#guys I need you to know this like. awakened something in me. I liked scott b4 but something switched in my brain.

[m00nbuggies]

hi guys. fun fact. i miss empires.

[wifelinkmtg]

TUMBLR POST EDITOR WON'T LET ME TITLE THIS POST ANYMORE SO I GUESS THIS IS THE TITLE NOW. WEBBED SITE INNIT

So let's say you grew up in the nineties and that The Lion King was an important movie to you. Let's say that the character of Scar - snarling, ambitious, condescending, effeminate Scar - stirred feelings in you which you had no words for as a child. And then let's say, many years later, you're talking about it with a college friend, and you say something like, "oh man, I think Scar was some sort of gay awakening for me," and she fixes you with this level stare and says, "Scar was a fascist. What's the matter with you?"

The immediate feeling is not unlike missing a step: hang on, what's happening, what did I miss? You knew there were goose-stepping hyenas in "Be Prepared," but you didn't think it mattered that much. He's the bad guy, after all, and the movie's just pointing it out. Your friend says it's more than that: the visuals of the song are directly referencing the Nuremberg rallies. They're practically an homage to Riefenstahl. This was your sexual awakening? Is this why you're so into peaked caps and leather, then? Subliminal nazi kink, perhaps?

And then one of your other friends cuts in. "Hold up," he says, "let's think about what Scar actually did in the movie. He organized a group of racialized outcasts and led them against a predatory monarchy. Why are you so keen to defend their hereditary rule? Scar's the good guy here." The conversation immediately descends into a verbal slap fight about who the real bad guy is, whether Scar's regime was actually responsible for the ecological devastation of the Pride Lands, whether the hyenas actually count as "racialized" because James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa after all. Your Catholic friend starts saying some strange and frankly concerning shit about Natural Law. Someone brings The Lion King 2 into it. You leave the conversation feeling a little bit lost and a little bit anxious. What were we even talking about?

INTRODUCING: THE DITCH

There is a way of reading texts which I'm afraid is pervasive, which has as its most classical expression the smug obsession with trivia and minutiae you find in a certain vein of comic book fan. "Who was the first Green Lantern? What was his weakness? Do you even know the Green Lantern Oath?" It eschews the subjective in favor of definitively knowable fact. You can't argue with this guy that, say, Alan Scott shouldn't really count as the first Green Lantern because his whole deal is so radically different from the Hal Jordan/John Stewart/Guy Gardner Corps-era Lanterns, because this guy will simply say "but he's called Green Lantern. Says so right on the cover. Checkmate." This approach to reading a text is fundamentally 1) emotionally detached (there's a reason the joke goes, oh you like X band? name three of their songs - and not, which of their songs means the most to you? which of them came into your life at exactly the right moment to tell you exactly what you needed to hear just then?) and 2) defensive. It's a stance that is designed not to lose arguments. It says so right on the cover. Checkmate.

And then you get the guys who are like "well obviously Bruce Wayne could do far more as a billionaire to solve societal problems by using his tremendous wealth to address systemic issues instead of dressing up as a bat and punching mental patients in the head," and these guys have half a point but they're basically in the same ditch butting heads with the "well, actually" guys, and can we not simply extricate ourselves from the ditch entirely?

So, okay, let's return to our initial example. Scar is portrayed using Nazi iconography - the goose-stepping, the monumentality, the Nuremberg Lichtdom. He is also flamboyant and effete. He unifies and leads a group of downtrodden exiles to overthrow an absolute monarch. He's also a self-serving despot on whose rule Heaven Itself turns its back. You can't reconcile these things from within the ditch - or if you can, the attempt is likely to be ad-hoc supposition and duct tape.

Instead, let's ask ourselves what perspective The Lion King is coming from. What does it say is true about the world? What are its precepts, its axioms?

There is a natural hierarchical order to the world. This is just and righteous and the way of things, and attempts to overthrow this order will be punished severely by the world itself.

Fascism is what happens when evil men attempt to usurp this natural order with the aid of a group or groups of people who refuse to accept their place in the order.

There exists an alternative to defending and adhering to one's place in the natural order - it consists only of selfish spineless apathy.

Manliness is an essential quality of a just ruler. Unmanliness renders a person unfit for rule, and often resentful and dangerous as well.

And isn't that interesting, laid out like that? It renders the entire argument about the movie irrelevant (except for whatever your Catholic friend was on about, since his understanding of the world seems to line up with the above precepts weirdly well.) It's meaningless to argue about whether Scar was a secret hero or a fascist, when the movie doesn't understand fascism and has a damn-near alien view of what good and evil are.

There's always gonna be someone who, having read this far, wants to reply, "so, what? The Lion King is a bad movie and the people who made it were homophobes and also American monarchists, somehow? And anyone who likes it is also some sort of gay-bashing crypto-authoritarian?" To which I have to reply, man, c'mon, get out of the ditch. You're no good to anyone in there. Take my hand. I'm going to pull on three. One... two...

SO PHYREXIA [PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE, GROANS]

We're talking about everyone's favorite ichor-drooling surgery monsters again because there was a bit in my ~*~seminal~*~ essay Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia which seemed to give a number of readers quite a bit of trouble: namely, the idea that while Phyrexia is textually fascist, their aesthetic is incompatible with real-world fascism, and further, that this aesthetic incompatibility in some way outweighs the ways in which they act like a fascist nation in terms of how we think of them. I'll take responsibility here: I don't think that point is at all clear or well-argued in that essay. What I was trying to articulate was that the text of Magic: the Gathering very much wants Phyrexia to be supremely evil and dangerous fascists, because that makes for effective antagonists, but in the process of constructing that, it's accidentally encoded a whole bunch of fascinating presuppositions that end up working at cross-purposes with its apparent aim. That's... not that much clearer, is it? Hmm. Why don't I just show you what I mean?

Atraxa, Grand Unifier (art by Marta Nael)

In "Beneath Eyes Unblinking," one of the March of the Machine stories by K. Arsenault Rivera, there's a fascinating and I think revealing passage in which Atraxa (big-deal Phyrexianized angel and Elesh Norn's lieutenant) has a run-in with an art museum in New Capenna. The first thing I want to talk about is that, in this passage, Atraxa has no understanding of the concept of "beauty". A great deal of space in such a rushed storyline is devoted to her trying to puzzle out what beauty means and interrogating the minds of her recently-compleated Capennan aesthetes to try and understand it. In the end, she is unable to conceive of beauty except as "wrongness," as anathema.

So my first question is, why doesn't Atraxa have any idea of beauty? This is nonsense, right? We could point to a previous story, "A Garden of Flesh," by Lora Gray, in which Elesh Norn explicitly thinks in terms of beauty, but that's a little bit ditchbound, isn't it? The better argument is to simply look at Phyrexian bodies, at the Phyrexian landscape, all of which looks the way it does on purpose, all of which has been shaped in accordance with the very real aesthetic preferences of Phyrexians. How you could look at the Fair Basilica and not understand that Phyrexians most definitely have an idea of beauty, even if you personally disagree with it, is baffling. This is a lot like the canonical assertion that Phyrexians lack souls, which is both contradicted elsewhere in canon and essentially meaningless, given Magic's unwillingness or inability to articulate what a soul is in its setting, and as with this, it seems the goal is simply to dehumanize Phyrexians, to render them alien, even at the cost of incoherence or internal contradiction.

Atraxa's progress through the museum is fascinating. It evokes the 1937 Nazi exhibit on "degenerate art" in Munich, but not at all cleanly. The first exhibit, which is of representational art, she angrily destroys for being too individualistic (a point of dissonance with the European fascist movements of the 20th century, which formed in direct antagonism to communism.) The second exhibit, filled with abstract paintings and sculptures, she destroys even more angrily for having no conceivable use (this is much more in line with the Nazi idea of "degenerate art", so well done there.) The third exhibit is filled with war trophies and reconstructions from a failed Phyrexian invasion of Capenna many years prior, which she is angriest of all with (and fair enough, I suppose.) But then, after she's done completely trashing the place, she spots a number of angel statues on the cathedral across the plaza, and she goes apeshit. In a fugue of white-hot rage, she pulverizes the angel heads, and here is where I have to ask my second question:

Why angels? If you are trying to invoke fascist attitudes toward art, big statues of angels are precisely the wrong thing for your fascist analogues to hate. Fascists love monumental, heroic representations of superhuman perfection. It's practically their whole aesthetic deal. I understand that we're foreshadowing the imminent defeat of Phyrexia at the hands of legions of angels and a multiversal proliferation of angel juice, but that just leads to the exact same question: why angels? To the best of my knowledge, the Phyrexian weakness to New Capennan angel juice is something invented for this storyline. They have, after all, been happily compleating angels since 1997. We could talk about the in-universe justification for why Halo specifically is so potent, but I don't remember what that justification is, and also don't care. Let's not jump back in the ditch, please. The point is, someone decided that this time, Phyrexia would be defeated by an angelic host, and what does that mean? What is the text trying to say? What are its precepts and axioms?

Let me ask you a question: how many physically disabled angels are there in Magic: the Gathering? How about transsexual angels? How many angels are there, on all of the cards that have ever been printed for Magic: the Gathering, that are even just a bit ugly? Do you get it yet? Or do you need me to spell it out for you?

SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOU

There is a kind of body which is bad. It is bad because it has been significantly altered from its natural state, and it is bad because it is repellent to our aesthetic sensibilities.

The bad kind of body is contagious. It spreads through contact. Sometimes people we love are infected, and then they become the bad kind of body too.

There is a kind of body which is good. It is good because it is pleasing to our aesthetic sensibilities, and it is good because it is unaltered from its (super)natural state.

A happy ending is when all the good bodies destroy or drive into hiding all of the bad bodies. A happy ending is when the bad bodies of the people we love are forcibly returned to being the good kind of body.

Do you get it now?

ENDNOTES

It's worth noting that the ditch is very similar to the white American Evangelical hermeneutics of "the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it," the defensive chapter-and-verse-or-it-didn't-happen approach to reading a text, what Fred Clark of slacktivist calls "concordance-ism". I don't think that's accidental. We stand underneath centuries of people reading the Bible very poorly - how could that not affect how we read things today? We are participants in history whether we like it or not.

I sincerely hope I haven't come across as condescending in this essay. Close reading is legitimately difficult! They teach college courses on this stuff! And while it is frustrating to have my close readings interrogated by people who... aren't doing that, like. I do get it. I find myself back in the ditch all the time. This stuff is hard. It is also, sorry, crucial if you intend to say something about a text that's worth saying.

I also hope I've communicated clearly here. Magic story is sufficiently incoherent that trying to develop a thesis about it often feels like trying to nail jello to the wall. If anyone has questions, please ask them! And thank you for reading. Next time, we'll probably do the new Eldraine set.

[slimscooter]

The woman tasted every bit as delicious as she looked, and she definitely knew how to make a man go from mildly interested to extremely involved in the proceedings with a single touch of tongue. Inhibitions no longer necessary, Scott gave in to the urge simmering below the surface ever since it was clear where this was headed, and slipped his hand's from the woman's waist down to her behind and further to those beautiful legs. Firmly grabbing her right thigh to lift it up and around him, he further exposed her to the touch of his hips against hers. The turned on rasp against his ear only nurtured the heat in his veins, a temptation to try and lift the stranger up completely, carry her over to the bed for more closeness and a chance to get out of way too many clothes ...

A very well-known metallic voice followed by tissue and fabric under his touch dissolving and rebuilding served very effectively to stifle any such desires, tearing his body up from a couple of minutes of careless stupor like a bucket of ice water emptied above his head.

The first instinctive reaction to shove that bitch away and lock himself in the bathroom for a very thorough wash-down was imminent ... At the very last split second, his already tense muscles stilled. Maybe for the first time since awakening in a fluid-filled glass tank in a brand new body, Scott felt a surge of energy in his cells that had been missing from his mind ever since Alkali Lake. A flash of adrenaline of honest anger - and not only about his own stupidity and blindness - but also of defiance, determination and maybe a hint of the wish of retaliation, untypical for everything he'd been brought up with ... But none of the guys responsible for this upbringing were around any longer or of any relevance in his life, and anything he'd fought for before his first death lay in ruins.

Since there was no getting out of this second chance having been forced on him against his will, maybe it was time to find something new to dedicate himself to. Drowning in booze and bitterness obviously only brought even more misery.

Instead of pushing Mystique away, he moved within a moment, bringing his arm up to shove her back against the wall with a harsh pressure on her airways, a warning flash of red in his pupils letting her know, fighting back might end very unpleasant for her. Since Mystique obviously was in a mood to fuck with him in even more ways than when they'd been enemies on different teams, she hopefully wouldn't want to risk her new toy biting it anytime soon. Meaning, she'd hopefully have something on her that Scott needed, in case U.G.E.R. would fail to come up with an antidote in time. And maybe for the first time since he'd taken up on this mission together with this psychotic bitch of all people, that thought wasn't only met with a resigned shrug in his head. He didn't seriously expect to make it for long in this second life either, not with all he'd once thought close to him beineg fucked up or dead and having no real calling left, but biting it from some damn poison before he'd even tried wasn't his ideal vision of his next autopsy report.

"You want to give me that antidote voluntarily, Darkholme, or do I need to riddle your body with holes to find it?"

“Smart and good looking, I knew I liked you.” She replied, his lwed smile making her bite her lip, throwing him a smouldering look over her shoulder as he let her go first up the stairs, adding an extra sway to her hips as she went up them which was all for him.

“What’s the point? You’d only have to clean up again afterwards.” She grinned, reaching down to give his ass a firm squeeze to encourage him through the door, bumping into him as they moved through it and giggling in delight. The moment the door was closed behind him she pressed her body into his, her arms coming up to drape over his shoulders as she claimed his mouth in a surprisingly aggressive kiss, her tongue forcefully probing against his, hot and hungry until she pulled back, not even breathless.

“You know something?” She leaned in again, her voice dropping to a whisper as her lips teased his ear, her voice changing, developing an inhuman echo as she spoke next, flesh and clothing rippling scaly and blue beneath his fingers.

“You are so very easy Summers.”

[pretendfan]

{Roommates} THREE

(A/N welcome to chapter three! You’ve got everything in this chapter that went on longer than planned BUT Adrian is being a legit snack, Phoebe tries to play matchmaker, Scott is well being Scott , Lara teases her BFF easily whilst trying to give words of obvious wisdom and dear female reader figures somethings out but not liking the consequences…enjoy🎉)

(Pairing)

Adrian Chase x Female Reader

(Summary)

Desperately in need of a roommate, your co-worker knows a guy, but why did it have to be Adrian? The guy both annoyed and frustrated the hell out of you getting under your skin from the very moment that you had meet him.

But this was only temporary there was no need to complicate things by really getting to know one another or even worse catch feels along the way. Sure it had been a while for both of you but hooking up with your roommate was a terrible idea…wasn’t it?

(Words)

6103

(Warnings)

Mentions of asshole ex , exes behaviour, therapy, talk about Vigilante, more of your favourite roomies being adorable, awkward moments take a turn, friends doing their best (kinda) and a whole heap of tension on top of the already built up tension…. 18+ ONLY

(THREE)

Lost in your own thoughts, on a random Tuesday afternoon during a slow part of your shift at the coffee shop, an old memory hits you right between the eyes.

You, out with your ex at the local market that has since closed down at the exchange where it had been held, but on that particular day you’d been happy together.

The pair of you holding hands walking through the small crowd around the square, three years into your relationship before you realised who your ex really was.

Before everything had blown up in your face your ex had decided to buy you a bunch of pretty sunflowers, which had delighted you because they were your absolute favourite, but that would be one of the only times he’d ever do anything that nice again.

After that memory follows the bitterness which awakens inside you, leading to obvious questions such as why the hell didn’t you leave him when you realised what an asshole he was, and more importantly why couldn’t you stand up for yourself?

Having attended therapy alone before your ex had decided to finally up and leave regardless, you now knew that you were better off but it still hurt either way, like a cut that just wouldn’t heal.

It was actually hurt mixed with embarrassment at the idea of letting him treat you like he did, but you hadn’t known any better, and now you were trying to finally move on from that.

But the memory had left you feeling confused, because how else was you supposed to trust someone new, after what your ex had said and done to you?

You had to avoid getting too close to anyone especially Adrian, which annoys you briefly why did he have to suddenly appear in your thoughts, of all the people to get under your skin it just had to be him.

The day was now ruined you decide or cursed because either way, this was how you had pretty much felt every single time you’ve woken up on the couch just to get away from your boyfriend, before he had walked out of your life until recently.

“Are you ok?” Phoebe asks breaking into your collection of thoughts that were starting to give you an intense headache.

“Thinking about dating again.” You retort out loud then instantly regret it, when you see the excited smile that passes over the barista’s face.

“Really? So who are you thinking about no one here I hope!” Phoebe laughs excitedly but stops when she sees you’re not joining in.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud, even though I’m considering getting back out there since after me ex you know-“

“You can’t talk about your ex here!” Phoebe cries loudly whilst holding her hands up in front of you , which alerts Scott who was leaning against the front counter instead of working.

“An ex is supposed to be forgotten about just move forward and have some fun!” Scott winks at you making you roll your eyes.

“I don’t want to be talking about this at work-“

“Is it because you like Scott?” Cuts in Phoebe causing Scott to almost choke on the drink of water he was having trouble swallowing.

“Wrong friend.” Scott states with a wink once he’s finished choking causing you to glare in his direction.

Phoebe gives you a confused look but you clearly get his meaning ,telling yourself to stop blushing but your body isn’t listening, when your face feels like it’s on fire.

“Ok, let’s just get back to work-“

“But we haven’t finished talking about you yet!” Cuts in Scott adding “Now that your ex is completely out of your hair you can get to know-“

“Oh! Did you mean Adrian?!” Phoebe announces cutting off Scott who rolls his eyes at you, whilst you just now glare at them both, yep today was going exactly to plan, like shit.

“Look you both know I don’t normally talk about my private life and I want to keep it that way-“

“But we have a mutual friend now!” Scott declares with delightful relish, and a smirk you want to slap off his face, because he was of course winding you up on purpose.

“Oh I get it, does Adrian just want to be friends and you want more-“

“What I want!” You cut off Phoebe with a firm voice as you continue “Is to just please stop talking about me and lets get back to work.”

“But there are no customers in here.” Phoebe shrugs like that means she could just sit down, and do nothing which she proceeds to do using the counter as a seat.

“Plus I don’t think Adrian would ever say-“

“Just go do something!“ You hear yourself plead to your colleagues who look at one another, not used to your soft tone of voice, maybe you should try and be less robotic around these two get to actually know them a little more.

Hell, you were finding out lots of strange facts about Scott most of which you would never repeat, thanks to your roommate telling you even though you hadn’t even asked him to.

“Someone needs to get-“

“I’m working on it!” You snap then collecting yourself, smile awkwardly at Phoebe and Scott who both grin back in unison.

“I might know a guy-“

“Adrian is free -“

“End of discussion for now.” You state heading out towards the kitchen to the large fridge to check dates, just be alone for a few moments to cringe in peace.

The rest of the shift leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, it was just embarrassment from the conversation with Phoebe and Scott which didn’t end but instead got much worse, yet despite all of that you had enjoyed chatting with them both.

Which was why you was in such a shitty mood because since meeting Lara here at Karma coffee, way before Phoebe or Scott started you had been content with just the one best friend.

But if earlier had told you anything it was that in your moment of needing to vent your colleagues had been there for you, all you hoped now was that Scott kept his big mouth shut which you knew was obviously impossible.

Carrying your bad mood which was pretty much self inflicted at this point, home with you heading quickly inside your apartment ready to put today in the trash, until you notice the state of the kitchen.

Of all the times to make a mess Adrian had chosen completely the wrong moment, causing you to drop your tote bag angrily on the floor, and very almost stamp your foot hard on the wooden floor in annoyance.

First of all the TV was on super loud with some game show you didn’t recognise, but there was of course no roommate in sight, the kitchen was a complete mess with food left out and plates piled in the sink you could feel your blood suddenly begin to boil.

“Hey Adrian!” You shout over the TV but then you recognise the noises from the bathroom, the shower was on which somehow manages to annoy you even more.

“Of course I want to come home from work and tidy up after you Adrian, it’s like we’re in a relationship which we are far from it, because being with you would be like the worst thing ever!” You shout to yourself angrily whilst contained in the kitchen tidying up the mess around you in a sudden rage.

Adrian pats the flat palm of his hand against his ear because he was pretty sure he had just heard you shouting out his name, but under the running water of the shower thinks he is just hearing things, so instead continues to wash the shampoo from his curly brown hair.

But now you were there in his mind which he knew was wrong, because his body’s automatic response when thinking of you was blood rushing to his cock, which was frustrating as hell.

Because now really wasn’t the time and he definitely wasn’t going to be thinking about you whilst jerking off, not again at least it felt wrong especially if you were here in the apartment, which you weren’t but he needed to control himself.

Adrian had to head out soon anyway to meet Scott then much later go out alone, for a scout around town those were his plans for tonight so he needed to get out, there was no time to satisfy himself even though he knew it wouldn’t take very long.

But instead Adrian choses to ignore his aching erection as he switches the water to freezing cold, which does the trick despite your pretty face illuminating his thoughts all the while he quickly finishes washing himself feeing like an idiot all the while, of all the people it had to be you caught in his head space right this second.

Meanwhile in the kitchen you scan your eyes around the clean counter and sink, feeling a little better until you turn around to go grab your tote bag from the floor, and you hear the bathroom door open which makes you snap all over again.

“What did I say about tidying up your own mess you can’t just-“

Looking back towards the kitchen you freeze mid sentence when you spot Adrian, standing by the kitchen counter grabbing his glasses from the side, as he rewards you with a weird look.

But all you can see is Adrian wearing his dark peach coloured towel low on his hips, damp bare skin showcasing sculpted muscles and abs you didn’t even know he had, hearing his voice in your head but you was focusing instead on the trail of dark hair on his flat stomach leading downwards towards…

“Are you ok?” You hear Adrian ask with a chuckle which snaps your eyes away from his stomach, as you realise all too late that somehow your roommate, was now standing right in front of you.

But you cannot form words to answer his question because you have somehow, forgotten how to speak noticing Adrian’s damp hair which was curling at the front, making you want to reach out and move it away from his forehead.

Adrian notices how red your face has gone from seeing him appear out the shower, which in turn has now got his heart racing at an alarming rate and blood re-routing to a place he really wished that is wasn’t, just this once he didn’t need to be getting a boner right now.

Yet what surprises him the most in this moment was the fact that you were actually blushing in front of him, it was both adorable and a bit of a turn on as he adjusts his towel around his hips as subtly as he could, not to cause anymore distraction.

The movement of his large hands grabbing hold of his towel kickstarts you, as finally capable of speech you look Adrian in the face, then at his bare feet as you mumble “Just stop making a mess.”

You notice Adrian look around the clean kitchen realising you had tidied his mess from earlier, which makes him pull an awkward face in your direction, he needed to perform some quick damage control.

“I’m sorry I-“ Adrian begins but stops when he sees how red your face still was, and how you were trying awfully hard not to look him in the face or anywhere else for that matter, it was very interesting indeed.

“This is all just too much!” You retort suddenly motioning to all of Adrian with one hand waving it in front of him, until you realise what your doing and you drop your hand then just walk off towards your room leaving your bag on the floor, desperately needing to get away before you did something completely stupid.

Like snake a hand around Adrian’s thick neck to pull him closer to you, as your hand threads it’s way into the back of his hair and your lips do all the talking as they meet with his, feeling your roomies hands grip onto you hips tightly as he pulled your body flush against his…

Walking into your bedroom you practically slam the door behind you, then leaning your back against it you try to calm your breathing as the obvious realisation that Adrian is fucking hot, repeats in your head complete with at least fifteen exclamation points after it.

This was bad you could feel your body responding to what it had just seen and you felt so embarrassed, for just standing there like an idiot because Adrian had been talking but you had been lost somewhere near his abs, and what laid below the towel he had been wearing.

Staying in your room you quickly change from your work uniform of a blue polo shirt, leaving on the black skinny jeans for a dark grey fitted tee shirt realising that you needed to get out of here, like right now.

Luckily you soon hear the front door open and close signalling that Adrian had left the building, making you sigh to yourself then decide that regardless, you needed to get out of this apartment.

Messaging Lara you decide to head over to her place she shared with a women named Cleo, who you hoped wasn’t home because she freaked you out, she made Adrian look like the perfect roommate.

Well he did have the perfect body- you stop yourself finishing that sentence with a firm shake of your head, you needed to get a grip and fast no more daydreaming about Adrian.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that I definitely need to start dating again, or at the very least just go on one date.” You state a few hours later in front of a not-so surprised Lara, thankful that her roommate was out for the night so they could talk in peace.

Pizza and late night conversations was how to make things right again, this much you knew because you needed your mind to just stop, wandering back to your roommate and quick.

“I’m glad you’ve finally come to that conclusion but what is really wrong here you seem really spaced out tonight like your mind is elsewhere or should I say focusing on someone else?” Lara questions with a smirk plastered across her face that makes you worry.

“All I’m focusing on now is meeting Rob when you finally set me up with him, and of course I’m not thinking about Adrian before you say it.” You retort in one long breath just to get your point across which you nail in one take.

“Like I even need to, you do it at least every twelve minutes yourself.” Deadpans Lara who laughs when she spots the face you pull in response to her funny comment.

“That’s clearly a lie I’ve mentioned him once just then, it isn’t as if I have much to say about him in the first place!” You say out loud causing Lara’s eyebrows to raise up behind her blonde fringe.

“Ok, your freaking out something happened between you two didn’t it? You don’t often come by here unless you want to talk about something.” Lara points a well manicured finger at you causing you to hold your hands up feeling guilty as hell.

“I have nothing to say.” You tell Lara whilst trying not to sound or look guilty but when she gives you that look you know it’s just easier to talk.

So you do, explaining what had happened earlier as vaguely as possible but you end up detailing Adrian’s muscles so informatively, that Lara ends up laughing at you which makes you stop talking.

“Let me get this straight you left lover boy at home to tell me all this, when he’s back there waiting for you clearly whilst looking all kinds of hot by the sounds of it!” Lara laughs with glee then she adds “But you’re here telling me this instead of being back at home, getting over your ex by climbing on your sexy new roommate.”

“First of all I didn’t say anything about how hot he was-“

“You didn’t need to your face says it all, believe me it’s a picture right now, wait where’s my phone!” Lara goes to grab said phone but you narrow your eyes at her making her stop halfway.

“Fine. But most importantly I’m not going to climb Adrian, need I remind you I hardly know the guy-“

“For now, sure start off with Rob and see where it goes but don’t forget about poor Adrian all alone at the apartment, probably still awaiting for your return as we speak!” Lara comments with a smirk.

“He’s hardly ever there and I doubt he even thinks of me in such way, I’m pretty sure he likes tall blondes instead so-“

“You really are digging yourself a hole here I don’t even need to talk, I could just listen to you spiral all night long it’s so funny!” Lara cuts you off then descends into more bouts of laughter.

“I hate you, you do know that right?” You question which only makes Lara laugh harder because she knows you’ve been beat, dammit.

Beers turn into shots that night as you decide enough was enough, drinking would help you forget at least for tonight deciding to crash on Lara’s couch, where she eventually leaves you passed out muttering in your sleep which makes her chuckle.

Sitting by himself on top of a tall wall with very little happening around him, Adrian tries to find sense in what had happened between you and him, before he had to practically run out of the apartment.

Scott had noticed how off he was with him but Adrian couldn’t even begin to explain earlier, because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like what his friend would say on the matter, but why the hell did he chose to run away?

Closing his eyes Adrian could easily picture the look on your face, as your eyes stared at him hungrily causing his combat trousers to feel very tight all a sudden, ok right now definitely wasn’t the right time to be having these thoughts.

Jumping down from the tall wall which was an obvious mistake because Adrian almost lands funny on his left ankle which would have really finished his mood off to say the least, why the hell wasn’t anything distracting him around here when all he could think about was you.

You decide to hold off heading back to the apartment the next morning until you really had to for work, hoping against hope that Adrian wasn’t there you needed to just avoid him for a while and gather your thoughts together, or failing that really try to stop picturing him in the kitchen with that fitted towel wrapped around his slim waist.

On Saturday you reward yourself with an extra shot of coffee in your first drink of the day, courtesy of Karma coffee and the fact that you had successfully avoided Adrian, for three whole days but you had kind of secretly missed the guy.

But now it was time to face reality because sure Adrian we super hot underneath his clothes, but even though you didn’t really know much about the guy, you knew there was more to him than that you just hadn’t figured out what yet.

Besides being really sweet and a good cook of breakfast foods, at least there were two solid reasons already to believe he was a nice guy, but you wasn’t after that because you knew hooking up with Adrian would be a terrible idea.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Scott doesn’t know how to shut the fuck up, he reminds you of somebody else actually but the only difference is you would actually let Adrian talk.

“So, did you see the news last night?” Scott asks you again for at least the eighteenth time which makes you roll your eyes.

Two colleagues had called in sick today so you were helping out, around the front counter with Scott and Phoebe, who was hanging onto his every word.

Ok, if truth be told you didn’t want to hide in the office you had wanted to see these two idiots but right this second, you were kind of regretting that decision.

“I don’t watch the news-“

“Even I watch the news Y/N.” Phoebe scoffs at you which makes you smirk back.

“Well, if you had watched it then you would have seen how Vigilante kicked ass last night-“

“Yes we all know your a fanboy of this so called hero Vigilante.” You interrupt Scott with a laugh winding him up because it was so easy.

“I am not a fanboy I know-“

“You do get kinda excited when you talk about this Vigilante dude a lot, kind of like a tween at a boyband concert.”Giggles Phoebe making you laughing because she had actually made a funny joke for once.

“Says you looking all pop princess there with pink dye streaks in your hair!” Scott retorts lamely but then wanting to carry on his rant continues “Vigilante is an actual badass, sure two out of four of those dudes died from gun wounds but he’s out there making a difference.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?” Phoebe asks Scott who momentarily looks caught out but then he quickly states “I don’t know of course but what I do know is that they are a badass.”

“So you’ve mentioned.” You deadpan with a grin causing Scott to narrow his eyes at you.

“Like how can you not watch the news? It’s important and this, Vigilante, is doing way more than what the local PD could ever dream of doing!” Scott declares proudly causing Phoebe to nod at him in agreement, it seemed she was easily lead on.

“First off Vigilante what a lazy name choice? And secondly I chose to not watch the news as my choice, and not wanting to see this quote un quote anti hero, out saving people when I’m pretty sure he’s more serial killer than hero at this point.” You state calling time on this conversation but according to Scott they were just getting started.

Of course there was a queue of customers out the door with Scott working the register, Phoebe prepping the drinks and you with your back to everyone focusing on using the coffee machine which liked to be temperamental on a good day.

“How is Vigilante a serial killer?” Scott half snorts half yells at your back whilst you was preparing coffee shots for a couple of tall lattes.

“Being linked to multiple murders around here kind of makes you one of those don’t you watch murder documentaries on Netflix?” You tell Scott sweetly turning round to see him roll his eyes, as he had given up talking to you in favour of Phoebe.

This you didn’t mind one single bit right this second, hoping that the subject would swiftly change, and we could all work a little quicker together to get this line down.

But of course the topic of the day is still Vigilante because both of them talk at great length, and at high volume causing some of the customers in line, to pull faces at what they are discussing.

“Usually the victims are known criminals so in a way he is helping the local community, the police try to track them but Vigilante normally finds them first.” Scott informs Phoebe who is nodding back eagerly waving a bottle of caramel sauce around in her left hand.

“The news don’t often go into too much detail but that’s what the internet is for I’ve seen so many sick pictures-“

“Can you two quit it!” You snap at them both but a guy next in line begins sarcastically “No, keep talking I haven’t got anywhere else to be I’m totally interested in the absolute shit you’re talking about.”

“Hey listen-“

“Sorry sir!” You cut off whatever Scott was about to say to apologise to the customer, feeling shitty for doing so but it was your job, you were the supposed supervisor of this place.

Taking his order personally you feel bad for sucking up to the creep, but afterwards Scott apologises and you say it’s fine, just less murder talk at the front of the shop please.

Heading out back to finally get on with some work you try to focus on something, just anything to get your roommate out of your head, but it’s useless.

On the one hand it was great to have someone else occupying your mind who wasn’t the ex, but on the other hand you hadn’t been expecting Adrian to be so different to how you had always pictured him.

He was sweet, kind of funny at times and to have asked about the phone calls you were getting perhaps you should be giving the guy a bigger chance, at what you weren’t exactly sure yet.

“Hey, we kind of need your help out the front?” Phoebe tells you with a giggle a little while later, not like she was actually panicking or anything hell she sounded pretty chill about the whole thing.

“Like right now?” You ask not sure what was happening right this second, but Phoebe nods enthusiastically so with a sigh you follow her out the front.

Not exactly sure with what you were about to be met with, you did not imagine the tall blonde guy standing in front of the cash register, in a blue suit looking pretty damn good if you were being honest with yourself.

“I just wanted to introduce you to my older brother Adam.” Phoebe grins widely at you whilst your eyes widen in return, not knowing whether to laugh or cry right now.

“Good to finally meet you.” Adam winks at you with a cheeky grin, they guy was cute but he knew this fact you could obviously see by the confident look on his face.

“I’ve never heard of you-“

“Sure I’ve told you about Adam before, he is around town for a few days maybe you two could go out for a beer or something?” Phoebe cuts in with a rehearsed voice, whilst you glare at her knowing full well what she was up to.

“Sounds perfect-“

“I can’t!” You cut off Adam who looks down at you with his wide blue eyes that briefly distract you, until you spot Scott walking back inside the coffee shop and he wasn’t alone.

“Oh sure, I’m busy you’re busy this is a stupid idea I best get back to, er what I was doing before.” Adam nods and with an unreadable look aimed at his sister as he heads off.

“Why did you do that?” You hiss at Phoebe who looks in shock for a moment.

“I’ve never actually seen anyone say no to my brother before!” Phoebe’s eyes widen whilst you roll yours listening to the barista talk at length, about how good a guy her older brother is and she could give you his number.

“I’m not interested-“

“Is it because Adrian’s here?” Phoebe asks with a childish smile, but your thankful that she doesn’t says this out loud.

“Can somebody do some actual work around here?” You snap quietly because you were right by the counter, and three middle aged women were giving you curious looks, having seen you talking to Adam who had been so good looking.

“Ok boss!” Phoebe grins heading to the cash register whilst you wonder what in the hell had she been thinking, inviting her brother along for you to meet sure it was a nice offer he had been pretty hot, but you didn’t want to start having everyone try and set you up with their brother or even worse dentist.

More importantly, why hadn’t you said yes to meeting up with him? Shaking your head you turn away from Phoebe and finally focus on Adrian who was stood near the counter in his Fennel Fields uniform, complete with a cute smile on his face.

The very smile makes your stomach flip nervously which was new and you don’t like it one bit, clearly blaming seeing him emerge several days ago from the bathroom like a nerdy Adonis…

“You look a little flushed there.” Winks Scott making you glare at the barista, as he stands besides Phoebe who was chatting to the ladies she had just served.

“So, what are you having the usual?” Scott asks his oldest friend who was trying not to look at you, whilst you kept your eye on Phoebe you must have looked ridiculous.

“Caramel, just all the caramel and a little coffee!” Adrian nods in the affirmative using both his hands to readjust his burgundy hat he had to wear at work, causing some of his hair to ping out at the sides, making you stop yourself from sighing out loud like an idiot, what was wrong with you.

Whilst Scott gets to work on his drink, Adrian notices the way you were looking at him which was surprising, because he had been sure you’d been pretty much avoiding him.

“So, how goes it roomie?” Adrian asks to break the concentration on your face, watching your eyes glance up at the top of his head then back down your eyes meeting up instantly.

“I’m busy.” You tell Adrian turning round to grab the green folders, you had bought out here earlier but they had clearly been moved.

“Okay then!” Adrian states whilst your back is still turned to him, you don’t see the pained look that briefly passes across his features.

You spot the folders by the counter deciding to carry on the facade of looking busy, whilst you listened to the conversation around you, trying to make sense of today and why it sucked so much.

If only you had said yes to Adam then you wouldn’t be standing here, recalling how great Adrian had looked in his towel like some lovesick teenager, this thing was escalating right before your eyes.

“So you don’t like Vigilante then?” Adrian asks you after talking a long gulp on his drink, causing his Adam’s apple to bob up and distract you.

“I don’t watch the news that often.” You reward him with a shrug, as Adrian looks a little smug suddenly and you have absolutely no idea why.

“Yeah but Vigilante is like a hero, and I think he’s kind of hot.” Laughs Phoebe whilst you widen your eyes at her admission.

“But he’s a killer-“

“I think Vigilante is so cool!” Cuts in Adrian causing Scott to give his friend a look, one that you can’t read and this point in time you couldn’t care less.

“How do you know if it’s a guy even?” You ask Phoebe who shrugs and mumbles something but you don’t ask her to repeat herself.

“Either way they are pretty heroic and fucking badass!” Adrian cheers going to high five Phoebe who lets him what the hell was going on here.

“Could you imagine how romantic it would be to be rescued by Vigilante?” Phoebe swoons which you notice gets Adrian’s full attention, as he stands his full height against the counter.

Luckily there were hardly any customers you notice watching the ladies from earlier, giggling and chatting away making you briefly miss Lara, the pair of you working here together when you had first rolled into Evergreen.

Finding friendship in the mutual dislike of the town and both pretty much surviving on coffee throughout your shifts, until one day Lara had an opportunity to change careers, and now she works in an office instead still moaning about how shit this town was.

It was only a matter of time before the pair of you ended up Thelma and Louise-ing it out of here, the very idea brings a brief smile to your face.

Looking up causes said smile to fall off your face and annoyance to appear behind your eyes, when you spot Adrian and Phoebe chatting at the counter still, whilst you had been lost in your own thoughts.

Scott had left them to it yelling something loudly at one of the kitchen staff out back, but your eyes were focused on Phoebe instead and how she was taking this in her stride, standing close to Adrian leaning over the counter to hear him talk.

Thankfully you end up seeing an elderly couple walk in and set to work serving them, because it appeared everyone else was busy, there was a metaphor there but you were too annoyed to consider it right now.

Setting to work you start to make the coffees like it was second nature, but you end up swearing loudly when you knock over one of the espresso shots, needed to make the cappuccino’s hot liquid pouring over your hand in the process.

“Ow! Fuck!” You snap grabbing at the espresso cup before it fell off the counter and caused more of a mess.

Looking from your hand you see three pairs of eyes watching you, Adrian looking like he wanted to climb over the counter and help, but you tell Phoebe to take over as you head out to the kitchen.

“Too much coffee, I’ve had too much coffee that’s all!” You tell yourself out loud and very disbelievingly because you had very little else to blame this on, and now you were swearing on front of customers that was sure to lead to a complaint.

With your back to the door you don’t notice Scott walking into the kitchen until it’s too late, and you turn round to face him grinning at you.

“Who would have thought that Adrian and the pop princess out there have literally so much in common!” Scott begins instead of actually asking if you were ok or anything like a normal person.

But there is no denying the slice of jealously that cuts across your stomach but you chose to ignore it, how could you have gone from thinking very little of Adrian to, all of this so soon.

“My hands fine thanks.” You tell Scott trying to change the focus, as you use your other hand to switch off the tap your red skin stinging but just some cream on that would put it right, shame there wasn’t some miracle to stop you from freaking out around Adrian.

“Oh sure! We’ve all burned ourselves on that thing before what I’m more interested in is what distracted you enough to have that accident.” Scott asks with a laugh thinking he was being funny but you was ready to inflict pain.

“I was distracted by your shouting.” You tell him matter of factly which makes him roll his eyes, and you ignore him as you head back out to the counter deciding to drink water from now on, no more coffee.

Thankfully Adrian has gone but you do notice the look Phoebe gives you, as you go to grab your folders and actually get on with some work.

“Adrian is pretty funny I wasn’t sure because he is a bit nerdy but chatting to him just then about Vigilante he was like a whole different guy.” Phoebe explains to you with an excited smile as she announces in a low voice “He is pretty cute too don’t you think?”

“I’ve grown out of cute I can’t-“

“You never grow out of liking cute guys!” Phoebe admonishes making you roll your eyes for the eighth time at least in this hour alone.

“So you think the guy who you normally tease and wind up is cute all of a sudden?” You ask Phoebe in a confused voice.

“I’ve just seen the way you look at him-“

“Ok, enough of this conversation now! Thanks for helping me earlier when I burned myself.” You cut in with a sincere smile on your face.

“That was when I noticed you staring at Adrian like you thought he was a legit snack, and it made me kind of see it too.” Phoebe winks at you as you go to say something but thinking better of it you end up heading to the office instead.

The thought of Phoebe actually liking Adrian strikes you as weird to begin with, but as you start on some paper work for today that changes to a sudden sting of annoyance, making you wonder the hell why?

…maybe it was time to actually switch to decaf.

{TAGLIST} comment to join❤️

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[angstysebfan]

The Past Can Break You - 1

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

AU: Avengers

Summary: You and Bucky have been dating for aa few years. As far as you’re concerned he is the one. But what happens when a blast from the actual past shows up?

A/N: Ive seen a lot stories of Bucky getting his first love from the 40′s back. And I’ve always wondered... what would happen if he was dating someone already? Reader is from this time. Not proofread.

--

If someone asked you what you loved about being an Avenger, you would definitely say the people. Not even the people you save, but the other members of your team who have become your family. See, you didn’t have a family growing up, and when Tony brought you into the Avengers you had no idea that he was also bringing you into the family.

Sam, Steve, and Thor were your big brothers, always protective. Natasha and Wanda were your best friends and sisters. Tony was definitely a father figure to you as well as one of your favorite people in the world. Bruce and Vision were two very good friends that you knew you could always count on. And Scott was the funniest person on the planet and always made you laugh.

But none of them compared to Bucky. When you first joined the avengers Bucky was new too. You guys became very close friends and eventually developed a very loving relationship. He was nervous at first to ask you out because it had been so long since he dated anyone. When he was back in the 40s he was definitely a ladies man but now he was more reserved and shy, which you didn’t mind.

Before you started dating he did tell you about his first love, Dot. You knew that she was his first love and tried not to be jealous of a woman from the 40s, and you tried not to compare his love to her to his love for you. You knew he missed her, but hopefully now that he was dating you, not as much, as selfish as that sounds.

You now have been dating Bucky for 2 1/2 years, and it’s safe to say that he is the love of your life. You both moved into the same room and spend as much time together as possible when you’re not on missions. In fact you’re out with Natasha and Wanda right now getting a special gift to wear tonight with Bucky.

“What’s the occasion for this again?” Natasha asked.

“Oh nothing, just feel like making him feel special,“ you say with a wink. Both girls rolled her eyes at you and continue searching for the perfect lingerie for you to wear for him.

When you got back to the compound you walk to the common room with your new purchase super excited to show your soldier later.  you see everyone standing around staring at this big contraption that’s now in the middle of the common room. You walk up and stand next to your boyfriend staring at both the contraption and Tony who looks super excited.

“What the hell is this?“ you ask. 

Tony looks at you and see the excitement in his eyes like a kid on Christmas. “I’m not sure. I found it in the archives when I was looking for something. I thought we could all open it up together,” her says.

You look at your boyfriend who gives you a shrug of his shoulders and a smirk, “He has been like this for a half hour,” he says as he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you closer, kissing the top of your head.

“Where were you off to?” He asks, ignoring the commotion for a moment.

“Oh just picking up something for you… for me to wear… in bed.. tonight,” you say.

You see Bucky’s eyes darken as he leans closer to you, “well can’t wait to see it and rip it off of you then, Doll,” he whispers in your ear before placing his lips on yours.

You giggle as you then lean your head toward Tony and the contraption. You see Tony pressing a few buttons before some air or steam come out the top and the door opens. When the steam clears you all see there is a woman inside who appears to still be alive.

“It’s a cryogenic chamber!” Tony shouted in excitement.

Everyone stepped back to give whoever was in the chamber a few moments to awaken and come out slowly. After they clambered out you realized it was a red headed woman. You hear Bucky’s breath hitch as you all get a look at her face. Suddenly the woman looks at Bucky.

“Jamie?!” She asked.

You look at your boyfriend who is in shock looking at the woman before him. His hand around your waist falls away from you as he starts to step toward her.

“Dot? Is… is that really you?” He asks in amazement.

Suddenly your own breath hitches as you realize that your boyfriend is looking at his first love. The woman you felt you had to compare to. The one you thought he would never see again. She was now in your living room staring at Bucky in disbelief.

“I thought you were dead! How are you alive?” She asks.

“It’s a long story,Doll. One I’ll have to tell you later,” he says as he smirks at her.

She reaches out and pulls him toward her in a strong hug. Your heart slowly begins to break as you feel completely helpless, and selfish at the same time. You see all your friends, Steve included, are giving looks of sympathy.

You start taking slow steps back, not wanting to draw any more attention to yourself. You stumble and stop though when you see her kiss him. Your heart is officially obliterated. No way will you stand a chance next to Dot.

Bucky had his first love back. He didn’t need you anymore. You quickly turned away and leave the room: no one calls for you, letting you go. Bucky and Dot don’t even notice.

Bucky pulls away from Dot, “I’m sorry, I can’t. There is so much we need to talk about, but I can’t…”

He trails off as he finally turns toward the room and sees that you are gone. He feels terrible and steps away from Dot.

“You should go down and see Bruce. Get checked out. I’ll meet you down there. I just have to check on something first,” Bucky says.

Dot grabs his hand, “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone,” she begs.

Steve steps up, “I’ll go with you Dot. Bucky will meet us down there,” he says.

Bucky gives his best friend a thankful smile before nodding at Dot and turning toward your shared room. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what to think. All he knew is that he was at a crossroads where one or all of the participants will get hurt.

He was terrified.

- -

Chapter 2

Ok so as I said up top, I always wondered what would happen if Bucky’s 40s gf came back while he was dating someone else. I feel for both reader and Bucky in this situation because this is a tough situation. Looking forward to writing it! Feedback is appreciated!

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[terrainofheartfelt]

oh SONGS? you want mt songs, I got mt songs!

content warning: I am about to be soooooooooooooo annoying!

okay first off I have never seen Riverdale and have only absorbed it secondhand via tumblr and a few irl friends, so I know that it is a truly batshit show, and I feel that, if gossip girl had a musical episode....that episode would be the entire series of riverdale.

hashtag ThrilledToAnnounce I did make imaginary MT books for my 4 gg mains: link to peek at those here, but allow me to list a few more tracks

carter baizen sings the opening number "Wilkommen" in full MC getup, and then we don't see him ever again.

georgina opens act 2 after intermission with the horniest "Turn Back Oh Man" the genre has ever seen.

i think no gg musical could get away without using Heathers. "Candy Store" ultimate mean girl bop. I'm seeing Kati, Iz, and Penelope. And "Dead Girl Walking" has Jenny Humphrey energy

need to have Nate sing "I'm Not that Smart" from 25th annual putnam county spelling bee. Oh and if you wanna REALLY hurt your own feelings, then listen to the "I Love You Song" and think about Jenny and her relationships with her parents. i'm FINE

after deep discussion with S, I think Nate should be more a Dancer. give him a Gershwin tapping number <3 like "Can't Be Bothered"

Let's give serena some love. I think she could do Legally Blonde. "So Much Better" is just, anthem of contemporary mt. and "Take It Like a Man" has big Derena energy and i could say something about serena and ado addie but that just feels so DONE

oh! golden age for Serena IS Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. because I said so. "Wash that man right outta my hair" & "Cockeyed Optimist" & "wonderful guy"

Serena should also sing anything from Andrew Lippa's Wild Party. it's gatsby that gets GRIM either woman lead works. this song or this song

"Pulled" from Addams Fam is Vanessa-coded.

we also don't hear from vanessa for a while, and then she bursts on screen for "Diva's Lament" from Spamalot because whatever happened to her part???????????????????????

Oh another sad one if you want it or even if you don't --- "Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind" from Spring Awakening for Eric & Jen. could also have some "All That's Known" vibes from Nate

Blair's pregnancy scare(s) could be this gaspirini song: "Two Little Lines"

Blair of course thinks she's an ingenue like Light in the Piazza, but she too MESSY and she'd start an ingenue number all sweet and it would end with some nasty [complimentary] belting. like when Sherie Rene Scott went full ursula the sea witch, or hell, queen ethel merman. now i'm thinking of "Some People"

I'm in favor of anything that puts a guitar in Dan's hands. "One Song Glory" or anything Guy sings in Once

rapid fire dair duet agenda: "falling into you" from bridges of madison county; "people will say we're in love" from Oklahoma!; "falling slowly" from Once; "you matter to me" from waitress; "bad idea" from waitress i MEAN

speaking of waitress, the eleven o'clock ballad is "She Used to Be Mine" sung in split screen by all the girl leads

chuck never sings, but often it's set up like he's about to. there's a lighting change, a swell of music. and he opens his mouth --- and always gets cut off.

ok so I have watched Riverdale and I have Thoughts about the bones of a gossip girl Riverdale AU but not necessarily about the plot. (GG was one of the first things to premiere after the rebrand from the WB (beat only by a show that lasted 8 episodes) and Riverdale is the last thing to go before it becomes a more "adult oriented" channel so it's fascinating to compare the 2)

Riverdale has a reputation for being "oh crazy weird show!!" (earned) but like... despite the escalating drama, the characters aren't really allowed to grow or change (or be fleshed out at all) they stay more or less the same one dimensional stereotypes for seasons 1-6 (season 7 is an alternate timeline it's a whole thing.) like I genuinely cannot place the plot of each season in order bc the characters aren't allowed to be affected by their experiences

(which is also exemplified by having them stay in high school forever, as opposed to the GG route of having them ignore their educations and pretend to be adults)

(I could go on a tangent here about how TV has gotten more serialized as technology develops. like early TV you watched when you could and things went into syndication so you had to be able to watch any episode out of context. but with streaming everything is binged. so stories can take multiple episodes and characters can change)

but GG and Riverdale arent streaming shows so the characters stay perpetually stuck in these cycles of Big Stories that Take Time but characters don't grow

we could also talk about narration and the story within the story. bc Riverdale is presented as a book that jughead is writing about his friends and gossip girl is being told to us by Dan (who also ends up writing a book about his friends.) the dark underbelly if Riverdale is the focus of the show vs the UES being more and more idealized as the show goes on

BUT!! I do also have plot thoughts!!!!

starting with the obvious. Riverdale stole the Derena/Rufly/Scott Rosson thing! but they took it a step further by having both couples dating, living in the same house, and having the love child move in! (then they revealed the guy who moved in wasn't their son at all but an imposter (and a serial killer! don't worry he marries the real illegitimate son!) Gossip Girl should've done this

Blair would start a cult predicated on her being the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn. Serena (the most cult susceptible) would be a full fledged believer and a recruiter until she and Blair had that same fight about attention they always do then Serena would team up with recent-cult-escapee Jenny to take her down

Chuck would get involved with Carter Baizen's dog fighting ring for 2 episodes, but stop when he gets yelled at by his mom's ghost while high on psychedelics he got from Nate's drug dealer. a season later Chuck would do a seance and have the ghosts of his parents possess Jenny and Eric and force them to get married in some convoluted scheme to tax insurance fraud. they would stay possessed until Jonathan (upset Eric dumped him over text) showed up at the penthouse and was like "this is clearly not jenny and Eric" but nobody believes him so he has to exorcise them himself with a song (Riverdale would stop episodes for 3 minutes at a time so characters could sing, so be glad this song moves the plot forward)

Vanessa, while making a documentary, stumbles upon a society of mole men who hold her hostage bc she knows their secret. they let her send Dan a letter and she uses a secret code they made as kids to tell him where she is. he goes to rescue her but in the time it took she became queen of the mole people and now needs to be convinced to come home (again through song)

Nate is descended from serial killer HH Holmes. he Googles if that can be genetic and that's how we learn about the serial killer gene. he's relieved he doesn't have it but he makes all his friends do the DNA test and falls into a guilt spiral when it turns out that Serena does (she doesn't really care)

Dan, doing research for his book, finds out Lily had a girlfriend in highschool that she lost touch with, and reaches out to her. said girlfriend initially refuses to appear but changes her mind and arrives the night before the rufly wedding and tells drunkenly Nate the story of the body she and Lily hid one night. Nate (in the middle of his guilt spiral) tells Serena this story in an effort to get her to see the the effects of the serial killer gene

Rufus spends the entire show making waffles and getting divorced

This is my favourite thing in the world. This deserves to be written and filmed. Mwah!! chef's kiss. THANK YOUUU

[christ0pher-evans]

Troubled Heart

Part Two of Shattered Heart Mini-Series

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader Warnings: Angst / Cheating / Mentions of Sex  Word Count: 1.1k A/N: Welcome to the second part of Shattered Heart!! I am so so overwhelmed with the love I received for, what initially was just a one-shot, so I thank you all so so much and send you big hugs💗 So with all your support, I’ve decided to make this a mini-series (maybe three or four parts) so I’m super excited about that! I hope you guys will be too💗 Please let me know what you think of this part!

‣  I guess part two is kind of a filler part, because spoiler alert: PART THREE IS GOING TO BE INTENSE!!! Please reblog and like🖤

Part One: Shattered Heart

  ♡

The past 24 hours since Chris left your shared home had felt like a bad dream. 

You’d stood emotionless as you ridded your bed of its sheets and covers, mortified at how clueless you were as Chris had so casually fucked you into the mattress after cheating on you. You’d screamed and cried as your friend had text you double checking you and Chris were still on for your double date tomorrow. You’d buried yourself under the covers in the spare bedroom once you had text Chris telling him you needed a couple of weeks apart to figure out what you wanted, too shaken to call him. You’d cried yourself to sleep when Chris had replied telling you that he would support whatever your decision was.

Knowing Chris would never be disrespectful about your feelings or choices moving forward was reassuring but part of you wished he fought a bit harder for you. Your skepticism was playing devil’s advocate and awakening stupid thoughts. Was it an easy way out? Did he not want to fight for your marriage? 

Scott had guaranteed you that it was because he cared about you so much and couldn’t bare the thought of upsetting you anymore than he already had. It’s a bit too late for that, you thought. 

Nevertheless, you appreciated that he was giving you space. You had left the house for the day when Chris came back to pack up some clothes to take to Scott’s, where he was staying. Terrified at the thought of seeing him, you couldn’t understand if it was because you were angry at him or because if you were there, you wouldn’t want him to leave again.

In the two weeks of space you had asked for, your mind was in turmoil. 

Putting on a brave face for eight hours a day in the office was easy, pretending that nothing was wrong between Chris and yourself had become second nature in the past year. Coming home was a different story; an empty house and an empty bed was undeniable proof that your marriage had possibly life-altering problems. That was the hard part. You wanted to be strong, but reality proved that you were lost without Chris; he was your best friend, your sweetheart and your evermore.

Enduring time alone at home where your mind could wander was the heart-wrenching task. As if your heart wasn’t already shattered, you tortured yourself with replaying all the details from Chris’ rendezvous with another woman, the conversation you had the morning he had confessed and the evening he left; splintering your heart into unfathomable pieces. You were so angry and so upset, that in those moments, you wondered if you could ever forgive him, ever be with him again. 

Most days, you felt numb. Some days, things felt marginally normal. You’d meet Scott for a coffee, chatting about anything other than Chris, walking and talking till you cracked a light smile. Coming home, there would be a bunch of your favourite flowers on the doorstep, a note simply saying I love you. One day, you had received a donut delivery from your favourite bakery down the street, something only Chris knew about you. Small traces of significance that displayed Chris making an effort, showing that he loves you, wants you, is fighting for you; fighting for a second chance. 

At the end of your time apart, you had just arrived home from a tough week at work. You were exhausted and were desperate to just eat and sleep away your suffering. Slumping down onto the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, you shed a single tear as you realised you’d instinctively ordered your chinese takeaway as if Chris was home with you. As if he was sat right next to you on the sofa, moaning about the rom-com you'd started playing on Netflix, moaning that he was bored till he had enough and made love to you on the sofa. You could hear his voice as he whispered how much he loved you, how good you made him feel. 

A shudder coursed through your body as you reminisced, as you remembered how perfect your marriage could be. Two whole weeks you had spent trying to force those memories out your mind, preoccupied yourself something stupid to forget him, but you couldn’t stop thinking about him. Your mind bitter at the pain Chris caused you but your heart ached for him; his voice, his kiss, his touch, his love. 

As you sat in the kitchen the next morning, picking at the leftover chinese and looking at the almost dead flowers that had been delivered the week before, you realised how much you missed him. You knew that everything felt different without him around but you were too rage blind to see what was right in front of you; Chris fighting for your relationship whilst you just basked in your misery.

And that, for the first time in two weeks, was why you decided to pick up the phone and ring him. He answered after only one ring. 

“Sweetheart.. Hi.” Your heart swelled at this voice, progress from the fact it made you shudder two weeks ago. 

“Chris. Um, sorry if I caught you at a bad time?” 

“Sweetheart, there is no bad time for you to call me. You’re my wife, I’ll always answer.”

“Okay, well, uh..”, you were so nervous, fiddling with your wedding band, “I was wondering if you would come round so we could talk?” You didn’t miss the hitch in his throat. You knew you had to be clear that you were not inviting him back to move home, but just to come round for a chat.

“Yeah, if that is what you want? I can come round right now if you'd like?" 

"Oh, um yeah, I guess that'd be okay?” Initially you thought you needed time to plan what you were going to say but maybe it was better that Chris came round now before you chickened out. Chris could clearly hear the uncertainty in your voice. 

“It doesn’t have to be now if you don’t want?” 

“No, sorry that’s fine. I just assumed you’d be busy.” What you didn’t know was that Chris hadn’t been at work since you had asked him for space two weeks ago, just sitting at Scott’s, waiting for your call. 

“Okay sweetheart, I won’t be long”, he hesitated before continuing, “I love you.”

You couldn’t say it back, not until you knew where you stood, not until you knew what you wanted to do about your marriage. 

“I know you do Chris.” 

 ♡ Part Three: Bewildered Heart

Forever Tags: @itsscottiesstark [Please drop me a message if you’d like to become part of the taglist for this series or any of my work] 

[nothoughtsonlynat]

Resurrect Me (N.R.)

Warnings: swearing; death; Hell/the Underworld; cliff jumping lol

Word Count≈ 3.1k (yikes lol my bad)

Hecate一 the goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, the moon, ghosts, and necromancy. Known to be an intricate mosaic of good and evil, destruction and beauty. Capable of granting wishes, summoning the dead, resurrections, teleportation, warping realities on unfathomable scales, mind control, energy manipulation, and any sorcery or magic known to the Gods. Second only to Zeus himself.

I am the human embodiment of Hecate. I am not Hecate; she merely resides in the depths of my soul and provides me guidance. We do not communicate through words; she speaks through dreams and gut feelings, and sometimes even through signs in the outside world. I have not mastered the powers she’s granted me, nor have I reached my full potential. In addition to the Goddess’ powers, I hold the basic Olympian powers, such as superhuman speed and stamina. I have no recollection of how I merged with Hecate or the life I lived before this point, and she has provided me with no answers, but I do not question her motives. 

Agent Phil Coulson came across me in my temple in Turkey. Apparently, he had discovered strange energy readings coming from the temple. When he arrived, I used the power of energy manipulation to blow the concrete off of me, and that is the first thing I remember一 emerging from underneath Hecate’s temple.

I joined the Avengers during the Battle of New York. Agent Coulson had recommended me to Fury when he was piecing together the Avengers Initiative. In the three years between my awakening and the invasion, I practiced my sorcery mercilessly and studied Hecate deep in the Greek countryside. I’ve stuck with the Avengers throughout the years, fighting every battle alongside them. Through the ups and downs, I’ve fallen head over heels for Natasha Romanoff. One would assume that with so much power, I’d be confident and have any mortal begging at my feet. That couldn’t be any more inaccurate, however. As I’ve said, I am not Hecate; I am simply the human embodiment of the goddess. And as a human, I turn into a blushing, stuttering mess whenever the levelheaded assassin is near. Consequently, there have been many years of pining, but I’ve yet to muster up the courage to ask the woman on a date.

In our most recent war, we’ve gone up against a mad titan一 Thanos. We lost terribly. Half of all living things inhabiting the universe were snapped away. I can’t help but ponder whether things would’ve gone differently if I had better mastered my powers. I potentially hold all the capabilities of the goddess of magic; aside from Zeus, I hold more power than any being to ever exist. I’ve practiced my sorcery every day for the past five years on the off chance that we ever get a rematch一 a chance to bring everyone back. I’ve improved significantly, but Hecate has been oddly quiet for the past few years. It’s driving me crazy. I know she’s still there, but she hardly provides an ounce of guidance.

And so, that is where I find myself now一 practicing sorcery in the room specifically designed to isolate me when I use dark magic. Everyone who has access to the training section of the compound knows that they should never enter this room. It is far too dangerous for regular mortals. As I warp the room’s reality, a dark mist envelops me. When it clears, the room has changed into a 50s ballroom. I look down to see an elegant maroon ball gown covering my body, and I scan the empty area. I hear a pair of heels clicking toward me, and I spin around, already panicking. In order for someone to be here with me, they would have to be an inhabitant of the location’s true reality. My eyes land upon the woman I’ve grown to love, dressed up for the event. She is wearing an extravagant light blue ball gown, and her hair is carefully done up. 

“Natasha? What are you doing here?”

“Why I came to dance with you, of course.” She steps closer and drapes her arms around my neck, swaying to the nonexistent music. Stay calm. Don’t panic. There’s no way I’m making her do this. I’m not even doing anything! Of course I’m the one making her do this, who else would it be?! Breathe in. Breathe out. My powers don’t control me. I control them. Just breathe. I can do this. I know how to do this.

As I focus on the magic coursing through my veins, a black mist envelops us, and the room returns to its original form一 a basic training room with black padded walls. I immediately take a large step back from Natasha.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Natasha?! You know you can’t come in here! I could’ve seriously hurt you!”

“I...I’m sorry. I thought you’d just be moving shit with your mind. I didn’t realize you could do...that, whatever that was.”

“That was reality manipulation. I didn’t know you were here and I don’t have full control of it, so you got caught up in it. Are you okay? Do you remember it?”

“Yeah, I remember it clear as day. I was still me and I was still in control, it was just...different, I guess.”

“Well, I literally warped your reality, so even if you felt in control, you might not have been.”

“You stopped it, though. I remember when that seemed impossible. You’re getting better.”

“Thanks, I guess.” I awkwardly scratch the back of my neck. “What did you come in here for in the first place?”

“This is gonna sound crazy, but Scott Lang is here. We might have a way to bring everybody back.”

“Wait, what? Holy shit. It’s happening. Okay, come on then!” I eagerly walk past her, grabbing her hand as I pass her, and we leave my training room. I realize that I’m still holding her hand as we make it to the meeting room, and I immediately drop it, clearing my throat. If I wasn’t so familiar with the sensation, then I would swear that my ears and cheeks are on fire.

<//>

We all step onto the platform in matching white and red time-travel suits. “We’re really doing this?”

“Hell yeah, we’re doing this,” Clint answers.

“Alright, then. We bring everybody back,” I say with determination. “Whatever it takes,” Steve adds.

“See you in a minute,” Natasha adds with a smirk. Before I can appreciate how beautiful she looks with the glimmer of hope in her eyes, we’re flying through a flurry of colors. Nebula, Natasha, Rhodey, Clint, and I land on Morag. We all say our respective goodbyes before Nat, Clint, and I get on a jet to head to Vormir.

<//>

“A soul for a soul.”

“What? That’s insane. Look, no offense, Mr. Bloody Tampon, but why should we just trust what you’re saying? Because you know their fathers’ names?”

“I didn’t.” I looked into Natasha’s eyes as she spoke and I instantly wish that I could replace the dull sadness with the bright hope that had filled them before.

“He doesn’t know my father’s name. If he’s some mystical being, then why can’t he tell me that?” I turned to face him as I asked the question.

“I’m afraid you are a mystery. I am meant to know everything about any being who seeks the stone, but I know nothing of your identity.”

“Hm. Seems like a load of bullshit to me,” I deadpanned.

“We need to do this. We need to bring everyone back. I’ve spent the past five years trying to reverse the snap, and now I finally know how to fix it. Let me do it.” As Natasha spoke, she grabbed both of my hands in hers.

“And I’ve spent every day for the past five years training to do this. I wasn’t just practicing sorcery and talking to dead people for fun, Nat. All I wanted was to do better一 to fix this. If anyone is jumping off that cliff, it’s gonna be me.”

“No. Absolutely not. Neither of you is dying for that stone. I’ve done horrible things these past few years. I’ve killed...so many people. It should be me,” Clint says, and Natasha and I turn to face him, but one of her hands remains in mine.

“No way in hell, Clint. And not you either, Nat. Both of you guys have families. You’re not sacrificing yourselves. I won’t let you. And you can’t stop me even if you try.” Nat gives me a questioning look as I mention her family and I speak in her head ‘I know about them, Nat. And they need you. She needs her big sister.’

“What are you saying?” I can hear the anxiety lacing Nat’s words, and it causes a pit to form in my stomach.

“I think you know what I’m saying, Natty.” 

“Then you don’t leave me much of a choice.” She shoots a Widow’s Bite toward me, but I stop it using energy manipulation without even having to lift a finger.

“You can’t beat me, Nat. Please, don’t fight me on this.”

“I call bullshit.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Clint running toward the edge while we’re distracted, and I teleport in front of him, throwing him backward. I use mind control to force him to stay down. I sense Natasha running toward the edge behind me, and I teleport in front of her. I use energy manipulation to keep her in place, and I grab onto her biceps.

“I’m really sorry, Nat. I hate that I’m doing this to you, but I can’t let you throw yourself off a cliff for some stupid stone. Your life is worth so much more than that. You’re an amazing person, and your ledger was cleared of its red so long ago. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

“This is sounding an awful lot like a goodbye.”

“You can be sarcastic all you want, but I’m not walking out of this one, Natty.”

“Don’t do this. The team needs you.”

“No, they don’t, Nat, and we both know it. They need you.”

“And what if I need you?!”

“Well if that’s the case, you’ll figure it out, just like you always do. Don’t let something like this hold you back. Goodbye, Natasha Romanoff.” I kiss her cheek before turning around. I start walking towards the edge, but it quickly turns into a sprinting pace as I hear Nat screaming for me to stop. Just before I reach the edge, I lift the mind control from Clint and I release Nat, just in case it doesn’t automatically lift when I die. I push myself off the cliff, turning mid-jump so I’m not facing the ground. As I’m falling through the air, I see Clint holding Nat in his arms as her screams fill my ears. I hit the ground and everything goes black.

<//>

“Hello, y/n. It’s good to see you again.” I sat up and一 what the hell is that smell? “Ah, yes. That would be burning flesh. Welcome to Hell, darling.”

“Uh...what? Who are you?”

“Yes, I suppose I should explain, hm? I am Hecate, Goddess of一”

“Yeah, I know what you’re the goddess of. How did I get here?”

“I thought you were smarter than this. You died, obviously.”

“And went to Hell? Damn.”

“Oh, relax. Hell isn’t what the mortals think it is. This is the Underworld. All of the dead reside here. The bad people get punished, the good people don’t. Simple as that. We don’t have a lot of time, so I need to explain. I am cursed; I cannot leave the Underworld. However, my human embodiment can, and that is where you come into play. You hold all my power, and I can see you’ve been practicing, but you’ve never lived up to your full potential.”

“Hey! Rude!”

“Don’t interrupt. I didn’t allow you to live up to your full potential, not until we met, anyway.”

“And I had to die in order for that to happen?”

“Yes. I’m giving you all of my power, but I can still stop you if I ever need to. I know you don’t want to risk hurting the people you love, especially the redhead, but you need to trust yourself. Trust your powers. Have a little faith. You are a goddess, remember. Don’t let people forget it. That purple thumb is nothing compared to you, even with his colorful rocks. Your family needs you now. You must help them.”

“That’s it? Why do they need help? How will I know what to do?”

“I will always be there to help you, Y/N. You can handle this. This is nothing. You are part of me, just as I am part of you. You are my daughter, after all. I should know your capabilities better than anyone.”

“Wait, daughter?!”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Oh well, it doesn’t matter right now, anyway. You need to go.”

“Go where?”

“Home, darling.” 

The earth above us cracks open and I can hear faint sounds of fighting on the surface. I look at Hecate as she nods. Before I even realize I’m doing it, black mist surrounds my body and lifts me through the crack. I step out of the mist onto the ground and a staff appears in my right hand. I tap it once on the ground and my white suit is replaced by an all-black leather outfit that’s definitely made for a goddess. I smirk and make eye contact with the titan across the battlefield. His sickly creatures race toward me as they notice the new threat on the field. I summon an army of ghouls from the cracks in the earth. As the aliens and the undead clash, I teleport in front of Thanos.

“And who might you be, dear?” He acts confident, but I can sense his fear.

“I am Y/N, daughter of Hecate.” He tilts his head in a questioning manner. “Oh, did someone not study mythology? Hm, then let’s be blunt, shall we? I’m a goddess, ass-chin.” I throw my staff at his throat, but he catches it. He moves to swing his large sword at me, but I capture his arm in black mist. When he tries to move the other arm, I restrain that one, as well. “Well, that surely can’t be all you’ve got, hm? Pity, I thought it’d be more exciting than that.” If I were to look in a mirror at that moment, I would’ve noticed my ghostly pale skin, black eyes, and the raw power spreading through my veins like a black road-map.

“It’s not over yet, my dear child.” Before I can question the meaning of his words, an alien tosses him the gauntlet. It slides on his exposed hand, but I hold it open with dark magic. I look around and notice that the army of the undead is nowhere to be seen. My teammates are pinned down, even with the help of those who were snapped. There is a feeling in my gut and a voice in my head that tells me what I must do. I pull the gauntlet off his hand with black mist and slide my hand inside. I feel the power surging into my body. “What are you doing? That power will kill you!” Thanos sounds truly desperate.

“That’s cute. Truly, it is, but you can’t kill someone who’s already dead.” I close my hand and snap my fingers. His army fades to dust and he slumps to the ground before floating away with them. I drop the gauntlet to the ground and look around. Natasha runs toward me and throws her arms around my neck in a firm hug.

“Wha一what happened to you? How are you here? I thought you died!”

I wrap my arms around her waist and rest my chin on her shoulder before saying, “I did die. I am dead.”

She pulls away and looks at me from head to toe. “Well that explains why you’re so damn pale, but now I have so many more questions.”

“I am Hecate’s daughter, so I am technically a goddess, like her. I’m not sure if I was technically resurrected or not, but I can probably一”

She cut me off with a gentle yet passionate kiss. She pulls away and searches my eyes. “I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” she admits.

“Me too,” I breathe out.

“Yeah, I picked up on that. You’re not very discrete.” I laughed and a smirk spread across her face. “As sexy as this whole ‘powerful goddess’ thing is, am I going to get the old you back? You know, the one who blushes whenever I look at her? The one who’s, like, alive?”

I smile at her and glance down at her lips as a thick black mist appears behind me. I step backward into it as her face morphs into a look of confusion. She disappears from sight as a wall of black fills my vision, and a surge of power spreads throughout my body. I fall to my knees and the black cloud disappears. Natasha rushes over and kneels in front of me. “Are you okay? What the hell was that?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’m alive again.” I lift my head and meet her eyes.

“Your skin isn’t crazy pale anymore, and your eyes are their normal color again.”

“Sweet.”

“Cool.”

We both crack up and I lean my forehead against hers as our laughter fades.

Tony interrupts our moment of peace. “This is all good and dandy, but does someone wanna explain what the hell just happened?”

I raise my head and look at my teammates一 my family. “I kicked the purple thumb’s ass. That’s what happened.” I can feel a warm presence in my heart, and I know that my mother is with me.

“Yes, yes, I noticed. I also noticed a bunch of demons. Care to explain that one?”

“They weren’t demons...they were just...the souls...of dead people. I can summon the dead. You knew that.”

“Uh, I definitely didn’t know that.” I laugh and shake my head at the eccentric man. 

I stand up, pulling Natasha with me, and bring her into another embrace. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Natty,” I whisper in her ear before pressing a delicate kiss to her temple.

A/N: I literally had this completely finished and edited over a month ago and I hadn’t posted it yet soooooo... idk here it is

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

MY DEAR WIFE. I DESIRE A SEQUEL TO THE JIMMY EMPIRE FIC. I MADE THIS TUMBLR ACCOUNT TO MAKE MY DEMANDS. NOW GO BE FREE. WRITE YOU FANTASTIC FANFIC WRITER YOU. -BEST SPOUSE, PURP <3

this was a popular request LMAO :D

here’s the first part

…

The ringing of her communicator wakes Lizzie up late in the night. Blinking herself awake, she quickly answers it, speaking quietly so as to not awaken her sleeping fiance next to her. “Hello?”

“Lizzie, it’s Pixl,” comes the familiar British voice. “I’m so sorry to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Lizzie says. “Is something wrong?”

“Something’s happened with Jimmy.”

Lizzie’s heart skips a beat. “Is he okay?”

“I’ll explain everything later but I could really use your help right now. Are you able to come to the Cod Empire?”

Momentarily forgetting that Pixl can’t see her, Lizzie nods. “Of course, I’ll come over right away.”

“Thanks so much, Lizzie,” says Pixl gratefully. “See you soon.”

“See you.”

Lizzie puts down her communicator and gets out of bed. Just as she’s finished changing, her fiance stirs in his bed and murmurs, “What’s going on? Who was that?”

“Pixl,” replies Lizzie softly, secretly glad he’s awake; she wouldn’t have woken him first. “Something’s happened to Jimmy, and Pixl needs me. You okay to come over to the Cod Empire with me?”

Joel sits up in his bed, immediately more awake. “Of course, of course. Let me get dressed.”

The two fly straight over to the Cod Empire and land outside Jimmy’s house. Pixl answers the door on the first knock. “Queen Lizzie, thank you for coming,” he says gratefully. “And King Joel.”

He leads them inside. Lizzie and Joel both gasp simultaneously as they spot Jimmy lying on the bed.

Joel freezes but Lizzie dashes to his side and grasps his hand, staring down in horror at the bruises covering Jimmy’s face. “Oh my goodness! What happened to him?! Is he okay?!”

Pixl joins her on Jimmy’s other side. “He’s recovering,” he responds grimly. “You know the demon Xornoth that’s shown their face around the server lately?”

“Heard of them.”

“fWhip and Sausage seem to be around the epicentre of the whole thing. They captured Jimmy, kept him in a cell for a whole day, beat him several times, then tried to sacrifice him to Xornoth. Scott and I managed to save him but he almost died from his injuries before Scott was able to heal him somewhat with magic.”

Lizzie gazes down at Jimmy with a worried expression, gently touching his face. He stirs slightly under her touch.

After a moment, she speaks again, her tone low and dangerous. “fWhip and Sausage, you said?”

Pixl nods. “Yeah. Scott and I chased them off but I’m a little worried about them returning to finish the job. That’s why I asked you over; I could do with some help protecting him. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.” Lizzie retracts her hand and presses her fist into her palm. “Hell, if either of them show their faces around here, I’ll rip them apart with my bare hands.”

Now Joel moves closer to the bed, his expression uncharacteristically serious. “Poor Jimmy… I can’t imagine how terrified he must’ve been.”

As Pixl opens his mouth to respond, another knock at the door sounds. The three frown at each other, trying to work out who could possibly be at the door.

After a moment, Pixl heads back over to the door and answers it. His gaze darkens when he sees who’s standing there. “You’re not welcome here.”

Lizzie stiffens as she hears MythicalSausage’s voice: “I just wanted to ask how Jimmy is. And to… apologise.”

“Apologise?!” Lizzie bursts out.

Joel draws Pixl out of the way as Lizzie storms to the door and shoves Sausage backwards. “You TORTURED my friend and you think you can just walk over here and APOLOGISE?!”

Sausage scrambles back as a furious Lizzie bears down on him. “I had nothing to do with hurting him! That was all fWhip!”

“YOU THINK THAT MAKES IT BETTER?!” Lizzie bellows.

She flings out her arms and manipulates the ocean water into grabbing hold of Sausage and bringing him closer to her. “ACK!” Sausage chokes, struggling uselessly. “LIZZIE!”

“I’m going to kill you, Sausage,” growls Lizzie. “Would you rather be flung high into the air and fall to your death or drowned in salty ocean water?”

“N-Neither!”

A dark smile appears on Lizzie’s face. “Too bad. I’ve decided I’m gonna drown you.”

She lifts the water higher. His scream is abruptly cut off as the water envelopes his head, stopping him from breathing. She watches with satisfaction as his air slowly runs out.

But then Pixl’s voice comes from behind her: “Lizzie, he’s calling for you. He needs you.”

Lizzie pauses, weighing up her options. Eventually, she releases Sausage onto the dock, taking grim pleasure in the way he splutters and coughs up water. “You’re lucky this time, Sausage,” she says. She kneels down beside him and pushes her face close to Sausage’s with a menacing glare. “But if you ever, and I mean EVER, come near Jimmy again, you’re gonna wish you were never born. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-Y-Yes!” gasps Sausage.

Lizzie steps back and lets Sausage flee, before rushing back inside and back to Jimmy’s side. Her ally is stirring, his eyelids fluttering. “L-Lizz...ie…”

“I’m here,” whispers Lizzie softly, holding his hand against her cheek to reassure him of her presence. “I’m here, Jimmy. Are you okay?”

Jimmy coughs weakly. “M-My wrists hurt.”

Frowning, Lizzie pushes down Jimmy’s sleeve, revealing the thick red marks. “Wh-What is this?!” she gasps. “Pixl?”

“It’s…” Pixl hesitates, knowing what his next words will likely cause. “They’re burn marks. He had his hands tied behind his back for most of the day in that cell.”

Joel glances sharply at his fiancee. “Uh oh.”

Thunder sounds overhead as dark clouds rapidly slide across the sky. Lizzie’s expression remains steady, but lightning flashes in her eyes. “I’ll be right back, Jimmy,” she says, her voice as steady as her expression. But it’s just an act for Jimmy’s benefit and both Pixl and Joel know it.

Neither Pixl nor Joel stop her as she storms out of the hut and takes off flying towards the Grimlands. She lands atop the outer wall, rain starting to fall from the sky.

“FWHIP!” she bellows, her voice rolling through the clouds and echoing across the land.

Seconds later, the count himself appears atop his tower, within audible distance despite the increasingly loud thunder overhead. “Queen Lizzie!” He spreads his arms wide. “How may I help you?”

A bolt of lightning strikes the very top of fWhip’s tower.

“Aha, what have I done to invoke the wrath of the Ocean Queen?” fWhip laughs.

Instead of replying verbally, Lizzie lifts her arms and summons a giant wave of water from the river, sending it crashing down like a tsunami over the Grimlands.

“NO!” fWhip yells. “My villagers! You’re gonna drown my villagers!”

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU TORTURED JIMMY AND TRIED TO MURDER HIM!” roars Lizzie.

fWhip stares at her for a moment as he finally remembers that Lizzie is one of Jimmy’s closest allies. “...oh…”

Shaking himself into action, fWhip dives down into his flooded village. Lizzie watches him, taking grim satisfaction in watching him flounder around in desperation. She doesn’t even realise how close he is to death until-

fWhip drowned

Lizzie quickly dissipates the flood and jumps down to look for fWhip’s items. As she’s starting to pick them up, fWhip reappears, so she retreats back to a safe distance.

“I’ll get my revenge for this, Ocean Queen,” growls fWhip. “I will not take the attempted murder of my villagers lying down.”

“I don’t give a crap,” Lizzie snaps back. “Don’t you dare think about going near Jimmy ever again, because if you do, I can promise you I will wipe your goddamn empire off the face of the world and I will NOT regret doing it.”

fWhip narrows his eyes. “You’re messing with the wrong empire. I too have the power to wipe an empire out of existence.”

“I live in the ocean. The bulk of my empire is underwater now. Your TNT will make a scratch at most.”

fWhip’s mouth opens, then closes again. After a moment, he looks away. “Fine.”

Lizzie raises an eyebrow. “Really? You’re backing down that easily?”

“I’m being smart. You’ve no idea what’s coming, Lizzie. I do. I need to prepare. I can’t afford to be dragged into another war right now.”

As fWhip turns, he finds Lizzie extremely close to him. She grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him close so that their faces are inches apart. “Then don’t start one,” she snarls. “Stay away from my allies.”

She shoves fWhip away and takes off again, flying back to the swamp. Part of her feels bad at the attack on fWhip’s innocent villagers but she pushes it aside. fWhip tortured Jimmy and was perfectly willing to slaughter him when he was tied up and defenceless.

Lizzie has no sympathy or mercy for a person like that.

When she gets back, Joel meets her at the door. “Lizzie, you’re back!” he gasps. “I saw the death message in chat.”

“Yes. fWhip needed to be told that I won’t tolerate him hurting my Jimmy.” Her gaze flickers from Joel to Pixl and back again. “Or any of you.”

Joel gazes at her with almost visible hearts in his eyes. “I love you so much, Lizzie.”

Lizzie can’t help a chuckle. “I love you too.”

“Guys, guys, come quick!” Pixl calls suddenly. “Guys!”

The two quickly rush to Jimmy’s beside but stop dead simultaneously when they see what Pixl is so panicked about.

A mark has appeared on Jimmy’s neck. It looks like some kind of rune, but what’s worrying about it is the fact that it’s glowing red.

“What is this?” Lizzie gasps. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know! It just appeared!”

After a few seconds, the glowing dies down, leaving only the clear black mark.

“This has got to be something to do with the demon,” says Pixl shakily. “I don’t know what or how or why, but somehow, fWhip and Sausage’s attempted sacrifice of Jimmy must’ve caused this.”

“But what can we do about it?” Joel asks. “What can we do to help?”

Pixl has no answer to this.

Nobody does.

[spiritualviolation]

that au??? THOSE SKETCHES??? I need more

GLADLY

so i only did 3 sketches of that so far since every other idea is still out in the open and i got the au idea just yesterday but like if i get more energy for this au i will certainly do more sketches

(idk if you meant that you want more in terms of info but i'll just share some info i have anyways because i'm insane and i only need one push)

i have the idea of making it a SEES thing where there was an organisation that already know about the existence of shadows. at the start of the au, everyone is in it except for joel, jimmy and shelby (maybe), but everyone knows each other at the start of the au (except shelby)

(however i still don't know what setting it should be in so that's why everyone is just in normal clothes atm)

jimmy possesses the power of the wildcard in this au only because it would be funny that everyone in the organisation turns to him like "YOU??? why do you get to possess multiple personas???" "is it not the same for everyone????"

(he's not the leader bc everyone agreed he would royally fuck up and jimmy agrees. fwhip however suggested he should be the tank and everyone agrees except jimmy)

(but also i really wanna do something with his 'canary in the coal mine' hc with that. i don't know how i would do the seablings though)

joel isn't in it cause it would also be funny but also ties in with his ignorance in the canon smp. shelby is the last person to arrive, maybe like a haru situation

the general plotline i haven't figured out yet unfortunately. that's why i want someone to discuss with me (pensive)

it's starts off with either a p3 where they fight a tower of shadows or p5 where they fight evil people's shadows. it's gonna culminate into a terrible falling out where some of them will lose their personas that form into shadows (namely the wither rose trio. maybe some others but still undecided. and also scott obv bc this massive frozen snowball of deeply rooted insecurities is undeniably going to lose his persona sooner or later lmao)

xornoth is the main bad guy, obviously. and also a persona game isn't a persona game if you don't get to fight a god at the end. which means i have a fun way of incorporating aeor and exor into the au :)

sausage, in his corruption arc, would awaken to a persona that represents his fucked up trauma (that also doubles as his shadow), basically like akechi and loki / labrys thing. the battle arena is kinda similar to the grand prix in p4 arena

joey's corruption arc is... well let's just say i'm bringing back the artificial persona concept from p3

so you know how you kill someone's shadow, that someone will suffer a mental shutdown? yeah, that's what scott's trying to do in that third sketch :)

are any of the main characters gonna die? obviously what kind of question is that

anyways that's all i got so far unfortunately

[yuzukult]

i’m bad too 15 || kdy & reader

title: i’m bad too - drabble series pairing: kim doyoung x reader genre: angst, fluff, smut, goodboy!doyoung, nerdy!dy (basically he’s a dork) & badgirl!reader, hitman!au, oc-isn’t-a-hitman-but-she-could-be!au, word count: 1.8k warnings: none !! a/n: a “leading” chapter, before something actually happens! so, not the most exciting, but... yeah. :D

please let me know if anyone wants to be tagged! taglist: @wownajaemin​​​​ @crescent-iak​​​​ @ncttboo​​​​ @byunbaekby​​​​​ @jinfizz​​ @doyoungyoung​​ @ahgayeah0305​​ @doyobun​​ @sexualitaeyong​ @mrkleelvr​​ @m1ss-foodi3​​

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If it’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself, it’s that you hate when Ten chews his food with his mouth open. He chomps it like a cow munching on grass, and sometimes, he even makes those weird wet sounds if the food is soft and squishy enough.

But after laying in a hospital bed for a week, unable to speak, you’re missing the ability to call your big brother ‘disgusting’ across the table, toss something in his direction, and him opening his mouth to show the contents of his dinner inside.

“Are you fucking insane? You let her go into hellfire, knowing damn well she wasn’t protected?” The voice is familiar, loud, and straining, like they’re on the verge of tears but too instilled with anger to let the sadness seep through. “I thought I said to keep her fucking safe if you wanted to work together.”

“I don’t work in the field, Ten. I don’t control what happens at the moment.”

“Yeah, but you set the commands. You give the orders. She’s fucking on her deathbed, Taeyong—“

“Don’t fucking say my name in public,” he hisses through his gritted teeth. “Listen. If it’s not her, it’s me.”

“I’d rather it be you.”

“You need me, Ten. Who is gonna do the dirty work for you? Look at those pretty fingers. You wouldn’t hurt a soul. But your sister—you know damn well she’s got potential to be more. This is just a hurl she’s jumping over. When she recovers—“

“You’ve got to be fucking insane, you think I’m gonna let her go back out there when you put her in harms way?”

Before the conversation could continue, you hear the door click shut, and the shuffling of flat shoes tapping against the cold tiles, reaching to your bedside. You can’t see, your body won’t let you fully awaken, and you can’t speak with this tube lodged in your throat. But the whiff of the cologne that comes hits your nostrils is a familiar one. It’s Doyoung.

He sighs, like he’s been troubled and you can’t even blame him. You told him not to worry, that you’d stay safe, and here you are—unable to move, unable to wake up, unable to breathe on your own, and unable to talk.

You hear his moments; the scuffing of his oversized denim jacket against the leather seat by your bed, browsing through the drawers with each push and slam until he finds what he’s looking for, and when you hear the television turn on, you could only assume it was for the remote.

“I wonder if they have Marvel movies playing,” he says, seemingly to no one in particular until you realize he’s speaking to you, in spite of the fact that you’re very much in a deep sleep. “I know they’re not your favorite, but you tolerate it. I never got to ask what kind of movies you liked. I… I guess I was being a little selfish when you gave me attention that I never considered to ask.”

You wanna tell him that you actually don’t even like movies, in fact, you prefer sitcoms in spite of your very evident opposite personality. If you could, you would tell him that you watch those superhero movies because he’s into them, that if you get to see that pretty little smile on his face, it makes you forget all your problems and… the moment is worthwhile.

Warmth reaches your fingers, and you could only assume that it’s Doyoung holding your hand. It’s a familiar feeling of home, like you’re meant to be here with him, except the current setting isn’t necessarily favored.

“Do you like Spongebob?” He asks, as if you could even respond. “Mm. Doesn’t really seem like your thing, but I feel like you’re the type to not look like you enjoy it, but you actually love it because it’s annoying.”

He’s… right. You want to laugh, genuinely laugh because Kim Doyoung is spot on with his prediction. He knows you better than he gives himself credit for, because he doesn’t change the channel and watches the TV with you.

“I bet you like sitcoms,” Doyoung mentions randomly, eyes still on the screen. “Like maybe not Modern Family, but maybe like… Parks and Rec. You don’t seem like you’d enjoy the Office too much, maybe Michael Scott is too much of a character but Andy Bernard looks like a guy you’d scare to the point he’d piss his pants, but you’d like him.” Again, you think to yourself. Because Doyoung got it right yet again.

He’s quiet for a bit, letting Spongebob play in the background and you could hear the conversation between Spongebob and Patrick. Truthfully, you don’t know what’s actually happening, but the feeling of being with Doyoung like this, hand in hand with something stupid playing on TV is your favorite.

It’s casual. No missions, no guns, no family business—just you and Doyoung.

Doyoung doesn’t say much on the day you finally wake up. With a tube wedged down your throat, it’s difficult to have a two-way conversation anyways, and seeing you like this probably breaks his heart, so any word that leaves his mouth might be with a stutter and a sob.

Spongebob plays on the television for another hour before Doyoung eventually breaks the glass of quietude, letting out a soft chuckle at something Patrick said. “Sorry,” he apologizes quickly, glancing over at you. “Wasn’t sure if you liked Spongebob.” Although you can’t speak, the soft squeeze of his hand gives away your approval, and a gentle smile tugs on his face.

There's another moment of silence, just before Doyoung lowers the volume of the TV before gathering enough courage to talk. It takes a lot to get himself to speak up against you, someone he sort of feared yet at the same time had strong feelings for.

“I know what you do,” he announces, eyes never leaving the flickering screen with cartoon characters under the deep blue sea do stupid things, unmatching to what he wants to say next. “I can’t say that I totally get it, because I don’t. I’d be lying if I said I did, but… you do those things, and I’m not a hundred percent sure what to make out of it, but I get why it was hard to confess… those things.” He runs his fingers through his greasy locks, accumulating in oils from how long he’s stayed here without going home to shower. “I kind of thought I was going to date someone really simple one day, yaknow? Settle down with a girl who has a job, sweet and kind, with the same end goal in mind. Get married, have kids… all that fun stuff.”

Your nose twitches at that. Because you’re definitely not that.

“But then I met you, which is… well,” he lets out a faint laugh, “... the complete opposite of all of that. You’re dangerous, cold, and oftentimes, I’m left hanging by a thread, confused on what we are and what I actually mean to you.”

If you could, you’d interrupt him right then and there. Tell him your sorrys, belatedly confessing your true feelings for him, let him know you’d be better for real this time, but truthfully, you’re not sure if he’ll believe you anyway.

“And I could just drop everything right now. Just get up, leave, move on. Tell you that I don’t want this anymore, that whatever you’re in, I don’t wanna be roped in and get involved in your baggage.” It’s like you could hear the cracking of your heart as it falls into the depths of your stomach because your chest feels empty when he says that. The worst part is when you can’t defend yourself, tell him that it’s not like that, but in the end, Doyoung does it for you.

“Yet, I’m still here, right? Because I don’t get you, I don’t get whatever it is you got yourself caught up in, but… after knowing, it oddly makes me… trust you more. So, I’ll stay.”

“Fuck,” Ten curses underneath his breath, getting slightly frustrated with the wheelchair being caught on the steps of your home again. “Fucking shit, nothing here is disability accessible.”

It’s still hard to talk, but a weak laugh escapes from your lips.

“Don’t laugh, you’re the one in the wheelchair not doing shit.”

When he gets you through the front door, and into the hallway, you can’t help but stare at Ten curiously. He furrows his brows at this, hands at his hips with a gesture of his chin. “What’s in your head?”

“Uh,” it’s straining to speak, but if not now, it’s never. “I overheard a conversation when I was asleep. I-I don’t know if it was a dream or… I don’t know. But I heard you talking to someone, uh, someone particularly… with a reputation.”

His body goes rigid.

“Right,” you state, feeling more confident that the discussion was definitely not a dream. “So this entire time, you’ve been working with the organization?” Ten only sucks his cheeks, unable to formulate a proper rebuttal, so you take advantage of this. “This whole time, you let them constantly probe and ask me to be part of them—”

“I told him not to—”

“Well, he’s been asking, Ten, and he hasn’t stopped. I got contracted to be part of them temporarily, not permanently. This was supposed to be a one and done deal, you realize that, right?”

He scoffs. “You think that anything you do with Lee Taeyong could just be easily brushed under the rug? Hell no, you have to be insanely rich to pay off that guy. He thinks you’re talented, you know? What do you think this is?”

“I could just get up and leave—” “In your fucking dreams, kid,” Ten lets out a chuckle of disbelief, shaking his head. “I agreed to work with him before I knew that you were already contracted with him. There’s shady people in the business. There’s so many messed-up dudes who would bend the laws to get what they want. I don’t want that, but I have to protect myself.”

“But—”

“Wanna hear something, kid? Taeyong doesn’t think this accident,” Ten gestures to your wounds, heart tightening at the sight of you in pain. “... this accident, is just… it. He calls this an obstacle. He thinks this is just a bump in your progress, something you need to overcome before you hop back into the field and start training all over again. He’s not gonna let this go, doesn’t matter if I’m his client. Fuck, kid, he has a shit ton of clients.”

Uneasily, you grip onto the wheels of your seat. “Then what do you want me to do?”

“It’s your loss, kid. Either kill Taeyong and take his seat or you gotta work for him.”

[justoneofthoseghosts]

Brettsey + Quiet me

A/N: Set somewhere in mid-season 9.

Matt walks through the common room hoping to get a glimpse of Sylvie. They’ve been in this weird place as of late after that night at Sylvie’s apartment when he told her he didn’t know if he’d leave with Gabby if she asked him to.

He knows now that he’d never do that. Chicago is his home. He and Gabby are over in every sense of the word. He doesn’t want to backslide, he can’t and he won't. All he wants to do is move forward. When this realization hit, all he wanted to do was tell Sylvie how he felt for her but he couldn’t because she was with someone else now.

So he keeps it to himself not sure if he’ll ever get the chance to tell her. They’ve managed to salvage the vestiges of their friendship. It’s not like how it used to be, Matt knows, but he hopes one day it will be. They make small talk on shift. He thanks her for giving him the lecture he needed to hear because it screws his head on straight in only the way Sylvie’s words can. He doesn't avoid Molly's as much, getting used to seeing her there with Grainger.

He glances at everyone in the common room waiting on Gallo, whose preparing dinner, but there’s no blonde head in sight. He notices Violet is there, chatting with Ritter and Mouch, so he’s sure 61 isn’t out on a call. Sylvie isn’t one to spend much time alone so it leaves him feeling slightly unsettled. He gets this pull in his gut telling him to seek her out, that there might be something wrong and he needs to know that she's okay.

He swiftly enters the bunk room but only Herrmann is there, napping. He doesn’t think she’d be doing inventory now. He saw the two paramedics checking the rig earlier this morning so he goes to the only other place he hasn’t really checked.

He peeks into the locker room and he finds her sitting on the bench, staring off into space. She looks so fragile then, he thinks. Maybe it’s best to leave her alone for now. He’s about to turn around when he hears a barely audible sniffle. It awakens this need to know what happened to Sylvie and figuring out how to make it better.

“Sylvie,” he says gently as he takes a seat next to her.

Sylvie is startled by his voice but she looks at him a second later, her eyes wet.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asks softly. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to put his arms around her to comfort her so he pins them at his sides, feeling a dull ache in his chest at how distant they’ve become.

Sylvie sighs but doesn’t speak. She turns her attention to a photo clutched in her hand. With a jolt, Matt realizes it’s the one of Julie and Sylvie, taken on the day Sylvie was born. The same one she showed him last year. It dawns on him it’s been approximately one year since Julie’s death.

Screw this, he thinks, as he wraps his arms around her. His heart skips a beat as she willingly draws into his embrace, sobbing quietly into his jacket.

“I can’t believe it’s been a year. I didn’t even remember until thirty minutes ago when Scott texted me a picture of Ameila and her cake,” Sylvie confesses.

Matt rubs soothing circles on her back, waiting for Sylvie to continue.

“Does that make a a horrible person?”

“What? Of course not, Sylvie. You can never be a horrible person.” Matt tells her earnestly, as he pulls back and looks her in the eye. He has to physically restrain himself from tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. That would be extremely inappropriate, he reminds himself, so he clenches his hand into a fist, his nails digging into his palm.

Sylvie sighs, “so much has happened since then and maybe I just lost track of time. My mind’s been pretty preoccupied lately. I haven’t even made plans to visit her grave,” Sylvie mentions, twisting her watch band. Matt hates that she even feels this way. He wishes he could take the pain away. He gets an idea. Maybe he can help lessen it instead.

It slips out before he can stop himself, “I’d be happy to drive you to Rockford to visit Julie. Might help to have someone along for the ride.”

Sylvie doesn’t speak and lets it hang in the air for a minute. She gauges Matt’s facial expression and the utter sincerity reflected in his blue eyes. She remembers how he drove her up to Rockford the first time to meet Julie, the same offer he’s making her now because he’s a good person willing to always help a friend in need.

Maybe she’s okay with being friends. They’ve been inching back towards it since about a month ago. He gave her the space she asked for but she knows she doesn’t need it anymore. She can’t stay away from him for too long it seems.

“Thanks Matt, that would be great,” Sylvie finally replies, smiling softly at him before noticing the tear stains she left on his jacket, “I’m sorry for leaving a mess on your jacket.”

“It’s no big deal, Sylvie. I can tell everyone I was a klutz and sprayed water all over it while washing my hands,” Matt remarks.

Sylvie lets out a small laugh, “thank you again.”

Matt lifts his chin in acknowledgement as he gets up from the bench and straightens out his jacket. He takes out a handkerchief from his slacks pocket and offers it to Sylvie, who gratefully accepts it.

“I think dinner is almost ready. I’ll see you in the common room?” He asks.

“Yeah, just give me a few more minutes and thank you, really,” Sylvie states, her voice laced with gratitude, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief.

“Always, Sylvie. You’ve been a really good friend to me and I want to reciprocate that,” Matt says as he pivots and makes his way out of the locker room.

When Sylvie is alone with her thoughts again, she starts to plan what flowers to order. Orchids were Julie’s favorite. She hopes she can find some of those before her trip. Maybe she could offer to buy Matt lunch for driving her. It was the least she could do for him being so kind to her.

It isn’t until later in the evening when Matt hands her a mug of tea, inquiring about the schedule and saying that he'll clear his for whichever day she picks, that she realizes it never dawned on her to ask Greg, the guy she’s been seeing, if he’d accompany her.

Leave me a prompt 🌊

[florenceandthemachine]

hear your heartbeat

happy birthday to the incomparable @elisela!!! just for you, please enjoy a good fake-dating au with plenty of idiotic and family members abound.

12.5k - on Ao3

—————

“I’m telling you, Scotty. New York has been good to me. Maybe we should just renounce California and stay here for the summer.”

“Don’t joke about that, dude.”

Stiles laughed as he shouldered his phone, taking in the city air as he strolled along the streets of Manhattan.

Needless to say, Manhattan was far from home—while the city certainly was his vibe, Stiles was no stranger to tamping down the champagne tastes that clashed with his tapwater budget. The little shitbox apartment he got through NYU’s housing program was almost a thirty minute train ride from school, but Stiles figured that when he was more or less trapped on campus for nearly fifty hours a week, he could justify spending his breaks wandering the streets of Manhattan and really taking in the city.

On today’s agenda, Stiles was looking forward to wandering around a farmers market that literally stretched on for city blocks. There were fruits and vegetables literally as far as the eye could see, spices and roots and mysterious tubers of all shapes and size, but Stiles didn’t give a flying fuck about the food—his real interest were the vendors and the shoppers.

He had learned early on that open air markets like this were perfect meeting grounds for mythical beasts of all shapes and sizes, so, what better palace for him to do some… field work, so to speak?

There were nymphs who had full bouquets of beautiful flowers that lived suspiciously long in their vases as long as you complimented the blooms on a regular basis. Dryads who sold the most delicious fruit he had ever tasted, even if they charged six bucks for a pear.

Stiles had learned early on to avoid the fae—basically, any stand that sold crystal or metalcraft. His first time at the market, he had somehow wound up spending nearly four hundred dollars on quartz; the moment the money had left his hand, the stall had all but vanished in front of him.

“The people are good here. They’re fast. Blunt. Sarcastic. My kind of people.”

“Uh huh.”

Scott liked to call their whole situation lucky.

When Stiles applied to NYU’s doctorate program, he expected rounds and rounds of interviews, lists of deadlines he needed to memorize, and some less-than-subtle digs at his proposed field of study (which was fair, honestly—he knew that criminology and mythology rarely mixed).

What he didn’t expect was Scott, though, the bro of all bros. When Stiles told him he was applying to NYU, Scott had cheered him on, helped him prepare, and then immediately applied to different veterinary positions through the state.

(Scott was golden, obviously—he had years of training, letters of recommendation from everyone he had ever met, and him being a werewolf basically made him the animal whisperer.)

At the end of the day, Stiles got to pursue his passion thanks to a hodgepodge of grants at NYU, and Scott was awarded a fellowship in veterinary medicine through the Bronx Zoo. What kind of weird twist of luck would let the best friends wind up together across the country like that?

So, yeah, Scott called it luck.

Stiles called it karmic retribution for their supremely fucked-up years at Beacon Hills High, but even he could admit that ‘luck’ sounded nicer... and if Stiles was being honest, ‘luck’ was definitely the best way to classify his meeting Derek Hale.

Derek Hale was smart, he was sarcastic, and he could go toe-to-toe with Stiles over completely obscure things for literal hours. He was a first-year professor at NYU, who had the tiny office right next to the broom closet Stiles had managed to shove PHD desk into, and he was probably the only other person in the program that took mythology seriously (meaning he was the only person who didn’t make Stiles want to put his head through the wall).

He was also hot as fuck, but that was beside the point. Stiles had a little bit of a massive crush, but that was also beside the point.

They had built up a fast friendship based on a series of arguments about the Necronomicon, of all things, and Stiles loved the thought of being friends with someone who didn’t know him as the weird kid in high school who knew way too much about ritual sacrifice and circumcision.

He had evened out a lot through undergrad. He was still awkward, sure, but he was awkward with a refillable prescription for Adderall and some sort of brain-to-mouth filter.

(Honestly, the fact that Stiles had managed to avoid making a single joke about the werewolf who was stuck teaching Mythology 101 really did speak volumes to his newfound maturity.)

Speaking of Derek, though…

“Stiles! Hey, Stiles!”

Stiles almost jumped a foot in the air as he heard his name called, doing a spectacular near-drop-mid-air-catch of his phone as he regained his footing, turning on the spot to see a taller woman with jet black hair waving him over.

She was… okay, she was gorgeous—dark hair, smooth skin, someone who looked like she just stepped out of one of the windows on Fifth Avenue—but Stiles was decently distracted, because standing beside her was Derek Hale, the object of his extremely private affection for the past few months. Who, for whatever reason, was standing there looking like he wanted the sidewalk to open up and swallow him whole.

“Scotty, I’ll see you tonight, yeah? I gotta go.”

Stiles pocketed his phone as he cautiously made his way over to the pair—trio, he corrected, because there was another woman with them, looking incredibly more invested in the conversation now that another party was joining them.

He hiked his canvas a bit higher up as he smiled, trying to remember where he had seen the two before… students, maybe, but if that were the case, they would know Derek, not Stiles. They weren’t faculty members, he was sure of that. Donors to the program, maybe?

Well, if they were donors, Stiles sincerely hoped that Derek would have tried harder to wear literally any expression other than his current ‘bitter and miserable’.

And if they were donors, why were they so fucking happy to see him?

“I’m Laura. This is Cora.”

The taller of the two women extended her hand confidently as Stiles got within arms reach, and he instinctively reached out to take it, Cora following suit. “Derek has told us all about you. I have to say, I figured there was at least a ten percent chance you were made up, but… here you are!”

“Here I am!” Stiles was officially lost, but he kept his smile up, cheeks pinking up a little bit as he turned back to Derek. “You’ve been talking about me?” he asked, his voice on the line between flattered and teasing, nudging Derek playfully as he tilted his head.

“Stiles, I—“

“Of course he has! Derek’s a private guy, sure, but you can’t be surprised he told us about his new—“

“Laura—”

“Lord, Derek, calm down. You already had your big bisexual awakening, I’m allowed to be excited to meet your first boyfriend.” Laura shot back, her glare rivaling Derek’s absolute best ‘listen to teacher’ look, and Stiles could see the muscle in his jaw start to twitch. He probably would have done something, but… he was basically short circuiting, brain trying to keep up with whatever the fuck Laura had said, because Derek now had his arm around Stiles’ waist.

Derek had a big bisexual awakening?

And a boyfriend, apparently?

How had Stiles missed that??

“Stiles, these are my sisters, Laura and Cora Hale.”

Okay, great, they were Derek’s sisters. Stiles didn’t even know that Derek had sisters, which was a little sad if he thought about it.

Thankfully, he didn’t have long to think about it, because Derek—

“This is Stiles, my… my boyfriend. Now stop bombarding him. Give him half a fucking second before you go a thousand miles an hour.”

Oh—oh God. Stiles was the boyfriend.

He had seriously missed something, then—he didn’t think he had confessed his feelings for Derek anytime recently, or he probably would have died from embarrassment. Scott was really good at hiding his phone when he was drinking, which ruled that entire scenario out. Stiles could be forgetful at times, sure, but he thought he would remember if he had managed to score himself a boyfriend.

He looked up at Derek, trying to ignore the sudden burn of contact where their bodies were pressed together, but his brain was extremely focused the moment that he caught the look on Derek’s face, there and gone in a flash. He felt the hand squeeze at his waist, and the message was clear enough.

Please.

Ah, well. Stiles was always good at bullshitting, and this was no exception.

“No, no, Der, it’s fine! It’s good to meet you both, sorry, I wasn’t even expecting to see Derek until… uh, later, let alone meet anyone new,” Stiles said, his voice 100% betraying his nerves as it picked up an octave.

Laura’s voice was much more evenly toned, even if it was a little teasing. “Oh? You two have big plans tonight? We aren’t interrupting anything, are we?” she said with a grin, giving the distinct impression that even if they were interrupting, she and her sister wouldn’t be leaving until they were good and ready. Stiles felt his mind kick into overdrive, waving the question aside.

“Oh, nothing like that. We were going to meet up with my friend Scott for dinner, introducing the boyfriend to the best friend, you know how it is,” he continued, hoping his little chuckle wasn’t too terribly fake as he reached up to pat the lapels of Derek’s jacket, letting his fingers linger a little too long on Derek’s chest as he nodded.

He hoped that she knew how it was. Hell, Stiles didn’t even know how it was. He hadn’t exactly been rolling in romance since moving across the country.

“Well, if you say so,” Laura mused, raising a perfect brow, head tilted to the side. “You look like you’re about to pass out, Stiles. You alright?”

And, okay, Stiles knew enough to know what that meant. It meant that her super-sonic ears could hear his heart trying to break through his ribs with a staccato beat, typically a tell-tale sign that someone was lying, but… maybe he could work that to his advantage. He swallowed, voice a little tight as he laughed, waving the concern away.

“Sorry, I just wasn't… planning on meeting the family today,” Stiles said, probably the most truthful thing he had ever said. “Usually I’d try to prepare a little more, you know, make sure I’m wearing something nice and avoid putting my entire foot in my mouth. Maybe just a toe or two,” he said, relaxing minutely as Cora snorted from her position near Laura’s elbow.

Okay, so self depreciation was a good way to avoid suspicion with all the Hales. Got it.

“Well, if you both have plans, I’ll make this quick,” Laura said, her voice deceptively charming as she sidled up next to Stiles, though he certainly wasn’t going to complain about the way Derek’s hand tightened around his waist. “The semester is up soon, what are your plans this summer? Never mind, move them back. We’re having a family reunion the week after finals, and everyone is dying to meet baby brother Derek’s new boo after all the stories he’s told.”

…stories?

He looked up to Derek again, who was now blushing up to the tips of his ears, which—okay, cute—but which told him absolutely nothing and offered him exactly zero defense.

“Actually, I already have a flight booked as soon as my spring contract is up. Heading back to Beacon Hills for a few days, and—“

“Wait, did Derek already invite you?” Laura asked, her expression pleasantly surprised, and Stiles was speechless for a half second before Derek stepped in.

“No, I didn’t invite him because I’m not even going, Laura. Besides, he has his own plans with his own family,” he said, and Stiles blinked as he tried to keep up. “And what do you mean, they’re excited to meet him? I was very clear that the further I can keep him away from you and Mom, the better.”

Laura only rose a brow as she turned back to Cora, who took a beat before looking up from her phone, her expression halfway guilty as she clutched the device. “I uh—I may have just sent a picture of you two to the family group chat.”

Stiles choked on a laugh as Derek gasped—actually gasped—and pulled his phone from his pocket, making the mistake of releasing Stiles’ shoulder to unlock the device, looking absolutely scandalized as he glared at Cora.

It wasn’t long before Stiles had a similar look on his face, though, as Laura took advantage of his free arm, linking her own with his as she started to walk. “Alright, Stiles, here’s the deal.”

“Cora, you little—hey! Laura, get back here with my boyfriend!”

“Calm down little brother, the adults are talking.”

“He’s younger than I am!”

“So, Stiles, like I was saying,” Laura started, oblivious or ignorant to the way Stiles' mind had absolutely reeled when Derek had called him his boyfriend for the second time. “Derek hasn’t been home for more than a day visit since he moved out to this dump, and no one has raised a stink about it in years. This year, though, is… important,” she started, and Stiles nodded idly as he mentally ran through the calendar in his head.

The semester was over in just over a week, with finals crammed into three days after that, and then—oh, the full moon.

No, Stiles corrected himself, the blue moon. The first blue moon in May in probably… thirty years, if he had to guess. He nodded up to Laura as that clicked into place, a flicker of curiosity crossing over her face as she continued talking.

“We won’t take up that much of your time—it’s only like two events, I promise, and I also promise Derek will personally take care of whatever flight changes you have to make so you can still get some time with your family. After all, it’s not your fault my bonehead brother tried to exclude you until now.”

“I’m not a bonehead!” Derek said, his tone of voice just exasperated enough that Stiles sighed, carefully extracting himself from Laura’s grasp as they slowed to a stop near the curb of Fifth Avenue, the noise from the farmers market blending in with the sound of traffic as he turned back to Derek.

“Alright, hang on, hold up,” Stiles started, his tone firm enough to stop the three wolves in their tracks, Derek and Laura wearing matching expressions of surprise as they stopped in their tracks—even Cora was peeking over her phone, clearly interested, and Stiles couldn’t blame them. It had probably been a long time since either of them had been stopped by a human.

“Laura, Derek is not a bonehead. He’s smart, and he’s sweet, and he’s very kind, and it’s okay that he’s a little more private. Yeah, he’s also a stubborn asshole, but… well, that’s one of the reasons I like him so much,” Stiles said, the first genuine smile in the entire conversation gracing his face as he looked at Derek again. “But you know your brother. Did you really think that catching him off guard across the country in person was going to be the best way to convince him to visit?”

He was fine taking their silence as an answer, honestly.

“Now, Derek, that being said, I… if you are comfortable with it, I can rearrange my plans and come down with you. If you’re not comfortable with that, that’s okay too. Meeting the family—at least, the rest of the family—is a very big step,” he continued, his words very pointed.

(Yes, Derek, meeting the family would be a very big step for someone you weren’t even dating, please pick up on the subliminal messaging here.)

“But even if you’re not comfortable with me being there, I think you should still go down. I’ll get to spend plenty of time with my dad, you shouldn’t have to be all alone up here while I’m gone.”

Moving to smooth over the lapels on Derek’s jacket again, Stiles only barely tampered down a noise of surprise as Derek intercepted his hands, pleasantly shocked by how easily Derek’s warm, smooth fingers slipped between his own lanky digits.

Stiles felt his cheeks pinks up as he cleared his throat, doing his best to act normal, because he was… well, he wasn’t lying. He had absolutely thought about Derek being alone here in New York while Stiles was gone, but that was more in the sense that Stiles would miss him.

He just didn’t know that Derek might be missing some family, too.

Besides, he may not have known that much about the intricacies of a normal, family pack, but Stiles knew enough to know that a big event like this would probably be good for Derek, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

Even if Derek was going to reject his offer and go down alone.

…because Derek was going to reject him.

Derek was going to reject him, right?

Stiles had been fairly sure of that when he offered, but judging by the way Derek couldn’t meet his eyes after something as simple as holding hands, Stiles might have just fucked himself over. Derek opened and closed his mouth twice before he finally let out a huff of air and looked up, doing a remarkably good impression of a guilty animal as he looked at Stiles.

“…you’re sure you don’t mind?”

Fuck.

“Derek, I wouldn’t have offered if I minded,” Stiles said, and that much was at least true—but before he could say anything else, Laura was squealing in his ear, wrapping both of them up in a hug so tight Stiles almost had to remind her that he was human, but he was able to breathe again as the car next to the curb chirped.

“Thank God, Stiles, thank you for getting through to him! Oh, Nana is gonna flip out when she hears who’s coming—Derek, you know you’ve always been her favorite—Stiles, do you have any dietary restrictions? Derek, send me his number, and—no, Cora, you are not driving us back to the airport, move your ass—“

Stiles looked up to Derek, his expression somewhere between bemused and fearful as Laura rambled on, but… well, the apologetic look that Derek had on his face wasn’t much reassurance.

“—and Stiles, you’re going to love Beacon Hills. Bye boys! See you in two weeks!”

Stiles was left, partially shellshocked as Derek’s hand slipped from his own, the need for the facade no longer essential as the shiny silver rental car pulled into traffic.

“… Derek, since when the fuck are you from Beacon Hills?”

—————

“Scotty, stop laughing, this isn’t funny.”

“Dude, are you kidding me? This is hilarious.”

Stiles groaned as he shoved another slice of pizza into his mouth, ignoring the burning sensation that spread across his tongue as he tried to pack as much melted cheese as he could into one bite.

Scott’s apartment had been their go-to for the entire time he and Stiles had been in the city—not because it was huge and glamorous, not by any means, but Scott’s shoebox had a door between the bathroom and the living room, and therefore it was the best place for bro-time by default.

Stiles had loudly complained about the entire situation when he and Derek showed up on Scott’s stoop, firmly planting himself in his favorite of Scott’s chairs—the ‘old man’ recliner next to Scott’s little television, the game on screen forgotten as he recalled their harrowed tale.

“Stiles, if you weren’t comfortable with it, why even… okay, no, don’t you dare answer me until you swallow,” Derek snapped, and Stiles rolled his eyes as he swallowed a few times, sticking his tongue out at Derek once his mouth was empty.

“Good. Thank you for pretending to be an adult. Now, why did you even offer if it wasn’t something you were comfortable with.”

Because it was supposed to just be a gesture, Derek. Because I didn’t realize you would take it as a serious offer, Derek. Because you were supposed to say no, Derek.

… because I didn’t want you to be alone, Derek.

Honestly, as surprised as Stiles was that Derek took him up on his poorly-timed moment of goodness, he was even more surprised that after Laura drove off, when he numbly asked if Derek wanted to come over to Scott’s for some pizza, Derek actually said yes.

Derek Hale was being social. Alert the media.

(Well… maybe ‘social’ was stretching it a bit—Stiles didn’t know if it was a territory thing or what, but Derek had turned hilariously, awkwardly stiff the moment he stepped inside Scott’s apartment.)

“I offered because I’m nice, dick, but don’t even think that you can turn this on me. Derek, they knew my name. They knew what I looked like. And yeah, I mean, I’m a complete catch and all—oh fuck off, Scotty—but what in the actual, literal fuck?”

Stiles didn’t think it was possible, but somehow Derek got even more tense, shoulders tightening up toward his ears as he looked down. It took a moment before he answered, but Stiles knew by then that Derek usually had to… wind himself up to talk about some things.

“My mother lives on the opposite end of the country, and even then, she still managed to set up twenty four blind dates for me last year. Twenty four, Stiles. That’s basically one every other week. Do you have any idea how much small talk that is? And how much I hate small talk?”

Yes, Stiles thought, to both of those questions. He would never admit this out loud, of course, but thinking about one of the most intensely private people that he knew stuck at some shitty little coffee shop trying to chat with some random female on behalf of his mother was hilarious to a degree he couldn’t fathom.

It definitely wasn’t a redirection of his own… personal feelings that may or may not be directed at Derek. Not at all. Nope.

“So, around the time the spring semester started, when my mother let slide that she had passed along my number to yet another perfectly eligible barista, or something, I panicked and told her I had a boyfriend. And then she asked for a photo, and the most recent one on my phone was that selfie you sent miming your own death in the stacks, so…”

“Oh fuck, Derek,” Stiles started, downing the last of his beer. “Your big bisexual awakening wasn’t just you trying to get out of your mom setting you up on dates, right?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, ass,” Derek said, rolling his eyes as he shook his head. “The two events were completely separate.”

Stiles laughed at the thought, but even then, his mind was reeling. If this wasn’t a recent discovery, how in the fuck did Stiles miss that for so long?

“Well, you’re lucky Scotty and I had a flight booked anyway. I won’t let you face them alone, not when you have a picture perfect boyfriend to show off now—what role should I take on? Doting, love struck fool? Rebel without a care? Some sad forlorn loser who… okay, no, that one is too close to home.”

Scott stood up and laughed as Derek glared at Stiles again, but it didn’t take a genius to see the tiny smile on his face, or the way his shoulders eased as he leaned back into the couch.

“Alright, this is getting too intense a conversation while the game is on. Want another beer, Stiles? You, Derek?”

Stiles made a vaguely affirming noise as he wove his hand in Scott’s direction, eyes drawn back to Derek yet again as the other wolf politely declined, his own attention affixed to the television as the game picked back up.

Derek was… not a particularly expressive person, Stiles knew, and part of that was because Derek had what Stiles affectionately called ‘resting grumpy face’; at least, he did privately, because the one time he said it out loud Derek had thrown the Encyclopaedia of Demomorgons at his head.

So, to the outsider looking in, Derek might have just seemed uninterested in the game; but Stiles had been watching Derek work for the better part of a semester, and he knew perfectly well how to tell when Derek’s resting grumpy face formed an actual frown. Which it did. Because apparently, the Mets had personally offended him.

“I’m sorry, are you seriously glaring at the Mets? While they’re winning?”

Derek leveled Stiles with the most unimpressed glare he could as Scott laughed from his kitchen, walking back into the living room with two beers. “God, I hope he was. It would be nice to have someone with taste in the apartment for once.”

“Scotty!” Stiles gasped, clutching his heart as Scott handed him a beer, extending the claw on his thumb to pop the top off before he handed the bottle over. “The Mets are a treasure, okay? If God lived in New York, she’d be a Mets fan. I have suffered much for my Mets in my lifetime, and they—woah, Derek, you okay?”

Stiles’ charming cliches would have to wait, because when he looked over to Derek, his humor dropped immediately. Derek had gone white as a sheet, jaw slack as he stared at the beer in Stiles’ hand.

He stared back and forth between Scott and Derek, trying to figure what the hell had just happened; it wasn’t until he watched Scott pop the top off of his own beer, looking between the two of them, did Stiles put two and two together.

“Derek, you… you had to know that Scott was a were, right? Like, you had to. He—Scotty doesn’t do subtle.”

“Me?! Stiles, you called me a wet dog for like a month after I fell into the Hudson.”

Derek let out a sort of choked noise as he shut his mouth, coming back into himself as a bit of pink dusted his pale cheeks, hands moving in front of his face. “Of—of course I knew, but—you knew?!”

“Dude, I’m studying mythical lore and criminology. I’m the one who taught this furry fucker how to control himself. Of course I knew, I... oh my god. You didn’t know that I knew—uh, that I know.”

Matching looks of realization dawned on Scott and Stiles’ face as Stiles stood up, putting the beer down on the coffee table. He moved next to Derek as he sat down on the couch, keeping his movement slow, reaching out to pat Derek’s leg like he was a frail old lady.

“Derek, I know.”

After what felt like an age and a half, Derek melted into the couch, a huge sigh leaving his lips as all the tension in his body bled out like a string had been cut, burying his head in his hands.

“We’ve had arguments about wolves in pop culture. I’ve offered to help you out with your coursework every full moon for, like, the entire semester. Dude, you had to know that I knew, there’s no way I didn’t—Derek!” Stiles felt his giddy laughter bubble over as Derek shot him a red-eyed glare through his fingers, his scowl somehow less intimidating now that everything was out in the open.

Okay, Derek wasn’t just a wolf, he was an alpha. That was… interesting.

“God, you two really are perfect fake boyfriends. Two halves of a whole idiot. Derek, are you sure you don’t want a beer? Or maybe something stronger, if you have to deal with Stiles?” Scott said easily, laughing as Stiles immediately protested, though the way Stiles eased himself next to Derek wasn’t exactly subtle, either.

—————

Scott may have been joking, but by the time finals had come and gone, Stiles had accepted the fact that he would have to forgo booze and opt for a mainline of caffeine to keep up with Derek. How one person remained so meticulously organized, Stiles would never know—but in the amount of time it took for Stiles to wrap up his grant work for the semester, Derek had given four exams, proctored three more, cleaned out his office, and shared the updated flight itinerary with Stiles.

“Wait, wait, hang on,” Stiles had said, tripping over an empty box in his tiny office as Derek handed him his updated boarding pass. “Why do we have to change our flights? Scott and I are already booked, you can probably just join us, right?”

Derek rose a perfectly sculpted brow as he tapped the ticket again, shaking his head. “Hey, I promised you’d spend as few days as possible with my family, and I intend to keep that promise. The sooner we get in, the sooner we start that clock, the sooner you get to spend the rest your time with your dad.”

Stiles blinked as he looked down to the itinerary, eyes scanning over the earlier time—and it was non-stop too. That would be a bit killer on the legs, but Stiles could handle that, maybe he could take some time to sleep or pester Derek for...

“Uh, Derek... this ticket is for first class.”

“I know, Stiles, I booked it.”

“Dude, there’s a reason Scott and I booked an economy ticket with a layover in Bismarck. There’s no way I can pay you back for this.”

If looks could kill, Stiles would be... maybe not dead, but at least set on fire. Derek sighed, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders as he rolled his eyes.

“You’re not paying me back, dumbass. You’re already doing a ton for me with this little... charade, the least I can do is make sure your frail human body—“

“Hey!”

”—is comfortable in a lie flat seat.”

“Look, I appreciate that, but I’m not leaving Scott alone on his flight in coach just because of our... fake... whatever.”

Stiles’ voice trailed off in curiosity as Derek sighed, his cheeks pink as he pulled the paper out of Stiles’ hand, pointing to the second half of the sheet—where MCCALL, SCOTT had been printed in big, bold letters, that Stiles had completely ignored.

“... you got Scott a ticket too?”

“Of course I did. He’s your best friend, I wasn’t going to ask you to leave him behind just for me. Besides, who do you think I got your information from to book the flight?” Derek said dryly, as though his deadpan delivery could cancel out the ruddy color to his cheeks, or the way that Stiles’ stomach flip flopped when the reality of that sunk in.

It was nice that Derek acknowledged the importance of their friendship, in the way that tugged at the little space right beneath his sternum, but something about the way Derek so quickly dismissed himself was... concerning.

Stiles couldn’t help but play that little bit of their conversation over in his head as he packed, as he hopped on the train, as he met up with Scott and Derek in security.

Scott, bless his heart, was absolutely elated—his excitement was almost tangible as they dropped off luggage, walked through security, and stood around at the boarding gate. Derek had to smack the both of them to get them to stand up when first class was called to board, and Stiles idly wondered if Derek regretted associating himself with them when he and Scott managed to trip in sync as they went down the jetway.

Derek and Stiles were seated together, of course, and once Stiles got over the novelty of not having a middle seat on a plane, he liked to imagine he fit right in—easing back into the seat, enjoying the comfort of the little blanket he had been given, grinning at the flight attendant as she checked in with them.

(Scott was one row ahead and across the aisle, close enough that Stiles could lean forward and smack him if he wanted to... but the moment Stiles saw his seat mate, a pretty woman with dark hair and impeccable eyeliner, he knew his best bro would be on a different planet for the entirety of the flight.)

His grin slipped a little bit, though, as he thought back to the conversation surrounding the tickets, and he looked up to Derek as he settled in a bit further.

“So, we never went over what role I should be taking on.”

“Stiles, just be yourself. You’re funny enough, and you generally mean well, they’ll love who you are.”

Yeah… who he was. Well, who he was was someone who was going to be dangerously invested in a fake relationship that would probably end terribly for him, so that was fun. He sighed as he settled into the seat, opening and closing his mouth a few times as he debated on where to go from here.

No time like a non stop plane ride to have a potentially awkward conversation, right?

“Dude, we’re friends, right?”

“We’re fake boyfriends, don’t call me dude.”

Derek’s tone was teasing as he flipped through his SkyMall, a small smile on his face, and Stiles felt a little bit of the tension ease out of his shoulders as he buckled in.

“First of all, I have called many boyfriends ‘dude’ before,” Stiles started, ignoring Derek’s snort of laughter, “and I’m being serious. We... we are friends, right?”

Be it his words or his awkward energy, Derek looked up, surprise on his face as he closed the magazine and stowed it away as the plane bumped down the taxiway.

“Of course we are, Stiles. You’re like... the only person I talk to at work outside of teaching, that’s light years ahead of most of New York as a whole.”

“I mean, I’m glad to hear, I just...” Stiles chewed on his lip as he turned in his seat, weirdly soothed by the roar of the engines as the takeoff roll started. “You know about my dad, and about my school, and about Scott, and those are basically the three important things in my life,” he started, letting out a sigh as Derek just stared at him blankly.

“It’s fine that you’re a private person, I can respect that... seriously, I may not understand it, but I can respect it,” Stiles said, grinning as Derek shot him a look, lowering his voice again as he leaned over the divider between them. “But I didn’t know that you were from my hometown, too. Or that you had sisters, let alone other family. I should have asked, I guess, but... you know you can talk to me about things, yeah? Even after all this is over, you’ll always be Derek to me. Not just another Hale.”

Stiles’ was smiling as he gently bumped Derek’s shoulder with his own, watching the way different emotions warred over his face, biting back on the urge to babble on so he could give Derek the time he needed to respond.

“We’re... we are friends, Stiles. We are.” Derek insisted, looking down to his linked hands as the plane continued to rise. “Sometimes, I just... I’m not great about talking about myself.”

For a while, Stiles thought that was all he was going to get, and honestly, he was fine with it—it wasn’t until the fasten seatbelt sign chimed off and the flight attendants passed out little bottles of water that Derek spoke again, his voice low as he cleared his throat.

“My family is huge. Like, big enough that we need spreadsheets and flowcharts to organize family events like this. I know they love me, and I love them too, of course I do, but I made some really, really stupid decisions when I was younger… I know they forgave me for it, but...”

Derek sighed, taking a deep breath as he ran his hands through his hair.

“Sometimes it’s hard to be around them and still be okay with myself, you know?”

No, Stiles didn’t know. He only had his dad and Scott growing up, but he nodded his head encouragingly as he took a sip of his water.

“I actually have four siblings. Mark is the oldest, and then Taylor, and I’m right between Laura and Cora. They’re betas, like my dad; my mom and I are both alphas, her mom, too…” Derek continued, and Stiles smiled as he settled into his seat.

By the time the flight landed, Stiles’ head was full to the brim with Hale family trivia, names, faces, teasing stories, and the warmth that had danced across Stiles’ chest for the past year or so had bloomed into a full-on fire.

Would it lead to his downfall? Probably.

But when he saw how Derek smiled when he remembered Mark’s graduating medical school, or heard the pride in his voice when he talked about Laura’s charity work, and the genuine joy he got to see when he heard another story about Derek’s childhood… well, that was all more than worth it.

—————

“I think you should kiss me.”

Stiles had to stop himself from laughing at the look that Derek shot him, doing his best to keep his body language casual as he leaned against the gas pump at a tiny station outside of Beacon Hills, though he knew his heart was going at about a million miles a minute.

“I—you—what?”

��Derek, I’m an affectionate dude, in case you couldn’t tell from all the hand holding. And if you’re going to freak out if I kiss your cheek, then you should freak out now, not when we’re in front of your family.”

Stiles knew full well his heart betrayed his confidence, but seeing Derek’s ears go pink as he dumped the armful of snacks Stiles had asked for into the back seat was a welcome sight—it was always nice to know that Derek’s cool and controlled exterior could be ruffled up once in a while.

Somewhere between the rental kiosk and the gas station, Stiles had decided that he was going to go all in on this. His little crush was already stuck right in the back of his throat and would be unlikely to dislodge any time soon, so he figured that indulging himself in the fake relationship Derek had set up for him… well, it wouldn’t do any good, but it was unlikely to make things worse for him than it already was.

It was a little weird being alone with Derek—Stiles didn’t realize it until now, but between meeting Derek’s sisters and meeting the rest of their family, this was the first time they had been alone together. They had other staff members at school, or strangers around the city, or Scott (who had politely declined a ride back to Beacon Hills with Derek and Stiles, choosing instead to split an Uber with his pretty new friend, Kira).

“You know, as far as first kisses go, usually they’re a little more romantic than just a demand. You’re supposed to woo me, Stiles,” Derek said, his sarcastic tone betrayed by his shy little smile as he pulled the nozzle out of his tank, closing the gas cap as Stiles gasped in mock offense.

“Hey, I said you should kiss me, not the other way around. Why should I have to be the one to woo?” Stiles started, sliding into the passenger’s seat as Derek followed suit. “After all, this relationship wouldn’t have even happened without your instigation, so why should I… uh… Der?”

Stiles’ voice trailed off as Derek’s hand sunk into the soft crook at the juncture of his neck, effectively cutting off his entire train of thought as Derek’s thumb pressed against the hollow of his jaw.

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“O-Okay.”

For a minute, all Stiles could think of were those cheesy old rom-coms, where fireworks would go off, or bells would chime, but kissing Derek was nothing like that. It was the comfort of wrapping yourself in an electric blanket, instead of the shock of jumping into a frozen pond; the familiar buzz of goosebumps over his skin over a bolt of lightning. He felt a surprised little noise leave his chest as Derek’s tilted his head to deepen the kiss, his tongue flicking out instinctively to drag along Derek’s bottom lip, hands coming up to rest against the wolves chest.

Stiles could feel his heart beating through every inch of his skin as the kiss broke, struggling to remind himself how to breathe as he opened his eyes again, his nose brushing against Derek’s as he let out a little huff of a laugh.

“Was that enough woo for you?” Derek asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, and Stiles smiled as he nodded his head, savoring the way that neither of them moved back. Derek’s hand was warm against the crook of his jaw, his own palm flat against Derek's chest, and it was natural, it was so nice, it was—

Fake. It was all fake.

Stiles sighed, closing his eyes as he gently leaned in and pressed their foreheads together, that mantra playing through his head as he pulled himself back. He buckled himself in easily as he took in a deep breath, his goofy grin still in place as he looked back up to Derek.

“See? Now you can honestly tell your mom we had our first kiss at a gas station and that it was magical and I totally rocked your world.”

“Is that what happened, though? I mean, if you wanted me to kiss you so badly, you should have just asked,” Derek said, the sarcasm thick in his voice as he started the car, and Stiles laughed as they pulled out of the lot, his hand finding Derek’s easily once again.

Their silence remained comfortable as they left the city skyline behind and basically blew through Beacon Hills, the trees inching closer to the road as they wound through the preserve.

Finishing off a bag of M&M’s, Stiles cleared his throat as he crumpled up the wrapper and chucked it in the back seat, sucking a little bit of melted chocolate off of his thumb. “So. Is this regular introducing-the-boyfriend-to-the-family nerves I’m looking at here, or is this introducing-the-fake-boyfriend-to-the-family nerves? You don’t have any weirdos in your family, do you? An ex-felon auntie? A cousin who doesn’t quite get personal space?”

Stiles grinned as Derek laughed, oddly comforted by the sound as Derek shook his head. “Nothing exciting. A weird uncle, I guess. Lots of cousins, you should basically abandon any idea of personal space as soon as we walk in, and plenty of human family, too—so you won’t be alone in that. As far as felons go, well… none of us have been caught?”

“Hey, game recognizes game, it doesn’t count if you don’t get caught. And I can work with a weird uncle.” Stiles laughed at the sheepish look that Derek shot his way, his fingers still happily wrapped up in Derek’s warm hands. He could almost feel it when they crossed over onto the Hale land, the huge, white house as much of a giveaway as the shrieks of joy that even Stiles could hear from the property.

“They’re gonna love you, you know?” Derek’s voice was soft as he pulled the rental into a long row of cars, nearly lining the road leading up to the house, and Stiles felt the snarky remark die on his tongue as Derek caught his eye, his expression somewhere between grateful and wistful as he turned the car off.

“Maybe, but…” Stiles sighed as he popped his door open, chewing over his next words carefully. “But if they do, it’s because they already love you.”

He took it as a personal victory when Derek turned away, his ears pink again, and Stiles couldn’t help but grin as he followed the werewolf up the path to his family home.

The Hale House was probably as huge and impressive as the Hale family itself from the outside, and Stiles did his best not to gape like a fool as Derek opened the door for him, his hand finding the small of Stiles’ back as they stepped into the house. Polished floors, huge, high windows, a grand staircase that was the definition of grand, and—

“Derek!”

—and another unfairly attractive Hale moving forward to greet them. Tall, broad, dark hair with just a splash of salt around the temples and the goatee, shining a million watt smile on Derek and Stiles as he wiped his hands on his probably-uncomfortably-tight jeans.

Jesus, was everyone in this family gorgeous? Stiles was going to get a complex.

He looked up as the stranger and Derek briefly hugged, watching the halfway-subtle way they scented one another, Mark’s head buried in Derek’s neck for a half moment before they pulled away. If Stiles strained his ear, he could have heard something along the lines of ‘be nice’ as Derek pulled back; if the situation weren’t so funny, Stiles probably would have blushed.

“Don’t listen to him, I’m always nice. I’m Mark, and you…” Mark started, his million watt smile back in place as his eyes dragged over Stiles’ body, “... you must be Stiles.” Stiles snorted as Mark pulled him into an easy hug, catching Stiles just a little off-guard as he was wrapped in another pair of arms.

Apparently Derek’s family was an affectionate bunch. Stiles didn’t know if it was a wolf thing or a Hale thing, but either way, it was good to know.

“Mark, uh, Seattle, right? You’re the surgeon?” Stiles asked, clearing his throat as the hug carried on just a bit too long, regaining some footing in the introduction as he pulled back. “Derek’s told me a lot about you.”

That was… mostly true, Derek had told him enough about Mark to thoroughly embarrass the older male, and Mark looked like he expected nothing less as he laughed, holding Stiles’ shoulders as he stood at arms length. “Yeah, I’m sure he did, but it’s probably all garbage. After all, how can you really describe a wonder like me in words, huh?”

He actually winked, and Stiles honestly couldn’t believe that this dude was for real.

“Der, nice job with this one. He’s cute. Kid, is my brother treating you well? Cause, you know, if Hale is your taste, you can do much better than—”

”Mark—“

“Oh, lighten up Der-bear, there isn’t enough Botox in the world to get rid of those scowl lines. It was a joke. Now come on, everyone’s out back.”

Stiles laughed again as Mark put Derek in an easy headlock, ruffling up his hair as he led them outside, immediately filing ‘Der-bear’ away for future use as they stepped out into the backyard.

The backyard, which was absolutely filled with Hales.

He felt his heart do a funny little lurch as he was hit with the sheer family of it all—all dark haired, all gorgeous, and for just a moment, he wanted to smack Derek upside the head. There were probably generations of Hales here; Derek had all this family, this built in support group, and he was just going to spend the summer holed up in New York?

“Alright, Siles, we’re gonna keep you in with the main family and keep you away from the cousins,” Mark started, artfully ignoring the way Derek was swatting at him. “Uncle Peter all but insisted that Mom come pick him up, so you’ll get to avoid them until later tonight, but who you really want to watch out for is—“

“Is that my grandbaby?!”

Mark stiffened as Derek perked up, and Stiles couldn’t help but snicker as a bony hand shot up, grabbing Mark by the scruff of his neck, pulling him off of Derek with a flourish that would probably seem overly dramatic if Stiles didn’t know just how much werewolf strength was packed behind it.

“Derek!”

“Hi, Nana.”

Stiles couldn’t keep the smile off of his face as Derek leaned in to wrap his arms around the older woman—she was a good foot shorter than he was, her movements loud, with light skinned with the same tell-tale black hair that the rest of the family had. What caught Stiles’ eye, though, was the way Derek scented her—it was the same way Mark scented him, a familial nudge that Stiles read easily as a sign of deference.

Whoever this Nana was, she was clearly the woman in charge here.

“You know, we’re all technically her grandbabies,” Mark started as he reappeared at Stiles’ shoulder, rubbing the back of his neck, his childish pout painfully obvious as he pointed his words. “But you wouldn’t know it with the blatant favoritism she shows for Derek!”

“Mark, don’t be such a baby,” Nana Hale said as she pulled back from Derek’s hug, patting his cheek affectionately. She raised a brow in a spectacularly unimpressed fashion as she turned to look at her eldest grandson, sighing in mock disappointment. “Not that I thought a career based off of liposuction and face lifts would have brought you some maturity.”

“That’s—I don’t just do—Nana!”

“Now, who do we have here? Derek, are you going to introduce me to your special friend?”

Ignoring Mark’s protests easily as she turned her attention, Stiles felt his heart pick up again, his eyes flicking to Derek as he beamed; Stiles wasn’t sure if he was happy to see Mark get smacked down, or if he was happy to introduce Stiles, but Stiles would have literally killed a man to see Derek smile that brightly on a regular basis.

“Nana, this is my boyfriend, Stiles Stilinski. Stiles, this is my grandmother, Ger—“

“Nana Hale will do just fine, thank you very much,” she interrupted, pulling a face that made Stiles grin—he could absolutely relate to someone who would rather set their birth name on fire than own up to it. “Now, come here, let me get a look at you.”

Stiles stepped forward and hesitated a half moment, not sure if he should try one last time for a handshake or wait for her to initiate a hug, but before he could make up his mind she had her hands clasped on his elbows, a grip like iron stopping him in his tracks.

“Scrawny little thing, aren’t you? We’ll take care of that, don’t you worry. It’s good to meet you, sweetheart, let’s get you some food.”

“It’s good to meet you too—and some food sounds great,” Stiles said with a laugh, ignoring the fact that he was still full of junk food as Nana Hale all but preened beside him. Her grip was gentle but unyielding as she dragged him to a table that was piled with food, giving a half wave to Laura and Cora, who were stationed beside a punch bowl the size of a fish tank as he kept himself a half step behind Nana.

Stiles wasn’t dumb, okay? He knew how to make nice with wolves, and more importantly, he knew how to be subtle.

(He didn’t like it, but he knew how to do it.)

“Uncle Derek! Get Uncle Derek!!”

Thankfully, the moment was over in a flash as Stiles heard a familiar name called out in a high pitched squeal, looking back out to the yard where a hoard of kids had just caught sight (or scent?) of Derek, immediately abandoning the rough-and-tumble games they seemed to be wrapped up in to run toward Derek as fast as their little legs could carry them.

Derek immediately tensed, a manic grin on his face as he prepared to run, body twitching as he caught himself before taking off. He sent a look Stiles’ way that was somehow both apologetic and asking remission, and Stiles sighed as he smiled.

“You better run, Uncle Derek. They’re gonna get you,” Stiles said mock-seriously, only barely keeping a straight face as Derek instead ran straight to the kids, making all sorts of comedic noises as they mobbed his legs.

Fuck, he was cute.

Stiles’ attention was pulled off of Derek as he felt eyes on him, subtly scanning the yard before he made eye contact with another adult in the family, who was very shirtless, and very sweaty, and very much walking toward them with a bright smile on his face.

Okay, Stiles was definitely getting a complex.

“You must be Stiles!” he exclaimed once he was closer to their little group, and Stiles had never been as thankful for a child as he was for the tiny body perched on top of the other males shoulders, because he was just about at his ‘hugging gorgeous people’ limit. He was still sweating, for fucks sake, but Stiles supposed that even a wolf got tired out when they had eight kids hanging from their body until Uncle Derek stepped in.

“I am, and…” Stiles was about to assume this was the firefighter sibling, but as soon as he opened his mouth, the kid on top of his shoulders smiled, and Stiles was absolutely smitten. “And who is this little guy?”

The distraction was apparently a welcome one, because shirtless dude’s smile grew even wider, reaching up to pat the kid on a mop of curly hair before he lifted him up and over, holding him at chest level. “This is Isaac. Isaac, can you say hi to Stiles? He’s your uncle Derek’s special friend.”

Stiles literally felt his heart melt as Isaac gave a shy little wave, looking up at him with big blue eyes. He couldn’t have been older than three or four, and Stiles smiled and waved back as Isaac was set down on the ground.

“You wanna go play with Uncle D?” Any hint of shyness was forgotten the moment the question was asked, taking off toward Derek as fast as his little legs could carry him, which… wasn’t very fast, but was very, very cute.

“They all yours?” Stiles asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over to Derek, who now had at least six kids hanging off of him. He smiled as the other male shivered, shaking his head quickly.

“God no, just the three. Erica and Boyd, and Isaac too, now that the adoption has been finalized. Those kids basically run the joint, Derek included—as long as you don’t mind the occasional toddler mobbing, you’ll fit in just fine.”

“Thanks, random shirtless man, I really hope so.”

Stiles grinned as Laura choked on a mouthful of punch, the weirdness of the situation apparently just now visible to her as she sputtered, punching her brother in the arm. “Oh god, Taylor, what is wrong with you! Go put on a shirt, you can’t just—you didn’t even introduce yourself, I swear—Stiles is a guest, you weirdo!”

They kept bickering back and forth as Taylor pulled an undershirt on over his head, the whining turning into background noise as he poured himself a glass of punch. He knew perfectly well what Laura was trying to say—Stiles is a human—and he was pretty sure he was mostly flattered by everyone trying so hard, but any coherent thought left his head as he took a bite of the ribs, watching Nana Hale grin out of the corner of his eyes as he groaned in delight.

“God, they really do have Derek wrapped around their pudgy fingers,” Cora mused, and Stiles nodded his head, swallowing. It was honestly hilarious to watch Derek try to manage all those kids by himself; they seemed determined to pile themselves onto his head and shoulders, and he could almost see Derek sweat, trying to make sure he didn’t drop anyone as Isaac managed to wriggle his way into Derek’s grip.

He tilted his head in consideration, taking a sip of his drink before he spoke up.

“Yeah, he always did strike me as that kind of Alpha.”

He couldn’t help but savor the way the conversation ground to a halt around him, Laura and Taylor both sucking in a deep breath as Mark shattered the glass he was holding. There probably was a better way to acknowledge that he was in on the secret, but as funny as it was watching Derek’s siblings tiptoe around the fact, he figured it was best to rip the bandaid off in one go.

Even if it meant he had the attention of the Hales closest to him in one second, flat, Nana’s burning red from where she stood with a plate piled high with food.

He probably should have been nervous, but as he looked back at Derek, he could tell it was the right choice—Derek was all smiles, waiting only a beat before he popped his fangs and playfully snapped at one of his little nieces, the air soon full of squealing laughter once again.

Keeping his gaze even, Stiles smiled in thanks as he took the plate of food Nana offered to him, watching as her eyes melted back into their darker, human color. She was staring at him like he was a particularly complex puzzle, and she wasn’t alone—Cora looked hilariously outraged that she didn’t realize sooner, and even Mark was looking over him with renewed interest as his hand healed.

“I knew you were a smart boy. He told you?”

Nana’s question was accusing, but not unkind, and Stiles shrugged it off easily as he popped a chip into his mouth.

“He didn’t have to. My best friend was bitten when we were both fifteen. He didn’t have… anything, no alpha, no pack, just me and my mad Googling skills, and we’ve had plenty of supernatural run-ins over the years. Derek didn’t tell me because he didn’t have to tell me—I’m not anything special, but I’d like to think I can spot a non-human from at least fifty feet. Maybe more on a good day.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong.”

Stiles jumped as he heard Derek’s voice from behind him, and it truly was a credit to his poise and sophistication that he only blushed a little as Derek’s arm snaked around his waist. His body was warm, far warmer than it had been ten minutes ago, and Derek’s breath came a little heavy as he kissed the back of Stiles’ head.

“You are definitely something special.”

“You—you absolute cheeseball, what is wrong with you—” Stiles managed to get out as he shoved at Derek’s shoulder, his entire face burning red as Laura and Cora both gagged. Any residual awkwardness melted away as Nana’s sharp laugh cut through the air, the sound putting him back at ease as he leaned back into Derek’s warmth.

Somewhere between the fortieth round of storytelling and the gathering moving back into the house, Stiles needed a breather. Derek’s family was huge, and loud, and honestly, Stiles loved it—but it wasn’t long before he felt an itch beneath his skin, his fingers buzzing against his thigh, the muscles in his jaw a little too tight.

Stiles had expected Derek to be pretty popular in the family—what he didn’t expect, though, was that he would be anything more than an introduction and the same polite questions that everyone gave the new boyfriend.

“Wait, no fucking way did the two of you take down a Kanima, Stiles, I’m calling bullshit right now—“

Derek’s siblings were great, but they were also the worst; the minute they found out that Stiles had his own supernatural background, they were pestering him for stories, demanding his opinion of things, getting more and more exasperated with his entire life the more he shared.

Stiles knew that his life was crazy, okay? He didn’t need the constant reminders or the slack-jawed shocked expressions to reinforce that fact.

“Jesus, we didn’t even know that there were any wendigos in the state, and you knew an entire family of them?”

The only stories he flat out refused to talk about were the… issues he had had with hunters through high school—this was a party, after all, and he didn’t want to be the one to bring the vibe down by talking about the one time an assassin held a gun to his head to try and draw Scott out.

Fun times.

“What do you mean, you just know a banshee? And set her up with a hellhound? Dude, who are you?!”

Kissing Derek had, oddly enough, only exasperated the situation. In less than a day, they had gotten better at trading little affections back and forth; but instead of helping Stiles calm down, they only increased that thrumming nerves that bounced around at the base of his skull.

Which sucked, honestly, because kissing Derek was… really, really nice.

Stiles waited until another cousin who’s name he would never remember caught Derek up in a conversation about another tradition he couldn’t follow before he squeezed Derek’s hand, taking the opportunity to stand up from his spot on the couch and slip away.

The Hale House was huge, and outside was no exception; Stiles soon found himself on the porch, a huge wraparound wooden structure with built-in benches that let you enjoy the kind of view that made Stiles remember why he loved home so much. He treated himself to a few pictures of the sunset over Beacon Canyon before he flopped himself down on a bench, rubbing at his neck.

“Stiles? Everything alright?”

He had half expected Derek to follow him out after a few moments—but to his surprise, it was Nana Hale that sat beside him, her cheeks still pink with laughter as she tucked a jet black flyaway behind an ear.

“Is—oh, no, it’s great! Just wanted to, uh, snap a few pictures of the view.”

Another half truth—he was full to bursting with those lately.

“I know that our family can be… a little overwhelming,” she said, her tone even as she rose a brow, keeping her gaze forward as her fingers drummed a pattern into her knee.

Stiles hummed in agreement, his own smile a touch more genuine as he looked over to her. “Maybe, but that’s not a bad thing. When I was growing up, I spent so much time wondering what it would be like, to have siblings, and cousins, and… well, it might be a lot, but it’s a lot of love, too. I’m really glad Derek has that kind of support.”

Nana’s fingers stilled against her knee as she turned to face Stiles, and for the first time, Stiles was really able to get a good look at her properly. He could understand why she was the matriarch of the family, and how she had kept that title so long; even if he hadn’t witnessed her taking Mark down less than four hours ago, there was a whole other kind of strength that she was showing here, radiating off of her in waves.

“He does. But he doesn’t just have us for love and support... or was I reading the way you look at him wrong?” Her tone was teasing as she rose her brow, and Stiles felt his cheeks pink up spectacularly as he coughed, his eyes flashing back to the window for only a moment before Nana patted his knee.

“Don’t worry, the house is completely soundproof. Those nosy little pups can’t hear a word we say. Now tell me, how long have you been in love with my grandson?”

Now fully, beautifully red, Stiles groaned as he hid his face in his hands, Nana’s laughter ringing strong and clear as she stood up and walked toward the railing. “Oh don’t be so dramatic, I have no intention of spoiling that surprise until you’re ready to really woo him with it. And you’d better woo him! You know as well as I do that he deserves the romancing.”

Her tone softened as she chuckled, trailing off with a sigh and a sort of wistful smile as she shook her head. “New York has been good to him. You have, too, I think. California was… a rough part in his life.”

Something in the way she phrased it got the investigative side of his brain thrumming, his curiosity piqued as he remembered what Derek said on the plane.

‘I know they forgave me, but… sometimes it’s hard to be around them and still be okay with myself, you know?’

The nosy part of him wanted to pry, to dig a little more, but his eyes flicked back to the window again, where Derek and all four of his siblings were doing a terrible job at acting like they weren't trying to stare him down.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure he’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

Apparently, that was the right answer—Nana’s face softened again as she smiled, nodding her head, beckoning Stiles into standing up. She put her hand in the crook of his elbow easily, steering them back toward the house in a way that allowed no room for compromise.

“You are going to be good for my Der-bear, I know it.”

“Oh, I mean, I hope so. Derek deserves that, and I definitely—“

“Just let him be good for you, too.”

She reached up and patted Stiles cheek as he stared at her, dumbfounded, automatically opening the door for her as she walked back into the house. His expression was mirrored in the matching expressions of slack-jawed shock from all five Hale siblings, all staring at Stiles as Nana started in on another family story that would be sure to embarrass Mark, or Laura, or anyone who wasn’t Derek.

He meant what he said, of course. Derek deserved someone who would be good for him.

Somehow, that was the problem here.

—————

“Stiles, you reek of nerves. All I can smell is nerves and bell peppers. It’s not a good smell. Are you going to tell me what you’re freaking out about, or what?”

Stiles jolted as Derek called him out so effortlessly, pulled out of the trance he had fallen into as he watched Derek work, pushing around some of the barbecue from the night prior with some fresh chopped veggies into a delightful spur of the moment stir fry.

Derek was also as dressed down as Stiles had ever seen him, in a light grey henley and a dark pair of jeans, and that was even more delightful than the stir fry.

“Wait, you—that’s just something you can do? Oh god, your entire family must have known how nervous I was yesterday, did they—“

“Stiles. Breathe.”

Right. Breathing. He could do that.

…. maybe.

The truth was, Stiles could honestly say that he was having a great time back in Beacon Hills.

Derek and his family were great, no lie, and fake relationship aside, the researcher in him was absolutely thriving seeing how a huge, well-established pack worked with one another. They were literally a well oiled machine, the personification of the old ‘it takes a village’ metaphor, and the only thing that amazed Stiles more than how well they worked together was how well they adapted to Stiles being there.

Of course, he thought a big part of that came from having the Alphas on his side—not just Derek, but Nana too.

(“I can’t believe she hugged you,” Laura had hissed after yet another glass of infused punch. “When she met my last boyfriend, she threw him off the porch.”

“Well, Stiles is a fragile little human,” Taylor had snorted, ignoring the way Stiles smacked his arm, “and Hank was a major, prolapsed asshole.”

“Well yeah, but that’s not the point!”)

As great as Derek and his family was though, getting to come home and surprise his dad early… well, there was no place on the planet he would rather be than wrapped in a signature Stilinski hug, the kind of hug where you held on just a little longer than you needed to so you can pretend you definitely weren’t crying.

He got to watch a game with his dad, he got to sleep in his old, lumpy-ass childhood bed, he got to make breakfast in his mom’s kitchen.

So yeah. Great time.

Or at least, it had been, until a text rolled through after he kissed his dad goodbye that morning.

der-bear: Do you want to come over for lunch? Nana has everyone out of the house, Mom and Uncle Peter showed up this morning and he’s already driving everyone crazy.

sent: sure man. want me to bring anything? :)

der-bear: Don’t worry about it. Besides, I figure we should talk before the bonfire anyway.

And just like that, something brought around a cloud to rain on Stiles’ parade.

“Is it about tonight?” Derek asked, and if Stiles’ hadn’t been so laser focused on his cooking technique (his arms, okay, he was staring at Derek’s arms) he probably would have missed the way Derek hesitated when he asked, like he was afraid of the answer.

He picked himself up off of the barstool at the island in their gigantic kitchen, leaning against the counter closer to Derek, reaching in to pluck a chunk of onion out of the pan, skillfully avoiding the swat from Derek’s wooden spoon. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you… You know we’re looking forward to having you with us, right?” Derek asked, spooning some of the food onto two separate plates, using his claws to rip two fresh chunks of bread off of a loaf. “But if you don’t… I mean, I just don’t want you to feel like you have to be there if you don’t want to.”

Stiles frowned as he accepted one of the plates, pulling the smaller chunk of bread off of one of Derek’s claws, mulling his next words over. “As long as you want me there I’ll be there,” Stiles said slowly, because there really was no way to politely say that Stiles would rather throw himself into the sun before his mythical lore studying ass missed out on observing pack activity on a blue moon.

“Why would you think I didn’t want you there?” Derek asked, looking like he was offended at the very notion, sliding a fork to Stiles as he sat down at the countertop, that offended look only growing as Stiles snorted.

“I dunno, I thought you might have changed your mind about it. Dude, you sent me a ‘we should talk’ text. I’m no expert, but I know that nothing good follows a ‘we should talk’ text,” Stiles said around a mouth full of bread, but any degree of playful levity he had gone for was sapped out of his voice the moment he saw Derek look back down at his plate.

“That, uh. I do think we should talk, but not about that. Stiles, I...”

Ah, fuck. Derek’s ears were pink again, and for once, Stiles thought that was a bad thing.

Stiles did his best not to panic as he thought through things, wondering what he had fucked up, because he just knew he had fucked up a little something. Maybe he had come on a little too strong last night, maybe he had gotten too comfortable with his crush, maybe—

“I was thinking that maybe… we shouldn’t be faking this anymore.”

—or maybe, he had fucked up a whole lot of everything.

Stiles felt his heart sink through his shoes as he swallowed his bread, his appetite suddenly gone. He brushed his hands on his jeans, giving a few short nods, swallowing again as he pushed back from the table a little bit. He thought for a moment that he should argue against it, but Derek had a sad puppy expression splashed across his face, and Stiles wasn’t strong against that on a good day.

“Oh.”

He could feel Derek’s eyes tracking him as he started to move, standing up and starting an easy track around the kitchen, flexing his fingers before he rubbed his palm with his thumbs, an old habit he had thought he had kicked back when he graduated from Berkeley.

“I think, uh, maybe you should wait until you’re back in New York to tell your family?” Stiles started, missing the tiny smile on Derek’s face before it melted into a look of confusion. “You should tell them I broke up with you, not the other way around, I don’t mind being the bad guy,” he added, staring down at his hands.

“Wait, Stiles—“

“No, seriously, it’s fine,” Stiles interrupted, putting a smile back on his face, because he knew this was going to be coming at some point. Derek had made up their entire relationship, and Stiles had worked hard to remember that the reality of it was… that it wasn’t reality. He was the one with the inconvenient crush, he was the one who had gotten stupid. This was all on him, and taking the high road to bow out gracefully would be too.

Or, at least, it should have been. But Derek had abandoned his seat as well, halfway following Stiles in his trail around the kitchen, putting his arm out against a countertop to stop Stiles at a turn.

“I said I wanted to stop faking, Stiles.”

Hell, when had Derek gotten so close to him? Stiles blinked as he backed up against the counter, Derek’s arms closing him in, and suddenly he was getting an up close and personal look at Derek’s lips, and his eyes, and the way the blush was going back up his ears, and—

...why was Derek blushing?

“I never said anything about wanting you to leave.”

But why would Stiles be staying if… oh. Oh.

Realization dawned on Stiles’ face as Derek blushed and looked down, moving his hands a little bit closer against the counter, and Stiles felt a shiver run down his spine as he felt Derek’s thumb settle right along his hip. He had to clear his throat before he could speak, swallowing down the hope that was threatening to bubble over, chewing on his lip as he put one hand on Derek’s chest, the other gently tipping his head back to look him in the eye.

“Dude, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, you gotta spell it out, I’ve had a crush on you for like forever and if I’m mis-reading this—”

“I told you. I’m your boyfriend, don’t call me dude.”

Stiles laughed again, elation making him feel light and giddy, finally breaking eye contact with Derek as he felt his own blush burn through the back of his neck.

“Stay, Stiles. You belong here. With me.”

Rather than even try to form a coherent response, Stiles dropped one of his hands, cheeks still a ruddy color as he looped a finger into one of the belt loops on Derek’s designer jeans, pulling him just that much closer.

“Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Oh, thank God—"

—————

Yeah, Stiles thought hours later, still feeling the warmth of Derek’s smile against his lips as howls sounded off around the Hale House, moonlight swirling around him from the vantage point he had on the porch.

This was exactly where he belonged.

[ellaenchanting]

Hypnovember 2020 Master List

Now that I have awoken from my post-Hypnovember nap, it’s time to post my 2020 Master List! in comparison to last year’s entries, a lot of stories this year delved more into either more intense kinks or more of my intense personal feelings than my stories last year did. Sometimes writing stories is a bit like reading my own tarot cards in that way- letting an ambiguous prompt roll around in my subconscious and sometimes being surprised or amused or even slightly unsettled by what it turns into. I hope you will find something in this group of works that soothes you, that turns you on, that intrigues you, and that most of all provokes a response. If you do, I’d absolutely love to hear about it. :)

Copying one of my favorite @jukeboxemcsa  ideas, I’ve also included a HypnoBS rating for every work about how realistic the hypnosis/mind control is in each work (IMHO). In this ranking, 1 means to is absolute bullshit and 5 is a normal Tuesday night (for someone).

Icons- 📰- story. 🔊- audio 💻- technology 😍- romantic 🌈- queer 😴- regular ole’ hypnosis 🛀- brainwashing and/or character in tub 👻- spooky 🐈- at least one happy pussy ❓- bad or reeeally questionable consent 👨‍🔬 -science! 🤪 -crackfic #-#sceneideas 😭-feeeels ⭐-author’s personal favorites

Day 1: Instant M/f 📰 😴🐈#😭

Choice quote: “Sean chuckled as he moved in closer. And closer. ‘I thought you wanted to know what it was like to be hypnotized, sweetheart. To follow suggestions? To have someone else take control? It’s not real control if I’m doing something you already wanted, now is it?”

HypnoBS- 5. Read the whole thing but- IMHO totally plausible.

Fun Fact- These are the same characters from last year’s Day 5: Poison.

Day 2: Coils F/m 📰 😴 💻 👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Daniel rolled his eyes. ‘I bet you could hypnotize me with a bar of soap if you wanted to. That still doesn’t make me like spirals.’”

HypnoBS- 5. Maybe 4 because I don’t love the induction but- maybe you will? Also- oh no poor Daniel is so conditioned that he’ll go under to anything Jamie does! How hard for him. :(

Day 3: Staged Hypnosis (Stage) F/f 📰 😴 🌈 🛀 ❓

Choice quote: “No one needed to know she was a plant. A confederate. A stooge.”

HypnoBS- 1.5. This would collapse like a house of cards. It’s a fun concept though.

Day 4: Psychic F/nb 📰 😴 🌈 😍 👨‍🔬⭐

Choice quote: “Something about the hypnosis- being in and out of each other’s heads and in and out of each other’s bodies all weekend- made her feel like she and Tris had merged in some way. Like there was a new, deeper understanding between them now- a telepathic bond.”

HypnoBS- 5. Maybe a 4.5 if you’re recognizing some nre magical thinking here. But- I’ve definitely had this feeling and this kind of experience- and I hope some of you have had it/will have it as well. :)

Day 5: Visor F/multiple 📰 😴 🛀 💻 👨‍🔬 🤪#

Choice quote: “Besides, everyone knew stormtroopers were kinky.”

HypnoBS- 4.5. Some of the exact details would need to be changed and thought through more thoroughly, but I absolutely believe you could do something like this if you wanted to. (And if you do, you definitely have to let me know. I know some of y’all out there go to Dragoncon.)

Day 6: Pendulum F/y’all 🔊😴 👨‍🔬

Choice quote: This is a trick I first learned from a science book I read in 5th grade.

HypnoBS- 5. The real thing.

Day 7: Song Aliens/the human race 📰 💻 👻❓

Choice quote: “Anna didn’t know what she was singing.”

HypnoBS- 1. I hope. Why do the song based stories always turn out so creepy?

Day 8: Performance unknown/f 📰 👻❓😴# ⭐

Choice quote: “With each snap, the gears inside her doll body click click click clicked into action. She turned, jerky but graceful. She was determined to do well. “

HypnoBS- 5 (if part of a fearplay scene, which is my headcanon for this story)

Day 9: (Hot Under the) Collar F/f 📰 😴🛀🌈 🐈#⭐

Choice quote: “She was wearing her collar. She was aroused. It was as simple as that.“

HypnoBS- 5 With time, I think you could do this. Maybe a 4.5 for the 30 minutes thing- that might lead to a bit too much cramping.

Day 10: Gentle 🔊😴

Choice quote: “Just look into the spiral....”

HypnoBS- 5. I hope.

Day 11: Summoning Sappho (Summon) eventual F/f I hope 📰 😴🌈 🤪

Choice quote: “In fact, the only ideas left to try on their brainstorming board included ‘sexy alien invasion’, ‘sexy witches’, and this. Shockingly, at this point a sexy seance seemed the most practical.”

HypnoBS-1. Although stay tuned for Femme Flirt 2021.

Day 12: Plants unknown/m 📰 😴🛀#

Choice quote: “If he focused, Chris could feel that new suggestion also growing stronger and stronger, becoming more and more firmly rooted inside of him. “

HypnoBS- 5, with the right person

Day 13: Artifact F/f 📰 😴🛀🌈 👨‍🔬 ❓

Choice quote: “She fumbled through the contents when suddenly her hand found something unexpected from her past.A red lipstick tube. An artifact.”

HypnoBS- 4? There’s different ways of reading this story, but my headcanon is that the consent here is pretty dubious.

Day 14: Tail M/f 📰 😴🛀❓👻#

Choice quote: “It was no use. She could sense her tail was still behind her. She couldn’t shake him. She should have known he’d come for her.“

HypnoBS- Let’s say 2. Although I think this could work really well for a fearplay scene in an appropriate setting (where someone wasn’t actually left unmonitored with extreme paranoia).

Day 15: Serve F/m 📰 😴#⭐

Choice quote: “He had put his heart and soul into the dish.They were hers now.”

HypnoBS- As a scene? 5 (depending on the person). As a long term effect, much lower.

Day 16: Memory F/f  📰 😴 🛀🌈 😍

Choice quote: “Mesmera waited for Galaxy Girl at the door.”

HypnoBS- 4, you could do an induction along these lines but -1 for psychic powers

Fun Fact: These characters were originally featured in last year’s Day 19: Hideout. 

Day 17: Toy F/f m/f 📰 😴 🛀🌈🐈 #

Choice quote: “Dolly hated to have Bad Manners. “

HypnoBS- 4.5. This is pretty deep into headspace, but I wouldn’t want to rule it out for the right person.

Day 18: Monster m/f 📰 😴 ❓😭⭐

Choice quote: “That kind of stuff wasn’t fair to think about here. It wasn’t everyone else’s fault that she was so warped.”

HypnoBS- 5. Ouch my heart. Poor young!Ella.

Day 19: Eyes M/m 📰 😴 🌈 😍

Choice quote: “Scott looked into his partner Brandon’s eyes. Brandon had hypnotized him so many times over the years in so many ways but- this was one of Scott’s favorites.”

HypnoBS- 5. Especially in a long term relationship like this. (In my pretend Hypnovember universe, these guys are some of the patriarchs of the hypnokinky convention scene and absolutely wonderful advice givers.)

Fun fact: The story of how these characters originally got together is in last year’s Day 12: Stage story. 

Day 20: Possession F/f  📰 😴 🌈 😍😭

Choice Quote- “Things that were hard to do for herself during these times became easier to do as something owned by Thadra. Taking a shower. Getting up and going to bed at the right time. Making sure she ran once a day. Making sure she ate.”

HypnoBS- Errr....4 trending upwards. Although for this to be safe and healthy you’d really need to be checking in with a therapist and working on your continuing mental health at the same time (IMHO). Please do not get relationship advice from my porn.

Day 21: Snaps 🔊😴👨‍🔬

Choice Quote- “No, that one was up.”

HypnoBS- 5. I’m not sure quite how this translates to audio but this is the kind of shenanigans I pull with friends all of the time.

Day 22: Restrict  F/f 📰 😴 🌈 🐈👨‍🔬 

Choice quote: “’Hmm. By ‘weird’ do you mean ‘hot’?’ asked Zahara, lounging above her on the couch. Nikki nodded. She definitely meant hot. “

HypnoBS- 2. A month is a long time and this is a strong reaction. But- maaaaaybe would work for a bit, especially within these boundaries?

Day 23:  Villain there’s a m and a f  📰 🛀👨‍🔬❓#

Choice quote: “They had been planning against that damned do-gooder reporter Lizzy Lampost for months and now they were about to finally have her in their clutches. “

HypnoBS-1. But you’re not reading this one for realism, are you?

Day 24: Drink F/f 📰 😴👨‍🔬🌈 😍

Choice quote: “’Leah,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a drinking game! This might be fun! Want to try it?’”

HypnoBs- 5. With the right person. (That part of the end might be a bit harder.)

Day 25:Worship: F/m 📰 🛀🌈 

Choice quote: “After all, it wasn’t the time to work right now. It was time to worship his Mistress’s cock.”

HypnoBS- Someone on AO3 told me this fic just wrecked them. Lucky that person- this one’s a 5. Maybe not with everyone, but an awful lot of people should be able to do an awful lot of the activities in this story. :)

Day 26: Fey M/f 📰😴 😭⭐

Choice quote: “Humans do not know the spells they weave.”

HypnoBS- 1 Only true in that metaphorical way. (So- really, really true. But not factual.)

Day 27: Recording F./m 📰 🛀❓👻#

Choice quote: “It’s a recording, he reminded himself. “She’s not there. No one is there.”

HypnoBS- 2 At least, I don’t know how to make this happen (outside of a consensual scene).

Day 28: Obsession M/F 📰 🛀😍👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Some guys had cars. Some had computer systems. Some had home brewing. But Mark’s obsession was Julia.“

HypnoBS- Oh gosh. Errr...2.5? Hard to say. 

Fun Fact: This started as a one-sided scenario, then it changed, then it felt really hot, now it feels like a sweet silly sitcom premise. (If you want to read some episode synopses of this hypothetical sitcom, there are some brilliant ones here! Also- feel free to send me more!)

Day 29: Helpless F/m 📰😴😍

Choice quote: “’I want to be helpless,’ he replied. Juan felt his headspace changing. He threw himself into that feeling, trusting Josie to take the reins.“

HypnoBS- 5. Not a scene log, but pretty much How I Top.

Day 30: Awaken 🔊😴👨‍🔬

Choice quote: “Aaaaaand-awaken!”

HypnoBS- 5 Hypnotist BS- also a 5

Thank you all for reading these! Thank you especially to everyone who reblogged, wrote me comments, and generally supported me through this past month. I’m going to specifically single out @daja-the-hypnokitten​, @wellgnawed​, and @spiralturquoise​ for the encouragement- y’all are the best. :)  I know this is a long post, but I’d really appreciate reblogs of it!

Also, I didn’t have time to contribute myself but- if you donate to Hypnokink for Trans Lives, let me know and I’ll write you an epilogue for any of these stories that you choose. 

[evans713]

not her / chris evans

part two of not him

author's note: thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy: as always, this is dedicated to @sweater-daddiesdumbdork lots of love💕

warnings: angst, not edited, bad writing

Y/N thought of Sam’s words over and over. She overheard. Maybe she didn’t hear the entire conversation. Maybe Chris had been talking about another Y/N but you were almost sure that you were the only girl with that name in his life.

Why am I still hanging onto a little bit of hope?, she thought, exasperated.

She had been tossing and turning for the past hour but her mind wouldn’t shut up. It hasn’t shut up for the past three weeks. She wanted silence in her mind but all she got was silence from Chris. Well not really, Chris was a gentleman and would never ghost her. But she did feel a shift in their friendship ever since that dreadful day. His words were tighter, his expressions more blank and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

Because if Chris didn’t want her that way, why did he act the way he did?

And that gave her a bit of hope. Maybe he does like her. But why would he tell his brother that he didn’t. His own brother, someone whom he fully trusts.

No, he didn’t like her.

And he was probably just being overprotective. Worried that Sam would play her. But he knew Sam and he knew that Sam wasn’t that kind of person.

That new affirmation let her sleep for the night. A restless one but at least she fell asleep. To which she was awaken by the loud ringing of her phone. Despite being tired, a smile graced her lips.

“You are lucky I like you, otherwise I would kill you for waking me up so early.” She teased.

Scott scoffed. “It’s eight in the morning.”

“Exactly. You know I don’t exist before noon on Sundays.”

"Well, I don't care. You have to tell me everything about your date. I'm back and  I demand answers."

Yes, Chris told him she had had a date with Sam. Apparently that's all he mentioned before 'drowning himself in work', Scott's words. He had called her and got mad at her for going on a date without telling him first. Exasperated for some unknown reason. She tried explaining the situation but he didn't care, he wanted a long chat and he was back in town from work now.

"Okay, why don't you come here? I'll make pancakes?" She offered.

"You know I'd never turn down your pancakes but that gives you a distraction and I want details so you are not getting out of this that easy. Meet me and Zach at that cute café you like to go to. Thirty minutes, Y/N, so get going." Scott disconnected the call and she sighed, she wasn't getting out of this and she really didn't want to think back to that day.

/

"I missed you." Y/N told Scott as they hugged tightly. 

"I know you did." Scott teased.

Y/N and Zach rolled their eyes. She gave Zach a hug and they went inside the café, grateful that it wasn't too crowded. They sat the furthest they could so when Scott's loud voice rang, it wouldn't scare the other patrons or let them know of her business.

"Okay, so Chris told me you were going on a date with Sam. I didn't even know you liked Sam." Scott didn't beat around the bush. He was a man on a mission.

"He asked me out days before and I figured why not." She replied. Scott didn't know of her crush towards Chris. She knew that as good as his intentions were, he would try setting them up and she wouldn't have liked their relationship to be forced. That was before she heard him say he didn't like her that way. "But we realised that we are better off as friends." Scott motioned with his hand for her to keep going. "That's it."

"How did Chris find out?" 

"He came to my place just before Sam got there. He put two and two together, and left right after Sam arrived." Y/N explained.

"How did Chris... act?"

"Act?" Scott nodded. "He was... overprotective? I don't know. I hadn't told him I was going on a date and he showed up, expecting to have a movie night."

"Why didn't you tell him?" Wow, Scott was good. He could be a really good detective.

"Am I getting arrested after this?" Y/N tried joking and hoping to maybe stir the conversation in another direction or just getting over it already. "I don't know. I didn't think he would care. And I wasn't really into the date. And neither was Sam. He was really nice and thought the same, that it was really awkward and that we should remain friends. That's it, that's all."

"How fast did Chris leave after realising you were going out on a date?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"My kind, now answer."

"I don't know. Like five minutes after, does it really matter?"

"It does. Now you said that Chris was 'overprotective', what did he do to make you think of that?"

Y/N couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, he stood on the doorway, he told Sam that  he didn't know I was expecting someone. He told him he was dropping off stuff for me and that he was on his way. He was a little hostile, told us to have fun and left."

"Did he say goodbye?"

"No."

"Hostile in what way?"

"Sam said something about being lucky to take me out and Chris agreed, said something about me being special, whatever that meant."

"What did you think it meant?"

"I don't know."

"Did he bring you flowers?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"Don't remember."

"Were they Y/F/F?"

"No."

Scott was silent for a moment.

"Where did he take you?"

"Nice Italian restaurant."

"Drink any wine?"

"Yes, rosé and white."

"Fettuccini Alfredo for you?"

"Yes."

"How long were you there?"

"A couple of hours."

"One hour for ordering and eating and the other?"

"Friendly talk."

"Define friendly."

"Hi guys, can I take your order?" A chipper lady asked.

Zach replied for the three of them. "We will have a slice of blueberry crumble cake, a slice or red velvet and a slice of carrot cake. Two coffees and a hot chocolate."

"Okay, anything else?" The waitress asked.

"No, that's it. Thanks." Zach supplied and the waitress left. "You may continue Y/N."

"Thank you for the support, Zach." Y/N feigned being annoyed to which Zach smiled and gave her a thumbs up. “It was just comfortable after we agreed going on a date for a potential romantic relationship was a big mistake and it was mutual so we fell back in our routine.”

“Did he walk you home?”

“He did. And he left as soon as I closed the door. Which was two minutes after we arrived at my doorstep.” She answered, anticipating his following questions.

Another moment of silence from Scott until his eyes widened as he looked at something behind her. He was about to say something when Y/N turned around and felt her heart break all over again.

There he was. The guy who she loved and he didn’t like back. His hand resting gently on her female companion's back. He pointed with his finger to an empty table on the other side of the café, opposite them and smiled down at her. Y/N turned around, trying to shake the image of her Chris with someone else but it will forever be ingrained in her mind. 

"Y/N, are you okay?" Scott was worried as he looked at her. Out of all reactions, he wasn't expecting to see her crumble in front of him. 

"I'm fine. I just need to go." Before either Scott or Zach could do anything, Y/N grabbed her things and started walking towards the exit. She didn't want any of them to see the tears gathering in her eyes and have them realise that she was in love with Chris.

[whyaretheyfictionalcharacters]

Kinktober - Day 5

Ok so, second Sterek instalment. Good stuff.

Originally posted on AO3.

xoxo Lexi

“I don't think anyone is really taking this seriously”, Stiles comments, stepping over a tree trunk with the same grace Derek has just showed. Exactly the same. He flays around his arms a tid bit but apart from that? They could be mistaken for the same person.

Derek twists around and goes to help him. “Are you?”.

“Well, considering who thought about this you're damn right I am”.

The treasure hunt was Lydia's idea, a way to build in-pack relationships and create a more stable net of connections among them. If Stiles thinks her intention was to simply prove again to everyone else who's the smartest in the pack—he's certainly not going to tell anyone, he's not suicidal. And that's exactly the same reason he's taking this (honestly a bit ridiculous) relationship building exercise seriously. Or as seriously as he can take it, anyway.

“Lydia scares you?”.

“Of course she does! Doesn't she scare you?”.

“Oh, I'm terrified of her”, Derek answers with a frown. “And she's tiny”.

Stiles laughs, dried leaves crunching underneath his sneakers. “Don't let her hear you”.

“She's not a werewolf”. A small shrug. “Jackson is the only one around and he's at least a mile away”.

As they walk in silence, the only noise around them being their footsteps thudding on the ground, Stiles finally finds some appreciation for the quietness of the preserve. Being here with Derek, letting their shoulders and fingers brush against each other after the messy few weeks they've had with threats in the supernatural world feels comfortable and surreal. And probably it's his leftover-teenage hormones speaking but he can't wait for this treasure hunt to end so Derek and he can run off to his room and blow off some steam. Or blow off something else. That does sound like a plan.

His dad would not come back until later that night, probably after dinner, and that'd give them – Stiles calculates quickly in his mind – five hours to get funky, to jelly roll. Scrog a bit and schtupp together. To take old one eye to the optometrist. To play hide the salami. To dip Derek's cookie in Stiles glass of milk. Numerous times, if the werewolf's refractory period gives any clue. They could start small; make out on Stiles bed and test the sturdiness of the frame – which they've already done, by the way and sneaking out a broken bed slat out of the Sheriff's home is not as easy as it might sound. Which doesn't sound easy. At all. So one can only imagine the uncomfortable conversation he's had to have with Mrs Wunderby from across the road – and then get rid of their clothes because Stiles is a selfless person and Derek's body is something that needs to be cherished and admired. Keeping it clothed would be like...like clipping wings off of a mighty eagle. Or shut down the Smithsonian. It'd have that much of a cultural backfire. It'd be immoral.

So Stiles would take Derek's clothes off and admire that chest of his, all wide and muscly and warm and furry in a sexy way. He'd dip his hand down to follow the line of hairs to his navel, go over it and open his jeans because if unclothing Derek's chest is a cultural aid for the entire state of California, than the sight of his cock is a spiritual experience.

Derek Hale is big. Not impossibly big – Stiles is sure he doesn't live in one of those ridiculous stories people read with enhanced and horse-sized dicks – but nevertheless he's...gifted. Must have something to do with those werewolf genes of his and if that's the case, dear Mother Nature, wolves are a gift to them all. What turns on Stiles though it's not just the size of his shaft – still has a pretty high place in the list of 'Reasons why Derek Hale is a gift from the gods and Stiles is grateful he's his boyfriend' – it's the utter difference there is between the two of them. And that's not a euphemism about his own cock, Stiles is pretty content with his genitals, no complaints there. No, that's not it at all.

Stiles still remember when he recognised what the issue was and he probably has to thank Erica for that.

“You're such a twink, Stiles”, she had said once during their weekly coffee meetings and Stiles has seen enough gay porn after his surprising epiphany in high school to know what a 'twink' is. He's not oblivious, or his name would've been Scott McCall.

He had tried to deny that in front of his salted caramel frappuccino but as usual Erica had her own arguments. “You are, Stiles. You and Derek are literally the epitome of a bear-twink relationship”.

And God, was she right.

The werewolf might be only slightly taller than him but his presence is mightier, his shoulders wider and his arms definitely bigger. Stiles always feels dwarfed every time he's in close proximity with Derek and he does not complaint about that. Not. One. Bit. Dude can pick him up without breaking a sweat and fuck him against the wall as if he weighted less than a baked potato with bacon sprinkles on top. Jeez, those are good times. Hot times. As in Death Valley hot.

“Stiles”.

Surely they can do something like that today. There are so many options to spend five hours sexing up a werewolf Stiles gets a bit dizzy sometimes: this is literally his teenage dream, with no skinny jeans on and a comfy mattress instead of bedsheets forts in a motel room. Take that Katy Perry.

“Stiles”.

“What? Whassup?”, he asks turning to look at Derek.

Who is currently staring angrily at him. He seems pretty pissed actually, if Stiles has to tell the truth. Unfortunately he thought he had left all those annoyed stares and growled words in the past so this is turning out to be a shocking turn of events. In a not-so-sexy way.

“Uhm...Der? Everything okay?”.

Green eyes seems to struggle to not turn bright blue, flashing dangerously between the two shades. “Where's your head at?”.

Okay, this does seem like a trick question. Lydia taught me about this sort of things. “On my...shoulders?”.

Derek does not seem impressed. “You smell—you're stinking up the place”.

“Oh. Sorry”, he mutters self-consciously.

He thought Derek liked his smell. Sometimes he also finds him with his face deep into his own pillow when he comes back from the bathroom after Derek spends the night; or he would dip his nose along Stiles' neck while they're watching a film on the were's laptop in his apartment. When they're in public and Stiles thinks about sexy-times-ensuring things Derek always can smell him and he gets this intense expression that almost resembles his old…

Oh. Oh.

“Oh”.

“Yeah”, Derek agrees tightly as he steps forward. “Oh”.

“I think—I think my head is not taking this, uh. This treasure hunt as seriously as before, big guy”.

One step forward. “Really now?”.

“Mmh-mm”. Stiles steps back. “I mean. Can you blame me?”.

“I don't know. We were just talking about Jackson”. Another step.

Urgh. “Let's not mention him, deal?”. Last step backwards and Stiles' back hits the thick trunk of a tree. “I really don't wanna think about him and sex together. That's just plain wrong”.

He can see a gleam of amusement and coyness as Derek stops in front of him, face just inches away from Stiles'. “Oh, is that what you were thinking about? Sex?”.

“Uh, duh. I was thinking about, you know, when this stupid treasure hunt is other and we can go back to mine and the fact that my dad is going to be out for at least five hours – I know, I counted them – and we could, you know. Get some stankie on hang down—”.

“God, Stiles”. Derek's face scrunches up horrified. “No”.

“No? You don't like that? Okay, how about I ride your flagpole?”.

“Stiles”.

“Storm the cotton gin”.

“Stiles”.

“Hit a home run”.

“Stiles”.

“Sorry!”, he says with a small smile at Derek's exasperation. “Thought you'd appreciate the baseball reference. But another thing I was thinking was—”.

Derek glares at him. “I swear to God, Stiles. If you say one more—”.

“—you said Jackson is at least a mile away and we're all alone now”. Stiles looks down bashfully and hooks his finger in Derek's waistband. “And who knows when this awful thing is going to end. Might not have time when we get home”. Looking up from under his eyelashes he smirk a bit. “We could save time and...do this. Now. Here”.

 He sees a shiver running up Derek's arms just before they're placed on the tree caging his head. “You want to do it here?”.

“Yes”, he whispers.

“Now?”.

“Yeah”. A breath and a whimper.

He has enough time to think about the possibilities when a mouth descends on him and sharp, human teeth bite his lower lip, pulling reverently before nipping it. Stiles gasps when Derek's body presses up against his through the many, too many layers of clothes they're currently wearing. Derek takes that opportunity to slip his tongue between the other's lips, teasing the wet muscle and probing the mouth with deep, hungry movements.

“Lydia's—shit. Lydia's going to be so angry”, Stiles weakly comments before moaning as Derek's hips press against his, trapping him between his warm, strong body and the cold trunk behind him.

“Do you care?”.

“Fuck no”.

He snakes his hands underneath Derek's t-shirt, revelling in the heat of his olive skin, the softness of his hairs and the hardness of his muscles. One of the wolf's thighs gets between his own, providing some blessed friction for Stiles' awakening cock. He rubs himself against Derek, feeling the need to open his legs for him and the sensation of emptiness is starting to get too uncomfortable to be ignored as they're kissing. He's never been an exhibitionist (he thinks, though he's discovering all kinds of kinks in his relationship with Derek) but the idea of having the wolf inside him, right here and now in the middle of the preserve with the afternoon light out still, the terrifying possibility of the pack finding them out—it seems to be exciting in all the wrong ways.

“Derek”, he sighs, lips sensitive from beard burn. “I need—God—I need you to—to fuck me. Like. Yesterday”.

Derek's mouth descends on his neck and at the deep inhale of his arousal Stiles shivers, feeling like the teenager he used to be five years ago. “We don't have anything”.

AH! With a dramatic flourish – probably more ridiculous than dramatic. If only that Sourwolf would stop doing what he was doing with his mouth on his ne—oh. Oh, that's nice – Stiles takes out his phone from his back pocket and slips off the case. “Speak for yourself”. The small packet of KY seems to shine in their eyes, a little lost treasure, their own small miracle. “I think I have a rubber in my wallet as well”.

“Have you always had lube inside your phone case?”, Derek asks with a shocked expression. “And do we need a condom?”.

“Don't want to leak all over my underwear. Especially not around a pack of werewolves, thank you very much”. Stiles takes out a wrapper from his wallet and hands it to Derek before he resumes touching underneath the other's shirt. “And the answer is yes. From the moment we've started dating”.

They kiss, lips open and sharing breath. “Nice to know”.

“We need to—god—”. An aimed thrust sends shivers up his legs. “Derek—we need to move”.

He gets one of his hands down, slipping in the tight fit of Derek's jeans and the hard, big cock he touches through his underwear makes him moan and spread his legs as he leans back to push his hips outward. Stiles has touched it an endless number of times yet every time seems like a new experience, a new discovery.

At Stiles' touch Derek exhales, relieved and aroused. Those lean, slender fingers massage his cock with experienced motions and the grip they use after teasing it into full firmness is heaven for Derek's spurred mind. It doesn't matter if they're in the middle of the woods with a pack of werewolves only a mile away and probably listening in, the Beta can't help but await impatiently to be inside Stiles body and thrust into that heated tightness in abandonment. Maybe there's a part of him – the wild wolf that seems to constantly seek out freedom and nature – that is turned on exactly by that fact; the possibility of being found out while collecting his prize and marking his territory, his mate in the open.

The moment their jeans are undone and their erections brush against each other, Derek grabs Stiles slim hips and turns him quickly but not violently, his cheek now resting on the roughness of the bark and ass pushed back to rub on the wolf's cock. There's only their erratic panting for what feels like ages as Derek rips the lube open and then, “God, Der—Fuck me already”.

“I'm not gonna hurt you, Stiles. Especially not out here”.

“Then shove your fingers in me!”, he cries out turning at an odd angle to plead the wolf with his eyes. “Please, I need you inside. Right now. Please”.

Derek wants that. Oh, he so wants that. And from around that pale, sinewy body he can see Stiles' red dick skim slightly against the trunk of the tree. It can't be comfortable nor pleasurable and even though Stiles seems to have other things in his mind, Derek pulls his hips back a bit more to put more space between the delicate part and the pine husk. He doesn't spend much time warming up the lube and the moment his forefinger touches the puckered hole in front of him he sees Stiles jerk up before quickly settling down again. He prepared him as swiftly and efficiently as standing in the preserve half-naked would allow, Stiles moans and whimpers accompanying each thrust of his fingers.

“Please. Please, just fuck me. Just fuck me, Der”.

Through his lust-fogged mind Stiles hears Derek opening the condom wrapper and sigh deeply as he rolls it on. He wants to reach behind him and touch his shaft, feel the girth of it and its size. Wrap his fingers around it and when noticing he can't fit it all in one hand envelope it with his other one as well. He wants to feel its thickness opening him up, make him almost worry he's gonna split in two.

The first few inches are painful, they always are: Derek might not be overworldly big but he's certainly packing down there and every time he slips inside Stiles needs to relax, bear down and bite his lip until the head is in. It's what happens now, particularly because it's not the most convenient place to have sex despite the packet of lube and the arousal he gets from being so exposed to the elements. After the head is in though...that's when Stiles can remind himself why he craved it so much in the first place. Derek is inside him balls deep and at Stiles' nod he starts to move, thrust in and out. In and out. It's slow at first, careful but they do need to be quick in this situation. The aim is a bit off, the head of the hard cock pounding him simply caresses his prostate in the most heavenly torture sending abortive shivers up from his toes, shocking through his hips and reaching the tip of his own erection like an electric shock. Each thrust, each withdrawal forces moan after moan from his mouth, noises he can't control. Mumbling reaches his ears and with a small sense of amazement he notices it's him.

It's not the best sex they've had but Jesus if it's not the hottest. Derek's hand gripping his hips in a tight hold, his puckered hole contracting around the fat shaft sliding inside and out of him in pure abandonment. Derek slides closer, t-shirt covered chest shaping around Stiles' back, and the slight change of angle causes the wolf to groan in the brunet's ear. It's a sound so primal, so inborn in Derek that Stiles needs to close his eyes not to come right in that moment.

He's so close, though. So close. After getting used to Derek being inside of him without a barrier the rubber desensitises the feeling of being fucked a bit but it's not totally unpleasant; it's smoother and easier. Stiles doesn't know if it's the build-up, the idea of being out here in the forest in broad daylight or Derek's fat, big cock beating into him but he's about to come. He spreads the legs as wide as he can manage with the jeans around his knees and he almost brings his hands back to grab his cheeks and expose himself even further. He doesn't. He needs an anchor and right now the roughness of the bark on his fingertips, under his nails is the thing that keeps him grounded.

“Oh, my God. Der—Derek. Oh, God. Fuck me. Please, fuck me”.

“I am. Shit. You're gripping me so tight”.

“What if—oh, fuck. What if they see us? What if they find us?”.

Stiles senses Derek breath itch next to his ear. “Let them. You're mine. Let them see”.

Oh. My. God. Possessiveness is certainly a kink he didn't know he had. “Say that again”.

“You're mine. Let them see, I don't care. I want them to see. I want them to see you're mine”.

Oh God. Oh God, oh Godohgodohgod.

The orgasm hits him like a blinding light. His back snaps and he arches with the force of it, his cock pulsating and trembling as his cum sprays white on the dark bark. It's seemingly artistic in an erotic way. His insides constrict around Derek and through the condom he can feel his rod vibrate as his thrust become irregular. Slower. Deeper. He misses the sensation of Derek's come hitting his walls but he guesses they still have five hours if they leave now.

“Derek—shit”, Stiles pants out after they both regain their breaths, cheek still against the tree and hips still held by Derek.

“Yeah”.

“Who would've thought? Public sex is hot”.

“What the fuck guys?!”.

They both jump at the disgusted shout from behind them, Isaac currently standing there dumbstruck, hand on his eyes. “I'm gonna need bleach”.

Yeah. Maybe not as hot around a pack of werewolves.