#just had a coffee on an empty stomach and. hoo boy

[unbloodiedmartyr]

(with the tone of a withered old man on the back porch in a rocking chair staring wistfully out into the woods) oh how i miss those good old days when i could shotgun 3 energy drinks and not feel a thing. didnt keep me awake, mind you, but it was a good bit. now a single oat milk iced latte will make my heart beat so fast you'd swear i just saw ronald regan raised from the dead! ah, the perils of age

[masterkief]

my friend asked for this and I honestly don’t feel like there are enough of these so...enjoy?? I’m sorry if it’s long, once I start I can’t stop 😢

pls b gentle it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything

- -

~ Game night? Your crib?

Taking myself away from the Twitter post I was zoned out on, I opened the text I had been waiting for.

~ Hell yeah! Beer, wine, or whiskey?

Before even locking my phone, it vibrated again.

~ Why not all three ;)?

Grinning like an overexcited kid to myself, I immediately replied.

~ You tryna get me drunk Magee? ;)

He started typing almost...too quickly.

~ Will it make you fall in love w/ me already?

My chest suddenly swelled and got heavy, my heart fluttering with nerves. Was I stroking out?

~ You wish. I’ll see ya at 8.

After sending the last text, I plugged my phone in and rushed to the bathroom to shower..not waiting for him to reply.

- -

It was a tweet...that’s how it started. I made a simple shitpost on Twitter about Ryan never expecting a reply and now here we are 4 months later staying true to our routine game nights.

- -

Just as I was mentally cursing Ryan out for not being punctual, a knock came from the other side of my apartment door. The abrupt interruption rattled my core and it took me a moment before I finally brought myself to go answer it.

“Jesus christ Y/N.” Ryan groaned, pushing past me. “Took ya long enough.”

Rolling my eyes I let the door swing shut, mouthing “Gee Ryan, come on in” mockingly.

“You’re late.” I scolded following him into the kitchen, “So don’t give me any shit.”

I watched as he helped himself to my fridge, putting his case of beer inside. Crossing my arms, I leaned against the door frame.

“Planning on staying long I see.” I implied with a smirk about the copious amount of beer.

Ryan turned towards me, his eyes low. He was stoned, no wonder he took so long.

“Girl we got lots of weed to smoke and Halo to play.” He said with his heart melting chuckle. “I just came prepared!”

God I loved smoking pot with Ryan. He always got so lovey-dovey and was even more giggly than usual. We had been having “game night” on Thursday’s religiously ever since we found out we lived in the same city. We grew close super fast, but it wasn’t completely unbelievable. Our personalities meshed perfectly and damn if that boy didn’t know exactly how to make my stomach cramp up from laughter.

“I was gonna suggest smoking before we started, but by the looks of it you pre-gamed.” I snorted as I poured myself a glass of wine.

Ryan raised an eyebrow and scoffed as if what I said offended him. I looked up from my glass and smirked.

“Ryan your eyes are as red as the devil’s dick.” I stated, hiding a laugh as I watched him mindlessly interact with my cat.

“Ya know, Church would never disrespect me the way you do Y/N.” He muttered, scratching behind my fur kids ear. “Would ya Church?”

Rolling my eyes (again), I grabbed my glass of Cab and sauntered over towards Ryan.

“Yeah well Church licks his own ass so he’s not the best judge of character.” I whispered in his ear as I passed him. “Now let’s go Magee the bedroom awaits!”

Ryan grabbed at his heart and sucked in a sharp breath of air.

“Ohhhh-wee Y/N, I love when you say that.”

I pretended to vomit and punched his bicep before leading the way to my room.

“You’re so lucky I’m desperate for friends.” I joked.

- -

My poor bong had finally been spent after being passed between the two of us over and over again. With heavy eyes I suggested we head back to the living room and after a very odd 5 minutes of silence, Ryan escaped whatever thought he had gotten lost in and followed me from my room.

“So,” Ryan exhaled, flopping down onto the couch. “I kick your ass THEN we do shots? Orrr do you wanna do shots first to lighten the blow which is me kicking your ass?”

“I fucking hateeee you.” I moaned, putting my hands around his throat to imitate choking him.

Ryan swatted my hands away, grabbing my wrists when I tried to resist.

God I was too stoned for him to be touching me this way...

“Even your cat knows that isn’t true.” He giggled not letting go of my wrists. “You love me.”

Fighting through his firm grip, I managed to lightly slap his face.

“Again,” I started as I finally pulled my hands from him. “He licks his own ass.”

I readjusted myself on the couch before waving my empty glass in his face.

“How about we do shots before and after I kick your ass?” I suggested after a new, overwhelming veil of awkwardness draped over us.

What the hell was that?

Ryan snickered as he stood up and stretched before going to retrieve the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. I watched him intently. I watched how his muscles moved under his skin as he gravitated around my kitchen as if it were his own. I watched as he turned to come back to the living room too, his eyes widening slightly when they caught mine; a slight red color covering both our cheeks.

Wtf was in that weed he brought?

Silence once again filled the apartment so much so that I thought my walls might burst. Ryan sat next to me and placed the bottle on the coffee table. Not wanting to meet his gaze awkwardly again, I opted to keep my eyes focused on the whiskey.

“Hey Y/N,” Ryan’s breath was warm against my ear. “Maybe if you stare at it hard enough it’ll open and pour itself.”

Fuck he always knew how to lighten the mood. Without a word I slowly turned my head in his direction. My eyes were heavier than ever, the weed and booze hitting like a brick wall. Though they were low, they instinctively searched his face; a warm ness radiated from him. His goofy half smile...his eyes heavy and glossed over. He glanced at my lips then put his eyes back up to mine; our faces closer than I remembered.

“Fuck,” I blinked slowly. “You. Magee.”

His eyes widened briefly before his laugh erupted through the room; jolting me back to reality.

With all but 10 words being spoken between the two of us, we did our shots and finally started playing. It felt as if nothing leading up to this moment had even happened. All of the awkwardness and tension vanished as our game night continued on normally...Ryan cursing me to hell for killing him, swearing it was his controllers fault and me once again dominating him. It wasn’t until we stumbled back into my bedroom to smoke again that things got “weird” again.

“Y/N...” He trailed off, his voice breaking.

My brows furrowed and I turned away from my nightstand to face Ryan. He suddenly looked disheveled and dare I say...nervous?

“What?” I questioned. “Ryan what’s wrong?”

He was balancing his weight between both feet, rocking himself side to side subconsciously. Narrowing my eyes I slowly stepped towards him.

“Ry what’s going on?” I asked, waving my hand in his face to bring him back to earth.

He said nothing and it was starting to worry me.

“Yoo-hoo..center command to Ry-...”

I was cut short when Ryan grabbed my wrist again, pulling me into him..his mouth meeting mine.

Holy fucking shit

His free hand went to the back of my head so that I couldn’t pull away; his fingers tangling themselves in my hair. The warmth he was radiating earlier was now filling my insides. I was melting into him. We stayed that way for what felt like an eternity but not long enough at the same time. Overcome by emotions I pulled away from him.

“Ryan I...I..” My words were caught in my throat, and unexpected tears stung the corners of my eyes. “Fuck. I love you, I fucking love you.”

When he didn’t reply my insides now filled with dread; instant regret.

I’m never smoking again.

After a minute, Ryan’s lips pulled upward revealing the smile that could save lives. His fingers that remained locked in my hair began massaging my scalp comfortingly. His laugh was soft and almost inaudible.

“I knew drinking all 3 would convince you to fall in love with me.” He whispered, referencing his text from earlier.

It took me a second but my body finally relaxed into his again.

“Yeah sure Magee.” I cooed against his lips before leaving a light peck on them. “But I’m still not letting you win next round.”

He chuckled again and playfully slapped my ass.

“I don’t know Y/N.” He brushed my hair from my face and booped my nose. “I’d say I just won.”

[petrichoravellichor]

The Dead Man Lives, Carry On

For Day 2 of the Supernatural Deserved Better Creative Challenge (prompt: Dean is bisexual)

Rating: T

Characters: Dean Winchester x 2, Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Jenny

Relationships: Dean Winchester & Dean Winchester (yes, you read that right), background implied Destiel

Summary: It’s one thing to tell yourself you’re bi. It’s a whole other thing to involve time travel. Then again, when has Dean Winchester ever done things the easy way? OR, the one in which a certain side character from season 1 gets dead a whole heck of a lot sooner. You’re welcome.

A/N: This is set near the end of 01x20, “Dead Man’s Blood,” immediately following the scene on the highway in which Dean, Sam, and John kill most of the vampires and a certain, apparently important one, manages to escape. (Well, initially, at least...)

(Read on Ao3)

********************

With the Colt recovered, most of the vamps dispatched, and the remaining two—Jenny and Kate, Dean remembered vaguely—having fled the scene, it was time to head back to the motel and catch some much-needed rest.

Sam left with John, the latter managing only a half-hearted protest as the former installed himself firmly in the driver’s seat of John’s truck and said they could fight about it later, because right now, John most likely had a concussion and was not fit to drive. John scowled, but, apparently realizing his only option was to drag Sam bodily from the vehicle, eventually sighed and stomped around to the passenger side. Dean watched with a bitten-back smirk as the truck’s tail lights faded into the distance, then slid into Baby’s driver seat and started the ignition.

It was rough between those two. It always had been, but they were talking, at least, and hey, that was a start. Food would probably help. Dean remembered a burger joint he’d seen a few miles up the road, and his stomach growled. Yeah, burgers sounded good. He’d swing by and grab them all some food, then double back to the motel. Easy-peasy.

Two minutes later, he was driving down the dark highway, bopping his hands on the steering wheel and singing along to a classic rock song, when all of a sudden, there was a man in the middle of the freaking road.

“SHIT!” Dean slammed on the breaks, heart leaping to his throat as Baby skidded to a halt not ten feet away from the man who, although he’d thrown his arms up in an apparent, instinctual attempt at self-defense, was still standing and thus unharmed.

Dean sank back against the seat, hands still white-knuckled around the steering wheel. Fuck, that had been close: he’d nearly killed the guy. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then undid his seatbelt and jumped out of the car. “Hey man, I’m sorry, I didn’t even...even see…” Dean trailed off, eyes widening as the other man lowered his arms and Dean realized what, or rather, who, he was looking at. “What the fuck?”

It...it was him. Dean. Well, him, Dean plus a decade or so, judging by the crow’s feet around the eyes, but still, him, Dean. Or at least, some kind of other Dean. Standing not ten feet in front of him. Armed with a machete that was dripping blood.

Instinctively, Dean leapt back and drew his gun, pointing it directly at the other Dean’s heart. “Don’t move!”

He half expected the other Dean to attack despite the order, charging forward like some kind of rabid drone, but...no. In fact, the other Dean didn’t look rabid at all; if anything, he looked...mildly annoyed?

Dean cocked his gun. “What are you?”

The other Dean sighed. “Ah, shit.” He closed his eyes and, with the hand not holding the machete, reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Okay, um...this is awkward. Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping to avoid all this, but hey, so it goes, am I right?” He lowered his hand and flashed a sheepish grin. “So...yeah. Hi. Now then, why don’t you do us both a huge favor and just,” he waved the machete at Baby, “get back in the car, and we can forget you ever saw me.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, not happening.” He gestured with his gun. “Drop the machete.”

“Dude, come on, I’m not gonna hurt you. Trust me, I have a vested interest in keeping you alive, so—”

BLAM! Dean’s warning shot hit the pavement a few feet away, causing the other him to jump back with a startled expletive. “I said drop it!”

“Fuck, fine, don’t get your freaking panties in a bunch, jeez!” He tossed the machete to the ground. “There. Happy?”

“Gettin’ there.” Keeping his aim steady, Dean crept over and kicked the machete to the side of the road, then turned his full attention back to the other him. “Okay, I’m gonna ask you again. What the hell are you? Some kinda shifter or something?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m you, dumbass.”

Dean scoffed. “Bullshit.”

“No, seriously, I’m actually you. Well, I mean, I was you, and now I’m me, but...yeah, I’m also you. You know.” He gestured irritably. “From the future.”

“From the…? The hell do you mean, from the future? What, like...like time travel or some shit?”

“Yep, pretty much.”

Dean scowled. “There’s no such thing!” he said, at which point the other him burst out laughing. “Hey, hey! Cut the crap, man, this ain’t a joke!”

“Ha, ah, sorry, you’re right, you’re right. Not a joke.” The other Dean held up his hands in a sign of surrender, smirking. “Just...do me-slash-us a favor and remember you said that, okay? Promise it’ll get funnier with time.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure it’ll be freaking hilarious,” Dean snapped. This whole situation was batshit insane, and if he actually let himself believe what the other him was saying, that’d make him certifiable. It...it was a trick, it had to be. Crap like this didn’t just...it wasn’t real, damn it, it couldn’t be! And yet…

And yet he and his brother had literally grown up hunting things that weren’t supposed to be real, damn it, so if there was even the slightest chance this wasn’t all completely crazy, then…

Dean swore loudly and lowered his gun, but only slightly. “Okay,” he said after a minute. He took a breath to steady himself and leveled the other him with a glare. “Let’s say I believe you...me...whatever. If you’re me from the future, what the hell are you doing here?”

The other Dean raised his brows. “Just tyin’ up a loose end.” He gestured at the side of the road, and for the first time, Dean noticed the skid marks disappearing into ruined underbrush. “Go ahead, see for yourself.”

Dean hesitated; then, carefully, he sidestepped over to the edge of the road and peered down into the brush.

Almost immediately, he recognized the getaway car the two surviving vampires, Jenny and Kate, had sped off in. It was about ten feet from the road, the front hood smashed against a giant pine, and through the broken-out back window, Dean could just make out the two now-headless torsos still strapped in the front seat. He turned back to the other him, stunned. “What the...”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Dean chewed his tongue, adjusting his grip on the gun and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This was...it didn’t make any sense. “What are you?” he asked again, although this time it wasn’t fear but something akin to wonder in his tone. “How did...are you...am I like, my own sort of guardian angel or something?”

The other him let out a low chuckle. “Believe me, man, we ain’t no angel, not by a long shot.” He smiled softly. “But I do have one to get back to. He’s probably gonna wake up soon, and if you think we’re impossible without coffee in the morning, hoo-boy, just you wait.” He shook his head fondly. “Damn boyfriend’d probably sleep till noon if I let him.”

Dean gaped. “You—I—We have a boyfriend?”

“Well, yeah man, we’re bi as fuck.” The other Dean shot him a look. “Oh come on, don’t act like you don’t know. I know for a fact you do, because I knew back when I was you. Just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet is all.”

“Not ready to…?” Dean’s mind was positively reeling. He lowered the gun and took a step forward, desperate for answers. “Dude, what in the hell—”

“And with that, I think it’s time I bid you-slash-me a very fond farewell.” The other Dean gave him a grin and a salute, then looked skyward. “Okay, kid, all set. Take me home.”

And before Dean could ask who the other him was talking to, the other Dean vanished without a trace and left Dean gaping at the empty road, trying and failing to make sense of what had just happened. “He—I—son of a bitch...”

Fuck burgers, he thought as he climbed back into Baby; this called for fucking booze.

[deniigi]

@pomegranate-belle and @puffins-studio have kindly convinced me to share with you all this little bit.

It’s of Electric Sheep but if Android Matt had a Mike who’s been looking for him since they were separated as youths (right before Matt started to become an android)

Title: Seventeen years

Summary: bounty hunter Mike has been taking jobs in nyc, searching for his lost twin. A chance encounter with a blonde woman who steals his heart helps him find him.

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

Seventeen years, ten months, 18 days.

Mike had lived out of the city longer than in it. Rochester was as close as he’d gotten in foster care, but work had dragged him through occasionally, and frankly he was grateful for it.

He’d told himself seventeen years ago that he’d get back.

So here he was, reflecting on life outside the cell of a guy screaming bloody murder.

Dude was a bot-trafficker.

The shit made some serious dough, Mike had seen it himself. But you know what else made some serious dough? Bounty hunting. I.e. Catching the people who got pissed off about other people makin’ some serious dough.

These days, they were all bot-traffickers. Mike could barely remember a time when he was chasing jewel thieves and counterfeiters down alleys anymore. It was all bot-this and bot-that—which, to be fair, was kind of the same thing as a jewel thief.

Property was where the real money was at. And bots? Hoo boy, the best kind could cost a penthouse.

Mike thought it was good for them that they had no idea how much they were worth. He found it kinda sweet if he was honest. This screamin’ bot dude’s collection of androids were all tucked up against each other in the other room, performing ‘maintenance’ on each other like a pile of cats. They were community-minded, bless ‘em. It made Mike smile a little bit.

Of course, so did the paycheck.

Yeah, the paycheck helped, too.

 --

 He got a job for the city. He took it without asking too many questions.

It didn’t matter how much city jobs paid, Mike always went ready for a double-shift there.

The last time he’d seen Matt had been when their social workers had untangled their hands at St. Agnes. Both of them had been wailing like toddlers, like they had been in front of Dad’s casket.

Up until that point, everyone had assured them that they’d be kept together—that no one was going to try to separate them. They were twins. People would understand that you couldn’t just take the one and leave the other. They had an unbreakable and psychic bond, clearly.

But then one day the social worker hadn’t answered Matt’s question when he’d asked about it again, seeking reassurance.

Mike’s stomach had dropped then. And sure enough, the next thing they knew, people were throwing around words like ‘specialty care’ and ‘high-risk’ and ‘better in the long-run.’

Mike had gone to a foster home screaming and fighting in the back of a sedan. Matty stayed behind, allegedly to be placed in some kind of group home with more ‘supportive’ care.

That was seventeen years ago--almost eighteen years ago.

Mike only knew what Matt looked like these days because he shaved every morning in the bathroom mirror. But, he told himself, not for much longer.

He hadn’t become a bounty hunter for the looks. He’d done it for the money and the job experience. Could he track a criminal? Hell yeah. He’d been one. He knew how they thought. More importantly: could he track a brother?

He could, actually. He was a Murdock; he knew how they thought.

 --

 The job in the city was whatever. Took half an hour and a big smile to corner the gal like a rat. She went to the highest bidder; Mike went back out on the prowl.

Chances were that Matt would be drawn to Hell’s Kitchen. And chances were that he would be searching for Mike as Mike was for him. He was an idealist like that. Like Mike.

Awwww. Old habits die hard.

 --

 Hell’s Kitchen had changed over the years, but it still felt like home when Mike put a foot in the boundaries. He knew these stoops and all these torn posters. He knew that skyline and that raggedy flag pole.

The names on the businesses changed—some got new lights, some got new windows, but all in all, the feel was still there.

 --

 He set out to find Matt in the old, old haunts. Stopped by the church. The old kids’ home. They still hadn’t seen him, no, Mike. Sorry, my son.

He took a waltz down memory lane by the docks.

He found the greasiest looking coffee shop he could and sat at a sticky table, people-watching through the huge half-wall windows for about an hour.

Nothin’ yet.

His coffee was cold when he left.

  --

He ran into a girl at a bar that night under green and red neon lights. They danced close. She told him he reminded her of someone she knew, and Mike thought that that was just a lovely coincidence, sugar, wasn’t it?

He invited her to his hotel room. She accepted.

He woke up to waves of amber grain strewn across this pillow, sticking to his lips, and the smell of something powdery and floral in the endless line of this lady’s neck.

God, she was like a swan. Mike ought to buy her breakfast.

He did because he was a gentleman. He left to go grab a sandwich from the bodega outside but came back to find the bed and the room empty. There was a little note on the pad next to the bed that said ‘thanks, handsome’ with a smile face next to it and a number.

He eased himself down on to the bed and stuffed a sandwich in his mouth to grin around.

  --

Her name was Karen.

It wasn’t their last night. Mike saw her when she was in the city and they had a well-worn routine after a few months.

Every time, a new bar, a new club, a new drink. But the same dance and then the same chase and collapse.

She told him nothing about herself, and he loved that about her. She passed fingers through his hair. She trailed them across his jaw, bristly stubble or no.

And then the next morning, she was gone, and Mike was sighin’ like a blue bird in spring.

 --

 Valentine’s Day found Mike in the city. He didn’t delude himself with thinking that Karen was available—he wasn’t that full of it.

But he did think that even a lady as lovely and possibly taken as Karen deserved a bouquet of flowers from a ‘friend.’ So he took a meander down to a wholesaler and chatted up one of the makers until a collection of spring tulips graced by baby’s breath found their way into his hands.

Karen, he suspected, worked somewhere in an office. Her ever-present, practical pencil skirt said so, and the way that she frequented Josie’s told him that she lived in the area around 9th and 52nd.

It wasn’t hard to snoop. It wasn’t hard to trawl through the local business websites in that area, peeking at staff pages until low and behold, the golden grail herself appeared smiling on try number 7.

He smiled back at her photo and went back to get the name of the place and the address only to pause in his tracks.

Nelson & Murdock.

Karen worked at a law firm called Nelson & Murdock.

Huh.

Well. Good for that Murdock. Mike hoped he was out when he brought these flowers in.

 --

 The firm was dinky and crammed up two flights of stairs across from an orthodontist’s office. Mike pitied Karen for having to spend her days watching droves of traumatized middle schoolers leave that place with wires crammed in their faces. The flowers even looked like they were wilting in the hallway.

Mike gave them a pep talk on his way to the door.

He knocked but no one answered, so he turned the knob and a handful of people where sat looking nervous in the waiting area. The front desk was empty. Abandoned.

Oh, Karen.

Ever at work like you are at play.

Mike made his way over the desk and caught sight of a familiar fluffy little ball on a keychain at the edge of the desk.

It was adorable.

He found a scrap of paper by the phone, reached over and snagged it and a pen to leave a little love note when he felt a tug at his elbow.

He forced down the irritation and turned back with a smile. An older lady with huge bifocals squinted at him.

“Mr. Murdock,” she said. “I’ve got to go move my car. Don’t you give up my place, you hear?”

Mike forced himself to hold his smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy, madam.”

Murdock must have looked smooth as hell for Mike to have been mistaken for him.

The lady squinted left, right, and center, then scoffed and pinched his arm.

“Cheeky boy,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

She left.

Mike’s brain short-circuited for another few seconds before declaring that whole situation unresolvable, bizarre, and emphatically not his problem. Sorry Nana. Go to the back of the line like everyone else.

He went back to writing his card.

“Matt?”

He didn’t mean to look up. It was a reflex, man. It came with the twin-territory, and this time it brought a moment of panic as Karen’s brow dropped stormily and her fists found her hips.

“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been calling you all morning?” she demanded.

Mike’s palms started sweating.

Did Karen? Not? Recognize him?

Had he misread this whole love affair? Or maybe it was the daylight that was confusing her?

It had to be the daylight, right?

“Matt,” Karen said, irate as could be in that pretty blue and white top. “Don’t just stand there. Say something.”

Ahahahahahaha.

Too close. Too much.

“MATT.”

Out we go, back to the hovel from which we came.

  ---

He breathed out hard in the street below and turned back to look up at the window of Nelson & Murdock. It was flung open and he didn’t give Karen the opportunity to get her nose out of it. He hurried off into the crowd, ducking and squirming until he was sure that he was good and gone from sight.

Then he found an alley to clutch at his heart in.

It had been years since someone had called him Matt. Sometimes he took the name on as a false one, when working for especially shitty shit-heads. But Karen??

Mike was positive he’d introduced himself as Mike. ‘Michael’ but more like Costello than Abbott, he’d said. Karen had laughed.

What the fuck, man? What the fuck?

He looked at the flowers in his hand.

A waste.

Hhhng. Alright, well. There was for sure to be someone needing cheering up at a bar somewhere. Might as well spare them for the Singles Awareness Gigs sure to be happening soon.

  ---

He ended up at Josie’s because he always ended up at Josie’s, but this time with barely anyone in the place at 3pm on Valentine’s Day, she actually noticed him and gave him an eyebrow. He chose to ignore it in order to wallow in self-pity and raised his glass to his lips.

It didn’t make it.

He stared in stunned silence at the hand suddenly covering his glass.

“I don’t think that’s a wise idea, pal,” Josie said.

Mike gaped at her in shock.

“I? Paid for this?” he said.

There was a long moment of awkward silence.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” Josie said. “My bad. I thought you were someone else.”

Someone else?

Someone—

WAIT.

“Someone else? Does someone who looks like me come here?” Mike blurted out with zero grace before he could stop himself. “Does he—do you know his name? Is he—does he—”

Josie frowned hard at him.

“You’re not Matt,” she said after a long moment. “I always thought you were Matt.”

Matt!!

Matty!! MATT. You little shit. You perfect, darling, little shit. Out here, comin’ to Josie’s like a chump—possible alcoholic Matt!

Okay, wait, roll that one back—one problem at a time.

“He’s my brother. I’ve been looking for him for eighteen years, we were separated in foster care—do you know where he lives?” Mike asked with no filter to be seen for miles.

Was it professional of him?

No.

But were hugs at airports ever professional? Exactly. Get off his case.

He beamed wide at Josie, but her face did not reciprocate the gesture. Actually, it seemed to be doing the opposite and that made this little squirming feeling start up in Mike’s gut.

“Christ,” Josie said. “I’m so sorry, man.”

Wh-what?

“You’re gonna need a double.”

What did that mean?

“Take this.”

No. No, what did that mean?

“Take the shot, kid. Trust me. You’re gonna need it.”

  ---

No.

Just.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Josie rubbed her fingernails against her cheek and sighed.

“His owner brings him along,” she said. “Lets him work at their law firm with him—he’s made the papers, sure, but you know. It’s all kind of colored by the fact that he can’t really do shit without permission.”

Mike rolled the tumbler in his hand around.

Nelson, eh? So called ‘owner’ of the android called Matthew Michael Murdock.

Ahahahaha.

Get ready to die, motherfucker.

“But he tries to drink—Matt does,” Mike felt himself say.

Josie didn’t want to look at him.

“Sometimes, it’s like he forgets he’s a droid,” she said. “Usually, he’s got someone with him to keep him out of trouble.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Josie said. “It’s a load of bull.”

FUCK.

He set the tumbler down.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“It’s on the house,” Josie said. “Best of luck.”

Yeah.

Thanks.

  ---

Matty was—

Matty was—

Mike made it back to his hotel room before sinking to his knees by the bed. God had never heeded his prayers before, but things were different now.

Matty couldn’t pray for the both of them anymore. He was—He was--

Mike had to—

God, please.

Please. Give him back. What once was lost had to be found.

What once was lost, God.

Mike had lost him.

He’d lost him forever.

Give him back.

 ---

 He typed Matt’s name into the search engine on his phone and made it through one whole article before he was kneeling before a much harder, much more porcelain altar.

He tried again in the bathroom this time, sat on the floor with his back against the tub.

The bot that someone had made out of Matty looked so sweet. Like Mike, but softer in the cheeks. Younger. Forever 22 or something close to it.

He was still blind, despite all his other modifications and he was a little famous in the field of robotics. Not that the bot appeared to care. The articles claimed that the bot had recovered and retained memories prior to what they kept calling his ‘transition.’

What they meant was when he’d been transformed into a human weapon. An inhuman weapon.

Matty, I’m so sorry.

 ---

 There was only so much self-pity a man could wallow in before his ass started to fall asleep. But more than that, Mike was a Murdock. The tingling in his limbs was lost to the ever-increasing roar of fire in his ears.

That bastard. That bastard lawyer.

Taking Matt after everything he’d been through and turning him into some prop to be used as a showpiece in a grand legal theatre.

Fuck no. Fuck that.

Mike wasn’t fucking this up twice.

 ---

 Nelson & Murdock was closed by the time Mike once again found himself outside its doors. He stared at the sign’s heavy black letters and gave in to the devil raging, hot, underneath the skin of his chest.

He left the shattered doorglass on the ground as he made his way to the opposite stairwell.

 ---

 Karen.

  ---

She lived nearby 9th and 52nd. She was probably going home to her handsome hubby, who’d shower her in chocolate and wine and flowers. But on the way, she’d make a stop. She was a working gal. She wouldn’t have had time to pick up a gift in return before her shift started.

Mike found her at Walgreens, talking on the phone to someone while she petted every teddy bear on the rack in front of her.

He didn’t feel sorry.

She didn’t scream when his hand found her face. He didn’t give her the chance.

  ---

He ditched the hat in the back storeroom of Walgreens and took Karen right through to the loading dock. She thrashed hard.

Mike could barely feel the movement. He was on the lookout for eyes.

An elbow found his ribs and a foot his toes before he got them far enough from view that he could let her go to readjust his grip, and when he did, he got her against a wall, panting.

This lady was tough. But in a flash, she mouth dropped open and her wrists went limp in his grip.

“Mike?” she asked after a second. “Is that you? What are you doing here? Why are you—”

“Where. Is. My brother?” Mike cut her off.

Karen recoiled until her head hit the bricks behind her.

“Your—”

“My brother Matthew,” Mike snapped.

The rush of traffic settled into the silence.

“Oh my god,” Karen whispered. “He’s your brother?”

“Yes. He is, as a matter of fact, and whatever you think you’re doing to him, I will do to you and that fucking lawyer ten times worse,” Mike said. “So you’re going to help me or I’m going to—”

“I knew I knew you.”

He felt himself go stiff.

“Matt talks like you,” Karen said softly. “Just like you.”

Wh—he did?

Karen’s fingers brushed the tops of Mike’s hands. They were cold.

“Mike,” she whispered, sounding for all the world like she was on the verge of tears, “He’s going to be so happy to see you.”

Wh—she’d—she’d take him to Matt?

“Of course,” Karen said. “He’s one of my best friends.”

They were friends? How were they friends? Was this a sick joke?

“No. It’s not. I met him years ago it’s just—I didn’t realize you were—okay, there’s just one problem,” Karen said.

 ---

 Uh?

“Sensory input! Greater than! Processing—PROCESSING—processing—”

“Matty,” Franklin Nelson said with both of his hands out in front of him. “I see that we are very excited.”

“SENSORY INPUT—”

“And I love your enthusiasm, and I know you love your enthusiasm,” Nelson continued. “But if you don’t settle down the tiniest fraction of an inch, you’re going to blow a fuse and—”

“SEN—sen-S-S-SEN—”

Uh?

“This is excited,” Karen explained while Nelson wrestled Matt into sitting for the second time since Mike had arrived at the door.

This was excited?

“He’s normally much more in tune with himself,” Karen said. “But I think you’ve jumpstarted some shit that even his additional processing power isn’t enough for.”

Additional what now?

“It’s a long story,” Karen said over the saddest sound that Mike had ever heard.

They both looked over to where Nelson had successfully gotten Matt back to sitting and was now coaching him through whatever the bot-equivalent of breathing exercises were.

“How long?” Mike asked.

Karen’s blue eyes pitied him.

 ---

 Okay, okay, okay. So. Nelson? Not a threat. Definitely a boon.

Matty?

Hng.

Heavy.

“I’ve literally never seen him this excited,” Nelson said. “And I’ve known him for seven years.”

No shit?

“No shit, we met at Columbia,” Nelson sighed. “I’m sorry about this.”

It was fine. Mike deserved this. Probably.

Jesus, what the fuck had they replaced Matt’s muscle’s with? How was he this warm and this heavy and not human all at the same time.

He’d seemed to have decided that Mike needed a full-body hug and while the first ten seconds had been cry-worthy, the last minute or so was getting a little suffocating.

“Matt, let him go,” Nelson pleaded. “He can’t breathe, bud. He’s gotta breathe, he’s not like you—”

“Subject: Mike. Michael Murdock,” Matt said brightly, scrambling off Mike out of no-fucking-where and getting way too far into Nelson’s face.

“Mike, yeah, you said,” Nelson said.

“Mike. Born October 21—”

“I get it. He’s your twin.”

“—at Metropolitan General Hospital at 11:32pm—”

“Matt,  you’re info-dumping friend, we don’t need this. We believe you. Don’t give me his social. Don’t—”

“—Social Security number 6—”

“MATT. End request. End search term. Exit page.”

Uh?

“He did this with the DA last week when he got too riled up,” Karen said sympathetically. “We have no clue where he finds it or better yet, where he even stores it.”

“—my brother, FOGGY.”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ see it, man. It’s before mine very own eyes. Y’all are identical. It’s weird.”

“I missed him.”

“Tell that to him then. Stop touching me, ew. No. Go douse him with your weird fuckin’ eye fluid—atta boy, good job—NO. NO CLIMBING.”

Mike…was not prepared for the care and keeping of Bot-Matt. He had to admit that now. All those plans of snatching Matt out of the hands of these evil, evil people were breaking up into little fragments of puzzle pieces and he’d never felt more like shit because god.

He was supposed to look after his brother, wasn’t he?

Wasn’t he?

“I’m so sorry about this,” Franklin Nelson said with Matt leaning almost completely out of his grip and making that horrible sad noise again. “But I think I’m gonna need to cool him down a bit.”

 ---

 Mike couldn’t stop rubbing at his face.

Matt was sprawled out across Nelson’s bed like he was sleeping in the sunlight. The wires plugged into the back of his neck slipped off the edge of the bed and led all the way to a laptop that was just about sweating with how hard it was working.

From the side, it looked like he was human. Absolutely, unequivocally human.

Younger than Mike now, though. Permanently halted at 24 years old. No wonder Karen hadn’t recognized Mike early on. Matty’s jaw was still slim where Mike’s had hardened square like Dad’s. The only facial hair he had was in his eyebrows and eyelashes—there was no reason to add stubble to a bot. It was just more maintenance. Just another aesthetic modification.

“I’m sorry, Mike.”

Mike turned to Nelson.

He didn’t look or talk like a single one of the bot traffickers than Mike had dragged in from the cold—and he’d done the full range of them, from the cackling madhatters to the cooing, babytalkers to the silent so-called geniuses. Nelson exhibited only exasperation.

The story that Karen told about his and her early encounters with Matt made it seem like Nelson honestly considered Matt to be human, like him. Like all of them.

“You helped him,” Mike said quietly.

“If I’d have known that he had you, then I would have helped him find you sooner,” Nelson said. “But I thought he was on his own. He never mentioned anyone else. I should have asked.”

No. No, that was—That was okay, somehow.

“We got separated a lifetime ago,” Mike said. “People thought that I’d be easier to adopt. And clearly he had other things going on.”

Nelson winced.

“That’s shit,” he said.

“And wrong,” Mike sighed. “I don’t even know what to do now. I can’t take care of him like this. I don’t know the first thing about droid maintenance or computers.”

Nelson considered him.

“Well, the good news is that you don’t have to—take care of him, I mean,” he said. “Matt takes care of himself. He’s actually really good at it when he’s not blowin’ his top about some damn thing. You’ll see when he wakes up. And on top of that, he’s already got a mechanic, so when something goes wrong that he can’t fix, we take him to Parker and he does the heavy lifting there.”

Mike swallowed.

“You guys really have it worked out,” he realized.

Nelson sighed.

“Like I said. I’ve known him for seven years. We’ve lived together ever since.”

Woah. Wait. What now?

Nelson turned exhausted eyes onto him.

“I co-signed for his loft, but he just comes and spends all his time here when he’s not out smashing faces. Claims my bed. Steals all the sun spots. Makes me only shit coffee in return.”

He—Matt—Matt had his own apartment? He could do that?

“Sure? Why not? He owns half the firm, too,” Nelson said. “I mean, they wouldn’t let me put it in his name, technically. So it’s through a wildly complicated, uh—let’s call it a ‘thing’ for simplicity’s sake. But yeah. If anything happens to me, full ownership goes to him. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s half and half. The only thing Matt can’t do is practice law on his own, so we have to double-team pretty much every case.”

Mike needed to sit down.

“Oh, for sure. Just not there. I’d recommend out of range, here. Sit here,” Nelson said.

 ---

 Matt woke up when Karen snuck around the bed to remove the wires from his neck. He scrambled up and fell right over the side of the bed onto Karen’s feet.

She swore. He groaned. Nelson pointedly did not come back into the room.

This time, though, when Matt got back up, Karen pulled him in the direction of Mike and took his wrist. She held out a hand for Mike.

Mike’s heart fluttered.

He gave it to her and Karen put his hand directly in Matt’s palm.

There was silence.

“Mikey,” Matt said after a long moment.

Mike’s eyes started burning.

“You came for me,” Matt said.

Mike couldn’t make his throat work. It took two goes to find his voice.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “I sure did.”

“You ain’t singin’, though,” Matt pointed out. “Why aren’t you singin’?”

Because he was cryin’, man. God, give a guy a break.

“Matty, what did they do to you?” he asked.

Matt made a strange sound as he mulled over the question. A kind of whirring noise.

“Made me into a droid, dumbass,” he said.

Mike laughed before he could stop himself.

“Can I have a non-lethal hug?” he asked.

Matt whirred.

“No promises,” he said.

 ----

[whitehotharlots]

Liberal cruelty has consquences

This semester is winding down. As I am desperate to avoid grading student papers, I’ve spent the morning reading longish-form online articles. I just came across one that I feel very conflicted about. The online reaction to it as been troubling. So I don’t know if I have anything particularly coherent to say, but I’d like to talk about it.

The anonymously written piece is titled “What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt Right.”  It documents a young man’s journey from a garden variety, liberal-leaning goon to a frothing neo nazi mutant.

The piece is understandably sympathetic, seeing as it was written by the boy’s parent. The writer’s whiny and heavy handed tone caused me, and most of my e-pals, to dismiss it. If anything, the essay showcases an immense failure of parenting. If my child were to ask me to take him or her to a “Traditional American Culture” rally, I would slap the everloving shit of them. Lord knows how many times the kid’s parents had dropped the ball before it ever got to that point.

But then I re-read the start of the article, in which the parent identifies the trigger point for their son’s downward slide:

One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”

No one called me as this unfolded, even though Sam cried for about six hours straight as staff members parked him in vacant offices to keep him away from other students. When he stepped off the bus that afternoon and I asked why his eyes were so swollen, he informed me that he would probably be suspended, but possibly also expelled and arrested.

If Kafka were a middle-schooler today, this is the nightmare novel he would have written.

At a meeting two days later with my husband, Sam, and me, the administrator piled more accusations on top of the harassment charge—even implying, with undisguised hostility, that Sam and his friend were gay. He waved in front of us a statement from the girl at the table and insisted that Sam would need to defend himself against her claims if he wanted to prove his innocence. But the administrator refused to reveal the particulars of the complaint (he had also blacked out identifying details, FBI-style) and then hid the paperwork under a book. He declared that it was his primary duty, as a school official and as a father of daughters, to believe and to protect the girls under his care.

Eck… who edited this? It would have worked so much better without a fucking Kafka reference.

So, maybe it was the tone. I dunno. But most readers seem to regard this section as exaggerated, possibly fabricated.  The takeaway was “boo hoo, the nazi kid got punished for sexually harassing  a girl.” Heck: If a reader is truly dedicated to the #BelieveAllWomen mantra, then this description doesn’t warrant sympathy even if it’s entirely true. The kid said something that upset the girl. It wasn’t directed to her and it wasn’t about her. But still, he upset her, and she’s a girl, so he is bad and deserved whatever punishment was doled out to him.

And this got me thinking about my experiences in high school, as a student in the late 90s and a teacher in the mid-aughts. Administrators seemed to always be adopting some or other policy of harsh punishment for bad behavior: zero tolerance toward weapons, drugs, hats, disrespectful posture, electronic devices, swearing, Simpsons t-shirts, and mentally unhygenic reading materials. During dances and social gatherings, my middle school allowed students to bring in CDs from home. That was a decent policy, but anyone who attempted to play a “hip hop” track would receive an immediate suspension for “endorsing violence,” regardless of the track’s lyrical content. My high school adopted a firm anti-bullying policy, but once a boy came to school wearing a gothic dress as some kind of vague transgressive statement, and two separate male teachers called him a fag--out in the open, in front of everybody, as part of the official business of teaching.

Once, in 8th grade, two kids were caught taking over-the-counter caffeine pills. They didn’t get sick or anything; a girl saw them and she narced. They were arrested by the school resource officer, taken in a cop car to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped, and then summarily expelled, their young lives effectively ruined over 50 milligrams of a safe and legal stimulant. At an emergency assembly held the next day, the frog-faced principal croaked out a dire warning that the use of such drugs was strictly forbidden and we would all be subjected to the same fate, should we attempt to sneak in any No Doz. As he issued his stern warning, he slurped gluttonously from a 22-ounce mug of gas station coffee.

The point is, zero tolerance never really means zero tolerance. Rules are always--always, literally always, without exception in the whole of human history--enforced arbitrarily. Harsh policies rarely make anyone safer. They are employed instead to further humiliate and brutalize those who have already been rejected by the system. In my last two paragraphs, I cited the dumbest and most conspicuous examples of arbitrary cruelty that happened to pop into my head. This doesn’t cover the everyday, petty cruelties that teachers and administrators would exact upon kids they simply didn’t like. Without exception, these were the kids who were already marginalized: effeminate boys, masculine but unathletic girls, kids who dressed poorly, kids who spoke with accents, black kids, kids with learning disabilities or behavioral problems. These kids would be given detentions or even suspensions for minor infractions--looking away from the chalkboard, slouching, sneaking in candy, laughing at importune times, etc. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, of course: zero tolerance and all that. But, strangely, the zero tolerance policies never seemed to apply to the popular, athletic, and/or well-connected kids. If Suzie Creamcheese was caught sneaking some Starburst during Algebra--well, she’s probably hungry, seeing as she works so hard. If Raul, Roofus, or Sheena were caught doing the same? God help them.

Some teachers were nicer than others, of course. Some were downright supportive. Others were simply evil. There was one, when I was in 7th grade, who was particularly repulsive and cruel--no kidding, his admiration of Rush Limbaugh was formative in my early-adopted hatred of American conservatives. He had matted red hair and teeth like a cracked picket fence and would wear a leather jacket out to lunch. Anyhow, he would prattle on about his hatred of kids who “Just. Refuse. To. Learn.” These kids were almost always black. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. He’d make a show of tossing them out of class--sometimes physically--for infractions as minor as getting an answer wrong when called upon. One time, a twitchy white kid who wore the same t-shirt every day called him out: It’s unfair, he said, that I’m getting thrown out of class for getting an answer wrong, when right before me another kid got several chances to respond.

The teacher turned beet red. He got on his knees and put his face two inches in front of the twitchy kid’s eyes. 

“I’m not throwing you out because you got the answer wrong,” he explained. “I’m throwing you out because you are you.”

Again, these are the conspicuous examples. The everyday stuff is harder to describe twenty-five years after it happened.  Most people were not brutalized and they didn’t have a single moment that ruined their life, but they were still exposed to a deeply unfair and cruel system, and such exposure naturally engenders feelings of betrayal, hopelessness, and anger.

Here’s my story--it’s particularly stupid. 9th grade. One day,  I walked into Spanish class, and the large woman who teaches in that classroom before my section grabbed me by the collar, physically lifted me out of my chair, and shoved her moist biscuit of a hand into my face. “What is this,” she demanded.

This was all very sudden. I could see nothing but her hand, which had a distinct fecal aroma.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She removed her hand. I looked down toward desk. She stood silently. I had no fucking idea what she was talking about.

“You’re gonna tell me what you did, right now, or I’m gonna double the detentions.”

I was still silent. Seriously, no idea what was going on. This enraged her. She began to count upward, starting at 3 detentions and stopping at 10, by which point tears were welling up and my face was flushed. I said I seriously did not know. She pointed to a small pentagram someone had engraved into the desktop. The desks, by the way, were movable. Anyone could have done it. She blamed me because she didn’t like me. I served 10 detentions and had to pay over a hundred dollars (a shitload of money for a 13-year-old) to get the desk refinished.

This isn't the end of the world, obviously. But it really, oddly broke me. Before, I had thought that so long as I did was I supposed to and didn’t break any rules, I’d be okay. Now I realized that was bullshit, that any vindictive cunt with a few ounces of power could punish me for any reason, at any time, and I wouldn’t be allowed to mount a defense. That’s the sort of thing that fucks with a kid’s head.  I mean, christ--it’s 23 years later and I’m still kinda pissed about it. I hope that woman is dead.

I regained a sense of control by stealing books from the woman’s classroom. A few times a week, I would grab a textbook when I came in, use it during class, and walk out with it. At the end of the school year, some friends and I burned them in a glorious bonfire along the banks of the Mississippi.

My response was petty and destructive, but I don’t feel any pengs of guilt or shame in remembering it. I had to do something to reassert agency, to feel like I had some control, and I managed to find a way to go about doing it that didn’t hurt anybody or get me into trouble. Regardless of the morality of my particular response, we can agree that kids are now much more surveilled than they were 20-odd years ago, and that minor mischief is now much more harshly criminalized. If a kid finds themself on the outs within their school, there’s really no way they can push back. Their only available avenue of asserting control over their lives is to wander into welcoming communities elsewhere…

One more anecdote then I’m done….

My sister was in high school during 9/11. The attacks were on a Tuesday, and the whole rest of the week was assemblies and talking circles and other such activities meant to assuage fear and gin up the hatred of the dirty brown bastards that done this. Two of my sister’s friends, older boys, were the sort of kids who read Howard Zinn and listened to Jello Biafra’s spoken word records. During one meeting, they expressed exasperation at a girl who was sobbing because she just, like, didn’t know why anyone would do that. The boys certainly didn’t approve of the attacks, but they tried to explain the whole concept of the US being an unhinged and murderous imperial power that had done much worse stuff all over the globe. The audience gasped. The boys were hauled into the principal’s office. They were charged with verbally assaulting the crying girl. One was suspended. The other expelled.

So, I dunno… go ahead. If you think due process is evil, that all victimhood claims are valid and should be taken at face value, and that kids of lesser social status should be demonized and made into criminals for upsetting members of the fair sex, then you do you. That’s fine if that’s what you believe. But please don’t be so naive as to think that the bulk of these newly criminalized behaviors are going to actually be malignant, or that the genuinely malignant behaviors of secure kids will be curbed in any way. Please respect yourself enough to realize that school admins aren’t magic sages with mature moral compasses--a plurality of them were business majors in college, for fuck’s sake. And most importantly, don’t be surprised if the kids you dismiss wind up doing some crazy or awful shit in response.

[honeymoonjin]

A/N - Welcome to the season one finale! Hoo boy, this is a good one ;) be sure to send me your thoughts! Warning: use of a homophobic slur

LOST IN TRANSLATION

↳What do you do when you have no qualifications but want to see the world? You help teach English in a Korean primary school, apparently. ↳Principal!Jin, math teacher!Yoongi, PE teacher!Hoseok, English teacher!Namjoon, school nurse!Jimin, art teacher!Taehyung, and science teacher!Jungkook.

CHAPTER TEN ↳Parent teacher interviews are here, and with that comes an interaction that will have very lasting consequences for you and some of the staff.

“One black coffee and I brought also a rice cake.” You set the small plate on the edge of Yoongi’s desk and give him a short bow as well as the lady perched on the seat across from him. Ignoring the dubious look she gives you, you walk away just as quickly as you arrived. God, parents were scary. Just from wandering around and giving everyone tea and coffee, you had seen your fair share of tiger moms and oblivious dads, single parents who were going prematurely grey from the stress, couples who made their children come along and sit in the corner of the room while they spoke with the teacher. Spending all your time with pretty young adults, you had almost forgotten that you needed to be really careful to speak formally to them whenever you addressed them. You solved that by, for the most part, just silently bowing, not wanting to expose the inadequacy of your Korean.

You had started off the evening sitting beside Namjoon, smiling politely and pretending you knew at all what was going on, but soon enough it became clear to the two of you that you weren’t much help. Now, you were jumping between classrooms, from freezing evening air to thickly heated rooms, delivering refreshments. The others were all giving feedback in ten-minute slots, Principal Kim available to answer any administration or curriculum queries, and Jimin was holed up in the clinic, running a walk-in session.

As you make your way down the row of buildings, you spy through a window in one of them that Taehyung is alone. For whatever reasons, it seemed parents didn’t find it as important that their children were doing well in arts compared to science, math, and English. Although things had been awkward between you two since the day at the museum, your heart breaks when you stop for a moment and watch him. Beyond visible wisps of your breath that billow with each exhale, you can see him, chin resting in his hand as he stared blankly into the middle distance, bottom lip slightly sticking out. He looked unbelievably lonely.

“Knock knock,” you say awkwardly as you enter, “how is it going?”

He straightens up, glancing at you with a surprised look on his face. “Y/n. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be over with Namjoon?”

You shrug, sitting on the chair set out for parents. “Before, yes. Now I help with give drink. Help with giving drink,” you correct as an afterthought. “Do you want tea or coffee or water?”

Taehyung shakes his head slowly, leaning back into his seat with a sigh. Today he’s wearing a black beret and an oversize maroon cardigan, and you can’t help but admire the way it truly makes him look like an artist. Not that anyone could doubt it after speaking with him for longer than a minute. “I’m okay, thanks. I-” he breaks off and purses his lips, eyes searching your face for a moment. Something in them changes, and his eyes lower. “My next appointment isn’t for another half hour. I think we should talk.”

You feel your stomach flop with cold tension. “Yeah.”

He clears his throat, the sound harsh in the silence of the room. Shifting in his seat awkwardly, he avoids eye contact. “Listen, first of all, I need to apologize. What I did was unprofessional, as well as not fair to you. I regret,” his mouth goes tight and his eyes hard, “I don’t regret…kissing you, but I regret the timing of it. I should’ve handled things better.” He swallows nervously when you remain silent, still processing. “Please say something.”

With a soft sigh, you shrug, feeling useless. “I think we can, uh, not talk or think about it. And that is okay.”

He crumples his brow. “You just want to ignore it? Ignore everything that happened?”

You can’t bear to look at the sullen look on his face. Cheering him up really wasn’t going so well. “A little bit yes. It is okay that you kissed me, I forgive you, but I think it will be very, mm, not comfortable if we are still thinking about it.” You clear your throat and set your shoulders, fixing him with a smile braver than you were really feeling. “New start? We can be friends.”

An eyebrow twitches as he appraises you, but then the dubious look turns into one of amusement, and, more importantly, acceptance. “Yeah, okay. If I’m going to sweep you off your feet, I’ll do it right this time. Hello, I’m the art teacher here, Teacher Kim, but you can call me Taehyung. Nice to meet you.”

With a warm gaze, you tip your head in a short bow as if you really were meeting him for the first time. “Hello, Taehyung. My name is Y/n. Please take care of me.”

He scoffs in good humor, and you’re relieved to see that edge of solemnity has left his eyes, replaced with twinkling mischief. “Now, I would love some coffee, but I’m also quite hungry, and I know for a fact Jungkook always brings snacks to these things to eat between appointments. Would you mind popping down to the science department and getting me some? Anything is fine, preferably something salty.”

You nod and stand up, patting him on the shoulder as a quick goodbye. The air outside is considerably frostier than it was before, so you hurry along a couple doors down to the science block. From outside, you can see in the warmly lit classroom that Jungkook has company, a relatively older couple, likely in their 50s, just sitting down and making introductions.

You consider waiting around for them to finish, but they’ve only just arrived, and you don’t fancy freezing your ass off for ten minutes. Instead, you knock lightly on the door and step in, quickly bowing to the three inside. “I apologize for coming in, I need to pick up some things.”

The parents give you wan smiles and turn back, and when they’re facing away you mime biting down on something. Jungkook gives you a broad grin, and tips his head to his side, where his desk is. You make your way there quietly and begin delicately rooting around his desk and drawers in search for the food stash, not wanting to disrupt the meeting.

“Thank you for taking the time to come in and meet with Soo-an’s teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Oh. It’s great to see the parents responsible for raising such a kind young lady.” You bite the inner corners of your mouth to stop from grinning. Always say at least one positive thing. Jungkook was certainly making sure he ticked the boxes on sucking up.

“Well,” the mother starts stiffly, clutching her hands over a jade green, plastic-y purse, “we’ve heard good things. Soo-an says you’re quite a, what was the word? Flamboyant teacher.”

Studiously avoiding looking over, you can still hear the strain in Jungkook’s voice as he tries to remain positive. Asshole parents were certainly something you couldn’t avoid in his line of work. Instead, you subconsciously slow down your search, wanting an excuse to remain here rather than leaving him to deal with them alone. Luckily, Jungkook’s stash seemed to be pretty hidden, as all you’d found was an empty sleeve for M&Ms.

“I think it’s important to be energetic and enthusiastic in class, in order to get the kids excited about learning. All of us in this school do our best to make our classes engaging. Should we go over some of Soo-an’s results?”

“She’s always talking about you,” the mother continues in an unflattering whiney tone, “Teacher Jeon did this, Teacher Jeon said that. It’s clear you’re having a lasting impression on her, and likely other students as well.”

You finally take some stacks of papers out of the bottom drawer and see a technicolor assortment of packaged snacks, but instead of reaching down to find something, you seem to be frozen in place. This conversation sounded like it was getting ugly.

Glancing over quickly, you see the father place a hand over his wife’s knee, leaning in towards Jungkook like a show of authority. “Listen, boy, we just want to make sure the teacher our daughter sees as a role model isn’t an…unsavory type.”

The uncomfortable laugh that leaves Jungkook’s lips tugs at your heartstrings. “I- I don’t know what you mean by that, sir. Anyway, Soo-an’s grades have been steadily improving, and-”

“I’m asking if you’re a dirty faggot, boy. I pray it’s not true; I mean, what respectable school would hire one of their kind? But it certainly seems from what we’ve heard from Soo-an that you’re a very frilly guy. You have to understand, we’re only concerned for our daughter.”

You’re completely unmoving; staring at the older man in shock. Jungkook, poor Jungkook, has gone completely ashen, and you can see his eyes gleaming with unshed tears as his mouth opens and closes silently.

“Well, aren’t you going to answer?”

At his wife’s question, the father rolls his eyes. “His silence is answer enough, sick fuck,” he stands up suddenly, tugging at his wife’s elbow so that they can walk out.

Jungkook snaps back into life with a choked noise. “Uh, no, I’m not- That isn’t-”

“Don’t lie to us, boy,” the man spits, “we’ll be finishing the term here and then taking our little girl elsewhere. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Everything seems to slow down impossibly as Jungkook’s terrified gaze darts over to you. He mouths something, something you don’t catch, and rushes up to catch the husband’s elbow. “No, no, I’m not, I swear. Look, this here is Y/n.” He glances at you one last time, a pleading look that you can read from a mile away. “Y/n’s my girlfriend.”

--

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[lovelylogans]

where you lead, i will follow

previous chapter / chapter nine / next chapter

start from the beginning!

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: hospitals, needle/ivs, coughing, fever, sick stuff, pneumonia, arguing, classism, pregnancy scare (in a flashback), mentions of dysphoria, death mentions (only mentions, don’t worry!) please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairings: moxiety, logince

word count: 22,124

notes: hoo boy this chapter was a DOOZY and i’m v curious to know how it’s gonna go over, so, fingers crossed y’all like it!

virgil hates hospitals. well, arguably, patton hates them more, he always hates going to the doctor even if it's just for a check-up, but the fact that patton is alone back there and delirious and in a place he's afraid of without anyone who knows him to comfort him kind of makes virgil want to put his fist through a wall, so he doesn't think about that, and instead he keeps pacing this stupidly tiny waiting room, clutching his hoodie, not even putting it on properly, because he'd given it to patton when he started shivering and shaking and succumbing to his chills and not breathing a word of complaint about the cold he must have been feeling and virgil had given him his hoodie and patton had sniffled and looked at virgil like he'd made everything okay, so he can't put it on until everything's okay again. right? (it makes sense to him.)

he keeps thinking about patton. not even worrying about him, though there's plenty of that, but memories keep flashing through his head, and it's almost unbearable, to think about patton happy and healthy when the memory of patton lying on his face in his dark house is right there and virgil left him, he left him—

("i've figured it out," patton says triumphantly. he's twenty-two, and virgil's twenty-eight, and logan's freshly six, on his way to the diner to meet with patton after school, when he'll decide if he wants to stay and do homework at virgil's or go with patton to the inn.

"figured out what?" virgil asks, amused despite himself, seeing how smug and satisfied with himself patton is right now.

"The Hugging Problem," patton says, and his grin grows wider. "i've figured it out."

ah, yes. The Hugging Problem. it had been discussed between virgil and patton so often that it warranted the capital letters. The Hugging Problem was that logan had decided he was a big boy now, and didn't need hugs or comfort, even when he was upset and clearly really, really needed a hug and some comfort.

"you did?" virgil says, intrigued despite himself. "how?"

patton taps his finger to his lips, grinning. "that'd be telling."

"patton," virgil whines, "you can't just tell me you have a solution to The Hugging Problem and not tell me what it is—"

"well, i can't just tell you the solution to The Hugging Problem," patton says conspiratorially. "i'll show you. when he needs it.")

"virgil!"

virgil pivots, then, to see logan, in an exquisite, bespoke, expensive suit, rushing toward him, face drawn and tight and worried.

"is he—?"

virgil's already shaking his head, crossing his arms tight over his stomach. "no news. they took him back there to run some tests, or get the fever down, or both, but—"

logan's nodding, and then brushing past him, immediately, to the welcome desk, staffed by a nurse or at least a someone in scrubs.

"excuse me," logan says, voice threaded through with a sense of authority that reminds virgil so strongly of the first time he met emily sanders that it sends a chill up his spine, "my father's been admitted here, patton sanders, would you happen to have any information on him, a room number, maybe, or what tests are being run on him?"

the nurse checks something, glances at virgil (who'd filled out patton's paperwork when they'd gotten there, and he knows all of patton's insurance info because virgil helped him set his up back in the day and virgil's been his emergency contact since that time patton thought he had appendicitis but it was really just a terrible stomach ache because he got food poisoning from al's pancake world) and nods.

"i'll have someone check on that for you," she says, in the tone that means maybe, eventually.

"do," logan says tightly, and comes back toward virgil. virgil reaches out and carefully squeezes his shoulder. for some reason, he feels like something is missing. he dismisses that thought, because the something is probably behind the doors he's forbidden to cross into, it’s the something that he just left behind and he can't—

"hey," he says, and squeezes again. "look at me."

logan looks him in the eyes—tormented and worried and anxious in a way a kid never really should have to be, ever.

"your dad's gonna be fine," he says, trying to make his voice sound gentle, but with some kind of authority.

"you can't know—" logan begins, adam's apple bobbing.

"logan," virgil says, holds both his shoulders now. "look at me. i'm saying that. me, who always thinks every worse scenario is one thousand percent guaranteed to happen. i am. and patton's gonna be okay."

logan takes in a shuddering breath. "but—you're panicking."

"i'm always panicking," virgil says softly. "and i'm panicking right now because we don't know what's going on, not because i think there's any chance of something happening to your dad."

logan surveys him for a few seconds, eyes sweeping up and down his face, staring into his eyes, and virgil's expression must present the answer he's looking for because he relaxes, just a little, slumping into virgil's touch, and virgil knows better than to pull him into a hug right now so he just compensates by squeezing his shoulders a little harder before letting go. logan's arms cross in front of his stomach, too.

"not because i think anything's—going to go wrong," logan says, haltingly, "but... dad has a will, doesn't he?"

"yes," virgil says cautiously.

logan licks his lips nervously, before he says, "if something—if dad didn't—look. i'd want my guardian to be you."

virgil's arms drop from where they're wrapped around his stomach, and he turns to face logan more fully, mouth hanging open in awe, just a little.

"it has to be you," logan says. "if something happens."

"nothing's happening."

"i know," logan says, and he sounds like he really does know it, the way he knows nellie bly had her pencil confiscated from her in blackwell's and was told she never brought one, the way he knows anne royall blackmailed president adams into an interview by catching him skinny-dipping, the way he knows the new york times printed, the day after the launch of the apollo 11, a retraction of an article about no rocket conceivably leaving the atmosphere and reaching the moon. just fact. "just... so you know."

virgil swallows past the sudden lump in his throat.

(—dead on his feet, even as patton pushes a mug of (plain) coffee into his hands, leaning against the counter.

"thanks for helping me with him," patton says wearily. "i love him, he's so smart, he just gets so... nervous. you know?"

"i know," virgil says dryly, and patton winces a little. virgil waves it off. "and you don't need to say thank you, anyway, not when it comes to helping logan. i'll always try and help him. i know he's yours but—" barely a pause, and then, a sleepless tumble of a confession—"i always thought he was a little mine, too."

patton doesn't take offense. he just smiles, a secretive little thing, and takes a sip of coffee.

"well," patton says. "of course he's a little yours. you're a little ours too, you know.")

"yeah," virgil croaks, and clears his throat. "yeah, okay."

"good," logan says stiffly.

"right, good," virgil echoes.

they'd probably stand there saying "good" "good" back and forth and back and forth until a nurse finally appeared to wave them back into patton's room if it wasn't for the burst of noise a good way down the hall.

"but why can't i see him?!"

"they're running some tests."

"well, we would like to meet this doctor who's testing him."

"you will."

"some strange man is working on our son, we have a right to meet this person!"

"you will."

"and i want to see the room you're going to put him in."

"you will."

"and stop saying 'you will,' put together a proper sentence, for god's sake!"

"ma'am, sir, please just wait here."

—and a harried nurse leads emily and richard sanders into the waiting room.

oh. great. just what he needs. patton's fucking parents.

(—patton's eighteen, virgil's nearly twenty-four, and logan's nearly two, and patton has given logan over for virgil to babysit for a while with a written list of instructions and a packed bag, and virgil's only a little terrified, partially because logan's never spent the night at virgil's before without patton there and partially because logan is pre-emptively putting the terrible in 'terrible twos' and partially because patton got his top surgery today and he's being looked after by his parents, and virgil certainly has some Opinions after hearing about the way patton was raised and the environment that surrounded him until he ran away to sideshire.

everything's going fine until virgil realizes that logan's favorite jupiter toy isn't in the bag.

he has seen the meltdowns logan has without that thing. he needs to get it. he can only really hope that the room's empty and he can go right in, go right out, and logan will be reunited with his toy and no one will be any the wiser.

fucking alas.

he walks into the room juggling logan and the duffle bag and the spare key maria gave him, because patton had panickedly rented a room rather than let his parents have any idea about him living in the poolhouse, only to walk in to two very finely-dressed people turning from the bed where patton's lying to see the door.

"papapapapapapapapapa," logan babbles happily as soon as he sees patton, reaching out and opening and closing his chubby little fists, as if to say to virgil hand me over immediately! and virgil can't help but smile a little at the sound of it. logan's been doing this thing lately where he adds thirty more syllables to a word than is necessary, if he's excited about it. it's real cute.

"who are you?" demands the woman suspiciously, the woman who must be patton's mother. patton looks nothing like her. or the tall man with the tie on, who must be patton's father.

"virgil danes," virgil bites out. "i'm babysitting logan, just need to grab a toy of his, so. i'll be right out of your hair."

"oh, well, that's not necessary," emily says briskly, walking forward and holding out her arms expectantly. "we can look after him."

without thinking, virgil shifts so that he's more clearly between her and logan, so that she would have to step around him to grab logan. her eyes narrow.

"yeah, well, patton told me to watch him," virgil says. "so i'm gonna watch him."

"papa," logan says, and tugs at virgil's hoodie. "virgil, papa."

virgil winces. "i know, kid, sorry. he's taking a nap right now, okay? we gotta be quiet. shhhh."

logan frowns at him. if there is one thing he doesn't like (the things logan doesn't like are very numerous) it's being told to be quiet. which is fair, really, virgil doesn't like it much either.

virgil spies the jupiter toy, half-hidden under the wardrobe, and goes over to grab it, handing it over to logan, who takes it with a pacified, cheery little babble and immediately sticks it into his mouth. god, virgil dreads the day a toy won't work as a distraction for him anymore.

"don't be ridiculous," emily tells him. "he's our grandson."

"no offense, lady," virgil says, "but you could be the queen of england. patton told me to watch him, so i'm gonna watch him. end of story. besides, patton's going to be a handful medicine-wise and i don't particularly trust you very much anyway."

"i beg your pardon?!" richard says, flabbergasted.

"consider it begged," virgil says. "and to be perfectly honest, knowing you're patton's parents doesn't endear me to you, like, at all, knowing what i know, so."

"how dare you," emily snarls.

"yeah, i'll dare, because your son is one of the best people i've ever met, and you don't seem to understand that whatsoever—")

virgil's violently yanked from his reverie when emily starts up, again.

"my great-uncle founded this hospital! his portrait is hanging in the lobby, go look, it's right above the sign that says 'founder!'"

"holy shit," virgil says, and quickly steps between emily and the nurse that she's harassing. "i'm so sorry about her, seriously, you're doing a great job and any news whatsoever would be appreciated, please ignore her."

the nurse spares a look for emily, gives him a grateful look, and they hurry off.

"ignore me?!" she fumes. "ignore me?!"

"yeah," virgil says, pivoting, "i know you're pretty good at ignoring any of your kid's boundaries, but you also seem to like flooring over them without any regard for his welfare, so i'm sure treating people like they're actual people instead of like they're scum beneath your shoe is gonna be a great big moral dilemma for you. i'd say i live in hope that you'll let people be on their own, but you seem to have a lot of trouble letting people exist on their own terms, so."

oh shit. okay, so, he's started it. fuck. patton's gonna hate that.

"how dare you speak to my wife in that way," richard begins indignantly, puffing himself up like a bullfrog.

"yeah, i got plenty for you too, buddy," virgil begins heatedly, but he sees a flash of a brand new, costly suit, and forces himself to fucking cool it, jesus christ, "but that's not helping right now, none of this is helping, i get that i snapped and i'm a hypocrite, my bad, but can we put aside tearing each other apart the way i know we all want to until we know what's wrong with patton?"

virgil punctuates it with a very significant glance toward logan, who was not old enough to retain and remember the first round of this particular throwdown. emily seethes, richard glowers, but they cluster off together, in their own little corner.

emily reaches to make logan a part of that, make it sanders family vs random diner outsider, but quicker than a flash and slicker than oil, logan slips from her grasp and goes to stand at virgil's side. sideshire vs grandparents.

and suddenly, virgil's brain catches up to where logan's made the logical leap. patton has a will. he must have outlined who logan's guardian or guardians would be in case of his untimely demise. and since patton asks him whenever he involves virgil in anything legal—being made an emergency contact, for example—and he'd definitely ask virgil before penning him down for something so significant without so much as virgil's say-so.

and if virgil wouldn't be logan's guardian...

"and for god's sake, don't harass them for doing their jobs," virgil can't help but tack on, and turns to look away from—them.

("—virgil, did you, um?"

"yeah?" virgil asks, struggling to hand over logan, the duffle bag, and patton's to-go order of hot cocoa/coffee without spilling or dropping anything or anyone. logan's really mostly squirming to get back to his dad, anyway, and patton quickly takes him before he can squirm himself straight to the ground.

"i just," patton says, and frowns, shifting logan so he's on his hip. "i thought you came over when i was recovering. i dunno, it was probably an anesthesia dream, or something."

it wasn't, virgil thinks, but, well. what good would that do? he dressed down patton's parents, they tried to dress him down back, patton had cracked his eyes open enough to, in his drugged haze, coo at logan, who bopped him softly on the nose with a closed, slobbery fist, before virgil booked it before the sanders' shouting could wake patton up permanently. what good would it do to tell him all that? he'd hate that he was being argued over, anyway. so virgil just makes sure that everything's all handed over and doesn't say anything about it.

"you recovered all okay, then?" virgil says.

patton puffs himself up proudly. "yep," he says happily. "all cleared to work and lift logan," he tilts the hip with logan on it, trying not to wince, as logan has started tugging his hair, "as long as i'm careful about it."

virgil smiles. "good."

"it is, isn't it?" patton says, looking down at his own chest, finally flat without any help from a binder, and virgil reaches out to clap his shoulder. logan takes the opportunity to start babbling for attention at virgil, tugging his hoodie sleeve, as if virgil hasn't been waiting on logan's every whim for the past three days.

"lookin' good, man," virgil says, sincere, and patton beams at him. it just solidifies the belief virgil's had since the first night he met him: that patton's parents don't deserve him.)

"patton sanders?" a nurse calls, and, identically, all four of them advance on him.

"we've gotten the fever down to a point where seizures are less of a concern, but he's still pretty out of it," the nurse says, brusque. "he's in a test room right now, but we'll take him to his room shortly. we've run an x-ray and we're waiting on those results and some culture results before we—"

"pneumonia," logan says hollowly. "you think it's pneumonia."

virgil hadn't known what any of it could be, hadn't even remotely thought to prepare himself for it, but it still hits him like a blow to the chest.

("—they could give you some medicine to keep that fever down," virgil says. "make sure it isn't anything worse."

"virgil," patton says patiently, "it isn't anything worse."

"how do you know?"

"because i just feel sick, not like i'm at death's door," patton says, and sneezes into his kleenex. "crummy but not crumbling—")

i am literally never listening to your refusals about going to a doctor to see if it's anything worse ever again, virgil thinks, half furious, half scared-out-of-his-mind. left him, you left him, something in his brain hisses at him, accusatory, he’d left patton and now he’s in the hospital with fucking pneumonia—

"it's the most likely result, but it hasn't been confirmed yet," the nurse says. logan sways a little.

"can we see him?" virgil asks, putting his hand on logan's shoulder again, trying to steady him.

"we're still running a test, but once that's done—"

"well, can we see his room, then?" emily says. 

the nurse gestures them forward, and virgil's about to follow when logan swivels to face him, eyes wild.

"i need to do something," he says.

"do what?" virgil says stupidly.

"i don't know, anything," logan says, clearly about .05 seconds from tearing his hair out. "get coffee or make phone calls or do something that isn't just—standing here."

"okay," virgil says, getting it, a little. logan's not exactly patient, virgil's known this for years, and logan's about as well-suited to fretting as he is to smiling and demurring during a debate (that is, not at all.) "okay, um—you got your phone?" 

logan nods.

"call some people at the inn and let them know that patton's gonna be out sick for a bit. after that, get some—" he nearly says coffee but he takes stock of himself and how fast his heart's racing and also remembers half of patton's favorite drink and can't, "—tea, peppermint, preferably. and then go get a paper."

logan's brow creases in confusion, and virgil tries for a smile.

"every morning at breakfast, your dad's been complaining you're not there to interpret current events for him," virgil explains. "he likes it when you do that. maybe get something with a comic section, he likes those."

logan breathes, shoulders slumping a little with the relief of a series of set tasks. "okay. got it."

"right," virgil says. "i'll text you the room number as soon as i've got it, okay?"

logan nods, and sets off at a brisk pace down the hall, woe betide anyone who gets in his way.

virgil picks up the pace so he can catch up, and spots the nurse, who bustles after him, looking even more harried. 

"where's...?"

"your in-laws are currently seeing to it that your husband gets the room with the good view," she says, and virgil shakes himself.

"oh, he's not my—"

then something catches up to him and he realizes that if they think he's patton's husband, he'll have the same family visiting rights as the rest of them.

"—uh, i mean, sorry. yeah. how long until they bring him back?"

"very soon," she promises. "i can appreciate that this is hard for you, sir."

you have no idea, virgil thinks, catching onto what kind of wrath emily sanders might bring down upon this hospital if she realizes that the nurses think her son's married to someone without the right pedigree or a summer house by the coast or an aspiring career as a senator or something. 

"thanks so much for all your hard work," virgil says instead.

emily sweeps down the hall, nearly bowling over some poor man on a gurney.

"we've secured him the room but those pillows are completely unacceptable," she declares. "i'm going to see if i can find him some down ones and some slippers, richard is ensuring the room stays private—" she frowns, as if realizing he's the sole member of her audience right now. "where's logan?"

"he wanted to be useful, so he's going to get his dad a paper and call some people," virgil says. "is patton in the room yet?"

"they're bringing him back very soon, which is an incredible indefinite timespan," emily says. "i'll be back."

off she goes, and virgil thinks down pillows?! with only a slight amount of hysteria. he turns back to the nurse. "which room?"

"202," she says, and he texts logan the room number on the way there, and—

oh, huh. it does have a nice view, all lit up at night like this. there's no bed in the room, though, which virgil thinks is kinda weird, and richard's standing silently at the window, which virgil thinks is also kinda weird.

virgil coughs awkwardly to announce his presence.

"oh," richard says, "it's you."

"uh, yeah," virgil says.

"emily went to get pillows."

"i ran into her on the way here," virgil says, and offers, "logan went to get some tea and a paper, i can text him if you want coffee, or something."

"oh," richard says. "thank you, but no. that won't be necessary."

("—dad wants to take logan to some kind of take-your-kid-to-work-day thing next week, so i'm guessing we'll probably be in here for an early breakfast before i drop him off."

virgil spins patton's plate so that his untouched pile of leafy greens is now directly in front of him. he hopes that logan's eating whatever balanced meal isadora prince has decided to cook up for her son and his new bestest friend without too much complaint.

"what, seven’s just the right age to be introduced to the thrilling world of the insurance business?"

"i guess," patton says with a shrug. "i dunno, dad's always been very—" he adopts a sterner facial expression. "go to work, come home, read the paper, go to bed kinda guy. whereas i, you know. snuck out the window as soon as he was distracted."

virgil hands patton his fork. patton rolls his eyes and obligingly stabs his salad.

"he lives his life the way he thinks he's supposed to," patton says. "worked hard, bought a nice house, provided for my mom. very by-the-numbers guy and i've never been good at numbers. think it gave him the shock of a lifetime that i ended up, well. the way i am."

"but you get along with him better than your mom?"

"dad's disapproval tends to be a lot less shouty than mom's," patton says, with a little sigh. "but yeah, i guess i get along with him better than i get along with my mom.")

"your meatloaf was quite good."

virgil startles, grabbing for the hoodie he's tied around his waist like it's falling to cover for it.

"oh," virgil says, remembering logan's phone call that feels like a century ago. back when patton was healthy enough to pop by the diner and he was conscious and before virgil left him alone when he was sick. "um. thanks. i guess."

richard peers at him. "i know we've met before all this, but i can't quite recall when."

"uh," virgil says. "i mean, i egged your car."

("—oh. it's you."

virgil's spine stiffens, and he turns from where he's been handing over a coffee at the stall of the town-wide easter festival.

"yep," virgil says to emily and richard fucking sanders, who have parked their very fancy car right over there and have decided to come to his stall. "it's me. is there a particular reason you're here, or...?"

she sniffs. "patton said to meet him and logan by the gazebo." she gestures to the gazebo, just to the right of his stall, where the railings are lined with pastel wicker baskets of fresh-painted eggs are waiting to be hidden for all the kiddos to run after and hunt.

"right," virgil says. "well. i've got work to do, so."

"we can wait," richard says.

they wait for about a minute.

"so, you're still acquaintances with my son," emily says, and virgil scoffs without meaning to.

"if you mean we're best friends, sure," virgil says, stacking cups and wondering if he should send one of the part-timers back to the diner to get some more. "then i'm acquaintances with your son."

"don't you think that logan should have a," richard says, casts a discerning eye over virgil's stall, "a better role model?"

virgil, calmly, sets down his cups, and says, "what do you mean by that?"

"well, it's all well and good he comes by the diner sometimes," richard says. "but don't you think he, well."

"don't i think he what?" virgil asks, interlocking his fingers and calmly, calmly presses outward, cracking his knuckles.

"don't you think you might influence him to a, well," he says, "substandard way of life."

virgil's blood's roaring in his ears. "substandard," he repeats.

"well, patton's has done an all right job with him so far, but logan certainly has enough negative influence on that side of things," richard says.

"what, you think patton is a bad influence?" virgil asks disbelievingly.

"when it comes to certain delinquent behaviors, yes," richard says. "he has a history."

delinquent. virgil wants to grab him by his fancy bowtie and yank him close and and choke him, how could he possibly think that patton, whose idea of a fun past-time is walking rescue dogs at the local shelter, is a bad influence?

"so," virgil says, "let's get one thing straight. you know nothing about me, and you know nothing about the influence that patton has on logan, because logan's a good kid and patton is a good man."

virgil's eyes slide to the nearest pastel basket. almost as an afterthought, he snags the handle, which has a pretty ribbon woven around it.

"but you know what? you think i'm some kind of devil on logan's shoulder, pushing him to become a delinquent? i can show you fucking delinquent."

before he can even think, he has two of the eggs in his hands, and with an aim he didn't know he possessed, he lobs them both straight for their fancy, fancy car.

they smack and shatter against the windshield with a satisfying thwack. they aren't quite as messy as regular eggs, being hardboiled, but the paint smears, and the egg remnants litter the trunk of his car, and virgil can't help but laugh at the looks on their faces, and he grabs another egg and throws, and again, and again—

"cool!" logan shouts, from where he's emerged from the prince studio, roman in tow, and patton stares, slack-jawed, and it startles emily into wailing into action.

"richard—richard, stop him, richard—!")

"oh," richard says. "oh, dear me."

virgil's not sure what richard's going to say—i'll send you an old receipt for the cleaning, how did such a delinquent continue to be friends with my son, what kind of example are you setting for my grandson—when the door opens, and there's a rattle of wheels, and—

and there he is. there's patton.

the absence of a bed makes sense now, because they're wheeling him in on one—he's all tucked into too-white, too-starched sheets, with a feeble little blue fleecey thing tossed over the top. he's wearing one of those hospital shirts with the blue dots, and he has on an oxygen mask and an iv and one of those things that clamps down on his pointer finger, and he's—

"is he okay?"

virgil's somehow right beside the orderly, staring down at patton's face. when had he moved?

"he's out of it, right now," the orderly says patiently, "he'll be groggy when he wakes up."

"when's that going to happen?" virgil asks, voice a bit too high-pitched. "the tests? did the tests end up—?"

"the doctor's going to have to tell you that, i'm just the transport guy," the orderly demurs, parking patton's bed and checking on his iv and god, patton looks so pale, so small, the bags under eyes massive, his skin too pale for comfort with the only exception being the flush of his fever high in his cheeks, sweating, his his curls tousled and somehow flatter than usual.

"when's the doctor coming?" virgil asks, digging his fingernails into the hoodie at his waist to keep himself from reaching out and touching patton, from getting in the orderly's way.

"i'm not sure, but she'll come right to the room when she gets here," the orderly says, and, with one last check of patton's vitals, he's off, and virgil—

"i'm going to go find emily and logan and tell them he's here," richard says, and virgil just barely manages to tear his eyes away from patton's face to look at him.

richard looks—faint, he guesses, would be the right word. pale and unsettled and spooked, generally. virgil guesses he understands—if he had to see logan or roman in a hospital bed, he'd be pretty spooked, too.

and not in the way he likes to be spooked. not in the fun halloween way of spooking. the genuinely really fucking scary kind of spooked.

"right," virgil says, and turns back to patton's bed, staring at him. he wants to push his hair back. he wants to hold his hand. he wants—

"i'll, um, i'll be here."

you weren’t, the voice in his head rumbles, you weren’t here, you weren’t here, now look at him—

(and now we hit rewind to see what logan has been doing in the hospital. in a tv show this would be cut scenes, but this is a fic, so. you're getting it in a big chunk.)

logan, meanwhile, has skulked the halls of the hospital. he has been successful finding various newspapers with a funnies section (six separate editions, actually) and successful in finding virgil's tea, but it's—

well, it's the phone calls that are giving him trouble.

see, first he called michel, who's the... you know what, logan's not fully sure what michel does at the inn, he just knows that he's the one who presents dour disapproval to any troublemaking clients and employees who aren't quite up to snuff. he's the bad cop to patton's good cop. michel, unsurprisingly, does not answer. logan really doesn't know what he expected.

then he calls sookie st. james, who's the chef at the inn, and waits impatiently for her glad tidings of a good holiday and at her "how's it going?" he says "dad's in the hospital with pneumonia," and then he has to try to comfort her, which is... something he's Not Good At.

then he calls drella, the harpist, for most of the reason that drella is the only person at the inn scarier than michel, and somehow michel picks up her phone, which is something he doesn't want to contemplate, so he hangs up immediately.

and then...

"you've reached roman prince. i'm so very sorry that you're going to have to settle for my recorded dulcet tones, but leave a message and you'll get the live rendition soon."

"um, hey," logan says, wincing at the sound of his own voice. "i know that you're—that you're probably at the first show of the nutcracker. i nearly forgot that it's still thanksgiving. good luck on all that, by the way, not that you need it, i'm sure you're doing wonderfully. or, well, by the time you listen to this, i'm sure you did wonderfully, but, um, i—"

he takes in a deep breath, glances around to ensure the hallway behind him is still empty, and presses his forehead against the wall.

"dad's in the hospital," he says, and his voice wobbles, just a bit. "i—my dad's in the hospital, roman. they think it's pneumonia. virgil found him on the floor and he couldn't breathe and i just—" he forces himself to breathe.

"i just—dad's going to be back at the room any minute, but i haven't seen him, and i just. can't. so i'm calling people as an excuse not to. which is—foolish. i'm going to have to see him eventually. he'd be confused and upset if i just refused to see him. and it's foolish that i'm leaving you such a long message at all, but i just... i don't know. i don't know, roman."

i don't know what's happening, he doesn't say. i don't know what happened to him, it was a cold, i don't know what happened when he was unconscious, i don't know how he's going to recover, i didn't know until virgil called me, how could i have possibly not known?!

i need my best friend, he doesn't say. i need you. i want to hear your voice. 

what he does say is, "but, um. call me back, whenever you can? you can tell me all about the performance, and i... i don't know what i'll do."

i don't know what i'm doing right now, he thinks to himself in a kind of hiss. what benefit can come from this?!

"sorry," he blurts out. "i'm—apologies. i know you can't do anything about it. i—i'm going to hang up now. bye."

logan removes his head from the wall, "accidentally" spills virgil's tea, and goes to find him a new cup. as well as a snack. and maybe another newspaper.

just. just to be prepared.

(and now we're back to a hospital room where virgil's dragged a chair by patton's bedside, and sits hunched over and staring and worrying the sleeve of his still unworn hoodie between the fingers of one hand and holding patton's hand in the other, pressed against virgil's chest, and he waits and waits and waits to see if he'll wake up. patton doesn't do much more than wrinkle his nose and make soft snuffling noises in his sleep and try to knock off his oxygen mask.)

there's the sound of footsteps behind him, and virgil doesn't turn to look.

"has the doctor come yet?" richard asks.

"no, not yet," virgil says, squeezing patton's hand. they've never actually held hands before, he doesn't think. he wishes this was happening under a different circumstance. it's kind of funny and kind of terrible, when he thinks about how he's known patton for sixteen goddamn years and has only ever held his hand once. 

"richard, i've gotten joshua on the way," emily says, and then they fall into talking about joshua, who is—god, virgil doesn't know, some kind of family doctor or physician or something, but if this joshua dude is going to be able to help patton virgil is absolutely ten thousand percent for joshua getting here, go joshua, go rich people stuff, as long as patton recovers as quickly and painlessly as possible.

patton has fluid in his lungs right now. or something. virgil's not super clear on what pneumonia actually does, but he's pretty sure fluid in the lungs is part of it, and he does not want that for patton. he doesn’t want patton to be here, in a hospital bed, right now. he wants a time machine to be able to go back and slap himself for leaving patton when he was so clearly sick. 

virgil's fully resigned to whatever rich people nonsense has gotta happen for that to no longer be anything close to what's going on with patton's health. god, virgil should really learn more about this. which—

virgil turns enough to see patton's parents. emily has set two pillows on a counter, but they're standing close next to each other, still in their holiday best, and virgil feels absurdly out of place in his jeans and t-shirt and abandoned hoodie. he asks, "have either of you seen logan?"

they exchange looks—one of those Married Couple looks that is so clearly a conversation that no one else in the room can understand—and richard says, "i believe he was going to find some more newspapers."

something in virgil's brain wars with leaving patton alone with these people, the way it did fourteen years ago, or leaving him at all, when the last time virgil left him it turned out like this, but the same thing wins out that won then. the same someone, really. 

he clears his throat, getting to his feet. he squeezes patton's hand, hard, before carefully lying it back down on the mattress.

"i'll get him," virgil says. "just—let me know if there's any change. text logan or something."

"right," emily says, and virgil walks out of the room, trying his hardest not to glance back at him over his shoulder.

he doesn't succeed.

...

patton's nose. has something. on it. he snuffles experimentally and when that doesn't move it, he reaches to move it himself.

"oh, for heaven's sake," a familiar voice tuts, and a hand closes around his wrist. 

patton blinks, and narrows his eyes. ugh, it's so bright. 

wait. it definitely hadn't been bright the last place he'd been. he'd been... home. hadn't he? he'd been home. he'd been hot and it had hurt and he'd wanted hot chocolate and he'd been home. and he's not now. so where is he? 

he tunes in with the rest of his body, then. head like a bowling ball, chest like a whole rack of bowling balls is resting on it, thoughts... for some reason not really able to keep a thread. or keeping too much of a thread. bowling balls. weird. he's so sweaty and uncomfortable that he figures he'll give himself a bit of a pass on making much sense, though. it's probably the cold medicine. oh, a cold shower sounded wonderful, get him all nice and cooled down and get rid of all this sweat and—

ugh, he's so... icky.

"oh," the voice says, startled, "oh, richard, he's waking up!"

and patton swivels his head a little to squint at where his mother is standing, his father bustling in to stand beside her.

"where?" patton rasps at his parents, and his mother sits on the edge of his bed, wide-eyed.

"you're at st. luke's," his mother says. "joshua's on his way, so is the doctor here, and dr. reynolds, you remember her."

gosh, joshua plus dr. reynolds plus the hospital for a cough? that seems kinda excessive.

"mkay," patton murmurs, and closes his eyes again.

"patton, do you think you can lift your head at all?" his mother asks. "i found you some decent pillows. they're not down, but they at least give a little."

ooh, pillows. patton likes pillows. virgil keeps joking that he collects them. virgil doesn't understand interior design. they give pops of color.

there's a cool, moisturized hand at the nape of his neck, though, urging him up, and ouch that rack of bowling balls on his chest, before he's settled back onto the nice new cool pillow.

"better, yes?" his mother asks, and patton hums sleepily. he's ready to go back to sleep. sleep sounds awesome.

"and one more time."

ouch oh ooh nice.

"now if we could just find you some different sheets," his mom says.

oh. these sheets are kinda nice, though. a bit stiff but not bad. he doesn't wanna move. and if she gets him new sheets he's gonna have to move.

"s'okay, mom," patton murmurs.

"maybe you could get dava to bring some from home," his dad suggests.

"s'really okay," patton says. 

"oh, of course," emily says. "why didn't i think of that?"

"don't need new sheets," patton tries to insist.

"they're completely unacceptable," emily says.

oh, now she's done it, patton's gotta open his eyes now.

"the sheets are fine," patton says, a little louder, or he tries to, because he breaks down into coughs when he says fine, harsh and loud, and patton tries to sit up or curl on his side but that same cool hand's at his shoulder, fluttering nervously, before he sucks in a breath and there's that pain in his chest that's been there for the past—however long?—and patton tries to catch his breath.

"—call button must be broken or something—"

"m'okay," patton wheezes.

"don't be ridiculous," richard says.

"i'm not," patton says. "m'an adult, i can handle it."

"it's the fever talking," emily says. "they really don't have that down, whatever that nurse said, feel how warm he is."

a different but still-cool hand, dry and wrinkled, rests on his forehead.

"i don't have a fever," patton sulks.

"you were at risk for seizures," his father says.

sounds fake, but okay.

"i really am okay," patton murmurs, eyes slipping shut again.

"no," emily tells him. "no, you are not."

"i'm fine," patton says, and yawns. "you can go home, you don't have to deal with me anymore."

there's a silence but it doesn't feel like the end of a conversation. patton doesn't wanna open his eyes again, though. he's so tired. but he can't go to sleep yet. but he really wants to. so he'll just let his eyelids rest. that'll work. right? he'll just keep his eyes nice and closed and explain it and they can get on home. 

"fine?" his mother repeats, strangled.

"it's just a cold," patton mumbles.

she sighs, irritated. "patton—"

"know we fought last week," patton says, trying to talk as loud as he can without risking a cough, or without having to breathe too deep. "and m'sorry i made life so hard on you then, n'm'sorry i'm such a disappointment, an' i'm'sorry i took logan away, an'—"

"oh, patton, hush," his mother says, sounding a little strange. "it's hardly the time for all—"

"and i'm sorry, okay," patton insists, cracking his eyes open, because that's important, "m'sorry i can't fix it. but m'an adult now and i can handle things and stuff. so you don't gotta stay jus' for a cold."

"young man, you have pneumonia," his father says gruffly.

"oh," patton says, startled. "do i?"

"well, we're waiting for the doctor to confirm it."

"oh," patton repeats, quiet. pneumonia. that's not good. that's always the illness that kills people in old timey books. that's the illness that they always look out for when things go bad for old people. that's... that sounds serious. really serious.

that's scary.

"patton?" his mother asks, sounding slightly alarmed, and patton tries to inhale a shaky breath, and then another one. he might be panicking, he thinks. 

"i—" he swallows, hard, and says, "is logan okay?"

"what?" she asks, distracted. "yes, of course. he's getting some newspapers and some tea."

"are you sure?" he asks, because logan has to be okay—logan has to be okay. logan's got to be taken care of, he has to be okay.

"yes, of course i'm sure," she says.

"you have to make sure he's going to be okay," he insists.

"he's fine."

"logan's—logan always acts fine, that's his default state," patton says. "but he always hides his emotions. so he'll always get snappy, and sometimes you just have to let him let off steam, and sometimes you kind of have to poke him into it, but after he rants for a while it helps calm him down enough that he can talk about what's really bothering him and—"

"patton," she says, awkwardly, a little helplessly, and patton swallows hard.

"he always overworks himself," he tells her intently. "so you gotta lure him out with new books, or an opportunity to shred the courant or just a newspaper or a publication in general, or a trip to a planetarium or a museum, preferably a science one but if he goes with roman he likes art ones too, or you gotta sit him down with a crofter's jam sandwich and tell him to take a break, because he always ignores it if he needs a break, because he thinks he's a lean mean study machine who doesn't need to do fun things, but he does, because he's—"

"patton, you don't need to tell us all this—" his father tries to intercede.

he ignores him. they need to know these things about him, in case patton isn't in a place to take care of him, they need to be able to take care of him. 

"—i know that you know logan pretty well, especially over the past couple months, but i think that virgil's the best source on all things logan, especially if he's ever confusing or if he's moping or needs anything, so if you're ever lost, and i know you've had your differences, but virgil knows logan just about better than anyone else, except me, and virgil's always happy to help logan, and sometimes logan just needs to talk to someone who isn't related to him so he'll usually go to virgil or roman and that's a-okay, because they're his best friends, and you have to make sure that he gets to stay in contact with them because i never ever want logan to feel lonely or unloved, never ever ever, and if i die—"

"patton, stop!" she snaps, and patton shuts his mouth, immediate, shrinking into his pillows as she looms over his bed.

"now," she says, "there may be many things happening in this hospital tonight, but your dying is not one of them, am i clear?!"

"i—"

"no!" she snarls. "i did not sign onto your dying when i became your mother, so it is not going to happen. not tonight, not for a very long time. i demand to go first. of all the things you have done to us, you will not put us through burying you first, do i make myself clear?"

patton stares up at his mom, and oh. oh, this isn't just scary for him. this is scary for all of them. and patton freaking out isn't helping things.

"okay," he says, very quiet. "okay, mom. i promise i won't die."

she nods, swallows. "good."

patton reaches over and, hesitantly, takes her hand. her free hand flutters up to her mouth, and his mom looks like she's about to cry, and patton squeezes a little, and closes his eyes. things drop off and go a little dark and blurry around the edges before everything goes dark and blurry and—

...

this hospital is a maze, but it doesn't take him nearly as long as he thought it would to find a mostly-empty hall containing just who he's looking for.

"hey," virgil says, coming to a stop next to him, and logan shudders out of whatever train of thought he'd locked himself into.

"hi," logan says, and passes over a to-go cup. "tea. peppermint, even. i found some newspapers and i called sookie. well, i called michel too, but he didn't answer, and then i called drella, and then michel answered. did you know that was—?"

virgil's already reflexively pulling a face.

"thought not," logan murmurs. not quite as smugly as he might be on a normal day after figuring out some kind of secret.

"okay," virgil says. "well, thanks. they brought your dad back and a doctor's due at any minute."

logan nods. virgil hesitates, before he fiddles with the little heat-protecting cardboard ring on the cup for something to do with his hands.

("—hate doctors, hate them, hate them, hate them," patton says, pulling a face.

"i'm the one going to a doctor," eight-year-old logan eludicates. "and it's just a check-up."

"and i have hated going to all of your check-ups since the time you were born," patton says, ruffling his hair.

"he has," virgil says dryly. "i've heard this series of complaints since your six-week check-up. eat your eggs." 

"tell him he could just wait in the waiting room," logan says, but he spears some eggs on his fork anyway. "i keep telling him to stay in the waiting room."

patton looks aghast. "and miss any health updates?!"

"but you hate the doctor," logan says. "wouldn't it be better if you just... didn't? since all of that scares you?"

"me being scared isn't the point," patton says. "it's about me being there for you."

"you don't need to be," logan says.

"yeah, but i want to be," patton says. "that's what a dad does—")

"you can't avoid going in the room forever," he says gently, and logan rears back.

"i'm not," he says.

"it's okay to be a bit freaked out right now—"

"i'm not."

"logan," virgil says, keeping his voice gentle and soft and calm. 

logan slumps. just a little.

"thank you for getting tea and making those calls and getting all those newspapers," virgil says, making his voice keep the same tone. "but your dad's in the room now and the doctor's due any minute. i know it'll probably make you feel a bit more at ease to hear what's going on. right?"

logan hesitates, before he nods.

"okay," virgil says. "so. if you really really want, you can wait outside the room until the doctor gets here. we just want to know where you are."

logan nods, and then he follows virgil back, where he comes to a stop just by the door.

("—not scared," twelve-year-old logan sulks at the counter of the diner. "honestly. me, scared."

"well," virgil says, leaning forward on his elbows, "it'd be okay if you were scared of snakes, you know."

"roman's not scared of snakes," he says. "it's not about me being scared, anyway, it's about—"

"why are we talking about snakes?" patton asks, sitting back down in his counter chair.

"tell your son it's okay to be afraid of snakes," virgil says.

"it's not about me being scared, which i'm not," logan says. "i just don't want to hold a massive boa constrictor on the field trip."

"and no one can make you do anything you don't want to do," patton says firmly. "if a teacher bugs you about it at the zoo tomorrow, you tell them i said that—")

"you sure?" virgil checks, and logan only holds out a pile of newspapers for virgil to take in.

he sighs but takes them and goes in, to where emily is sitting on the bed and caressing back patton's hair with—

it shouldn't shock virgil that she's doing it with maternal fondness. patton is her son, after all, but after all these years of seeing their fighting and patton falling apart after each of them, it feels like... virgil doesn't know. it feels like she should be just as stern and cold now as virgil knows she can be.

"he woke up," richard says, and virgil's eyes snap to him, and to the now-definitely-unconscious patton. "just for a little while."

"was he—" virgil struggles to find words. of course something happened when virgil left. of course. but at least this one seems to be a good thing.

"not quite lucid," richard says.

"a bit more lucid than we'd like him to be, you mean," emily says archly, and turns to frown at virgil. "where's logan?"

"just outside," virgil says. "keeping an eye out for the—"

"—but he's going to be here for how long?" logan asks a doctor who comes in with a short little man in a suit, and virgil can't help but take a step closer. 

"well," the doctor says to the room at large. "the cultures we took and his chest x-ray came back, and i'm afraid that it is pneumonia. he'll have to stay at the hospital for a couple days to ensure that fever stays down and to get him started on some antibiotics."

"how long?" logan repeats.

"difficult to say at this point," she says. "two or three days, at least, maybe longer if it's necessary. but," she says, and turns to virgil. "i believe you managed to catch him before his condition could have gotten much worse. you certainly brought him in before the fever could do any permanent damage."

virgil does not feel like this is particularly praise-worthy. it had mostly just been a terrifying experience. if virgil hadn’t left patton never would have gotten to this state at all.

"but he'll be just fine," the doctor says. "i'm sure it was a bit of a scare, but once he gets started on antibiotics, he'll be okay."

it's like the whole room breathes a sigh of relief.

"now," the doctor says, "i hear he woke up?"

"a little while ago," emily says, and moves aside a little so the doctor can get a closer look at patton. "he went right back to sleep, though."

"that'll be common," she says. "he'll be in and out of sleep, at varying levels of lucidity—"

virgil sees the flash of a bespoke, expensive suit jacket flutter around the door frame.

("—logan," virgil gasps, and scoops him up into his arms. "oh, my god, we were worried sick about you, you can't just run off like that, buddy—"

logan blinks too-big, watery three-year-old eyes up at him, clutching at virgil's shirt contentedly. "didn't run off."

"yeah, okay, nice try, kid," virgil says, trying to hug him close without looking like he was hugging him close. god, that had been the most terrifying five minutes of his whole life. "when we tell you to stay somewhere and you do not stay in that somewhere, that's running off."

"didn't," logan insists, kicking his bare feet. "i was following—"

"logan!" patton shout-sobs, and rushes over, and before virgil can even make a move to hand him over patton crashes into them both, hugging logan between their bodies, hugging virgil by extension, and—

"oh, my god, honey, you can't do that," patton says, semi-hysterically, pushing logan's hair back from his forehead so he could lean in and kiss him on the forehead. "i was so scared something happened to you, you can't just run away like that!"

"didn't!" logan insists again. "i was following a star bug!"

"star bug?" virgil mouths at patton.

"logan," patton says, high-pitched, "if you want to go follow the fireflies, you gotta tell one of us, okay? something could have happened to you!"

"nothing woulda happened," logan says, and, with all the belief of a three-year-old, "virgil was lookin' after me, i was okay the whole time."

patton lets out a sigh, one of the we're not done talking about this but i'll accept it for now ones, and presses his lips against logan's head again, looking up at virgil as he did, and virgil tries to pretend like logan's absolute faith in him hasn't moved him to the core—)

logan's slumped against a wall, hand over his eyes.

"hey," virgil says, soft, and logan sniffs, standing up straight, trying to pretend like he wasn't five seconds from starting to cry.

"so, um, he's gonna be okay."

"yeah," logan says, and swallows hard, fiddling with his fancy new suit coat.

"they're gonna keep him for a couple days, but he's gonna be fine."

"yeah," logan repeats.

an idea occurs to virgil. a really fucking stupid idea.

("—you might have to see The Hugging Solution put into action today," patton says grimly.

"oh, god," virgil says, freezing and turning from where he's wiping down one of the booth tables. "what happened?!"

"apparently logan found out about the library of alexandria today at school," patton says, "and mrs. donnely called to tell me logan was really upset about it."

"how does a six-year-old even find out about—?!"

"picture book, i guess," patton says with a helpless little shrug. "but, just—play along, okay?"

"uh, okay?" virgil says, but then the door opens and a familiar tiny boy sulks his way to the booth, lip trapped under teeth, probably to keep it from trembling, and eyes watery.

another familiar tiny boy has followed after him, loyally toting two pairs of backpacks.

"hello, mister prince," virgil says, snatching both backpacks and setting them by patton in the booth, where—patton has slumped over, and he lets out an overexaggerated, sad sigh, staring forlornly at the grilled cheese he'd been eagerly eating thirty seconds ago.

"i'm supposta go home," roman says, "but logan was really sad boutta book so i decided to walk him here!"

"well, that's really nice of you," virgil says seriously. 

roman puffs up his small chest. "m'bein—shiv-all—shiv-all-rus!"

"wow," virgil says, trying not to laugh. "that's really cool of you, roman. do you want an after-school snack?"

"please!" roman sings, and patton helps lift him into the booth so he's opposite logan, and then sits back down with another long, sad sigh.

"how about you, logan?" virgil asks.

"no," logan sulks in the corner.

"not even a crofter's sandwich?" virgil cajoles.

logan wavers.

"tell you what," virgil says. "i'll make one for you, and one for roman, and if you decide you don't want it, i can send it home with your dad for later, yeah?"

"...fine," logan says, arms crossed, still staring at the wall. patton, mimicking him, crosses his arms and stares at the wall, too.

"i'll let your mom know you're on the way in a bit, roman," virgil says, and reaches out to ruffle his hair mostly because of the tiny squawk of indignation when he does.

by the time virgil comes out with two plates of crofter's sandwiches, patton has progressed to sniffling with his head down on the table, roman petting his hair, and logan looking grudgingly curious from where he's still sitting with his arms crossed.

"okay, i've got two crofter's sandwiches here," virgil starts, but roman looks up at him.

"leave us alone, can't you see he's having a day," roman scolds.

"where'd you learn that?" virgil says, bemused, and roman grins.

"mrs. torres," he says—one of the old women who frequents the studio for sunrise yoga. "did i do it right?"

"you'd do her proud," virgil says, and remembers patton's play along, and pats patton's hair, too. "i know. he's been very sad since he got here."

logan's arms loosen. just a little. "he has?"

"he has," virgil confirms, somber as the grave. 

"oh," logan says.

"mr. patton," roman says, still petting his hair, "is there anything we can do?"

"oh," patton says, and affects a mopey look on his face when he lifts his head from his arms. "well... mayy-be. but i don't know if you three would want to."

"we'll do it!" roman declares immediately.

patton sighs, and shakes his head.

"i dunno, it might be a little silly."

"well," virgil says, a little louder, conscious of how logan's staring, "i think a little silly's okay, if it makes you not as sad."

patton nods, and slides out of the booth.

"virgil," he says, and spreads his arms. "can i have a hug? to make me feel better?"

all at once, patton's plan coalesces in virgil's head.

"oh, yeah, sure thing," virgil says, when he realizes he hesitated a moment too long. he opens his arms. "get in here."

patton steps forward, and virgil wraps his arms around him, a little awkwardly—but patton's warm and soft and he fits neatly against virgil, and he smells nice, so it's not like it's the worst hug he's ever gotten. pretty far from it, actually.

he steps back, and pats patton on the shoulder, for good measure.

"did that help?" virgil asks.

"i think so," patton says, and turns. "i might need another—"

patton is very nearly tackled to the floor by a pint-sized blur of white and red and gold.

"isthishelpingmisterpatton?!" roman demands, and patton lets out a little "oof, gosh, you're so strong!"

roman squeezes patton harder, as if squeezing hard enough will get rid of all the sadness in the world.

patton pats him on the shoulder, and says, "that was very helpful, thank you. you should eat your crofter's as a reward."

"okay!" roman says brightly, and clambers back up into the booth.

patton crouches in front of the booth where logan's dropped his crossed arms at last, but is biting his lip even more ferociously.

"can i have a hug?" patton asks him gently.

"you've gotten two," logan sniffs.

"yeah, but i haven't gotten any from my favorite son, yet."

"i'm your only son."

"that too," patton says, and spreads his arms. "so? i'm feeling very upset, and i'd really like it if you gave me a hug right now."

logan hesitates, eyes darting to where roman is stuffing his face and to where virgil is standing. "this is a hug for you," he declares imperiously.

"of course it is," patton says, and as soon as he says it, logan squirms off the booth and straight into patton's arms, wrapping his arms tight around patton's neck and burying his face into patton's shoulder.

"hey, there we go," patton murmurs, shifting a little, and when he's sure roman isn't looking, he winks at virgil, who suppresses his smile the best he can and—)

so it's a stupid idea, but it's the only one he has.

virgil heaves a sigh, and resigns himself to looking like an idiot.

"i'm feeling very upset," virgil says stiffly, and lifts his arms a little. "i'd really like it if someone gave me a hug right now."

logan sends him the world's most withering glare. the effect is slightly spoiled by the way he sniffs, smears his hand under his nose, and looks away.

"i'm not six anymore," logan says, and redirects his glare at virgil. "that won't work on me."

"look, kid, this hug isn't for your benefit," virgil says, lying through his goddamn teeth. "i have had a hard day. i had a big family gathering and then i had to drive home for hours and then i found your dad unconscious on the ground and had to bring him to the hospital, plus i've had to deal with your grandparents. so."

he lifts his arms higher. "i am upset. i would like a hug."

"you're way worse at this than dad is," logan says.

"yeah, i know," virgil says, "you know one way to put us both out of this misery?"

"are you seriously trying to embarrass me into hugging you?"

"i can keep going," virgil bluffs immediately, even though logan knows full well about this social anxiety. 

logan sighs, loudly. "fine," he grumbles. "fine, if it'll get you to stop."

so virgil steps forward and wraps his arms around the kid, heart panging—when did he get so big? virgil used to be able to practically hold him in one arm, just the space between his hand and his elbow. and now there's this young man, all gawky and gangly and still growing somehow, it's like he looked down and looked up and there he was, sixteen years flown by, except not really, because time was long, but also kind of really? being a parent person who watches a kid grows up is confusing.

he keeps rubbing a hand up and down logan's back, the way patton does when he hugs people. he's picked up a lot of things from patton, over the years. he couldn't say how many.

"he's going to be fine," logan says, and oh, god, his voice wobbles. 

"i know," virgil whispers, and keeps rubbing a hand up and down his back. "hey, i know. i promised he would be, and now we know for a fact he is, right?"

"right," logan says, and sniffs, loudly, and virgil holds onto him tighter.

"it's okay," virgil murmurs. "it's okay, logan. it's okay."

it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, virgil says, choking up himself, vision blurry and then failing as he gives in to the hectic emotion of this whole day, but he keeps talking to logan, and he keeps saying it’s okay, logan, it’s okay and loses track of the amount of times he says it, it's okay, logan, and logan's shoulders shudder and virgil feels his shirt soak through. 

"it's okay," virgil murmurs, sniffs, and keeps running his hand across logan's back. "there we go, l, it's okay."

"don't tell him," logan sobs into his shirt.

"oh, hey, i'd never," virgil says, as soft and comforting as he can. "patton can't know that we both lost it when he was out of the picture for one second, so it's our secret, yeah?"

"yeah," logan gasps, and draws back, smearing a sleeve under his nose, sniffing one last time. "yeah. our secret."

"okay," virgil says, and reaches forward with both hands to frame logan's ever-sharpening cheekbones in his hands, losing all that baby fat he'd been born with, swiping the tears off his face before starting in on his own face. "you okay?"

"yeah."

"you sure?" virgil checks, dropping his hands to logan's shoulders.

"yeah," logan says, and swallows, following the tracks of virgil's thumbs with his own hands, as if to make sure that virgil hasn't missed any. "yeah, i'm okay, i'm good. do i look like i've been crying?"

"nah," virgil says. “do i?”

"no. i don't want anyone to know i—"

"hey, our secret," virgil says.

(there is an eavesdropped neither logan or virgil notice. emily sanders frowns.)

"right," logan says, and scrubs at his face one last time. "this week has sucked."

if it was any other day, virgil would have laughed. logan hasn't used the phrase 'this sucks' since he was about nine. as it stands, though—

"yeah," virgil says. "i mean, your dad told me something really smart once, wanna hear it?"

"i have a feeling you'll tell me anyway," logan says, a solid attempt at a joke.

"even though today—or this week, i guess, in your case—has sucked, you wanna know the bright side?" virgil says, remembering patton's words from sixteen years ago, on the night they met. "i'll never have to do today again."

logan breathes, and says, "i never want to stay with them for that long ever again."

"i know," virgil says.

"i hated it there," he says.

(emily flinches.)

"i know," virgil says. "hey, we can tell your dad about the will thing once he's up and at 'em again, if it makes you feel better."

"it would," logan says fervently. "i fully understand why dad ran away now. you can't—you can't let me stay there anymore, virgil."

(emily flinches harder.)

"i won't," virgil says. "i promise, i won't. i mean, i know your dad only did it because it was a last resort kind of situation—"

"i know that too," logan says, and then, quieter, more miserably, "i yelled at him about it."

all virgil can say to that is "aw, kid," and tug him back into the hug.

"i yelled at him," logan repeats, voice waterclogged, like he's about to start crying again. 

"hey, i know he's not mad at you," virgil says. "he gets it, you know? he gets that you yelled because you were upset at the situation, not at him. i bet as soon as we walk in there, it's gonna make his day that you're there."

logan snuffles, and virgil draws back so that he can look him in the face. "really?"

"really," virgil promises, and he's been promising logan a lot tonight, but the kid deserves some promises that things would be okay, okay, his dad's in the hospital, because virgil left him alone, it’s the least he can do to help the kid feel better. "you know your dad, he's the softest little puffball we got."

logan snort-laughs, snotty and kind of gross, and wipes under his eyes again. "yeah. yeah, he is."

"you're, like, his whole world."

logan shifts, uncomfortable with so many displays of emotion in such a close time span, but he's saved by his grandfather.

"oh, he's waking up," virgil hears richard say, startled, and virgil claps logan's shoulder.

"you ready?"

logan lets out a shaky breath, straightens his tie, and tilts up his chin—proud, confident, a little arrogant. looking a bit more like himself, then, virgil thinks, relieved. he gestures logan to go ahead of him, and they enter the room to see patton, who turns at the sound of the door opening, and patton—

patton lights up.

his face brightens, his dimples appear in full, he beams—hey, wait, was he supposed to take off the oxygen mask?—and he reaches out both hands for logan, as if logan's still little enough that patton can pick him up.

"hey!" he says. "oh, my gosh, hi!"

"hi, dad," logan says, approaching the bed, and patton's smile doesn't falter as logan takes one of his hands, hovering at his bedside. 

"can i get a hug?" patton asks. "just this once."

logan hesitates. "if i hug you, won't it hurt?"

"what's life without a bit of pain?" patton jokes, and then, more seriously, "as long as you're gentle, it'll be okay, kiddo."

logan hesitates, and then, stiffly, bends so that he gives patton the softest, least-squeezy hug he can possibly execute, before sitting at patton's bedside again. 

"i've missed you," patton says, picking up logan's hand to squeeze it again, "so much."

logan's lip quirks up, just a little, and virgil's heart feels lighter, seeing two of the people he loves most in the world all together again—all that's missing is an obnoxious teenage dance instructor.

"i missed you too, dad," logan says.

patton's smile is blinding, and virgil's knees go a little weak, to the point where he sits in the chair next to logan. 

"okay, so," patton says, and pats logan's hand. "me and virgil have been dying without you to tell us everything that's going on in the world every day, let me tell you, dying."

logan's lips twitch. "don't exaggerate," he scolds.

"we aren't," virgil said. "i told you he'd want to hear you talk about current events, that's why i had you get all those newspapers."

logan rolls his eyes, and patton smiles at him, like logan's done something very charming and sweet instead of just made the quintessential teenage facial expression, and virgil can't help but smile a little, too.

"so," patton says. "tell us all about it. tell us about the news, and about your last couple days at chilton before the break, and how your week's been going, i want to hear everything."

so they listen as logan sticks to the safe and relatively unemotional topic of the news, explaining every headline he can, fishing example articles out of his newspaper pile when he has to, nearly crawling onto the bed in order to fully show the articles to patton. it reminds virgil of when he was little, so eager to investigate the whole world, so eager to show it off to anyone who would listen.

patton, even listening as raptly as he is, is still very sick, so can't help but slip off a little. which means that every time logan will trail off experimentally, staring to see if his dad's falling asleep, patton will start and grumble "m'wake, i'm awake, keep goin', i'm paying attention," and virgil will exchange a look with logan and logan will keep going until patton starts nodding off again.

eventually, logan keeps talking, and talking, and talking, even as he notices patton slip deeper and deeper into sleep until—

"i think he's finally asleep," logan says, hushed.

"i think you're right," virgil says. "good work, kid."

"speaking of sleep," richard says, "perhaps we should consider getting home."

"well, i'm not leaving," emily and virgil say in unison, who both jump and glare at each other.

"me either," logan says.

"you need sleep, you're a teenager, you need more sleep than a baby," virgil says.

"that's actually inaccurate," logan begins.

"okay, well, you still need to sleep," virgil says, frowning. "you should go home, to sideshire."

logan brightens at that, just a little.

what ensues is a solid bickering session: on if logan should go home to sideshire or back to his grandparent's house, on if virgil or emily should stay, on who would take which car and on who would bring logan back to visit if he wanted, and eventually it settled out to—

"bye, virgil," logan says. "thanks for looking after him."

"always do," virgil says. "i texted sarah, she's opening tomorrow, but would you mind swinging by the diner to let people know, just in case?"

"of course," logan says. "i'll even pick up breakfast there before i visit tomorrow."

virgil nods, and gives logan a hug goodnight, just because. 

"you're sure you'll be all right?" richard's asking emily, in the background.

"i'll be fine," she says.

"you can call if you'd like me to come back, or if you need something."

"go," emily says, and kisses her husband on the cheek. "i'll look after patton."

richard smiles, squeezes her shoulder, and then logan and richard are gone.

an incredibly awkward silence descends on the hospital room.

emily sniffs, and drags one of the chairs to the opposite side of patton's bed. virgil settles into his—he notes, with slight relief, that his side does not show patton's iv.

"you don't trust me with my own son," she says, coldly, and virgil crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair.

"was i too subtle, the first time?" he deadpans. 

she sniffs again, and sits up even straighter, looking away from him. for a second, he thinks that might be the end of it, and they'll sit quietly in awkward silence until one of them falls asleep or the sun has risen. 

of course not.

"i don't know what gives you the right—"

virgil sighs, loudly, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"oh, my god, okay," virgil says, and leans back in his chair again, worrying his hoodie between his fingers. "there are so many goddamn reasons i don't like you. i have a list in my head that's been sixteen years in the making. do you seriously want me to spend the whole night going through it?" 

she arches a brow at him. that is literally all it takes.

"fine," virgil says. "i don't like your smug rich person attitude. i don't like the way you look down at me because i run a diner for a living. i don't like the way you think your privilege is a goddamn god-given right, like you're some kind of medieval king or something—"

"are you quite finished?"

"like i said, sixteen years, don't rush me," virgil says, kicking back in his chair and starting to tick things off his fingers. "i don't like your tacky rich people hair or your tacky rich people outfit. i don't like how you apparently think the bus is for drug dealers. i don't like most of the things you say about people who aren't as rich as you, actually, but that's a whole other thing. i don't like the car that you had that i egged that one time. i don't like how you think having a lot of money automatically makes you better than other people, i don't like the way you treat your son—"

"how dare you," she begins indignantly, loudly, and patton mumbles, shifting in his sleep. they both freeze.

"look," virgil hisses, "i am fully willing to fight with you, we just have to keep the volume low so that we don't wake patton up, clear?"

they both stare at patton for a few seconds. when she's satisfied that patton isn't waking up, she leans forward, and snarls, "how dare you," at a satisfactory volume.

"i dare because you and your husband are shit to him," virgil snarls. back, at a similarly quiet volume. "because you say fucking terrible things to him, and he's sensitive, and soft, and a good man, and he deserves better than you two jumping on him every time you get the chance—"

"you know nothing—"

"i know nothing?!" virgil snaps. "are you fucking kidding me?!"

"no, i most certainly am not!" she declares. "you know nothing about the way our lives have gone, you know nothing about the way our family works, and you have no right to pretend to know."

"oh, i don't?"

"no, you don't!" she says, strident. "it's none of your business how—"

"none of my business?!" 

"it most certainly is not!" 

"it is when patton shows up crying in my diner!" virgil hisses, fingernails digging into his hoodie. "it is when that's what's been happening after family gatherings with you for years! it's my business because sixteen years ago a kid holding a baby showed up and started sobbing in my diner and decided to stick around town, just because the first place he pulled into someone showed him some goddamn kindness for the first time in months, it is when you're messing with the life of my best friend and our fucking kid—"

"you are not logan's father—"

"look, i might not have contributed anything to logan's dna makeup, but that doesn't change that he's our kid," virgil says roughly. "patton's known that for years and logan has too."

there's a flicker of what might be surprise on her face, before she angrily sets her jaw.

"they're the ones whose opinion i care about, so i don't particularly give a fuck what you think about the fact that i've basically adopted your grandson," virgil says. "and i might not be one of logan's biological parents, but jesus christ, i'd never call him a disappointment, not in a million years. so all things considered, i'm pretty sure that makes me a better parent than you."

patton makes a soft snuffling noise in his sleep, and his head tilts a bit in virgil's direction. virgil tries not to feel too victorious about it.

"you have no idea what he did to us," emily says.

"yeah, i do," virgil says. "i was there. i saw how much it tore him apart. still does."

she stares at him, and says, quietly, "i wasn't just talking about him running away."

oh. virgil leans back a little more. right. patton's rebellious teenage years.

("okay, so, you gotta be careful when you try this, right?" virgil says, holding a shot of vodka a bit like it is a nuclear bomb. "drink it all down at once, then you drink this sprite right after or else it'll feel like your throat is burning—"

patton, freshly twenty-one, only stares at him, amused, and downs the shot like a pro, barely pausing to sip his sprite and grin at virgil, to the cheers of the other attendants of patton's fairly sparse birthday party.

"virgil," he says patiently. "this isn't the first drink of alcohol i've ever had."

"oh," he says lamely. "right."

patton snorts and pats him fondly on the cheek. "maybe when i get drunker i'll tell you all about my various teenage shenanigans."

"will it give me a heart attack?"

patton's grin turns a little vicious. "probably," he says. "i mean, it nearly did for my parents. would you say being a teen parent or riding along with chris when he crashed his porsche two hours after his parents got it for his sixteenth birthday is more heart-attack inducing? or the times i shoplifted from department stores? or my five separate fake ids? or maybe my boyfriend who referred to himself as 'the dragon witch' and got me an honorary place in a biker gang? or—"

"patton, oh my god—"

"i'm just warming up, here, we're not even in the good stuff yet," patton chirps teasingly.

"the good stuff? good stuff as in, like, bible study, right?" virgil says, trying to make it a joke to cover that he's about to hyperventilate, but patton laughs and accepts another shot from maria with a nod of thanks before he can get really into it, and then when he surfaces from that shot he demands the music be turned up so he can dance, c'mon, virgil, dance with me dance with me dance with me it's my birthday you gotta dance with me—!)

"okay," virgil says, "as someone who was also pretty stupid when they were a teenager—"

she narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, and he rolls his eyes in return.

"you cannot seriously tell me you haven't done a few dumb things in life you regret," virgil says. "i hung around some kids who weren't the best influences—we called ourselves The Others, i know, it's stupid—and do i regret a lot of the stuff i did with them? yeah, i do. but i've bettered myself, i've moved on, and i've grown. patton has too."

"oh, he has," emily says doubtfully. "of course he has. suddenly, my eyes are open. you've delivered me nirvana. of course patton is no longer a teenager, why, i must have been confused because he insists on continuing to act like one."

"act like one?" virgil repeats cluelessly.

"it clearly isn't news to you that we and patton argue often."

"yeah, no, it isn't," virgil says. "i mean, patton's defending himself, but sure, whatever."

"through asking logan to treat us like lepers?" she snaps. "that doesn't strike you as immature behavior?"

asking logan to treat us like lepers, virgil mouths, and then, "you think patton asked logan to give you a hard time? are we talking about the same patton and logan?"

"well, why else would he—?"

"because logan is a smart, stubborn kid who hates the fact that patton has to sit through you two bullying him in order to secure money for his schooling, holy shit," virgil says. "because logan picks arguments like florists pick flowers, and if someone messes with one of His People it basically means free reign for him to fight back."

"well—"

"logan's literally a debate champion," virgil says. "you're telling me you think it's more likely that patton, your son, the same patton who didn't want to bother anyone when he came down with fucking pneumonia, that patton, you think it's more likely that that patton asked logan, who once got into a full-on argument with a four-year-old who told him that newspapers were stupid when he was fifteen, to be mean to you. you think that patton asked that logan to pick a fight? seriously?"

she crosses her arms and huffs, and suddenly, it clicks.

"oh, my god," virgil says. "you wanna know what your problem is?! you still think that patton's sixteen."

"of course i don't—"

"no, listen," virgil says, warming up to this theory. "patton runs away, and that sucks, i get it, i'm not arguing that. but the only times you see him after that until pretty recently are, what, holidays? so you don't see him on a day-to-day basis anymore. so you didn't see him grow up and grow up fast. and you still refuse to see him grow up, because he's your kid, and on one level i get that because logan becoming an actual adult scares me a lot, but on the other, seriously, lady, patton's thirty-two. he has a house and a good job and he's getting his degree and he has done a great job raising logan, who is, i think we can both agree, while being incredibly infuriating sometimes, is also one of the best teenagers on the face of this planet."

her nod is really more of a jerk of her chin.

"honestly, if anyone would be telling logan to pick a fight with you, it'd be me," virgil muses.

her eyes sharpen. 

"you told logan to—" emily begins, and virgil rolls his eyes.

"no," virgil says, "because when i don't like someone, i don't tell a sixteen-year-old kid to pass on the message for me, god. i'm just saying that if it was between me or patton telling logan to pick a fight, it'd be me."

a pause, a sniff, a "well, that i can believe."

"in the interest of honesty, or whatever, i have been telling patton to not let you into his life anymore for years," virgil says.

the look on her face isn't what virgil's expecting. virgil's expecting her nostrils to flare, her jaw to clench, her eyes to ignite with fury. he's expecting a loud outburst. he's expecting rage. what flickers across her face isn't that. 

virgil thinks it might be fear.

why would she be afraid of—oh. 

oh, that's why patton won't hear about cutting them out whenever virgil brings it up. that's why patton won't hear about leaving them. because he did it once, didn't he? he did it when he ran away to sideshire. 

"he won't listen to me, obviously," virgil says, refusing to acknowledge that he might be saying this to comfort her, but just to establish where they're at, in the fight. because, like, obviously patton wouldn't do that, but she clearly has a skewed idea of who her son is, so. 

"but it's a whole routine. you all fight, you upset patton, patton comes to me, i tell him to cut you two out. he makes excuses. you two... i dunno, god, patton apologizes for whyever you chose to fight him, or he at least smooths things over enough so that you guys get together for the next holiday, the cycle starts again." virgil waves a hand. "he gets irritated if i bring it up too much, so i don't. he's entirely too optimistic about you." 

she's quiet. virgil waits a few seconds, before he continues.

"and you realize that i'm definitely not the one who'd convince patton about cutting you out, but you know the one person he'd do anything for, even if it broke his heart?"

she's gone a little paler. "logan," she says.

"yeah," virgil says. "logan."

"logan wouldn't," she begins, but falters.

"if you keep fighting with patton like this, he might," virgil says. "logan hates it when his dad is upset. he hates it."

"he hates my house," she says, sharp. "he hates me and my husband."

virgil gawks at her.

"what?" she demands. "weren't you going to throw that in my face? weren't you going to lord it over me that he'd rather you be his guardian than us?!"

"i'm not that much of an asshole, jesus," virgil says. "i didn't—i didn't know you'd overheard that."

"yes, well," she scoffs, and fiddles with some of her bracelets. "when patton woke up, then, he kept trying to tell us how we could better take care of logan. even then he said that if we were at a loss, we should contact you."

"i," virgil begins, and shakes himself. "he said all that?"

"when we told him he had pneumonia, he seemed to be under the impression that he was—" her voice cracks. she does not have to say dying out loud—it's written all over her face.

virgil swallows hard, and looks to patton, slumbering peacefully, the beep of his heart monitor, the reassuring rise and fall of his chest. i left him, i left him, and he thought he was dying, he got so sick that he thought he might die because i left him— 

"oh."

"he promised he wouldn't."

"he better not," virgil says hoarsely.

"hmph. yes."

"i—" virgil looks at her, then back at patton. "i mean, he's right. i do know a lot in the whole 'care and keeping of logan' thing."

"oh, i'm sure," she mutters sarcastically.

"i could make it a whole lot clearer, lady," virgil mutters right back. 

she looks away from him, nostrils flaring. 

"i just—look," virgil says. "you realize you have to stop fighting with him, right? all it does it push them both away."

she might be about to say something, but before she can, patton makes a mumbling noise. they both freeze. 

patton's head nods down, sharply, before it tilts back up again. he squints.

"virgil?"

"yeah," virgil says, inching forward in his chair, itching to grab his hand again. "yeah, pat, it's me."

"mkay," patton murmurs, and yawns. "s'logan down for the night?"

oh, gosh, virgil hasn't been asked that question for at least twelve years. virgil figures he may as well play along, let patton get back to sleep faster.

"yeah," virgil whispers back. "yeah, he's out like a light."

well, hopefully true, when logan gets home.

"how many stories did it take?"

"oh, you know logan," virgil sighs, remembering how many storybooks logan would tug from his expansive, second-hand collection and stack them in his arms up to his chin, looking up at virgil expectantly, as if to say we both know you're a softie, you're going to read me all these, let's skip the argument, except virgil would pose a slight argument anyways and convince logan to let go of maybe three of them, because logan had always had virgil pinned on that whole softie thing.

"about a million. i made one up for him, too."

"was it about cecil the space pirate?"

"cecil the space pirate," virgil confirms, lips twitching. wow, the things patton's fever-addled brain thought up. virgil's nearly forgotten about cecil the space pirate, one of the only make-believe stories logan continued to tolerate even as he grew older and older and older. virgil's pretty sure that the second birthday story roman ever wrote for logan was about cecil the space pirate.

"mkay," patton murmurs. "i got work in the morning, don't i?"

"nah," virgil says. "nah, you get to sleep in tomorrow, lucky you."

"you'll be at the diner for breakfast?"

"'course i'll be at the diner for breakfast," virgil says. "i own it."

"want waffles," patton murmurs sleepily.

"if you're nice to me," virgil says.

"m'always nice to you," patton slurs.

"yeah, that's true," virgil concedes. "okay. if you're extra nice to me, how bout that?"

patton lets out what might be a giggle, but he's so close to dropping off again that it's hard to tell.

"get some rest," virgil murmurs, and hesitates, before he reaches over to brush patton's hair back. he promised he wouldn't. i’m not leaving you again. "you just go ahead and go to sleep, patton. i’ll be right here."

patton sighs, head tilting a little further into virgil's touch. he's not nearly as warm as he'd been when virgil found him, which is good, but still too warm for virgil's taste.

he can see emily, out of the corner of his eyes, looking a little more relaxed.

"i'm not finished with you, your days are numbered," virgil hisses in her direction.

patton hums at him quizzically, mumbles, "wha'?"

"i said, do you want some water?" virgil covers quickly, smiling falsely at him. it turns a bit more real as patton squints an eye at him.

"you don't gotta fuss 'bout my hydration all the time, you know."

"ah, but fussing's what i do best," virgil says gently, smiling at patton as he combs his fingers through patton's curls in a slow, repetitive motion. "go on, close your eyes again, there you go. go to sleep."

"you don't gotta fuss about how much sleep i get either," patton sighs, but closes his eyes obediently. his breathing evens out, soon enough. 

she's silent. virgil's thought about this fight—how it might go, where it might happen, who would win—for years. exactly none of it has gone according to how his brain said it might go. virgil has a lot of opinions on emily and richard sanders and the way they treat their son—on days where they've been behaving themselves relatively well, he thinks they're stuck-up, snobbish assholes, and on days where they haven't been behaving well virgil thinks about the things that patton tells him that they say to him and thinks about how they're something that starts with "emotionally" and ends with "abusive," and how patton would be so absolutely in his rights to cut them off, and he has wanted to fight emily or richard sanders for years. and now it's here.

and now it's... off.

"we want the best for him," emily says.

"that's exactly what he says, yeah," virgil says tiredly, and runs his fingers through patton's curls again. "the trouble is, what you think is best for him and what's actually best for him are two entirely different things." 

her lips twitch, with bitter humor. "that's exactly what he says."

and here's the crux of it: "but you don't agree," virgil says.

"no," emily says. her chin tilts up, proud. "no, we don't."

any sympathy virgil has toward her is gone. he kind of wants to reach across patton's bed and throttle her. they're in a hospital, they're in the right place for it.

"why the fuck not," virgil manages to hiss it and not shriek it. she's so close to understanding, so close to actually catching on and getting it and maybe, miracle of miracles, patching up her and her husband's relationship with patton, but now she doesn't get it?!

"because what he thinks is best for him is not the same as what is actually best for him," emily says. 

"okay, then, what do you think is actually best for him?" virgil asks, with a twirl of his free hand he realizes with muted horror he probably picked up from roman.

so she lays it out for him. patton getting his degree is all well and good, but he should get it from a "better" establishment. patton being a manager is all well and good, but not in the inn business—if he adds a bit onto his degree, why, he could go into insurance too, and be a manager there soon enough. and patton having a little country home is all well and good, but he should move into a neighborhood more fitting for him—a house that would be closer to chilton. a house that would be closer to her. and, well, if patton stumbles across a few friends of hers—the sons of members of the dar, the kind of sons who have privilege and strong savings and investments and would be able to take care of him, and  if they just so happened fit emily's bill of approval to a t—well, that certainly wouldn't be too bad for him, either. and with logan going off to an ivy soon, well, he might get lonely, it would be good for him to have someone, and maybe, just maybe, there could be other little perfect grandbabies on the way, and—

"okay, so, what i'm hearing is," virgil cuts in, "basically, you want to redesign his whole life."

"well, not his whole life," emily says. 

"what are you leaving him from the life he's managed to build in this 'donna reed' style daydream, just logan?" virgil says incredulously. "a little small-town summer house he can escape to?"

she blinks at him. "that seems reasonable."

"that seems like patton would be miserable," virgil says. 

she looks at him, blank. "why?"

"well, one," virgil says pointedly, "sure, patton's open to having other kids, but the only way they'd be biologically his is if he'd donate an egg. he never wants to be pregnant again, you do realize that's what messed up his brain to the point it did, back then?"

she looks at him, gobsmacked. "and how would you know that?"

(—patton's nineteen, and starting to go on the occasional date, which is kinda weird but patton's an adult and he can do what we wants, and currently he's going slightly steady with one of the businessmen who swings into town every other week or so, and it's going pretty well, or so virgil's heard and thought until patton careens into the diner one night, eyes huge and watery and gasping, and virgil's out from behind the counter before he can even think.

"hey," he says, and "hey—" and patton's face is crumpling up, and no, patton doesn't want to cry in the middle of the diner in dinner rush, so virgil says, "c'mere, c'mon," and puts an arm around his shoulders, trying to shield him from sight of everyone in the diner, quickly getting him through the back and patton bursts into tears as soon as the door to virgil's apartment shuts behind him.

"patton, patton, patton," he says, hushed, and patton, red-faced and crying, just holds out a shopping bag. virgil blinks, takes it, and takes out one of the three identical things that's in there and—

"oh shit," virgil says before he can really temper his reaction, and patton starts crying harder, and virgil curses, dropping the unopened pregnancy test on the ground, stepping forward and opening his arms in invitation and patton buries his face into virgil's chest, sobbing.

"i don't wanna be pregnant again," he gasps. "i don't wanna be—"

"okay, okay, it's okay," virgil says. "it's okay—do you know if—?"

"not yet, i was too—" patton gulps, and croaks, "i can barely afford logan, and i love him so much, but i can't—i can't do that again, i can't—"

"it's really rare for trans guys on t to get pregnant, right?" virgil says gently, and patton sniffs, louder, and nods.

"okay," virgil says. "okay. here's what we're going to do, okay? we're going to sit down on my couch."

they do.

"we're gonna get you calmed down," virgil says. "next, you're gonna drink some water, and you'll take it."

"and if i—?"

"we can talk about your options if the test's positive," virgil says gently. "but take the test first. okay? then we can cross that bridge if we get to it."

patton snuggles harder into virgil, hiccuping, and virgil runs his hand through patton's hair, over and over, until his shoulders stop shaking as much. 

virgil gets him some water. virgil waits when patton goes into the restroom. virgil waits as patton comes back, buries his face into virgil's lap and curls up hard, hiding from the world.

"why do you think you're—?" virgil begins. 

"i got really bad morning sickness, with logan," patton whispers. "migraines too. and i'm—i just, my period's been irregular since i started t, and it's mostly stopped, but there's been some spotting and i looked it up and that's a symptom too and i—"

"okay," virgil murmurs, trying to mentally sort what each of those might be—summer flu, dehydration, he admittedly doesn't know much about periods so he can't really say much about that—"okay. um. have you guys been, um...?"

"using protection, yeah," patton says miserably. "but apparently that's not very useful when it comes to me, so."

"huh," virgil says. "with logan?"

"condom broke, we think," patton says, and wearily runs a hand over his eyes. "or at least that's the most likely explanation."

"yeah," virgil says, and runs a hand over patton's hair again. he's about to ask patton if he's doing okay, except the timer goes off, and patton lets out a keening, horrible whine.

"i can't look," he whispers. "virgil, could you—?"

"yeah," virgil says, heart in his throat. impulsively, he kisses patton's head. "yeah, of course, i'll look."

he checks the guide. he takes a breath. he looks at all three tests. and then he double-checks them, and double-checks the guide, and he walks out of the bathroom to see patton hugging a pillow to his stomach, hunched over it.

"well?" patton whispers.

"well," virgil says, "i think you have the summer flu, or something, and you should probably make a doctor's appointment to ask about spotting, because you've got three nopes in there."

"oh," patton chokes out, and buries his face in his hands. "oh, thank god."

"yeah," virgil says, and goes over to the couch, hugging patton again. "yeah, buddy, you're okay."

"i just—god," patton manages. "i mean, i want another kid at some point, probably, but i can't—i can't be pregnant again. i can't do that. i mean, i love logan, i love him so much, but being pregnant with him—what it did to my brain, what it did to my mental health, i can't—"

he chokes up, and can't go on, and virgil's heart breaks a little.

"that's totally understandable and you do not have to justify yourself to me, or to anyone else," virgil says firmly. "hey, do you want me to get you a brownie, or something? i think you just put the 'scary' in 'pregnancy scare.'"

patton lets out what might be a giggle, a bit too hysterical to make virgil actually happy, but it's a giggle, nonetheless, and—)

"we talked about it once," virgil says evasively, fingers twitching through patton's hair as if to comfort distress that's thirteen years past. "look, just—none of what you just said would make patton happy, are you serious?"

"i wasn't talking about patton being happy, i was talking about what would be best for him," emily says. 

virgil blinks. "i'm not following."

she lets out a long sigh, as if he is being deliberately obtuse. "it would make patton happy if he were able to eat nothing but waffles and pasta and sweets all day. it would be best for him if he ate fruits and vegetables and maintained a balanced diet."

"that's an entirely different thing," virgil says hotly, withdrawing his hand from patton's hair and starting to pick at a loose thread in his hoodie.

"is it?" she challenges. 

"yeah, it is," virgil says, "because his life isn't as temporary as a meal. what's best for him in his diet is nowhere near the same way you should treat your life."

"that is where we disagree," she says, terse. "i believe what is best for him is not necessarily what makes him happy. there are procedures put in place, proper plans to be followed."

"doesn't what he want matter to you?" virgil says.

"what he wants is immaterial. sacrifices are often necessary in order to what is right."

virgil stares at her for a few moments, lets her words sink in, lets himself reflect on what following that might have been like, and—

"i am really indescribably sorry for you, right now," virgil tells her, and she sniffs.

"you hardly need to be. i was perfectly happy to follow the life i had set out for me."

virgil stares at her for a few more seconds, and she huffs.

"save your emotions," she says. "i've had just about my fill of them tonight." 

virgil snorts. "finally, somewhere we agree," he mutters.

they're quiet for another long stretch of time. 

"you genuinely think you know what's best for him?" she says, and virgil starts.

"i," virgil says. "yeah. better than you do, anyway."

"why?" she says, and then, derisively, "because you're in love with him?"

virgil doesn't quite reel back like she's smacked him, which is kind of how it feels, but he does pinch the fabric of his hoodie between his fingernails.

"no," he says. before he can say anything else, she plows over him.

"you look at him like he's a porterhouse steak!" she says, vindictive. 

"i do not," he says.

"oh, please, you look at him like he's about to give you a lapdance."

virgil just about chokes on air.

"i do not," virgil insists, "and anyway, that's not what i was about to say, i wasn't about to deny being in love with him, of course i'm in love with him."

she falters.

"i was going to say that me being in love with him doesn't change that i know what makes him happy better than you do," virgil says. 

"fine, then," emily says. "please tell me what you think would make him happy."

"his life, now, for the most part," virgil says. "living in sideshire, managing the inn. waiting for logan to get home from chilton, logan telling him about working at the courant, supervising roman and logan sleepovers. i think the biggest change would be if he got along with his parents."

she stares at him for one second. two.

virgil shrugs. "that's what would make him happy," he says simply. "that's what he wants. when he came home from lunch or brunch or whatever it was with you guys and logan and you guys managed not to fight the whole time, he was so happy."

she's silent.

"and i think that's what you want too," virgil says quietly. 

she's silent for a long time—enough time for patton to stir again, and, slightly hilariously and slightly heartbreakingly, seems to be stuck firmly in the headspace of logan still being a baby, and virgil soothes patton's mumbled worries about how logan's colic should be acting up by now before patton drops back off again. and by then, emily seems to have gotten control of her emotions again.

"you haven't put yourself into that little scenario of yours," emily says.

"the way we are now makes him happy," virgil says simply. "and that's enough for me."

she snorts. "idiots. the both of you."

virgil snorts a little, too, ducking his head. he rubs his thumb and forefinger against the worn spot on the cuff of his hoodie.

her eyes zero in on it. "did you," she begins, and then, almost suspiciously, "did you make that?"

"oh," virgil says, and awkwardly, "um, i mean, i bought the hoodie. but all the extra stitching and fabric and stuff, yeah. i did that."

"hm."

"i gave it to patton when we were on the way here," falls out of his mouth before he can stop it.

she looks at him a little closer. "you did?"

virgil coughs, awkward, and redirects his glance back to the sleeve he's worrying between his fingers. "he was, um. he had pretty bad chills, and i kept turning the heat up in the car, but it didn't help. and he wasn't saying anything, but i knew he was cold, so i gave it to him, but the orderlies had to take it off before he could go back in the test room, but i—i haven't been able to put it back on since."

his mouth snaps shut, and he's fully aware of his cheeks burning, fully aware of her eyes on him, and he stares even harder at the little imperfect faded oval he's rubbed into the fabric over the years, rendering that section of cuff a shade lighter than the rest of it.

"stupid, i know," he mutters.

she's quiet, for a moment, before she says, "i haven't been able to bring myself to change any of the decoration or furniture in patton's room since he left home."

he doesn't really know what to say to that. it feels like... he doesn't know. if it was any other person than one of patton's two parents, he'd say it feels like an olive branch. but with them, virgil's so used to hearing about arguments and bickering and favors offered with full knowledge they'd be paid back in full later, so it doesn't. it feels like a business deal. or like one of the faeries in the stories that virgil used to read to logan, before he insisted he outgrew such things—the kinds of sneaky wishes that would come back to bite you, in some way. it feels like a rabbit's foot. it feels like a monkey's paw.

"he has a way," virgil says at last. 

"he does, doesn't he," she says musingly. 

"yeah," virgil says, awkward.

there's another pause, a long stretch of quiet. enough time for a nurse to come and check patton's vitals, update his data, smile benevolently at them both, and leave.

"not that i'm asking your opinion," she says severely. "but your... idea. of how patton would like to lead his life."

virgil looks up, blinking at her. "yeah?"

she lifts an eyebrow at him imperiously. "do you think it's possible?"

"oh," virgil says. "i think—i mean, i don't really believe in you all that much, but patton does, so. if you keep fighting him and don't, like, remove your head from your ass, you're definitely going to push him and logan away, you know that, right?"

she doesn't really respond, and virgil huffs out an exasperated breath.

"look," virgil says. "you know what would patch all this up?"

"what?"

"if you and your husband apologized," for once. "if you and him apologized to patton, he'd forgive you in a heartbeat, you know. because again, he's way too optimistic about you."

"well, i hardly—"

"holy shit, you started it," virgil says. "you always start it. you cannot seriously expect your son, who is bedridden with pneumonia, to put in his usual work of trying to smooth it over between you three, the way he always does. for once, can you please just fucking set aside your pride for five seconds and apologize?"

"what he did—"

"sucked, i know," virgil says impatiently. "it sucks that he ran away, he knows that, he regrets doing that to you the way he did, but jesus christ, it's been sixteen years. he's apologized, hasn't he?"

she barely inclines her head.

"okay, so," virgil says. "can you just see that this is kind of a special circumstance and say the words i'm sorry? just one time. and he'll forgive you basically instantly. even if you don't understand why, just say it, and then you can playact at being a big happy family again."

emily chews at her lip.

...

"you're quite certain you don't want me to stay the night here?" 

"i'll be fine, grandpa," logan says wearily as they turn down the street to home, even as something in him delights at being so, so close to home again. "you should go back to your house, in case they need anything. you're closer to the hospital than i am here."

"well," he begins, about to turn into the drive, but he stops the car as the lights illuminate a familiar figure.

"who the devil," he begins, moving to lock the doors, but logan's flinging the door open before he can, unbuckling and nearly skidding on the icy driveway as he speedwalks to the front stoop, where the familiar figure is standing up, shivering.

"roman," logan says, and roman steps forward and hugs him tight, so tight, and logan closes his eyes, buries his face into roman's shoulder where he still smells like hairspray and the stage makeup he hadn't bothered to wipe off his face and sweat, still wearing the massive button-down he wears to cover his costumes while backstage at a show under his big, puffy winter jacket, and logan's home, he's home, and—

"oh my god, i'm so sorry i didn't call back," roman says, and draws back. he'd barely made a cursory smear of a makeup wipe on his face, so his stage makeup remains on his face, smeared with sweat. he still has purple glitter on his eyelids and sharp cateye eyeliner, and smudged, faded lipstick. "i didn't know what to do, i didn't know where you were, i didn't know if you were coming home for the night or not, so i just—"

"logan?" his grandfather calls, and logan turns, still holding roman in his arms.

"it's okay," logan calls. "it's okay, it's just roman. i'll see you tomorrow?"

richard surveys this, frowns, grunts a little, waves in farewell, and gets back in his car. logan opens the front door to the house, nudging roman in ahead of him and flicking on the light, turning back to lock the door. roman barely waits until he's turned the key until he's tugging at logan's suit jacket, and logan turns to face him again, and god, there he is, that's his best friend. 

"is your dad okay?" roman asks, frantic.

"he'll be fine," logan says. "i—the doctors said it was pneumonia and he'll be at the hospital for a few days, but they said he'd be okay."

"god, logan," roman says, and reaches to hug him again. logan closes his eyes tight, and leans into it, hard. for once, he won't deny that he maybe needs hugs right now.

they draw back, and logan, a little in disbelief, picks at collar of roman's button-up.

"you came," logan says.

"well, yeah," roman says, like it's obvious. "you were upset, of course i came."

i love you, logan thinks.

"i mean, admittedly, it wasn't like, straight to the hospital, or anything," roman says. "i tried, but i wasn't sure which one, and—"

"i'm going back to visit in the morning," logan says, tentative. "if you'd—if you'd join me?"

"yeah, of course," roman says, and takes logan's hand. he tugs logan into the living room, where the detritus of one of his father's blanket nests is in an armchair. they sit on the couch, where a collection of empty mugs sits on the coffee table. there is so much of patton in this house. logan cannot look anywhere without thinking about his dad.

suddenly, he realizes that roman's been talking this whole time.

"—but oh my god, l, that must have been so scary."

logan wants to deny that it was scary. logan wants to lie. logan wants to say objectively, the risks of pneumonia are relatively low, here are the survival rates and here are the usual methods of treatment and here is what will happen, and here is proof that my dad will be okay, and here are all the reasons why it is illogical to be upset, because he will be okay, and i know he will be okay, because virgil promised he would be okay and the doctor said he would be okay and the family physician said he would be okay, so there is no reason why my brain is still stuck at a point where i should think that he wouldn't be okay, because that is not true, because he will be okay.

instead, logan's lip trembles, and he catches it between his teeth with a groan, pressing his elbows against his thighs and bending to meet his hands, sliding off his glasses to press the heels of his hands against his stinging, hot eyes.

there's a body against him, then, a cheek pressed to the back of his neck, arms wrapping around him again, and logan swallows hard.

"i've gotcha," roman whispers. "i've got you, logan. i'm right here." 

and logan buries his face in his best friend's lap, and for the second time that night, he starts to cry.

...

there's a weight on patton's hip.

that's the first thing he's aware of, swimming out of the dark gray sludge of sleep, waking up slowly and not particularly liking it very much. there is a weight against his hip, and when at last he cracks open his eyes, the first thing he does is look to see what it is.

it's a familiar head. the face is mostly obscured by the hair flopping into patton's line of vision, but the hoodie that's been spread out over patton like a blanket and the t-shirt and worn jeans the familiar person is wearing are big enough identifiers that patton doesn't really have to wait for any of his reasoning skills to come back online.

virgil's got a hand close to patton's hand, where it's resting on the mattress, and an arm slung out across patton's stomach, not even pillowing his head. it's as if he'd reached out to make sure that patton would stay put.

patton's heart swells with a nearly unimaginable amount of fondness. he carefully moves the hand that virgil had nearly been touching to virgil's head. his hair, feathery and floppy and soft, is familiar under his hand. the hard curve of his skull is, too. patton doesn't get to touch him very much, but they're familiar anyways. he swipes an admiring thumb slowly down, tracing the line of virgil's jaw.

virgil nuzzles against patton's belly in his sleep. in doing so, a bit of his hair slips, and it reveals a bit of virgil's closed eye, bangs parting like curtains. the ever-present bags look slightly darker than usual. that must be why virgil fell asleep on him. well, patton certainly isn't complaining. as a matter of fact, he smiles, and covers virgil's hand with his own, feeling something in his stomach flutter.

he can go back to sleep, now.

 when he wakes again, it's to the clicking of high heels, and a voice he's known all his life.

"—did you say he'd be here, again?"

another voice—familiar, beloved, feels like he's known him all his life.

"logan's text said 9:30, so they're probably just parking and getting up to the room now."

"hmph. or the traffic's acting up again."

huh. he must be dreaming. there is no actual world where his mother and virgil are being so civil.

"look, they said they'd be here soon. with roman, too."

"the dance boy? patton says logan has a crush on him."

"oh, yeah, logan definitely has a crush on him. but patton really likes him, he's practically another kid. he's my neighbor, plus he's logan's best friend, so. logan probably told him about it and roman wanted to come wish him well."

"he was very well-behaved at logan's birthday get-together," his mother muses.

"yeah, he can be a real little charmer," virgil says darkly.

"he's a prince, it's practically in the name that he's charming," patton mumbles, trying to complete the old joke.

"oh, right on time," his mother says, pleased, and patton cracks open his eyes.

his mother's standing, holding a to-go cup of coffee, and virgil's still sitting at patton's bedside, where he dimly remembers virgil being a few times he'd woken up before. his hand's under patton's, and patton squeezes before he can really help himself. he's never really held virgil's hand before—this isn't exactly holding his hand, just his hand over virgil's, but it's close enough that patton's kind of unreasonably excited

"what were you saying?" patton asks, shifting against the pillows, trying to sit up a bit straighter.

"logan, roman, and your dad are all coming," virgil tells him. "should be here any minute."

patton nods, and makes the mistake of looking down at himself, only to suck in a breath and look up at the ceiling.

"what?" virgil asks, alert.

"needles," patton says, strangled. "i can see it, virge. i can feel it."

ivs! are! the! worst! sure, he's a bit more used to needles now because of his shots of testosterone, but with those he can at least aim and then look away and jab himself, and it's over relatively quickly, but he can feel it now and it is Bad—

"oh," virgil says, scrambling, "um—"

"here," his mother says, and patton turns his head away from the arm that has tubing coming out of it, to see his mother holding out her silk handkerchief. 

"oh!" patton says, and takes it, carefully draping it over the injection site as much as he can without looking at it, and risks a glance. yes, he can still see the tubing, and feel the iv, but as long as he doesn't move his arm and the handkerchief stays there, he should be... okay.

patton offers a tentative smile to his mom—she's been here, patton knows that, his memories are really fuzzy but he knows she's been here, but patton also knows that they've been freezing each other out for the past week, so. "um, thanks, mom."

she nods, once, and virgil says, "you doing okay, pat?"

"i think so," patton says uncertainly. "i mean, i still feel pretty—bleh."

"the doctor said you probably would be feeling pretty bleh for the next couple days, sorry," virgil says sympathetically. "but you're going to be just fine, patton. you're going to be okay."

a wave of relief sweeps through patton. he remembers, distantly, almost like it's a dream, the suddenly more aggressive and more pervasive fear of dying, but—but if a doctor said he'd be okay, and if virgil says he's going to be okay, then patton's going to be okay. 

"okay," patton says, and nods, absorbing this. "okay. um, good."

"uh, so, i think i might go out to the waiting room, wait for logan and roman to get here, if that's... if that's okay."

no that is not okay why are you leaving me alone with her?! patton wants to ask, but virgil's giving him a Look, a it's okay look, so patton lets out a little breath, and trusts him. obviously. it's not even a choice, he just does.

"you can keep an eye on my hoodie for me," virgil adds, flicking one of the sleeves so it folds over patton's lap, and patton looks up at him, blinking.

"you sure?" he says, tentatively running his thumb over a worn little bit of hoodie that he's seen virgil run his fingers over, too. "you never take this off."

"i think i can manage to trust you with it," virgil says, amused. "besides, that way you know i'm gonna be coming back, right?"

patton weighs these options. he fiddles with virgil's hoodie again, runs his fingers over the white stitching, feeling the variance of textures under his fingers.

"okay," patton says. "yeah."

"cool," virgil says.

and then virgil and his mom share their own little Look. patton has literally no hope of unparsing it if he tried—they still aren't fond of each other, obviously, but they look... they look understanding, almost. almost. not quite. but like they've reached some kind of point of agreement, maybe. not necessarily that they entirely agree, but just one point of agreement.

well, that's more than they had, so. patton's all for it.

his mother takes virgil's abandoned seat, and scoots a little closer, crossing her legs primly.

"well," she says, and fiddles with his blanket, pointedly avoiding touching virgil's hoodie, pulling the blanket over him a little more snugly. "how are you feeling?"

okay, so this is... weird. but patton can go with it. at least it's not yelling.

"um," patton says. "not my best?"

her face tightens.

"what?" patton asks in a tiny voice.

"young man," she says. "you were brought into the hospital between having actually collapsed and being on the verge of another one, with a fever so high you could have risked serious brain damage if you continued to refuse to seek treatment, and a case of pneumonia so serious that you have to stay in the hospital for at least three days, and all you have to say is that you don't feel at your best?"

"well, you see," patton says, "i'm really not at my best."

his mother looks five seconds from lovingly smothering him with his own hospital pillow when the door opens, and—

okay, virgil seriously isn't mean enough to leave him to get yelled at while he was bedridden and couldn't escape, right? had he really annoyed virgil recently?

"hello, patton," his father says.

"um, hi, dad," patton says, trying not to fidget, in case it jostled his arm and he had to be reminded about needles again. "are, um. are logan and roman here?"

"virgil took them to get coffee," his dad says. 

(actually, virgil is leaning against the wall just outside the door, out of sight of anyone in the room, monitoring this conversation just in case anything goes wrong, and what he said to roman and logan was "here's ten bucks, scram," and roman had wrinkled his nose at him and said "why?" and virgil said "privacy reasons, there's going to be an emotional moment," and logan had declared "gross" incredibly loudly and grabbed roman by the hand and dragged him in the direction of the hospital cafeteria, roman looking a bit too excited about logan holding his hand to really protest, but sure, the sanders' could all think that virgil took the kids to get coffee.)

richard pulls up a chair to sit beside his mother, and patton—patton is very suddenly reminded of the two other times in his life where he had to stay in the hospital for a period of time, when he gave birth, and when he had top surgery.

they were both there then, too.

neither time, though, had they had a fight quite as bad as the one they'd had last week.

"you don't," patton begins haltingly, and twists virgil's hoodie in his free hand. "you don't have to stay, you know."

they look at each other.

"it was very nice of you to drive roman and logan here," patton says to his dad, quietly, "but i don't—you two don't have to stick around, really. i'm going to be fine, and i can patch things up when—"

"we wanted to apologize," his mother says stiffly, and patton's mouth snaps shut.

"you," patton says, and swallows hard. "you, um. you what?"

"we wanted to apologize," his dad says. patton kind of wants to clean out his ears, and ask them both to repeat themselves one more time, or maybe page a doctor, please, because he thinks he might be hallucinating, but—

"we were out of line," richard continues. "i was out of line. i shouldn't have come down on you as hard as i did—for reopening an argument we've had before."

"oh, dad, that's not—" patton starts.

"will you be quiet and let us finish?" his mother says, snappish, and that almost kind of soothes patton, because if his mother's snappish even if she says she's in the middle of an apology it means his parents probably haven't been bodysnatched, so that's good.

"we are sorry," his mother continues, dignified and refined, and not particularly heartfelt, but that's actually kind of okay, because this was already so weird that if his mom started being the emotional one patton would—well, he doesn't know, really, he just knows it would be very strange. "we are sorry that you were upset, and we are sorry that we upset you further."

"please consider forgiving us," his dad says formally, and patton quashes the urge to giggle. please consider forgiving us in the same way he'd say please consider opening an insurance policy with our company to a client. 

"yes," emily says. "we are sorry for yelling at you, and for aggravating you when you were clearly upset and needed support, and for—"

she hesitates. she adjusts her jacket sleeves.

"and for putting you down," she says, and makes a slight moue of distaste. "for... bullying you."

patton, who is very uncomfortable, cannot help but laugh awkwardly. "i—i mean, i wouldn't say—"

"what else would you call telling you your reasoning wasn't good enough and saying you were a disappointment?" richard asks wearily, and patton shuts his mouth, directing his glance to his lap. he's fisted virgil's hoodie into a bunch he keeps curled in his free hand, with a white-knuckled grip.

"i," patton says, and swallows hard, trying to stop his voice from trembling. he can't say anything at all, and it reminds him unpleasantly of the argument, where he was lost for words, and he couldn't say anything, and he tried so hard to say something and when he did it wasn't good enough, and he swallows again, trying to search for something to say—

"you did nothing to deserve that," his dad says, and patton looks up, then, and oh. oh, his dad's eyes are... suspiciously shiny. "you did nothing to earn that."

"dad," patton barely manages to say around how choked up he is. the only time he ever saw his dad shed a tear was at his grandfather's funeral—and even then, it had only been a few, before he'd wiped off his face and continued stolidly onward.  

"i was being unfair," he says, rigid and unyielding. "i shouldn't have taken out my frustrations on you, much less in such an extreme way. i lost my composure."

"yes," emily says. "so. we are sorry that we were upset, and we made it so that you were upset you, too."

it dawns on patton, then.

they're so bad at this. like, genuinely, they're terrible at apologizing. they've hit almost everything on the stereotypical "what not to do while apologizing list." they apologized that he got upset, not for the things they said that made him upset. they've been snappy and irritable, and sure, a little emotional, but he's pretty sure telling the person you're apologizing to to be quiet is also a thing not to do. they've been uncomfortable, not with their past actions, but with the words they're saying now. 

but honestly? it's the first time they've apologized to him. so no wonder they're bad at it. baby steps, he supposes, and this is a big one. it's the first one. plus, being bad at being humble and nice is kind of quintessential to the way the elder sanders' are. it's comforting, in a really weird way.

"why are you smiling like that?" emily says suspiciously.

patton smiles wider. "nothing," he says reassuringly. 

"well, you're certainly smiling for some reason," she says peevishly. "the least you could do is sit and listen politely without looking like the cat that's gotten the cream, patton, for goodness' sake—oh!"

the reason she's said oh! is because patton's leaned almost all the way off the bed to hug her around the shoulders with his free arm. he sets his chin on her shoulder.

"i love you, mom," he says sincerely.

"oh," she says, and her hand flutters uselessly somewhere along his shoulder blade. "oh, well, that's—how nice."

patton grins even wider, because it's just such a mom thing of her to do, to be so at a loss during an emotional moment. he draws back, and grins at his dad. "i won't hug you, but i hope you know i'm thinking about it."

"it's appreciated," his father says solemnly. 

patton settles back on his pillows, cheeks hurting. "i forgive you, by the way," he adds. "if it needs to be said."

"well, good," emily says, self-satisfied, as if she's succeeded in auctioning for a particularly rare piece of antique furniture. or, well. as if she's the cat that got the cream.

"how was it?" he asks, curious. "having logan spend the week over."

richard and emily exchange a glance. 

"eventful," emily decides, and richard nods in agreement, before he reaches to take one of the abandoned newspapers from the pile logan's compiled for him, and patton almost laughs.

it doesn't take very long for the kid in question to show up at the door, with a diner owner and his best friend in tow, virgil adjusting the chairs in patton's room, before taking a seat himself.

virgil reaches out and takes patton's hand, like it's habit, before he freezes. patton smiles at him, though, and squeezes back, flipping their hands a little so that he can stare at virgil's hand.

he guesses they must have held hands for the first time last night, when he was too feverish to really tune into it. but he takes the time now to marvel quietly at virgil's hands.

logan and roman start talking about roman's opening show of the nutcracker last night, so everyone else is paying attention to that, and patton's absorbing the information, really, but he's a bit preoccupied with virgil's long, bony fingers, his expansive palm, the way he keeps stealing looks at patton out of the corners of his eyes, like he's checking that patton's alright. 

there's dozens of tiny little shiny white burns dotting his fingers, from points where the heat must have leaked through a mitt or he'd forgotten a mitt altogether, or something. there's a longer one, along his wrist. it kind of surprises patton, because he knows how cautious virgil is with heat in the kitchen. he's got calluses and his hand’s a bit sweaty, but warm, and patton squeezes his hand again—an it's okay, an i'm okay, an everything's going to be okay, an i'm really happy you're here right now. a thank you. an i love you.

and virgil squeezes back.

[wailingwhilewriting-blog]

Tugging at my Heart, part 1

Edit: Re-upload because I wanted to migrate and then I messed stuff up.

Summary: You’re a literature teacher who quickly takes an interest in the new P.E. teacher, Mr. Odinson.

Pairings: Teacher!Thor x Teacher!Reader

Type: Series

Warnings: Minor cursing

Word Count: 1950

A/N: The writing urge has taken a hold of me and made me do it; a high school teacher AU.

Masterlist

Part 2

You cursed quietly as you fumbled with your keys. You were sporting your heavy bag in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other and somehow you tried to get your car to lock. Your keys fell from your fidgeting fingers onto the pavement.

“Fucking sh –“ you growled, but you quickly finished the rest of your cursing in your mind. There were students all around, after all.

It was the first day of the year, and everything was going exactly NOT as you had planned. You were late due to traffic, some asshole had parked in your parking space in the staff parking lot and your coffee was probably extremely cold by now.

When you straightened again, keys clutched in your hand you looked at the steady stream of students that was pouring into the school building. Some familiar faces smiled at you, and a boy with a beanie flashed you the peace sign.

“Hey ms. (l/n)!”

“Hey Brian!” you called back, racking your brain for his last name, but came up empty. You quickly walked into the building as fast as you could without losing your air of professionalism. You walked through the familiar hallways, greeting familiar faces here and there as you strode towards your classroom. You unlocked it, chucked your bag inside and took a quick glance around. Everything was pretty much like you left it last year, posters of Stonehenge, Shakespeare and random book and movie covers littering the walls. There was a tingle of nervousness in your stomach like every year on the first day. You glanced at your watch and saw that you had about 10 more minutes until your class started, and with a bit of luck you could get some hot coffee before having to face a class full of students.

You quickly flung your cold coffee into the garbage bin, locked the classroom door and strode towards the teacher’s lounge. As you walked through the swinging door, you nearly bumped into Natasha Romanoff.

“Hi (y/n),” she said cheerily as she brushed past you, “first day and you are very nearly late!”

“I know, I know,” you groaned. “You look good! How was Russia over the summer?”

Natasha shrugged. “It was okay. Brushed up a bit on my foreign languages, visited the royal ballet… Nothing special!”

“Are you kidding me? Leaving the country for a holiday abroad is extremely special, especially with our salaries,” you retorted.

“Gotta run!” Natasha said while walking backwards.

“Meet you at lunch?” you called after her as she disappeared through the doorway. You heard a vague “yes!”, and you walked over to the coffee machine with a smile. You pushed in your specific coffee needs, but when the maker refused to respond you quickly slammed your fist into the side panel. Almost immediately, coffee came pouring out and you quickly held your cup underneath in triumph.

Taking a large sip, you looked around the lounge and spotted Steve Rogers, history teacher and handsome dude altogether. You quickly walked over him and sat yourself down in the seat next to him.

“What’s up Rogers? Ready for another year of teaching ungrateful brats?” you said with a grin.

“Hey now,” he said warningly. “That’s not how we talk about our students.”

“I know, I’m joking,” you replied quickly. “So, what’s the status report this year?”

“Oh you know. Fury’s the same. He has already yelled at a student for littering and the first class of the year hasn’t even started yet. Tony’s planning to go against school regulations again and is preparing a lesson on A.I. building, so that’ll be fun,” Steve said, glancing at his watch and slowly rising from his chair. “Oh, and Clint has gotten some extra hands in the P.E. department.”

You took another sip of your coffee and looked at Steve in surprise. “Oh? I didn’t know we had a new staff member join us this year.”

“Yeah, Fury hired the guy to help with P.E. classes, so Clint can help a bit more at home with the new baby. Apparently, the new guy is also qualified as a substitute teacher.” Steve had gathered his books and was now also walking towards the hallway, giving you a small nod.

“Wait, you didn’t tell me his name!” you called out before he was through the door.

“I think it was Odinson!” he called back, and was out the door a second later.

You scoffed softly. Odinson? Unusual name. Sounded kind of… regal, though. Your thoughts were interrupted when the first bell of the year rang rather shrilly, and you quickly drank the last of your coffee, hastening to your classroom.

Classes passed by much like your early morning had. Every class of students stared rather blankly at you as you talked your way through the syllabus, discussing which books you would read in the year and what you expected from your students. Now and then, a student near the window would sigh wistfully as they stared outside, and you felt much the same.

The class right before lunch was even more restless as the students found their groups and talked loudly amongst their cliques. You let them talk for a few moments, figuring that they’d settle down on their own after a minute or so. When you picked up a familiar name, you looked at the group of girls sitting in the front.

“… Odinson is handsome as hell according to Sherry Daniels!” one of the girls whispered aggressively.

“Eww, he’s like thirty or something!” another answered.

“Honestly, as long as he’s not as strict as Mr. Barton, I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, it’s just a perk that he’s good looking, you know. Makes you run a little harder during laps when you’re thirsty,” one of the girls said with a soft giggle.

You quickly rose from your seat before their talk could get any more inappropriate and cleared your throat, signalling everyone that it was time to begin.

You walked the students through the syllabus and even got to the first few pages of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the kids were quick to disperse and walk from the classroom when the bell signalled the end of class.

When you reached the teacher’s lounge again, you spotted Natasha at one of the tables and promptly took place next to her.

“Hey Shakespeare,” she greeted you, and you rolled your eyes at her.

“I teach a lot more than just Shakespeare, Nat.”

“Right, and for how many years have you been repeating To Kill a Mockingbird with the juniors?”

“Ever since I got here,” you begrudgingly admitted. “But it really grows on you!”

“I’m sure,” Natasha scoffed with a grin.

“So, have you seen the newest member of the staff yet?” you asked lightly, unpacking your lunch from your bag.

“Odinson? I saw him briefly this morning. Guy’s packed like a god if ever I’ve seen one.”

“Makes sense, he’s a P.E. teacher,” you noted.

“Well yes, but I mean really packed! Like MMA fighter packed or something.”

“How’s Clint liking him?” you asked Nat.

“Oh, he’s just happy that half his classes got cut, so he can be home more often,” Nat shrugged.

You chewed thoughtfully on your sandwich for a moment, but your reflection was broken when principal Fury walked over. He nodded solemnly at you and Nat, handing both of you a small booklet. You groaned when you read the title.

“Detention coordination?”

Fury nodded again. “I believe you’re up Thursday afternoon, ms. (l/n).”

He walked on, and Natasha cursed loudly as she found her name in the booklet. “Fuck! I got Friday afternoons…”

From the other side of the lounge, Steve called “Language!”, and you suppressed a grin. You quickly turned the pages until you found the detention planning, and for a moment you stared at the name next to yours.

“I have detention duty with Mr. Odinson…” you said, surprise clearly audible in your voice.

“Wow, lucky,” Nat teased.

You shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t met him yet.”

“Well, Clint has the seniors after the lunch break, which would mean Odinson has a free period,” Natasha said casually, but she arched one of her perfect eyebrows at you suggestively.

“What’s with you?” you laughed.

“Look, it’s been forever since you had a fling of some kind. Why not pick the handsome newbie?” she said with a smirk.

“Y-you don’t know what I did over the summer,” you faltered, trying to sound indignant.

“I know enough!” she grinned. “I also know that Odinson is exactly your type. Hell, he’s anyone’s type!”

“I’m not going to barge in on him on the first day of his new job,” you said stubbornly.

“If there ever was a time to barge in on him and introduce yourself, it’s precisely the first day of his new job!” Natasha talked back. “You want him to catch your name half way through the year, only to forget it again when the year is over? You’re gonna bump into each other anyway!”

“It would be a lot easier if he just came out to the staff’s room for lunch…” you mumbled.

“Oh boo-hoo, like the P.E. department is that far away,” Natasha scoffed.

“I suppose I could see if I can find him…” you finally said, and Natasha smirked. “Only to coordinate detention on Thursday,” you added pointedly.

“I’ll take it,” Natasha said with a wink.

And so, after lunch break, you made your way through the cafeteria towards the P.E. department. You took a quick peek outside towards the sports field and saw Barton coaching a large group of seniors as they ran laps on the track. You figured that Odinson would be in the office he and Barton probably shared, but when you knocked on the door, there was no answer.

You checked the indoor sports court, which seemed deserted as well. You shooed away two seniors that were getting a little too cosy on the stands and walked over to the small office that was adjacent to the sports court. Barton had abandoned it last year, saying it was too far away from the main building, but perhaps it was good enough for Odinson.

You knocked lightly on the door, but when no answer came you took a peek inside. There were papers on the desk and a gym bag in the corner, so it seemed you were on the right track.

Your eyes fell on an astronomy book on the desk, which caught you by surprise. Steve had said that Odinson was also qualified as a substitute teacher for other classes, but you hadn’t imagined astronomy to be one of his interests. You took a moment to gaze around for any other hints about Odinson himself.

“Can I help you?” A deep voice spoke behind you, followed by a rumbling chuckle as you whipped around to see who it was. A very tall, very muscular and very handsome man stood before you, and you needed a second to catch your bearings. You quickly gazed him up and down. He had short messy blonde hair, slightly damp from what you assumed was a work-out. Clear blue eyes also eyed you up and down, and he chuckled softly. A towel was slung around his neck, and his white tank and black jogging pants fit him well.

“Ehrm, hi!” you finally managed. “Hi, I’m (f/n) (l/n). I teach literature up in the main building. I’m looking for one Mr. Odinson?”

The man smirked widely and extended his hand. “Well, you found him. Thor, Thor Odinson,” he said, heartily shaking your hand, and for a moment you were sure his smile was tugging at your heart.  

[leefelixs]

boyfriend bang chan • stray kids

genre: fluff

pairing: bang chan & you

word count: 1887 words

summary: dating chan and all the quirks/aspects of your relationship

note(s): this is my first time doing a scenario like this so i am super excited!! this will be in bullet point format. this is the first part of my boyfriend series for stray kids! starting with our cute leader is only appropriate, i hope you enjoy! <3

you met chan during the summer on the bus you took everyday to your favorite coffee shop

the moment you had stepped on and trudged on through the adults and exhausted students a tuft of grey hair had stood out to you

he sat the aisle across from two boys and the seat next to the window was empty

you had never seen them before but were extremely thankful to the fact they hadn’t taken up your spot and settled into the back, even if they were kinda cute

especially the boy with the slightly damaged grey hair

you weren’t the type of person to be nosy but every single day you stepped onto that bus in a glum mood their conversations and bright personalities seemed to cheer you right up

you looked forward to it and eventually from so much eavesdropping you discovered their names

the boy who usually had a hat on was jisung, another boy who usually had a beanie or mask was changbin, and cute dimple grey boy was chan

you specifically liked to listen to chan talk

one day you stumble into the bus a little later than usual after waking up late and make it a minute before it departs

as you drag yourself to your seat you notice a little elderly lady comfortably sitting with her bag on the seat next to her

your heart sinks as you realize you have no courage to ask her to move her bag

the bus is full of everyone in their usual spots

except…oh no

the only empty seat is next to chan

you look around praying for a new empty seat to magically appear and it seems your luck is especially bad on that day

you conform to standing and holding onto a rail and as you look around nervously

you meet his eyes as you look around and panic

they’re looking at you with the utmost concern that you nearly melt

wow his eyes are so pretty?

“uhm, excuse me, the seat next to me is empty if you’d like to sit.”

changbin and jisung are shocked as chan gestures next to him with a shy smile

you almost faint as you take wobbly steps next to him, bowing about 500 times

“thank you so much”

HOO BOY MAYBE IT’S THE BUS COMING TO A SCARY HALT BUT EVERYTHING AROUND IS SPINNING AS HE SMILES AT YOU

“it’s no problem”

you notice the trio is a lot more hush and awkward than usual and feel a little guilty

until chan turns around and tries to start a conversation

he’s genuinely interested in what you have to say in response to his questions and smiles a lot

his dimples are so cute up close

you find out the three boys started coming on the bus as they purchased their own recording studio

they created their own rap group called 3racha on soundcloud and became extremely successful as a result

at the end of the ride all three of them say goodbye to you and nudge chan 

he just turns the brightest shade of red

he’s stuttering and scratching his neck,, it’s so cute

“well, i hope to see you tomorrow bus buddy!”

oh boy are your cheeks heating up quick as you hear changbin stifle a wheeze and poor chan is living in pure regret in that moment

jisung is like “no please ignore changbin” and trying to let you both live but it’s too late

and it all kicks off from there

for the next six months you both get to know each other better through slowly exchanging numbers, hanging out all the time, from visiting the three while they record, and eventually forming a strong bond with all of them

and getting an even stronger crush on the bang byungchan ooo

and on the seventh month of knowing each other when you get onto the bus there’s a little rose on your usual seat

jisung and changbin are whistling and pretending to not be spying on both of you

boy they suck at not being obvious

and chan is looking at the floor and then at you and back at the floor while jiggling his foot up and down

“i think i really like you and want to be more than friends”

god you hated that stuffy smelly bus so much but it just got 500 times more lovely to you

phew that took a while now let’s get onto boyfriend chan shall we?

you constantly nag him to put down his work and go to sleep but he refuses

and you refuse to leave him alone

you sit next to him every time he works on music at home

whenever he gets frustrated he just turns to you and buries his head into your shoulder in silence and wraps his arms around you except it’s messy and like a sloth

but you love it nonetheless

you are his biggest fan

every single musical decision goes through changbin and jisung but your word is the most important

“chan i think it’s nice already…but don’t listen to me changbin knows better and i’m not a professional”

“changbin who? i guess he’s just wrong.”

“no chan wait”

as a gesture of love you try to cook for him but it ends awfully

chan takes up cooking after that but he doesn’t mind

he always has you nearby so you can watch and learn

and whenever he has you try to do any cooking he watches you attentively

“no you’re doing it wrong, it’s like this”

and he’ll come up behind you and hold your hands while you cut vegetables

whOOPS the sudden contact makes you so flustered you cut your finger

“see it’s not that ba-WHY ARE YOU BLEEDING”

wee woo wee woo medic chan is on the way

your first kiss is in the middle of a disney movie marathon on the couch while you try to grab the box of pizza from him and he holds it up shaking his head and laughing

“give me a kiss first” and you’re like okay i guess and he’s like wait what and you just lean in

his whole mind goes blank and he drops the box on the floor and holds your face while he kisses you back

his stomach is in an absolute frenzy and you finally pull away and reach for the pizza with a huge grin

“i did it”

“i didn’t think you would and now i’m in a dilemma because i wanted the last slice”

lots of lazy cuddling on the couch after a long day of recording, he just loves taking in your scent and having you next to him

chan constantly keeps you up on your tippy toes

you procrastinate on all your college work and he’ll come by to check on you

“how’s it going babe?”

and you’ll drop your phone in shock and all he sees is you watching another group on weekly idol and now you know you’re in for an intense study session

whenever you try to joke your way out of your work or get distracted he gently scolds you and gets you back on track even if you protest

but your grades are always improving because of him and you’re thankful

no matter how busy he is saturday is the day specifically planned for you no matter what

one time woojin tried to come over and hang out with chan but he was quickly and gently shoo’d away

he’s not the type to get viciously jealous, but he does clear his throat and put a kiss against your cheek just to be sure that the other person knows you’re together

he’ll take off his hats and put them on you and your eyes always go so wide

you act like it’s nothing but it means so much to you and you feel so special when he does that and he notices

he thinks its the cutest thing in the world

your contact on his phone is “my baby” with a bunch of heart emojis and its so cheesy

the contact picture is worse it’s a picture of you sleeping and curled up into him

his snapchat is full of videos with the rest of the boys and both of you using filters and being silly

sometimes if you’re lucky and he’s extra tired he lets you climb onto his bed with him and straddle him while you draw things with his dimples

his favorite creation of yours is when you made flower petals around his dimples

he loves playing drake aloud on the bluetooth speakers in the house and showing you all his favorite musicians

and overtime because you’re so used to it you learn the lyrics too

and whenever songs like 0 to 100 come on you both grab a broom or mop and rap into the microphone and make exaggerated gestures and facial expressions at each other 

he does this little weird dance and you always follow

you look so cute to him with your messy hair and your bouncing steps and big smile and wow…he realizes he’s actually in love with you

just as you’re his #1 fan he is your #1 fan

chan pushes you to be more productive and believe more in yourself

anything that affects you negatively affects him as well… you’re both so united and everything that happens to both of you feels so personal

when things get rough for you he holds your hand and lies with you in bed until you’re ready to talk about it

sometimes he feels like it’s his fault and he’s deeply afraid of losing you

he gets a lot of dms on instagram from girls who are looking for more than just a conversation with their favorite rapper

and you’re always a little frustrated but happy as he doesn’t really care and doesn’t pay mind to it

one day you wake up and check your phone blowing up

he posted a picture of you and him holding hands on his instagram telling everyone he’s happily in a relationship and would appreciate not having his dms spammed

skinship with chan is so calm and soothing

he’s more about touching like hugs and hand holding than he is kissing but when he kisses you it’s passionate and more than just a peck

he always tells you how thankful he is he met you

and he could never say it out of fear of scaring you but he hopes to have a long future with you

he just knows he wants to be with you and keep you safe and happy

“hey chan?”

“yeah?”

“what are you thinking about?”

“i was thinking about how i want you to move in with me because it’s like you live here…if that’s okay?”

“i was thinking you’d never ask.”

one day he brings you to the studio and asks you to sit down and listen so you put in the headphones

the song is about the bus you met him on 4419 oh yes i love being clever

when he asks what you think he looks over at you and sees you’re crying and panics

“why are you crying? did i do something wrong? does it suck that much?” and you just gently smack his hand and wail

“i’m crying because i’m in love with you and that song.” and his heart just beats

it’s the first time you’ve told him you’re in love with him

and while he ruffles your hair to calm you down he hopes you can be his for as long as he exists

[blahblahwritings]

The Things You Do To Me

A/N: Requested by @thepunishergifs I hope it’s alright because this is my first smut. 

Warnings: NSFW. SMUT. WELCOME TO THE SIN-BIN.

Words: 3463...Hoo boy

He had been visiting you quite often over the past three or four months but never stayed long for fear of becoming a burden. However, he was quite the opposite. You lived alone and so when he came to you, you took the time to enjoy his company and found him rather sweet, even if you spent most of the time cleaning, icing and stitching his wounds. The reason he kept coming back is that you didn’t really ask too many questions, you saw a man in need and helped in a heartbeat which he found quite endearing. It hadn’t taken long for you to figure out who he was though because he was all over the news. When he knew that you knew who he was he acted hesitant around you, thinking you would turn him away or call the police but you simply continued to aid him and shove a steaming cup of black coffee into his hands before he left. Oftentimes, you would make idle chatter about how the other was doing which then lead to you opening up about how ridiculous your boss had been or the latest scandal in the office you worked at, making him chuckle.

 Lately, however, you had realised that you were actually starting to feel for this brilliant man. It was just small things at first like when he climbed through your window your chest would become a little tighter or your breath would hitch in your throat, things that you shrugged off thinking it was a stupid little crush. But recently, you couldn’t get him out of your head. You would be thinking about him at work, at home or even when you were out with your friends, wondering if he was okay and if he would come to see you that night. That’s when it hit you. You were falling for a vigilante.

 Your brain was nervous about when you were going to see him next and if you should tell him but your heart was eager to talk to him, to make him laugh or smile. Two halves of you were at war with each other and you weren’t entirely sure which you wanted to win. If you told him, there was a good chance that he would leave and never come back because let's face it, you had a pretty normal life compared to him. You worked in a damned office whilst he ran about the streets of Hell’s Kitchen killing criminals and gang members. Although, if you didn’t tell him, you would never find out if he felt the same way or if there would ever be a chance that he would stay but at least you could still see him.

 Pacing back and forth in your living room, your thoughts were halted by three hard knocks at your fire escape window. It was Frank. This sent your mind and body into overdrive. Your heart started pounding in your ears. Should you tell him? You started shaking. Do you risk never seeing him again or never finding out if he returned your feelings? The air was heaving in and out of your lungs as you nervously walked over to the window, sliding it up for him to come in.

 “Hey sweetheart, I just need a regular patch up, nothing too serious.” He greeted the same charm and smile evident in his voice. Butterflies filled your stomach at his new term for you and you stood awkwardly staring at him as he sat at the kitchen counter. “Something wrong?” His voice snapped you out of your anxious daze as you darted into the bathroom for the first aid kit. The genuine concern was written all over his beaten features and it almost made you combust on the spot at how much he cared.

 Bumbling back over to his spot at the island, you opened the kit and got to work stitching a few cuts on his face and arms, cleaning as you went. There was a large hole in his shirt over his abdomen which left you looking into his eyes questioningly.

 “What happened here?” You asked, brows furrowing as you noticed the blood seeping from the cut underneath. He was going to have to take off his shirt. This made you both excited but all the more uncertain as you took the fabric into your hands, giving it a light tug to ask if it was okay to do this. After receiving a nod of approval you lifted it carefully over his head as to not disturb the already agitated slash across his toned stomach.

 “Couple of gang members thought they could get the jump on me. Don’t worry the guy who did this isn’t around anymore.” His gruff voice answered. He watched your face and hands as you cleaned the cut, your eyes filled with concentration and worry. Once you had finished stitching him up he grabbed your wrist, forcing you to turn around.

 “Thank you, really, I don’t know where I would be if you hadn’t been there the first time round” He confessed honestly. You gave a small smile, tidying the mess and first aid equipment away. He really was grateful and he wanted to show you just how much he appreciates you but he didn’t want to scare you away either. So he settled for a gentle squeeze of your thin wrist.

 Almost an hour had gone by of you both just talking about gossip and his current plans and he found himself yawning as he realised just how tired he was. Right as he was about to get up you spoke.

 “Why don’t you stay here for the night?” You offered, wringing your hands together as you knew how that sounded. “There’s only one bed so I could take the couch, I really don’t mind and you should rest somewhere comfortable anyway since ya know you’re hurt an-”

 “Sure” He cut off your rambling with a fond smile. Glancing over to him you opened your mouth to say something but quickly decided against it in case you dug yourself another hole. With a nod, you started to prepare the couch for you to sleep on when you felt a light pull on your arm. Turning around you found Frank inches away from your face. His bare chest almost touching yours.

 “I can’t kick you out of your own bed, Sweetheart, I can take the couch don’t worry about it.” He mumbled, his mouth so close that you could feel his breath fan over your skin. At this, your eyes widened.

 “Why don’t the both of us share the bed?” You said before you could stop yourself or even process what was happening. Mentally kicking yourself you awaited his answer, your pulse going through the roof.

 “I don’t see why not” He admitted, causing a breath you didn’t know you were holding to escape past your lips. What you didn’t know was that he was also cursing himself for not being more gentlemanly and just getting you to agree that he should take the sofa. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share the bed with you but he was afraid that he may be pushing too far. After all, he didn’t know if you even felt the same way about him as he did for you.

 Licking your lips you swiftly made your way to your room, taking out a pair of large sweatpants and a shirt that you thought were his size and tossing them to him. You pointed him to the bathroom as you got changed into a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top. When he emerged, he placed his pants on top of your dresser before making his way to the empty side of the bed, finding you already curled up and cosy. The sight of you in such a normal situation made his heart swell. He climbed into bed with you and turned off the lamp, the only light in your room was from the screen opposite your apartment which was still faint due to the closed curtains.

 “I just wanted to make sure that you knew I was serious back there, I am really grateful for everything you’ve done for me these past few months. I don’t mean to be a bother to you.” He murmured, a sheepish smile gracing his fine but bruised features. You really didn’t know what to do with yourself, if you told him how you felt it would make everything uncomfortable and you didn’t want to risk that.

 “You aren’t a problem at all if anything I enjoy having you here because I rarely talk to anyone outside of work.” You replied. Fuck it. “ I actually have something to uh- to admit to you AND BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING I didn’t mean for any of it to happen it jus’ sort of did and I’m rambling again but I just - I’m really scared because, I don’t know, you’re really kind and sweet  and I really like you but if  I say something you’ll probably run off but hey, fuck it, here goes” You rushed, taking in a deep breath. “I think uh- IthinkI’mfallingforyouandIamterrifiedthatyou’llleave” You all but screamed.

 His face remained neutral for a moment as he tried to take it all in. He couldn’t make sense of it all because you had spoken so fast. After a long pause filled with silence, you sat up. “I’ve made this super awkward, haven’t I? It’s fine I can sleep on the couch I do-” You were cut off again by Frank except for this time it was from his mouth on top of yours. It took a moment to respond but when you did your eyes fluttered shut as your lips moved against his. The kiss was a lot gentler than you thought it’d be, his lips were so smooth and soft against your own. When you finally parted for air you looked into his eyes, the light from the screen showing his pupils were dilated as he looked back at you.

 “I feel the same way, I was just too scared that you would feel intimidated or something to actually tell you so I just settled for seeing you when I needed a patch up.” He laughed, the sound making your heart melt as he confessed his feelings for you. This went better than anything you had planned. Your hand found his jaw, stubble scraping lightly against your skin as you beamed at him. He liked you back. You felt like you were 15 again as you pulled him in for another kiss, this time much more passionate and desperate than the last. His mouth worked against yours as if he knew exactly what you wanted, a small moan passing from you to him as he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss.

 He began trailing from your mouth to your jaw, peppering it with feather-light touches as he searched for your sweet spot. His hands came to rest on your hips, causing the shirt you wore to ride up your midsection. The feeling of his rough fingers against your silky skin made a guttural moan escape your throat, his mouth continuing its attack on your neck, finding an area which left you like putty in his hands and sucked harshly. Your own hands found themselves wandering from his jaw to the back of his head, fingers playing with the hair there and occasionally giving a tug which in turn earned a low growl to erupt from deep within his chest.

 Getting impatient you pushed him lightly so he lay on his back, quickly moving to straddle his hips. Remembering the injury to his abdomen, you were mindful when taking off his shirt, revealing the toned muscle underneath. You could have sworn that your mouth started to water as you bent down to kiss from his jaw to his neck leaving bright purple marks littering the skin there. Then, continuing down his chest to the gash, you slowed down and looked into his eyes choosing to place soft, tender kisses over the stitches to show your affection. At this he roughly pulled you back up to him as he flipped you both, ripping the shirt from your body.

 “I’ve wanted this for so long.” He groaned, placing a kiss on the corner of your mouth, then your jaw, neck and chest before moving to unclasp your bra. You helped by lifting up slightly making room for his large hands. Once he deftly removed the garment he threw it to some far corner of the room, leaving your bare chest exposed to him.

 “You’re goddamn gorgeous, baby girl.” He complimented, making you blush furiously. The smirk on his face was sinful as he took a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the hardening nub. One hand held him above you as the other paid attention to the opposite breast, toying with it between his index finger and thumb. The noises that left you were bordering on wicked as he lapped at your flesh, switching from one breast to the other to give them equal attention. Your hands grasped at the sheets as he played your body like an instrument, a heat pooling in your core that only he could satisfy.

 “Fuck, Frank please just, God damn” You breathed. His siege travelled further and further down towards the band of your shorts. He bit into it with his teeth, slowly dragging them down as he stared into your eyes, both your pupils blown with lust and need for one another. Discarding the fabric, the devilish grin made a reappearance as he realised you weren’t wearing any panties, completely exposed to him now and you would have felt self-conscious if you hadn’t been so needy in that moment.

 “Well, look at this, going commando huh, babygirl?” He shot a wink in your direction, driving you mad as he left a line of kisses from your ankles all the way up to the inside of your thighs. His talented hands ghosted over your skin, barely even touching you yet leaving you a moaning mess beneath him. Your own hands had darted to his hair, desperate for his mouth to just be on you but instead, he placed wet kisses all around where you needed him the most.

 “Fraaaannk” You groaned, tugging his head towards you. He was obviously loving this from the look on his beautiful face. His rough hands threw your thighs over his shoulders.

 “What baby girl, what do you want? Use your voice.” He whispered lowly against your heat, his breath fanning over your skin. You growled, eyes boring into his skull as he teased you. A finger slipped just past your folds, seeing how wet you were for him. “Already? Do I really have that much of an effect on you?” He chuckled, his eyes almost black as he took in your scent.

 “I want you to make me cum so hard that I see stars” You moaned. That was all the encouragement he needed as his lips instantly found your clit, tongue expertly massaging the bundle of nerves. You screamed, the grip on his hair tightening as your back arched causing him to lean the forearm that wasn’t holding him up across your hips, keeping you in place. The tip of his tongue circled the sensitive nub as you released breathy moans, unable to actually bring air into your lungs from the intensity and speed of his ministrations.

 You felt yourself getting closer and closer to the edge, the coil in the pit of your stomach tightening as you tried to buck your hips against his face, boldly chasing your release.

 “I’m s-so close, F-Frank, please.” You stuttered, struggling to even form a coherent thought nevermind sentence at this point. Your eyes were squeezed firmly shut whilst your mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ shape. His arm left your hips and he suddenly pushed his middle and ring finger into you, stretching your tight cunt as he curled them, hitting that brilliant sweet spot inside of you.  

 A string of profanities left your mouth as you chanted his name like a mantra. His mouth and fingers never ceasing their movements, letting you ride out your high. Your body was violently grinding into his touch, convulsing through your first mind-blowing orgasm of the night. As you started to come back down to earth, he pulled his fingers from you, making you feel empty and sucked your juices from his hands.

 Reaching down, you hauled him back up to you, capturing his lips in a heated kiss. You could taste yourself on him and it made you want him even more. He kicked off his sweats and you hastily palmed him through his boxers, his dick already rock hard and ready to take you. His mouth opened allowing a groan to leave him as his hips bucked into your touch. He was larger than you had anticipated and far thicker than you previously thought which sent shivers down your spine. You pointed to the drawer next to you signalling for him to open it. Once he did he grabbed a condom and tore the packet open.

 “Someone’s needy.” You jested in a sultry tone. He, however, was having none of it as he pinned your hands above your head keeping him there with one hand while the other quickly got rid of the last piece of clothing. Stroking, up and down his shaft a couple of times he rolled on the latex and positioned it at your entrance, lightly teasing you.

 “Are you sure about this?” He asked, looking into your darkened eyes for any hint of doubt. He found none.

 “This is probably the surest I have been about anything, ever.” You answered, breathless and struggling against his grip. That was all he needed as he buried himself to the hilt inside of you, drowning your screams with his mouth as his tongue dominated yours. You wrap your legs around his waist as you kiss him. A few moments pass before he begins thrusting, slow and deep, light moans escaped past your parted, swollen lips as a few grunts of his own followed.

 “God, baby girl you’re so tight, you take me so well.” He breathes, burying his head in your neck as he falls into a steady rhythm. His free hand moved to glide down your curves finding your clit and circling it rapidly. You could already feel your second orgasm as the sickening slap of skin on skin filled your ears. Moans and groans vibrated through both your chests as he left quick kisses at your jaw.

 “Harder, please Frank.” You rasped and he happily complied, his grip loosening on your wrists so he could better support himself as he pounded ruthlessly into you, hitting your spot with every thrust of his hips. Your hands smoothed up to his shoulders and your nails dug into the soft flesh, scraping down his back as you screamed out his name again and again. You rolled your hips as your back arched, his fingers never stopping their attack on your clit as your moans became higher and higher pitched.

 “Come on, cum for me, Sweetheart.” He gasped, biting your collarbone which sent you spiralling into your second high. Your walls tightened around him as your hips collided with his own over and over, his movements became erratic as he felt his own orgasm take over, slamming into you as he moaned your name, letting you both ride out your highs.

 Planting lazy kisses all over your face and neck, he pulled out of you, tying off the condom and throwing it in the trash. He rolled over next to you as both of you caught your breath, hearts beating rapidly. The air smelled like sex and sweat, his arms curling around your shoulders, bringing you to lie on his chest. You could hear his wild pulse against your ear, both of you staying quiet in the aftermath of your activities.

 When your breaths finally evened out, he kissed the top of your hair and rubbed his thumb back and forth on the skin of your shoulder. You lay there in each other’s embrace, blissed out and spent. Leaning over, you brought the covers over you both and snuggled close to Frank, his familiar scent comforting you and making you sleepy.

 “I’m not going anywhere, Sweetheart.” He mumbled, answering the unspoken question that filled the air around you. Satisfied with his words, you placed a small kiss over his heart and listened to it skip a beat as your eyes slowly drifted shut. The world faded around you, leaving only you and him, both falling into a deep sleep.

[themurphyzone]

His World: Fandom

Request from @universe-queen-melissa. 

1. Crisis on the Seven Seas! S.S Mummy’s Curse vs S.S Neon Lights!

“Your primitive weapons are no match for my superior blasters!”

“I summon a demon to jinx your blasters so they only shoot jelly!” 

“Neon Lights shall rise again! We may be few in number, but we shall prevail against the tragedy that is Cleopatra’s personality!”

“Mummy’s Curse is the true winner! We actually have hints on our side! All Danielle ever does is complain about her dysfunctional family!” 

“Danielle risked her life to save Time Ape from the evil clutches of Professor Yorek! And she did it with a broken leg and armed with only a taser!” 

“Cleopatra had a duty to her people! Her intellect is matched by only the Man of the Past, Present, and Future!” 

“Sara, Milo, I’m getting take out from that new Mexican place that opened up downtown. Is there anything you two would like?” Brigitte carefully stepped over the mess in the living room, grabbing her car keys from a table. Sara and Milo paused to allow her through. 

“Extra spicy salsa please!” Sara said. 

“A side of black beans too,” Milo added. 

“Okay, I’ll be back in half an hour and Martin should be home in-wait, is that my eyeliner?” Brigitte took a closer look at Milo’s face. 

“I wanted to get into character,” Milo replied. “It’s kohl.” 

“Looks like a good make up job,” Brigitte said. “Just promise me you’ll clean all this up when Martin gets home. You know Murphy’s Law flares up when he’s extra exhausted.” She waved, exiting through the garage door. 

Sara stood up, dropping the catcher’s helmet she was using as a mask. “And this concludes our monthly ship war. Let’s see, four tallies for Mummy’s Curse, four for Neon Lights, and ten for draw.” 

“Stay tuned for March’s ship war, folks! An episode premiering in two weeks is going to give Mummy’s Curse extra ammunition!” 

2. Fan Mail

“Let’s see, bill, bill, fan mail, fan mail, coupon for fast food, another letter from ol’ Blockhead-this one should be fun, fan mail, bill.” Orton set everything down on the kitchen table, pouring himself a cup of coffee before setting aside the bills. 

The first two pieces of fan mail weren’t that interesting, one of them consisting of a rant about how Adjunct Faculty Member Zone was the worst thing that had ever happened to the series. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but the college students used as extras for that series made the work a lot more pleasant than most people assumed. 

Ah, the third piece is from Sara Murphy, Orton smiled. He had a wall on his bedroom where he pinned his favorite artwork and letters from his fans. Sara Murphy had five of her letters up there so far, and several more stashed away in a box in the attic. He updated the wall every few weeks, preserving older pieces in a scrapbook. 

He decided to save it for last, since he would likely need some positivity after inevitably choking on Block. 

Dear Orton Mahlson, 

Consider joining the Bureau or else. I have the operatives and technology. All you have is your silly, inaccurate prime-time sitcom that undermines the potential of real time travel and mocks our scientists to no end. We will hunt you down if you continue to refuse this offer.

Sincerely,

Mr. Block.

Orton slammed a pen on the table, deciding that his response wasn’t worth killing a few trees and furiously wrote a response on the back of the same paper. That was sure to tick him off. 

What’s up Blockhead,

You’re looking about as handsome as a donkey who wallowed in a peat bog. I take that back. I refuse to insult donkeys when they actually do a great service for people around the globe. I will repeat this for the millionth time. I am not joining your ridiculous organization. For what purpose does it actually serve? Or are you just upset because you got all nostalgic for a bunch of nuts that went extinct? Boo-hoo. Cry me a river. Maybe you can finally replace the Nile. Oh, wait that would just cause more pollution wouldn’t it? 

-Orton Mahlson

He zapped the paper with his own Temporal Transporter. Amateurs. His version had a streaming option for new releases. 

Now he could finally read Sara’s letter in peace. Maybe this would snap him out of the funk Block always threw him in.

Dear Orton Mahlson,

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how much Dr. Zone means to me and especially my little brother, Milo. You see, Milo has a certain condition which causes people to treat him differently. Sometimes it’s easy to shrug off. Other times it’s not. It was more difficult back then, before Milo was old enough to handle situations on his own. As his big sis, it’s my job to look out for him. Since we first discovered Dr. Zone, it opened up a lot more opportunities to spend time together as siblings and we’re always look forward to new episodes. Thank you for such a wonderful show!

Your biggest fan,

Sara Murphy

Orton had a new favorite letter now. And there was no better honor for his biggest fan than a spot on the refrigerator. 

3. Contagious

Milo stopped scratching Diogee’s belly, listening to Sara groan from her bedroom. Diogee whined and pawed at Milo’s hand, unhappy that his belly rub time was cut short. “Sorry, boy,” Milo said, knocking on her door. “Something’s wrong. Sara, can I come in please? Are you all right?” 

“Coming,” Sara opened her door, looking unusually cross. She was still in her pajamas, and her empty stomach probably wasn’t doing her any favors either. “Hey.”

“Are you sick? You skipped breakfast,” Milo noticed. 

“I’m sick all right. I caught the dreaded-Milo, you can take the mask off. It’s not contagious. I think. I just have a really bad case of Writer’s Block.” 

Milo tied a mask on Diogee. “I don’t want him getting it either,” he said, his voice muffled. 

“I uploaded Chapter 17 of my shipping fic three weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to finish the confrontation between Professor Yorek and Danielle, but writing about infiltrating a secret, heavily-guarded facility is harder than it sounds,” Sara opened the document containing the half-finished chapter, letting Milo quickly skim through it. 

“Have you tried imagining it in your head?” Milo asked. 

Sara shook her head. “No, I just type what comes to mind.” 

“Okay, how about we try this?” Milo set a Time Ape doll on the windowsill, placing a plastic container around it to act as a cage. “Professor Yorek has captured Time Ape and is holding him for ransom until Dr. Zone arrives with the loot from the Titanic? Right?” Sara nodded. Milo placed a Professor Yorek action figure on top of the plastic container. “But it’s all a front to distract Dr. Zone?” 

“And Danielle is torn because she was childhood friends with Yorek and watched him change after his obsession with the time stream grew. I don’t know how to properly convey that and have her infiltrate the facility at the same time.”

“But she also loves Dr. Zone now, so that makes it even more difficult,” Milo mused. He placed a crocheted doll of Danielle next to Professor Yorek, positioning them so they were holding hands. “What if she had little reminders on her way? Remember the episode “Instrument of Sorrow” where Danielle had a flashback of her playing the glockenspiel with Yorek and he taught her his family’s song?” 

Sara nodded. “A musical reminder is always good. If I play that song while writing that particular part, it would probably help a whole lot. There was also the episode “Spider Lily” in which spiders were used to symbolize Yorek’s growing darkness. And Danielle has arachnophobia in canon, so that would absolutely terrify her once she snaps to reality when she realizes there’s a horde of man-eating spiders in the vents!” 

“See you’ve got it!” Milo took off his mask. Diogee had long discarded his, using it as a chew toy instead. “But maybe you shouldn’t write on an empty stomach. Studies prove you think better after you’ve had breakfast!” 

Sara laughed. “You’re right, little bro. I’m totally going to crush my readers’ spirit after this chapter!” 

“That’s great! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish my fanfic too,” Milo sat down at the computer in his room, opening the document, fingers poised to type. And he waited. And waited. 

After ten minutes, Milo had resorted to trying to balance his pencil on his nose in an attempt to think. His eyes widened. He was right. He was right all along. 

“Sara, you lied to me! Writer’s Block is contagious!”