#i still really need to organize my tag system here ugh

[magnoliidae]

Happy valentine's day from Valentina~~💕💕💕

[erixyin]

Fall Into Tune

Summary: It's Robin's birthday which means she gets whatever she wants. Including, dancing and singing at The Hideout on karaoke night.

Eddie x Reader

Words: 3925 Tags: fluff, funny, Steve Harrington drunk and singing ABBA because i can't help myself, Robin Buckley being adorable, Eddie being cute, Jonathan and Nancy are there too, just a good time, one-shot, you and Eddie in first stages of dating, like super early days, flirty, steve x reader if you squint, but the same could be said about reader x Robin, underage drinking by american standards.

I edited and fixed all the mistakes, changed one or two sentences but nothing too masssive. Hope you enjoy it!

AO3 updated version here

Do not copy and post elsewhere! I will be posting to my AO3 account and linking in due time. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Hope you enjoy!

You had all promised that for her birthday Robin could have whatever she wanted, and with the shitty week at school she had had, you knew that this Friday night had to be all out.

The idea had sprung on you when you had caught Steve jamming out to 'Billie Jean' in the back room during his break. You and Robin peeked your head round the corner when Steve still hadn't returned to the front desk. You both watched as he was very confidently singing, "billie jean is not my lover" and did a little fancy footwork on a "woo!" Robin wishing she could somehow record the sight with her eyes. You hands clamped over your mouth to not interrupt the absolute amazing performance that was in front of your eyes.

If the stack of tapes Steve had been haphazardly stacking hadn't crashed onto his face from the shelf, you might have managed to keep it together. Robin was the one whose laughter erupted the whole store. Steve had twisted his body around to see the both of you absolutely crying with laughter at the entire scenario. The tapes all across the floor, the organizing system long lost. One hand on Steve's hip looking at both of you disapprovingly and the other gently checking his hair to make sure that it was still styled.

It was only as the bell dinged that all three of you snapped out of it all and headed back into work mode. Unfortunately for Steve, you and Robin stealing glances at each other throughout the rest of your shift.

Robin's finished earlier than yours so it was just you and Steve closing up shop. As you were locking up, turning to Steve, "Do you know of any place that has a karaoke machine?" a twinkle in your eye. You already knew the answer but seeing the look on Steve's face go from confused to complete horror was too good to pass up.

"No" Steve said instantly and shook his head rigorously, "I know you caught me today, which by the way, don't watch people without their knowledge it's rude" You rolled your eyes at his lecturing. "And I know... of a place that has karaoke and alcohol" At your raised eyebrows he quickly added, "that's not my house."

"You know that Robin would love you" you grin as you headed over to your car. Unlocking it you opened the door and gently leaned against it. You know I would too you wanted to say but Steve didn't need any extra ego boosting. You're eyes looking up at mother Steve big and wide. He sighed so you turned up the charm. "Pretty, pretty please?" batting your eyelashes, giving Steve your best puppy dog eyes.

"Ugh, fine. And she already loves me, thank you" Steve grumbled looking away from you as you punched the air, delighted with your victory. "But you owe me" He pointed at you.

"Thanks Stevie, glad you're gonna arrange everything, byeee" You sang as you got in your car and drove out of the car park. Steve continued to grumble as he got into his car and drove back home. Having forgotten your birthday he was sorta already in your debt but he would never admit it. And he would die a horrible death if he forgot, or didn't do anything for Robin's. So you hadn't really twisted his arm.

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"Are you coming tonight?" you asked tentatively, stepping closer to him, closing the space between the two of you. He had been busy with school since he was actually trying to graduate this year so you hadn't had a chance to go on a proper outing together. Eddie still hadn't properly hung out with them yet, and you knew that you were throwing him in the deep end with it being Robin's birthday but you really wanted him to come along.

"I've got hellfire until 6, but if you're still there I'll join for a bit." You knew he didn't really want to go tonight, he would much rather curl up with you on the sofa and rent a silly scary film. But he was trying, and you commended him for that. His usual cheeky grin returning to his face as he watched your face light up with excitement. You wiggled in happiness and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and you did not miss the way that his hands were about to go around your waist.

But then he remembered where he was. The English corridor was not the place to give his new girlfriend, [OMG you were his girlfriend!], a proper show of affection. He was trying to be good and not get any more detentions. He didn't feel the need to tell you of his reputation regarding PDA with those who were before you. "You really want me there, sweetheart?" He marveled in the way that you refused to look him in the eye and keep the wide grin off your face.

Instead of answering, you just checked your watch, "Oh shit, I gotta go and get ready, I'll see you at 8!" you dashed off. Eddie watched as you ran down the corridor and practically bulldozed Robin Buckley with a hug chanting happy birthday wishes. His eyebrows furrowed slightly when Steve had to separate the two of you by picking you up, saying something to make you calm down. All three of you headed towards the exit, with you turning back to wave at him.

It was early days, demonstrating your relationship in school, you both were in new territory. The guy you had dated before had very much been a short term thing and never liked to be seen with you in public. The people that Eddie had been with before, there were usually friends with benefits or one night stands. So being in a real relationship was very new and scary to him. But he knew he had to try because you wouldn't have it any other way. The new girl in school. From the big city. And yet, you slotted in so well, that it was like you had been here all your life. You had bonded with Robin Buckley on the first day of school and then of course with Steve Harrington, and then it developed from there.

He was jealous of how close you were with Steve after only knowing that group for just under a year. Still, you had chosen Eddie as your partner, not Steve, so clearly he was doing something right.

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Entering The Hideout without his band, was very much a new experience. But entering the bar when it was just a handful of teenagers, happy birthday decorations all over the place and a karaoke machine on stage - now that was a first time experience. As he walked in, internally cursing himself for getting carried away with Hellfire making him half an hour later than he promised, he was so taken aback by the performance on stage he missed you walking towards him.

On stage there was Steve Harrington, a very drunk Steve Harrington, singing ABBA... Eddie knew he was sober but it didn't feel like it with what he was seeing. Steve was, microphone in one hand, hips swaying and pointing at Robin who was in the middle of the room behind a wall of presents. She looked like she was stuck between laughing her ass off and being scared for her life.

"Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight!" Steve shimmied on each 'gimme', running his hands through his hair and winking at Robin, who looked like she wanted to die. By no means, was he a singer but the performance Eddie was kind of impressed by. He wondered how drunk he was.

He dragged his eyes away from the stage to see you right before him waving your hand in front of his face. He remained silent as he scanned your body, trying very hard to keep his face straight and excitement levels down. You were wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt with a black leather skirt and fishnet tights. Paired with black docs, a black velvet choker and fishnet gloves. Smokey eye, red and black with black eyeliner and a dark vampire red lip tint. Eddie felt like he was going to die.

He felt like he was going to die even more so when you hugged him tightly, giggling madly. You slipped your hand into his and dragged him over to the birthday girl's table. Your ears temporarily having a break while Steve on stage was doing a dance break. He noticed Nancy Wheeler behind the wall of presents face in her hands and her boyfriend Jonathan shouting for Steve, "Do a spin!" "Give us a shimmy!" "Go Stevie go!" There was a lot going on and Eddie felt like he didn't have time to ask all the questions.

"I told you he would come!" you yelled at Robin, Steve back on the mic and sounding like a dying cat. You leaned over to grab your drink and Eddie had to focus his eyes very hard on Robin's face as he gave her a small wave and not look anywhere else. "Whose on after Stevie?" Ah so they all called him Stevie, interesting Eddie thought to himself.

"I don't think Nancy can beat him, even after her rendition of that Cyndi Lauper song." Nancy lifted her head, looking at Robin sternly.

"Hey look" Robin held up her hands in protest, "you sang that to Jonathan, I'm getting serenaded here!" She gestured to the man on stage who was badly dad-dancing to the last chorus of the song. His hair a floppy mess and sweat visible on his face. He really had gone all out. "You haven't demonstrated your undying love for me through song yet" she booped you on the nose and grinned evilly.

You downed your drink, whatever it was, in one gulp, slamming it down, "Challenge accepted!" Striding over with confidence you climbed on stage, from the front. Your skirt hiking up as you stepped up, Steve lending a hand to pull you up. Eddie turning immediately to the bar when he had realized he had been caught looking by Robin, getting himself something strong. "This one is for you!" you shouted while pointing at Robin, then you shooed Steve off stage. "Though, it will be tough after such an incredible performance" you laughed as Steve playfully bowed as he made his way to the bar.

Eddie helped himself to a strong rum and coke whilst the bartender was outside having a cigarette. Steve pulled up a stool and sat there bouncing, expecting one too. Eyebrow raised, Eddie slid over his glass, and began doing another one. He let out a small smirk as he heard you curse into the microphone that they 'didn't have this song what the fuck'.

"Oh god, here we go" He muttered under his breath, sharing a look with Steve. The music blaring way too loud. The 80's synth and bass merging together. You were going to sing a popular pop song, Eddie figured that there probably wasn't many alternative songs on this karaoke box. He watched as Steve chuckled at Nancy going from embarrassed to standing up and giving the most uncoordinated little boogie, with Jonathan helping her stand.

"Does she love singing?" He found himself asking Steve, trying to stand straight and make himself match Steve's height. Thankfully Steve was too drunk to notice or didn't act like he had noticed. He watched as he took his time with his drink, he was surprised but of course Steve Harrington could even hold his drink perfectly. His eyes returned to you on stage, taking off your leather jacket and placing it by one of the speakers. He moved to sit down on the bar stool next to Steve, to get a better look at the stage... yeah definitely the stage.

"Yeah man, she sings in the car on the way to school. She turns off my Madonna for her silly rock bands." Steve scoffed as he drank more. Eddie coughed trying to hold in a laugh. Of course Steve listens to Madonna, Eddie thought. And to admit it with such confidence? Admirable. His eyebrows then furrowing when he just realized that she went to school everyday with Steve. Steve looked over at him, then slapped him on the back, "Hey don't worry dude, she's crazy about you. Won't shut up about you. It's kinda annoying."

Eddie looked down, allowing his hair to fall in front of his face to hide the redness forming on his face. "Well in my van, she can listen to all the silly rock bands." His eyes not meeting Steve's but the gentle slap on his back, he knew Steve understood what he was saying.

"Don't you want me baby!" You practically screeched down the mic. Singing gone out the window to instead opt for belting out the chorus to your best friend. "Don't you want me? Oh!"

Robin almost falling off her chair because she was laughing so hard. Nancy barely keeping her chair up, and Jonathan supporting all three. Physically for Nancy and Robin, and for you by wooing and shouting words of encouragement.

Steve smiled while looking down at his drink, the last remaining gulp of alcohol and mixer swirling around in the glass. Without looking at Eddie he said, "I know you Munson, I know your reputation at school." Eddie inhaled sharply. Was he getting the talk with Steve Harrington? "I know that this is your first proper thing" Steve downed the last of his drink and placed it on the bar behind him. "If you hurt her, or cheat on her, or do anything that isn't cool-" he stood up and stretched before turning to look at Eddie dead in the eyes, "I'll fucking kill you, understood?" Eddie just nodded. Which seemed to be enough for Steve who headed back over to the gang.

Eddie didn't really now what he was doing agreeing to be a dating kinda guy with you, but he knew that he had to try. He couldn't simply let you go, in that regard he had always had his way with the people that he chose to get with. Eddie didn't know what he was doing in truth, but he knew from films what he was supposed to do. So he was massively winging it. And he hoped that his confident air hid it well from most people. Clearly it didn't work on Steve but as long as it fooled you, he counted himself lucky.

He watched as you finished your song. Shooting a middle finger at Steve when he exclaimed that he had clearly done a better performance. You wobbled a bit as you headed to the front of the stage again, to get down. Eddie downed the rest of his drink, wincing slightly as he had made it slightly too strong for his liking, and strode to the front of the stage. You paused, mid-crouch, looking at him confused. He hand gently brushing over your ankle. Normally, he would be asking if you wanted to go home with him and share body warmth but he knew how much tonight meant to you and your friends. Which is why he said, "Stay on stage, we're doing a duet."

Your eyes widened and twinkled with delight. "Robbie you're getting another one!" You tried to help pull Eddie up on stage, both of you disregarding the clear stairs to the left for getting on the stage. You wobbled as the weight of him took you off guard, only to have him steady you by holding your frame firmly.

"But Johnny and I wanted to do another duet!" Steve whined, arm around Jonathan, and his arm around Nancy. It was so funny seeing her tipsy, her prim and poised personality gone and was replace by a silly, blunt and daredevil lady.

"Oh my god, get your own boyfriend!" Nancy grasped a hold of Jonathan tightly, causing him to domino effect into Steve. All of them ending up on the floor.

"I, for one, don't wanna hear another song of you two screeching like a parrot down the mic. Besides, I wanna hear Eddie sing with his new girlfriend!" Robin winked, causing you to give her the middle finger but with a strong smile.

You looked at Eddie as you flicked through the list of songs. "What song's do you know?" You whispered. You knew he didn't know most of the pop songs just by looking at his face when you looked at a handful of them. None of them were rock n roll. "Can you do this one?" Your finger paused on one song. It was old but you loved singing it in the car with Robin, one of your first memories after moving to Hawkins High.

"Yeah, my uncle likes this song." He said, and that's all you needed to know that this would be a fun karaoke. In truth, Eddie didn't really sing. He really just did a Mark Knophler and spoke into the mic when he did his Corroded Coffin gigs.

When the song started, Steve on the floor rolled his eyes dramatically and started snapping his fingers. The amount of times you and Robin had put this on in his car, he knew the whole thing by heart. Robin immediately struggled to her feet ready to boogie. Nancy just lifted her head to look at Jonathan who was snapping off rhythm with Steve.

"Hit the road Jack! And don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more!" You sang. You're voice softer than before, much better suited to this tempo. You swayed your head from side to side with your hips between every 'no more'. Eddie was beaming. Who would have thought the girl wearing an Iron Maiden tee also knew of Ray Charles and loved this song in particular.

"What you say?!" He belted into his own mic. Getting on one knee and dramatically gesturing. He knew he was making an idiot of himself but he didn't care.

Robin bouncing along to the beat, her hair falling in front of her face. Steve, in a way only Steve could, flopping his messed up hair from side to side. Jonathan and Nancy in sync swaying from the waist up side to side, until eventually Steve joined in. Robin then climbed up on the table sending some of the presents to fall off onto the ground. She started dancing, really badly. But that just made you sing harder, with more power.

"Oh woman, oh woman. Don't treat me so mean" Eddie now on both of his knees in front of you, staring up into your eyes. "You're the meanest old woman that I've ever seen" he winked, putting his hand over his heart as if he had been hit.

You playfully pushed him away so he 'fell' down and put on a pained face. He got up on his feet, "I guess if you say so" on the trumpet toot he bopped his head with a single head bang, causing his hair to fly everywhere and become even messier than it was before. "I'll have to pack my things and go!"

"That's right!" You winked shyly back at him before continuing onto the chorus again. Matching the same floppy style of dancing that Robin was doing on the table. Just bouncing around. Dancing around the stage with Eddie, you were laughing between your words, messing up some of the notes. He shimmied towards you, and you thought you were going to collapse with laughter but you held on.

"Don't you come back no more" you put your hand on his chest, gently pushing him away from you.

"Oh now baby please" his eyes glinting with mischief. He stopped walking backwards and now stood firm, so your hand was now pressed tightly against his chest.

"Don't you come back no more" You blushed at this gesture and tried to pull your hand away, but his other hand that was free placed itself on top, trapping it.

"Oh, don't treat me like that" No longer singing, more of a purr into the microphone.

If you were able to comprehend your surroundings, you would have heard Steve "Excuse me?" in his mother tone. Followed by Nancy shushing him loudly and Robin and Jonathan screaming and wooing in the background.

"Don't you come back no more" You smiled as you sang the last line, looking at Eddie with a wide smile. Your legs were wobbling, but it wasn't just because of the alcohol. Eddie dropped the mic and took your hand that had been previously trapped, taking down the stairs off the stage.

"I think I better go home" You said, dragging your eyes away from Eddie's. Looking at how drunk Nancy and Jonathan had gotten. The song had slightly sobered you up along with Eddie being... Eddie.

"I'll take you" Eddie said quickly. Steve gave him a maternal death glare. "Don't worry big boy, I'll get her home safe." He patted Steve on the head. An action in which, if Steve had been sober and not on the floor, Eddie wouldn't exist anymore.

"Thank you, for the absolute best birthday everrrrrr!" Robin slurred her words slightly. She burped as she hugged you tightly.

After a second glance towards Eddie after being released from the death grip hug Robbie had inflicted upon you. You both decided that Eddie was in a better shape to drive everyone home rather than get back into Steve's car. Eddie didn't say anything, since he secretly wanted to take you home by himself but it was still early days.

You almost kicked Steve into the back of Eddie's van when he said, "don't forget to use protection" to both you and Eddie causing Eddie to raise his eyebrow and stare back at Steve.

You shoved Steve into the back, making him fall on top of Jonathan, "Yes, thank you Stevie!" Your face bright red.

Helping Robin and Nancy into the van, being more careful with Nancy since she looked like she was about to throw up. Nancy seeing Steve on top of Jonathan blurting out, "Oh so you're a bottom with him? Mister Floppy hair?" Making you and Eddie look at each other before shutting the van door. Robin yelling at Nancy for saying that and the boys blabbering nonsense.

Eddie ran round to the passenger side, opened the door for you and kissed your hand, "The chariot awaits for you, my lady" keeping his eye contact with you the hold time, grinning widely when your face went even redder.

You continue blushing all the way home, after everyone else had been dropped off. Getting out the van and walking to your door, Eddie stood still lie he was going to ask you something but couldn't find the words.

You gently leaned forward and gave him a gentle but quick kiss on the lips, making him match the shade of red you were. "See you tomorrow at 3" You whispered into his ear.

"Tomorrow?" Eddie breathed. You were fairly sure that his mind had stopped working by the look of complete blankness on his face.

"You're picking me up for our first official date" You grinned and turned to go inside and shut the door behind you.

Eddie drove back with a huge grin on his face. Maybe this relationship could work out with you after all.

If you liked this, please like and reblog, give feedback if you can. It really means a lot. I really appreciate it.

[yanderecandystore]

The bullies with an S/O that’s just completely off the board? Like no matter how much they look the bullies can’t find /anything/ on them, all their school papers are forged and their home just isn’t able to be found no matter how hard they look? Maybe due to the S/O changing their identity after doing something bad?

That's hella specific and I love it?? XD

Sure thing boo, let me see what I can do.

Also, I'll change the ocs profiles to be paper drawings with digital coloring because believe me boo, I'm tired of redrawing them (and I believe y'all are tired of always seeing these new drawings).

I noticed that my paper art is a lot better than my digital art, and although I'm kinda proud of them I still feel a little petty because I wish to do cool stuff on the computer ;-;.

Anyway, just a heads-up if you see something off with the oc's bios.

TW/Tags: I have no idea what to tag this lmao // identity theft // illegal/unauthorized inscription // not an accurate representation of university/how universities work lol // abusive household/abusive parents // I may or may not have changed your concept a little, I'm sorry for it 😔

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Suspicion (fuck yeah, I don't know what to title this) [Yandere!Bully OC x Reader - Headcanon]:

→Adrien Coldwell:

For a person that prides themselves as the "know it all" when it comes to people's social media and reputation, he doesn't know anything about you.

This is a first for him, which is both annoying and honestly so intriguing. You didn't strike him as a person who would hide any secrets, and he had a hunch this was about to be good.

He searched for social media first, not finding anything about Avery Remington. Well, at least nothing with your face on it.

However, he did find something very, very interesting while looking at the school's documents, specifically the archives of all the students that have already studied here. He honestly didn't think he would find anything about you in these old papers, he was probably doing all this stupid work for nothing.

However, he was half right and half wrong. He didn't find anything about you, but this whole search wasn't completely lost, as he did find "you", Avery.

"- Student name Avery Remington, average grades and apparently no history of wrong doings or any bad behavior in general. Their registration to the Academy dates to 1980."

Oh. Ooooh, this was rich.

"- Huh." He said closing the documents and letting it where he found it. He was at least kind enough to let the palace a little organize after going through each paper trying to find your name.

Well, "your name". The only things that he kept for himself was photos of both the old documents about Avery Remington, and the earlier documents about Avery Remington. It was clear that you did something probably really, really bad, and you know he'll take advantage of it.

He had built his own theory about this, as in: you somehow found the paperwork of Avery's registration and their previous school's records so you could somehow impersonate them and get a free entrance to this institution.

He knew that you had something to hide, no one can be so perfect. But knowing the action itself wasn't enough for him, he needed to know the motive behind it.

For someone that is lazy and doesn't bother to care about important things, he sure spent a lot of time trying to scoop some dirt on you. When he finds the perfect opportunity, without any witness around, he'll take the chance to use this information against you.

"- Well, hello "Avery"." His tone was already suspicious, his voice not hiding anything from you. He came here to belittle you for his own entertainment.

"- H-Hi Adrien." You said shyly, hoping that your anxious mind was wrong and that this was all just a misunderstanding. You were hoping that the growing feeling of him possibly knowing about your fraud, was wrong.

"- Ya know, I'm kinda jealous of whatever plastic surgery you went through to look so young, maybe you should ask the faculty to correct your age tho." He said while showing the pictures he took of the documents.

"- Wait! I-I can-"

"- Honestly, I didn't think you were over 60 years old! Could have fooled me." His smug face was the selling point. You knew that you wouldn't find any form to convince him that what was on his phone was false.

He had a victorious smile on his face. Ever since you entered this school you always acted a little too paranoid and almost too friendly for his liking, and to confess to himself that he has fallen for you would be the bottom of the pit to him.

Still, he wanted to know why you did it. Why didn't you pay to get in if you wanted the scholarship so badly? What, you were too poor for it?

And what about a talent, or the test? Obviously, the university hasn't gone out of their way to pick a loser like you and insert you inside their classes on a whim, as they thought you were Avery Remington, a student that is already registered in school's documents (yet, of course, their system haven't verified the date of the registration, either by incompetence or by a "small mistake"). So you didn't do the test too, simply pathetic honestly.

Your sad dramatic story explaining how you managed to get into the academy. You did your best to get into the academy by legal means, but they always rejected you. Apparently you thought it would be a good idea to use your grandparent's documents to squeeze yourself into the institution.

"- But why in hell would you do such a thing? Are you that pathetic dearest?"

"- I… I wanted somewhere to go. Somewhere I could grow into a better person, a-away from-" You cut yourself short when the memories of your old home started to come into view.

For some reason, your parents couldn't stand the idea of you getting into a decent university, if anything, they thought you weren't capable of even washing some dishes at the local pizzeria. In their eyes, you were worthless.

When you found out your grandparent used to frequent this institution, and that they managed to disattached themselves from their familial routes and thrive as a musician you got instantly inspired! Determined to follow their steps and prove your family that you're just as worth ass-

"- Urghhhh- Boring! I don't care about all of that. Are you serious? You committed a crime just so you could stick it up to your shitty parents?"

"- …. Yes?"

"- Huh. Geez you're cooler than I thought. Listen, how about we make a deal?"

The deal was simple, he would not tell anyone about your little secret, and he would even help you keep your scholarship and help you reach your ambitions as long as you started spending more time with him. Which, at first you thought it sounded absurd, this man is holding your whole life by a thin thread as long as you give him attention?? What?!

And although that sounded extremely suspicious, you accepted it, not knowing that for the next few years you would have to endure a harsh training to discover your talents and to improve them before you two graduated. However, you started to think Adrien was starting to see your deal in a different light-

"- Come on now, after this we can go eat something okay? Where would you like to go this time? Our last date I chose the best restaurant I know, so you better choose something of equal value."

…. Date?

→Alexandra Coldwell:

You were suspicious from the very start. Overly friendly and too- Ugh! Too cute?!

You were always skittish whenever someone called you. What, you had a problem with your name or something?

And the worst part was how no one seemed to know where you lived. Every group project with you was considered annoying by most of your classmates, as you never called people in your house or never let anyone have your address, not even your phone number??

You didn't have any social media, what are you, a weirdo? What the hell??!

She is not even pissed about you being a loser, she is pissed that she has fallen for someone like you! A complete weirdo that was always panicking over nothing.

She started stalking you with the intention of finding at least one thing that she could hate on you so she wouldn't feel so- Lovey dovey towards you!

But what she really found was something worth an entire gold mine.

A private phone call between you and someone who was losing their shit. She couldn't understand too much of the conversation as she didn't have any context, yet she could hear a lot of things that you and the person were discussing.

The person yelled [Y/N] multiple times while in the phone call, saying how you were absolutely the worst mistake of their lives (which by the way, rude much? Who is this asshole?), that you were a selfish brat that needed to learn to appreciate their hard work.

Oh… Oh. She now knows who you're talking with. She decided to record the entire thing the moment she saw you taking your cellphone to have a private call.

She was planning on recording your voice for her own hearing pleasure, but this? This was so… Interesting.

"- [Y/N]?" She called your attention after the conversation ended, and because you haven't been accustomed to people calling you "Avery", you turned around saying "what" instinctively.

And when you noticed Alexandra smirk for a split second, you regretted answering your parents call. Not that you needed anymore reason to regret it, but this was certainly the last nail in the coffin.

You begged for her to understand that you couldn't go back, you simply can't go back to them, ever again! You told her the whole sob story about how your grandparent had decided to run away from home and fulfil their own dreams as a musician, even if people didn't really hear their music all that much, and now that you think about it, that's probably the reason why no one have recognized their name at all.

Your grandparent had a really small fanbase, and you knew that because you were part of them. They weren't popular at all compared to Amaryllis Academy standards, yet they were happy singing their songs to the world.

You kinda wish your family hasn't broken the old recorder that belonged to your grandparent. Their first album was in there, it was cheesy and filled with errors, yet they sounded so happy when doing what they loved, and you wanted something like that for yourself!

You needed to live that hell hole and so you did. You rented a small apartment that was falling apart, the reason why you never gave people your address was because you knew they would bully the hell out of you because of how poor you are.

After finishing your story you noticed Alexandra snoring beside you. You thought she was only exaggerating, but then you saw her drooling and acting really dizzy after you woke her up.

"- Oh my God, so… That was it? You ran away to follow your dreams and stuff?" She asked, still kinda sleepy.

"- What? Of course it was-" You were fuming with anger, how dare she-

"- And I thought you only looked cool because I liked you! You're pretty strong for sticking up for yourself." She interrupted you, looking at you with admiration in her eyes.

She proposed to you a deal. How about you two keep this secret together, and, if anything does happen she'll still help you stay inside the institution. However, you'll need to work your ass out to become the best you can be, and you'll let her guide you through, because you're too much of a dummy to do it all by yourself. You'll have to spend time with her and let her help you out.

At first, you thought it sounded absurd, this woman is holding your whole life by a thin thread as long as you give her attention?? What?!

And although that sounded extremely suspicious, you accepted it, not knowing that for the next few years you would have to endure a harsh training to discover your talents and to improve them before you two graduated. However, you started to think Alexandra was starting to see your deal in a different light-

"- Why you never hold my hand? Come on, "Avery", won't you hold the hand of your dearest girlfriend?" She asked playfully while taking your hand anyway.

…. Girlfriend?

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[jean-does-not-have-a-horseface]

Before Dawn ~ Pt2~

Hii!! This is part two of my new series. I hope every one of you like it, I'll be tagging the story with it's title so it's easier to find.

Warnings: mentions of attempted murder

@wakatosji I figured I should tag you but if you don't want me to tag you its alright, I don't want to be annoying ❤️

Comfort tea

"Ew?" First goes Lynne. Her face is contorted with a puzzled expression as she lifts her eyebrow to Petra's sudden requiry.

"Well, yeah, kinda" Nanaba shoots a glare to Nifa, as if judging her for her choice of words before she simply brushes the question with waving her hand. Seconding that, as if she knows what you were about to say a few moments before she sets her blue set of eyes on you. A gulp finds its way down your throat as her cold gaze pierces through your body and it's not long until you get the message. The girls' voices echo through your head as if you're listening from afar for you're drunk in your own thoughts.

For instant, you hate the fact that the first time you try to willing open up about a new feeling, you're overshadowed. The urgent need to spill your guts on the subject becomes more prominent by every single minute passing and yet you force yourself to keep it in. You're not about to physically burst your guts like a corpse under the hot summertime sun because of your emotions, so you should be fine if you collect your impatient self.

"Shut up Petra, I'm serious." A playful chuckle leaves Lynne's mouth.

Maybe, it's the fact that Nanaba knows you too well that lifts some weight off of you for now when at the same time she's stopping you from saying something you'll regret. And thus, you bite your lip and reluctantly decide to ignore the throbbing of your own thoughts.

"He handpicked me for his squad!"

:readmore:

Oddly enough you don't feel any jealousy creeping in your system by hearing Petra's words thanks to Nanaba putting you in your place. Even though, you're sadly reminisced of various scenes of your past where you've been in this very position after your mother has barked at you to stay in place you utter not a single word. Your head almost always automatically goes blank so you're not taken aback by your lack of reaction. Whatever Petra says you're sure going to overthink later, when sleep won't be willing to take you for the night.

"Captain really needs someone else in his squad right? Everyone has five members and he has four. (Y/n) why are you even in Mike's team, you could fill this blank right?"

"It's a special operations squad Nifa you dummy! He handpicked everyone!" Petra's adorable bunny smile is directed towards Nifa this time who gives her a cute puckered smirk of approval in return. It's almost too precious of an interaction for you to miss.

"Mike handpicked (y/n), right after me." Nanaba's voice bores casually into conversation while she takes her eyes away from her plate and lands them onto you. "So, what were you about to say?"

"Uhm" Your mind trails back to today's most random event "Henning imitated Tomas after I said good morning and scream 'nice tits (y/n)'. I totally gave him the finger." This simple choice of words helps avoid any unnecessary drama in your girls group. At least you had some dignity not to throw hands over a man anyways.

_____

"Hange stop squishing my cheeks, I can't sit with the higher ups."

"But you did last week!"

"You dragged me!"

Hange's response is only a silent hmf followed by her ever so memorable toothy mischievous grin. She begins taking steps towards you that only increase as one foot follows the other. Despite not being in a playful mood, you decide that running seems to be the best thing to do in the moment to get yourself away from her. If she catches you, she's dragging you with her once again.

Your heart is erratically pounding in your chest as you sprint down the many hallways of the headquarters, out of breath and dizzied by hunger. You reluctantly pause for a second to catch your breath amidst waiting for the inevitable to happen. Devil sure works hard but Hange and her determination work harder, you're reminded of that everyday, you tell yourself, not only when her hand lands onto your shoulder. You mentally punch yourself in the throat for not keeping your body in a better shape.

"I am not letting you starve again, let's go!"

All while during dinner you converse with Mike and Erwin on shortage of hygienic and sanitary products, something that concerns the commander excessively. Soldiers' access to basic necessities is always a top priority in the Scouting Region and commanders are to always tend to their needs. Erwin is and should be no different.

Levi seems to have his mind in your conversation and ignores Hange entirely while she's speaking some Titan nonsense to him. His eyes often widen when Erwin expresses concern on lack of soap and talks about his predictions on its practical annihilation, but it's only what you utter next that grabs his attention enough for him to turn his head in your direction.

"We can make soap. We don't have to keep putting orders for it to be made. I was taught to make soap at home and I'm sure many other girls know."

Silence spreads fast as if a traveling shadow on sunset on the table after you speak. Erwin's batting his eyes in yours, Mike too and Levi looks at you with that usual unamused expression of his. How come they had never thought about that?

Well probably because it wasn't always that there was such shortage in almost fucking everything.

"My office after dinner, cadet." Levi speaks, breaking the silence with his stern sounding voice. "There's something I need to discuss with you."

__

"Yes sir!" You reply in a heartbeat with a small bow of your head.

Not long after, the distinguishable tone of the curfew bell fills the air, making most soldiers get up from their seats instantly. Levi sits still in his spot as his fellow higher ups bid him with farewells and goodnights to which he replies with casual, nonchalant hums. Upon seeing most of the plebe has left he orders you to stand up and follow him.

He can't help but take a few vague looks of you with the corner of his left eye and he wonders if you do the same from time to time as you march behind him. It doesn't take long for the two of you to reach his quarters, but when you do he takes a stand to unlock the door before proceeding to let you in, him following asuit behind you.

"Here have a seat." He offers unsure of where to point to except for the dark colored loveseat near his desk. "I wanted to know how you even took the knife out of my hands." He watches as your facial expression turns into something along the lines of an almost undetectable disgust and sorrow, your brows forrow and your lips pucker. You couldn't hide it even if you wanted to and maybe the fact that he provoked such reaction from you bit suddenly on his gut and kept chewing on it.

"Just because you were a thug, doesn't mean you're the only one who gets to handle a knife you know." You finally answer, scratching and scrunching your nose in uneasiness. Almost mechanically, the next question comes out of his mouth without remorse.

"Oi what does a brat like you want to do with a knife. You don't strike me as the thug type. You're too uptight for that." A few moments later his gut is going to make him regret ever asking you in the first place.

"Uptight? Ugh, why would you even care, I bet your mother didn't try to murder you in your sleep or with any chance she could."

He grits his teeth inside his mouth and immediately closes his eyes in horror. That horrible feeling of his gut being chewed forms into bits and pieces of wild inner comburst within his organs. Though he cannot phantom what you have been through, he is able of making vivid potential images in his mind that will probably contribute to another sleepless night.

He turns to face you in hopes of being able to mouth anything that could cut through the uneasy tension he's created but at the sight of you he's overthrown. That heart breaking sob that leaves your lips, those thick streams of tears down your cheeks, he won't make it if he keeps looking at you in this condition, all he wants to do is scream, for he's witnessed enough cruelty and damage in this world and it seems that it's never enough. Human bloodlust is never enough.

"I'm s-sorry. I just. Why did I say that?" You faintly utter with uncertainty masking your shaky voice.

"It's fine, as long as you get over it." He definitely despises himself because of that line because in the name of heaven and hell how do you simply ask someone to get over such trauma without sounding like an entitled asshole. The motions that his eyes catch in the dim light of his office are skinny, hard but fragile at the same time and they all hint to you wanting to leave, presumably due to the lack of consolation on his part. He just determined he'll do better. You helped Isabel back on the day so he lets you this one.

"I-I'll excu-"

"Do you have any prefered beverages?"

"M-milk tea" you quietly huff. He's not quite sure whether a drink will ease your boiling pain, but at least he's hoping it'll soothe your current state.

His heart is officially aching with agony and pain that refuses to mellow even a notch, even if he begs to any profoundly selfclaimed wall God. Ever since a year ago he's been living within the heart of crime and downgrade garbage, respected for his violent ways and easily feared for his inhuman skills. In that dirty, shit smelling drain, overpopulated with humans or rats -or probably both, he can't possible distinguish them- who piss in any corner they find, he thought he'd seen any gruesome thing a man can do, but that rough melancholy in your eyes convinces him he's so casually wrong.

"I apologise for bringing such subject up, (y/n), here's your tea. Though due to shortages we don't have any milk." You matter him a word of gratitude as he sets the cup next to you. He'll never let you know, but he notices you're surprised by his actions even in that state you're in.

"She's dead. My mother. She died last month and-" you trail off your words "I guess it's more of me being emotionally chained to my abuser." Levi just pops his head in his palms and sighs deeply at the sound of that but never comes to find the right line up his textureless thoughts should take for him to form a sentence.

"Kinda looks like piss don't you think?"

"Huh?" If he could hear your words correctly and not partially because of the turbulence in his mind he would have thought of an instant smart come back.

"The tea, it looks like piss." At the sound, he barely manages to hold in a chuckle.

He knows yet he manages to only scoff in response. "I had to tremendously water it down, be mindful." He opts to suggest always in that bland tone of his.

"Do other people except from us drink it like that?"

"I desperately want to doubt that anyone cares to provide for your golden shower enthusiasm, so no. This is some of my personal stash."

The two of you enjoy your comfort tea in sheer silence. Levi can't take his eyes off of you, not that he's trying to, but he tries to convince himself it's only because you've verbally shared your trauma with him. In return, for some of his, he didn't have to share, you were there to see Isabel's head laying on the blood stained grass with Farlans upper body accompanying it. He wants to speak up, but his mouth is seldomly never in a place to voice out the exact thoughts in his head, so even if he tells you about Kenny and his childhood you never get to hear it. In addition, he's not the one to try and overshadow somebody who speaks about themselves by sharing his experience so the comfortable silence that has sprawled in the whole of his office is more than enough.

______

Here's the deal. Henning likes Lynne, Lynne likes Tomas, Tomas likes you and you like Captain Levi, not that hard to grasp right? As long as no one neglects their soldier duties everything is fine.

It's a plain sunny Sunday in the Survey Corps headquarters. Mike is on a day out, perhaps strolling around the city of Trost in chance of finding any merchant to provide for soldiers necessities, while you're assigned with cleaning his office.

Levi is standing at the doorframe, back pressed upon it with his hands crossed over his chest as he supervises the six of you go. He promised the blond squad leader to keep an eye on his team seeing that things would get heated up pretty easily nowadays, ending up in heated arguments most of the time as well.

Every time his eyes meet yours you avert your gaze away, specifically to the floor you're set on scrubbing until your hands bleed. He can't help but notice it. Small little movements of awkwardness from his part make you tense even if you're oblivious to his awareness of the fact.

"Tch" He tries his best to shake you off the territory you're occupying in his mind. It's not right for him to endulge in something frowned upon after having just received a position as a high rank. That's not his purpose here. Emotions should never color your judgement in battlefield.

"I'm taking a break." You call to the others as you stand from your kneeling position. You pat your hands dry on the sides of your hips and you hope Levi doesn't notice, because you won't see the end of this.

"I'm coming with you! Wait for me." Tomas announces and you respond a soft 'sure' along with a warm smile. "Ah God, I'm so thirsty!" The two of you walk past Levi at the door, but you never spare him a look, in fact you're too invested in your small talk with Tomas to even ask for permission to excuse yourselves.

"Love birds, huh Nanaba?" Gelgar elbows the blonde with puckered his lips, a ridiculous expression plastered on his face. "I wonder how long until we get the good news-"

"Gelgar just shut up."

"What Lynne? Poor Tomas might finally get his chance with the kid."

Lynne loves you and your group of friends deeply. She and Nanaba are probably the big sisters of the group. They've stuck with you, Nifa and Petra through thick and thin, through bloodshed and tragedy, so she's not mad at you for having caught Tomas' attention. With your melancholic youthful face, (h/c) hair that blows softly in the wind, with the way you pucker your lips when you're determined or angry. She's probably mad at herself for never acting on that cadet trainee crush she had on Tomas. She sets her mind on recovering quickly from it.

Despite opening her mouth to speak, she notices it's not her voice that's heard, but in fact it's a deeper, almost nasal one.

"Set to work, tch, don't waste your energy on royal teenage drama."

"Sir! Yessir!"

Irritated, Levi bites the inside of his cheek, without ever changing the look in his eyes. You were kind and behaved well mannered to everyone, that was all. That was was led you to act nice to Isabel and what led her to speak highly of you to him. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

"It's alright! Get up" with your eyes shut, you smile at the redhead who's sprawled across the grass while holding out your hand to her. Isabel smiles back and she proceeds to take your hand, taking another chance to spare with you again.

For a few nights she won't shut up about you. How you don't look down on her like other girls do, how you iron her clothes just like her big bro does.

"I'm going to miss her when were free of here, Farlan!" The red head takes a bite of her bread and munches softly on it. Before she even has a chance to speak another word she feels a hand ruffle her hair but notices that Levi's hands are concentrated on the simple task of feeding food in his mouth. She spares you a heart warming smile and wave but you fail to reciprocate as your friends gesture you to sit.

"You're gonna make me miss her too and I don't even know her." Farlan says and places a hand at the top of his head, scratching a soft spot.

"Ahh, big bro! Can we kidnap her!"

"We're not kidnapping anyone. We need to focus on our mission alright Isabel?"

Isabel shushes at this but doesn't fail to shoot you a glare. And this time you respond with a wave. Whatever you lack in word choosing skills you make up for kind acts. She wishes they kidnap you, she needs a female friend anyways.

Hey you there, yes you, thanks for taking time and reading this, I appreciate it more than I can express. If you want to see me write something for you make sure to leave a request in my askbox! Any comments on how you're enjoying the story are also very appreciated. Much love until next time 💕

[starship-squidlet]

 “I’m going to pogo stick my way out of here”

Ahhh I’m sorry it took me so long to write this!!! I set it in the Theatre AU, so I hope that’s okay, and I hope you enjoy it!

Prompt from this list

Word count: 1,075

“Ugh,” Elaine groaned, heaving a misshapen plastic bin stuffed full of fabric up onto the cutting room table. “This is my least favorite thing.”

“I thought you said you liked inventory,” Sarah laughed, already marking off a new section on the sheet of scrap paper in front of her. “What’s this one?”

“Uh… Polar fleece, bin two of three.”

“Two of three?”

“Yeah, but… Where are the other two?”

On the floor on the other side of the room, Crutchie laughed. He was surrounded by piles of jewelry that he was sorting, reorganizing, and inventorying for the updated costume storage binder that the three of them were working on. They had quickly discovered that very little of the organizational “system” in the cutting room—or costume storage in general, which was also spread over the sewing and receiving rooms on the third floor, as well as most of the basement two floors down—made any sense, and was horribly out of date, as things had been thrown out and added to storage without being logged in the inventory lists. Fabric storage was possibly the worst off, and Elaine and Sarah had been slogging through the wall full of storage bins for almost the entire week, pulling out, measuring, logging, and refolding fabric cuts, swatches, and scraps, while Crutchie sorted through endless drawers, smaller bins, and other storage containers full of things like pocket squares, jewelry, socks, undershirts, and much more.

In the rest of the theatre, the boys on the crew were doing similar work. Jack and Albert had been pulled by Weisel for props organizing, and were up to their elbows in dust and dirt in the storage hole above stage left. Jack pulled a plastic bin off of a shelf and began to sputter and cough as a cascade of dust and a handful of dead bugs poured off down onto his head. “Gross,” he groaned, trying to brush it off, onto the floor instead of the other props around him.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Albert made a face as he ran a finger across the top of a toy drum, leaving a streak in the layer of dirt there.

“Why do we keep some of this stuff?” Jack asked, opening the offending bin to reveal that it was stuffed full of cheerleader’s pom-poms.

“Christmas stuff needs to be saved because shows are recycled, and you never know what you might need for them when they get redesigned anyways,” Albert droned, repeating the line that they heard regularly from Weisel and the other authority figures around them when similar questions were posed. “And other stuff is really the same thing: you never know when you might need it again.”

“How often do we really need cheerleading pom-poms?” Jack asked, holding one up and shaking it, the plastic rustling.

“Well, we did just use some for Ovation, last summer,” Albert mused. “None of those, obviously.” Both boys laughed, Jack shoved the pom back into the bin, and placed it on their pile of “things to ask Weisel if we can please throw away”.

.*.*.*.*.*.

That afternoon, as the crew was wandering out of the theatre into the brisk winter air—not cold enough to need anything more than a light jacket, and a few of the boys weren’t even wearing those—they were chattering cheerfully amongst themselves, happy to be out in the bright sun and fresh air.

“Hey, Laine, Crutchie,” Jack grinned, appearing between his roommates and slinging his arms around their shoulders as they headed for the front of the building to walk home. “You guys find anything cool today?”

“Check it out!” Elaine said, holding up a misshapen white tophat, the tags still attached. “Brand new. They couldn’t use it for the show they bought it for, ‘cause it was so messed up, so Weisel said I could keep it. It was going to get thrown out otherwise, because of the way the brim is warped and stuff. Perfectly good—well, not good, but useable—and brand new.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Jack asked.

“I dunno,” Elaine shrugged. “But it’s cool.”

Jack laughed.

“What about you?” Crutchie asked. “You guys find anything cool or weird or whatever?”

“Oh, yeah; check it out.” Jack pointed across the parking lot, towards Finch, Elmer, JoJo, Albert, and Race clustered together near their cars, laughing about something. As they watched, Albert’s head popped up over everyone else’s, bobbed up and down a few times, and then Race and JoJo lunged to catch him as he fell.

“What is that?” Elaine laughed.

“Come on,” Jack grinned, steering the other two towards the group.

As they got closer, the object Albert was holding became visible: a pogo stick.

“Where did you find that?” Crutchie asked as Albert started to climb back up onto the device, JoJo hovering worriedly behind him in case he fell again.

“Props hole, over stage left,” Albert grunted as he took a test hop forward. When he didn’t immediately fall over, he kept going, making it almost a full six feet before losing his balance and starting to fall.

“Albert,” Elaine groaned. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

“Or at least break something,” Finch grumbled.

“No, I’m not,” Albert grunted as he untangled himself from the pogo stick. “I’m going to pogo stick my way out of here.”

“Pogo stick your way to death, more like,” Race laughed.

“Oh, ye of little faith!” Albert retorted.

“I’m literally watching you right now. I have the appropriate amount of faith.” ”I’m getting better,” Albert protested.

“That’s what everyone says,” said Finch, “right before they fall and break their face.”

“I feel doubted,” said Albert.

“Oh, one hundred percent,” said Finch. “The only thing I don’t doubt right now is that you’re going to get hurt.”

Albert stuck his tongue out and started to climb back up onto the pogo stick, only to immediately start to fall towards the asphalt, a look of horror frozen on his face. JoJo scrambled to try and catch him, the others lunging uselessly forward with no way to cross the distance in time to help, but he managed to get a foot down to partially catch himself to avoid slamming into the pavement.

“You okay?” JoJo asked, helping Albert once again untangle himself from the pogo stick.

“Yeah,” Albert laughed sheepishly. “Maybe you guys are onto something. There’s a slight possibility I should get some pads before I try and master this thing.”

[angelic-guardienne]

When You Get Kicked Out

so I have been going THROUGH it these past nine months, not pregnant or anything lol, just hoo boy a whole fucking LOT, which is way too much to unpack in just one tidy author’s note so i’ll just leave it at that. 

when I wrote this (literally just now, like this is straight from draft 1 to posting no editing because I’m really tired but I can’t sleep and it’s 6 am!), it was titled “relevant to my situation but not so specific that it feels like a callout post for me by me” so. And this is just!! a portion!! but i already wrote myself a therapeutic little vent piece which I probably won’t post bc it’s really really personal, but yeah. um. I’m so tired. and i’m big mad that I’ve been so absent.

tumblr formatting has me kinda mad but we’ll make do. um shit I gotta do the tag list huh. rip.

Tagging: UGH @blindedstarlight @magictactic200 @honey-your-bee-puns-sting @bestchocobois @glacian-apocalypse @jaysfandomcorner @tiniestofqueens @tales-of-a-fallen-star mmmmmmm i’m sorry i really can’t keep it up :(

--

to start, this definitely 10000% takes place in an AU where the bros all live together to be able to afford the insane rent prices in the city of Insomnia (but still have a guest bedroom), and you’re their friend/polyamorous significant other/idk whatever, close enough that this scenario can happen

your parents kick you out. and you don’t have anywhere to go! and no money to get a place for yourself! so you’re kinda fucked!!

you didn’t wanna tell the bros initially bc you didn’t want to burden them with your issues but you accidentally let it slip to Prompto (who just has a way of coaxing out that shit, somehow) and he talked it over with the others and now they literally will not let you not move in with them bc they’d much rather that than you being on the streets

sweet boys

so you set up in the guest bedroom and they help you unpack everything even though you’re kinda on the fence about it bc you’re honestly thinking this is just gonna be a temporary thing (they are NOT on that wavelength)

because they’re there for you to help, unpacking goes a lot faster (though it is kind of stressful getting Noctis to respect the way you put your clothes in your drawers, there’s a system and he just doesn’t get it okay) 

(you and gladio butt heads a little bit as well but it doesn’t ever amount to anything -- you keep changing your mind about where you want that lamp and he’s really tired of moving it every few minutes) 

once everything is unpacked, ignis helps you get organized and helps you store all of your stuff in a space-efficient manner (they may or may not elevate the bed for that sweet sweet extra storage space) 

once that is done, prompto will help you decorate so it really feels more homey (it’s not home yet, and he knows that, but he wants you to be as comfortable as possible)

but all of that is really fucking exhausting, so if you call for a break or start generally falling out of it, the boys move the party to the couch for bigass blanket sharing and watching stupid videos and/or movies

once you’re all unpacked and at least a little more comfortable, they start trying to ease you into some normalcy through a routine. 

they want you to be a part of their day, so they’ll invite you to join them when they do stuff. if you’re like me and develop some temporary insomnia under extreme stress, your day starts with prompto and noctis. if you’re a ride or die early riser, your day starts with ignis and gladio

if your sleep schedule doesn’t fit either of those categories, you’re more likely to catch all four of them chillin round the house (in the absence of errands)

once you get settled into that and find your place in the home dynamic, they start trying to focus on addressing your stress levels and coping mechs/unpacking all of that trauma

whatever was the reason for you getting kicked out, they wanna know about it (on your terms, they won’t make you tell them before you’re ready)

Noctis probably has the least amount of tact when it comes to this -- maybe the most depending on what it was -- he’s definitely the most blunt about bringing it up. 

talking about it is hard -- they’ve been there for most of it already, but talking about everything as a whole and how it culminated at you losing your home is just. hard. and they understand that

ignis is at the ready with your favorite comfort foods and drinks and gladio is giving you a relaxing massage to help with the stress and tension

bro if affection is your thing then you will!! be given!!!! affection!!! hugs, kisses, cuddles, sex, whatever you need, there’s literally four of them so all of that is in pretty much endless supply

if you just want platonic shit!!! playing video games!! cards!! board games!! reading in the same room!! just sitting together and not really interacting except showing each other wack memes!!! they are here for that too!!!

if you just gotta be outside!! gladio will take you to his favorite spots!! 

if you just wanna nap!! cuddle up with noctis!!!

if you just want a good laugh!!! prompto is your guy!!!

if you just wanna vibe and bake and/or cook or just make fuckin drinks!!! ignis is right there!!!

basically what I’m saying is that if your parents kick you out, you’ll be moving in with your best bros and they will help you work through all that shit while being as supportive and caring as possible and making sure that you know that you are loved and that you always have a place with them!!

[blissfulalchemist]

“Oh! So we’re keeping score now?” + “Are you forgetting who my parents are?” + “Two can play at that game.” For Liz and Wyatt? 😘😘😘

“Are you forgetting who my our parents are?” had a little change there. 

Tiny Dancer living on main in a 6.8k debut!

The end of the day shrill overtook the hallway as Liz organized her textbooks, getting the ones that she needed together for the weekend ahead. Ideally she should just bring all of them home with her, get a head start on some of the history report due before the holiday break. Wyatt though seemed to have other plans as he pleaded with Liz, “Come on, Liz,” he leaned on his shoulder against the lockers, black hair falling into his eyes, “You never come out with me. It’s just one little party.”

Liz laughed slamming the locker shut, “I have been to parties with you Wyatt. I just can’t go out this weekend. I’m grounded, remember.”

“Ugh, you’re always grounded,” he leaned back against the lockers looking up to the ceiling, eyes quickly looking down to her, “What did you get grounded for again? Was it the billboard or ditching class for the protest in Missoula?”

“They were one and the same Wyatt,” she reminded him, “but the ditching school is the official story,” Liz poked his arm, cocking an eyebrow, “and that’s how it’s gonna stay.”

“You know what I don’t get?” He turned to look down at her, “Why haven’t they just made you live with your dad? Seems like he can control you better and you get to see the world.”

Liz gave him a smirk, “Have you met me Wyatt? I’d have been wanted in three countries by now, forcing me to be on the run.” Liz patted his chest, “Better I just get in trouble here in the states.”

The two laughed as Wyatt pushed himself off the lockers, making their way to the auditorium, Wyatt putting his arm around her shoulders, “Seriously though Liz, why can’t you just ask to come with me?”

“Why does this party matter so much to you anyway?” Liz stepped away from him walking backwards a few steps pointing to him, “Or better question, why is it so important that I go with you to this one?”

He gave an exasperated sigh, “Mom and dad said I couldn’t go unless you’d be there with me,” he rolled his eyes brushing his hair out of his eyes, “Something about the buddy system or something like that.”

“Haven’t you gone to parties without me before though?”

“Yeah to people that didn’t have the reputation Kobie Wicks does though,” Oh that’s why, “You’ve heard the kind of parties he throws, his parents having all that money and their house. I mean I’m not wanting to party at the same level as some of the other attendees but still you know how it can be.”

She turned, flipping her hair, “If your parents won’t let you go, what makes you think that mom and dad will let me go?” The two opened the door to the auditorium, setting their things down in the back rows, the chatter of other students hushing their voices, “Especially while I’m supposed to be grounded. Pretty sure that’s why Tia said no to you.”

He gave a shrug of his shoulders, “Then lie about why you need to be out tomorrow night,” he grabbed his change of clothes from the bag, looking at the clock on the wall, “We can tell your parents that we have a project to work on and then we tell mine that you were allowed to go.” 

Liz crossed her arms, brow raising as she looked up to him, “Wyatt,” he smiled, eyes hopeful, “are you forgetting who our parents are?” He shook his head, Liz giving him a light punch on the arm, “So what makes you think that’ll work? It’s not like our parents just met once we became friends you know? They were all friends way before we were even thoughts in their heads. They’d call our bluff faster than we could even tell them.” She shook her head, bending down to change her shoes, “There’s no way around this Wyatt. I know you want to go, but there’s nothing we can do to make this work.”

“You know, still doesn’t seem fair that you get to rehearse in your everyday clothes for the musical,” he grumbled, quickly hiding himself in the soundbooth to switch pants.

“Well it would be more accurate for Mamma Mia if I was able to stay in my boots though with my overalls,” Liz rolled her eyes, “But no, I could hurt my ankle. Not like I haven’t climbed out of windows or up trees in them before.”

Wyatt’s eyes lit up as he walked back out to her, quickly changing his shirt, “There is one thing we can do,” he gave Liz a smirk leaning closer to her, “We can both just sneak out.”

“Sneak out?” He nodded, “You want to sneak out and go to a party neither of us would ever be allowed to go to,” she crossed her arms looking up at him.

“Yeah,” Wyatt’s blue-green eyes flicked to the stage seeing the last of the other student actors straggling in, “We just take a page out of Uncle Chance’s book and we just sneak out. Those parties run late into the night and early morning, so we’ll be back before any of them wake up.”

“Wessy is always up early though,” Liz pointed out.

Wyatt scoffed, “What you think he comes and checks up on me when he wakes up and tucks me in again?” Liz gave a quick raise of her eyebrows shrugging, “And your mom sleeps in, so we won’t be found out.”

“You think you have this all thought out don’t you?” He nodded, Liz rolled her eyes. A smile like that only meant he was gonna do it either way at this point, someone had to save him from himself, “Well if we do this you have to figure out how we get there,” Wyatt’s smile grew holding his hand up for a high five, “and when you figure that out text me in our code so we can pull this off.”

“You got it, Lizzy,” she rolled her eyes, slapping her hand against his, “Just watch it’s gonna be worth it. We’ll have so much fun.” I hope so Wyatt. I hope so, the teacher called for them to take their places on the stage, their planning cut short.

Saturday night came and Liz couldn’t help but pace around her room making sure everything was how it should be, all in an attempt to make sure that no one was going to come and check up on her. Not that anyone would but she still couldn’t help but worry about it. Liz felt she really shouldn’t have been seeing as she snuck out before this, maybe it was just the destination this time that had her on edge. She didn’t even like going to the parties all the time, no one really liked her and it felt being at parties made her reputation tank more than raise it. At least this time she tried to look like she could fit in, taking another look at the skinny jeans, off shoulder floral print crop top, and black suede heeled booties. The top was tighter than she was used to, in fact the whole outfit was, and for once she did her hair and makeup to match the girls at school, she actually looked like someone her age, or well those that were cooler than her at school. 

Her phone dinged with a picture of a golden retriever, her signal that Wyatt was there and time for her to make her way down the side of the house. Liz slipped her purse across her body, grabbing the wooden wedge as she slipped out the window. She lodged the wedge in place keeping the window open enough to let her back in by the end of the night. Liz looked down to the ground making sure her feet rested on the top of the window on the first floor, before shuffling over to make herself closer to the fence surrounding the house. Once there she easily made her way down it, this stunt normally done in her taller go-go boots. She landed on the grass silently, Wyatt’s arms helping in making her fall quieter in the still night. She smiled up at him brushing the dirt off her knees. 

He waved for her to follow him, placing her on his back once they reached the concrete, stopping her heeled shoes from giving them away. Once a safe distance he placed her back on the ground, “Car’s just a little farther away,” he whispered, stuffing his hands in the pockets of the old leather jacket.

“How did you manage to get the car without them knowing?” Liz asked, a little impressed, rubbing her upper arms, she should have grabbed something with longer sleeves.

“Just borrowed one from Tommy, said I needed it for a project,” he explained, pulling the keys out, “Which means I get it until tomorrow afternoon without any questions.”

Liz shook her head holding back her laughter, “Tommy is too nice to you sometimes Wyatt. What did you agree to give him this time?” She smirked as he held the door open for her, “Not another week of slavery I hope.”

He slammed the door taking his place in the driver’s seat, “A dance lesson. Wants to impress some girl at a cotillion so that’s what I get to do next week.”

“I see no difference Wyatt,” Liz turned on the radio, checking her makeup and hair in the small car mirror, “That boy has two left feet. I should know, I had the bruises after homecoming to prove it.”

He laughed making his way to the main road, “Well then I will endure for us having some unsanctioned fun. When was the last time we did?”

“Hmmm, pretty sure the sophomore summer grounding,” Liz responded, reapplying her lipstick.

Wyatt thought a moment before laughing, “Oh yeah! That was the year you helped the seniors pull off their prank. I still believe you were in the right to help them, the principal deserved it, he was a dick most of the time.”

“Thank you! At least you’re still in my corner for that one,” she flashed him a smile as he kept his eyes on the road, “I would have gotten off Scott free if I didn’t have to put my political statement on the prank, cause I was young and stupid.”

Wyatt looked over to Liz as she adjusted her outfit, “You went with something different tonight?” She looked down, eyes wide, “No, no, not in a bad way. It looks nice Liz,” he focused back on the road clearing his throat, “Still like your normal style but you look really nice. Might have to keep people off of ya.”

She looked away hiding the small blush coming to her cheeks, “I think I can handle myself Wyatt.”

“Oh I know but there might be too many for you to take on all at once. I gotta help you, we’re a tag team you and me.” He pulled up to the party, parking behind a small line of cars along the driveway, the bass shaking the windows. The two looked at each other smiling, hearts pounding to the beat of the music, “Okay we still gotta drive so no hard liquor and max-. What time is it?” 

Liz looked to her phone, “Eleven thirty.”

“Okay so max three drinks with equal or more parts water slash non-alcoholic drinks. Got it?” Liz nodded, Wyatt taking a deep breath, “Alright, let’s do this.”

“Wait,” she grabbed his arm, “What time does our carriage turn into a pumpkin?”

Wyatt thought for a moment, “Three just to play it safe.” The two nodded, performing their secret handshake before stepping out of the car. The lights were dimmed and accented by the flowing colors of a few light fixtures ranging from disco balls to star projectors, the outdoor areas with regular lighting. From the looks of it every one of the upperclassmen were in attendance, including a few recent graduates from the year before, each one a different level of intoxication and high. Wyatt’s eyes scanned the room spotting a few drinking games, varying dance floors, and other games that seemed to be getting started, Liz wide eyed as she took it in.

“Where do we start tonight, Brooks?” Liz asked a smile coming to her face, noticing the few stares the two of them were getting, eyes lingering on her more. “Drinks then dancing?”

“You read my mind,” he smiled pulling her to the kitchen getting their night started. The two bounced throughout the activities separating at times when Liz got held up in conversation or Wyatt decided to try his hand at seven minutes in heaven, he only got lucky two out of the six times he tried. The attention Liz got felt unnerving to her as people couldn’t stop talking to her, pulling her to the dance floor, or offering her drinks. People that never paid much mind to her in school were suddenly acting as if they had been friends forever. A single night where Liz didn’t feel like such an outcast and she was actually enjoying it….until she nearly got thrown into the pool by a football player. Wyatt managed to help pull her away just in time, walking them to a beer pong table.

“Thanks for that,” she yelled, making sure he heard her over the music.

“It’s no problem. That’s the fifth time tonight I’ve had to save you,” he laughed ruffling her hair.

She pushed his hand away, “Oh! So we’re keeping score now? Cause if I recall I’ve saved you from three girls, two boyfriends of said girls, an ex of yours, and yourself from jumping off the roof.”

Wyatt waved her off, “I was gonna be fine and you know it,” he took a sip of his drink, Liz noticing that it didn’t look like the beer they were supposed to be drinking, “You just didn’t want me to take the attention away from you.”

Liz gave a loud laugh, “You were gonna biff it,” she pointed to his cup curious, “Thought no hard liquor tonight?” He looked down to it giving her a sheepish smile, Liz stopping any explanation from him, “Don’t worry about it, I’m on drink two so I’ll stop and drive us home. You can stay with me tonight.”

“Won’t that defeat the idea of us sneaking out though?” Wyatt asked, his body starting to move along to the music.

Liz shook her head, “Nah. We just say you had a hard night and needed a friend. They can’t fault us for that.”

His eyes went wide, “Won’t they think we’re together though? Like together together.” 

She rolled her eyes playfully putting her hand on his shoulder, “Wyatt, the minute they start thinking that is the minute we call them seniors, cause they’re blind as hell.”

The two almost toppled over as Carmina embraced them from behind, “Hey you two,” her blue eyes looking between them, “Can I request you two love birds’ presence on the dance floor?”

Liz rolled her eyes, feeling her cheeks getting warm, “We’re not together, Carmina. Don’t know how many times I have to remind you of that.”

“Then don’t look like you are,” she teased, grabbing their hands, “Come on let’s go dance!”

Liz and Wyatt followed her out to the floor getting lost in the music that played, the two ignoring the time as it passed. Liz had felt herself sobering up as she and Wyatt worked their through more games, conversations, and meeting the new friends Carmina had made at the community college. The three of them had just finished making their way through beating everyone at darts, and even with the slight sway in Wyatt, he was making near dead center shots, collecting the twenty dollar bet against a recent graduate by the time Liz looked to the clock on her phone, eyes growing wide.

She brought the phone screen up to Wyatt, “We gotta go!”

He was ready to laugh her off when he saw the clock reading four in the morning, “Oh fuck!” They left Carmina’s side without a goodbye Wyatt having to stop setting his drink down reaching for the keys in his coat pocket, his fumbling hands dropping them. Liz reached down to get them, a football player snatching them first, “Hey give them here!” Wyatt called out.

“Hey Jason,” their classmate called out, catching the eye of a teammate of his, “Catch!”

“Hey!” Liz yelled running to try and catch the keys before Jason did. His taller frame had him snatching them from the air. “Give those here Jason!”

He smirked, tossing them back to his friend, Wyatt trying to catch them to no avail, “Catch them and you can have them.” The keys were tossed towards Liz again, jumping up to try and catch them, Jason holding her to the ground. 

“Now you’re just playing dirty,” she glared up at him, hands on her hips.

Jason gave her a shrug holding the keys above her, “We can always work out another deal you know,” her eyes narrowed watching as his grey eyes moved up her body slowly, “You don’t have to leave the party just yet.”

“Fuck no,” she tried to jump for them again, Wyatt coming up behind her, “Now give them back!”

Wyatt took the distraction to snatch the keys back, earning a glare from Jason, “Come on Liz let’s get out of here,” Wyatt said pushing her towards the door.

“I won’t be so nice next time Jason! I can promise you that,” Liz called out before leaving the house, Wyatt handing her the keys. “Stupid Jason thinking he can get what he wants just by playing stupid games,” Liz grumbled opening the passenger door for Wyatt, “He’s got another thing coming, cause two can play at that game. Doesn’t even know that I have the power to fail him in math class.”

“Liz,” Wyatt said softly as she started the car, she glanced at him with her brown eyes, “forget about him. He’s just some jerk. Not worth being petty over.”

She sighed putting the radio on low, “You’re right, I just never liked him and tonight didn’t help his case.”

Wyatt gave her a smirk turning his head to look out the window, “That’s no surprise. He obviously wanted to hook up with you so we know what that means.”

Liz furrowed her brow, trying and failing to come up with an answer, “I have no idea actually Wyatt.”

“He wants what he can’t have,” he rolled his head back to face her with a lazy smile, “You won’t let him sleep with you or give him any kind of positive attention and it just makes him more upset and possibly desire you more because normally everyone loves him and agrees to what he wants. But you,” he reached a hand to poke her cheek, Liz grabbing his hand before he could make contact, placing it on the seat, “you don’t. You’re his unicorn, hence his behavior.” 

Liz shook her head, rolling her eyes, “Well he’s never gonna win.”

“Cause you like girls more,” Wyatt nodded, changing the song.

She gave a small laugh, “I like guys too, but it's his personality. I just can’t get past that.”

“And you shouldn’t,” he sat up straighter in the seat, “Liz we’ve grown up together and I know you. So I know that someone like him ain’t gonna cut it.” Wyatt scoffed, running a hand through his hair, pushing it back, “Hell even if there was some clone of me that wasn’t a part of our family circle out there, they still wouldn’t deserve you.”

She chuckled, shaking her head lightly, “You might be a little tipsy I think Wyatt, cause if it was a clone of you that would mean that they are a part of the family circle technically, because they have your DNA.”

“All ‘bout the details with you,” he smiled laughing, “Just like Uncle Raf. Raf,” he repeated, tilting his head, “Weird name to say don’t you think? Raf,” he said slowly shaking his head.

“Yeah it’s a good thing you’re staying with me tonight,” Liz mused, parking the car down the street like he had done earlier. “Alright buddy, here’s how this is gonna go,” she turned to face him, keeping his eyes focused on her, “I’m gonna climb over the fence, let you in. Then, I’ll climb to the window first so I can get you the ladder to come up.”

“Can’t I just climb like you?”

Liz shook her head, “You’re not as quiet like this Wyatt. Speaking of which,” Liz took her shoes off carrying them, Wyatt giving her a curious look, “So we can make less noise.” She and Wyatt made their way to her house trying to stop him from humming too loudly the entire walk there. The fence was easy to scale with Wyatt as Liz’s boost, along with making it to the window, her hand not meeting the inner sill like she should have. Liz looked along the window seeing that he was shut and impossible to open with how she was situated, even on her own it would be impossible. She looked to the ground below her, there was no way that it had come out….at least on it’s own. “Oh no,” she breathed out, that wasn’t a reassuring sign. “Wyatt,” she whispered, “put me down.”

He placed her down, eyes looking her over, “What’s wrong?”

“The window’s locked, could have been Danny, though. He can be a little jerk sometimes,” she pulled him to the back door, “Let’s sneak in the back, but keep quiet okay.” He nodded, following silently as they made their way to the back, Liz testing the door finding it locked. She looked to Wyatt frowning, “I think we’re in trouble Wyatt.”

“Gotta use the front door?” Liz nodded, “Fuck.” Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck, “My idea, I’ll take the heat. Hopefully it’s your mom,” he said shaking his shoulders out.

Liz looked at him confused, “Of course it’d be my mom. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Saw your dad’s car I think,” he pointed towards the front of the house, “Hope it's not him.”

Liz groaned quietly, it was very possible he got that earlier flight in the end, “I hope so too. But if it is him, let me take it okay. I’m used to it.” She put her arm around Wyatt as the two made their way to the front of the house, each preparing for the inevitable punishments. Standing in front of the door they look to each other grabbing the other’s hand, “Remember let me take the heat for this one okay. I convinced you like I do all the time-.”

“Not true I’ve convinced you before,” he interjected.

“How many times were those actually blamed on you though?” 

“Touche,” Wyatt nodded. 

“So I take the blame and hopefully I can convince dad to just let you stay here tonight. Then Aunt Wren and Uncle Wes can’t punish you as much or even find out if we’re super lucky.”

He gave her a smirk, “When have we ever been that lucky, Liz?” Wyatt gave her hand a squeeze, “Let’s do this.” Wyatt opened the door stepping in first, the living room light turning on, their eyes locking with Raf’s narrowed brown eyes, his jaw set, arms crossed, and not alone. Wyatt’s eyes went wide, “Dad,” he squeaked out, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think Wyatt?” Raf said calmly, “You two are in a lot of trouble,” he pointed to Liz, “You especially young lady. What were you thinking sneaking out?” Liz looked down to the ground briefly gathering herself, while Raf took in her outfit, “And dressed like that. Do you know how worried I was, how worried Wes was with your little stunt. On top of that-.”

“Wasn’t her idea,” Wyatt said standing straighter, the three looking his way, Liz hissing his name under her breath, “It was mine. The whole thing. Liz just didn’t want me to go to the party alone, wanted to keep an eye on me. So you can’t blame her.”

“You drunk, kid?” Wes asked, looking to see if Liz was in the same state.

Wyatt gave a slow shrug, “You both drank? And then decided to drive,” Raf took a deep breath in, “What were you two thinking!” 

“Liz didn’t drink, she stayed sober once she saw me drinking more,” Liz covered her face, Wyatt that’s not how you lie, “She drove not me.”

Raf pinched the bridge of his nose, Wes shaking his head, “Liz, is this true?”

She nodded, “Yeah, one and a half beers at the very beginning of the night with two glasses of water between them. I’ve taken your guys’ advice when it comes to drinking, seriously.”

Wes nodded, “Least you were smart about it.”

“Was it really your idea,” Raf interrupted, eyes staring down at her, “and don’t try to take the full heat for this, Wyatt has to learn his lesson too.”

Liz looked at Wyatt, eyes sad, it was better to lie and make herself the villain, save Wyatt from her dad, but it would make it worse for herself if she just didn’t tell the truth either. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, Wyatt giving a slow nod in understanding, turning to meet her father’s eyes, “It was Wyatt’s idea. I helped with some planning-.”

Raf cut her off, pointing up the stairs, “Room. Now.”

“Dad but you should know that-,” she tried to argue, a sliver of hope that maybe she could lessen the extent of Wyatt’s punishment.

“Room,” his voice was calm and left no arguing, “We’ll talk later.” Liz grabbed Wyatt’s hand giving him a sympathetic squeeze, her eyes meeting his green eyes, “Now Liz.”

Wes’ eyes looked down to their hands noticing how slow they were to let go, “Yes sir,” Liz said, hanging her head making her way up the stairs, sitting in front of her door wanting to hear how much trouble she got him in.

“In your room, no sitting in front of it,” Liz rolled her eyes at her father’s voice, she knew there was no faking him out either. She sat in her room behind the door hoping to hear some of what was being said. It really wasn’t fair to Wyatt to be taking on the lecture, that Liz could handle, he didn’t deserve it. She didn’t have to agree to go with him, but she did and therefore should have taken the lecture and extra punishment, worth it for him to stay on dad’s good side. Not to mention his mom when he got home was going to double down on it. Liz could hear their voices muffled but distinct, Wes interjecting when needed, but Raf did most of the lecturing, her name being tossed in a few times. 

It was an hour before Raf finally stopped his lecture letting Wes and Wyatt go home. Liz let out a slow breath getting up to sit on her bed, listening to her dad’s footsteps making their way to her room. He knocked on the door, waiting for her, “You can come in,” she said softly looking at the carpet, kicking her foot out below her.

Raf entered, shutting the door behind him, pulling the chair from her desk sitting across from her, arms resting on his knees. The two sat in silence for a minute, the tension causing goosebumps to raise on her arms, “Liz,” Raf started, her shoulders hunching over, “what are we going to do with you? It seems like every other week there’s something with you and your mom and I,” he ran a hand through his hair, “well we’re running out of ways to put a stop to this behavior.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise,” Liz’s heart falling, holding back the lump in her throat.

“Sorry isn’t going to cut it this time, Liz,” he snapped trying to keep his voice soft, “We just need you to understand that what you’re doing has consequences and one day no one is going to be there to bail you out. We can’t keep saving you. You’ll be an adult in the eyes of the law soon and with your history they won’t go easy on you.” Liz curled into herself more hiding her face as best she could, “I don’t want to see you make mistakes that will affect you for the rest of your life. I know you want to be headstrong, do the right thing, speak up for the underdog, and just be a teenager all at the same time but you have to start thinking about the long term effects.” 

“I’m trying though,” Liz whispered, “I promise you I am.”

“Not hard enough,” she flinched at his words, Raf let out a sigh, “Look I know you want to act like an adult, think you’re one already, but you aren’t Liz,” he placed a hand on her knee, “You just aren’t and that’s why we set these rules and boundaries for you. We aren’t placing them there just because we like to, far from it, it’s because we care about you. You just keep pushing and pushing those boundaries to the limit and,” he took a breath looking away for a moment, “well the next limit for us to take is treating you like a real adult.”

“What,” her voice cracked, “What do you mean?” By his tone of voice she could tell he didn’t mean it in the way every teenager dreamed of. 

“You heard me,” he sat up straight in the chair, his eyes never leaving hers, “Your mom and I will treat you like a real adult. You’ll have to find some way to pay rent, get your own food, and finish school. You’ll be on your own.” 

Eyes going wide Liz pleaded, “That’s-that’s not fair,” her father gave a shrug of his shoulders, “You can’t do that! I’m your daughter, you have to take care of me.”

“You want to be an adult so badly, We’ll treat you like one.”

“You’re bluffing,” she countered, “You’d never just cut me off like that. Mom wouldn’t let you.”

“You really want to put that to the test?” He leaned forward, “Cause that’s our last option with you. There isn’t anything else for us to do other than for us to stop bailing you out when you get in trouble.” 

Liz scoffed, “So that’s my punishment for just sneaking out?” There’s no way mom would allow for that, not after how her mom handled punishments, “Doesn’t seem like it fits the crime honestly, too harsh. Just ask anyone.”

“You’re right, so for tonight’s stunt, your grounding is extended by another two weeks and I’m revoking online privileges, I’m putting up more blocks on all devices. You have to get approval for sites if you need them for school purposes only,” Liz opened her mouth to protest Raf holding a hand up, “Look there is nothing else I can really take from you at this point that wouldn’t have effects into other parts of your life that I want you to focus on.” Raf took a deep breath, “I’m also locking that window and you have a set time frame that you must be home by. No going out anywhere, not even to family unless your mom or I are with you.” Liz let herself relax hearing the new terms of her grounding, I should have brought a notebook out with everything he’s just thrown at me. “You break any and I mean any of these rules or you get in trouble for something else I will not allow for anyone to bail you out. You will be on your own.” He leaned closer to Liz, jaw set and voice low, “Do I make myself clear?” 

Liz’s heart pounded in her chest, feeling the anger starting to burn in her blood. She wanted to tell him no, what he was proposing was unfair and unjust, that a child should not be left to fend for themselves….and yet she knew he had a point. Raf was being strict and sounding unkind in how he presented her options, but there was genuine worry there. She knew that he loved her, he always had, even when he was away he always managed to find some way to show how he was there for her. Why would this time be any different? It was unfair punishment in her eyes still but it must have all come to a head for it to have gotten under his skin this much after the countless times she had been caught for other things. Liz let out a slow breath swallowing her pride, “Crystal sir.”

He nodded leaning back in the chair, running his hands down his face, looking back at her, his face softer. “Come here,” Raf stretched his arms out to her, Liz looking at him suspiciously, “Just want to give you a hug. I missed you.” Liz didn’t move from where she sat, Raf getting up to sit next to her putting an arm around her, “You know I love you right? I always will, mija,” he said softly, “I just worry about you so much, I don’t want to see you hurt. I also- I just want you to have the world open to you. You deserve to take it on and have them all listen whether they like it or not.” He kissed the side of her head, “I just wish you’d be smarter about it like I know you are.”

“Just don’t want me to end up having to make my early adulthood harder than it needs to be like others in our family had,” Liz said looking back to the ground.

“Exactly,” he pulled her closer, “I want you to have it better than we did.”

“I apparently take after Uncle Wes so that may be inevitable,” she moved closer leaning her head against Raf’s shoulder.

Raf gave a small smile shaking his head, “I know we like to make that joke but while it is partially true, you actually take after you mom,” Liz looked up furrowing her brow, “It’s true, you just don’t get to see it. You get your big heart from her, being headstrong, compassionate, and impulsiveness from her.”

“Mom has never been impulsive like I am though,” Liz shook her head, “When she was younger, like way younger, right?”

“Like I said you don’t see it. Now don’t tell her I told you this but her control goes out the window when she has too much to drink,” Liz’s eyes went wide a smile threatened her lips, “She doesn’t get that way too much now but there was a Halloween she broke a man’s nose and beat him for making fun of her height or the time she wanted to spray paint a rainbow on someone’s house for their homophobic comments about her and Wren’s sexuality.” Liz laughed in disbelief, “So see a lot like her. Just have to work on getting her control and you’ll make your mark in the history books.”

“I’ll try, dad,” Liz wrapped her arms around him tightly, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Raf kissed the top of her head, hugging her, “Though please don’t try to test my limits.”

She nodded, “I know. You’ll follow through with it.” Raf patted her back standing, making his way to the door, “Hey dad,” he turned to face her, “How did you even find out?”

“Oh,” he gave her a smile, “Wes wanted to just tuck in his kids, something about having so much time with them while being young, or something cheesy like that. Nothing that our family would understand honestly.”

Liz gave a light laugh seeing his smile, “Oh yeah, totally. Who wants to be cheesy like that with their kids.”

 “Anyway, he saw Wyatt was gone. Called your mom wondering if he came over like he does on occasion when he’s upset. I just got home, saw her phone go off and answered it.” Raf shrugged, “Would have found out either way, was planning on looking in on you guys after I got my stuff settled.”

“Of all nights for Wessy to be cheesy,” Liz whispered to herself, letting out a sigh.

“Now we both need some sleep,” he pointed to the window, “I’ll take care of what we discussed later today. So don’t try to sneak out again this early,” Liz nodded, watching as he left her room closing the door. She sat waiting for the sound of her parent’s bedroom door to close, making a break for her laptop. She opened up the messages connected to her phone seeing if Wyatt had tried to get a hold of her, nothing showing. She quickly typed a message to him, leg bouncing as she waited for a response from him. Five minutes passed before he responded, sending her a video call.

Wyatt had a lopsided smile on his face already changed out of the clothes he was wearing, “Hey trouble maker,” he said laughing.

“Har har. You’re one to talk, Sherlock,” Liz rolled her eyes once, settling her face worry taking over her features, “You doing okay? I know my dad can be a lot and you had your dad getting in on it too,” she rambled, waving her hands getting her thoughts back in order, “Just wanted to see how you held up.”

His face turned serious, taking a deep breath, “You know I think I know how it feels to be short now. Like really understand now.”

Liz let out a snort, “That’s dads for ya, somehow manage to make you feel three feet tall. What was the final verdict on punishment for you?”

“No surprise, but grounded,” he gave a shrug, “Mom was a bit upset about the whole thing, so I got it from her too. I also have no games, so I now have the punishment laptop for school,” Liz gave an exaggerated wince, Wyatt laughing. “I know right? But uh a slightly stricter curfew and manual labor with dad for the duration or until he has nothing left for me to do. I’m sure you got off easier this time Liz since I was to blame. Just a very harsh lecture from Uncle Raf.” 

Liz looked at the desk, pursing her lips, “Wyatt I am….a repeat offender. I am not allowed out of the house without supervision, or well even in the house without someone else being here. Window is gonna be sealed too.”

“But nothing taken away though,” he pointed out, “Better than me.”

Liz’s jaw dropped before laughing, “Excuse me sir but there is nothing left for them to take from me that wouldn’t have consequences in other parts of my life.”

He thought for a moment, “Fair point. Oh you know what dad also told me on the drive home?” Liz shook her head, “He gave me a six out of ten for my sneaking out attempt. A rank, Liz. He ranked my sneaking out ability.”

“Hey, six out of ten isn’t bad,” Liz shrugged, smiling.

He leaned back in his chair with a huff, “You kidding me? That’s a failing grade right there. I gotta do better next time, gotta pass with flying colors like I do everything else.”

Liz shook her head, rolling her eyes, “There will not be a second time.”

“Sure there won’t be Lizzy,” Wyatt laughed, Liz feeling the automatic response to give him a shove, opting to shake her head groaning. When his laughter subsided, he met her eyes with his light green ones, catching the light of the rising sun, “I am glad to see you’ll be okay though Liz. Sorry I dragged you into this, got you in trouble.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she waved him off, “I had a lot of fun tonight, so worth it you know?” 

“Yeah,” he repeated, his eyes getting a far away look, “Worth it.”

“Anyway you should get some sleep and end this call before your mom finds you,” Liz said, “I’ll see you Monday at school,” he nodded. Liz gasped, “Oh also, don’t forget to bring a second meal tomorrow cause we have the test performance that night.”

“Aye aye, captain,” he saluted her, the two laughing, “And you don’t forget the Hot Tamales for me.”

“I know. You took the heat this time so fair is fair.” The two waved to each other, their screens going dark, Liz leaning back in her chair. “We’ll do it again,” she mocked, “In your dreams.”

[violetsmoak]

Pieces of April [16/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Author’s Note: Here’s your daily dose of JayTim and baby for your quarantine reading pleasure! Stay safe, wash your hands and support your local healthcare, waste management and retail workers!

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

The rest of the afternoon is spent on the phone, fielding calls from various departments and sorting out production complications. Interspersed are texts and Facebook messages from friends and family—Dick, wondering if dinner is still happening on Friday, Bruce wanting updates on the mob case, the Titans wanting to know if he’s coming to San Francisco that weekend—

Tim is evasive with all except the last one, informing Bart that there’s some family drama going on that will keep him home for a while. Once the speedster knows, everyone else will know, so it’s about as effective as sending a group text.

He resists the urge to phone Jason and see how he’s doing; he’s rather sure he won’t pick up.

(“I ain’t a damn kid that needs checkin’ up on, Drake.”)

Not that Tim is checking up on him. He just knows that whenever someone in the family is going through a personal crisis, that’s usually the time when Gotham’s rogues decide to act out.

So really, ensuring Jason’s stress levels stay manageable is a public service.

“Because that sounds like logic,” he chides.

Damian shows up around 3 o’clock and spends the next two hours alternatively disparaging everything about Tim from his too-long hair to how he organizes his filing system, to discussing WE resource allocation for an animal shelter he wants to open. The conversational whiplash is enough to make Tim’s head spin, and he makes a note in his phone to talk to Bruce about whatever it is that’s going on between them that’s so bad Damian prefers Tim’s company to his father’s.

Either Bruce put his foot down about another of Damian’s strays, or he still won’t agree that Robin should have a private prison to lock up rogues. 

Whatever the reason, Tim is very much out of his depth at the youngest Bat’s newest tactics for taking his frustrations out on Tim.

Though I guess workplace inconveniences are a huge step up from swords to the gut. Could always be worse, I guess.

It turns out he’s not the only one learning new and interesting coping strategies. Upon arriving home at six, he finds Jason tweaking the tech in his gear on the kitchen table, baby carrier three feet away.

His entire body is tense, like a spring ready to snap.

“Was she up all day or something?” Tim asks on the way in, putting his bag on the floor and loosening his tie.

Jason shoots him a baleful look. “She’s been crying all day. And she’s still barely eating. I think she’s starting to look a little yellow—Tim, why is she yellow?”

And Jason sounds—dare he say it—almost frazzled.

Right. Time for more damage control.

“I’ve got her,” Tim says, easing into Jason’s personal space and taking the baby. “You go to sleep. Or shower. Or watch TV or something. You’re starting to go batty.”

That earns a disgusted look, and even Tim winces because that was just bad.

“Did you seriously just say that?” Jason asks.

“No, you’re sleep-deprived and hallucinated it,” he replies.

“I’ll allow it,” Jason says, yawning. “But only because it could be true.”

Jason shuffles off upstairs and Tim heaves himself onto the couch, pulling out his phone to check his usual online haunts for potential cases or clues for his current case. Social media and forums are pretty good sources once you learn how to weed out the sensationalist crap.

After thirty minutes of nothing, he gives it up and wanders over to the dwindling pile of baby items. Jason hasn’t returned yet, so he’s either passed out from exhaustion in the shower or actually made it to bed. Since Tim can’t hear the water running, he supposes it’s the latter.

It won’t kill me to go without the pre-patrol nap today, I guess.

Studying the pile, he notes that the boxes with the crib, changing table and whatever else needed assembly, have all gone missing. Presumably, Jason set those up this morning in a fit of boredom or paranoia.

The only things that haven’t been touched are the blankets, soft toys and garments, other than whatever Isa’s been changed into already.

There are only about twenty different pieces of clothing, and according to his not-so-new best friend the Internet, that’s not going to be nearly enough given infant propensity to upchuck. Especially since it’s not all the same size. Tam had to guess how big Isa was, so at least half the onesies here won’t fit her for another month or two, which isn’t supremely helpful for right now.

Back to fiddling with his phone, Tim goes online to order some more supplies and discovers, to his delight, that there’s an entire line of pop-culture related babywear. Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Superhero logos…

He grins as he orders one of everything for next-day delivery, wondering whether Jason’s more likely to complain or find it funny.

Under normal circumstances, he’d probably find it funny. For someone else’s kid.

There’s still no sign of Jason after sunset, so Tim feeds and burps the baby, then sets up his laptop and tablet in the kitchen to check some of his surveillance feeds for the mob case. However, Isa protests every time he tries to put her down.

“What’s wrong with you now?” he asks. “You’re warm, you’re fed—” He takes a pause to check and change her diaper, during which time she continues to mewl at him, “—and you’re dry. Which means now’s the time you got to sleep, okay? New babies are supposed to do three things: eat, poop and sleep. So get on that.”

Once again he attempts to wrap her up and place her in her carrier, but the whimpering becomes flat-out crying, her tiny face becoming purple with rage and her eyes pinching shut.

“Okay, okay—putting you down is a no,” he sighs, tucking her back in his arms to rock her gently. He watches his computer monitor balefully, knowing if he’s holding the baby, there’s not going to be any hacking of Gotham’s CCTV tonight.

Could text Babs and ask her to do it. Except then she’ll want to know why.

Which is also a no.

One-handed, he searches out his phone again, looking up possible reasons for Isa’s current temper and potential solutions online. One thing jumps out at him and he brightens. A quick trip to the Nest and back, and he has what he was looking for.

Which is how Jason finds him when he finally comes back downstairs around eight o’clock, showered, rested and altogether more human-looking than what Tim came home to. He pauses at the foot of the stairs, squinting at Tim. “Is that your cape?”

“My cape is made out of state-of-the-art piezoelectric fabric substrates that can become a weapon with the right electrical frequency,” Tim retorts, trying not to feel entirely self-conscious from his seat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a makeshift mei-tai with Jason’s daughter drooling into his chest. “Also, that thing’s filthy.”

“And this is…?”

“My old cape,” Tim replies, going back to his computer. “Sometimes newborns just need to hear a heartbeat to calm them down. The best way is skin to skin, but I’m kind of in the middle of something, so this is the next best thing.”

Jason tilts his head to one side in consideration. “That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, I looked it up online.”

“Of course you did,” Jason groans, rubbing his temple. “Because that’s what normal people do. I didn’t even think of it, I was too busy trying to get her to stop crying.” He huffs, almost rueful. “Why the hell am I surprised that you’re good at this? You’re good at friggen everything.”

Huh. A compliment. Those are almost as rare coming from Jason as they are from Damian. He must really be out of his comfort zone.

“Maybe it’s just because I have a certain measure of distance from it all,” Tim suggests, standing up to leave his temporary workstation. “If I suddenly found out I had a kid, I don’t know how I’d react.”

“Bull. You’re just like B. You’d just stick it in the back of your mind and forget about how to feel about it until you’re ready to deal.”

Tim feels a sudden flare of anger. “Is that actually how you think I am?”

“You going to tell me you’re not?” Jason challenges.

Tim opens his mouth to do exactly that, only to wrinkle his nose at the sudden stench arising from the lump of baby tucked against his chest.

“Ugh. Someone needs a change.”

Again. Guess I wasn’t so far off about the ‘eat, poop and sleep’ thing.

Jason snorts. “As far as conversation enders, that’s a pretty good one.”

Tim carefully unwinds the fabric from around his body and deposits the slowly waking baby into her father’s arms. “Tag.”

“You suck.”

“Serves you right for being a dick.”

He feels almost no guilt leaving Jason to deal with the soiled diaper and cranky baby this time, still smarting a bit about the resentful accusation that was lobbed at him.

Just because I can compartmentalize doesn’t mean I forget about things. Or that I don’t feel them.

He’s just not like Jason, or Dick, or Damian, who get angry and lash out as loudly and as viciously as they can. And he’s not like Bruce, either, since Bruce really can flip a switch and put something difficult out of his mind if it interferes with the all-important Mission.

Tim’s tried doing that, and as successful as he was in his quest to locate Batman when he was lost in the time stream, that period of Tim’s life was the most desperate and hopeless he’s ever felt. It was painful in a way that was different from losing his father, or Connor, or Bart—mostly because he was forced to bottle everything up to get the job done.

It was months after Bruce returned before Tim started processing things normally again.

Not that I should expect Jason to know that, he muses as he grapples through the rooftops of Gotham. He might know about me from my files and when we occasionally work together, but he’s never stuck around long enough to get to know anyone who came after him.

The night is at its darkest, cut through only by the Bat-signal in the distance. He won’t be running into Bruce tonight then unless the GCPD is bringing him in on the Gazzo case. It’s unlikely since there hasn’t been any retaliation yet. GCPD protocol dictates they’ll pass it off to Homicide until orders from on high turn it over to Major Crimes.

Red Robin ends up stopping two muggings and a drug deal before making his way to Gazzo territory to take some surveillance photos of his own. Security images are helpful in general, but he has camera tech that will let him focus on details the CCTV won’t pick up. 

It’s another relatively early night for him, returning home just after midnight to upload his findings to the servers and shower off the grit and grime of the city.

The apartment is silent, and he expects Jason and Isa to be upstairs in the newly built nursery, but upon closing the secret door again, he notices the faint sound of breathing. Creeping over to the sitting room, he finds Jason passed out on the couch beside Isa’s carrier. The television is on but not showing any channel, instead casting a solid blue light across the room.

Tim can’t help noticing how Jason’s habitual frown has eased in slumber. There’s no trace of a sneer or growl on his lips right now, his mouth parted only to breathe.

He has never seen the older man like this.

There are pictures of him at the manor, of course, most of them hidden away in dusty boxes. It’s only recently they’ve started cropping up at the manor again, though Tim isn’t sure whether it’s Dick or Alfred that’s been putting them there.

Hell, maybe it is Bruce. It’s the exact kind of gesture he’d make to try to tell Jason he wants him around more, without actually having to tell him directly.

Whoever’s responsible for them, Tim’s memorized all of those photos. The boy in those is always grinning or making silly faces or not paying attention to the photographer because he’s busy doing something he shouldn’t be.

If there’s a picture of Jason looking so calm and peaceful, it’s hidden away in Bruce’s personal files where no one can find them.

Tim can sort of see why given how vulnerable his predecessor looks right now. This is the Jason that Bruce remembers, the one he’s built up in his memory that’s different from the Jason once enshrined in the much-maligned class case in the Cave. This is the Jason Bruce is trying to find whenever he squares off with Red Hood and mourns as lost when he can’t find him.

Which is stupid since he’s still right here. I wonder if anyone else will ever realize that?

Tim decides not to wake Jason; he might have been a jerk before, but he should sleep while he can.

Instead, he settles in on the other couch with his laptop to review the surveillance shots he took himself and from the security feeds. If he can figure out just which of these mobster muscle heads is the easiest to break, he can get a better idea of what might have happened to the teenager in concrete.

I’ll just do a quick scan tonight, and study them in more detail tomorrow.

Of course, as usual, he gets invested in his work and doesn’t look up again until about four o’clock, when Isa’s sharp cry pieces the silence. Tim jumps, having completely forgotten her presence, but that’s nothing on Jason, who vaults upward from his spot on the couch, body tense and prepared to react to whatever caused the noise, friend or foe.

His hand is already reaching for a gun—one that Tim is thankful to see is no longer there.

“It’s okay, it’s just time for the next feeding,” he says quietly, trying to sound both casual and soothing at the same time. Based on the bleary look he’s getting from Jason, he’s less than successful.

Jason glares at his empty hand, clenched as if to hold onto something, and Tim must be on the verge of falling asleep himself because for a moment he imagines he can see the outline of a sword.

Great. Hallucinations. Tomorrow’s going to be a triple-shot of espresso day, I can tell.

And it’s suddenly occurring to him that babies and their sudden loud noise-making skills might not be the best thing for someone that’s suffered the kinds of trauma Jason has.

He makes up a mental note to look up some strategies for that. He’s not quite sure how he’ll bring up the subject with Jason. While Jason is adamant that Tim’s the most like Bruce, when it comes to avoiding problems, he’s the one that has more in common with the man.

For now, he decides to just act as normal.

“You know there’s a perfectly good bed upstairs?” he quips. “Thousand thread count, fluffy pillows, solid mattress…”

“Shut up. I was watching something. Guess I fell asleep.” Jason swings around and makes a move toward the baby, but Tim makes a motion to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it.”

“You already took her when you got back.”

“How do you know? You were sleeping?”

“I was resting my eyes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Go to sleep or you’ll be face-planting in your coffee tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fine, I—"

“This isn’t your responsibility, Replacement. Go to bed—I’ll handle this.”

Jason is clearly not someone to be reasoned with when sleep-deprived; Tim always suspected that, of course, but he’s never had the up-close-and-personal experience. It doesn’t make him any less frustrated.

“The whole point of you staying here is for me to help,” he reminds him. “So would you just accept it already?”

“You’re also the one with a nine-to-five job and actually need the friggen sleep.”

Tim grimaces. “Fine. But I’m going to make up a schedule for us tomorrow so we can divide the babysitting more equitably.”

“You do that, boy scout. Why don’t you make a chore-wheel while you’re at it?” Jason jeers, taking the baby and heading for the kitchen. “This isn’t kindergarten.”

“Are you sure about that?” Tim shoots back, scowling in frustration.

Just for that, I will make one. See if I don’t.

⁂⁂⁂

Your feedback matters! I want to know what you think of my story, so feel free to leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

Next Chapter

[casualcatte]

[ Memery ] Get to Know Me :: Whoa! The Player!

Rules: Always post the rules. Tag 11 new people you’d like to know better.

1. Dogs or Cats?

I love animals of every shape and size, but for convenience’s sake I love cats. They’re very independent, don’t need a lot of tending (except when they tell you) but still love you unconditionally and give you head-bonkin’s to remind you so.

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities?

Keanu Reeves.  I think that’s an acceptable answer.  3. If you could live anywhere where would that be?

I think I’d try living in France. Not only do they have the world’s best healthcare system according to the World Health Organization, they seem to make it a point to have a healthy work-life balance. Or at least it seems so from an outsider’s view. 

4. Disney or DreamWorks?

DreamWorks, definitely!

5. Favourite childhood TV show?

Despite my previous answer, Disney’s Gargoyles remains one of my most favorite TV shows/cartoon serials ever. 6. The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020?

I can’t really think of anything coming out next year off the top of my head.  Wonder Woman 1982 or whatever, maybe?

7. Favourite book you read in 2019?

Terry Mancour’s Spellmonger. It’s been a refreshing take on magic-users and magic. No doddering old wizards here!

8. Marvel or DC?

I enjoy the MCU movies because they have the formula down for making a generally satisfying movie / series. I only love DC for Wonder Woman. 9. If you choose Marvel favourite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favourite Justice League member Favorite X-Man:  Gambit. I don’t really have much of a reason, save that I always adored the Gambit/Rogue storyline(s). I haven’t kept up with comics in forever, though, so take that with a grain of salt.  

10. Night or Day?

I am the terror that flaps in the night.

11. Favourite Pokemon?

I.. actually don’t do the Pokemon thing.  If I had to pick one just off of what little I know?  Uh... Mewtwo. He looks neat. 

12. Top 5 bands:

1.) Kamelot         2.) Nightwish 3.) Within Temptation 4.) Epica 5.) Eluvitie (Yes, I really like symphonic metal.)

13. Top 10 books. 1.) Daughter of the Lion by Jennifer Roberson 2.) Dragonlance: Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman 3.) Redwall by Brian Jacques 4.) The Forever King by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran 5.) The Last Herald-Mage by Mercedes Lackey 6.) Bedlam’s Bard by Mercedes Lackey 7.) The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher 8.) Watership Down by Richard Adams 9.) The Half-Blood Chronicles by Andre Norton 10.) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling 14. Top 4 movies

1.) Dragonheart 2.) The Lord of the Rings (Extended Editions) 3.) The Greatest Showman 4.) The Matrix Trilogy 5.) The Princess Bride

15. America or Europe?

I suppose I have to say America, since I’ve never been to Europe. As much as I’d like to travel, my health doesn’t really allow for it.  :( 16. Tumblr or Twitter?

Hnnngh. I don’t like either platform because neither are user-friendly. It took me forever to learn how to do stuff on Tumblr, BUT -- all you wonderful people are here -- so I’d have to say Tumblr just because of you guys.

17. Pro-choice or Pro-life?

Pro-choice. 

18. Favourite YouTuber?

Am I allowed to say Critical Role? Cuz that’s, like, the only thing I watch on Youtube. 

19. Favourite author ?

Ugh. Hard one. But I have always admired Margaret Weis.

20. Tea or Coffee?

Tea, all day long, all day, every day. I’m from the South, man, it’s allowed.

21. OTP ?

Deedlit and Parn from Record of Lodoss War. 

22. Do you play an instrument/sing ?

I played baritone in high school, but haven’t played anything since. I suppose I still could, once I re-learned the fingerings.  Tagged by @sola-ffxiv​ :: Thank you, lovely!  :D Tagging The Three Caballeros: @yokasaris​, @eligos-venator​, @cahli-tia​ @vivalaezra​ :: More homework! No newbie follower tags because I’m not sure new people would want to answer questions from some rando. However, if YOU are reading this, aren’t tagged, and want to play along, please do!  Just flag me in the tags so I can come and read!  ^_^

[1-800-444-tune]

I have cancer ...PLEASE DONATE !!😫😪😔😞

HOME

This is my main blog, I mostly do Tarot and other divination services on here, and most often it is for FREE. Which, this is NOT fair to me, but none of ya 'll know about my struggle.. bug it is real hear me out, yo.

ABOUT ME

I am nearly 30 years old now and I was actually first off diagnosed with Ovarian cysts at the age as young as 14 yrs old, yes, I was 16 by the time it went untreated and had spread all through my ovaries and to all the fallopian tubes and my uterus... then untreated still another couple years (because of poor health care in my smaller rural communities including my hometown) then at 19 my whole entire uterine lining was xomething of a mess, the doctors said basically all there woukd have been to prevent it from dpreading the cancer elsewhere would have been a full out take of my sexual organs , i believe the term is a hysterectomy....but on my paperwork i see here that it says that I was to undergo something else... + + The removal of an ovary together with the Fallopian tube is called salpingo-oophorectomy or unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (USO). When both ovaries and both Fallopian tubes are removed.

But that did not happdn due to complications. So now, its spread to my other organs as youd guess, spleen, liver, kidneys, etc...it is a shitttSHOW I knowe.

This is why I would appreciate it if some one, any one would stand up for me ..just have a say in whether I eat today or not, or whether I stay in this residence without having to move this winter, I mean, Winter, its settling in.,,

I do not always feel totally blessed to be me; But ai I cannot complain when the bills is caught up and I gots good food at home(and the fight food, I am on a special expensive diet)

Cancer is expensive…AF!  If you have cancer, this is no news to you. But until cancer happened to me, I had no idea how expensive it truly was.  I think it’s safe to say that that seeing how much it will cost to undergo treatment is almost as frightening as getting the actual cancer diagnosis.  My diagnosis has definitely opened my eyes to the shocking reality of the financial burden that cancer causes for an individual and their family.  The astronomical expenses that accrue from treatments, tests, surgeries, scans, integrative therapies, etc are outrageous! While there are both public and private health insurance that defray medical and drug costs, huge out-of-pocket costs can be devastating to patients and force major changes in their lives. I’ve had to make several changes and my life has been affected indefinitely due to the financial burden that cancer has caused. The financial stress it causes for people during treatment until remission alone is hard, but imagine living with cancer where the treatments, doctor visits, tests and lifestyle adjustments are ever enduring, like when you have metastatic cancer.  It’s life altering… to say the least.

HOW MUCH DOES CANCER TREATMENT ACTUALLY COST?

This is an impossible question to answer. The cost of treatment obviously varies from individual to individual based on their diagnosis, the type of treatment they will require and the longevity of the treatment.  However, the “typical” cost of breast cancer looks a little something like this according to recent studies.

“For patients covered by health insurance, out-of-pocket costs for breast cancer treatment typically consist of doctor visit, lab and prescription drug copays as well as coinsurance of 10%-50% for surgery and other procedures, which can easily reach the yearly out-of-pocket maximum. Breast cancer treatment typically is covered by health insurance, although some plans might not cover individual drugs or treatments. For patients not covered by health insurance, breast cancer treatment typically costs $15,000-$50,000 or more for a mastectomy or $17,000 to $35,000 or more for a lumpectomy followed by radiation.”

New cancer drugs are being approved at a fast pace.  Numerous are approved each year and new drugs are constantly in trial and in the pipeline to be FDA approved. In the past, these drugs might cost around $10,000 for a year’s treatment. But newer studies have found that newly-approved cancer drugs carry price tags between $120,000 and $170,000!  One of the drugs I take as part of my daily cocktail, is a newly FDA approved drug called Ibrance… for heavily pretreated ER+ metastatic patients.  It has worked wonders for me but a month supply of this drug is over $12,000.  I am blessed to have good coverage, but not all people are as fortunate.

“Depending on the individual case and the type and number of treatments needed, the total cost of breast cancer treatment, on average, can reach $100,000 — or, in advanced cases, $300,000 or more. This includes the cost of the chemotherapy drugs, additional drugs to help manage side effects, administration of the drugs and medical care for chemotherapy-related complications.”

And again, if you are anything like myself and are living with a metastatic diagnosis, treatments and care is endless with no foreseeable light at the end of the tunnel.

😔😫😫🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗😔😔😫

WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE???

The never ending list of cancer expenses looks a little something like this:

 🎗Frequent doctor visits with surgeon, radiologist, oncologist.  I personally see my oncologist once every 3 weeks and check in with my surgeon every couple of months.

🎗Lab Tests.  This includes blood tests, urine tests and more. I get my labs done every few weeks when I see my oncologist to check my levels and tumor markers.

🎗Clinic visits for treatments. When I was on IV treatment I would be in the treatment center every few weeks.  Currently I take an oral chemo and only have to be in the treatment clinic once every few months for my Lupron injection. But many people are in the treatment clinic, daily or weekly to get their infusions and injections.

🎗Procedures for diagnosis or treatment. Such procedures can include biopsies, room charges, equipment..  I’ve had a few biopsies and had to get lung taps done frequently when I had lung mets.

🎗Imaging Tests. These tests include X-rays, CT scans, MRIs and PET scans which may mean separate bills for radiologist fees, equipment and any medicines used for the test.  These tests are extremely costly too…yikes!  I get PET/CT scans every 3 months, consistently for the past 6 years now.

🎗Radiation Treatment  (implants, external radiation, or both) I have never had radiology but as we know, it’s a very common treatment for most cancers.

Drug🎗 Costs. (inpatient, outpatient, prescription, non-prescription and procedure-related) The cost of chemotherapy drugs is crazy!

🎗In-Home Nurse Care (if you need it, and I do actually, yes) and its freaking insane how much these so called "nurses aids -assistants" want an hour!!

Hospital 🎗Stays. This can encompass many types of costs such as drugs, tests and procedures as well as nursing care, doctor visits and consults with specialists. I have been admitted twice, each time for a week stay for cancer related issues.

🎗Surgery. Costs can accrue from surgeon, anesthesiologist, pathologist, operating room fees, equipment, medicines…  I have had 3 lumpectomies and 2 other surgical procedures related to my cancer diagnosis.

🎗Fertility.  If you are blindsided and diagnosed in your 20’s or 30’s with a cancer diagnosis and want to have a family, freezing your eggs is an option, but a costly one.  You will be required to pay for tests, and medications leading up to the surgical procedure to remove your eggs.  I paid about $10K out of pocket to cover the cost of freezing my eggs.

While these are examples of the clinical costs associated with cancer, there are other adjustments you may want to make that will also prove to be costly.  I personally changed my diet and started to eat all organic foods and sought integrative therapies to add to my clinical regime.  You can read more about the therapies I have incorporated here.  All of these expenses add up and certainly are a financial strain.

🎗🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟And of course we need to pay... Rent, heat/hydro, car/transportation/ambulance bills , always bills bills bills billsssss.....and wifi/internet/television/mobile phone znd/or tablet or computer and gaming systems... camera.....im z girl so clothes..makeup,(I'm thrifty ricky tho) and always last, maybe maybe get sweets healthwise branded cookies or some type of peanuts(unsalted).

I never get go, go nowhere, do anything, get a coffee from a coffee shop, i can't afford to do just about anything a normal individual such as yourself yourself would do, i just cannot do it its not in my budget ... I currently own ONE lipgloss, and one broken eye liner , that is my makeup beauty kit, who the heck wants to even go out or take pictures thenn? Ugh....

Www.paypal.me/believeitxxnot is the link to the Cancer Fundraiser🎗the email for it is believeitornot.ripley.tv@gmail.com

Anyways, do not feel bad for me. I am here to service YOU for ever I know this . TY so much ily guys , please please if you will not donate to my awfully painfully really urgent cause then PLEASE SHARE POST ..... BOOOST POOOOST !! PLZ !! XOXO

I need the supporters !! Yo yo ! DOOOONAAAATEEEEE!!

A n y t h i n g h e l p s m e r i g h t n o w , p l e a s e ! ?

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Stay Ch. 8

Master List: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Natasha X Reader (Female)

Summary: You have a gift, the ability to see other people’s innermost secrets. For years you used it to gather intel for the highest bidder when you take on The Widow. After she becomes more than a mark the two of you spend years stealing moments. Post snap you wait in your designated meeting place, look back on the sordid past you share with the woman you love and hope against everything that she’s still alive.

Warnings: Some REALLY light violence, feels.

A/N: It’s kind of a shorter chapter (though let’s be real all my chapters are pretty short) but lays down a log of pieces for later. Just. Ugh. Stress.

Tags are open!

@mywinterwolf  @disagreetoagree @breezy1415 @peachthatdrinkslemonade @5aftermidnight  @jeromethepsycho @daniellajocelyn @marvel-randomness @katecolleen @yanginginthere  @wonderlandmind4 @piensa-bonito

-

Post Snap

-

A part of you thinks maybe you should go to your room. Maybe shower. Sleep… well, that wasn’t really going to be an option for a while. But you worry (senselessly) that if she gets here, doesn’t see you at the bar, that she’ll leave. Your mind instead goes to that first plan you two had laid out.

You both set up a phone line, no phone to go with it, just for the voicemail. The only two with the number was you, the only ones who knew the complex system to access the messages, you.

She would go back to Russia. Do what needed to be done. Then she would call and leave a message with coordinates. In the meantime you would wrap this job, collect, and lay low. That was the short term. After that, you would talk about longterm options.

Saying goodbye to her that first time almost did you in.

-

January 2005

-

“I fucking hate this,” you press your forehead to hers, refusing the tears that burned on the backs of your eyes.

You were holding on to one another, so tight it was a wonder either of you could breathe, in this room you’d shared for months. Natasha’s green eyes bore into yours, refusing to look away.

“I do too,” she kisses you, eyes still open, “it’s only for now. I will make it back to you. I swear.” You knew she needed to be gone five minutes ago but knowing what she was heading toward made you ache. “I love you, Y/N. I. Love. You.” There’s so much conviction in her words, the intensity of her emotion wrapping itself around you.

You take a shaky breath, “I love you too, Natasha.” Pulling her hard against you press your right hand to her cheek and kiss her, letting just how much you love her flow into her consciousness, she gasps a little and kisses you with even more intensity.

After several minutes she pulls away, both of you panting, “Ok… ok. I have to go.” All you can do is nod. She gathers her bag and you follow her to the door. In the hall she looks back at you, “I’ll see you soon.”

You intended to let her go without another kiss but you can’t help placing one more on her lips, “See you soon, honey.” And with that, she’s gone.

Back in the room, you collapse on the bed. The lingering tendrils of her emotions fill the room like perfume. Mingled with your own it’s like drowning. You can’t remember ever being so sensitive so… empathic, to the emotions of another. Except… maybe your mom but… you push that dark memory away. This wasn’t the time or place to fall into that hole, and right now you weren’t sure you’d come back. Not to mention, you had a job to finish.

You spend the next day compiling the report your employer had been demanding, impatiently, for the past month. Filled, you hoped, with more information than they thought they’d get about the Red Room but little about The Widow herself. Well as little as you could get away with.

When you contact your mystery employer they demand to meet up in Istanbul.

“Seriously?” You’re emotional, nerves fried, not in any way in the mood to run around Europe for some fuckers with far too much interest in an organization that makes little girls into weapons. “You paying for this jaunt?” There’s a pause while the messenger listens to the response.

“If you think we are going to pay after you drug this out-“ Their monotone delivery of what was no doubt an incensed message is annoying so you cut them off.

“Fine, Istanbul.” You roll your eyes and think of places, “Meet up at The Grand Bazaar in two days, at 21:00.” You don’t even wait for a response just hang up. They could meet you then and pay or not, honestly, at this point, you didn’t much give a fuck.

Walking to the bazaar two days later you feel a familiar sense of foreboding that usually accompanies a bad decision. You used the time afforded by travel to try to find out anything else about this employer you could. It had been clear for a while they had smoke screened with S.H.I.E.L.D. but what you couldn’t determine was why. C.I.A., MI6, really another government agency would have made more sense than S.H.I.E.L.D. They were the clandestine of the clandestine, hell, most civs didn’t even understand, really, what they were. Not to mention S.H.I.E.L.D. had an uncanny finger on the pulse of underworld happenings. Using them was a risky ploy for anyone.

All of this was filling you with dread. Something was very very off about everything. Still, you walk up and down the stalls of the bazaar, basking in the scents and sounds of such a beautiful place.

Glancing at your watch you note it’s 25 after your stated time. If they thought they would power play you by making you wait they were going to be disappointed. You may enjoy cities like this but you weren’t about to linger in a place they picked. About ten minutes later you catch a man watching you. He’s not really trying to hide, obviously hoping you’d notice. Finally.

You casually walk toward and past him leading the way to a small booth slinging coffee off a narrow alley passage. Not private but not in the middle of everything. Taking a seat at one of the small tables you wait for him to follow. For a minute he just stares at you, visibly unhappy with this. You flash him a smile, making your voice flat, accentless, generic.

“You can have a seat and we can finish our business or you can tell our mutual employer that we have no deal. Don’t think that’s going to go over very well. Your call.” The way this man holds himself says soldier, not a random hired street thug, and that makes you nervous.

Finally, he takes the seat opposite you, saying nothing. “That’s what I thought.” Not taking your eyes off him you reach into the bag at your side pulling out a file. “I believe they will find more than enough pertinent information on the topic in there, the more sensitive intel is on two thumb drives, encoded, but I have no doubt that with their resources they can manage to find someone to extract the information for them.”

The man opens the file and scans some of the information, devoid of emotion. He looks up at you, he’s young, maybe just a year or two older than you, brown hair and eyes. When he opens his mouth he has a distinct East Coast, likely New York, accent. “This seems good enough for now.”

Without another word, he stands to leave. “Hold the fuck up,” you grab his hand as he passes you pulling what you can at that moment, “Brock.” What a fucking name. He looks down at you, a sinister smile curling his lips and you get the sense you’ve just been caught in a snare though you don’t know why.

Pushing that away you release him and focus on the situation in front of you, “Getting that amount of information took time and a lot of effort, we have an agreed sum that-“

“Oh, you’ll be paid, Oracle,” he cuts you off. Danger, that’s what all your senses are screaming. You say nothing else and he disappears down the alley.

Fuck.

[wiredandrewired]

Was trying to actually work on something but my brain is stuck on loop.  So instead I’m gonna make a post of the Voltron stuff sitting unposted in my writing WIP folder to help me organize my thoughts.

I guess since I’m posting this, if you have anything you wanna say/ask about any of these feel free.  I respond well to outside interest.

1. Project ReVolt is without a doubt the project I’ve posted about the most here.  And talked about in random tags.  And tangents.  Originally it was just the name the project had in my internal brain filing cabinet but it’s kind of spread and stuck to where my wife and I just refer to it as that when we talk about it.

ReVolt is basically going to be a VLD series rewrite more along the lines of how my wife and I would have done it or at least liked to see it done.  In some places it will probably stick pretty damn close to the events of the series canon, but in others go completely off the deep end.  We’re each going to be doing one, so a lot of the headcanon and worldbuilding and such that we’ve worked out together in various other stories and RPs will be consistent between the two stories, but it will also give us a place to veer out and do things without the others’ input (as we’re not gonna let each other see our fics until they post, tee hee).  I’ve done a SHITPOT of rules and infrastructure work using actual alchemy tracts to try and make sense of the series’ largely Powers As The Plot Demands system,  and am pretty convinced I’m going to A)fall hard into my very common Esoterica Ranting Mode pitfall and B)enrage literally everyone who reads it with my character and plot choices.  Most conservative estimate says this will be six ‘books’ long as again, we’re doing literally the entire series.  Current status: at the ‘ridiculously large amount of notes and setting up actual arcs and outlines’ stage, and waiting for the wife to finish ‘Happier HOPEless’.

2. There Are No Monsters Here is a fic I really want to do but cannot seem to get off the ground, set to take place entirely in the ‘last universe’ from season 8--the one native-Honerva died in and crazed-death-god-Honerva picked out as her ideal and tried to wedge herself into.  I guess the basic idea was that, like the ‘main’ universe, it got rebuilt pretty much as it was prior to Nightmare Mom Ruining Everything, and I have it with no one fully remembering the events of season 8 that took place there, but characters really closely tied to those events having some itching feeling that something happened, and all the Altean alchemists agreeing that some kind of massive quantum Event certainly occurred even if they don’t know what.  

Mostly the story exists as  a place for me to have a canon-compliant AU that still lets me explore stuff like Altean history, the racial and cultural tensions of the Coalition, dink around with Oldadins that DON’T die in one fell swoop, a living Daibazaal and Altea, Lotor growing up with a decent-but-not-without-strains relationship with his dad, teen Allura and tiny Lotor being absolute shits to each other while also coming to terms as they grow up with who and what they MUST be both on a political and quantum scale, and generally prove that even a perfect universe isn’t, all in one place.  The title is entirely facetious, and anyone who’s read any of my alien culture headcanons for this series knows that.  Lol.  Current status: lots of bits and pieces, but no good beginning or connective tissue.   I have a lot of notes, some arc outlines, and a few scattered scenes and bits of dialogue from later in the story, but my god, I CANNOT get it off the ground.

3. Someone Must Get Hurt (But It Won’t Be Me) is supposed to be a pretty wholly Honerva-centric fic that starts...sometime in her youth?...and carries forward to an as-yet-undetermined point.  Probably her death.  I mean the first one.  I’m not sure.  Another chance to dig my fingers into Altean culture and Alchemy, this time leading up to All The Bad Shit That Happened, with the added bonus of being done from a focal point of a character I have a lot of really strong feelings about both positive and negative that’s resulted in me somehow being EVEN MORE wrapped up in her than I was before I added abject knee-jerk trauma hatred to the mix.  In no way meant to make Honerva more sympathetic, I think I just want to write her even more like my mother so I’ll feel EVEN BETTER about killing her?  Idk man my feelings about her are so complicated.  Also an excuse to write a shitpot of her and Zarkon because listen, I’m really glad they’re married because I ship them so fuckin hard.   Current Status: SO many notes.  SO much infrastructure.  Like three pages of an opening I’m almost definitely throwing away because I can’t decide where, when, or how to open but feel like this isn’t it.  One short but very telling scene of Honey and Zarkon from late in the story.  I’m obsessed with it but I can’t get anywhere. 

4. Currently Untitled Demon Hunter AU started because my wife talks to me about Happier HOPEless a LOT and I just got an itch in my bones to work on one myself.  In spite of the entire Demon Hunter AU thing getting started by a prompt on a Shance blog, neither Shiro nor Lance are set to appear for at least a chapter?  And I am not confident in my ability to not veer off into utter non-shipping anyway because man, am I bad at it.  Or like...just an entirely different ship for either or both of them.  Current Status: A lot of vague notes, a POWERFUL urge to structure the chapters and overall arc after Ripley’s Gates even though that limits my chapter count and means I will DEFINITELY have 20k+ word chapters, and about seven pages of the first chapter so I guess I’m committed now?

5. Currently Untitled Post Series Fic basically exists for me to vent my frustrations about two main things: The Universe is Fucking Huge And There Are Dangers Other Than Galra, and The Galra Empire Was Huge and Is Not Going To All Fall In Line Behind Voltron Coalition and Especially Behind Keith Who Just Arbitrarily Fucking Decided To Tell Them They Couldn't Pick A New Leader According To Their Own Traditions And Need To Do What They’re Told Now What The Fuck.  Also there was a lot of stuff in the series that got left hanging, and while ReVolt is an IN-series fix-it fic, I wanted something that patched up loose ends in a way that was satisfactory to me but also kind of canon-compliant.  Current Status: A lot of notes and screaming.  No one has seen my progress on this and they might never.

6. Dog Runs And Death Dreams is a warmup file turned deeply self-indulgent series of scenes in which I choose to assume that Shiro’s rare neuromuscular disorder was left so ambiguous so I could plug the symptoms of mine into it.  It’s genuinely not any deeper than that.  The whole thing is set pre-Kerberos, and includes copious Shiro x Adam content because of it, but also not the kind that makes me feel good about writing because that means it includes the ‘slow fizzle’ that leads up to their breakup before the mission.  Ugh.  Working on it does make me feel better when I've been having symptoms, though, and I’ve been letting myself write it, unchastised, in a really loose rambly way that I usually deride myself for.  It’s just cathartic.  Current Status: no notes, no plan, just strain-writing between seizures, but somehow it feels like it has some kind of structure and just keeps growing?  Possibly too close to the bone for me to ever post.

7. Birth and Rebirth was born out of two things: the fact that Zarkon is shown to have two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reactions to first being presented with his baby son in different flashbacks and different seasons, and the fact that in spite of the flashbacks we get at the end of the series, earlier on, the impression I got of Lotor and Zarkon’s relationship wasn’t of a young man who had never had affection from his father, but who had instead lost it.  Well, three things: I have a lot of underlying issues at work, at play, and at large when it comes to the Galra Imperial Family.  Also, anyone notice the monitor blips in the first baby Lotor flashbacks indicate a heart murmur?  Anyway, it was supposed to be a thoroughly self-indulgent and thoroughly self-hurtful examination of Lotor’s early life and the death by degrees of what was left of his father in the husk Rift Adventures left behind, but I got stuck on it a little way in.   Current Progress: ten pages, a lot of notes, and some wistfulness.  I keep hoping I’ll get inspired to pick it back up again.  Contemplating rewriting some of the beginning, maybe it’ll help?

Bonus entry that is not actually in any form of progress soever:

50/50 Voltron Trashfire Edition is spawned from the ‘50/50′ challenge on an old TF board I used to haunt.  It’s a fifty-prompt smut challenge using the list of ‘50 reasons to have sex’ from some tv show, and the idea is to write a different ship for every prompt (hence the name).  My wife is blazing through it and has several (like twelve?) up on her AO3, but I’ll be utterly blunt: I haven’t written fifty porn fics in my LIFE.  Over ALL my fandoms.  Current Status: Literally all I have done is assign a ship to each prompt, and I might actually have some prompts with just question marks beside them still.  I have one aborted start to one entry.  That’s it.  It’s not happening.  But the empty file is technically in the folder, SO.

[aussie-em]

We Just Need To Figure Out What's Going On

We Just Need Voltron Chapter 1

Read on A03

Read on FFnet

5 uncontrollable Teens and a tired Space Dad are crammed into a flying Blue Lion to find the lion's co-workers and possibly save the universe on the way. We just need some Teamwork*TM. Oh, did I mention Space Other Dad and Space Older Siblings are there too?

First

All

Previous

Next

** Shiro **

The three men stood on Kerberos, the moon of Pluto. Shiro held the instrument carefully as his teammates lowered it into the ground to collect ice samples, and tried to focus on the task at hand as the other two chatted carefreely about the microorganisms within the ice.

"Isn't this exciting, Shiro?" His boyfriend, Adam, asked him. Shiro chuckled.

"You guys get a bit more excited about ice samples than I do."

"Just think about it!" Sam Holt grinned. "We've travelled further than any human ever has. The organisms in this ice could give us clues about life outside earth. My life's work would be complete."

There was silence before Sam spoke up again.

"I wonder how old Matt and Katie will be when we get back."

Shiro closed his eyes for a split-second longer than he should have, and Adam noticed.

"I wonder if Keith has gotten with that boy he always talked about yet."

That made him laugh. "Or even decided to talk to him."

Shiro smiled sadly at his accomplices and noticed Adam's shaking hands as he held the cylinder of ancient ice. "Careful, dear. We don't want to have to draw up this ice again."

Adam nodded. "Yeah, that took forever. How many more do we have to... Shiro?"

Adam stopped when he looked up in the same direction as Shiro was staring, eyes wide. His jaw dropped as the ground started to rumble violently.

"Seismic activity?" Sam frowned before looking up at the quickly darkening starscape.

"What... what is that?" Adam gaped as the black mass hovered hundreds of meters above the planet's surface.

"Whatever it is- RUN!" Shiro yelped as a massive purple beam grew from the ship. "RUN, COME ON, RUN!"

Adam dropped the ice sample as they sprinted away from the purple laser. They didn't make it far. The last thing Shiro remembered was Adam screaming his name as the purple beam lifted them off their feet.

---

"...appear to be primitive...planet...not far away. ... Sir?"

Shiro jolted his head up with a gasp. He couldn't see much from where he knelt, but he could see Adam and Sam's orange Garrison spacesuits next to him, heads lolling, unconscious.

"Interrogation." A booming voice mentioned, "...what they know."

"Please, we come from a peaceful planet!" Shiro gasped. "We-we're unarmed!"

He cried out as a huge metal object hit the back of his head and everything faded to black.

---

** Lance **

One year later

Lance kicked back in his chair as they prepared for landing on Kerberos.

"Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission."

He gently pulled the lever left, but it slipped out of his hand and fell forwards.

"Ugh. Man, can you keep this thing straight?" The mechanic of the team, Hunk, yelped.

Lance sighed as he tried to concentrate on the difficult task he had on his hands, the lever slipping out of his grasp again. "Buddy, you know I can't keep anything-"

"GOT IT! Just make sure we don't crash!" Hunk groaned.

Then Pidge spoke up, "We've picked up a distress beacon!"

Lance grinned. "All right! Look alive team. Pidge, track coordinates."

The ship pitched left. Alarms blared. Hunk screeched, "Lance, please!"

"Oh, this one's on you, buddy," Lance grumbled, "We've got a hydraulic stabilizer out."

Hunk pulled a monitor, like a tray table on a passenger plane. "Oh no." He gulped.

"Fix now, Hunk, puke later!" Lance suggested.

"I've lost contact," Pidge warned, "The shaking is interfering with our sensors!"

Lance wailed, "Come on, Hunk!"

Hunk swallowed again as unbuckled the belt holding him to his seat and launched out and across the ship. "It's not responding. Ah-"

Lance sighed as his monitor blared for a second. "Oh, never mind, fellas, thar she blows. Preparing for approach on visual."

"I don't really think that's advisable with our current mechanical and..." Pidge glanced at Hunk, who was still groaning next to the gearbox, "Gastrointestinal issues."

Hunk swallowed. "Agreed."

"Stop worrying! This baby can take it. Can't you, champ?" He patted the dashboard lightly and the ship creaked loudly.

"Uh- see? She was nodding. She was nodding. Anyways- Pidge, hail down to them to let them know their ride is here, will ya?"

Pidge reached for the comms device but narrowed her eyes when he couldn't reach it with his short arms. He quickly unbuckled his belt and grabbed the chair arm for stability and the communications device.

"Attention lunar-!" Pidge screeched as he was thrown to the ground as the ship shook more.

"What are you doing! Buckle your belt!" Lance cried. "And Hunk, stop that shaking!"

"I'm try-in- oh-oh no-!"

Lance and Pidge grimaced as Hunk threw up into the main gearbox, which somehow stopped the ship from shaking. Lance shrugged and muttered, "Well, it worked," and Pidge rolled his eyes and grabbed the communicator.

"Attention lunar vessel, this is Galaxy Garrison Rescue Craft One Victor Six Three Tango. Coming in for landing and extraction," Pidge narrowed his eyes and glanced at Lance, "Against crew recommendations."

Lance coughed. "No time for your mutinous comments now, Pidge. We're going in and I am not crashing another ship."

He pushed the control forward and quickly stopped it before it went too far, but then everything started to go wrong.

"Look out for that overhang!" Pidge yelled.

"We lost a wing!" Hunk shrieked as alarms blared.

"Oh, no," Lance grumbled as the ship shook even more and the lights blacked out as they crashed into the hard ice on the planet below.

---

The whole ship rocked as the airlock was ripped open suddenly.

"AH- IT'S THE ALIENS." Hunk screeched, which was followed by a groan as he noticed their simulation instructor, Commanding Officer Wise.

"Everyone out!"

"I wasn't even wearing my helmet, we would've died if that was a real alien. The simulator didn't even have helmets in it!" Hunk mumbled as they stepped off and walked away from the simulator and the janitor cleaned up Hunk's lunch before another three of their classmates entered.

After class, Commander Wise asked to see the three cadets.

Their simulation instructor was a substitute, as their previous teacher was away with an eye injury for a few months. Thankfully, Wise was kinder to their trio than Iverson would have been for their disaster in the simulator, mostly because he was one of Hunk's close relatives. A first cousin once removed, or something. But also because he was just nicer than Iverson.

The commander stopped for a second, before turning to the three cadets.

"Your simulation trial would have given you a fail for a grade, most likely even individually graded." He sighed.

"Mr McClain," He started. "You crashed the ship. You need to focus more on piloting the ship and less on instructing your teammates on their jobs. That's why you crashed, you should have listened to Pidge and waited until Hunk... ah, fixed the ship and flown over the overhang."

"Gunderson," Commander Wise nodded. "You did well overall, although you should have loosened the belt instead of unclipping it."

"Mr Garret," Their instructor turned to the downwards-looking cadet, "Vomit is not an approved lubricant for engine systems. I know you have gastrointestinal issues, as Pidge pointed out, but we have bags provided, and we have some resources available to help you with it. I suggest you see to that."

"And to all three of you, you need to build your teamwork skills. You can start that at break. Now go."

Lance, Hunk and Pidge thanked Commander Wise before heading out the door to the hallways of the Garrison.

--

Hunk stiffened as Professor Montgomery's voice echoed through the halls. "LIGHTS OUT IN FIVE! EVERYONE BACK TO THEIR DORMS, NOW."

"We shouldn't be doing this."

Lance rolled his eyes. "Oh, you heard Commander Wise. We need to bond as a team! We're gonna grab Pidge, hit the town, loosen up, meet some nice girls, or maybe some nice boys-"

Hunk cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Okay- I'm just- I'm just saying this here, right now, for the record: This is a bad idea."

Lance sighed softly and took off down the hall. "Ya know, for someone in a space exploration program, you have no sense of adventure."

Hunk pulled Lance back behind a corner as Professor Montgomery walked past, thankfully preoccupied.

"Well," He whispered when Montgomery was finally out of earshot, "All of your 'adventures' end up with me in the principal's office! And that one time, you managed to get the whole class in detention for a month! You weren't very popular after that, remember."

Lance frowned. "Yeah. But this time, Keith isn't here!"

"How was that Keith's fault? You knocked down the-"

Lance jerked his finger to his mouth, silencing Hunk. He bobbed down and crawled under the window to the instructor's lounge, unnoticed.

Finally, they arrived at Pidge's dorm wing. "What now?" Hunk asked.

Lance hadn't thought that far.

They quickly stopped talking and ducked further behind the wall corner they were hiding behind as the door to Pidge's dorm opened with a rush of air, and Pidge stepped out.

Lance sighed a breath of relief. "Well, that was easy," He muttered to Hunk. As Pidge started down the hallway opposite to them, Lance frowned. "Where is he going...?"

---

** Pidge **

At least she had heard correctly.

Later in the day, after the complete failure in the simulator, she and her classmates had been given a few hours off for free time. She probably should have been hanging out with Lance and Hunk, her new annoying teammates, but they had gone off to the cafeteria to eat. At least Hunk had. Lance had probably just tagged along to flirt with some of the cute girls there.  To Pidge, that would just seem awkward, and she really wasn't hungry, so she went off to find something to do.

After stumbling around for a bit, she found herself back at the cafeteria. She looked around for her teammates, having nothing else to do, but first laying her eyes on her older brother, Matt, who was talking to and his best friend Veronica at a table close to her. She quickly turned a corner and flattened herself against the wall, out of view of the general public and unseen by Matt or Veronica, and listened in to their conversation, as all good little sisters do.

"...Voltron. Tonight, something big is gonna happen."

"This is crazy, Matt. How... have you been..."

"...and I have no idea what's happening. But ... down there, so we need to be on that roof tonight... speeders, and this is the opportunity of a lifetime, whatever it is. ... have to be there, Veronica."

"Got it. Thanks, Matt."

Pidge scrambled out of her hiding place and into the hallway as Matt and Veronica got up, and walked a bit down the hall before turning back to the cafeteria doors and casually walked towards them.

"Oh, hey Pidge!"

Matt stood in front of her. Pidge waved, trying to seem like this was a coincidence that they bumped into each other.

"Hey, Matt! Hi, Veronica."

"What're you up to?" Matt

"Eh, I was going to hang out with my new teammates at the cafeteria."

"Yeah, how's class going?" Veronica questioned, smiling.

"That was my question!" Matt pouted, elbowing Veronica in the side.

"Going... well, I guess. We finally got in the simulators today, and my teammates are kinda jerks. Well, I mean Hunk seems nice, but Lance..."

Veronica laughed. "Nice to see you finally met my brother."

Pidge guffawed. "/That's/ your brother? I should have recognised him!"

Veronica shook her head then smirked, "You are not hanging out with my brother when we're going to play Killbot Phantasm 23: Cloned."

"Oh. My gosh." Pidge almost let out a loud and probably embarrassing shriek, but Matt covered her mouth before she did. "You have it? How did you get it? When did you get it?"

"That's top secret intel," Veronica laughed. "C'mon, you're playing with us. At least for the next two hours you have off, right?"

Pidge nodded quickly and was pulled down the Garrison halls towards Veronica's dorm.

They didn't talk about Voltron, or whatever was going to happen that night.

---

Pidge opened the door to the roof of the Garrison and went through it with a *bang*.

"I want to help. Whatever this is, if you're doing this I need to help."

Matt and Veronica looked up from the computer screen they were studying.

"Pidge! Pidge- I can't let you-" Matt frowned and Veronica nodded.

"No! This could be too dangerous. We can't let you- You're only fifteen-"

Pidge crossed her arms and frowned in anger and confusion. "And you're only nineteen! I'm in a space exploration program for high school kids who are at least two years older than me apiece, what could possibly be more dangerous?"

"How did you find us?" Matt kept glancing at her, then back to the horizon, like he was waiting for something.

"I overheard your conversation in the cafeteria. You weren't that quiet. If you're doing this, whatever it is, Voltron thing? I have to. Matt- Veronica, tell me what's going on!"

"Is this a bad time?"

Two figures were standing at the door where Pidge came onto the roof. Or, at least, Lance was. Hunk was hiding behind the door.

"LANCE?"

"Who is this? What's going on?" Lance inquired.

"Jerk Teammate and Hunk, Matt. And Lance, I guess you know Veronica already." Pidge sighed. "How'd you get up here?"

"Followed you. Commander Wise wanted us to bond, so I wanted to do some bonding." Lance wandered over to where the rest of the group was, and Hunk followed, crawling.

"Adam?" Matt frowned. Adam Wise was presumed dead in space.

"No. Curtis. Adam's dead in space, remember?"

"What's this about... Voltorb?" Hunk spoke up.

"Voltron. And... ugh," Matt looked at Veronica, who pulled a face.

"And where'd you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech."

"I built it," Matt stated plainly.

"Lance! gimme a sec!" Veronica glared at her brother. Pidge could see the physical resemblance between the two- tall, lanky darker-skinned siblings with short brown hair and sharp eyes, which stood out in the dark.

"Matt-" She rubbed her temples.

"You built all this?" Hunk inquired, and then proceeded to poke the satellite, and Matt slapped his hand away.

"Ah, stop it! And yes, of course. With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

Matt tried to think of a response when Hunk tapped the screen of the computer.

"Hunk! Second warning!"

"Aw..."

Veronica placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look*TM, one that could only mean, 'Should we tell the younger siblings all our secrets?'

Matt sighed and responded with, 'Sure, why not?'

"Look, Pidge, Matt, Veronica. If we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets."

Matt and Veronica simultaneously glared at Lance, who held up his hands and backed away.

"Just getting to that! Fine. The world as you know it is about to change." Matt sounded uncharacteristically ominous, and Veronica looked on gravely. "The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake... And I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter."

Hunk shrieked. "Whoa, what? Aliens?!"

Lance still looked uncertain. "Okay, so you're insane. Great, got it."

Matt took a deep breath and Veronica punched her brother's shoulder. "I'm serious! They keep repeating one word: "Voltron". And tonight, it's going crazier than I have ever heard it."

Lance narrowed his eyes. "How crazy?"

Suddenly, Professor Wise's voice rang out from speakers all over the Garrison and everyone jumped.

"Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: All students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

Veronica was staring at the sky over the desert, wide-eyed, and tapped Matt's shoulder. When he looked over, he screeched.

"Keep it down!" Pidge warned, and jolted her head in the direction they were looking as she saw the reflection of the red streak in Veronica's glasses when she looked at the pair.

There was a massive object in the sky, fire forming at the head and narrowing at the tail, similar to a comet. Except it was heading straight for the desert very near to them.

Hunk gasped. "What's going on? Is that a meteor?! ... A very, very big... meteor?"

Pidge grabbed for the pair of binoculars at Matt's feet. "It's a ship!" Lance grabbed the binoculars and held them up to his eyes, Pidge still holding onto them.  "Holy crow! I can't believe what I'm seeing!"

Veronica nodded as she snatched the binoculars from Lance, and Pidge grunted as she was thrown around again as she stubbornly held on to her binoculars. "That is not one of ours!"

"No," Matt as staring agape at the ship, still hurtling out of the sky. "It's one of theirs."

A shockwave erupted from the explosion, sending waves of small chunks of sand and dirt all over the five cadets on the roof.

---

They raced off the roof of the building as they attempted to get closer to the crash site, but stopped on a cliff nearby to stay hidden from the group of Garrison cars quickly closing around the site.

Pidge held the binoculars to her face once again, squinting through her glasses which got in the way of the oddly shaped eye-holes on the binoculars. She could just make out two figures; one of which was slung over the shoulder of the other, sho obviously couldn't handle his weight, probably because of his weakened state.

Then the figure standing upright collapsed.

"Whoa. Who is that?" Matt grabbed for his binoculars.

"We gotta help them!" Veronica encouraged, but Matt held up a hand.

"Wait... the teachers are going down there."

They watched as the Garrison teachers hastily set up a tent and brought out two stretcher tables, then clipped the figures to the restraints on the table.

Lance squinted at the ship in the distance. "Man, we'll never get past all those guards to get a look."

Hunk nodded. "Aw, man. Yeah, we—yeah I guess there's nothing to do but head back to the barracks, right?"

The rest of the group glared at him.

"Okay, so that's a no then?"

Matt cleared his throat "Wait. They set up a camera in there and I grabbed its feed. Look!"

One of the men was conscious again, while the other's head lolled to the side on the table.

Takashi Shirogane and Adam Wise.

Shiro thrashed around in his restraints. "Hey! What are you doing?"

Professor Montgomery looked at Shiro and put her hands out in a defensive gesture. "Calm down, Shiro. We just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests on you."

Shiro wasn't taking a word of it, still struggling to get out of his restraints. He didn't look... evil, really, but instead he looked frightened. "You have to listen to me! They destroyed worlds! Aliens are coming!"

Lance gasped. "That's Shiro! The pilot of the Kerberos Mission. That guy's my hero!"

Matt nodded. "And Adam. They were on the Mission with Dad!"

Hunk blinked at the screen. "Guess he's not dead in space after all."

"If Shiro and Adam are there... where's Dad?" Pidge realized, sharing a wide-eyed look with Matt.

On the screen, Montgomery interrogated Shiro. "Do you know how long you've been gone?"

"I don't know. Months? Years? Look, there's no time. Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They're probably on their way. They'll destroy us! We have to find Voltron!"

Matt gasped. "Voltron!"

One of the technicians got Montgomery's attention. "Ma'am, take a look at this. It appears his arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic."

The professor studied it. "Put him under until we know what that thing can do."

Shiro gasped. "No- don't, don't put me under! No! No, there's no time! Let me go!"

Pidge frowned. "They didn't ask about Adam. Or Dad."

"What are they doing? The guy's a legend. They're not even gonna listen to him?" Lance stared.

Matt nodded in agreement. "We have to get him out."

"Ah, I hate to be the voice of reason here, as always," Hunk pointed out, "But weren't we just watching on TV because there was no way to get past the guards?"

Veronica adjusted her glasses, which were slipping down her nose. "That was before we were properly motivated. We've just got to think."

Pidge nodded. "Maybe we could get some hazmat suits and sneak in like med techs."

Matt noticed something on the horizon and nudged Veronica in the side "... No. What we need is a distraction."

The explosions rocked the earth, and Matt and Veronica picked up their equipment and stood.

"Get ready. I'd prefer it if you'd go back to your dorms, but I can't tell you what to do. We have somewhere to be."

Pidge, Hunk and Lance watched in confusion as Veronica saluted a 'goodbye' with two fingers up to her forehead. Then the pair sprinted back towards the Garrison.

They turned back to the site of the crash. "Those explosions were a distraction, for him!" Pidge realised as she watched the commotion through her binoculars.

A figure jumped off a familiar-looking speeder and snuck towards the tent holding Shiro and Adam.

"The Garrison's headed towards the blast, and he's sneaking in from the other side!"

Lance grabbed her binoculars and shrieked when he saw the figure up close.

"No way...! Oh, he is not going to be us in there! That guy is always trying to one-up me!"

"Who is it?" Hunk questioned.

"Keith!" Lance yelled as he ran off towards the site.

Pidge frowned "Who?"

"Are you sure?"

Lance laughed. "Oh, I'd recognize that mullet anywhere!"

"Who's Keith?!"

---

** Keith **

Keith entered the tent, prepared for a fight, the lower half of his face covered in a bandana. He reckoned it was pretty pointless, though, as his hairstyle and eye colour were pretty unique, and anyone that had ever met him would probably recognize him. Still, he held up his fists, prepared to attack.

When the figures in the tech suits noticed him, one yelled, "Hey!"

He quickly knocked out one of them and threw another across the room into a chair. The third he pushed into the table where the unconscious people lay.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and ran to the table, immediately recognizing his adoptive parents.

"Shiro? Adam?"

[stevenstephens]

Pleased to meet you || Eleven

TAGGING: Ellie Berry & Steven Stephens

WHERE: Lima, OH & Columbus, OH

WHEN:  Late Friday Night,  January 11th

NOTES: Steven (finally) gets in contact with Ellie and they end up texting till late in the night. 

Steven

Steve: Hi there, someone gave me this number when I asked if they happen to have the number of Ellie Berry. Are you her? If this is not you, than I'm sorry for disturbing your evening.

Ellie

Ellie: Hmm.  I'll only tell you if you tell me who gave you this number and what you want to do to Ellie Berry

Ellie: I'm kidding. You've texted the right number.  Who's this?

Steven

Steve: Unfortunately for you, I can't reveal my source. As for the reason why I'm texting... We're arranged to be married.

Steve: So hi, I'm your future husband... Steven Stephens

Ellie

Ellie: Crap. Maybe I should have just typed wrong number. 

Ellie: I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You just caught me by surprise and a little off-guard.

Ellie: You've been MIA so long that I started referring to you as a phantom.

Steven

Steve: Ha, I wouldn't blame you if you had. I've been looking at my phone for about an hour before I worked up enough courage to hit send

Steve: No worries, totally understandable. 

Steve: Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I tend to lose track of time when I'm working on a project and then a day turns into a week, that turns into a month... but I'm here now.

Ellie

Ellie: No. I maybe sarcastic, but I'm not rude

Ellie: Okay now I have to ask - why were you so hesitant to contact me?  I'm not expecting anything. I actually find the whole lottery system reprehensible 

Ellie: I see.  So you're a workaholic? Good to know. What exactly do you do for a living? My parents gave me absolutely no information other than your name.  Didn't help since prior to my summons, I had little to no contact with Lima.

Steven

Steve: My parents will love it when they hear that. They always claim they would have done a better job with it. 

Steve: As to the why so hesitant, it's a mixture of a few things,  but mostly a family feud I tried to distance myself from by moving to Columbus, and this will drag me right back into it - and the other, well,  I wanted to safe you from being tied down in a marriage that's just a piece of paper... it's hard to explain through text, but have you heard of the term demisexual.

Steve: A huge workaholic. I develop apps for both mobile phones as for computers.

Ellie

Ellie: Thanks? Think my politeness will outweigh the fact I dropped out of college and went on tour with my band?

Ellie: Okay. Wow.  Quite a bit to unpack there.  Sounds like your life is a telenovela. Who is the feud with? 

Ellie: Again. I didn't expect anything. To be honest, I figured the marriage would simply be on paper.

Ellie: You can't force love.  It has to happen organically, by choice.

Ellie: I - just googled it.  So, basically no sex without an emotional bond?  Like not even just for a release? 

Ellie: That's cool.  I love my phone and it's apps. I'm a studio drummer and starting next week part time student

Steven

Steve: You've got a band? That's so cool! And yes, I think it will outweigh it. They believe in good education, but they also believe that being happy with what you do for a living is essential. 

Steve: Hmm, you're not far off with that description. You aren't from Lima, are you?  It's with the Jones'. 

Steve: Exactly, love has to grow. This whole Marriage Law... well, it's not fair on anyone. 

Steve: Not necessarily. If we manage to build a strong enough deep connection, there might come a time where sex is an option. But there is no say in how long it will take for me to get to that point. I'm so sorry. 

Steve: A studio drummer? Do you work for a studio and any artist can hire you, is that how it works. Are you going back to school? Exciting! What are you going to study?

Ellie

Ellie: Well we're on hiatus at the moment. I'm going to be playing on a few new albums.

Ellie: I'm a quick study. Why is there so much drama in your life?  I avoid my parents, so they won't be an issue. I am. I just left when I was 17.  I went to Yale, dropped out right before graduation and never came back. 

Ellie: Yes. I know them. Don't tell anyone, but Mercedes was matched with my ex-boyfriend.

Ellie: I see.  There's no reason to be sorry.  I mean, I like sex, but it'll be fine. Probably better anyway.  Lately I've had issues compartmentalizing sex and feelings.

Ellie: I'm working with Blaine Anderson right now, but yes, in theory any artist can hire me through the label to drum for them.  It's pretty much a dream come true.

Ellie: I was studying theatre and economics.  My parents wanted me to go into the family business.  They're theatre owners.

Ellie: Online and part time.  Yale has an interdisciplinary major. Kind of  like a general studies degree.  Not ideal but at least my credits are still good.

Steven

Steve: It sounds like you can be as busy with work at times as I am, we'll make quite the pair of workaholics, ha.

Steve: Beats me, I tried to stay out of the whole feud but when your parents want to check everyone you hang out with to make sure they aren't friends with the Jones'... well it doesn't make for a happy childhood. So I choose to settle down in Columbus after graduating from MIT. 

Steve: My lips are sealed. From what I remember from back in the days she can be quite bossy at times, so I wish him luck. 

Steve: I'm alright with making it an open marriage if you feel the need you're free to look outside our marriage for sex.  We just have to make sure you won't get caught while doing so. 

Steve: Hmm-mm, love, and sex are hard to separate at times. So yes, perhaps this whole thing will give you some time to learn to distinguish the two.

Steve: Blaine Anderson, the name sounds familiar... from what I heard very talented. So you could end up working with some huge names? That must be so exciting. 

Steve: Oh that's good, that way you don't have to start all over. When will you graduate?

Ellie

Ellie: I suppose so. :) Do you plan on staying in Columbus?

Ellie: Ugh.  That actually sounds pretty miserable.  Rather isolating.

Ellie: MIT? So you must be pretty smart. Any chance you could make an app to rig the lottery system so it crashes?

Ellie: She and I are in decent terms. Friendly I guess.  Thanks for the discretion. Literally no one else knows. Not even my sisters.

Ellie: Usually I'm pretty good about keeping my emotions at bay.  However lately things have gotten complicated.  It kind of sucks.

Ellie: No sex might turn out to be a positive thing for me. 

Ellie: He is incredibly talented and sweet too.  I've been friends with him forever.   And yes!  My roommate actually is a recording artist. He's on the down low right now though.

Ellie: If I play my cards right, about a year. 

Ellie: And not to sound superficial, but can you send me a picture of yourself? It's be nice to put a face to the texts

Steven

Steve: I honestly do not know what the future brings when it comes to living here or in Columbus, depends on how well my father's going to react to his treatments. But I do love the freedom that living in Columbus brings. 

Steve: It was. But it's something I got used to. 

Steve: Ha, I might give it a try? First I'd have to break into their server, not my strong suit but I'd be willing to give it a try. 

Steve: Keep your fingers crossed that Liv lady doesn't catch wind of it else the whole town will know all about it. But if you guys been super discreet I doubt she ever will.

Steve: I'm sorry. Was it with someone who's forced into the Marriage law as well? Know what, I don't have to know. Only if you feel like sharing. 

Steve: Ah, so not only do you work with big names you also live with one. Very intrigued at the moment, not going to lie.

Steve: A year, that's doable... you'll be done before you know it.

Steve: Is that a good enough picture for you?  :wink:

Ellie

Ellie: It's not a huge deal one way or the other.  I guess it's just something we'd have to figure out if we actually abide by the rules and go forward.  I honestly can't believe I'm so calm about it. I just assumed I'd be hyperventilating or fleeing Lima. 

Ellie: No kid should have to go through that.  I was adopted by my dads.  I had my fair share of dealing with cruel kids and some adults 

Ellie: You should! Just make sure you cover your tracks.  Like in one of those hacker movies 

Ellie: We've only hung out a couple of times and in private.  Nothing happened that would be considered suspect ot tawdry. 

Ellie:  He is, but that's not really the issue.  He made his intentions clear.  I got caught up in the what if.  It's fine though.  He hasn't texted me in a while.

Ellie: Ha I do! He's become one of my best friends. We're kindred spirits and platonic soul mates. If you stick around, you'll find out soon enough.

Ellie: That's what I keep telling myself.  I'm actually excited, nervous and proud of myself.

Ellie: Umm... Seriously? That's you?

Ellie: I know you didn't ask, but I thought it only fair.

Steven

Steve: We can talk living arrangements along planning all other things. Columbus is only an hour and a half away from Lima, it's a long commute but always an option. Plus we'd be away from the prying eyes of that Higher Counsel, and I doubt they'll drop by for surprise checks if they have to travel far.

Steve: Kids can be so cruel to each other, can't they? I'm sorry you had to deal with that. 

Steve: I'm very proud of the firewall I coded for myself, they won't be able to track anything, trust me. 

Steve: That's good, that way she doesn't have dirt on you. I'm not fond of that gossip blog. I doubt anybody is anyway. 

Steve: Wow, that's rather a cruel thing to do. At least have the decency to text someone back. 

Steve: I'll be on my best behavior, ha. Good to hear you guys hit it of so well, especially since he's your roommate. 

Steve: As you should be. It's a huge step to take. I'm proud of you for taking it. 

Steve: Seriously, that is me. 

Steve: And thank you for sending a few of yours, you look lovely. And I got a face to go with the texts.

Ellie

Ellie: Yeah, of course.  There's plenty of time to plan.  My girl best friend is getting married soon.  I think maybe that's why this whole thing sounds less crazy.  The guy she was matched with actually turned out to be a good guy. 

Ellie: And I hadn't thought about the privacy aspect.  You make a good point. I'd just hate to leave my housemates without warning 

Ellie: It's ok.  I mean, don't get me wrong, it sucked at the time.  But it also made me stronger. 

Ellie: Thanks.  That's very sweet of you to say. I have absolutely no coding experience, so I'm going to take your word for that.  Let me know if your attempt works, ok?

Ellie: Everyone has their own issues and priorities.  I'll get over it

Ellie: He's a blast so no need to be on your best behavior.  We go dancing and have pretty much every take out menu in Lima memorized. 

Ellie: Do you wake up looking like that? 

Ellie: Thanks. And yes, yes you do

Steven

Steve: Who's your girl best friend? I'm asking because one of my friends is getting married soon as well, he got his name drawn in the Marriage lottery. 

Steve: We have time to figure it all out, and if we decide on Columbus there will be plenty of time to warn your housemates about it. Who knows, I might actually like being back in Lima 24/7/365 and be the one moving to another town. 

Steve: That is true, it build character and strength, but it's still bad people get like that toward people just because they're different from what's considered the norm.

Steve: I'll keep you posted. 

Steve: If you want for his phone to get infected with a virus let me know :wink: 

Steve: Oh, perhaps one day I can join you guys when you go dancing? It's been years since I last seen the inside of a club.

Steve: No, my hair's a mess when I wake up. According to many it is a look that suits me rather well.

Steve: You're welcome. It's a pleasure to finally have a face with the name.

Ellie

Ellie: Her name is Laura.  She's one of the most amazing people I know. 

Ellie: I suppose that true.  When I first returned to Lima I had absolutely no intention of staying.  However, now I'm not sure if I could live anywhere else. 

Ellie: Although I would like to go back on tour at some point. 

Ellie: Ha. No. He's a good guy. I just need to move forward and no dwell.

Ellie: New year right?

Ellie: Yeah, of course.  We're actually trying to make our outings a weekly event.

Ellie: I'm sure it is.

Ellie: Oh and it's actually my "real" name is Elizabeth.  No one calls me though.

Steven

Steve: No shit?!  My friend whose name got drawn is Alex!

Steve: As I mentioned before at the moment I'll be in Lima most of the time. That's the beauty about my line of work, as long as I've got a connection to the internet I don't even have to leave the house. 

Steve: ^^^^ I can work from anywhere in the world, so if you want to tour and this Marriage Law needs for us to be around each other I can tag along. 

Steve: New Year, new you.

Steve: Oh, perhaps one day I can join you guys when you go dancing? It's been years since I last seen the inside of a club.

Steve: One day you can judge for yourself if it does or doesn't.

Steve: Ah, so Ellie is your nickname so to speak? How did they end up calling you Ellie instead of something like Liz?

Steve:  Any siblings I'll have to meet one day?

Ellie

Ellie: Ha.  Really? Small world!

Ellie: Sounds like a pretty awesome field.  One thing I love about touring is seeing places I never would have thought of visiting. 

Ellie: You'd do that?  Are you always so agreeable and amenable?

Ellie: That's what I'm going for.

Ellie: Yeah.  Just let me know when you'd like to join us.

Ellie: Oddly enough, your comment 

made me blush.

Ellie: My parents hated Ellie and/or any other variation?  I guess the never saw me as a Liz.

Steven

Steve: Very small world indeed. 

Steve: For a nerd like me it is, yes. That's sounds pretty damn awesome. What places have you been to so far? 

Steve: Yeah, I would. Hmmm, not all the time. Don't ask me things before I had at least 2 cups of coffee and some breakfast, else the answer will be no for sure. 

Steve: I'll keep it in mind. If, two months from now I still haven't asked about joining you guys, hmu. I'd probably forgot all about. 

Steve: Did it  really? 

Steve: So it was to rile up your parents? Nice! And come on, you could so be a Liz. 

Steve:  Talking about parents... do you have any siblings?

Ellie

Ellie: Certainly is 

Ellie: I think most people would enjoy having that flexibility.  I've actually been coast to coast.  My favorite states are  probably New York City and Oregon.  Very different, but equally beautiful in their own way.

Ellie: Haha.  A fellow caffeine addict.  I live on coffee.  I also love to eat. 

Ellie: Will do! 

Ellie: Yep.  Something that's relatively difficult to do, so take it as a compliment. 

Ellie: Sort of? A friend called me Ellie and it kind of stuck.

Ellie: I don't know.  Never saw myself as Liz.

Ellie: My dads' names are Hiram and Leroy.  I also have two older sisters (twins) Rachel and Amelia.

Steven

Steve: Yeah, I guess you can say that. Wow, I did a lot of traveling in my life but never been coast to coast. Boston is lovely, Columbus is great and one of my favorite cities to visit is Barcelona, oh and Venice, though tourism is killing the fun. It's so full of tourists these days. Any place or country you really want to visit one day?

Steve: Note to self, make sure to stock up on coffee just in case El comes to visit.

Steve: Alright, score one for me, ha. 

Steve: That settles it, I'm going to start calling you Liz every now and then, just to show you that it fits you perfectly.

Steve: I've got one sister, Emily. She's 6 years younger.

Steve: God, look at us talking the night away here, I like it.

Steve:  I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?

Ellie

Ellie: I do! Yes, Boston is gorgeous.  My dream has always been to travel through Europe.  I was hoping to get a European band tour set up, but I doubt that will happen at this point.  Elliott (my housemate) and I discussed getting a group together and taking a trip.

Ellie: Haha yes.  And I am not one of those fancy coffee drinkers other.  I like it strong and crappy.  Liquid black gold

Ellie: Oh boy. Did I create a monster in one text? Or did you always have this competitive side? 

Ellie: Sigh. Okay.  Can we meet in the middle with Elizabeth?

Ellie: Oh. I never asked how old you were.  I'm 26. Are you and your sister close?

Ellie: Yeah.  It's been really easy.  Next time we should try talking.  I'd like to hear what your voice sounds like.

Ellie: No. I need to go into the studio at some point and have a photo shoot in the afternoon, but nothing right now.  That's what coffee and cold showers are for. :)

Steven

Steve: Never say never, if you guys are able to get together that band then go for it! Life's too short to not enjoy every minute of it. 

Steve: Okay, okay, noted... the stronger the better. 

Steve: I've always been kind of competitive, so yeah, not all your doing but it did help resurface that side of me. 

Steve: That's such a mouth full tho... we'll see. 

Steve: Yeah, even though we haven't lived in the same town for a while now we are close. We talk/text all the time.  Are you close to your sisters? 

Steve: We can do that, or we can meet up in person? 

Steve:  I've got an appointment with a realtor later today, I need to find a place to rent for the time being. The hotel suite I'm currently am in is fine, but not suitable to stay long periods of time and I rather not move into my parents pool house. I'm fond of my privacy.

Ellie

Ellie: No definitely. I agree there.  It's just there's a lot of logisitcal stuff that goes into a tour.  Not to mention financing.

Ellie: I need to see how this new job pans out. It has a lot of potential. 

Ellie: If it doesn't grow hair on your chest, it isn't coffee. ;)

Ellie: That's why I can braid mine.  Kidding.  My chest is hair free. 

Ellie: Well good because so am I.  I'm always up for a challenge and adventure.

Ellie: You could also call me El.  A lot of people do.

Ellie: Are the two mutually exclusive?  When will you be in Lima?

Ellie: Oh really? Like as in today? 

Ellie: Yeah that's why I found my own place. I was living in motels for a while, but it was getting too expensive.

Steven

Steve: How does that work, the financing part? Through sponsors or you make sure you have bookings all over Europe that bring in the money? 

Steve: It's always nice to have a steady income, to know that at the end of the month there's a paycheck waiting for you. 

Steve: OMG! You almost got me asking for photographic evidence. of that, ha. 

Steve: Perfect! That will keep things interesting and fun. 

Steve: Hmm, how about tomorrow afternoon? I'll be in Lima by then. 

Steve: That, plus hotels never feel like home to me. The only plus side... housekeeping and room service, ha

Ellie

Ellie: Usually there's sponsorship or a band hooks up with another (with more name recognition).  I just don't have that right now.  I may end up going on tour with my housemate. Probably not Europe though.

Ellie: Yes exactly.  My parents cut me off when I dropped out of school and while I did get some cash from them when I came back, I just couldn't continue I don't like being dependent on them.  It always comes with strings attached.

Ellie: Ha. Gotcha. I would have totally scoured the internet for a woman with a braided chest.

Ellie: Only way to live 

Ellie: Umm sure?  Where and when?

Ellie: I know what you mean.  I actually started cooking again.  It's been an adventure.

Steven

Steve: Staying in the States for now? It's a huge market to start. Who knows, it might result in you finding a few sponsors. Hell, for all you know all you have to do is a couple of performances in Lima to showcase your band. Plenty of people there who got the cash to sponsor a band. Pretty sure some might even see it as a great investment that will give them some tax refunds. 

Steve: Au, sounds like the parental unit is hard to please? I'm sorry. Mine are way easier. I still get a monthly allowance. Not that I touched a dime of it ever since I graduated from MIT. So that makes for a nice cushion whenever time gets rough, ha. 

Steve: NVM, I just saw those pictures your friend? took from you and you posted on your Instagram.... I couldn't spot a single chest hair. 

Steve: Also.... very lovely pictures! 

Steve: Lu Lu's Diner over at Spencerville Rd, say around 2pm?

Steve: This is going to sounds so spoiled but I've got a Chef  who cooks for me. Not that I can't cook, or that I'm too lazy to do it, but if Craig wouldn't be there on a daily basis I probably forget to eat. I tend to zone out while working, and forget all about having a meal.

Ellie

Ellie: I believe so.  We haven't really discussed the details.  More of comments in passing.  Well, my band is scattered at the moment.  None of them were from Lima.  Honestly they'd never heard of it before they met me.  I'm hoping my housemate will pick them up as backup 

Ellie: My parents are impossible today please.  They think they know what's best regardless of the situation. It's a huge point of contention between us.

Ellie: That's a good plan.  I had a cushion until I moved back and burned through my savings 

Ellie: Ha.  You saw them?  Thank you.  I still can't believe that's me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm confident about my appearance, but she took it to a whole new level 

Ellie: Alright. Lu Lu's at 2, it is 

Ellie: Oh wow.  My parents had a chef.  I can't see myself with one though

Steven

Steve: Why do I get the feeling that most of your friends are in some way into music? 

Steve: In that case, I'll be on my best behavior the first time I meet with them. Or we could set a date, invite your parents and mine to dinner and be done with it. Might take away some of the scrutinies on the both of us, lolol 

Steve: Wow, that must have been one costly move back to town. 

Steve: I did. I'm sure she did an excellent job to make you look extremely beautiful and hot at the same time, but she couldn't have done that if you weren't gorgeous already.

Steve: It's a date. I'll see you there. 

Steve: My bubbe insisted I take one when she noticed that I forgot to eat the brisket she made me. Plus the guy is fun company, he keeps me entertained, ha.

Ellie

Ellie: Not all, but most.  Laura isn't a musician and we make the whole bestie thing work :)

Ellie: Meh. I'd respect you more if you weren't.  I mean, just be yourself when you meet them.  Oh wow, this got very real really fast.  Didn't expect it to creep up on me like that 

Ellie: Whew. Need to breathe through that one.  I don't like having dinner with my parents.  I'd hate to subject you to them as well 

Elle: How about they just get together?  They're going to end up taking over anyway. 

Ellie: Thank you for saying that.  I appreciate the compliment. 

Ellie: Perfect

Ellie: Wait.  Are you Jewish?

Steven

Steve: Ah, so one of my best friends is going to marry your best friend... does that make us best friends in law? :P

Steve: Oh, I'm sorry... I feel like a jerk right now thinking I said something wrong. We can fully postpone the whole meeting the parents moment till later, much much later. 

Steve: Ha, yes.. I think you're correct when you say that. In fact, knowing my mother, we probably only have to show up and say I do at some point in the ceremony.  I'm about 99.9% sure she has the whole day planned already... for years now. 

Steve: No prob, you're welcome. 

Steve: Yes I am. I thought you knew!? I've known for quite some time now that you are, mom wouldn't shut up that I was lucky enough to be matched up with a Jewish girl.

Ellie

Ellie: Ha. I dig it.  What about you? 

Ellie: Solid foundation for a relationship.

Ellie: No, no. Please don't.  My parents just suck. I don't even know if my sisters talk to them anymore. 

Ellie: LOL. At least it'll be low stress? 

Ellie: How intense are your parents? 

Ellie: No.  Like I said they literally told me nothing.  Just a name.  Yikes. No pressure there. I'm not super religious. I celebrate the major holidays.

Steven

Steve: Same!  It's the best foundation for one if you ask me.

Steve: Can I suggest asking them if they do or not? It would save you a panic attack or two... cause what is the use for me to getting to know them if none of their kids even want to talk to them. 

Steve: Mine, although they are still very vocal about the whole "It would have been far better for this town and the Marriage Law if we were the ones to set it," are surprisingly laid back. 

Steve: Yeah, as low stress a wedding could be. But also very un-personal and not us. And I don't know if that's something I want for us. 

Steve: That's very little to go by and once again, I'm sorry for waiting this long before I got in contact with you. Oh, the last time I've been to a synagogue has been a while. I'm more of a major holidays guy myself. So you're good!

Steve: Not to be a jerk or anything as such, but it is getting late and I got an early drive to Lima ahead of me in the morning, so can we wrap this up?

Ellie

Ellie: I'm sorry! Yes. We can just continue talking in person.  Get some sleep and I guess I'll see you tomorrow

Steven

Steve: It's alright, we're both to blame here :smiley:  Looking forward to meeting you in person. Sweet dreams!

[eternalsterekrecs]

any new sterek highschool au?

Well, our absolute favs are under our High School AU tag but, because we don’t want you to lack anything, here is a rec of doom (there’s more than 30 fics here) with all the other fics I’ve read in the last few months/years! - C

HIGH SCHOOL AU

Just Pretend by dragon_temeraire

Stiles tells his dad he has a boyfriend. The problem is, he doesn’t actually have one.

Something New Is Going to Happen by dragon_temeraire

Stiles accidentally discovers that their school mascot is super cute.

All the broken hearts in the world still beat by dragon_temeraire

Stiles totally needs to make Lydia Martin jealous. Yeah. And his best chance is to convince star lacrosse player Derek Hale to (fake) date him.

Smile On The Sidelines by clotpolesonly

Derek was not pining.

Not to say that he didn’t miss Stiles, didn’t want to be with him at that moment (or literally any moment, to be quite honest), but he wasn’t one of those obnoxious clingy people who lost track of the world as soon his boyfriend was out of his sight.

It was just a basketball game anyway.

“Five Days in Detention” (A Future Song by Stiles Stilinski) by alisvolatpropiis

It’s still preseason, sure, but he needs to be practicing. He led the team to the State semifinals last year, and he’s determined to not only make it to the finals this year, but to win the title. He should be on the field right now, practicing his play calls and prepping for next week’s season opener against Saint Pius.

And he can’t do that if he’s wasting his time in detention with these losers. There are a couple of burnouts lazing over some seats by the window, one kid with his face on a desk, hood over his head, and a few Goth kids are sitting in the back corner, looking surly and morose. Maybe you wouldn’t be so miserable if you didn’t listen to such shitty music, he thinks, turning towards his usual seat in the back of the room.

He pauses for the briefest of moments when he sees who’s already sitting there, in the second-to-last row, black-clad limbs spread out, acoustic guitar in his lap, long fingers casually plucking at the strings.

Stiles Stilinski.

How to Woo Your Local Omega by alocalband

Stiles knows a pity gift when he sees one. Mostly because that’s all he’s ever gotten from anyone since the moment he hit puberty.

Five Times Derek Literally Falls for Stiles (and One Time… They Both Fall) by myhomeboy_stilinski

Five times Derek is a failwolf and literally falls for Stiles Stilinski.And one time they fall together.

Warning: A little bit cracky and contains meddling.

Try Again by dragon_temeraire

Derek has to egg a house to be part of the popular group. Too bad the house ends up being the Sheriff’s.

Sleeping Next To You Is Like Magic by LadyDrace

Stiles and Derek meet the summer before senior year. Stiles can’t sleep, Derek helps with that, and there’s a lot less cuddling and a lot more emotional crises than you’d think.

Or:

Stiles’ feelings happen so much, and learning how to deal with them takes him a little while. Good thing Derek is happy to wait.

Shut Up And Dance With Me by maiNuoire

Stiles has been in love with Derek forever. Senior Prom feels like his last chance to do something about it, but he’s a bundle of nerves. And then, inspiration strikes.

made from the heart by bleep0bleep

Derek has been crushing on Stiles for awhile, and thinks maybe this Christmas season he’ll tell him how he feels. He’s got a great present too, except when Stiles gives him a thoughtful handmade present, Derek is pretty much screwed.

~

Stiles smiles at Derek. “It was just a nice thought, you know? I just think gifts that people take their time to make are just so sweet.”“Handmade,” Derek says faintly.

Like James Dean, Only Sadder by 42hrb

The star of the Beacon Hills High School baseball team and Beacon Hills resident bad boy probably have nothing in common, right?

atom to atom by jadore_hale

“So, you’re telling me that you hate Derek so much that you wouldn’t leap at the chance to jump his bones?”

“That’s different!” Stiles cried.

“How exactly?”

“Because unfortunately for me, Derek’s hotter than the Earth’s mantle. All we need is one rough hate-fuck— Preferably in the chem lab, role-playing sexy chemist while he bends me over one of the tables—and I’ll get him out of my system. That’s as far as our relationship will ever go.”

Stiles glanced across the cafeteria to where Derek was still fail-eating his lunch and sighed so put out.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make fun of Derek eating organic baby carrots.”

don’t go breakin’ my heart [i couldn’t if i tried] by crossroadswrite

Contrary to popular belief, Derek Hale – co-captain of the basketball team and AP student who volunteers in the library – isn’t actually as smooth as people might think.

In a Straight Line Down by standinginanicedress

“So you want to go to Prom with me just so you can get a plastic crown and a fifty dollar gift card to Outback Steakhouse.”

Stiles sets his jaw. He wants to go to prom with Derek because he wants to go to prom with Derek. But, of course, he’s stubborn and prideful and can’t admit to Derek how it’s barely been twelve hours since they officially broke up and he’s already barely handling it as it is, so he just raises his chin in the air and says, “yes.”

we should just kiss (like real people do) by i_am_girlfriday

Stiles is the social zero of the sophomore class. Derek is the much cooler junior who befriends Stiles anyway.

Shut Me Down by lazykisses

Even when Derek’s an asshole, which is 75% of the time (90% on a rainy day), with his deadpan humor and cocky eyebrows and his annoyingly vague text messages (like that one time Stiles asked him if he’d studied for Chemistry and Derek replied with “hn”. What the hell does ‘hn’ even mean?), Stiles doesn’t mind. And that kinda scares him.

It’s Too Early For This by thepsychicclam

Derek loves his job at the coffee shop, especially because Stiles comes in for coffee before early Saturday morning lacrosse practices. The problem is that Derek is too shy to do anything about his crush, and the situation is not helped by the rivalry between the basketball and lacrosse teams.

Hotsky to Trotsky by paintedrecs

Derek had his future mapped out: there’d be graduation, followed by college, followed by (he hoped) a good grad school, then a career as a professor whose students didn’t spend their time flicking paper footballs at each other and obsessing over their dating lives. He had good friends, a good family, and no time to focus on distractions like high school gossip or relationships.

He hadn’t factored Stiles Stilinski - lacrosse player, class clown, part of the popular crowd, currently spending his entire day staring at Derek and smiling - into his plans.

more by bibliosexual

It starts when Derek is sitting in study hall and the guy ahead of him–-Stiles something, the Polish kid with all the moles–-mutters, “Ugh, what’s sixty percent of fifty-five?”

“Thirty-three,” Derek says without having to think about it. He’s always been good at math.

“Oh, thanks, dude,” Stiles says. “I forgot my calculator, and Mr. Harris is a dick who won’t let me go get it.”

“No problem,” Derek says.

He assumes that’s it, that’s the end of the conversation, but Stiles catches up to him in the hall after class, scuffs his sneaker against the floor and says, “Hey, so, you’re really good at math. Like, you solved that in your head, right? No calculator?“

"Yeah,” Derek says, and Stiles bites his lip, asks, “Do you maybe wanna study with me later, in the library?”

Derek does.

i wanna dance with somebody (who loves me) by bleep0bleep

Derek gets in an accident and loses a few years of his memory; suddenly everything is different— he’s not a freshman loser anymore, but a popular senior, captain of the basketball team, a shoo-in for prom king, too, and he should have everything he’s ever wanted— except he doesn’t seem to be friends with Stiles anymore.

Bro-lentine’s Day by WhoNatural

It’s actually pretty cool that Derek came back to school after a summer eating spinach and lifting small trains or whatever to become a guardian angel to the easy targets of BHHS.

Don’t Judge a Derek By His Cover by captaintinymite

Stiles doesn’t care about the rumors surrounding Beacon Hills High School’s resident bad boy, Derek Hale. In fact, he thinks the rumors are total crap. Of course, being secretly in love with someone has a way of clouding one’s judgment.

However, he knew for a fact that Derek liked books. So when the two paired up for a final English project, he was excited (but also a little terrified).

But you know what they say…never judge a book by its cover. The same goes for people.

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon by secondstar

Being a teenager sucks. Being a werewolf teenager sucks even more. With a life full of holding back who he really is, not having any privacy whatsoever, and the seemingly sudden appearance of one Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale’s life just got a whole lot harder.

(I Hate to Be) The One to Ruin the Night by wishingonalightningbolt

High school senior Derek Hale only has one goal for the rest of his time left at BHHS: avoid Stiles Stilinski. He’s wreaked enough havoc as it is, having spent all summer breaking Derek’s heart. Everything would be better for both of them if they just never saw each other again.

-0-

Derek doesn’t plan on ever getting mixed up with Scott McCall and his little gang of idiot friends. In fact, if he knew to avoid it, he would, but he guesses he just isn’t smart enough. Unfortunate, considering the consequences.

John Hughes Did Not Direct My Life by nascentgalaxies

Stiles and Derek are childhood friends who drifted apart. When Stiles joins the lacrosse team against his will, the universe (with a little help from Laura and Lydia) chooses to push them back together.

But Then What... by Stoney

Senior year is almost over, and all Stiles needs to do is keep his head down to survive. A teacher calls in a favor, leaving him stuck tutoring Derek Hale, one of the most popular jocks in school and a member of a group of douchecanoes who have bullied Stiles for years. He's someone Stiles totally hates. Totally. Like, doesn't like him even a little bit. DEFINITELY isn't attracted to him.

Except that is a total lie. Fuck his life, seriously.

I know you love and hate me too by trilliastra

“Right.” Derek coughs and Stiles knows he realized his mistake. Good – he thinks, maybe next time he'll learn not to make Stiles fall in love with him. “Hum – we are almost finishing here, John.”

“I'll be in my bedroom.” Stiles says. “And his first name is Sheriff!”

Fucking Derek Hale.

Wait For It by otatop

Funny, how you can exist adjacent to someone through elementary, middle, and high school and not really know them. Funny, how Stiles had always had some strange crush on Derek without actually being his friend.

It’s like he’s all that by MemeKon

Stiles is different. Stiles is not nice under any definition of the word, he’s such an asshole. Sure, he’s a good guy deep down, he punched Jackson square in the jaw when he mocked the McCall kid for an asthma attack that one time, and Derek knows he helped Erica Reyes get that video of her seizure taken down, but he’s so—

"Fuck off, Derek." Stiles tells him without sparing him a glance when Derek sits next to him on chemistry. "I’m not up to play She’s All That with you, dude."

-yeah.

(School crushes are so complicated.)

The Scheming Rhymes of Romance by sofonisba_found

Stiles currently was, and had been, Derek's poetic muse for years. Not that Stiles was really all that aware of that fact.

But when Stiles does find out about it their senior year of high school, he's pretty okay with it.

Alright, so he is definitely a lot more than okay with it.

A story in which Derek writes copious amounts of poetry, Stiles is very appreciative of said poetry as well as Derek's smile, and all of their friends are oddly and extremely invested in seeing these two get their act together.

Easy Alpha by interropunct

Easy A/Teen Wolf AU. Wherein, Derek Hale is the high school hussy, Jackson and Scott really need to learn to use their inside voices. And, contrary to popular belief, everyone is still a virgin.

[ayma-nidiot]

In the White Light - Prideshipping fic Chapter 7

Also on AO3.

Chapter 7 – I’ll Soar Away

As shocked as he was, Yami Yugi allowed Kaiba to let him go, instead of trying to break free of his hold. “Kaiba… What is the meaning of this?”

“Dammit, are you as dumb as that shorter Yugi? Never before has someone told me that a game could be fun. Never before has someone provided me with a worthy challenge! Can’t you see, Pharaoh? I’m in love with you!”

“You… are?”

“Why are you surprised? Don’t you remember that time?”

“Oh!” Luckily, Yami Yugi wasn’t so dense as to have forgotten about the time travel to ancient Egypt.

“You would do all of that for me… Tell me, Pharaoh, do you feel the same?”

“Kaiba…” Between that kiss and this question, Yami Yugi’s mind was in such a fog that he couldn’t formulate an answer.

“Hey, what gives?” Joey interrupted. “Don’t put Yug on the spot like that! You know, you’ve always creeped me out because you’re way too rich for someone your age. Now you’re hitting on my best friend? Well, sort of my best friend.”

“Yeah. Don’t you think we have bigger things to worry about… Like, avoiding all of these monsters, for instance?” Téa added. “We just got done dealing with the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, and we need to move!”

Wanting to avoid the topic of his dragon form, Kaiba replied in his usual grumpy manner, “Yeah, I know that!”

Just then, a familiar German voice called out from afar, “Mr. Kaiba! Mokuba! Are you guys hurt?”

“Roland! No, we’re fine,” Mokuba replied.

“That’s good, but I bring terrible news… The KaibaCorp building has been taken over by and monsters!”

“Great, more monsters…” Kaiba wasn’t too ecstatic to go back out there after what he had just gone through – unless, of course, it was in the name of his company.

“I’ve got a chopper ready for you and your… acquaintances, sir.”

“Thank you, Roland.” As everyone boarded this chopper, Kaiba spoke, “But may I remind you that I’m not your boss anymore?”

“Nonsense!” Another KaibaCorp employee answered. “We’re with you through the end.”

“See, Seto? We’re all here to support you?” Mokuba smiled as the chopper took off.

After an hour of awkward silence, Kaiba finally spoke up, “So let me guess. It’s Dartz, isn’t it?”

“Correct, sir. We’ve already dispatched a research team at the museum to decipher some tablets. We can learn even more about our enemy this way.”

Could have done that a week ago…

“I regret to inform you that Dartz has bought out all of KaibaCorp’s shares, too. They’ve hacked into your account as well as the building.”

“Well, that’s nothing I can’t handle.” Kaiba could tell the chopper was close to their destination. “As the former president, I am really the only one who needs to go in there. But just out of curiosity, is anyone coming?”

“I will, Seto!”

“Mokuba, no. You’ve been through enough danger for one day. Stay with Joey and the others, where it’s safe.”

“Uh… I guess… Téa, Joey, Mokuba, and I will go find the cops,” Tristan affirmed.

“So you guys are so creeped out by me kissing Yugi that you don’t want to be anywhere near me? Is that it?”

It was then that Yami Yugi spoke up and said, “I’ll go with you.”

Kaiba tried not to show his inner joy at this news as everyone exited the chopper, faced unexpectedly with Duke Devlin and two strangers.

“Professor! Rebecca! Duke!” Téa greeted these strangers. “It’s good to see you’re well!”

“Eh?” Kaiba only needed to take one look at the little girl, Rebecca, to decide he didn’t like her. “This isn’t a field trip, kid. You need to go home and take care of your grandpa.”

“Looks can be deceiving, Kaiba.” Rebecca pushed up her glasses. “If you’re going to retake KaibaCorp, then you’re going to need someone who can hack the computers. Someone like Grandpa and I.”

“Fine, then. I suppose you could tag along, kid.” Kaiba turned around as Yami Yugi went after him.

“I’m not a kid!” Rebecca and her grandfather followed suit. “Why don’t you try showing a little more gratitude for those of us sticking our butts out here for you!”

“Yeah, whatever.” The four soon arrived at two trap doors with ladders. “You need to take that trap door over there to get to the control room. Yugi and I will go this way.”

“Right! You’re going to be glad I ‘tagged along’ for this ‘field trip!’” With that, both Rebecca and her grandfather had taken off.

Though he was now alone with Yami Yugi, Kaiba didn’t let the events of a few hours prior cloud his judgment. “Try to keep up, Yugi,” he dared as he led the pharaoh down the other trap door and started running when they reached the floor.

“Keep up? To where?”

“This here is a shortcut to my central computer, designed for emergencies. Dartz shouldn’t have been able to disable it.” Kaiba explained when they reached the door to an elevator, and used his card key to open it. “See? Now come in.”

Yami Yugi had no qualms about entering the elevator, but as it started up, he couldn’t look Kaiba in the eye.

Ugh, this tension is killing me. Though the elevator ride was short, Kaiba didn’t exactly feel comfortable in this situation either. “So, um… Thanks for doing this for me, even though you could be doing your time travel thing instead.”

“Sadly, as things are right now, I can’t just leave the modern world as it is. My selfish wishes are nothing compared to what people of this time are going through.”

“Such a desire to fight for what you believe in… How gorgeous.”

Hearing such kind words, Yami Yugi could finally look at Kaiba again. Before he could say anything, a one-eyed furry monster dug a hole through the ceiling of the elevator and then through the elevator doors.

“What in the fu- No, it doesn’t matter what that was; we’re getting off here and now,” Kaiba asserted, ramming his Duel Disk into the elevator buttons. “Let’s go! Help me get these doors open!”

Even though the elevators were now broken, prying the doors proved to be easy; however, the new task of traversing the monsters that appeared wouldn’t be.

“They all have a weird green symbol on their heads… Yugi, what does this mean?”

“It means that these are real monsters, not holograms of yours.”

That’s what I was afraid of… Kaiba gulped. Only this time, I have to face these monsters as a human. “These can’t be real monsters! You’re no better than the lunatics who took over KaibaCorp.”

“Oh, they are. I don’t know how, but monsters from a different universe have found their way into our world. Do you have any better ideas, besides my ‘superstitious bullshit’ ideas?”

“I think you’ve gone batshit, but this isn’t the best time to argue.”

“We’ve got nothing to lose!” Yami Yugi proclaimed, getting his Duel Disk ready for battle and prompting Kaiba to do the same. “Let’s go, Kaiba!”

“Vorse Raider, go!” Kaiba called forth a monster.

“I summon my obnoxious Celtic Guardian!” Yami Yugi spoke as he put this card on his Duel Disk. He knew that these mid-level monsters would not be able to last long, and led Kaiba to the other end of the corridor. “Make a run for it! Say… There’s a card key slot here. You can get us through this door, right?”

“What do you think I am, stupid?” Kaiba attempted to use his card key to get in, but only got an “access denied” response, even after trying twice.

“Yes… Yes, I certainly think you are.” When Yami Yugi looked up again, the enemy monsters approached even more closely. “Our monsters are gone… We’re done for!”

“No you’re not!” sounded a voice from the card key slot.

“Rebecca!”

“Need some help, boys?” Rebecca spoke as the doors opened, letting Kaiba and Yami Yugi enter the next corridor safely, and her voice continued over the P.A. “With my computer, I can hack into the KaibaCorp system. Kaiba, let me know if you want me to upgrade your system for you.”

“Can it, you kid… I mean… Thanks.”

“However, there’s just one problem… I can’t access the central computer.”

“But I can! Incidentally, guess where we just arrived? I’ll take it from here.” With that, Kaiba got to work on the central computer right awake. “With this, we can enhance those photos my men took at the museum.”

Kaiba swiped his card key again as the computer took biometric from him. “Voice recognition, set! Reboot with the backup system! Begin analyzing images! Cross-reference all the archaeological databases!”

“You… came prepared,” Yami Yugi remarked.

“It’s a week’s worth of hard work.” Symbols and inscriptions showed up on the large LED screens above, and Kaiba asked, “Professor, if you can hear me, what do these inscriptions mean?”

“Let’s see… They translate to, ‘After its 10000-year-long slumber, the black serpent will swallow the sun, and then paradise will rule once more.’”

“That insignia… I know I’ve seen it before…” Kaiba spoke as he typed into the computer. “It’s… the symbol of a secret financial organization, Paradius! And its president is… Oh, no! Yugi, it’s Dartz! This situation just got a lot stickier… We don’t know what we’re up against.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You see, during a vision quest, I saw that man fight in an ancient Atlantean war. What confuses me, though, is how this 10000-year-old man is still alive today.”

“Make no mistake about it, I am indeed very much alive,” a voice spoke before the computers started to blow up, and distorted shadows started taking their places.

“Who are you? Show yourself!” Kaiba demanded.

“My, oh my… If it isn’t Seto Kaiba and the legendary so-called pharaoh. How is Timaeus’ eye, by the way?”

“Dartz!” Starting into the eye of his new enemy. Kaiba drew the Fang of Critias from his deck and held it at the ready. “Give me back my company, you prick!”

“And release the souls you’ve stolen!” Yami Yugi held the Eye of Timaeus in his right hand. “Duel us!”

“Hmm, let me think about it…” Dartz crossed his legs as he floated in the air, and looked up. “No.”

“That does it!” Kaiba and Yami Yugi summoned their dragons in unison. “We summon the dragons Critias and Timaeus!”

“Timaeus, attack!” Yami Yugi ordered.

But before Timaeus’ attack could hit Dartz, he had summoned a dragon, which shattered into a thousand holographic pieces.

“I don’t feel like dueling you today… Farewell, gentlemen!”

“Wait! Dartz, come back!” Yami Yugi shouted, but to no avail as the dragons – and warped shadows – disappeared to reveal the real world again.

“We can worry about Dartz later…” Kaiba noticed more monsters breaking in through the doors, and opened another elevator as an escape route. “Come in, quickly!”

Fortunately for them, this elevator was much quicker than the last one, and promptly took Kaiba and Yami Yugi to the roof. That didn’t mean Kaiba enjoyed what awaited him thence. “Great, what a surprise! More monsters!”

“There are too many of them, even for monsters as strong as ours.” Yami Yugi wasn’t afraid, even in the face of these odds, and said, “I know the best way to stop them.”

“Yugi, are you insane? I’ll call a plane and-” Kaiba wanted to search his deck for a strong monster before Yami Yugi could sing more words of the incantation. But it was just then that a couple of Assault Wyverns grabbed his arms and dug their claws into them. “Oh, no…”

Too busy dealing with the monsters in front of him, Yami Yugi didn’t notice the Red-Eyes Black Dragon about to attack him from the rear.

“Yugi! Watch out behind you!”

Though Kaiba now escaped from the monsters holding him back, it was too late, as the Red-Eyes Black Dragon set Yami Yugi’s back on fire. “Aaaaah!”

“Yugi!” Kaiba desperately searched his deck for a water-based card. “Water Hazard, do your thing!”

“Kaiba… Thank you,” Yami Yugi spoke when Water Hazard dissipated. “Even after I… practically rejected you. Even though you appear to be… urk! Even if you appear to be a… cruel person, I know there’s some good… in you… No matter what… Joey says…”

“I don’t give a damn about that right now! Just… please, don’t die…”

“What’s already dead can’t die, you know that.” Yami Yugi let out a weak chuckle, then passed out.

“Pharaoh… Pharaoh, no!” Kaiba cried as he held Yami Yugi’s unconscious body close to him. He hardly noticed, but all the while he felt a warm light brewing within him. “Please… I love you. I want to save you… Please, dear gods, I’ll do anything.”

Though this event occurred at the roof of the KaibaCorp building, Téa and Tristan could see a column of light towering to the sky.

“Oh, gosh… Tristan, something is happening at KaibaCorp, and it doesn’t look good!”

“Hey, what’s happening?” Rebecca – along with Duke and her grandfather – had caught up with the pair at last.

“Something tells me that Kaiba and the pharaoh are in trouble!” Tristan started running before the others could really get a handle on what was going on. “Come on, guys, let’s go!”

“Um… I don’t understand, but I trust you.” With that, Rebecca followed the others in the direction of the KaibaCorp building.

Still aglow, Kaiba hoisted Yami Yugi onto his back. With all the confidence he could muster, he jumped off the roof, and after freefalling for five seconds, he had morphed into the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon once more.

“Raaaaar!” Kaiba unleashed a Shining Burst on the Red-Eyes Black Dragon that had attacked them, disintegrating it instantly.

This attack – and a few others that followed – was loud enough to awaken Yami Yugi, who had been sleeping at the base of Kaiba’s neck. “Kaiba…”

Having just defeated the last of the nearby enemies, Kaiba turned his head slightly to get a good look at the pharaoh.

“Don’t be shocked; I know it’s you, and I know you’ve saved me… I’m so fortunate… to have someone like you.” Yami Yugi reached his arms as far as he could around Kaiba’s neck, burying his face into it while he hugged him.

Too embarrassed now, Kaiba simply continued to fly while facing forward.

Before Kaiba could fly much further, Yami Yugi’s friends noticed the both of them – and Téa was the first. “Hey, it’s that Shining Dragon again! And he’s got the pharaoh!”

“You’re not getting away this time! I’m going to save the world from you today! Hermos, go save Yug!”

This time, Kaiba wasn’t so far into his own madness that he couldn’t think for himself. Oh Dweeb Patrol, your timing couldn’t be any worse! Unable to parry the Claw of Hermos in time, Kaiba had taken the full blow, plummeting to the ground along with Yami Yugi.

“Yugi! I’ve got you!” Téa caught Yami Yugi right before he could hit the concrete.

“Wait, look who else it is… It’s Kaiba! W-Whoah!” Before Joey could react, Kaiba landed on top of him, though Joey felt well enough to get up right away. “Ow, lay off the steaks, ya turd.”

“Ngh…” Kaiba managed to awaken upon crashing on top of Joey. “For the record, this ‘turd’ just saved your friend the pharaoh.”

“But we didn’t even see you up there on that Shining Dragon…” Joey ran a hand through his hair, and in a mocking tone he said, “Wait, let me guess. The dragon ate you and you somehow managed to slice it open from the inside. Quite a tall tale, if you ask me.”

“Joey, look!” Rebecca pointed at the claw wound on Kaiba’s chest.

“No way… That’s from the Claw of Hermos! So do you mean to tell me…”

“It’s about time you twerps figured it out. That dragon was me.”

“What?!” Everyone exclaimed in unison.

Kaiba used the ball of his hand to help himself get up. “And did I mention that I was the same dragon that you guys attacked about a week ago? The same dragon that fled from you because I was too damned afraid to show my face to the pharaoh?”

“Yeesh… Sorry.” Joey felt tempted to punch Kaiba earlier for landing on him, but let it go. “Look, for what it’s worth, we’ve helped you take back KaibaCorp… Well, at least the building. Isn’t that a good enough apology?”

“Hmph.” Kaiba held out a hand to shake, which Joey accepted. “Even I know to give credit when credit is due. But don’t expect me to be this nice again!”

Just when things started to get cozy, Joey could hear a loud motorcycle in the distance. He couldn’t quite catch the face of his opponent, but noticed a flash of spiky brown hair. “That was Valon…”

“I’m sorry?”

“Valon, come here, ya bastard!” Without another word, Joey had taken off in the direction of that motorcycle.

“Joey, you reckless buffoon, wait up!” At those words, Tristan was gone too.

“Must want revenge on him for stealing Mai Valentine…” Téa turned back to her friends. “So… So is Yugi- I mean, the pharaoh going to be okay?”

Kaiba scooped Yami Yugi up and carried him bridal style. “Once I get him to the hospital, yeah.”

“Don’t be stupid! You’re almost as badly injured as he is!”

“You underestimate me.” Kaiba left the vicinity before his own employees could find him. Besides, the pharaoh has his own score to settle, and I’ll make certain he does.