#it took so long like eight hours yikes

[bornforastorm]

ok hannah, explain the saw thing to me (curious, not combative)

hooboy ben, good luck to me!!

first off, I think the appeal of Saw (and it's nine sequels lol) is partially and simply the appeal of all horror: it allows us to watch horrible things and think about horrible things from a safe, distanced place. It allows us to feel repulsion and horror and terror without any real risk. It's fiction, so however nasty it is, it's fake so it's fine, but the outlet for yuck and yikes still remains and can be cathartic. I think this is especially true in long running horror franchises, where after the first couple you know what you're getting into and can just enjoy the ride.

Now, for Saw in particular, yes there's the catharsis of the Scare and the Ick, the shiver and the shudder and then the laugh to release tension. Now, I understand not being into the Ick. I am not particularly into the Ick. I initially stopped watching the franchise after 3 because it was too icky for me! Eventually I went back and watched them all, but it took a long time and even now as someone less sensitive to Ick, I still look away from some parts. When I rewatch them, I tend to scrub through the ickiest parts (which makes each of these 90 minute movies only about 50 minutes long, natch).

So if not the traps and the Ick (which is the main appeal for some and certainly what my mother thinks the appeal is and is why she is therefore worried for me), what is the appeal? What makes Saw so compelling? What about these movies has driven me to madness? I can't speak for everyone, but for me--

(this may get long and it may not make any sense at all)

partially it's that I saw the first one when I was 14 and it changed me, and I'll always love it for that, and by extension I love what it spawned. It gave me the gift of horror movies! I had no idea a movie could do what Saw (2004) does, and suddenly the word of horror opened up for me. If a horror movie could be that, what else could horror be? That first movie made me insane. I watched it non-stop for months. It's a good little thriller starring Cary Elwes and a cute boy I had never seen before but was captivated by, and I was obsessed by this cheap little picture that's mostly playing in the sandbox of interpersonal dynamics against a backdrop of the Worst Day Of Your Life. "What would I do in this situation" is part of the fun mental game the audience plays when watching a Saw movie, and that first one engages with that question in such a small scale, almost sweet way and I love it. What would you do if you woke up in a crusty bathroom, chained to the wall, and your only instruction was to kill the other guy in the room with you? Well, you'd talk to him for eight hours and in the end you would hold his face and tell him everything was going to be okay. Love!!

After Saw 1, the movies get campier and goofier and, yes, ickier. 2 and 3 are pretty good! Icky! Then 4-7 are pure melodrama and camp and I looove the melodrama and camp. I recently bemoaned to dear friend Emily boasamishipper that it's a shame it's essentially impossible to watch these movies and experience the silly melodrama if you can't handle gore. So many good melodrama/plot scenes take place in locations where, like, there's a rotting corpse in the background. If you skip the gore completely, you will miss key information. It's unavoidable. And the traps are nasty. They're gross. I get it. It's undeniable.

BUT if you can handle gore enough to at least to close your eyes while it's happening, then tune back in, what you get is a really bonkers series with an insanely complicated timeline and even more complicated lore, populated by characters who are both complicated and complex and sometimes embarrassingly simple. Which is fun as hell. To me.

Mr Jigsaw himself is a very old man. He has 14 motivations that are constantly changing depending on what the movie feels would be most useful. Literally his motivations for doing torture crimes are: he has cancer, no wait and he's divorced, no wait and he and his wife lost a baby (the creepy doll was FOR the baby), no wait and he got denied health insurance coverage, no wait and he resents liars, no wait and-- and it just keeps going. He DIES in Saw 3, but they keep doing flashbacks so he can keep being in the movies, which complicates his history So much. These movies are dropping new Jigsaw lore constantly. This man claims to have never committed a murder, and in fact says he hates murderers, when he is personally responsible for dozens and dozens of gnarly deaths. Hypocrite king of all time. He's a civil engineer so he obviously knows how to design and build torture machines. Of course.

His main apprentice is a feral nightmare woman who also dies in 3 and largely appears in flashbacks after that. She's insane. We all love her. Mr Jigsaw keeps putting her in traps. She hates the other apprentices because she is daddy's favorite. It's the interpersonal dynamics, babyyy.

In 4, we're given another guy (Mark Hoffman! lame man of all time!) and are told he has always been in on the crimes, he was there the whole time we promise, and, oh right, he's a cop AND while on paper his backstory and motivation is pretty interesting, in practice he's weirdly boring AND he's honestly pretty bad at being the Jigsaw killer and other cops keep telling him that to his face. By movie 7 he's totally given up on the Jigsaw Killer thing and is just stabbing people. It's very funny. (and he's my favorite guy and I love him and he's in a total of 6 of these movies even though 99% of audience members can't stand him) (also when I say what in these movies drove me to madness? the true answer is this man's burly chest and bad acting)

Cops come and go and the movies can't decide how much cop drama they want to engage in. Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls is in 2 of these as the bitchiest cop I've ever seen. He weeps, he screams, he threatens witnesses, he's angry and suspicious and annoyed the entire time. He is part of two of the series' best traps. If the series brought him back tomorrow, I would cheer. Would it make sense? I don't care.

Characters who appeared in one scene two movies ago are now the main character because the other main characters keep getting Saw trapped. Sometimes characters essentially come back from the dead because they ran out of characters and needed someone to fill a certain kind of role in the story.

We never check in with Cary Elwes again, not even obliquely, until movie 7, and then we don't learn almost anything about what he's been up to.

Some people get put in traps for smoking or being depressed or engaging in light insurance fraud. Some people get put in traps for being rapists or murderers or Neo Nazis. Their crimes are in no way related to the severity of their traps. Does a private health insurance ceo who denies coverage sometimes (his job!) deserve to be melted in half by acid? Saw trap! Does a judge who shortened a manslaughter sentence deserve to drown in pig guts? Feels extreme! Saw trap! also there's a pig motif and nobody knows why! What's up with the pigs!!?? we may never truly know and that's part of the fun.

Movies 3 and 4 take place concurrently and that's a twist!! Movies 4-7 are so full of flashbacks it's sometimes hard to keep track of where in time you're supposed to be, and the question of "when did this series altering event actually occur?" can be hard to decipher. Movies fold in on each other at an alarming rate. Trying to explain the timeline of the Saw franchise is so bugnuts insane that my rl friend and podcast co-host made a game for me that was "Which Saw Event Happens First?" and honestly, it was hard!

So!!! I really love the goofy characters and the goofy plot machinations and the goofy lore-- and the movies take all these things so seriously, as they should. Any wink would ruin the magic, and how seriously 8 movies treat Mr Jigsaw and his very fucked up concept of morality and fairness is vital and delightful (I say 8 to mean 1-7+10, bc movies 8 and 9 are a little coy and smug about the whole thing in ways that rubbed me the wrong way. But then 10 is so We're Back Baby)

Then there's the general vibe and look of these things. The first one was made on one location with a budget of 1 million dollars. It's cheap as shit. It's so cheap they couldn't afford gore. Because the first one set the visual style for the series, they're all cheap as shit and they look it. They all look like shit. That's very comforting to me as a lover of the first one. It feels a little like being 14 again. The blue/green color timing, the frenetic editing, the grimy nasty sets (literally when a Saw movie has a true outdoor scene, it feels wrong), the at best c-list actors giving truly c-list performances, the goofy reveals set to a remix of the same song over and over again-- it all feels familiar and cozy, like cuddling up in bed during a thunderstorm.

It's a little bit nostalgia and a little bit the movie viewer I've become with age. I like to have fun. I like to be scared, but not too much. I like silliness. Saw is silly to me. I love it dearly. I love it's cast of nobody, not great, not that hot actors. These aren't hot teens getting murdered! I love it's heightened world where the cops never clean up a crime scene so if you want to revisit a trap from three movies ago, you can. It's outlandish and absurd and great.

I get why it isn't for everyone. It either clicks for you or it doesn't, you can either handle the gore or you can't, you either vibe with the silliness or you don't. Most people I know who like them, like them for that silly, camp quality and the ever increasing intricacy of the world, which one simply has to grin and bear and go, "yeah sure, this might as well be true." None of them are objectively five star films. Not even close. Their badness is beloved to me, their silliness, even their gross out traps and goops of gore. I've become someone who likes all that.

So in conclusion: It's silly!!!! it's so dang silly. If you can giggle and laugh at an icky movie, the Saw movies will make you giggle and laugh. There's much to laugh at. They're a roller-coaster ride of silly plot and gooey gore and weird characters and confusing, beautiful lore. It's the rules!!

The Saw Thing, for me, is that they're good, silly fun soaked in globs of corn syrup blood 🙏 they're all 93 minutes long 🙏 they're really fun to goof on with your friends 🙏 they gave me a crush for 14 year old me (leigh whannell, cutie) and a crush for 33 year old me (costas mandylor, burly brickhouse) 🙏 they gave me horror movies 🙏 they're the gift that keeps on giving and I can't explain it any more than that

[squideo]

Advert Alchemy: Supernatural Skittles

In this series, Squideo has examined the best ways to turn advertising content into gold. Now that we’ve broken down the eight key ingredients, it’s time to dive deep into some examples of stellar advertising. This week, the advert in question was picked by Squideo’s Marketing Executive, Emily Woodcock.

When asked why this Skittles advert has become her favourite, Emily said: “I saw it on television while I was on holiday. Maybe that's why it stuck in my mind. The dark humour certainly caught my attention and I loved the reference to Midas (of Greek mythology). Despite the video's resolution quality, I also think it's aged really well.”

Skittles Dance

This is the second appearance of the Mars Inc. company in our Advert Alchemy series. We’ve dived into the background of this American business, so let’s focus on Skittles. The history of its creation is a bit murky, but it’s widely accepted that a small British manufacturer first launched Skittles in the mid-1970s. They were soon bought by Wrigley, which is also owned by Mars Inc., who took over distribution and brought the sweets to an international market in 1979.

Greatly resembling another Mars Inc. product, M&Ms, Skittles are distinguished by a small letter ‘S’ on their shell. The range of flavours has changed several times over the decades like many other Mars products, and variation flavours have also been sold such as Tropical and Wild Berry. Unlike other products under Mars Inc., there hasn’t been any major rebrands attached to Skittles. The name has never been changed and the branding remains recognisable decades apart.

The product was marketed a very specific way from the start, and was so successful it stuck. A rumour spread about the origins of the sweet that it was invented by a British confectioner who looked up at a rainbow and wondered how it would taste. The slogan – “Taste the rainbow” – wouldn’t be introduced until 1994, but the sweet has always had this colourful association which Wrigley’s marketers have loved to centre their campaigns around.

Somewhere Over the Skittles

Launched in 2007, Skittles’ advert was created by TBWA, Chiat and Day. The brand had already run a series of successful adverts, in terms of viewership and commercial impact, and audiences started to have high expectations from the brand.

According to the Art Director Craig Allen, “We wrote a lot of scripts [and] thought it would be funny to do a slightly sad spot for a candy brand.” Former GCD Ian Reichenthal said, “We had a lot of conversations with the guys in advance about trying out new voices, but still keeping it Skittles.” The brand guidelines were firmly in place for the creative team, unlike previous entries in the Advert Alchemy series who were looking to shake things up.

Skittles adverts often feature technically challenging shoots, such as the one centred around a Skittles tree growing out of a human being. Recreating the powers of Midas also proved to be difficult:

“The effects in the spot had never been done before so we had a lot of technical problems, which made for a very long shoot day. So long in fact that the police came to try and shut us down during the last hours of shooting. Luckily, Tom (Kuntz) is a very smooth gentleman and persuaded them to let us finish.”

Their hard work paid off, and the Midas Touch advert was ranked as Creativity Online's most watched spot of 2007. But why was Skittles’ Midas Touch such a big hit?

Skittles Connection

Mesmerizing Mythology

Named for the myth that inspired the advert’s plot, the Midas Touch gives the main character Tim a superpower: everything he touches turns into Skittles. Yummy. On the other, everything he touches turns into Skittles. Yikes. This is a spin on the Greek myth of King Midas, who wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Unfortunately, he didn’t think his wish through and Midas soon found he can’t eat. And when he tried to hug his daughter, he turned her into a gold statue.

This Greek myth remains popular in modern storytelling, which is why this fun spin on a well-known story worked so well. It also fits into the wider Skittles marketing strategy, which often uses the sweets in bizarre ways. In one advert, Bleachers, there is an outbreak which makes people break out in Skittles.

Snappy Slogan

“Taste the rainbow” was introduced as the Skittles slogan in 1994, but the marketing team have always kept this slogan adaptable and flexible. Usually it is accompanied with a tagline which can change to reflect the nature of the advert. In Midas Touch it’s “touch the rainbow, taste the rainbow” in reference to Tim’s superpower. In an advert featuring a tree which grows Skittles, the slogan is changed to “harvest the rainbow, taste the rainbow.”

The taglines use of verbs also reinforce that Skittles is an experience that the audience needs to actively participate in. Skittles isn’t just a snack, like the sweets aren’t just multicoloured. It’s a taste of the rainbow. And in the case of Midas, it’s as good as gold.

Cackling Comedy

Tim can’t hold his infant child, he can’t dress himself, or feed himself… then he tells the story of turning a man into Skittles that very day when they shook hands. Is that murder or manslaughter? Either way, Skittles’ Midas Touch is definitely running with dark comedy which helps make the advert even more memorable. Yet the plot is kept just light enough to avoid crossing into the macabre, by showing Tim’s power only used on inanimate objects.

Comedy is a staple of the Skittles brand, ranging from the bizarre to the grisly. They carry this over in all of their marketing, from adverts to their website. Customers now expect it of the brand, which has let the marketing team get ideas from well outside the box.

Content Worth Gold

What do you think? What made Skittles’ Midas Touch advert so successful? Watch the full advert below and let us know in the comments.

Get in touch with the Squideo team today to find out how we can improve your advertising strategy with video production, motion graphics, social media management and much more!

[thepropertylovers]

A Family-Filled Fun Day

Yesterday felt like it was the perfect way to spend a day with our kids before we leave to go out of town.

In case you don’t follow us on Instagram, we mentioned earlier this week that we’re leaving to go out of the country today actually (!), and it will be the longest we’ve ever been away from the kids. And we’re nervous. We’ve never been away from them for more than three of four days, so the thought of being gone eight or nine days feels strange.

We keep asking them if they will be okay or if they think they will miss us too badly and be sad or scared, but (luckily) they just keep saying they can’t wait for us to leave so they can do things like stay up a little later and chew gum, haha. They will be staying with our moms as they take turns watching them for the next week and a half, and they are a little less strict than we are, which I’m happy about. Everyone needs a break every now and then.

So I think we’re the ones who will have a hard time being away from them for so long, which I am also happy about. I would much rather us be the ones crying over them than the other way around.

Yesterday was spent with fun and exciting times with each of the kids in a totally unplanned way. We started with Allan.

His entire 2nd grade class took a field trip to our farm!! That’s right, we had 40 or so eight year olds running around Ocoee Farm and it was the biggest burst of joy for a few hours. They all took turns petting the chickens and holding goslings (they found a way to keep pooping on me over and over again). They fed the sheep and pigs carrots and celery and laughed/screamed when the donkeys sneezed on them.

Allan had a blast showing the kids around the farm, his playground when he gets home from school every day. I know how much joy he must have felt to have all of his friends and teachers in his happy place, a place he’s been to a million times but that they’re seeing with fresh, curious eyes. To him, it’s his backyard. To them, it was the reason for an entire field trip.

There was time for a Q&A and PJ answered about 100 questions on the pavilion about our animals and the farm. It was so cute to hear their little questions about everything and nothing. I love the way kids’ minds work. So curious. And PJ did so well!! He used to be a camp counselor and is used to speaking to and educating groups of kids, so he was a natural. All his old training came back to him, or seemingly never left? Either way, he was fabulous.

Beau was there to help out, too, and even grabbed some photos of the morning. Thank you so much, Beau!!!

After that, we got a message from Anna’s teacher saying they would be getting out of school early because their A/C is broken and it was 80 degrees in their classroom. Yikes. So we headed to the school to get her. We spent an hour with our girl, just the three of us, as we listened to her tell us about her day and watched her eat her new favorite snack: a giant heated-up-in-the-microwave marshmallow. The girl has an affinity for sweets.

After about an hour and a half, it was time to head back to school for Riah’s kindergarten program. It’s crazy to me that he will be in FIRST grade next year. What? How? When did this happen and where was I? Our youngest son can’t be in first grade already. Time hasn’t made sense for the last few years, but the fact that he will be a first grader in just a few months is something my brain can’t comprehend.

We sat in the first row as he and his classmates performed quite a few songs in front of a crowded auditorium of proud parents and supportive family members. It was the cutest. Riah had the biggest smile on his face the whole time, in between looking a little reserved and nervous. He did so well, though. There was also a slideshow of the whole year with the background music being “Never Grow Up” by Taylor Swift, which was a perfect choice by his teacher, if I do say so myself.

Then it was time for certificates. The principal called each of the kindergartners’ names and they took turns walking across the stage, collecting their certificate in the process. Before kids, I had always thought of kindergarten graduations as pointless and silly. Now though, I thought it was the sweetest thing ever, and I know we were both so proud of him for such a wonderful year. He has had the best teacher and we wish she was still going to be in the same position next year so that Anna could have her!

After his program, we checked him and Allan out of school for the rest of the day to spend it together at home before we all headed out to eat and go to Walmart for last minute things before our trip.

Now we are at the airpot waiting for our flight, and I am writing this from one of the seats in the terminal. It’s only been a few hours but we’re already missing them so badly. Walking through the airport and seeing all the little kids running around with their little suitcases is only reminding us of traveling with our kids, and how much we love it. They do so well in airports and on planes and it really is so fun to travel and take them places and show them somewhere new. Hoping for a lot of that this summer!!

Next time we check in will be from Barcelona, so here’s to a safe flight!!!

[inkstainedfanfics]

Almost Easy

Summary: Reader needs to find a person that’s particularly good at hiding. Newt needs someone to clean up the messes his thugs leave behind as he searches for answers about his brother’s death. A self-proclaimed pyromaniac and a gang leader may just find allies in one another as they work to exact revenge on the ones that wronged them.

Word Count: 3,854

Pairing: Newt x Reader (not romantic)

Tagging @dont-give-a-bother​ and @sonuvawitch​

Any comments/opinions on this piece, positive or negative, are welcome and encouraged

Fire crackles around you as the blood-splattered curtains turn into ash. The rug disappears as well, fading quickly into a pile of dust, next to the smoldering remains of the desk you’d chosen to burn first. It’d been beautiful, an obvious work of carpentry not many could accomplish.

Precisely why you’d decided it needed to go the second you walked in the room.

Avery raises an eyebrow, arms crossed where he stands in the doorway. “Are you gonna burn with all of this?”

You ignore the question, wiping at the sweat beading up on your forehead. “You placed the bomb?”

“You doubt me?”

Glancing at him sharply, you shake your head. “Answer the question or don’t. Leave the smart comments outside.” You’re on a mission, for Merlin’s sake.

Avery whistles, a low sound. “Forgot that you get touchy once you get the flames going.”

You glare at him as flames hit the lighter fluid you tossed in the corner and erupt.

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Did.”

“In the vault?”

“Just outside of it, actually. Boss had bad information. We’ll get a bigger explosion where I set it.”

You watch him, wary. “You’re certain?”

Avery’s eyes flash, and he straightens, responding to your offhanded challenge. “When am I not right? You’ve got your expertise, I’ve got mine.”

The flames from the rug lick at your boots now, and their heat burns your calves. “Then I suppose we should get out of here. Decker’s got the car?”

Avery relaxes, slipping the bag he’s been carrying from his shoulder and tossing it to you. “Course she does. I swear she likes that more than the torture.”

You catch the bag and roll your eyes. “We don’t torture them.”

He grins, a wicked sight as the scar that runs over his lips and down his chin stretches with it. “If that helps you sleep, be my guest. Call it interrogation.”

The black ski-mask, a guard against anyone identifying you sneaking out, captures the heat filling the room, holding it against your cheeks and nose, but you slide the rough fabric over your face. “We gather information for Mr. Scamander, that’s all.” The words are sharp, meant to convince Avery that no, you don’t want to discuss the parts of this job that result in corpses and bloody knives.

But Avery’s an arrogant asshole. “But how? Think they like our methods? Think they wish we kept them alive just a little longer so we could-“

“Let’s go.” You say, shoving the bag against his chest as you stomp past him. You don’t want to think about the countless bodies left in your wake today, the bodies that won’t be returned to their families, not after Avery’s job works. You were hired on to burn evidence. That’s all.

“Ah come on,” he says, following you down the ornate staircase, “you’re Scamander’s pet. Surely you don’t mind a bit of death.”

“I don’t kill people.”

“And the security guard?”

You blink back the image of the stocky man, his hand trembling as he held the revolver, pointing it at your temple. “I had no choice.” You growl through clenched teeth.

“Stunning curse?”

“Mr. Scamander said no curses. Not today.”

“You’re the one destroying the evidence. He’d never know.”

“The man would be alive.” You snap. “He’d be alive as everything burned around him.”

Avery scoffs, feet pounding against the steps. “Don’t tell me you’re really that soft-hearted.”

You land on the ground floor, panting, wishing the flames were around you again so you could send them spiraling toward Avery. A nip, that’s all he needs, a small bite from the flames and he’ll watch what he’s saying to you.

Drawing your wand, you turn around.

Avery throws his hands up, sly grin returning to his face. “You wouldn’t really shoot the one guy that’s on your side here, would you?”

“Move or go up in flames with the staircase.” You let a beat pass before returning his wicked smile. “Your choice.”

His grin widens. “I knew you had a sadistic bone in there somewhere.” Then he bounds down the final few steps, landing next to you. The stench of his cologne suffocates you, ruins the moment as you cast incendio and watch the lighter fluid spread down the railings and the sides of the steps explode into flames.

Avery whistles again, and you have to resist the urge to hit him for it. How hard is it to shut up?

Far off in the New York streets, firetruck alarms blare. The trucks must be bumbling toward you. Slow. They’re always too slow.

“How much time do we have?”

Avery glances at his watch. Leather. Shiny face. Thick, black numbers. You don’t want to know where a goon like him got it from.

“Two minutes if you did everything right. Ten if you didn’t.”

His jab passes you as you watch the brilliant red and orange fill the hallway. The heat’s back, boiling you alive, and you feel a swell in your chest as it all begins to crumble with cracks and pops and snaps.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Avery turns with you, reaching for the door handle. “Decker’s got the car in an alley five blocks away. We hoof it. Keep your head down. Flatfoots are probably on the way. Don’t get caught.”

You nod, giving the flames a final glance before letting Avery lead you to the front. He’s serious now, all guises of being goofy and carefree disappearing as he scans the area outside.

“It’s clear for now. Hurry.”

You can’t help but admire this side of him. It’s these times, when he takes the lead in your small group of three, that you understand why Mr. Scamander hired him. He’s professional, respectable, and an asset anyone in this career would be lucky to have.

You rush to keep up with his stride as the moonlight bounces off the two of you. He’s a giant, dwarfing anyone and anything nearby, and you struggle to stay by his side. Hurry. An easy command for him.

Two blocks away from the building, you both tear off your masks, casting a quick spell to transform your dark pantsuits into more respectable clothing: him into a three piece suit and you into your own flapper dress, complete with a headband dripping with rhinestones and glittering jewels. Avery tugs his fedora low over his eyes.

You manage another block, half running as the watch ticks away the time remaining. The flames will be near the bomb now. You can almost picture the glowing reds that are eating away the beautiful woodwork inside, almost smell the smoke that’s clouding the ceiling, almost hear the cracks of breaking wood and burning bookshelves. You fight the urge to go back, to watch everything happen, reminding yourself that Mr. Scamander needs you.

Avery’s voice knocks you from your thoughts.

“Grab my arm. We’ve got flatfoots just around the bend.”

“So draw your wand.”

“Merlin’s sake.” He mutters before grabbing your hand. “Just try to pretend you’re in love with me.”

“Excuse me?” You hiss, but have no chance to let him elaborate when a voice stops you.

Two officers step out of a shadowed alleyway, hands on their belts. One’s older, obvious by the way he walks toward you with a raised chin and ramrod straight back. Experienced. Or, at least, he believes he is. His badge glints in the moonlight. His partner, a younger man, steps forward, but stops at the first officer’s hand.

“Pretty late to be walking around, isn’t it, folks?” The first officer asks, his gravelly voice a grating sound in the silence of the night.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I think it’s a lovely night. You don’t agree?”

Your eyes slide to Avery’s watch. Half a minute until the building explodes. He just needs to stall until then.

There doesn’t need to be another death.

“I don’t know.” The first officer continues. “Pretty cold out for your woman to just wear that isn’t it?”

You bristle at that comment, but Avery squeezes your hand tight. So tight you nearly yelp.

Another command.

“Sure, sure. The whiskey’s keeping her warm enough for now, but I’m trying to get her home quick as I can. Be easier if I weren’t stopped unjustly.” There’s a layer in his voice, a warning the cop seems to pick up on.

The older cop sizes Avery up. “Don’t know what you mean by unjustly.”

Avery grins, and you can see the malice beneath it as his hand drifts in his pocket. “Me and my wife are just trying to get home, sir. You going to let us?”

Fifteen seconds.

“Why don’t you step away from the lady, sir.”

“What for?”

Ten seconds.

“Just want to talk to the both of you.”

“We’re perfectly fine, sir.”

Five seconds.

The cop’s hand lands on his gun. It’s tiny, but threatening enough to cause harm if he draws it. You squeeze your eyes shut. Not again.

Three seconds.

“Wrong choice.” Avery says between gritted teeth.

The gunshot’s boom melts in the sudden chaos, overshadowed by the loud rupture of the building behind you.

A part of you is disappointed. You missed it, the initial spillage of flames and fire and concrete into the quiet street, missed seeing the very fire you began end. Another part of you is disgusted. The officer stumbles around pathetically, hand clenched around his throat, mouth opening and closing and opening again like the fish you caught years ago while fishing with your best friend. The final part of you is thrilled as you fall forward, only missing the ground thanks to Avery’s strong grip.

He shoves you forward, gaining his balance sooner than the younger officer who’s struggling to draw his gun.

“Run to Decker and stay the hell out of trouble. I’ll take care of this.”

“Mr. Scamander says to stay together.”

Avery growls. Honest to Merlin growls, eyes burning with anger. “Get the hell out of here before I kill you myself. I’ll meet you at the car.”

“Hell no, Avery. More are coming. You’ll be dead.”

Avery’s lip curls into a snarl. “Go before I make you.”

He says something more, eyes wild, but you don’t hear it. The officer’s drawn his gun, lined it up with Avery’s head, and his finger’s moving toward the trigger.

You leap forward, thinking of nothing but Avery’s unmoving body. There’s been enough death. He won’t fall, too.

The officer is light, thank Merlin, and your hit knocks him off balance. The gunshot bursts, a sharp pop in your ear. Avery’s voice follows quickly, muted, screaming your name as you roll across the ground with the officer.

The officer’s screaming himself, a wordless scream meant only to convey his terror as he scrambles to right himself, the gun still in his hand. Grabbing his wrists, you keep the gun pointed away.

He shoves a foot in your gut, hard, and the air rushes from your chest as your supper threatens to reappear. You curl into a ball, grabbing your stomach, releasing his hands.

Then the gun’s pointed at your head, a swinging silver glint, and you squeeze your eyes shut, ready for it all to end.

Then it’s gone, the bullet erupting out of the gun scraping the inside of your elbow, leaving a streak of burning flames on your skin.

You gulp in breaths, unable to scream, unable to move, unable to even think as you try to refill your lungs.

Somewhere nearby, Avery scuffles with the officer, feet pound toward you, and alarms blare. Still, you remain on the ground, convulsing as you finally manage a full breath.

The bag. You need the bag.

Drawing your wand, you cast accio, charming the lighter fluid hidden somewhere in there. The muggle officer’s too caught up in his fight with Avery, and the others, the ones a block away now, won’t live long enough to remember the magic.

You take a deep breath when the bottle hits your hand. Death. So much death.

Shutting your eyes, you picture your best friend, his face, and nod once to yourself. If the officer’s won’t let you go, they’ll have to die. You have a date with revenge soon, and nothing’s going to stop you.

Yanking the cap off with your shaking hand, you splash it everywhere around you, careful to be sure it misses your clothes, leaving a small circle of dry cement around you. A plan. You need a plan.

Avery struggles with the officer, moving around his back, grabbing his chin and forehead.

Your stomach turns as the man realizes what’s happening at the same time as you.

As you watch the scene unfold, helpless, you smell smoke for a moment, a curl of it, feel it burn your nose, though there’s no smoke around, not for two blocks.

Then Avery’s hands twist and it’s over with, and you’re safe except for the officers that are only a half block away now, their feet so close to landing in lighter fluid.

“Avery, over here, now!” You shout, eyes focusing only on Avery’s scar, his dark eyes, the way his stubble doesn’t grow in one spot on his neck. Anything but the glassy-eyed man at his feet.

Avery dashes to your side, kneeling next to you. “You okay?”

No time for pleasantries. “My matches. Grab one, light it, and toss it.”

“What?”

“Just do it.” You grab at your elbow, squeezing your eyes shut. It bites more than you would’ve imagined.

The officers are in the puddle of lighter fluid now, raising their guns.

“Avery, do something quickly for the first time in your miserable life.”

The match flares in his hand. “You’re so impatient.” He mutters it like it’s a joke, but you can see the terror in his eyes. He doesn’t want to go down, not like this.

You let go of your wound, hand coated in blood now, and grab his white shirt. “Grab me.” You say as the match soars to the ground.

A shame, you think, that you don’t get to see the flames erupt around you, don’t get to feel their heat, but Avery has both arms around your waist and you’re apparating, squeezed through a rubber tube. For a moment, you can see five nails, manicured, painted a light pink, then you’re falling on your face right next to Avery.

Merlin, you hate apparition.

You land in a heap on the ground of Mr. Scamander’s office. Rolling onto your back, you hiss out a curse and grab your arm again. Avery’s next to you, unmoving, just cussing as filthily as he can, staring up at the ceiling.

“Why the hell,” he finally says, “didn’t you listen?”

You gulp in a deep breath of the room’s smoky air, grateful for the chance to actually breathe. “He was about to kill you.”

“I had it under control.”

“Fine, I’ll just let him shoot you in the head next time. Would that be better?” You snap, turning your head to glare at Avery.

He props himself up on an elbow, rolling his eyes. “You’re crazy.”

“And you’re an idiot.” Damn it, your arm hurts.

Avery reaches out, grabbing your hand and dragging it away from the wound. “It’s shallow.”

“I know. That’s doesn’t mean it doesn’t burn.”

Avery’s eyes light up, anger fading fast. “You’re the fire girl. You should enjoy the burn.”

“Shut up and just help me.” You take another deep breath, reveling in the scent of cigars permanently absorbed in the room. It’s a soothing scent, a familiar one you learned to enjoy when you began working with Mr. Scamander the previous year.

“Oh, come on, you saying you didn’t mean to make that pun?”

His anger’s completely gone now, and you’re grateful for it. He can be a real jackass, but when it comes down to it, Avery’s not the worst man you’ve met. “Just fix it, please.”

He chuckles, reaching for his wand.

A familiar voice interrupts any chance of getting comfortable. “Any information?”

Avery blinks as the wound finishes knitting itself back together, then scrambles to his feet, giant body casting a shadow over you. His eye’s bruised and his lip’s bleeding, but he seems no worse for the wear otherwise. Lucky bastard. “None, sir. They were a decoy, just like the other leads.”

Mr. Scamander, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, mustard vest half-buttoned, crosses the room, stepping behind the huge oak desk that fills the center of the room. “Not a thing? You’re sure? Not a mention of the senators, the concilmen?”

His footsteps clack against the wooden floor past the rug, and you notice his boots are untied. He just woke.

“They were just grifters, sir. Swear it.”

It’s unnerving, the silence that follows those words. Undoubtedly, Mr. Scamander’s disappointed, angry, ready to track down the informants that gave false information, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t scowl, doesn’t do anything but reach for one of the desk’s drawer.

He’s the epitome of calm, and it makes you wish you’d stood when Avery did. “You checked everything?”

“Every nook and cranny, sir.”

“Yes, well, I suppose you can’t expect news of your dead brother from a group of criminals, can you?” His lips twitch up as though he’s made a joke, but neither you nor Avery react. His icy gaze sweeps to where you lie on the ground a moment later. “And you destroyed it all?”

You shove yourself to your feet, ignoring the ache of your muscles, taking Avery’s hand. For a second, it’s callused, rough, as though the hand of an old friend you once knew, and his face morphs, too, and you almost shout. Almost. But then it’s over with and it’s normal and Mr. Scamander’s staring at you, so you wipe your hands on the front of your ruined dress and open your mouth. “I did, Mr. Scamander, sir.”

He nods. “Good.” He takes a box of cigars from the drawer. “Avery, Decker’s downstairs. She has a hostage. I’m certain she’d appreciate your help bringing him up here.”

“Right away, sir.” Avery gives you a glance, but turns away, yanking open the heavy office doors.

They shut with a click, leaving you and your boss alone.

It’s silent for a moment before Mr. Scamander speaks, eyes darting up to you. “How are you?”

“Sorry?”

He jerks his chin toward your bloody hand. “That’s yours?”

You raise it, staring at the amount of red covering it, relieved you can answer him truthfully. “Yeah.”

“This line of work isn’t easy.” He fidgets with the box in his hand, “If you’d prefer to leave, I would understand.”

Despite the exhaustion slowly creeping in as your adrenaline fades, you stiffen at the comment.  “All due respect, sir, but you never offer Avery a way out, and I’m just as capable as he is.”

Mr. Scamander smiles at this, the corners of his lips moving up, the wrinkles around his eyes revealing just how tired he is. “Avery’s been here too long to leave.”

You stare at him, trying to read what he’s thinking as he lights the cigar. Avery’s only worked with him for six more months than you. Sure, he’s been here since Mr. Scamander became a true contender in the underworld, but he’s not any more important to the operation than you are.

“Avery’s as new as me.”

Mr. Scamander shakes his head. “He’s done this his whole life. You haven’t, have you? You had a life before joining me, didn’t you?”

You stiffen as he lifts the cigar to his lips. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Or how he could know, not when you’ve kept it buried so deep under lies and half-truths that even you wonder if you’ll forget.

But no, that’s impossible. Every moment of that damned night is inescapable, the scars carved deep in your mind. You won’t forget.

That doesn’t mean Mr. Scamander needs to know.

Mr. Scamander watches you. “Perhaps it isn’t.” He murmurs. “But it’s important for you to consider. Why are you here?”

You mean to answer, but the scars, they’re throbbing, and you can’t block it out, not after a mission, not when you’re so tired.

The smell of the smoke’s going to your head, making you dizzy, and you swear the wound’s splitting open on your arm again as you sway back and forth, memories flashing in your vision. You can hear the screams again, see the smoke curling its way to the black sky.

Destruction.

Mr. Scamander’s in front of you suddenly, hands gripping your shoulders, holding you up. “Are you all right?”

You try to nod, to say something, but your words are gone and your tongue’s too heavy to move, to form the necessary motions to say what you need. His smell, the cigar, it makes it worse, and you can’t shake it out of your head as he drapes your arm around his shoulder, taking you somewhere.

You stumble forward, eyes shut but still seeing.

Dark blood under five manicured nails, screams tearing from somewhere far away that you can’t make out no matter how much you squint,  acrid smoke burning your nose, rough hands under your arms, dragging you forward, whispering words of comfort in your ears, trying to block out the sounds of death.

“Merlin, make it stop.” You mutter, wishing you could go back, change it all, make sure it never happens. Then you’d be okay. Then you’d be at home with your family and friends and pets, not here, not next to the biggest gang lord in New York, so close you can count the scars on his hands.

Mr. Scamander’s saying your name, setting you down on something soft, something fluffy, and then he’s rubbing circles on your back.

You blink again, a scream building in your throat, but then it’s all gone. Vanishes as quickly as it comes.

Mr. Scamander peers at you, concern clear on his face, the scar over his eyebrow pulled down with his frown. “You’re not okay.”

You shrug. “It’s nothing.”

You can hardly keep your eyes open, exhaustion crawling through your veins, tugging you down onto the bed Mr. Scamander set you on. Sleep. That will keep it all away. That will it tuck it back into the out of mind place it belongs for now.

“Why are you here?” He whispers, half a question for you, half a question he says to puzzle out himself.

“You led me here.” You murmur, hoping the joke will get him to leave you be. Goosebumps not from chills but from fear cover your arms, obvious to Mr. Scamander thanks to your silver dress.

His jaw clenches. Wrong answer. “You offered to help me. Why?”

You force your eyelids to open, peering up at Mr. Scamander’s worried face.

You’ve never told him or Decker or even Avery. It’s your secret.

You swallow, a final face flashing before your eyes.

You smile lightly, more cheeky than honest. “I have someone to track down, and you’re going to help me.”

[hookingminor]

"I was worried something happened to you" with pierre-luc dubois

"I was worried something happened to you."

-

It was an unfortunate series of events, truly. 

Ice in the winter was deadly, but you never expected to be carrying groceries with your roommate when she slipped on the stairs leading up to your apartment, effectively shattering her leg.

An ambulance was called immediately, and you rode the entire way to the hospital with her. Due to the late hour, the emergency room was operating at its lowest capacity, leaving you in a waiting room chair for hours on end while you waited for an update. The EMTs declared her tibia had broken, along with some pieces of her knee splintering off. Conclusion? Emergency surgery.

It was almost midnight when you received a call from your boyfriend, who was on a roadtrip on the west coast. You presumed he was calling you before heading to bed, but you’d been so preoccupied with your roommate that you forgot he had even played a game tonight.

“Hey, baby,” Pierre’s scruffy face greeted you. He immediately took in the unfamiliar off-white walls behind you. “Where are you at?”

“The hospital,” you answered with a sigh. “It’s been a long night. I’ve been here since eight—”

“What the fuck are you doing in the hospital? What happened? Are you okay?” Pierre went into full panic mode, sitting up from his relaxed position on the bed and bombarding you with questions.

“Well I was with Carrie—” Just then, a doctor rounded the corner and called your name.

“Hold on, Luc,” you said. “The doctor’s here. I gotta go. Call you later.”

You hung up before Pierre could say goodbye, eager for any update the doctor had. You sprung up from the chair with shaky hands.

“Is she okay?” You asked.

“Surgery was successful,” he answered with a smile, immediately calming your nerves. “We had to remove the splintered knee fragments and reset her tibia, but she is fine. She should be waking up from surgery any minute now if you’d like to see her. She’ll make a full recovery but it will be a few months.”

The doctor ushered you to Carrie’s room and found her lounged on the bed, broken leg elevated in a fancy contraption and a tired look on her face.

“Yikes.” You couldn’t help but make fun of her situation.

“God, I know right? Wasted fifty dollars worth of groceries, and I won’t be able to walk for months,” she chuckled dryly. “At least I’m so medicated I can’t feel any pain right now.”

A nurse brought in a padded chair at that moment, sliding it over to you since you requested if you could stay the night with Carrie. You didn’t want to leave her in the middle of surgery to wake up alone, and with it being so late, it didn’t make sense to go back home.

Exhaustion washed over you now that you were reassured your friend was okay, and she gave you the extra blanket on her bed for you to curl up with.

In all your worrying about Carrie, you completely disregarded the phone buzzing away in your bag and the tens of text messages and missed calls from Pierre. You fell asleep in that hospital room with Carrie, oblivious to the heart attack you were about to cause your boyfriend.

A knock woke you both up around eight in the morning, the same nurse from last night making her rounds to check Carrie’s vitals. Her prognosis was good. They decreased the morphine in hopes of getting her off it completely, and when the doctor came back in an hour later to check in, he supposed she’d be able to be released the next day so long as everything went smoothly today.

A few seconds into his discharge instructions, a hurried figure rounded the hospital room door and bursted in.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Pierre cursed a breath of relief when he saw you, clutching his laboring chest.

“And you are?” The doctor asked not unkindly, but he didn’t appreciate the interruption.

“Luc? What are you—” You turned to Carrie and the doctor, feeling rude about the interruption yourself. “I’ll be just outside.”

You grabbed Pierre by the wrist and tugged him into the empty hallway, and his hands immediately cupped your face to search for any sign of injury. “You had me worried to death,” he said, still in the process of catching his breath. He’d clearly run from somewhere, probably through the hospital to find you.

“Of course I’m okay,” you said. “What are you doing here so early? Weren’t you supposed to fly back today?”

“I was,” he answered. “Until you told me you were in the hospital then proceeded to ignore all my messages, so I booked the first flight back. I was worried something happened to you.”

“Oh.” Realization dawned on you. “Oh, I meant I was in the hospital with Carrie. She broke her leg last night and had to have surgery. I’m so sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he sighed. “I mean, I feel bad for Carrie, but you nearly sent me into cardiac arrest.”

“I feel terrible. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, but it was late when she got out of surgery and we were so tired.”

Pierre brought you into a tight hug. “I understand.” He kissed your forehead. “Please don’t do that to me again though.”

“Promise,” you chuckled, wrapping your arms around his torso. “Would you mind taking me home so I can take a shower and grab some things for Carrie?” 

“Of course,” he replied. “I better let the guys know you’re okay. I think I freaked them out last night.”

“Oh god.” Remorse washed over you in waves. You hadn’t even spared him a second thought after that phone call because you were worried about Carrie, and here he was worrying all his teammates and coaches that something terrible happened to you. 

But there was another part of you that wanted to cry over your boyfriend’s concern. He flew all the way from California in the middle of the night just to check on when you wouldn’t pick up.

“We should get you home then. You’re probably exhausted.” You took note of his messy hair and tired eyes.

“I think I lost about five years off my life after that,” Pierre said dryly, obviously too fatigued to put more effort into his joke. “If I never step foot in a hospital again, it will be too soon.”

[sardonic-sprite]

Oh, My God, They Were Roommates

Very late entry for #jaystephweekend2022. Prompts filled: college, they were roommates, dancing, after hours

Much love and credit to @Lettuce-prays for cowriting/editing

"Nnnnnnnyyyyyyygggggghhhhhhh!"

Jason looked up from his novel and glanced over to his roommate Stephanie, who had flopped back on the couch, sprawling like a fainting Victorian maiden. Her computer was balanced precariously on her lap, so Jason picked it up and set it on the coffee table.

"Writer's block?" he asked, glancing at the Word doc that only had about a hundred words on it.

Steph whined inarticulately. "Writer's execution block. I can't write a thing in this goddamn economy."

"Mood," Jason nodded.

"Six to eight pages!" Steph wailed, "How am I supposed to write six to eight pages!?"

"Keysmash and pray something legible comes up?" Jason suggested.

Steph looked him dead in the eyes and proceeded to smash her forehead into the computer eight times before Jason finally stopped her on the ninth.

"Not like that!" he scolded. "You're going to end up killing something, and whether it's you or the computer, both are detrimental to me."

"Really feeling the love there."

Jason sighed, hesitantly letting her go. "How long have you been working on this?"

"When did the semester start?"

"Yikes." Jason hissed in sympathy.

"My prof is a total psycho! Like, literally, I can diagnose him with five of the disorders we studied!"

Jason pulled the computer closer to read her header. Dr. Jonathan Crane. "Shit."

"Mm. Let me guess, he's a villain in your story?"

"Well, he drugs people into hallucinating their worst fears, so."

Steph made a face, squinting her eyes and sticking her tongue out. Her nose wrinkled, and never in a million years would Jason call it cute.

"Accurate, actually. He tried to make psychoanalysis a class activity."

"That feels illegal."

"Homework should be illegal," she griped, finally sitting up properly and reaching for her laptop. 

Jason slid it out of reach. She gave him an incredibly unimpressed stare.

"Give," she hissed

"You need a break."

"I'm going to have a mental break if you don't give me my laptop back."

"I'm serious." Jason saved the document and shut down the program. "Take half an hour, it'll help."

"I don't have half an hour, Jason!" Steph cried. "This thing is due in two days!"

"Plenty of time."

Jason clicked shut down and closed the lid right as Steph lunged. He swept it away and stood up, holding it above his head.

"Hey!"

She scrambled up and tried to jump to reach it, but, well... Steph was small. Kick-your-ass and angry small, but still. She wasn't going to get the computer when he had two feet on her.

He saw her eyes dart to the couch, the coffee table, and the chair he'd been sitting in in quick succession.

"Don't try--"

Too late.

She jumped onto the table and launched herself off it with a war cry. Jason dropped the computer on the chair and barely grabbed her before she could tackle him to the floor.

He pressed her close to him, half to comfort her, and half to prevent the five feet of fury from doing any actual damage.

She pouted at him. "I will kick you and you will not like where."

He let go immediately.

"You're still taking a break."

"I'll break you," she muttered, and he took another step back. As a precaution.

Finally she sighed, shoulders sagging. He didn't like the defeat on her face. Stephanie Brown was undefeatable.

"Come on," he said, tilting his head towards the door. "Let's get out of here for a while."

"And go where, exactly? In Gotham city in the middle of the night?" She raised both eyebrows at him.

He shrugged. "You act like if something were to happen we wouldn't be able to handle ourselves."

"Haven't you died before?"

"It was for two minutes, and it was very traumatic, thank you for reminding me."

She didn't back down. He'd always liked that about her. That he could just say things and not have her instantly pity him, or treat him like he was fragile.

"We could go to Blackjack's Tavern."

"I thought you were a nerd."

"I'm also a richboy with a reputation to uphold, I was mostly seeing if you wanted to buy yourself a drink and have me drive you back."

"Oh yes, and you'd hold my hair back as I puke my guts out from how drunk I get."

Jason turned away so he could blush a little. "Then how about Mafioso Does Pizza?"

"That's Maroni territory so, no."

Jason raised his hands in surrender. "Well, we could go to the Martha Wayne Arts Center, I guess."

"Where the hell did that come from?"

"It's a big open space. I could teach you how to swing dance."

"I didn't know you knew how to dance."

"I went to rich-people parties for seven years. Yes, I know how to dance."

Steph looked sheepishly towards the floor, "I've never danced with anyone before."

Almost in an instant Jason grabbed her hand and made towards the door. "Well, I guess it's high time you learned."

"It's high time alright," she muttered, but followed him anyway.

"Are we technically supposed to be here?" Steph wondered, glancing around at all the shadows.

"Probably not, but this building is named after someone who is technically my grandma, so they can suck it."

She giggled a little, comforted once he flicked the lights on. The choir room was indeed big and open, with a piano against one wall. Jason hurried towards a door in the corner, picked the lock, and started messing with what looked to be a sound system.

"Another rich people skill?" she teased.

"Mmhm," he called distractedly. A minute later the first few bars of Shut Up and Dance blared around the room. 

Was she imagining that he was blushing as he came back?

"This goes at about half time," he said, holding out his hands, "so it'll be easier to learn with."

"You're the boss, I guess."

He waited for a minute, then reached out and took both her hands. Her face flushed. "Oh, right."

He gave her one of those crooked half-grins that always filled her with butterflies.

"So, starting with 'home base,'" he began, and Steph wanted to make a joke, but also didn't want to put such jokes in his head, "we go forward right, kind of passing each other..."

He stepped quite close, gently pulling her hands so they stood side-to-side.

"And back."

He pulled away again, and Steph switched the feet she was supposed to use, stumbling a little. Jason's grip tightened until she got her feet underneath her again. Her face was hot.

"Then left and back."

This time she watched their feet, noting how he only moved one foot, and then didn't set it all the way down. Once she copied him, they got into a smoother rhythm. She looked up, beaming, to see a much-too-soft smile on Jason's face.

"Now you're getting it."

"Shut up and dance with me," she teased, and he laughed.

"Wanna try a turn?"

"I guess..." Hopefully she didn't sound too excited.

"Ok." Jason kept stepping forward and back, leading her with him, as he gave a play-by-play of the turn. "So I'm gonna let go of your right hand, and lift your left, then you're gonna twirl. Just... go with the flow."

"Brilliant advice."

They stepped right and left, then as they returned to home base, Jason dropped her right hand and raised her left, like he'd said. Steph spun underneath their arms, wishing she had on a dress or skirt so she could see it flare. A giggle escaped as she came back around and Jason caught her hand. She failed to get back in the rhythm of their steps, though, stumbling for a moment before Jason stopped them to reset. Her face flushed.

"Like I said, never danced before," she mumbled sheepishly.

"Well, I think you're doing pretty good," Jason smiled.

She smiled back. 

He led her in swing stepping for a moment before attempting the turn again. This time she only fell behind by a beat, catching up on the next side-step, and daring a glance up from their feet to see Jason grinning.

The last bars faded, but almost immediately were replaced by soft piano notes. Jason paused for a second, tilting his head consideringly. Steph had hardly thought, His eyes are really green, before he nodded and said, "This can work."

He began moving them again, falling into the same rhythm as before. A second later the lyrics started, sung by a remarkably young voice, and...

"Is that... Greatest Showman?" she laughed.

Jason shrugged, definitely blushing this time. "Dick's obsessed with it."

"Mmhm. That's why it's on your playlist."

"Shut up."

"That was the other song."

He stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck hers out right back, missing her cue to twirl and stumbling.

"Whoops," Jason smirked.

She shook her head, laughing again, and was ready for the next twirl when it came. What she was not ready for was when Jason dropped her left hand and whirled around himself, ending up beside her with a mischievous grin.

"What was that?" she half-yelped, half-laughed.

"Well, I can't let you have all the fun with spinning."

"I guess you are a little too ginormous to spin under my arm," she teased.

"Just a bit."

They went on, taking turns twirling, until the violins went crazy, and Jason kept spinning her and spinning her, slowly orbiting her twirls, until she was dizzy from spinning and laughing so hard. And then right as everything dropped out, he pulled her against him, arm around her waist to hold her steady and close.

She stared up at him, noticing there were faint freckles on the bridge of his nose.

His smile faded to something both softer and more intense. His gaze dropped to her lips.

"Jason..."

His whole face flushed, eyes coming back to meet hers as he stammered, "I..."

"Kiss me."

He blinked. Then a soft grin spread over his face as he bent down, and pressed his mouth to hers.

It only lasted a second. But it was sweet and gentle, and Steph didn't even know how long she'd wanted it, or that she'd wanted it so bad until that one second came. 

The music picked up once more, and Jason let her go, stepping back into their pattern of trading twirls. But they both had an energy and a smile that had changed so much because of that second. 

As the music cut away, he pulled her close again. Steph rose up onto her tiptoes to claim another kiss.

"I could get used to that," she whispered as she slowly dropped back down to her heels.

"Yeah?" he murmured breathlessly.

"I guess I need more dancing lessons," she suggested with a wink.

"I guess so." The mischief came back into his smile. "If you're gonna come to the next gala with me."

[corpsedaydream]

paint wars part 2

OKAY HERE IT IS! PART TWO TO PAINT WARS

if u haven’t read part one, i’ll link it right here

word count: 3k (yikes it’s a long one)

_______________________________

paint wars part 2

Things had been rough lately.

Real fucking rough.

You missed Corpse so much. You hadn’t spoken to each other since that fight at his apartment and that was fifty-four days ago now, almost two thirds of a season you’d been without him.

“I miss you.” You spoke aloud into the emptiness of your apartment, noting that the time on your phone now said 12:01am. It was officially now day fifty-five without speaking to him.

You swiped away all your notifications on your lock screen, ignoring everything and everyone that was trying to reach you right now so you could look at the person who was ignoring you. You wanted to look at the photo that was still your wallpaper. That first photo you’d ever taken together.

You went to change it on day thirty-eight of not speaking. On night thirty-seven of not speaking you’d gone out with your friends, they’d finally convinced you after a whole month of trying and you got absolutely wasted. So of course you’d called Corpse. But he didn’t answer, not any of the fifteen times you’d called. So that next morning, when you woke up hungover and saw that same lock screen photo and not one response from him, you told yourself you were going to change it. You tried to tell yourself you were angry, but it was just a coping mechanism to ignore the hurt that had been tunnelling through your heart since being without him. You spent an hour scouring tumblr and twitter for some aesthetically pleasing lock screen, but you didn’t save a single one. Nothing could compare to that photo of you and Corpse.

You then started to wonder if he’d listened to any of the voicemails you’d left the night before. You couldn’t remember them exactly, but you knew you definitely left four of them and how badly you wanted to know if the curiosity became too much to bear and he’d listened to them.

And he had.

On night thirty-seven, while you were out drinking, Corpse was in a deep sleep. He hadn’t been sleeping a whole lot lately, so finally, he’d crashed hard that night and slept through the calls you’d made to him. But even though he wasn’t aware of the calls in his sleeping state, you were still present in his dreamland. Every adventure his brain took him on was with you, maybe it was something that kept him asleep, the fact that you were right there in this fantasy. You were talking to him again, he could see your smile, hear your laugh, reach out and grab your hand, he could kiss you again. It was happiness. But then he woke up and he went to reach out for you in his bed, still caught up in the false wonder his dreams had provided him, only to find it was just him and reality slapped him fully awake. You weren’t there with him. You hadn’t been for a number of weeks. He missed you.

On day thirty-eight, when he spotted the missed calls from you on his phone, he cursed himself for being asleep and missing it. But would he had answered had he been awake? He wasn’t sure. So instead, he heard you speak to him for the first time in so long, even if it was through a voicemail you had left in the space of him not answering your calls.

“Oh, fuck- oh my god.”

That was it. That was the first voicemail, there was a lot of background noise but he had heard you so clearly. In your drunken state, you didn’t know what to say, so that’s what you had left with him, until you called back and left another.

"Hi.” You started it simple. He had the phone clutched so tightly in his hand, the device pressed so firmly against his ear, he didn’t want to miss a word. “I- I don’know what to say.” He noticed the slight slur to your words then, you were drunk when you had called. “I’m’a just go.”

You hung up again, but alas, there was another.

“Can I just ask... are you ignoring me?” Your voice was so meek, his chest hurt at the sound of it. He almost went to say no, but this was a one sided conversation, he’d missed the opportunity. “I miss you.” You hung up again, and he had to stop himself from replaying it over and over again to hear you say that you missed him.

But there was one last voice mail.

“I should stop calling, huh?” You sighed and he could picture you with a sad pout, your eyes all droopy with a mix emotion and alcohol. “But, I just want’a talk to you.” You confessed, then he heard another voice call your name in the background before they spoke to you and he listened. “(Y/N)! Here you are, what are you doing? That guys wondering where you are, he’s fucking hot-”

Corpse hung up then, he didn’t want to hear anymore. Jealousy was surging through him as the unwanted images of you with someone else plagued his mind and he threw his phone across his room. Wishing he hadn’t of started listening to those fucking voicemails.

What he didn’t know, though, is how the rest of that last voicemail went.

“I really don’t care.” You’d told your friend at the mention of the guy. Yeah, he was attractive and he was buying you drinks, but you wanted no one except Corpse. “Give me a sec.” You’d told your friend before walking away again, bringing your phone back to your ear to talk to the only person you wanted to talk to right now, even if he wasn’t on the other end of that call. “I hope you didn’t hear that, but if you did, don’t worry it. I’m g’na go home now.” You sighed and looked up at the night sky, there was no shooting star, or really any stars at all because of the light pollution from where you currently were, but you were still wishing that by some magic happenstance, Corpse would pick up his phone and speak to you again. “I wish I was going to yours.”

On day thirty-nine you cried so hard. You thought you had made it past this violently sobbing stage, this was exact state you’d cried yourself to sleep to each night for the first few weeks. Your heart was in so much pain, it was torn apart and you swore only one person had the power to stitch it back together, but he wasn’t there. You hadn’t heard a single thing from him. Were you two still together? Had you broken up? You weren’t even sure. But on day thirty-nine you cried that hard again because Corpse hadn’t responded at all to your calls or voicemails, so you convinced yourself he truly wanted nothing to do with you.

You’d been avoiding searching his name on social media, knowing it would send you into a spiral and you’d overthink every little thing but on day forty-two you’d noticed on twitter that he was playing games live. He wasn’t live himself, but you watched someone’s stream just to hear him again. You cried again doing this, because he was being exceptionally quiet, he wasn’t his normal self, he barely laughed once.

You wished you hadn’t clicked on it. The guilt you felt was already immense, but hearing him so not like himself made you feel even worse for causing all of this. You stopped watching, you couldn’t bear it. You knew you were to blame for all of this, you pushed him too far, you couldn’t believe how stupidly you had acted, you knew better and you did it anyway. The self attacking thoughts kept swirling your mind until you gave yourself a headache.

On day fifty-six of still not talking to each other, you ventured out to the beach with just your best friend. She’d been there for you a lot lately, she also felt bad about that night, but you tried to assured her it was your own fault. She didn’t know Corpse like you did, she didn’t know him at all, that’s why you felt to blame for not stopping the idea before it was too late.

“You should put sunscreen on.” Your best friend told you. You were laying on your towel in the direct sun, enjoying the warmth blasting into your skin, you hadn’t been to the beach in such a long time.

“Yeah.” You answered her, but you knew you weren’t going to. Another time, you would have, you knew the familiar sting of sunburn well and you normally put it on to look after your skin, but you hadn’t really been taking care of yourself too well lately, you just didn’t care enough.

On night fifty-six, you stood in front of your bathroom mirror looking over your body. You’d spent a lot longer at the beach than you realised and now you were burnt so badly and as red as a tomato. “Fuck.” You said out loud, turning and looking over your shoulder to inspect your back, it was just as red. You should’ve worn sunscreen. You left your bathroom to go find your aloe vera plant, only to find that it was dead. “Fuck!” You repeated, the one hope you had to help heal your skin even slightly quickly vanishing. “Oh, fuck. What am I going to do?”

That’s how you found yourself heading towards a 24 hour store to purchase whatever aloe vera cream or gel you could find, you knew it wouldn’t be as good as the plant itself, but you needed something. It was late and you were anxious as you neared the shop, you knew about this place from Corpse, he would often go there at odd hours to get whatever he needed. It was close to his place and you hadn’t driven around this area since that disaster of a night.

You squinted your eyes as you walked in and the harsh fluorescent lights pierced into your eyes after walking in from the night time. You were walking quickly and you told yourself it was because you were embarrassed about your skin being so burnt and you didn’t want anyone to see you like this, but it was really because you were so anxious over the thought of who you could potentially run into in this shop. Your swift steps brought you to the skin care isle and you let your eyes scan the shelves for the aloe vera you so desperately sought out.

“(Y/N)?”

You froze completely and you swore you even felt your heart stop beating. Hearing his voice speak your name again felt like lighting had struck right through you. This couldn’t be real, this had to be your imagination playing some sort of sick joke on you. Slowly, you turned towards the direction his voice had come from and sure enough, there he was. Dressed in all black, a beanie on his head and a mask over the bottom half of his face, your eyes locked with his. There was a pull in your chest, your heart had heard him, too and it wanted so badly to be with him, to be healed by him. You had thought up this scenario a million times over these past fifty-six days, of what would happen had you and him had a run in like this and in every single one you had so much to say, but right now, you were speechless.

Before you had a chance to even try to say anything if you managed to stop being stuck in silence, Corpse spoke again.

“Fucking hell,” He neared you and you sucked in a quick breath at his sudden movement. “Look how burnt you are.” You were wearing tights and an oversized hoodie, so your entire body was covered, but your face was just as burnt and clearly he had noticed. 

This was another aspect that didn’t fit into your scenarios you’d thought up about this moment. You’d imagined you would’ve look amazing. But instead of looking like some beautiful mermaid, you were the same colour as Ariel’s hair from The Little Mermaid. “I know, don’t look at me.” You huffed and dropped your head down, letting your beach waved hair fall around your face.

“You didn’t wear sunscreen?”

“Obviously not.”

“That was silly.”

“I know.”

“Are you sore?”

“Yeah.” It felt so natural to have this back and forth with him. It was brief, but it was enough for your heart to kick back into gear and speed up.

He stayed silent for a prolonged moment so you looked back to his face and his eyes were on your face but it was his turn to glance away then and you took the opportunity to really soak in his side profile. You’d even missed just being able to look at him. 

“Why are you here?” He asked you.

“I need aloe vera and I knew this place would be open.”

“You’re not using your plant?” Butterflies fluttered inside of you that he remembered a simple mundane fact that you preferred the healing touch of the actual plant for sunburn as opposed to what was bought at a store in a bottle.

“It died.”

Corpse suddenly looked back to you and much to your surprise, he laughed.

“Why are you laughing?!”

“How do you kill a succulent?”

“You know I’m not good at gardening and shit like that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d be able to kill a succulent.” He laughed harder and you started to smile, he was teasing you but it felt so right. And hearing his laughter filled you with a warmth you’d been missing.

“Shut up.” You told him, but you were beginning to laugh too. “It’s hard to keep plants alive.”

“(Y/N), succulents are pretty much impossible to kill.”

“Okay, I get it, I didn’t purposely murder my aloe vera plant.”

“Oh, baby.” The pet name slipped so easily from his lips but it caught you both off guard, so the both of you stopped laughing and your postures stiffened.

Briefly, your eyes met but each of you darted your vision elsewhere. However, neither of you made no effort to move away from one another.

“Sorry.” Corpse said softly.

“It’s okay.” And it was, so okay. You wanted to tell him that hearing him call you baby was all you’d been wanting to hear again over these almost fifty-seven days without him. “I should really get this aloe vera gel on me, though.” You really didn’t want to leave him, but you couldn’t stand in this store forever.

“Are you sunburnt all over?” He asked.

“Yeah.” You sighed

And just as instinctively as the pet name had slipped out, his hands started to move towards the sleeve of your jumper. But he stopped himself when you flinched slightly and he quickly realised what he was doing. “Sorry, can I see?”

“I mean, you can, but I don’t want you to do it because it does really fucking hurt. That’s why I jumped, not because I don’t want you to touch me.” You answered him quickly. “I do want you to touch me- wait, I mean, no.” If your face wasn’t already red from the sunburn, it would have become red then from the blush you could feel forming. And if your skin wasn’t in pain you would have facepalmed yourself. “Sorry.” You apologised then.

“It’s okay.”

Shaking your head, you began to gently slide the sleeve of your big hoodie up.

“Fuck, (Y/N).” Corpse cursed, concern filling him as your skin was practically glowing from the burn it had copped. “You can’t do that to yourself.”

“I know.”

“How long were you at the beach?”

“All day pretty much.”

“You’re that burnt all over?”

“Yeah, I mean, some spots are worse. I think my back and shoulders are probably the worst. They hurt the most.”

He moved to step around you then, disappearing out of your sight as he was now standing behind you. “Can I?”

“Yeah, just be careful.”

And he made sure to keep his movements cautious, he decided on looking from the top, his hands grabbing the neck on the back of your hoodie to pull it back ever so gently so he could inspect. His eyes widened in a combination horror, worry and sympathy. He’d seen you get sunburnt before, but never to this extent. “Oh my fucking god.” The contrast between where the strap of your togs sat over your shoulder, blocking a sliver of your skin from the sun to keep it its natural colour versus the red that was brought from the burn was insane. “It looks like someone has painted you.”

“I mean, I guess the sun did. Just in a really painful way.”

“You’re not planning on going to the beach anytime soon, right?” Corpse carefully released your hoodie then and stepped in front of you once more. Distress was so present on his face, despite most of it being covered. He was so worried about you in this moment.

“Definitely not. The only thing I’m planning on is not going outside in any sunlight until my skin is healed.”

“Living like me.”

“Guess so.”

“My aloe vera plant is alive.” He stated.

“Wow, you’re really just going to flex that right now? Trying to kick me while I’m down.” You joked back, assuming he was teasing you.

“No, I mean...” He trailed off, his eyes struggling to stay on yours as he continued. “You could come over and use it, I know you like the real stuff better and I could help do your back, or wherever you can’t reach.” He was nervous, but he really didn’t have to be.

You could feel it happening, your heart beginning to heal.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Do you want to?”

“Yeah.”

[marvelslut16]

Inseparable

Pairing: Reggie Mantle x reader

Synopsis: Reader and Reggie have been best friends since they were toddlers, nothing tearing them apart until Veronica their Junior year. This follows the rise and downfall of their friendship. Can they mend their friendship and be back to what they once were, will they be too hurt to fix their broken hearts, or will they finally admit their feelings for one another?

Word count: 2.6K+ (my hand slipped)

Warnings: Mr. Honey; he’s the worst villain to ever enter Riverdale, you can’t change my mind. Mentions of child abuse, nothing graphic past the mention of a black eye. Some angst. Spoilers for s4e4 technically, I still can’t believe what Mr. Honey did. 

A/N: I have like 11 requests I still have to get to, yikes. I swear I’ll do them soon, but inspiration hit and I ended up writing this. there isn’t enough Reggie love on Tumblr, plus I have a tiny crush on Charles Melton, so writing this was a win win. let me know what you think, and if I should write more for Riverdale. Veggie is better than Varchie (don’t come for me), but I still think Reggie deserves better than Ronnie. 

Growing up in a small town like Riverdale there weren’t too many kids to become friends with, but when you met Reggie Mantle on your first day of preschool you knew he would be your best friend for life. Archie was showing off on the playground by walking up the slide when the teacher wasn’t looking. The problem then being that Archie's foot slipped right as you were walking passed the bottom of the slide, and he slid down and ended up knocking you on the ground. You started to cry because he scraped your arm bad enough that it started to bleed. Reggie, whom you shared a table with in class, watched from the sidelines as your teacher helped you up and took you to the nurse, he got his revenge during arts and crafts later that day- ‘accidentally’ spilling red paint all over the front of Archie’s khaki pants. When Reggie made it to the table you quietly thanked him and shared your paint with him since the teacher said he couldn’t have new paint as a lesson to be more careful next time. 

As the years went on, yours and Reggie’s friendship only grew until you were inseparable; you two went on family vacations together, you went to every single one of his junior bulldog football games from the ages of eight to twelve, he went to your ballet recitals when you took classes in grade school even bringing you roses. Reggie was your rock at your grandmother’s funeral, you helped him pass his geometry class Sophomore year so he could stay on the football team, and you were the only person that he opened up to about his father’s abuse- having witnessed it with your own eyes a handful of times. 

Your mom was convinced you and Reggie would fall in love and get married one day, and your father was convinced your friendship would crumble and ultimately go down in a blazing fire. Going into your senior year you hate to admit that your father was right, his words bouncing around in your skull every time your brain shut off for longer than two seconds. Veronica Lodge moved to town Sophomore year, enticing every boy within a fifty mile radius with her upper East side charm. Reggie didn’t fall for Veronica right away, he fell for her junior year when he was helping her with La Bonne Nuit. And as cliche as it is, that’s when you realized you were in love with him, you had been for a while. The small nagging voice in the back of your head told you that it had been since that day in preschool. 

But you would grin and bear the pain, the soul crushing pain, if it meant that Reggie would still be in your life. And you did, for a while at least; until Reggie stopped calling and texting you back, until he stopped begging you to come to his games, until he stopped sneaking into your room every friday night after a game to go over the play footage where you would help him come up with new plays and tweaks to the old ones, until he started ignoring you in the halls in favor of making out with Veronica. You never hated the girl, she had been nothing but nice to you anytime you would interact, but God, you just wished she would disappear and give you your Reggie back. 

You resented Veronica, leading your interactions with the girl to be more tense and your answers clipped, and that was what led to the blazing fire your father talked about. Reggie offered you a ride home one day after school, and of course you jumped at the opportunity to spend time with him again. Instead of going to pops and talking like you thought you would, the two of you got into your biggest, and last, fight ever. 

It started with Reggie asking why you hated Veronica, where you defended yourself and swore that you didn’t. But he wouldn’t believe a word that came out of your mouth, continuing to press you as you two kept driving. The closer you got to the edge of town the worse the fighting got, your voice raising along with his. You accuse him of abandoning his friends, abandoning you, to be with Veronica all the time. He gets mad that you don’t understand why he’s with her all the time, claiming that you couldn’t understand not when you’ve never had a boyfriend. Something that he’s the reason for, since he scared all of the guys even remotely interested in you away with just one piercing glare or one lowly growled threat. 

The comment picking on your relationship status, or lack thereof, is the straw that broke the camel's back. You let loose just as you pass the sign thanking you for visiting Riverdale, the town with pep. Pep your ass, the small town is full of death and endless heartache wherever you look. You rip into Reggie, letting the hurt take over as you scream and scream at him-calling him a terrible friend. He finally screams back, claiming that you’re worse because you hate his girlfriend. He has to pull his precious car over, the car you helped him pick out when he turned sixteen, because he started swerving when you two got into a screaming match. 

The interaction ends with you getting out of the car on the side of the road leading into Greendale, slamming the car door behind you, knowing that he’ll get mad with how aggressive you’re being with his baby, his Bella. He does a sharp U-turn driving beside you, trying to coax you into getting back in the car with him. But you can’t do that, you can’t face him right now. So as you watch the taillights of the gun metal grey Chevelle disappear around the curve in the road you finally let the tears fall down your face, they stream harder and faster the closer you get to reentering the town with pep. 

Reggie had dropped your backpack off at your house when he got back into town, so it was sitting there waiting for you in your living room alongside your worried mother. You cried into her arms that night for hours, until you were all cried out, not caring that you look like a big baby. You had just lost Reggie, you had just lost your everything. You hadn’t talked to him since that day in the middle of your junior year, even after him and Veronica broke up and she went back to Archie like always. The days of your senior year seemed to fly by, October coming in what felt like mere days as opposed to months, and your last Halloween in Riverdale is today. 

You and Reggie would always wear matching costumes to trick or treat, and school just for fun as you got older, this always prompted your classmates to wonder if you two were finally dating. But that wouldn’t be happening this year, for the first time ever. You had even dressed up and sat on his porch in costume when you were six, handing out candy to the other kids so you could talk to Reggie, who was in costume too, through the window because he was sick with a 102.2 degree fever. You were dressed as Kim and Ron that year, his mom had even crocheted him a little Rufus to stick in his pocket. You couldn’t wait to get out of this town, away from Reggie, away from the places where you would see ghosts of your younger selves everywhere you went. 

Kevin calls you freaking out after he and Reggie got caught tp’ing Mr. Honey’s office. Kevin caved after Mr. Honey threatened to make sure he wouldn’t get into NYU if he didn’t. Kevin felt guilty for his actions, and even though you hadn’t talked to Reggie in close to a year you were worried about him. Worried what his dad might do to him when he hears he got in trouble at school again, and worried what the unhinged Mr. Honey might do to him himself. 

You don’t hear anything from Reggie the next day, not that you really expect to. You more-so hope he’ll call you, but you know what they say about hope- it breeds eternal misery. The day goes by at a snail's pace as you stare at your phone throughout the entirety of said day. You finally curl in on yourself and go to sleep after midnight, however sleep doesn’t stay for long. You’re awoken around two in the morning from your phone’s incessant ringing, in your dazed stupor you don’t realize it’s Reggie’s special ringtone- the bulldog cheer from Kim Possible. 

“Hello?” you ask hoarsely, making sure to stay quiet so your parents won’t hear. 

“(Y/N/N), can you talk?” your startled to hear Reggie’s voice on the other line. It sounds scratchy, like he was recently in a screaming match with someone. You open your eyes for the first time, finally accepting that you won’t be able to just roll over and slip back into your dreams. You glance at the alarm clock on your bedside table and your eyes widen at the time.

“It’s like two in the morning Reg,” you sigh, hoping he’ll wait till morning. 

“Can I come over?” Reggie’s pleading now.

“Later, we can go to Pop’s for lunch or something,” you yawn loudly into the phone in protest. 

“I’m already here,” before you can respond the line goes dead.

You can hear quiet, almost not there, footsteps outside your window as Reggie expertly navigates his way through the flowers and bushes outside your window. He taps on the window three times in quick succession, your old signal for when he would sneak over letting you know it was him at your window. You reluctantly get out of your warm cozy bed, stumbling to the window to open it for your former best friend. 

Your plans for just slipping back into bed anf hopefully nodding off while he talks go out the window as you come face to face with Reggie’s swollen face. He has a split lip and a black eye, you’re sure he has belt marks on his back too. You don't care that Reggie is climbing through the window a little too loudly, your sole focus now on fixing him up. Once he’s in the room you sneak to the kitchen and quietly grab an ice pack, stopping in the bathroom to grab rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and ibuprofen.  

You hand him the pain reliever and your bottle of water, it’s not the first time you’ve shared, as soon as you shut your bedroom door behind you. He swallows the pills down with ease, and you both settle on your bed, a sad depressing routine. You don’t say anything as you clean his split lip, he winces slightly when the alcohol drenched cotton ball makes contact with his open wound. 

“Mr. Honey caught Kevin and I last night,” Reggie admits quietly. 

“I heard, Kevin told me,” you murmur unsure of where this conversation is headed, so you continue to dab at his lip.

“Mr Honey, he said that no one takes me seriously, no one since you. He said that he heard around school that I made my ‘persona’ bigger, became more of a prankster, after I lost you. He-he knew about my dad, (Y/N),” Reggie’s voice cracks, you can’t imagine what he must be feeling right now. “Said people at school are laughing at me, worst of all, you’re laughing at me.”

“Oh sweetie, no!” you're quick to jump in and defend. “I would never laugh at you, you know that. Never. No one else is either, he was just saying that to get a rise out of you.” Your arm moves without your permission, you push a strand of black hair out of his eyes before caressing his cheek softly. 

“He tp’d my car, that I get. That was actually funny,” Reggie hisses, you aren’t sure if it’s because you’re lightly pressing the ice pack to his shiner or because of what he’s about to say next. “But he broke Bella’s windshield, shattered her passenger side window, and busted her left headlight.” 

“I’ll kill him!” you jump up from your spot on your bed, no longer caring if you wake your parents. Reggie holds the ice pack to his eye with his right hand, cautiously reaching for your hands with his left. You calm down when his fingers intertwine with yours, sinking back down next to him. 

“I avoided going home all day, but when I did and my dad saw the car,” Reggie takes in a shaky breath, and you rub the back of his hand with your thumb. “He did, well he did this.” He uses your joined hands to gesture towards his face. 

You don’t say anything, instead just pulling him in for a hug. Reggie tenses at first before melting into your warm embrace. You pull him down onto the bed with you so you're laying side by side, he rests his head on your chest as you tuck the two of you in. 

“I know we haven’t talked in a while,” you let out dissatisfied hum as you card your fingers soothingly through his hair. “But you're the only person I wanted to see, the only person I ever want to see. It’s been torture without you (Y/N).”

“It doesn’t seem like it,” you say under your breath, but he hears you clearly with his ear pressed to your chest. 

“I was an idiot, I let my ego keep me from you,” he moves his head to look up at you, his brown eyes shine with sincerity. 

“Don’t do this right now Reggie,: your eyes fill with tears, “Don’t do or say anything you don’t mean just to make me feel better.”

Reggie moves his right arm from around your waist to brush away a stray tear that slipped out of your eye. He moves his thumb down your cheek to your lips, tracing them with the pad of his thumb. Reggie lightly tugs down on your lower lip causing you to uncage it from your teeth, when did you even bite it in the first place? 

“I love you (Y/N), I always have,” he looks away from your mouth so he can stare into your eyes. “And I think you have too.”

“I have, I love you so much Reggie,” he pulls your face down to meet him. The kiss is searing, and a little wet due to the tears leaking out of both of your eyes, but it’s perfect. You pull back when you get the slightly tangy taste of blood on your tongue. You immediately fuss over Reggie’s lip, said lip splitting again during the makeout. Reggie pulls you back down onto the bed and into his arms after you’ve dabbed at his lip with the cotton ball again. 

“How can I make it up to you?” his eyes shine with unshed tears as he stares lovingly at your face, almost like he’s mesmerized by you. “Not just tonight, but leaving you for Ronnie so I could try to get over you, and for every other night you’ve taken care of me.”

“Just never leave me again,” you whimper, which is cut off when he kisses you again. 

“Never,” Reggie’s never been more serious about anything in his life. 

You cuddle up to Reggie’s chest, his warmth and scent quickly lulling you into  a deep comforting sleep. You don’t care that he should sneak out the window and go home, or that your mom will find you two cuddled up in your twisted sheets when she comes to check on you at ten. All you care about is Reggie being safe, in your arms, and finally having him back in your life-but with one vast improvement to your relationship.

Permenent tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen​ @rexorangecouny @mrs-malfoy-always​

[sweet-as-battery]

genuine reasons

Oh BOY! Here we are. This is my first foray into fanfic in over ten years. Please bear with me. Thanks to @twistedboxy​ and @jeffreycombseverything​ for encouraging me to post. This is super OOC for Herbert, but I like to hc that he avoids drinking because he gets soft. Also, even though Bride is one of my favorite movies, I won’t accept that Meg is dead. :) Anyways, I'm just gonna post this before I chicken out. Happy Holidays, y'all!

-----

Summary: Your date for your family holiday party drops out, so you ask Herbert to pretend to be your date for the night. After a couple drinks and some ego boosting, Herbert realizes there might be a reason the two of you are good at this game... 2.8k words (YIKES!)

You pulled your car up to the curb and turned off the ignition, glancing up at the house to your left which was decked out in lights. You snuggled into your scarf as you shifted your view to the other side of the car where Herbert silently seethed in the passenger’s seat. Fidgeting with the steering wheel for a moment, you offered him a small, “We don’t have to stay long.”

The man tutted and waved you off. Like that changed the fact that he had to be here at all. You had come to him two days ago, telling him how you’d told your family that you’d be bringing home a guy from class you’d been seeing. Then just days later, said guy decided that he’d rather go home to celebrate with the other girl he’d been seeing. When you didn’t have the heart to tell your family what had happened, you’d begged West to stand in for the dinner. 

He’d initially scoffed and made a cold remark about you having excellent taste in men. The disheartened look on your face immediately told him he had made a mistake, but when you just nodded and walked away as opposed to starting one of your famous arguments, he began to feel a sense of guilt creep in. 

As he vaguely recounted the incident to his other housemate, Dan didn’t hesitate in letting Herbert know just how much of an ass he was. It was after that stern push he got from Dan that had gotten him to give in and agree. 

“Herbert, you need to go. She’s given you how much of her spare time since you took her on as your assistant? The least you could do for her is pretend to be her date for a couple hours.”

But, Herbert doesn’t do family, or more so, dating. What a trivial waste of time. Even during the holidays, Herbert really only had himself. Dan always goes to visit family with Meg, and this was his first year with you around. Dan would always invite Herbert to come home with the two of them, but he would just scoff and tell him that science never stops to celebrate the holidays. 

Luckily for Herbert, your family only lived about a half hour outside of Arkham, but his overarching sense of dread at having to socialize increased ten-fold when you had parked in front of the brightest, most sickeningly decorated house on the street. You suddenly twisted and reached into the backseat before producing a bottle of wine and a cake. 

“Could you carry these if I get the gifts?” you asked Herbert, and he hesitantly took the items from you. 

You grabbed the bag of gifts from the backseat and the two of you walked together to the front door before you rapped against the wood with your free hand. After a moment of the two of you standing there in silence, Herbert could feel your eyes on him. He took a second to glance over and saw you smiling at him. He sent a small, false, fleeting grin back before the door swept open and your mom cried out your name lovingly.

She pulled you quickly into a hug and ushered the both of you in the door. She gestured to the table with other desserts and dishes on it and Herbert sat the items in his arms down as you made introductions. When he turned back, your mother wasted no time pulling him into a hug as well. He froze, absolutely taken aback by the contact. 

You chuckled. “Mom I know you’re a hugger, but Herbert’s not.” 

She pulled away and looked at him apologetically. “I’m sorry, dear. It’s just lovely to meet you.”

“You as well, Mrs Y/L/N,” Herbert responded politely. As she insisted he call her by her first name, you heard two sets of sneakers padding closer against the hardwood floors. Your two nephews came into view and you pointed at them excitedly. 

“Y/N!” The smaller of the two boys wailed out, running to you before you scooped him up into your arms and snuggled against him. 

“Are you getting into trouble?” you asked him and he smirked, shaking his head. “That looks like a lie to me,” you told him before tickling him and getting a loud giggle in return. 

“Y/N, who’s this?” the older brother asked, pointing at West. 

“This is my friend, Herbert,” you told him as his little eyes connected with Herbert’s. The pre-teen boy waved and introduced himself. 

Wonderful, Herbert thought, there’s children too. 

—-

Dinner had gone better than you had expected, and most of your relatives seemed to be comfortable in Herbert’s presence, which shocked both of you. After your insistence, non-drinker Herbert had also indulged in a couple glasses of wine, and you found he had begun to soften ever so slightly. While you stood with your elder cousin against the kitchen island, drinking and snacking on desserts, your eyes were fixed on the sight going on in the living room. 

Herbert sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, telling tales from his time in Switzerland (minus the illegal experimentation) to the kids, as well as your grandparents. Every so often, he’d gesture wildly and the children would break into fits of laughter. You felt your stomach do a flip at the sight, and while you told yourself over and over that it was the wine doing it to you, you knew it wasn’t. 

He caught your eye, shooting you a very uncharacteristic smile, and that’s when you knew you were done in. An hour ago, you’d sat silently in the car with the classic neurotic and insensitive Dr. West, but after a few drinks, a meal, and some ego stroking by your relatives, he’d turned into smiley, Mr. Sociable Herbert. As he took a moment to excuse himself and stand from his criss-cross-applesauce position on the carpet, your cousin mused, “I wish I could find someone like him.”

You chuckled at her, and as Herbert walked toward where you were in the kitchen, eyes locked on each other, you replied, “Don’t let him fool you. He’s usually a prick.”

She raised her eyebrows and looked between the two of you as Herbert perched himself right next to you. “Ah,” he began to retort, “and I take it that’s why you’ve been ogling at me for the past fifteen minutes.”

You scoffed at him as he continued looking down on you with those condescending hazel eyes of his. Your aunt came barging into the room suddenly with your mother in tow, obviously having had a few more drinks than the three of you combined. She came to stand in front of you and Herbert and attempted to make a cutesy noise. 

“So, how long have you two been together?” she asked, leaning back on the counter next to your cousin. 

You hadn’t really thought over this answer, figuring you’d make something up on the spot, but as your brain blanked in the heat of the moment, Herbert simply answered, “It’ll be eight months on the third. Our mutual colleague introduced us when we all decided to become housemates.”

Your mother squealed. “Oh! How is Dan? Are he and Meg still together?”

You nodded, “They’re staying with his family for the holidays.”

“So the two of you get the whole house to yourselves for a couple of days,” your aunt slurred, wiggling her eyebrows at the two of you. 

You could feel your face flush and Herbert shifted uncomfortably next to you. “Mom, don’t be like that,” your cousin scolded her, sensing the shift in the room.

Your own mother attempted to help as well, exclaiming that she needed a picture of the two of you. She fetched the camera from the closet in the hall and ran back in before gesturing for you and Herbert to move in closer to one another. You sighed and stepped, making it so your hands were now brushing against each other. 

Herbert suddenly pulled his away and you felt a momentary bit of disappointment before his arm wound its way around your shoulders and pulled you in tighter. You took this as your initiative and if he was going to go all in, then so were you. You wrapped one arm around his lower back and brought the other to rest on his abdomen. 

The sweater he was wearing over his normal white shirt and tie was soft, and you couldn’t help but nestle your face against it. You breathed in and noticed that his normal smell of chemicals and musty books had mixed with the warm cinnamon that filled the house. You sighed and the moment you looked up, you heard the click and flash of the camera, followed by a coo from your aunt, then another click and flash. 

After a minute of pointlessly shaking the two photos, your mother looked over them and handed you one. “Remind me to thank Dan the next time I see him. I owe him at least a cake for getting you two together.”

You looked down at the photo and seeing the seeming warmth shared between the two of you made your heart yearn. You knew that after tonight, Herbert would burn the photo if given the opportunity, so you decided to tuck it in the pocket of your cardigan and never let him get the chance. 

The two of you were skirting on the edge of something dangerous, and while you knew that Herbert was just playing the game, you were spiraling fast. What you hadn’t realized in that moment though, was just how tight Herbert was still holding you against himself. 

—-

Once everyone had finished opening their gifts, and continued chitchatting, you figured you’d subjected the doctor to enough of the charade. As you began to say your goodbyes, Herbert went to retrieve your coats. On his way back, he was suddenly stopped by your cousin from earlier. 

She pulled him aside before announcing, “I know this is weird and I’ve only observed you two for a few hours, but I want you to know that she’s crazy about you. She barely listened to five words I said earlier. It was 100% tunnel vision tonight. I just hope you feel the same because i've never seen her like this before.”

Herbert nodded in reply, too stunned by the words to find any of his own. He knew you weren’t an actor by any means. He felt your panic when your aunt began asking questions. Yet, the smiles and the touches felt genuine. As he continued mulling internally, your cousin smiled at him and walked past on her way to get her own coat. 

“See you next year, Herbert.”

He found you in the foyer with your mother and handed you your jacket before slipping into his own. Your cousin’s words still bounced around in his head as he watched the two of you embrace goodbye. After pulling apart, she began to come in for a hug with him, but stopped when she remembered. 

“Not a hugger. That’s right,” she reminded herself with a chuckle before joking, “Y/N’s the only one entitled to your hugs.”

While he could feel your almost worried gaze boring into the side of his head, he just smiled back at your mother before thanking her for having the two of you over. You really were bad at this when put on the spot. You opened the door and the two of you inched out into the cold as you shared goodbyes. Yet, as you were just about to turn and close the door behind the both of you, your mother gasped and pointed to the top of the doorframe. “I completely forgot!” She yelled out. 

Both of your eyes met and traveled slowly up to find exactly what you’d expected and dreaded. Your eyes met again and you let out a nervous laugh that Herbert mimicked. He took in the look on your face and once again thought about what your cousin had said as well as the feeling he got when you’d embraced him for the photo earlier. He had too much important work going on to twiddle around with feelings. He was defeating death. Yet, as he peered down into your eyes, he found he couldn’t recall anything at the moment. None of the formulas or correct dosages or chemical components. 

So he decided, to hell with it. 

His hands came up to hold the sides of your face and he brought his lips down to meet yours fleetingly. When he pulled back, he could see a sparkle in your eye and looked away quickly. The two of you needed to leave before he let anything slip, so he quickly gave one more goodbye before ushering you out the door and to the car. 

—-

The two of you sat in silence for most of the drive home, neither knowing the words to say. Both of you were thinking the same thing, but while Herbert had a sense of hopefulness, you were feeling the exact opposite. Yet, when you pulled into the driveway of your shared home and turned off the engine, neither of you made a move to get out. Looking at your lap, the only thing you could think up was a small, “Thank you. I know it was probably torture, but I really appreciated it.”

He made a hmm noise before announcing, “Actually, I’d be willing to do it again next year.”

You felt your chest flutter at his words and your eyes darted up to meet his. The same hazel eyes that looked upon you with contempt just hours ago now seemed softer, but on edge. Your gaze narrowed skeptically before asking, “Just how much did you drink, West?”

“Not nearly enough,” he answered and you studied his worried expression. “Let’s go inside.”

The two of you gathered the gifts and leftover cake and made your way into the house. As you tucked the cake in the fridge, you had expected Herbert to make a beeline to the basement just as he always did. To your surprise, the man was instead still in the living room, poking and prodding at the fire he’d just started. 

You sat down onto the sofa, picking at the ragged arm. “Don't you have work to do?” You asked, the tension in the air becoming palpable. 

He let out a curt sigh before coming over to sit next to you. “I don’t believe I would be able to focus after all of the distractions.” There was a beat of silence before he decided to go for it. “I would say your family believed our story. Your cousin definitely did, at least from what she told me. I believe she said you were ‘crazy for me’.”

You cringed inwardly and felt your pulse quicken before letting out a nervous chuckle. “I guess we’re just good actors.”

“See, that’s what I’ve been having trouble with.” He removed his glasses from his face and used them to gesture. “Because, you weren’t a great actor, by any means.”

You scoffed at him. “Thanks a lot. I suppose you’re gonna say you pulled the load with your magnificent performance.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. In fact, I think what saved us were your genuine feelings for me. All those looks and smiles, very convincing because they were real.”

Your panic shot through the roof, but you attempted to play it off with a loud laugh. “Don't flatter yourself, West. I feel more for some of the things we create downstairs.”

“I think you’re lying,” he retorted, emphasizing the last word with a point of his glasses. 

The dejection spread through you like a wave. You knew he’d be blunt if he ever found out how you felt, but now he was just taunting you. He shook his glasses, his lips pursed, before he sat back down next to you. He was much closer this time though, so much so that your knees kept brushing together. 

With the proximity and without the glasses, you could see his eyes perfectly, the intense green-grey staring back at you and making your heart patter. He allowed his free hand to reach out and cup your face gently. You sighed and leaned into the touch, letting your eyes close. He murmured very quietly, “And as convincing as you were, I was on the same level. Equally good at pretending, for all the same genuine reasons.”

Hearing his admission caused a lump to form in your throat. You swallowed to try and push down the feelings, but it all flew out the window as soon as you felt his lips on yours for the second time that night. His lips were chapped and the kiss was awkward, but you had expected nothing less. He was a man of science, not romance, after all. 

After eventually pulling apart for air, you rested your forehead against his and let out a small laugh. “I guess next year we don’t have to pretend,” you joked. 

“I don’t even think we can consider this year as such.”

...and now I will spend forever cringing about actually posting this. 

[milstrim]

Comfort in My Shadow

Chapter 3: You Oughta Know

By @iwritedumbshit for @iron-mum

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Ned Leeds, James “Rhodey” Rhodes

Summary: Soulmates are definite in the universe. Nobody knows exactly why they exist, or what dictates who is bonded to who, the only thing known is that they are never wrong. But Peter’s not so sure about that.

Living at the group home had taught Peter a lot about laying low and how to stay alive when nobody cares. But he’d always clung to the hope of the shadow at his feet reflecting his soulmate that had watched over him for years.

Typical that his soulmate is actually a superhero that Peter is convinced shouldn’t want anything to do with him. Maybe, just this once, the Universe was wrong.

But Tony Stark is desperate to prove that it is right.

Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 7 // Ch 8

---

Tony dropped down onto the grass near an empty playground just by the water, laying Spidey on the ground gently before breaking his way out of the suit. The mechanic kneeled beside the teenager, grabbing his wrist and tearing the webshooter off of it. He pressed two fingers against the boy's wrist, sighing in relief when he could make out a surprisingly strong pulse. The relief only lasted for a moment before he moved onto the fact that the kid still wasn't moving.

Hesitating for only a moment, he reached for the mask.

A hand shot up just as his fingers brushed against the fabric, slapping his own hand away sloppily. Tony didn't mind, only letting out a sigh and sinking back onto his knees in relief as Spidey sat up, coughing so hard his whole body shook. The kid tore his mask up to his nose to throw up mouthfuls of murky water before settling back onto his elbows and pulling the mask back down harshly. Tony resisted the urge to pat the kid on his back, instead keeping his hands wrung and watching the vigilante sharply.

He coughed, "Uh, hey, Mr. Stark."

"Hey, kid." Tony offered him a smile. "Jeez, I leave you alone for one day and you almost drown. I think you're more danger prone than me, if that's possible."

"Yeah, you'd be surprised," Spidey said, sitting up farther before freezing and turning to regard Tony suspiciously. "How did you find me? Did you put a tracker on me or something?"

"No. No, kid, I didn't, I promise. My AI's been keeping an eye out for you, and she seemed to think you were in trouble."

"You're spying on me?"

"No, not--I'm not spying on you, kid," Tony rushed to assure. He paused and then conceded with the decency to shrug in embarrassment. "Okay, sorta maybe. Yeah. I'm kinda spying on you, but I also just saved your life, so."

"I had it," Spidey muttered, but it was ruined by another cough. Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "I did! At least, until that vulture guy showed up."

"Vulture guy?"

In a flurry of words, Spider-Man explained, and Tony was happy to listen. He was happy to hear anything the kid was willing to say to him, even if it began with him stalking out a weapons deal and ended with a man with metal wings grabbing him out of the air.

"--and then he just, he just, like, swooped down like a monster and he picked me up and, uh, he took me up, like, a thousand feet and just dropped me!"

Tony shook his head, wishing desperately he could see beyond the suit at any injuries the kid may have as he reattached his webshooter. He did seem okay though, if a little thin, if the way the soaked suit practically hung off of him was anything to go by.

"What were you thinking?" Tony asked, unable to keep the scornful fear from his voice.

"The guy with the wings is obviously the source of the weapons that I've been seeing. I gotta take him down!"

"Take him down now, huh? Steady, Crockett, there are people who handle this sort of thing."

"The Avengers?"

"No. No, no. This is a little below their pay grade," Tony explained. Spidey's eyes narrowed at him. "Look, forget the flying vulture guy, please."

"What? No! He's putting weapons out on the street, my street, I've gotta keep looking for him."

Tony pursed his lip, resisting the urge to argue further and wrap this kid up in bubble wrap. He relented, for the time being. "Fine. I won't stop you."

"Not like you could anyway."

"You're meaner than I remember."

"Yeah, well, get used to it I guess."

"Does that mean I get to hang out with my soulmate from now on? Possibly know their name?"

Spidey froze, staring past Tony in a tired manner. He slumped down onto the grass dramatically. "What time is it?"

"You're not gonna run out on me or anything are you? Or if you do, can you at least leave something behind for me? Like, a boot maybe?"

"Are you calling me Cinderella?"

"Sure. Cinder-kid. Cinder-whatever-your-name-is."

Spider-Man turned his head to glare at his persistent fishing. "I'm surprised you don't already know."

"I've got a list. Twenty-eight kids so far."

"I'm not a kid," he mumbled. Tony smirked.

"Nice try. I know your birthday." Spider-Man groaned. "Still no name?"

A moment. "Ben."

"There's no Ben on the list," Tony answered immediately.

"What, you just have that memorized?" When Tony didn't answer, save for the raise of an eyebrow, the kid groaned again. "If I tell you my name will you please tell me the time?"

Tony checked his watch. "8:17."

A very long, very tense moment before finally, "Peter."

"There's no Peter on the list either."

"Then your list sucks." Tony stared at him. "I'm not lying, you just need to be better at being a detective."

After a moment, Tony accepted it, though he didn't completely believe it. "Fine. Nice to meet you, Peter. I'm Tony."

"Yeah, I knew that."

"Are you always this mean or are you just in a bad mood?"

Peter ducked his head guiltily. "Sorry. Just kinda hungry. I didn't--uh, I didn't eat dinner. Yet."

"I can fix that," Tony said, holding out a hand. Peter stared at it for a moment before hesitantly taking it and allowing for Tony to pull him up. Both of them glanced at where their shadows switched. Peter tensed before tearing his hand away and shoving it in his pocket. Tony tried to not let his hurt show.

Peter let out a groan of annoyance, distracting Tony from where he'd been staring at the switched shadows to look at the kid, who had pulled out a phone as wet as it was cracked. The billionaire grimaced just looking at it.

"Yikes. If you need to call your parents, I have my phone with me."

Spidey winced. "No, uh, it's fine. Just, ah, I left my friend at a party, he's probably wondering where I'm at."

"Okay. If you're sure," Tony said. Peter nodded. "So, dinner?"

"I'm okay, Mr. Stark. I've got to get back to the party. My friend's mom is picking us up in an hour."

"Then, can we talk?" Peter dug his boot into the ground in such a childish manner it physically hurt. He clearly didn't want to talk, but that didn't stop Tony. "Here and now would be preferable."

"About what?" the kid rasped.

"A few things. The fact that we're soulmates, why you got involved in this, why you run around as a vigilante in the first place--"

"--I literally told you last night--"

"--and why you ran away yesterday," Tony finished, ignoring him.

"I have a curfew."

"What's your curfew?"

"Ten," Spidey muttered.

"So you were already late. If you'd waited a little bit longer I probably could've explained to your parents why you were late."

Spidey's head shot up, eyes narrowing. "That I was out being a vigilante?"

"That you were meeting your soulmate."

"Oh. That." The boot scuffed against the ground again, and Tony tried not to let his sullen voice get to him. "I don't think he would've cared."

That sounded horribly wrong to Tony's ears. He asked incredulously, "Your dad wouldn't have cared that you met your soulmate?"

"He's not my dad."

Oh.

"Who do you live with then?"

"Group home," Peter answered with a shrug. "Our curfew has no exceptions, so."

Tony hesitated. "Peter, can you take off your mask?"

"Why?"

"I mean, why not? I already know your name and birthday. I can find you pretty easily."

"I'm okay, Mr. Stark. I'm good. Besides, I should be getting back to my friend, so."

Peter moved to walk away, but Tony grabbed his arm hastily, desperate for this not to be how his first real meeting with his soulmate to go. Peter flinched immediately, and the mechanic let go as the kid stumbled back. That horrible suspicion in his chest only grew.

"Sorry," Tony apologized as Peter continued to stare at him. This wasn't going how he had envisioned at all. Soulmate meetings were usually thought of with an air of overwhelming happiness, maybe a few shed tears and a lot of hugs. But all Tony had was a first name, a smattering of depressing facts, and the knowledge that this kid didn't want anything to do with him. "Not an Iron Man fan, huh?"

Peter shrugged, but Tony noted it as a small victory that the tension leaked out of his small frame. "Thor's actually my favorite, so."

"Well, as long as it isn't Mr. America, then I'm good." There was an awkward silence only broken by the mechanical whir of Spidey's goggles as he glanced to the side, clearly searching for an escape. Tony bit down a sigh. "Go back to your party, kid. I'll see you around?"

"Sure. See you around, Mr. Stark."

Well, he didn't sound completely miserable about it, so Tony counted it as a win. He watched as the kid swung off of the trees back towards the neighborhood, a hint of hope warring with his hurt. Only once the hood slipped off of his shadow did the mechanic start moving again, stepping into the suit, which lit up as he fired into the sky.

"Okay, Fri. Find me a kid named Peter born on August tenth, 2001 with all the earlier guidelines."

"There isn't one, sir."

Tony thought for a moment. "Oh! Remove siblings as a statistic, look for one in a group home instead."

"One match."

"Save it to the file. I'll check it out when I get home."

 ---

  Toomes stared at the retreating figure of the Iron Man suit, his mask highlighting the flying hunk of metal before he turned away to stare at the playground where he and Spider-Man had been talking. Peter, apparently. Stark's soulmate.

He'd have to be careful, very careful, about how he played this.

Adrian had been set on flying away immediately after dropping the vigilante so that he could chew out Brice for being so reckless, but the sight of the Iron Man suit dipping under the water had stopped him. What the hell was the billionaire doing near his house? It had made him wary enough for him to dive down and perch a football field's length away, allowing for his helmet to pick up on the two's conversation.

That decision had probably been one of the best ones of his entire life. The kid was clearly very insistent to go after him and his business, while Stark not so much, but that didn't stop the fact that Peter was clearly desperate to take him down and had Iron Man even more clearly wrapped around his little finger. That was dangerous, and it was bad for business.

After checking once more that Iron Man was no longer nearby, he shot back up into the air towards his warehouse as he made a note to put Mason u[ to finding out who this Peter-kid was and he searched through multiple names in his personnel, looking for the best to keep an eye on the kid. No one was going to mess with his business. With his family.

  ---

"Alright," Tony said as he entered the lab through the window, stepping out from his suit and back over to his desk. He grimaced at where the web fluid had exploded over the desk while he'd been gone. Hopefully that would fizzle out in an hour or two. "What have you got for me, Fri?"

A screen popped up immediately, and Tony was shown his first true glimpse of his soulmate's face. His heart tugged both at the adorableness of the kid pictured in front of him and the fact that he was seeing the kid for the first time through a screen. He shook it aside, taking in the kid in front of him.

Peter.

The yearbook photo left the smile hilariously forced but no less adorable, especially with the way the kid's eyes read embarrassment and boredom in only a way a teen's could. His hair was tamed down generously for picture day, but a few stray curls forced their way loose. Somehow, he was exactly what Tony had imagined.

"Okay. Full life synopsis. Let's go," he ordered the AI.

"Peter Benjamin Parker was born on August tenth, 2001, to Mary and Richard Parker, both head researchers at Oscorp before their deaths in 2006 in a plane crash. Guardianship was transferred to Richard's brother and sister-in-law, Ben and May Parker. They were killed during a mugging six months ago."

"Yikes, kid. Not a super easy time for you, huh?" Tony glanced at the picture of the kid again. "Where does he live now?"

"At the Queens Pinehill Group Home for Boys under the guardianship of Andrew Fowler."

"Pull up his file. Any records of abuse or illegal activities?"

"Fowler has two DUI's from when he was nineteen and twenty-three, but nothing else. Nothing unusual about him, boss."

Tony hummed, crossing his arms and pursing his lips. After all of Peter's little flinches and shakes, he was still skeptical, but with nothing to prove, he left it alone. For now.

"Mr. Parker does, however, have a record."

His head turned. "He does?"

"He does." Multiple files were shoved in his face. "Nothing serious, sir, but he has multiple accounts of sneaking out and degenerate behavior. Smoking, loitering, and two misdemeanors."

Tony hesitated for a moment, but shrugged it off. He was a kid who'd had a rough life, and, really, Tony had done some similar shit when he was the kid's age, and the sneaking out could be easily waved off by Peter's vigilante actions. He moved on.

"How's the suit coming along?"

"Trials are finished and ready for 3D printing. All that's left is the fluid, boss."

Tony glanced at the table still completely covered with the white formula. He grimaced. "We'll deal with that later. Go ahead and print the suit, and I'm gonna need a couple of things before we completely shut down for the night."

  ---

I, Peter thought, am an idiot.

After returning to the party, he had changed back into his regular clothes and managed to draw Ned out from the crowd, who had been more than a little confused at his dripping wet hair and slightly bruised face.

"Dude," Ned had asked. "What the hell happened? What happened to the plan?"

"Sorry," Peter had muttered. "There was some weapons dealers. They got the drop on me and dropped me in the lake. And, uh, I met Mr. Stark again."

Ned had gasped. "Really!? Oh, my gosh, is he here? Can I meet him?"

"No, he left, Ned. He saved me actually."

"This is the coolest! You're superhero buddies!" He'd gasped again. "Oh, my God! Are you Iron Man's sidekick?"

"What? No, Ned. I'm not his sidekick." I'm his soulmate, which was honestly worse. Peter would be a better sidekick than a soulmate. "It was probably just, like, a favor thing since I saved him yesterday."

"Super. Hero. Buddies."

There hadn't been any arguing with Ned, he'd been too excited. But, thankfully, the arrival of Iron Man had distracted his friend from going back to the party and they'd called his mom so they could leave early. Not ready to take anymore chances that night, he'd asked Mrs. Leeds to drop him off right at the group home. Mr. Fowler hadn't been there when Peter had tiptoed through the door, so he'd just slipped up the stairs and taken a hot shower, not even bothering to try and take something from the kitchen. He didn't have the heart for another strike.

His spider sense had been going off the entire time, just like it had when he'd been talking with Mr. Stark. It had prevented him from falling asleep that night, thankfully it had been a Friday. But the fact that his senses wouldn't calm down, even now on Saturday morning, was more than a little concerning. Was he dying? Maybe it was the lack of food? Or were his senses trying to warn him about Mr. Stark?

That was the worst thought of all, but it'd popped into his mind whenever he'd caught sight of his shadow while he was eating breakfast the next morning. Everyone in the group home was at the table to watch his nervous jitters as he tried not to look too starved while eating his cereal. Tim and Eric had glanced at him a lot, clearly desperate for him to play some games with them today. The other two younger boys, Aaron and Juan, were much more calm, staring down at the table in an attempt to not draw attention to themselves. Though Jeremiah was winning that competition.

Mr. Fowler sat at the head of the table, a plate of eggs and bacon sitting idly in front of him as he rifled through the mail with annoyed mutters. The man had a lot of junk mail--seriously, he had more magazine subscriptions than Peter could count--so the boys could usually tell when he finally stumbled across something he liked in the mail. His muttering would pause, the rifling would stop, and he would hum in approval before setting the piece of paper aside. This morning, he found something he clearly didn't care for.

Mr. Fowler's muttering paused, the rifling stopped, and Peter waited for the quiet hum, but instead there was a displeased grunt. Heads turned as the junk mail smacked onto the table and a vanilla letter stood out in Mr. Fowler's hands with large letters scrolled on the front of it. Peter's name sat scrawled on the corner.

"Who the heck is 'TS?'" Mr. Fowler asked, glancing at the letter again. "With no return address?"

Peter panicked, almost choking on his off-brand Cheerios as he searched for an excuse that wasn't as flimsy as a feather.

"It's, uh, a pen pal. Thing."

Sure. Not flimsy at all, Parker.

"A pen pal?"

Peter nodded. "Yep. Um, through--through school. It's new. And we deliver them, by ah, ourselves. I delivered mine yesterday, so, no return address?"

"Fun... What's their name?"

He took another bite of his food to stall, mumbling through the soggy cereal, "Tony."

"Tony...?"

"Smart." Mr. Fowler glanced at him. Idiot, idiot, idiot. "Yeah. Tony Smart. He goes to Bronx... Anyway can I have that letter please?"

With a grumble, Mr. Fowler tossed the letter on the table in front of Peter. He quickly pocketed it, finishing his cereal as fast as humanly possible and placing it in the dishwasher. He passed by the table, promising to help the other kids with their dishes and their homework, before walking out the door and sitting on the steps outside the small and rundown building, ignoring the way his senses were still going off.

Peter muttered confusions under his breath as he pulled the surprisingly thick letter out of his hoodie, turning it over in his hands once before finally ripping it open. There were four things inside. He grabbed the letter first, unfolding it to read the loose lettering scrawled inside.

  Dear, Mr. Parker,

Letters aren't really my thing. I'm more of a talker, as you may have realized last night, so I've left a new Starkphone in the envelope to replace the one you broke last night. For talking. And whatever the hell teenagers do with phones too.

  Peter blinked, narrowing his eyes and his chin dropping as he fished the phone out of the envelope. It was horribly expensive under his fingers and he immediately flushed as he thought about how much it must cost. He didn't think it was even on the market yet. He shook his head and blinked furiously, returning to the letter.

  I've also included a Stark Industries badge that will get you into the tower for the next week or so until we move to the compound. You'll receive a new one once badges are printed for the Avengers Compound. My forehead of security will be very excited to be on the job. There's also a credit card connected to my account if you're ever in trouble or in the mood for something to eat. Of course, I don't know what your schedule is, but call me whenever, and you're always welcome in Casa de Stark.

-TS

P.S. Stop by the tower if you can today. I've got a surprise I think you'll like.

  Go to the tower? Peter glanced around the street nervously. He guessed it couldn't hurt, as long as he got all his Saturday chores done first.

After a moment of hesitation, the teenager folded up the letter, stuffing it in his pocket before turning back to the rest of the contents in the envelope. Like Mr. Stark had said, there was a Stark Industries badge, with his embarrassing yearbook photo and his name printed in bold letters, and an ebony credit card that practically gleamed even in the weak light of the gray day.

"The hell..." he muttered, staring at it. He didn't even want to begin thinking about how much stuff he could buy with this thing. The thought made him nauseous, and he moved to stuff it in his pocket as well, when he paused. His pocket was a horrible place to put this thing. He didn't plan on using it, but he'd have an actual stroke if he managed to lose it, or worse, if someone stole it. Mr. Stark already didn't seem overwhelmingly thrilled to have a snotty kid as his soulmate, no need to disappoint him further.

Peter went back inside, placing the card in his thin leather wallet that he kept in his bag, clipping his badge to the backpack, and then stuffing the letter underneath his mattress. Before he went to move back downstairs, his stomach rumbled and his eyes strayed back to the card. Mr. Stark had said he could use it whenever...and it wasn't like snacks were going to drain his account or anything. He bit his lip, forcing himself to turn back around and down the stairs. He wasn't a charity case, and he wasn't going to just abuse Mr. Stark's money like that.

The teenager shook his head as he hurried back to the common floor to begin cleaning up the kitchen as he tried not to think about how hungry he was going to be tonight. Only breakfast was allowed when grounded at Queens Pinehill Group Home for Boys, so tonight was going to be so much worse without a school provided lunch. And falling asleep last night had been almost impossible thanks to the gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach. Whatever. He'd figure it out somehow.

Cleaning the kitchen didn't take very long, both him and Jeremiah burning through the dishes and putting away food in less than ten minutes while the younger kids sat silently at the table, trepidatious noses stuck in books, though they'd been allowed a moment of calm reprieve when Mr. Fowler had stumbled upstairs for a few minutes before plopping back downstairs into his usual seat. Once the two were done, Jeremiah went to take out the trash while Peter stepped over to Mr. Fowler, who was just finishing scribbling on a thin piece of paper.

"I expect the receipt as usual, Parker. Not a penny missing." The man thrust the list in his hand along with a wad of tightly wrapped cash that Peter accepted more than a little nervously. Mr. Fowler was very particular about his money. "And don't forget to check the eggs to make sure they're not broken."

"Yes, sir," Peter nodded.

"And take the others with you. I need a few hours of peace."

"Yes, sir," he said again.

He motioned for the children to grab their bags from the hooks by the door while Peter dashed up the stairs and back down again with his own. He never left home without it, and the kids needed something to hold their stuff. Not that he would mind carrying a couple of books, but they had to carry all the groceries back, so the more free hands the better.

The ragtag group bounced onto the cracked sidewalk, the kids waving goodbyes to Jeremiah as they headed off towards the nearest grocery story. There was some excited babble as they all crowded around Peter, words tumbling from prepubescent lips as they all finally got their chance to inform Peter of their very eventful week. Mr. Fowler was never very excited to have the kids talking all at once. It disturbed his constant hangovers.

"One at a time, one at a time," Peter said with a reluctant smile. The chatter died down. "Youngest first."

Eric grabbed Peter's hand in response, the nine year-old babbling away about something new he'd learned in class and something funny his friend had said on Monday that he'd been waiting all week to tell Peter. Next was Juan, who had similar tellings, but the teenager responded just enthusiastically as he did Eric until they went all the way through the stories and ended up at the cheap grocery store.

Peter stopped them before going inside. "Rules?"

"Don't touch anything," all four chorused, continuing down the list. 1. Don't touch anything. 2. Stay by Peter. And 3. Hold your buddy's hand the whole time. Once they'd repeated them all, Peter nodded and led them inside.

The teenager tried his best to get everything on Mr. Fowler's list quickly, but refused to not double check for the cheaper brands that Mr. Fowler was always so insistent he buy. It irked Peter off, especially since grocery money came from the state and not the man, but there wasn't anything Peter could do without getting another strike, so he grabbed the blandest cheerios and the most unhealthy oatmeal and placed them in the basket in annoyance, doing his best to avoid any aisle with some kind of bright sugar. He still caught the other kids looking at cookies and cartons of ice cream longingly though.

Finally, after an agonizingly long time, they were all checked out and laden with groceries as they headed down the sidewalk back to the group home. There was more chatter from the kids as they pointed at fluttering pigeons and scurrying rats. There was even a parrot at one point that Peter was sure someone was looking for. He'd check around online later and see if he could give someone a tip about the scarlet bird that's shit narrowly missed Eric.

All was going well until the chime of an ice cream truck began down the small neighborhood street. Feet stopped and heads turned as the bright pink vehicle stopped in front of a group of clamoring kids. Peter could practically feel their want for something other than the same breakfast and dinner they got every day. Their most interesting meal was usually their school lunches, which was honestly more pitiful than anything the teenager could ever dream of.

Peter bit his lip as he stared at the ice cream truck and then sighed, setting down his groceries and opening the pocket of his backpack where he'd placed his wallet earlier. The wallet that now had a shiny black card connected directly to a billionaire that could give these kids a fun morning for once.

The wallet that was nowhere to be seen.

"Fuck," Peter muttered.

Eric gasped, pointing at Peter who was now practically tearing apart his backpack looking for the thing, panic rising in his chest. "Peter said a bad word!"

"Shit," Juan said in response. There were some giggles from the older kids but Eric gasped again. Peter ignored them, strangling in a reluctant breath as his hands finally stilled after coming away with nothing.

How the hell had he lost it? He'd had it for barely an hour! Think, Parker, think. It had been in his bag, he knew that. He'd put it in the second lowest pocket of his backpack, which he'd left upstairs. All the boys had been at the table, and Jeremiah had been cleaning the kitchen with him the entire time. Had someone stolen it at the store? It was possible but unlikely, what with his spider sense and the fact that four kids who'd grown up in New York's foster system paying constant attention to him. So how could it have--

Peter paused, bringing his hands up to cover the bottom half of his face as he clenched his teeth harder than he remembered having ever done before. Mr. Fowler had gone upstairs. And Peter's story had been complete bullshit. He must have found his wallet and taken it upon seeing the shiny black card just perfectly poised for the taking.

His legs stiff with terror, Peter stuffed everything he'd taken out of his bag back into it haphazardly, zipping it shut so harshly the tab ripped completely off. He grunted, throwing the piece of plastic to the ground and clutching his groceries back in his hands before stomping off. The kids stumbled after him once they'd realized he'd begun to move.

"Peter!! Wait up!" Tim called.

Peter forced himself to pause for them, but continued on the moment they were caught up to him. He tried to calm himself, but he couldn't stop the way his face contorted and he seethed in fury. He didn't give two flying shits about the crumpled bills in his wallet the man had taken, or the few personal items he'd kept in the wallet from his late uncle, but he was horribly angry that the man had taken something that was barely even Peter's.

There was no way in hell the teenager was going to explain to Mr. Stark that the card had been stolen from him not even a day after he'd gotten it. There was no way in hell was Peter going to explain that he, an enhanced that had just touted last night that he could take on the flying vulture guy, that he couldn't stand up to his foster father. Mr. Stark dealt with aliens. Peter could deal with Mr. Fowler.

His steps faltered.

He could. He could do it.

As he later found out, he couldn't.

  ---

Peter crept up the stairs of the Queens Pinehill Group Home for Boys, having already set all the groceries he'd had on the kitchen counter for the other kids to put away. He tried to keep the shaking from his fear, unsure if it stemmed from fear or anger, but he was largely unsuccessful as he stalked past the kids' rooms and approached the one at the end of the hall.

As far as Peter knew, no one had gone into Mr. Fowler's room before. There usually wasn't a point. The man kept such meticulous track of his belongings that it was impossible to take something without him noticing sooner or later, and, not only that, but Peter was used to the click of a lock sliding shut whenever the man left his room unattended or went to sleep for the night. It left the teenager facing the unknown as he finally stepped in front of the door that was, in that moment, bigger than anything he'd ever seen.

He took in a shaky breath. Maybe this was a bad idea. The ringing of fear trembling up and down his entire self told him so.

But the anger wasn't completely overridden by the fear, and Peter was full of bad ideas anyway, so he raised a fist and knocked rapidly. There was no response, so Peter knocked again, just as forceful as last time but now more hesitant.

With a horrifying shiver down his spine, the door swung open. Peter swallowed but refused to take the step back that he desperately wanted to as Mr. Fowler towered over him. The smell of alcohol wasn't any kind of freshly strong like it had been a couple of nights ago, which was the only thing reassuring about the moment.

"What do you want?" Mr. Fowler demanded.

"My wallet." He willed his voice not to break.

Mr. Fowler's eyes narrowed as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "What?"

"My wallet. You took it and I want it back."

"It's my house, so it's my wallet."

"No it's not! It was my uncle's!" he protested.

"Oh, and was this your uncle's too?" The shiny black card was pulled out his pocket as Mr. Fowler flashed him a toothy grin. Peter's hands twitched with the need to reach out for it, but he kept his fists balled at his side. "Lying to your foster father now, huh? That was a nice little letter under your bed, too. New sugar daddy or something?"

Peter blanched, but then his face turned ghostly white. His voice was a horrified whisper. "You took my letter?"

"Under your bed? Really? You didn't even try, son!" Mr. Fowler taunted, pulling out a piece of crumpled paper and forcing it into Peter's hands. He tore it open, but the paper was so wrinkled he could barely read it anymore. "So, Tony Stark? I don't know if you sucked his dick or something, but I'm sure this card has plenty for me to use if it's connected to his account."

"What? No! That doesn't belong--"

He was cut off by a hand tugging a fistful of his hair. Peter winced but refused to let out a yelped cry even as he was dragged into Mr. Fowler's room. It wasn't much, he realized as he peered through squinted eyes at the bedroom. It was somehow grimy and tidy at the same time, with dust and dirt covering just about every corner, but his belongings were neatly lined and organized on the desk and bedside table. The only other thing that screamed about Mr. Fowler's uncleanliness was the bottles littering the floor that Peter had to fight not to trip over, made only harder as the fist let go of his hair and slapped him into the nearest wall.

"Now listen here, you little shit," Mr. Fowler started, cornering the scrambling teenager as his voice boomed so loud that surely all the kids downstairs could hear him. "I clothe you and house you and feed you, and I will not tolerate your levels of disrespect when you do nothing but run around like the little ungrateful shit you are! Anything you earn while under my roof belongs to me!"

"No it doesn't!" Peter found the courage to shout back. Mr. Fowler blinked in scowled surprise. "And you barely do any of that shit! I had these clothes before I got here, and you barely feed me! You barely feed any of the kids down there!! What the hell is wrong--"

His face stung with the slap that met it.

He grit his teeth, blinking away angry tears. It didn't hurt, it didn't hurt. He was Spider-Man. Being dropped into a lake had hurt, this was nothing. He couldn't really be hurt while he had these powers. He couldn't.

"SHUT UP!!!"

Peter cowered.

"You know nothing about what you're talking about, son," Mr. Fowler breathed, stalking forward until his face was only inches from Peter's and there was nowhere left to run. He scrunched his nose and screwed up his eyes, holding his breath against the man's stale breath as he turned his face away to stare past the man's shoulder. "Whatever you think, this is my house, and I took you in after your last foster parent got sick of your teenage horseshit. Sneaking out wasn't tolerated there, just as much as disrespect isn't tolerated here. So I think that's another strike, don't you? Or a good enough recommendation could get you to a juvenile detention center instead."

"No, please--"

The hand was in his hair again, tearing him forward with a pained wince and forcing him through the door. When Peter smacked up against the wall, he realized it wasn't the door to the hallway.

Scrambling, he swung around just in time to see the door slam shut and then click with the eerie noise of a lock, leaving Peter in the dark closet that was full of nothing but the stench of dirty clothes piled around his feet and the clinking of dusty bottles. He swallowed, wishing desperately he didn't make such stupid decisions, that he'd just kept his head down and forgotten about it and--

"Stay nice and quiet, and you'll be let out soon," Mr. Fowler called before the sound of the door clicked shut and the groaning of wood told him that the man was walking away.

And Peter was horribly alone.

 ---

  Tony glanced between the metal case sat on the table and the window displaying the New York night sky one last time before sighing and stepping off of the stool, Peter's shadow following him. He hadn't been Spider-Man all day, so Tony had no idea what could be holding him up. The kid hadn't texted at all either, though he was sure he'd at least set up the phone already.

Nervously, the billionaire tapped his fingers on the table, one of the last pieces of furniture that had yet to be packed on his floor. He'd delivered the letter himself, clearly addressed it to the kid and everything, but maybe he hadn't gotten it? Maybe it had been a little sketchy for a kid to get a letter with just initials on it and no return address. But he couldn't have gotten in trouble for anything like that, right? And Peter's foster father didn't have anything bad surrounding his name...

With a tired sigh, he asked his AI, "Anything?"

"Mr. Parker has still not entered the building."

"A few blocks out?"

"He does not appear on any security cameras." A moment. "It is past ten, sir. I do not think he is going to come."

"Keep an eye out for him, just in case." He continued to tap the table with a thoughtful hum. Just to double check. "Has the phone been activated?"

"Yes, sir. It started up this morning."

Okay, good, so he had gotten the letter.

"And the card?" he asked. His AI paused, and something hard settled in his stomach. "The card, Friday?"

"It has been in use multiple times since this morning." Tony blinked. That was something of a surprise, but he couldn't say he was disappointed. The kid looked like he could use a good meal or two. He took his jacket off, moving towards his bedroom.

"Great. Glad it's being put to use."

"Three hundred dollars have been spent on alcoholic beverages."

Tony froze where he stood, suspended in a feeling he couldn't even describe. Disappointment? Terror? Hurt? He stared down at the curly-haired shadow, eyes narrowing as he gaped at it. He hadn't exactly pegged the kid as someone who would buy boatloads of drinks, and he didn't even know if a fake ID would work for the kid. He looked all of twelve.

"Cut off the card until the next time I talk to him."

"Yes, sir."

"And track his phone. Where the hell is he right now?"

"His phone's location relays that he is in his foster home."

And that was that he supposed. The kid couldn't buy anymore alcohol and there wasn't anything Tony could do without talking to him directly.

Tony stepped into his bedroom, slipped into some old pajamas, and flopped onto bed with a twist in his gut. Something just felt wrong, and it was more than the kid buying alcohol that likely would barely affect him anyway.

His mind racing, Tony turned restlessly under the covers as the lights shut off around him. Peter's shadow disappeared, the room going with it, and when Tony blinked again, he found himself in complete darkness only broken by the shifting of clothes, the clink of bottles, and the sniffles of someone coming off of a breakdown.

He blinked back awake, sitting up and reaching for his phone. He scrolled through it until he found Peter's number and hit call. It rang. And rang. And rang.

"Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Peter Parker! I'm busy right now, I guess, so call me later, and yeah! Have a good day! Oh! And leave your message after the beep! BEEEP!!"

Tony didn't know whether to laugh or not.

Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 7 // Ch 8

[amelialincoln]

Are u gonna write after tonight’s episode like u usually do? hope you focus on when link left but also after the hug thanks xx

Fragile 

“Because I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not in recovery…” Link continued yelling but all Amelia could focus on was how much she wanted to slap him on his very perfectly symmetrical face. As if asking him if he was drunk at 9am was such a crazy idea when he started drinking at 12pm yesterday. It wasn’t like she was shaming him or telling him how uncomfortable it really made her, she was just worried about him, more than herself. Of course she’d noticed his little guitar drinking sessions. Whiskey had been lingering on his breath for the past week every time he crawled into bed. The slamming of the front door brought her back to reality. She went to put the Whiskey back on the shelf and realized it was gone.

“Auntie ‘mels, where’s uncle Link?” Amelia turned to find Ellis standing in the doorway to the backyard and she tried to hold back some of the tears that were forming in her eyes out of frustration. “He’s gone,” She replied, realizing she hadn’t retained where he said he was going. “But he’ll be back soon.” She tried to hide the uncertainty in her eyes. “You wanna come garden?”

“Yes!” Ellis squealed.

“Alright then,” Amelia laughed lightly for her nieces sake. “Not for too long though because Scout is going to wake up from his nap soon. You go pick the bulbs and I’ll be there in a second.”

“Maybe daffodils? Or tulips?”

“Surprise me.” Amelia gushed, brushing a strand of hair out of the excited girl’s face and smiling as she took off into the backyard. She went back to the dishes she was putting into the dishwasher before her and Link’s quarrel, knocking one of them off the counter as she abruptly turned and it clattered to the ground, shattering into a million pieces. “Damn it,” she cursed, momentarily wanting to throw another one at the wall.

“Amelia.” Maggie had entered the kitchen upon hearing the noise. “You okay?” She could see that her sister was on the verge of tears.

“I’m fine,” she replied coldly, pushing past Maggie as she tried to wrap her arms around her and stormed out into the backyard. “Don’t let the kids in the kitchen, I’ll clean it up when I’m done in the garden,” she called over her shoulder. Maggie sighed, picking up the ceramic shards, of what used to be her sister’s favourite plate, before sweeping up the rest of the mess. She wondered momentarily where Link had gone and wondered briefly if he had anything to do with Amelia's abruptness. Sometimes it shocked her how little she knew the man who was raising a baby, and taking care of all of Meredith's children, with Amelia. She had no suspicion of Link being abusive, and Amelia had never seemed happier...or exhausted, but if anyone could be taken advantage of, despite being such a strong minded person, it was her. Maggie hadn’t heard the extent of the awful things that Owen had said, but if anyone needed more confirmation that she was worthy of love, it was Amelia. As Maggie gazed out into the backyard to find Ellie sitting on her auntie's lap and giggling uncontrollably, she could practically feel her blood boiling.

[][][]

Amelia spent the rest of the day doing what she did every day, cleaning, feeding and worrying. This time not only about Meredith, but about her boyfriend who drove off with a 2 6 practically full of hard alcohol without a word about where he was going.

“Bailey, leave your sister alone,” Amelia called from her spot on the lawn chair. Scout was nestled into her chest sleeping and she glanced at him worriedly to make sure he was still asleep. “Bailey, we do not pull hair!” Zola had been having a hard enough day with the heavy conversation they’d had earlier that afternoon, she didn’t need Bailey yanking on her pigtails in an attempt to distract her from studying.

“But I’m bored,” Bailey whined, drawing out the end of his sentence until Amelia wanted to cover her ears.

“Why don’t you go see what Ellis is doing?” Amelia offered, lowering her voice as Scout started to stir.

“Ellis is boring,” Bailey complained. If Amelia heard that word one more time she thought she might explode. 

“We’re all bored, Bailey,” she sighed, trying to think of something her nephew could do. “Have you studied for your spelling test tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ll be getting ten out of ten like Zola?” She asked.

“No, ten out of ten is impossible for everyone other than Zola,” Bailey groaned.

“Okay, here’s my idea. If you can get eight out of ten, you can have an extra half hour of screen time tomorrow.”

“Really?” Bailey’s eyes lit up like a CT scan. “Wait, eight out of ten is still way too hard.” Amelia shrugged.

“Better get studying then.” 

“Fine,” Bailey grumbled. “I’ll go study.” Amelia gave him a thumbs up and tried not roll her eyes as he trudged into the house. She glanced down at Scout who was pawning for her nipple and laughed lightly before moving her tank top to the side, wishing Link could be here to laugh at their adorable boy with her.

“Hey what’s up?” She yawned, sliding open her vibrating phone to reveal Maggie’s maskless face. “You on a break?” 

“Yeah, managed to squeeze in lunch,” Maggie sighed, taking a bite of her sandwich. “It’s like the great depression over here.”

“Yikes.” 

“Yeah, Winston and I are working on a case. It’s weird but we’re working well together.” 

“That’s good,” Amelia grinned, feeling better about him after their breakfast together this morning. “He fits into Grey Sloan?”

“Yeah, looks great in the navy blue,” Maggie chuckled, her eyes darting to the door and momentarily lifting her mask to her face before setting it back down. “Have to find closets to eat in at this point,” she joked. “The cafeteria freaks me out.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Amelia shrugged, shifting Scout to the other side uncomfortably.

“Is Link back?” Maggie asked, watching her sister’s face darken.

“No,” she replied simply. “He’ll probably be soon though.”

“Are you guys okay?” Maggie blurted out. “Like are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Amelia replied defensively, stunned by the seriousness in Maggie’s voice.

“He’s been drinking a lot, Amelia, we all noticed it. That’s not fair to you and the plate--”

“Whoa,” Amelia interrupted her quickly. “Maggie, I’m in recovery but I’m good. I have a lot to be sober for right now so I’m...good.”

“Well, I’m happy you're so good,” Maggie replied, unconvincingly. “It doesn’t really seem respectful though. Just because you’ve been in recovery for awhile doesn’t mean anything. You can relapse after being sober for years. I’ve seen it with Richard, it’s a never ending cycle.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Amelia bit her lip, surprised by how easily Maggie seemed to understand.

“Like it’s not that I feel uncomfortable having a glass of wine around you. You’ve been to parties where everyone’s been wasted, it's just...I don’t feel comfortable leaving you with someone that’s using alcohol in the same way that you once did.”

“To turn off,” The worried sister confirmed.

“He’s getting drunk by himself in the garage, Amelia.”

“I know.” She hugged Scout tightly into her chest for support and the baby gurgled with happiness at the sudden affection from his mother.

“You guys made an amazing kid.”

“I know,” her response is teary as she glances down at the big blue eyes staring back up at her. “That’s the issue. Everything is so perfect when it comes to him, until it isn’t.”

“Meaning?” The anger in Maggie’s voice caused her to flinch.

“He’s not hitting me, Maggie,” she said softly in case the kids were eavesdropping. Her sister’s demeanour seemed to relax. “Did you honestly think that?”

“No, of course not. We all love Link. He’s perfect. I just feel like I barely know him. Like deeply, you know? He’s not an open book like you.”

“I know,” she sighed. “Sometimes I feel that way too. I have no idea where he is right now, Maggie. I’m worried,” her voice cracked almost unnoticeably.

“He’s a grown adult, Amelia,” Maggie answered with resentment. “He can at least take care of himself if he’s going to leave you alone with four kids for however long.” She glanced up at the door. “Look, I’ve got to go but I can come over tonight and we can talk.”

“It’s fine. Thanks for calling but just spend the night with Winston. You’ve been over enough.” 

“Okay, but just text me if you need anything.” Her voice was muffled as she secured her mask and ended the FaceTime.

[][][]

Amelia glanced at her phone for what seemed like the hundredth time that day as she tucked the last Shepherd kid into bed.

“Where's Uncle Link?” Eliis complained, disappointed by only receiving three stories from an exhausted Amelia.

“He’ll be back soon, bug,” Amelia promised. “You have an early zoom class tomorrow so we can only read three tonight, okay?”

“Uncle Link would read me five anyways,” she whined, tears brimming in her blue eyes. 

“Come on, Ellie,” Amelia wanted to cry with her. “We had a big day.”

“I don’t want you, I want my mom. Why did you make my mom go away?” The stubborn girl complained, rubbing her puffy eyes with her fists.

“I didn’t, sweetheart. She’ll be back soon too,” she was too tired not to tell her otherwise tonight.

“Really?” Ellis asked with a small smile.

“Yep,” Amelia nodded, regretting it instantly. “Now go to bed and time will go by faster.”

“Okay,” her niece finally caved, snuggling into her polka dotted duvet. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Amelia sighed, turning off the lamp as she exited the room and breathing a sigh of relief, momentarily lingering with her back against the door.

“Hey, Link’s voice caused her to jump. “Sorry.” He handed her a steaming cup of green tea that she drank each night. What he didn’t know was that she’d been needing some sort of beverage nightly to distract her from wanting anything else.

“Thanks.” She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic mug and tried to step away from the intoxicating smell of whiskey that he was exuding.

“Sorry it’s bad,” he apologized, running a tired hand through his hair. His eyes were rimmed with red and he looked as if he’d just staggered home from who knows where.

“Were you at a bar or...”

“I went to Deluca’s thing,” he answered messily. “With Jo, we went and it was nice. Did you--”

“Yeah, I watched most of it, you were day drinking with Jo?” It’s not that she didn’t trust them, she knew how much Jo meant to Link and she never wanted to come between that, but did she still feel the tiniest bit jealous? Absolutely.

“In her loft. They were tested like yesterday.”

“They?”

“Jackson was there too.”

“Ah,” she took a sip of the tea and closed her eyes momentarily.

“You look tired,” he observed and she almost laughed at him.

“Um, yeah. They’re all a lot for one person,” she replied, gesturing to the four shut doors in the hallway.

“Maggie and Winston left?” He scratched the back of his head with confusion.

“They had work today.”

“Oh...right.” They stood together awkwardly before Amelia turned towards their bedroom.

“You need to shower and brush your teeth. I need a good sleep,” she yawned, not offering an explanation for why him reeking of hard liquor would cause her another sleepless night, since he obviously hadn’t put two and two together. “Wait is that--” She shut their bedroom door and crawled into bed before he could finish.

[][][]

Link finally came to bed about a half hour later, slamming his shin against the bed frame as he stumbled into the dark room.  

“Are you okay?” Amelia’s voice rang out in the darkness.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he groaned, lowering himself cautiously onto the mattress and sliding under the covers. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she rolled away from him tiredly, closing her eyes.

“If you don’t want me to keep liquor in the house I won’t,” he spoke clearly into the darkness.

“Link, I don’t need you to hide liquor or drinking from me,” Amelia sighed. “If anything, I feel more uncomfortable when you do it in secret.”

“I thought that would be better for you,” he responded truthfully.

“How would you know? You didn’t ask me.” Silence hung in the air and she debated going back to sleep.

“Amelia it’s hard.”

“It’s hard for everyone, Link. You don’t get to act like you’re the only one keeping secrets or walking on eggshells or losing people right now. People are grieving and dying. That doesn’t make what we’re experiencing any less hard. I’m going crazy. But I’m not diminishing how others are feeling by shoving my problems in their faces and comparing who has it worse. It’s not a competition.”

“Okay, did Jo tell you--”

“Jo didn’t tell me shit. I don’t have time to talk to Jo or make calls about where you are. I don’t have time to be worrying about where you are or if you’re safe while trying to keep an entire household of people together.”

“I should’ve been here today.”

“Yeah,” she tried to remove any hint of emotion in her voice. “I needed you.”

“I brushed my teeth and I used that plastic thing...that makes all the bubbles.”

“You used my loofah?” She tried to hide her amusement.

“Can you just come here?” He pleaded, opening his arms and allowing her burrow herself in his neck. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“I know,” she sighed. “Just no more lies or we won’t make it.” He nodded, holding her closely as her breathing deepened into his chest.  

[naomimillers]

sometimes i wish i could freeze the picture (and save it from the funny tricks of time)

Characters: naomi and the millers Words: 940, yikes!  Warnings: n/a Notes: ♫ slipping thru my fingers all the time ♫ a very self indulgent independent piece centered on naomi and dahlia’s relationship

As the stairs creaked under Naomi’s feet, she sighed and wondered at the way her knees seemed to protest at the movement. These days, at forty, she was starting to feel the full effect of her age -- especially now that she was on her feet for nearly eight hours a day. Her lower back hurt, too, and Naomi made a mental note to look at sneakers with some better support. There was no getting around it; she was getting older. And so, too, were her children. 

It hadn’t been planned, exactly, to have three children with Peter, but only because the idea of having children together had been considered a given. So much so that when she found out she was pregnant with Dahlia, they’d both taken the news with excitement but also an air of nonchalance. Of course it would happen, of course they would welcome Dahlia to the world with all the love contained in their bodies. Marigold and Zinnia were welcomed with equal measure, and even weeks before his passing Naomi had floated around the idea of a fourth child. She missed having a baby, she’d told Peter, she missed their chubby hands and she missed seeing Peter hold them in his arms. 

But then. Life happened, and Peter was gone, and the only babies she had were her three daughters who seemed determined to march on and continue growing despite Naomi’s most fervent wishes that they stay little just a while longer.

Zinnia had lost the softness of her toddler years and now had a vocabulary that both impressed and embarrassed her in equal measure. Marigold had a bevy of interests that each seemed to last about two weeks at a time, including horseback riding, soccer, chess, and knitting. And Dahlia ... Dahlia was becoming a teenager before her very eyes, quieter and more independent. She was more emotional more often, and they bickered when they never had before. Dahlia was no longer the small girl she’d carried on her hip but instead a girl discovering her own identity.

Upon reaching the top floor of their home, Naomi padded softly to each of her younger daughter’s rooms, checking to make sure they were sleeping soundly in their beds. As she approached Dahlia’s, Naomi paused, and took a moment to check in on her eldest as well. She was laying in her bed, a textbook in her hands, but eyes closed and head tilted backward in a light sleeping position that would undoubtedly hurt tomorrow. Naomi bit back a smile and entered Dahlia’s bedroom, taking the textbook gently out of her daughter’s hands. Dahlia stirred, her eyes fluttering open.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Naomi said quietly.

Dahlia made a mmph sound and sat up, and for a split second Naomi saw Peter’s face looking right back at her. The same eyes, the same crease in her brows when she furrowed them in confusion. “I have a test in a few days,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I need to study.”

“I don’t think doing anything half-asleep is going to help you study,” Naomi responded. “Go ahead and get some rest.” She shushed Dahlia’s attempt to protest and put the textbook in her backpack, before walking around to the other side of Dahlia’s bed and taking a seat next to her. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she assured her daughter, brushing her hair back with her fingers. 

“But you don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like, or how hard it is,” Dahlia said, moving just out of Naomi’s reach, away from her again. “You were twelve like a million years ago. It’s different now.”

Naomi bit down on her bottom lip, and blinked before responding. “Kind of hurts my feelings, but okay. I believe you. It probably is different.” She was about to offer some advice, or to figure out if there were any study resources that she should be searching for on the school website, when Dahlia spoke again.

“It was easier to study with Dad,” she said quietly, picking at the corner of her quilt, and Naomi’s heart fell into her stomach. “You don’t know any of the stuff I’m trying to learn.” 

“Again, kind of hurts my feelings.”

“Dad always knew how to help and he never got mad if I got a question wrong.”

Dahlia’s words hung heavy between them for a long moment, and then Naomi let out a sigh and wrapped an arm around her daughter. “I miss him, too.” 

There was no telling if Dahlia was going to cry, or tell her to go, or any number of things, but her daughter turned on her side and curled into Naomi. “Dad was smarter than you.”

“I know.”

“And he had better jokes.

“I know.”

“And he made those dino nuggets that I like.”

“I know.”

“I wish he was still here.” 

“I do, too.”

Naomi looked down at where Dahlia had curled up, her head in her lap, and she gently tried running her fingers through her daughter’s hair again. This time there was no resistance, and Naomi stared at Peter’s face on their firstborn, wondering when she’d lost the chubby cheeks she had as a young child, when her hair had lost its curl. Moments like these would be harder to come by as Dahlia got even older, and for a moment, Naomi wanted to soak it all in and commit to memory.  She leaned down to kiss her child on the forehead and whispered a promise.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

[justafewsmallsteps]

Okay, with the new series announcement, I’ve finally been inspired to finish off this artwork and story that I’ve been sitting on for years. Call it a goodbye to my headcanon kids because now we have the real deal!!! 

Title: The Golden Girl 

Word Count:

3576

Rating

: G+

Let it be known that Mizuki adored her father. Anyone could tell by the way she followed him around and tried to copy his actions. 

She had his temperament and lack of patience, but in a cuter way (for now). Her big, shiny, golden eyes were just like his, and the black ears atop her head swiveled around just as his did. She loved it. She loved being just like him in every way she could; going around picking up big sticks to swing like her own Tessaiga. 

She looked up to him so much, it made Inuyasha’s heart ache. It did come with some new, dangerous territory though. For instance, he had one hell of a time trying to watch his vocabulary once Mizuki started speaking. He’d never forget the dagger of a glare that Kagome sent his way when their daughter babbled her first, “Damet” after dropping her snack. He thought he would be skinned on the spot. 

“She’s going to copy anything you do, so you have to be more careful!” Kagome chastised. 

“Why me?” Inuyasha asked in a grumbled whine. “She should be looking up to you! You’re her mother, ain’t ya?” 

Kagome frowned. “Mizuki thinks the world of you.” Her expression softened. “That’s what daughters do when they love their dad.” 

A pang of guilt seized his chest. In flashes he remembered another time and place, photographs and a stick of incense at the shrine tucked away in a private room; a young man with Kagome’s eyes. It was something that she didn’t talk about often, but her father’s loss still shook her sometimes. He took in Kagome’s glassy eyes and the pink flooding her nose. He reached around to hold his wife in his arms. “Okay,” Inuyasha mumbled as he kissed the top of her head. “You win. I’ll watch out.” 

So he proceeded with caution, tried to hold his tongue from cursing, and he did his damn best to be more patient than he’d ever thought possible. All for their family, for his wife, for his daughter. 

He never thought of himself as a role model. 

He used to think he was a freak.

But then Kagome came around, and then he had friends. He found a place in the world that accepted him as he was, and he held onto her with a fierce protectiveness. He even let her go once and was forced to find peace within loneliness. He did it for her, because even if he never saw her again, he’d love her. He’d live for her even without her there. 

But then by some miracle Kagome came back. The world was right. He belonged, they got married, and they were a family all on their own.  He didn’t think life could get better honestly. Then they had their first kid. When Mizuki was born, Inuyasha was sure that he’d never seen anything more precious in his life. He loved the dark ears atop her raven-haired head, and he nearly melted the first time she opened her honey-colored eyes. She was an existence made up of his and Kagome’s love. 

He wished she didn’t take so much after him though. She was just shy of passing for normal… 

“So beautiful,” Kagome had whispered, instantly washing away his fears and doubts. “Just like her dad.” 

Beautiful, huh? He hoped that someone would love his daughter like Kagome loved him. He also hoped that day was very far away, he thought warily. For now, he would make sure that his kid felt good about herself. He would never let Mizuki think of herself as a monster or a weirdo. He’d do his damnedest to build her confidence and surround her with love. 

And it worked out pretty well. Maybe too well if her ego was anything like his own. 

Mizuki really did love everything she had in common with her father. When they both heard a sound and turned the same way, she’d puff up with pride. “Mizuki hears it too!” she’d exclaim gleefully, making a point to wiggle her ears. 

It always made him grin. 

He never thought there could be a downside to her adoration. She loved him, she loved herself; everything was good. 

Then Shouya was born. 

Shouya, his son, who did not have his ears or his eyes. He actually looked a lot like Kagome, Inuyasha thought fondly. He had his mother’s nose, her human ears, even her adorable puffy cheeks. The one thing that made Shouya anything like Inuyasha was his distinctly silver colored hair. Yet somehow, despite being almost the opposite of his daughter, he was equally as perfect. Inuyasha had thought it was impossible to love anyone more than Kagome, and then Mizuki, and yet somehow his capacity for love simply grew as soon as he witnessed his son. 

And when Mizuki, at just five years old, laid her pretty, amber eyes on her brother... she burst into tears! Kagome was still bedridden and recovering, so Inuyasha flew into action. He tried to calm her down but she was inconsolable, and her crying triggered Shouya to follow. 

With two wailing children, Inuyasha and Kagome were immediately set to high stress mode. It was not the cute first meeting between new siblings that they had anticipated, dreamt about, planned for when Kagome was still waddling around as she told Mizuki all about being a big sister. 

Instead she cried. A lot. Loudly. 

Inuyasha had to pick up his distraught daughter and take her outside. 

“Kiddo, what’s wrong?” He asked, shifting her a little in his arms. 

Mizuki rubbed at the tears on her face and clutched to her father’s shoulders. Unable to form words past her sobs, she grabbed fistfuls of his hair and tugged, but Inuyasha didn’t pay any attention to the pain. Instead he did his best to soothe her, patting her back until she was reduced to hiccups. That night she cried and sniffled herself to sleep, leaving two very anxious parents. Thankfully Shouya slept soundly. 

It took a week of grouchiness and tantrums before anything productive happened. Inuyasha whined to his recovering wife about his daughter’s poor attitude and lack of communication. Kagome simply laughed at him. “Now you know what it’s like dealing with you.” 

Indignant, he scowled, “She’s a child!” 

“At least she has an excuse,” Kagome retorted cutely. 

Inuyasha would’ve been more upset, but having her humor back was a relief to him. She’d been exhausted and bedrested for the end of her pregnancy. Kaede had assured him that she’d be fine, but it still made him anxious to see her so putout. Shouya came out a fat, healthy baby, but even then Kagome didn’t get much time to relax. The newborn was up at odd hours and constantly hungry. It was the least Inuyasha could do to try taking care of Mizuki, though he hadn’t anticipated her moodiness. 

Whenever they were out of the house and away, she seemed to relax, but otherwise his girl was totally uncooperative. Miroku and Sango figured that she didn’t like sharing the attention. It was something they dealt with in the early days with their own twin girls. They shrugged and gave him their sympathy, but otherwise couldn’t offer much advice except for him to be patient and try to talk to her. 

The problem was Mizuki didn’t want to talk. As soon as he mentioned her brother she’d have a fit. Admittedly, he joked dryly to himself, he felt the same way about his own brother for a long time. The feeling had been mutual, probably. 

But Sesshoumaru was an asshole, and Shouya was barely eight days-old. 

Inuyasha sniffed the air as the wind passed them by. Kagome was waiting for them. “Kiddo, the sun’s getting low. We gotta go home to Mama.” 

Mizuki didn’t look up from her spot on the ground making leaf huts. “I don’t want to.” 

“There’s dinner at home.” 

“I’m okay.” 

He wondered how to persuade her. “Papa’s getting real hungry though. I might fall over if I don’t eat!” 

“Papa can fish,” she replied with no mercy. 

“So we’ll never go home again? I’ll never see Mama again?” 

She seemed to consider that. “Mama can visit us, but leave the baby.” 

Inuyasha folded his arms. “That’s your brother, ‘Zuki.” 

“I don't care. I don’t like him.” 

“So you won’t go home unless we get rid of your brother?” 

“Maybe Mama can put him back in her tummy.” 

He snorted. “That’s probably going to hurt your mother.”

“Then give him away to someone who wants a new baby. Far away.” She seemed set, and if Inuyasha knew anything about his daughter, it was that her stubbornness rivaled her parents’. Yikes. At least that was only half his fault. 

He figured lying would get him farther than arguing for now. It’d get him home at least. “Okay. We’ll tell Mama to leave the baby because you don’t like him. Then you’ll let us go home and eat? I can smell the food. Smells good. Can you smell it, little one?” 

Mizuki wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air. 

“I smell it too, like Papa! It does smell good!” she agreed with enthusiasm, but Inuyasha smirked. She had to be lying. They were far away enough that Inuyasha knew she’d have trouble picking out the scent, but she was always trying so hard to keep up with him. He decided to humor her. 

“You smell the stew?” 

“Yes!” 

“Wow, I’m so impressed. Let’s go get some. I’m starving!” He knelt down and opened his arms wide for her. When she barreled into his arms he was reminded of his great, unending love for her. He spun her around and squeezed her squirmy body as she giggled, then dipped her over to attack her face with kisses. 

“Papa, let’s go!” 

“Okay, okay. Let’s go.” He shot off with his usual pace when carrying his daughter. She liked to feel the bounce of his steps, laughing her way as they went up then down. It was slower than his run, but way more fun. He figured he should put her in the best mood possible when they broke the news that they were going to have to keep her brother around. 

“We’re home,” Inuyasha announced as they entered. 

Kagome was standing near the futon, rocking the baby in her arms gently. 

“Good timing. Shouya just had dinner and just fell asleep.” 

“I’m envious. Sounds like a good life,” he joked. 

Mizuki tugged on his arm. “Papa.” 

Right. 

“So Kagome, I have some bad news.” When she looked at him confused, he made sure to emote that everything was fine. He liked how easily they communicated. 

“Oh yeah?” she goaded. 

“Yup. Looks like we’ll have to get rid of the new baby.” 

“Oh no! That’s so sad. Why’s that?” 

Mizuki squirmed around and pulled her father’s face down. “Papa!” she whispered with urgency. 

He held up a finger, motioning for Kagome to hang on. She gave him a smile to show her amusement. He missed her face today. He hasn’t seen enough of her while he was out distracting their daughter. Speaking of which… 

“What’s up, kiddo?” 

She cupped her small hands around her mouth to relay her secret message. “Tell Mama you don’t want the baby! Don’t tell her I don’t want him.” 

“Mizuki, I’m not going to lie to Mama. You’re the one who wants him gone, so you should tell her,” he whispered back. He lifted his head back to Kagome, assuming she must have at least heard some of their conversation. “Mama, Mizuki has something to tell you,” Inuyasha proclaimed, full-well knowing he was throwing her under the bus. Poor thing. 

The girl seemed to go red in his arms, suddenly panicked as she faced the most intimidating figure in her (and his) life: her mother. 

“Is that so? What do you need to tell me, Mizuki?” 

“I--” She sputtered and her eyes began to water and she looked up at her father, silently pleading for him to take over. He shook his head. Of course he felt bad, but she wasn’t being very cooperative when he asked. Kagome was their best bet at getting some answers. If she could get him to open up, she’d manage a five year-old. 

“You?” she leaded. 

“I want the baby to go away!” she admitted quickly. Her mouth turned itself into a defiant pout, as if she was putting on a brave face. 

Kagome paid it no mind. “You do? Why?” 

She hesitated for a second before supplying, “I don’t like him!” 

“Okay, but why?” 

Mizuki whined; a true, genuine whine that sounded like a puppy. 

Inuyasha would’ve broken, but Kagome seemed unfazed. How could she? Did she have no heart? It amazed him. 

“Do you not like him because he’s a boy?” 

“No.” 

“You don’t like how he smells?” 

“No…” 

“Are you jealous?” 

Bingo. 

Mizuki ruffled and got even redder in the face. Inuyasha gave his daughter a reassuring pat. They already figured that was the problem, but it was a new feeling for her to navigate. 

“Mizuki, are you jealous that Mama spends so much time with Shouya?” Kagome asked softly. 

“No!” she yelped back.  

“Don’t yell at your mother,” Inuyasha chastised. 

She shrunk down, her ears flattening. It must have felt like they were ganging up on her, but the time had come for her unexplained tantrums to end. With pent up frustration and embarrassment, pools of tears began to stream down her face and she cried, “I hate him!” 

“You don’t have to be jealous, kiddo.” 

She wailed, and Shouya finally took notice of the volume, beginning to wiggle and fuss in his mother’s arms. Kagome motioned for Inuyasha to take her away so she could calm him down before he had his own fit. The baby was a heavy sleeper and not a huge crier, but he was cranky when woken up. They’d both be miserable with the two of them crying up a storm, especially Inuyasha with his sensitive hearing. 

As soon as he got out the door, he went into comforting mode. There was no use trying to talk to his little girl in this state. He bounced her up and down, shushing her and rubbing her back as she got out her tears and hiccuped. 

Inuyasha wracked his brain for the right approach. He had only recently come to terms with expressing his emotions. How was he supposed to tell a child to handle hers? “It’s okay to have feelings, you know.” 

Exhausted from crying, she slumped against his shoulder. 

“Papa gets jealous too sometimes. Is that what’s happening? You’re jealous?” 

She sniffled and slowly nodded. He could feel the heat and moisture of her tears seeping into his firerat. Probably snot too. 

Gross, he thought affectionately. 

“That’s alright. Do you want to tell me why?” 

He felt her shake her head. 

“And it’s not because Mama’s busy taking care of him?” 

Another no.

He was kind of at a dead end. She was jealous without much reason behind it. Was she capable of having a good reason? He searched the recesses of his mind, channeling the nurturing care of his wife. 

“Even if I love your brother, you know I don’t love you less, right?” 

“Okay,” she replied in a small voice. 

“Does that make it better?” 

Negative. 

Inuyasha sighed, feeling impatient and hopeless. 

Kagome emerged from the hut just then; Shouya once again soundlessly asleep and swaddled against her chest. She smiled at him sympathetically, knowing that crying was never his wheelhouse. He’d always hated when women cried, but Mizuki’s tears were a whole other level of unbearable. 

“The weather is nice. The sunset looks like it’ll be pretty,” she stated in a soft, even tone. 

“Wanna take a look, kiddo?” 

“The colors are pretty. The clouds are getting pink! Our favorite.” 

Mizuki shuffled a little as her father angled himself so that she could see from her place on his shoulder. She turned to rest her cheek on him, but otherwise kept sniffling. 

“Are you feeling any better now?” Kagome asked her daughter, placing a quick kiss to her swollen face. 

Instead of replying, she tugged at her father’s hair again, using it to cover her face. It was a strange, new behavior. Usually when she wanted to hide she’d simply turn her head into his shoulder. Maybe it comforted her though. 

“Not sure why she’s doing that,” Inuyasha murmured. “She does it whenever she has one of her fits now.” 

Kagome stared for a while before she let out the lightest gasp. When the hanyou looked down at her curiously, he saw the familiar expression of her coming to some kind of understanding. 

“Oh, Mizuki…” she cooed with sympathy. “You poor baby.” 

Inuyasha raised a brow and Kagome pulled away to laugh. Whatever it was, he knew she’d explain, but it was killing him to be out of the loop. 

“She just wants to be like her Papa,” she said with soothing empathy threading her tone. Kagome looked up at her husband fondly, taking her hand to cup his cheek. “From his golden eyes,” she ran her thumb across his eyebrow. Then she reached up towards his ears to stroke one until it flicked in response, “To his fuzzy ears…” she smiled brightly, “to his pretty, silver hair…” Kagome finished, loosely twirling a strand around her finger before turning her gaze to their son. 

It clicked for him then. 

“You’re jealous of your brother because of his hair?” 

Mizuki whimpered, the scent of collecting salty tears assaulting Inuyasha once more as she grabbed more of his locks to cascade down over her own head. 

Mystery solved! 

It was so cute and so stupid that Inuyasha wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. 

“Is that really it, ‘Zuki?” 

“I told you, she wants to be just like you,” Kagome reiterates, placing a soothing set of fingers to touch her daughter affectionately. 

“Keh!” Yet somehow he was blushing. Maybe it had to do with the way Kagome was beaming at him, prettier than any sunset. “That’s stu--silly. What a silly reason to be upset.” 

Mizuki huffed in anger. 

“I mean,” he faltered. “It’s sweet. It’s very sweet.” Finally feeling like he had a hold on things and the world made sense again, he mindfully moved back his daughter’s sagging body from his shoulder, some of the hair getting pulled along with her. “But you don’t have to be jealous, little one. You’re great just the way you are, you know that?” He nuzzled their noses together. 

“B-But I want to be like Papa!” she sobbed, pushing back. Not even her snotty nose or blotchy crying face could detract from how wretchedly adorable she was. 

Kagome thought her heart would melt. “Papa is pretty great, but baby, you are so much like him! You don’t have to have everything be the same.” 

It didn’t seem to matter. “Why does the baby have Papa’s hair and I don’t? It’s not fair!” 

Both Inuyasha and Kagome exchanged looks. It was clear that Mizuki wasn’t going to get much consolation from her mother on this issue. 

Finally, an idea popped into Inuyasha’s head. 

“You got my eyes though, don’t ya?” He asked, looking right into her honey colored irises. They were even more intense at this golden hour. 

“Yeah…” her ear twitched along with her sniffle. 

He grinned. “Then you see the same way I do. You see everything I do, right?” 

“Right,” she agreed. 

“When I look at you, I see the most perfect little girl in the world. Beautiful eyes, cute little ears and nose, pretty hair like her mother, and the best smile. I see all that. You see it too?” 

Mizuki’s eyes watered again, but she nodded. Kagome took the time to brush back the hair stuck to her face. 

Inuyasha prodded his daughter more. “You see it, kiddo? Just like me?” 

“Yeah.” 

“That’s what I want to hear!” He pulled her from his body and hoisted her into the air. It was one of their favorite things to do. He spun her around and tossed her until she was nothing but an exhausted heap of smiles, and the stars began to twinkle in the early evening sky. 

Later that night when she was about to sleep, Mizuki looked at her brother for a long time before turning away with a curt, “Goodnight baby. We won’t give you away.” 

Kagome snorted back a laugh and had her husband put her to bed. Crying, laughing, and letting go of a grudge all in one day really took it out of their poor toddler. Still, seeing Inuyasha fumble through feelings and childrearing-- it all felt so surreal. It felt like home, and she’d never been more content with her life. 

Once the kids were both asleep and tucked away, Inuyasha sat behind his wife and finally held her close, his head sitting on her shoulder. He inhaled her scent to re-center himself. 

“Tough to be a dad?” she asked teasingly. 

“She’s a lot to handle.” 

“She’s just like her father.” 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes but let them fall shut as he nuzzled into the crook of her neck. 

Kagome turned her cheek and pressed her lips against his bangs. 

“Perfect to me,” she added. 

Embarrassed but happy, he simply tightened his arms around her. “Yeah, yeah.” 

[fandom-sheep]

MCC 18 SEP 21

Yellow Yacks and Cyan Coyotes with a little Aqua Axolotls. Part 1/1

The only reason I didn’t forget MCC was because I got the notification for Eret.

I have Wilbur on my TV. I’m going to watch Eret on my phone. And I’ll have Tommy on my iPad probably.

Wilbur throwing a tantrum and saying he won’t play.

I feel like a true Gen Z member with my multiple screens of minecraft.

I’m only just getting the Wilbur notification.

I love watching everyone run around before MCC and scale things.

Griefing the thumbnail. 😂

Wilbur just causes problems on purpose when it comes to group photos doesn’t he.

He just loves finding ways to cause problems.

Wilbur got a coconut!?!

I didn’t mean to type the question mark originally. But I am a bit confused.

Wilbur just stocking up on coconuts

True friendship is a quote book. I have several.

Baby banana boo.

Wait. I heard the word tumblr

Scott what did you do with tumblr?

I’m scared. Only Eret permitted on tumblr.

I remember watching hole in the wall as a tv show as a kid.

Wilbur’s glasses that don’t do anything.

There are September discounts for subbing?

Neato.

The conversations in my work discord are something else.

Not surprised that Wilbur is going for top swearer of MCC

But my residents are going to walk by my door and judge me.

Alright I apparently wasn’t signed in to twitch on my iPad and it took me entirely too long to learn to remember it.

Tommy looks like he’s really concentrating. Oh wait never mind.

Wow the yaks are in first currently. I might be cheering for a winning team for once.

Alright I have my iPad split screen between Tommy and the MCC website.

Everyone break the elevator!

In the game, not in the building I work. I don’t want that paperwork.

Stick together and place many block.

I’ve been in Wilburs position. “I’ll be captain” “yeah let’s let Wilbur be captain”

Not a single POV I have up is synced. But that’s life.

Oh not starting out strong.

Just keep going. Ignore the falling people just like ranboo last time.

We are at the absolute bottom for this game.

Where’s a bag of popcorn or something?

“Stay down there. That’s how I won that one time” -Ranboo

Down they go.

They didn’t have anywhere to run.

Second round!

Oh that wasn’t their best idea. It was fun seeing Erets POV of that.

Go Teams.

Turning down the volume on yellow yacks to listen to aqua axolotls.

Aqua please. You have so much potential.

Nope.

Switching audio again.

Yellow back at the bottom.

Ranboo ranboo ranboo ranboo

Down he goes. 😂 the timing of that was funny.

Please. Don’t die

Wilbur. Scott. Please.

Scott uncovering the creeper.

Their plan is literally just sit and be.

To be fair that’s my plan for everything I do.

Oh cobwebs are smart.

I’m eating very salty Chick-fil-A chips and need water.

We are still doing ok. Wow.

Cobwebs man. The real MVP.

They are still in 10th

COBWEBS!!! And Wilbur standing on the edge of a block.

THEY WON THAT?!?!!!!

It moved them from last to eight. But still. Wow.

Holy cow. How did that happen.

I always forget what the acronym game is.

Oh yeah. Wilbur snuck and found this. I remember.

Go team!

Oh the website updates faster than the game. But we’re starting off decent.

I’m going to have to take back that statement aren’t I?

Go go go go

Fly fly fly fly

Build build build build

Go Wilbur!

Rafter strat.

Wilbur found the rafters and everyone else loved it.

Blocking his own jump. 😂

I really should do the inside joke chair emoji thing for laughing. But I don’t care.

Tiktok is nice. Depends on the side you are on, but it’s nice.

We are doing halfway decent. I’m proud of us.

Wilbur is struggling and I think he might cry.

Not bad. I don’t think.

Power sweater.

This game in MCC has rainbow road vibes

I’ll have to make that it’s own post since I feel that’ll be popular ish.

Holy cow we hit first on the website!! How?

Ranboo sweet one.

They said no peaking to Wilbur.

Wilbur making them block stuff off and the like is so funny.

Run yaks run!

I missed the moment Wilbur just mentioned. Oh well I’m sure I’ll see the clip.

First last first.

Hey 4th overall. Look at em.

Wilbur switching to full screen to show us his M&Ms.

Let me balance my water bottle on the bedpost above my head. No way this could possibly go wrong in multiple ways.

Double coins. Gorgeous.

Chickens are being sniped.

What’s going to work? TEAM WORK!

I don’t think I have ever watched a game of grid runners in my life?

Alright game should start any second because it started on the website.

Alright stream is delayed about 13 seconds.

Go teams go!

Wilbur just sniping targets.

We’re doing ok.

All this dirt.

Go go go

We’re completing things first.

Cake!

Wilbur got in!

Now they eat

Oh but they are falling.

Oh wow the painting is complicated. My friends and I would fail to communicate so fast.

Is this lever thing just find the button but complicated?

Go you got the levers!

Items grab!

My friends and I would seriously struggle unless I was allowed the lead. But I would lead us off a cliff.

Everyone get ready to go in as soon as the cake is done.

Exit! You guys are so close! Please!

Woohoo!

Go Ranboo! Go Scott!

Come on guys. Come on. Good communication.

I think I like watching Wilbur with MCC because he had a similar strategy to what I would do.

Wilbur why did you try to act cool!!!

They keep saying they are miles ahead but not according to that scoreboard.

You placed 3rd. Good job y’all.

I’m excited for bonuses.

They have another minute until the others run out of time.

Good soup.

Oh wow. Ranboo and Wilbur really are always totgehe.

We are doing well. I see the board changing on the website so much.

Where will they land.

Looks like 2nd or 3rd

Fourth overall. Not bad.

Lap time is logical.

Audience vote?

Look at me redownloading twitter.

Can you not see how others have voted on twitter?

Oh there it is. It only showed mine for a sec there.

Battle box looks close. I voted ace race.

Oh it all looks close right now.

Long break my beloved.

I don’t have time to start my laundry but still. My beloved.

Game 5/8 so MCC won’t be too much longer.

I look up and Wilbur is shaking his ass at George. I’m not surprised.

Phil and Sneeg judging Wilbur.

Wilbur twerking on Phil and Sneeg joining.

Poor Phil.

Wilbur just having visited so many random places with so many random words just gathered.

Oh wow parkour tag is low. But so is sands.

Oh wow it was a tie. Between Sands and Parkour

“Wilbur is Sand Daddy” -Scott and then all the agreement noises.

Sands of Time is my favorite practical game

Maybe because Wilbur is really good at it. And Ranboo had been trained by him.

This is just good.

I swear Sand daddy is going to kill me during this.

I am just going to pass away.

My stream delay though.

Wilbur who says he stays very quiet as he makes circus music noises.

Minecraft Rhinos. Because I can’t spell their real name.

I don’t quite understand sand of time. But I like watching. It’s like college football.

I am missing the only college football game I care about for MCC.

Go Team.

No blue yet.

All the mobs.

“You better not die” sung to the tune of Santa clause is coming yo town. -Wilbur

Keep it up guys.

Oh no. They lost the key.

Oh good they found the key.

You can tell Wilbur had a musicians brain. He just hears something vaguely lyrical and starts singing a song.

Gotta promote your band whenever you can I guess.

I listened to the last Ep for like an hour and a half yesterday while I went about my day.

I wonder how we’re doing?

Only a few seconds.

I could warm a heating pad in the amount fo time they have left.

Ranboo doing these puzzles so amazingly.

Quit caring about what others think. Just do your thing.

I swear the sand daddy thing.

I love the cage of shame for not tracking your sand.

I zoned out. Red cyan orange?

We’re almost 15 minutes into sands.

I want to play Minecraft on my iPad right now.

Wait the website updated. We were 6th?

Yikes. I thought they did better.

3rd overall though!

Wait what was that about most influential improv thingy? Good for them.

Build mart!

Oh Ace Race. Wilbur calling Ace Race his girlfriend now.

I want to see the enemies to lovers fan fictions of Ace race and Wilbur.

Oh wait I can do that. I can verbally tell one like I have others in the past.

I’m excited to watch this.

Wilbur flirt with the race.

I’m not mentally prepared for this.

Everyone just joined because they don’t want to miss Wilbur x Ace Race.

Oh no. He’s not doing so well.

Oh Wilbur is giving us more.

Complicated history…

Whispering to Ace Race and Solidarity.

You’ve got it Wilbur.

Keep on talking. Keep your brain busy while you play.

Mommmm Wilbur is flirting with Ace Race again!

He’s whispering though so I can’t quite hear it and will have to find a clip channel that added subtitles.

Oh teams are changing on the website.

“What are you doing in my women Philza?” -Wilbur

“I will end your bloodline which is canonically also me.” -Wilbur

I can not track all the quotes from this. That’s beyond my abilities.

Wilbur did halfway decent, but it still uncomfortable.

Ace Race is a person now. Also the fact that Wilbur compliments Ace Race so much.

Sally v. Ace Race.

I want to find that fanart now.

Scott honey. Confirmed cannon is everyone fancies the fish.

4th. Not bad.

We’re still talking Ace Race x Wilbur

Build mart! My dearest buildmart!

I miss them sliding around in the sleds.

Grab da flowers!

We’re in 1st at the minute.

Come on yaks!

No coyotes!

Hurry hurry hurry.

Work discord going it’s thing again.

Oh we’re dropping fast.

Move the redstone! Thank you

Alright back on top. Keep it up.

Nevermind.

I love the way the build spaces for the different teams work.

Who is the person on the build?

Oh first again? Nevermind.

Oh we popped up to second. We’re so behind. Come on.

Duck!

Good soup energy. Now all I can think is the bi wide energy song.

Time is running out.

Yeah we aren’t catching up to first. Just hold second.

Where is granite?

Game over.

Third overall now. Not bad. Last game time they can possibly pull it into dodge bolt.

I need to go get a picture with the President of the university for a game with my work.

Good Soup.

I’m sitting here making popcat noises while waiting.

Game time! Go team! Survive!

Wait where did the steamer go? I wasn’t paying attention.

He’s back.

He’s swearing for his points on the swearing list.

Is pee a soup? No. I don’t think it’s think enough under normal circumstances.

Karl is apparently swearing according to Twitter. Good for him. He deserves to swear some as a treat.

Everyone running and leaving shubble.

Oh good they are all together.

Just keep running.

4th so far.

Cars. Beep beep.

Ranboo breath child.

Calling Wilbur like some kind of golden retriever.

Bow boy

Scott is leader now. Because otherwise they are arguing.

We are playing the don’t die strategy.

Come on team.

Did I put my cut in this post? I did.

Ranboo having stolen the airdrop. And he has a thing!

Oh the boarder is right behind them.

They are fighting Dream?

Nice Will.

We’re in fourth.

Boarder is right there.

Sapnap? Nope.

Pink attack and they book it.

Oh no. There goes Wilbur.

Is it just Scott?

Scott vs the world.

Just Organe and pink. They came third.

GO ORANGE!

Please. Please let us do it.

Overall third. Pink overtook yellow.

Sadness.

Ranboo has achieved: Found Hated Game

Ranboo has been hit by Survival games so many times now.

If they had just lasted a tiny bit longer they would have come second.

Cheering Orange I suppose.

I have no skill at picking winner POVs.

I have 3 teams I was at least kinda watching. And none of them are in dodgebolt.

Gosh can hear Ranboo tweaking.

Wow. Yellow yaks just as a team twerking.

What is Wilbur chewing on? Wilbur don’t chew on things that probably aren’t meant to be chewed on.

I can hear the band outside of my window. I think my campuses football game is starting.

The drum line practiced outside my window all the beginning of the semester so it’s fun seeing them march to the stadium.

Oh and there are the cheerleaders.

Oh right I was watching MCC! Who’s winning?

Come on Orange. So close.

Wait I looked out my window. Why is the band walking back to where they were?

Along the sidewalk?

I thought it was game time for a minute.

Oh dodgebolt could go either way.

Distracted by Jesus.

Grian! You got this!

Nice Grian.

Oh Grian has a chance!

Oh!

Oh!

It’s so close!

Ooo ooo!

I’m so invested.

I SEE THE CONFETTI IN THE SITE! But I don’t want to miss the shot.

Come on Grian.

I know you do it. But you’ve got this

YESSSSS

Woo hoo!!

That was a good MCC. Now to do the chores and homework I originally planned to do today.

That was a nice stream.

Scott is separating Ranboo and Wilbur?

Please. Scott.

Don’t separate the beings.

You know. Twitter needs to politely bully Scott into keeping Ranboo and Will together.

Oop and that’s Wilbur done. That was fun.

See y’all next time!

[hecticcheer]

Hyponatremia (unfinished T/M/A fic)

Fiveish months ago I tried to write a fic based on this scenario post I made. I’m super definitely never gonna finish it, and, it just kinda trails off at the end? Also it’s very rough. Features some American measurements in brackets that I’m too lazy to convert, if that gives you an idea. But I figured I’d post it anyway on one-slice-of-cake>no-cake principle.

As for the plot... uh. Jon has a headache; Martin tries to help, but makes it worse. For *checks notes* ~4200 words. If it has one saving grace, it’s that you can mmmmostly understand it without prior knowledge of T/M/A? Long as you know Martin’s living in the Archives to hide from an evil worm monster, you should be good.

--

As usual, Jon was the first person to join Martin down in the Archives that morning, sometime between seven and eight. And, no more unusually, Martin had twelve-plus hours of nervous energy to work off, and nobody to shed it on but his boss. “Morning. Sleep well? Tim said you still had some work to do when we left for the pub, but I didn’t see you when I got back so you can’t have made too late a night of it.” (Jon shook his head.) “Shame you couldn’t join us, by the way. Elena and Clarisse and them destroyed us on geography, and Sasha says you’re pretty good on maps and that. Maybe you could’ve saved us.”

“Doubt it,” said Jon. Martin waited for him to add more to that thought, but instead he just sort of stood there. Pinched one nostril shut and inhaled experimentally through the other. Trying to figure out which one was clogged, maybe? Tim said Jon’d said he had a headache; maybe it was a sinus thing. Not that this was exactly reliable intel. On pub-quiz Wednesday Tim always regaled him and Sasha with Jon’s latest excuses not to join them. They were always bad, but some were so bad Martin suspected they weren’t so much Jon’s lies as Tim’s lies about Jon’s lies. Probably not a great idea to mention this one, then. He’d stick to the first excuse Jon had allegedly given:

“Did you finish what you were working on?”

Jon closed his eyes, for a bit longer than the average blink, but not long enough to count as a proper wince. “Not even close.”

“Oh. What… was it?”

“Cabinet of statements from 2003. Or at least, nominally from 2003, though by my count less than a third of them actually date from that year.”

“Yikes. Need any help? Extra pair of hands, or.”

“Not right now.”

“2003,” Martin mused—“are you still looking for Mr. McKenzie’s statement?”

A short, but hearty sigh. Enunciated, practically. He didn’t open his mouth until afterward, but Martin could see his nostrils flare around it. “No. Three days ago, when I started to look through the cabinets marked 2003, I was looking for Mr. McKenzie’s statement. Now I just want to find out which statements in there I can’t send straight to the discredited section.”

Jon stood in the open doorway to his office by this point, hand on the knob as if to remind Martin of his eagerness to close it behind him. Even so Martin tried to peer past him into the office, looking for a discard pile of statements he might offer to shuttle away himself. This was pretty hard to do surreptitiously, though. He’d hoped his eyes would land at once on the tallest pile, at which time he could point to it and say, Are those the discredited ones, then? But from his vantage point all the piles on Jon’s desk seemed taller than usual.

“Right,” Martin said instead; “good luck.” He smiled weakly and returned his gaze to Jon, meaning to restore eye contact before he remembered how seldom Jon looked at people’s faces anyway. At this moment both his eyes were covered by the hand not on the doorknob. It would’ve been weird, he figured, to just duck out now while Jon couldn’t even see him, so Martin told himself to wait until he opened his eyes and only then back off.

But then Jon just stayed like that, for ages, with his fingers on one temple and his thumb on the other, blocking all possibility of sight. Eventually Martin felt like he had no choice but to say, “Are you alright?—or, I mean, how’s your head, by the way? Tim said….”

“It’s fine.”

“Ssssso it—doesn’t still hurt, then?”

“I’m fine, Martin. Thank you,” Jon said, but in one of the least thankful-sounding tones of voice he had. And then he closed the door, without even waiting for Martin to back up.

—

“Thought you might like coffee this morning instead of tea. It’s got more caffeine, and, that’s supposed to help, right? Plus I remembered what you said on your birthday about tea having tannins just like wine does. Of course, for all I know coffee might too—”

“It does.”

“Oh. Well… maybe the caffeine’ll cancel it out and you’ll break even? Or, I don’t know, maybe if you already have a headache they can’t trigger one.”

Jon’s answering Hm sounded pessimistic. Sure enough, as soon as Martin had finished his sentence he said, “I’m not that lucky.”

“Probably not,” Martin agreed with a laugh. “Still, least it’s hydration. Though caffeine’s a diuretic, so if I recall correctly you only get about half, volume-wise. That mug’s about… [twelve ounces,] I’d say? So it probably counts as about [six toward your sixty-four].”

“Yes, yes,” replied Jon, picking up his bottle of water and shaking it. When he set it down again, one look confirmed what Martin had suspected from the sound it made—it was nearly empty.

“Oh hey, look at that! Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job even without…” he trailed off, realizing too late that the most logical end to that sentence was my help, and that that was a pretty pompous way to refer to a coffee he was pretty sure Jon didn’t even want. So instead he said, “I’ll go refill that for you.” And before Jon could look up Martin scurried off to the break room with it.

The water dispenser should’ve been changed yesterday. When the water got this low it took ages to fill even a mug, much less a tall bottle like this one. It startled as a trickle, and by about halfway up the bottle slowed to a glorified drip. In his mind he pleaded with the water spout not to make so much noise; promised it he’d put in a new one as soon as he’d returned Jon’s water to him, mouthed encouragements to it. Not much farther, just to the top of the M, come on, you can do it. (The bottle was an Institute freebie, with Magnus Institute inscribed on it in black-bordered green letters. Martin had one just like it somewhere in his flat. Worm bait now, he supposed.)

By the time he brought it back Jon’s eyes were on the statement in his hands. Skimming, by the looks of it, rather than either actually reading or pretending to.

Martin endeavored to set down his refilled water audibly, but not painfully loudly. But Jon’s answering “Thank you” took him so much by surprise that at the last moment his wrist jerked and the bottle fell over.

“Ah! Sorry, sorry.” It had a lid, so, not an actual disaster? Jon did snarl at him though, or at least at the noise. His hands flew up as if to cover his ears, but he seemed to reject that idea halfway through. Just closed his fists around thin air, then leant his temple on one of them and sighed through his nose. “Sorry,” Martin said again. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Jon’s emphatic blink seemed to stand in for a nod.

“Anyway, here’s a further [sixteen ounces] for you, looks like, or thereabouts,” ventured Martin, patting the side of the water bottle with one hand while holding it down with the other so it definitely wouldn’t topple again. “I’ll just leave you to it then.”

“Mm.”

“Good luck.”

—

After his stunt with the water bottle Martin had too much distrusted himself to risk making another big noise with the door, so he’d left it with its tongue sticking out rather than latching it. This meant he made almost no sound when he entered again. The first thing he noticed was that the water in Jon’s bottle still reached the top of the M. It still sat in the same place, too—not out of Jon’s reach but far enough away (Martin had told himself at the time) not to seem an imposition on his space. Almost definitely not where one would set it if one intended to pick it up again soon. His coffee seemed to have fared a bit better though. Half empty, one might say. Optimistically.

The second thing he noticed was Jon himself, who sat with his elbows on the desk, his chin on the heels of his palms, and his fingers arranged around his eyes like fence posts. Like a child peeking out at something they’re too scared to look at directly—except that his eyes were closed.

Martin snuck back to the other side of the door and knocked on it, gently. “Hey, uh, Jon?”

He didn’t look up, and opened his eyes for only a second before shutting them again. But he did drop his hands, threaded his fingers together and set them on the table, and bit his lip. “What, Martin.”

“Er—well, I know you said you’d given up looking for Marcus McKenzie’s statement, but I just realized I never asked if you’d thought to look in the discredited section. I mean, from what he said on the phone it didn’t sound like he took his dad’s statement all that seriously, so, maybe Gertrude put it in there, as, like, corroborating evidence that it wasn’t paranormal, and McKenzie senior’s statement just got misfiled?”

“Martin, I invented the discredited section.”

“Oh.”

“Anything else you wanted to say?”

“Oh, uh, nothing important. Just wondered if you’d like me to take that mug away.”

Instead of responding verbally, Jon picked up the mug and made what seemed a valiant effort to drink a little more of the coffee inside it. From what Martin could tell, he barely managed not to grimace in disgust.

“Do you like coffee? I’m not a big fan of it either, to be honest. Oh, well. If you can’t force that down you’ve still got plenty of water there, I see. Besides, it’ll wash out the taste.” (With an actual heh heh, which came out more like a small dog panting than like human laughter.)

Dramatic, snarly sigh from Jon. “Think I’ll pass. It seems to make it worse, if anything.”

“Oh. Sorry about that; must be those pesky tannins. I’ll just take your cup now then.”

But Jon only tightened his grip on it. “Water, I meant. The coffee’s fine. Not exactly my favorite beverage in the world, but, you were right. It’s a good idea.”

“Oh. Thanks, I’m glad you.” Martin smiled, then frowned. “Wait, water makes it worse?”

“Seems to.”

“Really? Are you sure it wasn’t just—too cold, or something.”

His laugh sounded bitter, hollow—theatrically so, in fact. A perfect Ha ha ha, except he didn’t say those words, didn’t enunciate them like Sasha sometimes did when Tim made a bad joke. He just made the exact sounds they were invented to transcribe. “No, Martin. I haven’t just been giving myself a brain freeze every time I.”

“…Right, of course not. Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” For a few silent seconds Martin picked at a notch in his thumbnail, carved there earlier this morning by a stubborn paperclip. Part of him wanted to tear the nail off and have done, but he knew it would bleed if he did. Nothing to clip it with in the Archives, obviously. “Are you sure you won’t try again? This water’s quite tepid, actually, since I got it literally from the bottom of the barrel—”

“Martin—”

“Sorry, sorry. Just thought it was worth—”

“Don’t you have something better to do.”

“Er… no, actually. Pretty much finished with everything, at the momen…t. Though if you’d like to give me another assignment I’d be happy to—yeah. Do that, for you. Or I mean, for the sake of the Archives; I don’t mean it’d just be, like, busy work. Not accusing you of that or anything.”

“Are you comfortable leaving the Archives?”

For half a second Martin heard this as a hint—an offer? a threat?—that Jon meant to have him transferred to another department. Then he wondered if Jon was hinting it was time Martin found somewhere else to live. “What, like, permanently?”

“No—just as long as it takes to track down and interview Georgie Barker about her role in the statement Ms. King gave us.”

“Oh. Yeah, I think so, uh. Thank you for asking? I mean, Prentiss said she was done with me, right. At least, me personally. And she already knows I’m here, so it’s not like.”

Jon replied shortly, “Yes.”

“I’d like to listen to Ms. King’s statement first, though, if that’s alright. What’d you say it was about? The Cambridge Military Hospital?”

Another short, emphatic, nose-directed sigh. Couldn’t be too stuffed-up then, Martin guessed. “Technically, yes, though Ms. King insists the building itself had nothing to do with it.”

“Huh. What was it about, then?”

“She alleges that a woman she hired to help film one of her ghost stories peeled the skin off her arm.”

“Oh my god! I mean, did you—was she okay? Did she show you her arm? Did it seem to have—you know—skin?”

“Her own arm, not Ms. King’s.”

“Oh.” Martin sighed for himself now, though with relief rather than exasperation. Managed a tiny laugh, as well. “Okay, well, that’s. Creepy as hell, but, not nearly as bad as.”

“Mm. Nor nearly as verifiable as your version.”

“T…rue, no, I guess not. Anyway do you have the tape? I’d like to listen myself, if that’s.”

Jon pointed to a small stack of tapes on the bookshelf to Martin’s right. Sure enough, the top one had M. King, 0161704 sharpied across the label on its side. “Ah! Found it. Thanks.” He had a tape player squirreled away already; on another day he might’ve pretended otherwise, but for the moment he was too relieved not to have to make a pest of himself by asking to borrow one to worry whether the absence of that request might make Jon suspicious.

Besides, Jon seemed pretty… absorbed in himself, this morning. By the time Martin turned to face him again one of Jon’s hands had crept back up to his face, where its fingers now seemed to comb the hairs of his left eyebrow. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Jon do that before, plus doubted the hairs in question needed his help to lie flat. Jon’s eyebrows had always struck him as quite neat. Plus Martin had tried that with his own eyebrows plenty of times before the mirror in his youth, and knew it didn’t work very well even if you licked your finger—which Martin assumed Jon hadn’t. So he figured he should file this behavior in the same box as the earlier fist-clenching-to-avoid-covering-ears thing. As, like, headache-soothing for people who don’t want to look weak. Or unprofessional, or something to that effect.

This gave him a sense of foreboding when he thought too hard about it. But Martin needed so badly to keep this job, now that his flat wasn’t safe anymore. It seemed wiser not to look directly at abstract threats like that. If he could make Jon feel better then it wouldn’t matter, right? Or at least could be put off til next time.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Don’t recall saying I was,” Jon muttered.

Martin winced. He had said he was alright—Martin was certain. When he’d first come in that morning, he’d said he was fine when Martin asked, and then he’d closed the door. Didn’t seem worth correcting him over it, though. So Martin just said, “Try to drink something while I’m gone, yeah? Kool-Aid, for all I care, just. You really don’t look like you’re feeling all that well. And any kind of drink other than alcohol should—oh.”

He looked up, hearing Jon swallow what sounded like a lot more than the tiny sip of coffee he’d managed before.

“Well. Great. Thank you for obliging me.”

Jon continued to gulp down water, while staring right at Martin. He paused in swallowing to breathe, but even then did not remove the mouth of the bottle from his own mouth. When he tried to resume drinking it made him cough instead, and even then he didn’t set it down.

“O-okay, well, I’m sure that’s plenty, don’t—?” Hurt yourself, Martin wanted to say, but feared that would sound patronizing. The bottle was more than half empty now. Jon paused for air again. “For god’s sake, Jon, stop—that looks like it hurts—you don’t have to—?”

At last he slammed the empty bottle on his desk—more loudly than could possibly be comfortable for a man with a headache. Leant his elbow on the table, and between pants huffed a laugh and said, “Care to refill it for me?”

On a sort of autopilot Martin chirped, “Uh—sure! No problem I’ll just,” and rushed off with it to the break room. This refill took much less time, since he’d remembered to change out the thingy. But it still took long enough that by the time he got back he worried, “You’re not going to chug this one too, are you?”

“No,” said Jon, eyes and hands both busy now with a statement hitherto hidden by his elbow. He did not reach out a hand to take the bottle from Martin.

“Okay, I’ll just. Leave this here then. See you after the, uh. Yeah.”

—

And lo, it was as he had feared. Chugging [sixteen ounces] of water did indeed make his headache worse. By ten it seemed to count turning the page of a statement as an exertion worth pounding over. True, by lunch time it seemed to have backed off a bit—until he sat back down at his desk with his fork and plate. On his way to the microwave he’d thought he must be on the mend: his head throbbed a little harder than when he’d been seated, but not so much he’d have noticed the difference had he not set out to pay attention to it. Some food, maybe an ibuprofen or two and he’d be fixed, he’d told himself.

Once he got to the break room, though, he noticed something else odd. His limbs were weak. His knees seemed made of jelly, and wobbled beneath him every time he shifted his weight; his arms were steady enough, but when he set down the pizza box on the counter after retrieving it from the fridge he felt a surge of relief, which he hardly understood until he’d transferred a slice from the no-onion half onto a plate and picked up the latter to put it in the microwave. Even these tiny movements made his arms, neck and chest ache like they do when you hold your breath too long. He leant his elbows against the counter and gulped down air until his mouth felt so dry he couldn’t bear to keep it open. Wondered if he should sit down; he felt a bit dizzy. But he had less than 30 seconds left to wait for the microwave, which he figured couldn’t hurt him.

It didn’t, but the walk back to his office did a bit. Moving his legs’ sluggish muscles made his whole body ache—again like it does when you run too long and have to stop for breath. He figured it must be in a similar spirit that his head waited til he’d sat down to unleash its onslaught. Before leaving his desk he’d grown used to thinking of his heart beat’s faint buzzy shocks like the second hand on a clock, criticizing him under its breath from where it watched behind his eyes. This was… a great deal worse than that. He tried to time the beats against the ticking of his wrist watch, but couldn’t seem to focus on that and breathe at the same time. They were fast, though, at least at first. His heart rate did seem to calm down fairly quickly, but he could swear it never got all the way back down to its earlier rate—at least not before his attention shifted from the speed to just. How much it hurt.

Was that what made his slice of pizza so tasteless? When he cut his first bite, on its way to his mouth he thought he caught a whiff of the red onions with which its tip must have shared space, and only his horror of Tim asking What was wrong with that part, then? when he brought the otherwise-empty plate back to the sink stopped him from scraping that bite off his fork and trying again higher up the slice. But when he finally forced himself to eat it? Nothing. No onion taste, thank god, but everything else too seemed… muted. Hardly worth how the exertion of chewing made his head hammer after each swallow. Jon knew the taste of food was hardly the point of eating it, but? In the absence of everything he normally liked about cheese and meat and bread and vegetables, the fact the cheese squelched in his mouth made him wish he’d never left his bed. The way leaves of soggy spinach flapped over the sides of even his neatly-cut rectangles. His stomach tightened in revulsion, so that in his throat he could feel each swallowed lump shifting from foot to foot, waiting to be let in. Not to mention how the effort of cutting it shook the whole damn table.

He told himself he could skip the crust. If Tim asked about it, Jon’d just tell him it’d gone stale. Just get through the… other part, the crumb, the filling. Between throbs the ache in his tired jaw merged with the one behind his eyes. Why didn’t it always hurt to chew? Did the pleasure of tasting food give you enough endorphins to cancel it out? Would everyone have this problem all the time if we had to live on, say, dry toast?

Right, okay, close enough. Ibuprofen now. No, you idiot—other drawer. In the fantasy versions he’d rehearsed of this moment he clapped four of them from his palm into his mouth at once, and swallowed them dry. But his blister pack turned out to have only three left. Which was fine! Just fine. Better, probably, after so little lunch.

Also, dry-swallowing was kind of a misnomer? He’d never really thought about it before, but. Turned out it would only work if your so-called “dry” mouth had spit in it. As it was the pills stuck to his tongue, leaving streaks of spicy burnt-orange when he tried to claw them back toward his throat with his teeth. When they got far back enough on his tongue he had to concentrate not to gag, and they still stuck—even when he turned his nose to face the ceiling and thumped on his chin with his hand (which, ouch)—at that point he gave up and unscrewed his water. Allowed as little of it in his mouth as would let him swallow these damn things, and wash their stains off his tongue. And it still made his head throb harder.

Jon imagined shooting whoever next told him to stay hydrated. He derived little joy from the fantasy, though; couldn’t not think of the loud, sharp noise it would make.

Returning the plate could wait, he decided; not like it would attract worms in the thirty minutes it’d take for the pills to kick in. Meanwhile he’d just… keep sorting. He took a statement off the top of the pile in front of him and blinked at it over and over, until his vision resolved into a shape he told himself hurt marginally less than the others. 9720406, Nathaniel Thorp. Christ, 1972? “Misfiled” was practically an understatement for that one. And here he’d thought Gertrude had kept that part of the century in relative good order. Still, he stuck it on the all other years pile and reached for another. 0130111, David Laylow. Nope—still not 2003. 0002610, Jennifer Wong. 0910203, Lisa Jones. 0081711, Donald Gately. 0100912, Lawrence Mortimer. 0152101, Uzma Rashid. Ha!—0030707, Seymour… Backsides. Wait a minute. Hadn’t he seen a prank statement with that name before lunch? He grabbed a stack off the 2003 pile and found… Rashid, Mortimer, Gately. Had he switched the—? Look in the unsorted pile again, he told himself. Under where he’d found Mr. Backsides’ tale he uncovered statements 0031212, 0032504, 0031809, and so on. Great. After Seymour he must’ve got mixed up. There was no more unsorted pile—not on his desk, anyway. He’d have to pull some more out of the… open filing cabinet which stood across the room with its tongue stuck out at him. Yeah, well, that could wait too. For now he’d just. Check his email.

[iwillbeinmynest]

Redcove Harvest - Bucky x Reader(f)   Chapter 4

Authors Notes: Sorry for the delay y'all, I’m running behind on this series so my updates are not as consistent but I’m trying! I’ll be a bit MIA for the next few weeks so hopefully y'all don’t forget about me..

AU: Farmhand!AU and SIngleMom!Reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Notes/Warnings: (Notes are for the whole series) FLUFF, mentions of a past toxic relationship, a wild storm at the end, drama and a break-up, mentions of drinking, kids being adorable and ridiculous, kissing, romance and a tiny bit of angst if you look hard but nothing more than that of a Hallmark movie.

Masterlist    Series Masterlist

Lunch was mostly quiet but there was some small talk. Eventually, Bucky took their plates and washed them.

“Well,” He started as he placed his plate on the drying rack. “Rain has stopped. I figure I’ll get back to the mowing.”

“Actually,” Y/N checked her phone. “I just got a message from the gravel company that they’re on their way.”

“Oh, alright. Did you get the bobcat already?”

She nodded. “It should be here around the same time.”

“Perfect. I bet you’ll be glad to have a gravel driveway.” He smiled at her.

“Anything is better than the swamp it turns into after a heavy rain.”

He chuckled. “I’ll grab the truck and start filling in the pot holes until all that gets here.”

“Okay, perfect. I’ll be here.” She said as she headed for the stairs. “I’ll be able to help for a while but then I have to go get the girls from school.”

Bucky knew that. Somewhat ashamedly, he’d been keeping track of her schedule. On weekdays, she took the girls to school and then ran errands and picked up coffee. Most times she was back before Bucky got there. Then, she’d spend time on the animals and the garden that way she was done before the midday heat. After that, she took an early lunch around eleven followed by about an hour of sitting on the porch reading. Then she’d do house work until she had to pick up the girls at three.

Bucky’s schedule had never been consistent. Where he was originally scheduled to work from 8-3, he now showed up around eight and then left when the day's tasks were done. A few times that meant working until the sun went down.

He found he preferred working late. He liked being able to see the kids and watch Y/N mother them. He admired her for her strength and endurance when it came to Gracie and Lex. Sometimes they invited him in for dinner and he was happy to oblige.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like living with Steve, it’s just that he was really starting to like Y/N.

He got in his truck and did as he said he would, headed down the driveway. He rode down the worn path that led to the back of the property and shoveled a few dozen pounds of dirt into the bed. He drove to the barn to grab the tools he needed and then drove down the drive until he came to the first big pothole.

He worked for another hour filling in holes and driving to the next one. Just as he finished the last one at the front of the driveway, he heard the familiar rumble of a work truck. Sure enough, when he looked down the paved road he saw the gravel truck headed his way. He waited until the driver pulled to a stop next to him and then told him to dump the rocks in small piles across the driveway. Bucky told him that he could turn the truck around up at the house and dump the pile as he left.

The driver told Bucky that the next truck was behind him about thirty minutes so they better hurry.

Bucky hopped in his truck and hurried up to the house to get the bobcat. When he got to the house, Y/N was coming out the front door.

“Trucks here!” Bucky shouted out his window as he threw the truck in park. He hopped out and smiled at her.

“Perfect,” She smiled back. “My friend with the bobcat is on his way. He said he’s five minutes away.”

“Nice.” Bucky could feel his smile getting wider as she walked closer to him.

She got a few feet away and stopped. She put one hand on her hip and one over her brows to block the sun. “Dang,” She said as she saw the gravel truck. “I didn’t think it would be that big.”

“Yeah,” Bucky laughed and shifted his weight to follow her gaze, “And there’s two of them.”

“Yikes, I didn’t think this through. This is gonna take a few days.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, I’ll work on it tonight and then finish tomorrow.”

“You’re gonna need help.”

Bucky looked at her but she was still looking at the truck which was now maneuvering a three point turn to head back down the drive.

“After I get the girls I’ll come out and help more.”

He inhaled to say she didn’t have to but then she waved at someone. He looked down the drive and there was the guy with the bobcat.

“That’s Rhodey. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Bucky followed her down to Rhodey. She gave him a big hug after he stepped out of his dust covered truck. The bobcat sat on a trailer at the back.

“Hey!” She smiled at him when he let go, “Thank you so much for letting me borrow this. And for dropping it off.”

“Of course,” He grinned. “Anything you need, sweetheart.”

Rhodey looked over at Bucky, who nodded.

“Oh, sorry,” Y/N said. “Rhodey, this is Bucky. Bucky, Rhodey.”

Bucky extended a hand and Rhodey took it and shook firmly.

“James.” Rhodey corrected.

“Nice to meet you, James.” Bucky nodded again.

“Bucky is helping me out for a couple of months until I get the property back in order.”

“That’s really great.” Rhodey crossed his arms and widened his stance. “And graveling the drive is gonna be real nice.”

“I hope so,” Y/N looked back up the drive at the gravel truck. “I sure couldn’t afford to pave the whole thing. Hopefully the rain won’t wash it away.”

“If we pack it in enough it should be fine.” Bucky reminded her.

“Well,” Rhodey began to fish something out of his pocket. He pulled out a small set of keys and gave them to Bucky. “Here are the keys. You know how to drive it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright then, I’ll untie it for you.”

Rhodey took the tow straps off the bobcat and Bucky backed it off the trailer. Y/N said bye to Rhodey then, hopped onto the side of the bobcat and rode with Bucky up to the gravel truck.

Bucky began spreading out the gravel and Y/N grabbed the tamper and began compacting the gravel into place. They worked at that pace for about an hour until Y/N waved at Bucky and signaled that it was time for her to go.

Y/n headed up to her old Ford and Bucky found himself watching a little too long as she walked away. He kept waiting for her to drive past him, he was looking forward to it, but after a few minutes, he still hadn’t seen her.

He looked up the drive to see Y/N’s truck with the hood up.

Bucky cursed and turned off the bobcat. He hopped out and jogged up to her.

As he got closer he heard Y/N swear really loud.

“You okay?” He called.

“Yeah.” She said shortly.

“You sure?” he rounded the front of the truck to see Y/N near tears.

“Yeah,” She pulled her phone out, “I’m just going to have to call the school and tell them I’m going to be late.

“N- wait. What’s wrong with it?” He asked about the truck.

“It’s a hunk of junk.” She said with a sour look on her face. “It won’t turn over.”

“Well, why don’t I drive you to get them and we can work on it later?”

Y/N looked up at him slightly stunned. “You’d do that?”

He softened his expression, it wasn’t hard to do when he was looking at her. “Of course.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank you, seriously, I owe you one.” And she hurried to get Lex’s booster seat from the back seat.

*  *   *   *   *    *   *

Forever Tags:

 @cassiopeiassky

​@sgtbxckybxrnes

​@itsanerdlife

​@beccaanne814

​ @tanelle83

​ @artemis521​​

@elaacreditava​ 

@feelmyroarrrr​ 

@palaiasaurus64​

@the-stuttering-kiwi​ 

@destiel-artemis​

@sexyvixen7​

@girl-next-door-writes​ 

@coolest-avenger​

@xoxabs88xox​ 

@youclickedthislink​

@also-fangirlinsweden​ 

@widowvinter​

@daughterofthenight117​ 

@drayshadow​

@archy3001​ 

@miraclesoflove​

Redcove Tags:

@cavillanche​ 

@bi-bucky-barnes​

@mylifeiscrazy0423​ 

@dumblani​

@thefridgeismybestie​ 

@csigeoblue​

@selluequestrian​