#like the movie itself is like. mid. i guess. its. fine. sure. okay

[alfamangle]

Y'know that like genre post reminded me of this one video i watched where they talked about how they generally disliked the zombie genre because it always is incredibly bleak and always shitting on humanity and pigeonholes itself into just being depressing. Which i guess is a fair critisism of some of the genre and some of the popular examples, I guess. But thats not... all of them? Some of them are really damn hopeful. Humanity can be beautiful actually and and sometimes you need a story about an apocolyptic scenario that forcibly takes the humanity from people to do it. I love zombie media so much u give me so many nightmares girliepop but its so fucking worth it. Not every zombie story is the walking dead. take my hand. lets watch zombie movies together. and books. did you know there's some really damn good zombie books-

[johnkrrasinski]

burning desire;

full masterlist

Pairings: Ari Levinson x reader x August Walker 

Word count: 2,779

Warning: SMUT!!!! familial sex (step-uncle & niece), threesome, dirty talk, mentions of alcohol. 

Summary: your step-uncle, ari levinson, brought a friend, august walker to his house one night during you stayover and things heated up real fast. 

a/n: this idea popped into my head out of nowhere and i just had to write it immediately. (my other wips are sobbing so hard right now) enjoy! please leave a comment & like. 

The mid-August air feels clammy on your skin, and the daylight glared brightly into your eyes, but thank the heavens that you were clad in nothing but your pastel pink bikini and your eyes were protected by your heart-shaped sunglasses. you always loved basking in the sun in uncle Ari's pool in his massive backyard. Your parents were currently out of town for business matters, as they always were and when they were away, you always stayed at uncle Ari's place.

His place was only thirty minutes away from your parents' house and you always loved coming over to his house. What's not to love? The fact that it was just as huge as your parents', designed grandiosely and located in a secluded area made you wish you could just move here. Not that your parents' was any less palatial but- okay, honestly, your parents' house was just as fancy and you were the princess ruling your little castle, so what was really the reason that you wanted to move here so badly?

If you're being honest to yourself, it was because of your ridiculously good-looking uncle. Seriously, the man had no right to be that attractive at that age. He was nearing his 40's and he could still make every woman in his path weak on the knees. His cerulean blue eyes, the thick beard and those ripped muscles never ceased to make a particular part of your body tingle when he is nearby. It wasn't helping either that he'd touch you so close to the part where you wanted him the most when you two were alone, or that he would speak in a really low tone by your ear, causing you to shiver. And you definitely didn't miss those flirty glances when he thought you weren't watching or when you were dressed in something a tad provocative.

It was as if you were playing a secret cat and mouse game that you were both aware of and you both kept playing but no one dared to admit to partake in it or put it to an end by making a move. The tension in the dining table when your parents invited him to come over for dinner or when it was just the two of you watching a film on the couch and you would lift your legs and fold them so your bare thighs would be displayed for him (which you would pretend you weren't aware of its effect on him.)

You were lost in your daydreams of him tearing that bikini off your body and fucking you rough in this pool as the water splattered around you when you heard his voice.

"Enjoying yourself?" his smirk was smug as if he could see the pornographic movie that was playing in your head.

"Uncle! give a girl a warning, will you?" you tried to maintain your composure, not wanting to show him the wet stain in your thong.

He walked closer to you and crouched down to your level. "Didn't wanna disturb you, you looked so relaxed, I thought I'd give you a few more minutes." Was he watching you? How long had he been standing there? "I got a friend coming over tonight, to watch the game. Just wanted to let you know."

"it's your house uncle, you don't need my permissions to have a friend come over." You chuckled.

"I wasn't asking for permission sweetheart, I was just informing you so you wouldn't be startled to see a stranger in the living room," he stood back up. "I got some errands to run. I'll see you tonight." you scoffed. Curt and enigmatic as always.

You were lounging in the room that Ari specifically spared for you. There were six bedrooms in his house alone and five of them were empty. He figured you must have your own personal space every time you visited. You walked to the kitchen to grab some snacks when you were stopped by Ari’s voice calling your name.

“C’mere, say hi to my friend, August.”

The sight of the man sitting on the couch next to your uncle stopped you in your tracks. My God, he looked like a Greek god. His sleek black hair was combed to the side and moustaches weren’t your thing but damn, he rocked it so well. His blue eyes took your breath away as he smiled at you and shook your hand.

“Oh, so you’re the friend uncle told me about.”

“Well, your uncle here doesn't have that many friends so I might be the only friend of his you’ll ever hear.” oh, the things his voice is making you feel…

You chuckled, “well, I don’t wanna be a bother. You guys are watching the game, right? I was about to grab some-”

“No, of course not. Come, sit. We can all enjoy the game together, right?” He took a sip of his beer.

“I’m not really into-”

“We insist.” His tone left no room for argument.

“…okay, I guess.” August and Ari made a room on the couch for you so you sat between them. To say you were nervous was an understatement. A million scenarios were going through your head right now. The image of being sandwiched between these two bulky men with your clothes off was making you uneasy. You were only wearing a big loose shirt that barely reached your mid-thighs. You weren’t wearing any undergarments except a black lace thong because it was summer and petit clothing items were all you packed. (Not like you were trying to impress a certain person, not at all.)

“You want one?” August offered you a drink. “Yeah, sure.” You were an adult now so what’s the harm in one? Your parents were thousands of miles away and it wasn’t like you had to worry about dealing with the hangover in the morning.

August put his arm on the headrest, behind your head and it made your breath hitch. You put your leg over the other to cover the arousal growing in your extremely minimum underwear. Ari took a sip of his beer and then spread his legs and the side of his thigh graze yours and you were growing hotter every second. It was as if they could sense your arousal and fooled around to rile you. You had to take control over your breathing but it was getting more challenging every passing minute.

“So, y/n, what are your plans for college?” August broke the silence.

“I actually am in college. I’m currently in my second year and I always come home during summer.”

“Oh, you certainly don’t look like any older than nineteen. My bad.”

“It’s alright, uncle.”

“August is fine.” He was watching you intently as if he was paying attention to every detail on your face. What was he looking for?

“What are you studying?”

“I’m in fashion design.”

“Suits you.” He winked, retreating his arm from the headrest, to open another bottle of beer.

August asked you several questions about yourself and you answered every single one. After a couple more bottles and the soothing sound of the TV, you found yourself getting drowsy. It felt nice being in the presence of these two beautiful men so you let yourself drift away. You didn’t realize that you had fallen asleep on Ari’s shoulder. When Ari called your name in a low voice and you didn’t open your eyes, Ari and August looked at each other and were ready to execute their plan.

Little did you know Ari had been talking about you to August for months. Who was he kidding? Of course, Ari was attracted to you. You were hot, young and promiscuous. Also, something about the fact that you were his brother's stepdaughter turned him on even more. He and August had been friends since college and they shared a lot of things ever since. They had many hookups with women whom they shared with. They were also business partners of a company that had bestowed them a lot of fortune. Hence Ari’s swanky place and the fact that he stayed single throughout all these years. He was never the ‘settle down’ type. He never told you about his business partner, you only knew that he existed, you just didn’t know his identity.

August sniffed your scent on your open neck, and the vanilla smell turned him on. He began to spread your legs and caressed your thigh until he reached your underwear. He chuckled when he felt the delicate material on his fingers, “she’s practically begging for us to fuck her brains out on this couch.”

“You should see what she wears every day in this house, it’s like she wants me to pounce on her,” Ari replied.

“She’s soaked. She should’ve just asked, we would’ve obliged immediately.” August rubbed you in circular motions through your thong and when he felt you growing wetter, he pushed your panties to the side and inserted two fingers into your entrance.

You gasped in your slumber, feeling something scissoring you open but your head was too fuzzy to figure out what was happening. August curled his fingers and stroked your G-spot and your breathing became ragged. You began to stir and mumbled under your breath. Your brows furrowed and when August’s fingers moved faster in and out of you and Ari began fondling your breasts through your thin shirt, your opened your eyes.

“Uncle Ari…”

“Shh, just sit back and enjoy, sweetheart. We’re gonna make you feel good.” He whispered sultrily in your ear. You whimpered when August’s thumb circled your clit, causing your head to spin. “God, you’re so hot. I’ve been waiting to put my dick into this tight pussy for months now.” August whispered in your other ear.

Your hand went into August’s wrist, needing to hold onto something. You knew this was wrong, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to tell them to stop or get up and run to your room. Ari’s hand went to your jaw to turn your head to him and kissed you with fervently. He licked your bottom lip and you made room for his tongue to tangle itself with yours. You were making out on the couch with your uncle as his friend had his knuckles buried deep in you.

You felt your muscles tightening and then the dam broke, making a mess all over August’s fingers. He watched your expression as you hit your peak. The image of you losing your mind sent electricity right to their cocks and they were eager for more now. They couldn’t wait to see the face you were going to make when they gave you a bigger one.

You thought they would at least give you a few seconds of repose after the onslaught but you should’ve known better. You knew that Ari was a hustler when it comes to what his heart desired. And now, his body yearned for you and he didn’t waste any time in undressing you from the scanty garments you had on.

August sucked on the sensitive spot of your neck, leaving little love bites here and there before biting the spot where he wanted to mark you. You bit your lip at the thought of parading around Ari’s house with those sensual bruises reminding of the sinful act the three of you committed last night. You didn’t think as far as how you were going to act around Ari now after tonight but you were surely hoping that this wasn’t a one-time thing.  

Ari was still possessing your mouth with his, his plump lips felt soft on yours and they tasted even better than your fantasy. Ari pulled his lips away from yours and looked at his partner, “should we do doggy or missionary?” Ari asked as if you weren’t there at all.

“Missionary, I wanna see those tits bounce,” he smirked against your skin.

“Fuck yeah,” Ari keened.

They began stripping and you couldn’t help but watch. My God, they were sculpted to perfection by the hands of God themselves. The sweat on their skin made them glow from the ray of the TV. They pulled down their pants and their massive cocks sprung free and you could’ve come right there. Their packages were impressive, would they even fit inside you? You were drooling at the sight and you needed them to fill you up right now or you were going to explode.

“Lay back,” Ari commanded.

You did as he said and folded your legs to make room for Ari. The couch was large enough to fit two more people in here but you needed them as close as possible. Ari knelt on the couch and August was above your head. They both began stroking themselves as they kept their eyes on your naked body. Ari was staring at your drenched pussy and August imagined spurting all over your breasts.

“Open your lips, little girl.” You obliged and August pushed the tip of his cock into your lips and he pushed deeper until the tip hit the back of your throat. You looked up at him staring down at you with a predatory look. Ari pushed his cock into your entrance and your tight walls welcomed him with open arms causing him to throw his head back and groaned.

Ari had his hands on your thighs to keep them apart and he began pulling out until only the tip was left in you and pushed back vigorously like he was trying to invade your body. August began moving at the same pace, and he groped your breasts, pinching the nipples. The sting elicited a moan out of you, causing a delightful vibration flowing in his bones.

“Fuck, you’re as tight as I imagined,” Ari grunted. Your warmth wrapped his girth and he pounded into you as your breasts jiggled from the rough pounding. He lifted your legs onto his shoulders so he could delve deeper. He impaled the spot that made you forget your name and you clenched around him. The squelching noises that your pussy made blended with his pre-cum were lewd.

August grunted as you took him in your mouth as much as you could. You struggled to control your breathing with Ari ramming into you mercilessly and August’s size intruding your throat but you were getting off on it. You felt every inch of them inside you, the velvety skin and the raw taste were intoxicating. You hollowed your cheeks and let August use you. Let them both use you like a rag doll.

Soon, you were both moving in sync as the couch squeaked due to the impetuous action happening on it. Ari accelerated, chasing his own orgasm and you pulsated. The familiar pressure forming once more, ready to burst any second now. His cock throbbed and you tightened around him. A few more deep-seated thrusts and he came undone, painting your walls with his hot cum and filling you up so well.

You fell apart beneath him as well, moaning in ecstasy around August. If you weren’t muffled by his cock, you would’ve screamed so loud. You trembled and your legs shook. He pulled out of you and watched his juices leak out of you. The soreness between your thighs was pleasant and you were completely spent from Ari alone but you were definitely satisfied. If only your parents could see the blasphemous act you and your uncle had just committed. And you weren’t even finished yet.

August chased his own climax as well, needing to release the tension in his muscles. Profanities fell from his lips as he released on your tongue and you swallowed every drop of him. You were a sweet tooth but his salty taste had you addicted. You whimpered and panted on the couch, hoping that one of them would give you a warm bath to clean you up and bring you to your comfortable bed and wrap you in your blanket but then,

“We’re not done yet, princess.” August and Ari switched places and now August was kneeling between your legs while Ari was above your head. God, you were so worn out, you didn’t know if you had any more energy left in you to take them again. “You’re all ours tonight. And we’re gonna keep playing with until we’re satisfied. And trust me, we are far from being satisfied.” August whispered huskily in your ear as his raging hard cock penetrated you and Ari pushed himself through your opening lips and you could taste yourself on every inch of him.

Looks like it was going to be a long night.

[heyheyloki]

Desperate

Summary: The reader gets shot and argues with Reid.

Spencer Reid x M!Reader

Word Count: 2508

requested by @fivecoffe​

It was supposed to be like any other case. Catch the killer, everyone makes it out, go home. That’s how it was supposed to go. You only wanted to help. You only wanted to make sure he didn’t get hurt. 

It was a normal day. A normal case. A normal killer that needed to be caught. While nothing about a killing is normal in itself, it was normal to you, it was normal to your team. After working for the BAU, at some point, you just become used to these people. Sure, you don’t get used to the murder scene pictures, that you’ll never get used to. The people that commit these crimes? They rarely spook you as much as they did in the beginning, when you started this profession. 

This guy was no different. He was just another killer, another guy that you had the opportunity to put behind bars were he belonged. But for the first time in a while, he actually got the jump on you. He scared you. Not so much during the entire case, just more at the end. You swear. you were only trying to help, to protect what you hold dear. Isn’t that what anyone in your position would do?

Your team and you stood outside of the house the unsub broke into, his body standing only feet in front of everyone with a woman against his body, an arm wrapped around her neck to keep her in place with a gun to her head. She wept, tears staining her cheeks as she prayed for the FBI to do something. Anything.

You stood between Hotchner and Reid, all of your with your guns drawn and pointed at the man before you. He was like you all predicted in your profiles. White, mid-30s, of average height and build. A normal looking guy you wouldn’t even think twice about on the street, and yet not one that would make your eyes want a second look at him with attraction.

“Put the gun down and let the woman go!” Derek screamed as he used the car door as a shield. His eyes narrowed with fury.

“If I do that you’ll all just kill me anyway!” He cried out as he pulled back the safety on the gun, everyone tensing up at the small click that made way through their ears louder than any gunshot.

“Hey, hey!” Reid suddenly began to yell, his voice quickly making your eyes start to flicker between the two men. Only started to flash with concern as Reid started to put his gun back in his holster as he said, “You don’t have to do that, okay? We aren’t going to kill you, I promise.” 

“Reid,” you called out lowly, your voice stern and demanding. 

He glanced over at you, nodding as a way to tell you that it’ll be okay. In your mind though, something was wrong. It was like all this heavy disgust from over the years, all the repressed fear came swelling up. It was suffocating, almost killing you when he started to move around the car doors. No cover. His hands up in the air as he started to approach the man.

You didn’t know what to do, sure, Reid was great at his job. You admired that about him. But this was a paranoid, frantic killer who had a gun aimed at the woman’s head, and Reid had nothing. He could shoot her and him within seconds and it would be too late. That ‘what if’ ran in your mind what felt like a million times in mere seconds, your body moving on its own as it went against your minds screaming to stop. This was wrong. It’ll get him hurt. It’ll get her killed. 

You didn’t listen. Instead you did what any emotion driven person did and started to approach the man slowly with Reid as your cover from his line of sight. You were only trying to help. Help. That’s it. That’s all you wanted to do. 

One. Two. Three. Three steps was all it took. Three simple steps and his eyes locked with yours. A certain type of fear coursed through your veins at the look on his face. It was distorted, crude. It was vulgar and something that felt like it only existed within a horror movie. But the main thing, besides anger, was this type of betrayal that didn’t quite make sense to you. The only thing running through your mind was Reid when you saw the gun the killer held moved from the woman’s head and point right between your friend’s eyes. It was quick, but yet it was almost the most long lasting moment in your life. It felt like some higher being was laughing at you, mocking you with having this video so engrained in your mind to the point where you could hear every breath that was taken. Count every blink the killer made.

You believed that, but you also believed another being was being kind to you. Forgiving you for whatever sins you may have committed in your past and allowing you to hold onto the only thing that actually matters in your life. Him.

A simple twitch of the fingers, the mute sound of footsteps, and gunshots began to invade your sense of hearing. It was like a strike of lightning in a way. Quick, loud, and yet deadly if aimed right. 

There was a moment of silence, silence as everyone started to recollect their thoughts. Understand what just happened. Understand surroundings. Understand the actions of the others around them. If one didn’t shoot, they wonder who did. If one did shoot, they wondered if the target was dead. 

Personally, neither of those descriptions fit you quite right. Yes, you did look to see if the killer was taken out, but you didn’t shoot a thing. Yes, you watched as something started to register in the killer’s eyes. It wasn’t pain, that hadn’t come yet, but it was shock. His chest leapt backwards, his hands almost shaking as he looked down with wide eyes and an open mouth at the four bullet wounds in his chest. It was only mere seconds later that his knees gave out on him before his body hit the ground with an unpleasant thud. The woman quickly running over to the federal agents and cops on the other side.

A deep sigh of relief left your lips. It felt like you had accessed some sort of euphoric moment, especially when you noticed Reid on the ground besides you, like he had been pushed. Though, that look on his face confused you greatly. It was like everything he feared was just threw in his face, like he was experiencing his worst nightmare. As your eyes furrowed, everything started to flood right back. Your hearing came back full circle, the sirens blasted loud in your ear drums, calls from your teammates louder than ever, and the cries of a woman still present like before. In the moment, everything seemed more than normal. That was until something jolted up your nerves again, like a jump start to the battery of a car. It was quick and made a low hissing noise come from deep within your throat. Quickly, you gazed down towards your arm only to noticed the bullet wound that leaked out blood from your upper arm.

You knew it wasn’t going to kill you, but damn did it hurt like hell. You didn’t have much time to think. As soon as you knew it a hand was placed against your back gently. When you turned you noticed Rossi besides you with a look of worry yet care. 

“Let’s get you patched up, son.” He said calmly, his voice smooth against the rest of the loud, blaring noises that entered your ears.

You only nodded in response before heading over to the ambulance, the medics quick to patch you up the best they could before heading the hospital to fully take care of the wound. Your stay wasn’t long since the bullet had an exit wound, but it sucked when they kept poking and prying at you. 

When you got home you felt relieved, thankful that you had a quite heaven to return to. The first thing you did was grab a bottle of hard liquor to held with the pain as the meds started to leave your system. You thought maybe you’d have a night to yourself since Hotchner wasn’t allowing you back to work for the next few days. Just until you had no pain when moving your arm. 

You started to prepare some food for yourself. The usual junk food anyone would eat at a movie marathon. Popcorn, chips, pretzels. They all were neatly laid out on the counter next to your couch. You were at some sort of level of peace, only sinking more into a relaxing state of mind before several patterned, rhythmic knocks came at your door. You paused, making sure you didn’t just imagine it before letting out a sigh, wondering who it could be as you approached the door. When you opened it though, you felt your breathing stop. Your heart skip a small beat before going back to its normal behavior as you stared at Spencer who stood outside your door.

“Hey,” he said as he pressed both his lips together. His body rocking on his heels for a moment before asking, “may I come in?”

You leaned your body against your door, your arms completely exposed thanks to the black tank-top your wore with a simple pair of black sweatpants. Your bandaged arm limp at your side. 

“Why? Shouldn’t you be home?” You asked in a stern tone, your mind racing to why you were so aggressive. You swear you didn’t mean to be. You never wanted to be like this towards him, ever.

“I should.” Spence agreed. “But, we need to talk.”

You stared at him for a moment before opening the door wider and slipping to the side. You watched Spencer carefully as he moved from the outside into your home before shutting the door behind him. When done, you rested your back against the front door, your observing eyes keeping on Spence. 

“How’s your arm?” He asked softly, and yet as gentle as it was something was boiling under it that made your stomach begin to twist.

“It’s fine, hurts a bit, but I did get shot.” You said nonchalantly. You truly didn’t think your words would make him explode, but you just guessed he planned to do it anyway as soon as he knocked on your door.

In a sudden and swift moment, he turned, his lean body nearly cutting the air in two as a small hiss was heard. When he looked you in the eyes, you cautiously began to straighten your back against the door frame. You held your head up, your nose rising hiring then before. Something distorted in those chestnut orbs of his, something that didn’t quite sit with you right. You knew you were in for it, you just thought it would be Hotch instead of him.

“Do you know how stupid that was?” He asked as he leaded in his head to the side, his brows beginning to furrow in pure rage. “I had it under control. I had it. Why couldn’t you just trust me on that?”

“Trust you?” You questioned in a sour tone. You leaned your body off the door, your chest puffing up for a moment as you took a step forward. “Every time you get the chance you end up in the middle of cross-fire. How was I supposed to know for sure that you would be okay? Huh? For I know if I didn’t do what I did you could have been hurt, at worst, killed right there in the street like a dog!”

Spence’s teeth began to grind against one another. “And what? Get yourself killed in the process? You were lucky, that’s it. Any further and you could be dead because of me!”

“So what? You want me to tell you that I’m sorry?” You questioned taking another step forward. Close enough now to pull him into a hug. “Cause I’m not. I’m not sorry.”

“You’re so infuriating!” Spence yelled.

“You just figured that out?” You asked, cocking a brow up as you watched Spencer’s brows narrow on you. When he didn’t respond to your smug comment, you sighed. Lowering your head as you started to move past him. “If you wanna stay you can, but I’m not talking about this anymore. It’s over and done with, so leave it alone.”

Just when you started to pass Reid, thinking this was over and done with, a tight grip was at your wrist. It stopped you dead in your tracks, turning your head to him with a deadly look that would normally cut him down. Today though, it didn’t work and instead the look that mirrored your own made you feel weak at the knees. He was dead serious.

“Do you even trust me?” He asked lowly. His tone laced with something that made your trigger happy fingers twitch, especially when you felt his hand grip even tighter, almost like he was using your wrist as a stress ball. 

“I do.” You said. It was plain, without a tease nor a substance of sarcasm. You didn’t have to even think twice about the question.

“Than why did you do that?” Reid asked gently, his voice glimmering with great confusion as he tried to read you. Profile you.

Without a second though you said, “Because I’m selfish when it comes to you.”

“What?” He asked, eyes moving all over the place. “I don’t understand.”

You gave a dry chuckle. “For a genius, you’re pretty stupid at times.”

Spencer didn’t speak. His mouth hung open a bit, but no words came out. Instead he gave you this look that made you justify every action you made earlier even more. You had no guilt anymore. You had no second thoughts. In the end, nothing else mattered but making sure he was alive and well, but perhaps just the distorted view of him kicking into your brain. The irregular and slamming pattern of your heart aiding in the distortion.

And maybe in that moment he saw through you for once, maybe you let the persona you always put on slip. Maybe he managed to slip through the small crack in your mask and saw the infatuation you held for genius in front of you. Either way, before you even had time to register his movements you felt his breath graze over your cooler lips. The next thing you knew he was kissing you. It unlocked something in your that you repressed for a while now, and while it slipped to the surface at times, now you couldn’t help but let it free from its cage. You had no right to like him, you thought, but when he kissed you, you knew it sighed some kind of contract between the two of you that would make you the happiest man alive. Especially with him alive and well at your side.

[sir-subpar]

His Translator Part 12

This will mostly be a fluffy chapter

Burt sat at his desk, typing away. Checking the solar panels, engines, and various programs on the station. Henry was out on a heist for the first time since the incident at the Wall. Burt's chest tightened when he thought about it. What if Henry got hurt again? The thought unsettled Burt. The image of Henry hooked up to life support, bruised and beaten, crept its way into Burt's mind, making his stomach tie itself into knots. 

Breathe. He needed to take a breath, and just calm down. This mission wasn't related to the Wall, Henry would be fine. He'd be okay. Burt shook his head. When had he become so paranoid? Henry's been on tons of heists. He'll be fine. Burt just had to wait and listen for when Henry and Ellie told him to beam them up to the station, no big deal. Burt thought about how excited Henry was to go on this heist, how his blue eyes lit up at the idea of stealing all those jewels and treasures. Henry looked so happy, it was as though all the intensity of the past few months had never happened. The way Henry smiled at Burt, the way he held Burt's hand and leaned closer to him… they were just a few inches apart. Burt's cheeks once again wore the color pink at his thoughts. He had come to terms with the fact that he had feelings for his boss, but now he didn't know what to do about his feelings. He didn't have a lot of experience with dating, it was always difficult for him. He wasn't sure how to approach the situation, if he even should at all. Would Henry want Burt the same way Burt wanted Henry? Burt heard rumors that Henry was bisexual, but he hadn't heard a confirmation from Henry about whether or not it was true. Damn it. Why did this have to be so… complicated? Was it even that complicated? All he had to do was ask, right? 

… 

No. Not yet. Soon, maybe, but he wasn't ready just yet. For the time being, he was fine with being Henry's friend. 

"Hey Burt!" Ellie's voice rang through Burt's headset. "We're ready to come back, beam us up!" Ellie instructed. "Yes ma'am." Burt replied as he followed orders. Just like that, Henry and Ellie were home. About twenty minutes after Burt beamed Ellie and Henry back to the station, he heard a knock on his door, and there stood Henry with a gift box in his hands. “Hey bo- Henry. Welcome back.” Burt corrected himself mid-sentence. He was still adjusting to calling Henry by name. Henry smiled, handing the wrapped box to him. Burt took the gift in his hands and saw a card attached that read "Happy Birthday". He remembered… 

Burt looked up at Henry once more, he was still smiling. Burt tore the wrapping off the box, feeling excited. He pulled out a Topaz crystal. His birthstone. It was carved into the shape of a top hat. It was orange, his favorite color. It was beautiful. Burt felt his chest tighten. He wasn't expecting this, but he appreciated it nonetheless. People didn't usually pay much attention to him outside of work-related boundaries. But Henry did. He always did. Henry was just so… good to him. So appreciative. Burt's vision became slightly blurry, as if he had just opened his eyes underwater.

 Wait.

Burt lifted his hand to rub his eyes, slightly surprised when he discovered the moisture present on his face. Tears. When had he started crying? Henry cupped Burt's cheek with one hand, using the thumb on his other hand to gently wipe away the tears. Concern etched on his face. "Ah, I'm okay, Henry. I just… got emotional there. I don't usually- people don't- I'm not really… I'm not accustomed to this kind of stuff. You know? Birthday gifts and whatnot…" Burt wiped his eyes with his wrist, attempting to dry out the little drops of emotions oozing from them. Henry hugged Burt. Then whispered something very quietly in his raspy voice. "...let it out.."

Burt felt his hands tremble, reaching his arms up to return Henry's embrace. He realized just how much he needed this. Needed him. Henry's encouragement and support made him happy. Whenever his life felt monotonous, he could look forward to Henry giving him something to enjoy at the end of the day. "Thank you… Henry." "Mhm!" Henry hummed, happy he could help Burt like Burt had many times before. After a few minutes, the two parted from the embrace. As Burt regained his composure, he held the topaz top hat, inspecting it more. It fit so well in his hand, it was about the size of a computer mouse, albeit denser since it was carved from a crystal. Burt smiled slightly. "It's beautiful Henry, I love it." Henry smiled back, excited. 'Happy Birthday Burt!' Henry signed. His goofy grin made Burt's cheeks tinge pink. With how much Henry makes him blush he might as well tattoo them pink by now. 'Since it's your birthday, why don't you take some time off and do something fun?' Henry's signed in question. "Sure. Why not?" Burt replied, placing his gift in his pocket. Burt stood up, and almost immediately Henry held his hand. 'What do you want to do?' Henry questioned, signing with his free hand. "Uh… I don't know.. What do you want to do?" 

'It's your birthday, it's up to you.'

Burt squeezed Henry's hand.

"Oh. Right. Uh.. I guess we could get some food and watch a movie or something. I'd like to just keep things low key." Burt replied with slight embarrassment. He just wanted to spend time with him. Henry gave a thumbs up with his free hand, and the two of them walked to Burt's room. Burt felt a little nervous when he realized that this would be the first time Henry had seen his living quarters, but it faded a bit when he thought about everything the two of them had been through together. 

Henry observed the space Burt called home. Burt's room wasn't huge or fancy, but it was comfortable. There was a tv in front of Burt's bed that was set up on its own shelf with a row of DVDs on display. The comforter on Burt's bed was a gradient of yellow, orange, and red, it reminded Henry of a sunset. There were a few comic strips taped to a wall above a desk which had what appeared to have drawing supplies on it. The nightstand next to Burt's bed had a small lamp on it. Burt's closet was in the corner, it was one of those wooden closets with two doors that folded open. Overall, it was nice. It was calm and simple with a warm atmosphere. Henry let go of Burt's hand and moved to sit on Burt's bed, "Nice room" he signed. "Thank you. I'm.. Glad you're comfortable here. Anyway, I've got a few movies here… let's see.." Burt trailed off a bit looking at the DVD cases on the shelf beneath the television screen. What kind of movies did Henry like? He wanted to pick something they'd both enjoy. Did Henry like horror movies? Burt realised he had a lot of those, maybe even too many, but hey, you like what you like. “Hey Henry, do you like scary movies?” He asked, glancing behind him to see Henry’s response. Henry gave him a thumbs up. Burt turned back to the shelf, he decided to go for a movie Sven gave about a week ago. He hadn't watched it yet, so he figured it could be fun for him and Henry to experience the jumpscares for the first time. After pressing play, Burt took out a bag of chips he had hidden under the bed, and their movie marathon began. 

*Several movies later*

       Burt found himself struggling to stay awake, he leaned his head on Henry's shoulder. He was just so… cozy like this. He just wanted to be smothered in Henry's embrace. They've spent the night in the same room before, so it wouldn't be weird. Burt stayed there trying his best to justify his desire to cuddle in his head. But luckily he didn't need to, as Henry leaned his head on top of Burt's, seeming tired as well. Burt felt a wave of relief, and closed his eyes. Him and Henry being intimate and supporting of each other just felt so… right to him. Maybe he should ask Henry if they could be more than friends? Burt figured that he should ask Henry about those rumors concerning his sexuality first before asking him about dating. All of that could wait until the next day though; at the moment, Burt just wanted some sleep. Burt could feel himself drifting off, and just before everything around him faded he heard Henry whisper.

"Happy birthday Burt, sleep well."

Burt yawned. "Thanks… you too.."

And just like that, he was off. Away wherever his dreams (or lack thereof) would take him for the night. 

To be continued...

[sunsetcurbed]

every piece of you (it just fits perfectly)

Words: 4,139 Rating: G Warnings: none read on AO3 

Summary:  Ray Molina doesn’t really think much can catch him off guard.

Correction: he didn’t think much could catch him off guard.

When Julie’s hidden away in the studio, ignoring texts from him trying to get her to come in for dinner, he figures out quickly that he’s going to have to go out and pull her away from her writing. Except, well, when he does go out there, she’s not writing. She’s sleeping.

And see, that wouldn’t be an issue, but she’s—

Ray rubs his eyes and squints into the fading light of the room.

Yeah, his daughter is floating.

(*)

(or: 5+1 of Ray slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, carlos was on to something with that whole ‘ghost’ thing.)

(1)

Ray Molina is a calm, collected person. He prides himself on that. He knows that it makes him a better parent, and when Rose was alive, it made him a better husband. His patience makes him better at his job, both in capturing and editing, and his gentleness gave him skills to handle every subject. He's levelheaded and thinks he's pretty adaptable, and he's flexible with what life throws him. It's how he was able to make so many adjustments for his daughter once Rose passed away, and how he was able to keep his emotions in check as he did so.

So, Ray Molina doesn't really think much can catch him off guard.

Correction: he didn't think much could catch him off guard.

When Julie's hidden away in the studio, ignoring texts from him trying to get her to come in for dinner, he figures out quickly that he's going to have to go out and pull her away from her writing. Except, well, when he does go out there, she's not writing. She's sleeping.

And see, that wouldn't be an issue, but she's—

Ray rubs his eyes and squints into the fading light of the room.

Yeah, his daughter is floating.

She's laying down, but she's hovering several inches above the couch, simply suspended in air.

And, well. That definitely catches him off guard.

He walks over to the couch skeptically and then sticks his hand beneath his daughter's body and—

Nothing.

He steps back, tilting his head at the couch and his daughter, ready to call her name when she startles awake, shoving off of the air that she's floating on to lift her torso. She blinks down at the pillow and her hand slips on—Ray's not sure what it slips on, but she goes tumbling back down to the same position she was in before and gasps. "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Julie says in a rush, looking at the bare space between her and the couch. She turns and curls her legs up and shifts so she's sitting now, still staring at the pillow in concern.

"Is who okay?" Ray asks.

Julie's head snaps to him and she drops her jaw. "Dad! I—what are you doing out here?"

"You weren't answering your phone," he tells her. He looks at how she's sitting now, and she's still floating. "Can you tell me why you're not touching the couch?"

"Uh—" Julie's eyes widen and she scrambles forward so quickly that she goes tumbling to the floor. "Oh," she says, reaching back to rub at her tailbone. She's quiet for a moment and then she shakes her head. "I'm fine, Lu—dad. Not that you asked, but I assumed you were going to, and I'm fine."

"That was quite a tumble," he says, ready to get back on point, about how she was literally hanging in mid air less than a minute ago, but she's hopping up and walking towards the door before he can even get a word out.

"So what's for dinner?"

Ray sends one more look to the couch before following his daughter from the room. They can talk about it later.

(2)

They still haven't talked about it the next time something… different… happens.

It's almost a week later when Ray gets home. He calls out a hello and hears Carlos call back, but there's silence on Julie's end. The lights in the studio had been out, though, so she must be inside. He climbs the stairs after setting his camera bag down. He stops first at Carlos' room, waving in at his son who's playing a video game on his Switch, and then he carries on further down the hall until he's at Julie's door. The door is wide open, resting against her back wall, so it's easy to peak in and see her lying on her bed, facing him. That's totally normal, but—well.

She's laying on her side with her arm tossed around… something. The air. Her arm is curled around the empty air to her right, and her fist is curled, looking like she's holding on to something. But she's not. Even with the spaces between her fingers, he can tell that there's nothing in her hand, even though it clearly looks like she's clutching someone's hand.

"Julie?" he calls into the room, hoping to prevent her from falling off her bed like she had the couch. "Mija?"

"Mmm?" Julie mumbles in her sleep. She curls tighter into the air and brings her hand closer to her face, still holding on to nothing.

"Julie," he says again, louder.

"Yeah, Dad?" she says back, and then stiffens. Her hand uncurls itself from around the air and she shoots up into a seated position. "Sorry," she gasps. "I know I was supposed to be watching Carlos, but I was up late studying—"

"It's fine, mija," Ray tells her. "He's about old enough to watch himself sometimes."

"Right," she nods, looking over at her pillow. Ray looks back to and—it moves.

Her pillow shifted on its own, right in front of his eyes. Her entire bed is shifting, as if there's someone else in it changing their position. "Julie—"

"How was the wedding?" she cuts him off. Her eyes flick to her left, shooting a glare at open air, before settling back on him with an open expression.

Ray sighs. There's that opportunity gone. "It was great. Very beautiful, the grooms were both more than happy to follow all my directions, so better than the last one I was at where the bride thought she knew better than me."

"That's great!" Julie says. "Tía brought over some chicken earlier, so that's down in the fridge if you want to heat it up."

"I'll… go do that," Ray nods. He turns on his heel and starts down the hall when he hears a harsh whisper from Julie's room. He can't hear a word that she says, but he can tell that it's meant to be a scolding. He freezes and turns back to her room. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"Oh! No, I was just yelling at my phone," she lies quickly, and he knows it's a lie because her phone is sitting three feet away from her on the edge of her bed.

"Alright," Ray says. "I'll be down stairs if you need me."

(3)

It keeps happening, and he keeps not being able to bring it up before Julie completely changes the subject. It's clearly something that she's not ready to talk about so he's trying to respect it, or maybe she isn't even aware that it's happening. She's hardly in control of her body when she's asleep, maybe it's—

He doesn't know what it could be. He doesn't even have a clue.

He remembers watching horror movies with Rose when they were younger, and all he can think about is the random possession that would cause a person or object to randomly float on its own. That's thrown out the window though because a) there's no such thing as possession and b) even if there were, his daughter is not possessed. But there's genuinely no other explanation that he can think of for how Julie managed to float.

About a month out from the first occurrence, he's starting to calm down. It hasn't happened again, not that he's seen at least, and he's starting to think that maybe it was all his imagination. Of course he vividly remembers the feeling of wrongness he got when he had waved his hand under Julie when she had been sleeping on—well, above—the couch, but. Stress could do that to a person, right?

So, it's all okay. Ray has just been dealing with excess amounts of stress and that's led to… hallucinations? Or something along those lines, anyways.

He's sure of that until he comes down stairs at two am one Saturday night and sees flashes of light from the TV in the living room. Thinking that Julie must have left it on before she went up to bed by accident, he holds out for his glass of water and turns to the living room. He freezes in the entryway.

Julie is fast asleep on the couch, facing the backrest, which, could be normal if it weren't for the fact that she's half way off the couch and some how not falling off. It's like she's got a hook connecting her to the back of the couch, holding her in place as she sleeps.

He makes his way over to her, reaching for the remote that's sitting on the coffee table. He hesitates turning it off, needing the light to see what exactly is going on. He bends over and studies the area between Julie and the back of the couch. Again, Julie's hand is resting in midair, but this time it's not curled around anything. Her hand is just laying flat on the air in front of her. Curious, he reaches out to poke it, but it doesn't budge, instead stays floating in the exact same space it had been.

Okay, not what he was expecting.

He's not exactly sure what he's supposed to do in this situation. It's too hard to ignore now that something is going on, but he has absolutely zero guesses as to what it might be. There's something solid there for Julie, but—

Double checking, Ray waves his hand behind Julie's hand. It passes through the air easily.

—it doesn't exist to Ray or, he suspects, anyone else.

Is her unconscious mind that powerful that it's controlling her muscles and keeping them in one place even against an outside force? Is—he can't believe he's thinking this—is it something supernatural? Carlos has been going on about ghosts, and even Julie had said she'd seen a ghost in the studio.

He blinks.

The studio. That's where it happened the first time.

Could ghosts move that easily? He always thought they were stuck haunting the place they died. But there hadn't been any deaths in the studio, not that he knew of. It's not like there's concrete rules to ghosts, as everything before has just been made up. Even these thoughts are ridiculous because it's all been made up, he's sure of it. There's a plenty reasonable explanation waiting for him.

Just… in the morning.

He turns away from his daughter and clicks the TV off and goes to get his glass of water.

He'll talk to her about it in the morning.

(4)

They don't talk about it in the morning, and Ray isn't even sure why he's surprised. This subject seems to be evading him in every way possible and while they need to discuss it, he's not entirely sure how to even bring it up, not unless it's actively happening.

So, that's his plan.

Wait for it to happen again and then confront her immediately. Don't give her the opportunity to change the subject or brush it off, but actually have a sit down conversation and discuss why his daughter can lay on air. And cuddle air. And hold air. And be held by air, too, really.

So, that is his plan. It just… doesn't go according to plan.

The next time something happens, he's looking out the window at Julie walking up the walkway from the studio. It's dinnertime and he was debating going to get her after he got no response to his text, but then out of the window he saw the studio door open and shut. He watches her make her way up the driveway and then the walkway, just taking the opportunity to see his daughter, calm and content. The only thing is, she's not calm. She's bouncing around, talking to the air and grabbing at it, too. On the middle step, she turns and laughs at something, and then—

She's floating again.

Her arms are wrapped around nothing, almost like she's hugging someone, but that someone isn't there. Her feet are dangling off the ground, hanging down like someone is holding her up.

Ray blinks, looks back to make sure Carlos isn't near, and then looks back out the window. She's swaying side to side in midair now, and he'd think this is an excited hug from someone who can't contain themselves from swinging her around if there was anyone there. But there's not. There's definitely not, and there's still no one there even as Julie is lowered back to the ground slowly. She stands there for a moment before she starts laughing again, head thrown back in joy. He's missed seeing her laugh like that, missed seeing her so full of mirth and contentment.

It's just—listen, it's really unsettling, okay?

Of course he's happy that she's happy, but he doesn't know what she's happy about. And she definitely wasn't asleep this time, so clearly she knows about this… thing that's happening. She had appeared to have known about it the first time as well, what with the staring at the pillow. The second time, too, with the annoyed glare at nothing and then the furious whispering after he left. He's willing to bet she knew about the third instance as well, even if he didn't get any proof of that.

This, however… there's no denying that something is going on.

Before he can decide what he's going to do, Carlos comes running down the stairs and into the kitchen, and Ray has to turn away from the window to keep his son's curiosity from piquing. "Hey, you," Ray says, snapping his fingers at Carlos. "Silverware, please."

"Got it!" he cries, and when Ray looks back out the window, Julie is gone from sight. He hears the front door opening moments later, and busies himself with setting their plates down.

Tomorrow, for sure.

(5)

Ray gets home from work, set on talking to Julie about the occurrences, only to be met with yet another. She's yelling when he opens the door, clearly not having heard him. Carlos is with Victoria at baseball practice, so Julie has had the house to herself since she got home from school almost two hours ago. Of course it makes sense that she'd mess around, but this—

"Luke, stop!" she yells, a twinge of frustration there, but that's mostly drown out by the laughter in her voice. "Reggie, Alex, make him stop!"

There's no reply, but as Ray rounds the corner, he can see his daughter's feet off the ground again, her back curled into something behind her. It looks like someone is lifting her up from behind.

"I did give it to you!" she laughs, hands reaching down to pry at the air around her waist. Her feet meet the floor again and she spins around, smacking the air. Another moment and she whirls back around. "Shut up, at least you can see both of us—I have to listen to you moon over Willie when I can't even see him," she says, and it sounds like she's complaining. "Besides, we all have to listen to Reggie flirt with everyone who crosses his path." More silence. "I know, we still love you, Reg."

Ray blinks.

He stands there for a long minute, listening to Julie bicker with the air, until—

"No, I don't think—what?" Julie freezes and spins around to face him, finally. "Dad!"

Ray tries to smile, but he thinks it comes out as more of a grimace than anything else. "Hi," he says.

"How long have you been here?"

"I see you learned how to levitate."

"Oh my god," Julie breathes out. "I can—I can… explain?"

"I sure hope you can because I'm not letting you get away without an answer again," he nods, setting his bag down finally. "So—care to explain?"

It's silent for a long moment, and then Julie looks up over her shoulder, as if someone is standing right behind her and talking into her ear. "Right, you're right," she sighs. "Dad, can we do this in the studio? It'll make a lot more sense out there."

He narrows his eyes. "Fine. But as soon as we get out there, you're talking."

(+1)

Ray Molina is calm, collected, patient, gentle, levelheaded, and adaptable, yes.

But he feels none of those things right now.

Not as he follows his daughter out to the studio where he'd first caught this phenomenon. Certainly not as she opens one door but doesn't touch the other, yet the door swings open on its own. Definitely not as she bursts into laughter at nothing, and turns to her right to make a snippy comment of "you really think he'll appreciate that?"

"Appreciate what?" Ray demands.

"Right," Julie says, walking over to her keyboard. "Dad, look around the room."

"Why am I doing that?"

"To see that there's no projectors in here."

That's not what he was expecting her to say. "What do projectors—"

"Dad," she says, voice firm. "Look around the room."

So he does, looking in every corner of the ceiling and along every wall to see that there's no projector. "Okay," he nods. "There's no projector."

"Now," she says, sitting down at her keyboard and turning it on, "just know that I didn't tell you because I was worried you'd send me back to Dr. Turner."

"Tell me what exactly?"

Julie sighs, and looks over at the empty space in the studio. She nods once at the air, and then plays a chord on her keyboard.

"Julie, I don't know what you think you're doing—"

He doesn't get to say anything further as her entire band materializes in the middle of the studio, instruments and all. He drops his jaw and looks frantically around for where the projector is hidden, coming up short no matter where his eyes land.

"You're not going to find it," the guitarist says. "It's why Julie asked you to look before she started playing."

Right. Ray doesn't think the holograms are supposed to be able to interact with him. There's no way they'd be able to see him, let alone know what he was going to do, so—

"Julie?" he says, voice edging into a panic.

"Meet the band," she says. She nods at the guitarist. "That's Luke." Then to the drummer. "Alex." And then the bassist. "And Reggie is your bud."

"Hi, Ray!" Reggie grins excitedly, and Ray imagines he'd be waving if it weren't for the fact that he was still playing bass.

"They're my phantoms," Julie finishes.

"Yes, Julie, I know," Ray says. "But how are they—"

"Dad," she cuts him off. "They're my phantoms."

"She means her ghosts," Alex says from behind his drums. "But 'Julie and the Ghosts' didn't sound as catchy."

"Is Carlos in on this, too?" Ray demands, looking at Julie.

Julie frowns. "You mean does he know about them? Yeah, that's what he wanted to talk to me about after the Orpheum."

"I think he still doesn't believe us," Luke tells her.

"I don't," Ray immediately jumps in. "There's no such thing as—"

Luke takes a step forward and drops his guitar. He bends down and picks up the coffee cup that's sitting on the coffee table in front of Ray. "Would a hologram be able to do that?"

"Luke," Reggie huffs as Luke sets the glass back down and picks his guitar back up to start playing again, "give the man some time, this is a very stressful situation to be in. We all remember how Julie reacted."

"Hey!" Julie frowns. "You promised not to bring that up again."

Reggie's eyes go wide. "I mean—we all remember how Flynn reacted."

"Flynn?" Ray asks. "What does she have to do with this?"

"Oh, she totally freaked when Julie showed her who we actually were," Alex says.

"Goggle Sunset Curve," Reggie calls.

"It's Google," Julie rolls her eyes. "But yeah, that's not a bad idea. Dad, do you have your phone?"

Hesitantly, Ray reaches for his pocket. He unlocks his phone and swipes over to find the internet app, and then opens Google. He types in 'sunset curve' to the search bar and frowns at the title of the first link. Sunset Curve: A Hollywood Tragedy. He clicks on it before he can think better of it, and after the page loads, he finds four boys staring at him from his screen. Three of which are also staring at him from ten feet away. He frowns. "Julie?"

"Before you and mom bought this house, the people that lived her let Sunset Curve use the studio as theirs. They're connected to this place. After twenty-five years of being stuck between the living world and the dead, they showed up here the night I first came in to clean it out. I wasn't lying to you when I said I'd seen a something. People can hear them when they play, but they can only see them when they play with me."

"It's rad," Luke says, "but Julie can see us all the time. And as of a few months ago, she can actually touch us, too."

"Ay, dios mío," Ray murmurs, looking back down and staring at his phone screen once more. "Ghosts."

"Yeah, it's pretty sick," Reggie grins.

"So—you're not cuddling air, you're cuddling a ghost?"

Julie's jaw drops, and her eyes flick to Luke in panic. Luke looks back at her and shrugs helplessly. She stares him down for another few seconds and quirks an eyebrow. Luke nods. It's an entire language that they'd developed together, being able to speak without speaking. Ray thinks he knows what she's going to say before she says it.

"I know this isn't exactly traditional, but Dad… meet my boyfriend?"

"I should have saved that 'ay, dios mío' for this," Ray murmurs. He crouches forward and rests his elbows on his knees, hiding his face in his hands. "You're dating a ghost?"

"So is Alex!" she throws in, her voice defensive.

"I am a ghost!" Alex throws back. "It makes sense for me."

"I mean, it makes sense for Jules and Luke, too," Reggie points out. "They oo—"

"Don't say it," Alex glares.

"—ze chemistry," Reggie finishes with a triumphant look at his drummer.

"Guys," Julie huffs. All of them straighten up and look to her. She shakes her head at Reggie and Alex. Luke moves nearer to the piano as he plays and she looks to him with a soft look in her eye. He murmurs something to her and she breaks into a toothy smile. She shakes her head at him but doesn't lose the affection in her eyes. Ray feels uncomfortable watching, and shifts in his seat and looks away.

"Yeah, we feel the same," Reggie says. "And we have to see them all the time. They're good together, though."

He thinks they must be. Julie hasn't been this happy since before Rose's diagnosis, maybe even longer. He can tell that she's safe with Luke, and that she feels safe with him. With all of the guys, really. She looks at all of them like they're the best thing she's ever seen, like they're the reason she still gets up every day. And, well, they are, he realizes. The timing, he's worked out, is that she played the morning after she met them. Something about these boys pushed his daughter back to her passion and they're the reason that she got back into the music program. They're the reason for a lot of things, he assumes.

He doesn't understand it. He can't fathom it right now, even with all the proof sitting in front of him, but he knows once he processes this, his world will be changed for good. It already is, even though he hasn't full accepted this new reality. But he's not upset about it. How could he be? This was out of Julie's control, everything from their presence to her relationship with Luke. He knows she didn't plan on any of this, but it's here and happening, and the only thing he can do now is adjust.

He looks over to Julie, where she's looking at him with hope in her eyes, and he can't do anything but smile. This earns him a beaming smile in return, one that lights up her eyes in a way he hasn't seen off the stage for… years, probably. He wants nothing more than to keep that smile on her face, so he looks around the room once more and nods at each boy individually.

"Welcome to the family."

(+1.5)

When he finds Julie asleep, hovering over the down stairs couch the next day, he smiles.

"Thank you, Luke."

A cup on the table lifts and raises, tilting in acknowledgement.

He'll get used to it.

[eleventhdoctorsangel]

Where is the real me

Summary: Ever since quirks became the new normal the US decided to try to recreate some powers from the movies such as Marvel and DC. I happen to be one of those people that they recreated powers on. I was the lucky or unlucky one depending on how you look at it that got scarlet witch powers. I've was recently got accepted into UA college.

A/n: This is an aged up fic. The UA students will be college age. Since I decided to make this story a love triangle between the reader, bakugou and Dabi and since bakugou and the reader would be a early age teen in the original story I didn't want the FBI to be breaking down my door so aging them up was the way to go.

“What’s the matter you two? You guys look scared. You dodged the attack so you can still fight can’t you? Come and get me.” Bakugou said. I started to walk slowly over to him. “You need to stop this right now. You acting childish.” I said. “Oh I’m the childish one. Here you are helping the team. Didn’t you tell me that we were a team?” Bakugou said. “I’m making sure that the damage you are trying to cause doesn’t affect the weapon. Because if this was real and we were guarding a real weapon with would have gone off by now.” I said. “Come in what’s the situation.” Midoriya said. “Are you ignoring me again? I’ll get your attention.” Bakugou said. “Bakugou. Use that stored-up power again and I’ll stop this fight. Your team will lose. ” All Might said through the loud speakers. “Huh?” Bakugou asked. “To employ such a strong attack indoors is inviting the destruction of the stronghold you should be protecting. That’s a poor strategy whether you’re a hero or a villain. The penalty would be a massive loss of points.” All might said. Bakugou let out a frustrated yell. “The pillar by the window. Get there now!” Midoriya said. “Fine. We’ll fight hand to hand.” Bakugou yelled and used his quirk to launched himself towards Midoriya and I. But before I could do anything to stop him he out stretched a hand at me shooting a blast at me. Just like before I caught it within my energy and kept it contained. “Come on you got to be kidding me.” Bakugou said. But this time the blast seemed a bit stronger than the last one I stopped. It had caused me to fall down on one knee. By the time I stopped that blast I heard two more go off. Son of bitch he distracted me. “Here it comes nerd! The famous right hook you were whining about!” Bakugou yelled. Bakugou slammed his right hand against Midoriya side as he grabbed his arm using his quirk to turn himself around. “Stop!” I yelled. “Deuk! Don’t you ever forget what you are! You’re a weakling!” Bakugou yelled as he flipped Midoriya over his shoulder slamming him on the ground. Midoriya was quick to get up and started to run away standing on the other side of the room. “Why won’t you use your damn quirk against me? Still think you can stop me without it?” Bakugou asked. “That’s not it.” Midoriya said. “You’ve been hiding your true power for years. What’s the deal Deku? Did you think you were better than me this entire time?” Bakugou asked. “That’s what you think? You idiot. You’ve always been stronger Kacchan. I know that you’re better than me.  Can’t you see? That’s why I wanna beat you. Because you’re amazing!” Midoriya said with tears in his eyes. “You’re even more of an idiot than I realized. Come at me!” Bakugou yelled. Then the two of them started to run full force at each other. Bakugou got ready to throw another blast while I saw Midoriya’s arm start to glow. “I said stop!” I yelled. I watched as my red energy start to make its way over to the two of them. “Both of you stop!” All Might yelled. “Uraraka now!” Midoriya yelled. Right as my red energy reached the two of them Midoryia got the full force of Bakugou’s attack while his went up into the ceiling. I started to stop Midoriya’s attack but I was struggling. It broke through the ceiling causing debris to start raining down. I kept the debris in its place. I started to hear the windows start to break. I let out a scream as the ceiling start to fix itself and I could hear the glass start to fix itself too. I started to feel lightheaded I dropped my arms to my side as my legs gave out from under me sending me to the ground. 

“This was your big plan. From the very beginning wasn’t it? You were playing me this entire time you bastard.” Bakugou said. “I wasn’t going to use it. Because I can’t control it. My body just can’t handle the backlash of my power yet. Mr. Aizawa said I’d be useless. But this was all that I could think of. This is the only was I had a chance at winning.” Midoriya said. “The hero team wins!” All Might yelled. I heard the sound of something falling to the ground. I looked up to see that Midoriya was now on the ground.

I wanted to go over to see if Midoriya was okay but every time I tried to get up my legs gave out from under me. “Your indoor combat training is over.” All Might said. A few minutes later All might came into the building. He went to check on Midoriya first. He ordered some medical robots from the nurse to come and get Midoriya. Then he came over to me. “Are you okay young Y/n?” All Might asked as he kneeled down. “I’m fine. I just never used that much of my power before. I just need a minute. But you might want to go check on Bakugou looks like he having some sort of panic attack.” I said. “You seem to be right young Y/n.” All Might said as he got up and went over to Bakugou who by then had started to breathe heavily. Bakugou seemed to be lost in his thoughts to notice All Might come up to him putting a hand on his shoulder. “Young Bakugou cool your jets. Let’s go review your work. Whether you win or lose you can always take something away from an experience like this. As long as you’re open to learning.” All might said. I tried to get up my legs were still a bit wobbly but other than I could walk just fine.

Bakugou, Tenya, Ochako and I followed All might back to the watch room where the other students were watching the fights. “Well despite the results. The MVPs of this exercise is Young Iida and Young Y/l/n!” All might said. Wait a damn minute. Wait a damn minute. “Huh?” Tenya asked confused and I was right there with him. “Shouldn’t it be one of the heroes instead since they’re the winners?” Tsu asked. “Mm! Valid question. Why didn’t I choose one of those two? Who has a guess?” All might said. “Sir! I can tell you why! Iida embraced this challenge. He was the only one who truly adapted to his assigned role. I’ll explain. Bakugou’s judgement was clouded by a personal grudge against Midoriya. As you pointed out earlier launching a large scale attack indoors was a foolish move. It could have been disastrous. Similarly Midoriya’s  plan was also poorly thought out considering the amount of damage that he received. He rendered himself helpless. Not smart. As for Uraraka… She let her guard down mid battle and her final attack was far too reckless given the hypothetical stakes. If she’d treated the fake weapon as though it were real she never would’ve risked using such an imprecise move. As for Y/n she managed to keep any damage that Bakugou and Midoriya would have caused to a bear minimal. She tried to make Bakugou stop but when he didn’t she didn’t force it on him but made sure that the weapon wouldn’t have gone off if it was real. “Iida was fully prepared for his opponent’s arrival he had a strategy and never lost sight of his mission to protect the dummy weapon even if he was foiled in the end. Technically the hero team won yes but they took advantage of the fact that this was training. They didn’t respect the spirit of the trial.” A girl with long black hair explained. “Yes well you over looked a few things. Young Iida could have relaxed a little bit in the exercise but otherwise you nailed it!” All might said giving a thumbs up. I laughed a little as I shook my head. “One should always start with the basics and devote themselves wholeheartedly to learning. That’s the only real way to become a top hero.” She said. Everyone looked at her in shock. “Now then. Time to blow this joint. Let’s move on to the next match! Think about everything was saw and discussed as you tackle this training for yourself.” All might said. “Yes sir!” All the other students said. All might drew the next to team which was B for the heroes and I for the villains.  I started to get a little dizzy again. I decided not to say anything as I watched the fight.

I watched as one of the boys on Team B walked out of the building while the other who was the boy I sit front of stay inside. Then the whole building was covered in ice. The room also got cold fast. I looked around to see almost everyone shivering. But Tsu was asleep. Which seem a bit odd. “He incapacitated them without compromising the weapon of his teammate. Take close note of his technique students.” All might said. “Woah he’s so strong!” A male voice said. I watched as he place a hand on the fake weapon. “The hero team wins!” All might yelled. Just like that all the ice melted away. “Holy crap.” Another male voice said. “That guy’s kind of intimidating.” Another said. “He got in on a recommendation so he must be good.” Tsu said. “I say if there’s enough time that he and Y/n should got against each other now that would be an interesting fight.” One of the guys said. “Moving on! Time to gather round for a review of the second match. After that we’ll jet on over to our next battle.” All might said. “Yes sir.” Everyone said.

Soon all the matches were over and they were pretty interesting to watching. Expect maybe with the kid that was with the black hair girl. He acted like a pervert so I will have to be careful around that one. The last battle ended just a few minutes before class was about to end which made almost everyone groan since they really wanted me to go against the guy on team B. We walked back to the entrance of the training area. There were a few students talking which made All might blew his whistle. “That’s a wrap! Super work. You really stepped up to the plate and we didn’t have any major injuries expect for Midoriya. You should be proud. Excellent first day of training all around!” All might said giving us a thumbs up. “it’s nice to hear some encouraging words after our homeroom class. Mr. Aizawa was kind of a buzzkill.” Tsu said. What have I missed? Whatever it was is probably a good thing. “I’m happy to bring such staggering positivity to my alma mater! That’s all for now folks. I should go and check on Young Midoriya’s progress! Now watch how a pro exits. Like he’s got somewhere to be!” All might said then ran off leaving a cloud of smoke behind him. “Okay you guys that is a hero.” One of the boys said. “Aw I’ll never be able to run that fast.” Another boy said. “Super awesome!” Another one said while putting a hand to his mouth and that one was the pervert.

All of the girls started to walk out and I followed them. “So Y/n is it?” One of the boys asked. I stopped in my tracks and turn back around. “Yes?” I asked. “Is it true that you were experimented on when you were younger?” A boy with red hair asked. “Sorry Y/n I didn’t mean to tell everyone.” Tsu said. “It’s fine Tsu I don’t mind. Yes I was experimented on when I was younger.” I said. “She also mentioned that your quirk was recreated from the superhero movies and it looked really familiar but couldn’t remember who’s was it?” A boy with blonde hair with a black lightning bolt streak in it. “It was the scarlet witch.” I said. “A real babe come to life.” The perverted boy said. “Yeah I have problem ending you.” I said pointing at the boy who looked scared to death. “Yes ma’ma.” He said. “That also goes for the other girls. If you make a perverted comment about any of them I will make you go through your worse fear.” I said. “Yes ma’ma.” He said. “Good.” I said turning back around to follow the other girls back to the locker room.

Once we walked into the locker room a girl with pink skin pulled me into a hug. “Girl thank you. He’s been making so many comments since yesterday.” She said. “Yeah no problem.” I said hugging her back. “Yeah thanks a lot.” The girl with black hair said. I nodded. “You’re pretty strong too.” A girl with purple hair said. “So are you guys.” I said. “Yeah but none of us could go up against Bakugou like you did.” Ochako said. I guess what Ochako said was kinda right. “What are your names?” I asked. “I’m Mina Ashido.” The girl with the pink skin said. “I’m Momo Yaoyorozu.” The girl with black hair said. “I’m Kyouka Jirou.” The girl with purple hair said. “I’m Toru Hagakure.” The girl was completely invisible said. “Well it’s nice to meet you all.” I said. “We should all get changed we wouldn’t want to be late don’t want to make Mr. Aizawa mad.” Momo said. We all got changed out of our hero costumes and back into our uniforms. This is something I will have to get use to.

A/N: I will be taking possible super hero names at this time

Taglist: @flowersgirl02 @jazzylove

[taeguboi]

“She’s Mine Now” Jungkook x Reader

“A fiction in which Jungkook steals the girl from right under her lousy date’s nose”

I sort of made this concept for a fiction a bit ago and... I’m not sure this quite turned out as good as I wanted to but here goes hahahaha

Fiction Masterlist

“Cheers guys!” the singer gratefully says to his audience through the microphone, showing gratitude for the amazing response to the song the band just played.

Applause fills the room as the band put down their instruments and get ready to relax during the interval between sets.

This is a great night for the pub; the drinks sales are pouring in and the crowd ebullient for the music provided by the band who are on fire tonight.

This date however… is not.

Your best friend had inaugurated a blind date after your little drunken breakdown around a week ago as you wept about feelings of loneliness and yet how you can’t help but feel hindered in moving on from your last relationship because of your dependency on it to be happy… Additionally there were also those insecurities and irrational fears about getting yourself back out there into the world of dating which didn’t exactly help your need to develop a more positive mind set.

“Tell you what?” beamed y/f/n. “How about I set you up with a friend?”

In theory, her suggestion actually sounded like a good idea; even if the date didn’t take you anywhere beyond a meal or a drink, it could be a good practice run at interacting with unfamiliar faces, maybe even a confidence booster.

You had gotten all dressed up to the nines in your little black dress: a simple, classy look one can never go wrong with. Slimming in all the right places, the garment perfectly hugs those curves, shows a little bit off, yet leaves plenty to the imagination. Alongside this dress you donned some matching heels which give you some extra height, but no so much so as to hurt your back, your prettiest dangly silver earrings with the black sapphire gems, and the gorgeous choker your friend bought you to compliment the rest of your ensemble.

“Well, not that you need it” she corrected herself after presenting it to you as a ‘good luck’ gift.

You remember scooping it up from inside the box and looking at the choker in amazement. It glistened under the light of the sunset which seeped through her living room window and looked striking with its three rows of sparkling black gems similar in appearance to the sapphires which your earrings hold. You wondered why she felt such a gesture was necessary or if you even deserved it.

“To be honest, I bought it for myself ages ago but I’ve never worn it” y/f/n clarified following your question. “It will suit you way better anyway, especially with those earrings”

You felt grateful to have such a kind hearted friend and it was the boost of encouragement you needed to get yourself out there this evening and go for it! To say yes to life! Yes to confidence! Yes to new opportunities!...

But this night, as far as this pairing is concerned, is turning out to be a great disappointment.

Sure, the band is great and the drinks are fine, but… this guy has no personality whatsoever, or at least he doesn’t have any traits or qualities you find preferable in a love interest. All he wants to do is talk your ear off and bore you with the details about how often he hits the gym, and then there was something about motorcycles you think, not fully engaging in what this dude has to say about himself. You’ve hardly been able to get a word in edgeways about yourself.

You always affirmed in your mind that looks are not everything. You never set sky rocketing expectations that he should have rock hard washboard abs or a razor sharp jawline; you know that life isn’t a movie. You didn’t care that when you first walked into the pub this evening that you were met by a man with mousy brown hair resembling the colour of the faded mahogany floor that met your feet, nor did you judge his typical smart-casual style consisting of a white v-neck, black blazer and jeans. The personality was what always mattered to you; the one thing that always sealed the deal.

“I’m just going to nip to the toilet! I’ll be right back!” you abruptly announce whilst your date is in mid-sentence about what hair product he uses which, by the way, is just a bit too much. You figure he must have put a bit too much mousse in his hair as it produces a greasy appearance even under the dim pub lighting that hovers above your heads.

“Sorry” you quietly apologise as you come to your feet and gather your black clutch bag and your phone from the small rounded surface of the tall shabby table.

* 

After relieving yourself in the ladies room and finding yourself alone in there, you stare into the mirror to reflect in a contemplative way, ignoring the slight smudge of eyeliner beneath the outer corner of your right eye. 

There is barely anything you are enjoying about the evening. You scan your brain for all the possible excuses you could make for leaving early, but nothing seems good enough:

You can’t say you’re feeling ill because he’d only offer to walk you home and that in itself just seems like an unnecessary effort for your date who will most definitely offer to walk you home only to be rejected in any further advances he’s likely to make on you. In fact, you feel somewhat apprehensive at the idea of being alone with him although that could just be your mind speculating following on from when he placed his hand on your thigh a couple of times throughout the course of the evening.

Calling y/f/n doesn’t feel like an option. She went to so much effort in a sincere attempt to make her friend happy from hooking you up with this guy in the first place, to helping you get your makeup on point, (you never realized how good winged eyeliner on your top lids looks!) to even driving you to this pub.

Doing a runner through the beer garden and out the back gate just isn’t your style either. Rude, cowardly and insensitive; you just aren’t any of those things... You suppose you could stick this through a bit longer and get a couple of more free drinks out of this, right?

‘Jesus y/n, what have you stooped to?’ you wonder to yourself.

Pulling out one of your emergency make up wipes from being crammed inside your clutch bag, you correct the small problem that is the smudged eyeliner and promise yourself that you will try harder to stop yawning from boredom, and then ultimately chucking the used wipe in the bin of the nearest cubicle.

You stumble out of the toilets, kind of forgetting about the small step on the way down, causing you to wobble a bit as your reaction time to stop yourself from falling is a bit too slow. Your shoulder crashes into the chest of someone passing by and you instantly fill up with embarrassment, apologising profusely.

“Oh crap, I’m so sorry!” you exclaim, taking a quick glance at the stranger you knocked into, then your line of sight goes straight to your outfit as you smooth down your dress in the hope that it hadn’t raised up from your clumsy gesture.

“No worries!” the voice replies back, the man already walking into the distance and towards the garden when you look up. He gives a wave to show it’s okay, no harm caused. He looks familiar.

With a black crew neck shirt and black shorts, one would think his clothes would only blend in with his ebony hair but somehow, his appearance does feel so ordinary; his fringe is a little too long almost covering the eyes yet rather than the length weighing it down, it glides buoyantly as he turns his head. You couldn’t see the colour of his eyes but they felt warm and dark, like mocha.

The logical thinking side of your brain is clearly non-existent practically as you can’t make any guesses as to why you think you recognise him and you have to urge yourself to stop thinking so pensively. Lots of people look familiar that you’ve never met before, it’s just one of those things.

Entering the main bar room, heels clumsily clunking on the floor amidst the low chatter of the punters, you search for your date as you register he is no longer sitting at the table you left him at. You let out a small sigh, one of contentment as you jump to conclusions. However, your date spots you from the bar counter and beckons you over.

“Oh, aren’t we keeping our seats?” you inquire as he places a fresh drink in your limp hand.

“Mm-mm” he hums as if to say ‘no’. “I thought we could have one more for the road and then… move on, if you like?” he requests, raising an eyebrow half suggestively.

It is now quite obvious that this guy is more into you than you are him and a small wave of panic hits you as you struggle for a good response.

Glaring feedback from one of the guitars on stage interrupts the awkward moment as the band plug back in their instruments to do their next set. Though this noise makes many tense, it fills you with a solace; that sound means the band are back on; the band being back on makes the perfect excuse to stay.

“Oh, well whilst I wouldn’t mind saying yes to one more drink, I… I was actually really enjoying the band” you stammer, taking a sip of drink after.

“Same as last time please mate” the bartender says, requesting payment as he serves your date’s drink. A £10 note is placed in the bartender’s hand and a doubting smile is thrown your way.

“Oh, okay, sure” he replies, bringing his hand into his pocket having received some pennies. You can sense his efforts to be some smooth suave kind of guy for you tonight, one with genuine intentions, but it was only coming across minutely. Move on? And before the band have even begun their second half? Impatience, in reality, is what is coming across.

You decide to ignore that your date is probably not ecstatic with your placid response to his suggestion and you turn your focus to the live entertainment.

“Come one” you smile. “Let’s go to the front”

Your suggestion turns into command as you reach out for his non participating hand, grabbing his wrist anyway and practically dragging him there.

“One two…” the singer vocalises into the microphone to see if it’s turned on and the audience response is already bursting with positive hollers, anticipating cheering and fulfilling applause that resonates across the room.

“Alright, that’s definitely on” the singer chuckles sonorously, sweeping back his highlighted mahogany hair. 

“Here’s the next song to kick the night off a little…” he continues, hyping up the first song of the second half of the evening.

The main guitar riff begins the upbeat song which everyone immediately recognises causing many more layers of commotion in the room with whistling, singing along and feet stomping. You jig along to the song a little on your own, drink in hand and clutch bag under the same arm.

Oddly, you hoped your date might have wanted to dance with you, that maybe this dude might have at least one weeny small ounce of fun in him, but nothing. Halfway through the song, you glance over your shoulder, flash him a smile as you bop along and in return he sends you a rigid smile that for a split second makes you forget about how warm it’s getting amongst the crowd.

For the rest of the song, well tell a lie, the rest of their set, your eyes remained on the band. Along came more upbeat songs through which the occasional stranger would shuffle along and have a friendly dance next to you and then move along to the next amused punter with their terrible moves from 1982. There was the odd ballad to tug on the old heart strings and get everyone really singing along in the drunken semi-emotional messes they are; sweaty men with their arms around each other as the chorus hits, booming out the lyrics, mostly right, some wrong words, some really incorrect lyrics; young girls in their groups holding their drinks in the air and letting drops of wine spill onto the carefree souls behind as they sing the words correctly; couples in corners stopping their sessions of eating face to join in as they sing to one another with endearing looks.

Following a long string of songs came a drum solo to stall during a technical difficulty with the lead guitarist’s amp and you feel a bit dim-witted for not recognising that dude from earlier who is in fact the band’s drummer, who glances at you for a moment whilst he does a drum roll and your cheeks feel rosy. 

And then you blush a second time when it feels like he’s looking at you again. 

And again for a third time leaving you standing there both uneasy and perplexed as you recall why, when you bumped into that person not long ago, that face looked so familiar.

You conclude it’s the paranoia from the incident earlier as you analyse when and why he was looking in your direction those last few times. He was looking around the room as he played anyway. Every good performer gives their audience eye contact. In fact, he probably wasn’t even glancing at specifically you that first time, even. You shrug it off as the solo comes to an end with a crash cymbal ringing out eliciting a wide array of applause.

This time, you find yourself unable to put your hands together to make an appreciative sound. His eyes are burning into yours, a stare so mysterious, you can’t figure out what those eyes are trying to say to you. Like an idiot you can feel your jaw dropping slightly but you haven’t the focus to close your mouth before you catch a small fly and you’re not even sure you care that he’s smirking. It isn’t until the singer jumps back on stage and in front of the drummer that you snap out of it. 

“This dude is awesome, right?” you ask your date who has now finally decided to stand at your side rather than standing awkwardly behind you as you haven’t allowed him the opportunity once to grab your waist or hug you from behind.

“Yeah, I guess” he monotoned, raising a glass and taking a big chug of his drink.

“So do you know any other good places to go to ‘round here?” queries your date, daring to snake an arm around your waist, his warm breath hits your ear and the front of his blazer rubs uncomfortably on your arm. You note that this is probably the least sensual intimacy you’ve experienced as his eagerness to move on mildly unsettles you.

As you hold back the urge to scrunch up your face, you muster a reply with the intention to soften the blow for him that you’re just not feeling the connection. You’re going to play it calm and cool, and you intend to buy the next round of drinks, you know, to show that you aren’t just here for freebies.

“Uh places ‘round here?” you reiterate back just before the band begin their next song.

“1! 2! 3! 4!” the singer shouts into the mic before all the instruments kick in simultaneously to start the next song.

“To be honest, not really” you explain, raising your voice to be heard over the music and cheering. This actually isn’t a made up excuse when you tell your date this; this pub is probably one of the only pubs in town that isn’t a complete dive.

“Within about a 2 mile radius, this is probably the one and only bar without sticky floors or loos that smell like p… smell bad” you continue, correcting your language at the end of your sentence.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a pub” he suggests, now finally making some eye contact with you. His stare is somewhat menacing but not in a totally mischievous way; it’s more of a gaze that raises suspicion, as though he might be up to something. “How about a club?” he hums with expectation. “You know, get some sick beats to dance to, do some shots, that kind of thing.”

Clubs. You really really didn’t care for them. Maybe when you were a few years younger perhaps, but there’s only so many times you can get inebriated enough to tolerate an atmosphere of needy blokes who want to spike unknowing girls’ drinks and people getting off in the corner and being forever unable to hear what any of your friends are saying.

‘Sick beats? What is this guy…’ you think to yourself.

“Hey, I’ll buy the next round, yeah?” you ask rhetorically, diverting the topic of going someplace else and slipping away from his hold as you go back to the bar to order, the queue which to your relief has become a vast one. At least in this waiting situation, something interesting will happen at the end and your patience will pay off. Probably you’ll look back on this moment as the highlight of the night.

*** 

“Thank you! You guys have been awesome! Good night!”

The last few chords and cymbal crashes are rung out to put an end to a brilliant evening of music eliciting once more the roars of applause and appreciation from the pub’s punters.

You’re now sitting at the bar with your date, engaging in conversation… 

...Not.

So actually, you’re just sitting on the stool next to this guy, a leg which is crossed over the other swinging back and forth repeatedly whilst you hold your almost empty glass. The applause dies down once the crowd gather the band won’t be coming back for yet another encore - they already did about six extra songs in total - and the room goes back into an agglomeration of chatter and clinking of glasses.

Forever the try hard type, a part of you wants to try just one more time tonight, and forever the self-deprecating type, you begin to doubt whether you gave this guy enough of a chance or not or that perhaps it’s you not sparking enough conversation. Deep down, you kind of realise you have indeed made more than enough of an effort and played your full hand in topics only to be dismissed from most of them… but the doubt about yourself is there nonetheless.

‘Fuck it, another round’ you think to yourself.

“Excuse me!” you call out to the bartender. 

“Same again for us two please!” you grin, leaning back on your stool ever slightly, lazily handing over another £10.

‘Right. Here goes. Try again.’

“So the band was on fire tonight weren’t they?” you smile to your date.

“Yeah, I suppose they were” he replies, his voice faltering a little. You can’t quite tell if or not the uncertainty in this voice is because he just finished the last sip of his drink and perhaps didn’t allow himself enough time to let it go down.

You’re quite sure now that sitting around just drinking and listening to some band all evening might not have been part of his plan; it seems this band tonight were kind of a last minute booking or maybe your date didn’t think the music would go on for so long… or something or other.

“So what kind of music do you like?” you pose, really hoping he doesn’t say anymore things that are deal breakers. You might just lose your shit and be known as that one loony girl at the pub who stormed out on her first date because the bloke she was sat with didn’t like the same music as her…

“Oh, you know, anything with a good beat, really. ‘Bit of drum and bass. Stuff that really gets the party going” he replies. 

You could just facepalm right here and now if it weren’t for the two drinks you are thankful to be slid your way… So basically, he likes anything he hears in the club. Wow. Very interesting(!)

Alright, so maybe there’s something else you can talk about. There must be some common ground somewhere here, right?

“Uh, I’m just gonna nip to the men’s room… I’ll be right back” he mutters, not even allowing you the chance to reply to him.

As your date makes his way through and disappears in the crowd, you find yourself in a bit of a trance, half trying to think of something to talk about when your date returns, half contemplating standing him up and leaving.

“Sorry? Excuse me?” speaks a voice, taking you away from your thoughts “Sorry, could I just squeeze in here please?” asks a girl trying to get to the bar to order.

“Oh yeah, of course, sorry love” you reply, dismounting the stool, dragging it away a little to make room, then reaching over to the two drinks to pull them over to your new spot. You stumble a little from the lack of space to move about in and accidentally tread on someone’s shoe.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry” you apologise as you turn around to face the stranger whose toes you just squashed. Trying to keep hold of the stool behind you, a hand behind your back remains clutched onto one of the back bars of it and it suddenly doubles up as something to lean on as you feel yourself going weak at the knees at what feels like a deja vu type occurrence.

“We’ll have to stop bumping into each other like this or I’ll have to learn your name” he smiles; it’s the drummer from the band again.

His black hair is slightly damp from the energy he put into tonight’s gig yet he still manages to look radiant. Tall and broad shouldered with eyes that are a sensuous brown, you can’t help but admire the view in front of you. You could kick yourself for how clumsy you’ve been as the evening has progressed… have you really had that much to drink?

“It’s y/n” you smile, now ignoring your seat completely and coolly leaning onto the bar... only to be suddenly shaken up by the return of your date as he makes you jump.

“Hey!” he exclaims. “Goodness, people really are like vultures with the seats in this place, huh?” he questions as he observes the already occupied bar stools behind you.

“Ah, just a bottle of water please my good man” the drummer requests now having the attention of the bartender who immediately gets his order.

“On the house dude; great show tonight” 

“Thank you so much” replies the drummer gratefully, then facing back to you to say goodbye. “See you around y/n… the name’s Jungkook by the way” he smiles, raising the bottle in his hand as if to say ‘cheers’ as he walks away.

“You know him?” asks your date.

“Not really no” you reply “I was just a bit clumsy and trod on his foot” you laugh nervously. 

“I apologised and we got chatting…” you explain, feeling the need to justify yourself for some reason.

“Y/n, I’m not going to scold you for talking to other people” he replies, stepping closer to you. 

“But if there’s something you’re not telling me…” he coos, once again giving you that unpleasant shiver down your neck.

“I can help change your mind” he says suggestively - and it does absolutely nothing for you. 

Not even the slightest bit of arousal? 

Nope. Nothing.

Unsure of how to respond, you excuse yourself to go to the toilets once more.

“Sorry, I guess I’ve had a lot of these drinks; I need to use the ladies again” you chuckle. 

***

The band load out the last few bits of equipment into their van and stop for a break from all the heavy lifting, taking in the fresh cool air that the outdoors offers. The singer, dark brown hair wavering in front of his face in the breeze, scrambles his pockets and pulls out a pouch of tobacco and rolls himself a cigarette which immediately goes noticed by the disapproving lead guitarist, Seokjin.

“Oi, Tae, I thought you’d given that shit up” Seokjin challenges, eyebrows slightly furrowed beneath his light brown fringe.

“It’s just the last of what I had left, promise” shrugs the singer with a slightly muffled voice from the filter he holds between his teeth, earning a glance of disbelief from the other three band members.

“What?” he shrugs again, brushing his hair back with his spare hand and placing the loose tobacco in the paper. “Anyway, it was a good night; I deserve it.”

“It’s alright ‘Jin” hums the drummer tunefully, placing his almost empty water bottle on the floor to take his sweaty shirt off, revealing a handsomely muscular body. He slides open a door to the back seats of the van, rummaging for his clean shirt as he continues to talk:

“I’m sure Taehyung’s more than aware that if he starts croaking like some old frog then we’ll find a replacement…”

“Ah Jungkook, quit teasing” the singer sighs with a smirk, leaning against the door of the front passenger’s seat, lighting up his cigarette.  “You guys love me really,” Taehyung continues, taking an inhale after.

“Alright, sure we do” jokes the bassist, Namjoon, hands in pockets standing opposite Taehyung and next to Seokjin.

“You do” smiles Taehyung with a confident smirk.

Gathering the pool of fabric that is yet another black shirt, the drummer takes his head out from inside the car, slams the door shut, and throws the shirt over his body and poses a question. “So, we sticking around for a drink then?” he asks, picking up his bottle of water and taking a sip from it.

“‘Fraid not mate” replies Namjoon with a sigh. “Work in the morning”

“I’ll take you back mate” offers Seokjin, fumbling in his pockets for the keys.  “I wouldn’t be drinking anyway so just let me know when and we’ll set off Joon”

“What time is it?” asks the bassist, looking at his wrist and showing an expression of exasperation upon realising he must have forgotten to put a watch on before tonight’s gig.

“Almost 20 minutes to midnight” Taehyung says, already able to see the time of 11:39 on his brightly lit phone he holds in front of him as he checks his social media.

“Oh shit” mumbles Namjoon. “Might have to go sooner than we thought then mate, is that alright?”

“You staying Tae?” asks Jungkook.

“Uh, yeah, sure” the singer replies, putting his phone back in his pocket and lifting himself from the car door. “Just lemme finish this and we’ll go back in, yeah?”

“Right see you guys at rehearsal in a few days” smiles Seokjin, bringing in Jungkook for a goodbye hug.

“See you soon man” adds Namjoon, reaching out for Taehyung’s hand and the two shake hands and bring each other in for a friendly pat on the back.

The guitarist and bassist hop into the van as Taehyung flicks the cigarette butt onto the concrete and he burns it by stamping on it. A couple of beeps from the van as it drives away prompt Taehyung and Jungkook to wave goodbye and they turn their backs to head inside the pub.

Finding a spare table in the corner of the room, the two boys sit themselves on two lonely chairs positioned behind a small round table, looking onto the rest of the room.

“So a bit of dutch courage and then we take our pick of the crowd this evening ‘Kook?” asks Taehyung casually, now definitely in the mood to pull after such a dynamic gig.

“I’ve already chosen mine,” Jungkook replies matter-of-factly as he spots one girl in particular walking past them. “See that girl over there? The one in the sexy dress?” he questions, pointing over at the bar where she now stands.

“You mean the one right next to that guy who appears to be her date or boyfriend?” Taehyung conversely states.

“I want her” answers Jungkook with a fairly deep hum showing an urge to go do something about it.

“Dude what the fuck? Not gonna happen” ridicules the singer. “She’s been with that guy all evening; I could see from the stage”

“Challenge accepted” Jungkook arrogantly responds, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair as he unashamedly checks out the target of his desire. 

Now usually, Jungkook would look straight at all the curves on a woman, but not this time. He watches the way the girl coyly smiles at her date and Jungkook finds it super cute; though he’s barely convinced she is flashing a genuine smile at this other dude, she still looks beautiful and charming.

“20 quid says you can’t do it” Taehyung challenges, sliding a note out of his wallet and placing it on the table, now invested in the idea of making something a little more interesting happen again since the atmosphere of the bar now seems pretty anticlimactic to what he felt on stage just 20 minutes ago

“Make it 30 and we have a deal” Jungkook counters, pulling out a 10 and a 20 from his wallet and placing those on top of Taehyung's initial bet. “I plan to treat this girl to whatever she wants tonight”

“I think this gig got to your head Kook” laughs Tae not quite believing the audacity of his friend. "I mean I know that was probably one of our best but…"

“She’s totally into me” adds Jungkook as the girl from the bar glances in his direction and flashes a friendly smile.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I’ve already spoken to her a few times… Anyway, is it a deal, or what?”

“Right then, 30 quid it is…” Taehyung agrees, sliding out an additional note from his wallet and slamming it down on top of the rest of the money to complete the sum proposed. He feels pretty confident about his side of the bet so he’s more than happy to up the ante.

Jungkook reaches out a hand to shake and Taehyung returns the gesture, taking a firm grip of the drummer’s hand and firmly shaking on it.

***

You had possibly taken a lot longer than expected in the ladies room. Partly it was that you needed to compose yourself as the alcohol was beginning to make you feel a tad dizzy but mostly it was you sitting on the loo seat in a cubicle composing a list on your phone. 

Your little document didn’t have a title but the content mostly revolved around things you could possibly try to talk about and ways you could put an end to this part of the evening without seeming rude.

Family emergency…

Phone a friend to pretend to by chance be at the pub…

Ask him about his family…

Bite your tongue and ask more about the motorcycles

Grin and bear it and ask about his gym routine… but I’m still not fucking him.

“Hey sorry I took so long” you apologise, holding up your phone. “It was my mum; you know what parents can be like, even when you’re more than old enough to take care of yourself…”

Nice save y/n.

Deciding to stick this through for some bizarre reason, you pick the topics of conversation as ‘plan A’... okay it was more like plan B, C or D at this point, just in different variants of ‘plan A’ to just be yourself and talk. Maybe asking more questions about him will spark some other sort of conversation. Maybe making an effort to find out more about him is what this needs… even if the most of the first half of your date had already consisted of talking about him...

“So tell me more about this bike you’re doing up,” you begin with your best interested smile and trying to keep the conversation innocent after what was said before you made your panicked exit. “Maybe you could show me sometime” you continue, throwing yourself in the deep end a little but then wondering what is actually happening here.

‘Have I actually become that desperate that I’m forcing myself to make arrangements for another meeting with a guy I’m not even interested in?’

“Actually, it’s almost finished” replies your date with a much more confident and genuine smile than he gave you previously. “I know this great place where we could take it for a test run if you’re interested actually…”

Just as you’re about to reply, a figure comes barging between the two of you, half annoying you, half relieving you of the pressure to muster the enthusiasm to make a positive comment.

“Hey guys! Great night, huh?” booms Jungkook. “You managed to stand on anyone else’s toes yet y/n?” he grins.

“Not yet, no” you laugh.

“Good, good…” he hums, then turning his attention to the bartender. “Excuse me! 2 pints please!” he requests, pointing to one of the beer taps. “And… can I get anything for you guys?”

“Oh, you don’t have to” you tell him. 

“No, I insist” he exclaims. “And another round for these two please!” to which the bartender nods.

“So I’m doing a bit of research guys… what was your favourite song this evening?”

Your date seems rather speechless which doesn’t surprise you as you could just tell from his vacant stare throughout the whole gig that he wasn’t so much as even paying the slightest bit of attention.

“My favourite song?” you ask, scanning your brain to try and pick one. “Well, I enjoyed a lot of them, so….”

And just like that, an engaging conversation is sparked. It goes from the music, to asking each other what you each do in your ordinary lives, to funny anecdotes, to current affairs in the news, and then even following on from those news stories with opinions and theories, and before you know it, you glance up at the clock behind the bar and it is already half past midnight.

Clearly, your date also takes note of the time and finally decides to speak again right in the middle of you and Jungkook laughing about the idea of what ridiculous conspiracy theories have been said about the very latest bit of breaking news.

“Oh my God, really? Some people are so ridiculous!” you laugh, unable to contain yourself, stitches forming in your ribs.

“Um, y/n, it’s probably about time we should get going…” he informs you,  coming to stand next to you, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“Oh, really?” you sigh longingly. “I’m quite enjoying it here.”

“Well, it’s just that I’m getting a bit tired and I thought you might want to join me for a night cap…” he suggests, slightly pulling at your arm to coerce you into putting down your drink and leaving.

“I’m not ready to leave yet” you admit with a shrug as you look at the floor unable to look your date in the eye.

“Here you go guys” you hear the bartender speak in the background followed by the sounds of full glasses being placed next to you. You look up so that you can grab and take a sip of your fresh drink.

“But we’ve been here for hours” sighs your date in a huff, clearly annoyed at the rejection.

“Yeah, but our next round just came in” Jungkook adds, helping your case to stay put.

“I’m sorry, but no one asked you” replies your date through gritted teeth.

“Woah, woah!” you exclaim, standing up in front of him, hands raised as if to calm him down or bring the peace. “There’s no need to talk to him like that…”

“There’s no need to be talking to him at all if you ask me”

“Dude what the hell?” you ask. 

“Yeah, come on mate!” whines Jungkook in view of your date from behind your shoulder.

“Don’t you ‘mate’ me!” responds your date with a fit of bad temper, slamming his glass down on the table, causing some of it to splash out over the edge. You notice a couple of heads begin to turn at the sudden commotion 

“You’ve clearly been lingering around here all evening just so you can oogle over my bird”

“Sorry, your bird?” you protest loudly. 

Suddenly aware of the attention the volume of your voice draws, so that’s only a couple more heads turning to look at the three of you, you take a deep breath and muster the courage to speak up. 

“Who said I belong to you? This is a first date, a set up” you remind him. 

“I said I wanted to stay. I’ve been enjoying it here tonight, and if you aren’t enjoying it as much, then I’m sorry - not my problem! I’m not going to leave just because of that.”

Taehyung, who had also been sat with you guys for the past quarter of an hour decided to chime in: 

“Come on mate, maybe it’s time you should go” he suggests placing a hand on your date’s shoulder in attempt to calmly escort him out

“Who the fuck asked you either?” bellows your date, aggressively shrugging Taehyung off his shoulder.

“No one asked him, but I agree with what he has to say” you defend now positioning yourself between him and Tae. “Maybe it is time you should go. This clearly isn’t working out.”

Your date approaches Jungkook and goes face to face with him. If most of the pub were watching the scene unravelling before, every single person is watching now.

“This is all your fault, this” you date tells him in a threatening manner. 

“Oh yeah?” challenges Jungkook, pushing his neck upwards towards your date so that they are practically butting heads. “And I don’t suppose it has anything to do with how bored this poor girl has been looking for a good portion of the evening or how you’re so desperately trying to get into her pants when clearly, she’s having none of it? Yeah, I know your type; you’re a creep only in it for the fuck…”

“So what if I am?” 

The audacity of this comment from your date outrages you.

“Wow” you remark.

“Oh shut up!” he bellows, turning to face you once again. “We both know I could give you the time of your life if you went with me… what’s he got, eh?” he questions, placing both hands on your waist, making you feel super uncomfortable.

You push the creep off you and back away a step or two and towards Jungkook.

“You know, at least Jungkook was asking me about myself which was quite the refresher from talking to you! Do you really think you were winning me over with talks about how you go to the gym and how you ride about the county on some shitty bike?”

“Well maybe it’s just that you’re a frigid cow then”

“Oi! Oi!” yells Jungkook, pushing your - well, he’s not your date anymore, so - pushing this idiot away. The guy pushes him back and it briefly goes back and forth like this until Taehyung decides to pull his friend away, seemingly surprised at himself for being able to have the strength to do so.

“Oh my God! Just stop!” you demand. “Did you not for one moment consider that I might have just not been that into you?” you question, addressing the jerk who just described you in such a horrible way.

That really riled you up, you know. You refuse to be spoken to in such a demeaning way just because some dude couldn’t get his rock off with you. This won’t do. You know you’re not the problem here. Yet you feel the need to prove a point...

“Besides, would a frigid cow do this…?” you ask, pulling in Jungkook by the arm and swinging him in towards you lips crashing together. 

You throw your arms around him as he eases into the intense kiss by putting his hands on your waist which, by the way, feels much nicer than when the other guy put his hands on you, and the entire crowd that was watching this movie-like scene cheer.

You can feel Jungkook positively responding to the kiss as he smiles into it so you milk it by running your fingers through his hair as he pulls you in closer. Your hands trail down to his shoulders and you take in how strong they feel giving you a great sense of security in the kiss… plus you go weak at the knees at how amazing the kiss feels; how amazing he feels as you bask in his warmth.

Jungkook’s lips are divine. He tastes like the drink he just had, yet the softness of his lips gave almost a honey like flavour, delicious to savour. You relish the way his tongue runs along your loose lips requesting entrance and you see stars as just a kiss progresses into a small make out. You have to try with all your might to pull away from him so as to not create a sickly public display of affection for the onlookers.

“Yeah, well whatever” shrugs the losing man as you glance over at him with a look that says ‘this argument is finished’ Attempting to give off an unbothered appearance, as if his ego hasn’t been dampened, he wanders to the other end of the bar and towards the first lone girl he can see. 

At this point, many people have returned to chatting with the people at their own tables, low conversation stirring and restoring some of the usual ambience one would ordinarily find in a pub… the difference right now being that you’re quite certain they’re all talking about you, Jungkook and your jerk date.

For a few seconds, you watch this guy initiate conversation with her and those who are paying attention are humoured by the sight of the girl slapping him across the face and walking away, causing some to jeer ‘wahey!’

Out of sight, out of mind, you feel much calmer now as you see the guy walk out of the door.

“So, was that just for show or… can I interest you in coming to our next gig?” Jungkook questions, walking around you so that he stands in front of you.

“I’ll be a pleasure” you smile, heart fluttering at the sight of this handsome man. “Thank you”

______________________

tbh I’m not too happy with myself for how long it ended up being before the so called juicy bit but I figured it would be a wasted effort to not post it so if you got to the bottom of this post, I thank you so much for your time to read my 7.1k words of trash :P 

Fiction Masterlist

[buckyshattergirl]

A (Not So) Good Boy

Pairing: Roman Sionis x Reader A/N: Well... I did it. After almost three years of writing nothing that was good enough to post, IM BACK. This took me almost a week to write after finally coming up with a plot I liked. The idea itself had been bothering me for almost a month. I hope you like this! Words: 2.5k Warnings: Porn with maybe too much plot, smut, mommy kink, oral sex, handjob, out of character Roman (idk man...)

Summary: Roman finds himself in some trouble after his family disowns him. Through the kindness of a very nice baker he might find a way to get back on his feet. He did not plan on the things she would make him feel though.

Roman got into the bakery close to closing time, hoping they had some leftovers for him. The person doing the front hadn't noticed him yet and the baker came out. A young woman, early to mid twenties. She noticed him right away, and seemed to recognise him. "Hi, welcome to Book & Bake," she smiled. It wasn't a fake customer service smile, it was real, oozing with friendliness and he didn't know what to make of it. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah… I was wondering if you had any leftovers I could take home? I got two dollars, I'll take anything." He said. Boy he really was desperate, he didn't even bother speaking softly. She looked him up and down and took two sausage rolls out of the counter. 

"Come on back with me," she smiled. "I'll warm these up… You seem like you could use a chat." She opened the saloon doors and waited for him, she wasn't kidding. He followed her into a big room which had just been cleaned. The ovens were just hot enough to warm up the sausage rolls. She opened one up and put them in, leaving the door open. 

He looked at her, feeling very confused. "I-I'm Roman…" he told her. He figured if she was kind enough to welcome him into her working space he could at least introduce himself. 

"I know…" the woman smiled. "I remember you from the papers… My name is Y/N." She introduced herself. "And I think it's incredibly unfair what your family did to you…" That made Roman smile. He hadn't smiled in a long time. He watched her as she carefully got the pastries out and handed him one. 

"Thank you…" he mumbled, letting it warm his cold hands. "I really appreciate this…"  He hadn’t experienced this kind of kindness ever since his parents kicked him out. Y/N stood next to him, patting his shoulder. 

“If you’re ever hungry, or need a place to stay, you’re welcome here.” she smiled. 

A few weeks after their first meeting he once again found himself in Book & Bake right before closing. This time only Y/N was there. “Are you okay?” she asked. He looked awful. His face was all bruised and bloody and he was shivering. 

“I couldn’t pay them…” he whispered. He still had to get used to the fact that he had to work for his money now and that he couldn’t spend everything on menial stuff.

“Lemme take you upstairs, sweetie, get you all cleaned up.” she said, taking his arm. There was a staircase hidden behind a bookcase that opened. Y/N was still pretty proud of that idea. It led up to a very nice and luxurious flat. “I’m gonna run you a nice warm bath, you’re freezing.” she said, getting him into the bathroom. “And clean off your face, see if you need any patching up. Is that okay?” 

Poor man couldn’t do anything but nod. He didn’t even realise he was cold. He watched as she got out the first aid kit and turned on the hot water. Soon the bathroom was filled with warmth as the tub filled up. 

Y/N took a washcloth and wetted it. “This might sting a little,” she softly said as she brought the fabric to his face. Slowly all the blood disappeared and revealed that the wounds it had come from had already dried. “Damn… They fucked you up real bad, didn’t they…” she whispered, carefully inspecting all the bruises.

He didn’t know what to say. It had been years since anyone had treated him with such kindness. “Can I stay here?” he whispered, almost ashamed to have to ask for help. The young woman nodded, cupping his face. 

“For however long you need.” she offered, turning the water off and adding nice smelling bubbles to it. The bottle seemed expensive, he was pretty sure his mother had the same one. “Enjoy your bath,” she smiled, standing up to leave. As she turned around Roman grabbed her wrist. 

“Please stay…” he whispered. “I don’t want to be alone…” 

She nodded, getting back to her knees in front of him. “Alright,” she nodded. “Would you like some help?” That earned her a small nod. She reached up to slowly unbutton his shirt, being careful in case they hurt his torso too. But he didn’t have any bruising there. “I’ll turn around so you can take your pants off and get into the tub, alright?” she smiled, standing up and turning around. 

When Y/N heard the water move she turned around again, finding him in the tub, hugging his knees.  She sat down on the ottoman which held all her bath products and sighed. “Could… Could you please wash my hair?” Roman asked, looking up at her. Y/N nodded,

She found a lavender scented shampoo that would calm him a little. God knows he needed it. She used her hands to wet his hair. It felt like it hadn’t been washed  in weeks. “Is this okay?” she asked, running her hands through the greasy locks. She got another nod. She took the shampoo and rubbed it between her hands before massaging it into his scalp and hair. 

The scent did wonders to his anxious thoughts. His paranoia disappeared. They wouldn’t find him here. He relaxed into her touch and sighed contently. “Thank you, ma…’am” he whispered. 

Y/N smiled, glad she still had that top energy after years of being too busy to have any sex. She rinsed out all the shampoo, making sure he didn’t get any into his eyes. Once his hair was clean she ran her hands through it one last time. “Do you think you can manage the rest?” she asked. “I’ll find you some pyjamas and make your bed.” Once again she got a nod in confirmation. She couldn’t help but kiss his head softly before leaving the bathroom, leaving out a towel on the ottoman.

The moment the door closed Roman let out a sigh. He bit his lip and wrapped his hand around his hardening cock. “Fuck…” he whispered. She was so beautiful and kind to him. He didn’t know how to handle himself. He slowly stroked himself, imagining it was Y/N’s hand taking care of him. Soft moans escaped his lips as he kept that slow pace. “Y/N…" he whimpered, bucking his hips up. 

Meanwhile she was holding the doorknob, definitely hearing what he was doing so instead of just walking in she softly knocked on the door so he seized his actions. She waited for permission to come in and put the silk pyjamas on the sink. 

"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes," she announced, looking over at him. She saw how his face was flushed and he was biting his lip. "Have fun," she winked. 

He knew it was so wrong, but he couldn't help saying it. He didn't even know if he said it to tease her or because it turned him on. "Yes mommy," he called out, grinning. It did turn him on, and he hoped she didn't think it was weird. 

Y/N just chuckled as she walked to the kitchen. She'd never been called mommy before but she thought it was pretty funny. She quickly whipped up some spaghetti, making sure there was enough. He seemed hungry. 

10 minutes later Roman appeared in the kitchen. "These pyjamas are really comfy, thank you." He smiled, sitting down. She handed him a plate and a set of cutlery before sitting across from him. She was worried for him. The people that beat him up could still be after him. 

“Who fucked you up that bad?” she asked, reaching over the table to take his hand. “Do they need to be paid off?” Another nod. “How much?” 

“5000…” he sighed. “But please don’t feel obligated to pay… I’ll find a job, pay it off myself.” he rambled. But Y/N shook her head. 

“I’ll pay them… See it as a chance to get back on your feet.” she said. “Would you like some cheese?” 

After dinner Y/N put on the tv as she did the dishes, giving Roman some distraction. She had no idea that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her backside. “Will you stay with me tonight?” he asked as she sat down with him. 

“Of course,” she nodded, getting underneath a blanket. Over the next few minutes Roman got closer to her, needing affection. She was too focussed on the movie on the television to notice his neediness. Finally he got the courage to put his head in her lap. Her hand immediately found its way into his hair softly. He nuzzled into her stomach, enjoying the touches. “You tired?” she asked. He grinned up at her and shook his head. 

“But I do wanna go to bed.” he smirked, getting up. Mischief lit up his eyes as he walked to the open bedroom. Y/N chuckled, getting up to follow him.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Sionis…” she laughed, walking into the bedroom with him. “You should know I have a very peculiar taste in the bedroom.”

“As long as I can call you mommy I’m fine with everything…” he smirked, biting down onto his lip. 

“Usually I go by Mistress or ma’am… But suit yourself I guess, Sionis…” Y/N chuckled, pushing him softly towards the bed. “Be nice, darling…” She climbed onto the bed and sat down against the headboard, looking at him with a kind smile. 

“Yes, of course…” Roman grinned, crawling closer to her. His dick was already rock hard, clearly visible through the silk of his pants. “I can’t wait to fuck you…” he whispered under his breath. That made Y/N chuckle.

“No no no, sweetie… You’re going to make mommy feel good first…” she said, gripping his chin and kissing him. It started out slow and soft but soon turned into a show of dominance. “Now be a good boy for me…” she whispered into his ear once she pulled away. 

He nodded and unbuttoned Y/N’s shirt, kissing every inch of newly exposed skin on his way. “Fuck you’re so beautiful…” he whispered, pushing away the fabric from her shoulders so her torso was bared to him. His lips found the skin of her collarbone as he pushed her skirt up. He couldn’t get her panties off fast enough. 

“I bet that tongue of yours is very talented,” she whispered, kissing his cheek. He nodded, kissing down her chest and never breaking eye contact. He smirked, winking as he gave a shy lick at her clit, making her sigh. He took his sweet time before diving in and eating her out like a man starved. Y/N moaned out his name, it sounded like music, as he lapped at her clit and his fingers teased at her opening. 

She reached down, pulling at his hair softly to talk to him. “You’re so good at this...” she whispered. He moved his fingers to her clit before diving back in, pressing his tongue against her entrance and finally penetrating her. 

He moaned at the taste of her pussy, extracting more moans from her. He used his fingers to flick at her bundle of nerves, making her whimper until she was close. Roman groaned, pulling away. “Please mommy…” he whimpered. “Please… I’m so hard… Please touch me…” Y/N groned at her ruined orgasm, but smirked at him as she sat up straighter.

“Get on your back, sweetie,” she ordered. Roman complied, holding onto her hand. “I’m gonna sit on your face. Because you will make me cum before I even consider letting you cum.” She said, waiting for him to nod before straddling his face. “Tap my thigh three times if you need me to get off.”

He wrapped his arms around her thighs to get her closer. He wanted to eat her out real good. Meanwhile she reached over and got his cock out of it’s silk confines. “Oh baby…” she smirked, kissing it. “So hard for me…” She spit in her hand before wrapping her hand around his dick, slowly stroking him. It felt so good he buried his tongue deeper inside to stifle his moans. 

Y/N rocked her hips, giving Roman’s cock teasing licks but never taking him in her mouth. That only made him work even harder. Soon she was moaning out his name “God Roman, I’m so close…” she moaned, “make me cum…” . He reached down and teased her clit with his finger, applying just the right amount of pressure. She cried out and arched her back, finally reaching that high. She got off of him, sitting down next to him instead and smiled, softly pecking his lips. 

“You’ve been such a good boy,” she whispered, wrapping her hand around his cock again. “You can touch if you want to…”

He whimpered, letting his hands run up her body. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, squeezing the supple flesh of her tits. She sped up her hand, making him moan. He dove in and started kissing down her boobs to hide the sounds he was making.  Soon his hips bucked to meet her hand and he was moaning and whimpering into her skin. “Fuck… Mommy I’m so close…” he whispered. 

“Do you want to cum, baby?” she asked, stroking his hair with her free hand. He nodded, looking up at her with big eyes. “Ask me nicely then…”

“Please mommy… Please can I cum?” he whined, rutting into her hand like an animal. She seemed to think it over a little, but to him it took too long. “Please…” he whimpered. She leaned down and kissed his cheek before finally whispering what he wanted to hear.

“Cum for me, sweetie…” With that he moaned out her name, his hips stuttering as white spurts of cum shot out of his dick. “So pretty when you cum…” Y/N commented, a smirk on her face. 

“Thank you,” he sighed, putting his head against her shoulder. “That was amazing…”

“I noticed,” she chuckled, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. “We should definitely take a shower now…” That made Roman whine. 

“I don’t wanna…” he sighed. “I wanna stay here comfy with you…” 

“Alright, but I am gonna take a quick shower. I’ll be right back.” she said, kissing his face. Five minutes later she emerged with a washcloth and a water bottle. “Here…” she said, making him drink as she wiped down his body, getting most of the filth off. 

“You were really good for me…” she smiled, kissing his head. 

“I’d like to be your good boy,” Roman grinned, winking before kissing her cheek. “If you’ll have me of course.” Y/N chuckled.

“Alright, but then you really have to be good, okay?” she smiled, holding him close. 

“I promise…” he nodded. 

Tags(I’m tagging people I think will like this. If you don’t want to be tagged please tell me. That also goes if you want to be tagged.): @fantastic-fantasy-fanfics​ @darling-i-read-it​ @queenofgotham800​ @romyxsiomy​ 

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Athena/Ash AU: Whiskey and Nightmares

Continuing the crack AU @whump-tr0pes and I are collabing on with her Honor Bound characters and my Daniel Michaelson characters... Isaac wakes up from a nightmare and heads downstairs for a drink... only to find Danny Michaelson is already up, for the same reason.

CW: Referenced past trauma and violence, some dehumanizing language (brief), and, uh... drunken makeouts and PG-13/Light R if you squint spice!

First Second Third

Isaac came out of sleep fighting for air through a what felt like a pinhole to breathe through, a panicked gasp lodged somewhere midway down his throat.

He was in an unfamiliar bed, too nice of a bed, too richly luxurious - the pillows were soft and there were so many. There were warm fuzzy blankets draped over him and the room smelled faintly like vanilla and tobacco. It was a space designed for absolute relaxation, and a faint breeze blew through from the open (but barred) window, rustling the long, semi-sheer drapes that ran to the floor.

Where the fuck was he?

For a second, as he moved to push himself up to sitting, Isaac was absolutely sure the door to the bedroom was locked, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

He felt off-balance, coming out of a nightmare where something… what had happened? He had a sense of deep-seated terror, a soft voice whispering you’re never leaving this room again in his ear. That was all he could remember.

It was already fading, the way that nightmares slip away and leave the aftermath and the fear without the context to explain it.

His heart was pounding in his chest like it’d try to break its way through, and he took a deep breath, blinking rapidly, trying to calm himself down.

Next to him, there was a soft movement in the bed, and Isaac jerked so hard to the side he rolled right off in a tangle of sheets wrapped around his ankles, hitting the ground with a muffled thump as he landed on a soft, plush rug that was nearly as thick as the bed itself.

He stared up, heart pounding, blinking as he realized the ceiling above his head was painted with a jungle scene. He was staring at a tiger, its jaws open wide over the back of some kind of lizard that clearly didn’t know it was there.

“Am I the lizard…?” Isaac asked, hearing his own voice hoarse and wavering.

He was being held here. The door was locked, he knew the door was locked. The Michaelsons were going to keep them here, Gray’s instincts had been wrong. They had been taken captive all over again but it was all of them this time, there was nothing he could do to save anyone.

Worse than that, he was locked in and there was someone else in the bed. He didn’t know how it had happened but he was locked in a bedroom with someone else, someone-

“Isaac…?” Sam’s voice slurred, bleary with sleep, and his head jerked over to stare as Sam shifted around to look back down at him from up on the bed. Their curly hair was an absolute mess, smashed flat on one side and nearly haloing their head on the other, and they rubbed at one eye, eyebrows furrowed with concern. “You okay?”

“Uh…” Isaac took a deep, shaky breath, raking one hand back through his hair, looking around. “Y-Yeah, Sam, I’m fine. Just fell out of bed, I guess. I’ll just, uh…”

He had to see if the door was locked. He had to. There was still worry beating in the back of his mind, that they’d all been locked in like guests in some weird horror movie. It wasn’t an impossible thought, either.

The Michaelsons could just keep them here. Gray had taken a huge risk, agreeing to this to get through the territory safely, and what if this family couldn’t be trusted? What if their hatred for the Stormbecks wasn’t stronger than their greed? They could trade them back to Gavin’s family or… or worse, somehow, and he wasn’t sure what could be worse than what he’d already survived or what might be in store for the if they were dragged back, but…

What if the Michaelsons took one look at you and just knew that you’re so fucking entertaining to break?

“I’ll just go splash some water on my face,” Isaac said a little gruffly, getting to his feet, feeling an ache along his back. Phantom pains he was starting to get used to feeling, hints of fire along the places where the whip had come down. “Go back to sleep, Sam, I’m okay.”

Sam squinted at him. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

They looked like they wanted to argue, but exhaustion won out and they flopped back onto the bed. Sam wrapped themself up tightly in all the blankets until one side of the bed was absolutely devoid of even a single corner of the sheets.

"I'm going to want some of those back when I come back, you know," Isaac said, fighting a smile.

"Wish you th' best of luck takin’ ‘em," Sam muttered from deep within the little Sam burrito they had made.

Isaac sighed, good-naturedly, and padded barefoot to the door. He hesitated with his hand out, swallowing, just an inch from trying to open it. As long as he didn't, he wouldn't know for sure if it was locked or not, if he'd had a nightmare or a premonition.

It’s not going to open. You and Sam are locked in this room, with bars on the windows and a door you can’t get out of, and they’ll come and tell you that you’re never leaving alive.

He curved his fingers around the gilded handle and firmly pushed it down.

It’s not going to open, Isaac.

It opened easily, swinging in on silent hinges to show him the hallway. For a half-second he jumped at the sight of a man staring right at him… before he realized it was his own reflection. There was a large mirror with a gold frame hung on the wall opposite the door. He hadn't really noticed it earlier, but he was very aware of it now.

Isaac closed the door behind him as quietly as he could, and stood for just a second, listening. Someone was snoring loud enough to hear - he was pretty sure that was Gray - and he was also pretty sure he heard low voices coming from Ryan Michaelson's room, low soft male laughter followed up by a voice he knew.

Two voices he knew.

Well, that didn’t take long.

“I need a drink,” Isaac murmured, dragging a hand down his face. He could see the starry sky through the window next to the stairwell, moonlight shining in well enough to nearly light the dark hallway. He rolled his eyes upward, slowly looking at the ceiling above him, wondering if Gavin was asleep yet, or still whining to the wall about how small his queen-sized bed was.

How was it Ryan and Daniel Michaelson had been so polite and nice and Gavin Stormbeck was such a piece of whiny, sniveling shit?

Maybe Ryan and Danny’s parents don’t teach their children to cut people up for fun. Or to be better at pretending they don't, anyway.

He was thinking too much.

Isaac set his jaw, carefully blanked his mind, and made his way down the winding staircase, listening to the sounds of the house settling around him. This house was older than any place he’d seen still standing, evidence of the time before the syndicates - if you ignored the more newly-added bars on the windows and the fact that he was fairly certain the front door was bulletproof.

There was greenery everywhere, now that he thought about it. Plants on shelves and in corners, ivy growing up the outside of the house, a heavily wooded area out back that they had been warned to not go in without Nate or Ryan giving them explicit permission.

“... in case it gets shoot-y,” Isaac said to himself as he stepped onto the first floor, lips twisting with wry humour, stretching his arms up over his head.

"Is-... Is s-someone there?"

The voice was slightly wavering, a little worried. Isaac turned, still mid-stretch, to see Danny Michaelson, a nearly looming presence in the open doorway to the kitchen, peering out at him.  

"It's just me," Isaac said, opening his palms wide where they were held above his head, in a don't shoot gesture. "Uh. Isaac. I don't know why I thought you'd know who 'me' is in the dark…"

"No, I… I recognized your… hi." Danny hesitated, eyes dropping, and Isaac realized his shirt had ridden up to show a wide band of his stomach, criss-crossed with scarring from Gavin’s knife. He quickly dropped his arms, shirt falling back down to cover them up. "What, um… are you doing up?"

"Could, ah, ask you the same."

"Oh. Um." Danny ducked his head, smiling with an odd, shame-faced expression. His scars were nearly invisible in the blueish white moonlight coming through the windows, warm light from the kitchen making him nearly a silhouette. "Had a nightmare, thought drinking would, um, would help. You?"

"Yeah… same reason, same thought."

Danny blinked at him, then he laughed - it was a low, soft laugh, and Isaac had the distinct feeling that if he so much as acknowledged it, Danny would not laugh again. “Well, sit on the couch, then. I’ll get you… I’ll get you a glass.”

Isaac nodded and watched him duck back into the kitchen before he moved quietly over to the ‘formal family room’ or whatever Ryan had called it, looking around at the multiple couches that took up the seemingly cavernous space before he settled on a large sectional nearly wide enough to be a bed in and of itself, sitting down only to nearly sink into the cushions, letting out a soft breath.

Seeing Danny made his nightmare, and his certainty when he’d first woken up that they were locked in and never getting out, seem ridiculous, nearly insanely absurd. Gray had said Danny lived through something similar to Vera’s experience with Gavin’s father, that his captivity had lasted years. He had a feeling the shy, nervous redhead would never have been here if anything like that had been planned.

Granted, he could see Ryan Michaelson being just fine with it if it meant Sam would stick around… Isaac caught himself smiling again, closing his eyes and rubbing at his temples with his fingers.

Danny came back out with a bottle in one hand and two whiskey glasses braced between his arm and his ribs.

“Why not hold them with your hand?” Isaac asked, blinking, as Danny came around the side of the couch and settled close - but not too close - to him.

“I don’t have the best grip with my, um, my hands any longer,” Danny said with a shrug, not quite looking at him. He set the glasses down on the coffee table before pouring them each a good three fingers of brown liquor with practiced expertise.

“You’re good at that,” Isaac said softly. “I always have to keep evening out the pour for what feels like minutes to get everyone the same amount.”

Danny looked up at him, considering, and then said softly, “I had to be good at it, for them.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” Isaac felt his face burn, embarrassed that he’d manage to so thoroughly tapdance right into uncomfortable territory, but Danny just smiled at him and pushed his glass closer, quickly pulling his hand back before Isaac could reach out.

“No problem. You wouldn’t know.” Danny picked his own glass up, taking a long drink, and Isaac followed suit.

It was whiskey, hints of vanilla - what was it with the Michaelsons and vanilla? - and it went down so smoothly he could nearly drink it like water. He was drinking it like water, he realized only after a good third of it was already gone, and he’d barely even taken a breath in between drinks.

“You did it, too,” Danny said, his voice low enough that Isaac nearly missed it over the welcome warmth beginning to spread through his shoulders, relaxing muscles that felt like they never stopped being tense. When Isaac blinked at him, he pointed at the scar that ran over Isaac’s left forearm. “You were… held.”

“Um. Yeah.” Isaac found himself gulping even more, and made himself put the glass down on the table, nervously rubbing at the skin between thumb and forefinger with his other hand. “I was. Not for, uh, not for nearly as long as you, not by a longshot.”

“Pain is relative,” Danny said quickly, in the practiced cadence of someone who had tried to memorize the phrase. “It doesn’t, um, matter how long. What matters is that it happened. I, um, I thought so when I, I saw you…” His voice trailed off and he took another drink, and Isaac realized Danny was drinking pretty fast, too.

“Shit. So you can tell just from looking at me,” Isaac muttered, and Danny laughed again, surprising enough in the moment to make Isaac look back up at him. The warm blue eyes were sparkling with real humor, in a way he hadn’t seen before.

But then, Danny was drinking before Isaac ever came downstairs.

“No. I mean, um, yes. I can. And Nate can. When you’ve, um, been there… you can see it in each other, I think.” He gave Isaac a slightly nervous smile, and picked up the glass to hand it to him again. Isaac took it with a soft thanks and took another drink, wondering if Danny was trying to get him drunk, or if he was just trying to be nice.

Get you drunk and you wake up and then you really are locked in, and it was all part of some sadistic fucking game, just like Gavin-

“I know because I, um, I have them, too,” Danny said, and tapped with one finger the scars on the back of the hand that held his own glass. “Scars. This was, um, knives. Your stomach was knives?”

“How do you-”

“When you were stretching,” Danny said, shyly. “Not that I was looking. I just… saw them.”

“Oh.” Isaac felt his face redden again, and he shrugged, trying to look casual and uncaring about it, his eyes drifting over to the windows that ran along the front of the house. Barred, in a subtle way he hadn’t picked up on at first. This was a sweet, lovely little country house - and it was also a fortress. Even as he looked, he saw the shadow of one of the Michaelsons’ armed men move past, walking the grounds, armed to the teeth. “Yeah. That was knives.”

When he was Gavin’s favorite fucking entertainment. And now he had to cart him around and save his life, because he was supposed to be better than Gavin, even if he knew, deep down, that he wasn’t.

The two fell into not-quite-awkward silence, punctuated only by the sound of the bottle when Danny picked it back up and refilled both their glasses once they were empty. Isaac was watching more closely this time, and he could see a flicker of emptiness in Danny’s face when he did it, as though he were sliding somewhere back into himself, just for a fraction of a second, as he did something he had done in captivity.

It reminded Isaac uneasily of Vera - and made him wonder if it would remind any of the rest of the team of him.

“What was your nightmare?” Danny asked, looking up at him. It was weird, to sit next to such a tall man hunched over to make himself so small, and see him look up at you, with big eyes.

“What?” Isaac was feeling the whiskey, now - he could feel the flush of it in his face, warm under his skin, relaxed back into the couch now instead of sitting up straight and tense.

“Why you woke up. You said you had, um, nightmares, and wanted to drink. What was your nightmare?” Danny grinned at him, a flash of the kind of smile he’d given his brother and the other one - Nate - earlier. Less shy, now that he also had plenty of whiskey in him.

He was… kind of cute, Isaac thought, and carefully looked away before that thought got any further away from him or - in the most horrifying possibility - found its way out of his mouth. “Um. I just… I don’t really remember. I know I was dreaming that we were locked in, that you had, uh, decided to-”

“Keep you?” Danny tilted his head, a little hair falling over one eye. Isaac was just drunk enough to lean forward and push it back out of the way - but not drunk enough to miss the way Danny went very, very still, almost instantly, at the touch.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry,” Isaac said, jerking his hand back like maybe he’d burned him. “Shit. Gray said you don’t like touch, that was part of our, uh, shit. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s… it’s not as bad when I’m drunk? It’s okay. You’re okay. You’ve, um, you’ve been there, too…” Danny trailed off. “That makes it easier. When someone has, um, has… been there, too.”

“Not like that,” Isaac said quickly. “I mean. Shit. I’m too drunk not to fuck this whole conversation up, Daniel.”

“Danny. My… not a lot of, um, people call me Daniel. I like Danny better. That’s okay, I’m drunk enough that this whole… conversation… is going pretty well from, um, my perspective.” Danny grinned at him again, and he found himself smiling back. “So you thought we were, um, going to keep you here?”

“Yeah. I mean. It’s just a bad dream, but we’ve been running from… so many fucking people. I think my brain just… doesn’t want to admit there’s anyone out there who doesn't have an ulterior motive.”

“Oh, we do.” Isaac felt a vague sense of alarm before Danny only shook his head and laughed again, sitting more upright. “Sorry. I just mean, we’re not doing this because we’re good people, my mother just wants to piss off the Stormbecks. They stole some, um, some stuff from her a long time ago, and she figures, why not? But we wouldn’t, uh, hold you.” Danny glanced away, over at the window outside. Looking at the driveway lined with trees gently swaying in the nighttime breeze. “We don’t… do that.”

“Well… good. I’m glad my nightmare was as ridiculous as it sounded. What was yours?”

“My nightmare?” Danny looked back at him, hesitating, and then just shrugged. “Same as always. That coming home was, um, a dream. They’re not dead, and I’m still… there. What happens in the dream is, um, different, but… that’s always what it’s about. This time I was being whipped again. They liked whipping me.”

Isaac took another drink, nodding as he let the flavor rest on his tongue, then swallowed. “I’ve been whipped, too. Does your back still hurt when you wake up?”

“Every fucking day,” Danny said dryly, and the both of them laughed together. “I mean every day. My hands, too, but my back’s the, um, the worst.” He shrugged, finishing his second drink and setting the glass a little too firmly down on the table, both of them wincing at the loud thunk. “Whoops. I’m glad you guys asked us for help.”

“You… are?” Isaac blinked, not entirely sure he hadn’t just drunk enough to start hearing things. “Why?”

Danny smiled but looked away at the same second, and Isaac knew that expression, and felt vaguely alarmed and sort of enthralled by it all at once. “It’s just… nice to meet other people who, um, who know. I mean. Other than Nate. But we talked about it, and he’s okay with it, he said…”

“You talked to Nate? About what?” Isaac’s voice was lower than he meant it to be, a little shaky. His face had never stopped being red, and it had to be the whiskey.

Danny looked at him, briefly, and then away. “You.”

“You talked to him… about… me?” Isaac’s voice caught, and he drank the rest of his whiskey way too fast, coughing as it went down the wrong way, leaning forward wondering how ridiculous it was to make it through everything he’d survived and then choke to death on goddamn whiskey. “Shit. Sorry, I just-”

He coughed again, harder this time, bent nearly in half with the effort.

“Are you, um, okay?” Danny patted him on the back, firmly, and with his eyes closed - still coughing - Isaac wondered if Danny had done that for anyone but Nate since he’d come back here from whatever it was he’d lived through. “Hey, I can, let me go get some water-”

“N-No, I’m fine.” Isaac cleared his throat, putting one hand up, taking a few deep breaths. “I’m fine, thanks, I’m okay. I’m-” He coughed once more, and finally sat back, only to find Danny leaning in closer than he had been before.

Either he was really drunk, or it just didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. He looked up to meet Danny’s eyes, only a few inches away from his. “I’m okay,” He said, again, more softly. Nearly a whisper.

“I think you’re safe,” Danny said, quietly, without pulling back. “So I want to try something. Are you safe?”

“I don’t-... I don’t know what that means.”

Danny shook his head, and that bit of hair fell over his eyes again. “I mean, I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”

“Hurt you… One of us has about three dozen armed guards outside, Danny, and it’s not me.” He reached up and pushed the bit of hair back out of the way again, tucking it behind Danny’s ear. Danny went still - but this time, Isaac got that he wasn’t going still because he wanted it to stop. “Did you seriously talk to your boyfriend about-”

“Yes.” 

Danny cut him off with lips pressed to his, a kiss that surprised him with intensity, that he was answering with the same warmth before he even understood what had happened.

Danny’s rough, scarred hands were on either side of his face. His hands went up over Danny’s, not to pull them back, just laying over the pattern of scars, feeling the rough bumps under his palms. 

He could taste the whiskey they’d both been drinking, when he opened his mouth, when Danny pressed the kiss deeper. 

“Are you sure this isn’t going to, to fuck something up-”

“Me, maybe,” Danny whispered. “Or you. But not us, not me and Nate. Please, you can say no, but-”

“I don’t want to say no,” Isaac said, and groaned when Danny kissed the side of his neck, sliding his hands up into his hair, tangling his fingers around it. “I just-... haven’t, in a long time-”

“That’s okay, we don’t have to do-... I don’t think I, um, I can, anyway, we can just do this.”

“Oh, okay, just-... this is good, I think, this is good, to start.”

They were whispering, heads together, and Isaac wasn’t sure exactly how it happened but somehow a few minutes later he ended up on his back on the couch with Danny laying on top of him, their hands up under each other’s shirts, the other man’s tongue in his mouth, feeling his body light up in ways it hadn’t done in way too long.

The world was a sort of delightful drunken spin centered around the simple solid weight of Daniel Michaelson’s hips on his, the warmth of his ribs under Isaac’s hands, the odd rough coolness of Danny’s fingers sliding up his back as he arched into him, pressing over scars.

His own hands moved up Danny’s back, under the fabric of his heavy knit sleeping shirt, feeling along the scars as they kissed, the house shifting, creaking around them in the middle-of-the-night stillness. “Got whipped right there, too,” Isaac murmured into Danny’s jaw, licking at the scar there, the little dip of evidence of something darker than Isaac was prepared to name.

“We both did,” Danny whispered, voice and breath heavy, moving his hands to feel over the knife-marks on Isaac’s stomach, curving over his hips through the fabric of his pants. He rocked their hips together, to Isaac’s low moan. Then Danny smiled and pushed himself back and away, sitting slowly up with his weight still on Isaac’s hips. “Want to see?”

“Not, uh, exactly, b-... but your shirt off… yeah.”

“I asked as a, uh, to see if you wanted… to see my shirt off… I’m bad at this. Hold on.” Danny smiled shyly, pulling his shirt off over his head, and Isaac pushed himself up on his elbows to look up at him. Jesus, it had been a while - they’d been so busy running and fighting and living on pure adrenaline, he hadn’t even thought about doing anything like this…

Are you about to sleep with a syndicate son? After what the syndicates have done to your entire fucking life? Seriously?

Danny didn’t feel like a syndicate heir, though. Talking to him felt more like talking to one of them, one of the normal people the syndicates had crushed and brought to heel when they took over. Talking to Ryan felt like talking to a syndicate member, but… not Danny.

Danny shifted back and off of him, moving to turn around while still kneeling on the couch, and in the dim light of the single lamp in the living room and the moonlight coming through the windows, Isaac stared at a back absolutely coated in scars exactly like his own. He moved around and up onto his knees, pulling his own shirt off in silence.

“I, I know they’re bad,” Danny whispered, shoulders hunching forward. “I’m sorry, I can put my shirt back on-”

“Don’t.” He was drunk, and this probably wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done, but Isaac leaned forward and kissed Danny’s shoulder blade, hearing his breath hitch and smiling a little as he grazed his mouth over the scars, rough and silk-smooth at the same time. “I like, I like how you… look, I think.”

Danny laughed, a low soft sound, and turned around on the couch, grabbing at him again, and this time Isaac didn’t hesitate, the two of them kneeling together on the couch, wrapped in each other, and Isaac realized the vanilla-and-tobacco smell was Danny’s cologne.

“Christ, you’re good at kissing,” Isaac said, sucking a spot red on Danny’s neck until he was shivering and moving his hips again, almost helplessly, breathing in little gasps that Isaac wanted to hear more of, all night or potentially for-fucking-ever. 

“Y-you, um, you, too,” Danny murmured, sliding a hand over Isaac’s stomach, over the scars, and then slipping it underneath the waistband of his pants, fingers skimming lower and lower until Isaac dropped his forehead onto Danny’s shoulder and groaned, bucking into his hand.

“Jesus. Fuck. Yes, right there, Danny... ah, I want that-”

“Oh my god,” Isaac heard an all-too-familiar voice say. “What the f-”

THUNK.

“Ow! Jesus Christ that hurt!”

Danny and Isaac both jumped apart, turning to look over the back of the couch to where Gavin was sitting on his ass on the ground, rubbing at one side of his face, next to a doorframe.

“Gavin, what the fuck?” Isaac grabbed at his shirt, moving to pull it rapidly back on over his head, and saw Danny doing the same. He tried to ignore his disappointment - which was easy, since he was rapidly papering it over with anger. “Did you just walk into the fucking doorway?”

“I was surprised! I came down to get a glass of water, I didn’t expect to find you and this asshole fucking playing ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ at 2 in the morning!” Gavin pushed himself to his feet, glaring at Danny with real anger and something else, something even sharper, in his eyes.

“It’s, um, it’s my house,” Danny said, trying for firm, but his voice shook just a little, and Isaac stood, walking around the couch to stand between them without even thinking about it.

“Sure, it’s your house, but he’s-” Gavin cut off.

“If you were about to say what I think you were about to say,” Isaac said, voice low and dangerous, “Then you need to get your ass upstairs right. the fuck. now.”

“How would you know what I was going to say,” Gavin muttered, a pouting whine to his voice that stabbed into Isaac’s brain like a hundred icepicks. “I mean, with him? What, you going to thank him for letting us stay here flat on your back? I kind of get the other one, but this one? All he’s done is cook and clean like a fucking maid and he just follows the other guy around like a-... like a, a fucking…”

“Like a what, Gavin?” Isaac asked, his voice low and soft.

Danny had gone silent, but in the moment, Isaac didn’t notice.

“Like a fucking puppy or something!” Gavin half-shouted. “That’s what I was trying to say! He’s like a puppy!”

There was a strangled sound, and Isaac turned to see a look in Danny’s eyes that he’d seen before… in Vera. Wide, and distant, and terrified.

I am going to fucking murder Gavin Stormbeck one day, and right now I could happily bludgeon him to death with anything in this room.

“Gavin, go upstairs right now,” Isaac said quickly. “Right. Now. Get back in your room and don’t come out until everyone else is up.”

“What? Why?” Gavin blinked, looking at Danny directly for the first time. He swallowed hard, face going pale. “Oh, shit. I fucked him up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you dumbass. You did,” Isaac said, and it took real effort to keep his tone even. All the warmth from the whiskey had drained out of him, leaving him feeling coldly sober and furious - at the look on Daniel Michaelson’s face, at the interruption and the way his body was still lit at every nerve ending, at just fucking everything. “Get upstairs. Now. I’ll handle this, and maybe we don’t get our asses thrown to the fucking bounty hunters chasing us.”

Gavin muttered something that could have been the world’s lamest attempt at an apology and all but fled back up the stairs.

Isaac turned back to look at Daniel Michaelson and took a deep breath. “Okay, what do I do now?”

Danny looked up at him, eyes wide and frightened of something only he could see. “I’m sorry,” He said, voice shaking. “I’ll… I’ll be good, for y-you.”

Isaac felt dread like cold water run down his spine. “Hey, it’s okay,” He said, putting his hands up, palms out, then dropping them when Danny flinched back and put his own hands over his head protectively.

“I’ll be good,” Danny said, closing his eyes, steeling himself as if waiting for a blow. “I’ll, I’ll try h-harder, I’ll be good, I want to be good for y-you, Abraham…”

Isaac ran through everything he could think of to do, and finally he just stood there, feeling helpless. The only thing he could think of… “Shit. Okay. Stay here, uh, Danny. Just stay here, I’ll go get Nate, okay?”

He did not look forward to explaining the last few minutes of his life to Danny Michaelson’s boyfriend.

If they weren’t going to fuck us over before, there’s a distinct possibility they’ll do so now.

He went for the rooms at the back of the first floor, and felt more than a little embarrassed that at least part of him was upset that he probably wasn’t going to get to do any of that with Danny Michaelson again.

[writethehousedown]

The Great Rudolph Debacle (Jela) - Puppy

Summary: Nothing says the holidays like watching a movie with one of your good friends (or maybe more?). Especially if it’s some cheap Rudolph movie.

A/N: This was for prompt 1, but I finally got it done! Yes, the movie they’re watching is a real one. It’s a 1992 fiilm done by GoodTimes Entertainment. It’s def initely a trip. Friendly reminder: in this fic, Jinkx uses they/them pronouns.

“I don’t get it.” Jinkx glanced at the opening credits on the screen in front of them. After blinking a few times, still perplexed at the voice talent, they took a sip out of a sweating martini glass, hoping it would make more sense of things. Was the animation this grainy or was it just the classic VHS quality? Their other hand propped up her face which felt like melting off at any moment. “Why in the world would Debbie Reynolds and Whoopi Goldberg of all people sign themselves onto this?”

“Maybe they could have gotten a good paycheck out of this.” Dela plopped onto the couch besides her ginger compatriot and dug one hand into a bowl on the coffee table. “Also it’s rude to talk during the movie, Dink!” she spoke through a mouthful of popcorn.

“It was a legitimate question!” Jinkx hushed their voice and rolled their eyes. And chewing with your mouth open isn’t rude? They wanted to say that, but, as much as they loved her, she wouldn’t fully get it through her head. That’s fine too; enjoy your popcorn.  “But I guess you’re right,” They were back at their first volume “All stars have some things to hide from their resume. After all, Bette Midler was Kitty Galore.”

“But that’s-“

“Della. I’d watch anything with Bette Midler… I’ve suffered a lot.” They sipped some more from their glass and stared back at the screen.

It was mid-December and TV stations across the world played its typical fare of holiday classics on repeat, but today was not the day for primetime. Jinkx had offhandedly mentioned one night that they hadn’t seen the original Rudolph, well not in a while. Last time they had seen it on a much smaller screen and Jinkx was a much smaller Jinkx.  Being the holiday enthusiast that she was, Dela took it upon herself to educate her friend on the wonders and joys of the film, plus the many sequels and direct-to-DVD remakes of the original: the cinematic Rud-iverse, as she liked to call it. It wasn’t like she could tell though; for all she knew, those all took place in the same continuity.

“I know I shouldn’t be talking right now,” Dela stage whispered into her old friend’s ear, her statement ending with a signature uptick, “but I thought you were going to be sober during this marathon?”

“Oh, I am. Don’t worry.” They took another sip, some sugar from the rim sticking to the edge of their chin and some whipped cream made a cute little dot on their nose. “It’s cocoa. Or… it’s more chocolate milk at this point.”

“Really? I thought it was some Kahlua or chocolate liqueur thing.”

“Nope.”

“It’s fine, you can – Wait is that one of the good glasses?”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get back to the movie.” Jinkx embarrassedly smiled and took another long sip, forgetting about the reason they were over for a second. No matter the quality, Dela didn’t just put it on simply for the ambience. Their attitudes simply remained for the next twenty or so minutes: Dela with her terminal delight and Jinkx with nonplussed confusion about this cheap mockbuster.

“I wonder. How much did they have to pay for royalties for the song?” Dela inquired as Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” started playing under a montage.

Jinkx blinked a few times. Up until now, they weren’t even sure she knew what royalties even were. “I guess that explains the why the visuals are so b-”

“Don’t say that! You’ll hurt the animators’ feelings.”

“Well, they’re not here right now, so.” That seemed to halt the conversation until Jinkx started again only seconds later. “Oh gods, are they gonna use the whole song?”

“Well….” The sample stopped and that answered Jinkx’s question. “Anyway. Sorry for interrupting.”

For one of the longer stretches of the movie, the two sat in silence, occasionally moving for bathroom breaks or refilling (and redecorating) the cocoa martini glass. Jinkx silently prayed to any deity they could think of, hoping their glass hadn’t cracked from the heat.

“Man, they are really trying to stretch this plot thin, aren’t they? Five verses of a country song doesn’t need to take up an hour thirty minutes.” They planted themself back on the couch, placing the martini glass on the coffee table.

“You easily can say the same about the Rankin-Bass special too, Jinkx.” Dela retorted, having ditched the popcorn and focused on the movie again. She placed a hand on Jinkx’s shoulder and rubbed it comfortingly.

“But that was different, Dela. The pacing was good and the story was simple! I wouldn’t complain about this normally, but there weren’t any fairies or witches being the big bad. There were more realistic villains. Like the Abominable Snow Monster… but mostly nature itself. And it was charismatic and the characters were likable and there wasn’t an excessive side cast-”

Jinkx was interrupted by their friend shushing her, her finger awfully close to her mouth. They could have placed her mouth over the tip and done some lewd gesture, but it felt too intimate even for these friends. “I get it,” Dela responded. “I think there’s like fifteen minutes left, but we can skip the credits, okay?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jinkx put her head on their friend’s shoulder and sighed contentedly. “But you don’t have to though. I can take on more. There have been more trips to the uncanny valley than I have traversed.”

“We can take a break for now… cuddle maybe? Probably we can watch the next one another day… when you’re in a better headspace to do so.”

“Cuddles sound great.” Jinkx moved her head into Dela’s lap and sighed. “Hey, what are friends for after all?”

Dela nodded her head and turned off the TV. “Exactly.”

“I love you, Dela.”

Dela shot her head up quickly and perker her ears.. “Wait… Dink. Did you say something?” Jinkx quickly shook their head. “Oh, okay… but in case you did. I love you too.”

[whinsical-ash]

Reassemble Another Life (Avengers x reader) Chap 1

     Summary:  Here you were in your twenties already on your death bed. So you finally die, be at peace and all that jazz. But someone thought to give you another life was a better idea it seems.

     You watch everyone in the room as your eye begins to drop close. You hear people starting to yell your name and to stay awake but you knew it was time to move on. You watch your brother repeatedly hit the button for the nurse, the other one runs out the door screaming for help. You squeeze your older sister’s hand with what little strength you had with the weakest smile.

     You knew that you weren’t gonna make it since they found cancer too late. It was only a matter of when you would lose not if. You pull off the respirator mask and try with what little strength you had to say goodbye. You had to tell that you love them, you couldn’t leave without telling them you loved them.

   You let out a string of coughs, cancer had spread to most of your boy including your lungs.” I..Love...All.”

   You clasp at your chest as you try your best to breath but nothing was coming in. Nurses rush in and try to make everyone leave so they try and keep you going but you know they won’t be able to.

    You passed out from the lack of oxygen, a long beep from the machine signal what everyone already knew. You were gone, to a place they couldn’t follow but not to Death’s embrace. No, you had some use still left but just for other people not of your world.    

    You sat up coughing and grabbing your chest. You slowly get your breathing under control when you felt something off in the stump of a left leg you had. There was a sliver of flesh just beyond your hospital gown. You had it removed in hopes of getting rid of your cancer but it had spread too much and didn’t work.

    Slowly your flesh parts and a bone started to grow with tendons following close behind. You watch in amazement and shock as you grow bones of your leg back with tendons. You watch as a layer of muscle begins to grow back before stopping mid-calf as a wave of exhaustion and hunger hits you.

    You look for a nurse but finally released you were in a dirty alleyway. You slowly pinch your arm but wince when you feel the pain. You slowly get up in confusion and stumble not used to having both legs again. It was better than the prostatic you had but not quite as moble as your real leg.

   You simply let your body in control as your mind was in disarray. This could be happening you had just died or did you? You read something about a theory that people as they die live through their whole lives but that couldn’t work for this situation.

   You search the trash cans in hope of finding something of use, you were so hungry and cold. You find nothing and grab your stomach, it hurts so much as if it was trying to digest itself. You limp out of the alleyway, it looked like the sun was rising, or was it sitting?

   You stopped as you noticed something that shouldn’t be here. Was-Was that Stark towers?

  “What the hell?” You mumbled in confusion. There was a building that looks just like the Stark tower being built, it was like from the movies but wasn’t finished. Was this some kinda thing that Marvel was doing? You haven’t heard anything like this happening.

   “This isn’t important, I need shelter, food, and answers.” You mumbled to yourself and you humbled down the street using the building to support your weight. You notice a man walking to unlock what appears to be a bookstore. You humbled faster to him.

   “Excuse me but do you know a homeless shelter nearby or a hospital?” You called out as you slowly approached him. He looked up in alarm. He started at you for a moment before calming down. You probably look a mess but not threatening, battling cancer caused you to lose most of your weight, causing you to look thin and fragile, not someone you had to worry about in a fight.

   “Oh umm, about two blocks down the street and take a right, there should be a place called Feast you can find help at,” He said as he unlocked his shop.

   “Thank you so much,” You tried your best to smile brightly before walking.

     A look of shock made its place on the man’s face,” Y-Your Leg!”

    You quickly humble away too hungry to bother to calm him down. You desperately need food, you have never felt so hungry before. Black spots started to appear and you started to feel colder. Then the hunger stopped, you noticed that street lights were flickering and you could see your breath.

   You started to feel stronger and had the same feeling in your leg as before causing you to look down. Faster than last time muscles start to grow down your leg and to the tips of your feet before skins start to form over your leg slowly growing down the new leg. One it finished healing you took a slow step from the wall, your leg felt steady like it was never gone.

   Tears dripped down your face with a large smile adorning your face. You let out an excited giggle as you hopped on it. You stumbled but caught your balance before you could fall and end up landing on your face. You took a slow step testing the weight on your new leg before starting to walk slowly turned into a jog before a run.

   You still felt hungry but it was less this time, must have been your happiness about having your leg back. You slowly came to a stop as you turned right, You tried to get back to normal breathing. You were so winded, you forgot what it was like to run, it’s been before you lost your leg since you truly ran.

   You smiled as you saw the sign for Feast and made your way there. More people were in the streets now, you got some looks since you were in a hospital gown but you tried to ignore them best you could, to focus on food. You noticed some people crying thins in from a truck.

  “Do you need help?” You asked as you approached them. Before realizing how big the boxes were and how little you could probably lift and how tired you would get.

   “No thanks kid, we almost did.” The man gave you a once over before opening a box and pulling out some clothes.” Here you must be cold in that. We can grab you some shoes later, hey Danny just the person I was needing!”

   A Latino looking woman with glass walked out of the doors smiled at him, “What’s it this time Mark?”

   “Can you show this girl to the bathrooms so she can change and maybe get a shower?” Mark gestured to you as you awake hold the clothes you were given.

   “Sure thing,” Danny gave you a large smile that made you the first feelings of safe and calmness since you woke up. “You can follow me, and feel free to ask anything.”

     You gave her a weak smile before following with a wave at Mark.”Um, weird question but where am I?”

    “You’re in Chinatown, New York on Elizabeth street. And it’s totally fine to ask those questions, we got some people who don’t always know either they forgot or lost track of how far they’ve walked. It’s July twelve,” Danny told you before opening a door and bringing out a little grey box with shower supplies. 

    “We don’t give first-timers razors in case they want to hurt themselves or others. That should be the only thing missing from this, after that I’ll show you where you can take a little nap before breakfast starts at ten. It’s 7:31 right now so you should have a good nap.” Danny gave you a kind smile before guiding you to the showers.

   It was designated for females causing a frown to form. Luckily Danny noticed right away. “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask pronouns, we have allowed people to shower in their designated shower stalls and there a few singles for those who don’t like open shower stalls. If you want we can even go pick out some clothes that’ll fit you better first?”

   You smiled gratefully at Danny understanding it was hard at times when people just assumed you were female. You smiled as you checked your clothes. It was an LX Iron Man T-shirt and grey sweats.

    “I’m nonbinary and I use they/them. I’m sure these clothes will work though.” Could I get a jacket? I’m usually really cold and wear layers when I can. If you can’t it’s fine it no big deal.” 

    “Oh don’t worry about it, we got plenty of jackets now since it’s summer and people usually wait for it to start to get cold to grab them. I’ll grab one as you shower, any color in mind or theme?” Danny asked as she showed you the single showers. 

   “Uhhh Harry Potter themed I guess.” You said with a shrug not really sure if you can afford to be picky. You don’t know how long till you be able to get home. 

   “Got it, showers are usually around fifteen minutes long for each person,” Dany told you before leaving.

   You nodded before opening the door. It was like the bathrooms in the hospital you were staying at. A sliver of a floor before a large shower with a mirror and sink in it. You slipped off the hospital gown and dumped it on the ground. You sat the clothes on the chair before stepping in with the shower supplies. The shampoo and conditioner were travel size.

   Okay, so time to put everything together, cause that what you do in the shower. So you grew back your leg which makes no sense at all, you saw what looked like Stark tower being built even though you’re sure your family would have told you knowing how much of a fan you were of Marvel. Then as the final fact was somehow you ended up in New York which made no sense since you were nowhere close to it at your hospital.

    Trying to get it all together made your anxiety worse and was on the edge of having an anxiety attack. “Okay, we’re gonna put this in time out and come back to it after food.” You mumbled as you finished your shower. The clothes were baggy which was the best way to be comfortable. You didn’t see Danny but you saw a little bench next to the shows, maybe you could just sit there and wait for her.

   Sitting down made you realize just how exhausted you truly were. “A nap won’t hurt,” you mumbled as you passed out.

[psqqa]

by the time i stopped to consider why the fuck i was putting this together in the first place, i’d already typed most of it up. idk i guess i just like throwing my joy into the void, where the void can either choose to ignore it or derive some joy from it itself. either is fine.

anyway, i’m never going to have enough of these in any one category to put together a proper FST or anything, nor am i capable of imprinting on a song for reasons that aren’t like “feathers.......hawks”, because really this is all driven by my terrible sense of humour, but what i have collected so far Sparks Joy, so into the void it goes. 

psqqa’s list of songs applicable to bnha in some way, shape, or form

No One Is Alone - Into the Woods - this is a vibe i’ve been getting from the manga for a while but then the my villain academia arc just totally cinched it (while we’re seeing our side/maybe we forgot/they are not alone/no one is alone)

Falling - Haim - this one is a bakugou song for me, which probably says something about me because i’m fairly sure it could almost equally be a midoriya song if you wanted it to be. yes, both could be good, but the brain doesn’t always work that way. (they keep saying/don’t stop/no it’s never enough/i’ll never look back/never give up/and if it gets rough/it’s time to get rough)

Ice and the Storm - My Brightest Diamond - inatodo. i did warn you. (darling we’ve accumulated/too much miscommunication/in the beginning everything is soft/not defensive/perhaps we begin again/shining)

Sacrilege - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - feathers.......hawks. probably dabi/hawks given the options so far, but that’s pretty immaterial tbh (fallen for a guy/fell down from the sky/halo/round his head/feathers in our bed)

Girl - Anouk - listen i’m not going to lie, i’ve never fully been able to figure out what the hell is going on in this song. like, i would say it’s just straight up anouk being in love with the titular “Girl”, but then there’s the “him” in the first verse so who even knows. i’ve settled on polyamory, which makes this my jirou highkey got the feels for yaomomo and lowkey got the feels for kaminari and she needs yaomomo to understand this so they can work on a frankly totally unnecessary because kaminari is already all in baby Wooing Plan (still got my hands/they’re clinging/so i just keep going/i don’t know where i belong/could i belong to you)

Electric Feel - MGMT - electric..........kaminari. i like to think of it in terms of kaminari/jirou/yaomomo. idk maybe he gets bored waiting for them to plan their Wooing Plan and just takes matters into his own terrible pickup line hands. or perhaps it’s just aimed at yaomomo and we can take these two songs jointly to be The Wooing of YaoMomo. which actually now that i’ve typed it out i am quite fond of as an idea. (i said ooh girl/shock me like an electric eel/baby girl/turn me on with your electric feel)

the three song stretch that runs Slow Show-Apartment Story-Start A War - The National - The Soul-Crushing Weight Of Being In Your Early-To-Mid-Twenties!kiribaku. this would be like triply the case if i were reading this manga in 2012 instead of 2019. (i wanna hurry home to you/put on a slow dumb show for you/and crack you up - be still for a second while i/try and try to pin your flowers on/can you carry my drink i have everything else/i can tie my tie all by myself - do you really think you can just/put it in a safe behind a/painting lock it up and leave/walk away now/and you’re gonna start a war)

Fireproof - The National - also kiribaku. look man idk what to tell you. it just be like that sometimes. (you’re fireproof/nothing breaks your heart/you’re fireproof/it’s just the way you are)

The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts - Sufjan Stevens - man of steel, man of heart...............tetsutetsu. pick your tetsutetsu ship of choice. it doesn’t matter. all parties equally applicable because only a steel man can be a lover/if he had hands to tremble all over/we celebrate our sense of each other/we have a lot to give one another

New Shoes - Paolo Nutini - kirishima song!! (hey i put some new shoes on/and suddenly everything’s right/i said hey i put some new shoes on/and everybody’s smiling/it’s so inviting)

Dance Apocalyptic - Janelle Monae - mina song!! what can i say, it’s got mina energy. also i feel like ‘dance apocalyptic’ would a great hero name for mina. (but i really, really want to thank you/for dancing ‘til the end/you found a way to break out/you’re not afraid to break out)

Whoo! Alright – Yeah...Uh Huh - The Rapture - kaminari song!!! do the lyrics even work for him? who knows, i’m just in it for the cowbell. and so is kaminari. (people don’t dance no more/they just stand there like this/they cross their arms and/stare you down and/drink and moan and diss)

Invincible - OK Go - now i could, and i guess sort of do, think of this as a bakugou ship song generally, but to be quite honest, i think it’s probably just the song his brain plays on a loop whenever he does anything (when they finally come to destroy the earth/they’ll have to deal with you first/and now my money says they won’t know about/the thousand fahren/heit hot metal/lights behind your eyes/invincible/oh oh oh/you’re invincible)

Daniel - Bat for Lashes - tododeku - don’t @ me (daniel/when i first saw you/i knew that you had/a flame in your heart/and under wild blue skies/marble movie skies/i found a home in your eyes/we’d never be apart)

Gekommen um zu bleiben - Wir sind Helden - BAKUSQUAD!!!! i mean, also like 1-a generally, but for me it’s really the bakusquad.....also i literally just realized that the band name itself works really well here (wir gehen nicht/aber wenn wir gehen/dann gehen wir in scheiben/entschuldigung ich sagte/wir sind gekommen um zu bleiben)

Don’t Call Me Baby - Madison Avenue - the kacchako song. why? because i was reliving the turn of the millennium. next question. (don’t think that i’m not strong/i’m the one to take you on/don’t underestimate me boy/i’ll make you sorry you were born/you don’t know me/the way you really should/you sure misunderstood/don’t call me baby)

You Will Not Take My Heart Alive - Joanna Newsom - All Might. although i think this entire album is one he would Have Feelings about. and tbh it’s impossible at this point for me to consider any one song off this album entirely on its own. it’s always within the greater context of the album as a whole. (and i won’t come round this way again/where the lonely wind abides/and you will not take my heart alive)

Don’t Wanna Fight - Alabama Shakes - bakudeku. i didn’t actually think any song would ping me as bakudeku at any point, but here we are. (what you like/what i like/why can’t we both be right?/attacking/defending/until there’s nothing left/worth winning)

Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel - hawks/dabi-hawks/endeavour melodramatic clusterfuck. no i’m not taking questions. (DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE/DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO/DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE)

Riot Rhythm - Sleigh Bells - riot........kirishima. but yeah kirishima and bakugou are bros and that’s Good. they might also be more than bros, but that’s up to you i guess. (because my best friend/she's okay/carve you out/all the way/straight A kids/like a treat/she stands up/takes the heat)

In The Shadows - The Rasmus - tokoyami. i feel like i’m virtually incapable of talking about tokoyami without also mentioning this song, but like, you’ve seen the video right? (i've been watching/i've been waiting/in the shadows/for my time)

The Hero - Queen - this one is probably cheating, given that it was written for the actual soundtrack of an actual superhero movie, but it’s not like there’s any rules to this and i’ve never seen the movie......or anything else with flash in it i guess, so whatever. anyway, not so much All Might as like every character in this manga when they were 4yo watching All Might. (he’s for every one of us/stands for every one of us/he’ll save with a mighty hand)

Impossible Soul - Sufjan Stevens - this wasn’t on this list until sometime around 2:30 AM last night when i was lying awake because i didn’t take my nightly melatonin and something something i can’t even vaguely remember the train of thought but it ended in me deciding this was a good bakudeku song. not so much the first part, but like ‘do you want to be afraid’ onward. maybe the eight minutes of “boy we can do much more together” will be enough for bakugou to get the message. (boy we can do much more together/better get it right/get it right/get it right/get it right/boy we can do much more together/it’s not so impossible)

to be updated if further song pinging happens, i guess?

[curls-cat]

cut me to the quick; sew me up again

Puck tries to be nice. Sabrina has the worst luck, though, so of course it backfires. And of course she gets hurt.

Read it on AO3 | Sisters Grimm | Puckabrina | Inspired by a conversation with @advisortotheadvisor

***

Everyone knows Granny is a terrible driver, and most of the time it’s not a big deal. Mr. Canis can drive, and so can Uncle Jake, Henry, and Veronica.

Unfortunately, they’re not always available. This week is one of those times. Uncle Jake is off doing… something. Something too dangerous for Puck to come (Puck pouted for about six hours when Jake told him that). Mr. Canis has a broken arm because he keeps forgetting that he’s pretty much a regular old man now and he can’t do things like catch stupid four-year-olds when they try to do dumb things like jump off the roof (Basil cried apologies the whole way to the emergency room). Henry and Veronica are in the city for their jobs.

Sabrina thought she’d wanted to go back to NYC. Once she got there, though, it was too hard to forget all the bad things that had happened to her there. And then, when Moth did that whole kidnapping-and-trying-to-kill-her thing again, they’d decided to up and move back in with Granny, to Daphne’s delight. But the jobs were still in the city, so during the week Henry and Veronica were often away for days at a time. Sabrina had a cell phone now, and she made them video chat her every day. Just in case. (The first time Veronica forgot Sabrina had nearly had a panic attack. She’s better now. Mostly.)

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Granny had to drive Mr. Canis to the ER. Everyone else came, too, for various reasons. Sabrina came because Basil refused to be left at home (“What if Mr. Canis dies, Sabby? What if he dies and it’s my fault?”) and, even though she knew it was stupid, she had the vague idea that if she was in the car, she could Granny from driving everyone off the road.

They’re on their way back, now. Mr. Canis, a little out of it on the painkillers they’d put in his IV, crossed himself before he got into the car, which Sabrina completely understands.

The car always runs louder than usual when Granny is driving it, but Sabrina can still hear squeals of glee over the noise as she’s pulled by centrifugal force against the door, so hard her head cracks against the window. One of the people screaming like this is a theme park ride is Puck, of course. The other one, surprisingly, is Red.

Sabrina works her arm up between her head and the window and braces herself. With her other hand, she grabs Basil’s booster seat, white-knuckle tense.

***

They come to a squealing halt at home, without hitting anything other than the curb. Against all odds. The stop throws Sabrina so hard against her seat belt that it cuts off her airways for a second and she’s sure she’s going to bruise. She hears a clunk as Mr. Canis’ cast hits the front of the car.

She gingerly unties the rope that is Basil’s seatbelt and helps him out of the car, ducking under the window. The roof, a replacement for the one Puck ripped off in a hissy fit back before… everything, really-- well, it’s actually a truckbed cap, the kind of thing people put on the backs of their fords so they can pretend they’re not actually trucks, and are instead… what? SUV limos? Sabrina doesn’t know. Either way, it’s messily warped and welded/screwed into the body of the car, and it means the windows don’t open when the doors do on the passenger’s side. She and Basil have to sort of shimmy their way out through the footwell.

She waits until Granny’s out of earshot to say, “She needs to be stopped.”

“What, you didn’t have fun?” Puck asks. “Red did, and she’s a mouse.”

The mouse in question blushes a little and says, “I was scared, but I liked it anyway.”

Sabrina decides to ignore this and just says, “She’s going to get someone killed. With my luck, probably me.

Puck looks thoughtfully at her for a second, which is always a bad sign. Even worse, he doesn’t argue with her. He just says, “Yeah. You do have a track record.”

***

Puck fills Granny’s car with broken glass.

Sabrina doesn’t know how he did it. She doesn’t want to know. She just stands and looks at the car, which is literally full of shards of glass. Without turning to look at Puck, she asks, “Why.”

Puck sounds a little hurt. “I thought you’d be happy. It’ll keep her from driving.”

Now she does turn to look at him, because this is one of those times he’s trying to be nice and, despite how very bad he is at it, Daphne keeps reminding her that it’s good to encourage him if she wants it to stick.

He’s smiling at her, a little smile that’s kind of heart-wrenching in its crooked hopefulness. It’s probably a load of bull, but the smile tugs at her heartstrings, so instead she just rolls her eyes at him. She’s smiling, too, a little.

“Idiot. How are the rest of us going to get anywhere?”

Puck makes a thoughtful face. It’s nearly a foot above Sabrina’s head because he’s had another growth spurt and she has yet to have any growth spurt, and she wishes she could reach up and shove it off his face because it’s not a look she’s seen very often and she doesn’t know how to respond to it. It’s doing things to her. Her stomach flip-flops back and forth.

“Huh,” he says. “I didn’t think of that.”

Daphne, who has apparently been standing on the porch listening, sing-songs “I guess you’ll have to fly us places.”

***

Puck does have to fly them places. He’s not happy about it, but he does it. He even picks up groceries, and takeout once. Sabrina comes with him for the takeout, because she doesn’t trust him not to mess up her order on purpose. He does mess up the groceries, but she’s not sure if that’s on purpose or not. Granny sends him back to buy more.

In the meantime, they work on cleaning out the glass. By the time Henry and Veronica get home for the weekend, it’s pretty much gone. Sabrina’s vacuumed the backseat four times, and Granny took the cover off Basil’s booster seat to wash it, just in case (“You couldn’t have taken the stuff out of the car first?” Sabrina asked, and Puck just said, “But then I’d have needed to get more glass.”)

Veronica drives them to the movies Friday night, and everyone else is fine, but when Sabrina buckles her seat belt, she winces, pulls the seat belt away from her chest. There’s a bloody piece of glass stuck through the only actual seat belt in the whole car, and it’s just stabbed into her collarbone.

Figures.

She makes a face, carefully worms the glass shard out of the seat belt, dumps it in the trash, and roots around in her mom’s purse for a band-aid.

*

On the way back, she gets stabbed with a different piece of glass, this one in the back of her seat.

This continues. It doesn’t matter where in the car she sits, pieces of glass keep finding her. She develops a rash of scrapes, mostly on her legs and back, though there’s a particularly annoying one that stabbed straight through her shoe and into the sole of her foot, and another in the pad of her right thumb.

She’d think Puck was doing it, except that Daphne had wanted someone to practice truth spells on anyway, so Sabrina figured why don’t they both get something out of it, and he swore up and down that, hilarious as he found it, he was not responsible for this.

Sabrina just had bad luck. Ordinary, terrible, impossible bad luck.

She took to walking most places.

***

Unfortunately, one cannot walk everywhere, and right after Mr. Canis got his cast off, Puck gets himself and Sabrina detention (she’s not going to admit this to anyone, but it was worth it. She maybe even had fun). 

Mr. Canis pulls up to the front of the school three seconds after they reached the edge of the sidewalk, which is pretty impressive timing, even for him. Puck climbs into the car without a second thought, and because she’s in a good mood despite (“not because of, stop smirking, Puck”) detention, she throws her bag into the front seat and opens the back door for herself. 

She inspects the car carefully: no glass on the headrest, no glass in the rope that passes for the seat belt, no glass in the footwell. Nothing sticking out of the crack between the seat and its back. No telltale sparkle on the seat itself.

She sits down.

Ow.

Sabrina twists her leg carefully. Sticking out of the back of her knee is a piece of glass nearly the size of her palm. She looks at it for half a second as blood begins to seep out, soaking into her jeans. Then she nods once, braces herself, and grabs the glass by the flat sides.

Pulling it out hurts worse than it did going in, and it takes longer than it should. The glass cut deep.

Very deep.

Once she has the glass out, she feels gingerly at the hole in her pants. She’s been bringing a package of band-aids around with her since this had started, and she wants to see which size to--

Oh.

Okay.

Okay, it’s okay.

“Mr. Canis?” she says, trying to keep her voice steady as she very carefully does not think about what she felt underneath the blood. “I think I maybe need to go to the hospital.”

Mr. Canis meets her eyes in the rear view mirror, apparently sees the truth in them, nods, and pulls a U-turn as aggressive as any of Granny’s maneuvers.

 Puck teases, “Aww, did widdle Sabrina get another piece of glass in her--” Puck cuts himself off with a hiss. “That’s--um. Grimm, that’s a lot of blood.”

“Yes, Puck, I know,” Sabrina says tightly. Her left pant leg, from about mid-calf down, is rapidly changing from blue to the ugly purple-brown she got in kindergarten when she tried to make her own purple play-dough.

It hurts a lot, and it’s making it hard for Sabrina to remember the first aid classes Snow gave her. Pressure on the wound, right. Okay. Um. She presses her hand against the back of her knee, but it hurts, and it mostly just presses her hand into the--don’t think about it--gash in her leg.

Puck’s voice has gone kind of funny a he asks, “How much blood do humans have in their body?”

“Four or five liters,” Sabrina says without really noticing that she’s saying it. “Probably less for me, though, ‘cause--” 

This is the point where Puck usually cracks a short joke, but he doesn’t, today.

The rug under Sabrina’s foot is getting wet. She scooches out so most of her leg is off the seat, less because of the bloodstain she’s inevitably going to leave on the upholstery than because she wants to see if putting pressure above her knee will work, since the wound itself is a no-go.

“How--” a loud swallow-- “How much is this, d’you think?”

Seriously?

Sabrina, her hands wrapped firmly around the base of her thigh and squeezing as hard as she can, looks at her leg and then at the floor around it, both of which are looking very damp and bloody. “Um. Half a cup, maybe?”

“How much is that in liters?” Puck’s voice sounds weird.

“I don’t know!” she snaps. “I’m a little busy right now.”

She turns to glare at him for being like this right now, and then she sees his face.

Oh.

He’s not being a pain in the butt.

Puck has gone very pale and is shaking the tiniest bit. He’s backed against the far door of the car, his hands up and half curled, looking like he’s not sure whether to reach towards her or pull back.

Sabrina’s hands have gone a little slippery and definitely a lot shaky. And Puck… looks about as bad as she feels. But his hands are bigger than hers, and she knows they’re stronger, and she’d like to keep as much blood in her body as possible, so she lets go of her leg, drags Puck across the seat by the wrist, and places his hand on the underside of her leg, right above the knee.

“Squeeze,” she tells him.

He blinks at her, still white and shaky.

She puts his other hand on her leg, too, and says, “You put pressure on open wounds. To close the blood vessels some, keep the blood inside.”

He blinks again.

Sabrina pushes at his hands.

Puck gets the memo, and his hands stay put, pressing firmly into her leg.

Sabrina notes, absently, that his hands go all the way around her leg, that his thumbs overlap. Does he have big hands or is she just really skinny?

She might be going into shock, a little.

Yeah, she’s in a lot of pain. Probably shock. Okay.

She doesn’t have anything to do anymore, now that Puck is putting pressure on the wound. If she had a knife with her, she could maybe make a tourniquet or something, but she doesn’t. Her mom has this weird “no weapons, magical or otherwise, at school” policy that is maybe a good idea for a daughter who is bad at secrets and another one who is liable to stab first and ask questions later. It’s a bit of a pain right now, though.

Although she’s shaking pretty bad. She’d probably stab herself again if she tried to cut off part of her shirt, and wouldn’t that be just perfect?

Still. She needs to be doing something. She’s always been terrible at sitting still, and her leg hurts.

Something occurs to her, and abruptly, she starts giggling.

Puck turns his head, face still pale, to look at her.

“Wouldn’t,” she says, “Wouldn’t it be hilarious, if I died from this? Hundreds of people and monsters tried to kill me, and I bleed out from a piece of glass in my leg?”

Puck, if possible, goes even paler, and his hands clench a little harder at her thigh. “Don’t say that,” he says. “It’s not funny.”

It is a little funny, though. She’s tried so hard to stay safe, to run from magic as if that’ll keep her healthy and happy, and the worst injury she’s ever had comes from a piece of glass in he grandmother’s car.

And what even is the point, then, if she can’t stay safe? What’s the point of blaming magic for all the things that’ve gone wrong in her life if so much of it comes from plain ol’ bad luck?

“Maybe I should just give up,” she says thoughtfully.

Puck gives her the panicked look again. “Give up? Grimm, you’re too tough for that. Don’t you dare.”

Huh. She’d’ve thought he’d be happy if she stopped acting like the magical world was responsible for all her problems. If she settled into her destiny like Daphne. If she stopped acting like a huge part of what makes Puck Puck was bad.

***

It occurs to her much later that Puck thought she was talking about dying.

Things went a little hazy in the car ride after that bit. She remembers being carried into the ER. She remembers pain, and loud noises, and Puck’s hands still gripping tight around her leg until Mr. Canis had to practically rip him off.

Now she’s in a bed in a little room off the ER. A nurse came in a while ago (probably about twenty minutes, but it feels like a lot longer) and told her that they want her to run through the IV bag they’ve given her before they think about sending her home.

She looks at Puck, who is definitely trying to get into trouble with the medical equipment stashed in cabinets on the other side of the room, and says, “When I said I should give up, back in the car. Did you think I meant, like, on living?”

Puck doesn’t turn around to look at her. She can see a box of gloves in his hands. That’s probably not a big deal. How much trouble can he possibly get into with rubber gloves? (Besides. She’s tired, and injured. It shouldn’t be her problem to keep him out of trouble, especially not when she’s lying in a hospital bed.)

“I… um… what were you talking about?” he asks.

Sabrina snorts. “You totally did. Idiot,” she says fondly.

Puck throws the box of gloves at her. It hits her in the stomach, not hard.

“Watch it,” she says. “I’m wounded.”

She’s a little out of it on the painkillers they gave her, and the aggravation game they usually play seems a lot more fun than usual, even if Puck won’t look at her.

He seems like he’s taking a long time to answer her, and there’s no quip about how she’s a wuss, or it’s just a flesh wound, or anything like that.

“Puck?” she asks, finally. “You okay?”

“I’ve never seen that much blood before,” he says. “I thought--”

Okay. It was a bad injury, yeah. She needed six stitches. She’s gonna need to use crutches for a while because she sliced into a ligament or a tendon or something. But the doctors and nurses hadn’t seemed too worried. Just businesslike.

Puck was worried about her.

“Humans are resilient,” she says. They’d talked about it in biology, a few months ago. Puck probably hadn’t been paying attention. “It’d take more than that to kill somebody.”

“Well how was I supposed to know that?” Puck snaps, still not looking at her. “There was all that blood, and you’re so tiny, and you were talking about dying and giving up and all I could think about was what I’d do if you died because I--”

Oh.

Oh.

She almost forgot the glass was Puck’s idea, was the result of Puck trying, in that bass-ackwards way of his, to be nice. And he’d thought, he’d actually been scared she was going to-- and that it’d be his fault, because he tried to do something for her.

She needs to do something about this right now or he’s never going to try to be nice again.

It would be easier if he’d look at her, though.

She throws the box of gloves back at him, wishing Mr. Canis hadn’t gone home to get Granny, so he could say something terse and wise to make Puck stop feeling guilty. The box, contrarily, doesn’t make it all the way to Puck and instead lands on the floor and bounces into his shoe. Stupid painkillers. Stupid blood loss.

All she can come up with to say is, “Don’t you dare try to take credit for this. It was my weird bad luck and I will not let you claim it as a Trickster King accomplishment.

Puck leans down to pick up the box of gloves, and when he stands up straight again, he finally looks at her.

The walls are nearly the same color as his hair, a plain yellowy color, but his hair is shiny and curling and makes the walls look even more bland than they had before. Sabrina can’t read the expression on his face.

There are things they don’t talk about, the two of them. Puck is growing up, and still a good foot taller than she is. Sabrina woke him up from a sleeping spell three years ago and the way she feels about him hasn’t changed. Their fights with each other have a rhythm to them like a dance, or a sparring match. Last week when she bested him at a sword fight (rare, but getting more common), she couldn’t resist lifting his chin with the flat point of her blade so he had to look her in the eyes as he said “I yield,” and it had felt electric. 

But they don’t name this thing between them, that keeps him here as often, if not more, as he’s off with Uncle Jake.They don’t do anything.

Sabrina thinks maybe if they had, she’d know what to call the expression on Puck’s face.

“Seriously,” she says, when she can’t stand the silence anymore, the way he’s looking at her, “It’s not your fault.”

Puck gives her the tiniest crooked smile, there and gone again in a flash. But the tension is gone, and instead of looking unfathomable and full of a deep longing desperation, he just looks tired.

She grins at him. “You were worried about me.”

Puck leans back against the formica counter behind him and says, “Never.”

With uncanny timing, Daphne bursts through the door to jump on top of Sabrina, babbling about being worried and Sabrina having the worst luck. Mr. Canis and Granny follow her in, and then Pinocchio and Red, and one of them says something about Sabrina’s parents heading up on the next train, and the hospital room is suddenly very loud and crowded. Sabrina meets Puck’s eyes over the top off her sister’s head, and he smiles at her again, still a small and tired smile, but a real one. She smiles back. They’re going to be okay.

[blackcoffeeandteardrops]

Brave Face (2/2)

That’s right, nerds. I elected to follow my heart (and also peer pressure) and write a follow up to a recent post Endgame fic. Essentially, Tony is alive via a workaround and they begin to cope with that. Below the cut & on AO3:

A day passes, and then another. For the most part, everyone leaves them alone, as if an invisible layer stands between them and the outside world. Pepper's not stupid, she knows there's an army of reporters, salivating for that first shot of them in this new world, this new reality they've been thrust into. Happy visits, telling her there's been a billboard put up in Times Square, some sort of thank you, not that Tony's alive anymore to see it. She smiles politely, tossing away the remnants of their dinner, & shuffles him out the door. They'll be fine, she and Morgan. They have to be.

Truthfully, it's Morgan that's keeping her going. It's Morgan that wakes her up with pleas for waffles for breakfast or pizza for dinner, asking to eat on the couch and watch movies, even though they have rules about eating at the table. Pepper almost thinks her little girl is milking it, seeing how much she can get away with, but then she watches as Morgan's gaze drifts over to the corner where they've carefully tucked Tony's helmet away, and her heart lurches in her chest. Milking it or not, there's no way she's letting Morgan go without. Eventually, their routine will have to return to some semblance of normal, whatever that might look like. When Pepper goes to bed that night, watching as Morgan sleeps soundly at her side, she's not even sure what normal means anymore.

They're in the front yard the next morning when it happens. A feeling of cabin fever had settled over them both, and so Pepper suggests they play outside. Morgan's content for a while, first kicking a ball back and forth and then trying to jump and catch bubbles as Pepper blows them, but then something behind Pepper catches Morgan’s eye. She stops, mid step with eyes widened, and her mouth drops open like a fish.

Fear claws its way up Pepper's throat and she spins, afraid to see what's behind her, wholly unprepared for what she sees. "Tony? I…" she pauses, and this time she's the one whose mouth hangs agape. He smiles, eyes watery, and it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, but when Morgan starts to run towards him, she holds an arm out, forcing her to stop. "Morgan, honey, remember what I said about being safe?"

"Yeah, but that was about strangers. Daddy's not a stranger," Morgan replies, as if it couldn't be anymore obvious. Still, she clings tightly to Pepper's side, like she can't quite believe it herself.

"I probably should've called. Maybe warned you. But it's important for you to know that I came as soon as I could," Tony says, intending it as an explanation, though he knows full well she'll want more than that.

Pepper shifts her focus between Tony and Morgan, pretending she can't feel her pulse hammering in her throat. Before she lets Morgan anywhere near him, she needs to be sure. She leans down, eyes at her daughter's level, and points in the direction of her makeshift tent. "Can you give me and your father just a minute? I need--" she stops, blinking back hot tears as she glances back at him, still not certain he's real. "We need to make sure he's okay first. Alright?"

Morgan nods, lip pulled between her teeth, before running off and doing as asked.

"Pepper--" Tony says, cautiously taking a step closer, stopping when he sees her launch an arm out and watching in awe as the armor he'd crafted for her what feels like a lifetime before latches itself onto her outstretched limb. "It takes a titan threatening to destroy life on this planet as we know it for you to like a present I make you, hmm?"

Pepper shakes her head, her chest growing tight as she slowly takes a step back from him. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"I suppose I should've expected that," Tony replies with a sigh. "It turns out Rogers is good for something. He found me, an older version of himself anyhow, about two weeks ago. At least that's when I think it was. Time, it's a little--" he holds his hand out, wobbling it for effect. "He had something he called a Pym particle. He gave me a suit, and he told me what to do. And he told me what would happen if I didn't. Look, I know it sounds crazy," he continues, stepping so close her outstretched hand nearly brushes his chest, risking potentially getting blasted by her to make his point clear. "It's me. I swear."

"I watched you die, Tony. I watched as the life faded from your eyes and as the arc reactor light went out, so do not toy with me. I swear to you, if this isn't real? If this is some kind of...game, or…" Pepper stops, her voice trembling. In the periphery, she sees Morgan poking her head out from the tent.

Tony notices, too. He points, waving a little when Morgan looks at him. He pretends it doesn't hurt when she quickly ducks back inside the tent, apparently spooked. "We were in the park jogging. I told you I had a dream that we had a kid, that it seemed so real. Not long after, Stephen Strange appeared and said he needed my help. It was the last time I saw you until after I came back from space. A few weeks later, you'd told me my dream was right. Only, as it turns out, it wasn't a boy. It was a girl. Our little girl," he says, eyes welling with tears. He gestured to the tent, tightening his jaw, desperate to reassure her. "Ask me anything. I'm serious. We named her after your uncle, even though you thought maybe it was weird. You're allergic to strawberries, but somehow she's not, and so you risk anaphylactic shock to give her the birthday cake that happens to be her favorite. I...I once have you a giant bunny, and--"

Pepper lowers her arm, the armor clanking to the ground below them as she rushes to him, enveloping him in a hug, clinging as tight as she possibly can. "Tell me this is real, Tony," she whispers, tears soaking through to his skin.

"It's real," he replies, hands running down her back, touching as much of her as he can. “Hey, Pep,” he continues, his voice hoarse. His legs are like jello, but he makes himself wrap his arms around her, tethering her to him like a vice grip. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t. Not now,” Pepper replies, pulling back just enough to get a look at his face. She traces a thumb across his face, trying to make sense of being able to touch him at all. “You’re okay?”

He winces, the adrenaline rolling off of him in waves. “Debatable,” he replies with a shrug. “But the rumors of my death have once again been greatly exaggerated. In a manner of speaking.”

“That’s not funny,” she warns him, though she can’t help the smile that quickly spreads on her lips. “I’m still not sure I understand. But you’re here, and that’s what matters.”

“I’ll explain as best I can. But, uh, can I--” he clears his throat, cocking his head in the direction of Morgan’s tent. As much as he wants to spend his time back--it still sounds strange to him to say that, his mind hasn’t entirely wrapped around the idea--with Pepper, he’s also eager to see his little girl. He kneels in front of the tent, waiting patiently. “Morguna,” he calls, waiting patiently. To him, it’s been a matter of hours since he’s seen her, but for her it’s been days. Days no doubt filled with a sadness and confusion no child her age should ever have to experience. He knew she’d be confused, but he wanted to try his best and do things at the pace she was comfortable. “Well, it’s a shame...I guess I’ll have to eat the juice pops that I’m sure are in the freezer all by myself.”

“You can’t do that,” Morgan replies, rushing out. “You’ll get a tummy ache.”

Tony tries not to laugh at the serious expression on her face. “How about a hug and then we can go share some then, hmm?”

They go inside, sharing the juice pops and talking about what it’s been like, the world’s population being returned to what it was before the snap. Pepper freezes, gripping the back of the couch for support. “Will you...will it affect--” she stops, shaking her head. Having him back is everything she’s ever wanted, but she hasn’t had the chance to consider if there might be some kind of ripple effect as a result of their playing with fate.

“No, it won’t,” he replies. They settle into their day, tip toeing around more serious conversation, not because it doesn’t need to happen, but because Morgan is there and there’s only so much of it that she can understand. Once she’s safely tucked in and has been read at least half a dozen stories, she dozes off, and Tony returns to the living room watching as Pepper pretends to read. He nudges the book, waiting until she sets it aside to speak. “You really are okay, right?”

“I mean, it’s not every day that my husband comes back from the dead or time travels from a time when he wasn’t to rectify his death, but that’s kind of par for the course with you, isn’t it?” she says, cocking her head to the side. She laces her fingers through his and pulls his hand into her lap, afraid to ask the question that’s been on her mind from the moment she saw him. “Tony, how long is this going to last? The particle that Steve gave you, it allowed you to travel here, but for how long?”

“It’s for good. I’m here for the long haul, Potts,” he says, knocking on his head, as if she needed more proof he was physically there. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“That’s definitely fine by me,” Pepper replies, kissing him like it’s one of the most important things she’s ever done. When their lips part, she rests her forehead against his, desperate to keep touching him for as long as possible. She sniffs, blinking back tears, wanting so badly to get used to it after the days she’d spent without his warmth next to her.

“I can feel you thinking,” Tony says, pulling back from her enough to catch her gaze. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking that as nice as this is, we’re probably going to have to tell people eventually. Or risk Morgan accidentally doing that for us,” Pepper replies with a shrug.

Tony nods, knowing she’s right. “Not everybody, not yet,” he says, eager to keep the world at bay. “Peter, Rhodey, and Happy. We’ll call them here in the morning. Everyone else can wait.”

“You’re sure you don’t want them to find out tonight? You know they’d love to see you. You’d have to explain, but--”

He lightly presses a finger to her lips, resolutely shaking his head. “They’ll have a million questions, I’ll have to explain everything. And I will. But tonight is just for us.”

“I can live with that,” Pepper replies, tugging on his hand and urging him to stand up.

Tony obliges, following her lead to their room. Walking through their home shouldn’t feel strange, and it doesn’t, not entirely. Still, he can only imagine the hell she’s gone through, thinking him dead. There’s a part of him that is sad he doesn’t have the memory of seeing her fly into fight Thanos in her armor, but he wouldn’t trade laying next to her in their bed with Morgan sleeping soundly down the hall for anything else in the world. He loops an arm around her waist, pulling her close, watching as she closes her eyes in contentment, only to open them a moment later. “I told you, Pep. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” Pepper replies, reaching a fingertip out and ghosting it across his brow. She bites back tears and breathes in deep, trying not to think of the version of him she watched die after defeating Thanos. This is her Tony, living and breathing and warm. She’s not sure her brain has fully wrapped around the fact time travel is real in the first place, let alone how it played a role in bringing the love of her life back to her, but she’s not going to second guess the gift they’ve been given. She presses her lips to his, slowly at first and then increasingly more desperate, hungry to remain in contact with him as long as she can. “I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and discover this has all been a dream, right?”

“Not a chance,” Tony replies, shaking his head. He shifts, sensing a lump against the mattress, and reaches underneath the blanket to retrieve a stuffed bear. He laughs, but it’s with a tightness in his chest. Of course Morgan had been there to keep Pepper company. “Shall we take bets as to whether or not she’ll worm her way into our bed tonight?”

“I’m almost surprised she’s not in here yet,” Pepper replies, burrowing further into her pillow. As much as she wants to keep looking at him, sleep threatens to overpower her. The faces of their friends filter through her mind, the ones who’d helped shoulder her grief when she’d believed Tony was lost to them, and she knows they deserve to know that he’s found his way back to them, safe and sound. Still, a selfish need begs her to keep everyone else, even those friends they hold dear, away, keeping him to herself for as long as she can. Surely, she thinks, she’s owed at least that. “We’ll tell them tomorrow?” she asks, her hand snaking out to find his, intent on linking them together, even during sleep.

Tony nods, resolute. He’d watched as Peter disintegrated into ash right before his eyes, so he was ready to wrap his arms around the kid again. He was. Still, he gave Pepper’s hand a squeeze, watching as sleep began to claim her, waiting for it to take him as well. Before long, he was sure Morgan would insist on joining them, eager for more time with him. He missed the kid, missed the others, but he knew that for now they could wait. “Yeah,” he says, pushing the hair from Pepper’s face. “Tomorrow.”

[welcometothepenumbra]

BONUS: THE RITA MINUTE 3 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISTA STEEL!

VOICE (FROM TV): …you see many techniques like this, here at the Galactic Paper Spaceship Grand Prix. It’s the fluting at the tail that gives the extra level of control—

RITA: Yeah, yeah, just show me the ship again!

VOICE (FROM TV): Its engineering team calls it the Manta Stinger Mark II. Now, let’s look at this beauty up close…

SOUND: PAPER CRUMPLING & RIPPING. RITA GRUNTING & MUMBLING UNINTELLIGIBLY.

VOICE (FROM TV): Made of only a single sheet of uncut A4 paper, the Manta Stinger has shattered records. Its design, which mathematicians have called “technically impossible,” took its team fifty years and nearly two hundred million creds in funding to achieve—

RITA: Done! Now let’s see this baby fly!

SOUND: FLAP.

Whoooaaaaaaa.

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

OH! A call!

Hi, hello, this is Rita’s house, Rita speaking.

Oh, Frannie, I’m so glad you called! I’m up to some very important business. I decided I was gonna get into makin’ paper spaceships, well actually first I was gonna get into antigravity yo-yos, but then I was flippin’ the channel over to the Mars yo-yo convention, and I got stopped on this Galactic Paper Spaceship whatever and I think I really—

Huh? What do you mean, how was the party? What par— (GASPS) Mista Steel’s birthday party!

No, of course I didn’t forget! And besides, I still got time, don’t I? Mista Steel’s birthday party ain’t until 7 PM on December 24th, and I specifically remember this Grand Spree or whatever it’s called started at 6 PM on the 23rd—

SOUND: EXPLOSION (FROM TV).

AH! Stupid stream! Gonna give me a heart attack…

VOICE (FROM TV): And as per GPSGP tradition, that bomb marks the twenty-four-point-fifth hour of our competition. It is now 6:30 PM on December the 24th.

RITA: Oh, there it is! The heart attack! Alright, bye-bye, Frannie, I gotta call you back, I got a party at my apartment in… thirty minutes!

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

Okay, okay. Okay. It’s okay, Rita. You were prepared for this. You made a party checklist, so you wouldn’t forget to do anything. And, well, you forgot about the checklist, so maybe next time, that goes on the checklist too. But for now you just… gotta… find it.

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

It’s just gotta be on one’a these paper spaceships, right? Can’t be more than a few… hundred. A few hundred. It’s no biggie. Really.

It was a surprise party anyway, right? It ain’t like Mista Steel is expectin’ nothin’. As far as he knows you two are just gonna go to a movie, and you’re gonna buy the first popcorn and he’s gonna buy all the popcorn after that, so I mean anything’s gonna be a nice surprise compared to AH HA HA! Here it is!

Come to Rita, you sneaky little shippy! Alright, let’s see, here…

Recipe for one Mista Steel’s best surprise birthday party ever, by Rita. Item one: Rita! Item two: snacks. Item three: convince Mista Steel you forgot when his birthday was, so that he doesn’t think you’re planning a party. (GIGGLES) Item four: tell Mista Steel you wanna go see a movie on his birthday, but your car is broken and Frannie is dead so he needs to pick you up. Item five: more snacks, items six through nine, even more snacks…

Yep, everything good so far. Looks like I checked off everything on this list OH NO!

I forgot the last thing! Item ten: invite Mista Steel’s friends.

Well, Rita, this is quite a pickle you got yourself into. Planning a party for your best boss’s loved ones in half an hour? Some would say it can’t be done. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here, somewhere under all these paper spaceships. But that would take time, so instead, you’re gonna pick up that comms, and you’re gonna make some calls, and you’re gonna—

SOUND: CLUNK.

—oh, no, I dropped the comms.

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS.

Ah, it’s ringing! Hello? Hello, comms? Hello, comms! I miss you!

SOUND: PAPER RUSTLING.

There! Gotcha!

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS STOP.

Hello, this is Rita’s house, starring Rita, how can I help you?

MICK MERCURY (FROM COMMS): Hey-hey, just the Rita I wanted to talk to!

RITA: I know that voice… hey, wait a minute, aren’t you the one who keeps callin’ and tryin’ to sell me phone books from thirty years ago?

MICK (FROM COMMS): No! I mean, yes. But that’s not why I’m calling! It’s me, Rita, Mick Mercury! Juno’s best friend?

RITA: Well, I don’t know about that.

MICK (FROM COMMS): Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I got your message yesterday and I’m on my way.

RITA: Message… oh, right! I did call you!

MICK (FROM COMMS): You did, that’s right! And then you stopped mid-sentence and said something about paper spaceships and I thought, hey, how come nobody’s built a car out of paper yet? It’d be pretty cheap, right? Sell like gangbusters! So I spent a few dozen hours drawin’ up some plans, a business model or two, and—

RITA: Mista Mercury, Mista Mercury! This is all really interestin’ and of course I am going to want to know all about how I can get in on the ground floor of this business venture, but first, we got somethin’ more important to deal with: Mista Steel’s party, in thirty minutes!

MICK (FROM COMMS): Jay’s party is in thirty minutes?!

RITA: Oh no, you forgot too?

MICK (FROM COMMS): Yeah, completely! I thought it started thirty minutes ago, and I was just calling to say sorry I was so late!

RITA: You… really? You’re here??

MICK (FROM COMMS): Almost! Just give me five minutes to find a place to park my bike and I’ll be right in.

RITA: Yes, yes! Thank you so much, Mista Mercury. This is gonna be the best Mista Steel’s birthday ever!

MICK (FROM COMMS): But, hold on a sec, do you think there’s something wrong with the phone books idea? Because like I figured people sell antique furniture, right, so why not antique phone books? It’s just that I did a lot of dumpster diving and just got a whole bunch of tetanus just for—

RITA: Alright, I’ll see you soon, byeeee!

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

Whew. Well, that’s one down. Practically took care of itself.

Now let’s see, who else… OH! I know! I’ll call Mista Steel’s other friend!

SOUND: KEYBOARD CLICKS.

Just gotta run this decryption software, embed a virus or two, and… I’m in!

SOUND: COMMS BEEP. THEN STATIC.

SASHA WIRE (FROM COMMS): Hello? Who is this?

RITA: This is Rita! Hi!

VOICE 1 (FROM COMMS): Agent W, we need your full attention here?

WIRE (FROM COMMS): Yes, fine, just give me a moment. Alright, Rita, out with it. What’s this all about? Who put you up to this? Was it the Neptunians? Yoblonsky’s men, did he get you this signal?

RITA: What? Oh, no, Sasha, I just got this signal all by my little old self. It’s all in a day’s work for the one and only Rita—

WIRE (FROM COMMS): Stop toying with me. How do you know my name?

RITA: Oh, the boss told me years ago. He talks about you a lot, y’know. “Grr, that Sasha Wire! She sure is great! Agent of Dark Matters! I oughta teach her a lesson, give her what I owe her!” That kinda thing, I think. Usually I ain’t listenin’.

WIRE (FROM COMMS): Teach her a lesson? Give her what I owe her… wha– what does that even mean? That can’t be– this is about the December 25th deal, isn’t it? That’s classified information! How do you know—

RITA: Actually the whole deal is goin’ on on the 24th. That’s kinda why I was callin’ you, ‘cause I didn’t want you to miss it!

WIRE (FROM COMMS): The 24th… we were off by a day.

Agent. Agent! Put that down and come here!

VOICE 1 (FROM COMMS): But Agent W, this is highly explosive—

WIRE (FROM COMMS): And this situation is more explosive, trust me. Put it down. I think I’ve got a lead on the December 25th deal.

RITA: Ooh, wow, you must be important, huh? It takes like a whole three people just for you to write down an appointment.

WIRE (FROM COMMS): Alright, Rita, or whatever your name is. Enough games. I’m only going to ask this once, and you had better not lie to me. We have ways of finding that out. We have ways of making you regret it.

RITA: Why would I lie? I just want you to come to the party!

WIRE (FROM COMMS): The party… write that down, Agent. Might be code.

(TAKES A BREATH) Alright, Rita. So. Who do you work for?

RITA: Mista Steel.

WIRE (FROM COMMS): Mista…

We’ve talked before, haven’t we.

RITA: Yeah! Hi again, Agent Wire! Mista Steel’s birthday party is in twenty minutes and I know you’re really busy but it’d be nice if you’d just—

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

Uh, hello? Agent Wire? Miss Sasha? Hello? Huh. Guess she… doesn’t wanna come.

Well, that’s alright! I guess I’ll just call one’a Mista Steel’s other friends, like… l-like…!

Huh.

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

Ooh, ooh, that must be one now!

Hello, this is Chez Rita brought to you by Rita, how can I help you?

MICK (FROM COMMS): Yeah, hey, Rita? It’s Mick again.

RITA: Mista Mercury! I was startin’ to get worried. I thought you said you were only five minutes away.

MICK (FROM COMMS): Yeah, I’m still just looking for ya. Hey, speaking of which, how many wheels does your place have?

RITA: None at all! Are you offering?

MICK (FROM COMMS): Why, would you buy them? ‘Cause I could get you some wheels easy, just give me a—

Hey, wait, you said your place has got no wheels? That’s, like, exaggerating? Like you only have a few, right?

RITA: No. None of the apartments in Hyperion City got wheels that I know of, Mista Mercury.

MICK (FROM COMMS): Wait, apartment? Who said anything about an apartment?

RITA: Don’t be mad, it’s just where I live, I ain’t ever known no other way!

MICK (FROM COMMS): I ain’t mad– I mean, I’m not mad! I just thought… so when you said you lived on Lakeview, you meant, like, a street named that?

RITA: Uh… yeah. Lakeview Street. Where– where are you?

MICK (FROM COMMS): Oh, that explains it! Whew. For a minute there I thought you meant, like, your place had a view of a lake, you know? So I went and looked for the only lake I could find, and basically all there is around it is a big junkyard, so. I guess that’s not it, is what you’re saying.

RITA: But… there ain’t any lakes in Hyperion City.

MICK (FROM COMMS): Yeah, yeah, I know, somehow I got it in my head that you lived in Valles Marineris. Weird, right? (LAUGHS)

Yeah, anyway, do you think this party’s still gonna be going on in, like, fourteen hours? Because, that’s about how long it’s gonna take me to get there. The old hovercycle’s not as zippy as he used to be.

VOICE 2 (FROM COMMS): Hey, you! This is private property!

SOUND: BLASTER SHOT (FROM COMMS).

Get outta my junkyard.

SOUND: BLASTER SHOTS (FROM COMMS).

MICK (FROM COMMS): Sweet shining nebula! Gotta go, Rita, love ya, see ya in fourteen hours!

RITA: But, Mista Mercury—!

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

Wow. He’s a real mess, ain’t he?

Not like you, Rita. You got your whole act together. And you still got fifteen minutes to call and—

SOUND: CLUNK.

—oh, no, I dropped the comms again.

(SIGHS) Alright. Time’s a wastin’!

***

RITA: I’m tellin’ ya, the boss is impossible to plan a party for! I called so many people, his one friend, his other friend, and everybody else I could think of, but nobody can make it! Valles Vicky’s busy with her wife, the Prince of Mars said he can’t afford a phone, and Cecil Kanagawa, well, he really did want to come, but then he was talkin’ about the stuff he was thinkin’a bringin’ so I decided we better not.

What? What? Frannie, you gotta do somethin’ about the volume on your comms. Everyone else always comes through loud and clear and you just sound like you’re talkin’ with a mouth full of paper spaceships, which coincidentally just so happens to be how I tried to convince the Prince of Maaaaars that I needed medical attention but it didn’t even work so don’t try.

Does he have any work friends? Frannie, I’m his work friends.

(SIGHS) Everyone from his HCPD days either moved off Mars or wants Mista Steel dead, and that’s the kind of drama you really don’t want at a birthday party, Frannie, not unless you think it might be really really really boring— (GASPS)

No, wait, that ain’t true! There’s one cop who doesn’t want Mista Steel dead! I'm pretty sure!

Thanks for the idea, Frannie! I’m gonna give him a call right now!

SOUND: COMMS BEEP. COMMS BEEPS.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…

CAPTAIN KHAN (FROM COMMS): God damn it, Loo, for the last time, I told you I’m not taking calls today!

RITA: You are now! This is Rita, from Rita’s house, home of the Rita, and I got a question for you!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Yeah, wow, geez, forceful. Kinda tempting to just do exactly what you say, when you yell it like—

Wait. Rita? Like… Steel’s secretary? We’ve talked before, right?

RITA: You bet, buster! And I ain’t gonna hang up this phone until I get an answer!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Alright, geez, just get to it, the kids are waiting for me.

RITA: Mista Steel is having a birthday party in five minutes! And also, would you like to come?

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Do I want to… what? In five minutes?

RITA: It is okay if you are a little late, so long as you bring snacks!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Uh… no. That’s my answer. I’m not. No, I’m not gonna do it. Not gonna go to Steel’s birthday party in five minutes.

RITA: …Oh.

KHAN (FROM COMMS): So, uh… you have a good evening, ma’am.

RITA: But but but but but but but but but— (CRYING)

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Oh geez, oh no, oh fuddlenugs…

NOOR KHAN (FROM COMMS): Omar! That had better not be work on the phone! We were just about to start wrapping presents!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Yeah, uh, it’s not work, Noor! Just a… crying lady! Be right out!

NOOR (FROM COMMS): Omar!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): I said I’d be right out! Thank you for respecting my space!

SOUND: DOOR SLAMS (FROM COMMS).

(SIGHS) Alright, come on, calm down. What’s this all about?

RITA: (HICCUP-CRYING) I ju– I ju– I ju– I ju– I just wanted to make a good birthday party for Mista Steel, and I kept tryin’ but nobody can make it and I just wanted it to be perfect and the best forever is that too much to aaaaaaask… (SOBBING)

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Alright, shhh, shhh. Calm down, now. It’s alright. (COUGHS) Um, hey, look, Rita… I just can’t do it. Reason one: I don’t even like Steel. Reason two: it’s Christmas Eve! I’ve got my hands full over here. Full of presents and babies and a whole turkey, earlier. That didn’t last long.

RITA: Christma Zeve? Now you’re just makin’ things up!

KHAN (FROM COMMS): I’m not! It’s an Earth thing. And anyway, I’m too busy—

RITA: Busy with what?

KHAN (FROM COMMS): I don’t know. First we’re gonna wrap all their presents and put them underneath the tree. Then I dress up as a big happy giant in red clothes and try to steal the presents while they hit me with a stick to make me spit out all the chocolate coins I crammed in my mouth, and maybe later we’ll go from door to door and ask for letters cut out in the shape of different guts and things.

RITA: That… sounds… really complicated and fun.

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Yeah, I don’t know. Earth traditions are kinda free-form. Feels sorta like we improvise it most of the time.

RITA: Well, can I bring Mista Steel there?

KHAN (FROM COMMS): No, Rita. This day’s for family. Also, we’re supposed to have fun on Christmas. And Steel? Well, Steel ain’t exactly fun.

RITA: That’s true. But— (SNIFFLES) What am I supposed to do about his birthday party?

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Alright. Fine. You need some wisdom? You need old man beardo to come down from the mountain and give you his ten amendments? Well, I don’t got ten. I only got one. But here it is: you know what the true meaning of Christmas is, Rita?

RITA: No. I don’t care about Christmas. I care about Mista Steel! An’ it’s his birthday! And it ain’t even Christmas, you said it’s Christma Zeve, and—

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Alright. True meaning of birthdays, then. Christmas is probably somebody’s birthday. That’s just math. But anyway, the true meaning of birthdays is this: you didn’t die yet.

RITA: Hmm, yeah.

Captain, I don’t know what that means.

KHAN (FROM COMMS): It means… I don’t know, you could be dead! You know how easy it is to be dead? People do it every day. Some people know it’s comin’, some people don’t, some people are scared of it, some people aren’t. But the fact is that once you go dead there’s no going back, so, like… it’s pretty special that you’re not right now. So… on your birthday we just… mark the day you started living. We celebrate it. You get your loved ones all together and you kiss ‘em and love ‘em because, hell, you’re not gonna be able to do it forever. And that means no matter how many friends you got with you, no matter how your life’s going today, no matter how many people you left behind… that means today is pretty special. Always.

RITA: (SNIFFLES) Wow, Captain Khan. That was really nice.

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Yeah. It was, wasn’t it. (COUGHS) Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go hug every single one of my kids at least a couple times.

RITA: Okay. Have a good Christma Zeve, Captain Khan.

KHAN (FROM COMMS): Yeah, you too, Rita. And tell Steel… enh, just give him a hug, okay? Poor sucker looks like he needs it.

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

RITA: (DEEP BREATH) Well, Rita? I guess it’s just gonna be you tonight. You’re just gonna have to be enough fun for everyone. Oh, wait, that’s really easy.

SOUND: DOORBELL.

Hello, who is it?

JUNO: (THROUGH THE DOOR) It’s Juno. Open up.

RITA: Be right there!

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

Alright. Just gotta be as fun as four dozen people. Easy.

SOUND: KNOCKING.

JUNO: (THROUGH THE DOOR) Rita!

RITA: Comin’, boss!

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

Surpriiiiise!

JUNO: Oh, no. No, you didn’t. Please tell me you d—

Oh. You actually didn’t.

RITA: Didn’t… forget your birthday?

JUNO: No, you didn’t throw me a big surprise party. I was worried I was gonna show up and there would be like fifty people here. (SIGHS) That’s a huge relief, honestly.

RITA: It… is?

JUNO: Yeah. Y’know, on the way over here I got myself so worked up over the thought that I actually convinced myself you’d invite a cop. Like, I don’t know, Captain Khan or somethin’.

RITA: So, you’re… so you’re– just so I’m sure. You’re not upset then, that it’s just you and me, and nobody else and we really are goin’ to see a movie?

JUNO: Honestly, Rita, it’s been a long day. I think a movie’s about all I’ve got in me.

Mind if I, uh, powder my nose before we go?

RITA: Uh… sure.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

JUNO: Nice paper spaceships, by the way.

RITA: Thanks, boss.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, CLOSES.

Huh. I guess… nothin’ did go wrong tonight, really.

How come this feels too easy?

SOUND: DOORBELL.

Oh, there it is! Oh no, oh no, oh no…

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

Mista Mercury, hi, hello, glad you could make it but now you gotta go, I’ll talk to you later—

PETER NUREYEV(!): Mister… who?

RITA: Mista—

Oh. It’s just a delivery man.

NUREYEV: Indeed it is. Tsar Shipping, at your service. Sign here, please.

SOUND: SCRIBBLING.

And there you are.

RITA: But… I didn’t order any flowers—

NUREYEV: Goodbye.

SOUND: DOOR CLOSES.

RITA: Huh.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

JUNO: Rita? Who was that?

RITA: Uh… just a delivery man, boss.

JUNO: Oh, good. Had me worried it was somebody coming for a party. Guess I’m jumpier than I– thought…

What are those?

RITA: Uh, flowers? Card says they’re for you.

JUNO: Can– can I… can I see ‘em?

SOUND: CRUMPLING.

RITA: I mean, they are yours, boss.

JUNO: Does the card say anything?

RITA: It just says… happy birthday, Juno. Aw, that’s nice, ain’t it? Must be from a client who knows where I live and also knew you were going to be here at exactly this time today. Sweet.

Uh, boss? You okay?

JUNO: Yeah. Yep. I-I’m fine. Probably just… jumping to conclusions. Hey, uh… what if we go to that movie now?

RITA: In just a sec, boss. But first…

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

Nnnyah! Happy birthday, Mista Steel! And merry Christmas.

JUNO: Yeah. Thanks.

Wait, what the hell’s a Christmas?

RITA: I don’t know. Captain Khan told me to say it.

JUNO: Captain Kh– why were you talking to Captain—

RITA: Oh! Ah! Would ya look at the time! We’re nearly gonna be late for the movie, let’s go, Mista Steel, I won’t take anythin’ but the best seats in the house!

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

JUNO: Yeah, alright. Be right there.

Dahlias and roses… huh.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOPHIE KANER: In honor of this story about being thankful for those around you, we would like to finish this tale a little differently.

KEVIN VIBERT: We at The Penumbra would like to express our thanks to the following people:

SOPHIE: Firt and foremost, to all of our supporters on Patreon who make this project possible. We could not do this without you.

MUSIC: STARTS.

This half-season your contributions have bought us equipment, security, knowledge, and time. This show would be only a shadow of what it is without you. Thank you.

KEVIN: We would like to give special thanks to our $30 per episode supporters Atha Lang, Vron, Charlie Spiegel, Minchowski, Jamie Gunter, and the Princess and the Scrivener. Your generosity genuinely stuns us. Thank you.

SOPHIE: We would also like to thank the actors who lent their voices to this episode, including: Kate Jones as Rita, Stefano Perti as Mick Mercury, Sophie Kaner – that’s me! – as Sasha Wire, Jason Mellin as the Dark Matters agent, Elliot Sicard as Omar Khan, Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, and Noah Simes as… well, you know who.

KEVIN: We’d also like to thank the people behind who worked behind the scenes to make this show we love, including: Alice Chung, Kat Buckingham, Noah Simes, Mikaela Buckley, Ryan Vibert, Scott Gallica, Grahame Turner, and I would like to thank Sophie Kaner.

SOPHIE: And I would like to thank Kevin Vibert.

KEVIN: And more than anyone else, Traveler, we want to thank you. You who write stories about us, who draw art of us, who talk about us, who think about us, who lend your ears to us. You who board our train for parts unknown time and time again. Thank you.

SOPHIE: The year’s end comes upon us, Travelers. But don’t worry, we’ll see you again in March, when season two continues. So rest up, prepare yourselves, and have a very merry… birthday.

(LAUGHING) I might cry. I have to do it again.

[killjoy-loveit]

Witness Part 10

A/N: I’m hoping this will be a ten part series like Intruder, if it won’t be I will make it very clear. It’s also in 1st POV. I would also like to clarify that everything written in this story is complete fiction.

Summary: Noah’s injuries prevent her from working jobs for a bit, and her re-entry job doesn’t go as planned. Oh, and there’s a whole dtr (define the relationship) moment.

Word Count: 2,229

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Profanity/Violence/Gore? Warning!

     After the incident last night, I ended up with two broken ribs, a fractured shoulder, and an extreme bruise on my neck. Every part of me hurt and the doctors prescribed me some serious pain medicines and put my arm in a sling, all while making sure Jongup knew to keep a close eye on me for the next week. The doctors were quite curious as to what happened, at first, they were suspicious of Jongup for domestic violence, but I assured them that was not the case. Thankfully, they believed me.

     At first, they had wanted to keep me overnight, but Jongup and I managed to convince them that it wasn’t necessary, saying that if anything happened we would come right back. So, they let us go home, needless to say we didn’t have to go back. It took close to three months before my injuries were completely healed, which was quite annoying. I felt like I couldn’t do anything, like I was helpless. 

     I couldn’t train or help out on scouting marks, it was as if I was back to being a prisoner with no use. Although, I’d technically never been a prisoner, I was meant to help Jongup pull information but he just didn’t let me. So this unwanted free time of mine was spent doing anything and everything to keep my boredom at bay. For the most part I was reading as much as I could, and for the times when the words would blur together I would turn on the TV and watch some random show or movie. 

     Other times, whenever Jongup was at the apartment, I entertained myself with him. He was still fun to annoy, and now when he got too annoyed he just turned to me and took his annoyance out sexually. Which I have absolutely no qualms about, other than the fact that he had to be gentler than I wanted because I was injured. 

     I simultaneously hated being injured and enjoyed it, because while I was in pain and couldn’t do quite a bit of stuff, I was allowed the freedom to contact my family and friends. Which was something I hadn’t been allowed to do since they took me a year or so ago. I even got to go out for coffee with my best friend and kind of catch her up on my life, obviously I had to lie about certain stuff, well, a lot of stuff. But in general, it was nice to see someone who wasn’t involved in crime, and talk about normal, mundane things for once.

     Today was my last day of freedom, I guess you could call it, because tomorrow I would be going back into the field. I could tell Jongup was worried as he kept rushing around the apartment, nervously double-checking the weapons and tidying at the same time. It’s kind of an adorable habit, especially the way he nibbles on his lip as he wanders around with his eyes flicking about.

    “You can stop worrying, I’ll be fine.” I call out, stopping him mid-step.

     He turns around to face me, his eyebrows furrowed. “I’m allowed to worry about you, Noah, you’re my girlfriend. You almost died three months ago, I don’t know if you’re ready... I should just tell the boss you aren’t ready.”

     I knew there was a lot he just said, but I could only focus on one part. “I’m your girlfriend?”

    “Yes, of course. Is that even a question?”

    “I mean, we’ve never really clarified what this was.” I say, motioning between us.

     Jongup gives me his signature glare as he comes over to where I sat on the couch. “Okay, so let’s clarify. Do you want to be in a relationship with me?”

    “Yes.” I murmur softly, avoiding his gaze.

     His hand reaches out and he cups my jaw, tilting my head so I look him in the eyes. “Alright, so why’d you make a fuss about me calling you my girlfriend?”

    “I just... I didn’t know you had us labeled, I wasn’t expecting it.”

     This was just supposed to be a normal job, you know, one to get me back into the swing of things. That’s what it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t. This was a setup. We had walked right into a trap, completely unsuspecting. The situation was reversed, instead of being the hunters, we became the hunted. Of course, it wasn’t obvious right off the bat and we fell into their trap quite perfectly.

An Hour Ago

     The bar was rather empty for nine o’clock at night, with maybe only eight other patrons inside, including our target. Although, based on its appearance it made sense. The dark wood floors were scratched and sticky, the wallpaper yellowing and peeling. Overall, it felt like the interior was falling apart, and the bar didn’t pull in enough money to fix it. 

     For the first time, our target was a woman, and I have to admit she’s got an ethereal beauty to her. Her hair is black as ink, falling in waves down her back. She holds herself so tall with an air of regality that I find it hard to believe she actually stepped foot in this shit-hole of a bar. And since our target was a female, I wasn’t going to be the one pulling the information, it was going to be Jongup. I know he used to do this all the time without me, but it made me uncomfortable having him do what I deemed ‘my job’. 

     So, there I sat, in a crusty booth, thank heavens I chose to wear jeans tonight, watching Jongup chat up our gorgeous mark. I felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight of him so close to her, despite knowing he was only so close to learn information in order to kill her. I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. This woman was our target because she works just underneath the leader of our rival, she’s practically his right hand. Yes, the boss is aware that by taking her out we’re asking for a full-on war, but apparently risking war is worth it because he wants her dead.

     Thirty minutes passed and Jongup was still working on her. I was slowly losing my patience with the situation, and I had noticed a few of the other patrons were acting strangely. As I had nothing to do but observe the room, I was aware each time someone made a move outside the ordinary. The two men talking at the bar had both done the same odd hand motion three times, as had the man sitting by himself at a table chomping peanuts and drinking beer. The other four patrons had shuffled out, as they’d been together, all of them declaring they should go home and bid goodnight to the bartender.

     Something was off. The vibe wasn’t right and the air seemed to get thicker once the group of four left, as if something was about to go down. If I hadn’t been paying such close attention I would have missed it. I would have missed the eye contact between the three remaining men and our mark. But I caught it, and I knew in an instant that we’d been set up. A glint of silver flashed in the woman’s hand and I barely had enough time to scream out a warning.

    “Jongup, knife!”

Now

     Bullets were flying, and I was narrowly dodging them. I knew Jongup was to my left, he’d managed to get away from the woman with only a slight cut on his arm. Pulling my gun from its holster, I peeked out from my cover behind a booth and took aim at one of the men. The bullet only clipped his shoulder, but this gave Jongup enough time to get in the kill shot. I ducked back behind my cover as a bullet whizzed by my ear, courtesy of our mark. 

     I glanced to the side just in time to see a bullet rip through Jongup’s shoulder, a shout of pain released into the air as he moved to find cover. My eyes went wide and I moved from behind the booth and laid eyes on the man and woman remaining. Aiming quickly, I took the man out, a surge of satisfaction rushing through me as I watched his body hit the ground. I didn’t have time to dwell on it though as Jongup moved from his cover to try and take out the woman. His bullet lodged in her thigh, but she didn’t drop to the floor, she stayed standing, blood gushing down her leg. 

     I didn’t move fast enough, she aimed her gun at Jongup and pulled the trigger. It felt like the world was in slow motion as I watched the bullet speed through the air, slam through his chest and finally bury itself in the wall behind him. I was frozen as he fell to the floor, his blood rapidly pooling around him. The click of her gun snapped me back to reality and I felt fury like I’ve never experienced flood through me. 

     Turning back to her I shot five times, two in each leg, and one in her gun-wielding hand, effectively dropping her to the floor, useless. In a sudden panic as I remembered Jongup lying on the floor, I rushed over to him, dropping to my knees. I tore my shirt off, using it in an attempt to stop the bleeding and apply pressure to the wound. 

     Frantically, I yanked my phone from my pocket and pressed it to my ear after dialing Z’s number. Come one, pick up the fucking phone.

    “Noah?” Z asked, picking up after the first ring.

     “Z, oh my god! You- you have to get to the bar, Jongup’s been shot! He’s gonna die!” I cried out.

    “Shit! Okay, okay. We’ll be there, keep him alive.”

     The line went dead. Hot tears trickled down my cheeks.

    “You aren’t allowed to die. I won’t let you.” I whisper harshly, pressing down harder on his chest.

     His eyes flutter open slightly and he gives me a wary smile. “I’ll try not to.” 

    “You have to keep talking to me, Jongup, alright?”

    “Okay, Noah.” He whispers, eyes closing softly.

     I shake him in an attempt to get him to open his eyes, but they won’t budge. He’s still breathing rather steadily, and I think the bleeding may have slowed down, but I really can’t tell as there’s so much blood everywhere. 

    “Come on, come on! Don’t fucking die on me! I can barely live without Willa, how am I supposed to live without you, too?” 

     I take in a deep shuddering breath. When is Z going to get here with help? I don’t know how much longer Jongup’s going to last. 

    “I love you, please, I know you can fight this.” I whisper.

     The door to the bar bursts open and then its just a mess of commotion. People everywhere, doing different things. The scene feels oddly reminiscent as I’m dragged away from Jongup kicking and screaming, except this time I’m covered in blood. I barely realize it’s Z who’s pulling me away from Jongup so that a doctor, somehow connected to us, can work on him. 

     I reverted back to the zombie mode I knew so well. Minutes turned to hours, that moved so slowly I thought I could feel myself aging. We’d been transported to some kind of safe place that was used for medical purposes, for when situations like this arose. It was taking too long. If Jongup was going to be okay, they would’ve said something by now. 

    “He’s out of surgery, everything went well. It’ll be a while before he wakes up, but you can sit by his bed if you want.” A doctor says politely.

     I scoff. “If I want to? Obviously, I’m going to go sit by his damned bed.”

     It was torture to sit beside his bed, seeing him hooked up to all these machines. I just wanted him to be magically better, like he never got hurt, he never stood up and got shot. Why didn’t he stay behind cover? I softly held onto his hand, blinking my eyes quickly in an attempt to keep the exhaustion threatening to overwhelm me at bay. Let’s just say I lost that battle.

     Some time later, pressure on my hand woke me up. My eyes fluttered, clearing the remaining vestiges of sleep from them. Jongup’s eyes were open and focused on me. I sat up quickly.

    “How are you feeling? Do you need pain meds? Should I go get the doctor?”

     He shook his head. “No, but I do have a question.”

    “Anything.” I breathe out, leaning in closer to him.

     Jongup’s voice was soft. “Do you really love me?” 

    “What?”

    “After you asked how you were supposed to live without me, you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

    “How did you- I mean, of course I meant it. I didn’t even know you could hear me. I thought you were unconscious.”

     “I love you too, Noah.” Jongup said with a smile.

    “Alright, now that our love has been declared. How about we both say we’re even on the near-death experiences and not scare each other shitless like this again, deal?”

    “Deal.”