#i took my time to find the best window between the blasts of wind. we have two minutes for a flight of three arrows and it feels so so long

[lolacouldnotcareless]

spent the whole day at an archery competition yesterday!!! twas really fun and i got slightly better :3 i also spent the whole day with long sleeves till it was my turn. it did not prevent the sunburns. i have a stripe pattern on my left arm now (caused by my arm protection)

[faelune-home]

FFXIVWrite 2024 #28: Deleterious

(A/n: Magic role quest finale! This prompt works really well for chronic hero type wols, and mine kinda is like that. But in a way, it also works for Alisaie, always trying to better herself and take on the WoL's burdens. she pushes herself just as hard so the WoL doesn't have to. So they can both be pretty bad about it aha.

but yay, I said I wanted to finish a role quest during the month and I did! There's always room to add more details and cover more plot points and bridge the gap between chapters more with edits, but that's for later. And I still have a few days left so let's see if I can get one more role quest written for before the end.

Word count: 1963)

“We are in agreement with our strategy then?” Aymeric asked the group, standing waiting atop the stairs of the main hall within the Vault. The windows rattled with the blizzard that continued to rage outside. Even with her continued frustration that the city still seemed beset by this storm during her time there, Alisaie couldn’t help also feeling a touch nervous at how the battle would ensue in the middle of it.

“You and I will hold the beasts attentions while Lady Fhara and Lady Alisaie bear their all against it,” Artoirel recited, casting a glance at the ladies, “Although Lady Alisaie has assured us she can manage with the curative magicks as well, I am willing to provide additional healing if need be.”

She nodded at his assessment.

“I won’t deny I had much to learn to bring my white magicks up to par in my training, but I’ll do my best.”

Beside her, Fhara shuffled nervously, fidgeting with the rings in their holsters.

“We have all our bases covered then,” Aymeric said, though it sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself first. He steeled his shoulders and stood tall, fully in command.

“Let’s move then!”

~~

With the raging snow storms to blanket the uppermost towers of the Vault, Alisaie almost had to wonder if their target would even find them. They were putting a lot of faith in Aymeric’s plan that Profane Fafnir would be summoned forth by a remnant of the former Archbishop.

The man in question stood unyielding despite the storm, crozier in hand, waiting for a response. Everyone simply stood back, forced to wait as well.

Ears open for any sound other than the roar of the wind, waiting for a shifting shape in amongst the flurry.

A particularly strong gust blew through the upper plaza, and with the frost on the smooth floors, Alisaie found herself blown off her feet and slipping into Fhara’s side.

Ever the stalwart ally, Fhara was ready to catch her, keeping her steady and helping her stay on her feet.

Alisaie didn’t have time to respond, in thanks or even to reassert herself, when Aymeric’s voice shouted over the din.

“It approaches! Make ready!”

She could barely see anything, just white all around. But she heard something. Something familiar.

A roar like a dragon, but layered with aching howls and inhuman wailing over the thundering wind.

Then even beats like wings flapping.

Even before Alisaie had her weapon fully unsheathed, she could already feel the energies of Fhara’s aether connecting with her, ready to provide support.

As she always did.

“With me!” came Artoirel’s call, breaking through the din as he charged forth and taking hold of the beast’s attention with a bash of his shield right as it made to land, howling and turning to him.

“At its flank, Ali!” Fhara called, already jumping through the snow fall with grace, unencumbered by the cold, barely minding the slush underfoot. Alisaie took up her own position at the opposite side, unleashing thunder upon the curled tendril hide.

The follow up fire blast felt especially potent unleashed from her focus staff, already seeing the effects of Fhara’s support in battle. Twas only a shame the heat couldn’t linger a moment long, but she had no time to worry about that as the dragon began to take to the air once more.

“Is it fleeing?” she asked, worried that they’d have to take chase and potentially lead to a more populated area.

“Nay, our ruse has angered it enough that it will continue the fight,” Artoirel responded, gesturing for them to keep an eye on the skies once more as he added, “Keep watch, this storm gives it an advantage to attack.”

An obvious fact that didn’t need to be stated, but they turned their eyes to the sky, waiting for any aberration against the snowy gloom. It was a long wait, fearing that the beast had indeed fled, until suddenly-

“Incoming on my left, move!” Aymeric shouted, and with only a moment to spare before the onslaught of frost laded breath began to coat the floor, Alisaie and Fhara raced to get out of the way.

Alisaie almost slipped, struggling to gain purchase, until she felt herself being propelled forward the final way to safety, hearing a hiss of pain behind her. She didn’t even have to know what had happened, immediately turning and preparing a Vercure for Fhara, who was wincing as she hovered a hand over her other arm, covered in an extra layer of frost.

Always the hero. 

Alisaie had to bite back the sharp comment she wanted to make, especially as the dragon landed once more, its layered howling roar echoing against the cobbles as it reignited the attack against Artoirel, its tail lashing out toward Aymeric.

Fhara was already racing back into the fight, pink aether tinged jumps propelling her forward and giving strength to her chakrum throws.

Alisaie huffed, casting another Vercure for Aymeric’s blow from the spiny tail, then leaping forth with her own aether, sword embedding into the beast’s thick behind.

The battle raged, Profane Fafnir’s breath scorching them with ice at every turn, fired into the air to descend upon them, forcing them to spread out lest they catch each other in the assault.

Its wings beat furiously, joining with the stormy winds to try and throw them off their feet and over the edge into the clouds far below.

It let out another screeching howl, piercing through the air such that they all flinched at the sound. Barely above the din, Artoirel could be heard cursing, “Fury, what was that?”

One of Fhara’s chakrams flew over the beast and hit it sharp at the back of its head, causing it to spin around and suddenly snap directly at her. She dodged out of the way, but was immediately winded once more as another piercing howl was unleashed directly in her face. Its massive flank hid the men from view, but Alisaie had no doubt they were trying to regain its attention, to turn it away from them both.

But she still had to do something, and without thinking, threw herself forward, slashing into its exposed neck.

Its piercing scream cut off sharply, however it wasted no time flinging its heavy head into Alisaie’s side, throwing her back and against the floor like she was just a nuisance fly.

She heard Fhara call her name, worried, ears ringing from the blow such that if it weren’t for Fhara’s hands already on her, trying to help Alisaie back up to her feet, she’d think they were malms apart.

Always minding her.

Underneath the white noise and the wind, she heard Aymeric call for aid as more blasphemous monsters crawled over the sides of the tower and into their arena.

“It must’ve summoned them forth! Take care!” Artoirel yelled.

She couldn’t be the weak link. She could already see Fhara taking up a protective spot in front of her.

“Take it easy Alisaie, I can handle them,” Fhara said, already going through the steps that then pushed back on the approaching tide with a final stomp. The endless chattering sounds surrounding them showed no end to the horde.

“The beast is also preparing to attack! We’ll be overwhelmed!” That was Aymeric behind them, and indeed when Alisaie chanced a glance, she could see Profane Fafnir flying above them, energy gathering in its gaping maw.

“I can hold against the blast,” Artoirel stated, already taking up stance in the centre of the ring.

“What of the others?” said Aymeric, even as he took cover behind his companion, Fhara and Alisaie backing up to join him.

“I’ll-” No!

“I’ll handle that,” Alisaie stated, immediately cutting Fhara off, “I’ll have them in one blow!” She turned her back to Artoirel and was already gathering as much power as she could muster into her focus, stretching her aether to cover the area.

Black and White magic building in tandem, ready to rain down like meteors upon her targets. Building and building-

She could feel a final surge of protective energy, layering over the top of Artoirel’s aether. If his were like protective wings encasing them, this familiar magic was like a warm embrace.

Always trying to do what she could. This much Alisaie couldn’t fault her on, as much as it tired her out that she always had to do something.

In the same moment Fafnir’s mighty breath sprung forth, bitter frost nipping at their skin and armour even through the protective layers of several shields, Alisaie unleashed her own attack.

The arena was bathed in white light, almost bathing the battle in silence as the panicked chittering faded with their enemies’ demise. Once the light faded, it was only the four of them, and Fafnir, landing once more and approaching with heavy footsteps.

Alisaie, tried not to collapse from the exertion, using her sword embedded into the ground to keep herself standing. A similar warmth to the pink aether tinged shield washed over her, healing her aches and giving her a momentary burst of vigour.

Fhara was watching over her as she got to her feet again. Always reliable.

Alisaie gave a nod, confirmation enough that she was ready to keep going, and all four jumped back into the fray, surrounding their beast and continuing the fight.

This time, as a fresh gust of wind blew over them, it was Profane fafnir that stumbled, finally tiring in the fight. And with that stumble came an opening.

“Now!”

Aymeric didn’t even need the order, as Alisaie and Fhara lept in tandem.

Fhara’s chakram throw slicing through skin, and Alisaie using the opening to pierce right through.

Profane Fafnir’s head flew back, letting out another one of those layered echoing wails into the sky. Its weakened cry faded, even as it tried to let out another.

And another.

But each cry just saw it go limper and limper.

Until it finally collapsed. Lingering a moment longer than most other blasphemies, long enough that it could stare Aymeric direct in the eye. Whatever silent exchange they may have shared, or whatever Aymeric could glean from its expression, they didn’t know.

For it then vanished into black smoke.

And finally, the snow seemed to stop. The skies cleared, and the sunset appeared through the grey gloom to greet them, painting the city orange.

“It is done,” Artoirel said, sheathing his weapon.

Done. Of course it wasn’t actually done. Alisaie still had work to do. Fhara still had work to do. But they’d succeeded in this much. Ishgard could see some peace for a bit longer, and hopefully the Scions could ensure that peace could continue.

She turned back to Fhara, and already her heart panged to see how exhausted the woman was. Equal parts concern and frustration building in her chest, threatening to burst forth. Always putting herself at risk for others, always taking on every burden. And she knew that Fhara would be off to see to another blasphemy, and she wouldn’t get any rest, despite needing it more than anyone else.

And of course, Fhara could argue much the same about Alisaie, trying to do so much for everyone else, and especially for her. She was no doubt a wreck as well for the stunt she pulled with that magic blast.

But then Fhara smiled back at her. Always so positive.

“You did good. I’m proud of you,” she purred, tail whipping behind her. And Alisaie had to bite back every frustration she had. Now wasn’t the time for that. 

“I tried my best,” was all she could respond with, trying to match that same smile.

They had time yet. They had to hope they would always have time.

[chloemarievaughan]

May 6

today we left Inverness for fort William! While the two places are not very far apart, they aren’t connected by trajn: taking the train would be an estimated 10 hours with multiple changes. A bit much even for train lovers like Grey and I!

There is a fairly cheap bus that connects the two. It’s a pretty straight line along Loch Ness, where we had already driven and boated past. When we got on board, the driver warned us that the Road Æwas winding and if we were bad travelers, to sit in the back near the on board toilets. As a seasoned pro of Scottish bus tours now, I figured I wouldn’t have any issues, but the heat was blasting and I was horribly carsick the whole time 😂

Tried my best to appreciate the scenery even with feeling terrible- even snapped one or two pictures, but was very glad to get off the bus 2 hours later 😂 Fort William, our next stop, is a small mountain town (population of the town including surrounding villages: about 5000). It was MUCH harder to find a good hotel/ air bnb here, probably not helped by the fact that again it’s a three day weekend in Scotland so people were visiting Fort William, which is something of a Mecca for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts. the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis, is nearby; there is also a hike called the Great Glen way which follows the opposite of the bus we took yesterday, from Fort William to Inverness. it’s a 74 mile hike and fort William is the start. There are also lots of hiking trails, and in winter, skiing.

We arrive at about 11, dropped our bags at the hotel (the luggage storage closet was absolutely Packed with other travelers presumably doing the same thing. we then went to lunch at a local pub (grey had some fish and chips, I had a ham and cheese toastie and some lentil soup, drank some coke and sparkling water and fully recovered from my car sickness. we had some time to kill, so made an unexpected but lovely stop at the West Highland museum. It is a free museum on the main street of Fort William (there really is only one street in Fort William 😂) and it had a cool collection of random donated historical items found through the highlands, touching on again the Rising and Bonnie Prince Charlie, to earlier development of the area, to the nature and geology, to World War II and the local Commando military training grounds. we next ducked into a grocery store for some snacks and then sat in a park for a bit before we were able to actually check into our hotel.

Our hotel was called the Garrison and the rooms are inside of old jail cells complete with the hallways having the jail cell doors 😂 we have the tiniest room I have ever seen and a bunk bed; Grey has the bottom and cannot sit up fully, and I have the top with a window. We have a private shower but it’s out in the hallway haha. Grey and I thought the gimmick was funny but we are also glad we are only here for two nights we have no space at all 😂

we had been planning this day to ride the Jacobite Steam Train, otherwise known as the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express shown in the movie. I had first class seats booked including a tea service, and was looking forward to the fancy steam train. However, about a month ago I got an email that the train company was being forced to shut down operations because the locking mechanisms on their door are not up to code with the Scottish rail system laws, and it’s a safety hazard. This had been a known issue for about ten years, with both sides suing each other and the West Coast Railways getting an exemption each year to continue running. Well, of course, this year they did not grant the exemption. I had hopes it would be fixed by the time we came to ride, but alas, they were only operating on reduced capacity (only the carriages that met the safety standard I suppose) and so our booking was cancelled.

however, the normal trains still run between fort William and Mallaig, and instead of a $150 round trip ticket, grey and I were able to ride round trip for about $20 bucks- the view on this ride might have made this the best $20 I ever spent!

We were scheduled for the 4:00 train to Mallaig, and so made time for a quick pub pit stop to try a locally made whisky, the Ben Nevis distillery. Both of us thought it was pretty solid!

In Europe, you can usually drink on trains; not in Scotland which was too bad. we caught a glimpse of the returning steam train we were supposed to take and then headed out. It was a little bit hard to take pictures because our windows were dirty, but the pictures I did manage were still incredible. But nothing compares to the view in person!

in Mallaig, we had a 20 minute stop, just enough time to use the restroom and buy a little iced gingerbread cake from the stall by the station, and to take a picture of the ocean (directly across the water was the Isle of Skye again!) on the way to Mallaig, we sat on the left side for the best views, including a picturesque turn over the Glenfinnan Viaduct. We could see tourists down below taking pictures of our train going across! we passed by very tiny train stations, including the most westerly train station in Scotland. It was wonderful and I took loads of pictures on the way out. The train is a one track line, so the same train goes out and back all day for about an hour and a half journey. On the way back, I decided not to take more pictures since it was the same view and soaked it all in, noticing some details I missed out the way out and seeing more wildlife, including deer and herons and noticing the bluebells in the woods starting to bloom. And of course more sheep and cows :) Again, best 20 dollars I’ve ever spent- didn’t much feel like I missed out on much of anything by not riding the Harry Potter train!

we stopped for dinner at a Scottish brewery and I tried some of their beer? Enjoyed the cider and thought the Red Ale Nitro was interesting but not my new fave. We had a 45 minute wait for the wood fired pizza with venison but it was very tasty. This ended up being the latest we have been out all trip, heading back to the room at about 9:30. Our days have been full and we are tired by the end haha! tomorrow, we have plans for some separate hikes in the mountains! Can’t wait!

[heyyyharry]

Deja Vu (part 2 of 'Drivers License')

(inspired by deja vu by Olivia Rodrigo)

Word count: 2.5k

Read part 1 here

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“What the fuck is this?”

Harry flinched as his girlfriend shoved the phone at him. He’d just got out of the shower, hair still dripping wet, but it wasn’t so out of the ordinary that she would start a fight first thing in the morning.

He sighed and gently pushed her phone away from his face. “Baby, if it’s another rumour about me cheating on you...I was with you this whole week!”

“No.” She lifted the phone up to his face again. “That girl just released another song about you.”

Even though Harry didn’t let it show, whenever he heard about Y/N, his heart would always skip a beat. He couldn’t remember exactly when the last time they’d spoken was, but he knew in his last message to her, he’d congratulated her on that new song about him. She’d never replied, and he’d taken it as the answer — they could never go back to the way it was.

It had broken his heart to listen to ‘drivers license’. Y/N had never been the kind of person to be vocal about her feelings. Or maybe she’d expressed it through actions instead of words, and he had been too nonchalant to see? He hadn’t meant to break her heart and leave her in the dust. After all, she used to be his best friend.

“Y/N’s a songwriter. She writes about her own experience the same way I do. Maybe that song is not even about me, babe,” he calmly told his girlfriend, who was standing in front of him with fresh tears in her eyes. He hated to see her cry, and he hated that this wasn’t the first time she’d done it because of him. He tried to reach for her but she stepped back, shaking her head.

“Listen to the song.”

“Baby.”

“Listen to the song,” his girlfriend repeated without looking at him. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m not.”

“Then listen to it and tell me it’s not about you, and that she’s not throwing shades at me. I’m so tired of this girl telling the world about how horrible we are as if you had even dated her in the first place—”

“Fine,” Harry exhaled sharply, his eyes pinched shut. He hated that when his girlfriend got mad, she would get so mean for no reason, and the last thing he wanted to hear right now was her insulting Y/N. He knew Y/N. She had always been respectful to his new relationship. However, he wasn’t in the position to tell his girlfriend how to feel about this situation. He knew it was all his fault, so he stayed quiet, took the phone from his girlfriend and sat down on the edge of the bed. His girlfriend stood with her back against the wall facing him, waiting for him to play the song so she could see his reaction to it.

“Go on,” she told him, her voice emotionless.

Harry looked at the song on Spotify. It was titled deja vu. He took a deep breath and one last look at his girlfriend before finding enough courage to press play.

Y/N’s previous song about him had been blasted in every shop he’d visited, all the time when he was filming, every time he was in the car, and now, the moment he heard her voice again, it really did feel like deja vu.

Car rides down Malibu

Strawberry ice cream

One spoon for two…

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.

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“Are we there yet?”

“No, stop being so impatient! Just keep on driving!” Y/N said and looked out of the window on the passenger side. The sun was going down, and the horizon was gradually turning the colour of an egg yolk. It was their last day in Miami. They had been filming for every day that week, and this was the only day they could spend just for themselves.

Harry stole a glance at Y/N and saw that she’d finished half the strawberry ice cream while bobbing her head to the song Uptown Girl on the radio. He frowned, making her laugh when she noticed.

“Open your mouth,” she said and fed him a spoon of ice cream.

“Ahh, brain freeze!”

“But it’s good, isn’t it?”

“So good.” Harry licked his lips. The face he made got Y/N laughing harder.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at a secluded beach. Y/N had found this place when she traveled to this city alone two summers ago and almost got lost.

Together, she and Harry carried their picnic things through a palm forest, and by the time they saw the ocean, the moon had made a fading presence on the pink Miami sky.

Y/N picked up her shoes and ran towards the waves, letting it chase her back into Harry’s arms and nearly knocking him over. Their laughter echoed in the wind as their shadows stretched out long and lanky on the empty beach. In that very moment, it felt to Harry as if they were the only people in this world, and he had a sense of peace that he might never be able to experience again.

“You don’t get to see this in the city,” Y/N said dreamily as she pulled Harry’s jacket tighter around herself. It was dark now, and the sky above them was full of stars. They sat shoulder to shoulder on a picnic blanket, listening to the whispers of the ocean and the wind. Harry used Y/N’s jacket as a blanket because it was too small for him to put on. They’d laughed for five minutes straight when she told him he looked like that monkey from Aladdin and took plenty of photos just to prove the point.

“I don’t want to leave tomorrow,” he said, still looking at the sky.

“Me neither,” Y/N sighed, her shoulder brushing his. There was a pause, and he could feel her eyes on him, so he turned and saw her looking. “When I get home,” she said with a small smile that made her eyes sparkle, “I’ll learn to drive, and when we come to Miami next time, I can drive you to this beach.”

“I’d love that,” Harry said, then made her pink-promise him.

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“They went to Miami last week.”

Y/N blinked. The beach and starry sky disappeared in a second, and she found herself once again standing in the fitting room with her stylist and best friend.

“What?” her best friend marched over to where she stood in front of the full-length mirror.

Her stylist was holding the phone up to show her the article. “Here. Harry took that actress to Miami last week.”

“Don’t show her these!” Y/N’s best friend grabbed the phone and put it on the vanity desk as she gestured to the stylist. “You do your work. Enough chit-chatting.”

“I took him there,” Y/N said. She didn’t even recognise her own voice at first because she was too in shock. She didn’t think Harry would do something like that. But let’s be honest -- how much did she really know about him?

It had been a few months since his last text to her, which she had ignored, and now her song had been overplayed, and nobody cared about the drama anymore. The whole world had moved on, and she had, too. Or so she’d thought. Now, seeing these pictures of him and his girlfriend on that Miami beach made Y/N feel betrayed.

“Asshole,” her best friend said and grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t worry baby. You’re prettier.”

Y/N worked up a smile and opened her mouth to say that she was fine, but then she heard someone call her name and turn around. They weren’t calling for her. Just a name similar to hers that had become an inside joke between her and her friends.

The moment she locked eyes with Harry’s girlfriend, her heart seemed to stop as she held her breath, her lips thinned as if to hold back a scream. She didn’t know the girl personally and had never run into her before today. How unfortunate that they had to be in the same room after Y/N had seen those Miami pics.

“What is she doing here?” Y/N’s best friend asked the stylist the question Y/N was too afraid to ask.

“Fitting for an event, I guess,” the stylist said.

Y/N told them to just ignore the others and mind their own business. The sooner they got the measurements, the faster she could leave. Or she could leave right now and come back another day, but that would make it look like the other girl’s presence was bothering her. They were both actresses, and so they would have to run into each other at some point. She must be professional about it. This was normal. Just act normal.

“He’s so unique,” Harry’s girlfriend said while laughing with her team. Y/N didn’t mean to overhear the conversation, but apparently, the girl was making sure that Y/N heard her loud and clear. “We were watching reruns of Glee last night, and he even sang to me and told me he loved me inbetween the chorus and the verse. Don’t touch the jacket! It’s Harry’s and it’s Gucci. We exchange jackets sometimes. Isn’t that adorable?”

“Show off,” Y/N’s best friend scoffed while shaking her head.

Y/N didn’t say anything. In her mind, she agreed with her best friend for a second and immediately felt that she was being petty so she forced herself to just be nonchalant about it.

She could not. She could not ignore the fact that she’d been replaced as if she didn’t matter. Harry was doing all the things he used to do with her with his new girl. Even taken her to that Miami beach. Their place.

Y/N bit her lip and tried to hold back the half-formed tears in her eyes as the stylist went on talking about the fabric. She chose a random one just to get this over with.

“I hope that fucker gets deja vu.”

“What?” Y/N blinked at her best friend, who gave a mean shrug as she glared at the girl.

“He’s probably thinking of you while doing all that shit with her.”

Y/N pondered over it. Over and over. Even after the girlfriend’s laughter had faded down the hallway, and Y/N was also packing up to leave the studio. Her best friend’s words stayed with her as she got into the car and watched the street of London pass by her window.

That night, when she was alone in her living room with her piano. She sat down and started playing a few experimental chords. Then, she cried. Her tears blurred the handwritten lyrics on her notebook as she tried again.

“I have this idea,” she told her manager on the phone before sending the recording. It was three in the morning.

“Oh my god,” her manager exclaimed, sounding much more enthusiastic than he had when picking up her call. “This song...is so gonna win a Grammy!”

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Y/N’s song had won a Grammy.

They had talked about it for so long. Harry had encouraged her to pursue a singing career, because she’d started out as an actress but was blessed with the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.

Ironic, wasn’t it? Now he was sitting at the front row and looking up at her as she received the award from an artist she looked up to, for the song written about him. She smiled at the crowd as the light shone on her and everyone was cheering because she deserved this. She said her thanks and expressed her gratitude to her family, her teams and her fans. She didn’t say his name. He hadn’t hoped that she would, because he knew there was no way his name would come with a positive message. So he was kind of glad she hadn’t mentioned him.

His girlfriend squeezed his arm as if she knew what he was thinking of. He smiled at his girlfriend. A smile of reassurance. They had put it behind them and promised to try again after all the fights about the song they were playing right now. Nothing would change after tonight. Because there was nothing Harry could change.

He caught Y/N’s eyes for one brief moment as she ascended the stage. Although he was sure he loved his girlfriend, there was something about that look that made him sad. Would he be happier to come here with Y/N tonight instead of his girlfriend? He wouldn’t know, because that would never happen. He didn’t even know if she still resented him, or if she was still the same person he remembered. A lot could change in a day let alone many months. And it was scary to think someone you used to know so much had become a complete stranger. The opposite of love wasn’t hate. It was indifference. And Harry felt it deeply as Y/N never paid him a second glance.

At the after-party, he worked up the courage to approach her when he found her standing alone texting on her phone.

“Hi. How are you?” he said.

Y/N looked at him as if she couldn’t understand English. If she ignored him and walked away, this would be the most humiliating moment of his life.

But no. She pressed her lips into a gentle smile and said, “I’m good. How are you?”

“Good.” He nodded, wanting to shake her hand, but his fingers stayed glued together behind his back. “Congratulations on your win.”

“Thank you.” She picked up the glass of wine on the table beside them, and Harry knew he’d lost his chance of shaking her hand tonight. “Did you like the song?”

“Yeah. It was good,” he said, finding it difficult to hold eye contact with her. There was something new about her that unsettled him, and he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For speaking out about it.”

“Oh.” Y/N showed no emotion as she shrugged. “It’s alright. I only said the truth. The song was fictional, and I don’t want anyone to get hate for it.”

They both knew it wasn’t true, and he couldn’t tell her that his girlfriend had almost broken up with him for it. Even if he had told her that, he didn’t think Y/N would care. She didn’t look like the Y/N he knew anymore. Suddenly, he recalled that night on the beach, when she was still looking at him with feelings.

“Look, Y/N, I—”

Before he got a chance to form a proper thought for what he was going to say, his girlfriend, who was obviously drunk, shouted from somewhere behind him. “Babe, Jeff’s wearing a tiny jacket! He looks more like the monkey than you!”

Harry looked at Y/N. She held his gaze. The corners of her red lips quirked as she raised her glass. “Deja vu?”

Just like that, she left him standing there all by himself.

[demonsandmischief]

You Saved My Life

Marvel - Captain America Imagine

Steve Rogers x Female Reader, 1.7k Words

-You Saved My Life-

Imagine you save Captain America's life while he is trying to save yours.

A/N: I dunno when this would take place in the Marvel world. I guess you could say it's my own AU. It's a long one but I like it. I hope you do too.

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There are a lot of things life prepares you for, but the end of the world is not one of them.

You were covering your best friend's shift at a cafe that she owned. You had a full time job as a teacher, but the school was on a holiday, and you were always willing to help your friend. Normally, she'd have managers do the day to day runnings, but there was a scheduling conflict that lined up perfectly with your free day.

You did love the little place. It was small and home-y, nestled between some larger buildings of the city.

It was after the lunch rush when it happened. You were wiping down menus when a large blast that felt like an earthquake rattled the whole shop. The glass door shattered with the impact.

That's when the screaming started. It was loud and chaotic, as throngs of people ran away from whatever had just exploded.

The customers that were in the cafe rushed out in a panic. They could see something out of the large windows that you couldn't from behind the counter.

You moved closer, hesitantly, not sure what to expect, and you were definitely not prepared.

There were large, robotic creatures wreaking havoc in every direction. You could hear their banshee like screeches that echoed in your ears, but it couldn't be louder than the intense blood rushing as your adrenaline began to flow.

Your protective, teacher instincts kicked in when you saw the young group of kids huddled in the alleyway. They were almost out of view, but you noticed. You always noticed the children. They attracted your energy naturally.

You took notice of the daycare bus still running. It looked like the driver had just abandoned them. Intense anger only fueled the instincts.

You saw the way one of the creatures eyed the group and you scrambled to grab something to defend them.

You didn't have much. You decided on a chair, thankful for your nimble frame that was able to get outside unnoticed.

The kids caught sight of you immediately, but you held a shaky finger to your lips, telling them to be quiet.

You swung the chair with all your might, hitting the thing with a sickening crunch. It faltered for a moment, stumbling forward. You were left with pieces of broken wood, the splintered edges digging into your skin.

"Get inside," you yelled to the group, watching them scramble. At least the robot thing was focused on you, and you prayed that each little boy and each little girl made it home tonight.

You knew you were the only person standing between the cafe and the monster, and you wouldn't go with them to safety for risk of this thing following you into the shop.

Your heart thudded painfully in your chest as your eyes searched for any kind of defense. Instead, you found more creatures and no help.

This thing was ugly up close. It was metallic like a robot, but had blood red eyes, eyes that were staring right at you.

It opened it's mouth to screech into the sky, a snake like tongue curling out. It was cut off by a flash of color in the haze of dirt and debris, but you recognized it immediately. Captain America's shield.

The man himself appeared, standing tall and proud, but you could tell he was winded. You had never been so relieved, as you relaxed a bit, just wanting to melt into the ground with exhaustion.

Steve yanked out his shield, giving it an expert throw, destroying the other visible creatures.

His blue eyes stood out beneath his cowl.

"Ma'am," he nodded. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No," you whispered with a shake of your head, wiping your sweaty, bloody hands on your jeans. "But there's kids in there "

He nodded, repeating the information into his com device.

"We'll get them to safety, and you, too. This is no place you want to be. Every civilian has taken shelter in the metro underground. Do you know how to get there from here?"

"Yes, but it's like two blocks," you said. There was no way you could get the kids there without being noticed.

"I'll go with you then, but we need to move quickly. Let's go." He left no room for argument, so you entered the cafe to gather the huddled group.

Their fear struck you, wide eyes and silent sobs. There were probably twenty of them, all different ages. The youngest was probably about six.

"Captain America is going to get you guys somewhere safe," you told them, as reassuring as possible, even though you didn't feel that way.

You led the group as the captain guarded the back. The pace was quick, and eerily quiet. You imagined the tall man had warned the other Avengers to keep the area as clear as possible. You had caught a brief glimmer of Iron Man's metallic suit in the sky.

You had just ushered the kids down the stalled escalator and into safety when you heard a grunt of pain.

You turned to find six more of the robotic creatures surrounding Cap. You could tell he was wearing down as one of them pulled his arms back, rendering him powerless and unable to grab his shield. He kicked the things with all his might, but there were too many of them.

You didn't know what to do. You were exhausted and there was no way you could help. You couldn't even take out one by yourself with a chair.

It wasn't until one of the creatures pulled out a long dagger looking thing, already dripping with someone else's blood that you moved.

Your instincts didn't let you hesitate as you ran to tackle the thing, the knife in turn digging painfully in your upper shoulder, dangerously close to your neck.

You felt the cry leave your dry, cracked lips as you crumbled to the ground, squeezing your eyes shut.

You heard the creature snarl at you before you felt a jolt of hot pain in your ribs. It felt like a boot, but who knows.

Your vision doubled as you saw the metallic shield take out the group once more. You sagged in the rubble as the adrenaline left your body. It felt like buckets of blood were running from your shoulder down the curve of your breast, mixing with the pain in your ribs. You were certain death couldn't be much worse then this.

Steve couldn't believe you saved his life. He was foolish to let his guard down, but you were a distraction. You protected those kids with a fearlessness that reminded him of himself.

He heard over coms that Tony had found the source for these creatures and the fight was coming to a close. He wished he could have been there for his team, but the people came first, especially those kids.

He pressed a hand to your shoulder, cursing when he saw how much blood you were losing. He searched aimlessly for something to stop the blood.

"Your six, Captain," you manage to mutter throught the pain, not failing to notice the final of the robotic things sneaking up on the distracted man.

He kicked a stray car door effortlessly, squashing the creature against the brick building.

"We're going to get you help. You're going to be okay."

That was the last thing you heard before you passed out.

----

There was a pesky beeping that was disturbing your rest. You assumed it was your alarm, until the pain hit you full force, and you remembered the events that took place. Were you dead?

Your eyes opened, and you groaned at the harsh light, blinking rapidly to adjust. Your mouth felt like it was full of sand.

The sterile smell and blinding white walls immediately told you it was a hospital, but what stood out was the dozing man still dirty from battle. His blue suit stood out against the white.

His eyes opened when you stirred, and you noticed the blue eyes that you were beginning to like. His blonde hair was matted from the cowl, and he looked terribly uncomfortable in the small chair.

"How are you feeling?" he asked gently, his deep voice much softer than the commanding tone he used as captain.

You struggled to sit up. The pain in your shoulder not allowed you to use your hand as leverage, and your ribs didn't like the jostle.

"Don't do that," he said, lightly using his hand to keep you from moving. He pushed the button on the side that allowed the bed to lift without you having to change position.

He helped you drink some water before you were finally able to respond.

"How long have I been out?" you ask.

"Just a few hours," Steve responded. "You saved my life, and those kids, too." He shook his head in disbelief.

You felt your face grow hot at his words, not knowing how to respond. "I'm sure you are exhausted. You didn't have to stay."

"I had to make sure you were okay," he admitted. "I'm Steve."

"Y/N." You tried to smile at his cute pleasantries, but winced at the persistent throbbing in your shoulder. "Is it bad?"

"I'm sure a tough girl like you can handle it. The doctor should be in here in a minute to tell you details," he answered.

The doctor told you that your ribs were broken and your stab wound was deep but no longer life threatening after they stopped the blood. It was going to take a while to recover.

You dozed off, and it must have been a long time because when you awoke the second time, the room was covered in flowers. A stack of cards sat on your table, and you rose the bed again to reach for them.

A swell of happy emotions built up inside of you as you read the sweet words of the kids you saved. It was so relieving to know they were okay.

"You're a hero," Steve said from the door, this time in jeans and a blue jacket. He was handsome.

You wiped the fallen tears off of your cheek. "I'm nothing but a teacher."

"You're a hero to me," he smiled slightly, and a warm feeling bloomed in your chest.

----

Here's Pt. 2

[itsstrange]

Coffee Run & Green Eyes

Series: Spark Between Us

Relationship: Jensen Ackles x Skyline McNoir (OFC)

A/N: Hey everyone! I know it’s been a long time and I apologize for those waiting for more stories, but if you follow me on IG then you would know that this last week I was struck with a stomach flu which caused me to not have enough energy for various things. Luckily, I’ve recovered and feel much better. I also want to apologize to those who have requested me some stories, don’t worry I have Not forgotten about you! Just been dealing with some things!

But!! To not keep you guys in the dark I decided to post a Series I wrote for Ao3 on here, just to give y’all something to read meanwhile I work on some other works for y’all!! Hope y’all enjoy it!

Another thing, we have hit 105 followers y’all!!!! Thank you so much for all the love y’all continue in giving me!! I appreciate it so much!! 🥲💚

✨{Credits to owner for the gif}✨

Summary: Skyline McNoir tags along with a few friends who are attending a convention of some show she’s never watched. Little did she know, she would fall head over heels for the lead actor.

Word Count: 2.4 K

Warnings: Will contain Fluff, public sex, alcohol consumption, public fingering, just pure NSFW for all you Jensen fans out there 😊

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ENJOY!!

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The blasting chorus of Follow Me Now by Jason Gleed, wakes Skyline up. Her Hazel eyes glare straight ahead at the coconut cream wall for a few seconds before bringing the cover above her head, trying to muffled the music. Which didn’t help. At all. Then to make the morning less fun, her bed begins to shake violently by her best friend who’s jumping up down awhile singing at the top of her lungs. Skyline groans into the covers and tries to bury herself deeper into the warmth, but before she can even hide, the covers are being shoved off her form. A shiver runs throughout her body from the coldness in the room.

“C’mon Sky! Today’s the day!” Erin yells as she hovers above,

Skyline groans once again, eyes closed shut when it’s far too bright in the room “Five more minutes,”

“No come on,” Erin says, slightly pushing Sky’s body with her foot, “Tiffany and Laila are already downstairs grabbing breakfast,”

Still not moving, Erin shoves her body once again with her foot, when that didn’t do the trick an evil smirk spreads on her face. Grabbing an unused pillow, she raises it above her head before roughly slamming it against Sky’s head, causing her to jerk upright. With sleep still in her eyes, Sky is only able to squint at her best friend.

“Erin! What the fu-,” Her words were cut off when a large pillow smacks her in the face,

Erin chuckles at her, ignoring the death stare as she hops off her bed, “Chop chop.. we got a busy day today!”

With a roll of her eyes and a loud groan, Sky rolls off the comforter and towards the bathroom. After taking care of her regular morning routines, she hops in the shower. Erin’s music still blasted through the speakers, as Sky took a quick shower and she honestly hoped none of their neighbors complained about their disturbance, she knew she would have if she was trying to get a few more hours of shut eye.

That’s all she ever really wanted at the moment, sleep. After months of studying, exams, piles upon piles of work, and busting all nighters she was finally in winter break. The feeling of being able to come home for the holidays and spending those days with her family sounded amazing and relaxing. However, after the second day of being home, she gets a call from Erin. Mentioning something about having another extra ticket for a convention to meet the cast of some show she’s never watched. She kindly declined the offer, wanting to spend her days off with her family sounded like a much better idea than meeting unknown actors. However, Sky often forgets Erin is not the type to take no for an answer and demanded her to hand the phone over to her mother.

Thinking her mother would defend her and find a way to convince Erin to try and find someone else to take to the convention, Sky hands the phone over to her mother. You can only imagine who won that argument.

Once out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her body, Sky heads out the bathroom and towards her duffel bag. In the winter season of Austin, Texas, she decides on a plain long sleeve, black jeans, grey hoodie, black boots on her feet with a leather jacket on top. Once her hair is made and adds a couple splashes of makeup on her face, she grabs her phone and book from the small counter as she follows Erin out the room. After a few minutes later, they finally arrive in the breakfast buffet where Tiffany and Laila are already stuffing themselves with waffles and eggs. With a yawn, Sky makes her way over to the buffet with Erin right behind her. Once they both get their plates and sit down on the table, they dig in before getting on with their day.

****

8:45 am

“Oh my god!! I just hugged Speight!!” The sound of Laila coming around the corner interrupts Sky from her book,

The sight of Laila bouncing up and down on her feet with a wide grin makes a small chuckle escape from Skyline. As her friends beamed over this Speight guy, Sky returns her focus down on her book. Not really paying much attention at their excitement, but still having a smile on her lips as she reads the next chapter in her book. Even if she’s not having the same excitement as her friends, she is still having fun with them. Being around them in general for whatever reason always brightens her day. No matter how rough of a day she’s seems to be having, her girls always know just how to distract her and make her have fun.

“Ohh it’s almost time for Osric’s panel,” Tiffany says while looking down at her phone,

No longer able to focus on her book, Sky marks her spot before getting up from the floor.

“You guys go in, I’ve got auto’s for Kim at nine,”

It’s barely nine in the morning? Jesus. Sky thinks to herself, the day has felt extremely long she could have sworn it was already noon.

“Okay, let’s go Sky,” Laila motions her head to the side for her to follow,

“If you guys want me to continue tagging along, I’m gonna need an espresso,” Sky states, feeling yet another yawn creeping up her throat,

Her friends chuckle at her but agreed with her idea. They wouldn’t want her dragging her feet all over the convention, besides, coffee did sound like a great idea. Once writing down their preferred drinks in her notes, Sky leaves through the doors, down the steps and towards a coffee shop not too far away. It was only a couple blocks away, she should make it back in no time. Hugging her jacket closer to her body when the wind picks up, Sky quickens her movements to avoid its freezing weather but careful to not slip on the wet pavement. The last thing she needs is to fall flat on her ass, better yet get a concussion or go back home with a broken wrist.

Boy would her mom faint if she saw her daughter in a cast. Will most likely give her a lecture on why it’s important not to be on the phone during the most worst seasons. ‘If you weren’t on the phone this wouldn’t have happened Skyline’. Yep. She can definitely hear her ranting.

After a few blocks in the harsh winds, Skyline is finally reaching the small little coffee joint. Just as she reaches for the handle of the door, another, large, hand reaches at the same time. Thick fingers slightly touching her own, making her pull back with an apology.

“No it’s fine go ahead,” A deep voice says beside her, letting a shiver run down her body,

Most likely from the weather, what else would it be?

She looks up at the man. Dark beard, shades on his face, black hat on his head, with a black T-Shirt underneath a checkered navy flannel and black Levi’s jacket. Even under the dark shades she can tell he was good looking, handsome in fact.

“No you can go ahead,” Sky smiles at the man, stepping aside for him to enter,

He only shakes his head, gripping the door handle as he opens it for her, “Please I insist, my mom would throw a fit if she finds out I didn’t show my manners,”

Sky chuckles at him, “Well we wouldn’t want that now,”

The man chuckles back, smile forming on his lips. Man did that smile just make her stomach flip.

“No, we really wouldn’t,” Chuckling once more at him she accepts the offer with a thanks before entering the coffee shop,

As she walks inside, the change of temperature immediately hits her cold cheeks. Almost as if a heating furnace was suddenly shoved in her face, but she wasn’t complaining, the warmth was needed. Walking further into the coffee shop, she takes a glance over her shoulder to see if the man was behind her, but only lets a smile appear when she catches the moment of him allowing an elderly couple enter before him.

That’s sweet. She thinks to herself as she walks up to the counter. Once her drinks have been ordered and paid, she heads over to a small empty table near the window. Sitting on the chair she pulls out her book and continues where she left off as she waits for her drinks. A few minutes had passed and Sky was too engrossed in her book to notice her name being called out by the barista. Eventually though, she comes back to reality when someone places her drink in front her. Looking up from her book she meets eyes with bright emerald orbs, and noticing those breathtaking eyes belong to the same man from the door.

“I’m guessing your Skyline?,” The way her name rolls off his deep voice sends a shiver down her spine,

Definitely can’t be the air this time, absolutely not.

Eyeing the cup of coffee in front of her, she lifts a eyebrow at the man, teasing him. Even if she sees her name written on the side of the cup.

“And what makes you think that?” The way his lips slightly lift causes something to flip in her stomach,

Again.

“Well.. seeing how there’s hardly folks in here,” He looks around the shop for a few seconds before landing his eyes on hers again, “and you being the only one sitting down without a coffee.. I took a guess,”

Sky hums with a smile as she takes the cup, “Nice deduction,”

He shrugs a shoulder with a smile, “This seat taken?”

Sky shakes her head as she takes careful sips from her drink. With a small smile the man pulls out the chair with his other free hand, seeing how he has a cup of his own in one hand.

“I’m Ross by the way,” The man extends a hand once seated,

With a smile Sky accepts his hand, feeling it warm and rough as it wraps around her own.

“Nice to meet you,” Still smiling she pulls away from his firm hand,

“You around from here or just passing through?” He asks, taking careful sips from his cup,

Sky softly smiles at him as she wraps her hands around her coffee, trying to warm up her fingers.

“Born and raised,” He raises a brow at the small fact,

“No kidding?”

She nods, “Yeah but I’m just home for the holidays,”

He hums with a nod, “In the army or something?”

Sky couldn’t help the chuckle that escapes from her, definitely noticing how the corner of the mans lips slightly lift as well.

“More like college. My last year,”

“Really? What’re you studying?” He asks, taking another sip, never letting his eyes drift from her Hazel ones,

But does notice how they dart down towards his mouth before quickly looking back up to his eyes. A small smirk hides behind the cup, but doesn’t hide it when he pulls it away from his face.

“Biology,” He hums once again with a sincere smile, making her stomach flip,

It was such an odd feeling, especially when it was coming directly from a man she hardly knows. But for some reason, it felt right. Their conversations switched from topic to topic, never faltering. It just felt right, as if they were long time friends catching up with each other instead of two strangers who just met. Eventually, their conversation was cut short with the barista calling out her name once again with the rest of her drinks.

Getting up from her seat she walks over to the counter where her drinks waited. As she grabbed a cup holder and begins placing her drinks in each space, Ross, settles next to her. Getting a whiff of his cologne. Leaning on the counter he had both his and her coffee in either hand, which he hands over with a smile once all coffees were safely secured in place.

“I should get going,” She smiles up at his green orbs, and only then noticing how freckles are splashed on his face,

This man was literally dashing, no doubt about it.

“Yeah same here,” He says looking down at his watch, “Need a ride?”

She shakes her head with a smile, “I’m good thanks,”

“You sure? Heard it might rain,” He continues to lean on the counter as she places her coffee in an empty slot of the holder,

“I’m sure, it’s just a few blocks from here,”

“Well it can rain from those few blocks,” He argues as he gives her a smile, not wanting to end their little moment,

Neither did she, but she had friends waiting and the moment she tells them the reason why she took a little longer than expected, they wouldn’t leave her alone until she gives them the whole shebang.

She lets a small chuckle escape her lips as she picks up the coffees, “I’ll make a run for it,”

He softly chuckles at her comment, green eyes staring straight into her Hazel orbs that have slightly turned grey from her sweater. Definitely finding her and her eyes fascinating and beautiful.

“It was nice meeting you Ross,” She smiles at him as she walks away,

He smiles as he watches her, sending her a wave goodbye when she looks over her shoulder before walking out the door. Watching her leave didn’t feel like a loss, it felt the complete opposite actually. Why? Well for starters, he knew it wouldn’t be the last time he saw her considering she had the all too familiar Creation Entertainment wristband on her left hand. Also, he had her book inside his jacket, another reason on why he would see her again.

Both to retrieve her book and to have a reason to see her again. Don’t get him wrong, he was actually going to give it to her before she left, but the thought of holding it and having a reason to see her again sounded like great idea. He wanted to see her again, wanted to have a conversation longer than 10 minutes and just wanted to get to know her. She was different, in a good way, absolutely in a good way. The way she seemed to not know him or maybe she did but simply did not care made him feel relaxed, made him feel somewhat normal and he would give anything to feel that way again.

Even if it meant “stealing” her book to have an excuse to see her again.

PART 2

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-Hope y’all enjoyed this first part of the series!! Stay tuned for random updates for ‘Spark Between Us’ I won’t give an announcement on when I’ll update it so keep your eyes peeled on it!!

-Turn on Post Notifications!! 🔔 For more!!

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[jazz-miester]

Lying is supposed to be easy. So why do you make it so hard?

Pairing: Optimus Prime X Reader

Song: weathers- c'est la vie

Warnings: Bit of angst. Cursing.

An: A character/story idea I may never write. Let me know what all of you think!

A cigarette hangs loosely from thier lips. Unlit. The lighter they had pulled out wove around thier fingers. Y/n's mind still undecided if they wanted it lit or not. Granted, it wasn't a normal cigarette. Herbal. Some sort of lavender and chamomile medley.

They had promised to quite long ago. But some habits die hard and it's easier to find an alternative than fall back on old vices.

Thier hands shook slightly as they finally brought the lighter to the cigarette. On hand curling protectively around the flame and the wind howled around then.

Rain fell heavily down to the earth. The first rain in Jasper Nevada since god knows when. They needed it. Desperate for it.

God's knew they missed it. Some old memory locked away in thier mind. Cobwebs dusted away from thier not to long ago childhood.

They were barely into thier adulthood. Some would say.

It doesn't matter.

Smoke spilled out from between thier lips. Curling around and drifting into the cool air.

Thunder roared from the dark clouds. A sounding trumpet for lighting to follow.

Y/n's old chevy rattled with it. Thier heater sputtering a few times before finally giving up. Soon blasting cool air instead. They cursed. Smacking the dashboard.

"Mother fucker." They hung thier hand out the window. The cigarette almost put out by the wind. "First the fucking tire then this." Y/n hisses through thier teeth. They smack the dashboard one more time. "Last time I let someone else work on you." They turn the truck off. The silence sudden and heavy broken only by the rumbling thunder and rain smacking against the trucks roof.

Y/n checks thier phone. It was six now. Two more hours before nightfall. The tow company said they be here four hours ago. They wonder if the company decided to stay because if the rain. Wait for it to pass. Maybe this wind knocked down a power pole or two.

Or maybe the company was just lazy.

Y/n's stomach growled and they glanced over at the take out in the worn seat next to them. Chicken teriyaki and rice. Should they eat now? Probably. Before it got cold.

They blew out another huff of smoke. The window frame was wet now. As well as part of thier leg. They smashed the end of the cigarette into the ashtray and rolled thier window up. The hand crank sticking momentarily before letting go with a squeak.

They began to eat. Still keeping an eye out for the tow truck in the rapidly dimming light.

Halfway through eating thier phone buzzed. Rattling across the dashboard and onto the floor. Cursing they swallowed thickly and sputtered. Clearing thier throat before answering.

"Hello?" The phone cracked in and out. Reception was spotty this far out if town.

"We..... Can't..... Unable." Thier phone screen lit up. They held it out in front of then. The screen cracked. Obscuring part of what they could see. They looked at the number on the phone. Then to the one on the crumpled piece of paper.

"You have to be shitting me." They tossed the styrofoam back into the seat. The plastic fork falled to the ground. It was the tow company.

The bastards. Couldn't have called sooner.

Fuck it. They'd walk home and tow it themselves in the morning. Before work.

Or at least they would have if it weren't for the rumbling semi heading thier way. It came to a stop next to them. Engine deep and rumbling. It was fake. They knew. Ment to imitate earth's vehicles.

Thier phone rang. An image flashed across the screen with the caller id. Optimus. He had looked all to peaceful in that field to not take a picture.

"Hey Big Guy." They chuckled.

"Y/n. Hello. Is everything alright?" Y/n snorted. Oh fucking peachy they were. First they were late for work. Got yelled at by thier boss for shit they didn't do. Had thier piece of shit phone stolen so they had to go fucking find it. Paid sixty bucks to get it back. Had some dickhead think they didn't know shit about vehicles so they tried to scam them.

And the list goes on.

They looked over at the semi as they spoke.

"I'm fine Prime." Optimus rocked on his wheels.

"Are you sure? I was unaware one could drive with a blown tire." Y/n scoffed. Brows shooting upwards with disbelief.

"You sarcastic-" They cut themselves off. "You here to make fun of me?" The truck rumbled.

"No. I'm here offer help." He paused. "You have been here for over six hours." How. Oh ya. Patrol. They forgot he frequently came through here to and from base.

"I. Ya. I could use the help." They hated admitting that. That they needed help. They knew they could manage and y/n always felt like they owed the person back.

Optimus pulled in front of their chevy. An unspoken "I'll tow you" hung in the air. He would. Optimus knew they would come back shortly to get their truck back. Might as well help so they don't try to do it in the dark.

They were shivering and slightly soaked when they finally got in the driver's seat. Optimus wordlessly turns the heater on. Angling the vents to point at them.

"Sorry for tracking water in." Y/n muttered. Doing their best to wipe off any excess water that got inside.

"There's no need for apologies." The semi pulled away from the side of the road and began to drive. Slightly clicking gears as he rumbles downwards. Rain splattered across the windshield. Wipers working overtime to keep it away. They new it was more for them than him.

His headlights were dim, they noticed. Barley lighting up the old gray road.

It was silent. Comfortable.

It was dark now. Even more so without the full moon. Heavy cloads still cloaking the sky.

"Are the kids home?" Y/n broke the silence.

"Yes. I had to drop Rafael off at home." That's right. Bumblebee has been busy on a scouting mission. He's supposed to be back tomorrow. Short. By cybertronian standards.

It's been almost a month for us.

There's was flashing in the distance. Orange hues erie in the heavy rain. They can make out more shapes the closer they get. A red blob turning into a car. Two small blurs turned out to be a couple.

Optimus stops next to them at their urging.

Y/n hope out immediately. The rain quickly soaking through their thin shirt.

"What seems to be the matter?" Y/n asks. A woman turns around. Hand on her obviously pregnant belly. "Well shit." They mutter.

"Our tire blew out on the way to Jasper." The woman brushes a few strands of soaked hair out of her face. "Me and my son can't seem to get the tire changed. We umm." They look over at their kid. Some tiny teen trying to pull the bolts off the best they could. The car wast quite high enough off the ground either.

"Do you want help?" They already began rolling their soaked sleeves up thier arm. A simple tattoo wove from thier wrist up to thier elbow. A memento from a close friend. The woman nodded vigorously.

"Yes please." Y/n points the woman towards Optimus. They hope he wouldn't mind.

"Please Ma'am. I don't want you catching cold." Her cheeks flush. "The kid can help if they want. But they can get out of the rain if they want." The kid grins at them, missing one or two front teeth.

"I can help!" Y/n chuckles and pulls the tire iron gently from thier hands.

"Well then. Let's get going." They popped the bolts off one by one. They themselves straining despite the fact that could easily toss tires like these around. Y/n lifted weights to get stronger and boxed to defend themselves. Thier muscles flexing beneath thier shirt a testament to that.

"God. Who stuck these fu-friggen things on." The kid laughed.

"My cousin." Well damn.

It took a few moments and a bashed finger later to change the tire. Y/n was thoroughly soaked by the time they finished. Practically drowning from the rain.

They helped the women down and out from Optimus. Both of them none the wiser to the alien next to them.

The two got into the car and drove off. Y/n watches as the car gets smaller and smaller until the rain completely obscures thier view.

They grab into the handle next to Optimus's door and hoists themselves up. Smacking thier boots to get off any mud or debris before getting inside.

"Well now I'm even more wet." Y/n snorts and peels thier shirt off. They had a tank top underneath. It sticks to thier skin uncomfortably.

Optimus hums. The deep sound rumbling in the cab. Y/n pats thier pockets fully intending to light another cigarette before remembering where they're at. More precisely, who, they are with.

Instead they pull out a stick of gum. The minty flavor almost overpowering.

Optimus hums again. A sign they've come to find, was of him thinking. A habit he never broke of even after becoming Optimus Prime. Perks of being his charge they guessed.

They never knew why he did that. Became thier guardian. Y/n was well enough an adult. Had a house, payed the bills. They never understood and didn't plan on it anytime soon. Optimus was Optimus and he does what he does. He was one of the few people they never second guess thier opinion.

They held a lot of respect for the old mech.

More so than a lot of people in thier life. They wondered if he knew that. He could tell them to leap off a cliff and they would. Trusting him to be there to catch them.

It took a lot to earn that trust. And they had given it to him. With shaking palms and to high walls.

'Here'. Their actions said. 'Here is the key. Open the door and you hurt me. Guard it. Please. Because I am unable to anymore.'

And Optimus did. Because Optimus is Optimus. A being to good for this world.

Y/n had a scar that reached from thier shoulder to the small of thier back. It would have killed them if Optimus didn't step in. They got the relic. Optimus got thier trust and friendship.

"You do that often." Y/n head jerks up from where it had been resting against the window. Startled from thier thought.

"Do what, Prime?" Optimus slowed down. Rolling to a general stop at the battered stop sign.

"Help others without question. Despite it often being inconvenient for you." Y/n pops thier gum. Thinking.

They never really thought about it. They just did what felt right.

"And?" They scratch at thier neck.

"Why?" A simple one word question. Might as well been a loaded gun. They knew exactly where he was taking this.

"Because I can. Because it's the right thing to do. Because I'd want someone to do it for my friends and family." Optimus rumbled his engine. Pulling off to the side of the road.

Son of a bitch. He's gonna make them do feelings now?

Last time it was from a simple, yet self deprecating joke. Last thing they will joke about around him again was being dumber than a box of rocks. Who knew the old guy could be so silently, and heavily caring without a single word.

"And what about you? Would you not like help as well?"

The rain lessened to a drizzle now. No way we're they gonna do this shit. Not again. Don't make them face things yet.

Y/n reaches to open the door.

Optimus locks it shut.

"Fucken hell man." They mutter. Not for the last time they began wishing for an actual cigarette.

"Hmm." They sunk down in the driver's seat uselessly pushing at the gas pedal urging for him to go on.

"You can ask. You do know this." Y/n chuckles.

"I did." They wave thier hand at the steering wheel. "I called the tow company. Not my fault they didn't call me till forever later." Optimus sinks down on his tires. If they don't wrap this up now and tell him what he wants to here they'll be here forever.

But he can tell when they're lying.

They both loath and like it.

They can be truthful to him. But sometimes it hurts. Because he makes them feel. He makes them know.

They're people to. And they deserve so much more that they give themselves.

Deserve more than the punishing pace they put themselves through.

"And no one else? What would you have done after?" Y/n shrugged thier shoulders.

"Walked home and make tomorrow me deal with it. They're a bitch in the morning but they get shit done."

Shit.

"And you would call no one? Again?" They shake their head.

"It's just a tow Optimus. Not me bleeding the fuck out." They feel bad. A sour taste in thier mouth as they bite their answer out.

"You where feverish and unable to walk last time." His voice was low. Almost sad. He was upset without showing it.

He cares. Cares so much.

He cares enough about me for the both of us.

"It's fine."

"No."

"I.." I shiver. The heater turns on. "Lying 'spose to be easy. Why do you make it so fucking hard." Optimus rumbles.

"Because you care." He's right.

"And so do I. I am here. Always. No matter what. No matter how trivial you think it is Y/n. I am here. And, as you like to say, I am stuck to your side whether you like it or not." He begins to drive. His words stick to me.

"I know. It's hard." Its hard when you don't think you deserve it. Any of it.

I lay my hand on the center of the steering wheel.

"I know. I know. But I will tell you again and again. Until you truly believe it y/n."

I was lost before him.

God's I hate that he makes me feel. Feel more than I ever have. But he got me to quite one bad habit. And he's working on the other.

[fortheloveofwonderland]

Just Short of Forever [Spencer x Fem!Reader]

Thank you to the lovely Anon who gave me this idea: maybe spencer or reader is about to get married to someone else, and they have a sort of runaway bride situation. they realize they have feelings for their ex (being spencer/reader) and they realize they can't get married.

Please feel free to send me ideas/requests! 

CW - none really, mild angst but mostly fluff.

WC: 2.6K

Once upon a moonlit October, Spencer Reid met the love of his life and promised her forever. But their forever didn’t come. Call it fate, call it destiny; call it what you will, but their forever was cut short. 

Somewhere along the line they lost their way. Their “I love yous” became “I’m sorry’s”, their laughter turned to tears. Warm smiles became cold. Hello’s evolved into goodbyes.

Five years was not forever. But you would always carry a piece of each other in your heart. You were each other’s first and strongest loves. 

But life had other plans for you both. 

***

The music blasting from the speakers stung your ears like a thousand tiny pin pricks. The alcohol in your system was enough to dull the boisterous crowd but not enough to stop the assault of the music on your eardrums.

You excused yourself from your group of friends, having to shout to be heard and pushed your way through the throngs to the front door of the bar. 

You gasped, desperate for the fresh air of the crisp March evening to fill your lungs. There were a few people on the sidewalk smoking and conversing and the odd car passed by but other than that the street was quiet. 

Just what you needed.

You pulled your cell phone from your purse to check your messages. You smiled to see some from him. You opened them to read them, just a voice came from behind you.

“Excuse me, miss? I think you dropped this.” 

You froze instantly at the voice. It had to have been nearing three years since you’d last heard it, but you knew that articulation no matter how many years it had been. 

“I guess this is it then.” He stepped into the corridor, the box cradled in his arms.

“I guess so.” You agreed with a sad nod. 

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.” 

“I hope you do too.” You chewed your lip determined not to cry. Not yet.

“Goodbye Y/N.”

“Goodbye Spencer.” 

You slowly turned around and your eyes met. Those hazel eyes gazed back at you, the ones you’d fallen in love with all those years ago. 

His face noticeably fell when he realised it was you. You saw his Adam’s apple bob deliciously beneath the soft flesh of his neck as he swallowed. His hand was held out with your keys in his open palm. You must have dropped them when you got out your phone.

“Hi Spencer.” You breathed with a shaky smile. You stepped a little closer and cautiously took the keys. “Thanks.” 

“Y/N, hi.” He swallowed again, his voice low and croaky. “I didn’t recognise you from behind. You changed your hair.”

“Yeah.” You nodded. You had no idea what to say to him. You never thought you’d see him again and now he was here in front of you there were so many things you wanted to say but nothing that seemed appropriate. 

You watched his eyes regard you, from your too high heels to your skimpy dress. You never dressed like this when you were with him.

His glance faltered when he reached your chest, but not for the reasons you would think. 

You saw his eyes widen slightly, and you swore you saw tears brimming in them.

“Oh wow,” he choked as he spoke. “I guess congratulations are in order.” He pointed at your sash, the one that told him in large gold letters you were the “Bride To Be.”

You followed his gaze down to the sash, you’d forgotten all about it. You ran your fingers over it absentmindedly.

“Uh...yeah.” You muttered. “Thanks.”

“When’s the big day?” There was a twinge of jealousy to his tone, combined with a hint of bitterness. 

“Uhm...two weeks Friday.” 

“Wow.” He gnawed heavily on his lip, he swore he tasted blood. “That’s uhm...I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” You didn’t know what to say. What could you say?

“Actually,” he spoke again, his voice now restoring some punch. “I do know. It’s...it’s...horrible. It’s awful, it’s completely and utterly-”

“Y/N!” 

Spencer was cut off by your best friend and maid of honour poking her head out of the bar and calling your name. 

“They’re playing our song!” 

“I’ll be right there!” You called back, attempting a smile. 

She smiled back and soon disappeared back inside.

“Sorry I have to go. Thanks for finding my keys.” You went to walk past him, not being able to look at him anymore without risking tears. 

As you did so, you felt a strong hand clasp around your wrist stopping you.

You turned back to Spencer, shaking him off you.

“What? You have more to say?” You folded your arms across your chest in frustration. 

“Do you love him?” He surprised you with his forwardness. 

“Of course I love him. I wouldn’t be marrying him if I didn’t.”

“Let me rephrase that then.” He stepped closer to you and you caught his scent in your nose. You’d never been able to describe the way he smelt, it was an aroma that was simply Spencer. 

“Do you love him more than you loved me?”

Now that was the million dollar question. Honestly you knew the answer to that. You’d known since the first time you met Spencer you would never love anyone the way you loved him. But you weren’t willing to tell him that.

“I’m not answering that.” You shook your head and turned on your heels. “Goodbye Spencer.”

“We could have had it all!” He called after you, but you kept walking.

“Goodbye Spencer.” You repeated as you threw the door to the bar open and vanished. 

Spencer was left staring at the space you had just occupied. 

He should have been over you by now. He thought he was over you. But then you’d been standing in front of him and he’d fallen all over again the moment he glanced in your eyes. 

Knowing you were getting married tore his heart in two. Your break up had been mutual, it just hadn’t worked out but that didn’t stop him loving you. 

“It should have been me.” He whispered to himself as he turned and headed back down the street. “It should have been me.”

***

The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It went some way to dulling your nerves. But they were still there, bubbling under the surface. 

You’d thought of nothing but Spencer and those brooding eyes since your bachelorette party. Truthfully, he’d been on your mind since the day you broke up but over time he’d faded to a distant memory. Now he was back with full force.

You’d still been mourning your break up with Spencer when you’d met Tristan, your soon to be husband. 

The wound was still fresh, open and gaping and you’d thought Tristan would be a great distraction from the pain. Somehow over two years past you by and when Tristan proposed to you, you found yourself saying yes.

You did love him, just not the way you’d loved Spencer. The love you had for Spencer had been new and exciting, something you’d never experienced before. It had swept you off your feet and turned your whole world upside down. 

Your body ached for him when he was away on a case and every time he returned and pulled you into his arms, the feeling overwhelmed you. 

The door opened and you immediately leapt up from the couch. Spencer looked exhausted as he stepped across the threshold, but as soon as he locked eyes on you his face lit up.

“Spence!” You fell into his arms immediately and buried your head into his chest. You inhaled his scent, that pure Spencer scent. 

He wrapped you tightly and protectively in his arms.

“Y/N,” he breathed you in. “Gosh I missed you.” 

“I missed you too baby.” You squeezed him. 

“Not half as much as I missed you my love.”

The two of you stood in the doorway in a loving embrace for several minutes, neither ready to let the other go. 

The two of you never felt safer and more at home than in each other’s arms.

You smoothed down your dress and took in your reflection, trying to shake all thoughts of your lost love.

Everything was in place. Your make-up was done, your hair was pinned perfectly in place and you were cinched in your dress. 

You turned to the side and then the other side and you even managed to smile a little. You felt like a princess, that much was for certain. But was the man you were about to marry your prince?

You stepped over to the window where the gardens could be viewed. A winding path snaked between perfectly manicured bushes. 

His black suit stood out against the greenery and you didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. 

You spun around, hoisting your dress up as you marched from the room. As you were heading down the stairwell a voice caught you.

“Y/N where are you going?” Your best friend. 

You turned to look up to where she was standing up the top of the staircase. 

“There’s something I need to take care of.” You told her vaguely.

“Well hurry up, the ceremony’s starting soon. You of all people can’t be late.” She laughed.

“This won’t take long, trust me.” And with that you carried on down the stairs. 

You found the back entrance easily enough and shoved open the door. 

He was wearing his best suit and tie and his hair was swept back off his face, you’d think it was his wedding day. 

“Hi Y/N.” He smiled at you as you approached.

“Don't hi me Spencer. What the hell are you doing here?” You didn’t need to ask how he knew where you were getting married, he’d no doubt gotten his friend Penelope to find you. 

He laughed a little and the sound made you go a little weak. 

“It’s simple really,” he shrugged. “I’m here to tell you you’re marrying the wrong man.” 

It was your turn to laugh now. 

“Really Spencer? Where was this man three years ago? If I recall we wanted different things. So please enlighten me, why am I marrying the wrong man?” You didn’t have time for this, but you wanted to hear why he’d had the audacity to show up here today.

And maybe you wanted to see if he could convince you that you were marrying the wrong man. 

“Because you don’t love him like you loved me. You don’t love him the way I’m pretty certain you still love me.” 

“Nice try.” You scoffed. “I’ve got to go get married. Goodbye Spencer.” You turned away from him now and hoisted your dress again so you could make a quick exit back up the garden. 

“You didn’t deny it.” Spencer’s words were smug and it irritated you enough to get you to turn back around.

“Didn’t think it was necessary.” 

“I didn’t fight for you.” He stepped closer to you. “I didn’t fight for us. And maybe three years is too late. I know this isn’t ideal timing on my part but I’m here now and I’m ready to fight.”

“Spencer, our time has passed.”

“Do you remember our first date?” 

You frowned, you really didn’t have time for this.

“Yes Spencer, of course I remember our first date.”

For October, the weather had been good to you. Spencer had taken you to the Smithsonian, you’d probably learnt more from him than anything the institution had to tell you. 

Afterwards you’d gotten coffee and strolled through the DC streets for hours. 

You chatted about everything, your jobs, your childhoods, what made you tick, music and movies and everything in between. 

Somehow the sun had set and before you knew it you’d spent the whole day together.

“I have to say,” you glanced at him as you strolled towards your apartment. “This has been an excellent first date.”

“It has been, hasn’t it.” He smiled at you. “I might even go as far to say the best first date.”

You blushed as you came to a stop outside your building.

“Well this is me.” You shrugged shyly. You wanted him to kiss you, but you weren’t sure what he was thinking. 

“Look, I’m not the “cool” guy. I don’t really know what is best practice on first dates and I could very well blow this before it’s even started…” he started, coming closer to you and taking hold of your hands. “But I have had an amazing day. And I just want you to know that if you want it, I’m standing here now promising you forever.” 

You felt tears well in your eyes and a shiver passed up your spine at his words. The way he was looking at you was so different from the way anyone had ever looked at you before in your life.

“I’ll bear that in mind.” You smiled and closed the space between you and kissed him. 

It was the kind of magical kiss that would live on in your memory for the rest of your life.

“I promised you forever.”

“You did.” 

“And I meant it.” He stepped closer again, cautiously. 

“Y/N!” You heard your name being yelled across the garden. You turned to see your bridesmaids in the doorway staring at you. 

“What are you doing? We need to go!”

“Two minutes I promise!” You called back. 

You waited for them to leave before you turned back to Spencer.

“I really need to go.” 

“Please Y/N.” He took hold of your hands with an urgency of a man who knew this was do or die time. “I’m not this man Y/N, you know that. I’m not the kind of man that crashes someone's wedding and asks them to run away with me. But that’s how much I love you. I love you more than all the stars in the sky and I always will. So I am here, crashing your wedding and asking you to run away with me.”

Tears rolled down your cheeks all of a sudden. Maybe it’s all you’d wanted to hear from him. You’d waited to hear those words for five long years. But was he too late?

“Spencer,” you sniffed, chewing your lip. “I’m in a wedding dress. I am getting married today.”

“Why do you think I wore my best suit.” He grinned. “I’m not saying don’t get married today Y/N. I’m saying marry the right man. Marry me.” 

“You want to marry me? Today?” You gave him a look as though you didn’t believe him.

He let go of one of your hands and reached into his jacket pocket. Seconds later he pulled out two tickets.

“Flights to Vegas. In one hour.” He shrugged. “I’m going, will you be there with me?”

“Are you for real right now?” More tears fell.

“I am very for real Y/N.” He laughed. “We can be married in a few hours. Please, let me make good on my promise. Will you be my forever?”

You looked at his eyes and then at the tickets and back again. 

It was all you’d ever wanted, Spencer standing in front of you telling you he wanted to marry you. 

And suddenly, the choice didn’t seem so hard. 

“Yes Spencer Reid,” you smiled. “Yes I will be your forever.” 

And with that you pulled him by the hand and the two of you started running. Running towards your future. 

Your future that was always meant to be you and Spencer. He was your forever. 

[avnkin]

The Bet

Chapter 1 - Surfer Boy

JJ Maybank x Reader

Warnings: foul language, fuckboi!jj, underage drinking ya know the gist 

Word count: 2k

Summary: John B bets JJ that he can’t get kook princess Y/N Y/L/N to fall in love with him and not one to turn down a challenge JJ takes the bet unaware of the repercussions it would have. (I suck at summaries lmao i’m sorry)

(A/N): I wanna make this a series or at least a 2-3 part fic but I also have to write for the pogues and ughhh i’m so overwhelmed idk why I do this to myself,, someone send help. (gif by @rue-bennett​)

series masterlist

“Okay- uhm, Sarah Cameron or Y/N Y/L/N?” John B questioned JJ as they sat at the front of the HMS Pogue enjoying the sun that shone down on the pair of them “easy Y/N” JJ asserted like it was the most obvious thing in the world, John B gave JJ a side eye “seriously, that girl seems so uptight, she needs a dick in her asap” John B chuckled taking another swig of the beer that was placed in his hand.

“You’re not wrong about that” JJ agreed, when John B suddenly had an idea mischievously staring JJ down who only shrugged, his face a question mark “what?” he finally asked glancing up at his best friend “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that you can’t get her too fall in love with you within a month” John B dared, smugly looking over at JJ knowing he wouldn’t have the patience to be with a girl for more than an hour.

JJ wasn’t one to turn down a challenge, chuckling as his eyes met John B’s brown ones, staring each other down until JJ finally accepted the challenge shaking John B’s hand before saying “you’re on”.

You stared at your reflection in the mirror that stood before you, content with the fourth bikini you had tried on in the last ten minutes. Sarah had called you earlier asking if you wanted to join her and a couple of your other friends down at the beach, you weren’t one to turn down an offer like that so you got dressed before grabbing a bag that contained all the things you could possibly need for a beach day.

You quickly swung your bedroom door open calling out into the empty hallway that you were leaving only getting a small ‘okay’ in response from your dad, you rolled your eyes before making your way downstairs and towards the front door grabbing your car keys you headed towards your car and placed the bag in the passenger seat before starting it and driving down your long driveway towards the main road.

The weather was amazing and you’d spent the entire car ride listening to your ‘summer vibes’ playlist on Spotify belting out the lyrics to every single song as you drove down figure 8 and towards the cut.

When you finally arrived you grabbed your bag out of the passenger seat making your way towards your group of friends who were easy to spot amongst the crowds of people.

Sarah smiled when she saw you patting the empty spot next to her gesturing for you to sit down, you jogged over to them and immediately grabbed your towel and laid it neatly next to Sarah’s, quickly removing the clothes that covered your bikini.

“Damn Y/N, looking good” a sudden voice could be heard from behind you, you quickly turned around seeing JJ Maybank stand before you, he was infamous around these parts, best known for sleeping with girls and never talking to them again, you weren’t going to be one of his conquests, so you scoffed ignoring his flirtatious gestures as you sat down next to Sarah grabbing a white claw from the mini cooler your friend Lisa had brought with her.

This was going to be harder than he thought, JJ quietly spoke to himself eyes focused on your figure, he couldn’t deny it he liked what he saw, you were exactly his type but he knew if he was going to win this bet he couldn’t treat you like one of the many girls he’d been with, he knew you were different.

The weather was especially good today, your skin glistening in the sun rays as it shone down on you, “there’s gonna be a party down here tonight, we should totally go” you heard Sarah’s voice from beside you, you only shrugged not really feeling up to it knowing how those parties usually ended. “I think I’m gonna stay in tonight” you sighed propping yourself up on your elbows “no Y/N you’re not, you never go out with us come on it’ll be fun we can have pre-drinks at my house-” you raised your eyebrow at her cutting her off “come on don’t be such a party pooper” Sarah frowned giving you her best puppy dog eyes, you groaned letting your head fall back onto the towel “fine”.

The night quickly rolled around and you found yourself standing outside Sarah’s house. You took a deep breath before knocking on the door, within seconds Sarah was stood in front of you grabbing your wrist and dragging you behind her into the house.

Music was blasting from Sarah’s bedroom, all of your friends had already arrived and started drinking greeting you with hugs and compliments as you walked in the door, the only one sober was Lisa since she had been assigned driver for the night.

It didn’t take you long to start feeling a bit tipsy after downing a couple of shots, since if you were being honest you were quite the lightweight.

You wore jean shorts that perfectly complimented your figure and a white bandeau top along with your white vans, you were quite content with the girl who stared back at you in the mirror feeling confident about yourself for what felt like the first time in a while.

You were feeling very lightheaded when Sarah asked Lisa to get going wanting to get down to the beach as quickly as possible, maybe drinking so much hadn’t been the brightest idea you had.

“Y/N come on we're leaving” Sarah slurred grabbing your hand and leading you out the front door and into Lisa’s black jeep. Music was playing loudly out of the speakers as you belted along with the lyrics rolling down the window loving the feeling of the wind in your face.

It was a short drive down to the beach which felt even shorter in your intoxicated state and as soon as Lisa parked you immediately got out of the car Sarah trailing behind you as you made your way towards the crowds of drunk teenagers.

You hadn’t been there long when you decided you wanted more alcohol and made your way towards the keg to fill your cup with yet another drink, this isn’t gonna end well you thought downing the liquor in what could only be described as record time. “Didn’t know you had that in you Y/L/N” a familiar voice sounded behind you, you quickly turned around being face to face with the all too familiar Maybank boy.

“Well there’s a lot you don’t know about me” you flirted raising the cup back to your lips, feeling the alcohol coursing through your veins give you a newfound confidence, he chuckled shaking his head as he got closer to you “wouldn’t mind getting to know you better princess” he hummed, his confidence evident in the way he spoke, princess the word fell so graciously from his lips causing your knees to weaken but you quickly composed yourself clearing your throat and stating “in your dreams Maybank”.

“Always” he replied taking one step closer to you, placing both arms onto the keg behind you trapping you between him and it. You felt your breath getting caught in your throat as you looked back up at him lips only inches away from his, in your intoxicated mind this was a dream come true, but your sober self quickly took over, you didn’t feel like getting your heart broken by someone like JJ, not tonight at least.

You pressed your index finger against his chest pushing him away from you, “you really think I’m that easy, huh?” you scoffed biting down on your lip as you made your way past him ignoring his lingering stare as he watched you walk away.

When you were almost out of sight John B came up behind JJ putting a hand on his shoulder “wanna give me my hundred dollars now before you embarrass yourself any further or?” he gloated chuckling at JJ who only gave him a glare in return.

“I’m only getting started, you just wait” JJ assured him eyes lingering on your figure as he watched you dance with one of your many friends he didn’t know the name of, “whatever you say big man” John B chuckled ruffling JJ’s hair before going back to Pope and Kiara who sat in a circle around the bonfire.

“Care to dance?” his voice could be heard again from behind you, you rolled your eyes “you never give up do you?” you challenged turning to face him “not my style princess” he smirked knowing exactly what he was doing “stop calling me that” you really hated being one of those girls boys thought they could treat however they wanted and you knew JJ was only trying to sleep with you and you weren’t going to be one of the many girls he played, having more respect for yourself than that.

“Listen JJ I’m not interested in sleeping with you so if that’s the only thing you’re trying to do go find someone else” you spoke bluntly, JJ feigned being offended at your words as his hand went up to his heart “wow Y/N I’m hurt that you would think so lowly of me”

“seriously? with your reputation?” you scoffed raising an eyebrow at the boy who stood in front of you “didn’t realize I had a reputation sweetheart, but I’m flattered that you’ve heard of me” you rolled your eyes turning to walk away from him, but before you could he grabbed your wrist preventing you from moving any further.

“Seriously Y/N I really do like you- I’m sorry if I’m coming off as an ass I’ve just- I don’t know never felt this way about a girl before, I want to get to know you” the lie fell so perfectly from his lips, his eyes stuck on yours not breaking eye contact once as to sell the lie even more.

You were surprised at his words you’d never talked to him before and now he was saying he liked you? it didn’t make any sense. “Come on Y/N one date, that’s all I’m asking and if you still think I’m an ass after that I’ll never bother you again alright?” he pleaded. You were tempted at his words, he seemed sincere, his brows contorting as he stared at you hopefully.

“Alright one date, that’s it” he felt a boost in pride, your words feeding into his ego, but he was careful not to show it smiling innocently at you as he took his phone out so you could put your contact information into it.

“Better not make me regret this” you warned handing him his phone back “I promise you, I won’t” he smiled turning to walk away, blowing you a kiss causing a small chuckle to slip past your lips, maybe he wasn’t as bad as people had told you.

JJ walked towards John B, his head held high as he threw him his phone with your contact information open “no fucking way” John B stated in disbelieve staring down at the number with your name above it “told you I could do it man” JJ chuckled sitting down beside him opposite Kie and Pope.

“Do what?” Kie asked taking a sudden interest in JJ’s radiating confidence “It’s nothing me and JB just have a little bet going on” JJ smirked grabbing the phone out of John B’s hand, “whatever” Kiara waved him off turning back to Pope.

JJ felt a hint of guilt as his eyes met yours and a blush crept onto your cheeks, your eyes quickly diverting from his and back to Sarah’s, only a hint though.

next part

add yourself to the taglist!!!

[extremelyblackandwhite]

tis the damn season

pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader

warnings: none

a/n: this is the end and i’ll need therapy because dear god i hate it when any of my projects end. thank you so much for supporting it and reading. hope you enjoy xx

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS 

There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me but if it's all the same to you it's the same to me ...

There was a sea of people, suitcases rolling everywhere, people hugging their loved ones and there she was, straight out of the airplane holding her worn out, beat up suitcase with her name tag on it. It was a cold day, one of those that reminded her of being by the window with her mother doodling on the fogged glass as the snow laid on the green grass of her childhood home yet there was no snow, just cold. She knew to walk through the doors that led to the arrivals but she stood back, almost as if the cold froze her to her spot. Returning to her hometown meant looking at the road not taken before, the road she couldn’t have taken. Nevertheless, in the midst of chaos of people coming back home for the holidays, she ended up being almost dragged into the arrivals hall.

Immediately she spotted Wanda and Pietro dressed in thick winter coats and hats who were holding a sign with her name. She put on her best photographic smile, walking over to the twins who rushed over to hug her tightly, something she missed dearly when she was away. 

     - Finally! - the brown haired girl hugged her best friend tightly. - You can never leave me again for this long. 

     - It’s only for a few weeks, Wan. 

     - Let me savour it. - she loosened up the hug, handing Y/N’s bags to Pietro who just shrugged off and started walking to the car. - I have so much to tell you. Remember Elizabeth, the girl I copied off for Maths? Well, she got married but she had a baby like 5 months later which doesn’t adds up. 

     - Shotgun wedding. - Pietro added. - It was so tacky, absolutely awful. I fell asleep for at least five hours.

     - Very good gift bags though. I took an extra one for you. 

The three walked onto the cold town she thought she’d never have the change to return to. The moment she woke up from what she thought was certain death, her father and the chief of police were already telling her they had set up a witness protection program for her, all the way in Massachusetts. It was nice, she liked the weather, the warm fall colours during October but she didn’t felt at home. She had a new name, new story, in this one she didn’t even have her father not that in reality she ever did. She sat in the passenger seat of Wanda’s car, listening to all the news she seemed to have kept locked inside her mind for when she returned. Her mind as going haywire about what she wanted to know about, she wanted to know about Bucky.

She knew he couldn’t be happy if he had discovered it which she guessed by now he had. Several times her father had told her he’d employed several men to try and find her and had even told her to stay away until Christmas. Of course the only reason he wanted her around was so she could drive him from the bar after he drank his weight in beer but she couldn’t help but do it, she promised her mum she would take care of her dad no matter what happened. Yet, she still wanted to know about Bucky. She wanted to know if he hated her, if he had put a hit on her head. It kept her awake at night, every night, bugging her like a bad memory. 

      - Are you sure you wanna stay at your dad’s? You can stay with me and Vision.

     - Of course she doesn’t want to stay with you. What kind of name is Vision anyway? - Pietro rolled his eyes.

    - HIS PARENTS WERE HIPPIES. We’ve had this discussion. - Wanda playfully threw a empty water bottle at his brother. - Don’t you want to spend Christmas with someone who will actually be in the house during Christmas?

    - I promised my mother, Wan.

    - C’mon. If it’s because me and Vision will be there, there’s no problem. Remember Michael? He still wants to go out with you.

    - I don’t want to go out with him.

    - Yeah, Wanda. Y/N liked James Barnes. - Pietro muffled in a laugh, receiving a death glare from his sister. - What? It’s true. 

    - Y/N does not like someone who wants her dead. Don’t you remember when one of his friends was on campus and he had a gun? 

    - What? It’s just like Mr and Mrs Smith and for one, it’s something I’m interested in. Good for her. 

    - What about you, Pietro? Where’s your girlfriend? - Y/N smirked, crossing her arms as Wanda parked in front of Y/N’s childhood home.

    - Which one?

    - You’re a lost cause. - she opened the passenger’s door, going around to retrieve her suitcase.

    - Call me if you’re alone during Christmas or Christmas Eve. Vision and I will come and set up a dinner with you.

    - It won’t be necessary.

    - Just call me, okay?

    - Okay, Wan. I’ll see you tomorrow. 

The red head smiled before driving away. Y/N stood on the cobblestones of her sidewalk waving goodbye before it was time to go meet her father. Her relationship with him was at best strained. When they didn’t find the shipment they wanted, he subconsciously blamed her along with constantly talking about how Edward could’ve died but he was luckily alive with a limp. She wished he had more than a limp but saying anything against his ward was absurd and completely forbidden. She was almost sure he’d spend more time at the hospital with him than her.  Nevertheless, she was here and as she stepped into her porch, there were no Christmas lights, no garlands. 

Flashbacks invaded her mind of sitting on the wooden stairs as her mother wrapped every surface she could in garland, wrapping the lights around the columns while her dad worked overtime. The two would then sit on the stairs with cups of hot cocoa, Y/N always preferring white chocolate hot cocoa with pink marshmallows and watched the lights go up for the first time. Every year she expected there to be lights after her mum was gone but they never showed. One year she tried to put them up but she soon came to realise the lights that held whatever sweet memories an object could hold were lost and gone. Everything was gone. She didn’t know why she expect it to be here.

Her keys jiggled as she opened the door to her childhood home. It was always messy, dusty, her mother’s yellow coat still hanging on the coat hanger the day she returned from the hospital. The house was a snapshot of that day, never changing, her father didn’t allow her. She knew why, she always knew why, she just refused to say it, she refused to say whom her father believed was the cause of her mother’s death. She refused to say it because she knew who it was and it wasn’t who her father thought it was.

     - Dad? - she left her suitcase against the entry wall, walking further into her house and into the kitchen, liquor bottles on the floor near the chair were her father was sitting, still in his uniform, shirt tightened over his beer belly. - Hey dad, how are you?

    - Y/N, darling, can you get some some of the liquor from the cabinet?

    - Sure, dad. - she turned around, reaching into the cabinet, right at the end of it where she kept a bottle with water which tricked him all the time. - How’s the precinct?

    - I think you know. 

    - You shouldn’t make catching him your target. Your target should be to protect innocent civilians.

    - What would you know about it? You failed us. 

    - I’m sorry. - she looked down at her shoes. - You know ... I smell snow.

    - You can’t smell snow, Y/N. There’s no such thing. 

    - C’mon... - she held his hands in hers. - We can make some hot cocoa, like mum used to do.

    - Your mother would’ve been ashamed of you. - she shook his hands away from her, pointing his finger at her. - You caused another officer to get shot, you have no integrity. I shouldn’t have put you in the case.

    - I didn’t. - she took a step back. - I told you I didn’t and you don’t believe me. Barnes didn’t try to shot me and Edward stepped in, you saw the report, the bullets don’t match up. He tried to shot at Barnes.

    - He’s the most experienced shot I know, if he wanted to have gotten Barnes, he would’ve.

    - He would’ve if I hadn’t stepped in front of it. 

She turned around, tears watering her eyes and making her vision blurry as she walked further an further away. She kept walking, away from her house, away from her street until she was the furthest from it she could. The wind blasted her hair in different direction, freezing through her thin, useless jackets. She could smell it was going to snow, she could always smell it, the smell of freshly fallen and there she was, having forgotten her jacket. It was late into the night, no establishment was open and all she could wear were her boots against the slight frozen layer upon the cobblestones. She should feel hurt but she found herself in a numbness of state, the image of waking up in a hospital room all by herself much clear in her mind. She continued to walk until a purple light lit up her face.

She looked upwards, the title of the old establishment she used to work in blasted into purple light. Now, she was a rational being, a true believer of think before you act  but she was cold and seemingly no longer held fear of her own death. Life is ephemeral and if she was meant to die, if fate was a thing then let it be. She went through the bodyguards entering the club that despite being almost Christmas Eve was filled with people. 

Meanwhile James was leaning against one of his club’s walls, cigarette hanging from his lips. Filthy habit he knew, but he did it when he stressed. It soothed him, yet it seemed like all self destroying things soothed him. His eyes lingered against the empire he had built which now seemed so stupid. All material things and a few kills to remember him by when he died. He wondered if they would even remember or if when he breathe his last breathe, he’d be erased as quickly as he came to be. No one remembers what came in between and James did not create the business, he just perfected it. Nothing surprised this old dog anymore until tonight. He thought his brain was playing tricks on him as he saw her pass through the doors, hair covered in a knitted hat yet as quickly as he saw her enter, the quicker he saw her leave.

     - Steve, follow her. - he immediately told the blonde who was happily chatting with his newly wedded bride. - Tell me where she stops. You better not lose her out sight or you won’t have any children.

Y/N was fast out, the moment she felt the warmth of the club. She no longer knew what she was doing, much too lost in whatever pain mixed with unresolved feelings she had. Nevertheless, she was out, and immediately calling Wanda. She was out on a date but offered to stay at her house and that was enough. She needed to sleep, consider what she was doing here and then return to Massachusetts. She could get used to being Elizabeth, the orphan girl who went to Harvard. She could be Betty, she could be someone on paper. She just didn’t know how to be Y/N anymore. She had to go back.

Wanda’s new place wasn’t thankfully too far and per usual she hide the key behind her petunia vase. Inside it looked exactly like what she believed her best friend’s dream home looked like but she deserved it. She deserved Vision, she deserved all this happiness and she wished she could stay behind and watch it. 

She stripped out of her frosted clothes, walking into the bathroom to take a warm shower. “It’s no use dwelling on the past, sweetheart. It’s already gone.” her mother used to tell her and she guessed she was right, what use was it for her to wonder what if? There was no what if. She was a dead woman if he knew, but Y/N was already dead even if she didn’t. The last name ended with her, the genetic tree of her ancestors ended with her and she guessed it fit, destroyer of trees and blood. 

She felt the warm water drip down her body and onto the porcelain floor of the shower, the foam making the air smell like wild daisies on a summer afternoon. It felt warm, it felt nice, thoughtless, to be only the essence of life without the obligation of thought.  Just seeing, living, greatly dissolving into the fabric of nature. Stepping out of the shower, thought evaded. She was expecting to see him, to look at him one last time before she was gone. Yet again, what use was to look into someone who’d she betrayed? It was no use. 

She involved herself in the white fluffy towel, walking into the kitchen to rummage through whatever Wanda and Vision had. Wanda was always a fun of tropical fruit so she knew she probably kept something yummy for her.

    - You’ve always toyed with probability, petal. - she turned around once she head that voice, heart clenched yet beating faster at the same time. - It is very dangerous for you and for you friend. Easy lock, windows open. 

     - If you’re going to do it, please do it outside where we won’t stain my friend’s apartment. 

     - Oh petal ... - he took the gun from the holster which was always close to his legs. She had been shot before, she didn’t feel it, it didn’t hurt. She closed her eyes, waiting for the sound but the only sound that came was his gun hitting the floor. She opened her sides, watching as he slide the gun over to her, it reaching her feet. - I thought we were done with you being afraid of me. 

     - James ...

     - Bucky. - he corrected her, still standing on the opposite side of the room. She stood there motionless but he started walking up to her. - You think I want to kill you.

    - The worse thing I have ever did was what I did to you. Besides, Wanda saw one of your friends on campus with a gun.

    - We always carry guns, petal. The question is what have you done to me?

    - I’ve betrayed you.

    - Have you? Because I don’t remember my shipment being intercepted not that it would, I lied to you.

    - You lied to me?

    - I never doubted your ... your affections towards me but I did doubt your loyalty to your father. I was surprised. 

    - Were you?

    - No, I lied. What I was surprised about what that you took a bullet meant for me. What the fuck were you thinking? You could’ve died.

    - I don’t know.

    - You ran away from me. I wanted ... I ...

    - What did you want, Bucky? - she cocked her head to the side, examining him and whatever his thoughts were doing to him.

    - I wanted you. I wanted to have been by your side when you took a bullet for me, I wanted you in my bed, not in my bar I hate watching other men ogle you. I wanted you to marry me and carry my child. I wanted to give you everything I have and some more, all of what I have and all of what I don’t have. I wanted you, the captain’s daughter. I adored you. 

   - You don’t know me.

   - I know you. You’re a terrible liar, can’t lie to save your life. Your heart ... - he stepped closer and closer to her. - Is on your sleeve. You might not know who you are or you might forget it but when you do remember I control everything but you control me. 

   - Bucky ...

   - I just wanted to see you’re alive and well. I’ll leave and promise you’ll never see me again if you want. 

   - You didn’t ask me what I wanted.

   - What do you want, petal?

   - I want you to kiss me. 

   - I know where that ends, petal. - he smirked, hand searching for hers. - Very tempting of you to do those things to me. 

5 YEARS LATER

It was cold, the sort of cold Bucky had began to hate, the sort of cold he felt whenever she left early in the morning to go to work but it was the sort of cold which mixed with sweet memories. Nevertheless, there he was, at another meeting, hearing whatever bullshit excuses Rumlow had to give him. Steve had been the one to suggest taking his territory rather than just off him yet taking care of a damaged business with an even more damaged partner was doing his head in. He stood against the new furnished couches of the bar, drinking his scotch as he heard Rumlow ramble and ramble about how he had good ideas. He had ideas, just not good ones. An hour late he was leaving the godless establishment to return home. He walked home as he always did during winter, watching the newly put up Christmas lights in the streets. His apartment wasn’t too far, having sold his previous one once Y/N moved back to Massachuts to buy one near her and then selling it once she graduated to buy another one. It was close to the bar and she liked it that way, constantly begging him not to go during Christmas and stay with her but business was business. Entering his home, the electrical fireplace was on and his heavily pregnant wife was barefoot, walking side to side and jumping into her dress.

    - Stop jumping, you’ll fall and hurt yourself. - Bucky smirked, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her body. - And we all know you can’t get up when you fall. 

    - So funny. - she playfully slapped him on the chest. - It’s almost as if this wasn’t your fault. 

    - How’s our little boy?

    - How do you know it’s not a girl? - she smirked. - Nice try, Bucky but you’ll only know when the baby is born. 

    - You’re killing me here.

    - Come on, we have to go to the twin’s baby shower.

    - Explain to me again why did your friend decided to do a baby shower after the babies were born?

    - So that she would tell us what size clothes they are. - she gave him a soft kiss, leaning against him. - You won’t be your usual grumpy, scary self. You’ll be good to the other dads. 

    - What will I tell the other dads when they ask me what I do?

    - You’re a business man. - she straightened his suit’s lapel. - Isn’t that somewhat true?

    - You’re lucky I adore you.

    - Come on. 

Bucky found it hard mixing both of their lifestyles, but he did it for her. God, he had done so much for her and he only wanted to do more for her. If someone had told him he’d beg the police captain to go to his wedding just to make Y/N happy, he would’ve laughed, yet Y/N deserved it. His father had pretty much set her aside once it came to light she was hanging out with him and he couldn’t help but feel guilty about it. He didn’t have many friends and those he had had completely relationships to the friends Y/N had, nevertheless he tried. He wanted to be the best husband and the best father he could possibly be. Bucky would lay sleepless every single night wondering how he’d do it. How would he go to profession day and tell kids about his job? He couldn’t or he’d traumatise them. Nevertheless, he worried. Y/N was going to be a great mum, the best mum even but him? He wasn’t so sure.

They reached Wanda’s place which was decorated with all sorts of baby blue decorations. 2 boys in one go. If Bucky suddenly had two kids, he would’ve had a heart attack. He barely knew he could be a good dad for one, imagine two.

    - Oh my god, you’re huge. - Wanda said as she opened the door. - How come it’s not out yet?

    - The baby’s stubborn like his father. 

    - More like his mother. - Wanda added. - Come see the twins.

There were two bassinets on the living room where Vision was frantically rocking them side to side, Pietro sat in the couch on his phone while most of the guests were still to arrive. Y/N looked over the bassinets, the two babies laying there wide awake which probably explained why Vision looked so overwhelmed. 

   - Why are they so big? - Y/N whispered to Bucky. - I can’t push something that big out of me. 

   - Well, think positive, at least you’re only pushing one out of you and not two. 

   - So that’s Billy and that’s Tommy. I think. - Wanda cocked her head to the side. - Well, Billy replies to his name and Tommy doesn’t.

    - Can I hold one? 

    - Sure. Bucky, do you wanna hold one? - Wanda asked and before he could reply, the redhead had already put a baby in his arms. James hadn’t held a baby, he didn’t know how to hold a baby yet there it was, a baby. - Aw, look at that Billy or Tommy likes you.

   - We’re still working on what colour we should dress one another so we know which one is which. - Vision added. - Pietro is still upset we didn’t name one Pietro.

   - Y/N you will name your baby Pietro if it’s a boy. 

   - Absolutely not. - she said as she cooed the baby in her arms. - They’re so beautiful. Congratulations. 

   - Yeah ... - Bucky handed back the baby to Wanda. - Do you think I can use your balcony?

   - Sure. 

Y/N furrowed her browns, putting the baby back in his crib before excusing herself. She gave Bucky some time before following him and there he was, leaned against the wall, cigarette hanging from the middle of his lips as his wild blue eyes observed the night sky. 

   - It’s a filthy habit. - she walked into the balcony. - What’s stressing you?

   - Nothing’s stressing me, petal.

  - You always smoke when you’re stressed so let it out. What’s wrong? Is it Rumlow?

  - Rumlow wishes he could stress me. 

  - Bucky.

  - You’re pregnant, petal. Like ... really, really pregnant.

  - We’ve established that. - she looked at her own bump. - You thought it was a food baby?

  - I don’t know, looking at Wanda’s kids ... we will have a baby in less than a month and I am going to be a father and I will screw it up. I’m not ready.

  - You’re stressed about being a dad? - she wrapped her arms around his neck, soft kind eyes looking at him. - Buck, everyone’s stressed with their first baby. You’re going to be a great dad.

  - I should get a new job.

  - Not this again.

  - Yes. I need to get a new job so the baby ...

  - Bucky, you don’t need a new job. - she interrupted him. - Your job won’t put the baby in danger because I won’t let it happen. I don’t know if you remember but I’m very good at deflecting bullets.

  - Deflecting? - he laughed. - You’re very good at catching them.

  - Either way, you’re going to be a great dad. Steve’s a great dad and he went parachuting without a parachute like an idiot. You take a parachute, at least.

  - I see your point.

  - James Barnes, in exactly five months you’re gonna be as good as a father as you could be. - she leaned against him, taking her opportunity to take the cigarette away from his mouth and tossing it out the balcony. Her eyes followed up to his face, intently on something. - What?

  - I smell snow.   

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[fallenflowersfromgrace]

Stories, Memories, and Gossip (Sorta)

Should he have discouraged this idea? Probably. Should he have grabbed Eda instead of letting Lilith take matters into her own hands? Yep. Were the stories Lilith decided to share with him absolutely worth it? Most definitely. 

“Oh please, you should’ve seen what happened the first year I went to a Covention as part of the coven,” Lilith snorted as she took a sip of her wine. 

“Somehow I doubt it’s worse than you and Eda nearly blowing the roof off the place,” King huffed in amusement. 

“Oh, no. That incident was a separate thing on its own,” Lilith waved a dismissive hand. “When I went, I wasn’t a coven leader yet, but a few of my co-workers were going to perform.”

“Oh?” King wagged his tail at the subtle smirk Lilith shot him. 

“I wasn’t sure what happened, but I think one of the performers got nervous or something and instead of lighting a flame, they set their cloak on fire.” 

“Set their cloak on fire,” King deadpanned. "What kind of idiot sets their own cloak on fire?"

“Oh, it gets better.” Lilith snorted, “So instead of having someone blast ice or hell, even grab a bucket of water, the fool keeps their cloak on, starts running around screaming, while all the other ones attempted to carry on with the show.” 

“That sounds like a disaster.”

“It took two minutes for the one on fire to drop to the floor, and that’s when those idiots realized that practically everyone in the arena witnessed an accidental suicide. Turns out they were fine but we didn’t find out till hours later, and the ones on stage decided that the best way to deal with this, keep in mind there were illusionists on stage, was to throw someone’s cloak over them until the performance was over.”

“I wish I could’ve seen that.” King chuckled, “Just imagine all those poor souls having no idea what happened as everything goes up into literal flames. It’s amazing!”

“Please, you think the most powerful coven in Isles would have a lot more of common sense...yes I’m aware of the sentence that just came out of my mouth. I’m a hypocrite.” Lilith scoffed, obviously no longer sober. “I once walked into Kiki’s office to bring her a report. So she’s standing on her desk, which is right by the window, with a stack of paper in her hands. I watch her draw a spell circle to turn on the fan, which was pointed at the window, and surprise! The wind from the fan blows the stack of papers out of her hands and out the window.” 

“Why do I feel like the Emperor’s Coven is just made up of a bunch of bone heads?”

“In Kiki’s defense we were both a lot younger, and she despises me because I’m the only one to have witnessed her slip up that badly.” Lilith shrugged, “I held the fact she jumped out of a three-story window for those papers literally over her for a decade.”

“I need a series of this.” King cackled, “Kikimora, Belos’ right hand, jumped out of a window for papers that blew out of her hands.”

“Oh, I’ve witnessed the castle’s kitchen nearly burning down when one of the ex-coven members left a cutting board on the stove and started a fire.”

“That’s not that bad.”

“It happened four times in a week.”

“How does someone manage that?”

“Don’t know. But they were fired shortly after. They lasted longer than the idiot who thought that stabbing Warden Wrath with a fork for an experiment was a good idea.”

“Can I get this in writing?” King was breathing head due to the lack of air. “I could turn it into a book!”

“As amusing as that would be, no.” Lilith shuddered, “Belos would kill us all for certain.” She smirked, “That reminds me, a fight once broke out in the library between two members who I don’t even remember, but I knew that at some point they had started throwing books before it escalated and more people had joined in. Tables were being thrown, bodies were flying...I think a few trash cans too. Kiki and I were in there trying to stop the fight. We’re directing objects, pinning down coven members with magic. So Belos gets a note of this, goes down there to scare them all shitless for acting like children, and as soon as he enters the library, he gets hit with a chair. The room went silent and you hear a collective thud of several objects hitting the ground, and Belos death glares everyone in the room before telling us to get back to work.” 

“He never figured it out?” 

“It was either tear apart his entire coven to find the culprit or just accept it was an accident and move on.”  

“Do you know who did it?”

“It is a blessing that a handful of the coven favored illusion magic at the time.” 

“Okay, so behind closed doors, this entire mess of a coven is literally hanging on by a thread.” King scoffed, realizing that the EC and Belos were actually a bunch of nutjobs. “Got anything that was made public?”

Lilith went quiet for a moment, musing over the question and occasionally sipping the remains of her wine. Who knew that Lilith had so many stories to tell? King made the mental note that if he ever wanted to laugh this hard again in life, all he needed was to get Lilith to pass the, oh, talking about the coven makes me depressed and guilty stage. 

“Did Edalyn ever tell you about The Great Fire?” Lilith asked as she set her glass down. 

“Did the castle catch on fire or something?” King stared at her in confusion. 

“Guess not.” The witch chuckled as she ran a hand through her hair. “When my sister was first labeled as a wild witch, Belos sent Kiki to capture her.” There was a dark chuckle, “This was actually the mission that made her retire from fieldwork.”

“OOOOO the breaking of a soul has caught my attention.”

“To put it simply, Edalyn casted a spell that set Kiki on fire which was only able to be put out three hours later.” Lilith cackled, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye, “She came back... just this small angry fume that was literally smoking, and proceeded to mope for the next three weeks about it. The worst part was the fact that while she was on fire, no harm actually came to her so they couldn’t arrest my sister for attempted murder. ”

“Why do more than half of your stories include awful, but amusing, things happening to Kikimora?”  

“Because she and I have it out for each other.” 

“Got any weird stuff that happened while you working? Like on missions?”

“There was this one time we busted a group of older kids that were selling drugs out to some students a few years back. I was riding with an imperial guard to the Conformatorium, and I heard one of the older teens snapping at their friend to stop taking selfies. We are literally on our way to jail.”

“Teenagers,” King whuffled.

“Oh,” Lilith groaned as another memory came to mind. “I was in my late twenties when Warden Wrath attempted to court me-”

“Wait.” King perked up, “The same Warden Wrath who runs the Conformatorium?”

“Yes?”

“He asked you out?” 

“Why do I feel offended by that question?”

“Because the day Eda and I met Luz was the same day he asked Eda out.”

“Are you serious? He asked my sister out?”

“Well-”

“Edalyn can do so much better than him.” Lilith scoffed, “I’m offended on her behalf that he thinks he’s worthy of her.”

“Well besides that, did you go out with him or not?” King smirked as Lilith scowled. 

“Never.” The witch chuckled, “Came in with a load of prisoners. They were a group of criminals that tried breaking into a store, and Kiki was overseeing the mission during that time and so Warden Wrath meets us at the front and asks me out on the spot...and Kiki...the little gremlin somehow managed to grab a broom and chased him down the hallway while screaming about being unprofessional."

“Nice,” He nodded his head in approval. “You know, I never thought you would have a whole book worth of stories of epic fails. I expected more prim and proper stuff.”

“When you’re around the same people for more than a decade, you witness coven members crying their eyes out at work over a breakup, reports missing because someone had assumed that the filing system was broken, attempting to cover for your co-workers who are obviously hungover, trying not to lose track of a very dangerous item that was passed around the castle like some form of keep away, and getting into a war with your superior over who could piss the other one off the most without using magic. I won that battle by the way.”

“What did you do?”

“I moved everything in her office exactly two inches to the right and stuck her report onto the top shelf of her bookcase where she only kept fake plants. Because if she wanted them back, she was either going to have to launch herself from her desk to the bookcase or ask someone for help.” Lilith cackled, “She didn’t talk to me for an entire month.” 

“You’re evil.” King blinked in surprise before narrowing his eyes, “I like it.”

“You know…” Lilith sighed as she tilted her head back, “Despite how horrible the job was, I think the greatest moment I ever had was showing them a witch with curly red hair could kick ass any day of the week. Being surrounded by people who expected me to be perfect all the time, I can most definitely live without.” 

“Understandable.” King shrugged, “You’re better off with us anyway."

"Oh for sure," Lilith nodded. "I don't have to deal with rumors and everything else floating around that damn place."

"What?" 

"I was once legally dead for two days."

WHAT?!" 

[cowboyified]

Below are some WIPs I’m releasing into the wild. They were all written at different times over the past two years so any mistakes/cliches you can blame on past June, I don’t know them. 

Go, be free.

This first one I think is the one I’m most fond of. I had such a vision for it; bottlecaps in trees, river swimming, making out against the fridge, all that good stuff you get with weecest. 

The summer Sam is seventeen they stay in one place for long enough Dean starts referring to it as ‘home’. 

It’s an old farmhouse, miles from any other structure, bar an outhouse and hay shed. There’s a porch running the length of the front and back, the wooden boards pulled up from their nails, wavy with the weather. Weatherboard paint peeling, wallpaper inside torn and missing in most places. 

They’re squatting, technically. The property owned by a family saved by hunters once, friends of friends of Bobby’s, too distraught by what they’d witnessed to raise their kids on cursed land. Dean had told Sam that Dad had been told by Bobby that had been told by Pastor Jim that it was chupacabras. A whole pack of ‘em, feeding off the lambs in the back paddock, tried to take a bite out of the baby girl and Sam had said, “As if man, those things are tiny, I’ve seen pictures, you could kick one and it would limp away like a fucking chihuaha, you scared of chihuahas, huh, Dean?” But Sam still hikes his sheet up under his chin when he hears scuffling under their window between sleep. 

There’s remnants of the house’s past inhabitants still scattered around the place. Sam had stood and slid two inches on the wheels of a tiny replica car that had been jammed under the couch the second day they arrived, piffed it at his brother’s head, who’d caught it, exclaimed that it was Camero, dude, treat her with some respect and had sat it on top of the fridge. 

The bookshelf in the corner of their shared bedroom holds mostly dust and tattered occult books stolen from libraries from all over the country, left by hunters who have found what they’ve needed and moved on. There are a few of the worst Stephen King novels shoved haphazardly on the top shelf and Sam finds something funny in that, the irony in enjoying bad horror when the real deal lurks behind the screen door. 

Dean gives him a look when Sam pulls down and cracks open a copy of The Tommyknockers, snorts, “Haven’t you read that one already?” and Sam says, tucking himself into bed, “Yeah, it fucking sucks, King was royally off his head while writing it, that’s why it’s so good.” Sam finishes three quarters of it in one sitting while listening to Dean’s quiet snores from the other side of the room. 

It’s a ten minute drive to the closest town, an off the highway, invisible to the outside world, kind of one-street community. No reason to take the exit if you don’t already know it’s there, one store, one gas station, one bar in an old brick post office building, unfitting, the carpet pulled up at the corners but home to the best fries Sam has ever had in his life. 

Sam follows Dean out to the courtyard, neither of them are legally old enough to drink but there’s nothing else to do but to get respectably drunk in a place like this, anyone that has lived long enough in the true country is some kind of functioning alcoholic, so Dean orders a beer and isn’t asked for ID. In a town small enough for everyone to know every intricate detail in the threads of dirty laundry, they are foreigners. No one knows where they’re from or where they’re going and Sam knows that Dean likes it that way.

It’s never been a secret that Sam prefers to feel like he has a part in everyday normalcy. Dean thrives under anonymity, gets a kick out of it because it makes him feel dangerous. He had stopped accompanying Sam to school two states ago, a silent agreement with their father when Dean had come home early and helped John cut splits into the tips of bullets instead. Like hell I’m signing up for compulsory extra curricular activities. What’s the point in making friends with people whose biggest concerns are the answers to whatever bullshit test and who fucked who last Friday? 

Finding comfort in a nine-to-five kind of community is a flaw Sam’s been burdened to deal with. 

It’s early afternoon, the courtyard is empty and the table they chose rocks on its legs every time Dean slides his drink over for Sam to share. It’s bitter and Sam hasn’t had enough beer in his life to know if it’s supposed to be like that or if it has just soured from the long journey it took to get from the brewery to their glass. He drinks it and doesn’t grimace because his brother is looking at him through the rays of warm country sun. 

“Tastes like piss, huh,” Dean says, leaning forward out of the light so Sam can see him clearly again. He takes back the glass. 

“S’not that bad,” Sam replies, rubbing the leftover condensation into his hand, doesn’t look at Dean, finds it hard these days, twists in his gut all wrong. Sam knows why. 

His brother hums, “There’s gotta be something else to do around here.”

Sam thinks, Dad’s left the car, we can go wherever we want, but doesn’t say it because his brother is loyal to a disastrous fault. 

That’s a recurring thought. Sam in the shotgun seat, his brother behind the wheel, driving away. Just away, to someplace else and they’d be okay because they’d have each other and all Sam ever needs is his brother, like water. But John will be back in two weeks, term starts again in a month and he needs his father to sign the enrollment forms. Two more years. 

“You see the old dredge outside of town?” Sam asks, remembers passing it when they arrived, all twisted, rusting metal, the bones of it against the setting sun.

“What did I tell you about respecting your elders?”

“You told me that they all smell like porridge and are easily susceptible to sleight of hand. No, Dean, Dredge,” Sam stresses. “Big rusty old machine that pulls minerals out of water.”

“Looking to strike big, Sammy?”

“Yeah, you see, my family is poor, brother at home too dumb to get a job. Our father went to get milk and never came back,” Sam sniffs for effect. “I can’t go home empty handed again, sir.” 

“Ah, a real sob story,” Dean nods in understanding, tips his head back and finishes the beer. “Let’s get out there then, sonny. We shan't let that simpleton, downright fool of a brother go hungry.” Dean jabs Sam in the ribs when he stands, hard enough for him to gasp, gets Sam’s head under his arm before he can recover. Sam claws embarrassingly at his brother’s torso, face pressed warm into the side of Dean’s waist. 

“I will pray for us young Samuel, for I too, dream of riches,” his brother is exclaiming, tripping them out and onto the street. “I only ask that we share whatever bounty dredged as I saw the most exquisite pony a few miles back and I simply must have it.”

And Sam thinks - with his flushed cheek hard against Dean’s skin through the thin sweaty fabric of his shirt, heart beating too fast against his ribs in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion - you can have it all. 

---

Sam’s brother’s perpetual state of being is ten miles over the speed limit; this can be applied to almost every aspect of him. Dean goes and goes and rarely stops. They’re pushing double that out of town, north of their property, into the forever stretch of flat land and Sam loses himself in it. That idea of away, of going and going and that Dean could take him because he’s an expert in the field. 

The Impala blasts Born To Be Wild and Sam imagines the lyrics spreading out over the dry grass. He rolls the window down and throws his head out, trying his best to keep his eyes open against the road’s wind. The sun beats down, warmth soaking through and into his bones and Sam laughs as the cattle turn to catch a glimpse of them soaring. 

Dean pulls him in, tugs at the back of his shirt, says something along the lines of, what are you, a dog? Should get you a shock collar for all the times you’re a little bitch, but Sam can’t hear him over the roaring of the open window and the look of transparent glee on Dean’s face, it’s loud and assaulting and Sam has to turn away because seeing Dean like that wobbles him dangerously from the nonchalant facade he has going on in relation to how he feels about his brother. But mostly his face hurts from smiling too wide.

Used as a warm up last year. Boyking!Sam

He thinks he’s in Louisiana, maybe. That he got here in the tray of a pickup and that he couldn’t feel the wind in his hair like maybe he should. The driver had stopped for a piss-break and Sam had snapped his neck without his hands.

He rubs them together now, tries to feel guilty but there’s nothing to feel guilty about because his hands are clean; he doesn’t have to use them anymore. 

Sam thinks he’s in Louisiana because he stepped out of the truck and into a wet kind of heat. There’s a church with thick greenery growing over the roof and white wood that’s been mold-blackened by the humidity. He laughs to the darkness because it's very funny to him that he’s driven himself subconsciously to a place of grace. 

He skips up the steps, two at a time, gleefully. The smell of the bayou and rotting wood has put him in a good mood. The lock snaps when he blinks, the chain unraveling and snaking into a coil at his feet. The doors open for him and maybe he did that with his mind too, or maybe they were just expecting him. 

The church has been used recently, its interior better kept than the outside, bibles tucked neatly in the backs of pews, ribbons tied into plaits. The white of the moon falls in blankets through the windows, shadows of leaves moving over the floor like rippling water and the bust of Mother Mary prays for him at the altar. 

Sam spreads his arms and addresses her, says to the room at large, “Shall I repent for my sins, oh Lord?” and it echoes, gives him goosebumps, a current under his skin. He has an audience here because God is omnipresent, this is a place of worship and Sam has always been good at that. 

A church in Louisiana, standing before a plaster of his mother’s namesake in a church for a God he used to think could have some defying factor in a destiny that was always going to be concrete. It’s funny, blatantly. Sam puts his hands gently to Mary’s cold face, kisses her on her lips before crushing her head, spraying ceramic. 

Sam stands behind the lectern, hands red with his own blood now, sticking the pages of the Good Book. He’s read it before anyway. 

“Am I to be forgiven?” 

Last is a casefic I had planned out in 2019. I didn’t get very far into the actual writing part of it, but I still think the setting is cool, less so the plot I had in mind. 

Just outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut there’s a community built on a sandbar. A small secluded semi-island, connected to the mainland by a mile-long beachfront. A town of forty to fifty now abandoned, vandalised residences.

The police find the bodies of the boys there, bleeding out and into the sand, each other’s skin caught under their fingernails. 

Sam watches as his brother pulls the sheet back from one of the corpses, laying blue on the steel morgue tray. He’s a kid, a boy, not even eighteen. Hairless, lanky, multiple stab wounds puckered around his belly and Sam thinks he does not look peaceful for someone who is meant to be at rest. 

Dean is quieter than usual, his body language stiff. They’ve seen their fair share of dead kids but Sam thinks that this one might look a little too much like an adolescent version of himself. Shaggy brown hair, too long limbs, college on the horizon. Sam blankets the sheet back over the boy’s face and hears his brother exhale in what he thinks might be relief.

The coroner tells them that the other two are the same, besides the youngest one. He’d been blinded, thumbs pushed through his eyes until they popped like grapes. He asks if they want to see him too and Sam says no, thank you, we’ve got what we need.

Which is a whole lot of nothing, but they’ve only just arrived and there’s evidence that doesn’t involve corpses that needs to be checked.

“Pussied out in there huh, Sammy?” Dean says as they’re walking down the funeral home’s front steps, past the manicured roses and trimmed lawn. You see these perfect hedges? We’ll treat your dead mother with the same detailed care!

Sam pulls at his tie and scoffs because he knows he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable standing in the morgue; cases that involve kids always rub them both wrong.

[dvixiecups]

"Why are we doing this again?" Ranpo whined from his nest in the back seat, his cheeks stuffed with food.

"Boss asked us to attend this meeting while he went to a more important one," Jun'ichirou explained for quite possibly the 20th time since they had been in the car.

"You can just ignore him, you know," Akiko reminded, also for the 20th time.

"As much as I like our little routine, I'm bored!" Ranpo annouced, throwing a balled up chip bag to the front seat.

Akiko slammed it down with her gloved hand, the car swerving as she took her attention from the road. Jun'ichirou lunged for the wheel in a desperate attempt to steady the car while Akiko turned around to address Ranpo face to face. Fortunately, they were on a desolate straight stretch of the highway, perfect for in-car-disputes.

"I can't sit here for another 5 hours listening to you complain!" She picked up the pile of trash on the dashboard, ignoring Jun'ichirou's reach, "Do you know how fucking difficult it is to drive and deal with this?"

Anger didn't reach her tone, it was a petty thing to be mad about and the only real reason she was persuing it was out of boredom. Driving on a plain road in a plain car listening to plain people was not her ideal Saturday, and the sheer plainess of it all was causing her to doze off every so often.

"Do you know how hard it is to sit here and do nothing? I'm practically falling asleep! And your driving is awful, you're gonna make me throw up all my snacks," a hint of sincerity touched his tone, he was bored and he did also feel quite nauseous, but Akiko was actually a surprisingly good driver.

"Fine then."

Akiko nudged her passengers hands off the wheel, sharply turning the car onto the shoulder while slamming down onto the brake.

Ranpo, who had been unbuckled, flew out of his seat, face smashing against the back of Jun'ichirou's chair.

"You drive," Akiko challenged, stepping out of the car and walking around to open Ranpo's door.

Pulling himself off the floor infront of the seat, Ranpo agreed to the challenge presented. He had run out of snacks which left the detective nothing to distract himself from the soft vibrations of the car and the dizzying blur of the outside world.

Once everyone was settled in their new seats, Akiko horizontal across the backseat with her arms as pillows already falling asleep and Ranpo adjusting the seat for his height, the gang took off.

"I didn't know you could drive," Jun'ichirou commented, genuinly surprised at the smooth ride.

"Neither did I," Ranpo laughed.

Jun'ichirou's eyes widened in fear as he turned to assess Ranpo's smiling face for any sign of a joke. There was none.

"You do have your liscense, right?"

Ranpo didn't respond, just kept smiling. Anxiety pulling at him, Jun'ichirou sank down in the car seat, suddenly regretting having agreed to attend this meeting. In response to this, Ranpo turned up the radio and rolled down the front two windows.

"Now this!" He shouted over the wind, "Is a car ride."

The fresh air billowing in and harmony's filling the car distracted Ranpo from the sour feeling in his stomach. It was truly nice, the sweet air danced around the car, whipping through Ranpo's hair and taking his hat to the back seat. Plastic rustled around the car as the air threatened to take the trash out the window, leaving the passengers to scramble to stuff all the wrappers into one shopping bag.

Once all that was finished, a distinct calm fell over the car, blanketing the trio in a comfortable stillness, the sound of wind and the radio blending in with the background as if they had always been there and always will be. Everyone appreciated this environment, everyone but Ranpo.

With nothing to distract himself but the winding stretch of road ahead, he began to feel his nausea swell. His smile quickly fade, though the attitude change went unnoticed by the two napping people in the car. Ranpo wanted to wake them up and ask them what to do, but fear glued his lips together. White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as the detective tried to think of a plan to dull the awful sharp feeling in his gut.

His best option, he decided, was to pull over. But where? They were driving along a cliffside, one side a towering rock and the other a steep drop. So that was a no. His other option was to stop in the middle of the road. But that wasn't possible. Two cars where on lined up behind the three, and judging by how close they were to Ranpo's vehicle, they would not appreciate a sudden stop. Which brings him to his third option. Open his mouth and ask for help. If he manages to say it quick enough then maybe his co-workers could do something about it.

But he couldn't waste his breath on trying to get them awake, and the road was too treacherous from him to safely shake Jun'ichirou awake. So he decided to blast the radio.

This worked very well, both passengers awoke with a startle, eyes searching for danger and relaxing when they found none. Satisfied with himself, Ranpo turned down the volume.

"What's going on?" Akiko questioned, poking her head between the two front seats.

"I don't feel good," Ranpo pouted, his shoulder's rising with a hiccup to punctuate his statement.

"Are you bored?" Jun'ichirou asked.

"No!" Ranpo's voice ended with a high pitched whine, "I feel like how I did when we ate at that one place."

Despite his intense vagueness, Akiko knew what he was talking about. Her eyes widened in realization as her hands scrambled for the shopping bag from earlier.

"How long have you felt like this? Will you be fine until we can pull over," Jun'ichirou wondered, his hands also searching for the shopping bag.

Ranpo didn't open his mouth, he couldn't anymore.

"Found it!" Akiko announced, dumping all the trash out of the plastic grocery bag before tossing it onto Ranpo's lap.

"What's he supposed to do with that? He's driving!"

"Then hold it for him! Unless you wanna clean up after him."

Out of the two options Akiko had presented him, Jun'ichirou opted for the latter. It was difficult to properly grab and open the bag when given the obstacles of Ranpo's arms and his absurd sleeves, but after twenty-ish seconds the mouth of the bag was under Ranpo's chin.

"I can't hold this position for long," Jun'ichirou informed.

"Give him a break! This isn't the most comfortable thing for him either," Akiko defended.

Just as Ranpo's chest clenched with a gag, the road opened up to allow for a passing lane. The cars following behind quickly sped ahead and Ranpo slammed on the brakes.

"You can't just stop in the middle of the road!" Jun'ichirou gasped, his arms coming back to his side.

"There's a passing lane, plus this is an emergency."

Ranpo ignored their conversation as he flung open the car door and leaned over as far as his seatbelt would allow. Akiko unbuckled aswell, reaching her hand around to rub the detectives back.

Gags mercilessly took over Ranpo's body, the mixture of sweets in his stomach swirling with a sour anger. He let out a low moan, the faint taste of sugar coating the coppery saliva which flooded his mouth. Spitting out the disgusting liquid, Ranpo began to feel heat rise up his throat. His hands struggled to unclip his seatbelt to allow him freedom from the suffocating vehicle.

Once outside, he braced himself agaisnt the open door, bent over at the waist and spitting out saliva as it formed.

One final gag sent an explosion of butterflies into his ribcage and an explosion of half digested sweets from his mouth. Jun'ichirou groaned from his position and turned away from the sight as Ranpo gagged once more, bringing up an even bigger wave.

Tears sprang to his eyes as exertion drained his body. After one final wave, thinner than the second but thicker than the first, Ranpo sank back into the car. Sniffing, he wiped his face with his sleeve before curling up on the seat.

"I don't feel good," he stated, face buried in his knees.

"Ohh, I'm sorry," Akiko comforted, brushing her finger's through Ranpo's hair as sympathy heavily laced her tone.

Ranpo's back shaked as he queitly cried, the pain in his stomach suddenly becoming too much for him. Dissatisfied with her position, Akiko stepped out of the car and stood next to the drivers seat, being careful to avoid the mess on the floor.

Leaning in, she softly wrapped her arms around Ranpo, her hand rubbing up and down his side.

"Do you want to go in the backseat now?" She asked after a minute.

Ranpo nodded, allowing himself to be led out of the car. Vertigo slammed against him quickly as the sun rushed into his eyes. Doubling over, he gagged up a mouthful of sick, prompting Akiko to rub his back.

"Should we turn around?" Jun'ichirou asked, concern tainting his tone.

"We can't, we're more than halfway there. We'll just need to find a hotel or someplace we can leave him while us two attend."

Jun'ichirou nodded, "I can drive the rest of the way if you wanna sit back there with him."

Akiko smiled softly and gave a nod of her own, guiding Ranpo into the backseat before sliding in after him.

"Watch your step," she advised as Jun'ichirou stepped around the car.

"Let's hope this isn't something that will last a while," he thought out loud, handing the plastic bag in the front seat back to Akiko.

[time-to-cause-chaos]

catch me to infinity

5 times Wanda catches Peter, and 1 time she doesn't know if she can. (Reblogs appreciated <3) (st*rk*r shippers, pls DNI) (also this is PLATONIC, not slash so yeah, pls don’t read this as slash)

AO3 link    WC: 5,738

1. Accidentally, off a couch

“Wanda”  Peter says, laying across his chair, feet dangling idly in the air.  

“Wandaaa”, Peter whines again.  His half-finished hot cocoa sits abandoned on the coffee table while Wanda sips hers quietly.

Wanda pauses the tv, raising an eyebrow and looking over to Peter with an unimpressed look.  

The guy on the screen is leaning against a wall, mouth half-open, caught in the middle of a joke.

“We’ve watched this episode like a million times.  I can probably tell you every single line and scene by heart at this point.”

Wanda sighs, “Which one should we watch then?”

A quick glance at the window says they’re still stuck inside, if the storming winds and downpour mean anything.  They didn’t have a problem with some light rain, in fact, if Tony and Steve hadn’t expressly told them they couldn’t go outside, they would already be soaked and muddy.  The last day they’d gone outside in the cold though, the next day was full of fevers and snotty napkins so it was decided they’d actually listen this time.  That rainy day had still been awesome though and there were absolutely no regrets, even when Peter was delirious and giggling everywhere in a haze.

The sitcom playing in front of them was one of Wanda’s favorites - probably why Peter had put up with watching it for the millionth time - but at this point, she was barely making it through the episode without wanting to rip her hair out.

She was bored.

Peter came around her and sat on the back of the couch, his feet planted on the cushions.  Flipping through the shows was a waste, they’d also gone through nearly every episode they could and starting a new show right now sounded exhausting.

Wanda slumped and Peter got up, standing on the sofa, “There are so many things we could do, we’re in the Avengers Compound, there can’t be nothing to do.”

“We could go swimming?” Peter asks.

Wanda groans, “Then you’ll be the one explaining why we got sick again”

“Wanda, it’s indoors”

“N-o” she spells out, “No swimming”

“Well what about-”, Wanda doesn’t figure out what Peter was going to say because his balancing act comes toppling down, maybe balancing on his heels and pacing on the headrest of the couch hadn’t been one of his best ideas.

Peter yelps and his arms come over his head as he crashes to the floor.

...Except the crash never comes.

Instead when Peter opens his eyes, his nose is one inch from touching the floorboards and his limbs are covered in bright red ripples of light.

“Whoa”, he breathes, uncurling himself and spreading his arms out, as if he was floating.

Wanda scoffs and with a flick of her fingers, let’s go of her hold on the mist and helps him close the gap between himself and the floor, dropping him harmlessly on the floor.

He picks himself up and looks at her, mouth agape, “Wands, you have powers!” he shouts in glee.

She rolls her eyes and snorts, “Really, Peter?  That is news to me.”

“No, no I mean imagine all the fun things we could do with this”, Peter’s hands flail wildly to emphasize his point, “we could prank the others, for one”

She smirks up at him, “That’s actually not a bad idea”

“When have I ever had a bad idea”

Wanda’s eyebrows pinch together in exasperation, “The swimming idea?”

“Okay, fine moment of weakness but anyways,” he grins, “We need supplies, I’m going to get supplies” 

He snaps his fingers and is out the door before he can hear Wanda yell, “If Tony grounds you, it’s not my fault!”

2.  Mysteriously, for the suspense and drama

Peter laughed into the comms as he kicked one of the bad guys down, “Was that a dad joke, Mr.Stark?”

“It was a pun, there’s a difference Spidey” Tony grunts, blasting up into the air and firing another guy down a stairwell.

Clint pops on the comm link, crackling into their ears, “I’m pretty sure that was a dad joke Tony”

Peter shoots a web onto the ceiling and swings around, webbing up the last few people in the room, “Mr.Stark, just make sure to give us a warning before you go full dad-mode and start playing golf and bringing us our lunches”

“I actually think I did bring your lunch to your school that one time”, Peter doesn’t have to see Mr.Stark’s face to know he’s smirking.

“Nope, nuh-uh, no I definitely don’t remember that”

“Oh yes you do,” Tony laughs, “Your face was red the entire time”

Peter grimaces,”No idea what you’re talking about”.  Oh he definitely did, it had been embarrassing, god and Ned’s jaw was practically on the floor while MJ watched unimpressed as the entire class’s eyes bulged.

“I think I saw some dudes slip up to the roof, I’m going to go grab them” Peter says, changing the subject and looking for Tony for confirmation.

“Go ahead, Underoos.  I’ll be right behind, just going to make sure law enforcement have a hold of these guys, first.”

Peter nods and slips out of the room, already running up the fire escape.  

He bursts out onto the roof and immediately has a gun trained on him.

“Make one move, Spiderman, I dare you”

“Well, I do love a good dare”

Peter ducks behind a potted plant just as the guy fires a bullet.  Spinning out from his hiding place he yells, “I’m going to call you Boots!”

The man was wearing heavy black combat boots with large wedges, a short person’s true love, Peter thinks.

He had thick wedges too on most of his sneakers, but he assured himself Tony he only wore them because they were fun to wear.

Speaking of, he was pretty sure Mr.Stark made his shoes with wedges in them too-

Peter yelps and ducks as the gun fires again, missing him by a foot this time.

Anyways, he was average height, thank you very much.  Anyone who said otherwise could eat his webs and dirt.

Peter notices a slight hesitation in his opponent’s movement and immediately shoots a web out, yanking his gun arm down.  

He flips behind him and punches him down right before the man flips back up, nailing Peter on his nose and forcing him back.

Peter yelps and realizes their fight is nearing the edge of the roof, which had a good 8-story drop behind it.

He tries to push his punches in another direction, trying to redirect them both before one of them goes over but the man stays strong pushing them closer and closer to the edge.

Wanda’s voice comes in through the comms, “Peter, where are you?”

“Roof” Peter barely gets out through his grunts.

“I’m under you” she says.

Ironman comes out through the roof access door and watches as Peter stumbles, barely inches from tipping over the side.

He raises a metal hand, ready to shoot but Peter stops him, “Just trust me”

He would’ve let Tony handle it, but the blast could knock him off too, not just the other guy, and if he was going to plummet off a building today, he wanted to do it on his own terms.

Balancing on the small wall, the only thing keeping him from falling off, Peter jumps sideways just as the man raises a leg to kick him down.  

Peter smirks, using two fingers to salute, “Sayonara, sucker” he laughs as he pushes off and starts free-falling backwards, wind and gravity pushing on him.

That was so cool, he thinks.  It was a perfect reenactment of those scenes in movies where a character will dramatically fall off a roof narrowly escaping their nemesis and then gets caught by like, a dragon or a flying pirate ship.

It’s called a fashionable exit, to all the uncultured misfortunes who think it’s stupid.

Mr.Stark was probably pretty confused about what just happened though.

He plunges through the air for a full three seconds before he’s caught by Wanda’s magic, floating mid-air.

He catches a glimpse of her pursed lips and smiles, “You’re so dramatic” she tells him, concealing her amused eyes.

Wanda takes them both up to the roof where Mr.Stark already has the man Peter was fighting, tied down.

Tony groans in exasperation when he sees them both, already having figured out their little magic act.

They just laugh.

3. To annoy, off the counter

It’s a Friday and the essay sitting on the table next to Wanda has already been long abandoned.  He was not going to waste another minute trying to figure out what personal connection he could make the short story they’d been assigned to read during class.

He related to it because he’d been in a similar situation maybe?  

But anyways, he wasn’t going to waste time trying to find a way to spread that over 8 detailed sentences and supporting textual evidence.

He’s sitting on the counter and watching Wanda and Vision read books next to each other on the chairs.  Wanda’s legs are resting on Vision’s lap and as fun as it was watching them both, he was still exhausted and not in the mood to face the dangers of his other homework for tonight.  

Didn’t Mr.Stark say not to risk his life unnecessarily?  This should definitely count because just looking as the textbook took away two hours of his energy, at this rate he’d be on his death-bed by nightfall.

Munching on a protein bar, he looks up at the ceiling.  

The only one in the building right now, besides Vision and Wanda, was Steve - well technically Mr.Stark too, but he was in a board meeting that Pepper begged him not to bail on so he was off-limits.  

He glares at Wanda, trying to get her to notice him bored out of his mind, but she stubbornly stays focused on the page.

She’s actually reading Harry Potter, the result of Peter’s pestering, and she loved it.  The plan to get Wanda to do something with him was interfering with the joy he would usually feel though.

Like yay, my pseudo big sister is finally catching up on all the books and movies she’s missed while working with evil people but also please please please notice me before i throw my stupid homework into the sink disposal-

His alarming train of thought still didn’t catch her attention so he slumps before getting up and deciding to walk all over the counters and ceiling.  You know if that mark on the wall from when someone - ahem Clint ahem - had thrown a pen on the ceiling, acted like a mark he could pretend he was doing an obstacle course.

Yes, he could see it now, he’d do a cartwheel over the pen mark on the ceiling, then run on the wall, then he’d jump over the couch, and jump back onto the counter, the living room was plenty big enough.

Wow, this is a sorry excuse for fun.

He did the course three times and was skittering across the ceiling when Steve walked in and immediately shook his head at him.

Peter freezes in surprise and looks guiltily at Steve.

“I’m guessing the homework didn’t get done”, Steve says.

Peter sits criss-cross on the ceiling, if he gets down, he’s probably going to be guilt-tripped into doing his homework and no thank you.

Steve sighs and looks at him, “At least get down, you’re going to fall and get hurt.”

“No I won’t.  I’m part-spider, this is like my natural territory”, Peter says.

“You have the traits of a spider”

Why did he always have to pull out the school detention PSA voice?

“But look!  I can do a cartwheel on here, I’ve been doing them and I’m fine”

He’ll get down, as soon as he does just one, little cartwheel to annoy Steve.

Of course, that’s when his body decides to betray him and he slips, losing his grip on the ceiling.

He wasn’t worried about falling and smashing his nose at all, he knew Wanda would catch him every single time, in fact he’s already crossing his arms over his chest and scowling as he hovers on his back 3 feet above the ground.

Steve walks by him, still suspended in the air, and ruffles his hair, “Homework now”, then probably feeling bad for Peter, he adds, “Tony said you can use the lab later if you finish early”

Peter groans, “Fine”

Wanda puts him on the couch and he walks over to her and drops in the chair next to her on the table.  She hasn’t looked up once this entire time, not even when she’d caught him in the air, only unlatching her fingers from Vision’s and stopping his fall with her powers.  

Now she looks up and smiles at him, poking his forehead and pushing his computer towards him.

He groans again.

4.  To spite and win, off the balcony

Peter licks his lips, running through the plan again.

There’s someone coming down this hall, he can hear their soft footsteps padding on the floor.  Peter’s going to jump out and get the offending person out of the game, it’ll be easy as long as he times it right.

He jumps out from where he’s hiding behind the door frame and pulls up the gun aiming it at the unsuspecting form.

His paintball gun chooses right then to stall and dang it, that means that he has no defense or attack.

He looks up to find Clint grinning at him coyly, gun already trained on him and finger poised on the trigger.

He yelps and jumps out of the way just in time, the purple paintball splattering against the counter.

Peter runs back through the hallway, getting away from Clint and his treacherous smile (it was the smile of a deranged man who would do anything it takes to win paintball) and finds a cleaning closet to hide in while he fixes his gun.

Did the plastic pieces just have to jam right then? Talk about shitty luck.

He picks at the inside of the barrel with a toothpick and grins as a faint click ensures that the machine is functioning again.  The paintball that had gotten stuck shoots out and Peter ducks out of the way as pink splatters against the dark wall.

He knows Clint’s prowling the halls for him right now and he prays the man didn’t just hear the shotgun go off.

Slowly creaking the door open and making sure there’s no one there, he tip-toes out and runs to the balcony, it’s the perfect place to hide out and wait for his next victim.  The second anyone enters the living room, he has the perfect view on them and nobody looks at the balcony until it’s too late, which means more wins for him.

He underestimated Clint though.

The older man jumps out (umm where did he come from??) and kicks Peter’s gun away from him with a triumphant laugh.  Peter backs up against the cool metal railing and looks at him imploringly, “Can we talk this out?” he offers weakly.

He really regretted voting for the no superpowers rule now.

“Any last words, Parker”

Peter turns his head around, looking for a way out.  It was too high to jump from without his webs and it won’t be possible to run around Clint without getting hit by a paintball.  

Right before he decides to accept his inevitable defeat he sees a flash of bright red hair hiding in the branches of one of the thick, green trees below them.

“You know what, you got me Clint” he smirks, letting Clint bask in his moment of victory for a second, “Just kidding” and he flips himself back off over the railing.

He really wishes he could’ve seen Clint’s face at that moment, sadly success came with a price.

Right on schedule, the sharp red crackles of electricity catch him a couple of feet from the ground and he plants his feet on the ground, turning around to face Wanda.

“Thanks Wands”

“Oh I didn’t do it for you”

It takes him a second too long to figure out what she means but by the time he does it’s already too late, a dark red paintball slams into his protective vest.

“You’re a traitor, Wanda” Peter sulked, wow and here he thought he could actually win - or at least come second to Nat.

“All is fair in love and paintball”

5. Unwillingly, off a stage

Wanda had decided to pick Peter up from his Decathlon practice, it was always Happy who did it but he was sick and plus, they could grab some ice cream and talk before they had to head back.

She tapped her fingers idly on the steering wheel, rapping out a misplaced tune and glances again at the school gates.  

She fixes the rearview mirror and frowns, Peter should have come skipping out 15 minutes ago.

Wanda steps out of the car and smooths her wrinkled hoodie, running her fingers through hair once in the window before walking towards the school.

Her sneakers squeak, echoing loudly through the empty hallways and she has to wrinkle her nose at the spitballs stuck to the walls and lockers.  Someone’s book report flits around in the air and suddenly, she’s incredibly grateful she never had to go to a real high school.

There’s a piece of paper with a handwritten “Academic Decathlon” scribbled on it taped loosely on heavy, wooden doors and she pushes them open, shivering at the rush of cold air that bursts out.

Peering in, Wanda sees Peter on the stage but he’s not alone.  There’s another high-schooler gripping hard at his shoulders and sneering at him, speaking words Wanda’s not close enough to hear.  It doesn’t take any amount of genius to know the two boys weren’t friends/

She doesn’t even have time to intervene because Peter’s pushed off the stage, it’s barely a 2 foot fall but Wanda doesn’t care, she’s angry.

Peter looks at her in surprise with dark red cheeks once she puts him, gently, on the floor.  He practically curls in on himself and she honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her skin was a similar shade as his, just not for the same reason.

She stomps up to the other boy who’s looking at her in alarm and pokes a harsh finger at his chest, “You. bastard.” she accentuates each word by pushing her finger even harder against his t-shirt, “What’s wrong with you?!”

She may not have gone to high school but she definitely knows what a bully is.  She’s had plenty of her own in the past, even if she hadn’t realized it at first.

It wasn’t fair Peter had to go through the same thing, school wasn’t supposed to be like this.  It was where you were supposed to goof off with your friends and learn, not get pushed around by kids because they think they’re better than you.

A hand tugs at her wrist and she’s so wound up nearly forgets to soften her face when Peter tugs again, silently asking her to just drop it.

She looks back at the bully who’s gone pale and pushes him, sending him stumbling back a few feet.

“Don’t touch my little brother again, asshole” she snarls before whipping around and dragging Peter out the doors by his backpack.

By the time they get to the car, Peter still hasn’t said a word and instead opts to look out the window, not even sparing Wanda a small glance.

Her face is still aflame and her hands are still clenched around the wheel as she pulls to the side of the road and parks, looking over at Peter.  His eyes are tinged red.

“I’m sorry” he whispers, the second they’re parked.

“Don’t say sorry, it wasn’t your fault, but why didn’t you fight back?  Just one shove”.  It doesn’t make sense, Peter is strong enough to take on super-soldiers, he practically is one himself with all his advancements, so why doesn’t he just push back?  He doesn’t have to get hurt like this, he doesn’t deserve to.

“I’m just Peter Parker.  I’m not Spiderman at school so it wouldn’t make sense, I can’t just do that”, his fingers dig into his thighs and he kicks lightly at his backpack.

“Then you could’ve said something to us,” she’s looking up at him, eyes almost crazed.  It’s not okay, it’s not even close alright, it’s awful that this happens to him.

And she knows it’s not just a one-time thing.

Not when bullying at Midtown has been discussed far too many times for comfort, not when he’s come back with bruises and marks even when he hasn’t patrolled in days, and definitely not when Peter just tried to subtly wipe a tear from his cheek.

She feels tired all of a sudden, as her raging wave of anger reaches a crescendo and plummets to the ground, scattering, dropping her intentions to take care of anyone who even comes close to hurting Peter with some well-placed punches and kicks.

Wanda sighs and squeezes her eyes shut, blindly, she grabs Peter’s hand and asks, “Was that the Flash guy?”

“No, Flash never gets physical, he’s not too bad.  This is someone else”

“So you’ve been getting bullied by multiple people?”, it’s not a question, she already knows.  “Peter, you’re Spiderman, you know this isn’t right so please, please the next time this happens just” she exhales, “Just please, promise you’ll tell someone, anyone and they’ll take care of it”

“Promise” Peter breathes from next to her.

“Okay” she pulls back into the traffic, “I’m getting cookie dough ice cream, which one do you want?”

+1.  This one was definitely not supposed to happen, shit, shitshit

It’s getting really hard to breathe.

Which should probably not be happening, but in Peter’s defense, he hadn’t even wanted to skip class.  MJ had told him to, quote, “Get out of here before your dumbass throws up on someone’s shoes” and for once he’d actually listened, deciding going home and sleeping his fever off was better than being stuck in a stuffy old classroom, doing schoolwork.  

The heater of the apartment sounded like heaven and sunshine right about then.

He was just going to take the subway when one of the tv’s turned on, flashing a news report about the Avengers fighting the group of people near the tower.

According to the news channel, they had a whole lot of advanced technology, from ray guns to shapeless contraptions you couldn’t tell heads or tails of.

And there were a lot of them.

So of course, Peter had immediately donned his warm hoodie and jeans and switched into his suit, already swinging towards to get there, it made his stomach queasy and his head spin, but it was fine, he was already almost there.

“Peter, you’re not doing this right now, stop it and go home”, Tony’s voice is playing through Karen the second he’s in range.

“Technically, I’m supposed to be in school right now, Mr.Stark”, Peter swings onto a roof and crashes against someone, knocking them down before looking at the metal cube object they had abandoned.

It was glowing a light purple, which should probably not be happening.

He walked cautiously around it and his eyes widened as the glow got brighter and spread more, covering the entire cube now.

“Shit!”

Peter manages to scramble back before it explodes, leaving a black scorch mark on the floor and the smell of smoke in the air.

“Peter!?”

Oops, he’d forgotten Mr.Stark was there.

“Yeah I’m fine, just where did these people get all this stuff?”

“No idea, but Pete, I swear to god get out of here, or else I’m calling your aunt”, there’s a strangled grunt and the comms go silent.

“Mr.Stark??”, there’s no answer, “Karen, take me to Mr.Stark”

He swings two buildings away and lands on the 9th floor balcony, entering and running towards the signal.  When he enters the room, Tony’s being held up against the wall by someone who’s wearing heavy metal body armor, it could pass for an Iron Man cosplay if you squint really hard.

He jumps over, kicking them down and ducking a punch.  Grabbing the wrist of the armor, Peter twists their arm and slams them on their back before immediately looking back at Tony and helping him up.

“You okay?”, Peter questions.

“Yup, something she used fried the comm link though, I can’t get to to anyone else”

Peter nods and they both run through the halls, racing to get to the top of the building. 

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know, but right now I think they’re just trying to blow stuff up”

Bursting onto the roof, there’s only one person there with some weird silver spear, which honestly looks pretty harmless compared to everything else.

The man there, sees them and immediately backs off, dropping everything and stumbling away with a forced smile.

Tony still closes in on him and Peter webs his wrists and legs to the floor, just in case.

They’re both looking down onto the other rooftops for trouble when the headache Peter has been ignoring grows, and he stumbles back feeling his fever spike.

Tony approaches him and kneels down next to him where he’s sprawled on the floor waiting for the dizzy spell to pass.

“Kid, you have a fever”, Tony says after asking Karen for his vitals.

Peter swallows and fights the urge to keel over and vomit, “I’m fine”

“If I had a penny for every time I heard that” he jokes, voice unbearably soft, “Listen, you stay here and I’ll come and get you when this is over, ‘kay?”

Peter’s about to nod when someone flies onto the roof, they’re wearing goggles and using mechanical wings to help them fly.

Peter’s too dizzy to do anything so he watches as Tony raises a gauntlet and fires it up with a low whine that resonates in Peter’s keyed-up ears.

“Back off”, Tony says as a warning.

The girl smiles and takes off the goggles, slipping them up on her head with a puckish smirk, folding her wings in.

“Pleasure to meet you Iron Man, as well as you Spider”, she has a lilting accent that Peter can’t place.

The gauntlet doesn’t falter, even as Tony shifts so Peter is stuck in his shadow, “What do you want?”

“I want one of your inventions.  I may not be in charge of all these idiots, but my best friend is our leader and if you get me what I want, this can all be called off.”

“Best I can do are scraps from the intern labs, sorry.” he says, before firing a repulsor as she ducks out of the way.

“I wasn’t going to this the hard way but I suppose I’ll have to”, her curly, brown hair whips in her face as she puts it up into a ponytail, still dodging Tony’s blasts.

Peter’s spidey sense flares just as her wings do and she’s coming at him at full speed, lifting him up and flying up, past the buildings.  Oh he really has to hurl now.

Tony swears and tries to blast up, only to realize the girl had stuck a small square chip on him and his suit’s shutting down, his breathing clips and he looks up to where Peter’s being flown up.

He gets out of the suit and runs to the edge of the roof, “Wilson!” he calls, signaling Sam over from where he’s hauling debris out of the street for a car to get through.

Sam flies up to him and without a word, grabs him and flies him over to where Clint, Natasha, and Wanda are a few buildings away.  The whole 30 seconds he hasn’t taken his eyes off the Peter-shaped speck in the sky that’s getting harder and harder to see.

He stumbles over to Clint who’s looking at Wanda in concern, arms braced behind her to catch her if she falls. 

Tony briefly wonders what’s going on, before looking up at the collapsing building in front of them, the scarlet circling her wrists, and the sheen of sweat covering her forehead.

Clint looks over to him, swallowing, “Steve’s in there trying to get the rest of the people out, we can’t get in though, it’s too unstable.  The second Wanda lets go, the entire place is coming crashing down”

Tony can’t hide his panic anymore and he points up the sky, “Clint, it’s Peter”

Clint follows his finger and he jerks, seeing the red and blue suit in the distance, “Oh god”

The comms finally crackle back online and Tony swears his heart skips a beat when he realizes the bird lady just dropped Peter, oh my god.

They’re well over 4,000 feet up and his heart is in his throat as Peter’s screaming floods through the comms.  

Wanda hears it too and her hold on the building falters as she falls to her knees, eyes squeezed shut.  Clint moves to hold her but hovers around her instead, glancing back up at Peter when Wanda has a semi-stable grip again.

Natasha kneels on the ground next to Wanda, “You’re going to have to catch him”

Wanda’s voice teeters on a cry, “I’m trying”

Tony holds back his own cry and desperately tries to speak into the comms, if Peter realizes Tony’s trying to get through to him he doesn’t acknowledge it.

The comms are filled with wheezing and rushing wind and Tony’s gripping his arm so tight because that’s his kid dammit, and he can’t do anything.

Wanda’s attempts at catching him are proving futile, she can’t handle anything else without dropping the building which she can’t do, not when Steve and a whole lot of people are depending on her not to let it go.

“Sam, can’t you take your wings up and get him?”.  He doesn't care how panicked his voice sounds right now.

“One of the guys stuck a chip on it, the thing’s dead-weight now” Sam says, voice filled with sorrow.

Tony gulps in a breath and falls on his knees next to Wanda, “You have to catch him, Wanda” there’s a grim undertone in his voice hiding the waver and pure terror flooding through his veins.

Wanda grunts, tears are shining in her eyes, if it’s because of the strain or Peter, he has no idea.

“GUYS! Guys, guys, I’m falling!” Peter screams into their earpieces, voice cutting out, hot tears squeeze at his eyes.

Wanda looks up with a new sense of determination and her eyes flash, Tony suddenly knows that anyone going toe-to-toe with her would probably run first chance instead of fight.

“You can do it Wanda, come on” Tony pleads.

Peter’s form is getting bigger every second, little by little.

At around 500 feet, a faint glimmer of red runs over his body but it’s not enough, it slows Peter’s fall the tiniest bit before he’s hurtling through the air again.

‘Tony, Tony, Tony” Peter says his name like a prayer in the comms and Tony clenches his fist again, switching between looking at Wanda and Peter so fast, he wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with whiplash.

The strain on Wanda’s forehead grows and her eyes squeeze shut as she tears at her limits.  

Tony stands beside where she’s kneeled on the ground, trying to see if he’d be able to catch Peter if this didn’t work.  He really hoped it didn’t come to that though, he didn’t have his suit and with the speed Peter was falling at, he didn’t know what would happen.

Eyes focused on Peter, Tony realizes a thin, flickering layer of red is very slowly growing over his body.  Relief bubbles in his throat and Wanda is able to slow Peter enough so that he and Sam can grab onto him, they all fall to the ground in a pile of limbs.

Tony grabs Peter under his shoulders and holds him upright as he gags and chokes on nothing, taking off his mask and brushing his curls off of his sweaty face.

Tony’s ears ring with the lingering screams of Wanda and Peter, his throat feels raw and he realizes that in his panic, he had been screaming too.  And it wasn’t just his ears that were buzzing, it seemed like everything was still ringing, the air vibrating with panic.

Peter was held close to Tony’s chest as he shook with heaving gasps and suppressed sobs, dried tear tracks streak the sides of his face and Tony tries to comb his fingers through the knots in Peter’s hair.

Looking around, Tony took everything in, everyone’s faces were pale and Wanda was barely holding herself up on her elbows, her heavy pants were forced through clenched teeth.

She’d let go of her hold on the building as Steve had come running out, waiting till he was out of the damage zone before sending it all crashing down.  All of that had happened just seconds after she had managed to gradually slow Peter down and get him to the ground in one piece.

A sigh of exhaustion huffs through Tony’s nose and the team sits in silence for a few minutes, trying to process all the chaos that had just happened.

Clint was helping Wanda, shakily, sit up and Peter crawled out of Tony’s arms to her before wrapping his trembling arms around her shoulders and whispering something to her.

Tony doesn’t know what was said but Peter was safe, everyone was safe.  They were all alright and his breaths started to come easier.  

Natasha sat next to him giving him a small, reassuring smile.  He leaned back and shut his eyes, making a mental note to add a parachute to Peter’s suit, among many other things.  Also to thank Wanda, because if she hadn’t been here...Tony didn’t want to think about it.

That was done now though.  Tony’s chest feels much lighter when Peter smiles at him over Wanda’s shoulder, the type of smile that conveys a million emotions, with nothing else.

He gives a shaky grin back.

[spoon-writes]

Ends of the Earth | Chapter 25

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Mando x OC

Read on FFN or AO3

Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse, and soon they travel across the galaxy looking for her missing husband.

Chapter index

Chapter 25 - Family

First they had to get rid of all the bodies before the moon's entire bird population descended on the farm. The ones that hadn't disintegrated got piled onto a hovercart that Jami drove into the forest, where Sinead helped him throw the remains into a hollow and cover it up with mud. The forest was too wet for anything to burn, so a shallow grave became their final resting place.

Now they stood around a makeshift table outside the house, where Jami had drawn a vague outline of the mining station with some charcoal. The sun had reached the apex of the sky and was nearing the treeline. The barn creaked in the wind, sounding like strange echoes from the fight. Elia played in a patch of coarse grass.

"If we go in through the gas giant, we can get close without them noticing," Jami said, drawing a squiggly line under the station.

"The area around the station is filled with sensors. We'll never get close even if we go through the giant." Mando cocked his head to the side and studied the slapdash battle plan.

"Won't be a problem if we time it right; the gas giant overheats and throws out a frequency that scrambles the sensors. They won't see us unless they look out the window. And the best part is, they don’t even know about it. I found it when I was snooping through some files left over by the previous occupants."

"Still means we have to get through the hangar. The second we breach the magnetic field, they know we're there," said Mando.

Jami made an X over the column that made up the lower part of the station. "I found an old emergency exit down by the loading bay. The escape pods are long gone, but the magnetic field is still functional. It’ll be a tight squeeze but I’m sure your ship can make it."

"You sure he doesn't know about it?"

Jami scratched the side of his face, leaving behind a streak of coal dust. "I was the only one who bothered learning the layout when we first found the place. Doubt anyone's even thought about it since I left."

"Do I want to know what happened to the last owners?" Sinead asked. Her focus kept shifting from the battle plan to the ship where the child slept.

Laar stood between the house and the temporary war council, arms folded tightly across his chest.

"Place was abandoned when we found it." Jami drew a line through the station. "There's an access tunnel that runs all the way through the station. It was originally made for Ugnaughts, so it's too narrow for you-" he looked up at Mando- "but we can get to the control room and activate the blast shields, it'll lock every section of the station. Nothing's getting through those. The gas they extracted from the giant was apparently so unstable they needed it in case of explosions."

Sinead held up a hand. "Question: isn't that the gas giant we have to fly through?"

"From what I gathered, the gas only becomes unstable under very specific circumstances."

"Which are?"

Jami sighed. "The gas reacts to oxygen, so unless you open the ship in the middle of the cloud, we'll be fine."

Mando tapped on the table, drawing their attention to him. "What about when we get inside? Even if we activate the blast doors, we still don't know where Vekkass is or how many pirates there are. I counted eighteen last time."

"Hmm. Back when I left, there were around forty and I doubt he's been downsizing in my absence."

"Well, we killed eight of them." Sinead gestured in the general direction of the shallow grave.

"Eleven," Mando said. "There were three trying to break into the ship."

"Oh, good," Laar broke in, glancing darkly at the table. "So the place is crawling with anywhere between eighteen to forty pirates, you don't know where the one you're specifically looking for is, and the whole plan hinges on you timing your attack with a flare from a gas giant."

"I know where Vekkass is," Jami said. "He always stays in the same rooms close to the control room, place looks like a kriffin' throne room."

"We've been." Sinead tore her eyes away from the ship once again. "I told you Vekkass has something I need. Once I get it, I don’t really care what you do with him."

"Good."

"We should leave now," Mando said. "Before Vekkass realizes his men are dead."

Laar stepped up to the table and took Jami’s hand in both his own, giving him such an imploring look that Sinead had to avert her eyes.

"I can’t go yet." Jami’s jaw was set. "I need a couple of hours."

"We don’t have time for that; we’re gonna lose the element of surprise."

"A couple of hours won’t change anything."

"Your family isn't safe here. The faster we finish this, the faster you can come home."

"Give me until nightfall. That’s all I’m asking."

It occurred to Sinead that he needed time to say goodbye; there was no guarantee they were coming back despite what Jami said. If she died, all that would be left of her was vague recollections in a few slaves’ memories.

"Fine," she said before Mando had a chance to reply. "Just make sure you’re ready."

Laar squeezed Jami’s hand. "Thank you."

The voice modulator rustled as Mando breathed out a deep sigh, then stalked over to a small pile of weapons taken off the pirates.

Sinead was about to leave when she noticed the Togruta boy watching from the farmhouse door. "Seems like we got an audience."

Laar and Jami whirled around as the boy jumped down the steps. "You're going after that pirate-"

"Vyll-"

"I can help!"

Laar grabbed the boy by his bony shoulder.

"I heard everything you said! You need me to-"

"I need you to stay here-" Jami began, and Sinead took it as her cue to leave. Watching Jami and Laar's argument had been quite enough embarrassment for one day, and besides, she had seen enough of rebellious kids wanting to prove themselves. She perched on top of the fence surrounding the pasture and focused intently on the sad-looking weathervane on top of the house. A gust of wind swept across the ground, sending a shiver through her.

She was brought back by the sound of a slamming door. Jami and Laar were left standing by the table, and she watched Jami interlace his fingers with Laar, pulling him closer and murmuring something that only he could hear. Sinead looked away, a sudden sharp twinge in her chest.

After a little while, Jami appeared before her and leaned against the fence. "You okay?"

"Yeah. It's just that storming a pirate base based on a couple lines of charcoal is a first for me."

"Don't worry. I know the station inside out."

"Why? Doesn't sound like you did much mining."

He looked at his hands for some time, his lekku twitching. "Force of habit, I guess. Always needed to keep my eyes on the exits."

"Makes sense." She pulled absentmindedly at her jacket sleeve. "How'd you get away? From the Hutts, I mean."

He glanced at her, face carefully neutral but there was something fierce in his purple eyes.

The sky was slowly darkening. If he wanted to say goodbye, he was running out of time. She took a deep breath. "I ... I used to live on Sriluur. In the palace."

Once the words were out in the open it sounded almost unreal. In the span of a day, she had used her real name and told a near-stranger about her past; she hadn't even told Mando back when they first teamed up, instead letting him connect the dots himself. Her last defence mechanism was slipping out of reach.

Over by the pile of weapons, Mando seized moving.

"Oh." Jami was quiet for a long time. "You know Slezza’s dead?"

She pressed her lips together to stop a smile from breaking through. "Yeah, I heard. Happened after I escaped." It felt good retreating to the safety of the grey area between truth and lie.

"What's the story with the Mandalorian?" Jami turned to lean against the fence.

"’He’s helping me track someone. Feels like we’ve trawled through half of the Outer Rim."

"Who’re you looking for?"

She bit her lower lip and tapped an erratic rhythm against the wooden fence. "My husband."

"I see." The wind picked up again, and Jami crossed his arms across his chest. "I'm sorry, by the way, for taking you hostage."

"And threatening to paralyze me, don’t forget about that." Now that they weren’t at odds, she quite liked Jami. "Consider us even. We were here to drag you back to Vekkass."

"I’m glad you didn’t." A shadow crossed his eyes. "I want to end this, one way or another."

"We will."

Laar’s face appeared in one of the grimy windows and waved at Jami to come inside.

Jami pushed off the fence. "I better go inside." He called for Elia, who skipped across the muddy ground and practically launched herself into Jami's arms, making Sinead smile at the sight. The little girl ogled her over Jami's shoulder, and Sinead waved at her before they disappeared into the house.

Then it was just Sinead and Mando left, and she jumped down from the fence and made her way to the pile of weapons. "Find anything good?"

"Nothing worth keeping." Mando tossed a blaster back onto the stack.

"Shame." Sinead crouched down, picking up a vibro-blade and examined it in the golden light. She waited for him to start, but he seemed determined to make her ask. "You gonna tell me what happened back there?"

Mando examined a blaster carbine, running a thumb along the smudged barrel. The pause stretched into an awkward silence.

She clicked her tongue. "I feel like we've been through too much for you not to trust me."

With a start, he looked up. "I do ... trust you. That's not why ..." he stared down at the carbine again. "He’s done it before."

"Makes sense. You didn't seem that surprised."

"He saved my life, back when I first found him. I was about to be trampled by a mudhorn."

"A mudhorn?"

"He's strong."

The blade slipped out of her hand as she looked to the ship. How could such a little body hide so much power? "I guess we know why the Empire wants him. But why didn't you tell me before?"

"There wasn't any reason to. And you didn't tell me you had the whip the whole time."

She rolled her eyes, but he did have a point. Sort of. "You could have given me a heads up, a little clue so I knew what I was getting into."

"Would it have changed anything?"

"Of course not!" She glanced at him over the pile of weapons. The old carbine shouldn’t have been that interesting, but he kept turning it over in his hands, and for a long time the only sound was the creaking barn and wind rustling through the trees.

Mando cleared his throat. "Sinead?"

"Yeah?"

His hand found the rifle’s energy pack and pulled it out. "How did you escape the Hutts?" He spoke slowly like every word stuck in his throat.

The question caught her off guard and she chewed on the inside of her cheek. She rarely thought about it. "It's kind of a long story."

"You don't have to-"

"No, it's fine. I trust you, too." The tip of her tongue poked out between her lips as she thought. "Slezza and his coterie met the Empire on a yacht above Dennogra, something about meeting on neutral ground. They took me and a couple other palace slaves with them; you can’t expect the eminent Slezza to pour his own drinks, can you." She bared her teeth in a smile. "We weren’t told what we were there for, of course. I was there when they demonstrated the nau’orar. Slezza loved collecting all sorts of beautiful things."

While she spoke, Mando grew more and more still, looking down at the rifle in his hands.

"You’ve seen it in action. I don’t think there was a single person in that room not totally entranced. I’m sure Slezza would’ve given up his seat on the Hutt Council just to get his slimy hands on it."

After the demonstration, Jusgra had ordered her to fetch refreshments from the galley. Instead, her feet had taken her to the room where they kept the whip. She watched, out of sight, as one stormtrooper was called away, leaving only one left. The whip was lying on a pedestal, glittering in the light, and she had reached out to touch it.

"Kyen was already gone. Even if I failed, it wouldn’t really matter." She felt Mando’s eyes on her and a sudden warmth crept up her neck. "When I touched the whip, it was like … it was the first time in years I had held anything more deadly than a butter knife."

She killed the stormtrooper, strangled him with the whip, and then the clear memories went hazy like a damaged hologram. Colors and sounds melded together until she found herself in an escape pod hurtling towards Dennogra.

"I managed to stow away on a freighter heading away from Hutt space. And that's it." Her words faded into the cold air. Mando didn't say anything. She wished he would. He was the first person she'd told about her great escape, and it surprised her how easy it had come. It felt ... safe.

Before Mando had a chance to speak, the door to the farmhouse opened and spilled warm light across the ground. Laar took a lingering step outside, looked back into the house, then, with a resolute shake of the head, he approached them.

"Jami’s making dinner. It’s not much, but there should be enough for you if you want it." He crossed his arms over his chest and spoke to the ground.

"Thank you," Mando said.

"That’s very kind." Sinead got to her feet, wincing as her legs protested. A sudden twinge in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten all day, and it was even longer since she’d had a meal consisting of more than expired ration packets or watery soup.

Laar’s mouth pinched into a frown. "Quite." It was clear the little offering hadn't been his idea. He kept standing there, gaze firmly locked onto the tips of his worn boots.

Mando stood and threw the blaster carbine back onto the pile; the resulting sound shook Laar out of whatever funk he’d been in. "Jami saved us, you know. He doesn’t like me saying it but it’s true. We would’ve died out here if it wasn’t for him. Please-" he finally looked up- "keep him safe."

Mando was unwilling or unable to move, so Sinead took a step forward. "We’ll do our best, but this isn’t a quick trip down the Corellian Run; It's gonna be dangerous."

"I know that," Laar snapped. "Just … watch his back, okay? I'll send Jami out with your food." With that he turned and marched back into the house.

Sinead stared after him. "That was … odd. As if we wouldn’t have Jami’s back."

"He doesn’t trust us."

"Can’t really blame him for that."

Mando made a disgruntled noise. "We should’ve been on our way by now."

"Jami needs to say goodbye. And even if Vekkass knew that his crew had failed, he wouldn't have time to send another one. It's only a couple of hours."

"Hm. I hope you’re right." He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I’ll go sweep the forest before we leave."

She cast a look around the silent forest. If they had overlooked any pirates hidden in the undergrowth, they would probably have struck by now. "Sure. I’ll go check on the kid. Don’t get lost."

Wind blew through the treetops, and Sinead pulled her jacket closer as she watched him disappear into the semi-permanent darkness.

It was about an hour before sunset. Sinead sat cross-legged on the floor of the Crest, the child before her, who was watching her every move with his big, bottomless eyes. Mando hadn’t returned yet but he was undoubtedly the most dangerous thing in the forest.

"Okay, pay attention." She held a pebble in her outstretched hand. "I’m gonna let this go, and you’re gonna make it float. Got it?"

He blinked up at her.

"That’s right. One, two, three!"

The pebble clattered to the floor.

"Okay, that’s fine, we’ll just try again."

On the fourth try, the pebble bounced away. The kid tilted his head to the side with a small coo.

"That’s not gonna work."

She gave a start and looked up at the open entrance where Mando stood watching. How long had he been there? He could move almost silently when he wanted. "How do you know?"

"He's only done it once before with the mudhorn. I don't think he can do ... whatever it is unless there’s danger." He stepped into the ship and kicked the pebble down the ramp.

"Huh." Lifting the kid to eye height, she peered at him. "You just keep getting more and more intriguing. We really don't know anything about you."

A pleasant smell spread all through the hull as Mando came into view and placed a steaming plate piled high with roasted meat and freshly baked bread. The kid let out a loud babble, and Sinead struggled to her feet.

"I met Jami on my way back," Mando said as a way of explaining.

"I can’t remember the last time I ate a vegetable that hadn’t been rehydrated." She watched Mando pull out two chipped bowls. "At least I think it’s vegetables. Or maybe Laar is trying to poison us."

"Mhm. If I was trying to kill you, I wouldn’t do it with poisoned food."

"Remind me to never accept any food from you."

"I just said I wouldn’t poison you."

She let out a snort of laughter, and a moment of comfortable silence passed over them.

"You seem a lot happier."

"There was something about his voice, so deep and calm, which sent a prickle along the back of her neck, and she averted her eyes from what she wasn't entirely sure. Was he smiling underneath the helmet?

"We finally have an actual plan to take down a gang of pirates."

"Barely."

"Not like it’s stopped us before. Loovria was rushed at best."

"It was your plan."

Sinead was about to shoot back when her knees went weak as Mando tore the loaf of bread in two, releasing a puff of steam.

The kid made a shrill noise and reached for the food with stubby hands.

"I can take him."

"It’s fine. Go eat while it’s still hot. I can take it from here." The wriggling kid nearly slipped out of her hold.

"You sure?"

"I’m sure."

Mando disappeared up the ladder while Sinead sat down with her back against the wall and the kid sitting snugly on her lap. As soon as she placed the food within reach, he grabbed some meat and tore into it with surprising ferocity. She buried her nose in the bread and took a deep breath.

As they ate, Sinead's gaze wandered to the ladder that led to the cockpit. It was strange that Mando was so close and unmasked. He had been before, of course, but now it felt different. How long had it been since he had shared a meal with someone?

The kid cooed around a mouthful of bread.

It had to be very lonely.

... ... ... ... ...

It was time to leave.

The sun had dipped below the horizon and darkness descended on the forest moon in a flash, turning the trees into pitch black shadows. The farmhouse was an island of light in the middle of a deep void.

Sinead grunted and shifted her grip on the water tank before it slipped. The Crest was running low, and if there was one thing the moon had in abundance it was water. With a final wince, she twisted the canister into its spot on the underbelly of the ship and pushed the covering back into place.

The farmhouse door banged open and Jami came stalking out with Vyll hot on his heels.

"This discussion is over!"

"We haven't discussed anything! You just said no!" Vyll’s voice shook with indignation.

"Exactly. You're staying here and that is final."

"You can't keep me here!"

Mando was watching the scene from the bottom of the ramp, the child in his arms. She sidled up next to him. "Hey."

"Hey."

Jami rounded on Vyll and poked him in the chest punctuating every word. "You. Stay. Right. Here." Laar stood in the doorway, lips pinched into an anxious frown, carrying a sleepy Elia who pressed her face against his collar.

Sinead bumped her shoulder against Mando. "Remember to check the ship for stowaways before takeoff," she whispered with a faint smile.

He let out a dry chuckle, and she looked away, her smile growing.

"That ... thing gets to come!" Vyll yelled and gestured wildly at the child in Mando's arms. Beside her, Mando tensed. He did sort of have a point, even though Sinead wanted to disagree just on principle, but the kid would be safer staying at the farm. She didn't think Mando would see it that way.

"That's on them. Your safety is on me." Jami tried to put his hand on Vyll's shoulders, who wrenched out of his grip and stormed back into the house, nearly falling over his own feet. Laar made his way down the steps, and Jami pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes.

"We said sundown. The sun is down," Mando mumbled.

"A few minutes won't make a difference."

Jami pressed a kiss to Elia’s forehead, and she was sent back inside the house, staggering with fatigue. Reaching out, he laced his fingers through Laar’s.

That was their cue to leave. Mando left the kid on the bunk bed and disappeared into the cockpit, while Sinead started pushing around a couple of boxes to make room for their newest addition. The ship hadn’t been built for one person, let alone three, so it was going to be an uncomfortable ride no matter what.

Jami and Laar were visible through the open gate, standing close together. Behind them, the farmhouse spilled warm light out of every window. Her hands stilled as Jami leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Laar’s lips, and it suddenly felt like a weight had dropped on her chest.

A soft coo made her tear her eyes away. The kid was watching her from her bunk, ears drooping.

"It's okay," she murmured, picking him up. He nestled into the crook of her arm. "I'm okay."

"I'm ready to go." The voice made her jump. Jami stood in the opening with a pack slung over his shoulder and a resolute look in his eyes but his lekku betrayed him with every twitch of agitation.

"I’ll give Mando the go ahead."

The last glimpse before the ramp went up was Laar standing by the fence, hands clutching the railing like he would crumble to the ground without it.

Jami had thrown his pack into a corner and was sitting on a box of ammunition, staring desolately into the air.

"You'll be back with them in no time," Sinead said, sitting on the edge of the bunk. The kid babbled in agreement.

"Yeah."

"What's the story with them? The kids, I mean."

For a long time Jami watched her with an unreadable look in his eyes before they fell to the kid who had crawled onto Sinead’s lap. He pulled a loose thread off his jacket and rolled it between his hands. "I met them after leaving Vekkass and his gang. They were running from something too. And don’t even bother asking, it’s not my story to tell. We agreed it might be safer to stick together. Laar doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Outer Rim."

"He did look like he was afraid his rifle might come alive and shoot him instead."

Jami let out a short bark of laughter. "I’ve tried teaching him but at this point I don’t think it’ll ever take. It was meant to be temporary but you know how it is." There was a faint smile on his lips.

"Seems like you built quite a home for yourself."

"I did. Well …" his smile grew. "Neither me or Laar are big farmers, really. It’s more a necessity than anything else. Maybe when all this is over, we can find a real home."

The hum from the engine filled the silence, and there was a hollow feeling in the pit of Sinead's stomach. A small hand tugged on her sleeve, and she looked down at the kid whose little face was wrinkled in concern. She smoothed a thumb across his forehead.

"Never seen anything like it." Jami had stopped fidgeting with the string. "What is he?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"So he's not yours?"

"You see any resemblance between us?" This felt like safer ground, and she gave him a wry smile.

"Hey, resemblance has nothing to do with it. Neither Vyll or Elia looks like me, but they’re still my kids." Jami kicked his legs out and leaned back on his makeshift chair.

"You're right. But no, he isn't mine." She helped the kid down from the bunk and watched as he toddled across the floor, stopping briefly to examine Jami's shoe before moving on.

"So he's the Mandalorian's? Does that mean he's all ..." Jami gestured vaguely to his face.

Sinead let out a snort of laughter, and the child cooed from the other side of the ship. "No, no, he's ... he's not ..."

"You’ve seen him without the helmet?"

"No. It’s, uh- it’s a long story."

Jami shrugged and shifted on the box, trying to get comfortable.

"I’m sorry the accommodations are less than stellar. As you can see, this isn’t exactly the lap of luxury."

"I’ve stayed in worse places. It’s fine."

The ship shook as it entered hyperspace, and Sinead imagined she could feel the weight of the dimension pressing in all around them. The thought was comforting in a way. For a while she was locked in a tiny metal box plucked out of reality. Once they reached the end of the line, she would have to fight and worry and run and hope, and it might all be for nothing.

She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes.

<- Previous chapter - Next chapter ->

[girlwiththeblueblood]

Human/Demon/Angel family road trip!

Melaina and Lily purchase a camper van, hoping for some sister bounding time on the road, then the rest of their odd family members show up. They were a little put out, but after a promise of a worldwide trip and some (TARDIS) magic placed of the van, they decided what the hell having everyone around should be entertaining. And off they go!

Lucifer:

Would be to only one Melaina trusts to drive while she’s taking a break or sleeping.

Can’t help but watch Melaina with an amused smile when her road rage comes out to play. 

Is low-key aroused when she yells out the window at the dumb ass drivers to “GET OUT THE FAST LANE!”

Warns her when her still small horns are showing.

He would take the task of driving the behemoth of a camper van very seriously; and would have Melaina sitting at the passenger seat next to him for company, if she wasn’t already spending time with Lily.

Would look over at his sleeping wife any chance he got, and smile softly. He will remove his cloak and use it to cover her when no one is looking.

Thinks Lily is a nice human and is happy to get to know his sister-in-law, but no one compares to his wife.

“Don’t make me turn this van around!”

“And put on your seat-belt!”

“No, we’re not stopping again!”

“You should have gone before we left!”

“Stop fighting back there!”

“Damn it, Mammon!”

Mammon:

Would want the passenger seat all to himself.

Will ask if he can drive. 

Sulks when Melaina said “No.”

Blasting his music and screaming the lyrics. 

Sulks when Melaina turns off the music.

Will be sent to the back of the van if he keeps asking “are we there yet?”

Would, somehow, get the van pulled over by the police and panic about hiding his weed.

Sulks in the time out corner at the back of the van for nearly getting himself and other’s arrested.

Whines to Melaina about visiting Vegas. 

Can’t believe a sweet wall-flower like Lily is related to a snarky and defiant person (now demon) like Melaina.

Wonder if they have other siblings, but keeps that thought to himself.  

Will be buying stuff (that’s not too expensive) for Lily to welcome her to the family.

Wants to hear stories about the sisters’s childhood. 

Doesn’t want to push them to talk about it since their pasts aren’t all sunshin’ and roses.

Levi:

Will be sitting nearest to the outlet to power his phone and other devices. Has took everything but his desktop with him, but only because there was already one on the magically effected van.

In his happy little gaming bubble for most of the journey.

Is happy to play some board games with the others at times.

Gets excited when Lily takes out a DS and wants to play some multi player games and in-game trading with her.

Will be posting about everything the happens as it plays out.

When he’s in the passenger seat, he and Melaina sing to anime intro music. No one knows what they are saying.

Likes the English covers Melaina puts on and the effort other fans have put into making the song!

Will beg Melaina to stop at some pokestops and gyms.

Any arcades will be also be stopped at.

Also, can we go to Japan!? Pleeeeeeeeease?

Satan:

Will be taking a demon load of books with him.

Quietly reading most of the time.

Will pick up travel pamphlets at each stop they visit. More reading material!

Will also buy more books along the way.

When he isn’t reading, he’s doing a mini book club with Simeon, Melaina (when she’s taking a break) and Lily.

Would sneak in his pet kitten, the one Melaina gifted him in front of Lucifer after he said no last week.

When it’s his turn in the passenger seat, he reads to Melaina with the kitten purring away on his lap.

Knows Lucifer is glaring at him, but won’t do or say anything while Satan in under Melaina’s protection, and it’s just the best thing ever.

Would also be reading to Lily, before his sister-in-law goes to sleep.

Amso:

Photographs everything! Selfies at every stop.

He’ll be doing everyone’s nails at his corner of the table.

Will insist on doing Melaina’s and Lily’s hair.

Dramatic shocked noise when he finds out that Melaina “blow-dried” her hair by lowing the window all the way, letting the wind blowing her hair all over the place as she drives. 

He really adores the bathroom on the van, it’s so cute and cosy but not too small to be cramped, and there’s a bath tub!?

Will offer to have a bubble bath for two with, well everyone.

If he gets a turn in the passenger seat, you know he was get Melaina to singing along with him. Has picked a lot of ABBA and other chick-bands songs for them to sing to.

“That sign said that there’s a spa nearby! Oh Mel-Mel can we stop at the spa!?”

...they’re stopping at the spa. No one regrets stopping at that spa, everyone’s back pain is gone now!

Will be trying out perfumes that each stop has and buying a select few.

Paris👏shopping👏trip👏

He’ll be buying gifts for everyone for sure!

Beel:

Is the one who did most of the heavy lifting when loading up everyone’s stuff. 

Beams with happiness at the size of the kitchen. 

And the fridge!

Is the reason the van stops at most of the fast food places they find.

Worries about Lily’s constant red face and is concerned that she’s sick.

Gets a bit too close when taking her temperature.

“Lily are you ill?! You’re burning up!”

Will be upset when Lily locks herself in the bath room, not knowing that she’s overloaded and flustered.

Thinks he’s upset her and gets upset himself.

It takes half an hour for Bephie to spell it out for him. 

“Dude, she’s got a crush on you” 

“......wait what?”

Ends up getting flustered himself and hides in a cupboard.

It takes another hour for Bephie to get him to leave the cupboard.

When he does he starts to think about Melaina’s reaction to him and her little sister dating.

He goes back in the cupboard.

“Mel’s going to kill me!”

“..Dude, she’s not going to kill you..”

It’s another hour before the situation get’s Melaina’s attention and tries to help coax him out the cupboard.

“I’m not going to kill you, Beel. I think you’d be good for her.”

It’s twenty minutes later when Beel leaves the cupboard and gives both Bephie and Mel a big bear hug.

Beel offers Lily to share some food with him. They are both a blushing mess while sharing a bag of chips together. 

Bephie: 

Claims one of the buck-beds.

When in the passenger seat, he and Mel talk about nothing and everything. Or he’s asleep, wrapped up in one of his blankets.

Will be hanging out with Beel and Lily most of the time.

Likes the idea of Lily being a sister-in-law, via Lucifer/Melaina and Beel/Lily.

Falls asleep on both of them while watching films.

Would climb into Melaina’s bed and snuggle with her.

Flips off Lucifer when he gets glared at for doing so.

Will buy more pillows, blankets and stuff animals at the stops he’s awake for.

Sometimes wakes up to a parked and empty van.

Will be grumpy at everyone when they return.

“...fuck you guys...”

Will lighten up when he’s give a gift from where ever they’ve been.

“Ok, you get to live”

Checks the cinemas nearby for newly released films for them to go and watch.

Will also go to DVD stores and picks a few “So bad they’re good” film for everyone to watch. 

Diavolo:

Is the ultimate Dad on holiday. Constantly has a camera around his neck.

He’s ecstatic for family time and getting to know Lily.

In the passenger seat he switches between quietly watching the world go by and asking a seemingly unending string of questions.

“Those kids are waving at us Mel!”

“They’re playing ‘good car, bad car’.”

“Really? What does game in tale?”

“Well, they wave at other people in different cars, if they get a wave back it’s a ‘good car’, if not it’s a ‘bad car’.”

“Fascinating!”

He waves with both hands. Has the biggest grin on his face when the kids react by cheering.

Will want to know other travel games and might get on his adopted daughter’s nerves just a little bit.

Takes all the photos at every stop.

Fatherly teasing when he catches Lucifer and Melaina holding hands.

Takes photos of them when they have loving moments without them knowing.

It’s the best day ever when Lily (accidentally) calls him dad.

He picks her up in a big Dad hug.

“Look Barbatos! I have another daughter!”

Barbatos: 

Spends most of the time waiting on everyone out of habit. 

Seems to always have some tea ready.

Can tell when Diavolo’s questions are starting to annoy Mel and diverts his Lord’s attention else where.

Is the keeper of the maps and only sits at the passenger seat to help navigate when lost.

He disappears into an unknown rooms in the van and no one knows where the rooms are, how to get there or what the rooms are for.

When asked about it, he just smiles and walks away to fetch more tea.

Makes sure that the humans take their medication/travel sickness tablets.

Keeps the van spotless, snacks on the table and cups full, despite Melaina telling him to stop and relax for a while.

Bakes some cupcakes special for Lily after Lord Diavolo “adopts” her.

Solomon: 

Constantly doing narrating pranks on camera.

“And that’s when they became horrible lost.”

“Are we lost?”

“No.”

“She lied”

“Stop it.”

Keeps making “Married Couple” jokes at Lucifer and Melaina.

Would attempt to prank Lily, but the burning feeling of Melaina glaring at him stops him.

Spends a lot of time exploring the van and all the rooms.

Refuses to admit that he got lost.

Sneaks off from the group when they’ve stopped to visit somewhere.

Keeps everyone waiting to for him to come back before they can leave.

When asked wear the fuck he was, he’d only ever say he was on a hunt for knowledge.

Translation: He’s been finding more magical knowledge with questionable means.

Is banned from the passenger seat, for recording Melaina while narrating everything she does. 

Simeon:

Absolutely adores Lily and decides for himself to be a guardian angel to both sisters.

Every time Lily does something that’s adorable he wraps his arms around her and snuggles her; his wings circle both of them as if protecting her.

“By my Lord, you are so adorable!”

“Melaina, help!”

“Hey, turtle dove, ease it back a bit please.”

He will be interested in Lily’s story, since gender identities work very differently for Angels and Demons, he’d be very interested in the subject. 

Plus, knowing what he does about their birth parents from Melaina; Simeon is concerned about the difficulties the poor thing faced trying to figure out her identity. 

Simeon makes sure that Lily does want to talk about it, he really doesn’t want to push her if she’s uncomfortable.

He ends up learning a lot about the subject from Lily, maybe there’s a new book to be written in the future.

Will be playing board games and card games, that he’s learned from the humans, with Luke and anyone else would like to join.

Can’t help but ship Beel and Lily after seeing them blushing like idiots at each other. 

He actually tears up a little, he’s so happy.

Then he looks toward the front of the van at the other couple. Melaina is asleep and he’s caught Lucifer laying his cloak over her.

Simeon smiles wide, he’s so happy for both the humans and his old friends. 

He feels nice and warm inside.

He’ll request to stop at a church now and then so he can pray for his friends’s happiness. 

He also requests to visit Venice Italy.

Will have his turn in the fabled passenger seat. He had fun picking songs to play... until one started playing that wasn’t his cup of tea.

He slowly looked at Melaina, trying to not judge.

Mel’s lips were pressed together and trying to not laugh.

Simeon then got up and left to sit back down with Luke.

“I’m sorry!”

“.....”

“Simeon?”

“.....”

“Turle Dove?”

“..I need time to forgive you, friend.”

Luke: 

Will be both excited for a road trip with the human sisters and annoyed that the demons are also tagging along.

Low-key is enjoying everyone’s company.

Is either by Simeon side or in the kitchen baking sweats.

Don’t really understand the concept of being transgender, but supports Lily all the way!

Really, really wants to play card games with Melaina, but she’s driving most of the time.

Isn’t aloud at the passenger seat. because they were pulled over by the police about letting a child in the front seat without a booster seat.

He is very, very sulky afterwards.