#hopefully soon but had to write an essay for three hours

[bluebellthesponge]

want to make personal art soooo bad but forced to do school work

[ros3ybabe]

Day 10 - 90 Day Challenge 🎀

I feel really good about today. I got a lot done despite trying to nap three times (I wasn't able to actually get any sleep), and the only reason I kept trying to nap was because I've been up since 3am. It's easy to get a lot done when you've been up forever.

🏋‍♀️ Physical Health

took a walk around campus outside

logged most of everything I ate into my food tracking app

cooked a healthy breakfast + ate a serving of fruit (red grapes)

🧠 Mental Health

morning guided journal

night time guided journal

retail therapy <3 (bought some makeup on the ulta app)

❤️ Emotional Health

read 2 sections of 101 Essays to Change the Way You Think

answered the journal prompt "what is one of my limiting self beliefs?"(realized I'm the reason I don't have many friends, need to change that)

📚 Intellectual Health

finished chapter 13 notes for psyc

completed all of chapter 14 notes for psyc

selected my articles for my reflection paper for my health and sport class + formatted Google docs for each article reflection writing

(This all took me 2.5 hours from 4am to 630am, the perks of accidentally waking up early as heck)

🏘 Adulting

organized my desk drawer

reached out + invited my older brother to come see me since he was in town (he'll be here soon!)

had a phone call with my dad

🥰 Self Love/Care

morning skincare

night skincare (just moisturizer, I was tired)

took a warm shower + brushed my teeth (as gross as it sounds that I don't do it every day, depression sucks and I'm proud of myself for even one win )

made my bed (trying to make it a habit)

let in morning sunlight until it began to get dim outside (keeps electricity costs down and boosts my mood when I'm in my room)

I am very proud of myself for today despite my lack of motivation these last few days. Hopefully, this carries over to tomorrow, and I can be productive at least a little bit before i have to go to work. There's still time in the day, but I'm satisfied with today, which is why I'm posting this a bit early in the evening. Thank you and much love to everyone who has been commenting encouraging and supportive things it makes it easier to be open and honest about my struggles, mental health, and overall well-being.

til next time, lovelies 🩷

[focsle]

I've seen you answer a few asks about whaling history before, so hopefully I'm not offbase asking you questions out of the blue? But anyway, how did people bathe (or keep clean if not by bathing) during long sea voyages?

Not off base at all! Out of the blue whaling history questions are some of my fav asks to receive; I find them thrilling. I can’t help but write an essay every time.

It was particularly hard to keep clean on a whaler, and whalemen were often disparaged by those in other maritime professions. In 1839, naval Lieutenant Charles Wilkes said of the crew of the whaleship America, 

“I have seldom seen at sea a more uncombed and dirty set of mariners than his crew.“

J.E. Haviland of the Baltic, 1856, complained of besmirching his journal pages with the grime that he was unable to scrub off his hands after tarring the rigging, self consciously saying:

“My hands + clothes would look beautiful for a ladies Parlor. I see they even collor the paper but I cannot get the tar out. The Old Man says he intends to have me tar down the rigging a few days before we get in New Bedford so that I shall not forget too soon that I have been a sailor.”

General ships’ work  such as tarring could be messy, but a whaler’s work was even messier. When trying out blubber it was futile to attempt maintaining any semblance of cleanliness during the process. William Abbe of the Atkins Adams, 1859, said that during boiling, a watch would turn in to their bunks a few hours rest, merely ‘after wiping off your bare body with oakum to take off the thickest of the oil”.

But the gore and oil wasn’t forever. After the particular job was done the ship would be meticulously cleaned, and the whalers would tend to themselves too. As Herman Melville wrote,

“The crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland. Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and bring us napkins!”

Haviland expressed gratitude in getting a chance to get clean after all the work of boiling blubber was done:

“I feel much better to day I have given myself a good wash + a clean shave + got in all clean clothes. You would not have known your own son if you could have seen him yesterday. I was nearly black with smoke + dirt. (with shame) I say it was the accumulation of 2 months dirt + 4 months beard. Everything looks as clean + bright as it did before we took the whale”

Being able to bathe was such a highlight that Abbe titled one of his journal pages “Washing myself!!” With TWO exclamation points!

“I write with pride in my fastidious journal that this morning I washed my face + hands with castile soap + fresh water — when shall I do the like again? When shall I write the pleasant and comfortable fact that I have shaved? The future and fair weather only can tell.”

The ship’s slop chest—its general store—had toiletries for sale, often at a very high premium. Whaling account books show men buying pounds of oil soap for their own personal stores. The fresh water was often rainwater collected for this purpose, rather than the casks set aside for drinking.

“This has been a rather squally day,” wrote Mary Lawrence, whaling wife who accompanied her husband on his ship Addison in the 1850s. “Considerable rain has fallen, and everybody on deck is using an abundant supply of rainwater for washing purposes.” She also added, though this is speaking of laundry rather than bathing, “Having stopped up the scuppers, the use the whole deck for one grand washtub.”

They’d use the sea, too. John Martin of the Lucy Ann, wrote of bathing via rain and sea whilst near the equator on January 24th, 1842.

“Towards noon the rain came down in torrents. The weather being sultry the watch on deck shipped off their shirts to it. John the boat steerer went entirely naked with the exception of a handkerchief tied around his privates. In the afternoon it cleared away, when I asked permission from the Captain for the crew to take a bathe over the side. He said we might do it if we rigged a studding sail over the side, which was soon done & all hands that could swim were to be seen jumping from different parts of the ship. Some went out to the end of the flying jib boom & jumped off there. Even the dog was thrown overboard & got his share of washing. I like bathing at sea but for one thing, and that is sharks. I always have a fear that one might be hovering about and give one a nip before he was aware of it.”

It was challenging for whalers to keep clean by nature of the job, but man when they were able to they really seemed to revel in it. For many of them it was more than just a bath; it was a symbolic return to a home they were long away from, or to the man they perceived themselves to be back on shore, or of a society that they felt cut off from in their line of work.

If you’re interested I also wrote a thing about doing laundry on whaleships too, yonder!

[lavender-long-stories]

Spoilers for Why Is It Always You? | Chapter 2 | Rated T

The sunset through the library window was not helping her eyes stay open. Sasuke was late, and she still had homework and studying to do tonight. 

A loud thump made her jump as she realized her eyes must close for too long, and she fell asleep. Her heart raced as she glared down at the backpack Sasuke dropped in front of her. He raised his eyebrows at her, challenging her to complain about it or how late he was.

Hinata rubbed her eyes, forcing the irritation down. She slid him the research materials he asked for. 

Sasuke flipped them open to her marked pages, tossing some of them aside in what she assumed was a reject pile. This was a high school research paper, not a dissertation. What was he expecting to find? 

Hinata waited for him to choose and returned the books he rejected to the return cart. When she came back, he was already writing. At least he was taking this seriously. She checked her phone. She didn’t have much time. Hopefully, they could make some progress before she had to leave.

“Hinata.” Shikamaru appeared from behind a bookshelf, his bleary eyes indicating that he found a quiet place to nap. “Here.” He held up a book. She accepted it before she could see the cover. “Shouldn’t you be heading home soon? Don’t you have a curfew?” He really never forgot anything.

“Uh, yes, Sasuke-san and I are working on our paper.” Hinata pointed to where Sasuke had caught his attention on the two of them, looking annoyed with her delay. 

Shikamaru didn’t even look at him. “You had student council and fencing. Have you had a break?”

No. “Yes. I had some time between.” Shikamaru nodded, but the way his head rolled to the side felt like he knew she was lying. “I should get back before he gets angrier.” She bowed her head, holding her book out to say thank you.

“Don’t let him bully you,” Shikamaru added, making her pause. “Higher marks doesn’t mean he’s better than you.”

Hinata watch Shikamaru leave. Why was he encouraging her? If he wanted to, he could beat both her and Sasuke in class marking, but he just never showed work or finished essays. 

Hinata sat back down across from Sasuke and set the book down, finally looking at the cover. She thought he handed her a reference book for the subject, but maybe that wouldn’t have made sense. He didn’t know what topic they were doing. Hinata flipped the book over. It wasn’t for their project.

She smiled at the book on the next section in their math class. Was this Shikamaru’s way of helping her get back at Sasuke? Getting ahead in the subject?

Sasuke tapped her book to get her attention back, and her smile dropped.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Sasuke sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair, rolling his neck as he waited for the nurses to be done. They reminded him of visiting hours as they left like he didn’t know. He was here every night.

“You don’t have to stay so late. Don’t you have schoolwork?” Itachi asked from his hospital bed.

“I finished it already.” Sasuke lied. He would get it done before it was due.

Itachi rested his hands on his chest. “What’s going on at school?”

“Nothing much. I have to work with the Hyuga girl on a group project. Naruto got a friendship bracelet stuck around his ankle, and Sakura won’t let him cut it. Sakura keeps trying to drop hints about what she wants for her birthday even though it’s not until the end of the school year.” Sasuke rattled off.

“What are you getting for Sakura’s birthday?” Itachi wondered.

“Nothing,” Sasuke answered flatly. “I never get her anything, and yet she still makes a point to tell me what she wants.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you did get her something this year?” Itachi rolled his head to the side.

Sasuke shook his head. “It would give her the wrong idea. She still thinks we are going to be high school sweethearts and have three kids before she’s twenty-five.”

Itachi made a face. He knew what it was like to have fangirls. “Don’t tell me she’s named them?” Sasuke frowned. “Maybe it is better that you didn’t.” He relented. “Which Hyuga are you working with?”

“Hinata.” Sasuke wasn’t finding anything interesting. “She’s the only one my age, remember?”

“Hinata? How is she?” Itachi perked up.

Sasuke shrugged. “How should I know?”

“She is very plain with her emotions.” Itachi always had a much more positive outlook on the Hyuga heir than he did. Probably because Itachi saw her as he saw him: young and in need of protection, he always made a point to seek her out in a room. As a child, it drove him up a wall. 

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “She’s not as innocent as you think she is.”

“I am sure she thinks the same thing about you.” Itachi raised an eyebrow. “You two aren’t that different.”

“It’s all an act. You are just falling for it.” Sasuke countered by putting the phone down.

“I am sure if you spend some time not antagonizing her, you will see she is quite a nice young girl.” Itachi smiled.

Sasuke hated that smile, the smile Itachi got when he knew he was right. But Itachi only saw Hinata at events. He didn’t have to deal with her. “Whatever.” 

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

“Here.” Kiba put the drink she asked for down in front of her. “Since when have you liked coffee?” Hinata pressed her lips together, taking another bite of her lunch. Shino leaned on the table. “How is Sasuke as a partner?” 

“Rude.” Hinata started. “But at least he was interested enough in his grade not to sabotage us. He can’t pull me down without hurting himself. But he argues every single point to no end. I think he is just doing it to argue at this point. We have excluded points from the paper just because we could not agree on what they meant in the great picture.” “You would think he would at least try to make it less painful.” Kiba made a face.

“I have just started gathering information and letting him make the connections and conclusions. It stopped some of the arguing.” Hinata picked at her food.

Shino leaned toward her. “Do you think your dad would let you out this weekend?” “I’m not sure. He’s not happy about second place on the exams, but I haven’t done anything else this week to upset him.” Hinata paused. “Yet.”

Kiba leaned back. “I think you two will be on your own. My sister is making me help her paint her nursery this weekend.”

Shino scrunched his nose, alone again.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Hinata flipped through her notes as she sat at the radio station. She had no interest in the school’s radio station, another one of the clubs her father thought would ‘make up for her lack of skill,’ but it gave her uninterrupted time to study and had no competition like fencing did, so she couldn’t complain. 

Sometimes, her friends came to study with her, but Kiba was spending more time at his sister’s vet clinic, and Shino’s dad wanted him to spend more time with his brother before he went abroad, so they skipped out. 

Hinata felt her chair jerk. She looked up to see the flat, bored look on Sasuke’s face. She pulled the headphones down with a frown. “Do you ever leave school?” Sasuke dropped his bag and sat down. “You have my schedule,” Hinata set the headphones down. That’s how he knew she was here, wasn’t it? Sasuke leaned back, looking at his phone. After a minute, it was clear he wasn’t here to work with her. “Why are you here?” “Hiding from Sakura,” Sasuke told her simply. “Why here?” Sure, it was unlikely for him to be here, but it wasn’t the best after-school hiding spot. “Because if she does find me, I can just say I am working on our project and that she is distracting me,” Sasuke explained, glancing up from his phone. “And why can’t you just go home?” Sasuke didn’t answer her. Hinata resigned to put her headphones back on. She felt him kick her chair again. Hinata turned to glare at him as she jerked the headphones down. “What?” “What do you even do here?” Sasuke asked. Hinata beat down the frustration. “I just make sure the music keeps going and that any requests that come in get played.” “Doesn’t seem like you do much.” Sasuke leaned back. “It’s mostly automated.” Hinata looked back at her notebook. “It’s not meant to be intensive.” “What kind of music do you teach?” Sasuke asked as she reached for her headphones again. Hinata wondered if she should just put on the headphones and ignore him. “Piano and violin.” “To who?” Sasuke tilted his head. He was pushing his luck with a raised eyebrow and a flat look. “Underprivileged kids,” Hinata answered. Making a point to look back at her notes.

“Underprivileged? Seems rude to call them that.” Sasuke prodded. “It’s what they are called on the paperwork. I didn’t make the program up.” Hinata leaned her head toward the headphones so she could at least hear the music. “How old?” Sasuke asked.

“Why do you care?” Hinata snapped. Sasuke shrugged. “My phone’s dying.” Hinata set her jaw. “Then study.” “I don’t study.” Sasuke rolled his head back. “You’re the top student in our class.” He couldn’t be serious. Sasuke smirked. “And you study all the time, and you still can’t beat me.” Hinata’s face hardened. Maybe he really was just that good, and she was working so hard for nothing. “Yeah.” She looked back at her notes. “When did you start piano and violin?” Sasuke continued to prod. Hinata didn’t answer. “They started me off at six on the piano.” Hinata put the headphones back on. Sasuke kicked her chair. When Hinata didn’t react, he kicked it again. She set her jaw and locked eyes on her notes. 

After a few minutes of no kicking, Hinata glanced down, but she didn’t see his shoes. She looked up at the chair, and he was gone. She took down her headphones and looked around. It looked like he left. 

Hinata closed her notes. What was the point anyway?

Why Is It Always You? Pairing: Sasuke x Hinata  Rating: T Tags: Romance | Enemies to Lovers | Fluff and Angst | Highschool AU | Happy Ending Status: Complete

Hinata hates living in Sasuke's shadow. Sasuke can’t stand people thinking Hinata is innocent and well-meaning. They would like nothing more than to stop seeing each other, but the universe seems to have other ideas.

Image by Leo Okuyama

[rosainta]

[Outdated! No longer applicable]

RQDL Announcement + Wednesday Art Dump!

Started December 13th, 2023 at 8:00AM, Home

Finished December 13th, 2023 at 10:45PM, Home

Announcement #1

Hello there, wonderful viewer!

(“Meet the Demoman” Art by me— more on that later!)

Firstly, the bad news.

I’d like to apologize for not posting these past couple of days. I realize that the whole point of these logs is that they are supposed to be daily… hence the name Rosain Quivan’s Daily Logs, LOL, and me breaking that purpose so soon after starting is a bit disappointing.

However, as I was attempting to continue King of Hearts (Part Three) over those two days, I came to realize that, unfortunately, I actually don’t have enough time to write as I initially thought I would. At least, during the weekdays. This is mostly in part due to classes, extracurriculars and just general life stuff, and as much as I want to urge myself to write and just wing the rest, that’s sadly not possible. And I don’t think that the only 3 hours I have free before sleeping is enough time to write anything substantial, much less of good quality that both of us could enjoy.

I’m sorry if you were looking forward to anything recently, like KoH3, only for it not to be there. I know I promised you that it would be the next log, but I believe I may have to push that farther out to this weekend, or worst case scenario next week.

I know it’s probably not such a big deal for you as I’m putting it here, since I am probably just another random TF2 person on the Internet for you (who, mind you, has only really been active for about 4 days), but it means a lot to me.

I made this vow of continuity and quality to both myself (to improve my writing skills and commitment) and you (to give back to the community whose inspiration never ceases to amaze me), and it pains me to know that I have already failed to follow through with it.

However, as much as this sucks, this does not give me the right to sulk over it, because sulking is for MAGGOTS!!! (Just kidding- sulk as much as you want, we still love you!)

Which is why in order to fix this, I propose….

A SOLUTION!!

(Now, the good news!)

(“Meet the Engineer” Also art by me— explanation coming in a bit, just a little more patience!)

Now, what I’m about to propose is a bit complicated, and I’m not entirely sure if this is going to work… but hey, at least it’s only after the 4th log right? Beginnings offer a lot of room for experimentation. And if it doesn’t work out, we’ll fix it when we get there.

So, because of real-life scheduling conflict, the best way for me to balance this out with writing (as well as all the other things I’d like to include here), I have decided to make a schedule for when and what these logs will look like and contain. Most of what will be on it will likely be considerably shorter works in comparison to say, King of Hearts, because of obvious time constraints, but they include a lot of different things to look forward to aside from the same old writing scheme, like say, artwork!

This way, it provides a bit more variety (so you’re not just stuck reading TF2 essays everyday LOL), and also the possibility for you to provide input, ask questions and make requests!

The first goals I had in mind when making these logs was for this to be fun and enjoyable for both of us, as well as sustainable. So, by having this schedule, hopefully that can fulfill both those goals. Now, enough of my babbling; here it is!

RQDL SCHEDULE

Weekdays (Mondays-Thursdays, possibly Fridays)

Posting time: around 10:30PM, Atlantic Time

Monday : short writings (poems, vignettes, opinions, other stuff like that.)

Tuesday : same as Monday

Wednesday : artwork &/ musical composition (such as shown above!)

Thursday : same as Wednesday

(Friday, possibly) : art requests, anything you’d like!!! (Within reason, of course. I have never attempted NSFW, so let’s maybe steer clear of that… for now)

Weekends (possibly Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays)

Posting time: earlier or later than 11:00PM, Atlantic Time

(Friday, possibly): writing requests, anything you’d like!!! (Again, within reason, of course. still steering clear of NSFW for the time being)

Saturday: long projects (multi-part stories, opinion essays, major art or music projects, publishing, etc.)

Sunday: same as Friday / Saturday

So, yeah, that’s the schedule for the logs! I hope you find it has more variety, and I’m really looking forward to being able to follow through with it, especially the requests part because it allows me to be able to interact with you all more and be able to hear your thoughts!

Again, I’d like to stress that the purpose of these logs is for them to be sustainable but most of all enjoyable for the both of us, so please let me know what I can improve over the course of these logs so those purposes can be realized! Your input is as important to me as booze is to Demo’s survival, so feel free to let me know what you’d like to see next.

Anyhow, that’s it for this announcement! I’m sure you’ve had enough of my rambling as much as my fingers are getting tired of typing, so I’ll just end this off with a final Spy art.

Have a great day, pally!

(“Meet the Spy” Art by me!)

(P.S. All of this artwork dates from around January from an old Daily Art challenge I made for myself, so it is quite old, but I thought it might be nice to share them anyway instead of them just sitting in my camera roll for the rest of its lifetime, LOL. I might post the rest tomorrow!)

Credits: Team Fortress 2 by Valve

Image source: Rosain Quivan

Written by Rosain Quivan Cross posted on Amino ( Rosain Quivan )

[hoperays-song]

Things Gooseless Did During Their Finals Weeks

(Because my school is bloody insane and my finals are over like two weeks instead of one. It’s like they want us to get ulcers.)

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

1. Spammed their english professor with literary memes.

2. Wrote frog comics on the bottom of the paragraph response forms in environmental science.

3. Somehow slept for 17 hours straight immediately after my first Friday exam... I typically have insomnia, I pretty sure my family thought I was going into a coma.

4. Got compared to Hunter from The Owl House because of my eye bags twice in one day.

5. Pulled a few all nighters to turn in late assignments that even my professors forgot I had. I still barely passed but hey, I passed.

6. Had a sensory overload and a migraine attack because I wasn’t allowed headphones in the silent testing lab. And no I wasn’t allowed to wear them after either. Yay.

7. Had to write the sentence, “Asian carp have invaded Lake Eerie”, on previously mentioned environmental science final and immediately thought about that one news dude who made everyone believe aliens were invading.

8. Wrote three essays about warrior cats books. :)

9. Put fun facts in my answer book when I got bored and didn’t know how to respond to the prompt... So for every prompt. 

10. Bashed my art history professor on those essay response forms by listing everything I argued with him about all year. If you can’t tell, I’m petty apparently.

11. Drew a truly awful self portrait. Like next level horrible. :)

12. Wrote commentary on every question on my English (second) exam. Like actual running commentary on the questions. My teacher just sighed when she saw it (she laughed though, glared at me, but laughed while grading it).

13. Cried four times in one day. That was fun.

14. Found out that banana pudding has layers?!?!?! And is actually vanilla pudding with bananas?!?!?

15. Binged the whole of Netflix’s Queen Charlotte solely for the annoyed gay butlers trying to parent trap their bosses. 

16. Found three of said professors emails and now have a way to get in touch with them after graduation (NEXT WEEK!!!!), because they honestly know waaaayyyyy too much about my life for me not to at this point.

17. Correctly guessed how many questions I would get right on my mathematics final (80% baby).

18. Baked four whole trays of cookies to give to my professors as an end of year gift. I was a horrible student. They deserve at least cookies.

19. Started planning out a tattoo for me to get. :)

20. Wrote two thousand more words of the continuation fic as well as started on a few short ones for a different fandom and the warriors au.

21. Took a very unplanned hiatus (still not back, sorry y’all).

22. Watched a total of twenty hours of movie and tv show analysis videos within three days. 

23. Reached one year in one of my recovery programs and three months in another!!!!!!!!

24. Had to say goodbye to my friends and my daughter since now I won’t be in school with them next year (still in contact with several of them, daughter including, just can’t see her in person due to me moving). It sucked.

25. Worked on more character backstories that will be coming soon. Hopefully. As in once I get off hiatus, expect like four angsty backstories.

[bellatrixscurls]

“achy” ☁️ draco x reader x harry

warnings : smut, dom/sub, sub!reader, sub!harry, dom!draco, soft aftercare, praise kink.

summary : you feel needy so you make harry skip transfiguration, and draco finds out.

a/n : not me writing for drarry again bc i’m literally obsessed with this ship- chile 😳.

“but please, har! i really need you” you pouted at the bespectacled boy, staring up at him as your hands tugged at his scarlet and golden tie, “you’re so pretty. please, angel.”

harry only sighed, biting his lip at the sight of you. you needed him so much, and seeing you in that state made him want you too, more than anything, “okay” he agreed, feigning indifference but a smile crept onto his face as soon as strings of ‘thank you’s and ‘i love you’s left your mouth, along with your arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

you wasted no time in dragging him up the stairs to his dorm, knowing that draco wouldn’t be able to catch you there.

closing the door behind him, harry let you undress him. you began with his tie, that you’d been dying to get off him since that morning, then with his pants and briefs, and finally took off his shirt, leaving him bare in front of you. you smiled weakly at him, leaning in and pressing a soft kiss on his chest, making him giggle at the action, “so fucking precious, ‘m love” you said as you got down on your knees, gripping his thighs for support as your lips lightly touched his red tip, causing him to shudder.

“so pretty” he whispered as he guided your head, your mouth taking all of him, making you gag at his impressive size, “f-fuck, y/n/n. taking all of me like such a good g-girl, fuck!” whined harry, pushing your head closer so you were forced to breathe through your nose, tears leaking out of your eyes at the roughness of his thrusts.

a few more thrusts along with your boyfriend’s praises and you couldn’t ignore your neediness, your hand immediately sliding down and playing with your clit. you hummed around his cock as he continued to fuck your mouth, and you heard harry chuckling from above you, “couldn’t take it anymore, could you, lovey ?” he questioned rhetorically, but you shook your head nevertheless, “stop that, angel.”

and although his tone was gentle, your hand immediately left your wet cunt, at the same time he cupped your face and eased himself out of your mouth, “lemme taste my sweet little girl” he said, earning a soft moan from you as you held two fingers up, close to his lips. harry’s tongue poked out as his mouth opened and he took your fingers between his upper lip and tongue, sucking and humming around them as his eyes closed.

the sight was pure sex. harry, with your fingers inside his mouth, tasting you and actually enjoying it. “d-daddy” you whispered, and harry’s eyes immediately snapped open, watching your glossy eyes and pouty lips, “wanna- wanna be fucked, please. wanna cum ‘round your cock, pretty please” and although a sub himself, harry couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying that — you calling him ‘daddy’, while begging for his cock.

“well, good girls get what they want, don’t they, sweetheart ?” he asked, brushing some strands of hair out of your face. “m-i’m a good girl ?” you asked hopefully, watching as he nodded, satisfied at how submissive you were for him, and only him, “a good girl that’s gonna receive exactly what she wants, hm ?”

so you didn’t even try to control yourself anymore, and got on your back on the floor, pulling harry on top of you as you kissed him passionately, running your hands up and down his chest. chuckling, he pulled away for a second, “easy- easy, my love” he pressed his forehead against yours, slowly pushing his cock inside of you, pulling breathless moans and whines from you as he couldn’t control the endless groans escaping his parted lips.

“just l-like that- so good! so fucking good.”

***

an hour later, after cumming three times each, you were finally done. laying on the floor, sweaty bodies pressed against each other as you tried to catch your breaths. “should we t-take a bath now ? use some lotion for s-sore muscles ?” you asked, remembering the usual things draco’d do after sex.

harry was aware about those things, but being a sub himself, he couldn’t do it properly so he just said “i- i think we should go to dinner first, you know- so draco won’t be suspicious” he offered and you agreed, feeling hungry yourself.

you put on one of harry’s tshirts and your shorts, while harry dressed himself as well, and you headed to the great hall. while walking, your legs were visibly trembling, and harry seemed tense and uncomfortable as well, but you just brushed it off and continues walking.

once there, you made your way to the slytherin table, where you and harry sat on either of draco’s sides. but then again, sitting down wasn’t comfortable either — your pussy was aching and you swore that you could hear harry hiss as well.

frowning, draco glanced at you, then at harry and back at you, eventually opening his mouth, “didn’t see you in transfiguration” he spoke matter of factly, turning back to his food as he waited for an answer.

“i-i forgot to do my essay a-and you know how minnie gets” you told him quietly, your cheeks burning in embarrassment at what happened just a few minutes before.

draco hummed, not really impressed as he turned his gaze to his boyfriend, “and you ?”

looking down shyly, harry stuttered, “i was h-helping her.”

“right, so who’s idea was it ?”

“what idea ?”

“skipping class to fuck. without me ? d’you think i’m stupid, potter ?”

“we didn’t-”

“oh yeah ? explain this, then” draco said arrogantly, sliding one of his hands inside your underwear and slapping your clit lightly as you cried out in pain, half of the table turning to look at you, but they instantly looked away when draco glared at them.

deep in thought, draco removed his hand from your underwear and brought it up to nose, inhaling the scent with closed eyes. inhaling deeply, his eyes snapped open and he groaned, gripping both yours and harry’s wrists and practically dragged you up to his dorm.

***

“did you apply lotion ? take a warm bath ? wash your hair ?” draco yelled at both you and harry, as the only thing you could do was shake your heads, waiting for the punishment he had in store for you, sooner or later.

groaning in frustration, draco disappeared behind the door of his spacious bathroom — as he was a prefect. you shot harry a look as well as he did you, tears leaking out of your eyes as you waited for your boyfriend to come back.

“in here, now” his cold voice instructed and both of you obliged instantly, your legs quivering as you entered the bathroom, trying to stand straight in front of the blond, “my poor little babies...” he spoke softly as his hands went to cup one of your cheeks and one of harry’s, pulling you closer to his chest and holding you there.

you sobbed against his pale skin, the achiness increasing as well as your guiltiness, “m s-sorry, dray...didn’t wanna- i knew you w-wouldn’t skip class with us and- and harry looked so pretty...i’m so so sorry” by the time you were done speaking, your tears were dripping down your chin and all the way down draco’s shirt.

but instead of yelling or punishing you like you thought he would, draco shushed you, depositing harry and then you into the spacious bathtub.

“next time don’t do these things without permission, bubs...see ? it hurts now, doesn’t it ?” he cooed when you and harry winced as the hot water came into contact with your sore muscles and your overused bodies.

you nodded shyly as harry laid his head upon your chest, closing his eyes, “m sorry too...” he whispered, too shy to even look at any of you as he buried his face into your chest, “for being a bad boy, i mean...wanna be good f-” but harry couldn’t get the last words out of his mouth as his adorable little snores filled the room, causing both you and draco to giggle quietly.

“he’s probably gonna do this again, isn’t he ?” draco sighed, squeezing some shampoo on his palm and rubbing his palms together.

“if this is what we get, i’m most likely gonna do this again as well.”

“wh- hey!”

🩰 taglist; @daisyyy2516 @maybanksslut @fjorelaant @fredshufflepuff @amixedwitch @dracofknmalfoy @journeyofem @notthatchhavi @whisperingwhisper @stoleurmomsvan @olicity-believer @dreamy-clousds @harmqnia @v4l3nt1n44 @roonilwazlibswhore @drachoesimp @sluttylea @g1nnyslove @adrianscumslut @steveharringtonswhore @o-rion-sta-r @dracomalfoyswifeee @sweetbagelranchathlete @lolooo22 @ravenclawcartier

[phykios]

Five Times Percy Jackson Cheated At School (And One Time Someone Cheated Him) [read on ao3]

thank you as always to @darkmagyk for inspo and beta-ing 💙💙💙 and thank you to @arosnowflake for the homer idea!

1)

Percy squints at the paper prompt again, tilting his head, as if the new angle will extract some hidden information. It doesn’t change. The font is the special dyslexia-friendly one used by most departments at NRU, so he isn’t misreading it, either.

Your final will be an 8-10pp (TNR, 12pt, double-spaced) research paper expanding on one of the topics discussed in our class so far, or an alternate idea of your choosing, to be submitted in writing by May 7 with footnotes and bibliography. By 10am on the Wednesday before the Thursday class you will submit online a 750-word essay (word count does not include footnotes) on the research thread you have pursued that week (no written assignments due Week 6 or Week 12). 

Percy might hate college.

“Your neck bothering you again?” Annabeth asks, coming up behind him, her hands already on his shoulders. She’s sweaty, dressed in workout clothes, having just come back in from a jog. 

“My neck is fine,” he says. “Just preemptively freaking out over my Roman history final.”

He tilts his head back over the top of his chair, staring into the upside down, prettily frowning face of his girlfriend, and it does nothing to improve his mood.

“How bad is it?”

“Eight to ten pages,” Percy says, “not including footnotes.”

“Ouch.”

“And,” he grimaces, “it’s a topic of our choosing.”

Her mouth twists in sympathy. “Sucks.”

“Yep.”

“Anything I can do to help?” She squeezes his shoulders lightly, an open invitation. 

He shakes his head, stretching his arms back to grab her waist. “Promise not to break up with me when you catch me crying at 4AM over it.”

“Promise.” And she seals it with a kiss, bending down to reach him. “Dad wants to know if you’re free on the 16th.” 

“The 16th?” He wracks his brain. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t conflict with sailing, or Greek Club, or the monthly intra-pantheon relations council meeting that Chiron and Clarisse both guilted him into joining. “Pretty sure. Why?”

“Dinner--Charlotte’s out of town that weekend.”

“Sounds good.”

“Great, I’ll let him know. Now,” and she grins, “are you going to stare at that computer all day, or do you want to come and take a shower with me?”

Percy slams the computer shut. 

He doesn’t think about his paper topic for a while after that.

***

To his great dismay, Percy gets to her dad’s house first on the 16th. Drama in writing group 🙄 she texts him as he gets to the door, be there asap.

Great. Alone in the house with his girlfriend’s dad. Taking a deep breath, he knocks on the door. 

Not a minute later, Dr. Chase opens it. Last time they went to visit, Percy and Annabeth had ended up waiting outside for almost a quarter of an hour. “Oh, Percy,” he says, fumbling his flight helmet off his head. “Goodness, I thought I’d lost track of time again. Come in, come in.”

“Thanks,” Percy says, stepping inside and shedding his jacket. “Annabeth’s running late, but she said she’d be here soon.”

He frowns, looking so much like Annabeth that it throws Percy for several loops. “Well, that’s alright,” he says. “I’m sure we can entertain ourselves well enough until she gets here.”

“Yeah,” Percy chuckles, uneasy.

Several seconds pass. 

“Oh!” starts Dr. Chase. “Right, yes. Come in. Would you like something to drink?”

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t get much better.

A few minutes of staggered conversation later, it becomes eminently clear why they need Annabeth between them. It’s not the awkward small talk that doesn’t go anywhere (“How’s school going for you?” “It’s okay.” “Good, that’s good to hear.”) or the fact that Dr. Chase doesn’t really grasp how to relate to younger kids (“Have you heard of this website called ‘Vine’?”), but more that it’s just painfully obvious that the two of them don’t really know where they stand with each other. 

Now, he knows that Frederick Chase doesn’t hate him. Objectively, he’s aware of the fact that, if it weren’t for him, Annabeth never would have reconnected with her father in the first place, and he kind of owes him for that. Also, Percy knows that he’s a pretty chill guy--a little scatterbrained, but chill. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to make a good impression, though. Or that Dr. Chase thinks that Percy is smart enough for his daughter. Because, like, Percy isn’t smart enough for Annabeth--that much is obvious. Dr. Chase was courted by Athena. Percy barely made it out of high school calculus.

“Would you…” Dr. Chase hedges, plucking off his glasses and giving them a quick wipe with his shirtsleeve. “Would you like to see some of my current research?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.” 

At the very least, hopefully Dr. Chase will talk enough for the both of them, eating up time until Annabeth gets here.

A new spring in his step, Dr. Chase leads Percy to his study, where he’s got a setup worthy of Cabin Six: on his desk is a massive map of the Mediterranean, littered with miniatures of tanks, planes, and ships. Ringing the room are wall-hangings, depicting different types of planes, half of their structure in x-rays like people in an anatomy textbook, sandwiching the giant viking sword which hangs directly behind his chair. Every inch of floor space is occupied with a pile of books, some serving as additional desk space for mugs, notepads, spare toy soldiers, and, in one case, what looks like the leftovers of a handful of celestial bronze spearheads, melted down into shiny, useless nuggets. 

“You know I primarily study aviation,” Dr. Chase is saying, tidying up as he walks around the room, “but my colleagues and I are collaborating on an interdisciplinary re-evaluation of the entire North African theatre in World War II. It’s fascinating stuff; until very recently, they used to call it the ‘war without hate,’ given the lack of partisan roundups and, ah, ethnic clashes that you see in Europe--absolute garbage, of course. As if there weren’t civilians caught up in the fighting, too!” He chuckles, pleased at his own joke. Percy forces a laugh out of himself. “Anyway, with my prior experience studying the invasion of Sicily, I was brought on to assist in piecing the timeline together, working backwards from 1943.”

“Cool,” says Percy, filling the natural gap of conversation.

“Extremely! Operation Husky was a terrific endeavor of airborne, amphibious, and land-based combat.”

Percy nods. Amphibious? “Uh-huh.”

“Though, I must admit, I am having a little trouble retracing some of the ships.” Peering over his map, he leans down, fiddling with one of the ships. “You see this one here? The Palmer?”

Stepping up to the desk, Percy crouches down so the little toy ship is at eye level.

“Well, based on official records, the Palmer was supposed to have arrived at the rendezvous point at the same time as all the other ships, but ended up delayed by two days, and I can’t… quite…” He moves the ship again, frowning. “Figure out… why…” 

“Where were they sailing through?” Percy asks. 

Dr. Chase points to the map. “From Alexandria to Malta.” 

“They probably just hit a bad couple of currents,” Percy says, standing up. 

Tilting his head, Dr. Chase peers at him. “How do you mean?”

“If you’re going through the Cretan Passage, you’re going to hit all kinds of West-East currents which will push you backwards.” Snatching up a pencil from a nearby book stack, Percy lightly sketches on top of the map, tracing along the North African coast. “There are tons of overlapping currents in this area that push boats around in circles, especially around Sicily. That’s one of the reasons why so many historians figure that Homer was referring to the Strait of Messina when Odysseus goes through Scylla and Charybdis, here.” And he circles the strait, with a confident flourish.

When he pulls back, Dr. Chase is staring at him.

Percy blinks. “Um… sorry I drew on your map.”

“You--I have been trying to figure that out for weeks.”

He coughs, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.”

But Dr. Chase just laughs. “You can make it up to me by helping me with these next.” Clearing crumbs off of southern France, he bends over, pencil in hand. “So, say you were trying to get from Marseilles to Tunis…” 

Forty-five minutes later, still embroiled in battle recreations of the Mediterranean theatre, they don’t hear Annabeth letting herself in with her key, not even registering her presence until Dr. Chase, grasping for a notebook, spots her leaning against the doorway. “Don’t stop on my account.”

“Oh, Annabeth, dear! I’m sorry,” says Dr. Chase, going over to give her a hug. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

“I can see that,” she says. “What are you guys doing?”

“Percy here has been assisting me with naval movements,” he says, proudly.

Lacing her fingers with his, Annabeth steps over to Percy, studying their battle map. “Really?”

“Oh yes, he’s been phenomenally helpful.”

She kisses his cheek, pleased. “Look at you, Mr. ‘Phenomenally Helpful.’”

“It was pretty fun,” he admits, warm all over.

“I’d bet. Although, I guess this means we should probably order in for dinner…?”

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Dr. Chase smiles. “Yes, I suppose we should. Does pizza sound all right to you two?”

“Let me take care of it,” she says, slipping from Percy’s side. “You guys looked like you were in the middle of something. Extra olives, dad?”

“Don’t forget--”

“And anchovies, Percy, I know.” She rolls her eyes, taking out her phone.

Rather than the three of them move into the kitchen, Annabeth ends up bringing the pizza in with her, because of course she has opinions she’d like to share about the Allies’ naval movements. 

“You know, Percy,” says Dr. Chase, “I must say, you have a real knack for this kind of thing. Have you thought about what you might major in yet?”

Ah, the million drachmae question. “Not yet,” he says, fiddling with a pencil. “I figured I’d get through my gen eds first and then see which one I hated the least.” 

“I think you should consider majoring in history.”

Percy’s head snaps up. “History?”

“Specifically maritime history, I suppose. Your predisposition to sailing and ocean currents would be a huge asset to your research.”

“But--wouldn’t history have, like, a metric ton of required reading? I’m not really sure that’s my area.” He has a daughter with dyslexia and ADHD; surely he’d understand Percy’s hesitation.

But he just shakes his head. “Graduate programs these days are very favorable towards interdisciplinary methodology, I sincerely doubt you’d have to barricade yourself in the library. And recently there’s been a significant push to make the field more accessible to students with disabilities, including things like digitization, screen reading for people with vision impairments, and even restructuring programs all together so that students no longer have to memorize the Encyclopedia Britannica in order to pass their general exams.”

“That’s really nice of you to say, Dr. Chase,” Percy says, “But history class isn’t like talking over naval movements with you.” He thought back to the paper that had lowkey been haunting his dreams. “Like, in my classical history survey, I can’t just… talk about currents and battle plans. I have to come up with a topic on my own, and then write about that.” 

“Surely something involving Roman naval movements would be well within your skill set. You have a second sense about these things,” he chuckles, “clearly.”

Percy glances towards Annabeth, hoping she’ll back him up, but she looks thoughtful. Considering. Like she’s actually thinking about her dad’s proposal. “I can’t just choose something in naval history.”

“Why not?”

“Because… it's too easy?” 

If it was anything like his afternoon with Dr. Chase, it might even be fun. And school isn’t supposed to be fun. 

He repeats that thought to Annabeth as they drive home. “School isn’t supposed to be fun.” 

“No,” Annabeth agrees, “but I don’t know… I like my intro art history class way better than anything we ever did in high school because I actually care about it. Maybe if you write about stuff you’re good at, like my dad suggested, you’ll like it more.” 

The idea follows him all the way to bed, where he’s still mulling it over at 2 in the morning. Before he can chicken out, he grabs his phone, shooting off a quick email to his professor with his potential paper topic, then rolls over, eventually falling asleep.

By morning, he has a response. 

Sounds good! Looking forward to it.

***

With shaking hands, Percy calls his mom. “Yes?” 

“Hey mom.”

“Percy?” He hears her perk up, almost visualizing her sitting up in her chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Mom instincts. They can always tell when something is different. His heart throbs in his chest. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says, smiling stretching across his face. “It’s just--I got my paper back.” 

Percy had ended up writing his paper about the Roman navy movements in the Battle of the Aegates in 241 BC. It was probably the most fun he’s ever had on a school assignment, or at least the most fun he’d ever had writing a paper. 

“And?” She sounds expectant, hopeful. His mom has always had such faith in him, even with thirteen years of schooling to prove her otherwise. 

He looks back at his email, just to make sure he’s reading it right. “I got an A.”

She gasps. He can hear the scrape of the chair as she stands up. “Percy, that’s wonderful!” 

“Thank you.”

“An A!”

He smiles into his fist, inordinately pleased. “Thank you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I am so happy for you!”

“Thanks, mom.”

“I’m so proud of you, Percy.” Her voice is soft now, like twilights on the beach with blue marshmallows. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this. You should be very proud, too.”

“I am.” And he is, weirdly enough. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I can.” His mom must be grinning, her eyes sparkling. “I always knew you could do it.”

“Sally?” He hears in the background, muffled. “Is that Percy?”

“Paul, Percy got an A on his Roman history paper!”

A second voice crowds its way in, equally excited. “An A? That’s great, kiddo! Congratulations.”

Why can’t he stop smiling? “Thanks.”

“I bet that feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Well, it is very well-deserved,” says Paul. “That was some great work you did. I could tell how passionate you were about your topic just from your first sentence.”

“Thank you.” Maybe he should be worried about all this praise going to his head, but damn, is it nice. “Listen, I have to go get started on dinner, but I just wanted to give you a call.”

“Of course,” says his mom. “I want to hear from you more, okay? Tell me more good news! Like when are you and Annabeth going to--”

“I’m working on it, okay?” says Percy, smiling even more broadly. “I’ll keep you posted, promise.”

She laughs, tinny and happy. “You’d better. Congratulations again, sweetheart.”

“Thanks mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” 

And he hangs up, puts his phone down on the table, tilts his head back, and sighs, full, happy, a release. 

Maybe college won’t be so bad after all. 

2)

“You don’t have to do this,” Frank says, hushed. “All you have to do is walk away.”

Five Greek Fire bombs, cloudy yellow, are lined up on the table in front of him, neatly laid out in front of five twenties. From the side, Frank stares him down, surrounded by an army of morbidly curious Romans. Someone turned off the music and turned on the lights a while ago, stopping the party in its tracks, every eye on Percy and his opponent. Figures, his first college party all year and he causes a scene. 

Percy grips the edge of the table. “He insulted the Mets,” he says for the millionth time. “I can’t let that shit stand.”

Frank sighs. “Annabeth?” he asks, hoping to stop this nonsense.

Turning to his side, Percy sees his girlfriend, two drinks in, her cheeks lightly flushed, but solid as she stands beside him, supporting him. Her eyes are hard, fierce, the warrior gaze of Athena all but leaping out of her. “Do it,” she says. 

William, the sour-faced Roman legacy of Juventus, scowls. “A hundred bucks on the table. Sixty seconds. No throwing them back up.”

“Deal.”

“Frank,” Annabeth calls. “Start the clock.”

He sighs. “You guys are idiots.”

“Frank!”

“Okay, okay.” He holds out his phone, thumb primed, hovering over the screen. “On your marks, in three… two… one…” 

He hits zero, and Percy grabs a shot glass. Squeezing his eyes shut, he brings it to his lips, and throws it back.

It’s… not what he expected.

The tequila is awful--no getting around that. Even to Percy’s untrained taste buds, having really only ever had some of Gabe’s sour beer (under duress) and some of the Demeter cabin’s strawberry wine (on his eighteenth birthday, a celebration for actually getting to graduate high school), he can tell it’s cheap, rank, unrefined shit, like he’s drinking straight toilet cleaner. But the garum, the weird Roman condiment that the shot is mixed with, the one that Percy had never heard of before, it’s… it almost tastes like the fish sauce that comes with the pork and rice noodles from the Vietnamese place down the corner of his mom’s apartment, only less… fishy? Yeah. Less fishy.

It’s a weird taste. It’s not bad, by any means, it just--straight up, it just tastes like saltwater. Like the sea. 

And, well. Percy can handle the sea.

He looks at William, and grins. “You are so fucked.”

The assembled Romans cheer, spectators at a gladiator show, as Percy knocks back the rest of the Greek Fire bombs, one after another, clearing them all in under thirty seconds. Annabeth swipes up the cash, shrieking as she throws her arms around Percy. William wanders off, red-faced and glaring, as whoever turned the music off before flips it back on, the night, and the party, saved.

Silly Percy. He should have known what was coming next.

Thirty minutes later, he is well and truly wasted.

“You’re, like, really pretty,” he shouts at Annabeth over the loud music.

She snorts, grinning at him. “Thanks.”

“Seriously,” he slurs, tipping forward on his feet. “You could be a model.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Remember when we were fourteen,” he yells, bracing himself against the wall, “and you got kidnapped by that monster?” Slightly soberer but still a little flushed, she bites her lip, nodding. “Well, I followed the rescue party--I told you that, that I snuck out of camp to follow the rescue party? Right?” 

“You did.”

He takes a sip of water, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. Feels goofy as fuck. “We got hijacked by Aphrodite halfway through, and when I saw her, I thought--I thought, ‘Holy shit, she looks a little like Annabeth.’”

Her brows shoot up, smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”

He nods. “Totally! But you’re way, way p--” 

Still smiling, she silences him with a kiss, the lingering taste of hard cider on her tongue. “I appreciate it,” she murmurs, grinning, “but you probably shouldn’t say that out loud.”

“Gross.”

From out of nowhere, like he always does, the weasley little shit, Nico di Angelo is suddenly in their space, looking surly and emo as ever, red solo cup in his left hand. “Nico!” Percy crows, grabbing for him and missing. “How’s my favorite cousin?!”

Ducking his wildly swinging limbs, Nico grimaces in the way that Percy has to come to recognize as his attempt at a smile. “Better’n you,” he says, a little wobbly. “What’s up with him?” he directs towards Annabeth.

“Greek Fire bombs. Five.”

“You’re a psychopath.”

“What!” Percy pouts. “He insulted the Mets.”

“Aren’t you s’posed to be, like…” Nico snaps his fingers, words momentarily escaping him. “A--representation… person? For the Greeks?”

Percy waves his hand, hitting the wall. “Fuck that. The Greeks can handle themselves. The Mets are sacred!”

“Are you with anyone?” Annabeth asks, momentarily taking up Percy’s usual role of concerned parent friend while he is drunk off his ass. Theoi, he loves this girl so much. 

Nico shakes his head. “No, but Will and I are staying with--”

A thought suddenly blooms in Percy’s tequila-soaked brain. “Nico!” He shouts.

“What?” he hisses, glaring.

Percy pushes himself off of the wall, outstretched arms managing to box Nico in, falling on his shoulders and trapping him. He’s still a short, skinny little shit, the fuck, when are his Big Three genes going to kick in? “I need to talk to you about the thing.”

“The what?”

“The thing! The--the,” then he leans in, scream-whispering over the pounding bassline. “The thing.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“You know, it’s…” Percy licks his lips, language escaping him for a hot second. “Round. Metal. Jewelry thing.”

A beat, then Nico’s eyes widen. “Oh, that thing.”

“Yes, that thing!” Pulling back, he pulls Nico towards him, slinging an arm over his shoulders in a half-headlock. Annabeth watches, bemused, lips pursed as she tries not to smile. “I need to borrow Nico for a sec,” he says, words spilling out of him. “Back soon. Later. Soon.”

Her eyes crinkle, grey sparkling. She’s so fucking pretty. “Drink your water.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Then together, like some three-legged beast, the two boys lurch away deeper into the party, Nico leading them towards the kitchen. “Where’re you taking me?” Percy slurs. “‘M I being kidnapped again?”

“If I’m helping you plan out this stupid proposal,” he grumbles, pouring himself more vodka, “then I need to be less sober.”

***

Some mistakes may have been made.

“Where’s Annabeth?” Percy mumbles, looking back towards the house. The party is still raging, someone’s muffled Spotify playlist making a real racket, the greatest hits of ABBA still bouncing around his skull.

“Simp.” Nico, swaying a little, tries to stand up from his kneeling position, only to fall heavily back down on his knees. “She’s right where you left her.”

Discussing Percy's proposal plan had led to more drinking. More drinking had led to the two of them discussing their shared preference for blondes. (“Malcolm is pretty cute,” Nico admitted, flushing, and Percy almost screamed, “Isn’t he?! Sometimes I think about Annabeth with short hair looking like Malcolm and I almost start crying because she’d be so cute!”) Which then led to even more drinking. Which then led to general bitching about their lives, about Percy's hard-ass classics professor Dr. Bauer who he actually really liked but just pushed him so hard and expected so much of him, and Nico's half-brother Zagreus who was causing some family drama by picking fights with Hades all the time and also hooking up with both Thanatos AND the fury Megaera, which, ew, which then led to Percy inhaling his drink, nearly choking to death on unspecified college punch, Nico laughing at him all the while, as he had the most incredible idea.

"Nico!" He shouted, crushing the red solo cup. "Can you resurrect Homer for me?"

Nico gaped, staring. "What."

"Seriously! I need to ask him something for my paper."

"Percy." Nico gazed at him, all the power of the Ghost King boring into his soul, deep and haunting. Percy stifled a burp. "You're a fucking genius."

Which is how they found themselves around a shallow hole they had dug in the backyard, a large bottle of Pepsi originally intended as a mixer pilfered from the kitchen along with two slices of pepperoni pizza dumped on the grass beside them.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he says, uneasy even through his drunken haze.

"It was your idea!"

"I don't have good ideas."

“Fuck you, I’m doing it.” With all the force of a tiny, angry kitten, he snatches up the Pepsi bottle, wrestling with the twist cap for a good ten seconds. “I wanna give that bitch a piece of my mind for making me cry in school.”

Percy looks at him sideways. “Hector killing Patroclus got you, too?”

He snorts. “Fuck no. Achilles didn’t pay his dues to the dead.”

“Seriously?”

The cap pops off, and Nico tips the bottle over, dumping flat, lukewarm soda into the shallow hole. “It’s the ultimate dishonor!”

Freak. Percy would die for the kid.

“Let the dead taste again,” Nico mutters. “Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember.”

“You’re so weird.”

“Says the guy who’s related to both horses and water.”

“I’m not related to water, I just control it.” 

The dirt turns black, dead soil mixed with sticky sugar water. Nico drops in the pizza, and begins to chant, that same ancient Greek that Percy heard in a dream once, talking of death and memories and returning from the grave or whatever. It’s still creepy as shit. 

Despite the warm California night, the air thickens with chilly fog. Silence, impenetrable, surrounds them, blocking out the noises of the party. From the earth, blueish, vaguely person-shaped figures begin to form, like thunderous clouds before a storm. “Which one is Homer?” he asks, hushed.

“Shh!” Nico hisses. 

Like little wells of gravity, the fog begins to coalesce. On one of them, Percy can almost make out, like, fingers. “Um, Mr. Homer? Sir?”

The figure doesn’t say anything. It lowers its mouth, drinking the soda out of the dirt. When it raises its head, Percy can see it more clearly, curly hair and milky white eyes and a straight nose. It--he?--seems a little more solid than your average run-of-the-mill ghost.

Nico frowns, eyes closed, concentrating. “What’s your name?” he mumbles. 

That mouth opens, soundlessly, jaw working on nothing.

“Speak.”

It--there’s a sound, like hissing, only it’s not coming from the mouth, Percy thinks. It sounds like it’s coming from the earth. “Nico?” he asks. “You good?”

The ghost opens its mouth again, moaning, raising its hands. Weakly, unsteadily, it stumbles forward on feeble legs, tripping over the shallow hole in the dirt.

“Nico?” he asks again, a little more forcefully. “What’s going on, dude?”

Nico blinks, slowly, mouth hanging open a little. “Uh.”

The… thing… raises itself up on its hands? He guesses, and knees, crawling its way over towards them.

Now, Percy may be drunk off his ass, but he has seen enough movies to know exactly what the fuck is up.

Moving with a speed he didn’t quite think was possible right about now, he grabs Nico’s wrist, and pulls him up, dragging him along as he lurches towards the house. “Percy…” Nico moans, stumbling over a rock. “I think I fucked up.”

“You think?” Percy wrenches the door open, tossing Nico inside, before following in after, throwing himself against the door. 

Nico groans, throwing his arms over his face. “Dio santo, my head.”

“Forget your head,” he says, “did we just raise a Homer zombie?!”

Panting, Nico stares up at him, sprawled on the floor of the house. “Oops.”

Percy thunks his head against the door. He does not have nearly enough mental capacity to deal with this right now.

But, he thinks ruefully, at least it’s just one. Even drunk, he’s pretty sure he can handle one zombie.

Nico’s eyes widen. 

Percy stares. “What.”

“I didn’t stop the ritual.”

His stomach goes cold.

Turning around slowly, he pulls aside the little curtain on the window. “What?” Nico asks. “What do you see?”

Percy can’t speak, mouth dry.

Slithering up behind, Nico peers over his shoulder. “That’s… not great.”

“Nico,” Percy says, eyeing the horde which slowly shambles closer, half-decayed bodies in togas bumping into each other, almost identical to the drunk college students inside, as the song changes, once again, to ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).’ “Please go get Frank and Annabeth.”

The following Monday, an announcement is sent out to the entire campus: Per new department guidelines, students may not utilize the ambassador of Pluto to interview the dead for academic purposes.

3)

Percy attempts to flatten his hair. He readjusts his shirt. He almost wipes his sweaty palms on his pants, before he realizes what he’s doing, and clenches them instead, nails digging into his palms. He turns to Annabeth. “Do I look okay?”

“Ooh, ‘Mapping Funerary Monuments in the Periphery of Imperial Rome.’”

“Annabeth.”

She looks up from her brochure. “Relax, seaweed brain, you look fine. You look better than most people here.”

“That’s because I bring down the average age of presenters by about thirty years,” he hisses, eyes darting about at the milling mass of attendees, all packed into the hotel ballroom. 

Dr. Bauer had alternately convinced/pressured/guilttripped him into attending this year’s annual conference for the Society of Classical Studies to talk about the research he’d been doing with her. This year, the conference was held in San Francisco, so at the very least Percy didn’t have to spend five hours stressing about his poster presentation while simultaneously up in the air. But now that he’s here, in the ballroom, surrounded by strangers who know way more about this subject than he does, who are actually smart and probably never nearly flunked out of school or got kicked out or--

“Hey.” Annabeth takes his hand. “I know that look. You deserve to be here just as much as any of them.”

“Do I? I feel like any moment someone is going to come over and throw me out for trespassing.” He vaguely recalls something similar happening to him as a kid after he had ducked into the lobby of a semi-nice hotel to dodge what he had thought, at the time, was just a weird stalker, but had later realized had only had one eye. In any case, the hotel security guard had practically picked him up by the scruff of his neck, tossing him back out into the street. 

“That’s just your imposter syndrome talking,” she reassures him. “No one is going to throw you out.”

He sure as shit hopes so. It would be a shame to have done all this work for nothing. 

Glancing back at his poster, Percy can’t help but feel… good. Accomplished. Proud. About a school assignment, of all things. 

His poster traces the development of the prow from the Greek penteconter, to the Roman liburna, and finally to the Byzantine dromon, looking at artistic depictions in history. Percy had picked the topic himself, spending hours in the library reading, writing, and hand-drawing cross-sections of the ships on the poster board when the images he had gotten from the Cambridge University library had been too small. It had been grueling, frustrating work, but fun, too. And not nearly as much reading as he had feared.

Dr. Chase proofread it for him. Dr. Bauer signed off on it. And Annabeth had taken one look at it, smiled, then kissed his cheek.

That was the best compliment he had gotten.

Though now he’s kind of torn between showing it off and hiding it away before one of these attendees figures out that he doesn’t belong.

He rocks back and forth and his feet, pursing his lips, randomly clicking his tongue. Annabeth nudges him. “Your ADHD is showing.”

That’s when, finally, one of the attendees steps up to his poster. He certainly has the look of a professor, in a black cable knit sweater with grey, curly hair and a receding hairline, thin, rimless glasses perched on his nose. He squints at Percy’s poster, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Interesting,” he murmurs, in a thick German accent. “Very interesting. This is yours?”

“Um.” He glances at Annabeth, who is frowning at the brochure, silently sounding out words that she can’t read. “Yep. All mine.”

“Very interesting.” He leans in closer, tilting his head. “So you agree with Pryor and Jeffreys about the skeleton-first construction, then?”

Percy blinks. Pryor and Jeffreys had written The Age of the Dromon, arguing that the ram, which had been a key feature of Roman liburnians, had gone away in ancient ship construction because of developments in how they built the hull. Right. “Yes,” he says. “The skeleton-first construction is a lot stronger than the, um,” shit, what was the name for this, Leo had only told him about a million times--oh! “Mortise-and-tenon!” He nearly shrieks. “The mortise-and-tenon method. It, um, it wears out a lot more quickly than the frame, so… yeah.” He clears his throat.

He nods. “Very interesting.” 

Percy stares. Can this guy say anything else? 

“This is very well done, young man.”

Oh. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Who are you working with?” 

“Um, June Bauer?” He winces at the accidental question. 

He frowns. “I’m not familiar with her work. Where does she teach?” 

What a loaded question. “Uh… New Rome University.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s--she used to teach at Northwestern, if that helps. Um, retired,” Percy says.

The frown stays, but at least he doesn’t ask any more questions. “Hmm. Well, this is excellent research, nonetheless. I look forward to reading your dissertation.” Then, distracted by something else, he wanders off, chin still attached to his hand. 

“Who was that?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy shrugs. “Beats me. Also, what’s a dissertation?”

“It’s like a senior thesis, but, like, five hundred pages long.”

Five hundred?! “Fuck me.” 

“Maybe later,” Annabeth smirks. “It looks like you’ve got company.”

Sure enough, a smallish group of four people are approaching, led by Dr. Chase, making a beeline straight for them. “Here we are,” Dr. Chase says, gesturing. “This is the project I was telling you about. Percy, would you mind going over your poster for us?”

“No problem, Dr. C,” says Percy, smiling his least-grimace-y smile. 

As one, the adults all turn to look at him, faces politely blank, expectant.

Percy swallows. “So,” he begins, “um, this research is about the development of ship construction in the Roman empire…”

He trips up on some of the words, and at one point, he sees Dr. Chase squint in the way that usually means that Percy is speaking too fast, but all in all, he doesn’t totally fall flat on his face. His audience looks engaged, nodding along as Percy moves from point to point, and no one accuses him of being a giant fraud, which is pretty nice. 

At one point, Percy turns to the poster to indicate a specific point on his ship diagrams. When he turns back, his audience has suddenly multiplied, four people turning into a whole goddamn crowd. Each person gives him their undivided attention almost unblinking.

His mouth goes dry. “Um…” 

Dr. Chase, bless him, saves his ass once again. “Would mind starting again from the beginning, Percy?” he asks, a little bemused himself at the amount of people that had suddenly appeared. 

Silence stretches on for a moment, the muffled noise of the rest of the conference like a dull roar in his ear. 

Annabeth, behind him, coughs. 

“S-sure. No problem.” 

Swallowing, he closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose. Why, oh why did he let Dr. Bauer talk him into doing this again?

He pictures the tides of Long Island Sound, gentle and rocking, unhurried and unbothered, tries to match his breathing to them. When he opens his eyes, unfortunately, the crowd hasn’t disappeared. Everyone is still staring at him. 

But Annabeth stands next to her dad, flashing him a big smile and two huge thumbs up.

Percy relaxes. He’s got this.

“Okay,” he says. “So, about the middle of the first millennium CE, ship construction went through a couple of major developments…”

This time goes much, much more smoothly. He’s not sure what it is--though it’s probably Annabeth, her face fixed in a gentle smile as she watches him speak. Gods, what did he do in a past life to deserve someone as amazing as his girlfriend? 

That’s the only reason he can do this. Hell, that’s the only reason he even thought to do this. If he didn’t have Annabeth there, encouraging him, cheering him on, he never would have had the confidence to put himself out there like this. She’s there to pick him up when he doubts himself, there to listen when he can’t explain himself, there to give him feedback when he needs to practice. 

She makes him feel so strong. She makes him feel like he can take on the world--or at the very least, that he can impress a handful of academics.

And they certainly seem impressed with his talk so far. 

“Excuse me,” says a nasally, pinched looking older British guy, face lined as though he lived his life in a state of perpetual squinting. “I find your conclusions to be suspect--wouldn’t the frame method be more susceptible to breaking than the mortise-and-tenon?”

Well, most of them, anyway.

Percy shakes his head. “You’d think, but no. If you look at the study by Steffy, you’ll see that the three-finned ram from the Athlit wreck was designed specifically to break the mortise-and-tenon hull by causing the planks to flex, so that they’d dislodge the joinerys right next to them. A blow like that can cause the wood to split right down the middle.” A blow like that had sunk Sherman Yang’s ship when they tested it out on the lake at camp last summer, the naiads practically hurling him out of the water so quickly Percy didn’t even have to dive in to save him.

“How were you able to do these strength tests?” asks another listener, an older woman with a thick Hungarian accent.

“Hands-on battle simulations,” Percy replies, easily. “We took our models and tested them in as accurate a simulation as we could make.”

“And how big were these models?” 

Percy holds his hands apart, a vague, entirely inaccurate estimate. “About thirty meters, give or take.”

Her eyes widen. “How on earth did you get your hands on such a large ship?”

Percy freezes. “Uh.”

Oh, shit.

He had forgotten--most people didn’t have dads who could summon shipwrecks from the bottom of the sea, dropping them off at Camp Half-Blood with nothing but a sand dollar and one or two exhausted, pissed off hippocampi who had had to drag them all the way there.

“Um,” he stammers, licking his lips, thinking fast--c’mon, Percy, think! “I…” He swallows, panicking. “I… b… built one.”

In the corner of his eye, Annabeth facepalms.

Simultaneously, every mouth in the crowd drops--in shock, outrage, and even excitement. “You built one?!” the woman yelps. 

Oops. “I had help,” Percy says, quickly. 

Annabeth adds a second hand to her facepalm.

“Where?” The first man asks, his bushy brows flying above the rim of his glasses.

“At my… summer camp…” 

Dr. Chase sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I mean,” Percy chuckles, shrugging his shoulders, trying not to sweat too obviously, “it was either that or lanyards, am I right?”

Dr. Chase, thank Athena, raises his hand, ready to step in. “What Percy means to say, I believe,” he says, attempting to draw their attention, “is that--”

“That’s amazing!” says another woman, probably a grad student attendee based on the fact that she’s wearing jeans. “Do you have pictures?”

Oh this is not good. “Um, not--not on me, but--”

“I do.” Annabeth takes out her phone, holding it up to the person next to her.

Percy blinks. “You do?” He doesn’t remember her taking any pictures.

She shoots him a look, two parts exasperated and one part “shut up and let me handle this,” with just a dash of fondness in the mix. Pointedly, she looks at him, eyebrows raised, indicating that he should continue.

Oh. She’s using Mist. And he needs to keep their attention on him so that they buy it. “Right,” he says, clearing his throat. “Any more questions?” 

His audience placated for now, passing around Annabeth’s phone, he manages to finish up his presentation. After fielding a few more questions, people start to peel off, distracted by other posters and presenters in the ballroom. When everyone has finally wandered away, Dr. Chase comes up and pats Percy’s shoulder awkwardly. “Nice work,” he says, and he seems like he means it. “A little touch-and-go there for a while, hm?”

“A little.”

He chuckles. “Still, you should be proud. I don’t know how many undergraduates would be able to handle that kind of pressure.”

“I mean,” Percy says, shrugging a shoulder, “it’s about on par with leading an army. Maybe a little less.” Honestly, maybe even a little more stressful. If a monster had decided to attack the convention center and interrupt his presentation, he probably would have been relieved.

He’d been worried for a moment that he’d undone all those years of work in making Annabeth’s dad like him. And that he’d be charged with some sort of academic fraud, for the whole “I have a boat” thing without proof. Thank the gods for Annabeth, as always.

She’s looking at him now through narrowed eyes. She at least can’t be surprised--that was far from the dumbest thing she’s ever seen him do. At least his “I spent most of my time at magic greek mythology summer camp” covers are normally better than hers. As someone who spent his formative years in the real world, he’s usually pretty good at keeping the demigod thing under wraps. 

“Come on,” she says, grabbing his hand. She pulls him off, through the dispersing crowd, lacing their fingers together, sweet and intimate, out of the hall and then down another one, and through a smaller corridor. Bringing them up to a little door, with a shake of her wrist, she pulls out her Estruscan keyring bracelet. About several of the keys have found themselves used in various misadventures, vanishing once their purpose is fulfilled, but her favorite key is still there. And, just like a clever child of Hermes, it can pick just about any lock. 

Inside is just an empty room, a little staging area surrounded by tiered desks going up, no more or less remarkable than any of the other conference rooms they’d visited before. 

“What--?” His question is cut off by Annabeth’s mouth on his. 

Surprising, but definitely not unwelcome.

It's a while before they separate again. “You’re so good at this,” she tells him, unbuttoning his shirt.

He runs his hands along the lines of her flanks. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he grins. He’d practice kissing her all day long if he could. 

She smiles, shaking her head. “No, not this,” though she does lean in for another kiss, pulling at his lower lip with her teeth. “I know you’re good at this.” They break away, Percy pulling her shirt over her head, Annabeth shucking off his. “But history. Presenting.” She runs a finger over his chest, kissing his cheek, headed towards the sensitive spot on his jaw. “Gods, you’re so smart.” 

Something about the praise vibrates through his chest. She doesn’t sound surprised, or anything, just--turned on.

“You had all those crusty academics eating out of your hand. Just, so impressed by you, knowing you know way more than they do about naval history. When you were explaining the--” Her compliment is cut off with a moan, as he leans down and starts sucking on her throat. Her blouse has a high neck, so he feels no guilt for using his teeth.  

“Watching you today, gods.” Her breath is labored as his fingers play at the waistline of her skirt. “And then thinking of you defending your dissertation.” He bites at her jugular, and she lets out a long, deep moan. 

“I don’t know what that means.” Do academics fight each other? Like, with weapons? He’s pretty sure he can take most of the people he met today. 

“It means you get to show off how smart you are,” Annabeth says, grasping his shoulders, pulling him in for another kiss. “I was born the day my dad defended his. Gods, it's going to be amazing to watch you go.” She yanks his belt out of his pants, tossing it to the floor. 

They miss the panel on recent translation efforts. But Percy can’t say he minds one bit. 

And when Annabeth presents him with a positive pregnancy test two months later, Percy definitely knows he made the right decision. 

4) 

He almost doesn’t realize he’s having a dream-vision at first.

It has been literal years since he’s had a demigod dream. Hell, it’s been a long while since he’s had a dream, period--being a new dad to a one-and-a-half-year-old saps too much of his energy to even think about dreaming. Once Junie is put to bed, when he’s out, he is fucking out, and he does not have the brainpower to spare to manifest any messed up subconscious fears.

Which is why when he blinks open his eyes, taking in the too-bright colors of the Parthenon and the gleaming shine of the bronze statues which are somehow all looking at him--also, you know, how the Parthenon is complete, standing as it did thousands of years ago, and not crumbled into ruins--he knows, immediately, he is being contacted by a god.

And only one god in particular would bring him to Athens.

Without even checking, he heaves himself up off the ground, folding into a kneel. “My lady Athena,” he says, “can I ask for what quest you’ve brought me here?”

“Impertinent as ever, Percy Jackson,” rumbles the goddess, but Percy doesn’t think he can sense any ill will towards him. He hopes, anyway. “Perhaps I have summoned you here for a social visit.”

“Perhaps,” he says, choosing his next words as carefully as possible. “But I assume you have too much to worry about to randomly check up on your daughter’s boyfriend.”

He lifts his head, catching her expression--stoic as always, but maybe with just the barest hint of a smile. “You assume correctly. You have become, contrary to my initial expectations, very wise in the time that I have known you.”

“Thank you.” He knows better than to do anything but accept the compliment for what it is.

“I have observed your work as a scholar in recent years, and I must say that I am surprised, yet pleased, that you have chosen to pursue such a path. I had not thought you to be suited for a world of old men and dusty papers.”

He grits his teeth. Don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait--

“I understand, as well, that though you and my daughter have,” and here her careful composition cracks, just the slightest, the tiny lift of her lips falling, “made a child together.”

Percy swallows. He figured, you know, in the abstract, that Athena would know about Junie, but hearing her say it out loud is… well, he’s just glad that Dr. Chase has always liked him. “Yes, my lady.”

“It is customary in your time to marry prior to childbirth, is it not?”

“It is.” Oh, fuck, is she going to smite him for that? “I--that is to say, we, Annabeth and I, we, um, we definitely want to get married, but, Annabeth kind of…” 

He trails off. He can’t tell Athena, goddess of war, that his daughter pissed off the queen of heaven! And if he does, he definitely can’t imply that it was because she was being too stubborn!

“I know well of my daughter’s history with my father’s wife,” Athena says, smoothly. “I come to you now with an offer of peace.”

Percy straightens his back. Peace?

Raising one graceful arm, Athena turns, indicating the structure behind her. “Look upon my temple,” she intones. The white marble shines even more powerfully against the blue and red paint, intricate scenes and figures ringing the top of the columns. “In the time of Pericles, it was built to commemorate the victory of Hellas over the armies of Xerxes the Great. It was to be the shining beacon of our world, a triumph of our power and influence over the race of men.”

The race of men might have had something to say about that, he thinks to himself.

“But it was not to be,” Athena says, mournfully. “As our influence waned, so too did our temple, until its might was all but forgotten.” 

Before his eyes, the paint fades away, ceilings and columns collapsing, the destruction of the Parthenon playing out in front of him. 

“Some two hundred years ago,” she says, her voice taking on a darker, more dangerous tone, “a grave insult was paid to the ruins of my ancient sanctuary.” Like curtains falling on a stage, darkness swallowed up the structure, swift and impenetrable. “Many treasures were taken from my temple, stolen, by foolish, greedy men, spirited away far to the north, where they have languished in unworthy hands.”

He narrows his eyes. She can’t possibly be talking about--

Athena turns back to him, her eyes blazing, somehow twice as tall. “Retrieve my treasures,” she commands, war personified, “return the prizes of Athens to their rightful place, and I shall give you my support against my father’s wife.”

“You…” Percy leans back on his haunches, staring dumbfounded up at the goddess. “You don’t happen to mean the Parthenon Marbles, do you?”

“Yes.”

“The ones in the British Museum.”

“The same,” she says, imperious as ever.

Fantastic. “Welp,” Percy says, slapping his thighs, scrambling up. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to decline. Nice seeing you, by the way. I’ll tell Annabeth you stopped by.”

Her sharp gazes pierces him, full of fury. “You dare to refuse my support?”

He snorts. “When it means trying to get the UK to give the marbles back, absolutely. Do you know how stubborn they are about this?”

Lightning flashes behind her, nearly blinding him. “You will regret this,” Athena says, dark and foreboding. “You may have your father’s goodwill, but the queen of Olympus is clever and cunning, her displeasure swift and merciless.”

But Percy still shakes his head. “When Annabeth and I get married,” and it’s definitely a ‘when,’ it’s just a matter of when precisely, like after Junie can sleep through the night maybe, “I’d rather take my chances with Hera than try and untangle that particular can of olives.”

A growl, and a snap of her fingers, and Athena disappears.

With a start, Percy wakes up. Junie had gotten her chubby little hands around his nose, and had decided to pull.

“Ow, ow, Junie, hey,” he squawks, attempting to dislodge her grip from his face. “Hey, I’m awake, it’s okay.”

She laughs, illegally adorable, her grey eyes sparkling, squeezing harder. 

“Okay, okay,” he laughs along with her. “You got my nose, you win.”

As if she were waiting for him to admit defeat, she lets go, clapping her pudgy toddler hands together. 

“That’s right,” he picks her up, raising her above his head. “Barely sixteen months old and you already know how to take me down, don’t you? Just like your mommy.”

She smiles, waving her little fists.

Gods he loves this little monster.

Junie really is the best parts of both of them. She’s got her daddy’s hair but her mommy’s brain, quick and sharp and painfully adorable. She’s already learning to read Greek, Annabeth sitting her in her lap and sounding out vowels together, Annabeth taking her finger and tracing it over the letter shapes. This kid absorbs information like a sponge, which Percy can only assume is the natural conclusion of taking a son of Poseidon and a daughter of Athena and mixing their DNA together. 

Thinking about his dream, he frowns. “What do you think, Junie,” he asks his toddler. “Should I take her up on her offer?”

The baby says nothing.

“I mean,” he tilts his head, “Greece has been trying to get the marbles back for two hundred years. UNESCO has top lawyers on this. What does Athena think I can do?”

Junie blinks at him.

“On the other hand, I do really love your mom,” he admits, “and I really want to marry her. You’d like that, right? To have your parents be married?”

There’s no way she can understand what he’s saying, but she moves her head like she’s nodding. Or maybe she does understand. She is Annabeth’s daughter after all. 

Percy sighs. Dammit.

Time for a new project, he guesses.

***

Several months, a college graduation, and one relocation to Boston later, Percy growls, hurling his pencil at the wall. Mother fucker. Fuck the British Museum, fuck his tiny laptop screen, and fuck the Italian prick who decided to have the least ADHD-friendly handwriting of all time. 

Why the hell is he doing this again? Like, seriously. Why in all of Hades is he, an inexperienced, snot-nosed, first year master’s student deciding to tackle the return of the fucking Parthenon marbles of all things. Like, what is wrong with him? 

Roughly scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Percy stands up. He has to go for a walk, clear his head, or he might actually explode. 

Then he catches a glimpse of the photo pinned to the fridge.

Percy’s mom had taken it, a candid of Percy and Annabeth and Junie on a sunny day in Central Park. There, in perfect 1080p, Junie is laughing, at what he can’t even remember, her pudgy fists yanking on Percy’s hair, while her mother and the love of his life does nothing to extricate Percy from her grip, her face screwed up so hard she had tears in her eyes. 

Percy had talked a lot of shit to the goddess of war’s face, but truth be told… Hera still terrifies him a little. Which, he assumes, was her goal all along, but it would be nice to marry Annabeth without fear of something going terribly wrong--or, gods forbid, something happening to Junie. That simply was not a risk he was willing to take. Percy is content to spend the rest of his days as Annabeth’s life-partner and roommate, if it means that the queen of the heavens won’t have a reason to take out her issues on his children.

Even if the engagement ring in the back of the pantry is gathering dust. 

Sunlight, wan but warm, falls in from the window, landing perfectly on his pile of open books. “I know, I know,” he growls, speaking to the air, rubbing his face so it doesn’t get stuck in a permanent glare. “I just--I just need a few minutes, okay? Let me go down the block and get a coffee or something. Two minutes, Lady Athena.”

The light fades. Percy takes that as an acquiescence, angrily scribbling a note. He’s not sure when Annabeth and Junie will be back, but even angry as he is, he doesn’t want to worry them.

Snatching up his jacket, he slams the door shut, stomping out of his apartment building and down the streets of Boston. He must be accidentally doing his wolf stare, because people are practically flinging themselves out of his path as he hurtles down the sidewalk. Literally--some girl is walking her husky, and the poor dog actually whimpers, cowering as Percy rounds the corner. 

Coming to a stop, Percy slaps his hands over his face, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. 

He might be in over his head a little.

Sighing, he looks to his right. He’s standing outside of a Starbucks. 

Percy doesn’t drink coffee, Annabeth does. And he knows exactly how much of a coffee snob his girlfriend is. Starbucks? Overpriced, overrated, over-sweetened garbage.

He pushes the door open, sliding up to the counter. “I’ll take a… iced mocha, I guess,” he says. “Large.”

“No problem,” chirps the barista. “I’ll have that out for you in a minute.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

One thing Starbucks does have going for it, though, are really good napkins for doodling.

Slumping down in his uncomfortable metal chair, elbows resting on the hard, faux-wood table, Percy takes out his pen, and doodles aimlessly on the brown napkins. No, not that pen. Just because it can write doesn’t mean that Percy wants to risk slicing his face open every time he has a stray idea. Completely out of the blue, Annabeth had gotten him a nice set of pens, and ever since then, Percy always keeps one on him. Now, if he could just remember to use the little notebook she had gotten him, too.

Percy is not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn’t have an image in mind, just lets his pen move, drawing endless chains of triangles and stars, nebulous shapes which form themselves into Greek letters. After he catches himself writing γλαυκῶπις for the eighth time in a row, he sighs, dropping his pen, and picks up the cup, taking a sip.

Yuck. At least the chocolate outweighs the coffee taste a little.

Gods, and their cups are always, like, drenched from condensation--not that Percy can feel it, but there’s practically a whole other drink on the outside of the plastic, dripping all over Percy’s pile of doodle napkins. That must be why they give out so many.

Grumbling, he mops up the mess, ink smudged into a blue-brown slurry.

He stops. 

He squints at one of his doodles. 

Not that anyone else could tell, but Percy had apparently been trying to recreate the signature of Ottoman sultan Selim III, the guy who had supposedly authorized the Earl of Elgin to take the Parthenon Marbles. Percy had been staring at copies of his signature all damn day, trying to tell if it had been forged or copied, but classical Arabic was just so far beyond anything he could even begin to wrap his head around. It was gorgeous work, but even looking at it made Percy’s eyes swim.

This particular doodle is not his best attempt. It looks nothing like the signature. It’s smudged, blotchy, but in a way that’s… weirdly familiar. 

Snatching the napkin up, Percy bolts from the Starbucks, leaving his mocha behind.

Taking the steps of his apartment building two at a time, he bursts into his kitchen. His set up is exactly how he left it, books spread out all over the table, laptop shut and laid askew, the dry, half-eaten remains of his morning muffin on a plate on top of his encyclopedia of illuminated manuscripts--except for one book, the one on Ottoman history of the nineteenth century. It’s been opened, its pages facing the door, in the exact opposite direction of all the other books. 

“Hello?” he calls into the apartment. “Anyone home?”

No response. 

Percy approaches the table. 

From the pages, Selim III stares at him, his portrait rendered in black and white, sitting just above a figure of his signature, his tughra. 

Percy picks up the book, squinting. 

The signature is crisp, clean, a work of art all by itself. 

He looks at his napkin drawing. Blurry and smudged.

Opening his laptop, he pulls up the scans of the documents in the British museum, zooms in on the letter’s seal.

Blurry and smudged.

Percy stares. 

It… can’t be that simple, can it?

In a daze, he fires an email off to his new grad advisor. Hopefully he won’t mind Percy sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong. Hey Dr. T--was looking at the Parthenon marbles docs in the BM (don’t ask) and I noticed this weird smudge on the tughra. Lazy scribe, maybe?

And he closes his computer.

Later that night, while he puts Junie to bed, he gets a response. not sure. sent it to a colleague for a closer look. 

He can’t even be bothered to really think about it though, not with Junie looking up at him with Annabeth’s eyes, and asking for another book. “Alright, kiddo,” he acquiesces, settling in beside her. All her story books are in ancient Greek, and at age two, she’s starting to recognize the letters. “Which one are you thinking?” 

“Daw-fins, daddy,” she says, smiling.

“Dolphins, eh? Getting Mr. D on your side early, I see. As smart as mommy.” He leans down and kisses her forehead before he starts to read her the story of the sailors and their sudden dolphin madness. 

***

“Huh,” Percy says to himself a few weeks later, as he and Annabeth are chilling on the couch, watching some Netflix.

His advisor has forwarded him an article from the BBC (New evidence suggests Elgin documents to be forgeries) with an accompanying note: Amazing catch! 

“What is it?” Annabeth asks, nudging him with her elbow--a feat, since she also has an armful of a squirmy Junie to deal with.

“Update in the Parthenon marbles thing.”

That gets her attention. Anything Parthenon-related does. “Really?”

He shows her his phone.

Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Damn.”

“Yep.” He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he feels his lips pulling at the sides of his mouth. 

“My mom is probably your biggest fan right now.”

He starts. “What did you say?”

Turning back to the TV, she still manages to cast him a weird look. “I said, my mom will probably love you for this.”

A beat, then Percy practically somersaults over the couch, darting into the kitchen. Wrenching open the pantry door, he shoves his hand behind their collection of flours, fingers grasping for--

“If you’re looking for any more sacrificial cookies,” Annabeth calls after him, “we burned them all when Junie got a cold.”

“Remind me to make some more,” says Percy, pulling out his prize. It’s a little dusty, streaks of flour clinging to the blue velvet. “I have a feeling we’ll need them.”

“Oh yeah?” She chuckles. “What, did Olympus put in a special order?” 

Percy slides back down next to her, ring hidden in his closed fist. “Can I have the baby for a sec?”

Eyes fixed to the screen, Annabeth passes her over. Junie’s hands automatically reach for his nose, ready to grab, but Percy places the ring in her grasp instead, kissing her forehead. “Hey, babe?” he asks Annabeth, handing her back. “I think our daughter has something for you.”

Annabeth takes her without a second glance. 

Then she does take a second glance.

Ring closed in her pudgy toddler fist, Junie holds it out to her.

Annabeth gapes. 

“So,” Percy says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “quick confession: I wasn’t just working on the marbles for fun.”

Annabeth just stares. Junie babbles.

“Your mom told me that if I helped get the marbles back, she’d back us against Hera if we ever got married. So…” He trails off, waiting for her response. As close as he is, he can see the tears start to well up in her eyes--a good sign. “Shall we?” he prompts.

“Oh thank all the gods.” Annabeth is crying, because she's Annabeth. And because she's Annabeth, she also wastes no time in transferring Junie to her other side, and holding out her hand so Percy can slide the ring on her finger. “I was so worried I'd have to have Chase on my Masters’ diploma, too.”

5)

Percy is making sauce when his phone lights up. He hits speaker. “Hey.”

“Hey man,” comes the tinny voice of Magnus. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Percy says, “I figured you were dying or something.”

Magnus’ eye roll is almost palpable. “Very funny. What’s up?”

Bringing the spoon to his lips, he blows on it, taking a taste, before reaching for the salt. Needs way more. “Do you happen to have any Varangian guards in Hotel Valhalla?”

“Varangian guards? Uh, maybe. Probably. Why?”

“I’m doing a thing on the attempted reconquest of Sicily,” he says, lowering the heat a little to a simmer, “and I’m having some trouble piecing together the Battle of Montemaggiore. Know anyone who was in it?” 

Magnus hums. “I’ll ask around. Anyone in particular you’re looking for?”

Rifling through their little spice cabinet, he makes a mental note to get a new thing of hot sauce, tipping the rest of it into the pot. “If you have anyone who fought under Harald Hardrada, that would be great.”

“Hardrada? I’m pretty sure he lives on the fifth floor.”

Percy nearly drops the bottle. “No shit?”

“Big dude, long mustache, writes poetry?”

“Yes!” He picks up the phone, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you think I could come up and talk to him sometime?”

“Sure, but I thought you were doing something on Homer’s identity?”

He groans. “Backburnered for now until she stops driving me crazy.” No matter how many times Percy tells her, he can’t just drop the “Homer was actually an Egyptian woman” bomb without some serious evidence backing that up. And forgery is not one of his strong suits. Hence the need for a different topic for the time being.

“Has everyone ever told you your life is weird?”

“No, why do you ask?”

His phone suddenly vibrates, shocking him so badly he nearly drops it into the saucepan. Almost home, texts the love of his life, a shot of serotonin directly into his bloodstream. V hungry

“Sorry, Magnus, but I gotta run. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem. Say hi to my cousin for me.”

“Can do.”

“And make sure you pick a date soon! Sam needs to know so she can schedule her flight home.”

“Soon as I can.” You know, when his brain isn’t melting from grading undergrad papers. And making sure Annabeth and Junie are fed. And that Annabeth doesn’t lose herself in graduate school. And finding Junie a new preschool after she destroyed a classroom last month because of a monster. His toddler is a badass. But he’s a little worried she’s gonna follow Mommy and Daddy’s example as far as school goes. 

Sometimes, he thinks that their wedding just won’t ever happen. With Athena on board, he figured it would happen sooner or later, but time just… keeps getting away from them. Which isn’t the end of the world. A lifetime at Annabeth’s side is all he really needs, Mrs. Jackson or no. But he’s seen the silver fabric she weaved for her wedding dress. It would be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste.

And, yeah, he wants to see his little Junie dancing down the aisle flinging seaweed before her mother. He wants his mom to cry a little and he wants all his friends to be there to celebrate with them. Is that so much to ask? 

Speaking of his two favorite girls--”We’re home!” Annabeth calls from the hallway. “Junie, go say hi to daddy!”

Her bare feet slapping against the floor, his daughter comes toddling in, making a beeline for him. “Hey, kiddo,” Percy says, scooping her up. “How’s my best girl?”

“She’s just fine, thanks,” Annabeth says, setting her work bag down on the table. “Tell me I don’t have to wait for dinner--Margie kept me for the entirety of my lunch break, and I am starving.” 

“Just gotta make a salad and we should be good to go.” But he makes no move to finish chopping vegetables, entirely too enraptured with the way Junie smiles when Percy sticks his tongue out at her. “Let me guess,” he says. “Does my best girl want some olives?”

“Peas,” Junie says. 

“Oh, you want peas instead?”

She giggles, waving her arms. “Elaia, daddy!”

“Fine,” and he kisses her nose. “Extra olives for you.”

“Chip off the old block,” Annabeth says.

Handing her back to her mother, Percy sighs. “When am I going to get a kid who likes anchovies?”

“I’m doing my best here, okay?”

***

Hardrada is… not what he expected.

“Reputation isn’t that bad.” Hardrada is saying. “The production isn’t what it should be, but lots of her lyrics are still on point.” 

“The production ruins it,” Percy insists. “And as a follow up to 1989? It's just bad.” 

“And what about Lover?”

“What about Lover?”

“You can’t argue with the genius of that one.”

“It is terribly inconsistent,” Percy shoots back. “Yeah, ‘The Archer’ and ‘Daylight’ and ‘Miss Americana’ are sublime, but ‘ME!’? Come on!”

“Are you one of those people who thinks she peaked at Red?”

“Red is a bop from start to finish,” Percy fires back. “But she definitely peaked at folklore.”

“Thinking she peaked at folklore is just pedestrian when ‘tis the damn season’ exists!” Hardrada yells, drawing his axe, which is then promptly flung over Percy’s head. 

As the only mortal in a room full of armed, excitable, undead Taylor Swift stans, Percy beats a hasty exit, Magnus and Jason covering him as he flees, because they’re just so thoughtful like that. Percy’s pretty sure he saw Magnus take an arrow to the knee, going down in a heap, before he shuts the door to the hotel, finding himself in a Forever 21. 

Looking over his notes later as he gets back to his apartment in the North End, he frowns. They had spent… approximately twenty minutes talking about Sicily before getting solidly off track. Who knew an eleventh century viking would have such intense feelings about pop music? 

And now he’s singing “seven” to himself as he unlocks the apartment door, because it's a good song, and because it made him think of Annabeth. And he always wants to think of Annabeth. 

“Hey, babe,” he calls into the apartment, toeing off his shoes. “I’m back!”

He gets no response.

Percy looks up, confused. “Annabeth?”

“In the bathroom,” he hears, faintly. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yep! Totally fine!” she says, unconvincingly. 

“Alright,” he calls back. “Let me know if you need something.”

Moving Junie’s toys out of the way, he drops down onto the couch, grabbing his laptop. Hopefully he can make some sort of sense of the… notes… that he got from Hardrada. Though he’s probably going to have to trek out to Beacon Hill again, which, while not really out of his way, does mean he has to hike a bit from the Park Street station through the Commons, which makes him super sweaty and out of breath. It’s just embarrassing, walking into a hotel full of the greatest warriors of Valhalla, and Percy can barely handle a hill. 

However, he’s not so out of practice that he can’t sense Annabeth coming up behind him. “You good?”

“What do you think about getting married by the end of the month?”

“Sure,” he says, pecking at his computer. Damn autocorrect ruining all the Norse names. He keeps forgetting to download the right language package he needs. “But I thought you wanted to wait until after you turned in your portfolio?”

“Well… I might not be able to fit in my dress if we wait much longer.”

That gets his attention.

Percy turns around, slowly. Annabeth is grinning, holding a thin little piece of plastic with a circle on the end. She wiggles it. 

“Is that…?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

Her smile falls. “Are you mad?”

“What? No!” Percy slides his computer off his lap, twisting around to face her, up on his knees. “No, no, not at all. I’m not mad.” She slings her arms around his neck, pregnancy test warm against his skin. “I just…” 

Eyes warm, she looks into his, unafraid. “What is it?”

“It’s…” It’s silly, is what it is. But this is Annabeth. If he can’t tell her, who can he tell? “I just feel bad that I’ve gotten you pregnant twice before getting married.”

“Well, at least I’m not nineteen this time,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “But maybe we wouldn’t have this problem if you weren’t such a horndog.”

Percy snorts. “Me? What about you, Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before my first lecture’ Chase.”

“Jackson,” she corrects.

“Huh?”

“It’s Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before your first lecture’ Jackson.”

Grinning, he presses his mouth to hers. After all this time, she still smells like lemons, her lips soft and warm. “Not yet it’s not.”

“Then let’s make it happen.”

And, well, Percy can’t think of a better plan.

+1

Jamie hisses. “Fuuuuuck,” she whispers, the sound dropping like a stone in the dead lecture hall. “Goddamn shit fuck ass.”

And the worst part is, she’d actually spent a lot of time preparing for her Latin midterm. She’d made flashcards, she’d drilled noun endings, she’d even slept with the textbook under her pillow for fuck’s sake. 

Typical--the moment she sits down to take the test, it all goes out the window. 

“Legistne carmen longum de Troiano,” she reads under her breath, as though saying it out loud will unlock some hidden secrets of the cosmos. 

Nope. Nothing. The multiple choices remain as inscrutable as ever.

“Psst.” 

Jamie looks up. 

There’s a four year old staring at her. 

“Hi,” Jamie says. 

“Hi,” says the four year old. Junie, her name is, she thinks. 

Mr. Jackson, Jamie’s Latin TA, will bring his kids to class with him sometimes--his wife works full time, and Jamie guesses that they can’t afford a babysitter. She’s a cute kid, quiet, usually sitting in the corner of the lecture hall, drawing or even knitting, sometimes with her little sister playing with toy ships next to her. 

Now, she’s still staring at her. “What’s up?” Jamie asks.

“Bello,” says Junie.

Jamie blinks. “Sorry?”

“Legistne carmen longum de bello Troiano.” 

She squints down at her test sheet, attempting to visualize her flash cards. That’s… “Bello” is the right answer.

The fuck? The fucking four year old can speak Latin? “Thanks,” she whispers. 

Junie beams at her.

Darting her eyes to the front of the lecture hall, Jamie spies her professor, Buck, completely conked out at his desk, his chest rising and falling with his snores. Percy is nowhere to be seen, his laptop open at his chair. “What’s the next one?” Jamie turns her paper so that Junie can see better.

“Pluto Proserpinam infelicem cepit,” she announces, perfectly accented.

Jamie points to the one after that.

“Rex qui pontem fecit erat Ancus Martius.”

“Awesome.” 

The door to the lecture hall opens. Jamie whips around in her seat, startled, and sees her TA, walking down the steps. From the corner of her eye, Junie disappears, booking it to her dad, who scoops her up without missing a beat. “Hey kiddo,” he murmurs, smiling crookedly. “Were you bothering my students?” Then he glances at Jamie. “Sorry about that--hope she wasn’t too annoying.”

But Jamie shakes her head. “It’s fine.” Dammit. 

Still smiling, Percy makes his way back down to his seat. Junie grins at her over his shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around her dad’s neck.

At the beginning of the semester, Professor Buck had droned on and on about Mr. Jackson, about how he was one of the best up-and-coming classics scholars in the world, how he could have had his pick of PhD programs, and how NYU was lucky to have him. He got first pick of assistantships this semester, apparently, but had volunteered to teach Latin 1001, and they should all be grateful, because he had done some beautiful new translation of Virgil for his Master’s thesis, and they were all going to learn a lot from him. 

Turning back to her exam, Jamie snorts. Of course a guy like that would have a kid who could speak perfect Latin. 

She really should have just stuck with German instead. 

[junova]

↬ 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐭 | 𝐬. 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬

abstract: the one where steve finds your love letters.

pairing: au!steve x fem!reader

word count: 3K+

warnings: cussing, fluff, angst, crying, slight self-deprecation.

[author’s note]: hey guys! i’m really new to the writing scene so kind words are appreciated! srsly just testing my writing style out and wanted to just post something to motivate me to keep writing. hope u like it. <3

also thank u ari for the inspo and that bomb ass album that saved twenty-twenty. now we just need biden to get elected.

ps. don’t forget to vote! <3

Stevie,

First and foremost, I want you to know how proud of you I am. You have become the man you’ve said you become, the one I always knew you would. You have finally seen what the rest of us see.

A good man.

The soul you carry within you shines brighter than I’ve ever seen. Just for that only, I’m thankful for the time we’ve spent together. Maybe one day, I’ll be brave enough to tell you this without hiding behind the comfort of this notebook. She won’t spill my secrets, fortunate for me.

Some days you have no idea how badly I want to tell you. I think it’s on the days I discover a new fleck of green in your eyes or maybe when you show up to class with a cup of coffee for me without request.

More. More. More.

More. More. More.

It’s selfish of me, that much I know. More days than not, I would say you give too much of yourself away. Always wanting to appease everyone, you, Steven Rogers, the bridge to making the people around you happier than they walked in. Even when Bucky drags you into his nonsense bullshit, you say yes without hesitation.

I’ve got not a a clue on how you continue on, how you still remain you when you tend to spread yourself so thin. Who watches out for you? Who cares for you? Who loves the almighty, selfless Rogers?

For me, it’s much easier to pretend you carry too much on your plate than to deal with the rejection I would receive from you. You’re just too good, more than I deserve. More than I would be willing to take. I know I couldn’t possibly give you what you deserve but, I hope that one day you might see me differently. You would see me more than the light I’ve painted myself in.

Even though the shade is lovely, I want to be deeper. Deeper into you on a level which only seems unattainable at this point.

A forever friend. To be in your life, just as a friend, is an reward in itself.

But someday I hope you would love me in the same way I do. It’s all a love struck girl could do. Hope for the best, bet be prepared for the downfall.

With much love, your forever friend.

Tearing the page away from the binding of the overfilled notebook, dispensing it in the first empty drawer you could find, you abandoned the feelings as soon as the pen’s ink bleed out dry.

“You know it would just be easier to tell him how you feel.” You peaked up at the sound of her voice, before realizing she was looming over you, watching your write the letter.

Your supposed, secret letter.

“Nat, please. No.” Opening the drawer, she grabbed the letter but was surprised with just how many she found.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve written about him multiple times?” You sank in the soft, plush material of your seat hoping that just maybe it would begin to swallow you whole. Hopefully, fast enough were you wouldn’t have to endure the rest of the conversation. One you had been trying to avoid, for the past three years.

“It’s nothing Nat, just forget it.” Just like a Romanov, she couldn’t leave it alone. Even if she tried it was laced in her blood to see any little thing through.

“You really shouldn’t wait so long. A window might close for you, much sooner than you think.” With a curious eyebrow lifted, you felt your breath leave you.

“What does that supposed to mean?” Steve certainly deserved the best and you knew it was only time for him to figure out you would never be enough for him.

“Peggy Carter.” Peggy.

The one girl of a sea of many who had been enamored by Steve. He never really seemed to spend anytime with the women who vied for his attention, but Peggy was surely different than the rest.

Even if Steve was oblivious when it came to the advances everyone would make on him, he saw Peggy. Considering she was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen, she intimidated you. God, did she ever.

On numerous occasions she and Steve had gone out, and even though he assured you they were just friends you were starting to believe he was only trying to protect your feelings. As a friend.

He had never cancelled on you once for her and he would tell you if he had started to date someone, just like he had before.

Even though the entire three years you’d known him he only had one serious girlfriend and after eight months, the pair broke up and even now he still didn’t budge on why they broke up.

“Steve can do whatever he wants with her. He’s a single man. He’s gone out with her before and he’ll probably go with her again.” Then Sam was the next to speak up, dismissing the total bullshit spouting from your mouth.

“Can’t you see he doesn’t want to? The damn man follows you around like a goddamn puppy.” Okay, when did he even come in here?

“God, fuck, no he doesn’t. He would have said something by now, he’s had three years and it’s been nothing but radio silence.” With an all knowing smirk, Sam proposed a new concept into question.

“It has been three years. So, have you ever said anything to him?”

Shit. Fuck you, Wilson.

“W-Well, not exactly.” Sam didn’t have to say anything in response. You knew he was right and you hated it.

Your unwillingness still stood for you, there was just no way he actually would reciprocate your feelings.

“Listen, I think it would be really good for the both of you to air everything out. Peggy is sinking her claws in him and it isn’t too long before they get stuck. Just talk to him.” You nodded silently, but you weren’t sure if you’d ever have the courage to.

—

Emptiness.

It’s all you seemed to feel today. Following you around was a dark cloud, looming over you. Wishing you could be anywhere but your own body. Nothing in particular happened to make you deserve the feeling you were granted with. It just so happened to be one of those days.

From the moment you got out of bed — or rather stayed in bed until four in the afternoon, you felt like anything you would have done just didn’t feel enough. The feeling was fleeting, never staying for more than a day or so, but it made the day drag on. Never ending.

Your muscles sore, body aching from the lack of activity your presumed. Or maybe you had built it in your head too.

Thankfully for you, Nat was busy helping Bucky move into his new place the entire day. She asked if you wanted to help, but mentally you didn’t feel you would be useful for anyone. Simply, telling her you would hang back, claiming you had another an essay to write.

Which you did, you weren’t completely lying, but there was more than your sour mood to blame for your dismissal of social interaction.

You hated to be that girl, the one who needed the presence of men. Specifically, the company of one very beautiful, blue eyed one.

His absence in your life the past few weeks felt heavier on you than you thought it would. You knew from Sam’s intel he had been hanging out with Peggy more and more. He said the two of them were getting close, mercifully sparing you the details.

You hated it’s you’d become. A girl so damn struck over a boy who was giving his attention elsewhere. Upset you were though. Before even if he was busy between classes and his internship at the gallery, he would still text to check up on you.

Now, it was nothing but radio silence letting you draw conclusions on your own. Very, very dangerous territory for you to travel to.

Steve and you are just friends. Get. Over. It.

You thought you’d be alone the rest of the Saturday, especially since it was nearly midnight. Figuring Nat was staying over at Bucky’s and Wanda leaving earlier in early hours of the morning to see her boyfriend for the entire weekend.

Then, an incredibly drunk Steve stumbled into your quaint apartment, the thoughtfully sweetness in him blubbering out with the alcohol flooding through his system. It was like he was on overdrive. More than ready to crash at any given moment.

You had enough when Steve started shamelessly raiding your kitchen, but you remained on the couch attempting to maintain some distance between the two of you. He had a history of being incredibly handsy whenever he had bit too much to drink.

Stumbling his way over to you, almost tripping on the rug, until he was basically cuddling up to your side. His arms latched tightly around you, pulling you into him. Not spared a choice, not that you’d want one.

The security of being wrapped up to him wasn’t something you ever grew tired of. You don’t think there would ever be a time you would ever be capable of turning him away.

“I’ve missed you. It’s been too long.” His soft tone, penetrating the tiny resistance you held towards him. “Me too. I was starting to think you disappeared on me, bubba.”

“Never.” His iron grip holding so tight like he was afraid you’d slip right through.

“Is everything alright?” Trying to pull from him, but Steve seemed unable to let you go. You whispered in his ear, caressing his back.

“I think so.”

“Here, let me grab you cup of joe and some water. Okay? I’ll be right back.” Leaving him a kiss on the cheek, before heading him into the kitchen.

If you had been around him recently, perhaps you would be more in tune with how he was feeling. Then the guilt sept in.

“Sweetheart, do you know where the phone charger is? It’s not by the recliner.” You heard him shout, trying to stop your heart from hammering into your stomach.

Just make him some coffee, sober him up, until he crashes.

Steve always seemed to be a lightweight and somehow whenever he did decide to drink he always found himself routing his way into your home. You thought it was simply for accident alone. The bar he frequented at was only a few block from you.

The past few times he would just stumble into your bedroom, immediately passing out in your soft, silky sheet. Now, he seemed to have more pressing matters at hand.

“Check the drawers, Stevie. I think there’s one you left around here somewhere.” You grabbed the filters and the grounds out, brewing the coffee. Soon, with a black cup of coffee and a water bottle in hand you took note of just how quite he was being.

He was never this silent and it was freaking you out.

“Are you sure you’re o-”

Just like that.

Fuck.

Hunched over, practically on his knees, he read over the endless letters you wrote about him. Confessions never meant to be seen by him. You lost track of how many you had written over the past few years once realized how irrevocably in love with him you are.

He didn’t realize you had found him and you were suddenly paralyzed. Unaware of your presence he continued to read through them and his expression was unrecognizable. One you’d never seen from him before, and you didn’t quite know how to react.

No. He wasn’t grimacing nor did he seem to be elated either. He just stood there just like you, afraid what would happen next.

What did this mean for the two of you? Your entire relationship was purely riding on whatever happened next.

Softly, with a gentle hand, he sifted through them all like he was looking for something specifically. Steve let them fall to the hardwood floors as your shaking hands could no longer support the weight of the dainty coffee cup he had actually sculpted himself.

The glass shattering everywhere, several pieces making their way towards him, thankfully not fiercely enough to penetrate his skin.

Truly, you had never been more sorry than when he looked up at you with tears in his eyes. Threatening to spill over. Because of you.

You didn’t have to be told, you already knew.

Carefully, Steve stood up making his way over to you around the shattered mug. Still you couldn’t bring yourself to move. Simply just watching him until he was right in front of you — more silent than you’d ever seen him before.

“Those were about me. Weren’t they?” You nodded having no reason to lie other than to protect yourself from a rejection you been hoping to spare yourself from.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this. Or at all really.” Your resolve dropping instantly when Steve took a step further gripping by your hips, pulling you closer.

“Why not?” He questioned you, again. Almost like he needed a verbal affirmation of every secret he had just read.

Unintentionally, stealing your soul served for him on a silver platter.

“I know how you’d feel about me, Steve. It’s not how I want it to be and it’s okay.” You remove yourself from him, traveling to the other side of the living room. Suddenly, the apartment seemed suffocating with him in it. “I’m fine, Steve.”

Hearing him sigh in frustration only furthered your immense feeling of being a burden to him.

You’re just one more obstacle he has to deal with.

“One of them dated back for over two years ago. Two fucking years.” His harsh tone, piercing through you like a knife.

“I know. I should have told you.” You whispered, wishing you could disappear into any abyss that would take you. Deeply wishing you just didn’t have to endure for the rest of this conversation. Wishing you could have stopped him from opening that stupid drawer. “I tell you everything, but I just couldn’t bring myself to speak about this. Look at how you’re reacting? How could you blame me when every fear I have about this is justified?”

You really should have kept those elsewhere, not your open, public living room.

“Because it’s us. I’m always here for you.” He was still crying through broken words and you didn’t know why. Almost like you had shattered his resolve and his control leaving with it.

“Not lately. You’ve been otherwise occupied.” Suddenly find the plant in the corner of the room. It certainly weren’t trying to distract yourself from the insatiable cerulean eyes.

The breathtaking british woman wasn’t even here and as soon as she was brought up — there was a wall. Seperating, you from whatever was between the two of you.

“This isn’t my fault. You never said anything. How was I supposed to know you feel that way about me?” He tried to make his way towards you but you just stalked off in the other direction. Circling around the living room like a coward.

“It didn’t matter though, did it? You found someone perfect for you regardless of how you feel.” God, you wish he would just leave so you could let the dam break.

“No. You don’t get to do that. Since the moment I met you I only had eyes for you, but you never seemed like you were interested. So, I dropped it. Okay? You never left me a crumb to think you would ever want to be more than just friends.”

“You were my best friend. You still are. No matter how I felt, it could never outweigh the need I have for you to be in my life.” He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. Trying to figure out what was next for the both of you. Steve always had to initiate and this time was no different.

“Peggy told me tonight she wants to be exclusive.” His confession washing over you like a ton of bricks. Crushing you.

You really couldn’t have any ill feeling towards her, she was just doing what you lacked the courage and the tenacity to do.

“But I didn’t really know what to do.” He took quiet steps towards you, not wanting to spook you. He voice not no longer held the a warmth of teddy bear, but a man on a mission rather took over.

Steve kept quiet until he had you backed up into a corner, no escape route in vision for you.

“’Cause there’s this other beautiful woman, absolutely breathtaking — and I just I really needed to know how she felt. If I had known before,  I never would have gone anywhere else.” His hand caressing your soft, plump lips. Pulling on your bottom lip with his thumb, sending you into a frenzy.

“Then, I just wanted to forget about everything until Sam called me. Three beers deep, when he told me of a drawer filled with letters I should take a look at.” You could feel his breath on you, temple pressed against yours.

“I just need to hear you say it. Just once.” Taking it a step forward, intertwining your finger with his own.

“I love you.” It was all he needed as he sealed his own affirmation with a sweet kiss, inking your lips with all of his love.

[lyssismagical]

72 w Parkner pls 🥺

just some bb fluff between the Keener-Parker-Stark family uwu

*

“I'll see you in a few hours, babe,” Morgan says, leaning up to kiss her partner. “I love you.”

Saylor smiles and gently pushes a strand of hair behind Morgan’s ear. “I love you too. Have fun. Tell them I said hi.”

Morgan and Saylor have been together for three years now, having met in Morgan’s third year of college, studying to become a teacher. Saylor’s in med school.

They live together in New York, only a few hours’ drive away from Stark Towers where Harley and Peter live.

She hasn’t had a day off between school and her job as a teaching assistant, not to mention having just gotten a puppy with Saylor who needs constant attention and care.

The drive to Stark Industries is a little boring, traffic a little heavier than usual on a Saturday morning. She feels a little bad about not spending the weekend with her partner who’s also rarely free, but she also hasn’t made the trip to see her family in quite a while.

Harley and Peter are sitting at the breakfast bar, knees touching and Harley’s laughing bright and loud at something Peter must’ve said. They both look tired, despite the weekend beginning, but she knows the business has been under some heat lately.

Peter’s up, out of his seat as soon as he sees her, pulling her into a warm hug. “I’ve missed you, bug. How are you? How’s Saylor? How’s school?”

“Let her breathe, darling,” Harley says, leaning over his husband to ruffle Morgan’s hair. “You want a coffee?”

“Yes, please, traffic was awful.”

Harley smiles and heads off towards the kitchen, leaving Peter to fuss over Morgan.

“You look tired, have you been sleeping alright?”

“Peter, I’m fine, I promise. I’m twenty-four, you don’t need to worry about me like I’m still fourteen.”

He sighs wearily, it’s obvious it hasn’t exactly been an easy week for him. “I know. But you’ll always be my little bug.”

“I’m good, really, Peter. I’m happy.”

Harley returns, pressing an old Iron Man mug into her hands. “How’s Saylor? I miss that kid.”

“They’re good… Busy, that’s for sure. Med school, the internship at the hospital, taking care of Nova. We’ve both been busy, but they’re happy. They’ve got the weekend off to just play with Nova and rest.”

Peter goes to respond, but his phone ringing cuts him off. “Sorry, I should probably… Hello?”

Harley sighs, leading Morgan to the living room. “It’s been complicated lately.”

“I heard, is everything okay?”

“One of our rival companies, they’re fighting dirty and it’s putting a lot of pressure on us. We’ve already lost a few employees, as well as some investors because of them. But we’re making progress and it’ll all blow over soon enough.”

Morgan nods, pulling her knees up to her chest on the couch, tucking herself into the warmth. It’s the same old couch that Tony bought decades ago, there’s a few photographs of her here when she must’ve been two to four years old, her dad holding her in his lap. On one hand, she knows why they haven’t bothered to replace it, every memory of Tony is important to all three of them and seems almost wrong to get rid of anything that belonged to him. But on the other hand, it really is just a couch. An old, worn-leather couch, with rips in the seams and stains along the back.

“Peter looks exhausted,” she says, watching carefully as Harley’s face shifts into worried sadness.

“He is. You know how he gets when it comes to anything surrounding your dad.”

Peter slips into the room, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’ve gotta go. I’m sorry to cut this short, but PR needs one of us downstairs.”

“I’ll get it,” Harley offers, already bringing himself to his feet.

“No, it’s okay. You took the last one. I’ll go, sort this out, I’ll hopefully be back within an hour or two. I’ll bring takeout for lunch, sound good?”

Harley sighs and Morgan knows she makes the exact same expression as he does whenever Saylor picks up extra hours at the hospital or stays up all night to study.

She’s never really known the two of them apart, she was too young to remember them before they got together, way back when they were eighteen and nineteen. They’ve been together ever since, bar the one time in college where they split up for nearly four months, long-distance having become too much for them.

She’s never known Harley without the permanent wrinkle between his brows from the constant worry of dating a selfless superhero. She’s never known Peter without the messy curls, having given up gel and product when Harley convinced him he looked better without it.

When she was young, she always worried that she’d never find love the way her parents did, the way she saw Harley and Peter, so unconditional, so pure, so endless. She worried she wouldn’t find the person who was clearly meant to be her other half like Peter is for Harley and Harley is for Peter.

But then she met Saylor.

“Bye, bug, I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

She hugs Peter goodbye, settling back into the cushions beside Harley.

“How did you know you were going to be with Peter forever?” Morgan asks. She adores the way Harley’s expression goes gentle and nostalgic and loving.

“Peter likes to say that he knew when we met, that very first time, at the cabin. But I don’t think it was ever quite that simple, you know? I knew I loved him when we were in college and he was in Massachusetts while I was in California, and I woke up one day, and found Peter in my dorm room. He’d flown all the way out, on his long weekend, just to spend time with me. He was sitting next to me, reading the book I had to write an essay on so he’d be able to me. It was so simple, so easy, and it was clear, in that moment, that I could do that forever. Wake up next to him, live in simple domesticity with him.”

“And you wanted to do that forever?”

She knows that moment with Saylor, too. They had come home from a long day at school and a long evening at the hospital, and they had picked up her favourite meal for dinner on the way home. They had curled up on the couch together, eaten dinner, and watched a movie, and smiled when Morgan had ranted about the antagonist of the film.

“For as long as he’d have me.”

“And you’ve never once gone back on that?”

Harley shrugs, eyes far away. “I fucked up in college, I nearly ruined the best thing I’d ever had, and that’s the biggest regret I’ll have to carry with me. That’s the only regret I’ll ever have about our relationship, is hurting him and losing four months with him.”

“I think I want to ask Saylor to marry me,” Morgan says. She’s certain about that, but god is she ever nervous. “I love them more than anything.”

“I know.” Harley nudges her with his shoulder. “Every time you talk about them, you get that same look that I see on Peter’s face constantly. And that- that’s a lot. I see it on Saylor’s face too, when they talk about you.”

“You do?”

Harley’s smile widens. “I do. It’s clear how much that kid loves you. And if you’re even a fraction as sure as I was when I proposed, then you should go for it.”

“How did you do it?”

“It’s about as dramatic as you’d expect from us. He was-” Harley stops, swallows visibly. “He was dying. He’d been hurt while on a mission and I was there, I was holding him and he was- he was dying. Bucky had to physically restrain me while Sam got him to help… It was the most scared I’d ever been.”

“He was okay, though.”

“Yeah, somehow he always is. He was in that goddamn hospital bed and he was so high on pain killers and I just, I asked him to marry me.”

“That simple?”

“That simple.”

Morgan laughs a little. “And he said yes?”

“He did. He said yes. And when he was released from the hospital, he laughed so hard he cried because he couldn’t believe that’s how I asked him.”

And god does Morgan ever want that with Saylor. She loves her partner like crazy, loves them to the moon and back, she never wants to go another day without them, she doesn’t want to spend another second without being able to call her partner, her fiancé.

“I want to marry Saylor,” she says again.

Harley grins. “I’m proud of you.”

“For being in love?”

“For being unapologetically you and going after what you want.”

Morgan leans into Harley, his arm coming up to wrap around her shoulders. “You think they’ll say yes?”

“No question about it, kid.”

“If they do…” She trails off nervously. “Would you and Peter walk me down the aisle?”

Harley presses a kiss to her temple. “We would love to. And I’m sure we could have Nova trained to be a ring bearer in no time.”

Morgan laughs at the thought of her clumsy, bouncy little puppy trying to do anything with finesse.

Peter returns with lunch a little while later.

As soon as he walks in, he drops the bags down on the table and says, “I want a baby.”

“What?” Harley lets out a little surprised laugh and Morgan bursts into giggles at the absurdity.

“Quinn brought her baby in for the meeting because she couldn’t get a babysitter in time,” Peter explains, pouting childishly. “And I want one.”

Harley shakes his head, more dumbfounded than disagreeing. “You want a baby.”

“I want a baby,” he repeats. “I want a little tiny thing with ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart.”

Morgan laughs again, walking up to hug Peter. “God, I missed how absolutely crazy you are.”

“Okay, darling, how about you eat some food and we’ll talk some more later?”

It’s not a no and Peter grins triumphantly.

“When did you know that you wanted to be with Harley forever?” Morgan asks before she can stop herself.

Peter’s smile widens and he looks to Harley with the softest, most lovestruck eyes she’s ever seen. “I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen? You were seventeen when we met.”

Peter slides a hand over Harley’s shoulder, tucking himself into his husband’s side. “I was fifteen and I was here with Tony. Right here, actually. We were having a lab night and he mentioned something about a potato gun kid. And I asked him to tell me about you. About dumbass Harley Keener who didn’t know when to stop, who was talkative and loud and sarcastic and annoying. Harley who helped save Tony’s life. And I thought, wow, if anybody would know what it feels like to be me, it’d be Harley.”

“Really?”

“I googled you later that day and I scrolled through your mom’s entire facebook, wondering just who was special enough to stay in Tony’s head for so long, so fresh. I told Ned, I said to him, I’m gonna meet this kid and I’m going to marry him one day because who else is worthy of my love than somebody who could save Tony Stark’s life.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not! It’s all true. Ask Ned, he’ll tell you.”

Harley rolls his eyes in pure adoration. “You never told me that.”

“I was embarrassed and then it didn’t seem relevant anymore.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting to learning things about you, Parker.”

Peter grins up at him. “Like how I want to have a baby?”

“You two would be amazing dads,” Morgan says, almost shyly. That part of their relationship isn’t talked about very much, how they might as well have raised Morgan, filled in the spot that her dad left when she was so young. “Any kid would be lucky to have you.”

“Thanks, bug,” Peter murmurs.

“If you take tomorrow off, we’ll start researching, alright?” Harley bargains. A day off is hard to come by with Peter, but with an ultimatum like that, Peter can’t possibly say no.

Peter kisses him in response.

April Parker is the flower girl at Saylor and Morgan’s wedding that fall.

Taglist: @littlemissagrafina @spideyspeaches @romeoandjulietyouwish @c-artara @shadedrose01 @likeaphoenix13 @misskirkstark @you-get-killed-walk-it-off @kitkatwinchester @emo-girl10 @hold-our-destiny @imalivebecauseirondad @spiderman-peterman @dykeragee @maryserrao @heeeyitskay @parknerandirondad @lilacsandlilies4 @loveliestdisappointment @joyful-soul-collector @genderfluid-and-confuzled @fallenstar07 @gyurolls @sdottkrames @you-did-it-sir @not-today-thx @fandomstuffff

{Let me know if you wanna be added or removed}

[sariahsue]

I just saw your take one Lilo&Stitch's approach to child protection and I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to write realistic stuff in this matter? I've been meaning to write a foster care/adoption fic and I do know the system in France must be at least a little different - and I will get down the research hole once I have a bit more time - but do you have any advice on how to write the kids reactions, the way parents deal with everything, the bonding part... things like this, so I can avoid clichés.

You don't have to answer though, feel free to ignore all this akdjwja I just figured there's no harm in asking XD

Yeah, sure! (To anyone else reading this who has a fic, feel free to send me a message if you have questions!) I’m definitely not the most knowledgeable person, but I know quite a bit. And I’m sure things are a bit different in France (hopefully their court system is better - yikes!) but I think the human element would be pretty similar, so here we go. 

First off, know that everyone is foster care is having a rough time constantly. Foster kids, workers, parents, foster parents, foster siblings. And no one knows what’s going on long term. There’s always a lot of uncertainty. Will the kids go home soon? Are parental rights going to be terminated at the next court date? Who knows???

The birth parents, at best, are going through a really tough time in their life, made worse because their kids were taken away from them. Some care about their kids, but they’re extremely self-centered and have zero parents skills. Some are manipulative and see foster care as free babysitting, and as long as they get to see their kid for an hour or so a week, this arrangement is fantastic for them! At worst, they’re just horrible human beings who abuse children. In general, most parents are clueless and selfish and pretty manipulative. They say they’re good parents and have no clue why their kids were taken away, even though their kid has cigarette burn marks on their back, or had to eat out of the garbage to survive because the were left alone for hours at a time when they were four, or worse. They have no clue at all what their behavior does to their kids, and they refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain it to them.

No matter what type of parents they were, their kids ALWAYS love them and want to go home. Every single one of them. No matter the age. No matter what their home life put them through. Some of them aren’t old enough to understand why they can’t go home. Some have been in foster care for years and hardly remember living at home but still want to go home.  

It makes for complicated foster relationships sometimes because the kid will be attached to both birth and foster parents and feel guilty or conflicted or disloyal, or they’ll try really hard not to be attached to the foster parents in the first place. (I can think of only one exception to this. Two sisters who had been put into another home and liked the foster family and decided that they were going to be adopted by this family and were very excited about it... except the foster family had no plans to adopt them. I never learned what happened there.) 

And this is before accounting for the mental health struggles that often accompany the trauma most of them have been through. Some kids come in with anxiety that makes it difficult to trust new people. Some kids’ behavior is so extreme that it’s difficult for foster parents to take care of them, and so the kid moves around constantly. (If their behavior is too bad, they can sometimes be put into either a group home or residential, either temporarily or permanently.)

Parents are also entitled to visits, usually either weekly or every other week, at least while the goal is reunification (which is always starts out as). Before the pandemic, these usually took place in the DCF (Department of Children and Families is what it’s called in my state) office or in a visitation center. Sometimes the court orders that the visits be supervised so they don’t start promising their kids that they’re coming to get them next week. Often the workers think that sitting down the hallway not listening counts as supervision. 🙄 

With the pandemic, kids have been meeting over Zoom. That’s being phased out pretty soon here. Kids are almost always triggered by these visits. I mean, they look forward to them usually. Some kids are mad at their parents and don’t want to talk to them, but almost always, they want to see their parents. And almost always whatever behavior problems they had before is extremely worse for the next 2-5 days. (Which is terrible if you get a visit every week.) Some parents bail on these visits regularly. Some consistently bail on only birthdays and Christmas. We’ve learned not to tell the kid that they have a visit coming up until we know it’s definitely happening, or sometimes only right before we’re planning on leaving to go, because the anticipation of a visit is triggering or because getting stood up by your own mother is traumatizing. Sometimes you can get the kid’s therapist to write a note asking for the visits to be less frequent for the kid’s sake, but often that just means every other week instead of every week.

For foster families welcoming kids into their home, it’s a little different. They’re often more stable, and their whole life isn’t shifting around them. They’re just getting one or two kids into the family. The home dynamic is going to be a little different. Nothing huge, compared to what the foster kids are going through. It often depends on the kid how fast you get attached. Sometimes you know kids are only going to be there for a month because their normal foster family had to deal with an emergency, but the plan is to take them back soon. Sometimes they’re adorable babies and you get super attached really, really fast. Sometimes they’re so unhappy and scared that they make your home life completely miserable. Sometimes you’ve seen so many kids come and go over the years, and they’ve all left eventually, and your heart becomes guarded to protect you from that pain. But you get attached eventually anyway. 

And sometimes your parents are given a newborn whose goal is reunification and it’s love at first sight even though you don’t know if you can keep him, and then he’s put up for adoption when he’s two and you adopt him SO HARD. And then you make future foster kids upset because you can’t adopt them too. :( And even though they get adopted by friends of yours, they still feel conflicted over it four years later. 

You would think that a kid raised completely in their adoptive home from birth would have no problems, and sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes they still get upset about the adoption when they’re older because the foundational belief they have about themselves is that their mother didn’t want them, even though it’s not true. 

(This is the real-life story of my brother. We are the only family he’s ever known, and he’s 13 now, but he still has issues over being adopted. The other boy is 16 and is doing much better with his new family now, though he still has some issues. We had him for a very long time, and we were all happy that we know his adoptive family well because we stayed it contact with him, which almost never happens when a foster kid leaves.)

Oh, I forgot one thing. Usually when kids first get to your house, they are perfect little angels for a while. Depending on the kid, it’s either a couple days or maybe even three months. It’s called the “honeymoon period.” Once their subconscious realizes that this is a safe place to work on their issues and they aren’t in physical danger, they start to process what they’ve been through. It comes out in a variety of ways. Behavioral issues, bedwetting, explosive anger, nightmares, etc.

A note about social workers: All the workers (at least in my state) constantly have too many cases. Like, double what they’re legally supposed to have. Most of them try hard to keep up. Some DO NOT CARE. Some are fantastic and put extra time in to go to the kid’s end-of-the-school-year recitals and build a relationship with them. They’re in charge of organizing visits and making sure the kids have everything set up and are generally important in the kid’s life. They’re required to visit once a month and make sure foster parents have all the right paperwork and arrange dentist visits and bring them to all their therapy appointments. (FYI, You get a piece of paper that says you’re the legal guardian. You have to show it to schools and doctors when you make arrangements for the kids. My mom also keeps a copy in her purse, just in case a kid starts screaming “HELP! SHE’S NOT MY MOM” in the middle of the store or something. It’s never happened, but you know, just in case.)

Also, you would think that they’re the constant in the kid’s life, but if the birth parents move, the case gets transferred to another office in the state, and so the social workers switch. I sincerely hope that’s not how things are done in France because it’s garbage for a lot of reasons.

Okay, I’ve written you an essay, but I hope it was a useful essay! Let me know if you have any more questions!

[padsnprongs]

this is for @anythingforour_moony’s writing competition!!

Prompt: “Who ate my pudding??”

If there was one thing that Remus Lupin loved more than life itself, it was chocolate. Chocolate bars, chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, you name it, he would eat it practically inhale it. Not only would he gulp down anything with the slightest trace of chocolate, he would hoard it. He had secret stashes hidden all over the school. Throughout his five and a half years at Hogwarts, his stashes had remained undiscovered.

Or so he thought.

Without his knowledge, one silver-eyed, mischievous Sirius Black had discovered his little secret months ago. Actually, if he was being honest, he found it rather endearing. The image of one Remus Lupin, engulfed in that adorable green sweater of his, tawny curls falling onto his face, amber eyes gleaming with that enchanting golden tint that Sirius often found himself mesmerised in, happened to be the main source of Sirius’ serotonin regardless, but adding that to the image of Remus Lupin, curled up with some chocolate from his secret little stash, perfectly content, was even more adorable, if that was at all possible.  

Yeah… Sirius would really have to do something about this crush of his.

And so, Sirius hatched a crafty scheme: he would steal Remus’ chocolate from his stash. Not to eat! Oh lord, no. Maybe just to hide for an hour or two? At least until Remus noticed it was gone, which surely wouldn’t take long; the guy was obsessed. Once Remus had figured out that Sirius had stolen his chocolate, he would probably be rightfully mad. And then he would hopefully start spewing something about morals and boundaries or something. And maybe that, in turn, would help Sirius see that maybe being with Remus wasn’t all he’d thought it up to be, and maybe this silly little crush of his, could finally come to an end. Sirius’ main aim was just to find a way to make Remus mad, and stealing his chocolate was apparently the best way to go about that. 

The plan may have been long-winded and, frankly, ridiculous, but Sirius was desperate. He couldn’t go on like this – just being in the same room as Remus was enough to give him the complexion of a tomato, and surely someone would notice that soon? It was too risky; no one could ever know.

Little did Sirius know just how hard he had fallen.

That was how Sirius found himself sitting in the common room, absent-mindedly watching Peter try desperately to Vanish a table, and James hurriedly scribbling a Potions essay. However, the only thing he could concentrate on was the fact that Remus had just disappeared into the dormitory and was bound to discover what he had done any second now.

Not long after, his suspicions were confirmed. He heard the dormitory door slam, the sound echoing through the tower, followed by the sound of footsteps crashing down the stairs. Remus skidded to a halt at the bottom of the staircase. Sirius’ mouth was dry with anticipation; he could feel his heart about to burst through his ribs. He had no idea what Remus’ reaction would be, but he was notorious for being incredibly overprotective of his chocolate.

Sirius did not fancy his chances.

Remus was annoyed, to say the least. He had had a particularly good day, so imagine his disappointment and frustration when he hurried towards his trunk, only to find that the chocolate pudding he’d been eagerly looking forward to all day, had disappeared. And Remus knew he hadn’t misplaced, or already eaten, the pudding. There was only one possible explanation. One of those three idiots had eaten it. He wasn’t as angry as he could have been, mostly because he genuinely had had a great day, but he was irritated, nonetheless.

That was how Remus found himself storming down to the common room, ready to have a serious conversation with his friends about respecting boundaries. However, not everything goes to plan. When Remus reached the bottom of the staircase, his gaze landed on one Sirius Black. Remus, as so often happens, was mesmerised by the grin which seemed to light up any room, the eyes which seemed to be swirling in the ocean depths, and the hair which seemed to catch the sunlight, shimmering with the slightest movement. Sirius’ charm was infuriatingly distracting, and Remus couldn’t help but to lose himself in those breathtakingly bright eyes, which were gleaming like the moon.  

Come on, Remus, snap out of it. Feeling his face start to heat up, Remus took a deep breath. There was a more important matter at hand.

“Alright, which one of you was it?”

“What’s up, moony?” James replied without looking up.

“Who ate my pudding??” Remus narrowed his eyes at the three boys and seemed to notice Sirius’ eyes widening. As he watched, Sirius ducked his head behind those glistening curls of his, refusing to meet Remus’ gaze. This was unusual only in that the other two boys had looked up at the mention of Remus’ chocolate. It was the reaction of a guilty person. Remus knew it, Sirius knew it, and he was pretty sure James and Pete had also figured it out. 

‘Sirius?’

‘Hmm?’

Sirius still refused to meet his eyes, which only made it all the more obvious that he was guilty.

Remus waited expectantly, hoping that Sirius would say something; this was awkward enough as it was. Finally, Sirius glanced up.

‘Erm… I’m just gonna go take a quick shower… yeah, I haven’t had one since quidditch practice…’ Sirius stood up hastily, but found his way blocked.

‘Sirius Orion Black. If you have done what I think you have done,’ he warned under his breath, enunciating every syllable to ensure the message was crystal clear, ‘I will send you straight to Filch’s office myself, and tell him what really happened in the girls’ toilets yesterday. You can’t fool me.’

Sirius gulped. Although he was aware that he was currently in deep, deep shit, a part of him desperately wanted to make a ‘straight’ joke in reply to Remus’ threat. However, Sirius felt that may not bode well with the fuming werewolf, who was currently glaring into his soul. So, instead, he did the only reasonable thing he could think of; he ran. Scanning for all possible exits and realising the portrait hole was blocked by a giggling group of girls, he sprinted straight for the stairwell. Taking the steps three at a time, his heart pounded nervously as he heard Remus in close pursuit. He slammed open the dormitory door with enough force to make it rattle in its hinges and dived for his bed. Rolling across the bed, Sirius fell through the drawn curtain on the other side and landed on his feet. Although he personally felt that this was a move worthy of James Bond himself, there was no time to dwell, because he had probably pissed Remus off even more, if that was possible.

Speaking of Remus, Sirius had no idea where he’d gone. He could swear his pursuer had been mere footsteps behind him moments ago. Narrowing his eyebrows, he approached the dormitory door cautiously, when, out of nowhere, Remus barrelled around the corner, straight into him, and rugby tackled him to the ground. Winded from pure shock, Sirius could do nothing but flail desperately as Remus wrestled him onto his back and pinned his wrists above his head.

Suddenly, all the anger and all the panic evaporated. Their faces were mere inches from each other, and Sirius could hardly breathe. Remus was staring into his eyes, and Sirius noticed how the amber seemed to darken and his pupils seemed to expand.

But he had no time to think, because he could feel his heart pounding faster and faster, even though he had stopped running. He would have guessed that it was because of the pure intensity that comes with someone laying on top of you, pinning you to the ground, and staring deep into your soul, seemingly getting lost in your eyes, but his brain could barely comprehend what was happening.

Wait. No. That pounding he had felt? That wasn’t his heart. That was Remus’ heart. What? Why would Remus’ heart be beating faster? Shut up. Suddenly, Sirius became hyper-aware of Remus leaning closer to him.

‘Erm…’ he managed to mumble, now oddly self-conscious of how his breath smelt.

‘Tell me to stop.’ Remus whispered, so softly that Sirius could barely hear. Tell me to stop what?? What does that even mean?? What is he doing??

Remus was now so close that their breaths were mingling, and if Sirius moved slightly, he could probably have brushed their noses. Why the hell would I move slightly?? Are you crazy?? Let’s just see what he does.

And Sirius barely had time to process what happened next, because Remus’ lips curved into a soft smirk, no I am not watching his lips thank you very muc- HOLY SHIT, and then they crashed against his.

Remus’ lips. Crashed against Sirius’ lips.

Sirius’ nervous system was going berserk, his brain was short circuiting, and all he could think about was every point where Remus was touching him.

Time seemed to slow down; everything else faded away until it was just him and Remus.

Remus’ mind had a similar reaction. He swore he could see fireworks behind his eyelids and, despite his nervousness at initiating the kiss, what if I misinterpreted it?? I’ll literally ruin our whole friendship!! Ah you know what, fuck it, he ate my pudding, we don’t have a friendship anymore, those few moments were possibly the best of his life. But then, if it was possible, those moments grew even better; gradually, as they both got over their initial shock (and, let’s be real, a little bit of *gay panic*), they relaxed into the kiss. It turned away from passionate and hungry, and more towards comforting and slow.  

Sirius’ intestines seemed to be fizzing and twisting, his fingers tangling themselves in those golden curls that he was so incredibly crazy about.

Well, he thought, that’s my plan gone to shit.

[damn-stark]

Dreadful summer nights

Chapter 8 of Different Light

A/N- I hope you guys liked it :) I can’t wait to write more!! Let me know what y’all thought?!

Warning- SLOWBURN, fluff

Pairing- Harry Potter x Malfoy!reader, Fred Weasley x Malfoy!reader

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

Summer.

Summer was and has been completely dreadful. There's been nothing to do and nowhere to go beside the corridors of your own home, the garden, and Draco’s bedroom to pester him.

With your father out all day and sometimes all night, and with Narcissa defiant not to leave home without him, you've been stuck at home. Just bored, sitting on a reading chair with your legs on the headrest and your head dangling off the edge of the chairs cushion, throwing a green apple up in the air and catching it before it hits you.

That’s how it’s been all summer long. Well that and beside the letters—

“It’s that Potter boy again, he was attacked by Dementors today.”

You gasp at the sound of your fathers voice echoing from the entrance and instantly stop what you’re doing, forgetting in that quick action about the green apple you had thrown in the air until it fell back down to hit you in the face. “Ow.”

“Did he send them?”

Very quietly you twist your body around to sit up straight—as if that was going to do anything to make you hear better. Regardless you also do it because you didn’t want to be caught sitting improperly.

“No, but perhaps someone else did. But because of the attack he had to use magic in front of a muggle and break the breach of underage sorcery. He should be expelled from Hogwarts, but that’s still to be determined.”

You're quick to your feet after the rest of the news and instantly get drowned in worry for said boy and find the need to check on him the best way you could. You hardly even think to hear more of the news, if there was more, that instant just made your mind race to Harry; and that was your motivation to race to your room, slowing down just as you passed Narcissa and your father to greet him. “Hello, father!”

His head turned to follow you up the stairs and quickly come at you with a response. “Where are you going in such a hurry? You didn’t even have time to greet me properly.”

You sigh out heavily through your nose and stop in your tracks to trail back towards your father, offering him a quick smile before giving him a peck on the cheek. “Hello papa, it’s good that you’re home.”

“Hmm, go along now, but come back for dinner.”

You show him a beaming grin and then spin on your heels to retrace your steps back to your room, double checking the hall before closing your door, so that Draco wasn’t being sneaky and trying to find any dirt on you to go tell father.

Once you’re on your desk chair, you proceed to sit quickly and clumsily get out a small piece of parchment and a quill to write to Harry.

Dear, Harry,

I’ve heard the news of what happened to you, and I couldn’t wait until we returned to school to have to check on you, so I’m sending you another letter this week.

The way I heard the news was in the matter of eavesdropping so I don’t know much, but I think I know enough. I hope you’re doing okay, I’ve never faced Dementors, but I know you have so that’s keeping me from thinking the worst. if you have the chance to write back, do so as soon as you can with news of your well-being, or else I think I won’t sleep with the worry that’ll grow.

And maybe to ease your own worry, I also do have hope you’ll return to school, they can’t expel you for something that wasn’t your fault. So remain hopeful Harry. If you want more updates on what the ministry thinks, remember that you can always ask me and I’ll get whatever information I can from what I can hear.

Lastly to not make this any longer, good job! As unfortunate as it is, today’s attack was your second time defeating them, so I think that deserves some recognition!

With love, your friend, Y/N Malfoy.

Forcing yourself to leave this letter short, you end it before you could write a whole essay, rolling it up as small as you could and walking to your open window to attach it to your eagle-owl Athena. “I know I can always count on you girl, so please take this letter to Harry as fast as you can. And remember, remain undetected.”

Athena voices a soft ‘oohu’ before leaning in so you’d pet the top of her head before she flew off to do as she was asked; disappearing into the darkening, sweet smelling evening. Leaving you to wait, and wait for what seemed hours. Having to distract yourself with going down to dinner, but hardly even being able to concentrate on what was talked about around the table as your mind only worried for that awaited reply.

And before, in days, weeks and the few months that passed this summer, after Harry sent his first letter to you and you sent one back, that cycle started, you waited for a reply after you sent a letter. Yet the anticipation was never so deeply developed as it was today. Before you could wait to hear back from him, after all you didn’t want to raise suspicion, but today was different, this letter contained important matters that couldn’t wait for some other time. You wanted answers. And yet they took forever to arrive. Not until almost midnight as you were falling asleep on your desk chair.

And once the news thankfully did arrive, you ran the fastest you had ever done to meet your owl, almost ripping the letter attached to her leg.

Y/N,

You’re always so kind, so to put you at ease, I’m alright. My cousin Dudley, not so much though.

Regardless, thank you for believing in me, it seems from the past couple letters I’ve received today that no one has.You’re the first one to even congratulate me on winning against dementors in fact, so thank you, I appreciated that.

It seems that's all I have been saying to you all summer though.

But that’s because you’re the only person I’ve really talked to.You’re the only person who ever writes me with more than just a few bleak sentences.You’ve become a true friend to me and again I appreciate it.

And regarding your offer to help inform me with the news about myself, I’d like that. But if at any time it gets too hard just leave it as it is, okay?

I’ll hopefully see you when we return to school.

Harry.

A relieved smile grows on your face and you sit back in your chair and fold the letter back up to tuck it safely with the rest of his and Fred’s letters.

Now with that worry done with, all you had to worry about was what else you could hear. Which at the end of the day wasn’t a lot. The daily prophet seemed to be for once oblivious on news regarding Harry Potter, nothing new was reported, nothing about his attack, or the aftermath of the attack. All the news you received was from your father, but that too wasn’t a lot. You tried to get more news from Harry, but that end was cut off. The three days following the events, you tried to report to him with the little things you heard, but Athena returned with your same letter untouched. You tried the next day, but that too was returned.

It was odd.

All you had to rely on now was your father.

“So, father, what's on the news on Harry Potter's trial?” You ask innocently.

“I hope he gets expelled and has time in Azkaban.” Draco interjects with a smug grin.

You shoot a discreet glare before looking back at your father who remained serious. “Harry Potter, did not get expelled, nor did he get time in Azkaban,”

At the news you express a soft relieved sigh and take a sip of your drink to hide the fact that you were smiling.

“He will continue going to school because his charges were cleared.”

Draco scoffs and grips tightly onto his fork. “But he broke the law, he should be punished.”

“Should’ve. But Dumbledore was at his side.”

Your eyes study them both before you shift your gaze down to your food and add a daring comment before taking a bite of your food. “Well, I don’t think that would be fair, he was attacked, he was simply defending himself. How would you like it if you got put in a cell because you defended yourself, Draco?”

All three pairs of eyes flew to you at the sound of your comment and silence overtook the dining table for a moment. When you looked up you simply shrugged while you swallowed the food in your mouth.

Once Draco fully understood your comment he scoffs again and doesn’t think much of the comment. “Well I think, Potter, just summoned the dementor and then attacked it because he knew everyone would talk about it. He just wanted more popularity.”

Your gaze narrows on your brother and you set your fork down to argue. “You really think that? You think he summoned those horrible monsters just to gain popularity?”

“Yes.” Draco shrugs with his smug smile glued to his face.

Just as you’re about to shoot back, you’re interrupted by your father. “And does it matter if he, or did not summon them himself, y/n? He’s below us and shouldn’t be a topic that has you arguing with your brother.”

You swallow thickly and lower your gaze as you offer him one small nod. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“Regardless. Kids how would you both like it if next summer instead of coming home you two went out of the country on a nice vacation?” Narcissa finally gets to interject with her voice sounding a bit shaky.

Both Draco look at her and then meet each other’s gaze for a brief moment, both finding it strange that she would suggest it, Narcissa was always so eager to see you both return from school, especially during the summer since your stay at home lasted longer than two weeks. She hardly liked being apart from either of you, it was at times overbearing, but it was at times also sweet. So her suggesting for the both of you to leave without having the chance to see her was completely off putting. “But—”

“Narcissa, we’ve talked about this,” your father cuts you off, “they’re not little children anymore. They won’t escape the reality of what we’re facing, they’re not cowards.”

“But they’re children, our children. I can’t let them fight for him, Lucius. They’re just children.”

“And we’re also Malfoys, how would it look like if they just ran away? They have to make this family proud.”

Once again, just like many times this summer after the dark lord returned, you’ve found Narcissa and your father arguing more than you’ve ever heard them argue. Usually always about the same topic, Draco and you. Which always leads to the both of you walking away where you couldn’t hear them.

This time is no different, you look to Draco to meet his gaze and point your head to the hall so he’d follow as you both quietly stood from your chairs and slipped away. Walking in silence until nothing was heard but each other’s footsteps inside the corridors of your dimly lit halls.

“They can’t seem to stop arguing.” Draco says in a much less smug voice than what he used moments ago.

You look to your side to see his shoulders were low and his eyes were unfocused. “Yeah, but they’ll stop soon. Once they come to an agreement.”

Draco manages a soft scoff and feigns to be more confident than he currently looked. “Well I can decide for them, I'll work with the dark lord like father, I’m ready.”

This time you scoff and raise your brow at him. “You are?”

“Yes, just like you.”

Your eyes instantly fly to him and you frown. “I’m not ready.” Draco looks at you and his confidence falters. “I don’t want to be a death eater, I agree with our mum.”

Draco’s lips part and he stays quiet for a brief second, he balls his fists and his eyebrows furrow as he glares at the ground before stepping out into the garden. Not daring to look at you as he tried to argue. “You’re scared. Just like her. But we’re not kids anymore.”

“She’s worried.” You correct him. “It’s okay to be scared, Draco, none of it is easy.”

Draco puts his hands in his pants pockets and looks to the hedges ahead that were lit by the lamps above, he tries to hide the fact that he was scared, that the topic of the dark lord scared him, but you were no fool, you could see right through him.

“So what are you going to run?”

“Not without you.”

Draco’s eyes snap to you and his gaze narrows on you, his lips twitch, but he’s quick to hide any sort of indication of a smile by looking away and simply continuing with his stubbornness. His reaction however makes you smile and playfully hit his shoulder with yours before adding one last bit and finishing with that topic already. “If you go, I go. Simple as that. Just because we may fight doesn’t mean I won’t have your back, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Draco rolls his eyes, making you smile wider.

——

It felt exciting being back on the train that went to Hogwarts, it felt exciting being away from home and finally getting to reunite with your friends and Fred; with Harry. You had been counting the hours since you had woken up until you would finally get here. That feeling was so strange since when you would go to Durmstrang you dreaded waking up to head to school.

Now you can't think of anything better. Hogwarts truly felt like a home away from home.

When you had gotten on the train albeit, since Draco had no recollection of all the torment from last year, it was hard convincing him that you were okay sitting somewhere else that wasn’t near him. As tough as he acted, he liked having you around, he liked showing you off like a proud brother. It was admirable, but you've been apart from your friends for too long and stuck inside a house with Draco for longer. Plus he loathed your friends, he didn’t know it was those friends you were saving a compartment for and he didn’t need to know. You’d deal with that headache later.

Now you counted the minutes—

Before you could finish your thought, a sudden loud crack goes off in front of you, making you jump off your seat and look to the spot where the noise originated from, to see two redheads suddenly in front of you with happy, mischievous grins on their face. “Malfoy!”

You hold onto your chest after your yelp and glare at them both, forgetting the greeting you and planned for them. “Well that just answered my question.” You say through gritted teeth.

“What no welcoming hug, or a happy smile for your best friends?” George remarks sarcastically, trying his hardest not to smile at your still frightened state.

You close your book and shake your head. “No, that was thrown out the window the moment you both chose to scare me.”

Fred chuckles and takes a seat beside you, wrapping his arm around you and continuing to tease you. “We saw you through the window while we were walking to the train,”

“And thought we’d show off the fact that we can apparate now.” George finishes as he sits at your other side.

You roll your eyes. “Show offs.”

Both brothers just grin and you continue to look at both, noticing the change in their appearance. You grin brightly and stand to get a better view. “You two got hair-cuts!”

“Yeah,” Fred says, beginning to smugly brush his fingers through his hair.

“We thought you’d never notice.” George continues.

“Well they look great, they suit you both.”

“But who pulls it off the best?” George asks, “be honest. And no pity votes for your boyfriend, now.”

Fred scoffs and shrugs. “It’s not a pity vote if she likes it better on me. Now, darling choose.”

Your eyes drift to both Fred and George for a brief moment before a smirk tugs on your lips and you simply shrug. “Like I said, I like them on the both of you. I won’t choose.”

Fred and George groan and just as they’re going to protest, three others come into the compartment. Your smirk falters and a smile threatens to show as you see Harry walk in after Ron and Hermione.

“Y/N!” Hermione greets excitedly, instantly throwing her arms around you. You return the embrace and her bright smile.

“Hello, Hermione, it’s so good seeing you again.”

“You too,” Hermione breaks away and walks back to sit beside Ron. “I was excited to see you, I hope your summer went well.”

“It went...okay,” you scoff, sitting back down in between the twins and focusing on Harry. “Hi Harry.”

Harry’s distant gaze looks away from the window and lands on you, seeming to take some time to really grasp who he was seeing until several minutes passed. “Y/N, hi.” A blush grows on his cheeks and he shifts in his seat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t write back if you sent me a letter after my last one, but I was well, busy with my trial and all.”

“Oh,” you wave off, “I understand, I imagined so. But didn’t I tell you; I knew you were going to return to school. I should’ve bet on it.” You grin, unknowingly catching everyone off guard with your conversation with Harry. “Are you okay, though?”

Harry hesitates, but he chooses to nod. Not really convincing you, but not leaving you a chance to follow up on his hesitation. “Yeah, I’m okay now. Are you? I mean, I remember you mentioned about your father and Narcissa arguing all the time.”

Your eyes widened at his comment and they briefly flicker to Fred; who you hadn’t mentioned about your father, or Narcissa arguing in your letters during the summer. You didn’t mean to leave it out and leave him in the dark when he would ask if everything was fine, but it just felt easier to talk about that with Harry.

With Fred, well it was all lighthearted and fun, while with Harry...well it could be the same, but it was also more serious. It just wasn’t the same.

“Oh,” you try to brush his comment off smoothly, “yeah, I’m fine.”

You avert your gaze and look to Hermione and then twins. Choosing to leave the letter talk for some other time and focusing instead on her and the twins the rest of the way to Hogwarts.

——

“Good evening children!” Dumbledore greets as he takes his usual spot by the podium, making you take your last bite of food before giving him your wavered attention. “Now we have two changes in staffing this year. We are pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who’ll be taking care of magical creatures while Professor Hagrid is on temporal leave. Now, we also wish to welcome our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Dolores Umbridge. And I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing the Professor good luck.” He pauses for everyone to clap before continuing, “as usual our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me—”

The sudden sound of a very squeaky clearing of the throat catches your attention, just like it had with the rest of the students. Where there had been some murmurs here and there, now there was total silence at the sound of the new professor in all bubble gum pink suddenly, and surprisingly interrupting Professor Dumbledore. It makes your curiosity heighten and your head raise so you could see her fully standing up from chair and begin to walk to the podium.

“Thank you Headmaster for those kind words of welcome.” She softly says. “And how lovely to see all your bright, happy faces smiling up at me...”

You scoff and pinch your eyebrows at her absurd and daring assumption.

“I’m sure we’re all going to be very good friends.”

Your eyebrows raise and a smirk appears on your lips as you try hard not to laugh, feeling the twins lean back towards you from their spots in their assigned table to both simultaneously add a sarcastic remark that made you snicker. “That’s likely.”

Albeit at the quiet and private comment the twins made, the pink lady looks to the three of you and shoots you a glare, whilst her smile that she carried seemed to have more hatred behind it than her actual glare. “The ministry of magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be a vital importance. Although each headmaster has brought something new to this historic school, process for the sake of process, must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be prohibited.” Professor Umbridge ends her speech with a giggle before walking back to her seat, letting you grin and lean back towards the twins to add one last comment regarding her.

“Well this year ought to be fun.”

The twins lean back and even if you couldn’t see it, they both smirked as they both simultaneously respond, “wickedly fun.”

.

.

.

.

Tagged- @peter-laufeyson , @swiftlymoniquesblog , @spideyyypeter , @gsvshsjsbs, @accio-prozac , @cherriesanwine , @kokomaesadie , @april-14-blog , @prettypinkpeachh , @pest-ill-ence , @ilovespideyyy , @m3ssytrash , @hogwarts-babe-blog , @yodaboo

[ejzah]

Prompt: Ola.Meu nome é Claudia e eu sempre acompanho suas fanfics por aqui. Gostaria que vc escrevesse uma fanfic sobre a volta de David Kessler e a forma como Kensi e Deeks vão enfrentar isso

Google translation, Portuguese to English: Hello, my name is Claudia and I always follow your fanfics here. I would like you to write a fanfic about the return of David Kessler and the way Kensi and Deeks will face it

A/N: Hi Claudia! Thank you so much for your support. Yours is the first request I’ve received in another language, which is quite exciting for me. Since I’m only fluent English, I used google translate for your prompt. Hopefully the translation is accurate. I’ve taken a few liberties with this prompt. Sorry for the essay length note.

***

End It

“When did you get so strong?” Kensi gasped, desperately trying to free a hand to grab at Deeks’ arm as they grabbed on floor. Of course he’d always been strong, but she’d usually been able to beat him before.

“Three months with nothing to do but workout,” he answered, holding her arms behind her back as he tried to force her onto her stomach. “And FLETC. You should try it sometime, it’ll really get you in shape.”

She glared at him even though he couldn’t see it and redoubled her efforts. It wasn’t just that he was stronger, but he knew just about every move in her playbook which meant he could easily anticipate her plan.

“You are such an ass.” He just laughed at her frustration, the sound slightly breathless, proving that he was putting in some effort to keep her in place. She purposely pressed up against him, rolling her hips as much as she could and was rewarded with a gasp.

“Oh, you’re evil,” he breathed, not resisting when she pulled her arms free and rolled him onto his back.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, hovering over him. She saw his eyes drift down to the low crossover bodice of her sports bra.

“Not a chance.” He tugged her head down as she rose up to meet his lips. Just as they touched, Eric darted into the room.

Kensi lifted her head, expecting a comment about their current position, but his expression was completely serious. Deeks must have noticed it too because he sat up, gently pushing Kensi off his lap

“Guys, you need to get up in OPS right now. It’s Kessler,” Eric told them tersely, his fingers clenching anxiously.

***

“I don’t want to go back into hiding,” Kensi said, sitting on the edge of her desk and speaking in a low tone. Deeks stood in front of her, his thighs brushing her knees. The contact was comforting, needed after the last half hour.

Kessler had been inside their house. They weren’t sure how he’d breached their security, but he’d made no effort to hide. It was disconcerting, sickening, to watch him walking through their rooms, touching their things.

Callen wanted them to go to another safe house immediately. Fatima and Rountree would grab a few things for them and then provide security.

“It won’t be permanent,” Deeks reminded her.

“This time.” She pressed her lips together, feeling the same sense of frustration she’d expressed to Deeks a few weeks before. As much as she wished it wasn’t true, Kessler was in her mind. And when he wasn’t, he was disrupting their lives in some other way.

“Maybe this will be the last time,” Deeks suggested encouragingly, shrugging. She could tell he was trying to be positive and hide his own fear and need to protect her. Tilting her head, she took his hand, giving it a little shake.

“Babe, we both know that’s not going to happen. As soon as we go into hiding, so will Kessler,” Kensi stated. “And because he’s been pardoned, the team can’t legally seek him out. Not for this.”

Deeks closed his eyes, acknowledging her words with a nod of his head.

“I know. So what do you want to do?”

“Well...” She grabbed both of his hands now, drawing him closer. “Remember when you said you help me stop him?”

“Of course. And I will always be by your side, no matter what, but if we actively hunt him down, we’d probably be told to stand down or get arrested.” Deeks reminded her. “Not that I still wouldn’t do it with you.”

She smiled slightly, for the first time since they’d found out. Leaning forward, she kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I appreciate your willingness to break the law for me, but that’s not what I’m suggesting,” she said, hesitating before she added, “Instead of seeking him out or hiding from him, we wait for Kessler to come to us.”

“So basically make ourselves bate.” Deeks sighed, his eyebrows furrowing. “That has the potential to be really dangerous, Kens. We’ll have to be even more on guard every moment of every day.”

“We already are. And if it works, Kessler will finally be out of our lives. Plus it will be on our terms, not his.” She waited a moment and then asked, “So what do you think?”

Deeks didn’t answer right away, moving back slightly and hooking his thumb in his pocket as he rubbed his hand over his mouth. She could tell just how conflicted he was. His urge to protect her warring with his absolute hatred of Kessler.

“It’s not my favorite plan ever,” Deeks admitted, pressing against the desk once more and leaning his head against hers. “But I know that if we don’t do something, we’ll never move on with our lives. So, yes, let’s set a trap for Kessler. Let’s draw him in and send the creep back to prison once and for all.”

Kensi let out a breath. Relieved even though she was admittedly scared.

“Together.” She reaffirmed.

“Always,” Deeks said, linking their fingers and raising her hand to his lips. “In this and everything else.”

[nah-she-didnt]

The Surprise

Read on AO3!

I’m trying hard to write at least one short drabble a day for the first week that I have my new fanfic page. So far I’ve focused on the marauders, but I’m hoping to get a Romione fic that I’ve had in my brain for years down soon! This is my fourth fic, so hopefully I can keep it up for the next three days (yikes, we’ll see). Thanks for reading!

---

“Psst. Evans.” 

“Evanssss.” 

“OI! RED!”

Lily slammed her book down on her library desk. “Bloody hell, I’m trying to study! What do you all want?”

Sirius grinned and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry! But we had to get your attention somehow.” 

“And now you have it,” said Lily, checking her watch, “for exactly thirty seconds before I have to get back to this potions essay.” 

“Hang on, do we have thirty seconds starting now or thirty seconds starting when you started talking?” asked Peter, looking confused. 

“Twenty seconds,” said Lily in a bored voice. 

“Right, we’ll get right to it,” whispered James. “We need your help for Remus’ birthday.” 

Lily sat up a little, her interest piqued. Out of the four marauders she found Remus to be the most tolerable by far. They’d become fast friends in third year when they bonded over muggle records (Remus’ mother was a muggle with fantastic taste) and had grown closer this year when Remus stepped in to be Lily’s potions partner. Neither Mary nor Dorcas had continued with Potions to NEWT level, and Lily couldn’t very well work with Severus after he called her such a foul name in front of the entire school.

She sat back into her chair and folded her hands into her lap. “I’m listening.” 

James grinned. “Thought you might. Now, we need to get him out of the common room on the night of his birthday. Do you think you could rope him into some boring prefect duties or potions-nerd club for an hour or so on Friday at around nine?” 

Lily narrowed her eyes. “First of all, prefect duty is not boring, it’s a very important practice at Hogwarts dating back hundreds of years--” 

“No, because that’s not boring at all,” interrupted Sirius.

Lily narrowed her eyes even further. “And second, the potions club doesn’t meet on Friday nights. Not that you’d know, Potter. Last I checked I was still top of the year in Potions.” 

James sighed. It was true that he and Lily had battled ferociously for top spot in every class since first year, but he had never bested her at potions. “Fine. prefect duty then, nine to ten-ish on Friday night. What do you say?”

Lily considered his proposal for a moment. On the one hand, she liked Remus, and very much wanted him to have a perfect birthday. On the other hand, she suspected that she knew why James wanted Remus out of the common room for an hour on the eve of his seventeenth birthday. 

“So let me get this straight,” said Lily, eyeing all three boys as she spoke, “you want me to tell Remus that he has fake prefect duties on Friday night so that you can set up for a party in the Gryffindor common room? A party that will certainly violate school rules, the very rules that prefects are meant to uphold?”

“I told you she wouldn’t go for it,” groaned Sirius. Quick as a flash, James dropped to one knee and grabbed Lily’s hand dramatically. 

“Evans, please,” he implored, “it has to be you. We’ve tried and failed to surprise him on his birthday for the last five years! We’ve become boring and predictable! We need you to do this so that he doesn’t suspect that we’re throwing him this party. It’s for his own good, really.”

“Oh, so since I’m so boring, he wouldn’t dream of suspecting my part in all this?” Lily asked indignantly.

“Yes,” chorused Peter and Sirius. James shot them dirty looks. 

“No, of course not,” James lied easily, “we just know you can pull it off. Come on, Evans, you like Remus, Remember? Remember how much he isn’t an ‘arrogant bullying toerag’ like me?”

“Someday you’re going to have to actually accept my apology for calling you that,” Lily muttered, though she could feel her resolve breaking down. 

“So is that a yes then?” James asked, excitement growing in his eyes. 

“Well...” Lily paused, then sighed loudly, “yes, it’s a ‘yes,’ but please--” Before she could finish her sentence, James had let out an exclamation of joy and kissed the back of her hand. “Lily, you’re a bloody lifesaver, you are.” 

“Yes, well,” said Lily, who was trying very hard not to blush at James’ kiss, “if you destroy the Gryffindor common room and get hauled in front of McGonagall you’d better tell her I had nothing to do with it.” 

“How gallant of you,” drawled Sirius, but he was smiling, “seriously though, Evans, thank you. We might have an actual chance to surprise him this year.” 

“I doubt it. He knows you lot would never pass up an opportunity to debauch the whole of Gryffindor house.” 

“True!” piped up Peter with a mischievous grin, “we do take great pride in our duty to cause a scene wherever we go. Anyway, we best be off. We need to make a run to pick up supplies for the party. Thanks again, Evans!” and with that, Peter and Sirius turned and walked away from Lily’s table. 

Lily eyed James suspiciously. “How are you supposed to pick up supplies for the party? It isn’t a Hogsmeade weekend.” 

James winked. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” 

Lily rolled her eyes, trying to suppress the small smile that formed on her face at his words. “Well then, I suppose you should be off. Lot’s to do before Friday, I’m sure.” 

“You are correct, lovely Lily. Ta!” James rose to his feet, bowed deeply, then turned on his heel and skipped off to join his friends. 

Lily sighed as she put her forehead on the table and covered her head with her arms. If James Potter got her called in front of McGonagall for this party she’d never forgive him. Although, a tiny part of her knew that wasn’t true. 

[ibijau]

The modern xisangyao I’ve been talking about yay /o/ also on AO3 (and big thanks to the xisang discord for listening to my ramblings a while back + providing a lot of ideas for this!)

Lan Xichen hangs the phone and slumps against the back of his office chair. It is unusual enough to catch the attention of his assistant who looks up from his laptop with a concerned noise.

"Something wrong?" Mo Xuanyu asks

Lan Xichen nods weakly. "It was a fake after all." 

Mo Xuanyu immediately understands what he means, and relaxes upon learning it is something he wouldn't count as important. To Lan Xichen though, it is devastating. That painting has been all he's been thinking about for weeks at this point. A lost Nie Huaisang resurfacing is always exciting for the very small circle of people who care about these things. And Lan Xichen cares, of course.

He wrote his thesis on the master, and he has a deal for a book so more people can learn about that forgotten genius. He has been called the leading expert on the Tang era scholar, though it isn't hard when hardly anyone else bothers with him. 

That's why when 'Winter moonlight in Qinghe', long thought lost to a fire early in the last century, resurfaced on the market, the buyer turned to Lan Xichen to ensure that it is the real deal. It is well known that there's a staggering number of fake Nie Huaisang paintings out there. One of many oddities about the man’s work, since his fame never rose high enough to be so eagerly copied by other artists of all periods, and his paintings have rarely sold for a price that would justify the attention of skilled forgers. 

Lan Xichen is also trying to write a paper on that, when his book and teaching leave him the time. 

It had been a treat to behold 'Winter moonlight in Qinghe'. There are no known copies of that one, only descriptions which do not do it justice. Lan Xichen could have cried at those delicate lines, fraught with inexplicable melancholy, like a last goodbye to a beloved home. 'Winter moonlight' is the last known work of Nie Huaisang before he dropped off the record, well into his eighties or possibly his nineties, and Lan Xichen did get a sense of finality upon seeing it. It wasn't just a painting, it was a farewell. 

As to its authenticity, Lan Xichen had no doubt at the time. The lines, the subject, the sense of light and darkness, everything was perfectly fitting with the master's other works. It really had to be the lost masterpiece, the culmination of a great artist’s life. Lan Xichen had only recommended further analysis to confirm it, certain that it was the true 'Winter moonlight'.

The painting's owner has just called to explain that the paper is too young by a few centuries. 

Lan Xichen is distraught to say the least. It's not that he is above mistakes, he is only human after all, but he was convinced that this painting was real. 

It's the thing with Nie Huaisang though. Not only has he attracted many counterfeiters over the centuries, they are always forgers of rare talent. 

"Well, that's disappointing," Mo Xuanyu agrees, more out of politeness than anything else. "Not really surprising though. How many fakes does it make this year?" 

"Three. No, two, 'man with rabbits' was tested last month and confirmed as being authentic after all. He painted that one in his youth so his style wasn't quite settled yet, but the paper and ink are right and it does look exactly like that copy they have in Beijin."

Mo Xuanyu rolls his eyes, and turns back to his laptop. 

"I don't know why anyone bothers with that guy's paintings," he huffs, having never shared Lan Xichen's passion for the artist. "Most of the ones we have are fake."

"The estate sale that got us those two fakes also produced several confirmed ones," Lan Xichen protests mildly. “It’s a shame 'Winter moonlight in Qinghe' turned out to be fake, but apparently ‘Mountains longing for snow’ has been confirmed as real, even if it didn’t sell. I’d give anything to have a look at that one too.”

Mo Xuanyu, who clearly lost interest in the conversation the instant he realised it was about an artist Lan Xichen has heard him describe as mediocre at best, turns his full attention back to his laptop when he sound warns him he has a new message.

“Then do that,” he mutters without conviction. “Go have a look or something.”

Lan Xichen stops breathing for a second, and stares at his assistant as if Mo Xuanyu had just handed him the key to the secret of the universe.

It is always a little awkward to contact owners of paintings once they are in private collections, and Lan Xichen has learned the hard way to avoid it. Some collectors are rather defensive, and a few don't want it publicised that they own rare art. But surely the antiquarian who currently holds those works wouldn’t mind letting him have a look? His interest in them, if publicised, could certainly create a ‘buzz’ of some sort in the small community of Nie Huaisang enthusiasts. It is for that sort of things that his little brother has convinced him to get a social media presence after all, so why not use it to his advantage?

Already recovering from his disappointment over 'Winter moonlight in Qinghe', Lan Xichen gets to work and starts looking for information about whoever currently holds those unsold paintings. It takes a surprisingly long while, but he eventually discovers that the series of paintings was bought by a man named mister Shanzi, apparently after the death of their former owner whose identity has not been revealed.

It is not the first time Lan Xichen encounters the name Shanzi. The man is a reputed antiquarian and art dealer. Part of his reputation comes from rarely ever being fooled by fakes and copies, and for often being the one to spot lost works from obscure artists. If mister Shanzi was fooled by 'Winter moonlight in Qinghe', then Lan Xichen feels a little better for his own mistake. The copy really had to be excellent.

The problem with mister Shanzi being involved is that he is not an easy man to contact. In this digital age, mister Shanzi is an art dealer without an online presence of any sort, though after some probing, Lan Xichen learns from one auction house that in recent years mister Shanzi has hired an assistant, and that young man is slightly less elusive than his employer. Not by much though, and it takes all of Lan Xichen’s persuasion and good reputation to obtain the email of that assistant.

It would be an understatement to say that the assistant in question is unhappy to have had his contact leaked to a stranger. The first email Lan Xichen gets in answer to his painfully polite enquiry is probably the most passive-agressive thing he has ever beheld, and that includes family dinner with his father and his mother’s new girlfriend. 

If it were earlier in his career, if he were a few years younger, Lan Xichen would have given up at that point, fearful to disturb. But he’s learned to fight for what he wants when it is needed, and what he wants, right now, is a chance to look at paintings he will otherwise never see unless by some miracle a museum in the country buys them… and he knows how unlikely that is. Nie Huaisang doesn’t attract the crowds and academics.

Not yet, anyway. Lan Xichen’s book will change that.

And the more of Nie Huaisang’s work he gets to see with his own eyes, the easier that book will be to write.

So Lan Xichen replies to that unpleasant email with an essay detailing his hopes of attracting attention to his work, the possibility that prices might rise in the future, but above all his interest in an artist who deserves to be admired along with more famous names.

To his surprise, it works.

Mister Shanzi’s assistant’s reply states that he also has deep admiration for the forgotten master, and that his employer has a private collection of Nie Huaisang’s works. He is unsure whether mister Shanzi would be willing to show those, since they are stored in his own home, but perhaps an arrangement could be made. Hopefully, Lan Xichen might agree to meet in a few days at a café near the university where he works, so that they can more easily discuss what he would need for his book.

Lan Xichen readily agrees, and the day of their meeting cannot come soon enough.

When it does come, at last, Lan Xichen is almost half an hour early at the café. He tries, at first, to grade some essays from a class he teaches, but quickly finds that he cannot focus on that at the moment. It is ridiculous to be so nervous over this, he’s met with plenty of antiquarians and art dealers before, he’s been invited to check private collections as well, but on that late afternoon, his skin is buzzing with excitement, as if he were on the verge of something extraordinary.

That excitement spikes up when an elegant young man enters the café, browsing the table with searching eyes, only to smile when he spots Lan Xichen. The young man, who might be one of the most beautiful people Lan Xichen has ever seen, quickly gives him a short bow.

“You must be Lan Xichen?” he asks.

Lan Xichen can only nod, and gestures to invite the gorgeous stranger to sit across from him.

"I'm mister Shanzi’s assistant,” the other man says as he takes a seat. “Meng Yao, at your service."