#he actually mentioned recently that my handwriting looks like his used to when he was younger & i didnt think about it too much

[anewbrainjughead]

i found a letter in my desk that i recognised as being written in my handwriting, read the first sentence & realised it was addressed to me, FROM me, and for a moment existed within a twilight zone episode where my future self tries to save me from some great unavoidable tragedy by leaving me letters.

turns out it's actually a letter my dad wrote to me when I was a kid, and our handwriting is deceptively similar.

[scoops-aboy86]

By The Heart (Secret Admirer pt 2)

Steddie Week 2024, July 2: Hands / touch starved / Invisible Touch by Genesis

wc: 2136 / rated: T / set between seasons 2 and 3 / also on ao3

After the world fell apart a second time in November of ‘84, Steve had finished out the rest of his senior year in a daze. Partly because Billy Hargrove had broken a fucking plate over his head, giving him a small scar by his hairline that the doctor said would fade and recurring headaches that the doctor said might stick around anywhere from a few months to forever. 

It’s been more than a few months and the headaches are only slightly less frequent and a tiny bit less severe. 

He graduated, barely. His dad keeps dropping pointed comments about how his parents let him stay in their house rent-free after high school, how he’d saved up while attending a nearby college by not having to worry about the cost of a dorm or basic meals, and that it is his gratitude towards them that has moved him to offer the same to Steve. Usually said comments come after Steve tries to sidestep some sort of menial task, and it always feels like a threat.Steve just grits his teeth and takes it—refills his dad’s drink when the bottle is already literally right by the man’s hand, washes the family car after dinner when both his parents know that Steve has a shift at Scoops first thing in the morning, whatever. He can’t afford to get kicked out right now. 

His job at Scoops Ahoy is shit, all bright fluorescent lights and kids screaming and everything getting sticky for a measly minimum wage, but that probably reflects the quality of the job application he’d submitted. 

He has no friends, no prospects, no one in his corner except a bunch of incoming freshmen and the only one who really seems to want him around is off at some sort of smart people camp that he’d never even heard of… Go figure. 

But he has Secret Admirer. 

Okay, what Steve has is a pen pal who has a PO box and prefers to remain anonymous, possibly because Steve is an embarrassing person to have a crush on these days. And it’s really stupid that he thinks of them as first name Secret, last name Admirer, but it’s not like he hasn’t tried to come up with better names! Unfortunately, there are so many things Secret Admirer has called him (sweetheart, darling, dearest, honey, baby) that he can’t really think of anything original with those constantly rotating in his head… He can’t use them, though. It’d be weird. 

The first letter had been shoved into his locker in the last few weeks of school, looking like someone either wrote it with their non-dominant hand or had also suffered a blow to the head recently, and he hadn’t known what to make of it at first. In fact, he’d considered the possibility that Tommy or Billy were playing some sort of prank on him… but he didn’t think either of them could write “To Steve, the heart of my heart” without bursting into homophobic flames, and if it was Carol she would’ve done her girliest handwriting with hearts dotting the eyes. And his Secret Admirer had mentioned things no one else in his life seemed to care about. 

Like, 

I hope you’re feeling better. Sometimes I notice you squinting or grimacing in the classes we have in common… Are you still getting headaches? Do you get enough rest? You probably already know this, but mental and physical rest are super important for getting your handsome self all recovered, big boy. 

And,

I had a concussion once, not a bad one but it really left an impression. Felt like I was trying to think through a head full of soup for weeks. It sucks that teachers didn’t seem to cut you much slack because, just saying, I noticed they used to do that a lot more when you were still on the basketball and swim teams. Jock privilege placed above consideration of an actual, serious injury? I’m sorry, but that’s the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril, sweetheart, and you deserve better. 

So, yeah. Clearly his Secret Admirer is a nerd who doesn’t necessarily have the best opinion of jocks… but still took the time to notice all those things and write kindly about them. It felt nice, knowing that at least one person out there noticed, maybe even cared. 

And when that letter turned out not to be a one-off, a few more letters in his locker and then one in his mailbox, postmarked and everything, after graduation? Steve was hooked, enough to start writing self-consciously back. 

Which has brought him to the point of wanting so badly to meet this person that he’s stooped to begging, and it’s not even getting him anywhere. 

It’s occurred to him that it could be a guy, of course it has. Steve might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he knows it happens. He’d had a friend in middle school, Todd Fischer, nice guy, totally normal kid—got caught kissing some boy in the next grade up behind the gym and turned out to be the worst sprinter of the two. The Fischers had moved out of Hawkins a few weeks later and Steve hadn’t heard anything from or about Todd since. They’d been halfway through reading Romeo & Juliet in English at the time, and Steve remembers thinking when they got to the end of the play that at least things hadn’t gone that badly for Todd and whoever the other kid was. He’s old enough now to know that it could have; between Todd being such a nice kid, Barb dying in his own backyard, and the threat of government agents coming out of the woodwork if he ever breathes a word about certain secrets, the thought leaves a bad taste in Steve’s mouth. 

Anyway, if it is a guy, that would explain why Secret Admirer keeps dancing around his pleas to meet. And the initially disguised handwriting—which had been dropped by the second mailed letter, along with a brief, sheepish apology. 

But it could also be a girl who’s really shy or something. Steve doesn’t want to assume and then look like a total idiot further down the road. Whoever it is, all Steve knows is that he doesn’t want to lose them. He has to play this smart, play it cool… because he knows himself, and already knows that they have him by the heart based on words alone. 

The latest letter is in his hands, crinkled a little at the edges, and Steve can’t help himself from rereading the fifth paragraph yet again. 

… those indecently tiny shorts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about running my fingers up the inside of those thighs. Or my mouth. Whichever you think you’d like best, baby, I’m not picky. And while I do like ice cream, particularly strawberry with rainbow sprinkles in a cone, I can think of something else I’d love to wrap my hand around and run my tongue over before any drips can escape. You just think about that, hmm? Maybe share some of those thoughts in your reply, if I haven’t scared you off…

He’s not scared off. Doesn’t need to know exactly who put pen to paper to imagine hands and lips running up his legs, either, an invisible touch that sends shivers along his spine. 

Okay, maybe it’s been a while. Between striking out from behind the Scoops counter and not really trying all that hard anyway, the only action Steve’s seen is from his own hand… and this letter. He has thoughts, alright, but has a much better idea of how to translate them into action than words. And this is his problem with the whole pen pal only thing, his natural charm (if he has any left) is absolutely useless in this medium. 

The other problem is that he really, really wants to jerk off about this, except he’s got almost no details to fuel the fantasy. He knows that Secret Admirer had a concussion once, but not what color or length or texture or style their hair is; knows they’re on the fringes of popularity and not really into sports, but nothing about their height or build or how they might move against him. Hell, he doesn’t even know if they’re a girl or a guy, isn’t sure if he should try to imagine boobies and painted nails or stubbled cheeks and big hands. 

Secret Admirer has mentioned being a smoker though, of both tobacco and grass, and Steve is not exactly proud of how strongly this makes him want a cigarette just because it’s all he has to go on. He has work in under an hour and Robin hates the smell of cigarettes, will be extra vicious for their entire shift if he comes in reeking of smoke. 

He’ll have to figure out something else…

Dear Secret Admirer, Thanks for writing again, I was really glad to get your letter. I don’t sleep with them under my pillow because sometimes my pillow ends up on the floor and I don’t want to drool all over them. I keep them in a box in the back of my closet, because sometimes my parents have the cleaning lady do my bedroom without telling me and I don’t want her going through my stuff or putting it in weird places that I can never find again.  Sorry for laughing at you You must not have seen me last week when I threw a banana peel at my coworker for It’s not being humble if I don’t deserve Yeah, fuck high school.  Sorry for not rewriting this, I’m running out of paper and my dad’ll kill me if I break into his office to get more I definitely thought about what you said in your last letter. I thought about it a lot. It’s hard to figure out how to explain what though, because I wanted to picture you like you were probably picturing me when you were writing it. You obviously know what I look like, but I don’t know who you are so I had to get creative. (Which isn’t my strong suit. So if this is stupid maybe we could just never mention it again?) Since I don’t know what you look like and it’d be weird to try and picture you anyway, and then what if I’m not even close and that makes it seem like I don’t like you for who you are? I’m not sure if that makes sense. But anyway, since I don’t know what you look like I pictured you dressed like a ninja.  Hear me out, okay? You’re such a mystery. Ninjas are mysterious, and dressed all black to blend in with the shadows. You can’t see their hair or face and they wear gloves because you can tell a lot about a person by their hands. I guess what I’m saying is I imagined you sneaking into my room at night when the lights are off. Totally silent but with this powerful presence, you know? I think if I were in the same room as you it’d feel like that moment right before the whistle goes off at a swim meet, because that’s just like, holy shit it’s about to happen and your muscles are all tense but ready but you’re waiting, coiled like a snake. So I’m coiled like a snake and you’re still a ninja and I’m not very good at this. I’ve done it over the phone a few times but that’s different. I don’t know where I’m going with this just sitting writing this alone in my room with Genesis playing in the background so I’m going to stop. Just trust me, it was hot. If you ever want to exchange numbers I’d be happy to tell you all about it sometime.  It feels weird to end like that, so I’ll also tell you that I tried reading that Hobbit book you suggested and you were right, it’s a lot easier than the Rings book that the kids I babysit tried to bully me into reading. Bibo is freaking out about all these dwarves in his house and I can relate, it sounds like when those kids all show up and try to rope me into driving them around town. At least they haven’t tried to make me steal anything or try to take on a damn dragon yet. Hopefully this book won’t give them any ideas.  — Steve PS If that was so dumb you changed your mind about still writing to me, please let me down easy. Seriously it would be no hard feelings. At least I still have a great ass and great hair, so I’ve got that going for me.

Tag list (open): @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @steviewashere

@cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve @rozzieroos @lunaraindrop

@just-my-latest-hyperfixation @wheneverfeasible @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls @matchingbatbites

@ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor @thetinymm

@practicallybegging @fuzzyduxk @greatwerewolfbeliever

[smeg-and-the-red]

Smegtober Day 8: Diary

(prompts by @strange-and-off-putting)

word count: 578

A/N: This is set during Stasis Leak. Warning for allusions to child neglect (and Rimmer's terrible childhood in general).

Like a lighthouse beaming across a sea of boredom, Rimmer’s diary provides a delightful evening of entertainment. As Lister reads, he occasionally recites passages in his best impression of Rimmer’s nasally whine to the Cat, who snickers while he hems a pair of pants. What Rimmer has written in his diary isn’t even particularly interesting, it is simply knowing how bent out of shape the hologram would get over it that makes it fun.

Rimmer is outraged when he finds out - of course. Which he hardly has any right to be, Lister argues, since he knows that Rimmer has read his diary. Their bickering is cut short by Holly informing them of the stasis leak.

Rimmer’s insistence that Lister stop only serves to make him determined to read more. Rimmer once mentioned that he has kept a diary consistently since he was a child, and since Lister knows he never throws anything away, he figures the old ones have to be somewhere. He looks high and low, but finds nothing in their sleeping quarters. He figures Rimmer must have dumped them after all, and soon forgets about it.

Until now. As the months have passed, their sleeping quarters have collected more and more trinkets, junk, or whatever else Lister happens to find when he occasionally explores the rest of the ship. Rimmer had objected at first - of course - and insisted he didn’t want to be living in an episode of Hoarders. But eventually he relented, and Lister noticed a few of the hologram’s things out of their usual strict places as well.

An old wooden chest sits open in the middle of his and Lister’s quarters with various bits and bobs thrown haphazardly into it. But it isn’t all junk, as Lister had assumed. He spots a couple of worn, plain black notebooks, identical to the one Rimmer had used as his diary. Grinning widely, he scoops one out of the chest and hauls himself up into bed, settling in and opening the notebook.

He frowns at what he sees. This diary can’t be Rimmer’s - the handwriting is an untidy mess, nothing like Rimmer’s immaculate Copperplate script.

Lister scans a random page. No, this is definitely Rimmer’s diary. He sees Rimmer’s brothers’ names in the middle of one entry. He flicks back to the first page and checks the date at the top of it. The first entry was written in the winter of 2160, when Rimmer was about eleven years old. Lister reads.

I got a letter from Father. My report must of came in the post. Im glad Im not there. Hes really angry at me so its probably really bad. He said Im to study hard so he can test me when I come home. I need to eat as much as I can before I go home on Friday.

Lister closes the notebook with a snap, his heart beating uncomfortably fast.

It’s not like Lister didn’t know. Rimmer had told him recently that his father was tough, that he had denied him and his brothers food at mealtimes if they failed to answer questions about astronavigation. But hearing about it is one thing. To actually see it written in that childish scrawl is another thing altogether. It makes it so much worse somehow. Those things didn’t happen to Lister’s smeghead bunkmate, they happened to a tiny child.

Lister tosses the diary across the room and back into the wooden chest he found it in.

[bisluthq]

Re Marjorie/ dead grandparent discussion, as someone who has a lot of dead family and recently lost the most important grandparent figure in my life… here are the things I’d ask (my recently deceased figure started going dotty and I talked on the phone with her less cause I couldn’t handle it cause I already live with my dad who has early dementia and it was too much to deal with at the time). While they still have cognitive capacity, or even if they aren’t all there but can be redirected:

- what’s their favourite place? If it’s close enough, go there with them and make memories there. It’s much nicer to go to a park or a museum to feel close to someone than it is to visit a cemetery imo

- what’s their favourite flower? When you see pink roses or red tulips, you’ll always think of them.

- if they have a signature dish or favourite recipe, ask them to write it down for you in their handwriting. Then cook it with them or for them depending on their ability.

- ask to have a movie day and watch their favourite movie together. I was able to buy an old western on dvd for someone and he was so excited and watched it multiple times. Then we watched it together and he kept talking over the tv to tell me how he had a friend who looked like this actor, or ‘it really was like that you know! They just shot people!’ And random shit like that, far more interesting than the movie.

- same for books if they can still read. Or ask if they like/d poetry and what were their favourites when they were your age and what they like now. Anything like that.

- ask how they met their husband/ wife, what life was like when they had their children, how they felt when they became a grandparent and if it was still as exciting the 10th time as the 1st (some will say yes, some will say no. But it usually generates a new funny story if they say no 😂)

- ask if they used to dance and what sort of dance they did. Apparently one of my grandmothers was quite the dancer and had a lot of attention and competition on who could jive with her 😂😂 I wish we had pics!

- if they wear a perfume or cologne, take a photo of the bottle. I wish I knew the perfume one of my aunts wore. It was her signature scent that smelled like her but none of my cousins know what it was either. I’d love to smell it again and spray it on a blanket and hug it (idc how weird that sounds)

- when they’re annoying and telling the same story or same rant for the thousandth time, zone out but really look at them - their eyes, their hands, mannerisms. Just study them. I only really noticed their eye colours just before they passed tbh.

That’s my advice / Wishlist if I had a Time Machine anyway. Some of the questions can open a can of worms, like ‘how did you two meet’ and finding out he had a wife beforehand that was just never mentioned even to his children and no one knows if it’s true or if he said it cause he was losing his marbles lmao.

awww. I am gonna ask my grannies some of that. They annoy me but I actually should suck it up.

[dndiguess-blog]

2024年7月19日 — Just starting out (again); What do I have to work with?

As someone who's been trying to learn japanese on and off for over a decade it's always a challenge to come back to it, especially after a longer break. This is the position I find myself in currently since I haven't seriously tried improving my skills or immersed myself for a few years now.

Granted, I never quite got to the point where I could naturally immerse myself in japanese on any level even when I was actively practicing, but I knew a lot of basics. When I decided a couple weeks ago to see just how rusty I had gotten it was clear that I needed a good repeat of nearly everything before I could even think about progressing. I'm sure many others that habitually cycle through different hobbies can relate to how frustrating and sad it can be to have to relearn concepts and skills that were no match to your previous self. I also have the bad habit of letting go of things when I don't feel that I progress "fast enough" (I am in no rush, this is purely a standard that arbitrarily set for myself) which adds another layer of difficulty whenever I have to start over with the basics again.

Because of these reasons I've really tried to take the time I need and make sure that I absorb everything before moving on to something else. I've honestly had a lot of fun relearning even the most surface level concepts, and I think this sort of repetition that I've been required to do be able to progress is something that I really lacked when I've been trying to learn previously. Granted, letting go of the language completely for 2+ years isn't necessary. But I think going forward that I will make a bigger effort to backtrack whenever I feel a little unsure of something and repeat concepts until every part of it feels solid.

—

Hiragana & Katakana (sort of)

So far a lot of my time has gone toward practicing hiragana until I'm completely confident in my reading abilities again. Something new that I've done this time, embarassing as it is to admit, is to go through every character's stroke order and learn them that way. Previously I haven't given stroke order much thought. This is mostly because I don't even write that much by hand in swedish/english so it didn't seem that important to me at the time (I know, I know...). Another reason is that I am left-handed. I haven't seen this ever be discussed that much so I don't know if this is just something I struggle with, but I find the correct stroke order to be difficult to write with using my dominant hand. But yes, this time I've made an effort to actually learn the characters the right way! I must admit that I still find it to be a clumsy way to write left-handed (and sometimes I still cheat, forgive me) but I must admit that practicing hiragana (more recently kanji) as steps that must be done in a specific order rather than just little pictures to memorize (I did practice writing them previously as well of course, I just kind of improvised the way I did it) has made the characters stick way quicker than they did previously.

A video that really helped me with stroke order, and generally making my hiragana look nicer and less "fonty" is this one by the channel ToKini Andy! It's a nice, long video of him and his (native japanese) wife going through each of the hiragana where he first draws the character and then she corrects any mistake he makes (which I think are very common mistakes to make, I related to many of them) and shows how she draws the same character. From what I gathered she is a calligrapher, so her handwriting might be a bit fancier than the average japanese person, but I still think it's a very good video. Andy himself stated that he has been writing hiragana for 12+ years, so regardless of where you are in your journey I would recommend checking it out!

Before moving on I'd like to quickly mention katakana: I haven't practiced katakana nearly as much as hiragana. This isn't because I don't think katakana are important, but not as immidiately mandatory as hiragana. While hiragana are necessary to know for every other step of learning japanese; katakana is something I can practice slowly over time, either actively or passively. The app I've been using to practice kanji also lets you practice katakana, so I've gone over them a few times on there (practicing stroke order as well, bonus), especially the ones I'm less confident in, and I will probably do this every now and again to make them stick.

—

Currently I have made way more progress than just hiragana, but this entry ended up being very long so I won't detail every single thing I've crossed off my list. Instead I'm going to list off the resources I've been using, and also what I think the next steps on my journey are going to be!

My resources

My physical resources at this moment is my (very old) Genki 1 text book, a very cheap grid notebook, and my Goodnotes 5 app (I'm going to have another section with the apps I use, but it felt better to group goodnotes with the rest of my notetaking things? Even though it isn't a physical resource... Oh, well). The cheap notebook is just for writing practice. I don't like combining my nice looking notes with my practice scribbles so I need a pressure free space to just scrawl as much as I want. I use goodnotes to make more put together notes where I go over concepts and write down anything I learn in detail for future reference. I didn't get the app for this purpose, I've had it for a long time and used it for all sorts of studies and hobbies. I'm not using any particular template for this purpose either, I've been using the normal grid template.

App-wise I started a bit with duolingo, mostly when I was practicing hiragana. I got annoyed at basically everything with the app very quickly though (surprise!) and decided to look for something else. At the moment this is what I have downloaded:

HeyJapan – This app is in the "duolingo-category" of language apps but it's just for japanese. It's a little janky but I like it way more than duolingo. I haven't used it as much as the other apps though, mostly because I've been using my Genki-textbook to structure my learning and it felt confusing to have two different sources at the same time.

Ringotan – This is the app I've been using to practice kanji! I've actually loved it. First you pick a source to base your lessons on (you don't have to own any of the sources to use this app, this is mainly so that if you own a textbook you can practice kanji as they appear in the chapters you're studying); I chose Genki. Then you get lessons with groups of kanji based on the source you picked! The lessons consist of drawing the character using the correct stroke order with less and less guides as you progress. There's also a "Custom Review" option where you can freely pick which kanji you want to practice. This app has been great for me in particular. Since I've decided to repeat everything from the beginning (down to the concept of XはYです) I've actually used the app to study ahead in the textbook. This keeps me from getting bored while going over and reminding myself of simple concepts, and also means that I already know the kanji when I get to a new chapter in the book.

Shirabe Jisho – A dictionary. This is just the first dictionary I found when looking for recommendations, and it's been great for me so I haven't tried any other. You can search by english, romaji, hiragana and kanji. When looking at words you get direct links to the different kanji in the word, their stroke order and ON/kun-readings. Just a great dictionary!

Time to finish off this beast of a journal entry with my steps going forward. As it stands currently I have two main goals: 1. Relearn verb-grammar 2. Methodically work through the entire Genki textbook. When I last stopped actively practicing my japanese I had a pretty good grasp of the different groups of verbs and how to conjugate them. Grammar-wise I feel like that's the next big step to allow me to write more in japanese. As for the Genki textbook; I've owned this book for a long time, and I've probably read through most of it at least once. But I haven't actually ever used it in an effective way, mostly because I'm not the greatest at organizing my studies. Because of this I've made a section of my japanese notebook in goodnotes an index/checklist of the different chapters and their contents. As I'm studying a chapter I'll write down any important concepts, notes and examples in goodnotes. I'll also practice any concepts I feel shaky on, and when I feel good about a section I can cross it off the checklist. This lets me see exactly what I need to do next, and will give me a good backlog of detailed notes to look back on whenever I need to remind myself.

Hopefully this method will stick, and otherwise I'll just have to adjust it and find a way to make it work for me. But other than that I have nothing to add so:

さようなら！

[awritingcaitlin]

✍🏻Find the Word Tag✍🏻

I was tagged by @juls-writes for Find the Word! My words are: word, character, letter, writing, and page

So we'll get to those in just a sec but first I'll tag: @saphoblin, @legiomiam, @mjjune, @sentfromwolves, and @baroquesse for the words: three, look, reason, open, and know

Snippets are from Cure for the Queen under the cut!

🗣WORD🗣

“The little shit’s tried to kill me at least three times recently.”

“Three?” Adler asked.

“These pirates, who were told to bring back my body,” Killian said, holding up one finger. “Back at the Schmiedish Embassy.” He held up a second finger.

“What happened there?” Adler asked.

“His abuse of a code word turned into his attempts to suffocate me,” Killian replied darkly.

“And you didn’t mention this sooner?” Rinnie asked.

“We were a bit busy,” Killian told her.

.

💻CHARACTER(S)💻

Major Melanie Cameron stared at the teleslab projection, looking over the string of characters delineating the new parameters for the shield going back up.

“That won’t work,” Thursár said in what she could only ascribe as a musing tone.

She rubbed her temples and looked over at the spirit. They stood off to one side of the terminal she was on, hands clasped in front of them, eyes focused intently on her. While the posture would be weird if it was another mortal, she’d grown used to the weird spirit mannerisms.

“Why not?” she asked. “I’m accounting for the lack of anchor pylons because I’m running it to be used beyond the shield.”

“It will be inefficient without anchor points.”

.

📝LETTER📝

“I’m sure you’ve reasoned why you’re here,” Thea said.

“The letter said, ‘for our actions in the field,’” Olivia replied.

“They are quite impressive,” Daeir said. “Would you care to elaborate on your thought processes getting into the Wall in the wake of the shield coming down?”

Olivia swallowed. “It was Breckner’s idea, actually,” she said.

Breckner stiffened.

“And once he explained his reasoning, I supported him wholeheartedly,” Olivia said. She left out the part where she’d initially panicked that he was putting their heads on the line. It had only been a few brief seconds.

.

✍🏻(HAND)WRITING✍🏻

She watched as Thundersong tried to open the briefcase but then pull back as if he was shocked.

“Of course it’s warded,” he muttered. “But what does the Queen of Schmiedland have to do with Riona Edgewing?”

Taryn’s eyes went wide and she wasn’t able to stop herself before she leaned over to get a look for herself.

The note was written in Ilani Edgewing’s handwriting.

To be delivered to Eileen Cresthower’s hands. Alternatively, Riona Edgewing.

.

📕PAGE📕

“Do you think I can read this in a day?” Riela asked, holding the book to her chest.

“You can buy it, you know,” Adler told her.

“I mean, I usually just bought things for the Tom’s library.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Yeah, so? Donate it to a library in Himmelmauer once we’ve both read it? Or start another library of your own.”

Her eyes went wide and she leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “I might just do that!”

Adler flushed red and took a moment to clean his glasses just to have something to do with his hands. He perused the rest of the table, but didn’t see anything that particularly interested him enough to purchase it. Riela stood there reading the book without caring about anything else around her.

He thought, for a moment, about picking up another copy since he’d been waiting for that Seacliff novel longer than she had, but there really was no point. He’d read it when she was done.

There were some chairs in the bookstore which Adler led them too. Riela was almost lost to the world and he was a little surprised to see her already on page forty-eight. He picked up a space novel that he’d already read to read while she was reading. It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to be unless someone called the stone.

There was something really peaceful and reminiscent sitting next to Riela surrounded by books as they both read.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Out of This World

Dave Lizewski x Reader

Fandom: Kick-Ass

Summary: Despite your best efforts to keep him out of it, Kick-Ass winds up involved in something well above his pay grade.

Note: Takes place sometime after Kick-Ass 2, with Dave in college now. Also, I actually really like the OCs I thought up for this? They have kind of a cool dynamic lmao idk.

Warnings: Injury, drug mention, canon-typical violence

Word Count: 3.1k

Reader is: Gender Neutral

It was a somewhat quiet night. Crickets chirping. The occasional car whirring by. Distant chatter. Too quiet, almost.

You listened, your eyes narrowing. You tuned in your senses, listening, listening, listening, until—

“Hey.”

“Aah!” You turned around, coming face to face with none other than Kick-Ass himself, donned in his recently upgraded gear, still accompanied by the green and yellow wetsuit mask he was so well-known for. You nodded. “Kick-Ass.”

“Yeah! Uh, hi. I don’t think we’ve met.” He smiled and you swore you’d never seen eyes more blue. They were clear and vivid despite the darkness surrounding you on the rooftop you were using for cover.

“We haven’t.”

“Right. So, um, what’s your name?”

“I’m Firefly.”

“Firefly. Cool. Cool.” He nodded awkwardly and you couldn’t help but chuckle. “Are you…?”

“Patrolling, yes. You?”

“Yeah, same.” He shrugged, rocking back on his heels and pausing for a long moment before asking, “Are you…waiting for something?”

“Someone, more like it.”

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I think I can handle it.” You said. “But thanks for the offer.”

“Are you sure?”

He was so earnest and genuine that you almost accepted. Until you remembered the context of the situation. Kick-Ass was a powerless, human, and utterly naïve vigilante. Taking him with you would be a death sentence.

“Yeah, I’m sure. But thank you. Seriously.” You told him, smiling a bit.

He smiled back.

And then you heard tires screeching in the alley below. Your eyes widened and pulse quickened. That was your cue.

“Those are my guys. Catch you around.” You saluted him and then promptly jumped off the roof, causing him to yell and lean over the side of it, watching as you gracefully, and slowly, descended all the way to the ground.

“What…?” He whispered, watching you and the faint glow around you as you safely got to the ground and took off after the van that had raced down the alley. Strange, he decided. Very, very strange…

***

You yawned, the bags beneath your eyes oh, so heavy. And yet, your college classes were relentless and very early in the morning. So, you were sitting in your stats class, scribbling notes in your notebook when the kid next to you started squinting at the board. He was wearing glasses, you noticed, and he had curly brown hair.

“It says 52%.” You whispered to him, sliding your notebook a little closer to him so he could see what you were writing down.

“You have really nice handwriting.” He complimented, writing down what you had in your notes. “Thanks, by the way. I try to sit up closer to the board, but those seats always get taken and I’m always a few minutes late.”

“No problem.” You chuckled.

“I’m Dave, by the way.”

“(Y/N).” You replied.

Your professor, a younger one who was nice, but pretty strict, glanced up at the clock and then looked down at the rest of you. “Well, that’s all we have time for today. I’ll see you all on Wednesday. Remember, we have a quiz on Chapter 4 so make sure you study a bit between now and then. Class dismissed.”

The room started to chatter as the people who knew each other started making plans to meet up and work on the study guide. You stacked your things and started sliding them into your bag, tucking your water bottle into the side pocket.

“Um, (Y/N), do you have any study plans? I’m…well, I’m not doing very well in this class.”

“I was actually gonna hit the library later after my last class. Get some coffee, chill there for a while.” You said, pulling out your phone and opening snapchat. “Do you want to meet up, maybe?”

“Yeah! I’d actually like that a lot! Thanks so much.”

“Of course.” You grinned. The two of you exchanged contact information and went your separate ways.

When your next class, Psychology 201, ended, you shot Dave a snap and headed over to your usual spot in the library, one of the booths against the wall near the coffee place. It was a little noisy, sure, the sound of the coffee grinder constant and loud, but it was much better than the stiff upper levels where you were afraid to so much as even sneeze.

Once you’d claimed your table, you ordered yourself a drink from the counter and then went back to your seat, only to find Dave already there, unpacking his things.

“Hi.” You smiled.

“Hey. How was your other class?”

“Boring.” You replied with a laugh. “Our teacher put on some documentary and I almost fell asleep. I, uh, had kind of a long night last night…”

“Me too.” He chuckled. In that moment, you noticed just how tired he looked. Just how dark those bags were beneath his blue, blue eyes. He glanced at your cup. “What’s good here? I’ve never ordered anything from this place. I usually go to the one in the quad.”

“I like their chai. It’s good if you like cinnamon.”

“I do.” He grinned and scooted his chair back. “I’ll be right back, then. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

You got out the study guide and your notes and started looking through the problems to see which ones you needed to work on the most. Some of the equations you understood pretty well. Others were a bit confusing. Dave returned not long after, a cup of chai in his hand. He sat back down in his seat and took a sip, smiling after.

“It’s good.”

“I’m glad you like it.” You said, looking up at him. “So, which types of problems are you having the most trouble with?”

“Well, all of them, to be honest. I was never good at math. I’m just taking this class to get the gen ed credit.”

“Oh me too. I was okay at it in high school, but college math sucks, I’ve decided.”

“Agreed.”

The two of you started walking through problems together until things started to make a little more sense. You checked your answers with the ones on Blackboard, and they all checked out, though, so you knew you must be doing something right.

“So what’s your major?” He asked.

“Undecided, so far.” You shrugged. “I’m just trying to get my Gen Eds out of the way right now. You?”

“Yeah, I don’t know either.” He shook his head. “There’s just nothing I think I’d want to do for the rest of my life, you know? Too many options.”

“I get that. I think it’s good to take some time to figure it out.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Your watch chimed and you looked down at it, your eyes widening. There was no way those idiots triggered a distress signal in broad fucking daylight. You were sure it was a malfunction of some kind, and yet, the longer you stared at it, the longer it chimed, meaning only one thing. You had to go.

“Well, that’s my cue. Um, catch you around?” You started to hurriedly pack up your things.

“Yeah, of course! Thanks for the study session, again. I don’t think I would have passed without you.”

You laughed. “Thank me once we get our grades back.”

“Will do.”

And with that, you were gone.

***

When you finally got to the scene, the sun was beginning to set, but they were definitely still there. The Saturn Gang. They were pushing a specific type of drug on the vulnerable population, selling at night clubs and raves. And that would have been fine, had they not been known to give humans…adverse effects to say the least. And the reason?

The drugs weren’t from this planet.

You and your team had been tracking them for a while, doing everything you could to keep those drugs off of the street, but it wasn’t enough. There were always a few that slipped through the cracks.

“What’s going on?” You asked Sol, his golden mask over his eyes and gold accents on his otherwise dark uniform. His looked pretty similar to yours, actually, except the color on your suit was more of a yellow than the metallic material on his. The patch on your chest plate was different as well, yours in the shape of a firefly while his looked like the sun.

“We’re pretty sure we found one of their minor bases. This place definitely isn’t their main hideout, but there’s been a lot of activity here the past few nights.”

“Mmm.” You nodded.

“We also think they have a Lusca.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s what I said,” said Ember, whose uniform had red accents, a little flame embroidered onto his chest. “Nothing we can’t handle, but—”

“It’ll be messy.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“We’re gonna have to shower for a week,” said the leader of your team, a girl who went by the name of Nightlock. Her hair was choppy and short and midnight blue and her uniform didn’t have any accents. It was just all black, as was her mask. Something caught her eye and she stiffened up. “Shit.”

“What?” You asked, following her eyeline.

“Kick-Ass, ten o’clock.”

“Yeah he’s headed right for their front door. What do you want to do about that, Nightlock?” Ember asked.

“Well if he wanders in there, he’s dead. Stupid humans…”

“I’ve got him.” You volunteered. “I met him the other night. I’ll get him out of the way. You guys get inside. Once he gets lost I’ll join you.”

“And let us deal with the Lusca, how generous.” Sol chuckled and shook his head.

“You got a better idea?”

“Firefly, go.” Nightlock commanded and you nodded, quietly hopping down from the roof and landing behind Kick-Ass.

You clamped a hand over his mouth and pulled him around the corner, out of the alley. He struggled in your hold, but your strength far outmatched his. Once you got him far enough away, you turned him and pushed him against a wall so he could see you. Once he could, he stopped struggling.

“Are you trying to get killed?” You hissed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What’s going on? This is part of my usual route.” He insisted, eyes wide. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, kinda. We’re dealing with something. We have it handled, okay?”

“’We’?”

“My…team. I don’t have time to explain. Get away from here, alright?”

“Do you need help?”

“What part of ‘We have it handled’ do you not understand?”

“Right, I’m sorry.”

You noticed how scared he looked, his body trembling in your hold. You released him, your expression softening. “Don’t be. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

He nodded.

Once you were fairly certain he wouldn’t follow after you, you turned and headed towards the side entrance of the building, following after your teammates. It was noisy inside, meaning trouble, most likely, and you were right. Blasters were firing in every direction, beams of light erupting and dissipating, frying angry black char marks into just about every surface and piece of furniture in the warehouse, and in the center of it all, the Lusca, a giant, slithering tentacled beast, wailing and baring its sharp teeth.

One of its large tentacles had Sol by the waist, shaking him around like a rattle. You dodged fire and sprang into action, your fists glowing yellow as you took off from the ground like a bullet. Your energy cut the Lusca’s tentacle clean off and it fell to the ground with a sickly schlorp. You helped untangle Sol from the slimy mess and he nodded gratefully.

You ran across the warehouse, doing your best not to slip and fall on the grimy surface. Nightlock was corner in the back of the room, so, as quickly as you could, you took out her attackers, each of their blasters clattering against the cement.

A few minutes later, it was just the four of you and a dead Lusca.

You all gathered around it, staring at the thing.

“Ew.” You grimaced.

“Yeah.” Sol agreed, absolutely drenched in its disgusting slime.

You heard a clap. And then another. And then another as slowly, one of the Saturn boys, Four, as he was dubbed, due to his set of extra arms, walked into the base, holding Kick-Ass by the scruff of his uniform.

“I see you killed my guard dog. How about I kill yours?” Four asked with a grin.

Kick-Ass had a black eye and a split lip from what you could tell. It was evident he’d been on the wrong end of at least one of Four’s fists.

“He’s not ours.” Nightlock crossed her arms.

“Okay great. Then you wouldn’t mind if I keep him, then?” Four asked with a cruel chuckle. “Always could use some test rats for our latest batch.”

Kick-Ass looked up at you, his limbs limp, his eyes half-lidded. It was hard to see him like that. You wondered if he had stuck around, or maybe he hadn’t been able to get far enough away. When he coughed, a little blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“That’s not gonna fly either, I’m afraid.” You said, your fists involuntarily lighting themselves with power.

“A fan of his, little Firefly? Your fists deceive you.” Four tsked.

You noticed a patch of dark fabric clinging to Kick-Ass’ stomach. He was bleeding. Shit.

Suddenly, Four collapsed to the ground, as did Kick-Ass, who scrambled into a corner, shaking.

“Took you fucking long enough.” Ember growled at the same time Ultraviolet shimmered into existence over Four’s unconscious body.

“I had an exam, okay?”

“Can we focus, here?” Nightlock called the rest of you back to attention. “Vi, knock him out, too. We’re gonna have to take him back to HQ to get him healed up.”

“Wait…” Kick-Ass protested weakly, trembling slightly. He was scared. That was understandable. You imagined finding out about aliens existing would be pretty jarring. “…What?”

You walked over and kneeled in front of him, checking the damages. As the healer of the team, that would be your responsibility. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Your words seemed to put him a bit at ease and he nodded, surrendering to Ultraviolet’s pheromones.

“Sol, Ember, get Four bound. We should take him in for interrogation.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll grab the samples so Jeff can start synthesis of the antidote when we get back.”

You stared down at Kick-Ass’ unconscious form, moving him as carefully as you could and maneuvering him so he was comfortable in your arms. Well, as comfortable as he could be with his wounds.

Once everyone else was done, the whole team warped to Headquarters, your base of operation. It was, to be frank, a mansion in a satellite orbiting earth. You took Kick-Ass to the med bay and laid him down on the cot. Immediately, the screen started blinking, instructing you to remove his uniform for optimal healing. Shit.

“SOL! EMBER!”

The boys rushed in.

“Thought you might call.” Sol chuckled, he and Ember setting to work, getting him out of his uniform and into a hospital gown instead.

“How bad is it?” You asked, prepping your supplies and opening a new file on your computer, labelling it “Kick-Ass.”

“Bad.” Ember said gravely, his voice quiet.

“Hurry up, (Y/N).”

“On it.” You turned and looked down at him, your eyes widening.

“What?”

“I know him. He’s in my class.” You said, golden glowing sparkles floating around your fingers. You held them over the wound on his abdomen, letting your power and warmth flow into him until the gash fully sealed up. Next, you healed up the giant purple bruises along his hip and thigh, and then, finally, you let your hand hover over his face, watching as the bruising around his eye shrank and the cut in his lip fused back together.

Dave.

You stared at him for a long while, watching as, slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

Shit. That was right. Your powers always seemed to evaporate whatever effect it was that Ultraviolet had on people.

He looked up at you, his eyes half-lidded and a soft smile on his face. “Did I die?”

“No.” Sol said, arms crossed. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Hey! Get out of here.” You batted your arm at them. “Don’t scare him.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re no fun.” Sol rolled his eyes as he and Ember left, leaving you alone in the med bay with Dave.

“How do you feel?”

“Good. Um, fine. Where are we?”

“We’re safe. This is our Headquarters. You took a pretty bad hit.”

He sat up slowly, looking up at you. “That I remember.” He seemed to notice his hair in the corner of his eye and felt his face.

“We had to take off your uniform to heal you up. Sorry about that.” You apologized. “I’ll, uh, even the playing field, though.” You told him. You pulled the yellow wig you wore off, exposing your natural hair instead, and then you pulled the thin black mask from your face.

“(Y/N)?”

“Surprise.” You did jazz hands and chuckled softly. “Funny how that happens, huh?”

“Yeah… funny.” He smiled softly, shaking his head. “That’s so weird.”

“Yep. So uh…”

“You were right. This shit is way above my level. That guy had four arms and that…giant octopus thing was…”

“Yeah, that sure was an alien.” You chuckled. “Sorry you got mixed up in all of it anyway.”

“Me too.” He looked at you for a long time before asking, “So you guys…you all have powers?”

“We do.”

“That’s so fucking cool.”

You shrugged. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Well, uh, four arms and his squid friend aren’t the only aliens around here?”

His eyes widened and his head fell forward as he stared at you like you had suddenly sprouted a third eye. “You’re an alien?”

“Half.” You amended. “On my mother’s side.”

“Oh. Cool. I’m dreaming, right? This is all some fucked up dream?”

“Unfortunately, no, it is not.” You giggled, looking at the look on his face. “Any other questions?”

“Yeah, actually, uh…” He paused and looked up at you, a look you couldn’t quite recognize on his face. “Why did you save me?”

“Because no one deserves to die like that.” You replied. “And I have to admit, you’re pretty cute.”

He grinned. “You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I think you’re pretty cute, too.” He chuckled. “So uh…do you think I could take a half-alien out on a date sometime?”

You scrunched your nose. “Yeah, I think you probably could. Besides, now that the Saturn Gang thinks you’re involved in all of this, you’re gonna need some training.” You smirked. “And I can’t think of anyone better to give it to you.”  

[ragingbookdragon]

I'm Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 2

Batfamily x Batsis Story!

Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: Explicit Language and Angst!

Author's Note: It's amazing how much one can write when they've got a story to tell, eh? Enjoy! -Thorne

Set Three Years After PT. 1:

Life for her revolved around work in the A.M. and community college in the P.M. If she wasn’t brewing cappuccinos and baking apple turnovers, she was writing research papers and taking physics exams. It was hectic and it was hard, much harder than anything she’d done, but it was her life, and she was going to make the best of it. The money she’d taken from her savings account had only lasted her long enough to get a decent one bedroom one bathroom apartment in a small complex and the rest went towards tuition. The coffee shop two blocks from her building had fortunately been looking for a new hire when she arrived, and she took the chance where it was, not going to look the gift horse in its mouth.

The life she lived now was a complete 180 from her old one. Back then, she didn’t have to work (though she did at a high-end department store in the mall—her father got her the job but at least she had one) and there wasn’t anything she couldn’t get with a swipe of a credit card. Now she was on a budget that consisted of five and ten tips and the last time she actually bought a new pair of shoes over a hundred dollars had been last year when she needed them for an interview, and even then, it cost her a limb.

Everything was so different, but she didn’t want to go back, preferring to be on her own and away from Gotham. From the newspapers and media, her family had convinced the world that she’d taken a few years to go overseas and spend time in Europe. A mental reprieve, they’d called it. Partially true if she was honest, but she wasn’t going to open her mouth about it lest they learned where she was. She didn’t go through all that trouble to be found within three years.

“Melisandre.”

Maybe I should move again?

“Melisandre?”

Moving would take a long time but it would be effective.

“Melisandre!”

Someone grabbed her arm over the counter, and she jerked with a start, eyes widening as she finally realized someone was standing in front of her.

“Barry?” she asked, and he smiled.

“Finally,” he snorted. “I’ve been calling your name for like ten minutes now.”

She felt a flush creep along her cheeks, and she smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I was thinking about something. Usual?” she murmured, marking a disposable coffee cup with a marker.

Barry nodded with understanding and handed her a credit card. “I hear you. How’s studying going for that physics exam?” His blue eyes darted to the science book she had sprawled over the counter.

“It’s going,” she muttered and turned, starting to mix together his latte. “I still can’t get the thermodynamic laws down. They’re a bit confusing.”

“Yeah, it’ll take a while. You know if you need my help, all you gotta do is ask, right?”

Shrugging, she glanced at him as she poured. “You’re a busy man, Barry. I can’t have you trying to help me while trying to solve cases too.”

Barry chuckled and accepted the freshly poured latte. “I’m an excellent multitasker, Melisandre. Besides, you don’t have to worry about it messing with my work.” She opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off. “Seriously, shoot me an email about whatever questions you’ve got, and I’ll take a look at ‘em, okay?”

Her eyes narrowed warily, and she inquired, “You’re sure it won’t interfere? I’d hate for you to get in trouble for working on non-work-related things.”

“I promise, Melisandre,” he smiled and accepted a bag of apple turnovers too. He couldn’t help but pull one out and bite into it, letting out a delighted noise. “God, what do you put in these things? They’re phenomenal.”

She giggled and winked as he handed her a twenty. “A baker never reveals her secret, but if you really want to know, I use a little vanilla extract.”

Barry shook his head with a chuckle and started making his way to the door. “See you later, Melisandre!”

Waving at him, she called, “Bye Barry! Take care!”

Just as he opened the door, he stopped and spun around, suddenly asking, “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?”

Blinking, she glanced at the physics book then back to him. “Well, I was going to be studying for the exam…why?”

“My nephew is in town and I wanted to introduce him to you. I’ve already mentioned you a bunch of times and he wants to meet you.”

Her face pinched. “Barry Allen, what did you tell that poor boy?”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “That there’s a lonely college student who has no friends but has the greatest baking abilities in the world.”

“I cannot believe you told him I had no friends! Why!”

“You don’t.”

“Well, yeah! But still! You don’t just tell someone that! It makes me seem like there’s something wrong with me!”

Barry waved a hand. “Relax. Wally’s the least jerky person you’ll meet.” He smiled. “You’ll like him.”

She frowned. “I still don’t think this is a good idea, Barry.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s here to see you and your wife, not come meet the person who feeds your apple turnover addiction.”

The blonde’s cheeks turned a dark shade of crimson and he spluttered, “It is not an addiction!” he spun around and marched through the door. “I’ll send him over tomorrow! Bye!”

And he left before she could even say a word.

***

It had to be hieroglyphics. It was either that or some ancient cuneiform he’d recently taken up interest in, because there was no way whatever he’d written on the paper was English.

She cocked her head to the side, muttering, “Jesus Christ, Barry, did you write this on a caffeine bender? Your writing is like chicken scratch.” She tipped her head to the other side trying to decipher it when someone leaned over her shoulder.

“Which problem do you need help on?” they asked, and she pointed to the sheet.

“I have no idea what that says.” She turned and saw a red-haired stranger. “If you think you can, be my guest.”

He took it and read over it a moment, green eyes scanning over the page then he said, “Let’s see, he wrote first, ‘The third law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system at absolute zero is a well-defined constant. This is because a system at zero temperature exists in its ground state, so that its entropy is determined only by the degeneracy of the ground state.’”

Pausing, he scanned it again and added, “Then he marked a note beside it and wrote, ‘In simplistic terms, if an object reaches the absolute zero temp. of (0 K = -273.15C = -459.67°F), its atoms will stop moving. In other words, at absolute zero, the entropy of a perfectly crystalline substance is zero.’”

Glancing at her, he smiled. “Make sense now?”

She huffed and nodded, taking the sheet back. “Yeah, thanks. I don’t even know how you managed to get all that from his writing.”

He nodded. “Yeah, Barry’s handwriting is deplorable.”

Her eyes went wide, and she immediately questioned, “How did you?”

Sticking a hand out, he greeted, “Wally West. I’m Barry’s nephew.”

Shaking his hand, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I can’t believe he actually told you to come up here and meet me.” A smile came across her lips. “I’m Melisandre Hale.”

“That’s a pretty name, Melisandre.”

“Thank you,” she grinned and waved him to one of the bar-stools on the adjacent side of the counter. “Have a seat and I’ll get you something to eat and drink.” As she slid behind the counter, she inquired, “Anything specific?”

Wally stared at the bored, offhandedly mentioning, “Barry said something about apple turnovers that could make you cry with joy, so I’ve gotta have one of those.” His evergreen eyes met hers. “Maybe two if I’m being honest.”

She grunted, but a grin crossed her lips, nevertheless. “Barry exaggerates a lot, Wally. They’re good, but they’re not mind-blowingly good.”

“Then I guess that leaves me to be the judge,” he countered with a smirk. “What should I drink?”

She thought for a moment then offered, “Have any judgments about drinking before five o’clock?”

He let out a startled laugh and shook his head. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

With a grin, she turned and started working her magic and a moment later, she was sliding a plate with two iced apple turnovers over along with a clear steaming mug of dark coffee with cream on top. She leaned her hip on the counter and watched him pick up one of the apple turnovers and take a bite.

Immediately his eyes went wide, and he exclaimed, “Holy shit.” He gaped at her. “This is delicious, Melisandre!”

Despite herself, her cheeks warmed, and she gave him an easy smile. “Thanks, Wally.” She nodded to the crystal mug. “Try the Irish coffee.”

He did so and tossed his head back, letting out an exaggerated groan that had her laughing until her stomach hurt. Wally was on his second turnover and he looked at her.

“You’ve gotta open up a bakery or something, Melisandre. Your pastries are awesome.”

She huffed and took the plate from him as he finished the last bite. “Let me get through college first and then I’ll wonder how to rack up enough to open a shop.”

“What are you studying?”

Pausing, she tossed a quick glance at him. “There’s no specification right now. I’m just doing general studies to get all the basics out of the way.” She put the dish in the sink and started rinsing it. “I’m at the four-C right now.” His brows pulled together, and she added, “Central City Community College.”

He snapped his fingers. “Right! It’s been a while since I went to the four-C.”

Her eyes found his and she curiously asked, “Did you go there?”

“Yeah, a few years back.”

“You don’t look that much older than I am. How old are you, Wally?”

He sipped his coffee and set it down as he replied, “I turned twenty-eight a month ago.”

“Happy belated birthday,” she smiled, and he gave her one in return.

“Thanks. How about you?”

“I turned twenty-one a few months ago.”

“Hmm, happy belated birthday to you as well.” He grinned, quipping, “How’s it feel to finally be able to legally do all the things you were doing before you turned twenty-one?”

She shot him a look. “Shame on you, Wally West, for assuming I was doing illegal things.” He chuckled and she shrugged. “But to answer your question, it feels great, so thanks.”

Wally snorted at that. “My best friend and I got absolutely hammered on our twenty-firsts and swore to never drink hard liquor again after we woke up in the bathroom in our underwear after passing out on the floor.”

A shudder passed over her at her own memory of waking up beside the toilet after her birthday celebration with a bottle of white rum. She cocked a hand up with her water bottle in it. “Here, here,” she toasted and took a sip as Wally raised his coffee and drank too.

She glanced at him. “Are you in school, or are you done?”

“I finished a while ago. I work out of a tower with a group of friends in Manhattan.”

For a moment, her eyes drifted to the simple pair of jeans and graphic shirt he was wearing. She lived in the upper area of Gotham and she knew what uptown Manhattan was like, and it wasn’t jeans and t-shirts.

Evidently, he did too because he scowled, “I have suits and ties, thank you very much.”

She snorted and took the empty mug from him. “I didn’t say anything, Wally.”

“You made a face.”

“Is a face a ground to be hostile?” she grinned. “I was just wondering what type of business in Manhattan ran on flash t-shirts and skinny jeans.” She eyed him. “Tech?”

He shrugged. “It’s…a bit of everything if I’m being honest.” It sounded like he didn’t exactly want to say, and she let it be, rinsing out his cup before setting it to dry.

A buzz sounded and she felt for her phone when he said, “That’s mine.” Wally pulled his phone out, read the message, and stood up. “I’ve gotta go, Melisandre.”

She nodded and took the twenty-dollar bill he handed her, waving her off when she tried to hand back the change. As he started towards the door, she called, “Wally?”

He turned on his heel and waited and she felt foolish for saying it, but she admitted with warmth in her cheeks, “It’s been a while since I had any semblance of a friend…so thanks for this afternoon.”

Wally gave her a pearly white grin. “Barry said you’d say something like that,” he chuckled as she scowled and he added sincerely, “Can never have too many friends, Melisandre…and I hope you’ll become a great one of mine. So far, you already are.”

She smiled, “Same here, Wally.” The bell signaled his exit and she let out a heavy sigh as her heart warmed in her chest at the feeling of a newfound friendship.

***

She was dead on her feet when she finally got through her front door and into her living room, practically collapsing onto the couch. Though it wasn’t far from the truth as she flopped down and toed off her shoes, heaving a long and winded sigh as she stared at the dark ceiling. She wanted to turn on the lamp on the table beside her, but she didn’t want to move. Hell, she barely wanted to get up and take a shower, so she didn’t go to bed sweaty.

Just a moment. She thought. Just a moment to close my eyes and I’ll get up and go shower.

Of course, the second the shut them, she was opening them to her phone telling her it was two A.M. She groaned and picked herself off the couch to shuffle into her bedroom, and when she got there, she peeled off the clothes from her body and let them fall, not caring about the hamper just a foot away. She’d do it tomorrow after class.

The shower was quick, and she crawled into bed a few minutes later, glancing out the window at the stars that were still in the night sky. Even if she tried to avoid thinking about it, she couldn’t, and her mind drifted to when she was a young girl and would stare out the window in her bedroom back in Gotham, watching the spotlight come alive and paint the silhouette of the bat symbol against the night sky.

She missed them. She missed them a lot. Missed eating meals at a full table and the laughter in the manor. Hell, she even missed being ignored, because at least then she could see familiar faces every day. Now, it was wake up, go to work, go to class, then come home. And the process repeated every morning. She was alone in a city where she didn’t know anyone except for one forensic scientist and his wife, going to a college that didn’t even have her real identity. She’d not even said the name “(Y/N) Wayne” out loud for fear that someone with super hearing would hear her and tell her father, instead going by “Melisandre Hale”, a twenty-one-year-old born and raised Central City citizen going to community college. It pained her to admit, that with her decision to grant herself the freedom she desired, it came with a heavy price, and that was the loneliness. And it was worse compared to what it was like back then.

Sighing, she rolled over and pulled the covers up over her head, hoping that when she shut her eyes, she’d stop thinking about what she left behind. Unfortunately, the universe and her mind were never kind, and as she drifted to sleep, she saw the pained faces of her family.

[littlemissnoname13]

Blaise’s Cup of Tea (D.M)

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Reader

Warnings: some mentions of alcohol, very mild sexual themes, nothing too explicit, Draco being a fûxkboy ,Draco being a huge simp

Summary: where Draco is secretly in love with his best friend’s fiancée

Word count: 2122

A/n: had this idea in the shower and I couldn’t help myself. The blog has been a mess recently and for that I apologise.

For Draco Malfoy, a typical night usually consisted of three things. 

First, a glass of his favourite spirit; preferably scotch in his hand.

Second, a cigar tucked in between his fingers

And third, a random girl in his bed chambers. It didn't matter if his company for the night shared the same interests as him, it didn't matter if she liked him for who he was or if she liked him solely for being the heir to the massive Malfoy fortune. 

Come morning, he would never have to see her again anyway. 

His Father, Lucius always chastised him for bringing a different girl as a plus one to social events. Even Narcissa wasn't all too pleased about her son engaging in all these hedonistic activities and bedding random girls. 

The friends he’d grown up with were all well on their way to settling down and having children while he was still not even close to having a serious relationship. 

“Why can’t you be more like Zabini?” Lucius would say, everytime the Malfoys sat down for a family dinner. Narcissa would agree to this while expressing her desire for grandchildren and Draco would have to refrain from choking on his dinner. 

Blaise Zabini, was happily engaged to longtime girlfriend Daphne Greengrass and they were busy planning their Summer wedding. 

Every time Draco would meet Blaise for a drink, all he’d talk about was Daphne, the wedding, floral arrangements, invites and party favours. Just last week, Blaise even confessed to having already thought out names for his future children. 

Taking a final sip of his scotch, Draco placed his glass on his desk and returned to his bed, where a random brunette girl was peacefully asleep. 

He took a few moments to recall her given name in his mind but this attempt remained futile. He couldn’t even remember how he felt while they were doing the deed a few hours prior. 

His father was right, he was slowly turning into, for a lack of a better term, “Pig person.”

As he quietly slipped into his bed next to the brunette, he started to think about all the one night stands he’d had in the last few months. 

One night stands are appropriately called one night stands for a reason. He knew that. 

But it wasn't his fault he couldn’t get that one particular night from four months ago with that one particular girl out of his system. 

It had all started out so innocently. 

A chance encounter at a bar, alcohol fueled conversation, his hands on her hips on the dance floor and his lips on her lips by the end of the night. 

He’d never before met anybody so charming yet painfully frustrating in his life. 

Y/n. Y/l/n. 

Distinctive features, expressive eyes and lips that quirked upward with a wicked smile.She had one of those faces that had the capability of engraving itself into one’s subconscious and the way her brows furrowed in annoyance indicated that she might have been aware and unnerved by it. 

In the few hours he’d spent with her, she’d stimulated his brain with her wits and intellect. She’d made him care about uninteresting things like the witch burnings in the 14th Century. She’d challenged his predetermined notions and world view.

Everything about her was vivacious.

Her effervescence reminded him of a freshly opened bottle of sparkling Rosé on a hot summers day. Crisp yet sweet if you took in a moment for the flavours to sink in. 

And Merlin was this girl could kiss!

The way she gently nipped on his lower lip and teasingly traced her tongue left him with something more to be desired. 

Nothing happened with Y/n that night. Nothing except feverish kisses and whispers of “I want you.”

They’d spent the whole night talking. He’d never spent the night with a girl and not done anything before. 

And she’d left before he could even manage to open his eyes the next morning. 

She’d disappeared without a sign or trace.

Nothing but her fruity fresh scent on his pillows remained to remind him that she was in fact real and not some hallucination. 

Draco went the the very same bar again the next day with his hopes held high. He wanted to see her again. He needed to see her again. 

But to his utter dismay, y/n never showed up. 

Soon, it became a habit of his to go to the bar and wait for her.

He’d gotten so desperate at one point that he even interrogated the bar keep about the girl that had seemingly managed to capture his attention in the span of a night. 

But no matter how hard he tried, Draco never got any answers. 

She became nothing but a distant ghost of a rather blissfully perfect night. 

Just when he was about to toss away the memories of y/n and her pretty lips inside a locked and chained box in his head, he heard his house elf appear with a pop into his bed chambers. 

“Master Malfoy, this letter just came for you.” The elf said quietly as he stretched out his arm to hand Draco a sealed envelope. 

Draco would have told his elf off for appearing in his chambers in the middle of the night but decided against it when he saw the scrawl of Blaise’s messy handwriting on the envelope. 

It was two in the morning and a rather odd time for Blaise to be sending him a letter. 

Assuming that it must be something urgent, Draco quickly ripped open the seal and unfolded the letter. 

Draco, 

I write this with a heavy heart and I write this with nothing for company except a bottle of bourbon. 

Daphne left me this morning. 

The wedding is off and it is all my fault. 

To be honest, It did feel like things were going too fast and we were jumping to life altering decisions without taking the time to think and contemplate. 

After thinking all day, I have decided to get married after all. 

Your mother has been rather kind and offered to set me up with a girl that is supposedly “perfect for me.” Although I definitely trust her judgement, It would be great if you could “assist” Narcissa in her search. You are my best friend after all. 

B.Z.

By the time Draco was done reading Blaise’s letter, the girl sleeping next to him had started to toss and turn in her sleep. 

~~~

When his mum flooed into his residence the next morning, Draco’s company for the night, who was named Sylvia by the way, was just on her way out. 

Sylvia was rather laid back and was looking for nothing other than a rebound. Draco had offered her tea but she’d politely declined stating that she had brunch planned with her friends anyway. 

“And who is this charming young lady, Draco?” Narcissa asked. 

“She’s Sylvia and Sylvia was just on her way out.” Draco said in a clipped voice before literally shoving an annoyed looking Sylvia into the fireplace. 

“It was nice meeting you Mrs. Malfoy.” Sylvia said in a calm and polite voice, with floo powder in her hands. “See you around Draco.” 

“And I thought, you were finally serious for once.” Narcissa sighed before sinking down into one of the many chairs Draco had in his living room. 

Draco wanted to say something sarcastic in response but he bit his tongue and held it all back. There were more pressing matters at hand that required his attention. Like helping his mum find an appropriate match for Blaise who has so casually placed such a huge responsibility on his shoulders. 

The responsibility required him to go on multiple, rather tiresome “dates” set up by his mother. 

The first girl he met mistook him for Blaise. 

The second girl he met confessed that she was being coaxed into the meeting by her overbearing parents and had a secret Muggle boyfriend that she loved with her whole heart. 

The third girl he met was one of Blaise’s ex girlfriends.

The fourth girl turned out to be one of Draco’s own one night stands that had ended on a sour note.

It was safe to say that Draco returned to his mother that night with his shirt stained burgundy from the wine she’d poured over his head. He deserved it though.

Narcissa even agreed that he’d deserved it because she broke into a chuckle when her son walked into the Malfoy Manor with drops of wine falling from his blond hair. 

“Well this is a disaster.” Draco muttered to his mother who gave him an accomplished looking smile in return.

“This was a Disaster.” She quipped, before leaning towards the coffee table to pour herself some more tea. “Luckily, I’ve already found someone I deem to be a suitable partner for Blaise.”

“You have?” 

“I have. I too have been pulling some reins and meeting people personally for Blaise. He is like a son to me after all.” 

“Looks like I got splashed with a vintage red for no apparent reason then.” Draco muttered before using his wand to summon a clean cotton shirt. 

Narcissa simply shook her head at her son and stood up from her chair. “I’ve actually invited her for tea today so that you’d be able to meet her as well. Why don’t you fix your hair and put on a clean shirt before she gets here hm?”

Draco knew there was no point in arguing with his mother. 

When Narcissa Malfoy wanted things done, she’d sure as hell go ahead and get them done. A true Slytherin she was. 

He quickly unbuttoned his shirt and used a cleaning charm on his hair. He would have preferred to shower but he didn’t really have the time to dilly-dally around.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He heard a voice say, just as he was about to put on his clean shirt. 

It was a familiar voice and it raised prickling goosebumps all over his exposed flesh.

The goosebumps were a natural reaction to hearing a voice he’d replayed over and over in his head every single night for the last four months. 

In front of him stood Y/n Y/l/n in the flesh. Very much real and not a ghost of his imagination, clad in a blush coloured midi dress with a sweetheart neckline. 

He opened his mouth to answer but his mother beat him to it. 

“Welcome to our home. Sit down, have some tea with us.” Narcissa said in her best hostess voice and all Draco could do was force his hanging jaw shut. 

~~~~~~

The next few hours felt like the longest yet shortest few hours of his life. 

He was still processing the fact that he had in fact seen the girl, the ghost, the memory right in front of his eyes, wearing a dress that made her look like a scene in a vintage film. 

His palms were sweaty, his head was reeling, his throat was as dry as the Sahara and he could barely pay any attention to a word his mother was saying. 

“Draco?” Narcissa cleared her throat when he failed to respond. “Draco dear, are you listening?”

“Yes mother.” He replied curtly before taking a sip of his tea in a desperate attempt to soothe his throat. 

After what seemed like another torturous hour of tea and polite conversation, you thanked Narcissa for having you and leaned in to place a chaste kiss on his cheek before taking the floo network. 

“The Y/l/n family has been a friend to our family for years.” Narcissa commented. “I think Blaise would be rather fond of y/n. What do you think, Draco?”

He wanted to tell his mother about the time he spent with you four months ago.

He wanted to tell her that he was ready for a serious relationship if it was with you. 

He never really cared for the colour pink but it suddenly felt like a rather nice colour. 

You were witty, clever, sincere and extremely gorgeous. Of course Blaise would like you. He’d be a fool not to. 

After taking a few more seconds to carefully contemplate the situation at hand, Draco finally opened his mouth. 

“Yes, I think Blaise would like Y/n.”

Narcissa looked at him with a satisfied smile and the weight of a fully grown giant landed on Draco’s shoulder. 

Maybe you weren't Blaise’s cup of tea.

Maybe he’ll get back together with Daphne. Yeah, that would be perfect. 

But what if he didn’t?

Could Draco live his whole life knowing that he was absolutely smitten with his Best Friend’s soon to be Fiancée?

~~~

Draco/ General HP Taglist: @maybesandohnos @justfangirlthingies @dlmmdl @desiredmalfoy @trainintersection @wh0re4blaise @marrymetheonott @quacksonsssandtea @letoof @rvaldez7569 @lolooo22 @emma67 @berriemalfoy @thegaudess @itchywitch33 @lunar0se10 @savagelysarcasticslytherin @fleursbabe @teawineaddict @malfoyxxdraco23 @fantasyfairysworld @trashyvicks @h0ggyw0ggyh0gwarts @l0vely-lupin @linasylveon @dracomalfoys-wh0re @dracomalfoyisindahouse @the-bisexual-bitch @sycathorn-slush @lalunemoonstone @supermisunderstoodoceans @belladaises @riddleswh0r3crux @justreadingficsdontmindme @axdxis @97santoki @laceycallisto @haroldpotterson @thetipsysaquatch @darlingmalfoy @letsmariya @malfoysbiitch @turn-to-page-394-please @malfoysgem @m4lf0ym1lk3rs @ameliasbitvh @slythermuf @wolfstar_lb @underappreciated-spoon-321 @yiamalfoy @louweasleymalfoy @fa-me @dracoswhore007 (sorry if I missed anyone. Please look into your privacy settings if I was unable to tag you. Love you all. x )

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Read my other stories here.

Lots of love as always,

Vi

[nobutfredweasleytho]

YOU JUST DON’T LISTEN(F.W)

Summary: Fred’s ex girlfriend writes him a letter to explain the how him using her wrecked her emotionally.

Warnings: angst, like a lot of angst, depressed Y/N, mentions of self doubt, a little swearing, mentions of parents not loving correctly, used reader. Let me know if I missed anything.

A/N: Major thank you to Gabriella @onlyfreds for being an amazing person and encouraging me to write whatever this mess is. I am forever grateful to you

(The font is terrible Im sorry im just getting used to working on tumblr)

Fred Weasley checked the muggle clock on his nightstand. 10:30 AM. His mom will call him for breakfast anytime now. He has been awake for quite some time if he can even count the 30 minutes he tried to sleep but couldn’t, not when every time he tries to close his eyes his mind and eventually dreams are clouded by her. By the last time he looked at her, how devastated she looked, How her face was wet from her tears and her eyes bloodshot red, but the thing Fred will never be able to forget is her voice. How raw and vulnerable she sounded while saying the most horrible thing’s anyone has ever said to him, but he can’t blame her, he has no one to blame but himself because in the end it was he who caused all of this and now its come to bite him in the ass. He hears the door open and his twin brother George enters.

“Mom says breakfast is ready and she wants you downstairs. She says she’ll drag you herself if you don’t show up again today.”

“Tell her I’m not hungry and I’ll come grab a bite later.” I really don’t feel like being surrounded by other people right now. Not in this pathetic state I’m in. Besides it will take me willpower I don’t have to not hex Ron into oblivion.

“Well she will not take no for an answer and I wont either. What’s done is done now and you’ll have to face the world someday so start with your own family because everyone down there is worried sick about you and the least you can do is show your face once in a while so they know you haven’t died of starvation or sleep deprivation.” George has worry written all over him and I’m sure the rest of the family has it too. I feel even more like shit for worrying them.

“Fine. But I come back here if she is mentioned are we clear?”

“We weren’t gonna mention Y/N anyway now lets go moms worried sick for your dumbass.”

Breakfast was going smoothly with Ginny and Ron being exited for Quidditch season, Harry and Bill discussing the unfortunate events of the Triwizard tournament last year, dad asking Hermione about a rubber duck whatever that is, but the most shocking thing is mom asking me and George about the joke shop products. George is doing most of the talking but still the fact that shes even asking is awesome. I was finally feeling peaceful this whole winter break until I heard a hoot outside the window.

“I thought it was Tuesday but since mail is here does it mean its Friday already? Oh how fast time is going.

“No Arthur honey you are right it is Tuesday, Bill or George can one of you see if that owl has the owners name attached to it and bring whatever letter he has here to see who is it for.”

Bill got up from his seat and went to the window next to the countertop to look at the mystery owl. “Do we even know a Y/N Y/L/N?”

The room went quiet. The only thing that could be heard was the owls hoot asking for its treat. Bill seemed not to realise this as he took the letter from the owl, gave him a treat and sent it on its way.

“To Fred Weasley from Y/N Y/L/N… Who’s Y/N is she the girl you’ve been crying over this whole time huh Freddie?” Bill chuckled but I just grabbed the letter. I had no time to even be mad at him because once again my mind fogs up with only her. I couldn’t help but feel relieved and the happiest I felt in a long time. She has forgiven me. Y/N forgave me. That has to be it. Why else would she send me a letter?

“I had a great time with you guys but there’s important matters for me to attend so I have to go to now. Thanks mom the breakfast was amazing as always.” And with that I sprinted towards my room, locked the door and examined the letter in my hands. It was a bunch of them in here. I went to mine and George’s worktable threw some papers that were on top of it to make room for these letters and carefully opened the envelope.

The first thing that I grabbed was a photo. It was a polaroid of me and Y/N on the Gryffindor common room. Happiness filled my heart when I started remembering this night. I looked at the back of the polaroid and surely enough there was a writing on it.

Fred and Yn on the Gryffindor common room at 1 AM the night she turned 17. Listening to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. Picture taken by major 3rd wheel George Weasley.

Tears filled my eyes when I remember this night. It was the night I looked at her the way I always should have. Not as a replacement of someone who didn’t care about me.

The next one was also a polaroid photograph but this one I don’t remember being taken. It’s a picture of Y/N teaching me how to play the guitar. I can make up that we are in her dorm but not more as the picture is taken in black and white. I look at the back and surely this one also has a writing on it but the handwriting doesn’t look familiar at all.

A drunken Y/N accompanied by a even drunker Fred trying to play the guitar in the middle of the night. If I fail my charms exam tomorrow I’m killing you both but right now you two look adorable. Picture taken by Cho Chang.

The third one is an actual letter. I chuckle looking at the handwriting. Always so precise and not even one line out of place. I always thought Y/Ns handwriting always contradicts her hot headed persona but it’s actually really cute. I start reading the letter and my heart stops.

Dear Freddie,

I can only imagine the shock that receiving a letter from me would cause you right now especially after our last conversation.

But I have a lot to get off of my chest and I wont be able to move on if I haven’t said it all. Call me a coward but I was really scared to ask you to meet me so I can say it in person, but maybe that’s what I have always been. A coward. A coward because I get scared when someone wants to enter my life, a coward because I hate trying new things at the expense of failing, a coward because I should be able to confront people who brought darkness and sadness to my life.

But one thing I will admit Fred Weasley is that I wasn’t a coward when It came to loving you. It was the first time that I let someone come into my life and heart the way you did, and it will probably be the last. Throughout our “relationship” if you can even call it that as it was more of you customizing me to be her, to be someone I’m not. But that’s why you even talked to me is it, because I reminded you of her.

The signs were right in front of me and I feel stupid enough not to have seen them. But I guess people are right when they say love is blind. Love is such a funny thing to me as the first time I experienced the right kind of love was through you. But that was me creating stuff in my head. You didn’t love me no, you loved the idea of me. But I loved you. I loved you more than anything or anyone I have ever loved, I loved everything about you. But you just don’t listen. You don’t listen to anyone around you. Not George, not your other siblings, not Lee or any of your other friends for that matter, not your professors, but most importantly you don’t listen to me.

You didn’t listen when I told you that the love my parents gave me was only because I reminded them of my brother, the love my old friends back home gave me was one of interest. Everywhere I go no matter who I talk to no one will love me for me. I came to accept that until I met you.

You were funny and crazy and brave and oh so gorgeous. You were basically everything I looked for in… well everything. In a friend or in a partner it doesn’t matter. I thought you saw me for who I am. A broken teenager with issues but that at the end of the day was deserving of love. Oh how wrong I have been but no more wrong than you. You knew this but you just didn’t listen.

That makes us both horrible people now does it. Me who thought you were some kind of savior or some kind of saint and selfishly wrapped myself around your love and you who used me because I remind you of your ex girlfriend who broke your heart. But mine is excused I feel like and yours isn’t.

You would have kept me going for who knows how long just so you can live your imaginations you had for someone else.

Did you think about her the first time we slept together?

Was I not enough for you Freddie?

Was I too clingy too soon?

Is it my hot temper that gets the best of me?

So many questions will be left unanswered on my end because frankly, I never want to speak of you again. Sure I am deprived of love but I will not take it if its not directed directly at me.

I still care about you and will continue to support you and George on whatever you set your mind into. I was waking through Diagon Alley last week and saw this little store with a “for sale” sign. It’s right in the middle of Diagon Alley. I hate how my first thought went that you would have loved it but I seem to do that a lot recently.

I’ll get dressed and think would Fred love this skirt or this shirt.

I start applying lipstick and I’ll think will Fred love this color.

I start eating and I’ll think does this look good enough that Fred would’ve stolen a piece of it when I’m talking to Ginny.

I don’t even know why I am telling you this. How pathetic I’ve become clinging into someone that doesn’t want me.

Anyway I’ve probably bored you enough with my ranting but I wouldn’t have been able to move on unless I said everything that felt heavy on my heart. I also attached some photos I thought you’d like to keep seeing as now you can see yourself with Kayla without having the burden to be near me.

Say hi to your siblings and Harry for me.

Have a nice life,

Y/N

[shushiyuii]

Reunited (Subject T0m part 5)

AYOO PART 5! Woohoo! Angst time!~ :3

(Also I’m out of requests so feel free to send some! Also quick question, would you guys like a new au or more atlantic runaways?)

Warnings: Angst, almost injury and sadness 

Words: 1.9K+

Tommy sat next to Wilbur’s desk playing with shroud fiddling with his little arms whilst Wilbur worked on things like usual, things were definitely different between the two of them but not really in a good way.

The two were closer than before if that were somewhat possible, he still wasn’t able to tell Wil about his memories, but he’ll find to do so eventually, but he did notice something, despite being so close to Wilbur there close to nothing he knew of his home life, he knew it wasn’t bad since well, Phil was like a dad to him, he was a good man.

He had yet to ask Phil about his past despite their recent encounters, no moment felt like the right moment.

Tommy had actually been practising some handwriting, although bad was improving with each passing day and each day he showed Wilbur, Wilbur was able to better understand it so his plan was working, just not as quickly as he’d like.

Wilbur was also trying to periodically teach him sign language so that was an added bonus, just none of it came into use when wanting to discuss what he wanted since his vocabulary is still very limited.

He looked over to Wilbur who said he was going to arrange another meeting between him and Ranboo and he was beyond excited! Why? Because Ranboo was one of his very best friends in this facility besides his best pal Wilbur of course.

He whined for the attention of Wilbur, who looked over with a smirk, “What is it bud?”. He brought his hands out to sign but couldn’t think of anything to say. “Is it about Ranboo?”.

He nodded, “Dad said yes to it tomorrow, but there’ll be a new person. He’s a new intern, good friends with Ranboo apparently and needs more experience”.

He tilted his head for a moment then nodded, he wondered who this researcher was. But then Wilbur stretched out of his chair and yawned, seeming tired from the hard day of work.

Tommy responded by picking up Wilbur who looked confused for a moment but just went with it. He hadn’t notice Tommy change size. “I guess it’s sleepover day?”. He got a happy whine in response to that.

Tommy held Wilbur close to his chest as he sat down against the wall, both falling asleep.

The next day, the transportation officers arrived and Wilbur said it wasn’t necessary due to Tommy being friendly, they reluctantly agreed to it. So, for the first time Tommy was allowed into the facilities hallways to follow Wilbur to the destination.

He was mesmerised by how the hallways were architecturally designed, all the patterns looked fascinating, Wilbur had to make sure Tommy kept close and focused but always held a smile on his face.

Soon enough when passing through the facility there was a window that held coral and fishes, he’d never seen such fish before, all the colours were beautiful and soon somebody noticed him looking at the fish.

It wasn’t Wilbur, he had stopped to look back and see Tommy staring and allowed him to since there was now a person inside the tank, they had pink hair and a gorgeous pink tail along with it, with fish like qualities such as fins for ears, scaled claws, and fangs. They also had coral in their hair, which looked like a crown. To say the least she was beautiful.

“Hey Nikki!” the subject inside the tank looked over and waved at Wilbur, smiling. They also made a strange chirping sound, Tommy tilted his head to signify that he was confused, which Wilbur laughed. “Tommy, this is Subject N1KK1, also known as Nikki the mermaid, she’s Puffy’s subject if you remember me mentioning her”.

He remembered Puffy, from that dream and smiled, happy to have made a new friend along the way. “I’ll have to arrange a meeting between the two of you, if possible, Nikki is a sweetheart”. The mermaid on the other side heard and seemed to blush at the statement.

“We better get going now though, don’t wanna be late. We’ll see you around Nikki! Tell Puffy we said hi!”. Then made their way to the meeting cells.

When he arrived, he saw Ranboo sitting down nervously, sitting next to an individual he didn’t really recognise, he could only see the right side of his face which appeared to be scarred and somewhat long grown, fluffy, brown hair but their voice was very much familiar.

He saw Wilbur approach Phil who was sitting at a desk. “Hey, Dad!”, “Hey mate- wait- where’s your transportation officers?”. “Told them Tommy was well behaved enough to be taken by myself”. Phil sighed, “Wilbur, we still need to follow guidelines.”.

Wilbur huffed, “It’s not going to be all the time dad, Tommy can’t be held in there all day”. They both looked back to see Tommy staring at the two of them. “Hey mate! You doing alright?”. Tommy smiled and ran over to hug the man, who happily patted his head.

The three of them then made their way to meet up with Tubbo and Ranboo, which both looked up, Phil looked somewhat concerned at Ranboo, “You okay mate? Do you need time or something?”.

“I-I’m fine Phil, something just feels off…”. When Ranboo had a bad feeling like this it usually meant an enderwalk was coming, maybe they could stop it before anything happened.

Tommy whined worriedly at Ranboo and approached him carefully, embracing him into a hug. “Thanks Toms…”. “Toms?...”. Tubbo looked confused at the name choice, and both of them looked over to Tubbo.

“Oh right! Tommy you haven’t met Tubbo yet have you?”. Phil said excitingly, but he blacked out at that moment, he looked into Tubbo’s eyes who seemed just as shook, yep, they definitely recognised him…

“T-Tommy?...”. There were tears in Tubbo’s eyes, the other three looked beyond confused. Tommy didn’t move, instead thought of something and for reason spoke out the name, “B-big m-man…”. It was barely audible and distorted but Tubbo seemed to understand the tone of it.

“Tommy!” he rushed over and hugged the boy, he had forgotten how strong Tubbo was since he almost fell over but kept the two standing. “You idiot! I thought you were dead!”. A strange sound erupted from his chest, which seemed to be laughter and Tommy had his own tears in his eyes.

Phil had a look of shock on his face as he realised what this meant, “W-wait Tommy, do you remember?”. Tommy looked over to Phil and nodded, Phil’s face turned from one of shock to guilt. “Oh my..”. he couldn’t continue as he looked towards his concerned and worried son.

He sighed as he grabbed him by the shoulder and brought him close to his chest, rubbing his back soothingly despite not needing it, comforting Wilbur was a form of comfort to him, so it was only natural.

Tubbo cried for a while in Tommy’s arms, Ranboo came over to comfort the boy, despite not being able to do much because of Tubbo’s tears. “I-I thought…”. Tubbo tried to speak but Tommy continued to rub his back soothingly, comforting the boy as much as possible. The two were reunited.

After what seemed like a couple of hours, which in reality one hour. Tubbo had finally calmed to a point where he seemed pretty happy. He stood up and playfully punched Tommy in the arm, “How are you even alive?!” He smirked but the answer was already clear and Tubbo couldn’t care, he had his friend back.

Tommy playfully responded by growing in size slightly and pouncing on Tubbo, “Woah! You can do this now?!” Tommy smirked in response. Tubbo didn’t seem to mind the lack of speech from him as he smiled back.  The two heard Ranboo giggle behind them.

The three of them then looked to Phil and Wilbur, who was trying to comfort his father. Tommy carefully poked his back to get his attention, Phil looked to Tommy with guilt and went to speak, “Tommy I’m-“.

But Tommy put a finger to his mouth and smiled, signifying forgiveness. “Seems he forgives you Dad”. Phil looked back to his son and smiled, who smiled back. Then they were all grabbed by Tommy and held into a group hug.

But, the emotions of the day didn’t end there, as they were discussing, Ranboo began to walk jaggedly, not being to balance without the help of somebody and complaining of a headache.

Phil tried to reassure him to stay calm and level but that all changed when Ranboo let out a monster roar and his eyes glowed a bright purple. Ranboo was gone.

The ender walk Ranboo then teleported away, Tommy immediately panicked and tried calling out for Ranboo with his whines but got no response, which increased his worry. Then Phil took command.

“Okay, Wilbur go alert security to keep an eye out for Ranboo. Tommy, Tubbo could you help me find Ranboo please?”. As soon as that was said, both of them booked it out of the room, Phil tailing behind them trying to keep up. Whilst Wilbur went a different direction.

The two looked through many different hallways, none of them stopping, they ran into the security multiple times asking for any signs but were told they found none. They kept looking and re-entered the meeting room, they saw Ranboo there, but not in the same way he was different.

His arms were below his hips, his jaw seemed somewhat unhinged, his eyes glowed a bright purple, he was taller, his claws sharper, all the more terrifying. Phil motioned for the two to stay behind him as he went to approach Ranboo much to their reluctance.

Phil managed to get close enough to touch Ranboo, and carefully tapped his arm. Ranboo immediately turned around in alert and roared at Phil, raising his arm in defence.  

Before Ranboo could hit him though, Tommy ran over and blocked the attack by forming claws on his own arms and covering Phil.

Phil thanked Tommy as Phil tried to talk to Ranboo, despite being covered by Tommy. Ranboo eyes wandered around the room and looked over to Tubbo, who then disappeared from Phil and Tommy’s sight.

Both turned immediately to Tubbo, who Ranboo teleported over to. Tubbo flinched back but rather than attack Tubbo, Ranboo crouched onto his knees to appear at the same height as Tubbo, who made strange sounds that appeared friendly.

Tubbo approached carefully and raised his arm to touch Ranboo, Ranboo leaned into the touch happily whilst making another strange noise and began to purr. Soon after, he groaned and his eyes snapped open again, to see Tubbo’s hand to his face.

“What happened?”, which made Phil laugh. “Enderwalk mate.”. Ranboo ‘oh’ed at this fact and looked down.

Then Ranboo’s form reverted to what it once was and despite all that, the four settled down and talked, which Wilbur joined soon after with panic as he saw the security feed, worried if Tommy got hurt, which he didn’t much to Tommy’s relief.

Then Phil talked seriously to the four of them about the facilities secrets and all of them were sworn to secrecy.

Wilbur and Tubbo were shocked at this fact but surprisingly okay with it nonetheless since, without it, Tommy and Tubbo wouldn’t be together again and they would all never have met.

[teacupfulofstarshine]

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

[comfortwriting]

Best Friends Brother Part 3 - G.W

Masterlist, Requesting Rules, Writing Prompt Masterlist

This is part 3 of ‘Best Friends Brother’ please read part 1 and part 2, want to be tagged? let me know! 

George Weasley x Fem Reader slow burn

Warnings: mention of food and eating, swearing, 

The moment your lips touched, fireworks went off around you, George wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close to him - all of your worries withering away, all you could feel was happiness and pure bliss.

George pulled away from the kiss and slowly opened his eyes, you were in shocked and couldn’t believe who’s lips had collided with yours moments before.

Opening your eyes slowly, you stared into George’s brown ones, his gentle hands holding yours and squeezing them softly.

“T-Thank you for tonight” you blushed, letting go of one of his hands, tucking a stray hair behind your ear nervously “It’s been wonderful.”

George smiled softly and nodded “it has” he paused for a moment, his thumb tracing circles into your palm “same time next week?” he asked, sounding quite nervous.

You squeezed his hand back in excitement and nodded “I would love to” you beamed.

Your three month anniversary was hanging around the corner, you had planned a whole day out on Saturday once George finished Quidditch practice, your heart fluttering in excitement and skipping beats, causing you to squirm in your seat - giggling out and squealing, confusing those around you, especially Ron who thought you were going barmy.

Despite seeing each other every day, the two of you were keeping things secret, you weren't ready for anyone to know - George knew his little brother all too well and so did you, Ron would be far from happy.

“George didn’t say anything to you after he, you know?” Ron asked, acting quite shifty in his chair.

“No he didn’t” you replied, “he’s not interested in me Ron, he just hates creeps.”

“Where were you last night?” Ron asked over breakfast, staring at you questioningly.

Shit! Think of something! I totally wasn’t kissing your brother, no, not at all.

“I went for a walk” you lied “I just had so much energy and needed to get out, I found an injured little owlet and was up all night nursing it, he’s helping me get over Penny.”

Ron believed you and nodded slowly “are you sure you’re ready for another owl?” he asked, trying to sound as caring as he could.

You sighed “I think it’s about time, yeah” you replied “It’s been almost over a year so I figured why not.”

So instead, you wrote to each other a few times a week, you had to admit, you quite liked the schedule; Wednesdays and Sundays nights were for the love letters, Saturdays were for dates unless he couldn’t skip Quidditch and the rest of the week you barely spoke and only engaged in eye contact if you were in the company of others - if not, you would hold hands and kiss in empty broom closets or even in the astronomy tower, but it was rare as Fred was never far behind from his twin.

Dearest Y/N,

Although we see each other every day and go on dates most weekends (when Ron isn’t on your back, or when I’m in detention like now) writing to you feels just as good as the real thing - but still bloody ridiculous.

Fred keeps asking what I’ve spent my Galleons on, told him it was for an experiment to do with our products we’re testing - he’s suspicious but believes me after I made myself sick to get out of Quidditch, oh the things I do for you, Y/N.

I think Gideon is the perfect name for the Owlet, mum will be so heart warmed and honoured when she finds out - but don’t bring the galleons into it of course, not until the joke shop is up and running with great success!

Seeing you last night up in the Astronomy tower was nothing short of the highlight of my day, I wish we could do it more often, but not to worry - one day we won’t need to meet up in private at all.

Anyway, I better get back to some homework before the greaseball comes over and reads this - detention with him always drags.

The next one will be longer, I promise, love.

Lots of love,

Georgie.

Dear George,

You should be focusing, get your head down and do your homework if you can bear it, I swear George, the day I receive a letter from you that wasn’t written in detention will be the day I wink at Snape - it’s silly I’m even asking you knowing that it’s never going to happen.

Your letters always cheer me up, Georgie, I can hear your voice as I read, feels like you’re sitting next to me and it’s good enough for me at the time being, I’m so thankful that we aren’t hundreds of miles away from each other.

Hey! You can’t be skipping Quidditch for me, you plonker! Gryffindor team need you and you’re a bloody good Beater - unbeatable in fact but stop skipping! we can make up for a lost date another time, I’ll try not to miss you too much I swear.

Thank you for gifting me Gideon, he is the sweetest little owlet and I cannot wait to watch him grow and to teach him like I did Penny - if his mother will let me that is. I won’t say a word to anyone, no one will know that you did such a thing although I want nothing more than to tell everyone, your kind-heartedness should never go unnoticed.

The joke shop will sweep you up off your feet and I can’t wait to see Weasley wizard Wheezes everywhere I go.

Thank you so much for last night, please don’t forget to send me your Christmas list - please don’t get me anything - Gideon is enough.

Focus on your bloody homework!

Speak soon and lots of love,

Y/N.

Looking over and your Owl, now named Gideon who had grown so much he was no longer a tiny owlet, you stroked his head and giggled at him as he nibbled on your finger.

“Alright, alright, but don’t be out too long” you whispered, opening your bedroom window, Gideon flapping his wings, leaping out and soaring into the night sky.

You beamed at your treasure, flying away to get some food for the evening, climbing into your bed as quietly as you could, hoping you wouldn’t wake up Hermione or your other roommates. Sliding your hand under your pillow, you patted around for the love letters from George you were hiding from everyone.

Your fingers grazed the corners of the crinkled parchment, lifting up your pillow you retrieved his most recent letter, taking it with you as you dive under your covers, shielding you from your roommates and giving you some privacy.

“Lumos!” You whispered, a beam of light stretching out from the tip of your wand, your cheeks flushing again upon seeing George’s handwriting.

Dearest Y/N,

Thank you for the heads-up, saved me and Freddie a lot of trouble, I swear one day Mr Filch and that bloody cat won’t know what’s hit them - if it wasn’t for you, we would’ve lost all of our plans and The Marauders Map, so thank you again for saving us all that trouble.

These three months have flown by so fast, I can’t believe it, I know this seems rather daft - a tall prankster being all lovey-dovey like this, but you really make me happy and I can’t wait to spend more time with you.

If you ever want to test any puking pastilles or fainting fancies, let me know and I’ll be able to look after you, love.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday so we can actually speak face to face - if Ron asks, you already know what to say.

Wrap up warm, it’ll be quite cold in Hogsmeade.

Looking forward to seeing you,

lots of love,

Georgie.

“Where are you off to so early? We never see you anymore over the weekend!” Ron complained, a mouthful of bacon.

“Oh get some manners, Ronald!” Hermione hissed, knitting her eyebrows together and grimacing.

You stood on the spot and stared at Ron, trying to plaster the most obvious expression on your face to make him feel stupid. “I’m off to spend some quality time with Gideon, he’s only a few months old and I want to make sure he’s as stable as Penny was at her age - I won’t be able to trust him to send letters long distances otherwise.” you lied.

But in all honesty, you weren’t really lying completely, next weekend was the end of term and the start of the Christmas Holidays - you wanted to make sure Gideon could deliver George’s letters to the burrow, you wouldn’t be able to hide them around for him to stumble across and pick up any more, and the two of you already discussed the problems of trying to use a device which muggles called a telephone.

“I’ll write you letters every week” George whispered, standing next to you in the corridors swarming with busy students, Fred chasing after Angelina outside “look in the middle of your textbooks, I’ll slide them in the middle of the pages.”

Opening up your book, a piece of folded parchment slid down and fell into your lap, you quickly stuffed it into your pocket, looking around to see if Ron noticed - luckily for you who he was copying Hermione’s classwork.

Ron looked lost for words, swallowing his bacon and thinking about your owl and how much you truly loved them “Alright then, well, see you later.” he replied,

You raised your eyebrows and smiled, waving goodbye to him, Harry and Hermione, walking out of the Great Hall and getting ready to meet George in Hogsmeade.

“She spends too much time with that bloody owl if you ask me” Ron muttered, stabbing some peas with his fork.

Hermione sighed “I think it’s quite sweet actually, she’s quite similar to Hagrid.”

Harry grinned and started to laugh, Ron rolled his eyes.

“Except the fact that she’s not a giant and she only flocks to birds of prey, not dragons or creatures that could kill us!”

“Well, at least you know where she’s going” Fred called out, walking past his brother “George never tells me where he’s off to and what he’s up to on a Saturday, he’s skiving Quidditch practice again and I get in bothered for it - I can’t check either because he’s got that sodding map with him!”

George wasn’t wrong, this time of year, Hogsmeade was freezing - your fingers changed colour and you could feel the ache and tingle against the freezing air that nibbled on your exposed skin.

You embraced yourself in one of the jumpers he had given you, one you were wearing under your fluffy winter coat which matched the colour of the snow. Looking around the small Village, you noticed George waiting outside The Three Broomsticks, looking slightly nervous as he scratched the back of his head.

You walked up to him, as you got closer you couldn’t help but blush at his red nose that had been attacked from the harsh winter air “Hello, George” you smiled softly, pulling him into a hug after clearing the coast of possible students.

George held you in his arms for a moment, taking in your scent and the feeling of your face against his chest, your hair under his chin as it rested on your head. “shall we get a drink, love?” he asked softly.

Following him inside and getting sat down in a quieter area of the pub, George ordered you and him a butterbeer and held your hand over the table, casually checking the map every now and then, checking on his brothers.

“It’s so good to see your face” he smiled, his starry eyes getting lost in yours.

You blushed and smiled widely, your drinks being placed down on your table, “It’s so good to see you too, can’t believe it’s been three months already!”

George took a sip of his butterbeer, the butterscotch warming up his tummy, you mirrored him, leaving behind a white foamy moustache. George smirked and leaned over the table, carefully avoiding spilling his drink as he wiped away the foam sitting on your top lip with his thumb, his index finger lifting up your chin.

The two of you exchanged a quick, risky kiss, remembering you needed to tone things down despite how hard the temptation was to snog him. George leaned back in his chair, sucking the foam off his thumb.

“I’ve been training Gideon” you beamed, the butterbeer warming you up “he’s finally got the hang of flying long distances and coming back in one piece.”

Meeting George in the small and squashed broom closet, he examined your tired features, looking slightly concerned, his hand resting against your face.

“Are you alright love?” he asked, “you look exhausted.”

You nodded and replied “I’m fine” suppressing a yawn “been up all night with Gideon, he’s growing so fast and he won’t allow me to baby him forever - he’ll be big enough to deliver letters soon.”

George felt a part of him fall in love with you all over again, the picture of you and Gideon in his mind made his insides got all warm and fuzzy - more so than his drink.

“So now he’ll be delivering you letters over Christmas!”

George went quiet and scratched behind his head like he did when he stood outside the pub, he paused for a moment and pursed his lips, licking them. “About that..” he trailed off, staring at his now half-full glass of butterbeer.

Your insides started to sink suddenly but your hopes were lifting, trying to figure out what he was going to say.

Is he staying at Hogwarts for Christmas with me whilst everyone else goes home? Am I unable to send him letters over Christmas if he goes back home?

“What is it?” you asked, both curiously and nervously.

George broke out into a smile, quickly glancing at the map again, then looking back into his favourite pair of eyes.

“Well, I was wondering...” he paused again “if you would like to stay at the burrow over Christmas, with me, everyone else of course but-”

“Yes!” you squealed, getting excited “oh George I would love to!”

George broke out into a grin, so relieved you were willing to come and spend some more time with him, a chance for the two of you to try and get some private time together, in the comfort of his own home.

“I had to ask mum ‘on behalf of Ron’ so if she says anything, just go through with it” George said quietly “Ron wouldn’t remember asking me to do such a thing anyway - his head is that clouded with Hermione.”

You swallowed down the rest of your drink, remembering to wipe away your foamy moustache this time “This is going to be wonderful, George” you smiled, squeezing his hand over to the table “Two whole weeks that we can just.. just be ourselves together!”

George smiled but remembered to remind you “We still need to keep everything on the down-low, it will be a full house and if we disappear it will be obvious we’re together - we’ll just need to wait for everyone to go to bed or go for a walk when they’re too busy to notice.”

You nodded your head, remembering that you would now be under not just Ron’s watch, but every Weasley who wouldn’t approve of your budding relationship.

George kissed your hand and looked down at the map once more, his smile dropping.

“Shit!” he panicked, getting up out of his seat.

“What is it?” you panicked, following him to the back doors in the pub.

He stared down at the map, his eyes following the group of feet storming into Hogsmeade “Fred, Ron, Harry - everyone’s heading this way - to this bloody pub!”

You swallowed hard, the butterbeer churning in your stomach, George’s drink rising up into his throat.

“When we can get away I’ll head to the owlery!” you put your coat back on, pulling the zip up quickly “you go hurry to Honey Dukes or Zonko’s when you get the chance, you’ll find your letter folded in your Quidditch jersey!”

George nodded, looking up from the map and quickly kissing you on the lips, the look in his eyes expressing the most sympathy you had ever seen.

Keeping things a secret would only get harder, harder than you and George were expecting.

Tag list: @amourtentiaa @reeophidian @inglourious-imagines @alwaysnforeverfangirl @horrorxweasley @sebby-staan @xmalfoyweasleyx​

[tbzhours]

love notes

sunwoo x you, fluff 

[summary] sunwoo realizes he loves you [warning] mention of sex [words] 1.7k [a/n] happy birthday to sunwoo♡! who’s still crying over berry? :’)

You just got home after a long day with Sunwoo, going on a hike for a picnic on the hills and spending time at his place afterwards. Your heart was full, thinking back at how he let you know you were his first during the walk, despite sleeping together a few times already. He wasn’t used to touching you all the time but whenever he touched your shoulder or held your waist, he confessed about how it was turning him on. So he stopped touching you and just followed along the trail with you until you both found a good spot for the picnic. 

You weren’t much of a person who feeds others but when Sunwoo reached his fork over to you, you couldn’t help to do the same back at him. Everything he did made your heart flutter and you really love how open he was. He was understanding of your time because he knew you had things to do outside of your dates. He adored that you’re a considerate person as well, being mindful of his study time since he was graduating this year. It was just a matter of weeks before he graduates from college. 

Sunwoo was already accepted into law school, a dream of his since young. You could tell because his eyes shined whenever he randomly referenced laws in your conversations. Not that you mind. Passion always flows in the way he is, like the cooking book he brought to the picnic. It was about cooking for two (aka you and him). You found it cute, considering that he was into cooking and that he recently moved out of his friends’ shared apartment to live by himself. 

He was excited not only because he could finally have some quiet time to study, but also because you could spend time with him without making too much arrangement around his friends’ time. Despite only dating for two months, this just meant he could explore more things with you, especially your shared interests and of course, in the bedroom. 

You knew him from a year ago when you both were working at the same recreation center, monitoring workout rooms together but after you graduated, you hadn’t seen him since. Meeting him again almost a year later at a different building and finally exchanging phone numbers, you didn’t expect him to be interested in you too. 

sunwoo: hey i dropped something in your bag before you left 😗

You tilted your head and remembered seeing something unfamiliar in your bag when you left Sunwoo’s place. You set your phone down, haven’t cleaned out the bento boxes from the picnic and pulled out the folded paper from your bag. You sat down on your couch and opened the paper. A card, seeming from a game, slipped out between the folds. 

What do you love about your partner? 

You looked at the written paper, noticing Sunwoo’s handwriting as your face flushed. 

I love their smile, the way they listen to me as I talk.  I love how considerate they are, giving me time to do other things that I need to do. I love how open they are when we have sex. I love it when they hold my hand. I love it when they share their world with me, though I might not understand it entirely. I love their good night texts knowing I sleep early. I also love their random 2am texts because it makes me smile when I read them in the morning.  I love the pet names they use to call me as. I love many things about them, and their random kisses.

You couldn’t sleep all night, wondering if you had to write one back to him. He was such an old-fashioned type of person. You wondered where he got it from because he likes calling you through the phone, asking permission for things, writing poem-like texts, and just being upfront about what he likes and doesn't like. Again, everything he does made your heart race. 

You closed your eyes to calm it. But wait, you hadn’t replied back to him since you read the letter and showered. You rambled off your bed to find your phone. As you checked the time after picking it up from the couch, it wasn’t too late yet. You sighed and finally wrote back. 

you: i didn’t even see you put it in my bag! how did you do that? sunwoo: it’s a secret 😚 you: sneaky 😒 you: but ngl it made me smile… i just have a lot of thoughts running through me even though i was blushing too much over your cute handwriting and message sunwoo: thank you, i’m glad i did. that means you’re probably thinking about me you: i am sunwoo: i think about you too you: you sweet thing you: you sleeping soon?  sunwoo: yes, as i’m thinking about our next date ❤️ you: i’m excited too~ you: good night, my love ❤️ sunwoo: good night ❤️

“Hey, you’re here.” Sunwoo greeted you when you knocked on his apartment door. 

You rushed to his place right after work since your shifts didn’t overlap today. You smiled and greeted him with a hug. You hummed along, smelling his scent. “You changed your cologne.” 

“You noticed?” He was surprised, chuckling when you pulled away. You really like his smell and seeing the smile on your face, he figured you might like this one too. 

“Yeah.” Your nose crunched close to his in a tease. “I like it.” 

“Good.” His smile stayed. “And I missed you.” 

You gave Sunwoo a peck before he shut the door and led you into his house. You looked around, as if you hadn’t been here before then you set your things down beside the couch. You followed him into the kitchen and found the cooking book opened with ingredients around it. He was standing in front of you between the counter with his arms angling down to hold the edges of it. His black tee showed his body line, matching along with his curly hair. You couldn’t help to look at those pretty arms. Maybe you should have written that in your letter too. 

“So, what’s the chosen menu for tonight?” You asked. 

Sunwoo hummed, thinking even though you both had chosen it together through text. He sent pictures of some pages until you both picked a menu. He got all of the ingredients and your request for wine, and when he smiled with those thick lips, he answered, “A menu for two.” 

So dinner was made with much laughter from following the steps. The kitchen was a bit messy from your little dances since he had music on. He turned it down when you both settled down to eat and chat about whatever came to mind. He suddenly thought of the time you mentioned about working at a ski resort for the season and suggested that you both go when it gets cold again. You wouldn’t mind teaching him how to ski too, even though you’re still a beginner since being a staff for rentals. He himself was getting into playing the guitar from a friend that he wouldn’t mind teaching you the basics he knew of too. That was something you both had in common: you both love learning. 

As your laughs calm through the wine, you remembered keeping his written letter in your bag with yours and wanted to return one back to him. So you stood up after taking too many sips of wine. 

“So Sunwoo, you know how you left your letter in my bag last time?” You started. He looked up and hummed, You shyly smiled, “Well, I wrote one back.” 

“You did?” Sunwoo was surprised, watching you get up and came back to sit. You slipped the paper to him over the table. He opened it and started to read it. You could see how his eyes shined as they moved from word to word. His breath was calm and his smile was softly formed below those flowery cheeks of his. Once he was done, his breath was heard through his nose. It was hard to look at you when he finished reading your love notes. “Wow, this is so sweet. Thank you for writing back.” 

“Do you feel the way I was feeling? Nervous? Blushing like crazy?” You chuckled, your face burning up from his big smile. 

“Totally.” He set your paper down, eyes still lingering there as he thought back to his.

“There's one that stayed in my mind since I read it.” You confessed, still smiling as you could see written in your head. 

“What is it?” He asked with anticipation. 

You didn’t keep him waiting. “Sharing my world with you.” 

He smiled, grinning actually. “When I wrote mine, I thought about how much--we haven’t said this to each other before but--how much I love you, and I really do. I love you, a lot.” 

Sunwoo said your name after as your fingers fiddled over your thigh. 

“I love you too, Sunwoo.” You confessed, then you sighed softly. “And I’ve been thinking about us- you know, like going to the next level from where we’re at.” 

“Like being in a serious relationship?”

“Yeah.” You chuckled. 

“It’s alright. I want that too.” He shyly smiled down, a soft chuckle following. 

You were surprised because you both had only been dating for 2 months and you didn’t expect him to want the same. You both have had conversations about it before but as each day went by, his feelings for you grew and he wanted to love you more. You bloomed a touching smile. “Oh, Sunwoo.” 

“We know a lot of things about each other and we know what we want.” He paused. “I would love to be more serious with you.” 

“Me too.” You locked your fingers together and held them at your chest in excitement. “I can finally call you my boyfriend, wow.” 

“You’re funny.” Sunwoo giggled then he smiled after a deep breath. “So day one, officially?” 

“You bet.” You grinned from over the table. 

“Bet on who’s going to clean these up?” He tilted his head, face pretending a confused look. 

You shook your head with a laugh. “No, we’re doing it together.” 

Sunwoo hummed and winked after. “Yep, later. Together.”

[flaminpumpkin]

Small treasures

“Five more minutes,” Bruce grumbled as he distantly heard the door open through his sleepy haze.

There was some shuffling sound around the room and then it was flooded with bright morning light as Alfred mercilessly opened the heavy curtains, the rays of sunshine hitting the Bat right in the face, making him scramble for the covers to hide his sensitive eyes. 

“Very well, Master Bruce. Breakfast will be ready for you in the kitchen.”

He was so used to Alfred’s barely hidden exasperation after all these years that his words took longer than usual to register with Bruce. A frown appeared on his face as he finally realized what was wrong with the butler’s statement. 

Alfred never served breakfast – or any meal for that matter – in the kitchen. 

He would rather shoo everyone out with a spatula full off batter than let anyone eat where he cooked. Bruce couldn’t even count the number of times he had seen Dick or Tim appear in the dining room with a sheepish look, a thoroughly exasperated Alfred hot on their heels. 

Pushing the sheets away just enough to uncover his head, Bruce peeked over his shoulder at the still open door, eyebrows knitting further in confusion. 

“What?”

Something caught his eyes. 

There was a piece of yellow paper on the nightstand. An origami bat, he realized after finally deciding to emerge from the sea of sheets and pillows he had buried himself in during his sleep. He reached for it and took the little paper animal gingerly between his fingers, eyes focusing enough to read “unfold me” written in elegant cursive right at its center. 

Bruce did as he was told.

Dear Master Bruce, 

My words most probably confused you as the kitchen is a place I do not tolerate for anyone to eat in. But, need I remind you, there always has been one peculiar occasion where I allowed you to do so.

A.

Bruce stared at the note, confusion growing. 

Oh.

His eyebrows raised a bit, pleasantly amused. There was indeed one occasion Alfred would let him eat in the kitchen while he worked. What did the kids put Alfred to this time? 

Led by his curiosity, Bruce climbed off the bed, fully awake now as he put on a shirt, and padded out of the bedroom, towards the kitchen. 

No one was there when he arrived, which wasn’t odd per say but he had learned to be cautious over years of attempted surprise parties. There was a plate though, on the little table, with French toasts that smelled like butter and cinnamon and a cup of coffee with probably enough sugar and cream that it didn’t even taste like coffee anymore.

It was a breakfast Alfred had always prepared for him on the morning of his birthday after his parents’ death. He would put the plate on this same table and work silently as Bruce happily ate, the two of them sharing the same space in the simplest way. It wasn’t a grand gesture but it had meant the world to him nonetheless.

Another little origami bat was waiting for him, propped against the cup. A small smile tugged at his lips.

Bruce put it aside before starting to eat, careful not to stain the paper with coffee or grease, only taking it again once he had cleared the table and washed his hands. He unfolded it with the same care as the first.

My happy place. 

(Took a piece of bread. Alfred said yes. Thank you.)

Cass

The dance studio on the third floor. 

A while back, Bruce had decided to redesign one of the biggest rooms on that floor in a place where Cass could dance that wasn’t the ball room. He had wanted for it to be a place only for her, where she could express herself and spend time however she pleased, without anyone bothering her. His greatest recompense had been the radiant smile on her face before she had locked himself in there and played music until late that night. 

The next course of action wasn’t too hard to guess so Bruce quickly folded the paper back into its bat form, slid it in the pocket of his pajama pants, along the first one, and headed for the next place.

As expected, he found another bat in Cass’s dance studio, tucked into the folds of a bright orange knitted scarf. There was a running joke between his kids saying that it was because Bruce always forgot to take a scarf with him during winter that his Batman voice sounded so bad.

One thing was for sure, he would not forget this one.

Hey B, remember that time you told me you were proud of me and then proceeded to suffocate me with your muscles? Just kidding, you give great hugs. Like, super comfy, 10/10. But yeah, go there next.

Steph :p

He huffed at Stephanie’s words, eyes rolling with fondness. He remembered perfectly what she was referring to. 

The young woman had been staying in the manor for a few days that time, Alfred being keen on keeping her under careful observation after she had been hit with a new type of fear gas while on patrol with Dick. She had continuously apologized to Bruce, blaming herself for Dick’s injuries. 

Until the third day, where he had found her reading in the library, curled up in one of the love seats. Before she could utter a word, he had crouched down and grabbed her hands firmly.

“You do not need to apologize or blame yourself for anything, do you hear me? You managed to drag Dick and yourself out of this building while under the influence of fear gas when most would have stayed frozen in place. I’m sure he will agree that a few scratches and broken bones are far better than what would have awaited him if you hadn’t been there. I’m proud of you, Stephanie Brown. More than you’ll ever know.”

After that, she had thrown herself at him and Bruce had hugged her for the better part of an hour until Alfred had come to fetch her for some blood analysis. 

This time, when he walked into the next place of this little treasure hunt, he found a laptop, sitting open on the table next to one of the windows. The windows of the library were wide and high and the spot where the next gift awaited was one of his favorites. 

So he let himself sink in the armchairs cushions and started to play the video.

“You better not ruin this, Todd,” Damian was saying, standing next to the piano in the lounge of the west wing, violin already positioned on his shoulder.

Jason was scowling at the piano in front of him, focused.

“Just take the lead, brat. I’ll follow.”

“Could you two focus, please?” Tim said off camera.

The other two huffed with the same affronted look towards the camera.

Then the melody started and both of their faces softened. It was gentle, melancholic. Almost sad if you asked Bruce. But he listened with a smile on his face, bemused at the sight of his two quick tempered sons playing with a soft kind of intensity together, Jason following Damian’s lead flawlessly – probably the result of hours of practice. It was truly beautiful and he knew that the melody was one of Damian’s compositions. 

But it was over too soon for Bruce’s taste so he played it a second time, closing his eyes. And then a third as he read the next message, only heading for the next place once it was over.

Blah blah blah, some cute shit about us bonding, blah blah blah. Just get your ass to the garage old man.

Ps: Remember your Aston Martin? I think I scratched it a bit but I’ll blame it on Timmy anyway. 

Jay.

Bruce knew exactly which car Jason was talking about (and knew perfectly that he didn't scratch it). An Aston Martin DB5 he had inherited from his father. Nobody had driven it in ages when Jason had brought it up during dinner one evening, not long after he had taken him in. 

“Isn’t that James Bond's car?”

“It is. But it’s been so long since the last time I used it, I’ll probably need to pop open the hood before anything else if I want to drive it again.”

“Can I help you fix it?”

Jason’s eyes had been so full of hope and excitement when he had asked Bruce. He had laughed before agreeing. The next day, Alfred had had to come and pry them away from the car for lunch because both of them had forgotten about eating in their eagerness. 

He noticed a tape case on the board as he approached, in front of the wheel. Bruce opened the door and climbed in so he could reach for it easily. On the piece of paper tucked between the clear case and the tape, Bruce could see every song scribbled, one in each of his children’s handwriting. He recognized a song by The Clash in Tim’s handwriting – of course – and Midnight Sonata in Damian’s. The other titles and artists were mostly lost on him, except maybe for that Belgian one Cass listened to a lot.  

I can’t count the number of times I fell asleep there while you worked and you had to carry me back to my room.

Dick

Bruce couldn’t recount either.

Although he remembered fondly the first time Dick had fallen asleep in his study, curled up in one of the seats across his desk while he worked on some urgent papers for WE. They both had been so young. Bruce being completely new to parenthood, he had seeked out Alfred who had only fixed him with a blank stare before sending him back.

“Don’t you dare wake up this child, Master Bruce.”

He had actually managed to pick up the gangly child without waking him up, even if rather awkwardly, and had carried him all the way to his bedroom uneventfully. Only to trip on one of Dick’s schoolbooks once there, nearly dropping him. 

They had both elected not to mention it to Alfred and, to this day, it was still something only the two of them knew about.

When he arrived at his study, another message was waiting for him in the seat Dick used to sleep in, along with a gift card for that 24 hours coffee shop that had opened recently in downtown Gotham. Bruce let out a breathy laugh at that.

I know you always listen when I play, Father. Why do you think I leave my door open when I do?

D. Wayne

And here he thought he had been smooth. However, he should have expected that his son would pick up on his habit of passing by his room while he rehearsed with his violin. 

But Bruce couldn’t resist the pull in his chest. Damian was a gifted player, just like Jason, able to translate raw emotions in barely a few notes. It always put his mind at ease, smoothed out his most troubled thoughts even for only a few moments. He had caught everyone at least once, standing outside of his youngest’s door, listening to soft melodies in a rare moment of peace. 

It was silent moments shared with everyone, brought together by Damian's deft fingers. Something he had been doing knowingly and willingly apparently. It made it all the more special for Bruce.

There was no gift when he went searching for the next clue in Damian’s room. Or so he thought.

Sitting on his son’s music-stand along with yet another yellow origami bat, was an open partition. It was still in work, Bruce could tell. Notes were hastily written with a pencil, a few stains where some had been erased. Nothing out of the ordinary for Damian and his creative mind. Except for the title.

Ode to Family. 

Thankfully, no one was around to witness the shuddering breath that escaped him as he read. He exited the room still unable to breathe normally, heart so full he almost felt like suffocating, and walked towards his next – and probably last – location.

You spent hours trying to teach me how to dance the waltz there after I told you I wanted to take Steph dancing for her birthday. I still don’t know how to dance but we had fun.

Tim

Indeed, Bruce still regularly caught Tim stepping on his partner’s toes during charity galas and other events. But he suspected the young man of going to great lengths to not learn how to dance correctly because it usually dissuaded most people from asking him to dance with them. And god knew how much his son disliked dancing. 

That was why it had greatly surprised him when Tim had asked him for help.

“I wasn’t really the best boyfriend to her so I just… I thought I could at least be a good friend and take her dancing? She loves it when Cass takes her in the studio and they dance so I just thought… Yeah…”

Five hours later, Tim had made absolutely no progress. He had known the steps by heart at this point, had it memorized and yet, he couldn’t seem to stop stomping on Bruce’s toes. To both Dick’s and Alfred’s delight.

His eldest son probably still had videos of it, he thought as he entered the vast and empty ballroom. There was nothing out of the ordinary or out of place and Bruce almost expected for his family to sneak up on him and surprise him when he noticed one last, black origami bat on the wooden floor, right in the center of the room. 

He crouched down and unfolded it slowly, warily even, some would say.

Terrace on the second floor. You know, the one where I inelegantly asked you to marry me and you just stared for a good five minutes before laughing. (And saying yes, of course.)

It wasn’t signed and even if the message wasn’t telling enough, he would recognize that hasty scribble everywhere.

Bruce took off, climbing stairs two by two and running down hallways. His heart was pounding in his chest. 

He had been gone for six months. Six excruciatingly long months of absolutely no contact, of not having any means to make sure his husband-to-be – yes, that idiot had asked him to marry him just before leaving – was still alive and well. Six months of worrying, of his children asking nervously if he had any news of his whereabouts. 

Bruce barged through the French doors leading to the wide terrace on the second floor of the manor and, surely enough, everyone was there. Absolutely everyone. 

“Happy birthday, Spooky. Half a century, we gotta celebrate,” Hal drawled with an easy grin.

“Someone take the cake away from Hal. Right now, before they ruin it!” Bruce heard someone say distantly and, next thing he knew, he had taken the few steps still separating them and was kissing Hal, holding him close by the lapels on his jacket. 

There were groans, cheers and something that sounded a lot like someone telling them to get a room. Hal laughed against his lips, pecked him one last time before pulling away, opening his arms widely with a grin. A clear invitation for everyone to pile up on them which everyone took with great enthusiasm, barreling into them and crushing Bruce and Hal under their combined weight.

[childrenofthenightt]

That’s The Way (Chapter 4)

Pairing: Jimmy Page x Reader

Word count: 5.7k

Warning(s): Jimmy and Y/N falling in love at first sight🥺, nsfw insinuations in the beginning but nothing bad, language

Author’s notes: It’s Jimmy time, mates! I’m so sorry for making you wait so long! Slow burns can suck like that sometimes. I hope you’re enjoying the plot so far, and that it wasn’t what you expected! There’s so much more drama to come, though, so I hope you’re excited for that😂 As usual, please enjoy, happy reading, and send us messages if you have theories, comments, music recommendations for the playlist, or if you want to be added to the tag list :)

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3

------

Y/N’s train ride home from The Yardbirds’ hotel was a constant swirl of what the fucks booming in her mind: what the fuck just happened, what the fuck does this mean, what the fuck am I doing, what the fuck is Jim doing, what the fuck will this become?  

Out of all the things on God’s good, green earth he could have wanted, he wanted her to kiss him. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Y/N thought when she initially heard the request. Then, when she questioned it, he escalated it to a blowjob since she thought a kiss was “too tame.” Y/N eventually did kiss Jim, as he wished. She was pretty sure that he still wanted her to kiss him after his little upgrade, and boy, was she right. ‘He called me a princess’, she remembered...what the hell was that supposed to mean?

As contradictory as it was, her mind was racing with so many thoughts, yet, at the same time, none at all. She was in overdrive, unable to think straight. Y/N forced herself to come to her senses as the train neared her stop, since her parents could not see the sheer bewilderment in her eyes and facial expression as she walked into her home. They would ask question after question, interrogating her as if she had committed a crime they had to get to the bottom of. She had to admit, reluctantly, that this was exciting. The star-studded aspect of it, the secrecy… It was a rollercoaster ride, yet Y/N wasn’t sure she wanted to get off anytime soon. In the back of her mind, though, she knew this little dalliance wasn’t going to lead to anything serious.

Jim, however, currently sitting at the foot of his bed in an empty hotel room, was in a complete daze. He couldn’t comprehend that this was reality. The most beautiful girl in the whole world had just sucked him off, and then kissed him! She was completely obedient yet willing, and adorably shy, blushing every two seconds. But the kiss. It was dizzyingly soft, sweet, and passionate on her part. To Jim, this meeting of lips was perfect. Addictive. Devastatingly addictive, like a drug. He wanted more. Her lips were something else to taste and feel. He wondered if she would ever come back to him with intimate intentions. Perhaps even to spend the night, or something even more serious. By the way she so often smiled in a bright and enthusiastic way, Jim thought she just might. He had come to the conclusion, after continuously replaying what had happened just minutes ago in his head, that he was falling hopelessly in love with this girl. His Y/N.

Jim had never felt like this before.

And he didn’t know what to do about it.

~~~~~~~~

A few weeks later...

Y/N’s mum had sent her and her brother Charlie by train into London to go grocery shopping, and perhaps to visit Carnaby Street, Portobello Market, and the Oxfam charity shops to get some new clothes for themselves. Pushing the cart around the supermarket, Y/N and Charlie looked intently at the handwritten list their mum had given them.

“Alright, what do we need next?” Y/N asked, her head tilted to see the small piece of paper.

“Uh, we still have to get oatmeal, eggs, and some fruits and vegetables,” Charlie replied, mirroring Y/N’s position as he gazed down at the list in his hands, which was slowly being painted with black ink. They were making good time, all things considered.

“Let’s go to the produce section then, so we can get everything all in one go,” Y/N decided, starting to push the cart in that direction.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Charlie’s nod served as confirmation, and the two walked on, gazes captured every-so-often by the gaggle of people passing by.

Once the two siblings reached their desired destination, Y/N began inspecting the clear clamshell containers of assorted berries as Charlie went to fetch a bag of broccoli florets and a variety of potatoes. As Y/N began placing the fruit in the cart, she heard a familiar voice calling her name.

She turned around to see a very domestic-looking Jeff Beck, pushing around a grocery cart, just like she was. It was odd to see him going about his life as though he was just an ordinary working-class man, especially being the revered guitar god he was. Y/N laughed at the sight as he came over towards her.

“Hi Jeff,” Y/N greeted, walking over to give him a hug.

“Hello darling,” he responded, tilting the girl back and forth in the hug, long arms cradling her against his chest. “How are you doing?”

Y/N looked at him with a small grin after pulling away. An exhale passes through pursed lips as she replies. “As well as I can be, I guess. How ‘bout you?”

“Can’t complain,” he smiled, which then turned a little more solemn. He reached out a hand to place on her upper arm in solace. “I’m still really sorry about Sam, love. I wish I could’ve told you, but he swore me to secrecy… and I don’t want to lose my job just yet.”

“Don’t worry about it, I completely understand. It’s not your fault.” Y/N’s chuckle chimed through the air, much like the birdsongs that seemed to fill the space around them, and she paused, “I’ve done quite a bit of soul-searching recently, and I don’t think I truly loved him...the situation was all so new and exciting, that it made me believe I did. But now, I realize I didn’t.”

“I’m glad you found the light at the end of the tunnel, kid. But that’s life, Y/N. You win some and you lose some.”

“Thank you, Jeff. Really. For being so supportive,” Y/N said in gratitude, as Jeff flashed her a toothy smile.

“Ah, don’t mention it...actually, it’s funny I ran into you because I was actually going to call you, but I… may have lost your number.” A sheepish hand ran through the short hair at the nape of his neck, and Y/N giggles at the man’s hesitancy.

“That’s okay. Here, I’ll write it down for you,” Y/N grinned as she took out a spare piece of paper and a pen from her bag, “what did you need to call me for?”

Jeff watched Y/N’s hands as she scribbled down her number. Her handwriting was neat, soft spirals decorating the ends of her letters. Playful, yet full of grace. Just like her, Jeff thought. “There’s a May Ball at Queen’s College in Oxford on the 18th, and I was wondering if you’d like to come. It’s outdoors, and it should be a nice day.”

As Y/N handed Jeff the piece of paper, he continued. “More importantly, a good friend of mine is attending, and I thought you would like to meet him. You two are pretty similar, so I think you’ll hit it off really well.”

“Do you mean that this meeting is supposed to be a sort of… romantic proposition?” Y/N tilted her head in playful confusion.

Jeff smirked. “Not necessarily. He’s friends with the rest of the guys, so it’s only fair that you meet him, since we consider you a part of our inner circle.”

Y/N grinned at his statement, shaking her head, a chuckle tumbling past her lips. “Well, for the record, Jeff, I’m retired from dating for a while,” she admitted, “the whole thing with Paul shook me up a bit, and I need time to trust again, y’know?”

“Yeah, I understand. But my friend is a nice bloke, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much, or put up a front. If you’re uncomfortable, of course we can—”

Charlie came running up to Y/N’s cart and placed the bags of broccoli and potatoes inside. He then stood next to Y/N to see this stranger that she was talking to. Jeff noticed the little boy who suddenly appeared next to Y/N, and smiled warmly. Pointing to the boy, and changing his voice to be a bit gentler than usual, he asked, “Who’s this, Y/N?”

“This is my little brother Charlie,” Y/N said, softly putting her hand on her brother’s back, bringing him to the forefront. Charlie widely smiled at Jeff, baring his childish grin that was missing a couple teeth. Charlie couldn't wait until they grew in, because it would “finally make him look like a real man”, as he exclaimed so often at home.

Jeff crouched down to Charlie’s level and stuck out his hand to shake Charlie’s. “Nice to meet ya, mate. I’m Jeff, a friend of your sister’s.”

Charlie’s eyes widened as he recognized who this man was. “Jeff Beck?” Charlie asked hopefully, “as in the guitar god, Jeff Beck?”

Jeff chuckled as he looked up at Y/N. “Is this the shit you’ve been feeding him?” Y/N nodded and laughed.

“There’s an ounce of truth in that statement, isn't there, Beck?”

“Yes, I’m Jeff Beck, but I’m just the lead guitarist for The Yardbirds. The guitar god title goes to Hendrix, or Scotty Moore,” Jeff explained. What a humble change of pace for Jeff, Y/N thought.

Jeff stood back up and walked with Y/N and her brother throughout the store, pushing their carts in sync and grabbing food as they went. He asked her about what she was up to musically, and she talked about how she was polishing up some Debussy and Rachmaninoff pieces, as well as fiddling around with some old Fats Domino and Everly Brothers records. Charlie and Jeff bonded over their love of cars, which made Y/N very happy.

~~~~~~~~

18th June 1966

The day of the May Ball came. Y/N was excited for the show, but she didn’t want a sour encounter with Paul to ruin her good time. Jeff had called her earlier in the week to give her instructions on what to do upon arrival, and how to access the backstage area safely.

The backstage area was a white tent with the sides covered. Inside, there were multiple long tables of different distinguished people, such as Mama Cass and Graham Nash. Alcohol and little finger foods littered the tables, served in such abundance that it seemed no one was going to see tomorrow.

Y/N walked over to where she saw her friends, and upon spotting the girl, they all waved and said their cheerful hellos. Y/N walked over to sit with them, and ended up taking a seat between Chris and Jeff, crossing her legs and folding her hands in a sophisticated manner, always the lady she was taught to be. She chose her seat at the table very carefully, sitting very far away from Paul Samwell-Smith.

As everyone chatted away, she noticed there was a tall, thin young man with short, dark wavy hair who sat down in a seat between Jeff and Keith, delicately holding a flute of champagne. He was looped back into the conversation immediately, as if he had known the band his whole life. When Y/N saw him, her heart stopped.

This new boy was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He looked like an English James Dean; with the kind of attractiveness that anyone, male or female, completely swooned over with a single glance. This stranger could get anything he wanted at the drop of a hat, with his gorgeous looks and his graceful countenance. He had a sullen, mysterious edge to him, but he also looked gentle and sweet at the same time. He had eyes as green as a forest full of lush deciduous trees, flawlessly framed by dark, bushy eyebrows and accented by long, thick eyelashes. His nose was adorable, petite as it was, and his lips were full and pouty. His smile and laugh made Y/N melt on the inside, his perfectly straight teeth illuminating his porcelain face.

For a moment, Y/N thought she was in love. She was pulled back from her daydream quickly, though, because Jeff realized that now was the perfect opportunity to introduce his two friends.

“Y/N, this is my friend Jimmy, who I was telling you about,” Jeff said, getting Y/N’s attention. Y/N grinned as she refocused on the situation.

Jimmy turned towards Jeff when he heard his name, and that’s when he saw the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, sitting right next to Jeff. Lucky bastard.

His breath hitched in his throat upon sight of this girl. She was perfect; she looked like an actual angel. The way her hair, soft-looking and slightly wispy in the light summer wind, cascaded down her shoulders; her doe-eyes seemed to twinkle in the dimming light of day, pulling him in like the strongest of currents. Her  pillowy, supple lips encased a perfect smile, slightly crooked. It was, like the rest of her, completely endearing.

It was then, looking at this beautiful woman, (Y/N… Jeff had said her name, hadn't he?) that Jimmy remembers he was taken. His girlfriend, Jackie DeShannon, was waiting for him at home, but he only had eyes for the girl in front of him, and it would stay that way, it seemed.. He had to get to know her.

Jimmy snapped out of his hypnosis in the nick of time. He softly smiled at Y/N, a smile that made Y/N’s insides lurch, holding out his hand for her to shake as he turned on the charm. “Jimmy Page,” he initiated, his voice being softer and more calming than Y/N expected.

Y/N shyly smiled at him, a dark pink flush gracing her natural complexion, as she reached out to grasp his hand. “Y/N Y/L/N. It’s so nice to finally meet you. Jeff has told me about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Jimmy chuckled.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Y/N beamed, a feigned contemplative look on her face.

“How do you know Jeff?” Jimmy asked, turning his body towards her, now fully invested in getting to know Y/N.

“I met him...a year ago I wanna say? Is that right, Jeff? At a Yardbirds gig at the Marquee,” Y/N asked for clarification. The last thing she wanted to do is lie about Jeff to Jimmy, even if it was something as insignificant as this. In addition, she wanted to use Jeff as a temporary crutch in the conversation. Jimmy’s beauty was making her feel shyer than she already was; she felt as if she was curling into herself.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Jeff intervened, “but she didn’t just meet me, she met the whole band.”

Jeff immediately noticed that the band was leaving the table to get ready to go on stage. Jimmy and Y/N didn’t even notice the table’s departure because they were so wrapped up in each other’s presence and words. Jimmy even moved a seat over to get closer to Y/N, although he said it was an attempt to “hear her better since the room was so loud of drunken buffoons”. Y/N had giggled at that, and it had sounded like music to the man’s ears. Jimmy was completely taken with her, as easy as it was to see.

“Wait, so how do you know Jeff?” Y/N asked curiously.

“I've known him since I was… gosh… thirteen or fourteen? We bonded over the guitar and blues. Indian music, too,” Jimmy grinned, taking a sip of his warming champagne.

“You play the guitar too?” Y/N gasped. Jimmy nodded his head enthusiastically.

“Oh jeez, I should’ve known! No wonder you’re tight with the Yardbirds,” she giggled.

Jimmy’s eyes twinkled at her now-flustered demeanor. “You’re okay, Y/N,” he chuckled, placing a hand gently on her forearm. Y/N felt her entire body break out into chills.

“I’m a session musician, actually,” he began, his hand lingering on the girl’s arm, for what seemed like a millennium to Y/N. “I’d hate to simplistically explain what a session musician is to someone like you if you already know what it is.” It sounded like he was holding back a bout of embarrassed laughter. “You must be quite intelligent, especially in matters of music, if Jeff has stuck by you for all this time.”

Y/N smiled bashfully. He’s so sensitive, she thought dreamily. “Yes, I know what a session musician is,” she giggled, “I’ve been a piano player all my life, so I know a thing or two about what you blokes are talking about when it comes to music.”

Jimmy’s heart began to thump a little faster as his smile widened. “Wow! That’s brilliant. Are you classically trained then?”

“Yes, but I do know quite a bit of blues numbers.”

“Oh, so you really know what you’re talking about! I have to admit, although I am a session musician, I’m not particularly good at reading music. Maybe you could teach me a few things about sight reading and we can jam some time?”

Y/N blushed as her lips pursed together in a grin. “I would love that. We’d have so much fun!” The way that Y/N’s full lips twisted together in a smile looked so damn kissable to Jimmy.

“My girlfriend was actually supposed to teach me music theory, but we never got around to it, unfortunately,” Jimmy continued.

“Ah, okay. Well, if you give me a time, date, and place, we can definitely make it work,” Y/N beamed.

“Wonderful!” An awkward, pregnant pause filled the space, and Y/N cleared her throat, unconsciously sliding closer to Jimmy. There was almost a magnetic pull to him, and Y/N was caught up in it.

“So, what’s it like being a session musician? I’m sure you get asked that all the time,” Y/N laughed.

Jimmy smiled. “It’s quite grueling, brutal at times, but I find it fulfilling. One mistake, and you’re fired, so it’s a lot of pressure.”

“Oh wow! That must be horrible to deal with.”

“Yeah, sometimes the pressure can really settle into you, but for me it dissipates once I’m in the booth. There’s three sessions a day, five days a week, so I don’t have much time for leisure. It’s been getting really dry lately since all I’m playing is rhythm guitar. I love experimentation and stretching out on lead guitar, so constant rhythm is getting quite annoying.”

“I understand where you’re coming from then, from a creative standpoint. How long have you been a session player?”

“Four years, roughly.”

“You must be quite dedicated then!” Y/N exclaimed, “who have you played with?”

“Oh gosh,” Jimmy exhaled deeply, calloused fingers raising to land on his chin. Slight stubble shadows it, and the sharp scent of aftershave wafted towards the girl. Lost in the scent, Y/N nearly missed his reply. “The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Donovan, The Who, Petula Clark, Jackie DeShannon, Carter Lewis and the Southerners, Neil Christian and the Crusaders, Herman’s Hermits, Marianne Faithfull… just to name a few.”

“Wow! What a resumé!” she gushed, “That’s incredible. You should be so proud, Jimmy.”

“Thank you very much, love, I appreciate it.”

Suddenly, an announcer’s booming voice cut through Jimmy and Y/N’s conversation as he introduced the Yardbirds to the stage. As the five men walked on, Jimmy stood up from his chair.

“Come with me to the wings so we can see and hear them better,” he smiled, holding out his arm for Y/N to take. Y/N agreed, standing up and linking her arm with Jimmy’s as they walked in sync to the side of the stage.

The first few numbers were played perfectly, and it was clear that the audience (and even the road crew) were enchanted by the spectacle. Y/N knew from past shows that the next song would be “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and she knew that they always knocked that one out of the park. It was always stimulating and explosive.

Jeff and Chris began the opening riff, the low E, G, and A notes thundering out of the monitors melodically. Just as Keith sang “got a train” on his cue, he fell straight backward and hit his head off Jim’s bass drum. Jimmy and Y/N’s jaws dropped in shock as a loud gasp echoed through the air from the audience. The music abruptly stopped as the rest of the band crowded around Keith’s fallen figure to see if he was alright. Murmurings of “fucking hells” were all that were spoken from the road crew as they tried to redeem the concert.

“He was drunk,” Jimmy whispered to Y/N giddily, “he was completely out to lunch and wobbling as he walked onstage.”

“I didn’t even notice,” Y/N replied quietly with a grin, “that definitely explains all the empty bottles and glasses on the table.”

Momentarily, Keith got back up and motioned for the band to restart “Train Kept A-Rollin’” and they finished the song without another mishap. The rest of the set was completed smoothly, and everything sounded sonically incredible. Jimmy and Y/N stood close together the entire time, Jimmy sneaking glances at Y/N from time to time. He lost his breath with the way her eyes were almost aglow in the fading light, and her soft-looking lips parted in childlike wonder as she watched the live music.

The Yardbirds came off the stage, begrudgingly making their way into the backstage tent, where Jimmy and Y/N had situated themselves. No one looked happy, especially Paul. Jeff had his usual stoic look, but he was rushing around for any alcoholic beverage he could find to ease his nerves after what could have been the worst possible scenario.

Everyone took a seat at the table where they were before the show. Jimmy and Y/N sat next to each other as they took in the distressed expressions of the five other men. Jeff was slumped in his chair, next to Jimmy, taking swigs of a beer he’d found. Jim and Chris just stared at the ground, drink in hand. Paul just looked royally pissed off, to the point that it almost scared Y/N. Keith, however, was still totally out of it in his drunken stupor.

“Hey, Jim,” Jeff said quietly to Jimmy, “look, you know, I’m really sorry about the gig. I’m sure you aren’t interested in joining the band now…”

“Oh no,” Jimmy chuckled, “that was amazing! Absolutely brilliant! I loved it.”

Y/N’s interest piqued as she heard their whispers of new information. “Wait! Jimmy’s joining the band? I thought there were only supposed to be five live Yardbirds,” she whispered.

Jeff leaned over Jimmy to whisper back to Y/N. “Oh yeah! I can’t believe I didn’t tell you this already. Paul is probably going to leave the group...and I think it might be sooner than we thought, especially after the whole Keith fiasco...Jimmy is going to take his place on bass, and hopefully he’ll take on dual lead guitar at some point. Then Chris will do bass,” Jeff’s eyes diverted to Paul, who was sitting with his arms crossed and face angry, staring off into space. Jimmy and Y/N followed Jeff’s line of sight mischievously.

“Oooh! Great plan,” Y/N smiled.

A little smirk creeped across Jeff’s face as he quietly counted down, “3...2...1…”

At the very prompt “1,” Paul abruptly stood up from his chair very loudly, capturing everyone’s attention.

“You know what? I’m done,” Paul exclaimed, stepping away from the chair as he pushed it in under the table.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Jim began, standing up from his own chair, “what do you mean ‘you’re done’? What the hell does that mean?”

Paul sneered at Jim. “What do you think I mean? I mean I’m done with this bullshit. I’ve had enough of the horrid travelling, not being noticed, and this drunk-off-his-ass bastard,” he exclaimed angrily, pointing at Keith.

“You need to relax, Sam,” Chris said gently, “look at everything we’ve accomplished over the last three years. You want to give that up? You’re losing your shit over one bad performance.”

“It’s been on my mind for a long time now, Chris. I fucking hate it,” Paul continued, anxiously running his hands through his hair, “and you know what? Y/N hanging around all the time has made it worse. She’s just here to be our fucking groupie. She’s only eating off our clout to be friends with famous people.” The entire table went silent, looking around nervously.

Y/N’s eyes widened at Paul’s awful accusation. “Are you serious?” she shot back coldly, “I knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

“Oh what, you think I don’t recognize that that’s your motive?” Paul said condescendingly.

“If you think that being absolutely obsessed with you all is my sole hobby, my motive, whatever that means... you are sadly mistaken,” Y/N responded, her eyes closing to slits and her lips pressed together in disgust.

“You’re probably sleeping with Jim or Chris now for all I know!” he shouted, arms flailing in the air.

Y/N was fuming now, standing up from her own chair facing Paul. “How dare you make me seem like I’m a whore for the Yardbirds! Even if I was sleeping with Jim or Chris, that would be none of your business because you pursued me when you were fucking married, you dipshit.”

Paul’s maddening countenance grew. “You’re just an insecure little girl who needs famous musicians around her to validate her and make feel better about herself. You’re a fucking nuisance, like a gnat that just won’t fly away even when you swat at it again and again.”

Y/N gasped, the sound drowned out by the screech of metal against tile, as Jimmy stood up from his chair. He was distraught, upset at the antics between the two bitter exes, and stepped in front of Y/N to protect her from the horrible verbal blows served by Paul Samwell-Smith. Jeff beat him by a second, as he started to berate Sam for his little episode.

“You listen up, you wanker,” Jeff started, wagging his index finger in front of Sam’s face, “you’re just being a butthurt little bitch because Y/N found out that you were married. If anyone’s the whore here, it’s you. Y/N is our friend, even Jimmy’s now, and she takes care of us and makes us happy. She’s not just some whimsy, disposable groupie like the way you used her; she’s an intelligent, sweet, pretty girl who has our best interest at heart. And we have hers. You have to be a fucking idiot not to see that.”

Paul was taken aback. “I write, produce, and play bass for this group. All you do is play lead guitar. Trust me, Beck, I’m not the idiot here.”

“Well, your goddamn head isn’t screwed on straight, then,” Jimmy added, “I’ll be taking your place, thank you very much. And you will never mistreat Y/N on my watch. Ever. I’ve known her for about an hour, and she’s already absolutely magnificent.”

Y/N’s throat felt clenched, but some of the tension was relieved when she realized how protective Jimmy was being over her. As mad as she was, butterflies filled her stomach at his warm ways.

“I’m out of here! You all suck anyway. Have a nice trip to hell, all of you,” Paul said as he walked away to the road crew to get his belongings, flipping the people at the table off.

Y/N sat back down in her chair once Paul was out of sight, slouching and holding her cheeks with her hands as she blankly stared at the edge of the table. Jimmy and the four Yardbirds dragged their chairs closer to a saddened Y/N, who was determined to fight off the tears that threatened to roll down her fury-flush cheeks.

Jeff frowned at the state of his friend, starting to softly rub her cardigan-clothed back to console her. “I’m so sorry about Sam, Y/N. His behaviour was absolutely horrendous, and I can assure you, none of the things he said about you were even close to being true.”

Keith, still a bit drunk, stood up and walked over to Y/N, planting a peck on her cheek. “We’re so glad you’re here, dear. Truly. That belligerent little asshole can suck a fat one.”

A close-lipped smile found its way on Y/N’s lips. “Thanks Keith,” she chuckled.

“I’m going to go get you a cup of water, alright love?” Chris said as he stood up to walk over towards the bar.

“Thank you so much Chris,” she called after him. Chris flashed her a kind smile as he walked away.

I guess Mum and Dad were wrong...they really do care about me, Y/N thought happily, they really, truly do.

~~~~~~~~

After the May Ball was over, and the sky was growing darker with the coming evening, Jimmy and Y/N walked around the grounds of the venue together, talking about anything and everything and sharing laughs.

The lighthearted mood took a drastic shift at one of Jimmy’s followup questions.

“So, Y/N, if you don’t mind me asking, what was the whole row between you and Sam about?”

Y/N flashed a sad smile, but it quickly faded as she took a deep exhale. “Well—”

Panicked, Jimmy took this as a cue that she didn’t want to talk about it. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I get it because of how heated it was. I’m just worried about you, is all,” he interrupted.

“No, it’s okay. Really. I trust you,” she replied with a pursed lip-smile. Jimmy returned the sentiment, internally relieved that Y/N had already seemed to take a liking to him.

“Alright, so about a year or so ago, I went to a Yardbirds gig at the Crawdaddy Club, a few months after I met the band for the first time. Paul asked me out after that show, and nobody told me he was married, so naturally, I accepted.”

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, love. What a shitty thing to do, especially to someone as wonderful as you,” Jimmy replied with a little flush, giving the girl a little rub on the small of her back.

Heat rippled throughout Y/N’s body at his touch. Regaining her composure, she sighed. “Thank you Jimmy. That means a lot. More than you know, actually.”

After a short silence, Y/N continued. “We went out for about eight months...and in retrospect, it now makes sense why I could never go over to his place. But anyway, I found out about it before the band played on Ready, Steady, Go in February. Keith, Jeff, Jim, and I were all talking at the front of the stage before rehearsals and it slipped.”

“Who ended up telling you?”

“Jim, but it was purely an accident.” Suddenly, all of the events that had happened between her and Jim guiltily flooded her mind. Now with Jimmy beginning to infiltrate her mind and cloud her vision, how was she supposed to genuinely enjoy the secrecy? Ah shit, she thought, here we go again.

“After the show, I confronted him about it,” Y/N continued, “and he was blaming me for our time together, a-and for ‘tempting’ him into asking me out just by being… me?”

“He seems like a right wanker, I can tell you that for sure,” Jimmy muttered, sliding his hand from its resting place on her back, to her shoulder, squeezing it lightly in solidarity. Y/N met his eyes then, tears filling her gaze, and Jimmy frowns. No one as lovely as her should be feeling this way. He smiles at her, and to Y/N, it is filled with comfort and appreciation. Some emotion… something akin to love, perhaps, lit a fire in her chest, and she looks away. The evening ambience does nothing to hide the traitorous blush that painted her cheeks.

“It’s getting quite dark out, love. How did you get here?” Jimmy asked, stealing another glance at a girl as she looked down at her ballet flats once more.

“I took the train, actually,” Y/N replied.

“Oh, so did I! Here, I’ll walk with you over to the station then.”

Y/N grinned at him. “That’s so kind of you, Jimmy. Thank you.”

“No problem, love. What’s your stop?” Jimmy asked as they began to make their way over to the station.

“St. Alban’s. How about you?”

“Epsom. I still live with my parents, I’m afraid,” he chuckled sheepishly.

“Oh, it’s okay!” she laughed with him, “so do I. It’s nice though, to still live with your parents… home-cooked meals and laundry and all. Plus sleeping in your own bed, and using your own bathroom, of course.”

“Those are very good points,” Jimmy agreed with a chuckle.

The two boarded the train once they got to the station, only waiting on the platform for a few minutes. They continued to talk all the way to St. Albans, where Y/N got off to walk home.

“Say you’ll see me again sometime soon, Y/N,” Jimmy half-asked, half-declared as she stood up to get off the train.

Y/N grinned at him. “I definitely will, Jimmy. It was so nice meeting you tonight...I loved getting to know you.”

“The feeling is mutual, love. Please stay safe and take care of yourself, okay?” he reached out his hand to grab Y/N’s, shaking it a little and smiling at her. Y/N nearly swooned at the gesture.

“I’ll try my best. You do the same as well. Have a good night!”

“Thank you, you too!” Jimmy waved as Y/N walked out the train’s doors. Her scent, a delicious mixture of vanilla with a hint of laundry detergent, lingered in the air as she passed by, weakening him both physically and his rational judgment.

He had a lot of thinking to do on the ride home.

————

Taglist: @blood-on-blood @reincarnated70sbaby