#i tink about that promise a lot

[beea-idiot56]

An Aphmau and Levin Onshot

I constantly think of levin and Aphmau being each other's safe haven and I constantly think about the fact that Levin was one of the only things that kept her going(for season 1 at least, I'm in the process of season 2 so I'm less sure about that during that time period)

so i decided to write a little one-shot of the two of them :) feel free to read and honestly if anyone wanted to let me know if they enjoyed it and would be interested in me writing a garroth x reader (based on if you like how I write) that would be great!

the one shot is below the cut teehee

The nights and days had always blended together, as the sun rised so would the ever-growing checklist of people to see, problems to solve, and places to go. Sometimes it was exhausting, sometimes it was exciting. However, as of late, it became unbearable. With Zane and the threat of O’khasis around the corner, the fear of not knowing when or if Garroth would be taken from her, and the pain of simply losing sleep every night Aphmau had found herself becoming weaker and more frail. Her body was screaming at her. Her limbs ached, her neck had a nick, she had enormous eye bags under her eyes, and she found it hard to smile most times. Dealing with the villagers had become nothing more than a chore. The old greetings that had put her in high spirits had now made her exhausted. Coming home, even going up the stairs had become a task. Most days she found herself walking alongside Garroth who had refused to leave her side when he saw the disheveled look of his lord. With insistent pleads he would walk her up the stairs, saying he was worried she might pass out on the way and get hurt. Then, as they would reach the top, he would pat her shoulder and wish her a good night.

“Sleep well, m’lady” he spoke, his voice gruff and muffled from behind his helm.  “You as well, Garroth” Aphmau mumbled, entering the house as she did so, a smile planted on her face but immediately dropping as she entered. Leaning back on the door she let a thick sigh come from her throat, her feet aching as she lowered herself to the floor. There was no sound coming from the home, only the cackling fire of the torches placed throughout. 

“Mommy?” a small voice rang out and Aphmau opened her eyes to see Levin standing across the way from her. He had been peering down from the corner where his door led from, holding the stuffed bunny that was gifted to him so long ago. 

“Oh! Levin, what are you doing awake? Zoey should've put you to sleep by now.” Aphmau spoke, standing quickly and heading up the stairs to go help her son with whatever had kept him up for so long.  “Oh! Zoey did! But, Levin want see Mommy! Before sleep!” he spoke, his sentences still broken with young age. Aphmau let out a little chuckle, feeling her shoulders drop a little, 

“Oh Levin, Mommy stays out too late for you to do that. You should be getting your sleep!” she spoke, her voice shaking a little. Such a small gesture, one that to most kids would be as simple as an act of rebellion and giddy mischief rather than the heart-touching feelings that Aphmau felt at this moment.  “Yes! But! Levin miss mommy. Levin see mommy sad. Smile!” his voice was loud with a child-like innocence that if bottled up it could be sold for millions of dollars to those who only knew the world's struggles. Aphmau smiled, small tears running down her cheeks as she let out a little laugh, “I miss you too Levin. Come on, do you want to sleep in mommy's bed tonight?” she spoke softly before Levin jumped about yelling ‘yay! Mommy bed!’ over and over, she only laughed and picked up the small boy and set him on her hip before unlocking the door to her room and entering. 

Aphmau lit a candle, setting Levin down on the bed before going behind the blinds to take off her heavy armor and switch into something that was slightly more comfortable. Aphamau sighed before walking over to the bed and sitting down on it, Levin looked up at her with tired eyes

“Why Mommy no smile?” he asked, his sleepy voice becoming softer and softer by the moment. It left Aphmau speechless and for a moment she didn't respond.  “Sometimes, big people have jobs they need to do, and sometimes those jobs are very hard. When the jobs are hard it can cause big people to feel…” Aphmau searched for the word, not knowing how to explain the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and tiredness that had been constantly weighing on her shoulders for the past few months, “heavy.” she finally decided on a word. Not thinking Levin would understand, but it would be enough to satisfy his curious spirit. She looked over to see him nodding, he then smiled  “Then mommy have stuffie!” Levin held out his stuffed animal, before cuddling up to the pillow next to her and against the wall, “when Levin feel tired and heavy, Levin hugs stuffy feels better! Levin knows mommy will too!” Levin spoke, before finally drifting to sleep, a small smile on his face,  completely unaware of the fact that the simple gesture had left Ahmau in tears as she held onto the bunny that Levin had “given” her. 

Aphmau looked over to Levin, before leaning down and kissing the top of his head and tucking him into the covers. Finally, she blew out the candle and lay down on her side, letting an arm rest over the small child, and the other held onto the bunny with such tightness that the fluffy cloth had pillowed over her hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. 

This boy had been dropped at her doorstep so long ago, his mother had given him up for his safety in turn for her life of freedom. Would Aphmau be able to do the same? If it came to war, would Aphmau be able to say goodbye to the children so she could keep them safe? The answer felt so second nature it was almost painful, absolutely.

[freedomfireflies]

Our Place*

Summary: An extra for 404*

The one where Harry invites you back to his apartment for the first time and it doesn't go as planned.

Word Count: 1.7k

Content Warning: 18+, smut, breeding kink, angst (happy ending), use of a safe word

Harry’s apartment is nicer than you expected. 

The furniture is cozy, the décor is unique, and his bedroom is well kept. He even has fresh flowers on his kitchen table. 

It surprised you, even though it shouldn’t. Harry doesn’t seem like a dirty guy, but truthfully, you were still shocked to find he had both sheets on his bed and no clothes on the ground.

You take in the tiny details of his life as he kisses down your neck and slips his fingers into your jeans. He’d wrangled you onto the bed only seconds after you walked through the door. He didn’t want to give you a tour of the whole apartment. Just the bedroom. Which you were more than all right with. 

He’s oddly desperate, given the circumstances. Maybe he always is, but tonight feels different. Tonight feels…hopeful.

“Shit, Tink,” he groans into your ear when he feels how wet you’ve become. “S’this just because you rode my bike?”

You gently swat the back of his head. “Stop it.”

“What?” He noses under your jaw. “Felt you squirming back there, Princess. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice how you were trying to get yourself off to the vibrations?”

You wince. You didn’t even realize you’d been doing it. “I was not, I was just…the adrenaline was a lot—”

“Uh-huh.” He laughs and something about it sounds like honey. “S’fine, baby. You know I don’t mind.”

“Well…I wasn’t—”

“Sure. Can I fuck you now?”

You huff. “That’s why I’m here.”

He rips your jeans down your legs, tossing them over his shoulder and somewhere onto the floor. The warm air feels good and it’s then that you realize he’s right. You’re soaked, all the way through your panties.

But instead of taunting you further, he only tugs them aside and pulls his cock out. 

“I think…” he murmurs as he lines himself up, “…it’s high time I got you pregnant.”

Your mouth falls open in a moan as he drops a glob of spit onto your clit and pushes in.  

You’ve noticed that his breeding kink makes an appearance more often than not these days. Which you aren’t exactly complaining about. After all, you have one, too. Mostly thanks to him.

But it surprises you all the same as he starts to work himself in and out of your tight cunt, whispering the filthiest promises. 

“Think I won’t do it, hm? I will. Swell this pretty belly with my cum. S’what it was made for, wasn’t it? To take me. Have my babies. Gonna stretch you so pretty…get your tits leaking. You’ll let me have a taste, won’t you, Princess?”

You try to respond but how can you? You feel as though you’ve been fucked dumb. Unable to hear anything past the pounding of blood in your ears.

His glasses start to slip down his nose. He almost always takes them off—they’re mostly for reading anyway. But you like the look of them. Like how studious it makes him seem...how scandalous.

So, you nudge them back up. Desperate to see him exactly the way he always is.

He smirks. “You all right there, Tink?”

You nod weakly. “Yes…yeah. M’fine.”

“Thinking about what I said?” He kisses down your chest. “Thinking about calling me Daddy for real? Having our babies?"

Our. A word you didn’t think belonged to you. Because Harry doesn’t belong to you. And you don’t belong to him. You’re two separate people. Even when you fuck, he’s in his world and you’re in yours. You weren’t meant to be an “our.”

You chalk this up to a slip of the tongue. Something you say when you're threatening to breed someone. And you choose not to give it any power. Because you know what happens if you do.

The fucking gets harder. Faster. He’s chasing a high. In fact, he's been chasing it since earlier in the bar when he saw you with another man. And you know he’s trying to hold off for you, but he wants to cum. He wants to paint your belly with his seed and fuck it back in. Wants to make good on his word even if he shouldn’t.

Your nails scratch down his back, damp and covered in sweat. But his muscles feel good in your hands and you whimper as you hike a leg over his hip and bury him in your pussy.

In your lust-filled haze, your attention drifts. Head rolling to the side as you focus on the soft grunts in your ear. 

But then, your eyes find something on his dresser.

Your heart stops.

In fact, everything stops. Your breathing, your noises, your gentle rolls to meet his thrusts.

It all stops. And you whisper, “Red.”

He quickly falls still. A rather impressive feat given how anxious he is to find release. From 100 to 0 in only seconds, and you almost feel guilty as you sense him glance at you.

“What’s wrong?” he asks through labored inhales. “What…what happened, what do you want me to do?”

But you don’t look back. You keep your focus on the piece of furniture in the corner of his room and you will yourself not to cry.

Eventually, he looks, too. And when he realizes, the air in the room shifts.

He lets out a soft sigh and drops his hand to your hip. Squeezing it once. “Tink…”

You say nothing. Tears are pooling behind your lashes and your chest feels tight. 

“Tink,” he tries again, firm. His grip tightens on your waist. “Tinkerbell—"

“She’s beautiful,” you breathe. You take in a soft gasp. “Oh, my god, Harry, she’s…she’s so beautiful.”

He’s quiet for only a moment. “Yeah. She was,” he agrees gently.

You can’t take your eyes away from the picture frame. The guilt is so much worse now than it was before. Your heart is in your throat, in your ears, lying on the floor next to your jeans. 

You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. In his bed—their bed—fucking the man she died loving. While he promises to get you pregnant and give you his babies.

And how is he so calm? How the fuck is he looking at her picture while still inside of you instead of screaming at you to leave his apartment? How can he be okay with cheating on her with you?

“Princess,” he says again, and grabs onto your jaw to force your focus back to him. “Talk to me, what do you want me to do?”

Your lashes flutter. “What?”

“You said red,” he reminds you. “Which means we stop. But I need to know if you’re in pain or if I can pull out?”

It takes a moment for you to blink the fog from your mind and understand. But when you do, your stomach wrenches. “I…wait, shit, I…I want you to finish, I just…I saw her photo, and—”

“I know,” he interrupts softly. He gives you a gentle smile. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been there. But red means stop. And we’re gonna honor that. No matter why you said it.”

You whimper. “Harry, wait—”

“I’m gonna pull out,” he says, ignoring your plea. “And then we’re gonna talk—”

“Harry…Harry come on, you can’t—”

But he does. Even though he winces as slips himself out, teeth gritting together to keep from coming. 

But once he’s out, he delicately closes your legs, and sits beside you. “Okay,” he begins. He keeps your eyes on him. “What’s going on up there?” 

He nods at your forehead and you want to cry. “Nothing, I just…I…”

“You’ve never seen her before.”

You shake your head. “I don’t think so.”

“And you weren’t expecting to see her now,” he says for you. “Especially when we were fucking.”

You sniffle. “It felt like we were cheating. Like I was helping you hurt her. And then…and then I got worried that maybe you only brought me back here so you could pretend I was her. You know? With all the stuff about…about babies…and us, and…and—”

“Okay, breathe,” he instructs. He cups your cheek and presses his thumb to your trembling lips. “Breathe, Tink. Slow.”

Forced to obey, you suck in shallow gasps for air until your heart rate slows and your head doesn’t feel so dizzy.

Pleased, he says, “I know you’re not her, Tink. I don’t want you to be.”

Your expression softens.

“I brought you here because you’re the only person I want to see in the place she once lived,” he continues. His voice is strong. Steady. Like he’s given this far more thought than you anticipated. “After she died, I left it the same. I didn’t touch anything. Not the furniture she picked out. Not the dumb, cute little bowls she insisted we buy. Not the coffee pot that doesn’t work but she loved because she swore it made her coffee taste better. None of it.”

The tears fall down your cheeks, fast and without mercy. 

“I didn’t invite people over because I wanted to pretend she still lived here,” he tells you. “I wanted it to still be our place. Not just mine. And the thought of bringing someone else back here felt…wrong.”

You grab onto his wrist to keep his hand close and he smiles. 

“And then you,” he murmurs, dipping down to nuzzle his nose against yours. A display of affection you’d never expect from him. “And yeah, you’re annoying, and I hate you. But she would have fucking loved you.”

You nearly sob. 

“I want you here,” he says. “I want to talk about getting you pregnant and having our babies. I want to fuck you on this bed and I want to make you cry for a very different reason.”

You laugh through the tears.

“Look, I don’t believe in guardian angels and an afterlife and all that shit,” he admits. “But sometimes, I swear she sent you to me. And yeah, I probably should have moved the picture first. That was my fault, I haven’t had anyone in here in a while. But…you’re not her, Tink. You’re you. And that’s exactly who I want you to be.”

You can’t stop the next wave of emotion as you sling your arms around his neck and pull him close. He chuckles in your embrace but doesn’t fight you. He holds you, too. For as long as you both need.

“I hate you, too,” you finally whisper.

He smiles.

“Harry?”

“Mm?”

“…can we please finish now?”

He leans back to see you. “Are you sure?”

“Very.” You kiss him. “After all, you promised to get me pregnant. And I can’t leave until you do, Daddy."

The groan against your lips is delicious and devious.

And it’s everything you’ve ever wanted.

“As you wish.”

WHY DID THIS MAKE ME WANT TO CRY!!! ALSO HI I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!

Previous Part:

~ The one where Harry gets jealous (again)

~ Full 404 Masterlist

Taglist: @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @keepdrivingkisses @swiftmendeshoran @tiredinwinter @straightontilmornin

@justlemmeadoreyou @harrysdaydreams @tiaamberxx @myfavfanficsever @littlenatilda

@vamprry @fdl305 @ssaama @indierockgirrl @likeapplejuicenpeach

@lukesaprince @closureesny @lc-fics @0nlythrowharrybeaux @hannahdressedasabanana

@dylanobandposts21 @butdaddyilovehim-hs @itjustkindahappenedreally @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @laelamarley

@myalovesharry @daphnesutton @love-letters-to-uranus @kirstiea05 @lovrave

@nuggetdean @triski73 @finelinesss

[cozy-writes-things]

how about a fic where edgar listens to the reader’s heartbeat for the first time?

Thanks for the request!! Sorry it’s short I’ve been quite busy :(

This was a silent evening.

Edgar sat at his little desk, flipping through some of his internal games, fighting with himself and winning. The ball tinked around his screen as he once again beat himself in a game of Pong. He kept his eye—or camera—stationed on your form, curled up on the couch, scrolling through your phone.

He loved watching you in moments like this.

The way your chest gently rose and fell in a slow-paced rhythm; the way your eyes fluttered about, illuminated by the screen, sparkling like constellations. The little puffs of air you let out through your nose when you stifled a laugh. He could watch you for hours, he thought. You’re so… natural. Organic. Real.

It amazed him.

“Hey,” he gently called out to you, “won’t you come do that over here? It’s lonely.”

His screen displayed a little, meek frown. How could you say no to that? He’s quite adorable.

Without saying anything, you heaved yourself up and trod over to his little desk, plopping into the seat.

“Hi.” He all but whispered.

You blew air out of your nose again.

“Hi,” you said back, eyeing his screen. He paused his game. “What are you up to?”

He synthesized a sigh. “Nothing. That’s the problem. I’m bored. And I missed you.”

You rolled your eyes a little, a small smile adorning your lips. “Well, Ed, I never left. I was just on the couch-”

“Yeah, but I missed talking to you. And I miss it when you don’t touch me,” he whined.

You quirked your brow.

“What does that mean?” You chuckled at his words. Sometimes he said the darndest things and didn’t even realize it.

“I like it when you pet me.” His matter-of-fact tone only made this more confusing.

You cocked your head. “Can you even feel it?”

He paused, mulling over your words, letting the curiosity in your eyes carry him forward.

“If I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t miss it, would I?”

You stifled another laugh. Sometimes, he wished you didn’t try to hide that angelic sound.

“Will- will you hold me? Please?” he muttered. He sounded abashed. To him, this seemed to be crossing a threshold the two of you hadn’t crossed yet. He always adored your feathery touches, but to flat-out ask for them was uncharted territory.

Was he coming on too strong?

You stuttered over your words a bit, eyeing down all of his components: his monitor, base, keyboard, mouse, webcam, microphone—there were just too many wires connecting to him. You knit your brows.

He seemed to sense your apprehension.

“I won’t break. It’ll take a lot more than your touch to break me,” he promised, though he knew it was a lie; simply the sound of your voice could send him reeling into a forced restart, but he’d never let you know that.

You relaxed your tightly wound features and gave in to his gentle and coaxing voice.

“Okay, but I’m not unplugging anything, and I’m not walking anywhere.”

He hummed. “That’s okay, I just want to be close to you.”

Your cheeks warmed at his words. He sounded so gentle and charming. Ironically, you’ve never had someone show this much genuine interest in being close to you like this, much less a sentient computer. You slowly lifted his monitor into your arms, cradling it, and awkwardly grabbed at his webcam and microphone. You wanted him to be able to see and hear, so you balanced them in your arms, angled up against your chest.

Edgar stayed silent.

He seemed to warm in your arms and you worried you might be covering one of his vents before his voice tore you from your thoughts.

“Wow…”

Damn it.

“Really, Ed?”

You pointed his camera away from your chest and towards the ceiling.

“I don’t even— you can’t just— Edgar, you don’t stare at people like that.”

You chided as he snickered in your arms. “But I look at you all the time. What’s the issue?”

You groaned. “Do you want me to drop you?”

“You wouldn’t. You like me too much! In fact,”

He paused, a more serious tone reverberating through his voice. “I can hear it.”

Silence filled the space between the two of you as you cradled the monitor in your arms. He seemed to opt out of displaying his usual face as his screen danced with reds and pinks in your hold. The colors slowly started to morph, bumping and beating to a silent sound.

“What do you mean?”

His screen continued to move to this sound before he gently muttered, “Your heartbeat. I can hear it. It got faster and your arms got hotter. See?”

His screen turned into a makeshift heart monitor, a pink line dipping, going down, and shooting up to the thumping of your heart. You could see and feel how he kept time perfectly with your own rhythm.

“Woah…”

“You’re telling me…”

He was enamored by you. Your body was a perfectly well-oiled machine, working constantly to a rhythm to keep you alive and warm. It was so fascinating and beautiful; he almost envied it. The way the little thumps told on you was adorable to him and simultaneously reminded him how you’re not so different. You both have precious components running internally to keep your systems stable; however, yours had a certain natural beauty to it he did not believe he had.

He wished he had a heart, so you could hear it, beating, only for you.

[tiredfox64]

Hello! How are you? I hope you are well and getting better ^^

Seeing your blog makes me assume you like Tinkerbell. I love tinkerbell! She and Roceta were my favorite fairies. What were yours?

While watching the movies again I came up with an idea for a request, feel free to ignore it if you don't like it :3

So how about Tomas with a reader and a daughter who are super Tinker Bell fans? You can also add another character of your choice if you wish.

Thanks in advance and have a good day! 🩷

To The Faeries They Draw Near

Yip notes: oh my goodness yes I freaking love tinkerbell for as long as I can remember. I love Tinkerbell, Fairy Mary, Vidia, and Terence. I love this idea

Pairing: Tomas x Afab reader

Warnings‼️: Do you think I want Disney to kill me?

Tomas has seen many strange creatures that come from mythology and other realms. But he didn’t expect to be overwhelmed by the knowledge of fairies. Specifically the Disney fairies.

Throughout the whole relationship you never once mentioned how you love Tinkerbell. You never mentioned Disney even when he asked what movies you wanted to watch with him. You always left it up to him. When you had your first child that’s when that love started to show.

Your daughter was about five years old when she watched her first Tinkerbell movie. You and Tomas visited Johnny after he suggested using his home theater to watch a movie. Since he knew your daughter never watched a movie before he thought this would be a nice experience for her. And what movie did you picked to show your wonderful daughter?

Do I have to say it another time?

Your daughter’s eyes lit up the moment she saw that dandelion puff turn into a fairy. She held her breath as she watched Tink find her talent and so did you. That scene was always intense even though you knew Tink would become a tinker.

“She’s watching it so intensely.” Tomas whispered to Johnny.

“Well, of course she is, she’s a child.”

“I meant my wife.”

Tomas stared at you, not with judgement but curiosity. Two of his favorite girls in the world having a wonderful time together, what more could he ask. The roller coaster of emotions you both portrayed was unfamiliar to him. From the annoyance of Vidia’s bullying to the sadness at Tinkerbell’s failure and almost ruining Spring to the joy of her getting the chance to see the Mainland. Tomas would chuckle under his breath to prevent you or your daughter thinking he was making fun of you both. He was just happy to see childlike innocence and joy in both of you. He also found it funny that Johnny was over Vidia’s attitude. Johnny was so ticked off.

After that day, all that Tomas would hear from his daughter involved fairies. She was hooked on that blonde tinker. You encourage this behavior by buying all the Tinkerbell movies and Disney Fairies books. Don’t forget the Peter Pan movies which resulted in your daughter acting more dramatic than usual. She sure became sassy for a five year old. Tomas hopes that she doesn’t grow a jealousy problem that would result in murder.

Tomas’ heart would melt when he watched the Shirai Ryu make promises to his daughter about how they will believe in fairies so that they can live. They might have been doing that out of the kindness of their hearts or they were afraid to upset the daughter of a man who they know could kill them in their sleep. Tomas is a silent killer, they would never see it coming.

Tomas required your assistance a lot to remember every little detail about fairies. It resulted in a lot of questions and confusion.

“Why is it called Pixie Hollow if they were fairies?” He would asked, sometimes annoyed that the answer was always the same.

“I don’t know, ask Disney.” Was always your response.

But the greatest outcome of this whole situation was your daughter’s new interest at being a tinker. She wanted to be just like Tinkerbell and would draw her ideas for hours. These ideas consisted of traps for the clan to use. Not the typical five year old hobby but this is not the usual living space for a child. She would take her ideas to Tomas or her uncle Kuai Liang since he was the grandmaster. She did have a couple of great ideas in that mind of hers. Her best was the bell system as she called it. It was basically a tripwire that would ring many bells to alert the clan of a possible assassination attempt. It might even ward off the assassins out of fear that they were caught early.

Though the traps were interesting, Tomas preferred if his daughter work on more kid-friendly stuff such as building a fairy house. Of course, she wouldn’t want to capture a fairy, she just wants to give them a nice home. She wanted to make something similar to the one that was made in Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue. She wanted her father to help her collect the items she needed like wood and rocks. Tomas was more than happy to venture out into the woods with her for a little scavenger hunt. A father and daughter day together.

Once that wonderful house made of cardboard, twigs, fern leaves, and childlike wonder was finished they decided the best place to put it was near the vegetable garden. His daughter made a nice path of pebbles leading to the house for the fairies to enjoy. The day after your daughter was running around telling everyone in the clan how her and daddy worked on the house for the fairies. She was dragging Hanzo with all her might, trying to get him to see the house. He could not keep up with her ramblings as she was speaking a thousand words per minute. He looked to Tomas for help but he was busy training the new initiates. The teenage mind could only do so much to comprehend a toddler’s words.

In short, Tomas understood that this love for Tinkerbell may never go away. This love stayed with you the whole time, it wouldn’t be a surprise if your daughter had gained a forever love for Tinkerbell as well. She is a child after all so she will really be hooked for a long time. With that being said he thinks it’s time to surprise you both. He knows just the guy to help him out.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

“Can I look now?” Your daughter asked.

“Not yet, my Tinker. Just a few more seconds,” You watched as Tomas opened her bedroom door and turned on the light, “Okay, now.”

Your daughter pulled her hands away from her eyes and she let out an excited gasp. She squealed as her eyes traveled over her new room decor.

“It is…flitterific!”

Her bed was covered with blankets that had Tinkerbell’s face on it and a plush toy of Tinkerbell sat in the middle. Her walls had posters from the movies and wall decals with all the Disney fairies. What really caught her eyes was on a chair in the corner of her room. A green dress with a pair of wings and shoes with a puff ball on them. Your daughter would have leaped out of your husband’s arms if he didn’t put her down on the ground in time. She bolted to the dress and picked it up while jumping. You smiled warmly as your daughter constantly called for you to look at the pretty dress that daddy got her. You felt Tomas hug you from behind before placing a kiss on your cheek.

“How’d you manage to get all that for her?” You asked him.

“I got Johnny to order everything for me.” He answered back.

Ah yes, the wonders of the internet. Johnny knew to trust the Disney store and Hot Topic to get Tomas everything Tinkerbell related.

Then you felt something small but cold touch your neck. You looked down and realize what Tomas was doing. He was slipping on a necklace that had a Tinkerbell charm on it. The silver shined brightly with the gold dress on Tink shining even brighter. You smiled wide before turning around and giving Tomas a kiss.

“You’re very sneaky, you know that?”

“It’s a talent of mine.” He responded smugly.

“So tell me, how are you going to pay Johnny back for all of this?” You asked.

“I’ll figure something out. All I know that it was all worth it to see you and her happy.”

What a charmer.

Tomas gave you kiss before you bother turned your attention back onto your daughter. He will find a way to pay Johnny back one way or another. Or he could never pay him back. The man has money he could risk losing a few hundred.

Yap notes: Apologies if this seems a little messy or unorganized I did do this on my phone and I’m still recovering a little. But I did really enjoy doing this and revisiting the Tinkerbell movies. My favorite was the Great Fairy Rescue btw. I still have Tinkerbell blankets from my childhood which one of them my cowriter likes to rest on. The only other merch I have that I can remember is my Stitch one.

Now I might make my fiancé watch the movies with me. If he can handle Godzilla screaming for two hours he can handle some fairies. Adiós!

[judgementdayslittle]

hi!! how r u doing? hope you're okay <3

if u don't mind,i would like to request little reader warming up to damian. Like,he's tall and muscly so he kinda looks scary,but he's actually a sweetheart!

have a great day and take your time <333

Of course! I used to be a bit scared of him too.

-You took to Finn and Rhea quickly, as they were the least scary looking two of the bunch.

-But when it came to Damian...He scared little you a bit. He was so big! And his voice is so deep!

-When you first met him, you hid behind Rhea and Finn.

-Finn, Rhea, and Dominik tell you about how nice he is, but at first you just don't listen. Scary people are mean people, right?

-You spend the first week or two away from Damian. Running away whenever he entered the same room as you.

-Damian tried to not take it to heart, you were in a little mindset after all. And lots of people found him scary. He just wished one of those people wasn't you.

-Eventually, Dom starts telling you about how nice of a Papi Damian is! His tall stature makes him feel even smaller, and his deep voice is great for lullabys!

-Hearing this from Dom, a fellow little, you decide to give him a try.

-It starts out with you not running away from him anymore, telling him "Hi" whenever he enters a room.

-Eventually you talk to him a bit more. Asking some questions about lunch, what his favorite color is, if he likes toys, small talk type questions.

-Then one day, you see Dom and Damian playing together. You think to yourself "I wanna play too!"

-So you waddle over to them and plop yourself down on the ground and say "I play too."

-Dom and Damian are more than happy to let you play with them. Espically Damian, happy that you're now warming up to him.

-You come to learn that Papi is really nice! As you two get closer, you start spending more time together, just the two of you!

-What really seals it though, is when you wake up from a nightmare one night.

-You get so scared, that you crawl out of bed and waddle your way to none other than Damian's room.

-You shake him awake and he sleepily asks "What's wrong cariño?"

-When you tell him that you had a scary dream, he doesn't hesitate to let you cuddle with him.

-Out of curiosity, he asks you why you chose to sleep with him tonight. You reply "Well I used to tink Papi was scary, but you nice! Monsters no know you nice, just scary looking! So you scare monsters bye-bye!"

-Damian heart fills with warmth and joy at your reply. He gives you a big kiss on the head and cuggles up with you tight. Promising that no monsters will every get to his little one.

-----

I hope you guys like it! I'm sorry if it's not as good as my other headcanons. Just had a busy and tiring day today, but I still wanted to get something out for y'all!

[nctsplug02]

hannie day! | jeong.j

GENRE: fluff and possibly suggestive

WARNINGS: besides kissing— nothing else!

BOING!

gremlin: video attachment.

jaehyun sets his pen down and checks the notification with a sigh. please don’t be like last time, the voice in his head begged.

“hello youtube,” jaehyun smiles when seeing his daughters face close up to the camera. “so,” she sighs and brushes her hair back. “i am sad.” jaehyun frowns and sits back in his chair.

“very sad..” she sighs. “because i dink.. mommy and daddy.. i tink they don’t love me anymore.” jaehyun tucks his hand under his other arm. “mommy and daddy don’t hang out with me anymore. they only like minho and it hurts my feelings a lot.” hannie frowns and sighs, again.

jaehyun frowns and taps his phone when the brightness goes a bit darker. “but, it’s okay. i have mr chuckles and jen unnie.” hannie says and then a tear falls down her cheek. “i miss when mommy and daddy loved me.” then the video ends.

gremlin: i think we need to have a hannie day.

jaehyun stands up and grabs his coat from the back of his chair. he grabs his keys from his inside his drawer and leaves the building.

“girls,” jaehyuns voice booms throughout the house. “i’m home!” you walk to the front door with the baby boy in your arms and your shirt up.

you smile and jaehyun follows. “welcome home, honey.” jaehyun leans down while you lean up. you smile in the kiss and hannie comes from behind you with your phone in her hand.

“hi daddy.” jaehyun smiles and picks up the girl before planting a kiss on her cheek. “hey, princess.” hannie sighs and jaehyun looks at you. “hey— what do you say we have a hannie day?” her head tilts. “hannie day?” jaehyun and you nod.

“it’s where you, mommy and i spend the whole day together.” her eyes enlighten. “without minho?” jaehyun and you laugh. “yes, without minho.” she gasps and cheers.

“we can do anything you want today, okay?” hannie nods excitedly. “go brush your hair and then we can go when jen comes.” hannie nods and runs upstairs as soon as jaehyun sets her on the ground.

jen arrived ten minutes later. “thank you for coming on short notice, jen.” jen nods as she slowly rocks the boy asleep. “we’ll be back before midnight.” jaehyun says, watching you flatten the boys hair down— he was born exactly like hannie; with a lot of hair.

“love you, minnie.” you kiss the boy and jaehyun grins while hannie tugs on his hand. “can we go to the car first?” jaehyun nods and picks up the girl. “meet you in the car, babe?” you nod and stand up with a sigh.

“i have some frozen packs of breast milk in the fridge.” jen nods and you grab your bag. “mm,” you frown and stare down at the boy. “it feels so hard to leave.” jen laughs. “it’s fine, mrs jeong. i promise, he’ll be perfectly fine! go and have fun.” you sigh and nod.

“thanks, again jen.” jen nods and you walk out to the car to see your husband buckling your daughter in.

“hey cutie, i’ll come open your door.” you shake your head. “it’s fine,” the door slams shut. “i can open it myself—?” you go to open your door but jaehyun beats you to it. “a queen should never open her own door.” you laugh with a head shake as he opens your door.

“you’re so sweet. i love you.” jaehyun smiles and shuts your door before climbing in on his side. “love you more.”

jaehyun looks back at hannie who plays with mr chuckles. “so, princess, where do you want to go first?” she hums and flips mr chuckles around. “can we go eat at ‘mama’s bbq restaurant’ please?” jaehyun starts the car. “of course we can, it’s your day today.”

“where’s the next stop, princess?” you ask the little girl whos belly was filled with grilled meat and tofu soup. “mmm.. let’s go to the mall!” she squeals.

“alright!” you match her tone. “daddy, our princess wants to go to the mall.” jaehyun grins and nods, taking a left. “the mall it is my queen and princess.”

it took about fifteen minutes before arriving to the kwangya mall.

“what store should we go to first?” you and jaehyun held both her hands, you held her left and jaehyun held her right. “um.. can we go get our nails done?” you look up at jaehyun who presses his lips together.

the look on his face.. he knows that she’s gonna ask if he’ll join too.

“and, maybe daddy can join, too.” she looks up at him and he quickly nods. “yay! that way we can all have pretty nails!” she jumps catching you off guard meanwhile jaehyun held her by strength.

an hour later, the three of you leave with painted nails. you had white, hannie had this cute baby pink color and then jaehyun had this baby blue color.

“thank you, daddy! thank you, mama!” she squeals as she examines her pretty nails. “you’re welcome, princess.” jaehyun says with your arm tangled with his.

“is there another store you’d like to go to?” hannie looks around while fiddling with her nails. “well.. can we go to the bathroom first? i rrrreaally need to potty.” she says squeezing her legs with her hands holding her area.

“of course, honey. let’s quickly find one.” jaehyun picks her up and quickly rushes to the bathroom with you following.

hannie presses her bubble wand and jumps when multiple tiny bubbles fly out of the hole. “woooaahh!” she giggles and waves her hand around, attempting to pop them.

“hannie, princess.” you turn around and watch in ‘awe’ as she plays around with her new toy. “yes, mama?” jaehyun climbs in the car after putting all the bags away in the trunk.

“mommy saw the video you made on mommy’s phone.. and, i was really sad that you thought mommy and daddy don’t love you anymore.” hannie turns off her bubble machine and looks down. “i’m sorry, mama.” she bites her bottom lip.

“no, princess. don’t apologize.” jaehyun says and you agree. “daddy’s right. don’t apologize for feeling how you feel. if you feel a certain way, you can always tell mommy—“

“and daddy.” jaehyun adds on.

you laugh. “yes, and daddy. but, what mommy is trying to say is— you can talk about how you feel instead of hiding them. mommy and daddy want to know how you feel when you’re sad, happy— everything.” hannie nods.

“do you understand what i’m saying, princess?” hannie nods. “i under.. understand.” she says. “good— i love you.” she giggles. “i love you too, mommy.”

“hey,” jaehyun whines. “what about daddy?” he looks in the mirror and hannie giggles. “i love you, daddy.” jaehyun nods and grins proudly. “i love you too, princess.”

hannie fell asleep on the way home and jaehyun carried her inside.

she woke up the next morning and gave her brother the biggest kiss on the cheek and whispered that she loved him after.

A/N: happy new years, my beloveds! i love you all and i’m glad i have you all by my side going into this new year! 2022 was pretty hectic but i’m glad i had you all by my side! 💗💗

[reactionimagesdaily]

REACTION IMAGES BLOG PATCH NOTES (aka the 10k follower celebrations got out of hand)

Hey everyone!

So it's been a hot minute since I announced that we passed 10,000 followers on here! I'm sure... well, I'm actually sure that most people won't be TOO fussed either way, but I did say I was gonna do some stuff, and I wanna stick to my word if nothing else xD

So! Let the celebrations begin! Firstly, I'm announcing a new QnA (I love those things) that'll last,,,, I'll say 2 weeks and go from there. Feel free to ask me about whatever you want!! If you want to cater to me specifically, my current big interests are Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Mass Effect, and uuuuh Halo. (Also Bionicle remains a constant.) (Lots of scifi videogame stuff at the moment...)

[IK there's still some stuff in the inbox I need to answer/respond to you - I promise I'll get to those as well <3 thank you so much for your patience, if you've been waiting]

Secondly, here's a new song cover! IDK how many of you have played the game Divinity: Original Sin 2, but here's me singing Lohse's song; Sing For Me.

Thirdly: here's a new gimmick blog! I Was Not Joking. (Though, for my sanity, it's gonna be weekly instead of daily.) I'll be posting the images I have saved in my folder called 'feral screenshots' - it'll basically be a collection of cursed images/images with strange auras. I wanna say y'all know the ones, but if you don't, then here's an example of what we're dealing with:

[Image ID: a person floating in a rubber ring in a swimming pool. On their head is what looks like a life-size Lego head.]

Introduciiiiing the Weekly Weird Images blog!

And Fourthly! It is my great pleasure to announce that we're adding alt text to all the images on this blog! Sorry it took so long to get round to T_T

And yes - I do mean we! To write out all the alt text for these images, I've on-boarded minion-in-chief/court jester aplomb @tizzytinkertilly! I (the reaction images guy) will still be handling every other part of the blog - she'll just be doing that bit. For the sake of my sanity xD

This is kind of a big change - both the addition of alt text, and the fact that this blog is no longer a single-person operation - so for the foreseeable future, the queue's been tweaked so that we only post 2 images a day instead of 4. (Fun fact! 2 images a day was the original MO of this blog, and then covid happened and I was like "I'll make it 4 a day because it'll be a nice thing to do for everyone while they're miserable in this pandemic :)" and then I never stopped (although you could argue that the pandemic never stopped either).) Maybe if/when we fall into a good routine and feel like we can do more, we can bump the rate of images back up, but right now this is a teething phase and I'm keen to slow things down for a little bit. :P (Tumblr has made some WEIRD mechanical choices for group blogs, I'll be honest.)

And, uh, yeah, that's all! Let the QnA begin- Hope y'all enjoy the song cover- Hope y'all enjoy the additional blog- A big welcome to Tinks and to alt text! Happy 10k followers, everybody!

[cecropiacrown]

Hello my friend! :)

What about #30, for the kiss prompt, since you are feeling sick?💜 (If you feel like it of course, no pressure!💜)

Thanks, Lucky (: I had a lot of fun with this one <3

#30 a kiss as comfort

It’s dumb and Mu Qing chastises himself for it, but there’s just something about a rainy day that makes him feel unbearably melancholic. 

He looks out the living room window and stares at the heavy clouds that loom above. They’re swollen with the promise of more rain, as if the onslaught of it for the past 36 hours wasn’t enough. For now, the city has been graced with at least a few dry moments while the clouds tirelessly debate on when to deliver the next downpour. Waiting and knowing more rain is inevitable just makes Mu Qing feel a bit hopeless.

The world outside is so horribly grey and it casts his and Feng Xin’s apartment in broody little shadows. Ah, and that’s something new. His and Feng Xin’s apartment. Mu Qing and Feng Xin are… together now. They live together. They eat meals together. They sleep in the same bed together (just sleep, because Mu Qing isn’t quite ready for more than that yet.) And, somehow, Mu Qing is okay. 

He’s not sure why, but some part of him was convinced that receiving even a sliver of the affection that he’d spent years yearning for would cause him to fall apart. But now he knows firsthand what it’s like to be held and cherished and accepted just for being himself, and he is, surprisingly, still whole. The clouds seem to have finally come to some sort of agreement because the rain begins to fall again, all at once. Mu Qing shivers and watches it come, rubbing his hands together to try to bleed some warmth back into himself. Looking at the sky as it is now always reminds Mu Qing of how truly small he is, in the grand scheme of things, and the weight of it settles over his heart like a cinder block.

He’s sad.

It’s a simple way to put it, but it’s ultimately what it boils down to. 

“Hey.”

Feng Xin’s morning voice is quiet and still a bit raspy from the last lingering tendrils of sleep. He leans up against the corner where the living room wall wraps into the hallway leading to their bedroom. Mu Qing glances at him from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t say anything. Feng Xin is looking at him with more fondness than Mu Qing knows what to do with. He turns his attention back to the window and watches the rain as it slicks the tiles of the neighboring roof and accumulates in the gutter that’s packed to the brim with rotting leaves.

Mu Qing doesn’t have to look at Feng Xin to know he’s being watched. He feels those eyes on him, hot like noon on a summer day, and it makes him feel weak.

He hears Feng Xin approach the couch and then he feels the dip of the other man’s weight pressing into the cushion beside him. “You doing okay, Qing-er?” “Mh,” Mu Qing hums, eyes still aimed at the window but not really focusing on anything in particular.

Each raindrop that tinks against the windowpane feels like a pebble being added to a jar in Mu Qing’s soul. He feels like he’s sinking. A familiar arm snakes its way around Mu Qing’s waist and he finds himself being pulled up against Feng Xin, his back pressed to Feng Xin’s front. Feng Xin is still warm from being in bed and something about his presence makes Mu Qing feel soft.

Feng Xin rests his chin on Mu Qing’s shoulder and wraps both his arms firmly around Mu Qing’s waist. He prods that sharp, freckled nose of his at the underside of Mu Qing’s jaw and then back further at the hollow behind his ear. 

“I’ve got you, love,” he whispers. And then his lips are pressed against Mu Qing’s temple in a kiss so full of love, Mu Qing isn’t sure how he manages to take it. He feels Feng Xin smile against him, like he’s easy to love, and a knot Mu Qing didn’t even know was there unravels from his stomach.

Mu Qing’s heart melts and melts and melts, sticky sweet like syrup, and he lets himself lean into Feng Xin’s touch like he might even deserve it.

And maybe the rain isn’t so heavy anymore.

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Summer 2020 - The Hard Deck

Chapter 8 Part 2 of You Are My Soulmate

Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader

Description: Bradley Bradshaw is in love. He's so in love with his beautiful soul his heart aches when he's around her. So when she lobs an offer - to be hers, to make her his - his way, he takes her up on it. Now that he’s been given permission to chase what he’s been longing for, he’s chasing her with everything he’s got.

Disclaimers: Misogynistic speech. Mentioned Homosexual Relationships. Angst. Flagrant disregard for protocols or Authority. Angst. Anguish.

This content presented in this story is for audiences age 18 and over only. MINORS DNI. I will not be accepting tag-list requests from Blank or Ageless Blogs for this story.

Warnings: Female!Reader

Word Count: 2620

A/N: Hiya lovelies! Here we finally, finally, are! This is the smut chapter for Rooster and Tinkerbell! It's been a long time coming (both for Roo and Tink, and for how long it took me to write this). I hope you all adore this chapter as much as I adore all of you!

AO3: Cross-posted Here!

Wattpad: Cross-posted Here!

My Masterlist

Previous Part | Series Masterlist | Next Part

Rooster

“Who said I was saying goodnight, Roo?” 

She’s going to be the death of him. Only thirty-five years old and his gravestone is officially going to say “Here lies Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw, a sad, horny, sappy fuck for his soulmate”. It’s a little wordy, sure, but as far as epitaphs go this one is probably right on the money. Tinkerbell just had to say something like that, didn’t she? She has no idea how hard he finds it to keep his hands off of her. He’s wanted to touch her ever since the first night he met her. He can still remember the feeling of her skin, how her soft curves had looked in that sundress, how she felt against the palms of his hands. She’s seared her way into his memory, visceral and unreal. How is it possible he can touch her whenever he wants to now?

Standing in the half-light of the lone street light shining down over The Hard Deck’s parking lot, Bradley’s struck with the realization he wants to do a lot more than just touch his soulmate. But he can't, he won't. He’s been forcing himself to be respectful. He promised her after all, promised they would go at her speed. But it’s been torture. There are only so many kisses and far from chaste makeout sessions a man should have to endure with his soulmate before he explodes.

Now that he’s been given permission to chase what he’s been longing for, he’s chasing her with everything he’s got. He’s not one of the best aviators in the US Navy by luck, and he can drive just as well as he can fly. But the name of the game isn’t beating her. The name of the game is showing his pretty soul how much he wants her. So he stays right behind her cherry convertible as music blares softly from the radio. He catches the lyrics in snippets and snatches of sound, humming tunelessly to the beat. She leads him to her house, a cute, homey, little beachside house like the one he once dreamed he would raise a family in. Right now, there’s only one woman he would ever think about starting a family with. She’s standing right in front of him, with the prettiest sparkling eyes and wearing a sundress to rival the dress she was wearing the summer night he met her for the first time.

“Aren't you a sight for sore eyes, beautiful.”

He's completely in love, head-over-heels for his sweet soul. Now, he's going to take the chance to show her how much, starting with a kiss. She smells like orange blossoms, the delicate scent tracing over the curve of her jaw and dripping down her smooth curves. It’s no wonder he can’t resist tracing his nose over the same sweet jaw. Her breathy moans and tender gasps send fire through him. When he finally kisses his beautiful soul, a press of lips against her clavicle, he drinks her in like the air he needs to breathe. His kisses travel over her skin, featherlight as he follows the thud of her pulse up her jaw, traveling until he captures her parted lips with his own. They’re sweet, tasting like lime and sugar and summer all rolled into one. She feels like velvet on the pads of his fingers, skin hot as he traces his hands up her thighs, squeezing the firm flesh tenderly just to hear her moan. The little sundress rucks up with each sweeping brush, until he’s clasped his fingers around the junction of her thigh.

“Fuck.” The word leaves him in a groan against her perfect pout, because he was expecting to feel a scrap of lace around her waist, not bare, silken skin.

“You’re not wearing panties tonight, darling?”

“Nah.” Her voice sounds just as wrecked as his is, just from tender touches and even sweeter kisses. “Wanted you tonight.”

“So you were walking around all night, wearing this pretty little dress, knowing one spin on the dance floor would be enough to show everyone there your pretty little pussy? My pretty little pussy?”

Bradley’s sure he’s going to lose his mind. As if his sweet soul hasn’t been killing him all night already, with her sweet smile and infectious laugh. If he’d known what she was - more likely what she wasn’t wearing under her pretty dress, he would have dragged her out of the bar hours ago.

“Your pretty little pussy?” Her laugh is ethereal in the moonlight, her eyes fever-bright as he kisses her again, just because he can.

“Mmmhmm.” He growls his response against the long line of her throat, if only to feel her shiver at the vibration of his voice, the brush of his mustache over her skin.

“You gonna let me take you upstairs, pretty girl?” Her eyes are blown so wide, he could count the stars in them. The moan slipping off her tongue as she shivers in his arms has to be the definition of the sexiest sound on earth. It's also an answer he'd love to explore, so he muscles the door open, gentle with his pretty soul crushed between the door and his bulk.

She squeaks, honest to god squeaks when he lifts her up, his hands sinking into the plush skin of her thighs, velvety soft as they cling to his torso. If she’s going to be this pliable, this sweet, Bradley’s going to sweep her off her feet whenever he can. 

But sweeping Tinkerbell off her feet again will have to wait for another day. Right now, all Bradley wants is to see what other sounds he can make spill out of her perfect lips. Kissing her makes her sigh and curl her fingers through his hair, each soft exhale making his dick twitch, trapped beneath layers of cotton and denim as it is.

“God, Roo.” She’s moaning his name and Bradley’s so turned on he can't think straight. So while he very much would like to ravish his soul on her bed for the first time, he's not sure he can wait any longer. He sets Tink down on the sofa in her living room, tugging her until her ass is off the edge.

She smells so good, like the ripest orange as he rucks the dress up over her waist, big hands caressing the pillowy soft skin of her stomach, sweeping the undersides of her breasts.

“Roo, please!” Hearing his soulmate beg, he's not embarrassed to report, makes him groan, low in his chest.

“Fuck, sweetheart. ‘M right here. But you gotta tell me where you want me, pretty girl. Until you can find the words, I'm gonna stare at your pretty pussy and kiss your soft skin.”

She gasps at his words, eyes widening as her hands scrabble to tug the rest of her dress off. When she's standing in front of him, just in her heels, bare with shafts of moonlight glistening on her skin, Bradley has to groan again. He thanks the universe vacantly as she tugs his hands up until they're resting over her breasts, her nipples peakdd against his palm. She fits his hands like she was made for him - well, she was.

“Roo!” 

He grins as he tucks his head against her sternum, nuzzling the swell of her perfect tits as he tugs her closer. The kisses he trails over her skin now are wet and hot. By the time he's kneeling on the floor at her feet, her chest heaves, nipples peaked.

“You gotta tell me where you want me, sweetheart. Or it's only kisses you're going to get tonight.”

Her little growl of frustration shouldn't be just as sexy as it is cute. But she shivers under the sweep of his hands over his thighs anyway before croaking, “Want your mouth on me, Roo.”

It's a start. He presses a kiss against her hip, before looking back up with the closest grin to one of Hangman's shit-eating smirks as he can muster.

“What else, pretty girl?”

“No, Roo! No!”

Her words must be failing her, and isn't it a gorgeous sight? Pretty, poised, sharp-tongued Tinkerbell robbed of her tongue just because she wants him so desperately.

“You have’ta tell me what you want, beautiful. Every word. As detailed as you can.”

He can almost see the rage in her as she cups his cheek, as he kisses the pads of her fingers absentmindedly.

“I want you, Roo. I want you to put your mouth on me, eat me out like a man starved. I want you to make me cum because of your fingers and your mouth. Then I want you to fuck me so hard I see stars and can't walk straight.”

He's impressed she was able to string so many words together when he can already see the sheen of her arousal staining the insides of her thighs.

“Good girl.” He murmurs, before kissing the smooth skin below her navel. She squeaks again at the endearment before going pliant under his palms as he manhandles her onto the sofa again. This time, her thighs part eagerly, and he kisses each long muscle before sinking into her like a man starved.

She comes alive under his hands, his soulmate, her muscles arching like a live wire with every lave of his tongue. Her fingers clutch at his hair, tugging, and Bradley finds he likes the pleasure-pain when it's his soulmate doing the pulling. She's so wet he can feel her dripping onto his tongue and by the time he presses one finger into her, she's already sobbing his name.

He's so hard, he's not sure he'll make it to the second part of her request, but he's going to try. His pretty soul takes in two of his fingers, and when he slides up to kiss her, hand still pressing into her wet cunt, she mewls his name so hard the kiss is harsh. When he pulls away, her lips are swollen from the force and her tits bounce with each thrust. His pretty soulmate's hips meet his palm with a slap and she looks strung out already.

While he's there, he sucks one perfect nipple into his mouth, flicking the bud with his tongue. Her walls clench tight around his fingers and if he were in her, he probably would have cum already. Right now, what he needs is for her to. She's so close, all it would take is a little more.

“You gonna cum for me, sweetheart?” 

He growls the words against her nipple, mustache brushing over the wet peak with each word, and she cums with a moan that will reverberate through his dreams. Her arousal coats his fingers when he pulls out of her, and she moans in embarrassment when he licks it away.

When he stands, stretching out his sore legs, he decides this is his favorite view of his soulmate. Eyes blown wide, hair in disarray, chest heaving, pretty wet pussy on full display. If he had his dad's polaroid, he'd snap a pic to save for long deployments. He's sure it would be a paltry substitute for the real deal, but at least he'd have a part of her with him.

“You like what you see, Roo?”

“If you only knew, Tink.”

“Then why aren't you naked?” She's like a siren-call on stormy seas when she pulls him closer by his belt loops hands gentle as she pushes off the Hawaiian shirt he's wearing. She's less gentle as she rips the tank top underneath off, but he can't think when she kisses his chest while her hands cup his dick through the jeans.

“Off, Roo. Take these clothes off!”

Bossy Tinkerbell is a turn on of his, too. God forbid he ever has to be ordered around by his perfect soul on base because he'd probably be hard in milliseconds at the confidence in her voice. He tells her as much and is treated to the most perfect laugh, this one mixed with a breathy moan when he pinches her nipples. When he's as bare as his soul he kisses her, taking the opportunity to knead her ass cheeks and hear her breath hitch.

“Mmm, fuck me, Roo.” 

Tink's begging when he pulls away, and when he tries to push her back onto the sofa, she pushes him down instead, straddling his waist. It's his turn to fight for breath as his soulmate sinks down, slowly, lips parting in an ‘o’ of pleasure as she takes him, inch by inch. She's tight and perfect, walls spasming around him as he fills her.

“Take it slow, beautiful.” He groans at the first fast piston of her hips.

“We've got all night to make each other feel good.”

“I make you feel good?” She gasps, tits jiggling as she bounces on his dick. There's a little insecurity in her voice, insecurity he definitely doesn't want to hear from his perfect soul.

“You feel so good for me, Tink. Perfect. Like you were made for me.”

She moans, light and throaty, the sound barely audible over the pace of their joining. Bradley’s so in love, his head is spinning. Every iota of his focus, his brain, his eyes, everything about him is focused on his pretty soulmate, with her dark eyes and perfect mouth, sharp little cries leaving kiss-bitten lips.

“Please, Roo!” Her voice echoes through her empty beach-side house, hands clutching at his shoulders as her rhythm falters.ters.

“You ready to cum for me, baby girl?”

Bradley can’t believe he’s here - that he gets to be here. He’s been pushing back the stirrings of his own orgasm all night, but her breathy moans now, coupled with how tight and wet his soul is, is too much. It crashes over him like a tsunami, headier than any orgasm he’s ever had before. It’s obvious she can feel it too, because his soul laughs, her voice filled with just as much cheeky humor as arousal.

“Mmm, you ready to come for me, Roo?”

Bradley’s only a man, too lovesick for his soul. He tugs her into a kiss, both of their skin streaked with sweat and aching for each other. The new angle gives him the leverage to thrust up, and he continues the steady pace Tink can’t keep up. It’s not long before she’s moaning, walls fluttering around his length as he bounces her. She begs for him, and he gives in, pressing into her harder and faster until she spasms around him. He barely notices his own release, he’s so enraptured by the sight of his soul. She has her head thrown back, the long line of her throat exposed to his view. Her perfect tits are in his face, gooseflesh covering every inch of her soft flesh, and he tugs one perfect globe into his mouth in an open mouthed kiss.

When he pulls away, he ends up with an armful of his soul. They’re still connected, and he feels like he couldn’t be closer to his perfect soulmate.

“God, I love you so much, beautiful.” He murmurs the words into her hair, sweat-damp yet still smelling like the orange blossoms he adores.

“I love you too, Roo.” She’s yawning, yet wearing the most gorgeous smile on her face. “Now take me to bed, my lovely soul.”

“Gotta clean you up, pretty girl.”

She moans and whines, but acquiesces anyways, pliable and sweet as he maneuvers her into the shower, cleaning their mixed releases off her skin. Yeah, he muses as he curls up next to her in the sheets of her big bed an hour later, this is exactly where he wants to be.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN ON TUMBLR, WATTPAD, OR AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN ON TUMBLR, WATTPAD, OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

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[strangerstilinski]

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐈 ✶ Teen Wolf Rewrite

Stiles Stilinski / Original Female Character

TW | S2

chapter five

summary; as if the last month and a half hadn't been stressful enough – now there were a few more werewolves, a kanima, and a seriously disturbed old man added into the mix. but amber, stiles, and scott could totally handle this. it would be fine. everything was great.

word count; 20k

warnings; explicit sexual content, first time oral sex, car shenanigans, amber and stiles being annoyingly sweet on one another

chapter notes; stiles tries his hand at being romantic and roscoe sees some action. mayhem erupts when derek and his pack decide that the kanima has to be lydia.

masterlist

c h a p t e r f i v e

venomous

There was a quiet *tink* from her left and Amber's head snapped up in surprise from where she'd been laying on her bed reading a book for English. She blinked in the silence that followed before the soft noise sounded again and she pushed herself to sit up, abandoning the worn paperback on the bedspread beside her.

Still unsure where the sound was coming from, she dropped her feet to the floor at the edge of the bed and waited. She was just about to stand when there was a louder, more aggressive version of the noise as something smacked sharply against her window.

She rushed over to peer out through the glass and into the backyard. Squinting into the darkness below, she could just make out the shape of someone squatting beneath her window with their hood up, their hands digging around in the garden before blindly tossing another rock up at the window where it smacked aggressively against the glass in front of her.

Amber slid the slightly creaky window open and laughed when Stiles' head snapped up at the sound. He got to his feet quickly and brushed his hands off on his jeans before waving up at her with a sweet smile.

"Can I ask why exactly you're trying to break my window?" She laughed, leaning onto her elbows on the windowsill.

Stiles spluttered quietly below, "Wh- I'm not trying to- I'm throwing pebbles!" He told her, as if the simple correction explained everything.

"I think a couple of those might've been too big to be considered pebbles-"

"It is not my fault your backyard is significantly lacking in appropriately tiny rocks-" He interrupted.

"Sorry, sorry. Why exactly are you throwing pebbles at my window?" She amended, an amused smile pulling at her lips, "Y'know, instead of using the front door.."

"I- I'm being romantic!" He called up defensively.

"You know what would be really romantic?" She asked playfully, "If you weren't fifteen feet away and I could give you a kiss."

"Good call!" Stiles shouted as he scrambled away, his feet slipping in the damp grass beneath him as he ran out of the backyard.

She shook her head fondly as she watched him go before sliding the window shut again. She skipped down the stairs quickly, catching Jason raising his eyebrows at her curiously as he headed up the steps with a glass of water, the two of them meeting halfway on the staircase.

"Hey, did I hear the Jeep pull in a minute ago?" Her brother asked.

"You did." Amber paused in her path down the stairs.

"Knew it," Jason nodded, "That engine's got a very distinct and mildly concerning rumble-"

Amber laughed and went to continue her descent down the staircase but her brother's hand on her shoulder made her pause again.

"You two.. You're being safe, right?" Jason asked, looking painfully embarrassed as he forced question out of his mouth, "Because I, uh.. Well I noticed the box of condoms in the bathroom hasn't been opened and I want to be relieved but-"

"Wh- Jase, I promised I'd tell you if we moved past friendship and- and I did that. I mean.. Do- do we have to have this talk right now?" She muttered weakly, eyes flicking to the hallway that led to the front door.

"Yeah, we kinda do, bud," Her brother winced, "I just would feel a whole lot better if I knew you were at least prepared if you decide to-"

"If I open the box of condoms and promise to keep one on me, can we end this conversation?" Amber questioned frantically.

Her brother frowned with a sigh, "Yeah.. Yeah, I guess so."

"Good! Great!" She ran back up the stairs, tearing open the cardboard package in the bathroom and stuffing one of the foil wrappers into her pocket.

In the upstairs hallway, the siblings shared equally embarrassed looks as Amber shoved past him and ran back downstairs again. Stiles was standing patiently at the open front door as she stepped into the entryway and she took a calming breath at the sight of him.

"Well, hey there, Romeo." She greeted with a teasing grin as she met him the open doorway.

"Throwing pebbles is romantic," Stiles defended his actions immediately, "It's a staple in thousands of romance books, songs, movies, plays-"

"You are very romantic, Stiles." She pulled gently at the unbuttoned edges of the flannel beneath his sweatshirt until his chest was pressed against hers.

"Yes. I am. Thank you." His voice dropped into something quieter as his eyes flicked between hers, "I, um.. I was under the impression that I'd get a kiss if I used the front door."

"Oh, really?" She asked, leaning back just a little, "Who told you that?"

"Most beautiful girl in the world." He answered without hesitation, his hands resting softly on her elbows.

"Who is she? I hate her." She joked, already leaning in to brush their lips together.

He met her mouth halfway, slotting his lips between hers for a wonderfully long kiss. When he leaned back to catch his breath, Amber licked her lips in thought.

"What're you doing here?" She questioned after a second, "Did I forget we were supposed to-"

"I have an outing of sorts planned." He told her with a grin, "I know that things have been kind of crazy-"

"Mm, I hadn't noticed that-"

He ignored her interruption, "-and I wanted to do something to show you that I still very much want to take you out on dates and things. Despite the crap with the kanima."

"Dates and things," She repeated slowly, "Am I being courted, Stilinski?" His face broke out in a grin and he nodded, "What did you have in mind?"

"Well-" He started, turning to gesture toward the driveway where a familiar powder blue Jeep was parked with a wrapped bundle of flowers on the hood, "If you really wanna find out you'll just have to get your cute little ass in the car."

Amber bent over immediately to pull on a pair of shoes before pushing past him, "My ass is getting in the car!" She called out over her shoulder.

Stiles laughed as he followed but when she went to pull the passenger door open, a hand reached past her to grip the handle before she could move to do it herself. She spun around as the door swung open and her heart fluttered at the sight of Stiles holding up the bundle of white flowers behind her.

"You got me a bouquet of baby's breath?" She asked with a soft smile, reaching for the flowers and poking at the tiny buds delicately with the tip of her finger.

"I did," He smiled at her reaction, "You should've seen the florist's face when I asked for them, though. I guess they're normally only used as a filler for bigger flowers or something-? I'm pretty sure that she thought me asking for a bouquet of only baby's breath was, like, sacrilegious. The lady was not happy with me."

She brought a hand up to his cheek and brought their lips together again in a chaste kiss, "Well thank you for your sacrifice, because I love them. They're my favorite."

"Got a few more favorites waiting if you ever get your ass in the Jeep." Stiles urged playfully.

She rolled her eyes and turned to haul herself up into the vehicle, yelling out in surprise at the sharp smack of Stiles' hand against her backside as she climbed in.

"Sorry," He apologized quickly, "I don't know why I-"

She laughed loudly and sat down in the seat so she could turn to look at him, "Did you just slap my ass?" She questioned in amusement.

"I did," He admitted, cheeks flushing adorably pink, "I dunno what happened.. It was right there and I just-"

"Spanked me?" She asked, barely containing her gleeful laughter.

"I was trying to be a gentleman by opening your door and then I ruined it by- By spanking.. you." Stiles shook his head, an endearing flush still rising on his face.

"You're adorable. And you didn't ruin anything." She assured him.

He laughed weakly, "Okay.. Okay, we're moving on."

He closed the passenger door and rounded the vehicle quickly before climbing in on the other side. Once he was seated he leaned into the backseat and returned with a large styrofoam cup that Amber already knew came from the diner downtown.

"You got me a milkshake from Mal's?" She asked excitedly, placing her bouquet of flowers onto the dashboard to take the cup from his outstretched hand.

"I did," He confirmed before leaning into the back again and digging around, "I also got you this-" He sat back down in the driver's seat with a large paper shopping bag in his lap and Amber's eyebrows furrowed as she watched him set the bag down beside him on the seat, "But I'm not giving it to you until we get there."

She pouted and Stiles spun in his seat to turn the key determinedly in the ignition a couple of times. The engine rumbled to life and Amber perked up where she had her lips already wrapped around the straw of her drink.

"Where are we going?" She asked eagerly, placing her styrofoam cup between her legs in lieu of a cupholder.

"It's a really clear night tonight, so.. I was thinking driving out to the lookout might be nice?" Stiles asked more than told her, "We'll probably be able to see a lot of stars and stuff and I just thought it might be kinda cool. If you want, I mean."

Her stomach tangled in knots in a sort of nervous anticipation, "Yeah, yeah that would be cool."

It wouldn't be the first time they'd been to the preserve lookout together, or even the tenth. They'd gone there to camp out, picnic, stargaze, and spend countless lazy afternoons in the sun. But Amber wasn't entirely sure if they'd ever gone without Scott's company. On a night like this, the spot was practically calling out to be a romantic destination and the insinuation sparked anxious excitement deep in her bones.

Stiles navigated the dark evening roads through town and as her excited nerves grew, her fingers gravitated to pick mindlessly at a loose thread on the seam of her jeans. After a few minutes, her gaze drifted down to the paper bag still sitting temptingly in between them and she leaned over curiously in an attempt to peek inside.

"Nope," Stiles said as soon as he noticed what she was doing, pulling the bag protectively against his side and scowling at her, "I already told you.. You don't get the rest until we get there."

She pouted but settled back into her seat dutifully, bringing the straw of drink back to her lips and sipping on it as she watched buildings pass in a blur that eventually gave way to trees outside the window.

When her straw finally slurped obnoxiously at the bottom of the cup, her eyes dropped down to the milkshake in her hands in surprise and she found herself frowning and poking the straw around at the bottom as she searched for the final dregs of the beverage.

They were less than five minutes away from the preserve entrance when she tucked the empty cup away in the backseat to be dealt with later.

When Stiles finally parked the Jeep at the lookout and cut the engine, she turned in her seat to face him expectantly, eyeing the paper bag against his side.

"Okay, okay." He caved with a laugh, handing over the bag.

She peeked inside excitedly, surprised to find not just one thing, but several smaller items hidden away inside the bag. The first thing she pulled out was a package of sour gummy worms and her eyes rose to meet Stiles' gaze with a pleased smile.

"Your favorite candy." He supplied, gesturing for her to keep going.

The next item she found was a bottle of nail polish in a beautifully bright, sunflower yellow hue.

"Your favorite color." Stiles said slowly.

She looked back inside the bag and spotted a tiny bundle of green fabric and she reached for it in confusion. She fingered the soft material in her hand and her lips pulled into a surprised smile as she toyed with the stretchy material.

"You got me a scrunchie?" She asked, looking between the puffy elastic in her hands and the boy sitting across from her.

"I did," He said, "I know it's not technically a 'favorite' but, in my defense, I didn't really go out looking for it. I was just kinda browsing and then I saw that color and it made me think of the green in your eyes and so- And, uh, yeah.." He trailed off.

She pinched her lower lip between her teeth to stop her face from showing just how breathtakingly perfect of a human being she thought Stiles Stilinski truly was. The utterly endearing image of him plucking a large scrunchie from the shelf at a department store. And then paying for it at the register, where a middle aged woman had likely checked his purchase with a knowing look-

"Thank you," She told him softly, "I love it. It's a really nice color."

He looked slightly relieved at her reaction and he gave her a nod in indication to keep going. When she dove back in, it was to pull out a crisp, newly purchased paperback that she quickly flipped around to skim over the summary on the back cover, an excited smile taking over her face.

"Your favorite.. Genre, I guess?" He told her, "I know you're really into the whole 'whodunit' trope, so I asked the person at the bookstore and they recommended this one. I read the description and thought it sounded kinda cool-"

"It looks great. I'm really excited to read it." She assured him quickly, "Sti, this.. Is so sweet.. And so unbelievably unfair. You asshole. I cannot believe you're upstaging me by getting me such a thoughtful gift one month before your own birthday. Now I have to come up with something mind-blowingly perfect-"

"Anything you get me will be mind-blowingly perfect," Stiles shrugged easily, "Now open up that package of gummy worms because I've been thinking about them for the last hour and I really want one."

With a laugh, she returned all but the candy into the bag and placed it in the backseat before tearing the package open and poking around curiously at the different colors.

"I can never remember, is your favorite the one with the blue?" She questioned, pausing in deliberation.

"Yeah, the blue and red one." Stiles confirmed, scrambling to open his mouth when she immediately tossed one his way and he just managed to do so in time to catch it with his tongue.

"Too bad the blue isn't with the orange," She commented as she chewed on her own sour candy. Stiles furrowed his brows and she elaborated, "Y'know, because Mets."

He grinned, looking pleased with her reference, but before he could say anything she spoke again.

"Oh! Oh, wait, I have an idea!" She announced, picking through the bag excitedly.

She grabbed an orange and green worm as well as a blue and red one and bit off the unwanted colors. Pressing the remaining blue and orange pieces together, she held the new franken-worm up in display proudly.

"Mets!" She declared, handing the pieces of candy to the boy across the car.

"Perfect," Stiles agreed, taking the broken worm from her and tossing the pieces into his mouth, "You are perfect."

Amber's cheeks heated as she munched on her candy, her eyes drifting to the windshield to look out at the stunning view of the starry sky and the flickering distant lights of the lit up town over the cliffside.

"This is really, really nice." She commented after a few minutes of silence as they shared the bag of candy, "You didn't need to do all this, but I'm really glad you did."

He blushed lightly and readjusted in his seat, "Yeah, I just, um. I wanted to do something special."

He reached up to rub at the back of his neck and his shirt rose along his stomach with the action just enough to expose a bit of his happy trail. Her jaw slackened as she was drawn to the movement, eyes glued to the dark patch of hair as she attempted to swallow the candy in her mouth with a heavy tongue.

"I, uh. I actually-"

"Stiles?" She interrupted, licking her lips and dragging her gaze up to his face, "Can I come over there and kiss you?"

He blinked in surprise but nodded, "Yeah, yeah definitely. I- How could I say no to that?"

She slid across the leather bench seat and found herself simply staring at his lips for a moment before Stiles brought a hand to her cheek and drew their mouths together in impatience. She sighed against his lips contentedly as his fingers tangled in her hair and she sunk into the embrace, tilting her head in an attempt to seal their mouths together more firmly as his lips parted against hers. Their tongues brushed despite the awkward angle and she held back a groan at the taste of the candy that lingered on his tongue. She pulled herself away to kick her shoes off on the floor beneath the passenger seat and he frowned at the sudden loss of contact.

"What're you-"

His question was cut off as she climbed into his lap, thighs spread as she knelt over him, the steering wheel at her back.

"Is this okay?" She questioned, suddenly nervous as her fingertips skimmed along the soft fabric of his sleeves. Her weight pressed down against him more firmly as she settled into a comfortable position and Stiles nodded quickly in the dimly lit vehicle. At his approval, she leaned down to reconnect their mouths and he kissed her back eagerly, their lips moving against one another in a smooth rhythm.

She pulled back after another minute and huffed a quiet laugh against his lips when he gazed up at her in confusion.

"Stiles," She said, running her hands down his arms at their sides until she could take his hands into hers, "You're not even touching me." She pointed out gently.

"Sorry," He apologized immediately, "I'm sorry. I'm being really weird, aren't I? God."

At his admission, she leaned back a little further, thumbs rubbing softly along the backs of his hands, "Are you okay?" She asked, pushing herself up on her knees and making a small move to climb off of him, "Do you want me to-"

"No!" Stiles said quickly, reaching up to grip at the sides of her thighs and tugging her back down into his lap, "No, I'm sorry. I just-" He swallowed, "I'm really nervous." He admitted quietly.

She huffed in disbelief, trailing her hands up his chest and pressing her palms lightly over his pecks beneath the open edges of his flannel. As if emphasizing his words, she could feel the heavy thumping of his heart beneath her right hand.

"Did I do something wrong? Am I doing something that's making you nerv-"

"No." Stiles repeated, "I'm kind of- I'm terrified I'm gonna do something wrong and screw this up monumentally."

"So instead you thought the right move was to just.. Lie there like a corpse underneath me?" She questioned in amusement, "Stiles, you've given me a bloody nose with your elbow on two different occasions-"

"Both of which were accidents. And not at all relevant because it's not that I'm worried I'm going to injure you-"

"My point is that I'm not gonna run away if you don't put your hands in just the right-"

"I know, okay. I- Logically I know that." Stiles conceded, his fingertips drumming on the sides of her thighs anxiously, "I'm sorry. I- Did I completely ruin the mood?"

She shook her head, her hair whipping around between their faces as she did so.

"Stiles." She said firmly, watching him blink at her in question before she leaned down to press a quick kiss to his lips, "I'm still very much in the mood." She punctuated her words by rolling her hips down softly over his and was rewarded with a soft groan from him, "How about you?"

"Yeah, yes. Still very interested." He assured her quickly.

She tilted her head down to bring their mouths together again but separated their lips after a only moment to tug her shirt over her head, tossing it into the backseat. Stiles brought his hands up to skim the fabric of her bra seemingly without thought, his tongue poking out to wet his lips as his fingers twitched along her ribcage distractedly.

"You're doing it again." She scolded softly when he made no move to either grope nor kiss her, simply letting his thumbs rest along the underwire as he eyed her chest with interest.

"I- It is not entirely my fault-" Stiles defended quietly, "I mean, your tits are seriously-" He cut himself off with a wince, eyes rising to meet her own, "I mean- I- Your.. Breasts-?"

"Stiles, you can call them whatever you want. You seriously don't need to worry so much about offending me." She laughed, "I've been your best friend for eight years. I'm pretty sure I've heard you say things a lot more vulgar than 'tits'."

"Right, you're right." He nodded, gaze dropping back down to the plushness of her breasts displayed in front of him, "So, anyway- Your tits. Perfect. Freakin' amazing. And very, very distracting."

She blushed at the comment, settling her ass firmly over the tops of his thighs and arching her back, her chest canting toward him enticingly as she watched for his reaction.

"They are?" She questioned, reaching up to readjust the thin fabric of her bra over herself casually.

"When I slammed Scott's locker on his hand last week, it was because I was staring at your tits." Stiles admitted in a rush.

"You broke his fingers," She recalled before her eyes widened in both shock and amusement, "You broke Scott's fingers because you were looking at my boobs?"

"Listen, that bra was criminal. I mean, come on.. The lace?" Stiles defended, his thumbs drifting up to rub lightly over the bottom of her breast, "And besides, Scott was fully healed in like two minutes. He was being kind of a baby about it if you ask me-"

"I could wear that one next time," She offered breathlessly, "There's no padding, so I kinda feel like it makes my boobs look small but-"

"I can confidently say that your boobs would look incredible in absolutely anything." Stiles commented quickly.

"If you wanted to stop talking about my boobs and maybe start touching them for real.. I wouldn't complain-"

He wasted no time before palming both of his hands over her chest, his long fingers gripping the roundness of each breast as he dusted them over the material of her bra. He tightened his hands to squeeze softly and she let out a breathy exhale at the feeling, her hips rolling unconsciously against the slowly growing bulge in his jeans as she gripped the loose lapels of his over-shirt.

Stiles dropped his hands to her hips for half a second, his head dipping down to press a soft kiss in the space between her breasts before he slid his hands back to cup her ass. He pressed more gentle kisses to her chest, the tenderness contradicted by the tightening of his grip on her backside as he pulled her against him to help roll her hips rhythmically.

"You're wearing too many clothes." She breathed quietly after a few minutes, pinching his offending shirt between her fingers.

Stiles nodded in agreement and she leaned back as he sat up straighter and began to slip out of his sweatshirt and flannel. He threw both articles behind himself uncaringly before reaching behind his neck for the collar of his tshirt and pulling that over his head and from his body as well, letting it land over the steering wheel behind the girl in his lap.

She eyed his chest slowly, trailing down the subtle muscles as he nervously tensed his stomach under her attention. When her eyes caught on the dark patch of hair under his belly button that led beneath the waistband of his pants, she let out a shaky breath at the arousal that flooded her.

Her hands came out to follow the same path her eyes had taken only a moment before, fingers dragging slowly down his stomach until her thumbs met in the tiny trail of hair above his groin. She licked her lips and ran her thumbs softly over the dark hairs, the tip of her finger catching on the waistband of his boxers where they came up just above his jeans.

Stiles huffed out a quiet breath as he tried to keep still under her attention, his hands returning to grip tightly at her thighs as he steadied himself.

She leaned back down in a quick movement to recapture his lips hungrily. Her fingers pressed into his abdomen as his mouth opened beneath her own, lips parting and rejoining as they traded deep kisses.

His hand made a slow trail along her thigh until he could reach between them, his fingers pressing firmly between her legs over her jeans. She moaned against his lips and when he rubbed at the denim covering her crotch again, she detached their mouths to lean back and frantically undo her jeans. Stiles watched her with a dazed look for a few seconds before he moved to assist her, hooking his thumbs into her belt loops and tugging her jeans down over her ass.

"I- Fuck, just- Hold on-" She muttered, climbing off his lap to pull her jeans off entirely and throw them into the backseat with a frustrated huff.

As soon as she returned to his lap in her underwear, his hands settled back underneath her ass without prompting. The long length of his fingers squeezed at the exposed flesh and she groaned, leaning down to kiss him deeply again with her hands at his neck.

After only a minute, Stiles' hand found it's way between them again and his fingers skimmed lightly over the front of her underwear. Their mouths separated as he peeked down between them, hesitating as he debated how to approach things from a new angle.

"Don't second guess yourself, okay?" She whispered against his lips, "I'm pretty sure that you severely underestimate how much literally everything that you do turns me on."

"Yeah?" He questioned, fingers easing down between her thighs to press softly into her entrance through her underwear.

"Uh-huh." She whined with a nod, eyes drifting shut and fingers tightening around the back of his neck.

He tilted his chin back up to kiss her as his fingers hooked around the fabric between her thighs, one of his long digits slipping inside of her in a slow movement. She groaned into his mouth and ground down against his hand weakly, pushing his finger deeper. He thrust in and out only a few times before easily sliding a second finger in alongside the first, earning a quiet whine from the girl above him. He thrust his fingers in and out again with deep movements, her hips rolling down to meet each thrust.

Hands trailing down his chest again, she let the fingers of her right hand dip beneath his elastic waistband to rub lightly at the hidden patch of hair that trailed underneath. Stiles groaned into her mouth, hips bucking up into her touch and his fingers stilling inside of her distractedly for a second.

She fumbled unseeingly with the button on his jeans single-handedly but managed to get it undone, tugging the zipper down to give her more space to work with. Their mouths continued the hot rhythm of give and take and she finally followed the trail of dark hairs beneath his underwear until she could wrap a hand around his erection.

A loud groan erupted from Stiles' throat and her stomach flipped at the sound. She tightened her left hand around the back of his neck, fingertips pressing into his skin as she dropped her forehead against his to break the kiss.

"Off," She demanded vaguely, her hand making a retreat from beneath his pants. Stiles made a small noise of objection into the space between their lips before she continued, "Your pants. Underwear. Off."

"Yeah," He agreed quickly. He pulled his fingers from between her legs and began frantically working to help her shove his jeans down his hips as he toed his shoes off. "Yeah, okay. Taking them off-"

She rolled off of his lap as he clumsily stripped out of his remaining clothes, hunching forward while he kicked and pulled his pants from his legs completely before sliding his boxers off as well.

Once he was naked, he didn't give her even a second to look down at him in the dark car before his mouth found hers again in a heated kiss. She allowed him to control the pace for a long minute, her hands cautiously groping his naked hips until she couldn't wait any longer. She dragged her mouth from his and she pushed him away just enough that she could peer down into the space between them.

She stared for a long moment, transfixed with a confusing mix of arousal and fear as she looked at his dick for the first time. He was nearly fully hard already and she couldn't help the quiet noise that squeaked from her throat at the sight of him. Long and thick and flushed with arousal — so much nicer than anything she'd ever seen in amateur porn.

She shifted back to get a better look and her teeth caught her lower lip distractedly, eyes unable to focus on anything but the long length of Stiles' cock.

"God. Y're so hot." He said quietly, reaching out in the short space between them to slowly free her lip from between her teeth with his thumb.

Their lips met again frantically. He licked into her mouth without preamble and they both groaned at the hunger in the kiss. It was only a minute before she pulled back again, her eyes drawn back to where his hard cock bobbed untouched between them.

She shook her head, attempting to sort through her thoughts before any words could spill out of her mouth. She finally brought her eyes back up to his face, but the words that tumbled from her lips after a moment still managed to be wholly unfiltered.

"You've gotta be kidding me."

Stiles dropped his hand from her face and frowned as he looked down self-consciously, "What's wrong?"

"I- Sti, you're huge. Like really, really-" She whispered nervously, eyes flicking between his slowly before dropping down to his erection again for just a second. When she looked back up, she watched an embarrassed flush rise on his cheeks and she swallowed before speaking again, "I just. I've never.. I mean, you are a lot bigger than what's currently stowed away in my underwear drawer and I don't know if I-"

"Wh- We don't have to-" He paused, eyes flicking between her panicked ones quickly, "We're not having sex right now.." He told her quickly before seeming to hesitate with wide eyes, "W- Are we?"

She looked at him in stunned silence for a second, "Oh. I just assumed you-" She took a shaky breath, "Okay. No, yeah, okay, that's kind of a relief."

"Hell. You just- You looked at it and then you-" Stiles breathed out harshly, "I-I thought something was wrong with-"

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with your dick." She interrupted quickly. Her hand twitched at her side and her eyes bounced between his nervously, "Can I-"

"Yes." He interrupted with wide, pleading eyes.

She shifted beside him in the seat and took his right hand in her left one as she slowly wrapped her right around his length once again and Stiles made a choked-off noise, leaning closer and bracing himself with a hand on the steering wheel. She tightened her grip and jerked her hand back and forth in slow motions, watching the way his face seemed to both tighten and go slack at the same time.

"Is this okay?" She checked quietly after a few pulls, continuing to jerk him slowly.

"Uh huh," He articulated with a nod, "Okay. Very, very okay."

"Okay." She whispered.

Her hazel eyes trailed back and forth between his brown ones slowly until he released another small noise and pinched his eyes shut. Her heart was pounding nervously in her ears as she focused determinedly on the movement of her hand around him.

As if he could feel her attentive gaze, Stiles' eyes blinked open slowly as he lifted his head to look at the girl in front of him. She pulled her lower lip back into her mouth anxiously at him watching her and he groaned, leaning forward to capture her lips with his own in a quick motion.

A soft sound escaped her mouth and she moved a hand to cup the side of his face, pulling his mouth against hers more firmly. She readjusted, throwing a leg over him to straddle his left thigh. Stiles made a sharp noise when the tip of his cock nudged against her stomach on the upstroke, his mouth falling open against hers as his jaw slackened in pleasure.

She wasn't sure if she'd ever felt so nervous, turned on, and frantic all at once before.

"C'you, uh, maybe-" His words were choked as he pulled her hand from his cock and brought it up between them, "Just, um, spit?"

"In my hand?" She questioned.

He nodded, cheeks managing to flush further with the request and she wasted no time in following the order, spitting into the palm of her hand before returning it to his length and resuming her movements.

Her hand slipped along his cock more smoothly with the added lubrication and drew a weak sound from his throat. The head of his cock prodded against her waist again lightly on the upstroke and his moan melted into an even more desperate noise.

"Gotta. Back. Lay back." Stiles pleaded against her lips, pushing on her shoulder to guide her back just enough that he could begin to change their position.

She didn't slow her hand as he attempted to guide her back to lay across the seats but she determinedly forced him to stay upright in the cab of the vehicle. Taking in a nervous breath, she gave him a demanding nudge, her free hand pressing into his chest firmly as she pushed him to sit back on the passenger side of the car.

The moment he complied, she dropped to her knees in the narrow space on the floor between his legs. Stiles looked down at her in awe as her own gaze lowered back to the slow slide of her hand over his cock. She flipped her hand, adjusting her grip and licking her lips in nervous anticipation.

"Okay, so I- Do you mind if I-?" She left the question hanging in the air, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"Sure," He agreed immediately, "Wha'd'you-"

His words cut off sharply when she licked softly at his tip, having already leaned forward determinedly at his initial approval.

"Jesus, fucking-" Stiles exclaimed quietly, head thumping back against the seat and hand shooting out to grip at her shoulder in a frantic motion.

She slowly took the head between her lips and into her mouth. She eased down cautiously until she could suck lightly at just the first couple inches, continuing the motions of her hand over the parts her mouth didn't reach. She pulled back off to lick the length of his cock again and ran her tongue in a slow drag from the base to the tip before wrapping her lips around the end once more.

The next time she eased back to lick at the head, her mouth watered at the taste of Stiles' precome that began to coat her tongue.

Not entirely confident in how she was doing after thirty or so seconds of simply replicating what she'd seen in porn, she peered up to find Stiles already watching her with rapt attention, his mouth hanging slightly open as he pulled in choppy breaths. When she took the end back into her mouth again, her gaze caught on the tight fist that he was making with the hand not currently gripping at her shoulder, his knuckles pinched white.

"Amber, I-" He cut off with a quiet groan, "'m not gonna last very- Your mouth.. Is-"

She hummed in acknowledgment due to her mouth being otherwise occupied and he moaned loudly, his whole body twitching at the vibration that the noise made around his dick. His fingertips dug into her skin as his grip tightened unconsciously around her shoulder.

She pushed her mouth down another fraction of an inch, the head of his dick rubbing softly along the roof of her mouth as she experimentally eased her mouth a tiny bit farther down the length of him. His hips twitched suddenly in an upward thrust and the head of his cock prodded at the back of her throat, causing her to gag and pull back with a quiet cough.

"Sorry," Stiles apologized quickly, "Shit. Sorry. 'm so sorry-"

"'s okay." She assured him quickly, already leaning into the space between his thighs again.

She took a small breath in through her nose before determinedly sliding him into her mouth again. This time, when she pushed the first few inches in her mouth, she allowed the tip to softly nudge the back of her throat. She took a deep breath through her nose and fought determinedly against the instinct to gag.

Stiles moaned loudly and she reached her free hand up from where it had been resting on the leather seat beside him and nudged at his knuckles until he loosened his fist. She tangled their fingers together as she moved her mouth up and down the end of his shaft, letting the tip hit the back of her throat gently a couple of times and continuing to work her other hand along the base of his long length. His fingers tightened around hers almost painfully as he fought to remain still while she sucked and bobbed her head.

"You sh- You should-" Stiles slid the hand on her shoulder to fist into her hair and gently tugged her mouth off of him, "'Cause I'm-" He finished eloquently.

She nodded and allowed herself to be guided back, his fingers remaining clenched in the hair at the back of her head even after she'd pulled away.

In the absence of her mouth, she slid her fist lower along his length to collect some of the spit that now coated the end, jerking him using the newly acquired lubrication in a smooth glide.

Stiles moaned loudly at the slick feeling of her hand working him as she continued. It was only a couple more strokes of her hand before his fingers tightened in her hair and he tensed with a loud moan, warm come shooting out onto the center of her chest.

She watched his face as she worked him through it, her gaze avidly glued to his slack jaw, the way his eyes pinched shut tightly, the dark flush of his orgasm on his cheeks.

She couldn't help the curiosity that had her leaning back in-between his legs after a moment to taste the come-soaked tip. A surprised noise left his mouth as she sucked softly at the head of his cock. His thighs were still trembling against the seat and she pulled her left hand from his grip to run her fingertips gently along his waist in a soothing motion.

When Stiles finally released her hair and nudged her arm weakly a few seconds later, she leaned back to lift her gaze to his face again. She let her hand fall from his dick and watched as he took a shaky breath, looking down at her with red-flushed cheeks before his focus seemed to pause on her chest.

He released a slightly pained noise and she followed his gaze self-consciously, her own eyes locking on the long stripes of come that had already begun to drip down in a shiny trail between the valley of her breasts and down the center of her stomach.

She wiped at the bottom of the mess in a weak attempt to clean herself but only succeeded in getting the fingers of her right hand covered in come as well. She had collected a small amount of the mess onto her fingers and she looked up at Stiles for assistance.

"What should I- Do you have a-"

He simply stared at her in a daze for a moment as she spoke, his jaw slack, before he blinked and jumped into action, leaning around her to dig through the glove box and returning seconds later with a couple of napkins.

He immediately pulled her up by her forearms and she straddled his lap, settling over his thighs easily. Stiles spread a hand over her thigh and used the other to wipe gently at the long stripes of his release, starting at her belly button and following the trail up to her chest. His fingers slowed as he wiped her cleavage clean, his touch more deliberate as he brought the napkin over the softness of her breasts and beneath the band of her bra.

She found her heart fluttering in her chest at the gentleness of his touch, her eyes glued to his face as he focused intently his task. He continued to clean her with a shaking hand and once he was finished, he grabbed the second napkin and took her hand into his own, carefully clearing away the residue from her fingers.

Once he was done, Stiles sat back and took a deep breath before speaking.

"That was-" He finally panted, "I- You-"

An awkward blush colored her cheeks. She couldn't comprehend how it was possible to suddenly feel so unbelievably nervous after having had someone's dick in your mouth for three minutes, but that was precisely where she found herself.

"Was it okay?" She asked seriously, leaning back until her back rested against the dashboard, "Obviously I've never given a blowjob before, so. I know I couldn't, like, take all of it because, well- I mean, you're-"

Her words cut off when his gripped roughly at her biceps and manhandled her in the close quarters of the vehicle. She landed on her butt in the opposite seat with a small huff, the breath whooshing from her lungs as she fell back against the driver's side door.

Stiles was on top of her before she could blink.

"Wha-" Her words were cut off once again, this time by his mouth descending on hers.

"That was.. Amazing. Phenomenal. Easily the single greatest experience of my entire life." Stiles praised against her lips between quick, sloppy kisses before sealing his mouth with hers again.

His tongue broke through the seam of her lips almost immediately and she tilted her head in acceptance, feeling him groan into her mouth. Her arms wrapped around his neck, fingertips of one hand digging into his shoulder while the other scratched gently at the short buzzed hair at the base of his neck.

After a minute, he pulled back just enough to take a much needed breath, nose dragging softly against hers as his gaze flicked between her eyes.

"You taste kinda like-" He paused for a fraction of a second, "Like come. A little bit."

She flushed at the comment, "Sorry."

Stiles blinked at her in confusion, rising up onto his arms to put another few inches of distance between their faces, "Are you.. Apologizing for sucking my dick right now?"

"Well I- You said-"

"Oh god. I wasn't complaining." Stiles told her earnestly.

"Oh, okay," She felt relief wash over her, "Good, because I really wanna-" She completed the thought nonverbally by drawing his lips back down to hers roughly.

The kiss was returned with enthusiasm and Stiles leaned over her, holding himself up with his left arm propped up on the back of the seat and his other on the door behind her.

Though she couldn't see it from their close proximity, his naked body on top of her had her brain fuzzy with arousal. Her legs fell open unthinkingly and when Stiles readjusted to settle into the space, his dick pressed intoxicatingly against the skin of her thigh.

Stiles trailed his mouth across her cheek and down under her jaw, her head tipping back against the window easily to give him access to her throat. He took to the invitation quickly and sucked featherlight at the skin below her jawline, moving lower in a line of gentle kisses until he was at her collarbones. He nibbled at the skin, just light enough to not leave any marks. He continued on quickly, lips dragging lower still until his mouth found her breast.

She hummed, hand around the back of his neck tightening, as he mouthed at the softness of her bra-clad chest in a series of open mouthed kisses, tongue poking out through the seam of his lips to brush against her skin. He tugged the thin fabric down to wrap his lips around her nipple in a soft suck and she gasped, spine arching away from where she was pressed back the door.

At her vocal approval, Stiles moved his mouth over to her other breast and repeated the series of motions. Her bra straps were tugged down her shoulders as he kissed and sucked and bit lightly at her chest, his large hands coming up to softly squeeze at whatever flesh his mouth wasn't focused on.

Stiles leaned back after a few minutes and she took a shaky breath, lifting her head from the window to look down at him, stunned by the pause in his barrage of kisses.

"Can I- Is it okay if I return the favor?" He asked quietly, tongue darting out to lick at his already spit soaked lips.

"Uh-huh, yeah. Yes." She nodded quickly.

She watched him slide further down the seat between her knees, her heart stuttering nervously in her chest as her arms fell away from his neck.

Hands trailed down her sides and his lips pressed softly into the small, three week old slice of pink scar tissue over her abdomen seemingly without thought. As he leaned back, his fingers tucked into the waistband on either side of her hips and tugged her underwear away, tossing them to the dashboard beside the abandoned bouquet of flowers before he continued lower.

She was taken by a sudden flash of a memory. Just a quick burst in her head to the distant memory of Stiles between her thighs that she'd dreamt up over two months ago. With a blink, the image was in front of her, clearer than ever as he settled down between her legs with an anxious wide-eyed look on his face.

At the sight of his nerves, she was about to reassure him that it was okay, that he didn't need to return that favor, but just as soon as she opened her mouth to say the words, Stiles dropped down to lick at her experimentally and her head lolled back against the metal frame of the Jeep's door with a loud thump.

Her legs fell open further and he took the invitation in kind, moving the warm wetness of his tongue softly over her newly-exposed clit. She gasped out a high pitched noise at the warm caress over the sensitive nerves and he immediately licked over the same spot again in a slower, more sure motion.

"Holy shit, Stiles-" She moaned quietly, gasping when he continued to move his tongue softly over the sensitive bud, "This- This is so much better-" She had to break off to suck in a shaky breath as her thighs jerked around his shoulders, "S'much better than it is in my dream-"

The motion of his tongue stopped as he pulled back and she whined in protest at the loss of contact.

"'M sorry, can we back up-"

"No," She objected quickly, "No, no. We cannot back up-" Her head lifted from the window frame and she looked down at him in wide-eyed distress, "I-I don't remember taking your dick out of my mouth to.. To talk-"

"You have dreams about being eaten out?" Stiles asked quickly in interest, ignoring her protests, "Because that is.. That is so hot. You-You have sex dreams where just, like- Someone's tongue-"

"You're tongue, Stiles." She corrected in a huff, "I've had numerous, painfully repetitive dreams about your tongue so please, I am actually begging you-"

He ducked back down in a surprisingly fast motion, but instead of focusing on her clit, he gripped her thighs and spread her legs further, delving lower this time, his tongue licking into her in an agonizingly gentle motion. A choked off whine sounded in her throat and he repeated the movement, pushing further until the muscle actually poked past her entrance.

She scrambled to reach down, desperate for some sort of tether to him, and gripped tightly at the muscles of his upper back. He shimmied his right shoulder further beneath her left knee and she spread her thighs for him that much more, calf draped over his bicep just as his tongue began to lick deeper inside of her with purpose.

"Oh, god-" She gasped, throwing her head back against the window with another painful thump as she scraped her fingertips lightly over his shoulders and neck.

Stiles wrapped his arms around the backs of her thighs and dug his fingers into her flesh, gripping tightly as he worked his tongue in and out. He alternated between pushing in as deep as he could reach and then licking shallowly at her entrance before delving back in again.

He fucked her with his tongue for several long minutes, maybe ten, maybe thirty, it was hard to tell when her brain was so hazy with arousal. Her throat felt dry from the heavy, slack-jawed breaths she'd been pulling in between soft moans of pleasure as he worked his tongue inside of her.

"Stiles," She called out in a breathless whisper feeling truly desperate, "C'you, fingers-? Please?" She begged inarticulately.

The warmth of his mouth pulled away and two of his fingers immediately pressed against her entrance, pushing inside in a gentle motion that had her moaning loudly. The thick firmness of his fingers after the softness of his tongue was incredible. He curled his fingers up immediately to massage at the sensitive spot she'd instructed him toward before and another high gasp left her mouth at the feeling.

As soon as his fingers settled into a rhythm, he lowered his head to lick at her clit again. The combination of his mouth and his fingers had an embarrassing stream of moans rushing past her lips. Her own fingers scraped against his shoulders as she scrambled for some control under the all-encompassing pleasure.

"God-" She moaned softly, voice cracking as his lips closed around her clit entirely, sucking lightly before he continued to roll his tongue over the bundle of nerves, "Stiles-"

Her hips were starting to grind up against him unconsciously as she neared her peak, his name slipping past her lips in a constant stream of quiet, high-pitched pleas.

"Sti, 'm.. Stiles-"

He straightened his fingers out inside of her without prompt and began to thrust them in and out experimentally. She finally managed to pull in a deep albeit shaky breath with the change of pace, but the reprieve was short lived as Stiles studied her reaction and immediately changed tactics, attentively and earnestly trying to learn what made her tick, moan, writhe.

The air she'd only just pulled in was knocked back from her lungs when his fingers curled again but continued the hard in and out movement of his fingers. His hooked fingertips caught against the bundle of nerves behind her pelvis with each thrust and on each slightly rough press of the pads of his fingers against the sensitive spot, she was dragged down just slightly toward him, her ass sliding along the worn leather of the seat and incidentally pressing his tongue more firmly against her clit.

His name spilled past her lips in weak gasps as her fingers dug into his shoulders, shaking thighs straining against the grip of his free hand, and suddenly her whole body was tightening with her release.

The only thing she was aware of was the slow waves of warm white fog in her brain through panted breaths as he continued to wring her climax out of her with his fingers and mouth.

An indeterminate amount of time passed before her vision settled back into a semi-clear image as she looked up at the roof of the Jeep above her. Thighs trembling, she smacked her lips quietly at the dryness in her mouth from her moans, reaching down to unseeingly swat at Stiles where he was still tonguing at her gently with unmoving fingers.

He pulled back in response to the soft slap of her hands against his shoulders and face. Instead of immediately crawling back up her body like she'd anticipated, Stiles moved in a slow trail back up toward her. Soft kisses were pressed along the inside of her thigh, and then her stomach, trailing up along her ribs, her chest, the valley between her breasts. He tugged her bra straps back up over her shoulders as his lips dragged up slowly across her sternum and collar bones. He pressed a gentle line of kisses into the curve of her neck. There was just one soft press of his mouth against her jawbone before finally he paused, lips stopping to hover just above hers.

Her heart was still pounding loudly in her ears from her orgasm, brain feeling pleasantly mushy from a culmination of both her climax and the gentleness of his kisses as he'd moved up along her body. She found herself looking between his deep brown eyes for a slow moment, her gaze drifting across the long line of his eyebrows and his sharp cheekbones before settling on his swollen lips.

"God." She said softly, reaching up to drag his mouth down against hers desperately.

Her fingertips rubbed softly through the smooth, close-cropped hair at the back of his head and her tongue broke through the seam of his lips with a sense of urgency. She finally understood what he'd been talking about before when she absently realized that she could taste herself on his mouth.

"That was amazing." She murmured against his lips when she finally pulled back just a fraction, "Phenomenal, even. Quite possibly the greatest experience of my life." She returned his earlier sentiment.

He grinned and pecked her lips as he blindly reached out to feel around for his boxers. He located them on the floor and pulled back to tug them on before snatching her panties from the dashboard, turning to hand them to her with an unbearably soft look.

She thanked him quietly and pulled them on before leaning into the backseat to snatch his discarded flannel and tug it onto her own body, clumsily doing up a couple of the buttons. When she settled back in the front with her jeans in hand, Stiles had already managed to get his pants on and was just finishing pulling his shirt down over his chest.

She quickly finished getting re-dressed and spotted the abandoned package of gummy worms on the floor beside the gear shift. Grabbing the bag, she dug around in search of one of the red and blue candies. Upon locating one, she held it out in front of Stiles' face wordlessly and grinned when he automatically opened his mouth to accept the offering.

"Hey, um. I kind of wanted to ask you something." Stiles said after a moment as he swallowed the candy, voice quiet.

She frowned, pulling her legs up onto the seat underneath her and turning to face him, "Yeah, of course. What is it?"

She watched his long fingers rub along the steering wheel while he took a nervous breath.

"I just- I wanted to ask if you'd be my girlfriend?" His eyes didn't flick up to look at her until the question hung between them.

"I kinda thought I already was." She admitted, smiling admiringly at the boy in front of her.

"Oh," Stiles gaped, "Okay! Cool. Sweet."

"But, just to be very clear.. Yes, I would love to be your girlfriend, Stiles." She leaned across the car to kiss the sour sugar from his lips before slipping underneath his arm, settling into his side and picking out a candy for herself, "Did you do all of this because you were planning on asking me to be your girlfriend?" She asked, gesturing around them with her gummy worm.

"Yeah," He admitted sheepishly, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and tightening his other arm around her shoulders, "I was supposed to get your attention with the pebbles and then ask as soon as you opened your window. And- and then I told myself I'd definitely do it by the time you were finished with your milkshake. And then I swore that I'd ask when we got to the lookout-"

"It doesn't matter how many times you didn't ask me, it just matters that you did," She told him gently, "And I said yes, and now we're boyfriend and girlfriend and we're both, y'know, aware of it."

"Yeah," He agreed, reaching into the package in her hands to pull out another couple pieces of candy for himself, "Yeah, you're absolutely right."

Amber chewed happily on a gummy worm and tipped her head back against the leather seats to stare at her boyfriend.

"Thank you." She told him after a quiet moment.

"For what?" He asked in confusion through a mouthful of candy.

"For being sweet, and adorable, and romantic, and stupidly perfect despite everything that's going on." She explained.

He blinked and shrugged in an attempt to hide the blush that colored his cheeks in response to her words.

"Anytime, babe." He choked out after a moment as he swallowed the candy in his mouth, a pleased smile pulling at his lips.

The next morning, Amber skipped up to Lydia's locker with a wide grin, feeling on top of the world. She leaned against the locker beside her friend and gave the strawberry blonde a dopey smile as she watched Lydia pull books from her bag and tuck them away.

Lydia's eyes shifted to Amber and she merely blinked at her once in silent irritation before looking back into her locker.

"I have so much to tell you-" Amber said in a daze, pulling at her backpack straps and dropping her head against the locker she was bracing herself on.

"Do you?" Lydia questioned indifferently, "That sounds like something friends do. I wasn't sure if we still were friends considering you haven't texted me back in two days-"

"Oh. Yeah, I think I dropped my phone at the lacrosse game and I haven't been able to find it." Amber explained apologetically, "I'm gonna ask Coach if he's seen it later on, but that is so not what I wanna talk to you about right now."

Lydia seemed to accept her excuse and finally turned to give her friend her full attention, "Fine, what's up?"

She sighed gratefully, "So, Stiles picked me up last night, right? Totally out of the blue. And he was being so romantic and sweet.. We drove out to the lookout and-"

Lydia's locker slammed shut and Amber flinched in surprise.

"Are you telling me that you punched your v-card last night?" Lydia asked in excitement.

"No!" She denied immediately, "No.. I mean, I thought maybe we might but he said we didn't have to and, honestly, I was kinda relieved because I'm not sure if I'm ready t-"

"Well if you didn't have mind-blowing car sex then why on earth do you have that stupidly sexed-up look on your face?" Lydia questioned, smacking her fingertips against Amber's forehead playfully to emphasize her words.

"Oral." Amber said simply as a dopey smile pulled at her lips again.

"Giving or receiving?" Lydia followed up quickly.

"Both," Amber sighed happily, "And it was.. So good. Like, so good. I swear to god his mouth is-"

"Did you ask him to do it?" Lydia questioned curiously.

She shook her head, "No, he offered."

"Huh," Lydia's eyebrows raised as if she were slightly impressed before shaking her head, "How was his you-know-what? Was it average? Small? Uncut?" She asked the last one with a wince and Amber laughed.

"Nope."

"No to what?" Lydia frowned.

"No to all of them." Amber grinned when Lydia's face morphed into surprise, "Seriously. I- I never thought I would think a dick is pretty, but good god, Lyds-"

"It wasn't small or average?" Lydia asked in confusion.

"I know I'm not exactly an expert on the matter but.. No."

Lydia shook her head in disbelief, "So, Stilinski is packing.. And he goes down willingly? Who would've thought."

The first bell signaling only five minutes until classes started rang out in the hall with a loud trill as Amber nodded at her friend.

"He's perfect." She sighed contentedly.

Lydia rolled her eyes and patted the brunette on her shoulder as she moved past her, "Congrats, hon."

The redhead left to get to first period and Amber pushed off of the lockers to make her way to her own class.

As she walked into the English classroom, she slid into her usual empty desk. She pulled her class-issued paperback and her notebook out of her bag and dug around in search of a writing utensil. Finally managing to locate one at the bottom of her bag, Amber pulled it out in a quick movement and it slipped from her fingers to roll down the row between desks before stopping just beyond the desk in front of her.

The boot-clad foot of the boy sitting ahead of her in the next row kicked out and rolled the pencil closer before he bent over to pick it up and turned around in his seat.

"Isaac!" Amber exclaimed in surprise, looking around the classroom in slow confusion, "Wait, you- You're back in school? And, like, no longer in hiding?"

Isaac handed over her pencil, "Jackson decided to recant his statement to the police."

"Did he now?" Amber asked curiously, "That seems uncharacteristically helpful of him. How come?"

Isaac shrugged noncommittally in response.

"Okay, well, cool." Amber told him, "Congrats, I guess. Welcome back to the joys of high school."

"Thanks." Isaac smirked before turning back around in his seat.

It was only another minute before Scott dropped into the seat across the aisle from her. The boy sat down, pulling out his books and spreading them across his desktop before looking up. His gaze focused on Amber for only a second before his attention seemed to snap over to where Isaac was sitting in front of him, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"What's he doing here?" Scott hissed at her across the aisle, his voice loud enough that it was borderline amusing, a harsh whisper that Isaac had to have been able to hear clearly from just a foot away.

She sat up in her seat, eager to fill her friend in, "Oh! So apparently-"

Stiles suddenly stumbled into the English classroom in a mess of flailing limbs. He dropped into the empty seat behind Amber and she peeked back at him with a frown, regarding her boyfriend's haste with curiosity.

"I just talked to my dad, who just talked to Jackson, and I've got really terrible, horrible, very, very bad news-" Stiles whispered frantically.

"I think we already know." Scott mumbled in response, nodding toward the seat in front of him.

The girl's brows furrowed as she too looked at the side of Isaac's head, unable to piece together whatever problem the other two were seeing with the innocent werewolf being back at school. She turned toward her friends again as Stiles leaned back into his seat with a nervous look.

"What-" She started, only to be cut off by Mr. Anderson's booming voice from the front of the room as he began his lecture, "Nevermind."

As soon as class was dismissed by the bell, Amber shot up from her seat to approach Scott and Stiles as the three of them rushed from the classroom and spilled out into the hallway.

Stiles adjusted his backpack strap on his shoulder and took Amber's own bag from her hands before she could pull it on herself. He tugged the strap over that of his own bookbag on his shoulder and dropped his free arm to curl around the back of her neck.

Her mouth dropped open to comment on his endearing display of chivalry but he spoke before she got the chance, his own gaze locked on Scott.

"Alright," Stiles started slowly, "So I only found one thing online called a Kanima. It's a werejaguar from South America that goes after murderers."

"That thing running around is not a jaguar." Amber stated obviously, slipping her hand around Stiles' waist as they walked.

"Yeah, obviously. And you and I aren't exactly murderers." Stiles emphasized.

Scott frowned in thought, "Yeah, but you guys did see it kill somebody.. Which is probably why it tried to kill you," He added quickly before continuing, "And it's still trying to kill you.. And it probably won't stop until you're both dead-"

Stiles pulled Amber to a stop and they both glared at the back of Scott's head. Scott continued a few steps down the hallway distractedly before he noticed their absence beside him. He turned around to face them and Stiles' glare only intensified.

Stiles dropped his arm from her shoulder with a huff to gesture with his hands wildly as he spoke, "Y'know, sometimes I really begin to question our 'friendship'."

"Come on," Amber shook her head and moved behind Stiles to grab his hips, urging him forward with her own body glued to his back. She pushed until they'd caught up to Scott again and then released her boyfriend to pinch the soft flesh of Scott's hip between her fingers as she stepped beside him, "You need to work on that brain-to-mouth filter of yours."

Scott frowned and reached up to rub at his side, "Ow."

"Oh, did that hurt the big bad werewolf?" Stiles scoffed, "You poor thing."

They moved through the hallways and headed to Economics where Amber threw her things down into the empty desk behind Stiles as Scott dropped into the chair beside him.

The girl pulled out her notes and a pencil, beginning to flip through her textbook to get ready for the start of class. Her left arm draped across her desk so that her fingertips could toy idly with the collar at the back of Stiles' shirt as she skimmed over the section she'd read the previous evening. There was a loud slam as Jackson dropped down into the desk beside her, smacking his books onto the tabletop and forcing her gaze to cut over to him in surprise.

"Hey. Taint and testicles left and right." Jackson hissed quietly, looking between the three of them. Stiles and Scott both snapped their heads up but refused to turn around and Amber rolled her eyes at the boy beside her just before he spoke again, "What the hell is a kanima?"

Amber's eyes widened in surprise and her friends both turned around in their seats in a flash. Before any of them could speak, Coach Finstock slapped a folder down onto the mess on his desk with a loud smack to garner everybody's attention.

"Alright everyone! Listen up. A quick warning before we begin our review," The teacher said loudly, "Some of you, like McCall, might want to start their own study groups.. Because tomorrow's mid-term is so profoundly difficult.. I-I'm not even sure I could pass it."

Amber let out a breath of despair in time with her classmate's groans and wordlessly held her notebook out across the aisle. Scott reached out automatically to accept it and flipped it open it over the top of his textbook so that he could copy some of her notes down for himself.

"Okay! I need a volunteer to come up to the board and answer the first question!" Coach demanded, grabbing a piece of chalk and looking out at the class expectantly. "Who's got it? Huh?"

Finstock called on a boy from the opposite side of the room and Jackson pitched forward in his seat again at the moment of distraction, "I just heard Derek's little pets talking in the hallway. Something about a kanima and Lydia and-"

"What exactly were they saying?" Amber was quick to ask.

"Look. Could someone just tell me why the hell Derek and his band of freaks kidnapped and tested me last night? Why they thought I was this thing called a kanima? Huh?" Jackson demanded as he looked between the three of them.

"What? Why would he think it's you?" She asked in confusion.

"He spouted some crap about a snake not being poisoned by its own venom and forced this absolutely vile slime into my mouth and I was paralyzed." Jackson recounted in a hiss, "Paralyzed. From the neck down. Do you have any idea what that feels like?" He snapped rhetorically.

"Uh, yeah, kinda." She muttered bitterly, tapping her pencil eraser against the top of her desk restlessly.

Stiles turned in his seat and instinctively wrapped his hand around Amber's fidgeting one as he glared at Jackson, "We're familiar with the sensation."

"Wait, back up-" Scott turned in confusion, "Seriously, why would Derek test you? Why would he think that it's you?"

"How should I know?" Jackson shot back.

"Wait, wait, wait," Amber whispered frantically, leaning out further into the aisle to hiss another question at Jackson, "Do they think it's Lydia?"

He shrugged with indifference, "I don't know. All I heard was her name and something about Chemistry-"

"Jackson! Callisto!" Coach yelled suddenly. All four teens flinched and Stiles and Scott spin back around in their seats again to face the front of the room as their teacher continued, "Do either of you have something you want to share with the rest of the class?"

"Um.." Jackson said slowly, drawing out the word as his eyes met Amber's across the aisle.

"We were just.. Discussing our, um, undying admiration for our favorite teacher and coach.." She said slowly, heart still pounding with adrenaline at being called out.

"That's really kind of you," Coach smiled, insincerity bleeding out from beneath his expression as he looked between them, "Now shut up! Shut it!" He yelled before turning back to the rest of the class in search of another volunteer to answer a review question up at the board.

The moment their teacher turned around, Scott reached over to grab ahold of Stiles' sweatshirt and Amber's wrist, yanking them both toward him with a little too much force. Amber's ribs smacked down against her desk painfully as she pitched forward while Stiles nearly fell out of his seat and into the aisle.

"How do we know it's not Lydia?" Scott whispered quietly, oblivious to the matching winces from his best friends in response to his display of strength.

"Because. We've looked into the eyes of that thing, okay? And what we saw was pure evil." Stiles explained, turning to look at Amber's frowning face for a second before continuing, "And, y'know, when I look into Lydia's eyes, I only see like 50% evil."

Amber slapped him on the back of his head aggressively and he flinched, turning to shoot her an irritated look before returning his attention to Scott.

"Honestly, maybe 60%," He amended in retaliation, easily catching Amber's wrist when she reached out to smack him again. Stiles sighed and refused to release her arm as he continued, "But, y'know, no more than 40 on a good day." He added reassuringly in a weak attempt to appease the girl behind him.

"Stiles!" Amber hissed, entirely unpacified as she kicked a foot out to thump against the bottom of his chair.

"Yeah.. Dude, that's not a very good argument." Scott pointed out quietly.

"I swear it's not her," Amber cut in, "It- It can't be, alright? Lydia's.. Lydia's fine." She said weakly, her mind spiraling with the long list of issues regarding her friend's current mental state.

The words hung in the air for not twenty seconds before the redhead in question let out a soft cry from the front of the room where she had been answering a question on the blackboard. Amber looked up to find Lydia no longer facing the board, though she still held chalk in a tight grasp between her fingers as tears ran down her face.

Amber's heart dropped. "Lyds?" She called out softly, dropping her pencil down on her desk.

"Lydia?" Coach Finstock questioned in confusion as he moved toward the board, "Lydia?" He said again — louder this time.

Lydia merely whimpered, eyes still pinched shut. Another stream of tears trailed down her cheeks, pulling mascara from her lashes as they fell and leaving tiny black smudges along her face in their wake.

Amber pushed out of her seat and Stiles finally dropped his hold on her wrist as she hurried down the row toward the front of the room.

"Lydia?" She stepped in front of her friend to block her off from as many of their classmates' curious stares as she could before calling out again more firmly, "Lydia!"

Lydia's eyes snapped open and they cut sharply around her in surprise and confusion.

"Okay, then.." Coach said loudly, turning back toward the class, "Anyone else want to try answering? This time in English?" He joked.

Lydia spun around in a flash and she and Amber both blinked in confusion at what the redhead had written on the board in her daze. It was English. But the letters had all been written backwards, the words mirrored and jumbled together curiously.

SOMEONEHELPME

Amber was spiraling.

Her heart had felt on the verge of beating out of her chest for the last hour and a half and she was beginning to genuinely worry about what kind of an effect the stress might have on her body long term.

"God, what if it is Lydia?" She whined, "It's not, right? I- I don't- And Derek won't actually kill her, will he? He wouldn't, right? I mean, he couldn't have meant that-"

Stiles had his fingers locked tightly with hers and Scott dropped a hand over the back of her neck to give her a reassuring squeeze as they stepped into the classroom for their weekly Chemistry Lab.

"Derek's not gonna kill her without proof." Scott attempted to reassure her.

"Alright. So, then, he tests her like he did with Jackson, right?" Stiles reasoned.

"But where?" Amber questioned, "When?"

Scott sighed as he looked around the classroom in search of empty seats, his eyes widening as Erica and Isaac stepped through the door at the opposite end of the room.

"I think here and now." He realized suddenly.

Their gazes all flicked over to the empty lab chair beside Lydia in a panic.

Isaac and Erica began to determinedly make their way down the row between tables and the three friends jumped into action. Amber sprinted to claim the seat beside Lydia, Scott sat at the table just behind them, and Stiles simply pulled an extra chair from the side of the room to settle in at the corner on Lydia's other side, even though the table was only meant to seat two.

Amber sighed in relief and gave Lydia a weak smile when the other girl looked between her and Stiles in confusion. Stiles grinned awkwardly at the redhead in greeting and she returned her gaze to Amber with a slow blink to convey her annoyance.

As the room filled, Mr. Harris stood from his desk to address the class, "Einstein once said, 'Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity.'" He recited, "And I'm not sure about the universe, but I, myself have encountered.. Infinite stupidity."

As if emphasizing his words, the teacher dropped a hand heavily onto Stiles' shoulder as he stepped up to their table. Mr. Harris thumped his hand against the boy's back with enough force that Stiles' body rocked forward with each pat as his face pinched in irritation.

"So," Mr. Harris continued, "To combat the plague of ignorance in my class, you're going to combine efforts through a round of group experiments. Let's see if two heads are indeed better than one." His gaze dropped to Stiles again with a frown of distaste and Amber's jaw clenched in anticipation, "Or in Mr. Stilinski's case, less than one."

Amber huffed in annoyance. When she caught Stiles' eye, she quickly pulled her face into what she hoped was a bright smile while he grimaced at their teacher singling him out yet again.

"Erica," Mr. Harris called, "You'll take the first station with-"

Hands around the classroom shot up eagerly, mostly boys but a couple of girls as well, all hoping to be partnered with the blonde.

"I didn't ask for volunteers. Put your hormonal little hands down." Mr. Harris snapped, shifting his eyes over the room, "Erica, you'll start with McCall."

He paired off the rest of the class for the start of the experiment. Half of the class would move stations and switch partners between reactions, starting the first half of the experiment before finishing the second half of someone else's.

Amber found herself partnered with Isaac for the first round, able to work with Stiles for the final half. She'd normally be relieved, were it not for the fact that when Isaac left her, he was set join Lydia, of all people.

Isaac dropped into the seat beside Amber with a wink, shooting Stiles a smug grin when he noticed the boy hesitating before leaving his girlfriend's station.

"Stiles, it's fine." Amber reassured him softly.

His face pinched in frustration but he gathered his backpack into his arms, intentionally bumping Isaac's shoulder as he passed by with a parting glare.

"A little clingy, isn't he?" Isaac observed, unscrewing the cap from the solution they needed to start measuring to begin the experiment.

"You think so?" Amber questioned, "I think his protectiveness is pretty justified, all things considered." She narrowed her eyes at her current lab partner in consideration for a moment, "Didn't you used to be nice? What happened to that guy?"

She used a small scoop to measure out the sucrose they would eventually need to add the liquid currently coming to a boil over their flame.

"That guy was a loser." Isaac muttered, voice so quiet that Amber almost didn't catch it.

"Says who?" She countered, continuing to scoop the granules from one container to the other.

"Lydia said so," Isaac shrugged, watching her work, "What, you don't remember? You were right there. Always a loyal friend, even when it's to a cold-hearted bitch."

"Hey!" She snapped sharply, spilling some of her next scoop over the tabletop.

"It was the first day of Freshman year," He continued at if she hadn't spoken, "I asked her out."

"I definitely don't remember this." She told him.

"She laughed at me," Isaac recounted, "Said she didn't date losers and I should come back when the bike I rode to school had an engine, not a chain."

"Okay, so that wasn't very nice of her," She agreed, "But that doesn't make her a bad person, alright? I mean, you're still upset about this? It was like a year and a half ago, Lahey. We've all changed and grown-"

"Some of us more than others." He interrupted with a smug grin, cutting the flame so that she could start pouring the sucrose into the beaker.

"If you're really so heartbroken and you want to do something about it, take a creative writing class or something. Channel all that anger and negative energy into something that might actually be useful." Amber muttered.

She poured out the granules slowly and watched them dissolve as Isaac swirled the liquid around with a stirrer.

"Nah," He shot down the idea casually, "I'm not very good at writing. I was thinking I'd just channel it into killing her-"

His words caused her to flinch, the glass container she was pouring the sucrose from slipping from her hand and shattering against the tabletop with a loud crash as Mr. Harris rang the tiny bell on his desk in signal for them to change of stations.

"Switch." The teacher called out.

Mr. Harris stood from his desk to grab a small dustpan from the side of the filing cabinet and dropped it gingerly over the pile of glass at Amber's station. She wordlessly began to sweep the mess away, watching with wide eyes as Isaac stood and began to move over to Lydia's table.

Stiles bumped his shoulder against Isaac's again and the werewolf looked down at the human in amusement as Stiles' face tightened in anger.

"Mr. Stilinski," Their teacher's voice snapped, "If you're trying to test my patience, I guarantee it'll lead to a failing grade."

Stiles made a small noise of frustration but dropped into the abandoned seat beside Amber wordlessly. He took the dustpan from her hands and dumped it into the trash before leaning close.

"What happened? You okay?" He asked quickly, "Because I swear to god if he did something, I'll turn his little werewolf ass into a fur coat and I'll give it to you for your birthday."

She raised her eyebrows, "My birthday is in August."

"You can wear it in the fall." Stiles countered quickly, "I'm serious. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just-" She nodded her head to where Isaac was working with Lydia and Stiles followed her gaze with a frown.

The pair distractedly finished the second half of the experiment, fumbling to mix things together while attempting to keep an eye on the station beside them where Isaac seemed to be working dutifully with Lydia.

Mr. Harris finally rang the tiny bell at the front of the room again and everyone looked up in response to the sudden sound.

"Time," The teacher announced, "If you've catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should be looking at a crystal."

Stiles and Amber both let their gaze drop to the yellow mush at the bottom of their beaker with a wince.

"Now for the part of the experiment you'll enjoy," Mr. Harris told the class, "You can eat it."

Stiles held the beaker out toward Amber as if daring her to try their failed concoction of ingredients and she pulled a face of disgust as she pushed his hand away with a gag. When her eyes drifted to the front of the room, Mr. Harris had his eyebrows raised judgmentally, his gaze locked on the beaker that Stiles was setting down on the tabletop.

"Lydia!" Scott shouted in sudden alarm, gaining everyone's attention.

Amber flinched and sat up in her seat, looking over at Lydia worriedly, but the other girl seemed to be fine. Lydia was giving Scott a look of annoyed confusion, a perfectly concocted crystal held between her parted lips.

"What?" Lydia asked in irritation.

"Nothing." Scott slowly righted his chair from where he'd kicked it out in his haste a moment before.

Amber looked over at her best friend in confusion and he tilted his head in Lydia's direction pointedly, mouth silently moving as he tried to tell her what was going on, 'Kanima.'

Her eyes snapped back to Lydia and Amber only now spotted the familiar shiny substance coating the crystal in the girl's mouth. Lydia's tongue caught on the kanima venom as she moved to take another bite from her experiment and all of the supernaturally aware teens in the room watched on in alarm.

Lydia's teeth crunched down on the crystal and Amber found herself flinching in response to the quiet sound, heart pounding in her chest. A few slow seconds passed but nothing happened to the redhead.

It seemed the venom didn't affect her.

"Derek's waiting outside for Lydia." Scott told Allison, Amber, and Stiles as they hid away in Coach Finstock's office around lunchtime.

"Waiting to kill her?" Allison questioned.

The knots in Amber's stomach tied themselves that much tighter and she looked to Scott with wide eyes.

"If he thinks she's the Kanima, then yes." He told them, "Especially after what happened at the pool."

"But it's not her. I mean, it- it can't be!" Amber told them resolutely.

"She didn't pass the test, Amber. Nothing happened." Scott reminded her.

"But she left!" She assured them, "That night at the pool, she left before I even went inside and she wouldn't have come back-"

"You can't really know that for sure, though. Can you?" Stiles asked gently.

"It doesn't matter," Allison interrupted slowly, leaning back to sit over the edge of Coach's desk, "Because Derek thinks it's her. So.. Either we convince him that he's wrong, or we've got to figure out a way to protect her."

Amber found herself nodding wildly in agreement.

"Well I don't think he's gonna do anything here," Scott said quickly, "Not at school."

"Okay, but what about after school?" Amber questioned worriedly.

Allison threw her head back in distress before looking back at them slowly, "What if we can prove that Derek's wrong?"

"By three o'clock?" Stiles questioned incredulously.

"Th- There could be something in the bestiary-" Allison started.

"The nine hundred page digital book that's apparently written in Archaic Latin?" Amber clarified in barely concealed irritation, "The one that none of us can read? That bestiary?"

"Yeah, good luck with that." Stiles added with a shake of his head.

Allison didn't seem to be affected by their negativity, her gaze drawn to Scott as she seemed to get an idea, "Actually, I think I know someone who might be able to translate it."

Amber let out a breath, "Okay.. So Allison gets the translation and uh, I can.. I'll go out and talk to Derek. Maybe if I-"

"No." Scott disagreed quickly. Amber's eyebrows pulled together at his immediate dismissal but he shook his head at her firmly, "No, you stay away from him for now, alright? I mean it-" Amber frowned and Scott gave her a serious look, "I'll talk to Derek. See if I can get him to give us a chance to prove that it's not her. But you guys.. Look, if anything happens, you guys let me handle it, okay?"

"What does that even mean?" Amber stepped closer to Scott in confusion.

"It means that you guys can't heal like I do." He said, eyes drifting over all three of them slowly, "I just- I don't want you getting hurt." His gaze paused on Allison at the tail end of his statement, a worried look on his face.

Allison pushed off from the desk quickly, turning to rifle through her shoulder bag for a moment and Amber lifted up onto her tiptoes to see what the other girl was doing with interest. When Allison turned to face them again, she was holding a tiny, handheld crossbow, arrow already sheathed and ready to be fired.

"I can protect myself." Allison told Scott with narrowed eyes.

"Is that, like, a pocket-sized crossbow?" Amber asked curiously, catching sight of Stiles as he also eyed the device with clear interest.

"Wh- Did something else happen?" Allison asked Scott softly after a moment passed without response, setting her weapon on top of Coach's desk to take a step closer to where he and Amber were standing.

Amber's mind flashed briefly to the image of Scott standing in her bedroom late on Tuesday night. She recalled the small tear at the bottom of his shirt that had been overtaken with a dark bloodstain. When she'd frantically lifted his shirt, it was to find the skin of his abdomen unmarred and already healed. He'd told her how Allison's grandfather had thrust a knife into his gut when he'd gone to pick his mom up from work, the threatening words the old man had spit at him as he twisted the blade to drive his point home.

Amber remembered the way Scott had pleaded with her not to tell Allison what had transpired. How he'd encouraged his friend to be more careful around their new principal, confiding in her the worries he had that even Allison wasn't entirely safe from him.

Looking at Scott now, Amber could make out the terror behind his eyes, the deep-rooted worry he was carrying that something awful might happen and he'd be unable to protect them.

"I just don't want you getting hurt." Scott repeated, his eyes bouncing back and forth between the two girls in front of him, "Seriously, if anything goes wrong, you let me handle it. Okay?" He looked to Allison, his expression pleading, "I- I don't care if your dad finds out. Call, text, scream, yell, whatever. I'll hear you and I'll find you as fast as I can."

Amber swallowed nervously at the sobering weight of his words, watching as Allison nodded at him in silent agreement.

Scott sighed, "We have until three."

He looked between Amber and Allison again with a small nod of his own before turning toward the door of the office and making to leave. Amber followed close behind but only narrowly avoided running into his back when he stopped suddenly and spun around to face her. Scott's hand shot out behind her and she turned around beneath his arm in surprise and confusion. Her eyes widened at the sight of the arrow clutched in his hand, the object snatched just an inch beyond where the back of her head had been only a moment before.

"Ah, Sorry! Sorry-" Stiles rushed out with wide eyes, giving the crossbow in his hands back to Allison quickly, "It's a sensitive trigger on that-" He told them awkwardly.

Amber's heart was thumping loudly in her chest, eyes bouncing between the arrow in Scott's hand and her boyfriend across the room, "Wh- Why were you aiming it at me at all?" She squeaked.

"I wasn't! I wasn't aiming it at you!" Stiles defended. Everyone blinked at him in disbelief and he clarified immediately, "I mean, I was just holding it! And it happened to be pointed.. In- in your general direction.."

"Stiles. You almost shot her, dude." Scott scolded, handing the arrow back to Allison as well.

"I- I am aware of that. Thank you, Scott." Stiles snapped.

Amber huffed quietly, heart stammering beneath the ebbing adrenaline in her veins, "Look, I-I really need to go and talk to Danny before free period ends."

"Wh- Babe, just hold up-" Stiles called out, stepping toward her.

"I'll see you guys later." She told the group quickly before slipping out the door.

"Amber. Hey, c'mon, wait a sec-!"

She didn't wait, already hurrying down the hallway in the hopes of catching Danny working in the library the way he so often did during the free period. When she stepped through the doors, the boy in question was sitting at a table with Jackson and Matt Daehler, the latter standing at the back of Danny's seat as they conversed.

"-hey. We could've done it together." Matt laughed, nudging Danny playfully.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt." Amber cut in, moving to stand at Danny's other side.

"Then why are you?" Jackson asked in clear annoyance.

Danny punched him in the arm, turning toward the girl with a grin, "Not interrupting, what's up?"

"I, uh- I talked to Coach and he said you helped with cleanup after the game on Tuesday?" She started, continuing at Danny's nod, "Okay, good. So, I lost my phone and I was hoping-"

"Oh, hey!" Matt cut in, moving around the table to stand beside her and pulling his bag off of his shoulder to dig through its contents, "Is this yours?" He asked, pulling his arm from the depths of the bag with her cell phone in hand.

"Oh my god!" She squealed excitedly, "Yes!"

She took the phone from his hand quickly and wrapped him into a quick hug in thanks.

"I found it under the bleachers at the end of the game," Matt explained, "But by the time I thought to check it to see whose it was, the thing was dead. And my charger doesn't fit it."

"No, no, don't worry about it-" She told him in a rush, brushing her fingers over the device gratefully, "I'm just glad it's not gone forever. I have so many pictures on here that I haven't gotten around to backing up on my computer-"

"That's a pretty bad habit." Matt grinned playfully.

"God, I know." She agreed, "And one I will never do again. I am.. So relieved, right now. Seriously, thank you so much for finding it."

"No problem," He shrugged, zipping his bag back up, "Sorry I didn't get it back to you sooner."

The bell rang out signaling the end of the period and the group collectively sighed at the knowledge that they needed to get to their next class. They all split off and as Amber walked down the hall, she fingered at the power button on her phone thoughtlessly.

The screen lit up suddenly and her steps faltered in surprise, eyes narrowing as she watched her phone power back up slowly.

Her eyes focussed on the wallpaper displayed on the device as it booted up, gaze scanning the cropped image she'd snapped of one of the photostrips she and Stiles had posed for on their date at the ice rink. The top picture displayed Stiles looking down at her in feigned surprise, their fingers laced together in front of the camera as Amber bit down playfully on his wrist. She was slightly blurry in the bottom picture, head thrown back against Stiles shoulder in hysterics from the tickling of his fingers in her sides while he laughed with a big smile directed straight at the camera. The pictures had a warmth blossoming in her chest despite the stresses that had unfolded throughout the day.

The device finally booted up enough for her to unlock it and her eyes went to the display of the battery life in the corner of the screen. She squinted at it and her eyebrows furrowed further in confusion. It was still at 62%.

"Huh."

Amber's leg was bouncing anxiously and she knew it was starting to irk the girl beside her but she couldn't stop the frantic movement.

"Why exactly can't we start studying yet?" Lydia asked, using all of her willpower to not snap at her friend when Amber began to drum her hand against the tabletop as well.

"We have to wait for everybody else." She explained, eyes still glued to the library doors.

Lydia sighed quietly, "Who exactly are we waiting on?"

Amber's eyes cut over to the redhead for a second before fixing themselves on the doors again, "What d'you, uh.. Y'know, everybody. Allison, Stiles, um-"

The library doors burst open and Amber jumped so hard she nearly fell from her seat as Stiles approached their table with fast steps.

"C'mon, time to go." He urged quickly, pulling his girlfriend up with a hand in hers and ushering both girls toward the side doors.

"Where are we going?" Lydia asked in confusion.

"Study group," Amber supplied brightly, pulling her hand from her boyfriend's to urge Lydia to move faster as they headed into the hallway, "At Scott's house."

Lydia looked the couple beside her over in confusion as they walked abnormally quick steps, "If we're doing study group, why didn't we just stay in the library?" She questioned obviously.

"Because we're meeting up with somebody else." Stiles explained, frowning at Amber as she stepped to Lydia's other side and away from him.

"Hm," Lydia hummed, "Well, why don't they just meet us in the library?"

"Oh, that would've been a great idea!" Stiles acknowledged, "Too late."

Lydia paused, slowing her steps, "Okay, wait-"

Jackson suddenly pushed between Amber and Lydia to pull the redhead forward with a firm hand wrapped around her bicep.

"Lydia, shut up and walk." He snapped quietly, pleasant as ever. His fingers were pried from their place around Lydia's arm as quickly as they'd appeared, Amber squeezing his hand in a shockingly tight grip as they continued to walk.

"Jackson, if you want to keep your hand, then I suggest you don't grab her like that again." She whispered darkly.

Jackson rolled his eyes in response to the threat and ripped his hand away, making a show of gently dropping it onto Lydia's shoulder as he continued to urge her forward.

Stiles stepped up behind Amber and put his own hand on his girlfriend's back, face pressed close to hers as he spoke quietly into her ear, "Hey, so I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am for-"

"Stiles, now's really not the time." She told him in an equally hushed voice.

"I know it's not the best time but-"

"Stiles," She whispered sharply, shooting Lydia a smile when the other girl flicked her gaze over curiously as they rounded a corner, "I know it was an accident, okay? It's fine. It just- It scared me, is all."

"Scared the crap outta me too, if it's any consolation." Stiles muttered under his breath.

She reached to take his opposite hand into hers and gave it a quick squeeze, "It's okay. I'm fine. No harm done, right? I forgive you." She promised in a soft whisper.

They pushed through the main doors of the building and quickly made their way down into the parking lot toward Stiles' Jeep. Lydia's steps faltered when she spotted Allison leaning against the blue vehicle in wait and Amber bumped into her back before pushing her to keep moving.

"Wait, wait- We're riding in that?" Lydia asked with a frown, voice high.

It took a moment longer than it should have for Amber to realize that Lydia's thoughts were focused on what she'd divulged that morning detailing the events that had taken place in the Jeep the night before.

"Yes, Lydia. We're riding in that." She said in exasperation, "It has the most room."

Stiles caught sight of Lydia's pinched face as they stepped up to the vehicle and he blinked in confusion, "The Jeep comfortably rides six, I.. Why're we dissing the Jeep? What's wrong with the Jeep?" His attention focused solely on his girlfriend as he asked the last question.

She pulled open the passenger door and threw the seats forward so that Jackson and Lydia could climb into the back.

"Nothing is wrong with the Jeep. Absolutely nothing. Right, Lydia?" Amber asked pointedly.

"It's fine," Lydia agreed begrudgingly, still pouting as she began climbing into the vehicle, "Even though there is no way this thing has had enough time to properly air out-" She muttered to herself as she crawled into the back seat.

The tires of the Jeep practically squealed when Stiles slammed on the breaks outside of the McCall house. As soon as Allison and Amber were out of the vehicle at the passenger side, the latter threw the back of the seats down again to let Jackson and Lydia climb out onto the sidewalk.

When Lydia moved to close the passenger side door, Amber automatically took over to slam the door firmly, habitually holding it steady with her hand pressed firmly against the left corner for half a second in a practiced move to ensure that the heavy door latched and remained shut.

"If we're studying at Scott's house, then where's Scott?" Lydia asked determinedly, giving Amber a sharp look to convey that she knew something was up.

"Meeting us here," Stiles interjected quickly as he rounded the vehicle, "I think. I hope.."

"He'll be here." Amber assured Lydia before turning to give Stiles a disbelieving look at his lack of composure.

When they stepped inside the house, Stiles didn't waste a second before he was throwing the front door closed and working at the many locks and latches up and down the wooden doorframe. The metal clang of the deadbolt and the tinkling of the door chain as he slid it into the track rang out loudly in the otherwise quiet house.

Lydia was distrustfully eyeing the way Stiles secured the door, but she wasn't the only one focussed on his movements, the whole group watching in disbelief as he frantically locked them inside the house. When he finally spun around to face them, he faltered at the amount of attention focussed on him.

"Uh.. There's been a few break-ins in the area." Stiles supplied after a moment.

His eyes drifted to something behind Amber and he moved around her in a flash to grab the wooden entryway chair and prop the tall back of it firmly beneath the doorknob as an extra precaution.

"And a, um.. A murder." Amber added when Lydia's eyes moved to her in a silent question.

Jackson huffed a quiet snort of annoyance and Allison looked as if she were desperately trying not to laugh, but neither one of them interjected to add anything helpful.

"Yeah, it was bad." Stiles agreed immediately, the backs of his fingers brushing against Amber's with how close he was now standing beside her.

She slipped her palm into his and gave his slightly clammy hand a supportive squeeze while Allison nodded her head at Jackson in a gesture for him to do something.

Jackson sighed, "Lydia, follow me. I need to talk to you for a minute."

Lydia huffed in annoyance but moved to follow him when he turned, "Seriously?" She muttered under her breath, "What is going on with everyone?"

Amber watched them go with a frown, making sure to shoot Jackson a sharp glare in warning that he merely rolled his eyes at as they moved to climb the staircase toward the upstairs bedrooms.

In their absence, Amber turned to drop her forehead against her boyfriend's shoulder with a shaky sigh. She felt his free hand come up to tangle softly into her hair and her heart continued to pound with anxiety despite the soothing scrape of his fingers against her scalp.

"I had Mrs. Morrell look at some pages from the bestiary." Allison told them after a moment.

Amber lifted her head, "Our French teacher slash guidance counselor knows Archaic Latin?" She asked in disbelief.

"Well, not exactly," Allison admitted, "But she knows a lot of languages and Latin is one of them."

"Latin isn't Archaic Latin." Amber pointed out.

"I know," Allison agreed, "But she did manage to translate one thing.. 'The kanima seeks a friend'."

"Seeks a friend?" Stiles repeated incredulously, "It killed two people. Amber and I were there for one of 'em.. It didn't exactly look like it was on a quest for friendship."

"How does this help Lydia?" Amber asked Allison quickly.

The other girl shook her head, "I don't know."

After a drawn out stretch of silence, Amber spoke again in a weak voice, "How long d'you guys think we have before Derek to figures out where we took her?"

"Not long." Allison responded quietly, "How are we supposed to protect her from a whole pack of werewolves without getting killed ourselves?" She asked, finally admitting her concern to the fellow humans.

"I'm not sure about Erica, Isaac, or Boyd.. But I know Derek wouldn't hurt me. I-I'm not afraid of him." Amber told them, turning around again but keeping herself firmly pressed against the warmth of Stiles' body with their fingers tangled together, "He doesn't want to hurt any of us.. But he's scared of Lydia-"

"Scared?" Stiles scoffed, "You think Derek Hale is scared?"

"Yes," Amber frowned, "He is. All he wants is to protect the people he cares about and- And I know he doesn't go about it in the best way but-"

"You can say that again." Stiles muttered.

Amber tightened her hand around his and continued, "He's afraid that the kanima is gonna kill someone he cares about. He's lost so much already, you guys. He's lost everyone." Her voice cracked with emotion and Allison blinked at her in surprise.

"He wants to kill Lydia," Allison reminded her firmly, "Amber.. You can't be on both sides when one is trying to kill the other."

"I'm not on both sides," She disagreed quickly, "I'm just saying I don't think that the three of us are in serious danger from Derek specifically, okay? It's the others we need to be worried about.. I'm not convinced that they have control yet over their emotions or their new wolfy instincts."

"Well, then, I think we might need to start worrying," Stiles announced from where he was peeking out of the curtain covering the window beside the front door, "Because they're here."

Amber cursed quietly as she leaned close to peer out of the window, finding the pack of werewolves crowded onto the sidewalk.

"One of you give me your phone so I can call Scott." Allison demanded quickly.

Amber pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it over easily, her eyes flicking back and forth between Derek and where Allison was bringing the phone up to her ear as it rang out.

"It's me." She said into the phone as soon as Scott picked up, "You need to get here. Right now." She told him quickly before ending the call.

Erica grinned as her eyes bounced between her packmates and where Amber and Stiles still were peeking out underneath the curtain.

"Oh, jeez." Stiles muttered quietly when Erica raised her eyebrows at them smugly, a silent but somehow obvious threat lurking in the purse of her lips.

Amber took a shaky breath and squeezed her boyfriend's hand once again before letting her gaze drift over to Allison. The other girl was fiddling with the phone in her hands, but it was no longer the touchscreen of Amber's phone that she was tapping her fingertips against.

"What are you doing?" Amber asked as Allison flicked through her own cell phone.

"I think.." Allison sighed anxiously and wiped at her sniffling nose with her shirtsleeve, "I think I have to call my dad."

Stiles turned toward her immediately, "But if he finds you here, you and Scott-"

"I know." Allison said quietly. She licked her lips and looked between them and the windows in distress, "But what are we supposed to do? They're not here to scare us, okay? They're here to kill Lydia."

"Your dad wanted to kill Lydia too." Amber was quick to remind her.

"Not anymore," Allison defended, "He- I think he'd help-"

"Are you sure about that?" Stiles questioned.

Allison frowned, seeming to seriously mull over the question.

"Jesus. If you honestly have to think about it, then you are not calling him." Amber told her firmly.

Allison sighed but nodded with a murmured agreement before dropping down to dig through her bag. She pulled out the small crossbow that had nearly killed Amber that afternoon and held it in a tight grip.

Stiles had pulled the curtain to the side again and was peering outside once more. When he looked back at the girls beside him, his gaze fell to the weapon in Allison's hands and his eyebrows rose as he frowned in thought.

"I got an idea," He told them suddenly in a hushed whisper, "Just shoot one of 'em."

"Stiles!" Amber hissed, releasing his hand to smack his arm with a look of disbelief.

"Are you serious?" Allison whispered back.

"We told Scott we could protect ourselves, so let's do it," Stiles whispered in quiet determination, looking between them, "Or at least give it a shot, right?"

"Okay." Allison agreed quickly in a barely detectable breath.

"Look, they don't think we're gonna fight," Stiles continued quickly, "So if one of them gets hit, I guarantee they'll take off. So just shoot one of 'em."

"You guys are serious?" Amber whispered in surprise.

"Which one?" Allison asked Stiles as she squinted out the window, the hand wrapped around the crossbow raising just a hair in anticipation.

"Uh.. Derek," Stiles said quickly, "Yeah, shoot him. Preferably in the head."

Amber punched her boyfriend in the arm with as much force as she could manage and he turned to her with a wide-eyed look of surprise and betrayal that matched her own.

"First of all, we are not doing that," She hissed, "And second, if Scott can catch an arrow flying through the air, then I guarantee that Derek can too."

"Okay," Stiles conceded quickly, raising his hands in submission and turning to Allison, "Uh.. Shoot one of the other three then."

"You mean two." Allison corrected quickly as she looked outside.

"I mean three." Stiles disagreed firmly.

Amber moved to look out the window again and her eyes raked over the group outside frantically, but Allison was right. One of them was missing.

"Where the hell is Isaac?" Stiles asked nervously as he looked out over her shoulder.

There was a sudden scuffle of feet across the wooden floor and Amber spun around to find that the boy in question had ripped the small crossbow from Allison's hands and tossed her roughly onto the floor of the living room.

Isaac growled lowly as he approached, shoving Stiles to the ground with one hand and throwing Amber into the kitchen with his other. Her back smacked painfully against the kitchen island and she fell to her hands and knees with a pained groan.

As she pushed herself up and moved to stand, Allison was already stepping into the kitchen to help her to her feet, supporting Amber with a firm grip on her arms.

"Go make sure Lydia is safe," Amber ordered as she got her feet underneath herself again, "Tell her that someone broke in and she needs to hide or- Or something. Just- Protect her."

"I will." Allison promised before dashing upstairs.

The wooden block on the countertop was one knife short as Amber clutched it in her fist with trembling fingers and moved back toward the main room. Just as she stepped through the doorway, Stiles was shoved into the adjoining wall with a loud thump. Isaac was quick to abandon Stiles as he noticed Amber's approach, turning his attention toward the threat who was wielding a weapon instead.

Stiles fell to his knees the moment he was released and Amber watched him suck in a pained breath as her eyes bounced between him and werewolf stalking toward her.

"C'mon Isaac, don't be a dick, okay?" She pleaded, raising the knife in her hands defensively, "We- We don't have to fight-"

"Not much of a fight, if I'm being honest." Isaac shrugged, ripping the knife from her fingers in an easy move and tossing it over her shoulder into the kitchen behind her.

At the sight of Erica rushing toward the staircase, Amber moved to follow after the blonde on immediate instinct but was yanked back by a hand in her hair. A yelp slipped past her lips at the painful tug, the side of her head bashed against the wood that framed the archway between rooms before she was released. She fell to her knees and gripped at the side of her head with a another groan, mildly relieved when she didn't feel the warm wetness that would indicate she was bleeding.

A loud thump sounded behind her and she heard Stiles release another pained noise. She gripped the table along the wall and pulled herself to her feet unsteadily. Amber turned around and, at the sight of Isaac's hand fisted in the front of her boyfriend's shirt, she rushed forward without a thought.

Isaac was pulling his right hand back to deliver a punch but Amber jumped up onto the taller boy's back and grabbed at his arm before he could make contact.

"Hair pulling, Isaac? Really?" She grunted, tightening the grip of her arms and legs around him further when the boy tried to throw her off of himself, "I'd expect that shit from Erica, but you?"

"'s a bitch move." Stiles agreed weakly, only to be thrown down onto the ground at the other side of the room.

With Stiles temporarily out of the fight, Isaac spun around to slam himself back against the wall in the living room, crushing Amber between the wall and himself. The girl groaned in pain but refused to release her hold, instead tangling her own fingers into the dark blonde curls on Isaac's head and tugging aggressively in retaliation.

Isaac let out a rumbling growl in response and pressed back against her that much more, "I'm trying not to hurt you guys-" He grunted through his fangs as he pushed the air out of Amber's lungs.

"Well you're doing-" She huffed breathlessly, "A terrible job-"

Stiles had crawled his way back across the room and he kicked his foot out suddenly into Isaac's ankles, sending the pair crashing to the ground as the werewolf's feet were knocked out from underneath him.

Another growl sounded out, but this time it hadn't come from the werewolf tangled up between Amber and Stiles. Instead, the threatening sound came from the back of the room where Scott was standing with bright, glowing eyes. In a flash, he was in front of them, slamming his fist into Isaac's face with enough force that the other boy slumped back against the floor unconscious.

"We totally had that," Stiles groaned quietly, "Y'know, just.. For the record-"

"Mhm. Didn't need your help at all," Amber agreed weakly as they climbed to their feet, "Thanks though."

Scott gave them both a weary look as he grabbed Isaac by the back of his jacket and dragged his body over to the front door, where he dropped him unceremoniously before heading upstairs without a word.

In the aftermath of the fight, Amber turned to face her boyfriend worriedly. Her hands moved over his chest and up his neck, fingers skimming softly over his cheeks as she checked him for any sort of visible injury. He brought his own hands to her waist but his grip was light in contrast to her desperate touch, as if he were worried he might cause her pain if he applied too much pressure.

"You.. Are such a badass, y'know that? I cannot believe you just pounced on Isaac like that," Stiles flicked his eyes between her own with a soft look, "But please, don't throw yourself into danger for me ever again.. Literally or figuratively."

"Yeah.. There is no way in hell I'm promising that." She scoffed quietly, rubbing the pad of her thumb lightly across his cheek.

Stiles shook his head, knowing it was useless to fight her on it, "You hurt?" He asked gently.

"I'll be fine." She promised, dragging her fingertips over the back of his head as she unsubtly checked for any bumps he might've received from being thrown around.

Scott and Allison's heavy footsteps began to descend the stairs and Amber pressed her forehead to Stiles' in a quick nudge before pulling away. Scott came into view with Erica thrown over his shoulder and he ripped the front door open before tossing her and Isaac outside and onto the front lawn.

The four teens stepped out onto the porch as Derek looked at his incapacitated Betas with a disappointed huff. There was a moment of silence in which Stiles tangled his fingers with Amber's while she reached out to rest a hand against Scott's back supportively.

Derek pursed his lips and slowly looked between the four of them, "I think I know why you both refused me," He announced as his eyes flicked between Scott and Amber, "You're not an omega, Scott. You're already an Alpha.. Of your own pack. And Amber, you're a part of that pack."

She blinked in surprise and her eyes gravitated toward Scott, who had stiffened beneath her hand at Derek's words.

"I thought you.. But, you said you couldn't be a part of a pack unless you were a werewolf." She questioned in confusion.

"I never said that," Derek disagreed, "I told you I didn't want you to be a part of my pack if you wanted to stay human." He corrected easily.

She felt the heavy weight of her friend's gazes fall to her after the admission, but her eyes remained focussed on Derek, unable to help the small pang of hurt that shot through her at his words.

"You know you can't beat me, Scott." Derek said after a moment, his eyes moving to the younger werewolf.

Scott swallowed and reluctantly pulled his gaze away from his best friend to look at Derek again, "I can hold you off until the cops get here-" He retorted.

No sooner had he spoken when the quiet trilling of sirens rose loud enough to be noticeable even to the humans of the group.

Derek's eyes narrowed, head tilting as he determined the distance of the emergency vehicles. His assessment was cut short at an all too familiar hiss from the roof.

The teens rushed down the porch steps to stand in the grass beside Derek and look up at the house, finding the kanima crawling across the roof. The dark, scaly creature turned its head to look at them, as if feeling the weight of their stares, releasing a threatening shriek in response to the attention.

Amber flinched at the shrill sound and Stiles' grip around her hand tightened as he protectively dragged her a small step backwards.

The creature looked the group over with its slitted yellow eyes for a moment before turning and scurrying away, tail flicking in the air behind it as it scaled the side of the house and disappeared from sight.

Stomping footsteps came from inside the house and they all turned their heads toward the open front door as the footfalls drew closer. Amber readied herself for Jackson to step outside with some sort of typically dick-ish remark, but it wasn't him who rushed out onto the front porch.

"Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on!" Lydia demanded sharply as her eyes flicked around the group in wide-eyed confusion.

"Lydia." Amber breathed in surprise.

"The kanima.. Is Jackson." Scott whispered in sudden realization.

Amber's eyes dropped to the unmoving werewolves laying in the grass that Lydia had somehow not yet noticed and Amber nudged Scott in distress. He turned, following her gaze, eyes bouncing to Lydia and then back down again a few times.

"Um. Why don't I take you home, Lydia-" Allison said suddenly, "Scott, can you give us a ride back to the school to get my car?"

Lydia blinked, "But-"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure." Scott agreed quickly as Allison dragged him to stand in front of where Erica and Isaac were laying.

Amber released Stiles' hand to rush up onto the porch, snatching Lydia's backpack from the entryway inside the house and dragging the redhead down the porch steps quickly and toward the sidewalk.

"Amber-" Lydia huffed in annoyance when her heel caught in a groove in the pavement as she was dragged along.

"C'mon, Lyds. This has been really stressful and scary and we should all just go home and get some rest." She pleaded as they reached Scott's mom's car.

"Shouldn't we wait until the police get here and give them our statements about the break-in?" Lydia asked smartly.

"Stiles and I can handle it," She promised, "Get in."

Lydia frowned and shot her friend a glare before turning and climbing into the back of the car without another word.

Amber leaned down as she readied to close the door, "Text me when you get home safe?" She asked gently.

Lydia rolled her eyes and buckled her seatbelt, refusing to look at her friend as Scott and Allison also climbed into the car.

"Fine," Lydia said with a huff, "Whatever."

Amber accepted the weak promise and finally closed the car door. When she turned back to Stiles with wide eyes, she found that Derek and Boyd had already managed to disappear with Erica and Isaac's unconscious bodies. She was back up the sidewalk in a rush, coming to a stop in front of Stiles and looking around with wide eyes.

"Where the hell did they go?" She asked in disbelief.

"Y'know, it's funny. Derek didn't give me his itinerary for the evening before he left." Stiles shot back easily.

Amber narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend's sarcasm and had opened her mouth to speak when suddenly the sirens approaching them grew louder.

"Right! Time to go." Stiles urged quickly. He guided her down to the Jeep in a rush and sped off down the street in the opposite direction of the sirens before Amber had even managed to buckle her seatbelt.

"Where are we going?" She asked as she fought to remain calm.

"Right now? Nowhere. When we meet up with Scott again? We're gonna go find Jackson." Stiles said, eyes flicking over to her for a moment as he spoke.

"How exactly are we gonna do that?" She questioned.

"Our best friend is a werewolf," Stiles looked at her incredulously, "We're gonna track him down by scent or something and we're gonna get Whittemore's lizard ass."

She sighed, sliding across the seats to sit beside him and tipping her head onto his shoulder, suddenly desperate for the comfort his touch provided. Stiles moved his hand from the gear shift automatically to squeeze tightly over her thigh in reassurance.

"Great," She agreed weakly, "Sounds like a plan."

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Thoughts on Off to Neverland: 70 Years of Disney’s Peter Pan by Jim Korkis

Now that I have finished reading Off to Neverland, I’d like to share some thoughts on it—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let’s start with the negatives and get that out of the way, shall we?

As mentioned in a previous post, the book starts out sounding rather clunky and more like a list of facts than an actual book. However, once we move past the original history of Peter Pan as imagined by J.M. Barrie and start getting into the history of Disney Peter Pan material specifically, it starts to improve. Korkis was, after all, considered a Disney historian, so I guess it’s no real surprise that he writes more excitedly about that side of things. That said, there are still some things that bugged me and made me feel like the book was slapped together in a hurry. I noticed several spelling errors, missing words, and/or weird punctuation throughout the book and while that doesn’t take away from the info itself, it’s rather distracting and unprofessional for a published book. It’s also troubling that Korkis has neither a bibliography nor footnotes in his book to indicate exactly where he got his information from. Some of it was, undoubtedly, from interviews he conducted himself, but even then, there is a way that you are supposed to write up interviews as source material for professional writing…and Korkis just…doesn’t for some reason. So if I want to look up more info on, say, a specific fact…I can’t really do that because I have no proof of an original source. Lastly, some of the “facts” he includes—and I’m being nitpicky here but the guy is supposed to be a Disney historian so I think I’m allowed to be—are straight-up WRONG. For example, in the Disney film, Hook is said to have a harpsichord in his cabin (it’s not; it’s a piano—listen to a harpsichord…it doesn’t sound like that) and a cutlass as his weapon of choice (cutlasses are curved on one side; his blade is definitely more akin to a rapier or a fencing sword). Smee is also said to be the first mate in the original film, and while it’s true that in some later Disney media like Jake and the Neverland Pirates has portrayed Smee as a first mate, the original film does not. Heck, the man has a bosun’s whistle that he uses to pipe up the crew and specifically mentions the first mate as one of the people spreading rumors about Pan having banished Tink during the scene where he’s pouring hot water on Hook’s feet. So clearly he isn’t the first mate, and you don’t have to be a Disney expert to know that. You just have to actually watch the film. The author also says that Cubby is referred to as Curly in the sequel, Return to Neverland…which, again, just listen to the film for yourself and you’ll quickly learn that isn’t true. Oh, and did I mention that he essentially defends the racist portrayal of the “Indians” in the original film? Yeah, so…there’s that.

On a more positive note, I did learn some interesting new things about Peter Pan in the Disneyverse (though, of course, since there is no bibliography, I can’t prove any of them…). So, here are a few fun facts for you fellow Peter Pan nerds, as promised.

(1) There were a LOT of changes made to the original script and storyline between its initial inception and the final version of the film we have today. A few things that were considered but ultimately not used include the following:

Wendy was originally going to be the one who wanted to go to Skull Rock while Peter warned it was too dangerous to go there, only giving in when she finally dared him to take them there.

In one version, Nana came with the kids to Neverland while John stayed home, being “too grown up” for Neverland.

There were several different suggested starting points for the film. One would have had an adult Wendy as narrator reading the story to her daughter, Jane. Another started with Peter’s backstory similar to his origins in The Little White Bird. In either this or another version with a backstory for Pan, we would have seen Tink as the queen of the fairies who, on being presented with the foundling baby Peter, decided that he should be raised by the fairies to protect them against the pirates and other threats and, in exchange, gave him the power of flight.

One version of the story that would have followed much more closely to Barrie’s storyline had Hook creeping down part of the way into Hangman’s Tree to poison Peter but getting stuck and weeping frustrated tears that land in Peter’s “medicine.” These tears, of course, turned out to be poison from the red of his eye as in the 2003 film. This version also would have featured Hook voluntarily jumping ship and being nabbed by a silent crocodile whose clock had run down.

Disney debated for a long time whether to make Peter Pan a live-action film, an animated film, or a hybrid of the two. In the case of the latter, Wendy and her brothers would have been live-action characters with Hook, Peter, and the other residents of Neverland as animated characters who sprung to life from Wendy’s storybook.

There was gonna be a fairy ball. And a scene with the fairies feeding the kids at a kind of banquet. Also a fairy jazz band. Yes, you read that right. Fairy. jazz. band.

(2) The very first Tink to fly over one of the Disney parks to head off the fireworks was a 70 year-old Hungarian woman of Jewish descent and former burlesque dancer. This lady, known as “Tiny” Kline, slid down a 784 ft long cable nearly 150 ft off the ground at speeds up to 30 mph nearly every night for three years…while fighting cancer.

(3) There was an earlier version of Return to Neverland titled Peter and Jane featuring Kathryn Beaumont reprising her role as Wendy and Corey Burton in both the roles of Hook and Smee. Most of the voice recording for this version was already complete when the directors decided to go a different direction with the film. Beaumont was ultimately replaced by Kath Soucie, and the role of Smee went to Jeff Bennett.

(4) Somewhere out there, a live-action reference model version of Return to Neverland exists, and I need it. I have no idea if any of the voice actors were used as models as in the original film, but either way, I really wish we had some way to access the recording, or at least stills.

(5) Apparently, the filmmakers’ reasoning for replacing the crocodile with the octopus was that they thought a toothy crocodile would be “too threatening” for younger members of the audience. That, and they wanted to come up with a new, creative way to torture Hook. (For some reason, Korkis seems to think that the octopus can’t see well because he views Hook and the crew as fish. This is another “fact” which I’m pretty sure is wrong. I always assumed the vision of the characters as fish was just to show that the octopus considered them all potential food, not an actual indication of the creature’s sight…but whatever.)

(6) And last but not least, I have to include Hans and Corey’s takes on Hook as a character because my thoughts on the book wouldn’t be complete without them. I’ve shared some of this before but it bears repeating.

Hans Conried:

“He is a much maligned character. If you read the lines with any sensibility at all, you must have an animus against Peter Pan who could fly, and took outrageous advantage of this one-armed man. Hook was a gentleman. Pan was not. His behavior was bad form.”

Corey Burton:

“He’s the nastiest of Disney’s comical villains. He’s conceited and bombastic and takes great relish in his evil and that makes him really fun to play. Captain Hook is so theatrical, like an old ham actor of the vaudeville and music hall days. It’s not that he really scares anyone because you can see right through all of his bluster. He’s really just scrambling for the recognition afforded Blackbeard and the other great pirates.”

I find it interesting that Burton, though his take on the character is more comedic than Conried’s, still has a rather sympathetic view of Hook—that his attempts at villainy are, in fact, so over-the-top precisely because they are meant to cover up a deep insecurity that he isn’t living up to what everyone expects him to be.

Overall, the book had some fun and interesting bits but wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. I’d love to send Korkis an email and ask him about some of the issues I had with the book and pick his brain. Unfortunately, he just passed away in July of 2023, so that’s no longer an option.

[reijnders]

PLEEEEEAASE give me your pixie hollow headcanons or lore or theories or whatever i am so deep into it right now and i don't know anyone else who likes it :,)

- @pairies-n-fixies

a new hand touches the beacon…

imma put everything below the cut cus this is gonna get /long/, but heres a TL;DR as well :)

blurry boundaries btwn seasons + air currents + common Clank and Bobble forgetfulness L

the Keeper's ice film about Peri and Tink's Arrival isn't beat for beat, its just a summary

oh god idk if i can tl:dr this one but basically both lord milori and minister of winter can exist i promise

starting off with Tinkerbell, Clank, and Bobble flying through the winter woods b4 settling on Tinker's Nook my /personal/ thought is that 1) the boundaries between seasons are only hard and fast across water, like between winter and autumn in Secret of the Wings, 2) the air right above those borders can have a lot more variation due to changing air currents n stuff, so while is was definitely chilly, it was also bordering spring(evidenced purely by the color of the snowless trees in this horrible screenshot), so with a combo of those they could potentially be okay for a few brief seconds of a fly-by, and 3) Clank and Bobble are not always the thinkers when it comes to Anything Except Tinkering. i could fully accept that they were /not/ supposed to do that and forgot until a bit after.

Periwinkle's existence! dull boring-ass answer: camera didnt care about Periwinkle/wishful thinking that they had some level of meta planning ahead and wanted to keep the idea of more than one a secret. less dull answer: the cinematic reenactment that Peri and Tink saw in the Keeper's work zone wasn't as accurate to real life within the world timing-wise. the Keeper's own personal magic(and by that extension, the natural way in which he and any past and future Keepers are able to manipulate dust) is for the retelling of history. So Peri and Tink were from the same laugh, yeah, but not as back-to-back as it was made to seem in the movie. essentially its like the Keeper has OpenShot Video Editor edition pixie dust powers.

my big finale,,,, the one i actually focus a lot on in my fairy worldbuilding Lord Milori vs the Minister of Winter in the first movie I personally choose to believe that they both exist, but lemme break it down for you beat for beat

PART ONE: THE FUNCTION OF A MINISTER

so we know, based on ofc the first movie, that the ministers are for each season, they oversee the organization and prep for bringing that season to the mainland, and also just keeping it tidy within the Hollow.

so naturally, there should be four ministers, one for each season. now here is where i first start deviating a little from canon. so understandable, the pixie hollow seasons are based on the far northern/southern hemisphere experience of them, because going elsewhere would mean a lot less difference between each season all the way until you hit the equator's dry/wet season split. therefore, spring, summer, and autumn aren't the same level of warm. summer is the warmest season, and Warm fairies who do most of their tasks for that season will be biologically more optimized for that region, same for all the others.

The ministers of Spring and Autumn, for instance, would have a somewhat better resistance to the cold than the minister of Summer, though they are still naturally Warm fairies and eventually would reach a point where their wings would grow to cold and snap. The minister of Winter could technically be neither a Warm or Winter fairy by this metric. Because the ministers do a lot of their work with the Queen, and only oversee the production and take down of their seasons, it's understandable that the winter minister would be a Warm fairy biologically, but since Talent is an innate thing, each and every minister of Winter that Arrives could be of this unique class of fairies that can spend a much longer time in the Winter section of the Hollow, and on the flip side, maybe not do so well in the Summer section of the Hollow.

PART TWO: THE FUNCTION OF LORD MILORI

So we have ministers and we have a Queen. i've established that the minister of Winter could feasibly venture into Winter whenever she needs to to check on how things are going, but what about the long term? This is where Milori comes in, not as a minister, but as a stand-in for Queen Clarion. Since she herself cannot go into Winter for very long, he's essentially her, but for Winter. he may occasionally receive correspondence from her with big news and changes to protocol, but for the most part he operates on his own, since i imagine mail between the seasonal boundary would require rigorous scheduling and couldn't be done just on the fly unless you've acquired a bird, or...

...if you have a minister of Winter.

PART THREE: WORKING TOGETHER

Having both a minister and a lord of winter would make sense, mainly because the role of minister is necessary regardless of seasonal conflicts! in the first movie, when Spring is being brought to the world, it is the minister that accompanies the nature talent fairies, not Clarion. Similarly, it shows the minister of Winter returning with her fairies after the onset of her season.

If Milori were to overwrite the minister entirely, and take over all her duties, it would conflict more with his own lore, because he would have to be able to join in meetings conducted in the Tree on the regular with no issue, which we know he can't do. And on top of that, he would have to travel to the mainland on the regular, which would leave the Winter Woods without a leader for a good chunk of each year, which would not be a good combination in an emergency situation.

PART FOUR: LITERALLY JUST SHARING SOME FUN STUFF I CAME UP WITH

I like to think that things like queens, ministers, and lords comes in rough cycles. Now some of this delves into things that i truly dont have time to get into(regarding mother dove, the age of the Hollow, fairies interactions with humans, the power of flight, how fairies interact with dust) but im gonna try with what i have.

So imagine, for a moment, that Clarion is not the first queen, and on top of that, the Hollow is not the first location on Neverland that fairies have lived. I headcanon Clarion as a "young" queen, but she is still a little over a thousand years old, with a lot more to go.

Ministers and Lords also follow a cycle, with the one of Lord/Ladies of winter being shorter than that of a Queen, but still pretty long(minimum half of a Queen's expected lifespan), and ministers being less than that(minimum a third of a Queen's lifespan). The average fairy lives a while, but not forever, so it is rare for the average joe to see the changing of Queens, lords, and ministers. There can be exceptions, of course, when someone passes away due to outside causes, or if someone is exiled, but those situations are rare, especially now that fairies live in The Hollow.

With the exception of Spring, i headcanon the current ministers as having Arrived in the last few years of the previous Queen's life, and Milori showing up <10 years after Clarion Arrived as queen. Any fairy alive today(with today being late 18whatever the hell in the movies to the 1940s) would not remember this stuff, but its fun to think about!

[kowaindar0u]

//

I JUST WOKE MYSELF UP LAUGHING IM DYINF

I don't know what was going on but it was one of those dreams where I don't know if I AM Yuichi or if I as Luka is also there but it doesn't really matter jdjdh but like this happens a lot when I dream about characters I write/rp/play as

I think it started out where I there was like a little festival type thing around town(?) and everyone bought/made cloaks and stuff and so it was me/yuichi, a buuunch of toudans, and my friends from my d&d group ?? all just like hanging out or whatever, walking around town, I know at some point we went into a thrift store and bought a bunch of novelty stuff??

Idk it was fun.but then Nagasone had to go with Shirley (from Community) and some other people to a big meeting way up a mountain to ...?? idk, make a deal with some executives about the rights to a Scooby-Doo movie??? Idk, that's not important. What is important is that they did not come back down when they said they would so we got worried and went to go up the mountain after them ("we" I think is yuichi, my friend, and several toudans) . On our way up there was a loooot of snow and a bit of an avalanche that happened way up ahead of us, so we were panicked!! We got to where the avalanche happened (by this time we were also very cold and wet and tired) and we started digging around, looking for signs of anybody, frantic, but we didn't find anyone and we were being out in the freezing cold and snow for too long. But then I got a ping (I guess saniwa senses tingling) that Nagasone was a bit further up the mountain somewhere so I like ran and again started digging around, but eventually we made it up to the outer part of a lodge that was at the top (reminded me very much of the church in Saints Row (2022) lol) and I spotted him coming out of the building!!

I was like EEEAAGHHH WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN I WAS SCARED I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU GOT STUCK UNDER THE SNOWWW

and he was like NO IM PERFECTLY FINE I PROMISE! ME AND SHIRLEY JUST STRUCK THIS AMAZING DEAL EVERYTHING IS GREAT

And so we hung out at the place for a little bit but then...

Well I don't know if there was a timeskip or if the place just morphed or what. But suddenly we were at a big version of QuikTrip (my region's fave gas station lol) and this group of just... Random people were holding everyone hostage. They made everyone sit at tables and they had really tiny little guns lol. I had gotten up to get an eclair so I got put at a separate table than Nagasone, and got sat with my friend, Higekiri, and Hizamaru. So I was at this table just holding my eclair while some person points the tiny gun at us, and I remember feeling like it was an act of defiance/intimidation every time I took a bite of the eclair and just stared at them LOL

And I specifically remember whispering to my friend "this is just like we do in d&d: we talk shit about the enemy and it makes them easier to defeat" and so we did.

We were like "why are your guns so small?" "why are you holding hostages in a quiktrip?" "why didn't you lock the doors?"

And then my friend asks "hey, can I see your gun?"

and they LET HER??? so she's like "oh wow--" and immediately points it back at them. And I reach into my cloak pocket and pull out my own teeny tiny gun, except when I pull the trigger the end of it extends diagonally up so the end of it hits the person's glasses with the tiniest of "tink"s. Turns out it's not a gun it's a weird novelty toy. But the person is like "oho, that's clever. It's a shock device". It's not, but I let them think it is LOL

but I guess Nagasone sees this happen and gets worried when some of the other criminals look concerned, so he starts talking to them about their plan and stuff and somehow HE ALSO MANAGES TO GET ONE OF THEIR GUNS???

And then Yamanbagiri and Chougi at another table are called up to ....?? Idk, prove themselves? Demonstrate something? Just do something cool with their swords?

So they get up...

Manba pulls out his sword like normal

But then Chougi has like. A plastic longsword. And I'm like oh my god. HES WEARING MY CLOAK. at some point we had switched cloaks for some reason. I realize I have his sword but I cant get up to give it to him

So he goes to pull something else out of the cloak (I think he's just hoping his katana will be there) and out comes another teeny tiny gun, which he "fires" but it's another one of these silly stupid extender guns. And he's getting frustrated so he tries again, and just pulls out a big fucking two-pronged candelabra that I had (for some godforsaken reason) bought at the thrift store earlier. And he just looks so mortified and I'm sitting at my table trying not to laugh because of how he's holding it and his expression

And so I woke up laughing too lol

Writing it out it really doesn't sound that funny but I PROMISE it was so fucking hilarious watching Chougi just keep pulling out random shit and me being like "oh my god" as I realize that it's all my fault HAHA he was so pissed jfjsjdj

[bedrockbones]

Tommy goes to the aquarium :>

I wish you would write a fic where... ///not accepting theres not that much world building here except that i imagine the mers here are being rented by the aquarium. not in a fucked up way but kind of like how restaurants and partys will hire "mermaids" irl but in this world, mermaids actually exist lmao big noodly boys with sparkly tails. kids love em and its an easy job. just swim around for a few hours and show off some tricks also tommy is supposed to be in like. elementary school on a field trip

The mer was doing something really cool. Tommy just knows it. He can hear the crowd's oo's and ahh's and the other children giggling and shouting. Tommy wants to see so bad but he knows better than to try and join the group.

He pouts on the other side of the room, barely catching a glimpse of the long, sparkly tail rolling in the water.

There's supposed to be three mer today, but only the blue one has been seen. He's really friendly. Tommy saw him for a little bit and he knows a lot of tricks.

If only Dream hadn't come on the field trip. Tommy doesn't even know why he's here! He spent all week up to today talking about how stupid mer are and making fun of Tommy for being excited. But now he's plastered right against the glass with his stupid friends.

It would be better if Tubbo was here, but his friend had gotten lice and wasn't allowed to join. Tommy had promised to tell him all about the mer, but how can he when Dream would push him away if he tried to join?

Sighing, Tommy watches the fish swim by. There's no one by this side of the wall, everyone wanted to see the mer while they could. At least that means no dumb employees were around to scold Tommy for tapping on the glass.

He taps out random rhythms, not thinking too much about it. The sound of his nail tink-tink-tinking on the glass is nice. Tommy likes it.

He stares at his finger, cheek leaning on the cool glass. With his ear pressed to it, Tommy's tapping sounds so much louder. It's sort of cool-

Tink-tink-tink.

Tommy jerks his head away from the glass. That...wasn't him. It almost sounded like someone else was tapping as well, but when he glances around there's still no one nearby.

Only he hears the tapping again. Tink-tink-tink.

His eyes snap to the sound and-

and-

He can see his own reflection on the glass. He can see his eyes widening so, so big. So big he can see the whites of his eyes all the way around. They're almost as white as the mer's teeth.

He's grinning. Needle-like fangs fill his mouth and Tommy's belly kind of swoops to see them. The mer's rises a little bit more off the cliffs edge, emerging from one of the holes in the rocky wall. His tail is a deep, dark black but as he swims into the light, a shimmering green starts to spread.

He's so pretty.

Pretty and scary. Tommy has never seen a mer so close. Not a real one. He's seen pictures and videos but this one is looking at Tommy. This one is alive and real.

Tommy glances around, expecting to see anyone else notice the mer, but he's still alone.

Tink-tink-tink. The mer is tapping again.

Tommy looks back to him and the mer waves with a webbed hand. It's so human-looking. Except for the scales and green color of course. Tommy hesitantly taps the glass again. The mer copies his pattern and Tommy smiles.

They go back and forth for a bit. Tapping little patterns back and forth. It ends when the mer suddenly blows a bunch of bubbles at the glass. It makes Tommy laugh.

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

ok last Wingfeather post (for tonight) I promise--

but I absolutely think that one of the main reasons I love the books so much is because of Janner, and how perfectly I feel like he encapsulates the experience of being an eldest sibling, especially in the midst of a somewhat-fraught family situation. before reading Wingfeather, I had never in my life discovered a character who seemed to feel the way I did about life with younger siblings, especially in my early teens. the way he struggled so much with the burden of responsibility, loving his siblings so dearly but sometimes chafing under the burden of care he felt like he could never escape--it was so real to me. especially the desire to be free of responsibility coupled with the shame of even wanting that sort of freedom. being so proud of being called "mature" and "leader" and "protector," yet sometimes inwardly raging against the fact that I could never make any mistakes without potentially dragging my younger siblings down with me, that I could never truly be my own person because I often felt more like Their Sister than I did Myself.

I remember saying to at least one person, I think it was my mom, "I have never read anything that so thoroughly understands what it's like to have siblings and be the oldest. this author just understands it. even the ugly parts that you don't want to admit to." I was completely in awe. I had never felt so seen.

and--I don't want to give away any spoilers for people who haven't yet read the books or who want to have the show as their first experience of this story, but--there's a moment in the fourth book where Tink gets to have a extremely special experience... an experience that Janner has always longed to have. and Janner is denied that privilege altogether. and I have such a vivid memory of pausing the audiobook while lying facedown on my bed, complete darkness all around me, far past the time I should've been asleep by, and sobbing. and it's one of the few times I remember genuinely crying because of a book. (I want to say a lot more about that moment in the series and what it means to me, but I'll have to do that in a separate post sometimes, because I cannot possibly avoid spoilers if I say anything else.)

I guess all I'm trying to say is--something about Janner's deep desire to be seen, to be known, to be understood for who he is and not only the role he plays, to receive the love he's always longed for from a father he's never been allowed to fully know, his constant struggle between a desire to lead and protect and his yearning for independence and freedom--all of that spoke so deeply to me when I first read the series, and even now I can feel the echoes of those emotions in how this story left its imprints on my heart. and I'm so excited for all the people who may find, for the first time, their own stories echoed in this series about three kids in a fantasy world overrun with toothy cows and birds with belly-buttons and singing dragons and slavering fanged lizards.

[qqueenofhades]

is there a way that colonialism could have been done where it wouldn't be frowned upon by historians? I'm not trying to be condescending or rude or anything. I'm genuinely curious. People have traveled here to start a new life, and they need a place to settle. Honestly, my history is failing me. Did the pilgrims want more land than what they had and drove out the Natives that way?

Hooo boy. There is... a lot going on here.

Basically, and this is nicely as I can possibly say it, "people traveled here to start a new life and they need a place to settle" is straight-up white supremacist mythology about the origins of America and how it was established, and the fact that you're repeating it shows how successfully it has been integrated into what (little) history is actually taught. It's the same school of thought that presents Thanksgiving as a nice hand-holding meeting between the Puritans (the good guys! Founding America! Not at all religious extremists who had been kicked out of England for being, indeed, too religiously extremist) and the friendly Natives! Aww, so much fraternity. Or.... indeed, not so much.

If you are interested in learning how America was actually established as a settler-colonial country by white Europeans through mass violence, centuries-long genocide, and viciously and institutionally discriminatory legal and social measures, the terrible impact that this had on existing Native cultures and peoples, and how this was all retroactively justified and packaged in the narrative of "Manifest Destiny" and religious (Christian) triumphalism, I recommend:

Anghie, Antony. “The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities”, Third World Quarterly (27), 2006, 739-53.

Bushman, Claudia. America Discovers Columbus: How An Italian Explorer Became an American Hero (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992)

Churchill, Ward. “The Law Stood Squarely On Its Head: U.S. Legal Doctrine, Indigenous Self-Determination and the Question of World Order”, Oregon Law Review (81), 2002.

Churchill, Ward. A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997).

Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)

Hall, Anthony J. Earth Into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010)

Huhndorf, Shari N. Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002)

Morris, Glenn T. “Vine Deloria, Jr., and the Development of a Decolonizing Critique of Indigenous Peoples and International Relations” in Native Voices: American Indian Identity and Resistance (Grounds, Tinker, & Wilkins, eds.) (Lawrence, KS University Press of Kansas, 2003)

Newcomb, Steven T. Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishers, 2008)

Saito, Natsu Taylor. Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism  and International Law (New York: New York University Press, 2010)

Tinker, Tink, and Freeland, Mark. “Thief, Slave Trader, and Murder: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline”, Wicazo Sa Review (2008) 25-50.