#i was at work watching that shit like my parents watch curling (intensely and routinely forgetting the world around me)

[knockknockitsnickels]

Quick + messy Sulemio doodle to celebrate their victory!!! Gg to all and excellent work fellow Yuri Warriors

[angelicspaceprince]

SFW Alphabet Heisenberg Headcanons

I posted these on my AO3 but I thought I’d move my headcanons onto Tumblr too - all fanfics are staying on AO3 at this stage.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Heisenberg is a man of action, not of words. He’d be more inclined to show affection through gift giving or physical touch once you’ve reached that level of familiarity around him. In public, definitely a lot more possessive behaviour that’s merged in with physical affection, like his arm around your shoulders or waist, hand holding, making sure you’re within arms reach.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

There would be so much swearing. You’d have to be forced to be around him for a long time before he warmed up to you, and would have to prove that you were trying to be friends with the intent of being his friend, not for Miranda’s or your gain. I personally HC that he and Donna get along well enough that they spend time with one another sometimes, so even being an acquaintance of Donna’s and meeting that way would help speed things up a bit. He’d pop in on you during really bad moments ‘just to say hi’ but then you wouldn’t hear from him for months because he’s too focused on his metal army to realise how much time has passed.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He will never admit it, but he does love a cuddle. If you manage to convince him to have a cuddle session with you, he will always, always insist on being the mattress or the big spoon, and will play with your hair and trace random words and numbers against your back. When he’s had enough or needs to do something he will make a snide remark about you having had your fun and he needs to get up to do actual adult shit now, but you always find he’s a lot calmer after having a good cuddle. During rough days are the days that he will approach you directly and state plainly that he wants you to be the big spoon or the mattress, loving the feeling of your hands in his hair or playing with his various necklaces or tracing weird patterns that don’t make sense against his skin. He loves a good cuddle, but again. He will deny it until his last breath.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Heisenberg can cook one (1) meal and he burns it every single time. He claims it ‘adds flavour’, but in reality he was so focused on something that he forgot that he had something on the stove until he smelt smoke. He’s also not a clean man, not organised - shit just goes on the floor and when he needs it, he eventually finds it or a replacement.

I don’t think Heisenberg would want to settle down intentionally. He’s so focused on leaving the village that it consumes every waking and sleeping thought. But, that being said, if someone was to arrive and start acting domestic around him once he’d lowered his walls enough, he’d quickly fall into some sense of routine that looks very, very domestic from the outside. He’s very much the sort of man who doesn’t ask you out, you just end up dating somehow.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Cut and run. He doesn’t had time for emotions (before leaving the village) and he’s not good with words so he’d rather just up and leave and save himself the hassle. Probably wouldn’t even leave a note or send a text, you’d just have to figure it out for yourself that he was alive and had left you and not dead in a ditch.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Definitely not whilst living in the village. Again, he’d not really ask someone to be in a relationship more than he’d just fall into one. But, once he’s realised that you’re dating (and after he’s left the village, whichever comes last), he may start thinking about something more long term. I feel like it would take years for him to realise that he wants to marry you, and then years again before he asks. You’ve got to be in it for the long-haul and after escaping the village, there is a lot of healing that would need to take place. So. Don’t expect marriage any time soon.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Surprisingly, very? He’s a hard ass at first, but the longer you know him and the more he drops his guard, the more you realise he’s a big ole softy underneath his hard shell. He wears a lot of his more intense emotions on his sleeves, but the more intimate ones are harder to come by and usually it takes a unique gaze to realise that he’s been gentle to you for a while, it’s just in a very Heisenberg way.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Same with cuddling, he’ll never admit that he likes them but he does. You have to initiate most hugs, with his preference being you pressed up against his back as he sits by his desk or table with your head resting either on top or next to his own. He’s always warm, and a weird but comforting blend of strong muscle with soft fat makes his hugs some of the best you’ve ever experienced. Sometimes he needs them for a little pick me up and sometimes you need them for the same reason. If you ask him to hug you first, with your head pressed against his chest or shoulder, he will grumble and tease you a little, but never, ever deny you.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Oh, forever. I’m convinced that Heisenberg shows his love rather than says it - you learn his little love declarations as time goes on (him fussing over you or saying some form of praise where an ‘I love you’ would be appropriate, him making or doing something for you. Stuff like that). I don’t think Heisenberg would say I love you very often, it’d only be during highly emotional or important moments that the word would just slip out.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Ahaha. Ahaha. Ahahahahaha. Yeah no he gets jealous a lot. It does not take much. Angie demanding too much of your time? Jealous. Alcina inviting you to dinner with her and her girls. Jealous. That random kid from the village asking you for help and giving you a flower as thanks? Jealous. He tends to get more closed off to you and short, and if it’s Alcina who’s the one who makes him feel this way or, heaven forbid, someone showing interest in you romantically, there will be violence. Otherwise, just a lot of pouting and occasional rants about how they know not to bother you and he’s only looking out for you and is definitely not jealous that your attention can’t be on him 100% of the time.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Rough, scratchy. Usually heated but every now and again you’ll have a soft make out session or give each other a simple peck as you walk by. He loves kissing your shoulders and neck just to see you shiver, and forehead kisses are his preferred way to show affection in this manner. He isn’t that fussed where he’s kissed, just as long as he gets to feel your lips against him in some way.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Depends on the age - useless with babies. Absolutely useless. But once kids start talking and he’s able to answer questions or teach them words and phrases that will have their parents seeing red? He’s incredible, mostly because he’s having the time of his life teaching them anything and everything, including different swears to share with their parents the moment they get home.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Pre escape: Each start to the day usually revolves around trying to find out where he’s passed out this time, or if he’s slept at all. Usually you’d bring him something to eat and drink to keep him going and ask what he worked on overnight before you go to get ready for your day.

Post escape: Most mornings, he’d wake up before you and you’d be woken by him playing with your hair or tracing his fingertips against your skin. You’ve taught him how to use the coffee machine, so sometimes he’ll have a coffee there waiting for you. It takes a lot of work for you to pull away from him in the mornings, mostly because he refuses to let you go, but regardless, its a stark contrast to the way he was before escaping Miranda.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Pre escape: You try and stay up with him as long as possible, not wanting him to not have the company. Eventually, you pass out next to him, something he finds hysterical and heartwarming at the same time - he’ll never admit it but he never thought he’d meet anyone that would trust him enough to fall asleep next to him. He usually lets you rest there for a little bit, finding comfort in your soft snoring and occasional shifting, before he picks you up and carries you to bed, making sure you’re tucked in nice and warm before going back to his work. The softness can wait for after you’ve both survived his escape plan, and not a second before.

Post escape: I see two things happening frequently: The first is you falling asleep on the couch with your legs in his lap as you struggle to stay awake as he watches a show on the telly. You don’t want to leave but you struggle to stay awake. When the show is finished, he picks you up and, much like back at the village, carries you to bed but only this time he crawls in after you, curling you up against his side or slotting your back against his front, falling asleep seconds after he has you in a comfortable position for the both of you.

OR

You end up going to bed a little bit early to do something, maybe read a book or scroll on your phone, who knows. Heisenberg eventually joins you, crawling into your lap until his head is resting against your chest. He falls asleep on top of you as you play with his hair, his arms wrapped tightly around your middle as you continue helping to bring him down after a stressful day.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

So, so slowly. I’m talking at least a year of him being completely closed off because he even lowers his guard a little. He’s been hurt before, he’s been used before. And as far as he knows, you could be someone Miranda sent to him to keep tabs on him, or you could be toying with him for your own amusement. You really would have to show that you are there for him before he started opening up to you, and even then it wouldn’t be in waves, it would be in drips and trickles.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

This man has anger issues, he gets angry at the drop of a hat.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He won’t remember stories, or names, or dates - time just blends into one, endless mess for him. But he will remember facts. You tell him your favourite colour or favourite snack? In his mind forever. You make an offhand remark about wanting something? Next time he’s at the Duke’s, he’ll see if he has any in stock.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

When you escaped the village by far, the pair of you in the back of the Duke’s cart as he gets the pair of you away after seeing your home blow up thanks to Ethan. It was the first time that the both of you weren’t on edge or scared that you were seconds away from death, and after the adrenaline of the escape had gone through your system, you were tucked up against his chest, fast asleep as Heisenberg chewed on his cigar, his arm wrapped tightly around you. It was a new beginning for the pair of you, and Heisenberg was excited to see exactly what the world had to offer to the both of you.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Incredibly, especially around Alcina and Mother Miranda. The other lords, not so much. He’s close enough to Donna to know that she wasn’t interested in stealing you, she only wanted to be her friend. Moreau was too scared of Heisenberg to try and pull any shit, the Duke was just a friend and he knew it would never go beyond that but everyone else? Is an immediate threat. There would be a lot of tugging you into his lap, keeping you tucked by his side, using his metal to hold you close. There would be a lot of threats and shouting as well as insult throwing if anyone so much as looked at you funny or made a small comment about taking you away, especially at Alcina. He’d try and keep you away from the village and from the family meetings as much as possible, and his hand would never leave your thigh or your waist if you were forced to attend. He’d make it clear that you were off limits to everyone and anyone.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Not much? Maybe after escaping the village he’ll put a little more effort into certain anniversaries but dates are simple affairs, anniversaries don’t mean much to him. He’d rather show his love to you everyday through small tasks to make your life more comfortable than put all his effort into certain dates. Gifts, however, is where he puts most of his energy - he definitely makes most of his gifts for you. Be it something small that he thought you might like during the day to larger gifts that take time, he will make sure every part of it is perfect for you. You don’t get a gift every day, but you do get a gift most weeks.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Smoking in bed is one. He also has a tendency to focus too heavily on his escape plans that sometimes it can feel like you are being neglected. His bathing habits also are rather lacking too. He 100% wakes you up in the middle of the night to rant about something that is bothering him or explain excitedly to you something that he’s discovered or created.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Not very - he is, according to him, a naturally handsome sonofabitch, why would he need to worry about his style or be attached to a mirror forever fixing his hair?

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

It’s not so much a feeling of incompleteness because Heisenberg always feels empty and broken, but he definitely notices when you’re not nearby. It’s not like a piece of him is missing, but more like a recognition that something in his space is gone and he misses it and needs it back for him to feel more settled.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

He’s autistic. He got his accent from listening to/watching shows on the television in the 50s. Lady D helped raise him and it wasn’t until they had a falling out that they started to hate one another. He didn’t hate Mother Miranda until he was in his 20’s where it became apparent that they were only there because Miranda found some use for them after stumbling into her laboratory and finding her notes on all four of them. He’s also addicted to netflix and loves binge watching whatever he can, especially anything to do with creating/crafting/science. Can speak 3 languages fluently.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He doesn’t like to be fussed over, at least in a way that is blatantly clear that that’s what you’re doing. He is independent to a fault, and refuses to take care of himself - but if you try to do anything to help him without his asking first and it feels like an attempt to mother him? He hates it, with a passion. The longer you know him, the more you’re able to get away with when he knows it's coming from a place of concern, but he can only handle so much because he breaks and his temper flares.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

Before escaping the village: He doesn’t sleep much and where he does sleep is wherever he passes out. The man lives off of caffeine, spite and cigars, and the amount of times you’ve found him passed out at one of his many desks is astounding. Best thing to do is cover him up and let him rest because at least he’s sleeping.

After escaping the village: He still doesn’t sleep much, only this time it's due to nightmares of being back in the village under Miranda’s control, or you getting hurt in his attempt to flee. He won’t sleep unless you’re asleep beside him and if that isn’t happening, he either doesn’t sleep at all or works himself to exhaustion so he passes out wherever he may be - just like in the village. He is, however, an octopus when he’s asleep. No matter what position the pair of you fall asleep in, you always end up in some weird tangle of limbs simply because he cannot be close enough to you.

[heyitsyn]

Keeping Up With Seijoh Ep. 4

a/n: uwuwuwuwu @animesportboys​ and i were just talking about this and my heart was just bursting at this thought 😭

for more seijoh content, check this masterlist out!

also requests are currently closed right now since i have like nearly 30 to finish so please be patient with me and wait for me to finish it all and until then i can open them up again. however, dont stop sending me cute stuff okay?  🥺

summary: its the time of the month for seijoh’s manager 🥺

@ yn when shes extra moody and mean during that time and does this every time she hears anything even come out of the boys’ mouth

oh dear

so basically

it’s,,,,,, a natural thing that most girls go through every month for more than half of their lives and its absolutely D R E A D F U L

the boys ofc knew what the hell a period was bc hello health class so they knew you would become this,,, other version of yourself

youd be moodier, childish, and easy to annoy and snap to everyone

but you would quickly realize how you’re acting then be all regretful and teary and cry easily and then youd forget about it then start the cycle again

you’d stick your tongue out at them and tease them mercilessly, making them run even more laps and pushing them harder

‘I SEE THOSE ARMS SHAKING, IWAIZUMI HAJIME. ADD 15 MORE TO THAT ROUTINE’

‘WHAT?!’

‘IF I SEE YOU EVEN A STEP BEHIND KINDAICHI, YOU WILL BE RUNNING 8 MORE LAPS KUNIMI’

‘NOO!!!!’

‘CHECK YOURSELF OUT ONE MORE TIME, YAHABA, I WILL GOUGE OUT YOUR EYES’

‘HAVE MERCY!!!!’

dear god they hated it

when it was time, they would protect themselves and work even harder and be more perfect to make sure you couldnt see their faults and point them out and try and kill them

it was like war for everyone

but they didnt know the exact date it started so they didnt really know when to start preparing for war until it came

this time, you didnt either

you didnt even know you were starting as you were extra busy booking the buses for away comps and collecting and emailing teachers for any missed homeworks for the team

so when it did start,,,

oh dear part 2

it wasnt really something you found out when you woke up that morning but you noticed you must be getting close since you were feeling extra cranky and you havent even been awake for more than an hour

nothing really happened throughout the day so you were just thinking that you didnt get enough sleep last night so you were just tired and wanted to sleep

but then it happened

you were standing next to iwa, reviewing his spike percentages when you shifted your weight to the other leg and then your eyes widened

your water broke

i saw this tiktok of this one girl and she was about to start filming with her friend when her eyes widened and her friend knew immediately and her caption was ‘my water broke’

iwa was worried as heck on to what was going on with you and even followed your gaze to see it on the wall and nothing out of the ordinary

‘y/n?’

‘oh god’

you mumbled and you wanted to run but you were too scared that you leaked and probably have an obvious redness on your white track pants

yep it def was your time bc you felt tears welling up in your eyes and you sniffled, embarrassed and upset for this to happen now, of all times

then oikawa tooru bursted through the doors

iwa, taking his eyes off of you and to the captain, started to yell at him until he noticed the brunette’s flushed face and panting form, hunched over as he gripped on the door handle with the plastic bag

you, too busy trying to think of a way to get out of there like deciding to waddle or to just crawl, didnt see oikawa as he approached you

the team paused and watched as he took a black hoodie from the plastic bag and wrapped it around your waist

‘hmm, y/n-chan, better get dressed so we can go now’

he hummed and you snapped out of your panic and looked up at him with watery eyes

‘oikawa-san’

you whispered and he nodded, eyes knowing what was going on

‘coach, theres a planetarium special tonight’

oikawa shouted without tearing his gaze away from you and coach irihata instantly knew, knowing the code that oikawa came up with when you became a part of the family team

the elder coach made a noise of agreement and oikawa didnt wait to up and carry you in his arms and waved to the team while pushing your head in his chest so you can hide

‘work hard everyone!’

‘oi, shittykawa! what the hell-!’

but an intense side-eye from his best friend shut him up and he knew something happened so he didnt say anything since he trusts oikawa to fix it

‘i trust you will take care of them, iwa-chan’

iwaizumi nodded firmly before shouting to resume back to practice and he himself went back to the line for spikes

you were carried to the bathroom so you could change into your emergency undies and pad and after you did your business, oikawa noticed you uncomfortably waddling towards him so he took you back into his arms

oikawa continued to carry you like his bride down the street towards an unknown destination, humming a children’s show tune that takeru loved to watch, while you maintained curled around yourself, partly due to the shame but also from the pain in your abdomen

you wiped the few stray tears that spilled past your eyes and oikawa chuckled when he noticed you aggressively wipe them off

‘hmm, y/n-chan, you shouldnt do that to yourself. it irritates your eyes and the skin around it so gently dab it next time, kay?’

you nodded, burrowing back to his chest and breathing in his scent

french toast

he smelled like french toast as the smell of caramel and vanilla wafted into your nose

‘howd you know’

you mumbled against the fabric of his jacket

oikawa stopped his humming and replaced it with a chuckle

‘oh, y/n-chan. oikawa-san is a reliable senpai, dont you know? i got a tracker! just for you!’

he answered and your eyes moved from his arm to his smile and you gripped his jacket tighter, fingers curled around it as if it was your lifeline

‘thank you, oikawa-san’

your words of appreciation made oikawa’s heart thump and he faltered a little, blush creeping up his neck, but he fought it down, covering it up with a smirk

‘you should be, y/n-chan! girls would kill to be you right now!’

you rolled your eyes at the return of his cocky attitude but you knew better

the real oikawa tooru was under that mask

turns out, he carried you to his home as his house was the closest while yours had to be taken by a bus

thankfully his parents were out and his sister and nephew were in a trip in tokyo that you had the house to yourselves without anyone asking questions that might make you uncomfortable and them misunderstand

he shut the door with his foot and made his way up the stairs with ease, his strength truly impressing you at that moment, before settling you down on his bed

it wasnt even on purpose but you curled yourself on his blanket, head buried in his pillow

his heart combusted and tooru had to look away or else he wouldve jumped on you and coddled you forever

instead, he quickly ran over and knelt down under his desk to reach for the box that he has prepared for you

‘y/n-chan, i never knew your pattern until last month so i was able to prepare for you now’

you looked up from your position on the bed and sat up enough to see him standing there, grinning with a mint green box

‘wh-what is that?’

you asked and he shuffled over, sitting next to you

‘this, is the y/n care love box! this special box was created by yours truly with everything you want and need during this dreadful week. theres your favorite food, warm socks, coupons you can spend like watching movies and eating ten tubs of ice cream while we talk shit about the boys’

he listed, gripping the box nervously 

‘so? do you like it?’

he looked away from the box and to you but his smile slipped into a panicked one when he saw you silently crying and biting your lip to keep the sobs in

‘y-y/n-chan! i-its okay if y-you dont like it! o-oikawa-san can-’

‘no!’

you cut him off and lunged to hug him with all your might

hehe all might

E A T   T H I S

‘i love you so much, oikawa-san! so much! thank you!’

you sobbed into his neck and he tightly hugged you back, lifting you so you could comfortably sit on his lap straddle him if you want me to be straight forward

oikawa gently moved so he was leaning against the wall that his bed was pressed against while you were pressed against his warmth

his fingers were drawing small circles on your back and whispering corny jokes or puns that made you giggle and laugh and occassionally, he would kiss your nose and you would whine at the ticklish feeling

eyes fleeting around the room, your eyes settled back on the box and you reached out, wanting to grab it until oikawa beat you to it and snatched it for you then placed it on your hold

‘whats inside, oikawa-san?’

you cutely mumbled, sitting comfortably back on his thighs so you could open the box in front of you

oikawa laughed

‘just open it and figure it out yourself, y/n-chan’

you pouted at his tease but smiled widely when you revealed the contents inside

‘oikawa-san!’

his eyes followed your surprised expression and his hands gripped your waist

‘you like it?’

he whispered and you nodded, looking back up at him and kissing his cheek, his 

‘youre so sweet, oikawa-san! like-like this candy bar! howd you know i like this?’

you held up the treat and he shrugged

‘i keep seeing you get it whenever we go to the store’

you continued to sift through the things, seeing a dvd of your favorite movie, a f/c heating pad, a note that said your favorite ice cream was in the fridge, a bag of your favorite chips, fluffy socks, the goodies

you didnt even notice yourself crying again, only realizing it when there were wet spots beneath you

oikawa saw this and he quickly but gently put the box to the side and cradled your face with both of his hands, softly wiping the tears away with his thumbs

‘aw, dont cry, my little baby. princesses should never cry’

you sniffled and choked a laugh

‘hah, n-not a baby. j-just hor-monal’

you complained and oikawa snickered but shook his head then kissed your nose again

‘youre my baby’

you didnt have it in you to complain so you went back to snuggling into him

oikawa squeezed you and went back to drawing the circles on your back and he felt you relax into his touch and slump against his form, slowly starting to snore

your head rested on his shoulder and he turned slightly to watch your eyes flutter and nose scrunch when a strand of your hair fell on it

his heart continued to beat faster and faster and it showed by the way his fingers shook as he carefully lifted the hair away from you

he slowly bent down to give you a kiss on the forehead before laying you down to sleep more comfortably

‘good night, princess’

he sweetly placed a last kiss on your cheek before getting up to go prepare your heating pad for when you wake up

the next few days were possibly the best period days youve ever had

maybe because it was oikawa telling the team that you were in,,,,, satan’s domain currently and they should be careful with you so they tried their best to lift the weight and burden off of your shoulders

however,,

the next day after the incident,,,

they still didnt know what was wrong with you and oikawa forgot to text the gc about your condition so they were still unknowing

like today

during your classes, you were feeling off, almost nauseous but eating little bits of your chocolate treats were helping you get through until lunch

ofc kunimi noticed bc hellow he sits next to you and he doesnt pay attention during class so hes been watching you sneak little bites so the teacher doesnt see and ducking under your book

he was just amused with the way your eyes would widen if you thought the teacher caught you

kindaichi and kunimi and you usually ate lunch together at your classroom since you three only got to hang out as first years during lunch

so they know you usually have a bento with you and have a general idea of how much you eat

and kunimi thought since you ate all those chocolates earlier, you wouldnt eat as much food but then he saw you scarf down your bento, eat 2 more bags of chips and was finishing last chocolate bar

kindaichi,,,, wasnt even finished with his own bento and was watching you, amazed, at how easily you ate all of it

they didnt say anything since they thought you just didnt eat dinner last night but even during the walk towards the gym for after school practice, you were complaining that you were hungry and was eating another chocolate bar

they thought something was truly wrong bc you were eating so much more than usual

kunimi watched you chew on it as you opened the gym door and still ate even when you were talking to mattsun about his jump height

‘man, you sure are hungry, aren’t you, y/n? thats like your fifth chocolate bar today’

kunimi teased, grabbing a ball to spike but he froze, seeing you with the coldest and angriest look hes ever seen

you blinked at him, grip tightening on the treat, and mattsun slowly backing away from you

you advanced towards the blep boy, treat already forgotten and shoved to be held by mattsun 

despite your shorter height than kunimi, he trembled slightly as you looked up at him

‘are you calling me fat, kunimi? are you? am i fat? do you think im ugly? im a piggie?’

you ranted and slowly started crying, making kunimi frantically scramble to stop you before the other upperclassmen see or worse, oikawa-san

‘y/n-wait-no!-um’

‘y/n-chan?’

kunimi shut his eyes tightly in fear at the deadly sweet voice of his captain and kindaichi and mattsun sent a quick prayer to their fellow teammate before he was going to get killed

‘uh oh, i think we’d have to start looking for a replacement for kunimi’

makki, who just arrived, teased making kindaichi fearfully look at him

‘eh?!’

‘oh, you first years have never seen oikawa mad, have ya? well, you’ll get front seat of it!’

mattsun clapped him in the back making him gulp

you werent sobbing but you were definitely crying, tear tracks quickly being wetted by the numerous amount of tears that fell

kunimi scrambled to his knees and folded himself, forehead resting on the floor by his hands

‘I APOLOGIZE! PLEASE DONT KILL ME! I APOLOGIZE! PLEASE FIND MERCY IN YOURSELF AND FORGIVE ME, Y/N-SAMA!’

it was certainly a sight to see

normally calm and collected and chill and relaxed hippie kunimi begging to be forgiven

oikawa stepped forward but you quickly felt the change of your mood, feeling bad for your boy and scrambling to pull him back up

‘oh kunimi-kun! dont kneel like that! the floor is too hard and might give you knee pain!’

it was like whiplash

iwa stepped in the gym and saw the team’s confused and bewildered expressions and saw you, kunimi, and oikawa and he shook his head

this aint even half of bad as he has seen

oikawa gently took you away from kunimi and held you to him instead, giving you a smile, to which you returned, and looked at kunimi, a deadly glint in his eye

‘what happened, y/n-chan?’

the tone of his voice sent a chill to run down everyone’s spines and even iwa, the boy who’s seen this a handful of times, shivered and nervously watched oikawa, ready to jump in

but you just blinked, completely unaware of the change of atmosphere

‘oh, um, i overreacted. i was eating too much food today and mustve annoyed him or something’

you sheepishly mumbled but oikawa was having none of it

‘no, its fine. youre literally bleeding out as we speak! dont feel the need to validate yourself!’

he lightly scolded while you hung your head low and continued to apologize but he gently bonked your head before scolding you again

the team definitely knew now that you were in that,,,, time and they definitely knew now, especially kunimi, that even if youve seen oikawa mad, youd think that the devil was more merciful than him when it relates to the topic of you

a/n: i swear to GGGOOOOODDDDDD im an oikawa whore who cant seem to stop writing for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yikesharringrove]

Steve’s house has too many fucking rooms.

Billy’s never seen more than half of them, hasn’t really ventured too far outside of the kitchen, sitting room, and Steve’s room.

But here he was, banging into every single guest room, every single study, looking for Steve.

His car was out front, and Billy expected to find him in bed, ready for Billy to spend the night with a sweet smile and very little clothing.

But he wasn’t there.

And he wasn’t in the bathroom of the rec room, or the sitting room, or anywhere that Billy could think of.

He had checked everywhere, starting with the top floor and working his way down, poking his head in every bathroom and linen closet.

Turns out there was a washing machine and dryer on the top floor, as well as a set on the main floor.

“Fuckin’ rich people.”

Did they really have that much laundry? To constitute two different sets of machines? Billy does his own laundry, he knows how big a load is, why do three people need-

He found Steve.

In the fucking huge master bedroom.

He was curled up in the too-big bed, facing the ornate mantelpiece and the fireplace on the wall opposite the door.

“Stevie?”

He was asleep, his shoulders rising and falling gently with his breath.

He was curled in the center of the bed, one of the silk-covered pillows clutched to his chest, leaving plenty of room for Billy to squeeze behind him in the giant bed.

Billy left his jeans on the floor by the bed, yanking his shirt over his head to press himself against Steve in just his underwear.

Steve was warm.

He ran hot, generated so much heat when he slept he was like Billy’s own personal furnace.

The silk sheets were smooth and felt like nothing Billy had ever experienced against his skin.

The duvet was thick and heavy, and the bed smelled like the floral soap Steve used in the shower.

Steve shifted against Billy, his head shifting a bit.

“You with me?”

One dark eye blinked open, peering at Billy groggily.

“Kinda.”

“This your parents room?”

“Yeah. Mom’s, mostly.”

Steve’s dad had an apartment in the city, closer to the office. He spent most weeknights there when he could be assed to be in the state at all.

Billy really doesn’t know how that business runs with the Harrington couple almost never near their namesake firm. In fact, Billy doesn’t even know what the Harringtons do. Steve’s never told him.

“This bed is ridiculous.”

Steve huffed a laugh, rolling over lazily to tangle his legs with Billy, both their heads on the same pillow.

“Sometimes I sleep in here when I miss her. Is that weird?”

“No. She’s your mom. ‘s okay to miss her.”

Steve smiled at him weakly.

“The sheets like, always smell like her. I don’t know how. It’s just, nice, I guess.”

Billy doesn’t remember if his mom had a signature scent. Maybe if he caught a whiff of it the memory would come slamming back.

Billy buried his nose in the pillow, trying to suss out more than the heady scent, the fragrance that was all Steve to him.

“This just smells like you. Like that soap you use. The pomegranate shit.” Billy has showered with Steve a few times outside of the school locker room.

Showers that were supposed to be sexy, only for Steve to perform the most elaborate hair and skin routine Billy has ever seen. It took an hour in the shower and another thirty minutes after. Billy was exhausted just watching him.

“I stole that from her years ago. The smell is so her, and it makes my skin nice.”

Steve had scoffed at Billy’s five minute shower routine.

It’s not that hard, Harrington. Hair, pits, junk, done.

“I like the smell. Just makes me think of you.”

“How very sappy of you.”

Billy reached under the thick duvet to worm his way up Steve’s t-shirt, pinching Steve’s side.

“So, what’s up? You just miss her, or did some shit go down?”

Steve put one arm over Billy’s shoulder, playing with a few of the short curls at the crown of his head.

“She called me. In hysterics. She caught Dad cheating again. I said she should just leave him, you know? Been telling her for years. Apparently their prenup is like, intense though, so she doesn’t wanna, and that bums me out. Like, she’s so unhappy with him, and it sucks to watch her be miserable. He doesn’t give a shit about either of us, and I don’t know why she keeps clinging to him.”

Billy figures its money.

“It’s safe. She’s been married to him for like, what, twenty years?”

“Twenty-six.”

“See. That’s a long time to be with someone. It’s hard to restart after that. You’re a different person than you were twenty-six years ago.”

Steve sighed.

“I know that, I think, but it doesn’t change how shitty it is.”

Billy doesn’t know how Steve’s mom would act if she left his dad.

Billy’s mom left without a trace when she divorced Neil, but Steve’s already got the disappearing mother thing going on, so frankly it wouldn’t be too big a change.

It would break Steve in half though, probably.

“Maybe she’s just waiting ‘till he croaks. Cash out on that last will and testament.”

“Billy, that’s not funny.” But Steve was smiling a tiny bit as he said it.

“She’s been poisoning his food every night for the past year. She’s playing the long game.”

“Bill, serious, that’s my mom.” Steve was trying to stifle a laugh.

“The murderess of Hawkins court,” Billy said in a laughter voice. “There’ll be some weird museum dedicated to her in this very house one day.”

“It’s already a fuckin’ museum.”

“Yeah, but it’ll be like, a tourist destination. House of a killer.”

“You’re messed up.” Steve was grinning now, tugging on Billy’s hair lightly.

“Absolutely I am.”

[sarcastically-defensive17]

Coffee - T. Holland

Okay, I know I have requests but this song came on at work the other day and I felt super emotional and I had to write. The use of Tom was very last minute because I had no actual person in mind for the fic, and there are very little actual defining characteristics so you can imagine it to be absolutely anybody you want!

This has broken me, so I apologize in case it has the same affect.

TW: This story contains mentions of cancer, allusions to death, mentions of death, sadness, angst, allusion to suicide, a character with cancer, and all round sadness about death.

If this content may trigger you in any way possible, please do not engage with this fic. Your personal safety and wellness is important so please take care of yourself, my lovies.

Original story by sarcastically-defensive17. Please do not copy, translate or share outside of the boundaries of tumblr without my permission. Please do not steal my work and market it as your own. Basically, don’t be a dick. Also, the above gif does not belong to me. Credit to @thollandgifs

Also, sorry the format is shit. I write on my phone so it’s hella bad.

Don't stay awake for too long, don't go to bed. I'll make a cup of coffee for your head. It'll get you up and going out of bed.

While his life stood still, hers moved. Most days he could barely move without the nausea taking over. His head pounding, body exhausted and weak beyond recognition. She had established a routine the minute she could. She made sure he had his morning coffee everyday. Whenever his eyes opened, she would be right by his side with his favourite beverage, bringing him breakfast and a warm, loving smile to entice him to get out of bed. She understood on days that his body fought him more than it already was - she was compassionate and considerate. On those days she would help him prop himself in a comfortable position, switch on whatever show they were watching at the time and curl up next to him with her work beside her.

His heart was often overwhelmed with the care she provided him. They were well into the fourth year of their life together, and he had no doubt in his mind that he would love her until his last days. He often solemnly thought of the ring he still had hidden in his drawer of their shared cabinet. He had made a vow to pop the question if he ever recovered, but the thought of that day never coming simply tore another piece from his already dwindling soul.

He would often sit in his chair, or on the bed in their small, studio apartment, watching her flutter around the house in a graceful way only she could. He had memorized her every move when she conducted the most mundane activity. The way she poured a glass of water, the way she tapped her fingers against her thigh to the tune of a theme song, the way she always made his coffee to pure perfection - in a way that nobody else had been able to do.

He had so much love for her, that he was terrified of it slipping away at any moment.

Yeah, I don't wanna fall asleep, I don't wanna pass away. I been thinking of our future 'cause I'll never see those days.

He was 24, and she was 25. They had already planned a life together. They had steady jobs, an intense and passionate love, names picked out for future children, dinner at his parents house every Sunday, lunch with her parents every Wednesday.

He just knew that he had done something to deserve such a fate. At first he was angry, terrified of the possibility of his soul leaving this earth, but as time went on, his self-deprivation grew. Apparently it was common for people in his situation. The fear of dying was clouded by a justification that this was meant to be. He had done something terrible in a past life, and karma was giving him the painful ending he deserved... but he despised the thought, because Y/N didn’t deserve to watch her boyfriend meet his end in this way.

He had thought of near every scenario in his life in which he hurt somebody - cheating on his girlfriend in his first year of college, letting Y/N down time after time, only for her to forgive him. The hurt he caused his parents when he was a teenager and full of such hate for the world. But now, all he could do was pray for forgiveness. He had hope that there was some way he could make it out of this, but he was losing hope rapidly.

Even as he sat with his love on their bed, watching re-runs of How I Met Your Mother, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander.

“When I’m gone,” his voice was croaky, his throat dry and scratchy. “Please tell me you will find somebody else.” He fumbled around to grab her hand, winching as he caught her head snapping towards his in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t turn to see the expression on her face. “You’re so young, so full of life. Your life is going to be so beautiful.”

Her hand was pulled from his, and he steeled what was left of his nerves to get ready for whatever tongue lashing she had planned, but instead he felt the bed dip further beside him, her hands framing his sullen face on each side and softly turning his gaze to meet her own.

“Don’t you say things like that, Tom.” He forced his eyes to stare into her own. His eyes seemed as if they were always ready to release tears, and the intensity of the hurt in her own made his pool unconsciously. “There is no somebody else when the other half of my soul is already with me. I don’t need anybody else because you’re not going anywhere.”

Her thumb brushed away the tear that slipped from his chocolate orbs, ignoring the dark circles underneath that made his face seem further sunken than it was.

“You don’t know that,” he sniffed heavily, dropping his eyes down to his lap. His fingers unconsciously toyed with the bracelet she had given him years ago. A soft, black, faux-leather band. An unfit symbol charm dangled close to the strap, reminding him of her favourite line from her favourite book/movie - the perks of being a wallflower. He had gone wuth her when she got the titular floral piece tattooed on her forearm. She was so happy that day. “One day you’re gonna be in a nice house, a ring on your finger, watching your husband dote over your little baby and you will be at peace in the way I know you crave. I just... I know that will never be me, who slips a ring onto your hand, or waits for you at the end of the aisle. I won’t be the one who holds your hand when you meet your baby, or the one who can give you the life you deserve - the one you want.”

His eyes snapped up to meet her own when he heard her breath grow shaky, but the action caused his brain to lose its equilibrium and he had to close his eyes for a moment. He hated doing so. Every time his eyes were shut, it was a moment that he lost of memorizing every line, curve, angle of her body. He opened his eyes again when able, and he was met with her own eyes as red rimmed as his, tears streaming down her beautiful face.

“Don’t you every talk like that, Thomas Stanley. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to be the one to do all of those things because you’re going to make it and we are going to love each other until the end of our time, together. I’ll fucking Romeo and Juliet this shit if I have to,” her dark joke was met with a wet laugh from them both, before her face melted back into seriousness. “I’m never gonna need another person, Tommy. I have you, and I will have you forever.”

“You make every day a blessing, my love.” He whispered, his lips ghosting over hers as he gathered the strength in his lead arms to pull her into a hug. “You make hell feel like a summers day, and I cherish every moment I have left with you.”

My life was kinda short, but I got so many blessings. Happy you were mine, it sucks that it's all ending

Their days continued on for another three weeks, the same routine of morning coffee and testing the boundaries of his own fatigue. Three weeks without the dreaded conversation arising again, until she woke to find him staring into the ceiling with such an intense and thoughtful gaze. She knew instantly what was on his mind, and she could feel her heart breaking into more little pieces.

“Tommy?” Her melodic tone was soft, snapping him from his nightmarish reprieve. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing honey. Thinking about us... when we were young and full of life,” he snorted into the dark room, Y/N’s soft laugh pushed through her nose and he felt her smile against his neck. “Just, thinking about how sorry I am for all of this. I’m sorry that I’ve turned your life upside down, that we have changed so much.”

He felt weaker. His body was fighting to hold on, and he felt that they both knew that. He was being eaten up from the inside out, but he couldn’t bear to leave. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t leave her alone. He needed her, he loved her. He wanted to be her husband and give her everything she wanted in life. He wanted to live, for her.

“I would change everything if it meant I could be here with you,” her voice was heavy, riddled with sleep. Neither of them get much rest anymore. He is always up and down, and she frets too much to sleep through his late night jolts and retches. “You’re worth every minute of every day, Tom. You have nothing to apologize for. It’s not like you chose to have Can-“

“Don’t say it, baby, please?” He pled, silencing her before she could say the word. He hadn’t once uttered it since the day he found out. She had relayed the information to their families, holding his hand the entire time as he sat motionless. “Makes it more real than my emo ramblings.” His laugh was humorless, but he didn’t intend it to be so.

She apologised softly, snuggling closer to him. She knew how much he loved the feel of her body on his, how the intimacy of the comfort made him feel warm. Back when he could handle the weight, she would sometimes wake up curled on top of his chest because he had sought her out in his sleep.

“I would do anything for you, Tommy. I would give up everything I have just to see you smile. You’re the other half of my soul, my infinity.”

He felt a tear slip down his cheek. Her words always had that affect on him, but he loved the way she could send his heart beating with no effort. He loved her. So intensely.

“Sing to me, please?” A request he had let loose so many times before. He adored her voice, and the soft melodies that fell from her lips and lulled him to sleep.

She obliged with a smile on her face, and let the words tumble into his pale skin.

“If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do...”

Soon you'll be alone, sorry that you have to lose me

Two more months passed. His doctors were satisfied, stating that he was slowly improving. His body was beginning to regain strength. He had begun to grow more hopeful, slowly but surely.

Until there was no chance for hope left.

Y/N made his morning coffee, but when she went to rest it on his bedside, he could barely breathe.

Her fingers dialed emergency services faster than she thought possible, her voice cracking as she sung to him over and over, hands cradling his head in her lap as he whispered his love for her.

The coffee went cold as the red and blue lights approached.

Don't stay awake for too long, don't go to bed. I'll make a cup of coffee for your head. It'll get you up and going out of bed

Tag list: @starshonerose @snookiebrookie @another-lonely-heart @mantlereid

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[iron-mum]

I wish you would write a fic where Tony and kid Peter are being adorable father and son as retribution for the angst you’ve made me suffer through in the past hah! (JK I love you and your angst! 💛)

Well, well, well. What do we have here, eh? A request for adorable? I'm not sure, I'm very good at that 😌

Here's SIMTony who would stop at nothing to help his unwell son, Peter get better. Even if it meant using Extremis.

P.S. ILY3000 💕

In the final throes of the graveyard shift at the hospital floor, the elevator pinged for its frequent lone visitor. The front desk staff, whilst tense and sitting up suddenly straighter, knew not to actually engage. No ID was needed for their boss, one of them barely suppressing a gulp as his determined strides headed for the private room that had been deliberately placed near to the room equipped for every possible kind of emergency. Once inside, he carefully shut the door silently and took a seat at the bedside.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sharp blue eyes shifted from the persistent buzzing of the most technologically advanced medical equipment anyone, anywhere could offer before looking back down to something far more invaluable and precious. Tony’s entire world. His purpose in life. The little boy on the bed lay motionless, breathing slowly and evenly, nose occasionally scrunching up at the discomfort of the oxygen mask upon him. He should have been cocooned in a hug from his father but instead his son, Peter, was littered with wires attaching him to the very best modern medicine had to offer.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Pale, soft skin with the daintiest of freckles stood out against the dark curls spread across the far too big pillow. The small fingers of his left hand had loosely closed around the calloused thumb of his father, letting him know that whilst he had been rendered weak from illness, he was still aware of his comforting presence. Tony’s index finger gently glided across the small knuckles, willing himself to see a tiny curve of the lips on his son’s face.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

This had been the Avengers fault. Peter’s current critical condition. The young boy had been on a school trip when a battle had broken out and the wannabe heroes managed to cause more destruction than lives saved. A chemical explosion had landed most of the class in hospital and many of them had ended up becoming very unwell. Unfortunately for Peter, he already suffered many ailments so even under the wing of Stark’s finest medical personnel, the struggle had taken a toll. The genius shook his head as thoughts of revenge started to sprout from the many seeds that had been planted since the catastrophic incident. He shelved the many ideas he had that would lead to the demise of the reckless group once his kid was better.

It had been hours when the sound of a nurse's footsteps acted as the catalyst that would remove Tony from the room so he could head back to his lab. As he reluctantly moved his hand away, there was no reaction. Not even a twitch from the slender child. Bending down, he tentatively stroked a small amount of the exposed skin that was available on the boy’s face before planting a light kiss on his forehead. By the time the nurse was opening the door to the room to complete the routine checks, any sign of a visitor would be long gone.

The moment Tony was back in his workshop, he strode towards his desk. Music started to reverberate from the ceiling, the sound greatly appreciated compared to the low hum and incessant beeping from the emotionless devices that were currently keeping his son alive.

Tony didn’t believe in a higher power other than himself. So in no way, shape or form was he ever going to accept that he couldn’t save Peter from the incurable illness now ravaging his frail body. Feeling powerless was simply not an option.

Rolling up the sleeve to his top, the genius opened a drawer and pulled out a device meant for extracting blood as painlessly as possible. Not that pain meant much to him these days. No pain would ever compete with a parent having to watch their child deteriorate every single second of every single day.

Satisfied with the draw, Tony placed it into a diagnostic machine of his own making. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of his workshop, eyeing it like he was in the most intense staring contest of his life. Jaw clenching, his arm shot out allowing liquid metal to glide across his skin before firing a repulsor at the glass and shattering it. There was an element of irony to everyone loving his face except himself in the minimal but intrusive “what if” moments that surrounded his current situation. With a crack of his neck, his arm remained outstretched so the Endo-Sym armour could return to it’s housing tank.

“Boss, the results are back,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. informed as the music lessened in volume. “No adverse reactions detected still. The chemical composition indicates that the Extremis is unchanged in it’s integration with you on a genetic level and continues to remain stable.”

“And the sample from Peter?” Tony asked, confident that he knew what the answer would be.

“Also remaining stable.”

“Alert the staff intending to see Peter following tonight's shift that their presence will not be needed,” the genius demanded as he mentally reiterated the next steps of his plan in his head. Lips curled into devilishly handsome grin at his victory, eyes crinkling at the sides. The smile only softened when his eyes drifted to a framed picture Peter had drawn of the both of them. He’d done it.

“Certainly, boss,” the AI had responded without any acknowledgement. Tony was too busy in thought. Not only was the Extremis flowing through his own veins, leaving him feeling at perfect health. But soon, it would be doing the same for Peter too. Pain free, peak performance and at complete and optimal health.

“Have there been any sightings of the Avengers in the last hour? I feel a splash of revenge is in order for this special occasion?” The holo-screens in front of him started to flicker as social media sites were searched and hashtags refreshed repeatedly. Hulk had been trending within the hour and Hawkeye in the last eleven minutes.

"Well, how about that?" he grinned gleefully. "I really am being spoiled for choice."

Whilst the genius had been certain F.R.I.D.A.Y. had relayed the message to the morning staff, Tony still found himself exhaling sharply at the sight of someone sat by Peter’s side reading his file. The thin bag of Extremis in his hand was shifted into his back pocket as quickly as humanly possible. The good feeling from beating the shit out of one of the Avengers, plus the buzz of providing Peter with a cure that no meagre doctor had been able to, shifted into a tension as tried to work out who it was.

Their face was narrow with sharp features and glasz eyes remarkably penetrating when they met his perusing stare. His black hair had been combed back neatly, the sides of his temples a distinct light grey. The well fitted suit looked designer even for Tony’s impeccable standards.

“Your services are no longer required,” he affirmed with a dismissive flourish of the hands before the man could even introduce himself.

“I’m sorry?” the other man replied without hesitation, closing the file and rising from the chair. Tony’s chair. If he’d been expecting any pleasantries or introductions, he was thoroughly mistaken. Tony was already locked onto Peter, the gentle rise of his chest a welcoming sight as always. He refused to allow his attention to be divided, ignoring the piercing stare boring into him now. “I have an oath to this patient. He critically needs help from the best in all fields. He needs my help.”

The genius turned at that, an eyebrow raised as he looked the doctor up and down. He certainly held himself strongly for someone who had that much audacity in addressing the owner of everything within his current vicinity.

“Are you new around here… Doctor Strange?” He asked disingenuously, eyes narrowing as he scrutinised the name badge. The letters ‘VISITOR - Dr Stephen Strange’ jotted on the bottom, likely the reason he hadn’t got his AI’s memo. The receptionist who let him in would be fired whether it was her fault or not.

“Unlike everyone else in this building, no, I don’t work for you” the doctor shot back tersely. “However, you were so insistent on my consultation that, somehow, I found my diary completely cleared of all surgeries that were booked in.”

“Well, you can now stick them back in your diary. We’re done here.”

“I know this is difficult,” the doctor started, tone suddenly softer as if he were hoping a change of tact would get through. “You brought me in for my expertise, so use them.”

“I’m the most intelligent, capable person on the planet. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”

“Your arrogance surpasses all the rumours and expectations I had of you,” Strange snapped back incredulously. Apparently nothing was going to get through. “Your child is-”

“You know, it would be a real shame if you were to lose your medical licence, wouldn't it, doctor?” Tony sneered dangerously low. This ungrateful little shit was going to get it for not only wasting his time and energy, but also his son’s. An insignificant speck like the rest of the world.

“Are you threatening me?” the doctor replied doing his best to keep his tone cool and unflinching when the other man removed all personal space between them. The lack of intimidation he was feeling only pissed Tony off more.

“Let’s not test my resolve, doctor.” Despite feeling completely wrong about leaving considering Peter’s condition, Dr Stephen Strange tucked the file he’d been reading under his arm and left the room in just a few strides. Tony had spotted the hand diving for a phone as the door shut behind him and clenched his fists in disdain.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., be a darling and ensure Doctor Douchebag doesn’t make it back home,” Tony demanded followed by a nonchalant sniff.

“Yes, boss. His phone has also unexpectedly lost all signal so will not be usable anytime soon.”

Satisfied with the course of action his AI had taken, Tony locked the door to his son’s room for good measure. He eyed the current equipment before making his move. One of the drips currently providing Peter with much needed medicine was switched to make way for a sample of the Extremis that Tony had meticulously created and tested on himself. He peered at his son, swallowing thickly that this would all be worth it.

Bag secured, the first few drops started instantly, the older man watching as they flowed along the thin tubes before entering the cannula imposed on Peter’s hand. The skin began to glow orange, the lava looking trail gliding all the way up the arm’s before entering the chest. Daring a glance at the monitors, Tony noted an instant improvement in the readouts. A smile spread across his face as sheet-white, sickly skin started to immediately brighten.

Peter’s big, brown doe eyes suddenly shot open as he took a huge gulp of air, eyes landing on his father who was remarkably in focus for the first time in his life without the aid of glasses. Tony removed the oxygen mask so he could take his son’s face in fully for the first time in well over a month.

“Dad?” the young boy croaked, clearly a little disoriented from the abrupt wake up.

“Hey, buddy,” Tony whispered, voice cracking with emotion as he closed the distance between them.

Peter lunged at his father, his small arms wrapping tightly around the genius’ neck and face burying into his chest. It had been far too long since either had been able to enjoy the tender, heart-bursting feeling of overwhelming, unconditional love from one another.

“I love you, kiddo.” Tony gushed as one of his hand’s lovingly cupped the back of Peter's head holding him as close as possible. The other enveloped around his back, his thumb slowly stroking up and down. When the older man's hand started to trail through Peter's hair, the boy somehow managed to burrow even closer. Tony soothingly lifted curls between his fingers and then let them ping back as new life continued to circle through his son’s body.

“I love you too, dad,” Peter whispered, a strain evident in his voice that Tony hadn’t been expecting. When he leant back, he saw the likely cause. Now unnecessary wires were tugging at his child’s skin.

“Let’s get these off you, bud. You don’t need them anymore,” he promised softly as he carefully went to work at removing the monitoring equipment clips and stickers. Peter’s curious eyes followed every step of the way, surprisingly not wincing even when some of the tougher stickers were peeled away. Although he was too young to even begin comprehending what had happened, he knew from vague memories he’d been hurt and that he’d slept a lot. Often he had been unsure if he was dreaming or awake when he’d hear his father read him stories, express his love and let him know how brave he was being. A slight tug on his hand drew him from his recollection as he looked down.

"I’m scared," Peter timidly admitted as he eyed up the last piece of medical equipment attached to him. The cannula in his hand.

“Here’s what we're gonna do, bud. We’re going to put on our brave faces and before you know it, it’ll be all done and over with. Can you show me your bravest, fiercest face?” Tony gently challenged, as part of his upper lip curled and he playfully growled.

The child’s dinky nose scrunched up and his lips pushed out into the biggest pout he could form. He shook his head a little and hummed in a way that likely felt fierce to him but could only be described as adorable to his dad.

"Wowzer. That was super mean, you nearly scared me!” Tony gasped dramatically, as he gestured for the boy to look down and see that the only thing on the top of his hand was a small cotton wool ball and a light pressure from his dad. Using his free hand to fish into his pocket, Tony revealed a green Paw Patrol sticker with Peter’s favourite character, Rocky, on it.

It had been a distant memory since the young boy had handed it to him, having spotted the numerous nicks and cuts that littered his hard working hands after a long day in the workshop. Extremis meant Peter wouldn’t even need it, but the placebo effect would make it worth it.

“Am I all better, daddy?” Peter asked as Tony eyed him up once more. The overwhelmed father cupped his kid’s face and planted another kiss on his forehead, relief washing over him that he was now free from the concatenation of medical instrumentation.

“You most certainly are. And that means we get to skedaddle out of here.”

Before his son could anticipate his next move, his father had scooped him up into his arms and they were making their way not only out of the room, but off of the floor for good.

They’d had a chance to change into matching casual wear and feasted on a huge breakfast before snuggling up on the sofa. Peter had selected an Octonauts movie to watch as he tucked into his father’s side and enjoyed the sound of his steady heartbeat.

It would be a couple of hours when Tony’s phone pinged with a notification he knew was F.R.I.D.A.Y. when she was being discreet. His son huffed at the movement as he shuffled to get the phone out of his pocket, muttering an apology to his kid before opening the message.

[Unfortunate accident on the Hawk’s Nest, Route 97. Vehicle crossed the barrier and rolled multiple times down the cliff’s edge before landing in the Delaware River. Initial scan from one of the Iron Sight Bot #364 shows one survivor.]

Tony’s smirk widened into a full blown smile. Peter’s heart-of-gold eyes suddenly on him, looking up from his position. It was likely a silent protest at the lack of head strokes he was suddenly receiving so the genius replied swiftly.

[Call off any emergency services and get him med-evaced here.]

“You know what I think we need. Celebratory cheeseburgers for lunch,” he announced as Peter let out a squee of joy.

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 87

Emma

Slow dancing and kissing in the middle of the floor had been as perfect of goodbye as a goodbye could be. Sebastian had updated his playlists. There was nothing sexual. Every song was I love you, I've been waiting for you, I'm happy you're mine. Intense love songs. I felt every one. I stayed in the moment, focusing on how good this felt. We held each other, swaying to the music and alternating between my head laying on his shoulder, gazing in the other's eyes, or kissing. We were in our own little bubble. There was nothing but how his body felt against mine, how he smelled, and the look of his face. All I felt was encapsulated in a swirl of feelings. Love, joy, and a touch of sadness hiding on the edge.

The bubble burst with the knock on the door. Time to go. there was no chance of getting through this without tears. Strong emotions always bring tears. I don't fight them. Letting them out feels better. I don't think emotions are anything to be ashamed of or hide. They're also not something to manipulate others with.

At the car, we were both crying. Not holding onto each other sobbing, just tears.

Saying goodbye was hard. His "I love you. I'll miss you. I'll talk to you Later. Send nudes." broke the sadness enough to get the car door closed. I watched him slide away. I wiped away a few more tears before talking myself down. Six weeks was a long fucking time, but it wasn't forever. It would probably feel like it, however.

My solution was to avail myself of the Air France business class lounge. Two shots of tequila and I switched to wine. It went better with the cheese. I was going to have to hit the gym hard when I got home. And eat better. Not today though I was sad and there was free cheese.

As usual, I was asleep before we reached cruising altitude. I woke up with about five hours to go. Fingers crossed that helped with the jet lag. I put on my favorites playlist and read until we landed.

Emma ~ I’ve landed Sebastian ~ Yay! Emma ~ Go back to sleep. Sebastian ~ XOXO

I knew he had an early call time tomorrow. It was only five pm here in New York. Closer to seven by the time I got back to Sebastian's place. I made it long enough to throw a load of laundry into the washer and the cheese into the fridge before crawling into bed. I took over his side of the bed, sniffing the pillows to find the one that smelled most like him. I curled around it and was out.

Five am was the latest my body was going to let me sleep. That was eleven am in France. So too early for New York and kinda late for France. I grabbed my phone to take a sleepy selfie but was distracted by my text notification. Sebastian had sent me a picture of him reclining on a couch, not in our rooms, with Guiletta asleep on his chest.

Sebastian ~ Found someone new to sleep on my chest.

I continued with my original plan to take an up-close picture of my eyes peeking out over the top of his pillow. My hair was a mess, my eyes look half-asleep, and there was a faint pillow crease on my temple. Perfect.

Emma ~ I miss you too

The sun was up with a bright blue sky. Since it was Saturday the traffic at this time of day would be much less. I had a clean pair of shorts, but not a shirt. No problem. My boyfriend had t-shirts. A little big, but perfectly functional. Runners, earphones, keys and I was out the door for an early morning run.

The city was beautiful. sunlight crept around corners and over the tops of shorter buildings. I ran south past the 9-11 memorial to Battery Park. I'd always been fascinated by the metal world with tears and chunks missing. The first time I'd seen I'd said out loud, "It looks like the world blew up." I guess I wasn't far off. The sculpture had been in the World Trade Center Plaza and been damaged by falling debris. I was only eight and all I remember was my parents being glued to CNN for hours. It would be years later, when I called the city home, before I really understood. As much as a non-native New Yorker could.

The worst thing about running this early was all the stores were closed. The best thing about running this early was all the stores were closed. I admit my shopping had been out of hand. In my defense, it had been a very long time since I'd had someone to dress up for. Don't take that wrong. Beacon dates with a man or friends was an opportunity to dress up. Coming into New York to be with Angie and Eli was a good opportunity. Both opportunities I used well. Still, having a man appreciate what you wear and how you look in it is another level. I know what I look good in. I'm not changing my choices for Sebastian, or any man, but I will take his preferences into account. Shopping right now would be a bad idea. I’m sure I'm packing around a few extra pounds of cheese, bread, and wine. I'm hoping all the walking mitigated some of the damage.

On my way back, a couple of blocks from Sebastian's the city was waking up. More people and sounds. I realized tonight would be the first time I'd been alone in the city in about five years. I made plans to sit in the dark and just listen. I picked up a bagel and a smoothie that I was told would rejuvenate me. I wonder if the barista could tell? I broke into Sebastian's stash of nut butter. Half a bagel with cashew butter the other with almond. Cashew was better.

Being alone in his space is weird. None of my stuff is here. It's like a hotel, but not. I got a little nosey after I'd showered and dressed. Not in a going through his drawers and medicine cabinet nosey. Looking at his DVD and CD collection. Running my fingers down the spines of his books, pulling out ones that caught my interest to thumb through. I made a stack of things I wanted to read. I did go through his kitchen pretty thoroughly. It looks like a single man who travels and eats out a lot lives here. He doesn't have flour. How does one not have flour? He does have quite a condiment collection. I threw out expired things and made a list to replace them. That led me on a short journey to see if there was anything else he was almost out of and added things to the list.

Time to call the best friends. Angie picked up on the third ring, her voice excited to hear from me, "You're home!"

"I’m at Sebastian's. I meet with my advisor Monday."

"I want to see all the pictures and hear all the stories. We're going out tonight. Some friends are playing. You're welcome."

"Can I let you know later? I don't know what the time change is going to do."

"Absolutely. So.... " the paused after dragging out the word, "are you missing him? How was goodbye?"

"Goodbye took forever. Neither of us wanted to let go. At least half a dozen last kisses. Sucked. I miss him, but I'm okay. I'll be fine when I get home and am doing stuff. I've cleaned expired shit out of his kitchen and made a grocery list."

"That's cute. Hope he thinks so."

I hadn't thought about his opinion one way or another. I was just getting rid of shit before it stank up the place. "He won't care."

We talked for a while, deciding we'd do brunch tomorrow.

I was bored. I didn't lack for things to do, but I didn't have a routine here. Especially not without him. It didn't feel like home without him. Once I'd figured that out I was good and went about making myself at home.

I'd changed Sebastian's ringtone from "Dancing Queen" to my favorite part in "Every Time I’m With You." It was near the end after a heavy drumbeat "cause every time I'm with you I feel wanted. We could make believers if we dare. We're just two believers if we dare." It was incredible the first time we'd danced to it and it was incredible now. I heard it about six, midnight in France.

I'd barely registered his face before I heard his voice, "If I put that picture on my laptop and my laptop in the bed, I can pretend it's you."

I felt warm all over and smiled, "Yes, you can. Tell me about the first day of shooting."

"It was good. Long, but good. I'm comfortable with Jess and I like her direction." He told me stories that made me proud and made me laugh. "I did well today. What have you been up to?"

I gave him a quick rundown on my day, leaving the bit about making myself at home until last.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can't believe you restocked my kitchen. Thank you. Do whatever you want to feel at home."

"What if I reorganized your drawers because your way doesn't make sense?"

"Have at it. I'll just think I forget and think I did it."

"And your kitchen so it flows better."

He shook his head, "I don't know what that means. Knock yourself out."

I laughed, "I didn't do either."

I loved the lines that formed at the corners of his eyes when he genuinely smiled. Like now, "I don't care what you do. I just want you to feel at home.”

Now we were where I wanted to be, "Here's the thing... my favorite foods in your kitchen, finding where I'm most comfortable to work on my laptop, and figuring out where has the best view when I want to relax with a book are good, but it's not enough. Doing all that did help me figure what's missing."

"What's missing and where can we get it?"

"It's free and I already found it. You make where ever we are home. You're my home."

"I'm your home." He looked a little dazed.

"When you were in my place I felt at home. At your parents, I felt at home. Being at your place with you I was perfectly at home. Paris too. Now I’m back and I did things to feel at home. Took a while until I realized its missing something. You. When I'm with you, wherever we are, I’m home."

I could tell he was processing, by the way his tongue moved, "I like that."

He kept thinking, squinting his eyes a little, "I don't know if you're my home. Not sure where home is. Sometimes I don't feel at home in my own skin. I like that I’m your home." He cringed, "The next couple of weeks are going to suck for you."

I banred out a laugh, "No, once I knew what the issue was I adjusted. I'm good now."

"You don't miss me anymore?"

"Oh, I miss you a lot." Were transitioned into silly conversation.

"Ok, good."

I gasped, "You want me to suffer?"

"Terribly." His eyes were wide as he nodded his head. "So much so that when you see me again you throw yourself into my arms and hold on so tight I can't breathe."

"Therefore making you suffer."

"Yes, please."

I did end up going out with Angie and Eli. Thankfully it was a jeans sort of bar. My hope was if I stayed moving I'd fall over, get a good night's sleep, and get back on New York time. It was a good fun night.

Sunday I took a run before getting ready for Angie to come over. I'd bribed her with her favorite home-cooked meal. I had her take pictures of me in various outfits around his apartment. At one point Angie rolled her eyes, "I can not believe I'm taking pictures of you rolling around in his bed."

"Six weeks, Angie. I suck at selfies. I need a stockpile to pull from."

"What you need is a class in basic photo editing on an iPhone."

"I know."

We went back to her place, stopping for supplies on the way. A few hours later we were feasting on cilantro lime salmon,  a creamy garlic parmesan orzo, and a greek salad. I've taught Angie to cook this several times, but she tells me it's never quite right. I think she skimps on the butter and that's a big no. And a healthy splash of the Sauvignon blanc lifts the whole thing a little.

Sebastian and I exchanged texts over the course of the day. A comment or question with stretches of time between answers. Mostly from him. I got excited when an unexpected text came through. His response to my dinner picture was a request for the same meal. Maybe with his parents.

Monday was a busier day. I had to dress like a doctoral student, pack my bags, clean up after myself, and plant surprises like the notes I keep finding in my condo. Mine are more fun. The green g- string from concert night is mixed in with his boxers. A couple of dresses parked next to something they matched well. A peach tank top mixed in with his workout gear. I had Angie take a picture in each room. Printed and framed them. My favorite is me sitting on the toilet. It has a lovely frame and is now on the wall across from the throne. I wanted everything ready for me to leave for home straight from my advisory meeting

My advisory meeting lasted a little over three hours. Three good hours. Dr. Kershaw had been appointed my advisor. I'd taken a class with her while working on my Master's and my second winter in Beacon, but at the time I'd been excited to work with students and studying digital classroom technology was something I wasn't wanting to explore. I wanted to be hands-on molding little minds and still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I'd enjoyed working on our team's website. Google Classroom was functional but limited by design. Three hours later I had it narrowed down.

Sebastian had texted me good luck this morning with a picture of his face, eyes closed and lips puckered. I'd sent back a picture of my legs, crossed at the ankles with my skirt draped to the side, while sitting in his favorite chair. I was more than halfway home when his ringtone came through my vehicle's speaker. I hit the button, "Hey, baby."

I could hear his smile in his voice, "Sounds like your lunch went well."

"It did!" I was still excited from lunch and the phone call with Angie after. "I like my advisor. There's only ten of us in the program with the plan to add ten more each fall."

"Wow!" He interjected. "So being accepted is even more impressive."

"Yeah." I was proud of myself. "Small and first-year makes everything very personalized. All of the potential classes overlap with other programs. Cognitive theory from Psych, advanced reading from Education, some Education Law and leadership, computer tech, and even game design. We spent a lot of time talking about what I’m passionate about. In the and I’m thinking I want to focus on reading intervention and programming for K-3."

"Which is what you're passionate about."

I laughed, "and you."

"And me. Did you just talk about direction or is there a plan? What coursework did they accept."

"The fifteen hours I've taken will apply. We designed a basic timeline. I've taken six hours the last two years. I'm confident I can handle that with work and having a life. If I want to take more I can. I don't want to take classes in the summer. Those are usually compressed and pretty intense, plus I'm not in a hurry. Somewhere in the middle, I write a thesis, which looks at a problem or a hole in what already exists. That will feed into my dissertation. I can either do research and design an experiment like comparing existing programs or create my own product."

"Any idea which way you want to go?"

"None at all. I figure the thesis will help figure that out."

"And when do I have to start calling you Doctor?" The seductive tone in his voice told me "have to" wasn't going to be a hardship.

"Three to four years. No summers and using the last semester for my dissertation is four. If I add a class in a couple of semesters or summer and do my dissertation concurrently then three. I have to be done in ten. I'm thinking I’ll figure out what I want to do the first two then design and implement the last two. A lot will depend on how long that takes." He couldn't see me, but I was waving a hand in the air. "It will work itself out."

"I love you."

"I love you. Enough me, tell me about your day."

We talked the rest of the way home where we had some fun.

I called Seattle and went through it all again with Ed. He was as excited and proud of me as was Seb. I found it a little sadly ironic that my lover was in a time zone six hours ahead, my family was three hours behind, and the ones in the same time zone weren't going to know for a few days. I didn't trust them to not take away from my accomplishment, neither did Ed, which meant they'd have to wait. Hell, they barely knew I'd been in France. They'd get to know once I was finished celebrating with people who would just be happy for me. That pushed a Georgia phone call off to the weekend after the volleyball tournament. Maybe after practice tomorrow if I could get my school lunch bunch to come for drinks, I’d even buy. I had no problem funding my own celebration. I just wanted my friends there. Angie and Eli were coming for the weekend. Maybe I'd call while they were here. Eli could make angry faces while Angie tried to scold him. Then either way it went we could drink our way through. That was a good plan. I texted all involved and they agreed.

I ran back out to the grocery for fresh berries, yogurt, and wine to go with my cheese. I bought other good for detox items and healthy foods. A stopped by a smoothie shop for a raspberry white chocolate protein drink. It was amazing how quickly I slid into my summer schedule. Run to the gym to work out. Run home. Have breakfast and practice guitar. Do whatever until it was warm enough to go lay by the pool and read or float. Have dinner, meet up with friends, volleyball practice, or lay on the couch with Netflix

Sebastian and I would text sporadically throughout the day. About nine my time, so three am for him, I'd send him a picture. One Angie took or something I'd taken during the day. He always woke up to see me. Some days that was more arousing than others. We talked almost every day. Maybe five minutes or an hour. Night shoots were the worst. He was working while I was awake and I was asleep during his time off.

The weekend Angie and Eli came down was fun. Friday night we stayed in watching movies and drinking. Saturday's tournament was going well until storms came through. The radar said there were hours of rain left, so they canceled. Since all our plans had been canceled we decided on a bar crawl. Which meant Sunday was spent recovering. We went to brunch at the riverside restaurant where Sebastian and I had our first date. On the drive back I made plans for calling Georgia. Angie and Eli were my get away plan. We went out on the back patio. I set up my iPad where they would only see me, but I could see my support system.

Dad picked up almost immediately, “Hey, Emma. You’re home. Amy told us you were in France.”

“Sebastian had an event so we made it a short vacation.”

“Sounds fun.” My mom had entered the frame. “I bet you appreciated things you overlooked before.”

I laughed, “I did. All those things I saw pictures of later and wished I’d paid more attention to. We had a good time.”

“That’s great.”

Time to dive in. “I wanted to tell you some good news.”

Amy jumped into frame and interrupted, “Can I hear too?”

I ignored the question and just went on, “I was accepted into a new Doctoral program at NYU. It’s education and digital media. It’s new so we’re building my program as we go.”

“That’s great news, Emma.” Dad looked excited, “Dissertation and everything?”

“Yes, it can be research or designing a project. I’ve got about three years to get that figured out. They accepted the post-grad classes I’ve been taking.”

“Congratulations, sweetheart. We’re proud of you.” Mom’s smile was bright.

“My baby sister is going to be a Doctor. I need to figure out my future.”

I shook my head, “You’ll figure it out. What’s right for you and my beautiful niece. She’s a job and a half.”

“I am not enjoying this age.”

“That’s why I teach first grade and not kindergarten or preschool.”

We talked a bit more about school, what was going on there, and how things were with Amy and Max. Mom asked about Sebastian, where he was, and if things were good between us. Instead of shutting her down, like I had in the car, I talked about him.

Not a minute after we hung up Amy texted, “How’s Sebastian feel about calling you Dr? *wink*wink*”

I sent back, “Exactly, like that.”

I closed my tablet and looked at my friends. I was not comfortable. Sure, the conversation had gone fine, but it didn’t feel fine. “That went better than expected.”

“This time.” Eli grimaced, “Sorry.”

“That’s what makes this so hard. This looks normal, but it’s not. If it was, I wouldn’t have this not in the bit of my stomach and want friends here when I talk to them. That’s not normal.”

Angie came over to kneel beside me, bringing me into a hug, “No, it’s not. You don’t need us when you call Seattle.”

Eli joined us, “I don’t think they know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t change it, Emma.”

I laughed, “I know.” I kissed his cheek. Dealing with my parents was worse for him than it was for me. I hated seeing people I love hurt too. I wasn’t hurt though. It was a weird numb.

“You ok, Em?”

I met Angie’s eyes, “I am. Just weird. The happier I am, the more good things going on, the more distant I feel. The better I’m doing, the less supportive they are.”

“Yep!” Eli didn’t hesitate to agree. “And that’s not alright.”

I mussed his hair, “No, it’s not.”

The next week was more of the same. I registered for my fall classes and my books were delivered by Wednesday. I started reading. Yes, I'm that student. I liked to get a head start. I'd never taken classes in the fall. The first month of teaching was exhausting. It took time and energy to get first graders ready to learn. I wasn't sure how that would work with starting my classes. Getting ahead on reading seemed the safest approach.

Thursday afternoon Sebastian called. Drunk. I guess wrapping in Paris was worthy of a party. The rest of cast and crew were packing up and heading to Rome. Sebastian was flying halfway around the world to San Diego's Comic-Con. He'd spend thirty-two hours of his four day weekend in a plane, which meant he was drunk and a little grumpy. By the time I was done with him he was still drunk, but no longer grumpy. He was naked, smiling, and satisfied. Well, as satisfied as he could be over the phone. Even drunk he was insistent that he not see me masturbating for the first time on video. We should have taken care of this.

I set an alarm for the middle of the night to make sure he was awake and would make his plane. It was worth it to lay in bed together.

[chickensarentcheap]

Best Part  of Me - Chapter 2

Warnings: very light smut

Tagging: @thunderintheshadows​, @alievans007​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​

It's shortly before midnight when she joins him outside; just beyond the back fence and gate that he and Ovi had built to keep the kids -or at least attempt to- contained when outside on their own.  Their property is private and secluded; just the kind of quiet, and security they'd been craving. Fifteen acres with its own stretch of private beach,  a vast area of woodlands to the left, just beyond the guest house that Ovi and Chloe share, and their closest neighbour two hundred yards away.  

In Colorado their 'thing' had been to end the evening out on the porch swing; it was often their only chance to actually carry on a proper conversation without being constantly interrupted by the kids. When they could temporarily stop being parents and just be Tyler and Esme.  The therapist had been adamant about it; that they both realize their roles in each others lives far extended raising a family together. That they needed to get back to staying connected beyond the realms of parenthood; important that the connection was not just physical, but emotional as well. At first Tyler had thought it was all a load shit; both what the therapist had said and needing to see one in the first place. That the change of pace and scenery would be more than enough to not only keep the connection between them and make it stronger. Not realizing until they had started sitting down to talk to someone just how fractured things actually were. He'd always thought that things were fine; that they'd gotten past the toughest and darkest spots and that they were nowhere near disintegrating and that if their problems ever got that bad, they'd be able to get through it on their own.

Once they actually started concentrating on things -the way they fought and the intensity in which they did, the horrible things that were said to one another- it became apparent that there was a lot repairing that needed to be done. It wouldn't been easy or a short fix, but at least it could be put back together.

The sand is soft beneath her feet; cool and refreshing as it slips between her toes. The beach itself is relatively unspoiled and remarkably preserved; the old owners never using it, preferring to just enjoy the views of the ocean and the remarkable sunsets.  Their road itself hasn't seen children in in over thirty years, and shortly after they'd move in they would routinely find notes and small presents for the kids in their mailbox from residents further down. About how nice it was to them see them out on their bikes or chasing one another, how great it was to hear their shouts and their laughter.

Mac lays beside Tyler on a blanket on the beach, raising his head to watch her as she approaches; giving small whimpering noises -his happy sounds, as the vet calls them-, tail beginning to sway back and forth.  He's grown like weed; not even full size yet but massive and strong. But despite the mail man's fear of him, he's surprisingly docile. Growing up with four kids that constantly love on you and never you leave you alone and always sneak you treats will do it. And he's loyal and fiercely intelligent; always sensing when one of his people may need a little bit extra attention.  Tyler's arm rests along Mac's back, hand slowly stroking the shepherd's impossibly large ears and scratching the scruff of his neck.

“You need to move,” Esme says, and points to a spot on the sand. “You're in my spot you stinky, hairy beast.”

Her husband doesn't move his forearm from over his eyes. “Are you talking to me or the dog?”

“You're not that stinky,” she playfully retorts, and then once more points to the sand. “Mac, seriously. Move. I know he's your person, but he's my person too and you have to share him.”

All it takes from Tyler is a ruffle of the fur and a “Move, mate” and the dog obliges; sauntering over to his master's other side, the curling up in the sand, making sure that least one of his paws is in contact with Tyler's body.

“Worst behaved dog ever,” Esme grumbles, and sinks down onto the blanket, lying on her side and tucking herself under her husband's arm when he immediately wraps it around her. His hand coming to rest on her shoulder as she places hers on his stomach and rest her head on his chest. It's soothing. The sound and smell of the ocean, the warmth of his body and how solid it is against her, the scent that clings to him; mixture of cologne, laundry detergent, and sweat. It's familiar, but remarkably him.

“Kids asleep?” he asks, and she nods.

“Every last one,” she replies with a content sigh.

It doesn't happen often; the three older ones falling asleep fairly early and easily, while Declan and Addie spend hours alternating who needs the most attention.

Her hand continues to rub his stomach; she likes the extra weight he carries there now. His body thicker than it was before. Even more muscular and powerful.  And she rests her chin on his shoulder and looks up at him, his forearm still over his eyes.

“Tired?” he asks, his palm slowly moving over her shoulder and down her arm, then travelling back up again.

“When am I not tired? Do you and Ovi work tomorrow?”

“Just a few odd jobs. I shouldn't be home too late.”

It had been an easy decision; getting back into doing home renos and general repairs. They don't particularly need the money, a large chunk of the five million left even after buying the house, all the furnishings, and doing repairs and upgrades. But he enjoys working with his hands; the finished results giving him a sense of accomplishment.  It keeps him busy and his mind focused on the task at hand, and having Ovi with him meant he could let the kid handle any personal contact with clients and Tyler himself  could avoid actually having to interact with people.

Her hand slips under the front of his shirt, finger lightly drawing a circle around his navel, and she feels him shudder against her when she runs a fingertip along the waist band of jeans.

He clears his throat noisily.  “Do you mind?”

“No, actually I don't,” she grins, one finger dipping underneath the denim, then slowly moving along his skin.

“Well you should,” Tyler grabs a hold of her wrist, pulling her hand out of his pants and then entwining their fingers together. “Stop.”

“Like you're not enjoying it.”

“That's the problem. I am enjoying it.”

“It's been three months,” she laments.

Sighing, he nods.

“Three months, fifteen days and thirteen hours,” she clarifies, and he opens his eyes and looks down at her. “What?” she shrugs. “You're not keeping track?”

He grins. “I may or may not have it in my calendar on my phone.”

She laughs at that, then buries her face in his neck; lips pressing a series of soft, feathery kisses on his jaw line, just under his beard.

“Would you stop...” he uses the side of his head to push her away, and shifts uncomfortably against the sand. “....knock it off.”

“You don't miss it?”  she refuses to be deterred, her free had coming up to comb through his hair as her lips find the side of his neck, the tip of her tongue trailing over the scar left behind from Dhaka.

“Of course I miss it. I miss it a fuck of a lot, but...stop...seriously...stop...”

“That's a first for you. I didn't think you knew that word.”

“You need to just calm yourself down and leave me alone,” he grumbles.

“My hormones are insane,” she pouts. “Like off the charts insane. And it's been three and a half months and I miss you.”

“How can you miss me? I'm right here. Every day.”

“No, I mean I miss you.”

A slow grin spreads across his face. “You mean in the biblical sense?”

She giggles. “Exactly. What you don't miss me?”

“Of course I do. We just...” the frustration finally gets the better of him and he shoves her over onto her side, then grabs a hold of both of her wrists in one hand before lying down behind her. “...it's too soon.”

“It's been two weeks since she was born.”

“Which is way too soon,” he insists, and pressing a kiss to the back of her head, groaning when she slides closer to him, so that her ass pressed right against his crotch. “Really? Are you serious right now?”

“I think I know my body.”

“Well so does the doctor and he says it's too soon. So...” he has to pull his hips back so no more contact can be made. “...fuck off, already.”

“You're grumpy.”

“I'm not grumpy. I'm horny. And sexually frustrated. And you know damn well what you're doing right now and you need to stop.”

“There's other things we can do,” she reminds him.

“Yeah and I won't be able to stop at just the other things. So please,” he tightens his hold on her wrists and presses a kiss to her shoulder. “Stop. Be nice to me.”

“I was going to be very nice to you, But fine...” she dramatically huffs. “...if you want to have to keep studying alone.”

“I think I can handle another two or three weeks of 'studying alone'. That's nothing compared to three fucking months. You going to be good?”

“If you insist.”

“I do,” he says, and kisses her cheek. “Unfortunately.”

He releases his hold on her wrists, lacing their fingers together once again pressing their joined hands against her; eyes closed, face buried in her hair.

****

“I heard you met the hot teacher today,” she comments.

“She's about twenty years older than me but if you think she's hot...”

“You damn well know that's not who I was talking about. I mean Millie's teacher. The little blond thing with big boobs.”

“I didn't even notice.”

“Oh please. You're a guy.”

“I'm a guy that's not interested in meeting other women. So...”

“Your daughter said she was all 'touchy feely' with daddy.”

“She was not all touchy feely. She tried to touch my arm. And give me her phone number.”

Esme scowls at him over her shoulder. “Excuse me, what?”

“To talk about your daughter,” Tyler clarifies. “Because your daughter has a mouth on her.”

“Maybe because she takes after you.”

He snorts.

“She is all you and you know it. I am not taking the blame for her mouth. She is all attitude. Your attitude. She even has the same facial expressions as you. So I am not being held responsible for her being a smart ass. You can deal with that. You can give her shit.”

“I already did. I told her not to be so much like her mother,” he laughs as she attempts to elbow him in the stomach, then lifts his head and kisses the corner of her mouth.

“Millie says the teacher likes you. And that she's going to ask you out on a date.”

“Yeah? Good for her. I like you. So she's shit out of luck.”

“Six years and we're still at the like stage?” she teases. “I thought we'd at least be at infatuation by now.”

He grins. “We are way past infatuation, baby.”

“Do you think she's cute?”

“Who?

She huffs dramatically. “Millie's teacher. Do you think she's cute?”

“I think you're cute.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “I wasn't paying attention. I'm not looking to pick up so why would I?”

“You must have noticed if she was cute or not.”

“Baby...” he sighs. “...I'm not looking at other women. I'm perfectly happy with the one I have.”

“So you've never thought about it? Hooking up with someone else?”

“Have you?”

“We're not talking about me. I have no reason to want to find someone to hook up with. Maybe you do. It's been three months.”

“Three and half but who's keeping track?”

“And in that whole time you've never thought about it?”

“Esme, I don't want to fight. I just want to lie here and hold you and talk. Normal talk. Not the talking that leads to a fight. It's too late and I'm too tired. I have never, ever thought about that.  Not once in the last six and a bit years. Cheat on my wife because she's pregnant and can't put out? I do know how to jerk off, you know.”

“You said a long time ago it wasn't the same,” she points out.

“It isn't. But that doesn't mean I want to fuck someone else.  There's only you. There's only been you since we met. And it's only going to be you for the rest of my life. So stop...” he kisses her temple. “...don't turn this into a thing.”

“I swear if that teacher asks you out on a date...”

“No one is asking anyone out on a date. Your daughter is super paranoid. And she has a fucking mouth on her.”

“Then watch your fucking language around her,” Esme retorts, and they both laugh.  After several minutes she rolls over to face him; forehead resting against his, a hand coming out to push through his hair. “You okay?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“That was a big step for you today. Huge, actually.  You haven't been able to anything like that in two months. Especially going into town with that many of the kids with you? At least not without an anxiety attack. Everything went okay?”

“Everything was fine.”  He doesn't tell her about the hyper-vigilance being in overdrive; noticing every little sound, every little movement out of the corner of his eye.  It hasn't been that bad in a couple of months. Whether he's learned how to control it or if it's actually getting better, he doesn't know. But being that alert and that agitated at the park had not been a good sign.  

“I'm proud of you,” she says, and presses a kiss to the bridge of his nose. “I know how hard you're trying. I also know how hard it is for you to go out of your comfort zone like that. And that you it somehow makes you weak; that you have the issues you do.”

He nods in agreement.

“You are far from being a weak man, Tyler.  You are anything but weak. Don't let your brain tell you otherwise, okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees, giving a small, unconvincing smile.

“You're brave whether you see yourself that way or not. You fight against your own mind every second of every day. And you win every time.  If that's not brave, I don't know what it is.”

He lays a hand on the side of her face and kisses her; long and soft, closed mouth open closed mouth. Then chuckles when she attempts to push her lower body against his, his hand falling to her hip to prevent it from happening. “You told me you'd be good.”

“Then stop being so good at making me want to do bad things,” she responds, and he presses a kiss to her forehead. They're silent for several minutes; listening to the sound of the ocean, feeling each others warm breath against their faces. And he once more places his forehead against hers, a hand on the small of her back.

“What are you thinking about?” Esme asks. “And don't say nothing because your throat always gets tight and you get those creases in your forehead.”

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Stuff that you don't need to worry about.”

“I hate to break it to you, but your stuff became my stuff when you decided you wanted to get married. So it's technically our stuff now.”

“We're not supposed to talk about the kids when we're having 'us time' remember?”

“I don't think we're expected to totally stop talking about them. That's impossible. We have five of them. One is bound to come up in conversation. And I actually brought Millie up first when I mentioned the hot teacher, so that means you get to mention at least one kind now. It's only fair.”

He grins. “You have weird rules.”

“You expect anything less than weird? Buddy, are you new here? Our house is full of weird.”

He can't argue with that.

“It's about Tyler isn't it.” It's a statement, not a question, and he gives a nod of confirmation. “If we could just get in to see the doctor or find another taking new patients....”

“Maybe the one in Sydney isn't a bad idea,” he suggests.

“You're the one who said it was too far to go,” she reminds him. “And neither of us like the fact that she's pro school and pro pushing medication.”

“I do not want to drug my kid up. He's five.”

“But that's what they're suggesting,” she fidgets with the chain around his neck as she talks. “Or what this doctor told them we should do.”

“He's five,” Tyler stresses. “He's a little boy.:

“I know, but...”

“He's a little boy,” he firmly repeats. “And I'm not letting them turn him into a fucking zombie.”

“I don't know what more we can do without outside help,” she frets. “We've tried taking certain things out of his diet, we've given him supplements, we've given him punishments and choice rewards for good behaviour. So until we get to see who we want...”

“He is not going on medication. We already talked about this. You know how I feel. He's a little boy. My little boy. He's my son.”

“He's my son too,” she gently reminds him. “And you're not the only going through this, remember?  We're supposed to be in this together. It's not supposed to divide us.”

“There has to be something else we can try. Even if it means taking him to that doctor in Sydney.  Just to see what they say.”

“They're going to say put him on meds.”

Tyler sighs.

“I know you're mad, but...”

“I'm not mad. I'm frustrated. Millie and Tanner are doing fine. They're not having issues. They're doing better here than they were in Colorado.”

“Well, Tyler's different. He feels things differently. He always has. Tanner may be the sensitive one, but Tyler's the intense one. And he's been that way since he was a baby. A lot of emotions inside that little head and body of his.  He just doesn't know how to deal with them. Who does that remind you of?”

He stares at her pointedly.

“Don't even try to pin this on me. Millie and Tyler are the ones that are exactly like you.  Millie just isn't as intense as you two.”

“He told me today that he hates his brain,”  emotions chokes at him as he speaks. It's heartbreaking; to her that your kid thinks they're broken and needs someone to fix them. “That he hates how it works. That is doesn't work right.”

She gives a small, sympathetic smile and lays a hand on the side of his face; thumb running across his lips, knuckles brushing against his beard.

“He asked me if I would fix it. Fix him. How the fuck am I supposed to do that when I can't even fix my myself.?”

“He's not broken, Tyler. And neither are you.”

“What he's like this because of me? What if I passed something along? Like some kind of fucked up gene?”

“That's not how it works. That's not how any of this worlds. You didn't start having issues until you were an adult and started doing the job. It's everything you've done and everything you've seen. It's because you almost died. You didn't pass something down to him.”

“I hate this. For him. That he's going through this and we have no goddamn clue how to help him.”

“It's not that we're not trying...”

“Maybe we're not trying hard enough. There has to be other things out there, yeah? Things we can up on and...”

“Tyler, we have four other kids,” Esme reminds him. “They need us too. And we have a baby. A brand new one. And she needs us...both of us...even more. We've done everything we can for now. And don't even suggest pulling him from school because I can deal with that. Not with Declan and a newborn. There is no way I cope with that. And I already know you won't be able to handle it, so get that thought out of your head.”

“We can hire someone.”

“To do what? We don't even know what's going on with him.  We need to find someone that can figure all of that out. You know we can't take on anything else. You need be out there keeping yourself busy and I've got a toddler and a baby to look after.”

“So we call the people in Sydney and take him there. It's something at least. At least someone can look at him and tell us what the fuck is going on. Because this is bullshit. Not knowing how to help him. It's bullshit and it sucks. He's a little boy.”

“If that's what you want to do, we'll do it. If you think Sydney is the best option...”

“It's the only option. Right now at least. I don't want this dragging on and him ending up like me. Because I'm fucked up. I don't want that for him.”

“Okay...first of all...” she shoves him over onto his back, then straddles his waist. “...you are not fucked up. You have some issues, yes. But you're working on them. That's all that matters. Second, I love you. And I'm tired of you shit talking yourself all the time. You're brave and you're strong...”

Tyler rolls his eyes.

Scowling, she takes his face in her hands. “ You are brave and you're strong and so is your son. You're both going to be okay. And you can't convince me otherwise.”

Grinning, he lays his hands on her eyes. “And you call me stubborn?”

“You are honestly the most hard headed, insufferable pain in the ass I've ever met. But...” she runs her hands up and down his chest. It's been six years yet she still hasn't tired of the way he feels; all hard muscle and sheer power. “...you're my hard headed, insufferable pain in the ass. You're stuck with me. Sorry.”

“I can think of worse people to be stuck with.”

“I bet the hot blond teacher isn't one of those people,” she snidely remarks, and then shrieks when he abruptly sits up, wraps an arm around her waist and flips her over onto her back; a hand behind his head to avoid it striking the sand.

“Fuck the hot teacher.”

“That's exactly what she wants. I mean, I can't say I blame her. That's pretty much all I wanted when I first met you too, so...”

“So now the truth comes out,” he teases, as he kneels between her splayed thighs, and leans over her, hands on either side of her head, bearing his weight on outstretched arms. “Six years later.”

“Six years and two months, actually. But yes. Yes, it's the truth. I totally would have let you take advantage of me the same day we met. In that crappy little shack of yours. I no longer feel shame in admitting that.”

“You should have just told me then. I would have been game.”

“Oh right!” she laughs. “Hey strange Australian with the nice hair and even nicer eyes, let's fuck,”

“I see absolutely nothing wrong with that,” he grins.

“You would have thought I was a slut. And that would have made working together extremely awkward.”

“Why? We were fucking in Dhaka anyway. Wouldn't have made a difference if we fucked before that.”

“You might have decided  you didn't want to do it again.”

“Yeah....right...” he chuckles. “...that totally would have happened. I would have definitely been able to stop at just one time.”

His words make her think of G; that last conversation they'd had in the forest while waiting for Tyler to reach the extraction point with Ovi. Shortly before everything had just turned to pure and utter shit. How he'd playfully teased her about knowing exactly what had been going on in that hotel room for five days; that any single, red blooded male would have jumped on a situation like that and taken advantage of it.  And how'd he turned towards her; his face and his tone suddenly so serious.

“He's not going to be able to let you go, you know.”

She hadn't thought much about it at the time. Things were still so new and they still had a long road ahead of them when it came to actually getting to know each other outside of sex.  No one know how awful things would go; they all thought they had so much time left.  She and Tyler would travel together and see if there was the chance of something real developing; if there were feelings that extended past pure, animalistic lust. And G would return to his wife and they'd start the family they so desperately wanted.

And then everything changed. In the blink of an eye. G never made it out of that forest. At least not alive. And she'd end up spending the next few months practically living at the hospital; getting to know her future husband in the midst of all of the pain and the surgeries and the therapies.  And maybe, in a way, things were better because of it. Because they'd started things off in the darkest and most worrisome of places.   It couldn't get much worse than the immediate aftermath of Dhaka. Not by a long shot.

“What's a matter?” Tyler asks, when she squeezes her eyes shut.

“I was just thinking about something,” she opens her eyes and gives a reassuring smile. “About someone actually. G.”

He frowns.

“Not like that! Just something he said. When we were in the forest. I haven't thought about it in over six years.”

“What was it about?”

“You, actually.”

He arches an eyebrow.

“It was all good, I swear.  He was actually talking you up. Putting in a good word for you. And it must have worked. Because here we are.”

“Yeah...” he grins. “...here we are.”

He leans down to kiss her.  Longer this time. Deeper. Not pulling away when he feels her tongue slip between his lips and press against his teeth; allowing his mouth to open and meeting her tongue with his. It's the most intense kiss they've shared in three and a half months; complications in the last trimester making things complicated and worrisome and forcing all thoughts -and need- of sex right out the window. And he feels one of her hands in his hair, the other slipping up the back of his t-shirt, needy fingers exploring his muscles. “You shouldn't kiss me like that,”  he's breathless when he pulls away, and shivers when her nails slowly travel down his spine. “Or do that.”

“You kissed me first,” she argues. “So this is your fault.”

“Yeah but you're the one feeling me up,” he points out, back stiffening, teeth biting down on his bottom lip when those nails drift along the small of his back, just under the waist of his jeans.

“I can't help it. I can't help if if sexy lumberjacks turn me on.”

He chuckles at that, then buries his face in her neck with a frustrated groan.  “I don't think it's just sexy lumberjacks.”

“You're right.  It's just you in general. And by the feel of things...” she lifts her hips, so her body comes in contact with his crotch. “...you're kind of turned on too.”

“Kinda? There's no kinda in this.”

“There are other things,” she reminds him, as her fingertips -still under the waist of his jeans- slide around to his stomach.  “We just can't have actual sex.”

“I told you. I won't be able to stop at just other things.”

“Get it together, Tyler. You're almost forty one.  You're more than capable of stopping at the other stuff. Please?”  her mouth is against his ear; breath warm against it.  And his entire body shudders when she traces the outer edge with the tip of her tongue. “I just really miss you. And I really...really...really need you get me off.”

“You can't do it yourself? I've had to do it myself. For three months.”

“I could. But I want you to do it. Because I miss you and you're so good at. So very, very, very good. Please?” her teeth scrape against his earlobe. “Pretty please?”

“Esme....you know this is a bad idea...”

“How can something that feels this good be a bad idea? We're not having sex. We're just making each other feel good. Wouldn't you rather me do it for a change? Instead of having to do it for yourself?”

“I would actually,” he admits.

“Then...” her lips are on his neck now; kissing, sucking, biting. “...what the hell's your issue?”

“No issue. I just...fuck...” he groans, when her tongue finds that scar on the side of his neck. “...maybe we should go inside.”

“Let's stay here. I can actually make noise out here.”

He grins, then reaches for the ties on the front of her pants. “Very good point.”

Her eyes close and she gives a long, content sigh when his palm comes in contact with her pussy, and he finds her hot and wet; her entire body shuddering when he presses the tip of his index fingers against her clit. She won't last long. He can hear it in her ragged breathing, feel it in the way her entire body tenses, and how her greedy, frantic fingers pop open the button on his jeans. And he groans against her neck at even the simplest of touch; painfully hard and leaking precum, hips jerking against her hand when her thumb brushes over the engorged tip.  

It's like being a teenager again; frantically making out, hoping to get off before being caught, lasting just as long. Only a handful of minutes before she's demanding that he kiss her as the orgasm hits, all noise muffled by his mouth against hers. And when her hand tightens around him and picks up pace, he's coming as well, face buried in her neck as he issues a long drawn out “Fuck”.

Neither of them moves of speaks for what feels like hours, and eventually Tyler rolls over onto his back, a forearm over his eyes, his chest heaving. He'd missed it. Missed her. But it wasn't until now that he realized just how much.

She snuggles into him, an arm across his stomach, head on his chest. And he drops a kiss on the top of her head and softly strokes her back.

“Thank you,” she sighs, and then giggles, and he can't help but laugh.

“No. Thank you,” he says.

Another sigh, then raises her head long enough to place a kiss to his chin.

He pushes a hand through her hair, letting it fall to the space between her shoulders. “I love you.”

“So that's what it takes to get an 'I love you',” she teases.

The words come easily to him now, but the first eight months of marriage had been a struggle for him when it came to saying them. His first foray into being a husband hadn't ended well; he'd broken her with his decision to leave while their son was dying, but not before she'd broken him by cheating multiple times while he was stationed overseas.  It had made falling in love difficult, but had made expressing it even more difficult. Now he says it all the time. Never missing the opportunity to tel her. And vice versa.

“I do you know,” he says. “Love you.”

“I know you do,” she rubs his stomach softly, smiled up at him. “I love you too.”

He kisses her temple, then tightens his hold on her. Wishing they could stay like that...lying on this beach...forever.

[enbyleighlines]

Ooohh wangxian first kiss please! Thank you!

Another drabble prompt finished! I’m so happy, I got like five of them in a row and I’m slowly but surely making my way through them.

(I’ll still take more prompts tho. I love exploring this au so much)

And now, modern wangxian’s first kiss...

—

Their first kiss is an accident. And it starts on a day just like any other...

It’s ridiculous how happy Wei Wuxian is, these days. He didn’t realize he was such a sucker for domestic shit, but he is.

It’s been about six months since Wei Wuxian has moved in with his best friend and secret crush Lan Wangji. Their arrangement allows them to co-parent A-Yuan, whose own surviving family members can’t afford another hungry mouth to feed. It’s a good thing they’re doing, certainly, but it’s not like Wei Wuxian is being entirely selfless. He loves little A-Yuan, who is now three.

Their situation is so generically domestic that Wei Wuxian can’t help but call out, “Honey, I’m home!” whenever he returns from work.

Lan Wangji, the man of infinite patience, doesn’t point out that the joke has long since gone stale. Instead, he scoops up A-Yuan from where the toddler is no doubt building block towers underneath his desk, and brings him to the front door to greet Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji gets to work from home, the lucky bastard. Wei Wuxian dreams of being able to do the same someday, once his comic series starts generating enough money for him to quit his retail job.

“Xian-gege,” A-Yuan calls down at Wei Wuxian as he bends to untie his shoes, “Welcome home!”

This is their routine. It makes Wei Wuxian so unbelievably happy.

“Hello there, A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian says, as soon as he straightens back up. He goes to give the toddler his daily evening smooch: a big ol’ wet one, right on the forehead.

It never fails to make A-Yuan squeal in equal parts disgust and delight.

That’s another part of their routine. But today, Wei Wuxian is on autopilot, even more so than usual, and without thinking, he places a similarly exaggerated kiss on Lan Wangji’s cheek.

Wei Wuxian realizes his mistake just a split-second too late and jerks back.

Lan Wangji... is making an expression that Wei Wuxian has never seen on his face before. The spot where Wei Wuxian’s lips touched his skin shines a little with saliva.

Wei Wuxian, for once, has no words.

The only person left in the room with a functioning brain is A-Yuan. He looks between them, aware that something has changed, but not able to comprehend what or why. “Xian-gege?” He asks.

Wei Wuxian glances at A-Yuan. His mind is in overdrive. Should he brush this off? Turn it into a joke? Or should he apologize and explain he did it without thinking?

Lan Wangji doesn’t wait for Wei Wuxian to make a decision. “Here,” he says, unceremoniously depositing A-Yuan into Wei Wuxian’s arms, “I should go start dinner.” And then he leaves.

Wei Wuxian notices that Lan Wangji has not yet wiped his cheek.

“A-Yuan, oh A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian murmurs into the kid’s hair, “What do I do now?”

A-Yuan adorably misunderstands the question. “Watch TV,” he says, looking unfairly proud of himself for knowing the answer.

It’s so cute that Wei Wuxian forgets his anxiety. “Okay,” he replies, “TV it is.”

—

After watching three consecutive episodes of the mind-numbing children’s programming, Wei Wuxian has all but forgotten about the incident.

When they eat dinner together, all three of them, it’s as pleasant as always. It’s also very quiet. But that, too, is not unusual, since Lan Wangji has an odd rule about not talking during meals.

Wei Wuxian only remembers what he accidentally did when he’s tucking A-Yuan into bed. It’s his turn to read the boy a bedtime story, which he does brilliantly, character voices and all. Once done, he turns off the lamp, and pets A-Yuan’s head until he’s visibly losing the struggle to stay awake.

A-Yuan curls onto his side, a sure sign that he’s about to surrender to sleep. “Night night, Xian-gege,” he mumbles.

As Wei Wuxian bends down to give him his soft goodnight kiss on the cheek, he suddenly recalls, in alarming detail, how he had kissed Lan Wangji before. He winces, and finishes the rest of their nighttime ritual with mechanical movements.

Things get a hundred times more awkward when Wei Wuxian stands up to find Lan Wangji lurking in the doorway.

“Lan Zhan...?” Wei Wuxian whispers, as he tiptoes over.

Lan Wangji doesn’t answer until he’s finished closing the door to A-Yuan’s room. And then, “I texted Xiongzhang. Asked him for advice.”

“Huh?” Wei Wuxian tries and fails to comprehend what Lan Wangji means by that.

Lan Wangji’s expression is so intense, it could split cinderblocks! But his voice is very soft as he explains. “About earlier,” he clarifies, “When you... kissed me.”

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian panics. Why did Lan Wangji need advice about that?

“He said I should ask you,” Lan Wangji continues, “So I’m going to do that. Wei Ying... why did you kiss me?”

Wei Wuxian wants to sink through the floorboards. “I... just did it without thinking,” he admits.

“Oh.” The hallway is kind of dark, but Lan Wangji looks... disappointed?

Wei Wuxian decides to take a bold leap into the unknown. “I said I did it without thinking,” he amends, “but I think it was also like a physical Freudian slip?”

“Oh?” Lan Wangji clenches his hands into fists. “How... so?”

Oh, God. Is Lan Wangji really going to make him spell it out? Despite what others may say, Wei Wuxian’s face isn’t thick enough for this!

But Wei Wuxian does it anyway.

“I wanted to kiss you,” Wei Wuxian says, “That is, I think about kissing you a lot. So, when I was on autopilot, I just acted on impulse.”

Lan Wangji touches his cheek, as if he can still feel the press of Wei Wuxian’s lips. “You wanted... to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian confirms, and adds, because he might as well go all the way, “I like you a lot, Lan Zhan. That is to say... I fancy you, I have the hots for you, I’ve been struck with Cupid’s arrow—“

Wei Wuxian does not get to finish his long and needlessly theatrical confession. His breath has been stolen.

Lan Wangji is kissing him. On the mouth. With his mouth!

Wei Wuxian melts into the embrace, hands curling into the folds of Lan Wangji’s rolled-up sleeves. Lan Wangji’s lips are warm and slightly chapped. It adds a delicious friction against the sensitive skin of Wei Wuxian’s inner lip that has him shivering down to the base of his feet. He tilts his head for a better angle, and their mouths slot together like they had been sculpted for this very purpose.

Wei Wuxian’s nerves are firing off like fireworks all over his body. He can feel Lan Wangji’s breath, can taste the other man’s skin, and it’s very overwhelming.

They part for air and immediately surge back together, bolder and hungrier. The slide of skin becomes smoother and slicker as their kiss deepens. There’s a faint scrape of teeth at one point and Wei Wuxian nearly crumbles to the floor in ecstasy.

He has never been happier.

Finally, Lan Wangji breaks their kiss. Wei Wuxian tries to chase his lips, wanting to sample Lan Wangji’s tongue, but he’s held in place with firm hands.

“I like you a lot, too,” Lan Wangji says.

“Oh God, I would hope so!” Wei Wuxian finds himself laughing at the absurd delayed confession. At Lan Wangji’s confused and slightly wounded look, Wei Wuxian elaborates, “I hope you don’t go around kissing people you don’t like like that.”

“No, never.” Lan Wangji looks offended by the very suggested. “Only... Wei Ying.”

That sucks the breath out of Wei Wuxian as efficiently as their earlier kiss. “Only me?” He repeats, “Lan Zhan... was that your first kiss?”

“Mn.”

“Me, too!” Wei Wuxian leaps into Lan Wangji’s arms. “I was saving my kiss for someone special,” he says, “Lan Zhan, I’ve been saving it for you! All this time! I’m certain of it!”

Lan Wangji looks broken. But also, somehow, happy. “Wei Ying...”

“I love you, Lan Zhan!”

“Love you... Wei Ying...”

This time, when they kiss, both of them are teary-eyed. It makes their movements sloppy.

Of course, neither one cares.

It’s true that their first kiss is an accident. But for Wei Wuxian, it’s the happiest accident of his life.

[pocminiseries]

At Midnight|3

❤︎

The tension in the air was thick and uncomfortable.

Imani's eyes refused to meet her fiance's gaze that had been staring a hole into her back since she stepped out of the shower. He had scared her when she spotted him undoing his tie near the bed, barely even speaking a word to him.

What was there to say?

Instead of making an unnecessary attempt at conversation, she sat in front of her vanity and started her nightly routine. With her detangling brush in one hand, she started brushing her hair, feeling Jayden move about around their bedroom. She hated that he was here.

He had made it a routine of coming home late but now all of a sudden he was home right after he was done with work? It was bullshit but Imani had a feeling of what changed.

He no longer needed to hide.

"So we're not speaking now?" His gruff voice suddenly asked, causing her eyes to finally meet his as he stood behind her with his shirt now unbuttoned, exposing his muscled chest.

"I have nothing to say," Imani shrugged, putting down her brush and picking up her favorite scented lotion.

"You're going to be my wife soon Imani, communication is needed in every relationship," He informed her, almost causing Imani to roll her eyes. This muthafu-

"Work is fine. I'm fine. There, happy?" She answers, giving him an annoyed look before applying lotion along her legs.

His deep chuckle sent a chill down her spine because it was so sinister sounding. "Fix that attitude and address me correctly. You know better," He warns, placing one of his hands on her shoulder. "You know the role you're playing here don't you?"

Glancing his hand on her shoulder, then towards his dark eyes, Imani shrugged his hand off of her. "Yes, the one of your fiance. The one you proposed to. The one you're willing to say I do to under the watchful gaze of God but clearly, I'm not the only one you seek,"

The grin on his handsome face only seemed to grow at her words, not at all fazed by what she said. "As long as you know your place, Imani. Faithe is none of your concern. Do what is expected of you and everything will be fine. If not...you know I'm always willing to make another example out of you,"

The hate Imani had for Jayden only seemed to grow the more he talked, irking her brain even more. "You're right, it isn't my business but the next time you think about having your mistress in my bed, I'll put a bullet in her head and into her stomach as she carries your unborn child," She threatened, feeling an intense sting to her cheek as her head snapped back from his slap to her face a few seconds later.

With watery eyes, Imani held her left cheek as she stared up at him with hatred. "Watch yourself, Imani. That reckless mouth of yours will cost you problems, especially speaking on my seed. I'll warn you once, keep your fuckin mouth shut,"

"Or what?! You can't hurt me Jayden, yo daddy will kil-"

"No, bitch, I'll kill you," He cut in with that evil tone and look upon his face. "My dad doesn't run shit around here, I do and it's best you learn that," The grip he had on her arm tightened, causing her to wince.

"Please! If you had any say, you'd be marrying Faithe, not me," Imani retorted back, flinching when he raised his free hand again only to caress her heated skin.

"Don't get it twisted Imani, I want you...I mean look at you," He acknowledged, looking her over as he admired her beauty. "You know how many men out there that want you? But they can never have you because you belong to me and once I'm done with you...nobody will want you, I can promise you that,"

She was scared and Jayden could sense it. Her mouth was something lethal sometimes but he knew how to put her in her place. "I love you, Imani, I really do. I can make you happy. All you have to do is accept my lifestyle and everything you could ever want I'll give to you," He cooed, bending down to kiss her bruised cheek.

"Be obedient, that's all I ask," With that, he took a step back and headed straight for the bathroom, leaving Imani alone to pick herself up.

Her head shook as she fought to keep herself together. This couldn't be life.

How dare he?

Her fingers barely graced her cheek as she let out a hiss in pain, finally tasting the iron in her mouth. He damn near slapped her head off of her shoulders. Hearing the shower turn on after a few minutes, Imani sprung into action, knowing she couldn't just stay here tonight. Not after what he said or did to her face.

Pulling on a pair of sweats and a simple graphic t-shirt, she slipped her feet into a pair of sneakers and tossed her still slightly wet curls into a messy bun on top of her head. Quickly grabbing her purse and keys, she all but powerwalked out the door, carefully closing it behind her and hastily headed towards her car. She didn't even bother with a seatbelt, pulling out of her driveway as soon she started it up.

Only her soft sniffles could be heard as she drove to a random gas station a little ways into the city. Maybe she would come to regret this in the morning but she didn't care. 

Even when Jayden blew up her phone, she ignored his calls and texts, not bothering to read them.

Her options were limited and he knew that. Jayden, along with his father had eyes and ears everywhere so she knew she had little time to figure something out. She couldn't turn to her friends because they knew all of them, not as if she had many to begin with.

Going to her parents was out of the question, they would only hand her over because of fear.

She was at a complete loss.

Sitting back against her seat, Imani reached for her purse and pulled out her wallet, looking through the few bills that she had when she came across a familiar card. One that she had forgotten about since that night he had given it to her.

Imani hadn't seen him since her scare inside of the women's bathroom at the restaurant. Once she had blatantly told him what was happening to her, she had quickly realized what she had done and clumsily fled out of the bathroom stale with him calling after her. She felt embarrassed that she exposed herself to him like that.

No one knew about her disease or how much it was infecting her. It was just another part of bad karma embedding itself into her life, so Imani simply accepted it. What more could she do?

Still, as she looked down at Leo's card the words he said to her at the gala replayed so vividly in her mind..."When you need me, come find me".

Biting her lip, she read the number and grabbed her phone and nervously dialed, throwing all caution to the wind. As it started to ring, her eyes glanced at the clock that read exactly midnight when she heard his smooth voice on the other end.

"Hello,"

For a second she hesitated, almost hitting the end button, knowing deep down what she was about to do was a mistake but the words she said next seemed to leave her mouth with no warning. "You told me when I needed you to find you and...I-..." She faltered, too afraid to let the words leave her mouth but Leo had heard all he needed to hear, recognizing Imani's serene tone immediately.

"Did he hurt you?"

Imani swallowed, biting into her lip in an attempt to force back her sobs, failing miserably as her emotions began to get the best of her. "Yes..." She choked out, gripping the steering wheel with her free hand.

"Follow the address I sent you...I'll be waiting," He instructed, just as Imani felt her phone vibrate against her cheek. "Be careful," He adds before ending the call.

Reading the text that he sent with his address attached to it and typed it into her GPS. In seconds she had started up her engine and pulled off onto the freeway, following the directions carefully. The entire drive she wandered of what would or could happen when she arrived. She didn't know a thing about him but she truly didn't have anywhere else to go.

It was literally the only place that Imani knew that Jayden wouldn't be able to find her at. The consequences were worth the risk.

Forty minutes had past when she had found herself driving down a gravelly road that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere until a beautiful two-story home came into her view. She could make out two cars that sat in the driveway as she put her own in park and cut the engine. As soon as she removed her keys from the ignition, the light on the porch was flicked on and out steeped the silhouette of Leo.

Nervously, Imani exited her car and closed it behind her. Her eyes stayed glued to him the entire time she moved up his walkway and to the steps, losing her footing when she saw that he was shirtless. She barely noticed him reaching for her and helping her inside until the sound of his front door closing filled her ears.

Imani knew that she probably looked a mess with her red eyes from crying after she told herself not to. Her cheek probably an ugly color of red and purple which Leo noticed immediately under the light in his entryway.

Grabbing a hold of her hand, he silently led them upstairs and straight to his bathroom. With ease he lifted her up onto his counter and begin to fix up her face, starting with her rinsing out her bloody mouth.

"You're hiding from him," He states knowingly, holding up an ice pack to her cheek. "I'm aware of who your fiance is, Imani...you're safe with me,"

Imani couldn't pinpoint it, but there was just something about the way he said that that sent a wave of relief through her veins. "I can't stay long," She reveals to him, knowing that somehow, someway Jayden would find her.

Moving a piece of hair from her face, Leo took in the beauty in front of him, taking special notice of the fear in her eyes. "You can but you're just too afraid of what he'll do,"

The fact that he could read her so easily was terrifying. "He'll kill you if he finds me here,"

Leo smirks at that. "He can try but I can assure you, he won't succeed," He casually states, knowing very well what he was capable of. Imani was completely clueless of the deadly man she had standing between her legs.

Though he was attempting to live a normal life, his skills still remained intact. He wasn't one to be tested.

"Why are you so nice to me?" She questioned softly, closing her eyes. To trust someone so easily was foolish but she has felt so safe whenever she was around him.

"Because you seem to need someone and I don't believe coming across you at that moment was a coincidence," He told her half truthfully. In reality, when his eyes had first landed on her at the gala he was intrigued. "Tell me I'm wrong?"

"Are you my savior in all this?" She asks instead, opening her eyes to look over his face.

"If that's what you need me to be," He easily claims, not being the one to lie.

A low chuckle slips past Imani's lips at that. "My problems...my issues...they run deep you know? I'm literally dying with no way out,"

"That was before you met me, Imani. I can fix whatever you need me to," Solving conflicts or issues was a specialty of his. It just usually ended up with someone dying by the end of it.

"This type of brokenness can't be fixed, Leo," No matter how fine this man was or how willing he was to help her...she could never have him as she wanted.

"You doubt me but you ending up here with me was because this was where you wanted to be, no matter what excuse you try telling yourself,"

Maybe he was right. Maybe she did want to be here but that made her nervous. Imani knew that if she crossed that line with him, it wouldn't be some one-time thing. No. Whatever this was between them was something deep and once she gave in, there would be no turning back.

And that alone scared her.

[kinkstuffig]

Feel Me

*Soulmate AU where the injuries of your soulmate show up on your own body*

Ash glanced down at his leg. The purple stain of a bruise was slowly fading. It didn’t cause him any pain, obviously. It belonged to the person who he would love in the future. His soulmate. Who seemed to end up with random bruises fairly often and in the strangest places. 

He was glad that he was the only one who could see these injuries. One of the more recent had been a black eye and swollen lip combo, as if someone had beaten him over the head with something. He felt really bad for his soulmate. They had to walk around school and everywhere with everyone else able to see. Whoever they were, these bruises weren’t something you could get by just being clumsy. 

Generally, Ash didn’t really pay attention to his soulmates injuries. In the past, they had been more commonplace. A scraped knee, a paper cut, a blister or two. More recently they had been very heavy. Ash was fairly sure that his soulmate was being beaten. He wished he knew who it was so he could do something about it. No one deserved this. 

A few days later

In the middle of his math class, Ash began to feel very strange. There was a tightening in his chest. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. There was something wrong happening. He could feel it. He needed to stop it but he didn’t know what it was. 

Ash excused himself from class, before going to hide in the school library. Hopefully no one would find him there. The panicked feeling grew. He tapped his fingers nervously on the floor. It was nerve racking, not knowing what was going to happen.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his wrist. He nearly cried out but he bit his lip instead, tasting blood in his mouth. Raising his wrist to eye level, he saw a thin red line forming over the blue veins crisscrossing his skin. 

No, he thought. No. 

Another line appeared below the first, this one obviously deeper than the last. It was accompanied by a sort of burning ache. 

Why, he asked himself. Why would they do this?

More lines crawled their way up his arm, beads of blood bubbling out of them. 

Stop, he whispered. Please. 

The line forming on his palm paused. It seemed to be deciding whether it would continue. Then it pressed deeper than the others, cleaving the skin so that it split away. 

Ash closed his hand, unwilling to look at the gruesome sight. He curled up in a ball, trying to figure out what he was going to do. He attempt to block these thoughts from his mind but every time he shut his eyes or even looked down, there they were, glaring up at him like evil grins.

There wasn’t really anything he could do, was there?

He returned to his classes and when he got home, he dug around in his closet until he found an old pair of fingerless gloves. That and an old hoodie would be his attire until these scars faded. He couldn’t bear to look at the gashes inflicted on himself. Some voice in the back of his head whispered that this was his fault. He could have prevented this.

Ash pulled his black beanie down over his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He needed some rest after the night he’d had. His teacher had other plans. “Wake up, Young Man. What I’m telling you now is important. You’ll use it the rest of your life.”

Bay struggled to keep his eyes open. He was so exhausted but he really needed to pay attention. His head slumped forward but he snapped it back up again in time to see the teacher yelling at another student. This teacher was quite brutal. He felt bad for the poor soul.

But he had his own problems to worry about. “Sir?” Bay raised his hand timidly. 

“What is it?” the teacher snapped, turning his frustration from the other student to Bay. 

“I’m not feeling well. May I go see the nurse?”

“Oh my god!” the teacher growled. “Have you not been paying attention? I was just explaining to this young man how essential this unit is to your education. You will not survive in this world if you haven’t memorized the concept of conversions. Why don’t students ever listen to me?”

The teacher rambled on but Bay just tuned him out. It was getting more and more easy to do that with adults. Unfortunately, he was actually beginning to feel ill. In fact-

Bay stood up from his seat and quickly walked out of the room. Once in the hallway, he ran to the bathroom and was violently sick. Nothing came up but it was awful just the same.

Ash had watched the scene play out with zero emotion. He was too tired for this bullshit. Why were teachers such assholes? The teacher was now calling the office to warn teachers about a runaway student. Ash put his head down on his desk. He didn’t feel well. He could have gone to the nurse but he was too tired to deal with this shit. The teacher must have given up on forcing children to learn, because Ash didn’t wake up until the bell rang and he had to go to his next class. The world spun for a moment as he stood up but he just brushed it off. The tacos he’d had last night were probably just disagreeing with him.

Bay stood up from his spot by the toilet and immediately sat back down again. If He was too dizzy to stand up, how was he supposed to get to the nurse? He hauled himself up again and leaned on the wall until he thought he could support his own weight again. He was able to make it out to the hall when the bell rang. Passing time. The worst time to be extremely off balance and disoriented.

Bay staggered around, confused, until somebody bumped into him and he fell over. He groaned at the thought of having to get up again. He just wanted to lay down and sleep. 

“Hey, are you alright?”

A boy with shaggy dark hair and a concerned expression was bending over him. 

“Mmm.” Bay made an incoherent noise and shook his head. Everything was too loud and he wanted to hide in a dark room and make it all go away.

“Shh shh it’s ok. Let me help you up. I’ll take you to the nurse.” The boy with black hair reached out a gloved hand. Bay took it and was surprised at the strength used to haul him to his feel. He swayed and an arm was looked around his waist, holding him upright. 

“Wow. You were not lying about being sick earlier.”

Bay made a confused face and The black haired boy explained they shared a math class. They reached the nurse’s office and the boy dropped him off. Bay was sooo happy to lie down on a cot and finally get some sleep. 

The nurse shook Bay’s shoulder. “Honey, you need to get up now.”

“Five more minutes,” he mumbled. 

She shook a tiny bit harder and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. 

“Do you want to go back to class now or do you need to go home? I can call your parents if..”

“I’ll go back to class,” Bay answered quickly. He stood up quickly and swayed. The nurse pushed him back down. 

“If you have a transferable disease, I’m afraid you will have to go home. Let me take your pulse.” She grabbed his wrist. He pulled away slightly and his sleeve moved, exposing a few scabs.

“Oh honey, what’s that?”

Bay yanked his hand away from her. “It’s nothing. I just fell on some glass. I’m fine. Best get going. Can’t miss human bio.” He stood up a bit more slowly and made his way to his next class as fast as he possibly could. 

Ash stood in the shower, rubbing shampoo into his hair. He loved the way bubbles felt on his skin. It was a guilty pleasure of his, one which he didn’t bother to share with anyone. Suddenly he felt the panic. Though it was routine for him now, it always upset him. Today the red lines cross crossed his thighs. “No more ripped jeans for me,” he sighed. The pain was greater than usual, which was surprising since the cuts were usually deep anyway. He looked down to see his own blood swirling down the drain. At first he thought it was just part of their connection, a more intense projection of emotions. But when he ran his fingers over the cuts, blood came off on his fingers and everything stung under the water. His soulmate had cut too deep, cut into him. 

Ash got out of the shower. He tried to bandage the cuts but they kept bleeding through. This was too much for him to handle. He went to bed, hoping that when he woke up, all of this would disappear. 

In the morning, he’d forgotten about previous nights events until he caught a glance of himself in the mirror. There were newly healed scars from his elbows to his shoulders and scabbed over cuts from his elbow to his wrist. The cuts on his thighs were just barely shut and some were still sleeping blood. There were a few thin lines on his torso and by his ankles. There was so much destruction it hurt to look at it. 

Ash dressed in some black sweats and a hoodie, hoping to hide the evidence, deceive himself again. But he couldn’t get the images out of his head. He left first period and hid in the library to cry. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this but he just couldn’t handle this anymore. He wished he could help whoever it was that felt this was necessary. He didn’t want to live seeing these everyday. Depression covered him like a blanket.

Bay limped to his English class. His leg burned but he needed to finish his essay and how was he supposed to do that in a hospital? The teacher announced they would be working in the library and Bay almost cheered. That was his favorite place to be in this school. It was very quiet and easy to concentrate. People didn’t mine if he went off in a corner to work by himself. Sometimes he’d even stay there a while a skip his other classes. 

He needed another source for his essay on rare marine iguanas, so he headed to a shelf. Unlike many of the people in his generation, he preferred books over internet sites. They had a certain thing about them that made them more comfortable, familiar, and personal. As he scanned the bottom row, he saw a tuft of black hair behind a book about macaws. He turned the corner to find a seemingly familiar figure lying on the floor. 

At first he thought the person was asleep but when he knelt down beside them, he saw golden brown eyes searching his face. “Hey,” he began shyly. “Remember me? Sorry I didn’t catch your name the other day. I’m Bay. Thanks for helping me. I was pretty out of it.”

The other figure, who appeared masculine, sat up scrubbing his face with his sleeve. “Don’t mention it.” His voice was strained and rough sounding. “I’m Ash.” He held out his fingerless leather gloved hand. Bay shook it.

“I know this is none of my business but may I ask what you’re doing in here? I’m supposed to be working on an essay, but it looks like you were… brainstorming.”

Ash laughed, though his eyes weren’t smiling. “You could say that. Definitely had some deep thoughts to think.” His face merged back into a frown. 

Bay took a deep breath. “Do you think you could use a friend to help you think?”

“Friends are always welcome,” Ash said, smiling again.

“Great.” Bay scooched over next to Ash. “So… what is on your mind?”

“Well,” Ash looked down. “This is sort of awkward.” 

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Bay encouraged. “You’ve already seen me in one of my worst moments.”

“I-I have a friend that hurts them self. They keep doing it often and a lot. It makes me very upset because I want to know why they feel this way. Im worried about them. I’m afraid of… what could come next.”

Bay wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. What do you tell someone when they tell you their friend self-harms? He decided the best option was comfort and he reached over to Ash and hugged him.

Ash was very surprised. He wasn’t used to getting hugs from other boys. Not that he had anything against bugs. In fact, this one felt kind of nice. He relaxed into it. Bay stopped panicking as soon as the tension drained out of Ash. 

“Thanks,” Ash said, gruffly. He was starting to tear up but he didn’t want to cry again in front of Bay. “It’s very kind of you to want to help me.”

“Anything for a friend.”

“This is nice, but I really should go back to class now.” Ash pulled out of the hug. Bay felt a tiny bit emptier as Ash’s body heat left him but he tried to ignore it.

“See ya.” He gave a little wave. 

“Bye.” 

They both stood up, Ash preparing to leave and Bay now scanning this shelf for research materials. 

Ash turned around as he reached the end of the shelf. “Hey, can I get your number?”

“Sure…” Bay’s voice trailed off. He was feeling extremely lightheaded.

“Bay?” Ash said concernedly. He ran forward to catch Bay as he fell. Ash held the unconscious boy in his arms for a second, trying to take in the situation. A kid had just passed out in the library. He should really tell an adult but he didn’t want to leave Bay unattended. The teachers were all on the other side of the library, making this the perfect place for crying and working quietly. It was not, however, the perfect place to deal with a medical emergency.

Thankfully Bay’s eyes opened a few seconds later. “W-what?” He mumbled.

Ash gently layer him down on the floor. “You just passed out. Do you remember your name and where you are? Does anything hurt?”

“I’m Bay and this is the school library. And… now that you mention it, I’ve got a killer headache.” He covered his eyes and made an uncomfortable sounding noise. 

“Don’t move, I’ll be right back.” Ash walked quickly to the water fountain and back, hoping he wouldn’t be caught. Food and water wasn’t allowed in the library, as it could damage the books and computers. Ash really didn’t want to get in trouble right now.

“Here. Drink this. it should help.”

Bay took the water bottle and sipped slowly. “It still hurts. But I guess dehydration doesn’t go away in a second.”

“Nope. Is that why you passed out you think?”

“Yea. Probably. I never drink enough water.”

“We should probably tell an adult about this, just in case it turns out to be something a bit more serious.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine.” To prove his point Bay pushed himself up into a sitting position. His eyes were squinting from the pain in his head.

“Did you eat anything today?” Ash asked, wondering if there could be another possible cause for the episode, but not wanting to alarm Bay with talk of adults and doctors.

“Not yet. I never have breakfast.”

“Did you bring a lunch?”

“I forgot mine today and I don’t have money.”

“I’ll get you something.”

“It’s ok. I’m not hungry.”

“For later then.”

“No. Thanks, but really, I’m good.”

Ash sighed. This child definitely needed some calories in him but he was refusing anything Ash offered.

“Fine. I won’t get you anything.”

Bay almost sighed with relief, but then he caught himself.

“But you’re coming with me after school.”

Bay groaned.

“What? Is the prospect of going somewhere with me that undesirable?”

Bay blushed and laughed. “Never mind. See you then.”

The boys parted ways, Ash returning to a class he hadn’t left and Bay finishing his water before going to turn in some homework.

After school, the boys met in the school parking lot. 

“So, I’ll follow you?” Bay suggested.

“Nope. You’re riding with me. I don’t want you to accidentally make a wrong turn. Don’t worry. I’ll bring you back here to pick up your car after.”

“Okedoke.” Bay strapped himself into the passenger seat as Ash pressed the gas.

They drove through a town which they were both familiar with and stopped at a McDonalds. Bay’s hands began to sweat. He really didn’t like ordering things at restaurants. 

Ash held the door open for him and the bell chimed as they walked in. Bay looked up at the menu. There were so many choices. The words began to spin, calorie sections looming out at him.

“C’mon Bay. It’s our turn to order.” Ash grabbed Bay’s sleeve and tugged him to the counter. “I’ll have a large double bacon cheeseburger, large fries, a large soft drink, and  a large McFlurry in strawberry. Bay, what do you want?”

“Oh, I’m not hungry,” Bay muttered.

Ash mad a pouty face. “My treat?”

Bay panicked. What did they serve here anyway? He said the first thing that popped into his head. “Ummm, small fries and water please.”

“A small fries and a water it is then,” Ash beamed at the cashier.

“Coming right up,” the cashier replied cheerily. “You boys wait here.”

Why did you say that? Bay thought to himself. Stupid. Stupid. stupid. Do you have any idea how many calories are in that? Of course you do. The chart is right there idiot. And there are way too many. All that salt, all that grease. There’s nothing healthy about it. 

Their food came out of the kitchen and they took it to a table. Ash bit into his burger with gusto, sauce dripping onto his face and hands.

Bay stared down at his small fries. The smell made him nauseous. Thinking about eating them made him want to throw up. He counted them. 27 small fries. 27. That was too big a number to go inside his stomach. He looked up. Ash was watching him as he chewed mouthfuls of burger. Bay picked up the smallest of his twenty seven fries. He felt the salty grease on his fingers. He put it in his mouth he didn’t want it to be in his mouth. His stomach clenched. It would refuse anything thing he put in it. Should he spit this fry out and say it was burnt? He chewed slowly. He felt the crisp outside of the fry crunch against his teeth. The soft guts of mashed potato spilled out onto his tongue. It felt wrong in his mouth. He swallowed. The potato stuck in his throat. He swallowed again. Saliva pooled in his mouth. He was going to be sick. Bay drank some of his water. The mashed up fry was now in his stomach. He could feel it. It was warm compared to the rest of his stomach’s contents, which only consisted of the water from earlier. He didn’t like the way it felt in his stomach he wanted it out. He tried very, very hard not to throw up and waited for Ash to finish eating.

Ash let out a long belch. “Braaap. Hoo! That was a lot. I think I ate too much.” He poked his belly, which was pushing out from under his hoodie. 

“Me too,” Bay said quietly.

Ash looked at Bay with a confused expression. “You barely ate anything.”

Bay looked down. “I know. I wasn’t hungry today. Sorry. You can have the rest.”

“But what did you mean by-“

“Never mind.” Bay shook his head and pushed the rest of his fries toward Ash. “It’s nothing.”

“If you say so.” Ash took the extra fries but he chewed them with concern. Bay had been distant and sickly looking the whole time they’d been at the restaurant. He didn’t know Bay very well so this could have been his modus operandum but to Ash this seemed unhealthy. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Bay said,a little snappishly. A few minutes later, however,he looked even worse. “Could you excuse me for a minute? I need to use the restroom.”

“Sure. I’ll be outside in the car when you’re ready to go.” 

“Thanks.” Bay flashed a weak smile before getting up unsteadily and walking quickly to the washroom. 

Ash went to stand up and felt a sharp cramp in his middle. He looked down at his belly, which had definitely grown in size since the morning. He was way too full. Thinking about his new acquaintance had distracted him from his stomach’s aching until now. He didn’t feel very well. 

He thought he might be sick. He hadn’t thrown up since the third grade when he’d had the swine flu and he was a little afraid of doing it again. Ash hauled himself out of the booth and went into the washroom. He wanted to be prepared, just in case. As he opened the door, he heard retching from one of the stalls. Someone else was being sick. Maybe there was something in the food that was making him feel this way. 

The stall opened and Bay emerged. Feeling guilty for not waiting outside like he’d said he would, Ash his behind the door, watching through a crack. Bay washed his hands at the sink and rinsed out his mouth. He stared at himself in the mirror for a few minutes and Ash thought he say a tear trickle down Bay’s cheek. Then Bay scrubbed his face with cold water and turned to dry his hands. 

Ash ran out to the car, hoping he would be in and casual looking before Bay came out. He was very worried about the boy. He must be really ill to be having all these symptoms. 

Abruptly, something inside him shifted and Ash was feeling more uncomfortable than he had for a long while. He could feel everything he’d just swallowed churning in his gut, which wasn’t very happy with him. Ash thought his intestines might burst. He was really glad he hadn’t ordered dessert. 

Bay sat in front of the toilet, fingers down his throat. It seemed so normal, so routine, this ritual that he practiced after every forced feeding. If only he didn’t have to do this. If only it wasn’t needed. But he deserved it. He deserved this punishment. He felt awful, both emotionally and physically. 

With all his stomach’s meager contents safely in the toilet bowl, he stood up and flushed. The saliva clung to his hand in slimy strings. It was disgusting. He was disgusting. He ran his hands under the water, washing them thoroughly, and rinsed the acid taste he’d grown accustomed to out of his mouth.

Bay stared at his reflection in the dirty mirror. His lips were chubby. His arms were flabby. Even his face was fat. How could anyone bear to look at him? Why did he even bother existing? He felt a tear begin to trickle down his cheek. Being sentimental? “What a pussy. Man up, bitch ass,” he whispered to himself. 

He couldn’t be caught looking like he was crying, so Bay scrubbed his face until it looked normal, took a deep breath, and walked out to the car.

As he opened the door, Bay could see the pained expression on Ash’s face. The black haired boy was hunched over, his head resting on the steering wheel. He cradled his distended belly and moaned. 

“You ok?” Bay asked, already knowing the answer. 

Ash shook his head, not changing position, and moaned again. “That was way too much for any rational minded person to try and fit inside their body. But of course I’m the dumbass with eyes bigger than his stomach.”

“Can I help?” Bay queried, wanting to make his new friend more comfortable.

“Got any suggestions?”

“Well,” He said tentatively, “You could always, you know, get rid of it.”

“Nah, that’s a waste of money. And I really, really don’t like throwing up.” The last sentence came out more like a whimper as an especially powerful cramp squeezed Ash’s belly. He breathed in sharply, clenching his teeth.

“Do you think a belly rub would help?”

Ash looked over at Bay, who was nervously messing with his fingers. “Why not.” Ash groaned. “It can’t make it worse.”

Bay locked the car doors and helped Ash recline his seat back. Having his tender tummy exposed to someone else’s hands was a prospect Ash hadn’t considered for his first outing with a person. Bay gently pulled the lower part of Ash’s hoodie up, revealing a very swollen, very unhappy looking tummy. It bulged out, audibly sloshing and gurgling. An angry red line ran down the center, showing how much it had stretched. 

Bay placed his hands on it. They were still cold from the sink water and Ash pulled away in protest at first. Eventually, though, he pushed his hot middle into the cool soothing hands running across it. Bay’s talented fingers massaged out cramps and pressed into pockets of air, resulting in burps and embarrassed looks from Ash. 

Secretly, Bay loved the feeling of the taught, feverish skin against his fingertips. the elastic give of human skin was fascinating to him. Occasionally he would playfully poke the belly, gaining surprised yelps from its owner. 

Eventually, Ash’s belly had calmed down enough that it wasn’t drowning out their conversation with it’s gurgling and Ash’s pain was tolerable.

“So, did we learn a lesson about overdoing it today?” Bay asked playfully.

“I know I did,” Ash laughed. “But I can’t promise I won’t have to learn it again.” He paused and became a bit more serious. “What about you?”

“What about me?”Bay was suddenly wary. 

“I heard you in the bathroom. Are you sick?”

“No.” Bay bit his lip.

“Tell me the truth.” Ash really cared about his new friend. He knew something wasn’t right and he wanted to help him.

“I promise, I’m not sick,” Bay said, his face unreadable. “At least, not in the conventional way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ash demanded. 

“You can’t really drive right now,” Bay said, changing the subject. “Would you rather I drive you home and you take me back to school tomorrow or I drive you to school and you chill out there until you’re feeling better.”

Ash frowned. He could tell Bay was avoiding the subject and he knew he could get it out of him. “You didn’t answer my question. And why couldn’t we go to your house?”

“Well, you didn’t answer mine either.”

“I asked first.”

Bay shoved Ash over into the passenger seat. “Your house it is then. Address please?”

“Not until you answer my question.”

“My dad’s home. Address please?”

“Huh?”

“I answered your question. We can’t go to my house because my dad’s home. Address?” Bay was becoming visibly unsettled. Ash knew he really didn’t want to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him. 

“I’m not done with this,” Ash said quietly, before telling Bay the address. 

A few minutes later, the car pulled into the driveway of a one-story brick house in a residential neighborhood. It was small, but the bursting garden and light catchers in the window made it cozy and homelike. 

“Nice flowers,” Bay commented. He could smell the blooms without rolling down his window.

“It’s my mom’s thing. She likes crafts and projects. Gives her something to do. Keeps her from being bored.” Ash hauled himself out of the car. He could walk on his own and the food was settling, but his large belly was unmissable. 

They walked to the porch and Ash opened the door. “Hey Mom, I’m home,” he called as he stepped inside, beckoning for Bay to follow him. 

A chubby lady, seeming to be in her late forties and with a multitude of blonde curls came running towards them. She hugged Ash, probably a bit too tightly as his face changed color for a few seconds, and then stepped back. “Honey, you’re home kind of late. Anything you want to tell me?”

“Mom, this is my friend Bay. I took him out to a late lunch and brought him over to hang out. We left his car at the school so is it ok if he stays over?”

“Well, I don’t see why not darling. Should I cook up something extra scrumptious for dinner then?”

Bay shook his head slightly at Ash, pleading with his eyes. Ash complied. “Actually, we just finished and we’re really full. We might have overdone it. But thanks for the offer, Mom.”

“I can tell,” she said, playfully poking his belly. “Well, run along then. Don’t break anything.”

“I won’t, Mom.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Come on, Bay. I want you to meet my dog.”

The boys walked down a hallway and entered Ash’s room. It was as punk/emo/goth as you’re picturing, with band posters hung up everywhere. Dirty clothes, mostly in black, were scattered across the floor. An unmade bed- really a mattress with sheets- was tucked in one corner of the room, while a battered wooden dresser sat in the one diagonal from it. 

Ash flopped down on his bed, propping himself up with a few ratty pillows. Bay made himself a sort of nest out of the clothes on the floor, though he had a very strong urge to wash them, fold them neatly, and shove them all back into the dresser. 

They made small talk for a few minutes before Ash again brought up the dreaded subject. “Why aren’t you eating?”

The question caught Bay by surprise, even though he had been expecting it. He could feel the tears returning to his eyes and he really didn’t want to cry. “This topic makes me uncomfortable. Could we please not talk about it?” He asked meekly.

Ash felt bad for prying. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you upset. But this seems like a serious issue. I know we haven’t know each other that long but you’re my friend and I care about you.”

Bay’s heart pounded nervously. He hadn’t told anyone this before. But maybe he would feel better once it was out in the open. “I,” He began slowly. “I have an eating disorder.” He tensed, preparing for the blows he was used to but none came. He searched Ash’s face for signs of anger and disgust. Instead he found confusion.

“I’m sorry. I don’t really know what that is. Could you explain it for me please?” He looked genuinely curious, not like he was teasing, so Bay decided to risk it. 

“I just don’t eat. Or when I do, I purge it. If I can’t purge in time, then I punish myself but that doesn’t happen often.”

“Why?” This question was something Bay hadn’t exactly thought about before. He knew what he felt when he did it but the actual cause he wasn’t sure of. 

“I deserve it, I guess,” he answered.

“You know that doing that can result in death, right?” Though not intended or toned to be sarcastic, Bay felt like his trust had been betrayed already. 

“Like I said, I deserve it,” he muttered, no longer looking at Ash.

“You’re so young to die, though. You’ve got the whole rest of your life to do something great.” Ash honestly didn’t understand how anyone could want to die. Even on his worst days, like this one, he knew there were people he had to live for, people who needed him. He’d feel so guilty even considering the idea. 

“Everyone dies,” Bay said darkly, as he unlaced his shoe. “Why does it matter when it happens?

Ash didn’t really have an answer to that. He wasn’t sure what to say. He rolled over, leaving his back toward Bay. He needed some time to think. 

Now along with his soulmate, who’s life wasn’t great, he had another person to take care of. Not that he didn’t want to take care of people. It actually made him feel like he had a purpose. But these weren’t problems that he knew how to deal with. Ash did some googling for a while.

Bay had gotten his shoelace entirely out of his sneaker. He put it around his neck, above his choker, then tied it with a slip knot and pulled. He wasn’t actually going to kill himself of course. He knew his limit. This was just a game he played with himself when he was very upset. Sort of like how long can you hold your breath, except there were two ways to lose. 

Ash looked up. “Hey, stop that!” 

Bay turned towards him, letting go of the lace. “What?”

“You know what. Come here.” Ash looked frustrated. Bay was scared. Ash seemed nice but one could never be too sure. Bay slowly came over to Ash’s mattress and sat down. 

“You can’t do things like this.” Ash carefully untied the lace from Bay’s neck, sliding it into the pocket of his own hoodie. 

“Why not?” Bay asked petulantly.

“There are people who care about you, people who want you to be safe, to live. You’re scaring me. I knew that suicide was a thing but i’ve never met anyone who was suicidal.”  

“That you know of,” Bay added quietly. “People aren’t always as open about it as i am.”

“Oh.” Ash sat silently for a second. He hadn’t thought of that. Of course not everyone would say exactly what they were feeling. He knew he didn’t all the time. This was a lot to take in and Ash was still a little overwhelmed. He wanted some time to process everything but now he knew he had to keep an eye on Bay. 

“Let’s watch a movie,” Ash suggested. Bay nodded in agreement. Ash pulled up Netflix on his laptop and scooted Bay closer to him on the bed. Having both read Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for an English Lit assignment, the tv show Sherlock seemed like a good choice. 

They binge watched the first two seasons, becoming mesmerized by Benedict Cumberbatch’s acting skills and enjoying John Watson as a character. During dramatic moments, Ash used Bay’s entrancement as a cover to slowly get closer, first just touching fingers, then holding hands, and finally putting his arm around him. 

He hoped that Bay would see this as a friendly gesture, or possibly one meaning that the eerie soundtrack was affecting him. Really, however, these actions were to keep Bay from escaping. Ash was good at reading most people and knowing how they were feeling, or so he thought, but Bay was unpredictable. He didn’t know what Bay was capable of and he was slightly afraid that Bay might try something else untoward. 

This tactic was working so far. Bay had noticed the increasing closeness of his friend. He wasn’t sure in what context to put it but he knew that using the “I need to use the bathroom” excuse would no longer work. He was enjoying the film and the non-threatening physical contact was kind of nice. Bay tried to relax. It was going pretty well until Ash had yawned for the seventh time. 

Bay paused the show. “Are you getting tired? It’s only nine.”

“A bit, yea. A heavy meal does make one sleepy. It’s probably a good time for us both to turn in. I’ll have to take you back home tomorrow.”

That last sentence was the one that ruined it all. Home was not a happy place for Bay, nothing like it was for Ash. But he was already so freaked out that Bay didn’t dare tell him another awful thing. However, he’d already decided that he wasn’t going home. 

“Good idea. Do you mind if i leave the show playing though? TV helps me sleep.”

“Same. Sure, why not?”

Bay glued his eyes to the screen, determine not to fall asleep. The show was really good and he wouldn’t have wanted to miss any even if he didn’t also have ulterior motives. 

Ash eventually nodded off, his head slowly falling onto Bay’s shoulder, and his grip on Bay’s waist loosening. Bay waited until he could hear the heavy breathing of deep sleep. He was very practised at this.

Carefully, he slid Ash’s head onto a pillow and his arm around a stuffed goth bear. Bay was free. He eased open the door and stepped into the hall. Though it was very dark in Ash’s room (lights off, shades down, and dusky outside(perfect for watching netflix)), his parents were still awake so the lights were on. Bay’s eyes took a moment to adjust. 

He hadn’t really payed much attention to his surroundings before but now his instincts kicked in and he noticed more things. For instance, the carpet in this hallway was deep which would make it easier to walk quietly but the walls were papered with a cheery bluebell print on mustard yellow, a hard to keep clean color palette. A few feet forwards on the opposite wall was a white door he thought might lead to the bathroom. He shuffled down the hallway until he reached the living room. Ash’s mom was watching Criminal Minds and crocheting doilies out of neon green and orange yarn. A man Bay assumed was Ash’s father could be seen through a sliding glass door smoking cigarettes on a slightly run down patio. another doorway opened into what looked like a kitchen. 

Bay ran through his plan. Originally he had thought about trying to get sleeping pills but it would be hard to think of a plausible reason to need them, as it was only nine and people his age often didn’t sleep until much later. Complaining of a headache would be much more likely to happen.

Bay stepped out into the open. Ash’s mother looked up. “Oh, hello dear. Is there anything i can do for you?”

Bay put a hand to his forehead and made a pained expression. “I’ve got a killer headache. Do you have some aspirin or something?”

Ash’s mom frowned. “Normally i wouldn’t give medicine to a child that wasn’t my own.”

Bay turned his ‘i feel like i’m dying’ face up a notch.

“You look so pitiful. I suppose it can’t hurt. There’s some tylenol in the cabinet above the sink in the bathroom down the hall. Do you want me to get you a glass for water?”

“No thank you, ma’am.”

“Alright. I hope you boys are enjoying your sleepover.” She giggled to herself and winked at him slightly. 

Bay knew what she was implying but he just turned away and rolled his eyes. Entering the bathroom he saw a long counter with two sinks, above which were two mirror fronted cupboards. Behind the door was a toilet and next to it was a shower/bathtub combo. Bay reached into one of the cupboards and found the bottle of Tylenol. It was almost empty, only containing twelve tablets. Twelve would probably do the trick. Bay got some water from the tap and swallowed them all, then threw the bottle in the trash and waited. 

(One tablet is 500 mg. The highest dose allowed is 4000 mg in 24 hours, meaning 8 tablets.)

The clock on the wall said he’d been in the bathroom for an hour. Nothing had happened. He didn’t feel any different. Maybe if there had been more of them… He got up from the floor where he’d been sitting and went to open the door, planning to go back to bed. Instead he was face to face with a very worried looking Ash.

“What were you doing up?”

“I had to pee.”

“Really?”

“Why else would i be in the bathroom?”

“I dunno, you tell me.”

Bay was about to pretend to be offended when he noticed the unnaturally pale tinge to his friends face. 

“Are you ok?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You don’t look ok.”

“Ummm…” Before Ash could deny it, he was running to the toilet, holding his middle. He began vomiting, quite forcefully. Bay tried not to watch. The entire contents of Ash’s stomach were emptied into the porcelain bowl before he was able to sit back and pant.

“I guess all that McDonald’s didn’t settle so well,” Bay commented. 

“Shut up,” Ash gasped. 

At that moment, Ash’s mom appeared in the open doorway. “Oh my, Ash. You didn’t tell me you were feeling sick too.”

“Too?”

“Your friend here came to me with headache complaints a little bit ago and now here you are throwing up. I hope this isn’t a bug. You can’t afford to miss anymore days of school.”

Ash made an accusatory face at Bay before turning back to his mom. “I don’t think it’s a bug mom. My dinner just didn’t agree with me, that’s all. And Bay doesn’t drink enough water.”

“Will you be alright darling?” 

“We’ll be fine mom. Go back to your crafts.”

“Ok then.” She left the room, but still carried a worried expression. 

Ash turned to Bay as soon as she was gone. “What did you do?”

“What did i do? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ash was about to respond, but instead he hunched over and moaned. “Fuck, this hurts a lot.”

Silently, Bay regretted taking all of the tylenol. Ash could have used it now. Bay knelt down on the floor next to Ash. “Are you sure that this is from all that before? It seems a little intense compared to previously.”

“To be honest, i probably am sick.” Ash gritted his teeth as another cramp felt as though someone was stabbing him in the gut. “I just don’t want to worry my mom. She already thinks i have ‘problems’.”

Bay maneuvered his hands into the position they had been in when they were in the car. Gently, he tried to massage the pain away. He could tell by the way Ash tensed and relaxed that it was helping a little but not much. 

He wished he was a better person and not such a terrible fuck up. If he didn’t hate himself so much, Ash would make a really nice friend. But if he couldn’t love himself, how could he love someone else. 

Ash leaned back against Bay, whose arms were wrapped around him. “I’m tired.”

Ash’s hoodie smelled really nice. And he was soft. And suddenly Bay had a very strong urge to cuddle him. He lay his head on Bay’s shoulder and muttered a non-committal “mmmm”.

Ash woke up to the light streaming through his blinds and a searing pain in his abdomen. Also he was on his bed and Bay was spooning him, which was rather nice and he would have enjoyed it except for the part where he wanted to cry because of the pain. He curled in on himself, trying not to wake Bay up but ending up doing so anyway. 

“Hey,” Bay whispered. 

Ash just grunted. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he opened his mouth but he knew it wouldn’t be good.

“Are you ok?” Ash shook his head.

“Is it worse?” He nodded. 

“I’m gonna go get your mom,” Bay said worriedly. Ash tried to protest but Bay was insistent. “If it’s something serious, like an appendix, then we need to get you looked at right away. It’s better to be worried for a good reason than to not worry about true danger.”

Bay got Ash’s mom, who was making waffles in the kitchen, and told her the situation. While extremely flustered, she did know what to do. She went out and started the car, while Bay helped Ash get out to it. The pain was so bad, he could barely stand up. 

Bay was the only one who noticed the stove was still on so he quickly flipped the switch before they left. The lingering smell of burnt batter in the air twisted his stomach and he started to feel nauseous. 

When they reached the ER, doctors immediately took him into a room and gave him a once over. Appendix and poisoning were their main hypothesis. However when they did the examinations to see if either were true, everything checked out as perfectly normal. The doctors decided to put Ash on pain meds and keep him for observation. 

They moved him into a room in the regular hospital. Ash’s mom filled out paperwork  at a small table in the corner and Bay alternated between admiring Ash’s face and concentrating on not throwing up. Based on the fact that Ash’s mom hadn’t even considered sending him home or breakfast for either of them, he could tell she was really stressed and he didn’t want to make things any worse for her. 

Ash was watching Bay. now with the pain meds coursing through his veins, he could think clearly again and he was trying to remember what exactly had happened the night before. He knew that they had cuddled and Bay had tried to comfort him but what was before that. His nausea had woken him up and then he’d noticed Bay wasn’t there, which made him very panicky. So he got up to find him, checking first in the bathroom because it was the most logical place. He did find him but then he got sick and that was that. There was something beforehand though, something else. A bottle in the garbage he remembered. But a bottle to what?

At that moment, Bay threw up. He had tried so hard but he couldn’t keep it down any longer. The thin stream of vomit pooled around his shoes. Ash’s mom looked up, surprised. Ash narrowed his eyes. It was the bottle of pain meds!

He knew that Bay was depressed but he didn’t think he would overdose in someone else’s house. Ash pressed the call nurse button on his bed as Bay continued to retch, although his stomach had been nearly empty to begin with. 

When the nurse arrived, she wasn’t sure where to look. “Call poison control,” Ash told her. “It’s an overdose.”

“What??!” Ash’s mom was very confused. 

“What did you tell him to take for the headache?”

“Tylenol but-”

Ash turned to the nurse. “That’s what he overdosed with. It would have been a little before ten last night.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” the nurse asked as she lifted Bay onto a gurney and prepared him for transport.

“He probably took it on an empty stomach and he’s only had water for like, a while, several hours. Please don’t let him die.”

“We’ll do our best honey.” the nurse rushed away, leaving Ash’s mom in stunned silence. 

“Fuck. this was my fault. I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight. I knew something like this might happen.”

Though ash’s mom wasn’t exacctly sure what had just happened, she knew she had to comfort her son. “If someone wants to do something like that, they will. You can’t stop them once they put their mind to it and it’s nobodies fault but their own, so don’t blame yourself. Didn’t you only meet him yesterday?”

“No, i’ve met him before that. And i think i’ve known him my whole life.”

“Really? How could you know him that long? I’ve never met him before.”

“I think he’s my soulmate.”

“Oh.”

Afterward

Ash was right. Bay was his soulmate. The symptoms had appeared in Ash first because:A it would save Bay and B the effects of a tylenol overdose can take up to 24 hours to appear but because they were soulmates, it happened differently. 

Bay survived, but the doctors diagnosed him with depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder. He told them about his abusive father and they let him stay in the hospital until he was recovered, and then decided he should live with Ash’s family. Being soulmates, it was much easier for Ash to tell when Bay was feeling down, upset, or scared and he would know if Bay self-harmed. They worked through everything together.

[ilovemygaydad]

part 4/? of punk!patton gets adopted by single parent logan

part one - part two - part three - part five - ao3 version - masterlist (includes asks and art!)

pairings: moxiety, eventual logince, background pining remceit, mentions of past thomas/female oc

warnings: patton angst, lots of emotions, panic attacks, anxiety, crying, food mentions, kissing, caps, swearing, possibly something else

***feel free to send me questions or comments! i’ll answer them to the best of my ability, and everything is tagged under “punk!patton au”

a/n: this chapter is a lot shorter, but it would have been SO LONG if i’d put in all the stuff i’d planned 

so you know how patton was being emo at the end of the last part

yeah

so here’s the thing

it’s worse now

about three days have passed

and hooooo boy

patton is emo

he barely speaks, he reads during lunch instead of chatting with virgil, and he barely even glances at the poor kid

and virgil is so worried, but he doesn’t know how to bring it up

so after the final bell rings, virgil grabs patton before he can sprint out of the classroom and sits him back down

“what’s bothering you, pat? why aren’t you talking to me?”

there’s such genuine worry in virgil’s eyes, that when patton looks at him, he freaks out

without even thinking, he’s sprinting out of the classroom and disappearing into hallway traffic

and virgil is left in the classroom, staring at patton’s supplies

and he can’t help wondering

what did i do wrong?

because, obviously, if patton feels the need to run away, it must be something that virgil did

tears well up in his eyes, and his breathing starts to become ragged

he scoops up his own belongings and goes through his normal routine, trying to ignore the intense panic attack that he’s having

he somehow manages to get out to roman’s car and buckle himself up

roman looks over to virgil to ask how his day went, and virgil just crumbles

knowing damn well that they won’t be able to talk while driving home, roman moves the car to an empty parking space and parks

“hey, starlight. it’s okay. breathe. you’ve just gotta breathe...”

it takes a few minutes, but virgil’s breathing evens out, and he’s mostly just a sniffling mess

“hey, you wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

and virgil almost loses it again, but he manages to spit out, “patton’s upset, and i don’t know what to do, and i’m pretty sure it’s something i did wrong”

internally, roman’s like god damn that kid making my son upset again, but externally, he asks, “why does that make you upset?”

“because...” virgil stutters a bit. “because i love him, dad, and i don’t want him to be sad, especially not because of me”

and roman’s like oh, shit 

because, like, yay virgil’s in love, but it’s with patton, and it’s currently bad news bears

“honey, how does patton get home?”

“the bus stop on main and willow”

“alright. how about you drive home, and i’ll meet up with you later. i’ll get us ice cream, and we can watch big hero six.”

“okay,” virgil says, and roman’s about to leave the car when virgil grabs his arm and attention again. “you aren’t gonna be mad at him, are you?”

and roman’s heart kinda breaks like, “no, honey. i’m just gonna try to get both sides of the story before i make assumptions”

so virgil lets him go, and roman makes his way to the bus stop

no one’s there yet, so he sits there and watches the cars pass, checking every thirty seconds or so to see if patton’s coming

and finally he does, and he’s got his hood up and headphones in, and when he glances up and sees roman, he mutters “oh shit” and is about to turn around because there’s no way in hell that he’s going to talk to the dad of his crush after ruining his friendship with said crush

but roman calls out, “wait, hey! I really need to talk to you”

and patton’s like

hnnnnnnnn

fuck

but he stops and sits down next to roman, curling in on himself because ew, emotions and shit

“okay,” roman starts, all serious, and patton’s internally kicking himself for not running away from the bus stop. “what’s up with you and virgil?”

“nothing” patton sneers, crossing his arms

“fine. you know that i can’t make you say anything, but i’m really trying to not hate you right now because i know that virgil actually cares about you as a friend, and i’m not going to hurt him like that.”

and maybe it was a bit of a manipulation, but roman was kinda at the end of his rope with this kid, and he really didn’t want virgil to be all fucked up because of some punk-ass kid he met on the first day of school and decided that they were going to be friends

“i... i have a crush on him, and i don’t know what to do.”

patton looks as if he’s going to cry, and roman’s dad instincts kick in despite his better judgement

“about what?”

“the crush. he likes someone else, and it’s so selfish to want to be with him when he doesn’t feel the same way, but everything i try to get over him fails. he’s so sweet and loving and kind, and i want to spend every second with him, even though i can’t.”

roman sighs, and reaches out for patton’s shoulder. “i think you should talk to him, patton. it’s not good for you to keep trying to hide your feelings, and it will put a harsh strain on the friendship you have with virgil.”

“but he doesn’t like me--”

“did he tell you that?” roman asks very seriously

“no, but...”

“then you don’t know anything for sure. it’s better to take the chance with the possibility of success than suffer silently and watch everything crumble. love has risks, and you can’t avoid that.”

and patton’s like

“gaH you’re right! i hate that you’re right, but you are.”

and that’s when the bus comes, and patton waves at roman as he boards. he watches as roman walks away and the bus goes on its route and is just pondering what roman said

so he texts virgil “meet me @ 6 at the park by your house. we need to talk”

and, like, yeah, he feels a bit bad about being cryptic since he knows that virgil gets anxious easy, but what else is he supposed to say

“hey, i have a massive crush on you, and i want to confess to you why i’ve been acting weird lately, and that’s it! come meet me at the park so we can make out/you can reject me horribly!”

like???

fuckin no??????

patton gets home around 3:30, and he works through his homework by 4:30

at five, he grabs an extra jacket, steals some money from logan’s wallet, and tells logan to just put dinner in the fridge for him because he’s going out

(logan trusts patton not to do anything bad. a couple dozen dollars go missing from his wallet every so often, but it’s not like patton has an income outside of the house, and patton’s been completely trustworthy so far. he doesn’t question it.)

patton takes the bus to a whole food’s and buys some gluten free cookies

(he has to ask a couple of the workers which are the best, and he finds some that seem reasonable enough)

he gets to the park ten minutes early, and he’s floored by how massive it is once again

he’d only been there about two times--both with virgil--and the place is just plain huge

there are multiple soccer fields and a baseball diamond and a small place for skateboarding and then a really nice playground

apparently, it gets a lot of use during the warmer seasons, but by mid-fall, it’s pretty much empty

hence why he asked virgil to meet him there

patton goes to the playground and sits on top of the monkey bars, holding onto the cookies and looking up at the sky to pass the time

“are you gonna be all edgy up there, or are you going to come down?” virgil’s voice suddenly rings out, and patton smiles gently

he swings himself so he’s hanging upside down from his knees, smirking right in front of virgil’s face

“and ruin my aesthetic? i don’t think so, pal.” he then holds the cookies out to virgil. “cookies?”

virgil takes them, and patton drops down from the monkey bars with surprising grace

patton finally takes a good look at virgil, and, like he suspected, virgil’s still wearing the clothes he wore to school and didn’t put a jacket on despite the frigid weather, so he took the extra jacket that he tied around his waist and wrapped it around virgil’s shoulders 

“thanks, pat,” virgil murmured between bites of cookie. “what’d you wanna talk about?”

patton’s chest tightens as remembers what he’s supposed to be doing, and he gestures towards the small skate park

“let’s sit down on one of the tables”

so they do, and patton takes a few breaths before he speaks again

“look, virgil... the reason that i’ve been so weird recently is that...” he turns his gaze down at his hands so he doesn’t have to see virgil’s face “i have a crush on you”

“oh,” virgil says plainly. “oh...”

and patton realizes that roman was dead wrong--this was a horrible idea

“god, this was a mistake,” patton says, trying to force down the tears in his eyes as he slides off the table and starts walking away.

“no! no, oh my god, no, patton!” virgil rushes as he hurries to catch patton’s arm. “shit, patton, i’m massively in love with you.”

“...what?”

patton steals a glance toward virgil, who is smiling and teary and so, so beautiful

“i love you so much, and i would very much like to be your boyfriend.”

patton is astounded at this adorable boy that decided that he was going to befriend this weird punk kid on the first day of school. virgil, who is so soft and sweet and completely unlike patton himself, is in love with him

and virgil is just so happy that this once lonely punk boy is finally starting to feel comfortable in his own skin and get over his past pain. he saw the way that patton’s eyes sparkled when he was passionate about something, and he never wanted to be away from that light

“can i kiss you?” patton asks softly

“of course, you big sap”

patton leans in and their lips meet and it’s just

awesome

and neither of them cares that virgil’s lip gloss is going to smear or that it’s cold outside or anything

it’s just them, and that’s what matters

when they break the kiss, they stare at each other for what feels like an eternity before virgil breaks down in giggles

“what?” patton asks, furrowing his brow

“dude, you’ve got so much fucking lip gloss on your mouth right now. it looks good on you.”

patton rolls his eyes and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand “shut up, or i won’t kiss you again”

“heY!” virgil says indignantly, pouting and crossing his arms

“aw, you’re cute when you’re all pouty”

“shut up, or i won’t kiss you again!”

“okay, okay! stalemate!”

so they spend a little more time kissing because wow this is nice and new and weird

eventually, they need to go home, so patton walks virgil back to his house, kissing him good bye on the front step before they part ways

as soon as patton is a little down the street, virgil sprints inside and immediately finds his dad, tackling him

“DAD, PATTON AND I ARE DATING!”

roman gasps (pretending he didn’t have a very instrumental part in that confession) “aw, virge! that’s awesome! i’m so happy for you!”

patton, on the other hand, is much more calm about telling his adult about it

he leans in the doorway of the kitchen, where logan’s looking over worksheets, and simply states “virgil and i are dating”

and logan smiles because he’s really happy that patton is finally settling in in and becoming happy

“that’s nice, patton. if you don’t mind, i’d like to invite virgil and his father over for dinner on friday. it would be nice to get to know them more.”

and patton’s like “yeah, sure thing. i’ll ask virgil tonight”

virgil gets a text while he’s gushing to roman about patton like “hey logan wants you and your dad to come over for dinner on friday. sound good?”

and both roman and virgil are so fucking hype, and they say yes

so friday dinner is a thing

to be continued... part five

asks are loved and encouraged, and make sure to check out the amazing art people have made on the masterlist! 💖💖💖

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[sagemoderocklee]

I'm curious, since I see your like NaruSai, do you have an headcanons for them?

anon i just want you to know that i am soooo happy you asked for some narusai content! thank youuu!

so from my perspective, naruto is just not someone i can ship with anyone outside of his teammates. like ultimately Sasuke IS the one he’s meant to be with--and y’all know i’m not a fan of soul mate shit but the entire narrative of this series is that they’re soul mates. like naruto constantly chooses sasuke over others, and sasuke is constantly running from naruto because he knows the depth of his feelings... but like despite all this they do have an unhealthy relationship and i think that there’d be a lot of--not even just on again off again but like just so much of that denial and fighting and shit. like for them to get to a place that’s healthy they need to really work at it and i tend to imagine that the only way naruto would date someone else is that between period before he and sasuke have their shit together, or in an awful au where sasuke is like dead or else just never really comes back, where they don’t get their shit together 

anyway, i’m saying a lot of words but my point is that naruto could date and truly love sai or sakura, but sasuke is still his soul mate so it’s always kind of a little sad, kind of a whole lot bittersweet when it comes to naruto and sai (or sakura, though i think sakura it’s a little less bittersweet because they are best friends, they’ve known each other so long, they have a beautiful friendship, but still...) 

so i’m not sure if you were hoping for canon or like modern au but i tend to lean more towards modern au with narusai cause i think that it’s a lot more plausible in that context 

anyway naruto initially cannot stand sai like they end up dormmates in college, and naruto is just Not Feeling It. sasuke hasn’t been in naruto’s life for a good five years or so because Sasuke’s family moved out of Konoha after this whole big drama with Itachi being disowned and Sasuke was REALLY messed up by the whole thing and no one knows what the deal is but it was Not Good. so sasuke basically cuts contact with everyone but ESPECIALLY naruto which is like devastating but naruto can’t really do much about it except try to find sasuke--he constantly checks different social media sites and shit but he’s never had any luck. but what he does remember is sasuke wanting to go to this one specific university (naruto fully does not get accepted to that university). he applies to a bunch of colleges in the area in the hopes that he’ll at least be closer to sasuke

and winds up at the same school as his good friend Rock Lee, so he’s like “oh cool! we should try to room together!” 

and then he shows up on his first day at school and he finds that his roommate is this pasty mother fucker with paint all over his fingers and a shit eating grin on his face and the first thing out of sai’s mouth is “i didn’t realise dumbasses could get into college” which immediately pisses naruto off 

and it doesn’t stop there. sai is always makes comments about how dumb naruto is and about his dick and he’s always got that dumb smile on his face that pisses naruto off endlessly. he doesn’t get sai for the first like two months of living together and he comes very close to murdering sai on a handful of occasions. 

but like sai isn’t actually a shitty person. he’s not trying to be mean he just lived a really sheltered life being homeschooled by his creep of a foster dad who was mean and controlling and never let sai have friends so he’s really just trying to do what he thinks he should do because he watched a bunch of frat boy movies and read some books before college and thinks that he’s just making harmless jokes

he doesn’t exactly stop making fun of naruto but eventually naruto does start to recognize that it’s teasing and not outright malicious. he’s still really confused by sai’s fixation on his junk but he let’s it slide because he’s NOT insecure. once he’s realised that sai’s just really bad at making friends he starts to tease sai back and they settle into a routine 

“i brought you dinner, dick-for-brains,” sai will say, plopping some take out on the counter when naruto’s having one of his late night cram sessions which always always send him into a panic because he hates reading and writing and all of this shit. why did he want to go to college anyways? 

and he’ll open the container to find his favourite ramen because sai always knows when he needs that little pick me up

“i was at the store so i just picked you up some new paint, i saw you were out of black,” naruto says, lobbing a bag at sai’s head. he’d been at the convenience store which is NOT that art store but the art store’s only like... a fifteen minute walk from the convenience store and okay maybe the paint isn’t cheap but sai’s always running out of black paint and naruto knows he cut ties with his shitty foster dad so he knows money isn’t exactly something sai has whereas naruto does have a pretty hefty trust fund from his parents plus he’s always been very good at saving money and he worked a lot in high school. so what if he drops $10 a bottle on the fancy paints sai likes best. it’s what friends do. 

eventually, over the course of rooming together, sai also meets naruto’s friends. lee ended up getting put with this really intense red-head from Suna who according to Lee is ‘actually quite sweet once you get to know him’--Naruto isn’t fooled. he knows a crush on rock lee when he sees one--but not being dormmates hasn’t stopped Lee and naruto from hanging out, so Lee is the first person Sai actually meets in Naruto’s friend group. he immediately makes Lee cry when he makes fun of his looks and Naruto does actually punch sai on the arm hard enough to bruise and sort of squawks at Sai, “DON’T MAKE LEE CRY!” 

sai never ever insults lee ever again. he is in fact overly polite to lee after that. when lee brings gaara to meet naruto and sai, gaara glares at sai a lot. naruto thinks that the feelings might, surprisingly be mutual between gaara and lee. 

after lee and gaara, sai meets sakura. naruto secretly hopes that he insults her just because he’d love to see her sucker punch him--for the comedy--but sai has learned his lesson after lee and is much more gracious upon meeting sakura and her gf ino. sakura goes to a nearby medical school while ino is going to another school studying botany. 

eventually it becomes the norm for the six of them to all get together on friday or saturday nights, either in Naruto and sai’s room or Gaara and Lee’s. Sakura and Ino don’t mind commuting a bit since they both go to different schools. 

over the course of his first six months rooming with sai, naruto is still determined to find sasuke. but it hurts. sometimes sai will find naruto with red puffy eyes and in a somber mood, but naruto never explains why. but it clearly is taking a toll on him. sasuke clearly doesn’t want to be found and naruto hasn’t ever been successful. at some point after their break, when he’s gone back home to see his foster brother Iruka, Naruto’s decided he’s gotta stop. it’s time. 

he also missed sai a lot more than he expected. when he gets back to their dorm he throws the door open, shouting, “honey im home!” and maybe he’s still feeling Not Himself, but he’s excited to see sai

sai didn’t go anywhere for the break so he’s there when naruto gets back, same as ever, painting in the grey winter light coming from the open window. i think he has a sort of epiphany then that sai’s actually kinda cute and he’s fun and naruto’s never cried because of him. it’s not like that clear of course, but there’s a feeling and he just sort of comes into the room, the joking nature of his words contrasting sharply with the weight of all the mulling over sasuke he’d done over the break and he just collapses on sai’s bed and watches him paint quietly

sai glances over at him, confused. “did you finally measure your dick and not like the results?” 

the joke doesn’t land so he knows somethings wrong. he stops painting. naruto can’t look at him. he rolls onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. his chest hurts. 

“have you ever been in love?” naruto asks

sai sets down his paintbrush, getting and leaning over naruto so he’s forced to stare at the entirely deadpan expression on his face as he says, “yes, i’ve had so much experience with romance, being a shut in and all.” 

naruto shoves at sai, but he can’t bring himself to laugh. “it’s not all its cracked up to be-ttebayo” 

“then why do they make so many movies about it?” 

naruto sniffles. he really thought he was done crying over sasuke. he chokes out a laugh. sai throws caution to the wind and climbs into his bed next to naruto. naruto doesn’t normally talk about things when he’s crying and if sai has learned anything it’s that this is a Big Moment. 

“i believe that in this situation, as your friend, i should offer to kick said breaker of your heart’s ass?” 

naruto does laugh, turning over and staring up at sai. “if you can find him, sure. but i wouldn’t worry about it.” 

“i won’t. i’m terrible at fighting. i’d probably just throw paint at him.”

naruto feels warmer having sai there to comfort him. he’s not exactly sure when he moves closer just that eventually he’s practically touching sai and he just feels better. calmer. more centered. he falls asleep in the middle of sai talking about his break which consisted of painting and sometimes meeting gaara for lunch. 

when he wakes up, sai’s asleep, curled around naruto who at some point must have scooted closer because there was definite cuddling. naruto decides to keep sleeping.

somehow, after that, though they never actually talk about it, naruto stops sleeping in his own bed. 

he also stops looking for sasuke. 

and at some point, sai’s teasing is accompanied by kisses

[lisetteaman]

Sonder

Monday, December 17, 2001

A woman is in labor. She is young and heavily influenced by her parents’ unfolding resentment over her stupidly throwing her life away for a boy and becoming pregnant. He stands guard in the waiting room while his parents stare apathetically at the pages of a Time magazine that is ruminating on the Twin Towers. They sit, indifferent towards the current situation of their son having knocked up a teenager. Her parents barge into the waiting room and start an intense discourse in which each parent is screaming at the other, but no one is listening. Each forcefully playing his own disconnected word as if in a game of Scrabble, borrowing bits of the others’ anecdotes, while trying to see who can increase his score. Amongst all the squabbling, the young woman gives birth to a son, Jack.

Across the hall is a second woman in labor of identical age but antithetical descent. Her parents were extremely loving and unconditionally forgiving, but now deceased, while his are globe trotters who never stopped to watch him grow up. With neither involvement nor surveillance of an upper-hand, they wander into a territory much too young for a couple to embark upon and wind up with a kid, whom they name Olive.

Monday, December 17, 2018 Jack

5:30am His alarm goes off, and he hops into the shower. It’s the only part of his morning routine that he actually enjoys. He takes his showers in complete darkness, the lights off to further exemplify how much his heart craves to slip into the morning air with the steam and melt into the black sky just behind his skylight above his shower head. He looks up and sees the vapor condense to the cold glass of the window-pane. He draws a dick in the fog and goes back to playing with himself. Don’t be fooled: he’s a good kid, even with an immature and slightly inappropriate brain. Don’t blame him; blame his biological sex organ. There’s a pounding in his head. Nope, it’s his father on the other side of the door hammering him to hurry up. Time is always official business in his household. His parents are strict and conservative, of the affluent, conceited type. Jack has no say in this life. It was as though his parents put him in a box once he was born and slapped a label on it, saying: “elite, sophisticated aristocrat” and put no room for failure in with him. They had to. They needed to organize their life somehow, as their parents were hounding them to get their shit together if they wanted some semblance of a successful life. But proof be known, Jack’s parents are now exactly what they wanted to be: rich and famous. It is only fitting that they teach Jack the exact same way to live—with your head up your ass and your ego two sizes too big.

It’s about the hundredth time his father has started this conversation with him. It’s always about the law firm, and how Jack needs to keep his grades above everyone else’s in the class if he wants to get into Yale, like his father, and become the next business partner in the firm. “The board only wants to see Ivy League graduates, Jack…” Jack tunes him out and starts drifting into thoughts that are too conceptual for an early morning without coffee, but that’s how Jack likes it. He likes his brain and all the corners it takes him to. It just never seems tangible enough for Jack to get out of this barricaded city and plan the contours of his life—to go explore the world’s abyss for all it offers in releasing the fantasies that remain dormant inside his head. He’s a hopeless romantic. He has never loved anyone, but his heart, as fragile and malformed as it is, is too gentle and graceful to share with others. He protects it and its sentimental value.

6:45am Although Jack is mostly undisturbed by his parents’ lineage of condescension and economical influence, he does assume the role of a private school boy with wispy, blonde hair and a sophisticated veneer. His driver, Stewart, is parked outside to take Jack to Bradley Preparatory Academy. The limo turns and drives past the Lexington Avenue street subway. Jack turns his head and stares out the window at all the passersby in the subway street car, and thinks of how they all ride around town with their newspapers and their sweaty palms stuck to the subway car poles and their gum shoved under the seats, living in such frustration and haste. He turns his attention back and buries his head in his book, The Catcher in the Rye.

Olive

6:53am She sits smushed between two obese men in overly large, black wool coats, who are clearly failing in their attempt to hide their stress-induced eating habits. She looks at the kid sitting across from her take his gum out and stick it under the seat. She’s sweating and reaches her palm out for the pole to get up and stand somewhere else—not worth the body odor and loss in blood circulation. She hates this route. The Lexington Avenue stop, with all the men who aren’t wealthy enough to drive to work, but just arrogant enough to make her upper lip curl as they eye her up and down before disembarking the subway car. Most people take quick glances at Olive but are too skeptical to trust in how stunningly beautiful she naturally is. She dyes her curly, long hair pink and wears an excessive amount of black eyeliner. She has a septum nose ring in the shape of a butterfly and a pretty bold tattoo of the letter A on the side of her neck below her ear—her mother’s first initial, but some look at it and think of The Scarlet Letter. She’s on her way to work. Her parents passed away last year, and now she lives with her aunt in a tiny apartment in Queens. Her aunt made her a promise that she didn’t have to go to school this year as long as she got a job. So naturally, Olive picked a coffee shop in Midtown. “It’s where all the assholes are, Aunt Grace. The meatheads, the hoodlums, the tourists—they all congregate at my coffee shop.” Aunt Grace is not the biggest fan of having her 17-year-old niece travel right into the raucous of Time Square. She sees through Olive’s chill veneer—her hurt and big brain masked behind makeup and a stellar performance of “I don’t give a shit.” Olive is quintessentially brilliant. She was tested at a young age for an IQ score and found out she was in the top 2 percent of the world at her age. She refuses to get tested again, not for fear that she will have fallen behind, but for just the opposite—for fear that her score will be even more impressive and “they” will sit her in a think tank or ship her off to do long division somewhere until all of her brain cells die. She has read just about everything that has a spine or a library code, and yet, she is rarely amused by any of it. If Olive had it her way, she’d be a starving artist—hitchhiking her way to some rural landscape, finding earthly materials to paint with, and blogging her experiences with people from different cultures around the world.

3:45pm Olive usually walks down to Central Park when she gets off of work. Sometimes she runs, but it’s a cold day out and kind of gloomy. She loves these days—the days when the people seem to be more capricious than normal and she can find a nook somewhere she can sit and watch the melancholy mood dissipate into the grey air. It always seems quieter on these days, more people with their headphones in and their caps on, blinding their focus from the inherit craziness singing in the background. She remembers it’s her birthday. It’s been a whole year since her parents died. She dials her mom’s phone number and listens for the voicemail message: “Hi, you’ve reached Abagail, sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, probably doing something fantastical with Olive right now. I’ll call you back when I get a chance. P.S. if this is Grace, you know where to find me.” Olive is not a crier. She rarely shows her emotions, especially to the people around her. But right now, she sits alone on a park bench, bawling her eyes out, wishing time and memory flowed backwards. What a perfect moment to start questioning everything around her—how time keeps getting faster, how babies are being born but others are dying. How the world seems to be constantly growing, and yet, this city has bolted her down and she can’t escape to see what’s out there and who’s living as vivid and complex a life as she is. She starts getting stuck inside her head, trapping her beautiful, yet damaged mind inside. She feels swallowed in a sea of thoughts and tumbling emotions that are rising like a maverick. She can’t contain it anymore. She erupts—she opens her big mouth and screams. Silence. No one is around her. The world has just stopped—frozen in time and place. She turns her head to see if she can move. Nothing happens, no sounds, just silence. Then, wham! A cab flips over and smashes into a tree.

Jack

4:13pm Jack usually gets picked up by Stewart after school, but he decides to ditch his driver and catch a ride in a cab downtown to Central Park. The clouds are hanging especially low, blanketing the city in its sorrows—these are the kind of days he likes. His driver slams on the breaks. However, the car beside goes flying through the intersection, but it doesn’t make it through the red light in time. The cab is hit by a fast moving semi, is vaulted into the air, and strikes a tree upside down. Jack tells his driver to go ahead and turn around to take him back home. The road would be closed soon, and if he stayed at the park, there would be too much traffic to ever get back home in time for dinner. Dinner’s always at a hard 6:00pm, after indoor lacrosse practice, but he skipped today…didn’t have the heart for it.

Jack’s birthday has always weighed on him, but this year has been especially heavy. His parents have pressured him more, his friends are mostly heroin addicts, and the girl he has been inconveniently crushing on for the past three years is stuck like glue to the hot glow-up from sophomore year. He turns his head out the window and watches as the people dance about the street, always rushing—places to be, people to meet, busy lives to attend to. For the rest of the cab ride home, Jack ponders the irrevocable power of freedom and silently cries in the back of the cab. He wonders if there is a person out there that will make him dance.

Olive

11:34pm Olive walks through the front door. Grace jumps up from the kitchen table and runs to her. “Where have you been? Don’t you do that to me again!” Grace has tears in her eyes. She grabs Olive and holds her in her arms. Olive explains that there was an accident near the park, so she walked for a couple miles before calling a cab the rest of the way home. “Hun. You have to be careful. It’s a zoo out there this time of the year and I HATE the idea of you being alone, especially today.” She plays with Olive’s hair. Olive looks into her eyes and starts sobbing again. She can’t hold it back anymore. It’s been a year since she cried—that’s how tough Olive’s cover-up has become, that’s how much time she has spent packaging all of her emotions into a tiny box and burying them deep into a pit in her soul. No longer, she has freedom from her pain at that exact moment. It’s fleeting though. Olive snaps back to reality and pushes Aunt Grace off of her. She wipes her tears and tells Grace that she isn’t hungry and just wants to be alone, again…a ploy to start hiding her true self from those who get too close to her.

She lies flat on her back on her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her mom was a fantastic artist and used to paint with Olive all the time. When her parents passed, she went digging under their bed for the boxes of old school supplies and random crafts until she found these paintings. She had stapled them to the ceiling. Aunt Grace was against Olive putting holes in the ceiling, but it didn’t bother Olive one bit. “What’s it like up there, mom? Is it colorful and just all that you hoped it would be?” Olive has the particular feeling that no matter what she does, everything will always go wrong. It’s like everyone around her is just living such a normal and simple life, but she has these powers to see the future and know that something—her passions, her love life, her job, her cares, her worries—will always go wrong. She’s coped this past year in her own silent, painful way. She wears threaded friendship bracelets and rubber bands over her wrists to hide the pain from the naked eye, but what the eye can’t see is that she is secretly scabulous. She is proud of her scars, of the character and the meaning behind where they are and how they got there. She plays with them like autographs on her body that she doesn’t share with the world. They remind her of her identity and how she got to this particular place of hell in her life. They speak of her brilliancy, of her broken mind and damaged heart. She gets out her phone and dials her mom’s number again. She can hear it ring in the box that she keeps it in, tucked away on the top shelf of her closet. It’s her namesake, and she must never let anyone take it away from her. Aunt Grace doesn’t know she has it for fear she would rip it away from her on a forced path of closure and acceptance. But, Aunt Grace, how the FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THAT YOUR MOTHER WAS FUCKING KILLED?

Aunt Grace knocks on the door, and Olive lets her in. Grace apologizes, but Olive knows it’s not her fault. She pats the bed for Grace to come and lie down with her. They stare at the ceiling while Aunt Grace tells old stories of Abagail and the crazy, stupid adventures they would have as kids. How Abagail fell in love so young and then had Olive.  How Olive was such a tiny baby, born 3 months early, yet grew up to a be such a feisty, resilient, and brilliant young woman. The world seems to be spinning slower tonight with Aunt Grace sharing her memories about Olive’s mother. This whole year has seemed, to Olive, to be growing faster in time, as though the moon has been gravitating farther from this earth, and so she was spinning faster and faster until now. Now, it finally stops. The moon returns, and there is a brief moment of clarity for Olive. “Aunt Grace, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in one body, occupying just one space and it will never change? That people around you will continue to live freely but you will essentially never grow up to understand the world and what it has to offer? That you’re just a gawky kid from Queens who has lived the same day over and over again and nothing about it will ever change… “And that maybe you’re supposed to meet someone who will change your world? That there is somebody perfect out there, just for you and you’re supposed to spend eternity together, because he is the cosmic balance to your failures?” Aunt Grace doesn’t have an answer for her. So for the remainder of her 17th birthday, they lie together, with Olive’s head resting on her aunt’s shoulder. Olive feels safe for the first time in what seems like ages. She likes it and holds on to that feeling for as long as she can.

Tuesday, December 18, 2018 Jack

10:00am There’s a school trip to the Met to see the new exhibit on Art and Conspiracy, how everything is connected—public policy and the expression of artists who explored the hidden operations of power and the symbiotic suspicions between government and its citizens. However, Jack’s class is comprised of kids who spend their time vacationing in the Hampton’s and whose parents are politically powerful in the Republican party. Therefore, they aren’t interested in artists who unveil how the government is hidden in webs of deceit.

Olive

9:00am Aunt Grace wakes Olive. “Let’s go to the art museum today. C’mon girly, call off work this one time. We didn’t get to do anything for your birthday yesterday, and it’s the perfect day to go. It’s raining and you looove the Met. You can’t deny it.” Olive smiles and already knows the answer. All Aunt Grace had to do was say the word “Met” and Olive would be snapping on her shoes and out the door.

10:00am They arrive with a huge crowd of prep boys from the Academy down the street. Olive looks at them with disgust. “Look at them with their perfect hair and pocket squares in their suit jackets, so precise and perfect. Their lives so plain and planned—destined for wealth and authoritative power.”

Jack

10:38am Jack is drawn to the stunning expression of freed meaning and colorful revelations. He approaches an especially extraordinary depiction of Gerald Ford being pulled by a puppeteer behind the stock mark exchange. It’s exactly how he feels. Someone is pulling on him, his heart, and he can’t see who. He walks towards the art piece. There’s a tall white wall separating the room into two sides. He leans his right shoulder against the wall as he looks at the picture. He stops and feels the wall with his hand.

10:41am The hopeless romantic questions, “Is it her?” The woman who is tugging on his heart and pulling him along. The woman who has been dragging him around the city, pushing him to think that there is more of the world out there than what his school has taught him and his parent have preached to him. More than the uniform thought that people live such boring, regular lives, but that there are people who claim a dynamic life of excitement, complication, and vividness. These thoughts come flooding in; he can’t imagine anything else but that there is someone with just as beautiful a heart and complex a mind as him. A woman who will flip him upside down and change his world.

Olive

10:41am She stands with a white wall on her left side as she stares up at two black and white paintings. One is an alien, and she knows that’s exactly how she feels. An out of body experience occurs. She is lifted up out of her body. She feels pulled along, with increasing thoughts that there is more to this world, to this universe than this one place that she has stayed all her life. There is more out there, a reason her parents were killed by a drunk driver. A reason they left this earth and flew into the sky. There is a person who lives at this exact moment who is drawing her in, her heart, her mind. Then…

The Meantime

10:42am Nothing. A moment of tangency flees from the mind; the simple sample size of the original thought that the people of this world stand still and their lives are of no real meaning, just random commotion, comes back into focus. Jack turns to his left and walks away. Olive turns right and tells Aunt Grace she should leave.

10:43am A failed occhiolism: they never became aware of the smallness of their perspectives, in which they could never draw a meaningful conclusion about their worlds, and how they could have crossed paths and added to the complexities of the world’s great culture. A moment so innocuous, but with a chance for it marking the diversion in a new era of life. Like they just missed their cue. Two people who share a parallel story, harmonizing in what could have been a wilder experiment if she just turned the corner and crossed his path. But life is an unrepeatable anecdote. A universal flaw that the epiphanies of Jack and Olive were imperceptive and fleeting, until nothing was left but the echo of what might have been.

[polyamorousparson]

For @yoursummerfrost , who wanted a fic that took Ransom’s anxiety as seriously as Jack’s, have some pre-relationship Jack/Ransom that picks up where this comic ends.  

Warnings for anxiety, mental illness, irregular eating because of anxiety, food, and panic attacks.  On AO3 here.

It’s the week before finals, and Ransom knows he hasn’t done enough to prepare.

To some extent, he knows there’s nothing he can really do.  He has hockey and a social life, which he wouldn’t sacrifice for anything.  He should have started on applications to work in labs over the summer a month ago.  He’s maxed out on credits this semester.  There are only so many hours in a day, and picking apart every week of the semester to try to figure out what he should’ve could’ve would’ve done better won’t do him any good at this point.

It doesn’t stop him from doing it.  But he knows, even as he’s internally chastising himself, that it doesn’t do anyone a bit of good.  It just makes his jaw and his back and his chest permanently tight, his outline of Orgo topics he still has to study looking distant and unfocused in front of him.

His back has been sore for two weeks now.  Holster keeps trying to talk to him about getting a massage, but Ransom doesn’t think it’ll help.  Even if his posture were less terrible, even if he didn’t spend half his time curled up on the floor with his textbook, his anxiety is a constant hum, his body pulling inward on itself like it’s forgotten what it feels like to relax.

Ransom hates this time of year.

“Bro, we’re heading over to the caf to grab some food.”  Holster’s voice cuts through the haze.  “You want us to sneak you anything?”

Ransom pauses for a second, assessing.  He doesn’t feel like he could eat if he tried, his stomach churning.  It’s late, though; he can feel it in the way his muscles are sore, his body held still in one spot for too long, time passing at uneven intervals.

“Get him a couple PB&J sandwiches and some ginger ale,” Jack says firmly before Ransom can get his thoughts together.  “I’ll catch up in a sec, save me a spot.”

Ransom only hears the team trudging out because the Samwell Hockey Team is incapable of doing anything quietly.  Along with the footsteps and the chatting, and the ensuing loud shushes, Ransom hears something quieter, though.  Something closer.  There’s a muted thump of weight on the rug next to him, and Ransom lifts his head.

Jack is staring at him, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth set.  

“Um,” Ransom says, a little uncomfortable.  He hasn’t seen this kind of intensity directed his way from Jack outside of a hockey rink or locker room since Ransom was a frog, when Ransom made every excuse he could to spend time with Jack, when he hadn’t yet gotten over his initial hero worship and settled into something less embarrassing but just as jumbly.  “Hi?”

“I’m going to move your textbook,” Jack says calmly.  “I’m not going to take it from you.  I’ll give it back when we’re done talking.  Is that okay?”

Ransom takes a very, very deep breath.  “Yeah.  That’s fine,” he says.  He unfolds his body and shifts, slowly dragging himself up off the ground.  He’s watching from a sitting position, wincing through the pins and needles in his right leg, as Jack moves Ransom’s textbook to the table with Ransom’s bag.  Jack brings Ransom’s water bottle with him and hands it to Ransom.

The water is warm.  Ransom takes a sip anyway.  He didn’t realize how dry his mouth was.  He downs almost half the bottle, his shoulder aching from too much time spent trapped under his body.

“Take your time,” Jack says, in that same steady tone.  It would be maddening if it weren’t soothing, having someone talk in subdued tones.  Too much noise and too much contact sets Ransom’s nerves on edge when he’s this tightly wound, everything inspiring annoyance in a way he never experiences when he’s better rested and less stressed out.  “Do you need to do some stretches?”

“Probably,” Ransom says.  He sets his water bottle down next to him.  “I can handle that, though.  You can head off to dinner with the rest of them.  Make sure Holster gets the peanut butter ratio right.”

“I can,” Jack agrees.  “But I’m not going to.  Does this happen every semester?”

“Ch’yeah,” Ransom says, waving it off.  “You don’t have to do the captain shit, dude, I’m fine.  I just gotta get through my finals, and then it’ll pass.  Sophomore year, y’know?”

Jack’s brows furrow even more deeply.  Ransom’s pretty sure he could stick a nickle between them and have it stay.  “I don’t think most…” Jack pauses, rethinks his words as he stares at Ransom, then goes quiet again.  “Can I touch you?  You can say no.”

Ransom feels Jack’s gaze heavy on him.  He thinks if it were anyone but Jack or Holster, he’d say no.  But he nods his head and tells Jack yes.

He’s rewarded by one of Jack’s broad hands gently rubbing his back.  Ransom isn’t sure if the contact is to ground them both or whether Jack’s feeling for knots, but Ransom leans into the touch.  It’s warm and oddly reassuring and not too intrusive, and Ransom’s grateful.

“I’m not your captain right now,” Jack says seriously.  “I’m your… your friend.  Your friend who has anxiety.  I know a panic attack when I see one.  They feel horrible, and they can have serious health effects.  I’m not… I won’t push you to do something about it.  It’s helped me, when I did it right.  I just want you to take a little time to breathe and stretch and eat.  I could use the break, too, and this always helps me.”

Ransom has a head full of arguments.  Jack’s being so careful not to make him bristle while dropping conversations about panic attacks and mental health and seeking help into this, and Ransom’s gut impulse is to tell him that he doesn’t need it.  He’s been dealing with this kind of pressure, the weight of his expectations and his parents’ expectations and his entire family’s expectations, really, all his life.  He can handle this.  He has a routine.  And, sure, it may look kinda weird from the outside, but this is coping as well as he knows how.  

He needs this time to study.  He doesn’t have time to be wasting staring down Jack’s earnest blue eyes, to be leaning down into the way Jack’s arm feels around him.  

He can already feel himself breathing easier, some of the tightness in his chest loosening, and it’s the only reason he finally folds.

“You could use the break, too?” Ransom asks.  Jack smiles gently, and Ransom’s heart skips a beat.

“Yeah,” Jack says.  “I could use a walk and some fresh air.  Just walking to the dining hall, if you want to join.  Get some protein in you.  Brain food.”

Without Ransom’s organic chemistry outline staring him in the face, it seems a lot more reasonable.  Ransom could use the break to recharge his brain.  He knows it’ll make him more effective.  And now that he’s actually focusing on it, he is a lot more hungry than he realized.

“Let me pack my stuff,” Ransom says.  His legs are a bit unsteady when he stands up, the blood rushing into his limbs, but Jack is there, hovering to make sure he’s okay.

Ransom doubts that this is the last serious conversation they’re going to have about this.  He would bet, knowing Jack, that they are going to have an awkward and stilted and very, very earnest conversation about it half the way to the dining hall.  Ransom can already picture Jack giving him one of his subdued, understated pep talks that Ransom has always found more compelling than the chest-thumping kind.  

Ransom can deal with that when they cross that bridge.

For now, though, Ransom packs his bag back up, carefully marking his place in his notes.

Some fresh air and some walking with Jack might do him some good.

[violintax]

Aaron’s Magic Boxx

Some nights are worse than others. Some nights, I wake up alone in the dark with a cold chill settling upon me, seeping into my flesh. Other nights I toss and turn until I wake with a half-remembered image of my brother Aaron's face. In my dream --it's always the same one-- he's lying prone on the floor, his head tilted back, mouth hanging open. He reaches for me, and as he does, his fingers stretch, new joints appearing, allowing them to bend and twist until they manage to grasp me. On good nights, I don't dream at all.

Nobody but I knows what happened to Aaron, because I never told them. The events behind his disappearance are a secret I've kept for over twenty years. Our parents died believing that he had run away from home, that he was out there somewhere, alive. I thought it better to let them think that.

They might have been half right.

It's all my fault, you see. I could have done something. I should have done something. I saw what was happening to Aaron and sat back and quietly hoped that things would turn out okay. They didn't. It was a book. Just an ordinary-looking hardback that Aaron found at the town library. It seemed innocuous enough: no dust jacket, no numerical library classification, and no sign out card. You'd almost think that the book didn't belong to the library at all. Its cover was dusty brown, plain, with no title or author. Someone had tucked it away on a bottom shelf in the section reserved for works about medieval western philosophy. That's where Aaron found it, gathering dust, waiting for him to take it.

Inside, there was no copyright or publication information and all the text appeared to be gibberish, written in some other language we couldn't identify. I immediately brushed the book off as a mild curiosity, but something about it interested Aaron, and he tucked it into his book bag, making sure no one saw. We were both silent the whole walk home, but as soon as we got inside the house, Aaron sprinted up to his room. When I wandered up later, his "DO NOT DISTURB" sign was up, so I knocked before letting myself in.

Aaron had cleared everything off his desk save the book, a pad of paper, and his reading lamp. The tome was turned open to a page filled with diagrams and strange symbols scrawled by hand in a faded ink on yellowing paper. The top sheet of Aaron's notepad was half-filled with his usual chicken scratch handwriting.

"How are you getting anything out of this?" I asked, thumbing back a couple pages in the strange work.

Aaron gazed at the open book with eyes that seemed to be looking past the pages, at something beyond. "I don't know, but the more I read it, it's like the symbols turn into words in my head."

I paused my page-turning and looked hard at the text, trying to gleam some significance from the marks, hoping to see the text like Aaron could, but it refused to yield its secrets to me. After a minute, I realized my vision was burning with dryness, and yet I could not compel myself to blink. My eyes refused to look away from the script on the page. Something inside me was convinced that the book's secrets were going to reveal themselves to me at any moment, but in my mind I was panicking at the fact that I wanted to look away, and yet I could not seem to.

When finally I blinked, the spell was broken. I twisted away, my eyes watering, needing to look at anything else, and in that same instant I felt a sharp twinge like the point of a knife piercing my skull. The headache came abruptly, leaving me clutching my temples in agony. My knees buckled and I felt suddenly ready to vomit.

"Are you okay?" Aaron asked, shutting the book.

I grunted, my head still throbbing. "It hurts."

"I don't think you're ready for the knowledge this possesses."

I glared at him. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you calling me stupid?"

"I'm just saying that maybe the stuff in here is beyond your comprehension."

Rising to my feet, I stuttered out half an insult, but my stomach was still lurching from the intense pain in my head and I failed to really put any menace behind my words. Tears blurred my vision and all I wanted was to be somewhere else. Without another word, I walked out of his room, making sure to slam the door behind me. By the time I'd made it to the bathroom and managed to wash my face clean, the stabbing sensation had subsided, leaving me with just a dull ache.

Two days later, I spotted Aaron reading the book at the breakfast table. After he was done, he slipped the it into his Star Wars backpack. As I watched, he whispered something into his bag, like he was comforting a child. A moment later, I would have sworn I heard something whispering back to him in response, and it set all the hairs on my arms on edge. Aaron looked up, saw me watching, and gave a quick nod of solidarity. I did not nod back.

We sat together as usual on the bus, Aaron always got to be by the window. I asked him what he was intending to do by taking the book to school. "Are you going to show it to one of your teachers?"

"No, I've got something I want to try."

I felt uneasy about him using anything he'd learned from that book in front of our classmates, especially Bobbie Bucharest. Bobbie was in fifth grade with Aaron, but was as big as a junior high kid. He wasn't just mean, he was also smart, which made him dangerous. I wish I could say that he came from a broken home, that a lifetime of neglect or abuse had carved him into the bully that he was, but the truth was that his parents were very nice people, both lawyers, who seemed convinced that their precious angel Bobbie was a saint. They even invited Aaron to his birthday party one year, which our parents graciously declined on account of the fact that Aaron was terrified that it was all a trap, and the Bucharests were going to eat him.

But I digress.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

Aaron gazed out the window. "You'll see. Watch for me by the swings during recess."

After lunch, I filed out into the schoolyard with the rest of my class. They staggered the recess time of the different grades, so the fifth graders had been outside for about fifteen minutes and would be going in soon. I immediately made a bee-line for the swings, which were up a hill around the side of the building by the basketball court.

Aaron was there already, standing still and watching a group of kids playing kickball down on the tarmac. Among them was Bobbie Bucharest, who seemed oblivious to both of us as I reached the top of the hill.

Aaron smiled at me.

"So," I said, "what's up?"

"Not up-- down." Aaron indicated toward our feet.

Following his gesture with my eyes, I noticed a circular pattern around his shoes carved into the ground probably with a stick. Some of the symbols looked vaguely recognizable: a bird's head, two spirals and a dash, the letter E backward, that sort of thing, but they were just nonsense to me.

"You drew a circle. Okay."

"Now, watch." Aaron took two steps over to me. Nothing seemed to happen; I shrugged at him.

As if on cue, I heard Bobbie's voice rise from behind us down on the tarmac. "Hey!"

I turned to see him staring at us from the sidelines of the kickball game. He was standing by his crony friend, Greg Collins, waiting for his turn to kick, but as we watched he excused himself from the game and started marching in our direction.

"Oh great," I muttered, spinning on my heel to get ready to come between Bobbie and Aaron if I had to. But Aaron had stepped back over to his drawing in the dirt and was smiling patiently, as if nothing was wrong. "What is it, a bully-summoning circle?"

Aaron pursed his lips. "Shhh... you'll see."

I felt a heavy hand grab me by the shoulder and spin me around. Even a year behind me, Bobbie still loomed several inches taller, but even with the height advantage he had never picked a fight with me. Not because I could beat him up, mind you, but while he knew that he could frighten Aaron into silence because they saw each other in class all the time, with me there was a strong likelihood he'd end up in the principal's office.

"Piss off, Bobbie." I snarled.

He curled his lips up in a sneer. Years later in high school, I'd take great delight in punching him right between those fat, smug cheeks. "I just wanted to talk to you two twerps."

"So talk."

"Well, where'd the other twerp run off to?"

I glanced over my shoulder; Aaron was still standing there silently. He wasn't fidgeting or trying to creep away like he usually did. I shrugged Bobbie's hand off my shoulder and stepped away from him to stand by my brother with my arms crossed. "Well?"

Bobbie didn't move. "I saw you both up here a moment ago, talking to each other."

"Yeah, so what?"

He looked all around, surveying the rest of the schoolyard. "So now he's hiding in some little dingy hole somewhere I guess."

"What do you mean?" his last statement threw me off guard. I looked at Aaron again to see if he was just as baffled by the conversation as I was, but he continued to perform his statue routine, silent and immobile. Looking from Aaron to Bobbie and back again, it finally dawned on me: Bobbie couldn't see him. For whatever reason, to Bobbie, he and I were alone.

"I'll find him," Bobbie snorted before turning to make his way back down to the ball game. As he did so, Aaron finally moved, stepping forward out of the circle and bringing his arm up. Calmly, he placed his hand squarely in the center of Bobbie's back.

"Here I am, shit head."

A shock wave erupted from the air directly between Aaron and the bully. The air in front of us rippled like heat rising off a desert highway. Bobbie was thrown off his feet, hurled about a yard forward where he skidded across the pavement, only barely saving his face by putting his hands out in front of him. Aaron by comparison, remained completely unfazed; only his hair blown slightly back. As the air in front of him abated, he lowered his arm and turned his hand over. On his palm he had drawn another mark, a three-pronged lightning bolt surrounded by a triangle of other assorted signs. He looked at me and smirked, but there was something unfamiliar and hostile in his grin.

Several kids from the kickball game ran over to see if Bobbie was okay. Both his arms were all torn up from hitting the pavement. A yard monitor came and escorted him in to the nurse before returning to find out what had happened. Fortunately, none of the other kids had witnessed the event. When Aaron and I were asked, Aaron casually explained that it looked like Bobbie had tripped going down the hill. That excuse seemed to suffice, though there were rumors whispered among the entire student body for the rest of the day that Aaron and Bobbie had gotten in a fight. The rumor didn't last. Nobody wanted to believe that my brother, gentle Aaron, would have hurt anyone, not even Bobbie Bucharest.

And me? I was both amazed and frightened. Aaron had stumbled upon secrets that, while they seemed beneficial, may not have ever been meant for our eyes. Secretly, I hoped that he would come to fear the book as I did, maybe see the underlying darkness of the things it was teaching him and try to return it, but instead what happened was quite the opposite: he relished his discovery, and kept the book with him every waking moment after that.

Almost a week went by before the book came up again, a quiet Saturday afternoon. Our father had walked over to his office to get some last minute grading done, and mother had gone to a friend's house to have tea. I was lying in the middle of the living room, drawing a monster from one of my nightmares and listening to the radio. Aaron was up in his room like he'd been every day since our jaunt to the library. I had stayed clear of him and his book, and he had remained tight-lipped about anything more he'd gleamed from its pages.

From upstairs, there came a crash.

"Good gravy," I muttered.

Moments later, Aaron came bounding down the stairs, two at a time, yelling loudly, "I DID IT! I DID IT! IDIDITIDIDITIDIDIT!" He came to a halt in the living room doorway with a mad grin on his face and shook his hands like a lunatic.

"Did what?" I asked, "It sounded like your bed collapsed!"

"You have to come upstairs!" he looked around, checking for signs of Mom or Dad, "You have to see this for yourself!"

I stood up and brushed myself off. "Alright, but if this is just you dressing up the cat again, I'm going to be pissed."

We went up to his room together, Aaron taking the lead, chuckling the whole way. At the door, he stopped and gripped the knob tightly, looking back at me with a suddenly serious expression.

"You cannot, under ANY circumstance, tell anyone what I'm about to show you."

"Give me a break."

"Swear!"

"I swear I won't tell a soul." I crossed my heart and held up my hand.

Aaron slipped through the crack in the door, then shut it in my face. I started to raise my fist to bang on it, but before I could, he cracked it back open, looked me up and down, then swung the door open wide and ushered me in.

"Voila!" he declared, widely gesticulating toward the item on the green rug in the center of his room.

It was a simple, large, cardboard box, apparently left over from our move into the house many years ago. I could still see the faded marker scrawl on the side which read "Aaron B.R." in our mother's hand. Above her writing, Aaron had taped a piece of black construction paper and written in bold, white crayon, "MAGIC BOXX" with two 'X's for some reason. To this day I don't know why he wrote it like that; he was ten and it wasn't like he didn't know how to spell the word "box". On the adjacent sides, he had taped more black construction paper, covering the packing instructions and address of the store we'd purchased the boxes from back in Maryland. White crayon doodles decorated the paper.

"It's a box," I declared.

Aaron smirked. "It's a magic box. Look inside."

"Will it kill me?" I glanced at him sideways.

He shook his head.

Peeling back the lid, I examined the contents of the box. The inside was lined with more black construction paper and covered with symbols like those I'd seen in the book and in the dirt at school earlier that week, all in white crayon. Whatever they meant, Aaron had written them into strange repeating patterns that twirled and diverged into multiple branching pathways like a labyrinth. In the center of the bottom, all the lines of symbols converged at a single image of a large, unblinking eye.

Quickly, I looked away, my heart racing with fear at the thought of getting caught up in another hypnotic trance from the symbols.

"More hieroglyphics," I said, "from the book, I take it?"

"They're runes," Aaron said matter-of-factly, "symbols of power."

"Great," I muttered, "but what's the point of filling the inside of a box with them?"

Aaron stuck his thumb out, pointing behind him. "I also lined my closet with them."

"Okay, but what do they do?"

"Allow me to demonstrate!"

Aaron strolled over to his captain's bed where our black and white tabby Hyperion was curled up and looking dour in the dinosaur costume Aaron loved to torment him with. After a gentle pet, he plucked the cat up from it's resting spot and carried him back to me and the box.

"Get ready to shut the lid, okay?" Aaron soothed Hyperion, scratching him behind under his collar.

I stood on the opposing side of the box with my hands on the flaps. "Nothing better happen to him." I warned.

"Nothing bad," Aaron said, and then carefully placed Hyperion inside the box. "Good boy, stay put. Okay, shut it."

I closed the flaps on the top of the box. A disdainful meow came from within the box's confines, but Hyperion was a pretty easy-going animal, and not prone to panicking except when he found himself too close to the bathtub.

I waited several seconds without anything happening, then looked at Aaron. "Now what?"

Aaron was watching the box, silently mouthing something to himself.

"Aaron, now what?" I repeated.

As if in response, the box jumped under my hands. Hyperion started to meow again, but his cry was cut off halfway through. There followed a long, drawn-out silence; each passing second heightening my anxiety. I started to open the top of the box.

"Wait!" Aaron snapped.

I froze, staring at him, noting the look of concern that briefly passed over his face.

Finally, he nodded. "Okay, go ahead."

My hands couldn't move fast enough opening the flaps.

The box was empty. Hyperion was gone, just a few stray hairs stuck to the bottom of the inside.

Certain that it was nothing more than a trick, I turned the box over. Clearly the cat had squeezed out the bottom when the box lurched earlier. But no, the bottom was securely taped closed, and there were no tears or loose flaps. The cat had simply vanished.

"Is he invisible?" I asked. "Like on the playground?"

Without a word, Aaron walked over to the closet, turned the knob with a flourish, and opened the door. Hyperion bolted out, wide-eyed and his tail puffed out like the time he'd had a run-in with a neighbor's dog. He immediately ran to the other side of the room and began pounding frantically to be let out.

My mind reeled, trying to come to grasps with what my eyes were telling it. The cat had just teleported from the container into the closet.

"Come and see," Aaron said, going into the closet and pulling the cord for the light. "But don't shut the door!"

The inside of the closet was wallpapered with more of the black construction paper and thoroughly festooned with the enigmatic symbols. They weaved and curled, spiraling and shrinking in some places in such a way that it made them look like you could fall into them. Seeing them again, my stomach lurched like it was trying to do some teleporting of its own. I had to bend over and put my head between my knees to keep from puking right there. When I did, I found myself face to face with another large, meticulously drawn eye staring up from the center of the floor.

When I finally caught my breath, I had to ask. "How?"

"I followed the instructions in the book," Aaron explained. "Once you understand the symbols, it tells you things."

"You make it sound like it talks to you."

"It does."

"I mean like it literally speaks."

Aaron blinked, but didn't respond.

"Aaron," I felt a chill run through my body, "this isn't natural. This seems dangerous."

He laughed. "It's only dangerous if you don't know what you're doing."

"How can you be sure you know what you're doing? Because the book told you?"

"Well yeah." he shrugged. Then his face seemed to darken. "I thought you'd love this! We can teleport! We can go anywhere! I've fitted the closet to teleport to the box, but think about it: we could inscribe the inside of one of the closets at Gram and Gramp's, and just teleport to see them anytime!" He paused and stroked his chin. "Hell, with some more reading, I could possibly even teleport into Bobbie Bucharest's bedroom and slit his throat in his sleep."

My jaw dropped in stunned silence. The gleam in Aaron's eyes that so often seemed full of excitement and glee had been replaced with one of malice and hatred; it gave his whole face a more sinister appearance. "Have-- have you gone through the teleport?" I asked.

Aaron put his hand on my chest. I flinched, anticipating a shock wave like the one he had used to lay out Bobbie, but all he did was slowly push me out of the closet. His eyes stared deep into mine, and I felt a sudden rush of fear. The shine in his eyes was gone entirely, only a creeping dullness remained. He shut the closet behind him, then stood there, his eyes burrowing into me.

"I haven't. Hyperion was actually the first living thing I sent through. But look at him! He's fine!"

I turned to look at Hyperion, who was still desperately attempting to get out of the room. "I don't know, he looks terrified."

Aaron walked past me and started to pick the cat up, but Hyperion dug his claws into the wood, arching his back to try to keep all four paws on the floor for as long as he could. The moment he left the ground, he turned and lashed out, hissing at Aaron and swiping at his face.

"Hey!" Aaron dropped the cat, clutching his arm where it had thrashed with its back claws. Frowning, he opened the bedroom door, watched Hyperion squeeze through the moment the crack was wide enough, then shut it again. "That little shit."

"Yeah," I muttered, "he seems fine."

"He's just a dumb animal." He walked back across the room to the box and shut the lid again. "I'm going to try it."

I looked at him incredulously. "What, now?"

"Sure, why wait?"

"You won't even fit in that box. It's too small."

"I'm not going in the box, I'm going in the closet." he rubbed the arm the cat had scratched and started walking toward the closet.

Quickly, I stepped in front of him and put my arms up, obstructing him from going in. "Aaron, wait!"

My whole body tensed up. I wasn't sure if he still had the mark on his hand, but I suspected that he did. Why wash something like that off, after all? My only hope was that there was still some shred of love in my brother's heart, that he wouldn't use it on me.

Aaron tucked his chin down and furrowed his brow, glaring at me with an icy stare that caught the words in my throat. Through gritted teeth, he hissed. "You wanna know something else the book told me? It told me to be careful who I showed its secrets to. It told me that weak-minded people would be afraid of what I would learn. I didn't think it was talking about you."

When he finished his rant, a low whispering began. At first I thought it was him, but as I listened, I realized that it was coming from the desk just off to our right. There on the desk, the tome sat alone, an unnatural voice emanating from its open pages. Just thinking about it now as I type this, I remember the moment with perfect clarity and the gooseflesh spreads down both my arms. Even without understanding the language it was speaking in, I can remember what it said. It's as if the words bored into my brain and imprinted themselves there.

Aaron raised his arm out straight, and I saw the mark of the lightning bolt on his palm. He held it just inches from my rib cage. "Maybe I should make you go first."

"Don't do this." I pleaded.

It was all I could muster. My eyes were fixated on the book, and I can't really say anymore whether I was talking to Aaron or it. The tome had me under its spell again, unable to look away, frozen in place.

Realizing I was petrified, Aaron used the opportunity to shove past me and walk into the closet. I couldn't see him anymore once he was behind me, but I could hear him stepping carefully on the construction paper, trying to make sure not to smudge any of the runes. Calmly, he addressed me.

"Stop acting like I'm going to blow up the house, Bill. This is just one small step for man."

And then he shut the door.

I was grateful that our parents took as long as they did to come home. My father returned first, having finished his grading and whatever else he did at the office. Mother came home a bit later, stopping at the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner. Neither one of them noticed that Aaron was missing at first. I wasn't able to concentrate on anything, my heart too busy racing, waiting for one of them to ask about him. Finally, I was sent to fetch him for dinner. My hands shook as I went upstairs, knocked at his bedroom door, waited a bit, then went in and paced around, pretending to look for him. I actually did look in the closet, just for a second, to make sure.

When I came back downstairs, I told them that he wasn't in his room. Dad went out on the back porch and called for him to come in, and Mom pressed me on when I had seen him last. I had to confess that he'd been in his room almost all afternoon, but that I hadn't been paying any attention, and I thought I'd heard him thumping around some before they came home.

My plan was to provide clues that hinted at Aaron running away. It was a hard sell. Every word I uttered I had to say slowly and carefully for fear they'd detect the waver in my voice. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, so I kept them in my pockets, I'd managed to be pretty meticulous about everything, but I spent the next week in perpetual fear that I would give myself away. Or worse, Aaron would return.

First, I had run up to the attic and gotten the suitcase down that he always used when we went to visit our grandparents. I packed a bunch of his clothes in it, then put the suitcase in the closet and shut the door. Sure enough, when I opened the closet moments later, the suitcase had vanished. I'd also gone and gotten his shoes from their spot by the front door, his favorite jacket, and several of his favorite books and toys. All these items went into the closet, where the runes diligently did their job and teleported them away.

Finally, I took the book, that hideous work of evil, clenched it tightly to my chest for a moment hearing the muffled whispering even then, and threw it into the closet, letting it strike the far wall and fall open onto that ghastly eye. As soon as it landed, I heard its terrible, penetrating voice start seeping from the pages, but before it could choke me with them, I slammed the closet door shut and collapsed, crying. It took me a few minutes to collect myself and do the last thing, knowing that once I had done it, there was no going back. Carefully, making sure to prop the door open, I pulled up all the rune-covered paper in the closet and hid the sheets in one of my art books.

When my parents went and checked, all they found was an empty room. Some of his dresser drawers were tossed open in a hurry and his pillow and favorite stuffed animal were missing. They followed my clues, never once questioning anything they saw, and came to the conclusion I had left for them: Aaron had run away from home. My mother, grief-stricken, called all her friends for help before calling the police. My father grilled me about Aaron's behavior of late, how he always locked himself in his room after school, and whether he and I had gotten in a fight.

Of course he was never found. How could he be? He was in the box. But I guess you're wondering where the box went and why I lied to our parents about everything.

I knew that book was evil. It was unnatural. It corrupted my brother, convinced him that he was going to become a purveyor of great secrets and powerful magicks. But in the end, it twisted him. Literally, it warped him beyond recognition.

Aaron shut the closet door, and the whispering immediately ceased. My knees buckled, and I fell, catching myself with my hands and squatting there, looking across the room at Aaron's Magic Boxx. The words taunted me, and I wondered again why he had purposefully misspelled the last word.

Seconds ticked by.

"Aaron?" I called, hoping to hear him respond from the closet.

Instead, there came a guttural howling. I'd seen a nature video a year back, and there was a part where a wolf had gotten its leg caught in a bear trap; it made a sound something like what I heard. And it didn't come from the closet; it churned up out of the cardboard box like it was swirling around in a flushing toilet.

The box lurched again, only with more force, and the top flopped open. Two arms --Aaron's arms-- reached up, and began twisting around each other like a helix. His elbows made a sickening crack, and his arms bent, hands coming down and grasping the edges of the box with fingers that seemed to have more joints than normal. They bent, and then bent again, and again, and again... nails digging into the cardboard.

And still the howling continued.

The flimsy material bent under his weight, and then tipped over. Oh God, it tipped over, and he started crawling out. Only it wasn't Aaron anymore. It was a hideous monstrosity, twisted and deformed. The features of his face were stretched across his skull at the wrong angle, mouth torn wider at the edges, the cartilage of his nose piercing the skin of his cheek. I could see only white and red in his eyes, they had rolled up back into their sockets, exposing the nerves.

I countered his unending scream with my own, this broken thing that was once my brother.

Its fingers kept digging into the rug, pulling itself further out of the darkness of the box. Next came its upper torso, shoulders hunched, spine twisted like a spring. His shirt had somehow merged partially with his body, grafted onto his flesh and as I watched, it ripped in places, exposing raw muscle and causing him to wail in further anguish.

I'm sorry, I have to pause. Just reliving that moment, I can't take it. Please, Aaron, forgive me. I wish I had been stronger. Thank God at least I saved our parents from suffering, from having to see what you did to yourself.

My brain started to shut down. It had seen enough horror in those few seconds to last it a lifetime. But at the same time, my survival instinct kicked in. Aaron was turning, having heard my voice and was seeking me out. Maybe he was looking for me to comfort him in his final moments, I'll never know. I was too afraid. What if he blamed me? What if he wanted to pull me back into the darkness with him?

I scrambled to my feet, averting my gaze from the abomination steadily emerging from the remains of the box. Reaching behind me, I found the knob and pulled the closet door open wide. Quickly, I sidestepped Aaron's hands. He must have sensed me passing, maybe felt the slightest breeze as I went by, because his arms flailed out, trying to catch my legs. I could still see the mark of the lightning bolt on his palm, though even that was now twisted into something else. With a short yelp, I got on the other side of the box.

"Billll, pleeeeeeasssssseee..."

The thing that was no longer Aaron screeched, its voice coming up from its throat like out of a gurgling sink drain.

Closing my eyes, I dug my shoes into the floor and pushed. There was a thick, sickening squish, then a prolonged squeak like sliding down a fireman's pole as Aaron and the box came off the rug onto the wood flooring. It moved surprisingly easy, possibly greased by some unmentionable fluid seeping out of the ever widening tears in Aaron's flesh.

"Pleeeeeeeaaaasssseee!" I heard him cry one last time, his hands reaching out to either side and clawing for the door frame. He knew what I intended. My only hope was that in pushing him into the closet, I didn't ruin any of the rune work he had done on the floor. Thankfully, Aaron had been very meticulous in taping down the construction paper. It didn't tear or crease at all, and I guess in his tormented, pain-stricken state, he didn't think to rip up any of the paper. It was as if, at the last moment, he accepted his fate.

I slammed the closet door and leaned hard against it, catching my breath.

"I'm so sorry, Aaron."

It wasn't immediate, of course, and honestly I wasn't even sure it would work. I heard his nails clacking on the floor and his twisted wreckage of a body thumping around inside the box for what felt like years. The alarm clock by his bed ticked off every second as I lay there in a heap, holding the door shut and trying to keep from crying.

Inside the dark closet, abandoned by those who loved him, Aaron suddenly let out a blood-curdling shriek that stretched into a whine, then a shrill sound that seemed to never reach its peak. It only lasted seconds, but it cut through the wood of the door, stabbing into my brain, and I had to hold my hands over my ears to keep it out. I imagine it was the sound of the magic box being teleported inside itself, and Aaron along with it. Part of me had the disgusting thought that I'd open the closet and find Aaron turned inside out, his organs decorating the floor and his bones sticking to a pulsing pile of goo.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. I can honestly say that I don't know where the box and Aaron went, maybe to whatever place lies in-between, the station where items go to catch the train to the the other side of the teleporter. Only, once there, they found no destination available anymore. Maybe he's trapped forever in Limbo in his misshapen, pain-wracked remains of a body. Every night since that day, I've prayed to God that he put Aaron out of his agony. I hope he's with our parents now in Heaven, watching over me and forgiving me for what I did.

But some nights I lay there thinking... the book came from somewhere. Maybe it came from Hell, or maybe it was crafted by a person who meddled with powers they shouldn't have. Who knows? But if there was one, there could be more. Some other poor soul could stumble upon a plain-looking book, pick it up, and have it whisper its lies to them. And when I think about that possibility, I think that maybe, just maybe it's also possible that they'll remake Aaron's Magic Boxx. And if they do, maybe he'll still be there, waiting to come home. Wanting to see his older brother again, wrap me in his twisted arms and never let me go.

Those are the worst nights.