#it was just a random edward I still felt bad for

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Sometimes I remember that the One Bad Day plot twist was that Riddler hates riddles and I want to punch someone (prefenciably Tom King).

We also had the amazing Riddler was behind the Killing Joker because Tom King has to put Barbara Gordon some way. And the edgy scenes.

[I was looking for Arkhamverse Riddler Tik Toks and somehow ended up finding a Tik Tok about One Bad Day - with the perfect coment "why does it look like a Dead Poets Society comic" - and now I'm angrily thinking about it again].

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | last part — next part

pairing: modern!college!steve harrington x fem!reader, bestfriend!eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 5.3k words

warnings: explicit language, a bunch of other good things that i don’t wanna say because i don’t want to completely spoil everything<333

summary: an unexpected conversation between you and steve leads to a long overdue realization 

quick a/n: a bit nervous to post this one lol but i hope yall enjoy🫶🏾

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | ❝𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕❞

Summer 2017

“I’m a little upset that I didn’t get the grand hometown tour.”

“You mean the tour of the old library that I spent probably too much time at back in high school, and the park that I also really liked back in high school, but it’s currently under construction?”

Eddie gave you an amused smile. “Yes, exactly that.”

“Next time,” You told him, completely joking with your words, but you wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually held you to them the next time he was here. But, you honestly didn’t think that there’d be another moment when he was in your hometown; this moment in itself felt almost like a fluke.  

After a five week long road trip with Eddie, you still weren’t ready to be home— you dreaded it, actually— but things had started getting too expensive and Eddie’s van was in dire need of a break. 

You did most of the driving to your hometown because you knew that Eddie would have to do all of the driving alone back to his own home. And then he stayed with you for the night at your dad’s house. You didn’t even have to do any sort of introduction between the two because your dad was off on a vacation with his new girlfriend.

Now it was the morning and you two lingered by Eddie’s van, prolonging the conversation because the next time you’d see each other would be a little over four weeks— when you moved into your apartment with Robin, Vickie, and Talia, and he moved in with two people that he found at the last second; luckily, your respective buildings weren’t far from each other, so it wouldn’t feel impossible to see each other. 

You pulled Eddie in for a hug, a long one that felt so equivalent to a goodbye and it actually managed to sadden you a bit because of how good the last five weeks had been and it sucked that it was all over now. 

When you pulled back, you gave him a smile. “See you in four weeks, Edward.”

He laughed a little. “See ya.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

Spring Semester 2018

Maybe things should’ve felt at least a little weird or awkward between you and Steve in this moment in the library— it had been a month since the last time you two talked— but it didn’t. At all. 

It was all so surprisingly easy. The small talk wasn’t even unbearable; you liked hearing about the mundane things he’d been up to for the past month and you didn’t mind sharing your own stories about classes you’d come to hate and how you didn’t feel all too prepared for finals because you had more essays to do than actual tests. And then you two moved into random bits of nothing, asking the first thing you could think of or filling the silence with storytimes or quick anecdotes, and whispering the entire time so that you didn’t disturb everyone else in the library right then. 

You two probably should’ve moved somewhere else, but it felt as if the entire moment would’ve been broken if you did so. Logical thinking would’ve sunk in on your side of things and you would’ve realized that all of this was a bad idea and you should’ve left, or perhaps never sat down across from him on this carpeted floor in the first place.

“Did you decide what you’re going to do with your summer of freedom?” You asked him instead of leaving or even thinking about doing so. You were mainly joking with your question and just trying to think of something to say, but still, you were a little curious. 

“I think I’m gonna do the Europe thing. Go alone,” He told you. “It’s loosely planned right now, but I’ll fully figure it out after finals.”

“Ooh, that’s very Eat, Pray, Love of you,” You joked. 

He laughed a bit. “Thanks, I think?”

“I’ve actually never seen that movie before, but from what I think I know of it, it felt fitting to mention it.”

“Do you know what you’re gonna do for the summer?”

“Nothing exciting, really,” You answered with a quick shrug. “I think I’m just gonna stay around here. Robin and Vickie are doing some summer classes, and even though I’m not taking any, staying in the apartment for the summer sounds much better than going home the entire time.”

Steve nodded. “With what you’ve said about your parents, that makes sense.”

“Exactly,” You nodded back. “So, if you get bored of Europe— which I highly doubt, but still— please feel free to come to any of our apartment movie nights and sleep on our couch at any point during the summer.”

You realized way too late what exactly your words implied— that you two were friends, that this moment in the library wasn’t and shouldn’t be a one-off thing. And your brain was quickly rushing you to fix what you said. “Or, I guess, that wouldn’t really make sense since we’re not friends or whatever…”

You could recognize that it was a pretty shitty attempt at backtracking, but all Steve needed to do was simply agree and everything would be fine; or, at least, what you’d convinced yourself was considered as “fine.”

“That ‘going our separate ways’ rule was so dumb,” Steve said instead of agreeing with your previous statement. “We should be friends.”

He was completely right, the rule was dumb. But still, even in this entirely comfortable moment, you knew that you couldn’t say what he wanted to hear. 

“I’ve missed this,” He continued on before you could say anything in response. He lightly bumped his knee with yours. “I’ve missed you.” 

“I’ve missed you too,” You blurted it out before you realized what you were even saying, and you didn’t know how true it was until those four simple words were out in the open and sitting in the quiet air between you and Steve. 

They abruptly made you inwardly admit everything else that you’d been avoiding and refusing to accept— the almost too obvious reason why you couldn’t be friends with him and why you had refused to break the rule this entire past month.  

You’d never be able to be just friends with him. You’d start feeling something more and head down an all too familiar path, another Eddie situation that you weren’t sure if you’d be able to take and not have it break you this time around. Falling for a friend who saw you as nothing more than solely as a friend already sucked once, and you couldn’t imagine letting history repeat itself. 

That was why you couldn’t try to do it; you couldn’t try to be normal and keep things as they were between you and Steve. If you two hadn’t gone your “separate ways,” you were certain that you would’ve ended up liking him, inadvertently feeling more for him than what you wanted to.

However, you were realizing now that the joke was actually on you because it still happened anyway. 

You liked him a lot. And maybe some part of you always did. But, you knew that you’d never be able to do anything about it. 

You were right on one thing, though— this entire moment was a bad idea. 

Before you could come up with some random excuse to leave, the sound of Steve’s phone vibrating next to him saved you instead. He grabbed it, looking down at whatever message he just got and then back at you. 

“I gotta go. I’m late for this study group thing,” He said. “But, I'm not gonna be an idiot right now and once again say that we should go our separate ways. It’s set in stone now— we’re friends.”

“Okay,” You nodded, not meaning in the slightest.

“You should come over tomorrow. We can watch that one Lindsay Lohan movie that you like and I promise I won’t complain about it.”

“It’s called Freaky Friday. And yeah, okay, that sounds good.”

Right then it was easier to lie than to refuse his statement and make up a different lie about why you couldn’t hang out with him, why you couldn’t ever hang out with him. 

Steve gave you one final smile before he stood up. You watched him head down the aisle and then turn the corner before you let yourself lean back against the bookshelf and shut your eyes with a sigh. 

Now that you finally admitted to yourself how you felt for him, it was as if the dam broke and all you could think about was how real the entirety of the fake dating thing had been for you— during the power outage where you actually got to know him, during that night where you two spent Valentine’s together at that arcade and pizza place, during everything that happened in Mexico. It was suddenly so obvious, and you were also reminded of that moment during the delayed flight when the realization first hit you. 

How different would things be if you had actually accepted it back then? You honestly couldn’t imagine. 

Another long sigh fell from your lips as you pulled your legs out of the aisle and crossed them under you.

You really didn’t want to like Steve, and a part of you wanted to try and convince yourself that it wasn’t true; just like you’d done before. But, this time around was so much different. The feelings already felt so settled and certain; you couldn’t even push them away. 

And that only made things feel worse because avoidance was your main coping mechanism. So if you couldn’t push away and forget your feelings for Steve, what the hell were you going to do instead? 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

It was hours upon hours full of contradictory thoughts. One part of you was telling you to be honest and the other was saying the exact opposite, and at first, you had no idea which side to listen to. You wanted to take the easy way out, but there was something about that that didn't sit right with you. Still, though, you considered it.

More time slowly passed, your head in a constant push and pull, and then it was nearing midnight when you decided to call Steve. It was an impulsive decision that, once you were settled on it, surprisingly felt like the right one. 

You sat up in your bed and grabbed your phone off of your nightstand. You could hear the faint sounds of Talia doing something in the kitchen through your shut door, but you knew that it wasn’t her that was keeping you awake since you got in bed twenty minutes ago. Instead, it was your scattered thoughts and confused mind, both of which somehow suddenly felt a thousand percent certain about one thing, which should’ve felt comforting but it actually felt like the opposite. 

You pressed call on Steve’s contact name before you could talk yourself out of it. 

“Hey,” His voice sounded sleepy when he answered after the third ring, which let you know that you’d woken him up. A part of you felt bad, and you wanted to hang up after saying the quickest “Sorry” to him, but then you remembered why you were calling. 

“I can’t be friends with you,” You blurted it out, getting straight to the point because you couldn’t think of a different way to say it.  

“Oh…” He sounded confused, and rightfully so, you could recognize that this was probably the weirdest wake-up call ever. “Oh, okay.”

You could’ve simply ended it there and let the phone call be done with, no further explanation or anything so that you could save yourself from potential embarrassment. However, the whole Eddie situation taught you to be honest about how you’re feeling, and in this moment you suddenly felt so settled on doing so. 

“At least, I can't try to be your friend without telling you something first, I think,” You told him. “And I’m sorry, I know this probably sounds so random, but I can’t sleep because all I’ve been doing for the past few hours is thinking about this, so I think I just need to be honest right now.” 

You paused for a second, taking the quickest breath before speaking. “When we started the fake dating thing, we were pretty much strangers, and as it continued I thought that what we ended up forming was solely just some sort of unexpected friendship. And then when we were ending things, I convinced myself that what we had was actually absolutely nothing and we were just two people helping each other out. But then today at the library I realized that it really wasn’t fake for me, and it wasn’t just a friendship either. It’s so much more than that for me. I like you, Steve.” 

Out of everything you had just said, those last four words were definitely the hardest. It felt simultaneously good and bad. So honest that your initial instinct was telling you to take it back, but as the statement settled in the air, you felt entirely okay about it and it made it feel easier to continue talking. 

“And I know that it's probably not the same for you because you don’t do relationships and that was the whole point of the fake dating thing for you. I know that. And that's why I refused to accept these feelings or even admit them to myself in the first place.” You let your head fall back against your pillow and you squeezed your eyes shut as you forced yourself to keep going. “So I know that you’re probably gonna say that you don’t feel the same way and that’s okay; or it’ll eventually be okay, I guess, because rejection does suck. But this whole Eddie thing made me realize that maybe I should just be honest about my feelings, so this is me doing that…” You trailed off and then softly said, “Okay, sorry, I’m done talking now.”

Steve was quiet for a bit— it was actually a lot more than just a bit. It was so long that it made you think that he hung up or the call somehow ended, but then he was saying something.

“You should come to Europe with me this summer.”

That was not at all the response you were expecting to hear at that moment, and you had no idea what that response meant. Was it just a nice way of rejecting you or did he maybe feel the same way? 

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” He said and somehow you could almost hear him shaking his head at himself. “I’m not used to doing this anymore.”

There was something about the way he said his statement that made you think that he was rejecting you, or at least trying to. And because of that, you quickly tried to make everything fine and okay and normal. “It’s, um... It’s okay if you don’t feel the same. Things will be okay with us. We can still be, uh, friends or whatever.”

“No, no that’s not what I meant,” He told you, and you could feel your heart fill with something that resembled hope. “I do. I do feel the same way. None of it was fake for me either, and it didn’t take me that long after Mexico and the rest of spring break to finally realize that. The night we “broke up” was actually pretty hard, and it also felt kind of wrong, if that makes sense. I tried to forget about it, though, because of the Eddie part of all of this and what we both agreed on at the beginning of everything.”

“When I finally accepted it today, I tried to push it all away too,” You said. “It was really hard to do, though— literally impossible, actually. Hence why I woke you up and had to tell you all of this in the middle of the night.”

“I get it. I’m just way too likable.”

“Shut up,” You said, but you were smiling.  

“It’s the same for you too, though. You’re also really likable. I like you a lot,” Steve told you, and his words sounded so certain and honest that it made your heart do a weird fluttery thing that also wiped your brain of the ability to form any sort of coherent sentence. He then let out the quickest breath of a laugh. “It feels so weird doing this over the phone.”

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you and your next words came out with no hesitation. “You should come over.”

He was quiet just for a second before he said, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You answered, voice just as soft and quiet as his. 

“Okay,” He said, and you could practically hear him nodding. 

“Okay, cool,” You responded, trying to be normal and chill about everything, even though your heart felt as if it was about to burst out of your chest in nervous but excited anticipation of seeing him again and talking about everything in person. “See you soon then.”

When the call ended, you simply didn’t do anything for a moment. The same happy smile was on your face and you couldn’t seem to wipe it away, and you honestly didn’t even want to. 

And then you were abruptly thinking about what you were wearing and wondering if it was okay. But, was there even any point in changing out of your slightly wrinkled t-shirt and pajama shorts?

You weren’t entirely sure, but you still got up from your bed and turned on your light, and then headed toward your closet. 

You were halfheartedly picking through your clothes and making mental comments about everything— a dress felt like overkill and putting on jeans would be too annoying— when something hit you on the head and made you yelp. You looked down and saw that it was Hartford; he had previously been sitting on the shelf above your clothes. You picked him up and placed him back on your desk— his rightful place, you decided. 

You also decided that what you were wearing was fine. It obviously made sense for the middle of the night and you’d only feel severely underdressed if Steve showed up wearing a suit, which sounded completely ridiculous. 

The abrupt sound of something crashing in the kitchen pulled you out of your head and you left your room to make sure Talia was fine. You didn’t immediately see her when you looked over at the kitchen, but when you said, “Everything okay?” her head popped up from behind the counter. 

“Yeah, I’m good. Shit, sorry, did I wake you up?” She asked and then sighed. “The mixer was hidden behind a thousand other things, so when I pulled it out, some pans fell.”

You could hear her fixing the pans and then she stood up.

“No, I was already awake,” You answered as you walked toward her. It was way too hard to not let yourself smile as you said your next words. “Steve’s, um, Steve’s coming over.”

She stopped in the middle of looking for something in the fridge and instead turned to you, the happiest smile on her face. “Oh my god, finally! I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since you got back from that date with Adam. I could just tell there was something so different about you and Steve.”

You shook your head as you laughed a bit. “You couldn’t have known about how I felt about Steve then. I barely knew.”

“Of course, I knew. I’m a Psych major for a reason,” She told you, which only made you laugh again. “But, I obviously wasn’t gonna tell you. You had to get there on your own. I’m so glad it didn’t take months, though, and I actually get to see this happen before I graduate and leave.”

You playfully rolled your eyes at her and then shifted the subject. “What are you making?”

“I’m kinda still deciding. It’ll either be a two-layered cake, cupcakes, or this tart recipe that I just saw,” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to do anything to take my mind off this one final that I’ve been studying for all day.”

That made sense to you. Last semester during the week leading up to finals, she made a fresh batch of cookies every night.

“Maybe I’ll do a cake,” She said, a small teasing smile on her face. “A celebratory one for you and Steve. I’ll frost it white and write ‘Congrats, Lovebirds’ on it in red. Shit, I hope there’s still food coloring left.”

You immediately shook your head. “Please don’t do that. Before when things were fake, you guys couldn’t scare him off, now it definitely could happen.”

“Fine, I’ll just make a completely normal white cake that has absolutely nothing to do with you and Steve. But, deep down, both you and I know the truth.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you.”

She finished grabbing the eggs from the fridge and you headed to the couch, knowing that she liked working alone in the kitchen. A part of you wanted to turn on the TV, but you weren’t in the mood to put on a movie or anything.

You heard Talia hum to herself as she started measuring flour and sugar and then cracking eggs. 

It was calming to see her completely in her element with her thoughts focused solely on one thing. Your thoughts didn’t have something specific to focus on, so they instead focused on Steve. Him and you and you two together. Well, together, but not really because nothing was settled yet. So, right now, in this moment, you two were just friends. Or was that not even an accurate description either? 

“Get out of your head.”

You looked over at Talia, wondering how long she’d been watching you and seeing you starting to inwardly spiral. “How could you tell?”

“Once again, Psych major for a reason,” She said, giving you a small smile. “Stop thinking so hard about everything right now. It’s all gonna be great when he gets here. Hey, just tell me a story. A random one. First thing that comes to you.” 

You thought for a second and then went with the first thing that came to your mind just like Talia said; a quick story about a summer camp that you went to when you were ten. It was almost too easy to think of things to talk about involving the month-long sleep away camps or short stints at super niche-specific camps that your parents found for you. 

The knock on the door came when you were in the middle of telling Talia about a different summer, a theater camp you were forced to go to for two weeks when you were twelve. 

You quickly got to the end of the story as you walked over to the door. “Long story short, the whole show was canceled due to the pregnancy rumor.” 

Talia shook her head in disbelief. “No way.”

“Yeah, it was insane. Spoiler alert, though, she wasn’t pregnant. Thank god. But, that was when I learned how ruthless theater kids are.” 

You pulled the door open after letting out a soft laugh at Talia sighing and saying, “Children are evil.” 

You wanted to be normal about seeing Steve standing in front of you right then— really, you did— but it was too hard to. He was sporting messy bedhead, sweatpants, and a t-shirt that matched yours with how wrinkled it was. It looked as if he had rushed to get here, which was actually true given the fact that he managed to turn a typical thirty-minute drive into twenty minutes.

“Hi,” You said, a fresh wave of giddiness hitting you immediately and it was hard to contain the smile tugging at your lips. 

He didn’t hesitate to match it. “Hey.”

You both simply smiled at each other like idiots for a few moments. Talia was right.  

The sound of the oven beeping followed by Talia saying, “How long it takes for the oven to preheat is the one thing that I’m really not gonna miss about this place,” seemed to pull you both out of your lovestruck trance.  

“Hi, sorry, come in,” You said to Steve, pushing the door open further so that he could step inside and then you closed it behind him. “Talia’s baking a cake.”

“A completely normal cake,” She told him and you immediately gave her a look. “Anyway, nice to see you again, Steven.”

“You, too,” He said. “What makes it normal?” 

“Nothing. Please ignore what she just said,” You told him, and then didn’t think too much as you grabbed his hand and led him toward your room. You didn’t realize what you’d done until your door was shut behind you both and your hand was still holding his— it didn’t feel entirely wrong, though. 

You noticed him look at your desk. “You still have Hartford.”

You let go of his hand as you went over to grab the small bear. “Of course, I do. I hope you still have Bowie.” 

“Of course,” He said, smiling and matching your certain tone. 

“Thinking about it now, I feel like that whole Valentine’s night should’ve sealed the deal for me. It was literally a date,” You said, letting out a laugh as you placed Hartford back down on your desk.

Thinking back to Valentine’s Day also made you abruptly remember that that was also the night he told you about him not wanting anything serious and finally explaining the “why” behind it too. And it was then that you realized that just because he had feelings for you didn’t necessarily mean that his mindset on relationships had changed too. 

You were rushing to continue and verbalize that before Steve could say anything. “And I completely get it if all of this doesn’t really change anything. Because none of this means that how you view love and relationships has changed. Not saying that you love me or anything but–”

He cut off your rambling with a head shake. “Hey, no, this is so different. I want everything with you.” It was hard not to become shy under his gaze, especially as he said those words, but you still refused to look away from him as he kept talking. 

“You kind of changed it all for me. I was scared of it before, I think— of doing anything serious and letting anyone in because I just assumed that I’d end up getting heartbroken again. But, with you, it never really felt like that; scary or anything. I think that when we were stuck at my place during the power outage and just talking, deep down I knew that things with you were gonna be different or already were; it didn’t feel weird or scary getting deep with you or letting you in. Same thing with that night in Mexico when we were eating cereal and talking about all of that serious stuff. It took a while for me to actually admit what all of those things meant, though.”

Hearing him say that made you think about when he proposed the fake dating thing, when he said that guys are dumb and it takes them a while to realize things. Thinking about those words now made you smile. 

“Guys are stupid,” You said. “You’re the one that told me that.” 

Steve nodded, laughing a little. “We are. That’s still very true.”

“I was also stupid. I avoided everything for a long time too.”

“Glad to know we’re both idiots then,” He said, which made you smile wider. 

For a second, nothing else was said; it honestly felt as if nothing else really needed to be said right then. You weren’t sure if it was you or him that closed most of the distance between you two— perhaps it was both of you. Either way, a silent agreement to push things further was made as your arms came up to loosely circle his neck and his hands found your waist. 

It was you who didn’t waste a second to turn that final bit of space between you into nothing. You leaned in slowly, though, nose brushing against his before softly finding his lips. 

It was simply just a peck at first, a chaste kiss just to test the waters and define this moment as different from the other few times that this had happened. You both knew that this was entirely different. It wasn’t good but confusing like during the blind date, and it wasn’t for show like the times in Mexico. This first kiss was right, and as simple and brief as it was, it felt damn near perfect.  

When you pulled away after just a second, Steve didn’t hesitate to lean right back in, quickly letting his mouth find yours again. One of his hands left your waist and came up to cup your cheek instead. That soft touch grounded you, it kept you steady and it also did something to your heart; made it start thumping wildly in your chest.

There was no part of you that wanted this moment to end, you wanted to live in it for as long as you could and memorize every single part of it. The way your fingers so easily found home in the hair at the nape of his neck. His warm hand on your waist that you could practically feel through your t-shirt. How it was almost like a dance happening as Steve guided you back against your shut door, pressing you against it, and you used that as the opportunity to pull him impossibly closer to you. 

It didn’t take long for you two to end up in your bed; you quickly became too tired of standing and the doorknob poking into your side became too uncomfortable. 

Your legs were on either side of his lap and he was leaning back against the headboard, pulling you toward him. It felt like you were two teenagers who had just discovered what making out was. And it also felt as if you both were in agreement about feeling like you two had wasted so much time not kissing over the last month of not talking to each other and since you two met that you were trying to make up for all of that lost time. 

When you pulled away to catch your breath, Steve’s lips found your neck, and your eyes immediately slipped shut.

“I meant what I said before,” He mumbled against your skin, but you heard him clearly. 

Your eyes were still contentedly closed as you asked, “Meant what?”

“That you should come to Europe with me this summer.”

You let out a soft laugh that quickly turned into a sigh of contentment when his lips found a particularly sensitive part of your neck. “You’re insane.”

“Insanely serious,” Steve said in between kisses. 

You pulled back then to look at him— it was hard to do, you really didn’t want to pull away, but reluctantly you did. You wanted to gauge how serious he was actually being right then, and you could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t joking. 

His hands found yours and intertwined them. “Say yes.”

How happy he sounded rubbed off on you and you had to bite your lip to suppress your growing smile. “I’ll think about it.”

“That sounds like a yes to me,” He said, still smiling as he leaned in to kiss you. 

You pulled away after the briefest second. “I’m serious.” You weren’t at all. “I gotta make a pro and con list to make sure this is the right decision.” 

“Okay, I’m already thinking of a bunch of pros to add to the list,” Steve told you and then gave you a playful smile. “I can’t think of any cons, though, so...” He finished off with a shrug that made you laugh. 

Weirdly enough, no cons were coming to your mind right then either. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。

next part!

taglist (lmk if you want to be added or taken off<333); @eddiernunson , @loulouloueh , @the-aster , @blckburd , @totally-bogus-timelady , @yujyujj , @irhdifartzamfyaa , @mochminnie , @munsonssweets , @blckbrrybasket , @xprloki , @definitionwanderlust , @dwcode , @sun-fiower-seed , @keerysfolklore , @damon-loves-pie , @lodeddiperrodrick , @bisexual-and-intellectual , @munsonburn3r , @negomi123 , @khena , @facexthexsunshine , @seatbacksandtraytables , @suckerfordylansstuff , @lilacccs , @thehairington86 , @welcometohellsock

(if your user is crossed out it means i can’t tag you</3)

[jamilelucato]

Unlikely - Emmett Cullen

Summary: Edward Cullen discovers a surprising secret when he inadvertently tunes into the thoughts of a fellow student, [y/n] [y/l/n], revealing her crush on none other than his brother, Emmett. As their unexpected connection unfolds, both face the complexities of love and the challenges of their supernatural existence.

Pairing: [y/n] [y/l/n] x Emmett Cullen

Universe: Twilight

Author's Note: So, I have had this in store for a while, waiting for the right time to post it. I feel like Emmett deserves I do it. Btw, I can't promise a part 2 or something like that. For an unknown reason, it's been hard for me to write characters kissing and stuff. But get them flirting below.

Info: Emmett here is supposedly enroled in the same year as Edward and Bella, because I wanted to keep him in school whereas I wanted Rosalie gone. Love Rosalie, though. I'm telling you this because it's not canon, so... there you go.

### Edward was the first to notice, of course.

He wasn't paying much attention until this girl's thoughts popped louder than the rest of the cafeteria.

Edward already had so much trouble — keeping tabs on Bella Swan — that his most minor concern was the other students at Forks High School.

But her thoughts were loud and clear. I can't believe it! I… I am crushing on him! Gods, embarrassing…

Edward Cullen frowned. He was always around teenagers, and more often than not, they'd find themselves in love. Why was this random girl's mental voice so loud and clear, then?

He's never paid attention to me before. He just borrowed me a pen. Get a grip on yourself, [y/n]! The girl's mind shouted, reprehending herself.

"What is it, Edward?" Bella asked, calling back his attention to her. Edward was curious about the other students, but no one in the world came before Bella Swan to him.

"Someone's called my attention," Edward answered, letting Bella grasp his hand.

"Good or bad?" she asked.

"A student," Edward answered, unsure yet if listening to the random girl's thoughts so clearly was a bad sign. "She's found herself crushing on someone."

Bella looked puzzled. "Oh, well. It happens to all of us," she jested but still looked worried. "Any idea why her voice is louder?"

Even after all those many months apart, Bella quickly understood Edward's gift. But the loud voice had disappeared.

"It was [y/n] [y/l/n]. But I don't know who she's crushing on that can be so bad…" Edward let his sentence trail off, looking around the cafeteria for the human.

Emmett's face lit up, and he chimed in. "[y/n]? I talked to her today in Biology class. She's my lab partner."

Bella moved her neck to face Emmett better. "I did not know that."

Emmett shrugged. "I mean, it's not like we interact. She's been my partner for a while in that class, but you know…" he didn't finish his sentence, embarrassed to tell Bella what he really thought. But Edward read it all in Emmett's mind: but I don't usually bother with humans.

Edward pressed his lips together, reacting to his brother's thought. He also didn't want to tell Bella that he agreed.

"But what was it about [y/n], anyway? Is she in danger?" Emmett asked, not showing his concern. To Bella, it all seemed like curiosity. But to Edward, well, he saw Emmett's thoughts trailing off.

"No, not at all," Edward nodded. "I don't think I've tuned to her thoughts before, that's all. It was just so loud a minute ago."

"Ah," Emmett let out. What was she saying? I know you won't tell me, but you sure as hell told Bella.

"What I said is what I heard," Edward affirmed, answering Emmett's mind. 

"So she has a crush, good for her!" Emmett said, raising his tone just a bit but enough for Bella to notice. 

Before Edward could intrude on his brother's reaction, Emmett left.

***

Emmett sat at his seat, tensed. Being a vampire and all, he had no need for breathing, definitely no need for oxygen. But it was a habit to do so, to get a grasp of scent and also to act more "human". However, that day, he felt like he was hyperventilating.

So Edward had heard [y/n] had a crush on someone. No big deal. Was she one of the funniest girls he ever met? Yes. Did she have such a crooked smile that made her more beautiful? Yes. Did she seem to always understand him, even when he barely spoke to her? Yes. But that meant nothing and would stay meaning nothing, for she was a human, and he was a vampire. 

Emmett concluded it would have been better if Edward had not mentioned any of [y/n]'s thoughts. In fact, since Edward was always so focused on Bella, Emmett thought [y/n] would stay out of his radar. Goddammit.

"Hey, Emm," [y/n] said, catching Emmett by surprise as she sat beside him.

[y/n] was in many other classes Emmett was enrolled in, but Biology was the only course they actively sat together. Well, one time in English class, Emmett was left out of group partners, and [y/n] politely and unexpectedly asked him to join her group. But that had been one time.

He wouldn't admit it to his siblings, but [y/n] had caught him off guard. Emmett had been so distracted thinking about her that her scent passed unnoticed when she was finally there.

"Hi, [y/n]!" he replied, quickly cleaning his throat after noticing his "hi" had sounded a bit too high-pitched. He wished he had a nickname for [y/n] as she had, with time, shortened his name after the forced proximity. He had tried out some possibilities in his mind, but he was a man of his time, and just calling her by her first name and not simply "miss" was too much for his little mind.

"It's snowing today," she prompted, shifting her eyes from his face to the window nearby.

"I noticed," Emmett nodded.

"Do you plan to snow-fight your siblings?" she asked shyly after becoming embarrassed by his gruff reply.

Emmett's face lit up just a bit, and he hoped it was invisible for [y/n]'s human eyes. She's trying to make small talk, he concluded, smiling internally.

"You've noticed I do that, huh," he playfully leaned his head.

[y/n] smiled. "Last year, I saw you trying to hit Alice. She was quick though," she said, moving her shoulders as if to shrug, but not quite. "I just hope you don't plan to have your fight in the cafeteria again."

Emmett's eyebrows were eager to shoot up, but he controlled them just in time. So [y/n] had noticed him and his siblings since the year before. Of course, she had known Emmett since their first high school year — or should he say her first high school year? — and of course, one thing or another, she was bound to catch up about the Cullens. But to have detected him launching Alice a snowball... and to remember it, that was something.

"Be careful then," Emmett joked. "I can't make any promises."

"Oh, please," [y/n] rolled her eyes, shifting the way she sat so she could look to the front of the classroom. She continued without facing Emmett, "As if you would ever hit on me... I mean, on me! No! I mean, hit me! With a snowball."

Her face was so red Emmett thought her head was going to explode. Did humans' heads do that? Did they explode?

[y/n] saw he looked concerned, but she misinterpreted it. Emmett had barely noticed her slip in language use.

"I don't mean you would hit on me at all," she kept shaking her head as if to erase her language mistake. "Not that it matters; both are something you would never do," she whispered now, more to herself than to the boy, but being a vampire, he heard it all. "Forget it, Emmett. I'm so sorry."

Emmett was instantly calmer, but not because he was glad she apologised — why was she apologising again? — but because the redness was slowly disappearing from [y/n]'s face, which definitely meant she was not gonna explode, he felt very relieved, which surprised him. When Edward had mentioned, the year before, how easily humans could die, Emmett had thought his brother was being absurd. But he was worried about this human girl beside him for some reason.

He planned to ask [y/n] if she was indeed all right, but the professor walked in, and all the chances he had to do so seemed to disappear.

***

[y/n] could not, for her life, tell what Mr. Banner was going on and on about. Was it about cells? About nature? She was utterly unfocused, even though her eyes were fixed on the weird teacher. Well, actually, she would fix her gaze at anything and anyone, if that was enough, to avoid looking to her left and eyeing Emmett Cullen.

All her mind could do was blame herself. She had known Emmett since the Cullens came to the town; there was no reason for fuss. The family was undoubtedly the most beautiful of all. All of them could be models, including Dr. Carlisle, whom she met when she unintentionally had to stitch a bruise. Since entering high school and having known them, her gaze was fatally met with Emmett's.

It was not as if he had reacted in any other way, if not with boredom. She grew discouraged after each "incident" but continued to spy on the Cullen family. However, whenever Rosalie and Edward caught her staring, [y/n] felt uneasy and quickly averted her gaze. She knew there was no point in admiring Emmett Cullen when he already had Rosalie Hale by his side. So, who was [y/n] compared to the stunning blonde goddess?

[y/n] was extremely surprised when she witnessed the Cullens' return to Forks.

Seeing Bella Swan go through a "mourning process," [y/n] felt understood because she had felt the same way, although on a much smaller scale. However, she would never have confessed it or let it show. Who was she to miss the Cullens?

She never expected Edward Cullen or Emmett to come back, but one day, there they were. [y/n] arrived late one day and had not noticed the extra car in the parking lot. When it was time for biology class, [y/n] was caught off guard to see that she had a new (old) partner already sitting at the table they were supposed to share.

Letting herself dive into this thread of thought, [y/n] was sure that it was not at that moment, when he returned, that she saw herself surrendered to Emmett. Yes, she had gotten more loose and relaxed when she noticed that Rosalie had not accompanied her siblings or Jasper Hale because they had graduated. But Edward's gaze still haunted her. Something told her that the whole family moved by the boy's fault (even if the rumours said that Dr Carlisle had accepted a better job), so [y/n] was afraid that Edward would make his family move again.

After secretly paying attention, she was surprised to detect that Bella was also afraid of them disappearing again.

Before Biology class ended, [y/n]'s mind replayed a specific, very recent memory. The day before, she was about to write something down when her pen started failing. She thought she wasn't reacting noticeably, but somehow Emmett glimpsed her sudden need.

"Do you want a pen of mine to borrow?" he asked, already holding the thing out to her grasp.

[y/n] raised her eyes from her notebook to meet his golden gaze.

"Oh, thank you," she smiled, borrowing the pen.

Emmett had said nothing more and returned his gaze to Mr Banner. [y/n] thought she ought to do the same and rushed to write down the rest of the speech.

When the class had ended, [y/n] turned to Emmett before he could head out. "Here you go, Emm," she smiled at him, trying her hardest to look polite. "Thank you."

The nickname must have gotten him off guard — even though [y/n] was sure she had called him so before — because his golden eyes widened.

"You can keep it," he said, not a hint of hesitation, even though his expression seemed hesitant.

"Oh," [y/n] gasped. "Thanks again, then," she smiled with her cheeks high, feeling they were reddening.

It was then he surprised her: Emmett smiled.

She did not see it coming at all. [y/n] had talked to the boy before. They had even joked around — when Mr Benner said something sex-related, the duo was really juvenile for that topic, and they would always let a little chuckle out — but that smile was different. It was wide, genuine. Emmett showed all his beautiful white teeth at her, and she was mesmerised by the whole view. He had dimples.

Emmett Cullen had dimples!

[y/n] remembered stumbling in her words, trying to find something to say because she wanted Emmett to keep smiling. But he simply nodded at her and got up, leaving the classroom before [y/n] could form a coherent thought.

She spent the whole day revisiting the memory of his smile and dimples. She was frozen in that Biology class; it was as if she never left. In her mind, she kept the conversation going. She knew he was a clown — she liked him best of all the Cullens for it — and so perhaps, she could have prompted a joke, such as "Do you think we're so poor compared to you, rich Cullens, that I need a pen as a gift?" It could've been funny; maybe he would've kept smiling. Perhaps he would laugh but really laugh and not hold back as usual.

But, in the end, she said nothing, just like today.

When Mr Banner announced they were free, [y/n] instantly turned her gaze to Emmett.

"Oh, sorry there, Emm," she swallowed hard, trying to keep her brave facade as she spoke to him. "It seems there's no longer snow for your fight."

He shrugged, and a light of playfulness hit his face. "No problem there. I can just punch Edward straight up."

She wasn't sure if it had been his innocent way of speaking or if it had been the mention of just the right brother, but [y/n] cracked up in one of her loudest laughs yet. The students who hadn't already run out of the classroom all turned to stare at her.

Emmett seemed to get in a shocked state. He wasn't expecting that reaction.

"I'm sorry," [y/n] said, trying to catch her breath. It was not easy; she still wanted to laugh. "I... I don't know why that was so funny."

"Maybe because Edward has a very punchable face," Emmett suggested, letting go of his restraints and following [y/n] in chuckles.

"I'm sure you've done that many times," [y/n] raised a brow, instigating him to go on.

"Unfortunately," Emmett tilted, "no, I have not."

"Oh," [y/n] did not see that answer coming, "too much of a good brother?"

Emmett snorted a laugh. "Definitely not that. I just never seem to catch him," Emmett knew why that was so, whereas [y/n] would never have a clue: Edward read his mind any time Emmett tried to catch the sibling by surprise with punches or simply trying to give a scare.

As much as [y/n] wanted to continue the conversation, she had the next class to go to. She sighed lowly, but Emmett heard it right away, and he couldn't help smiling at her silly human reaction to leaving.

[y/n] stared at his smile like a child watching Santa come down from the chimney.

"Dimples," she thought aloud, not realising it until it was too late. Hoping Emmett didn't notice, she averted her eyes and started gathering her books, but the Cullen had heard it all too well.

He remained silent, though, allowing her heartbeat to stead again. When she was already up, probably about to nod him goodbye, he said, "You have dimples too."

***

Red is definitely her colour. How have I never noticed before? Besides that cute turtle neck she was wearing, when the red flushed her cheeks, that was...

The image totally got Edward by surprise. He was walking out of one of his classes when, passing the hallway, a mind ahead called his attention to a particular image. Then, the voice! The oh-so-familiar, very annoying mental voice of none other than Emmett Cullen.

In seconds, Edward was beside his sibling. "What was that?"

Shit! Emmett's face was as embarrassed as his mental voice. The sibling quickly started singing some random annoying pop song to pull Edward out of his mind, but it was too late.

"Why were you thinking of [y/n] like that?" Edward asked.

"Like what?" Emmett replied, but Edward's question worked, making Emmett revisit his thoughts, and [y/n]'s face popped up again, with Edward getting a complete view.

The old-school vampire was suddenly repulsed and stepped slightly to the side.

You are the one in my mind! Emmett accused him in thought.

"Not because I want to, believe me!" Edward exclaimed, returning to his spot next to Emmett. "Brother, I better hope you know what you're doing."

"I'm not doing anything," Emmett said defensively.

Edward raised a brow, wishing Emmett could read his thoughts and see how foolish in love Emmett had thought about [y/n].

"Stay out of my business," Emmett nudged his brother. I can't find anyone pretty anymore? 

"After having Rosalie, I highly doubt you'd think that of a human," Edward answered Emmett's unspoken question.

"Rosalie and I... we're not a couple. We have our fun; that's all," Emmett said. "Besides, we haven't had fun in decades; you know that."

Edward knew because he had read their sex-deprived thoughts before. Still, he had thought Emmett was evolving, for he had stopped picturing Rosalie in a… needy way. But now, it seemed it had a different reason why.

Suddenly, another piece fell into place.

"She has fallen for you," Edward gasped in such a whisper only vampire hearing could catch it.

What? Emmett's mind shouted. "Don't be silly," he said aloud.

"It was definitely you [y/n] mentioned having a crush on yesterday," Edward continued his theory, forcing them both to stop walking and stay in the middle of the hallway. "That's probably why she caught my attention; she must have exclaimed your name! In thought," he added, although it was apparent.

"Are you sure about this?" Emmett asked, out of habit mostly, for he knew that no amount of hoping could make Edward wrong, not when he had a sibling so powerful.

Emmett's mind was racing as he tried to process it all. It was the first time Edward had trouble keeping up with him. Emmett was generally slower, even mentally, than Edward, but that was not the case now as he tried to understand everything about [y/n]. Edward caught up to some images — [y/n] blushing, [y/n] making a joke and laughing alone, and then the terrifying one. It was similar to the ones Edward had regarding Bella, too: [y/n] with eyes so red and skin so pale that there was no denying her heart no longer beat.

But when Edward returned his gaze to his taller brother, Emmett was not sad at the view, not half as much as Edward was when he thought of Bella as a vampire.

"Stop it," Edward begged, noticing Emmett's mind went on; he had started enduring the idea of Bella talking to [y/n] about what it was like to love a monster.

Emmett shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. "Sorry, man. It's just that...I never thought someone like her would fall for me."

Edward's worries shifted topics. "Why would you say that?" Edward had felt like that; he still felt like that with Bella, always thinking of himself as a killer and not deserving of love. But Emmett was most comfortable being a vampire out of all his family members. So, his brother had never thought to see him doubting himself.

Emmett's thoughts were faster than his tongue. Not even Rosalie fell for me, not really, and she was the one that found me, and she's our... species. [y/n] is a human girl with a life ahead of her, a full one at that; I don't see how she'd fallen for me. "Are you sure it's love?" Emmett asked out loud.

"Well, she thought it was a crush," Edward replied, returning to his own memories of [y/n]. But he didn't dwell on them for long. Edward was still trying to process Emmett's confession about Rosalie. He had always seen Emmett as cheerful, never realising that his brother might also feel unloved. They had more in common than Edward had ever thought.

Emmett sighed, and even before Edward could say anything — advice or a comforting word — Emmett lowered his head. "I know, Edward. I understand the risks."

Edward frowned. He couldn't believe Emmett immediately concluded that Edward would be mad at him. Of course, there were risks, not just because the girl involved was human. Even if Emmett didn't think Rosalie loved him (and Edward, being a mind reader and all, agreed), she would also cause some trouble. 

But who was Edward to judge his brother's choices regarding a human?

"Look, if you decide to pursue this relationship, I'll support you."

Emmett smiled, surprised but yet feeling grateful for his brother's support. Thank you, he thought, and Edward nodded.

Edward thought love was a powerful emotion, and he couldn't blame Emmett for feeling like he did. However, he hoped that Emmett would make the right decision, whatever that may be.

[trevuorzegras]

━╋ NEW RELEASES

⏜ˑ 🐇 actress au part four 𓋜 ⋆ ࣪

౨ৎ . . all works for this series will be under the #his greatest mistake au tag. for any random thoughts, or asks it will be under the #cassidy morgan au tag!

fem actress!reader x quinn hughes.

mentions of fem actress!reader x jacob elordi

faceclaim: beabadoobee

find the series masterlist, here!

cas_morgan

cas_morgan: so so so excited to finally let you guys in on what i’ve been working on! ‘spinning out’ is now streaming on netflix! everyone go show your support, and love please 🫶🏼.

words cannot describe how incredibly honored, and grateful i am to have had this opportunity. i loved being able to bring this character to life. this experience is something i’ll forever cherish, thank you everyone!

tagged: netflix, spinningoutnetflix, evanroderick

liked by trevorzegras, jackhughes, and other

user1: OH MY GOD

user2: on my way to watch it right now

trevorzegras: superstar at it AGAIN

↳ cas_morgan: my #1 supporter 🩷

user3: since when do you know how to skate?

↳ user4: she’s been skating since she was a kid

↳ user3: really? user4

↳ user5: yes! she has a video all about it on her youtube channel (: user3

user6: i need a season two asap

user7: who got you those roses?? 🤔🤔

↳ cas_morgan: 🤫

↳ markestapa: it was me don’t let her fool you

↳ cas_morgan: you are DISGUSTING markestapa

user8: whyd evan and cas be cute irl tho…

↳ cas_morgan: guys this man is 28 PLEASE

↳ user9: age ain’t nothin but a numba… cas_morgan

↳ evanroderick: Absolutely not! user9

evanroderick: Been such a wonderful experience working with you, Cassidy! Thank you for teaching me the ways of skating even if i fell on my ass most of the time. I’ll forever cherish the memories that were made, and i hope to keep a close friendship!

↳ cas_morgan: very like wise! i love working with you, ev! you did a great job, regardless of how many times you busted your ass. i hope to stay close as well, keep in touch, don’t be a stranger! 🫶🏼

user10: i felt so bad for kat throughout the series ):

↳ user11: no literally, my baby deserved better 😭

spinningoutnetflix: our very own kat baker and justin davis! we loved having you bring our kat to life!

jackhughes: the amount of SEXY SCENES I NEED BLEACH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

↳ cas_morgan: there’s like one get a GRIP ROWDY

lhughes_06: watched it like 82672 times

↳ cas_morgan: it came out two days ago, luke.

↳ lhughes_06: don’t underestimate me cas_morgan

user12: i love cassidy’s friendship w jack and luke so much omg ☹️

↳ user13: it’s so cute, they’re like her annoying brothers 😭

user14: anastasia allen core

↳ user15: now she just needs her hockey bf

rutgermcgroarty: would’ve been better with a hockey boy as the love interest 🤷

↳ cas_morgan: not everything is about hockey rut

↳ rutgermcgroarty: could be! cas_morgan

user17: okay but rut’s onto something, would’ve been cute with a hockey player

↳ user18: it’s a basic trope. hockey player x figure skater is BASIC say!! it!! with!! me!!

liked by cas_morgan

user19: oh no she liked the comment about figure skater and hockey trope being basic there goes our chance of getting her with a hockey player

↳ user20: she’s an actress not a figure skater, there’s still a chance trust

liked by cas_morgan

user21: she is NOT slick

↳ user22: she’s so real 😭😭

_quinnhughes: congratulations, cassidy!

↳ cas_morgan: thank you quinn!

edwards.75: you did good 🗣️🗣️

↳ cas_morgan: thanks eth 🔥

user23: she’s so pretty fuck

user24: can’t wait to see more future projects!

user25: you are so talented cassidy

trevorzegras

trevorzegras: don’t let cas fool you, she’s having an absolute blast w the hockey boys 🗣️💯🔥

tagged: cas_morgan, lhughes_06, jackhughes, jamie.drysdale, _alexturcotte, edwards.75, markestapa, rutgermcgroarty, luca.fantilli

liked by _quinnhughes, nhl, and others

cas_morgan: don’t lie to them, i hate you, and everyone here (besides luke, jamie, and mark)

↳ trevorzegras: what the hell Cassidy.

↳ lhughes_06: YUP 🗣️

↳ markestapa: it’s an honor 😭😭😭😭😭

↳ edwards.75: ??

↳ jackhughes: do i just not exist?..

↳ cas_morgan: no you do and that’s the problem rowdy jackhughes

↳ jamie.drysdale: awe cas loves me

↳ cas_morgan: always 🫶🏼 jamie.drysdale

user26: LMFAOO THAT WHOLE THREAD IS SO FUNNY

user27: are you guys excited for hockey season again

↳ trevorzegras: yes i get to drag cas to more games!

↳ cas_morgan: yeah that’s absolutely not fucking happening, good try tho! trevorzegras

user28: so glad cas has people who care about her surrounding her 🫶🏼

↳ user29: real, im glad she’s happier!

user30: Cassidy only has followers cause of the hockey players she sleeps around with

↳ markestapa: cassidy has more followers than all of us 😭 she acts, and we play hockey, let’s not.

user31: mark #1 cassidy defender

↳ user32: that’s dom’s roll, mark can get #2

↳ user33: who’s dom? user32

↳ user32: dominic fike! user33

rutgermcgroarty: don’t let cas fool you, she reads most of the time, and barely talks to us

↳ cas_morgan: don’t be a hater rut

jamie.drysdale: im cassidy’s favorite by the way

↳ markestapa: no its definitely me but okay

↳ trevorzegras: ACTUALLY 🤓 markestapa

lhughes_06: funny you guys are fighting over favorite when it’s literally me 🤣🤣🤣

↳ jackhughes: you’re real funny luke. ever tried being a comedian i’m laughing so hard 😐

user34: none of y’all are the favorite btw

liked by cas_morgan

sorry about slow updates, trying my best! just please be patient, and i promise to try and upload as much as i possibly can! 🫶🏼

taglist | @wnderify @bunbunbl0gs @alwaysclassyeagle @bunting58 @callsignwidow @crazycat-ladys-blog

[pastrydragon]

What do the rogues smell like? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I know you probably asked this as a joke but I thought deeply about it anyway so here you go!

Riddler:

Lemon and lavender soaps.

Edward's dad was a hoarder and so Edward has a thing about his space being clean.

when he got his first apartment he kept it obsessively clean and as a side effect of this the place always smelled like the lemon and lavender cleaning products he'd scrubbed the place with.

And since this was the first place Edward ever felt safe, he ended up associating those scents with safety.

So all his soap and cleaning products to this day are either lemon or lavender scented, so he inevitably ends up with a near permanent air freshener like scent.

Scarecrow:

Pumpkin pie now but used to smell like chemicals.

Harley got him a basket of pumpkin spice everything as a gift for his birthday one year after he developed a toxin variation that was particularly pungent and he wasn't gonna waste perfectly good hygiene products!

And he has a genuine love for pumpkin taste so he keeps cans of it around to put in his pancakes every morning.

So yeah, The Master Of Halloween smells like thanksgiving.

You can still smell the chemicals if you get close though.

Mad hatter:

“Iris Poudre” by Frederic Malle, he doesn’t care that it’s a women’s perfume, he wants to smell like a sexy flower garden and everyone else can mind their own business.

Under the perfume he smells like whatever tea he drank that day and possibly like whatever sugary treat he baked to go with it.

Unless he's been in his lab all day, then he smells like metals and plastic.

And once in a blue moon when he needs to do some intense testing, cool ranch Doritos.

Except he never brings food down there with him so how....?

Mr. Freeze:

His condition causes him to have a permanent fresh snow smell which he was pleasantly surprised by.

Like the other scientists on this list carries a kind of "laboratory smell" with him.

His suit smells... weird. Like you can smell that a person was there but there's no sweat smell and its honestly a little off-putting. Luckily he cleans it very regularly.

He used to wear “Angel’s share” by Killian because Nora has good taste and wasn’t gonna let her husband smell like detergent and nothing else.

He'll start wearing it again when she wakes up.

Penguin:

“Tobacco Vanille” by Tom Ford mainly. The man wants to ooze class.

He also wears it because he always has a cigar after his lunch and dinner so he needs to wear something he knows won't clash scents with his Arturo's.

And if you're thinking that smell is strong, that's on purpose.

Oswald has a small group of birds in his atrium that he cares for personally out of affection, and because of that if you get right up close to him you’ll smell bird cage. Not great.

He might also smell like seafood after meals but not really in a bad way, more in a "Well fuck, now I'm craving Red Lobster!" way.

TwoFace:

“REPLICA jazz club” Because before he was Twoface he was a snazzy lawyer who wanted to smell like how big band music sounds.

There's also the medicine he puts on his acid burns which smells exactly how you’d expect it to.

The two mixing together isn't unpleasant but it is a bit confusing to get a whiff of if you don't know who it's coming from.

It smells kinda like an expensive hospital room.

He might also smell like Bloody Mary's if he's had a bad day.

Harley:

“Tutti Fruity Candy” by Bath and bodyworks

Unless she’s going to one of Oswald’s fancy parties, Then she wears “Into The Night”…. Also by bath and bodyworks.

She also smells a bit like bubblegum.

She smells like how a slumber party feels I think.

Just smells like fun!

Catwomen:

Has accumulated an impressive collection of expensive perfumes as gifts from various gentleman friends over the years and uses them almost at random so literally no one knows until she shows up.

She also smells a bit like cats.

Poison Ivy:

ROSES

Like a very aggressive rose smell.

Like you aren’t allowed to wear rose scented perfume in Gotham because it makes people try to evacuate the area.

Ivy could smell like any flower she wanted of course.

But who doesn't love roses?

Bane:

Harley strikes again and got him Dr. Squach products because he's Mr. manly man and she thought it was funny.

He shares John's "waste nothing" philosophy and used all of it, then bought more because he liked it.

His favorite scent is alpine sage but he changes it up sometimes.

He also smells like 24 hour fitness, because obviously.

He might also smell like peanut butter protein shakes.

Bookworm:

Musty dusty book smell.

He smells like a socially awkward moth eaten carpet.

He smells like an old arm chair with a cat sitting in it.

He smells like cocoa butter because he is an ashy bitch who needs to be moisturized.

Please buy him some cologne.

Killer Croc:

Waylon's home may be in the sewer but his home also happens to be beachfront property, so he smells like ocean mainly.

With all his free time between heists and such, Waylon often takes on elaborate cooking projects with a focus on BBQ and smoking meat. Which means he smells like a plethora of kitchen spices, smoke and herbs.

Maybe it's the alligator skin, maybe it's the jackets he wears, but he always smells a little like leather.

So the entire effect is "Bar and grill by the ocean with those really nice leather booths"

Please make him into a cologne.

Music Meister:

He avoids scented products to avoid irritating his respiratory system in any way.

So He just smells like a clean human.

Possibly lemon and honey from trying to soothe those vocal cords with weak tea.

Joker:

Is also a basic bath and bodyworks bitch, he wears “Among The Clouds”. 

He does class it to the roof for formal events though and switches to "English Promenade 19" By Krigler.

If you catch him without any scent on he smells slightly acidic and some other rogues would describe him as smelling "sickly". He's not physically sick as his doctors can attest, in fact his chemical bath raised the PH across his body so he can't even get most diseases anymore.

Because of this he can tend to overdue it on the scent to hide the sickly and chemical smells.

Like Jervis, Joker often smells like his baking projects. (Except the project is almost exclusively some sort of pie.)

[ciel-phantomhives-world]

Random curiosity time 🧐🤨🤔.

Lizzie didn't wear high heels cuz she didn't want to appear taller than Ciel, especially since she's naturally taller than him.

But, did she completely abandon high heels, like, for good? It seems so since when she was fighting Sebastrash in the boy band arc, she wore low heels (if my memory doesn't betray me). But why? Why stop wearing something that you like for good, even when your not in front of your fiance?

She could wear high heels whenever she went to other places, right? (Like Viscount of Druitt's party for example)

For many Black Butler readers (who usually make judgements based on the surface level of the story), it may feel like this small act of sacrifice means nothing or isn't a gesture of true love. But, that's not how I see it. I see it as Lizzie giving something up that she likes to show some sort of loyalty or love (although I don't agree with giving up your hobby for your beloved one) to Ciel.

Nobody told her to give up wearing high heels. Nobody went to that extent (as far as we have seen). She did that herself. It was a tiny sacrifice but a sacrifice! She could just treat this whole "arranged marriage situation" as a duty where she just learns to protect herself and Ciel and also learns how to be ladylike or whatever but she went as far as to stop wearing something that she enjoys for good. Not only was she forced to do something that she didn't like (physically training and being a swords woman) but she even gave up her hobby. She really did love the boy whom she was supposed to be loving.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Madam Red's teachings are something that she actually enjoyed. Even if the teachings kind of said that British girls are just supposed to be gentle, sweet, innocent and cute (basically submissive) still, in my eyes, I didn't see Lizzie doing all that simply out of obligation. She seemed happy while being cute and pure. She enjoyed it. However, whenever she's with swords, I've never seen her being happy or delighted. You can clearly tell that she never enjoyed it (even when she won a competition) and did so only because she needed to. She must have felt trapped.

Also, I've seen people saying that how she didn't do enough for Ciel and that the only thing she did was not wearing some dumb shoes and that when it came to her sword skills, it's her natural talent but um, excuse me? Lizzie was forcefully trained by her mom from a very young age (God knows what age did she start grabbing those swords). When you train for that long, your bound to be good if not the best. Also, if my memory serves me right, it was Edward who mentioned about how much talented his sister is and that he's nothing compared to her but my point is that there's always someone better than you, no matter how much passionately and desperately you train. It's not like Edward's sword skills are bad (not even close) but he just feels a bit less confident when it comes to his own skills. Also, Lizzie herself didn't confirm anything like she was naturally talented and that she didn't need to move a muscle to get where she is. So, in my point of view, I don't think that anybody can become super talented just because they are "naturally born" with it. Even if it's the bare minimum, still you gotta practice to reach the skies. So, Edward works hard too and his sword skills are fine (maybe not the best) but really who cares, maybe his talents r elsewhere and Lizzie reached where she is not because of being "naturally talented and giving 0 efforts" but because she worked quite hard.

Thoughts?

[smellydano]

comforting eddie || edward nashton

warnings: nothing really, eddie is a sad boy,

synopsis: eddie thinks he doesn't deserve you

word count: 828

a/n: just a little something bad random that i found in my drafts !! ALSO the gif is so beautiful

you and eddie were sprawled out on your bed, the sheets and comforter entangling both your legs that were placed between each other. he placed his arms around your torso, his frame being significantly bigger than yours, making the position slightly awkward but still comfortable. eddie had his face buried into the small crook of your neck. letting out a heavy sigh, he placed little lazy kisses around your neck and collarbone before he lowered himself to your chest. you held the back of his head, running your fingers through his soft brown hair. his glasses pressed against your upper chest, resting his face on your cleavage that poked out from your tank top. 

“what’s the matter, honey?” you question him, looking down to see the top of his head. “it was a long day at work.” is all he could manage to say, voice muffled from being pressed against you. a frown crawled upon your face, not buying his reasoning. 

you rub soothing circles on his back, releasing a slight moan from his lips. you placed a kiss on the crown of his head, “honey, you can tell me if there’s something wrong. is everything okay?” you felt his breathing come to a halt, unsure if he should tell you about everything on his mind. he let out another sigh, his fingers playing with the fabric of your top. 

“I just need comfort right now, please.” he pleaded, you could hear the tears threatening to spill down his cherub face. you continued to stroke his hair, leaving small gentle scratches on his scalp. you felt his breathing become uneven and more sporadic. you quietly shushed him while rubbing his back, trying to settle him down. the tears started to soak your shirt, looking down at him with a frown. you’ve never seen him this upset.  you whispered sweet nothings down to him as he wept in your arms. 

with growing concern, you asked him once more, “what’s going on, sweetpea. please?.” you coaxed as you combed his hair from the side of his face, trying to give him some room to breathe. He placed his cheek on your chest, taking a deep breath as you encouraged him to.

“i-” he hesitated, you gave him a reassuring nod as he felt all sorts of emotions.

“i just don’t understand how you love me.” his sentence was quickly cut short by quiet sobs. you sighed, pulling him up closer to you. you felt your eyes start to form tears and your bottom lip start to quiver. you were unsure where this came from, he seemed fine when he left for work this morning. 

eddie was a complex man, and you knew that. he’s had many firsts with you; first kiss, first date, first i love you’s, first time having sex. yet, he never started to question himself and your relationship until very recently. sure, he’s always felt like the luckiest guy in the world, dating someone who’s far out of his league. but recently, it’s all he thinks about. how you deserve so much more, someone who’s less awkward, more attractive, and more experienced with everything. a lot of his insecurities seem to stem from his lack of experience with, well, everything. he’s never had a girlfriend before you. 

“oh sweetpea.” you said in a soft tone, your voice sounding like sweet honey. he cuddled himself closer to you, resting his head on your shoulder.

“i can’t find the right words to express just how much i love you, you’re the kindest, sweetest, most lovable man i’ve ever met. i’ve never felt safer with anyone before. i love everything about you, honey!” you quietly exclaimed, trying to keep your tone quiet.

he continued to weep in your arms, sniffling occasionally, “c’mere eddie.” you said as you tried sitting up. he lifted himself off of you, sitting crisscross across from you and showing his red eyes and tear-stained face, which fogged up his glasses. you gently took them from his face, placing your hands on the sides of his face and wiping his tears away with your thumbs. quickly, you cleaned his foggy glasses, and placed them back on his face. he smiled as you pulled him up to the top of the bed. you placed a soft kiss on his cheek, then one on his lips. 

as you pulled away, you noticed his cheeks tinted pink. one of the many things he loved about you was how you still managed to give him butterflies no matter how long you’ve been together.

“you’re the love of my life eddie. i’ve never felt so sure of someone in my entire life. please don’t think that you don’t deserve my love. you deserve it, and so much more.”

a small smile crawled onto his face, pulling his knees towards his chin, starting to rock himself a little. you pulled him close into a big hug, rubbing his back until he felt calm. 

----

i’m working on my wips (including requests!) thank u sm for reading and supporting even tho my writing sucks LOL love u 🍄🖤🧚🏻

[owmylasagna-blog]

Ed is Thicker Than Mud

Warning: Character development arc may take a couple years to take full effect.

Some random musings on post-BPS Eddy growing pains.

You can also read it over on AO3.

Each mechanical tick of the outdated relic of a wall clock reverberating through the office makes his skin crawl. Wriggling uncomfortably, the naugahyde of the chair releases a series of unnatural whines of protest beneath the restless teen. Don’t they know precious moments of his youth are slipping away with every infuriatingly useless second spent shedding dead skin cells in this room? It doesn’t help that his jeans are still damp. He’s pretty sure his new sneakers are wrecked too.

If being detained wasn't bad enough, they’re probably on the phone with his mom right now, and he isn’t exactly looking forward to his folks tearing him a new one over tonight's chicken francaise. Just as he imagines the yelling match his mom and pop are gonna inevitably start the loose doorknob rattles behind him.

“Here we go,” Eddy grumbles into the collar of his long sleeve polo. He slumps down into the armchair.

The door groans on its hinges, open and then shut. Footsteps click in time as the middle aged man slowly makes his way around the office furniture and sits. All the while Eddy keeps his eyes planted on the linoleum tiles between the desk and his feet. He feigns disinterest as a manila folder and a few slips of paper are shuffled.

“So. Edward McGee…”

Eddy squints, not exactly appreciative of the pause for dramatic effect, nor the emphasis put on his last name.

“Would you care to explain why you're in my office, young man?”

“No.”

“No ‘you don’t care’? Or no ‘you can’t explain’?”

In response, Eddy crosses his arms and slouches even further into the depths of the worn leatherette, the heels of his sneakers squeaking as they skid forward. The principal sighs.

“The silent treatment won't get you very far-”

“You know what I did.”

Boy was this interrogation a bunch of bologna.

“Yes, I certainly do. I’m well aware of the damage to school property you’ve caused, not to mention the cost required to repair it. What I want to know is why.”

“Principal Howard, I didn’t-”

“We’ve already heard your excuses. This is your last chance to plead your case as to why you felt it necessary to tamper with-”

“I didn’t tamper nothin’!”

Eddy shoots to his feet, looking the principal in the face for the first time. His heart thrashes against his ribcage.

“I find that hard to believe.”

Yep. Totally pointless.

The teen and the man exchange steely glares before the elder shifts his gaze behind the younger.

“Please sit, Edward.”

Rolling his eyes, Eddy parks his keister back down, resuming his previous slouch. He watches as Principal Howard leafs through the papers on his desk. Most are a familiar shade of detention slip blue, some more faded than others. It’s a suspiciously sizable stack considering he’s only been in high school for three months. Sure, his track record hasn’t been… great. He’s never been the morning type. Missing homeroom three out of five days in a week will do that. As does skipping out on a detention here and there. Compared to junior high, though, Eddy considers himself a freakin’ angel so far. Barring today of course… just his luck.

But the slips have Eddy curious enough to raise a brow at, sitting up a bit straighter in an attempt to sneak a peek. He’s caught off guard when the name written on the top edge isn’t his own. Well, not entirely. Eddy’s muscles flex with immediate recognition, flashing a fierce look up to find the intent gaze of the older man peering down his sizable nose through his glasses.

No ‘effin way.

“You remind me of your brother.”

Eddy sputters, feeling the air rush out of his lungs. It makes it hard to speak. His brain fills with static. It makes it hard to think.

“Wha- you- you can’t-”

How’s he allowed to say that?

“Before I became principal I taught at this school for many years. Don’t think I could forget a kid like that so easily. Bright, creative, one might say underchallenged, but misguided, difficult, trouble prone. Unfortunate really. I didn’t have much control of the situation then nor the authority. But things have changed, except for the fact that I’m tasked with ensuring another McGee boy doesn’t slip through the cracks.”

“Cool headed” is an accolade foreign to Eddy. It takes every fiber of his being to bite his tongue, stopping himself from spewing expletives that will land him right back in the hot seat for the umpteenth time. More than anything he holds back to prove that he isn’t anything at all like…

“Which is why I’m requiring that you join an extracurricular student activity effective immediately.”

“WHAT!? WHY?!” Eddy finally blows his top. It’s a relief to scream.

“You need discipline, structure, responsibility, teamwork - whatever it takes to preoccupy your idle hours.”

“Believe me, Teach, the mathletes don’t need me screwin’ up their squared roots or whatever.”

“Then choose something else that interests you. D’you like sports?”

Eddy shrugs. Lately, nothing really interests him. Let alone anything school related. Not even marathons of The Ed Sullivan Show or wearing out the grooves in A-tom-ic Jones can seem to pull him out of this slump. And he sure wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to get towel-whipped by the meatheads, that's for sure. The thought of the foot smell that wafts from the locker room like a thick miasma alone makes him shudder.

Eighth grade graduation, the start of high school, and the abysmal summer between them had been a strange fog. Beyond his two best friends, Eddy avoided the other cul-de-sac kids like a plague. Oh yeah, this was cruel ironing as Double Dee put it. All that time vying to get their attention? Ever since they got front row seats to his bro’s assholery on full display, they’d been acting real nice. Too nice.

The remainder of seventh grade, after the groundings ended, was filled with an unprecedented number of invitations to movie nights, birthday parties, and sleepovers. Even though he’d sworn off the scams it somehow felt like he still needed to perform every time he made an appearance. Suddenly, everybody wanted to get to know him more. And that scared Eddy: what if there wasn’t more? He felt he hardly knew himself these days.

“You have until the end of the week to decide, so start asking around. And when you do find a team or club, I will personally speak to the coach or teacher running it to ensure that you are immediately enrolled and actively participating. Do you understand?”

The principal receives a noncommittal grunt as a response. He’s more stern the second time.

“Do you understand, Edward?”

Eddy finally gives a reluctant reply, hoping that this is the end of the conversation and he’ll be off the hook.

“Yeah. Capeech.”

“Good. Because this sort rebellious behavior will not be to-”

“And it’s Eddy.”

The balding man blinks a few times, brows twitching.

“Well, Eddy, another stunt like today and I bring your parents in. Capeech?”

Having his own phrasing thrown back at him makes Eddy feel even more patronized than he already is. Which is saying something, considering this whole freakin’ ordeal feels like it was designed by the universe or some malevolent god to humiliate him to no end.

“Yeah…”

Double doors fly open when the compact teen barrels through. He’s moving fast, on a mission, so focused on getting as much distance between himself and this stupid school that he hardly notices the two figures sitting side by side on the stone stairs anxiously awaiting his release. The leaner of the two jumps to his feet, calling out through the bothersome crack his voice has acquired thanks to puberty.

“Eddy!”

He whips around, jabbing a finger square between Double Dee’s eyes. The taller boy flinches back at the accusatory appendage.

“I aint talkin’ to you, snitch! Let’s go, Ed.”

The eldest of the bunch complies to the command, joining Eddy by his side. Edd huffs, shaking his fists, and with an indignant stomp of his sneakered foot is hot on the trail of his two friends. Seeing as there is a nasty storm cloud over Eddy’s head Ed opts to not ask too many questions. Instead he shares the exciting news:

“Double Dee and me saw two squirrels fighting over a nut while you were gone.”

“Sad story,” replies Eddy, inflection flat as a sheet of paper.

Meanwhile, the speed walking boy approaching from the rear isn’t so quick to change the subject.

“Come now! You can’t seriously think my intention was to smear your academic reputation!”

Eddy keeps stomping the pavement, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, and rolls his eyes in disbelief. The balls on this guy…

“Eddy, please,” Edd pleads, finally gaining, “The entire first floor was flooded. Given my proximity I responded in a manner that anyone in their right mind would. Honestly, are you suggesting I had a plethora of options?”

“Bull! Ya coulda kept your big. Mouth. Shut.” Eddy snarls through gritted teeth, shoulders tensing up to his ears.

“And be a complicit bystander? I think not,” replies Edd with a pout.

“Why do you make it out like I wanted that to happen!?” Eddy spits back, keeping his sights focused on the cracked cement.

“Who says I’m blaming you? It’s causality. You flushed an entire cafeteria tray and its contents down the toilet.”

“Ain’t my fault the lunch sucked mega balls! And why’s the school got plumbing from the Dark Ages? You saw that casserole.” He throws up two skeptical air quotes, “Would have been better off eatin’ rubber cement.”

“I think I saw it move,” Ed adds excitedly, grinning ear to ear.

Ed had eaten his serving of casserole with much relish, though, not before dunking it into his trusty thermos o’ gravy. It’s too bad that Eddy turned down the offer. The mental image of the subpar cafeteria slop alone makes both Edd and Eddy’s stomachs churn, let alone the gusto with which Ed manages to devour it.

“Yes. Well. I must say I was glad to have packed a garbanzo salad sandwich today based on the looks of things,” the teen in the beanie admits, punctuated with a nervous chuckle.

Eddy can’t help but look his friend in the face despite the stubborn front he’s working so hard to put up. Edd’s got a small smile but otherwise he looks ill at the recollection of the foul lunch offerings, his tongue peeking out through the gap as it presses against the back of his teeth. The husky boy cracks his own smile and stifles snort at his pal’s pathetic expression.

“Food so bad, even the crapper couldn’t stomach it,” Eddy throws in just for a kick.

It works - at least he and Ed chuckle over that and Edd shakes his head incredulously - burning off some of the uncomfortable tension that has been growing since the afternoon. The trio continue walking a few yards in the direction of home, lulling their arguing for just a moment to the sound of gravely footsteps, rustling leaves, and the jingle of Eddy’s wallet chain thumping against his thigh.

Sidewalks aren’t exactly wide enough to walk together in a line so it's unavoidable that every now and then, if they don’t split off into a triangle formation, that they bump shoulders. Eddy feels his shoulder nudge into Double Dee’s arm, then awkwardly clears his throat and sniffles against the chill fall air.

“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” heckles Double Dee with a pretentious sideways smirk.

Before he knows it, Eddy feels the back of his neck burning. For that alone he gives the wiry and historically uncoordinated teen a solid shove, causing him to stumble over his own two feet and step squarely into a soggy pile of street gutter leaves. The feeling of cold damp permeating through his shoe upper and soaking into his sock makes the boy yelp and shudder in disgust, a shiver running up his spine.

“Wet!” Edd wails. He shakes his sodden sneaker like a cat that's stepped in water and skips to catch up.

Of course Eddy laughs at Edd’s theatrics, very openly, which just sets Ed off to join him. Reveling in his buddy’s harmless misfortune, Ed throws an arm over Eddy’s shoulder which the shorter teen roughly shrugs off.

“Very good. I’ve received my comeuppance.” Edd sighs, wincing as his sock squelches with every other step.

A few tsks of disapproval are made by Ed seemingly out of the blue. Edd and Eddy are surprised to see their happy-go-lucky Lump looking uncharacteristically forlorn.

“How sad it must be to be a squirrel without a nut. What cruel, hostile world we must live in where there are not enough nuts to go around.” Ed punctuates the thought with a heavy sigh.

“I’m lookin’ at a nut right now.”

“Oh yeah?” Ed perks up, head whipping violently in search of it as though he can rectify the injustice he’d witnessed.

“Yeah, TWO of ‘em!“

Just as he says it, Eddy’s fist finds its way to the tall redhead’s vulnerable groin with an empty punch.

“DOH!”

Edd puts a bit of space between himself and Eddy.

“Fear not, Ed. Every squirrel has their day.”

“Good for them,” Eddy growls, his earlier gloating soured by envying, of all things, a fuzzy rat.

Seeing as his vapid positivity hasn’t exactly resonated with Eddy, Edd decides to take a more direct approach.

“So, what punishment has befallen you? Another detention.”

Eddy’s brows drop down over his eyes with a snarl. He sees a pebble a few steps ahead and when he reaches it gives it a good solid kick. It skitters wildly into the street.

“No.”

“Suspension.”

“No.”

“Disintegration?” Ed chimes in.

“I wish.”

“You’d make a fine puddle, you would.”

“Thanks, Ed,” Eddy rolls his eyes, shoving his chin down into the collar of his jacket.

He nearly jumps at the shriek-like sound of Edd’s gasp. It looks as though he’s doing a decent impression of that weird painting of the screaming guy.

“Good lord, please don’t tell me you’ve been… expelled!?” Edd can hardly say the word.

“No! Worse! I gotta join some bogus extracaricature.”

Double Dee’s hand flies, grabbing Eddy’s bicep. The sudden physical contact makes Eddy reflexively flinch.

“What a relief! You had me worried for a second.” An offended look on Eddy’s face does worry Edd and he realizes it’s because of the grasp he has on his arm. He swiftly releases it, putting his hand in his jacket pocket.

“Ah- A generously lenient outcome considering the extent of property damage. Participation in a peer activity? Hmm… Why, you could always join me on the junior debate team. What you lack in research skills you certainly make up for with your argumentative temperament.”

“Kill me already.”

Eddy sags under the weight of such a nerdy proposition.

“Oh, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

Craning his neck, Ed peers down curiously.

“Join me! We could always use a uh-” Ed pauses, counting on his fingers, “a third member on the team. You could even go by Mr. AV-Eddy.”

With a rough tug, Ed’s head snaps down to match his short-statured friend’s eye level, Eddy’s fist full of the pilling and frayed green jacket collar.

“Call me that at school and I’ll shove an 8 millimeter where the sun don’t shine.”

“Norway?”

“NO way. Don’t even try it.” Eddy threatens before letting go of Ed.

“You got it, Mr. Cool Guy I’d Never Ever Call AV-Eddy, uh, sir!”

To show his deference, Ed removes his monobrow and swears it over his heart.

They keep walking. It’s about a half hour trudge back to the cul-de-sac, but it sure beats the torment of the public school buses. Bottom of the food chain means getting the crappiest seats, or worse even, becoming completely separated. Much better to brave the biting wind for now: Eddy’s ears and nose are already ruddy. Come winter they might reassess.

It’s hard not to think he might be cursed: born with the dark mark. Maybe somewhere down his family line there was some cardinal sin committed that’s the root to all this. If he has to place bets it was probably those damn pilgrims that sold Peach Creek to the Kankers, the lot of inbred nitwits. Eddy sorta gets why his brother is the way he is. He knows deep down his parents treated him different from the jump. That he’s had it better, at least in some ways. Despite his bad luck he’s technically the lucky one. But there is still so much he doesn’t know. Stuff that when he brings it up mom just starts blubbering. He won’t even bring it up with dad. So teachers thought he was smart?

Over the last year, Double Dee has fretted over Eddy’s drawn out silences. Just like the one now. He can’t help but read far too deeply into whatever might preoccupy Eddy’s mind so much to leave him speechless. A more contemplative and reflective streak could be good for Eddy. Except Double Dee knows from personal experience how quickly things can go south inside the echo chamber of one’s own thoughts. He chews his lip as the worry gnaws away at him.

“Eddy? Was there… anything else you wanted to talk about?”

Eddy sniffs his running nose again, scowling. He shrugs.

“S’nothing. Everyone at this school’s got it out for me.”

The feeling of a gentle hand between his shoulder blades makes the back of his eyes burn. Dammit. He blinks hard, sniffing even harder.

“Not everyone.” Double Dee earnestly assures. Ed wraps another arm around him in a lax half hug and this time Eddy doesn’t shrug him off. Instead, he leans in.

“Okay, okay. Fine. Almost everyone.”

And that’s good enough for him.

[summercourtship]

stay to burn (only to drown instead): chapter one: water to tread [part I]

masterpost | ao3 link

jonathan crane x reader; bruce wayne x reader; edward nashton x reader | warnings: canon typical violence, sexual themes | word count: 4218 words

DISCLAIMER: these chapters are not meant to be read alone. not every chapter has content for one of the three pairings listed. this is an ongoing fanfiction that I am cross-posting here on tumblr, not a series of one-shots.

The rain in Gotham was poison on your skin, more acid than water as it hit the city’s streets. It wasn’t doing anything to wash away the grime. Instead, it made it bubble to the surface like a toxic stew of dirt and blood. But you’d lived here for long enough that you were used to it and paid it no mind as you quickly walked home, trying to ignore your water logged shoes and pitifully wet socks. It was much later than you liked being out but your sleazy manager still scheduled you for late shifts despite you repeatedly telling him why you aren't comfortable walking home in the dark.

“Get some pepper spray and don’t flatter yourself.” He’d rolled his eyes when you’d tried explaining, raising his eyebrow as he gestured to your body. You didn’t bother telling him you already had a canister of pepper gel (it’s better than pepper spray) in your purse. And your backpack. And the inside pocket of your usual coat.

You also didn’t bother bringing up Gotham’s stupidly high crime rate and the statistics of violence in the city, knowing it wouldn’t do you any good. You didn’t want to push too hard and end up out in the rain, jobless and soon to be homeless when you wouldn’t be able to afford your rent. And then you’d lose your ability to continue your education, and everything would just keep spiraling downward along the same trajectory until you’re a drophead and trying to bum dollars off the clients outside the Iceberg Lounge.

All of that to say that you had to watch what you said around your boss because you needed your job.

Half of the time, you were able to find someone to cover the night shifts over at the 24/7 convenience store but every now and then they couldn’t (or wouldn’t). And sometimes you decided to just grin and bear it for the money. The shop was understaffed anyway and they made you feel like shit for not being able to work every waking second, even though you explained time and time again why you didn’t want to walk home after eight P.M.

But they thought it would be “special treatment” to only give you the shifts you wanted to work. Or they told you that with the extra money you made you could just order an Uber. But the prospect of getting into a random car was more nerve wracking than the idea of walking home alone at night. So you picked the lesser of two evils and walked.

So, that’s where you were at.

It was better, anyway, to brave the walk home than to be on a bus or in a cab by yourself. At least you could run if something bad happened to you out here. It felt like every other day now there was a bus or train jacking for some asinine reason and you really didn’t want to have to deal with that.

As you walked down the street, you subconsciously adjusted the hood of your rain jacket, but whether you were trying to hide your identity or shield yourself from the rain, it was futile.

Your face was dripping wet, and you were being watched.

You didn’t notice exactly when watching became following (always be aware of your surroundings, but there’s too much to be aware of in Gotham city that you’re bound to miss something), but soon enough you were more than aware of it. A hot itching feeling at the base of your neck started, sending a wave of heat and anxiety over you as you glanced in a passing window to confirm what your mind had been whispering at you.

Three men were following you.

One short and stocky, one tall and gangly. The third, middle one, being completely unremarkable- which is why he scared you the most of the three. It was always those ones who were the most dangerous.

When you stopped at an intersection for the crossing signal to turn in your favor, you glanced around you. Cars sped by, their tires disturbing the permanent puddles on the road. If you were attacked now, would anyone stop? Or would they chalk you up to another number in Gotham’s ever increasing violent crime statistic?

The men had stopped after you halfway down the block, keeping their distance behind you. You allowed yourself to, for a moment, entertain the notion that you were just being sensitive and jumpy. That nothing would happen and you'd get back to your wonderfully warm and horribly cramped apartment with a sigh of relief when you realize that your paranoia had gotten the best of you again.

But in this city, paranoia is akin to safety.

You spared another glance behind you, pretending like you were just checking out the closed lingerie store you had stopped next to while you were waiting for the crossing signal to change. They were leaning against the brick of the next shop down and goosebumps ran down your arms when you saw them looking your way. Really, they were leering and the way they did was enough to set off every alarm bell in your head. Adrenaline burned over your skin as your brain went into a quiet frenzy, trying to figure out how to get out of the situation as safely as possible.

Realistically, you had three options:

Option one: run. (but you must also consider the possibility of falling, being hit by a car if you didn’t look carefully enough, or still being overpowered by the men.)

Option two: fight back. (the option most likely to end with you dead, if you’re being honest with yourself.)

Option three: ??? (there was no option three.)

Turning back to the crosswalk you jolt forward as the little LED man giving you permission to cross the street flashed at you. You quickly crossed, not even checking the street to ensure cars had actually stopped coming. Being hit by a car was the least of your worries (at least they could pay off your student loans).

Sneaking another glance behind you as you rushed onto the other sidewalk, barely sidestepping a large puddle, your heart sunk in your chest when you saw the men start following you again, their dark eyes trained on you like a predator stalking its prey.

Without a second thought, you started running, pressing your way past all the other people walking home. You didn’t even apologize when you jostled them too much and they didn’t seem to care. Really, they barely paid you any mind, adopting the typical attitude of Gothamites: it’s none of my business; I didn’t see anything; I don’t want any trouble.

Always content to stand back and watch, never concerned enough to do anything about it.

You could feel rather than hear your socks squelching in your shoes as you ran through puddle after puddle. You twisted your body, sliding your backpack around to your front. If you could just get your pepper-gel out of your bag, maybe you’d have a chance of escaping this relatively unscathed. Shoving your hand into the front pocket, you fumbled around inside, not caring when your hair ties and period products fell onto the sidewalk. They are replaceable.

Finally, your hand wraps around the familiar canister, your thumb immediately turning it so it was ready to deploy. You should have done this from the moment you left the convenience store but you’d been so ready to leave and so tired that you trusted your luck a little too much.

You’re close to your apartment by now but you won’t risk leading them to your home- your sanctuary. Instead, you make the hasty decision to duck into an alleyway between a diner and a bike shop- both closed for the night. Pressing your back against the dirty brick, you breathe slowly, fighting against your body’s instinct to pant in exhaustion.

You knew that the men were still following you, and that they definitely saw you go into the alley- there were not enough people on this street to hide your movements. All you could do was wait for the light spilling into the alley from the street to be blocked.

You didn’t have to wait a long time- within thirty seconds the slow, wet stomps of boots on the sidewalk drifted into the alley. You held your arm out, desperately trying to keep your grip from wavering.

The second you saw one of the men, you pressed on the trigger of the pepper-gel, but clearly luck wasn’t on your side as it jammed just long enough for the man to rush towards you and knock it out of your hand. It sputtered as it landed in a puddle, useless and dead. The tiny canister hadn’t given you much hope, but even now that was dashed.

The shortest of the men shoved you against the wall, ripping your bag away from where you’d been holding it like a shield against your chest. He threw it to the one who knocked your pepper-gel out of your hand, who immediately began searching through its contents.

The short one slammed you against the wall again, knocking the wind out of your chest, bringing his knee up into your stomach before you could catch it again. You crumpled in on yourself, pulling out every ounce of strength you had to keep your feet steady on the ground. You’re brought back into reality when the tallest man comes behind you and holds you still against him. You lift your impossibly heavy head to stare at the short one, daring him to do what his sleazy smile was implying.

But the man only rears his hand back and punches you across the face.

Pain blossomed from the moment his knuckles met your cheek, an involuntary cry escaping your mouth along with a glob of spit. The man holding you readjusts his grip on you, his arms hooked under your armpits. As soon as you’re able to bring air back into your lungs you renew your struggle against his grip, trying desperately to jab your elbow against the sensitive flesh of his stomach or into his side. Anywhere that might cause him to release his hold on you.

You knock your head back, trying to look up into his face to see if he was bothered yet or if he still had that same self-satisfied grin on his face. But your eyes slip right past his grimy complexion.

Instead, through the sheets of water falling from the sky, through the lights of the buildings, your eyes focused on the clouds. Or rather, what was being projected onto them. It didn’t appear every night but tonight it seemed that somewhere, someone in Gotham needed him.

You certainly did.

“What’s this?” A rough voice broke your focus, wrenching your attention away from the signal in the sky. The one who’d been pawing through your bag held up two thick bundles of money, tied together with rubber bands. You closed your eyes, heart sinking, head dropping against the tall one’s chest.

“Shit!” The tall one laughed at the sight, his chest hitting your back with his boisterousness. But you know it's really not that much cash, maybe $350, certainly not enough to warrant the beating you’d already received. Singles and fives stack up quickly.

You wonder if they’ll be disappointed when they count it out and see it’s not even enough for a month’s rent in this city.

“Now what were you doing to get this?” The stocky one swept his gaze up and down your body, fingers twitching like he wanted to touch you too. “And how much for one night?”

You knew what he was insinuating, but in reality your boss was just shit at paying you everything you were owed on time. Every month or so you’d finally ask him about it and he’d just reach into the register and give you cash. Did it feel illegal, or at least extremely shady? Yes. But you needed the job and you were just getting what you were already due from your work. He’d be in more trouble if he withheld anymore from you than he already did.

“Give it back.” You struggled to get the words out, water and blood pooling on your lips. You tried to wiggle your way out of your captor’s grip again but he didn't let go.

“I don’t think so, whore.” He drops you to the ground, your hip hitting the concrete with a wet thud, landing in a questionably dirty puddle. He swiftly kicked you in the stomach, forcing a wheeze out of your lungs. You curled in on yourself.

The man was rearing up to kick you again, and you wondered if he’s actually aiming for your stomach. In a flash, you can see him missing and instead kicking your face in. You were so certain that this would be what was about to happen that you close your eyes, bracing yourself for the worst pain you would ever feel.

But the kick never comes.

Instead, you hear a deep thud followed by the obvious rustling and scuffing of boots on pavement. Then, the dull sound of punches landing on clothed skin, hushed threats spoken in a low voice.

The men aren’t laughing anymore.

“Go.” It’s not a familiar voice, certainly not any of the three men who’d attacked you. But it couldn’t be who you’re hoping it was, right?

Your bag lands beside you and from the sound of it, it was pitifully empty as the men ran away, almost splashing through the rain in their hurry to leave.

You open your eyes, blinking in the warm light of the streetlamp. You keep your gaze focused on the bricks, watching a soiled band-aid float across the puddle you were currently laying in. Gross.

Two black combat boots stepped into the circle of light, raindrops rolling off the leather onto the pavement.

So it was who you thought it was.

“You’re a bit late,” you cough, grimacing as you attempt to lift yourself. The man says nothing, which is about as much as you expected. You’d read all about him, the masked vigilante running around, trying to save Gotham.

You finally managed to push yourself into a seated position, your clothes now so thoroughly soaked you didn’t mind sitting in the puddle while you attempted to gather your thoughts. You don’t think you could actually stand right now anyway.

“They took my money.” You sighed, more to yourself than to him. “That was like, 30 hours of work.”

How the hell are you going to feed yourself for the next two weeks?

“You shouldn’t be out walking at this hour.”

You finally look up at him, the Batman, narrowing your eyes. Out of all the things he could say, he chose that? You don’t allow yourself to be starstruck, astounded by his overwhelming presence in front of you, instead choosing to be indignant about what he said. How removed from reality it was. You can’t read his expression, what with most of it covered by that mask of his. Maybe he regrets what he said, but it’s just as likely that he sees nothing wrong with it at all.

“I’m going home. I work late.”

Once again, he didn’t say anything, simply watching as you pulled yourself onto your feet. Your footing was shaky but you didn’t feel like you would keel over, at least not immediately. You could make it the few blocks to get back to your apartment.

Then your knee gave out from under you and you’re about to fall right back over when he steadied you with one gloved hand on your upper arm.

Your heart jumps in your chest, any annoyance that you had felt dissipating at his touch.

“Let me help you home.”

His voice cut through the silence between you. Wouldn’t it be nice to be escorted home by the man who saved Gotham on a regular basis? But a moment later your ears pick up the faint sound of a siren in the background and you shake your head, waking up from the awed stupor his presence had put you in.

“I think you’re needed elsewhere.” Bending down to pick up your soaked and empty bag, you gave him a soft smile. “That probably wasn’t for me.” You gesture to the signal in the sky, still projected onto the clouds. You’d always wondered who kept it lit, who decided when the Batman was needed and when he could stay in. As far as you knew, the crime of Gotham never ended. He was always needed.

“Thank you for the offer, though.” You stopped, frowning when you realized that only seconds after you’d finished speaking he had disappeared once again into the shadows.

The rest of your walk home saw your thoughts preoccupied, almost getting hit by a black sedan you’re so distracted.

The Batman had saved you. You! Somebody whose body, if it ever became just a body with no life in it, would’ve barely made a line on the fifth page in the next day’s news.

You moved like a zombie, ambling and slow, through the streets, only waking up from your daze when you arrived at your building. Old bricks with moss clinging on them towered above you, the buzzing light above the main entrance flickering.

Your apartment itself was small, sandwiched in the middle of a hundred year old building that showed its age in the worst ways. The apartment had clearly been renovated at some point to give the main space a more open floor plan, but aside from that it was pretty much exactly as it had been when it was built. Uneven door frames, cracked window panes, creaky floors. But it was your home, your safe haven in this godforsaken city.

Thrusting open the door with a decidedly unladylike grunt (your key got stuck half of the time), you threw your keys on the counter and your bag onto the floor. To your right when you entered was your kitchen, which consisted of nothing more than a few counters in the corner of the main room, complete with a stove in the middle and a fridge on the end of the row. A few nondescript magnets held papers on the fridge- grocery lists, greeting cards, your schedule, a brochure from the Gotham Museum of Fine Art.

You immediately made a beeline for your kettle, filling it with water and perching it back on the stove. In the back of the cupboard is a dusty Bella Reál campaign mug that you should really throw away but can’t bring yourself to. You don’t pick it though, instead pulling out an old Christmas mug. Turning and rummaging through your pantry cabinet, you pull out a well-worn box of Sleepy Time Tea that had been your saving grace this past year.

“God, I wish I was you.” You murmured to the tiny bear on the packet before ripping it open and throwing it into the Christmas mug.

It’s almost November. Close enough. (And you broke your only Halloween mug last week.)

As you waited for the kettle to boil, you moved to the section of the room that you have designated as your living room and office space. Against one wall was a desk with your laptop still open on it, various textbooks, and random documents scattered on its worn surface. Directly next to it (at an uncomfortably close distance, sometimes) was your TV stand with the world’s smallest TV sitting off-center. More books were stacked next to it, ranging from history textbooks to self-indulgent paperback romances. Barely six feet from the TV stand was your couch, and just behind that, with barely any walking room, was a sliding glass door.

You glanced outside the windowed door to your balcony- which was a glorified fire escape, really- and almost shrieked when you noticed a large black silhouette. Heart racing, you yanked open the door, grunting as sticks slightly in the middle. Mustering the most of your strength, you heaved it the rest of the way open.

“How did you find me?” You asked immediately, not stepping away from the doorframe, from the comfort of your warm apartment.

“I have my ways.” The Batman was mostly hidden in the shadows, only the light reflecting off the tiny droplets that had collected on his suit differentiating him from the darkness.

“That didn’t answer my question.” Really, it only raised more. But he didn’t say anything else, so you just sighed and crossed your arms, wincing as the movement sent pain across your skin. “Why are you here?”

Typically, you wouldn’t be this standoffish, even with strange vigilantes that showed up unannounced on your doorstep. But you were tired and had had a rough night- you could say with confidence that it was one of the roughest you’d ever had. Honestly, you just wanted to curl under your duvet and take a nap for three days.

You raised your eyebrows at him, daring him to be the next to break the silence before you realized that he was holding something out to you. It took another second for you to recognize what it was.

Money.

It was crumpled and it was wet but it was money.

“Is… is that mine?” You reach out to take it from him, but he doesn’t let go of it yet. You’re tethered to him, connected by a wad of damp and dirty cash. But you can’t let go of it, you can’t risk him leaving and taking your hard-earned money with him (though you doubt he would do that, given that it's yours).

“What did you do for it?” His voice is quiet in the night air, barely audible over the rainfall and whoosh of cars five stories down below. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes again.

“Honest work, I swear.” You looked up into his eyes, almost glowing in their darkness, hidden being the mask and a layer of dark paint. You wondered, in the event you ever saw him again, if you would be able to tell what color they were. “A 24/7 corner store, the one on Swift and Broad. My boss just… sucks at paying me.” On time or at all.

He released his hold on the money. You immediately draw your hand back into your personal bubble, cradling the bundle of cash against your chest as if it will disappear again. Who knows, maybe one of those insane city pigeons would swoop down from the sky and snatch it from you to use in their nest.

“Thank you.” You broke eye contact with him, looking at the bundle in your hands instead. “I’m sorry to have put you through this trouble. I’m sure there were plenty of other things to do tonight… Other crimes to stop and all.”

Ever since the Riddler’s murder spree last year, Gotham’s criminals really seemed to up the ante. Sure, before, there’d be a few weirdos every couple of years but now… now it seemed like everyone was trying to outdo one another. All vying for Batman’s attention.

If you weren’t so unnerved by it all, maybe you’d laugh. But instead, all you could wonder as each criminal was taken down and into custody… What now? Which nightmare would emerge from the shadows next?

“It was a slow night.”

“Well, I’m glad it was.” I would have been killed if you hadn’t found me.

“Clean your wounds before they get infected.”

“I will, don’t worry.” You both stand there for a few more moments, before the screech of your kettle breaks the silence. You turned to look into your apartment, sighing. “Do you want-”

But when you turn back to the balcony he’s gone, the droning of the rain suddenly deafening.

“-To come in.” You finish lamely, not even knowing what you would’ve done if he’d stayed and said yes. The mental image of him sitting in one of your mismatched chairs at the table was funny but incompatible with reality.

No, him leaving like this was better. You’d never see him again and would just remember the night where he saved you, perhaps think about it- reminisce, like a little old lady- when you saw him on the news.

You closed the door again, locking it and pulling the curtain closed. The familiar, anxiety-inducing smell of money wafts up to you and you put the roll on the small table by the sliding door, your makeshift kitchen table that saw more use as a catch-all table than as an eating surface.

When you count the money later, you may have noticed that there was more in the pile than you’d thought before. And you know for a fact that your boss would rather die than pay you more than what you were owed.

It seemed that Batman was more generous than he came across.

Sighing, you pushed aside the extra amount (almost $200 of extra amount), deciding that if you ever ran into him again, you’d make him take it back.

After all, you were beginning to suspect he hadn’t tracked down the thieves in the first place.

part two

[hatchan]

Memories of being 11 in 2007

becoming grotesquely self-aware of my physical body

acne started and I didn't understand it

pretty much from day 1, pimple 1, I was popping them to just get rid of it, get it out get it out get it out. I'd wash my face with water afterwards but it took me a while to realize that that didn't make my face perfectly clear again. in fact that was probably making it all worse and I'm still a compulsive popper at 30! lol! lmao! lmfao!!!!!!!

hair started growing places and it felt weird and gross and I felt always weird and gross

and wow now I'm bleeding from my nether regions. this is horrible and weird and gross and I just have to DEAL WITH IT???????? started like a week after I turned 11 too

my 11th birthday was at a stable. my parents arranged for my friends and I to ride and hang out with horses and have some pizza and cake. it was fucking awesome. I love horses. that birthday party was probably the highlight of the year for me lmfao being 11 is a difficult ass year

had braces put on me. that shit HURT

went 24+ hours without consuming food upon getting braces. mouth hurty too much, I remember the pain of trying to crunch a potato chip. big fat NOPE

I was angsty as HELL but also, looking back, justified as hell

to try to make myself feel better about how I looked, you know, because the braces and pimples are plummetting my self-esteem and I've become aware of the fact that I exist to other people very recently, I opted to get my hair cut short. MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE EVEN WORSE

it was fun getting to choose different colors for my braces every month. it was my way of "making the best of it" and getting some choice in the whole thing. I don't remember being asked if I wanted braces (its possible I was asked, but I don't remember). I remember it being a "Ya you need braces, here's how its gonna work, let's go" kind of vibe

the KFC popcorn chicken/mashed potato bowlwas my special treat for after appointments. before I stopped eating meat when I turned 12

I noticed that distressed jeans were becoming popular, so I took a pair of scissors to one of my existing jeans. I was gonna get on the trend with holes in my jeans, see. snip-snapped a bunch of holes in my jeans, see. random holes everywhere, see. like on the hips and legs and knees and everywhere, see. I think that's when I mom knew she was in trouble

oh man. I was horrible to my parents.

I was so mad at myself and my circumstances and my unwanted changes and the more awareness I was getting of the world made the world seem like a more-bad-than-good place, and I took it out on my parents a lot.

I found a card in a stationary store that says "I'm sorry for what I said when I was a teenager" and I need to send that to every relative I have

but being 11 is also when I watched anime for the first time. that is, I was on a flight (red eye, overnight) and couldn't sleep so I was flipping through the tv channels on the airplane seat. it was midnight or so EST, but why was there a cartoon playing? I always loved cartoons/animations, so I was down to watch it, but the first thirty seconds of it the dialogue was something like "He's going to kill me.... I'm loosing so.... much... blood!" and it was a fight scene and so MY fight or flight, sheltered child instinct kicked in and I went OH NO THIS IS A GROWNUP CARTOON I SHOULDN'T BE WATCHING THIS ITS VIOLENT AND RATED R!!!!!

it was Fullmetal Alchemist. Edward Elric was fighting the suit of armor that is the Slicer brothers in one body.

later that year, I was similarly flipping through the channels, landed on a scene from Inuyasha (of people talking), but the channel name on the bottom was Adult Swim so I again went OH NOO I CANT SEE THIS IM NOT AN ADULT

I was totally cool with reading about violent acts, that's when I first got into mystery thrillers and serial killer biographies.

my parents started getting grey hair that year.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 34

It's still 1938, it's the Angels Take Manhattan, and we're still with Smith, Amy, Rory and River, except PLOT has happened in between these episodes so we have a million new questions and a million new answers. Also! It's a companion leaving story! Exciting, the first one we've seen. And it means we can remove the "What is happening to all these companions" plot thread, since it makes it clear that each is going to have a leaving story like the various Doctors.

(Also quick housekeeping: we had so many new plot threads last time I forgot some, so I'm adding them in this time.)

OKAY so weirdly, the concept of this story felt like it was going to be at least a two-parter, and it's played as a sort of noir New York mystery, but almost the whole thing is setup and then about five minutes of resolution - it's not bad, per se, but it is an odd structure. There again I personally am rubbish at structure when I write so I suppose I can't judge. I'm pretty good at characters though and also I have a fundamental and genuine understanding of What A Marriage Is, so I can certainly judge the fact that this episode, after dropping the bombs that:

River does kill the Doctor after all but

He clearly lived(?) and then erased himself from history somehow and

River and the Doctor are married (a plot thread answer!)

the characters then REPEATEDLY state that the definition of marriage is "changing the future", a sentiment that is in fact such profoundly dribbling nonsense it could have been extracted from an Edward Lear poem, and could not be a more belaboured and cringeworthy attempt at Summarising The Themes if it tried.

Also, also, there's a bit where River has a broken wrist and the Doctor uses random regeneration energy to heal it, and like... has that always been an option, then??! He can just heal people??? Gosh, I presume that means he's never going to lose anyone important, then, since he can just Super Heal people.

Anyway, the concept is that the Weeping Angels have taken over New York. Or more accurately, a big block of flats in Manhattan (landlords amirite). We get more plot thread answers! Turns out the Angels can only move when unobserved (which explains Whittaker's 'blinking' comments), an absolutely spectacularly good concept that is instantly and consistently undermined and contradicted by literally every single second of this episode. "Of course! the Doctor exclaims in the block of flats. "They've taken Manhattan! They've never had a food source like this before, it's the city that never sleeps!"

He pronounces this like it's a great plot twist that makes perfect sense, which is odd, because it in fact is the dumbest plot hole possible and makes zero sense whatsoever while completely fracturing the entire lore, isn't it. A creature that cannot move when observed would want to stay the farthest away from a city that never sleeps as it was capable of staying, or it would never move again, would it. Manhattan is in fact the last possible place in the galaxy the Angels would go, isn't it. And yet it turns out the Statue of Liberty - which, of course, we saw two episodes ago - is also an Angel, and can apparently just roam around Manhattan. This is certainly a Choice that the writers have made about the most-viewed statue in the world; to turn it into a terrible space monster that can only move when not viewed.

Anyway the building is a battery farm. Angels feed on the time energy from people they send back in time, which creates an altered timeline; they feed off of all the nuances and life events and interactions that will now never be. Here, they are keeping people in their new block of flats and sending them back in time again and again to keep generating this energy; except again, that makes no sense at all, since sending the same person back repeatedly to live exactly the same life in a single room would just create the same time loop repeatedly and thus not displace anything at all after the first cycle, thereby making no time energy. But in any case Rory gets taken, and there's a really horrifying moment where they all realise that he's going to live out the rest of his life, again and again, imprisoned in a single room without Amy.

The Doctor is oddly fine with this, and just sits down to sulk. We've seen this character firey and screaming "Not today! I'm going to save you!" to even randos he just met, but apparently this merely provokes a slightly maudlin sense of glumness. River has to point out that if Rory escapes it will make a paradox and save everyone who is trapped. To do this, Amy and Rory go to the roof and jump off to their deaths, which is very clever - as they fall, the Doctor and River arrive.

"Amy! No!" screams the Doctor. "Amy! Amyyyyyyy! Amy Amy Amy! Ammmyyyyyyyyy!!!!"

Just fucking horse-kick Rory directly in the nuts, why don't you, fuck me. Have you never heard that you shouldn't have favourites? At least TRY to hide it.

Anyway it works and they all get thrown back to present day, and then Rory immediately gets caught by another fucking Angel.

"It's sent him back!" the Doctor cries. "But Amy, you mustn't go back too! New York in 1938 is now too full of time distortions, I can't get back there to save you!"

...

...

... okay I am not a genius Time Lord but methods we have literally seen that could circumvent this either in this show or in this specific episode include:

River's time jump bracelet, which worked just fine in getting her there

Flying the TARDIS to 1939 and picking them up a year later

Flying the TARDIS to 1938 but not New York and just driving to them

Literally a million other methods this is not hard

Anyway other things we get treated to include the Doctor and Rory both commenting that Amy is GASP SHOCK HORROR getting wrinkles, River insisting that women must never let the Doctor see them age because it will cause him Man Pain (I guess Leo diCaprio is playing him soon), Amy earning Shittest Parent Ever by hearing River say this and then telling her in the tearful goodbye scene that she has to be a good girl and look after the Doctor, the Doctor as an afterthought going "Oh wait River those were your parents, sorry, I you must be sad too, should have thought of that" which is... very on brand, and an epilogue in which we get a farewell note from Amy in which she describes a bunch of things she's done. We know some! She mentions Vincent van Gogh, and the time she was a pirate, and refers to Rory as a centurion (I think he was plastic then). She also mentions Rory keeping her safe for 2000 years though, and something about a space whale. Dunno what that's about.

Also the Doctor goes and visits Child Amy to tell her to wait around for him, which is certainly a good topper for this episode.

So! Plot threads!

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy. NEW INFO: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Who is Captain Jack Harkness? (Is he the one who gave the companions a warning about the lone cyberman?)

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She's with the Silents, but we don't know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy's pregancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?)

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What's the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents... want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he... hasn't even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What's the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years?

How does the Doctor survive River

How does he erase himself from history

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

So for Jervis (BTAS, Gotham) and Riddler (BTAS, Arkham)

He didn't have a good relationship with Reader but she helped him once. Now he helped her out and is kinda cocky about it, saying that now they're even. She just rolls her eyes and says "Thank you my hero." And kisses him on the cheek before casually walking away "See ya."

"Oh, my hero." Mad Hatter x f!reader, Riddler x f!reader

We do love flustering these men sometimes, don't we? They deserve it.

Tw: surveillance mention

BTAS Mad Hatter

- You'd rubbed him the wrong way once by calling him ridiculous. Or was it his costume you called ridiculous? Either way, he'd genuinely written you off.

- ...Until several of the Rogues Gallery were working together and you pulled him to safety from a smoke bomb. It was kind.

- When he finally gets to help you, he's sing-song telling you you're even and that he got to save the damsel.

- When you kiss him, he's genuinely shocked. He wasn't trying to be cocky, although he supposes it could have come off that way. But... your hero?

- It makes him feel fluttery in his chest, the thought. And... oh, you've already left. That whole time he was just staring at the floor blushing. How embarrassing.

- He's going to be hanging around a lot more asking if you need anything- no? You're certain? He's more than happy to- well, alright. But he'll be around if you need anything. Anything at all!

- He's got all the affection and loyalty of a puppy. You'll notice he starts using pet names like Dearest all of sudden. Treat him well.

Gotham Mad Hatter

- He felt neutral about you at first. Not really a dislike as much as not caring very much. But then there was a plan gone bad and you, being in the area, gave him shelter.

- He'd left the moment he could, especially after you teased about owing him. Not long after, he happened upon an instance where a guard was pointing a gun at your face. That won't do at all.

- After hypnotizing the guard, he teases "what would you have done without me?" With a coy smile. He doesn't expect you to kiss him and look at him that way.

- He almost considers following you, to seeing if you really meant that kiss. If you... perhaps wanted go continue it further.

- He'll settle for the tense but playful flirting you'll do when you meet at random intervals in the city of Gotham. Lingering touches and offers to teach you about hypnotism.

- And, even if it doesn't go anywhere serious, there's always the chance of a steamy and lengthy affair... and someone to watch your back as long as you watch his.

BTAS Riddler

- He got the impression you thought of yourself as on his level. Whether or not this is true is up for debate. Either way, he was rather shocked when you opened a path of escape for him from Batman rather than just saving your own skin.

- Hm. There's a chance he needs to re-evaluate this. After all, he's not so egotistical to think he's above a partnership of sorts, no matter what anyone else thinks. This is why the next time you're in a bind about to be caught, it's one of his robots that scoops you up to take you to safety.

- Of course, being Edward Nygma, he needs to gloat just a tad. Brilliant, wasn't it? Could you, in your average mind, have ever thought of such an escape? It was impressive, he knows.

- All that hot air quickly escapes him when you call him your hero and kiss his cheek. He's a blushing mess immediately falling over himself. Him? "W-Wait, sweet, dear lady, I think we need to talk about this-"

- He doesn't actually have anything to add, he's just still computing all that. Eventually, he's going to stumble on about dinner, he can make it- or go out! To discuss... plans! How to foil Batman! Yes!

- He's going to wear one of his nicest suits and bring flowers, the huge dork.

Arkham Riddler

- let's be honest, he likely thought you were a moron incapable of anything than being pretty and sometimes useful. It does not take much for him to have an opinion like this about people, particularly if he finds them attractive.

- When you do help him, he insists he didn't need your help in the first place! Don't think he needed you. He had the situation completely under his control. (He didn't.)

- While his instinct is to chalk it up to you being in awe of him, he does feel a slight nagging feeling like he might owe you. Perhaps.

- Strangely when you're in distress, outnumbered by thugs in Gotham- He makes a surprise arrival with several devices that bring them to their knees begging for mercy.

- If you ask him how get got there so quickly, he'll point his cane to a nearby cctv, "I have eyes everywhere. You should remember that. Oh, and you're welcome, of course. It's not every day the Riddler deigns to enter a fray with the idiotic incompetents in the streets." Preening and patting himself on the back in a smug tone.

- What he doesn't expect is your sarcastic comment and a kiss. He's stunned to speechlessness. If for around... 30 seconds, at least.

- "And just what was the meaning of that?" He's following you, being a pest, "Some misguided attempt to curry favor with the greatest genius of Gotham? Well... it won't work, I'm far too clever to fall for such base instincts."

- He's incredibly flustered and still shouting even as you round the corner out of sight. This is definitely not the end of this.

[secretly-an-automaton]

WELCOME TO…

random shit that most of this fandom collectively deluded into being canon, regardless of if it a) wasn’t explicitly stated in the show, b) contradicts actual lore, or c) was just straight up made up with no real basis! Also half of the bullet points end in rants; there are no words to describe this phenomenon but I’m a fanfic writer so that sure as hell didn’t stop me from trying

Ghost cores—not only the different types but also just their existence in general apparently—was pretty much entirely invented by the fandom. Like bro that’s the entire basis of ghost biology, how tf were we supposed to believe it worked in the show??

To expand on that, ghost biology.

Someone just decided Danny has freckles and that they glow in ghost form and we were all like. yeah.

Wesley Weston’s entire character. Nuff said.

Jack and/or Maddie always seemed to have grown up on a farm? Although I suppose with Maddie’s sister that could maybe be considered an educated guess

All the townsfolk refer to Danny’s ghost form as just ‘Phantom’ - oh wait, no they don’t.

Valerie’s alter ego is called the ‘Red Huntress’ - oh wait, no it’s not.

That one’s especially funny cause originally this list just included “Phantom calls Valerie ‘Red’” but then I learned the whole title was fanon and now I question everything I’ve ever thought beknownst to me.

Amity Park is a small town (not according to the background shots in the actual show).

I don’t remember how much of ghostly obsessions/Danny’s specifically was pulled out of the fandom’s ass but I imagine a fair amount of it considering the show wasn’t big on world building.

Phantom’s voice is echoey and/or staticky.

Danny smells like ozone and possibly citrus?

This one might just have to do with number psychology, but everyone seems to agree Phantom is a “level 7” on all of the arbitrary ghost rating systems invented by the Fentons?? Which were also made up tbf cause the Fentons never even invented that.

Danny bleeds both blood and ectoplasm, usually dependent on form, has a low heart rate and body temperature in human form, and possibly fangs. Aside from the latter these are mostly just logical inferences but it felt like they belonged here anyway.

Blob ghosts maybe?? I only think they might’ve been made up because I couldn’t find a proper photo reference of them one time and like I said, I question everything now. Maybe Jazz was never even real and the fandom just made her up so Danny could have one tiny thread of stability to support the massive load of trauma that we also dumped on him. Who the hell knows anymore, this fandom was the original Goncharov.

Accident with a capital A.

As far as I can tell, ectoblasts aren’t actually referred to as such. Admittedly I didn’t rewatch the whole show just to confirm, but according to the wiki, they’re actually called ghost rays.

Danny’s signature nervous tick is rubbing the back of his neck. I honest to god accidentally picked this habit up from reading fanfic and it is marginally embarrassing.

Danny blushes green in ghost form (admittedly this is a relatively obvious leap from “bleeds ectoplasm”.)

Ghost speak.

Danny’s middle name is James and Lancer’s first name is William (or maybe Edward.)

In all the AU’s I’ve read that involve Danny moving to Amity from somewhere else, it’s always Chicago. Admittedly I’ve only read two, but to paraphrase Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, it’s still weird that it happened twice.

Ghost ice doesn’t melt? Was that a thing? I don’t think so(?) This fandom is so bad at distinguishing canon from fanon and that does not exclude me, I haven’t seen the show in three years.

What else do y’all got? I’m sure there’s plenty more to go around

[kuroecchy]

the pic in the list are not mine, I just found the pics from pinterest

fair warning the theme i chose for my october prompts are completly randome so I have nothing planned for any of them.

English is not my first language and no beta.

All of this is cross posten on AO3

Day 3 - Late

Everyone knows that Tony Stark never arrives on time. Especially to meetings (both board and Avengers), he usually gets late on purpose for those. Mostly because he hates them but still. Late.

Sometimes it was genuinely because he's late. He often loses track of time when he's in the lab.

Sure, JARVIS tries to remind him, but when the engineer is engrossed in his work? Nothing, and I say nothing can distract him.

He's off on his own little world!

Everyone who knows the engineer long enough knows that.

Only few people can get the man to stop; Harley, Peter, and of course his boyfriend Stephen Strange.

Well the point is, for whatever reason it may be, Anthony Edward Stark is always late.

Well it was never really a problem before. Stephen even found it amusing when his boyfriend is late to the Avengers meeting only to make a grand entrance each time. Stephen particularly found it funny to see the others' exasperated looks.

So of course Tony never tried to fix that particular bad (according to others minus Stephen) habit of his.

So it had hit him harder when it had happened.

Tony had been down in his workshop as usual, engrossed on his current project while blasting his favorite song on full volume.

He had told JARVIS to not disturb him and to turn away any calls. Well except for calls from Peter and Harley (cuz they're his kids), Rhodey and Pepper (cuz if not they're gonna give a lifetime of scolding), and Stephen (his boyfriend obviously).

Incase of an emergency he had expected them to call him, even though he's technically retired (though no one really believes a hero can retire voluntarily like he did).

On another note he was informed by Peter of what had happened.

It started like this :

'Sir, Peter has entered the tower and is now rushing to the workshop.' That was the first clue that something wrong had happened.

But Tony, being engrossed in his own little world, simply hummed in dismissal.

'Sir, may I warn you that Peter is not in the best of moods.' and that's the second tick.

At those words Tony paused, "is he injured?" Worry laced his voice.

But before JARVIS could answer the door to his workshop slid open.

"Mr Stark! Where were you!" Came the voice of his young apprentice.

Tony turned out to see a red face. Eyes swollen, tear tracks still visible.

The father figure rushed to the boy in an attempt to check for any visible injuries that could cause his son to be in this state, "wh-what happened? Peter are you-"

"I'm Mr Stark." He spoke with a shaky voice, "it's Doctor Strange…"

…What? Stephen what happened to him?

Suddenly the retired hero felt like he had just taken an ice bath.

"everyone's been calling you…" said the young hero in a weak voice.

"J-Jarvis…?"

'There have been 132 missed calls in the past hour, Sir. Mostly from Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. Other calls had been from other currently active members of the Avengers, Sir.' His faithful AI spoke quietly.

And that's another cold bath. Add the feeling of a rug being pulled from under him.

“You really haven’t been paying attention have you…”

Horror creeping into his voice, “Where is he now?”

“Metro general. He’s been undergoing surgery for his injuries.”

“I-I need to-”

Tony took off to his balcony not even bothering to finish his sentence. Jumping off and feeling as the nanites surround him. He quickly blasted to Metro General Hospital.

Not caring about how others looked at him in awe, he walked straight to the receptionist’s desk.

“Stephen Strange. Where is he?” he said rather harshly.

The shocked slash scared the receptionist who could only point out the direction to the emergency room. Tony mumbled out a quick thank you before running to where the receptionist had pointed to.

When he finally saw the heroes sitting outside the operating room he was panting.

The atmosphere was somber and when they looked at him Rogers was the first one to speak.

“Tony… you're late…”

~ END ~

Note :

If y'all noticed when Tony got the news of something bad had happened to Stephen, Tony called for JARVIS. As y'all can see I usually wrote JARVIS’ name in all capital but there I used lower case.

It was only to add to the dramaticness of it all, showing that Tony had spoken it in a weak voice.

[braveclementine]

A Night of Imprinting

Warnings: None

Copyright: I do not own any Twilight characters or locations. I do own Davina Mikelson and Marcel. I also own the backstory for my OC. I do not condone any copying of this.

Davina P.O.V.

Over the next few days, I fell into an uncomfortable rhythm. I made the food for Seth, Leah, and Jacob- not because Esme was incapable of making food- but because Leah would only eat food made by me.

I didn't mind making the food either, as since now that I could continue eating it, I had a fun time making sure it tasted right.

The three wolves still stayed with us, not going home. At least, not until the babies were born.

It was weird though. Bella was only three weeks pregnant and the acceleration seemed much quicker than mine. Her baby bump was far larger than mine ever was- and I had been carrying three babies.

Of course, perhaps things would have been different if I hadn't been in the bomb accident and had to undergo so much surgery. Maybe the bump would've been bigger then.

For another, when it broke her rib, it didn't snap back in place. But maybe her baby just didn't like playing with them? I had no idea and I didn't voice anything aloud. In fact, when I was with Edward, I focused mostly on random things. Of course, half the time, my mind wandered to Sam which was a painful thing for me to think about.

Alice, Jasper, and Carlisle were often researching about immortal children in the library. Sometimes I helped, sometimes I stayed at the cottage with our kids.

Carlisle and I still wanted to keep our own kids a secret. Should this end badly with Bella, we wanted to be able to take our kids and leave. It was all about keeping our own kids safe.

Carlisle was trying to use our kids as a measurement to Bella's, but it was hard because he hadn't watched me go through the affects.

Right now, Carlisle, Edward, Bella, and I were in the front room that Carlisle had turned into a hospital room. I didn't really want to be here, but I refused to leave Carlisle's side unless I was checking in on Samuel, Niklaus, or Caroline.

"Your rib is cracked." Carlisle said softly, staring at the X-rays that he had just taken of Bella. "But there are no splinters. You haven't punctured anything." He turned to face her, wrapping an arm around me in the process.

"Yet." Edward said in an angry voice. He and Rose were the only ones who hadn't gone hunting in weeks. Both of them had incredibly black eyes.

"Edward." Carlisle whispered.

"It's breaking her bones now." Edward said coldly. "It's crushing you from the inside out. Carlisle tell her what you told me. Tell her."

Bella looked upset, her hands resting on the baby bump. I felt bad for her. My pregnancy had been nowhere near as bad as this. It seemed almost as though her baby was growing even faster than mine.

Carlisle turned from looking at Edward to Bella. Now that he was rarely going anywhere, he had dressed less fashionably, wearing a purple hoodie. I smiled grimly as he looked down at me, squeezing his hand.

"Carlisle, tell me. It's all right." Bella said.

Carlisle let go of me to walk closer to Bella. In a very quiet voice he said, "The fetus isn't compatible with your body. It's too strong. It won't allow you to get the nutrition you need. It's starving you by the hour. I can't stop it, and I can't slow it down. At this rate, your heart will give out before you can deliver."

Bella was shaking her head, tears pooling in her eyes, as she tried to figure out what she wanted. I paused, getting up from where I was in the doorway.

"Then I'll hold on as long as I can, and then. . ."

"Bella." Carlisle interrupted her softly. "There are some conditions that even venom can't overcome. You understand? I'm sorry."

Carlisle pulled away slowly, walking back to my side. "Come on."

"Wait." I said. The three of them looked at me. "You haven't tried giving her blood?"

Carlisle paused.

"Blood?" Bella asked.

"It's half-vampire, is it not?" I asked. "So give her blood."

Carlisle and Edward both stared at me. "What?" I asked defensively. I moved away from the room, scoffing. I had drunk blood. Wouldn't it work for Bella too?

There was a game on, on the TV. Emmett was sitting forward excitedly. Jasper stood next to him, trying to feed off the excitement. Edward carried Bella upstairs, laying her down on the couch. Alice turned to stare at her while Rosalie and Esme sat on chairs, watching her. Jacob was lounging in a chair. Bree was upstairs somewhere and Marcel stood behind Esme, hands wrapped around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head lightly.

"Whose winning?" I asked Emmett for lack of better thing to say.

"Just started." Emmett said, grinning. "Wanna place a bet Mama bear?"

I laughed lightly, "Sure. $10 on USC."

Emmett scoffed, "You're going down."

I settled myself down on the couch between Emmett and Jasper. Jasper wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. "Hi baby." I whispered, reaching up and stroking his hair.

"Hi mama." He whispered quietly.

"You okay?"

He glanced towards Alice and I nodded. "I know."

Esme was watching Bella in anguish. I knew she considered Bella her child just as much as I did. Perhaps even more.

"Are you cold?" Edward asked quietly.

"I got it." Jacob got up to go sit by her and that was when Carlisle came up with a blood bag and a cup.

"Jasper, let's go on a walk." I whispered, taking him by the arm. "You too Emmett. Marcel."

They all glanced towards Carlisle and we slowly filtered out of the room.

"What are they doing?" Jasper asked quietly.

"Seeing if the baby wants blood." I whispered.

"And we're leaving because?" Emmett asked.

"Because it's human blood." I whispered again, "And I think we should just go hunt some animals, yeah?"

Jasper was clinging to mine and Alice's hands. We were out of the house soon. Seth and Leah looked up, still in wolf form. I smiled weakly. "Seth? Is the forest clear to go hunting in that direction?"

I pointed away from the cottage.

Seth whined, nodding his head.

"Good. Let's go hunt." I whispered to the others and we were gone.

------------------------

I was back at the cottage. Carlisle was sure that Bella could give birth tomorrow or a few days after. He, Esme, Marcel, Bree, and Emmett had left to get more blood for both herself, and also so that Carlisle- who hadn't hunted in a while- would be at his strongest.

I hummed my babies to sleep. They were bigger now, and they could talk. They looked to be around a year old. Caroline could even walk some. Niklaus and Samuel fell asleep almost instantly, but Caroline stayed awake.

I headed back to the house, putting Caroline to bed.

Edward, Jacob, Rosalie, Alice, and Bella were standing in the room. Alice and Rosalie were holding Bella up.

". . . hates them." Bella was saying.

"Well then I'm on your side, no matter what you picked." Jacob said with a smile.

"They're not that bad." Bella scoffed, looking at Rose. "If it's a boy, EJ. Edward Jacob."

I smiled at the smiles that were on Edward and Jacob's faces.

"Okay, fine, that one's not awful." Rosalie complained. "Why don't you tell him the girls name?"

"I was playing around with our mom's names. Renee and Davina." I felt a spark of lightning shoot through me in shock, "And I came up with Revina."

I wasn't good with that. Unfortunately, Edward heard my thoughts.

"I don't know about that one." Edward said, throwing me a look which made Bella sheepish.

"You don't like?"

"I don't like anything being named after me." I explained. "Use Esme instead."

Bella was silent for a moment and then suggested, "Renesmee."

Jacob was silent for a moment and then said, "Re-renesmee?"

I mean, it wasn't like my kids names, but I suppose we all had our own ways of naming kids.

"What?" Edward asked sharply and if there had been any colour in my face it would've disappeared.

Everyone looked from Edward to me at his sudden change in tone and posture. He was almost angry. "What was that?"

I flinched a little, staring at the ground.

"Edward?" Alice asked.

I realized Edward had never even heard that I had been pregnant- he had been with Bella at the wedding and then the honeymoon and then when he'd gotten back he almost never saw me. He still barely saw me and I realized he probably didn't even register that I was a vampire at all.

"You and Carlisle have kids?" Edward asked angrily.

I closed my eyes, "Edward-"

"That's how you became a vampire?" Edward asked.

"Yes. She had a failed pregnancy." Rosalie said quietly.

Edward looked at me. "But they're alive."

I had a headache now. Vampires could get headaches?

"Edward-"

"Where are they?" Edward asked.

I sighed, "Look, we wanted to keep them away from everyone until we figured out if they were dangerous to anyone or not."

"Back up." Jacob said sharply. "What the hell are you two talking about?"

"Carlisle and Davina had kids." Edward said. "Triplets, it sounds like. Half-vampire, half-human ones and they've been keeping them away from all of us."

Jacob, Rosalie, Bella, and Alice turned to stare at me as well. And now, suddenly, Jasper was here too, standing on the staircase behind me, listening.

"Why did you keep them a secret?" Rosalie asked, almost mad as well.

I hesitated, shifting my eyes automatically to Jacob and he softened, "Sam. You knew he might react like this."

I nodded. "We still aren't sure. . ."

"Bring them here." Bella said softly. "I want to meet them."

I hesitated, and then nodded. "Alice?"

Alice and I darted across the field, back to the cottage, stepping inside the room. I showed her to the room. "Samuel Carlisle Cullen. Niklaus Kol Cullen. Caroline Elizabeth Cullen." I whispered, pointing to each of the.

Caroline stirred, opening up her blue eyes, staring up at me. Alice inhaled quietly. "Mama!"

I smiled down at her, "Hey Care bear."

"They look like they're older than a year." Alice whispered.

I nodded, "Yes. They're only a month and a half old. . . almost two months. They seem to age much faster than humans. Caroline can already walk and well, obviously, she can talk. I don't know why. I would think being part vampire would slow the aging process but. . ."

"I wish I could see them." Alice complained slightly. "I wish I could see their futures."

I put a hand on her shoulder, "I know. I did the math. Depending on how much faster the acceleration lasts, Carlisle and I have anywhere between five and thirty-six years before they. . . aren't around."

Alice's eyes were full of pity. "I'm sorry."

I licked my lips. "I don't know. I mean, maybe eventually. . . I don't know. Do you want to help me dress them?"

"Yes." Alice's eyes lit up.

I grinned. We looked in the drawers, undressing them from their pajamas. I put the boys in Carlisle's favorite tuxedos because I figured if he was going to come home and find that I spilled the secret, they might as well be wearing his favorite thing.

For Caroline- Alice dressed her- she was wearing a red skirt and white top with red hearts on it. Alice curled her hair between her fingers before putting her in black dress shoes. "She looks adorable!"

I smiled gently. "We should feed them before we-"

Suddenly, a wolves howl broke out through the air. Fear shot through me as I stared into Caroline's eyes. I looked at Alice, "Stay here. Keep them safe."

Without waiting for her to listen or reply, I darted back out the door, zooming across the forest to the front of the house, darting up the stairs to find the others.

"What happened?" I asked, smelling blood. Jasper was in the other room, clenching his hands down on a chair.

Rosalie and Jacob were nowhere to be found.

"Bella gave birth." Jasper said through gritted teeth. "Bella's dead. Jacob's outside."

I darted over to him, wrapping my arms around him, "Jasper, breathe. Inhale my scent. Everything is okay. Where's Carlisle?"

"Still out with the others."

"Jasper! Alice! Davina!" Edward shouted. His voice didn't sound good.

Jasper and I met Edward in the front of the house. "The wolves are coming to kill the baby." Edward said. "Renesmee."

I swallowed hard and Edward's eyes darted to me, "If you can't fight-"

"Let me meet them." I pleaded. "Let me try and change their minds. Please Edward."

"Let her." Jasper said. "She might be able to. Where's Alice?"

"I told her to stay at the cottage." I told him. "I wouldn't go there right now. I don't want them to follow you."

He nodded.

I took in a shaky breath and walked out the doors to stand in front of the house. Jacob was inside now, upstairs somewhere. I could hear the wolves coming and on instinct, I slipped my finger into the birdbath near the front of the stairs.

The purpose was solely to take the water and make the sign of Christ on my forehead, chest, and bare shoulders. Instead, I felt a power sweep through me, the water dancing through my fingertips, and dancing along my arms.

I didn't let the energy go, instead, letting it rise, calling for more water, and creating a barrier between the forest and the house. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt natural. It was exhausting, but not to hard that I couldn't keep it up.

I swallowed as the wolves came to a stop in front of me, Sam leading. We stared at each other for a long time while the other wolves' eyes looked up at the water shield. One of them lunged before anything else could happen.

The water shifted, becoming a wave that lifted the wolf off his feet before setting him down, almost gently back in the line.

Sam snarled at me and I shook my head sadly. "Don't Sam. Don't make me do this."

None of the wolves seemed very enthusiastic about this except the two on the right- Brady and Collin.

I licked my lips which were suddenly dry. Well no wonder so much water had appeared. I was literally draining my own water source. The headache in my head seemed to get worse and my legs seemed to get weaker, buckling. But I stayed standing, keeping the water shield up. If they couldn't get past it- good.

Sam whined, sounding worried.

It made sense now- the blood. I must always be picking water out of the blood. I was always picking water out of everything. When I had woken up, the most prominent smell had been seawater. I had always loved water. My first memory of my life was being baptized. Water.

I tried calling water from the stream, hoping that it would relieve me of something. Maybe some of my natural waters would flow back into my body.

My vision was going blurry, my stomach churning. I was going to be sick- if I could be.

"Davina!"

My eyes darted to where Carlisle, Esme, Marcel, Bree, and Emmett had pulled up to a stop, gauging between the wolves and me. Bree immediately hid behind Emmett, hiding her from view of the werewolves.

"Davina stop." Carlisle warned me, realizing what was happening once he looked at my face. "Davina stop you're burning yourself up!"

But I couldn't, the shield was becoming bigger now, swelling to start covering the entire house. The stream was here.

Carlisle P.O.V.

I had no idea how she was doing it. But I could tell that the water she was using was from her own resources.

"Davina please." I pleaded as the water grew larger, surrounding the house. Sam stepped forward and a wave of water pushed him back gently. Davina collapsed to her knees, but she continued on the shield.

"Carlisle she's going to die." Esme said.

I couldn't let that happen.

I rushed forward, grabbing her around the neck, slamming her head down on the deck stairs. Her skin broke a little and her concentration was lost. Water slammed down on the deck, coating us and the wolves in water.

The wolves whined as I scooped Davina up, bringing her into my arms. The cracks formed again and she opened her eyes dazedly, "Did we win? Sam's alright, right?"

I glanced up at Sam who didn't seem very eager to respond. Davina's eyes fluttered shut. I realized that she had zero nutrients in her. No blood. No water. Nothing.

"Emmett, I need blood." I whispered. "She needs blood. She needs it now."

Emmett nodded but before he could move, the wolves snarled at him.

Jasper and Edward were on the porch now.

And then suddenly, there was a small pop and a voice that electrified my nerves rang out, "Daddy!"

I looked up sharply as the wolves growled. "Caroline, what-"

"Carlisle I'm sorry." Alice said, dashing from the way the cottage was, holding Samuel and Niklaus in her arms. "She teleported. I didn't know where she was going and-" Alice stopped, her eyes landing on Davina's frame. Her breathing was shallower.

Caroline looked at the wolves with her blue eyes. "Puppies."

One of the wolves let out a snort. Suddenly, Seth and Leah were there too, eyeing the wolves warily.

Seth inched his way over to me before turning his back on the wolves, "Carlisle, what's wrong with her?"

"She needs blood." I murmured frantically, thinking back to that TV show she loved. How I wished I could just bite my wrist and give it to her. But our life didn't work that way.

And then the smell of wolf blood filled the air and I looked around frantically and saw that Seth had cut his own arm, putting his blood into Davina's mouth.

One of the wolves snarled in rage, lunging forward. Leah met it, tossing it off the side, snarling at the wolves. Emmett and the others took up defensive positions.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the wolves changing, stumbling forward before falling to his knees. Seth and I both looked over as Davina started to move.

"Embry." Seth whispered.

The boy that Seth had called 'Embry' was staring straight at Bree.

The wolves started to back away, except for Sam, who phased and rushed to Davina's side, knocking Seth's arm out of the way.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"Embry imprinted on one of your coven members." Sam muttered darkly, but his eyes were caring as he stared frantically at Davina, holding her face in his hands. "Your coven is off limits now."

Alice rushed the children inside. Jasper followed her quickly.

Jacob came running out at that moment. "It's over!"

Everyone looked up at him except Sam and I.

"What did you do?" Edward snarled.

"I imprinted on Renesmee. She's off limits now." Jacob said.

"I guess tonight's the night for imprinting." Seth said, sounding sad about it. Sam turned, "Go back. We're done here."

The wolves turned tail except for a chocolate one who nudged Embry who still wasn't moving.

Davina gasped, waking up. Her eyes flew from mine, to Sam's, to Seth's. "C-Carlisle."

"You're alright. I'm so sorry." I whispered, taking her into my arms. "You were killing yourself."

"I had to protect you." She whispered and I saw Sam flinch.

"Davina. . ." Sam whispered. "I'm so sorry. Jared said. . . Jared told us that Renesmee had killed Bella. It was our duty as a tribe."

"Stop." Davina whimpered. "You sound like him."

Sam flinched again.

"Your duty as a tribe. Your duty to Allah, just stop." Davina said.

Oh. She was comparing Sam to Azim. No wonder Sam was flinching.

"We were only coming for. . . what did Jacob say her name was?" Sam asked quietly.

"R-Renesmee." Davina whispered, clinging to me.

"We only wanted her. Everyone else was safe. I swear it on my life."

The oath meant something to Davina because she pulled back, staring at him, eyes wavering. "Are you being truthful?"

"Yes." Sam whispered, reaching his hand out, but not touching her. Davina leaned forward and he rested his hand on her head, "I'm sorry." He whispered. "We're never going to fight you. Ever again. That, I swear on my life."

"Umm, Davina." Marcel's voice cut through anything and we turned to see that Embry was still on his knees and Bree was gazing back with equal intensity.

"Ah." Davina whispered. "Bree."

Bree snapped her head towards Davina. Davina struggled to her feet- which worried me as she was a vampire. . .supposed to be anyways- and then walked towards Bree. "Embry come here."

Embry got to his feet, walking towards the two of them. "Embry, this is Bree. Bree, this is Embry. Embry, as a werewolf, imprints on the person who is his soulmate. You, Bree, are his soulmate."

In undertone, I asked Sam, "How is that relationship going to work?"

"I have no idea." Sam replied.

The tension in the air was still thick.

"So. . . Davina has kids?" Sam asked heavily.

"Yes. They're like Bella's child. She wanted to tell everyone they were dead. Thought it would make it easier. And she was scared of how you would react." I glanced over at him serenely. I wasn't even mad with him. Half of my own coven wanted to kill the baby and if I had known while Davina was pregnant, I probably would've been liked Edward.

Sam hung his head, "I. . . I am sorry. I know that means nothing at this point but-"

"It's alright." I said quietly.

Leah and Seth had gotten back into clothes.

"Hey mom!" Seth called and Davina broke away from where Bree and Embry were tentatively talking.

"Yeah?"

"Can we meet your kids?"

"Oh." Davina said in surprise, "Sure. Alice!"

Alice appeared at the door with Jasper. They put the kids down next to Davina's feet.

At the same time, Caroline, Seth, Samuel, and Leah all fell to their knees, just staring at each other.

"What in the world?" Davina breathed.

I looked at Sam.

"They've. . . all imprinted." Sam questioned.

"OH!" Davina breathed out.

Everyone that was able to looked at her. "I understand now."

"What?" Alice asked.

"They're half werewolf, half vampire." Davina breathed. "And I'm half werewolf. . .that's why the blood doesn't taste good to me. And it's why I prefer the herbivores like deer and rabbits over meat eaters. . . because of the wolf instinct. Wolves will take down deer and rabbits, but not cougars or bears. And if the werewolf gene went to them, then they would imprint too."

"That's why your self control is amazing." Jasper noted, "Because of the werewolf side protecting humans."

"And the smell." I said. "Because your half werewolf, half vampire and won't bother either side now."

Davina was beaming. "I'm so happy they found their imprintees!"

"What are their names?" Leah asked.

"I'm Samuel." Our son said and Sam's head jerked to Davina.

Davina blushed, "His name is Samuel Carlisle."

"You named him. . . after me?" Sam sounded confused.

Davina threw her arms around him, "I love you Sammy. You know that."

Sam nodded, tears falling down his face, "Davina, I'm so sorry. So so sorry."

"I know. It's okay."

"I'm Caroline." Caroline said sweetly to Seth.

"Well this is fun." Jacob muttered, turning human again, finding clothes. "We all imprinted on the children of vampires."

'THOSE DOGS CAN'T HAVE IMPRINTED ON OUR CHILDREN! IT'S NOT ALLOWED! THEY AREN'T ALLOWED TO DATE PERIOD! THEY'RE TOO YOUNG! NO NO NO ABSOLUTELY NOT!'

Lord raged around inside of me and I was having a hard time fighting it.

"What's your name?" Caroline continued asking sweetly and I fought Lord down. If I hurt Seth, it would hurt Caroline and vice versa.

"I'm Seth." Seth said with a grin.

Sam wrapped his arms around Davina, pulling her close. "I need to get back to the pack, inform them. I'll see you later."

Davina nodded, "Sam, I still love you."

"I love you too. So much." Sam kissed the top of her head before turning to Jacob, "We need to talk soon."

"Agreed." Jacob said.

"Embry, come on." Sam called out. Embry kissed the back of Bree's hand, grinning. I think if Bree could, she would be blushing. Embry ran after Sam and they were gone.

Davina and I looked at each other, exhaustion riddled on both of our faces.

"What's the third kids name?" Alice asked. I had honestly forgotten her and Jasper were still standing there.

"Niklaus Kol." Davina said with a grin. "Powerful hybrid baby."

Jasper rolled his eyes. Somewhere upstairs Emmett laughed loudly.

"Let's go back to the cottage?" I suggested.

Davina looked over and said, "Agreed. But I think the kids should stay here."

I looked at Leah's face, finally happy for once as she held Samuel in her arms. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that her soulmates name was Sam too. But she didn't seem to care.

"Come on." Davina said softly, taking my hand, "We need a night of our own."

"Agreed." I whispered, leaning in to kiss her. And then I took her into my arms and we were gone.

[justmoreocs-writing]

Eddie was gone. It was the simple truth of the matter and Belle couldn’t quite accept that. Couldn’t believe that the ever lively presence of Eddie Munson wasn’t a mere phone call away. They’d wasted time. Time that there’d been far too little of. But hindsight wasn’t going to change things; Belle knew that better than anyone.

‘Robin said you’d be here.’ Mia’s voice was soft, tentative even. The affection behind Robin’s name was something that almost brought a smile to Belle’s lips. But not quite. It battled against the sadness and loss. The raging sea of grief too much for even that kindness.

Belle didn’t look up from the wooden table of the bench. The bench where she and Eddie had spent so much time trying to revise. Or at least, that had been the intention. Revision usually got pushed aside for random conversations, with Eddie trying to learn the truth about her time away. With her wanting desperately to tell him but worrying that it would ruin whatever was between them.

Mia settled herself on the other side, shifting the bench ever so slightly as she did so.

‘How’s Max?’ Belle asked, hearing the hollowness of her own voice. She wanted to check in with all of them, wanted to see Dustin especially. But she couldn’t. She wanted to be there for them, rather than wallowing in her own grief of the whole situation.

‘Tink,’ Mia said softly, making Belle flinch. The nickname felt wrong without the other part of it. The Lost Boys without Peter. ‘My mom once said,’ Mia began as Belle closed her eyes, as she took a breath, ‘that writing letters helps.’

‘With what?’ Belle slowly looked up. There wasn’t pity behind Mia’s gaze, rather concern. Concern for the distance Belle had put between herself and the others.

Mia made a gesture around them, as if it could encompass everything that they’d been through because words couldn’t. ‘If there’s anything that you didn’t say, or…’

Belle hastily wiped away a stray tear, looked away from Mia. Crying didn’t bother her. What bothered her was knowing that Eddie wouldn’t have wanted sadness. He’d have wanted things filled with laughter and togetherness. He’d have wanted joy. A celebration of everything.

She’d let him down by not rallying with the others to achieve that.

‘Just…’ Mia carefully unloaded some paper and a pen onto the bench from her bag. She offered Belle a small smile before standing up. ‘It might help.’

Belle wetted her lips. She wanted to say something, to thank Mia. But the words caught in her throat. So instead all she did was nod.

A brief smile, an acceptance of thanks, and then Mia was gone. Probably to check in with Robin again. To check Steve was OK. To hold the others together because that’s what they’d all been trying to do since.

With a trembling hand, Belle took up the pen and shifted the paper so she could write on it properly. But where to begin?

Dear…

The pen paused over the paper.

Dear honey, she wrote, the onetime nickname she’d murmured while half asleep had brought such a smile to his face that she couldn’t not use it. Not this time. Not knowing that she should have said it more so he knew the truth was a regret she had to live with.

I miss you.

She paused again before scribbling the words out.

My writing’s almost as bad as yours with this. But, you could probably understand it still.

You are a hero, Edward Munson. One of the greatest around. You helped so many people, and I’m not sure you know it.

I should have told you that more. Should have reminded you bravery’s about more than willingness to fight; to put yourself in danger for others. It’s about showing kindness even in the face of adversity. The little moments of making people realise they matter, even when the world around them might try to keep them down.

Belle stopped once more, hastily dabbed dry the paper where a tear had fallen to smudge her words.

I should’ve spent more time with you when I came back to Hawkins.

But, the time I did spend with you meant more to me than you know. I should have told you that, should have made you realise how much I love you.

Belle went to continue, but her attention drifted back to those words. The truth they held was something that made her breath hitch. Had he known? Did he realise just how much he really meant to her?

I love you.