, cutting himself off midsentence.

“What?”

“Are you stealing his pills?” Sam questioned.

“Not all of them. I was looking for some anxiety meds, like Xanax, or something.”

“Why do you need anxiety meds?” Sam asked, concern taking over his features. 

You fought the urge to glance over at Dean, whose coconut and tobacco scent was very gradually growing stronger. 

You simply shrugged in response to Sam. “You never know when they’ll come in handy.”

The younger Winchester looked at you strangely before turning his attention back to the case. “Anyway, the person who says B--” He glanced into the opened medicine cabinet mirror and cut himself off. He shut it and went on, “The person who says you know what gets it. But here—”

Dean caught onto what his brother was trying to say. “Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah.”

“Right.”

“Never heard anything like that before.”

You reminded the boys, “But, the dude did die right in front the mirror, and the kid’s right. According to the legend, the bitch ‘ll cut your eyes out”

“It's worth checking in to,” Sam stated.

You and the guys headed out of the bathroom only to run into one of Donna’s blonde friends. 

“What are you doing up here?” she demanded.

“We--we, had to go to the bathroom,” Dean responded lamely. 

“Who are you?” 

"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad,” Dean told her.

“He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself,” the blonde argued. 

The older Winchester tried to backtrack. “No, I know, I meant—”

“And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming.”

“Alright, alright,” Sam jumped in. “We think something happened to Donna's dad.”

“Yeah, a stroke,” the girl responded, looking between the three of you like you were insane.

“That's not a sign of a typical stroke. We think it might be something else,” Sam explained. 

Something changed in the young girl’s expression. “Like what?” 

“Honestly? We don't know yet. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth.”

“So, if you're gonna scream, go right ahead,” Dean challenged, seemingly knowing she would not do it.

“Who are you, cops?” she questioned. 

Dean shrugged. “Something like that.”

“I'll tell you what. Here,” Sam reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen to write down his cell phone number. He handed to her as he stated, “If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary...just give us a call.”

You and the boys walked around the girl as you went down the hallway. Dean was too close to your left side for comfort, so you slipped around Sam to put him in the middle of the group.

Sam looked down at you strangely, but you shrugged him off.

***

Even once you got to the library to do your research, you steered clear of Dean. You still had yet to figure out why he smelled the way he did. 

Despite the fact that the sun was still shining brightly outside, the library was quite dark. 

“Would it kill ‘em to turn on some lights?” you wondered aloud under your breath as you walked through the library. 

Dean either chose to ignore your comment or did not hear it as he continued on with talk of the case. “Alright, say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gonna be some sort of proof—Like a local woman who died nasty.”

“Yeah, but a legend this widespread it's hard,” Sam countered. “I mean, there's like 50 versions of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch, another says she's a mutilated bride, there's a lot more.” 

“Alright, so what are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Every version's got a few things in common. It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we've gotta search local newspapers—public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill,” the younger Winchester shrugged. 

Dean sighed. “Well, that sounds annoying.” 

“No, it won't be so bad, as long as we--” Sam looked at the computers you three had reached with “Out of Order” signs plastered to them. He chuckled to himself. “I take it back. This will be very annoying.”

“Wonderful,” you muttered.

You and the Winchesters brought the town death records back to the boys’ motel room. Sam ended up falling asleep while you scrolled through articles on your laptop and Dean flipped through the book you three got at the library.

“You’re quiet,” Dean stated without looking up at you. He flipped to another page as his eyes continued scanning the records.

“Yep,” you responded shortly.

“Okay, why?”

“Just trying to focus on the case.”

“You haven’t taken a single crack at me all day. That’s new for you.”

“Aw, are you worried about me, Winchester?” You changed the keywords you used in the search bar on your laptop. 

“God no,” he told you. “You’re just being weird.”

“I thought you appreciated the silence,” you replied. “If I recall, you said Sam should enjoy my silence while it lasts and to consider it a blessing.”

“Well, I did, until it started getting creepy.”

A silence fell over you two as you debated asking Dean about the coconut and tobacco smell. You figured it was just a coincidence. The usual explanation for why you could smell that aroma could not apply here... could it?

“Oh, I meant to ask you,” you began, “Have you started... using a new shampoo or body wash or something? Coconut scented?”

Dean scrunched his face up and looked up at you for the first time during your whole interaction. “No, why? And why are you smelling me?”

“I’m not,” you replied, “the smell’s just really strong, but only around you.” 

With no other reasonable explanation, your anxiety began to completely overwhelm you.

Your conversation with Dean got cut short when Sam startled awake. 

“Why'd you let me fall asleep?” he groaned.

“Cause I'm an awesome brother,” Dean remarked dryly. “So what did you dream about?”

“Lollipops and candy canes.” Sam kept his gaze fixated on the ceiling.

“Yeah, sure.” 

“Did you find anything?”

“Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration? No. I've looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary.”

“Maybe we just haven't found it yet.”

“I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area, you know, eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just ain't Mary.”

Sam’s phone began to ring just as Dean finished his sentence. 

“Hello?” the younger Winchester asked. 

A look of concern crossed Sam’s face as he jerked up from the bed.

You learned from Sam after he got off of the phone that it was the girl from Mr. Shoemaker’s funeral. Her name was Charlie, and her friend Jill had just been found dead. 

The three of you rushed to the park where Charlie said she would be to give you more information about Jill’s death. 

Charlie was sat on a bench with her head in her hands as her shoulders shook. She looked up at the three of you as you approached. Dean took a seat on top of the back of the bench while you and Sam stood next to the bench.

”We’re really sorry about your friend,” Sam told her. “Jill, right?”

“Yeah. And they found her on the bathroom floor. And her--her eyes. They were gone,” she explained through tears. “And she said it. I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?”

“No, you're not insane,” Dean replied. 

“Oh God, that makes me feel so much worse.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. 

“Look. We think something's happening here. Something that can't be explained,” Sam added. 

“And we're gonna stop it, but we could use your help.”

***

You were the first to climb up the side of Jill’s house to get to her bedroom window.

You squatted down on the roof, looking down at Sam and Dean. Sam tossed you the duffel bag, and Dean was the next to try and scale the side of the house, but his foot slipped before he could get that far up the wall.

You snorted at Dean’s clumsy move, much to his chagrin. 

“Shut up, (Y/N),” Dean grumbled as he found his footing and climbed up to the window. Sam followed close behind his brother.

Charlie appeared before you in the window and unlocked it for you. You handed the duffel bag back to Sam so you could climb through the window. He handed it back to you when you got into Jill’s room so he could follow your lead. 

“What did you tell Jill's mom?” he asked.

“Just that I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and things,” Charlie answered.

You rummaged through the bag you had set on Jill’s bed looking for the camera you had brought along.  

You heard Dean shut the curtains behind you as Charlie continued talking. 

“I hate lying to her.”

“Trust us, this is for the greater good,” Dean assured her. “Hit the lights.”

Charlie followed his orders. “What are you guys looking for?”

“We'll let you know as soon as we find it.”

You tossed Sam the digital camera, who turned it on and played with the settings. “Hey, night vision.” Sam aimed the camera at his brother. 

“Do I look like Paris Hilton?” Dean smirked over his shoulder. 

Sam rolled his eyes. “So I don't get it. I mean, the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?”

You shrugged. 

“I want to know why Jill said it in the first place,” Dean expressed. 

“It was just a joke,” Charlie said. 

“Yeah well somebody's gonna say it again, it's just a matter of time,” you heard Dean say behind you as you walked into the bathroom with Sam. He aimed the camera at the bathroom mirror and stopped.

“Hey, look at this,” Sam told you. 

You glanced at the screen to see something trickling out from behind the mirror. 

“Hey, can you get that mirror off the wall?” you asked Sam.

“Yeah, sure.”

You headed back to Jill’s bed to find the blacklight you had brought with you.

“Why’d you bring a blacklight?” Dean questioned.

You shrugged. “You can never be too prepared.”

“Okay. Weird.”

Sam put the mirror face-down on the bed and peeled the brown paper off of the back. You ran the blacklight over the exposed back of the mirror. A handprint along with the words “Gary Bryman” was revealed as the blacklight ran over them.

“Gary Bryman?” Charlie wondered aloud.

“You know who that is?” Sam asked her.

“No.”

“Why do I feel like I do, though...” you trailed off. 

You and the boys slipped out of the window and Charlie met you three at the Impala. The four of you headed to the park. Once you got there, you and Sam stayed in the car to research. Simply by typing in Gary Bryman’s name, multiple articles explaining what happened to him popped up.

You and Sam walked back up to Charlie and Dean, who sat on the park bench you had met Charlie at earlier that day.  

“So, Gary Bryman was an 8-year-old boy,” Sam explained. “Two years ago he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry. But nobody got the plates or saw the driver.”

A look of realization crossed Charlie’s face. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Jill drove that car.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. 

“We need to get back to your friend Donna's house,” Dean told Charlie.

***

As it turned out, there was a name written on the back of Mr. Shoemaker’s bathroom mirror: Linda Shoemaker. A handprint similar to the one on Jill’s mirror was next to the name.

You walked down the stairs to meet Donna and Charlie who stood at the bottom. “Was somebody in your family named Linda?” Sam asked Donna as you and the boys approached her. “Did she... did she die?”

“Why are you asking me this?” she deflected. 

“Look, we're sorry, but it's important,” Sam told her. 

“Yeah. Linda's my mom okay? She overdosed on sleeping pills, it was an accident, and that's it.” She paused. “I think you should leave.” 

“Now Donna, just listen--” Dean started, but Donna cut her off.

“Get out of my house!” she cried, rushing up the stairs. 

“Oh my God,” Charlie half-whispered. “Do you really think her dad could've killed her mom?”

“Maybe,” Sam shrugged. 

“I think I should stick around.” 

“Alright. Whatever you do, don't--” Dean was cut off by Charlie.

“Believe me, I won't say it,” she smiled.

You three headed back to the motel where you got back onto your laptop. 

“Wait, wait, wait, you're doing a nationwide search?” Sam asked you.

“Yup. The NCIC, the FBI database--at this point any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me.” 

“But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But there’s nothing here, dude.” You continued scrolling, stopping on a file about a Mary Worthington.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Sam conceded. “The way Mary's choosing her victims, it seems like there's a pattern.”

“I know, I was thinking the same thing,” Dean concurred.

“With mister Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run.”

“Both had secrets where people died.”

You froze.

“Right. I mean there's a lot of folklore about mirrors-that they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them,” the younger Winchester continued.

“Right, right. So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died, then Mary sees it, and punishes you for it.”

“Whether you're the one that summoned her or not.”

You cleared your throat, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. “Take a look at this.” You showed the boys your computer screen, having pulled up an image of Mary lying in a puddle of blood next to an ornate mirror. The mirror had the letters T, R, and E written on it next to a bloody handprint. 

“Looks like the same handprint,” said Sam.

“Her name was Mary Worthington—an unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

***

You and the Winchesters were in a Fort Wayne police agency to meet the detective who worked on the Worthington case.

“I was on the job for 35 years,” the man before you explained, “--detective for most of that. Now everybody packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder—that one still gets me.”

“What exactly happened?” Dean asked him.

“You all said you were reporters?”

“We know Mary was 19, lived by herself,” Sam diverted. “We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th someone broke into her apartment and murdered her, cut out her eyes with a knife.”

“That's right.”

“See sir, when we asked you what happened, we wanted to know what you think happened.”

The detective looked back at Sam for a few moments before he walked over to a file cabinet in the corner of his office.

“Technically I'm not supposed to have a copy of this,” the man explained. He opened the file in his hands to the picture you found on the computer and pointed to the letters. “Now see that there? T-R-E?”

Dean glanced up at the detective. “Yeah.”

“I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer.”

“You know who it was?” Sam inquired. 

“Not for sure. But there was a local man, a surgeon-Trevor Sampson--” he pulled out a picture of a man wearing sunglasses and a suit, “--And I think her cut her up good.”

“Now, why would he do something like that?”

“Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial, ‘T’. Well, her last entry, she was gonna tell ‘T’'s wife about their affair.”

“Yeah, but how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?” Dean cut in. 

“It's hard to say, but the way her eyes were cut out...it was almost professional.”

“But you could never prove it?”

“No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous,” the detective explained with disdain and a shake of his head. 

“Is he still alive?”

“Nope.” The detective sat down behind his desk and sighed. “If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secret. But she never could.”

Sam went back to asking questions. “Where's she buried?” 

“She wasn't. She was cremated.”

“What about that mirror?--” Dean nodded at the mirror in the picture, “--It's not in some evidence lockup somewhere is it?”

“Ah, no. It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago.”

“You have the names of her family by any chance?”

***

Well into the drive back to Toledo, Sam was finishing up his phone call with a family member of Mary’s. Your nerves were getting more wired as the smell of coconut and tobacco on the drive had gotten stronger. 

“Oh really? Ah, that's too bad Mr. Worthington. I would have paid a lot for that mirror. Okay, well maybe next time... Alright, thanks.” Sam hung up the phone, and Dean looked at him expectantly. 

“So?”

“So that was Mary's brother. The mirror was in the family for years, until he sold it one week ago to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo,” Sam explained.

“So wherever the mirror goes, that's where Mary goes?”

“Her spirit's definitely tied up with it somehow,” the younger brother responded.

“Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?” you asked.

“Yeah, there is.” Sam turned to you.  "When someone would die in a house people would cover up the mirrors so the ghost wouldn't get trapped.”

“So Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit,” Dean added.

“Yeah, but how could she move through, like, a hundred different mirrors?” you jumped in.

“I don't know, but if the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it,” Dean stated. 

“Yeah, I don't know, maybe,” Sam said. His phone rang, and he answered it with a “Hello?” His eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Charlie?... Hey, whoa whoa whoa, slow down... Okay, uh, where are you?... Okay, we’re, uh, on our way. Just hang tight, alright? We’re coming, Charlie. Don’t look at anything reflective, alright?”

Not much explanation about Charlie’s situation was needed; you and Dean understood instantly. The older brother floored it back to Toledo to pick Charlie up from her house. As soon as the Impala parked in front of her house, the blonde ran out of the front door and headed to the car. With tears streaming down her face, she slid into the backseat next to you. You wrapped your arms around her to comfort her, and she buried her face in your chest.

When you reached the motel, you and the boys immediately set to work throwing sheets over any sort of a reflective surface or turning them around to face the wall or the floor. Charlie sat on one of the beds with her knees pulled into her chest and cardigan pulled over her head.

When you finished with the mirrors, you and Sam sat next to the young girl. 

“Hey, hey it's ok. Hey, you can open up your eyes Charlie,” Sam coaxed. “It's okay, alright?”

Charlie slowly lifted her head.

“Now listen. You're gonna stay right here on this bed, and you're not gonna look at glass, or anything else that has a reflection, okay? And as long as you do that, she cannot get you,” Sam told her. 

“But I can't keep that up forever. I'm gonna die, aren't I?” Her eyes filled with tears once more.

“No. No,” the younger brother answered quickly. “Not anytime soon.”

Dean sat on the bed to the left of the one you were on and stated firmly, “Alright, Charlie. We need to know what happened.”

“We were in the bathroom--” she started, but Dean cut her off.

“That's not what we're talking about. Something happened, didn't it? In your life...a secret...where someone got hurt.”

Charlie’s face dropped as she put her head on top of her knees.

“Can you tell us about it?” asked the older brother. 

“I had this boyfriend,” she began, “I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said ‘Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself.’ And you know what I said? I said, "Go ahead." And I left. How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just...I didn't believe him, you know? I should have.” She buried her face back into her knees as she sobbed. 

“Charlie...” You were trying to find the words. “I’m so sorry.”

You knew exactly how she felt.

***

The smell in the car was overwhelming. Dean’s scent had grown so strong it was giving you a splitting headache. You squeezed your eyes shut and pinched the bridge of your nose with your head turned to the window as Dean drove through the dark night. The three of you were going to the antique store the mirror had been sold to.

“Y’know, her boyfriend killing himself, that's not really Charlie's fault,” Dean said. 

“You know as well as I do spirits don't exactly see shades of gray, Dean,” Sam reminded him. “Charlie had a secret, someone died, that's good enough for Mary.”

“I guess.”

A moment of silence blanketed the three of you before Sam started talking again. 

“You know, I've been thinking. It might not be enough to just smash that mirror.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

Your head hurt so bad you could barely focus on the conversation. Nausea began slowly creeping up in your throat. 

“Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean she moves around from mirror to mirror so who's to say that she's not just gonna keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it.”

“Well, how do you know that's going to work?”

“I don't, not for sure.”

“Well, who's gonna summon her?”

Your eyes popped open as your body tensed up. You kept your mouth shut, however.

“I will.”

You turned your head to the younger boy.

 She'll come after me.”

“Y’know what, that's it,” Dean fumed, quickly pulling the car over to the side of the road. “This is about Jessica, isn't it? You think that's your dirty little secret that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop, man. I mean, the nightmares and calling her name out in the middle of the night—it's gonna kill you. Now listen to me—It wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, then blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place.”

“I don't blame you,” Sam sighed.

“Well, you shouldn't blame yourself, because there's nothing you could've done.”

“I could've warned her,” Sam protested.

“About what? You didn't know what was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn't a secret, I mean I know all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway.”

“No, you don't.”

“I don't what?”

Sam turned his head to his older brother. “You don't know all about it. I haven't told you everything.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Well, it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it?”

Dean looked surprised, almost offended. “No. I don't like it. It's not gonna happen, forget it.”

“Dean, that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it,” Sam argued. “And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this.”

Whether you were nauseated from the smell alone or the anxiety eating away at your nerves had become too overwhelming for you, you jumped out of the car. You fell to your knees and vomited in the grass on the side of the road.

“Whoa! (Y/N)!” Sam exclaimed as he and Dean sprang from their seats and out of the car. 

Sam helped you up from the grass as he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah--” you affirmed, glancing at Dean nervously, “--I’m fine.”

“Obviously not,” Dean snorted. “You just lost your lunch on the side of the road.”

“I’m serious, guys, I must’ve just eaten something bad,” you assured the Winchesters. 

“Yeah, okay.” The older boy obviously did not believe you.

***

“You sure you don’t wanna stay in the car?” Sam questioned as Dean parked the Impala in front of the antique shop.

“Yeah, I’m all good.” 

Dean handed one of the crowbars he had grabbed from the trunk to Sam. You crouched in front of the lock on the shop, using your bobby pin to get it open. When you finally got it to click, the door swung open to reveal a large variety of mirrors. 

“Well...that's just great,” Dean remarked sarcastically. He pulled the picture of Mary’s body he had printed off out of his jacket pocket to look at the mirror. “Alright, let's start looking.”

After searching around for several minutes, Dean suggested, “Maybe they've already sold it.” 

The flashlight you were using stopped on the mirror. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

Dean held the picture up to the mirror. “That’s it,” he sighed, “You sure about this?”

Sam handed his brother his flashlight. “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.” Sam’s grip on the crowbar tightened.

You whipped your head around to a light shining through the window of the store. 

“I'll go check that out,” Dean told you and Sam. “Stay here--” he directed that at you while he handed you his crowbar, “--be careful.” He directed that at Sam. “Smash anything that moves.”

Dean headed off towards the front door. 

You and Sam faced opposite directions each with your back toward the other’s. The two of you circled each other, eyes searching the mirrors. You heard something like a breath of air going past your ear. You turned to face one of the less-decorated mirrors. You went to smash it, but she disappeared. A smash coming from behind you moments later signaled that Sam had found Mary in a different mirror. Sam collapsed to the floor as blood leaked out of his eyes. You paid no mind to what Mary was saying about Jessica’s death as you took your crowbar and smashed it through the mirror. 

Your heart raced as you looked into Mary’s mirror, seeing your reflection had a mind of its own. 

“Why’d you let it happen?” interrogated Mary, who was mimicking your appearance in the mirror. Blood began to drip from your eyes. 

Your breath caught in your throat and it became harder and harder to get air into your lungs. 

“How could you not have seen it? He was hurting, and you took away the only thing that eased his pain. You didn’t help him! You treated him like he didn’t matter! You made him feel worthless!“ she screamed at you. 

Tears mixed with the blood that spilled down your cheeks as you collapsed to the floor. Your crowbar clattered to the ground along with you. 

“It’s your fault that he’s gone! How could you have let it go on for so long?!”

At that moment, Dean slammed his crowbar into the mirror. Without giving you so much as a once-over, he headed over to his brother to check on him.

“Sam, Sammy!”

“It's Sam,” he reminded the older boy.

“God, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Come on, come on.” He pulled Sam up with his arm draped over the back of his neck. At this point, the coconut and tobacco smell had become unbearable to be around.

“(Y/N), can you move?” Dean questioned, his tone harsh toward you for a reason you could not pinpoint.  

“Yeah.”

You went to stand up from the floor when something caught your eye. Mary was Ring-style crawling out of the mirror. She stood up, walking slowly toward you with stringy hair falling in her eyes as you fell back and scrambled away from her. 

Your breathing labored and blood began to spill out of your eyes again. You heard both of the boys slump to the floor behind you, and you figured they were both suffering from the same thing you were. Suddenly, she stopped staring you down. She turned her attention to the boys, and you saw Dean holding a mirror up to her. She looked into her own reflection and started choking to death.

“You killed them!” she yelled at herself. “You killed all of those people!”

 You scrunched your nose up in disgust as you watched her melt into a puddle of blood. 

Dean threw the mirror he had been holding, and you winced when it shattered as it hit the ground. 

Standing up and dusting yourself off, realized Dean’s aroma had not changed despite the fact that the most apparent danger was over.

As you walked out of the shop, you looked over at Dean, who was watching you with a hard expression. 

“What?” you asked.

“Who’d you kill, (Y/N)?”

“What?” you questioned stupidly.

“You know what.”

“I didn’t kill anybody, dude. She was probably just talking about one of the ghosts I’ve ganked.”

“Those aren’t the dirty secrets Mary would’ve gone for.”

Sam looked between you two. 

“So, what’d you do, (Y/N)? Who’d you kill?” Dean prodded. “Was it mommy?”

Tears filled your eyes.

“Did daddy not give you enough goodnight kisses? Or was it that you drove them so insane they couldn’t take being here anymore?”

“Dean!” Sam chastised his brother, trying to get him to lay off.

“You’re such a dick,” you mumbled, tears flowing freely down your cheeks. Arms crossed over your chest, you slid into the back of the car.

You saw Sam slap Dean upside the back of his head as they bickered.

‘He deserves that and a lot more,’ you thought.

***

The ride back from the shop had been completely silent. One thing you noticed was that you could not smell coconut and tobacco anymore. When you got back to the motel, the first beams of sunshine of the day were beginning to shine. Dean had hardly parked the car before you jumped out. You dashed to your room with Sam following close behind you. 

“(Y/N), wait.”

“Sam, I don’t even know what to say anymore,” you expressed as the two of you stepped into your room. 

“I’m sorry,” he told you. “He can be... stand-offish at times.”

“Yeah, no shit,” you scoffed with a humorless laugh. You took in a breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I gotta be honest with you, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.” Tears clouded your vision once more as you ran a hand through your hair. “I was putting up with it for your sake. To help you find your dad, find your girlfriend’s killer. I promised you I’d do that, and I don’t wanna break my promise. But I seriously almost ran away from the both of you tonight after what he said. He doesn’t even realize how deep he cut. What we do normally is just surface-level, petty shit to fuck with each other about. But that?” You blew out a puff of air as you tried to keep your emotions in check. You slumped down to the floor and pressed your back up against the side of your bed.

Sam sat down beside you. 

“If you wanna leave, you can. I won’t stop you. I’ll miss the hell out of you, but I won’t stop you.”

“Thanks,” you half-heartedly smiled. “I don’t think I’m gonna leave, though. I’m too deep into this now. I think I’d miss you too much if I left.”

Sam shoved your shoulder with his. You placed your head on his shoulder, and he put his on top of yours. The two of you sat like that for a while, just staring at the tacky wallpaper on the wall across from you. 

If you closed your eyes, it was almost like you were with... him again. Sam reminded you so much of him sometimes it was scary. 

A knock on the door pulled the two of you out of your own little world. 

“Hey--” you heard Dean say, “--it’s time to take Charlie home.”

***

“So this is really over?” Charlie asked as Dean stopped the Impala in front of her house.

“Yeah, it's over,” Dean answered.

“Thank you.” Charlie gave you a hug and the two boys a handshake before getting out of the car.

“Charlie?” Sam called to her.

She turned around. “Your boyfriend's death...you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen.”

‘Wow, I really should take note of that.’

The blonde smiled faintly before turning to go into her house. 

Dean gently smacked his younger brother’s shoulder. That's good advice.” He pulled the car away from Charlie’s house. As you drove through one of the busier parts of town, he asked, “Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what that secret is.”

The younger brother sighed. “Look...you're my brother and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself.”

You understood not wanting to talk to people about certain things, especially people like Dean. Hell, if you did not have to, you would not speak to him at all.

“Now’s as good a time as ever to tell you both that as soon as we find your dad, I’m gone,” you piped up. 

Sam looked back at you with a sad expression.

“Good riddance,” Dean mumbled.

The car went dead silent.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Your tone was dangerously flat.

“You heard me.”

“Pull the goddamn car over,” you demanded. “Now.”

As soon as the Impala was put in park, you were out of the car. Dean followed suit. 

“I can’t fucking believe you!” you fumed. “After the shit you said to me, the way you made me feel, I get no apology, but I get ‘good riddance’? Are you fucking kidding?!”

“No, I’m not, actually,” he glowered. “Not that I trusted you much to begin with, but as far as I know, you killed somebody close to you. And I’m willing to bet it was somebody in your family. So I can’t trust you around me or Sammy. And the quicker you leave, the quicker Sam’s out of danger, and I don’t have to worry about you killing one of us.”

“Oh, wow,” you seethed, “I knew you thought low of me, but I thought you could at least gather I’m not a fucking psycho.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dean retorted. 

You shook your head and got back in the car, slamming the door shut.

“Hey,” the older Winchester snapped as he got into the driver’s seat, “don’t hurt my car.”

“Dean, do me a favor, and shut the fuck up,” you hissed. 

Feedback is always appreciated and tags are open!

Series Rewrite Babes:

@rach5ive​ @ppeachygemss​

Dean Girls:

@akshi8278​

[junie-bugg]

Prospects and Propriety - Chapter One

Summary: Everlark Jane Austen AU

“We’re very similar, you and I.” He turns the leaf over in his palm one last time and then presses it into my hand. His fingertips are warm where the leaf is brittle.

We are, aren’t we? Me, a girl forced to marry by the rules and expectations of society and him, a boy whose freewill was stolen away before he could even walk. We’re both prisoners. Destined to fates we did not choose ourselves. Now I see what was so funny to him.

The two of us: we are absolutely tragic.

Katniss Everdeen and her younger sister Prim are the adopted daughters of Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, a wealthy man with no biological heirs. By the rules of Panem society, an older sibling must be married before the younger can wed. In a time when women have no means of making their own living, marriage is the only way for Katniss to save her sister from destitution and set her up for a happy marriage of her own. Katniss sets her sights on Mr. Gale Hawthorne, a wealthy man who just moved to Whitley and who seems to have his eye on her. But what of the poor baker’s boy who once took a beating to save her life?

Read here on Tumblr or on my AO3 account: izzacrosswriting

Author’s Note: 

This is a story inspired by my love of Everlark and Jane Austen’s novels. I am in no way an expert on the Regency period and I include fashions/details that are not historically accurate.

The setting is an alternate England-like Panem.

The plot is my own (Gale is not Mr. Darcy people, don’t get it twisted) but does borrow aesthetics and ideas directly from Jane Austen and Suzanne Collins.

The cast of characters is a mix of canon Hunger Games and original characters I’ve created.

I plan on including links to music and ambiance videos I used while writing so feel free to explore those! I typically play nature sounds and music together on my laptop so sorry if you're reading on a phone!

Warning: I do plan on this series getting a lil smutty. There will be graphic depictions of violence, sex, and possibly death. I’m still working everything out:)

Nature ambiance(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9uyQI3pF0&t=1694s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjUhZ1Yy7Y

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cc9ofwF-e4

(If you want to listen to this on Spotify it's called 'The Secret Life of Daydreams' from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack.)

Word Count: 1,727

Chapter One

I run my hands through the tall grasses at my waist. It’s the perfect morning. The crisp air doesn’t quite hold that harsh bite of winter that will soon sweep the countryside in blizzards and ice. Emerald leaves hint at the coming autumn with the slightest tint of yellow along their stems. The sun shines bright through branches and I watch the forest come alive with squirrels and chipmunks that scurry through the thick brush. The dirt path I followed to get here grazes the edge of the woods, but I’ve abandoned it to traipse through the wild-flower dotted hillsides instead. 

From this high up, I can see everything. The village of Whitley lies to the west. I can just make out the rooftops of the squat brick buildings off the main square. By this time the merchants will have opened their shops for business. The rest of the countryside is peppered with grand estates and bountiful farmland. Rivers gleam like veins of silver and dirt roads are wreathed in the dust kicked up by horse-drawn carriages. I wish I could stay and sit here all day. I would drink in the sun and drown in the low hum of insects, though Haymitch has warned me of the nasty gossip that follows a lady with a tan and a set of freckles. 

A lady. I almost snort. Apparently, that’s what I am. Or what I need to be if anyone is ever going to ask for my hand in marriage. The thought ruins the good mood my morning stroll had put me in. I throw myself down among the tall grasses and begin plucking mindlessly at their stems. 

Haymitch Abernathy, the legal guardian of me and my sister, has never been one to force us into doing things we dislike. I’m allowed to ride my horse alone, hunt with a bow and arrow, and take off into the woods whenever I please, like some woodland nymph from one of my father’s old stories. If it wasn’t for Prim and my greenhouse back at home I would probably live out here. Until it got cold of course. I’m allowed more freedom than any other young girl in the county, I’m sure. But not even Haymitch can protect me from matrimony. 

My sister is excited for me. I imagine she’s fantasized about her wedding since she knew what a wedding was. To her, marriage is a romantic fairytale. A strong, handsome man of large fortune will sweep her off her feet and give her an estate to run and small, cherub-faced children to care for. To me, marriage sounds like a death sentence. They say if I’m lucky, I’ll marry for love as well as for fortune, but I never want to love someone as much as my mother loved my father. Because when he died, in a way, so did she. The only person I know that I truly love is Prim. 

Primrose Everdeen, my little sister, was never the outdoorsy type like me. She’s fair, with golden blonde hair that hangs in ringlets past her slight shoulders, and a face as fresh and as pure as a spring dewdrop. She spends her days drawing, flower arranging, and studying languages with my old tutor Mrs. Winthrop. 

“She’ll be a highly accomplished woman by the time I’m done with her. Mark my words, this young girl is special,” Mrs. Winthrop had said to Haymitch mere days after first starting Prim’s lessons. She had been my tutor for years and had never said anything nearly as flattering about me. Sullen Katniss Everdeen must have been a lost cause in her eyes. 

I’m four years older than Prim who’s a mere twelve. We share the same parents, though we look almost nothing alike. Where she received the fair skin, blonde curls, and gentle blue eyes of our mother, I received the olive-toned, straight black, and storm grey palette of our father. 

I sit up suddenly, aware that I left home hours ago and it must be getting time for my lessons. I dread heading back to that stuffy room where I’m required to sit straight and learn to be “lady-like” under the scrutinizing gaze of Ms. Effie Trinket, my new tutor. Manners are of the utmost importance to her, seeing as she makes her living off of teaching them. She considers being late an unforgivable sin. 

With this in mind, I take my time gathering wild-flowers. There are so many at my feet, their delicate white and yellow petals peeking up amongst the grasses. I deftly craft two flower chains. One for me, which I place on the crown of my head, and one for Prim clutched in my hands. I notice some dirt under my nails and smile, wondering what Effie will say when I arrive late and grimy. 

She purses her lips and crosses her arms as I enter the room. “Where were you?” She demands in that high pitched voice of hers. 

“Out,” I shrug. I hadn’t seen Prim on my way in so I’m still clutching her flower crown. I offer it to Effie instead. “Flowers?” She squints at my offering, probably checking for bugs, before gingerly taking it and placing it down on a side table. 

“Katniss, I need you to take today’s lesson seriously.” Her clipped tone sets my teeth on edge.

“I always do-” I start, but Effie cuts me off. 

“Don’t lie to me, Katniss. I know you don’t care for etiquette. I know that to you a spoon is just a spoon, even when that spoon is a soup spoon and should only be used for soup!” 

Again with the soup spoon thing, it was one time. But she’s right. I find learning manners and etiquette a waste of time. I’ve only been out in society for a short while. I barely attend balls seeing as I’m sixteen and prefer to stay at home anyway. I look up and realize that Effie is still talking at me.

“Are you even listening? Mrs. Winthrop was right, you are hopeless.” She sighs and wipes non-existent dust off of her shimmery lilac skirts. “It is imperative that you start paying attention and make some kind of progress in these lessons. Mr. Gale Hawthorne has recently taken possession of Templeton and is traveling here, as we speak, to take up residence indefinitely. Do you know what this could mean for you?” Suddenly, her annoyance melts away and is replaced by a teary, almost hopeful expression. The way this woman’s emotions swing back and forth between happy and exasperated hurts my head. She comes to clasp my face between her palms. “Mr. Hawthorne earns ten thousand a year, Katniss. Ten thousand!” 

I have in fact heard of the Hawthornes. Maybe those lessons have had more of an impact on me than I thought. I was forced to spend months poring over books filled with the names and family trees of wealthy, well-known families that I had either already been acquainted with or might be acquainted with in the future. A healthy knowledge of people, especially rich people, will get you far in life. At least that’s what Effie says. 

Gale Hawthorne is the eldest son of the wealthy businessman Ezra Hawthorne. I forget exactly how Mr. Hawthorne first made his fortune but the word mine sticks around in my head. What his mine produced, I’m not sure. Precious gems? Gold? Coal? All I know is the Hawthornes are incredibly wealthy, and Gale being the eldest son inherited when his father died. He is in possession of everything from the family fortune to a legion of servants to the many extravagant houses in Town. Now it seems he’s grown tired with the city and has decided to try his hand at country living. Good, I think. A wealthy man who’s used to the high society of the Capitol won’t last long out here. He’ll be out of my hair before the month’s up. Effie must not realize this since she’s still staring happily into my face. 

“And?” I ask.

“Well, he’ll fall in love with you and ask for your hand in marriage!” She beams as if this is obvious. “If you play your cards right of course. For instance, he won’t find you very agreeable if all you do is scowl at him like you do me-” I jerk out of her grasp. 

Of course. Marriage. It’s one of the only things Effie has talked about the entire time I’ve been her pupil. 

“Yes, Mr. Abernathy warned me that'd you'd be. . .avoidant. But don’t you see? That’s the reason I’m here. To teach you how to win a husband! It’s an art you know.” She sighs, probably seeing the panicked look on my face, and slips back into a tone of tired annoyance. “You’ll have to marry someone, Katniss. Might as well marry knowing you’ll spend the rest of your life in the lap of luxury.”

She’s right, of course. There’s no way for women to make their own living. I can’t go to university to study business or law, I can’t run my own shop, I can’t inherit Haymitch’s estate or fortune. When he dies the money goes to some estranged cousin on his father’s side. I am a woman, therefore, I am destined to either marry or die poor and unprotected. And Prim…

If I don’t marry, then Prim can’t marry. One of the rules of proper Panem society is that a younger sibling cannot marry unless the eldest has, meaning I must be happily settled before my younger sister can even entertain the idea of love. If I don’t get married and Haymitch goes and does something stupid like die, there will be nothing I can do. For either of us. We’d be turned out of the house and left to beg for scraps. And I will not let that happen to Prim. Not again. 

I force myself to swallow past the lump in my throat and spend the rest of the afternoon paying careful attention to Effie. She’s trying to teach me to communicate with men via body language, long gazes, and the fluttering of lashes. 

This is the only way to save Prim, and with each horrible flutter I produce and each disappointed sigh from Effie, I feel my chances slipping away.

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

Okay!!! Desperate for twinyards :D!!! Will Aaron ever found out that erin takes care of him when he is drunk? And will he find out that Aaron cares for him and will there ever be a point where the things he said when he is drunk would be said when be isnt? Gosh im such trash for your fem!andreil

I’m so sorry these asks keep taking so long! They take me thirty years to get to and then they turn out really bad. One day I’ll start creating quality content. Until then, have this. 

In honor of Spoopy Month, it’s Halloween themed!!!!! (I borrowed a big chunk of it from my canon compliant fic Love of my Life but I just really like that part of the story. Sorry :))

“I never thought Crowley and Aziraphale would ever return to Eden,” Ronnie said as the Monsters made their way to the bar. Ania smiled. Erin scowled. “Aw don’t scowl at me like that, Angel.” Ronnie barely dodged the heels Erin chucked at her. With a broad smile, Ronnie turned her attention to Aaron. “I’m sorely disappointed to see that you’re not the Archangel Micheal.” Aaron glared at her but his annoyance didn’t last. 

Aaron could never stay mad at Ronnie for long. For the longest time, Ronnie had been the only ray of sunshine in Aaron’s dreary life. The middle child and only daughter of a rich widower, Ronnie was free to do as she pleased while her father groomed her brothers to inherit his fortune. Having four brothers would be more than enough for most people but Ronnie hadn’t hesitated to adopt Aaron into her little band of miscreants. In the years before Erin’s arrival, it was Ronnie (and at times, her brothers) that had been looking out for Aaron. She was just as much his sister as Erin was. That was what made their relationship so hard for him to wrap his head around. He’d given up trying to make sense of how they could have gone behind his back like that long ago but on nights out at Eden’s he couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. 

“Earth to Mikey,” Ronnie said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Come on, we’re toasting you’re little cheerleader. To Katelyn,” Ronnie cried as she raised her own shot. “For breathing -or maybe blowing- some life into Aaron!” Aaron shrieked at the crude joke as his family laughed, downing their shots. Aaron’s brain short-circuited at the sight of Erin downing her shot to the toast. She just wants to drink, Aaron told himself as he regained control of his thoughts. Curling himself into his shoulders, he stood apart as Ronnie caught up with the others.

“Aaron,” Josten said as she nudged his foot with her boot. “Erin said to grab a table.” Aaron nodded and headed off to search for one. Despite the pounding music, he heard Josten following him. He risked a backward glance only to find her watching him. He growled but Josten’s face remained blank. She’s been spending too much time with Eri, he thought as he went back to shouldering his way through the crowd. Finally, he found a table in the back of the club with just enough chairs for them. Without hesitating, he sank into one only to find it covered in something sticky and white. 

“Oh Hell no,” he screamed as he leaped up. Josten peered over at his seat before doubling over in a fit of laughter. “Fuck off, Josten.” He snatched the paper towels she offered him out of her hands and did his best to clean himself off before kicking over the chair. 

“I see temper tantrums run in the family,” Josten remarked. Aaron looked over at her. She was staring out across the dancefloor, a soft smile on her face. Following her gaze, he spotted Erin flickering in and out of view from where she still stood at the bar. A pang shot through his chest. Ania looked at Erin the same way Erik looked at Nicky- the same way Katelyn looked at him. 

“Damn you, Josten,” he said, more to himself than her. 

“I’m already damned,” she replied anyway. “I’m damned to spend the rest of eternity in love with your sister but if that isn’t damnation at its best, I don’t know what is.”

The world tilted beneath Aaron’s feet. Love. Ania had said she loved his sister. His Erin. His Little Doe. Tears spilled from Aaron’s eyes. “If you hurt her…” he said, his voice breaking before trailing off entirely as he gulped for air. 

“She’ll kill me herself,” Ania answered easily. She reached a hand out and carefully wiped a tear from his face. “Don’t cry. Eri’ll skin me alive if you do.” 

“Does she even care?” he asked. Aaron tried to smile as he asked it but he knew it came out as more of a grimace than a smile. A wave of sadness crashed down over him at the sound of his own words. 

"Of course she cares, you cracked walnut," Josten snapped. As the strobing lights passed over her countenance Aaron could see the fury on her face. "I've only known her a year. You've known her for three? Four? How the hell can you not-" Josten stopped short. "It's because you're always drunk," she said quietly. 

"No. That's Kevin," Aaron said. 

"Whenever we're here. Whenever we go home, you're too drunk to remember." 

"Remember what?" 

Josten worried her lower lip, weighing her words "Don't drink tonight." She clamped a hand over his mouth before he could protest. "Trust me. You'll see."

"Trust a liar?" 

"I wouldn't lie about Erin." It sickened Aaron to know she was telling the truth. For the remainder of the night, to Kevin's delight, Aaron discreetly pawned his drinks off to him. Where Erin excelled at faking the drug-induced mania she’d lived with for the last two years, Aaron excelled at faking a drunken stupor. Or at least, he usually did. Keeping up the act was much harder than Aaron anticipated. He was far too preoccupied keeping an eye on his sister to fully concentrate. A few rounds in, he gave up watching her in favor of retreating to the dance floor. At least there, he wouldn’t be under her constant scrutiny. 

He was wrong. Each time the crowd parted enough for him to have a clear view of the ledge where he’d left them, he found Erin’s eyes trained on him. No matter where he went or what he did, she was watching him. Beads of sweat formed along his forehead. Had she seen through his ruse? Did she know he was faking? 

There was nothing Aaron could do now but pray. He passed the remainder of the night on the floor with Nicky. Around 11:50, Ronnie called out for the final round. Josten was by Aaron’s side in an instant. 

“Throw your legs onto Nicky’s lap in the car. And talk to Kevin about something- anything. Make him laugh.” Aaron broke his facade to shoot a confused look at her. “Just do it,” Josten pleaded. Aaron ground his teeth together as he considered his options. After a moment he gave her a sharp nod and made his way over to the counter with her to collect the final round. 

In the car ride home, Aaron did as he was told. He threw his legs over Nicky’s and leaned heavily against Kevin. Kevin wrapped an arm around Aaron, who tensed immediately. Kevin Day was not known for his compassion nor for his affection. Catching the warning look Josten shot him as she buckled her seatbelt, he forced himself to relax. For once in his life, Kevin wasn’t talking about Exy. Instead, he was giving a lecture on the unabridged history of the LGBT community. Aaron tentatively slid his own commentary into the lesson. To his relief, both Kevin and Nicky laughed. He choked on the soda he was drinking when he saw the upward curl of Erin’s lips in the dashboard mirror. 

Nicky got out of the car first as it rolled to a stop on the drive. He toppled face-first into the grass and laughter burst out of Aaron. He felt something pressing at his back and before he knew it, he toppled out of the car too.

“You drunk bastard,” Erin said. Aaron’s heart stopped as he rolled onto his back. Erin was standing over him, a brilliant grin plastered to her face. “That’s what you get for drinking so much” She bent down and scooped him up in an easy, obviously practiced, motion. Aaron was too shocked to say a word. 

 Aaron was suddenly thirteen again. He was sitting curled up on his mother’s bed with the handset pressed to his ear. A woman's voice drifted through it. She was talking about a girl named Erin. The woman was gushing about how happy she was to have found Erin’s birth mother, and her brother too. Brother, Aaron thought. He felt his heart racing in his ribcage. I’m- I’m a brother! A twin brother! Aaron had been over the moon at the very thought of meeting his sister. 

        The voice of his mother sent him crashing back down to earth. She hissed at the woman to keep her fat mouth shut. She didn't want to know anything about Erin. She wanted nothing to do with her and she certainly did not want Aaron seeing her again either. She slammed the phone down so hard that Aaron jerked the phone away from his face. Silently, returned the phone to its cradle and crawled back to his own room. Drawing his legs in, he tried to hold in his grief. Hot tears streaked down his face as his shoulders shook. Anger coursed through his veins. Clenching his jaw, he unfurled himself and stalked into the kitchen. He grabbed a notebook and pen from the kitchen and ran out of the house. He raced down the block to the park. Seated at one of the picnic tables, his pen flew across the page. He wasn't quite sure what he'd written, only that he had to send it before his mother ever found out. He stopped by the fountain on his way out of the park. He would need money to send the letter. With a grimace, he peeled his shoes and socks off. Wading through the fountain, he collected every penny, nickel, and dime he could find. This isn't stealing, he told himself. They threw their money in here. Even if it is, it doesn't matter. This is for my sister. This is for Erin.

        Every day for the next two weeks, Aaron checked the mail in the hopes of finding a response to his own letter. When it came, Aaron nearly had a heart attack on the spot. He sat down on the steps in front of the house. With shaking fingers, he carefully opened the letter. A brilliant smile plastered itself across his face when he saw the chicken scratch that filled the page. It looked just like his own handwriting. Unfortunately, his smile had been quick to fade. Erin had only written back to tell Aaron that she didn’t want him around. She was more than happy to remain with Cassidy and her new brother, Drake. Aaron grabbed desperately at his chest. It felt as though some hand had forced its way into his ribcage and ripped his heart out.  New brother, Drake. Tears fell onto the page. Ink ran, blurring the words into one another. Aaron ripped up the remnants of the letter up and hurled them in the bin. He collapsed on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Great, he thought. Fucking great. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone. I hope I never meet Erin or her new brother Drake.

But Aaron had. He had been sat down across from her in a juvenile detention facility, three feet away from her, separated by a four-inch pane of bulletproof glass. Looking at Erin was like looking through a funhouse mirror, it was him but something wasn’t quite right. Sure, Erin’s hair was longer than his, ending harshly at the edges of her jaw and she had a few more moles than he did but that wasn’t it. Maybe it was the seemingly permanent downwards tug of her lips. Maybe it was the bold set of her shoulders that exuded a confidence Aaron could only dream of.  

Maybe it was her eyes. They were the same brown as his but where his were full of pain and fear, hers were empty. Two empty pits stared back at him from across the table. The glass may have been designed to protect him from Erin’s fists but it did nothing to save him from her eyes. So empty. So soulless. Aaron had once heard that there had been a time when people had refused to take photos for fear that they stole the souls of the photographed. At the time, Aaron had scoffed at the people for being so stupid. Now, Aaron understood. Sitting before his sister, he feared that if he stared too long into her eyes, she might steal his to replace the one she lacked. They were so cold. So empty. So loveless. On the plane back from Cali, Aaron closed his eyes only to find his sister engraved on the back of his lids. 

Back in Columbia, Aaron stood before Nicky’s full-length mirror. He’d tugged a skull cap down over his head. His bangs poked out from beneath, matching Erin’s to a T. He blinked and it really was Erin staring back at him in the mirror. Reaching a hand out, he traced a finger down her cheek. Her cold eyes stared back at him and realized why he couldn’t look directly at them. They were their mother’s eyes. When Tilda Minyard wasn’t drunk or high, she was empty. 

There wasn’t very much Aaron knew about his father other than the fact that his mother had eloped with him once she’d learned of her pregnancy. Tilda was three and a half months pregnant when Micheal Minyard died in a car crash. Depression coaxed Tilda back into old habits that Micheal had helped her break. She began drinking and chain-smoking despite the twins she bore within her. Both twins were born with fetal alcohol syndrome, manifesting in their stunted growth, ADHD, and Aaron’s dyslexia. Erin had developed a nicotine addiction as well.  It wasn’t until after Aaron had found out about his twin that Tilda had told him this. 

“I didn’t even want you,” Tilda mused as she took another swig from her whiskey bottle. “I wanted Erin but your names sound so similar that the shitty ass nurse fucked up and gave me the wrong one. You never stood a chance with me,” she said. “I was never going to love you.” Tilda swung the bottle at the side of Aaron’s head. It connected with his skull and rattled his brain but it wasn’t enough to dislodge the words from it. 

Aaron pressed his forehead up to the mirror. Up to Erin’s forehead. 

“Do you know why Mom doesn’t love us?” he whispered. “It’s because no one loved her. No one but Dad but he’s long gone. It’s his fault, you know? Luther’s, I mean. Mom is the way she is because her own brother didn’t love her enough. He didn’t love her enough to let her stay once she got pregnant. He didn’t love her enough to help her take care of us. He didn’t love her enough to protect you.” Tears slid down Aaron’s face as his grip on the mirror’s frame tightened. “Luther might not have loved his sister, but I’ll love you til the day I die.” Looking in the mirror, Aaron saw himself again but it wasn’t the same Aaron he’d grown accustomed to seeing. This one had fire. This one had fight. This one would protect his sister, no matter the cost. This one was going to save his sister from devolving into the monster their mother had become. 

That Aaron failed. Erin was just as cold and empty as their mother had been. That Aaron failed. Erin was forced to face Drake all on her own. Every night, he lay awake wondering what horrors his sister faced behind the pristine white walls of Easthaven. No amount of kisses and cuddles from Katelyn were enough to bury the weight of Aaron’s broken promise. Guilt and regret intertwined, winding around Aaron and choking the life out of him. He broke down constantly, reduced to a sobbing mess by the weight of his woes. 

Aaron loved his sister more than life itself. Erin was indifferent to him. Upon her return from Evermore, she hadn’t even spared him a passing glance. Instead, she’d fixated upon the child Josten had brought home. Aaron had never expected his sister to fawn over him. It wasn’t in her nature. Or so he had thought. It was because of this that Aaron couldn’t help the spike of jealousy that shot through him as he watched his sister’s shoulders soften when she held the baby. He could barely contain the scowl he felt tugging at his lips as Erin brushed her lips against the backs of Cleo’s hands.

  Cradling Cleo close he asked her, “What makes you so special? I know why Erin lets Ania have what she wants but what about you? You’re just a baby. I’m her brother. Am I not good enough for her?” Tears splashed down onto Cleo’s face and he hurried to wipe them off of her. As he did, he felt Cleo’s tiny hand wrap around his little finger. It was just barely big enough to encircle the single finger. “Oh,” he said. “That’s why.” He sat down on the couch and lay Cleo in his lap. She looked up at him curiously before her face split into a wide grin. “No wonder Mom wanted a daughter.” Cleo babbled at him and he chuckled softly. “You’re right. Maybe Luther was jealous too. I won’t be like him,” he swore again. “I’m not going to abandon Erin. Or you either.” 

Aaron loved his sister more than life itself. If Josten made her happy, then so be it. If Cleo was the one she showered with love, then fine. But a small part of him wasn’t fine. Erin didn’t love him. His sister, his own flesh and blood, didn’t love him. It left a hole in his heart, one that even Katelyn couldn’t fill. Aaron hadn’t known what he’d have to give up to Katelyn but what he did was far worse than anything he could have imagined. There weren’t enough words in any language to express the anguish that washed over Aaron when Erin had picked Ania over him. He’d used Josten as bait for Erin to break her promise but a small part of him had wanted her to refuse. He’d wanted Erin to pick him over her. He’d wanted Erin to do the unthinkable and tell him that she loved him more than she wanted Ania. He’d wanted her to wrap her arms around him and hold him close. 

He wanted her to hold him the way she held him now as she carried him to the front door. Josten was already unlocking the door. She turned at the sound of Erin’s footsteps. A bright smile of her own burst out across her face. 

“Shut up, Ania,” Erin swore. 

“Haven’t said a thing,” Josten replied. She pushed open the door and let Erin pass. “Erin?” she asked as she followed them into the house. “Why do you only do these things when Aaron’s drunk?” To anyone else, it may have seemed like an innocent question. To Erin though? Getting anything from her was like pulling teeth. For half a second, Aaron didn’t expect her to answer. Then he remembered that it was Josten asking not him. A pang of bitterness pierced his heart as he felt his sister’s chest swell at the intake of a breath. 

“Because he’s nice to me,” she said. Aaron’s head jerked up but Erin wasn’t paying attention. She’d stopped walking. Her eyes were trained on a spot on the wall. “After I killed Tilda, he stopped talking to me entirely. Aaron loved Tilda, even if she didn’t deserve to be loved, and I took her away. I hate when you say you’re fine because that’s what I told myself whenever he ignored me. I told myself that I didn’t care. I did. Aaron’s favorite color is navy blue. Half of my closet is navy blue. Aaron’s favorite song is Young Blood. It’s on every one of my cassette tapes in the car. I hate cool ranch chips but I buy three bags every time I go to the store because Aaron loves them. Tilda didn’t deserve Aaron’s love but he loved her anyway. I don’t deserve Aaron’s love either. I-” A shaky breath rattled through Erin. “I just wanted him to love me too.” 

“I do,” Aaron blurted out. Erin snapped out of her trance at the sound of his voice. 

“You’re not drunk,” she said. Her voice was dangerously quiet. Her eyes were dark and stony but this time Aaron didn’t look away. The longer he stared, the more apparent it was to him that they weren’t empty. Staring into them, he saw something flickering deep down inside.  

The truth about cameras is that they don’t steal your soul. They show you yours. No matter how perfect a picture may seem to others when a person looked too hard at their own, they saw what lurked beneath. It wasn’t that Erin had their mother’s eyes. It was that she had his. When Aaron looked too hard at his sister’s eyes, he saw too much of himself. He saw the sad, empty creature he’d become. He saw the defeated, lonely creature he still was. Most people hailed Aaron as ‘the normal twin’, the Dr. Jekyll to her Mr. Hyde. No one realized how wrong they were. 

Erin was a fatalist at heart. To her, everything, every single thing, was predetermined. If the world believed her to be a monster, then that was what she’d be. She played her part and lived exactly the way people thought she would. It was all an act though. Behind every one of Erin’s monstrous acts, was a lonely little girl trying her hardest not to get left behind again. 

Unlike his sister, Aaron didn’t believe in fate. Every man made his own way in life, no matter the circumstances he faced to make it there. If that was true, then didn’t that make Aaron responsible for all the things that he’d done? Growing up, Aaron had done many things he wasn’t proud of. It didn’t matter who suffered so long as it wasn’t Aaron. If there was no fate, then wasn’t Aaron responsible for all the people he’d hurt? It wasn’t Erin who was a monster. It was him. When Aaron looked too hard at his sister’s eyes, he was forced to face the monster he had become and it scared him. 

Aaron felt the support go out from under him and he hit the floor, hard. Erin spun on her heel and shoved past Josten. Neither of them moved until they heard the door to her bedroom slam shut. 

“I told you so,” Josten whispered. There were tears shining in her eyes. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she asked herself. 

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked. 

“I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone about this and now… she’ll never trust me again.” Her voice broke. 

“Ania-”

“Don’t, Aaron.” She turned on her heel and marched out of the house, nearly knocking over Kevin who was dragging Nicky in. 

“What the hell have you done to her?” Kevin snarled. Just the sight of a teary-eyed Josten was enough to sober him up. He abandoned Nicky and closed the space between himself and Aaron in the blink of an eye. Balling his fist in Aaron’s shirt, he shoved him against the wall. “I’m not asking again, Aaron.” This is what a brother should be, Aaron thought.

When Ania first arrived at Palmetto a year ago, she and Kevin were always at odds. No matter what she did, it was never enough for him. But that was because he knew she could be better. Nicky had made the mistake of mocking her once and Kevin and slammed him against the wall just as he held Aaron now. Erin intervened quickly, breaking them apart with a poisonous smile and a flash of steel but one thing remained:  Kevin Day, a man afraid of his own shadow, hadn’t hesitated to square up the second someone dissed Ania. And that was before he’d found out who she really was.

Kevin and Ania weren’t bound by blood the way the twins were. They’d chosen each other. Ania had chosen to follow Kevin out to Palmetto and Kevin had chosen to have her back. But hadn’t the twins done the same thing? Erin chose to move to Columbia and Aaron had chosen to protect her. Why had they failed where Kevin and Ania had succeeded? The two of them were just as broken as the twins. In fact, they were worse. Ania had lived her life in the shadows, jumping ship the second anyone started to get too close. Kevin had lived his life in the limelight, denied anything even resembling a friend. 

Even without knowing her, Kevin had looked upon the wretched creature that had been Ania Josten and wanted to offer her a future. He had wanted to offer her something to live for. Kevin would never be able to love Ania the way she needed to be but he wanted to give her the chance at a life where she could find someone who could. 

And he did. Kevin brought Ania to Palmetto and gave her a reason to keep going. He brought her to Erin, someone who could care for her the way she needed to be cared for. But what had Aaron done for his sister? He’d pushed her away the second things got hard. He’d denied her of the love he’d promised himself he’d give. He’d made her lonely. 

“How?” he croaked. “How do you do it?” Kevin frowned and his grip loosened.

“How what?” he asked.

“How do you always know what Ania needs?” Aaron had seen the way Ania ran to Kevin the second things fell apart. Too many times, he’d come back to the dorms to find her breaking down in Kevin’s arms. Each time he’d watched Kevin swaddle her shaking form in blankets and offer her things: a cassette player with only one tape, a bowl of vanilla ice cream drowning in chocolate syrup, his laptop with an exy game already loaded. 

During Erin’s time at Easthaven, Aaron had found himself craving the smell of cigarette smoke. He wasn’t a smoker but the smell reminded him of Erin. One night, he finally caved and dragged himself to the corner store. He returned with a pack of cigarettes and another pint of strawberry ice cream. Every time Aaron passed by the corner store, he picked one up. He never ate a single one, though. Opening the fridge door, he realized there wasn’t any space left. Every inch of his fridge was filled with pints of strawberry ice cream. 

It should be empty. The fridge should be empty. His breath came in short, ragged gasps. Aaron didn’t know when the tears started or how long he’d stayed knelt in front of the open fridge, only that Ania kicked it closed before sitting down on top of it. 

“There isn’t enough strawberry ice cream in the world to fix her,” she said. She handed him a tissue box and waited for him to blow his nose.

“Then what will?’ he asked. 

“That’s for you to figure out,” Ania said before unplugging the fridge. That was what Kevin said before he let go of Aaron entirely. With that, he left Aaron alone in the kitchen so he could lug Nicky up to his own room. 

Aaron sat heavily in one of the dining room chairs, picking at the table mats. It was early the next morning when he finally decided what to do. Actually, he didn’t decide. He just kind of stood up and started for the stairs. He didn’t even remember taking a single step. One moment he was at the kitchen table, the next he was standing in front of Erin’s door. He reached a hand out, tracing the letters on the door. The memory hit Aaron like a train. 

It had been a week after Erin had arrived in Columbia. Aaron’s name was already on the door and he had wanted to add hers to it too. Ever since he’d been old enough, Aaron had been working part-time just to keep himself and Tilda fed. In the months before Erin was set to come home, he’d picked up extra shifts to scrounge up the money he needed. With it, it went to the crafts store in the rich part of town. He picked out the four letters he needed and bought the highest quality paints he could find. On Friday, after practice, he’d broken into their mother’s liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels. Downing a swig, he found the courage to present his haul to Erin. It took some coaxing but he managed to convince her to sit on the floor with him on a pile of newspapers. Together the two of them painted the wooden letters black. Once they were dry, Aaron watched as his sister painted constellations onto them. 

“What’s that one?” he asked.

“Gemini,” she replied. 

“Astrology,” Aaron said as he crinkled his nose in disgust. Erin glanced at him, her lips just barely curling up. 

“Have you ever heard the story of Pollux and Castor?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

“They were two brothers, twins, from Greek Mythology. They did everything together,” Erin said softly. “The two of them couldn’t live without each other. So, when Castor lay dying, Pollux called out to his father for help. Zeus saw his son’s pain and offered him a way to save his brother. Zeus offered Pollux the ability to share his immortality with his brother. Doing so would mean that neither of them could live normal lives again. They would no longer live here on Earth and they’d only have each other as company. Pollux agreed immediately. To him, his brother was more important than anything else in the world. So, Zeus turned the brothers into stars. Together, the two of them live side by side in the sky.”

“Wouldn’t you get lonely if you had only one person to talk to?” Aaron asked. 

“Not if it was you,” Erin replied. With that, she picked up the letters and moved them to the desk beneath the window. The two of them climbed into their respective beds and fell asleep. 

Aaron took a deep breath and knocked softly at his sister’s door. He stood there, his heart hammering in his chest. What if she didn’t answer? Aaron took a deep breath. He’d just try again later. Ania was right. What they’d done tonight had betrayed a great deal of Erin’s trust in them. If she didn’t answer, it was because he’d hurt her, just like he always did when he was sober. Aaron leaned his forehead against the door. “I’m sorry, Eri,” he whispered. Just then the door opened and Aaron toppled forward again. Erin neatly sidestepped his falling form but caught him with an outstretched arm. “Eri-” he began. He stopped short, realizing he didn’t know what to say.

Erin gave up waiting for him. She righted him and stepped back. Aaron took it as an invitation and entered her room. Aaron had never been inside his sister’s room. In the pale glow of the first rays of sunlight, he saw the dead roses suspended from her ceiling. A thousand photos covered the surface of the mirror. Upon closer inspection, he found that they were pictures of the Monsters. There was one of Nicky smiling brighter than the sun as Erik pressed a kiss to his cheek. There was one of Aaron shoving Matt, the two of them smiling. There was one of Wymack with his head resting on Abby’s shoulder. There was one of Bee dressed up as a bumblebee. There were a lot of photos of Ania. One of them had been kissed with black lipstick. Erin was the only Fox that owned black lipstick. As Aaron inspected them he was aware of Erin at his back. 

“There aren’t any with us in it,” he said as he dragged his fingers over them.

“Yes, there is.” Erin wrapped her hand around his wrist and guided it to one all the way in the bottom corner. Its sides were crinkled from being taken out and replaced too many times. There was a fold down the center from when it was been folded in half, probably placed between the folds of a book. 

It was a photo featuring a pair of babies. Both of them had wispy blonde hair, most of which had been tucked beneath a little beanie. They were dressed in matching white onesies patterned with little sharks. They were two perfect, identical little babies. Erin laced her fingers through Aaron’s and he suddenly saw it. The two babies were holding hands too. Eyes closed, unable to even see one another, they had taken hold of each other’s hands. Babies didn’t have much strength, but the two of them were clinging to one another like their lives depended on it.  

 “Eri-” he croaked. 

“Yes or no?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said. Erin turned him to face her. She wrapped an arm around him and drew him close. Tentatively, he wrapped his own arms around her. “Erin?” he asked softly. She pulled back just enough to look at him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t better.”

“You were the best,” she said. “You still are.” For once, Erin’s eyes weren’t empty or angry. Instead, they were hard. Resolute. If anyone else had said it, Aaron wouldn’t have believed it. Erin wasn’t a liar. Every word she said, she meant. 

“I can be better,” he offered. He watched as she worked her jaw, searching for what to say. 

“I think I can be, too,” she said. Time seemed to stop. Aaron watched as the smallest of smiles tinged his sister’s lips. The rays of the rising sun filtered through Erin’s thick curtains, illuminating the fading freckles that danced across her face, forming constellations of their own. It turned her pale hair, bound in a messy bun atop her head, into a halo of pure gold. Erin might have been dressed as an angel last night, but she looked more like one now than she had then.

[fluffy-marshmallow-heart]

Drake's Diary ch.27 -Cheers To Lady Emma

The Royal Romance canon from Drake's POV

Words: 5325

Tariq is found, and the court learns the truth of what happened in Applewood.

Master List (Catch Up Here)

Drake is standing near a large stained-glass window at the UN party sipping a glass of whiskey and wondering why Emma hasn’t arrived yet. Looking around, he saw all the usual suspects. Liam, Hana, Olivia, Kiara, Penelope, and Madeleine. He’s scanning the crowd for Maxwell now, assuming Emma will arrive with him, when suddenly, he arrives at Drake’s side and then proceeds to dive behind him as if for shelter.

“What the hell are you doing?” Drake demanded.

“Hide me, Drake, please, I’m such an idiot, I cannot believe what just happened. If Bertrand were here, he would absolutely kill me! Please don’t tell anyone what just happened!!”

  “Maxwell…I literally have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you feeling okay?”

Maxwell groaned. “No. Actually, I think I may be sick.”

Drake immediately side-stepped, leaving him out in the open, turning his head as the click of heels approached.

“Emma, thank goodness you’re here!” Maxwell exclaimed, now trying to hide behind her.

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s suspicious…What did you do?”

Drake chuckled at her reaction, finding it hilarious how well she knew everyone.

Maxwell groaned. “I got my flags mixed up and thought Finland was Sweden, Sweden was Norway, Norway was Iceland, Iceland was Denmark, and Denmark was Sweden.”

Drake let out a laugh now, drawing looks from passersbys. “He addressed all the delegations incorrectly, including Sweden. Twice.”

Maxwell lowered his head. “I was guessing by that point. Now they’ve been arguing for the past hour over disputes going back to something called the Kalmar Union…I just wanted to say hello.”

Emma placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Maxwell…these things only happen to you. How about you, Drake? Caused any diplomatic disasters?”

“That would require me to talk to a diplomat. Do you have any idea how boring they are, Rose?”

“Ahh. Let me guess, you’re just here for the food?” She teased

“And the open bar.” He raised his glass towards her before taking a sip.

“I should have guessed” She smirked.

He couldn’t help but grin at her. “You know me so well. But what are you doing with us? Aren’t you supposed to be doing courtly stuff like winning friends and influencing people?”

Not that I want you to. I want you to stay by my side all night.

She sighed. “Actually, I’m supposed to impress Adelaide tonight. Got any hot tips?”

Drake thought a moment. “If I know anything about Adelaide, it’s that she likes a stiff drink…and Maxwell.”

Maxwell frowned. “She’s always making me dance with her…Maybe I could get a break this time?”

Drake shrugged. “Then I say focus on her other vices. She’ll certainly respect you if you can go drink-for-drink with her. Show her you know how to have a good time.”

“Yeah, and everyone knows she’s the biggest gossip at court.” Maxwell informed.

Emma nodded slowly. “So…alcohol and gossip? That’s…refreshingly simple, actually.”

“That’s the spirit! You’ve got this all by yourself without my help at all!” Maxwell cried happily.

Emma winks at him. “Don’t worry, Maxwell. I won’t tell her where you are.”

Drake nodded towards the bar, “Speaking of, I see her. She’s over by the bar, alone. Now’s your chance.”

“Go get ‘em tiger! Grrrr!” Maxwell made clawing movements with his hands as Emma gave him an odd look before walking away.

Drake turned back to Maxwell. “Feeling any better yet?”

“Actually…” He pointed over towards the buffet. “I see bruschetta! I’m out.” He practically ran over to the food, leaving Drake alone once more. He watches as Maxwell attempts to toss a piece of bruschetta in the air without losing the toppings and then catch it in his mouth…But instead hit a Turkish ambassador in the face…He couldn’t help but laugh to himself on the inside as Maxwell turned bright red, clearly flustered, and speed walked over to a little alcove, almost completely hidden from view. A moment later, Emma joined him and Drake could see amusement written all over her face. Not even a minute later, Emma’s hand flew to cover her mouth and then they were both running out the door.

What the hell just happened? Where are they going? Didn’t even say goodbye?? This literally makes no sense. Something’s going on. She would never just leave without saying goodbye to me. Especially since she likes me walking her back to her room most nights.

Drake set his glass down and started after them when a text came through to his phone. He paused as Emma’s name flashed on the screen.

Emma: Found Tariq! Hurry up, heading to airport!

His heart pounding furiously, he started quickly towards the door, when Liam appeared at his side.

Goddamnit I don’t have time for this. She needs me.

“Drake…where are you going? Why is everyone leaving? I saw Emma leave with Maxwell, Hana took off, and now you? What happened?”

“I really need to go, Liam. But it’s good news, just trust me.”

“Drake please.” Liam grabbed his arm as he tried to walk around him. Drake sighed, looking into the worried eyes of his best friend.

“Maxwell thinks he found Tariq. Something about designer shoes. We’re on our way now.”

“Take the royal jet. I’ll have it ready in 10 minutes. Don’t wait for a commercial flight.”

“Liam, thank you. It’ll be much quicker this way, they’re already on their way to the airport, I’ll let them know about taking the jet.” Drake tried to leave but again Liam stopped him.

“Drake, I just want to say thank you. For looking after Emma this whole time. I know it’s been tough on her. I keep trying to make myself available to her privately, but she never shows up. I don’t even remember the last time we were alone together that I didn’t force by just showing up when I knew she’d be alone. I…I think it was long before the Coronation, only when she first arrived she would join me.”

Drake averted his eyes. She never shows up because she’s with me. I had no idea she was blowing him off this whole time. I can’t believe it…she only spends time with me. Has always only spent time with me. How could I be so blind?

“Do you know something?” Liam asked. “Please tell me?”

Drake nervously ran a hand through his hair. “I uh…I really need to go, Liam. This is really important for everyone. It’s not just about you.”

Drake immediately wished he’d said something else, anything else. He saw the flash of hurt in Liam’s eyes and he instantly felt awful. As usual, though, it was gone in a second and he was back to his stoic self.

“Yes. Good luck. Give my best to everyone and do let them know that I truly wish I could be there.” With one last look, Liam walked away, leaving Drake alone, feeling like the world’s worst friend.

Soon enough, Hana, Drake, Maxwell, Emma were high above the clouds on a red-eye flight to Los Angeles.

“So this is it. All that time searching for Tariq and now we’re on our way to find him.” Emma fiddled with her hands in her lap nervously and Drake wanted to reach over to calm them with his own. But they weren’t alone or hidden from view.

Maxwell looked just as nervous. “Maybe I should’ve asked Bastien to help out.”

Emma shook her head. “No. I wanted people I trust here for this. And that’s all of you.”

“I just hope we can get to Tariq quickly enough. There’s not a lot of time for us to fly back to New York before the wedding shower.” Hana mentioned, leading Drake to feel guilty once again.

Liam really doesn’t want to marry Madeleine. The crown needs a queen. What if she really does say no? What does that mean for Cordonia and Liam? I’m such a bad friend. But don’t I deserve something great for once? Just once. Just her. She’ll all I can ever ask for.

“Never fear! We’re gonna crack this case wiiiiide open!” Maxwell exclaimed

Drake scowled. First things first. “And then I can give Tariq a piece of my mind.”

Emma gave a half smile. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I think it’s best if I talk to him. I have to convince him that making a statement to the press and setting the record straight is the only way to make things right.”

At that moment the pilot announces that the plane is approaching its destination and will soon begin the descent.

Hana turned back to Emma.  “Are you ready for this? To face Tariq?”

“I’m ready for this to be over. I just want to put this chapter behind me so I can get on with my life.” Her eyes were narrowed, and Drake could sense the anger rolling off of her.

Me too, Rose. Me too.

Hana looked sympathetic. “I know Liam couldn’t make it, but just remember that you can lean on us. We’ll be there the whole time.”

Is it really unusual, though?

He agreed. “No way we’re leaving you to face him alone, Rose.”

“Yeah! Go team Emma!”

“Thanks, guys. You’re the best team anyone could ask for.”

Soon, they touch down on the tarmac.

As everyone hurries through the airport, and after an hour and one car ride later, they’re standing on a street corner in Westwood, squinting at Maxwell’s list of apartments.

“There are so many of them.” Hana said dejectedly.

 “How are there multiple people in this city who go through three Armani suits in a week?” This is insane. What is this place? I thought New York was something but this…I may as well be on another planet.

Emma thought a moment. “Adelaide said Tariq only buys Sartorini shoes, right? So, cross any addresses from the stores that don’t sell them off the list.”

Maxwell dramatically scratches out a cluster of addresses. “That means we’ve only got a few left!”

“Great! What’s our first stop?”

Maxwell looked at the map then looks around them. “Uhh…this place!” He races up several stairs to the door of an apartment complex and knocks on the door.

“Hello?” A well dressed man opened the door.

Maxwell grins. “Hi! Any chance that you’re hiding a fugitive nobleman? About this tall, wears really minty cologne…”

The man narrows his eyes. “What is this? A cross between Princess Diaries and Dog: The Bounty Hunter? I’ve never met a noble in my life.”

Maxwell reaches into his pocket. “You’re sure? I could show you a picture of him. Or find a sample of his cologne!”

The man backs away, slowly starting to close the door. “N-no thanks, I’m good.” He closes the door in Maxwell’s face.

He sighs. “Off to a great start…”

The next address takes them to a boardwalk along Venice Beach; everyone files up to the porch of a weathered condo.

Alright. Enough of this nice guy stuff. It’s not like I have any intention of being nice to Tariq whenever we do find him.

“Step aside, Maxwell. Let me handle this.” He strides up to the door and raps on it with his knuckles. “Hey! Anyone home?”

The curtains of the condo’s front window twitch aside. An elderly man peeks outside. Drake notices and snarls. “Open the door! We need to ask you some questions!”

The curtains close as the man retreats from the window.

Hana stepped up next to him. “Drake, you’re coming on too strong.” She ushers all of them back and knocks politely. A few moments later, the door opens, and Hana vanishes inside the condo. She eventually emerges with a paper plate in her hands. “The bad news is, no Tariq. The tenants said their son bought a bunch of suits for his job interviews. The good news is, they gave me cookies!”

She held out the plate and they all eagerly grabbed a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

Damn this is really good. Maybe I should have been nicer…we’d have two plates of cookies right now.

Emma laughed. “Only you could walk away from a stranger’s doorstep with a plate full of baked goods.”

“I have even better news. We’ve only got on address left!” Maxwell beamed.

“Who knew gossip from Adelaide could come in handy?” Hana questioned.

Drake smiled softly at Emma. “Not me. Nice work, Rose.”

Leave it to Emma to take courtly gossip and actually make it useful.

A short drive later, they arrive at the last address Maxwell discovered and approach the door. The gang stands steadfast at Emma’s back.

She just stares at it a moment. “The point of no return…” Taking a deep breath, she knocks on the door, and a moment later it opens…to reveal Tariq.

Shock was clearly written all over his face. “Lady Emma!”

There’s an audible smack as her open palm connects with the side of Tariq’s face. “Aaaah!” For a brief second, the corners of Drake’s mouth turn up.

That’s my girl.

Tariq rubs his jaw, his face flushing with indignation, and opens his mouth.

Drake instantly stepped forward, planting himself in front of her. “Were you going to say something?” He growled. I’ll do a lot more than slap you.

“I…” He pauses, looking not at Drake, but at Emma. The anger slowly drains out of him. “I…I fear I deserved that.”

Damn right you did.

 Tariq steps to the side of the doorframe, still holding a hand over the place where her hand connected with his face. “Please, come in.”

The group enters the apartment, and stand awkwardly at the threshold. Looking around, there’s a nest of wool coats on the couch and a large pile of leather shoes in one corner.

Tariq spoke nervously. “Well, um…May I offer you anything? My accommodations are a bit paltry, but I can grab us refreshments or…:

“Cut the chit-chat. We’re only here for one thing.” Drake cut in, crossing his arms.

“That’s right. We’re here for answers.” Emma confirmed, positioning herself so once again she and Drake were side by side. He felt her fingers brush his lightly, and he gently brushed hers back with his own. Not holding, but doing all they could to be united at this moment in time. It thrills him that she wants him by her side in all things.

Tariq swallowed, hard. “I suppose I would want the same, in your position. What is it you want to know?”

“Tariq, why did you run away?” Emma asked, trying to keep her voice even.

“I believed my flight from court was necessary, to protect both you and Cordonia from the repercussions of my shameful choices. I…I can see now that I was wrong in doing so. But I swear that my intention was only to spare you any further harm.” He takes a timid step forward, but stops when Drake shifts even closer to her, scowling at him.

Not happening buddy. You’re getting nowhere near her this time.

“Lady Emma, I would never have left, had I known what it would mean for you. I assumed you would be taken care of…that you wouldn’t be hurt. It seemed best to just…disappear.”

“Well, why do you get to decide what’s best?” She asked, angrily.

“You…you’re right. By thinking I could choose the correct course of action on your behalf, I only compounded one trespass with another.”

She sighed heavily. “Tariq…I came here today to ask you to undo the damage that you had a hand in causing. Make a statement to the press…tell the truth about what happened that night at Applewood Manor.”

“It’s the least you can do to make up for all of this.” Hana backed.

Tariq hesitates a moment before speaking again. “Lady Emma, there is nothing I desire more than to atone for what I’ve done, but…I wonder if this is the best path forward…”

Are you KIDDING ME???????? “Are you questing Rose’s judgement? That’s pretty rich coming from you.”

Maxwell nodded. “Yeah, you should probably defer to Emma on this one.”

Emma shifted her gaze back at him. “Tariq, it’s time to tell the truth. You owe me that, at least.”

“The very least.” Just in case he doesn’t know that he really owes her much, much more for this shitstorm he created.

Tariq looked back and forth between them. “I…You’re right. This calamity has gone unaddressed for far too long.”

“So you’ll do it? You’ll make a statement?” Hana inquired.

“I will. I’ll need some time to prepare my finest clothes, but—”

Emma scoffed. “No time. You have to come with us now.”

Tariq looked at her in horror. “What? B-but I need to look my best for a public appearance.”

“Madeleine and Liam’s wedding shower is tonight. If we wait too long, there’ll be no stopping the wedding.”

Drake glanced at her. I wonder what the real reason is for her wanting to stop this so badly. Is because she doesn’t want Liam to be miserable? Or because she wants to be with him? I can’t believe this moment has really come. The moment of truth, the moment she chooses which path she wants.

“I…I see. I suppose there’s no time like the present. I’ll follow your lead, Lady Emma.”

With Tariq in tow at long last, they all return to the jet, setting a course back to New York City. As Tariq freshens up in the back, the rest of the group chats animatedly.

“I feel liberated.” Emma told them. “I’m finally going to be free from this plot…free to live my life again. But most of all, I feel thankful for all of you…for my friends. I could never have done this alone.”

She’s looking directly at me. Drake blushes ever so lightly. “It was nothing, Rose.”

Several hours later, they touch down in New York and immediately head to Emma’s room at the hotel, where Justin and Bertrand are already waiting. Tariq files in with the friends behind him, glancing around nervously.

Justin grins. “So you’re the reason I have a job.”

What the fuck? Why does he sound so happy right now? Doesn’t he realize he’s going to lose his job once this scandal is over?

Tariq looked at Justin, confused. “Err…who is this man?”

“I’m Lady Emma’s damage control. In other words, her press secretary. Now, I just made a deal with the devil to get us half an hour with a sound stage and some cameras on such short notice. If we hurry, I can get a rebate on my soul, and we can get this statement out before the end of the wedding shower.”

Bertrand gasped. “Wait. You can’t simply release it to the press. The court must hear Tariq’s statement, of course, but consider how it will look for the royal family if this goes public in the middle of the wedding shower.”

Hana frowned. “King Liam and Madeleine throw a party to celebrate their wedding with the whole court there, and then…”

“When the statement drops, the press and the court will run with it. They’ll assume that wedding’s not happening.” Drake chimed in, realizing it was sounding like the wrong thing to do.

I saw firsthand how much damage that kind of public humiliation can do. Liam doesn’t deserve it. Hell, Madeleine doesn’t even deserve it. It’s not like she was in on the plan with Constantine.

Justin narrowed his eyes. “And that’s a good thing. If we want to restore Emma’s reputation, we need to make a bigger splash than those photos did at the Coronation Ball. This is our chance to send a message so powerful that no one can question Emma’s innocence.”

But still…… “Hold up. I think this is Rose’s call to make.”

Emma bit her lip. “Justin, once you record the statement, send it to me. I want to talk to Liam and Madeleine before it goes public.”

Maxwell breathed in relief. “I think that’s a good call.”

Justin’s jaw dropped. “As your resident PR expert, I have to disagree. The sooner we get the word out, the better. Don’t give Madeleine a chance to spin this.”

Hana shrugged. “Even she won’t be able to do much about a public statement from Tariq.”

“I really…”

“Enough. I hired you to assist Emma, and she has made her preference clear.” Bertrand interrupted, sounding annoyed.

For a brief second Drake could swear he saw a glint of frustration and anger in Justin’s usual calm eyes, but then he shrugs, quickly flashing his usual smile. “Understood. You’re the boss, boss. Tariq, follow me. We’ve got an appointment to keep.”

Tariq pulls a few notecards out of his pockets as he trails after Justin, nervously rehearsing his statement under his breath.

The tension in the room seemed to evaporate, and suddenly Drake realized exactly how tired he was, and by the looks of it, so was everyone else. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need some sleep before we go to this shower.”

Maxwell nodded. “Yeah. My eyelids feel like they weigh a hundred pounds.”

Bertrand blew out a breath that sounded like he’d been holding in for a long time. “While these two cope with their lack of sleep, I must make a few phone calls.”

Drake, Bertrand, and Maxwell file out of Emma’s room, Maxwell waving sleepily as he closes the door behind him. As they split up, Drake’s mind raced with what was to happen next.

We finally found Tariq. We finally cleared her name. Why am I so nervous? I shouldn’t be nervous, I’m not the one about to have all eyes on me yet again. But fuck, I’m nervous.

Hours later, Drake met everyone back at the wedding shower. Madeleine had really gone all out with the decorations. Dozens of crystal chandeliers light the ballroom as nobles mingle among the tables. Against one wall, there’s a large portrait of Liam and Madeleine, with ornate gift boxes piled below it. A pang of guilt washed through him.

I cannot believe I’m feeling bad for Madeleine right now. And Liam…He doesn’t even know we found Tariq, and now he’s going to find out along with everyone else. It’s not right. I hope Emma can manage to talk to both of them.

He sees Emma going over to Madeleine, whose face turns to a look of shock, her face paling. Liam isn’t there. Madeleine walks over to a stage at one end of the room, grabbing a champagne flute from a nearby table and tapping a spoon against it.

“Ladies and gentlemen! If I may have your attention, please…”

Heads slowly turn toward her as conversations fade to whispers, then fizzle out. Liam and guests are looking at her curiously and suddenly Emma is at Drake’s side again, her eyes lighting up as she looked into his, the naturally happy look that she saves just for him. He can swear his heart is going to burst. She presses herself into him, and since there are so many people crowded around and everyone looking at Madeleine, Drake slipped his hand in hers, safely covered by the bulk of her dress.

Madeleine continues. “I’m afraid we’ll have to…”

A phone buzzes. Then another. And another.

Emma let go of his hand, her eyes widening as she looked around the room, a haunted expression on her face. She turned back to Drake worriedly. “No. is that…”

Oh no. It is.

As guests all around begin looking for the source of the buzzing, Maxwell and Hana use the confusion to slip through a group of whispering nobles.

Drake still hadn’t taken his eyes off Emma’s concerned face. “You told Justin not to release Tariq’s statement to the press…right?” Did I misunderstand?

“Yeah…”

Maxwell glanced around. “Weeeeell, I don’t know what happened but…”

As the nobles each begin looking at their phones, murmurs begin to ripple throughout the crowd.

Penelope gasps. “Tariq!”

Liam looked shocked. “They found him!”

“Mon Dieu!” Kiara cried.

Finally, Drake pulls out own phone and sees the breaking headline. “Flirtatious photos or midnight mix-up?” There is a video embedded into the article.

Tariq nervously steps in front of the camera. He fumbles with a notecard in his hand, only to drop it. Giving up on the card, he clears his throat.

“H-hello. My name is Tariq, and I…” He takes a moment to steady himself. “I am here to make a statement regarding the photos of myself and Lady Emma Rose. Many rumors have circulated about her since those photos came to light. I regret not coming forward sooner or to corroborate the truth of what happened. And I regret, even more deeply, intruding upon Lady Emma in the first place.”

As he hits his stride, he stands up a little straighter, crossing his arms behind him. “It was a misunderstanding that led me to her room that night, mistaking it as my own. The photos that were taken of us reveal only this: a breach of privacy that I alone was responsible for…And an arrogant and unwanted advance on my part. Nothing untoward ever happened between us…at least, nothing on Lady Emma’s part. Lady Emma, I offer my sincerest apologies for what I did that night. I hope this message begins to make amends for the harm I have done. As for the other members of the Cordonian court, I hope this will put an end to any unkind speculation about Lady Emma on your part. Th-Thank you for your time.”

The court bursts into exited chatter as everyone finishes watching the video. Dozens of faces turn toward Emma expectantly.

She simply inclines her head in response to the many curious eyes upon her, not justifying their reactions with her own, and receives several hasty bows and curtsies in return. Up on stage, Madeleine clears her throat. Her expression is carefully neutral, but as she sets her champagne flute down, her hands tremble.

“That was…quite illuminating, As I’ve said before, the press has treated Lady Emma incredibly unfairly since this whole business began. On behalf of myself and King Liam, I would like to congratulate her on clearing her name.”

She moves toward Liam as if to take his hand, but stops herself, her smile faltering. Liam gives her an apologetic look as he steps forward to address the crowd.

“Countess Madeleine is right, I believe apologies are in order from all those who have been anything less than welcoming to Lady Emma since the Coronation Ball. I propose a toast to Lady Emma Rose.”

As Liam raises a champagne glass, friends and nobles around the room echo his toast.

Olivia is grinning. “Hear, hear.”

Kiara still looks completely stunned. “To Lady Emma”

Hana cheered. “To Lady Emma!”

Drake looked fondly down at her. “To Lady Emma.” He repeated quietly, his words only meant for her to hear.

“Go, Emma!” Penelope cries out.

Bertrand claps. “To Lady Emma and House Beaumont!”

“House Beaumont forever!” Maxwell calls.

Liam spoke again. “As for the rest of the evening, I hope you all enjoy the food and drink we have provided.” King Liam and Madeleine step off the stage as the crowd descends into scattered applause and eager conversation. As several nobles quickly corner Liam, Justin appears.

“Emma! I got here as fast as I could!”

Emma rounded on him angrily. “I told you not to release Tariq’s statement…I’m waiting for an explanation.”

Justin grimaced. “Yeah, I’d want one too if I were you. Some wannabe reporter spotted Tariq when I was getting him to the soundstage. She followed us inside and got footage of the whole thing. I’m sorry. I should’ve been more careful.”

“Well, that seems awfully convenient. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Emma retorted.

“Look, I won’t pretend to be sad that Tariq made the evening news. That’s good for your rep, Emma. But you asked me to do a job, and I let you down. And all I can say is that I’m sorry.”

“This had better not happen again.”

“It won’t, I promise. I’d better, umm, leave you to your company.”

He steps away as Madeleine makes her way over, lowering her voice in a furious whisper. Drake keeps a short distance away, close enough to intervene if necessary. He’s fully aware of how ruthless Madeleine can be when provoked.  “What was the meaning of all that? Did you warn me just so you could dash my hopes of preserving some dignity?”

Emma looked at her pleadingly. “The video wasn’t supposed to go public yet. I was just as surprised as you.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” Madeleine laughs, though there’s no joy in the sound. “I suppose I should’ve known you wouldn’t give up until you had what you wanted. Enjoy the satisfaction while it lasts, Emma.”

She struts away and Drake re-approaches.

“Well, at least that’s over with…” Emma said uncertainly.

He gently nudged her shoulder with his. “Come on, Rose. Let’s get out of here before the press shows up to ask questions.”

“Good idea, I’ve had about enough of this shower.” She turned on her heel, and Hana, Drake and Maxwell walk back to the hotel without incident, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts. Everyone files into Emma’s room as soon as she unlocks the door.

“What a night.” Hana sits down on the bed, looking exhausted.

Emma nodded. “I can’t believe it’s finally over.”

“Nor can I.”

Drake turns around, seeing Liam in the still-open doorway, smiling at Emma.

“Liam!” Emma squealed, giving him a hug.

Drake chided himself for the jealousy he was feeling. She hasn’t actually hugged me yet…Uncertainty flooded through him, momentarily forgetting that she stood by him every step of the way, held his hand, gave him longing looks when no one was watching. Not to mention the way she kisses me. Was it all a game to her? Am I a holding place for Liam? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before…except before I never loved the girl.

“I had a feeling you all would come here. I came to see you as soon as I could. You’ve done it, Emma. My father put you through so much, and now, after so long…you’re finally free of what he did. And what Tariq did. I can only imagine how you’re feeling.”

“More than anything ese, I feel relieved. I’ve spent so long with plots and schemes hanging over my head that part of me can’t believe that it’s finally over. It feels good to be done with it all.”

Liam grinned. “I knew you would find your way through, Emma. I’m only sorry you had to endure so much to get there.” He looks at her meaningfully, about to say more…when Maxwell jumps in.

“Now that you’re in the clear, this calls for a celebraaaaaation!”

I wonder what he was about to say.

Emma chuckled. “What did you have in mind?”

“What has amazing fried foods, carnival games, and crazy rides?”

Drake rolled his eyes. He’s only been talking about this since before we left. “It’s Coney Island. He wants to go to Coney Island.”

Emma taps her chin thoughtfully. “I see…”

“Yep! You. Us. Tomorrow afternoon. Liam can come too if he wants.”

Liam smiles. “An excellent idea. I have more to deal with tonight, but I believe I could get away tomorrow. I’ve heard that the view from the top of the Ferris wheel is not to be missed.” He looks directly at Emma, clearly trying to communicate something with his eyes.

“It can be pretty romantic. I’ll be there.” She agrees.

What the hell is happening right now? Is she really….

“3 o’clock tomorrow, then. Don’t be late!”

Drake sighs heavily. “She’s the whole reason we’re going there, Maxwell. We’re not going to leave without her.”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss a second of it.” She assured him. Her eyes met Drake’s again, and he looked away quickly, not wanting to see whatever truth she was showing him.

“Er, I’m still really tired. I’m going to head for bed. Congratulations, Rose. Goodnight.” He quickly turned and fled out the door, racing back to his room.

Maybe I really am a fool. But if I am…well…at least we have tomorrow.

  @annekebbphotography @carabeth @gardeningourmet @eileendannie @alesana45 @thequeenofcronuts @drakewalkerfantasy @zigortega4life @friedherringclodthing

 @hrhdes @drakewalkerisreal @akrenich @feartheendlesssummer @moonlightgem7 @i-miss-trr @noey718-blog @snyggflicka @rhymesmenagerie @gibbles82 @drakensworld @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction @crookedslimecreatorpasta @be-still-my-aching-heart

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[hollymartinswrites]

Two negatives make a positive - HollyMartins - IT - Stephen King [Archive of Our Own] →

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: IT - Stephen King, IT (Movies - Muschietti) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh Characters: Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Original Child Character(s) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Domestic, Light Angst, Family Feels, Childhood Trauma, Adoption, Kid Fic, Adopted Children, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Marriage, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Are Parents, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends Summary:

Eddie and Richie embark on the most terrifying experience of all—parenthood.

Or, the author desperately needed a domestic, family fix-it for Richie and Eddie.

Chapter III: Richie and Eddie discover the challenges of increasing their family of three to four.

Eddie walked through the front door, locked it behind him, and shrugged out of his jacket. He could hear Richie’s obnoxious laughter from the living room and music that sounded vaguely familiar. Placing his briefcase down on the ground, he followed the sounds and walked into Richie and Lydia both lounging on the couch. Eddie glanced at the TV.

“Wayne’s World?” he said, raising his eyebrows at Richie.

“Hi, Daddy,” Lydia exclaimed, turning and standing on the couch to give Eddie a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the top of her head.

“It’s a classic, babe,” Richie said. He looked up and pursed his lips in an exaggerated manner. Eddie leaned down to quickly kiss him.

“But it’s not exactly age appropriate, is it?” he asked, motioning towards Lydia who had turned back to the TV.

“It’s on cable, edited,” Richie explained. “You eat anything? We got some leftovers in the fridge.”

“I grabbed a sandwich before I left,” he muttered. He walked around the couch to tiredly collapse beside Lydia. Yawning, he tried to watch the movie but found his mind wandering. He briefly considered heading in for a shower and then bed but resisted. It wasn’t often that he got to watch a movie with his family and he was determined to enjoy it—though he had never quite understood the appeal of Wayne’s World. Maybe it was because he never got into metal but still, it was worth it to just hear Richie’s ridiculous laugh.

Soon enough, Eddie’s eyes grew heavy and he felt himself falling towards sleep when he was jerked awake by a kick to his side. He glanced down; Lydia had stretched out, her feet in his side and her head in Richie’s lap. She was fast asleep.

“Lemme put her to bed,” he murmured.

“Hang on, it’s almost over,” Richie insisted.

“Rich…”

“She’s asleep anyway. There’s only like fifteen minutes left, I’ll help.”

Eddie sighed and remained seated, waiting for the movie (which he suspected Richie had seen a few dozen times) to finish. He closed his eyes and suddenly, he was in his childhood home, trapped in the living room he had so hated, forced to sit still by his mother as she had the TV switched onto whatever she wanted to watch. It was stifling, the air thick with tension that his mother was seemingly oblivious to, and all Eddie wanted was to run out of the house and never look back. But he wasn’t foolish—he had nowhere to go and no one but his mother.

Eddie gasped for breath, his eyes flying open and his heart pumping wildly. He swallowed and looked down, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to gather his daughter into his arms and yet, he resisted for fear of smothering her.

“Eds, you alright?” Richie asked, concerned.

“Yes,” Eddie gasped. “I just...need to shower and clear my mind.”

“Okay,” Richie said slowly. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Eddie insisted and carefully stood to hurry to their bedroom.

He stepped out of the bathroom, steam curling behind him. He ran a hand through his wet hair and straightened, determined to face this as bravely as he could. He looked up at Richie lounging on the bed, his phone in his hand.

“Hey,” Eddie said, clearing his throat, “can we talk?”

Richie looked up at him, eyebrows raised and Eddie inwardly winced. Fuck, he wish he was better with words.

“I don’t want Lydia to be an only child,” he said quickly, the words rushing out of his mouth.

Richie stared at him, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape. Then he threw his head back and laughed. Eddie scowled.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said. “You’re gonna wake up Lydia.”

“Jesus, Eddie,” Richie gasped, calming down ever so slightly, “I thought you were about to drop a fucking bombshell. Don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry,” he muttered before heading towards the bed and sitting down.

“It’s fine,” Richie said, wiping at his eyes and grinning. “But I do think we need to talk about this.”

“Yeah.” Eddie ran a hand through his hair again. “So, um, what do you think?”

Richie raised his eyebrows again and sat up.

“Well, this did kinda come out of nowhere,” he said. “What made you think of this anyway?”

Eddie looked down at his lap, where his hands were clasped tightly. He separated them and stretched his fingers.

“I…” he began, searching for the words. “I just...I don’t want her to be alone.”

“She’s got us, Eds,” Richie said gently.

“It’s not the same,” he insisted, meeting Richie’s eyes. “You had your sisters growing up and I know you didn’t always get along but at least you had someone on your side at home.”

“I guess so.”

“And now you guys have each other for when things get tough,” Eddie continued, his voice growing more and more strained. “I had no one.”

“Eds—”

“I mean, I had you and the rest of the Losers but it’s not the same thing. It fucking sucks going home to an empty house with just an adult waiting for you. And then when she died...fuck, I had to deal with that on my own.”

Eddie started a bit when he felt Richie’s lips against his temple.

“This isn’t just about Lydia, is it?” he whispered along his hair.

Eddie hunched his shoulders and shook his head.

“I know, I know, I’m projecting,” he muttered. “Fuck, I’m just like her.”

“Who?” Richie asked, sharply. When Eddie didn’t respond, he quickly wrapped an arm around Eddie’s shoulder and insisted, “If you’re about to say that you’re like your mom, I swear to God, Eds.”

“It’s true though.”

“It’s not,” Richie said firmly. “Eddie, you’re an incredible father and you love Lydia. And she loves you.”

Eddie took a deep breath and clenched his eyes shut.

“But she’s still alone,” he whispered. “And I want her to have someone. A sibling.”

“Okay,” Richie said after a few moments. “I get it. And I feel the same way for the most part. But having two kids is a hell of a lot different than just one. I mean, we have a lot of figuring out to do.”

“I know,” Eddie said. “It’s a lot. And I don’t expect it to be easy.”

“No, but we’re a solid team.”

Eddie nodded.

“And we have to talk to Lydia,” he said. “She may not want this.”

Richie gathered Eddie into his arms.

“You’re a good dad,” he whispered against his hair. “And we can figure this out. I know we can.”

Eddie leaned into Richie’s embrace, exhaled a shaking breath, and smiled.

Going from one child to two did come with a great deal of changes. For one thing, Richie decided to cut back drastically on his career—he stopped touring, settling on doing shows only in the tristate area, and only on nights when Eddie could stay home all day with the kids.

When the Losers heard this, they were shocked and assumed, among themselves, that Richie wouldn’t last more than a couple months as a house husband. They were sort of right. It was only six weeks before Eddie declared that, in order to preserve the sanity in their house, Richie had to have a creative outlet that went beyond simply trying to make his daughters laugh. So, with the help of his agent, Richie became the very thing he had resented in his career: a comedy writer.

He wrote material for several different comics, a couple of whom were LGBTQ+, and actually, found it kind of enjoyable. Not having to perform it meant there was less pressure and it was even oddly freeing. He could say whatever he wanted and it didn’t matter; no one knew it was him. When the Losers worried that this wouldn’t be enough, Richie waved them off. The draw to performing live just wasn’t there anymore. Besides, he had a much better audience at home (and one that was more in line with his own emotional maturity, Eddie had remarked, which had gotten quite a laugh from everyone).

But Richie cutting back on his career meant someone had to support the family, so Eddie found himself working harder. The long days were difficult but Eddie was good at his job and he took pride in being able to provide for his family. Besides, coming home to Richie and the girls made it all really fucking worth it.

And one of the most unexpected changes in adopting a second child was how suddenly the previous dynamics switched. When they adopted Tess, only three years old and terribly shy, Eddie had assumed that Richie would immediately ingratiate himself with their new daughter and become the favorite. Instead, Tess had taken one look at her fathers and all but latched herself to Eddie.

She followed him around the house, cried hysterically when he went out of her sight, gripped his legs to prevent him from leaving, and only allowed him to read her bedtime stories. It touched his heart, but mostly Eddie just found it amusing—especially when her overt favoritism seemed to really confound Richie.

“I don’t get it,” he complained. “I’m the fun one.”

Mike and Ben laughed while Bev rubbed his back in sympathy. The Losers were in their dining room, picking at a half-eaten cheesecake and drinking copious amounts of coffee and tea. They had stopped at Richie and Eddie’s house en route to New York City to celebrate the launch of Bill’s latest bestseller (and for Ben and Bev to look at some townhouses) but first had to meet the latest Loser.

Lydia had delighted in being the center of attention once again but Tess had immediately reached her arms up to Eddie (who naturally picked her up) and hid her face in his chest, refusing to acknowledge any one other than her Daddy. The Losers weren’t offended.

But now the girls had been put to bed, and it was time for the grown-ups to relax and catch up. Or, simply complain about how unfair it was to no longer be the favorite, in Richie’s case.

“It’s just a phase,” Bev insisted.

“Or maybe she just isn’t a fan of your comedy,” Bill offered.

“I knew she was the smart one of the family,” Eddie replied.

Richie flipped him off and stabbed at the cheesecake with his fork.

“Well, I don’t know why she wants you to do the bedtime stories,” he remarked. “You can’t do the voices.”

“What voices?” Mike asked.

“You know, the different voices for everyone,” Richie explained, waving his hand. “The Lorax has a different voice than the Wild Things and whatnot. Eddie reads bedtime stories like he’s presenting at a fucking business meeting.”

Eddie rolled his eyes as the others laughed.

“Why can’t you just let Eddie have this?” Ben asked, grinning. “What’s the big deal?”

“Because Richie doesn’t want to be just a dad,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “He wants to be a cool dad.”

More laughter, until Ben and Mike had to admit they didn’t get the joke, which immediately launched into Richie explaining the entire plot of Mean Girls in excruciatingly minute detail. Eddie only managed to stop him by shoveling a fork full of cheesecake in his husband’s mouth, much to the Losers’ relief.

When they left for their hotel, each of the Losers congratulated Richie and Eddie on their latest foray into parenthood. Bev embraced both of them and told them how happy she was that they were both so happy. Richie told her to stop being embarrassing and Eddie merely looked away, blinking rapidly.

“I don’t like that you care more about work than your family but we all got our crosses to bear, right?” Richie snapped. “So forgive me for letting off a little steam to someone who actually cares.”

Eddie stared at him, his eyes wide and sinking feeling in chest. Richie looked away, grabbed the first t-shirt he could find in the bureau and put it on.

“I’m gonna go sit with the kids,” he muttered. “Text Bev back for me and tell her everything’s fucking fine.”

Eddie watched him stalk out of the bedroom, too stunned to attempt to stop him. How long he stood there, gaping at nothing, he had no idea. Then the phone in his hand pinged. He blinked and glanced down at it. Another text from Bev. He opened it.

Let me know when he gets home. Now you’ve got me worried.

Eddie sighed and tapped in a reply. He didn’t want to leave Bev hanging.

He’s home now. Thanks.

He threw the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom, determined to shower and clear his mind before he did something he regretted. Later, clean but drained, he walked quietly down the hallway and saw Richie carrying Tess into the kitchen.

“Come on, kiddo, you gotta try to get some medicine down,” he said, his voice tinged with exhaustion.

“No, no, no,” Tess wailed. “I hate it.”

“I know, sweetheart, but if you don’t, you could get sicker and then end up in the hospital or something.”

Eddie hurried into the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of Tess sitting on the table, tears streaming down her face and struggling to breathe through her congestion. The moment her eyes met his, she began to cry in earnest and reached her arms towards him. Richie turned from taking the medicine bottle out of the refrigerator. He said nothing, though Eddie noticed his lips tighten.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Eddie murmured, gathering Tess into his arms. He sat down, arranging her on his lap. “Everything’s okay. I know you’re not feeling good right now but I need you to do me a favor.”

Tess hiccuped and wiped at her eyes before nodding slowly.

“I need you to try to take some of this medicine. I know it’s yucky but you gotta try. I can show you a trick though,” he continued. “If you keep your nose closed, you won’t taste it. I promise.” He turned towards Richie. “Can you get a juicebox out?”

Richie did so, stabbing the straw through the top with a little more force than necessary. He handed it to Eddie, who held it ready.

“Listen, we’re gonna do this quick, okay?” Eddie continued. “You’re gonna take that medicine and then drink this juice down. And you won’t taste it for long.”

“Promise?” Tess asked, her voice thick with tears.

“I promise,” Eddie insisted. “Then you can brush your teeth and go to bed feeling better.”

Richie crouched in front of them, holding the plastic spoon filled with thick, frankly disgusting looking medicine in his hand.

“Close your nose, sweetheart,” Eddie repeated. Tess hesitated briefly before squeezing her nose tightly between two fingers and opened her mouth. Richie quickly fed her the medicine and, before she even had a chance to fully swallow, Eddie brought the straw to her lips. She drank the juice deeply but immediately opened her mouth and began sobbing again.

“Good job, you did it,” Eddie said, tightening his arms around her.

“You did it, kiddo, all done,” Richie said, standing. He ran a hand through her hair and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. She immediately turned and hid her face in Eddie’s chest, crying. Richie’s eyes briefly met Eddie, before he turned away and dropped the spoon in the sink.

“I’m going to put Lydia to bed,” he said and disappeared.

Eddie sighed before brushing his lips along the top of Tess’s head.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he whispered.

“It was awful!” she wailed.

“I know,” he said, standing up with her in his arms. “Being sick is no fun. Tomorrow I’m going to get you something else to help you feel better that won’t taste so bad, okay? And if you take it, we can relax at home and watch movies.”

Tess wiped at her eyes and running nose. Eddie smiled, and briefly wondered how he had managed to get to this point in his life where the sight of someone else’s mucus didn’t really bother him. Tess smiled, too.

“Okay,” she said before laying her head on his shoulder. “Can we watch Wizard of Oz?”

“We can watch whatever you want,” he promised, carrying her into her bedroom. He passed the open door to Lydia’s room and quickly glanced in. Richie was laying beside her on the bed, quietly reading A Wrinkle in Time aloud. He made no notice of Eddie and Lydia, too enraptured with the story, did not either. Eddie continued on.

Eddie yawned and rubbed at his face as he stood in front of the coffee maker. The sun was just beginning to peek through the kitchen windows. With luck (and the drowsy side effects of their medicine), the girls wouldn’t be up for at least a couple of hours.

“What are you doing here?”

Eddie glanced over his shoulder. Richie was staring at him from the doorway, looking completely disheveled, with hair standing at all angles and his glasses askew. Eddie had to admit to himself, he looked cute, if not nearly dead on his feet.

“I’m making coffee, what does it look like?” Eddie replied.

“What about work?”

“I took a sick day,” Eddie answered and, taking out two mugs, poured coffee for the both of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Richie shake his head in disbelief. Eddie ignored it, refusing to rise to the bait. He handed Richie his coffee before taking out the milk and sugar and placing them on the table.

“How was Lydia?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Once she got the cough medicine down, she passed out,” Richie sighed. “She avoided it the first couple hours.”

“It’s that fucking artificial flavoring—”

“Yeah, I know, you said it last night.”

The quiet anger that had been simmering in his belly since the night before started to boil inside Eddie. He briefly considered leaving the kitchen but knew, rationally, that would solve nothing. He cleared his throat.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked. Richie glanced at him, a wary look on his face as he nodded slowly. “Don’t ever tell one of our daughters they’re going to have to go to the hospital again.”

Richie blinked.

“What?” he asked, a blank look on his face.

“Last night,” Eddie continued, “you told Tess if she didn’t take her medicine, she’d get sicker and end up in the hospital.”

Richie rolled his eyes.

“I was just trying to get her to listen and take the damn medicine,” he insisted. “I didn’t mean it.”

“But she didn’t know that,” Eddie shot back. “Don’t threaten them with the hospital.”

“That wasn’t a fucking threat. Jesus, Eddie, what do take me for?”

“Just don’t, from now on, okay?”

“It’s not like I’m your fucking mother,” Richie continued. “You’ve act enough like her for the both of us.”

The two men stared at one another, a tense silence enveloping them both. For several moments, neither said a thing, as if daring the other to make the first move. But Eddie had always been the brave one.

“Are we really going to do this right now?” he asked hoarsely.

“Do what?” Richie asked, his shoulders sagging.

“Act like assholes just because our kids are sick.”

“It’s not because of the kids,” Richie asserted and hid his face in his hands. “Fuck, Eddie.”

“Then what it is? Fucking tell me so we can move on.”

“I told you last night,” Richie said, raising his head. His wide eyes had a desperate look to them.

“I work too much,” Eddie answered. “Is that it?”

Richie sighed and shook his head.

“I just...Eddie, work can’t be the priority.”

“And how are we supposed to live?” Eddie asked. Richie opened his mouth several times before closing it finally. “You don’t think I’d love to be home with the kids more? But someone has to support us.”

Richie paled rapidly and Eddie noticed that his hands resting on the table curled into fists.

“Don’t fucking do that,” Richie hissed. Eddie swallowed. He had never heard that tone of voice from his husband. “I gave up everything for us. I gave up my career, my life in LA, my fucking sanity for our family because I knew one of us had to be here to raise our kids. Don’t act like I’m just a fucking freeloader hanging out at home in my fucking pajamas all day.”

“I’m not saying that, Rich,” Eddie insisted, the urge to reach out and take his hand almost overwhelming him. “I know you work hard here at home.”

“I do it because you won’t. Or can’t. Either way, it’s on me.”

Something sharp pierced through Eddie’s heart, and he resisted the urge to rest his hand on the scar on his chest. For a moment, Richie looked abashed before swallowing and sitting back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest.

Eddie nodded once.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You’re right, Richie.”

“Eds, I—”

“No, you’re absolutely right. I can’t do what you do,” he admitted, looking down at his half-drunk coffee. “I’m not the same sort of father that you are. I get it.”

“Eddie, don’t—”

“Shh, quiet.”

They both fell silent. From Tess’s room came a plaintive, “Daddy, Papa.”

“She’s gonna wake up her sister,” Eddie grumbled before standing and leaving Richie stunned and alone in the kitchen.

Eddie sat on the bed and yawned, grateful to finally be in his bedroom after another long day of sneezing and coughing children. The new medicine he had purchased seemed to be doing the trick, however, along with several hours of sitting on the couch watching movies so he was certain the girls would be on the mend by tomorrow. God, he never wanted to see a wadded up, used tissue again.

Richie walked in and headed straight for the bureau, searching for fresh pajamas. Once satisfied, he reached for the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?” Eddie asked tiredly.

Richie stopped short and tensed up ever so slightly.

“Back to Lydia’s room,” he said.

Eddie rolled his eyes and ran a hand down his face.

“Enough, Richie, just sleep here tonight.”

“But—”

“I’m too fucking exhausted to fight with you anymore,” Eddie admitted. “So just come here.”

Richie turned and stared at him, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but in their bedroom at the moment. Eddie frowned.

“Look, we both fucked up,” he sighed. “And we both know Lydia could tell we were in a fight all day so let’s figure this out before she thinks we’re getting a divorce or something.”

Richie’s entire body seemed to slump downwards. He looked incredibly drained and Eddie’s heart went out to him. He took a tentative step towards Eddie and sighed.

“I shouldn’t have said that shit about you as a dad,” he admitted softly. “I was angry and tired and that’s not a fucking excuse but...I’m sorry.”

Eddie swallowed and nodded.

“And I know you weren’t threatening Tess last night,” he said. “I just...freaked out and remembered my mom pulling that shit and I guess I just...overreacted.”

Richie blinked rapidly and sniffed.

“You’re not your mom, Eds.”

“I know, you always say that.”

“Because it’s fucking true.” Richie took two long steps and sat beside Eddie on the bed, taking his hand in his. “I was being an asshole.”

“So was I. And I get it,” Eddie continued. “I know I work too much and I know you get overwhelmed with having the kids all day.”

“I signed up for it though,” Richie muttered.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t help out more,” Eddie replied. “And I do fucking hate how much I work. It’s just…” he sighed, searching for the right words. He felt Richie’s eyes on him and he took a deep breath. “It’s just...it’s the only thing I’m good at.”

Richie raised his eyebrows, his mouth falling open.

“What the fuck,” he said. “What the fuck are you talking about, Eds?”

“I have one thing that I was always successful at, one thing to be proud of, and it’s my ability to do my job,” Eddie continued, the words now spilling out of him. “I mean, of course I’m proud of our kids but I constantly think I’m screwing up. At work, I don’t have that. And it’s totally selfish of me, I know, but—”

“Eddie, Eddie, shut up.”

Eddie did. Richie took his face in his hands and gazed directly into his eyes.

“You are a fucking idiot, Edward Tozier,” he said firmly and slowly. Eddie couldn’t help it; he laughed. “I’m fucking serious here. You are not your job. That is not the only thing you are good at. You’re funny, and loving, and smarter than anyone else I know, and you’re fucking dedicated to the people you love. And you always know how to get the kids to calm down and how to talk me off the ledge and without you, this family would be incomplete. I love you. Our girls love you. And I’m sorry you’re married to such an asshole but you did say yes so that’s on you.” Eddie blinked and realized he had tears in his eyes. “Yes, you’re really good at your job and I do think it’s totally sexy that you’re the steadfast, manly provider for our family.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “I just don’t want you regretting how much you’re working later, you know? We just gotta...find a balance. And not be dicks about it.”

“That’s gonna be tough for you,” Eddie replied, sniffing. Richie smiled and his face brightened when Eddie leaned in to kiss him deeply.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” Richie sighed against his lips.

“Me too,” Eddie whispered. “The next time we fight, we should just immediately make out.”

“The kids will get grossed out,” Richie observed. “But I guess they deserve it after all the puke and snot they just put us through.”

Eddie laughed and pushed Richie down on the bed.

[cheesewithchips]

ho ho ho, and a bottle of rum: a forever hold your peace christmas drabble

long time, huh? i know i suck in every way possible but i thought i’d grant a little christmas miracle with a christmas drabble that i started a very long time ago. after a little tweaking i was finally able to make it work and am ready to share it with you all now! so without further ado, here is a little 5k+ non-canon christmas drabble full of santa, booze, and the lovely fhyp gang. hope you all missed them as much as i have, and happy holidays!

Christmastime was meant to be the most wonderful time of the year – there were only hundreds of songs written in its honor. This was when happiness was meant to linger in the air along with that hint of holiday magic that couldn’t bring anyone down. Birdy Thomas liked to believe that she could feel that magic of the holidays whenever December finally rolled around, when she finally got to see the people she loved at their most festive. But despite the joy and jubilance of Christmas, there was nothing that could have gotten the scowl off her face at that very moment. Why was it there one might have asked? None other than the holly, jolly Santa Claus himself.

(Well, the one at the Westfield Shopping Centre anyway.)

She was too nice of a person, she thought. Her day could’ve been filled with Christmas films and heated blankets in her flat, but instead she was watching her neighbors’ twins while her neighbors spent long hours at the hospital treating trauma patients. While a day of watching movies might have sufficed for Birdy when it came to Mia and Tommy Winchester, who were some of the most restless kids that she knew, they needed more stimulating activities to pass their time.

With the combination of doe eyed looks and more ‘please Birdy?’s than she could take, they’d ended up right where they were currently; waiting for the shopping centre’s Santa to finally see them. Birdy only wished she’d opted for some more sensible shoes as opposed to the heeled booties she’d decided on at the last minute.

“Birdy, I’m tired,” Birdy’s eyes averted from the long queue ahead of her, glancing down to catch the look of discomfort on Tommy’s face. “When are we going to see Santa?”

Birdy sighed, ruffling the top of Tommy’s curls. “You’d have to tell me that, mate.”

“This isn’t Santa,” Mia declared, folding her arms across her chest. Tommy turned towards her, his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

“What are you talking about?” Tommy inquired, taking on a defensive look almost immediately. “Of course it’s Santa. He’s got the beard and everything.”

“So? You think that every man with a white beard is Santa?” Mia retorted swiftly. “Santa doesn’t exist.”

Birdy’s eyes widened just as Tommy’s mouth dropped widely. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Santa exists! How do you think we get those presents under the tree?”

“Mummy and Daddy.”

Tommy scoffed. “They do not give us Christmas presents. Only presents we get from them are on our birthday.”

Now it was Mia’s turn to scoff, her hands going onto her hips before her head tilted upwards. “Birdy, could you please tell Tommy that Santa doesn’t exist? Because I’m pretty sure that I overheard my teacher say something to my mum about how he doesn’t and my teacher doesn’t lie.”

“Birdy, could you please tell her that Santa does exist?” Tommy countered with a hard glare in his sister’s direction. “Because Mum and Dad have said that he does and I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t lie either!”

“You think that someone as fat as Santa can really squeeze into every chimney in the world? Or knows what every kid in the world is doing enough to put them on a naughty or nice list?”

“He’s magical! He can do what normal people can’t!”

“Oh yeah? What about people who don’t have chimneys? Do you think he just skips them? And how can reindeer carry a huge man all across earth? Does that make sense to you?”

“He’s magic. Magic people can do magical things. That’s the whole point of them being magical in the first place!”

The twins ended up silent, both peering towards Birdy for a confirming statement that she knew very well she couldn’t give. She instead let out an awkward chuckle, scratching the back of her neck before pointing forward.

“Lookie there! Queue’s moving! Who would have thought?” She decided to use as her cop out, taking this opportunity to skitter ahead. Mia and Tommy continued to bicker behind her and all she could do was let out a sigh in relief. Though she did have a drama background and the ability to do improv like a champ, there was a difference between being able to conjure up replies for a stage and conjuring up an answer for whether a childhood character was real or not.

The wait was proving to be even more unbearable than Birdy first thought, fifteen more minutes going by before she was ready to kick her shoes off and sit down on the assortment of presents that had been stacked high beside her. Mia and Tommy were even worse than she was, outright voicing their complaints and whines until Birdy was close to pulling her hair out.

They were almost at the front of the queue when a tall body wedged their way between Birdy and the kids, at least six foot of person standing right in front of Birdy while whistling ‘It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas’. She glanced at the man up and down, a scoff leaving the back of her throat as her eyes narrowed on him dangerously. If there was one thing Birdy Thomas didn’t tolerate it was being jumped in a queue – especially one she’d spent so much time to get to the front of.

“Hey!” She exclaimed to the back of the man’s beanie clad head. “We’ve been here for a great amount of time and you think it’s alright to cut ahead like that? I don’t know where you were raised exactly but surely you were taught better manners than that.”

“I dunno, I was pretty bad back in primary school,” Birdy’s temper immediately eased upon hearing the responding voice, a crooked smile on Harry’s face as he turned around to face her. “Must’ve never been corrected.”

Birdy rolled her eyes. “Liar. You were a prince in primary.”

“I know I was,” He replied smugly, leaning down to leave a kiss on her lips.

“How nice of you to join us, Dimps,” She said with a shake of her head, glancing down to take in the red sweater that Harry was wearing that had a cute Christmas tree dead center. Mia and Tommy immediately rushed towards him afterwards, their arms wrapping around his waist to give him a squeeze. “Oi, don’t act so happy to see him. It’s just Harry.”

“Yes, but they love and appreciate ‘Just Harry’. Apparently more than you do,” Harry gave her a pointed glance as he hugged the twins back. “How are you lot? Ready to see Santa?”

“So ready!” Tommy exclaimed, grinning. “But Mia thinks that Santa isn’t real. Isn’t that weird?”

“You’re weird for believing in that old man in the first place!” Mia retorted. “You’re just weird in general.”

“You’re weird!”

“No, you are!”

Harry chuckled as he watched the two of them, giving Birdy time to roll onto her tiptoes and whisper into his ear. “I was about to go insane.”

“Trust me, I could tell,” Harry said, laughing slightly. “Did you know that your texts show what kind of mood you’re in? You’ve been emoji-less all day. I was about to ring the police.”

“I am floundering,” She said through grit teeth. “I can’t be the one to break a little boy’s heart, Harry. In fact, I won’t. I already did it to Izzy when she was younger and I swear to god she’s held the biggest grudge over my head ever since then so I’m not going to be the one to do it here. Might as well go ahead and tell him about the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny if I did and there’s no way I’m going to ruin anything that–”

“Bird,” Harry said simply, the simple utterance of her name causing her to shut up on sight.

She wet her lips, nodding slowly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, just.. breathe,” Harry suggested, cheeky half smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. Even if he did figure out that Santa doesn’t exist, it happens to everyone eventually. But he won’t, alright?”

Birdy blinked once. “I just want to go Zara.”

“It won’t be more than five minutes, muppet. Be patient,” He said, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“You’re right, I suppose,” Birdy muttered, shaking her head. “Times like this remind me how I am the overreacting melodrama whilst you are the calmer and levelheaded one of the two of us. Maybe I should start listening to what you say.”

“Mm, both you and I know that’s not going to happen,” Harry said, slipping an arm around Birdy’s waist and drawing her close enough to kiss her once more. “I actually wanted to talk about something–”

“Queue’s moving!” Tommy exclaimed, tugging on Birdy’s arm and jumping ahead excitedly.

“A babysitter’s job is never done,” Birdy sighed, escaping Harry’s grip and following behind the twins. There was a single family left stopping them from finally meeting the centre’s Santa Claus and it couldn’t have come soon enough. Tommy was bouncing on his heels at the thought of seeing Santa while Mia was standing idly by looking all but enthusiastic at what was ahead. The varying personalities in the two were apparent, it was almost intriguing for Birdy to watch.

She glanced back in Harry’s direction, catching his hands going into his back pockets while he bit down on his bottom lip. “Have you got plans tonight?”

“Was planning on packing,” He replied. “I’ve barely made any headway and I leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“Gang’s all meeting at Stanza tonight and I was hoping for a fun little hangout before we all go our separate ways,” Birdy replied, taking out her phone and briefly flashing her and Liam’s text log in Harry’s direction before stuffing it away again. “Besides, how much do you really need to pack for Punta Cana anyway? Some swim trunks? Sunglasses? Tequila?”

Harry let out a small breath, looking displeased. “Another year without snow. You know how I feel about that.”

“Yes, but not all of us can be so fortunate,” Birdy countered. “I know you don’t like hot Christmases but just know that there are some people who would die to be suntanning on a beach after unwrapping presents.”

“You’re of a different breed, Birdy Thomas,” Harry declared, bringing a smile to Birdy’s lips. “But if you are so keen on suntanning then you could always–”

“Oh my god,” Birdy cut him off, a gasp sounding as her hand clapped over her mouth.

“What?” Harry asked, furrowing his brows. “Is everything alright?”

“I know that I’m the overreacting melodrama and everything so please confirm if I’m going mad or not,” She started, already starting to snicker. “But does Santa look familiar to you or is it just me?”

Harry subtly averted his gaze from Birdy to the bearded man only a few steps away from them, his eyes squinting before his mouth dropped as well. There wasn’t a chance that the chuckles from either of them would have ceased, especially when the family ahead of them finally dispersed and Tommy and Mia began walking in Santa’s direction.

“Ho, ho, ho, happy Christmas little man!” Santa said, voice deep and throaty. “And is this your sister here? How are you doing me little peach?”

Tommy hadn’t moved any further, a frown beginning to settle on his lips. “Niall?”

“Told you he wasn’t real,” Mia said in a snooty tone, her nose going into the air. “Birdy, Harry, didn’t I tell him so?”

“Yeah… I’ll be coming to Stanza tonight,” Harry said through his laughs, watching as Niall glanced towards him and Birdy in absolute horror. “Hey mate!”

Birdy waved at Niall afterwards, watching as his gaze dropped to his lap. “It’ll definitely a night you don’t want to miss.”

Birdy couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed as hard as she had been for the past five minutes. She didn’t need to tell more than a sentence of her ‘Niall is the Shopping Centre Santa’ tale for the whole bar to burst into belly grabbing, tear wiping laughter. Even Samson had to pause from making drinks to laugh at that new bit of knowledge.

“I’m sorry, but there’s just no way,” Darcy said, sputtering up a laugh before collecting herself. “Niall’s really Santa? Like Kris Kringle, joy to the world, ‘merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight’ Santa?”

“Yes Darce, I don’t know how many times I have to confirm this. I saw it with my own two eyes,” Birdy said, her body turned in Darcy’s direction. “He was miffed once he saw we were there. Thought he wouldn’t see anyone he knew all day but somehow me and H were lucky enough. Weren’t we, Dimps?”

“We certainly were,” Harry chimed in with a smirk. “But hey, let’s not give him a hard time. He’s just trying to make his Christmas money like all the rest of us.”

“Hmm, yeah. I’m still going to make fun of him. I’m going to destroy him actually!” Darcy announced happily. “Where is the little leprechaun anyway? I’ve never been happier to see him in my entire life.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone as cruel as you are, Darcy,” Liam said, a hand going through his hair. “It’s scary but also a little admirable.”

“I think we should listen to Harry,” Anastasia said, sounding as sweet as Anastasia usually did. “We all know Niall. He could be out there prostituting or selling parts for money, but instead he decided to do something to make the kids happy! Can’t we all appreciate that?”

“Absolutely not!” Louis scoffed, poking his head from behind Darcy. “Can we all grasp that this is probably one of the funniest things that any of us has heard all year? I can understand if Harry and Ana want to be on Santa’s nice list by giving Horan the benefit of the doubt, but this is just plain hilarious!”

“Niall is Santa so he could definitely put them there,” Darcy joked, sending herself back into laughter. She and Louis high fived, rising giggles from Liam and Birdy as well. “I swear; this is never going to get old.”

“You lot are mean,” Ana mumbled as she turned the drink in front of her with the candy cane printed straw she had been sipping out of.

A jingling of bells filled the room shortly afterwards, the shuffling of heavy boots following as a flash of red darted into the pub. Almost on cue, the heavy sniggers began again. Niall had finally arrived, and he hadn’t even bothered to shed his costume before entering.

“Yeah alright. Laugh it up,” Niall rolled his blue eyes, pulling the hat off his head and brushing the snow off his jacket. “I don’t care what you wankers say – if it weren’t for the suit, I definitely would have caught pneumonia by now.”

“I didn’t think it could get any better than it already was,” Liam got out, though his laughter was prominent enough. “Happy Christmas to us all, truly.”

“You’re a right dickhead for telling them all,” Niall shot at Birdy, who hid behind Harry as soon as Niall started to address her. “But then again, what else is new?”

“Oi, they would have found out anyway, wouldn’t they?” She replied, holding up her hands in defense. “Besides, I think you make quite the Old Saint Nick. Even though you nearly made Tommy cry.”

“Dickhead,” Niall reiterated slowly, turning towards Samson. “Get me something strong and peppermint please.”

“Say no more, mate,” Samson nodded. “Would you like me to add something in there for your reindeer or will they be servicing themselves this evening?”

“Come on,” Darcy cackled, her head resting down on the bartop. “I’m trying to be nice here and you’re all not helping one bit.”

“Oh no need Red, go ahead and hit me with everything you have,” Niall told her, shrugging his shoulders. “I can take your weak insults any day.”

“I’ll let you get some liquor in your system first. Might make it easier for you to take them,” Darcy mocked a kiss his way, prompting his eyes to roll. “But seriously, how is the job? How many kids did you promise ponies and functioning families today?”

Niall waited until he had taken down a good amount of the drink Samson handed him before deciding to reply. “You know what? Being Santa really isn’t as easy a job as you all might think it is. It takes a certain skill and finesse that not everyone has. You really have to get into character for something like. None of you would understand.”

Birdy held up a hand. “I act. I think I would understand that better than anyone.”

“Touché,” Ana nodded in agreement.

“Well then why don’t you and your smart mouth try doing what I do then?” Niall inquired, his mouth on the rim of his glass as he took another swig.

“Are you challenging me Niall? Is this a challenge? Is this really what you want to get into? Cause my Santa could wipe the floor with yours, I promise you,” Birdy inquired straight into Niall’s ear, his face scrunching up in reply.

“You’re like an annoying fly that I can’t kill,” He muttered, waving a dismissing hand Birdy’s way.

“You love me,” She said, giving him a knowing glance before grinning at him. “Please continue. Being Santa is a hard feat. Tell us more.”

Though he rolled his eyes beforehand, he did end up continuing. “You have to convince these kids that you know exactly what you’re doing. Personally, I like to throw meself into the job, make the kids feel like I’m their friend before promising them that toy or service they want.”

“I love how you’re talking about it like it’s a real job, that’s probably the most interesting part of all of this,” Harry deduced, looking genuinely interested.

“Even though it’s not and by the time Boxing Day rolls around, you’re looking for employment once again,” Louis pointed out, giving Niall a look of sympathy.

“Maybe so, but at least I can pay my rent for the next two months. Was I able to say that before this job?” Niall asked.

“Hell no,” Darcy held up her own glass as she shook her head.

“Think that was meant to be rhetorical,” Ana whispered to Darcy.

“Trust me, I know,” Darcy said with a smirk.

“Your arse would be the first one on my naughty list, Red. Be lucky I’m not actually Santa Claus or else you’d be getting straight coal this year,” Niall grumbled. “Could I get another glass?”

Birdy tutted, watching as her friend received a new drink. “How can you promise things to little kids when you can’t even get your life together in the first place, Ni?”

“How can you talk to me about children like you aren’t wearing a skimpy pair of Christmas themed knickers right now for everyone to see?” Niall shot back, getting everyone’s eyes wide. Birdy scoffed, shifting awkwardly in her chair and pulling the hem of her shirt down which were slightly ridden up before. “Are those the ones that light up or the ones that sing?”

“You’re literally the most abominable creature I know.”

“You want coal too?” Niall questioned. “Annoying bint.”

“I was trying to be nice!” Birdy exclaimed with a scoff. “The whole reason I came here was to make sure no one made fun of you as bad as they could. I could be helping Harry pack for Punta Cana right now but I wanted to make sure that these people let you live.”

“They wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for you! You strategically planned this, don’t try and act innocent,” Niall shot back at her. “And if you’d rather be packing than seeing me, not only are you annoying but you’re mad too.”

Birdy stuck her tongue out at him before settling her elbow onto the countertop, peering to her left to catch Harry’s eye contact. “And you. What do you want? You’re giving me a look.’

“What look?” Harry asked innocently.

“That look,” She said with a tap to his slightly pouted lips. “The look you give when you want something.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re not the only one who can read people around here, Dimps,” Birdy remarked, a smile playing on her lips.

Birdy’s smile drew one out of Harry almost too easily, his tongue running over his bottom lip before he leaned closer to her. “Well, I would like to see these Christmas knickers Niall was going on about.”

Birdy’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh really?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She hummed, nodding slowly. “If you end up on the nice list you might be able to. Or if I end up on the naughty list. Either or, your chances are looking pretty nice right now.”

Harry laughed, his green eyes flashing up before they went back down. “I’ve also got this Christmas wish of mine that you could very possibly grant for me.”

“Little old me?”

“Yes, you,” He confirmed playfully. “I’ve been wondering – hoping actually –  if, uh, if it was possible for you to maybe–”

He hadn’t finished his sentence before a loud whistle cut him off, followed by Louis’ voice.  “Do you lot want to join our drinking game? Or would you rather gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes while we’re all pissed out of our minds?”

Harry laughed awkwardly. “We were actually–”

“A drinking game?” Birdy repeated, her attention piqued. “What kind?”

“It’s called ’All I Want For Christmas Is You,’” Liam said slowly, waving his hand in the air like the words were hovering above his head. “We go around and we all say what we want someone else to do for Christmas – a risqué, grown up version of course. If that person doesn’t do what they’re asked of then they take a shot.”

“It’s like truth or dare but without the truth, and Christmas-y,” Anastasia explained further. “But no worries, embarrassment is definitely still a part of it.”

“I’m gonna end up really drunk by the end of this, aren’t I?” Birdy asked candidly.

“There’s a very, very high possibility,” Darcy replied.

“Count me in then,” Birdy smiled, taking the shot glass that Niall slid her way. “You playing, Harry?”

Harry sighed, shaking his head before smiling half heartedly. “I’ll pass. I drove.”

“You could sleep at mine! Come on,” She insisted, shaking her boyfriend’s arm repeatedly. “Pleaseeeeee?”

“I’m alright, I promise,” He said, giving her hand a squeeze before leaning against the counter. “Besides, it’s been awhile since I saw you all make arses of yourselves.”

“Say no more, Styles!” Louis exclaimed. “I’ll go first. All I want for Christmas is for Santa Claus Horan to take me on his sleigh.”

More laughter followed, along with the clatter of Niall’s shot glass once he drained it in one go.

“Oh my god,” Birdy said, running a hand over her face as she moved closer to her bathroom mirror. “I am so drunk right now.”

She staggered backwards, accidentally running into Harry who grabbed her by the waist and steadied her. Birdy had been drunk enough times to know how to handle herself whenever she was, but she couldn’t deny that having an extra set of eyes to keep track of her didn’t hurt. Especially on nights when she was feeling as wasted as she was right then. Harry always took care of her, most times more than she felt she needed to be. But that’s how he had always been, constantly making sure that she was alright.

“I should have dropped out sometime after the eighth. The ninth one was that big holy grail moment. The whole ‘you should stop now but you know you won’t’ kind of thing,” She rambled on, shutting the lights off in the bathroom before beginning to stalk towards her bedroom. “But I’m much too stubborn. You know I don’t like backing down from a challenge.”

“I know, baby,” Harry indulged her with a laugh, following behind her. “It’s one of your best and worst qualities.”

“It’s definitely one of my worst,” She said before flopping onto her bed and closing her eyes. “I’m giving up drinking.”

“Really?” Harry asked with a clear tone of disbelief. He sat down beside her, his fingers pushing the hair out of the way so he could see her face. “Now that would be the day.”

“I mean it, Harry,” She tried to say adamantly, trying not to slip over her words. “From this moment forward I am done with liquor. I’m a new woman.”

“New Years is right around the corner, Bird.”

She paused, swearing under her breath once she realized he was correct. “It’ll have to be after that then because New Year’s is always best when you’re a little bit drunk.”

“Just a little bit?”

“…A lotta bit.”

Birdy wasn’t sure if Harry’s doubt annoyed her due to his lack of faith or just showed how much her boyfriend truly knew her drunken ways. Either way, she was far too inebriated to worry about it.

“The room’s spinning a bit,” Birdy confessed, her words muffled by her duvet. She was sure that Harry had heard her regardless though, considering how he kicked off his shoes and slid further up the bed, pulling her into his lap afterwards. She closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne and body wash. No matter how far away she might have felt mentally, he always brought her back to some semblance of reality.

“If you throw up on me, I’m leaving,” Harry remarked with a poke to Birdy’s side.

“I wasn’t planning that but it could always be arranged,” She muttered into the crook of his neck with a smirk on her face. “Anyway, you can’t leave. Cause I won’t see you again until after New Years and I’d like a bit more time with you.”

“You’ve been with me most of the day. That’s not enough for you?”

Birdy shook her head slowly. “I’d be around you all the time if you’d let me. Unfortunately, you find me irritating and call me mental all the time so that doesn’t happen.”

“But am I lying?”

“’Tis the season to be a dick, I guess,” Birdy scoffed while Harry chuckled right against her forehead, stopping only to press a kiss against her skin, making her even warmer than she already was. “M’gonna miss you. Truly. I’ll be in Leeds eating Yorkshire puddings and missing the hell out of you. Meanwhile you’ll be in an island paradise. Life is not fair.”

She’d expected a declaration of the same caliber from Harry’s end, one where he went on about just how much he would be thinking about her in the sunny weather or how he would avert his eyes every time he saw a woman slicked down in oil, but instead there was silence. Just Harry combing through her hair in a way gentle enough to put her asleep right there and then.

“You know, I’ve been trying to ask you something all day,” He finally spoke after another long bout of silence. Birdy was so beside herself that she couldn’t even pinpoint what he was talking about. “Should have been asking you this a long time ago actually.”

“Asking me what?” Birdy asked quietly, opening one of her eyes up. “Is it about my knickers? Cause you can see them if you want to. All you have to do is ask nicely.”

Harry chuckled, looking at Birdy like she was the most endearing thing in the world. “No, not your knickers. I’m sure they’re very nice though.”

“Are you sure? They light up.”

“Yes, Birdy. I’m sure.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to come.”

Birdy’s eyebrows went up in an inconspicuous fashion. “So you don’t want to see my knickers but you’re asking me if I want to come? Because the answer will always be yes.”

“Jesus, Bird,” Harry ran a hand over his face, looking at her incredulously. “I meant if you wanted to come on holiday with me.”

Birdy couldn’t help but widen both of her eyes, pushing herself up so she could look at him properly. “To Punta Cana?” She asked for clarification.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “If you wanted to.”

“‘If I wanted to?’ Harry, do you know the level of that request? That’s at least six Christmas presents all in one,” She scoffed, shaking her head. “Mad, that.”

“I should’ve asked you earlier but I kept getting cut off,” He continued. “I also didn’t know how you’d feel about it, considering how last minute the request was. Plus, you always do Leeds and I know that your mum’s Christmas dinners could have stories written about them and it’s all very last minute but–”

Birdy shushed him before he could finish, putting a finger up to his lips. She wasn’t in a place where she could comprehend his long winded sentences. “You’re inviting me to Punta Cana and you think my mother’s roast is going to hold me back?”

“You say that like her roasts aren’t out of this world,” Harry replied before biting at Birdy’s finger, which she responded to with a frown. “I figure it’s too late for you to reconsider now.”

“Says who?” She questioned with a laugh. “If I wasn’t completely smashed I would be packing right now.”

“Your family wouldn’t hate me if I whisked you away?”

“Would take a lot for them to do that. I guarantee they’ll manage just fine without me,” She said with assurance in her muffled tone. “Mum might have something to say but she’ll get over it. Win and Finn will be able to take third and fourth servings of food without a side eye and Izzy will just ask me to pick her up something. A t-shirt or a man, one or the other.”

“I am not at all surprised,” Harry said, looking pleased. “We can give it another day or two. Time for the both of us to pack and for you to sober up.”

“You don’t think this would be the perfect way to link with your family in the DR? Heavily under the influence?” Birdy asked sarcastically, prompting Harry to let out a loud cackle.

“Your choice, love. Might loosen you up a bit,” He retorted with a shrug.

“Don’t tempt me,” Birdy waggled her eyebrows, nuzzling back into Harry’s neck and letting her eyes fall back closed. “I just have one question for you.”

Harry went back to combing through her hair, his milky tone replying back, “Anything.”

“Are you packing the tequila or should I?”