#i try to be more or less 15 minute early for any appointment

[silentgravesdontexist]

There's nothing I hate more than making people wait for meet-ups. That's why it bothers me when someone tells me they're already at the meeting place earlier than the call time, and they're asking where I am. Then I get there as fast as I can, but it turns out that they were lying about already being there.

[lavandulawrites]

Devilish creatures

Yandere Gojo Satoru x female reader

Masterlist

Word count: 2576

Warnings: Implied stalking, Gojo being as unsettling as always

You were a complete normal woman if you ignored the way you could see them. Since you had been a little girl you had been able to see those hellish creatures. You told your parents, but they didn’t believe. No one did. It got to the point where your parents took you to see a psychiatrist, which told you that it was nothing more than childish fantasies. Fantasies for a young child was normal, but you knew very well that what you saw were real and not fantasies. The only person who did believe you were your mother’s mother. She had always been eccentric. She told you that she has been seeing those creatures since she was a child. That did make you feel relieved, but it didn’t help the whispers from those around you.

You moved to Tokyo as soon as you graduated high school. You started studying in a prestigious university. You didn’t speak to your family much, but that was probably for the best. Those creatures never disappeared. In fact it seemed that there were much more of them in Tokyo. Around the campus there were always a swarm of them. They didn’t harm you (most of them were in fact really small) but they made you feel a sense of dread. Almost like they were draining your energy. Maybe they were. One night when you were walking home from your shift the small but cozy café, you came across a huge monstrous creature. It had rows upon rows of teeth and two bulging eyes pointed in each direction. It’s tongue black and long. It didn’t notice you, so you ran as fast as you could. After that incident you were reluctant to walk home alone at night. You always took the early shifts, which resulted in having less time to study. You would chose your life over your grades at any day, so you didn’t feel too bad about it.

One cold January day you called your grandmother. It had been a long time since you last talked and you really missed her. You told her about the monster-incident and she advised you to go to some place called Jujutsu High. You really hoped it wasn’t a scam or worse a cult, but you really didn’t have a choice. When it came to the monsters, you would take any solution.

The school was in a traditional Japanese style with impressive gardens. It really was beautiful. You headed to the building where the kind lady on the phone told you to. Apparently someone there could help you with your little problem. Even though you had your suspicions, you had to give it a try. You didn’t know what you would do if you didn’t.

You stepped inside the building and took a seat in what may seem like a waiting area of some sort. After you sat in silence contemplating if it was a wise decision to come or not for what felt like hours (it had actually only been 15 minutes) a tall white haired man walked by. He stopped in his tracks and looked at you with a slight smile. His eyes were covered with a black cloth resembling a blindfold. You could feel his intense stare underneath his blindfold. “Are you waiting for someone?” he tilted his head.

You nodded, your voice failing you in the presence of the handsome man.

“Do you happen to be [Last Name] [Name]?” he bent slightly forward. You nodded “Yeah”.

“I am sorry to inform you, but the person you had an appointment with have some urgent matters to attend to” his smile gentle.

Your expression fell “Oh… I see. Thanks for telling me”. You was just about to get up and leave when he stopped you by clearing his throat.

“I can help you. I assume you have a problem you need help with since you are here?” his grinned. You looked at him with wide eyes “You can help me?”. You were so relived, finally these sights would stop.

His grin widened “Of course I can help you darling”. The pet name rolling of his tongue with ease causing you to blush slightly. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat.

“Follow me” he straightened his back. God he was tall. You followed after him unsure of what to expect. The corridors were dimly lit, giving of an eerie feeling. The tall man was walking with slow steps so you could keep up with his ridiculously long legs. He stopped in front of a room and ushered you inside. “You know, I am not really supposed to tell civilians this, but I will make an exception since you are so adorable” his grin similar to that of the Cheshire cat. It was slightly unsettling. You raised your brow slightly and took a seat in the chair he was gesturing to.

He slumped down on the chair opposite of you, stretching his legs out like a cat. “You are seeing things right? Seeing creatures that resemble those of hell” it wasn’t a question, but a statement. You nodded slowly.

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees and popped his head in his hands. You could tell he was scanning your expression. “Awww… You poor thing. I am sure that must frighten you so very much” he cooed at you like one would with a scared animal. “Luckily you have me to protect you”.

You twisted in your seat. There was something of about him, but you couldn’t put your finger one what exactly. “Yeah… They are quite frightening.” you smiled sheepishly.

He leaned back in his seat toying with his the black cloth covering his eyes. “Those so called creatures are called “curses”. You are one of the few people with the ability to see them.”

You blinked. Curses? You swallowed. Surely this was a joke right…? Sweat stared to collect at your temples.

The man chuckled at your reaction. “Where are you seeing the curses?”

“My university, around my neighbourhood and nowadays I’m seeing them in my flat” your hands slightly shaking. He hummed “I see. I will accompany you home to get rid of the curses. If you don’t mind of course”. His lips were twisted in a slightly smile, which you were unable to read. “I don’t mind at all” you shook your head. You would do anything to get rid of those so called curses. Absolutely anything.

He slapped his thighs and stood up with a swift motion. “Good. Very good indeed!” his smile still present. He stopped before the door and turned his head over his shoulder “I forgot to introduce myself. I am Gojo Satoru”.

The drive to your flat had been in silence. You had felt Gojo’s gaze at you the whole ride. “Please excuse my mess” you sheepishly smiled as you dumped some dishes into the sink. Gojo laughed telling you that he didn’t mind. He glanced around your apartment before he turned to you.

“It will only take a moment” he flashed you a smile. You stepped back unsure of what to expect. He had explained you briefly what cursed techniques and the like were while you made your way up the many stairs to your flat. You understood it somewhat. With a gesture of his fingered the small curses that were sweeping up underneath your sofa and bookshelf disintegrated. Your jaw fell slack in shock. You didn’t know what you expected, but this was certainly not it.

Gojo chuckled amused. “Impressed? This was mere child’s play” he smiled cockily, clearly happy with your reaction. “Are they gone gone now?”. “They are completely gone now” he nodded.

“Thank you so much!” you bowed. He had told you earlier that it wouldn’t cost you anything. A special discount for a special girl as he said. He had however suggested going out for a coffee with him. Which you agreed to, much to his delight.

“Your flat is safe from curses, though I can’t exactly say the same for you neighbourhood” his voice laced with concern. You felt like you were deflating. You had nowhere to stay besides your flat.

He brought his fingers to his chin and was silent for a moment. “What if…” his voice absentminded. “What if you stay at my place for the time being? I remember you said you were tight on money and hotels are quite expensive nowadays. I have a spare bedroom and it’s not too far away from here, but far enough for it to be safe”. You thought for a moment. Was it okay for you to sleep at his place? He was a total stranger after all and besides you didn’t want to bother him, but he had been nothing but kind. As if noticing your hesitation, he spoke up “I can promise you it won’t be a bother” he smiled warmly. You thought for a second. You really didn’t have any other options. “Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate it”.

His smile twisted into a grin. “The pleasure is all mine” his words smooth like honey.

His flat was huge and well decorated in a elegant way, not like quite what you had expected. Long windows going down to the floor overlooked the bustling streets of Tokyo.

He laughed softly at your awe. “Feel yourself at home”. He had replaced his blindfold with black rimmed glasses that he pulled down his nose to wink at you. His eyes were the most beautiful eyes you had ever seen. They were of an ice blue colour mixed with turquoise. He pushed his glasses back up and hummed at your reaction.

The hours flew by as you talked about all and nothing over takeaway sushi from a high end restaurant. He really was easy to talk to. His witty remarks making you laugh. He was quite flirty too, but not overbearingly so.

Soon it was well over midnight and your eyelids getting heavy. “Ooo someone’s sleepy” he laughed. You nodded “Yeah. I had to wake up early”. He stood up “I will make your room ready. One moment please”.

You tried to fight the sleepiness when something poking out underneath one of the coffee table book. You leaned forward to get a better look at the somewhat familiar flyer. You pulled it out carefully and brought it underneath the light of the lamp standing by the sofa. It was a flyer of your university. Weird… From your impression of Gojo you didn’t think he was studying. He did tell you that he worked as a teacher at Jujutsu High. An eerie feeling crept over you. It was probably just a coincidence, right? It had to be, there were no other explanations… You went over your conversations. He was really observant with you, but maybe he was one of the more observant types.

Then it struck you. You never did mention which university you were attending. You only gave him your address when he drove you both to your flat to ride it off the curses.

You quickly put the flyer back in place and straightened your back.

“Your room is ready” Gojo’s head was peaking out of the hallway. With shaky hands you turned around to face him. Your hands gripping the cushions of the sofa to ground your racing mind. You had to come up with an excuse and that quick. A notification followed by a curse broke the uncomfortable silence. You snapped your head towards Gojo. He was staring at his phone with furrowed brows.

“You should see yourself lucky that you are staying here” he walked over to you still starting his phone. “Multiple curses have gotten out of control attacking civilians. It’s not safe out now”. His icy eyes meeting yours. His glasses nowhere to be found. His expression changed to worry as he scanned your face. “What is it?” he tilted his head slightly.

You swallowed as you fidgeted with your fingers. You couldn’t go back to your flat now, it would be to dangerous and besides you couldn’t confirm that it was something up with Gojo. You had always had the habit of being untrusting with people. After all he had been nothing but kind and welcoming. “Nothing” you shook your head with a slight smile. “I am just tired”.

The bed was really fit for a king. It was the most comfortable sleep you had ever gotten. Your eyes creaked open as rays of sunlight bathed the room in a soft yellow glow. The smell of pancakes filling your nose.

Gojo was standing by the oven flipping pancakes while humming a tune that was playing on the speakers. I Only Have Eyes for You by The Flamingos. He turned around with a smile. His eyes shining bright with an unreadable expression. “Good morning [Name]. Did you sleep well?” his voice melodic and his smile dashing. He really was beautiful, but you couldn’t help but be cautious.

“I did. Thank you for letting me spend the night here”. With a smile he told it was nothing and he was glad he could help you out. He served the pancakes with a hum and wiped his hands on a kitchen towel. His gaze tender.

He took a seat opposite of you and his expression changed. “I got a message from some of the other Jujutsu sorcerers” he lifted his fork and knife and cut into his pancake. “There were quite the casualties last night. They are still looking for those who went missing. They haven’t been able to locate all the bodies” his hand stilled and he looked at you, eyes unblinking.

“Do you understand the gravity of this situation? Do you understand why I suggested you to spend the night? One can never be too careful” his voice stern. You only nodded. You looked at your plate. Your appetite was lost. You were lucky for not being one of those poor people that were mauled by the curses. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just want you to be aware of the dangers of this world” his voice sincere.” You nodded understandingly. He was a good man after all and you were in his debt.

As you eat your breakfast after encouragement from Satoru, he watched you with a smile. You were really naive to be stepping right into the lion’s den.

He had “met���you at a café. You were hanging out with your friends seemingly oblivious to how they ignored your presence in favour of planning some kind of party. He had felt sorry for you as you stirred your tea while trying to get the attention of your “friends”.

He had become quickly smitten by you. It truly was love at first sight. You were such a stunning woman after all. No one could compare to your beauty. He felt the intense need to protect you so he decided to watch over you as a gentleman should do.

He spent weeks watching you as you left for your job, as you studied in the library at your university and watching you through the eyes of the teddy bear you thought were a present from your friend. You were like a little lost lamb in a world full of flesh eating monsters. You needed to be protected and who could be better at that than Satoru?

Unbeknownst to you he was the most dangerous of all the devilish creatures.

[chaotic-archaeologist]

What does a week in the life of a grad student look like?

So the answer to this will depend heavily on what stage of research you are in. I'll give my answer as someone who is currently in pursuit of a Master's degree, because this is currently my only firsthand experience.

As a Master's student, I am expected to take a certain number of courses, usually about three a semester. Often they meet just once a week, for 2+ hours at a time, and they are discussions/seminars rather than lectures.

On top of that, I have my teaching assistantship, which is contractually for 20 hours/week, but can go above or below that depending on when students turn in assignments.

With that being said, here's a week in my life:

Sunday: A heavy work day, during which I do most of my reading/work for Monday's class, catch up on emails, run errands that didn't get done on Friday. I do not go onto campus.

Monday: In the morning I finish up my reading for class in the afternoon. Depending on how much I have left to do, I will also do administrative tasks for my TAship, or work that needs to be done for my own research. Right now that means filling out internship and fellowship applications. Class from 2:30-5:15, after which I come home and eat dinner. From 6:15-7:30 I do reading for Wednesday's class.

Tuesday: No classes of my own today! If students for the class I TA have submitted assignments, I will spend an hour(ish) working on grading those. I am responsible for grading about 100 papers at a time. I try to spend no more than 2 minutes per paper/quiz. The class I TA meets from 2:30-3:45. The professor lectures while I do work on my computer. I get home and do more reading/work for Wednesday's class.

Wednesday: In the morning I finish any reading/work that needs to be done. If I have been productive in the front half of the week I use this time to run errands or do my own work. If I have not been productive I am cramming for class in the afternoon. Class goes from 2:30-5:15. I come home, eat dinner, and then do reading for Thursday's class until 7:30.

Thursday: In the morning I finish the reading for class in the afternoon. Class meets from 2:30-5pm. I come home and give myself permission to not do any work because my brain is fried and I do not have class tomorrow.

Friday: No class today! I start the morning with therapy, and then this is my day to attend to personal errands. This is mostly grocery shopping, laundry, and tidying. In the evening I often go out with friends to things like hockey games and bar trivia. Sometimes I go to Friday night Shabbat services.

Saturday: This is my day to decompress. I sleep in and then spend most of the early afternoon doing nothing. I paint my nails, read for fun, or take my dog for a long walk. In the afternoon I'll do something social—most weeks this is volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Not pictured are daily activities that include, but are not limited to:

Checking email. Seriously, so many emails. I was not prepared for how many emails I would be getting in grad school

Classwork that I need to be turning in like paper abstracts, discussion posts, meeting with faculty

Doctors appointments

Cooking for myself. Trader Joe's frozen meals are a life saver

Attending talks/programs held on campus, usually in the evenings. These are prime time for networking

Hanging out with friends before class sometimes

Miscellaneous meetings

Walking my dog

Evening routines like Duolingo, journal entries, creative writing time, etc.

NAPS

Unexpected crises

Also, keep in mind that as someone living with a chronic illness/disability, I operate with less energy than some of my peers. But overall, my MA schedule is similar to my bachelor's one, but with fewer classes that each take up more time, and alongside working as a TA. My academic commitments with three grad classes are about the same as my undergrad semester when I took six classes.

As always, other people are free to chime in with their own experiences/observations.

-Reid

[iamthecomet]

Hoot once again!

I‘m really glad to hear this. Our little ritual means a lot to me <3

I am so sorry for her, but very glad that she figured it out now. Growing up undiagnosed can be (and is most of the time) very traumatic

While I’m a bit younger, I still spent my entire childhood and half of my youth (I’m gonna pretend it has been only half of it so far cause whatever the fuck I had/have is most definitely not a joyful youth). So while I can‘t fully relate, I still kind of get it and can at least imagine how it must me for her

It‘s pretty hard to get an autism diagnosis, because it cannot be done by a regular psychiatrist (unlike ADHD for example, which is why I at least have that diagnosis already). In my area there is only one place where you can get a diagnosis and the waiting list is LONG (not the worst I‘ve seen so far but at least half a year, which is terrible if you need to get help as quickly as possible but you need a diagnosis to get any kind of help). But I’m working on it

Thank youuuu

I planned chapter 2 out yesterday

It ended up to be “only” 5 pages, but it has 39 panels (chapter 1 has 24 panels)

So I think I’ll still get more of the story across even though it seems to be one page shorter

I will most likely start working on it in November

Your day sounds pretty nice!

Today, I was really stressed and worried about something and I did it okay-ish, but I can‘t change shit anymore now anyways so I’ll have to stop worrying and just wait and see

I also had a doctors appointment to get blood drawn and tested (cause due to the meds I take I’m apparently at a higher risk of malnutrition/lack of some stuff) and it was literally the most pleasant doctors appointment I’ve ever had.

I was a too early (as always) and had to wait outside a bit because they were still on lunch break but I was let inside a few minutes earlier anyways and so I was alone in the waiting area. And the nurse was incredibly kind and nice (she had me lay down for it because she didn’t want to risk that I could pass out and then she let me take my time to get back up again). It was overall incredibly nice and I was done not even 15 minutes after my appointment (so none of that annoying waiting time that usually comes with doctors appointments)

I also wanted to mention this in the past days already but I somehow didn‘t haha:

So I saw Someone do OC-tober and I absolutely LOVED the idea! (I’m one of these people that just never really draws their OCs lmao)

So I put together a prompt list for myself and I’m really excited about it ^^

(I‘m also planning on participating in Ghosttober with my writing which is why I’m probably going to be a little stressed all throughout October which is why I’ll most likely start working on chapter 2 in November)

I once again truly hope that you had a pleasant day! ♥️

~ @owlishanon

I like our little ritual too! ♥ When my friend got her diagnosis she couldn't get it from a regular psychiatrist either. She also got her ADHD diagnosis a couple years earlier because that was much easier. Autism she had to take a handful of tests over a period of time to actually get the diagnosis. But she was 98% sure what it would be before she got it. So I guess it's a pain in the ass no matter where you try to get it. Hoping that you are able to get through that process soon and get the help that you need. I'm glad your doctor's appointment went well and was easy. That's such a rare thing. And that you had a nurse who was really accommodating and understood what you needed. I was wondering why you said you would work on chapter two in November, until I got to the end of your ask. There are A LOT of things going on in October. And it will be kind of nice to take a pause on working so hard on that and doing some other stuff. I'm really excited for kinktober/ghostober whatever we're calling it. I'm trying to get the first week written and ready this week so that it's less likely that I fall behind. We'll see how that goes. Day one is written and ready to go--so that's something at least. And OC-tober sounds SO cool. I'm excited to see what you end up doing with that. I'm sure that will be a lot of fun too!

[alba8688]

Love hurts

Chapter 38

Word count:2005

March 15

Dani’s pov

Today I woke up early to shower, so did Eddie. He said he needed to take some pressure off because of the test he was taking today so he took advantage of me and I let him get his way and we had sex in the shower before anyone woke up .

Hopefully no one heard anything because Eddie was pretty loud and he says I'm the loud one.

"Shit sweetheart I needed that ." Eddie tells me while drying himself .

"You always want sex no matter what Ed's." I giggle

"I'm sorry I can't control myself ,I have a hot girlfriend ." He Pecks my lips and slaps my ass before getting out of the bathroom to get ready for school.

After the shower and the great sex I started getting ready for my appointment.

"Where are you going sweetheart ?" Eddie asks, walking out of the shower with just a towel around his waist .

Jesus Christ !! He look so yummy I mean ah fuck he fucking did look yummy .

Why hasn't he changed ?

"Like what you see ?" He smirk

"Oh shut up Edward ." I turn back to do my makeup I wasn’t going to fall for him not again .He has to get ready for school and I have to get ready to go to this doctor’s appointment.

I heard him chuckle and walk away to get ready for school.I would have never believed you if you told me Eddie didn't like school but since I met him he was always punctual to every class .

I guess Eddie did change since last year ,Wayne tells me that I was the one who change him

And I'm glad I did it for his own good. I really wanted him to graduate .

I just wished he could have graduated a year earlier so we wouldn’t have been in this mess right now .

————

So after doing my morning routing ,

I decided to wear blue jeans with one of Eddie's shirts and one of my many combat boots I own and my hair in a high ponytail .

I did a wing eyeliner and put on some blush and red lipstick and my glasses didn't feel like putting on my contacts today so I went all simple. I was just going to the doctor .

"Hey !" I was stop before I walk out of the room by Eddie

"Yes ." I smile

At him

"Where are you going looking so damn pretty ." he pouts pulling me closer to him hugging me from the back resting his face on the crook of my neck giving me small little kisses.

"Eddie stop or you're gonna be late for your test .."I managed to say he was making me feel every kind of way just by his lips being on my neck probably leaving a mark.

"There ." He smiles proudly looking down at my neck .

"Really Eddie ." I put my hands on my hips looking at him .

"Yes, Really Danielle Henderson." He mimics my position.

"Why are you copying me ?" I try my best not to laugh and sound mad

"Don't use your teacher's voice with me Missy." He points his finger at me .

"Excuse me Mr.Munson, are you pointing your finger at me ?" I say sternly and the next thing I know I was thrown in my bed bouncing a few times and Eddie was locking the door to my room and at the same time taking his jeans off, almost tripping when taking them off .

And without any more hesitation he pulled my jeans and underwear down .

I was already wet just by watching him walk around the room with a towel around his waist.I mean who does that ?

He didn't even want to foreplay, he just went straight to business aligning himself to my entrance but first he slid his fingers to check if I was ready for him and like always I was .

What a gentleman .

"Fuck ,you're always so fucking ready for me ." He groaned and pushed himself inside of me .

"Two times in less than an hour ." I say through a moan .

"Baby ,you don't know the things you do to me ." He leaned down, crashing his lips on mine, keeping his thrusting fast .

"We don't have a-lot of time Ed's." I moaned

"It's ok  ." He looks at his phone "we have 10 minutes I can work with that ." He thrusted faster, making me squirm under him ,feeling all the pleasure in between my legs .

I bit my lip trying to contain the moans coming out of my mouth because I could hear My mom in the kitchen getting breakfast done .

"Ah fuck sweetheart you feel so good ." Eddie grabbed me by my thighs, picking me up and walking over and putting me against the wall .

Ok this is new .

I grab myself for dear life putting my arms around his neck

"Fuck baby ." He groaned

This new position made Eddie hit my gspot over and over  again .

He gripped my thighs hard and kept walking around with me wrapped around him like a damn koala .

Until he stopped when we heard a noise and it seemed to be the door to my room .

Knock knock knock

"Yes." I answer almost out of breathe

"Mom says Breakfasts if ready ." Dustin answers from the other side of the door ,

Oh shit I felt the knot on my  stomach wanting to explode .

"I'm coming !!" I shouted

The only thing I heard was his footsteps walking away from my door .

Did he hear anything ?

I'm hoping he didn't.

Fuck I was cumming hard on Eddie's length and I know he felt it too because he gripped my things tighter and crashed his lips on mine trying to contain his moans .

We both reached our climax at the same time .

Wow this was exciting..

Eddie set me down slowly but my legs gave up on me and almost fell to the ground but Eddie was fast to catch me .

"Come here Bambi." He chuckle helping me sit down in bed. 

——————-

During breakfast Dustin kept giving us a weird look ,but I just ignored him.Eddie didn't seem to notice because he was too busy eating his breakfast. After breakfast Eddie left for school with Dustin so it just left my mother Nate and myself .

Nate was still asleep. There was no reason for waking him up early because my mother wasn't working today and she said she would watch him while I went to the doctor .

Before leaving I told to my mother if she could get Nate ready because he wanted to take Eddie food during lunch .

Eddie didn't know we were taking him lunch, we were surprising him .

I was kind of nervous thinking it was too soon for me to walk into school like that .

Maybe no pda or maybe I'll also take lunch for the whole Hellfire club .

Yes I'll do that .

So now I was headed to the doctor hoping I got good news .Hoping they told me I just had a stomach bug .

And now  here goes nothing. I walked in the doctor's office opening the double doors .There was no other patient here other than me .

The only other person was the nurse in the front .

Who as soon as she saw me she made a face and looked at me up and down.

I walked to the front desk checking myself in with the nurse ,she gave me some paperwork to sign and I went to take a seat filling everything up .

I looked around again to see if anyone had gotten here but no I was still alone .I guess it was too early still.

After a few minutes I was done with the paperwork and took it back to the secretary who just told me to take  seat and I was going to get called in a few minutes by a nurse.

I grabbed a magazine from the counter and sat down waiting for my name to be called .I open the magazine and the first thing that came out and in big blue letters "WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOUR EXPECTING." I close the magazine and set it on the table next to me . I didn’t need to see that right now .As the minutes passed I started getting more anxious .My leg was bouncing I kept fidgeting my the bracelet Eddie got me for valentines .

"Danielle Henderson ." A nurse called my name and I stood up fast taking one last look at the magazine I had left behind  and  followed the nurse to a room. I'm glad I was the first one here because I didn't want to wait for too long. I was also afraid I might be seen by someone that I knew or one of the parents of my ex students .

I followed the nurse to the room and she gave me a paper robe for me to wear ,she told me she will be back with a cup for me to pee ,so I sat down in the bench waiting patiently for her to come back looking at the things around me like the 3d model of a vaginal and a jar full of condoms .

after a few minutes she came back with a little cup for me to pee and showed me where the restroom was and where to put the bottle after I was done  .

After I had pee on the bottle I left it in the window she told me and went back to the room to put on the robe while waiting for the doctor to get here .

After a few minutes there was a knock on the door and the doctor walked in .

"Goodmorning Miss.Henderson ." She smiles politely and tells me to sit on the weird looking bed .

"Ok, I was reading here that you been late for almost two months is that true ?"she ask looking down at the papers

"Y-yeah that's true ." I respond

"And I also see here you have the implant in your arm. Is that correct?" she ask

"Yes, that's correct ." I respond again

"Ok, I see you did a pee sample already now let's check that cervix ok ." She tells me getting gloves and putting them on her hands. She sits in between my legs and tells me to put my feet in things the bed had that let her have a preview of my vaginal .

After she was done checking whatever she had to check inside of me , she told me she would be back in a few minutes with the results of the pregnancy test they had done .

I changed back to my jeans and waited in the room pacing around and thinking about everything that  could change when she walked back through that door .

I wonder how Eddie would act if he found out I was pregnant .

Would he run away ?

Would he be happy about it ?

After what seems like hours the doctor comes back to the room holding my results on her hand on the paper that hold my future.

"Ok ,Miss.Henderson I have your results here ." The doctor tells me "first of all your cervix looks fine and we also did a pap-smear ." She tells me looking through the paperwork .

That I knew cause I fucking felt it and saw the duck thing they put inside me .

I fucking hated that.There was a big pause while the doctor read through my paperwork.

But that pause was killing me I needed to know what was wrong with me I needed to know now !!

"Well congratulations Miss.Henderson you're pregnant ."

Those words echo in my head over and over again In repeat .I open my mouth to say something but words wouldn’t come out .So I just listened to the doctor telling me that my appointment for the removal of the implant was made and that I needed to take prenatal vitamins .

“Is there any questions you have for me today?”

"Pregnant ?" Was all that came out of my head .

Next chapter

[sureuncertainty]

As someone who still struggles with it a lot, here are some things that help me personally. It depends on the thing I'm going to and obviously everyone is different so I'm sure these won't be helpful for everyone, but these are some of the only strategies that work for me:

I use multiple calendars that I place in prominent locations where I will see them (I have one by my desk and a whiteboard calendar in the kitchen since those are the places I spend the most time, especially my desk) I write down any appointments that I have 15 minutes earlier than they actually are. For me it has to be physical, phone calendars don't work but those might be good too

I try to think of it less in terms of 'this is when I have to leave by' and more in terms of 'this is when I have to START getting ready by' and have that as a specific time. as in by this time i have to stop doing what I am doing, and be actively getting ready to go. I used to use alarms for this, an alarm that would go off on my phone to go and then I'd set it early enough so I had like one or two 5 minute (but at least that way I'm mentally preparing myself to stop doing what I'm doing soon)

And as far as setting those times, I try to give myself 5-15 minutes of wiggle room for getting ready, that way if a task does take me another 5 or even 10 minutes to tear myself away from, I still have a built in buffer there that won't make me late

Honestly the biggest thing is just trying to trick myself into thinking something is earlier than it actually is. This does not always work bc sometimes I know I'm lying to myself, but if i put it into my calendars at a time that's earlier than the actual time, and vocalize when I have to leave/get ready by (usually by saying it out loud to my partner) sometimes I can override my own brain and trick myself into thinking it's earlier than it actually is

Obviously not an option for everyone but I must include that being on medication has helped me with my executive dysfunction a lot as well, if I have to leave when my meds are working, I tend to be better at getting out the door

I have no idea if any of these things are helpful for you or anyone else but they're the only things i can think of that have helped me (and I still struggle with it all the time)

perhaps the most important question i’ve ever asked:

does anyone have tips for people trying to stop being chronically late to everything in the world that aren’t weirdly judgmental and aggressive or flat out lies

[restforthe-burdenedsoul]

One week until the wedding and I’m more stressed than ever haha. I’m trying to reframe my thoughts and think positive but every time I do something new comes up

I have a friend coming into town who initially said she was coming early to help with anything…but she complains and guilts me any time I ask for help. Maybe I’m asking too much. I’m just finding it hard to get everything done between work and school and I just need help getting my dress from the seamstress 😭

She said specific days she couldn’t help as this is her vacation and I respect that. Monday wasn’t one of those days. I need help getting to my dress appointment because M’s bike broke down and we currently only have one vehicle. M’s mom is currently not talking to him over stupid hurricane bullshit (literally because he said he’d have to talk to me about them staying here before saying yes because I’d have to give my office up - we did not have off, just a remote work day. She didn’t like that he wanted to talk to me first then didn’t like that my office would be messy because I was between tasks - and again with paper files I can’t stand putting things back and then having to take them all out again and reorganize in the piles. It takes less time for me to just neatly stack where I’m at and pick up again next day- and that they’d have to be out of the guest room -my office- by 7am when I clock in)

Anyway, M’s mom won’t answer if she can help get him to work Monday at her house so he can take care of his grandmom. He can’t take my car because he wouldn’t be back in time for my dress appointment. I can’t take him because I clock in so early and we’re trying to avoid being up at 5am to do so- tho it’s doable. I asked my friend - who said she was coming to the dress appointment anyway- if we could use her rental car to get there - it’s 15 minutes away but only like 5 miles distance. I’d put gas in it and drive. She said that I can’t drive because of insurance (fair- I just know she wasn’t comfortable driving) and that if we took her car, her bf would be without a car or would have to come and wait in the car. Again, valid, so I’m not pushing back because that does sound annoying, but all I’m asking for is an hour and a half of their day. They’re staying at my apartment complex rental unit and idk that the dress appointment would even take the full hour.

I also realize in this moment I sound pretty selfish but I am at a loss. Why say you are coming early to help and then fuss any time I ask for help. I asked if she could help me find flowers and make the bouquets - she didn’t seem to want to do that so M and I are gonna figure it out and I asked if she would help prep some food while we hang and watch movies. She didn’t wanna help with that- and again, okay, she’s not my slave and that’s fine she doesn’t want to do stuff. She said that her bf could help set up things befor the wedding, then got pissy when I said we could use the help of someone talk to tack a couple things up high. So, okay, we figured out a different way.

So please. Why say you can help and are coming to help and volunteer to help and then not do anything to help ☹️

Now M’s mom isn’t talking to us days before the wedding and my parents are just pretending there isn’t even a wedding happening. It’s just me and M and he doesn’t have time to help much between work and taking care of his grandmom.

I don’t have any other friends in the area. And I feel like I’m just on my own in figuring all of this out.

I don’t even know I want her to come to the fitting anymore anyway. I’ve cried at each appointment because I’ve had no one to share the happiness with about my dress since I got it.

I hope I feel happier the day of. Don’t get me wrong, I am over the moon about getting married to M and continuing our life together, but I wish we just eloped. The wedding has been nothing but sad and stressful and it’s the marriage itself that’s the most important anyway. It’s too late for that now tho.

Also just realIzed that I won’t get back home from the airport with them until 130am and then will need to be up again at 5am to get M to work. Like. Please help me out a lil bit. She didn’t want to pay for the rental car that night so I’m getting them an hour and half away at the airport to save some money. I just feel like she could take me to this dress appointment.

[queenshelby]

A NEW WORLD - PART FOUR

A Quiet Place 2 Fanfic 

Pairing: Emmett x Fem!Reader

Warning: Angst, Gore, Death, Aliens, Violence, Movie Spoilers, etc…

Because you all love a cliff hanger…

***

Day 1

‘Y/N, hurry up, I will be late for school’ Lucas shouted from outside the bathroom door as you stood beside the toilet and wiped your mouth before reaching for your toothbrush which was lying on top of the sink.

‘Coming’ you shouted out just before you opened the bathroom door and put your hair into a bun.

‘Are you still feeling sick?’ Lucas asked and you nodded and yawned at the same time while you pulled a baggy jumper over your head.

‘I am seeing Dr Lauren today before the game this afternoon’ you said as you could see that Lucas was worried about you.

‘But you are still coming to the game too, right?’ he asked and you nodded, responding with a short ‘of course’.

Whilst you tried hard to avoid Emmett and Nora, you still made it to most of Lucas’s baseball games. It was important to him and you hated to upset him.

The bond you had with Lucas was stronger than anything else and you were the one who had taken it upon herself to look after him now that your mother couldn’t.

After you dropped Lucas off at school, you went to work a short shift at the hospital where you were assisting Nora for the day.

It was not how you wanted to spend your day but you had little to no choice. You needed the money and what happened between you and Emmett wasn’t her fault.

You knew that Emmett had confided in Nora about the night in question, but he had never mentioned to her who the woman was he had been with and he promised you to keep it this way until after you and Lucas had moved to Gorgia in two weeks.

‘Good Morning Y/N’ Nora said as you arrived for your shift twenty minutes early and, before you could even respond to her, you had to make another run for the lavatory.

‘Are you alright sweetie?’ Nora shouted out after she followed you to the lady’s room.

‘Yeah’ you huffed as the nausea had subsided once again. This has been ongoing for a week and you felt as though you have lost a few pounds in bodyweight during this short time.

Whatever you tried to eat, it wouldn’t stay inside you for very long and the constant feeling of nausea was horrendous.

After you calmed down a bit, you followed Nora to one of the medical procedure rooms for the morning briefing. You had three women coming in for check-ups before noon and she wanted you to carry them out while she was preparing the weekly medical reports.

‘Are you still feeling ill? Nora asked surprised as she handed you a small cup of water from next to the dispensary and you simply nodded before drinking it all, the entire cup.

‘I am seeing Dr Lauren later, before the baseball game’ you said as your hands were trembling and you reached for the muesli bar in your handbag. You needed to eat, again.

‘Hey, it’s none of my business Y/N, but have you taken a pregnancy test? I am just thinking, it’s much cheaper than seeing Dr Lauren and I felt pretty lousy when I was pregnant with Henry you know. The nausea could be from that’ Nora suggested and you simply starred at her with wide eyes.

Of course, you hadn’t considered this possibility since you were pretty precise with your method of birth control.

‘I am on the patch’ you quickly said, brushing her off and not wanting to discuss this topic with her any further.

‘And on Topamax and St Johns Wort. I’ve seen them in your locker’ Nora said before telling you that both, the medication and the herbal supplement, interfere with the efficiency of hormonal birth control therapy.

Your chin dropped and your face instantly turned pale. You were speechless and simply couldn’t respond to what Nora had just told you. This was the first time you heard about this.

Nervously, you watched her walk to the medicine cabinet and grab a small plastic cup and a white strip pregnancy test.

‘Here you go. You know how to read these. Go on’ she chuckled and you took the cup and trip out of her hand before making your way to the bathroom nervously.

***

‘And?’ Nora asked as you returned from the bathroom. Your face was much more pale than before and it was obvious that you were crying as your eyes were watery and red.

‘Not pregnant’ you said quickly before advising her that you would need to make a quick phone call to Dr Lauren’s surgery before seeing the first patient.

She nodded and you disappeared into the women’s change room to make the call.

***

Your appointment with Dr Lauren later that afternoon was rather quick but, when you left her rooms, there was paperwork for you to sign before the nurse would hand over the medications which you had discussed with Dr Lauren

‘Y/N, for this procedure, we will require you to sign a waiver. The use of the drugs prescribed by Dr Lauren will be effective but we cannot guarantee that there won’t be any complications if you decide not to attend our other clinic for an ultrasound following the chemical abo…’ the nurse said and, just as she did, you watched her stare out of the large window in the reception area. Her chin dropped and her eyes widened as she looked up into the sky.  

‘What the fuck is that?’ you said as you signed the waiver and, at the same time, heard a loud bang coming from the sky outside.

You quickly took your car keys from the reception counter and ran towards the door.

‘Y/N, your tablets…’ the receptionist shouted, holding up the packet of medicine prescribed by Dr Lauren for the procedure, but you were gone.

Quickly, you started up your car and drove to the baseball field where Lucas was playing but, just as you turned the corner into the main street less than two minutes later, you saw people running around everywhere.

You had no idea what was going on as, suddenly, two men ran in front of your vehicle followed by what appeared to be a large creature of some sort.

You panicked and reversed the car quickly, but there was nowhere to go.

‘Holy fuck’ you shouted as, behind you, there were more people running from yet another one of these creatures and, without giving it too much more thought, you opened your car door, grabbed your bag and ran inside the pharmacy.  

‘What the fuck are these things?’ you shouted in fear as you ran behind the counter and the pharmacist Joe cocked his gun just as another creature came taring down through the shop front window.

Joe tried to shoot it, but was taken by it almost instantly while you tried hard not to scream.

Tears were running down your face as you were quietly sitting beneath the counter. You had absolutely no idea what was going on but you had to find a way to get to the baseball field as quickly as possible. Lucas needed your help and you were scared for his life.

But you were stuck as the creature was lurking inside the shop, obviously looking for you or any other humans inside.

You took long and deep breaths and tried to remain calm as you could hear it making the strangest of noises as it walked around the store.

As you were sitting there, your heart was beating out of your chest and you believed that your time had come as the creature drew closer to the counter beneath which you were sitting.

But, to your surprise, after a minute, it turned around, drawn by the sound outside on the street when a large bus hit one of the buildings.

Quietly and slowly, you walked out of the pharmacy as the two creatures were destroying the bus. Without making a sound, you walked along the street from car to car, hiding behind them, trying to be as quiet as you possibly could.

It soon became evident to you that these creatures couldn’t see you. They could only hear you and possibly smell you. But you couldn’t be sure.

Without a car, you made your way to the baseball field which took you at least 20 minutes for what usually would be a two-minute walk.

By this point, the street was quiet and covered in dead bodies and blood. There were no more creatures and no men and women alive. It took these monsters as little as 15 minutes to kill everyone and now there was no longer any screaming or yelling. Just silence, blood-filled streets and human remains.

You tried hard to focus as you finally reached the baseball field. It was abandoned, no more than three or five dead bodies. On the field, there was silence. All you could hear was the cracking of the leaves from the trees surrounding it.

You desperately wanted to yell out for Lucas, trying to find him, but you knew that you couldn’t. You had to be quiet or these creatures may come back.

You searched beneath each bench, behind every tree and inside the locker rooms. But, he was nowhere to be found.

 Tag List (Cillian):

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[duckprintspress]

General Update

It occurs to me that I haven't spoken much on our business Tumblr about certain things going on in the background of running this Press. Usually, on Sundays, we try to post an informational post about writing, a prompt list, or some other significant content, but that's been noticeably absent the last few weeks, and here's why.

Hi, I'm unforth/Claire/Nina Waters, any pronouns (I don't care if people default to she/her, which most do), and I own this Press. I'm 39, enby, aroace, mother of two, and queer platonic married to ramblingandpie. And I've had problems with my back on and off for almost 15 years. In the last 4 years that's very much been more "on" than "off," and in the last year it's been continually "on." Over the summer, it lingered at a constant 2-or-so on a ten scale where 9 is "giving birth without painkillers," which I have done. Twice. Over the early fall, it was bad enough that I started getting help lifting and moving things. In November, it went into precipitous decline, and I started to get alarmed.

Early December, my doctor said "give it six weeks, see if it goes away on it's own." Spoilers, it didn't. I saw a specialist, finally, on December 30th, and they immediately sent me for an MRI (I'd been trying to get my PCP to send me for an MRI for 4 goddamn years). A week and a half ago I saw the specialist again, and we reviewed the MRI results, and basically, one of my discs is bulging and pinching my spinal cord (less basically, the disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae is herniated and causing spinal stenosis and radiating sciatic pain down my right leg). At this point, even on massive amounts of painkillers and anti-inflammatory meds, I can't drive and can hardly walk right now - I get about 5 minutes on my feet before the pain is too excruciating and I have to sit and rest for 5 to 10 minutes before I can do more - and I also can't sit at my desktop computer at all. And, the meds make me tired and dizzy. The specialist said I should see a surgeon, and while she hedged her bets and suggested there was a chance I wouldn't surgery, she also considered the case urgent enough that she tried to flag the surgeon down in the hallway and have him see me immediately, and spent the rest of the appointment discussing surgery like it was a foregone conclusion. But I couldn't make an appointment with the surgeon, because his secretary was out with Covid...and by the time she got back on Monday, the surgeon had also caught Covid, and is out for two weeks, as is another of the 4 total surgeons that the Spine Clinic at the local hospital employs.

I'm seeing one of the ones who DOESN'T have Covid on Wednesday, and again, while there's a chance I don't need major back surgery, it's a very small chance. Based on our research and knowledge and what the pain specialist said (my wife has medical expertise too), we think the only real question on Wednesday will be how soon they're able to schedule it, considering how bad Omicron is spreading here. The MRI indicates that right now I'm literally continually, potentially, a moment a way from catastrophic nerve damage. Like, if something twinges wrong, I could end up incontinent for the rest of my life, or with permanent leg weakness, or even theoretically paralysis, and I have a list of circumstances under which I'm supposed to go to the ER immediately and have the surgery with the on-call surgeon (who will be one of those same two who don't have Covid, I feel bad for them they must be SO overworked right now, what a mess). It'd be a huge surprise if I don't have surgery within the next week or two - we've been planning as if it's a foregone conclusion, and I have a go-bag ready for the ER, because it really is that serious - and once I do, recovery is about 6 weeks of bed rest, followed by months of PT and the slower healing that just takes time.

All that said, post-op success rates on this surgery (I believe it's a laminectomy?) are very high - if I follow all the medical instructions, I should heal back to 100%, unless I've already got nerve damage (which is unfortunately possible but. What can ya do?). Even then, surgery should heal the pain, and I'll just have leg weakness.

All of which is to say...since early November I've been dealing with some pretty damn major health problems. Especially challenging has been my inability to sit at my computer, because that's where I do most of my writing and all of my graphic work and editing.

I know I'm over-sharing personal things here, and I'm sorry about that - I've tried to hold off on sharing it at all, this has been going on for almost 10 weeks, but I think we've reached the point where the health issues are major enough, and the impact it has on the business is visible enough, that it's better for me to simply disclose. I'm not looking for pity; I'm trying to make clear why the business is behind on certain things we'd said are imminent.

Our goal is to have this impact the business as little as possible, but since I'm our only full time employee, and our primary coordinator for major projects, there's simply a lot we can't do when my work time is greatly reduced by health issues. The good news is, once it became clear how serious this was, I used basically the business's entire rainy day fund to buy a nice laptop, so I'm now able to work from the couch (which is about the only place I can sit comfortably). That's how I'm typing this update - the laptop arrived on Wednesday and I've spent the days since getting it set up to do all the things I usually do from desktop, which means I can move forward on some of the things we had to delay.

Specific implications of all the above, as applied to our current projects:

1. The And Seek (Not) to Alter Me Kickstarter is temporarily delayed. We'll make an announcement (and finally do the cover reveal!!) once we can plan a specific timeline for launch - hopefully, we'll know that in about a week, after I've spoken to the surgeon. In terms of our actual preparedness for launch...I'm behind on my share of the editing, but all the stories have had at least one editing run, and about half are ready for immediate publication. The art is also all ready. We have all the merchandise art ready, and some are in the printing templates. The Kickstarter copy is complete written and edited and has been approved by KS (like, from that standpoint, we could literally launch right now), but only 4 out of the 6 graphics we need are completed; I'm hoping to finish the rest imminently, so that as soon as my health allows and I know I'll be recovered enough to manage the KS fulfillment (which involves a LOT of box lifting, which is impossible for me right now) we can hit the "launch" button.

2. There are no delays in review of applications for He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown. We've already finished reviewing the applications from "returner" applicants (people who have written with us before on one of our two anthologies or have done a Patreon story with us) and have a preliminary list of accepted authors (no one will be notified until we're done reviewing all applications). Our team doing the review (myself, A. L. Heard/jhoom, Alessa, P. J. Claremore/Foop, K. B. Vimes, and Lacey Hays/Owlish) are about halfway done with the mlm applications and a quarter through the wlw - I personally am a reader for every applications and I'm finished with the mlm and will be starting the wlw ones today. All of which is to say, we're making good progress and do not anticipate a delay - we still expect to notify all applicants of their acceptances or rejections by January 31st.

3. The two novels I'm supposed to edit - one by A. L. Heard, the other by Tris Lawrence - I've been unable to make progress on, so these are currently delayed, and the authors are in the loop and know.

4. We're a little behind on Patreon backer rewards, specifically the Patron-exclusive stories. However, we're working on catching up, and we anticipate that (hopefully) by the end of February, we'll have published all the backlog and caught up. Other Patreon rewards have not been impacted.

5. There's a few other things that were in the works when this all started but that we hadn't publicly announced yet...those are, as would expect, on hold. (As a teaser for anyone dedicated enough to have read this far...this includes our first erotica title and an erotica imprint to go with it, with it's own logo and sub-website on our main page, and our plans for our fifth anthology, and a call for manuscript submissions, and more!)

As we see it...these are uncertain times for everyone even without "extra" things happen, and something like this health issue couldn't have been predicted. However, nothing has changed in terms of our commitment to Duck Prints Press and all we set out to do. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we, and I especially, get through this. We're striving to catch up and get back to "normal," and we can't wait to share with you all the amazing things that we've been working on. And Seek (Not) to Alter Me is a.may.zing, y'all, and the submissions pitches for the two new anthologies are blowing our socks off. Seriously, we're so excited.

Stay tuned - there's so, so, SO much more to come!

[la-principessa-nuova]

Thinking about this out of the moment now, I’m still proud of how I handled it in the moment, but I would handle it differently now.

This got long and rambly but the key takeaway was:

Judge in-the-moment reactions for what they are and recognize that it is ok that you didn’t take the most practical, rational path in the moment. But afterwards, consider what went right and wrong both from a rational perspective for that specific situation and from a dysregulation perspective in general, and plan for how to handle things in the future so if that situation happens again you have a plan/script to follow, and next time you encounter a new situation you weren’t prepared for, you can maximize your chances and ability to self-regulate and minimize the damage.

Also talk to your therapist about it. And if you don’t have one, find a good one who specializes in autism (and ideally one that has autism if you can find one) and talk to them about it.

Like, in the moment I was trying not to have a meltdown in response to the sudden change in plan of not having an appointment instead of having an appointment, and all the changes that came with it

like instead of being a week early to get my new prescription in case there was a delay, the appointment was now the day before one of them ran out, which is terrifying to me especially without time to process that

like i get a little jolt of panic when i use the last of the laundry detergent until i look at the shelf and see i had a second one waiting, and then i feel a little uncomfortable until the new one arrives every time i think about it or see only one bottle on the shelf

so the idea that i might have a gap of not having one of my daily medications? terrifying.

the idea that when i filled my day of the week medicine thing today i didn’t have enough of any of my prescription medications to fill it? terrifying.

and by terrifying i guess i really mean it gives me a general sense of unease and i have to not think about it or i start to feel a bit sick from the worry, but even if i don’t it adds to the general feeling of being out of control and anxious.

So yeah, in the moment i was in no state to be fully rational and i’m glad i didn’t start crying in front of them or get angry, even if i wish i could have sounded more calm instead of panicked, but i couldn’t because i was panicking

but a more rational approach would have been to say that was ok, schedule the follow up, and then message my doctor in the telehealth app about a temporary extension of the one medication that was running out the day of the new appointment

but i wasn’t really addressing the practical need, i was addressing my need to regulate by controlling the situation in whatever little way i could, so the fact that i did that by politely (though on edge) addressing a practical concern, i’m good with that. especially given the context that i am very much in autistic burnout right now, so every little thing is too much right now to begin with.

but also looking at it now i can also see that it made the experience worse for me overall to make myself then wait to hear whether they could do something, because then i had to sit there and not cry in the waiting room for 10-15 minutes.

so if that ever happens again, i will leave and follow up with a message in the telehealth app when i get home addressing exactly what is practically needed (and then i can cry all i want about it in the comfort of my own home).

but i think there’s an important lesson in here about judging in-the-moment reactions for what they are and recognizing that you won’t take the most practical, rational path in the moment, but to be able to consider what went right and wrong both from a rational perspective and a dysregulation perspective, and to start to plan for how to handle things in the future.

have a rational plan for that specific thing if it seems possible it will happen again that you can slip into like a new less-good-but-still-in-the-plan plan B, and also work on learning general lessons for how to get out of a situation where you are at risk of melting down without making more issues for yourself later.

like even though it was my fault and everything went well, it does kind of make me want to change providers bc now when i think about going there it’s even scarier than it was before bc instead of thinking of it and being like “yeah, they’re so nice there and made me feel welcome,” i’m like, “they probably hate me there now and i’m embarrassed to show my face.” even though they handled it really well.

but like even though they don’t deserve it, it still makes me feel worse when i think about going there now

i probably won’t change my plans at all about when to stop using them, but i’m a little more antsy for the day when i get to the part where i’m just checking in less frequently to ensure my stable dosage is still good and i can just see my PCP for it.

very nervous right now. i had my appointment time wrong and they canceled it and the next available appointment is 1 day before my prescription runs out.

it was really hard but i pushed on it to see if they could slip me in bc it’s normally really quick and i was planning on switching to injection which means then i might have to come back in before starting my new prescription…

waiting now to see if the doctor is able to when she’s done with the current patient

[snowdice]

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 68]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Had an early doctor’s appointment today so I’m tired, and the tests done made things feel worse, so idk how long this is going to go, but I want to get at least a bit of my work done. Also brain is not running at full capacity... so if I just disappear it means I forgot I was doing something, laid down, and fell asleep and/or zoned out.

Chapter 31

Logan waited for a while after Patton left to check on Virgil, but the two never resurfaced. It was odd, Patton would usually remember to come back and get Logan or at least tell them where they were. With a sigh, Logan climbed to his feet to go find them. It took him a while to weave his way through the maze of bushes to them especially because they were suspiciously quiet (Well, suspicious for Patton. Virgil was often unnervingly quiet when alone.) Luckily, he knew the bushes enough after all of these years not to get lost and managed to find the two after a few minutes.

“Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.

 “Logan!” Patton said, his voice excited, but also quieter than normal. “We found a kitty!”

“I can see that,” Logan responded, taking a step closer. The cat hissed at him in response. The hissing was so intense and wild that he’d suspect the thing was feral if it wasn’t happily on Virgil’s lap having had it’s head in Patton’s lap before Logan had approached.

“No,” Virgil told the animal as though it could understand words. “That’s Logan. Be nice.”

The cat still glared at him and swished it’s tail back and forth threateningly. Virgil pet the top of it’s head and it broke eye contact with Logan to purr.

 Patton seemed delighted by the purring, reaching to stroke under the thing’s chin carefully. “We should give her a name!” Patton said.

Virgil frowned. “I thought her name was Ghost Kitty.”

“That is ‘Ghost Kitty’?” Logan asked skeptically. From what Patton had said about that cat, it was terrified of people and no one could ever get near it, even him. Now it was in Virgil’s lap?

“But that was a temporary name,” Patton said, “for before we officially met her. Now we have to give her a real name.”

“Do not give it a name,” Logan said. “You will get attached.”

 “How do you name a cat?” Virgil asked.

“Do not name it,” Logan said.

“You give them names based on their personalities, how they look, or even just because it’s a cute name,” Patton explained. “Like, remember Mittens? I named her Mittens because she has white fur and black paws!”

Virgil looked at the cat. “She’s completely black,” he said.

Patton hummed. “So, we could give her a name based on that like Midnight or Shadow.”

“Those are fine,” Virgil said.

“No, no,” Patton said. “I’m just giving you examples. You get to name her yourself.”

“This is a bad idea,” Logan said.

 “Just throw out some names,” Patton said. “Anything you can think of.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “Knife.”

“…Just Knife?” Patton asked.

“Nightmare.” Virgil seemed to think about it. “No, that’s mean.”

“How about things you like?” Patton suggested.

“Alfredo?”

Oh no, Logan thought, he was worse than Patton at cat naming.

“Good start,” Patton said. “Logan, do you have any suggestions.”

“Cat,” Logan said.

“Real suggestions,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and thought for a moment. “Aphrodite.”

“Catphrodite!”

Logan glared at him. “Helena.”

“Helenpaw.”

“Claudia.”

“Clawdia.”

“Persephone.”

Patton smiled at him, cheerfully.

“…Damnit!”

Patton turned to Virgil again. “Like that! They don’t even have to be serious. Like, uh, you could name her Madam Fluffywuffykins the Great!”

“Do not name her that,” Logan said, scrunching up his nose.

 Logan sat on the ground, the cat eyeing him, but no longer hissing. Logan gently guided them towards more sensible names despite Patton trying his hardest to drag them into stupidity.

Virgil still didn’t quite get it. He mostly tried to name it after foodstuff, and often not even appropriate foodstuff such as “Corn” and “Acorn Squash” and “Sandwich” and occasionally would drop in semi violent ones such as “Razor,” “Nightshade” and “Void.” Patton suggested names like “Fluffers,” “Bobette” and “Darling” as well as some that were puns. Logan tried to direct them towards more sensible ones like “Salem” and even went so low as to suggest the contrary “Snowball.”

 It quickly seemed to become less about actually naming the cat and more of a game. Patton had taught Virgil about playing with cats and had even gotten out a ball of yarn he cared around for his crafts. Both Virgil and the cat seemed to find endless entertainment with that. Logan hoped Patton had another ball of yarn that color because, he was never going to get that ball back.

The barrage of names fizzled out into naming things around them like “Leaf” and “Bush” until they stopped suggesting names altogether. Patton and Logan sat back and watched Virgil play with the cat.

 Logan watched as they stopped playing suddenly and Virgil and the cat squinted at each other. “Marisol,” Virgil said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “That’s her name.” He said it with a certainty that was surprising considering how he’d treated the naming process with confusion and caution earlier. If Logan did not know better, his tone of voice would indicate that the cat, or Marisol he guessed, had gotten bored of them coming up with stupid names and decided to tell him her actual name herself.

The cat made a sound and batted at Virgil’s face without claws to grab back his attention.

 He turned back to it and bopped its face with a finger in kind. It attacked his finger, but in a clearly playful matter as it still did not extend it’s claws and its teeth did not draw blood.

“That’s a great name, Virgil,” Patton said.

“Much more pleasant than any that Patton suggested all afternoon,” Logan said. He received an elbow to the side for his quip.

“A pretty name for a pretty kitty,” Patton said, scooting over to where Virgil was sat and attempting to pet Marisol’s head. Marisol, however, was too keyed up and batted at the hand.

 “I love you too!” Patton said.

Logan rolled his eyes, but he had long since resigned himself to watching the two of them play with and coo over the cat for the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, it started to get darker. Even after Logan pointed this out, it still took over an hour for them to relent and leave the bush maze to go to the door. The problem was of course, that the cat had managed to grow very attached to Virgil in the last few hours and she followed them all the way to the door with manipulatively heart breaking mews.

 “You’ve got to stay out here,” Virgil said, when they got to the castle door. He pet her ear softly and she shoved her head into his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere to put you.” He sounded horribly sad about that fact and Logan felt himself shift uncomfortably. “I basically live in a closet and Logan doesn’t like cats in his room anyway.”

Logan immediately felt unreasonably guilty, probably more so because Logan did not think Virgil was trying to make him feel guilty. “…Bring the dammed thing inside.”

Virgil blinked up at him. “What?”

“It will get cold soon anyway,” Logan said.

He frowned at Logan from where he was crouched. “But you don’t like fur in your room…”

“I will have to find a potion that works,” he said with a sigh, “and we’ll have to say it’s mine to the guards and Father since it will be staying in my room, but it is yours in every other way. That means you are going to feed it, clean it, and clean up after it.”

Virgil nodded immediately and swooped Marisol up in his arms. The cat went without complaint. “Thank you!” he said. “I love her.”

“I know you do,” Logan said, already regretting it already. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to even consider recanting the offer considering how happy Virgil seemed to be. They had a cat now, he guessed.

  Chapter 32

“What are you doing?” Helen asked a few minutes after her son walked into the kitchen and started looking around as though he were trying to find something. It was a few hours into the afternoon, and she and a few workers were already prepping for dinner.

“Uh,” Patton said. “Have you seen Virgil?”

“No,” Helen said. “Why.”

“Er… Logan and I sorta, lost him,” Patton said. He was wringing his hands anxiously. Helen put down the knife in her hand.

“What do you mean you lost him?” she asked.

“Well, see, we were trying to teach him how to play hide and seek, um, but then we didn’t think to tell him that he eventually had to come out if we didn’t find him, and now we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

 “He didn’t know what tag is?” she asked. That was just one more thing to add to the list of why Helen worried about Virgil and where he came from. Every morsel of information she’d managed to wring from Patton despite his evasions made her lists of concerns grow larger, even little things like him not knowing about simple childhood games. Actually, thinking of concerning things having to do with Virgil. “Wait, so he hasn’t eaten lunch.”

“Um, we don’t know that,” Patton’s mouth said while his eyes said ‘no.’

“He needs to be on a consistent diet, especially when he’s still taking the malnutrition potion,” she scolded.

 “I know, Mama, I know,” Patton said. “I’m trying to find him. I’d kinda hoped he’d gotten hungry and snuck down here. He probably wouldn’t want to risk being caught stealing food though.”

Helen grimaced. Yet another concerning thing.

“Wait! I have an idea, I’ll be right back.” Patton turned and ran out of the room. Helen frowned at the space he’d been and finished chopping the carrot on the cutting board in front of her. If it had been any other person in the castle missing, Helen wouldn’t have worried, but she had literally never seen Virgil without Patton and/or Logan by his side. Even when he’d gone to help Jeff can some fruit, Logan had reportedly hung around to read a book.

 Considering that Logan had never exactly been clingy even with Patton, she imagined that either Virgil asked, or Logan thought he should stay with him for his comfort. So, she was surprised that he was apparently hidden away somewhere in the castle where neither of the other kids could find him.

Still thinking about this, she walked over to the entrance to the cellar below the kitchen where they stored most of the vegetables, planning to grab some more carrots. She was confused for a moment when she heard movement from deeper in the pantry. She reached over and touched the panel near the door that controlled the magic lights.

 The newly illuminated figure startled as the lights came on, whipping around to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Virgil?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, taking a step back.

“It’s fine,” she said immediately, “but what are you doing here?”

He considered her for a long moment, but apparently, she passed some sort of mental test, because he relaxed, at least as much as he’d ever relaxed in her presence. “Where are we?” he asked.

Her brow knit together. “The cellar under the kitchen,” she said, “You don’t know that?”

He shook his head.

“The only entrance is from the kitchen.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him go through the kitchen at any point.

 “No, it’s not,” Virgil said. “There’s a tunnel.”

“A-a tunnel?” she asked. Actually, taking a closer look at him, he seemed a bit grimy. He had dust all over his front and dirt on his nose. She thought he might even have a couple of cobwebs in his hair.

“Yep,” he said.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

“It’s right over here,” he said. He took a couple of steps and pointed to the ground. There was an open square hole there that clearly had been made a long time ago but which she had never noticed in all of her time working here.

 “How did you find this?” she asked.

“We were playing hide and seek,” Virgil explained. “Logan said I could hide anywhere inside the castle. I hid on top of a dresser upstairs in some unused sitting room. There was a hole in the wall above it, so I climbed into it. Then, I crawled a little bit and it let out into a hidden passage in the walls. I wandered around in it until I found another hole in one of the walls. I thought it was a way out, so I squeezed into it, but it took me to a different hallway where I found an old room. There was a different hole in that room that had probably been covered by something because it was in the floor but whatever it was had rotted away. I crawled though it into a tunnel and came out here.”

 She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his explanation. “Well, it sounds like you went on an adventure,” she said, “but Patton and Logan have been trying to find you. You missed lunch.”

He tilted his head at her. “I know. I was supposed to hide.”

“Yes,” she explained, “but you are supposed to come out at some point if they can’t find you for things like food.”

“Oh,” he said.

“They probably should have explained,” she said. “For now, why don’t we get you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

Virgil frowned. “But I missed lunch.”

“You can still eat even though it’s not in normal hours,” she said. “You could even if you had made it to lunch.”

 “Really?” he asked, he looked tragically confused by this offer.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. “In fact, I insist you get something good to eat right now. How about I made you a grilled ham and cheese sandwich? Maybe some cookies too!”

Virgil titled his head. “You are Patton’s mother,” he stated.

Helen laughed softly. “He gets its all from me,” she said. “We should probably go find him and tell him you’re okay. He was worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him,” Virgil said with a frown.

“I know,” Helen said. “It’s okay. He’ll probably laugh when he figures out where you’ve been, and Logan will interrogate you all about the secret passageways.” He seemed happy about the prospect of seeing his friends. “Come on, let’s go upstairs for a bit,” she said.

  Chapter 33

Patton’s mom had already made Virgil sit down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and had handed him a sandwich by the time Patton barreled into the kitchen, Logan coming after him at a more sedate pace.

“Virgil!” he said, sounding surprised and relieved.

“Patton,” Patton’s mom scolded. “No cats in the kitchen.” Patton had brought Marisol in with him and had let her go as soon as he’d seen Virgil. She immediately plodded over to him and hoped onto the table to sniff at his face in greeting.

“But she’s the princess!” Patton argued.

“No,” Logan said.

 “Yes, she is!” Patton said.

“The stupid cat is not a princess.”

“Don’t be mean to your little sister, Logan.”

“I regret every life decision that has led me to this point.”

While Logan and Patton were distracted squabbling and Patton’s mom was distracted watching them squabble, Virgil tore off a bit of the ham in his sandwich and offered it to Marisol. Marisol gracefully took it from his grip and ate it.

“So, this is Logan’s new cat I’ve been hearing about?” Patton’s mom asked.

“Indeed,” Logan said, his lips thinned. He and Marisol were mostly amicable when alone with just them and Virgil, but Patton had a habit of cooing over the kitten and needling Logan into being irritated.

 “Mmm, yeah,” Patton’s mom said. She glanced over at Virgil right as Marisol basically slammed her face into his chin in a bid to get pets. “Your cat.” She shook her head. “But Princess Kitten or not, I do not want fur in dinner,” she said.

“Sorry,” Patton said, honestly not sounding sorry at all. Virgil was always a bit surprised when the insolent shrug garnered nothing more that a scowl that did not reach Patton’s mom’s eyes. “I thought she could help me find Virgil, but you already found him.” He turned to Virgil. “Where have you been all day?”

 “Found a tunnel,” Virgil said. He had to use one hand to hold Marisol back from his sandwich as he took another bite, but then gave her a bite of cheese.

“You found what?” Logan asked.

“There’s a tunnel under the cellar,” Virgil said. “It goes to an old closed up room and also to a set of secret passageways.” It was a bit of a security risk honestly, though clearly no one had used it in years by how dirty it was. He did plan to go back into it and make sure the sprawling tunnels didn’t go to anywhere more dangerous like the royal wing.

 “A closed-up room?” Logan said. He could see a bit of curiosity already building in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Where the door used to be seemed like it had been bricked over.”

“Really? Can you show me.”

“Sure,” Virgil answered.

“Ah, perhaps we should be a bit more cautious about climbing through random tunnels we don’t know the stability of,” Patton’s mom said.

Logan’s frown edged on a pout.

“Talk to your father,” she said. “I’m sure he can get someone who understands these things so you can safely investigate.”

“It was safe enough for Virgil,” Logan pointed out.

 “No, Logan.”

He sighed but seemed to concede. That was another strange thing about living here. By all rights Logan didn’t have to obey anyone except the king, but he often listened to those around him, not just the adults but Patton as well. It was interesting though it sometimes made the hierarchy hard to figure out. Virgil did sometimes stress out about the hypothetical situation where he got conflicting orders from two people, and he wouldn’t know which one to obey. So far it hadn’t been a problem luckily. They always seemed to work it out amongst themselves in some give and take social interaction that was a bit too complex for him to understand.

 Patton walked over to where Virgil was sitting. “I’m glad your safe,” he said. “We should probably put a time limit on hide and seek in the future, so you know when to come out.”

“Did I win?” Virgil asked. He’d honestly forgotten they’d been playing a game until Patton’s mom had asked how he’d found his way into the cellar.

Patton laughed. “I’d say so, yeah,” he replied. He leaned over to kiss Virgil’s forehead, but drew back immediately with a pinched expression. “You are… very dirty,” he said, rubbing his mouth.

Virgil nodded. “Your mom made me sit on a tablecloth,” he said gesturing to the fabric she’d laid over the chair.

 Patton snorted out a laugh. “We’ll get you into the bath when you’re done eating and you can tell us all about your little adventure.”

“I would also like to hear about your discoveries,” Logan said. “Though you are not allowed to sit on the bed until you do not have spider webs in your hair.”

Patton’s eyes widened and he jumped away from Virgil, startling both Virgil and Marisol. The latter hopped from the table onto Virgil’s lap. “Spiders?!”

Virgil tilted his head at him in confusion.

“He isn’t a fan of spiders,” Logan informed him, his voice amused at Patton’s reaction.

 Apparently deciding that she was no longer startled, but more confused by the noises Patton had just made, Marisol jumped out of Virgil’s lap to investigate, wrapping her way around Patton’s legs. He bent down to pat her back, though he still looked a bit startled.

“Your cat, huh?” Patton’s mom asked Logan once again. Virgil studied her. She had apparently missed Logan mentioning that he allowed Virgil on the bed. Or perhaps Logan was correct in his insistence that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal here. Virgil would rather not test that assumption, however, so was glad that it had been distracted from by Patton’s outburst.

 “Creepy, crawly death dealers,” Patton mumbled into Marisol’s fur, having picked her back up. Virgil made a note to not inform Patton of all of the different types of spiders he’d seen skittering around in the castle walls today. Maybe he’d talk about them with Logan once Patton left. He’d probably be interested. Virgil had seen some he’d never seen before! Logan probably could even help him figure out what their names were. “You’ll protect me, won’t you kitty?” Patton asked Marisol.

She made a little ‘burrrr’ sound in response, which Patton seemed to take a confirmation.

“Aw thank you, baby! Such a good baby.”

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Virgil popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Patton’s mom turned away and grabbed a plate stacked with cookies. She handed it to Logan. “Take these, and please get the health hazards out of my kitchen,” she requested.

Logan took them without complaint. “Come on, Virgil,” he said. “Let’s go get you clean.”

“We’re going to need so much soap,” Patton said.

Virgil looked down at himself. “I can go outside and get most of it off if you get me a bucket of water,” he offered.

“Virgil, it’s below freezing,” Logan said as though that had a baring on what he’d just said. Logan sighed. “No. Bathtub.” Virgil shrugged. “Honestly,” Logan said. He turned with the plate of cookies in his hand, clearly expecting to be followed. “You’re not going to catch your death pouring a bucket of water over yourself in the cold when there are literally over a hundred perfectly good bathtubs in this castle. For goodness sakes.” And well, Virgil wasn’t going to complain.

  Chapter 34

Patton, to be completely honest, was not all that interested in the room that Virgil had found. Beyond just the fact that it would definitely have creepy crawly death dealers in it, he really did not understand the intrigue. If it had just been him, he probably would have just let a castle worker deal with it, but it was not just him. Logan was ecstatic with the prospect of investigating a secret in the castle. People who didn’t know him well may not believe it considering he spent most of his time with his nose in a book, but he was an adventurer at heart.

 Thomas had been easily swayed into finding someone to help tear down part of the wall into the secret tunnel near the room (so no one would have to crawl through the kitchen cellar like Virgil). It had taken a few days, however, and Logan was practically bouncing off the walls waiting. Virgil, despite having already seen the room before, also seemed excited, though if that was because of his own curiosity or because he was just excited that Logan seemed so exited remained to be seen.

“They are silly, aren’t they,” Patton asked Princess Marisol. He was laying on his stomach on Logan’s bed and Princess Marisol had just put her little paw on his nose.

 “Yes, I agree,” he said. “Don’t they know that we’re literally going to be 2 feet away from the normal hallway?”

“It is not silly,” Logan defended himself. “Any number of things could go wrong.” He sounded far too excited about the prospect of something going terribly wrong. “The tunnels could cave in and block off the exit or there could be some unknown pathogen in the air.”

Patton did not ruin his fun by mentioning that Logan’s dad had definitely basically baby proofed the tunnels for them ahead of time. Instead, he just said, “Don’t let Virgil hear you say that sort of thing. It will just stress him out.”

 “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, waving off Patton’s concerns as he mulled over two different weird green planty things (potion ingredients, Patton assumed) before setting one aside and sticking the other in his bag.

“So silly,” Patton cooed at the cat. Logan let out a huff but did not choose to say anything about it this time.

Speaking of silly, Virgil came back from Logan’s bathroom then, and Patton tried not to giggle. “Is this right?” Virgil asked, sounding and looking confused. Logan, in his overexcitement about adventure had commissioned Virgil an outfit that actually fit. Said outfit, however, very much made it look more like Virgil was going on a safari instead of a two-foot detour from the normal castle hallway.

 “Almost,” Logan said, “Here, let me.” Logan started straightening everything out and flattening the collar, reminding Patton of an overbearing parent on picture day. Virgil accepted the fussing without protest. It was adorable. Well, the outfit was ridiculous, but still, adorable. “There,” Logan said. “I think we’re ready to go now.”

It was about time. Patton was sure people were already waiting for them downstairs. Patton got up and patted Princess Marisol on the head. She looked up at them with interest.

“You can stay here, sweetie,” Patton told here. She seemed to consider it and then hopped down from the bed to go rub up against Virgil.

 Patton guessed she was coming. It didn’t matter too much since Logan had given her a magical collar that allowed her to open most doors in the castle and everyone knew she was the royal cat now, so if she decided she wanted to come back to the room and nap, she could. (She was very aware of the power she held.)

She pranced happily by Virgil’s side all the way down the steps to the first floor of the castle. She was such a good kitty.

Well, she did hiss angrily at everyone who came too close to them, but still, a very good kitty.

 Patton did lean down and pick her up so they could actually talk to the man waiting for them at the large hole in the wall. Logan went to talk to the castle worker while Virgil half hid behind Patton. He was clearly listening very intently to the conversation however, at least more intently than Patton was. Patton was busy shaking his head fondly.

“Yes, yes, Princess,” he said to the cat. “I know we do not trust the strangers, but I promise this stranger is perfectly safe.”

“How do you know?” Virgil asked.

“His name is Chester and I’ve known him since I was 9.”

 This seemed to slightly alleviate Virgil’s suspicion, but Princess Marisol still seemed antsy. Patton really needed to start slowly introducing the both of them to more people.

Logan finished talking with Chester after a few moments and it was time to climb through the hole in the wall. He wished he saw in the tunnel whatever Logan with his excited eyes and bounce to his step obviously saw. Or even that was more comfortable in the dark closed in space as Virgil obviously was. As it was, Patton’s nose scrunched up at the thought off all of the spiders that could be living everywhere in the secret tunnel, but he pushed through.

 The entrance to the tunnel had been made only a little bit from the room Virgil had mentioned and Chester had led them through it after only a couple of seconds. As Patton had suspected, the room was already lit up and probably cleaned a little bit by the people who had cut into the wall, not that he was complaining.

Virgil was still clinging a bit to Patton’s shirt, though it seemed to be less out of anxiety at this point and more out of a desire to stick close. He was peering around curiously at the lit-up space. He probably hadn’t seen much of it in the dark when he’d been here before.

 Yet, his curiosity was nothing compared to how excited Logan seemed to be. Now Patton may have not been interested in the room itself, but he was entertained by how interested Logan was and was happy to encourage that.

“What do you think this place is?” he asked Logan.

Logan hummed contemplatively, eyes looking around. “Well,” he said. “It’s a bedroom clearly, and old. Considering the location it is in in the castle, the size, the decorations, and it’s likely age, I’d imagine it was a bedroom of a royal family member. This used to be the royal wing three royal lines ago.”

 “Bearing that in mind, there are a couple of likely possibilities for the origin of the room as well as the reason it was sealed up, but we will need to investigate more in order to come to an actual conclusion.” He had already placed the bag he’d brought on the ground and was going through it, pulling out things that Patton did not recognize. He also got a piece of paper and sat on the floor to start to sketch.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“I’m sketching the floorplan of the room,” Logan said. “I will then put a grid on it so we can investigate while being sure that we aren’t missing anything.”

 Virgil seemed uninterested in this part of the adventure, instead electing to go poking around by himself. Princess Marisol squirmed out of Patton’s arms to go follow him. Patton swore that he only looked away from those two for 5 seconds, but the next thing he knew he heard metal clicking against metal.

“Oh,” Patton said, eyes wide when he saw what Virgil was fiddling with. “Honey, you probably shouldn’t touch…”

The old but fancy looking chest that had been at the end of the remains of the bed creaked open. Virgil sneezed as a cloud of dust puffed out of it. “Huh,” he said studying the contents. “There’s a skull in here.”

 “Oh, I don’t like this adventure anymore,” Patton commented.

Logan was on his feet within moments. “Let me see,” he said eagerly.

“What if it’s cursed?” Patton pointed out.

“Then I’ll just break the curse,” Logan waved him off. “Oh, it’s just a horse skull,” Logan said, sounding disappointed. “And also what seemed to be potion ingredients. Though they seem very fresh considering the state of the room.”

“Maybe we should get someone else to…”

Logan already had both arms inside the chest and was pulling things out of it. “This chest must have some sort of stasis effect to it.”

 He started pulling things out to look at them before setting them on the floor with no caution. “Well,” he said, “that answers the question of what this room is.”

“It does?” Patton asked.

“Ah, yes, between the horse skull and the potion ingredients, this is obviously the bedroom of Princess Marianne Elicia. She was the third child of King Simon IV and was quite the fan of horses.”

“…So she kept a horse skull in a stasis chest in her bedroom?” Patton asked.

“Of course,” Logan said. “Back when her family was in power, magic was outlawed and had quite the stigma against it, but she ended up learning magic and become quite proficient.”

 “It’s debated what exactly happened when her father found out about her activities. Some sources say that she was executed silently by her father, but others say she managed to escape with the head of the stables but not before putting a curse on the country of Prijaznia. That is until she or one of her bloodline sits on the throne, every royal line will end in madness and blood by the 5th seated monarch before an heir is born.”

“Isn’t that something you should be worried about?” Virgil asked.

Logan shrugged. “It’s just a myth,” he said. “Besides I’m 6th in the line, so there really isn’t any concern.”

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“There are a lot of interesting things in here,” Logan said, still focused on the chest. “Not to mention the books. We’ll have to be careful with those though since they don’t appear to be in stasis.”

Logan pulled the horse skull out and set it on the floor making Patton wince.

“Marisol no!” he said as Princess Marisol immediately went to go sniff at it. He swooped her up in his arms. “How long are we staying in this creepy room?” Patton asked.

“Patton, we just got here,” Logan said.

“We just got here and already found a skull!”

“Yes! Exactly!”

Patton groaned into Princess Marisol’s fur even as she tried wiggle away to go back and investigate the skull. This was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 35

Logan was surprised when he woke up alone in bed. He’d grown to anticipate waking to a smaller body unrelentingly clinging to his in the past couple of weeks. Confused he sat up and peered around his bedroom. He wouldn’t have seen Virgil with the way he melted into the darkness if it he hadn’t heard the sound of purring coming from near the window. He could just barely make out a dark blob shifting up and down at the cat kneaded at a different blob sitting mostly hidden behind the thick curtain.

“Virgil?” Logan questioned. “What are you doing?”

 “It’s snowing,” was the answer.

“That is not an answer,” Logan grumbled at the ceiling. With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed. It was a bit chilly in here, he thought. The temperature must have dipped suddenly and intensely enough that the runes keeping the castle at a warm enough temperature hadn’t caught up yet. He pulled one of the blankets off of the top of his bed to wrap around his shoulders as he approached the window. There wasn’t much light outside, the stars and moon covered by clouds, but there were some lanterns lit for the night guard who patrolled the outside. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “It’s really snowing.”

 It had been colder but not quite cold enough for snow to stick the day before, so it came as a surprise when he saw snow was piling up quite high to the point where familiar paths outside his window had disappeared.

“I don’t like it,” Virgil informed him.

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“It’s cold,” Virgil answered. It was clear in his tone that in Virgil’s opinion ‘cold’ was a horrible insult to the concept of snow. Logan quirked a half smile and his attention was drawn to the fact that it was quite cold right here close to the window.

 Frowning, he pulled at the blanket around his shoulder so he could wrap it and his arm around the lump that was Virgil. He brushed the boy’s hand when he did so and found it was like ice.

“You’re freezing!” Logan said. “How long have you been by the window?”

“I dunno,” he replied.

Logan was already tugging at him. “You need to get back in bed,” he said.

Virgil obeyed the pulling at his arms even as he frowned. “I’ve been colder than this before,” he said.

“That actually doesn’t make me feel better,” Logan replied dryly as he shooed him towards the bed.

 He took the thicker blanket that usually stayed folded at the end of the bed and pulled it up over Virgil before climbing into bed beside him.

“There,” Logan said, rubbing Virgil’s arms through the fabric of the sweater he wore to bed. He was glad he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt at least. “The runes for heating the castle should catch up within a few hours, but until then this should do. Assuming we don’t sit by the freezing window for an undetermined amount of time.”

“I don’t like the cold,” Virgil told him.

Logan sighed. “Then why did you sit by the window?”

 Virgil shrugged and ducked his head a bit. Logan reached out to grab his hands to help him warm more but was surprised when one of the hands was much warmer than the other. He found his fingers were clutching a crescent shaped stone: the protection charm they’d made. Logan knew that he kept it in his pocket most of the time, but he didn’t normally see him holding it like this. It was warm to the touch, of course, indicating the safety of the room around them.

Logan looked over his face. “Are you…” he said. “Scared of the snow?”

 “I don’t like the cold,” he said once again.

“You’re scared of the winter,” Logan concluded. He looked at Virgil who was far too small for his age and seemed surprised at every casual act of kindness. It was clear that his basic needs were far from being met before he came here. Logan had to wonder what winter usually meant for him. His experiences were doubtlessly very different from Logan’s own. “That makes sense,” he acknowledged, “but you don’t need to be scared of it here. The castle is always perfectly warm and safe in the winter and Mr. Deknis and Ms. Heart work hard during the other seasons to make sure we have plenty of food. There is nothing to fear here.”

 He did not seem convinced.

“You don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want to,” Logan promised. “The castle is plenty big if you’d like to stay inside all winter long. It was made for the winter even without the magic devices that keep it warm. We have fireplaces and well insulated rooms even if those that ends up failing.” Logan pulled open the hand that had the protection charm just to transfer it to his other hand to warm it. “Though, while no one would force you to go outside, the snow isn’t always bad.”

“Yes it is,” Virgil said, his voice sure.

 “Not all the time,” Logan insisted. “Some people love the snow.”

“They’re stupid.”

Logan laughed. “It can be fun for a while with the right equipment if you have someplace to get warm again afterwards. Royal duties slow down during the winter and Patton tends to come up with all sorts of games for both the inside and the outside to pass the time. He’s particularly proficient at snowball fights, at least against me.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Play fighting,” Logan answered. “Like pillow fights, but snow.”

“I’ll stick with the pillows,” he replied.

“And then there’s a hill to sled down on the western side of the castle, and people like to build snowmen along the path.”

“What are snowmen?” Virgil asked.

 They’re temporary statues made out of packed snow,” Logan explained. “Typically, they’re made of three different sized balls of snow: the largest being the base and the smallest the ‘head’ though there are some variations. After building them one typically decorates them with different articles of clothing and objects found lying around. It’s usually sticks and rocks for the face and then things like extra hats and scarfs for decoration.” He smiled softly. “When my Pa was alive, we used to steal my Dad’s crown and fanciest robes. Sometimes Pa would steal it right off of Dad’s head and we’d run away. We’d find a secluded area of the castle yards and build the biggest snowman we could as quickly as we could before we got caught. He’d usually end up letting us keep the robes, but we’d have to give the crown back since some of the metals in it would rust when wet.”

 “That sounds…” Virgil’s nose twitched. “fun if you take away the touching snow part.”

Logan laughed. “It is fun,” he said. “Even with the touching snow part. Though, I admit that some of the ability for it to be entertaining does come from the fact that we could warm up afterwards with ease. You’ll enjoy Patton’s mother’s constant offering of hot chocolate during the season even if you never go outside, I’m sure.”

“Hot chocolate?” Virgil asked intrigued. His dark eyes shone brightly in the little light coming through the window. It was clear he could guess something about the drink just by the name and enjoyed the implications.

 Logan smiled fondly. “It is a hot drink,” he explained. “It’s a warm drink made out of milk and chocolate. I can get you some to try in the morning.”

Virgil nodded, eyes still wide with interest.

“For now, we should sleep though,” Logan said. “Are you warm enough? I can get more blankets.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good,” Logan said, reaching up and adjusting the blanket over them once more, tucking it around Virgil a little bit for good measure. “Goodnight Virgil,” he said.

“Goodnight,” he replied softly. Logan reached under the blankets to grab the hand that was still slightly chilly from the window between his own. Virgil’s eyes slipped closed after a moment as he nuzzle his face into the pillow. At some point they both drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 36

Thomas had already been well aware that winter was on the way, but he and the rest of the castle occupants had been surprised at how intensely and suddenly it had come on. Most things were ready for the winter, but not all of them had been initiated. The fireplaces that took some pressure off the castle heating runes were cleaned out and ready, but they hadn’t been started yet. The stables for different animals on the grounds had been checked over and staff assignments had been made, but most were still in far out fields. Staff that went home for the winter months had been dismissed, but there were a few stragglers that would have to be helped home before things got worse.

 He’d gone out to the main stable to talk to the three workers that were the heads of different areas of animal husbandry to make sure a plan to get everything to where it needed to be soon was in place. It took a while to figure out considering that they’d expected a little more time before the first major snowfall. Thomas also asked them to make sure all of the workers’ homes were in good enough condition for the weather. Ranch hands typically had homes on castle grounds but not in the castle themselves since they needed to be close to the animals. Thomas knew at least half a dozen of those who spent most of their times out in the fields were the type to forgot to maintain their homes because they preferred camping amongst the animals in the summer months and then would be in for a bad time when snow began to fall.

 There should be enough extra rooms in the castle if they needed a place to stay until repairs could be done.

Those conversations took a good couple of hours, before Thomas was satisfied. Before trudging back to the castle through the still falling snow, he made a point to stop at one specific horse stall in the main stable. The horse turned his head to see Thomas when he stopped in front of his stall and puffed out a rather disaffected snort before sticking his head over the gate so Thomas could pat his nose. “Hello, Mr. Apples,” Thomas said.

 The horse seemed to conclude he’d tolerated Thomas’s petting enough and ducked his head to nudge at his torso. Thomas rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I brought you an apple. Some things never change.” He reached into his pocket to grab the red apple he’d brought the white Arabian. “At least you don’t bite me anymore.” He paused, apple slice in hand and eyed the horse’s nose suspiciously. “Do not bite me,” he said even though he hadn’t felt the animal’s teeth in a decade. It would be just like Mr. Apples to wait until his guard was down.

 After a bit of scrutiny, he offered an apple slice. It was snatched out of his hand and there was a loud crunch as it was bit into.

“It’s snowing out,” he told the horse. The horse seemed to roll his eyes at the statement of the obvious. “I’ll remind again that if you run out in a snowstorm, I’m not running after you, so you’d be out of luck.”

Mr. Apples snorted.

“You’re old now. You’d probably not survive long enough for people to find you. Besides, you blend in with that white fur of yours. They’d probably walk right past you a few times.”

 He went back to nosing for treats as soon as he finished his first and Thomas sighed, pulling out another apple slice. “What are they not feeding you enough?” The gusto with which the horse snatched the apple slice was a very clear answer. “Well, we both know that’s not true.” Thomas fed the horse a third slice of apple when he was done with his second. “I have to get back to the castle now. Don’t be a devil horse.”

Mr. Apples threw his head a bit, splattering apple smelling foamy spittle all over Thomas’s front.

“Understood. Have a nice afternoon.”

 He left Mr. Apples in his stall then, knowing he’d be well cared for no matter how ill-tempered he could be at times. He’d been a king’s horse once, after all, no matter that said king had been dead for more than a decade now.

Winters were hard.

Winters were the times when things always slowed down at the castle, where royal duties were often thin. There were a lot of memories in winter.

The trip back to the castle was not particularly long, but it was also not particularly pleasant. The snow had not been cleared away considering it was still snowing which meant his feet and legs were wet and cold by the time he made it to the nearest castle door.

 He wasn’t sure if, when he entered, the castle heating runes had started to work in earnest or if he’d just been so cold that any measure of warmth was appreciated, but he was relieved to be out of the snow either way.

He decided to check up on the progress of the castle staff lighting the fireplaces. With any luck, they’d be lit already, and he could warm up even more. That in mind, he headed towards the main foyer where the largest fireplace in the castle sat to take off the chill brought in by the large front doors.

 The main foyer was bustling with activity when he snuck in along the sides, giving the guards stationed around nods as he passed. The main fire in the room was burning brightly, though only one of the two smaller ones near the side exits from the room was lit. The other one was still being set up with safety mechanisms. It was good progress and assuming other areas of the castle were being set up as efficiently, he assumed they’d all be set up by nightfall.

He’d need to go check around to be sure, but for now, he walked up to the main fireplace to warm his hands.

 He’d gotten into the habit when he was younger to every so often glance upwards. There had been a certain stable boy who had a propensity for climbing trees. These days, he usually found nothing when he did so, often not even consciously noticing that he’d turned his gaze momentarily skywards. Yet, today, he was startled out of his own idleness by dark brown eyes looking back at him from a small ledge in the shadows high above him.

He froze as he met the young boy’s gaze. Virgil seemed as surprised to be caught as Thomas was to have caught him.

 Slowly Thomas raised one hand and waved to the boy. He slunk back into the shadows at the acknowledgment. If Thomas peered hard enough, he could see a shadow stretch up towards the third-floor balcony in the darkness and disappear over the railing.

Interesting boy.

Thomas found himself smiling despite the oddity. They still had not found out much about Virgil. He would speak to Jeffers about many things apparently, but often could not be redirected to invasive topics and he was still a bit skittish around Helen. He hadn’t willingly existed in a room with Thomas. Thomas hoped that changed at some point. There was something about him that made Thomas like him.

  Chapter 37

Virgil had not spent a lot of time out of Logan’s room. What little time he had spent outside of it was either with Patton and/or Logan or tucked away in secret corridors he found in the walls where no one would stumble upon him. Yet, here he was willingly in a, well, not public by any means place, but one that was still more exposed than he was used to being in. Somehow, he was managing to not care at all.

It was helped by the fact that both Logan and Patton had been in the room at the start, but they had gone off to go… somewhere. Food sounded like it might have been the reason.

 He liked food, and usually he would have been all for going to get some, but between them promising to bring him back some and the fact that he was never going to move ever again, he’d decided to stay.

Princess Marisol seemed to be the only other rational being in the whole castle because she had also not moved since discovering the contents of this room. She was currently laying on his chest purring happily.

The fireplace was a wonderful invention. Now, Virgil had, of course, warmed up by a fire before when it was cold, but this was much different. There was a grate that blocked off the fire a bit keeping it from burning the person in front of it and there was a plush rug right by it, perfect for laying down on. Someone had known what they were doing when designing this room.

 He didn’t even care that the king had access to this sitting room as well as Logan.

…

Okay, so he did care a little bit, but he was ignoring that. He was probably busy this time of day anyway, right?

…

He really didn’t want to run into him after being caught watching the castle workers set up the bigger fireplaces. Kings probably didn’t like people sneaking around watching things from the shadows even when they didn’t know that the person sneaking around was literally sent to kill them.

Princess Marisol must have had a sixth sense for his anxieties (or he’d just started breathing faster and disturbed her) because she stirred a bit.

55304

She started up a calming purr as she moved to gently kneed his chest. “That sort of hurts,” he noted idly as she dug her little paws into his sternum. She responded by purring more. He moved his arm to scratch behind her ear.

Virgil still was feeling a little bit anxious about the fact that he was out in the open, though he very much did not want to leave the room with the nice fire, and Patton and Logan would be back soon anyway. He should find some way to distract himself, and, well, the best way to distract himself was to investigate his environment, and it had the added benefit of making him feel safer.

 He carefully turned to his side to gently deposit Princess Marisol on the rug. She gave an insulted ‘mew,’ but quickly forgot her ire to sprawl across the ground with her belly to the fireplace. Virgil got to his feet and eyed the room as a whole.

It was fancy, to be sure, but a lot more homely than he’d expect to be in the royal wing. Logan’s bedroom was much more extravagant than this. It was closer to what he’d expect in the home of a financially stable, but not well-off family’s home both in contents and décor.

 There was a nice, but older looking couch that was probably older than Logan, perhaps even older than the king. It was huge though and comfy looking. It had two chairs that weren’t quite matching but were close enough and a table in front of it that had slightly chipped wood. A seemingly random set of pillows was on it, none quite matching the rest, but all sort of earthy browns and greens. There were bookshelves stuffed with books of all different shapes and sizes, and a giant painting of a turkey of all things over the fireplace. The fireplace itself was probably the fanciest thing in the room.

 Most of the fireplace was made out of bricks, though it had a wooden outline a good distance from the fire, and there was an ornate iron grate in front of it with pretty little leaf designs. On top of the mantle were little figurines that grabbed Virgil’s attention. They were small little wooden things carved into animals. Some were painted and some left the wood to be exposed. There were a good number of horses, but there were also things like rabbits and birds. There was even a few creatures Virgil did not recognize himself. They ranged in size from only about as big as his thumb to about as big as his hand.

 He leaned closer to take a better look at them, careful to keep his legs away from the hot iron grate, though he could still feel the intense heat from how close he was. He did not dare touch them. The room may seem like it did not belong in a castle, but it still was in one, and who knows how expensive or important the little figures were.

He settled his chin on the edge of the mantel, getting as close to the decorations as he dared, his eyes locked on a little robin that had been painted orange and grey with a bright yellow beak and eyes that almost looked alive.

 He spent a good minute staring at the wooden creature, before finally drawing back.

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” a voice asked, and Virgil just about jumped onto the ceiling, but there weren’t any good footholds, and the ceiling wasn’t very high besides and wouldn’t give much cover. “And that is why I waited until you stepped back,” the same voice said and perhaps it sounded a bit amused, but Virgil was not focusing on that.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, cringing back. Why did he always have to be screwing something up when the king came upon him. Why did the universe hate him?

 “Oh, it’s okay,” the king said. He was still by the door, having only paused outside of the room instead of coming in. “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

He certainly had been doing something wrong even if he was allowed to get that close to little things that seemed so fragile (which he almost definitely wasn’t) or be in one of the royal rooms without Patton or Logan in sight. Virgil had come here to kill this man even if he didn’t know it. He was an assassin in one of the private royal chambers. If the king had any idea, Virgil would be dead

 He made as though to take a step into the room, but he paused when he saw Virgil take a step back and grimaced. “I’ll, uh, just be going,” he said. “You can stay. You can look at the figurines all you want.”

Virgil looked at the man’s feet and didn’t say anything. He hoped he didn’t take that as an insult.

“Okay,” the king said. “Goodbye.”

He walked off then, likely to his own private room. When the footsteps faded, Virgil bent down to pick up Princess Marisol, who meowed her complaints at being pulled from the fire. He snuck quietly back into Logan’s room.

Logan and Patton found him in the closet 10 minutes later.

  Chapter 38

It was a bad day for Virgil. Now, Virgil had been skittish for the past few days ever since Patton and Logan had left him half asleep on the sitting room rug and came back to him crammed into a closet with Princess Marisol for company. He hadn’t told them what had happened, but obviously something had, and he’d been jumpy ever since. However, today seemed even worse.

The snow outside had only gotten thicker in the last few days since the first snowfall, and it had put Virgil’s anxieties through the roof. Often literally.

This morning, Logan had a meeting with his Dad, and so it was Patton’s job to coax the boy out of his closet. He’d reportedly slept in Logan’s bed but had stalked off to huddle in on himself in the closet as soon as Logan had had to get up.

 Patton entered Logan’s bedroom to a greeting meow from Princess Marisol. She, at least, was still in bed, happily perched on Logan’s pillow. “Oh, sweetie,” Patton said. “You know Logan doesn’t like cat hair on his stuff. She just purred happily, and Patton didn’t bother to push the issue any further. Instead, he turned to the closet.

He tapped twice. “Hey, Virgil, honey. Are you in there?” he asked, though he already was fairly certain of the answer.

There was a pause and then Virgil called back. “Yeah.”

“Can I open the door?”

A longer pause.

“Can I open the door long enough to join you in there?”

[ladyeliot]

Before we go (Part One)

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Pairing: Chris Evans x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your company has sent you to Boston to close a deal on the same day you have the most important date of your life at night in New York. Things get complicated, you can't return to New York and you have to spend the night in Boston with a complete stranger.

Warning: Fluff and a bit angst.

Word count: 3319

Notes:  Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

"Sometimes we are so focused on finding our happy ending that we don't learn to analyse the signs that life offers us".

It was a clear night in April, the city of Boston, Massachusetts had welcomed you that morning, but at that moment you needed to leave it behind. You had made an express trip from New York, your home, for business knows no days or hours, so it had fallen to you to catch an early Sunday morning train to Boston, when you had a really important Sunday night appointment. You figured it wouldn't take you too long to close the deal with the big multinational, and that you'd be in New York before ten o'clock at night. So that morning you headed for Pennsylvania Station in downtown Manhattan and 3 hours and 40 minutes later you arrived at South Station in downtown Boston.

You had never been to Boston, a magnificent city with a great history that you barely had time to enjoy. You arrived carrying your coat and your bag, you didn't need anything else, besides, the less stuff you had on you the better it would be for your mobility. When you arrived you realised that the city was preparing for a nearby holiday, as many streets were blocked off, preventing traffic from passing, which meant that your taxi driver was late arriving at the company's headquarters located in "East Boston".

The meetings went on forever, your potential shareholders were not entirely sure about the future that your company could offer them, and so the hours passed incessantly without reaching any concrete agreement. The constant interruptions from your boss wanting to know the situation were not very helpful either, and the bad mood that was taking over your body, as it was your day off and therefore you shouldn't be there, was a little bump in the road.

You had set yourself a time limit, but you knew you could not return to New York City without signing that agreement or you would be removed from your position at the company. Sometimes you begged for that reinstatement, because the position of head of external relations made your life more bitter than happy. This was evident when your partner of five years, Michael, decided to give up on your relationship, you were barely home and you discovered that he had been having several encounters with a former colleague at work, finally when you told him you knew, your partner opted to leave home and take a job in Los Angeles.

At first you thought that maybe it was for the best, that you should focus on your work projects, for which you had been fighting so hard, but eventually you realised that you were really in love with him, although at no time did you justify his cheating behind your back. Your ex-partner came to you two months later regretting his behaviour and asking for a second chance, at first you were reluctant, but finally you agreed to have dinner with him, he was returning to New York for a work trip, because you loved him. The dinner was that night, the Sunday night you had to travel to Boston, Michael had been in New York for a week, but you had barely seen each other, and first thing Sunday morning he returns to Los Angeles, so you only had that opportunity to find out if it was really worth it to resume something that had been lost.

The contract was signed at exactly 9:20pm, you had to call Michael, and inform him that you were not going to make it to the dinner, but that you would go to his hotel first thing in the morning to have breakfast with him before he got on the plane, he begged you to go straight to his hotel when you arrived, whatever time it was, you finally agreed.

You were inside a taxi, the last train leaving for New York was at 9:50pm, but as usual the universe was against you. The streets had become increasingly busy, the driver informed you that the following day was Patriot's Day, an annual event commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Menotomy, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. You tuned out completely as I explained the history of the holiday, just staring out the window praying that you would be on time to catch that train.

"How far is it from here to South Station?" you asked when the car could barely move because of the traffic jam.

"Fifteen minutes if you walk fast and shortcut down this avenue," he commented.

Without a second thought, you offered him the fifty-dollar note you had in your hand at the ready and dashed out of the car, dodging the other cars that were crowded together at the intersection. Your negative orienteering experiences were alleviated by the city's good signage that constantly pointed you in the direction of the South Boston station. Your mind was focused on getting there before 9:50pm when the last train was leaving, it was now 9:30pm and if you were informed by the conductor that if you were going at a brisk pace you could be there in 15 minutes, that is 9:45pm.

You ran trying to dodge the crowd, constantly uttering "excuse me" and keeping a proper rhythm in your breathing so as not to choke before your time, you could tell it had been months since you had been out for exercise as you had to stop twice to catch your breath. But what took your breath away the most was when you discovered that you were carrying too little weight. You stopped dead in your tracks and looked at your arms, your hands, your bag was gone. You looked around, quickly thought about whether you might have lost it running, but realised that you had actually run so fast out of the taxi that you had completely forgotten to take your bag.

Panic invaded every limb of your body, but as you reached into your coat pockets and found the ticket that would take you back to New York you thought that was all you really needed, everything inside your bag might be replaceable in the future. You continued on your way to the station, in a few minutes you could see the entrance at the bottom of Federal Street. You quickened your pace across the square, as you tried to enter you bumped into people who were trying to exit the building slowing you down. You entered the hall a little disoriented and ran towards the platforms where the trains were leaving, you ran down the stairs, but your eyes discovered something that your mind did not want to think about, they saw how the rear lights of the last train were lost in the darkness of the night.

Your body stood still for a few moments, while your consciousness didn't understand what had just happened, or rather didn't want to understand it. In your right hand waved the ticket to New York, your only possession at the moment. You stood to one side of the stairs, so that the last two people could walk up to the station hall, while you stood for a few minutes staring at the train tracks.

You decided that all was not lost, there would be more train or even bus stations that could take you to New York that night. You retraced your steps, finding that the shops in the hall were closing, but the information window was still open. You waited until he had finished serving a customer and bowed to the gentleman.

"Excuse me, I need to go to New York tonight," you said, showing him the ticket, being as calm as possible.

"I'm sorry, but the last train had just left," he said without so much as a glance at you, counting the cash register.

"I know, I know, but I need to get to New York tonight," you insisted again. "I suppose there's another train station in the city, or even a bus station."

"I'm sorry, but the last transport to New York City is the Northeast Regional that just left this station right now," he finally laid his eyes on you, interlacing his fingers. "But first thing tomorrow morning, you'll have trains available again so you can go to New York.

"First thing tomorrow morning?" you asked a little hopefully.

"At 6:05am the first train leaves for Pennsylvania Station," he reported, staring at his electronic screen.

"I can't wait until 6:00 am tomorrow," you said, raising your tone a little. "Do you think a taxi driver would be willing to take me to New York?

"You can try," he said with a shrug. "But they're not licensed to drive outside the state of Massachusetts."

"Okay..." you said with a blank stare. "Excuse me, one last thing, if I forgot my purse in a taxi, where can I go to pick it up?"

"If he is an honest person he will have taken it to Boston police headquarters to be handed over to the Hackney lost property division," he informed you, offering me a small card. "Call here.

"Alright, thank you." Your voice sounded utterly depressed.

With a tremendous disappointment inside you, you definitely accepted his words and did not insist any more, you understood, the last means of transport connecting the Boston and New York line had left, there was no more. You took a breath nodding and realising that there was a person behind you who wanted to ask a question, you opted to head towards the nearest seats to think. You were in a completely unfamiliar city, you had to spend the night there and you had barely a coat and a useless train ticket until the next morning. Even though your thoughts were racing, trying to find a solution, you couldn't find one, there were too many negative feelings that were making you despair.

"Are you all right?" the voice came from a shadow that covered the light of the station's harsh floodlights.

You didn't answer him, just stared at him and nodded slowly, but at that very moment a station cleaner approached you.

"I'm sorry but we are closing," he reported.

"Closing?" you asked a little confused.

"The station closes from 10pm until 5am," he commented, walking away again.

That was another inconvenience your head didn't count on, you had thought that since you had to wait for a new train to leave, you could spend the night there, since you had nowhere else to go, nor money or identification that could allow you to do so. You nodded to yourself and totally disoriented you got up from your seat and headed towards the main exit of the building, you barely noticed what was going on around you, you didn't even realise how the boy who had asked you if you were alright had followed you and stood next to you.

"Do you want to share a taxi?" he asked, which brought you out of your thoughts for a moment.

"Excuse me?" you had barely heard his words.

"I was saying do you want us to share a taxi," he repeated again showing kind features on his face.

"No, I'm fine," you said and looked around again for solutions.

The young man was not giving up after your refusals, so he finally closed the taxi door and approached you again, hoping that you would finally accept the help he wanted to offer.

"Really?" he insisted, "Because it didn't look like it in there."

"I'm fine," you frowned, beginning to feel uncomfortable at his intrusion, you didn't need anyone to help you. "Really."

"Alright," he held up his hands and headed towards the taxi again. "Hey buddy! Do you think you could get this lady closer to New York?"

His words fully captured your attention, you raised your face and turned it towards the man who was talking to the driver through a rolled down window.

"To New York City?!" exclaimed the driver somewhat taken aback by your words.

"Yes!" you exclaimed running towards the rolled down window. "Specifically to Midtown Manhattan, the corner of Sixth Avenue and Bryant Park."

"Midtown Manhattan, Sixth Avenue and Bryant Park," repeated the young man who was trying to help you.

"That would be an all-night drive," declared the taxi driver hesitantly. "Besides, I can't drive in another state, they might take away my license..."

"I'll pay whatever it takes if you can get me back to New York by six in the morning," you begged with a thread of hope in your gut.

"It must be 220 miles one way," he said, doing the math. "All told, about 440, counting gas and the risk that my license could be revoked..."

"Whatever," you insisted again. "I'll pay you anything."

"All right," nodded the man, gesturing for you to get into the taxi. "We'll leave it at $1,200."

"Thank you very much, I'll pay you as soon as we get there," you informed humbly before getting into the car, which caused the situation to take an unexpected turn.

"Wait, I need half the money up front," the taxi driver began. "Otherwise we won't get out of this block."

"The truth is..." you began as your hopes dwindled.

"It's on me," said the young man next to you quickly, which caused you to half-open your lips and look at him in complete bewilderment. "You'll pay me back."

"Wait," you said stopping his hands before he pulled out his credit card. How do you know I'll pay you back, and why are you doing this?"

"I guess I'm trying to do my good deed for the day," a smile appeared on his face, which confused you even more if that was possible. "Besides, do you have another option?"

The boy offered his credit card to the taxi driver, and you were stunned when you realised that the man was paying 600 dollars to a complete stranger to travel to New York. Who the hell does that these days? Who was that guy?

"This card is expired," the driver reported, handing the card back to him through the window of the car.

"Expired?" the boy looked at it. "Shit, it expired last week. Don't worry, I've got another one."

The blue-eyed young man looked at you and smiled a sheepish smile, you had hardly smiled all day.

"It's not active," the taxi driver reported again, handing back the card.

"Shit..." the young man looked at her, " Alright, let me get my phone out and... fuck, no battery."

"Really?!" you exclaimed at the situation before your eyes. "Is there anything working in your life?"

That question you blurted out without thinking that the most unfortunate person at that moment was you, you even surpassed what had just happened to that boy. Finally the taxi driver, seeing the situation, decided to roll up his window and leave instead of wasting his time with you.

" Oh shit!" you exclaimed, holding your hands to your head as you realised that your hopes were lost.

You were the same as you were, well worse, because now you had one more disappointment inside you. You opted that the best decision was to reap your own destiny, alone, so you returned to your original position and stood looking at the car traffic at that wide intersection in the city of Boston, wondering what to do. Surely you would find another taxi driver who would decide to take you to New York, even if you didn't pay him on the spot.

"Well," said the young man approaching you again. "What do you feel like doing?"

You narrowed your eyes, not understanding why he was trying to help you, nor the need he had to spend more time with you. What was clear to you was that he was not helping.

"Do you really have nothing better to do tonight?" you asked him somewhat quizzically, with an edge to your tone.

"Wow," he arched his eyebrows in a smirk. "Is that how you treat someone who's trying to help you?"

"Help me?" you laughed, shoving your hands into your coat. "Well, I guess it's the thought that counts."

"Yeah... even if my cards don't work and I have no battery in my mobile, at least I'm at my destination," he said with irony, provoking a shudder inside you. "Come on, what do you want to do, do you want to go to a hotel?" you frowned at his words to which he laughed as he contemplated your reaction. "Oh no, I mean spend the night, correction, for you to spend the night... Alright, leave it."

"I'm not going to sit idle in a hotel," you said gruffly. "I need to get to New York before dawn."

" Alright..."

You were both silent for a while, trying to avoid thinking about Michael, how he would be waiting all night for you to come and you probably wouldn't even get there before he left for Los Angeles. But in trying not to remember your situation, you realised how rude you had been to this young man, who only seemed to be kind to you and whose name you barely knew.

"I'm sorry," you said, turning to him and nodding.

"No problem," he said smiling at you and held out his hand to you. "I'm Chris, by the way."

You nodded looking at his hand, after all he was a complete stranger and somewhat peculiar, so you opted to offer a fake name.

"Adriana," you finally shook his hand.

"Nice name," he said, putting on his red sox cap, at which point you realised that his features were somewhat familiar. "I really love the night in Boston, so I could stay here forever, but I'm pretty hungry after the trip. I know you need to get to New York, but standing here you won't be able to do much, do you feel like joining me for a bite to eat? We can figure something out while we eat."

Those words reminded you that you hadn't had a bite to eat since lunchtime, and your stomach felt resentful, it was begging for some food to be shoved in, so that plan sounded really good. On the other hand, you weren't receptive to the idea of leaving the place with a complete stranger, and you didn't have any money on you.

"I don't have any money," you reminded him. "And you don't look like you do either."

"Just because I don't have six hundred dollars on me doesn't mean I don't have money on me so we can afford to eat something," he said, flashing his sweet smile again. "Come on. I know just the place on Beacon Hill. It's not too far from here."

You took a full breath, surrendering to her idea and nodded, if you had to stay awake until six in the morning, at least you'd have a full stomach. So you started to walk to your left.

"Hey! Where are you going?" he asked hanging up his backpack again.

"Beacon Hill?" you pointed to your left.

"Beacon Hill," he said, pulling his hand out of his pocket and pointing to the opposite side.

You accepted your confusion and misdirection and with a smile you nodded and stood next to him.

"Wow, you can smile," he exclaimed. "It could be a nice night after all."

to be continued . . .

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Taglist Open (DM)

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[sukiglycerin]

call it fate (or a christmas miracle) || katsuki bakugou.

* pairing: bodyguard!katsuki bakugou x earthbending quirk!reader (gender neutral!)

* genre: bodyguard!au, fluff, some angst, fake dating, aNd thEre wAs OnE bEd

* words: 10.3k (help)

* warnings: swearing bc bakugou, too much backstory, idk what bodyguards even do, there’s a fight scene (in a similar lieu to the sports festival arc), hunter x hunter? no this is tsundere x tsundere, i want to hug bakugou, yes i imagine mr. tanaka to be the tanaka from kuroshitsuji, christmas is a very minor aspect of the story (but the title was too good to resist)

* original request from @apexqueenie​: Hnnnnnnnnnnnngh can I get a Bodygaurd Bakuboi x bratty reader who don’t like to be watched like a hawk cuz she wants to do fun things pretty please? // and from anonymous:  if it's ok, can I request Bakugou with a reader who has a quirk like earth bending please? // and from @killkurzyackerman​: ÒWÓ UR REQS ARE OPEN can u do a bakubabe with like lil sassy bad bitch vibe reader bc ive seen a lot of fics that sorta like softie or angel type and no offense theyre great but ya know sumthn diff this time please

* a/n: this is a very long fic, to say the least. i combined these three requests! though reader’s quirk doesn’t appear often, it conveys my thoughts on how bakugou would go about with that quirk. moreover, i hope this reader is badass? i realize that that characterization is quite hard for me. so, i hope you don’t see reader as super soft! i made them fight back against bakugou (literally, too) and kinda bratty hehe. i got to explore a lot of new things with this fic, so i hope they reach you well. this is a repost because it originally did not show up in the tags!

* synopsis: things had gotten boring with bakugou as your bodyguard. it was only until an interesting proposal by the man that things would change. well, maybe a little too much would change...

you, to be quite simple and honest, were getting tired of katsuki bakugou. he'd been your bodyguard for years (years! much longer than any other you'd hired!) and he was getting boring. dull. plain. any synonymous word would fit. he was boring like a 24 hour session of watching paint dry, monotone like a professor’s droning that never failed to put you to sleep. (perhaps he was even more spiritless than professor sato at the academy. he caught you sleeping no less than thirteen times in his class. the number didn’t even account for the times he didn’t catch you.)

to the untrained eye, katsuki bakugou is vibrant. he's aggressive, unruly, and ruggedly charming (somehow). he's a wonder in a suit-and-tie and the epitome of an oxymoron with his harsh words, rough hands, and crisp suit. it was that very reason you’d hired him; his personality excited you. it seemed unpredictable and it was a challenge.

like all other challenges, bakugou was not impossible. once the challenge was overcome, time flow was stagnant; you watched the ticking of a clock as the day passed by you. you’d gotten used to him and he’d gotten used to you. these days, he watched you like a hawk. you could never slip past those sharp eyes anymore, no matter what you did. he was not fazed by any of your antics (ticked off mildly, sure, but he could live with it).

“leave me alooooone,” you whined for the fourth time in an hour as you exited a mall. bakugou's hands were full of shopping bags filled with everything from clothing to the latest technological invention. you weren’t sure how he was supposed to protect you in that condition. though, to be candid - in the first place, you didn’t need protection. you attended a private institution designed to maximize the use of your quirk as a child and graduated with absolutely flying colors. on top, you’d taken various martial arts outside of school. you didn’t know why your parents were still concerned about your wellbeing. you handled it fine. around 99.9% of the time, you could easily beat your bodyguard in a fair fight. it was a regular practice for you; so common that there was a reward if a bodyguard could last longer than six months working for you. not that any of them liked to be called bodyguards.

“sweetheart, i would if i could,” bakugou gritted through his teeth. “pay’s too good to- goddamn, what did you even buy?” he’d stopped behind you to adjust his grip on one of the bags.

you hummed pleasantly, continuing at your same, leisurely pace. his question was a rhetoric; he watched you buy everything with your black credit card. you watched as a car pulled up in front of you.

“there’s our ride,” you said, brushing bakugou’s shoulder as you stepped into the car. he grunted in response, loading the car with your purchases.

“fight me with your quirk when we get home,” you said during the ride. “you have, what, a boom boom quirk?”

he made a noise in his throat, voice hard. “my quirk’s explosions. nitroglycerin.”

“dangerous,” you said through a smile. he’d never used his quirk around you, but you were already starting to see possibilities of strategies you could use.

“so says the master earthbender,” he retorted sarcastically.

you clicked your tongue. “we’ll see who wins in the fight, explodo-boy.”

“finally brave enough to challenge me, eh?"

“i was always this brave.”

“oh, give it up already, bakugou!” you directed another wall of rocky terrain toward bakugou, who blew up the land and sent rocks flying. his stance was hunched slightly, forehead matted with sweat. the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, coat long abandoned on the rugged terrain.

“tired already?” he snarled. he put his hands together, preparing for a bigger explosion. you didn’t let him have this opportunity, slinging a large rock to absorb the impact of the explosion. he dodged swiftly, to your disappointment, but his attack seemed to be subdued.

you used his delayed reaction time to try to trap him with terrain under his feet, but he was somehow a step ahead of you. you heard a popping noise; bakugou was propelled through the air, your rocks blasted already and a cloud of dust forming. you cussed under your breath, already moving yourself away from his estimated landing spot that was too close to you.

he sent crackling explosions to the bottoms of your feet, but you easily dodged them. you created a temporary platform of elevated ground to protect yourself from the small explosions, jumping off it and rolling away. he was already aiming a larger blast toward you, presumably expecting your escape route. you figured it’d be a directed blast to pierce through a wall. you knew that the explosion would be unavoidable. to counter, you created a line of walls resembling dominos. they acted as stairsteps; you quickly ran up to the highest you could conjure in the short time you had before bakugou hit them. you grabbed the closest piece of rock that you could and leapt as bakugou’s blast made contact with your steps, chucking the rock at him and aiming to kick him when you landed. you knew he had no power to counter, being unable to react quickly due to the powerful nature of the blast he’d conjured.

you were about to win when the door to the training facility opened. you froze, literally, in midair and frowned, turning to look at the intruder.

“fighting, young-?” one of the butlers, tanaka, said. he was an elderly man with a gentle voice, but his eyes always seemed to glint with a clandestine humour in it.

“you can call me by my first name. please put me down, tanaka,” you said, no malice in your voice. he nodded, and you softly landed on your feet next to bakugou. you’d known tanaka for far too long for him to use honorifics with you. he’d practically raised you as a child.

“you haven’t fought in a while,” tanaka commented. he conjured a water bottle (you never knew how he had the right things for the right occasions) and walked toward you.

you made a noise of acknowledgement. “and it seems i was just about to win.”

he smiled tenderly. “i’m sure.” he handed you the water bottle, which upon further inspection, you saw was ice cold.

“thank you,” you said, gingerly accepting the beverage. the water flowed soothingly down your throat, easing the aching that had formed due to all the dust you’d kicked up in the fight.

“mr. bakugou?” tanaka asked, offering another water bottle (seriously, where did he get that?).

“thanks,” bakugou took the bottle. he drank feverishly, quickly finishing the bottle in what must’ve been two seconds flat. so undignified.

“y/n, you have an appointment in 15 minutes with-” tanaka said as you capped your water bottle.

“oh, yeah,” you said, waving off the matter. “i got it.”

you brushed off the dust on your clothes and started toward the exit. bakugou was quick to follow you, nodding politely to tanaka.

bakugou stood outside the door during the meeting you had with your father. you were not a minute too late or too early when you stepped into your father’s office, freshened up and dressed in clean attire, the dusty clothing from your fight with bakugou long discarded. the smell of leather and mint enveloped you, reminding you of the days you’d play in your father’s office in your youth. the room was always dim, the light on your father’s desk being the brightest object in the vicinity when the curtains were pulled down. when you were younger, you liked to pretend the room was made of chocolate, as the color was so dominant on the interior. your father was not pleased to find five-year-old you trying to bite the corner of his desk, to say the least. 

the sight of his office was ever-so familiar to you, and once held a feeling of endearment in your heart. that was then; now, you only ever entered the room for a business-related matter. your face was blank, lips held in a thin line -  you anticipated the topic of the meeting since your father first scheduled it a week ago. it, quite frankly, was inevitable; you could be neither opposed nor favorably disposed to it.

“i’ve found a compatible match for you, y/n.” your father sat at his desk, eyes intensely trained on you. “they’re from a well-off family with a strong quirk.”

compatible. it didn’t mean they got along with you or would be a good partner; no, it meant that they matched the superficial criteria set by your family.

“yes, father,” you said indifferently. he nodded, as if already expecting the answer.

“you’ll meet them soon. we’re arranging the date,” he folded his hands on the desk. “tanaka will alert you of it when it’s finalized. that is all.”

you nodded, taking your cue to leave. giving the room one last glance, you started to push the door open, then paused. door halfway open, allowing outside light to stream into the dark room, you looked back at your father. it was now or never to ask, you guessed.

“father… we wouldn’t happen to be having a family gathering anytime soon, would we? for new years or anything...” you hadn’t had any in the recent years, but you’d figured you’d ask. the scent of homemade food and the comforting chatter of the gatherings always made your heart swell.

he grunted, not looking up from the papers he shuffled around in his hands. “no.”

“ah. okay,” you said, sighing quietly. you knew better than to get your hopes up for such things. you turned back to the light, where bakugou was awaiting you, and shut the door behind you with a thud.

you walked in silence.

“so, no plans for the holidays?” bakugou asked bluntly.

“eavesdropping, i see,” you deadpanned.

“shouldn’t’ve had the conversation in front of the whole damn world.”

you rolled your eyes. “what about it?” you asked. “my lack of plans, i mean.”

“well-” he coughed awkwardly into his sleeve, averting his eyes. “that old hag- my, uh, mom, somehow got under the impression that i’m no longer… single. probably because of my profession - she thinks it’s ridden with scandals like a damn drama - but, uh… she’s expecting me to bring… company home for our christmas dinner…. and i can’t ask any of my friends, ‘cause she knows them… i wouldn’t damn ask you if i had no other option…”

“thanks,�� you interjected. you held your tongue from making a comment about how little friends he probably had. “anyway, why don’t you tell her no?”

he slouched. “have you met her?” he grumbled. “the hag won’t listen to me. trust me, i would’ve, but… you can’t refuse her, once her mind is set on something… she’s too stubborn for her damn good.”

“like you,” you remarked, earning a small shove from the man.

“pl-” he choked, “pl - ah, fuck - please can you go to the dinner with me? it’s just for a night and morning, i need you to fake being my date. i can tell her we broke up later or whatever, i just really need…”

your lip curled. a desperate bakugou was a rare sight, and you wanted to relish in it for as long as you could. you feigned further consideration.

“but there’s so much i would rather be doing…” you whined. it was a lie. all you wanted was some variation in your life; a dinner didn't sound too bad. perhaps there was a dark secret within the bakugou family you could exploit. 

“like what, wasting money?” bakugou muttered bitterly under his breath. you shot him a dirty look.

“fine, please?” he asked again. “there’ll be some damn good food… and, uh…” you tapped your foot with false impatience.

he cussed under his breath. “i’ll do whatever you want, damnit, just go with me! please!”

you cocked an eyebrow. “whatever i want?”

“yes, for a day,” he groused. “only a day.”

“alright!” you pumped your fist up. your father’s business training came in handy sometimes. “when’s the dinner?”

“this weekend,” bakugou said. “we also need to, uh, figure out how to act more… coupley.”

“...right,” you said. business class had not prepared you for that. “how the fuck do we do that?”

as it turned out, you two were not the best pair to fake a relationship. neither of you had actually been in a relationship prior to this. you didn’t really have time to date on top of your studies and such; you didn’t need to, anyway, because all of the people who were romantically interested in you bored you. their personality traits either consisted of rich or doormat. as for bakugou - well, he was bakugou. you couldn’t see anyone wanting to date that brute.

“i’ll pay,” you said upon entering a cafe. it was a big cafe, nestled in the midst of an even bigger mall. your tone was firm; there’d be no way bakugou would be paying. you looked up at the menu and said to him, “the usual?”

he was silent for a moment, and you almost thought he hadn’t heard you. he cleared his throat. “uh, yeah, sure. the usual.” weird.

you ordered yourself a drink and bakugou his usual order, a decaf iced caramel macchiato with light ice. he looked at you with a strange emotion on his face when you handed him his drink.you practically shoved it in his hands while he was too starstruck about god-knows-what.

the two of you settled at a booth (“table,” bakugou had argued. you eventually won the debate).

“so… trivia about each other, right?” you asked. “i guess we’ve got to get to know each other more.” he nodded. “well, first, you need to stop being so quiet. right now, you’re not my bodyguard or anything. we’re, uh…. dating. we’re partners. datemates. lovers.”

he choked on his drink at the word “lovers.” he sputtered, then gained composure. “yeah.”

“okay, i need to you to be more casual.”

“tch, who said i’m not casual right now?!” there it was; this was the bakugou you’d known when you first met him. he was awkward and amateur-ish, stumbling on his words and failing miserably at being polite. it was a fond memory. overtime, he’d obviously polished himself up (but only in the presence of you and your family).

“that’s more like it,” you said.

“tch.” he sipped his coffee, unrelenting to admit that you’d won.

“well, let’s cover basic facts. your birthday is april 20 and you like spicy food.”

he coughed again, setting his drink down. “yeah.”

“are you okay? d’you need water, or something? are the lights in here too bright?”

he shook his head, eyes still dazed with a certain unclarity. “‘m fine, idiot.”

you weren’t convinced. “...whatever you say.”

he took another sip, closing his eyes then continuing as normal. normal, in the standards of bakugou, of course. “i-i think i know damn well enough about you. don’t need to prove shit,” he grumbled the last bit.

“a little bit too well,” you muttered saltily. “well, this is a learning experience for me, take it or leave it. we need to get along at the dinner, don’t we?” you drummed your fingers on the table, eyes darting around at the cafe. the decor was pretty. 

he made a grievance under his breath, but nodded. “there’s my dad and my mom - the old hag - and me. i’m an only child.” figures. he continued, “they both work in fashion… yeah… my dad’s more quiet than my mom, she’s loud… apparently we’re a lot alike - don’t comment - but yeah, she’s my mom. they live in shizuoka, and it’ll be just them at the dinner. you’ll need to stay overnight...”

“seems… intimate,” you commented offhandedly.

he whistled. “you think?”

the gears in your head turned as you stared into the space over bakugou's shoulder at a large poster of some featured drink. it was all small talk to you, but you saw this meeting for what it was. an opportunity. it was your break from the uniform days plaguing you for the past week's - he wouldn’t need to watch over you, now your fake lover. lovers were equal. 

love - what was love? you didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. feigned or not, it was different. couples were moody, from what you could gather. one day they’d be hanging off each other’s limbs, and the next, they were bickering their heads off. it sounded fun, to be a couple with bakugou rather than his employer. you could say goodbye to normalcy and tedium.

you felt your lips turn into a smile as a plan developed in your mind, tapping the table at an increasingly faster tempo. who cared about the dinner? you were a fake couple! you could break away from the norm and find the things that made bakugou tick. you could gain a one-up over him. you could pick his personality apart piece by piece until it broke the monotony of daily life. you watched bakugou’s expression grow puzzled and frustrated. you pretended to be deep in thought, aware that bakugou was opening his mouth to make a snarky comment presumably about how the smile on your face was getting unnerving to him.

you didn’t let him speak, instead cupping your face in your hands and leaning in towards him. “how do you think we should become more intimate, kat-su-ki?”

you think you got soft over the years. when you first met bakugou, he was a rough little thing. being the same age as you, he was far less qualified compared to the other candidates to be your bodyguard. he looked out of place in his suit identical to everyone else. call it fate, or what you will, beckoning you towards him. when you first met him, you could’ve never imagined how far into the future you’d be stuck with the boy. all of the bodyguards you’d hired prior to bakugou’s appearance in your life didn’t last long. it wasn’t their fault; no, no, they were very competent. extremely competent - to the point it was boring, scrutinized under their meticulous gaze. you could do absolutely nothing under their watch, and where was the fun in that?

so, long story short, you hired bakugou for his incompetence. you’d low expectations for how long he’d last. you were surprised he could even put on a tie properly. from the way his hair spiked in every which way (“undignified!” your father had complained to you) and how his feet shuffled against the nice, newly polished cherry wood floors (“the scuff marks…”), bakugou was far from the epitome of a bodyguard. he couldn’t sit still and constantly made weird crackling noises (which you later learned were small explosions, not the concerningly incessant crack of his knuckles). the cherry on top to the disaster pie called bakugou, however, was his speech. he was polite, at face value, but also incredibly rough at face value. if you transcribed his words down, they’d be all standard formalities. it was the quirky way in which he presented his words; gritted out like somehow had forced him into this job. actually, scratch that, it was like this job was the be-all or end-all of his life. he was like an extremely tsundere shounen protagonist. he needed to win (“win what?” your father had laughed in disbelief) and be the very best. you'd… appreciate the sentiment more if you were his mentor in becoming a pokemon trainer.

of all the things bakugou was at the time, he was not a stoic old man nor a cold, indifferent boy who looked down on you snottily; he got the job. much to your father’s chagrin, of course. you’re pretty sure he had a backup bodyguard during the first month or so of bakugou’s employment, in case bakugou dropped out mysteriously for any reason. 

surprisingly, bakugou was competent, but not infuriatingly so. he had snark, and under any other employer he would’ve been fired in the first week. he did his job, and that was all. it was fun to tick him off, too, and so easy. it was - dare you say it? - cute. you wanted to watch him fall apart and leave, as so many others had. you waited for the day he’d get used to you or vice versa, when you’d wake up with nothing to look forward to. in the end, no one ever stayed with you. you could usually figure that out within the first week of a bodyguard’s services.

these days, you started feeling that way. bakugou was just becoming everyone else you’d ever hired. he was becoming everyone else. for some reason, though, you still clasped onto the thread of hope that maybe he was different, and that led you down a series of events trying to convince yourself he was different.

at the same time, you told yourself he was like everyone else. did you want him to stay or not? you didn’t know anymore. maybe fate would spin something good out of this, or maybe he would. you didn’t want it in your hands anymore.

being flirty was definitely not the best route of plan, but man, it was efficient. what better way to fake being a couple than organically develop that relationship? that was your bullshit reasoning to the logical part of yourself (when it was obviously far from the truth).

yeah, it was definitely not the best plan. you bored of it quite quickly, but couldn’t shake off the lasting feeling of fluttering in your stomach. you supposed it was because it was the most reaction you’d gotten from bakugou in months. you’d never seen him so disgruntled.

he was very, very blushy. you didn’t know how you hadn’t learned of it earlier. his cheeks were dusted strawberry red, matching the hue on the tips of his ears. ah, tsundere bakugou had returned for a short period of time. you wished you could've taken a picture of him.

you tapped the tip of his nose and he hissed at you, cheeks darkening a shade.

“a boop?” he scoffed indignantly in disbelief. “who calls it that? a five year old?” but you could tell that he really enjoyed it on the inside.

“what- what are you playing at, dumbass?” he swatted your hand when you tried to boop him again.

“c’mon, couples need to do coupley things, katsuki,” you cooed. “like overly affectionate pda~”

you didn’t know someone could get so red.

“since when did you call me by my first name?” he grumbled, unable to form any other type of response.

“since we started ‘dating,’” you teased back, realizing that watching bakugou become more and more uncomposed was more fun than you’d expected. he'd never become so open around you; after all, you'd had a strictly professional relationship prior, so bakugou never expressed any hint of a personality other than his behavior when he was first hired. it was a good change, in your eyes.

then, as you did of most things, you bored of it. sure, flustering bakugou was fun because he was so outwardly tsundere, but your attention span was short. he was already starting to recollect himself in record time, face cooling from a startling scarlet to pink and remarks becoming increasingly cohesive.

you're not even sure if he was aware of your gaze resting upon him as you half-assed responses and watched the gears in his head furiously turn. when he got real worked up, he pouted when speaking and occasionally slurred words together. his eyes tended to veer away when he thought of a response and he always got fidgety. 

eventually, you stopped teasing him. by this time, the ice in his drink had already melted and you were dangerously close to kissing him on the cheek (it was an impulse thing! you were not catching feelings!).

if there was one thing you learned, it was this: bakugou was truly a sight in his emotional state, though you could argue his unassuming state was equally, if not more breathtaking.

you noticed it as morning light illuminated him through the window of your room, hitting the silky fabric of your bedsheets around him. he was reading some book, dressed in comfortable attire that felt oddly domestic. maybe it'd be the most casual you'd ever see bakugou.

the thought struck a chord in you, making you wonder what'd happen after the dinner. it'd be awkward, for sure. it dawned on you that these moments with katsuki would vanish and things would go back to normal. they'd disappear into thin air, like nothing had ever happened. you weren't well educated in horology, but you were pretty sure that the time you'd spent with him would vanish as well, not to be spoken of or referenced ever again. time would keep trudging forward and you'd only be able to stare back as it disappeared on the horizon line.

you wanted to grasp the time that flooded your hands, encase the moment in glass and hold it in your palm forever.

"oi, idiot, what are you staring at?" and maybe it was the first time you truly heard bakugou's voice. it was rough on the edges with a soft core, you realized. maybe, after these couple of days, bakugou had started to care for you.

"nothing, stupid," you mumbled, returning your attention to your phone, but you couldn't shake off the newfound feeling that holed up in your heart. bakugou didn't care about you, you told yourself. you had a strictly professional relationship with him, and that was only broken for the time being because he needed a favour. 

right. this was all for a favor.

nights spent testing each other on the most miniscule of facts and afternoons spent telling each other stories about each other - it was all nothing. it wasn't a big deal, you repeated to yourself.

still, you couldn't help but to look back up at bakugou and let your imagination run. he wore a black shirt and sweatpants, a complete 180 turn from the typical three piece suit he normally wore. maybe this is what he'd look like in the mornings if you were a proper couple, not client and bodyguard - maybe in another universe. you could imagine his bedhead, hair all messy and eyes still worn with sleep, vastly different from the professional persona he had around you.  you'd wake up inhaling the scent of caramel and feeling his warmth surround you, feeling secure merely in his embrace. it'd be him and you in your own little bubble, unperturbed by the entire world.

wait, caramel? you wondered. where did that come from?

"you're staring again, dumbass," bakugou grunted, not looking up from his book.

"zoned out on the blandest thing i saw, sorry," you replied.

you sat in silence like that for a while. you weren't not exactly sure how it was bonding time for the dinner (were you sharing telepathic waves?), but it was comfortable like a fluffy comforter on a frigid winter day. it felt secure, like a home you never had in your own bedroom. every now and then there was the sound of a page turning from bakugou and a tap on your phone from you, and things never felt so normal. it was too short an eternity for you; before you knew it, you had some event to attend to for your father, solely there for the image of his company.

you didn't see the bittersweet look on bakugou's face as he watched you leave, or how he hadn't even finished a chapter of his book during the hours he'd sat with you. as his eyes followed your disappearing silhouette, bakugou wondered if he'd ever be able to see you like that again.

a foreign giddy feeling filled your chest as you got ready for the dinner with bakugou’s parents. you’d brought a bag for light travel packed with essentials (pyjamas, toothbrushes, and things like that), having planned ahead. you were typically indifferent to gatherings of any kind, having attended so many for your father. besides, this was a favor for bakugou. you weren’t sure why you were being so indecisive choosing an outfit for the dinner, or why your heart felt light as a feather, fluttering about in your rib cage boundless. this was no big deal, you told yourself. it’d only be bakugou and his parents; you’d spoken at gatherings of far more people with less nerves. you penned it down to only being excited for the food which was so coveted by bakugou. his mother, mitsuki, was apparently an outstanding cook (bakugou was apparently good as well), and you had to admit, you missed the heartening scent of homemade dishes. her specialty was spicy curry - your mouth watered at the thought. 

yes, you reassured yourself as you walked out of the door and met the fresh, winter air outside, you were only in it for the food. you had an abnormally fast heart rate and a spring to your step (as noted by bakugou) solely for the food. 

shizuoka prefecture was two hours away from your hometown, tokyo, and you forced bakugou to drive. the trip didn’t really feel like two hours, anyway, in your opinion. according to bakugou, that was only because you were sleeping the majority of the time and he was stuck with the dull task of driving and only the low hum of the radio to entertain him. 

“well, this is it,” you said to bakugou, approaching his parents’ home, bag in hand. it looked quite elegant on the outside, snow thinly blanketing the well-kept greenery in the front. you turned to look at him. his suit looked nicer than usual, on full display because he refused to wear a coat despite the frigid air biting at any bit of bare skin unsheathed on your body. (“just the perks of having a great quirk like mine,” he’d said. you punched his shoulder.) you huddled closer into the warm padding of your coat, watching your white breath dissipate in the air.

“it is,” he belatedly said. his face was atypically solemn, eyes downcast and seemingly lost in thought. you didn’t comment on it. something about the nippy winter air numbed the atmosphere, as if all warmth had subsided only to your coat. 

“do i look alright?” you asked him, trying to wipe away any last bits of drool you might’ve had on the corner of your mouth.

“yeah. you look… really nice,” he commented quietly. you didn’t mention that your bulky coat was covering the entirety of your attire. a heavy silence fell over the two of you.

anyway, the mood was quickly relieved by the presence of mitsuki bakugou, who greeted the pair of you at the door with her husband, masaru. bakugou really was a spitting image of his mother, sharing the same spiked blond hair and annoyingly clear skin with her. they also had similarly loud personalities, you observed later on. they’d often bicker with no real malicious intent. they were both much different compared to bakugou’s father, masaru, who was a gentle, soft-spoken man with brown hair and glasses. 

mitsuki met you with enthusiasm, eagerly asking you questions about yourself and your relationship with bakugou. it was strange to see bakugou so quiet; though, at some points in the conversation, he looked like he was going to be sick. you didn’t have time to ask him about it, occupied by his mother’s unending but well-meaning questions. you’d expected to fib for most of them, but the truth easily slipped from your tongue. even compliments about him were half-truths. 

"when we first met, he was like a fish out of water!" you recounted to mitsuki. "he stumbled on his words and my father didn't approve of him as my bodyguard. but, i pushed through, and here we are! right, katsuki?"

"r-right," he coughed, unable to look you in the eye and fidgeting nervously.

"it amazed me, too," mitsuki admitted. "i'd never seen our katsuki looking so polished before - it used to be a trouble getting him to even wake up at a decent time." she smiled at you. "you've brought a blessing on him."

bakugou cleared his throat. "don't talk about me like i'm not here," he grumbled.

"oh, katsuki," mitsuki cooed, pinching bakugou's cheek. "masaru, let's prepare dinner." she looked at you and bakugou. "the two of you don't need to worry about a thing - oh, you still have your bags! i’ll put them in katsuki’s room."

upon the absence of bakugou’s parents, the two of you sat beside each other without a word. 

“are you… feeling alright?” you asked suddenly, breaking the silence. “you don’t look so well.”

“fine,” he grunted. “i’m fine.”

“are you sure?” you teased in an attempt to lighten the mood. “not nervous meeting the parents?”

he cracked a small smile, but his fingers still nudged each other in his lap. you touched his shoulder, first in an attempt to comfort him, but soon realized that he was very toasty. you scooted towards him; he stared at you with an surprised, indecipherable expression. you linked his arm with yours and leaned into him, inhaling his cologne and bathing in his warmth.

“what?” you mumbled. “you’re warm.” you intertwined his fingers with yours. “warm,” you happily cooed, eyes slipping shut. 

“jesus christ,” bakugou hissed. “you’re freezing. is it humanly possible for your hands to be this cold?” his other hand enveloped your hand (still being held by his), rubbing his thumb soothingly on the heel of your palm. a bubble of warmth fizzed inside you, heart effervescing like a carbonated beverage. he held you long after your hand had passed room temperature, and you sensed that maybe the fuzzy feeling jittering about you wasn’t his quirk. it was like some sort of low fire, crackling deep within you. you hadn’t much time to dwell on the thought when your eyes jolted open, smelling really, really good food wafting from somewhere near.

“look at the lovebugs,” you heard mitsuki murmur, standing in the doorway connecting the kitchen to the living room leaning on her husband. “dinner’s ready,” she softly said upon noticing your eyes on her. 

your eyes widened, looking down at the hand entwined in yours, and you look at the man next to you. bakugou was sound asleep, tranquil slumber having sheathed itself around him. his head leaned against the top of the couch, mouth slightly agape and chest falling rhythmically.

“hey,” you whispered. reluctant to let go of his hand, you used your opposite hand to tap his shoulder lightly. “hey, sleepyhead.”

bakugou groaned, eyes still closed and body unmoving. “five… more… minutes…”

“sure,” you said easier than you expected. you immediately let go of the man’s hand (he reached out toward you blindly at this) and stood up. “i’ll just eat all of that food you've been looking forward to by myself…” mitsuki and masaru looked at you fondly.

“nice try, dumbass,” he said gruffly, standing up and putting a hand on your shoulder. his eyes were lidded with torpor and his voice was an octave deeper. it sent shivers down your spine - you hadn’t ever heard his voice like that - and a part of you wanted to hear it again. sadly, the effects of sleep passed him quite quickly; by the time he’d said “let’s eat, dumbass,” and made his way to the dining room, his voice was back to normal.

dinner consisted of scrumptious-looking (and tasting!) chicken katsu, curry, and even more conversation. your mouth watered as you spooned yourself the perfect ratio of rice, curry, and chicken in one bite. you politely raved to bakugou’s mother about her heavenly cooking, and bakugou never looked so proud or embarrassed in his life. masaru discussed fashion with you, mitsuki occasionally chiming in and offering to show you pictures of young bakugou modelling. you courteously declined for the fear of bakugou’s face getting any redder than it was already. 

“y’know, katsuki really wanted to be a pro-hero when he was younger,” mitsuki reminisced. “he even was accepted at that really prestigious hero school, ua.”

you looked at bakugou with questioning eyes, and he shook his head dismissively, hesitant to the topic. you wondered what he was doing here, as your bodyguard, rather than the hero he aspired to be. it wasn’t like he’d be unable to become a sidekick once out of ua, so what happened…?

at the end, you seemed to have gotten the approval of mitsuki and masaru. your heart twisted in pain realizing who you were and why you were here; this was asked of you, nothing real. you pushed the thought away, returning to the dining room after washing your hands. 

“oh, my!” mitsuki exclaimed as you entered the dining room. “it’s getting late.” she turned to you. “we don’t have a guest bedroom, so you’ll have to share a room with katsuki, if that’s alright?”

you looked to bakugou, who seemed lost in his own thoughts. “sure, i don’t mind,” you replied. 

“i’m sure you’d love to see bakugou’s childhood room.” this brought bakugou abruptly to his senses; his eyes rounded, face looking like a deer caught in headlights. 

a smile tweaked your lips. “i’d love to.”

you didn’t know what you were expecting when mitsuki opened the door to bakugou’s room. certainly, though, you were not expecting this. his room was decorated from head to toe with all might merchandise, carefully collected through the years. it could’ve been worse, you admitted to yourself, but bakugou’s interest in all might surprised you. the level of admiration bakugou had for the former symbol of peace was clear, plastered on the wall posters and figurines which dotted his bookshelves. 

“of course,” misuki said, “this is all really from his middle school days. he had to move to a dormitory system in high school, and i’m afraid he didn’t take much along with him…”

you tilted your head at bakugou, who’d taken particular interest in the ground with his hand sheepishly on the back of his neck.

“it’s cute,” you reassured him gently.

“though katsuki’s bed is pretty big, we could pull out a futon if you’d like…” 

“it’s alright.” shit. why did you say that? noting the bewilderment on bakugou’s face, you added, “we are dating and all…” you mentally smacked yourself for assuming bakugou would be comfortable sleeping in the same bed as you. “yeah,” bakugou said, much to your shock.

“that settles it!” mitsuki smiled. she winked. “don’t stay up too late.”

after mitsuki and masaru bade you goodnight and closed the door behind them, you were left alone with bakugou.

“hey, is that a picture of you?” after looking around the room, your eyes fell on a framed photo sitting on bakugou’s dresser. you reached for it, recognizing a familiar spiky haired blonde boy proudly holding a trophy.

“wait-” the frame was already held in your hands.

“aw, you were such a cute kid.” you teased, “can’t say the same about now.”

he huffed, ears reddening. “there’s a photo album on the bookshelf,” he mumbled, pointing to a thick looking book on his bookshelf. you eagerly plucked it from the shelf, holding it like a precious treasure in your two hands. he shoved his hands into his pockets and rested his chin on your shoulder, watching you open the photo album. 

the first photo was a baby photo, of course, and you could feel that it was taking every part of bakugou not to rip the book from your hands and scorch it all out of embarrassment. the first few pages were those of baby bakugou, eating food with his hands or playing with his parents. as the book progressed, you watched him develop a quirk (blowing up a vase) and become interested in pro-heroes (clutching an all might doll to his chest with a big smile on his face). the photos became more scarce as bakugou grew, but he seemed to grow happier. paging through photos of him in high school, the man’s gaze seemed to grow softer and fonder. his high school pictures consisted of him either standing in front of the famous ua or making an indifferent face with a group of his friends, who looked vaguely familiar from somewhere. upon further inspection, it dawned on you. you could recognize them all - they were young versions of the pro-heroes red riot, pinky, chargebolt, and cellophane. they regularly appeared on your newsfeed for one heroic deed or another, so it came no surprise to you that they attended the famed ua high. 

as for bakugou, though? you couldn’t understand what he was doing there, or rather, here. if he graduated ua, he’d be right on track to become a pro-hero, not a bodyguard. 

bakugou already sensed your revelation, shutting the book and putting it down. sitting on the bed, he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“i know what you’re thinking,” he stated. he took a shaky breath. “i’m- i’m not ready to talk about it.” 

“okay,” you replied. “i think… we should get some sleep. you have to drive back tomorrow.”

he snorted. “me?” 

you nodded like it was a given.

the night was long, dragging in the same manner that you’d trudge through deep snow with weights on your ankles. it wasn’t that bakugou’s old bed was uncomfortable; it was surprisingly plush. you laid awake, though, as the clock ticked by and the house went silent. you felt as stiff as a wooden board, staring at the dark ceiling and thinking about everything and nothing.

your thoughts first strayed to bakugou’s childhood, and how he’d seemed the poster child for an aspiring pro-hero. how could he have given that up? he had friends, dreams, and a path open to his aspirations. yet somehow his life had deviated into this, pretending to date you for his parents’ sake.  

it felt strange to lay in his bed in his parents’ house and not to really call him yours. not that you wanted to call him yours outside of this scenario. definitely not. it was just the guilt gnawing at you that impaired your proper judgement - your conscience felt pity. you pulled off a large lie to bakugou’s parents that you were dating when in reality, you’d never even gone on a proper date with the man; for all you knew, he could be a terrible person. he could have terrible dating manners and leave to the bathroom when the check comes in an attempt to force his date to pay. it was hard to imagine, but hey, you reasoned to yourself, it was a possibility.

“can’t sleep either?” bakugou’s deep voice startled you. you thought he’d fallen asleep hours ago.

“yeah,” you snorted. “and here i thought you were in the habit of always sleeping early,” you referenced his mother’s stories of him in middle and high school. you turned on your side to face the man.

“kinda hard with five different all mights staring at me,” he joked, gesturing to his plethora of all might-themed decorations.

you imitated all might’s larger than life voice. “i am here! … to watch you sleep!”

bakugou first snickered, which then transitioned into a full-blown, unrestrained (yet somewhat hushed) laugh. you couldn’t help but laugh too, watching his features crinkle and gummy smile widen. your heart felt peculiar in your chest, but you couldn’t figure out the feeling. in the years you’d known him, you’d never seen him so relaxed or open. you knew you’d miss moments like this in the morning, when you’d drive back and the deal would be over. it sent a bittersweet pang to your heart - why couldn’t moments like these last forever?

you woke up to find bakugou gone, leaving you alone in the bed with only a warm indentation next to you letting you know he’d just left. you rubbed your eyes groggily, sitting up and pushing the covers aside. you swung your legs over the edge of the bedside, standing up and making the bed once again. you padded out of the all might-furnished room to the kitchen, where you could hear quiet footsteps and the sizzling of a frying pan.

“someone’s finally awake,” bakugou’s husky voice remarked. he was standing at the stovetop, wearing an apron over his nightwear and frying eggs. sleep had worn his voice deeper; you swooned at the domestic sight before you. no, it wasn’t swooning, you told yourself. just… appreciation. you really wanted to make a comment on his muscles, bulging from his short-sleeved shirt.

“that looks really yummy,” you said, in no way whatsoever referencing his biceps and definitely referring to the egg in the pan.

“i’d like to pretend that was an innocent comment, but the direction your eyes are looking at beg to differ,” bakugou deadpanned. you looked away, flushed.

“so, whatcha making?” you said, plopping yourself on a chair. 

“eggs, rice, natto, miso,” he said. “but nothing for you until you change and brush your teeth.”

you stuck your tongue out at him. “who are you, my mom?” you continued, “i used to hate natto when i was younger.”

“it’s good for you,” bakugou said, moving the egg onto a plate of steaming rice.

“you sound a lot like my mom,” you replied. “but i like natto now, just not too much of it.”

“i liked natto when i was younger,” bakugou said.

“really? all of my friends hated it. they complained about the smell.” you reminisced about your childhood days, when your biggest worry was whether you had homework or not.

“speaking of smell? your breath. go brush your teeth.”

“wh- i’m so far from you, there’s no way-”

“no hygiene, no food.”

“who even says that?” but you were already out of your chair and heading towards the bathroom.

“oh, by the way,” bakugou said as you were halfway through emptying your plate with rice in your mouth, “what do you want?”

“wha?” you said, chewing the egg-natto-rice mixture in your mouth. “what?”

“the deal,” he said. “before my parents wake up.”

“the deal-?” you racked your mind for any deal you’d made in the recent days, as you weren’t much a gambler, then it hit you. the deal. in an attempt to convince you to pretend to be his date, he’d said he’d do whatever you wanted for a day in exchange. you hadn’t thought about it at all.

“um,” you said intelligently. what did you want? you wanted to spend more time with him, but there would be no way…

“take me ice skating.” he choked on his rice.

“what?”

“i really want to ice skate…” you lied. “i’ve never been.” another lie.

“you want to go ice skating with me?”

“pay for me.” you could’ve paid for yourself. “and, you have terrible dating skills. how are you supposed to get a real partner? consider this beneficial for yourself.”

he blinked, taken aback. “...okay,” he agreed, dumbfounded. you hoped he couldn’t see through you. “when?”

“today, duh.”

by the time you finished your plate, bakugou’s parents had woken up to bid the two of you farewell. hours later, you found yourself at an outdoor ice skating rink in tokyo.

the rink was decorated festively; surrounding trees had been wrapped in golden lights and there was something in the atmosphere which bustled with cheer. those skating were either children or couples, laughing and skating together. you told yourself not to pay too much attention to them, but there was something about the way they looked so happy that made you yearn for the same.

you clumsily clomped toward the entrance of the rink itself, clad in four layers of warm clothing and worn rental skates. cold air nipped at your cheeks and your breath was a snowy white before your eyes. patting your cheeks in an attempt to half hype yourself up and half warm yourself up, you tensely stepped onto the frozen water. clunk. clunk. 

“you look like an idiot,” bakugou said as you made your way onto the ice with slow clunks. he was surprisingly cocky about his skating prowess once he’d gotten his skates on, despite his lack of experience on the ice. he was unaffected by the chilly weather, wearing a thin jacket and denim jeans despite the vast majority of other skaters wearing winter coats. 

“it’s cold,” you responded. slippery ice beneath your feet, you suddenly felt a great deal less confident in your ice skating abilities. it might as well have been your first time skating, in the eyes of bakugou. you took baby steps on the ice, both hands gripping the side rails while bakugou glided breezily past you. 

“c’mon, idiot, loosen up~”

easy for him to say. “i’m- trying,” you gritted out, attempting to copy his fluid motions. 

“hey, dumbass, take my hands.” bakugou stopped in front of you, both hands outstretched for you to hold. you looked at him warily, then accepted the offer, his hands replacing the railings. 

“don’t hold them that hard,” bakugou said. “i’m not going to drop you. relax.”

you nodded, gulping as you released your death grip on his hands. starting to skate backwards (an incredible feat in your eyes), he slowly guided you along the edge of the rink. you spent most of the time staring at your own feet, trying to keep your balance and rhythm in time with bakugou’s. once you seemed to get the hang of it, he sped up ever so slightly, loosening his grip on your hands.

“just like that,” and his voice was much gentler than you’d ever heard it. you looked up to meet his soft gaze. your heart leapt and he quickly averted his eyes. “um,” he coughed awkwardly. “i think you’ve gotten the hang of it.”

“okay.” you started to let go of his hands, testing your balance skating without anything to hold onto. in small amounts at first, you start to let go, allowing your strides to become longer and longer. bakugou matched your pace beside you and eventually, the two of you fell into conversation. you’d both forgotten your own words about how this was for him to gain dating experience; it felt too real to be practice.

“the truth is, i was really, really close to becoming a pro-hero,” he confessed, “but i was injured in my third year. i had to take a break for a year or so, but by that time, i was too rusty for the job.” 

“but-” you said, almost stumbling on the ice at the revelation, “didn’t you do all that training-?”

he shrugged. “it’s the reality of it,” he said dismissively, a momentary shadow crossing his face. he recomposed. “i’m over it now.”

you had the slight suspicion that his words didn’t ring quite true, but let go of it. still, you couldn’t help but think about all of his all might decor - he must have idolized the man, only to fail at his dream. his room was like a memento to everything he wanted yet couldn’t reach. “you wouldn’t have met me if you hadn’t become a bodyguard,” you said cheerily in an attempt to distract both him and yourself.

“true,” he smiled. then, almost to himself, he added, “i don’t regret that.”

the two of you skated a couple more laps around the rink. conversation faded and your feet became more and more sore after skating for so long. a chill had settled itself onto your bones as the sky tinted in anticipation of the evening to come.

“we should get going now,” bakugou said. “before it gets too cold.”

“yeah-” your phone buzzed in your pocket. “hang on, give me a second.”

it was tanaka, telling you that you had a date scheduled by your father in two hours. it took you a moment, it really did, to remember who you were and what your priorities truly lay.

you made it a point not to tell bakugou what the call was about on the way back. you told him it was about a business deal, and he pretended to buy it. the car ride was desolate, lacking all warmth despite the heater blasting. you felt guilty; why had you lied to bakugou? you and he both knew you were lying about the business deal. was it pity? why had you felt the need to protect him?

you could only amount it to the fact that maybe bakugou was becoming a friend. maybe bakugou was becoming someone you never wanted to hurt. your thoughts were the only thing you could hear over the buzz of the car’s heater. you looked to the sky with imploring eyes as if some cloud on the lavender-tinged atmosphere listened and could provide you an answer. 

you weren’t sure if it was the clouds’ doing or some star hiding behind the sun’s light that washed a sense of solemness by the time you returned to meet tanaka at the gates. it was almost enough to make you forget the sad feeling you held whilst looking at bakugou one last time before stepping out of the car to greet your old butler. the feeling was unfathomable to you; in your daze on the ride back, there’d seemingly been no reason for such a feeling to linger in your heart. why had you felt so much guilt, so much sadness for this man you were supposed to be strictly on business relations with?

not that you’d done this, anyway. your business relationship with bakugou ended the minute you agreed to that favour he’d proposed, and was further broken when you ice skated together. you wondered if he felt the same as you, or if things would return to the way they had been after this date tonight. somewhere deep in you hoped it wouldn’t - hoped he wouldn’t forget it all. (“stay here,” you’d told him when you stepped out of the car. his stare was vacant; would he? you weren’t sure why you even asked.)

“tanaka,” you said stiffly. the air was frigid around you (when had the temperature dropped so suddenly?) and a breeze wrapped itself around your legs. an impulse told you to turn back, look at bakugou, and tell him the things you left unsaid - but you didn’t. 

“y/n,” he nodded. it was like a wake-up call. this was who you were, truly. your father’s pawn, his company’s pawn. you were a face used for business and nothing more. you traded your feelings for your father’s wealth - that’s who you were.

yet it was the past two days that made you feel more like yourself than ever before. the time spent with bakugou, of all people, made you feel genuinely happy. he made your name feel more like yours than your father’s. it seemed it was he who could only coax this feeling out of you. you, certainly, couldn’t imagine it being anyone else. there was something unlike anything you’d experienced before which bakugou gave you. but you couldn’t let your father down, could you?

“y/n, we must go now,” tanaka urged. 

you didn’t look back.

bakugou watched you leave with an inscrutable expression. as soon as you vanished from his sight, he let out a deep sigh and bashed his head on the steering wheel, then rubbed the spot of contact. that would leave a mark.

he wished he could pretend he didn’t know what your sudden meeting was about. he couldn’t. what kind of bodyguard was unaware of his client’s schedule? you were going on a date, on account of your father’s absolutely superb matchmaking skills. he wanted to strangle the bastard. 

god, he was an idiot to have gotten his hopes up about you. just like countless other things in his life, you were unattainable. he was constantly in pursuit of the impossible, it felt, yet none of his endeavours’ ends had quite felt like this. it started when he was a child with a newly developed quirk. constant words of praise fluttered around his ears, all applauding his strong quirk and natural intelligence. it continued when he entered school, winning academic and athletic awards for what everyone called his talents. (he remembered looking up the definition of “talent” in a dictionary in his elementary school’s library and being sorely disappointed. no one had seen the hours he’d dedicated to practicing and studying after school - all of that couldn’t amount to what everyone else had called natural talent.) 

in doing so - winning all those competitions - he’d somehow earned the approval of all those around him. it was never something he’d wanted or aimed for, but it soon started to fit him like a custom-tailored outfit. somewhere along the way, he started to seek out the approval of others, flaunting his accomplishments to do so. however, as years went by, one thing became apparent: the tactics used on his peers and teachers would never gain his parents’ approval. he so yearned for a tad of his parents’ praise or satisfaction; even an “i’m proud of you, katsuki,” from them would’ve sent katsuki to the stars and back. he never was quite sure, as a youth, how to gain this prize, so to speak. and so, for the sake of his parents, he became stronger and stronger and thus began his journey to attain the first impossibility in his life.

high school, at once, came knocking on his door in the midst of this endless journey. with it came izuku midoriya, the boy katsuki had bullied in middle school. this time, though, it was izuku who was stronger; katsuki had so wanted to atone for all that he’d done to the boy, but it proved something impossible. on the physical level, izuku had already forgiven him and moved on. it wasn’t enough for katsuki, who’d really done nothing to deserve izuku’s kindness. so katsuki set off, trying to truly deserve the boy’s forgiveness and make up for everything he’d done. in katsuki’s mind, there would be nothing he could do that would balance out the weight of his actions to izuku. hence unraveled the second impossibility katsuki set up for himself.

the third impossibility found itself in katsuki’s third year at ua academy. he was working for his parents’ approval and atonement for izuku; this impossibility, though, would send everything crumbling down. impossibles, unlike any math equations covered during his schooling, could not be cancelled out the more brought into the equation. it was perhaps katsuki’s only salvation and lifeline, his passion to become a hero. fate snatched this very possibility from katsuki’s hand, snapping the lifeline and dangling it just out of his reach. all of it was cruel - the sympathetic words spoken from recovery girl’s lips and the weeks katsuki had to sit out of hero training. even worse was how katsuki watch his grade drop from one of the top in the class to only passable in general studies, no longer sharp enough to qualify for a pro-hero. by the time he healed, he was rendered unable to rejoin the hero course. his goal was thrown away easily, becoming another impossibility.

katsuki trained himself physically for a new job. an acquaintance had introduced him to being a bodyguard, and katsuki figured that was close enough to being a hero. not that he particularly enjoyed the notion of waiting on someone’s every beck and call. but through and through his countless impossibilities and misfortunes, he had to move forward. he was tired, so tired - hearing his parents’ disappointed voices on the phone and looking up to see a billboard of the newest top pro-hero, deku. when he foolishly and naively got his hopes up about you, the logical part in him knew it was doomed. he knew that as he stared at you, illuminated by a golden light in your bedroom, it was ill-fated. you were a miracle opening up a new life to him - but miracles weren’t real.

of all the impossibilities in his life, you were the most painful. why was he cursed in such a way? where had the happiness in his life gone, if not with you as you walked away from him? he stared at his suit cuff, suffocated in the stupid attire. he should never have taken this job. 

a knock. another knock. three more rapid knocks, and he finally looked up to see your eager face looking at him from the passenger side window. he hastily unlocked the car door with a click.

“finally,” your exasperated voice said to him, tinged in a happy hue that he’s confused by. 

“wh-where’s tanaka?” katsuki stuttered. “your date-”

“i did it, bakugou.” you beamed at him. “i refused. i said no.”

“wha-what? you refused what?” 

“the date, duh!” you laughed. you grew quiet. “i realized something. i realized that all i want is you, and it’s… it’s about time i start taking control of my life.”

katsuki cracked a smile. a real one, not painful like so many others he’d faked before. “you’re a dumbass, you know that?” and it was endearment, bringing you close to his heart. 

maybe fate had decided to bless him. maybe it was all the impossibilities in his life that had cancelled each other out to give him you. 

“oh, and by the way,” you said, changing the topic. “i’ve been thinking a lot about it recently. we need to have a rematch for that sorry excuse of a fight we had the other day. i will have an undisputed victory over you.”

“you’re on, moron.”

it was definitely fate that brought katsuki to you.

[detectivehannibal]

Dr. Lecter Will See You Now

__

Hannibal Lecter x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Language.

A/N: Award for the worst title goes to me. Also, I’m gonna give third person a try. I have a love-hate for second person.

Requested by: @lousyydimwit

Word Count: 1,719

“It is. Do you have an eye for brands, Dr. Lecter?”

__

She was spoiled. It was as simple as that. She had always had everything handed to her on a silver platter. She knew this, of course. She wasn’t exactly stupid. A little blind to reality maybe, but not stupid. Everyone tended to have a bit of an immediate judgement when it came to her. She was always well put together and never had any part of her that was out of place. She was determined to be at her best all the time, mainly because everyone expected her to be. She never really thought about how exhausting it could be.

Her parents had worked endlessly in their early years of marriage and careers to ensure that she’d have the most stress free life possible. They struck it big and were able to send their little girl to the finest schools possible to assure her success. She had lived a VERY comfortable life. 

Still, she enjoyed being given anything she could ever want and/or dream of. She loved her lavish life. At least, until she was told that her time was up. Her parents had always told her that they would always take care of her until she was old enough to handle herself. She was 25 now and well past the age of being able to provide for herself. They weren’t cutting her off so to speak. They would just casually begin sending her less and less money until they were sure she was fine to make it on her own. So, they dropped the bombshell on her. 

She was going to have to get a job.

She wasn’t angry or anything. She knew this day would come eventually. She just hated that it came so quickly. At first, it was hard for her to accept that she was finally going to have to become a working adult, but she kind of found it exciting once she began job searching. 

But not just any job would do. She would rather be dead than work in a job that required real hard labor. She just wasn’t cut out (or used) to that sort of scene. God forbid that she break a nail while working. She ruled out waitressing, any kind of retail job, or anything that involved intense customer service. Her options were slimming down fast and she was getting discouraged. That’s when she found her golden ticket. 

She was skimming through the paper one morning when she saw an ad saying that a psychiatrist in the Baltimore area was in need of a secretary. She wasn’t familiar with the name of the therapist...but he looked oddly familiar. In any event, she saw this as her chance at work. She dialed the number, set up a time for an interview, and she was well on her way.

Here’s a little secret. She didn’t actually expect to get the job. She thought that Dr. Lecter would be interested enough in her to give her a recommendation for another job opening, not actually hire her as his secretary. Which was why she was stunned when he basically hired her on the spot and told her that she would start the following morning. When she realized that this was actually happening, she knew she had to put her absolute best presence forward. At least, until she was comfortable to relax into it. What he didn’t know, however, was just how much of an impact she was going to have on his life. 

She arrived on time the next morning, ready to get to work. Her job was pretty simple. Answer the phone, check in his patients as they arrived, take messages for him when he was in a session, get him coffee when requested. The basic assistant kind of job. She sat behind the desk in the lobby of his office, acquainting herself with the new area. He exited his office a little after lunch to check on her. It had really been the first time he had actually interacted with her that day.

“Ms. [Y/L/N],” He said standing in front of the desk. She looked up at him respectfully, but a hint of a smirk on her face; “I presume you are settling in nicely?”

On top of being a privileged lady, she was a fast learner. All her years of extensive schooling had prepared her in ways she never expected. She was acing her first day, much to his surprise. He was extremely observant and he expected her to be...well...kind of an idiot. 

“Yes, Dr. Lecter. Everything is just fine.” She replied confidently.

He hadn’t figured it out just yet, but he found her rather interesting. She wasn’t intimidated by him like most people were. As a matter of fact, that was the very reason he had been in need of a new secretary. The last one was so frightened of Hannibal that she took her talents elsewhere. It wasn’t like he had tried to kill her or anything. He had only done that to one of his former secretaries. 

“Good. I was hoping you were adjusting well.” He responded, putting his hands in his pockets.

She smiled, returning to her work briefly before realizing he was still standing there. She raised a brow;

“Do you need something?” She asked sweetly.

He was looking at her outfit. A skirt, blouse, and blazer with a pair of heels. He noted that it was a quite expensive getup, something none of his previous assistants had worn. 

“No, but I must ask. Is that Alexander McQueen you’re currently wearing?” He asked. 

He knew the answer was yes, but he wanted to see if she actually knew herself. He was beginning to get an inkling that she had come from a more than rich lifestyle. Luckily, she did actually know what it was, but she didn’t always know the origins of her clothes. Everything had always been bought for her. 

“It is. Do you have an eye for brands, Dr. Lecter?” She questioned.

He gave the slightest smile;

“I tend to, yes.” He answered simply.

He walked back into his office to prepare for his next appointment. She was a little disappointed that the conversation had ended so abruptly, but she knew that wouldn’t be the last time she ever spoke to him. This was a full time gig after all. She was over the moon with how things were going and it looked like she was going to be just fine.

Her first week went by without a hitch and the more conversations she had with Hannibal, the more bold she became. She didn’t know it yet, but she was finally having a say in her life. She was able to make decisions without something popping in to suggest her otherwise. She could be herself. However, her real self caused annoyance to come out of Dr. Lecter. But he was a patient man. He knew she just wanted to impress him. Even though he wouldn’t tell her yet, she was the best secretary he had been able to have in years. That still didn’t stop the twinge of irritation in his chest every time she said something unprofessional.

He entered the office around 7:00 AM, briskly walking by her desk like a man on a mission. She gave a fake offended gasp;

“Well, good morning, Dr. Lecter!” She called after him. 

He stopped at his doorway. He would admit, that was rather rude. He turned to face her;

“Good morning, [Y/N].”

That’s when she realized why he had been in such a hurry to get into his office. Coffee had been spilled all down the front of his white collared shirt and his pants. She couldn’t help but laugh lightly;

“Oh, I see you’ve had a great start to the morning,” She said sarcastically; “Would you like me to go get you another outfit?” She asked reaching for her keys.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I keep a spare in my office closet.” He explained.

She paused for a second, then a devious grin spread on her face. He mentally slapped himself, knowing she had found humor in what he had just said. 

“Do you now? Is it often that you have to change clothes while at work?” She asked, giving an implication that he wasn’t catching on to yet.

“It’s only for situations like this,” He said referring to his coffee stained outfit; “What are you inferring?”

She stood from her chair, leaning against the desk;

“Well, I’m sure you have to do something in between sessions.” She hinted.

What an insane accusation! He would never...pleasure himself while at work. And even if he did, he surely wouldn’t tell her about it. His posture and expression stayed unchanged, but he was getting agitated.

“I’m not sure I appreciate that statement, [Y/N].” He said honestly.

She was unfazed and pressed on;

“Come on, Dr. Lecter. I know you get bored in there. I’d probably do it too,” She admitted; “Honestly, if I looked like you? I know I would do it.” She flirted.

Now he was taken aback. That was quite the confession coming from his secretary. He was mentally noting to himself that this was probably why he was so intrigued by her. She wasn’t like his previous secretaries in the sense that she wasn’t afraid to say anything to his face. She was extremely honest and forward with her thoughts. He found that refreshing in a way.

“I’m flattered that you think that of me.” He accepted the compliment.

She shrugged, running a hand through her hair;

“I’m just saying.” She replied, sitting back down at her desk.

He pondered her words. Surely, there wasn’t anything wrong with being attracted to his secretary...or anything wrong with his secretary being attracted to him. He was still at his door, deep in thought. She noted the time was now 7:15, and he had his first patient at 7:30.

“Dr. Lecter,” She said snapping him out of his daze; “Paula Wallace’s appointment is in fifteen minutes.”

He nodded, getting back to work;

“Right. Of course.”

He retreated into his office finally to change into a new shirt and pants. A fresh thought entered his mind as he finished buttoning his shirt;

Maybe this new secretary was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

[spencers-renaissance]

Rain is a Chance to be Touched Ch.15

if we cannot find the light, we will always make our own

Chapter Fourteen

This is the fifteenth chapter in my ongoing hotchreid fic! Please click here for the fic summary, full tags, trigger warnings, more information etc.

Last Chapter: Derek & Emily called Spencer for a consult, and with him off his antidepressants, things very quickly fell apart.

In This Chapter: Hotch & Penelope pick up the pieces.

tw: depression-related exhaustion, disordered thinking, reference to last chapter's breakdown, discussion of medication

Word Count: 4K

RCT Masterlist // Main Masterlist // Read on AO3

(Quick Note: A couple of chapters ago I referred to Spencer's psychiatrist by she/her pronouns, but I forgot that I assigned that character he/him pronouns wayyy back, so I've decided to go with that one. I just wanted to address that in case anyone else caught it like I did! I apologise for the mistake & any confusion it might have caused.)

AARON

"Find my hand in the darkness and if we cannot find the light, we will always make our own." — Tyler Knott Gregson

Aaron doesn’t fall asleep until well into the small hours of the morning, finally lulled into a cold dreamless sleep once he’s cried himself out. He keeps as quiet as he can, but he knows he won’t wake Spencer up anyway: he’s completely exhausted, and he’s out cold. It’s a small consolation, but he tries to take a small bit of comfort in knowing that his boyfriend is at least getting the rest he needs.

He wakes up only a couple of hours after he falls asleep, and despite feeling completely exhausted, he sets about the things he needs to do. The first thing he does is call Strauss to request a family day — thankfully, the bureau’s been a lot more understanding of his situation since Haley died — before texting Derek and telling him that he needs to take charge of the team if they get sent on a case. Then he calls Jess and asks if she can collect Jack from his sleepover at lunchtime and have him until the evening.

With the technicalities sorted out, he makes a phone call to Spencer's psychiatrist. At this point, if he has to drag him kicking and screaming, if Spencer never talks to him again, if it calls an irreparable rift in their relationship, it won’t get in the way of him getting Spencer the help he needs. After an emergency appointment for 11am is booked, he collapses onto the sofa and calls Penelope.

“Hotch? It’s not even 7am, is everything alright?”

Just hearing her voice, hearing someone ask if he’s okay, is enough to push him over the edge. “No,” he admits into the phone, not even trying to disguise the emotion in his voice.

“I’m on my way,” she says immediately, and he can hear a flurry of activity start up on the other end of the line. “What’s happened, Hotch?”

He breathes out shakily, running a hand down his face. The early morning sun, the bustling city below him, the bright apartment all seems so contrary to the current situation. “Spencer hit a breaking point last night,” he says shakily, unsure exactly how to word it. “Derek and Emily called him to consult on a case, and they were as brisk and focused as we all are when we’re working, but he’s out of practice; he’s not used to that way of doing things anymore. It triggered him and sent him into what I’m gonna guess was a panic attack? But honestly, Penelope… it looked like a breakdown.”

“Oh God,” she says quietly, and the sound of her exiting her apartment reassures Aaron a little.

“I had no idea how to handle it,” he says, dissolving into tears. “He locked himself in the bathroom and was literally tearing his hair out… there were clumps of hair all over the floor. He was screaming at me to leave, telling me he wasn’t good enough that he forgot his place? I had no idea what he was saying—”

Penelope interrupts him. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Well, when I first found out about his depression, Spencer told me something about how he didn’t feel like he was good for anything except his brain and IQ, you know? He said that he wasn’t cut out for friendships or relationships and I’m pretty sure he called that his ‘place’. It’s stuck with me because of just how awful it sounded.”

“Fuck,” Aaron mutters, sniffing as a fresh wave of tears come to his eyes. “So Emily and Derek consulting him for their case triggered those thoughts again.”

“Sounds like it,” she agrees. “They’re gonna feel so guilty.”

Aaron knows she’s in a tricky situation: her girlfriend and close friend sending her best friend into a near-breakdown, and for a brief minute he feels guilty for roping her in before reminding himself that she wouldn’t be anywhere else if Spencer needed her.

“Yeah, I don’t even know what I’m gonna do about that,” he sighs. “I thought about not telling them, because Spencer doesn’t need everyone knowing about every step of his recovery; it’s personal, right? But more secrets between everyone… I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like a good idea. Especially not for something this serious.”

“We’ll figure it out together,” Penelope promises. “Look, I’m in my car now. I’ll be there in 10, okay?”

He sighs in relief. “Thanks, Penelope.”

They hang up and he drops his phone next to him before staring up at the ceiling for a minute, rubbing his temples. Forcing himself off the sofa, he considers putting the coffee machine on but he doesn’t want the sound of the bean grinder to wake Spencer up, so he settles for a cup of instant coffee instead, putting a slice of bread in the toaster as well.

By the time he’s finished his second slice, Penelope’s letting herself in.

“He’s still asleep?”

He nods, watching as she dumps her handbag on the armchair and walks further into the apartment. It’s always strange seeing her without her usual colourful outfits and makeup on, and although he’s gotten used to it in the past year as they’ve rallied around Spencer, sometimes it still reminds him of seeing her in her casual clothes for the first time when she got shot a couple of years ago.

“I’m just gonna grab some breakfast and a tea,” she says quietly, helping herself to everything in the kitchen as she always does. “You go and sit down, I’ll be over in a minute and we can discuss a game plan.”

He obeys, closing his eyes against the headache coming on, but it’s only a couple of minutes before Penelope’s sitting in the armchair opposite the sofa with a cup of chamomile tea and a slice of marmalade toast.

“Right, the first thing we need to tackle is convincing him to get back on his meds,” Penelope says seriously, keeping her voice low to avoid waking Spencer up.

He nods. “I know. I’ve made an emergency appointment with his psychiatrist for 11am, it’s just a case of a) getting him there and b) making him listen to him.”

“The problem is that he sees going back on medication as admitting defeat or failing at recovery. We need to have a really honest, frank conversation with him about it, but I just don’t know how we’re gonna get him to believe us.”

“Maybe we should use our own experiences? He doesn’t think any less of me or think I’m weak when I take pain medication when my injuries flare up. He wouldn’t think any less of you for accepting pain meds throughout your recovery after you were shot. He doesn’t think less of his mother because she relies on psychiatric medication.”

Penelope nods. “He has a twisted perception of himself. One rule for himself, another for everyone else.”

Something about her words makes Aaron feel suddenly, desperately sad. He’s always been sad for Spencer and what he’s gone through, and he’s been crying most of the night, but the realisation, the reassertion, of just how much Spencer hates himself, what his brain’s put him through over the last two years cuts deep, winding him.

“I just wish he could see himself the way we see him,” he says sadly, another tear spilling down his cheek, as though he has anything left to give.

Penelope’s expression tells him she feels the same.

Hotch goes in to check on Spencer as the clock approaches nine, and his heart breaks for the thousandth time when he finds him staring listlessly at the wall again.

“Morning, baby,” he says gently, making his way into the room.

Thankfully, it grabs Spencer’s attention, and he turns to look at him, misery and self-loathing written all over his face. He doesn’t say anything, but he holds eye contact with Aaron long enough for him to understand that it’s okay for him to be there, and he makes his way further into the room, climbing onto the bed. He’s not expecting Spencer to immediately latch onto him, burying his face in his t-shirt as he clings to him like he’s going somewhere, but that’s exactly what happens.

“Penelope’s in the living room,” he murmurs, carding his fingers through Spencer’s hair. There’s no expectation for him to reply, so he lets the words settle over them as they lay quietly together; the calm after the storm. Aaron hopes it won’t double as the before as well.

After a good couple of minutes, Spencer shifts, and Aaron follows his lead as they shuffle out of the bedroom towards Penelope’s contemplative perch on the sofa. Spencer heads straight towards her, curling into her side and drawing the warm comfort Penelope always has to offer.

“Oh, baby genius,” she whispers, kissing the top of his head. “You’re okay. We love you so much.”

It’s apparently the wrong thing to say, because Spencer immediately withdraws, curling in on himself as he starts to cry.

“Hey, hey, Spencer,” Aaron soothes calmly as he rushes over to his side, “what’s going on?”

Penelope starts to apologise but Aaron shakes his head and she settles for resting a gentle hand on his side instead.

“Can you tell us what’s wrong, Spencer?” Aaron asks, a knot forming in his stomach as he hopes against hope that this won’t turn into a repeat of last night. “We can’t help you unless you talk to us.”

Spencer takes a ragged breath in, turning his face slightly towards Aaron’s direction, and his chest clenches at the bags under his sore, red eyes; his pallid skin. “I’m sorry,” he says shakily, wiping at the tears on his face.

“You don’t have to apologise, Spencer. You just need to tell us how we can help you,” Penelope says gently, her hand rubbing small, consoling circles on his side.

Spencer meets his eyes, his face crumpling as he does and Aaron, in that moment, is reminded distinctly of a star collapsing in on itself. Spencer heaves a painful sob as two more tears spill down his cheeks. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

The admission seems obvious at surface level, but the magnitude of such a statement isn’t lost on either Aaron nor Penelope.

Aaron sighs sadly. “Come here, baby.” Spencer falls gladly into Aaron’s embrace, sobbing dejectedly into his shoulder, sounding so tired and defeated that it’s painful to listen to.

Once he’s finished crying himself out, Aaron and Penelope switch places, Aaron moving to sit on the sofa with Spencer propped up against him and Penelope settling into the armchair.

He approaches his next words carefully. “I’ve made an appointment for you to see Dr Parker at 11am. Penelope and I will take you, and we both think that you should talk to him about going back on the venlafaxine.”

To his surprise Spencer just nods tiredly, no longer crying and instead resuming his blank staring.

“And we also think you should consider talking to Derek and Emily about what happened yesterday,” Penelope suggests quietly, an encouraging expression on her face.

Spencer looks up at her, emotions flying across his face as he processes her words and how he feels about them. Briefly, he looks like he’s about to argue, about to shout or get mad, but he quickly deflates. “They’ll feel guilty,” he says miserably. “Not their fault.”

“Your relationships with everyone have come a long way, Spencer, and that’s great. But everyone is still fragile and affected by everything that’s happened in the past year, and keeping secrets like these is only going to hurt everyone more.”

Spencer’s still and silent for a moment before he nods reluctantly.

“I think that maybe,” Aaron ventures cautiously, “you should avoid doing any consulting work for a while. It’s clearly damaging for you and is always going to come with potential triggers, and when you’re already feeling sad and vulnerable, it’s really just a catalyst for an event like yesterday evening.”

Spencer nods at that, too, and Aaron wishes he could take his acquiescence as a win, but he knows it’s coming from a place of defeat and despair, and he’ll never take any consolation in that.

“Okay, sweetheart,” Aaron says. “We have about an hour until we need to leave, so why don’t we get you some food, get you into the shower, and then you can rest for any left over time? Does that sound okay?”

At Spencer’s agreement, Penelope heads to the kitchen to whip him up something a bit more nutritious than the toast they both settled for, while Aaron takes him to the bathroom to wash up.

“Are you alright on your own?” he asks as he sets the shower up for him, Spencer perching on the edge of the bath as he waits.

Instead of answering his question though, panic suddenly crosses Spencer’s face and he looks at Aaron urgently. “Jack!”

“Hey, it’s alright,” he says soothingly. “Jess is gonna pick him up from his sleepover at lunchtime and have him for the afternoon. I’ve taken a personal day and unless a case comes in, Penelope will be here for as long as we need her. Everything’s in hand.”

“But it’s Jack’s spring break! You should be spending time with him, not herding me into the shower—”

At the first sign of tears, Aaron is quick to step in, reassuring him as best he can. “Hey, I will spend time with him, alright? He was already going to be with Sam all morning, and he’ll be dropped off before dinner, so Jess is only going to have him for a couple of hours. And if you’re feeling well enough once we get back from the doctor’s, then he can come home early, but right now, your health is the most important thing we need to deal with, you hear me?”

Spencer nods reluctantly, but he can tell that the thought of cutting into Aaron’s time with Jack is only fuelling his self-loathing. Having to accept that there’s nothing he can do about that, he makes sure he’s okay in the shower before heading out into the kitchen to find Penelope.

“I can’t tell if that went well or not,” she says quietly, not looking up from the frying pan currently cooking eggs and bacon.

Aaron sighs, leaning against the counter top, his eyes fixed on the bathroom door. “I think it went about as well as it could.”

“I texted Emily and Derek, and they’re going to pop over this afternoon if we don’t get a case,” she says. “If Spencer’s not up for it, we can rearrange, but I thought it was better to be prepared.”

“No, you’re right, thank you for doing that, Penelope. What would I do without you?”

“Aw, stop it, bossman,” she says, grinning as she nudges him playfully.

He smiles. “I mean it.”

“I know. But I’m happy to help you guys out. I’d do anything for Spencer, and I know he’d do anything for me.”

“Without a doubt.”

Spencer emerges from the bathroom a few moments later, clad in a white t-shirt and some tracksuit bottoms Aaron is pretty sure are both actually his, damp curly hair a mess on his head. He can’t help but smile despite himself; his boyfriend looking so damn cute will always be a small pick-me-up on even the worst of days.

“Penelope’s cooked up a storm for you,” he says as brightly as the situation allows, guiding him to the sofa and tucking him in with a couple of blankets to get him as comfortable as possible.

He gets a small smile at that, and a murmured ‘thank you’ when Penelope brings him over a plate of bacon and eggs, arranged as perfectly as he’d expect with Penelope serving as cook.

He flicks the TV to the discovery channel, managing to catch the beginning of a documentary on big cats, and he counts it as a win when it catches Spencer’s attention, hoping it takes his mind off the pain he’s feeling just a little bit.

They spend the next forty minutes watching documentaries with Spencer before Penelope notices the time and begins herding them out the door towards the parking garage.

“No way,” Aaron laughs as she heads towards her car.

“What?”

“You are not driving, Penelope,” he says, laughing even more at her incredulous reaction. “I’ve seen you; you drive like a maniac. We’re taking my car.”

She pouts. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Does this mean I have to sit in the back, too?”

He just levels her with a look that has her sighing dramatically and flinging herself into the backseat, but when he looks over at Spencer and sees a smile on his face, he’s suddenly even more thankful for Penelope.

They sit in the waiting room while Spencer has his appointment and try desperately not to make each other more anxious than they already feel. Penelope flicks through fashion magazines at a pace that tells Aaron she’s not reading a single word, and Aaron reads over and over the case notes he’d bought with him to pass the time, no more going in the second, third, eleventh time than it did the first.

Finally, though, Spencer emerges from Dr Parker’s office with a script in hand and they both sigh a small breath of relief at the idea that he’s finally getting the help he’s been needing so badly.

“Okay, baby?” he murmurs as Spencer reaches for his hand on the way out of the psychiatrist’s office, and something loosens in his chest when Spencer nods and smiles, looking happier and more relaxed than he has in weeks.

Derek and Emily come over just after lunchtime, and Penelope gets up to open the door for them, Spencer and Aaron not moving from their position on the couch, Spencer resting his head in Aaron’s lap as one of his favourite sci-fi movies is playing on the TV.

When he sees who it is, though, Spencer moves to sit up slightly, still keeping himself folded into Aaron’s side.

“Hey, Spence,” Emily says softly, taking a seat in the armchair while Penelope comes over to perch on the arm, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend, “what’s this about?”

Both Emily and Derek look confused enough that Aaron knows Spencer will be able to tell that neither he nor Penelope told them what happened last night, willing to give him a last minute out if that’s what he needs, as well as full control over the narrative.

Derek comes over to the sofa and sits next to Spencer, keeping enough distance between them to keep Spencer comfortable, though he still rests a warm hand on his ankle. “What’s going on? You can tell us anything, pretty boy, you know that.”

Spencer looks to Aaron, and the expression on his face conveys what he needs immediately.

“Yesterday, your consult with Spencer on the methanol poisoning case triggered an… event,” he explains, trying to choose his words carefully. He wants to tell the truth, but he also doesn’t want to sound like he’s blaming Derek and Emily or use language Spencer wouldn’t be happy with. “It was a breaking point of sorts and as such, he decided to go back on his medication.”

Relief tied up with confusion are the first emotions he watches play over Emily and Derek’s faces. Everyone’s been hoping Spencer will return to his medication, but he knows they’ll want more information as to what exactly happened and why they’ve been asked over.

“An event?” Emily asks, sounding a little hesitant.

Before Aaron can answer, Spencer speaks up, his voice a little tired and croaky but convicted nonetheless. “It was a breakdown,” he says plainly, not sugar-coating his words. “I was in a bad place already and I was out of practice with what a time sensitive case entails, and it sent me into a tailspin. It reminded me of all the feelings that working in the BAU caused that year, and I couldn’t handle it. I lashed out at Aaron and…”

“The details don’t matter,” Aaron rescues his tailed off sentence. “The fact is we thought that more secrets were only going to make things worse in the long run, and you needed to understand what happened last night since Spencer going back on his meds was bound to raise questions anyway.”

“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” Spencer interjects, his voice anxious and urgent. “It wasn’t your fault, it’s just the way of the BAU and if I’d been on my medication like I should’ve been in the first place it wouldn’t have been a problem, it was just a horrible medley of circumstances. But I’ve decided that I won’t be doing any consults for a while until I can get my head on straight again. It may be that I’m never able to do them without being triggered, but we’re going to play it by ear.”

Aaron smiles at him proudly, kissing the top of his head as soon as he buries back in for a cuddle.

“Oh, Spence,” Emily sighs sadly. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t even think. We were so caught up in the case we didn’t even stop to consider you and how you’d interpret things.”

“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” Spencer says again, this time from his place on Aaron’s chest. “I’m sorry that it had to be you guys that triggered the breaking point.”

“We should’ve been more considerate,” Derek says firmly, his expression filled with regret. “The last thing I’d ever want is to make you feel the way I did last year, and even though other circumstances contributed to what happened last night, we still failed you, kid, and I’m so sorry for that.”

“It’s fine, seriously. In a way, I’m glad it happened. Something had to give, and I’m glad that I can look forward to finally feeling normal again. I talked to my psychiatrist this morning and even though… it still feels a little bit like giving up, I feel better about it. And we’re gonna work on my attitude to medication in the next couple of sessions until I feel more comfortable about it.”

Aaron knows how much Spencer hates talking about his recovery, so it feels like a big step for him to be so personal and vulnerable in front of four different people, even if they are all virtually his family at this point.

“I’m proud of you, Spencer,” Emily says earnestly, and even though Aaron can tell she still feels guilty, at least it’s no longer the most dominant emotion on her face.

“Me too, kid. You’ve been through hell and back and we’re all so proud of you for getting to where you are.”

Spencer smiles gratefully, but Aaron can tell he’s exhausted from the events of the morning, so he sends a look to Penelope and she shows Emily and Derek out, but not before giving Emily a kiss and being teased by Derek for it.

“Right, baby,” he says as the apartment quietens and it’s just the three of them left. “I think you could do with a nap, don’t you?”

“Don’t wanna leave you,” Spencer mumbles tiredly, clinging to his t-shirt.

“Well how about I come and sit with you while you sleep, yeah? You go and get tucked in and I’ll be in in a minute, I promise.”

“You better.” It’s not much, but it’s the closest to teasing Spencer’s come in weeks, and he’ll absolutely take it.

He gives Penelope a warm hug and disappears into the bedroom.

“Looks like I can leave you to it,” Penelope says quietly as soon as the door’s closed behind him.

Aaron looks at her seriously, before wrapping her in a rare hug. “Thank you for today. I mean it. I don’t know what we would’ve done this past year without you, Penelope, but we sure as hell wouldn’t be where we are now. I’m always gonna be thankful that Spencer has someone as wonderful as you to call a best friend.”

“Hotch,” she says tearily, “I love you both so much. You don’t have to thank me, but it means a lot that you did.”

He smiles at her. “You should go back to the BAU. Go and find Derek and Emily who are no doubt beating themselves up and tell them they’re being ridiculous.”

She gives him a mock salute as she smiles back. “You got it, boss.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Keep me posted,” she says as she gathers the last of her things and heads to the door. “Let me know how he’s doing tonight and I’ll pop round after work to see him tomorrow, okay?”

“Perfect.”

As soon as she’s gone, he climbs into bed with Spencer and wraps him up in his arms, feeling — for the first time in weeks — a distinct conviction that everything is going to be okay.

Chapter Sixteen

Soooo, we don't hate me anymore? I really enjoyed writing this part of the fic, I'm such a sucker for third act angst and the resolution is always so satisfying to me, so I hope I managed to give you guys the same feeling. Only one more chapter to go, and then we're done wtf, how did that happen? I can't wait for you to all read the happy lil ending I wrote for you! See you next Saturday, for the very last time :( If this chapter has brought anything up for you and you're feeling unsafe please check out this link <3

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @hotchseyebrows @reidology @transhanniballecter @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @marvel-ous-m @oliverbrnch @sbeno22 @aaron-hotchner187 @kuolonsyoja @reidreids @anxious-enby (add yourself to my taglist here!)

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter Five:Sensory Integration 1

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Summary: A Friday full of teasing for Shane ends in a steak dinner with a blue-eyed beefcake. If you don’t finish this chapter hungry for one or the other, if not both, I haven’t done my job! Lol! (For inspo on Sy’s date outfit, think back to that one Men’s Health photoshoot Hen did and just imagine his hair shorter. That’s what I did. lol!) 

Click me to catch up on the story and other stuff by Hannah!

Word Count: 4k (This date got away from me! Lol! And it’s only half over!)

Warnings: Mostly this is utter fluffy fluff, but I’m gonna put the following warnings on, anyway. Language, mature themes, alcohol consumption, borderline food worship (Shane may have a problem, I definitely do! Lol!) Also, pretty much every Sy fic I’ve read says that his given name is Logan, so...should his given name be used henceforth, that’s what I’m going with because it seems the most cannon and I like it and if it’s good enough for Wolverine...

Author’s Note: So, guys, this is crazy. First off, the reaction and love Sy and Shane’s story has been getting has taken me completely off guard and utterly made my day/week. (I’m serious. Every note makes my heart do a happy dance. A like, a reblog, a comment. It all means the world to me. Thank you for your feedback and for sharing this story.) Second, YOUR FEEDBACK MATTERS TO ME! Because initially, idk what I was thinking. I was going to skim over their first date and like…not write it…and I kept getting notes as I worked on further chapters to the tune of “can’t wait for this date!” and I thought…hmm…well, the date must be written! So, here it is, the first half-ish, of Shane and Sy’s first date. I hope it’s all you were expecting…or at least half of all you were expecting! Lol! More to come in part two of Sens Integ! (BTW, fun fact, these chapter titles are all named after treatments that therapists actually use on their patients sometimes! Lol!)

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags:

@onlyhenrys @cavillryarchive @summersong69 @titty-teetee @bloodyinspiredfuck @agniavateira @oddsnendsfanfics @omgkatinka@thisismysecretthirstblog

@misslaland @speakerforthedead0@tumblnewby @suavechops

Friday morning. She was up with the sun. And a bit before, really. Today was the day. Her first date with Sy. She’d taken extra care in the shower, less clumsy, thank God! She shaved her legs because she had chosen to wear a knee-length blue dress with a scoop neck and cap sleeves in wrinkle-proof Jersey knit since it would be in her tote bag all day. She was not shaving because she thought anything would happen tonight with Sy. She didn’t think she was ready.

That is, she was ready, but, only physically. Emotionally, mentally, she would need to prepare for him a bit longer before taking him as a lover. She hoped he was on the same page.

He had an appointment in the early afternoon. He greeted her with his warm “Hello, sunshine.” Following it up by telling her how pretty she looked today, causing blush to burn in her cheeks. She’d reciprocated, even though he was in his typical tee and shorts look. It was still true. They got on their usual bikes to warm up for about 15 minutes, and then took to the leg press to try to advance his strengthening.

“I’m really proud of your progress! You wouldn’t have been able to do this much weight two weeks ago!” She encouraged him.

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. Now, we are going to do some drills next. Simple ones, but they aren’t going to be fun for you. I’ve chosen to do them on your last day of the week for a reason. You may be sore. Ice and whatever you take OTC if you must. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen. But try the ice first. It shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Okay.” He conceded, dejected.

“Stretching afterward.” She promised.

“Okay!” He pepped up. She knew he just loved an excuse to have her hands on him.

Later, as he lay on the mat, sweaty from the exertion of the drills, with her up there with him having to use her whole body to leverage the proper stretch out of his hip flexors, she felt the heavy weight of his gaze. She tried to look anywhere but those sapphire eyes below her. They were too vulnerable. She couldn’t handle that right now. Not here.

“Shane?” Dammit, he was gonna make her.

“Hmm?” She looked down at him, smile meeting smile.

“I just…” he couldn’t seem to get out the words. But she thought she understood what he was feeling.

“I know, Sy. I know.” She gently patted his outer thigh where she had been bracing her hand for the stretch, and let his leg back down, while dismounting the mat, as well.

“Well, that’s about the hour. Any questions before I let you go?”

“Are you as excited for tonight as I am?” He asked. She chuckled. She couldn’t imagine him being more excited than she was!

“Yes! Hehe! But I still kinda meant about therapy, Sy.”

“Oh, right. Are you excited to finish up with your therapy patients at therapy today so I can pick you up from the therapy clinic and take you on our date?”

“Just because you say therapy 20 times doesn’t make it about therapy.” She laughed.

“Okay, I do have a question for you, since I’m here.”

“Shoot.” She encouraged.

He stood and held her face, taking it into a kiss so devastatingly and painfully tender, she could not process what to do next. She was leaning toward fainting. But then tackling him onto the mat again seemed an attractive option. She settled for placing her hands on his waist, ready to control the situation as need arose. But after a brief moment of slight deepening, he broke away, still holding her face in his large strong hands.

“Ahem. That’s a good question. Why don’t I have you a reply later this evening?”

“Sounds good to me, sunshine.” He grinned widely, and waved a quiet goodby to her.

She walked to the doorway of the small room to watch him walk out…his gait still uneven from his injury but improving enough that she could tell he once took very…confident strides. She could almost picture it. She sighed, forgetting herself for a moment until Anita came up behind her walking her elderly patient with a gait belt and front wheeled walker.

"Is that a bit of drool on your chin, Shane?" she said quietly, but still startling the younger therapist from her reverie.

"Oh, uh, hey." she checked her chin, absentmindedly, late in getting the joke, and rolled her eyes. "Funny, Nita. Do you need anything?"

"Nope, Gladys and I are just headed to the gym for a few minutes on the NuStep to round out her treatment." Nita grinned at Shane.

"Who was that handsome young man that just left, Shane?" Gladys asked her, as women of her…demographic tended to do.

"He's just one of our patient's Miss Gladys. But I can't tell you his name. It's against the privacy policy." She explained.

"Oh, okay. Well, if I was a few years younger, I'd let ya give him MY name…and my telephone number." she smirked with pride in herself. All three ladies giggled.

"I'm pretty sure he's spoken for, Gladys." Anita broke the news to her randy patient, smirking at her coworker.

"Shame! Well, that's one lucky young lady!" Gladys hobbled on with the walker as Anita cued her not to let the device get too far ahead of her feet. Shane was beet red from the whole interaction. At least she wouldn't have to wear blush tonight.

Her day finally finished, notes done, and final communications sent,  the most important (in her opinion, probably not her employer's) message of them all was next. The text to Sy that he could head toward the clinic to pick her up.

She touched up her eye makeup, applied another coat of mascara, and dabbed on some of her favorite lipstick in a deep red that complimented her skin tone. She also spritzed on a bit of her favorite Armani perfume before slipping on her dress and black ballet flats and sliding on a pair of simple hoop earrings. She'd had her hair pulled up all day in a clip, so it should be pleasantly wavy when she took it down…and with a bit of flipping, shaking out, and finger diffusing, it was.

She looked in the mirror. She was ready.

Was she ready? She examined herself in the full length mirror in the empty locker room at the clinic. The dress and the shoes suddenly seemed all wrong, both together and as individual pieces for the occasion. She looked great, it wasn't that…but…was it right for tonight? Should she cancel? Was she being ridiculous? Clearly she was, as she'd already sent the message telling Sy he could come get her. But the closer she got to being ready to go, the less ready she felt. Those butterflies were suddenly clawing at her esophagus, disrupting the bile in her stomach, and threatening to choke off her air supply. They were no longer pleasantly fluttering. She felt like she had a boot against her windpipe.

She was snapped out of the panic attack when she heard her phone go off. A message from Sy.

Your chariot, m'lady. Should I come in and get ya?

She grinned like a lunatic. How could she have considered calling tonight off?

Nay, m'lord, verily the gates be locked. I shall use the rear exit and meet thee around yonder forsooth.

Wow, you ran with that one. *laughing in tears emoji*

I have that tendency. Lol. *monocle wearing emoji*

She grabbed her bags, walked out the back door, and tossed the one that wasn't her purse into her vehicle, which was parked nearby and walked around to the front. He was standing on the sidewalk near that edge of the building.

The sun was just setting, and the light from it hit him so bewitchingly that it took away her breath. Not in the frightening way of the panic attack she'd just had, but in the nice way, like right before you surface from a deep dive and you know the sweet relief of oxygen is imminent. She assessed his ensemble with approval. Black books, sleek dark blue jeans, and a sapphire v-neck polo that even in the low light of near dusk made his blue eyes dance with vibrant intensity against his fading tan. His hair was starting to grow out ever so slightly, but it was still very close cropped. His beard, she could tell, had been finely groomed, combed, and styled. He looked…well, she'd never looked up the word "handsome" in the dictionary, but she imagined it would describe the image before her quite succinctly. And alternatively, Sy's image could be used as an illustration in the reference book, itself.

The best part, though, was the look on his face when he saw her.

She felt like he'd never properly looked at her, perhaps. Maybe he wasn't expecting a dress, or loose hair, or red lips. Or maybe it was a combo of the whole Date Shane package he was seeing before him. As his eyes beheld her, he almost looked confused. As if she was a stand-in. Or maybe an alien. Some body-snatcher. Only he wasn't frightened. She was having a hard time working out his expression as she'd really never seen it before, and particularly, never aimed in her direction. He said one word.

"Wow." It was reverent. Not a whisper. But barely a decibel above.

Again, her cheeks required no artificial pigmentation.

"Hey. You look…you certainly scrub up good, mister." she giggled nervously, feeling immensely awkward at her inability to properly compliment the chiseled image of Adonis before her. His every muscle hugged to perfection by the fabric covering it. How did you even begin to tell such perfection how perfect it was?

"You…Shane, I don't remember the last time I saw anyone look so beautiful." he frowned, as if trying to recall, then giving up with a smile, and leaning in to kiss her cheek. He lingered a moment to hug her, hold her as the day faded, breathe her in. She did the same. He was freshly showered and wearing cologne, as he often did, but it rarely hit her so solidly as it did tonight. She loved this scent. Woody, but earthy, with notes of bergamot, a kind of musky scent similar to amber, but more masculine, and something spicy that she loved. The combination exploded like an olfactory fireworks display.

The shirt was an unthinkably soft cotton (blended she thought perhaps with kitten, she could not stop touching it.) and the warmth of him radiated into her as his chest rose and fell over the course of his numerous breaths as they stood there holding each other and enjoying this feast for the senses.

"You ready for supper?" he asked, a faint but distinct rumble from his abdomen indicating that he most certainly was.

"Yes." she smiled up at him as he took her hand in his and led her to his truck. A Ford F150, the same sapphire blue as his shirt and his eyes. She was sensing a pattern, here. It wasn't the newest vehicle, but he had taken immaculate care of it. She felt shame for her own treatment of her Explorer, Bessie, which often functioned as storage shed, trash can, and sometimes, hotel, when she felt like a road trip on a shoestring budget. He walked her to the passenger side, opened the door for her, and helped her in, as the truck sat a bit higher than what she was used to.

"So, I have us a table saved at this great steakhouse just down the road. And then, it's supposed to be a nice night, I thought we could take a walk by the lake?"

It sounded perfect to her. Quiet and simple.

"Amazing. As long as your knee is up for a walk?"

"I've got all weekend to rest before getting tortured again." he smirked at her as he pulled the truck out of the parking lot and on the main road toward the interstate. "B'sides, who better to have with me if I start hurtin' than my PT?"

The emphasis he placed on the possessive pronoun, claiming her as HIS PT sent a delighted shiver through her that she blamed on the AC, which he promptly turned down.

He had his Spotify shuffling Kings of Leon at a low volume as they conversed lightly and pleasantly. Since it was an earlier model, even well equipped as it was, it wasn't quite ready for auxiliary or Bluetooth sound, so he'd bought one of those radio receivers that tune into an unused frequency and connect to your phone or iPod. She'd retrofitted her 2003 Ford Explorer in a similar fashion.

They were both caught a bit off guard when "Sex on Fire" came on, and tried valiantly to keep talking. But it was hard to hear anything but those lyrics. Singing of exhibitionism and dangerous sex acts that were definitely moving violations…and simply the sex being on fire. She was thankful, for once, that this song that she'd always found catchy without paying much attention to the actual lyrics, was now fading into the night as they pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.

She remembered to wait for him to get the door for her, even though it had been ages since she'd been on a date or had any kind of romance whatsoever. He helped her down from her perch, giving her a gentlemanly moment to adjust her skirt before taking her hand and leading her into the building.

He opened the door and led her in by that lumbar lordosis that made everyone tremble and swoon. She was no exception just because she knew that part of your back was not actually called "the small" and she got perturbed when she heard it referred to as such.

"Welcome to Mark's, how can we help you?" the host greeted warmly.

"Reservation for Syverson." Sy piped up. She was used to being the voice in these situations. She was thankful not to have to for once. It was a small thing, but it was still nice.

"Right this way, folks." he grabbed two large menus, a mid sized one, and a small one, and led them to a cozy but still spacious two-top in a quiet corner of the dining area. The warm light was low and ambient, and there were real kerosene lamps on the tables, which she loved. It had the rustic ambiance of a cabin with all the refinement of any four+ star restaurant she'd ever been to. Not that she'd been to many.

"Here you are, the table you requested, and your menus. Have a look at them, and Katie will be out soon to answer questions and take your orders."

As he walked away, Sy pulled her chair out for her, and aided her sitting. His gentility was so refreshing to her, because it was so sincere and kind, and in no way oppressive or domineering, as some men seemed to use such gestures. Wielding them like a club rather than a feather. She was just used to seeing a certain side of him, teasing and silly as he was in therapy that this side of Captain Syverson, or as she may end up calling him one day, Logan, his given first name, if it pleased him, had taken her off guard.

"Nice place." she approved, looking around at he exposed beams of the ceiling and the iron and copper chandeliers and light fixtures on the wall. She also noticed quite curiously a copy of American Gothic by Grant Wood on one wall and The Kiss by Gustav Klimt on another. Such different styles to be displayed in one room. She really liked it though.

"It's one of my favorites. I try to come in every couple weeks or so." The fact that he liked steak on the regular was definitely a point in his favor. She loved it but rarely went out for it on her own. Eating out alone wasn't so bad, but it was hard to enjoy a steak dinner by one's self.

"What's your favorite cut?"

"Oh, I've tried most of them, and you can't go wrong." He assured her.

They had a crazy selection. Ribeyes, filets, sirloins, prime rib, all seasoned, smoked, topped and wrapped in every way you could imagine…it was like staring at the Netflix menu of steak. And much like she tended to do with Netflix, she relied on a classic favorite. After all, who goes for an obscure choice their first time at a new steak house?

"I'm keeping it simple and going for their prime rib and a baked potato."

"Ah, that's a perfect choice. We're getting some of their lobster mac and cheese to start, though. Unless you're allergic or something?" he added the disclaimer when he saw her eyes widen.

"Not at all, that sounds…"she was thinking "sexual," but decided instead on "heavenly."

Soon, Katie, a peppy, slender young redhead in black jeans she'd been poured into and a white T-shirt she had outgrown some time ago, descended upon their table with gusto.

"Howdy, I'm Katie and I get to take care of you fine folks this evening. What drinks and appetizers can I start y'all off with?"

Sy looked at Shane to prompt her to start.

"Sweet tea?" she half stated, half inquired. Katie nodded and jotted.

"Sure thing! Sir?" she thought her eyes sparkled when she looked at Sy…she couldn't blame her. But…she thought she could take her if she tried anything. She was certain there was a very sharp knife in the black napkin set-up at her right hand.

"Same for me, Katie. And we are also gonna need an order of your lobster mac to start and a bottle of your house cab."

"Fantastic. I'll be right back with the teas and wine after I put in for the lobster mac for ya, and then I'll take your meal order." she smiled brightly. Sy looked at Shane, though, as he replied "Wonderful."

~~~~~~~

Her instincts about the lobster mac and cheese had been spot on. She couldn’t contain her yummy noises of enjoyment which amused Sy to no end. She couldn’t imagine the steak any better.

About that, she had been completely wrong. It was so succulent, tender, and flavorful, she debated on whether or not the provided au jus and horseradish were even needed. They were also too good to resist, though.

Her potato, twice baked to the perfect tenderness had a salt brined skin, and a garlicky butter that just sung with the sour cream and chives. She was in food heaven, and even if that meant she was dead, it was fine.

He’d ordered the same entrée as she had, but took his baked potato…a bit differently.

“You don’t like sour cream?” She asked, nonplussed.

“Nah, I mean, I can eat it, but…it feels weird in my mouth. I prefer the au jus and butter, instead. It’s much more tasty.” He said, waggling his eyebrows.

“I guess I’ll take your word for it.” She laughed.

“You’re welcome to try mine when I get it all doctored you how I like it!”

She did, right from his fork. And he was right about it being so flavorful, but she preferred the mild, creamier texture of her own side with the savory notes of her steak.

They ate and enjoyed each other’s company and conversation.

“Ya know, Sy, I totally had you pegged as a beer man, instead of a wine guy.” She said, as she brought her own glass of the deep red liquid to her mouth and nose, inhaling the bouquet before she took her sip.

“Normally, you’d be right. With a burger, pizza, sometimes tacos or what not, definitely. But I can’t do beer with steak. It’s gotta be wine. Red. And full-bodied.” He held her gaze as he drank from his own glass. Why did he have to look at her like that when he said those kinds of words? Her cheeks were warm from more than the booze.

For desert, they shared a decadent marbled brownie/blondie a la mode. He’d had the idea to slide his chair so he was sharing a corner of the table with her, rather than looking across it at her. Purely so they didn’t have to keep sliding the dessert…not so their knees would brush against one another now and then, or so they could feel the heat radiating from one another’s bodies…but actually, exactly for those reasons.

“Last bite is to you, Sy.” She set her fork down, full to bursting.

“Are you kiddin’? My mama’d tan my hide if she knew I took the last bite from my date.”

“You’re being gallant, actually! Rescuing me from a certain belly ache.” She patted her small but slightly rounded tummy. She did like her food, and was no gym rat, after all. He didn't seemed to mind. Yet.

“How 'bout we share the last bite?” He suggested.

“Technically that’s not physically possible. Becau…”

He interrupted what was going to be an intellectual explanation of why no matter how small you cut up a bite, the remaining bit was still technically one bite, and couldn’t be shared.

“No. Shh. I know you’re smart. You got nothin’ to prove here. I’m gonna cut what’s left in half until I get a bite you’re willing to take. Okay?” She nodded.

He only had to take the fork to it twice before she conceded, also letting him feed her, feigning paralysis from the food coma. She held the fork tightly between her lips, making him work to pull it from her mouth. She looked innocent, but she was an intentional little shit.

“You're so cute when you eat.”

“Said no one ever!” She held her hand over her face.

“You are, though. You enjoy the food. Experience it. It’s like you’re…getting a story from it, or something. Like it’s…almost like it’s entertaining you, I don’t know. It’s just…beautiful.” He leaned his elbow onto the table, supporting his head in his hand as he looked at her.

"Well, sometimes I think I like food a little TOO much for my own good." she lamented, reaching for the cabernet only to have it snatched by her date. He uncorked it and dispensed a generous pour for her, and topped off his own glass, killing the bottle.

"No such thing. Like I said about the wine, full bodied is the way to go. Nothin' wrong with a little cushion." he winked at her. She could not resist finishing a rhyme she'd always heard about the desirability of curvy girls…for the pushin,' and hoped the flush in her cheeks from the wine was enough to disguise the deepening color from the current blush she was feeling thinking of Sy…pushin' her cushions…but something tipped him off to her distraction.

"What's on yer mind, sunshine?"

"I'm wondering if you're prepared to carry me on this walk we're planning, actually." It was possible to think more than one thing, after all. "I don't know how I'll ever even walk again."

"Ah, give it fifteen minutes. Finish up your sweet tea, and by the time we're done with our walk, you'll want an ice cream cone."

"Ha, doubtful." But she was ashamed to admit, ice cream already didn't sound bad. Vanilla…maybe pistachio….no, coffee! In a waffle cone…with fudge drizzle…and almonds…maybe she had a problem.

"You ready to go?" he asked.

She nodded. He flagged down Katie and gave her cash, and what one might call a benevolent tip. They left the warm steakhouse, and entered the breezy late summer evening, the humid air seeming thick with promises.

Up Next: Chapter Six-Sensory Integration 2