#i doubt alex ever actually felt bad about what they put us through

[k-mxrt]

I'm thinking of scrapping this blog, tbh

I took a small trip through memory lane on this blog, and honestly? I ended up being reminded of things that I don't feel like remembering. I actually moved to this blog during the middle of a really shitty time in my life, surrounded by people who were suffering because of our group's incompatibility and being forced to stay together despite that. Not to mention the fact that I was taking someone to court at the time too, which wasn't a pleasant experience.

I don't feel comfortable spending all my time on an account that triggers me if I even look at my posts from a year or two ago. Even though I have come to term with all the shitty things that happened then, it doesn't change the fact that it happened; And now, snapshots of those moments are practically immortalized here.

I'm not going to delete this blog, since every time I've deleted a blog I've regretted losing the memories that came with them. Plus I have a few side blogs that I don't feel like losing either.

[teddy06writes]

Can I request a Sapnap x Karl x Quakity x Y/N ? I just like polyam ships and your Sapnap x Karl x Y/n just made me want more

Ee hee, thanks for the request

Sapnap x karl x reader x quackity (THE PEOPLE ARE ENABLING MEEEE)

trigger warnings: swearing, panic attack

premise: you and your boyfriends are out shopping/ trying to get kicked out of a target when you run into your asshole ex, when he starts to bother you your boys take care of it

(y/n/n)- your nick name

(also we’re pretending covid isn’t a thing)

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

“(y/n)! We are gods!”  

You turned at Alex’s call, snorting upon seeing he and Karl T posing while standing in the target cart, Nick balanced on the front, also t posing.

You laughed at your boyfriends, quickly taking a picture before Karl started to wobble and fall, “You guys are ridiculous.”

“Yup!” Karl grinned as Alex helped him out of the cart to avoid falling.

You shook your head, quietly putting the picture onto your twitter with the caption, ‘look at these nerds <3′

“You guys are gonna die from idiocy some day.”

“Not when your there to save us.” Nick countered, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“If anything they’ll get dragged down with us.” Alex scoffed.

“Tragically,” You muttered, “Did we actually come here to do anything but solicit?”

Karl giggled, “Well I thought we were just terrorizing the people of Target.”

“The only thing we actually needed was more notecards.” Nick reminded helpfully.

You smiled, “At least one of you is useful.”

“Hey!” Alex protested, “We’re useful too!”

“Sometimes.”  Karl giggled again.

“Betrayal!” He gasped dramatically as Karl threw his arms around his shoulders.

You rolled your eyes, “Well, if your useful too then, help me find notecards.”

Alex sighed dramatically, grabbing one your your hands and intertwining your fingers, “If we must.”

Karl grinned, hopping back to sit in the cart, “Lets go then!”

Nick rolled his eyes, muttering something about being ridiculous, before moving to the push the cart, you and Alex moving along beside them.

~~

A half hour later found many random unnecessary but still necessary items piled into the cart around Karl, and note cards had still not been found.

You were hallway through the seasonal section when you sighed, “Alright this is taking too long, I’m going to actually get the note cards, I think they’re just down there, try not to break anything.”

Karl chuckled, “No promises.”

You smiled and headed out of the isle, towards office supplies.

“Well, well, well, (y/n), fancy seeing you here.”

You froze in the middle of grabbing the biggest package of notecards, trying to keep your hand still as you turned, “John,,, uh hi?”

Now, John wasn’t the worst person, no your relationship wasn’t necessarily bad, but towards the end it definitely took a turn for the worse. When you’d first brought up breaking things off he was, less than thrilled, leaving the last few weeks of your relationship a battle field of screaming matches that consisted of little more than his yells.

“It’s been a while.” He smiled.

“Uhh, yeah, it has been.” You began to fidget with your fingers, eyes darting back up the isle towards where you’d left Nick, Alex and Karl.

“Let me guess, still single?” He laughed, “Yeah it would make sense, I’ve only pulled like one person since you.”

You glanced down, “Uhh, no actually.”

John frowned, letting acid drip into his voice, “Oh, I guess the were right when they said you always moved on fast.”

“It- it- it- it’s been a year and a half?” Your attempts to keep your voce steady began to fail, “And, I’ve only been dating one of them for a few months.”

-It was true, Alex had been the last one to join your relationship a few months ago-

His eyes narrowed, “You’re not telling me you’re still on the stupid polyamory thing are you?”

You cleared your throat uncertainly, “um, y- yeah, I have three boyfriends.”

He rolled his eyes, “There's no chance you’d ever fucking pull three people. Hell you barley even managed me.”

Your gaze stayed trained on the tile floor, unspeaking.

“It’s clear you haven’t moved past fucking your way into a relationship.”

You bit your lip, tears welling in your eyes as your breathing quickened, deep down you knew it wasn’t true, as a group you all respected Karl’s asexuality, even once, over some late night conversation of cuddles and lazily traded kisses, going so far as to promise that the relationship would remain entirely romantic if it made him more comfortable, and it had.

Still, there was a nagging in the back of your head, telling you that John was right. There obviously was only one reason they kept  you around.

“That really is a shame,” You felt his hand rest on your shoulder, “I know I would stay with you for more than that.”

“Get your fucking hand off of them or I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it!”

You were simultaneously relieved and flooded with more anxiety upon hearing Nick’s voice.

“Who are you?” John asked skeptically.

“Their boyfriends, who the fuck are you?” Alex spit.

He laughed, dry and harsh, “So you’re the fucking idols who thought you could get away with dating (y/n), not that I care their very-”

“No, you shut the fuck up!” Nick cut him off before he could say anything else advancing up the isle towards him, “Why the fuck are you bothering them?!”

They continued a back and forth exchange, as you slowly slid down to the floor, nails pressing tightly into your palms, breathing far too fast.

“Hey, hey, (y/n/n), (y/n/n) look at me.”

You opened eyes that you didn’t realize had been screwed shut to see Karl kneeling sitting In front of you, looking worried.

“Can I touch you or no darlin?” He asked softly, almost making you forget the yelling happening only a few feet away.

You bit your lip, quickly shaking your head, the tiny seed of doubt John had planted in your mind starting to grow.

“Okay, that’s fine. Can you breath with me? In for seven, hold for 4 out for 8, yeah?”

After a moment of trying to breath in sync with him, you held out a hand, and understanding Karl took it, moving to pull you into his arms, “In for 7, out for 8, just like me alright?”

You all but melted into his touch, doing your best to breath normally again.

“Get the fuck outta here man!” Alex yelled.

“You’re gonna regret this.” John sneered.

“No,” Nick said firmly, “Your gonna regret messing with our partner if you don’t fucking leave.”

After you heard footsteps hurrying away you felt Alex settle on your other side, “You alright baby?”

“Their starting to breath normally again.” Karl reported, running a hand through your hair.

Nick sat down on Karl’s other side, and you all stayed sat on the floor of the offices supply isle, Alex sending death glares to anyone who tried to ask you to move.

Eventually you sat up, sniffing.

“Who was that?” Nick asked softly.

“My ex.” You murmured.

“Why was he bothering you? What did he say?”

“Stupid stuff,” You muttered, rubbing at your eyes, “C’n we go home now?”

“Of course Darlin.” Karl assured, standing up and turning to help you up.

~~

Later, back at the apartment, after everything had been put away, you all ended up in a cuddle plie on the couch, and that seed of doubt was beginning to shrivel with every pass Nick’s hands made through your hair, every small circle Alex absently traced into your palm and every tiny joke Karl made about the movie playing.

“Guys?” You asked softly.

“Yeah?” Alex asked.

“I love you.”

Karl grinned, “We love you too.”

Alex pressed a kiss to your knuckles in understanding and Nick  hummed in response.

The tiny seed of doubt was gone.

[damnedparker]

long-lasting

pairing: alex law x reader (gender neutral; no y/n)

warnings: none; more than implied that reader regularly wears makeup. this is just fluff.

summary: alex loves makeup, maybe more than you. so the two of you have some fun.

it’s been a while. i woke up with an idea this morning and had to get it out.

“Look at these!” Flew excitedly out of your boyfriend’s mouth for about the thousandth time in the twenty minutes you’d been in this store. You sighed, more amused than anything, and turned to see what he had been so excited about.

You can’t tell if bringing Alex to a store full of makeup and other beauty products for the first time was a bad idea or not; judging by his excitement, you were leaning towards good. He hadn’t been out of the house to do something in weeks, and you hadn’t seen him this actively excited about anything in a while since the events in his flat months ago. It was good to see a glimpse of happy Alex again, albeit it was much like handling a child. But you loved him for it.

“Look at all the colors…” His breathy statement was full of wonder as if he was seeing vivid colors for the first time in the form of an eyeshadow palette. His hand left where it had been attached to yours like glue since you had arrived, so he could swatch the colors on his hand, which was already covered in swipes of various other makeup products. You wonder if you should have told him he could do that at all.

Upon letting Alex know you had to leave the comfort of your flat, where he had been staying more and more recently, he was visibly distraught. The two of you hadn’t separated from each other for more than work each day, which you didn’t mind, but you got the feeling Alex was finding a lot of comfort being next to you and was a little afraid of being alone. It’s not something you could blame him for after everything he went through, and you surely couldn’t deny him when he asked to come along. He was your boyfriend, and you loved being around him. At first, you weren’t too sure he would enjoy waiting around while you spent forever looking at makeup, but now it seems you made the right decision in letting him tag along.

“Can we get it?” He looked at you with puppy eyes, and you had to steel yourself, shaking your head no. A pout instantly made itself at home on his expression.

“No, Alex, I have a palette just like that one already.” You slipped your hand in his again and pulled him along to get what you actually came for, some refills on daily makeup you needed.

“Why haven’t I ever seen you wear colors like that then?”

“I dunno, just never have the chance to play with them. And an electric blue isn’t exactly business casual.” You shrugged, grabbing your favorite eyeliner off the shelf.

“Well, you should try it, I think it’d look nice on you,” Alex said, almost absent-mindedly, as he was drawn over to the area of lipstick you were about to pass. “You don’t hardly wear lipstick either! Look at all these options!”

“Just not my thing, and it always gets everywhere. By the end of the day it’s gone, so what’s the point?”

“The point is, it’s fun and it looks pretty.” He cocked an eyebrow at you, a grin slowly forming on his face. He then turned back to the display, his eyes brightening. “Look here! It says this kind is supposed to last twenty-four hours! A solution to your complaints!”

“I highly doubt that’s true, maybe it lasts a few hours at least.” You picked up a tube of bright fuchsia to look at the bottle, squinting at the ingredients. At least it was cruelty-free, you supposed.

“Can we get one?” The puppy eyes were on again. You weren’t sure you could last another round of these.

“Alex… I probably won’t ever wear it.”

“Well, not in that color,” he snatched the bright pink from your grasp, turning back and humming at the array of colors. He traced his hand over a few tubes before finally settling on a classic red color, giving a triumphant smile. “This one’s nice.”

“You’re just saying that because that color looks good on you.” Alex frowned grumpily, tucking his hair behind his ear, a telltale sign of the fact that you were right, and he knew it. But you did also like red lipstick on other people, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad on you. You checked the high price tag and mentally went through the costs in your head. While you were doing so, you suddenly felt a tug at your hand, and Alex was on his way to the checkout.

“If you won’t try it, I will!” He said determinedly. Luckily you had gotten everything you needed already, so you let him pull you along to the cashiers. You shook your head and uselessly tried to protest when Alex added your things to his own transaction, insisting to pay for it. Your boyfriend was many, many things, and being insistently generous with his money was one of them.

Once you got back in his car, Alex started ripping open the plastic on the lipstick tube. You watched him ever so carefully apply the red to his lips. He was so tedious you were in the parking lot for ten minutes just watching him put it on in the sun visor mirror. Always the perfectionist; with his outfits, his hair, and now his makeup.

“What do you think?” He turned to you when he was done, flashing a large smile.

“That color does suit you.”

“Thank you, darling,” he messed with his hair in the mirror one last time before shutting it and turning to you again, leaning across the console of the car to press a kiss to your cheek. He reached up to touch your cheek after, running across where his lips had just been. “Whoa, it didn’t get all over you!”

“I guess it is long-lasting, after all.” You shrugged, rubbing your own cheek to find that, yeah, it really didn’t transfer onto you. “Maybe—” You were cut off by a sudden kiss on the mouth from Alex, then another, and another. You let out a chuckle against his lips during the last long one, putting a hand on his chest.

“Still nothing,” he seemed both amazed and slightly disappointed. “Half the fun of lipstick is getting it all over someone else.” You couldn’t say you disagreed, playing with the ends of his hair for a moment while you had a passing thought about covering Alex’s face in lipstick. Cute.

“Well, I have plenty of shitty lipsticks that will do exactly that at home,” You shrugged, then another idea popped into your mind. “How about we pick up some dinner, and I’ll do the rest of your make-up after?”

“I love you.” Alex grinned, attacking you with another kiss before finally starting the car.

--

Dinner flew by in the next hour, along with a few drinks, and you were back in your bedroom. Alex sat squished next to you on your tiny vanity stool, which was certainly not meant for two, but it’s not like you weren’t comfortable with him nearly pressed against you, currently watching you do your own makeup while he rifled through your small collection, trying to decide on colors he wanted for himself. That didn’t stop him from backseat driving your own decisions, making strong and, honestly, useful suggestions for colors for you.

You were carefully applying your own lipstick, a softer mauve color than Alex’s still present vivid red, when he spoke up again, his chin having found a resting place on your shoulder.

“Can you do, like, a… smoking eye on me? Like super dark and classy.” You had to pause doing your lipstick, unable to prevent the smile from creeping across your lips.

“You mean a smokey eye?”

“Whatever it’s called. I want to look hot,” he mused. “Kinda like when we went to that one party with Juliet? You had all that dark eyeshadow on. You looked really pretty.” Alex hummed, affectionately wrapping his arms around your waist. A bit of heat crept up on your cheeks from his compliment and the sudden warmth of his hug. And the memories of that night. You had work the next day, not intending to be out very late, but Alex sure had kept you up for most of the night, much more compliments flooding out his mouth during your late night.

“You already look hot enough without makeup,” you turned and patted his cheek. He leaned into your touch as you put up the lipstick tube with your other hand, turning back to him with a cheeky grin. “I prefer my men all-natural.”

“Shut up,” he let out a laugh with you, and it flooded your bones with golden happiness. Hearing Alex laugh was encouraging and relieving. They’d been few and far between for the past few months, and it was something you missed. “My turn.”

Putting makeup on Alex was always time-consuming, as he fidgeted a lot, and often had to stop you to say whatever crossed his mind at the moment. You didn’t mind either, used to the way his mind worked. The only times he was ever silent around you was when he was asleep, or when he had been racking his brain about a question for a while, and finally blurted it out to you. You thought it was cute.

Admittedly, you spent a lot longer on Alex’s makeup than yours. One, because smokey eyes were hard as fuck, but also because you wanted him to be happy with it. Regardless, he would be over the moon about whatever you did, but you wanted it to be perfect.

As soon as you were done, you let Alex have the hand-held mirror to look at himself. You watched the happiness creep up his face until he was unable to hold it back. It was contagious, and you wrapped your arms around his middle, leaning your head on his shoulder. His arm fell naturally over your shoulders, squeezing you to him with a kiss to your head. After a moment of quiet, he seemed to get an idea, removing himself regretfully from the embrace to grab your Polaroid camera from your bookshelf. You moved over to your bed as he flopped onto it, snuggling up next to him as he turned the camera around to take a picture of both of you together. One with the two of you smiling, one with him kissing your cheek, and one with his tongue sticking out and you laughing next to him. Afterward, he jumped up from the bed and kneeled over you, encouraging you to pose and let him take photos of you. You tilted your head in amusement.

“Alex, I don’t have much film left.”

“I’ll buy you more, a thank-you gift for my makeup.”

“Alex…” You shook your head, and he put down the camera, leaning over you to give you a kiss. It was round three of puppy eyes, and you were sure you were a goner.

“Please?” He pouted sweetly as he could, his hair hanging down and tickling your cheek. “Baby?”

“Okay, just a few.” You pushed yourself up on your elbows, a wry smile overtaking your lips. Alex always got his way. You were wrapped around his finger, and he was wrapped around yours, although he was more likely to beg you for silly things you normally wouldn’t let yourself do. It was good for you though, he pushed you out of your comfort zone. It was always something you loved about dating him.

A few turned into a few photos of you, and a handful of him as well. Soon, you were both seemingly attached to each other, rolling around on the bed like teenagers with the Polaroids left on the nightstand. Alex pulled away with a grin, adjusting himself to sit up against the headboard with you on his lap. You were a bit dazed, taking a few seconds to come back down from Earth before Alex started giggling.

“I guess this lipstick is only so long-lasting,” he swiped his thumb across your chin, a smear of red confirming what he was saying. You only grinned in return at the mauve streaks all across his mouth, cheeks, and neck. “What?”

“Nothing, you’ve just got a bit of something… everywhere.” You couldn’t hold back more laughter, leaning into him as he started to giggle, too. At a passing thought, you snatched the camera from where it had been half-heartedly discarded next to your pillow. Before he could contain himself and stop laughing, you snapped a photo and tugged the newly printed photo out. Alex’s laughter died down as you re-adjusted yourself to settle between his legs with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, watching the photo slowly develop into view.

“Oh my god, what have you done?” Your boyfriend groaned, with only mirth in his tone. The picture was a near-perfect snapshot of him grinning in laughter, perfectly showcasing the kiss marks scattered all over his face and neck. “My poor, beautiful makeup. It’s all ruined.”

“Actually, I think you look much better like this.”

[yourlocalfictionalenthusiast]

IN LIFE, IN DEATH...

PART THREE

Part One, Part Two

Warnings: just some swearing

May 1995

“We’re totally gonna get a record deal!”

Luke said for the tenth time in the past hour as he bounced in his seat.

It was Friday night and normally, you would all be messing around at the park, the beach, or just watching a movie in the studio. But when your phone rang and it was the booking manager for the Orpheum telling you that Sunset Curve is officially the new opener next month, the boys insisted on being there the second your shift at the diner was over.

So instead of arguing about having another Star Wars marathon or playing at the pier, you were all packed in your regular booth at Cece’s for celebratory milkshakes. You sat on the very edge of the booth, practically falling asleep on Alex. Ever since you got the call that morning, every cell in your body felt supercharged with excitement.

But now that the day was coming to an end, you could hardly stay awake enough to pay attention to the conversation.

Bobby, who was in your usual spot, pinched Luke’s arm. “Don’t jinx it, dude.”

“It’s not jinxing if you know for sure.” Luke said. “I mean, we’re awesome! And we’ve worked so hard to get to this point. It’s all gonna pay off.”

As much as you wanted to believe him, you were still nervous. There was nothing you were prouder of than your music, and you knew that a crowd that big would be good for gaining a lot of new fans. But the idea of that many people seeing you perform and hearing your lyrics was nerve-wracking.

You could tell the others felt the same way. Bobby was biting his nails, Alex was bouncing his leg so hard it almost hit the table and Reggie was slumped against the wall. Luke just stared at all of you, his bright smile never fading.

He snapped his fingers so loud that you jumped at the noise, then he started digging in his pockets. “I know what’ll cheer you guys up.”

Luke pulled out a safety pin, then brought its point down into the table, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in concentration. After a few minutes, he brushed off the table and presented his design proudly. It was four words in huge slanted letters.

‘SUNSET CURVE WAS HERE’

“Seriously, Luke?” Alex said, his eyes wide. “Cece’s gonna kill you!”

Luke just smirked and handed him the pin, gesturing to the space under the words. “‘C’mon, man. You’re up first.”

It took a lot of convincing, but Alex eventually gave in, and one by one, you all signed your names.

‘Alex,

Bobby

Reggie

Luke

(Y/N)’

You heard the sound of Cece’s heels hitting the floor as she exited the kitchen. Panicking, you shoved the pin in your pocket just in time as she came up to the table. 

Before she could even see that anything was different, Reggie pointed at Luke.

“He did it!”

Cece frowned before inspecting the table, letting out a deep sigh and putting her hands on her hips.

“Are you vandalizing my diner, Patterson?”

Luke paled. “It was a group effort.”

“But it was your idea,” Alex said with a smirk, no doubt trying to pin the blame on Luke to keep his spot as Cece’s favorite. You had to bury your head into his shoulder to contain your laughter.

You could tell from the way that she was struggling to keep a straight face that Cece wasn’t actually mad but you weren’t gonna tell Luke that. He tried to kick Alex’s leg under the table but he hit yours instead. You hissed in pain and Luke paled even further.

“Shit, sorry, (Y/n).”

“And abusing my staff?” Cece joked, shaking her head.

Luke flashed her a charming smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Cece. Just got a little excited.”

“I can see that.” She laughed then turned to you. “Hey. Get up. I got you something.”

You looked up at her in confusion but she didn’t offer you any answer as you dragged yourself up. Cece pulled a small blue box out from behind her back and handed it to you. “What’s the occasion?”

Cece rolled her eyes. “Just open it.” 

The first thing you saw was a folded piece of paper with your name on it, under it was a silver key. You picked it up and held it in between your fingers as you carefully unfolded the paper to see three words in Cece’s careful handwriting.

just in case

You looked up at her, eyebrows knitted together. “Cece?”

She just winked as she put her hand on your cheek. “Honey, you know that I couldn’t have more faith in you and your rockstar dreams. But just in case things don’t work out...well, I couldn’t imagine giving this place to anyone else.”

You flew into her arms and hugged her so tight it was a little painful. Of course, all you wanted was for Sunset Curve to get signed to a label and take over the world. But this place was like home to you and the idea of owning it some day made your heart swell. “Thank you!”

The booth erupted in cheers and Cece playfully glared at them as she tucked you under her arm. “But you have to promise you’ll keep these boys of yours from doing any more damage to the property.”

Bobby scoffed. “Hey, we’re not-”

You slapped your hand over his mouth before nodding at Cece. “I’ll try my best.”

The bell on the door jingled to announce the arrival of another customer, and Cece left to greet them. You twirled the key around in your hand and looked at the boys' smiling faces, unable to hide your own.

As you settled back in the booth and took a sip of your milkshake, you couldn’t help but feel like everything was coming together.

2020

L.A was somehow so different, yet exactly the way you remembered.

The way the bright lights flooded the streets, to the way that every surface you see was decorated with a piece of art, made you anxious to re-explore the city you loved so much. 

You couldn’t help but stare through your swinging legs at the crowds walking around below, listening to the soft buzzing of the Orpheum’s sign above your head.

An hour ago when Luke had suggested walking around the city, you figured you would end up here eventually. But now that you were actually here, you couldn’t help the hollow feeling that settled in your stomach.

It must’ve shown on your face because Luke launched into one of his motivational speeches. “C’mon, guys. I know being dead wasn’t our first choice. But you gotta admit, it is easier to get around.”

Reggie pouted. “Easy for you maybe. I lost my shirt on that one.”

You hadn’t even noticed that he was shirtless until it reappeared in a flash and he sighed in relief.

“So, why did you bring us here?” Alex asked Luke. “Just another painful reminder of where we never got to play?”

You smiled sarcastically. “Yeah, thanks, Luke.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Because, we’re not done yet!”

He slung his arm around Alex’s shoulder, and gripped yours as he poofed you all down to the sidewalk, pulling away from you as fast as possible once your feet were back on the ground.

“I’m telling you.” Luke said. “We’ve been given a second chance. Let’s go see how many clubs we can hit before sunrise!”

He started walking down the street and Reggie was quick to follow, leaving you and Alex behind. As you watched them skip down the sidewalk, Alex let out a sharp ‘hey!’ and you whipped around to see him rubbing his shoulder.

A man in a long black suit stared straight into your eyes before tipping his hat to Alex and disappearing down the street. Every hair on your body stood on end as you stared at the spot where he was just standing.

“That was weird.” You said, turning to Alex. “You okay?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m good.”

You could hear Luke and Reggie’s excited shouting as they ran down the street, but you and Alex kept your distance. He reached his arm out to you and you took it automatically.

Over the last six months, Alex had become your best friend. You had always been close but last summer when things got bad with his parents, he turned to you.

And when things started to get weird between you and Luke or you had a fight with your mom, Alex was the only one you wanted to talk to. 

“Alright.” Alex sighed. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“I know you’re dying to talk about Luke.”

“I am not!”

Alex raised his eyebrows, clearly not convinced.

“Besides, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Nothing-” He took in a sharp breath. “(Y/n), for someone so smart, you’re acting like a dumbass.”

You put a hand on your chest, dramatically gasping. “Alexander Mercer! I had no idea you were capable of using that kind of language.”

He flashed you his middle finger before unlocking his arm from yours and pulling you into his side. “Seriously though. What’s rolling around up there?”

You were quiet for a few minutes as you rested your head on his shoulder. “I just want to know what I did, you know?” 

Alex nodded, but didn’t say anything, as he knew that you were just getting started.

“I mean, he’s always been there. He's always been my person. The one who I could count on for anything. Then that night in the studio, I thought…” 

You trailed off and Alex held you a little tighter. Even though he wasn’t there, he could probably describe that night in exact detail from the amount of times you had told him about it. “I just miss him."

“Yeah, I know.” Alex said, his eyes glued to Luke’s back. “But, hey, you know that he loves you, and that didn’t change because of one night.”

He started to say something else but cut himself off as he saw Reggie and Luke approaching, both with big, goofy smiles. Reggie took your arm that wasn’t around Alex’s back and locked it in his.

“What are you guys talking about?” He asked.

“Nothing!” You said way too fast, cringing to yourself as you dragged Reggie down the sidewalk. “Come on, Reg. Let’s go see if that old comic book shop is still around.”

As the night wore on, you became more and more thankful that you weren’t able to get tired.

You spent the whole night sneaking into concert venues, clubs, and pretty much any place you wanted now that there was no chance of getting caught. It wasn’t until you passed a small street-side café that you let yourself think about the one place you hadn’t been yet.

Cece’s Diner.

When Julie told you it had been 25 years, you assumed that it had closed down. That Cece had moved away. Maybe even reconnected with her son and lived out her life. It seemed like such a perfect thought that you didn’t want to ruin it with reality. 

But now that you had seen the way things had changed in the time you had been gone, you were now filled with a sense of urgency. You launched up the sidewalk until you were in front of the boys.

“Hey, guys?” You asked. They all stared at you curiously as a smile slowly spread across your face. “Anyone up for milkshakes?”

-

When you walked up to the diner - for only an instant - it was as if no time had passed. You felt the urge to run inside, throw your hair up in a ponytail, and make a beeline for the kitchen before you got in trouble for being late for your shift. 

Only as you got closer, you realized how much had changed. The building, which had always been a little ordinary and worn like a well-loved home, now felt about twenty stories tall. You dragged yourself forward toward the door, unable to look away.

The boys lingered behind you, but no one said a word. 

Your hand reached for the doorknob before you remembered that you wouldn’t actually be able to touch it.

I really gotta get used to that, you mumbled to yourself as you walked through the door.

It looked so different that you almost didn’t recognize it.

The bright blue paint had been replaced with brown on every wall, bookshelves lined the corners of the room, and long leather couches had replaced the booths and tables. The old jukebox had disappeared, and some old jazz song was playing over speakers over your head.

“Can I help you?” 

A voice asked from behind the counter. It was a boy that looked a little older than you, messy black hair and an uninterested smile. He dragged a blue pen across the margins of a book as he waited for your answer.

“You can see us?” Alex asked, to which the boy rolled his eyes.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” He said, raising his eyebrows when you all failed to answer either of his questions.

“My, my. Aren’t we chatty.”

“Who are you, exactly?” You said, trying to mask your annoyance with a smile.

“Teddy.” He said, pushing himself off the counter and making his way around until he stopped just a few feet ahead of you. “And you’re (Y/n).”

A shiver ran down your spine. “How do you know that?”

“You were a friend of my grandma’s.”

Before you could ask what the hell he meant by that, a man came walking out of the kitchen. He looked so much like Cece that it made your stomach flip. It was her son.

And as you looked back at Teddy, your mind slowly connected the dots. “You’re Cece’s grandson?”

He nodded.

“Okay, this is just too weird.” You said as you rubbed your temples. There was no way that this was actually happening, right? Maybe you somehow fell asleep and are having some weird ghost dream. 

“Okay, well I definitely feel old.” Alex sighed.

Your head was spinning. “What is even happening right now.”

Teddy smiled. “Well, it’s too bad we’re dead or else I would buy you coffee and explain it to you.”

You internally cringed at his pick-up line but you couldn’t help but laugh a little. Normally, random guys flirting with you made you uncomfortable but behind his cocky attitude, he seemed like a genuine guy.

Maybe it was the way that he twirled his pen between his fingers the way that Cece used to, but something told you that there was more to him than meets the eye.

Before you could answer, Luke spoke up. “Well, it was nice meeting you. But we really should be getting back home.”

You could see that he was right as the pale light came in through the windows as the sky started to lighten.

But you couldn’t help but notice that this was the first time he had interjected in the conversation since you got there, and a small part of you wondered if that had anything to do with the way that Teddy was staring at you.

You shook those thoughts from your head, giving Teddy a soft smile.

“Maybe next time.”

Though you weren’t capable of getting cold, you still shivered a little as you walked through the door and back out onto the street. You could feel Luke’s eyes on the side of your face, flickering down to the sidewalk when he saw you looking.

You gave him a light nudge on the shoulder, and he gave you a soft smile that you couldn’t quite decipher the meaning behind.

That was pretty much all you got from Luke these days.

“So,” Luke said, his enthusiasm returning in full force as he threw his arms over Alex and Reggie’s shoulders. “I think it’s safe to say we’re officially back in business.”

-

The second that you landed in the studio, your jaw dropped.

Julie was sitting at the piano, her voice shaky but full of passion as she belted out the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard. Her fingers hit the keys expertly and you smiled.

You closed your eyes, listening to her voice echo through the room and getting lost in the warm feeling the lyrics filled you with. It wasn’t until she stopped singing and sniffled quietly that your heart dropped.

Both you and Alex surged forward to comfort her but Luke shook his head and swirled his finger, signaling to meet up outside. You wanted to protest. To stay and comfort your new friend.

But Julie sniffled again and you thought that maybe it would be a good idea to give her space. You made a mental note to talk to her later and poofed out of the garage.

-

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[pastelwitchling]

Journey to the Past

read on ao3

This was meant to be part of my one-shot collection, it turned out to be too long, and now it’s a separate fic. If you enjoy reading even a little bit, please comment and share/reblog, it always makes the world of a difference ❤

Michael woke to find he’d fallen asleep at Alex’s bedside. Before anything, he sat up, checked to see if Alex’s eyes hadn’t fluttered, if he wasn’t finally waking from his coma, but his hand remained perfectly still in Michael’s, the heart monitor echoed steadily into the otherwise empty room and echoing off Max’s bedroom walls.

They would’ve taken him to the hospital, but since the attack that did this to him had been by his father’s rogue Project Shepherd agents, they couldn’t risk leaving him in a room that any enemy could access. At least here, Isobel and Michael could set up forcefields around the grounds. At least here, Max could strike anybody that came too close with lightning and they could blame it on the weather. At least here, Michael could cling to Alex and no one would bother him about it.

Michael wasn’t Alex’s boyfriend, he knew. Alex’s actual boyfriend – or his ex, that is, as of two weeks ago – was back in New York, unaware that the man he’d fallen so deeply and treacherously in love with had fallen victim to his father’s pissed off and ridiculously loyal minions.

Michael followed the bruises on Alex’s jaw and cheeks with his eyes, the cut on his lower lip, visible under the thick respirator. There was a stitched up gash in his forehead, and his knuckles on his right hand were scraped and bloody from the fight he’d given the attackers. He’d fended most of them off, before Michael had arrived to blow the rest of them into the walls and knock them out, but not before one of them had managed a stray shot in and got Alex in the stomach.

Max had done his best to heal him, but the bullets had been laced with yellow pollen. Jesse Manes’ last attempt to kill his youngest son, apparently, had followed him out the grave.

Michael shut his eyes against the thought, and instinctively gripped Alex’s hand tighter. He didn’t want to think about Project Shepherd and what they’d intended. They’d failed, and that was all that mattered. His grip turned painful on Alex’s hand. They’d failed.

A knock came at the door, but Michael did not look away from Alex’s face. He heard Max’s voice from the end of the room ask, “How’re you holding up?”

“Why isn’t he awake yet?” Michael demanded. “You said he’d be awake by now.”

“No,” Max sighed, and closed the door behind him. “I said Kyle hoped he’d be awake by now.”

“It’s been two days.”

“We’re doing everything we can –”

“Well, it’s not enough!” Michael snapped, and the room collapsed back into silence.

“He’ll wake up,” Max promised him. “He will. Just give him some time.”

“I need him,” Michael whispered.

“I know –”

“No,” he growled. “I need him.” He rubbed his face roughly with one hand. “Where’s Is?”

“Outside,” he said. “Why?” When Michael didn’t answer, Max’s shoulders slumped and his frown deepened. “Michael, no.”

“I know we said there were risks –”

“Risks?” he scoffed. “I already told you it’s too dangerous to go digging through Alex’s head! Isobel told you it’s dangerous!”

Michael stood. “Valenti said his brain waves are normal, he’s just asleep. If I can find the part of him that doesn’t want to wake up, then – then I get him back.”

“Or you guys screw something up,” Max argued, “and change something that can’t be changed back.”

Michael clenched his jaw. “He won’t wake up, not like this, and I can’t just sit here and wait.”

“Michael,” Max tried, purposely calming his voice in that way when he knew Michael was seconds away from blowing up and wanted to ease him back down. “Listen to me. I know you’re worried about him, but if you go into his mind, you could make things worse.”

Michael swallowed. Max was right, he knew Max was right. But he remembered Kyle’s voice when he’d hoped Alex would wake up soon. He had been too quiet, his eyes downcast like he was praying and didn’t want the others to know it was that bad.

He had no idea that when it came to Alex, Michael paid attention. Only when it came to Alex.

“If I do nothing,” he said, “Alex stays asleep.” His fingers curled to fists at his sides at the thought. He looked back at Alex, the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed softly. His unmoving fingers and closed eyes.

Michael sniffed, and decided, “If Alex doesn’t wake up by tomorrow morning, I’m going in to wake him up myself.”

 They waited until the next morning, then noon. Michael had been ready to start at dawn, but Kyle had seemed anxious, and Max argued for “Just a couple more hours, Michael, he’s the doctor here!”

Michael had argued that Alex didn’t need a human doctor, and Kyle had argued that Alex was human, so who else was going to treat him?

Michael forgot that sometimes; that Alex wasn’t actually an alien like him, that he didn’t have any superpowers like the others did. He’d just always seemed so strong and intelligent that it slipped Michael’s mind. But Alex was human, and more fragile than Michael allowed himself to believe. He’d been too careless, too willing to ask for Alex’s help fixing this or fixing that without ever considering what he might’ve been doing to him. What it might cost.

Maybe that was why Michael was so eager to go into Alex’s mind already and wake him up. It was time for him to save Alex for a change.

“Just for the record,” Isobel said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You deal with brains all the time,” Michael argued.

“Not like Kyle,” she insisted. “And not memories. It’s like . . . time travelling! If you touch something in the past, you could change the future forever!” She swallowed. “And Alex is . . . he’s too important.”

She didn’t need to say the words for Michael to know what she was thinking. He’s too important to you, she seemed to be telling Michael. If I hurt him, it’ll break you, and I could never forgive myself for that.

Michael took her hand. “You’re gonna do great,” he said resolutely. “If anyone can do this, you can.”

Her brows pinched, unconvinced, but Michael didn’t have any more time for doubt or hesitation. Alex hadn’t woken up in too long, and his nerves were fraying with every passing second.

“Do it,” he said.

Isobel glanced hesitantly at Kyle. Kyle looked to Alex, as if weighing the damage that they could do, but even he must’ve known that Alex being asleep for this long was abnormal, because he looked to Isobel and nodded, clearly unhappy about it.

“Be careful,” Max warned. “For your sakes, and his.”

Isobel’s hand on Michael’s tightened, and she shut her eyes. Michael kept his gaze on Alex for as long as he could. Then he felt a sudden chill shoot throughout his entire body from his hand, and he inhaled sharply. One second he was looking at Alex’s sleeping figure, and the next, the world around him turned to smoke, and he found himself standing in the desert on a bright, sunny day.

He was still holding Isobel’s hand, but nothing looked familiar. There was just desert and gray-steel buildings built high with tall glass windows, clustered like boulders in the sea.

In the distance, he could see uniformed soldiers, marching in formation. Men and women training, sergeants barking orders, laughter from friends somewhere hidden. Where were they?

“What the hell?” he muttered, looking around. He didn’t recognize the area at all.

Isobel shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s Alex?”

Michael turned and found they were inches from a doorway that opened to a large, steel room. There was a raised platform at the very opposite end, and several soldiers fighting, sparring, exercising – but Michael couldn’t see any of them.

Isobel gasped. “Michael,” she pointed. “Isn’t that Alex?”

Michael had already spotted him. He was on the platform, fighting another young man. But even before Isobel and Michael approached him, Michael knew this was a much younger Alex. He looked barely eighteen, his hair having lost its spike and was cut short, he was throwing punches and kicks in a way that seemed very unnatural for the man who hardly had to raise a finger to induce fear. And he was losing. Badly.

“I don’t think anybody can see us,” Isobel murmured, looking around at the other soldiers as they passed. “Or hear us.”

Michael’s eyes were on Alex. His heart was hammering, beating painfully against his ribs with every beating Alex took, every time his body fell to the floor. His opponent delivered a roundhouse kick that had Alex on his face again, and Michael snapped. He held a hand up to blast the other fighter back, but his powers wouldn’t work.

“Are you crazy?!” Isobel hissed, slapping his arm. “You can’t change anything, remember?”

“Literally,” Michael spat, hoping Alex’s opponent could feel his glares. “My telekinesis isn’t working.”

Isobel looked around before her eyes focused on another soldier who was doing pushups. Her brows furrowed for barely half a second, then she winced and put a hand to her temple.

Michael tugged on her hand. “Are you okay?”

“It’s taking all of my power for us to just be here,” she sighed. “My other powers won’t work either.” She frowned. “What’s he doing?”

Michael followed her gaze, and saw that Alex, beaten and bloody, was slowly pushing himself to his feet with trembling arms.

“His face is covered in blood,” Isobel shook her head. “He needs to stay down!”

Michael guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Alex so resolved to stay on his feet. His hair was plastered to his temples with blood and sweat, his breaths were quick and short, like his chest ached, but his shoulders were straight and his eyes were filled with a fiery anger. Alex was looking at his opponent like he was every other person who’d ever beat him down and ordered him to stay there. He was screaming, without any words at all, that he wouldn’t.

It didn’t seem to matter to the opponent as he threw hit after hit, hurting Alex again and again, making Michael flinch and burn with rage every time.

When the fight was over, the other soldiers jeering and eager to start their own training match next, Alex’s opponent crouched down beside him and whispered, loud enough for Michael and Isobel to hear, as though they were in Alex’s place themselves –

“Nobody cares who your daddy and brothers are, Manes,” the opponent sneered with disgust. “Your kind will never survive here.”

Michael clenched his jaw. He felt Alex’s anger, his frustration, his grief. He’d often wondered what happened to Alex after he’d enlisted, how a soldier trained and what that did to them, whether it was hurting Alex the same way.

No one offered Alex a hand, no one knew what to make of this lesser Manes. Michael wanted to kill them all for hurting him, for pushing him down. Alex, on the other hand, seemed to see things differently.

With all the charge of that emo kid from high school, Alex groaned and pushed himself to his feet. He spat the blood in his mouth out, and wiped his forearm against his nose. His eyes were dry, his expression unreadable, but that same anger stayed.

More than a few soldiers looked surprised and even impressed, but Alex, already walking away, didn’t notice.

The scene changed.

Before Michael could blink, they were outside again. A cursory look around told them they were behind the building this time, where rocks and stray blades of grass grew out. Alex was sitting against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. In the distance, soldiers marched on, but nobody seemed to see Alex as he cried.

He hadn’t wanted anyone to see him.

Michael glanced at Isobel, and saw her eyes were wide and sympathetic. Alex wiped the tears away faster than they could fall. He sniffled, and pulled a picture out of his pocket, hiding it between his eyes and knees, a secret for no one else.

“I’m sorry,” Alex sniffled again, and wiped his cheek on his shoulder. “I’m trying not to. I’m getting better at it. Not that I think you’d be disappointed that I cried, I just . . . don’t want to cry in front of anybody else. Never again.”

Michael and Isobel each went to a different side of Alex to see whose picture he was talking to, all the while Michael trying not to scrunch up with the uncomfortable thought that Alex had taken enough comfort in someone else that he would sneak a photo of them into base, even back then.

When he saw the picture, he froze. Isobel breathed, “Oh my god . . .,” and Michael had to kneel down next to Alex. It was a picture of them – him and Alex – similar to the picture he had in his airstream. Except this one was taken at a different angle, and they were smiling at each other, taken in the exact moment Alex had noticed Michael watching him play guitar, and the two had laughed, giddy at being so close together and knowing what they knew about their feelings for one another.

Michael tried to breathe, but a lump lodged itself in his throat. Alex had kept a picture of them with him when he’d first gone to the base, and he pulled it out whenever he needed strength and comfort. All this time, he’d thought Alex hadn’t thought twice about him . . .

“I’m scared, Guerin,” Alex confessed to the picture, his grip on the edges tightening. “I don’t – I don’t know what to do. I’m not strong enough to be here. I don’t want to be here.” His lower lip trembled. “But that’s why you started to pull away, right? I was too weak to protect you . . .”

“No,” Michael breathed, shaking his head. “No, please, don’t say that, please.”

“That’s why Alex enlisted?” Isobel said. “Because his dad hit you?”

“It was after Rosa,” Michael croaked, eyes on Alex. “Everything changed, and I . . . I could never tell him what happened. But he – he thought . . . I didn’t know he thought . . .”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Alex cried, hiding his face with one hand. “I’m trying not to cry, I swear I’m trying. I just miss you so much, Guerin. You’re the only person that’s ever felt like home to me, and now I’m here, and I’m more lost than ever.” He exhaled shakily. “All I wanted was a goodbye. I keep thinking about the way I left. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Isobel’s own eyes were glassy. “Michael?”

“I didn’t want to,” he whispered in response to her silent question. “I didn’t want to say goodbye. It felt like I would never see him again if I did.” He clenched his jaw. He tried to press his forehead to Alex’s temple, to inhale his scent, but he couldn’t feel Alex at all. He could only watch him suffer.

“The last thing I ever said to him before he left was –” he scowled at the bile in his throat “—that I’d be better off if he left. I was just angry, and – and hurt!” he tried. “I didn’t mean it!”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said firmly, pulling her eyes off Alex. “It’s in the past, Michael. That’s what all of this stuff is. Memories. You know Alex now, you know what he thinks of you. He loves you.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s not what hurts, Is.”

“Then what does?”

“It’s that he loved me this much even back then.”

“Private Manes,” a voice sounded, and Alex gasped just quickly enough for Michael to catch it before he was on his feet, straight as a board.

Michael looked up and found none other than Sergeant Ramos, Alex’s mysterious leader who’d come to Roswell a mere few weeks ago. The man Alex had looked up to and smiled around and trusted. The man who seemed more Alex’s father than Jesse Manes had ever been.

Sergeant Ramos, looking about twelve years younger, raised a brow at Alex’s right hand which was subtly pushing the photo back into its hiding place in his pocket.

He tilted his head at Alex. “You’re the new kid, right? Jesse’s youngest. Alec?”

“Alex Manes, sir,” Alex said loudly, coherently. Like a soldier.

“Alex,” he nodded. “You miss your friend, Alex?”

Alex faltered. “Sir?”

“Your friend,” he nudged his chin at Alex’s pocket. “In the picture.” His eyes were meaningful when he said, “You must’ve been very close.”

Alex swallowed. It was no use trying to hide the panic in his eyes. He’d just come back from his father’s house, he was too used to being afraid. He hadn’t spent a decade learning to hide that fear.

“Is he the reason you’re here?”

Alex raised his chin. “I’m here to be stronger, sir!”

Ramos smiled, like he knew something Alex didn’t. “You seemed plenty strong to me up on that platform, Private.”

Alex frowned. “I was . . . losing, sir.”

“No,” he shook his head. “No, you were getting back up. No matter what he hit you with.”

Alex clenched his jaw. “I don’t like bullies, sir.”

“Did a bully hurt your friend there?” he asked. “Is that why you’re here?”

Alex said nothing, and Michael could see the questions in the furrow of his brow. What would happen to him if a sergeant discovered he was gay? Would he report him to Jesse?

Ramos sighed and looked around. “If you don’t know why you’re here,” he said, “you won’t last long, I can guarantee you that. You know where you are?”

Alex blinked, confused. “The – the US Air Force Base?”

“Are you asking me?”

He straightened. “The US Air Force Base, sir!”

“You ever been in a plane?” he asked. “Ever seen what we see up there?”

Alex hesitated, then shook his head. He quickly caught himself and said, “No, sir!”

Ramos hummed, then patted Alex’s shoulder once, hard enough to make Alex stumble. “All right, follow me! I’m about to show you the few good things about being out in this godforsaken desert.”

Alex followed as he was supposed to, though doubt never left his face. He seemed convinced that there was nothing good about being out here.

Michael and Isobel exchanged a glance before they quickly followed. Michael stayed close to Alex and reached for his hand several times, until they passed right through each other and Alex hardly seemed aware of him.

They went into a hangar with several smaller planes inside, and Alex tensed just for a moment at the sight of them all before he realized Ramos was leading him to a little aircraft at the far right of the room.

“Stay with me, Guerin,” Alex suddenly whispered, his eyes wide and betraying some fear. Michael looked to him, surprised, but realized that Alex was just talking to himself. His hand covered his pocket where his picture of him and Michael was, and with a deep, shaking sigh, he followed Ramos to the plane.

When Alex got close enough, Ramos tossed him a helmet. “Hop in, kid!”

Alex swallowed. He looked like he wanted to stutter an excuse not to, but he gripped his pocket tightly and nodded once, putting on the helmet.

“Oh my god,” Isobel said with a smirk tugging at her lips as realization dawned. “You’re like his good luck charm.”

Michael swallowed, though he definitely didn’t want to smile. When did it stop? When did Alex realize that he wasn’t good luck at all? When had he stopped needing him?

Before Michael and Isobel could say anything else, they both ended up in the backseat of the little aircraft, Ramos and Alex in the front, the plane on a wide stretch of road. Michael didn’t know if this aircraft had initially fit two people in the back, but it was like the memory warped and changed for them to be able to follow.

“We’re tied to Alex,” Isobel told him. Despite the roar of the engine, they heard each other, and the other two passengers, perfectly. “We’ll keep getting tugged along with him.”

Alex gripped the edge of his seat tightly as the plane took off into the air. Michael could hear his gasp, his eyes wanting to close but unwilling to do it in front of his sergeant. They rose high to the clouds, Alex’s knuckles white. Michael wanted more than anything to reach for him, to hold and comfort him, but this Alex was on his own. He’d never had Michael there as Michael had had Max and Isobel. It was just him, alone, with nothing but a picture to comfort him.

“Better hold onto somethin’,” Ramos laughed and pulled up high above the clouds.

What they saw knocked the breath out of their lungs. High above a bed of white, the sun shined brightly, turning the sky around it to gold and pink and purple and blue. It looked like the color of their spaceship surrounding them.

The sunlight hit Alex’s wide eyes, and Michael watched him breathing quickly, emotions turning from fear to shock to grief to wonder to amazement to grief and shock again. He could’ve done anything in that moment. He could’ve cried, could’ve screamed. Instead he smiled, a surprised burst of laughter escaping his lips.

He held up his hands and yelled, “WOOOOOOO!” and Ramous laughed harder. Isobel couldn’t help but laugh along, and Michael couldn’t look away from Alex. The bright sunlight had turned his tear-filled eyes to crystal green, and if Ramos noticed his crying, he didn’t say anything. Alex just laughed and ran his hands through his hair, marveling at the sight before him, as if he’d never expected that such a beautiful treasure could be right over his head this whole time.

After they’d come back down, Ramos handed Alex his half of a ham and cheese sandwich. “Every year,” he told him, “I look at new recruits, try to decide if there are any worth keeping an eye out for. This year, that’s you.”

Alex blinked. “Why me?”

“Because a soldier who can start a battle is a dime a dozen,” he said simply. “I need the kind of person who can win them. I think I can make you captain in record’s time.” He raised a brow, and finished his sandwich in one bite. “Would that be something you would want?”

Alex’s eyes widened. “That would outrank my dad – er – Sergeant Manes.”

“Yes,” Sergeant Ramos said slowly, as though he’d just figured out the bully’s name. “It would. He would have to answer to you.”

Alex’s cheeks were red, but his expression fierce and hopeful. “You can really make me captain, sir?”

“If it’s what you want,” he said. “If it’s the kind of person you want to be. But you ‘aint gonna get it getting beaten down the way you do.”

“I’m – I’m trying –”

“Trying is for excuses,” he said. “‘Round here, you do. If you want to outrank your old man, there’s only one way to do it, Manes. I can train you, but the work’s gotta come from you. What do you think?” He tilted his head. “How far are you willing to go to be the stronger one?”

The look on Alex’s face said it all. He would become whatever he had to, do whatever needed doing. He had enemies, and he wanted them to burn.

The picture changed. It was like walking through a film, memories too blurred and passing now for Michael and Isobel to cling to.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked Isobel, and she shook her head.

“Alex doesn’t clearly remember any of this stuff,” she said, “so we can’t see it any better than he can.”

They saw Alex get older, training harder, running faster, shooting better than anybody else around him. They saw him rise in ranks quickly, uniformed men pinning medals to his chest, congratulating him. Alex laughing with a team of his own, men with muscles larger than Michael’s head, following him like he was their hero.

The memory then stopped, and Michael and Isobel found themselves in a hospital hallway.

Isobel shivered and clung to Michael’s arm. “What is this?” she asked. “Where are we?”

Michael looked around, and pointed at a familiar man pacing along the wall, his thumb pressed to his lower lip.

“Gregory?” Isobel blinked. “What’s he doing here?”

A doctor stepped out, and Gregory was on him in an instant. “How is he?” he demanded at once.

The doctor sighed. It sounded sad. Gregory’s face fell, anguish overtaking his expression. “We did all we could,” he said, “but we couldn’t save the leg.”

Isobel gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “No,” she breathed. “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to see this.”

Michael couldn’t hear anything else she said. He was watching Alex who was sitting up in bed, staring numbly at the ceiling. Michael went inside and stood at Alex’s bedside. He did not look at the sheets and what they revealed.

“Private,” he whispered, leaning in as close as he could without touching Alex. “Can you hear me?”

Alex said nothing. He didn’t look down or move. The circles around his eyes were dark. He slowly reached over to the tray beside his bed where a few of his belongings sat in an opened plastic bag, and took something out. It was a picture, his picture of him and Michael, tattered around the edges and stained with specs of blood on the back. He hugged it against his chest as a tear wordlessly rolled down his cheek, though he remained expressionless.

“Alex,” Gregory came in. He looked over Alex’s missing right leg, and swallowed thickly. “Hey,” he brushed his hair back from his face. Alex was either half-asleep or still filled with anesthetic. “Hey, can you hear me?”

Michael knew Alex could, that he remembered this moment perfectly, or he and Isobel would never have been able to see it.

Alex’s lips tugged up in half a sad smile, his brows furrowed as another tear fell down the bridge of his nose. “He’ll think I’m broken now. He’s so beautiful, he’d . . . he’d never love me like this.”

Michael stepped back, feeling like he’d been shot. Alex had kept the picture. Alex had thought Michael wouldn’t love him without his leg. Even now, after all these years, he’d kept the photo of them together. Even now, Michael was still his comfort.

The scene changed.

“I’m getting dizzy,” Isobel groaned. “Where are we now? It looks like Alex’s house, doesn’t it?”

It did. It was night, and they were right in Alex’s driveway, the trees lit with fairy lights, and there sat Michael, or a previous version of Michael, on the bed of his truck.

Michael’s heart fell into his stomach. “No,” he breathed. He remembered this.

“Whoa,” Isobel looked between Michael and Memory Michael. “It’s like Inception.”

“No, please, no,” Michael whispered as Alex pulled up. He stepped out and saw Michael shaking his head.

“What?” he asked in that cute way Michael had never admitted to.

“Pick another memory,” Michael told Isobel. “Any other memory!”

“I can’t control where we go!” Isobel said. “Why? What happens here, Michael?”

Michael pressed the bottoms of his palms into his eyes as Alex’s plea to help him find out more about his mom sounds in his ears. Then Michael’s own cruel words, “I like Maria, okay?”

Isobel’s hand tightened on Michael’s. “Oh.”

Michael was about to say something, though he didn’t know what, when the image before them blurred. It didn’t go away, it just faded to darkness.

“What’s happening?” Michael asked Isobel.

Isobel’s brows were furrowed. “It’s Alex,” she said. “He – he stopped paying attention.”

Michael swallowed thickly as the colors ran around him. Then he and Isobel were in Alex’s living room as Alex came in. It was right after Michael had left his house.

Alex sat down on the couch, staring off into the distance. He pulled off his cap, and his arm fell limp to his side. Slowly, Alex let his head fall back against the wall, and he stared at the ceiling, the same numb expression on his face as when he’d woken up to losing his leg. Any pretense of being fine or indifferent to Michael’s confession was gone.

Alex sniffled, then straightened. His eyes were dry. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out that same picture of him and Michael. He stared at it for a long time, but he didn’t say anything.

“He kept it,” Isobel breathed. “All this time, he’s loved you so much.”

“I didn’t –” Michael croaked, shaking his head. “I didn’t know.”

He’d thought Alex didn’t care who he was with. Then he thought to the way Alex’s eyes had fallen time and time again; in his driveway, his backyard, outside Michael’s airstream over and over and over again. Never surprised, just afraid that his suspicions had been right. That he was too broken for Michael to love anymore.

Alex lied down with a deep sigh that sounded frighteningly like resignation, his hand with the picture hanging off the couch. Slowly, his jaw clenched, Alex let the picture flutter out of his fingers and to the floor. He turned over to his other side and closed his eyes. He didn’t pick the picture up again.

“Alex . . .” Michael whispered, but before he could try reaching for Alex, the picture changed again, and he and Isobel were standing next to Alex in front of a short building. Kids played outside and elders swept their front porch.

Isobel leaned her weight against Michael. He put an arm around her waist. “Whoa, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathed, “yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I don’t think I can keep this up much longer, Michael. We have to find the broken part here, fast.”

Michael looked Alex over. “I think we’re getting there. Wasn’t this what he was wearing the day he was ambushed?”

Isobel straightened, eyes narrowed. She gasped. “Kyle told me Alex had gone to visit his mom that morning! He called on his way to the bunker, and –”

“That’s where they got him,” Michael growled, his hands turned to fists at the thought. “We’re close.”

As if hearing the urgency in their voices, a woman opened the door to greet Alex. She had Alex’s dark eyes, dark hair, and kind smile.

“My baby,” Alex’s mother pulled him in for a hug. Alex hugged her back just as tightly.

“Hey, mom,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

His mother quickly noticed and her smile faltered. She cupped his cheek. “Okay, baby, come in. Come on. I’ll make you some tea.”

That was how they found themselves minutes later, seated in a small but comfy living room with plush floral couches, Michael and Isobel on each side of Alex as he and his mother nursed hot cups of tea.

“What’s going on?” Alex’s mother said. “Why do you look like that?”

Alex scoffed halfheartedly, “Are you saying I look bad?”

She brushed his hair back from his eyes. “My son is the handsomest in the world.” She brought her hand to his chin and lifted his head. “So why is he so upset?”

“I’m not upset, mom,” he said, smiling weakly. “I’m just . . . so tired.” His smile fell away and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a sip of his tea and set the mug down. He rubbed his hands together. “When you called last night, I told you everything was fine. I lied, mom.”

She nodded, like this didn’t surprise her in the slightest. “I know.” She tilted her head, and softly asked, “Is it your breakup? I thought you were okay with that.”

“I was,” Alex shook his head, eyes shut. “I – I am, but I . . .” He sighed and pulled something out of his pocket. He huffed a miserable chuckle. “I tried to burn it. I couldn’t.”

She took the picture from him, and Isobel gasped softly. It was the same one Alex had had of him and Michael for all of these years. He’d never gotten rid of it. Michael had never stopped being a comfort to him. Until, apparently, now.

Realization dawned on Alex’s mother’s face. “This boy. What was his name again?”

Alex rubbed his face. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters anymore. Forrest and I broke up, and he still won’t tell me anything.”

She frowned. “I thought you said you loved each other?”

Alex nodded. “I used to believe that.” He sighed shakily. “Not anymore.” He chuckled sadly, and covered his face with his hands. “I’m so tired, mom. I’m so tired of – of excuses and being afraid and – and being brave just to find out that it makes no difference. It’s not enough. I’m not enough.”

“Alex,” Alex’s mother looked horrified at her son’s words. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to,” Alex confessed in a whisper. “He showed me. He told Maria he loved her.”

Isobel’s eyes were wide. “Michael, you what?” she demanded. “Why would you lie like that?”

“I was scared,” he said, his eyes on Alex. “I wanted to hold onto something easy.”

But he didn’t know this was what he’d been doing to Alex. That he was hurting him this badly, all to date someone he’d never actually wanted to date. Michael looked at the dark circles around Alex’s eyes, his hollow cheeks, his tousled hair, and wondered how long it had been since Alex had eaten or slept.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Alex said. “I’d always hoped that . . . that we’d end up together. But it’s not something he wants anymore. If he ever wanted it at all.” His eyes shut tight. “I can’t keep clinging to bread crumbs, mom, I don’t want to.”

His mom looked concerned, but she took Alex’s hands in both of hers and said steadily, “Alex, what’re you trying to say? You can tell me.”

Alex exhaled shakily, and lifted his gaze to his mother’s. “Mom, I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve thought about it since he and Maria first started . . .” he clenched his jaw and looked away, like just the thought of Michael and Maria together pained him. Finally, he said, “I’m leaving Roswell.”

“No,” Michael breathed.

“And I’m not coming back this time.”

“NO!” Michael stood. “Alex, you can’t leave!”

“Michael,” Isobel tried. “He can’t hear you.”

“Alex can’t leave me,” he shook his head. “He can’t.”

“I can’t see him anymore,” Alex said. “I can’t pretend he still loves me. It hurts too much.”

Despite Isobel’s protests, Michael leaned over Alex and grabbed his arms. He kept going through him.

“Alex, look at me!” he demanded. “I’m right here, look at me!”

Alex flinched just as Michael’s hands collided with his arms, grabbing onto him. He could feel Alex, and Alex could feel him.

Alex looked startled, his mother’s voice was gone. Everyone’s voices were gone but Michael’s, Isobel’s, and Alex’s. The world around them was turning to black as Alex searched the air in front of him, as if looking for the source of the sound.

“He can hear me,” Michael muttered, eyes wide. “He can – he can hear me!”

Alex’s eyes fell onto Michael’s, and his brows furrowed. “Guerin?”

“This is it,” Isobel stood. “This is the faulty memory! The part where Alex’s brain is screwed up and is keeping him asleep!”

“Isobel?” Alex blinked. He tried to stand with Michael clinging to him. Michael was afraid that if he let go of this memory, Alex would disappear from him for good. “What’re you guys doing here, what is all this?”

They were standing in darkness. Nothingness upon nothingness.

“You were attacked,” Isobel told him, “by Project Shepherd agents.”

“You’ve been in a coma for three days,” Michael said. “We couldn’t get you to wake up, we had to come into your mind, try to wake you from here.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Alex shook his head. “Attacked? Coma? None of this makes any sense!”

“Remember!” Michael demanded. “Remember! This is just a memory, the real you knows what happened! Remember, Alex!”

Alex looked shocked, doubtful, disbelieving. Then something in his expression slotted together. “I was – I was at the bunker . . . the door was open . . . it all happened so fast.” He blinked, and gasped. “A gunshot. Someone – someone shot me.” He frantically patted down his stomach, looking for the wound, but he wouldn’t find it in a memory. He looked back to Isobel, then Michael. “You’re telling the truth.”

“You have to fight it, Alex,” Isobel urged. She leaned forward on her knees and huffed, like just breathing was getting tiresome for her. “You have to want to wake up.”

“Want to wake up?”

“Yeah,” Michael cupped his jaw. “Come on, baby. Wake up for me,” he breathed. “I miss you, please wake up for me.”

Alex searched his face, then said, “No.”

Michael faltered. “N-No?”

“No,” Alex tried pulling his arms out of Michael’s grasp, but Michael held on. “Guerin, I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to? Alex, this is your life we’re talking about –”

“My life?” he laughed. It sounded so sad. “What life, Guerin? The one where the man I love won’t say two nice words to me? The one where my friends don’t think twice about what their decisions might do to me? Where my own brother tried to kill me because I got in his way?”

Alex shook his head. “No, Guerin. No. I’ve been tired for a long time, and I want to rest now.”

Michael gripped his arms harder. “You think I don’t know the real you?” he demanded. “You think I don’t know that you’ve had hope for us even when I didn’t? You think I don’t know that no matter what you say, you’ll believe in us whether you want to or not? We’re cosmic, Alex, this won’t kill us, and you know it won’t. If you don’t wake up, I’ll just come after you again, you know I will.”

Isobel stared, shocked. “Michael . . .”

His grip on Alex turned painfully tight. “I’ve never trusted anything, Alex. I’m not like you, I can’t see the good even when everything just feels bad. But I trust you. If you don’t wake up, I’ll die.” He shrugged, a sad smile tugging at his lips as a tear rolled down his cheek. “And you won’t let me. I believe that.”

His grip loosened.

“What’re you doing?” Alex said, though he seemed to already know the answer.

“I’m trusting you to come back to me,” Michael said, his whole body trembling. “Because you always do.”

“Michael,” Isobel warned, “if you let him go now, we might lose him for good.”

Michael smirked, and a tear fell down Alex’s face. “I’m not letting you go,” Michael told Alex. “I can’t.”

“Guerin,” Alex tried, but Michael was already straightening, bracing himself.

“You’ll come back,” he said, sure of this more than anything else.

Without another word, he let go of Alex, and a sudden wind hit his face. Then he blinked, and he was back in Max’s bedroom. He and Isobel both broke apart and fell to the ground.

“Oh my god,” Kyle gasped somewhere in the distance and helped Isobel up while Max came to Michael’s side.

“You guys have been frozen for hours!” he said, pulling Michael to his feet. “What happened?”

“Michael had Alex,” Isobel said, and looked to her brother. “Why?” she demanded. “Michael, after what he told us –”

“What?” Kyle said, looking between them. “Told you what?”

Michael lumbered out of Max’s hold and took his place at Alex’s bedside again, taking his hand in his. “Come on, Alex,” he begged in a whisper. “Come on. Come back to me.”

“He said . . . he said . . .”

“It doesn’t matter!” Michael snapped, and Isobel fell silent. “He’ll wake up. He will. Come on, baby,” he murmured into Alex’s hand. “Come on.”

The minutes ticked by in silence, like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.

“Michael,” Isobel said quietly. “He’s not going to wake up.”

“Yes, he will,” Michael said at once, his grip on Alex’s hand bruising. “He will.”

“Just give him a minute,” he heard Kyle say. He must’ve been clinging to that hope just as desperately as Michael was.

“Come on,” he pleaded. “Come on, Alex. Stay with me.”

A moment. Two. Michael’s eyes burned, and his hands started to tremble. Then he felt it; he felt Alex’s fingers move in his.

He gasped, and waited. Alex moved again.

Kyle pointed at one of the monitors. “Brain activity’s increasing!” he all but yelled. “Alex?”

They looked to Alex, waiting, waiting, waiting. Then Alex’s eyes fluttered open, and a sob escaped Michael’s lips before he pressed them to Alex’s fingers, kissing each one. Kyle gently pulled off the respirator, and he and Michael both helped a confused Alex sit up.

Alex’s brows were furrowed as he took in the room. When he spoke, his voice was dry and hoarse. “I had the weirdest dream.”

Isobel collapsed into tearful giggles, and Max, relieved, patted Alex’s shoulder twice. Kyle ruffled his hair, and Michael moved to sit next to him, hugging him tightly and keeping him close.

“Don’t ever do that to us again, Manes,” Kyle warned him with a trembling smile.

“Do what?” Alex asked. “I don’t remember anything – ow!” He lifted up his short sleeve to reveal red nail marks. Michael’s nail marks from when he’d been gripping him a little too tightly, terrified of losing him.

Alex met Michael’s gaze with furrowed brows, realization quickly dawning. Michael pressed their foreheads together and took a second to breathe Alex in before he closed the distance between them, taking Alex’s lips in his own.

He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, and then Alex broke away, panting, though they kept their foreheads together.

“Get off him,” Kyle slapped Michael’s shoulder. “He still needs a minute to breathe.”

“No,” Michael said simply, resting his head on Alex’s shoulder and nuzzling his neck, feeling as much of him as he could.

“Oh!” Isobel started. “Alex, what ever happened to that photograph?”

Michael tensed.

“What photograph?” Max asked.

“Alex,” she said, “had this picture of him and Michael when they were seventeen. We saw it in all of his memories.”

“Isobel,” Michael warned through grit teeth. He expected the same out of Alex, to see him embarrassed or shy, but Alex simply blinked like he’d forgotten about the picture.

“That?” he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small photograph.

Michael hugged his waist with one hand and took the photo with the other. “I have one just like this.”

Alex laughed. “Yeah?”

“I’ll show it to you,” he promised into his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Alex sighed. “I think it might be time for a new one.” He smiled at Michael like he adored him. No, more than adored him. The thought made Michael’s heart flutter and made him cling tighter.

Michael kissed Alex’s neck, then his shoulder. “Good. ‘Cause I have a few ideas.”

“Um,” Isobel said testily as Max and Kyle looked away with red faces. “Y’all know we’re still here, right?”

[pink-flame]

Promises Kept - A WFW Missing Scene

Soooo...I let it slip earlier to @mamirugbee that in my original plot outline for We Found Wonderland the scene where Luke finally wins the ring was there. I ended up not writing it because I thought that would be too much angst on top of everything else and you all would riot. But she wanted it and I love her so I wrote it. But then I got distracted with other angst on the way to that angst...so you also get the immediate aftermath of Julie leaving. Oops. It's 2 for 1 night for WFW angst! Just remember I WAS ASKED FOR THIS. Love you, Jenni. 💜

Luke held it together pretty well for approximately three days.

After watching Julie disappear right in front of his eyes, while he smiled...smiled to show her he would be ok...he had sunk to the ground, very much not ok. He had stayed there, just outside the garage doors, dizzy and sick to his stomach while the reality of the situation washed over him until finally the change in light alerted him to the fact hours had passed. He realized somewhere vaguely in the back of his mind through the haze of mental static that the rest of the guys would be home from school soon. He didn’t want them to see him like this. He didn’t want to be the one who had to tell them what had happened, didn't want to see the hurt in their eyes or even worse the sympathy. His instincts were screaming at him to run away from the situation, to escape like he had escaped his parents’ house when their smothering attention and rules became too much. The urge to grab his acoustic and walk out and never come back was strong, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his side as he turned the idea over in his mind.

In the end it was never really an option.

He couldn’t leave his friends.

He couldn’t leave his band.

He couldn’t leave his parents, not again.

And most of all he couldn’t leave the life Julie had almost sacrificed everything to make sure he got to live.

He had promised her a lot of things. That they would make things work somehow. That he would win her that dumb ring. That he would help her reconnect with her dad. That it would always be him and her, Luke and Julie, in it together against nosy bandmates, and questionable record labels, and the looming possibility of being separated by thousands of miles (back when that had seemed like as far apart as they could get).

And he had promised her that he would take care of their friends, and follow his dreams and do his best to be happy.

It turned out that the one promise he had made her that every inch of him was screaming out in protest against might be the only one he could actually keep.

So he would.

Luke unclenched his palms and placed his hands flat against the pavement outside the garage doors. He took a deep if shaky breath then pressed them into the firm surface until he managed to haul himself to his feet, his legs protesting as he forced them to move through their stiffness. He just had time to drag himself into the bathroom and splash cold water on his face before he heard the telltale sounds of his friends approaching, their boisterous voices carrying from all the way down the driveway. He emerged back into the studio, purposefully turning away from the doors in a desperate bid to buy himself a few extra seconds to compose himself before he had to explain Julie’s absence.

“And then I said if a platypus is a mammal where’s their nipples cause that’s how mammals feed their kids, right?”

“Reggie, I don’t know what made you think we want to hear this conversation…”

“Oh come on, Bobby, where’s your intellectual curiosity. Go on, Reggie.”

“Right, so then Mr. Gleeson said they don’t have nipples. They feed their babies by basically sweating milk through milk gutters.”

“Ok...I take it back, Bobby was right. I now know way more than I ever wanted to.”

“Luke, will get it. Hey, Luke! Guess what I…”

Luke turned slowly to face his friends and watched their faces fall as they took in his tight expression. Apparently his efforts to school his face into a neutral mask had failed epically. Luke realized his hands were shaking and shoved the offending appendages into his pockets hoping that would hide the effects of his runaway emotions.

That also seemed to be wishful thinking.

“What’s wrong?” Bobby asked bluntly, taking half a step towards Luke before stopping short when he saw the way he flinched. “Oh.”

“Luke, I’m…” Alex swallowed hard and glanced away for a moment seemingly fighting with his own emotions. “I’m so sorry.”

Reggie was the last to speak, the panic stealing over his face like a punch directly to Luke’s chest.

“Where’s Julie?”

When Luke didn’t answer right away he asked again, shaking off Alex’s attempts to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Luke, where’s Julie?”

“Home,” He answered simply, his voice steady despite the emotions still raging inside of him.

He knew what he had to do now.

He had to honor Julie the only way he could, by helping his friends be ok.

“What? No,” Reggie protested, looking back and forth between his friends as though expecting someone to tell him it was a joke. “She wouldn’t. Not without saying goodbye.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” Luke told him gently. “The portal just appeared and she...she ran out of time.”

“Ok, ok,” Reggie ran his fingers through his hair roughly, leaving pieces standing up in all directions. “We can go to the ghost club, right? We can get Willie to help us get into Caleb’s dressing room and we can go find her.”

“That’s a good way to get killed by an evil ghost,” Bobby pointed out.

“We’ll figure it out,” Reggie insisted.

“Reg...we don’t even know...we don’t know if Caleb still trusts WIllie or not. We haven’t seen him since that night.”

Luke could hear the pain in his friend’s voice and he hated it. Alex might not have had the time to develop the same deep connection with Willie that Luke had with Julie, but he knew his friend had seen flashes of that potential in their stolen moments. The fact that Willie had been missing in action since he tried to help them save Julie weighed heavily on Alex. Luke could see it. He just couldn’t do anything about it except be there for him as much as he could.

He was going to need Alex too.

He was going to need all of them.

“Reggie, even if we could do that she didn’t want us to. She didn’t want us to leave our families or our dreams or our lives here. She fought so hard for us to have them. We have to live like it’s now or never, for her.”

He managed a small, sad smile hoping it would calm Reggie’s rising agitation but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“Don’t quote your lyrics at me, dude,” Reggie snapped, once again brushing off Alex’s attempts to put a comforting hand on his arm. “You’re supposed to be in love with her. How can you just let her go without a fight?”

Luke felt like his throat was closing up as Reggie’s words hit him like a slap in the face. He knew his friend didn’t mean it, not really. He was just hurt and scared and mourning the loss of the little sister he loved.

It didn’t make it hurt any less to have his own doubts and guilt thrown back into his face though.

Before Luke could come up with anything else to say to comfort him, Reggie reached up to wipe at his eyes and spun on his heels, stomping out of the garage and down the driveway.

Alex shot Luke a worried look before nodding after their friend.

“I’ll check on him. I’ll be right back, ok?”

Then he was gone and Luke and Bobby were alone in the garage.

Bobby was looking at Luke like he was some kind of wounded animal and Luke wished he would stop because the longer his best friend looked at him like that the more tempting it was to totally break down. And he couldn’t do that and keep his promise to Julie. So he would hold it together. He would.

“I’m not going to ask if you’re ok because that would be a stupid question,” Bobby said, crossing the garage to sink onto the couch before patting the seat next to him expectantly.

Luke hesitated for a second or two before sighing and sinking down next to Bobby, the urge to tap his foot or drum on his knee overwhelming though he fought it down. He didn’t need to give Bobby more ammunition about his mental state. Not that he needed it.

“Look, I’m going to miss her too,” Bobby cleared his throat before reaching out to pat semi-awkwardly at Luke’s knee. “And I know it’s going to be worse for you. But I’m here for you. We all are. So just...don’t run, ok?”

Luke could have laughed at that if his mouth had seemed to remember how. His friends really did know him too well. Still. He had already ruled out that course of action.

“I won’t,” He promised.

And he didn’t.

What he did do was dive headfirst into trying to make sure their lives would go on like Julie wanted. He was there waiting when Reggie processed his feelings enough to feel bad about his outburst and showed up at the garage in the middle of the night and pulled Luke into a tight hug that lasted a long time. He was there when Alex wanted to talk about feeling anxious not knowing for sure if Julie had made it back to her time and what she had found there. He was even there when Bobby admitted that he missed Julie but he missed Queenie too and he wasn’t sure that the band was ever going to be as close as they once were. Luke did his best to reassure them all, checked in on his mom, and started calling around trying to book them a gig even though they had hardly any songs they could use and none of the bookers he spoke to seemed particularly interested.

He forced himself to tell bad jokes, and offered to go get pizza and suggest busking so they could refill their food fund.

He did all of that for three days until it was like the adrenaline he had been running off of ever since Julie disappeared into a hole in the ground finally wore off. On the fourth day he knew his friends noticed that he was quieter than normal though none of them said anything, just exchanged mildly worried looks. On the fifth day he lost his appetite, picking at the leftover pizza that Bobby had warmed up for him and refusing the variety of junk food his friend then hauled out to the garage. On the sixth day he slept most of the day, drifting in and out of fitful dreams. He had only emerged for a couple of bathroom breaks and was back curled under the blanket he usually left unused when his friends showed up after school, their worried looks no longer mild.

The 7th day was a Friday but they didn’t go to school. Instead they staged what amounted to an intervention, hovering around the couch (he didn’t bother folding it out now that the possibility of Julie crawling in next to him was gone) and refused to stop staring creepily at him until he sat up with an annoyed huff.

“Don’t you have school?” He muttered, pulling the blanket more firmly around his shoulders despite the smothering heat.

“We’re not going,” Reggie said, reaching out and yanking the blanket away from Luke in on quick movement.

“Hey!” Luke protested.

“We’re worried about you,” Alex said ignoring the way Luke was suddenly looking anywhere but at his friends. “You pretended nothing was wrong and then you crashed hard.”

“You’re depressed,” Bobby said bluntly, because of course he did.

He was annoyingly accurate and to the point at all times unless he was hiding his meaning in some obscure literary quote of course.

“I’m not,” Luke tried, feeling strangely exposed without the weight of the blanket. “I miss Julie...a lot, ok? But she wanted us to live and I’m living.”

“There’s living and there’s living,” Reggie countered, dropping down next to Luke to sling an arm around his shoulder. “And Julie would want you to be living, you know what I mean?”

“We don’t expect you to be ok,” Alex broke in quickly. “Just for you to be honest about what’s going on with you. You’ve been there for us the past few days now it’s your turn.”

“I’m fine,” Luke tried one last time, though his argument sounded half-hearted even to his own ears.

“You haven’t showered in a week,” Bobby pointed out, the softness behind his eyes easing the harshness of his words as Luke forced himself to look up and meet his friend’s eyes. “Come on, rinse the smell off and then we’re taking a field trip.”

Luke groaned but forced himself to stand and cross the distance to the bathroom, his bones aching like he had spent years in bed, not hours. He hardly remembered the shower but when he reemerged some indeterminate amount of time later his hair was dripping and he admittedly smelled a lot better. He still felt a bit like he was walking through a heavy fog though, like some slight, almost undetectable force was making each one of his steps just that little bit more difficult. He thought it might not be the weight of something slowing him down at all but the absence of something. It was like he had forgotten how to do everything right without Julie next to him. Walking and eating and breathing. He knew he had done them all before he ever knew her but that didn’t make them come any more naturally now that she was gone.

Still.

He had promised her he would try.

So he let his friends steer him out of the garage, let them lead him down the sidewalk, Alex and Bobby buffeting him on either side and Reggie walking in front, chattering away and peering back every few seconds as though afraid Luke would bolt if he didn’t keep him in his sight. Luke for his part just shuffled along, grunting out a response when asked a direct question and keeping silent the rest of the time. Apparently the plan was to head to Reggie’s house. His mom would be at work and she had bought him this brand new video game console called a Playstation that the boys were all dying to try out. That newly separated parent guilt was apparently good for a few things, like letting Reggie have ice cream every night and expensive gifts. Luke was pretty sure that none of them were particularly in the mood to play video games and were putting on the enthusiasm for his sake. He appreciated it. He just couldn’t match it.

But once they were actually in Reggie’s room, crowded around the little television he got for his last birthday, Luke had to admit he did feel a little more like a human being. He even caught himself laughing as he watched Alex and Reggie squabble over the second controller as Bobby clutched his above the fray. Reggie grinned when he saw Luke’s brief smile and shoved the controller they had been fighting over into his hands.

“Here, you try!”

And he couldn’t stand to see Reggie disappointed, not when he had seen him so hurt so recently. So Luke did try. And he let himself enjoy it. And he let himself tune out and pretend that there wasn’t someone missing.

He did such a good job at pretending that it wasn’t until they had left Reggie’s house several hours later in order to keep his mom from knowing they had skipped and headed for the ice cream shop that the gaping absence all came crashing back.

Because right around the corner from the ice cream shop was the arcade.

And right inside of the arcade entrance was a claw machine.

And inside of that claw machine he could only assume there was a purple plastic ring that would now never sit on his girl’s finger.

He couldn’t explain why his feet carried him towards the arcade but they did, seemingly without any specific direction from him.

“Luke....” Alex’s worried voice called after him but he didn’t pause until he was standing directly in front of the damn game that had been haunting him for months.

And there it was. The ring. Mocking him from the exact spot it had been in all along.

Apparently his friends had caught up to him by then because when Reggie spoke up it was from directly behind him.

“You’ve got to let that thing go, man,” His friend said carefully. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Luke found himself understanding Reggie’s initial reaction to the news about Julie’s departure because all of the sudden he was angry. He wasn’t just angry, he was furious.

He brought his fists down in tandem on either side of the joystick, feeling the reverberation up his recently healed arm and had just enough time to wonder if that was the smartest idea before words were bursting out of him unbidden.

“It matters,” He said fiercely, ignoring the way Reggie flinched slightly. “It matters. She matters. She matters to me and she’s gone and I said I would give her that ring and I didn’t and now I can’t and...and...it just matters, ok? It just does.”

Alex and Reggie both stared at him, eyes wide with worry seemingly unable to land on something helpful to say as they watched him finally implode. The silence stretched and Luke was just about to kick the machine just to have something to fill the gap and give him another chance to externalize the storm brewing inside of him when Bobby stepped forward calmly.

“Here,” He said, his voice calm and even. “Go ahead.”

He held out his hand and Luke instinctively stuck his out to catch whatever Bobby was trying to hand him. He folded his fingers over the mystery object to keep it from falling to the ground, before uncurling them carefully to examine it.

It was a quarter.

Luke looked up sharply expecting to see sympathy or something worse on Bobby’s face but all he saw was that look his best friend gave him when they were disagreeing on a song or when they couldn’t agree on what toppings to order for their pizza. Or maybe more like when Luke had wanted to use those fireworks for pyrotechnics or when he had suggested a book club as a viable gig. Like he didn’t approve of what Luke was doing but also like he was going to be right there behind him, letting him know he was an idiot and then helping him anyway.

Somehow it was exactly what Luke needed.

So he didn’t say anything else, just swung to face the machine and deposited his quarter in the slot before he could think better of it.

The game came to life as he swung the joystick jerkily to the right, not letting himself think too hard about the exact aim as the claw hovered over the ring in it’s plastic container. He slammed his hand down on the button to drop it probably harder than was strictly necessary but it felt good to have an excuse to hit something. The claw dropped and clutched it’s mechanical arms around the plastic container. Luke tried not to react, afterall he had gotten this far many times before, but the weak arms always released the ring long before it could actually make it to the prize shoot. But even as that hopeless thought crossed his mind the claw was rising, taking the ring with it and this time it didn’t drop back to its former spot. This time the ring remained locked in the claw’s embrace until it tumbled down into the prize shoot leaving all four boys to stare at the machine in surprise.

“Did that just…” Alex started.

“You did it,” Reggie practically whispered, disbelief clear in his voice.

Luke for his part just stared at the claw machine that had once again gone silent and still as he tried to process what had just happened. He had been so angry a minute ago and he could never win the ring and it didn’t matter because Julie was gone...Julie was gone...but it did matter and now he had won the ring and...did he really just win the ring?

Once again it was Bobby who broke them all out of their stupor, stepping forward and reaching through the metal flap to retrieve the ring, pressing the plastic container insistently into Luke’s shaking hands.

“You did it,” He said simply but firmly.

“I did it,” Luke echoed, his voice slightly choked.

“You said you would and you did,” Bobby continued. “It’s ok, Luke. You did it.”

Luke was very aware that Bobby was talking to him like a small child and he wanted to be offended, he really did, only he felt like a small child. Like nothing made sense and all of his emotions were too big for him. He had tried for so long and so hard to win that stupid ring, had seen it as a metaphor for how he felt about Julie, how he would do anything for her, how he wanted her to know that as intrinsically as she knew her own name. He had tried so hard and it had never worked and now she was gone and the very first time he tried, the first time, and he had done it.

Luke felt tears pricking at his eyes and did his best to fight them down.

“Luke…” Reggie started, his own eyes looking suspiciously wet.

Luke couldn’t bear to hear what Reggie was going to say or to make eye contact with any of his friends when he felt on the brink of breaking into sobs. He spun to face the machine again only that didn’t seem to help. His vision went blurry and his throat went tight and the next thing he knew he was breaking down into sobs. He tried to stifle them in a fit of embarrassment but there wasn’t much point. The tsunami had started and all he could do was ride the wave and pray he was in one piece on the other side.

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the claw machine, the soothing temperature doing little to slow the tears rolling down his face or the hiccuping, painful sounds that were emerging from his mouth. The ache in his chest was almost unbearable but it was matched by the sharp pain in his hand as he clutched so hard at the ring’s plastic container he was sure it would leave an angry red outline when he finally uncurled his fingers.

He loved her.

He loved her so much.

He loved her and he was never going to see her again and he won her the ring and she was never going to know it.

He was so alone.

Only he wasn’t.

Because suddenly there were warm arms wrapping around him from every direction, cheeks pressed against his shoulders and the top of his head, soft words of comfort being spoken in three different voices.

“It’s ok, Luke.”

“Let it out.”

“We’re here.”

And he did.

He had promised Julie they would do their best to be happy. He intended to keep that promise. But today all he felt was pain. And that would have to be ok too.

And it was.

And they were.

Not all at once.

Not for a long time if he was being honest.

But slowly and steadily genuine smiles, and laughter began to work their way back into their lives. They didn’t talk much about Julie at first. It hurt too much. But eventually Reggie brought up a story about her over pizza and soon they were all chiming in, recounting their favorite moments with the girl who would always live in their hearts even if she could no longer live in their world. After that they brought her up often and it hurts but it also heals.

Luke took to wearing the ring around even though it was too small for all of his fingers except his pinkie and often got stuck even then. Bobby didn't comment on the way his finger was starting to turn as purple as the ring itself, simply handed him a black cord one day for him to string it on and brushed off Luke’s rush of thankful words. After that Luke wore the ring on a cord around his neck, dangling down to thump gently against his heart as he walked, the cool plastic a constant reminder of what he lost but what he gained too.

He wasn’t living the life he would have chosen for himself but he was living the life Julie had chosen for him. He hoped the two would come together eventually. He had to have faith that they would.

Eventually he sat down to write a song for her and ended up with a poem instead.

Eventually he had the idea of sending her a message through time, a box filled with all of the things she had loved and left behind, all the ones that would fit in a small box anyway. Eventually he pried the teddy bear version of himself out of Reggie’s reluctant fingers to go inside. Eventually placed all of their carefully selected polaroids inside too.

And eventually he slid  a purple ring off of the cord he wore it on, placed it carefully back into its original container and left it for her to find with a lingering kiss pressed to its surface.

Eventually.

But first.

He lived.

Tag list: @futurearchaeologyprof @moreflowersthanweeds @chickwiththepurpleguitar

[blush-and-books]

i am always yours

canonverse juke one-shot, light angst with a happy ending :) as a part of the effort to get juke back on the tumblr fandometrics ship list! title from the end of all things by p!atd. again, fuck brendon urie, but i’ve had this hc about luke for awhile (you’ll see what i mean) and had to get this out! <3 enjoy!

When Julie told Luke about Panic! At The Disco, she didn’t just give him a list of songs to check out. She advised to listen through entire albums. 

“You have a lot to catch up on,” she said, grinning over a mug of steaming tea. Her smile could convince him to do anything. “And these guys were a phenomenon. Despite… A lot that has happened with their lead singer, you’ll appreciate the music. Just give it a try when you feel like it.”

Julie never rushed him on anything. It was one of the things he loved most about her -- she only really insisted he know how to use her phone and the internet and maybe know some memes, but the rest was up to him. She loved him -- he hoped -- even if he wanted to stay in 1995. 

However, whenever she told Luke to do something, like “look into it if you’re interested” or “check it out if you’re ever bored,” he would jump on it in an instant. 

He wondered if she ever noticed. Acts of service was one of those love language things that Flynn was always talking about, right? Does making the effort to show an interest in the other person’s life by listening to every album by a band they like count?

He would ask Reggie or Alex, but Reggie doesn’t have much experience in the love department and Alex and Willie are much better at communicating than he is with Julie. 

To be clear: Luke doesn’t have experience either. In fact, Reggie probably has more romantic experience between the two of them. 

But none of it was as serious. This weird thing he has with Julie; this undefined, label-lacking supernova of passion and emotion that he has curled up in his chest is so strong sometimes it hurts. When Julie was upset at him and ignored him, it felt like the time his mom took his guitar and locked it away for a week. 

But when Julie is around, and she’s smiling at him, he could swear that not even a roaring audience could spark the kind of nirvana he feels. 

So, the day after she gives him the name of every Panic! album to date, she goes to school for six hours and he sneaks her laptop down to the garage and starts his deep dive. 

(Yes, Julie gave him computer privileges. He knows boundaries. She’s just broadened hers.)

Blissfully and with few interruptions from his other bandmates, he goes through the first albums quickly. He skips most of Pretty Odd -- Julie should have warned him about that one -- and is enjoying himself until he gets to the later projects which are significantly less his sound. 

But he keeps going. He reaches their album from 2013, which has this neon-angsty-alt-pop vibe that he honestly has a neutral opinion on. The songs are all good until he realizes that half of them have a painfully romantic overtone that ropes his mind back to Julie every time he tries to stray. 

Fuck, one of the songs is literally titled Girl That You Love. How is he not supposed to have a montage of Julie in his head?

And then some shit called Far Too Young To Die comes on, and yes, he agrees, he was far too young to die. He also vows to never listen to it again in the next 24 hours because he is ultimately tempted to loop it until Julie comes back and kiss her breathless the second that she walks through the door. 

Moving on, Collar Full doesn’t make things much better. He is sick and tired of waiting and dancing around his feelings for her, and every time they are together he is filled to the brim with lyrics and love from just minutes in her presence. 

(“If you’re gonna be the death of me, that’s how I want to go” definitely shatters him. But only briefly. He wants to soak up every ounce of love he can get from her before the world catches up to them and he’s crossing over without his consent.)

Luke thinks that he’s out of the woods when he hits the album-ending ballad, The End of All Things. 

And then he sees that he’s still in the thick of it. 

The way it hits him is nearly indescribable -- but every line hits like a read-aloud of his diary. 

No matter where he is, or where he ends up, his soul will always belong to Julie Molina. And that’s the truth of it. He can cross over or the band could break up and he could wander the planet as a lost ghost for the rest of eternity, but his soul will linger; tied with Julie’s in an unsolvable knot. 

He is hers. 

He is hers, he is hers, he is hers. 

And he’s in love with her. 

He can’t ask her to love him back. But he can hope, right? For just a single moment where they can lay together and be Julie and Luke like they should have been.

The tears on his cheeks and under his eyes don’t register until they are streaming down his neck and onto the pillow that he’s laying on. 

He doesn’t deserve Julie, he knows that. And he knows how fucking selfish it would be to even try. But sometimes the wanting reaches inside of him and individually snaps each and every one of his ribs, and that feeling keeps him pushing and pulling like the tide. Get close to her, make her smile, make her laugh. 

Leave her alone. Stop flirting. Don’t you dare hurt her. 

Think about somebody other than yourself. 

This song, he ends up looping. Over and over and over until his emotions are exhausted and he doesn’t have any tears left to cry. He’s on his… Probably his ninth listen when the doors crack open, and the piano music is leaking out of the garage as Julie slips in. 

“Luke! Hey, uh… Oh! You’re listening to Panic!”

He guiltily allows his heart to skip at the pleasant surprise in her smile. Clearing his throat, he swipes his hands viciously across his cheeks to rid of the tear stains and shoots her one of his classic smiles. “‘Course, Boss. You told me to.”

Her backpack hits the coffee table as she slowly approaches the couch to settle next to him. “Yeah, well… I didn’t actually expect you to. People normally just say ‘yeah, I’ll check it out!’ and then no one talks about it again.”

Something rubs him the wrong way about her not thinking that he would actually follow through with her recommendation. Does she doubt him? How does she not know that she could say jump and he would ask how high?

“Well, I’m not normal people. I care about what you care about.”

He knows he got her when she averts her eyes to Alex’s drums across the room; giving Luke a perfect view of her blush. Maybe he lets himself revel in it for a moment longer than necessary. 

“Anyways, how was school? Did you have a good day?”

“It was fine,” she shakes off her previous flusteredness, tucking her leg under her body so that she can turn to fully face him. “But there's nothing to tell. I would much rather hear about what you thought of Panic! And you have to tell me why you were wiping tears off of your face when I came in.”

Luke mirrors her position and gives her a joyful grin, trying to ignore the fact that she clearly noticed him trying to clean his face and wants to talk about it. The two of them have been so good at communication, and if it were about anything else, he would tell her. 

But he was nearly sobbing because of how much he loved her and couldn’t have her, so… 

“They were pretty cool, I’ll give it to you. I liked the album… Vices and Virtues?” Julie nods her head. “Yeah, that one. I was finishing the Vegas one when you got home.”

“Did you like it? The album you just finished. It sounded like End of All Things when I came in.”

With wide eyes and an exaggerated nod, Luke is praying internally that she will move on and go on a tangent about her favorite albums and songs because he just wants to listen to her talk and quietly love her instead of dodge questions about his emotions. 

“Okay, and did you like it? Is that-” She chuckles. “Is that what got you emotional? I mean, I get it, that song hits different sometimes, but-”

Luke stays quiet. If he keeps his mouth shut, and just smiles and stares and nods, it won’t slip. 

“... Luke? Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“... So? Are you… Are you okay? Did it remind you of your mom?”

It reminded me of you, he instantly corrects her with the little voice in his head. 

But the voice sounds louder than usual, and then Julie’s eyes widen, and Luke couldn’t even smile and nod well enough to cover this up. Since when is he so bad at bottling up his emotions?

Right. Since he couldn’t write songs about his feelings. Because if he did, Julie would see them, so every word of affection toward her was shoved into an overflowing filing cabinet in his brain that was probably waiting to explode at any moment. 

“It- Really?”

Mental checklist: She isn’t running away. She isn’t crying. She isn’t running away while she’s crying. 

She isn’t slapping him, or screaming at him, or expressing any negative emotions. 

Maybe he can push another inch… Just for some relief.

“Y- Yeah.” The single word takes considerable effort to stutter out, but he says it. 

Julie formulates her next move. “And… Like, what about it? What reminded you of me?”

Is Luke imagining things, or did she just shift closer to him? Oh, God. The selfishness has already done it’s damage. He’s initiating something that he definitely shouldn’t for both of their sake, but-

God, why does she look so pretty?

“Y’know,” he scratches the back of his neck, “the… The lyrics.” 

“The lyrics?” “Yeah.”

“Which ones?”

She’s leaning in. Her fingers are trailing up the side of his leg, and he wants to poof himself out of this conversation but what would hiding do? Just create a bigger gap between them?

His mom always told him he was selfish. He really, really doesn’t want to be selfish to Julie. He wants to protect her. He wants to put her health and happiness and life before his. Hurting her will never give him peace. 

Is he being selfish either way? Telling her his feelings to make himself feel better, and avoiding his feelings because he thinks it will be better without talking to her about it -- neither are ideal, are they?

His hand, which was previously resting in his lap, inches down to brush against hers. “The first verse…” Their index fingers wrap around each other. “And the chorus, and the second verse…”

Both of their hands tangle until Luke doesn’t even remember what his hand looked like before, because all he sees is a bronze-ivory marble of skin and he knows he doesn’t ever want to see his hand without hers again. 

“Luke…”

“Yeah, Boss?” “Why were you upset?”

She really won’t let it go. She clearly knows him too well, because he would hope any other person would be distracted by the fact that they were about to kiss, but this is Julie. They’re friends first. Family first. 

He owes her honesty, doesn’t he?

“Because the song was right,” he answers, staring deadlocked at their joined hands. “No matter where I am, or how much time goes by… It’s gonna be you. On my mind. My feelings will never change.”

He can’t tell, but Julie’s heart ignites in her chest. 

“Feelings? What-”

Somehow, the words still don’t want to come out. The eight letters are resisting every opportunity she has offered him, so he resorts to actions and cuts her off by raising their joined hands to kiss the back of her hand. 

His lips linger before their union drops back into the space between them.

“... Oh.”

“Yeah.”

In a moment of courage, Luke peeks up at her, just to see how she looks. If he can read everything she’s feeling in a millisecond of a glance. 

There are tears in her eyes. 

“Whoa, Jules, why are you crying?” “Why were you crying?”

“Because I’m afraid of doing this!” Her hand tightens around him at his volume. “Julie, I- I don’t want to do anything selfish. I can’t have you thinking I’m selfish. I’m afraid of-” He has to take a deep, shaky breath. “When we hold hands or when you smile at me and I just feel so much and then I tell myself that I can’t, because you have so much ahead of you, and I don’t even know what’s in my future.”

The tears well in her eyes. “What would you be doing that’s selfish, Luke? You have a second chance at life. You should fucking live it. You have a future, and it has the boys, and the band, and me. I’m in your future.” 

There’s a beat, because he’s looking at her, and he wants to cry but he wants to say it so badly. 

He still doesn’t know how much time he has in the future, but Julie is telling him that she’ll be there. And he needed that more than anyone would understand. 

“Well, aren’t I?”

Julie’s question shocks him a little because he hadn’t realized that he had been quiet for so long. Her bottom lip trembles the smallest amount when she sucks in a deep breath, and it sets him off to do what he had once deemed to be the most selfish act of all. 

His free hand tucks itself in the hair on the base of her neck and tugs her towards him before he covers her mouth with his in a kiss that he has furiously dreamed of for a long time. For such a sweet moment, there is an overload of passion behind it. All of his fantasies were rushed and adrenaline-fueled after shows before he would talk himself down; and now, that is translating to this kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps as he pulls away. “That’s the selfish thing I was worried about. Fuck, I-”

Her hand wrestles free from his, and suddenly, two hands are on his cheeks like the night after the Orpheum and the love of his life is pulling herself into his lap. On autopilot, he untucks his leg from underneath him and shifts to sit normally on the couch while Julie’s legs hold her up on each side of his hips. 

And she’s kissing him again, touching him again, before he can let the panic set in. She moves her lips against his like she has her own overflowing filing cabinet of feelings and fantasies and lyrics just for him.

Her hands wondrously drain every jolt of worry and anguish from his nervous system as they run from his face to his arms to his chest and back again. Kissing Julie Molina is a thousand little feelings and it’s own feeling  in itself.

When you get cold water from a water fountain and it’s so refreshing that you insatiably want more. When the set ends and Luke is taking his bows and watching people scream and clap for their performance, knowing once again he’s succeeding in the one thing he’s ever wanted to do. 

Only now, making music is now tied with making Julie happy on that list of priorities. 

Holding her under his hands is stupidly one of his favorite things, and in this context, it is leaving him clawing for more. He applies more pressure against her back to try and press her closer, but it never feels like enough. 

Julie is an endless fountain of fervor, and he can only drink up everything he can get. 

She’s the one who pulls away this time; but she keeps her fingers knotted in his hair because she plans to not stray far. 

“You’re not selfish,” she sighs, chest heaving with deep breaths. “If you think that’s selfish, then I’m selfish. And we can do this together. We deserve it.”

Hearing the words tumble from her lips cancels out every fight he’s ever had with his mother. 

She’s right -- they do deserve it. She shut the world out for a year, he was locked away from the world for 25, and by some miraculous turn of fate, they were brought to each other. 

“We deserve it,” he repeats, a little distracted by her blown pupils and delirious smile. “We deserve it.”

They lean in at the same time to fall back into one another like it’s a new routine they’ve set. Luke doesn’t say the words, not yet, at least-

Because like she said, they deserve this. Julie Molina is on his lap, in his arms, playing him with her soft hands like his skin is the ivory keys she’s been playing since childhood. He loves her, and he’s pretty sure that she loves him -- so maybe, even though the future is uncertain, he can just wait a little longer to tell her. There’s simultaneously less of a delay and less of a rush. 

Later, when they’re in her room and staying up way too late for a school night in deep discussion, he mumbles it against her forehead while she has her head tucked into his shoulder and their shared earbuds are playing The End of All Things. 

Any concerns of selfishness fade when she wastes no time in reciprocating his declaration and punctuating her feelings with a cripplingly soft kiss above his collar bone. 

If any of this is selfish, they can be selfish together. Luke can find himself to be content in that if Julie is right there with him. 

--

tags: @lydias--stiles @bluefirewrites @willexx @moreflowersthanweeds @ruzek-halstead @xxprettylittletimebombxx  @unsaid-emily

[juniorgman187]

Never Enough (Spencer Reid Drabble)

Summary: Ever wondered what Garcia wrote on that sticky note in the series finale? Read here to find out. When Reader, the new technical analyst, feels out of place at a party, Penelope’s sticky note and Reid’s kind words do just the trick.

A/N: This is a comfort piece for me, someone very introverted who never seems to do well in social gatherings. So this is dedicated to anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong. You are loved. Couple: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Category: Fluff, Drabble Content Warning: Fear of exclusion, loneliness Word Count: 2.4k

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

All my life, all I’d ever wanted was to be a social butterfly. Their lives seemed so easy. People would naturally flock to them, what with their charisma, their confidence, their natural gift of being conversational.

I envied them for the sole reason that I was nothing like them, not in the slightest.

It wasn’t easy for me to keep a conversation going, even if I was trying my very hardest, which was often the case. I could never seem to commandeer the room in the way that someone extroverted could, and it was especially hard sometimes to feel a part of everyone.

It would be too easy to say I was invisible. Instead, I felt painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

Everyone could see my shyness peeking through, everyone could see how alienated I’d become, everyone could see my despondence, and yet no one bothered to change it.

No one cared.

My excruciating awkwardness had reached an all-time high at Krystall’s birthday party.

Agent Rossi was so keen on inviting me, and I was honored to go since it’d be my first bonding experience with the team outside of work. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to grow closer to them, otherwise, I’d run the risk of isolating myself even more. As if being brought in as the BAU’s new technical analyst to replace Penelope Garcia wasn’t enough of a reason for them to doubt, despise, and disrespect me, I was the introvert who had a hard time making friends - unlike my predecessor, who’ve I heard could make friends like nobody’s business. I knew I could never fill her shoes, much less fill the glaring void she created when she left, but still, I maintained my bright-eyes in hopes that I’d be enough for them, anyway. I was all too eager to get to know everyone as more than just my coworkers, with one exception.

Dr. Reid maintained an arm’s length distance from me at all times, and at first, I understood. I even empathized with him.

Besides SSA Morgan and SSA Hotchner, the only other person that he’d work the longest with was Penelope, and now she was gone, too, but the longer his rejection of me lasted, the more I was curious what he truly had against me, and the more I was less interested in changing that. Why would I work tirelessly at mending this broken friendship, if he wasn’t willing to meet me halfway?

I was more shocked that he, of all people, would be the most displeased with my arrival. When Agent Rossi replaced Agent Gideon, from what I heard, the transition wasn’t as rocky as mine. Dr. Reid was overjoyed to be working with him and to discuss all his books. When Jordan Todd, and eventually Ashley Seaver, took Agent Jareau’s place momentarily, he was happy to be working with them. When Alex Blake and Kate Callahan came in after Emily Prentiss, he welcomed them with open arms. So what was it about me that was so abhorrent to him?

I never outright asked, mainly because I feared confrontation and I also had no way of knowing if my curiosity would make the situation worse or better. But I should’ve. I should’ve marched right up to him and asked, “What’s your problem?”

Somehow, though, I finally got up the courage to do so tonight.

I watched as the team laughed at one of Rossi’s anecdotes, meanwhile, the inside jokes flew over my head, hindering that bonding experience I was so sure I’d get by coming here. So I stepped inside the house, wandering into a spare room, knowing I wouldn’t be missed.

I thought I’d only be there for a moment to get some “fresh air” even though I’d actually migrated from the outside to the inside, where there’d arguably be less fresh air, but that’d be my excuse if anyone came in. But I was forced to stay longer in the office when it finally happened.

I finally reached my breaking point.

It was building up all night. It started when I first stepped into the house. My confidence faltered almost immediately when I accidentally stepped on Rossi’s Italian leather dress shoe as I went to greet him. He told me not to worry, but of course, I did just the opposite. It was a minor bump in the road, something so minute, but still, it weighed on me thinking about how embarrassing it was that I dirtied something of his that everyone recognized as valuable.

My shame didn’t stop there. As I was talking with Krystall, there were many periods of awkward silence that I couldn’t manage to fill with words, so we each sipped at our wine until one of us would try to pick up the conversation. What’s worse was that we each knew the silence was suffocating, and I could tell we were both thinking of things to say to keep the conversation going, and yet, nothing worth saying came to mind.

And worst of all was when Penelope Garcia finally arrived at the party. Don’t misunderstand me - it wasn’t the worst part of all because she was bad - no, she was lovely. She gave me a welcome present - a Beanie Baby to put on my desk, evocative of her own style of decor, and I loved her for it, which made me hate her all the more.

Rossi’s house livened up when she came. Everyone flocked to greet her, laughter erupted and ricocheted off Rossi’s high ceilings. They were positively elated by her presence, truly happy. Which was the first time I’d ever seen them that way because frankly, they were never that happy with me.

It was a painful reminder that I could never bring what she brought to the team, and I could never be as good as her. And the general consensus I reached, sitting in Rossi’s office all alone with my glass of wine, was the same one I’d known for years now - I’m not enough.

And I will never be enough.

I hadn’t realized I was crying until a tear cascaded down my cheek, dripping right under my nose, forcing me to audibly sniffle it away. Using the sleeve of my cardigan, I desperately tried to wipe away the tears faster than they were spilling out, but it just wasn’t possible. In fact, the coarse fabric of my cardigan rubbing against my cheeks only made them redder, making the fact that I was unwell that much more obvious.

The sound of the doorknob turning sent me into overdrive, automatically engaging me into turning around and facing the wall so that whoever was coming in wouldn’t find me in the state that I was in. I sniffled a great big sniffle and fanned my face to dry it of any moisture that my silent sobs could’ve left.

“Sorry, Rossi, I was just getting some fresh air and I thought I’d check out your book collectio-”

When I turned around, Rossi wasn’t standing there as I’d assumed.

In fact, the person standing there was the last person I thought it’d be.

“Dr. Reid?”

He was lingering in the doorway, studying my face, to which I instantly preventing from continuing on any further by cowering my head and looking away.

“What are you doing here?” My voice had taken a tone of anger that I didn’t anticipate to be there originally.

“Are you okay?”

To my surprise, his question seemed sincere, but I couldn’t truly believe it was.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just allergies from being outside for so long. The pollen and stuff, you know?” I rambled nervously.

“Oh, really? Are you allergic to the grass?” He asked in a joking manner, knowing I was lying but still asking so that he’d have the satisfaction of getting to see me try and work my way out of the situation.

“Yes, I am actually. The most common outdoor allergy triggers are trees, grass, weed pollen, mold spores, dust mites, cockroaches, and cat, dog, and rodent dander. Don’t you know this? After all, you’re the one with the IQ of 187 here, not me.” I tried to joke to lighten up the room’s heaviness, but clearly, it didn’t work.

By this time, I’d already turned back to face the wall, so Reid surely couldn’t see me, but I heard the door click shut behind me, and a wave of anxiety permeated my soul.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?”

I scoffed at his question, almost hitting him back with an “As if you care.” But I decided against it in an effort to preserve what little repose we had left between us.

“Will you please tell me what’s wrong?” He sounded like he was begging - like he was practically willing to go on his hands and knees to get me to answer, but all I could focus on was the feeling of his hot breath ghosting over my neck.

Goosebumps rose on my skins once he put his warm hand on my cold shoulder, which was bare from the absence of my cardigan and where it had slipped down to my elbow.

I flinched at the sensation, causing him to recoil.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” He quickly apologized, regret filling his eyes. “Um, you look nice by the way. I like the way you did your hair. A-and your dress. It looks nice.”

Not even giving a chance to respond to his compliment, I asked again, “Why are you here?” Pressing him to get the point faster before I had a chance to react at another one of his physical advances.

“I saw you leave the backyard and I thought I should check on you.”

“Well, you’ve checked on me, so you can go back now.” I didn’t miss a beat when responding, fooling him into thinking that I didn’t catch his words and their intentions.

“I just want to talk.” He replied, finally answering my question from before.

“Okay. Let’s talk.”

He took a seat on a chaise lounge sofa while I stayed standing by the bookcase in preparation for a quick escape if need be.

“I’m sorry I’ve been pushing you away. That wasn’t fair of me.”

Although I hadn’t expected him to apologize, I wasn’t going to be misled and naively accept his apology with no reservations.

“Why did you do it? And for so long?”

“I was angry. I didn’t want another person in my life that I cared about to walk away, so I thought maybe if I made you feel unwelcome, you wouldn’t want to stay. And she’d come back.”

It hurt to say, but at least I knew he was being honest.

“I accept your apology, but it’s not okay.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, are we good now? We’ve talked, so,” My hand gestured toward the door, suggesting he should leave, but he didn’t comply.

“I’m not leaving.”

“And why not?” The wine glass in my hand nearly shattered at the way my hand wrapped around it since its presence hindered me from being able to actually clench my fists.

“I didn’t come here to apologize, even though I should’ve sooner. But I came here because I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Like you care.” I chuckled mirthlessly.

“I do care.”

I gave in, not wanting to fight him any longer, otherwise, I might cry some more from the altercation.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” He shook his head. “I know you’re not fine. What’s really wrong, Y/N?”

I looked away immediately from his gaze, trying to hide the sheen that was inevitably coating my eyes from the presence of tears, but he would’ve known I was crying the minute I used the cuff of my cardigan to wipe under my nose again.

“I just . . . I feel so unconnected,” I whispered, the pain of my words stealing my volume. “I don’t fit in. And I’ve never fit in before, but I actually thought this might be my chance.”

“It still is. Just come back outside.”

“You don’t get it!”

“What don’t I get?”

“I just needed to take a moment to compose myself so I wouldn’t ruin the energy of the room. And I’d really like to do that alone, okay?”

“I know you don’t want me to go.”

“What?”

“You’re testing me to see if I’ll stay.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So you’re saying that if I left right now, you wouldn’t regret letting me walk away?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I know you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are. I know what it looks like when you lie. Wanna know how I know?”

I entertained his question out of pure frustration “How?”

“Because I pay attention to you. I see your mannerisms. I notice everything. Do you think I haven’t picked up on how you crack your knuckles when you’re nervous? Or how your stutter goes away when you talk about technology? Or how your fists clench, like how you’re doing right now?”

My eyes flickered to my fist that was wrapped so tightly around the glass, my knuckles were white. Out of shame, I loosened my grip.

“I pay attention because I care. And I’m sorry that I made you ever believe that I didn’t. What you do, and say, and think - it’s important. So no, I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here to give you the attention you deserve.” He sighed with a breath of relief. “I care more about you than whatever’s happening out there.”

And slowly, then all at once, that barrier between us broke down.

“I care about you. We all do. And when you’re ready, we can walk back out there together so that you can see for yourself just how much we care.”

. . . That night, I made nine more friends.

And the day we came back to work, with my Beanie Baby in hand, I rearranged my desk.

A folded up sticky note fell out from between two tables. I picked it up, recognizing the handwriting instantly.

Penelope Garcia.

Even when the laughter always seems to come from the other room and the world seems busy as it carries on without you, may you know this to be true. No matter who or what made you feel invisible, unworthy, unloved, or unseen, in this ever-moving world, there is still a place for you. And you are exactly in the place where you are meant to be.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

quote by morgan harper nichols

[pagingevilspawn]

you gave me your word (but that didn't matter)

t.s x jolex week 21

day seven: sour- traitor

wc: 1.1k

pairing: Jo Wilson/Alex Karev (past). Alex Karev/Izzie Stevens

summary: jo writes a letter (spoiler alert; it's a shame she's the only one who ever sees it.)

rating: general audiences

warnings: angst, heartbreak, no happy ending

A/N: this is my favorite thing i've ever written for jolex. for once i can say i'm actually proud of a fic i put out. i hope you guys like it too! this is actually part of another series i'm working on that i'll probably never finish, but hey... it's worth a shot. again, enjoy!

____

The pen felt heavy in her hand, but she knew that if she truly wanted to let him go, she would let her hands write the words her lips so desperately wanted to say.

And with that, she began to write.

Alex,

The truth is that I could play dumb. I could say that you acted perfectly normal in the weeks leading up to your trip to what I thought was Iowa. I could say that your eyes didn’t look guilty every time they said they loved me, that your little white lies went unnoticed. But then I’d be lying, and that makes me just as bad as you.

I brushed it off then, thinking that you were just stressed about your mom, worrying that it would take a strain on our life together if you needed to spend more time out there than you originally had planned for. I made excuses for you. I shouldn’t have.

Because I know now that you talked to her —Izzie, who knows, maybe you even did worse; whispered through the phone that you couldn’t wait to see her the same way you had once for me. But I said nothing, because I thought that at the end of the day, when the calls to your ‘mom’ were over, you would crawl back into bed with me. And you did. For a while.

It’s almost humorous, the way that the second that you came back into contact with her you had already left me. There’s no point in denying it. You weren’t mine anymore. And not just because she had your kids, you said it yourself, how it was like no time had passed. Funny, last time you saw each other she had left you in a letter, only to come back later and for you to end things. Quite a different situation that the one you’re currently in.

You betrayed me, Alex. You can say that you’re sorry all you want, but I don't think that you are. I think that you're so caught up in this picture perfect life with your new blonde girl and what I’m assuming are little blonde children that you haven’t realized how much your actions have hurt me. Because I like to think that the man I know, the man I married, would never have done something that he knew would hurt me so greatly.

I loved you Alex, through everything. Every crappy thing you’d ever said in a fit of anger, any hurtful word you might’ve muttered without thinking, I loved you through it all. I was there for you. But it seems like in the end, none of that matters, because I’m here, and you’re not.

How long did it take you Alex? How long did it take you to wrap her in your arms and whisper that you love her? Two weeks? Did it take you two weeks to go off and date her? To whisk her off to some nice restaurant that you would never take me to because you knew how much I hated places like those. (You’d told me once that me and Izzie were nothing alike, almost polar opposites personality wise.)

I’m choosing to believe that you didn’t cheat. That you didn’t sleep with her or kiss her until you had been told that our divorce papers had been filed. I’m choosing to believe that you weren't a cheater. But you’re still a traitor.

You’ve made me question everything Alex. I never doubted that you loved me. I know that you did. I’m just wondering if you ever loved me as much as you loved her. If you ever stop being in love with her.

Because, let’s be real here for a second, if you were being honest with me for all these years, and that you were in love with me, then that means that you also never fell out of love with her. Because there’s no way you can fall in love with someone that quickly.

Looking back on it now, I feel a bit foolish. You never answered my questions about her, giving me short answers that I associated with memories that you would rather not bring to the surface. But what was it really Alex? Were you scared that talking about her would show me that you weren’t really over her? That you were still in love with her, like you were with me?

I brought up the embryos once, remember that? You’d told me that I was paranoid, that you didn’t have babies with Izzie. (But would you look at that? You did)

I had said that even if you didn’t have babies with Izzie, you wanted them. You'd assured me that you wanted everything with me, but was that just because you didn’t think you could have it with her? Was I just second place?

Because if you wanted everything with me Alex, truly wanted everything, you would’ve told me. You would’ve told me about Izzie, you would’ve told me about your twins, and not through a letter. If you truly wanted everything with me Alex, the dog, the kids, and the stupid house with a white picket fence in a good school district, you would’ve told me everything. Because you know me better than I know myself Alex, and you know damn well that I would’ve easily become a step-mom to your kids. I would’ve moved to Kansas if you wanted to. I would’ve gotten us a house out here if you preferred that. I would’ve done anything without hesitation Alex, and it wouldn’t have been much of a sacrifice, because I would’ve had you.

And that’s all I ever really wanted.

I want you to promise me something. It’s the least you owe me, after all.

When you and Izzie are sleeping in the bed we made (the way the comforter is folded back the way I showed you so that you can have both on leg under and on leg on top when you sleep) don’t you dare forget about the way you betrayed me.

—Jo.

She signs off her name, and she can finally feel the hot tears on her cheeks, multiple drops splatter across the pages, blotting the ink. She folds the papers, placing them into the envelope she had set off to the side for this.

To: The Traitor the envelope reads, and she takes a match to the object that had once caused her so much pain—

And she lets it burn.

God I wish that you had thought this through before I went and fell in love with you.

____

@thejolexgroupchat

[sparring-hyena]

Ok remember Book 2 where Becca auditions for the Role in James play . Well this time she gets the role instead of Kait and MC keeps her role. But there is it the kiss in question. So Becca invites MC to her room to rehearse in private and they get to know each other. Soon the kiss comes and once Becca kisses Mc she nor the Mc pulls back and keeps kissing forgetting about the play. Can turn into something more or Becca says she liked MC from the start.

the cast list gets posted on a snowy Tuesday morning.

Becca pushes her way through the throng of people and vaguely hears James say something about how all casting decisions are final. which is fine. she’s reasonable like that.

when she reaches the bulletin board, Becca skims the list and learns that Alex got the lead. typical. but that’s fine. she’s reasonable, remember? and then she finds her name and she’s playing the role of— oh no. the love interest. Alex’s love interest. well, not Alex’s love interest. it’s her character’s love interest, and the distinction is important, she notes. because she would never be Alex’s love interest. would never want to be Alex’s love interest.

but the fact remains, she’s going to have to pretend to be in love with Alex.

“looks like we’re gonna be stage buddies.”

Becca turns around and finds herself face-to-face with Alex. Alex who is grinning like this isn’t the worst possible thing. Alex who is shaking the snow flurries from her hair. and Alex who is flushed from the cold and manages to have the audacity to still look— whatever. it doesn’t matter how she looks.

Becca takes a step back, searches for James to talk some sense into him about why the fuck would you cast the two of us as the leads? when she spots him, he glances over and has the gall to smile and restate what he said before.

“all casting decisions are final!”

fuck.

“so, do you wanna exchange numbers so we can meet up to practice?”

“why would we do that? we’ll rehearse with everyone else.”

“no, yeah, i know that. i just figured it might be a good idea to get comfortable with each other since we’re, y’know—” Alex gestures to the casting sheet.

“fine. are you free Thursday at one?”

“yes.”

“great. meet me at the sorority and we can run lines or whatever.” she leaves then and pretends that she’s not the tiniest bit excited for Thursday.

-

Thursday arrives and it’s about as pleasant as a root canal. they argue and bicker and Becca cannot fathom why James thought this casting choice was a good idea. she has half a mind to march right over to his apartment and demand answer. demand that he swaps one of them. but that wouldn’t be reasonable. and she is reasonable.

so, she takes a deep breath. collects her thoughts and frustrations and tucks them away for now. she rolls her shoulders and stands up straight, preparing herself to run through this scene again.

“are you ready?” Becca asks, leaving little room for argument.

Alex seems almost surprised by the sudden switch, but she nods and rolls with it.

they run through the scene, and it’s a romantic one. the one where they profess undying love, and it surprises Becca just how easily the words leave her mouth.

there’s a kiss in this scene and she can see it coming, can feel it coming in the way that they speak and move. they’re standing very close together now but are unwilling to go any further.

Alex says her line, something to the effect of i love you and i will always love you and then pauses and waits. because this is where Becca says it back and then, well—

“we don’t have to, uh… i mean, we do have to. eventually. but not now.”

“right,” Becca says, her voice just a smidge bit higher than it usually is. she clears her throat and tries again. “you’re right.”

“that’s a first.” Alex smirks. “you agreeing with me.”

“don’t let it go to your head.” Becca smiles too and is so glad for the shift in conversation. although she wonders why this feels so easy and natural.

Alex’s phone buzzes then, shattering whatever it was between them. Alex checks her phone and curses. “sorry, i’ve gotta run.” she gathers her things and pulls her coat back on. and once she’s ready to leave, she stops in front of Becca and offers a smile that feels genuine. “this was fun. i’ll see you later.”

and then she’s gone and Becca’s alone, wondering when her room suddenly got so cold. and okay, maybe today wasn’t as bad as a root canal. but whatever. that’s hardly the point.

-

the point, Becca realises a few days later at the first official rehearsal for the play, is that Alex is infuriating. infuriating for a few different reasons but the main one right now is how easily she steps in and out of her role. how easily she plays the role of a woman in love.

the touches and the looks all mean so much when she’s Alex pretending to be someone else. and maybe that bugs Becca because how can she just put our feud aside so easily? doesn’t it mean something to her?

“Becca,” James says, and Becca suddenly realises she’d zoned out. everyone’s staring at her now. “it’s your line.”

“oh, right. sorry.” she clears her throat and finds her place on the page again.

the rehearsal carries on and once they finish for the day, Alex finds her outside in the cold and asks if they can meet up to practice again.

Becca surprises herself when she says yes.

-

their meetups become something of a weekly thing. it happens by accident, Becca insists. and maybe that would mean something if she didn’t also insist that Alex’s very presence annoys her. because it hasn’t for a while now, and Becca’s starting to wonder if it ever did. wondering if what she felt was just misplaced frustration. but that’s too big to unpack right now, so Becca focuses on the scene they’re practicing.

it’s the scene. the one with the kiss. and there’s been a knot sitting in her stomach since she first read the cast list all because of this one fucking scene.

Alex is holding her hands in her own, squeezing every so often when she wants her words to impact. and it works. she feels each and every word as though Alex were speaking them to her from the heart. and then Alex goes off-script.

she says things that couldn’t possibly relate to the play and Becca doesn’t care. she allows herself to get sucked in and just forgets that the whole purpose of them being together is to rehearse for a play. so, when Alex leans in to kiss her, Becca meets her halfway, and then the whole entire world just falls away in a snap.

when they pull apart, Becca realises, in horror and elation and everything else in between, that the kiss definitely meant more than two scene partners playing a role. she runs from her room, from the sorority, from Alex, before she can tell herself no, and goes to the one person who can maybe give some insight.

-

Becca is fuming by the time she reaches James’s building. one elevator ride later, she’s standing in front of James’s front door and knocks until it swings open.

“why did you cast us?” Becca says as soon as the door opens.

“excuse me?”

“why did you cast me and Alex as the leads?”

James seems to understand the question for what it is. he steps aside and motions for Becca to come in. she follows him into the kitchen and stands somewhat awkwardly as he makes two cups of coffee.

“i don’t know if you noticed, but the two of you have real chemistry. i’ve seen how to two of you interact with each other, watched how you argue, and there’s so much passion there.”

“there’s not—” Becca laughs. tries to brush it away. “we don’t— i mean, believe me, there’s no chemistry between us.”

James smiles at her, almost sad that she can’t see it. “well, why do you think i cast the two of you as my leads then?”

“to torture us.”

James laughs, the sound deep and full, and pushes a mug across the counter to Becca. “i assure you, that’s not why.”

“then why?”

“i told you why,” James says, firm yet understanding. “deny it if you want, but the two of you work well together. you have a very special type of chemistry that most people spend years searching for but never find.”

Becca sips her coffee, mulls over James’s words, and then says, “i doubt people spend years looking for what we have. we argue and shout and call each other names.”

“i think there’s more to it than that.”

“there isn’t.”

“okay.”

“okay? what’s that supposed to mean?”

“it means okay.”

she places the mug down, fixes James with a steely gaze, and says, “we don’t have chemistry. we’re just—” Becca stumbles over her words, doesn’t quite know what she’d been trying to say. “thanks for the coffee.” and then she leaves.

-

she mulls over James’s words on the way home. realises that maybe, maybe, he has a point. she goes to the quad to clear her head and is surprised to find Alex there too.

“you ran,” Alex says, and her tone conveys just how hurt she actually is.

“i know.”

“why?”

Becca doesn’t answer. doesn’t know how to answer. what answer could she give that would explain running like that?

“i’m sorry that i said those things,” Alex says. “obviously it made you uncomfortable and i didn’t mean to do that. it all just sorta… spilled out.”

there’s a reasonable way to respond, Becca realises. reasonable would be letting whatever flicker of a flame is between them fade out. reasonable would be carrying on with life and never thinking about Alex again. but fuck being reasonable. being reasonable is boring, and that kiss they shared and those words Alex said made her feel more alive than ever before.

“don’t be sorry,” Becca says, taking that leap. she steps closer to Alex and brushes their hands together. “i’m sorry. for running, for being a bitch, for everything.”

Alex smiles and steps closer too, bridging that final distance between them. she loops her arms around Becca’s waist and Becca places her hands on Alex’s shoulder.

“you weren’t a bitch.”

“i dropped my iced coffee on you when we met.”

“every couple has a meet-cute.”

“oh, so now we’re a couple?” Becca says, her tone light and teasing.

“if you want.”

“what i want is for you to kiss me.”

and Alex does.

[odd-birds-and-booksellers]

Five times Jo asks Alex to dance and the one time she asks someone new.

The first time Jo and Alex ever dance together, they’re just friends. It’s new…their friendship. Alex isn’t exactly sure what to call it, in the space of two weeks she went from the annoying intern he was happy to keep as nothing more than a work colleague to the person he spent most of his time with. In the last week, she’s spent more nights on his couch than at home and they’ve grabbed dinner together every day. It’s funny they seemed to have fallen into this pattern without any real thought, it was the day after Ben and Bailey’s wedding they’d become inseparable, she’d sought him out at the end of shift insisting she needed pizza and beer and that he was paying thanks to the raging hangover she was sure was his fault.

He didn’t hate it...having her around all time that is. Which surprised him, it had been a long time since Alex had genuinely enjoyed being in someone else’s company for such a long period of time. Even now when Jos’ has one too many beers and is singing along loudly (and out of tune) to Taylor Swift (not Alex’s choice of course) he finds himself happy just to sit and watch her.

“Oh this is my favorite Alex, come dance with me,” Jo calls from where she’s spinning around in the kitchen. She’s reaching out for him, her warm hand against his forearm pulling him towards her.

“I don’t dance.” Alex protests, remaining firmly in his seat. Shaking his head as she continues to pull at him. He tries to keep his smile at bay but he’s secretly amused by the way she attempts to give him a puppy dog look.

“Don’t or can’t?”

“Both…whatever answer gets you away from me.” He grumbles, trying to remove her grip on his arm but she’s quick, tangling their fingers together and giving him another tug.

“Come on Alex…everyone can dance. Just one dance…pretty please.”

He groans but drops his beer bottle down on the counter and follows Jo back to her makeshift dance floor.

“One dance…and you’ll leave me alone?” He asks, cocking his head to the side as he sets one hand on her hip, the other still gripped in hers tightly. He doesn’t know the song well but he finds himself slowly swaying to the beat.

“I won’t bother you until at least tomorrow.” Jo reasons, smiling softly, a triumphant glint in her eyes that makes Alex think he should stop letting her get her way.

Alex's breath hitches as Jo lays her head against his chest a moment later, he’s sure she can feel the way his heart pounds in his chest. They stay that way for the rest of the song, just swaying back and forth and Alex is surprised to find himself actually enjoying holding Jo so close.

“See… dancing isn't that bad right?”

He pulls her closer, tighter until her chest was pressed flush against his. “No…no you're right, this is pretty good.”

The second time they danced was a couple of years later. They’ve just finished furnishing the loft, and Jos’ even surprised herself with how it had turned out. It really felt like a home…their home.

“I know you’re gonna say a record player is pointless, but it looks cute and before you laugh they were on like every Pinterest board I saw so we have to have one.” Jo reasons, hoping this wouldn’t turn into another disagreement as the throw pillows had. Apparently, because it looks good isn’t a good reason to spend money on Alex’s book.

Secretly she loves every argument/discussion they have. There's just something about them discussing their home, her first proper home that fills her with such joy.

Setting up the record player was easy. Jo had found it a nice home against the window of what she’d marked out to be the living room. She’d even picked up a few old records from the store, Elvis, The Beatles, even Ella Fitzgerald.

She set the record on the turntable and brought down the needle, then closed the lid. There was the crackle of static as the vinyl began to spin.

She reached for his hand during the first verse. “Dance with me?” Jo suggested her voice barely above a whisper. “I know you hate dancing but indulge me this one time.” She insists as he reluctantly places his hands in hers, allowing her to pull him in, their chests brushing up against each other as his hand finds her hip and he holds her against him warm and steady.

They sway like that for the duration of the song and Jo takes the time to scan their newfound home. It's everything she'd hoped it would be and more. She feels Alex's hand fidgeting over her spine as the song comes to an end as if he's contemplating ending their dance before she feels his fingertips drift lower, coming to rest on the small of her back.

“You’re happy right? I know you kinda hated this place at first but…”

“I’m more than happy…” He whispers, leaning back as he brings one hand up to rest against her cheek, brushing the loose hair from her bun behind her ear gently. Jo relaxes against him, letting her worries go at his reassuring words. “I’m home.”

The third time they dance together, Alex surprised them both by being the one to ask Jo to dance. They’re at their makeshift engagement party that the kids on the peds ward had insisted on having when Alex informed them all they couldn’t attend the wedding. It felt kinda surreal, to see various hospital staff all filter in as a handful of his patients gather in the family room. All these people gathered to celebrate him and Jo. He’s not sure how he’d ever got so lucky.

“For everyone who doesn’t know Dr. Alex and Dr. Jo are getting married this weekend…” Kimmy announces, tapping the microphone on the makeshift stage as everyone turns towards her. “And all of us here just wanted to wish you both a huge congratulations.” Alex feels a surge of emotion, as Jo wraps an arm around his waist resting her head against his shoulder. Her eyes were a little watery, maybe she was feeling just as overwhelmed as he was.

“So I thought I’d sing a little something for you both.” Kimmy grins, and Alex gives her a small nod, rolling his eyes as the familiar tune from Beauty and The Beast begins. Now it makes sense why she’d been practicing it all week.

“Think we should dance?” He asks, turning towards Jo.

“You wanna dance? You never wanna dance with me.”

Alex furrows his eyebrows at her statement, wrapping an arm around her waist, swaying them gently, “I never wanna dance full stop but with you…with you it’s definitely bearable.”

Jo rolls her eyes “Charming.”

Alex just chuckles as he takes a step back, keeping his hand firmly in hers. When their arms are outstretched, he tugs on her hand until she gets the memo and twirls back toward him. Alex catches her by the waist, grinning down at her as she laughs warmly.

Cheers erupt around them but Alex can’t bring himself to tear his gaze from Jo. She’s gonna be his wife and he for one can’t wait.

“I aim to please” He mutters before pulling her in closer, pressing his lips to hers as a few groans from the younger patients sound.

The fourth time they dance is a given. Their first dance as husband and wife, sure it's not the reception they planned but Avery's penthouse with everyone they care about most in the world feels as close to perfect as you can get.

“Come dance with your wife.” Jo cries as she makes her way through the crowd, reaching out for Alex who’s taken a seat at the kitchen island. He’d been enjoying a moment to just watch everyone around him. Days like this full of love and happiness were kinda rare to find.

“Jo, you know I hate dancing.” He whines but he's already on his feet, allowing her to guide him back through the crowd. He’s not gonna deny her today, not like he ever denied her before either.

She just smiles, and god it makes his heartache knowing that’s the smile he’s gonna wake up to every day for the rest of his life. “I know you say you hate dancing but I think you secretly like it.”

He turned his hand over in hers, wrapping his fingers around her palm before pulling her to him by the waist. Jo’s free arm sliding up to his shoulder as they spun slowly.

“Thank you…”

“For what?”

“Dancing with me even though you hate it.”

He holds their joint hands in the air, letting Jo turn herself away from him. She’s only out of his grip for a split second before she twirls back into him. He catches her, tips her backward until her hair is dangling down over his knee.

“I’ll always dance with you,” Alex whispers, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips before helping her stand straight again. He can hear the buzz of the party around them, see the bright light of flash go off somewhere as Jo wraps her hands around his neck, hiding her face against him.

“Should’ve put that in our vows.”

He’s not sure how long they stay like that, arms wrapped around each other swaying to whatever song is playing whether a slow dance suits it or not. They might be in a room full of their closest friends and chosen family but neither one can focus on anyone else.

“It’s funny…” Jo mumbles after a while, lifting her head so she can meet Alex’s gaze.

“What’s that?” Alex asks, his thumb tracing a soft pattern against the small of her back as her left hand sorts out his.

“In those lifetime movies, I used to watch. You wait the whole movie for the couple to kiss in the last five seconds and then you just assume that they end up together…in reality, it’s probably never a happy ever after.”

Alex frowns, he’s not quite sure what Jo was getting at but if she was doubting what happens next she shouldn’t. If they could make it through today and still end up married and all in one piece then they could make it through every day that came next.

“We don’t have to worry about that.” He smiles, the hand still clutching hers lifting a little higher so she can see the light catch against her wedding set as he runs his thumb across them.

“No, we don’t.”

The last time they dance together is a couple of days before Alex leaves. He seems to have thrown himself into work the last few weeks. He’s so busy he’s almost never home. They’re like ships passing in the night and Jo’s not ashamed to admit she misses her husband.

“Come on…” She mutters, turning the radio up slightly so the music can be heard over in the kitchen, holding her hand out to Alex who’s been staring at various charts since he’d arrived home in the early hours of the morning.

“Not now Jo…I’m exhausted okay?” He sighs brushing her hand away as he turns back to the pages before him.

Jo shakes her head refusing to take no for an answer as she carefully takes the documents from his hand. Setting them down on the table. She cups his cheek, turning his face towards her. “One dance. Come on.”

She watches the internal argument he’s having with himself, his eyes refusing to meet hers.

“Alex you promised…you’d always dance with me...for better or worse...till death do us part?”

He tenses at her words closing his eyes, but before Jo can even question it he’s up, slipping his hand into hers, leading them towards the empty space between the kitchen and the unused dining table with a frown.

“I know Mr. Grumpy…you hate dancing, you've told me before.”

“That’s Dr. Grumpy to you.”

Jo drops his hand only to lift her arms around his neck and Alex sets his hands loosely on her waist.

“I love you.” He breathes after a moment. He leans his head over her shoulder and drops a kiss to the side of her head, wrapping his arms tighter around her waist.

Jo smiles softly at his words as Alex presses her hand into his chest, over his heartbeat. They're gonna be okay, she's sure of it. They hold onto one another, dancing slowly as the song continues.

“I love you too, Dr. Grumpy.”

They keep swaying even as the song ends and another begins, Jo can’t remember what song had played next, but she knows they’d danced to it anyway.

Jo didn't dance much after Alex left. Didn't do much of anything that reminded her of him. She’d got rid of nearly every trace of him. She’d gone into survival mode and removed every last reminder of him from her life. That is except for the few things she just couldn’t bear to lose.

His shirt…the first one she’d ever borrowed. Back when they were just friends and she was crashing on his couch after one too many beers. The same shirt that’s now hanging loosely off her shoulder as she tries to tidy up after her rambunctious toddler, who’s currently making a mess pulling every record out from its cover and onto the floor.

Their wedding album hurt too much to keep. She couldn’t skim the pages without feeling sick. But she keeps one photo…she can’t not. There’s one photo taken at their wedding reception, Jo wasn't even aware of it being taken at the time. She's mid-spin, her hair fanning out around her, hand clutching Alex's tightly above her head. She looks so happy and carefree in that photo but that's not the reason she kept it, no she kept it because of the way Alex's looking at her in it. Like she was the only one in the room. He looks at her so intently that just the photo sets a fire deep inside her. No matter how painful the ending was, she knew how truly loved she was by him.

“Mommy…princess dress?” Luna asks, pulling the worn photo from its hiding space in an old record sleeve. Of course, she's found it, she’s into every draw and cupboard she can reach these days. Her eyes shine as she shakes the photo in Jo's direction.

“Yeah, mommy had a princess dress,” Jo agrees, lifting Luna up from the floor and settling them both on the couch. She’s too young to know that it's a wedding, too little to ask who the man holding her mother is. She was just excited that her mom looked like one of her favorite Disney characters. Jo stares down at the photo, it's not lost on her that she's sitting in the same spot the dance took place.

“Hey, Lulu?” Jo hums, pressing a kiss to the little girl's hair as she wriggles in her lap. “Shall we have a dance party?”

Jo hasn’t had much time to dance these last few years, hadn’t had much desire too but as she stares down at her daughter she suddenly feels the urge to dance again.

Luna nods, as Jo lifts her up off her lap before turning towards the old record player in the corner. She wipes her hand across the dust that’s settled on it before opening it up, taking a second for the slow melody to filter out. When she turns back Luna is already twirling around, her tutu flowing out around her.

Jo laughs as she lifts her baby girl up onto her hip, spinning them both. She throws her head back laughing as Luna squeals in delight, ordering Jo to keep spinning until they're both dizzy and their giggles drown out the music.

[elysianightsss]

It’s Just Business - Two

Werewolf Steve Rodgers x reader

Warnings for the series: fluffness, Bucky and Sam bickering like five year olds, smutty smut, bad language.

“Alex!” Lara engulfed me in a hug, smiling brightly as she did.

“Lara. How are you?” I asked, my eyes flickering down to her round belly for a few moments. Seven months pregnant and she looked amazing. Her black hair up in a high ponytail. A fluffy dressing gown tied around her. Her light blue eyes sparkling.

“So happy now that you’re here. Thank goodness for your brother getting you out of there and away from your parents.” She grimaced at the thought of them, pulling me inside the house. Lara had been there for me as a big sister and I couldn’t ever repay her for it. Two older brothers is what I got, Sebastian the eldest at twenty-six and Jonathon twenty-four.

Bash is known as the golden boy, the distinguished politician. Played the part well, but if you knew him like I did, he was a crafty little shit that could do anything. Owns night clubs under a fake name. Some people joke and say he’s the head of a mob or something. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he admitted he was. Putting all that aside, he’s the most caring person you’ll ever meet.

JJ on the other hand, although caring, he cares in a different way. The magazines refer to him as ‘the ultimate party boy’ and god does he live up to the name. Too much freedom. Partying in every country he could, drinking rich people dry. Our parents never seemed to mind. Bash painted a pretty picture to the world that made them proud. Maybe I was wrong, but I always felt that because JJ wasn’t making his family proud, I was having to do it instead.

Not that I wasn’t bitter or anything...

“You’re tellin me.” I shook my head thinking of the recent news received from my father.

“What happened?” Her eyebrows furrowed as she closed the front door and ushered me up the big staircase towards one of their many guest rooms. Their house was more like a manor, the outside rustic and traditional, just like the main section of the house where the stairs sat so hugely. But the inside was more modern, I could never decide which one I preferred more. Placing my bag down on the big bed I began to explain everything to her.

“Now way! He can’t do that!” She began to rage. Flinging her arms about while I looked around the room. The headboard sat nicely up against the back wall, same wall the entrance door was on, to the left of the bed. The east wall had a closet built into it. The west was plain except for a painting of flowers in a vase sat dead centre of said wall. To the right of it, a door to the bathroom. And finally the south, a wall of windows with a sliding door in the middle.

“Actually he can.” I huffed.

“No.” Her statement was blunt. She marched out of the room and across the hall. “Sebastian!” Her voice echoed through the house and it brought a smile to my face. She always cared so much, even if I knew she couldn’t change anything, it was nice.

“What is it my dear wife?” Bash was dragged into the room by his spouse who repeated everything I said with anger.

“That sounds like dear old Dad.” Bash rolled his eyes patting my shoulder apologetically. His suit jacket was no where to be seen, shirt sleeves rolled up and his hair messy. Clear signs of a long day and a tired man.

“There has to be something we can do!” Lara wouldn’t let this go.

“There isn’t. Once father makes up his mind, there isn’t anything we can do to change it.” I nodded at my brothers truest words.

“Let’s not talk about it. I still have a few days of freedom left.” I let myself fall back onto the comfortable bed. The couple soon filed out of the bedroom leaving me to rest. As if I could. My mind was wide awake, I at least tried to sleep. Laying in bed staring at the ceiling. But the machine wouldn’t turn off, the cogs wouldn’t stop moving.

“This is ridiculous.” I rubbed my hands over my face.

Slipping out of the bed, my black night dress flowing while I walked closer to the big window wall. Pushing the sliding door open and stepping out onto the balcony to stare at the view. It was beautiful. Reminded of something out of a movie.

A giant lake with big pine trees and huge fir trees outlined the water. All of them merging together, I couldn’t tell where the forest line stop or started. A foggy smoke came from me with my deep breath. It was so cold, I barely felt it but I wrapped my arms around myself anyway as if by instinct. A loud howl sounded from somewhere in the middle of the forest. A creature, a fox? A wolf maybe? Whatever it was, it sounded lonely. The cry in the dark had me feeling sad for the poor thing.

“I get it. Being alone sucks.” I spoke into the darkness of the night. Feeling the breeze pull a shiver from my body, I made my way back inside the comfort of the room. I didn’t even think about it before leaving the door open and getting into bed. Somehow I was more relaxed with it open, I felt closer to something. Easily drifting off to sleep, the sound of the animal howling blurred into my dream land.

“Up you get lazy bones! Come on time to start your day.” Lara burst through the door yelling, before gasping in shock. “Did you leave the door open all night? It’s freezing in here.” She trudged towards the glass and slid it closed. I sat up and watched her do it.

“Yeah I guess I did.” I frowned slightly, it wasn’t exactly like me to feel at ease with a door wide open.

“Well wash up and come down for breakfast.” She placed a kiss on the top of my head and left leaving me wondering if this is what mothers were suppose to be like. Were they suppose to wake you up early so you made the most of your day? Were they suppose to make you breakfast? Or show you affection? It’s not exactly what I was used to. Nevertheless I got up, got dressed and had breakfast.

“So little sister, what are your plans for today?” Bash asked shoving a piece of toast in his mouth, identical to how he did when we were kids. A small smile pricked at my lips at the sight.

“I was gonna go for a walk, clear my head.” The married couple seemed to think it was a great idea, practically shoving me out the door.

There was fog all across the river this morning, although it wasn’t particularly cold out. The trees reminded me of when Bash, JJ and I used climb the big oak tree in the backyard and the boys got told off for encouraging me to be unlady like. The thought made me giggle, I was never lady like no matter how hard my mother tried to make me that way. I guess I just hated to be told what to do in any circumstance.

My knee high boots crushed leaves underneath them while I walked, I loved the sound. The crunch of nature. This walk had soothed me and I wasn’t even that far from the house yet. Everything here was so serene, so full of life. I wished I could stay here and forget everything. Just let everything go, all my resentment towards my parents, all the pressure of this stupid task.

He cleared his throat before I noticed him, stopping in my tracks to see the rugged blonde man from yesterday.

“S-Steve.” Why the hell was he here? How did he know I was?

“Alexandra.” My name rolled off his tongue bewitchingly. He looked so different than before, no smart shirt. Just a plain dark blue t-shirt seems he liked that colour. No dress pants this time, merely a pair of jeans.

“Are you stalking me or something? Did my father put you up to this?” I grumbled, slipping my hands into my leather jacket pockets. My stance was always kinda wide, feet at the same distance as shoulders, back straight, head up just as mother said. I don’t remember the last time I slouched. He seemed to give me a once over, stopping on my hips? “Uh eyes up here buddy.” His blue orbs shot up in surprise, his left eyebrow raised.

“There’s been a change of plans. You’re coming straight to me once you’re done here.” Rude much.

“Why isn’t my father telling me this himself?” I eyed his feet as he took a step forward, taking one back of my own.

“He’s busy. Asked me to deliver the message. A woman, Martha, she’s already packed your things and sent them over. Your room is being readied as we speak.” His muscles seemed to tense as he spoke. He held himself confidently yet the way his hands were stuffed in his jean pockets gave him this goofy undertone.

“I still have a few days here.” I tried to keep my voice as stable as I could. I really didn’t want to leave, but Steve seemed like the type to tattle to my Father. I had to go to this unknown place, alone and so fast too.

“I know.” He sighed before speaking again. “I don’t want your stay with me to be uncomfortable for you. I’ll try everything in my power to make you at ease.” He puffed out his chest almost showing off his strength.

“I doubt that.” I let my lip curl slightly. I didn’t give him time to respond, turning on my heel and walking back. A once peaceful morning was now a tense and unwanted one.

[kickingitwithkirk]

Greetings from Austin pt. III

Pairing: Alpha!Jensen Ackles x Alpha!Jared Padalecki x Omega!OFC

Summary: Jensen and Jared are at odds over a monumental decision that changes their lives in a way they couldn’t have envisioned.  

WC: 3825

Warnings: a/b/o, bisexuality, biphobia, homophobia, angst, cursing, self doubt, depression/anxiety, married life/disagreements, medical stuff, sexual dysfunction, infertility/surrogacy

*flirting, m/m oral sex, Jensen’s insecurities are coming out, Jared gets arrested, both get counseling

A/N: This part consists of several time jumps over four month period.

A/N II: Hey, sorry took me a way longer to get done than planned, rewrote Oct 23 a dozen times alone and hoping makes sense, trying to flesh out characters more and has some stuff that plays into story line in later parts.

Part II

Masterlist

@winchesterandbeyondbingo​​​​​​ square filled-Jensen Ackles

*Series Inspired by this art.

*no beta-all mistakes are mine

September 8th

7:30 am

Jensen was sitting in the makeup chair clenching his extra strong coffee container to help warm his hands. He’d spent a second, uncomfortable night in his trailer on location as Vancouver was having an unusual cold snap this time of year and with the covid restrictions the director decided that everyone needed to stay on site.

While he wasn’t happy about the weather, missing his own personal heater but at the same time grateful for a brief break from Jared now that they were heading towards the next phase of starting their family.

Jensen jokingly said they needed a code name since they were planning on keeping their plans a secret, even from their families, until the pups were born, playfully suggesting a cartoon from their childhoods.

Of course with Jared’s weird sense of humor, he loved it and started throwing ideas like operation: pound puppies.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Frieda said as she applied a concealer under his eyes to hide the dark smudges from not sleeping well.

“Huh?”

“You asked about my new job and haven’t heard anything I’ve said, wanna talk about it?”

“Sorry, not focusing very well today.”

“Yeah, we’re all feeling out of sorts with this being the last couple days.”

Jensen couldn’t believe he was down to his last two days of filming.

“Too bad this virus messed everything up, it would’ve been a hell of a send off if everybody could have been here.”

Alex and Misha had left right after they’d finished but Jim Beaver was back for the ending. It was only right for Bobby Singer to be there at the end, having been such a pivotal character in the brothers lives.

Frieda continues chatting about random things while finishing his makeup. A PA stuck his head in calling Jensen to the set. He stepped out of the trailer and smiled seeing his Baby sitting near the building being used as the exterior of Harvelle's Roadhouse.

***

September 12th

“Jen, I’m taking out the bags,” Jared calls out seconds before the apartment's front door shut.

Jensen was doing one last check around the place for any forgotten anything. Satisfied, he walked into the living room containing neatly marked boxes ready to be shipped back to Texas, relieved they had downsized from the big house Jared had years ago.

He stopped to gaze out the picture window when a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist, molding his back to the muscular chest of his mate, who rested his chin on his shoulder quietly saying, “I’m gonna miss this view.” Jensen hummed in agreement tipping his head back as Jared nuzzled his neck.

“We need to get going if we’re gonna make Seattle by seven,” Jared softly muttered as they’d stood there for a few heartbeats longer before releasing him. They walked to the door and Jensen turned once more to gaze out the window at the view of Vancouver.

***

September 21st

“This has been a great trip but man, I’ll be glad to be in our own bed tonight.” Jared remarks as they drive past a green highway sign saying Austin 312.

“Can’t wait,” Jensen drowsily says having not slept much the last couple days. They had decided to road trip it back to Texas, stopping at a few places they had wanted to visit for awhile.

Jared somehow managed to finagal, okay so his mind numbing blow job combined with those lethal long fingers that always makes Jensen agree to anything got him a couple extra days in southern Colorado.

Jensen enjoyed the beautiful scenery and hiking in the mountains but hated camping out. Well, it wasn’t technically roughing it the way Jared liked but still.. a frigging yurt in late September?

Oy vay, what he did for love.

The sound of Jared singing along to some classic country song on the radio as he drove finally put Jensen completely out.

***

October 23rd

Turning from the open fridge with a puzzled expression on his face, Jared senses the same vague something he’s felt God knows how many times in the last couple months.

Shutting the door he walked over to the island counter where his husband was seated pushing his unfinished dinner around on his plate.

“Jen, what’s going on? Are you worried about the implantation? Dr. Rodgers said the embryos were healthy and optimistic the surrogate took this first try.”

What Jensen wants to ask, the question that’s plagued him since that day in August choosing their Omega surrogate...how the hell does he phrase it without upsetting Jared?

“Did you choose her because you knew she’d be the one I’d pick?”

Jensen slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide, disbelieving he blurted it out.

Jared worked to find a response squeaking an actual squeak before he could get control over his vocals, “That’s what I’ve been sensing!” Gripping the edge of the counter with his big hands, “Are you seriously going there again? I was honest about our interactions when I realized she was the one I knocked down at the clinic and FYI, you weren’t exactly in full control either Alpha!”

Jensen clenched his teeth at being reminded his inner need to be in control at all times slipped.

“I’ve racked my brains trying to figure it out how to ask something like that without upsetting you!” Jensen yells getting up and pacing around the kitchen.

Jared huffed, “So all this time instead of talking to me, you’ve conjured up some..”

“For the last two years I’ve gotten the sense you feel somethings missing, kept telling myself it’s your unfulfilled biology. But ever since you meet that Omega you’ve been.. I can’t explain it and now I’m second guessing our marriage Ja....” his rant abruptly cut off.

Jared’s eyes were glowing red, pinning him with an eerie wolf expression, the intensity disconcerting him. “I chose you, my husband, my soulmate, my everything!“ The words should have been reassuring but Jared’s voice was pitiless, something Jensen's never heard pass from his lips before.

Jared took a deep breath and with normalcy returning said, “I love you Jensen and I thought you understood, for me, in my mind, both of us having pups with the same donor means my offspring won’t be seen as just step relations but will grow up having strong familial ties with JJ, Arrow and Zeppelin.”

Jensen started to speak when a low, reverberating growl from Jared warning him not to interrupt.

“I consciously listened to my inner wolf when it came to choosing the person who is biologically the Om of our children and I,” Jared emphasizes tapping his chest with his long index finger, ”have no regrets but apparently you do.” Taking a deep breath Jared drops a non sequitur, ”The dogs need to be fed,” and walks away.

At the sound of Jared’s SUV leaving Jensen’s legs gave out and he drops to the floor curling up in a fetal position wrapping his arms over his head. Arlo and Koda laid down, one on each side, cocooning him between them.

***

Thanksgiving

“The kids are in a tryptophan coma,” Jensen announces as he walks in through the kitchen's back door. He had followed Danneel home afterwards helping get JJ and the twins cleaned up and put to bed, “they’ll be out till Monday.”

“Good, cause I’m dead on my feet,” Jared replies yawning while loading the dishwasher. It had been their turn to host the holiday with Danneel, the kids, Clif, Jared’s siblings and their broods.

“I told you to wait and I’d help finish the cleanup when I got back.” Jensen said as Jared started the machine.

“I figured you’d wanna stay awhile and be too tired and I didn’t want to deal with it tomorrow. All that’s left is to put the trash and recycling out, could you grab it?”

“On it,” Jensen picked up the bags walking around the side of the house dropping them into their designated receptacles.

When he came back in Jared was switching off the lights downstairs. They made their way up to the bedroom taking turns in the bath getting ready for bed.

Jensen was sitting with his back against the headboard checking his messages when Jared drops heavily next to him, “I plan on sleeping for the next three days.” He mutters resting his head against Jensen’s shoulder.

“Sounds good to me babe, I’m glad we didn’t schedule anything extra this weekend, be nice to spend some time alone.” He finishes wiggling his eyebrows.

“Hmm, do you remember last year's Thanksgiving?”

Jared closed the kitchen pantries door, pushing Jensen against it seductively lowering his fox slanted eyes huskily whispering, “I’m so fucking horny I need my dick you now.”

“Dude, we’re re in my sisters...“

“..you’ll have to be quiet,” Jared dove in for a deep, dirty kiss, grinding against Jensen until he was begging to be fucked.

“You’re the one who got us busted..oh fuck Jensen..so fucking tight..fuck..not gonna last..then later I get Mac saying it sounded like your dick...”

“Okay..buuut,” Jared tilts his head slowly running his tongue up the column of Jensen’s neck, “you gotta admit,” hand slipping under his sleep shirt, “our sex life,” long fingers tip toe up the smooth, freckled chest, pads teasing his left nipple as Jared nibbles on his earlobe, ”is never boring.”

Jensen groans, dropping his arm, still clinching the phone, tipping his head to expose more of his neck to Jared’s wondrous lips, enjoying the scratch of his short beard.

“I thought you were sleeping the next three days.”

Jared answers by removing his hand and straddling his husband's thick thighs taken the phone placing it on the nightstand and starts nibbling along the other side of Jensen’s sensitive neck, working his way to his slightly raised claim mark flattening his tongue licking the ultra sensitive spot that always drives his Alpha wild.

Jensen slides his hands up Jared’s back finding a grip in his shortened hair, unhappy about how much he’s cut off for Walker, unable to tangle his thick fingers into the soft tresses like he used to.

Finding a purchase he pulls hard making Jared groan at the pleasurable sensation tips his head back till it’s the perfect angle for Jensen to run his tongue across those candy pink lips, teasing them open to grant him access, continues teasing, alternating between caressing Jared’s tongue with his and sucking on his lips.

Moaning, Jared rocks his hips seeking friction, breaks their kissing long enough to work Jensen's sleep shirt off. They end up wrestling a few moments before Jared tosses it as Jensen’s lips attack his more desperately.

Tapping Jared’s thigh, Jensen rolls them kneeling between sleep pant clad legs watching as Jared reaches up gripping the strategically placed bar in their custom made headboard with both hands, his pecs flexing in anticipation of what’s to come.

Not breaking eye contact Jensen bends forward, his lips a hair's breadth from Jared’s, slowly slides backwards hovering, caressing the acres of golden skin beneath him with only his warm breath, pausing to hook his fingers in the pants waistband and pulling them with him as he continues journeying south.

Slowly making his way back north he leaves wet, open mouth kisses along the now naked, extra long, muscular legs he loves, sucking on the insides of both thighs, nipping hard enough to leave marks before arriving at his designated stop.

He hasn’t even touched Jared’s beautiful cock yet it’s fully engorged, resting against his flat stomach vigorously leaking precome. Jensen dips his tongue into his bellybutton lapping up the liquid collecting in it, cause fuck, he’s loves how more sweet than salty Jared’s always tasted.

Hips rolling Jared rubs his cockhead against Jensen’s tongue and he kitten licks the dribbling slit before resting his head on Jared’s lower stomach and wrapping his lips around the velvety head.

Shifting his grip on the bar Jared’s makes nonsensical noises, toes curling at the mixed sensations of his mates silky beard tickling his lower regions while sucking on his cockhead, alternates swirling his tongue over the nerves underneath and teasing his slit sending spikes of pleasure radiating through him.

After all these years Jared’s still amazed at Jensen’s knowledge of his body, his ability to keep him on the edge of not enough for however long he’s in the mood to play.

“..pleease...need to cum...got to..so fucking..uhh..Alpha!”

Raising up on a forearm Jensen starts bobbing up and down his shaft, pausing briefly on each downward pass, working his throat open to take Jared further in until he’s nose deep in dark, trimmed pubic hair. Holding his mate's substantial cock in his throat swallows around him as Jared’s knot inflates, pushing his jaws apart till it’s too much.

Letting the knot slip out from between his plump lips Jensen wraps a hand firmly around it and starts vigorously bobbing drawing out a litany of obscene noises, feels Jared’s balls drawing up and backs off swallowing the warm, thick, spurting liquid.

Leisurely licking until Jared hissed, too sensitive for anymore kisses the tip one last time crawls back up the bed searching for his pillow and face plants on it.

“Dude, you’ve finally sucked out my last brain cell.”

Purring deep in his chest, Jensen gives Jared a self satisfied smirk, who mutters, “wasn’t trying to give you a bigger head.”

Rolling onto his side Jensen displays his turgid cock needing attention, “okay, he’s the bigger head,” Jared concedes reaching down running his fingers over the weeping tip, wetting them with precome spreads it over the shaft firmly fisting Jensen’s pulsing thickness, moving his hand up and down excruciatingly slowly.

“So,” his honeyed voice lowers an octave watching Jensen dissolving into a breathy mess, “how does he want me?”

Jensen opens his mouth to answer when a phone rings. Glaring over his shoulder, “not mine,” he growls. Still stroking him Jared stretches for his, “it’s the clinic..hello? Dr. Rodgers, hey, how are you sir?” He lets go sitting up against the headboard.

Why’s the doctor calling them at such an odd time, on a holiday no less?

Jared's brow wrinkles before he turns to Jensen, eyes sparkling breaks out his wondrous smile making his dimples pop.

“Jensen, she’s pregnant!”

Jared's practically bouncing on their bed like he’s on a massive sugar high discussing what comes next with the doctor. Jensen feels his erection rapidly diminishing, gets up heading into the bath and turns on the shower.

Climbing in he crosses his arms against the far wall, resting his forehead against them closing his eyes as hot water bounces across his broad shoulders.

Jensen knows he should be elated. Jared’s getting the pup (or pups) he’s desired for years and the possibility of being a father himself again. Instead, his heart seized up in conflict.

***

After that god awful argument in October he ended up at Josh’s, who confessed his mate and him were seeing a counselor because they were having marital issues too. Spending the night drinking and reflecting Jensen came home the next morning to a still angry Jared cause he didn’t know where the fuck his husband was all night.

Filling him in about his talk with Josh, Jared seemed somewhat mollified but a few nights later...

Walker star Jared Padalecki arrested near the one year anniversary of Stereotype bar altercation.

· Jared Padalecki was arrested once again in Austin, Texas, early Sunday morning on one count of public intoxication…

When he got released Jared sat Jensen down pleading with him to sit in on his next therapy session, saying they couldn’t keep going on like this, it was tearing him apart.

He wants..no..needs Jensen to completely open up, stop trying to protect him and discuss what’s going on in his head, what he’s really feeling.

Jared’s therapist started off informing both of them he wasn’t a marriage counselor but after a brief conversation with Jared knew the situation was having a detrimental impact on his mental health.

He listened to them separately, then together, about their observations and thoughts on each other’s behaviors came up with a hypothesis:

Since Jared’s last depressive episode, his random thoughts/emotions were feeding more into Jensen’s deep seated insecurities over his mate’s open, flirtatious personality and how he perceives others attraction/interactions to him.

And now Jared’s inner wolf is demonstrating an intense attraction to an Omega, something never encountered before with past preferences in Beta females, with this new dynamic Jensen didn’t know how to handle it.

Jensen opened and closed his mouth several times sputtering before saying this was complete bullshit and stormed out.

***

Lost in thought Jensen didn’t notice his husband stepping into the open shower stall until his considerable frame was blocking the water, Jared’s voice drew him out of his musings.

“I can hear you thinking clear in the other room.”

Cupped Jensen’s face between his large hands he gazed into those spring colored eyes that captured his heart the moment he looked into them years ago, “Hey, no matter what happens next, we’re good.”

***

December 16th

Jared was sitting in his chair chatting with Lindsey and Keegan while the crew was finishing setting up for the next scene when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but excuses himself, stepping away for some privacy answering.

“Hey, everything okay?” Lindsay asked after he hung up, concerned by the visible tension rolling off the big Alpha.

“Umm..I don’t know, I need to make another call...” Jared said, waving the phone, “yeah, let us know if you need anything.” Keegan says and Jared nodded his thanks.

The phone rang three times, “Hey Clif, I need a favor.”

***

December 19th

Clif pulled the SUV into the parking lot, “Are you sure this is the right place?” Jared inquires looking around taking in the old motel located in a very questionable area of Austin.

“This is the name the guy mentioned.” Clif replied, getting out heading for the office. Couple minutes later he climbed back in, “the manager said the laundry out back.” He started the vehicle and drove to the rear of the property.

Clif got out again and knocked on the building's door. An older Hispanic woman answered engaging him in a brief conversation before stepping back inside.

Clif nodded to Jared and as he got out of the vehicle that piquant scent hit him seconds before the door reopened. The person he’d spent days searching for froze in the doorway upon seeing him.

***

December 22nd

Jensen, claiming out of the Uber, grabbed his bag thanking the driver, walked up the front stone pathway relieved to be home from L. A. after a hopefully final costume fitting for his new role as Soldier Boy, this flying back and forth every week for the last couple months had gotten old real quick and he was looking forward to enjoying the holidays at home.

Jared’s parents were coming tomorrow and staying for a few days as was Danneel and their pups. Josh said he was still planning on dropping by a few hours Christmas Day since he and Mac were scheduled to spend most of the holiday with their parents.

Jensen felt that mixture of anger and sadness he got thinking about his parents. He was raised in their church and though he never believed in it, respected their choice.

Too bad they couldn’t reciprocate.

***

Alan and Donna belonged to an ultra conservative church. The foundations of child rearing was to be found in the good book and in the Ackles household-spare the rod, spoil the child-was gospel.

When they were growing up neither parent was the physically or emotionally demonstrative type, only showing their offspring a reserved affection, especially in public.

The saving grace was their Beta nanny who gave them unconditional love, especially Jensen, who was shy as a child already knowing he was different from his siblings. She instilled the confidence in them to discover who they truly were inside and encouraged Jensen to come out before moving to California.

Shortly after graduating he told his family about his bisexuality and his boyfriend was moving to L.A. with him.

Alan and Donna tried to stop him. He was to go to their pastor and confess his transgressions, beg forgiveness for his sins against the church and its teachings, threatening to pull the agreed upon six month financial support while he auditioned for parts before going to college if it didn’t work out.

Jensen refused, packed up, took his boyfriend and left. He got his first break shortly after and quickly learned Hollywood didn’t care what his sexual orientation was as long as he kept it behind closed doors.

His management agency decided early on to promote Jensen as the good guy/boyfriend type. They also set him up on dates to events with many up and coming female artists of the time. He had no problem playing along when he wasn’t actually dating a woman.

His big break came on the CW. After co-starring in a couple series for the network he was offered the chance to be a lead in a new series created by Eric Kripke.

At the audition he met former Gilmore Girls heartthrob, Jared Padalecki, flashing his infectious smile, dimples for days and the most beautiful, incredible color shifting eyes Jensen’s ever seen, he was done for.

Jensen might not have his biological parents in his life anymore but his now in-laws, the complete opposite of the Ackles, helped fill that hole.

It’s easy to see where Jared’s personality comes from. His Om, Sherrie, is overly affectionate, excessively physical and verbal with everyone she considers family, biological or not.

The first time he accompanied Jared home on a holiday break Jensen was literally bowled over by the five foot nothing Omega and instantly became part of her brood.

***

Barley getting the front door open Jensen is hit with the piquant scent of orange blossoms and spices he couldn’t quite place.

Dropping his carry-on bag in the foyer he followed the scent further into the house. Arlo sat up near the large picture windows facing the backyard where he and Koda are napping and gets up coming over to greet him.

“Hey big guy, where’s daddy at?” Jensen asked rubbing around his ears like he liked having thought Jared would still be on set before the holiday break.

He heads towards the kitchen where the scent seems to be coming from, “Babe is that coffee shop back open, what’s it called, has those sweet rolls you're obsessed with..” he abruptly stopped and blinks not believing what was in front of him.

More accurately who was in front of him.

“Babe is in his office and dinner will be ready in twenty.”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

***

tbc

GFA: @babypink224221 @waywardjoy​ @let-me-luve-you​ @all-4-wincest

SPN: @donnaintx​ @lyarr24

Sam/Jared @idreamofplaid​

Dean/Jensen: @flamencodiva​

[phantaloon-books]

(some) Riordanverse characters (bc I never read TKC) and which Hogwarts House I think they would be in

Warning: this is a long one

Nico: the dude is definitely Gryffindor without a doubt. Like Sorting isn't about some traits and some characteristics, it's about core personality. He may have gone through some of the roughest stuff when he was 10-12, and he was resentful and bitter, but he was brave and bold af throughout everything he did. From learning about his powers, to using them relentlessly despite knowing how exhausted he is afterwards, to his willingness to do whatever is necessary to do what has to be done, because it has to be done. You can't change my mind that he's Gryffindor lol.

Grover: Do I even need to explain why he's Gryffindor? He's a satyr, and even if we're shown strong satyrs, they're not really supposed to be brave fighters. Yet he is one of the strongest, bravest nature spirits we've ever encountered in the Riordanverse, and one of the bravest in general. Like he's so passionate about doing what is good, he's a hero, and the only thing he doesn't match with common Gryffindors is that he's humble and as far from arrogant as could be possible, but it doesn't take his courage away.

Hazel: She's Gryffindor, and core personality-wise, she and Nico are very much alike. They don't ever think about themselves, like Hazel really always does what has to be done, no matter the cost, I mean she literally died preventing Gaea to rise the first time, and she freed Thanatos while believing he would take her back to the Underworld. She's brave af, and she has one of the most strong willpower we've seen in the Riordanverse. She's a passionate hero, and she's the closest thing to a real knight in shining armor.

Lester: I'm gonna place him in Gryffindor because I don't think he fits in in the other houses lmao. That said, as Apollo he's very shitty, but as Lester, he's one of the most courageous people. He's grown so much, he's so willing to actually do stuff now, and sacrifice everything to do what's right, including his life, even if he doesn't know he's gonna survive. Hell, he really went most of TTT with an incredibly painful wound that nearly turned him undead, and he cared more for the future of Camp Jupiter than his own life. Additionally, he's a bit arrogant and cocky, but he truly means well, I love Lester so much.

Clarisse: Look look, all I have to say is that no one could have pulled off less than half the stuff Clarisse has done, she's so Gryffindor it hurts. She's reckless and impulsive, but she's driven by her passion to do good, even if she's the daughter of war, and was bullied by her own father. She's daring, she's bold and she is the hero. She's also arrogant and thinks she can solve everything by herself, something characteristic more of the canon Gryffindors in the books, rather than what the fans have shaped. In fact, she's very much like Gryffindors in the books, who are actually very rude to other houses and think they're the best. Still, at heart, she's in this house.

Alex: I'm in a huge dilemma about where to put them, but I reckon they'd fit pretty fine in Gryffindor. Not only are they daring and courageous, they're proud of who they are, but not in a too full of themselves kind of way, rather in a 'I am who I am, and if you can't accept me, fuck off' kind of way. They can get carried away rather easily though, and very arrogant, thinking they don't need anyone else, when they do in fact need some company. They are one of the kindest and at the same time most ambitious characters we've met, but they are brave beyond understanding in a very personal way, thus, Gryffindor.

Percy: I think it's fair to say he'd be Hufflepuff, because loyalty is literally his fucking fatal flaw, and he is the kindest sweetheart to all those who deserve it, he goes out of his way to help those who need help, whether that be mortals, halfbloods, gods, magical creatures or even his own enemies. He's too good for this world, and even if he's grown a bit bitter, he always looks to fight justly for what is right, and never loses faith in others. That, and the fact that he turned down immortality so that the olympians were more inclusive of minor gods, and their children were treated better. He's just a lovely soul, he's like 80% Hufflepuff so that's enough for me. All that and he's stubborn as hell.

Jason: Hufflepuff. Just, undoubtedly Hufflepuff. Like he seems to be this cold and self centered hero with a superiority complex (bc of all the son of Jupiter stuff) but he's the softest guy there is. Not only is he hardworking, open minded and kind, he appreciates justice but he doesn't seek for revenge or anything, he makes sure people are treated fairly and wants everyone to be accepted. Proof of that is how he continued Percy's job of including more gods, and made sure Nico felt comfortable with who he was. He truly has a heart of gold. (He deserved better btw)

Meg: God I can't decide between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, but I think I'll go with the former. She's so strong, my baby, she's faced so much wrong, but she's still so kind and understanding of others, especially those who deserve kindness. She puts up such a hard facade, but she's so patient and warm and inclusive. She's brave and strong (as strong as the big three kids, if not stronger), but she's also so loyal to her beliefs despite how she was forced someone else's beliefs for years, so I'll keep her in Hufflepuff. Also, she's stubborn af, and she can be lazy, so that settles it.

Will: I KNOW some people will say Will could be in other houses that are not Hufflepuff, BUT I won't have it any other way. Will is literally the warmest person ever. He is kind and sympathetic and enthusiastic and patient and inclusive. Like Helga Hufflepuff would take one look at him and lose her shit screaming "mine". He's the guy who saw the son of Hades so many people were scared of and immediately grabbed his hand and transfered him some warmth and didn't let him go ahead and get himself killed. He's also the one who everyone loves and likes, so much that Clarisse gets along with him and he can calm her down. He's the ideal Hufflepuff, you can't change my mind.

Magnus: I mean, what else can you expect from the son of the god of summer? He's literally a guy who heals others with warmth. He's also the guy who spent years on the street with the most difficult situations, and accepts every single person the way they are. He's inclusive af, and tolerant of everything. He's the guy who's closest include a deaf elf, a Muslim valkyrie, and a black dwarf, and he's dating a genderfluid person. Yes he's brave, and he's kinda smart, and he's ambitious, BUT none of those qualities overpower his Hufflepuff nature.

Piper: Kinda debated whether Gryffindor or Ravenclaw fits more, but in the end I went with Ravenclaw. Even though she isn't a fighter, she's very very brave, yet her bravery isn't compared to her wits. Like others in the PJOverse, she wins her fights by outsmarting her opponents, but unlike others that's one of her strongest traits. She's witty and creative and a little on the negative side, she really struggled to work in a group rather than by herself. On another note, she's able to keep calm in crazy situations and come up with the craziest most unthinkable solutions (I'm talking borderline ridiculous) that always somehow work. She's not booksmart, but she knows so much about everything, and she's lifesmart you know?

Reyna: Why are some of these so hard? Deeply debating whether she'd be Ravenclaw or Slytherin. In the end I'd go more for Ravenclaw though. Reyna's smart as hell, she's strong and sharp, and she always sees the best way out of a situation. She's witty and observant, being able to keep her cool in battle and lead others in the best direction. She's always looking to grow, and she prefers to do things on her own, but she's a great leader. She has some Slytherin qualities, and she's not learning as learning oriented as others, but she's definitely Ravenclaw.

Sam: Let's face it, Sam has the only active neurons in all of MCGA, she's definitely Ravenclaw. I'm gonna be honest though, I've only read MCGA once, so I can't remember much of their personalities, but Sam is witty and clever, pretty much the only one who can come up with competent plans, while the others rely mostly on luck and whatever plan they can cook up in 5 seconds. She's loyal and true to who she is, and she's extremely courageous and proud of who she is, but her sharpness is what she stands out for me, which is why I put her in Ravenclaw.

Annabeth: I know the obvious option is Ravenclaw, but I genuinely think she's also Slytherin. Yes she is booksmart and wise like Ravenclaw, but her personality matches Slytherins' ambitious, cunning and resourceful nature. She's smart as fuck, but she's calculative, she always finds a way to end up winning, and while she does so by outsmarting her opponents, she wouldn't need to outsmart them if she weren't so competitive. I feel like there's this 40/60 odds on Slytherin rather than Ravenclaw, but it's that small difference that counts. Plus her leadership skills are so powerful that people don't ask, they just know she's the boss.

(Also just picture the sweet and loyal Hufflepuff boy with the strong and cunning Slytherin girl, like it should be as opposite as it is with Poseidon and Athena, but they're so cute)

Leo: Idk what you can expect that's not Slytherin. This boy is the embodiment of ambition and determination. Reminder that not all Slytherins are bad btw (I'm slytherin myself), but like he's life smart and cunning, and he can analyze situations faster than anyone else. He's charismatic and talented, and there's no one to stop him from triumphing. I don't have much to say, I just know he'd be in Slytherin.

Rachel: She's kinda a difficult one, and I struggle between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and tbh I'm still not sure. But I think I'd place her in Slytherin, because even if she's brave af (especially since she was a mortal fighting in a war out of her power), her main trait is her determination. When she's set on something, she gets it done. You can't tell her she can't do something, because she will find a way to do it. She's kind, and she's only a mortal, but she still has incredible power unlike any other. I don't think I can really name it, but I think she'd be put on Slytherin with much difficulty from the Sorting Hat.

Luke: Where else could Luke possibly go? On the meaner side Slytherins have created themselves, Luke would be part of those misled by who preceded them, by those who want to take advantage of their mistreatment (bc let's face it, Slytherins are mistreated by both students and Hogwarts staff), and turn them cold and bitter. Luke is ambitious and manipulative, being manipulated himself, and it comes easily because of his natural charisma and talent. He's very freaking determined and cunning too. He'd fit right into Slytherin, but he'd be viewed as one of the rotten lot.

Thalia: I don't have much to say about this, but Thalia is the girl whose fatal flaw is their desire for power (or smth along those lines), just like most Slytherins. She's ambitious, she's smart, she's truly talented, she stands out between the rest, and she knows it, and she actually kinda likes it.

(Also I put Annabeth, Thalia and Luke in the same house because they're all kinda similar, even if their beliefs and postures are different.

Frank: Ngl I'm having more difficulty with Frank than anyone else. I'm kinda torn between Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. I literally can't choose. He'd fit perfectly in any of them lmao, I just can't decide where he'd go. You decide this one yourself.

Please keep in mind, this is my personal opinion and my take on the characters, and not all of you will agree, and that's fine! You can let me know what you think (kindly please, don't come at me), and if you want to, send me an ask on a character you want me to do the same as these (as long as it's not TKC, I'M SORRY I haven't read those) go ahead, don't be shy!

[jesuiscalmedammit]

Mistakes Were Made – (2) The Truth || [Russell Adler x reader/fem!Bell]

note: part 1. the first half takes place before the end game. 

“Hey, you wanna talk about what happened?”

You looked up only to find Alex sitting next to you with a surprisingly genuine smile. But what could you tell him? Even you didn’t know how to feel about this whole mess you were in. You had told Russell the truth back in the safehouse and you were ready to help but… what would happen after that? Was there a chance you could ever have a normal life? It was confusing. Also, it’s not like he would understand what you went through.

Shaking your head, you eventually let out a sigh. “No, not really,” you told him.

“I know what being brainwashed and used like this feels like.” How the hell did he know you were just thinking about that? But you didn’t really get it. How would he know? “The Russians did the same thing to me a long time ago,” he answered the question you never asked.

This was new. And the more you thought about it, the less you understood why he was still willing to do this job after going through something like this. “Did Russell tell you that there had been no need for them to do this to me? I was already–No, I was always on your side.” He raised an eyebrow and slightly tilted his head to the side as he tried to figure out what that meant. “I was always working for the CIA. Things just… didn’t end well for me. It’s a long story.”

“We have time. I’m listening.”

You looked around to see if anyone else from the group was listening, but you were alone. Woods was the only one who glanced in your way every now and then, probably just to check on Alex, but apart from that, no one really cared about you. “All right, fine. I was born in Eastern Europe, that’s true, but my parents came to the United States as political refugees when I was around two so I grew up there. When I was in college my parents died in a car accident caused by some idiot who sat behind the wheel while being so drunk he could barely walk.

A few days later Timothy Clarkson from the CIA contacted me and explained the drunk guy was actually working for the KGB and killed my parents for the very reason they had fled their home country back in the day. He believed they might try to kill or recruit me after what happened and if it was the latter, they would blame the Americans and their lifestyle for my parents’ death to convince me to join them. Clarkson offered a chance to get revenge by becoming a double agent.

He and Henry Keen were the only ones who knew about this deal, about me, and there was no physical evidence either. After a while, I ended up working with Perseus and everything went well until Adler and his team captured me. Little did I know that not long before this Clarkson had been murdered on Perseus’ orders and Keen was left in a coma after a failed assassination. Long story short, there was no living or at least a conscious person who knew about my story.

When Adler interrogated me, I immediately told him I’m only willing to talk to Clarkson or Keen. Clarkson had given me a very clear order at the beginning and that was never to tell anyone who I was or what I know except them. He didn’t trust anyone, not even inside the CIA. This is why when Adler told me what happened to them, I assumed he was lying to make me talk so I kept everything to myself.

I didn’t think they would end up brainwashing me,” you noted with a sad smile. “And I sure as hell didn’t expect Russell to emotionally manipulate me like this only to make me behave.”

“Wait, don’t shoot! Hudson got a call and they verified her story!”

You wanted to lower your gun and let out a relieved sigh upon hearing Alex’s words, but you also knew now that blindly trusting Russell was not an option. He would surely pull the trigger the moment you paid less than enough attention to the situation. There was no way you would risk dying now that you got so close to being free again. This double life you’d been living had already taken away way too much from you.

Maybe you remembered this deep down even while you were brainwashed and controlled, this is why you were so desperate to have something remotely normal in your life. Normal… like… being in a relationship. You craved the feeling of being loved and protected and for your bad luck, Russell was there to use this against you. How the hell could you fall for him?

“So she was telling the truth?” Russell asked as he finally lowered his gun.

Yes, dipshit! God, you were, without doubt, spending way too much time in Wood’s company. Good thing you didn’t say it out loud otherwise you’d never hear the end of it.

Alex nodded. “Yeah,” he said as he walked over to you and put his hand on your gun. “Come on, it’s time to go home.” He even flashed a cautious yet reassuring smile at you as he took the weapon from your hand and put it away safely.

Alex had told you he was brainwashed by the Russians before and this was enough to make you trust him. He knew what you went through and so he was probably the only person who understood how you felt now. You needed this, you needed someone who could help you get over this nightmare.

“Bell, wait!”

“Adler, I don’t think this is the right time for that,” Alex stopped him before you could react. “Believe me.”

But he didn’t seem to give up because he once again opened his mouth. This time you didn’t wait for Alex, you handled it yourself. “There’s nothing to talk about, you almost killed me. I know this was a fucked-up situation but at least Hudson did his fucking job to try and verify my story.”

“Well, to be honest, I was the one who tracked down Keen,” Alex admitted as he scratched the back of his neck. “But sure, let Hudson take all the credit.”

Both you and Russell gave him a disapproving look. This wasn’t the right time to make such jokes. Even if he was only trying to elevate the mood, this wasn’t the right way to do it. Of course, it didn’t mean you weren’t grateful because you truly felt saved by him. Still…

“Can we just go?” you asked in the end.

“Sure, come with me,” he said as he put a hand on your shoulder.

You didn’t have to look in his way to know Adler wasn’t happy to watch you leave. But what was he expecting after this madness? Yes, at the end of the day it really was a series of unfortunate events that led to this, but he could’ve tried a bit harder to make sure you were lying before pointing a gun at you.

note: this is a russell/reader fic, but i’m still thinking about alex and bell bonding over the fact they were both brainwashed before and.. wel... one more reason for russell to be mad. also, thanks for all the positive feedbacks!!!!

taglist: @deviljoonie​ @ktdragonborn​

[nooneactuallyasked]

Diner Gal - Reggie x Reader Part 4

Requested: I am my own requester, we have fun here

Word count: 2,513

Warnings: Not enough Reggie? (Does that count? It does now lol)

Summary: Julie and the Phantoms ( + Flynn ) go to a musical diner/café/restaurant for inspiration and hopefully a future gig but they end up meeting a very special waitress.

Note: Sorry this took so long to get out, it’s quite a bit longer so that’s why. Also, can I just thank and say hello to @i-should-be-writing-my-own-fic​, all of your comments and reblogs are so sweet, you’re amazing! There will be more Reggie content coming up, this is a slow-burn, I hate when characters instantly fall in love, I feel like they need to make a connection first. Okay, enjoy!!!

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

---

“Alex, stop pacing! Reggie- what- what are you doing?”

“Practicing my bass.”

“In mid-air…….without your bass?”

“It’s called an air bass, if I’m made out of air my bass can be too.”

“Okay, you do that.” Julie grabbed her keyboard stand, standing in the garage doorway, “Luke make your bandmates calm down, I have to take this out to the car.” Without an answer, Julie stumbled out of the garage towards where her dad and the car were waiting.

Luke scribbled in his notebook, without looking up, “You guys need to chill out, as long as we’re all together we’ll rock so hard there’s no way Cal will say no!” Reggie smiles and points a finger at him, “Plus, Y/N will be there, she’ll be able to convince Cal for us.” He adds as Julie jogs back in, “Okay we should be good to go as you guys can all poof in your instruments. You guys should get ready to leave.”

“Alright, but let me finish this line. I am in the zone.” Luke scribbled some final words on his notebook pages before looking up, “Alex, get off the runway, you’re gonna fall over the table or something.”

“But what if he says no and not even Y/N can convince him? I mean, what if- what if he has other bands in mind and just said yes to Y/N because she works there? What if we play and completely mess it up!?” Luke deadpans Alex as his bandmate starts shaking his hands up and down, his pacing increasing.

Luke rolls his eyes, standing up and holding Alex by his shoulders, “Chill, we’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna do amazing, like we usually do.”

“Guys, we need to go. Like, now. So, hurry up, move it!”

---

“So, Cal, my good buddy, my favourite boss, um...would it be alright, and remember that I’ve been a faithful worker for such a long time, would it be alright if I skipped every other audition apart from Julie and her band’s?” Y/N dragged out, her voice rising in pitch, trying to convince Cal with her best puppy eyes whilst he stared back at her with a deadpan expression.

“No, sit down. We have some performers to listen to.” She sighed and sat down in the chair next to him, putting her elbows on the desk in front of them, “I saw that coming…” she leaned her cheek against her palm as Cal chuckled at her, “And yet you always ask.”

“One day…one day I successfully skip this bullshit, mark my words.”

“Sure, sugar-pie. Now stop your grumbling, our first performer comes in 2 minutes.”

---

I want your love, and I want your revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

I want your love and all your lover’s revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

Oh oh oh oh oooh-

The poor girl’s voice broke. Y/N could see it coming, her vowel technique needed a bit more work but the girl was obviously passionate, this would crush her ego.

“You can stop now, we’ve heard enough. We’ll let you know.

Y/N winced, Cal could seem really cold at times however the warm smile he gave every performer at the end of his mantra definitely helped ease any hurt they may or may not feel.

“I can’t wait to perform here, I know you’ll make the best choice. I’ll see you on Friday.”

Maybe this wouldn’t crush her ego, after all, it seemed the thing was infinite. The girl walked out, her high heels clicking on the floor as Cal sighed. She knew why, when auditions were open to anyone who could arrive on time it was hard to find people who had that spark when performing. It doesn’t matter how good your voice is if you’re boring to watch then you might as well not show up.

Friday’s were important, they were a chance for anyone to get on stage and become an overnight sensation. But it got complicated when there were so many people that they had to pick and choose. That’s why they tried to get as many people as possible to perform, everyone deserved a chance to live out their dreams.

“Alright, I’ll grab our next victims. See you in a sec.” Y/N stood up, her chair scraping on the floor as Cal rolls his eyes, “Try to make it not sound like we’re about to murder everyone.” She chuckles, “Sure, I can try but I can’t promise it will happen.”

Y/N walked out of the door and into the ‘waiting area’, this happened every month and yet she never got used to how tedious it was. She picked up the waiting list and scanned the names, “Yulie and the- uh, the atoms? Anton's? Uh, come on through.” She put down the list and walked out, only hearing a chorus of male voices, “Again? Really?” “None of us are even called Anton!” and an awkward laugh from a female voice.

She sat back down in her chair and turned to Cal, “One Yulie and the Anton’s coming or up, or atoms, I’m not quite sure.” Cal started laughing, “Sounds fun, maybe we’ll get some science jokes.” Y/N started laughing too, “As long as it’s not physics I think I’ll be fine.”

The door opened up and four familiar faces walked in, all looking slightly sheepish. “Hi, sorry, it’s actually Julie and the Phantoms. Sorry if we’re late at all, we didn’t really know what time to come.” Cal raised an eyebrow and Y/N chuckled,  “That would be my fault, I never got round to giving them a time. This is the band I was telling you about,” She turned to Julie, “Sorry, I completely forgot the name and the writing, no offence, didn’t particularly help me out.” Luke grimaced at her words as Julie started laughing, “Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll get someone else to sign us up to things in the future.”

Cal coughed to gain our attention, “As much as I love this friendliness we don’t have all day, we have all of your kit here, our guys brought it in earlier. What will you be playing for us today?”

“Oh, uh we’ll we playing a song called Edge of Great. We hope you like it.” Y/N smiled at Julie and Cal nodded, pen at the ready. She hoped for the life of her that they were actually good or Cal would never trust her judgement again.

Running from the past

Tripping on the now

What is lost can be found, it's obvious

And like a rubber ball

We come bouncing back

We all got a second act, inside of us

Julie sat at her keyboard, her finger dancing over the keys. She seemed lost in the music and it was obvious how passionate she was, it made even Cal, the ever poker-faced, break out in a small smile. Julie moves to the middle of the performing area, as the beat drops the boys appear causing Cal to double-take in surprise, Y/N snickers in response.

I believe

I believe that we're just one dream

Away from who we're meant to be

That we're standing on the edge of

Something big, something crazy

Our best days are yet unknown

That this moment is ours to own

Y/N nodded her head and tapped her feet to the rhythm, her smile grew wider and wider, Cal would never doubt her again and she got to listen to a killer band, today was looking up.

'Cause we're standing on the edge of great

(On the edge of great) Great

(On the edge of great) Great

(On the edge of great)

'Cause we're standing on the edge of great

Luke kept sending glances toward Julie as she was dancing in between them all, the stage presence was amazing. They were definitely at the top of Y/N’s list of potential performers.

We all make mistakes

But they're just stepping stones

To take us where we wanna go

It's never straight, no

Sometimes we gotta lean

Lean on someone else

To get a little help

Until we find our way

Luke and Julie gravitate towards each other, their excited smiles growing soft and caring; the chemistry was definitely a plus, it was incredible to watch, like watching history unfold. The two share a microphone as they sing the chorus, Reggie and Alex share a look and Y/N smiles, not even Cal could find a fault in their performance.

I believe

I believe that we're just one dream

Away from who we're meant to be

That we're standing on the edge of

Something big, something crazy

Our best days are yet unknown

That this moment is ours to own

Y/N started dancing in her seat whilst Cal laughed. She then had a brilliant idea, she stood up and tried to pull Cal up to dance with her. While he refused and tried his best to stay down, his efforts were almost futile against his laughing and Y/N’s upward pull on him.

'Cause we're standing on the edge of great

(On the edge of great) Great

(On the edge of great) Great

(On the edge of great)

'Cause we're standing on the edge of...

Luke went back to his mic and Julie came over to Y/N, she smiled brightly and they danced around together. They both felt like they had made a firm friend, the fun dance they shared confirmed that feeling, neither could have felt happier at that moment, they were lost in the music and everyone around could see it.

Shout, shout

C'mon and let it out, out

Don't gotta hide it

Let your colours blind their eyes

Be who you are no compromise

Just shout, shout

C'mon and let it out, out

What doesn't kill you makes you feel alive

Y/N moved back from Julie and sat back down, her smile still evident. Cal laughed at her and she pushed him with her shoulder. Julie turned to Luke as he moved toward her, the heart eyes were back.

Ooh-oh

I believe

I believe that we're just one dream

Away from who we're meant to be

That we're standing on the edge of great

Reggie and Alex joined Luke in singing the chorus as Julie continued her high belt which left Cal in slight shock and Y/N almost jumping and screaming in support and excitement.

Something big, something crazy

Our best days are yet unknown

That this moment is ours to own

Y/N smiled at Alex when he looked up, he beamed right back and continued singing and drumming with a passion that shined through everything else. She looked over to Reggie and sent a smile his way too. He winked at her and chuckled when she rolled her eyes playfully at him, though her smile widened in response.

'Cause we're standing on the edge of great

(On the edge of great) On the edge of great

(Great, on the edge of great) On the edge

(Great, on the edge of great)

'Cause we're standing on the edge of...

Julie went back to her keyboard and slipped her mic into the holder, Luke went over and looked her in the eyes as they sang to each other. The chemistry was off the charts!

Running from the past

Tripping on the now

What is lost can be found, it's obvious

When they finished and the boys disappeared Cal just sat there speechless, Y/N pushed his shoulder before giving them a standing ovation. “That was amazing!” She turned to Cal who was still seated, now thinking over what he just watched, “Oh come on, stand up, clap, stop pretending to be professional we both know you’re not! Book the band and we’ll have them for our last set, we’ll go out with a bang.” Cal still looked unsure, “I don’t know, what if-“ “Okay, no.” Y/N turned to Julie, “You’re our last performance on Friday. We have rehearsals every other day to check up on you, if you let me know where we can do it at a place of your choice. Your soundcheck will be at 2pm on Friday. Don’t miss it. Once again, you’re our closing act so you’re welcome to stay or go at any time between you soundcheck and your performance. We’ll let you know your performance time when we figure out the rest of the performance schedule. Thank you guys for coming, it was amazing, you’re definitely going places.”

Cal stared at her, his jaw slack in surprise, until he shook himself out of it and stood up, going to ask Y/N what she was doing, “What- you can’t just- we need to think about this.” She turned to him and deadpanned, “We both know you were gonna book them anyway, I’m doing you a favour, even you couldn’t help but smile.” Y/N turned back to the group, “Once again, thank you for coming. Ask the front desk for my info, give me a call by tomorrow to sort out a rehearsal time and space.”

Julie smiled widely, her chest starting to warm with a familiar jittery feeling of excitement, “Thank you! Thank you so much! I’ll definitely let you know as soon as I can.” Y/N laughed, “Don’t sweat it, someone needs to make decisions for Cal when he goes brain dead.”

“Hey! I’m still your boss!”

“I might as well be yours at this point” She shouted back without turning her head, causing a chuckle from Julie. She tried not to acknowledge the boys because if what they were saying was true, it seemed to be looking that way, she didn’t want to appear clinically insane to the public eye.

The boys themselves, however, didn’t really have much to add to the interaction. They were just standing there, slightly shocked by how assertive Y/N was when she was passionate about something. Reggie just stared at her, a slight smile spreading across his face.

“Okay, we still have some more performances to listen to but it was great meeting you and I guess you’re our final act now so welcome, whilst you’re with us you are our family so relax. As you can see, our dynamic isn’t the most professional so rules aren’t always completely followed to the letter.” Cal joined them, a smile back on his face. He put his hand on Y/N’s shoulder and they smiled at each other, “This one over here basically runs the place so go to her for anything and everything. I can’t wait to see your performance, good luck.” He turned and walked out into the ‘waiting area’ to find the next performer

“Well, it’s been a blast, I’ll see you next time.” Julie smiled at Y/N and then the boys poofed out, making Y/N jump and stare at the empty space left behind, “I’m not even going to ask…oh! Also, please tell leather boy to stop staring at me, or at least ask why?”

“Oh, sure, I’ll ask him what’s up. I’ll call you as soon as I can, see you soon.”

“Goodbyyyeee!”

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