#greybalina

[str4ng3rdanger]

let's go lesbians

everything i could think of over the past two days it's so great they get to be visible this week 🧡🤍💗

[ctsouth-blog1]

ship: greyballina

words: about 1.7k

notes: for @redteamdoyle​! happy birthday pipit

Vanessa doesn’t know what she expects when she walks into her apartment, pulling the ponytail holder out of her hair and dropping her messenger bag right in the make-do foyer, but it’s definitely not both of her girlfriends flitting around their minuscule kitchen and almost tripping over one another.

Emily has her hair in a bun and is wearing Vanessa’s horrific bright blue oven mitts, and while she’s no longer wearing her high heels and is about four inches shorter than Carolina, she’s still mostly dressed in her work clothing. Her suit jacket has been discarded on the armchair in the living room and her shoes are piled with Carolina’s to the left of the front door. She’s muttering something but it’s lost under the Latin music playing on the radio, which she slightly dances to without really noticing. Carolina, on the other hand, is dealing with the stovetop, a saucepan and a massive pot both under her careful watch. She’s already changed into her comfort clothing, she has baggy grey sweatpants that cover her feet and one of Emily’s sweatshirts on with the sleeves rolled up. She’s trying to stir the food in the pot and what seems to be tomato sauce in the pan at the same time, but she’s unfortunately not ambidextrous and almost ends up dropping the mixing spoon in her left hand.

Vanessa clears her throat and says, “Hey.”

There’s half a second where Carolina purely freezes in horror, her eyes blown wide, but then Emily shoves her towards Vanessa while she tries to cover the oven and the stovetop purely with her torso and her arms. She shouts something like, “Heeey, Vanessa!” while she shoves the mitts off of her hands and grins way too widely. 

Carolina springs into action and takes Vanessa by her shoulders, turning her around and leading her out of the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re home,” she’s saying, “Did you have a good day at work? I’m sure you did. Emily and I were just fiddling around. You can sit down and watch some TV, if you want. We’ll be done in a minute. Why are you home so early?”

“Doyle told me to leave early,” Vanessa says, but then she asks, “What are you two doing?” in her best I’m-very-suspicious-and-don’t-trust-either-of-you-in-the-kitchen voice. The grin sort of infects her tone, though, and she doesn’t even try to fight back against Carolina sitting her down at the couch. 

“Nothing!” Emily yells from the kitchen, and then there’s a timer beeping and there’s the sound of her scrambling to turn it off. Vanessa raises her eyebrow at Carolina questioningly. Emily says “Nothing,” again even though there’s the sound of pots banging against each other.

Carolina says “Nothing,” too.

“You guys didn’t have to do anything.” Vanessa begins, standing up again, “At work, Doyle bought me lunch for my birthday and Palomo even got me a gift card.”

“To where?”

“Subway,” she replies with a slight grimace.

Carolina hums and starts backing up towards the kitchen. “Don’t worry about it,” she says firmly, “This is just a thank you. For everything.”

“You really don’t have to —,”

“We love you,” Carolina interrupts, about to return to the kitchen, “so just shut up and let us do this, alright?” She grins, and Vanessa feels her heart constrict. “We’ll be out in just a second.”

Vanessa sits down obligingly, trying hard not to smile, and replies, “Just know that I don’t think any of this is a good idea.”

Emily distantly yells, “We watched Food Network for two hours! We know everything about cooking! There’s nothing to worry about!” 

Vanessa laughs a little. It sounds a bit forced and a bit worried. She is fairly sure neither of them know how to even cook rice.

There’s the distance hushed whispering of Emily asking “Why is she home so early?” and “How are we going to finish this?” and then Carolina replying “Donald sent her home,” and “We’re going to finish this,” but neither of them are particularly good at being quiet and the walls are thin. Another timer beeps and both of them simultaneously mutter “Shit!” and then there’s some muttering to make it stop. The radio has been significantly turned down and Vanessa props her feet up on the ottoman. She checks her Blackberry because apparently she’s still stuck in the work ethic of three years ago and undoes the top part of her button-down. 

She yells, “Is that cake I smell?” behind her to the two of them in the kitchen, sounding arrogant and content with herself. 

Emily almost immediately yells, “No!” at the same time Carolina is shouting, “Maybe!” and then there’s a sheepish hum between the both of them before Emily amends with, “It’s none of your business!” loudly. Vanessa makes an approving noise at the back of her throat and turns back to her devices. 

About five minutes later Emily exits the kitchen with a small hint of white icing on the side of her mouth, one of the mitts still on, and three plates with an excessive number of utensils piled on in her arms. The porcelain makes a terrible noise as it unpleasantly hits the wood of the tiny dining room table, and the forks and knives clamber against one another in protest. “Sorry,” Emily says regretfully, “I’m not really good at setting the table.” 

Vanessa looks at her with an eyebrow raised for half a second, until she stands up and adjusts the horrendous configuration of utensils around the plates.

Apparently Emily has never actually seen a properly set up table, because she puts all three of them on the right side of the porcelain without a second thought. Emily’s never been good at the details.

She’s saying “Sorry,” to her feet as Vanessa closes the timid distance between them, brushes the small amount of hair out of her face and rubs her thumb along Emily’s temple. She then proceeds to swipe the small amount of icing from the side of Emily’s mouth and taste it.

“Buttercream?” Vanessa asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

Emily hums in affirmation. “Carrot cake,” she says, looking up to meet Vanessa’s eyes. “You said it was your favorite.”

“It is my favorite.”

Emily’s forehead is lightly kissed before she returns to the kitchen, smiling, half skipping in her socks so she slides across the floor. She says, “Sit at the table,” behind her as she leaves, steps content. Vanessa obliges.

There are a few more minutes of different banging noises coming from the other side of the wall, including a knife being dropped multiple times, a pot getting slammed down to the counter with an ominous, muttered “Shit!” and a few more hushed whispers tied in with the clicking of a mechanical flame-started, only to be followed with the triumphant noise of a match hitting the paper and lighting. Then, the Emily and Carolina exit like a two-man parade with their heads held high.

Emily is holding both a plate of spaghetti with two slices of what appears to be buttered toast and the entire cake, which sets her off balance. Her left hand is weighed down more by the dessert and she tilts like a scale, but she’s grinning shakily while also trying not to catch anything on fire with the open flame. Carolina, two feet behind her, is singing her beautifully off-pitch rendition of Happy Birthday, holding her stylish yet impractical iPhone 6s, grinning, both hands holding the device up to make it steady. Vanessa thinks she might be a little bit in love.

Emily, with as much finesse as she can muster, places the pasta and the cake before her as Carolina wraps up the song, zooming in onto Vanessa’s face and almost giggling as she gets out the words. She is gorgeous with her roots that are growing in blonde and her hair tied in a loose ponytail and the edges of her eyes crinkling, and Emily is gorgeous with the strands falling out of her bun and her neon striped socks and her dimples that lighten up her face. Vanessa blows out the candle and her throat is closing up because she loves them and the sloppy pasta they’ve made her with a few noodles falling off of the plate and the over-buttered toast and the marinara sauce they must’ve bought in a can, and the carrot cake made from a box mix and the messy white icing and Emily’s dragging cursive ungracefully dragged across the surface with a message lost in the chicken scrawl. 

She says “I love you,” and she takes Carolina’s hand from her ostentatious cell phone and Emily’s hand that is limp at her sides and kisses both of the backs of their hands, first Emily and then Carolina and then again. Carolina’s smile drops to her feet and Emily blushes astoundingly, bright red along her cheeks. It’s the best thing Vanessa has ever seen.

“The pasta might be a bit overcooked,” Carolina cuts in, shoving her hand into her pocket, “because we couldn’t figure out which timer was beeping for what. And, the icing might be a bit heavy, because Emily doesn’t know how to proportion.”

“There’s no such thing as too much sugar!”

“Yes there is.”

Vanessa takes the fork and twirls a piece of spaghetti on it, smiling at the conversation going on before her, and dips her head with her hand cupped to capture any potential mess she could make. A bit of red sauce dots her upper lip but she’s too busy smiling to notice.

“It’s perfect.”

Emily beams brightly and Vanessa just wants to kiss her, more so than she usually does, her pride and adoration showing on her face. She’s lovely. Carolina, who is still recording, focuses on Vanessa for a moment before moving in to wrap her arm around her. Vanessa kisses her cheek and half pulls her onto her lap, so Carolina’s knees accidentally knock the table and she slips off balanced. 

Vanessa sits, with Carolina draped across her and her hand outstretched to grab Emily’s, her meal presented before her by the two people she cares for most, and says, “You’re both perfect.” It even seems like they are.

[happyanon-spreadlovenothate]

Greyballina

who the fuck put the peeps in the microwave

Emily put them in there, but Kimball didn’t stop her either, so both of them are responsible for that one. 

who forgot to put the cat outside before sex

Carolina might have forgotten to mention that she got a cat, and that cat likes bite people who are unaware.

who posts vines of the other doing embarrassing shit

Vanessa and Carolina have an escalating dare series where they go out of their way to be more and more edgy.

who breaks the most phones

Carolina has her mothers temper when it comes to certain things, the phone is usually the first to hit the wall. 

who dies first

Carolina will always throw herself head first into the fray. 

which one I could see as being lactose intolerant

Emily, though she still eats ice cream sometimes because she loves it. 

who thinks they can do something really well even though they can’t

Emily has fantastic bedside manner, why are you laughing she’s completely serious, what do you mean talking about prosthesis to tonsillitis patients isn’t ‘appropriate’ and is ‘downright terrifying’

who is more likely to get kicked out of the bed

Carolina tends to sleep on the edge and gets kicked off a lot.

who uses the computer most

Emily “five more minutes” Grey. 

[notjustsharksfanart]

Fic: Blue Lights All Around (College AU) (Part 1???)

In which; Carolina gets roped into the student council; trades notes with a TA; and argues with Washington. A lot. (Pairings; Greybalina, past 479alina, past Mainelina, past Yorkalina; background Tuckington which is more forefront at the beginning, whoops.)

“I can’t believe you.”

“Wash--”

“Carolina, do you know why we’re here? You pulled this same shit at MOI, and look how that ended.”

“I didn’t--”

“It ended badly, Carolina.”

“Look,” Carolina said, lying back on Wash’s floor. He was still glaring at her from his bunk, like he had room to talk. She huffed, “It’s not what you think.”

“You joined the student council! How is that not what I think?”

“She was persistent! You didn’t help me turn her down!”

“I thought she was flirting with you.”

Carolina waved her hands in frustration, “I thought she was too! But now I’m on the student council I guess? How did she even know I was President at MOI?”

Wash tossed his phone down to her, “Tucker told her.”

“How does Tucker know?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell Tucker, and he’s friends with York on the Facebooks. They’re talking? I guess?”

Carolina stared at the text conversation on the screen, slightly bewildered. She rolled over and tried to continue her bio homework, but Wash wasn’t about to let the argument go.

“Boss, you’re currently accidentally triple majoring in Pre-Med, Experimental Psychology, and International Business and Politics, you’re on both the Track and Lacrosse teams, and we’re still supposed to be volunteering with Caboose at the animal shelter.”

“So? That’s like, half the workload I was at when the bad thing happened,” Carolina sniffed, “And anyway, you have your Blood Gulch study group thing, and you can’t say that’s not stressful.”

Wash waved a pencil at her, “They’re actually not bad. It’s kinda fun.” He sighed, “Do you remember fun, Carolina?”

“Shut up, Wash,” Carolina said. She sighed, and rolled away from the bio spreadsheets again. “I can’t believe we’re still in school. Am I wasting my life?”

“At least we’re still allowed in school.”

Carolina leaned back and covered her eyes with her forearm. “And stop quoting that godawful song.”

“Stop saying yes to things and I will never quote ‘Come on Carolina’ ever again.”

“No.”

“Give me back my phone,” Wash mumbled, glancing at the clock. It was nearing 1am, and neither of them had finished their assignments. For all Wash’s talk, he was as much as a recovering workaholic as she was, and twice the glutton for punishment. “Your brother keeps calling me, by the way,” he said, conversationally.

“Ngh.”

“He’s worried about you. He talked at me for an hour and I owe one so I can’t just hang up on him. Please call him back, I don’t have enough minutes for this.”

“I thought you wanted me to say no to obligations, Wash.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Wash hummed, “About your brother, anyway.”

“Well, we’re not very nice people.”

“True. Do you have the Spanish assignment done?”

-

The next day, Carolina woke up at 5:00am, put on what felt like 16 layers, and went for a run in the snow. She dropped by her dorm room (a single, right next to the RA-- one of the conditions of her continuing enrollment,) long enough to heat up instant coffee and eat a banana before her 7:30am Bio 300 class. She sat down in her usual spot (a more isolated area in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by empty seats,) and shuffled through her notes, looking for what she’d written during last class. Someone slumped into the seat next to her, which itself was surprising-- people tended to avoid sitting near each other in morning classes in general, and near her in particular. She glanced up at a shock of purple hair and beaded glasses that would look more in place on a grandmother than a student. The girl glanced sideways, her hands clenched around twin coffee cups. “Good morning,” she said, “Nice day for torture, huh?”

Carolina considered an array of responses, and decided that the best way to make good friends was to be herself; “I wouldn’t know, I’m not allowed to do that anymore. School policy.”

The girl, now comfortably leaning back in the chair, snorted. “I hear you. ‘No, Grey, your thesis can’t be live research on Freshmen, they have feelings, your live experience gets to be TAing a bio class full of precocious sophomores and bored juniors, and we’re not going to tell you until it’s already too late to swap to something else or stop it from conflicting with your music theory class.’”

“I’m guessing that’s why you’re here?”

Grey grinned, “Yep. I don’t see how this is any less ‘inhumane’ or ‘unethical,’ though.”

The good feeling behind the human interaction was draining away as Carolina thought about where she’d been before. To say Grey was reminding her of anyone at MOI would be disingenuous and probably insulting, but her joking about unethical science clicked in a way that made Carolina uncomfortable. She wondered what it meant- that torture jokes were fine, but unethical science jokes were not. She resorted to her other form of communication (borrowed from Maine.)

“Muh.”

The professor walked in at that moment and prevented further conversation. He ran through the names of students in a bored, rote way-- one of the few professors to actually call attendance rather than use a sign in sheet, since attendance was a major part of his grading system. “Charlotte Church.” Carolina couldn’t help but notice the way Grey’s head jerked at her name (years of paranoia and hypervigilance coming to her aid.) Grey managed to keep her questions contained until about halfway through the class, which is when she started slipping Carolina notes.

The note read: ‘if I made you uncomfortable, please let me know. i talk too much. impulse control problem.  if it happens again. also if i am making you uncomfortable right now. also if you need help with the dissection diagrams. i am the ta, after all.’

Carolina scribbled back, ‘I wouldn’t have laughed if I didn’t find it funny, also, are you allowed to be passing notes? You are the TA, after all.’

‘I can just say you needed my help.’

Carolina bristled at that; again, automatically; ‘I don’t need help.’

‘i know that, but he probably assumes otherwise.’

Carolina didn’t respond after that, instead angrily scratching down notes, wanting to prove something. Grey waved her off at the end of class with a “See you later, Church,” and only then did Carolina realize how weird it was that nobody at Chorus knew her as Carolina. She was Charlotte Church; daughter to an asshole criminal, burnt out, crazy, and probably dangerous. It wasn’t a good feeling. She tried not to think about it for the rest of her classes, but still ended up avoiding people at lunch, going to the gym again in an attempt to outrun her feelings.

-

“I got a call from your exes.”

Carolina’s brow creased in confusion, “Who? York? 47?”

“Both. They’re living together. They’re trying to make a council of seven evil exes and they were trying to get me to get Maine in on it,” Wash paused, tapping his pen against his teeth, “I don’t think he’s going to go for it.”

It had become a ritual, automatically going back to Wash’s dorm room after classes. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable friendship at that point, but both of them knew what had happened to the other, even if they didn’t talk about it. Wash’s room was slightly more comfortable than Carolina’s was, too-- it was marginally more lived in, mostly due to his study group’s influence. “How did you get people to call you Wash?”

“Well, I made friends, told my friends that was my name, and put the request out to my profs. Why?”

Carolina shut her book, “I’m just sick of being a Church all the time.”

“Fair enough, if I was related to your asshole brother I’d probably want to be something else too,” Tucker said, calling through the door as he pushed into Washs’ room.“‘Sup, Carolina?”

Wash made a hissy breathing out noise, “You could knock.”

Tucker snorted, “It’s not like I’d ever see anything that I haven’t seen--”

“Not the point, Tucker--” Wash sighed.

“Anyway,” Tucker said, “I’m here to pick up Carolina-- the student council meets in ten and I told Kimball I’d make sure you’d come.”

“Why does everyone here call everyone else by their last name?” Carolina said, slowly standing up and finding her gloves.

“What’s with you guys and your obsession with states?” Tucker retorted.

“Feel free to bicker outside this room, guys,” Wash said, evenly, turning the page in his book.

-

Tucker and Carolina fell into step on the way to the Armonia building. It was still snowing. “Man, fuck this weather, I knew I should have stayed abroad.”

“You told me you left because you didn’t understand the language.”

“I was gonna learn eventually,” Tucker said, “And at least it was warm.”

Carolina elbowed him; “Why are you talking to York? And why does Kimball know about the thing?” She paused, “And why are you talking to York?”

Tucker snorted, flicking snow off the bushes as he walked, “York picked up one of the kids at Junior’s daycare, and we got to talking. Turns out he knows you and Wash. So don’t be paranoid, it was a fluke meeting. As far as I know, he’s not stalking you.”

“And you telling Kimball about me?” Carolina said, scuffing her boots against the new salted sidewalk; her new boots were already half destroyed, “Was that a fluke?”

“I didn’t tell her much,” Tucker shrugged, “The thing was pretty big on the news, and all you have to do is google your name.”

“Irrelevant. Wash and I are supposed to be having a fresh start without what happened at MOI coming back and being parrotted by a cute Political Science major.”

“So you do think she’s cute.”

“Tucker.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Look, I don’t--” Carolina got the feeling she was rapidly hurtling towards actually talking about her feelings, and pulled back. “It’s not a big deal, I just don’t want to talk to people about it, okay?”

“Gotcha,” Tucker said, “Don’t worry. I don’t think people judge you any more than they already did before.” Carolina pushed him into the snow.

-

The student council meeting was in an uncomfortably warm room just by the cafeteria. The school student council technically had two heads; one was the head of the side elected by the student body, the other in charge of the clubs. Kimball was the latter. Not many of the club representatives actually wanted to be there, aside from a few surprisingly eager club heads who were there for Kimball first, and to get Kimball to be the head of student government second. At least, that was what Tucker said, but Carolina wasn’t sure how much of what he said she was supposed to actually care about or pay attention to.

What was actually happening was a parade of power point presentations detailing, in order; why Spider Club should get to exist, that anime

“Why am I here?” She muttered to Tucker once or twice, “I don’t even control a club.”

“Track never sends a rep, so I figured you could come along. It’s in the student constitution.”

“All that’s happened is that groups have asked for money and been shut down. A lot.” Carolina huffed, “It’s incredibly inefficient. Kimball is too kind.”

“Kimball wants to give everyone a chance.”

“We just watched a presentation about buying rope so the Sex and Gender Alliance can do live Japanese rope bondage demonstrations,” Carolina deadpanned, hard, “And they got the money.”

“They have leaflets for the demo already,” Tucker grinned, “And you have to have enjoyed that demonstration.”

“Inefficient use of funds. Let them make rope out of grass and each others hair. Toughen them up,” Carolina said, and in case Tucker thought she was kidding, added, “Like god intended.”

“You sound like Sarge.”

“Sarge is pretty cool. Sinks shots better than you, anyway.”

Carolina tried to go back to trying to ignore Tucker and the demonstrations, but ended up drawing a large circle across her trigonometry homework. She glanced at Tucker’s attempt at doing Urdu homework while taking notes on the presentations. He had drawn a large “Fuuuuuck thisssss” across all his papers. She glanced back to the front of the room.

Part of her homework problem was that it was hard to ignore Kimball. She seemed to really believe in student government, and believed in it enough that her optimism got spread around until everyone was interested in student congress budgetary reforms. One of the Freshman gave a speech about earmarks in her club’s budget and got teary eyed when Kimball told her she’d done a good job.

“This can’t be real. Cute clipboard girl cannot be a real person.”

“Caboose has been calling her a beautiful cinnamon roll for about three weeks. It’s making Donut upset.” “Too good for this world.”

“It’s true.”

Kimball called out from the front of the room; “Two minutes! Does anyone have an order of business before the end of the meeting?”

“Please let us leave,” one of Kimball’s less eager entourage called out from the front row.

“Bitters, shut up!”

Tucker stared into the middle distance, “I have been saddled with these children.” He whispered.

Kimball grinned, which completely and utterly compromised any chances Carolina had of being able to think.

“Motion to fuck off?” Kimball said.

“Second!” From the front.

“Third!” From the back.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” from Tucker, who was already packing away his papers. There was a general rush of commotion as a significant amount of the room ran for the doors. Tucker, however, pulled Carolina by the arm towards Kimball. “Come with us to the diner, Kimball wants to pick your brain.”

“She just called a motion to ‘fuck off.’” Carolina said, still confused.

“It’s traditional,” Kimball said, “One of the few things about this part of student government that was ever any fun. So that’s one of the few things I kept. Nice to see you Carolina-- you’re here for the track team, right?”

“Apparently everyone knew that but me,” Carolina said.

One of Kimballs’ cabal of constantly rotating Freshmen (a girl with thick braces and thicker eyeglasses, pockmarked with acne and possessing a cloud of frizzy hair,) called over to them. “Tucker, are the other Captains coming to the diner?”

“Nah, they have ‘things’ to ‘do’ apparently. It’s not a club head meeting, anyway.” Carolina cocked an eyebrow at him, and he explained, “You don’t have to be the President of your club to come to these meetings-- Gov reps do that. I’m just here because I’m an awesome multitasker.”

“And the only thing keeping fencing club afloat,” an obnoxiously orange haired kid snorted.

Another Freshman, who obviously looked up to Tucker for some reason, continued, “Tucker does so much for Fencing club! He’s the head of both the Fencing club and competition team, and the treasurer for both, and the rep for the team!” the kid said, over eagerly, “I’d help out more but Tucker says I’d probably fuck it up.”

Carolina grinned, “Aw, Tucker, you really do care.”

“I don’t care, I just want to be able to keep playing with swords.”

“Bow chicka wo-”

“Shut the fuck up, Palomo”.

Carolina snorted, and noticed that Kimball was looking at her. “Uh?”

“Will you come with us to the diner?” Kimball said, nervously, “We usually head there after meetings to strategize for the student election.”

“Uh,” Carolina said, losing her ability to talk momentarily, “I have. Homework.”

Tucker rolled his eyes, “Come with, Carolina. We will buy you snacks.”

Carolina weighed her need to study against the opportunity to talk politics and eat snacks. “Fine.” She said.

-

“Fuckin’ traitor,” Tucker said, “How are you going to stan for Doyle when you’re on Kimball’s election bid team?

“Suck my dick, Lavernius, or do you not have room with all the Freelancer c-”

“Please take your either homophobic or homoerotic commentary away from the meeting. At least try and make a good impression on our guest,” Kimball said, catching Carolina’s eye and struggling not to make a face.

Felix’s eyes went wide. He was orange haired and almost entirely an asshole, which is why it was no surprise when he immediately clocked Carolina’s name. “Oh shit, she’s the one-- from MOI, right?” Felix snorted, “What does some z-grade dropout know--”

“Shut up, Felix,” Kimball said, evenly, and turned to Carolina, “I asked you to come and help on the campaign because I am interested in the methods you used to become student president at your last school.”

Carolina took Tucker’s milk, staring him dead in the eye, and turned back to Kimball all pleasantries, “A long term campaign of intimidation, threats, and assassination.”

Kimball looked at her strangely, “I’ll. I’ll take that under consideration.”

Tucker threw a fry at Carolina, “Be helpful, Church.”

Carolina stared back at him for a full minute; “I almost just wasted an entire milkshake by pouring it over your stupid face. You monster.”

Kimball smiled, slightly, “I am actually interested in what you did.”

Carolina shrugged, “I’m telling you. We mostly talked about how terrible it would be if I didn’t win while I befriended everyone who wanted to vote. It was a small class at a small school, not sure if the strategy would work here.”

“We have to beat Doyle. That old money motherfucker wouldn’t know difficulty if it punched him in the face. Which I might,” Tucker said.

The table was basically Kimball, Tucker, Felix, Carolina and the Freshman, who she was introduced to as “the Freshmen.” The five of them were each reps Tucker’s and Tuckers’ friends’ clubs; Fencing, Cooking, Robot Wars!!, and Animal Friends. They were all Kimballs’, really.

“Where are your moron friends, Tucker?” Felix said, angrily dipping a chip in salsa.

“They had stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Stuff.”

Kimball very deliberately and somehow elegantly (in Carolina’s eyes) ate a ring of calamari, “Okay. We’ve got some new ideas, the leaflets are going to get drawn up, and we have a strategy meeting for Tuesday about the debate.” She pulled out her wallet, signalling the worst 9-way split of a bill Carolina had ever seen, and that was saying something. As everyone was pulling on their coats to leave, Carolina caught Kimball; “I am interested in what your campaign tactics are. If you wanted to talk them over, we could get coffee? Sometime?”

Kimball grinned, “Sure. I’ll give you my number.”

Carolina patted down her pockets, and turned slowly to glare at Tucker, “I left my cell phone in Washs’ room.”

Kimball smiled, and tore off a napkin, “I’ll write it down for you, just text me when you get your phone back.”

“Thanks,” Carolina said, weirdly embarrassed.

“Not a problem,” Kimball said, writing her number out with a flourish, “And I’ll see you at the Tuesday strategy meeting.”

-

“That was your A-Game?”

“It’s been a while.”

Tucker snorted, sending steam out into the snowflakes, “I can tell.”

“Shut up. I’ll walk you back to Wash’s. I’ve got to pick up my damn cell phone.”

[baegentnorthdakota]

ok, but: grey, kimball and carolina all trying to be good parents to a child. yes, yes or yes

oh man oh man oH M AN YES

And while they do try their hardest and the kid is so incredibly loved by all three of them they still go to school with daily stories of what their moms are up to now.

And Kimball immediately sets about trying to give the kid a good moral compass and trying to teach them from right and wrong and answer all their questions about the world. She's the shoulder to cry on and the one who will always drop everything to read the kid's favorite story for the twentieth time that day.

Carolina is the one who is always ready to play, she'll take the kid to the park and play tag and hide and seek and build pillow forts and she tries to be the fun parent as much as possible. The kid learns quickly that on Friday nights she can sometimes be convinced to get ice cream before dinner.

And Grey wants to teach the kid as much as possible, reads them books about history and science and music and art and she's always got some kind of craft project going. She sends the kid to school spouting random facts and even if the kid doesn't know what they're talking about Grey still thinks it's adorable when they can't stop telling everyone that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

[lydia--argent]

greybalina 17!

17. Dreams

Carolina snapped awake in the middle of the night, and something made her freezerather than roll over and try to go back to sleep, or hop out of bedand run off her nerves. The room’s emergency lights glowed faintly,Vanessa was breathing heavily three inches from her ear, and sherealized what was missing from her split-second inventory. She pulledon someone’s sweatshirt grabbed from the floor and made her way intothe small living room.

Emily was curledup on the couch, a blanket tucked neatly around her shoulders. Theonly light in the room came from the datapad she was holding againsther knees, highlighting the dark circles under her eyes. Carolinafrowned, caught for a moment between the couch and the bed.

“There’s plentyof space,” Emily offered softly.

Carolina slidsmoothly over the back of the couch and landed what she thought mightbe a considerate distance away from Emily, who immediately turned andslid her bare feet under Carolina’s thighs. She rested a hand onEmily’s shin, and tipped her head back. Out of the corner of her eye,she could see that Emily had stopped scanning the dense text in frontof her.

Anything Carolinacould say felt too personal or completely inane at this time ofnight, but Emily had asked her to stay. “What’s up?” She wincedinternally, but she’d never been good with this particular part ofrelationships.

Emily didn’t seemto mind, and set her scroll aside to lock her fingers around herknees. “Blood and bones and insides on the outside are fantasticwhen I’m working,” she said wistfully. “It’s very different whenyou see how it all gets that way.”

“Bad dreams?”

Emily nodded. “I’mvery ready for this war to be over.” Something seemed to occur toher, and her eyes lit up as she leaned forward. “Do you have baddreams, Carolina?” she asked. Carolina had learned to recognize thesigns of impending psychoanalysis, but the furrow between Emily’seyebrows was gone. Carolina couldn’t overlook that.

“I don’tremember my dreams anymore,” she admitted. It was worth thepsychobabble in her near future, seeing Emily back at her usualgleeful intensity.

“You could havewoken me up,” Vanessa said from the doorway, leaning sleepilyagainst the wall and pushing her hair out of her face, “rather thanmake Carolina talk about emotions.”

“She’s a goodlistener,” Emily said, patting Carolina on the shoulder.

Carolina tried totake offense, but Vanessa wandered over, curled up against herother side, and was asleep almost before Carolina could get an armaround her.

[notjustsharksfanart]

man okay greybalina college au where grey is an overworked med student and kimball is an overworked polsci student and carolina has just started trying not to be the perfect child and is trying to find her identity but that involves overworking and taking both all the premed classes and all the polsci classes and a strange melange of other classes and grey and kimball meet at one of carolina's study sessions and are just like ".... we have to help this stressed out child."