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foreveralwaysanauthor · 1 year

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Camp Wanamaker (Ch 8/10)

September 7, 2023

Notes - I know this chapter is exceptionally overdue and I'm so sorry that it is, but my job raised my hours pretty significantly, and, with everything else going on in my already crazy life, I found it very hard to sit down and write. However, I'm hoping to get the next few chapters out as soon as possible so we can move on to bigger and better things!

Chapter 8 - Rumor Has It

The sun slowly rose over the hills of trees that surrounded Camp Wanamaker. Morning light crept across the gentle waves of the lake and the tops of the cabins, dancing across the dewy grass and making it shimmer like a million minuscule diamonds. The yellow-orange glow snaked its way closer and closer to the windows of each building, finding the cheap cotton curtains with ease. The light eventually seeped through the curtains and spilled onto the bed of a certain brunet boy, his chocolate coils woven into little knots as he struggled to get himself out of his twisted sheets while he slept.

It had been a rough night for Royce. He had just barely fallen asleep when an emergency notification about a missing child in the area rang loudly on his phone, jolting him awake as he tore out his earbuds. By the time he had finally worked himself back to the edge of sleep, it was nearing two in the morning. He wasn’t the only one who had issues with chasing sleep that night, which was made apparent as Bentley entered the room and silently joined his brother, relishing in the quiet and calm his brother’s room provided. Thankfully, they had the day to recover and relax while everyone else did as they pleased on their last day of freedom before the next group of campers arrived.

As Royce stirred, the soft rays of light filtering through his eyelashes as he slowly blinked them open, a light grumble from his side caught his attention. Glancing down, he found Bentley curled up to his side, his face buried in Royce’s shirt to avoid the sunlight coming in from the window. A notion of a chuckle left Royce’s mouth as he peered over at the clock on his nightstand. All he needed to see was the glowing, red six at the start of the number to know that his little brother wouldn’t be moving any time soon. At least, not willingly. Taking in a slow breath and sighing, Royce reached for the cell phone he had ditched on the nightstand and relaxed back onto his pillow, ready to enjoy a lazy morning.

If you asked any of the Murphy brothers, lazy mornings were reserved for Sundays anyway. Back in their home, they would usually be found lounging on the couch with bowls of soggy cereal or packets of Pop-Tarts, their eyes semi-glued to the typical weekend cartoons playing on the TV as they ate breakfast. Well, in more recent months, they had. Their old television was a crappy box model with a single dial that had only one good station while the other four were filled with either news or politics. However, after Vivien’s “stay-cation” to their world, they had grown accustomed to the hundreds of stations they could receive with the television the girl had gotten Mick’s help with making.

It didn’t take them long to realize that living at Camp Wanamaker was something else entirely. Most of the televisions available were outfitted with every app known to mankind and possessed a slew of shows nobody in the cabin had seen before - not even those who lived in the modern world. Not every cabin had a television, of course, but the ones that were home to just counselors or staff members had at least one for the cabin to share. Royce and Bentley had spent their free mornings during staff weeks in front of the TV, watching shows that Vivien and Mick had added to their watchlists. It was a good way to spend their mornings, all in all.

Just as Royce had begun searching his phone for something to keep himself occupied, Bentley shifted, slowly lifting his head from Royce’s shirt and grumbling a complaint about the sun. A yawn caught the youngest of the Murphy brothers, forcing him to stretch against the mattress as he made a noise of frustration. Flopping back down against the sheets, Bentley slowly turned toward Royce and muttered, “G’mornin’.”

“Morning,” Royce spoke softly. “Have a good sleep?”

Bentley shrugged, “Kinda.”

Royce hummed, “Do you wanna go watch the next episode of that zombie show? We can make some cereal and just chill on the couch while everyone goes to the mess hall.”

After a moment of contemplation, Bentley shook his head, “I don’t think I’m up for watching someone get their insides eaten like a bowl of zombie spaghetti jsut yet. Can I watch you play the cat game instead? You know, the one where you help the robots?”

Bentley watching Royce play games was nothing new, but it had become far more common in recent times. While Bentley loved playing games with adventure or mindless fun as the main focus, story-driven games like What Remains of Edith Finch and their newfound favorite, Stray, made it easier for Bentley to relinquish all control of the game to Royce in favor of watching him play and piecing together the storyline at his own pace. In a way, it was easier and both brothers enjoyed the time they got to spend together.

With a smile, Royce nodded as he sat up, “Sure, Benny. Why don’t you go get that started up and I’ll make breakfast.”

As Bentley sluggishly shoved the blankets away from his legs, he grinned, “Can I have Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk?”

“Yeah,” Royce nodded. “You want your Hufflepuff mug or just a normal cup?”

Bentley snickered, “No, RJ, I mean, can I have chocolate milk in my cereal?”

Royce paused, feeling as though he had a circle swirling above his head as he processed his brother’s request. “But-” he took in a breath, “Benny, there’ll be chocolate milk at the bottom anyway if you’re having Cocoa Puffs.”

“I know,” Bentley shrugged, “but I want it more chocolatey so when I drink it after the cereal’s gone, it’s not like two little bits of chocolate and a bowl of straight milk.”

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, Royce relented, “Alright, fine. That makes sense.”

As he followed Royce to the door, Bentley smirked and asked, “Can I have a glass of orange juice to go with it? Maybe some pickles afterward?” The look of disgusted horror Royce sent in return as he whirled around made Bentley cackle, patting his brother on the shoulder as he ducked around him. Bentley had just reached the bottom step when Royce began thumping down them, rattling off about disgusting food combinations first thing in the morning and musing how someone they knew must have been pregnant if he was craving something so nasty. Bentley beamed with pride as he grabbed the game controller from the coffee table; it was mornings like these that he didn’t mind being up so early.

Vivien moved sluggishly as the rain battered against the air conditioner that stuck out of one of the music hall’s windows. Rain always made her tired and, with nothing better to do, she and Miles were stuck in the music hall, practicing guitar and fooling around with the instruments that would, typically, go unused on a day like that. To make matters worse, it was Monday. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue; however, that meant the carnival in Laconia was now officially open, and, due to the rain, they wouldn’t be able to go.

The trips to the carnival had been planned quite thoroughly. Every day, one group would be taken to the carnival for the day and return for dinner. Although most everyone at the camp wanted nothing more than to go to the carnival, the rain had come over the area overnight and the carnival grounds on the early-morning news had looked more like muddy grass soup, making it an easy decision for those at the camp to stay at the camp.

As Miles strummed a song on the guitar and hummed softly along, Vivien dropped onto the bench beside him, a yawn leaving her as she tipped her head back to look at the ceiling, “I’m so fucking bored.”

“Join the club, kiddo,” Miles chuckled, allowing his strumming to fade off as he pushed his focus onto the girl beside him.

“Does the club offer cookies?”

“Only on weekends and at club meetings.”

“Then I don’t wanna join,” she sighed.

“Too bad,” Miles teased, nudging the girl with his elbow as he set the guitar down beside his leg. “Once you’re invited, there’s no turning it down.” Vivien glanced in Miles’ direction with an amused smirk before another yawn tugged itself from her. “Tired?” he asked.

Instead of firing off a quick quip, Vivien lazily nodded, leaning closer to Miles until her head came into contact with his shoulder. “I slept fine last night, but I woke up later than normal and it’s throwing me off.”

Miles chuckled, tugging his arm from between them and bringing it around Vivien’s shoulders, “For some reason, I don’t have that problem.”

“You suck.”

“You love me.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you still suck,” Vivien muttered as she brought an arm around Miles’ back.

Allowing himself to smile, Miles gave Vivien’s arm a squeeze, “You’re such a little shit.”

“Takes one to know one.”

As rain battered against the windows, the wind rattling the glass ominously as it passed, Miles grinned. Even though they spent almost every day in the music hall, it wasn’t too often that he got to spend time with just Vivien. Normally, the music hall was filled with kids wanting to bash the drums or learn guitar, the split of interests keeping him and Vivien on opposite sides of the large room. It was times like these - the rare moments when the hall was empty and they would be able to talk or play guitar - that Miles felt an actual connection with the girl.

They had spent a few months under the same roof during Vivien’s prolonged stay in their world over winter break and he enjoyed watching her grow more comfortable around everyone he knew and loved. Once she had gotten out of the “Royce’s girlfriend” title everyone had given her and made a name for herself, Miles got to see the different sides of Vivien that he hadn’t yet found. After everything they had been through over her break, she now felt like the younger sister he never got the chance to have.

As Miles glanced up at the ceiling, wondering how long it would be before they would need to break out the buckets in the storage room to catch dripping water that penetrated through the older roof, Vivien sighed. Despite her exhaustion, her mind raced with thoughts of what they were going to do to keep themselves busy until Saturday. As one of the last groups to go to the carnival, they had to keep themselves entertained for most of the week. After a moment, Vivien glanced out the window toward where the pool would, by now, be empty. Maybe she could convince Mick to let her swim in the rain; it would beat sitting around, doing nothing while they waited for a potentially musically inclined camper to stumble through the door.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen much of Mick lately. Faintly, she wondered if the older girl was okay. She knew that Mick was suffering from a few health issues lately as they had talked a bit about her recent bouts of exhaustion, some pretty strong nausea, and how she had woken up with swollen ankles with no reason as to why. Maybe she had been taking things easy in the hope that everything would fix itself before the time came for the appointment she had called to schedule the day before. Though she wondered what could be happening with Mick, she had a few ideas.

Pregnancy was, of course, one of the top suspects as the nausea and swelling were common in pregnancy. However, she couldn’t be sure. After all, Mick didn’t look pregnant. She was still just as toothpick thin as always - that damned metabolism Vivien wished she possessed keeping Mick looking more lean than muscular. It could still be possible, but she couldn’t recall Mick and Butchy having the chance to sneak away to - Vivien tried not to vomit at the thought - do the deed.

Deciding she would have to bite the bullet to find out, Vivien lifted her head from Miles’ shoulder and asked, “Do you think Mick is pregnant?”

Miles’ head lilted to the side as he shot the girl a bewildered, raised eyebrow, “Where did that come from?”

“I was just thinking. You know how Mick’s been feeling off the last few days?” When Miles slowly nodded, Vivien continued, “Well, her symptoms are similar to pregnancy symptoms.”

“They are?”

With a nod, Vivien said, “Morning sickness, exhaustion, swelling, lack of period-”

“How do you know she doesn’t have her period?” Miles questioned.

Sending Miles the most bland face she could muster, Vivien deadpanned, “We’re girls, we talk about these things. But that’s not the point.”

“Right,” Miles said with a shake of his head, “so you think she could be pregnant?”

“Maybe,” Vivien shrugged. “I mean, they delayed their honeymoon so they could help here, but they’ve had the time to go out together and stuff. There’s no telling when it could have happened.”

Though Miles seemed to consider the idea, he mused, “But she doesn’t look pregnant.”

“Not everyone does,” Vivien claimed. “When Aunt Hayley had me, she didn’t show at all.”

Miles was silent for a while as he thought about all Vivien had said. It could be true. He had seen Mick behaving differently lately - constantly feeling chilly, falling asleep on the couch while watching movies, and having to step out of the mess hall sometimes because the scent was overpowering - but he hadn’t thought of pregnancy. He simply thought she was coming down with the stomach bug that was starting to pulse throughout the town.

Taking in a breath, Miles sighed, “It sounds like Mick is pregnant.”

“Well, we don’t know for sure,” Vivien said. “I can always ask her when I’ve got the chance.”

“Better you than me, kiddo.” Miles chuckled, “She’d probably rip my head from my shoulders.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt she’d take it too kindly,” Vivien snickered.

As Miles let out a snort of agreement, the door of the music hall slammed against the frame, the wood rattling as the wind beat against it. The laughter died on Miles’ lips as he and Vivien turned toward the door, eyeing it with wide stares. “Was that the wind?” Miles breathed.

Vivien pushed herself to stand, maneuvering around the bench and walking to the door, twisting the handle before tugging it open. Rain bucketed from above and the only sign of life was a group of kids who were busy screeching as they ran up the path toward the safety of the dance studio. Leaning against it to make it click into place, Vivien turned to Miles and shrugged, “It was either the wind or a ghost.”

With a shrug, Vivien grabbed a guitar and made her way back to her seat, silently asking Miles to help her with a song she wanted to play as she sat back down. As they began working on figuring out the chords of the song Vivien had chosen, neither of them was prepared for the onslaught of chaos that the week would bring. Just down the path from the music hall, the door to the dance studio slammed open as a group of dripping campers piled in.

“What happened to you?” one of the girls asked from the far side of the large room. On one side of the room, dancers in sweatpants and leotards stretched on the floor while others practiced before the mirror. However, as the door closed once more, the group of five by the door had everyone’s attention.

“We all decided to hop in the pool after practice,” Chloe, one of the soaked campers, answered sarcastically.

“We came from the tennis courts,” one of the drenched campers - a blonde named Maxine - said as she wrung her hair out over the doormat. “We had to cut around the music hall to get here quicker.”

“And,” the only brunette from the group - Rachel - piped up, “you’ll never guess what we heard on our way here!”

If they didn’t already have the attention of those around them, they certainly did now as questions popped up throughout the room like a game of Whack-A-Mole. Stepping to the front of the group, the youngest of the campers - Alex - beamed as she declared, “Mick, the lifeguard girl who always gives us extra time to relax after swimming laps, is pregnant!”

Squeals of excitement bubbled up throughout the dance studio, a few commented on how they “just knew” she had to be, and others questioned how the girls knew, to which Chloe said, “We overheard her friends talking. You know, the girl with the long-ass hair and the boy who’s dating Carrie? They were talking about Mick being pregnant and we heard them on our way by.”

As excited exclamations passed through the room, the door to the back hallway opened and a small girl entered the room, followed soon after by Charlie, who led the dance studio every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Looking around the room, Charlie placed her hands on her hips and sighed, “Alright, everyone, calm down. If you keep this up, I’ll be having you go across the floor right off the bat.”

“But, Charlie,” one of the stretching dancers argued, “we’re talking about Mick.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “What do you think of her being pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” Charlie repeated with a raised brow. “Where did you hear that?”

Murmured answers flitted around the room before settling as Alex spoke up, “We overheard Miles and Vivien talking about it.”

“Eavesdropping, were you?” Charlie admonished as she made her way further into the room.

“Not intentionally!” Rachel exclaimed. “We were walking by the music hall and overheard it.”

Making a mental note to talk with the pair about the situation at their next meal, Charlie sighed, “Well, that may be, but I haven’t heard anything about this, so I would advise you all to keep this to yourselves. Nobody likes having rumors spread about themselves.”

A chorus of reluctant “yes, ma’am”s filed the room and, as Charlie let out a sigh, she hoped she had squashed the rumors quickly enough that it wouldn’t spread around the dinner tables. With any luck, she’d be able to talk with Miles and Vivien before word spread too far. Usually, rumors at camp spread quietly and quickly, festering overnight into nonsense and plaguing everyone on the grounds within a day or two. If Charlie noticed it spreading much at all, she would try to find a way to sit Mick down and talk with her. She would need to prepare the girl for the onslaught of gossiping campers and concerned questions from her friends if the kids let it spread any further than it already had.

Clapping her hands together, Charlie brought herself back to the task at hand and declared, “Alright, everyone, find your place at the barre and get comfortable. We’re all going to feel the burn today.”

Despite Charlie’s best efforts, it had been impossible to find the chance to get Miles or Vivien away from everyone else before they headed to bed Monday night. She didn’t want it spreading more than she presumed it had, but Vivien was constantly with Royce and Bentley while Miles was practically attached to Carrie’s hip. They had spent the evening playing games and watching movies, giving Charlie little chance to speak her mind. When they were getting ready for bed, Charlie told Hayley about the situation. Hayley wouldn’t be able to do much to help as she was supposed to be helping in the office on Tuesday, but she promised that, if she heard anything, she would say something.

Charlie felt particularly tense at breakfast, overly focused on the noisy voices around the room as she tried to silently shield her niece’s friends from being the topic of conversation. It wasn’t until her wife nudged her, telling her the meal was over, that she finally moved, jerkily rising from her seat and disposing of the few pieces of egg that she had left on her plate. Stationed in the playhouse to help with makeup and choreography for the upcoming play, Charlie followed Carrie and Riven down the winding path to the old wooden building in relative silence.

While Riven got to work on helping set things up on stage, Charlie and Carrie headed to the storage room to dig out the makeup they would need for the day. Eyeing the blonde from her side of the little room, Charlie asked, “Carrie, you’re close with Mick, right?”

Turning toward the woman with the pink-tipped braids, Carrie shrugged with a smile, “I’d say we’re friends, but she’s closer with Miles than she is with me. Why, what’s up?”

Instead of directly answering, Charlie asked, “If Mick was pregnant, would she tell you?”

Carrie’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish as she processed the sudden question, but eventually, she said, “I definitely wouldn’t be the first person on the list - maybe not even in the top five - but she might. Why, do you think she’s pregnant?”

Glancing out the door to make sure nobody was close enough to hear, Charlie lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, “Some girls came into the studio yesterday and were telling everyone that they overhead Miles and Vivien talking about Mick being pregnant. I wanted to see if they had said anything to you about it.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Carrie said, “Like I said, I wouldn’t be in the top five, but they would be.” Carrie began counting on her fingers, “Butchy, her parents, Miles, and Vivien - I would assume those would be her top five. I can ask them, if you want?”

“No, no,” Charlie said with a shake of her head, “that’s fine. I just… I want to be careful with it regardless of whether it’s true or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Charlie began as she hefted a metal case of makeup onto her hip, “if she’s not pregnant, we can help squash the rumors now before they get out of control. But, if Mick is pregnant, we need to keep an eye on her. She’s not showing and, depending on how far along she is, that can be detrimental.”

“How so?” Carrie asked, following Charlie through the backstage storage and into the dressing rooms.

Setting the metal case on a nearby stand, Charlie sighed, “Back when Hayley was pregnant for Vivien, she never once showed. I was with her for most of the pregnancy - as a friend, at the time - and she went through hell. If Mick’s pregnant and is further along in her pregnancy, it could be dangerous for not only her, but for the baby as well.”

Carrie took in a slow breath as she soaked in the information, “Should I talk with Miles about it? See if he can tell me anything?”

“Not right now,” Charlie said. “Let him focus on music lessons. Besides, I haven’t heard anyone talking about it around camp, so I think we should be all set for now. We can talk with him and Vivien later, when they’re not busy banging around on the drums and we don’t have a bunch of makeup to sort through.”

As Charlie pulled a chair out from in front of one of the lightbulb-lined mirrors, Carrie followed suit with a hum. With the metal makeup case between them, Charlie unlatched the clasps and opened the lid before pulling out the extra trays so they could see all that was inside. Looking inside the case at all of the makeup, Carrie asked, “What are we going to do with all of this?”

Smiling at the blonde, Charlie took a lipgloss from the top shelf of the case and said, “We’re going to go through all of this and make sure it’s all still good. If something is good, we’ll try it out and make sure it still looks good. If it passes both tests, we’ll keep it. If it doesn’t, we toss it.”

Examining a tube of mascara, Carrie asked, “How are we going to check if they’re still good before we test if on ourselves?”

Charlie chuckled, “Do you see the little jar on there with a number and a letter on it?”

Carrie searched the tube before nodding, “Yeah, it says ‘6M’ on it.”

“That means it’s good for six months after it was opened.” Charlie looked for the little engraving mark on her lipgloss before setting it aside. “If it still has a wrapper or the receipt is in the little makeup bag at the bottom of the case, we’ll keep it. If not, its trash.”

“Got it,” Carrie said as she reached into the bottom section of the case and pulled out a black box. Carrie’s eyebrow raised as she read the box, “Conspiracy?”

Peering over at the younger girl, Charlie chuckled, “Oh, I remember that! Don’t throw that no matter what it says.”

Glancing up, Carrie asked, “How come?”

“It’s Vivien’s pride and joy,” Charlie claimed.

“But she doesn’t even wear makeup?” Carrie said curiously as she opened the palette.

“No, but she loves that thing,” Charlie smiled. “You see, she had watched this series online of this Youtuber guy and his friend - a makeup guru - making a palette together and that was the end product. She spent two hours waiting for it with me and Hayley, but it sold out within a half an hour. We were lucky enough to get the full set when it relaunched, but she keeps it here to keep Abby out of it.”

With a chuckle, Carrie looked over the shades and commented, “I can’t imagine she got into it at all.”

“She tried,” Charlie said, a ghost of a smile appearing as she reminisced. “She looked like a raccoon and cried before asking me for help.”

“Are you a self-proclaimed ‘makeup freak’ too, then?” Carrie asked.

“Hell yeah,” Charlie laughed. “Kind of have to be when you’re a dancer.”

“How long have you danced?”

Charlie thought for a moment before admitting, “Since I was two. My parents put me into ballet, aka the perfect breeding ground for eating disorders, anxiety, and the fear of imperfection.”

“Ah,” Carrie sighed as she set Vivien’s makeup aside and reached for something new, “been there, done that.”

Charlie set a container of powder aside and said, “You know, when I was younger it was more fun than anything, but once I was put into pointe, it was like I had stepped onto the world’s biggest slip-and-slide. One wrong move and I’d be ditched for the next best dancer.”

A sense of understanding washed over Carrie like a wave. She hadn’t felt overly close with Charlie before, but knowing they both had intense dancing backgrounds and still had lingering side effects from it, gave their budding friendship more depth. “The fear of failure is strong with every former dancer, I guess.”

Charlie hummed, “It must have been a fairly easy transition for you - going from dance to acting. The expressiveness and emotions you need to have on stage could translate well on screen, right?”

“I’d like to say so, yeah,” Carrie agreed. “Though, sometimes, I wish I could just turn my emotions off. It doesn’t take much for me to get all worked up over something small.”

“I can’t say I don’t feel the same way,” Charlie mused. “Although I find it easy to work my emotions into my books. Channeling them into something new helps force you to sort through them slower.”

Carrie thought about it for a moment before grinning, “I don’t think I could do something like that. Writing isn’t exactly my forte.”

With a shrug, Charlie said, “It’s the author in me, I suppose. However, if writing isn’t your thing, you could always try channeling it into music.” At Carrie’s skeptical gaze, Charlie smirked, “Don’t give me that face. I’ve heard you sing. You could really make something if you took the time to sit and work on it.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“And you think I did?” Charlie scoffed, “My first novel looked like a kindergartener wrote it compared to my work now. Nobody starts off great. Anyway, you could always ask Viv or Riven or even Erica for help; they all write music.”

Carrie nodded but then stalled as she reached into the makeup case. Curiously tipping her head to the side as she looked toward Charlie once more, she asked,l “I knew Riven and Erica wrote music, but since when has Vivien written music?”

“For years now,” Charlie claimed as she met the blonde’s blue eyes. “She doesn’t play them with the band muchas she can’t write the sheet music for them, but those journals of hers aren’t just filled with novel ideas. You should talk to her about it sometime. Maybe she’d show you some of her work.”

As Charlie got back to work sorting the makeup into two piles, Carrie hummed thoughtfully, “Maybe.”

“Maybe we can make a new one, but make it a bit bigger,” Carrie offered.

Bentley sighed, “And maybe I should stick with painting instead of pottery.”

As a majority of the playhouse crew had been taken to the carnival that Wednesday, Bentley had dragged Carrie to the art barn to show her his latest works while everyone else kept busy in their normal areas. His paintings, as always, were like something Bob Ross would come out with. Bentley felt at ease with painting; he could sit at an easel with a palette of colors and a set of brushes for hours without getting the least bit distracted. It was also something his brothers declared he shared with their mom - a love and natural talent for telling a story through paintings and sketches. His pottery work, on the other hand… Let’s just say that Bentley could have told everyone a seven-year-old made it and nobody would be able to tell it was his work.

The first few times Bentley had tried to make something with a mound of clay on the spinning wheel, they turned out to be understandably awful - a lopsided vase, a cracked bowl, and a statue of a dog that lost two legs and its tail in the kiln being among his efforts. However, his recent attempts appeared to turn out just the same. His first attempt at making a tea set for Mick had cracked and separated, and the potion bottle he wanted to make for Vivien’s birthday ended up getting damaged when another camper’s sculpture exploded and shattered everything inside the kiln. The mug he had tried to make for Miles was his most recent attempt and, while it still looked like a mug, it was now so small that it looked more like something Vivien would turn into a pair of earrings than it did an actual mug for drinking purposes.

Setting the miniature mug on the table, Bentley slouched into a chair with a huff as he glared at the shrunken pottery. Not willing to let the boy wallow in his thoughts, Carrie offered him a smile and said, “I think it looks great and Miles will too.”

A raised eyebrow answered Carrie as Bentley glanced up at her, “I can’t give that to him - it’s tiny.”

“And you and I both know that he would love it all the same.” As Carrie moved to sit at another pottery wheel, Bentley sighed, but remained quiet as she continued, “He loves everything you make for him and you know that.”

“I know,” Bentley muttered, “but I wanted this to be special.”

“And it still is.”

“How? He can’t drink out of it.”

“Yeah,” Carrie agreed, “but he can use it as a Christmas ornament in a few months.”

Bentley snorted despite himself, the thought of the little mug dangling from their living room tree dancing through his mind. Finally shifting his gaze from the cup to the blonde across from him, Bentley grinned, “He would.”

“I know.” Carrie smiled at the boy before flicking her hair over her shoulder and chuckling, “I wouldn’t put it past him to use that as the star on top with how much he loves caffeine.”

Feeling a bit better about how his failed pottery had turned out, Bentley breathed, “I guess it won’t be a total loss if I give it to him looking like this.”

“Exactly,” Carrie said with a nod. “He’ll love it regardless. And, if you decide to make another, you’ll know to make it a bit bigger.”

“I guess so, yeah,” Bentley agreed. Taking in a deep breath as he stood, Bentley asked, “So, what do you wanna do? We can paint or draw or make awful sculptures of each other, if you want. I’d offer you a photoshoot, but that’s more Royce’s expertise than mine.”

“That’s fine,” Carrie chuckled. “I don’t think I have the artistic abilities to do much of anything here.”

Bentley moved over to the wall of blank canvases and pulled a pair of small ones down as he turned to Carrie once more, “Come on, it’ll be fun. We can hang out and talk while we paint.”

As Bentley set up a pair of easels, Carrie let out a hesitant laugh, “I doubt mine will look anything like yours.”

“It doesn’t have to be good,” Bentley stated. “So long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters.”

“Are you sure?” Carrie asked as she stood. “I mean, I’d be more than willing to just watch if you want to make something. You know, that way I don’t waste paint on something terrible.”

“As long as the paint goes on the canvas, it’s not a waste,” Bentley insisted. “Besides, we can make anything; nature scenes, a fictional world, or, I don’t know, maybe we could paint ourselves as superheroes or something.”

While Bentley got to work collecting paints to place on a tray between the two easels, Carrie’s train of thought screeched to a halt at the boy’s words. Looking over at the teenager with a smile, Carrie slowly sat down on one of the stools Bentley had pulled over and said, “That reminds me, I actually have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh yeah?” Bentley asked, glancing at Carrie before returning to the tub of assorted paint tubes before him. “What about?”

“Before we left home, I got a call from my manager.”

Hefting the container of paints onto a rolling table between the easels, Bentley looked at Carrie with an almost nervous chuckle, “You’re not getting fired or something, are you?”

Letting out a shocked bark of laughter, Carrie reached over and shoved Bentley’s shoulder, “No!”

Giggling, Bentley said, “Well, you never know!”

With a good-natured roll of her eyes, Carrie shook her head and said, “That’s not it at all. Actually, it’s pretty much the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“A film company I hadn’t heard of before reached out and offered me a role in their new show,” Carrie explained.

“That’s great,” Bentley said with a brilliant smile. “What’s it about?”

“All I know about it is that it’s an assassin show,” Carrie claimed. “However, the only down side is that it’s going to be filming almost exclusively in Europe.”

“Europe?” Bentley repeated. When Carrie nodded, he asked, “What, like England or Scotland?”

“I know part of filming will be in the UK,” Carrie mused, “but for the character they want me to portray, filming would primarily be in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine.”

Bentley allowed Carrie’s words to sink in, processing them slowly as he uttered, “That’s a long way from home.”

Carrie sighed, “I know. That’s sort of why I haven’t told Miles that they want me signed on.”

“Miles doesn’t know?”

“Not yet, no.” Carrie took in a deep breath before admitting, “I sort of wanted to get your reaction before telling him.”

“Well, I think it’s a great opportunity for you, but I think we both know how Miles will react,” Bentley said. “He’ll be happy for you no matter what. Just remember that he’ll probably end up going to the library to do as much research on your filming locations as possible. Remember what he was like when he had to decide which school to put me and Royce into?”

Of course, Carrie knew all too well. Miles had spent hours upon hours looking into the local schools, trying to figure out which one would be best for his brothers. After work, he would go to the library and research the local schools and their programs, searching for any hint of safety issues or cases of bullying. Royce and Bentley had to ride their bicycles to the library more than once to pry him away when it was almost closing time. After basically interrogating Lela about her old school and trying to see which schools had the best art and literature classes, he finally settled on one and signed all of the application papers overnight, falling asleep at the kitchen table with some of the papers stuck to his face and his pen still in hand. When Carrie showed up to pick Miles up for work the next morning, it took Bentley grabbing the spray bottle from the bathroom and filling it with frigid water to wake him from his slumber.

“Yeah,” Carrie said slowly as she nodded.

“That was just him figuring out a local school for us,” Bentley reminded her. “We weren’t going anywhere out of the state. So, when the time comes and you finally tell him, just know that he’ll be so much worse than that.”

Wondering just how bad it would be, Carrie sat silently, her gaze drifting as she allowed images of Miles scouring shelves of old books and frantically asking Mick and Vivien for help researching things on their phones to fill her mind. Eventually, her gaze drifted back toward Bentley and the two shared a nervous smile before dissolving into laughter. For a while, joy filled the room, filling the silent gaps in conversation that had once lingered between the pair. Eventually, the laughter began to fade and, as Carrie looked to Bentley once more, she sighed, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Bentley snickered, “A few months of pestering questions and nonstop research.”

“At least,” Carrie chuckled with a shake of her head. Taking in a breath, Carrie thought of Miles’ tendency to look into every possibility with a fine-toothed comb and wondered aloud, “I wonder if he’ll do the same for Mick when the time comes.”

“What do you mean?”

Snapping her gaze from the canvas before her to the blond boy beside her, Carrie cleared her throat and said, “It’s nothing, really. It’s just…” she sighed, “Charlie told me that some girls in the dance studio were talking about Mick being pregnant. It’s probably just a rumor, but I was just thinking how Miles would react if he she told him.”

“People really think she’s going to have a baby?” Bentley asked incredulously. “That’s crazy!”

“I thought so too, but there’s no telling,” Carrie claimed with a shrug. “Charlie thinks it could go either way.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

“I wonder if anyone else has heard about it,” Bentley said thoughtfully.

Carrie shrugged, “If the campers know, it’s probably spreading through camp as we speak.”

“Probably,” Bentley breathed. He would have to talk to Royce about it later on as he sometimes left the library door open for fresh air. If anyone walked by and was talking about it, he would hear it from the desk. With a shake of his head, Bentley grabbed a palette from the table between himself and Carrie and held it out for her to take. “You ready to get your paint on?”

Carrie eyed the colorfully stained palette before reaching up to take it with a smile, “Absolutely.”

Royce sighed as he ran his towel over his dripping curls. He was going to take a shower that night anyway, but after being unceremoniously shoved into the lake by Riven, he had gone inside to take a shower before they started playing games. Riven had caught him staring at Vivien - a normal occurrence, he thought - and his girlfriend’s skating partner chose to tease him about it when his girlfriend left the pier to help her aunts bring coolers of drinks down from the parking lot. After a while of back-and-forth, Riven gave Royce a nudge, and, needless to say, he was unprepared for it.

Tripping over the uneven planks, Royce had plunged into the cool lake, scaring off a nearby school of fish as the water enveloped him. Glancing out of the window near his bed as he sat down, Royce huffed; the trail of water he left from the edge of the pier to the front door of their cabin was still faintly visible in the fading sunlight. While it would be gone in the morning, Royce doubted his embarrassment would be. By the time he had resurfaced, Riven was folded over on the dock, laughing like a hyena. Bentley and Erica were no better as they took one look at each other and burst into laughter, only resorting to poorly disguised snickers when Jade elbowed them both in the ribs. Miles and Butchy hauled him up on the pier with matching smirks that told him they wouldn’t be letting it go for at least a day or two.

As Vivien and her aunts made their way down the beach toward them, Royce ducked past Carrie and Mick and gave a halfhearted response to his girlfriend’s question as to where he was going before ducking into the log cabin they were staying in and allowing the door to slam shut behind himself. Now that he’d had the chance to simmer and wallow in his mortification, Royce wondered if the red tinting his skin was due to the hot water or the embarrassment he still felt pulsing through his veins. Despite the mint-scented body wash he’d practically caked himself in, he could still smell the strong odor of seaweed and fish in the air. Royce sighed; maybe he had gotten water up his nose.

A knock on Royce’s door drew his attention away from his misery and he cleared his throat before asking, “Who is it?”

“Just me.”

Bentley. Royce took in a deep breath and said, “Come in.”

The handle twisted and Bentley pushed his way into the room with a grin before closing the heavy door behind him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” Royce offered. “Did you guys start without me?”

“Of course not,” Bentley chuckled as he moved to sit beside his brother, “but Mickie wants us to watch a video before we play Mafia, so I said I’d come see if you were ready to join.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Royce said as he set his towel aside. “I just hope they’re alright with me still smelling like fish.”

“Ah,” Bentley breathed with a smirk, “so that’s what that smell is.”

Shoving Bentley, Royce chuckled, “Shut up.”

Bentley let out a short laugh, “Seriously, though, you smell fine.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I’m sitting next to you.”

“Oh no!” Bentley gasped dramatically. “Whatever shall I do? I’ll have to deal with you smelling like three-day-old sushi all night.”

“You are such a dick.”

“I can’t be a dick, my name’s not Richard.”

Royce shook his head with a laugh, “Whoever decided Dick was a good name for Richard, clearly hated people named Richard.”

“I know, right,” Bentley chuckled. Pushing himself to his feet, Bentley nudged Royce with the back of his hand and asked, “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Royce nodded, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“You’d better hurry or I’ll eat your peanut butter M&Ms.”

With a roll of his eyes, Royce grabbed his towel and stood, “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

As Bentley reached the door, his hand wrapped around the handle, he turned back to Royce and asked, “Hey, um, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Royce said as he tossed his towel into the hamper beside his dresser.

Taking in a contemplative breath, Bentley asked, “Have you noticed anything different with Mick lately?”

Glancing over as he took a pair of shorts and a shirt from his dresser, Royce shrugged, “Not that I know of, why?”

“People are saying she’s pregnant.”

“Really?” When Bentley nodded, Royce asked, “Who did you hear that from?”

Knowing how quickly Royce would dismiss the thought if he said where he truly heard it from, Benltey said, “Some campers. I guess it’s been passing around camp.”

Royce thought for a moment before sighing, “We live with her; I think we would know if she was pregnant.”

“Maybe, but maybe she and Butchy wanted to keep it a secret and someone overheard them talking about it,” Bentley suggested.

The more Royce thought about it, the more things made sense. He knew how fast rumors spread - Vivien’s friendship with Noah being one that was spun into a mess. If Mick and Butchy truly were going to have a baby and someone overheard them talking, it wouldn’t be long before the whole camp knew. Even if they weren’t and someone had made it up, it wouldn’t take long for the camp-wide game of Telephone to make its rounds. Besides, if anyone else had noticed her exhaustion as of late, her few-and-far-between coffee refills at breakfast, or the way she no longer stole pickles from Butchy’s plate during meals, that would only contribute to the way things were spiraling.

“Maybe we should ask and see if anyone has seen a difference in her,” Royce suggested as he set his clothes for the next day on his desk chair.

“I asked Erica and Jade if they noticed anything,” Bentley said, “and Erica said she hadn’t noticed anything, but Jade noticed she’s been having stomach pains lately.”

Royce nodded thoughtfully as he joined Bentley by the door, “I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on her. Maybe I’ll talk to Miles tomorrow and see if he knows anything.”

“He’s her best friend,” Bentley mused as he pulled the door open. “He and Butchy would be at the top of the list of people Mick would tell.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Royce agreed as he followed Bentley to the stairs.

Royce’s day had gotten off to a pretty good start. Despite sleeping in far later than he usually did, almost everything had gone well. The mess hall had his favorite omelets for breakfast, the library was practically empty up to lunch, and some of the other staff had helped put together a makeshift carnival on the soccer field for everyone to have fun that afternoon. A trampoline Vivien claimed they had borrowed from her grandparents’ house was on one side of the field, a rented slip-and-slide was on the other end, and a myriad of games littered the area. The only other activity that had been set up was a water balloon fight; buckets filled with peltable balloons were arranged in a row stretching across the grass at the bottom of the fence that surrounded the playground off to the side of the field.

As Royce wandered aimlessly through the field, he spotted his older brother crouching behind a piece of the wooden play structure, water balloon in hand. Making his way over to the wooden fence that separated the playground from the soccer field, Royce watched as a small girl Royce knew usually stayed in the back corner of the library, poked her head around the rock climbing wall and chucked a green balloon in Miles’ general direction before ducking back behind the wall. Just as Royce was about to call out to Miles, he heard another child laugh and watched a balloon sail just over Miles’ head. Miles peered over the wooden planks that sheltered him and quickly threw his balloon, watching it nail a kid who was no older than ten as he crossed an exposed bridge.

“Ah!” the kid shrieked as water burst across his shirt.

Another kid climbed up on the monkey bars to get a better view, but before they could make their shot at Miles, Royce called, “Hey, Miles!” As the kids stalled and Miles turned to see who wanted him, Royce asked, “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Miles nodded, turning and raising his arms in surrender before calling out to the kids, “Hey, guys? I’m tapping out!”

“Come on!” the kid on the monkey bars moaned as Miles stood.

“For how long?” another whined.

“Dunno,” Miles replied as he shrugged. Despite the children’s grumbling complaints, Miles walked over to the fence Royce leaned against with a smile and lowered his voice as he asked, “Hey, what’s up?”

“I, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Alright,” Miles nodded, “go ahead.”

Royce glanced over to where Mick was standing with Butchy, utterly annihilating him at the ring toss station, before looking back to Miles. “I don’t know how else to say this, so I’m just going to ask.” Royce took in a deep breath and sighed, “Do you think there’s any way Mick could be pregnant?”

Although he appeared taken aback, Miles glanced over at Mick and Butchy and thought for a moment before meeting Royce’s eyes and asking, “Where did this come from?”

“Bentley,” Royce replied. “He said he heard a few campers talking about it yesterday and that it could be just a rumor, but from what I’ve seen, it could be true.”

Letting out a slow breath, Miles asked, “What have you seen?”

Royce took in a breath to organize his thoughts before he began, “She’s not drinking energy drinks anymore and she’s having a lot less coffee at breakfast, she hasn’t been eating much of anything and can’t look at certain foods without gagging, and even Jade says that Mick’s been having a lot of stomach pains lately.”

“And both you and Ben think that means she could be pregnant?”

“I looked it up on my phone while I was at my post earlier and the symptoms are very similar.”

Miles spared another glance at Mick as she dragged Butchy to yet another booth with a gleaming smile on her face. Taking a good look at his friend, he wanted nothing more than to dispute Royce’s claim. She looked fine! Not that pregnancy would make her look bad, by any means, but she looked the same as she always did. Shaking his head, he asked, “And Bentley was sure he heard them correctly?”

Royce nodded, humming in confirmation, “He seemed worried about her, so I’d say so, yeah.”

“I’ll try asking him about it later, maybe he’ll remember who it was that said it and we can go from there.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah.”

Just as Royce was about to head back to the makeshift carnival, a pain flared against his shoulder as he felt water splash across his face and down his arm. “Ow!” he yelled, sending a glare at the cockily-smirking girl who threw and caught another water balloon.

“What the fuck?” Miles called to the kids as they laughed from their places on the play structure.

“I’m not even playing!” Royce called.

“‘Cause you’re a chicken?” a boy called back.

“Chicken!” the girl with the devilish smile taunted.

“You’re a chicken, Royce!” another kid called.

As the children continued their teasing in the hopes of goading Royce into playing, Royce sighed, “Sometimes, I really hate those kids.”

Miles turned to Royce with a smirk and nodded toward the kids, lowering his voice as he asked, “You want to fuck them up?”

Royce took a look around and, noting that everyone was a pretty good distance from them, nodded as he turned back to Miles, “Yeah, I do.”

With a proud grin, Miles turned back toward the kids and began walking back to his previous spot as he called out, “You asked for it!”

“Better run, you little rugrats!” Royce called as he climbed over the fence.

Filing into the mess hall with damp shirts and laughter on their lips, Miles and Royce made their way to the end of the line to grab trays and fill them with food. After grabbing a tray, Royce took off, telling Miles he was going to talk to Vivien before disappearing down the line. Miles shook his head with a fond smile, glad his brother found happiness in little moments with his girlfriend. After grabbing some mac and cheese from its tin, Miles rounded a few campers and found himself next to Bentley as his youngest brother shoveled steak tips onto his plate.

“Let me guess,” Miles began, making Bentley jump, “you’re planning on drowning that in ketchup.”

“Absolutely,” Bentley beamed. “And you’ll pour that nasty steak sauce on yours like you always do.”

“Okay, first of all, it’s not nasty, you just have no taste buds,” Miles said. “And, second of all, yes, yes, I will.”

As Bentley’s face contorted into one of disgust, he handed the tongs to Miles and muttered, “Gross.”

Rolling his eyes with a smile, Miles grabbed some steak from the tin it sat in. Glancing at his youngest brother, Miles lowered his voice and said, “You know, I was actually hoping to talk to you.”

Bentley turned to Miles before quickly sighing, his eyes closing in defeat as he said, “If this is about the salamander, I swear, I had nothing to do with it.”

Miles turned toward Bentley again and asked, “What salamander?”

Searching his brother’s eyes for any sign of deception, Bentley slowly said, “I take it Carrie didn’t tell you.”

“No,” Miles said. “Why? What happened?”

Letting out a snort, Bentley recalled, “She and I were walking to the cabin so we could make sure we had stuff for the movie tonight and, on the way back, Carrie went to take a drink of her water and found that a little lizard had climbed onto her bottle.”

“And you had nothing to do with it?” Miles asked skeptically.

“Of course not,” Bentley replied. “Carrie and I have actually been getting along. If Royce had been there, I would have blamed him, but he was with you, so…”

“So the lizard just wanted a drink, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Heaving a sigh as he joined Bentley at the juice bowl, Miles said, “Anyway, that wasn’t what I was hoping to talk with you about.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Bentley chuckled. “So, what do you wanna talk about?”

“I was talking with Royce earlier and he said you told him there’s a rumor that Mick might be pregnant,” Miles stated. “I was just wondering if you knew which campers were spreading it around?”

“Well,” Bentley began, heaving a thoughtful sigh as he looked up at his brother, “the thing is, I didn’t overhear it from some campers.”

“You didn’t?” When Bentley shook his head, Miles asked, “Why did you tell Royce you had?”

Bentley sighed, “I didn’t want to say anything to Royce because I knew he would deny it if he knew who really told me. He’d probably say she was just spreading crap around or something, but I knew it was true and I didn’t want him to just brush it off.”

It didn’t take Miles long to figure out who his youngest brother was talking about. “You heard it from Carrie?”

“Yeah, she and I talked about it yesterday,” Bentley said with a nod. “She said that Charlie told her some girls in the dance studio were talking about it.”

Glancing at the table they normally sat at, Miles was glad to see the table had yet to be filled with their cabin’s inhabitants, but both of Vivien’s aunts had already claimed their normal seats. Then, just as Miles was preparing to make his way over and question Charlie himself, Mick and Butchy made their way to their seats and began conversing with the older women. Turning back to his brother, Miles asked, “Tonight, when Charlie and Hayley are making snacks for movie night, can you keep the others away so I can talk to them?”

Raising his hand to his forehead in a mock salute, Bentley smiled, “Aye aye, captain.”

Chuckling, Miles reached up and ran a hand through Bentley’s hair, ruffling it as he turned and headed for the table they typically dined at. Sitting down at his usual spot, he briefly wondered if Mick knew about the circulating rumors or if it had been a rumor at all. If her beaming smile and boundless laughter at Hayley’s terrible jokes were anything to go by, he doubted the brunette knew anything of the rumors. However, he couldn’t be sure. Mick’s tendency to laugh during awkward situations made it hard to tell what she did or didn’t know. Even if she was pregnant and had chosen to keep it a secret, he wondered if the rumors floating around would have any effect on her. She took almost everything to heart.

Miles inwardly sighed; he would just have to wait and find out for himself.

The smell of popcorn and the sound of laughter filled the cabin as Miles stepped inside. While everyone else was outside, playing ninja on the end of the pier and pushing the losers into the lake, Miles had slipped away in the hopes of finding Charlie and Hayley alone in the house. Just as he had presumed, they were in the kitchen, sitting on the countertops with cups of green juice that looked almost radioactive.

“Hey, Miles,” Hayley greeted, raising her cup slightly as Charlie waved.

“Hey,” he said in return.

“Did Viv send you in to ask about the snacks?” she asked with a knowing smirk. Before he could answer, Hayley chuckled, “She knows I won’t give her a straight answer, so she sends her friend instead - the little shit.”

Before Miles could say anything to the contrary, Charlie smiled and said, “The popcorn isn’t in yet, but the pretzels are almost done.”

“That’s good,” Miles said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Viv didn’t send me in, though.”

“Oh,” Hayley said, “that’s surprising.”

“What did you come in for?” Charlie asked. “A drink, some chips, maybe to save me from my wife’s terrible puns.”

Hayley scoffed, placing a hand over her heart as though she’d been stabbed, “My jokes aren’t terrible!”

“Yeah, they are.”

“You laughed, asshole.”

“It was a pity laugh.”

“Bullshit,” Hayley laughed.

With a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated sigh, Charlie turned her focus back to Miles and smiled as she asked, “Anyway, what do you need, sweetheart?”

“I was actually hoping to ask you something,” Miles admitted.

“Me?” Charlie asked, pointing to herself. Miles hummed in confirmation. “Well, in that case, I’m all ears.”

Taking in a deep breath, Miles sighed as he slowly recounted, “Royce told me that Bentley said that Carrie told him that you said you heard people talking about Mick being pregnant. I was wondering if you knew who was talking about it?”

As Charlie thought it over, her eyebrow raised and she lowered her cup of juice to the counter beside her as she said, “Some girls in the studio were talking about it, yeah, but they said that they heard it from you and Vivien.”

“What?” Miles wondered. “But I just found out about it today.”

Charlie glanced down, allowing herself to think over what had happened in the last week. Slowly, she claimed, “On Monday, I was instructing ballet and jazz. Dina Woodward injured her wrist and I stepped out with her to wrap it. When I came back, everyone in the studio was giggling and talking. A group of girls said they went by the music hall on their way in and overheard you and Vivien talking about Mick being pregnant.”

Miles allowed the woman’s words to sink in as he tried to recall what happened on Monday. He and Vivien had been in the music hall, playing guitar, talking, and relaxing as rain pelted the area. Vivien had been particularly tired that day, nearly falling asleep on Miles' shoulder as they sat in silence. Then, as the timer for the pretzels dinged, it hit him. While Miles was worrying about the possibility of rain coming through the ceiling, Vivien had asked him a question about the chance of Mick being pregnant, listing off her reasoning for thinking about it. While they were talking, the wind had slammed the door. However, Vivien had checked it and they moved on like nothing happened. Maybe it hadn’t been the wind. Maybe it had been the campers listening in.

“We started all of this,” he admitted softly. With a heavy sigh, Miles said, “I have to go tell Vivien so we can stop the rumors.”

As Hayley pulled the tray of pretzels from the oven, she requested, “Maybe you should wait until tomorrow.”

“What?” Miles asked. “Why?”

Charlie hopped down from the counter and crossed over to Miles, resting a hand on his arm as she replied for her wife, “Tonight, we’re supposed to be relaxing with some good movies and good snacks. Let everyone take some time to breathe - yourself included - and you can worry about it tomorrow.”

“But-”

Charlie was quick to cut him off, reaching up and cupping Miles’ cheek in her free hand to draw his attention to her words, “But it will still be an issue tomorrow and everyone will still be understanding tomorrow. Take the night to enjoy time with the family. Rumors at camp don’t last, but memories with your family do. You can work things out with everyone tomorrow, but give yourself time to process it for now.”

“Yeah,” Hayley agreed as she moved to stand beside her wife as Charlie patted Miles’ shoulder comfortingly. “Besides, Vivien will go into a full-tilt frenzy trying to make things right and, if you start that tonight, that poor child won’t sleep. If you tell her in the morning, she’ll have enough energy to fuss about it all day.”

“Hails,” Charlie gently reprimanded, elbowing the woman beside her.

“What?” Hayley asked rhetorically, a laugh falling from her lips as she returned to the counter to salt the pretzels. “It’s the truth. She’s just like me and we both know it.”

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Charlie turned back to Miles and smiled, “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. I know you want to fix this here and now, but you and I both know you want Vivien’s help since you both are, somehow, at the start of it.”

“Yeah,” Miles admitted in a breath.

“So, like Hayley said, I think you should wait,” Charlie claimed. “It will still be there tomorrow and you can work on it together without having to deal with a sleep-deprived, caffeine-riddled Vivien stumbling through the grounds like Jack Sparrow on dry land.”

Letting out a snicker at the mental image of Vivien fumbling her way through the camp with a bullhorn, shouting incoherent claims in the hopes of clearing Mick’s reputation, Miles chuckled, “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be the greatest way to handle things.”

“Mhm,” Charlie hummed, patting Miles' hand as she turned and grabbed a stack of cups from the counter. “Now, take these out and hand them to everyone. We’ll be out in a few with snacks and drinks and then we can start the movie.”

“Are you sure you guys don’t need help?” Miles offered.

“Are you a psychiatrist?” Hayley asked as she set a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Miles’ head tipped curiously to the side as his eyebrow raised and he slowly replied, “No?”

“Then, no, I think we’re all set,” Hayley chirped as the microwave whirred to life.

Rolling her eyes once more, Charlie pushed the cups into Miles’ hands and said, “Take these and run before you’re subjected to any of her horrendous jokes.”

Miles chuckled, taking the cups and heading toward the hallway, “Alright, alright, I’m going.”

As the popcorn began sizzling in the microwave, Hayley turned to Charlie, leaned against the counter, and asked, “If my jokes are so bad, why do you always laugh?”

“Because I love you,” Charlie answered with ease as she sidled her way up to her wife.

“And here I thought you found me funny.”

“Funny looking, maybe,” Charlie teased, “but those puns of yours are just plain terrible, my dear.”

Placing the back of her hand to her forehead and letting out a gasp of air, Hayley whined, “Oh, how you wound me!”

“Drama queen.”

“Fun hater.”

“Oh yeah?” Charlie said. When Hayley nodded, Charlie asked, “Do you know what the leading cause of divorce is?”

Curious, Hayley offered, “A lack of humor in a relationship?”

“Nope,” Charlie said with a shake of her head before leaning up and kissing Hayley on the cheek. “A stalemate.”

As Charlie took the bag of popcorn from the microwave and opened it to pour it into a bowl, Hayley processed the joke, her jaw slowly opening in shock, “Holy shit; was that a fucking pun?!”

“You know,” Vivien mused, “when Carrie told me to break a leg, this wasn’t what I thought she meant.”

In place of their usual day of recreation and rehearsals, that Friday was spent challenging the campers and staff alike. Unlike many of their previous days filled with activities, The Gauntlet - as the campers had begun calling it - had taken place at the amphitheatre and, as many expected, many workers had signed on to participate. Between the ropes course, the speed challenge, the scavenger hunt, and the climbing wall, everyone had their work cut out for themselves in one way or another. While the campers competed in teams, the staff were left to fend for themselves.

It was to no one’s surprise that Vivien had signed up to compete; her boundless energy and competitive nature boiled over when she found both Riven’s and Noah’s names on the sign-up sheet. What was surprising, however, was the fact that she ended up getting injured. Despite making it through the race in the top three and finding everything on her scavenger hunt list with relative ease, it was the ropes course that had been Vivien’s downfall. Near the end of the course, her foot had slipped on the wooden planks, sending her flying into the podium, and she narrowly avoided slamming face-first into the trunk of a tree.

Riven had managed to get her down after she quickly discovered how painful standing was, but as the auburn-haired skater was next in line for the next segment of the challenge, Miles had offered to take Vivien to the health center to see how bad her injury truly was. That was where they could be found, Miles hitching Vivien further up in his piggyback hold as he made his way to the front entrance of the health center.

Miles chuckled, “I highly doubt you’ve broken anything.”

“I know, but still,” Vivien shrugged. “It’s a good thing I got to know her before Royce’s impression of Carrie infected my brain.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” the brunette hummed. “Otherwise, I would’ve said she put some ancient curse on me or something.”

Miles let out a snort as he paused to glance over his shoulder at the younger girl, “An ancient curse? Really?”

“I’m from New England, the home of literal witches,” Vivien deadpanned. “At this point, anything’s possible.”

With an amused shake of his head, Miles chuckled, “Yeah, I can’t see Carrie as a witch.”

“I could,” Vivien said with a smirk as Miles pushed the health center door open with his shoe. At Miles’ curious look, she said, “Tell me she wouldn’t be an incredible Sarah Sanderson.”

“That’s the one from Hocus Pocus, right?” Miles asked as he nudged his way further into the building. “The one who they push into the street to see if it kills them?”

“Yeah!” Vivien chirped as Miles set her on one of the beds. “You know, the blonde who sings to draw everyone in with her magic. Carrie would be incredible as her.”

As Miles pulled a stool over to sit on, he nodded, smiling at Vivien as he sat before her, “I could see that working out.”

“Just wait until I have her watch those with me after my birthday,” Vivien chuckled. “I give her an hour before she starts planning to have you two dress up as Sarah and Billy for halloween.”

“An hour?” Miles chuckled with a shake of his head. “Half an hour, maybe, but I doubt she’d wait an entire hour.”

Vivien smiled as she worked on untying her shoes, “Yeah, true. Maybe she, Mick, and I could go as the Sanderson sisters this year.”

“I thought you, Royce, and Bentley were going as Stranger Things characters.”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Vivien shrugged. “I wanted to go as Max or Robin and Royce was going as Steve or Dustin. Bentley wanted to go as Will, but then he saw the demogorgon costume and now that’s up in the air. But, if they can’t decide before we go to Spirit Halloween, I’m going to just go with the girls and they can fend for themselves.”

Miles let out a snort as Vivien dropped her shoe to the floor, “Then I’ll have to listen to them whining for the foreseeable future.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

Miles chuckled and shook his head, “Speaking of problems, we need to talk about something, but first, can you move your foot at all?”

Vivien sucked in a breath and winced as she moved her foot around in a slow circle, “Yeah, but it hurts.”

“Alright, so it’s definitely not broken,” he mused, “but it could be a sprain or a twist.”

“My bet’s on a sprain,” Vivien commented. “Even with a twist, I can stand and put weight on it.”

Miles looked around, “Do you know where they keep the crutches?”

Raising a hand, Vivien pointed to a closet on the far wall, “In there. The code for the lock is nineteen-seventy-three - the year Nonna and Grandpa George got married.”

Miles stood and made his way to the closet, setting the lock aside and opening the door before grabbing a set of crutches and making his way back to Vivien. “How tall are you?” he asked as he examined the slider at the bottom of the metal crutches.

“Five-eight,” she replied. As Miles got to work on adjusting her crutches, Vivien used a sigh to blow her hair from her face and asked, “So, what problems do we need to talk about?”

Glancing up at the girl before him, Miles took in a breath and asked, “Do you remember the other day when you and I were talking about Mick being pregnant?”

The brunette thought for a moment before slowly nodding, “Uh, yeah, why? Is she?”

“No,” Miles said before pausing. “Actually, I don’t know. What I do know is that a group of campers overheard us and has been spreading a rumor around camp that Mick’s pregnant.”

Vivien let out a humorless chuckle, “You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I was.”

“How did you find out about it?” she asked.

“Royce told me and Bentley had told him,” Miles stated. “I guess Bentley heard it from Carrie who heard it from Charlie who heard it when the campers went to the dance studio after overhearing us talk about it.”

Vivien thought about the chain of events before recalling, “When the door slammed and I went to check it, there were campers running to the dance studio, but they were far enough away that I thought it couldn’t have been them.”

“Well, I guess it actually was.” Miles set the crutches aside for Vivien and looked up at her before saying, “Now, we have to fix it.”

Vivien nodded slowly, “We should talk to Mick first and get things straight. If the rumor is about her, she should know about it.”

“Yeah, and even if she’s actually pregnant, it would be best to get the story straight,” Miles agreed.

Vivien nodded, but before she could say anything more, the door to the health center opened and Butchy stepped inside, sending the pair a smile as he asked, “How’s everything going?”

Miles was the first to answer, “It’s probably a sprain.”

“I’ll be fine after a day or two,” Vivien shrugged. “I’ve sprained my foot before and it never lasts long if I take a day off of it.”

“Alright,” Butchy said with a small grin, “in that case, consider yourself crutch-bound for the next few days.”

“It’s going to suck at the carnival tomorrow,” Vivien sighed, “but that’s what I get for doing stupid shit.”

Fighting the instinct to tell the teenager off for swearing when a child could walk in at any minute, Butchy chuckled and leaned against the bed next to her, “We’ll work something out for you tomorrow, piccola. One of those air casts or a brace, maybe.”

“Maybe.” Vivien shrugged, “As long as I get to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl, I’ll be fine with whatever.”

Butchy reached up, bringing an arm around Vivien’s shoulders with a smile, “Atta girl. You feel up to going back to the amphitheatre and watching the rest of the competition?”

“It might take me a while to get there,” Vivien snickered as she took her new metallic friends and settled them under her arms, “but yeah. Are Noah and Riven still in it?”

“Noah lost the ropes course to Riven, but that’s all I know,” Butchy claimed as he stood.

As Vivien stood and began hobbling her way to the door she turned to Miles and asked, “Are you coming?”

Miles smiled, “Yeah, I just have to lock up the closet again. I’ll meet you along the way.”

“Okay,” she said, allowing Butchy to take the lead as she made her way outside.

Once the closet was locked up once again, Miles pulled his phone from his pocket and opened his messages. Finding his last conversation with Mick, he typed, 'Can we talk later? In private?'

It wasn’t long before he got a reply, 'Of course, why, what’s up?'

'Too much to type. Meet in the playhouse after dinner?'

'Sure, see you there.'

It wasn’t often that Butchy found himself walking back to the cabin without Mick by his side, however, as he had kitchen duty that week, he had told her to just head out while he got to work cleaning up. Though the air outside the mess hall was still thick with humidity, the sky had begun to darken and cool the heat of the day. The amount of plates covered in chili and melted cheese had made his fingertips turn to raisins in the soapy sink water and the steam from the hot water made him feel as though he’d been working in a sauna, but the cooler outside air was a welcoming contrast to the heat of the wooden building. Taking in a deep breath, Butchy sighed as a breeze blew by, urging him to make his way back to the lodge he resided in.

He wondered what everyone was up to. They wouldn’t have a game night or movie night without him there as they only ever spent those nights as a whole group. Maybe they were sitting around the living room, doing their own thing. Mick would probably be reading in her corner of the couch while Miles and Riven talked music on the opposite end. Charlie, Jade, and Carrie would most likely be found painting each others’ faces in jelly masks while Bentley and Royce would be on the floor with Vivien, talking about things they only ever talked about together. If he had to guess, Erica and Hayley would be talking off to the side. For some reason, the unlikely pair had grown close after Erica discovered Hayley was the wild child in her family and Butchy had seen the two talking a lot as of late.

Letting out a long breath, Butchy pushed his hair back and began the walk home. Normally the walk went by quickly as everyone chattered about their days and the camper drama they had heard. However, as cicadas chirped in the bushes and the faint buzz of the sparse overhead lights, the journey felt as though it would take a lifetime. A few cabins still had campers and counselors lingering outside, chatting as they dreaded the call of lights out, but many kept their doors closed as they prepared for the evening.

Pushing his way through a line of bushes, Butchy took a shortcut between the health center and the playhouse, glancing toward the health center to make sure the lights were off before continuing toward the playhouse. Spotting a light on through one of the side windows, Butchy made his way to the back of the building, opened the screen door, and pushed his way inside before pulling out his cell phone for a flashlight. Just as he flicked it on, he heard a voice from the main hall where a performance would be rehearsed for the next week.

Choosing to not call out in case it was just people cleaning, Butchy made his way through the back rooms before stepping through the doorway that led to the back of the stage. As he got closer, the voices got louder and, before long, he could make out a set of distinct voices. A heavy sigh came from the main room before he heard a familiar voice say, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Mick? What was she doing in the playhouse at this hour? Was she helping someone run lines? Then another voice cut through Butchy’s thoughts, “I wish I was.”

Miles. Since when did he have anything to do with the play? He hated being on stage. Before Butchy could peer around the curtains of the stage to see what was going on, his hand stilled in the air and another voice filled the air, “I mean, at least you found out from us first and not from some random campers, right?”

Vivien’s question gave Butchy pause. As far as he could recall, Hairspray didn’t have a summer camp. Whatever they were discussing, had nothing to do with the play. Lowering his hand, Butchy listened as his wife scoffed, “Still! Half the camp thinks I’m pregnant and I had no clue! Is that why everyone’s been asking me if I’m okay and checking on me all the time?”

“Probably,” Vivien said. “It could just be that they were worried about you.”

“Why would they be?” Mick pressed. “I’m fine.”

“You weren’t eating well and you got nauseous at breakfast almost every day,” Miles stated.

Mick let out a sigh and Butchy could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration as she huffed, “I started my period and my sense of smell went haywire. It usually goes away after the first few days.”

“You were tired all the time too,” Vivien chimed in.

Butchy had noticed Mick’s exhaustion as of late, but he knew Mick had a good explanation for that as well. “I have two reasons for that,” she began. “First off, I was trying to finish my book before my interest in it died during the week. And, second, Butchy and I have been going on late-night excursions for the camp.”

“You have?” Vivien asked. “Why?”

Mick sighed, “I can’t say just yet, but you’ll see sooner or later. For now, just know that, no, I’m not pregnant. We’ll just have to work on clearing it all up over the weekend with all the kids gone.”

“How are we going to do that?” Miles asked.

Again, Mick sighed, her voice low as she said, “I don’t know, but we can start by spreading things to the counselors. Once they know the truth, they can talk with the campers and clear the air in the privacy of their cabins.”

“We can also tell everyone in our cabin so they can relax,” Vivien added.

“Who else knows about this and didn’t say anything?” Mick asked.

“Royce told me,” Miles began, “and he found out from Bentley, who was told by Carrie, who heard it from Charlie, who was told by the dancers.”

“And I talked to Riven and Aunt Hayley about it

“So practically everyone?” Mick asked.

Vivien chuckled nervously, “To be fair, not everyone believed it, so they didn’t say anything to anybody outside of the cabin.”

“Actually,” Miles started, “Bentley said he talked to Erica and Jade, but I think they’re the only ones outside of the cabin who knew.”

“The only person I think hasn’t heard about it, is Butchy,” Vivien claimed.

“Yeah,” Miles agreed, “I think he would’ve said something if he did.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mick huffed. After a moment of silence, she took in a breath and said, “We’ll start tonight. We can talk to everyone and make sure everything is smoothed out. As long as we can get through to most of the people in our cabin tonight, I’ll feel better about it, but I want to talk to Butchy about it one-on-one.”

“That’s understandable,” Miles stated.

“I’ll work on everyone else at breakfast,” Vivien said. “I know a few people who would spread it around fastest. Once I get to them, things will clear up pretty quickly.”

As the call for everyone to return to their cabins echoed through the camp, Butchy heard Mick let out a relieved sigh, “With any luck, this will be over before the campers come back.”

“Yeah,” Vivien said optimistically.

“Now, lets get back before the others send out a search party,” Miles chuckled.

“And get to clearing the air with everyone before Butchy gets back from cleaning the mess hall,” Vivien added.

“Yeah,” Mick muttered.

As Butchy listened to their footsteps echo throughout the playhouse, he inched the curtain to the side, watching as his wife left with Miles and Vivien’s arms wrapped around her. None of them looked back to see him standing there, watching them, and as Miles flicked the house lights off, turning the playhouse into a dark abyss of shadows, Butchy wondered how long they had been there, talking. Had he found them early in the conversation or had they been there since they left the mess hall?

Another thing that came to the front of Butchy’s mind was how everyone seemed to know apart from him. Was he truly the last person in their cabin to hear the rumor about Mick’s pregnancy? Who could have started something like that and how had the rumor begun spreading? If it was truly just a rumor as it sounded like Mick said it was, how had it spread throughout the camp? And, again, how would he have been the last to know? As the father of Mick’s rumored child, why would he be the last person in line to know?

Taking in a breath, Butchy shook his head and sighed. He was overthinking it. Mick already said it was nothing more than a rumor; he had nothing to be stressed over. It wasn’t like she was actually pregnant and simply chose not to tell him. If that had been the case, he would have had every right in the world to be at least a little bit upset. That would have been an entirely new can of worms to crack open.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket once more, Butchy turned on the flashlight and made his way back to the back door, ensuring that the lights were off and everything was put away before leaving the playhouse and making his way to the path that connected to the beach. He took his time getting back to the cabin and, by the time he reached the sand of the beach, the sun had set behind the treeline and everyone was congregating on the end of the pier. Despite their smiling faces and jokes about how many dishes he must have had to scrub, he could see in their eyes how serious their previous conversations must have been.

As Butchy took his seat on the pier beside his wife and felt her head rest cozily on his shoulder, he wondered just how long it would take her to tell him. After spending so much time with her, he knew she would need time to sort through her thoughts and feelings on the matter. He had no issue allowing her the space to do so. If he had found out some rumor about himself was spreading amongst his closest friends as well as a myriad of gossiping campers, he would be pretty worked up about it too. As they watched the sunset illuminate the sky, Butchy allowed himself to relax. After all, he had nothing to worry about… right?

Ah, the carnival. The only place where the overwhelming smell of popcorn and fried dough, the sky-high prices of tickets, and the crowds packed tighter than a tin of sardines didn't have any effect on people’s happiness. Workers standing in the summer heat called for people of all ages to try the rigged games they were stationed at, begging them to pay five dollars for a toy they could easily buy at the dollar store. While parents were dragged to ticket counters and various rides their children claimed they just had to ride, groups of teenagers and adults alike gathering on the weekend for a day away from jobs and other responsibilities, roamed free.

After Vivien’s grandparents reassured the group that they had bought day-pass bracelets for everyone, they were practically ushered to the parking lot and encouraged to have a good day away from everything. Upon their arrival at the fairgrounds, the group filed out of the van and found their way through the crowds of people to the line that extended from a row of brightly-colored ticket booths. After making their way to the front of the line and being handed a stack of bracelets with rubber bands wrapped around it, the group found their way to a fairly unoccupied table and worked on figuring out what to do for the day.

After deciding to meet at the Ferris Wheel to figure out what to have for lunch, almost everyone went their separate ways. Vivien and Riven were quick to race to a ride called Pharaoh's Fury, eager to prove that they could handle the pendulum-style ride. Royce and Bentley followed the skating duo but quickly branched off to the nearby Scrambler when Bentley saw just what the Pharaoh’s Fury entailed. As Miles and Carrie wandered off to find something to do, Butchy allowed Mick to guide him around the fairgrounds.

They walked in relative silence, the screams of people on rides and the calls from game operators the only sounds nearby. Butchy wondered what could be going on in Mick’s head. She hadn’t said much of anything since the night before and, while Butchy didn’t want to press her to talk, he missed the sound of her voice. Taking in a breath, Butchy looked around and offered, “Would you like some cotton candy?”

Mick looked up at him and thought for a moment before shaking her head, “Not right now. I think I’ll wait until after we go on some rides to eat anything.”

“Where would you like to go first?” he asked.

With a sigh, Mick looked around and shrugged, “I have no idea.”

Butchy allowed her to look around, taking in the different rides and attractions before asking, “Mickie, are you alright?”

Peering curiously up at her husband, Mick slowly replied, “I was until you asked. Why?”

“You’ve been pretty quiet today,” Butchy stated, “and, usually, you have days like this planned down to the tiniest detail. I was just worried.”

Heaving a sigh, Mick shook her head, “I just have a lot on my mind today. I wanted to talk with you about it when we’re alone, but it doesn’t seem like that will be any time soon.”

Deciding it would be best to inadvertently hit the nail on the head, Butchy lowered his voice and asked, “Is it about that rumor that was going around camp?” When Mick’s wide eyes met his, Butchy sighed, “I don’t know what you heard, but I swear, I didn’t take kitchen duty this week in order to poison Carrie. Not only would it risk poisoning everyone at camp, but it would also make me the number one suspect in her murder, according to Vivien.”

Mick stopped in her tracks and, once Butchy turned back to face her, she asked, “Wait, so you’ve had rumors going around about you this week too?”

“Yeah,” Butchy claimed. “I’m assuming you have too?”

“Yeah,” Mick breathed. “Everyone was saying I was pregnant.”

Butchy froze as though he was hearing this for the first time. Looking his wife over, he took a step closer to her, taking her by the arms as he softly asked, “You’re not?”

“No,” Mick giggled, “I just said it was a rumor.”

Butchy glanced around before quietly saying, “We can change that, if you’d like.”

Mick’s eyes widened as she muttered, “What?”

“It doesn’t have to be a rumor.” With a teasing smirk, Butchy continued, “We could sneak off to the car and nobody would know.”

A shocked noise left Mick and her face burned as she squawked, “Butchy!”

“What?” Butchy asked in mock-astonishment. “I just thought we could go get one of those fake pregnancy tests from that joke shop near Walmart. I don’t know what you were thinking we’d be doing.”

Mick smacked Butchy’s chest as she huffed, “Remind me why I married you.”

“I wish I knew,” Butchy chuckled as he brought an arm around Mick’s shoulders. “I think you were just in it for the motorcycle and I was like the cruddy little prize at the bottom of the cereal box - unnecessary, but you still took it anyway.”

“Sounds about right,” Mick said with a smile, nudging Butchy with her elbow before bringing her arm around his middle. “So, you never heard about the pregnancy rumor?”

“Not until you said something,” Butchy stated. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. He had heard her say it the night before, but she didn’t need to know that. “What about you? Had you heard about me poisoning Carrie?”

Mick snorted, “No, but to be honest, I wouldn’t put that past you.”

Acting as though he’d been shot in the heart, Butchy brought a hand to his chest and gasped, “And here I thought you’d be my alibi for the crime.”

“Yeah, no,” Mick said with a shake of her head as she led her husband toward a swinging chair ride. “You and I both know I’m a terrible liar, so the chances of that happening are slim to none.”

“Guess that means I should put the antifreeze back in the truck, then, huh?”

“Butchy!”

#Camp Wanamaker

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madaboutmunson · 2 years

Text

Cryptic Cupid - Part 4 (Robin's POV)

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 5

Sequel to Raspberry Riddle

So this is set in a government-operated hospital after the events of season 4 but everyone is alive

Each part has a different POV, Robin, Steve, or Eddie.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When Robin finally landed home, her hands still laden with gifts, she was all set to make a beeline to the fridge for a good old-fashioned American soda, but as she stepped through the door, something caught her eye, or rather the sole of her shoe. She opened and read the handwritten letter waiting for her on the doormat and rushed to dial the number.

"Hey, I er just got back. Is everything ok? Are you going over there?"

"Hey sweetheart, yeah, was just wonderin' if you wanted a ride over?" Wayne's voice sounds out over the line. His voice wasn't usually raging rapids of excitement, it was very much a lazy river, but today it had lost its usual soothing quality, "We're usually there at the same times. It'll save you a bit of cash, and selfishly, we won't worry so much about you travellin’ back alone."

Robin tries to lift the mood with her own pep, "That would be amazing, thank you. See you in twenty?" She enthuses and quickly runs to get changed out of her travel clothes and waits for Wayne to arrive.

He's there precisely on time, but unlike Steve, he doesn't wait in the car. Instead, Wayne knocks on the door and introduces himself to her Mom, explaining, "I know I sure wouldn't like some ol' guy picking up my kid randomly."

"We've heard all about you. We're happy to hear Eddie is finally on the mend." Robin’s mom says kindly.

Wayne nods with a smile of appreciation, "Speakin' o' which, we better get going before he notices the time" Wayne laughs, but Robin notices the laugh is one you reserve for bad jokes that you don't want to laugh at, but you do to make everyone at ease.

Once they get in the car and buckle in, Robin is straight on the case, "Ok, so what’s been happened since I've been gone?"

"You want the good news or bad news first?" Wayne offers her a choice.

"Good first, please. I'm already dangling treacherously over a pit of dread right now. At least let me clamber out a little." Robin says without thinking, it must be something to do with sitting in the passenger seat that brings out her inner drama queen.

"I'm sorry, sugar. I didn’ wanna dump this on you. I just…I wanted it to come from me in a safe environment rather than you getting blindsided by it, is all. Eddie can be a force to be reckoned with when he's like this." Wayne sighs remorsefully.

"What happened to Eddie? Is he ok? Did he come back differently?" A million scenarios run through Robin's head. She liked and cared about Eddie, obviously. She wanted him to be well, but her insides were constricting at the thought that the unstoppable force of this potentially unpleasant Eddie had already destroyed Steve.

"Good news first, right?" Wayne's fingers release and then wrap back around the steering wheel. "Steve is learnin’ new things, I won’t steal his thunder by tellin’ you before he can, though, and he’s still looking after himself well. Eddie's getting stronger. He can walk and talk great now. ‘Cept he stubbornly refuses to do much of either dependin’ on his mood."

"Is that the bad news?" Robin asked hopefully.

"Partially. He got to a mirror before the Psychologist wanted him to. She had more work to do with him first, she said. She obviously knew what she was talkin' about. The rest of us were completely blind to it because we were just so glad he was alive and back with us, you know? What was a scar on his face, right? Nothin’." Wayne sighs, "Steve tried to tell him as much. That no one was gonna care about a scar, but Eddie did care ‘bout it, and he, unfortunately, directed all his frustration with his face at Steve and the nurse there at the time. Just verbally, but you know words can be just as brutal."

Robin sat quietly for a while. She had felt the same. Happy that Eddie was back, so what the hell did a mark on his face matter? But this wasn't really about them. They'd all looked over it. This was about how the world saw Eddie, and now the superficial people of the world had another thing to throw at him.

"Steve tried his best, Robin, but Eddie has dug his boots in. Steve doesn't need to go through that every day, I told him as much, but he won't go on home. I love Eddie with every fibre of my being, but he's grindin’ Steve down…But I think Steve is gonna feel a lot better now you're back, and if you wanna visit him, and I'm not working, and I shouldn't be for most of the visiting hours now, just call me, ok? Steve could really do with a friend around now. I always pop my head in to check in on him, but Steve only wants to talk about Eddie, and that gets Eddie pissed at me. So…" Wayne trails off rather than repeating himself.

Robin wonders how much Wayne knows about the Steve and Eddie situation and then, in turn, wonders if that's why this has blown up so big.

"How long since he looked in the mirror?" She asks tentatively.

"’bout a week", Wayne answers solemnly, then taps the wheel a few times, "but don't worry about Eddie, ok? I got that covered. He'll cave into the band visiting again soon enough. They've got some pact or something the little one is always ranting about under the door. It's Steve that needs his people. 'cept he won't ask for it o' course, the kids came by, but I think he puts up a front for them. Bless that boy.” Wayne half smiles as he focuses on the road ahead. “Where are his folks? Around town, I hear nothing but good things, but I seen nothing of ‘em." Wayne takes a breath, "Sorry, Robin. I don't normally talk this much, Just I been sitting mostly in silence for about a week. I don't know how well you know Eddie, but it ain't what I'm used to. I'm usually tired of talkin’ or bein’ talked at, you know?"

Robin smiles and pats him on the shoulder, "Don't worry, I get it. I’ll speak to Steve, but I doubt he'll want to leave. His parents, I wouldn't hold your breath about them showing up. They're hardly around for Steve at all and haven't been for years." She scowls, thinking about them.

"They got a good kid like that, and they don't spend time with him? He'll be gone before they know it." Wayne says with confusion. That last part Robin knows rings deep in Wayne's heart. That's why he's here every day.

"It's always obvious to everyone else who bothers to get to know them, isn't it?" Robin says with a fond smile.

"What's that now?" Wayne asks.

"How good souled they both are? They couldn't look more worlds apart and have different childhoods, yet there is something so intrinsically the same about Steve and Eddie. The way they take care of people, how they both can't see how wonderful they are, how they can talk for hours about the things they care about and most importantly, what a pair of dinguses they can be."

Wayne laughs out loud at that, "Dinguses? Now that's a new one on me, but I think I understand it from your tone."

“When you said Eddie is grinding Steve down, what do you mean? Are they arguing every day?” Robin wants to assess the situation she’ll be walking into before she gets there. Then, arm herself with the right things. Eddie being an asshole daily to Steve was a lot different to a hurt Eddie lashing out once.

Wayne looks forlornly at the approaching building, “No, it's not that. The boy just doesn't want to see or speak to him, and all that kid wants to do is apologise to Eddie. I tried tellin’ him all week. He ain’t got nothin’ to apologise for. It's Eddie that needs to apologise, an’ he will. He…um…he’s feelin’ self-conscious, is all. Talkin’ to people means them lookin’ at him, and he’s just equatin’ that to all sorts of nonsense right now.” Wayne sighs, “The shrink has made a lot of progress with him, and I’m followin’ her lead on it all. Eddie knows he did wrong, Robin. He just doesn't want to…actually no, that's not true, he does want to, but he feels like he shouldn't be around Steve.” Wayne huffs, “Prob’ly not explain’ myself too well.”

Robin wonders if Wayne does know about Eddie and Steve’s little crush on one another, but he doesn't know if she does, so he’s skating around the issue.

Robin and Wayne step out of the card, get their IDs checked, and get scanned and searched before being allowed in.

As they approach the hallway, Robin hands Wayne two gift bags, "For you and Eddie" She smiles.

"Well, thank you kindly, Ms Buckley" Wayne smiles as they turn into the corridor.

Robin is about to smile back when the scene before her breaks her heart. She can see Steve sitting on the floor in Eddie's doorway with his back to her, leaning against the closed door. His head occasionally moves like he's talking.

Then he must hear the echo of their footsteps down the hall, and he turns and quickly springs into action, "Robin!!!" He runs up, throws his arms around her, squeezing her tightly and spinning her around, "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow? God, I'm so glad you're here" he embraces her again. Wayne tips his hat to them both before opening Eddie's door.

"It's just me, son. You're ok. Settle down now," Wayne says gently before locking the door behind him.

Steve pulls her into his room, a massive smile on his face and pulls her up a chair, "Tell me all about your holiday!" He says enthusiastically, but Robin can tell whilst he's pleased to see her his smile isn't entirely genuine.

“My holiday was unforgettable! Chamonix is gorgeous. There is a river that runs right through it that comes down from the glaciers, and if you stand on this bridge, there is this ice-cold breeze that comes off it. Once you are out of here and we’ve got better jobs, we have to go. You will love it there. It's beautiful and so many sports and the food, my god!” She smiles and hands him a little gift bag that he starts to open immediately, intermittently looking up and beaming at her like he can’t believe she’s here, “And speaking of beautiful things, how is love’s young dream going? It doesn't look good by the doorway scene I just stumbled into.” she says with an awkward half-smile.

Steve pulls out the t-shirt and holds it up. It's bright white, with neon bubble lettering on it saying, My Girlfriend went to France, and all I got was this crummy t-shirt! And the silhouette of the mountains.

“We don't need to talk about that. You just got back, Rob. Tell me about the rest of your time there. Did you ski? Was it terrifying? How many croissants did you eat? Did you try frog legs? Is that even a real thing?” Steve machine guns her with questions, but Robin can see it is a vain attempt not to talk about something potentially upsetting. A facade like Wayne had said. Robin puts the t-shirt to one side, holds one of Steve’s hands between two of her own, and scoots the chair closer to him.

She looks over his face, and eventually, he meets her eyes, and she says softly, “Hey, you don’t have to do that with me, ok? We don’t do that. I don’t need to talk right now. I want to listen” and his whole body sinks slightly with a sigh as it made him smaller somehow.

“Oh, Rob, I really messed up” He looks awkwardly at her shaking his head and then casts his eyes to the floor in shame. Robin quickly rushes to move her chair again, drapes her arm around him, and hugs him into her side.

“I’m sure you haven’t messed anything up. What could have possibly gone wrong?” Steve fills her in on everything that’s happened since she’s been away.

“You should have seen his face. It looked so mad, but his eyes looked so hurt. I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t know he hadn’t seen himself, and you know, even if he had, he’s still just as beautiful, right?” Steve says in a voice close to shattering him completely, and when he calls Eddie beautiful, Robin’s heart sinks for him. “But he was right, Rob. I thought about it. I would feel like he did, and I tried to tell him that every day at the door, but he won't speak to me or look at me. I mean, it would be better than nothing if he just opened the door and yelled at me.” Steve looks down at the floor, running his fingers through his hair, “It’s almost worse than when we were waiting for him to wake up. One of the nurses caved and told me, it's not just me, though. He’s totally shut down in there. Hardly eating keeps the room in darkness. Wayne brought his guitar for him to play, but he hasn't even touched it. I would have heard it. He’ll only let Wayne or the staff in, but he’s not really speaking to them either.”

Robin examines Steve with her eyes. Wayne was right. He had been ground down to pieces of himself by this incident, “Oh Steve,” her words doused in sympathy, “Maybe it’s time to go home, huh? They must have enough data by now, and they can send someone to do the tests if they need to, right? At least at home, you know, you’ll have other things to do, other people to see, a TV and a radio” That gets a small smile from him, “You don’t need to stay here, ok?”

Steve looks at the door to his room, then back at Robin, “I know I don’t need to. I…um…” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and runs his hand down his face, “Can I show you something?” Robin nods and waits.

Steve gets up from his chair and retrieves a book. It's about sign language. “When we argued, Eddie shoved this book at the nurse, who didn’t know whose book it was, but I did. It was Carol’s, the other nurse. Eddie signed at me one day. I didn't know what it meant, so I asked her. It was, thank you.” Steve signs at Robin, then the corners of steves mouth tug down as he tries to keep talking, “I asked if she had a book on it I could borrow so that I could communicate with Eddie more, and she said she didn't know where it was. She lied because Eddie had it.”

“Is Eddie losing his hearing?!” Robin exclaims in worry.

“No, Rob”, Steve lets the tears go, “I am. He’s been learning it for me. He must have known they'd asked me about learning, and I said I didn't want to. You know how smart he is, he must have thought I wouldn't learn it for me, but I would learn it for him.” Steve slumps back down in his chair and takes a deep breath wiping his eyes, “Open it.”

Robin takes the book at opens it, where it naturally falls because of the bookmark. First, she sees the signs for Sleep and Eat, then she notices the bookmark and takes it gently between her fingers holding it up, “Is this….” She starts, and Steve nods.

“He kept it this whole time, a whole year almost.” Steve looks at the little handmade scroll. “You know it took me ages to make that stupid thing. First, my fat fingers kept getting the matches stuck in the wrong places or to myself, and then then I tried to use a fancy calligraphy pen but got ink everywhere. I almost gave up a hundred times every time something went wrong, but then I kept thinking about how he might smile at it, solve it and jump over the ice cream counter at me.” Steve smiles fondly at the little scroll and nervously plays with his fingers. “And then I found this, and I felt like I’m so glad I didn't give up on it, you know? That I didn’t throw the towel in because I kept getting it wrong because, in the end, he really liked it, Rob. He liked it enough to keep it with him all through everything. Carol said it was one of the first things he asked for.” Robin looks closer at the scroll, seeing watermarks and dirt, “So I know I don't have to stay, and I know it’s hard here right now, but I want to stay. I just don't know what to do.” Steve takes the book back from her and places the scroll back in carefully before putting it on his bed.

Robin tries to put herself in Eddie’s shoes and piece together all the information from Steve and Wayne. Clearly, Eddie was feeling some way about how he looked. He’d see Wayne and the staff but no one else. He obviously liked Steve very much, but from what Steve said, he seemed nervous about making a move, waiting for Steve to take the next step. Wayne had said that Eddie would apologise, meaning that Eddie knows he’s messed up. Robin’s eyes move to the book again, “What about if you wrote to him?”

“What like a letter?” Steve looks a little confused.

“Hmmm, maybe, but I was thinking more like the little scroll, the riddles. The worst he can do is not reply right. It's no different from now. And…er...maybe-maybe, yeah, maybe I could make you a new tape, huh?”

“Yeah, now you bring it up, Robin, that tape….” Steve playfully grimaces at her.

“Nearly got you two kisses? You’re welcome, Dingus” Robin would never admit to Steve, well at least not sober, that the tape in question was very close to her heart. It was Robin’s falling in love tape. Just a list of songs where the music and lyrics served as high-octane fuel to the race car of infatuation. From past car discussions where Steve has been happily singing along to something, and Robin has had to tell him the horrifying backstory of the song, she knew Steve would not pick up on the lyrics, but she suspected that Eddie would. It was sneaky and underhanded, but it was clear to her from a year ago how they felt about one another. All Robin had done to their dancing around one another was change the music in the hope it might get them to meet in the middle finally.

“Uh, no! That was all me, thank you.” Steve smiles, genuinely getting caught up in their little back-and-forth argument.

Robin raises her eyebrows at him in an are you sure about that kind of way, and Steve finally laughs. She gives him another big squeeze and kisses him on the cheek, “It’s gonna be ok.”

Steve nods and gives a slight smile before moving on to his following query, “Did you come here with Wayne today?”

“Yeah, he gave me a ride, said it makes sense, seeing as we are both here the most.” Robin thinks for a minute. If Steve had information that might help Robin, he’d tell her, right? He wouldn’t hide it. “He was worried about you, you know. He said Eddie was grinding you down.”

“He was?” Steve looks at Robin with earnest surprise and then gives a half-smile, “I guess I wasn't hiding it very well. Did he say anything else?”

"Before I say anything else, are you sure about Eddie? I mean Wayne said he pretty mean to you both, and there are plenty more guys out there that aren't so…er…vicious" Robin knew Eddie was very hurt at the time, lashed out verbally, and ultimately knew he'd done wrong, but that didn't take away the fact he'd really upset Steve.

Steve huffs out a small laugh, "I agree he did want to hurt with those words, but I'm not upset because of that. I mean even when he was trying to insult me, he complimented me."

"Wait really?" Robin tries not to laugh at the thought of a red in the face enraged Eddie showering Steve with compliments.

"Yeah, he called me pretty boy!" Steve smiles fondly, "The only reason I'm ground down and upset is because I miss him. I miss being his entertainment, acting a fool to make him smile or laugh, you know?"

Robin bursts out laughing, "You have no idea how much Eddie is gonna love the fact that a previous King of High School misses being his own personal jester"

Steve laughs along with her his eyebrows raised in surprise and happiness, "I'm just as shocked as you. It was just nice, and I miss it. That's why I sit in his doorway everyday and talk to him. I just wanna hear him laugh again" Steve's smile drops a little, "I shouldn't have said it didn't matter. It clearly mattered to him."

"Wayne told me, Eddie knows what he did was wrong. He's also certain Eddie is working his way to an apology, but it sounds like he's a little stubborn, so it's a slow process" Robin rubs her hand on Steve's back in a soothing circle, "If it's any consolation, he's not let the band in either, and you know how special they are to him too."

Steve nods a few times with a small smile. Then suddenly his eyes go wide, and he clicks his fingers next to his head, "That's it!"

"That's what?" Robin says a little taken aback from the change in posture and attitude.

"You were talking about the band, and that made me think about music, and Music brought him back to me once. Maybe it can bring him back again, but I am going to need your mix tape master help. Please?" Steve clasps his hands together like he's in prayer and waits for her response.

"Sure! What do you need?" She replies enthusiastically.

#steddie #steddie fanfiction #steddie fan fiction #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #steddie fan fic #madaboutmunson #madaboutmunsoncrypticcupid #eddie munson #steve harrington

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remmushound · 3 years

Text

Beyond the Bay Chapter 20: Family friend

Summary: Leonardo calls a family friend in to help assess Mikey

Tags: @brightlotusmoon @selfindulgenz @digitl-art-monstr @ilo-artistry @dakotafinely

Content warning: mild swearing

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Leo’s knock and voice snapped Leonardo out of his daze. The teen blinked first, and then shook his head to rattle his thoughts back into place.

“I hope you don’t mind my intrusion.” Leo said, coming further into Leonardo’s room.

“Not at all.” Leonardo lied, because he did mind the intrusion in his personal space but he wasn’t going to say that! Besides, this face was exactly the one he had been planning to seek out. “But I’ll have you know my thoughts cost no less than a dollar a piece, I know my worth.”

Leo sat on the bed and it gave a loud groan under the strain of his weight; the leader snorted a forced laugh through his nose and shook his head.

“I think I’ll have to pass, thanks.”

“He’s fine.” Said Leonardo.

Leo blinked, cocking his head. “Pardon?”

“You came here to ask about your father, right?” Leonardo asked. “He’s fine, stable and resting. We’ll know more when he wakes.”

“Is it advisable to leave him alone?”

“Your Raph’s sitting in with him. Figured he'd appreciate seeing a familiar face when he wakes up and not this.” Leonardo motioned to his face. “As beautifully handsome as it is, it’s not his son.”

“Right.” Leo nodded. The box turtle had picked up on Leonardo’s lie of not minding his presence and was quick to try and justify himself. “Well, I just noticed you in here alone looking like you just kicked a puppy, so I figured I’d check on you. I— I can go.”

“No.” Leonardo grabbed Leo’s hand to stop any escape. “Don’t go. I was actually wanting to talk with you.”

Leo sat back down. “You have my full attention.”

“With all this stuff going on, your dad and… and that dino dude and… and Mikey…and I mean, there’s only so much me and Donnie can do. We— we’re not trained physicians by any means and we don’t have all the medicines and equipment that one might need to treat him—“

“What are you saying?” Leo prompted Leonardo to just get to the point.

“I was just considering that it could be beneficial to start looking into more… mystic solutions.”

“Mystic— like, like those Yokai in the Hidden City— like, Draxum?”

“I take dad to them all the time! And I know mutants and yokai are like, waaay different, but there are a few younger doctors who are learning experimental procedures to specialize in mutant care!”

“Key word being experimental?” Leonardo’s words left a bad taste on Leo’s tongue.

“Everything’s experimental before its effective— mutants haven’t even been around a decade yet. The work they do is surprisingly advanced for such a short period!” Leonardo argued

“You’re suggesting using Mikey as an experiment?” Every sense of protective nature surged through Leo in that moment, eyes of ice boring into Leonardo’s sapphire and ruby one.

“No, I’m suggesting we take him to someone better equipped to handle him. Someone more… familiar with seizures. Donnie and I are just making stuff up as we go along, and that’s not what's best for Mikey…”

“If you’re not qualified to help him, how could you possibly be qualified to state any opinion on the matter?” Leo crossed his arms, “You’re your team's medic! You're supposed to heal, so heal him!”

Leonardo only smiled his dumb smile and rested his head on his hand. “You’re not very bright, are you?”

“What?” Came Leo’s bitter response.

“I am a medic, and in my humble medical opinion, he needs someone better than me! Two seizures in two days can’t be good, not for a person and not for a mutant. Just think for a second what would be best for your brother.”

“Are you accusing me of not thinking about that?” Leo let his perfect white teeth show a sharp threat. “Mikey is fine where he is!”

Leonardo’s eyes turned cool, like a layer of soft mist had laid over them and softened his voice several degrees until it came out like a gentle winter sound. “Are you willing to risk Mikey’s life for it?”

Leo felt his blood run cold, the collected chi inside him shattering and dissipating to the farthest reaches of his form. His throat was too dry, even to swallow, and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. Leonardo knew in that moment he was victorious, for he leaned forward and entwined his fingers together, his smug smile not near as perfect as Leo’s, but just as confident.

“Fine.” Leo’s bitter relent came, “Call a specialist.”

“I got one on speed dial.”

Leo deadpanned. “Is it Baron Draxum?”

“N-no!” Leonardo lied, then immediately said, “It’s Baron Draxum.”

***

“Hm.” Baron Draxum mused as he looked over Mikey. The entire Clan was gathered in the infirmary, apparently too close for the faun’s liking because in the next breath he said, “Could I please get some peace and quiet?”

“We’re… not talking.” Raph pointed out, and nobody moved.

“I meant that as a polite way of asking you all to leave me alone.” Draxum said slow and sharp, like he was talking to a dense wall.

“Like hell we’re leaving you alone with him!” Leo snarled, and there was a determined chorus of agreement from his brothers.

“Why, do you not trust me?”

Draxum turned his full attention to the rest of the Splinterson family, his lips pulling back in a sneer. He started to walk ever so slowly around the beds of the infirmary, dragging hooved hands across the beds holding Mikey, who was disgruntled at being forced into another exam, and Splinter who still sleeping off his trauma. Draxum’s hands traced over Mikey’s arms and Mikey winced and pulled away as if the fingers were knives. As Draxum circled around to do the same to Splinter, who in his unconscious state couldn’t retreat, Raph stepped forward with both hands on his sai, ready to gouge and destroy.

“Draxum, cut it out!” Michelangelo scolded, hand on his hip and cheeks puffed out like a middle aged grandmother scolding her grown child.

Draxum rolled his eyes, but gave into grandmother Michelangelo’s demands and stopped his slow taunting walk. Raph returned his sai to their holsters, but kept forest eyes fixed on the yokai menace.

“I still say some privacy would be preferable for my assessment. I don’t do well in a crowd.”

“Why did it have to be him, again?” Leo asked in a sharp and bitter voice as he motioned to the faun who couldn’t appear more bored if he tried.

“Draxum’s a family friend— we trust him!” Raphael tried to reassure everyone, including himself.

“But I don’t.” Leo said simply. “Not around my brother alone…”

“Leo, I’m fine!” Mikey complained, “Honestly, you’re all making a big deal out of nothing!”

“A seizure isn’t ‘nothing’ Mikey.” Donnie sighed and shook his head.

“And nothing is exactly what I can do if you keep crowding me.” Draxum’s vine snared around Donnie’s belt to pull him away from Mikey’s bedside, much to the ire of the box turtle.

“How about this?” Leonardo interrupted before another argument could break out, “Leo, why don’t you stay here with Mikey while we take Donnie and Raph on tonight’s patrol? We missed last night’s, we can’t miss another.”

“Yeah!” Raphael immediately agreed, but louder, stealing the show and the attention from his younger brother. “That’s a great idea, Leo. We should get ready to do that now, actually.”

“Raph, Donnie.” Leo said, nodding to them as he addressed them. “You heard the snapper. Suit up.”

Donnie was quick to rise and obey, eyes on Mikey until the very last second when he left the room. Raph didn't move from Mikey’s side.

“Raph.” Leo said again, this time louder.

“I’m not leaving him.” Raph’s voice was low. He tightened his grip.

“I wasn’t asking.” Came Leo’s sharp retort. “Raphael asked you to go on patrol with him, and I told you to suit up.”

“It’s okay Raphie!” Mikey said, and he knew he could get away with it; Raph wouldn’t rebuke him when he was in a med bed after all! “Go knock some heads in and chill. I’ll be fine!”

Raph shook his head and clicked his tongue but his eyes held nothing but playful mischief. “You know I hate that nickname.”

“Duh!” Mikey slung a lazy arm around Raph to hug him one last time before giving him a push to start him on leaving the room.

When the entire group was finally ready to depart some five minutes later, it was Raphael who put a delay on their plans. It seemed the minute they were about to leave, he had a million and one things he needed to say.

“April’s here to help you if you have any questions.” Raphael said, practically doting over Leo like he was one of his younger siblings.

“Understood.” Was Leo’s simple response.

“And— and there’s some pizza you can make if you get hungry— if dad complains about being hungry, you can make him a snack but no big meals until breakfast. Leo likes to keep close eyes on his calories. Dad really likes the sweet stuff, so make sure it’s sugary.”

“Will do.” Leo nodded.

“But if you do get him a snack, make sure you mark down how much he eats so we can adjust his intake, otherwise we’ll be all thrown out of wack.”

“Alright.” Leo couldn’t help but smile at Raphael’s anxious rantings.

“Oh, and he— he goes to bed at twelve, could you just make double sure that his door alarm is set?”

“Raph.” Leonardo grabbed Raphael by the arm.

“It gives a little ring whenever it’s opened so he can’t wander off…”

“Raph.” Leonardo’s patience was weining.

“And make sure you get him up at four for a bathroom break or else he’ll have an accident. And sometimes he has trouble sleeping—“

“RAPH.” Leonardo reached up and grabbed Raphael by the cheeks, dragging the snappers head down to his level. “They’ll be fine. Draxum and April are here with them.”

“I know…” Raphael said and his words came out a low whisper. Still he didn't move.

“Come on.” Leonardo said and he didn't give Raphael a choice in the matter. He yanked and yanked on Raphael until the turtle relented and followed after him, and when Raphael tried to look back and add one last thing, Leonardo only tugged harder. “We’ll be back before sunrise.”

Leo only nodded and waved as the two mutants disappeared after the rest of the patrol, and for a long moment Leo couldn’t help but think that it was Leonardo doing the leading...

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havethetimeofyourstyles · 4 years

Text

here it is! the first part of UTCM!

wc: 4.8k

taglist | story masterlist

͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

With clothes flying across the room, trying to make each article of clothing land in the target of a rectangle, you rummage through your closet, trying to find the specific piece of your most treasured clothing.

One that meant something special to you.

As you dig through your drawer, trying to find the thick, vintage tee your dad had given you (more like you stole it and never gave it back), your hand finally feels the familiar material that has brought you comfort and lots of compliments if you do say so yourself.

With a proud ‘bingo’ escaping your lips, you’re not surprised that it’s the only shirt you folded and gently put into your suitcase. You looked around your room, finding the hurricane of clothing sprawled out on the floor and your bikini top on your lap shade. Laughing a bit, you drop to your knees and begin to pick up your clothes, stuffing it into the suitcase.

You check the time and see that it’s five minutes to 9 AM and your phone rings on your bedside table, knowing you’re behind schedule. You quickly grab your phone, placing it between your shoulder and your ear, and continue grabbing your clothes.

“Yellow?”

“Honey, quit answering the phone like that.” You take the phone from your shoulder and put it at arms reach before sighing, knowing you should’ve looked at the caller ID.

“Hello, mother. How are you on this fine morning?” Your voice changes from playful to proper tone only to tease her.

“Oh, quit it. I was just calling to see if you were all packed and ready.”

“Yup!” You say confidently, looking around your room as it says otherwise. Obviously, packing wasn’t your greatest talent.

It was your best friend’s parent’s anniversary. Minny has informed you a month ago, knowing that you would procrastinate on packing, and to be fair, she was right. Packing wasn’t your favorite, and she knew that. Aww, my best friend knows me so well.

You and Minny have been best friends since you were 7. You two met at school and were in the same class. Because of the two’s last names being right next to each other on the roll call, you were assigned to sit right next to her. Throughout the years in school, you had always remained close. Sure, you two have met other people and became friends with them, but nothing came as close as the bond you have with her.

It was 20 years of eating at lunch together, never missing a day. Sleepovers. Day and night calls to gossip or vent. Laughs. Petty arguments. Crying over stupid boys and girls that broke your heart. Monthly ‘glo the fuck up’ day. Jogging in the park. Living life. And most importantly, love.

Damn, we’re getting old.

“I’m sad I can’t make it to Dan and Lina’s anniversary trip.” Your mother sighed over the phone.

Yours and Minny’s family had practically become one big family when you both turned 10. With occasional sleepovers and meet ups at the mall, your parents had become really great friends with hers.

“I know, Mom. But you practically see them everyday, so it’s fine. They understand why.” You try reasoning out with her.

“I hope so.” She sighs sadly on the phone, and it makes your heart hurt.

“They do understand. Trust me.”

“I wish you were here-” She immediately cuts off.

“Mom, I can go with you. I don’t have to go on Dan and Lina’s trip. Let me call Minny so I can tell her to not come by.”

“No, no!” You pause. “Please, don’t miss out on having fun for me. I want you to have fun. You deserve it.” You nod, even though she can’t see you. You check the time, and know you’re running out of time to finish packing.

“You deserve it too, Mom.” She doesn’t say anything, but you know she’s smiling on the other side of the call.

“Hey, Mom. I gotta go. Minny is almost here to pick me up, so I just wanna double check everything.”

“Of course, honey. I’ll call Lina later. Say hi to Minny for me. I love you.”

“Will do. I love you too.” The door knocks once you hang up the call. Curses scolding yourself for being so lazy and procrastinating fly from your lips as you get the door.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The last person you were expecting was seeing your ex boyfriend on your doorstep with keys in his hand. He wore rust color corduroy pants, a stripe shirt, and a turquoise jacket that’s stitched on the side. His hair was pushed back by his black sunglasses and he was wearing his pearl necklace. You hate to admit that he looks good and can possibly rock anything he wore, and you despised him for that along with other reasons.

“Wow. No, hi or how are you Harry? I’m doing great, thanks for asking.” He says sarcastically and you roll your eyes, walking back to your room to finish packing. “Well, I see you’re still not that great with organizing your time, or your clothes.” You don’t say anything because you really don’t want to speak to him at the moment, or at all. “I’m assuming Minny didn’t tell you.” Your eyes perk up into confusion.

“Minny didn’t tell me what?” You ask, continuing to fold the last pair of clothes.

“She asked me to pick you up. You know, to take you to the lake house.” If it were possible, steam was coming out of your ears. Why hadn’t Minny told you? You huff loudly for Harry to know that you’re clearly annoyed before grabbing your phone and immediately dialing Minny’s number, and waiting for her to pick up.

Harry looks around your room, seeing as things haven't changed with you, and you want to kick him out as soon as you're done talking to Minny.

“Hey, girl! Are you on your way?” Her voice is high and she clearly is not prepared for what you’re about to give her.

“How can you have Harry pick me up? And why didn’t you tell me that you couldn’t pick me up?”

“Clearly, you’re the best at greeting people anymore.” Harry says, leaning against the door frame as he wears a smirk, and you immediately flick him off. He puts his hand on his chest with an exaggerated jaw drop, pretending to be offended.

“I’m so sorry. I meant to tell you, I promise. But my dumbass of a brother decided to come last minute because his plans got cancelled, and so we were all rushing out the door and putting everything in the car.” You hear Minny’s brother, Jackson, say ‘hey!’ and you sigh.

“It’s okay, I understand.” Not wanting to be annoyed anymore, you brush it off.

“I can find someone else to pick me up, no worries.” Harry raises his hands up as if he’s saying ‘I’m literally here to pick you up.’

“No! Just take the ride from Harry. After all, he is staying at the house too.” Your eyes widen.

“What?! Why would you invite him?”

“You know, you’re doing a lot of talking like I’m not here in the room right now.” You mouth ‘shut up’ to him.

“Please, just go with him. We’re almost there anyways and I don’t want you guys to be late because you want to be difficult. Just ride with him. It’s only like a 3 hour drive and you can sleep on the way, and then not talk to him for the rest of the trip.” She persuades.

Minny was always good at persuading people. In college, both of you were commuting from home and didn’t stay at the dorms, so you didn’t know that many people, especially not in the frat or sorority houses. She had convinced her parents that they needed a weekend to get out of the house and take a nice getaway trip, laying out the pros and cons so she can throw a party. And they really thought her pros outweigh the cons.

“Ugh! Okay, fine.”

“Thank you! Love you! Bye!” She gets off the phone quickly, and you turn to Harry.

“Shall we get on the road?” He smiles. You were finally finished with packing and rolled your luggage to the front, ignoring him. He comes out of your room with your bikini top in his hand, and your eyes widen, forgetting to take it from the lampshade. “Think you forgot this.” He holds it up and you snatch it quickly. And you’re both out the door and possibly going on the worst trip.

Two weeks and I’ll be home.

͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

Two hours down. One more to go.

The entirety of the car ride had been filled with awkwardness and silence. If music hadn’t been playing, you were sure you were going to explode. Harry had asked you if you were alright about a million times or if you were too hot or cold. You kept your responses to a minimum, replying with ‘yeah, I’m good’ or ‘I’m okay’. Harry was gripping the steering wheel so tight, that he was sure his hand would cramp up when he tried to unlatch. The tension and awkwardness was getting to him. He hated that things had ended up like this between the two of you, but he was willing to change that. He wants to change that.

“R. E. D.” He says suddenly after minutes of not talking, and just listening to the sound of the music and the engine of the car.

“Pardon?” You turn to face him.

“C’mon, you don’t remember the game we used to play when we would go on road trips?” He asks hopefully, looking at you quickly before turning his head back on the road.

Of course you remember. Hours on the road with him, going to the next destination when he was on tour or outside of the city to get away from everything, led you both to play road trip games that included saying 3 random letters and finding it on a license plate. It’s what made traveling fun and the hours on the road much more interesting. Especially with Harry.

“Yeah, I remember.” You say softly, not showing emotion.

“Okay, well, start looking.”

“You weren’t very good at this game.” You say, but quickly close your mouth, not realizing that you’re thinking out loud.

And Harry’s surprised. He knows that your comment was a teasing one, and he was worried that he would t get a single sentence out of your mouth without you yelling in his face. “I’m very good at this game!”

“I mean, considering that my board was filled with tallies, then I would think you’re bad at it.” You let out a chuckle and Harry has a big smile on his face, thinking it’ll hurt his cheeks later on.

“You literally gave me impossible letters to work with!”

“They’re license plates, not people’s names!” You tease.

“Just look for R.E.D!” He ends the conversation. Although he didn’t want to, he knew that you’re most likely going to blow up in his face if you two acted like a happy couple again. He knew that you would overthink about the bad things overlapping the good, and you would go back to resenting him.

And he was right.

After he ended the conversation, you were thinking about what could’ve been between you; what could still be if he weren’t an asshole. The laughs and teasing you two had just a minute ago were replaced with deep breaths, not knowing if one of you should say a thing again.

There were only a few cars on the same road for you; going to different places. You wondered if people going on a road trip had the same situation with you and Harry: the sharp tension that can be cut like a knife or wanting to jump out of the car.

You must have blanked out for a while because Harry had gotten off the highway and onto a secluded street that leads to the lake house.

The drive through the woods with high boulders and tall trees had you speechless. You got as close to the window as possible, looking up like you’ve just seen a shooting star. Nature has always been such a fascination to you. You’ve always loved camping trips and hiking; so much that you’re currently an environmental scientist.

You don’t notice with your head practically sticking out the window, but Harry is having such a hard time keeping his eyes on the road. He thinks that it’s admirable how passionate you are, especially about nature and animals because it’s rare that people end up doing what they love. And he loves seeing you so passionate about what you love.

The drive surrounded by the forest didn’t take long; about 20 minutes, and Harry had already pulled up into the gravel driveway in front of the lake house.

The famous lake house that Lina and Dan have owned for 30 years; ever since they got married. It was a rather large lake house; able to fit two families of four. With brown wood hammered onto the sides and evergreen border along the windows, the house was generally very comfortable and homey. They had kept renovating throughout the years to keep up with the times changing, and they’re loving how modern it looks as of now, but very welcoming at the same time.

“Well, we’re finally here.” Harry says, cutting off the ignition and getting out of the car. You do the same as well and meet him where the truck is popped open, Harry grabbing his bags. You went to reach for it, but Harry slaps your hand away.

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry about the bags. I got them.”

“Thanks.” You give him a soft smile.

“And besides, you’ve packed for like a month when we’re gonna be here for two weeks, and you were barely able to carry it out of your house.” He teases.

“For a matter of fact, I happen to be very strong.” You cross your arms.

“Okay, whatever you say, Captain.” The pet name slipped out. When you and Harry were together, he started calling you Captain because sometimes you can be so aggressive and demanding, but passionate, that it felt like you were the Captain of the ship, which technically you were. You were always in charge, always right, and always planning everything. Captain just stuck, and he thought it was so perfect for you.

The pet name had definitely startled you. You haven’t heard that name come from his lips in forever. And admittingly, you missed it. But you don’t tell him that, of course.

Harry notices your shock and just smiles instead of pushing it. He instead walks towards the car once his hands are full.

“Hey, Harry?” He could’ve sworn that his head got jumbled up at your call for him because of how fast he turned around.

“Yes?”

“R.E.D.” You pointed towards Minny’s car with a smirk on your face. Harry looks at her license plate and his jaw drops, but you see the corners of his lips turn up.

“How did you-”

“You think I don’t know my best friend’s license plate when she’s had this car for 4 years?” Your smile is amusing and Harry has missed this side from you.

“Well done.” He drops the bags and starts clapping.

“Make sure to mark my tally.” You walk past him and towards the house. Harry turns around, watching you walk. Specifically landing his eyes on your hips and watching them sway like you own the fucking world. It’s endearing and he loves it. He loves how sometimes you can walk the whole universe and own it, but he always loves how you shy away from things and look for reassurance. He loves it.

You don’t turn around because with the smile and hint of blush that crept onto your face, it’s bound to be a disaster if he sees it.

“Aye, aye, Captain.” He chuckles before picking up the bags and following your footsteps.

͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

The inside of the house was opposite of what it looked like from the outside. While the outside was rustic and dark looking, the inside was light and provided very much needed natural lighting due to the big window that overlooks the lake. Sun shines bright through the window and into the house that it almost hurts to look out, but that’s Mother Nature at her finest.

You head up to your usual bedroom that you claimed when you were younger, having taken trips to this house for so many years that your feet just subconsciously took you to your room.

It remained the same: big window that led to a small balcony, wooden frame bed, and a mattress that is the perfect size and comfort for you. The walls were white, and with the light coming through, it made the room look even bigger.

Usually you and Minny would sleep in the same room, but there were enough rooms so you two can have your own. But there were some nights where you would spend the night with her, and her, you.

You hadn’t noticed Harry following you to your room, but when you hear bags drop onto the floor, you jump and turn around. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to. Thought you heard me following you.”

“No, I didn’t. I was just distracted with my thoughts.”

Harry leans against the door frame and crosses his arms. “What about?” He asks curiously.

“Just… haven’t been here in a while, and I miss it.” He only nods, and it quickly goes back to silence. “Thank you for bringing my bags up.” This time, he smiles.

“Not a problem. Let me know if you need anything else, Captain.” You chuckle.

“Will do.” He leaves your room and shuts the door close, knowing you’d probably want to settle in and change into more lounge clothing.

You sit on your bed, facing the window, and look out at the lake. You don’t know what you’re feeling. Before you saw him today, you would just get mad that you’re thinking about him, but that car ride broke every anger that clung onto your body. It was like your mind naturally reacted to Harry in a way that you couldn’t control. You can control anything else, but not with Harry. You naturally felt a pull towards him, and no matter how much you wanted to cut off the string you couldn’t.

You had definitely missed the feeling of being around him, and that makes you angry. Angry at yourself because he hurt you.

You try not to cry with the thoughts swirling in your head. You take in the beautiful view from your bedroom and tell yourself that you shouldn’t be sad because you’ve got a long trip ahead of you.

As you changed into your lounge clothes, you headed downstairs to greet the family that was just back from the backyard.

“Oh, sweetheart! I’m so happy you’re here!” Lina greets you with a warm hug. Dan does the same, giving you a bear hug.

“Happy anniversary! How are you guys?” You ask the married couple.

“We’re doing great! I’m excited this time has come again! We’ve got so much planned.” You smile at their excitement. They turned to look at each other and you can’t help but admire their love for one another, even after all these years.

Yours and Minny’s parents’ love was like no other. You were pretty blessed to grow up around healthy relationships, and can’t help but feel so fond of the love they have for each other and wanting it for yourself.

“The kids are still outside.” Lina kisses your cheek and Dan pats your shoulder before they head to the kitchen.

You walk through the glass slide door that leads to the stunning view of the water that the sun reflects onto. You take a deep inhale in, breathing in the world’s scent. The outside is such a beauty that some people take it for granted.

“Ahh!” The famous screams come from no other than Minny. “You’re here!” She runs to you and you engulf her into a big and hard hitting hug. Jackson also hugs you and runs his hand on top of your head, messing up your hair.

“Dickhead!” You slap his chest.

“How are you, other little sister?”

“Oh, you know, here.” You say, not knowing what to say, so ‘here’ is usually your backup for not really wanting to say how you feel.

Minny rolls her eyes, knowing you all too well for your liking. “How was the drive?”

“It was…interesting.”

“Well, that’s my cue to go.” Jackson walks back to the house, and leaves Minny and I to talk.

“Was it that bad?” Minny asks worriedly.

“No, it wasn’t bad. It was just awkward and there was tension between us. But then we started playing our famous road trip game and I started teasing him, and ugh! I smiled and laughed a little and I hated it.” You huffed and looked down.

“What, why?”

“I-I don’t know. I just… I was expecting to have the worst trip when he showed up at my doorstep, but my mind is taking over.”

“Your mind or your heart?” Minny tests. You don’t reply. You just look at her, not knowing if she genuinely wanted a response or she was just testing you.

“Why did you invite him?” You ask at the wrong time because you don’t hear the sliding door open, revealing Harry.

“Hey, Minny.” He smiles softly at her and steps out of the house to hug her. Your breath was hitched in your throat, feeling guilty about your question because you didn’t hear him.

“Hey, Harry.” She smiles back and hugs him. Once they let go of their embrace, Harry turns to you.

“If you don’t want me here so bad, then the Captain shall be obeyed.” He teases, but you know that he’s more hurt than what he puts on. He puts on a brave face, but really you see it in his eyes that he’s hurt. You know that your question had hurt him and it was just the wrong timing to ask that.

“I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Didn’t you?” His head turns slightly, knowing he’s trying to keep his annoyance intact. His voice is different and sarcastic. Minny senses the shift of tension, so she breaks it.

“I invited him because he’s been my friend as long as you have, so he’s practically family too. He’s been to every trip as well, and besides, my parents love him.” She places her arm on Harry’s shoulder, and you can’t help but feel like they’re teaming up against you. Harry walks ahead of us and goes inside while you and Minny trail behind him. You know you shouldn’t think of it like that because they’re not, but you feel like such a downer once you found out that Harry was tagging along. “Let’s go in and eat lunch!” Minny changes the subject, feeling like that’s what they really needed. “By the way, which letters did he ask for?” Minny asks.

“R.E.D,” you smile amusingly and roll your eyes, giving your best friend the ‘I know right?’ look. She laughs loudly, throwing her head back and clutching her stomach.

“Well that was an easy win for you.” She says and you nod, before putting an arm around your shoulder, walking inside the house for lunch.

Lina had prepared salad, homemade garlic bread, Brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes. Dan had cooked his famous ribs, one that was his specialty ever since he was a young adult. They didn’t want to cook right when they got to the house, so they prepared it beforehand and took it with them.

The six sat down at the table that was set in front of the window. Dan at the end of the table, Lina on his right, Minny right next to Lina, you on the other end, Harry next to you, and Jackson next to Harry. Everyone was loading food on their plates before passing it around or across the table, Lina making sure everyone got one of each.

“Alright, eat up!”

The conversation flowed throughout the table. The parents asked the kids how work was going, to which everyone responded that it was going well.

“Harry, honey, is your mom and sister planning to stay as well?” Lina asks.

Harry clears his throat and wipes his mouth before replying, “they might come at the end of the week—probably the weekend. Gems couldn’t get out of work, so they’ll only stay for a few days.” She nodded and turned to you.

“Has your mother changed her mind? About coming?” She gives you a sympathetic look.

“I don’t think so. She said she would call you later.” Lina smiles at that. Your eyes naturally gravitated towards Harry and he has a confused look on his face looking back at you, but you look down at your plate before picking up your ribs and taking a bite out of them.

You listen to the conversation while you eat; Dan telling the table a story about a cliff diving incident that happened to Lina when they were in Greece, and the whole table was laughing their ass off, even though they’ve heard it a million times; it never gets old.

You finished your rib and set it down on your plate before wiping your hands down, and before you went to wipe your lips, you felt a napkin, one that’s not yours, wipe your cheek. You turn and see Harry trying to get the stained sauce from your skin.

“Thank you.” You say awkwardly once he’s done, and he gives you a smile followed by a chuckle. He didn’t mean to do that. He knew you were a messy eater and it was a habit that he wiped stuff off your face. A habit that worked well for the both of you, like you were a team. A natural born team.

Once everyone was finished with lunch, it was nearing 2 p.m already, and the group decided to split and do whatever they please as they were going to be all together tomorrow and the rest of the trip.

After everyone helped clean up the table and kitchen, you decided to take a nap before watching the sun set for the day.

Your body hit the mattress and soft pillows that made you feel like you were on a cloud. The room was dark, thanks to the thick curtains that hung from the metal rod. The only light that was shown was a strip of it coming from the curtain not being able to close all the way. You snuggled your pillow, happy you’re finally getting some rest after a long day.

When you woke up, it was still light out, but not as sunny as it was prior to your nap. You stretched your limbs out, relieving the feeling of any tense muscles from your sleep, and walked downstairs and to the backyard.

“Good nap?” Harry says from the lawn chair that is set on the grass. You rub your eyes, nodding while closing the sliding door. There’s a vacant seat next to him, and you’re not quite sure if you want to sit next to him or watch the sun disappear when your feet are in the water. “Want to sit here?” He asks as if he read your mind.

“I-”

“I can see that you’re debating if you want to sit next to me or not, so I can leave and you can sit here if you want.” He says, and you feel bad a bit. He already thinks that you don’t want him here, and he’s simply here for Lina and Dan.

“It’s okay. You can stay. I’m just going to go by the water.” He only nods and you walk away.

The water softly hits the shore and you feel the coldness of it hit your feet. It’s refreshing and cooling, hoping it’ll cool down your nerves and your mood.

You cross your arms as you watch the sun slowly begin to set. The fascination you have with the sun is like no other. It reminds you of the feeling of hope and a new beginning; how the sun setting resembles the end of a story, a day. And tomorrow is a new day.

You can’t help but think about your situation with Harry and how it’s hypocritical to be talking about a new story when you’ve been clinging onto his story. You feel a little stressed keeping the grudge and anger towards him bottled up because he hurt you bad, but you’re also still in love with him.

As the sky turned from light to dark, you turned around to go inside, and to see if Harry was still sitting on the chair. But when you’re walking away from the water and towards the house, you see the chair empty, and you don't know why you have a sad feeling in your chest.

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notbang · 4 years

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Oh i am very interested in knowing how you think the show messed up Nathaniel's characterization / development ? Thanks for your presence, i miss the show !

my main criticism is that s2 nathaniel is so vastly different to s3 and s4 nathaniel in a way that doesn’t feel like character development so much as inconsistent writing, and i tend to be bitter about this because i find s2 nathaniel the more interesting iteration.

i don’t think the writers room had a shared understanding of his character - for example, how rich is nathaniel? his apartment doesn’t have a kitchen is sleek and nice but relatively small. he drinks in the daytime at a kids baseball establishment wearing sweat pants, is confused by ‘middle class’ games nights, and apparently also attends royal weddings and hunts ducks in his spare time. whether they want to paint him as a relatable everyman, well-to-do, old-money lawyer or some kind of out of touch millionaire oscillates willy-nilly between episodes.

probably the most glaring fumble to me is his descent into petulance and rudeness in s4. if you look at s2 nathaniel, his whole deal is business and maintaining a perfect outward appearance. even though he’s threatening to fire everybody in 2x09, once rebecca secures the money, he lets the issue go true to his word. he’s not firing people to be an asshole, he’s firing people because Business. firing george, however, IS an act of assholery, and this still is done in a cool, calm and collected manner. when darryl tries to stage an uprising over the candy, he doesn’t get mad, he rolls his eyes and tells them to get back to work. if s2 nathaniel is rude, it’s in a very composed and cultivated way, because he is all about appearances. s2 nathaniel would never in a million years refuse to speak to a high profile client the way he does in 4x03!!!! he would never speak so rudely the way he does in 4x06! i get that his infatuation with rebecca leads to a loss of composure but it just doesn’t work for me. he’s an uptight wasp, and if he’s going to be rude, it’s going to be via scathing passive aggression! (and while we’re at it, there’s no way he doesn’t understand that kissing bert on the forehead is weird. he’s plenty affectionate with rebecca. he’s repressed, not stupid. that almost kiss fake out should have been with heather and i WILL die mad about it.)

it’s also like they realised at the start of s4 that he hadn’t fallen far enough to have a satisfying arc of growth, so they tried to make him worse in a way that didn’t ring true. in as early as s2 darryl, tim and jim feel comfortable enough to risk nathaniel’s wrath when they try to coax him into a nap. in 3x10 when rebecca wants them to revolt against nathaniel, none of them are particularly interested because he’s been fine, actually. so why do we suddenly jump to them being terrified of him in s4? the leap is just as lazy as his yelling ‘i’m nice now!’ - though at least the case there is that that’s the whole joke.

s2 also set up a wonderful adoptive father/son dynamic between darryl and nathaniel that could have been the perfect way for nathaniel to examine his toxic masculinity except that it went absolutelynowhere. this is particularly frustrating because nathaniel occupies a lot of screen time, yet doesn’t really ever have much of a storyline independent of rebecca. all we really get is that he has issues with his parents, but they don’t do much with that except rehash the same conflict with his father, twice, without pushing it anywhere new or interesting. it felt like his s4 arc needed to be about breaking free from his father (and think of the humour that would have been inherent in nathaniel having to suddenly navigate life on a budget!) but we only got a snippet of that in a flashback to a phone call in the finale. ceg could have done so much more with a lot of its characters, but it’s a real bummer that, say, heather and valencia lost out on extra screen time because the narrative favoured nathaniel, even when it wasn’t actually utilising nathaniel in a satisfying way.

i always find it ironic that they felt like they had to dial back the grebecca slant in the finale because they were favouring greg too much, because in so many ways the show does (both intentionally and unintentionally) favour nathaniel, which definitely speaks to a greater issue in popular media where we’re prone to favouring the straight white asshole nathaniel represents. nathaniel got to be the one singing her song, which is such an important moment for rebecca, and while as a shipper i cherish that, i’m not blind to the mental gymnastics you have to do to accept nathaniel ever agreeing to be in a musical. the dude even got an entire episode from his POV, something no other character gets.

tl;dr i totally get why people that don’t like nathaniel resent his presence in the show so strongly. it just so happened that my monkey brain decided it liked the dumbass anyway, and the aspects about the dynamic that interest me outweigh all the things that piss me off.

#crazy ex girlfriend #nathaniel plimpton #I'm here come talk to me about dumb stuff #anonymous

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sapphirelycoris · 4 years

Text

𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝐿𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠

A/N: After posting “Now That You’re Gone” part 1 and 2, I came up with the idea of letters. This does take place during part 2. It has the same ending I just cut out some of the video parts and made it a lot shorter so you don’t have to re-read the whole thing.

This is the last “Now that you’re gone” post, I swear!

I suggest listening to “Almost is Never Enough (slowed)” originally by Ariana Grande and Nathan Skyes

Synopsis: Ushijima x fem!reader (she, her)

I made the MC write a few letters to Ushijima, only three though. One for her second and third year of high school and then one as she’s dying. I regret not having these letters in the original version but here are the last few notes to Ushijima.

Warnings: Mention of death and overall sadness. I hated putting him through this much pain and it hurt to write.

Three unopened letters sat on his table. He hadn't been strong enough to even consider opening them but maybe, because of how was currently feeling, they would make him in a better mood. Ushijima carried the envelopes over to his coffee table and returned to his original position, his head lying on the arm rest.

She had written him a handful of letters all throughout high school and even while lying in a hospital bed, she continued to put her feelings down on paper. She asked her parents to give them to him when she died, at least if she was dead, he couldn't reject her.

Dear Wakatoshi,

You're probably never going to receive this because I wrote these when I was bored. This is our second year of high school so maybe before we graduate, you or I will confess to one another. I am so going to burn this later. Maybe not. I can be like the girl in that one book who has multiple crushes throughout her life. I can't remember the name. Now I'm just writing down my internal thoughts. Sorry.

Love, (Name)

Seeing that this was written in high school, he didn't get his hopes up. Her affections probably changed as she grew older. He sighed heavily, laying down the piece of paper.

Dear Wakatoshi,

It's our last year of high school! On to college and responsibilities. Joy... taxes, marriage, all that good stuff. I don’t even know how to do taxes. Anyways, I’ve always loved watching your volleyball games. I can’t wait to go see you when you’re on a professional team, you can’t forget me. I stuck right by your side for a while so you got to mention my name at least once! I’m kind of running out of ideas for this… I promised myself last year that I’d write another one this year.

Love, (Name)

Ushijima bit the inside of his lip. He hesitated to read the last letter, it was probably filled with powerful words that described their relationship. His body froze, he was trying to process everything that she had written. Not yet. He wasn't ready for it.

The man stared at the picture he took with her at the beach with some friends. It had been a long time since he even dared to look at it. Her smile only made the pain in his chest grow deeper. He slowly reached out for his phone with a shaky hand. Number by number, he dialed her number and pressed it against his ear as the ringer went off. Ushijima knew that she wasn't picking up, but still had hope that it wouldn't go to voicemail.

"Hey, I'm currently unavailable right now, please leave a message!" Her voice was the only thing that he wanted to hear. That sweet sound that he took for granted. Even though his eyes watered, there wasn't enough for tears. Before the beep, he hung up and switched to his photo library. He desperately scrolled up, trying to find videos with her in them.

When the videos ran out, he gave in and ripped open her last letter. Instead of just one piece of paper, it was two. Ushijima noticed that her letters or written papers were a lot more poetic than the words she spoke. She used all of her vocabulary and wrote down extremely graceful lines. More so in college when she had papers to write. This was caused by all of the high reading level books she read as a child.

Dear Wakatoshi,

Lying here in a hospital bed isn't my ideal way of spending my last days. I'd much rather go to a beautiful place like the mountains, the beach, or the woods. Preferably, you'd accompany me but your volleyball schedule is so busy. Can you imagine? Watching the sun glisten on the waves during a beautiful sunset would've been the perfect way to go. Or perhaps, sitting by a blazing fire place at night and listening to the sound of nature. That'd be so romantic. I always thought romance movies were cheesy but I guess that's because they would never become a reality for me. I hope you never find this, I want you to move on with life. Not forget about me of course but I'd rather not have you be so focused on the past that you can't concentrate on the present. Whomever you should marry, I know that they'll be good to you. She'll go to all your games, support you through hard times, listen to your concerns, do all the things I wish I could have done.

If I walked down the aisle, would you have cried? If we had children, what would you and I have named them? I love the idea of a name that has something to do with flowers. I remember the first time you ever brought me flowers. Satori gave you the idea, didn't he? They were lovely while they lasted. When the petals started dying, I got sad. I hated having to throw them away but it's the thought that counts. Even though it was just a few of our friends and us on my birthday that year, it was a lovely dinner. You looked so handsome in a suit! Would you have worn a suit if we got married? I would have opted for a smaller wedding, surrounded by close friends and family. To take your last name would have been a dream come true.

Speaking of which, in the event that you do marry someone else, remember the promise you made to me? I was going to at least be the godmother of your kids. You better raise them to be good little children. They should be respectful to their parents and not be lazy. If you're up to it, maybe name one of them after me. Though I don't know how appreciative your wife would be. Be good to her, okay? I know you're a quiet person but try to understand her feelings. Don't let her walk all over you either! If she does, I'll come back from the grave to haunt her. Hopefully you have the good sense to marry someone good. Though, you are the same person who thought that the world was flat. I really hope that you don't think that anymore.

Remember that? You and I were in the library and we somehow started talking about that. Even though I used all the logic I could, I'm not sure you were convinced. You're like talking to a brick wall sometimes. I bet your mind revolves around volleyball 24/7, doesn't it? I wish I could've seen you play in the Olympics! I want you to have excellent rapport with your teammates. If you want to win, you gotta be on the same page.

During our last year in high school, I was planning to ask you out but then I realized, I'd only weigh you down. You're like a mighty eagle too wild to tame. If I kept you in a cage, you'd get restless and fly away sooner or later. I never wanted to risk the chance of losing you. You are far too precious for me to ruin. To tell you how I felt now would be too cruel. You're one in a million and nothing in this life or any other would make me give you up. You are priceless, worth more than any diamond or gem on this Earth. Don't ever forget that either. I guess it's because you don't do this often but when you smile and let kindness show through your eyes, everything seems alright. In that moment, the world is okay. Time stops and I am solely focused on you.

Something I don't have right now is time. But if I could rewind the clock, with the knowledge I know now, I would never have waited. I would have told you how much you meant to me everyday. I would have woken up next to you every morning. Ushijima, I love you. I truly do. No one else has my heart but you. You've always been the person I love, even in death my heart is yours.

Yours truly, (Name)

Ushijima's mouth formed a bitter smile, happy yet sorrowful. Tears rolled down the side of his face from the corners of his squinted eyes. He cupped his hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds of his sporadic breathing pattern. He violently hit the back of his head on the arm of the couch repeatedly.

His smile faltered with each gasp for air. The constricting feeling in his throat sent a numbing effect throughout his entire body. All of his emotions were confusing him, thoughts contradicted one another, and the room seemed to be spinning. Part of him wanted to calm down and regain his composure, but he also wanted to let everything out.

He just had to cave in and dig up old memories, didn't he?

#angst #ushijima angst #ushijma x reader #ushijima fic #hq ushijima #wakatoshi x y/n #ushijima scenarios #sad boi hours #haikyuu angst #haikyuu!!#ushijima headcanons #ushijima x you

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heartslogos · 4 years

Text

mafia rewrite - The Nightwing

Richard Grayson walks out of the thick, steel, mirrored elevator doors straight past the shining, gleaming, modern, glass and chrome waiting area and straight into the heart of the cool, elegant Iceberg Lounge.

The Iceberg Lounge has been host to ambassadors, vandals, thieves, presidents, models, princes, billionaires, genius savants, call girls, bus boys, and every single person in between. The Iceberg Lounge has seen catastrophe, it’s seen ruin, it’s seen blood and murder, it’s seen parties that, from street level made the glass walled lounge look like a shining beacon of pure white. The Iceberg Lounge has had many names, many renovations, many changes of management, and withstood them all with a timeless grace.

The Iceberg Lounge, currently, plays host to a — compared to its normal volume — small and subdued crowd. Murmurs of death, blood, change, and escape carry over martini glasses, underneath swirling kinetic aluminum and steel light fixtures, slithering and insidious into the ears of every single moving body present. All of them, in their gossip, complicit.

Richard Grayson cuts the crowd and cuts a terrific — in the oldest sense of the word — figure. His suit is the black of Gotham, the black of its royal Wayne blood. The black of omens and death and the distant winter sky come to bear down on the trailing ends of summer as it runs in the opposite direction.

He’s always been known as the least violent Wayne. But least violent does not mean non-violent. Not when the comparisons are the rest of the Waynes.

A nurse shark is still a shark, even if you compare it to a megaladon. A butterfly knife is still a blade even, when compared to a zweihandler. Carbon monoxide is still a poison, even when compared to cyanide.

A bullet is a bullet no matter what kind of name you give it.

This one’s name is the Nightwing.

Even as a boy, he flittered and floated and glided through crowds like this. A strange figure in the gowns and tuxedos of Gotham’s socialites, and university night club crawlers, and the booming and bustling pub crawlers down narrow sidewalks with sports bars and dives.

A man made to fly through the night.

Richard Grayson glides into the Iceberg Lounge. Orca, seal, predator. And through schools of silver and gold glimmering fish that part as though they had suddenly turned hydrophobic he is untouched. Unmoved.

He keeps walking.

He walks up the spiral staircase to the VIP lounges. He walks towards the edge of the platform that overlooks the rest of the lounge. He walks up to a table set for one and he sits across the other occupant.

As he sits a chair materializes for him before he could fall. As though the universe and gravity had joined hands and conspired. As if the world could not conceive of a place where Richard Grayson does not get a seat at the table. As if this dimension could not fathom the golden son of Gotham being disappointed.

Or, more realistically, as though a panicked attendant realized that blood could be spilled tonight if even one thing fell out of place and quickly kicked a chair into motion, into another attendant’s body and that other attendant, carrying the same fear as the first, hustled to have the chair in position and ready to slide it in as Richard Grayson’s body entered its sure and unbothered controlled fall.

Richard Grayson unbuttons his suit jacket as he sits in this seat provided by fear, long legs crossing as he looks around the lounge. And then he does a slow, quiet, dangerous scan of the person in front of him.

He gestures around them with a lazy twist of his wrist.

“Ten million.” His beatific smile spreads like a plume of blood in water. He waits. The best predators know how to do this.

Eric Shin closes his eyes and breathes what could possibly be one of his last breaths and opens them again. Richard Grayson is waiting for his response.

“What?” He croaks out instead.

“That’s how much it cost to buy you,” Richard Grayson says. “Ten million. For someone from your circuit of the market? Entry to the VIP are of the Iceberg is at least five million per quarter. Minimum. Trust me. I know how much it costs to get into these kind of places. And you haven’t earned VIP seating. The Lucky Hand is lucky to barely be alive right now. Remind me, by who’s grace?”

“Yours,” Eric whispers against his will. The word slides out like bubbles from a drowning man.

“Exactly right. And when was that?”

Eric closes his eyes, and prays for a swifter death than this one of small cuts. “Seven years ago.” He swallows, throat dry, eyes stinging. “When the Dubelz ran across the Whispers on their hunt for the man who killed their leader and the violence spilled over onto into a war along the entire Port Adams and started getting the Lucky Hand’s shipments sunk in harbor as collateral.”

“Right, right. Excellent memory, Eric. Excellent memory. So. Where was I? Ah. Five million per quarter, which the Hand hasn’t been pulling in for you of all people to be getting into the VIP Iceberg Lounge. So it’s not coming from that business. The car is new. Imported, based on the interior and the relatively new plates. That’s about seven hundred just to bring over. And I know that thing isn’t going to be meeting US standards of emissions so that’s — let’s lowball it, say two grand? Three grand? To get enough people to rubber stamp those forms. Now, I’m not too hot on the numbers. So let’s make this easy. I’m going to place your car, fees and bribes and all, somewhere in the range of three hundred grand.”

Grayson taps his middle and index finger on the white cloth covered table as he watches Eric with bright, terrible eyes.

“And if I’m right that’s about — well. Still a lot more than you’d be worth normally. But you’re being paid for silence. And you’re being paid for dying.” Richard Grayson’s mouth twitches up at the corners. “You sold your life for ten, Eric. So far you’ve got VIP entrance to the lounge — which, mind you, isn’t going to last and isn’t refundable. The Penguin’s got a nose for business and he knows that you having entry to his lounge is just going to be earning him a whole lot of grief —, you’ve got a nice imported car that ignores US regulations, and let’s see. Let’s have a look at you. That’s tailored. You’re not buying that off the rack and that takes out everything under five hundred. At a glance I’d say that’s eight thousand. And the watch? A Submariner? Can’t get that in store unless you’ve got a name like mine. You’re looking black market and if you’re smart you’re paying extra for paperwork and someone to scrub it. Base price alone for the green dial is twenty grand. You’ve been burning through that blood money.”

“What do you want?” Eric asks.

Grayson leans forward, leopard seal and killer whale, and descending fury.

“You’re a smart man. The Waynes interfered to spare the Hand because you made a very good case for why we should. And for the past seven years we’ve been good neighbors. We’ve never had a problem with you. Until today. One hell of a problem to choose to be, Eric. I want you to tell me who paid you ten million dollars to give up your life and keep your silence. Because we traced the guns used at the shootout. And those guns and those cars came through Port Adams. And we traced records of those cars and plates and found them cruising up the Old Highway. And if they’re going up Old Highway and if they’re being supplied through Port Adams there’s no way in hell that the Lucky Hand didn’t see that coming.”

Grayson’s blue eyes burn with awful fire.

The Nightwing circles. The Nightwing descends.

“And you didn’t say anything. Someone paid you off. And how damn cheap of a pay off it was. Ten million? If I were in your position and being asked to keep my silence about any kind of whisper of a hallucination about Tim Drake being hunted like a dog through the streets of Gotham in broad daylight I would be asking for the keys to the diamond vaults. I’d be asking for the moon and the stars. Ten million.” The man leans back in his seat, face incredulous as he takes Eric in. “That’s all you were worth. I mean. Sure. I wouldn’t have paid you ten million to tell me this information before hand if I knew about it. But you’d still be alive, you know?”

Grayson flags a waiter over.

“You must have realized,” Grayson says as he peruses the liquor menu, “That regardless of whether Tim lived or died, someone would have found you.”

Eric doesn’t cry. He signed his death certificate weeks ago when he watched those first ships start to unload their guns into the storage facilities next to his own; when he took the money; when he failed to call any of the Waynes to say something, anything, over the past days when the plot came to its finalization.

“He’s alive, by the way. In case you were wondering.” Grayson raises his voice a little so it projects over the dead silence of the lounge. “My brother’s faced worse before. He’s alive. And you know that egghead remembers every single face that was present. License plates, too. Kid’s messed up, his priorities are all wrong. If it were me I’d be focused on wondering something more simple, you know? Like who I last talked to and if I said anything cool. Well. That’s why he’s head of W.E. and not me. I don’t have a head for business.”

He taps something on the liquor menu, handing it back to the waiter.

“Out of consideration for the past years of you being a good neighbor, I’ll let you have one last drink,” Grayson says. “My treat, seeing as how the Penguin is revoking all your access. Don’t worry. You’re not dead yet. I’ll be needing you later. You haven’t given me any names yet. And I promised Cobblepot I wouldn’t make a mess of his lounge. He just got this floor redone, you know? I missed the grand re-opening.”

Grayson looks around, smiling and nodding his divine approval.

“Personally, I think it’s a little too minimalist modern, but compared to before I like it. It’s quiet. Easy on the eye. Excellent balance and color coordination, though. Spot on. I’d ask Cobblepot who his designer was except I don’t have anything I want to tear down and rebuild. I’m more in the mood for the tearing down, frankly. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got a list of people to get to before someone else does.”

Grayson pauses. “And by someone else I mean another Wayne. The rest of the people in this family have no respect. Between Jason and Cassandra there isn’t enough to around, you know? They ruin everything they get their hands on. Usually so no one else can use it. Mostly so that I don’t get to use it, really. So I’m in something of a race against the clock to get everything I want done tonight. Lucky you, you were near the top of the list. Alright. I’ll leave you to that final drink. And when you’re done with that drink you’re going to get into the car I’ll have the Penguin pull around for you. Before I leave is there anything you want to say?”

Eric swallows roughly, slowly moving his eyes to met Grayson’s. A dead man has nothing to fear of asking a last second boon from his executioner.

“In punishing me will you spare the Hand?”

Grayson looks momentarily surprised.

Eric gestures around them. “They bought me. Not the Hand. My silence. My trespass. My wrong. Not a single cent of the money has gone to the Lucky Hand. You can check the accounts. It’s all with me, still. Tell me now. Give me this one certainty. Will you spare the Hand, or have I doomed us all?”

Grayson considers him. And then he leans forward, all blue eyes and terrific face.

“Tell me,” He says softly, “Tell me why you accepted the pay off.”

“Because no matter who won to rule Gotham — the Waynes or the plotting syndicates — it wouldn’t matter for us,” Eric confesses. “The syndicates have a backer. And under this backer the Hand would never have made it. Stay silent and earn the Wayne’s wrath is to perish. To speak to you of this plot and be turned on by the plotters who surround the Hand’s territory on all sides is immediate suicide. If the plotters won this battle but lost the war we would perish. If I was silent and you lost the plotters would still remove the Hand from the playing field for whatever excuse they could find. In every situation the Lucky Hand would have to fold.”

Grayson closes his eyes, bringing up a hand to press at his temples. It obscures his face for one moment of relief on Eric’s part.

“I will not act on the Lucky Hand for this,” he finally says, drawing up, buttoning his suit jacket once more. “That’s my personal statement on the matter. But as you can guess, the Wayne family’s many arms are rarely in agreement. Pull a repeat of seven years ago. Convince us. For what it’s worth — I think you have a shot at it.”

#heartsfic #c: a star going red giant

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masterthespianduchovny · 4 years

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You know what, I’m sick and tired of show runners swearing that their shitty series finales was because the fans didn’t get what they wanted.

More times than not, if you find yourself on the worst TV finales of all time, you earned that shit, bud.

Because, you know a show’s finale is bad when people won’t shut up about it years later. People rarely talk about mediocre endings or endings that were serviceable.

But, bad endings, especially on iconic shows, that pisses people the fuck off.

And there is nothing brave about doing what you wanted to do to the detriment of your show, characters, fans, and legacy. It’s cheap. Because, rather than do the hard work of trying to stick the landing, you indulged your worst impulse.

It should rewarding for sticking with a show. It should feel rewarding to rewatch a show. It should feel rewarding to be apart of a fandom. Instead it feels like a slap to the face as the show runners condescend to you. And go with what they want rather than do what makes sense for the series.

I truly hate the phrase, “The fans are upset because they didn’t get what they wanted.”

It’s such fucking bullshit because what I want--what most fans want--is a satisfactory ending. We want loose ends tied up, answers, or a plan of sort that lets us know you cared for the show as much as we invested in it.

1.) I think about Game of Thrones and how they shit on the plot, characters, and all of that world building. People say, “Oh, you wanted a Disney ending”, but what the fuck does that mean? Because some people did get a Disney ending and that’s the fucking Starks. And, guess what, I actively rooted for them until mid way through season 8. I liked Dany okay, but I was a Stark fan through and through and became a Dany fan and loathed the Starks by the end. They are the ones with the Disney ending...they have a Stark on the throne as another Stark rules the North as the Queen, Jon with the Wildlings, and Arya allegedly living out her fantasy of exploring the world. How is that not a Disney ending???

You know what I expected? A main character to die like Dany or Jon. A major betrayal by a main character like Sansa. Where is the Disney ending in that?

Dipshit and Dipshit sacrificed character development, world building, and fucking sense to ram their ending down our throat and we’re allegedly upset because we didn’t get what we want when all we wanted was a satisfying ending? That doesn’t even touch on glossing over the magical aspect and the significance of the Night King.

2.) I’ve divorced myself so much from How I Met Your Mother that I can barely remember the show. This, like GOT, is a show I’ve never revisited, despite owning at least 2-3 seasons. This show left such a sour taste in my mouth that the series is retroactively ruined for me. HIMYM is what happens when, as a creator, you’re so married to your original idea that you refuse to let it go when it doesn’t make sense 15 million years down the road. The sacrificed character development of Robin, Ted, and Barney for this to make sense. They had fans spend, what, a season on a wedding that was ended in less than five minutes. They somehow make meeting the mother everything fans wanted and more--the magic was there--only to kill her off and have him end up with Robin. IF they were going to have the mother die, I’d rather us sit with her in that last show with the kids. After Ted tells them this story, they go to the hospital and sit and talk with her. I know there is an alternate ending, but I stopped watching in season 8 (maybe), so it means nothing to me. I knew the show was on bullshit by season 7 and had enough.

3.) The X-Files. My feelings and relationship with the X-Files is much more complicated because I didn’t watch the series until AFTER the original series ended. So, my investment, although deeper, wasn’t enough to make me not finish the series and subsequently rewatch it. But, the Chris Carter, the creator and show runner, actions are so egregious that it’s baffling and infuriating.

Unlike the GOT show runners who wanted to end early to get Star Wars money and HIMYM show runners who went on far to long and were married to an ending, Chris Carter hated the core of his fans AND took his resentment out on the characters if he had an issue with the actors. He was a man without a plan that had a great idea, an ounce of talent, and great writers and directors surrounding him. Despite losing a lead actor, someone who he knew he was losing IN ADVANCE, and having time to appropriately deal with this departure, he did the most fuck shit things he could do. Try to undermine the relationship between the two core leads, prop up this new character, not focus on a main character absence in a way that was poignant, and continued to offer up a shitty mythology. When the other core lead wanted to dial back her responsibilities, he still was serving stale shit. His series finale was essentially a fucking clip show. This isn’t fucking Cheers (no shade to Cheers, I just mean that a clip show is appropriate for a comedy and not a sci fi drama), this was the X Files and we wanted answers and something to blow our minds, but he basically told us to blow it out our asses.

So, you’d think that a man whose show was cancelled because he couldn’t helm his creation without his core leads because the leads stepped back or away he’d learn his lesson, right?

NOPE, he kept serving uninspired drivel, undermining his characters, and creating unnecessary or fucking ridiculous conflicts that he had no intention on exploring. He retconned his mess of a conspiracy and made it even more convoluted, so much so, that the other main lead has sworn off revisiting the show!

And I don’t want to hear anything about, “it’s difficult to please everyone” and “how do you end shows like that?”

Because, you know what: THESE MEN WERE PAID TO KNOW AND/OR FIGURE OUT HOW TO END THEIR SHOWS.

All of these shows should've prepared for an endgame or pivoted to make the show narratively and emotionally satisfying. Instead, it’s nothing, but turmoil because it’s so rage inducing.

These men had a team of writers at their disposal. They had narrative arcs or overarching plots that should’ve been OUTLINED. Yet, they let their hubris do the talking and fucked up their own careers.

Dipshit and Dipset lost their Star Wars contract due to the GOT fiasco. I honestly don’t believe they stepped away. They rushed the ending for SWs, yet they decided to leave after shit hit the fan???

Carter and Bays lost their TV How I Met Your Father. Have they even worked in Hollywood since then?

Chris Carter can only get work for the X-Files and that’s only because people want to see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson--and that’s as a pairing. Even if he wanted to do a season 12, which I know he does, he cannot because Gillian refuses to come back.

Stop defending these shitty as show runners and writers who fuck over their series. It is their jobs to tell us a story and make that shit worth wild. They’ve literally made millions off of this, but somehow we’re supposed to excuse them giving us a shitty ending.

A show that is not well known that struggled with viewerships for years, 12 monkeys, does what the other girls couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do! They had a far more complex plot--time travel--and their network treated them like ass, yet they delivered one of the most narratively and emotionally satisfying series finales I’ve seen in years. You know why? Because she show runner actually cared. And, even though I expected heartbreak and nothing close to a happy ending, I was satisfying surprised and happy at the end result.

I fucking hate lazy ass show runners who think they know it all.

#the x files #how i met your mother #game of thrones #12 monkeys

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notmanagingmymischief · 4 years

Text

𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘺 | 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘔𝘺 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 | 𝘗𝘵 4

so this one's long as hell so i'm sorry but also too lazy to split it into two parts so stfu

also writing the smut in this chapter was v uncomfy and I had to stop three times because i was too embarrassed to keep going and/or to scream

warnings: SMUT, swearing, kittens

word count: 7.4K

enjoy xx

Words could not properly describe exactly what it was that you were feeling at that moment. Probably shock would suffice. But there was that one little part of you that was excited. Excited to have Alice over at yours. So when she asked, you hesitated a moment, looking at her with a stunned and confused expression on your face. She took this as a denial, and was quick to correct herself; "I mean if you're not comfortable with it then I don't have to, I was just wonder--" "Yes." Alice stopped mid-sentence. "Y-Yes?" "Yes. Yes, you can come over, it's fine. Sorry, I was just shocked is all. Yesterday you hated me and today you want to go mine." A light blush came to Alice's cheeks at the statement and she mumbled "I didn't hate you." under her breath.

You chuckled, shaking your head and standing up. You reached your hand down for her to take, and she looked at it for a moment before smiling and grabbing it, allowing you to help her up. Once she was standing you let go and turned to the table again, grabbing your empty cup. You missed the frown that flickered over Alice's face when you dropped her hand. But when you turned back she was smiling again, her purse back over her shoulder. "Well then. Shall we go?" Her smile widened and she nodded, ducking her head shyly which made you chuckle again. Carefully, you grabbed her hand, leading her gently back to your car after quickly stopping to throw your cups away.

You casually helped her into the car, pushing the door closed as she thanked you softly, smiling down at her and winking, making her blush even harder. You snickered after closing the door, amused at how easily you could make the woman blush. But you got in the car, sliding into the drivers seat and pulling the door closed behind you, a bit harder than expected. The thing slammed a little, and Alice flinched, but you put your hand on her shoulder and apologized; "Sorry. I forget how loose those hinges are sometimes, love." The nickname slips out without you realizing, though Alice did. And as you said it her breath hitched and her eyes widened, hands clenching around her skirt. She had the sudden urge to do...something. She didn't know what, her body was pulling her a million different ways at once so she just focused on breathing normally and pulled her fists even tighter.

You didn't notice any of this as it passed in a split second, though it felt like much longer for Alice. So you pulled your keys from your fingers, pushing one of them into the lock cylinder (yes I had to look that up) and twisted, the ignition starting up with a growl. A second later the radio started, and you fumbled to turn it down, a yelped "fuck!" leaving your mouth at how loud it was. "Sorry, Alice! That happens sometimes, I'll turn this thing on and the radio will be all screwy. My bad." Alice swallowed and nodded, amused at the way your fingers pressed on buttons and twisted around the volume dial, frantically turning the thing down and changing the channel. She barely heard the almost inaudible "you piece of shit" that you growled under your breath and flushed, looking away quickly, almost embarrassed at your...colorful language choices. The woman wasn't around people that swore very often, especially not women, but it sent a thrill down her spine at how free you were, so unafraid to speak like that.

Finally you pulled your hand away from the radio, leaning back for a moment in the seat with a half sigh half groan, and Alice giggled quietly, making you look over at her with a lopsided grin, muttering another apology. "Is this okay, or do you want me to turn it off completely?" You asked, referencing the channel you'd chosen. Alice turned her attention momentarily to the music, a familiar tune playing through, and nodded, smiling widely. "This is wonderful, y/n. I love this song." Again you grinned, nodding and placing your hands on the steering wheel with a "Well that sounds wonderful. I love this one too. I guess we have more in common than we thought." And with that you pulled out of the parking spot, careening your neck around to see behind you and prevent any accidents.

In the process you placed your arm around the back of Alice's seat, and the woman bit her lip as she watched the muscles under your skin tense. Her eyes then were drawn to the mark on your bicep as you pulled away, your sleeve having slid up in the process. Hesitant to say anything, Alice drummed her fingers on her leg, still chewing on her bottom lip. A moment passed and she finally made a decision. "Do you....is there a tattoo...on your arm?" Now it was your turn to tense and bite your lip, an act that once again drew Alice's attention away from your skin to your face, blushing when she realized how long her gaze was lingering on your lips, even when they began to move as you spoke. "Um, yeah. I, uh, got that a few years ago. On my nineteenth birthday, actually." Alice finally snapped out of her flustered haze, swallowing before she spoke again, not trusting her voice not to crack. Somehow she managed to prevent it from doing so.

"What is it? I-I mean you don't have to tell me of course--" "Alice, please. Stop worrying so much. If you're curious you can ask, I'm not trying to keep secrets from you." She nodded again, and you continued. "It's just a little thing, an impulse decision. If you want to look at it you can push my sleeve back up." Again Alice paused. She didn't want to risk touching you, but her curiosity got the best of her and she shakily reached her left hand up to brush the fabric of your shirt sleeve up, rolling it back gently and pushing it over your shoulder so she could look at the ink in your skin. It was a simple, small design, nothing too impressive, but it spread out over your pale skin. it looked like a mini solar system, seven little planets spread out over a few inches, the lines thin and precise.

Alice's lips parted slightly as she tilted her head to the side, a small smile spreading slowly over them. You glanced over to the woman and smiled as well, loving her entranced look. You made sure not to move your arm too much, not wanting to startle her as you loved her like this, not speaking, just thinking with that adorable expression on her face. "Does it mean something?" she whispered, glancing up at you finally and making eye contact just before your eyes refocused on the street. You shook your head with a smile. "No. Like I said, it was an impulse thing. I'd always wanted a tattoo, I love how...rebellious it feels. What with people like Shlafly out here saying the shit she does." You immediately cringed at your own words, apologizing quickly, but Alice just smiled and shook her head with a small "It's fine."

The woman's fingers still ghosted over the markings, the gentle contact bringing goosebumps to your skin and making you shiver slightly. You regretted the reaction however, for as soon as it happened Alice quickly pulled back, sliding your sleeve down in the process and falling back into her seat, a blush creeping up her neck slowly. "Sorry." she whispered, but again you shook your head. "Alice, stop apologizing. Come on, I'm not upset at you for being curious." Alice didn't respond, only nodding twice. Her eyes went out to her window, watching the trees pass by and the other cars. Slowly, her mind tuned out everything except the soft music and your breathing. Which is how she noticed when you started to quietly sing along with the radio, making her smile again.

(Yes I am aware this song came out in 1976 just go with it okay this is my story)

"You come to look for a king, anybody could be that guy. Night is young and the music's high, with a bit of rock music..."

Alice began to tap her finger along with the rhythm, which caught your attention for a moment, but you ignored it, still singing quietly.

"You're in the mood for a dance, and when you get the chance..."

Without really realizing it herself, Alice hummed along with the melody of the chorus, the sound floating into your ears along with the radio and bringing a smile to match hers to your own face.

"Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine...you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life...!"

Your eyes flickered over to watch Alice again as the next line played, your lips moving on autopilot as you lost yourself in her presence for a moment.

"See that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen."

You watched as the woman swayed a bit with the song, still humming under her breath, and had to tear your eyes away from her in order to watch the road. "I know every word to this song." She said, and you hummed in agreement, saying "So do I. I love ABBA, they're an amazing group." She nodded and turned to look at you again, her eyes shining and smile wide. You were momentarily mesmerized by her again, and had to remind yourself that you were driving and needed to pay attention, because what good would the two of you do if you got in a car crash? None, that's what. "You need to stop distracting me, Alice.." you muttered, still smiling slightly. But the woman frowned momentarily at the words, worried. But the frown quickly turned into a smirk, and she said "Oh, I distract you, do I?" She surprised even herself with the underlying flirtatious tone the statement had, and your eyebrows shot up, just as shocked if not more.

"A-Alice...stop that. That's exactly what I'm talking about." still she smirked, a low hum being her only acknowledgment of your words. And while the tiny smile remained on your lips, inwardly you frowned, cursing yourself for the obvious stutter, not to mention the blush igniting in your cheeks. So you swallowed hard, pushing the heat down again as best as you could, looking around a bit and almost sobbing in relief that you were only a few minutes away from home. "And what is it that is distracting, darling?" Alice murmured, voice still laced with that tone. The one that could make even the strongest man's, or woman's for that matter, resolve crumble to pieces in an instant. "I-I mean...I don't know. You're just...goddammit, do we really need to have this conversation in my car?" You forced the words out, hands gripping the wheel tight enough that your knuckles started turning white. Alice must have noticed because she gently placed her hand over them, and the gentle pressure automatically made your fingers loosen significantly, but it also sent shivers down your spine that you cursed silently.

One of those fingers twitched just slightly and Alice quickly slid her hand away, replacing it back on her lap with a smug look. Before you could say anything you stopped yourself, seeing the turn for your street, which you took quickly. A few seconds later and you slid into your driveway with a sigh, pressing the brakes down with one foot and releasing the gas with the other. Finally, you pulled back, yanking the keys from their spot and clutching them tightly. Turning in your seat, you reached over, unbuckled your seat belt, and then looked up at Alice. Without a word, you reached over her waist, also clicking her own belt open. Due to your close proximity, you could hear her breathing stop, feel her stomach tighten under your arm. Your faces were very close, dangerously close, and even after you'd popped the thing, you stayed in the same position, moving your hand from the buckle to her thigh. This allowed you to at least pull back a bit, and you took the chance to place your mouth right next to Alice's ear.

The woman could feel your warm breath on her skin, fluttering over her hair and she took a very shaky breath of her own in, unable to focus on anything besides it, and your fingers, which were now trailing up and down part of her thigh, tracing incomprehensible shapes on her cloth covered skin. And when you whispered "And this is called revenge, beautiful." she almost lost it. In fact, her hand did come up a bit, but she quickly forced it back down, physically restraining herself. But then you were gone. Your warmth was instantly missed as you swiftly dipped out of the car, pushing the door closed behind you, much softer this time which prevented it from slamming. These few moments without you gave Alice a moment to breath and compose herself, although not nearly as much as she'd have liked as you were soon at her door, pulling it open and extending your hand to her.

She was extremely hesitant to take the proffered hand, really not needing the extra skin to skin contact at that moment, but she ended up not having a choice anyway when you sighed and snatched her out of the car against her will, pulling her to you and ending up with her pressed against you as she tripped slightly in a crack on the pavement, her hand in yours and trapped between the two of you. It was at this moment that Alice noticed that you were, in fact, taller than her. But she didn't have much time to think about it as you said "What, falling for me already?" It was cliche, that was for sure, but it still didn't fail to make the woman blush and make a small noise in the back of her throat. She was quick to pull away, finding that you'd closed the door at some point when she took a step back and bumped into the car.

Her eyes widened a tad as they darted from you to the surface behind her and then back as you leaned in, placing your hand casually next to her shoulder on the car, an eyebrow raised in a silent question."I-I..-" was all Alice could squeeze out as her breathing quickened and her chest tightened at the feeling of your body pressed almost against her with only an inch of space between. But again, just as in the car, you were gone as quick as you came, spinning on your heel and marching up your drive, swinging your keys on your index finger. Without stopping, you looked over your shoulder and said "You coming?" Alice swallowed hard again, her throat still dry from earlier happenings, and pushed herself shakily off and away from the car. With a deep breath, she followed behind you, arriving at your door just as you turned the key in the lock and pushed it open. And with a small bow and wave of your hand, you said "Ladies first," and she entered, shyly with her head ducked and hands fidgeting. Quite a drastic change from her previous moments of bravery.

You entered gracefully behind her, swinging the door closed behind you and spinning around to face Alice again. She was clearly much more nervous than earlier, so you smiled and called out "Salem! I'm home!" You held up your finger before Alice could speak and whispered "Listen." She did and after only a second you heard the scampering of little paws on hardwood just before a black streak launched itself into your waiting arms. You hissed quietly when the kitten's claws dug into your exposed arm, but you passed it off as a laugh. When you looked back to Alice her eyes were lit up and her lips parted in a small smile. "You wanna pet him? He doesn't bite. He does scratch though so..." Her face scrunched up a bit but she shook her head again and reached her hand out, though hesitantly, and carefully brushed her fingers across Salem's head. And, to your surprise, the cat leaned his head up towards the woman's finger and purred, which made Alice grin and take a step closer to stroke his fur more.

You scoffed playfully, pulling your arms away, and, with them, the cat, from Alice. "Hey!" you snickered at her obvious disapproval of your actions and trotted away, cat in arm, into the kitchen, Alice close on your heels. She carefully hung up her purse on the coat rack next to your door before entering the kitchen, still frowning playfully. "No playing with the cat without permission from mommy first." You said casually, not turning to witness Alice stop dead in her tracks, eyes wide and choking on her words, cheeks immediately glowing a bright red. Your unplanned double meaning struck you a moment after it did her, and you also stopped, frozen before spinning to face her, stuttering out a correction; "No, no that's not what I meant, I just--the cat--he's--I'm-mother. I am cat mother." You finally settled for the most basic level of speech in an attempt to alleviate the charged tension between the two of you.

Before you could think, you slid closer to Alice, making like you were trying to squeeze past her, only to lean in at the last second and mumble "I mean unless you want it to mean that." You were met with a smack to your arm and a shrieked "Y/n!" from Alice and you chuckled, patting her hair gently before sneaking away, tossing your cat back down om the floor, only for him to immediately cuddle up around Alice's legs. "He never does that, I hope you know. The cat hates strangers, so I don't know why he's acting so buddy buddy with you. I'd watch out if I were you." You said as Alice crouched down to pick Salem up into her lap, carefully kneeling down on the floor with him and holding him close to her chest. "Oh he's so precious! This little thing couldn't hurt a fly!" "Oh he couldn't hurt a fly but he sure as hell can hurt me. The amount of times people have asked if I cut is innumerable, and all because that little bastard enjoys using me as a scratching post." Alice scoffs and rolls her eyes, still pampering your cat.

Again you huffed, grabbing your last item. You gently set the two glasses on your table along with a bottle of red wine. "You like red, Alice?" The woman still on the floor looked up from your cat, his paws in between her fingers, which made you laugh. She smiled and then glanced at the wine bottle, the smile turning into a frown. "Y/n, it's only three o'clock." "Yeah? And?" "It's not--you know what, fine. Yes, red is good." You smiled victoriously and clapped a few times, Alice shaking her head and returning her focus to Salem and continuing to mutter words to him under her breath. With a sigh you poured half a glass for each of you and handed one down to Alice, who set it aside almost immediately, still choosing to pay attention to the cat. As you sat down across from her, you said "Jesus Alice, you don't even give me this kind of attention. When do I get cuddles and nose kisses? Or is this discrimination I see?" Alice didn't say anything for fear of her voice breaking as she froze yet again, shocked by your boldness.

"I-I...you never asked." She mumbled, letting go of Salem and allowing the cat to leave her, finally coming over to his owner and allowing you to pick him up. "I have to ask? Did Salem have to ask? Nooo. See, I allow you in my home, I buy you coffee, I offer you wine, and this is how I'm repaid? The nerve of people these days..." Again you shook your head, petting the black cat on your lap and smiling down at him. "Aren't you such a suck up, Salem? Coming in here, making out with my girlfriends and actin like you're a saint only to be the devil as soon as they leave. Mhm, I know your tricks mister man." Through your whole one-sided conversation with the cat, Alice watched you. Watched, waited, and restrained. Her fingers twitched and the blush retained at your earlier inquiries had yet to fully fade. Though Alice didn't really mind at that moment, as she was entranced by your soft voice and the way you scowl-smiled at your cat as you whispered to him as if sharing a closely kept secret.

"You know, I could say the same for you. You don't whisper in my ear like that. Nor do you hold me in your lap. So where's the catch?" Again Alice summoned every ounce of courage she had in her body to say those words, and just like last time they were all stolen from her when you smirked and pushed Salem off your lap, looking directly into her eyes. And when you reached your hand out to her, and said "Take my hand." she did so for some reason, shakily, grasping it tight. And a gasp was yanked from her throat when you pulled her towards you and shoved your legs out at the same time, and Alice found herself no longer across from you, but on top of you. Her legs on either side of yours, essentially straddling your thighs, one hand still in yours and the other on your shoulder to catch herself as best as she could. And when she looked back up her breath was literally taken away from her as she found her face only inches away from yours, darkened eyes capturing hers immediately.

"Y/n?" Alice's voice was shaky and unsure, and her eyes flickered from your eyes down to your lips, which were mere inches from touching. You could feel her quickened breath on your skin and you smirked again, your eyes also falling to her lips. "Alice." You responded, just as quiet but significantly firmer. Slowly, you brought one of your hands from her waist, which had settled there automatically, and brought it up to her face, caressing over her cheekbone as she leaned slightly into your touch, eyes fluttering shut. And with this, you took the chance to look at her, really look at her. Perfect complexion, barely any flaws. She was pale, made to look even paler with the color of her hair, but it complimented her. Her skin was smooth under your fingers, and you ghosted your thumb over her bottom lip, watching as they parted ever so slightly. They too were soft, and the urge to kiss her got so unbearably strong that you almost couldn't hold yourself back.

But when she slowly placed her forehead on yours, eyes still closed and breathing evening out, you pulled your hand away, sliding it back down to her waist. Again you whispered "Alice." though this time your voice was also cracked. And you wanted to say more, but as soon as you opened your mouth you were cut off. Not by yourself, but by Alice. By her lips, more specifically. They ghosted over yours, just a soft, barely there touch at first. But after a moment she became more sure of herself and pressed them against you more firmly. The hand that still rested at your shoulder came up to your neck, holding the back of it to pull you ever closer and you responded quickly. You pushed back with the same pressure, your fingers gripping tighter on her hips, grounding her to your body and pulling her body closer.

But in the process of pulling her hips closer to yours you ended up running her directly over one of your thighs and she whimpered into your mouth at the sudden contact. You froze, pulling back slightly and looking at her. "What? What's wrong?" You said breathlessly but she shook her head and pushed her lips back onto yours, fiercer this time as she repeated the action, rolling her hips forward and gaining that same friction. And that's when you realized what had happened. You smirked against her lips and pulled back again, drawing another soft whimper from the woman. But you were quick to attach your mouth to her neck, pulling her collar down and sucking at the skin under it, making sure that, if you were to leave a mark, it wouldn't be visible. Alice's hand on your neck tightened and she tangled her fingers in your hair as she let out a breathy "oh..”, her breathing once again speeding up.

Her skin tasted sweet, like her lips, and it made you crave more, as she leaned into you. She was so...innocent. New. Vulnerable. And that made you excited, kicked your nerves into high gear and riled you up. So when her hips rolled again, seeking that sweet pressure, you helped her, guiding her down onto your thigh, setting a pace for her that wasn't too fast but that gave her enough friction to make her whimper and moan into your shoulder and lips. And when you scraped your teeth over her skin and bit down onto her shoulder she let out an "Oh god-!" the hand that she never removed from your neck and hair tightening and pulling back slightly, drawing a low groan of your own. Alice must have liked the sound because her breath caught and she repeated the action, tugging at your hair lightly and humming appreciatively when you mumbled "A-Alice.." You felt a smile tug at her lips when you once again pushed your onto them, the kiss becoming heated and intense almost the second it started.

You swiped your tongue over Alice's bottom lip, gently pushing for her to open them to you, which she did without a fight, allowing you access into her mouth and bringing your tongue down to fight with hers. She was surprisingly good at this action, and brought her other hand up to meet with it's twin, also burying itself in your hair, tangling it and curling around her fingers as she held you close to her. She'd stopped moving a while back, but at this you gently grasped her hips again and casually slid her forward and up, putting her back down on your lap so she was flush against you, your chests pressed together. And you repeated the action, bringing her hips up and back down, effectively rubbing her still clothed core over your stomach slowly, the fabric scratching against her and increasing the sensation. Alice whimpered at this, and when you continued she began to get louder. And when she got louder, you went faster, up down, up down, over and over as she pulled her lips from yours with a quiet pop.

She quickly buried her head in the crook of your neck to muffle her ever increasing noises. She dragged her nails down the back of your neck and she matched your pace, pulling up as you did and rushing back down again as you helped guide her body. You could hear faint whimpers spilling from Alice's lips, still pressed into your neck. Eventually you decided to go a bit further, and slowly slid your hand down her leg as she continued the same pace of her grinding, gently pushing her dress up and out of the way, bunching around her waist as she slowed down. Her breathing was heavy and rapid, chest heaving against yours as you smiled at her. "Is this okay?" you whispered, and she swallowed before nodding frantically, clearly desperate for any sort of release.

So you continued, pressing your lips to her jaw and neck as your hand traveled further down, over her own legs and between them, fingers being met with immediate wetness on her skin, and you chuckled. "God you're so wet..." you mumbled into Alice's neck and she squeaked, burning a bright red again, which only made your smile grow. "Nothing to be ashamed of." And again your fingers were moving, up a little further until they reached the soaked fabric that prevented you from touching the woman properly. It was definitely ruined, and there was no real point in attempting to save it by taking it off, so you simply pushed it to the side as Alice place her mouth on your neck again, placing soft kisses there and occasionally sucking lightly, and you let out a small content sigh at the feeling. But she stopped and whimpered when you ran the tip of your finger over her clit and placed gentle pressure on it.

You didn't want to rush her at all, so you continued that pace for a while before slowly increasing the pressure and speed, moving in circles around the sensitive area. Alice's small whines got more intense the more you did, so you whispered in her ear again, saying "Do you want me to continue?" And when she just said "More, p-please." You smiled and bit lightly on her ear lobe and placed a small kiss on her skin. As you did so, you stopped circling her clit and moved your fingers further down, coating your fingers in her wetness and sliding over her opening, again pulling a distressed sound from her. So you decided to just give her what she wanted, and the moan that was produced when you suddenly thrust your fingers into her was completely worth the wait. Again you started slow, in and out repeatedly, as you moved your mouth from her neck to her face, pushing her chin off your own neck with your free hand and making her look in your eyes. They were glazed, pupils dilated so far that the iris was almost completely gone.

And as you continued to look at her, Alice unable to break her gaze away, you sped up, pushing your fingers deeper. That's when those eyes squeezed shut, the woman biting her lip to keep from making too many noises. But you quickly pressed your mouth to hers and muttered against them "Don't. I want to hear you." So she nodded shakily, pressing against you again and you kept speeding up gradually, drawing it out and increasing her moans. And when she repeated "More." you said "Are you sure?" "Yes. Yes, please, y/n, p-please." At her pleas you finally obeyed, and sped up enough that she almost screamed into your mouth, hands shooting to your shoulder and hair, taking a fistful of your locks and clenching them around her fingers, making you groan as well. When you continued your demanding pace, Alice had to pull away from your mouth, throwing her head back and beginning to roll her hips in time with your thrusts, going down as you went up. Your name spilled from her lips on repeat, punctuated with "oh my god" and "please" and “don’t stop”, plus a mantra of "yes yes yes yes".

You smiled as you watched the woman, her head thrown back, and when her body began to shake, her walls fluttering around your fingers, you somehow managed to go harder, bringing your thumb to her clit and circling it fiercely, ripping another choked scream from her lips and "Oh my god!" It only took a few more seconds for her to press herself back to you, lips crashing into yours fervently as she screamed your name as she came.

But when you didn't stop moving, not only prolonging her orgasm, but bringing her to another, she couldn't stop herself, as she came again, even harder, the aftershocks of her first still pulsing through her body as the second wave of pleasure washed over her, from pulling away, shoving her face into your shoulder as a muffled "Oh f-fuck! Yes!" was forced out from her lips. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, her teeth sinking into your flesh, and you finally began to slow, allowing her to ride out her high, prolonging the feeling as long as possible. When it was finally over, her body still twitching every so often, you removed your fingers from her and brought them to your lips, licking them clean and moaning quietly at the taste. A few minutes passed as you let Alice catch her breath and return to earth, limp against you while you slowly caressed her sides and back.

Finally, she pushed herself away a few inches with shaky arms and you supported her carefully with your hands, still holding her close. You smiled at her when she looked into your eyes and she smiled back, pressing her lips to yours in a slower, more passionate kiss compared the the heated, rough kisses that the two of you had shared previously. So when she said "Thank you. God, I didn't know it was supposed to feel like...like that." you chuckled, pulling back and placing your hand on her cheek, which she leaned into slightly. "You're welcome?" Again she smiled, wrapping her arms around your neck and holding you close, so you wrapped yours around her waist, resting your chin on her shoulder. You stayed like that for a while, holding her on the floor of your kitchen after giving her probably the most intense orgasms she'd ever had.

Meanwhile Alice's mind was racing, having finally cleared from the haze of lust that had previously resided in her brain. She was happier than she'd ever been at that moment, and she still was, wrapped up in your arms, your warmth radiating onto her skin. That was the part of her brain that she wanted to listen to, to just stay like this forever, completely and totally absorbed in your world. She was more than willing to throw away everything that she'd worked for just to be able to stay with you, stay here, live like this. But she was also worried. She had kids, a husband. She had responsibilities, she was tied down, and you weren't. You were still young, there was much of life you had yet to experience. And Alice didn't want to stop you from that by keeping you for herself. And as much as it hurt her, as much as it made her want to cry, she knew that she couldn't do that to either of you. Because it wasn't fair.

But, she thought, she could stay like this for a while. Reality would come crashing in soon, so she wanted to spend as much time as she could here. When you pulled away she almost frowned, but when you smiled reassuringly, she kept herself together. You said "I think we should stand up and probably clean up. Trust me." Alice laughed shyly and attempted to get off of you, only for you to grab her hands and hold her in place. "Hey, careful there. I never said you had to get up." You said, smirking slightly. You then leaned down, placing a tiny kiss on her lips, before somehow scooping her into your arms and standing up. Alice didn't know how you did so from your position, but when she was suddenly in your arms she squeaked and wrapped an arm around your neck, making you laugh and hold her closer. You glanced down at the floor, noticing the mess the tow of you had made, but chose not to mention it as you swiftly made your way out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and into your room.

You carefully set Alice down on your bed, making sure not to drop her to hard, and then walked over to your dresser. Without looking back, you said over your shoulder "If you'd like you can use the shower. I'm sure you don't want to sleep like that." Alice choked slightly and stood up, holding herself up on the banister of your bed. "S-Sleep?" "Well, I assume you're tired from all the vigorous exercise I just put your through. I'm sure we can think up an excuse for you being home late." Alice opened her mouth to say something, but snapped it closed when you turned to look at her again. Now that you were standing, she could see the effect of your...earlier activities.

Your hair was tangled and hanging over your face, Alice's lipstick covering one side of your neck along with a nice bite mark that she must have left at some point. Your shirt was falling off one of your shoulders and your skirt was wet over one of your thighs. That last part made Alice bush brightly and look away, trying not to think about what that wetness was. So she just muttered "You're a mess. I'm sorry." But you laughed, walking over to the woman and placing your hands on her shoulders, guiding her into your bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. And when she did, her breath caught again. Her own hair, though not as tangled as yours, was out of its' clips and pins. Her dress was also wrinkled, more so than yours. Just like you, she had lipstick on her neck, but what shocked her more were the various bruises and marks dotting her skin, red and purple patches sticking out against her normally pale skin. Suddenly she was acutely aware of the sticky wetness coating the inside of her thighs, and at that her mind flashed back to the feeling of your hands on her, in her, your lips making those marks on her neck, pulling up her dress, running your fingers through her hair.

The thoughts sent another spiral of heat down to Alice's stomach and she had to fight back the urge to whine and lean into you again. You must have seen the internal battle she was having as you gently rubbed your hands up and down her arms, placing a small kiss behind her ear after pulling her hair over one shoulder. "Beautiful." you mumbled, and she flushed darker at the word. "Y/n..." she whispered, and you hummed. "How am I going to hide these?" "I have some makeup you can borrow. I don't use it much and you're pretty much the same tone as I am. It'll work until you can get some of your own." She swallowed and nodded warily. "Y-Yeah. Thank you. I mean I shouldn't be thanking you, it's your fault that they're there in the first place.." You smiled wickedly, whispering "I didn't see you complaining when I made them" into her ear suggestively. She shuddered at the tone of your voice, another pleasant tingle passing through her body and directly to her core.

So when your hands slid from her arms to her waist, fingers tracing small circles and patterns on the hip bones, she didn't stop you, instead closing her eyes and leaning back into your body with a small hum. You smiled, enjoying her reactions, but pulled back anyway, saying "You need to get washed up, darling. And I would offer to help, but I'm afraid if I do so you'll never leave the shower, so I'm going to leave you to it." And with one last kiss on her neck and hair, you smiled and left the bathroom. Alice huffed, upset that you could get her like that so easily, and leave her just as fast as if it never happened. She didn't hold it against you, because she knew you had a point, as if you were to come with her she most likely wouldn't be able to control herself after what happened in your kitchen, so she sighed and began to get undressed, placing her clothes on the sink and entering the shower.

Meanwhile, you hummed as you picked out some clothes for Alice to wear for after that would fit her. Luckily she was smaller than you, so you simply got out a large hoodie and some shorts, which you were almost positive the woman had never worn either or in her life, which made you grin wickedly. A few minutes passed as you lay on your bed, staring at your ceiling with a small smile on your face. When you brought Alice over, you expected to talk stuff over, play with your cat, just have a little bit of friendly fun. What you did not expect was to end up on your kitchen floor with her on your lap screaming your name. You weren't complaining, obviously, but still. A rather shocking outcome.

Finally, Alice exited your bathroom, a towel wrapped around her small frame. Your smile got bigger as you hopped out of bed, clothes in hand, and pushed them towards her. She looked at them, a confused look on her face, and you laughed. "Clothes, Alice. Have you heard of them?" She blushed, looking away for a moment. "Yes, y/n, I'm aware that they are clothes. I just...don't know what they are." "I--they're clothes. It's a hoodie, and shorts. And I'm sure you've never worn either, so this will be interesting. These are, like, some of the most comfortable things I own, I think you'll like them, compared to your usual attire." Again Alice huffed, pouting and saying "Hey, what's wrong with the things I wear?" You shook your head, dismissing her with a "Nothing, I just think this will be more comfortable. Now put the towel down and put them on. Jesus."

The woman took a deep breath and blushed at the idea of being completely bare in front of you. You sensed this so you placed a soft kiss on her cheek, handing her the clothes and walking over to your bed, your back towards her. Without a word, you signaled for her to continue, and she smiled, suddenly so grateful for your existence. You knew that she wasn't comfortable changing in front of you so you didn't force her to. She quickly dropped the towel, picking up the shorts first and putting them on. She wasn't used to them, as expected, and grimaced at the strange feeling. But she brushed it off and picked up the hoodie next, flipping it around and pulling it over her head. When it was all the way down, it reached her mid thigh, which made her giggle. At the sound you turned, smiling widely at the sight in front of you. Alice Macray in a sweatshirt and shorts was quite the thing to behold, and the smile on her face only made it better. So you gestured for her to come over, which she did, and you embraced her, pulling you down onto her lap.

"God you're so cute!" You squealed, hugging her waist tightly as she sighed, which turned into a laugh, cuddling into you further. So you simply scooched backwards, further onto the bed, and with one hand pushed the blanket out of the way. You had to break the connection to pull it over your bodies, but you were quick to pull Alice back to you, one arm over her waist as her back pressed against your front. She held a hand over yours that laid on her stomach. After a moment of silence you heard her mumble "Y/n?" So you said "yeah?" And she responded "Thank you. For...everything. You make me feel wanted, loved. Being with you feels better than anything I've ever experienced before." Your expression softened into one of fondness and you held her closer, burying your face in her hair as you said "Because I do. I do want you, and I do love you. And I enjoy being with you."

You couldn't see the tears rolling down Alice's face at your words, but as she turned in your arms and curled into your body further, you held her tight to you, running your fingers through her hair, still wet from the shower. And the both of you fell asleep, warm in each other's embraces, smiles on your faces.

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jamielea81 · 5 years

Text

Conversations

Chapter 8

Description: You accompany your friends on a day trip to Animal Kingdom Theme Park where you meet Scott Evans by chance. This one afternoon leads to a year long friendship with both Chris and Scott over text messages and phone calls.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warning: A couple of curse words, fluff, overthinking, Scott being a little shit.

Word Count: 3,210

A/N: I know nothing about the lives of the Evans family and mean no harm. This is purely fiction and for fun. Reblogs and comments are much appreciated! The tag list is now closed. Each chapter tends to get reblogged from me a few times, so if you’re following me, you can’t miss it.

*Italics are internal thoughts

“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore,” Scott whined.

“You’re being dramatic.”

Scott was facetiming you and being his normal grumpy self. If you didn’t love him so much, you would have disconnected the call ten minutes prior.

“I thought we had no secrets,” he plainly said.

“We never agreed to that. I’m pretty sure there are a million things I don’t know about you,” you threw back at him, one eyebrow raised.

He scoffs and shakes his head with a little bit of a smile coming through.

I knew he’d break.

Chris had gone back to Massachusetts two days prior and you still hadn’t stopped smiling.

After sharing a few more sweet kisses that night, the two of you watched the sunrise before making the short walk back to your house. It was the first time you had experienced both the sunset and sunrise with someone all in the same day. Sleep deprivation never felt so good.

You dropped Chris off an hour later. He wanted you to come inside to say goodbye to his mom, but with half your makeup worn off and the giddy look on your face, it wasn’t the impression you wanted to give. Especially since the first one didn’t play out so well.

With the two of you parked like teenagers outside his rented home, you struggled with what to say.

“Thanks for having me over,” Chris offered with a lazy smile.

“Thanks for coming over and for lunch.”

You turned in your seat to face him head on. Chris grabbed your hand intertwining your fingers.

“I hate to be a bummer, but I don’t know what I can come back to visit. But I want to see you again. Don’t want to leave today and have you thinkin’ this is it,” he said.

You nodded your head numbly, trying to keep the last eighteen or so hours in your mind solely. No use in being sad right now. Leaning forward, you captured his lips once more. The two of you pulling away with sleepy smiles.

“Call me when you get home,” you said.

Chris lifted your linked hands, bringing them to his lips, and kissing yours softly.

“Of course,” he said.

“Fine…You still should have told me,” Scott insisted.

You rubbed your right eye with the palm of your hand, momentarily freaking out before you realized you didn’t have any makeup on.

“I don’t really know what it all means,” you sighed out. “Okay, that’s not completely true.” Scott chuckled at your indecision. “It was nice and I kind of wanted to keep it to myself for a while.” You shrugged a shoulder.

“Well, he can’t stop gushing about you,” Scott replied. That made you perk up.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it was like the first thing he told me when he got home. No mention of Disney, just Sassy,” he said.

“See, I didn’t have to tell you. You guys tell each other everything. Which honestly concerns me.” You gave him a smirk. “But what did he say?!”

Scott laughed, shaking his head at the same time.

“I don’t know…Think I need to start keeping my relationships with the two of you separate.”

Sticking out your bottom lip, you give him the biggest pouty face you could muster causing Scott to chuckle again.

“All I’m going to say is he said you spent the night together and it was wonderful.”

“Wait. Wait. Hold up. That sounds like our night was more than PG13!” you exclaimed.

“Oh my god! I didn’t even think of that!” Scott laughed. “He didn’t mean it that way, I swear. But that’s all you’re getting from me.”

“Fine,” you groaned.

A week had passed and the endless smile had finally dissipated. You weren’t upset or anything like that. No. The euphoric state you were in had just…faded. Chris and you spoke or texted over the last week, but reality set in that the night you shared would probably be no more than a night. This of course was not stated with actual words between the two of you. Saying it out loud seemed much too scary. But since it wasn’t spoken, you could only assume that Chris had come to the same conclusion. Really, what were the two of you? The calls and texts were much the same as they had always been. Teasing each other, a good amount of flirting, small talk about your days, and maybe a little Scott talk. It was really just getting your mind to wrap around the idea that Chris was your friend that you happened to have kissed. A few times. Maybe that was good enough.

Cirque du Soleli was premiering a new show called Drawn to Life, after being closed for some time in Disney Springs, the shopping and entertainment district at Walt Disney World resort. Jana had agreed to be your date, but since she was coming from work, she was running a bit behind. You busied yourself with a drink on the outdoor patio at House of Blues, letting the dark rum and mix of juices take your mind off the busy week. Grabbing your phone out of your purse, you decided to give Chris a call since Jana wouldn’t be arriving for at least another ten minutes.

“Well, hello there sweetheart. What are you up to?” His soothing voice answered.

“Hey there yourself. I’m just drinking alone. At a bar. Woe is me,” you replied.

“I don’t like the sound of that. Tough week?” Chris asked.

“Wasn’t too bad. Just waiting on Jana who’s running late.”

“Oh, you two. Do I need to warn the cops that you’re out together?” he teased.

“Well, we’re on Disney property, so we can’t get into too much trouble. Watchin’ the new Cirque show that’s opening tonight for the paper. They actually gave me a plus one and I couldn’t think of a better date,” you bated him.

“Really Sassy? Aiming low I see?”

“I haven’t a clue at what you’re implying Mr. Evans.”

“Mmhm, I’m sure. She gonna kiss you goodnight when the evening is over?” he asked.

“Well, she’s married. So…”

Chris chuckled at that. “So, what you’re sayin’ is she doesn’t know about that little spot right below your ear that gets you all hot and bothered?”

This man will be the death of you some day. It took a moment for you to compose yourself. Clearing your throat quickly and blowing out a breath.

“No, no. Sh-she doesn’t know that. But you barely know that, so dial it down buddy,” you giggled.

“Ah-huh. Alright, sweetheart. I’ll try to rein it in.” There was a beat of silence on both ends, the only sound was each other’s breath. “God, I miss you,” he softly spoke.

With your heart hammering in your ears, you licked your lips. “I miss you too.”

You felt a tap on your shoulder, turning your head you saw Jana who gave you a silent wave.

“Um, babe, Jana’s here now,” you said, struggling to get your voice.

“Alright. Have a good night and don’t get into any trouble,” he warned.

“I promise nothing. Talk to you tomorrow?” Why you asked it as a question, you weren’t sure.

“Always. Goodnight sweetheart.”

“Goodnight,” you replied, hitting the end call button.

Dropping your phone into your purse, you turned back to Jana, gesturing for her to take a seat.

“Who was that?”

“Chris.”

You’re sure she can see the heat in your face, but you don’t care at the moment. He said he missed you. You’re glad you aren’t the only one.

“How are you holding up?” Jana asked.

Lifting your glass to your lips, you took a sip of the mostly watered-down rum. “I’m doing good. Chris is still my friend and that’s all I can really ask for,” you said, shrugging your shoulders.

Jana gave you a pointed look, setting her bag on the tabletop, resting her arms on either side of it. “Really?” she asked.

“Of course, not!” you practically shouted. Had it been anyone else, they would have flinched at your sudden loss of composure. Taking a calming breath, you composed yourself once more. “We did just have a nice conversation, so I’m feeling better. I’m fine.”

“Yep. Sure, seems like it.” She stood up, pushing the chair back in. “Let’s go. Time to join the circus.”

You knew she probably would have given you a lecture about going with the flow and learning to discuss your feelings if you had time before the show started. And if you were an adult about the situation, you would listen to her.

Whenever your phone rang during the middle of the day from one of the Evans boys, you knew something was up. Seeing Chris’ name on your screen surprised you a bit. He had been filming the last couple of weeks for another Apple TV+ series, so it was a lot more texting with a few phone calls sprinkled in. Usually just as you were falling asleep.

“I’m sorry, who’s this?” you answered.

You hear a deep chuckle on the other end of the line. “Funny. Did you delete my contact or something?” Chris asked.

“Not this week. Not yet anyway,” you teased.

The newsroom was packed this afternoon being that it was Friday and mostly everyone was required to make an appearance. You pushed away from your desk, getting to your feet to find an empty conference room.

“Not this week? What did I do last week?” He sounds tired. You know he loves to work, but you really wish he’d take a little more time for himself.

You found an open room, quickly shutting the door, plopping your butt in a chair at the large round table. “Hmm. If you don’t know, that makes a bigger case for me to delete you as soon as we hang up.” The chairs in the conference rooms were always much nicer than the ones on the floor.

Wonder if I could swap mine for one of these without anyone noticing?

“Maybe I could change your mind,” Chris offered.

“I’m listening,” you said, tapping your fingernails against the polished wood table.

“Could you take off work for a couple of days? I’m going to be a New York City for a few days, and my schedule isn’t going to be packed. Thought maybe I could convince you to come see me.”

You wouldn’t say it out loud, but you most definitely would make something work. It had only been a month since your weekend together, but that month felt more like a dozen. With his filming schedule, you planned on waiting another couple of months before you would even bring up the idea of seeing him.

“When exactly? I’m sure I could get away, but if it’s a Friday, it will be a little harder to swing it.”

“You don’t think I know that Sassy? Fridays you have meetings and you can’t be late,” he said, a smirk in his voice.

“Kudos to you, Mr. Evans.”

“I’m gettin’ in Monday night, late.”

“This Monday?”

Crap. Maybe not.

“Sweetheart, I’m not calling you last minute. The week after.”

Relaxing a bit when you realized you’d have a little over a week to prepare rather than just a couple of days. You’d have to look up flights and hotels to see what you could find. Figure out what part of New York he’d be in. Knowing you probably wouldn’t be able to afford where ever he was staying, you wanted to at least be close.

“I can make that work. Maybe come in Tuesday morning and leave Thursday night?”

“Whatever you can make happen Y/N, I’ll take.”

You smiled at his words. “I’ll look at some flights and hotels. Where are you staying?”

“No, no, no, sweetheart. I’m flying you out here. My treat,” he said.

“Chris, no. I can’t have you do that. That’s too big of a gift,” you reasoned.

The two of you were friends, maybe something a bit more, but mostly just friends. It was much too much for him to paying for trips.

“Let me do this. I want to see you and it’s really not that big of a deal.”

You shook your head and then rolled your eyes at yourself remembering he couldn’t see you.

“Let me at least pay for the flight, Chris.”

“You’re frustrating, you know that?” he groaned.

“I’ve been told that,” you chuckled.

“If you’d feel more comfortable, I can get you your own room. But if I’m being honest, I’d like you to stay with me,” he said softly.

Holy shit.

“Ye-yeah. Yeah. I’d like that. To stay with you I mean.”

Chris chuckled at your response. “One room it is. Let me know you flight info and I’ll arrange a car to pick you up.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that.” You had a dopey smile on your face, but you couldn’t help it.

“Talk to you soon, sweetheart.”

“Bye babe,” you replied.

If you weren’t at work, you’d pretty much be freaking out. The freak out would need to wait.

Your flight was booked for seven in the morning on Tuesday, flying home at four in the afternoon on Thursday. Not a lot of time, but at least it was two full days. Two full nights as well. That was a whole other thing. You were spending two nights with Chris. Presumably in one bed. Unless he booked a room with more than one bed. Who were you kidding? He probably doesn’t even book his own rooms. He was there for work, so the room probably only had one bed.

You quickly fired off a text to Jana.

Y/N: Am I just a booty call?

You knew Chris didn’t think of you that way. He was your friend. You were close friends with his brother. But being whisked away to New York for a couple of nights sure made you feel a little bit like one. And you agreed to sleeping in the same room.

Jana: In general, or??

Bitch.

Your friends were all trouble and as soon as you get back from New York, you were going to look for new ones.

Y/N: Thanks, I’m about to call your husband instead.

Jana: He told me to type that!

Y/N: 🥺

Jana: You are not a booty call. Chris lives a different lifestyle from most people. If the two of you want to spend time together, flying to different cities is probably how it’s going to go.

She was right. You knew she was. But your dumb brain didn’t want to accept it.

Nine at night was entirely too early to go to bed. Usually you weren’t even in your room that early, but it was Monday and you were trying to fall asleep at an earlier hour since your alarm was set for three in the morning. Why you picked a seven AM flight was beyond you.

Y/N: I’m going to bed early. Talk to you tomorrow.

You waited a few minutes for Scott to text you back. He was in L.A. if you were remembering correctly, so it was a lot earlier than normal.

Instead of texting back, he was calling.

“Hello, Scott,” you answered.

“Hi Sassy. I’m trying to have a nice dinner with Zach and you’re interrupting what was once a beautiful evening.”

Yet I’m the sassy one?

“I’m pretty sure by you calling me, you’re interrupting dinner with Zach. Tell him hello from me by the way,” you replied.

“I hate when you’re right,” he chuckled.

“Just stating facts, sweetie. You didn’t have to call, just wanted to let you know I was turning in early.”

“Is your flight early?” he asked.

“Yeah, seven. Not sure what I was thinkin’ there.”

“Thinkin’ about gettin’ some,” he murmured.

“Scott! Dude! What the fuck?”

Rather than respond he just continued to laugh on the other end of the line.

“I’m just saying. Don’t kill the messenger here,” he continued to chuckle.

“What happened to keeping yourself separate from Chris and my relationship?”

“Uhh, yeah. You’re right. My lips are sealed,” Scott replied.

“Unanswered prayers!”

“Watch yourself, Sassy,” he said sternly. “But have a safe flight. Give Chris a hug and kiss for me.” It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde all of a sudden. So serious one second and nice and sweet the second. Scott Evans was a man of mystery.

“Yeah, thanks, Grumpy. Goodnight.”

“Bye, love.”

One of the positives about taking an early flight was that security was a lot easier to get through so early in the morning. You had said for years you were going to get Pre-Check but you always just put it off. Going through a short security check was nice.

Picking up a coffee and a bagel, you made your way to the gate. Boarding wasn’t for another hour, but that gave you time to finish your food, use the restroom, and over think the trip.

Sigh.

No amount of crying babies and couples arguing about which bag had the phone charger could distract you from knowing you’d be seeing Chris in a matter of hours. Do you greet him with a hug, high five, or a kiss? I mean, really, it could be anything.

Sigh.

Y/N: Let’s say I wanted something more to happen on this getaway. I’m not saying that’s what I want. Hypothetically speaking.

You chewed on your lip waiting for Jana’s reply. You should have bought a pack of gum. Your lips would be raw before you even touched down in JFK.

Jana: Hypothetically you want to bang him

Y/N: Where is that coming from? I never said that.

Jana: It might be time you spoke to a professional.

She probably isn’t wrong.

Y/N: Let’s say the answer is yes. Too soon?

Jana: That’s entirely up to you. If that’s what you both want.

Y/N: It’s me. I have no idea what I want. I wish there was some magical way to know what the other person is thinking.

Jana: Doesn’t work that way babe

Y/N: Yeah

Brooks: Just bang him!

Jana really needed to stop telling Brooks everything.

You quickly replied to Brooks’ message.

Y/N: Not a word to Scott.

Now that two of them talked, who knows how quickly this conversation would get back to Chris.

Brooks: My lips are sealed.

Damnit! That’s what Scott said last night.

Because you bought your seat a week out, you ended up buying an upgraded seat in Delta Comfort which essentially gave you a few more inches of leg room and a seat just past the first-class section. The bigger benefit for you was being boarded sooner. Being able to skip most of the standing around the gate like watching a street act was nothing more than a blessing for your nerves.

Settled into your seat, you decided to send Chris a text before powering down your phone.

Y/N: Hey there, Delilah What's it like in New York city? I'm a thousand miles away But, girl, tonight you look so pretty Yes, you do

Chris: Cute. Now get your ass here so I can kiss you.

Maybe you knew what you wanted.

Chapter 9

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#chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fic #chris evans fan fiction #chris evans imagine #scott evans #chris evans x you #chris evans reader instert #chris evans rpf #chris evans x y/n

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kindofcashton · 4 years

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𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕕 • chapter 18 (Calum Hood AU)

IT TOOK AWHILE for the shock to subside before I could even think of moving. I stayed rooted to the spot, gazing out at where Calum had disappeared and left me behind. The sun was finally gone from the sky, bathing me in a cool darkness that made me shudder. I kept hoping to see the headlights of a familiar red mustang approach, willing him to come back to me. But as the seconds dragged on, I knew this hope was futile.

Scrambling for my phone, I called an uber and hugged my knees to my chest as I waited on a bench. My mind was oddly empty, despite what had just happened. I suppose I was numb to Calum’s betrayals at this point; his leaving me in the dust was hardly a surprise.

With my head in my hands, I didn’t even hear the uber pull up until the driver rolled down the window and hollered, “Hey! I’m here!”

Throwing myself into the backseat, I mumbled a faint greeting and closed my eyes. The driver clearly thought I was a mess, and he thankfully stayed quiet for the entire ride. My head tilted against the cool glass window, and I felt nausea rise in my stomach. Everything from my heart to my head to my stomach was hurting; Calum inflicted full-body pain. I couldn’t imagine walking through the front door, what fury waited for me at home. Surely he’d yell some more, insult me until he was blue in the face. And I would take it, because I knew I was putty in his hands. One kiss would make me forget all about the pain I felt now.

I was surprised to see the driveway empty of his mustang when I finally arrived home. It shouldn’t have been a shock that he didn’t come home, but for some reason I was crushed by disappointment. Yet again I had unrealistic expectations about Calum. I half-expected him to be waiting on the front porch for me, ready to bare his soul in an apology.

No one was waiting for me, and I entered the dark house alone.

Everyone was asleep, so no one would realize the destruction that occurred tonight. I refused to let my thoughts wander as I showered and got ready for bed, bile rising in my throat when I glanced into Calum’s empty room. My head hit the pillow, but I knew I would not be sleeping tonight. Anxiety gnawed at me, making me think up a million scenarios of where Calum was right now. Asleep in his car on the side of the road? Hunched over a bar, drowning his sorrows in whiskey? Or was he in another girl’s bed, kissing her lips and feeling her skin and giving her his heart?

Needless to say, it was a fitful night’s sleep. The next morning I must have looked particularly awful, because Luke asked what had happened to me. I truncated the truth, explaining that Calum and I got in an argument and he ditched me after we got dinner. Luke was angry at Calum for abandoning me, but I just waved his sympathy off.

“It’s fine, really. He’s so hot and cold, I shouldn’t have been so surprised.” I absent-mindedly stirred my coffee, still feeling queasy.

Michael had joined the conversation a few minutes before, and shook his head firmly now. “No, it’s not. He can’t just leave you on the side of the street. What did you guys argue about anyway?”

I bit my lip, unprepared with an excuse. “Er...something stupid.” A thought crossed my mind, and I added, “I asked if he wanted dinner and he freaked out and thought it was a date. I guess even after dinner he was still being weird about us being together, which we definitely are not.” I felt satisfied with this, since it wasn’t exactly a lie. Half-truths seemed to be my strong suit lately.

Luke frowned. “Do you think he secretly wants to be together and was just trying to cover it up?”

I almost laughed; after the blowout, I knew Calum definitely did not want to be with me, but this was a nice sentiment. “Maybe,” I answered with a shrug. “I never know what he’s thinking.”

Michael snorted. “None of us do, Scar. We just roll with the punches.”

I feigned a smile, connecting my gaze with Hannah who was overhearing our conversation in the living room. Her frown told me she knew there was more to the story than I’d said, but she knew better than to confront me in front of the guys.

The rest of the day was business as usual. I had a shift at work, then a phone call with the community college about my admission. Hannah and I dialed up a movie and ordered pizza when the guys went over to Ashton’s for the night, and so the two of us had a girl’s evening. Hannah didn’t pry about Calum, but I did admit to her the fight was much more serious. She told me not to worry, he always did this, but it didn’t ease my anxieties.

When I woke up the next morning, Calum was still missing. No one had heard from him, and all their calls went straight to voicemail. The guys didn’t seem nearly as worried as I was, but I forced these feelings down. It’s fine, Scarlett. Besides, he doesn’t deserve your attention. For the rest of the day I forced him out of my mind, distracting myself with work and shopping with Hannah. Luke and I ran errands after dinner, and I was grateful for his quiet, steady friendship. Listening to him tell stories about work made me wonder what it would be like to be with a guy like him as opposed to Calum. Luke was kind and open and incredibly understanding. Calum was mean and closed off and impatient. I still saw Luke as just a friend, but for a minute I let myself imagine a different guy who would actually treat me right.

The end of the second day came, and still no sign of Calum. I knew when I woke up on the third day he’d still be AWOL, and my suspicions were proved correct at breakfast.

“All of his shit is here, he has to come back,” Ashton insisted, joining us for pancakes and waffles that Hannah made. It was a lazy weekend day, none of us having work and deciding to get together for an extravagant breakfast. As I tore at my pancakes with my fork rather than eat them, I tried to believe Ashton. Calum would come back. He’d have to. And when he did, I could confront him and get some answers. Until then, worrying was pointless.

But the pit of nerves inside me only deepened as the hours passed. I faked plenty of smiles and forced a lot of laughs, but still I couldn’t banish the panic I felt. More than that, I missed Calum. Spending every night with someone had felt so good, and suddenly my bed was cold and empty and I yearned for his warmth.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come?” Hannah asked again. She and the guys decided to catch a late movie, and I declined their offer to come. I felt physically sick with worry, and played it off like the pancakes that morning had me nauseous.

“No, I’m alright,” I told her. “I don’t feel well, so I would hate to ruin the movie.” I doubted Hannah believed me, but I knew she wouldn’t nag me any further. I just needed a night to stew and hopefully get over myself.

“Okay,” she said gravely, clearly unconvinced. “Call me if you need anything, alright?”

I rolled my eyes, attempting humor. “Yes, mom.” She laughed and waved goodbye, and when the front door shut I was finally alone.

It turns out, isolation doesn’t do much to help with stress. I could barely pay attention to the TV, and I was so queasy I didn’t even want to make dinner. I just laid on the couch, watching shapes move on the screen but hearing nothing but a gentle droning in my mind. It would be a long night.

At least that’s what I thought. Maybe an hour after the others had left, I heard the door open with a bang. Shooting up off the couch, I heard the stomping of a very disoriented person as they tried to close the door.

“Shit,” the person murmured, and my heart lurched; it was Calum. Slowly making my way over, I folded my arms and prepared myself.

It was Calum. He wore the same clothes as he had on the last time I saw him, but they were considerably more wrinkled and dirty looking. His hair was a mess, and his eyes glinted wildly in the dark. His staggered movements and overwhelming stench told me he was drunk. Finally he got the door shut and leaned against it, exhausted from the effort. His inebriated eyes found mine, swimming with alcohol. I swallowed roughly, the nausea coming on again.

“Scarlett,” he slurred, raising his hands. I saw a beer bottle in one of them, sloshing with dark liquid. Calum’s gaze was shifty, and he struggled to stay standing. He stumbled forward as if to embrace me, and I stepped back. He saw this and pouted, swinging his arms out. “What’re you doing, baby? Didn’t you miss me?”

At that moment, the nausea and anxiety transformed into stone cold fury. I set my jaw, glaring at him. “Where the hell were you?” I demanded. “It’s been three days, Calum.”

“Pssh, relax,” he chuckled, hiccuping. “I just...wanted to have some fun. You’re so wound-up and annoying, so I needed a break.” I ignored his cruel words and closed my eyes, willing my breathing to relax. Calum knew exactly how to work me up in the worst way.

“You reek,” I criticized. “Go take a shower.” Not wanting to be under his scrutinizing gaze any longer, I stormed up the stairs. But he was hot on my heels, and I felt his warm breath hit my neck as I fled.

Attempting to lock myself in my room, I turned to see Calum blocking my door. “Why’re you so mad,” he slurred, eyes rolling. “’S not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” I cried. “You were missing for three days! No one could get a hold of you! None of us knew if you were alive or dead, Calum!” I was furious at myself for reacting this way, but I was more furious at him for brushing it off. He deserved to suffer after making me worry so much.

Calum didn’t reply to my yelling, only slumped against the door and took a swig of beer. He finished the bottle and tossed it out into the hallway, exhaling loudly.

Scowling, I tried to push him towards the bathroom. “Come on, you need a shower.” It took a lot of effort to lead him away from my room, and I finally sat him down on the toilet seat. Flicking on the light and closing the door, I started the shower. Calum watched my movements as I tested the temperature and adjusted the spout. Crossing my arms, I gestured for him to get up.

“You seriously stink worse than a brewery. I’m not talking to you until you shower.” I didn’t even know if he wanted to talk, but he didn’t react when I brought it up which I guess was a good sign.

Sighing, Calum closed his eyes against the harsh ceiling light and leaned back, kicking off his shoes but not moving to take off his shirt or jeans.

His head hitting the wall, Calum’s expression was suddenly very raw and vulnerable. He looked broken, like a little boy rather than a grown man. “It’s my dad,” he murmured, so quietly I almost missed it. “He’s back, and they want me to see him.” The bitterness in his voice hurt my heart; I couldn’t imagine the pain of learning someone he’d despised for so long was back in his family’s life.

He got angry all of a sudden, brows furrowing in fury. “That’s not even all of it. He’s been back for years. My mother has known where he’s been for years, and only now do those bastards tell me. I mean...what the fuck?” He gripped at his curly hair, pulling it out of frustration. His muscles were tense, and I hesitated before approaching. He was like a wounded lion; pitiful and sad, but still capable of ripping me to shreds.

I knelt before him, resting my hand on his thigh. Calum kept his face covered with his fists, breathing hard. I breathed out a sigh, unsure of what to say. “Showering will make you feel better,” I settled on, voice soft. “Come on, get these dirty clothes off.” I felt like a mother helping a little child, and a pang of hurt struck me when I wondered if Calum ever had anyone care for him like this before.

Gently, I helped him lift his arms so I could remove his shirt. Being so close to him made me dizzy, and it was especially painful considering how drunk and angry he was at the world. Calum might have made a lot of mistakes, but his life certainly didn’t make things easy. I felt waves of pain rolling off of him, and as they absorbed into me I had to fight tears out of my eyes.

I tossed his soiled shirt to the floor, throat drying at the sight of his bare torso. His eyes were glazed and looking at the floor, so I slowly grabbed his arm to make him stand. Calum was like a zombie when I undid his belt, holding my breath as I slid his jeans down. Undressing was such an intimate act, and I’d done it a dozen times with him before. But this time, removing his clothes gave me no gratification. Every inch of skin revealed was just more pain, and I stood up at last when he was only in his boxers.

“I think you can handle the rest,” I whispered, preparing to leave him in the bathroom. As I turned I felt him grab my arm, his hand warm and firm. Gasping, he pulled me to face him.

“Don’t go,” Calum begged under his breath, pulling me to his bare chest. He reeked of alcohol and swayed with intoxication. He’s drunk, that’s why he wants you, I reminded myself, tears pricking at my eyes.

“Calum--”

“No,” he interjected, holding me tight. His forehead dropped to my own, our eyes closing as our breathing synced. “Stay. Stay with me.”

Lips parting, I gazed up at his desperate and pleading eyes, knowing full well I could not resist him. So instead of fighting, I pulled my own shirt over my head, never breaking our gaze. He watched me undress, expression full of emotion as I stripped down to my underwear. He went to take off his boxers, and I unclasped my bra.

The shower was hot and steaming. A waterfall of droplets fell onto Calum’s head, wetting his skin and only dampening me slightly. I watched as water beads slid down his chest, making his skin glisten. He held me in his arms and pulled me into his wet body, flipping us so the water streamed over me now. Leaning my head back, I let the rainfall cascade over my face and neck, wetting my hair and leaving crystals of moisture all over me.

Calum’s warm hands slid up and down my body, grazing over my breasts and my hips until he settled on my waist, tilting his head down to capture my lips with his own. This kiss was incredibly different from the others we’d shared; his lips were earnest and gentle, the usual fiery passion now a lulled heat. Soft fingers rested on my cheeks, and I pushed my own through his wet curls. I felt him harden against my thigh, and he leaned back to press his lips to my jaw. I closed my eyes, relishing the wet heat as he dragged down my neck, biting lightly and causing a moan to rise from my mouth.

His strong body pushed me against the shower wall, and naturally my leg lifted to wrap around his waist. This caused my center to spread, and I felt his cock slide against my heat deliciously.

I was breathing hard as Calum sucked on my neck, hands splayed out across his wide back as I pulled him closer to me. One of his hands rested by my head on the wall, the other sliding over my abdomen until he reached where I was aching for him. I felt his palm slide across my core, collecting the moisture there and letting it mingle with the shower water. Moaning, I gripped his hair tighter and sloppily kissed his ear, breathing statically with each move of his hand.

His fingers dipped and circled in my folds, finding my clit and pressing on the sensitive bundle of nerves. My hips bucked into his, and I moved my own hands lower so I could reach him. As he worked my clit, I found his cock and slid a wet hand along his shaft, causing his breath to hitch.

“Oh, Scarlett,” he groaned, the words like music to my ears. I worked his length slowly, running my fingers over his swollen tip and feeling him twitch in my palm. As we pleasured each other, our moans twined together and our lips fumbled in a kiss. I was close to my edge, and judging from how stiff he was I knew Calum was as well.

The fact that we didn’t have a condom flitted across my mind, and I leaned back to connect my eyes with his. But what I saw there took my breath away; Calum was looking at me like he never had before. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the steam from the shower, but I swore he was looking at me like I created the whole world.

Exhaling softly, I reconnected our lips, forgetting my inhibitions and wanting only to feel him inside of me. He understood my unspoken desire perfectly, lining up with my entrance. I felt his tip press into me, and almost cried out from the teasing feeling.

Hooking an arm around his neck, I tilted my hips forward so he pressed in even more, causing my eyes to roll back. Calum got the hint, and with one flick of his hips he was inside of me.

I would never get used to the feeling of him. The stretch was unlike any I’d ever experienced, his body fitting with mine like a puzzle piece. The angle was entirely new since we were standing in the shower, and as he slid out of me I braced for the feeling of reentry. Sure enough, when he rocked back inside I felt fireworks of pleasure explode inside my body. Somehow he was hitting even deeper than when we were in bed, and I had to hold on for him for support as he thrusted.

“God, shit,” I cried out, sucking on his ear while he snapped his hips up inside of me. I was barely staying vertical, the feeling too overwhelming as my knees buckled. Calum’s strong hands wrapped under my bum, lifting me up so he could thrust harder and my body weight was pushed against the wall. I wrapped my legs around him, inviting him deeper inside of me.

Without the layer of a condom between us, I could really feel him. Somehow I felt closer to him this way, truly connected. No barriers were in the way, and feeling him slide against my walls was a euphoria I would surely become addicted to.

Wet skin rubbed against wet skin, and my nails grazed down the wide expanse of his back. Calum’s breath washed over my face, his lips parted and eyes closed in bliss. I let the pure sensations take over, my mind clear of anything except the pleasure he was giving me.

I was nearing my end as his thrusts increased, and my breasts pushed into his chest as I panted. Calum gripped my ass harder, pushing faster and deeper to deliver us both to our orgasms. One last thrust hit just the right spot, and a tight ball of pleasure evaporated into sizzling bliss that soaked through every inch of my body. Just when Calum neared his end he pulled out of me, letting the spurt of white liquid land on my abdomen. His moans of ecstasy filled my ears, and I clasped his wet body to mine.

We both took a minute to come down from our highs, and finally I opened my eyes to meet his. Calum gently let my feet hit the floor, and I used my hands to steady myself against him. Gazing down at me, Calum pushed a lock of wet hair behind my ear.

Wordlessly, I grabbed the soap and began sliding it across his torso. Calum watched silently as I cleaned him, washing away his pain and letting it spin down the drain. Next was the shampoo, and I ran my fingers through his curls with a frown. Calum kissed my down-turned lips, just a light ghosting of contact, and it eased some of the tension in my shoulders.

We washed each other in the scalding water until we stood clean and rejuvenated. I couldn’t tell if Calum was still drunk, but his expression was definitely clearer than it had been before. I didn’t know how I felt about what just happened; on the one hand, Calum and I were never closer or more open with one another than when we were having sex. On the other, if his drunken haze was the only reason he wanted to do it, then it was meaningless.

Refusing to dwell, I stepped out of the shower after switching off the water. Wrapping myself in a towel, I padded out of the bathroom, thinking that this was it. But Calum only went to his room for fresh clothes before joining me in mine. I was unsure how to feel about this; secretly I was overjoyed, but outwardly I remained stoic. I pulled on a pair of panties and was about to find a shirt when Calum gave me one of his. Avoiding his eyes, I pulled it over my head.

He wore only a pair of sweatpants, and my legs were bare save for the underwear. Tentatively, I slid into bed and pulled the covers tightly over myself. Sensing my trepidation, Calum hesitated before joining me. Naturally, of course, our bodies moved towards each other until I was laying in his arms, curled against his chest and relishing the gentle stroking of his hand on my back.

We must have laid there forever before either of us spoke. I didn’t know if I actually wanted to confront him, or if it was time to distance myself and let him go. But then the sound of his broken voice and the sight of his pain-filled eyes flashed through my brain, and I sighed. I couldn’t let go of Calum if I tried.

Twisting my neck to look at his face, I said softly, “So what are you going to do?” About your dad, I wanted to add, but I knew he understood my meaning. Saying those particular words out loud would’ve hurt even more.

Calum took a deep breath, chest rising underneath my cheek. I curled my fingers around his bicep, worried he was going to flee. But he merely shrugged, eyes staring at some point in the wall.

“Nothing,” came his simple answer. “I don’t want anything to do with them.”

This is what I expected. I didn’t blame Calum for resenting his parents, especially after years of lying to him, but a small part of me still wished he’d see them. It was the part that longed for my own parents, the part that missed them every single day. I would give anything for one last chance to be with them.

“I understand that,” I began slowly, praying Calum wouldn’t react angrily to my suggestion. “You have every right to be mad. But...my parents are dead, and I wish I had one last chance to talk to them. I know it’s hard, but what’s harder is living without them. And it would be nearly impossible to live with yourself if something happened to them and you had turned down an opportunity to make amends.”

While the words hung in the air, I held my breath. This was the only attempt I planned to make in order to sway Calum; if he refused even after hearing this, then I’d give up. Changing his mind was an impossible task.

Calum’s arm tightened around me. A gentle kiss was placed on the top of my head, and I knew this was his way of comforting me. He’d never outwardly give me pity over my dead parents, but gestures like these showed me he was there for me. I nestled deeper into his embrace, drinking in the smell of his skin.

I thought the conversation was over, because a long stretch of time went by. I was on the verge of sleep when Calum’s voice rumbled softly, “Fine.”

Glancing up at him, I knitted my brows in confusion. “Fine?”

His brown eyes were conceding, for once in his life. “I’ll go. But only if you come with me.”

A small gasp left my lips. This was yet another instance of Calum claiming he needed me. I felt a flutter of hope in my chest, the first one in so long. Biting my lip, I ran a nervous hand through my damp hair.

“I don’t know, Calum. They’re your family, and I don’t want to pry or overstep--”

“No,” he stopped me, caressing my face with his hand. I melted into his touch, unraveling under his fingers. “I can’t face them if you’re not there. I need you.”

My heart skipped a beat at the familiar words, but I kept my face neutral. Nodding, I responded, “Okay, I’ll go with you.” Once the words left my lips he pulled me in for a kiss. I happily obliged, savoring the taste I had started to forget over the last three days. His arms were wrapped tightly around me, holding on to me as if for dear life, but he didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t going anywhere.

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bnhaclaimedmysoul · 5 years

Text

how would bakugou katsuki be as a dad?

character: bakugou katsuki

genre: fluff

note: @akadeko requested gremlin boi with a son, so here we are!

-this gremlin would be one of the most excited for the entire journey of raising a child

-when you reveal that you’re pregnant to him

-he’s just speechless

-like words wouldn’t budge out of his mouth no matter how much he tried

-you’d have to snap him out his thoughts by poking his cheek incessantly

-but the moment he finally realized the situation and the fact that you’re going to be having a child with him settled in

-expect a rare emotional moment since the both of you would be trying for so long

-he’ll just pull you into a hug, with no words said and will just proceed to hold you within his arms

-And when you reciprocate the hugs and start to run your hand across his back

- he’ll unexpectedly lift you up in the air and twirl you around

-the sheer happiness couldn’t be removed from his face

-its crazy

-And after a whole day of just smiling and relishing in the happiness that it’s finally happening

-he’ll flop on the bed and will beckon you to come closer to him

-and when you do, he’ll pull you into his embrace and will ask you to put your head on his chest

-and when you were starting ti fall asleep listening to the comforting sound of his pacifying heartbeat

-he’ll run his fingers through the locks of your hair

-And in the softest whisper possible, he’ll ask you whether you want to tell his parents

-And when you agree that the both of you can drop by their house tomorrow for the big reveal

-when the both of you were deciding who was drive to his parents’ house

-an argument erupted

-“ YOU HAVE OUR CHILD INSIDE YOU WHAT FI YOU GET INTO A ROAD ACCIDENT?”

“KATSUKI I’M JUST PREGNANT, I’M NOT GONNA DIE”

-“IT’S MY JOB TO KEEP YOU SAFE SO SHUT THE F UP AND JUST SETTLE DOWN. AND DON’T FORGET TO WEAR THE SEATBELT ”

-And when the both of you just unexpectedly show up

-masaru is just confused as hecc

-mitsuki will pop her head out of the kitchen and her eyes will literally lighten up when she sees you

-she’ll pull you into a tight hug and squeeze the living life out of you

-and when she invites you to the living hall and asks you to take a seat

-you can see tiny sparks flying off katsuki’s hands

-he was sweating so much from nervousness that he was about to lose control of his quirk

-“YOU OLD HAG HOW LONG ARE YOU GONNA TAKE TO COME AND HAVE A CHAT?”

-“KATSUKI CONTROL YOUR DIRTY MOUTH, YOU WERE RAISED IN THIS HOUSE”

-and when you place you palm of his hand, as an attempt to calm him down

-he’d be relaxed within a fraction of a second

-and even before mitsuki could take a seat the gremlin boi blurts it out

-“we’re having a child”

-cue a mitsuki who looks like her brain cells were fried to a crisp

-and in the softest voice possible she asks “what do you mean?”

-masaru is just confused about why was mitsuki’s tone so solemn like

-“I mean it, she’s pregnant and you’re gonna be grandparents”

-and after the big revelation, it’s just a series of laughter form uncontrollable euphoria

-it’s a rare soft moment in the bakugou household

-she practically scares katsuki to life while talking about when she was pregnant with him and aks him to take care of you

-“tch isn’t it obvious that I’ll protect her and our baby with my life?”

-and when that statement comes out of his mouth

-you and his parents are just emotionally overwhelmed as masaru ruffles his hair and mistuki hold your palm in hers and asks you to stay strong for him

-after an emotional day that his parent’s house, bakugou katsuki will always be on his toes

-All. The. Fricking. Time.

-if he hears one groan from, get ready to be bombarded by a million questions and then a long massage after that

-he wouldn’t spare any chance of alleviating your pains

-and when the time finally comes, he’s more excited than his entire family

-he’ll be the one carrying all the necessities and the bag for you and will be eagerly anticipating the delivery

-but the moment his son was in his arms all that buzzing sensation through his veins turns into relief

-a relief that their son is finally here

-the first few weeks are just full of silence, just the sounds of your son randomly crying due to soiled diapers or hunger

-but the moment the cries leave his son’s mouth

-he’s there standing right next to his crib

-with his heart pounding in his chest, wondering what discomfort your child might be going through

-loves babysitting

-“suki I can do this”

-“Honey I WILL DO THIS FOR YOU”

-literally forces you out of the house so that he can spend quality time with his son

-often times, it ends up with the father soothingly rubbing his thumb over his son’s tiny palm

-and adjusting the fleece blanket over his body so that he can sleep without any interruptions

-and when you were about to announce that you returned home after some chores

-he will literally put a finger over his lip and shush you down

-cuz we treasure quality sleep in this household

-he’s just was a fond grin and will look at his son with the heart eyes

-the kid is always. ALWAYS strapped onto him when it’s a family night

-softest bakugou imaginable

-and tummy raspberries

-when your child grows older

-he’s that dad who goes to every single one of their child’s events

-a basketball game? You bet

-an art competition? He’s gonna be so proud when his son wins

-his son wants to learn how to dance? This man is gonna attend every dance recital of his

-saavge clapback when your child is being lazy

-and then will crouch down to tell his son that he’s not mad at him

-and when your child manifests his quirk

-cue a bakugou who will retrieve his phone from his back pocket

-who will dial deku’s number to brag about how his son has a better quirk than his daughter

-honestly, he loves his family a bit too much to the point he becomes aggressively protective about it

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #bakugou headcanons #bakugou scenarios #bakugou fluff #bnha headcanons #bnha scenarios #bnha fluff #here I am after 2 drafts being deleted #tired and ded #lmao #1000 follower special

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jungxk · 5 years

Text

just one (vi)

notes: the only guy on campus who’s track record trumped that of your best friend’s - park jimin - was jeon jungkook. not that that was a problem…until he set his sights on you.

warnings: smut (f recieving), protected sex

genre: drama, romance, humour, college!au

wordcount: 5.3k

part i // part ii // part iii // part iv // part v // part vi // part vii // part viii // part ix // part x

you watch sadly as you tip your case of empty paint tubes into the bin. they were your absolute favourite, a birthday gift from jimin almost two years ago. you had been so careful and stingy with them all this time to preserve as much as possible - at least to get you to the end of the semester - so it was disheartening to have to finally throw them out. oils were always your favourite. still, there wasn't much time for moping; if you were to get your next piece finished by the deadline you better start now because of the drying period between layers of watercolour.

"maybe jungkook has a hairdryer..." you mumble to yourself before padding over to his room. he's sitting at his tiny little work desk with his back to you when you peek over his shoulder. "kook, do you have a hairdryer?"

he points without removing his eyes from the screen. "the bottom drawer over there."

"thanks," you do a double take as you pass him with the appliance in tow, his eyes a little bloodshot and face twisted into what looks like terror. usually you couldn't so much as clean a paintbrush without jungkook all over you while you were at his place, but he barely spoke the whole afternoon. you take a tentative step towards him, because if he was anything like jimin when he's stressed he might get rabid. "you alright?"

"i dunno, am i?" he collapses back into the chair, threading his fingers through his hair which was getting wonderfully long. but the only thing you can pay attention to now are his panicked eyes and jittery knees. "i don't know what the fuck any of these numbers mean! why do i even need this for photography-"

"what is it?" you smooth your hand over his back, muscles stiff.

he deflates under your touch. "i agreed to peers taking questionnaires about my portfolio so far and i fucking regret it, noona. this stats software looks nothing like minecraft. i dont know what this all means. my prof said it'd help with cohesiveness - whatever that means - but he's off on one if he thinks this has done anything other than confuse me and ruin my life."

you try your best to hold back a smile, but jungkook is so cute when he's pouty and frustrated. "okay, well what are your variables?"

"my what? baby, i'm not in the mood right now-"

"no you dipshit, like," you gesture with your hands. "what are the things you're measuring? in the questionnaire?"

jungkook stares at you blankly. "i'm...what?"

you roll your eyes, grabbing the back of his chair to swivel him and plop onto his lap. "let me see."

jungkook has no idea what's going on, both because he doesn't know what you're talking about and also because you're covering the screen so he's spared of having to follow your clicking and tinkering. all he knows is that you fit nicely on his lap and that your bare thighs are warm on his, and it's much easier to focus on that anyway. especially since you aren't wearing underwear. after a few minutes he hooks his chin over your shoulder to at least try to keep up. "what are you doing, noona?"

"just cleaning up your dataset," you mumble. you finally perk up after a few more minutes. "oh, okay! so all you want to know is if the people who like the first half of your portfolio like the second half just as much, and whether that opinion affects the other? like a correlation, right?"

he sits up excitedly. "yeah! yeah, that's it," he stares at your profile in disbelief while you waste no time in running the analyses. "how do you know about this stuff, noona?"

"i did stats in my science major. the software i had back then, now that was a real pain in the ass. but this one isn't so bad," you reply absently while jungkook keeps staring at you like you're an angel that descended from the heavens especially for him. he has yet to believe otherwise. "hmm, you know i think you can skip all the sample level descriptives and cronbach's alpha scores and go straight to pearson's r if all you're looking for is a correlation. what would you prefer?"

he breathes in your hair; coconut, jasmine. his cologne. "you’re so sexy when i don’t understand what you’re saying."

jimin's face twists when he tests the contents of the pan. "can you tell me why this tastes like tae's dirty socks?"

“can you tell me why you know what tae’s dirty socks taste like?” you lean over the counter, swiping a finger over the ladle before bringing it to your mouth. you always used to cook for your family when you were younger, and although you had gone off it after what happened, you didn't mind when it was with jimin. with him, you didn't think about the memories of cutting onions with your father or grinding chillies with your mother and sister. it all felt new again, something that was never tarnished. which is why jimin is the only one you can stand to cook with even if he's unable to make anything but mojitos and a single pasta dish. "not enough garlic."

he squints at his phone while you manoeuvre him out of your way. "but it says two cloves in the recipe?"

"it's never two cloves," you take the knife and start to crush and peel more. "always start with four, maybe five."

"can't we just order takeout?" jimin pouts pathetically. he just washed his hair so its still damp, cheeks a rosy from the bathroom steam. you only wish his long line of hookups could see their ladies man now, bundled up in a powerpuff girls sweater that he stole from you months ago.

"no," you pluck his phone from his hand before he can dial, replacing it with more cloves for him to peel. "you've been having takeout all week! all that oil can't be good for you, what's the point of sweating your tits off in that gym if you're just gonna eat shit?"

"i don't always eat shit!"

"jimin. we share a just eat email account. i know the chinese place isn't sending me customer loyalty codes," he rounds the stool where you're sat in the small place between your back and the wall, his palm skirting behind your waist to move you gently aside. "just let me see you eat a vegetable today, i'm begging. so if you keel over tomorrow from IBS i'll feel less guilty."

"alright alright," he huffs, rubbing at his puffy eyes with his sleeve before picking up the knife again. "i don't see what the big deal is, if i was breaking out then that'd be another issue but my body can clearly handle it. maybe it's like that episode of drake and josh where his body becomes accustomed to all the junk food he eats and-"

"please don't use drake and josh as a marker for your health."

"fine," and then without missing a beat, "but what about kenan and kel? all that orange soda and kel was totally fine. healthy even."

"physically, maybe. but did you see the screw in the tuna episode? don't tell me he didn't have inner demons that may or may not have been increased by an overly processed diet," you pause. "wait, am i the kenan in this friendship?"

"depends. i want to say you're the brains but i've also seen you try to open a can with a fork, so."

"hey! that wasn't my fault!" you exclaim, but jimin ignores you purposely. "taehyung told me you fucked yeri in the kitchen, how was i supposed to know what was and wasn't contaminated?"

"___, the fork was plastic."

"well what else would you have me do, starve?"

"what is this, the fucking famine? you said it yourself, we share a just eat email so the smart thing to do would be order. besides i dunno what makes you think i'd fuck a girl with a can opener in my vicinity anyway-"

"um, you're you," you chastise. "so i rest my case."

"then i'm definitely kenan," jimin laughs when you swat at him before your phone vibrates, one after another until it almost falls off the kitchen counter if you didn't grab it in time. you don't dare to unlock your phone when you see the contact name on the screen, too hyper-aware of jimin eyeing you over the chopping board. even he sees the gist of the messages jungkook sent you.

[jungkook 7:13pm] u left ur shirt here again noona

[jungkook 7:13pm] at this rate ur never gonna get it back are u :)

[jungkook 7:14pm] i'm free all day tomorrow

[jungkook 7:16pm] wanna come over?

[jungkook 7:16pm] i still haven't washed it btw so

[jungkook 7:17pm] we can do laundry together :))

[jungkook 7:18pm] or maybe later tonight ? i can pick u up ?

you don't even get a good read of the messages - all those smiley faces gave you enough of an idea. it wasn't a surprise or anything, but you still switch your phone to do not disturb and leave it face down on the counter like you have something to hide. which you don't. so why did it feel so wrong? so disrespectful, here in jimin's kitchen? you gnaw at your cheek.

jimin has his back to you so thankfully you're spared of having to gage his expression. he's probably sent a million thirsty texts so he knows what they look like, knows that he shouldn't be surprised. still, he shifts from foot to foot uneasily. the only thing that makes him stop is you leaning wordlessly over him to lower the stove to a simmer, turning the tap on to wash some rice and hum quietly. here was jeon jungkook, arguably the biggest stud on campus blowing up your phone on a friday night but nothing felt different. you'd always choose him and jimin knew that.

"what do you think of egg fried rice?" you ask over your shoulder. "i haven't made it in ages. the one with the veggies?"

jimin smiles. "i love that one,"

"he's not back yet?" you ask when yoongi lets you into the flat, shoulders deflating childishly. he gives you a lazy shake of his head before nudging you to the sofa to take up your usual spot on the matted cushion in the corner, kicking your shoes away and sitting cross legged. yoongi and namjoon's flat was only round the corner from jungkook's, a worn down little two-bed that smelled rather questionable at times, but it quickly became a familiar place. a safe place. especially because of how often you'd come over while jungkook was running late at class or the gym or photo-hunting. coming to terms with the fact that you were sleeping with jungkook wasn't that hard, but being friends with his friends was.

"it's leg day. you know how jungkookie feels about his chicken calves," yoongi says before flopping down next to you. namjoon was tucked into the other side with a book, effectively squishing you into yoongi with his big shoulders. if jungkook was here he'd pout about having nowhere to sit and the thought only makes you more pleased. "he'd be there until sundown if you weren't waiting for him."

"are you sure you're one to talk about chicken legs?" you reach to tickle yoongi's knees and he barely manages to flinch away in time.

"i love my chicken legs the way they are, thanks. can't say the same for your boyfriend though."

you freeze. "i told you to stop saying that, yoongi. you know he hates the b word. one more slip up and you won't ever see me here again. last time he avoided me for two weeks!"

"never see you again? doubt it. your hair clogged the shower drain yesterday so you pretty much owe rent at this point," yoongi keeps flicking through the channels on the television. "besides, i know what a man with a monkey on his back looks like. kookie just doesn't like being reminded of it because unfortunately for him there's no rehab to quit you."

a rush of blood goes straight to your cheeks. yoongi loves to tease you and you know that, second only to jungkook who actually does get off to it, but you still tap nervously on the carpet with your toes while desperately hoping for namjoon to step into the conversation with a weird conspiracy theory or black hole fact he read on an astronomy blog. anything to dig you out of this metaphorical hole you and jungkook are hellbent on ignoring. yoongi sees the way you curl in on yourself slightly, a sensible and collected flower like you reduced to a fidgety school girl. it's cute.

"hyung," namjoon says with his eyes still glued to his book. "stop winding her up or her face'll explode and then jiminie will come for your throat."

yoongi scoffs. "and? what's that short-ass gonna do, cry on me to death?"

"you're like two inches taller than him."

"two and a half, actually."

"so he really was a crybaby?" you scoot to fold your legs under you. "jungkook told me before but i didn't believe him! i've tried everything but i can never get a reaction out of jimin...i mean, if horny isn't an emotion."

"oh yeah, totally," namjoon puts an arm on the back on the back of the sofa behind you when he looks up. his silver hair brings out the beautifully rich undertone of his skin and it's difficult not to stare, being so close. "if the patriarchy hadn't fucked him up he'd be a real tree hugger, i'm sure of it. but the last time i saw him cry was...hmm..."

"five years ago," yoongi chimes. "when jungkookie got caught."

"ooooh yeah," namjoon nods. "but jimin and jungkook were super close back then. he was so protective of him, waited in the custody office for hours until they finally-"

"wait," you look between them. "caught? what do you mean?"

the boys exchange a glance between them. it's not like you didn't know that yoongi sells weed and often with namjoon's help. in fact, they often told you about their wild stories and close calls. but they had never mentioned jungkook being involved with any of that stuff, and neither had he. you always just assumed that he'd kept his head out of it, being a college student and all but yoongi's shrugging and namjoon's pursed lips tell you otherwise.

"jungkook got charged with possession as a minor," yoongi says. "i mean, seventeen but still. too baby-faced."

"jungkook sold for you?" you repeat, not quite believing your ears. he had always been the better off out of his friends that often did shadier things, but the more you got to know him the more you felt like the jungkook you heard about and the jungkook you knew were two different boys. it really shouldn't have come as a surprise, since he had practically grown up with yoongi, namjoon and jimin. his hyungs were his family and he'd do anything for them, there was really no reason he wouldn't take up their trade.

"oh yeah, almost a year. he was good at it too," namjoon laughs. "our kookie's good at everything if you give him enough chances."

"so what happened?" you press. "does he...does he still sell?"

"are you kidding? we got him out of all that shit the second he stepped out the office," yoongi rubs the back of his neck. "jungkook isn't like us. he's a good kid with a lot of talent and he didn't need to be doing all that you know? we convinced him to go to school instead but even then, jimin made us swear to look out for him because he left earlier than kookie."

"wow, jimin really hasn't changed," you lean back. "in like, taking care of people i mean. so is that when jungkook got into photography? he did talk about getting his first camera when he was like eighteen or something..."

namjoon nods happily in recollection. "yup! we were so proud when jungkook got accepted into university, especially after jimin and hobi. people from our town don't usually pursue higher education-"

"especially with kookie's record," yoongi laughs.

"why?" you blink at him.

"the weed was one thing, but jungkook also got a strike for violence."

namjoon winces. "hyung, he's gonna throw a tantrum if you tell her..."

"i don't care. she's fucking him, she has a right to know," yoongi retorts evenly, dark eyes swivelling to meet yours. his light hair is matted from under his beanie, barely missing his lashes. "a few years ago jungkook beat a guy so bad he had to go into emergency. it was pretty gross. broken nose, missing teeth, you name it. he's been on thin ice since but he doesn't act like it."

you take a second to digest the information. "do you...do you know why?" you waver, unable to keep the horror from your voice. "knocking a guy's teeth out? people don't just do that!"

"kookie did," namjoon sighs.

"but why? it's so...i just can't imagine jungkook doing something like that..."

"something like what?"

your head snaps to the doorway where jungkook can be seen only partially when he bends over to unlace his shoes, namjoon and yoongi simultaneously pinching your legs to wipe the wide-eyed look off your face. it was one of the many times when wearing your heart on your sleeve did not do you any favours. you just about manage to look normal enough within the half a second it takes for jungkook to come in, hair mussed from his post-gym shower and tee wrinkled from being stuffed into the bottom of his bag. his eyes look extra big today, nose and knuckles blushed pink from all the lifting. he couldn't look farther from the violent offender yoongi and namjoon described. in fact, the sudden urge to kiss him hello was near suffocating.

"i was telling her about the time you wore hyung's underwear for two weeks," namjoon explains, years of lying paying off with how smoothly he returns to his book.

"what!" yoongi splutters. "are you kidding?! a whole week, jungkook that's disgusting-"

the younger boy winces. "not the same pair!"

"wait. you took more than one?!"

"um..."

"how many. tell me right now you little shit."

"i promise they were clean!" jungkook says defensively, but his buck teeth show in a defensive little grin. it's impossible to be mad at him. "my washing machine broke, remember? and i never have change so i didn't go to the laundrette's and-"

"which ones?" yoongi's voice becomes obnoxiously loud with dismay. "tell me right now so can go upstairs and burn them. jesus jungkook you could have at least asked me, now i have to live with the knowledge that your bollocks is acquainted with mine until i die-"

"hyung they were clean," jungkook insists. "and if i asked i knew you wouldn't have let me borrow them!"

"yeah because it's gross! why didn't you just take joonie's?"

"i did. but he caught me and told me to take yours instead."

you just about manage to insert yourself between yoongi before he can grab a fistful of namjoon's hair while jungkook throws back his head in a loud cackle.

[jimin 7:58pm] you dont mind do u?

it's hard not to roll your eyes at his message, momentarily leaving your phone on the bed while you unclasp your bra. it wasn't the first time jimin had bailed on you last minute because of some girl he'd picked up for longer than expected. you're just thankful that this time he had the courtesy to tell you before you got to his house and burst into his bedroom without knocking only to see areas of your best friend you really did not need to see. even though you shudder at the memories - yes, plural - the sinking feeling of disappointment can't be masked. it's movie night.

[you 8:01pm] yh its fine

[you 8:02pm] but u owe me one i put on a bra for you asshole

[jimin 8:04pm] ofc babe

[jimin 8:04] just skip it next time :)

you snort before locking your phone and throwing it on the bed, padding over the room in your knickers to select some sleeping shorts off the floor. jisoo went home for a family birthday and seulgi had a deadline for monday, so it was safe to say you were alone for the weekend. you were used to being alone but you didn't like it; it was the reason why you'd always trudge to jimin's if the girls weren't home or even yoongi and namjoon's, even if it was just to take a nap on their sofa. you needed the noise, the background bickering. that's why there's only so much paint brush washing and kitchen cleaning you can do before reaching for your phone and messaging jungkook.

or at least that's what you tell yourself when he's in your bed within the hour, head resting on your stomach and his leg thrown over your ankles. you trace along the tattoo on his bicep closest to you, admiring the cohesiveness and line placement while jungkook dozes off, like he often does after sex. he's had a long week so you let him sleep, hair sticking up and mouth open like a toddler, so impossibly cute you can't help combing through his nape. jungkook doesn't often spend the night at yours so this was a rarity, and you had to admit he did look a little out of place in your tiny little room. he was far too big for your bed, one foot already hanging off, clothes and jacket hurled into the corner with only cheap fairy lights to rely on so you don't go tripping over his shoes at the door.

you could draw him like this. jungkook's eyelashes are short and pin-straight, eyebrows angled and distinctive. quick, sharp pencil strokes. he's got the faintest shadow above his top lip from where didn't have time to shave today. you'd use charcoal for his hair, black with a slight wave. a swooping curve for his nose, a more gentle line for his jaw. he looks harmless like this: not at all resembling the boy yoongi described.

"why are you so quiet, noona?" he grumbles into the duvet, eyes still closed. "you should be snoring my ears off by now."

you pout. "i'm too busy wondering how i'm gonna get your river of drool out of my pillow."

he snorts. "throw your sheets in on a fast cycle and voila."

"what fast cycle? i just press every button on the machine until it starts."

he opens his eyes. "you're an animal."

you laugh, tugging on the roots of his hair where your hand is still nestled inside. "how do you know so much about washing machines anyway?"

"my mum worked a lot growing up," jungkook yawns. "hyung did the cooking and i did the laundry."

you freeze. "you have a brother?"

"i swear i told you that," he scoots across your stomach, taking the pillow with him to position it over your hip so he can look at you properly. his eyes look glassy in the lights, lids hooded and hair pushed back. a real dreamboat wrapped in a hello kitty duvet. "two years older, same as jimin."

"no wonder jimin cares about you so much," you keep playing with his hair, watching his eyes droop closed. "he may as well be your brother." jungkook hums in reply, growing more and more drowsy from all the petting. "so...how come your mum worked so much?"

his eyes open to look at you, hesitating. "dad left when we were young. she didn't really have a choice."

"i didn't know that jungkook..." you pause. "that must have been hard."

he rolls to face the ceiling, like he's thinking twice before he answers. "not really. eomma's a badass, there's nothing she can't handle. yeah money and stuff wasn't easy, and it sucked when i was younger and didn't understand why hyung and eomma were so upset after what happened, but it's whatever. the three of us are so good together, you know? i like it like this."

you nod. because you do know. or, did. you wonder now if that's the reason jungkook got involved with yoongi and namjoon in the first place, to help out his family, but even you know some questions are better left unasked. instead, you chip away at jungkook while you can, since you know barely anything about him beyond student life and his friends. who knows when he would be in the mood to open up again. "so what does your brother do?"

"an accountant. for some fancy law firm in the city," he smiles. "hyung is super smart. like you."

you laugh. "you know i didn't finish my first major, right?"

"by choice. not because you weren't capable," he finishes, and to that you have no choice but to shut up. no one had ever put it that way before. "he's super quiet like you too, keeps to himself. gives really good advice. oh my god, and his kimchi pork stew - amazing!" his teeth gleam take up his whole mouth when he smiles, lines creasing around his eyes. "so many times when me and mum would argue, hyung was the reason why we'd stop. guess i got her temper."

you watch him closely. "you argued often?"

"at one point, yeah. not because we didn't like each other or anything, just..." you can see him hesitating again, cheek sucked in from where he chews it while staring up at the ceiling as if the memories are playing back at him on a projector. you keep quiet, let him get there on his own. "mum went through a phase where she dated a lot. felt bad that neither of us had a father figure and all that bullshit. she brought home some real dickheads, some top tier cunts i'm telling you. and i...wasn't exactly nice to them. ever since then i just hate seeing girls be pushed around by assholes, you know? it does something to me, i dunno. here," he lays a hand over his stomach. "i can't just watch. i can't. it's like i'm gonna be sick."

it's hard not to cry listening to him, seeing the lines in his forehead appear along with the crinkle above his nose. it made sense now, what yoongi told you about before. thinking back to the whole escapade with jinyoung in your kitchen, the whole thing hit you differently.

jungkook was exactly the kind of boy your old family would have frowned upon, reckless and thoughtless and emotionally-driven in the face of adversity. absolutely everything you were taught not to be. but you admired him for those very reasons. before you can start crying you sit up, silencing jungkook with a kiss before he can ask you what's wrong. it's firm and deliberate, your hands holding both his cheeks. he's breathless. "you seriously fucking worry me, slick."

"oh?" his eyes stay focused on your lips while he moves to you, positions you underneath him on the foot of the bed, pulling your thighs around his hips so you gasp at the feel of his semi on your soft inner thigh. he dips his head to kiss along your sternum, hand ghosting over your breasts before closing his mouth around your nipple.

"i nev-never know what you're gonna do next," you exhale shakily, arching into him involuntarily at the sensation. jungkook takes the opportunity to rub the pads of his fingers against your cunt, using the remnants of your arousal to help you along. sure enough you accept his fingers greedily, but he takes his time in stretching you out and easing in further, further.

his thumb gently passes over your clit and you shake. "never? not even now?"

you have to forcibly yank his face away from your tits to kiss him, slowly and with passion. his skin grows damp under your hands, muscles rippling under your touch from where he holds himself up on his forearms. he likes feeling the softness of your tummy against his, your thick thighs cushioning him snugly against you. just like always, it's torture having to pull away from you for a brief second to grab a condom, but the familiar chuckle you breathe out to see him speed back into your arms almost makes it worth it. you take the packet from him, about to tear it open before he grabs your hand with a cheeky smile. "in a minute."

before you can question him about it you yelp he tugs you by the hips, sliding up to angle your ass so your knees have no choice but to hook over his shoulders. jungkook's arms wind around the top of your thighs, thick and secure, nails scraping gently through your coarse curls before he pulls your legs apart as wide as they'll go and lowers his mouth onto you. the noise you make is just as embarrassing as always, so loud and uncontrollable, hysterical even. you've gotten used to being jungkook's fourth, fifth and sixth meal of the day but he steals your breath away every time, leaves you squirming and trembling and this instance was no exception. today he was feeling indulgent so he eats you out messily, makes sure he's loud enough for you hear every squelch and slurp. you physically shake when he sucks a gently kiss to your clit, proud of yourself for not screaming. jungkook, however, isn't happy about that and keeps sucking until you do. harder, harder, and then filling you up with his fingers so you have something to clench around when you cum all over him in a rush.

your back is still off the bed when he reaches your eye level again, the family sound of the foil wrapper ripping from the condom packet making you lift your head up to look at him. he's already rolling it down his length when he peer downwards, and even though you only get a glimpse of his blushing head he's sticky and hot with pre-cum. you wiggle in anticipation and jungkook laughs at your cuteness before leaning back down, taking your hands in his for a change. he can see the appeal, interlocking your fingers with his palms against yours and using only his hips as leverage to push into your sopping center, letting you move against him so he's lodged in as deep as he can fit before he starts rocking into you.

your moans are his favourite song, maybe that's why he wants to listen to them all day. he'd like to make you cum again but it's difficult for him once his hips start stuttering uncontrollably, no matter how much he tries to slow his pace. you let go of his hands then to take his face, his eyes closed when he feels you press your smooth lips to his cheekbone; an encouraging kiss. a go on, i want you to kiss. the moan he let's out before giving in is fragile and wispy, nose digging into your neck while he ruts against you to his end. you clench around him harder just to hear jungkook whimper again, pliant and weak in your arms. all of a sudden, out of nowhere you wish you could feel the rush of his cream spilling from you when he pulls out to discard the condom. he nestles back into your breasts afterwards, smelling himself on your skin.

jungkook falls asleep smiling.

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