#half the gay people on here could do with a knock upside the head from him

[catboy-jesus]

Why does your queen theory prof hate NPH?

Great question! Just to give some context, I love my queer theory professor. He's a middle aged gay man who identifies as a fairy and was involved in a lot of queer activism in his youth. He explained to us near the start of the year that the term "straight" initially just meant "bootlicker" and has this idea of "straight gays" i.e. gay people who align themselves with straight hegemony in their actions and behavior. He sees Neil Patrick Harris as a guy who's spent his whole career trying to sanitize and play down his gayness and who is aligned with straight hegemony. Keep in mind I don't follow actors and I've only seen NPH in a few things so I'm not sure how accurate his assessment is, but I think the fact that the guy on the initial post this ask is referencing didn't know NPH was gay is an example he would point to.

[kas-eddie-munson]

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4

more disabled steddie. (readmore is just because it's a longer section. no new content warnings.)

~~~

The Thursday after Thanksgiving, Steve helped Eddie back into his house after his appointment, as usual.  He lingered at the door afterwards and scratched his neck.

“Hey, uh, this weekend, if you’re feeling up for it, I was maybe wondering if you wanted to come with me and Robin to a bar in Indy?”

Eddie wasn’t sure what he was expecting Steve to say but it wasn’t that.

“We’ve been there before!  No steps, doors are pretty wide.  It’s usually busy and I don’t know if it’s… really your scene but, she said I should ask you, so.”

Eddie wasn’t sure why exactly, but he said yes.

~~~

Usually Eddie spent ages deciding what to wear for stuff like this, but it was a lot harder to take clothes on and off these days, so he quickly pivoted to messing with his hair for half an hour to expel the nervous energy.

Steve’s car pulled up and he knocked at the door.  Robin watched from the passenger seat, wide eyed, as Steve helped him to the car.

It was a longer drive than most he took these days, and he was thankful for Steve and Robin bickering almost the whole way there.  For best friends they sure did argue a lot.  He could relate to that.  He used to tease his friends at school all the time.

It took Steve a while to find a parking spot that wasn’t super far away from the bar.  Eventually he turned around in his seat and talked to Eddie about pushing him down the sidewalk instead of circling the place like vultures until someone close to the building left, and Eddie agreed to that.

It was immediately clear that this was a gay bar, drag queens and all.  Eddie wasn’t shocked per say, but he was surprised.  He wondered which of his two friends found this place and when.

It also, like Steve told him earlier, was packed.  Steve still pushed his chair, and even though he was maneuvering carefully, nobody else in the room was looking down.  Several people bumped into him, or pushed a chair back into Steve, jumping away if they noticed why there was traffic.  Two men stood close together at the bar leaned closer and whispered to each other as Eddie and his friends passed, giggling and taking what they probably thought were very subtle glances in Eddie's direction.  Eddie overheard something about whether or not his dick worked and the two laughed.

Eddie never considered himself a shy person, or one to back down from someone being an asshole, but he shrank, not sure if his face was more red from anger or embarrassment.

Steve brought the three of them up to a table and let go of Eddie.  He asked what the two of them wanted to drink and headed to the counter.  Robin sat down across from him, clearly uncomfortable.  He wasn’t sure if it was because of him or on his behalf.  Someone moved his chair by the handles to get between two tables and he swatted their hands away, locking his wheels, but they had already disappeared into the crowd.

A guy came up to him from the right.  He was tall and hairy, and he asked if he could join them or if Robin was his date and he was totally lost.  Eddie didn’t get to respond before the guy sat down.

“Hi there!  That’s a pretty neat jacket,” he said with a wide smile.

Eddie didn’t get out of Hawkins much even before the Upside Down.  But when he did, people in bars usually avoided him.  Found him intimidating.�� Or if they approached, they hit on him.  He wasn’t sure why this guy was talking to him like they were acquaintances catching up at the grocery store when they were in the middle of a gay bar.

“So, what are you doing here tonight?  What’s this all about?”  He motioned to Eddie’s wheelchair.  “Looks really intense.”

This was why Eddie always used to talk so loud, dress louder.  Nobody ever used to talk to him like this, like he owed them something, minus maybe Mrs. Click.  He tried to muster that volume, that anger, aim it like a weapon, but there was just too much embarrassment on top of it all.

Robin butted in, said something about their friend sitting there, actually, and it was then that Steve finally came back, looking more pissed than he’d probably ever seen him before.  And there was no way in hell he even heard what that guy was saying all the way across the room over the music, not even taking his hearing loss into account.

The guy apologized and scrammed when Steve set their drinks down.

“Who the hell was that?”

Eddie realized he didn’t even say his name.

Robin pulled a mini notebook out of her purse and began furiously scribbling in it.  She showed it to Steve who frowned deeper.

A woman with a pixie cut came up to their table and greeted Robin, who froze.  Her mouth dropped open and she stuttered through the conversation, eventually looking to Steve for something, who shook his head.  He turned to the girl, and said, “She’d love to!  Go have fun!”

Robin still looked nervous, and maybe a bit mad at Steve, but her face was also beet red as the stranger took her hand and led her to the dance floor.  Steve watched with a smile.

Eddie reached for the notebook still sitting on the table, and scribbled down a quick good for her.

Steve smiled at him warmly, then frowned, staring at the notebook..

“I, uh.  Did… Did Robin tell you?” Steve said, sheepish.

Eddie wasn’t sure what he meant.

“My hearing.  It’s… it’s not what it used to be.  It’s not a big deal.  Like, I manage, right?  It sucks, but.  She’s making this big deal out of it.”

Is she treating you different? Eddie wrote in the notebook.

Steve’s brows furrowed.  “No,” he said after a pause.  “Well I mean, there’s this whole thing,” he gestured to the notebook.  “But, that’s fine I guess.  It’s just, I feel like it’s silly, right?  To need that.”

Eddie thought for a moment.

Does it help?

Steve’s brows furrowed again.  He nodded.

“Like I can hear.  I hear stuff all the time.  I thought I was just going crazy at first.  I would just miss these little things.  Maybe half a sentence.  I can work with that.  But then there’s times like this,” Steve said, motioning to the bar around them, “and I get.  I just get nothing.  I just had to like, cross my fingers the bartender heard me right when he repeated my order.  Or at least, I think that’s what he was saying.”  He mumbled the last part, almost to himself.

Steve changed the subject then, but the two of them talked like that for another hour or two.  Steve had this beautiful smile when he laughed, and Eddie realized he was kind of fucked.

~~~

A couple days after the trip to Indy, a pickup truck pulled up outside his house that he didn’t recognize.  It lurched and creeped the whole way up the hill, and Eddie watched out his front window as Steve clung onto the passenger side door for dear life, face pale, Robin smiling wide in the driver’s seat.

Eddie opened the door and was surprised by the breeze, warm for November air.  Steve and Robin got out wearing light jackets, and started hauling lumber and power tools from the trunk.

Steve approached him, and explained that Robin wanted to build a ramp for Eddie’s front porch.  He joked that he was surprised they made it there alive.  Eddie wasn’t sure what to say.

“Is that okay?”  Steve made a pained expression, “I told her we should ask first, but the tools are all rented so it wouldn’t be a big deal to just,” he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

Eddie thought about it.  Looked at the step down from his house.  He felt a mix of hope and warmth and guilt.

“Could be worth a shot.”

Eddie tamped down his feelings and grabbed them a couple glasses of water while they worked, eager for something to do besides just sit there and watch.  He told Robin he was surprised she knew how to work with this stuff, and she went on a rant about women being just as capable of building stuff as anyone else, and then berated him for forgetting her three years working stage crew, Munson.

The ramp was… not perfect.  It didn’t look great.  It was still difficult to get out the front door.  But it wasn’t too steep, it was wide enough, and they put a railing next to it for leverage.

It was better.

Part 6

[thetravelerwrites]

Urgan (Orc)

Rating: Mature Relationship: Male Human/Male Orc Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Orc, Male Reader, MLM, Gay Reader, Football Captain, College, Friends to Lovers Content Warnings: Alcohol Poisoning, Children, Kids, Pregnancy, Unwanted Pregnacy, Mention of Abortion, College Drop-Out, Strong Language, Drug Use, Angst, Super Angst, ALL THE ANGST Words: 4385

A super duper angsty commission by the wonderful @severedreamerbeard​​! Urgan is the captain of his college football team and all around cool dude. He's an extremely reliable guy with his whole life ahead of him... until the woman he's been dating winds up pregnant, which turns his entire world upside down. The reader, Urgan's best friend, tries to help as much as he can while watching Urgan's life fall apart. Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist  

Urgan had been your best friend since preschool. You were human and he was an orc, but you were both jocks growing up, both in sports, both athletic. He’d been there with you through all the major events in your life. He was there when your parents divorced, when you came out as gay in middle school, and when the teammates who had once been friends started bullying you because of it. He was always there.

You hoped you had been as good a friend to him as he had been to you. You were there when his dad died, when his mom remarried someone he hated, and when his highschool sweetheart cheated on him. After all that, the two of you were closer than brothers.

College life was easier on both of you. You both had gotten a sports scholarship and found a friend group that was a lot of fun to hang out with. Parties were epic, classes were less so, but you were living the life and loving every second of it.

Then it changed. Not for everyone, not even for you. Or at least, it didn’t have to. You could have made different choices. It would have been far easier if you had, you were sure. But…

“How long have you been dating Kelly?” You asked him over a beer. The two of you were sitting out on the front porch of a house party currently in full swing.

“Who?” He snorted, half-asleep. He’d pulled an all-nighter the day before preparing for his psych exam.

“Kelly,” You said, pointing into the open door at the girl wearing a halter with a half-empty vodka bottle in her hand, some of which she’d spilled on her chest, grinding on another girl who was sucking the vodka off of her clavicle.

“I wouldn’t say we’re ‘dating’,” He replied, throwing back a large swig of his beer. “Fucking, yes. I’m not trying to date anyone right now. I don’t have the time.” He threw his beer bottle into a large trash barrel and stood up. “Where’s Derek? He owes me fifty bucks.”

“For what?” You asked, standing up and following him through the house. He slapped Kelly’s ass as he passed her on the way inside, and she laughed.

“I borrowed it to buy coke three weeks ago,” He said.

“Didn’t he almost OD?” You asked.

“Yeah, but that ain’t my fault, I want my money,” Urgan said, muscling his way through the crowd.

“Don’t be an asshole, bro,” You said, still following him.

“I’m not being an asshole! It’s not like he learned anything, I bet you five bucks he’s doing coke right now.”

“Yeah, I’m not taking that bet,” You laughed. “I don’t know of a time when he’s not on coke. I think he was high when we first met.”

“That’s my point. You know I’m cool about that stuff normally, but it’s affecting his performance on the field,” Urgan grumbled. “I’m team captain, and if he doesn’t straighten up, I have to kick him off the team, friend or not. We lost to E.U. because of him.”

You grimaced. E.U. had been your school’s rival for generations. The loss hurt and was a huge blow to Urgan. It didn’t help that it was televised nationally.

“If you kick him off the team, the other guys will be pissed,” You reasoned.

“I know that,” He said grumpily. “But managing the team internally is my job. If I don’t do something about it, coach will either demote me or kick me off with him for not handling it when I should have. I can’t afford to lose my scholarship over some douchebag’s coke habit.” He made his way into the garage at the opposite end of the house and smacked a seated Derek on the back of the head. “Hey, Derek! Money! Now!”

“Dude, back off!” Derek protested. “I’ll get it to you when I get it, damn!”

“Not good enough,” Urgan said, kicking the mirror that was in front of Derek. Powder went flying.

“Hey!” Derek said, standing up and taking a swing at Urgan. Urgan ducked and caught Derek’s arm, pinning it behind him. He was always quick.

“Quit the coke or quit the team,” Urgan said, snarling. “We’re not losing another game because you’re too high to play.”

“The fuck are you talking about, man?” Derek said, struggling. “Don’t blame that shit on me! It’s not my fault you can’t organize your team!”

“I’m serious, dude,” Urgan said, pushing Derek to the ground. “I’m not getting punished for you. Straighten up or fuck off.”

“Suck my dick, asshole,” Derek said. He jerked his chin at you. “Or get your boyfriend to do it.”

Words like that were water off your back at this point, but it always riled Urgan up. You could already see him tensing.

“Let it go, dude,” You said, pulling him back. “Derek, seriously, you’re bringing the whole team down. Lay off the drugs, at least until after the championship.”

“Get the fuck out of my house if you’re going to act all high and mighty,” Derek said, pushing past you. “And you can forget that fifty bucks. It’s all over the ground now.”

Urgan’s fists were balled up and he was breathing hard.

“He’s not going to stop,” Urgan said.

“Come on, dude,” You said, smacking him on the shoulder. “You’re not going to accomplish anything here. Take it to the field. Show him why you’re captain.”

“I guess,” He said. “I’m hungry, man, let’s grab something.”

“Sure,” You said. “Kelly’s coming over to your place after the party, though, right?”

“Yeah, but she won’t be any shape to do anything but sleep. She knows where the key is, she’ll be fine.”

Finals were coming up, and most people were holed up in their rooms or dorms studying. Urgan was a decent student and never really worried about tests, though you hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days, which was odd. He could have been working a lot; he had a part-time job to pay for his own studio apartment. He said the dorms were too small for him.

“Urgan? No, I haven’t seen him in a week.” Joey said. Joey was a coworker from the bar where Urgan worked and also an ex-boyfriend of yours. You bumped into him at the university’s library while looking for Urgan. Urgan hadn’t answered his door when you went to check on him, so you figured he had to be here.

“Is he sick?” You asked, taking out your phone. You’d texted him awhile ago and you saw that he had seen it, but he hadn’t responded.

“I dunno,” Joey said. “All I know is that he asked the boss for some personal time. It could just be finals getting to him.”

You frowned. “Hmm… I’m going back to his apartment. He’s never been this quiet before. Something’s not right.”

“Tell him to come back to work. All the girls try to flirt with me when he’s not there. I need him to be my shield.”

You laughed and waved him off, heading out.

“Urgan!” You called, knocking insistently on his door. “Open the door! Are you alright?”

No answer. Frustrated, you got the spare key that was hidden in a slit of the doormat and unlocked the door. His apartment was dark and looked normal. Urgan was a fairly tidy guy, and nothing was really out of place.

“Urgan!” You called again, walking around the partition that obscured his bed. There he was, passed out on top of his blankets. There were empty bottles of liquor everywhere. Your heart stopped.

“Oh, fuck, please don’t be dead,” You said, crawling on the bed to slap him in the face. “Urgan, wake up!” His skin was cold, which scared the shit out of you, but after a minute feeling for a pulse on his neck you found a heartbeat, and you could see him breathing very slowly, so at least he was alive. But he wasn’t responding to your attempts to rouse him.

“Shit.” You took out your phone and called and called emergency services.

“911, what’s the nature of your emergency?”

“Hey, I need an ambulance, I think my friend has alcohol poisoning.” You said quickly, hoping it was intelligible, and gave them the address.

“Okay, sir, how long has this been going on?”

“I’m not sure, I just found him. I haven’t heard from him in days. He’s got a pulse, but he won’t wake up.”

“Is he cold to the touch?”

“Yes.”

“Is he breathing?”

“Slowly, but yes.”

“Can you make sure his airway is clear?”

You put the phone down and opened his mouth. There didn’t seem to be anything in the way.

“It’s clear,” You said.

“Alright, sir, I’ve got an ambulance on the way. Do me a favor and turn him on his side and bend the leg that’s on the top. Keep his airway clear and keep an eye on his breathing.”

“Okay,” You said, doing as the operator said and trying to keep calm.

The ambulance arrived within minutes, and after several moments of the EMTs attempting to wake him and failing, they loaded him in the rig. You were able to ride with him to the hospital. They took you both to a room, and you stood back as they began hooking Urgan up to all sorts of tubes and wires. They put a tube in his mouth because his breathing was weak and slowing down. They put him on a heavy saline drip and debated whether or not to pump his stomach. Eventually, they left him to rest and you sat with him.

“What the fuck is happening with you, man?” You asked him quietly as he slept.

Eventually, you fell asleep, and when you woke up, they were taking the air tube out of his throat. Urgan was awake and groaning in discomfort as it was removed.

“Dude, what the hell?” You said, standing up.

His eyes were bloodshot and he looked extremely sick, but at least he was awake. He waited for the doctors and the nurses to leave so that it was just you and him before he answered you.

“Kelly’s pregnant,” He said hoarsely. “It’s mine. She’s sure of it.”

“Oh, shit,” You said, sitting back down in the chair next to him. “I thought you used protection.”

“I do,” He said in frustration. “The condom must have broken or something. She told me she was on the pill. I don’t know what happened. I’m so fucking screwed.”

“You may not be,” You said, trying to comfort him, but you knew he was right. Being team captain meant that you put the team before everything. If you had another priority, you couldn’t be team captain. Not to mention the scandal of having a kid during the height of his college career would destroy his reputation and make him seem irresponsible. A baby right now was going to ruin him.

“Don’t bullshit me. I can’t show my face at school. Coach is going to kick my ass as soon as he finds out. My life is over.”

“Don’t talk like that, man,” You said. “What’s Kelly saying about all this? Has she told anyone?”

“No, not yet,” He said, covering his eyes. “Well, she hadn’t when I started drinking, but I don’t know if she has now.”

“She wants to keep it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get farther than ‘I’m having a baby and it’s yours’. And then I just started drinking and didn’t stop.”

“How far along is she?”

“Three months, she said.”

“How does she know it’s yours?”

“I was the only person she was sleeping with at the time. We were thinking about dating seriously, but it didn’t work out that way.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out, I guess.”

You frowned deeply. “She’s… been partying pretty hard in the last three months.”

Urgan rubbed his face. “I know. I’m scared shitless the kid is going to be born fucked up.”

“Do you… think you can talk her into giving it up? For adoption, I mean? She doesn’t seem like mom material.”

“I don’t know,” He said. “I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“What about…” You hesitated to mention it. “What about an abortion?”

“That’s her decision,” He said vaguely. “It’s her body.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

“No, don’t,” He said. “I’ll do it when I’ve got my head on right.”

“Dude, look where you are right now,” You said, gesturing vaguely. “Let me at least call her.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

You took Urgan’s phone, which was in his back pocket when he was brought in, and called Kelly. She was surprised to hear about Urgan’s condition and said she’d come up to the hospital.

She arrived an hour later and you gave them some privacy to talk. It was a while, so you went to grab a soda. When you came back, Kelly was leaving with tears on her face. You went in and saw Urgan sitting up in bed. His eyes were red from crying.

“Hey man, are you okay?”

“No,” He said, wiping his face and sniffing. “She’s going to keep it. I’m leaving school.”

“What?” You said, coming around. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m gonna finish out the semester but I’m leaving before the baby is born. I have to find a better job. I’m hoping I can come back when the baby is a bit older, like when they start school or something, and finish my degree.”

“But you only have a year left! Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“No!” He shouted. “I don’t want to leave school! I’ve been dreaming of this scholarship since I was a kid! It was my dad’s dream! But I’m not going to be a deadbeat! I have to find a decent job before the baby is born. I don’t have a choice.”

You were stunned to silence and just listen to him breathe through his tears.

“Are you and Kelly staying together?”

“Fuck no,” He said vehemently. “We both know that would be stupid. She’s going to stay in school as long as she can. She’s supposed to be due in winter sometime, so I should have enough saved up by then to give her for the baby, to make sure they’re comfortable.” He scowled. “I’m sure Derek is going to be thrilled. I can just see the look on his face now.”

“Don’t worry about that jackass,” You said. “Dude, I… Is there anything I can do to help out?”

He shook his head. “Kelly and I are going to keep this quiet until the end of the semester so that we don’t have to deal with anyone bullshit. After that, we’ll start telling people.”

“You’re not going to tell your mom?”

“Not yet. I can’t face her yet. She’s going to be so disappointed in me.” His tears began to fall again, and all you could do was put a hand on his shoulder and be there for him.

“I won’t say anything to anyone,” You told him. “I’m still your best friend, no matter what. If you need anything, you know I got you.”

“Thanks, man,” He said, his voice breaking.

Urgan finished out school as he planned, barely scraping a passing grade, and then notified everyone that he wouldn’t be returning. As expected, his coach was furious, his mom was disappointed, and the team was dumbfounded. Derek was the only person who seemed to be enjoying the situation.

During summer, he asked for an amniocentesis, both to prove whether or not Urgan was the father, and also to check for any genetic conditions, since Kelly’s family had a history of genetic diseases. Urgan was hoping that she was lying about only sleeping with him around the time she conceived and that he would wind up not the father so he could go back to school, but the test was conclusive. The baby was his.

Urgan found work pretty quickly at a seafood processing plant near town. It was grueling work and it didn’t pay much, but it was a full-time job and had healthcare benefits, which was the best he could hope for in these circumstances. He began saving immediately to buy clothes and diapers for his kid, which he recently found out was a little girl, and was in frequent contact with Kelly. He didn’t attend any of the doctor’s visits at Kelly’s request. Not that he wanted to be there in the first place.

You continued with college and partied like a normal college guy, stayed on the football team, and was promoted to captain. Urgan seemed happy for you and gave you pointers on leadership. If he resented you for it, he gave no sign.

Many of Urgan’s old friends, mostly team members, dropped him immediately. They no longer invited him to parties or events, and when you mentioned inviting him, they shot you down. As far as you knew, the only one who still stood by him was you, and you couldn’t be there as much as you wanted to as you now had responsibilities with the team.

Even still, if he called, you dropped what you were doing and went over. You promised you’d be there, and you were going to keep that promise. He was your best friend and you were going to stand with him. No matter what.

Urgan’s daughter, Roga, was born in November. She was small, even for a half-orc. You were there in the waiting room for the birth with the grandparents. It might have been your presence that stopped them from being at each other’s throats; the animosity in the air was palpable. Kelly’s dad was there, looking not-best-pleased at Urgan’s mom, despite her being nearly twice his size, but no harsh words were said.

Urgan came out in the full paper surgical outfit, holding the baby. He even seemed happy.

“Here she is,” He said, holding her out for the grandparents to see.

“Oh, isn’t she precious,” Urgan’s mom, Reana, said. “She’s got your eyes, Urg.”

“Yeah,” He said, smiling. “She looks a bit like dad, don’t you think?”

“She does!” Reana said brightly. “That nose definitely looks like his.”

The grandparents took turns holding the baby, and then went in to see the mother.

“Hey,” Urgan said to you, the only one left in the room. “Do you want to hold her?”

You chuckled nervously. “I dunno, man, I’ve never held a baby.”

“Neither have I, before today,” He said. “You don’t have to. I just wanted to offer since everyone else got to.”

“Yeah, but they’re family.”

“You’re family, too,” He said, looking at you like you were being an idiot.

You smiled a little and held out your arms, and Urgan carefully lay the baby into them. She was small and squishy and her face was all wrinkly. Babies all looked like potatoes to you. But she reached out and yawned and grabbed at your hand, and you couldn’t help but smile.

“She’s cute,” You said, letting her grip your finger.

“Yeah,” He said, grinning.

“How’s Kelly?”

“She hates my guts, but she’s okay.” Urgan reached out to take the baby, and you handed her over. “I should take Roga back. The lactation specialist wants to work with her.”

“I didn’t know there was a such thing as a lactation specialist,” You said with a laugh.

“Oh, yeah,” Urgan said. “The last nine months have been extremely informative.”

You snorted. “I bet.”

He took the baby back to Kelly and you sat in the waiting room, feeling a little awkward. Why were you here? You weren’t really family. You knew you were supporting Urgan, but… he didn’t really need you there right now. He seemed fine. Happy even, considering the circumstances. Maybe… maybe you should go. You really didn’t belong here.

You texted Urgan to let him know something had come up and to call you if you needed him, and he told you that it was okay, and to be careful going home. As you left, you sighed in relief. But you also felt a little guilty.

Six months later was graduation. You finished top of your class and made valedictorian. You knew that if Urgan had still been in school, he’d have gotten that honor, but…

Urgan didn’t come to graduation, and you understood why. Kelly crossed the stage and accepted her diploma, and you couldn’t help feel a little resentful at her, despite the fact that it wasn’t her fault that Urgan wasn’t there, either. They really had done everything they were supposed to do--used protection, used birth control, was careful--but things just happen sometimes. Even still, it felt like Urgan was the one who had sacrificed the most and had gotten nothing in return.

You managed to get a job at an accounting firm almost immediately after graduation. It was a boring job but the money was good. You were hoping it would be a stepping stone to a better career later.

Since getting the job, you hadn’t really seen or spoken to Urgan much. You were still his best friend, but… you had your own life to live. You felt guilty about it, but your world couldn’t stop just because his had.

Urgan was still working at the fish processing plant, working long hours to support Roga. Urgan was basically paying Kelly’s rent and bills plus everything Roga needed for both homes, since he took her on the weekends from Friday night to Monday morning, when he dropped her off on the way to work.

However, a month after graduation, Urgan called you in a panic.

“Kelly’s gone,” He said. “She’s left. I got a text from her saying she’s gone to Canada.”

“What?” You asked in disbelief. “Did she take Roga?”

“No, I’ve got her here.” He said, his voice shaking. “When she texted me, I was scared she had run off with the baby, but she left Roga with her stepdad. I just picked her up and I’m bringing her back home with me.”

You felt terrible for hoping Kelly had taken Roga with her to Canada. Even though you knew it wasn’t Roga’s fault, all you wanted was for Urgan’s life to go back to normal. You just wanted him to have the things he should have had if Roga hadn’t been born. And you hated yourself for thinking that.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” He said. He sounded extremely distressed. “Can you meet me at my apartment, please? I need someone to talk to. You’re all I have left.”

“Yeah, of course, I’ll be right there,” You said, picking up your keys.

“Thank you,” He said, and then hung up. He was audibly crying.

You made it to Urgan’s apartment before he did, and you saw him step out of the elevator carrying a ton of baby stuff in one arm and hauling Roga in her carseat in the other.

“Can you take her, please?” Urgan said. He looked pale and in shock.

“Yeah, of course,” You said, taking her carrier and looking inside. She was sleeping with a stuffed griffon clutched in her baby hands. “Is she okay?”

“I think so,” He said, unlocking his door. His apartment was strewn with kid stuff. It was so much different than the last time you’d seen it.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” He said, dropping the load he was carrying in the middle of the floor.

“Dude, I don’t care about the mess, are you okay?” You asked.

“I…” He ran his fingers through his hair. He was visibly shaking. “I don’t know if I can do this alone. I had accepted being a dad, but I don’t know if I can be… the only parent. I… I don’t know any babysitters for when I’m working. I don’t… is she off breastmilk? When was her last check up? When is she supposed to see the doctor again? Kelly didn’t tell me those things because I.. I figured she had it handled. I was making sure they had everything they needed. I didn’t think I’d…”

“Okay, calm down,” You said. “Roga is fine. You can find all of that stuff out. I’ll help, I’ll help however I can, okay?”

“Okay,” He said, sitting on his couch heavily. “Okay.” He reached down into her carseat and unstrapped her, putting her against his shoulder, clutching her as if she was a warm stone and he was freezing. He was certainly shaking like he was.

This was the first time you’d seen Roga since she was born. Now that she’d had a chance to grow, she did look a lot like Urgan. It made you feel worse for resenting her.

“Look, can you watch her for a few minutes?” He asked suddenly. “I’m almost out of formula and I didn’t expect to have her right now. I was going to go Thursday to stock up. I don’t want to run out.”

“I…” You hesitated.

“Please,” He begged quietly. “Please. Ten minutes. I promise.”

You sighed. “Okay.”

He transferred Roga from his shoulder to yours. Uncertainly, you gripped her firmly.

“I’ll be right back, I promise,” Urgan said, and he was out the door.

There was a rocking bassinet near Urgan’s bed behind the divider, and you settled Roga in it, staring down at her peacefully sleeping form.

“I wish I didn’t hate you,” You told her, tears welling up in your eyes and falling down your cheeks. “But you took everything from him. I know it’s not your fault, but it doesn’t change anything. He’ll never be the man he should have been because of you.”

Roga sighed in her sleep and snugged into her bed without waking. You did nothing but sit on Urgan’s bed and stare at her the entire time Urgan was gone, allowing yourself to hate her and Kelly and the team at school and everyone who turned their back on Urgan when he needed them the most. When Urgan returned, your tears had dried, and you left.

Roga was still sleeping.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider becoming a Patron or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[let-me-be-a-fander-in-peace]

Outsider.

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My versions of demons are technically not Christian demons, but it’s a bit more complex than that, so VERY information about the demon race at the end of the fic. Here is the prompt I used.

Next

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Relationships: Virgil & Thomas, Remus & Janus & Virgil.

Word count: 3,100.

Description: it was bound to happen eventually, doesn’t mean that Virgil, a human, is happy about being put in a school for demons.

Tw: Joking about skinning someone alive and comparing their organs, and joking about hostages. (Yes, Remus is mostly the one joking about it)

————————————

Of course, Virgil thinks, only my parents could mange to make this big of a mistake.

Standing in the hall you enter once you walk through the frount door of the school. Virgil sees all of the baige lockers lined up, most of the few gaps in between the lockers against the wall are wood doors that enter into classrooms.

Virgil sees students walking down the hall, talking with friends or walking alone. There also students standing by the lockers grabbing thing they need for there first class or putting their supplies away. There are also groups of people just standing by the lockers taking with each other. this would normally not surprise, except for one key detail;

They were all demons.

Everyone had horns and some color from the rainbow skin tone mixed with unique features every demon have, like wings, tails, multiple eyes, plants growing in select areas, and more.

Virgil felt anxiety pounding in his gut as he walked to the councilors office. He could feel eyes burning his skin and he can see the double takes some of demons are doing.

Virgil stops in frount of a door and pulls out his crinkled postet note with the councilers door number on it from his pocket. He glances down at his postet note to confirm that he is at the right door. yep, Virgil thinks, this is the right door, and he hesitantly walks in.

Virgil enters the Councilers office and walks towards the accountant, He glances down at the name tag, Mrs Qucei to ask for his schedule.

“..Hello? Um, I’m Virgil Angst and I’m here for my schedule?”

Mrs. Qucei without looking up from typing on her computer says “Go to the door behind you to enter Mr. Sanders Office for you schedule.”

Virgil stands in that place for a second before quickly turning around and speed walking to the door behind him and knocking.

“Oh? Come in!”

Virgil hesitantly turns the door handle and pushes the door open, just enough for his body to fit through.

When Virgil closes the door he looks a around the room. The room has beige walls and dark wood flooring, on the left wall there is a giant picture frame with a bunch of mini lgbtq+ flags with the corresponding meaning for each flag.

In the left hand counter there is a bedside table with small figet toys on it and a lamp. There is a bin under the table with more figet toys, and next to the bedside table there are different types of chairs, there is a beanbag, a spiny chair, a stool, and a two person couch.

Across in the back right corner facing the right there is a wooden desk and a big computer screen in the middle of the desk. The desk seems to be kinda messy, there is a messy stack of papers on the side and a buch of pens and pencils littered the desk, when they look like they should be in the cups with pens and pencils, (some with animal erasers and fluff balls on the top).

But typing on the computer in your typical office chair there is a demon, he looks to be an short demon, (so around six foot four) and his skin is a warm gray. This horns go up and then swoop down, kind of like a crooked upside down L. He has a slim-ish nose and small lips. His eyes have no whites in them (most demons don’t) and his eyes are a dark brown. His hands have webbing in between them, and he has sharp and long nails. he is wearing a warm brown leather jacket and a dark blue top, he’s wearing jeans and brown loafers.

He looks up from where he was sitting and smiles at Virgil, ushering over to the many chairs. Virgil drops his backpack right against to the tall stool so it’s leaning against it, and Virgil sits on the tall stool where he can hang is legs off. Virgil pulls on this sleeves and bunches the extra fabric that goes past his hands into his sleeve covers hands, and he keeps doing that to have something to do with his hands.

Mr. Sanders smiles at him before talking, “Hi, I’m Mr. Sanders he/him, what’s your name and pronouns?”

Virgil figures that Mr. Sanders already knows his name, seeing as he is the new human student, but goes along with it anyways, “Um, Hi? I’m Virgil Angst.. uh- he/him.”

Virgil mentally cringes at how he spoke, why did I have to be so bad at social interaction.

Luckily for Virgil, Mr. Sanders didn’t seem to mind, and keeps talking, “obviously your the new student, I have your schedule right... here!”

As Mr. Sanders shuffled around his desk for Virgils schedule, he let out a small ‘ah ha!” As he found it. He quickly stood up and walks over to Virgil, handing him his schedule. Then goes back to sit at his desk.

Virgil looks at the schedule handed to him, it has his locker number and combination, and it has his six classes in this order: Biology, Algebra, World history, English, Lunch, German, P.E.

Virgil looked back up at Mr. Sanders. There was still one question in his mind, why was he, a human, doing in a demon school?

As if Mr Sanders could read his mind, he starts the talking, “Now I’m pretty sure your woundering why you’re in a school full of demons, and I would be wondering the same thing if I were you. The reason for this is that the school was informed of your parents, er, work schedule,”— I know that parents keep getting relocated and moving for the new job—“and sense this is the easiest place for your parents, we let you enroll!”

Oh. Oh...

my parents were to lazy to get me into a human school...

...So they signed me up for a school for demons.

...Eh, it was going to happen eventually, I guess.

“Now that I’ve given you your schedule go to your first class! You don’t want to be late!”

Virgil pushes himself off of the tall stool and swings his backpack over his sholder before saying goodbye to Mr. Sanders and walking out of the Room.

Virgil entered the hallway and looked at all of the locker numbers and counts until he hid his own locker.

A-124.

A-125.

A-126.

A-127 .

And... A-128!

My locker.

Virgil looked at his looker and back at this schedule a few more times confirm that he was actually at the right locker. Once he wasn’t so anxious that this wasn’t the right locker the looks at the locker combination and puts his hand on the lock to try.

17.

Virgil put it to number 17.

45.

Virgil twisted the lock in the other direction to get to 45.

31.

Virgil twisted the lock in the opposite direction all the way around before putting it on 31.

Finally Virgil pushed up the black peace that opens the locker, and the locker opened with a small squeek.

Virgil suddenly felt a wave of relieve that he hadn’t been assigned the wrong locker, and then he put this backpack in his locker and took out his binder and a book Virgil is currently reading. Then Virgil took a picture of his schedule and set it to his background screen. Then was on his way to biology class.

As Virgil walks down the hall he saw a bunch a demons looking at him. He understands why they’re looking at him, doesn’t mean he has to like it though.

Virgil steps infrount of a open door and checks his phone to see if this was the right class.

He checks his phone and thinks, yep, this is the right class.

Virgil walks through the door and sees a seating chart being protected on those roll up white screens. Virgil looks around at the seating chart before in the corner of his eye he catches his name. Virgil’s name is in a box that represents the back corner table, with two other people, A Remus Creatività and A Janus Dolus.

Virgil walks over to where his name corresponds to and sits down, putting his binder and book in the table corner. Virgil grabs his book and opens it up to his paper bookmark. Pulls the bookmark out and sets it to the side, and continues reading where he left off.

Not even a page in, Virgil feels his book get suddenly ripped out of his hands. He looks up at the bitch who ripped his book out of his hands, and see’s a tall demon around six foot nine with light green skin, he has a pointy nose, and big eyes with a white eye color, around his eyes there is purple eyeshadow, and (really good) winged eyeliner. He also shaved his eyebrow ends. He has a crazed smile with a lot of sharp teeth. He has a dark green curly muttet with a buch of small white streaks in his hair and one prominent white streak in the frount. In his hair there are dark green horns that fade into black at the top, the horns zigzag to the back of his head.

He has two pairs of tentacles, they’re a dark brown, lighter on the bottom where the suckers are. and crossed like you would cross your arms if you didn’t have bones.

He is wearing a black T-shirt with the red anarchy symbol, and a bunch of Bracelets on his wrist, some are your average homemade friendship bracelet, some are rubber bands with stuff on them, and there are also hair ties and those animal shaped rubber bands. He’s wearing gray ripped shorts and purple tights with a bunch of holes in them. And finally he’s wereing doc Martins with purple lace.

I think that’s lace code Virgil thinks, err... if that is lace code, which I think it is, purple means gay pride... I think.

Virgil is snapped out of his head by the demon talking,“Oooo! What’s this!”

The boy exclaims, closing the book with a finger in the book to hold the placement, and reads the summary on the back.

Then another demon, around six foot three, walks up to the other demon and pulls Virgils book out of his hands. This demon has a golden skin tone and a long nose. His face is half regular and half snake. On his regular side he has dark brown eyes, just like most demons, you can’t see the white in his eyes. On his snake side there are yellow-green scales, the scales start right next to his nose and go to his ear. His lips look totally normal except for that where the human lips end on this snake half there is a snake mouth, (stretchy skin that Virgil can’t see connects his snake mouth together), and it extends to his ear. his eye on his name half is fully yellow and he has a split pupil. under his name eye is what looks to be a giant pink eye bag.

His clothing is very causal, his black hair is slicked back and in a black Beene, so Virgil can’t see his horns.He is wearing a black long sleeve shirt with thin yellow strips on the sleeves, he has three pairs of arms, (so six arms total) that all have the same sleeve pattern. He has black fingerless gloves, his nails are painted white with a glossy topcoat, and you can see scales on some of his fingers. he is in black leather pants with a brown belt. His shoes are black high tops with white accents.

“Remus, Why are you harassing the new student?”

The tall demon, who’s name is apparently Remus, pouts, “Jannyyyyyy—“ Remus gets a death glare from... Janny? “Janusss! I wasn’t harassing him! He’s at our table and I want to know if he’s juicy or not!”

“You could do that without harassing him.”

“But that’s no fun!”

The short demon, Janus? glares at Remus, crossing his multiple arms, he still has Virgils book in his hand.

“...Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” He sighs giving in to Janus’ stare.

Virgil feel kinda awkward, and interrupts, “Uh, hi, this is fun and all, but can I have my book back.”

They both turn to him. they look at each other and back back at Virgil, “Sweet Satain, I forgot you were even here.” Remus bluntly responds.

“Ah, I’m terribly sorry, here is you book back.” Janus says and he hands Virgils book back to him. Virgil hesitatly takes his book back, and puts his book mark on the last page he was at before shutting his book.

“So! Your the new kid! And your human, of course I was curious!” Remus exclaims, “So, how did you get into this school? Last time I checked humans went to that other school a town over, so what are you doing here?”

During that speech Remus went to sit across from Virgil, and Janus went to sit next to Remus. Remus is leaning over the table with his fists against the table looking at Virgil with wide eye curiously.

“Ummm..”

I really dont what to say to to demons, who are basically strangers, that my parents where so busy that they convinced the leaders to let me go to school here because I can comfortably walk here.

Suddenly the teacher starts calling for everyone’s attention, signaling that class has started.

Virgil silently sighs in relief. Saved by the teacher.

Class is pretty boring, seeing as it’s the first day of school and all classes are just going over rules and stuff like that.

Virgil is reading the class syllabus when suddenly a paper is sild over to Virgil. Virgil looks up from the class syllabus to see Remus wink at him, so Virgil hesitately unfolds the paper and reads their writing in it.

Did you know that skin is the largest organ?

Virgil feels confused, why is Remus asking if I know if skin is the largest organ?

...no, I didn’t.

Virgil slides the paper back to Remus, he writes something down and slides it back.

Well it is! If you skinned someone alive and separated all of there organs, all of their skin clumped together would be bigger than all of the other organs, even the big intestine!

Virgil writes something down and slides it back to Remus, Why is them being alive while you skin then important?

Before Remus could write something down Janus slides the paper to himself and looks between Remus and Virgil with a ‘seriously?’ Expression. Remus quickly nods and Virgil hides his face in his hoodie out of embarrassment.

Janus writes something and slides it over to Remus, who writes something down and slides it to Virgil.

Virgil unfolds the paper and reads it.

Why must you always have the most gruesome conversation starters. Is written in nice cursive with a black pen.

After that is, Because you always gotta start out conversations with your true self!

Next to that Virgil writes, So,,, your true self is skinning a person alive to compare there organs?

Yes! Inside my soul is skinning someone alive and comparing their organs. There is a picture of a ghost, inside the ghost there is one stick figure with exed out eyes and with red pen scribbled all over the stick figures torso. Next to the stick figure is another stick figure nellinf next to it with a knife and the end of what is supposed to be the arm.

I can attest to that, is written next to it.

Now we know what is inside Remus’ (that’s your name right?) soul, what’s inside your soul?

The paper was eventually sild back into Virgils area and he read what was new in it.

Yes! My name is Remus, you also spelled it correctly, an what is inside your soul, Janus?

Below that Janus had written, ...Hmmm, inside my soul is a very rich fancy old lady who killed her husband for his money, and she is covered in jewelry drinking wine in a finch wine glass. what about you, Virgil. (if that is your name.)

The paper slides to Virgil, he reads the paper and thinks for a second, before writeing something down. Yes, Virgil is my name, In my soul there is a 2000’s emo kid writing decent poetry about how ‘no one understands me’ while blasting The Black Parade.

Virgil sides the paper over to Janus, who does one of those nose laughs where instead of making noise you choppily exhail. He writes and slides the paper over to Remus, who slides the paper back to Virgil.

You couldn’t come up with anything more creative than The black Parade?

Yeah! Is written in his chicken scratch handwriting, what about the screams of hostages?

Virgil rolls his eyes and slides the paper back. You couldn’t come up with anything more creative with just ‘the screaming of hostages’?

The paper is slid back to Virgil, oh-ho! Do not test me! I don’t want to scare you, too much, you feel me?

You say that as your convertation started was about organs. Is written in Janus’ fancy handwritten

Yeah, why did you try to start a conversation with that?

The paper is slid back to Virgil, and Remus has a weirdly smug face on as Virgil opens the folded paper. because only juicy people actually respond to that! Congrats Virgil! You passed the juicy test!

With his micanical pencil Virgil writes, I don’t know if I should be relived or scared that I passed the ‘juicy test’, and slides it over to Remus and Janus’ side of the table.

The paper slides back to Virgil. I’ll leave that up to you! But just know now that you have passed the test you are our friend. You cant escape. Below that in Janus’ black pen is, good luck.

Just as Virgil finishes reading Remus’ and Janus’ nots the bell goes off, making Virgil jump in his seat.

The bell is so loud, he thinks while packing up. Once he has all of his stuff ready to go he gets up to leave class when he hears Remus yell, “SEE YOU LATER!” And Virgil waves back at him.

Virgil walks out of the classroom and looks at his phone to see what his next class is, it turns out his next class is algebra.

———————————

Heyyy everyone... I have so many other things planned out, but I saw this prompt and all of my modivation for all my other wips left my body... so have this!

There is going to be more than one part! it should be out soon, now information on the demon race!

——————————-

I do not mean to disrespect Christians! This universe’s version of christainly is just that, a fantasy version that represents the worst version of Christianity. so please don’t come for me.

The demon race and the Human race met in the 500’s, the reason I say demons are technically not the Christian demons is because they were labeled as the devils followers, they were said to be devils from hell. That is where the image of Satan was created. There where lots of hate agents demons back in the old days. but demon and Humans have been collaborating for so long that most of the hate and suspicion for demons has died out with time.

In this universe Demons are taller and stronger than humans, but there senses are dulled down compared to humans, (which was why the bell was louder to Virgil.) Demons where also considered to be Dumber than humans (there not), because they were hunters and gathers, and they spoke a different language. So in this universe that was how the image of the devil was created. in the modern day (when this story takes place) most Christians consider the big, red, horned version of Satan bullshit, (especially demon followers) but it kinda rude to call demon’s devil’s.

[atruththatyoudeny]

Monthly Reads | July 2020

Happy 28th! As always, my undying love goes out to all the amazing authors this fandom still has. You are all incredible! Thank you for sharing your work with us ♥ Here are all the 21 fics I read and enjoyed this month:

⋙ The Murmur of Yearning | MediaWhore | historical - no smut - arranged marriage past rape/non-con - implied/referenced dubious consent - minor character death - slow burn - 93k Four years ago, Harry Styles was forced into a marriage of convenience to enrich and ally both his and his promised's families. The sudden, and slightly suspicious, death of the Marquess of Haxshire, however, brings great disturbance to Crescentfield Hall and, as his late's husband's closest male relative, Harry unexpectedly finds himself the head of a family he never felt he belonged to. Between a meddling distant cousin hellbent on inserting himself in Harry’s life, his wicked and mistrustful mother-in-law and his late husband’s advisors refusing to help or take him seriously, Harry struggles in the fight to keep what he’s earned and make the Estate finally feel like home. Luckily he doesn’t stand completely alone and finds himself an unlikely ally in Mr Tomlinson, the elusive Land Stewart who has been taking care of the property in the shadows for years. Louis Tomlinson is caring, patient, and unlike everyone else, he doesn’t seem to think Harry committed a murder.

⋙ Donor-Conceived | jaerie | a/b/o - omega/omega - friends to lovers - intersex omegas - pregnancy kink - unplanned pregnancy - fertility issues - miscarriage mentioned - male lactation - lactation kink - 31k When Harry receives the worst news of his life, it's now or never if he wants to carry a child of his own. Without an alpha, it's a daunting idea. But after it's a go, he finds another omega having a child from the same donor and become fast friends. It is only logical that they raise the boys as half brothers, making sure their sons keep up the relationship with the only connection to their anonymous father. It seems like the perfect plan but life doesn't always work out that way.

⋙ Just a touch of your love | anonymous | a/b/o - touch-starved - past abuse - past rape/non-con - miscommunication - anxiety attacks - 12k “What if something happened to you? What would I say to Niall?” “Nothing, he would have to wait to see my corpse on the news like everyone else.” Deadpanned Harry. Louis’ gasp was all the answer he got. Ok, so that might have been a bit too much. With a calmer voice, he said, “It’s really fine. I’ve walked to the tube countless times, I can handle myself. Just go home and tell Niall to stop mothering me.” Louis was finally walking by his side and gave him a sideways glance before talking. “He doesn’t know, does he? Of your, uh, condition.” Harry tensed and his breath became erratic, but he didn’t say a word. Louis continued. “His nose probably hasn’t picked it up, and you’re lucky Liam’s also a beta, but it took me a minute to confirm it. Your scent is gettin’ so…” He seemed to struggle to find a word. He didn’t finish the sentence, but the emotion in his voice made Harry’s tummy churn. -- Or, Harry is a touch starved omega trying to get through it on his own. Louis happens to be the only alpha around to realize it and offers to help.

⋙ We're Not Who We Used To Be | jaerie | trans female character - trans Harry - childhood friends - friends with benefits - transitioning - gender dysphoria - body disphoria gender identity - first time - self-medicating - reference to depression - 7k Louis comes back to his childhood home and sees an old friend who has changed quite a lot since the last time they saw each other.

⋙ Sincerely, Yours | anon | strangers to lovers - military - 25k Prompt:Historical AU where Louis is a soldier on his way to first deployment and Harry is working at a diner. They meet there when Louis is waiting for the bus, Harry tries to cheer Louis up and agrees to write to him while he's deployed because Louis doesn't have anyone else to write to. People kinda make fun of Harry for writing to (and falling for) a virtual stranger but otherwise everything is great until Louis stops writing. AKA travelin' soldier by the Dixie Chicks but gay and with a happy ending.

⋙ Ever Since I Tried Your Way | anon | historical - 1940s - 1950s - farm/ranch - internalized homophobia - hurt/comfort - emotional hurt/comfort - fluff - smut - gender exploration - body worship - 26k Harry had been kissed before, but never like this. He’d shared sweet, curious kisses behind bleachers and in soda shop booths, one or two more daring ones in cars parked on dark suburban streets, but the girls he’d kissed had never filled him with the desperation that erupted from Louis’ touch. He parted his lips and pulled him closer, as though he could breathe Louis straight into his lungs, as if he could swallow him. He wanted to consume Louis the way he consumed the body and blood of Christ. He wanted to place Louis on his tongue and feel him dissolve into a frothy mess of starch and saliva. He wanted to gulp him down until his teeth were stained purple and he was drunk on him. He wanted him in some violent holy way that made his hands shake where they were twisted in Louis’ shirt. In 1949 Harry left his bride at the altar, running away from the only life he'd known. When a kindhearted farmer offers him a ride in his truck and a place to sleep the two find themselves inexplicably drawn together. Isolated on Louis' farm with nobody but a field of dairy cows to intrude, the men are finally able to explore the parts of themselves they've spent their lives hiding away.

⋙ sleeping on our problems | falsegoodnight | a/b/o - college/university - mpreg - friends with benefits - angst - slow burn - hurt/comfort - 67k I’m in love with you, Louis thinks. He feels empty, weighed down by his sadness and the loss of Harry inside him just moments ago before his knot finally went down. There’s moments where he’s sure Harry feels the same. Like now, when he’s gazing down at Louis with so much adoration and tenderness. It’s like they’re both on the cusp of something more, but neither of them ever say a word. His confession is on the tip of his tongue ready to slide out like honey, and yet he remains silent. They both do, looking at each other and recognizing the reluctance mirrored in each other’s eyes. It’s then that Louis realizes they’re both scared. - Or Louis sleeps with Harry and they have more than just catching feelings to worry about.

⋙ in a world alone | falsegoodnight | a/b/o - Swan Lake AU - historical - royalty - magic - curses - friends to lovers - slow burn - mpreg - 51k Harry’s breath catches as the glow grows bigger and bigger until he’s squinting his eyes and blinking at the sudden intense brightness. He closes his eyes, rubbing at them helplessly. When his eyes open again- he gasps, grip loosening on his bow as he gawks at the sight before him. Because the swan is gone. And in its place is the prettiest omega Harry has ever seen. - A Swan Lake AU

⋙ The Baby Whisperer | jacaranda_bloom | strangers to lovers - prior mpreg - neighbours - fluff - smut - kid fic - 19k Harry’s newborn baby is having trouble sleeping and nothing he does seems to work. Tired and alone and at his wits end, Harry is at a loss until a new neighbour arrives to turn his world upside down. OR the one where being neighbourly takes on a whole new meaning.

⋙ was in no hurry, had no worries | defencelouis | strangers to lovers - car accidents - smut - daddy kink - 21k The year is 1999 and Harry can’t stop dedicating songs to Louis on the radio. Or the one where Harry hits Louis with his car.

⋙ Strong Enough | jacaranda_bloom | enemies to lovers - exes to lovers - angst - smut - divorce - 21k “So…” Liam starts, and Louis instantly knows where this is going. He’s actually glad it’s Liam that's dragging the subject out from the shadows and into the light. Louis turns to face him, mirroring his position on the couch and nods, ready for him to continue. Liam takes a deep breath. “Have you spoken to Harry recently?” Five years after Vertigo goes on hiatus, the band comes back together for a benefit concert. Can Louis and Harry work through their complicated past, or are some wounds too deep to be healed?

⋙ What's It Gonna Be? | zeldasayre | high school - 37k Louis looked thoughtful for a moment. “When are you meeting with Clare again?” “Thursday,” Bebe said, looking over at him, the ice clinking in her glass as she stirred it with a long spoon. “Why?” He grinned, narrowing his eyes. He took a long, dramatic pause, sipping his lemonade, and then said, “Scheming.” aka I've watched Shura's "What's It Gonna Be?" music video one too many times. ((Or, Louis and Bebe, best friends since childhood, have crushes on two of the most popular kids in school, and in an attempt to increase their respective chances, Louis befriends Harry Styles, quarterback of the football team, while Bebe befriends Clare Uchima, head cheerleader. Only... the plan... doesn't go exactly as planned.))

⋙ There Goes My Life | anonymous | older larry - colleagues with benefits - mpreg - unplanned pregnancy - smut - lactation kink - 8k Metallic taste in the mouth, check. Aversions to favourite foods, check. Nausea without throwing up, check. A heightened sense of smell, check. Sore and sensitive nipples, check. It had felt as though Harry had been ticking off boxes from his own mental checklist and every new addition brought him closer to an existential crisis. Pregnant. Everything over the last few weeks began to make sense; thoughts he pushed from his mind because he was too busy, and to be honest too scared, to think about. Getting knocked up from a few-night’s-stand was something that happened to teenagers and/or uni students, but certainly not to a forty-year-old Member of Parliament such as himself. *** Or, the one where Harry is single, a Member of Parliament, gets knocked up and has to deal with navigating motherhood in his forties. And Louis? Well, his life is about to change forever as well. This is a tale about colleagues with benefits and the consequences that can come with that.

⋙ Mother I'd Like to * | anonymous | implied mpreg - MILF Harry - 4k “What’s up, dad?” Oliver asks Louis, standing in front of Harry in a way that hides his friends from the view. “Is there something wrong with your mom? Your friends are staring a lot.” Oliver goes beet red at that. He groans and hides his face on his hands. “Oh my god. Oh my god.” --------------------- Written for the prompt: Harry’s and Louis’ son is like 16, so he is hanging out with his friends and his friends are teasing him about how hot his mother (aka harry) is, just like the 1D boys always did with Harry about Anne. The son feels super uncomfortable and Louis is super confused why these little teenagers boys always stare at Harry’s body when he is cooking for them whenever they visit until he finds out they think of Harry as the hottest milf in town (more humor than actual sexual references pls, this is supposed to be more funny than awkwardly sexual :D)

⋙ An Invincible Summer | Brooklyn_Babylon | farm/ranch - historical - 1940s - period-typical homophobia - adoption - minor character death - epilepsy - homophobic language - smut - 44k Never content to stay in one place for long, a few months down south researching for his novel seemed like an idyllic, slow-paced summer to Louis. He wasn't ready for the blistering heat, the backbreaking work of watermelon picking, or how stifling the attitudes in rural Georgia would feel. And he definitely hadn’t anticipated falling in love with the farmer’s son. The summer of 1946 would turn out to be everything worth writing about.

⋙ a trail of honey through it all | faeriestyles | strangers to friends to lovers - mild violence - D/s undertones - 27k The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him. Or, the TPH fic we’ve all been waiting for.

⋙ The Recklessness in Water | LarryOn | light angst - smut - 50k Louis Tomlinson is miserable. He's stuck on a family vacation at a lake cabin in New Hampshire when all he wants to do is bemoan his sorry existence and wallow in his sweatpants. As if the humidity and mosquitos weren't bad enough, he becomes the singular target of an obnoxious lifeguard named Harry.

⋙ baby blue | soldouthaz | cowboy AU - famous/not famous - angst - hate to love - enemies to lovers - smut - hurt/comfort - minor violence - 39k Harry Styles takes his time coming out to greet them. Louis only knows what he’s seen on file and what he’s heard them talking about, but he fully lives up to the image he had inside of his head. He saunters down the front steps of the farmhouse in his Levi’s, brown snakeskin boots curving out from underneath the denim Louis’ sure he had specially made. He’s got on a plaid button-down tucked into the jeans because of course he does, curls spilling out from either side of his cowboy hat around his sunglasses and country-tan skin. “Harry Styles,” he drawls, extending a hand to Louis’ manager, “Pleased to meet ya’ll.”

⋙ with no way out and a long way down | we_are_the_same | royalty - soulmates - strangers to lovers - fluff - angst - no smut - emotional hurt/comfort arranged marriage - 31k Prince Harry is ten when he receives his soulmark.

⋙ adjudication | bottomlinsons | royalty - historical - enemies to friends to lovers - enemies to friends - love letters - betrayal - slow burn - light angst - arranged marriage - 75k Harry's been engaged to Princess Charlotte of Ryde for as long as he can remember. He's come to know her, to love her, through the letters she's sent him over the past three years. But when the wedding finally arrives, Harry quickly learns that nothing is as it seems. With his crown and country at stake, Harry must decide who to trust in this strange new land. And the sly Crown Prince of Ryde doesn't seem inclined to make things easy.

⋙ Something to Prove | trysomecats | a/b/o - enemies to lovers - mpreg - smut - 9k Louis is the first and only omega to work at Red Valley Medical Center. Despite being more than qualified, he still faces prejudice for his career choice everyday. From patients refusing his treatment to condescending alpha doctors intervening with his work, practicing medicine in Boston is more challenging than Louis had ever thought it would be.

[herpronuonsarefemslash]

Teaser for “Hop, Skip, and a Jump”

A Bellamione fic that explores what happens when the Department of Mysteries duels end in Hermione taking Bellatrix down with a whip, which leaves an impression on Bella when she's sent back to Azkaban. Luna invents a longer-range time turner, Hermione is lonely after divorcing Ron, and the Black sisters were just legendary for getting up to gay nonsense... https://www.patreon.com/posts/48881466 Harry is thrashing in Remus grip, refusing to believe it and trying to dive through the Veil. Hermione takes in the other members of her merry band of child soldiers.

Ron's a mess. Black eye. Split lip. Bloody knuckles. Dark red staining the tips of his sweaty ginger hair where it dips against a cut on his forehead. Looks like a soccer hooligan after a riot. Made excellent use of that table leg when he lost his wand, though.Full marks.

Ginny displayed raw elemental force with wind, cold and lightning that her tiny body shouldn't have been able to contain and reflexes none of them could keep pace with.

Luna was bloody terrifying. She nearly killed a man with an origami dragon made out of interdepartmental memos. Hermione nearly threw up after her first real curse connected, after the first time that she did magic that truly harmed another human being. Yet Luna simply cocked her head and looked curiously at the dragon and was about to pet it when it dissolved.Creativity and lack of inhibitions are useful in a soldier, Hermione supposes.

Tonks is badly hurt, but she's breathing at least. What the fuck was that curse? Dumbledore has been letting her read up on Dark Arts, supervised, and she's never heard of those elements being combined. If there's a person spending their rainy Sundays with a notepad working out new ways to use dark arts, it's probably Bellatrix Lestrange.

A magically amplified voice rings throughout the room.

"I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black!"

Harry slips out of Remus' grip and then he's gone.

Fucking invisibility cloak. One of these days, I'm going to hang him with it. ----- Never used an Unforgivable Curse, have you, boy?" she chuckles.

The dark witch's hand is not far from her own wand. She's taunting Harry about having to mean it when he does dark magic. 

Pathos versus logos, one French scholar decided when studying the topic. Someone can do ordinary magic emotionlessly, acting out just an idea. Not dark magic. Dark spellwork takes raw emotion and blood magic and dark rites more so.

Which also brings her to the disturbing realization that Bellatrix is not nearly as broken as everyone thinks, and at the same time, she's so much more broken than anyone realized.She's never seen Harry this angry, or this torn up, and he can't summon a cruciatus for a woman who really deserves one. 

Bellatrix can let one drop from her lips like its nothing, ten seconds after telling a joke. She's not cold. She's not empty or numb or hollow. Bellatrix Black Lestrange is just too much. She's always boiling over.

She's not dangerous despite being insane because it's not a handicap. Bellatrix is dangerous because she can use her own insanity. Uses her instability as just one more weapon. To be able to do the things she does, to channel wildly different emotions on a moment's notice like that... ----- Hermione spots a bit of velvet rope on the ground, not far from one of the entrances.

"Accio rope," she whispers, calling it slowly into her hand.Bellatrix's fingers are curling around that clawed wand of hers. Any moment now, she's going to make use of the fact that Harry's standing there, barking out curses he doesn't understand the mechanics of, his lip trembling. She's going to kill him.

"Flagellum ingis!" Hermione shouts and the rope in her hand catches fire. Crimson, bloody-looking flames. What had been a few inches of fat velvet is now a thirty-foot coil of nasty-looking black leather. The frayed end becomes a hard metal handle. She swings and, by some miracle, connects. ----- Shacklebolt stares at her for a long time, like he doesn't believe her.

There's a knock on the door.

"Enter," he calls over his shoulder. It's Tonks, wobbling on crutches with an expandable sack under her arm. Her typically pink hair is a messy gray and her metamorphagus skills seem to be trying to shift her dislocated jaw back into shape, against the bracing charm the healers put on her.

"Tonks!"

"Wotcher, Hermione," she chuckles.

"Get it?" Kingsley asks.

"Kreacher wasn't happy about it, but yes."

She tips the sack upside down and drops a huge book on the table. It's bound in crimson silk and black lace. No title on the spine, instead two words. Tojous pur. Always pure. The motto of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. "Looks a bit like fancy knickers, don't it?" Tonks jokes. ----- When the Black Grimoire teleports itself into Hermione's lap, no one's laughing. Arthur Weasley goes white as a sheet and Remus's eyes flicker gold momentarily and she could swear she heard a canine's whine.

"Hermione," Remus says, his voice scratchy and small. "Please. That's..."

"Dangerous," Arthur fills in.

They're all looking at her like she's Darth Vader, suddenly. Like she has to be talked down. Like she's suddenly the most dangerous person in the room. She looks at the book. What spells are in this, anyway, that it being in her lap makes the entire Order of the Phoenix flinch?

"I don't want it!" she protests.

The book teleports itself again. Where it goes, none of them can figure out.

----- The book comes back again the night before the battle. She asks Tonks over to try to get rid of it. "S'not something to be afraid of, little devil," Tonks says. "Doesn't have to be." Little devil is Tonks' nickname for her, after finding a photo of Hermione gothed-out at age eleven, a few weeks before she got her letter. She's stopped using it around others. "I'd think you'd hate the Blacks," Hermione mumbles.Tonks sighs, shifting her skirts out of the way and sitting down on the bench beside her. Hogsmeade is empty. Cleared out so fast that everyone left almost everything. They've been eating like kings, and it helps. Tonks especially is thriving. Crazy bitch decided to put the witch-or-wizard debate to bed for all time by rejoining the war nine days after giving birth, slinging spells while leaking milk into her clothes. "I think that'd be like using a time turner to kill my grandparents," Tonks admits. She puffs at her hair, which goes pink, then blue, then green, then turns to something rather like glass. "Being a Black gave me this ability.” "Let's take a look, shall we?" Tonks squeezes her hand tight, and together they open the grimoire. "I'll keep you safe." ----- She's staggering out of the Great Hall. Bloody. Aching. Alive. Before she can find a banister to lean on, Tonks slams into her. Hermione wails. "Sorry," Tonks squeaks. "Just ribs," she grumbles. "What is it?" "Page two hundred seventeen. Knowing what that curse looks like? Saved my life. Remus' too." Hermione huffs."Next time you're trying to thank me, let's talk, all right?" The Grimoire appears in her trunk on the way back to Hogwarts to re-take her seventh year. This time, it won't leave, even when ordered to. ----- Everything is pain and exhaustion. But Rose is gorgeous. She's everything. Hermione fumbles for her wand, gathers the birth blood into the air and then whispers out an ancient curse with her lips pressed to her eldest's tiny, sticky head. Not all curses are meant to hurt the one at the center of them. The Mother's Curses are darker than night and because of the blood linking caster to target, far more powerful than ordinary spells. ------ They split after Hugo's born. It's more to do with her campaign for Minister, which she loses by a hair, than the 'neglect' of Hugo who she keeps so close she thinks that Molly would have blushed. As divorces go, it's bloodless. Pureblood-muggleborn marriages can be rocky, of course, and she produced heirs for the Weasley line. So from the traditionalist point of view, the muggle divorce and the Gringotts paperwork don't mean much. The same ceremony showed that their children's blood bears more of her magic than his. For that reason, or some other reason, Ron never bad-mouths her in public. She never moves to have their names changed to merely 'Granger'. She hears 'mudblood' whispered for the first time in a long while. ----- On one side of her desk, the plaque bears bold green letters that thrum with sorcery. Hermione Jean Granger, Minister of Magic On the other side, visible only in the presence of a Dumbledore's Army coin, she scratched a second marking in one of Tolkien's half-right, half-wrong scripts of Elvish. here sits a servant of the elves ----- "WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, A BLACK?" a woman shrieks outside her office. Hermione groans, dropping her fork back into her takeout container.Harry chuckles, glancing up from his case file. "Your damn fault," she mutters."You needed the help, old friend. Be a shame if paperwork killed you after all this." "It'd be the most evil thing that tried, so it makes sense." She flicks her wand at her office door. "In here, both of you!" she barks. ----- "Sarah?" Hermione asks, desperate to hear a human voice across the shuffling of papers. "Yes, ma'am?" "Something's been bugging me about...the incident." Missy stiffens. "What?" she asks, flipping another sheet face down."You said, what do you take me for, then added the word Black." There's a polite throat-clearing so familiar sounding that has Hermione scrambling for her wand and leveling it at a sixteen-year-old girl. "Right. Sorry," she mumbles. "Sounded a bit like..." "Umbridge," the girl laughs. "Professor Longbottom and Professor Abbot complain too." "I keep telling her that's going to get her jinxed," the boy next to her huffs. "Interrupting people who that lunatic tortured in mid-lecture rather than just raising her hand." "Shut up, Ballard." "Go on...uh...""Myn," the girl chirps, offering her hand. "Mynara Wallsworth." Hermione shakes it and then bows. "Enlighten us, wise one." "It's just that the Blacks are notorious. There's a bunch of scratches on the sixth-year Slytherin dorm's walls. Hard to tell with fading, but at least twenty. According to legend, it's one mark for each girl who got a hat trick." "A what?" "Each girl who snogged all three of the Black sisters during school."

[skythealmighty]

A girl in a spider costume zooms through the sky on webs strung from her hand, whooping. A narration cuts in of a sassy teenage girl. 

“All right, let’s get this part over with. I’m not the first, and I’m certainly not the last. Cut to backstory!” she said, then snapped. The scene changed.

The girl, outside her costume, is eating a bagel. She has blond-brown hair in a messy bob, blue-green eyes, and pale skin. She’s wearing simple clothes. “My name is Skye King. In my universe, I’m one of two spider-people, though I’m the only Spider-Girl. Spider-Man is in New York. My business is in Seattle. One day, during summer break, I was bitten by a radioactive spider after my 15th birthday. You get the jist, right? Then I had spider powers, yadda yadda yadda. We’ve all heard it before. Well, the thing is, not really. That spider was from another universe (at least I'm 99% sure).” While she said all that, in the cutscene, a spider bit her on the hand and she threw it outside. “I could tell something was wrong, so I decided to cancel my hangout with my friend the next day, telling her I was sick. I couldn’t have been more wrong, but it was a good call. I absolutely trashed my room that day.” It showed Skye in her room, sticking to the bedcovers and the ceiling and her books. “Needless to say, my parents were kinda, okay super mad. Oh well, small price for a little superpower! I discovered during the next few days that I could create portals with my webs, and the first one led to the universe with the graffiti Spider-Man, Miles Morales.” Another scene showed her fistbumping with Miles, masks down on their spider costumes as they sat on top of a building. “There, I officially got my suit from Aunt May with some help. I wanted a little piece of everyone I met, so I asked Miles to decorate my costume a bit. He got the left arm, and I gotta say, it looked pretty sweet! Over the next week, I visited other universes and added to my suit a little at a time. You name them from Miles’s movie, I’ve probably visited them. Peni Parker (got a robotics upgrade from her), Noir (the guns were cool, but he also got a bit of space on my mask), Gwen (I stole her hoodie idea and went to gymnastics), Peter B. (not much, his suit’s the same as the original), and even Peter Porker (got a cartoon hammer, I love Looney Tunes)! They were all really cool, but my story isn’t about meeting them. Way too cliche, and probably done before, too. This little mini story takes place in the universe where that spider came from. So why don’t we finally get started, now that you know who I am?” The scene returned to Spider-Girl swinging from the Seattle Space Needle. She winked at the camera, and the screen turned black.

Skye yawned, sitting up in bed as her alarm went off. “Hey Google, alarm off,” she said tiredly, getting out of bed and getting dressed off-camera. She ate her breakfast, said hi to her family, packed up her backpack (not forgetting her Spider Suit), and jogged out the door to her bus stop. She napped on the bus until it arrived at school, where she was woken up by her Spidey senses. She got off the bus. “Hello again, Edison High,” she sighed, walking into the cafeteria and sitting down at a table full of older students. The narration starts. “This is my average, everyday high school, Edison High. These are my art club friends, Olivia, Jack, Darth, and.. well, they’re important to me, but maybe not to you. My other friends are Sofia, Haylie, Mitchell, AJ, and Micheal. At my high school, nobody apart from Sofia, AJ, and Haylie know I’m Spider-Girl, even though she’s the main topic of gossip. School’s boring, so I’ma skip it.” 

The scene of a high school day is fast forwarded until the very end, where she goes to the bathroom. “I’ve long since made a secret exit, and most girls don’t check the bathroom mirror, so I get dressed in my onesie there. It’s really not that hard, and I have a drone get my backpack home. That does mean I have to do my homework in class, but I’m pretty smart, so I can do it most of the time.” Skye, in her Spider-Girl suit, exits the stall and opens the mirror like a door, walking inside. She drops her backpack into a carrier drone, then opens a secret door from the inside and webs to the top of the school. “All in all, a pretty normal day. No crime at the moment, so I decided to visit another universe again. I mean, why not?” She spun her web in a circle, creating a portal, which she swung into. “I wanted a little something to add to my outfit. But that day? Fate didn’t like me one bit.” She looked around at the other portals, which had markings on them, the logos of the different Spider-Men she’d met. One of the portals was unmarked, and that was the one she swung into. As soon as she did, she attempted to make another web, but failed. “Aw, what? Talk about bad timing..” the Skye in the scene said, before yelling and slamming into the ground. “I think I’ll stop the narration now, so you can focus on the story.”

The screen was black, but then Skye opened her eyes. In front of her was a rainbow Spider-Man, upside down in front of her. She yelped and scrambled backwards in surprise, bonking her head. “Ow..” she muttered, rubbing her head. She flicked her wrist, trying to spin her web. Nothing happened. “Damnit!” she cursed.

“You okay?” the rainbow Spider-Man asked, letting go of his web (which was unsurprisingly rainbow as well) and landing on the ground. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

Skye grinned under the mask. “I’ve had worse. I mean, when you’re Spider-Girl, you gotta be able to take a few hits, right?” She got up, standing in front of the walking rainbow and looking him up and down. “I like the sugar glider wings,” she complimented. “I bet those come in handy a lot, huh?”

He smiled too (though only shown with the eyes of his mask). “Yeah, they do. So, how’d you get here anyway? Super collider?”

She shook her head. “Nah, got here on my own. Part of my powers include going to other universes, weirdly enough. My webs aren’t working, though,” she flicked her hand for emphasis, “so I’m stuck here for the moment. I don’t think that’ll last for more than a couple days, so no need to worry.”

He sighed in relief. “Good, I’m already taking care of four Spider-Children, so I don’t need more.. why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, after seeing her starstruck expression. 

“There’s more!?” she said, sort of high-pitched. She covered her mouth. “Oops. Um, basically, when I run into another Spider-Person, I want a way of remembering, so I add to my outfit.. I was looking to upgrade mine for a while, so this is perfect!”

He laughed. “Alright, I’ll take you to them. Be warned though, they’re all pretty extra in their own way.” The scene cut to him swinging her up to an apartment, setting her down.

“Thanks for that,” she said, embarrassed. “If I had my webs, I wouldn’t need you to do that, though..”

“Nah, it’s fine!” He took off his mask, grinning. “I don’t mind. I’m Thomas.” He held out his hand.

“Skye,” she said, taking it after pulling her own mask off. “Now if you don’t mind, you got some thread and needles?” He pointed her to a room. “Sweet!” she said, running in. “I’ll be back!”

After a few minutes, she came out with the same sugar glider extensions he had, but they were the bi flag instead of the gay flag. “Ta-daa!”

“Nice,” he nodded in approval. “There’s some spare clothes in the closet if you don’t mind sweats and t-shirts.”

She grinned. “That’s what I usually wear anyway!”

The screen showed a Spongebob ‘one hour later’ cutscene, then showed Thomas and Skye watching a movie. She was wearing a blue t-shirt and purple sweats. There was a knock on the door. “Come in, guys,” Thomas said, not taking his eyes off the movie. Skye, however, looked towards the door to see four different Spider-Men come through. One wore a royal outfit with flowers, hair uncovered, one wore a pink outfit with hearts and a baseball cap, one wore an outfit similar to Gwen’s with a V, and the last one wore a blue outfit that had a tie design on it and four robotic spider legs on his back. Her eyes widened.

“Okay, now I definitely need to update my outfit again!” She grinned, dashing into the room she’d been in before where her suit was. The others looked at her.

“Uh… who was that?” the one in the royal outfit asked, looking perplexed.

“You’ll see,” Thomas answered.

After a half hour, while everyone was on the couch with masks down, she came out with the suit on and mask up. The hoodie was up, and on top of it, there was a gray V like the Gwen lookalike’s mask. One of the legs had pink hearts and red flowers, and the other had the same design as the tie design but only up to below the knee. She was grinning, until she realized something. “Oh, right, I never introduced myself. I’m Skye, Spider-Girl!” she said, pulling her mask down and bowing. 

“Virgil,” said the Gwen lookalike.

“Roman!” introduced the royal one.

“Hi, I’m Patton!” grinned the pink one.

“Salutations, my name is Logan,” said the one in the tie.

“Nice to meet all of you!” said Skye, grinning and sitting down with the rest. 

A timelapse showed the day going by, nothing super interesting. The timelapse stopped at the next day during lunch, because that’s where the action is. Besides, this is supposed to be a short story, so I won’t bore you too much.

Everyone was having pizza. “Mm, they do not make pizza like this in Seattle, let me tell you,” Skye said after finishing her first slice. “I almost wish they did, but then I’d never cook for myself!”

Suddenly, everyone froze, Spidey senses going off. “Oh no, why in the middle of lunch?” Roman groaned, setting down his slice and going into one of the stalls in the corner. Everyone but Skye followed him, her going into the suit touch up room. One by one, they all emerged in their Spider suits. Thomas and his gang swung out, while Skye took a deep breath and glided after them using the addition she’d just added yesterday, since she still couldn’t use her webs. They arrived in Times Square to see the Scorpion causing trouble with the Tinkerer, again. 

“Peter always has to deal with these guys, why don’t they ever quit?” Skye asked, perched next to the others on top of a building. 

“Evil never rests?” Logan offered.

“Nah, these guys are just really annoying,” Thomas sighed. 

They all jumped down, standing in front of either the Tinkerer or the Scorpion. Virgil, Logan, and Skye were in front of the Tinkerer, while Thomas, Patton, and Roman were in front of the Scorpion. “Time to kick some ass!” Skye said, crawling up a building and launching herself at the Tinkerer. Soon after, Virgil and Logan swung at him in turn, Logan knocking the Tinkerer out of his own vehicle and taking control, which he then used to stun the Tinkerer while Virgil tied him up. Thomas swung and glided onto the Scorpion’s face, blinding him. Patton and Roman tied the Scorpion up, then Thomas kicked the Scorpion over and over in the face, temporarily stunning him. As if it was second nature for her, Skye swung using her webs and tied the Scorpion up some more, knowing her webs were stronger than the others’ by nature. As she landed on the ground, she looked at her hands and smiled. “Looks like I can go home now,” she grinned to the others. “Sorry for overstaying my welcome.”

“Nah, you’re fun to hang around with. Come back anytime,” Thomas said, waving goodbye. She nodded and made a portal, swinging through as it closed behind her. She hung in place in the middle of all the universes, making five webs above the top of the portal she just came in from. The middle one was a rainbow spider, and the other four were a gray V, a red rose, a pink heart, and a blue tie. She grinned and swung through the portal labeled ‘home’, swinging above the city. She was lucky it was Saturday, so she didn’t miss any school. But how would she explain it to her parents? She shook her head to clear her thoughts as she spotted a robbery. Good never sleeps, she thought, webbing one of the criminals with a sigh. The scene faded to black.

“Hey, don't get mad, I told you it’d be short. Cut!”

@ask-spiderverse-virgil

[thiswasinevitableid]

this isn't off any prompt list but hero/villian indruck where they have a meetcute and both desperately try to keep the other from finding out their alter ego as their relationship gets more and more serious while simultaneously trying to keep their rival away from their seemingly innocent love interest for fear of endangering them

Here you go!

“You win this round, Knight,” The Moth hovers, mechanical wings flapping and smile spreading across his face. The blood trickling down his nose doesn’t faze him in the slightest, “But I’m sure we’ll see each other quite soon.”

He flies off before Duck can grab him, leaving the hero standing, arms crossed (and cross in general), his quiet evening at home ruined by The Moth’s need cause trouble at the Governors Ball.

He’d just gotten to a good part in his book too.

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

“Oh goodness, I’m so sorry!”

Duck looks up as he’s wiping coffee from his lap to find a tall, gangly, angular stranger hurriedly tossing down his bag  to help clean up the spill.

“I’m sorry, I get lost in my thoughts sometimes and oh, darn it all.” In his eagerness to help, the taller man splashes coffee onto this white tank top, giving him a belly splotch that matches the one on Ducks green t-shirt. 

“It’s uh, no big deal, ain’t like I was in my Sunday best and, uh, that ain’t a library book.”

“Oh no your book.” The other man lifts the stained paperback, looks at it sadly, “At least let me buy you a replacement.” He’s holding the book to his chest now, clearly hopeful that Duck will let him make amends.

Between the red-brown eyes, the tousled, silver-dyed hair, and the earnest, odd smile, he has an air of disheveled charm that, at his age, Duck ought to be past finding adorable. 

Instead, he smiles back, “Sure thing. Bookstore  two blocks down oughta have copies, and a little cafe to boot. You let me buy you a replacement drink, I’ll let you buy me a new book. Deal?”

The other man nods, hands flapping, “Yes, that sounds wonderful.”

Duck grins, suddenly excited, before noticing he’s a bit sticky.

“Meet me there in an hour so we can both change?”

“It’s a date.”

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

It’s a date? Agh, of all the ways he could have phrased it, why did his blasted, traitorous mouth choose that one?

He stands awkwardly in one corner of the cafe, hands stuffed into the pockets of his pink and yellow cardigan. Was this too flamboyant? He doesn’t even know if the other man is gay. He supposes he could look into the futures to determine the answer to that, but doing so feels rude. 

This is why he turned to supervillainy in the first place; he’s terrible with people. 

He wishes he’d worn his glasses. They’re technically a tool of his trade, but they make him feel safe. 

“Uh, howdy.” 

He glances up, finds the man from before looking at him. Now that he’s not racked with panic trying to clean up a spill, he has a chance to take in just how much his type the man is. Short, but bear like (”a teddy bear” his mind supplies, unhelpfully), with green eyes and charming, unhurried vibe to him. His drawl does remind him of a certain hero who’s always in his way, but he won’t hold that against him. 

“Buy you a coffee?”

“Yes, please. Ah, um, I guess I should introduce myself; I’m Indrid.”

“Duck” he holds out his hand and Indrid takes it, enjoys the warmth and strength in his grip, “Nice to meet you.”

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

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Duck tightens Beacon around The Moth, who tears at the blade with his retractable claws. Duck learned about those the hard way, when the villain extended them during one of their first meetings. The slash broke the skin, something rare for Duck on account of his durability. 

“And you have got to come up with some more creative lines, hero.” The Moth snarls, “you have used that one twice before now. Which is also how many times you have forgotten about this.”  The villain throws himself sideways and down with enough force to yank Duck to his knees and loosen his grip. As his sword clatters to the ground, red powder fills his eyes.

“Gah, jesus, not that shit again.” His eyes sting, and as he pats the ground for Beacon he hears the scrape of metal moving away from him. Beacons hilt disappears into the mist, dragged slowly back by The Moth’s foot. 

Duck looks up at him through watering eyes, trying not to breath in the dust. 

“Well, you got me at your mercy. You gonna start gloatin about your evil plans or some shit?”

A light, sharp laugh, “Why would I waste my time in such a way? Oh no, I shall be making off with my prize. And making sure you don’t follow me.”

He raises his foot, and Ducks vision whites out on one side as he crumples. 

He should be more worried about the villain getting away with the schematics for the ApCorps latest government security features. 

Mostly, he’s worried he’ll have a black eye tomorrow. 

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

“Hel-oh goodness, Duck, your eye.” Indrid opens the door a half second before Duck knocks, then quickly cups his cheeks to take a closer look.

“Looks worse than it is, sugar, don’t worry. And, uh, surprise.” He produces a small bouquet of Irises from he behind his back. Indrid beams, taking them with squeak of delight. 

“They’re lovely, but what’s the occasion?” He’s smiling almost like he knows, almost like he just wants to hear him say it. 

“Know, uh, know I said I wanted to take things slow, but I realized we been datin a month I ain’t given you anythin.”

“You bought me coffee that first time. And we have each bought dinner for the other multiple times.” Indrid takes his hand, drawing him inside.  

“I know but, well, kinda wanted to do somethin a little more special.”

“Any time with you is special.” 

Duck snorts, “Cornball.”

Indrid kisses, “I learned from the best.”

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

“What can I say, I learned from the best.” Indrid grins at The Knight, who is currently hanging upside down in an elegantly simple snare. 

“I got the idea from that unpleasant sword of yours. Keep your enemy tied up nice and tight to keep them out of your OW, ow, alright I should have seen that coming.” His glasses are now cracked from the Knight headbutting him.

“I’m impressed you could manage that upside down.”

“Drop these fuckin chains off me and I’ll show you somethin real impressive.”

Indrid tilts his head, “Tempting, but I have a pressing engagement tomorrow morning. Not to mention I need to get this,” he pats the painting he just lifted from the house of a man with a gold toilet, “somewhere safe. Until we meet again.” He offers a mocking salute, and takes flight.

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

“Again?” Indrid offers, pressed against warm, sweat-tinged expanse of Duck’s chest, his heart beating in time with the rapid rise and fall of Ducks breathing.

“Nope. Not that the body and mind ain’t willin, but the mind and body also got work tomorrow. Damn that felt good.” He usually tops, but with Indrid he’s found it more variable; some nights, like tonight, the other man fucks him into the bed, or over the nearest table, or however far they get before Duck can’t stand waiting anymore. Other nights, Indrid gets on all fours so Duck can fuck him with the strap, drops to his knees before they make it past the entryway, tugging at Duck’s belt buckle with little whimpers. 

“Mmmm, it was magnificent my love.” Indrid goes stone still in his arms as that last syllable flutters in the air.

Duck brushes strands of pale hair from his forehead, “I love you too, ‘Drid.”

His boyfriend flops down in relief, “oh thank goodness that’s the way it went.”

“As if I could feel any other way about you.”

Indrid mutters something that might be “cornball” into his chest, yawns and nestles closer with whisper of “love my teddy bear.”

“Love you too, sugar.”

Shit.

He’s in love with Indrid. 

Bad things happen to superhero love interests. Very bad things. He can’t bear losing him, but no one beside the other members of the Pine Gaurd know his secret identity. He’s not ready to tell him yet. Soon, but not yet. 

Indrid rolls sleepily onto his side and Duck goes with him, turning into the little spoon in his embrace. God, what if an enemy decides to kidnap him, hurt him, just to get to Duck?

Then again, no villain has singled him out, save for one. 

Which he’ll need to deal with that one as soon as he can. 

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

“Give up while you still can, Moth!” 

“Not a chance.” Indrid hisses back, clutching the gash on his arm from the sword. What has gotten into the Knight today? Usually he only fights Indrid the amount needed to stop whatever crime he’s busy committing. 

Today he’s trying to destroy him. 

He’s been training, that much is clear, he has new moves that Indrid finds difficult to anticipate in a fight, and a fire in his eyes that heightens Indrid’s guard. 

As he flits out of reach of yet another strike, his goal of thievery long forgotten in favor of not getting chopped in half, he tries to determine the source of the change. What would make him fight harder?

Duck. He’d burn this city to the ground, tear every hero in it to pieces, if Duck were in danger. 

He reaches the edge of the building, but before stepping off to safety he turns.

“You win tonight, Knight. But do give that new lover of yours my regards.”

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

“Hey, Indrid?”

“Yes?” His boyfriend looks up from his sketches. 

“I was wonderin if, uh, if you’d like to go to a  fancier place than normal? Barclay got me an in at La Lune, thought we could go on Friday. There’s, uh, there’s somethin I wanna talk about.”

“Is is a marriage proposal or breaking up with me?”

“What? No!”

Indrid chuckles, “I am teasing. Mostly.” He bounces his eyebrows and Duck rolls his eyes in response. 

“Thought afterwards, might be nice to go out to the park and stargaze, tell you what I need to in private.”

“That sounds lovely, my love.”

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

The stars are aligning in Indrid’s favor this week. 

Yesterday, when the Knight tried to corner him on his way out of his lair, he took the gamble of getting close, earning him the reward of landing a deep slash on The Knight’s cheek. One he won’t be able to heal by tonight. Whether he’s in his hero get-up or his civilian clothes, Indrid will be able to spot him. 

And tonight, he has it on good authority that the Knight will be appearing in this block of the city.  The same block on which sits La Lune. Indrid can go to dinner with his boyfriend right after removing the biggest threat to said boyfriend. 

He’s perched on the roof of the restaurant, steering clear of the large skylight. His glasses scan the streets, the windows all around him. 

But this is taking longer than anticipated. He hasn’t looked too far into the futures for the night, since his growing romantic side wants whatever Duck tells him to be a true surprise. 

He pulls out his phone, swipes to his conversation with Duck. Beneath the photo of a Scarlet Tanager Duck sent him from his work at the ranger station he types, running behind, will be there shortly after 7.

He receives back, NP, see you soon sugar with a kissy face. 

The minutes tick by, the spring sun setting inch by inch behind the downtown skyline. At 7:05, he peeks through the skylight, spots Duck. He can’t see his face all the way in the mood lighting of the restaurant, but he knows his gait, his profile. 

At 7:30 there is still no sign of his nemesis. He’s been scanning and staring and searching, looking at his phone only once after it buzzes many times. He has four missed calls and five texts

Duck: ETA? Damn, this place is even fancier than I thought. 

Duck: Everything okay? If you’re close, I can order us some appetizers so you don’t got to wait to eat. 

Duck: Can’t wait to see you.

Duck: Are you still coming? Are you okay? 

Duck: Sugar?

That last one comes as he’s reading the others. He peers down through the skylight, sees Duck stare at his phone for a ten count, gnawing his lip. Then he looks up at the sky, eyes shut, as if weighing a decision. 

Indrid’s heart plummets. 

There’s a gash on Duck’s cheek. 

A gash he put there. 

Every coincidence, every strange incident he’d pushed to side, lost in the happiness of their courtship, floods his mind. 

Suddenly, he knows what Duck was going to tell him. 

With shaking fingers, he types,

So sorry, my battery died at the worst of all times, I borrowed a charger from a good samaritan. I’m nearly there. 

It takes him two and a half minutes to descend the building and change into his evening wear that he stashed nearby. 

At three minutes, he’s walking through the doors, Duck jumping up and hugging him before he even makes the table.

“Sorry for, uh, textin so much, I guess I got a bit nervous. Y’know how shit can get here; can be walkin home and suddenly a supervillain is wreckin shit and you’re collateral.”

“I understand.” He takes his seat, Duck relaxing into the chair opposite him, “in fact, my love, I understand a great deal.”

Indrid reaches into his pocket, producing a pair of red glasses. He slips them on, knowing the other diners will think nothing of it. 

“I look familiar, don’t I?”

Duck stares so long, moving so little, that Indrid fears he sent him into some kind of shock. 

“Get out. Now.” Duck’s tone is level, his eyes glinting with threat. 

“Duck, please, I, I want to explain-”

“Out. I ain’t gonna tangle with you tonight, but I don’t wanna see you ever again.”

Wordlessly, Indrid removes the glasses, and walks into the night.

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

Indrid is out of ideas. 

For the first week after his confession, he searched the futures religiously for any sign that Duck would come after him, would reveal his apartment to the other heroes. 

It never came. 

He hasn’t stolen anything in two months. 

He sent a single apology letter to Duck, doing his best to explain the situation. Watched the futures narrow down to a single one; Duck reading it, then tearing it up. 

He even sent anonymous notes to the Pine Guard, altering them to several oncoming disasters or the kind of supervillainy that has a body count. 

Wounded pride, a loss of purpose, a wave of self-loathing, and a dozen other complexly unpleasant emotions could form the center of his world. 

But it all comes down to one simple feeling: he misses Duck. Misses his smile, his sense of humor, his strange laugh, the safety he felt by his side, and endless list of things stripped from his life by his own actions. 

Which is why it has come to this.

He sets up the camera, and starts recording.

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

“Hey, Duck, I think you should see this.”

Duck plods into the main control room, where Ned is fiddling with the video feed while Aubrey waves him to sit by her.

“I swear to fuck if it’s that police chief tryin to recruit us again-”

“Nah, Aubrey and I finally got through to him.” Mama tosses out from the corner where she’s busily whittling a wooden duck. 

The screen flickers blue, and then Duck feels the opposing pulls of revulsion and longing as Indrid’s face appears. His glasses are off, but he’s otherwise in his full villain get-up.

“Hello Duck, and, ah, I assume the rest of the Pine Guard. It is fine with me if you all listen in, but this message is ultimately for him.”

Barclay reaches over Ned to hit pause, “Duck?”

“Y’all can stay.”

The video resumes. 

“I have two messages. The first is an apology; not necessarily for the things I have stolen, but for any genuine harm I caused other people, yourselves included. And I apologize once again, and as many more times as you require, Duck, for not telling you the truth sooner. In my defense, there is no easy way to admit to the man you love that you are a supervillain. All the same, I ought to have been brave enough to try, for your sake.” 

Indrid sits up and Duck leans forward. 

“My second message is that I am retiring from supervillainy. I could say something about a change of view on the world in general, but the truth is that villainy is less interesting without an equal to rival and banter with me. And, well, I am sure I can find other ways to fill my days. Especially if the man I care for is by my side. I should be clear that my retirement is not contingent on you reaching out to me again, Duck. Merely that it is something you may wish to know. Ah, I suppose that is all. This is the Moth, signing off for the last time. I’m sorry again, Duck. I love you.”

“Think it’s a bluff?” Aubrey asks as the screen goes dark.

“No, as one who has mastered the art of insincerity, I do not believe so.” Ned responds, switching on the lights.

Duck, for his part, says nothing.

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

Indrid rolls off the bed at the knock, rubbing his eyes as he trudges to the door, too tired to look at the futures. 

“How can I…” 

The sight of Duck Newton on his doorstep elicits so many emotions that he short circuits. 

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“So, retiring huh?”

“Yes.” He fights the urge to chew his nails. 

“Guess that means you’re free to talk right now?”

“Indeed.” He steps back, allowing Duck to step in and shut the door.

“Great, Because we got a lot to talk about. But, uh, first.”

He cups Indrids cheeks, kissing him so lovingly that the former villain melts against him, gripping the front of his ranger jacket the way a falling man grasps at a cliff. 

“I missed you so much.” He whispers, and before he has time to hate the crack in his voice, Duck is kissing him again, guiding him slowly and surely to the couch, murmuring in between kisses.

“Missed you too, so much, goddamn, couldn’t stop thinkin about you, love you so much ‘Drid, wanna make things right, we’re gonna make ‘em right, I promise.”

Indrid glances at the futures, sees that in all of them they do, in fact, end up having a long, serious conversation, one that ends in even softer kisses and Duck curled around him in his bed. 

But there’s still a few more minutes for him to savor being here, safe and secure, in the arms of his hero. 

[artificialqueens]

heavy is the head (1/10) (sashea) - shadysalad

an - found this completed multichap in my drafts (!!!!!) i wrote it in about november and completely forgot about it oops😬. anyways, i’ll post a new chapter every couple of days even if no one likes it cos I just can’t bring myself to leave 10 chapters sitting here. not my best work, got to admit, but when is it ever huh? enjoy :)

“Thanks Pep, I’ll see you in a bit.” Shea waved at her maid before softly closing the door, skipping down the long corridor. It was a Sunday, which meant breakfast with her parents in the great hall. She hoped the Commander of the Royal Guard, Alexis, had done as she’d asked with regards to the stationing of certain guards.

She stood at the door to the great hall, knocking twice. Pulling her robe around her a little tighter, she pushed the door open. Her mother looked up first. “Good morning, darling, have you had a nice week?”

It took a minute for Shea to respond; her eyes fell past her mother to the pair of guards stood behind the table. Aja was there, as usual, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Nina had been replaced. And not with any old guard; with Sasha. Damn, Alexis was good. Shea flashed a beaming smile to the woman, who returned a small smirk of her own. “Um.. yes, thank you, mother.”

Shea swiftly made her way around the long table, dropping a kiss on each of her parent’s cheeks, seating herself at the opposite end of the table to them. Her father cleared his throat, eyes still on the plate of French pastries in front of him. “We need to discuss your coronation dress, dear. Any thoughts as to the colour?”

Shea groaned internally; everything was about her coronation these days. She locked eyes with Sasha and rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. Sasha let out a small giggle. “Not particularly. Are you sure it can’t just be black?”

“Oh, of course not, darling! Black is the colour of mourning! How about a lovely crimson, or ultramarine, perhaps?” Shea watched as Aja’s eyes disappeared into the back of her head, and wished she could get away with the same a second time. She hummed lowly in lieu of a response and sunk her knife into the croissant that had been placed before her.

“Honey, your mother and I have been thinking…” Shea whipped her head up at the sound of her father’s voice. “We think you should take some etiquette lessons before your coronation, just so you will be prepared for life as Queen and so we can do away with…” He gestured vaguely towards Shea, who had frozen with the croissant hanging out of her mouth and flakes falling into her lap. “…this.”

She was quick to deposit the croissant back on the plate and brush herself off. “Are you sure that’s necessary? I mean, I can be prim and proper, I just choose not to.”

Her mother grimaced. “Yes, we think so. Your first lesson is at 2, in the ballroom. Your instructor’s name is Trinity. Don’t forget that: Tri-ni-ty.” Her mother sounded it out as if Shea was a child, like Trinity was a difficult name to remember. Shea nodded, stuffing her face with the last of the croissant and standing from her chair. That was enough family time for the day.

Shea waved to Sasha and Aja and left the room, foregoing her usual route to the gardens and making her way to the extensive library. She usually loved spending her days in the gardens, but not when it was pouring down with Autumn rain and freezing cold. If she didn’t go in the garden, she probably wouldn’t ever see outside the palace, except from the occasional state visit. The only upside to being Queen, she supposed, was the fact that she would be leaving the palace a lot more.

The library was cosy and warm, a log fire already blazing in the hearth. Shea made her way over to her little corner, where books of all genres were still strewn around and fluffy blankets shrouded a soft velvet sofa. It was a little colder over there, but Shea would rather that than be eventually stifled by the direct heat from the fire, where the rest of the furniture was set up.

She picked up Pride and Prejudice, continuing from where she left off. As she read on, she thought of Sasha. It was the type of book she would like, all old-timey and smart. She began to lose interest, her mind wandering further and further away from the adventures of Elizabeth Bennet. After a good while only pretending to read, she decided there was no point in fooling herself. She went looking for Sasha, grabbing the book as an afterthought.

Instead of blindly searching the whole castle, Shea made a beeline to Alexis’ office. She always knew where everyone in the whole palace was at all times; that was her job. “Hey Alexis!”

Alexis looked up from the paperwork on her desk. “Sasha?”

Shea nodded shyly. “You know me too well, girl. Thanks for moving Nina, too. That bitch, I swear to the gay gods.” She gasped softly, a smirk settling itself on her lips. “Hey, since you have the power to move people, do you have the power to fire them too?”

Alexis chuckled a little, turning her attention back to the pay receipts in front of her. “Get out of here, Shea. Sasha’s down by the kitchens.”

Shea skipped out of the office and sprinted down 4 floors. She slowed to a fast walk as she descended the last flight of stairs to catch her breath, running a hand through her hair. She spotted the bald girl underneath the giant mural at the end of the corridor, and broke out into a run again. “Sashaaa!”

“Sheaaa!” Just as Shea reached her, Sasha pulled her into a hug. “What’s this?” She gestured to the book that Shea has all but forgotten she was holding.

“Oh! I was reading this and I thought you might like it, so I brought it for you to take back to your room tonight.” Sasha turned the book over in her hands a few times before placing it on the sideboard next to her, smiling widely as a thanks.

Sasha bit her lip, eyes roaming around the hallway. “So… queen lessons, huh?”

“I know. I’m not that uneloquent, am I? I mean-”

Sasha interrupted with a giggle. “Hate to be that person, but before you go any further I feel like I should point out that it’s ‘ineloquent’.”

Shea groaned exaggeratedly. “Fuck! Maybe I do need etiquette lessons. But- ugh! It’ll be so boring!”

“Yes, preparing to become one of the most powerful and most respected rulers in the world must be so tedious.” Sasha deadpanned.

“Shut up, Sash. I’m sure Alexis has you in some of them. You’ll be able to see for yourself. I just hope this Trinity girl is nice.” Shea mused.

“Yeah, I’m stationed in the ballroom today. Isn’t that where your mom said it would be?” Shea nodded thoughtfully.

“Ok, well, I have, like, half an hour? So I’ll see you in a bit.” Shea pulled Sasha in for one last hug, before setting off down the corridor. Just before she went to climb the staircase, she turned back, yelling over her shoulder, “Hope you enjoy the book!”

[desiree-harding-fic]

Broken Engagement Au (Chapter 1???)

“I’m not going to write another long fic while I already have a WIP,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to do it it’s a stupid decision and I’m not going to do it.”

So @fandomsnstuff is to blame for this and I can say that because she’s an incorrigible enabler, but here’s 1500 words of broken engagement because I can’t get over it.

CREDIT: Taako’s last name has been shamelessly stolen from Bureau of Badass by Chemicallywrit and miceenscene on Ao3, and @bureauofbadass on tumblr. Because it’s been my modern au name for Taako ever since I read that fic the first time, which, if you haven’t read it, drop everything and I’ll see you in a few days. Now that’s some writing.

Check the #broken engagement au tag on my blog for more snippets!

————————

“Angus?” Taako says mildly from behind his desk.

“Hmm??” The kid hums from where he’s hanging upside down off Taako’s ratty classroom couch in the corner. His glasses are half falling off his face, but he’s got a book held up a few inches from his nose anyway. The thing is, the book is right-side up.

“Whatcha doin’ there, kiddo?” Taako asks, marking through another sentence on the paper in front of him with a frown.

“Well, sir,” Angus starts in that tone that always makes Taako bite down on a grin, “I read them too fast right side up. I think my comprehension is suffering because the words go by too fast.”

“Bullshit,” Taako says, ignoring Angus’s language, sir! “Your comprehension is fine and you know it. You’re just a show-off nerd,” he teases.

“Says the one who had a powerpoint about LGBT influences in 16th Century literature ready last week for the eventuality that someone in your class called Mercutio ‘kinda gay,’”

“Hey, that was a good lesson –” Taako starts in, but the kid sits up abruptly on the couch, putting the book down and picking up his phone. Taako can hear another buzz of a message coming in as the kid is scrolling through it.

“My dad’s here, sir,” he says, “he’s on his way to the room now.”

“About time.” Taako puts the essay back in the section folder, slips it into his bag to grade when he gets home. The grading is endless. One of his least favorite parts of the job. Who needs grades anyway? All his kids are smart. Seems dumb to hold them all to the same arbitrary standard.

“I’m sorry for keeping you, sir,” Angus says, and he’s moved over to the desk he threw his backpack down on when he came into the room almost an hour ago. He looks a little unsure, and Taako curses himself silently in his head.

“It’s ok, kid,” he says, trying to make sure he sounds like he means it so Angus won’t feel bad, “I told you, it ain’t no thing for me to stay after a bit to talk to your old man.”

Angus is… a special case. Taako’s never had anything like him in a class before. Kid’s only just turned 12 years old and he’s already starting high school. A real whiz-kid, but it’s a tough world out there, high school being full of teenagers of all shapes, sizes, and personalities, for a literal kid –

Hence Taako.

He’s been teaching at Neverwinter Academy for almost four years now, grateful every second of the time that anyone deigned to give him a job (and thank the gods for Principal Davenport), much less at a premier private school where he’s largely allowed to make his own curriculum with only a few guidelines. It’s a good job. Taako likes it. It’s stable and it’s safe and no one’s going to die from Taako’s lecturing and he actually kind of has a knack with the kids, weirdly enough.

Hence Angus and Taako.

Neverwinter Secondary Academy has a mentorship program. Kids who seem to struggle a bit academically get paired with a faculty adviser to help see them through. Well Angus is anything but struggling – he’s gotten straight As on every assignment Taako’s given thus far – but all the same, Taako was contacted at the beginning of the year about the kid. He was placed right in the program anyway, not for academic reasons for once, but for social.

You have a knack for getting close to the students, Davenport’s email had read. While I see no reason why Angus shouldn’t succeed at NSA, he might have some difficulty adjusting socially. His parent originally contacted us about the idea, and I have to say I agree that giving Angus an extra support figure can only be beneficial.

Taako had agreed, of course; how could he say no? And meeting Angus had really cinched it. Kid’s only been in Taako’s class a little over a month, but he’s already maybe one of Taako’s favorite students, like, ever. Not that Taako plays favorites. He likes all his students just the same, thank you very much.

(Angus is definitely his favorite.)

It didn’t help that the kid’s a goofball smartass nerd, either, which is the exact archetype that makes up like… 98% of Taako’s family and close friends. It doesn’t help that he’s got a single parent keeping everything together at home based on the school records and the email chain back and forth. It doesn’t help that his dad, who he mentions about as often to Taako as people talk about like… the weather, seems like a really genuine guy who’s trying really hard based on the email chain they’ve had going. Angus’s dad set up the parent/teacher conference, even, to check in on how things are going, one-on-one with Angus’s adviser. It’s almost disgustingly practical and good and loving and it seems like everything in this kid’s entire life has been engineered to make Taako fuckin’ love him.

It’s really not fair. He teaches like 90 students. He’s not supposed to have favorites.

And yet.

There’s a knock on Taako’s door and they both look up, Angus smiling immediately, which definitely isn’t cute, Taako, Christ, and Taako gets up from his desk and smooths his shirt out. He dressed normal today and everything. He knows the kids like his… eccentric style, but parents? Parents are always a different game. And knowing he was about to meet Angus’s dad today gave him pause that morning. Still. The soft blue button down and slacks are a touch rumpled from a day’s work. He could look better.

He gets up and goes to the door, Angus trailing along behind.

*****

Neverwinter Secondary Academy could be a maze for all Kravitz’s skill navigating his way to Angus’s classroom, which is of course the farthest from the front office that any in this place could be, surely, and he’s already late after being kept at work, and he’s sure that Angus’s teacher is at the very least unimpressed with him and more likely annoyed, which is just what he needed -

He finally finds his way, sees the sign reading T. Peynirci, and he takes a moment to smooth out the wrinkles in his jacket from the day (which of course does no good because it never does), before he raises his hand and knocks on Mr. Peynirci’s door.

And Taako opens it.

“Ah,” Taako says, and then nothing else, his hand hovering in midair where it was clearly extended for a handshake -

“Dad!” Angus says, “this is my adviser and English teacher, Mr. Peynirci,” and there’s a little bit of a sneer in it that Kravitz doesn’t know the context for, “Taako, this is my dad.” And it’s exactly how an introduction should go, all crossed t’s and dotted i’s -

And Kravitz’s brain is on high alert, emergency sirens blaring.

And his first thought, infuriatingly, is how good Taako looks, now, still, after all this time. Which is ridiculous because Kravitz can hardly recognize him (he’s wearing glasses, for Christ’s sake) and also because he hasn’t seen Taako in over twelve years and he’s supposed to be past those thoughts by now -

The second thought is who on Earth entrusted Taako with the care and keeping (and the education) of a bunch of impressionable teenagers, much less his son’s mental, emotional, and social well-being -

The third thought is that Angus is right there and Kravitz has been staring blankly at Taako for what is likely about to become a second too long -

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Peynirci,” he says, reaching out and shaking Taako’s hand, though he doesn’t want to touch him, does he? (He does, he does so much.) Nice to meet you, he says, and he shakes Taako’s hand, and he can feel his grip, too tight, can see, perfectly, the moment Taako’s eyes go from shocked and awed to empty, except for a spark, just a spark of malice, right there. He regrets everything.

“Likewise, Mr. McDonald,” Taako says, releasing Kravitz’s hand, and Kravitz nearly winces from it. Because it was one thing, wasn’t it, to make the decision to pretend that Taako was a stranger, but it’s another to be on the receiving end of it, to see Taako introducing himself as though he’s going to trip over Kravitz’s very name, as though he’s never had to say it out loud before this moment. As though Taako didn’t spend years falling asleep and waking up beside Kravitz, didn’t spend years going out and pressing himself against Kravitz in dim bars, tipsy and warm. As though he didn’t spend a year wearing a ring Kravitz selected for him, and sized to fit just so. As though he didn’t almost take that name and make it his own.

“Let’s sit down, shall we?” Taako says, and he smiles without any of his teeth.

[scoopsohboi]

find your suzie

Pairing: Robin Buckley/henderson!reader

W/C: 1238

Summary: set a couple weeks after s3. robins been over 24/7 since and youre both out to each other, but youre just friends. when you and dustin have a brief moment alone together, he encourages you to tell her how you feel.

-more robin readers-

-st readers-

“Where’s Robin?” Dustin asked curiously as he entered the living room. You lay sprawled out on the couch and he threw your legs off the one end so he could sit, too.

“She had to go home for dinner. Her aunt’s coming over and her mom’s making a huge deal about it. She’ll be back in a couple hours.” Dustin nodded beside you. “How’s Suzie-poo?” you mused and your brother blushed profusely. He’d been excitedly talking about their planned radio call all morning and you’d even caught them singing a little duet through Dustin’s door. They were too adorable.

“She’s doing great. She’s going on a short vacation with her parents next week, though, so we won’t be able to talk on our first month-aversary,” he grumbled. You rolled your eyes. Sometimes Dustin could be a little dramatic.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Dusty,” you assured, but he just shrugged.

“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.” It was quiet for a moment before Dustin spoke again. “What about you?” You looked over at him expectantly. “I mean, after all the shit we’ve dealt with,” he said, referring to all the crap that had happened over the past two years. Hawkins had become a feeding ground for monsters and your most recent escapade ended only a couple weeks ago. “How are you doing?” he asked. You’d been asked that a lot lately, but you never really knew how to respond. Typically you’d lie, but since Dustin seemed pretty sincere you decided you should be, too.

“Not great. Nightmares are the worst, but Robin sleeping over helps,” you said as you looked back at the television. Dustin nodded and considered your words.

“I like Robin.”

“Me, too.”

“Why don’t you ask her out, then?” You looked back over at your brother who, feeling your eyes on him, ripped his gaze from the screen. “What? You guys are good together.”

“It’s not that simple,” you sighed. You knew Robin liked girls, but that didn’t mean she liked you. Besides, she already knew you were gay, too. She could’ve made a move just as easily but hadn’t yet. Maybe you two just weren’t meant to be romantic.

“Why not?” he asked. “Asking out a girl is scary as hell,” he offered, “but wouldn’t it be worth it if she said yes?”

“Yes, but-” you sighed as Dustin cut you off.

“You guys have a shit ton in common, and every time she’s here all you two do is drool over each other.” You started to argue but figured it wasn’t worth it. Dustin was right. You had it bad for Rob and there was a slight chance she’d feel the same way. But that didn’t mean you were ready to test that theory. “Just think about it.” You thought about all the times since he’d gotten back from camp that Dustin told you to “find your Suzie.” Robin was definitely your Suzie, if Suzie wasn’t Dustin’s Robin. You were sure you felt stronger for Rob than Dustin ever could for his long-distance girlfriend.

You decided then and there that yes, it would be worth it. You loved Robin and that was that. She had a right to know and you owed it to yourself to tell her.

An hour after dinner, there was a knock on the Henderson’s door. You were sitting in your room at your desk, listening to music and flipping through a comic book Dustin gave you, staring at the pictures but your mind was reeling too quickly to actually read what was happening. You stared at an image of Colossus springing into action as you heard a soft rap at your door. “Come in,” you called before looking up in time to see Robin sneaking through the crack in the door. “Hey,” you greeted, unable to help the blush creeping onto your cheeks as she smiled at you.

“Hey,” she breathed and went to sit on edge of your bed closest to you. “It feels good to be back.” She kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs under her. You smiled as she got comfy. “What’re you reading?”

“I don’t even know,” you said honestly and flipped the comic closed. You turned in your chair to face her properly. “How’s your aunt?” Robin made a face.

“She asked if I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh, gross,” you said with a slight laugh, though you wore the same uncomfortable look as Robin.

“Yeah. And when I said no, she spent a half hour listing off all the eligible bachelors she knows.” Robin rolled her eyes and flopped back onto the bed. You got up and moved next to her on the bed. “I told her I don’t like boys and my mom almost had a heart attack.” Robin let out a soft, sarcastic laugh. Your brows flew upward in shock.

“You told her?!”

“Yeah, then mom said, ‘she’s just waiting till they get older; more mature,’” Robin mocked. Robin scoffed in disgust.

“I’m sorry, Rob,” you said, feeling a little sick. Robin was one of the best people you knew, and she deserved the world. She also deserved to come out when she wanted to tell whoever she wanted. Her mom wasn’t being fair, but you guessed it was somewhat expected. It’s not like folks were throwing pride parades for gay people.

“I’m just sick of pretending to be something I’m not. I want it to be okay that I’m…me,” she said quietly and you reached over and took her hand, giving it a small squeeze.

“I love you,” you said, the words falling from your lips so effortlessly it took a beat to realize they’d even slipped out. “Shit, did I just say that out loud?” Robin was frozen beside you and you could feel your palms getting sweaty as you dropped her hand like it burned. “Shit, Robin, I didn’t- that’s not what I meant. I mean, I do, but I didn’t mean to- I just mean you’re amazing and incredible and everything about you is beautiful and if someone doesn’t see that they don’t deserve anything from you,” you rambled, wishing a Demogorgon would pop out and whisk you off to the Upside Down. Anything would be better than Robin staring at you like you had three heads. “You’re like…sunshine,” you muttered lamely, unable to stop the word vomit.

Robin propped herself up on her elbow, face inches from yours. “You love me?” she asked, and all you could do was nod your head. Robin reached out with her arm that wasn’t supporting herself, cupped your cheek, and pulled your face to hers, capturing your lips in a soft kiss. You reached out and wrapped your arms around her middle, one on her hip and the other snaked around her back. You kissed her back, matching her intensity before deepening it, mouths molding together. Her breath hitched as your tongue played with hers and your head was spinning.

Eventually Robin pulled back slightly and you rested your forehead to hers, both catching your breaths. “God, I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Robin admitted softly and your heart leapt with joy. You hummed in agreement. Robin pressed her lips to yours again lazily. “I love you, too,” she said finally. “Just wanted to throw that out there.” You grinned and kissed her, hungrier than before. Suzie had nothing on Robin Buckley.

repost from my ao3 [scoopydoo] 

[jlf23tumble]

Fic rec anon here, and I'm blanking in the moment! I know you have a lot of recs and I love them all. Maybe your favourite AUs? Broadly speaking? Seeing some of them might help jog me into more specific categories ! xx

Gotcha, sort of like my prison rec list, only I like to think of it more in terms of what would I have on my phone to read when I’m bored and traveling, lol. Obvs, this sort of list is super hard, but having it focused on AUs kinda helps? At any rate, this isn’t a deep dive, it’s just my top level, so hopefully it’ll spark you. These are in no particular order, so come back if you want more!

Tuxedo Dress-Up, by Blake (honestly, ANYTHING in this fandom by Blake, I file this one under hot and hilarious, but every line is just swooooon). Louis is an aspiring song writer by day, a makeup artist for drag queens by night, and masquerading as a full-time real estate agent for his third most famous (and first most handsome) client Harry Styles.Or, five times they fail to fuck in a closet, and one time they get it right.

Once Upon a Dream, by objectlesson (again, ANYTHING by Phoenix, and most of it is canon, but where to even start with her AUs, jesus god, I struggled to rec just one, so I went with the AU she gifted me, ilu!!!!). “M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna burn Disneyland down with our gay.” Or, a fake dating AU where everyone is lying and they happen to be at the Happiest Place on Earth.

knock knock, i love you, by @thelovejandles aka beautlouis (another one of my fave authors in this fandom, proof that wips DO finish, and they’re absolutely worth it). Harry and Louis get kicked out of a statistics exam for passing a knock knock joke note, and subsequently fall in love. Harry's a virgin, there's a cat, a hot cocoa date, a lot of sex, even more knock knock jokes, and everything is lovely and happy.

Tied Down, by @ham-palpert (the twists and turns here, my goddd, just masterful) The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson. The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall. For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated.

Alien Roadtrip! by @helloamhere (needs ao3 account; I love desert roadtrips, and this captures that vibe perfectly, plus it’s hilarious). For the first time in his life, Louis doesn’t know where he’s going. Harry doesn’t mind. Or, a roadtrip with desert feelings, too much snack food, and empty motels. Harry is definitely absolutely not an alien. That would be ridiculous.

Harry Styles Cooks..., by @magicalrocketships aka sunsetsmog (aka the very best wip on earth, I weep with joy whenever I get the notif). In which Louis Tomlinson can’t cook, there’s a very special shower curtain, and Harry Styles used to be a baker. Or Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them.

just call me inspiration, by @hereforlou (in which I *am* Liam Payne, porn editor!) The truth is Louis knows he’s going to hell, if there is such a thing, but it isn’t because he writes erotic fiction for a living. If anything, it’s because his muse, the reason he’s inspired to write about people shagging in increasingly creative ways everyday, is the sweetest, loveliest, most genuine (and completely oblivious) future children-book illustrator in the world.

Buried Like Treasure, by @becomeawendybird aka quickedween (marcel marcel marcel!!!). Prince Harry Styles is very private. He chooses to keep himself out of the public eye but feels lonely and isolated while surrounded by people in his hectic royal life. When he finishes his dissertation, he decides to take a solo holiday to one of the royal family's properties in the Swiss Alps. Semi-retired thief Louis Tomlinson has been pulled in for one last job: steal a painting from an uninhabited mansion. Neither one of them expects a natural disaster.

into another serotonin overflow, by @mercutionotromeo (this story packs a LOT into a little, it helped inspire my sideblog with smaller fic recs, actually). Harry's the yearbook photographer who's been assigned to take pictures of Louis, the new captain of the football team. Harry's got a massive, obvious crush on Louis and somehow, Louis feels the same way.

Turning Page, by @daisyharry aka purpledaisy (pretty much every on-set picture I see of Harry these days just makes me tag it for this fic). “You wanna buy Harry a drink?” Louis lets his eyes drip back to Harry, to his wide eyes and the way his shoulders curve down. He really is pretty – Louis will be the first one to admit it and the last one to ever say it out loud. Louis almost smirks and his lips twitch as he tilts his head, “Not particularly, no.” An AU where Harry Styles tries to get lost in a place he’s never been. Louis Tomlinson has been perfecting the art of being lost for years. What they don’t expect to find is each other.

hush. by wankerville (this story is achingly evocative of just about every shitty small American town, but my god is it beautiful, the sweetness of how it ends). “I don't like you like that, Harry.” “See,” Harry starts, Louis can hear the smile in his voice, “that's where I think you're lying.” Or an AU where small towns suck, louis is losing it, and harry’s just too perfect.

Three French Hems, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (I wish I could pick just ONE of my top three from these two, but alas...do persimmons smell like come? discuss).  In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

Thought the Song Was Sung, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (see above, pretty much, and how happy I am that the tweets still show up! with Dame Julie Andrews even!!). Louis never auditioned for the X-Factor. Years later, Harry's just another gay ex-boybander who lives alone with his cat... until Niall decides to take matters into his own hands and set up a profile for Harry on a dating website.

Wild and Unruly, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (Iconic, even the abstract is iconic, everything still holds up. oh for cute, etc. etc.). Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

Are You Gonna Be My Girl? by loadedgunn (another one that inspired my sideblog dedicated to short fics! So much greatness packed in, Jesus, it’s in my top five for sure). Louis reenacts his first time, and Harry wants to be his good girl.

“burn this flame” by @rainbowninja aka rainbowninja167 (anytime I reread this, I smile...filed under hot and hilarious). When Harry gets invited to play in a celebrity charity match with Louis Tomlinson, Manchester United's star player, he's determined to impress him with brilliant football skills. The only flaw in Harry's otherwise foolproof plan? He has absolutely no football skills, brilliant or otherwise.

Challenging Nature: A Look into Male Lactation, by @jaerie (hands down, one of my fave kinks, handled fantastically well...and this isn’t the author’s only one!).  Even taking into account all the bizarre things Harry has subjected himself to in the past for the sake of an article, Harry has received his strangest assignment yet. It comes up as a random misunderstanding in a meeting and builds into a conversation — can men breastfeed? Internet searches reveal documented cases of male lactation popping up at different times throughout history, but are any of them true? Can a man will himself into lactating? Harry has two months to make it happen.

like how your hands feel me up and down, by ballsdeepinjesus (this author wrote a lot of my faves back in the day, I have so many ~thoughts about the amazing writers in this particular era). “It’s -- you’re tight,” Louis chokes. “It’s tight, I mean. It’s. Yes.” His hand is curved around his hip now, squeezing lightly. “Tight’s good, right?” Harry murmurs, batting his eyelashes. He almost can’t believe himself. “Very good,” Louis grunts. Or louis works in a halloween shop and harry needs a costume.

baby look what you've done to me, by ballsdeepinjesus (see above; even the username kills me). The next day kind of turns everything upside down, though. Louis gets another lingerie catalogue addressed to Harry. He’s about to toss it when he sees a personalized note stuck to the front; it thanks Harry for his previous purchases and offers him a complimentary six-month subscription to their magazine free of charge. Or louis moves into harry's old flat. harry gets a lot of mail.

Take Our Bodies Higher, by @littlelouishiccups (I’m something of a connoisseur of the phone sex trope, so the way this author flips it and makes *Harry* the operator plus what ensues? chef’s kiss!). Harry wasn’t often caught off guard at his job anymore. He called different men Sir, Master, or Daddy for work almost every week, but he’d never been told he was a good boy in a voice quite like that. In which Harry is a phone sex operator and Louis dials a wrong number.

Make a Dime Go One Hundred, by @screwstyles (I’d rec this for their jobs alone, but everything in it, just wow). “Do you think you could trust anyone enough to have full control over you?” he asks into the night, hoping his sentence won’t break their bubble. It doesn’t, if the way Harry’s eyes meet his is any indication.“What do you mean?” Harry’s voice is barely above a whisper, rough from the singing they had done earlier. Louis wants to keep this memory forever.“You know, if someone wanted to, uhm,” he coughs, “to tie you up, or blindfold you.” Or a friends to lovers AU where Harry volunteers to help Louis experiment with bondage. Things don’t go exactly to plan.

it ain't trickin' if ya got it, by sarcasticfluentry (needs ao3 account; I often stare at the wall and wonder what another installment in this universe would be, fuckkkkk, it’s so good, I only wish the social media was still in it). 28-year-old blockbuster actor Louis Tomlinson rushes home to give his 20-year-old model boyfriend Harry a good seeing-to after a particularly provocative Instagram post and, in his excitement, alerts the entire world. Featuring daddy kink, anal beads, and feelings.

If You Asked Me if I Love Him (I'd Lie), by allyasavedtheday (needs an ao3 account; it’s a sequel, but I reread it over and over vs. the first piece).  Or the one where Harry and Louis eloped but neglected to mention it to anyone. Meanwhile Lottie is getting married and the only way for them to not steal her thunder is by pretending they're just friends for the weekend. Featuring Harry and Louis as terrible liars who don't know the meaning of the word platonic and some Tomlinsons and Styleses who definitely don't believe them.

Damn, I could go on, but I’ll stop! My sideblog dedicated to short fics is @marathonficbreak, and it has some smaller ones, if this is too intimidating, lmao...hope some of them are new for you, enjoy!

[leah-halliwell92]

Meet the Family

Here ya go Nonny!

Request: Present day roger Taylor and young x reader Smutty You choose scenario

It’s the night before the concert in your hometown. You hadn’t been super excited to be back but you took it in stride since you were convinced to come see the show by Adam and the gents. You hadn’t though it a bad idea at the time, take a few days out of your vacation time to see Queen + Adam Lambert in concert...low key scratching off a Queen Concert from your bucket list.

What had you semi-second guessing if you should have come at all was the call from your mother telling you to come over for dinner and to, “Bring your beau.” You made a mental note to stick a rod in your brother’s ass for being a snitch but decided against it. While your family knew you were dating, they didn’t know who.

You’d arrived to Roger’s room to a warm welcome from your dear boyfriend and a promise of fun later that night and into the morn. There was nothing else you wanted to do but knew that going to your parents’ house needed to happen considering you’d been putting it off since you and Rog started dating nearly eight months ago.

“(Brother’s name) blew the whistle on me and told my parents I’m in town,” you’d told him as you lounged on his bed earlier in the day.

“What’s so bad about going to see your parents?” Roger asked with a furrowed brow, “Is it...me?”

“No!” You said loudly, “It could never be you. You make me happy you daft grumpy Santa.”

He snorted at the nickname and pulled you close before asking, “Then what’s all the hubbub with them?”

“My family’s and I quote, “Well bred and blue collard”, meaning well educated rich bigots that think they’re entitled to all because they’ve gotten a better education than the rest,” you say with a sigh.

“You always told me you came from the high standing sort,” Roger said now understanding why it was that you never mentioned going to your family.

You nod and say, “I went to school for ballet originally. Mother made it that way...despite my wanting to go into history.”

“You wanted to study history?” He asked in astonishment not having known this before.

You nod with a soft smile and say, “I wanted to go into European history and go into teaching. Mother thought I needed something that and I quote, “Fits your station dear not something as mundane as teache”.

“And your dad?”

“Father is all about the boys,” you said with a sigh, “I may be his youngest but he’s made it very clear what he thinks of women as a gender. If you were to ask him to his face he’d say my place is in the home to care after the man I married.”

“That–”

“Barbaric and outdated I know,” you say with a laugh, “But on one hand I could go into ballet and perhaps modeling and work or be some asshole’s wife.”

“Tonight’s dinner is going to be interesting isn’t it?” He asks with an edge in his voice.

“Yup,” you say with a neutral grin.

Fast forward to the car ride on your way to your parents’, you were not having second thoughts per say. You just weren’t expecting anything positive to come from this but hoped...hoped that it wouldn’t end as bad as you thought it would.

“We don’t have to do this,” Roger said reassuringly patting your thigh tenderly.

“Yea we do,” you said with a sigh, “If we don’t mother’s hounding will know no bounds. Plus...I’ve put this off long enough. You have a right to meet and know where I come from.”

He nodded in understanding and made sure to grab your hand in his giving it a reassuring squeeze.

You made it to your parents’ with one last cleansing breath got out taking the wine bottle Roger had the idea to bring out with you as Roger waited for you on your side of the car.

“Ready?” He asked.

“No...but I have you so yes,” you say honestly and grin at him after he presses a a kiss to your forehead.

You go up the steps and knock on the door.

The door opened to reveal your brother who smiled warmly at you before looking at Roger clearly in shock that he was there at all.

You passed the wine bottle to Roger before going to your brother and slapping him upside the head.

“You are a moron,” you hiss at him.

“What did I do!?” He asked rubbing at his head where you hit him.

“You told mother I’d be in town!? And you expect me to just take it!” You tell him ready to hit him a second time.

“What! It’s not like you were going to visit,” he muttered.

“We won’t know now will we? You took that choice away from me,” you say your voice going cold, “Next time you come to me to cover your ass when Joyce asks me where you are I’ll let her know you’re with Irving.”

His eyes widened to the size of saucers, “You wouldn’t...”

“Like hell I wouldn’t,” you say seriously, “It’s not the first time you’ve strung me up to dry so why should me getting even be a surprise to you?”

You took your coat of and helped Roger with his putting them both on the coat rack.

“Now that we have an understanding may I introduce to you Roger Taylor,” you say motioning to Rog, “Rog this is (brother’s name).”

“Nice to meet you Mr. Taylor and may I say I’m a huge fan,” your brother said shaking Roger’s hand before turning to you a sheepish look on his face and saying, “I’m sorry for telling mother about you being town, she’s been badgering me to hand you over before she tells Joyce what she thinks is the truth.”

You sigh and roll your eyes.

“Before you get anymore confused,” you told Roger in a whisper, “Joyce is (B/N) therapist, Irving is his partner. Neither of our parents know he’s gay.”

Roger’s eyes widen at that and nods in understanding.

“Joyce doesn’t know about Vin,” (B/N) said with a sigh, “I wanted to make sure he and I were in a good place and stable before going for a couple’s session.”

You nod in understanding knowing where he was coming from.

“By the looks of it is part of why you only visit once a year,” he says with a knowing grin.

“You’d visit once a year if you could you ass,” you said with a laugh as he pulled you into a warm hug.

“(Y/N) is that you!?” Your mother called from the kitchen.

“Naaaa, its the fuckin Easter Bunny,” your brother mumbled causing Roger to crack a half grin.

He liked your brother already.

You greeted your mother with a hug and kiss before pulling away a smile on her face, “It’s about time my baby comes home for a visit.”

You smile at your mother and nod before being pulled into another hug.

You pulled away and met your father’s gaze.

“Welcome home (Y/N),” he said before pulling you into a warm hug.

This shocked you and your brother. Your father had never been the most affectionate of people to either of you so for him to pull you into a hug was a huge thing.

“Everything alright little bird?” he asked you tenderly.

You nod still in shock of what was going on.

Your mother bustled and turned to Roger, “And you are?”

“Mother this is Roger Taylor...my boyfriend,” you said after giving yourself a mental shake.

“Boyfriend?” Your mother said with a shaky smile.

You nod enthusiastically and make your way to Rog’s side resisting the urge to slip your hand into the crook of his arm.

“Nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. (Y/L/N),” Roger said extending his hand for them to shake.

Your father gave him a stiff nod but shook his hand whilst your mother turned from the group and made her way into the dining room.

“Is this why you avoided coming home for us to meet him?” Your father asked voice hard.

“Yes and no,” you say honestly. 

Roger knew the reasons why and wondered how long it would take your parents to figure them out.

“Don’t expect me to explain father,” you said standing your ground, “you know very well why.”

Your father’s eyes widened at this. Whether at your audacity of your tone or the fact that you made it clear you weren’t the type of woman to just take it.

Before your father could say anything else you mother called out, “Good thing I invited Charlie over for dinner.”

“Fuuuuck,” you said with a sigh.

“I told you not to invite him dear,” your father said, surprising you and your brother even more, as he made his way into the dinning room.

Your mother didn’t even bother whispering when she said, “I’m more than glad I invited him. By the looks of it Charlie needs to be here and make sure they get back together.

“He dumped him for cheating mother!” Your brother yelled as he threw his coat on.

“Well she should have looked the other way! It’s not as if she was trying to keep him happy as she should have,” your mother walked to quaint smile on her face to be greeted by Roger putting on his coat before passing you your scarf and helping you finish put your coat on.

“Where are you all going?” She asked.

“Enjoy Charlie’s company mother,” you say coldly and turned to the door without a second thought ignoring your mother’s protests as you went.

“(Y/N),” your father called.

You turned to him ready to refute whatever he was about to say when he shocked you by saying, “If you can, let’s meet at the restaurant that’s in your hotel and bring Roger. I’d– I’d like to catch up...please.”

“Here’s the address, if what you say it’s true then join us for breakfast,” Roger said voice hard.

Your father nodded solemnly and went up into the house ignoring his wife’s questions of if he managed to get them back for dinner.

You and Roger went into town with your brother for a private dinner before you promised to keep in touch with each other.

The following morning, as promised you met up with your father for breakfast where some of the air was cleared and mutual olive branches passed. And a promise of weekly calls was made. The topic of your mother was brought up, but you made it clear that if she couldn’t accept or at least pretend and civil towards Roger then there was nothing to be done. 

That is how your brother and parents went to a Queen concert your mother slumped in a chair in the audience still in denial that her only daughter chose a rockstar of all things to attach herself to.

[hellishmess]

11: Picnic? Picnic.

June 1, 2018

I legitimately considered just teleporting to the vampire nest, but the sensible, sane part of me knew to drive.

So I settled for speeding down the highway, cutting the drive time by ten minutes. I pulled into the drive, parking the car out front, and running up to the front door.

A jittery energy settled in my muscles, and briefly I wondered if this was normal to feel.

I knocked, not feeling comfortable enough to just walk in like Maeve. The door swung open, revealing Ana. I smiled, happy to come face to face with her and not some vampire.

"Hey," she said, stepping back and looking me up and down as I entered.

"Hey," I grinned. "You ready for your witch lesson?"

Ana's smile turned from one of charm to one of nervous excitement. "Yeah. I've been trying constantly but I can't seem to even get the easy ones."

"Okay let's see what I can do. I'm sure we can figure it out."

Ana was a flurry of motion as we walked through the house. Her hands were clasped behind her before breaking free to dance up and mess with her hair. She fiddled with her fingertips for a moment longer, before retiring them back behind her.

"Would you care for lunch before we started?" She asked, glancing out a passing window. "Today's a pretty day for a picnic."

I couldn't stop the grin from forming. That sounds a lot like a date.

"Sure," I say cooly. "I can't remember the last time I had a nice picnic."

Ana's smile was easy. It lit up her whole face.

"Sweet, we can steal some food from the fridge." She put a little more pep in her step, heading for the kitchen.

Flinging through the swing doors, she got to work picking out foods. I stood there, half entranced by the way she moved and half unsure of what to do. I'd try to help, but I didn't know where anything was; plus, I certainly didn't know what foods she had in mind.

Soon she had a load of French bread, sandwich meat and cheese, mayo, lettuce, more cheese, grapes, and apples on the island.

I joined her, working with her to make some sandwiches.

"So," Ana started. "What are you?"

I pause from spreading mayo to look at her, confusion knits my eyebrows closer together while my heart jumps to my throat. I panic wondering, for a moment, if she's asking me if I'm gay. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, clearly unsure of how to handle what she's wanting to say. "I mean, I'm new to this whole supernatural thing. I don't know how to tell if people are human or vampire or anything else."

"Oh," I sigh. "I'm gifted." I read the confusion on her face and go into a further explanation, "One of the ones who have a specific connection to some form of magic. We're kinda like superhero's I guess. Like we have special powers or gifts that distinguishes us from humans."

"Oh." Ana looks impressed before eyeing me. I get the sense that she's keener than she lets on. "What did you think I meant?"

I focus on putting the meat on my second sandwich, keeping my face down so she can't see the blood that's collecting there. "Uhh," I stalled.

I look up to a grinning Ana, her eyes shinning with a knowing mischief. She didn't put me out of my misery. Instead, she watched as I foundered around.

I shook myself. I was better than this.

I took the plunge. "I thought you were asking if I was gay."

Ana didn't look surprised and her smile didn't falter as she inches herself closer. "Oh," she muttered.

I stood still, watched as she leaned closer to me. I didn't know what she was doing but I did know that I was going to let it play out.

She leaned in front of me to grab the bowl of grapes. I exhaled, feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief.

Ana chuckles, making eye contact again. "Welcome to the club."

I inhale, getting ahold of myself. "Nicee," I grin, suppressing a shiver of emotion. I turn to the mass of sandwiches I don't even remember making. "Where are we gonna put these in?"

She hands me a box of sandwich bags.

"Ah. Okay." I work on packaging them. Watching in my peripheral as Ana puts the grapes in a container and washes two apples.

Sensing that we had enough food, I began to put things back in the fridge.

"Do you want any cheese?" Ana asks, holding the package of little Baybels.

"Nah," I shake my head. "I'm not a big cheese eater."

She takes one for herself. "What a shame. I love cheese."

I just smile and put the rest back in the fridge.

"Come on. The basket's in the pantry." Ana trots to a little side room. It's shelves were full of glassware and jars full of preserves.

Ana finds the little wooden basket on the top self. I stifled a chuckled, watching her stretch onto her tiptoes to try and reach it, but she was still several inches short.

It was too cute.

Ana turns, catching me grinning like an idiot. My smile vanishes, only to return when I see that Ana's grinning too. "Will you please?"

I slide up beside her and grab the edge of the basket. I hand it to her, "Here ya go."

"Yass," she sighs. "Let's go. I'm hungry."

We pack the basket, adding two bottles of water, and wasting no time in getting to the spot where we met the other day. It was peaceful here, the sunlight warm against my skin. We settled down in the grass.

Ana handed me a sandwich. "So tell me something else about you. You sure don't talk too much."

"Sorry, I just. This is new to me," I admit.

Ana breaths a gentle laugh. "You're nervous?"

I want to lie, but the truth comes instead. "A little."

"Why?"

"I've never met a girl like you."

She cocks an eyebrow. "You're such a smooth talker."

I make a hand flourish. "Why thank you, madam. I try my best with pretty girls."

I earn a full laugh this time. "I like you. You're not like the people here."

"What do you mean?"

"They’re just so no-nonsense and cold." She looks away. "I suppose that's what to expect from a bunch of vampires."

I chuckle this time. "This crew's old. What're you doing with them anyway?"

Ana hesitates, sucking in a breath and holding it there.

"You don't have to say if it makes you uncomfortable."

She releases the air. "No it's not that. Not really. I'm just," she pauses, looking back at me. "Still trying to figure out why I'm here myself. They came after my mom died. One of the last things she said to me was that they'd protect me. That I should go away with them."

Sympathy softens my gaze. I take a bite of my sandwich. "I'm sorry," I say. "I know it must be hard for you."

"It is. Not even just losing my mom. It's like my entire world flipped upside down. In one day, I learn my mom was a witch from some crazy bloodline and that all the stories are true. There really are supernatural creatures out there."

"If you have any questions I'd love to help you acclimate," I offer.

Ana's fingers curl into the dirt. "Why did you say I wasn't a witch?"

I blanch. I didn't expect that one. "I'm not sure exactly," I admitted. "I'm pretty good about sensing what race of supernatural people are, but I'm getting nothing from you. You don't emit an energy like citizens of the Otherworld typically do."

Ana's face draws blank. "Citizens of the Otherworld?"

I nod, setting down the sandwich. "Yeah, supernaturals. Vampires, werewolves, Fay, ect. Ect."

"Oh."

"At first I thought maybe it was because there wasn't much magic in your blood," I continued. "Like you're so close to human that you simply just don't have enough energy to emit. But then you shocked me when you shook my hand. And that's not normal."

"What do you mean?"

I reached for my best description. "You gave my magic a shock. It's hard to describe, but it was like suddenly every muscle in my body was charged full of energy."

She nods, letting the sounds of the day take over between us.

I pick the sandwich back up, finishing it off.

"So you think I'm not special?" She breathed, half joking and half serious.

I sense the duality of her meaning. "Not at all. I think you're very special." I'm shocked by how genuine I am. "I just think you're so special no one's encountered you yet."

Ana laughs, and the seriousness of the conversation dissolving under its warmth. "You're lovely."

"You don't know me quite yet." I joke.

"Oh but I want to," She says, leaning closer. Suddenly, I was aware of just how close we were. "You're the most interesting thing I've met since I've been here."

"That's my line." I retort, turning away just an inch.

Ana lets the tension fall. Leaning her head back to soak up the sun. "If you don't think I'm a witch is there any sense in trying more spells."

I don't answer right away. Instead, I open myself up, searching deeper to see if I missed something. But I was right. She felt human, without a single ounce of her own magic.

I frown. "Honestly? I don't see the point."

Ana lets herself lay on the grass. "Damn."

"I'm sorry. We can always try. It's just. I really don't feel any magic in you."

She shrugs. "It's fine. I just get the feeling that Jesse is expecting something of me. I hate that I could disappoint."

"Are you afraid of them?" I ask.

"Not really." She says. "I actually remember Jesse from when I was a kid. They'd come over sometimes randomly. My mom always welcomed them with open arms."

Wow. I wasn't expecting that. "Nice. Kinda like an old uncle."

"Yeah I guess. They stopped coming by when I got older. Mom insisted on keeping the supernatural from me."

I pass her the bowl of grapes. She plops one in her mouth. "Tell me more about you."

"Umm," I grasp at straws. "I'm a Gemini."

Ana rolls onto her stomach, propping her head up with her elbow. "Oh Nice. I'm a Sagittarius but come on. You don't have anything better than that?"

I shrug. I wasn't sure what she'd like to hear. "I'm not the best when it comes to talking about myself."

"Hmm," Ana hums. "What about your gift? You mentioned being gifted so what's your superpower?"

"I'm able to bend magic and utilize it how I please."

"So like a witch?"

"Uh, kinda." I say, letting her roll with it for her sake and mine. "I don't need all the ingredients though."

She sits up criss cross. "Will you do a spell for me?"

"Sure. What do you want?"

"Anything." She says, already sounding wistful.

I think for a moment, letting myself really pay attention to our surroundings. With my mind made up, it worked to give Ana the show she craved.

Soon enough, all of the birds in the garden congregated here. Blue jays, robins, brown ones and black ones all came to our little clearing.

Ana giggles, amazed as she reaches her hand out to a small finch. Her eyes wide as saucers when it hops onto her finger. "This is amazing," she gasps.

A happiness spreads from my heart to my toes. I let the birds go, releasing them from my magic's call.

It was a beautiful sight to see them all fly off, vanishing into the undergrowth.

"Thank you," Ana says.

"It was nothing."

"I wish I could do magic like that." Ana muses. "Maybe my mom could have taught me something if she didn't hide herself."

I shake my head in disagreement. "I don't know Ana. Your mom probably had her reasons. This world can be really dangerous. I'm not sure I'd want my child in it either."

She frowns, "I guess so." Ana stands up, offering her hand up.

I take it, half expecting another jolt of electricity to sizzle through me. It doesn't.

"Come on," she says. "Let's explore more of the garden. They have a maze here and it's huge. I saw one enter and never come out. I wonder what a bunch of vampires have hiding in there."

A daring twinkle dances in her eye, enticing me so much that I grow excited myself, answering her call to adventure. I grin back, feeling that, in that specific moment, I'd follow her anywhere.

[virmillion]

Coffee’s for Closers

alternative title: lab has absolutely no chill when airing out their dirty laundry

Summary: Virgil is a barista. Logan is a barista. Everyone is gay—it's just that this gayness only occurs at Logan's cafe. Warnings: cursing, rude customers and coworkers, let me know if you think of any more Ships: romantic analogical, romantic royality, platonic LAMP+Remy Words: 22,222

Check it out on ao3!

    Grande white mocha latte. Steam milk to the third line, four pumps of syrup, two shots of espresso, put on a sleeve, pour the milk, whipped cream, lid, hand it off, next. Kid’s hot chocolate. Steam milk to the bottom line at one-twenty seven degrees, two pumps mocha, one pump vanilla, pour the milk, whipped cream, lid, hand it off, next. Venti iced caramel macchiato upside down with coconut milk and an extra shot. Pull two shots of espresso into each teacup, six hits of vanilla in the cup, espresso over the vanilla, coconut milk to the top line, ice to the rim, caramel drizzle of seven vertical, seven horizontal, two circles, lid, hand it off, next. This is literally the only thing running through Virgil’s mind anymore.

    Alright, maybe not the only thing. There is the odd customer who gets annoyed at receiving a small cup when they asked for a tall, because ‘I thought tall meant large!’ and Virgil has had just about enough of people not understanding the price difference. There’s also a regular here and there that hands off their reusable cup with a grin, so he can fill it with caramel and decaf and nonfat milk for the regular’s wife, and the guy can get a tall pike place roast with caramel syrup in a grande cup, and Virgil can hand it off and feel proud of himself for knowing a regular’s order so precisely. Oh, and lest we not forget the ever-present parents thinking it’s cool to let their toddlers run wild and knock down his signs and spill drinks everywhere because ‘it’s okay, honey, he gets paid to clean that up!’

    Okay, so there are several things running through Virgil’s mind right now. At this incredibly specific moment, one of those several things is the fact that he only has to survive twelve. More. Minutes. With the literal worst coworker on the face of the earth. He can’t speak to the quality of workers beneath the earth’s crust—sorry, team members—but for air breathing losers such as he, his buddy here just. Takes the damn cake. Stole the candles. Blew out his wish. On his birthday. Without a birthday gift. Spit on the frosting. Grabbed two chunks with her bare hands. Ate them like a toddler. Complained when she was the only one eating cake. Took the cake anyway.

    Virgil doesn’t particularly care for cake.

    “Hey, how’re you doing?” Kim asks the next guest, plastering the absolute fakest smile Virgil has ever seen on her face. Like, he’s pretty sure it’s bordering on genuine. That’s how fake it is.

    Virgil doesn’t particularly care for Kim, either.

    “I’m good, how’re you?” the guest replies, staring up at the trifold menu and holding up a line of seven people behind them because they didn’t have the foresight to decide on a drink during the fifteen minutes they spent in line. “I’ll take a grande salted caramel mocha.” Virgil ignores Kim as she delivers the spiel about the limited supply of whipped cream, instead focusing on the measurements of all the drinks waiting to be finished. Sure, he admires that one lady for getting eight shots of espresso—he could definitely do with some of what she’s having—but her drink is doing a terrible job of holding up the line when their dinky little store only has one mastrena.

    Ten minutes.

    “Venti double quad for Debra?” Virgil calls, ignoring the line of drinks that haven’t been claimed yet. Seriously, if these people are as intent as they seem to be on getting out of here quickly, you’d think they’d jump at the chance to take their drinks. Virgil doesn’t really care either way, as he only has to survive nine more minutes.

    “Hey, we need a milk run before tomorrow,” Virgil tells Kim, shuffling down the line of drinks. To be fair, they’re moving much more quickly now that the whole espresso machine isn’t focused on one drink from five minutes ago. “Want me to do it?”

    “Ugh, yeah,” Kim groans, rolling her eyes. She waves off the concerned look from the next guest, eyeing Virgil’s obscenely long queue of drinks. “I’ll finish those up, you go get the milk, peace out in ten?”

    “Something like that,” Virgil agrees, topping off the last row of grande hot chocolates. “You know where the button is for extra help?”

    “Duh, of course I know where it is.” Rather than give a sarcastic remark to her attitude—which is what he wants more than anything—Virgil smiles brightly, pushing his way past the swinging door and straightening the hat that never sits quite right on his head. In the near back, he pulls out his constantly dying phone to snap a picture of the barren fridge. All the way to the back of the main store and into the freezer, he trundles one of the squeaky-wheeled carts between the aisles, dodging oblivious mothers and manspreading dudes with man-buns and ratty tennis shoes.

    “Okay, twenty two blue, five pink, seven red,” Virgil mumbles to himself, double- and triple-checking the picture to reassure himself of what they need. “Maybe just seventeen blue, five pink, five red.” These corrections continue as he sets about pulling every jug he can find from the crates, absently tugging down his sleeves as the cold sends goosebumps skittering over his skin. “Two more red, maybe a few half and half?” Thinking back, he’s pretty sure corporate didn’t ship any half and half this week, either. Sunday’s gonna be a blast. “Still no heavy whipping cream, no surprise there. The rations thin. The plot chickens.” Allowing himself a small laugh at his own nonsense, Virgil backs the cart out of the fridge and deepens his chronic slouch to put more force behind the wheels. They squeal and scream in protest as he shoves the—trolley? Is that what they call it?—back to the front, practically spilling it everywhere as he swerves around a narrow corner to avoid a stray child pinballing off the end cap displays.

    Finally at the near back again, Virgil fights with the cart to get it through the doors and over the floor mats covering the little alley, very nearly ramming his head into the sink when the wheels free themselves with no warning. “Okay, freakin’ ow,” he mutters, rubbing the bruise on his side from the impact. “Whatever, just a few more minutes, and I can go somewhere that doesn’t totally suck or drain the life from its patrons.”

    True to his word, Virgil eventually succeeds in restocking the rest of the milks, popping his head out to check on Kim’s status in regards to whether she’ll survive the next three minutes. One severely long line that’s steadily trickling out, most of them with drinks in hand, and if the flurry of legs outside the shuttered window is anything to go by, another slam is hot on its heels. Virgil tosses out a flippant farewell to Kim and makes a break for the punch clock, having absolutely no desire to stick around for the hell that awaits.

    “Okay, cool, cool, love driving in the rain, favorite part of my Saturday,” Virgil sighs, glancing at the window. If nothing else, should customers not be deterred by the weather? Seriously, just go home. Go home!

    Of course, no one is listening to Virgil’s complaints. All too aware of this fact, he rolls his shoulders forward to shrug on a hoodie over his work-mandated black shirt—at least the uniform doesn’t suck, he supposes. Flipping his hood up to protect his hair and tucking in his earbuds, Virgil strolls out into the clogged aisles of people and things, easily blending in with the other loners that would rather be literally anywhere else, were it not for their families dragging them along. Virgil has no such ties, and accordingly escapes from the store with ease.

    And no, he won’t lie—Virgil absolutely walks slower in the rain to the beat of the song in his ears, and he absolutely imagines some cheesy pathetic music video happening around him, and he absolutely would deny that if you confronted him with it.

    By the time Virgil reaches his car—neon blue, mind you, because it was the cheapest model he could afford—his hoodie is sopping wet, and he has had just about enough of this whole ‘existing’ nonsense for today. But no, no, he wants to go to that new cafe one of the regulars told him about. Stupid stubbornness. Of course, he’s too stubborn to get rid of it. So. On he drives.

    You might think this is where the stars align—where Virgil stumbles his way into a warm cafe from a cold car, where he bumps into his soulmate on first sight, where he knows in an instant that this is where he belongs, that this new place is the home he was always meant to find.

    You would be wrong.

    “Damn broken phone,” Virgil scowls, shaking his phone as the screen refuses to wake up, despite being at a solid seventy percent. He keeps his gaze toward his shoes and the tiled floor beneath them, pressing the home and lock buttons harder than he probably needs to. “If anyone dares to so much as look at me the wrong way, I am chucking you out the window and letting you electrocute yourself like a tiny toaster in the rain.”

    “—Upside down, iced, and pick your poison for the milk,” the person waiting at the register is saying, leaning forward as if they have all the time in the world. Virgil’s frown deepens as the person starts to socialize with the barista.

    “Ah, Roman? I believe there might be someone waiting behind you,” the barista says, their voice carrying over past the pompous person that’s basically a wall at this point. As the guest scuttles away to wait for his drink, the barista beckons Virgil forward, saying, “sorry about him. Never seems to understand that other people occupy this world besides himself.”

    “It certainly would appear that way, wouldn’t it?” Virgil says out of the corner of his mouth, not looking up to meet the barista’s eyes. Regardless of whether they’re the social type, he isn’t about to find out the hard way. The hard way being the only way, of course. Virgil does not want to talk to this person, is what he’s saying. “I’ll just take a small of whatever the cheapest thing you have is that isn’t brewed coffee. Please.”

    “Sure, that’ll be one fifty.”

    “Keep the change.” Virgil passes over the first crumpled bill he can find in his pocket—a five—and moves for a table around the corner of the bar to wait. According to that regular, the baristas here are competent enough to hunt down the guests when their drinks are done. So. Hiding around the corner. His modus operandi.

    The worn chair at a table for two is more than welcoming enough, offering a decent view of the crying clouds outside and the over-soaked flowers decorating the windowsill. Virgil dusts off the plum colored seat, which probably used to be plush when it was new—at this point, it’s so well-loved that there can’t be more than an inch of fabric separating Virgil’s rear from the wooden underside. He tucks one leg beneath himself, propping the other foot along the reddish brown window edge. The beaten-up greys and purples of his sneakers offer a painful contrast to the flowers, shining dull under the relentless rain.

    “Hey, haven’t seen you here before,” a new voice says. The same guy that was bugging the barista plonks himself down across from Virgil, pressing his nose to the window. What was his name, Ho Man? “Did the rain scare you away from a main chain trash place like Starbucks?” Rather than dignify him with a response, Virgil holds up the too-small black cap he’s supposed to wear to work. Proudly displayed in white stitches is the Starbucks logo. The way Ho Man’s face turns beet red as he fumbles to cover up the mistake is almost enough to make Virgil laugh. Almost. “Okay, wait, I didn’t mean—it’s not like I wanted to—obviously I don’t disrespect your profession—not that it’s like you have to have it! I mean, unless you like it, but I didn’t want to assume—that’s what they always say about assuming, isn’t it, ass out of you and me, right?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Okay, yeah, yeah, cool! I, uh, I’m just gonna—I’m gonna go sit over there now.” Ho Man jabs his thumb back over his shoulder, loudly scraping his chair back under the table as he stumbles over his own feet in a mad scramble for the front area of the cafe.

    “He seems fun,” Virgil mumbles to himself, resting his chin on a knee and pressing his forehead to the window. Out in the parking lot—if you can even call it that, it’s basically just ten rectangles that happen to be outlined in white—his car looks incredibly crowded in. Neon blue trapped by dark greys and flat reds, all of them reduced to shields sending rain shooting to the concrete.

    A few tables away, Ho Man has plonked himself at a bigger table, facing off with someone turned away from Virgil. They certainly seem to be in deep conversation about something, but Virgil doesn’t care enough to figure out what, much less elaborate on it. To drown out the light conversation of a considerable amount of quiet patrons around him, he digs his laptop out of his shoulder bag and unfolds it on the table. In any fantasy story he’s ever imagined, this is probably the part where his one true love appears in the vacant chair across from him, reaching out to close the laptop and reveal sparkling blue eyes that dance like the stars on a dark and clear night.

    Yeah, no thanks.

    “There you go, cheapest thing we’ve got that isn’t brewed coffee,” the barista says, appearing very much in Virgil’s field of view to hand over a ceramic mug decorated with tinier cups in every shade of blue and purple. “Apple cider with cinnamon and caramel.”

    “That’s the cheapest thing you’ve got?” Virgil sputters in disbelief. “That’s, like, four bucks at a chain place.”

    “I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized we were on par with a ‘chain place,’” the barista replies, making air quotes around the words. “Anyway, make sure you return the mug when you leave. If you take it with you, bring it back next time for a refill, five cent discount.”

    “Seriously? Cool,” Virgil says, reaching for the mug as the barista turns away. “Seems like a good way to encourage people to steal the mug if you ask me, but alright.” The barista hesitates, looking from the bar to Virgil and back. No guests demanding service. Without asking permission or begging forgiveness, the barista slips into the seat across from Virgil. “Yeah, sure, have a seat.” Virgil closes his laptop, bringing the mug to his lips.

    “So I’m not even going to ask whether this is your first time, since it’s pretty obvious,” the barista says. “For one, you didn’t even make eye contact when you ordered your drink, which, okay, rude, and for another, you don’t know the system with the mugs, not to mention that you didn’t even say hi to—”

    “Yeah, yeah, cool, great, can I just enjoy my cheap drink in peace here?” Virgil interrupts. He certainly wouldn’t admit it if this guy asked, but it’s better than what they make at Starbucks. “Yes, my first time, I don’t like eye contact, I certainly don’t like conversation—actually, come to think of it, I have a long list of dislikes, and you are quickly working your way to the top. Please go away.”

    “My name’s Remy.” The barista sticks his hand out, prompting Virgil to merely stare at it with thinly veiled disdain until he retracts it with an awkward laugh. “I run this place with my brother, since he bought the building when the lister needed to move before the taxes got too high, and he pulled me in on the deal for my sparkling charisma—”

    “Of which you have none.”

    “—and because he likes dealing with the numbers more. He’s actually sitting right over—”

    “Don’t care. Why are you sitting here?” Remy wags a finger at Virgil, biting his lower lip and puffing out his cheeks. “Spring a leak much?”

    “Mostly ’cause I was bored. You seem interesting, I don’t know. Thought I could educate you on the mystical ways of how we don’t go bankrupt from people stealing our mugs.”

    “Okay, yeah, sure, cool. Great. Educate away. Special tip, though? You kind of suck at educating so far. Like, a lot.”

    “Noted. We’re small enough that we don’t get many guests, and the ones that come in pretty often usually have their own mugs reserved. Picked yours out for you when I saw you walk in. Brand new, never used. Just for you. So special.”

    “Alright, let’s lay off the dramatically short sentences, Mettaton. You still haven’t convinced me why I should care.”

    “I mean, I think you’re cute, so there’s that. Anyway, we use the same mugs for our regulars, and we get so few one-timers that we barely ever lose a cup. Even when we do, they normally come back out of guilt for keeping the cup, and get another drink at a crap discount. That’s our motto, you know? Come for the guilt, stay for the five cents you save. Well, not really our motto. We don’t have a motto. I’ve always wanted one, but we never set one in stone, since my brother isn’t exactly into all that stuff. Speaking of which, you wanna meet him? He’s right over—”

    “I do not want to meet your brother,” Virgil says. He shakes his head, trying to force his mind to register Remy’s nonstop babbling. “I literally just want to finish my drink in peace.”

    “You’ll be back,” Remy replies, tapping out a rhythm on the table. “The cute ones always come back.”

    “I have literally never wanted to come back to a place less than I do right now. Please go away.” Finally, miracle of miracles, Remy takes the hint, scraping his chair back and moving for the table where Ho Man is still chatting up whoever it is that probably doesn’t want him there.

    Alone once more, Virgil exhales, scraping off part of the dollop of whipped cream on his drink with a finger. Before the caramel drizzle can drip down his hand, he fwips it off with a sharp inhale, pretending like he doesn’t care that he’d probably be drawing thousands of weird looks if anyone were paying attention. Over at Ho Man’s table, Remy slams his fists down on the tiled surface, making the collection of mismatched mugs bounce around dangerously. Ho Man’s friend relaxes their perfect posture by half an inch before straightening again as Remy leans forward to whisper something. Virgil quickly shifts his focus to stare out the window.

    While the rain seems to finally be letting up, its aftereffects are long from forgotten. Orange tulips and red roses in the distance are wobbling on thin stems, desperately holding onto the last of their leaves as the wind does everything it can to wrench them away. Even the trees are mourning the early summer storm, their overgrown leaves tearing away and drifting across the streets to stick themselves to windows. Virgil fights back the urge to recoil as a particularly large leaf smacks into the other side of the glass, tiny drops of water peeling away to race for the flowerbed below.

    When he lifts the mug to his mouth again, it’s empty. Smalls are always so much smaller than larges. Time to go.

    “Hey, uh, where do I, um…?” Virgil calls to Remy as he moves for the door, lifting his empty cup as indication. “Like, do I just leave it on the table, or…?”

    “Just keep it,” Remy replies, waving off Virgil’s annoyed sigh. “Seriously, keep it.”

    “Seriously, no.” Rather than take the mug and run, which would be immensely gratifying if it were, you know, actually against the rules, he deposits it on the island with cream and sugar for coffee. Dammit, even their carts are nicer than the crappy little nothings that Starbucks has.

    “See you later?” Remy yells as Virgil wills the door to close faster behind him.

    “Maybe. Probably not, but maybe.” Before the bell over the door frame has even finished chiming, Virgil is already at his car, not bothering to dodge the few remaining raindrops. “Weirdo. Hate to see how much of a disaster his brother is.”

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

    “How long, exactly, did you talk to that poor guy?” Remy appears none too impressed by the question, much less the implication of how annoying he probably was to said poor guy.

    “Look, bro, he looked lonely, I thought I’d just pop in on his day and—”

    “And encourage him to leave my cafe without taking the mug for a discount next time? Try harder to cover for yourself. And stop calling me ‘bro,’ it makes you sound like a teenager.”

    “Alright, Logan,” Remy retorts, letting the mocking tone dangle in the air, “FYI, I am a teenager, so lay off for a hot sec, why don’t you?”

    “I would rather not. Don’t use acronyms out loud, you sound like a preteen. You turned twenty last week. Roman, kindly refrain from displaying the inside of your mouth like that.”

    “Dude, what? Happy birthday, man! Why didn’t you tell me?” Roman demands, leaning his elbows on the table and forcefully inserting himself into a conversation where he’s decidedly not welcome.

    “I’m having a surprise party for myself,” Remy hisses in a stage whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, Logan thinks I don’t know about it.”

    “I am not planning you a surprise party,” Logan says. “There is literally not one person planning you a surprise party, in this cafe or otherwise. Go help that next guest, I never said you could take a break for this long, anyway.”

    “You aren’t the boss of me,” Remy grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching lower in his chair.

    “Technically, I am, having been the one to buy the place, not to mention that I was born first. Go help the next guest.” Logan rolls his eyes as Remy trudges over to the bar, a completely different demeanor washing over him like a wave as he steps behind the register and turns into a cheerful mannequin. Shifting his focus back to Roman, Logan presses his glasses up higher on his nose and releases a low, steady, frustrated groan.

    “Talk to me, man, what’s goin’ on?” Roman asks. “Are you really that mad that what’s-his-nuts didn’t take his mug? You didn’t even pick it out, Remy did.”

    “Mmm, no, that’s not it.” Logan rubs his knuckles against a sore spot on his forehead, considering Roman’s earnest look. “We haven’t been doing too well in sales lately, not that many new guests coming in, much less any of them returning for the discount, and I’m still waiting on your list of ideas for how to make myself more welcoming.”

    “Well, for one, don’t dump all your emotional baggage on the first person to ask.” Roman waves his hands quickly as Logan moves to get up, trying to fan whatever flames of frustration are boiling in his brain. “Kidding! Kidding, I am totally, completely, legit-ly kidding.”

    “Legitimately.”

    “Tomato, potato.”

    “To-mah-to.”

    “I’m pretty sure it’s tomato. Anyways, I did draw up that list for you, which, objectively, is the literal best thing in existence ever to be created. In existence. Ever. Objectively.” To be perfectly frank, Logan is incredibly close to shutting the cafe down and locking himself in the fridge to cool down, both literally and figuratively. Nevertheless, he endures, propping his chin on his fist and sighing heavily as Roman draws a stack of bent and ruffled papers out from who-knows-where. At the very least, if Roman’s antics don’t put him out of business, he’ll be able to end the month with a bang. Maybe.

    Roman smooths out the uppermost pages on the tiled table, letting the bottom sheets flare out like a background for the top nonsense. Pointing to each piece of paper as it comes up,  he fumbles his way through the chaos, periodically looking up to make sure Logan is paying attention. Against better judgement, he is.

    “Okay, so first off, it’s June, right? Pride month, bay-bee! Break out a new collection of mugs—”

    “I am not changing the mugs.”

    “He is not changing the mugs,” Remy seconds, returning from the last guest.

    “Alright, alright, truce, no new mugs. I know you don’t totally go for the pizzazz side of things, but—and hear me out here, just something small—we could put different colors of powder on each drink, like purple sprinkles on a latte can be called a purple drink—”

    “We cannot do that, Starbucks already has pink and violet drinks, and I will not associate with them.” Logan straightens his glasses again, pulling one piece of paper out from beneath the rest. “Are all of these ideas centered around pride month?”

    “No,” Roman grumbles, scraping about half of the papers off the table. “I do think it would be cool if you did pride stuff, though. Show support to everyone.”

    “Me, in particular,” Remy cuts in. “Show some support to my gay ass.”

    “Your ass is trans.”

    “What’s your point?”

    “I guess I don’t have one, Remy. Roman, please, if you would?” Logan gestures with his hand, indicating for Roman to find a new thread of ideas to follow. The watch on his waving wrist boasts of closing time rapidly drawing near, as a solid third of his patrons slowly head for the door, carefully selected mugs clutched between their fingers.

    “Right. Okay, so you said no new mugs, and you said no pride stuff, and you said no fun, so let me just jot that down, and we’ll keep going.”

    “I said no new mugs, I asked for different pride stuff that wouldn’t infringe on corporate coffee franchises, and fun is a subjective measurement on behalf of our patrons. Drop the attitude, or I’m cutting you off.”

    “What? No, I’m your best customer!” Roman whines, wearing a pout for a good few seconds before continuing. “I really do think some nice decorations would probably help the atmosphere, maybe string up some white fairy lights around the ceiling? I know you hate those, but they do wonders for how the interior looks once it’s dark outside. Turn off the main lights, turn on the tiny ones, and bam, you’ve got a fairytale date night. Literally.”

    “I don’t think you know what literally means.”

    “I also think you should hire me. Not with obscenely high pay, I know how frugal you try to be, but Remy and I are basically your best bets for customer service. Let me cover the shifts when he disappears for clubs and stuff, you can make the drinks as precise as you like, and I’ll chat up the guests to keep the drinks coming. If nothing else, it’ll train me for how I should exist in the real world.”

    “You’ve existed in the real world for years without working in a cafe.”

    “What’s your point?”

    Logan is very well aware by this point that the conversation is going nowhere. A few decent ideas, a few pieces of nonsense, and that’s about it. As such, he snaps the piece of paper he already grabbed, watching the top stand at attention at the peak of its arc.

    “I guess I don’t have one. Remy, please, if you would?” Struck by how he’d unintentionally repeated himself, Logan shifts his focus to the paper, blowing a long breath out through puffed cheeks. “We’re supposed to close up soon, and I sincerely do not have the willpower to do it tonight. I have way too many things to deal with behind the scenes, and I can’t just—”

    “Say no more,” Remy interrupts, plucking the paper from Logan’s hands. “Sit here, close your eyes, don’t do anything. I’ll teach Roman how to make your usual.”

    “Seven extra shots,” Logan murmurs, dropping his head to rest on the table. “Actually, make it eight. Please.”

    “Yeah, no, we’re only gonna give him hot tea,” Remy whispers to Roman, dragging him away from the table. A heavy exhale from Logan sends a few more sheets of paper fluttering to the floor. “He doesn’t get caffeine until he can go a full night without waking up to finish whatever piece of work he forgot about.”

    “And you think he can’t tell there’s no espresso in that?” Roman asks, watching Remy move as quietly as possible, considering that he’s dealing with the sound of metal on metal.

    “Oh, no, he can definitely tell. We’re both lying to each other, it’s kind of our thing, you know?”

    “Sounds like a great sibling rivalry.”

    “You could say that. Here, put these gloves on, protects from germs and junk when you’re handling the tea bag.” As the last dredges of guests file out of the cafe, most of them pausing to knock gently on the table in lieu of a soft goodbye to Logan, Remy and Roman fall into an amicable silence.

    “Maybe the pride powder would be fun?” Logan mumbles to himself, dragging his chin to his chest so only his forehead rests on the tiles. “Or I could get some food coloring, dye the whipped creams? We definitely don’t have the funds for colorful cups or anything like that, but maybe I could put a little colored dot on the bottom of each cup, have random chance dictate what color whip they get? But then I might not meet the demands, we could run out of food coloring, run out of whip, it doesn’t let me appeal to vegans or people who abstain from dairy products, not to mention that the color might leech into the actual drink. Maybe the fairy lights, just as a summer thing for softer lighting, quiet hours once they go on, I could probably get some people to do open mic stuff or something, clear out a couple tables…”

    Logan lets his words trail off at the sound of Remy plunking a drink beside his head, and while he knows very well that there’s no caffeine in the cup, he downs the whole thing in one go. Roman appears behind Remy, offering an identical drink in a bigger cup.

    “Whoa, try coming up for air bro—brother of mine. Brother. Is what I was going to say. Was brother. And not bro. Brother.” Remy excuses himself to finish dealing with closing up the bar, letting Roman reclaim his seat across from Logan.

    “Hey, buddy, you want to maybe get home, get some sleep?”

    “Yeah, probably,” Logan mumbles, not lifting his head from the table. “Still got so much to do, though. Barely even touched most of your ideas.”

    “Oh, please, you tore them to shreds!” Logan allows himself the smallest of smiles at that, shaking the back of his head and pressing his forehead deeper into the table. There’s probably a pattern of indents appearing on his skin by now. “And we didn’t even get to the best ones, which you can tackle tomorrow, after you get some sleep.”

    “Get some sleep!” Remy echoes, flitting between the sinks with every possible piece of dishware in the building. “But not at home. Go hang out at Roman’s.”

    Roman splutters indignantly, sending the rest of the papers flying. One lands over Logan’s head like a blanket. He does not remove it. “Why does he have to come to my place?”

    Although he can’t see it happening, Logan would wager a good fifty dollars that Remy has positioned himself atop one of the counters that food doesn’t touch in a dramatic pose. “Because he literally lives at work. Like, the next floor up. He needs to get some distance from this place. Plus, I mean, look at him. I’m not putting him up for the night.”

    “I’m the one paying your rent,” Logan retorts to the floor, watching his heels and toes click together.

    “You’re also the one keeping me awake at three in the morning because you had a sudden idea and are seemingly incapable of restraining yourself from writing with a squeaky marker on a squeaky whiteboard, but no one’s asking me. Just go with Roman. Roman, take him. I am not asking you, I am telling you. Take. Logan.”

    “Taking Logan,” Roman confirms. “Come on, Logan. I, Roman, am taking you, Logan. Onward, to my house, owned by a man named Roman, where I am taking Logan!”

    “Shut up, you goof.” Remy’s semi-humored tone is accompanied by the sound of what is probably a balled-up napkin punting Roman in the head, but Logan still isn’t paying enough attention to see. When he hears Roman’s chair scraping into place, he forces himself to stand on exhausted legs.

    Once he sees Logan steady on his feet, Roman shouts, “dibs on the bed!” and runs for the door. Logan offers a half-hearted wave to Remy before trudging after Roman, wincing against the ringing bell. Sure, the tea was good, but it does absolutely nothing to help his flagging energy.

    “Why would I ever want to take your bed over the couch?” Logan mutters, barely stifling a yawn as he slides into Roman’s bright red car. “Moreover, you knew it was supposed to rain today. Why on earth did you not close your windows?”

    “Because I like how it looks better with the windows down.”

    “I want to make sure that you are aware that we are currently sitting on wet leather, and that your steering wheel is drenched beyond belief. Are you aware that we are currently sitting on wet leather, and that your steering wheel is drenched beyond belief?”

    “I am aware of whatever it is you just said. Now be quiet, I can’t have you talking if I want to see the road.” Logan doesn’t bother to explain just how many levels of incorrect that is, instead reclining in the passenger seat and removing his glasses to watch the lights float by in blurry spirals of red and yellow. “So how ’bout that new guy?”

    “What, the one that Remy assigned a mug to based on first sight? Yeah, no, just another guest. What about him?”

    “Well, super cute, for one, and you’ll never believe this, but he actually works at—” Roman cuts himself off, glancing at a very much asleep Logan. “Alright, fine, I won’t tell you. Let you work it out for yourself.” With that, Roman turns up the radio and hums along quietly, careful to keep the noise low, to let Logan rest. Until tomorrow, at least, when Roman has every intention of screwing with his friends’ love life.

    Come on, you’ve gotta let Roman have some fun.

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

    “Ma’am, I’m sorry, we really don’t have blond espresso beans here, and we don’t have blond roast, and we don’t have decaf roast, as our shipment doesn’t come in ’til tomorrow. Is there anything else we can help you with?” To tell the truth, it is taking every single miniscule last ounce of willpower for Virgil not to vault over this counter and punch the very nice lady in the face.

    “Okay, but could you just do a blond pour over?” The very nice lady seems to be getting very agitated, but Virgil very much does not care. “Like, I get that you don’t have blond roast brewed, but I’m willing to wait for a while for a pour over.”

    Virgil is incredibly close to having to physically restrain himself from saying you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, since that’s when your stupid shipment will come in. Instead, he continues, “Sorry, no, we can’t do that. No blond roast beans.”

    “Yeah, but I’m not asking for blond roast beans. I am asking for a blond pour over.”

    “Pour over machine’s broke,” Virgil finally sighs. Yeah, sure, it just takes a small filter and some hot water, but he doesn’t have the patience for this person, much less to find any missing blond beans. So. Broken and nonexistent machine.

    “Oh, well that’s perfectly understandable!” the very nice lady says. “I’ll just take a medium blond roast, then.”

    Virgil leans over to grab Kim’s shoulder, pulling her closer to hiss in her ear, “if there are any hammers in here, you need to find and hide them immediately, because it will end up inside of this lady’s skull, and it will then find mine in quick succession. Fix her situation, I’ll catch up on the hot bar drinks.” Kim nods quickly, and Virgil is half-convinced that she thinks he’s serious. Maybe he is.

    Nonetheless, he moves past her for the mastrena machine, praying for the end of his shift to come quickly and with reckless abandon. It does not.

    “Grande affogato vanilla bean frap for Jenna?” he calls, handing off the espresso-drenched smoothie. “Thanks, have a nice day.” She probably says something or other about him having a good one,  but Virgil doesn’t even bother pretending to care, already busying himself with the next drink. “Couldn’t’ve possibly picked a better day to start grinding beans slower,” he mutters, wincing against the comparatively louder screams from steaming coconut milk. Of literally all the times for the mastrena to decide that it was being too efficient with the espresso, this is the worst time imaginable—smack dab in the middle of a rush of people, none of whom understand the concept of ‘not having blond espresso.’

    “Venti iced americano in a trenta cup with extra ice for Matthias?”

    The end of his shift literally cannot come fast enough.

    “Okay, dude, I’m really trying here, but I have absolutely no idea what this says,” Virgil informs Kim, showing her the illegible box on the cup. “You need to write the order down, and when you do, you need to make it possible for the most basic computer to decipher.”

    “It’s a salted caramel mocha with two extra shots and almond milk instead of two percent for Tommy,” Kim says. It does not slip Virgil’s notice that she has to squint incredibly close at the cup for a solid five seconds to figure out what it says.

    “Awesome. Great. Try to write it more neatly next time, yeah?” Finding a rare moment of gratefulness for his constantly cold hands, Virgil presses a frozen finger to his temple as he waits for the machine to finish rinsing. Is his shift over yet?

    Miracle of miracles, his boss, Anne, pops her head around the corner of the bar. “Hey, Virge, call for you guys, I’m covering food av, can you take it?” Virgil plasters a fake smile on his face and nods, neglecting to comment on how he never agreed to that nickname as he accepts the phone.

“Gainesville Starbucks north, this is Kim speaking, how can I help you?”

“Breakfast sandwiches.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Breakfast. Sandwiches.”

“I, ah, I apologize, I’m unclear what you’re asking me.”

“Breakfast sandwiches! You got any?”

“Oh! Yes, um, we’ve got tomato mozzarella paninis, sausage egg and cheddar sandwiches, ham and cheese croissants, turkey basil—and they hung up. Cool.” Virgil nods at the dial tone coming from his hand, quirking his mouth to the side. “Just, uh, just gonna stick that right down there.” Dropping the phone on a nearby counter, he returns to the hot bar, where Kim is absolutely drowning in the chaos she caused by sucking so much.

“Virge? Seriously?”

“If you even think about calling me that, I am going to go find that hammer I was talking about and bury it in your spine.” Kim pulls her lips between her teeth and nods, turning back to the register. Sniffing twice, Virgil tops off the next round of drinks. “Salted caramel mocha, two extra shots and almond milk for Tommy?”

“Hey, Virge, over here,” Anne calls again. “Need to see you for a sec.” Virgil bites back a relieved huff for the break from Kim, instead settling for a long exhale through his nose. No, he doesn’t really care for the nickname, but he’ll suffer through it for a brief reprieve like this.

“What’s up?” he asks, leaning over the swinging door. “’Nother phone call?”

“No, it’s just—you’ve got a lot of overtime, you know that?” Virgil glances back at Kim, who is currently occupied with trying to find the serious strawberry frappuccino button.

“Frapp creme, second row, last on the right,” he calls, taking great pride in how he doesn’t roll his eyes at her. Turning back to Anne, he continues, “yeah, I kind of have to have a lot, since she’s kind of, you know…” Virgil trails off, hoping Anne is enough on his page to fill in the blanks.

“Drowning? Yeah, I noticed. You’re doing a great job carrying her, you know that?”

Virgil pokes a tongue against his cheek, unsure how to respond. “I mean, I’ve only been here a couple months.”

“You’re really doing great. Anyway, too much overtime for you, and we aren’t supposed to be letting team members have any overtime. You think you’d be good to head home early?”

“There’s nothing that would make me happier, but are you sure she’ll be okay with this on her own?”

“Definitely not, which is why I’m here. I’ll relieve your position, but you need to get going, like, now.” If Virgil were a more confident person, he would take Anne by both hands and press them to his lips in a show of relieved thankfulness. As it stands, he snaps and offers her a pair of finger guns, skirting the swinging door and making a run for the break room before Anne can change her mind.

“No human has ever existed with a better soul than Anne,” he murmurs, punching out faster than he’d ever done so before. There’s a certain cafe he’s interested in getting to a little earlier today.

In his car, Virgil hisses lightly as he scrapes his bare wrist against the scalding metal of the seat belt buckle. Now safely secured and ready to go, he queues up the route to the cafe on his maps, bopping his head along as a song starts up on the radio. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, he chants in his head, getting through a solid twenty songs on shuffle before finding one he likes.

The lights of the streets, not yet bright as they battle the sun for dominance over the mid-afternoon sky, pepper the sidewalks with golden flecks between the cracks of beige and white. Virgil tilts his head to avoid the glare of the light reflecting in his eyes, skipping through his chosen song before it’s over. As he flicks on his indicator to pull into the cafe’s parking lot, he belatedly wonders whether the owners will start to think he’s weird for showing up this often. Especially that Remy guy, what was his deal?

This worry chases him past several traffic lights and more than a few disconcertingly fast drivers, right up to pulling into the same parking spot as yesterday—decently far from the doors, but not so far that it’d be a hassle to get there if he happened to be holding seven cups of coffee. He shifts into reverse, triple-checking that he’s perfectly within the lines before parking the car and sliding out.

A cold breeze swipes over his face, startlingly out of place in the mid-June heat. Were it not for this abnormality giving him pause, maybe he would’ve gotten inside safely without drawing the attention of the silver car careening into the parking lot. It beeps brightly as it pulls into the furthest spot from the door, spitting out a driver dressed in bright blues and pale greys.

“Virge, hey, you made it! I was wondering whether you’d ever listened to my suggestions!” he calls, running over to Virgil and ignoring how his loose sleeves smack against his chin. “Find your way okay?”

“I mean, I’m here, so I guess I did.” Virgil shrugs, electing not to comment on the forbidden nickname that he would punch Kim in the face for using again. “And anyway, I always listen to your suggestions. Come here, try your usual—not a fan, by the way—and call you Pat. I’m not really one for nicknames, either, so I’d rather stick with Patton, if that’s okay with you.”

“Whatever makes you happiest!” Patton replies, taking Virgil by the hand and swinging it violently as he leads the barista inside. “So did you get to meet the owner yet, or is this your first time? I can introduce you to—”

“Pantone!” Remy exclaims, vaulting over the register counter to greet Patton. Virgil steps aside, bumping into someone’s shoulders and muttering his apologies as they leave. “I haven’t seen you around here in forever, what the heck, man? Hanging around with the cutest riffraff in town, I see.” Virgil scowls, moving for the register and scanning his eyes over the menus. Handwritten in white chalk, they look much more personal than the ones at Starbucks. Maybe not very colorful, but nice enough.

“Remy, how many times have I told you not to let any part of your body make contact with that counter? It doesn’t know where you’ve been,” someone scolds from a nearby table. The same person Ho Man and Remy were tormenting yesterday. Remy ignores them, still chatting up a storm with Patton. The person sighs, pushing back from a table covered in loose papers and moving to the register.

Virgil sizes them up as they walk, inspecting their carefully strict gait, the tie cinched perfectly around their neck, the strict khakis with only the most uniform of creases. If Virgil didn’t know better, he’d swear they were going out for a job interview at some craphole like Starbucks.

“Sorry about Remy. Little brothers, what can I do, right? What can I get started for you?” Virgil doesn’t answer, his gaze fixated on a speck of dirt marring their sharp glasses. They blink, waiting patiently and having no idea of where Virgil’s attention is directed.

Ho Man appears from around the corner, where only a few other patrons occupy the tables overlooking the windows. “Hey, it’s you! Logan, buddy, he was the guy here yesterday, the one Remy gave the wrong mug to! Wrong mug guy, this is Logan, he runs this joint!”

“Wrong mug?” Virgil repeats.

“Wrong mug,” the new person—Logan, apparently—confirms. “We carefully select mugs based on the person they go to, rather than selecting one at random like Remy does. He refuses to learn the process behind choosing mugs, so whatever he hands you, it’s probably wrong.”

“Sounds about right,” Virgil agrees, glancing back at Remy and Patton, both of whom are staring at him and giggling.

“So what can I get started for you?” Logan repeats. Virgil cocks his head to the side, considering Logan for a long moment.

“Surprise me.” Logan’s steely expression lightens for the briefest of seconds, revealing a soft grin and bright eyes. It vanishes as quickly as it came.

“I’ll have that right out for you.”

Virgil offers a small smile in return, passing over a five dollar bill and waving off Logan as he tries to hand him his change. “Just keep it.”

“We really don’t do tips—”

“Just. Keep it.” Virgil slips around the bar and moves for his seat from yesterday, tucking his legs under himself and watching Remy nudge Patton repeatedly. After a solid few bumps to the back, Patton stumbles forward, bumping into Ho Man as he curbs around the bar to straighten the creamer cart. Distracted by the way Patton’s hands flutter around his face as he talks to Ho Man, Virgil hardly notices Logan until he’s positioned himself in the empty seat across from him.

“Drink it first, then tell me what you think it is.” Logan pushes a mug across the table toward Virgil, careful to keep the motion near the bottom so it doesn’t splash. Unlike the cup covered in cups from yesterday, this one is something Virgil might actually consider stealing, if they hadn’t drained the excitement of doing so by explicitly allowing thievery.

Midnight blue and splattered with tiny white dots, this mug looks to be plucked straight from the heavens themselves. The inside offers a pale blue to offset the darkness folding in at the rim, enveloping the top of the drink’s meniscus in hues to rival the sky. Virgil traces a finger over some of the constellations skirting the outside—bright enough against the blue to be recognizable, but not going so far as to connect the dots with garish straight lines. All in all, a good mug. Maybe he will steal it.

Virgil takes a long, slow pull from the cup, pretending to be deep in thought as Logan stares unabashedly into his eyes. He holds the mug over his mouth a few seconds later, waiting for the flush in his cheeks to subside. Why couldn’t Logan have been the one to take his order yesterday?

Virgil lowers the mug, licking away the drink moustache on his upper lid and pulling his tongue back in with a pop. “First guess?”

“First guess.”

“Green tea latte.”

Logan grins, rapping the table three times. “Nailed it.”

“It’s ’cause I’m a genius,” Virgil says, lifting the mug once more. This Logan guy might keep some strange company, but he can make a mean green tea latte. “Eleven out of ten, would order again.”

“That’s an improper fraction,” Logan mutters, but there’s a gleam dancing behind his eyes. The bell chimes over the door, drawing Virgil’s attention to where Ho Man and Patton look to be in a particularly compromising position. With Patton flattened against the door and Ho Man hovering closer than necessary, Virgil can only watch as Remy appears out of nowhere, shoving Ho Man forward without warning. Logan releases a breathy laugh as he watches the debacle—moreover, as he watches Ho Man thrust his hands out to brace himself on the wall, as well as caging Patton in around the shoulders by doing so. If this were a romance movie, they’d probably start kissing right about now.

As it is, Ho Man stammers out some excuse, cheeks almost as red as the roses smattered his white shirt. Patton only smiles back widely, not moving from the wall. If Virgil didn’t know better, he’d swear his eyes were delirious. Maybe he doesn’t know better.

“I see you understand the nonsense I’m forced to endure around here,” Logan says. “With Roman being a flirt and Remy being the charming everyman, I do pretty much everything myself. Any tips on how to better survive it?”

Virgil blinks, unsure why Logan decided to dump all this on him. At least he knows what Ho Man’s actual name is now. Full disclosure, Virgil’s gonna miss calling him Ho Man. “I don’t know that I’m your best bet for help running a small coffee shop.”

Logan huffs something close to a laugh, gnawing on the corner of his lip. “Not a problem, I’m just uncertain where to go from here, and they’re being of little help. All they’ve done is force me to get sleep and toss a couple papers about pride at me, and that’s hardly a reliable way of forming a more successful business.”

“Sleep is important,” Virgil says. “I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve heard a lot of people say so.” Still midway through processing Logan’s words, his mind catches on a certain piece of information. “Did you say papers about pride?”

“Indeed, Roman thinks I ought to spruce the place up for pride month, and he’s even managed to pull Remy into the idea. You’re welcome to help, if you want to, but there’s no obligation on your end.”

“Sounds fun,” Virgil admits, raising the cup again and startling himself as he finds it empty. “I’ll take a look, if you want to show me those papers. Oh, by the way, my name is Virgil, in case I haven’t said that yet.”

“Virgil,” Logan repeats, testing the word and rolling it around his mouth. He peels his lower lip out slowly, savoring the V, puckering his lips out around the R and letting his tongue hesitate against his teeth on the L. “It’s a pleasure. I’m sure one of the other two said it at some point or another, but I’m Logan.”

“Logan,” Virgil confirms. “So, Logan, about those pride papers and this empty mug?”

Logan stands, somehow managing not to scrape his chair as he pushes it back. Virgil attempts a similarly graceful move, wincing at the grating sound of metal on tile. “Let me get that mug from you and I’ll fill you up—do not even think about handing me another five, this one is on the house, and I am returning your three dollars and fifty cents at my first opportunity. These papers, disorganized and chaotic as they are, are the only things we’ve got in the way of ideas to drum up more business.”

Virgil seats himself at the cluttered table, grabbing a sheet at random and letting the distant clanks of Logan behind the bar fill his head. Stuff about colored whipped cream—probably too expensive, not to mention non-vegan friendly, and powdered sugar colors—kind of similar to Starbucks with their colored drink gimmicks, which doesn’t seem like Logan’s style. He pauses on the mention of white fairy lights, glancing around the room and imagining how they might look framing the windows. Maybe a little too winter-holiday for mid June, but the tackiness could very well add to the overall charm of the place. Certainly a warmth that overcrowded Starbucks stores could never hope to have. Or they could line the windows in different colors, if Logan really does want to keep with the whole pride thing, or else—

“Try that, tell me what you think,” Logan says, plunking the blue mug on one of very few clear spaces between the papers. Virgil complies, poking his tongue at a crooked front tooth as he considers the flavor.

“Tastes like cinnamon, but that’s all I’ve got.”

“Cinnamon and almond milk latte, one of our most popular drinks,” Logan confirms.

“You don’t get called out for it being too similar to the one Starbucks does?” Logan goes deathly still, an expression somewhere between fury and shock freezing on his face.

“We are nothing like Starbucks here, and I’m going to pretend you didn’t just compare me to that steaming pile of garbage.” Virgil nods, deciding this probably isn’t the best time to inform Logan about his own line of work. “Anything good come out of that disaster?”

“Maybe.” Virgil takes another swig from his mug, running his tongue over his lips and humming to himself. “The colored powders and whipped creams seem kind of impractical, but the lights and quiet-hour thing doesn’t seem to bad. You could do soft pastels for a warmer tone around the room as a whole, and different colors around each window to fit pride month. I don’t know about open mic, since that’s a lot to organize, but maybe use that empty corner on the other side of the door for some little bookshelves and comfy chairs, have a chill zone when the lights go down and the moon comes up? Oh, and this is definitely just a suggestion, so you don’t, like, have to do it, or anything like that, but it might be cool if you changed up the colors of your menu signs, so they weren’t all just white and plain. You could do one board in blue and purple and pink for bi, and another in purple and yellow and white for nonbinary, and another in pink and yellow and blue for pan, and then do a bunch of little drink drawings on all of them in every color to represent gay pride as a whole?” Virgil bites his lip, suddenly realizing that Logan is staring intently at him. Again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—I mean, I wasn’t trying to—you don’t have to do all that, obviously, and it’s not like I’m forcing you to, and I wasn’t trying to—” Virgil cuts himself off, ducking his head down and hiding his face behind his mug.

“No, no, that’s great, really, I love those ideas,” Logan stammers, waving his hands frantically to shake away Virgil’s hesitation. “They’re splendid, exactly what I was looking for.” Virgil nods quickly, not coming out from behind his mug. Logan places a hesitant hand on Virgil’s shoulder, trying to offer some semblance of comfort. Against his own volition, Virgil leans into the touch, tilting his head toward Logan’s knuckles before he can stop himself. The moment his ear grazes the back of Logan’s hand, he jerks out of the seat, spilling the rest of his mug all over his work-mandated khakis.

“Oh, jeez, oh man, I mean, shoot, crap, okay, I just, I’m just gonna go,” Virgil rambles, stumbling for the door and clutching his unwittingly emptied mug tightly in his shaking fingers. Before Logan can even think about calling after him, he’s behind the wheel of his car and careening out of the parking lot, already berating himself for being such a dork.

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

“Where’d Wrong Mug Man go?” Remy asks, popping his head over the bar as he pauses midway through restocking the milk fridge. “Scare him off with your utter lack of charm and cold exterior?”

“A little too on the nose,” Roman calls out from his usual spot in the corner. Well, not ‘usual,’ per se—Roman can barely tolerate staying in the same place for more than a week before moving on for bigger, better seating options. He’s had much the same opinion regarding boys for as long as Logan can remember, and the selection of the week seems to be Patton on the windowsill with the Toy Story clouds mug. Practically a real-life version of Clue, with romantic motives to boot.

Remy finger guns at Roman and ducks back down to finish with the fridge. Logan blinks, the exchange flying past him as he tries to come up with a reason for Virgil’s sudden disappearance. The first person to choose his flatter tones over his brother’s exuberance, and they run away like an owl from a forest fire in the middle of Canada.

Logan has never been one for analogies.

He reaches across the counter, startling Remy in the process as he grabs for a clean rag and sanitizing spray. In no less than five minutes, the spilled latte is gone without a trace. At least Virgil took the mug with him—if nothing else, he’ll come back to return it. Maybe even to use it for that discount—not that Logan would charge him. Virgil doesn’t seem like the type to acquiesce not to pay, but Logan is the owner, so what’s to stop him from making every drink free for the short instances when Virgil shows up?

“Roman,” Logan says, “what are the odds you have some colored chalk you don’t need?”

“Fifteen out of three,” Roman calls back, not looking up from the phone tucked in his lap. Across from him, Patton mirrors the position, curled into the corner of the windowsill—not strictly a real seat, but they both seem to be making do well enough.

“So five?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. I’ve got, like, a whole crate full of art supplies that I can’t use, because someone told me not to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming the next Leonardo Dicaprio.”

“Da Vinci. And I would hardly phrase it like that—I merely suggested that, were you to aim for realism, it might be wise to avoid giving your elephants tails for trunks and trunks for tails.”

“Stop stifling my creative energy!”

“Stop stifling his creative energy,” Patton echoes. Oddly enough, Logan doesn’t feel that familiar urge to roll his eyes as he watches Roman glance up from under a curtain of bangs, staring at an oblivious Patton. He’s never looked at one of his weekly obsessions like that before. Or maybe he has, Logan doesn’t pay very much attention to that sort of thing.

“The point being, you do have colorful chalk, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I need some. Bring it in with you tomorrow, if you would be so kind.”

For reasons Logan doesn’t care to puzzle out, Roman tumbles off the windowsill, jumping to his feet and brushing off his knees as he rushes to Logan’s side. “Or,” he whispers excitedly, bouncing on his toes and waving his hands around his face, “I could run home and get them now! I could even go out to a store, buy more stuff you didn’t know you needed, spruce the whole place up! Patton could come with me!”

Patton’s head perks up at this revelation, and he pockets his phone before joining the other two. Even Remy leans over the bar, half-intruding on the conversation as he waits for the next guest to decide what they want. Logan crosses his arms, considering Roman’s eagerness.

“You know very well that I don’t trust you to decorate my cafe to your tastes, much less on your own dime.” Glancing at the menus in plain black and white, Logan does have to admit they look, well, plain. Boring. Virgil wasn’t wrong when he said they might look better with more colors. And yes, Logan would greatly prefer having Virgil here to coach him on how to properly execute the pride color schemes—Logan’s never been one for art—but Patton doesn’t seem totally hopeless. “Tell you what. I’ll close up early tonight, and us three can all go out and stock up on decorations. Keep the place closed tomorrow, and we’ll plan out how to make it look best to ramp up business.”

“Excuse you,” Remy cuts in, “but I think you mean us four. Don’t go excluding me from the party.”

“Who said you were invited?” Logan retorts. Roman stifles a snort behind his fist as Patton’s jaw drops in startlingly believable dismay.

“Logan! We have to take Remy with us, he brings half the fun! It wouldn’t be as exciting without him there!”

“Who said I wanted it to be exciting?” Logan mutters to himself, shooting a quick look toward the back of the cafe. Pretty empty, save for a couple patrons here and there nursing at their personal mugs. Casting his eyes to the ceiling, Logan pulls in a long breath through his nose, blowing it out through his lips and wondering why Virgil couldn’t be here to endure this nonsense with him. Immediately thereafter, he wonders why he wonders that. He didn’t even know Virgil’s name yesterday, why is he so set on having him here now?

Remy and Patton’s hopeful expressions drag him back to the moment—specifically, the moment where Logan is being forced to take three overgrown toddlers on a shopping spree to decorate the building that makes up his entire livelihood. No pressure.

“I am definitely going to regret this,” Logan sighs. Pretending as if he hadn’t said that, he continues, “fine, I guess Remy can accompany us. No candy, though—we don’t need to be buying food when we already have some upstairs.”

“Aha, but I have tips!” Remy declares, shaking a paper cup full of coins. “I’m gonna buy so many peanuts with these.”

“Explain how,” Roman says.

“Do not explain how,” Logan says. Not allowing either of them the chance to finish their charade, Logan turns to Patton. “You walked in with Virgil, didn’t you? Do you two know each other?”

“Something like that. I’m a frequent customer where he works.” This catches Logan’s attention. A direct pipeline to the owl that got away.

Again, Logan has never been one for analogies.

“Where does he work?”

A mischievous glint takes residence in Patton’s eye as he nudges Roman’s shoulder.  The latter snickers quietly, nudging right back as the former gets out between giggles, “that’s just something you’re gonna have to figure out on your own. The answer will shock you.”

“If he works as a clickbait journalist for Buzzfeed, I am banning both you and him from this establishment.”

“He does not work as a clickbait journalist for Buzzfeed, but you’ll never guess what he does instead!” Roman hisses in an action-star voice. “This summer, coming directly to your screens, and coming soon to own on video and DVD—” He drops his tone to an impossibly deep register while ramping up his volume, drawing the attention of pretty much everyone in the room. Patton and Remy join in on the tagline, both yelling at the top of their lungs.

“Are you quite finished?” Logan asks, wholly unimpressed. Having failed to get so much as a huff of acknowledgement, the other three sigh dejectedly and nod. “Good. Remy, finish cleaning up behind the bar. Roman, can you wipe down the tables and start stacking chairs? Patton, I know you don’t work here, but—”

“On it,” Patton interrupts, already moving toward the back to gently rouse the student that fell asleep doing their homework at a table. Morally, Logan has no problem letting people stay as long as they like, even if they don’t buy anything, but it’s a little more difficult to be lenient about that sort of thing when he’s closing up the cafe. He turns his attention back to the papers scattered across the table as the other three flit about their respective tasks, and wonders whether Virgil might try to come back tomorrow. If they close the cafe for renovations, would he even get out of his car? Or would the lack of business  and other patrons scare him off? Maybe Logan should position the other three at various seats in the back as he does all the work himself, making it look like he kept the place open so Virgil would still come in, without being terribly obvious about that being his goal all along. Of course, that brings up the inevitable he knows that I know that he knows situation, but it’s not as if—

“Hello? Earth to Logan? Paging alien squadron fleet two K four one nine oh?” Roman waves a hand in front of Logan’s face, pulling him out of his head. Before him is the only unwashed table in the cafe, still littered with papers that have yet to be picked up. The  only page that managed to find its way into Logan’s arms is the one Virgil was talking about when he made additional suggestions. Logan blinks, gathers up the rest in a haphazard bundle, and steps back to let Roman finish his cleaning.

“Can I drive?” Remy asks. He slides around the bar, dusting his hands off on his pants and tossing a dirty rag over the lip of the sink.

“We need to get you an apron,” Logan replies absently, eyeing the gathering dirt stains on Remy’s thighs.

“I didn’t hear a no!” Remy singsongs, tilting his head to lean against Logan’s shoulder. The top of the mess of hair tickles along the crook where his jaw meets his earlobe, and Logan blinks as his mind unhelpfully conjures an image of Virgil in the same position under a blanket of stars. Where on Earth did that come from?

“No, you cannot drive. Give me Roman’s car keys.”

Roman emits an unholy shriek, somewhere between miffed and scandalized that Remy had managed to steal the keys to his soccer mom car. Granted, those things basically live in various spots around the cafe as it is, but still. Groaning in a pitiful attempt at getting sympathy, Remy tosses the jingling chain to Logan, who snatches them out of the air with ease. Before the owner of said keys can protest, Logan passes them on to him, biting back a laugh as Roman instinctively ducks.

“Hey! No dangerous projectiles in the house!” Roman whines. The keys hit the door and clatter to the tiles below.

“Not a house, and you don’t make the rules here, anyway.” Logan wisely keeps his gaze elsewhere as Patton makes his way to the door, grabbing the keys to pass them to Roman. Of course, the windows are reflective surfaces—this unfortunate reality fails to protect Logan from having to see how Patton’s hand lingers a moment too long on Roman’s. Honestly, the whole point of looking away was to not have to deal with their nonsense in the first place. “Let’s go.”

Lingering at the back of the group, Logan lets the other three exit before him, double- and triple-checking that everything is off, unplugged, cleaned up, closed, and generally in various states of presentable. The last thing he needs right now is for his life’s savings to literally go up in flames. Well, not his life’s savings. He’s got some common sense—everything he hasn’t spent is carefully accumulating interest in various reputable banks. So. The expendable portion of his life’s savings. That’s what he doesn’t want to go up in flames.

“What happened to ‘let’s go,’ sonny boy?” Roman calls, popping his head back in the door and making the bell chime. Logan tilts his head, wondering if anyone would ever question why he picked that bell in particular to greet his guests.

“I’m older than you.”

“Patton dared me to call you kiddo, but I thought mine was funnier,” Roman admits.

“I’m older than Patton, too.”

“You didn’t even tell me Patton’s name until last week!”

“Ever heard of barista-guest confidentiality?”

“No, because it doesn’t exist. Now hurry up and get in the car, or we’re tying you to the roof and I’m letting Patton use the backseat as his own personal lounge area.”

Tossing a sigh to the ceiling and casting one last glance at the way his cafe was always meant to be—before everyone else barges in to redecorate for him—Logan follows Roman out.

He slides into the back on the passenger’s side, not voicing his apprehension at Patton taking the front seat. That’s Remy’s seat, he thinks. Remy doesn’t seem to mind, though, already pressing his nose to the window and bouncing on the worn cushion.

“Seatbelt,” Logan reminds his brother—and the car as a whole, he supposes, as even Roman jolts to comply. “I am hereby imposing a price limit of one hundred dollars on this excursion. Anything over that will be coming off of your dime.”

“I don’t even—” Roman begins, but Logan isn’t having any of it.

“I know, I know, you don’t even work for me, but if you want to? And you want to help, shall we say, ‘spruce up the place,’ you will refrain from exceeding my budget, lest you pay the overages.”

    “If we go to the place on the corner of Eighth and Main, I’ve got an employee discount for ten percent,” Patton offers.

    “By the Texaco?” Roman punches the coordinates into the car, tapping his foot impatiently as Siri attempts to connect with his dwindling internet connection.

    “You really ought to know your way around the town by now,” Logan opines. “You’ve been to the Texaco more times than Remy’s flirted with my guests.”

    “Shut up, Logan!” Remy hisses. Were his face not pressed against the window and his shoulders hunched defensively, Logan is certain his comment would be rewarded with cheeks glittering ruby.

    “Got it!” Roman exclaims, punching the roof. “And I refilled the tank a couple days ago, which means no gas money going into this excursion! Can I get a what what?”

    “You cannot,” Logan says.

    “What what,” Patton agrees.

    “Plus,” Roman continues, shifting into drive and doing a mediocre job of backing away from the building, “with the discount, just think of how much more stuff we can get!”

    “Yay.” Logan has never known his own voice to be more flat. He glances up just in time to see Patton shoot him an apologetic look, mouthing the word sorry. He smiles as he does it, though, so Logan isn’t completely convinced of Patton’s regret.

    The excited conversation of the other three fills up the car as Logan lets his gaze drift out the window, watching the bright greens of summer flash by in bursts between the blemishes of humanity’s invasion upon the world. Traffic lights, street signs, lampposts, telephone lines, couches at curbs, discarded plastic bags, crushed coffee cups, dead patches of grass, cracked squares of concrete, buildings crawling for the skies and stretching to escape the natural world without which they could never dream of existing.

    Logan does not particularly care for the overdevelopment of what used to be a homey nook of nature around his cafe. He can hardly see the stars at night anymore, what with all the city lights pulling his eyes to the ground.

    “Beep beep!” Roman announces, punching the roof again before slipping out of the car.  Logan blinks, suddenly realizing they’d already arrived at the store. Time to suffer.

    “One hundred dollars,” he reminds the others. His words fall on deaf ears as they all sprint for the doors, chattering excitedly amongst themselves about color schemes and bargaining and how to make the most of spending every last dime they can squeeze out of Logan’s pockets. More to himself than anyone else, he murmurs, “I bet Virgil would understand the significance of imposing a spending limit before getting surprised with an obscenely high total crowning the receipt.”

    “Come on,” Remy groans, doubling back to grab Logan’s wrist. Patton and Roman have already vanished, probably traipsing through the birthday party aisles for decoration ideas. “At least pretend you’re having fun, yeah? Show some enthusiasm for Virgil’s ideas, I bet he’d love that.”

    “When did he tell you his name?”

    “He didn’t. You used it when you asked Patton where he worked.”

    “Where does he work?”

    “If you push the price limit up to two fifty, maybe I’ll tell you.”

    “Maybe I’ll stop letting you accept tips.”

    Remy’s eyes widen slightly at that, and he wobbles on his toes before running the rest of the way to the door, waving his hands over his head. “La la la, I can’t hear you, I’m too fast for the sound barrier to keep up!”

    “That’s not how—oh, whatever,” Logan mutters. Hands in his pockets, he dips a chin to the greeters just inside the door and maintains a leisurely pace, waiting for his friends to reveal themselves. Admittedly, he’s a little impressed when he sees them next—they’ve managed to avoid getting covered in streamers and sparkles. So far, at least. Unfortunately for Logan, the night is still young.

    “Hey, what about these?” Patton asks, grabbing a pack of pride-themed playing cards from an end cap display.

    “How are those supposed to drum up business?”

    Patton shrugs, turning the cards over in his hand. “I dunno, they just look neat.”

    “Make it a puzzle,” Roman suggests, picking up a matching set. “Have different fun facts about pride history written on cards from one set, but keep out a piece of important information. Someone finds a card and can tell you the answer without having to look it up, they get a card from the deck you didn’t write on. Get a full suit, get a prize. Maybe they get all the diamonds, then they get to name a drink after themselves. Get all the hearts, they can save ten cents instead of five.”

    Logan has to admit, it isn’t the worst idea Roman’s ever come up with. The worst was probably that time with the stuffed sheep, the empty ramen cup, and the half-eaten ring pop. He shudders at the memory before relenting. “How much for a pack?”

    Patton glances at the sticker on the side, sucks a sharp inhale through his teeth, and sets the deck back where he found it. “More than it’s worth, even with the discount. Come on, I know where the shelf is for stuff we’re trying to get rid of. It’s hidden in the back so we can make more money, but who ever had fun paying full price?”

    “I did, back when it meant doing less damage to my cafe,” Logan grumbles. Nevertheless, he follows dutifully behind, stifling a snort as Roman grabs Patton’s hand and they skip—literally skip—down the aisles. Every few steps, one yanks the other to a stop, cooing over some toy or game meant to catch the eye of passing toddlers. Remy’s eyes sparkle, and he leans over to Logan when he thinks the other two aren’t listening.

    “You know,” he whispers, “I like this one a lot more than Roman’s other flings.”

    “They’ve barely been talking for more than a few days,” Logan retorts, careful to keep his voice low. “You cannot place all your eggs in the basket when the eggs don’t even exist yet.”

    “You lost me, but seriously, bro, look at them.” Tutting to himself, Logan watches the way Roman’s eyes catch on Patton more often than they catch on bargain bin attractions. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe you don’t see it.”

    “That’s hardly any of my business. All I care about is how much they’re making me spend. And what did I tell you about that ridiculous nickname? It isn’t even original.”

    “Nothing’s original, not even originality,” Remy fires back. “A redux of something that already exists is way more fun than not doing it in the first place. Or would you rather have me tell Virgil the real reason you opened up the cafe?”

    Logan yanks Remy to a stop by the neck of his shirt, balling the fabric up in his fists. “If you do that, then so help me, I will have you shipped back home faster than you can spit out that infernal nickname, and you will never set foot in my cafe again.” Remy blinks, laughs, and bops Logan’s nose.

    “I bet Virgil would think you’re cute when you get all angry like that.”

    “That’s not—I don’t—shut up!” Logan sputters. The epitome of elegance.

    When Logan’s first instinct upon releasing Remy is to wonder whether Virgil would think he looked cute like that, he knows he is well and truly screwed.

    Elegance, indeed.

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

    Virgil’s current favorite shift is opening. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he shows up at the ass crack of dawn for work. A solid hour by himself to get the bar set up to his liking, to work in silence without worrying about angry guests, and the knowledge that he’ll be out by noon. The turning stomach of too little sleep is certainly less than ideal, but he’s lying to himself about liking being here this early. Cut him some slack.

    “Just fire her already,” he mutters to himself, moving faster than he’d like to as he restocks the pastries. Not for the first time, Natalia closed last night, and she never does any of the shift’s duties right. Case in point, the expired pastries still being in the serving zone. The milk fridge being barren. Having less than three whips. Forgetting the refresher shaker lid in the washing machine—still dirty, mind you. Not wiping down the tables before stacking the chairs. Not washing the half and half from the little cart. A quick sniff reveals the insides to be well past curdled.

    You know, maybe Virgil just wants to gripe in general about the incompetence of his fellow team members, and it really has nothing to do with the quality of his workplace experience.

    Or it could be that he’s still reeling from the ridiculous note he left Logan on yesterday. That is a very strong possibility.

    Glancing at the clock on the register he has yet to open, Virgil weighs his options. He can either sprint for the milk fridge and pray there’s enough left to restock, or he can stay up here and try to straighten up the place for the off chance that corporate shows up and tears Anne a new one. Though he likes Anne well enough, he’d rather face the consequences of corporate’s wrath than deal with pissed-off customers who can’t have their precious two percent milk.

    Just his luck—the stock fridge is empty. This is the moment Virgil’s mind chooses to remind him that today is Monday, and that they’re supposed to be getting a shipment in later. So no half and half, no two percent, no heavy whipping cream, and an insatiable desire to go home before the whole ‘interacting with the public’ part of his shift has even started.

    As the clock ticks over to eight, his boss’s boss’s boss, Stephen, walks over with his usual fistful of crumpled singles. Virgil doesn’t even bother asking for his numbers, already keying in the discount and punching the order into the register. In the amount of time it takes him to start lingering on yesterday’s disaster, Stephen’s usual—grande mocha, no whip—is already done and gone. Whether this is because Virgil is fast with making drinks or because he’s very adamant about the masochism of reliving embarrassment is open for debate.

    Seriously, what was that? Logan puts a hand on his shoulder and gravity decides to be a little bitch, dragging Virgil’s head to the side to lean on a basic stranger? Naturally followed by the most logical reaction—dumping his entire drink all over himself. Yesterday was the first day he wore those pants after their wash, too; he can usually get three or four days out of a pair before they need to be cleaned. What a waste.

    One singular glimmer of positivity in the hellscape that is the opening shift, though, is how much faster it seems to go by on Mondays. When the mid shows up, they vanish to the back to take care of the order, so Virgil basically has the bar to himself for four hours, then the fifteen minutes of dealing with the other mid. All the better to suffer through his own blunders in peace.

    At least it’s a slower stream of guests.

    “I’ll take a trenta very berry, but with all the kinds of berries in it,” some guy with a greasy man bun says, strolling up and scrolling through his phone. Virgil nods, keying it in and going through the usual polite spiel while he waits for him to pay.

    “Anything else for you?”

    Man Bun glances up from texting, raking his eyes over the purple fading from Virgil’s bangs. “Yeah, can I also get extra blackberries—”

    “Sure.”

    “—and your number?”

    “No. Five twenty-nine.” Virgil turns his back to the register as Man Bun sets about dealing with his credit card, and wonders whether this guy’ll be a nuisance for him as he finishes the drink. “Trenta very berry, extra blackberries, have a good one.”

    Man Bun takes the cup, tearing off the straw wrapper and throwing it on the floor. Literally, the garbage can is, like, right there, dude. Don’t be an ass. “So I seriously don’t have a chance with you?”

    “Definitely not.”

    “What, are you not gay? I mean, with the hair, and with—”

    “I’m gay, just not for you. Have a good one.” To escape any further annoying questions, Virgil vanishes into the near back, organizing the drying dishes to wait out Man Bun. Once the coast is finally clear, Virgil returns to the bar, where Patton awaits with a bright grin. Fantastic.

    “Hi, Virge!” Patton calls, bouncing on his toes. He does a twirl to make sure no one else is in line behind him before propping his elbows on the counter and leaning in as if he were sharing a secret. “I’ll take a venti iced caramel mach-yeet-ato with an extra shot of eek-spresso, if you please.” With another spin, Patton nearly crashes to the floor, the weight of the bag on his back yanking him faster than he can recover from.

    “I got the yeet, but you’re gonna have to explain the eek bit.”

    “I want you to pull three shots like normal, but scream at the fourth one. Scare it into submission. Then I’ll drink it, and get the scared bean energy.”

    Virgil blinks, his pen hovering over the boxes on the side of the cup. “You. Want me. To scream at your espresso?”

    “Only the fourth one! I need the other three to be brave, so I can have the bravery in addition to the terror.”

Virgil opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and shakes his head. “Okay. Five thirty five.” Patton presses a ten across the counter, refusing as Virgil tries to pass back the change, and slides to the end of the bar before Virgil can force him to take his money. True to form, Patton leans over the counter to watch Virgil making the drink, scrutinizing the pouring shots. “You know,” Virgil remarks, “it’s faster to pull two and two shots than two and one and one.”

“Yeah, but then my drink would be half scared, and we can’t have that, now, can we?”

“I guess not. What if I just pull the last two into two separate cups, and apologize to one to get rid of the scared emotions?”

Patton quirks his mouth to the side and hums. “I guess that could work. Make sure the apology’s genuine though, so I can have some empathy in my drink, too. And you don’t have to actually scream at it, either—just rile it up a bit. Scare it into submission however you see fit.”

This was one of the worst possible things Patton could have told Virgil to do. The barista leans in as the second round of shots pours, putting his mouth as close to the cup as he dares. “I’m going to stand outside your house and chant ominously about your sins while pouring expired coffee grounds on your sidewalk, then I’m going to hack into your sims account, give everyone full autonomy, and age them up to the maximum elderly age possible. Sorry, other espresso—I promise your sims are safe and your sidewalk is clean. For now.”

Patton looks understandably disconcerted by the time Virgil has finished, although the latter isn’t completely convinced that what he said was necessarily scary. He hands off the drink, drenching it in far more caramel than necessary and leaving the lid off. With an unholy grin on his face, Patton brings the cup to his lips and swallows half the caramel drizzle before the scared espresso even has a chance to settle.

“So hey, are you coming by Logan’s cafe today?” Patton asks. Virgil glances at the clock—five more minutes, and no line to be seen. He swings around the bar to sit at one of the guest tables, pulling out a sharpie and setting about dating the pastries. Whoever the mid is, they didn’t bother to show up on time, so they certainly can’t be trusted to do something literally in their job description. “You kind of left in a hurry yesterday.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t need a repeat of that embarrassment. I’m just gonna go home and hide under a blanket.”

“What embarrassment? I think Logan liked talking to you, I bet he’d like to have you come back.”

“Definitely. I’m sure he’d adore talking to the guy who couldn’t even keep his drink in his mug, much less remember to leave the mug there.”

“Virge, that’s the point of the mug system. You weren’t supposed to leave the mug there.”

“It’s not the point of my system, though. Now I’m basically, like, obligated to go back and return the cup, if not use it for that discount. Not to mention—which I already did—how I literally dumped my drink all over myself. I do not want that to happen again.”

“So just don’t drop your drink, and it won’t happen again! Simple.”

“Oh, and I bet you’ll just go ahead and police Logan so he doesn’t touch my shoulder again, prompting the situation that drove me to run out in the first place.” At the way Patton’s eyes sparkle, Virgil rushes to backtrack. “Not that it meant anything! It just startled me, so I shook my hand and my drink spilled.” Virgil glances at the bar, but there’s still no guests appearing to save him from this disaster of his conversation. All the pastries are dated, too, so he doesn’t even have the excuse of occupying his hands. “I do not want to go back.”

Patton grins. “So you’re going back?”

Virgil throws his hands in the air and groans. “I’m going back.”

“Promise?” Holding back a sigh as Patton thrusts out a pinky, Virgil links it with his own.

“Promise.”

“Great! Because your shift just ended, and Logan’s keeping it closed for the day so he can do renovations. Just you, him, and a few other people for as long as we’re there, doing decorations and generally engaging in close teamwork. Forming bonds to last a lifetime.”

“You tricked me,” Virgil hisses. “You scheming snot.”

“But it worked, didn’t it? And oh, look, there’s your mid! Let’s leave.”

Virgil glares behind him, where Natalia is tying her impeccably clean apron around her waist and fastening the hat on her hair. The only reason her stupid apron is so clean is because she’s impossibly slow, so as not to get anything dirty. The one time he could use her tardiness to his advantage, too.

“Fine, whatever, give me five minutes to clock out and I’ll meet you back here.”

Patton takes another sip from his quarter-scared drink and nods. “But if you aren’t back within those five minutes, I’m gonna find your boss and file a missing team member report.”

“You don’t even work here.”

“You don’t even understand the extent of my relentless matchmaking skills.”

“Nor do I want to. See you in five.”

“Make it four.”

This is how Virgil finds himself begrudgingly driving toward Logan’s cafe, with Patton’s car hot on his heels. Clever enough, he supposes, since now there’s a literal heavy piece of machinery holding him accountable for reaching the destination he pinky promised to attend. Virgil would rather be hiding under the covers at home.

Swinging into the parking lot and taking his normal spot, Virgil wonders whether Patton would notice if he just hid out in the bathroom until everyone went home. He glances at the mug nestled in the passenger seat—secured with a seatbelt, of course—and decides against it. If nothing else, Logan would probably get suspicious about the goings-on in there, not to mention he’d be the one to have to clean it. Patton’s cheerful honk rings through the air as he locks his car, scooting over to press his nose to Virgil’s window.

Virgil raps the glass lightly, jolting Patton into taking a few steps back before he not-so-discreetly points at the door and dances on his toes. To tell the truth, Virgil is procrastinating, because he absolutely does not want to go inside and see Logan.

“Hi, Logan!” Patton calls, bursting through the door with Virgil in tow. “We’ve been waiting all day to see you!”

“We?” Virgil repeats skeptically.

“Oh, right, right, my bad,” Patton says, waving his hands sheepishly. “Virgil has been waiting all day to see you!”

“That is not better,” Virgil mutters. He lifts a hand to his shoulder, massaging a sore spot along the slope of his neck and wishing he could be literally anywhere else right now. In an effort to diffuse the awkwardness that Logan hasn’t bothered to notice, he continues, “looks nice in here with the lights down. Kind of home-y.”

    “Indeed,” Logan agrees, balanced precariously on the second-highest rung of an unreasonably tall ladder. At its base, Roman holds the legs steady, grinning as Patton slings his backpack onto a nearby table. “Patton, I assume you brought more decorations I never greenlit?”

    “You know it.” Patton grins, upending the bag and watching every manner of rainbow trinket spill over the tabletop and onto the floor. “Okay, so see these? They look like normal food coloring, but they actually—”

    “If they sparkle or make the drink behave like pop rocks, I do not want them.”

    Patton pouts before tossing the food coloring stuff back in the bag. “Alright, well how about this one? It’s like a DIY mug for—”

    “Don’t use acronyms out loud, and I am not having mugs that guests design themselves. That defeats the purpose of my system.” Patton puts the mugs away.

    “Fine, so I also found these little mythical creature trinkets that—”

    “No.” Patton puts the trinkets away.

    “Or these things that look like scratch off tickets, but instead of the lottery, you can—”

    “No.” Patton puts the tickets away.

    “I found this book of stickers that has—”

    “No.” Patton puts the stickers away.

    “You know, I’m beginning to think you didn’t want me to bring all this stuff.”

    “I did not want you to bring all that stuff.”

    “Well, fine! I’ll just take it back home, then!”

    “Good! I do not want it here! Please remove it from my establishment!” Virgil cocks his head to the side, his thoughts catching on the mock enthusiasm in Logan’s voice. If anyone could possibly be the breathing personification of a sarcastic exclamation point, it’s Logan.

    “Can I help you up there?” Virgil offers. Logan glances down, still precariously balanced on his ladder and stretching out an arm to toss a strand of string lights over the menu boards. “You know, it might be more effective to pull the signs down and write the menu first, then tape some lights to the top, then hang them back up.”

    Thrusting out a hand for stability on the top rung, Logan lowers the spool of lights waiting to be thrown. “You may have a point. Roman, if you even think about shaking this ladder, I am going to ban you from helping any further with the decorations.”

    “Come on, dude, it’s pride month! Show some spirit!” Roman whines. Regardless, he holds the ladder steady as Logan descends.

    “I’ve already shown my spirit by deigning to allow you in my cafe while it’s closed. Don’t push your luck.” At the sound of a yelp and something crashing near the seats around the corner, Logan presses his middle finger to his glabella and groans deeply. “Remy, if you broke one of my windows, I am legally obligated to inform our parents that you are unfit to be an adult, and that I am sending you back to them, effective immediately.”

    “No, nope, everything is totally fine back here. You aren’t legally obligated to do anything whatsoever.” Remy pops his head into view, his cheeks flushed and his hair flopping into his eyes. Taking one look at Logan’s stern face and Virgil’s reserved one, he jerks his head at Roman. “Hey, wanna give me a hand back here? Your boyfriend can come too, I guess.”

    “He’s not my—” Roman begins, but Patton barrels right through it.

    “Sounds fun!” he declares, grabbing Roman by the elbow and dragging him toward whatever chaos Remy already caused. With a quick pause to point from his eyes to Virgil’s and back, Patton winks and vanishes from sight. In their absence, silence reigns supreme.

    “So,” Logan says.

    “So,” Virgil agrees.

    “How’s your handwriting?” Logan asks, clearly just as desperate to fill the awkward silence as Virgil.

    Virgil shrugs, grabbing one of many pens spilling from Patton’s abandoned backpack and twirling it between his fingers. “Not terrible, I guess. I do most of the boards where I work.” For a brief moment, Virgil wonders whether he’s ever mentioned to Logan where he works, but ultimately decides it’s not important just yet. He watches the pen spins for another few moments before continuing, “I have this style of super straight lines, though. Not exactly bubbly and inviting for your guests.”

    “My guests know I own this place. They aren’t expecting any manner of bubbliness, inviting or otherwise. Help me pull down the signs?” Allowing himself the smallest laugh at Logan’s matter-of-factness, Virgil moves for the lower right corner of the trifold board, hoisting it off the wall in tandem with Logan. “I suppose we ought to erase it first, before we go about ruining it.”

    “Do you know what kind of scheme you’re going for?” Virgil asks, shifting into decoration mode as he starts wiping off the first section. He shoves aside any lingering thoughts of yesterday’s fiasco in favor of focusing on the task at hand. Maybe if he pretends to have forgotten, it’ll be like it never happened in the first place.

    “Scheme? I was simply going to write the drink options in various colors,” Logan admits. He scrapes together a pile of chalk from a children’s craft box leaning against the bar, grimacing as he rubs the dust from between his fingers. “Unless you know of a better idea.”

    “I mean, we could do something like cold drinks here, and hot ones here, and you could have some people personalize based on this third one over here? And then, like, each third can be a different pride flag, like how I was saying yesterday—maybe make the miscellaneous board the pan flag, since it’s basically everything? Unless you don’t like the pun side of that, of course, then we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Or we could do the whole rainbow there, again with the ‘everything’ deal, but it might not look so cohesive as being strictly separated thirds of the menu. We don’t even have to separate by themes, if you wanted the whole menu to be just one section. Maybe we could do the bi flag for the cold drinks—if you decide to go for the cold, hot, miscellaneous boards, I mean—just because the blues and purples could go well with cold drinks, color theory and all? Or I guess there’s also the possibility of stuff like the transgender flag, or the polyamorous flag—maybe you could have a pastry menu, and put it there for a sort of pie-pi pun? I don’t know how well that one would go over, but if it sticks out to you well enough…”

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

    Logan props his chin on a fist, his legs crossed beneath him and his knee supporting his elbow. All of Virgil’s words are floating straight over his head, and he doesn’t even pretend to hide it, so entranced is he by Virgil’s enthusiasm. In all honesty, Logan stopped listening by the third sentence, more focused on how Virgil’s pale lips formed the soundless words, washing the cafe in an ocean of rolling tones and low asides. Not ten seconds into his rambling, Logan is certain he saw Virgil’s eyes light up, ever so slightly, at the prospect of having creative control over something so simple as menu theming.

    “Does that work for you?”

    Shit. Logan forgot he was supposed to be listening.

    “Er, I’m actually somewhat unclear on what you meant. Do you mind rewording your suggestion?”

    Virgil blinks at him, and Logan feels his soul melt—no human has a right to look that much like a confused puppy. “I don’t really know how you expect me to reword ‘I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick while you think about which theme you like,’ but I’m certainly willing to try if you need me to.”

    “Yes, no, I mean—of course, absolutely. Go right ahead, second door on the right in the back.” Logan waves a flippant hand as Virgil pushes off from his knees, tossing a two-fingered salute to the other three working in the back. Logan has no idea what they’re doing back there anymore, nor does he really care. He’s slightly more concerned with that complete social blunder between Virgil and him. Could he have come across any more ridiculous?

    “So what do you think of Virgil, hm?” Patton asks, appearing over Logan’s shoulder. Logan flinches, sitting up straighter and nearly slamming his head into Patton’s chin. “Think he’s got a cute butt?”

    Pausing to absorb the second question, Logan wonders whether he doesn’t look too dissimilar to a computer rebooting itself. “He certainly has an ass.”

    “Do you know any other swear words?” Remy groans, trudging over and draping himself across the bar. Meanwhile, Patton is spluttering in disgust at Logan for daring to use a more crude synonym for the word ‘butt.’

    “You should be proud that he even knows that one,” Roman chimes in. “Why, when I first met Logan—”

    “We are not doing emotional history montages,” Logan declares, getting to his feet and waving a hand at Roman. “We are here only to improve the environment in and around my cafe, so that is what we are going to do.”

    “Actually,” Remy corrects, “I’m mostly here because I want to set you up with Virgil. He was a dick from the moment he walked in that first time, which is exactly your type.” Pointing at Logan with a wink, Remy moves to lean against the wall.

    Logan doesn’t bother to question his motives, and pretends he didn’t hear the first half of Remy’s statement. He does, however, hear the general motivation behind the words, and responds accordingly. The sly grin on his face makes Roman take a subconscious step back.

    “Oh, and you aren’t here to set Roman up with Patton?” Turning his focus on them, Logan wonders in the back of his mind whether Virgil might walk in on this. “Of course, everyone’s talking about it, Remy. Don’t you want to be the first trendsetter with the newest, hottest couple?”

    “Since when does he know what ‘hottest’ means?” Roman hisses in a stage whisper. Patton shrugs, pressing his lips together as his cheeks stay annoyingly neutral, not at all embarrassed by Logan’s tirade. “Do you think he doesn’t know?”

    “I think he doesn’t know,” Patton replies. He doesn’t even bother to lower his voice, which serves only to further infuriate Logan.

    “What don’t I know?”

    “He definitely doesn’t know,” Remy agrees, peeling himself away from the wall. “It’s almost pity full, really.”

    “You don’t know the meaning of the word. You don’t even know the pronunciation.”

    “But I know you use it on me, like, all the time, which is only that much more pity full for you.”

    “Pitiful. Like your tenuous grasp of the English language.” At the sound of the sink faucet turning on around the corner, Logan glances back at Roman and Patton, who are still whispering together intently. Patton is barely hiding his giggles. “So, tell me; what is it, exactly, that I don’t know?”

    “Should we tell him?” Roman whispers. Patton shrugs, pushing his glasses up by pressing his finger directly against the lens. Logan can feel something shattering, deep inside his innermost soul.

    “Oh, tell him, you dorks,” Remy groans. “It’s literally, like, so obvious, it’s almost sad that he hasn’t figured it out yet.”

    “Figured out what?” Virgil asks, materializing around the corner.

    “That me ‘n Patton are dating,” Roman says.

    “Duh, everybody knows that.” Glancing around, a look of concern grows on Virgil’s face. “Was I not supposed to know that?”

    “Well, actually, Logan here—” Remy begins, but with a swift smack to the arm from Logan, he cuts himself off. “Nope, yep, totally justified in knowing that. Seven out of three. Good job. So smart. We stan a clever icon.”

    “Please stop talking,” Logan says. “Can we just get back to decorating?”

    “Way ahead of you.” Virgil drops to his knees, gathering up scattered pieces of chalk and positioning the blank slates in front of him. “Did you decide which theme you liked?”

    Logan very much did not do that. “I like both the gender flags and the sexuality flags. What do you think?”

    Virgil, clearly not prepared to be in control, blinks twice. “Um. Well. Maybe we could make the first board sexualities, and the second one genders, and have each drink be a different flag based on which menu theme they’re under? And Remy likes making up drinks, yeah?”

    “Yes,” Remy unnecessarily confirms. Logan scowls at him until he disappears around the corner with Patton and Roman.

    “Cool,” Virgil continues, “So that way we can do a little of everything on the menus, and then the lights can just look nice in general, and they don’t strictly have to coordinate with the menus.”

    “Where do you work, some interior design place?” Logan asks, raising an eyebrow at Virgil’s confidence, which rapidly grows the more he talks himself through ideas. “You really seem to know what you’re talking about.”

    “Not exactly,” Virgil admits. “Where I work doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”

    “Want to work here?” Logan blurts, before immediately clapping his hands over his mouth. “Sorry, that was probably too forward. I don’t even know why I said it, I mean, look at this place, I can barely pay Remy, let alone add another hire, not to mention—”

    “You’re fine,” Virgil says absently, more focused on the menu spread. “Anyway, so the flags. Do you want to start listing off some drinks you serve, and I’ll write them on my phone, and we can just go from there to decide which drink goes with which flag?”

    Logan swallows thickly and nods, launching into his perfectly memorized list of everything he makes on a day-to-day basis. At least Virgil elected to ignore his outburst.

    As the sun makes its trek toward the horizon, shooting beams of light through floating bits of dust in the air, Logan sits back on his haunches to admire Virgil’s handiwork. For how consistently they’d been working all day, he has to admit some small amount of pride in the outcome.

    The first board, comprised of iced and frozen drinks, proudly bears all manner of gender orientation flags that Logan could find, both common and obscure. Each in bright pastels, of course, as neither Roman nor Patton had the foresight to bring darker colored chalk. The second board boasts hot drinks and sexuality flags, and despite himself, Logan quite likes the soft brightness of the middle menu. The third is still blank, with an added wooden board at the bottom to hold chalk.

    “That way,” Virgil explained, “whoever makes the custom drink of the day can draw it there, and write the ingredients without having to hunt for the chalk.” Although Logan doesn’t particularly care for letting guests take control of the menu, he begrudgingly agreed that it was a good idea.

    “You guys took, like, forever to do basically nothing,” Remy complains, now sprawled out across a table.

    “Guests eat off those,” Logan remarks, still more focused on the menus than his brother’s antics. “And you only managed to string up a few sets of lights between the three of you. I would hardly call that an achievement.”

    “Among,” Virgil corrects.

    “What?”

    “You said between the three of them. Since it’s more than two, it’s among the three of them.” Logan can’t decide whether to be horrified or enchanted by how Virgil managed to catch his own grammar mistake.

    “Roman?” Logan calls, drawing attention away from his flub. “What, exactly, might you be doing?”

    Roman merely grins in response, precariously balanced on one of the tables near the front. He lowers his hands from the upper frame of the window and jumps to the floor, trying to duck into a somersault and failing miserably. Patton giggles before helping him up and glancing at what he’d been messing with.

    “This is my cafe,” Logan reminds them, “so I believe I ought to know what you’ve done to it.”

    Offering a shrug and a wince, Roman follows Patton’s gaze to the window. “Mistletoe.”

    “Mistletoe,” Logan repeats.

    “Mistletoe!” Patton agrees.

    “Mistletoe,” Remy choruses. At Logan’s glare, he raises his hands defensively. “Sorry, I just wanted to feel included.”

    “Why, pray tell, is there mistletoe in my cafe?” Logan sighs.

    “Bitchmas in July,” Roman replies. Logan can’t decide whether to throttle him or to simply scream.

    “Roman?”

    “Yes, my dearest friend and barista?”

    “It is June.”

    “Yes.”

    “Bitchmas, as you say, is in July.”

    “Yes.”

    “June is not July.”

    “You lost me.”

    “Actually,” Patton cuts in, “I think I know why Roman put mistletoe there.”

    “Why might that be?” Logan is extremely close to tossing one of the people in this room out the window, and based solely on proximity, it very well might be Virgil.

    “For this.” With no further warning, Patton grabs Roman by the neck of his shirt and yanks him to stand behind the chair he’d been using as a stepstool. Logan hardly has the chance to blink before Patton is pulling Roman in, closing his eyes, and—

    “Yep, nope, super cool, very much did not need to see that,” Virgil announces, mercifully drawing Logan’s eyes away from the scene. “Besides that nonsense, did you guys get the lights all finished? I need to peace out pretty soon here, but I want to see the cafe in its full glory before the guests come and destroy it by existing in its presence.”

    Roman hesitates to answer, still breathless beside a beaming Patton. Remy cuts in first, allowing the other two to regain their composure.

    “We got everything done, so if you wanted to pack up whatever stuff you brought, I’ll get the last of the connections and cords all set up, so you can bask in the splendor before you go.” Leaning in close enough to whisper so that Virgil can’t hear, Remy’s breath tickles Logan’s ear. “His mug is on the side pocket of his bag. Sneak it away while I distract him, and make him a personalized drink. It’ll be totally endearing, I know it.”

    “I am not doing that.”

    Remy dangles the mug from his fingers with a smirk, thrusting it at Logan when Virgil isn’t looking. “You are doing that.”

    Logan frowns and reluctantly takes the mug. “I am doing that.”

    “Unless you want to be doing—”

    “Don’t you dare say it,” Logan hisses, snapping his head around to cast the entirety of his glare at Remy. “If you swear, in this moment, to shut your damn mouth, I will make him a drink.”

    “That’s all I want,” Remy says, dusting his hands off and tugging Virgil to stand in front of the door. The mistletoe dangles a few ominous feet away. Logan’s scowl melts into a vague feeling of contentedness as he watches Virgil taking in the unlit decorations. His hands work on autopilot, making an old favorite of his that has long since outgrown its recipe. When Remy clicks the lights on and Logan catches Virgil’s face in the light, the barista is pretty convinced he might just collapse right then and there, coffee and all.

    Framed in the soft blues and yellows of twinkling artificial lights, Virgil’s pale skin almost seems to glow against his jet black hair, a silhouette of ethereal splendor captured oh-so-perfectly for a split second, before the illusion shatters. Virgil turns to look at Logan as the latter absently slides the full mug across the counter, so entranced is he by the former.

    “You good?” Virgil asks. Logan can only manage the smallest of nods, barely capable of closing his stunned mouth as he watches the way the moonlight flicks off the purple tips of Virgil’s hair. “Dude, you didn’t have to go and make me anything!”

    “It’s one of his oldest favorites,” Remy cuts in, rescuing Logan from himself. “No, no, put your money away, this one’s on the house for helping us remodel.”

    “All I really did was draw on a couple menus,” Virgil protests. Nevertheless, he pockets his wallet and takes a hesitant sip from the mug. A beauty to rival that of his shape against the night sky lights in his eyes as he tips the mug, draining the rest as fast as he can manage.

    “Good, right?” Remy asks. Logan wonders whether his own mouth will decide to start functioning properly any time soon.

    “So good,” Virgil murmurs, still holding the rim of the mug to his nose and inhaling deeply. “Smells amazing, too.”

    With a swift elbow jab to the side from Remy, Logan manages to choke out a broken “thanks,” his voice cracking on the vowel. Miracle of miracles, Virgil doesn’t notice. Or, if he does, he pretends not to, which only makes it worse—or better, Logan isn’t sure.

    “Well, uh, thank you too,” Virgil mumbles. He clutches the mug as tight as he can manage, shouldering his way out the door. Not two feet beyond the threshold of the door, he absently raises his shoulders toward his ears against a cool summer breeze.

    “Logan, close your mouth,” Roman calls. Logan moves his jaw up, realizing all too late that he’d been staring open-mouthed at Virgil for no reason. Turning his face toward Patton’s neck, Roman giggles and whispers, “he’s so head over heels.”

    “That’s an understatement,” Patton replies. “If his head is where it is now, you’d need a cinderblock and the Mariana Trench to get to his heels.”

    “That was a bit of a stretch,” Remy says. “I know you’re trying, hon, but maybe try more puns, fewer metaphors?”

    “Puns,” Patton echoes, rolling the word between his lips and chewing the n. “Pun pun pun.”

    “Now look what you’ve done,” Roman groans.

    “Pun,” Patton repeats, pointing up and nudging Roman to the side. Roman blinks and follows his finger to the mistletoe, which is wobbling dangerously. “Don’t think you used enough tape there, Crumb cake.”

    “Maybe not,” Roman agrees. As he reaches up to adjust the decoration, Logan’s hand thrusts out of its own volition.

    “Do you maybe want to move that over the door instead? Maybe? I mean, you don’t have to, I just—”

    “Logan’s rambling,” Remy announces. “Better do what he wants before he short circuits entirely.” Roman and Patton titter at this before the former pulls down the mistletoe, removing the old tape and producing a new roll from his pocket.

    “Thanks,” Logan sighs, watching Roman stick the mistletoe just to the right of the bell. What he wouldn’t give to be under that with—

    “Closing time!” Logan shouts suddenly, ignoring how the other three flinch. “It was all very fun and nice, but it is time for everyone to go home. Right now. Please leave. This very second. Immediately. Get out.”

    Remy exits first, followed quickly by Patton and Roman, none of whom bother trying to hide their laughter. Logan is the last to leave, still focused on that mistletoe. Still focused on who he wants to see beneath it.

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

    Virgil is having a bad day.

    He woke up with only two minutes to spare before having to leave for work. He stepped on poop from his neighbor’s dog when he went outside. He found a smear of mocha syrup along the seam of his pants in a very conspicuous pattern. He didn’t have any other clean pants ready. His car wouldn’t start fast enough. His USB cord to his phone wouldn’t connect, no matter how many times he turned it. His throat ached, but without a fever, he was still legally allowed to work with food. His voice was all but gone.

    Virgil wants nothing more than to go back home, crawl under a mountain of blankets, and stay there until the sun goes away.

    This would be a task much more easily achieved if Natalia would bother to show up on time. Virgil forces a tight smile onto his face as he mindlessly nods along to the latest guest’s conversation. Ten more minutes and he’ll hit compliance, which means a stern talking-to between Anne and her boss, which means a stern talking-to between Anne and him, which is basically the last thing keeping Virgil from walking out of the store right now.

    Virgil wants to go home.

    “Have you seen Natalia?” Anne asks, appearing on the other side of the bar once the line dribbles down to nothing. Virgil shakes his head, already halfway through making her usual order as she groans. “Okay, well, you’re gonna hit compliance in a second here.”

    “I know that,” Virgil snaps. “There’s not exactly a whole lot I can do about it.”

    “Mind your tone,” Anne chides lightly, and though Virgil can tell she’s kidding, he really isn’t in the mood for it today.

    “Yeah, sorry. Do you mind, uh, you know?” He tilts his chin to the next guest, as well as the cluster of families preparing to queue up behind them. Anne nods and apologizes with a laugh, scurrying off to do whatever it is she deems more important than helping Virgil to keep this line in check.

    This is the part where Virgil is supposed to launch into a spiel of every drink he makes, as well as the struggles that accompany calling out complete orders with a voice that basically doesn’t exist, but based on the morning he’s had so far? He has absolutely zero desire to get into it. Guests are rude, baby boomers are impatient, the sky is blue, Virgil is in hell, next question.

    “Hey, um, excuse me?” Some dude leans over the counter, shaking his empty cold cup at Virgil. Evidently, he did not notice the line waiting to be helped. “Barista boy?”

    Virgil glances where his name tag should be, shrugs at its absence, and nods. Yeah, that’s a fair nickname. “What’s up?”

    “You made my drink wrong.” His empty drink, that is.

    “Oh, I’m so sorry about that, did you want me to remake it for you?”

    “No, I want you to give me a refund.”

    “Sir, I—you already finished your—by store policy, I can only make you a new drink, I can’t give you a refund if there’s no drink to take back in return for the money, sorry.”

    “Yeah, but I didn’t like it.”

    “Then why did you—never mind, would you like me to make you a new one?”

    “No, I want compensation for a miserable drinking experience.”

    This goes on for some time, and while Virgil is largely skilled at keeping his composure when he has to, that’s much more easily said than done when the guest is flinging curse words at him left and right.

    “Sir, I’m sorry, it’s—there’s a long line, so unless you want to have me remake your drink for you, there’s really nothing I can do.” Angry Guest Man rips out a few more choice words before storming off, shouldering patiently waiting customers out of the way. Virgil rolls his shoulders back and moves on to the next guest, relieved when all they want is a grande mocha.

    Virgil.

    Wants.

    To.

    Go.

    Home.

    “Hey, I’m here to cover for Natalia!” Kim announces, prancing behind the bar without a hat on, as if she doesn’t notice the hold up Virgil’s dealing with.

    “Awesome. Get here sooner next time. Put on a hat—or a hairnet, I don’t care which—and start taking orders while I catch up on hot bar. We’re almost out of skim milk, and the almond milk shipment is behind today, so only offer coconut and soy milk.” Virgil tosses out orders almost as fast as he hands off drinks, waving off Kim’s bewildered demands. “I don’t care how or why Natalia got you to show up late—better than not at all—but I need you to kick into gear. I’ll get you as caught up as I can, but I’m gonna hit compliance, so savor this partnership before you’re on your own.”

    Kim bites back whatever protests she might’ve had, instead nodding and moving for the register. She plasters a welcoming smile on her face and starts chatting up the next guest as Virgil slowly but surely picks apart his backlog of orders.

    Virgil does not want to be here.

    Another guest complaining about their cappuccino not having enough foam is incredibly close to being the straw that shatters his back. Virgil bites back a groan as he gingerly takes the unlidded cup from her, nodding his apologies and profusely assuring her he’d remake it. She scowls and mutters something about hurrying up.

    “There you go, sorry ’bout that,” Virgil says, passing off the new cup.

    She removes the lid, glaring at the drink and completely ignoring the swarm of people behind her that would very much like to get their orders. “There isn’t enough foam for the caramel to sit on top.”

    “Yeah, that’s how physics—I mean, yes, my bad, do you want more caramel drizzle?”

    “No, I want you to make it right.” With no further warning, she scrapes off the top layer of foam and flicks it at Virgil, cocking her head to the side as it plops across the bridge of his nose.

    He might just scream.

    “So you’ll have me remake it, then?” Virgil forces himself to smile as she nods with a harrumph. “Right, okay, just give me a minute here, aaand—there you go.” He pushes the latest creation over the bar and comforts his shot nerves with the mental image of throwing the drink in her face.

    “There’s not enough foam.” Before Virgil can even pretend to be sympathetic to her first world problems, she dips her finger into the foam.

    And flicks this one square at his chest.

    “Anne?” Virgil’s voice is sugary sweet as Anne drifts lazily over from across the seating area, moving as if she had all the time in the world. “I’m going to hit compliance in less than two minutes, so I am going to clock out. I will not be coming in tomorrow, as I have a backlog of sick days, and I will be using one to figure out whether I want to come in the day after that. Good luck getting someone to cover for me, since it was obviously such a difficult task for Natalia.”

    “Virgil, if you don’t come in tomorrow, you can kiss this job goodbye,” Anne snaps.

    Virgil considers this, removes his hat, and places it squarely on her head. “If you want me to stay away, I’ll do so happily. In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t a whole lot of qualified backup for you here.” Anne can only manage bewildered sputters in response as Virgil unties his apron, drapes it over a chair, and strolls off to the break room.

    Virgil is leaving this hellscape.

    “I really wanna leave this stupid town,” he sings to himself in the car, ignoring his blatantly wrong lyrics as he tears out of the parking lot. “And today, the time has come.” Ramping up his voice to little less than a furious scream, he pounds the steering wheel to the rhythm, and feels an odd lightness when he sees the empty passenger seat. For once, he doesn’t have to have the ever-present company of that obnoxious apron, wrapped up and tucked inside that ridiculous hat.

    Virgil is going home.

    At least, Virgil thought he was going home.

    No one could be more surprised than him when he finds his hands steering the car toward Logan’s cafe of their own volition.

    “Hey, Virgil, what’s going—wait, hey, you walked under the mistletoe!” Roman whines from the counter, where Remy is closely monitoring his work behind the bar. “You can’t just walk past mistletoe without a kiss-letoe!”

    “Stop talking, or that mistletoe is going up your ass-letoe,” Virgil mutters, making a beeline for the mound of bean bag chairs in the corner. A nice touch of comfort amidst the soft lighting and colorful menus they’d added yesterday. Probably Patton’s idea.

    He falls to his knees before he knows what he’s doing, shoving his face into the plasticky surface and letting the rustling beans consume his senses. He’d barely bothered to notice how loudly his pulse was thrumming through his head until it stopped, overpowered by the artificial cushion beneath him. At the sound of footsteps drawing near his head, Virgil briefly considers sweeping out a leg and knocking them to the floor. An action movie sequence fantasy at best.

    He feels them speak before any words come out, and has never felt closer to cussing out someone he met mere days ago.

    “Hey. Rough day?” By some merciful chance, it’s not Roman, or Remy, or even Patton. Logan continues, careful to keep his voice low and measured, “I get that. I had the lights turned down temporarily to test the environment in direct sunlight, but I’ll leave them down for your sake. We also received several compliments on the new menus—all your handiwork, of course.

    “Remy’s training Roman on how to make drinks right now, since I’ve heard many guests discussing how to get their friends to join them on trips here. With that kind of increase in business, I could really use his extra set of hands, no matter how inexperienced. I see you brought your mug, as well—if it doesn’t upset you too terribly, I’ve already had Remy begin teaching Roman how to make up drinks, so you might get an odd flavor combination, what with the steep learning curve and all. Roman is creative, I’ll give him that, but he’s never truly been one for understanding the intricacies of taste and texture among our staple ingredients.”

    With every word out of Logan’s mouth, Virgil can feel his mounting headache slowly, ever so slowly, draining away. In the wake of Anne and Kim’s nonsense, he hadn’t cared to notice the exhaustion, much less how severely it hurt. Even now, his pulse is pounding like a jackhammer against the roof of his skull.

    “When Remy first picked out that mug covered in cups for you, I have to say, I was horrified. As far as I could tell, it was just the first thing he grabbed, which is about as basic a tactic as any other. Your current one, with all the constellations and the blues, just felt right, if you know what I mean. Not exactly a logical way to select your mug, but I can’t really explain it.”

    “I like to call them mug-mates!” Roman announces. “You know, mug, soulmate, mug-mate?” An image crosses Virgil’s mind of throwing his current mug at Roman’s head, and he laughs. “See, Remy, told you I was funny.”

    “I hate to break it to you,” Remy says gently, “but Patton was only lying about you being funny because you suck at everything else.”

    “Shut up,” Logan singsongs, his voice achingly calm against their raising tones. In a voice that somehow manages to be even more soothing than before, almost dulcet, he continues, “most of my guests have a particular piece of clothing or accessory that stands out, matching their immediate mug. You just felt, well, different, somehow.”

    Virgil fights the instinct to flinch as he feels something come to rest against his head. A moment passes, two, before it starts to move, lightly combing through his matted hair and gently scratching at his aching head beneath. Against his own volition, a contented sigh escapes his lips. The scratching continues unaffected.

    If it were possible, Virgil would stay here, just like this, forever. Motionless in a pile of bean bags, with only Logan’s presence to remind him he still exists. Naturally, this isn’t possible, as a gentle set of three raps against the wall over his head jerks him out of his half-conscious state.

    Logan nods with a smile as a guest lowers their hand, moving for the door and stashing their mug in their bag. At Virgil’s questioning gaze, Logan raises his hands and explains, “that’s how my best guests say goodbye. The first few regulars I had liked the peaceful silence, so instead of cutting through the air with words, they’d just knock on the tables. It sort of became habit, I suppose.” Virgil glances from Logan’s mouth to his shoulder and back, releasing another sigh as the scratching shifts down to his back.

    “Feel any better?” Logan asks. His eyes are filled with a warmth that Virgil swears wasn’t there yesterday.

    “Little bit,” Virgil mumbles. “Work sucks.”

    “And where, exactly, do you work?”

    “Starbucks north.”

    The shock in Logan’s expression is almost laughable. “I have never been more disgusted with a single human being in all my life than I am right now.”

    “Yeah, that’s fair. I think I just kind of quit, though. Not exactly a ceremonious end to my shift, if you know what I mean.”

    “Rude guests?”

    “Try obscene and pathetic. One flicked her foam at me.”

    “Wait, don’t you get free drinks when you work there? Why buy my drinks when you can get stuff without paying for it at all?”

    “We aren’t, like, a chain place, since we’re owned by the department store we’re in, so we kind of follow different rules than the regular stores. I only get one grande drink per shift, and it has to be while I’m on the clock.”

    “Okay, but you can still get those drinks. Just make them on your last five minutes and walk out with them. Why bother spending money on what could be free?”

    “I’m not funneling the money I get from that place directly back into it. They are a capitalist regime based on the basic downfall of the foremost man empowering story, and I refuse to fuel their fire.”

    “How closely did you analyze Moby Dick?”

    “Sparknotes.” Virgil pushes himself onto his elbows, still savoring the feeling of Logan’s fingers gently scraping along his back. “Hey, what was that you were saying yesterday about offering for me to work here?”

    Logan’s face colors immediately, flush with about as much red as is humanly safe. “I didn’t mean to impose—I mean, er, I didn’t want you to feel like—”

    “It’s cool,” Virgil interrupts. “Anyway, were you even a little bit serious? Because I don’t really have a reference from my last place, but if you’re willing to accept a new hire with a shady history who knows how to run a coffee bar, I’m your guy.”

    Logan nods quickly, glancing back to where Roman is struggling considerably under Remy’s watch. “You’re hired. You start today.”

    “Actually, I know this is probably a bad first impression on my new boss, but do you mind if I start tomorrow? I’m not really feeling it today.”

    “Indeed, I should probably draw up the paperwork, as well.”

    The finality of this tenuous agreement hangs in the air, an oddly relaxed cloud of, well, something that can only wait to be shattered.

    Roman does a perfectly fine job of carrying out this task.

    “Logan, you’re gonna be so proud of me in a second here—I made my very first drink! Remy said I have to give it to Virgil, since you won’t take it.” Roman passes the constellation-covered mug over to Virgil, who glances warily at the murky substance rippling within. “Relax, it’s literally the easiest drink I can make.”

    “Earl grey tea,” Remy calls over. “Two tea bags, hot water, and honey. I promise he didn’t poison it.” Only after Remy’s reassurance does Virgil take a hesitant sip, admiring the flavor as soon as it hits his tongue.

    “Oh, that reminds me!” Logan exclaims, raising a finger in the air. It takes everything in Virgil not to whine at the loss of the reassuring hand against his back. “I got something as a thank you for helping us with the decorations yesterday—it’s right upstairs, actually. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll have it right back down here for you.” As Logan rises, something jingles and clatters to the floor, escaping his notice as he moves for the door. A keyring, covered in at least ten keys and even more keychains.

    “Hey, wait, you dropped these,” Virgil says, grabbing the keys and following Logan to the door. Logan lifts his chin slightly, taking the keys and shoving them in his pocket—careful enough that they won’t fall out this time.

    “Oh, look at that,” Roman coos. Virgil raises an eyebrow, turning to see where Roman and Remy are excitedly elbowing each other and giggling. Even Patton appears from around the corner and smiles along with them—probably leaving the bathroom.

    “Look at what?” Logan asks, obviously quite finished with their nonsense. Rather than dignify him with an answer, Roman merely points above their heads. Virgil follows the motion to see the last decoration he could’ve expected in June.

    Mistletoe.

    To the tune of the other three quietly chanting, “kiss, kiss, kiss,” Virgil swallows an annoyed moan and glances at Logan, whose face somehow managed to turn an even deeper shade of pink.

    “If you don’t want to, I mean, if you didn’t, you know, feel comfortable with—” Logan stammers, every word darkening his cheeks, but Virgil cuts him off with a laugh.

    “Maybe I do want to. Kiss you, that is. I mean, if you want to.”

    “No, yeah, I mean—yes. I would like that. To kiss you, I mean.”

    Virgil’s face glows like a rose on fire. “Okay, cool, because I also want to do that. Also.”

    So he does.

[mitchmarnier]

semi charmed life | chapter four | 2.9k | teen |

“You guys have kept in contact this whole time?” Bill asked, brow disappearing underneath hair line as he looked like his old friends in amazement. “And you guys are.. what? Room mates?”

Eddie avoided looking at Richie as he answered. “Yeah, uh… room mates. Something like that.”

[or: the adult!losers reunion, done 2000s sit-com style, just like we all deserve.]

PREVIOUSLY ON SEMI CHARMED LIFE: “I applied to some museum job in New York on a whim earlier this year”. “ “I meant to turn it but every time I went to I… I just couldn’t. I should have told you, I know. I know. But I think I need to do this.” | “Okay, stop, I don’t understand.” Bill rubbed at his temples. “You and Richie adopted two kids? Two actual human children and this never came up? Not the entire time we’ve all been hanging out since showing back up in Derry, discussing our lives? Your two children with your high school best friend didn’t seem like might be relevant to those conversations?” | . “I did some shit that I’m not proud of. My best friend… I… I was so desperate to get away from this place, and I kind of betrayed him.” “I thought I was past this, I thought I was easily eight years past what you did. But now I’m here, looking at you and having to listen to you go on about what a great experience you had at school and how in love you are and I…. I want to be happy for you, Stanley, but I can’t. Because you stepped on me to get it.” 

Stanley Uris let his forehead press against the car window as the Georgia landscape whizzed past them, Patty occasionally glancing towards her fiancée and smiling to herself. Ben Hanscom was reading a newspaper outside the car rental store, sun shining on his face and smile on his lips at the lingering smell of vanilla on his clothes. Bill Denbrough wadded through the multiples of unpacked cardboard boxes, and knocked on the locked bedroom door at the end of the hallway. Mike Hanlon dropped a couple quarters into a payphone in Metro station and punched in the number he had written on the ripped napkin.

Richie Kaspbrak had his three year daughter tossed over his shoulder, rushing through the family’s New York townhouse making over-excited airplane sounds. Frankie shrieked in joy as her father dipped her suddenly, Eddie smiling happily as he reached out and answered the ringing telephone. “Hello, you’ve reached the Kaspbraks’.”

Mike gave the payphone an odd smile as Eddie’s phone came through. “Hey, uh, Eddie? It’s Mike.”

“Mike!” Eddie cried in a sharp, pitchy voice. Richie looked up from where he was dangling Frankie upside down and gave his husband an amused smile. “I take it if you’re calling that you made it into the city alright then!”

Mike laughed nervously, looking around the barely moving ridiculous traffic and the buildings that were nearly so large that Mike wasn’t sure if he was really even seeing the tops of them. He certainly wasn’t in Maine. “I sure hope so, or I’ve crossed over into some terrible alternate dimension of Derry that I really don’t want to give that much thought into.”

Eddie laughed with him over the line, as the buzzer signally the ringing of their door bell rang through their home. “What is this, Grand Central Station?” Richie laughed as he tossed a giggling Frankie onto their couch like a football in the touchdown zone. “I’ll get it.”

Eddie nodded at his husband as he turned his attention back to his conversation. “Good, good. You’ve still got a few hours before meeting with the real state agent your work gave you, right? You going to do any big city exploring before then?”

Mike gave a nervous chuckle, smiling against the phone. “I don’t know. It’s just… big, you know? I’m starting my life over from scratch. I just… It’ll be nice to do these things with somebody there.”

Eddie leaned against his kitchen counter, phone pressed against his ear. “Welcome to the Big Apple. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.”

Richie padded to the front door, his tiny toddle of a daughter hurrying in her small legs to keep up with her daddy. He turned the handle and yanked the door open, taking in the person standing on his front step with their whole life surrounding them in suitcases.

Beverly Marsh looked up at him from under her lashes, fiddling with the straps on a backpack that Richie recognized from high school. “Is your and Eddie’s invitation for a place to stay still open?”

 →  →  →

“Baby….” Bill banged his head against the locked bedroom door. “Will you please open the door? We need to talk about this.” The silence on the other edge make the anxiety in Bill’s stomach swill and sour, making the man unable to ignore how he was now only moments away from reducing to his childhood stutter. “Please, Audra. Please.”

It had been radio silence from his pregnant girlfriend since Bill had told her the night before that he was setting out from Derry. The conversations had been dim and unlively since she’d taken off to their New York apartment in the middle of the night, but Audra had not answered the phone even one time since hanging up on Bill with a simple “Okay” as he told her he was ready to come to their new home. It seemed the Bill having finally arrived hadn’t changed his girlfriend’s stance on potentially never speaking to him ever again.

Bill kicked lightly at one of the boxes closest to him and let out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, I know you’re in there because I saw you run from the kitchen into the room as soon as I opened the front door. I literally heard you turn the lock, and that’s really immature, I might add-“

The door flew open and his girlfriend was suddenly glaring angrily up at him. Bill’s heart lurched in chest, even knowing the fight they were about to half, and the struggles they were about to face, he’d missed the hell out of his girlfriend and seeing her still took of his breath away every time. For the first time since he’d been told, the thought that this beautiful woman he loved was carrying his child gave him a spark of excitement instead of a spark dread.

“Baby…” Bill whispered.

Audra’s eyes sparkled up at him. “Don’t you baby me because I’m only realizing right now how much I fucking missed you and I’m trying to be pissed at you!”

Bill cupped the side of Audra’s face, pressing their foreheads together. “Let’s put that anger on pause, fuck now and fight later?”

Audra giggled and leapt up to wrap her legs around Bill’s waist. “I guess that is how we should break in our new apartment.”

“I fucking love the way you think, baby.”

 →  →  →

Beverly leaned over the side of crib, peering down at the sleeping baby inside. She furrowed her brow and tilted it to the side. “So this is…” She started.

“Yep.” Richie confirmed.

“And you and Eddie…”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” Beverly stepped away from the sleeping child, running her fingers through her tangled red hair.  “And how long have you been….”

“Well, we met in 1982 so give or take…” Richie cleared his throat awkwardly. “Thirteen years this November.”

Beverly’s mouth dropped open as her mind went spiraling. “Thirteen… Wait, wait, wait. You guys were together in high school? What the fuck, why didn’t you…”

“Tell you?” Richie bitterly. “Bev, I adore you but it took you almost six months to even speak to me again after we broke up. The last thing I wanted to add onto that was ‘oh, hey, also I’m gay.’”

Beverly let out a small laugh, rolling her eyes at her friend. “You know, that might have made it better. If you’d told me that you liked Eddie, I definitely would have believed you. I didn’t cross my mind back then but now that I’m looking back at it- it adds up a lot of shit.”

“Ha ha ha,” Richie mocked laughed, but the amusement in his eyes was real. Tossing an arm around Beverly’s shoulders, he lead the girl back to the kitchen where Eddie was holding up two packages of pasta in front of Frankie’s face.

“Just pick one,” Eddie said in calm voice, a voice that Richie instantly recognized as I’m about to loose my shit with this fucking child and he grinned. “Bow ties or shells.”

“I want bow ties AND shells!” Frankie cheered, reaching out for the bags with gabby hands. Eddie clenched his jaw and widened his eyes, Richie ducking in and swooping the now-giggling girl into his arms.

“Come on, Franks. Bowties are your favourites! Why don’t we just make those and we can have shells another night?” Richie asked her, balancing the little girl on his hip.

Frankie furrowed her brow and smacked at Richie’s chest. “Don’t call me Franks, Daddy! You know I hate that!” Beverly raised her brow at Richie as Eddie chuckled under his breath.

 →  →  →

Patty ducked back into the apartment, two bags of take out food in her hands. Stanley had been mostly silent the entire ride back to the city and she chalked up to Stanley’s dislike for travelling. Back home now, in their half packed up apartment, and Stan still hadn’t said anything, and Patty felt her anxiety rising.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Patty asked, unpacking the food onto their table. Stan looked up at her, frowning slightly. “And don’t tell me that you’re fine, because we both know what a terrible liar you are. You’ve been practically mute since we left Derry, so please tell what’s going on. I’m worried.”

“I…” Stan shook his head. “I guess it’s just… Richie. I think there was a part of me that really thought I’d go to this reunion and everything would be sorted out. I’m just sort of struggling with knowing there’s really nothing I could do to make it up to him.”

Patty sat down across from him, beginning to pick at the food. “I can’t help you feel better or worse when I don’t know what happened, baby.”

Stan let out a shaky breath. “In our senior year of high school, I tried to kill myself.” Patty’s eyes blew wide but Stan carried on right over. “I’d fought with depression since middle school, but Richie and my parents are the only people who knew about my attempt because…” Stan cleared his breath. “Richie found me that day. He saved my life.”

“And that’s why you stopped being friends?” Patty asked slowly. “Because that’s not on you, Stan, if he-“

“No.” Stan interrupted, looking tortured. “No, but that’s what started it all. And that’s why I’ll never be able to forgive myself for what I did to him.”

 →  →  →

“What do you think?”

Mike looked around the small apartment. Very small, even smaller than he’d expected and he felt his heart sink. There was no way they’d be able to have a Golden retriever in this apartment, but he couldn’t possibly ask for more from a job he hadn’t even started at yet. A job that was already putting themselves out for him more than they needed to, when they could simply hired another person for the job. Blinking back tears, Mike smiled at the real estate agent. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

She beamed at him. “That’s wonderful! I’m go glad, we’ll just go over some paper work and this place is yours. Your girlfriend is coming up to live with you as well?”

Mike forced a smile. “My partner is back in my hometown, we’re still putting a few things into place for the move. It was more than a little unexpected.”

“Life is like that sometimes,” the real estate started unpacking papers from her brief case. “But I think you’ll find the most sudden of changes are sometimes the best ones.”

Mike nodded, thinking of Alexander back in Derry. He couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t true.

 →  →  →

Ben opened the door to his apartment, sighing as he pulled his jacket tighter around him. His landlord had turned on the buildings’ air conditioning mid-April and Ben’s home was always freezing. The walls were a bare, ugly grey and if Ben himself didn’t know he lived there- he’d assume nobody did. The amount of time Ben Hanscom spent in his office, he knew that he might as well live there- and this apartment was just for appearance. For the occasional days off or the even more rare time that Ben got out of work early enough to sleep in his own bed instead of hunched over a desk.

Rubbing sleepily at his eyes, Ben stumbled through his apartment and thought- not for the first time- that maybe he should get a dog. There was an loneliness in Ben Hanscom’s heart that he once been used to- a sadness that he hadn’t realized he’d had because he’d never known anything differently- until he’d moved to Derry. Meeting the Losers had shown Ben a life of friends and connection, and it was something he’d once more forgotten about until this weekend. The loneliness was settled deep in his chest now.

His phone had six messages from his trip to Derry, even though he’d been gone through weeks and weeks of getting approval for the time off. The last one was from his direct superior, Robert Gray. A very brief, straight-to-the-point demand. Be in your seat at 7 am on Monday morning or don’t bother showing up again. Ben sighed, looking up as the clock hit midnight and gave up on having dinner for what he knew wouldn’t be the last time this week.

As he hung up his jacket, Ben pulled the folded paper out of his pocket. mrsbeverlyrogan@hotmail.com. Sighing, Ben crumbled the paper up and dropped into his waste paper basket as he walked past it.

 →  →  →

Patty pulled her sleeves up over her hands and pressed her face against them. She and Stan were sitting side by side on the living room floor, Stan’s face wet with tears and eyes pleading. Patty swallowed at the sick feeling in her stomach and looked at her fiancée.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” she said slowly. “What you did… is not good. But baby, you aren’t what you did ten years ago. If Richie can never forgive you for it, then I guess we can’t blame that. You told me yourself what a bad place you were in then, and while it doesn’t excuse it, I just… the Stanley Uris I know would never do that.” Stan looked away, face burning with shame but Patty reached out and grasped at his hands. “And I think the reason it hurts you and it hurt Richie so much was because the Stanley Uris he knew would never have done it either.”

Stan and Patty held each other’s gaze for a long time, Stan’s body trembling from the unexpected support. He had given all his thought to having her turn her on back on her the way Richie had the day he’d found it, expecting to see a mirror of Eddie Kaspbrak’s horror in Patty’s eyes and suffer the brutal slap of Bill Denbrough’s words come from her mouth.

“If you want to mend things with your friend,” she said slowly. “You need to prove that you’re not the person who did that. If your friendship was real as you believe it was, he’ll see that someday. But you’ll have to put in effort.”

Stan leaned his head onto Patty’s shoulder and her wraps went around him.

 →  →  →

“I know,” Mike said into the phone, squeezing his eyes shut as he leaning against the pay phone outside his building. “I don’t know what else to do.”

The line was quiet on the other side, if it wasn’t for the persistent barking of Henry in the background Mike would almost think Alexander had hung up on him. Hell, Mike wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. “I’m not sure what you want to say here, Mike. Do you want to give up Henry?”

“You know I don’t,” Mike said, the sound of his puppy barking in the background making his heart hurt. “What if… What if you stayed on the farm for a while? My dad is supposed to move into the home on Wednesday but until I figure out something in New York, just stay there with Henry? You haven’t left your job yet, we could just-“

“Do long distance?” Alexander asked through the phone line. “Mike everybody knows what that’s like, the cost it has on relationships-“

“It’s not forever,” Mike pleaded. “It’s just until something else comes along. Just until I find a way to fix all this.”

Alexander sighed. “Alright, Mike. I’m with you.”  

 →  →  →

Audra wrapped her bathrobe around her naked form and turned to face Bill as he struggled into a pair of pajamas pants. “Do you want me to get an abortion?”

Bill startled, tripping and nearly falling onto the bedroom floor. Audra watched him with a blank expression. Bill’s answer came to him without a moment of hesitation. “What? No. Of course not.”

Audra looked relieved for a spilt second, then her frown returned. “We’re going to have to change things. You know I love your writing, Bill, but hopes and dreams won’t pay for a baby. We need to get a real jobs, we have to get our shit together. Or… or maybe we’re not ready, I get that, I do, I didn’t really plan to-“

Bill came forward, pulling Audra against his chest. “I know. I know, I started looking at jobs in New York while we were in still in Derry. I’m fucking terrified, okay? But I’m serious about us, about our lives together. Maybe this isn’t exactly planned, but I think it’s what’s meant to happen.”

Audra laughed wetly, wiping at the tears falling from her eyes. “You know, for a dumbass, sometimes you say exactly the right thing.”

Bill beamed and kissed the top of her head.

 →  →  →

The Kaspbrak house was quiet as Beverly came out from unpacking as much of her belongings as she could fit into Eddie and Richie’s spare room. She came into the living room, smiling at the sight. Richie was fast asleep on the couch, baby Marty resting in his arms with Eddie asleep pressed beside him, leg draped around waist. Frankie was curled on Richie’s other side, half disappearing into the couch cushions, with her baby sister’s little hand dropped onto her forehead.

Grabbing the camera off the coffee table, Beverly snapped the quick photo and smiled at the warm feeling in her chest. Maybe this life wasn’t the one she’d thought she’d ever life, but right now it felt exactly where she belonged.