#i could actually use my degree and coherently break this thought down

[roseamongroses]

ruth e carter always putting shuri in high collars tops + chokers vs. leittia always having her collar bones out is very facinating to me in terms of character costuming vs celebrity styling and what story they're trying to tell with her silhouette ,,,like idk ive been thinking about it a lot. also she's hot and im gay

[box-dwelling]

So I was thinking the one thing I can use my degree to contribute to this fandom with is to include whatever the fuck the fake chemical Ema mentions in turnabout corner is and it's actually funny as fuck. Anyway grain of salt, I'm still in the process of getting my degree and won't be certified scientist for a few years so like, I may and probably will fuck up but hey this is a fake chemical and it's mostly just cute wordplay so.

The chemical is hydroxyacelunodosetrase.

So I'm going to break down the boring bits first. So hydroxy is an OH group. Very common. Insanely. Basically just here to denote that this is a chemical to lay people because of how common this is. Acel is a little weird. But Ace normally means a hydrocarbon chain with a length of 2 and sometimes you do need to add on stuff for pronouncablity but I think it's a deliberate misspelling (because ace like ace attorney) of an acyl group which is a C=O group but honestly outside of very specific circumstances specific it's not thaaaat common in chemical names because it doesn't provide as much utility as denoting a more specific subset of acyl groups like a ketone, aldehyde, ester or carboxylic acid group but it is still used especially when denoting ions or free radicals or especially when bonded to a halogen. So the fact it's needing to be notated puts my lab alarm off screaming "shit look into this before using it, it could be dangerous" because that normally means its reactive as fuuuuuck. Acyl groups as a whole are pretty reactive, that double bond to oxygen likes very much to no longer be a double bond but there are a lot of configurations that will make it a little more stable. If it need to be notated as such it's probably not in one of those. Very funny given its used in context as a threat.

The only other part of it that is chemically coherent is the trase suffix. (Edit edit fuck I think what I'm thinking of is ase as a suffix which means enzyme. I do not know where the tr is coming from) It's I believe common in enzymes but I am not a biochemist nor very good at biochemistry and I cannot find a source on Google backing that up and it is just coming from my brain so I may well be wrong. What matters though is how it's pronounced. Which is the same as Tres. Which makes the last 2 bits make more sense. Chemistry uses Greek numbering. The rabbit hole of chemical naming is deep and I'm not getting into it because there are multiple naming systems and one of them is standardised and the other one is actually the thing everyone uses. But Uno is not a thing in chemical names. Neither is dose but it's probably ment to be like a dose as in a drug dose. Again not found in the name it's self but I think that's why it's spelt like that. But the upshot is that the last 3 parts are pronounced Uno dos Tres which is obviously 123 in Spanish. It's cute.

So basically in conclusion it's not a real thing at all. It's all word play and it's would probably be pretty nasty even if it wasn't. I think it's cute. I'm glad some thought was put into this fake chemical instead of just a keyboard spam.

[pumpkinpaix]

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.

[shoutaaizawas]

↳ pro!hero bakugou katsuki x reader → heal

summary: you’re bakugou’s best friend and work partner and you’ve been in love with him for years. after his girlfriend cheats on him you’re left to pick up the pieces.  tags/warnings:  hurt/comfort, fluff, angst with a happy ending, very minor injury (blood), cheating (not by bakugou or reader), unrequited love (spoiler but not really) word count: 3,804  a/n:  this was my first time writing any x reader. hope you guys enjoy it!

You loved Bakugou Katsuki. That was a fact that you had accepted a long time ago and you were now at peace with that. You had gone to school with him and once you both graduated you worked at the same agency. Your quirks were a good match so you had been working together ever since. When he started his own agency he took you with him.  

The thing is, you never told Bakugou that you loved him. He was always so focused you assumed that he wouldn’t want a relationship and frankly despite all the things you had accomplished you were self-conscious and it was hard to think Bakugou would ever settle for someone like you.

A few years ago Bakugou started dating. You could still remember the hurt that burned in your chest as you tried to play it off and tease him like everything was normal. You spent most nights crying yourself to sleep a few weeks after that day.

She was a civilian, who in your opinion was very unlikable. You knew it was petty and you should be more mature but there was something about her that felt off. You figured it was your jealousy. You recalled the time she had ended up in some trouble, you had been able to pull her to safety only. Not only did she not thank you but she gave you an attitude. You figured she didn’t like you because you spent so much time with Bakugou in and out of work. You could understand that to some degree but it didn’t hurt to pretend to be nice.

It was so much easier loving Bakugou from a distance when he was single, you could tell yourself that he would never date anyone or marry them and that being his best friend was the most anyone would ever have. If you could talk to him, joke with him, look after him from his side as a friend you were content.

With him dating the dull ache of unrequited love turned into a dagger in her chest, burning pain only intensified by any movement. You wondered if you should try dating around. Maybe you could find someone who liked you that you could fall in love with and forget about Bakugou. You never got around to it, every time you seriously considered it you thought it’d be unfair to whoever you dated. They deserved someone who truly loved them, not someone trying to put a bandage on a broken heart.

Last week you had caught Bakugou red-handed, a small velvet box in his pocket. Your heart dropped, you thought you had hit rock bottom but it turns out you could always go deeper.

“Is that what I think it is?” You asked, trying to play it off as teasing. You prayed he couldn’t hear the crack in your voice.

“Shut up, it’s none of your business.” He growled back but you knew it was just because he was embarrassed.

“I’m surprised I never saw you as the marriage type.” You tried to say in a nonchalant tone.

“We’re getting old. We have to settle down eventually.” He said. The words stung, you knew he meant them aimed towards himself but you couldn’t help the bile that rose in your throat. I would have settled down with you but now I can’t look at another man without comparing everything about them to you. Who could ever come close to the Bakugou Katsuki.

“Bakugou we’re twenty-six, we just barely became adults if we’re being honest.” You joked.

“Well, I don’t want to be an old parent.” He said, eyes scanning the streets for any trouble. Your heart dropped a little more.

You wondered if you were strong enough to stand by and watch the love of your life get married and have children with another woman. You wondered how long it would be until you had to find an excuse to move away.

“I’m gonna head home since patrol is over.” You said trying to keep your voice steady.

“You aren’t going back to the agency?” He asked giving you an odd look, sensing something off. You knew each other too well.

“No, I have plans later I need to get home fast. I’ll get my paperwork done tomorrow, boss.” You lied about the plans, you needed to get away fast.

It doesn’t get rid of the suspicious look on his face but he doesn’t question you further and you quickly make your exit, barely able to keep it together until you get out of sight. You duck into an alley as tears stream down your face.

You haven’t seen Bakugou today. That concerns you, he never misses work for anything. You can’t count how many times you’ve had to drag him home and force him into bed after he comes into work with a high fever. You make sure things are covered at the agency before heading over to his apartment. Your heart beats quick, he hasn’t replied to your texts. It’s hard to keep the worst-case scenario out of your head.

Knocking on the door to his apartment you get no reply. Pressing your ear to the door you can hear a commotion, fear grips you, and you almost kick the door down before your rational sense tells you to use the key he gave you.

Bakugou’s apartment is a war zone. Furniture is turned over, glass smashed across the ground. You can smell the familiar lingering scent of his quirk. You would have thought he had been robbed if it weren’t from the sound coming from the bedroom.

Opening the door to his bedroom it’s even worse in here somehow. Bakugou is currently smashing picture frames against the wall. It’s distressing to see him so upset and not have a clue what’s going on.

“Bakugou!” You shout hoping to get his attention but he’s blinded by his anger. You let out a huff of frustration before moving closer to him, grabbing his arm as he goes to slam the already mangled frame again.

You’re startled but not shocked as he turns around in the blink of an eye and grabs onto your bicep, fingers digging in you can feel your skin under his hand start to burn.

“Bakugou! Snap out of it!” You shout again. Recognition crosses his face and he looks a little more coherent. You’re waiting for him to say something but he drops to the ground like dead weight, his hands pressing into his palms. You kneel, careful of the glass on the ground.

“Bakugou? What happened?” You ask in a softer voice. He takes so long to reply that you wonder if he will answer.

“She cheated.” You can barely make out the words through his covered face.

“What?” You ask.

“She was cheating on me!” He yelled pulling his hands away, the anger returning. “She was cheating on me for months like it was some game. When I confronted her about it she didn’t even try to defend herself. She wasn’t even upset.”

“Bakugou, I’m so sorry.” Your heart is breaking but not for yourself, this time it’s for the man in front of you that looks broken. You realize that he has cuts all over his body from the damage done to the apartment. “C’mon.” You say holding your hand out to him.

He looks at you confused but takes it. You lead him to his bathroom, sitting him down on the edge of the tub. The first aid kit is under the bathroom sink, you had patched him up here before.

Returning to him you kneel on the ground in front of him. You begin cleaning the cuts that litter his arms, wiping up the blood covering his arms. You look up at him and his eyes look so empty as he stares at the ground past you. Your overwhelmed by the urge to take him in your arms but decide against it. No, you should patch him up first.

You put band-aids on the ones that need them and leave the smaller ones uncovered. You lean up so your eye level with him, he has a cut across his cheek. You’re careful as you dab at it with a cloth, he doesn’t react if it does hurt. You put a band-aid on it before looking him in the eyes, his gaze still on the floor.

It hurts you so much to see him like this, it breaks you. What you would give to have him insulting you about something dumb you did or yelling about how you left your coffee mug on his desk again. Anything other than the painful silence. You lift your hand and softly cup his unharmed cheek, his gaze slowly raises to meet yours. Your thumb gently strokes the skin there hoping that it will soothe him in any way he can be at the moment.

You finally lean forward and embrace him, pressing your face into his shoulder avoiding any of the cuts on him. Your arms circle around his torso and you squeeze him tightly. You wish you could hug him tight enough to put him back together. It takes a moment but he eventually rests his head against your shoulder and he returns the hug. His grip is tight on the back of your shirt and you know he’s trying to pull the broken pieces back together himself. I would do anything for you to make this pain stop, you think.

You don’t know how long you stay there, holding each other tight but eventually you decide you should leave. The last thing he needs is to be stuck in the apartment that he shared with his girlfriend, the one that was currently trashed.

“Let’s go to my place.” You offer. “You can stay as long as you want, you shouldn’t stay here.”

He nods and your stomach drops, normally he would protest even if he agreed with what you wanted to do. It made you feel sick that he gave in so easily. You nod back before standing up and going into his room. You grab a duffel bag and grab his clothes and other things he’ll need while away from his home. By the time you’re done, he’s standing there watching you wordlessly.

“Let’s go.” You say you take his hand in yours. You had known Bakugou for years and worked by his side for most of them, this wasn’t the first time you had held his hand but the conditions were usually different. Normally you were dangling off the edge of a building as he pulled you up or you were dragging him out of harm’s way.

Holding his hand now was different, you could actually take note of what it felt like. His hand was much larger than yours, the callouses on his hand rougher than your own. It was easy to pretend that the circumstances were different, that you were dragging him out of his apartment to your favorite place to grab dinner together instead of taking him home with you to help console him from what had happened.

The car ride is silent, he’s still processing everything that’s happened and you have no words to say. You know that he needs time to think about everything, you refuse to push him to talk. Growing up you had to if you ever wanted him to process his emotions but Bakugou had matured a lot as he grew up and you knew that when he was ready he would talk.

“Here, you can take a shower if you want or you can change into something less torn up.” You say as you press the bag of clothes into his arms. “I’m going to make us lunch.”

“I’m not hungry.” He says. His retort gives you hope that he’s beginning to return to himself and not the empty shell of person who sat on the edge of his tub.

“I doubt you ate breakfast, I know you probably don’t want to eat but I’m making food and you’re going to eat at least a little bit.” You say. He doesn’t argue again, he heads towards your bathroom needing no directions.

You’re glad that you went grocery shopping yesterday. Even more glad that you always make sure to keep the ingredients to make Bakugou’s favorite dish in your fridge in case of emergencies. Or him demanding that you make it for him, as he does at times.

He’s in the shower for a long time. You’re finishing up lunch and you’re about to go check on him when you hear the water stop. You’re plating up the food when he walks into the kitchen wearing a fresh pair of sweat pants and a black shirt. His eyes are red but you don’t comment on it. You shove the bowl of food in his hands.

“Extra spicy, just how you like it.” You tell him as you grab your food. “Let’s sit down.”

You sit down on the couch in your living room eating in silence. Despite his denial of being hungry his food is gone in minutes. You grab his empty bowl from him to take it to the kitchen but before you can get up his hand is grasping your wrist. You look at him and his gaze is on the mark he left on your bicep when you pulled him out of his rage.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is raw and the guilt is clearer than day on his face. He slowly reaches towards your arm, his thumb softly glides at the edge of the minor burn.

“It was an accident.” You tell him in the most genuine tone you can manage, he’s been through enough the last thing he needs is to feel guilty for this. “Besides, I can handle you.” You tease trying to lighten the mood. Your hand covers his own on your arm and you squeeze it to emphasize your point. His hand drops back to his lap after a moment and you leave for the kitchen.

When you return to the living room you see him sitting there, he looks less empty but more annoyed. You figure he’s had enough time to process most of his feelings.

“How did you find out?” You ask, testing the water. If he didn’t reply you’d know he wasn’t ready.

“She left her phone when she left for work, I grabbed it to give it to her before she got out of the building but I saw her notifications.” He said. Pain stings in your chest for him, you can’t imagine how upsetting that would be. “She came back for her phone and I confronted her.”

“What did she have to say?” You ask.

“She acted like she got caught sneaking a cookie before dinner, she barely even cared.” He said, anger returning to his tone. “She’s been with him for six months, she said that she was only ever with me for my money and status. She wanted someone she could brag about.”

“Bakugou,” You said putting a hand on his arm.

“I guess it’s only fair.” He scoffed. “I never loved her either. But I’m still pissed off she made a fool of me.”

“You didn’t love her?” You tried to keep your tone even but it comes out like an exclamation. “Bakugou, you were going to marry her!” You nearly shout. Had you really spend the last year suffering while Bakugou dated someone he didn’t even care about?

“No, it was just convenient.” He answered. “The person I loved, they would never want me. I figured I should just get over it and move on.” His gaze is on the floor.

Your sick again, he didn’t love his girlfriend but he loved someone else. You really couldn’t win, could you?

“Bakugou, why wouldn’t someone want you?” You ask. How could he believe that.

“I’m loud, angry, and rude.” He says. “I’m not good at relationships, I just screw everything up. She deserves someone who will make her happy not burden them with their crappy personality.”

“Don’t say that about yourself!” You scold him. “You’re an amazing man, you’re strong and determined. Even if you don’t show it like other people you care more than most people do about your friends. You would go to the ends of the earth to help them even if you don’t admit it. You’re the best hero I’ve ever seen. You’ve matured so much since we were in high school, you worked on yourself and became a better person. I’ve been by your side for years, don’t you dare say that you aren’t good enough. If anything, anyone you date will never be good enough for you. You’re the best man I’ve ever met, you deserve everything you want in the world.” You take a deep breath after your rant, it takes a moment to realize how much you spilled out.

His eyes are off the floor and he’s staring at you in shock. There’s something in his eyes you don’t recognize but he doesn’t say anything.

“Who’s the lucky lady?” You ask, trying to steel yourself for his answer. Whoever it was you would help him as much as you could to get their affections. It would kill you to watch him fall in love with someone else but more than anything you wanted to see him happy even if it cost you your own happiness.

“It’s you.” He says and the silence is deafening after his words. At first you think you misheard him. You feel dizzy at his admission. This had to be a dream, there was no way. “It’s always been you.”

“I-” You try to speak but there are no words. Your head is spinning, the world falling apart around you in the best of ways.

Bakugou moves slowly, one hand holding your face like it’s delicate glass, the other reaches behind you and pulls you softly to close the distance. He leans in, a breath in between you, you know he’s waiting for you to close the distance. To answer his confession without a word. Once your brain processes it all you lean in a little too excitedly almost knocking your forehead against his.

You move your arms around his shoulders as your lips meet.

With one action the dagger in your chest is suddenly gone and the pain there melts away. You feel like you’re submerged in warmth, laying in a grassy field in gentle sunlight. You kiss him until your lungs can’t take it anymore. As you part you stare into his eyes, they’re filled with so much warmth and love it makes you tear up. You lean back in for another kiss.

“Bakugou-” You say as you pull back.

“Katsuki.” He says. You had used his given name on occasion but it always felt too personal, your heart couldn’t take it.

“Katsuki-” You repeat, it feels right now. A small smile lights up his face, it’s like staring into the sun. “I love you, I’ve loved you since we were kids.”

“Me too.” He replies. You let out a laugh.

“We really wasted a lot of years.” You said, nose brushing against his, arms still around him. It was almost sad the time you could have spent happily together but you’re too excited by the years you’ll get to spend with him going forward.

“We did, I’m not going to waste any more time.” He said before moving in for another kiss.

Bakugou stays at your apartment for two weeks before he mentions moving into a new apartment. With your heart in your throat you offer for him to move in with you, he doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

You help him go through his stuff, tossing anything that was hers but she hadn’t taken or things that remind him of her. You stand at his side as he tosses the ring he bought for her off a bridge even though you told him he should just sell it. He refused, not caring about the money and definitely wanting to avoid the shame of selling an engagement ring.

He didn’t love her, he never did but he still bares the scars of her infidelity. His self-esteem in a relationship was already low but some days it feels even lower when he things about what happened. He knows you would never do the same but regardless you still hold him tighter on those days and you don’t hold back any of your love or admiration for him.

Sometimes he feels embarrassed that it went on so long without him knowing but you reassure him that the only person who should be embarrassed is her. You don’t call him a victim, no he would hate that, but you tell him that he deserves better. You can’t hold back your smile when he says he already has better now that you’re together.

You spend your workdays out on patrol together, your usual banter filling the day as you fight off any villains who dare make a mess in you territory. On your days off you spend time in each other’s arms, basking in the happiness you finally found together or out on dates. Sometimes he drags you hiking even though you hate the bugs and other times you make him go to theme parks and force a pair of mouse ears on him.

It doesn’t take long for Bakugou to propose. Your relationship had been so close for so many years that it becoming romantic didn’t change much. You already knew everything about each other, you knew how to work with each other at your best and your worst. Making it official was a natural step.

Watching him tear up as you walk down the aisle is something burned into your heart and mind and you refuse to let it go as long as you live. Spending the night dancing, eating, and drinking with your closest friends who all were relived you finally got together was an unforgettable time.

You lay beside Bakugou, arms wrapped around each other, legs tangled together. Your head rests on his chest, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat. You hold onto each other as if you would lose each other if you let go. You can’t get rid of the big smile on your face as his hands move lazily through your hair nearly lulling yourself back to sleep.

You love Bakugou Katsuki. That was a fact and you were more than happy to spend the rest of your life at his side not just as a friend or partner but as the love of his life and that made you happier than anything ever could.

[eggmarr]

cleopatra + diluc

i’ll be on time (143 event drabble)

pairing: diluc x gn!reader

warnings: diluc story spoilers, lovers to strangers, lots and lots of regret with a side of self deprecating thoughts from diluc and kaeya, slight allusions to alcoholism/someone is heavy drinking to forget, aggressive use of italics, for the love of god why did i procrastinate so hard on finishing this

a/n: so it turns out cleopatra is actually kinda sad- but like otherwise i hope you like it! and thank you for requesting something for my event :) also thank you to @xiaophobic and @pavo-ocell-me for helping me out with writing this!

songs: cleopatra by the lumineers

“Let’s run.”

“….What?”

His red-rimmed eyes look up at you from his spot on the floor, and you bend down to match his eye level with something in your eyes he’s never seen before.

(perhaps it’s something he’s just never noticed.)

“Mondstadt has only ever given us bad memories; why can’t we go make something better somewhere else?”

(he hates it when you fight, the tears prickling at both of your eyes are too painful to swallow.)

“Crepus would have wanted you to be happy!”

“Staying in Mondstadt will make me happier than I could ever be with you!”

(another promise, shattered in the wake of your disappearance from his life and swept away by the tides of his grief.)

The maids are forbidden from his father’s study, if only to save the footprints you tracked out after he let his emotions get the best of him.

He spends his time in the yards you would hide in, teasing voice calling his name from between the green vines winding up and down the wood. It echoes, much like the broken-hearted cries the maids pretend not to hear when he stomps up to his room with red-rimmed eyes.

(they were wrong; it doesn’t always get better with time.)

Kaeya finds him behind the tavern, a rare moment of silence broken only by shaking breath. The last time he’d seen him like this…

“You’re a certifiable mess, Master Diluc.”

He leans against the wall across, the shaking shoulders of such a social pillar almost ironic considering how the place was reversed all those years ago.

“Staying silent?” His tone is light, almost to an alarming degree when he sees the green bottles littered beside him. “Taking a bit of the merchandise too? You rascal-“

“Shut it, Kaeya. I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re never in the mood when you talk to me, that’s how our relationship works, right?”

Silence. Then, a sigh of what seems like defeat. The veil of red hair is pushed back, revealing the reddened cheeks and glazed eyes of a man who’s had one too many to drink.

“I’m certain you’re familiar with the entrance to the tavern? Charles will be quite happy to serve you all the drinks you wish if it will get you out of my face.”

“Mmm, tempting, but this is a much more interesting sight.” He kneels down, organizing the bottles so they don’t clink with each little movement and aggravate the headache surely brewing in that hard head of his. “I haven’t seen you this drunk since we snuck into the cellar when we were teenagers.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“And I’m the new grandmaster.”

He puts his head in his hands, groaning as Kaeya sits beside him on the rough cobblestone. He swishes one of the still closed bottles, popping it open easily and taking a swig.

“Snezhnayan vodka?” He coughed a bit at the burn, taking a deep breath in and out. Firewater lived up to its name; those who drink it regularly tend to have a lot of missing time. “How are you even coherent?”

“I’m the owner of the biggest winery company in Mondstadt. It would be unusual for me to not have built up a tolerance to most alcoholic drinks.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re the one drinking it. I didn’t take you for one to break promises, Diluc.”

The alcohol is forgotten as he leans back, raising an eyebrow at his disheveled state.

“….Why are you here?” His tone takes on a bitter air in the dark, head tilted back against the building wall. “I was under the impression that caring for the feelings of others wasn’t your strong suit.”

“Even if we aren’t genetically related, I guess we do share some unfortunate habits.” Kaeya brushes off some invisible lint from his sleeves. “You know, you could always go try and look for them. Mondstadt can fend for itself well enough.”

Surprisingly (albeit not too much considering the state of his system), a snicker came from the man as he swirled the clear liquid in his bottle from side to side.

“I made sure that bridge was burned when they left, whether I wanted it to be or not.”

(he didn’t want it to be.)

“…..Pass me one with some left, would you?”

(but you disappeared from his life like you promised, and he wonders every day if you took his heart away as well.)

[subterfugespecialist]

I Will Break What Has Broken You

Janus is the heir of a millionaire CEO. He could have anything, anybody he wanted. And he picked Remus. Remus couldn't be happier with what they have. But when they're out one night and Remus runs into his ex, all the unpleasant memories start flooding back.

Written for Day 4 of @dukeceitweek : Free day

AO3 link

Pairing: Dukeceit

Warnings: Past verbal/emotional abuse, deadnaming - though the deadname is not actually typed out, unwanted advances

Word count: 2861

People were usually surprised to hear that Janus was dating Remus.

Janus - the son of old money, an heir to a multi-million dollar business - could have anything and anyone he wanted. All sorts of people threw themselves at his feet, desperate for both his sharp looks and good fortunes.

But Janus didn't want anybody. He wanted Remus. And that sure made Remus feel special.

Janus had been wary about dating. So many people had been after his family's money, after all. But then he met Remus, who didn't care that Janus could afford to buy the movie theater and still insisted their first date be sneaking into as many movies as possible because it was "more fun that way." He didn't care what kind of car Janus drove as long as Remus could drag Janus into the backseat. Who didn't care how many houses Janus owned, as long as they were together. Remus, who looked past his money and liked Janus for his catty, smart personality.

And Janus was utterly taken.

But sure, Janus having money certainly had its perks. Janus would indulge on any random impulse Remus had. Wanted to drop everything and go on a trip without anyone? Janus would treat him to a private jet (Remus was pretty sure they were the top members of the mile-high club at that point). Had the urge to rent a room in the fanciest hotel in Paris just to smoke weed? Sure. Paying for Remus' top surgery? Remus didn't even have to ask for that one. Janus making his birthday present to Roman paying off his entire student loans for his musical theatre degree? Remus was just smitten.

But one of the best parts was getting to be Janus' plus one at parties, where he'd wear his torn up pants with a hole showing his entire thigh and a neon green mesh shirt under his leather jacket. Security guards would try to escort him out before Janus would take him by the hand and kiss his forehead. He would introduce guests to Remus as his boyfriend and they would always do a double-take. Because that must be some sort of joke, right? Janus dating this man? But Janus would take Remus firmly by the waist and glare at them, daring them to actually say anything. And they would put on their pained smiles and complete their pleasantries before rushing off.

They couldn't be happier.

Tonight they were in a sort of underground club in New York. The music was so loud you could hardly hear yourself speak, and most people there this late in the night were too intoxicated to be coherent.

It was one of Remus' favorite places.

Remus was dancing with Janus, which mostly meant Remus dancing as Janus held onto him, occasionally spinning him around or pulling him close. But Remus didn't mind. How could he when Janus would watch him with such eyes, that made Remus feel so wanted?

Janus pulled his phone out of his pocket and scowled at the glowing screen as he pulled Remus close to him.

"I'm afraid I have to take this, darling," he said right against Remus' ear. "I'll have to step outside for a moment."

"That's fine," Remus yelled back. "I'll meet you at the bar, babes."

Janus pulled Remus into a searing kiss that would usually be considered too heat to be appropriate for public spaces, but with all the couples dirty dancing against each other around them it hardly mattered.

"I'll be back soon" Janus promised before slipping away into the crowd. Remus stood, smiling like a fool for a moment before heading towards the bar. The music was slightly quieter here, and Remus could actually hear himself think.

He hopped onto a barstool, spinning once before glancing at the drinks menu. Then someone sat beside him.

"I'm really not surprised to see you here."

Remus froze as his blood turned to ice. He had to force himself to look to see that, yes, it was him sitting on the barstool.

"I would have thought Janus would be with you," Remus' ex said as he sipped his drink. "I'm surprised he trusted his little plaything to go out on his own."

"How the fuck do you know about me and Janus?" Remus asked, hands gripping the edge of his barstool and making his knuckles go white. "Have you been stalking me like a creep? Just couldn't let me go, Aiden?"

"Baby, the whole business world has been talking about it," Aiden said with a smirk, unaware, or perfectly aware, of how the old nickname made bile rise in Remus throat, "It's some of the best gossip right now. Though I personally thought Janus was above spending his time on such things."

"It's so funny that you think you know Janus," Remus said with a grin that was far too wide. "You don't know shit about him."

"I've worked with him before, babe," Aiden said. "He is much too dedicated to his work to bother with someone like you."

Remus' blood was boiling, and he couldn't figure out why. He never cared before what people thought of him. He usually liked surprising people with Janus. So why did it hurt when Aiden said it?

Was it because they used to be together? Was it because Remus used to try so desperately to get the approval of his partner, but never seemed to obtain it? And it seems like he still hadn't.

"That's a nice skirt you're wearing," Aiden said, breaking Remus from his thoughts and making him realize he hadn't said anything for a good minute, "I thought you'd avoid those, given your... situation."

Remus had finally reached a point where he felt comfortable in a skirt, even after all the things Aiden said to him. But now he just felt exposed. It felt so good, when Janus rested a hand on his knee when they sat or gripped the back of his bare thigh as they pulled each other close. But now, all he wanted was to close his legs and pull the edge of his skirt over his knees.

"I like wearing skirts," Remus defended, though he didn't know how effective he was with the tremor in his voice.

How could Aiden keep making him feel worse? Digging deep into old wounds, breaking newly healed scars. Remus took a deep breath. He wasn't going to let Aiden ruin all of his progress after they had been apart for nearly two years.

"Well then," Aiden said in a voice that instantly made Remus worried. He then placed his hand on Remus' knee and he was very much not Janus and Remus suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. "Since Janus isn't here, how about we relive some old times, huh ******?"

Hearing his dead name immediately made Remus feel like the floor was taken from under him. He stood without another word and forced his way through the dense crowd on the dance floor. The bright lights and loud music were suddenly too much and Remus couldn't breath his chest wouldn't move he was suffocating-

He finally reached the emergency fire exit, which he knew the alarm didn't work because he had seen couples use it to sneak out for quickies. Once outside he immediately fell to his knees, hands resting on the asphalt, struggling to breath as the door shut behind him. He managed to crawl over to sit against the wall through short gasps of hair. Remus held his head in his hands and gripped his hair tight. Memories were flooding back - none of them pleasant.

His chest was too heavy. He couldn't get his lungs to work right he couldn't get air he was going to pass out right here in the alleyway-

"Remus!"

Janus.

"Oh, darling, it's okay," Janus said, panicked as he sat across from his boyfriend. He opened his arms and Remus immediately flung himself against him, gripping tightly to the back of Janus' jacket like a life line.

"Follow my breathing, love," Janus said softly into Remus' ear, chest pressed against the other making it easier for Remus to follow.

Remus focused on the feeling of Janus against him, around him. Janus' chest moving against his own, his voice and breath against his ear. Janus, Janus, Janus-

"There you go," Janus said softly as he pulled back just enough to look at Remus' face. Remus closed his eyes, focusing on Janus' hands resting on his cheeks, thumbs moving in soothing motions. "You did wonderfully."

"How'd you find me so fast?" Remus asked, "Knew I'd be out with trash, where I belong?" he forced out a laugh though tears fell down his face.

"Remus," Janus scolded.

"Sorry, sorry. No self deprecating, I know."

Though it had been a tough habit for Remus to break.

"You aren't trash," Janus muttered as he pushed Remus' hair out of his face. "You know I only indulge myself in the nicest things."

"How can you say that?" Remus muttered, glancing down to avoid Janus' gaze. "I'm far from nice."

"You are by far the most valuable, precious thing in my life," Janus said firmly as his hand moved to Remus' chin to force him to look in his eyes. "And I won't stand for you saying such things about yourself."

"You could have anything," Remus said, mouth quivering as tears fell freely down his face. "And yet you waste your time on me?"

"My time is never wasted with you. I'd give away all my fortune and luxuries that come with it if it meant spending just one more day with you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you, and all your craziness and curiosities. You are the most incredible person I've ever met and you only ever make me happier than I've ever been."

Janus wiped the tears off Remus' face, and no more followed.

"I love you so much," he whispered. "And you are deserving of everything good thing in this world"

"You sap," Remus said as he lightly punched Janus' arm, tears threatening to spill again - but not from sadness, "I love you, too."

"Are you feeling okay, my love?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. Sorry about that freakout."

"You don't have to apologize," Janus said as he ran his hand back over Remus cheek and pressed their foreheads together, "But who did that to you? push such unfounded doubts in your head? Because I do have to find them now, and ruin their life."

Remus groaned and leaned back, hitting the brick wall behind him. "Do you remember, a couple months after we started dating, I had that freakout and thought we needed to break up?"

"Yes," Janus said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. "You had the insane idea that you weren't good enough, and I made sure you knew that was not true. You're not feeling like that again, are you?"

"No. Well, I was, but- Okay so remember how I admitted that was because of my ex? Well, he's here. He talked to me."

Janus' expression quickly turned into one of fury, eyes turning dark as his mouth set into a scowl.

"He called me your plaything. Said he worked with you and that he knew you were too good for me. Then he touched me and said my dead name and came onto me and that made me feel so gross because he wasn't you and all these shitty feelings came back and just. Yeah. It was fucked up."

"Give me his name," Janus nearly growled. "I'll make sure he regrets every decision he ever made."

"Aiden Scott."

"Scott, Scott..." Janus muttered to himself, pondering for a moment before his eyes widened.

"Aiden Scott? He said- Working? With me? oh dear," Janus laughed as he stood, hand outstretched for Remus to take. "Come on, my darling," Janus said with a large smirk. "We have some things we need to straighten out."

Remus let Janus pull him up, but the thought of going to see Aiden again was making him feel sick. His nerves were dampened, however, by the strong grip Janus had around his waist as Remus led him over to the bar.

"Aiden Scott," Janus announced. When Aiden looked over his face paled as he glanced between them, "What a chance, seeing you here."

"Hello, Janus, sir," Aiden managed to say as he stood, outstretching a hand for Janus to shake. Janus glanced at it before looking back up and pulling Remus closer to his side.

"I heard what you said to Remus," Janus said, leaning against the bar and examining his manicure. "And I can't tolerate such things, Aiden."

"Oh, that?" Aiden let out a forced laugh to accompany the anxious smile on his face, "I was just messing with him. Like we used to, right?" Aiden cast Remus a desperate look, and Remus couldn't believe the absolute gall of this douchebag.

"Cut the bullshit," Janus snapped, saving Remus from having to say something, "You knew you shouldn't and yet you still had the nerve to speak to him that way, and you had the audacity to claim you knew me. Please. You had the privilege of standing in the same room as me. I would say you're nothing but an over-glorified secretary, but I actually like my secretary. It would be an insult to her hard work."

"Sir, I'm sorry. I just-"

"I don't care about your apology. Do you accept his apology, darling?" Janus asked, casting Remus a soft look.

"Nah."

Janus' soft look fell as he turned his attention back to Aiden, and Remus probably found the immediate shift in tone hotter than he should've - but he really didn't care.

"I could easily have you fired. I could make sure you never find another job with any of our companies ever again."

"No, sir, please, I-"

"But I don't think I will," Janus said, surprising both Remus and Aiden. "I want to keep my eye on you. I want to make sure you don't take a single step out of line again. You can keep your lowly job in the office, right where I can keep careful watch.

"I don't want you here at this club again. I don't want you anywhere in the near vicinity of Remus. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay the hell away."

"Yes, sir. Of course. Thank-"

"Get out."

"You won't regret not firing me, sir. I'll-"

"Get out."

Remus let out a loud cackle at the way Aiden turned and ran towards the front door, stumbling over his feet through the crowd. Remus was flooded with relief from the promise that that asshole would never bother him again.

He looked over to Janus, who was still wearing that stone-angry look on his face as he straightened his hat, gaze following Aiden to make sure he actually left. Janus then turned to look at Remus, and his face changed back into one of reverence and comfort. Remus was filled with such overwhelming emotions he had no control over his body as he grabbed Janus' hands and pulled him towards the back.

Janus let Remus pull in into the single stall bathroom. Remus slammed the door behind them before pulling Janus to him, burying his head into the crook of Janus' neck and holding him tight. Maybe if he squeezed Janus hard enough, he could show him just how much Janus meant to him.

"Hey now, love, it's alright," Janus said, voice much clearer now that the loud music was dulled behind the door.

"No, I'm fine," Remus laughed into his neck, "Fuck, babe, you were incredible."

"Anything for you, my darling," Janus said as he pressed a kiss to the top of Remus' head.

"But why didn't you fire him?" Remus asked as he pulled away to look at Janus' face.

"I figured letting him go would be too easy - over too quickly. Now he gets to deal with me hovering over his shoulder for as long as he can handle it.

"Which won't be long. I'll make him regret everything he ever did to you."

Remus was so overwhelmed with love for the man in front of him - a man who actually loved him for who he was - that he couldn't stop himself from throwing his arms around Janus' neck and dragging him down into a kiss.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Janus leaned away with a light chuckle, but Remus immediately reconnected their mouths.

Janus placed one hand securely on the back of Remus' neck, the other cupping his cheek. Remus leaned back into the hand, tilting his head up and letting Janus deepen the kiss. He let himself go pliant under Janus' lips, Janus' grasp. He was completely content to give all his trust to this man. After all Janus had done for him, hasn't he deserved it?

Janus pulled away again, and this time Remus let him go.

"Should we go back to the dance floor? You looked so happy there. If you're feeling okay enough, that is."

And with Janus' arm wrapped snugly around him, Remus found that yeah, he was.

.

.

If you are 18+ and have your age/age indicator in your bio, you can message me for the NSFS sequel that takes place directly after

Thanks for reading! Requests are open in my inbox. Hope you enjoyed <3

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world—hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

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

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

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

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

[everybodyscupoftea]

this is the life

ole miss rafe x reader

you and your boyfriend deal with your ~futures~

literally no one asked for this lol, i’m sorry

(warnings: cursing)

Your animal and dairy sciences seminar had a report due that you’d stayed up very late making last minute edits to because you were stressed it was really bad. The next morning was brutal. Not only was in an 8 a.m. lecture, but your coffee machine was out and you overslept, barely giving yourself enough time to get to class before the professor checked attendance.

You slid into your seat, out of breath, just as started scanning the seating chart for attendance. The boy who sits next to you turned to ask, “Library was backed up this morning?”

“What?” you asked, halfway paying attention, still scrambling to get your notebook out.

“Since you’re running late, I’m assuming it’s because the library was busy when you went to print your report.”

Your stomach dropped and you swore, “Fuck. I forgot to print it. Fucking fuck. I submitted it online but I forgot we needed to hand him a physical copy too. Oh god I can’t afford to fail this class.” You were getting worked up and the boy was starting to look more and more like he regretted talking to you in the first place.

“I mean he’s pretty chill, so I’m sure if you explain he’ll let you bring it by his office later.”

The boy had a point, but you were already too far gone. For the rest of the class, you were unfocused, and if someone asked you what he lectured on, you’d have no clue, so preoccupied with rehearsing how you were going to beg him for an extension. You only had one other class, and you’d definitely be able to print it out and run it to him between them, but that was depending on if he let you.

Just as class was ending, your phone vibrated in your hoodie pocket, and you checked it, immediately calmed at seeing a text from your boyfriend. Rafe sent Can’t wait to see you this weekend and whatever had a grip on your chest loosened enough for you to take a full breath for the first time since waking up.

After speaking to your professor and his reassurance that you didn’t really need to worry much about the written report, that it was just to ensure everyone had it turned in prior to class, you left, much happier, but the exhaustion hitting you straight in the gut.

Thankfully, all you had left that day was a communication elective and then to drive to Rafe’s apartment in Oxford. He’d convinced you to make the trip because he wanted to show you around the place he’d called home for four years after leaving behind his “hometown trauma.” His words.

Your class flew by, people were giving speeches and you’d given yours Wednesday, so you sat there mindlessly, half asleep, until she dismissed the class for the weekend. Stopping back by your apartment to pick up your overnight bag, you decided to last minute check your PO Box, it had been a while. To your shock, you actually had mail, and when you saw the return address, the sick feeling returned to your stomach.

There was about a two-hour drive to Rafe’s apartment from Starkville, and you had the option of opening the letter containing either the best news or the worst news of your life before the drive or at Rafe’s apartment. Part of you wanted to know then, but a stronger part of you wanted to be with Rafe so he could comfort you if necessary.

Instead of making a decision, you felt your tired brain could not, you called Rafe. He answered before the second ring and you couldn’t help yourself.

“I see that receptionist job taught you some useful skills.”

“What?” he asked, sounding confused.

“Answering my calls fast, that’s good because my time is money.”

Rafe sighed, “Can I help you?”

“Someone’s mad. But, yes, should I open the letter from the vet school now or wait until I get to Oxford.”

You heard some shuffling around before he answered, “You think you can wait? I actually have something to tell you too.”

“Yeah, um, sure,” you were a little worried, “Is everything okay?”

“I think so. We just need to talk.”

“Right, talk, are you sure everything’s good?”

“Yeah, stop worrying. Just drive on over.”

You had been excited to go visit, but after that phone call you wanted to go back to bed. With a deep sigh, you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands and slumped backward. Blinking away the spots, you buckled up, pit in your stomach, and drove to your favorite coffee shop in Starkville. If shit was going to go down in Oxford you were going to have your comfort drink.

StrangeBrew’s drive-thru was packed and you tapped your fingers anxiously on the steering wheel as you waited to order your blueberry cobbler cold brew with soy milk. Right as the barista handed you the to-go cup, your phone vibrated and Rafe had sent drive safe!! <3. The fuck did that mean in the context of your earlier phone conversation?!

The drive to Oxford was boring as hell. You’d made it before, a band you liked had played there one night, and you and some friends had made the reluctant trip to see them. Turning on your podcast, you focused on nothing but the drive, pushing aside relationship doubts and the growing anxiety about the letter sitting in your passenger seat.

You called Rafe when you got close, and he was waiting outside his building when you finally found a visitor’s spot. He jogged over to grab your overnight bag and bent down to give you a quick kiss, before greeting you with, “Hey, baby, how was the drive?”

“Boring as fuck, nothing new.”

“Went smoothly?”

“About as smooth as possible. I’ve had to pee for the last like 40 minutes though, so it’d be great if I could do that now.”

He laughed and turned to walk to his building, motioning for you to follow him. You did, scampering a little to keep up with his long strides, and he unlocked a door on the first floor, holding it open for you, “Bathroom’s down the hall to the left.”

Rafe was sitting on the couch when you made it back out to the living room, and you finally took a good look at him. His laptop was on the coffee table and he was wearing a pair of Ole Miss sweats, a worn-out t-shirt, and a pair of glasses you were unaware he needed.

“Take a picture,” he interrupted your train of thought and you rolled your eyes.

“Shut up, Cameron. Now, tell me what you want to talk about so I can open my letter.”

“No, open your letter first and then we’ll talk.”

You weren’t sure why he was so insistent or why your heart rate tripled, but you were pretty sure it wasn’t the coffee. With shaking hands, you held up the letter from the MSU Vet School. All of your undergrad work came down to that letter, whether you’d have to take a gap year and try to find work to apply again or whether you could move forward in your career path.

Rafe watched on eagerly as you carefully tore it open and started reading. Eyes jumping across the page, unable to focus, you barely made out, Congratulations and We welcome you and We look forward to seeing you next fall.

With a gasp, you launched yourself at an unprepared Rafe and latched on, arms wrapped around his neck. He ran his hand up and down your back soothingly and asked, gently, “Good news?”

“I’m going to Vet School,” you whispered, voice cracking in the middle of your sentence.

“Fucking right you are, my little Rockstar.”

Your face heated up and you buried it in the crook of his neck, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders. Only to come crashing back down a few seconds later as you remembered Rafe wanted to talk. Pulling back slowly, you asked, “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

His face lit up and he leaned forward, hanging on to you so he didn’t accidentally dump you onto the floor, and grabbed his laptop. Clicking to his email, he showed you the message he had pulled up from Mississippi State University Department of History Admissions.

“So, you know I’ve been interested in teaching,” he started, “and I’m debating whether I’d like to teach college or not.”

“Yeah, last we talked, you were leaning toward college professor, right?”

“Right. Well, I applied to a few schools that had a PhD program I was interested in, and I heard back from my top choice.”

Your mind was racing, still not connecting the dots, until he motioned at his laptop. Looking back down, you skimmed the email, telling him that he’d been accepted into MSU’s PhD in European History program and gasped, turning back to him in excitement, “No way?!”

“Way,” he told you, wide grin on his face.

Jaw dropped, your mind raced to put together a coherent thought, “How long have you been planning this?”

“The program is good, this isn’t a new thought, but MSU obviously jumped up my preference list to the top after we got together.”

“Fuckin whipped,” you teased and he tilted your chin down to kiss you.

Pulling away he brushed some of your hair back, “Only for you.”

As he leaned in again, you were the one to pull back, “Wait, we have to celebrate!”

Rafe groaned, “No, let me kiss you.”

“No! I want food, I spent the entire ride thinking I was going to get dumped when I got here.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “What?”

“We need to talk,” you quoted, “that’s one scary fucking sentence, Cameron.”

He smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, sweetheart, I just wanted to keep it a surprise.”

“Well you did.”

Rafe leaned in to kiss you again and pulled back to add, “You really think I’d make you drive all the way here, just to break up with you. I’m wounded you think that lowly of me.”

“You are an asshole.”

Rolling his eyes, he pinched your cheek gently, “Be nice to me, I’m sacrificing my dignity and lowering myself to Mississippi State’s standards.”

Blinking a few times in surprise at his sudden switch, you told him back, “Fuck off, I’m sure you were last choice as soon as they saw where you got your undergrad degree.”

Without saying anything else, he kissed you again, gripping behind your knees and shifting so your back was on the couch. As he lowered himself down on top of you, you decided that food could wait. You had your future to celebrate.

[random-mha-thoughts]

Name part 2 (Todoroki x Reader)

Pairing: Todoroki x fem!Reader

Genre: Angst to fluff

Sequel to Name (part 1)

Word count: 1,445

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ 

a/n: I had trouble writing this for some reason.  I started off writing one scenario, but I ended up hating it after writing 500 words and then deleted the whole thing and started over, so I’m sorry if it’s not satisfying enough.  I think I need to just write more angst I think I just need a break from angst, or I’m just exhausted from today because I was out all day.

I promise the ending is happy.  This one is half the length of the original since this was one of the original endings I was considering for the 1st part.

I’ll probably pick right up with the other angst submissions tomorrow if I’m not still exhausted.  Hopefully I won’t go overboard again...

Shoto didn't know how to feel once she left him.  It didn't hurt as much as it would hurt for a lover to walk out on you, but he still felt the most amount of guilt he's ever been burdened with.  He wanted to blame his father for putting them in this position to fail, but he knew how childish that would be.  In reality, he was accountable for his own behavior, and he'd taken his anger out on an innocent person in the same situation as him.  He should have commended her for being the bigger person.  And now he's lost her.

His biggest frustration is that he never even got a good look at her.  In his mind, her image is a fuzzy mix of color, no real outline of a body or face that he can remember.  How could he have lived in the same house as someone for 5 months, but not know them like the back of his hand?  Deep down, he knows that if he had looked at her, he would've internalized how human she is and would've treated her better than a doormat.

As he lay in bed after she left, all the things he wanted to apologize for but didn't get the chance to were still hanging in his mind, uncomfortably unfulfilled.

.

The next morning, Shoto decides he needs to apologize immediately.  He hates the eerie loneliness of being the only person in the house.  Even if he never acknowledged it before, in hindsight, at least he felt he presence of company.  At least he had someone to talk to, even if everything out of his mouth was a critique.  The walls seem to close in on him, the sunlight isn't as warm, and, most importantly, there was no breakfast waiting for him.  A vain problem, but it sobered him to know she had still taken care of his needs through everything.

After fixing his own meal, he called his agency to tell them he's taking the day off and didn't delay in rushing to his in-law's house.  The nervous pit in Shoto's stomach almost makes him throw up his breakfast, but he ignores it.  All acts of courage require varying degrees of nerves.

On his way over, his father calls him constantly, probably to give him an earful about "ruining their perfectly-matched marriage."  He doesn't need to hear it from Endeavor when he's already chewing himself up about it, and he turns off his phone to concentrate.

Shoto walks up to the family's door, smoothing his clothes and hair out.  He feels akin to a boy picking his girlfriend up from her parents' house for their first date and trying to make a good first impression, except Shoto's already married his daughter and needs to make up for the awful impression they already have of him.  Taking a deep breath, he pushes the doorbell, his heart hammering in his chest wildly.

Her father and mother answer the door, expressions less than pleased already.

"Good morning.  I hope I haven't disturbed you."  Shoto was raised with manners, and he hopes politeness with get him somewhere.

The two don't say anything in response to him.  Understandable, given the condition their daughter was sent back in.

Trying not to be too disheartened under their malicious stares, the boy asks "May I come in?  I would like to speak with you and your daughter."

"If Endeavor sent you, we don't want to hear anything you have to say," her mother scowls, rightfully so.

"No, ma'am, I am here without my father's knowledge," he responds earnestly, trying not to seem too firm about his tone or his face.  He's trying to appear sincere, a husband trying to set things right from the bottom of his heart.

The couple exchanges glances, but let the young boy in without another word, which Shoto takes as a small victory.  They lead him to their formal living room where they sit together on one couch and Shoto prefers to stand.  A maid brings cups of tea and a pot to rest on the coffee table between them before bowing and shuffling away.

"I won't allow you to see my daughter," her mother states bluntly, "Not after hearing her crying over the phone for what you've put her through the last 5 months."  The boy almost winces, the memory of overhearing the girl's phone call still fresh.

"You can say your piece to us and we may pass it on to her," her father adds, eyeing the boy.

Shoto breathes to calm the jumping nerves in his gut.  One wrong move and he know he'll be kicked out immediately.  He levels his calm gaze at the piercing glare of the couple in front of him.  "I'm not here to make excuses for my actions.  What I did was terribly wrong, both as a person and as a husband to your daughter.  I accept full responsibility for my mistakes."  He bows fully at the waist.  "I apologize deeply for my behavior towards your daughter.  I let my personal feelings get in the way of our relationship flourishing as she wished.  I don't deserve it, but I would like to ask for forgiveness."

The parents are silent, leaving the boy to listen to his hammering heartbeat as he retains his position.  The lack of response is ear-deafening to him.

"You many stand, Todoroki," her father instructs, the edge slightly lessened in his voice.

When Shoto returns to his original position, their daughter stands between them, remnant sadness still filling her eyes.  It's the first time he's taken a good look at her.  She's a head shorter than him, hair down past her shoulders, respectable composure.  Even with a tired expression, she exudes calm.

He doesn't know what he should do now.  The girl looks between him and her parents.  "I'd like to be alone with him, please," she requests in a soft voice.  It's a stark contrast between the voice that reported their divorce to him.

Though her parents are wary at first, she smiles to reassure them and they agree to leave the pair to talk.

All the apologies Shoto prepared start bubbling up his throat, unsure how to start or organize his thoughts.  He's overwhelmed by how much he wants to say, composure crumbling under the weight of his words.  "I'm so sorry about everything- I heard you crying and I- I'm an idiot for-"

"Funny how you can form coherent sentences to my parents, but not to me," she jokes lightheartedly.

Her small smile calms Shoto so he can gather this thoughts and try again.  "I've done you such a disservice.  I let my anger towards my father prevent me from taking care of you like I should have."  He moves to touch her hand to comfort her, but he stops and redirects it to the back of his neck.  "You must have felt so unwanted and lonely.  I'm truly sorry for everything I've done or said to you.  When I heard you on the phone with your mother, I had every intention of coming back and fixing everything, but you had already made your decision."  His eyes meet her's again.  "If you wish to continue with the divorce, I understand.  I wanted to come and apologize to you because it's what you deserve.  And, if you forgive me enough, we can start over and build a relationship as you wanted originally."

At first, the girl is silent, clawing at Shoto to be left in anticipation.  Then, she tilts her head and asks, a cheeky grin on her lips, "Do you love me, Shoto?"

His hopes come crashing down at the question.  "I'm sorry to say, but I'm not in love with you right now.  Our marriage isn't like that."

She shakes her head at him.  "I wasn't expecting you to suddenly have a huge change of heart like that.  We're still barely strangers, though I do know way more about you than you know about me.  As long as you're open to any kind of affection, it's fine."

His eyes widen childishly.  "Does that mean-"

She smiles, finally showing teeth to him, and envelops him in a hug.  He breathes out in relief and returns the gesture.  A small voice in the back of his had notes how perfectly she fits in his arms.

"Who knows?  We might end up actually falling in love slowly as time goes by," she giggles against his chest.  "That's how it tends to happen in the movies."

The slight vibrations invoke a strange warmth to bloom within Shoto, not resulting from his quirk, and his eyes widen.  Oh.

[kaonite]

Can we hear about your Misraaks headcanons pls?

hahahaaha ahah okay so this turned more into picking him apart rather than headcanons but i mixed them in there ::3 (im so sorry, i cannot be coherent at all and gushed profusely. i promise my writing is way different than the way i type this out.)

for some reason it wont let me add tags??? so i hope no one is upset by that!

-misraaks doesnt know how to be 'normal' per say, barring the fact he IS an alien(this goes with my super personal headcanon that the wolves just breed some ODD eliksni. 110% there’s something SUPER up with the wolves (or gentle weavers) as a whole. there's something in the ether turning the wolves into human simps) and is just a weird guy? Who 'turns their back' on their own without being a little fucking odd? i mean if i saw a almost 7ft tall lady and she dragged me away from my attempted suicide (thats some baggage already) and offered peace in a my cultures way id rethink my ideals too (theres more to it i know but humor me!) Also unlearning ALL you've been taught was rough and trying but he was a young mind and to be honest... that's probably for the best (no doubt sjur did use him against the wolves but i really feel their friendship was genuine, full of a lot of love and respect after he stopped being an angsty vandal with unresolved mommy issues)

-he puts on this show of being strong and unyielding but if he trusts you he just crumbles and is bare to the bone about everything. misraaks isn't afraid of being honest per say, he may come off brash but he's just telling it like it is... no sense in beating around the bush. he's not an asshole but being raised the way he was uh... some tact had be learned. 

-no no no it's not bc his mother may have been strict and terrifying to some degree so he has to be the strongest  or he feels he'll fail everyone he knows. so when someone breaks down his walls he's just a soft, sappy individual who just wants everyone to have a peaceful life together while trying to be strong for everyone else at his own mental expense. hes so passionate, charismatic and driven even with all the odds stacked against him, the fucking STRENGTH in that. (DREG STRENGTH GO! even tho he's not a dreg u get my meaning, everyone so far has deemed him as such) what a king! ❤ (praksis u call him foolish again i'll break every one of the generators in your lab)

-brings me to my next headcanon that the nightmare in the moon, horkis? Is his mother and all the teachings that she and others brought upon him as a child up until meeting sjur concentrated into one being. that if he doesn't bleed for the cause, die for the cause, then he has failed his people.  OOPS! IT'S ALL DEEP SEATED TRAUMA! 

-also headcanon she was the one to dock him? to make it extra good when he thinks back on her in the misraaks lore tab 

(I normally don't slander moms bc damn if anyone slandered my mom id throw hands but bungie gave me the scraps and im working with them and misraaks seemed like he had a pretty standard, though super strict, upbringing ::) )

-he appears haughty, self-assured and a bit cold though that's just how he projects himself... he's not actually that way? I mean, hes pretty calm and collected. he expresses a deep  loyalty and love for Sjur and cares for his fireteam immensely. He trusted his fireteam enough to take them to her resting place, how is that not vulnerability we otherwise don't really see? 

He'd throw down for his friends and loved ones because that's just how Eliksni ARE. kin is everything, even friends. he just has a different way of showing it. 

-misraaks... okay i have to say he's into poetry, or talking poetically. the way he speaks is almost... romantic (not in a bad or spicy way!) i just know that boy really SPEAKS in such an eloquent, thoughtful sense. there's a lot of meaning and love in his words. he doesn't just SAY things to fill the silence. every word has a meaning, a purpose. i love that about him. 

-okay maybe i headcanon his fireteam being all around goofballs with him at times of respite, softening out his sharp edges. making him loosen up and enjoy the little things in life rather than worrying about the bigger picture. (bungie where's that getting drunk with his fireteam lore tab? i would like to see it. you have it with the yw and crow... it's the least you could do for the misraaks stans...) i just feel its hard for him to sit and do nothing, just to fool around, be a "normal person" due to the fact his whole life up to his moment of wanting to create house light has been death and war. He was MADE for war. it'd be hard for him to adjust to a 'happier' existence without a little prodding

-he doesn't care about glory, or is doing what he does for selfish gain. he genuinely just wants to help, to create peace. so if anyone approached him with the kell of kells title he'd promptly tell them to shove it (sorry misraaks... you're in the same boat with the young wolf... you can't escape your destiny)

-can we talk about how much misraaks unlearned from sjur then YEARS later is with dusk, meets the young wolf (that annoying bastard of a guardian! :) ), they spare him then it seems like something unlocks in him. like we were the final catalyst to his dreams being real. no longer did he want to be canon fodder, or use his crew as such, he wanted to lead... to be better, to do better for his people along the guardians. maybe he could be better than just another solider dying for a cause they didn't even know at that point. he could be everything his kind rallied against and be GREATER than he was taught to be , not stepping on those deemed less than him. his MIND 

-can i just shoehorn something in real quick. I don't believe he'd practice docking after everything. I just can't see it and i always see him having trauma around docking so why would he wish that on others as a treatment under his kellship? It took him A LONG ASS TIME to unlearn how fucked up it is and how their society as whole is (ie. he literally fantasized about his mother docking him. how is that not absolutely insane to hear?)  also it'd be useless at this point, he'd need people at their prime, not missing two arms for an old, unnecessary dark practice. he doesn’t want people to fear him, if your people fear you are you truly a leader?

*cuts this ask open with a knife and lets loose a character interpretation more than headcanons* OOPS

am i projecting? maybe but bungie gave me crumbs and i am going to use them

im holding back a bunch of thoughts bc most of them center around much more personal headcanons bc this is my emotional support eliksni :') plus ive written so much already im pretty sure you all think im insane.

If anyone has anything to add feel free! Id love to hear it, you may have some ideas/headcanons/interpretations i didn't list or i never though of! of course... most of this is projecting, who doesn't do that to their fave?

and honestly, i am so open to talking about him in depth, if you want to, shoot me a message! I'll get to it! :3

[smutandfluffohmy]

The Doctors & their Tardis

 From: Smutandfluffohmy Pairings: Dr. Spencer Reid x Reader x Penelope Garcia Warnings: Smut A/N: Look I’m going to be real honest. I haven’t seen CM in yearssss because I love the characters so much and bad things kept happening to them 🥺💔 Anyhow I always wanted this duo to end me 🥵 If anyone has any requests for JJ x Reader x Emily I’m not saying my inbox is open but my inbox is open.

Huffing you ran to catch up to Spencer who was looking at some artist prints that were spread along a table. “Spencer can I hold your hand? That Deadpool over there keeps touching my hair and asking for my number” You nervously said playing with the lace ribbon in thee front of your dress. “And I may or may have not told him I was here with my boyfriend.” 

Spencers face grew slightly red as he adjusted his jacket a bit “Yea sure.” he said offering his hand to you. Taking it happy you smiled at him grateful for your friend.

“Thank you Doctor” You said in a bad British accent.

“Come on Tardis lady how can you say no to Deadpool?” The man said coming up to the both of you. Causing the two of you to tense up, Spencer stood up a bit straighter trying to gain a bit of height over the other man.

“Hey man leave my girlfriend alone.” Spencer said scowling at the man.

“Shoo scram deadstroke ripoff.” Penelope chimed in making you jump a bit at her sudden appearance, but eternally grateful for her showing up.

“Uuuh two Doctors and one Tardis I wonder what R rated things go on in outerspace. Ahh I’m touching myself tonight.” The Deadpool cosplayer said happily tilting his head making sexual signs with his hands, causing your face to grow even hotter.

“If you don’t leave us alone you’re not going to have anything to touch.” You barked at him taking a step towards him before getting a slight tugged back from Spencer knowing that you would follow through.

He threw his hands up in defense backing away from the three of you. “Hey chill out I’m just in character.” he said walking towards a crowd leaving the three of you in different stages of embarrassment.

The rest of the day continued without a sign of the Deadpool cosplayer but his comment ran through your minds. Every time you would bend over to look at a sellers items Spencer and Penelope couldn't help but look a bit too long down your shirt. Hands lingered a bit too long along your body, you must have been imagining things you tried telling yourself.

Whenever large crowds of people tried squeezing through, Spencer or Penelope were always a bit too close and you were always pressed a bit too tight against them.

The sexual tension continued the entire time you were all at the con, wanting to say something about it wanting to take any sort of action but you didn’t know if you were just reading too much into the touching and looks your friends gave you.It was driving you crazy and felt guilty as you pressed your chest a bit too tight against Penelope’s when you were only shoved a bit, how you pressed your back against Spencer a bit too long.

The tension was eating the three of you up, for profilers neither of you were ever in this position. It almost felt like using a power for selfish gain instead of good but the costumes started feeling too long, too short, not cut low enough, too revealing it was all too much and not enough at the same time.

Going back to your place the tension never eased up, it felt heavier the moment the three of you were alone. The silence was eating all of you up, praying for a snarky remark from Penelope or a trivial fact from Spencer.

It was Penelope who broke the silence“Studies have found that sex between friends actually creates a deeper and more meaningful bond.” 

“I enjoy meaningful bonds.” Spencer said nodding his head playing with his fingers waiting for your response.

“I would never turn down meaningful bonds” You breathed out your words the three of you cautiously taking a step towards each other.

Everything moved too quickly and before you knew it you were on your knees with your face between Penelope's thighs and Spencer positioned behind you. His knees holding your knees apart making you feel all of him.

Penelopes skirt was hiked up, being held up by her hands pooling over with fabric.Her fingers tangled in your hair bringing you closer to her, desperate for more friction as her hips buckled towards your mouth.Spencers fingers dug into your hips as he tried his best to keep himself steady.

Your arms and legs felt weak under you. Sweat made your clothes stick to your body, your legs threatening to give out from under you. Spencer reached out to try and steady you, his fingers carefully propped you up as you backed into him assuring him that everything was okay.

Spencer reached over tapping your shoulders wanting you to give him your hands. Obliging you gave him your arm, pulling it back he tapped quickly on your other shoulder.

“Give me your hand. Trust me.” Spencer said, which you agreed to. Handing him your other hand your face now pressed against Penelope who moaned at the heavy touch.

Spencer shuffled forward, you were snuffled in deeply and Spencer leaving little room for little to no movement. 

Your head moved up and down plunging your tongue deep inside Penelope. Sucking on her clit, looking up at her seeing her play with her breasts pinching her nipples, moaning your name.Spencer kept thrusting himself harder against you causing Penelope to get shocked with sudden deeper feelings.

You were so in awe staring up at her that you didn't realize how close she was till you saw her legs shaking on the sides of your face. Cuming in your mouth Penelope tried her best to steady her breathing before looking down at you.

“You’re such a good girl.” Penelope said wiping some of the cum from the side of your mouth with her fingers. Sliding them into your mouth, watching them glisten with each thrust Spencer gave you.

“There you go princess” Penelope mused chuckling at each whine you gave, looking up pleating at her.

Whining you flexed your fingers, trying to touch Spencer to try to get his attention in any way.

“Spencer please.” You moaned 

“Spencer please.” Penelope mocked and mused at you at how you were begging for Spencer to let you cum. Before you knew it you were eating Penelope out, trying your best to keep your thoughts in place praying that muscle memory will take over. Whimpering at every hair pulling and thrust, your legs shaking with Spencer between them.

Spencer moaned your name before moving forward, now giving you no space to move even if you wanted to. Tears stung your eyes as Spencer gripped your arms tighter thrusting deeper into you, you were at your wits end tightening around him causing him to curse under his breath.

“Oh my god.” Penelope moaned cuming for the second time, you were unsure if you should feel proud of yourself or bitter at the fact that Spencer wouldn’t let you cum.

“Spencer. Reid. Agent. Doctor pleaseee.” You cried out thinking of anything to call him to make him let you cum, anything that would take enough pity on you.His long and slow strokes got shorter and quicker making your eyes fluttered shut.

His fingers dug into your arms, the skin turning white under the pressure. His thrusts got sloppier collapsing as he came inside of you. You’re so close, just as you thought it was over Spencer continued letting you ride out your high. A whine escaped your lips twitching around Spencer cuming, feeling your body collapse under the high.

The three of you dragged yourselves to the bed, feeling worn down as Penelope threw the covers to the side all of you crawling into bed.

The three of you laid on the bed half naked coming down from your high, comfortable silence filled the room. Your brain felt like it was miles away, trying your best to form a coherent sentence before even attempting to say it. Stumbling over your words you finally spoke, breaking the silence.

“On a scale from 1-10 how suspicious would it look if we all called in sick tomorrow?” You said breaking the silence, staring at the ceiling.

“Zero if we say we got food poisoning.” Penelope chimed in her cheek pressed against your chest.

“Food poisoning actually takes two to three days before you’re able to see any symptoms.” Spencer said, he could go on and further explain this but he was too tired to even think about continuing to form that thought.

“I’m going to say you gave us undercooked chicken.” You murmured against Spencers chest, receiving a hum of agreement from Penelope.

Spencer shifted a bit to look down at you, his eyebrows knitted together “I don’t think that’s believable I would never do that.You cook chicken at 165 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 25 minutes. Hotch would see right through that. ” 

Penelope let out a chuckle “Ah so it was premeditated” She said.

[nilim]

For the AI Dungen recipes, just based on what I made yesterday: 200 gr chicken 3 Bell peppers 1 ts oregano & basil mix dessert: 1 sheet of puff pastry (bought premade LOL it's way too difficult to make from scratch) 125 grams of rhubarb jelly

Alright, here we go. Going to make two AI generated recipes. We got this.

I fed your ingredients into AI dungeon and it spit out the below recipes. The chicken one was quite a long and surprisingly coherent recipe. 

The first part is my input, anything bold is what the AI generated: 

200 gr chicken 3 bell peppers 1 ts oregano & basil mix 2 ts garlic powder 1/4 cup of water salt and pepper to taste

And then we just follow whatever the AI wants us to do in steps until it seems the recipe is done:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least an hour or overnight.

(Note: I left the bell peppers out of the ‘mix all the ingredients’ step, because they show up later again in the recipe.)

Well, it did say mix all the ingredients. 

Wet chicken. Which we let rest for an hour (or overnight). Alright. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the chicken into small pieces, place them on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. After they are done cooking, take out of the oven and set aside to cool down completely before you start assembling your sandwich

Oh cool, so we are making a sandwich? Good to know.

I was hesitant about baking the wet chicken without any oil, but it was..... ok.

For the lettuce: 1 bunch of romaine lettuce (about 1 lb)  1/2 tsp salt + more to taste  Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and add some salt if needed. Toss everything together until well combined. You can also use a fork to break up any clumps. Serve immediately.

Ah yes, the famous salted lettuce.

“Serve immediately.”

For the garlic aioli:  1/2 cup mayo 115 gr 1/2 tsp garlic powder  Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well combined. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to serve the sandwich. You can make the mayo a couple of days in advance.

You can make it a couple days in advance y’all. You know, if you want to save time. 

“Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate“

For the roasted bell peppers:  3 red bell peppers  1 TBSP oil  Mix the oil and salt in a medium bowl and add the bell pepper strips. Toss everything together until well combined.

This is why I didn’t add the peppers to the chicken. 

Since it mentioned ‘pepper strips’, I cut them up before mixing them with the oil. 

Transfer to a baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil. Roast in the oven at 475 degrees F for about 30 minutes, until the bell peppers are charred all around the edges. Let the bell peppers cool down to room temperature. You can roast the bell peppers a day in advance. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

I roasted them for 10 mins like this and then realized the foil was sealed too tight, and I was basically steaming the peppers in their own moisture and not charring them, so I loosened the edges so the moisture could get out and returned it to the oven for the other 20 mins. 

They came out terrifyingly normal. I thought I’d have charred crisps. But they were quite good.

To my surprise, the AI actually finished up by telling me how to assemble the sandwich, and it actually used the correct ingredients.

Assembling the sandwich: 

Cut the baguette in half lengthwise. Spread a generous layer of garlic aioli on both sides of the bread. Add the chicken, some roasted bell peppers, lettuce and top with some more aioli. Enjoy!

It was honestly surprisingly good, I kinda enjoyed it even though it was a lot of mayo. It’s just... a very coherent recipe and end product which is very impressive, 9/10, point deducted for the wet chicken.

Now. For the dessert:

1 sheet of Puff pastry 125 grams Rhubarb jelly (I used the regular kind) 2 tablespoons sugar 150 ml (5 fl oz) heavy cream 3 eggs, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll out puff pastry. Cut into 4 equal pieces and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

At this point I realized those ‘3 eggs, beaten’ in the ingredients list is never mentioned again anywhere in the recipe, so I decided to use them to make two batches of the puff pastry, one without an egg wash as the recipe indicated (left), and one with (right). 

   Remove from oven and let cool completely before filling.

So after 10 minutes they were neither golden brown nor done, but I took them out anyway considering I would have to put them back into the oven later on in the recipe.

In a saucepan over medium heat combine rhubarb jelly, sugar and cream. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until thickened slightly.

Alright......

Delicious....

Pour into a bowl along with whipped cream and stir well to incorporate. Add vanilla extract and fold through.

Whipped cream??? The recipe list didn’t say anything about whipped cream. Luckily, I had some cream leftover and made it into whipped cream.

I feel like the 'whipped’ part isn’t going to matter after I’m done mixing these two....

Hmmm delicious slurry!

Spread onto cooled puff pastry sheets and bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until set but still jiggly when poked with a finger. 

ಠ_ಠ

Considering that the recipe called the slurry ‘filling’ earlier on, I decided to ‘spread’ the slurry across half the pastries like the recipe instructed, while filling the other half.

And now to bake them for 25-30 minutes. I sat in front of the oven the entire time, afraid they might catch fire. But they didn’t. 

After 10 minutes, filling began to escape from the ones in front.

After 20 minutes, things began to look slightly singed.

And done. Not burned! A win.

I took 4 to eat. 2 with and without filling, and with and without egg wash.

The ones without the filling but with the spread tasted purely of pastry. Just. A whole lot of effort for a square of store bought puff pastry. 

The ones with filling were just liquid inside with weird clumps. Surprisingly sour. Burned my tongue.

5/10, mostly because I thought it might burn my house down and I was delighted it didn’t! Yay!

[deliverydefresas]

moving step by step (together)

second and last thing i posted on wp that i haven't posted here ((i think)) feel free to ignore if you've read this on wattpad already, as i'm just posting it in case i need to refer to it later.

(not proofread. it never is)

prompt(?): domestic!simbar deciding to move in together (toanothercountry)

When her day began, she didn't imagine it'd end up the way it did. In fact, to Ámbar the day felt like an endless nightmare.

Between her washing machine breaking, one of her kitchen cloths accidentally catching on fire when she was making her breakfast, her car not starting and thus being late to her first class, forgetting an important paper at home and losing 1/5 of her grade for one of the toughest classes in her semester; Ámbar just wanted to call it a day and forget she even had to endure it.

"The professor told me he'd let me turn it the paper, as long as I added 10,000 words more; and hear this: he won't give me the 20% of the grade, but a 15%, tops." She still needed to get her laundry done, so she'd opted to come by Simón's loft (and Nico and Pedro's too) when her classes had ended. While she waited for it to be done, she'd grabbed a glass of wine while venting her boyfriend's ears off. "So now I need to find something to write about that's worth 1000 words of coherency, otherwise I'll be lucky to even have a 10%. And God knows I need it."

Simón kissed her head sympathetically, adjusting her head - previously leaning on his shoulder- a little bit closer to his neck. "You will, little gem. You're the smartest one in your class, I'm sure you'll find something and, it's penultimate semester, you can do it."

She groaned, "I wish it were as easy as that." He kissed her cheek this time, and she snuggled into him a bit more, needing his support to make her feel less stressed. "Enough of me, how was your day?"

He chuckled, "not as interesting as yours, I'm afraid. Did a little songwriting, had a video-call with a magazine, changed my sheets..." he winked at her, making her laugh.

"Aw, do you want me to give you a gold start? Maybe I should call your mom, tell her her little boy is a nice young man who makes his own bed." Simón leaned in to bite her cheek, causing her to and almost spill her wine all over the couch, and to prevent this, the red liquid ended up on her shirt. Technically, it was one of his, since today's clothes had been thrown in the washer with the rest of the laundry, but still, spilling wine on her clothes wasn't nice. "Simón!" she scoffed him, which only made him laugh at her. He told her to grab another of his old shirts, while he refilled her glass.

She stood up then, cursing him all the way to his room to grab one of the 'pajama' shirts he kept in his top drawer. Ámbar heard him call to her once she had put it on; "hey, is tacos okay with you for dinner? Or do you want me to order you something else?"

"What are the guys having?" she questioned, to prepare herself in case the others ordered less than what their stomachs wanted to eat, and later lead them to steal her food.

"Pedro's staying at Delfi's and Nico is out with his fling, so nothing." Simón answered her, entering his room with his cellphone at hand.

"Then the usual." She told him simply, her boyfriend nodded. "Hey, can I use your laptop to check my e-mail? My phone died."

Simón nodded again. "Sure. Hello? I would like to order two pastor gringas..." he left the room again, not before pointing at his desk, where his laptop was sitting on. She quickly turned it on, taking it to the living room to wait for Simón to finish the call.

Her boyfriend was one of those people who didn't put a password on the device itself, but on the archives in it (which were mostly lyrics, tracks, and unreleased songs), so it didn't take long until she had the browser opened.

Ámbar tried to ignore whatever Simón had open in his last tab, but the images displayed caught her attention.

No, it wasn't porn, nor was it anything compromising. At least not in that way.

Her boyfriend had a Real Estate website open, showing apartments in sale. However, that wasn't what surprised her – he'd talked about finding his own place before-, but that all the options listed Mexico City as their location.

He'd never mentioned moving back to Mexico. They'd planned vacations to his hometown Cancún, sure, but somehow in all their talks about the future she'd had assumed their plans took place in Buenos Aires, close to her family instead of his. She could deal with him going on tour for weeks – she didn't bear months as well as she did weeks, and for this he always flew her in- but to live in two different countries? How was their relationship supposed to work in that scenario? Would it even work out? Sure, she was almost over with her degree, but-

"Little gem," her eyes snapped from the screen to where Simón was standing, by the kitchen's door, "I ordered you an almond horchata, is that okay?" she kept staring at him. "What? Is my laptop giving you problems? Your mail?"

She sighed. "No, I actually haven't opened my mail yet." He gave her a confused look.

"Then what's it? You've been staring at the screen for at least two minutes."

"When were you planning on telling me you're moving to Mexico?"

His mouth shut, his eyes showed surprise and an underlying regret. "Uh... soon?"

"So it's true, then? You're moving there?" Ámbar didn't want her voice to sound as hurt as it did, but she couldn't conceal it, either. After all, this was her boyfriend, the guy she was in love with, and who she'd loved for years now... to imagine him living so far away from her, it hurt her deeply.

To find out like this, instead of from his own mouth, was like salt to the wound. Her already shitty day was turning for the worse.

Simón sighed, his demeanor showing he was ashamed of it. "It's an option." He pursed his lips slightly, walking over to the couch, taking the device off her lap to turn her body towards him. "I was planning on talking to you about this sooner than later, I promise."

"When? When you had already bought it? Or when I had to say goodbye at the airport?" she couldn't help but dab at him, her temper was talking for her right then, "and what do you mean with 'it's an option'? You're looking for a place already, surely it's more than simple 'option'."

Simón let out a sigh, a sign he wasn't sure how to explain it to her, "I- have you noticed how most of our label meetings have been taking place in México?" She nodded, it was hard not to. The boys and him didn't really leave the city unless they absolutely had to, which could be summed up in three reasons: touring, vacations, and meetings. She'd always frown a little when those meetings took place, because she couldn't really understand why they had to leave when their label had offices in BsAs, but never really dared to ask Simón, afraid she'd come out as clingy for not wanting him to leave her for a couple days.

"I just assumed all the 'important' people chose to meet there instead of flying down here."

He scratched his nape. "It's a little bigger than that. Their HQ has always been up there, and their offices here have worked on a smaller scale for years; however, they've wanted all their more... 'recognizable' artists to be closer for a while now."

"So, they're making you move there?"

"Yes and no. They've been nagging us since the beginning to move to Mexico City, but it's only now we've – well, I've- considered it as an option."

"Why? Don't Pedro and Nico want, too?"

Simón grimaced. "They've already been considering it for a couple of years." Oh. Now that she thought about it, Delfina had hinted multiple times over the months 'the possibility' of working in another country. She'd always assumed she meant taking international jobs for a short period while Pedro was out on tour too, but now she guessed she'd meant for her to imagine that possibility, too.

It seemed like she'd assumed lots of things, and it stung to know she'd been in the dark far longer than everyone else. Even Delfi – who'd been dating Pedro a considerably less time than she'd been with Simón- knew of this before her.

Which made her ask him once again. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because you're still in uni, little gem, and I didn't want to move somewhere else while you were here; I still don't. I had a plan, honestly; I was going to wait until you neared graduation to slowly get you used to the idea, and, well, I also wanted to wait in case we didn't work out." She pursed her lips as she was still mad, but knew he had a point. He always did.

"You could've talked to me sooner, though. We could've planned this way sooner, make it easier for both." Ámbar sighed out, trying to get her anger out with it.

"I know, I get it now, and I'm very sorry." He apologized sincerely, grabbing one of her hands to kiss it. "This in no way is me telling you I'm moving tomorrow and leaving you here, little gem, I'd never do that. Hell, I don't even think I could. It's just..."

"An option." She finished for him, sighing again. "I guess I- I don't know, maybe I could start looking at internships in CDMX? When- when would this take place anyway? And I have to talk to my mo-" her eyes widened, "God, my mom! What do I tell her if we go? She'll be all alone here!" Her voice sounded panicky even to her.

"Hey, it's okay, there's no hurry. We've already postponed this for years with the boys, another year or so won't change anything, in fact, we'll need all we can get to get papers and stuff in check. And your mom can always come with us if you're worried about her, no biggie." He told her, as if the three of them moving countries wasn't a big deal, or, y'know, extremely expensive.

"Do you seriously want my mom living with us, Simón?" she snapped at him, and immediately felt bad to do so. He was just trying to help her and then here she was, bitching on his offers. "Sorry, sorry. I'm just... overwhelmed, sorry." He shrugged it off.

"I was actually thinking of you two getting your own apartment but since you're oh so kindly offering to live together..." Her eyes widened once more, shocked. She hadn't realized she'd implied that. "... I guess we can either buy or rent one for ourselves and rent another for your mom."

"That's not what- I mean it's not necessary. An apartment for my mom and I would be okay if she even agrees to move."

Her boyfriend started pouting. "Are you saying you don't want to move in with me?"

"No, no, that's not what I mean-" she stopped talking once she saw a teasing grin on his face. "You're messing with me."

He shook his head, silently laughing as he reached out to sit her on his lap, hugging her waist tightly. "I'm not. I'm actually happy you asked me to move with you, so I don't have to when the time comes."

"I didn't ask you." She felt the need to point it out. "You just assumed I did."

"Because you assumed we'd live together. It's okay; if it were up to me I'd be living with you in a heartbeat, I've thought about it for a while."

She gulped. "You have?"

"Yeah, but since I'm living with two dudes and you're living with your mom... it just isn't viable." That got her thinking.

"Why haven't you gotten your own apartment yet? Any of you?"

Simón shrugged, leaning into their coffee table to grab their glasses. "Rent is cheaper when you divide into three, and all of us have been saving up to get our own pads for when we moved to CDMX."

"It was never a matter of 'if', was it? It was always a 'when' you moved." She already knew the answer, of course, so she didn't wait for him to answer. "What took you so long to do so? I'm sure you could've done so years ago, and now you're waiting for Delfi and I, I guess, but before? What held you back?"

He pondered it for a minute, didn't speak immediately. "Something always came up. At first, we didn't have enough money saved, then Nico's mom had an accident, Pedro wanting to stay until his little sister finished high school... then you. My guess is the universe was waiting for us to meet to let me leave the city." She couldn't help but laugh at this.

"You're such a corny guy."

"Only for you, little gem, only for you." Ámbar took a sip of her wine before snuggling closer to his chest, earning her a kiss on her hair. "So, are we doing this?"

She pushed the anxiety of the unknown to the back of her mind, she knew that if she overthought about it she'd find reasons not to. Instead, she took a deep breath, intoxicating herself with the smell of soap and lotion that lingered on her boyfriend all the time.

"Yeah," she sighed, "but we're doing this together."

"Together," he repeated, giving her hand another kiss. "I like the sound of that."

[doc-pickles]

things just happened (and so did you)

I started this literally in a manic state at like... midnight when I couldn’t sleep. Then I completed it during a 112 degree heat wave so there’s obviously a lot happening here.

Anywaaaaaays I decided to rewrite 14x08 and 14x09 (Out of Nowhere & 1-800-799-7233) because while these episodes are LITERALLY flawless there’s something that every episode of Grey’s could use and that is babies. 

This will be a two shot with the second half coming sometime later this week (we’ll see how my brain decides to work) but I hope you guys enjoy it! 

xoxo Nina

Jo’s morning isn’t starting off great. First day as Chief Resident and not only does she not have the respect of her coworkers, she’s got a migraine that’s burning itself into her skull. She sent everyone off where they need to be and then barricaded herself in a supply closet. The darkness of the small room bringing her a tiny amount of relief. 

“Jo? You in here?”

Shit. Alex…

Suddenly she remembers that she was supposed to be working on a case with Alex this morning. He mentioned it last night as they’d curled up in bed together but with her hectic morning it had completely slipped her mind.

“Hey,” Jo lifted her hand weakly as Alex finally stepped into her line of sight. “I’m sorry, I totally spaced on our case together. I have a migraine and I’m stressed out beyond belief. This whole Chief Resident thing is taking its toll on me.”

Alex looped his arm around Jo’s shoulder, bringing her into a hug she hadn’t realized she’d needed. A deep breath escaped her and before she could comprehend what was happening, Jo was quietly crying into Alex’s shoulder. He took it in stride, rubbing her back and quietly reminding her to breathe. 

“What’s up with you, this is more than just first day jitters,” Alex pulled back, eyes raking over Jo as one hand came up to brush away the tears that had collected on her cheeks. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”

Jo was about to answer him when the past week played over again in her mind. Her emotions had been all over the place, she hadn’t been able to sleep, and her period was late. All three things she had just chalked up to stress and the price of being a perfectionist. Now though, as she stood crying in a supply closet, Jo thought something else might be amiss. 

“I… I don’t know,” Jo bit back the urge to tell Alex her suspicion, not wanting to unintentionally spook him. “I’m gonna find some pain killers and then I’ll meet you in Frankie's room?”

Accepting her answer easily enough, probably because the plan involved seeing him again so soon, Alex pressed a chaste kiss to Jo’s lips before leaving her be. Once she was alone, she rummaged around the shelves for a moment before coming up with pain killers for her head and two pregnancy tests. She knew Alex would start to wonder about her whereabouts if she didn’t show up soon, but the anxiety of not knowing pushed Jo to run to the restroom first.

Whatever the outcome, you will be fine. You’re Jo Wilson, you’ve got this. 

Jo breezed into Frankie’s room a few minutes later, face flushed as she took in Helm, Alex, and Frankie's mom all staring at her. She waved her hand at them, promptly asking Helm to present the case. She could feel Alex’s gaze on her as Helm talked, but she tried her best to ignore it. 

“Good job Helm, now you can see if mom has any questions,” Jo gestured to Frankie’s mom, who was eyeing Alex appreciatively. “Mrs. Baner? Any questions for us?”

“Not today, just take care of my baby,” she ran a hand through her son's hair, smiling at him before turning to Jo. “He’s the light of my life, I want to make sure you all give him the best care. Do you have children Doctor Wilson?”

Jo’s eyes widened as she stared at the woman with a stunned expression. The question had shocked her, her brain suddenly unsure of how to answer. Her uncharacteristic delay was only made worse when both Alex and Helm turned to her quizzically.

“Um no,” Jo voiced much quieter than normal, her heart beating erratically as her fingers slipped into her lab coat and grasped the two plastic sticks in her pocket. “No, I don’t have children yet. But I can assure you that Doctor Karev and I will take excellent care of Frankie. He’s one of the best peds surgeons so you’re in good hands. If I had kids, I’d want him to take care of them.”

“I have to agree with you Doctor Wilson, we do love having Doctor Karev around,” Mrs. Baner added looking at Alex with that smirk again. Jo could sense Alex gawking at her, this time not trying (but failing) to hide the fact. “Well thank you for stopping by doctors.”

Jo turned and exited the room without a goodbye, hearing Alex wrap up the pleasantries as she began to walk further and further down the hall. Her chest was constricting, a swell of burning nausea rising up her esophagus as she heard Alex calling her name from behind. 

“Jo! Hey,” Alex huffs, finally catching up with her. Resting his strong hand on her shoulder as he steered her into an empty exam room. “You’re acting really weird, you kinda freaked back there. Will you please tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m fi-”

“You’re not fine, Jo. I know you better than I know myself,” Alex brushed away a stray hair from Jo’s eyes as she fought back the urge to cry. “Babe, I’m worried about you. If it’s just nerves then fine, but I think it’s more than that.”

Not trusting herself to say something coherent, Jo lifted the pregnancy tests from her pocket and placed them in Alex’s hand. She hadn’t removed her own hand from on top of his, but the wide eyed look he gave her told Jo that Alex knew exactly what she’d given him. 

“I haven’t looked at them yet,” Jo could feel the tears welling in her eyes finally spill over as she looked up at Alex. “That’s why I didn’t know how to answer Frankie’s mom. Because I hadn’t looked at the pregnancy tests I just took.”

“Oh,” Alex blinked, his free hand wrapping around Jo’s waist and rubbing her back softly. “Do you… do you want me to look?”

Staring at Alex deeply she finally allowed herself to actually consider the situation. She was, for the first time in her life, finally at a place where a baby wouldn’t be an inconvenience or a problem. She was loved by this amazing man in front of her and she had a job where she was excelling. So really she had no real reason to worry about bringing a child into the world. It was a safe and stable world that she had worked so hard to build.

“You look, I trust you,” Jo lifted her hand from on top of Alex’s and watched his face closely as he turned over both plastic sticks. His expression remained unchanged, eyes moving back up to meet Jo’s. “Well?”

Alex didn’t say anything as he moved his hand from Jo’s back to her stomach, a small grin breaking on his face.  

“Surprise.”

Jo can’t help the combination of tears and laughter that flow out of her as she reached up to kiss Alex sweetly. His hand is still pressed against her abdomen as he’s laughs along with her. 

“I guess that’s one way to celebrate you coming back home,” Jo raised her eyebrows suggestively, hinting at the night that they’d conceived as giggles burst between every few words. “Good surprise right?”

“The best I could’ve asked for,” Alex assured Jo as he kissed her again, a groan escaping from his lips as his pager began to beep. His eyes darted to the device, brows furrowing as he leaned back from Jo. “It’s Frankie, I gotta go. I’ll page you if I need you, okay?” 

Jo nodded, relishing in the feeling of Alex’s fingers trailing over her still flat stomach as he hesitated pulling away from her. 

“Go, sick kids need you,” Jo laughed as she ushered Alex away, squeezing his hand as he finally stepped out the door. “I’ll see you soon.”

-

Soon happens to be ten minutes later, Jo receiving a 911 page from Alex that has her speed walking across the hospital to get to Frankie’s room. Alex and Helm are arguing in the hall, an angry expression on his face as he listens to the fumbling intern. 

“I-I-I don't know what the…,” Jo approaches the duo as Helm stutters out an excuse. “I can’t, I don’t know!”

“What’s happening here?” 

“Frankie’s had a headache for awhile,” Alex sighed as he looked from Helm to Jo. Even pissed off, Alex's eyes immediately went to Jo’s midsection, which made her blush. “Now we’re trying to figure out if he got Vitamin K last night or not.” 

Jo rolled her eyes and grabbed the tablet from Helm, punching in her login as she spoke to the intern. 

“He's asking you what he was given last, something to thin his blood or make it clot?”

“I know that. I-I can't open his chart,” Jo tried her login again as Helm explained to Alex what her issue was, but it failed once again. “The screen is locked.”

Jo peered up at Alex, nodding to confirm what Helm had just relayed. An angry groan sounded from Alex, his fist pounding against the wall as he let out a breath of frustration. 

“Okay Helm, prep Frankie for a CT so we can see if we have an issue. And page Shepherd please,” Helm nodded and ran off, Jo looking for instruction from Alex, who was focused on her. “Can you talk to the nurses and see if any of them gave Frankie his injection? I don’t know what’s happening with the computers, but I don’t wanna take chances here.”

“I’ve got you covered, you go make sure he gets his CT,” Jo moved to walk away, but Alex grabbed at her hand so she was pulled into his embrace. His body was still tense with anger, but his eyes were scanning her with concern. After a few beats she asked, “What’s wrong?”

She knew Alex well enough to know that it wasn’t just Frankie clouding his mind. Jo watched for a change in his expression, but none came. 

“Nothing just… be careful?”

“Now you’re going soft on me,” Jo chuckled as she leaned up and pecked Alex’s lips, pulling away and beginning to walk down the hall. “We’ll be back soon!”

-

Fortunately Frankie’s CT scans were clear, but back in his room he immediately began vomiting from the headache. Alex was worried, but tried not to show it for Frankie and his mom's sake. His mind was running a million miles a minute as he went through everything that had happened since he’d clocked in that morning. The hospital was under a cyber attack – hence being locked out of the system earlier, his patient was quite possibly on the verge of a stroke, and he was going to be a father soon. Alex pushed everything irrelevant to the side however as he sat beside Frankie and pulled the little boy into his side.

“I feel like I'm gonna die,” he bemoaned, his tiny head falling against Alex’s chest in exhaustion.

“What? You're not gonna die.”

“Will you do me a favor?,” Alex looked down to Frankie, who wore a serious expression as he glanced up at Alex. 

“Anything.”

“If I die... will you marry my mom,” Alex laughed at Frankie’s request, but the boy continued talking. “She really likes you. And I know she'll be safe.”

“You're not gonna die,” Alex stated again. He looked around the room, assuring no one else was around, and leaned down to look at Frankie in excitement. “But you wanna know a secret?”

“What?”

“I can’t marry your mom, because I’m gonna have a baby soon,” Frankie’s eyes widened as he processed Alex’s news. It felt good to get the secret out in the open, even to one of his patients. “Yup, I’m having a baby with Doctor Jo.”

“Well… if you can’t marry my mom, I think Doctor Jo is a good choice,” Frankie barely got the words out before he began heaving again, Alex rubbing his back as he leaned over the basin. 

In all honesty he hadn’t been sure at first if he was ready for fatherhood. Of course Alex had been overjoyed that he and Jo had made a new life, but there was a lingering doubt in the back of his mind that any child of his would come out just as screwed up as him. But sitting here now making sure that Frankie made it through the day, Alex was almost certain that he was ready for whatever challenges being a parent would bring.

-

Jo felt like she’d talked to every nurse in the hospital at this point. After going through the grapevine, she’d finally found a solid answer and was racing back to the Pediatric Ward to deliver her news to Alex. For some reason he wasn’t answering his phone and her texts left bouncing back instead of sending. The nausea that had been lingering all day was finally rearing its ugly head, but Jo pushed on, figuring she would have time to vomit after she saved Frankie’s life.

Her feet tapping impatiently on the elevator floor, she checked her phone to see if any of her messages had gone through. With a hand firmly pressed on her stomach, she closed her eyes as she bit back the bile rising in her throat. As the ancient elevators crawled upwards she realized she was still for the first time all day. This only made her even more aware of the escalating physical symptoms threatening to consume her. 

Finally, the elevator beeped as she arrived on the surgical floor. Jo’s eyes flew open and she all but ran from the metal box on her course for Alex and Frankie. She made it about three feet before a solid body blocked her path, finely tailored suit jacket and pressed linen pants coming into her view.

“Hey Brooke.” Jo froze in horror, mouth slightly ajar as her gaze moved upwards to meet the dark green eyes of the man she’d tried so desperately to forget. She took in the face that haunted her nightmares, the one that sent her screaming and crying into Alex’s arms at 2 AM. He looked older, his face worn by time, but still handsome as ever. The signature devilish grin plastered on his face sending an electric shock down her spine. Like a grotesque halloween mask, it was the same face he would give her before pummeling her into the darkness.

Her breath caught in her throat as time seemed to stop around her. She forgot about Alex and Frankie, her baby, everything that had happened today as the world around her shrunk down to her and the man in front of her.

Paul. Paul had found her.

[firstdegreefangirl]

Love Starts With a Toothbrush

Word Count: 3772

Original Pub Date: 5 June 2020

Relationships: Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz

Author’s Notes: I really should be banned from listening to country radio in the car, but this is completely and utterly inspired by Brad Paisley’s song “Toothbrush.” If you haven’t listened to that yet, check it out here

Read on ao3 here

Tagging: @theycallmebobbob @rebeccaofsbfarm @thisissirius @hearteyesforbuck @dramamineontopofme @twinien @meloingly

Buck looks at himself in the mirror, pondering his own reflection and the way the white foam covers his chin before breaking his own eye contact and tipping his chin back. He focuses his gaze on his jawline as he pulls the razor over his skin, watching the blades slice through the light stubble and push the shaving cream out of the way.  

His touch is light, his strokes are careful, and he can’t think of a time he’s shaved more carefully since he was 17 and half-convinced that he’d slit his own throat with a Bic safety razor identical to the one he’s holding now.  

The stakes tonight are equally high, just as life-or-death, but in an entirely different way. He thinks about it as he rinses the razor, flicks his thumb downward across the blades to clear any stuck hairs from between them. He’s going out for dinner with Eddie, just like they’ve done probably hundreds of times in the time they’ve been friends. This time is different though, in the way Eddie couldn’t look him in the eye when he asked, the way he’d tentatively added “... it could be a date, if you’re OK with that,” when he’d mentioned an Indian restaurant he’d been meaning to try.  

Buck wonders if Eddie is feeling the same amount of pressure he is tonight, if he’d tried on half a dozen shirts before settling on his favorite go-to, then realized that he needed to take the shirt off and shaved before he gets dressed. 

Part of him hopes that Eddie isn’t so uncertain about the night they’re going to share, hopes that he’ll have enough bravado for them both. But he also wants this to mean as much to Eddie as it means to him.  

Because it means everything, he realizes as he drags a wet washcloth across his skin, lets the warm water clean the last dregs of shaving cream from his face and rinses it out. He leans up over the sink, examining his skin closely to make sure he didn’t miss any stray hairs. As blond as he is, it’s not like they’ll show up, but he still wants to make sure everything is perfect tonight.  

Satisfied with the shave, he shakes the razor dry and sets it back in the medicine cabinet, reaching for the tube of toothpaste on the shelf above.

He squirts a blob of the mint-flavored gel onto his toothbrush and sticks it into his mouth. Dental health isn’t usually such a focus for Buck; most of the time he squishes the foam around his mouth and spits as soon as every tooth is mostly brushed.  

Tonight, though, he scrubs every tooth carefully: front, back and top. He angles the brush down to get his gum line, and even gags himself when he brushes his tongue. It might be the first and only time he’s actually brushed for two minutes, and he briefly wonders how weird it would be for him to call his dentist in the morning and brag.  

Very weird, he decides as he plucks a soft blue paper cup from the dispenser on the counter and fills it with water to rinse his mouth out. As the foam swirls down the drain, he rubs his favorite aftershave across his hands and his hands over his face, wincing at the sting against the freshly shaven skin.

It’s the scent he saves for special occasions; he can’t remember the last time he wore it, the last time something felt important enough to warrant the high-quality leather notes that pair perfectly with the fresh citrus scent of his best cologne.

He grabs his shirt from where he’s hung it on the shower door handle and shrugs it on. The buttons are straightforward, but take just enough time that he decides he needs to run a comb lightly through the edges of his hair again.

When that’s done, he looks down at his phone. 7:28, the screen reads, and Eddie is supposed to pick him up at 7:30. He makes it halfway down the steps, though, before he’s turning around and ducking back into the bathroom long enough to swish some mouthwash around and rinse it down the sink.

It’ll probably wear off before they’re even through eating, but hey, who can blame a guy for trying?

Buck doesn’t think about it again until Eddie is walking him up to the front door at the end of the night. But the hope that the mouthwash is lingering on his breath is his last coherent thought as Eddie backs him up against his doorbell and leans in for what has to be the longest single kiss Buck has ever had.

They’re both breathing hard when Eddie breaks away, lingering just long enough to murmur a ‘goodnight’ against his lips before he walks away, leaving Buck standing there in a daze, hoping he’s not imagining the minty taste Eddie left behind in his mouth.  

Two years later, to the day, they’re dropping Chris off at Pepa’s, promising to pick him up on Sunday night and waving from Eddie’s truck as they back down the driveway. Buck looks at Eddie as they turn the corner, sees the way he’s worrying his bottom lip.  

“Hey, you’re sure about this? We can go pick him up, bring him with us. Or ditch the plan altogether, do the big ceremony in a few months.”

“No, I’m sure. I want to marry you tonight. And I like the idea of that being just for us.” Eddie sighs, and Buck wishes he believed him. “I just … feel bad for lying about the double shifts all weekend, telling Bobby we needed the days off for a ‘family thing.’”

“This is a family thing. It’s us, becoming a family. Legally.” Buck rests his hand on Eddie’s hand, wrapped around the gearshift.  

“We’re already family, Buck.”

“I know, but this makes it official. And we’ll talk to Bobby and Athena when we get back, see if we can borrow their backyard for a big reception. Everything else can be for everyone else, but this? This here, our wedding? It’s for us.”  

Eddie nods and releases his lip.

“Yeah. You … you’re right. Pre-wedding jitters, am I right?”

They laugh together, relaxing as Eddie drives them a couple hours up the coast. He’s not sure where they’re going, taking directions from Buck, who’s reading off of a list of turns he’s scribbled on the back of a junk mail credit card application.

He’d taken every other aspect of this to the n-th degree, as soon as Eddie suggested that they stop trying to plan the perfect wedding for their friends and family and just have the perfect wedding for them. Just the two of them, wearing the best suits they already owned and brand new matching ties, standing somewhere beautiful and private to pledge their lives to each other.  

Buck had looked for close to a week before finding the perfect spot: a tiny beachfront town with a little wedding chapel. He’d found the referral on a same-sex wedding forum, with a litany of stories and photos from couples praising the picturesque waters and friendly staff, willing to personalize intimate ceremonies for a reasonable cost.

All he had asked Eddie to do was make sure their bags were packed and pick him a ring. Everything else was a surprise, from Eddie’s brushed steel wedding band with its fine gold stripe pressed into the pocket of Buck’s jeans to the three tiny crystals on the tie clips: each of their birthstones and Christopher’s in the middle.

The ceremony is everything they could have imagined; every last detail Buck planned went off without a hitch. And he couldn’t help but privately noticing that the officiant who pronounced them husband and husband resembled the surviving half of the elderly gay couple he’d met on the car accident scene only a couple of months after Eddie came into his life.  

Mitchell, he’s pretty sure.

It’s coincidence, he’s sure, but it feels fitting nonetheless. Even if it was still over a year before their first date, talking to that man, hearing him tell Buck that a truly lasting love is made, not found, was a pivotal moment in his relationship with Eddie. It was the first time he let himself consider making something more than a friendship with him, so it feels fitting that Mitchell would visit him again today, give him a sign that he’s in the right place, marrying the right person for him.

Not that he needed a sign, not after he saw the way Eddie’s eyes watered when he ran his finger across Buck’s tie, understanding the gems the moment he saw them.  

He knew he was making the right choice.  

Even if he did have to go all the way down to the lobby of their hotel that night, get a couple of flimsy plastic toothbrushes from the desk agent.

“Really, Eddie? The only thing you had to do was pack our bags. You got the suits, you got my shampoo, but you left our toothbrushes on the counter?” He rolled his eyes as Eddie shook the toiletries bag open on the bedspread, no toothbrushes to be found.  

Of course, Eddie was fresh out of the shower, so it fell on Buck to go downstairs, sheepishly explain that he hadn’t packed for their trip (even if he did preen a little bit when he said ‘my husband was in charge of the luggage,’ the new title feeling perfectly at home on his tongue) and ask if they had any for sale.  

The clerk had come back with two barely opaque white-handled brushes that Buck is pretty sure he could have broken in half easier than a pencil. But they’re free, and they’re better than nothing, so he smiles gratefully at her and accepts the brushes and packets of toothpaste.

After their teeth are brushed, when Eddie is tucked in and waiting for Buck to join him in bed for their first night as a married couple, he snaps a quick picture of the cheap toothbrushes.  

It’s the sort of story that will make a good memory years from now, he knows already, and he never wants to forget this moment. He never wants to forget the way he feels two days later, either, packing up to leave and slipping the disposable toothbrushes into the bottom of his bag, tucking them away to be remembered and laughed about later.  

Their love wasn’t found; they made it between toothbrushes and minty fresh kisses along the way.

The first day off Buck and Eddie have together as husbands is spent boxing Buck’s loft and moving his life into Eddie’s home.  

Their home.

They’d talked about it, over breakfast on the beach the day after their wedding, thrown around the idea of buying a new house, a place that they picked together and decorated as a family. But ultimately, they decided that Eddie’s place was almost perfectly located between the station and Christopher’s school, it was already accessible for him, and Buck has long felt at home in Eddie’s living room.

He didn’t need a new house, he just needed Eddie in his bed and Christopher right down the hall, every night for the rest of his life.  

So he’s the only one moving, a whopping 17 minutes from where he had lived. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Especially when Eddie suggests redecorating after Buck gets settled, giving the house a new feel for their new lives together. It’s just turning to summer, the days growing warmer and longer enough that they can start with the backyard. Eddie puts out grass seed, plants a couple of twigs that will hopefully grow into lemon and orange trees.  

Buck takes it upon himself to watch a dozen YouTube videos and visit the hardware store, borrowing Eddie’s truck to haul cords of lumber home with the promise of a picket fence around the back of the house.  

He’s never built a fence before, but Bobby lends him a small table saw, spends an afternoon standing in the yard and teaching him how to use it before leaving him to finish building his fence. As with everything, Buck throws himself completely into the project; every spare moment he’s got is enough time to cut a couple of boards, drill a few holes.  

It’s one of the most fun projects he’s ever embarked on, especially when Christopher starts joining him in the backyard, plopping down on the fresh grass with a book and reading out loud to him, or telling him stories from his latest sleepover. Sometimes, when he’s got a brand new board, all 10-feet of it to control against the vibration of the saw blade, he’ll ask Chris for a hand. He’s got a tiny pair of safety goggles, bulky enough to go over his regular glasses, and kid-sized work gloves, and he’s always excited to help hold the long end of the board, tiptoeing forward as Buck pushes his end across the saw blade.  

Digging the post holes is its own kind of challenge, especially when driving his foot against the top of the shovel makes the pain in his leg flare up. But for those moments, Eddie is there. He’s always watching Buck out the kitchen window or from the back deck; Buck can feel his gaze following him around the yard, especially when the high heat of the summer gets the best of him and he pulls his T-shirt off.  

But when his leg start to hurt, almost like Eddie can feel the pain too, he appears beside Buck, pulls the shovel gently from his hands.  

“Here, I got it,” he says, squeezing Buck’s arm gently. “I’ll dig for a bit.” When Buck starts to protest, tries to tell Eddie that he’s fine, he can keep working, Eddie raises an eyebrow. “I know you can, but it’s almost lunchtime, and if you don’t cook, I’ll have to.”  

They both know it’s a cop-out. Eddie can handle sandwiches and pouring lemonade from the gallon jug in the fridge. But it means that Buck can take a break, sneak back to the bathroom and swallow a couple Advil when no one is looking, without having to admit that his physical limitations stop him sooner than they did before his myriad of near-death experiences.  

It takes a few months, but then their fence is up, pine boards marking the edges of a backyard that Christopher keeps mentioning is probably big enough that they could get a dog now, since he’d have somewhere to run.

“Maybe for your birthday, Superman.” Eddie ruffles his hair, shares a knowing glance with Buck. The three of them admire the handiwork for a few minutes longer, then Buck jumps and pulls Eddie’s truck keys out of his pocket.

“Ooh, hang on, I forgot the last part. Chris, you up for a trip to the hardware store? Think you can keep me on track?”  

“Sure! Dad, I gotta go make sure Bucky doesn’t get lost.” With that, they’re gone, chasing each other out the new gate and around the house. Buck hears Eddie’s confused shout, and feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He doesn't have to look at the message to know that Eddie has sent him a long string of question marks, but he and Chris have a mission.

They’re back 45 minutes later, Buck hauling a five-gallon bucket in each hand as he follows Christopher around the back gate. He hears the back door open as he’s taking the plastic sack from Chris and pulling out paint trays and rollers.  

“Alright, what’d we talk about, kiddo?”

“Dad! Buck says I can help paint, but only if you wrap me up in a trash bag first so I don’t get messy!”  

Eddie laughs but leads Chris into the house. They emerge a few minutes later, Chris covered in a trash bag with sloppy holes cut into the bottom for his head and arms. The three of them spend the afternoon painting, and most of the next day too, but when they’re finished, the picket fence is a crisp white, contrasting starkly with the grass around it.

Except the parts of the lawn that got their own coat of white paint, but Buck can’t bring himself to care. The grass will grow, he or Eddie will cut it short and no one will be the wiser. And they’ll still have their backyard, with the white picket fence that he built, for his family.  

He’s pretty sure this sort of thing is the best that his life is ever going to get, that nothing could ever top the feeling of standing here, Eddie’s arm around his waist and Chris leaning against their legs, admiring something they made together.  

Buck grunts as he lifts their toddler out of the bathtub and wraps him in a towel.

“Jeez, you’re getting big, Trey.” He rubs the 4-year-old's hair dry and helps him tie the belt on a tiny camouflage-print bathrobe. “Alright, what’s next?”  

“Brush teeth!” He shrieks with delight and grins at his papa.  

“That’s right, let’s go brush your teeth with Daddy and Chris!” Buck scoops him up, without grunting this time since he can get a better angle to lift from, and carries him down the hallway to the master bathroom. Eddie and Christopher are already standing in front of the mirror, trying to untangle Chris’s curly hair enough that it’s not totally insufferable in the morning.  

He’s 11 now, old enough that he can get most of it on his own, but there’s a patch at the back of his head that’s hard to reach, so Eddie helped him with that while Buck and Trey had a rubber duck war in the bathtub.  

“Daddy! Time to brush teeth!” Trey grabs for the side of Eddie’s pants leg as Buck situates him on the step stool beside the counter. “You can help me?”  

They’ve had Trey for almost two years now, and he’s always been very diplomatic about dividing his attention between Buck and Eddie. If Buck helps make his lunch, Eddie can sit with him while he eats. On the days that Eddie drops him off at preschool, he likes it best when Buck picks him up.

When Buck gives him a bath, Eddie helps brush his teeth.

“I sure can, kiddo. Chris, you’re all good. Get those pearly whites, bud.” He passes a tube of bubblegum-flavored toothpaste to his older son, watches him carefully squeeze a blob of it onto a blue toothbrush with a distinctive red ‘S’ logo on the handle. Christopher hands the tube back and jams the brush into his mouth while Eddie reaches for the smallest toothbrush in the cup.

Buck isn’t sure when it started, but somewhere along the way, all four of them started sharing a bedtime routine. Sure, that’s parenting, but this is a little bit more. The boys have their own bathroom, full of plastic boats and low-hanging towel bars, but still all four of them gather in Buck and Eddie’s bathroom at night to brush their teeth together.

He’s scrubbing across his own teeth as he thinks about it, white minty foam gathering at the corners of his mouth. When he catches Christopher looking at him, he turns his head and growls playfully, baring his teeth.

“No, Bucky! Don’t get me!” Chris’ toothbrush is still in his mouth, so the words are distorted and he sprays pinkish flecks all over the mirror when he cries out.  

Buck laughs, splattering his own toothpaste foam to create some sort of abstract bathroom art that he knows Eddie will wipe away while he sees the boys down to their shared bedroom.  

Trey leans back against Eddie’s hip, tipping his chin and opening his mouth.

“-Eddie, -addy!” He tries to say, without moving his jaw. ‘Ready, daddy!’ they both know it means, and Buck leans forward to spit as Eddie starts brushing carefully through their son’s mouth. He counts the teeth out loud, just like every night, even though the number hasn’t changed since six months after they welcomed him into their home.  

Buck leans back upright, looking at his family in the mirror as he reaches around Chris to take a paper cup from the dispenser he brought with him when he moved in. He fills it with water, freezing when he sees the design on the side.

The water flows over the top of the cup, down his hand, and it’s enough to shake him from his stupor. It shouldn’t have surprised him; he’s the one who’d purchased the box of planet-themed bath cups, remembering how excited Christopher had been to be able to recite all nine planets in order. He's staring down at a smiling planet, Mars, according to the reddish label beside it.  

Even if it were a surprise, there’s no reason that a Mars cup should stop him in his tracks like this. But he’s suddenly thinking of a different day, a different paper cup in a different bathroom. That cup was blue, plain blue, and he’d stood alone in the bathroom.  

He remembers every detail, the sting of the aftershave and the way the mouthwash tingled against his gums. And he remembers everything that came after, too, right up to Eddie kissing him against his front door. He’d gone inside that night and imagined a future with Eddie and Christopher. But never, not even in his most elaborate fantasies had he dreamed of having all of this.  

This is the most in love Buck has ever been, standing here in the bathroom with his family, watching Eddie hold a light-up toothbrush in one hand and a Jupiter cup in the other. He’s helping Trey spit into the sink – not onto the counter – and Buck feels his heart swell at the simple routine of it all. He puts his own toothbrush back into the cup and thanks his lucky stars for every moment like this, every night he gets to be a part of this. Every time life has caught him by surprise, every day that was better than the one before it, even when he hadn’t thought that would be possible.  

There are four toothbrushes on his counter, three people at the center of his world, and he thinks it again, this is the best moment I’ve had in my life.  

Because love, he’s come to learn, isn’t found in any of the obvious places to look.

Love starts with a toothbrush.

[thescatterbrainedwriter]

Your Stupid Smile

Word count: ~6,100

Pairings: oc x canon

Warnings: fluff and shenanigans

Sup! I’m actually running out of stories to post. Didn’t think this through too well. Curses to writers block and the fact I write long stories. Even so, do hope you enjoy! 🥔🎨

**Note, Emily is my personal character. I just like to stick her places. I also still have no idea how to do a ‘short click for full’ post.

———

Irritating, simply irritating. Everyone was having a good time, sure, but Nash was having a hard time joining in on the fun. Every time he got close to truly relaxing and enjoying the company around him, he would hear it, that laugh. Of course, once he heard the laugh he had to see where it originated from, and it was always the same face. That stupid face and that stupid smile. He couldn’t stand that smile, and he didn’t want to admit to himself the reason why it bothered him so much.

The team was in the lounge enjoying the company of each other after a long day. Cisco was telling a story, Barry and Iris adding tidbits here and there, and the more elaborate and ridiculous it became the more laughs rang out. By the end of it everyone was rolling and roaring with laughter which only intensified after a stray loud squeak sounded. Emily covered her mouth in embarrassment before folding over the bar counter in laughter again. “I’m sorry!” She breathed trying to apologize between laughs. “I don’t know where that came from!” She covered her face in an attempt to wipe away the tears now rolling down her rosy face. “Oh no, my face sprung a leak!” Everyone continued giggling and Ralph stretched his hand over to her to deliver a tissue. She took it with a mousy thanks wiping her face. Nash was trying his hardest to keep from looking at her, he already made the mistake of just glancing over and he scowled to himself about the flush slowly spreading up his neck.

“Hey Estrata,” Cisco called after composing himself a degree. “You got any stories to share?”

“Yeah,” Ralph agreed. “You almost never share anything. Think you could drop the mysterious facade for a night?” Emily had one arm draped over her head and held her cheek with her other hand as she thought. “Hmmm..... I dunno,” she teased. “I’m not exactly good at sharing, things about me anyway.”

“There’s room for only one queen of ice,” Frost defended. “Quit giving the cold shoulder and fess up would ya?” Emily gave a growly sigh as she seriously considered the plethora of things buried within. “Ok fine,” she relented. “You make a good case, and Ralph has a point. I’m just, I’m really hesitant to share much. Seeing as I could find myself stranded somewhere else, it gets tiresome re-explaining.” Everyone gets quiet and Emily scratches her head realizing she killed the mood a little. “Eh, I think I have a solution though. Tell me,” she smiled. “What you wanna know? Besiiiides, my name,” she cut Ralph off before he could ask. Everyone chuckled and Nash just smirked.

Frost stared her down thinking intently, Emily actually got nervous with the holes being drilled into her soul with the stare, before she decided on a question. “You don’t look like the type to, but are obviously capable of, doing some not so desirable things. So have you?”

Emily squinted at her before straightening her back and clearing her throat. “Just, just gettin riiiiiiight into it huh?”

“I don’t make a habit of pussyfooting around,” Frost dismissed smirking. Emily patted her cheeks trying to think of a good story to tell while everyone turned 100% of their attention to her, excitedly waiting for whatever secret would come up. “Ok, ok, I got one,” she said smiling. “Believe it or not, but, I’ve had to break out of area 51.”

“You were taken to area 51?!” Barry asked shocked. “How? Why??” Emily flashed another, albeit awkward, smile. “Well, I am a wanted woman back where I come from.”

“Wanted huh?” Frost asked somewhat impressed. “What’d you do to earn that target on your back?”

“Exist,” she said plainly. “What I am, is a very valued product to a group of people. I’m one of a handful, if not the only person, with my genetic makeup.” She sighed making everyone become glum. “They really wanted to study me, poke and prod and see how they could use me and duplicate what I am.”

“Estrata, I didn’t—“ Frost started before Emily waved dismissively. “No, no, it’s fine,” she assured with a smile. “After learning that I decided to make myself the biggest most obnoxious target ever,” she waved her hands in front of her to illustrate as she giggled reminiscing. “I thought to myself, that if they wanted me that badly they’re gonna have to work for it. So I made it my mission to piss them off and kick their collective ass,” she flashed a big smile. “Besides, if they’re busy chasing me and my friends, they can’t go looking for anyone else.”

“Guess that explains all the injuries Caitlyn found,” Frost commented thoughtfully. “And the fact you gave Dr. Wells such a hard time about just coming to the lab in the beginning.”

“Yup! Broken ribs, arms, legs, fractured skull and fingers, I’ve had my stomach punctured straight through at least twice, and my shoulder. Think that one actually broke my shoulder blade to be honest.....” Emily rambled.

“Jeeze....” Ralph said stunned.

“And that’s not counting their penchant for causing neurological damage with all variations for shock collars and tasers,” she listed with a smirk. “I really shouldn’t be smiling but honestly, they’re some serious badges of honor so why not?” They all softened their faces though she could tell they still felt bad. “So anyway, “ she continued, “there I am in the bowels of area 51, strapped to a chair in some interrogation room when two guys in suits come in.” Everyone changed their tune as she gets back into the story, Nash admiring her resourcefulness and determination. As she rambled and gesticulated enhancing the story with her hands, complete with illusions and little animations, Nash couldn’t help but stare even when she smiled bright. Cisco noticed his staring and bumped his arm jostling him enough to break his gaze. He wiggled his eyebrows causing Nash to grumble and avert his gaze from everyone but still listened attentively.

~~

“Soooo, there’s a whole facility underneath?” Barry asked once she finished. “And what we all think is area 51 is just a cover?” Emily nods with a smile. “There’s quite a lot buried underneath. I think the whole desert lot actually.”

“And no one knows about it?” Ralph asked.

“Lots of people know, but the government makes them seem crazy. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like Eiling all that much, reminded me too much of them.”

“So this, Quazar, or Quinton, was there too?” Frost asked. “Why was he there again?”

Emily paused trying to formulate the sentence as coherently and short as possible without rambling again. “He was the one who gave me my powers. Well, not really gave but, reactivated dormant genes so I could do what I do. It’s how I got the monicker ‘half breed’.” She drifted off in her memories. “We grew close, and I must admit I didn’t handle learning he was an alien well but. We protected each other, and came to care a lot about each other.” She smiled thoughtfully. “He’s my anchor to home. Him and Oliver and Flaer and Jimmy.” Bringing herself back to the present she cleared her throat. “He was there for leverage I guess. Most likely for added study being a pure blood. As long as he was there I would be too, even if I got out I would come back to try and get him out. So I just broke him out right away and messed up their plans.” She flashed a smile lightening the mood of the room.

“Boy, you are just full of mysteries aren’t you?” Ralph asked with a smirk.

“Eeeyup! And I am 100% telling the truth too. I also gave yooouuuu..... three mysteries? Three mysteries an explanation,” she said standing with a stretch. “No more.”

“Just, one more question?” Cisco asked. “Do you miss him? Quinton?”

Emily paused looking at him. “Well yeah, ‘course I do. I get homesick sometimes. I miss everyone back home.” She sighed deeply as her mind wandered a bit. “Sometimes, my relay picks up messages he sends. Takes quite a long time to decompress the file because of barriers and reality changes but, he asks me how I’m doing, gives me updates on what’s going on, tells me to hurry home. But....” She rubs her cheek thinking. “He said..... he said if I ever get stuck somewhere, not to worry about them back home. He would keep everyone safe, and that he wanted me to be happy wherever I landed.” She smiled softly. “So... so I try. I try real hard, to be happy. And make other people happy. And, I guess I do a pretty good job.”

“You do,” Nash commented without thinking. Everyone turned their attention to him, Emily raising an eyebrow and smiling softly. “Huh?” Nash cleared his throat averting his gaze. “I-I mean I’ve noticed, that, everyone enjoys your—your company and. And they, like, having you around.”

“That include you?” She asked. Nash snaps his head to her and makes eye contact, his words momentarily caught in his throat as he begins to panic having been put on the spot. “Speak,” Harry says manifesting beside him. “You need to speak, say something.”

“I mean yeah, I guess,” Nash coughs out. “I certainly don’t find you all that annoying anyway.”

“Probably not the right response....” Harry comments.

Emily frowns a little. “Hmm, well I suppose that’s something.” Nash turns away from her again, Emily cocked an eyebrow noticing his ears turning rather red. She was sure he felt them burning but decided not to press him further.

“She noticed that you know,” Sherloque said manifesting by the bar behind her. Nash looked at him curiously. “What?” He asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” Emily responded taking her seat at the bar again. “Oh, sorry,” Nash apologized. “Thought I heard something. Guess it was nothing more than an auditory hallucination or something.”

“She’s not as oblivious as you think she is,” Sherloque continued. “I guarantee she already knows how you feel, and is just waiting on you to do something about it.” Nash turned away from the bar trying to ignore him, in addition to keep his flush from getting worse. He didn’t want to acknowledge it but it was rather difficult to keep from staring at her or subconsciously follow her around. He grumbled to himself trying to get his mind on something—anything—else. Cisco noticed and smiled mischievously having gotten an idea. “Hey, I remember you saying you attended a spontaneous karaoke session with Harry at one point,” he started. “Think you could sing something?”

“Wait, you sing?” Ralph asked in surprise.

“As a..... hobby.....” Emily said shyly. “I don’t really.... sing in— in public. Much....”

“Why not?” Barry asked. “Caitlyn said I sing pretty well and I never sing in public.”

“She gets carried away,” Nash says still not looking at her. “Least that’s what Harry said. Though, I’m not sure if it’s her or the crowd she sings in front of.”

“It’s, uh, it’s a little of both....” Emily half confirmed.

“How’s that?” Ralph asks intrigued.

“Uhhmmmm.... well.....” Emily fidgets a little. “I’m a bit on the theatrical side. I like my special effects, people like seeing all the flashy stuff and, well, I can get lost in the music. Sometimes.”

“All the time,” Harry comments. “Tell her to sing So Soft by that Carrie woman.”

“Why So Soft?” Nash asks out loud. Emily stiffens and blushes slightly. “What?” she squeaks. Harry smirks. “That’s why.” Nash looks over at her, smile threatening to crack onto his face as she sat there with her cheeks slowly getting rosy. Cisco notices her posture change as well and smiles wide. “I think we may have a winner for song choice.”

“Nu-no, not that,” Emily stammers. GP flies over to her whirring what seemed like a suggestion which only served to make Emily beat red. “I am NOT singing that one!” She near yells. “You should know better than to suggest that.” The drone whirrs again. “That one’s worse, no!”

“I kinda like the idea of worse,” Ralph teases. “What was suggested anyway?” Emily casts her gaze down making her hands into fits and pressing them into her knees. “GP always try to suggest two songs he knows will make me uncomfortable,” she explains. “They’re...... uhm..... they’re.....” Emily pauses before rolling her head and deciding to just get it over with. “They’re called ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’ and...... ‘Sex bomb’......”

Everyone’s interest had been piqued with Cisco and Nash both staring at her with raised eyebrows. Emily covered her face in embarrassment floating above her seat a little. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she near whines. “What about Talking Body?” GP whirrs in intelligible english tones. “Preferred over those, but still no.” Emily responds still red in the face. “No, I.... hmm.... I think I... h-have one. It’s called Collide.” Emily straightened her posture and cleared her throat. “Oh this is embarrassing......” she muttered under her breath after a pause and cringing. Taking a breath to calm herself she began, GP providing the background music.

*Lately, I feel like I’m pushing you away*

*Acting moody for no reason*

*And even though you know I'm always gonna stay*

*I've been talking like I'm leaving*

*I don't know why I keep playing these dumb games*

*Love is not a competition*

*And no one's winning when I'm pushing you away*

*Sometimes darkness is a prison*

The lights seem to dim a little before returning to the normal ambient light. Taking a breath to steady her nerves further, Emily continues.

* Turn the lights on, honey, honey, I don't wanna hide*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I'm surrendering tonight*

*Although I'm not perfect, I feel perfect in your eyes*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I don't really wanna hide, not tonight*

*Come and crash into me 'cause I want us to collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

Emily smiles becoming more relaxed even beginning to move in rhythm with the music and providing small effects such as orbs of lights and dimming the actual lights at times.

*Look into my eyes and tell me we're okay*

*And we both can be forgiven*

*Kiss me gently, say the things you wanna say*

*You don't need to ask permission*

*I'm a stormy ocean, but you're steady*

*And I'm a commotion, but you get me*

*Too many emotions, but you let me*

*Let me blossom in the dark*

The lights dim and brighten to the beat of the song, the orbs of light change color and seem to twinkle and multiply. Emily smiles wide as she sings and looks around in amusement at the display going on. Everyone else is distracted by the lights but Nash was fixated on Emily. He smiled as she smiles happier than he’s ever seen feeling as though this was her unfiltered.

*Turn the lights on, honey, honey, I don't wanna hide*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I'm surrendering tonight*

*Although I'm not perfect, I feel perfect in your eyes*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I don't really wanna hide, not tonight*

*Come and crash into me 'cause I want us to collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

The lights slowly begin to dim as Emily, having decided to stand, took slow strides toward the center of the group. She begins to float the closer she gets and takes a modest cross-legged ‘seat’ in the air. Everyone looks around curiously and Nash fixates on her again.

*I'm a stormy ocean, but you're steady*

*I'm like a commotion, but you get me*

*Too many emotions, but you let me*

*Let me blossom in the dark*

Emily darkens the whole room by creating a field that prevented any light to show through. She then made it look like she was glowing, her suit had appeared, her hair was snow white with the unique holographic shine, and she still kept the rest of them in utter darkness as she continued toward the song’s end.

* Turn the lights on, honey, honey, I don't wanna hide*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I'm surrendering tonight*

Emily snaps her fingers and flicks her wrist in front of her causing an explosion of stars appear in the room making it look like they were in the deep of space. Still glowing, albeit softer, she smiles wide. Nash watches noting she seemed to feel at home in such an environment almost looking free, maybe even exited to share the wonder of the void she knew so well with people she cared for. She looked dazzling in that moment.

*Although I'm not perfect, I feel perfect in your eyes*

*Turn the lights on, honey, I don't really wanna hide, not tonight*

*Come and crash into me 'cause I want us to collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

*Collide, collide, collide*

The room fades back to black and Emily brings the normal light back into the room gradually so as not to blind everyone. They watch in stunned silence as she takes a few steps back toward her chair, suit disappearing and hair returning to her usual red tinted brunette, and she smiled shy and awkwardly. “So.....?” she asked.

“That was—“ Nash began.

“Amazing!” Cisco interrupted causing Nash to snap out of whatever trance he fell into. Emily smiled placing a hand on her cheek as she blushed. “Hobby my ass,” Ralph scolded. “You’ve put in some serious work to sound that good.”

“I’ve, had a few years of practice,” she teased.

“Well, whatever it is you just stunned us with, I wish I had a talent like that,” Iris commends. “That was..... wow!”

“Sing something else!” Wally said enthusiastically.

“Yeah, that was great!” Joe agrees enamored.

Emily laughs waving a hand. “No no, I would be singing all night. Do you know what I would sound like tomorrow if I did that?”

“C’mon, just one more?” Frost asks surprisingly invested. Emily sighs with a reluctant smile tilting her head toward Nash a little. “Again, Harry, this is why I don’t sing in front of people.”

Nash chuckled in amusement with Harry smiling next to him. “Three. Three ‘one more’ requests that night,” he explained. “I was worried she would kill me by the end of it. If it weren’t for Jessie changing the topic when we left she may well have.” Nash looked at him curiously. “I was......responsible for two. She wasn’t enthused when I got the whole room going,” he said reminiscing. “By the way, if that wasn’t an obvious tell, I don’t know what is.” Nash’s gaze fell upon Emily again as she grumbled placing both hands on her cheeks considering indulging their requests. “No, no. It’s going to turn into karaoke night all over again if I don’t stop now,” Emily determined. “Only one tonight, but maybe another some other time,” she smiled raising a finger with a wink.

Casual conversation carried for another hour or two before Emily began to yawn, followed by a few of the others present. Half an hour after the first yawn, everyone decided to call it a night. It was well into the evening at this point and no one wanted to risk sleeping in too late. Emily stretched winding up leaning all the way back, about 90°, over the bar. She stayed like that taking a deep breath and complained about not wanting to move. “I think I’m just gonna.... sleep here. Like this. Yeah, this is comfy....”

“Thaaaat doesn’t *look* comfortable.....” Cisco commented looking confused at how she could even *do* that.

“Must not be a fellow human rubber band,” she replied grabbing her elbows keeping her arms above her head. “Being super bendy sure comes in handy.” She smiled lazily and turned her head to face the person she heard moving to her side, seemingly tripping over a chair. Her eyes met Nash’s, who’s cheeks immediately turned rosy, and lifted her head. “You ok?” She asked.

“Yeah, no. I’m f-fine,” Nash coughed out. “Stupid chair, got tangled in my feet....” He kicked it nearly getting tangled in it again.

“Yeeeesaahhh,” Emily said tiredly. “They always seem to like ankles and toes, huh? Just.... always in the way, at the worst times.” Her eyes closed again and she sighed half falling asleep right there. Nash averted his gaze awkwardly and Cisco smirked at him, Nash gave him a face instigating a silent argument between the two about him saying something before GP flew over and whistled at her waking her again. “Hmmm?” she said tiredly. GP whistled again and Emily groaned. “Nooo, don’t waaaanna move,” she said with another stretch. GP bonked her head and she sighed. “Ok, ok. Fine. I’ll go to bed.” With a huff, she pulled herself into a sitting position before hopping off her seat and heading out. Various farewells and well wishes were exchanged as they left one by one leaving Emily alone with Nash and Cisco. They stood awkwardly at the elevator door waiting for it to come back up, Cisco flicking his eyes in the direction of Emily trying to encourage Nash to say something and Nash refusing.

“Good night guys,” Emily said with a yawn when the elevator dinged. “Travel safe, ok?”

“Make sure nothing blows up, alright?” Cisco joked. She smiled tiredly. “Aww, no fun. And I was gonna try to make a star tonight.” Nash smiled recognizing a similar joke he made with Cisco. “I’ll make sure to hold down the fort,” she assured rubbing her eye as they stepped in. “I’m pretty good at keeping people out of places.” They waved as the doors closed, Nash watched as she turned, flicking her finger like you would a switch, and the lights going out one by one as she advanced down the hall. Cisco turned to face Nash with a disappointed look. “What?” Nash asked doing a double take.

“You need to tell her you like her already,” Cisco scolded.

“I don’t... like her,” Nash said attempting to brush off the accusation. “Why would you even think that?” Cisco’s face dropped unamused. “Yeah, ok. You are literally dripping in tension when you’re in the same room as her.”

“I am not!” Nash protests. “I’m chill.”

“You stare at her, you follow her, you ears get red when she looks at you.”

“I.... do not... What?” He turned to face Cisco as the doors opened. He rolled his eyes as he left, Nash close behind. “Pretty sure everyone knows. Well, maybe not Barry. But Wally does, Joe asked if you two were a thing, Iris knows....” Nash went quiet still following him. “I think Ralph may have a thing for her too but so far hasn’t had any luck.” He spun to face him and pointed a finger in his face. “Say, something. Anything. The awkward is getting unbearable.”

Nash stared at Cisco for a minute before the latter turned to leave, Nash took a long look back at the lab with a sigh. *I really should,* he thought. *But what do I say?*

——

The next day was business as usual, Emily had decided to get some practice in before everyone came in and had just finished when she passed Nash in the hall on her way to change. “Oh, hey Nash!” she greeted with a smile. Nash felt that familiar flush start to run up his neck when he saw her. He closed his eyes and muttered the only word he could think of. “Don’t...”

“Hmm?” Emily asked tilting her head to look him in the face. He opened his eyes making eye contact and used as much self control as he could muster to speak. “Don’t.... smile. At me.”

Emily paused in confusion. “What?”

“Don’t smile at me,” he repeated slowly beginning to regret his sentence choice. Emily blinked a few times just staring at him as she tried to understand. “Why...?”

“Because it’s stupid and makes me uncomfortable. And it’s annoying. Remember when I said you weren’t all that annoying? I lied. You’re more annoying than Ramon,” Nash blurted everything out before he realized what it was he was saying but fought to keep a straight face. Emily’s face was blank, shoulders dropped a little, and she stared confused at him. “Oh.... well..... ok.” She said softly. Nash felt his heart constrict in his chest. What had he done? She took a breath and looked him in the eye again, her facial features betraying hints of mischief. “Alright Nash, I’m sorry. I had no idea my smile could do that to you.” She placed a hand on his shoulder in mock concern making Nash a little suspicious. “I’m so glad you told me.”

“....You are?” Nash asked.

“Yes, yes, I am. From now on I won’t smile at you.”

“You.... won’t?”

“Nope. I’ll just smile at everyone and everything else instead,” Emily said fighting a smile. “Rest assured you’ll never see my troublesome smile again.”

“Ah...... good.....” Nash said trying to sound satisfied.

“See you later then,” Emily said before continuing on her way. Nash watched her go mildly panicking. “What just happened?” He asked no one in particular.

“You messed up, big time,” Sherloque answered from behind him. “How so?” Nash asked spinning around.

“Well, you heard her. She’ll still smile, just not at you,” Sherloque smirked. “But oh, she knows what you said wasn’t true. Not all of it anyway. She still may be a little concerned you find her annoying.”

“So, what will she do?”

“Exactly what she told you she would. Clever woman,” Sherloque mused. He smiled at Nash who still looked concerned. “She will, continue to smile, at everyone and thing other than you. And in doing so, knowing you don’t really find it uncomfortable, she will frustrate you.” He stands close to his face continuing to smile. “My, what a mess you’ve made. I do wonder how you’ll fix it.” He disappeared leaving Nash alone in the hallway again, completely and utterly uncertain about what to do now. “Oohhhh no....” he muttered to himself.

The rest of the day went on as normal, no one but Nash really noticing her slightly altered behavior though they did note he seemed a bit more frustrated than usual. She really did keep her word, taking care to never smile directly at him though that didn’t stop him from getting the smallest of glimpses. He found himself staring at her more often, and after three days he had nearly had enough.

He had found himself in the cortex, Barry was out and about as the Flash leaving Cisco, and Ralph there with him. He was tense and on edge knowing Emily could come in at any moment. He was too preoccupied to remember where she said she was going which only served to amp his anxiety. He tensed when he heard the familiar light tapping of footsteps drawing closer.

“Hey, I’m back!” A familiar voice called out. Nash refused to turn to meet her even as she walked over. She was wearing an oversized tank top, sport shorts, knee high socks and sneakers with her hair tied up. *Training,* he thought to himself. *That’s right, she wanted to practice for a while.* “Hey Cisco, Ralph. Hi Nash....” She smiled at Cisco and Ralph before dropping the facade to look at Nash. He clenched his jaw but kept his composure. “So, what are you up to?” She asked.

Cisco’s eyes darted from her face to Nash’s, before giving Ralph a look. “Not much....” he said. “Barry’s just doing his patrols, hasn’t come up with anything yet,” Ralph added walking awkwardly away.

“Hey, uh, Estrata,” Cisco called from the control desk. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Yeah sure, what’s up?” She asked cheerfully.

“The, satellites could use some maintenance. I can do general software updates from here but it’s difficult to do physical repairs. Could yoouuuu.....”

“Go check it out?” She finished for him. “My pleasure. I’ll take Tinker with me in case they need specialty parts.” She said smiling at the small drone flying into view. “Good idea. Yeah. Take.... take what ever you need and stay however long to. Fix things...” Cisco replied trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “Be back in a jiffy!” She said with a grin before dropping it to look at Nash as she walked by. “Later.” They all watched and waited for her to leave the room before the two shot daggers at Nash with glares. “What?” He asked when he turned and saw their faces.

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Cisco asked near shouting. “She has been acting weird for the last few days,” Ralph added. “I don’t .... know..... what you mean,” Nash tried to dismiss. “You said something to her, didn’t you!” Cisco accused. “What did you say?!”

“I—I.... didn’t ......” Nash stuttered trying to avoid the unwanted confrontation. They stared each other down for a while before he relented. “Alright fine. I..... I did.... say something.....” he said rubbing the back of his neck. “Probably not the.... greatest thing...... in hindsight.....”

Cisco took a few steps forward still glaring. “Spill it.”

“I.... may have told her that..... she, uh, was..... annoying.....” Nash answered sheepishly. “You.... you what?” Cisco asked in disbelief. “You said what to her!?”

“You told me to say something to her. Anything, actually,” Nash tried to defend.

“Not that! Oh my— guh...” Cisco yelled throwing his hands in the air. Nash scratched his head like a child might when in trouble, being under all that scrutiny made his scalp really itchy. Ralph just stood there shaking his head. “You messed up, so bad,” he said.

“You don’t think I know?” Nash snapped back. “I got a lecture from a Wells as soon as she walked away!”

“You need to fix this,” Cisco said pointing again.

“How, Ramon? How?”

“I don’t know! But you have to do something! Smart, this time,” he glared, Nash glaring back at the ‘smart’ comment. “Because this?” he gestured around him, “This tension, is worse than your repressed tension. It sucks!”

“Hey Cisco,” Emily called over the relay. “Hey Es,” Cisco called back. “What ya got for me?”

“I’ve fixed a few cosmetic things, just scratches and dings from space debris, aaaaand I gave you a few new toys.” Cisco’s face lit up with a smile. “Ohhhh, new toys? Estrata, you spoil me.”

“Only cuz I like ya!” She responded with a giggle.

“Can’t imagine what you’d do for a special someone in your life,” Ralph commented shooting a look over to Nash. Nash clenched his jaw glaring back unenthusiastically. “Hmm, yeah. I’ve been told I get scary when I get serious or protective. Like, Mama Bear mode on steroids. So probably break a mountain in half. Or bake, I like brownies,” Emily rambled.

“.....Wait..... can you do that?” Ralph asked concerned. “Break a mountain?” Emily paused. “You know, never tried. But I did obliterate an asteroid one time.”

“Really?” This time Cisco asked.

“Yeah, but it was a small one. Like, maybe half a football field. And it was made out of a material similar to sandstone.”

“Thaaaat’s still pretty impressive,” Ralph stated impressed and a bit wary. “I know I could never do that.”

“Sure you could, you just gotta put your back into it!” She giggled, Ralph chuckling in return.

“So you gonna come back now?” Cisco asked glancing at Nash.

“Nah, not right now,” Emily replied with a sigh. “Been a while since I’ve just hung out in the deep black of the void, think I’ll chill for a while.” Nash’s shoulders dropped a bit hearing the news. As if he needed another contributor to his tension, now he had to wait for who knows how long. “Ok, take as much time as you need,” Cisco said still looking at Nash. “We’ll be here when you come back.”

“Ok, see you later then,” Emily said before closing the connection. Cisco crossed his arms and Ralph gave him a look, Nash stood stiff lost in thought. “Well, least now you have plenty of time to think of what to say,” Ralph commented before leaving. “You better make it good too,” Cisco warned before exiting as well, leaving Nash to stew for a while in uncertainty. *What to say....* he said to himself.

——

It was well into the evening when Emily made her way back to the lab. She casually strode down the halls humming to herself when she came across Nash and nearly bumped into him. “Oh! Oh, hi Nash,” she said looking up at him.

“H-hi.... Estrata,” Nash smiled awkwardly. “What brings you skulking around here so late?” She asked putting a hand on her hip. “I uh, I.... have something...... I’ve been meaning to, tell you....” he said trying to figure out the words as he went. “Oh? You do?” She said sounding intrigued. He nodded his head looking at his feet. “Uh huh, yeah.” He paused still staring at the ground and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I lied... earlier.... wheeeen I said you were..... annoying......” he started. “You did?” She asked relaxing a little. Nash nodded again. “I did. I actually don’t, find you annoying that is. I uh, really like your company. A lot.” He peeked up to look her in the eye, the flush building like before. “Well then, why did you say that?” Emily asked, face softening as he spoke.

“I don’t..... I don’t know..... I....” Nash ran his hands through his hair in frustration and started pacing around. “You..... don’t know?” she asked in confusion. “I..... I don’t, have the words...” Nash said pausing and rubbing his chin. He stood quiet for a moment before turning to look at her again. “Maybe.... I don’t need words.....” he muttered to himself.

“What was tha—“ Emily’s sentence was cut off by Nash, who took three quick strides toward her, cupped her face and nearly rammed his face into hers with a kiss. Emily stood stunned, clearly not expecting this turn of events at all, and could only stare wide eyed into space. Once he broke the kiss he looked her in the eyes, thumb gently running over her cheek. “Wha...?” Emily started to ask. “Truth is, you make it incredibly difficult not to do that,” he says with a smile. “Especially, when you smile.”

Emily’s lips slowly pulled into a soft smile before mischievous tones bled in. “Hmmm, I’m not sure I got all that.” Nash raised an eyebrow smirking at her before placing another kiss on her lips. Emily chuckled after he broke the kiss again. “Gee, I dunno.... if I understand..... you may have...... to repeat.... that......” she said with a giggle, Nash taking the obvious opportunity to kiss her over and over while she spoke. They stood for a moment, smiling at each other like idiots, when they heard someone walk around the corner.

“Oh my god, FINALLY!” a voice said loudly from behind them. Emily gripped Nash’s shirt pulling him close as she tried to bury herself into him in embarrassment. Her face was beat red and eyes wide as Cisco briskly walked by. “Now if you two could do something about the other obvious tension you have, that’d be perfect,” he said pointing a finger first at Nash, then Emily who was trying very hard to hide her face. Cisco smiled at Nash, who gave him a wink, before walking away to a lab somewhere. They stood quiet for a minute before he rubbed her back and drew her into a hug enveloping her petite frame. She relaxed nestling into him a bit with a deep sigh. “So....” she began looking up at him. “What’s this ‘other tension’ Cisco was on about?”

“Oh, uh, I uh....” Nash coughed. “Not sure, actually.” She pouted suspiciously at him raising an eyebrow, keeping the stare made his ears rather red. “Mhmm......” she smirked. “Then I guess there’s nothing to ‘take care of’ and no real reason for a sleepover or anything....” she said slipping away. “I’m tired anyway, should probably just go to be—“ her words were cut off by Nash grabbing her from behind in a tight hug causing her to squeak. “Ok ok! I’ll stop teasing” she giggled. “But you’re kinda cute when you’re frustrated.”

Nash raised an eyebrow. “So are you telling me, this was a bad idea?” He asked close to her ear. “Noooooo.....” she said trying to hide the goosebumps. “Just..... think of it as an adventure. You do like adventures, right?” She asked grinning at him. He paused looking thoughtfully at her. “You know, now that I think of it. This might be one of the better ones.”

————————••••••••————————

~Fin~