#literally skipped lunch so i could finish a report for work instead of wanting to nap lmao. anyway. fuck capitalism I'm so mad this week

[joontier]

Subliminal in Scrubs | V1;  report ix

pairings: dr. jeon jungkook x female reader

chapter rating: NC-17 | genre: doctors! au; humor, romance 

warnings: swearing

word count: 1.8k

g/n: ((unedited skfslkdf)) also,,, i will be releasing Parallel Palpitations very soon [which features this Jimin hehehehe stay tuned for that] PLUS, im very excited to release the report x AHHHHHH send me your thoughts pleaseee 

[taglist]:  @nottodayjjk @ditttiii @zeharilisharaban @btsbunny07​ @turquoiseandplaidinautumn @aamxxrii @codeinebelle​ @btsmakesmehappy​

Subliminal in Scrubs (the records) |  navi. | m.list

You open your new group chat first thing in the morning, wanting to check on Soomin and Jimin. Just yesterday, the two had informed you of their concerns separately, both worried over the same thing. Soomin’s mother wanted to hold a small congratulatory celebration for her daughter’s KMLE results, and her subsequent acceptance at Woocheon, so there was going to be a party exclusively for all tenants of the building at the restaurant just next to the cafe. 

The two hadn’t worked out their budding acquaintance, as you had practically forced them to greet each other the last time you were at the cafe, so you thought this might be a great way to have them start over their tricky relationship. 

As you’ve expected, both of them had even tried to convince you to come, in the hopes that a mutual friend could help diminish the awkward air around them. You’ve declined each of them politely, not wanting to intrude on their little get-together. Besides, (just like you hadn’t forgotten to mention to them), this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of this wall hindering their friendship (to which, both of them had also quite strongly disagreed upon). 

A mere three hours after their outpour of sentiments, as you’re rewatching episodes of Dr. Romantic with Chohee, the pair drunkenly call you, requesting a video chat. You’re pretty sure not one of them is aware of what’s happening, especially with Jimin refilling his shot glass every thirty seconds; Soomin speaking gibberish, and Chohee literally teasing them through the screen of your laptop and yet none of them seem to mind a damn thing about it. 

So, with hopes that each of them arrived home safely last night, you type in your text message. 

‘What is this place, really?’ you mutter to yourself, slightly regretting your decision to take the subway instead of a cab. You only ride taxis for places you’re not familiar with (such is the case with today) but you didn’t want to spend twice as much solely for transportation so you took the train to the building. 

Now you feel lost. You’ve just gone to the main entrance of the building, but there was scaffolding barring the entrance, and now you’re struggling to look for Entrance B with the singular tarpaulin saying “Please use Entrance B” and a faded arrow below pointing to the left. After a grueling ten minutes of asking people for directions and walking all over the place, you finally find Entrance B and hurry on your way inside. 

There’s already a small crowd forming where the directions for the processing of your license is posted, and you can’t seemingly read the directions all the way down with people clearly taller than you blocking the way. 

“What’s the matter? Can’t see the directions, smally?” 

Your instant recognition of his voice makes you hang your head low. You figure there’s no way you can get rid of this guy anytime soon. 

“Hello, Jungkook.” 

Why is it that he’s always there wherever you are? He couldn’t be stalking me, could he? 

Jungkook almost spits his water on the girl in front of him. Oh, so he heard your thoughts then. “Yeah, you wish, woman. I wouldn’t do that even if you had one million strapped to your neck.” You roll your eyes at him. 

“Wasn’t asking for any conditions for you to do that, but thanks for letting me know your thoughts.” 

“Awh, you mad, babe?” Shaking your head at him, you try to continue peering over everyone’s shoulder to check the post. “If it makes you feel any better, I would for two million though.” 

You were just about to retaliate with a smart comment, but you see a girl walking towards Jungkook while twirling her hair with her newly manicured fingers. “Jungkook-oppa, you’re here!” she says, hooking her arm on his elbow. 

Ah yes, it’s the same brat that kept defending Jungkook’s ass during the KMLE exam. “Why don’t you come with us? My mom works here,” her voice gets down to a whisper, but loud enough for you to hear. “If you come with us, you wouldn’t have to fall in line, then maybe we could have lunch together. 

Jungkook removes her hand from his, “No thank you, I’ll just wait here.” 

“With her?”

The audacity of this bitch. 

“Yes, with her.” Jungkook says, not skipping a beat. “She’s...better company.” Oof, that’s gotta hurt. 

You try not to show much of your currently soaring pride on your face, but you can’t help but clear your throat as a terrible disguise for a snort. The girl becomes silent after that, with most of her friends trying to control their facial expressions after Jungkook’s reply. 

“Fine then, your loss,” she says with a flip of her hair, then makes her exit. 

You're unsure what to do now as the girl has already left, and you’re also not sure if you’re entirely happy about being left with Jungkook now. “Why didn’t you go with her? Could’ve saved you a lot of time considering the people here.” 

Jungkook clenches his jaw, as if in thought. “I don’t like cheating. I believe that there’s a different value in the reward that comes with something you worked hard for.” 

You’re surprised. You really hadn’t expected this kind of quote, coming out of Jungkook out of all people, but you find yourself nodding as he speaks, quite impressed that you share the same principles. 

As the crowd starts to disperse, you and Jungkook finally get your turns to take a look at the poster. “Is it often?” 

“What is?” 

You point a thumb backwards towards where the girl had gone to, “Having girls throw themselves at you all the time?” 

“Oh that,” Jungkook chuckles, then gives you a lopsided smirk, “Yeah, that. Hadn’t realized being this hot was so tiring.” Squinting your eyes at him, it then again dawns on you that you shouldn’t even have asked him that sort of question at all. 

“You know,” he says, nudging your shoulder with his, “I’m quite jealous of you really,” your brows crease together. This can’t be good. “At least you don’t experience all of that, cause you know…” he says, gesticulating his hands over his face. 

He did not just insinuate that you were not...attractive at all. Huh. This bastard can wait for his license alone then. 

“Goodbye, Jungkook.” 

“Hang on! ________, wait! I was just messing with you,” Jungkook laughs, running after you.

The cashier is already scanning the last items on your grocery list by the time Jimin and Soomin had texted you that they were done with their licenses, and you three had agreed on meeting up by the mall’s concierge. It doesn’t take long before you all decide on having Italian for dinner, after seeing the restaurant nearest to where the concierge was. 

“Wait, it took you guys only half an hour?” you exclaim, recalling how you had to endure at least more than an hour with Jungkook as you waited for your licenses to finish. Thankfully though, the latter had other errands to run so you two parted ways as soon as you got your IDs. 

Jimin, always the gentleman, offers to get your group the utensils as well as a few condiments and spices you might need with your meals. “Soomin-ssi, do you know anybody else who’s going to Woocheon too?” he says, setting the silverware atop the napkins. 

Soomin thanks Jimin for the thoughtful gesture, sending a small smile his way. You squeal inwardly, wanting to know what happened last night for them to interact like this. “Um, also, I’m not so sure about the others who will be attending Woocheon too...I only got a glimpse of the list, sorry.” 

“Ah, no worries about that. So, how was the dinner party last night?” 

The two glance at each other, seemingly communicating with their eyes. Oookay, what’s going on between these two? What exactly happened last night? If they wanted to be alone, they could’ve just said so… 

“It was fun,” Jimin initiates, plastering  what seems to be a painfully wide grin on his face. Soomin nods along with him as she adds more, “Honestly, I don’t remember much about last night, but I do recall Jimin calling me ‘sajangnim’ the whole night. And I told him to not call me that, but Jimin here is a stubborn man.” 

“Yeah, you complained about that too last night,” you laugh, cutting your garlic bread into pieces. “Wait, what?” Jimin squints his eyes at you, “Were you there last night? How did you....” 

“I’m guessing you both don’t remember calling me last night too, didn’t you?” 

“We did?!” they say in unison, making your eyes go wide. “Did I do something stupid?” “Please tell me I didn’t say something I shouldn’t have?” 

“Hmm, well, it was quite the conversation last night,” you tease them, wanting to see how far this can go, “plus Chohee was there too so I have another key witness.” 

“What?” Jimin squeaks, lips pressing into a thin line, “what’s the key witness for?” 

“That, my friend, is up to you to remember and figure out.” You give each of them a wink, before turning your attention back to your pasta.  

Transferring all your groceries to one hand, you fish your keys from your purse, shaking it lightly to hear its jingle as you blindly course your fingers through your bag. As the elevator doors open, you see your neighbor down the end of the hall, trailing after a man. 

Ayoung hears the elevator bell ding and turns to your direction. She excitedly points her thumb to her back, mouthing ‘new tenant’ to you. She keys in her code and lets the guy in first. The moment he’s inside, she leans by the doorframe and whispers how hot the guy actually was and how much of a lucky neighbor you were going to be. 

You shake your head at her, leaving Ayoung to entertain her guest. Of course, not forgetting to pray that she manages to score you a hot man next door.

© joontier 2021

[weelittleweasley]

Little Lion | Ron x Reader

Prompt as requested by 2 anons: Naturally as a Slytherin, you exude confidence and intimidation. Ron Weasley, on the other hand, not so much. But that’s what made you so attracted to the other, much to everyone else’s surprise. Question is will he muster up the courage to ask you to go to the Yule Ball with him?

Warnings: None!

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: IMPORTANT NOTE: I know, I know, I know, the Yule Ball is only around for the Triwizard Tournament, but let’s pretend like it doesn’t exist just then!! I wanted to age everyone up to year six and give Ron and opportunity to redeem himself from the robes his mother sent him hehe. I literally am a fucking fiend for Ron Weasley, my love for him should be ILLEGAL. Ron content on here is MINIMAL TO NONE! If anyone has any great fic recs for Ron, PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY. LOOK AT THAT MOTHERFUCKER!! I AM IN LOVE WITH HIM!!!!!!!!!!!

All it took was for you to walk down the hall to get people to look at you and start whispering between each other. It wasn’t a bad thing at all, in fact you quite liked it. You were a confident girl and sometimes that confidence intimidated people. It gave you this sense of power that you liked to use when you needed something out of someone. Not to mention the people you surrounded yourself with in your house were also quite intimidating people, one of them being Draco Malfoy. 

You and Draco were best friends, a dynamic duo of sorts. People thought that you two would end up together, falling madly in love. But Draco was like your brother. He took you under his wing when you got Hogwarts and he was the person who helped you unlock that unfaltering confidence within you. Besides, Draco and you’s personalities clashed too much for it to work with you. You were both dominant, confident, intimidating people; Both of you needed to be in control at all times. Far too similar. 

Instead, you took a liking to people who were more reserved. People who thought before they acted upon their impulses. You needed someone who balanced you out. But someone who could dominate you and keep you at bay when you needed it. Only problem was people like that were scared of you or found you unapproachable. Which you understood, but at the same time, you wished that those people could suck it up and make a move.

As you walked down the hall today, Draco made his way next to you. “We should skip Potions today,” he states as you roll your eyes. Sometimes Draco kept this cool boy act up too much and you knew he was a big softie on the inside and he actually enjoyed school more than he liked to admit. “Seriously. We could ditch Slughorn’s class and hang out in the common room or by the Black Lake,” he tries to tempt you.

“Dray, we’re going to class whether you like it or not,” you speak as you continue to walk to class, Draco groaning when you tell him this. “Slughorn is may be old, but he says valuable things,” you push his shoulder.

The blonde boy just sighs. “I hate when you’re right.”

The both of you walk into Potions class, your face lighting up when you see that your other friends from Slytherin were already in class, awaiting your arrival. You grab a seat with Draco on your right and Pansy on your left. Pansy already starts gossiping about people who you could honestly care less about, but you give her the attention she wants anyway, her being one of your closest girl friends in the school. 

As she blabs on about some poor girl from Hufflepuff that she picked on during lunch, you watch as some Gryffindors enter the classroom, your eyes sticking on the Weasley boy. Ron Weasley was someone who you watched from afar. He was one of those boys who had that boyish charm that made you blush. The ginger was funny, for sure, but he had thoughtful and kind mannerisms that made your heart flutter when you watched him. You picked up on how he would notice when Granger would get distressed and he would offer her a sweet from his backpack that he had stored for occasions like this. You watched how he always packed more than one quill because Potter always managed to forget his. You watched how his eyes widened with fear when Slughorn would talk about how Potions can go wrong quickly, the Weasley boy fearfully concocting his. All of those little ticks made you develop a little crush on him after months of watching him.

Ron sat down in his typical seat next to Hermione and Harry, but he could feel a set of eyes on him from the moment he walked into the classroom. “Is she looking at me?” he nervously asks Harry. 

Harry glances over in your direction, watching that your eyes were glued on Potter’s best friend. When you notice Harry looking at you, you quickly turn away and pay attention to Pansy who continues to ramble. “She was,” Harry reports back. Ron nervously groans. “Oh come on, maybe she has a crush on you.”

“I highly doubt it. I bet she’s planning how to rip my heart out of my chest and then serve it to Malfoy on a silver platter,” his voice cracks. “She scares me.”

Hermione rolls her eyes, “Oh, please, Ronald. Just because the girl is confident and knows what she wants doesn’t make her scary; it makes her smart. I don’t know why she would have a crush on someone like you.”

Ron just looks at Hermione. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he exclaims.

With a huff, Hermione turns to Ron and Harry. “It means I’m surprised that she doesn’t have a crush on someone like Draco or Blaise Zabini. She likes someone like you, Ronald. Merlin, I didn’t think I would have to spell it out for you,” she turns back to the board, ready to start class. 

Your conversation with Pansy is interrupted when Professor Slughorn appear in front of the classroom and starts class, telling you to get into pairs. You turn to Draco, who was always your partner, Pansy with Blaise, Crabbe with Goyle. Everyone in the class regardless of their houses worked with the same people. Slughorn notices this and asks, “How about we switch it up and work with different people?” This earns a chorus of groans from the class. “I’m glad all of you are so eager to work with each other,” he says sarcastically. “I’ll assign the partners.” This earns more groans from the class.

Slughorn starts to pair people up with each other. You start to think that Slughorn is trying to make drama in the class when he starts. “Parkinson and Potter,” he announces.

“You’re bloody joking,” Pansy huffs making you laugh with Draco, making Pansy turn beet red. She grabs her things and moves to a work table in the back of the classroom. 

Slughorn continues to rattle off names of unlikely duos. “Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy,” Slughorn continues as you have to stifle your laugher and Draco whispers multiple profanities, slapping your shoulder, him grabbing his things in a huff. Hermione was definitely not happy about this pairing either as she has a scared look on her face as she looks at Ron before she moves to the back tables. “Miss (Y/L/N) and Mr. Weasley,” Slughorn announces.

Your heart quite literally stops and Ron looks like a deer in headlights. You did not expect this pair to happen. You can hear Draco cackling in the back of the classroom as you whip your head around. “Shut it, you nitwit,” you spit at him as he continues to laugh. You grab all of your belongings and make your way to a back table as Ron follows. Draco is still laughing, so you waste no time, slapping him upside the head, him letting out an ow! as you do so. “Bloody moron,” you huff at him before plopping down at a table with a shy Ron next to you. It is awkward. 

Slughorn calls out the last few partners before giving you the assignment for the  day. After he finished speaking, the class is silent for a long beat before the small chatter beings. You turn to Ron and offer him a small smile which he nervously reciprocate. The poor bloke is afraid of me, you think too yourself. “-so-”

“-um-”

The both of you talk at the same time. “You go,” you insist to Ron.

He shakes his head. “No, no, go ahead, I don’t even know what I was going to say, something stupid probably,” he tells you. His comment makes you lightly laugh. You suggest how you should start the task given. “Yep, much smarter than what I was going to say.”

You laugh again, “I’m sure what you were going to say was not stupid, Ron.” You had him a few vials of liquids needed to craft this potion. He carefully takes them from your hands and you notice how he actively avoids touching his hands against yours as if they were poison. Your heart kind of sinks at this. Were you that intimidating to him? You start, “You know,” you grab a pair of gloves, “I don’t bite. I know other people in the school say otherwise, but I’m not that bad.”

Ron gives you a genuine smile and laughs, looking down as his feet. “I’m sure you don’t,” he tells you as you blush lightly. “I guess pretty girls scare me.” Your heart rate picks up at the compliment, gulping a little bit, not making eye contact, too scare to. This was so unlike yourself. Ron clears his throat, “Anyway, let’s start, shall we?”

Within thirty minutes, you and Ron have completed all of the assignments for today’s class. You still had thirty minutes left of class, but Slughorn comes over. “Everything looks right to me!” he exclaims with excitement. “Well done, Miss (Y/L/N) and Mr. Weasley! Since you’ve completed your work, I can dismiss you early from class!” 

“What? That’s rubbish!” yells Draco from the other side of the room. You stick your tongue out at him before grabbing your things and thanking Slughorn for the great class. 

You and Ron exit the class. “Job well done, indeed,” you laugh as you nudge Ron’s shoulder as he laughs. The two of you walk side by side down the hall. “Um, well, I guess I’ll see you around, Weasley.”

Starting to walk in the opposite direction, you hear Ron call, “Wait! Uh...” You turn around to see Ron behind you. “I have nothing to do for the rest of the day, and I was, um, do you wanna hang out by the Black Lake? I had snacks that I stole from the kitchen this morning.”

You cannot prevent the smile that forms across your lips. “Yeah, sounds fun.”

Ron’s lips form a cheeky grin. “Wicked.”

The two of you made your way to the Black Lake, making small talk here and there until you reached your destination. The both of you sat side by side on the grass as Ron handed you a bag of crisps from his backpack as you thank him for the snack. “So,” he starts, “this might be a weird question, but...why are you friends with people like Malfoy and Parkinson?”

You smile and lightly laugh at the question. “Draco and I are like siblings. He’s the brother I never had. When I got to Hogwarts, as hard as it may be to believe, I was really shy. I didn’t talk to many people and he took me under his wing. He helped me find my voice. I owe that to him. But that’s all that Draco and I are. Friends,” you stress, trying to express that you and Draco’s relationship was simply platonic. Ron nods. “Pansy on the other hand, she and I became friends because of Draco, but to be honest, she annoys me more than she does entertain me.”

This makes Ron laugh. “I thought I was the only one who found her dreadful,” he chuckles.

“What about you? Why are you friends with Harry and Hermione?” you ask him before munching on a chip.

Ron takes a deep breath in. “Like you said, Harry’s my brother. He gets me into deep shit, but he’s my brother.” You laugh at his passing joke, Ron looking at you out of the corner of his eye. “But seriously, Harry and I met on the train to Hogwarts. He and I have been inseparable since. Hermione, on the other hand, butt her way into Harry and I’s friendship. Again, she gets me into some deep shit, too, but here I am...The two of them are much braver than I am though, so I don’t quite understand why they think I’m a good addition to this team.”

You nudge his shoulder. “I disagree with that,” you speak truthfully. “You’re a Gryffindor! You’re like a lion,” you shimmy your shoulders, making him laugh.

“A little lion,” he retorts. 

“More of a lion than I am,” you counter, making him blush.

-------

More classes like this came along. You and Ron partnered up and finished your assignment for the day early, escaping class to hang out by the lake, eat snacks, and clown around. The more time you spent with Ron, the more comfortable you were with each other. But most of your interactions were limited to Potions class and your Blake Lake encounters. Other than that, you hung out with different people, spend your free time doing different things. This made you both cherish your private moments more. 

You sat by the Black Lake today, eating biscuits that your mom sent in a parcel to you. As you munched, you spoke, “The Yule Ball is coming up.” The mention of the Yule Ball makes the both of you tense. Neither of you had dates yet and you both secretly hoped the other wanted to go with each other. “You reckon you know who you want to ask?”

Ron munches on his biscuit quietly before swallowing. “Not really,” he lies through his teeth. I want to take you, Ron thinks. “What about you?” You shake your head no. I want to go with you, you think. “I’m sure you’ll have someone ask you, (Y/N). How could you not get a date? Look at you,” he tells you as you blush. 

You wanted to scream at him to ask you. That you wanted him to take you to the Yule Ball so you didn’t have to go with someone like Crabbe or Goyle. But you don’t. You just sit and finish your biscuit. “I think I’m gonna head back,” you confess, not really wanting to stay any longer with Ron no matter how much you actually wanted to capitalize on your time with him. 

As you rise, Ron watches you gather your things. You bloody idiot, just say it, he thinks to himself. Mustering up all of the confidence he has, Ron stands up and stops you. “(Y/N)?” he asks, stopping you from walking away from him. You look at the Weasley, waiting for him to say something. Anything. Ron takes a deep breath in and then says, “Go to the Yule Ball with me.”

Your heart flutters and the biggest smile appears on your face followed by beet red cheeks. Ron stares at you, relishing in how beautiful you look in this moment with kind eyes and rosy cheeks. “Okay. Yes,” you shake your head, making Ron smile wide.

“Brilliant,” he whispers, picking up his bag, walking back to the castle with you. “I’m glad you said yes.”

Nudging his shoulder, you tease, “Well, you didn’t make it a question, little lion.” Ron chuckles. “I would have said yes either way,” you admit.

-----

The Yule Ball rolled around and you were ball of nerves and excitement. You couldn’t wait to just go downstairs and see Ron and spend the evening with him. You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time, smoothing your hands over the satin crimson fabric of your dress. You smiled to yourself, you chose this dress mostly because of how beautiful it was, but also knowing it was the colors of Gryffindor. You wanted everyone to know who you were at the dance with. You were wearing these colors with pride tonight. 

Before you made your way to the ball, you met up with Draco. “Wow,” he claps as you walk towards him, you rolling your eyes. “You look stunning,” Draco tells you as you smile.

“You look fine,” you shrug as Draco teasingly slapping your shoulder. “I’m kidding, Malfoy, you look great.”

Draco offers you his arm as you both make your way to the hall where the Ball was. “I never asked you,” Draco says, “who was the lucky bloke who asked you?”

As you turn the corner to the hall, there Ron was, dressed in a black suit with a jacket that was a smidge too big on him. Probably a hand-me-down from Fred or George. Regardless, Ron looked handsome as ever. Your heart thumped out of your chest when you saw him. “Him,” you whisper breathlessly. 

Draco chuckles at first because he thinks you’re kidding. “You’re going with a Weasley?” he asks in disbelief. You ignore his snide comment, disjoining you from Draco, and you walk over to Ron. Draco turns to Zabini, “Did you know she was going with Weasley?” Zabini shakes his head. “What has gotten into her?”

Ron feels as if he may faint. You looked absolutely breathtaking in your dress of crimson, hair perfectly falling to frame your face. He felt like a fish out of water in his older brother’s old suit, but his thoughts were pushed aside when you approached him. “You are gorgeous,” he blurts, making you blush. “I can’t believe you’re my date,” he lightly laughs, grabbing your hand. “I’m the luckiest guy here.”

Smiling at the boy in front of you, you squeeze his hand. “I can’t believe you’re my date,” you confess. “I have the kindest, handsomest boy as my date to the Yule Ball.” Ron blushes a deep shade of red, almost matching your dress. “You want to go in, lion?” you call him his nickname. Ron nods and guides you inside to the ball. 

-----

The Yule Ball was fun for the first hour and a half. But soon enough you grew tired of dancing and jumping around. Ron looked over at you and spoke over the music, “You wanna get out of here?” You don’t even have to answer him, you just grab his hand and start making your way out. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he laughs. 

When you are outside of the hall, Ron tells you, “Give me one minute. I need to grab something from my room before we go. I’ll be right back.”

You watch him leave, a big smile on your face as you smooth out the material of your dress. This night felt nothing short of magical. Ron was a gentleman, making you laugh, dancing with you the whole night, making sure you were comfortable. He was perfect.

“You went to the ball with Weasley? (Y/N), you can do so much better,” Pansy laughs from behind you. “He’s a complete git.” Anger starts to rise in your chest. “You really could have anyone in this school and you chose the man who wears his brothers’ old clothes. He can barely stand up for himself, he has to let Granger fight his battles for him.”

“Will you shut it, Parkinson?” you snap. “Just because Draco didn’t ask you to the Yule Ball doesn’t mean you have to pick on everyone else’s dates because you are unhappy that you had to settle for Goyle. It’s not my fault that you get upset when people are happier than you. So how about this? Keep your opinions to yourself, because I can assure you no one wants to hear them. Not me, not Draco, no one.” Pansy’s face turns sheet white. “I like Ron. I think he’s brilliant. And I’m going to enjoy my night with him.”

The silence between you is deafening when you finish. Pansy just stares at you as you catch your breath from yelling at her. You hear someone clear their throat behind you. Spinning around, you see Ron behind you. You wished you could feel embarrassed right now, but you don’t. You just grab his hand and leave a shocked Pansy behind. “Merlin, remind me not to make you angry,” Ron diffuses the situation, brilliantly. You laugh at him before intertwining your fingers, leaving the Ball behind and escaping to your signature spot.

Draco leaves the hall and sees you leaving with Ron, hands clasped together. “Can you believe her?” Pansy asks Draco.

Draco just looks at Pansy. “I don’t care who she’s with. As long as she’s happy and they make her happy. That’s all you should care about too,” he speaks before walking away from Pansy with Crabbe and Goyle not too far behind him.

Soon, you and Ron arrive to Black Lake and sit beside each other on the grass in your ball attire, not caring if it gets dirty at this point. You look out at the lake as it shimmers in the moonlight. The night was beautiful. Just chilly. Ron immediately notices you shiver and without hesitation, he takes off his suit jacket and places it over your shoulders. “You don’t have to,” you insist.

“Yes, I do. Don’t want you to get sick now, do we?” Ron smiles at you, wrapping an arm behind you carefully as you lean into him. 

The two of you sit in a comfortable silence, you resting your head on his shoulder as he lays his head on yours. “What did you have to grab from your room?” you curiously ask him. 

You can feel Ron smile against your hair. “Reach into my jacket pocket. The left one.” You do so and pull out a small red rose. Its petals were lightly crushed from being pushed into his suit jacket pocket. You look up at Ron, eyebrows furrowed as if to say what’s this all about? “I wanted to get you a whole bouquet, but they wouldn’t have fit in my pocket,” he jokes as you laugh. “I like you, (Y/N). A lot. I like spending time with you and being around you. You make me happy. So, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to be my girlfriend?” 

His confidence is palpable. You’d been rubbing off on him. He must have been rubbing off on you because there is a deep shade of red on your cheeks, you feel almost unable to speak. You finally find the words and say, “Of course I’ll be your girlfriend, Weasley.”

Ron smiles big and just gawks at you. “You’re my girlfriend now?”

“I’m your girlfriend,” you repeat as he laughs. “And you’re my little lion now.”

The two of you just look at each other for a moment before he speaks, “I’m going to kiss you...if that’s okay.” You nod your head and close the gap in between you two. The kiss is gentle and his lips are soft against yours. He kisses you like he is afraid of breaking you. His hand cups your cheek, pulling you in closer. You smile lightly into the kiss before pulling away slowly. “Bloody hell,” he whispers, inches from your face. “I’m so glad that this went better than I expected,” he admits as you laugh at your boyfriend.

[whathappenedtomyweekend]

It’s Just A Spark Ch. 7 - Maybe Definitely

Hiccup sighed and threw a glance at the clock, mindlessly clicking around in his opened document. 22:35.

He'd been trying to finish up his report for more than half an hour, which was significantly exheeding his usual set time of fifteen minutes.

"You're still here?" a voice behind him intoned and Hiccup turned around to see Snotlout enter the room and place his helmet on the desk next to his.

"Yeah," Hiccup mumbled, feeling the effect of his extra strong tea earlier wear off slowly but surely. "I wanted to finish today's report. Which I did. And then I thought, I still haven't written the report for yesterday."

"Woah, what's up with Mr Too-fast-for-deadlines?" his cousin asked, looking sincerely surprised. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he repeated, dragging a hand through his hair. "Just … busy."

"Ooh, right, your girlfriend."

Hiccup's head shot up, glaring. Snotlout shrugged.

"Gobber told me. Well, technically, your dad told me. But Gobber told him so basically it was him who told me."

"Doesn't anything regarding my personal life stay personal? And she's … she's not my girlfriend."

"You showed up to her workplace with lasagna you made specifically for her because it's her favourite food, Hiccup. That is such a boyfriend-thing to do. Though I guess it's very you. Most people wouldn't bother."

"How did you even-"

"Hey, don't blame me for being your cousin! Things get around, okay? My dad was out getting coffee, saw you, told your dad who told him that-"

"Alright, alright," Hiccup interrupted him, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I get it. Note to self, never tell Dad anything concerning Astrid again if I want it to stay between us."

Snotlout laughed and good-naturedly nudged his cousin's arm.

"Come on, Hic, I don't mean any harm. Neither does he, you know that. He's just excited for you."

Hiccup sighed. "I know."

"I'm too, by the way," Snotlout mumbled. "It's kind of really cool seeing you this happy."

The auburn-hair man stopped and finally smiled at his cousin. "Thanks, Snotlout."

Snotlout sniffed, trying to shake off his earlier sentiment. "Yeah, whatever. Just go to sleep before I knock you out myself."

Hiccup grinned and got up. "You sound just like Gobber."

"Shut up."

He laughed.

The doorbell was ringing, making Astrid jump. She rarely had any visitors at a time like this. Maybe it was just Ruff who had forgot her keys again, needing a place to crash.

She opened the door.

It wasn't Rachel.

Hiccup.

Hiccup, his forest-green eyes dark and his hair messy as if he'd run his hands through it countless of times.

He opened his mouth to speak but stopped and took a step closer.

"Hiccup, what-"

She was silenced by his lips suddenly crashing down on hers. Astrid stumbled back, shock fading as his hands cupped her face, hers suddenly tangled in his hair, pulling him down to her.

They stumbled into her flat, her back hitting the wall of her hallway with a low 'Thud'.

All she felt was his calloused fingers on her skin, leaving invisible imprints, his lips - oh, God - almost desperately pressing to hers.

"What took you so long," she gasped into the kiss and fisted her hands into the material of his shirt, pulling him closer still.

His breath was hot against her skin. He smelled of toothpaste, making her smile against his lips. Hiccup pulled away, frowning shortly.

"I don't," he kissed her again, gently this time. "Know."

Her hands wrapped around his neck as he continued working his lips against hers, chasing sparks down her skin. He was pressing her against the wall, not an inch left between their bodies as she lightly pushed her tongue into his mouth. Hiccup groaned and let his hands wander to her waist. Ever so slowly he brushed her tongue against hers, making her knees weak.

"Hiccup," she gasped against his lips, tightening her grip around his shoulders -

Astrid opened her eyes, her racing heart the only sound in her dark bedroom.

Heat crawled up to her face as she realised what had happened.

"Oh, God," she groaned, hiding her burning face in her hands. "Oh my god …"

It had been a dream. Of course it had been a dream. Hiccup wouldn't just barge in like that and start kissing her, he'd … he'd … oh, what did it matter what he'd do, when she was the one dreaming about it! Not only dream but also enjoy the idea of it …

"God, what is wrong with me?" she mumbled into the emptiness of her room, almost swearing she could have tasted the toothpaste from his mouth.

Alright. So it had been a couple of days since she'd last saw him, so what? So what that she couldn't walk past that café anymore without thinking about Hiccup drenched in sunlight? So what that he'd held her hand on the table and hadn't let go even as his friend had asked for their orders? So what that she hard trouble keeping him out of her mind and found herself craving his company? That didn't say anything.

Astrid sat in darkness and realised that there was no turning back now.

"…shit."

He'd been tired all day and now he was in bed and couldn't sleep. Typical.

Hiccup groaned and turned around to face the wall, careful as to not disturb Toothless who had curled up around his legs - well, leg and a half.

It had been days, and yet he couldn't stop thinking about their visit to the café.

Astrid had introduced herself to Fishlegs as his date - which was true, they were dating.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Snot's words were still ringing in his ears.

'That's a very boyfriend-thing to do.'

They were only dating.

He wanted to be more to her, still. He wanted to keep doing these things simply because it made her smile. He wanted to make her happy.

Hiccup closed his eyes, trying not to think about how he'd give up eating anything else than ice cream for his lunch breaks if it meant he got to see her laugh at him with cream on his chin.

Hiccup awoke by the sound of his phone ringing.

Groggily he reached for it and slurred, "'llo?"

"Hiccup?"

He immediately sobered up and sat up. "Astrid, hi, Astrid, hey … Astrid."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just, uh … just woke up."

He started fumbling for the bottle of water somewhere next to his bed.

Astrid gasped on the other line. "Go back to sleep! I'm sorry-"

"It's okay. Really. I should've gotten up anyway." He smiled.

"Oh, okay. Listen, I was just wondering if - you have time somewhen this week, maybe on Friday?"

It had been three days since he'd last seen her.

He didn't really miss her per se. It's just that he'd sometime like to have company, hers to be specific. He simply didn't like her absence at times. His heart jumped as he realised that this was quite literally the definition of missing someone.

He didn't even pretened to think about it and quickly said, "Yes! Friday. Friday's … yeah."

She chuckled and after a small pause softly said, "I've missed you."

His heart skipped a beat.

"You too," he rasped out. "It's weird to think it's only been a couple of days, huh."

She laughed lightly. "Yeah. I think I set a new record for not setting my stove on fire."

He hummed. "We should celebrate that on Friday."

He imagined her lean in and smirk. "Define 'celebrate'."

"You want the oxford-version or mine?"

Astrid laughed. "Come on."

"Alright, so, I was thinking you, me, non-frozen food …"

"You had me at 'celebrate'. We could cook together."

He grinned and peeled himself out of his covers. "Not sure if I'm willing to take that risk."

"Says the fireman with asthma," she retorted dryly and Hiccup laughed.

"On the other hand, I've missed Toothless too," she grinned audibly. "So I'm coming over."

Hiccup chuckled and quickly strapped his prosthesis back on.

"Okay, so same as last time? Or earlier, if you want."

He could hear her grin. "Someone seems to be keen on spending time with me."

The answer came easy to him in full sincerity as he softly replied, "I am."

She paused. Maybe she'd be blushing. God, she was endearing.

"I'll be earlier then."

Hiccup grinned and strode through his room towards the drawer. "Okay. Any ideas on what we'll make?"

She hummed thoughtfully. "How about something you like?"

'I like you,' he thought but kept his mouth shut, pulling out a fresh pair of socks and screwed his eyes shut at the thought.

"How about sushi?" he managed instead. "It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it and practically impossible to burn."

"Oh, yes! Sushi's great, let's do that. And, um, if you want we could get the ingredients together? You know, so there's no room for any misunderstandings."

Hiccup felt his face heat up. Going Grocery-shopping together. Another thing people who were "just" dating didn't usually do.

"Y-yeah," he croaked. "Let's. I'll, uh. See you on Friday, then."

"Great, see you!" Astrid grinned audibly. "Just don't get into any danger until then."

He chuckled. "I'll be careful. Bye."

She bid her goodbye and hung up, leaving a still slightly flustered Hiccup standing in silence, mismatching socks in his other hand.

He stared down at the screen where her contact was still opened.

He'd taken the picture of her during their second date. She was grinning freely at the camera, her eyes sparkling in the low light of his living room, her freckles looking like faint paint splatters on her fair skin.

His useless heard sped up at the memory.

Slowly he set the phone down, let the socks fall and slumped back onto his bed, fisting his hands in his hair.

She was magnetizing.

And he was utterly, hopelessly captivated by her.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Hi there! Just found your blog and I like it so far. Btw being Present Mics favorite student headcanons were amazing, as a bnha nerd may I request a part 2 where Mic meets readers parents and other stuff? Sorry if my English is bad.

A/N:Thank you so much for liking my blog and choosing to request, that means a whole lot! I got you with the Present Mic headcanons, please let me know if you want any more Present Mic stuff i’m here. I’m sorry this request took so long to come out, i was busy with a few thing please love me

-So i would feel this year would be a lot of fun, just like last year but the only difference being you are working harder towards your hero license and school is becoming much more difficult. This means that you have to up your game with your quirk skills and tactics while staying on top of your studies. You are stressed to say the least.

-Like i said previously present Mic knows when you are having a hard time, believe it or not he is quite attentive and super smart so he quickly asses the situation and realizes a few things. He sees you’re struggling with your quirk and school so he takes matters into his own hands.

-He offers to train you and offers extra help with school to you, he only wants to see you succeed even if that means sacrificing his free time.

-”oh- no no Mr.Hizashi that’s so sweet but i know you’re really busy-”

-”SHHHSHHSHSSJSJ Y/N I SHALL GET YOU THAT HERO LICENSE AND HELP YOU PICK UP YOUR GRADES EVEN IF THAT MEANS RISKING A FEW HOURS OF REST, I CANNOT LOSE TO YAGI AND DEKU- i-i- Mean icareaboutyourhealthandgradesandireallywannahelp”

-tHaT soCCer dAD rIvaLrY iS stiLl haPPeNinG 

-Everyday after school you guys meet up at the park or one of the training centers to train for a few hours

-”Now Y/N, breath in and when you breath out use that force to push your quirk-”

-Honestly you thought the training wouldn’t be as hard as it was (it’s Present Mic after all) but boi were you wrong

-”Get up off the ground Y/N, you’ve only been running for .3 seconds”

-”.3 SeCoNdS????? I DID THREE MILES NONSTOP YaMaDA!”

-” hUstLe y/NnNNnN”

-Aizawa comes to your trainings and observes bEcAusE hEs nOSeYy

-He actually helps out and help with things present might not have thought of or isn’t the best at

-This year your relationship with Present actually takes a deeper turn, you find yourself around him more often both in school and after school. You both learn more about each other's quirks and personalities a lot more.

-You thought you already knew a lot about him, given he was like an open book it seemed. But Hizashi is a much deeper and emotional person than you honestly thought and he truly had such a more serious, kindred spirited side to him

-Like sometimes when you guys are taking a break from training he will open up about his life at UA and how it was for him. He told you how he felt kind of odd and awkward and how that’s probably why he can relate to you so so much uwu

-”You know Y/N as much I am super bubbly and “overly confidant” , i still feel super out of place sometimes. I guess i always have it isn’t a new feeling, although I have Aizawa and the other teachers, sometimes I still feel...not understood? If that makes any sense?? But like I totally understand how you feel, and you are not alone...seriously. Thank you for being open to me and allowing me to teach and train you. Kind of makes me feel wanted and useful..haha-”

-iM sOft 

-He always thought of you as a little “sidekick” however recently he kind of looks at you as his own daughter and he’s really protective and fatherly over you. He’s more on top of you and making sure all your ducks are in a row. He’s not controlling or anything like that tho so don’t worry

-”Did you eat yet, Y/N?”

-”are you okay Y/N? You look exhausted.”

-”make sure you finish that report for class, okay? If you need any help let me know.”

-pRotEccS yOu fRom bOys

-If he sees a teacher kind of poking at you and making you feel uncomfortable or feel bad for being a “teacher's pet” he will immediately have them stop. He feels bad you have to get crap from him being a bit biased towards you

-You guys have a secret handshake

-HE’S STILL THE BIGGEST cRacK hEAd I swEar

-*crushes you in a hug* “MISS. AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAAATtattatSSSSSs UpPPPPPPPPPPPp”

-”YO Yo yO AMERiCaAAaAAAA HOw Is IT CrACkINGGGG”

-”YNNNNNNNNN AMErIcAAAA YoUU foRgoT yoUr lUnCH Box iN mY cLaSS *whispers* i put a donut in there for you”

-USES YOU FOR ENGLISH CONVERSATION EXAMPLES IN CLASS ALL THE TIME 

-HE EMBArASSES YOU SO MUCH ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY THIS DUDE NEEDS TO SIT TF DOWN AND LET YOU LIVE POOR GIRL

-It’s okay because he lets you skip class to pass out in the library after being exhausted from everything

-You take his weird sunglasses and strut around with them all the time

-”BlUghH I’m a rich fashion model. WAIT OMG HIZASHI ARE THESE CHILDREN SIZED GLASsES?!?!”

-EmaiLS yOU

-” ohiyo americAa,

It’s me MiC and iM waTchING tHat drAmaA you recommended to me and Im cRyING. Also i heard from the sleepy teacher that there may or may not be a pop quiz in his class on last weeks topic...Anyways I’ll see you tomorrow...unless...Nah just joking okay mic is out!

                                    -Hiz

                              sEnt fRom ToaSter oVeN”

-You get about ten of these things a week from him. help this poor man ;-;

-Made a few youtube videos with him

-He helped you pick out your hero name and outfit, you are so ready to be a hero i swear

-Once you do get your hero license..he is such big boi proud like he’s in tears, snot running out his nose, eyes all puffy and his voice is cracking. He even got you a little teddy bear with a little candy bag attached to it.

-”LOOK LOOOK MR.HIZASHIIIII LOOOK I GOT IT I FINALLY GOT IT THANK YOU SO SO MUCH HIZASHIII I LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH THANK YOU”

-”See kiddo, i knew you could do it!”

-” Pfft all thanks to you!! Oh and Hey, Mr.Hizashi? My parent(s) are coming up this weekend to celebrate me getting my license. I was wondering if you would like to come to dinner? They’d like to personally thank you for helping me.”

-THIS MAN IS THE UTMOST HONORED LIKE LET ME TELL YOU HE SAYS YES IN A HEARTBEAT AND IS AT THE RESTAURANT ON LITERAL TIME

 -He somes in a very nice suit with his hair tied into a perfectly neat bun. And is thAT GLasses he’s wearing??????  (so cute omg)

-Him meeting your parent(s) was a pretty chill experience 

-”Mr.Hizashi, right? SO NIce to finally meet you and thank you for everything you have done for Y/N.”

-”Ah, it was my pleasure. And please, call me Yamada.”

-At first it was kind of awkward but once the conversation got going, you guys were there for hours

-and i mean HoURs

-”um excuse mE, wHen aRe yoU gUyS lIkE idk LEAVING???”

-Haha but no, the literal talk was just them hyping you up and how the waiter dramatically fell coming over to the table

-”yeS Y/N is such a great kid i can’t believe you raised such a strong and patient daughter”

-”Did he just trip and act like he didn’t just dropped our food on the ground??”

-”One time Y/N tripped and dropped her easy bake cookies and she didn’t even cry, that’s when we knew she was going to be a pro hero.”

-”did he step on the fries and up it on the plate and try to serve it to us???”

-Also your parent(s) grew up around the same time as Present so they had a lot to talk about and it was interesting learning about each other different childhoods and cultures.

-Your parent(s) seriously enjoyed Hizashi and they would love to talk to him again. Vise versa, it was a great time for Hizashi as well and prepare to hear about it the next time you see him.

-”Thank you Y/N for inviting me and allowing me to meet your parent(s) it was very nice getting to know them. Next time they come up, I must treat them out instead.”

BonUs

-Let’s just make up a different scenario where maybe your parents were kind of rude and not as nice and welcoming, both to you Yamada

-When you heard your parents were coming up to visit you in Japan, you were at first excited. You were still in this frenzy of like “wow i got my hero license” so you weren't thinking about it too much plus you were excited about being treated out to dinner and having your favorite teacher tag along. 

-Everything was great...that was until you started to think about it more and started to question was that such a great idea?? Let’s just say your parents aren’t the nicest people (person). For some reason it seems like they were never proud of you, no matter how well or bad you literally did. 

-Won a championship game? Eh good, but could be better

-4.00 GPA? That’s okay but thousand of kids get that, you have to do better.

-You want to be a pro hero?? Ha in your dreams, that kid next door has a better chance of becoming one than you do.

-You started to realise they were one of the biggest reasons you wanted to exchange to Japan so much. It was far away from them and super peaceful. You wanted to tell Present to not come, but he seemed so excited, and you wanted to tell him how dreaded your parents were. But you didn’t want him to worry and get others involved. So you just hoped and prayed that they would be nice? And everything was okay?

-Everything was okay...for the first five minutes. 

-Well everyone greeted each other and sat down to eat, then the condescending comments started to pour in.

-”Yeah, well I think Y/N will make a perfect Hero in the near future. She’s gotten a lot stronger with her quirk and-”

-”Pfft, let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, Although Y/N has gotten her License that doesn’t mean she’s hero material. We watched the sports festival and compared to the other students, she’s severely overshinned. I just don’t think a year or so of training can fix that. She has to do better.”

-For a second hizashi just sat there with his face utter disbelief. How could someone just say that about their child...in front of their child...so camly?

-He looked over towards your uncomfortable figure, your face was colored with complete dismay, He felt so sad and slightly angry. You didn’t look in a position to defend yourself so he started to speak up for you

-”I really hope the both of you are seriously joking.” he snapped back with a sassy firm tone in his voice which made you look towards the three adults

-”No we are not, Y/N is pretty average and for you to put in her head that she could possibly become a Pro? Haha I understand teachers are supposed to be supportive but like come on now, just be honest with yourself.”

-Hizashi slammed his hands against the table, gaining the attention of everyone in the restaurant, including yourself who was previously looking down to avoid confrontation.

-”How DARE you. Y/N is PERFECTLY  CAPABLE of becoming a hero, her quirk,skills, technique and intelligence is all was stronger than you can even imagine. Do not downgrade her just because you’re too idiotic and narrowminded to see that. She is the sweetest kid I have ever met and quite frankly the purest. Disgusting how you talk about your own child like that. AND IN FRONT OF HER?? Now with all due respect, I think you guys need to do a self reflection and change the wrongs you have within you. If you need any help i don't mind emailing you a list of things.”

-SKSKSKSKSKSKS WOT???? DID MR.HIZASHI THE ALWAYS HAPPY AND CRACKHEADY TEACHER JUST PUT YOUR PARENTS IN THEIR PLACE???? IN FRONT OF A WHOLE RESTURANT??? BEST. TEACHER. EVER.

-on you still wore an embarrassed kind or dismayed face and when Present say that. hE tHoUghT yOU wErE eIthER mAd oR sCaREd oF Him. cri

-In reality you were literally so joyful and happy. LIKE DUUUDEEE. MARRY ME LOLOL. Seriously you were super thankful that he did that for you. 

-He looked around and suddenly realised that all eyes were on him. Aww poor man felt so flustered he didn’t mean to make a fuss and disturb others, he was just so angry your parents were such a*ssholes. 

-He turned to you and bowed while simply muttering “I’m sorry Y/N”, then grabbed his coat and walked out.

-Without even thinking you jumped up and rushed out the door with him, leaving your dumbfounded parents at the restaurant

-”m-Mr.Hizashi wait up!”  you called out from behind the blonde haired man, he stopped in his tracks then pivoted in place to face you

-”y/n im very sorry to you and your family i didn’t mean any disrespect. I understand if you may not want to be around me any more or allow me to train you.”

-”ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT WAS EPIC LIKE SERIOUSLY THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE I CAn rEMEBER I SWEAR YOU ARE SO AWESOME MRHIZASHI THANK YOU THANK YOU LIKE YOU’RE THE DAD I ALWAYS WANTED I FREAKING LOVE YOU AND DID YOU SEE THEIR FACES HAHA BOOM I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TELL ME I-”

-cutting you off from your frenzy and gave you a big bear hug, “haha don’t ever let what they have said about you ever ring in your head...okay L/N? I belive in you and i know you are going to be fucking great.”

-”Really?” you smiled

-”HECK YEAHHHHH, AMERICAAAAAA” 

[freckledmountain]

But I can try for your heart

By @freckledmountain for @kirbywritesstuff

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences 

Relationships:  Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man)

Summary:  

“Tony becomes Peter´s guardian.

It doesn´t go as badly as Tony thought it would.”

Anthony Edward Stark´s life had looked at words like normal, nice, easy and said “how about no”.

For as long as he could remember, there´d always been something. Terrorists, kidnappers, giant worm alien things, gods, life seemed to throw in anything and everything in it, and he was left reeling every time. Domestic life? Heck if he knew her.

…and then existence did a 180 again, and gave him the one thing he´d thought he´d never have.

Someone to take care of.

He´d liked the kid, right from the start, but getting attached to him was definitely not an option for him at first. Tony swore Peter literally had cartoony stars in his eyes whenever he looked at him, as if Tony deserved even a tenth of that adoration.

He didn´t want to be there when the kid realized how much of a failure his idol really was, didn´t want to imagine the inevitable moment that brightness would leave his eyes forever.

But it just showed how he didn´t really know who Peter Parker was back then, or rather, how darn stubborn he could be. A few months later and he was running around rescuing the kid from every possible mishap, desperately trying to keep him safe, ready to do just about anything to make him smile.

He grew on him, scaled the 30 foot long walls around his heart with his endearingly dumb t-shirt puns, his incandescent enthusiasm for technology, his 3 am rants about how fluffy some cat he´d seen was, his willingness to go out there and do his damn best to help anyone who needed it. Because when life threw dirt at Peter he stared back and smiled, and grew kinder for it.

Maybe Tony´s universe wasn´t just some practical joke, waiting to see what would trip him up next. He was terrified of breaking Peter, but after a brief period of trying to drive him away he realized the kid would just keep coming back, worming his way gently but firmly into Tony´s life without even meaning to.

And honestly?  After dozens of frantic calls to Cho as he held an unconscious Peter in his arms, lazy saturday mornings spent laughing his head off as the kid tried to flip pancakes as high as he could (he ended up getting a little too enthusiastic but no one noticed the half cooked pancake stuck to the ceiling for three days anyway so-), he realized all his doubts could go screw themselves, because no matter how badly Tony messed up, that light in Peter´s eyes hadn´t left once.

Peter was just bright, and sweet, and kind and yeah, maybe Iron Man had a soft spot now, but he wouldn´t change it for the world.

Peter was worth every night spent worrying about him, every Star Wars marathon, every “borrowed” hoodie that never quite made it back to his closet, because the kid was good, and every time he smiled he made Tony want to make the world into something good too.

Life was way more nerve-wracking when you cared for a smaller human, but he couldn´t help but think maybe it wasn´t all that bad either. Peter would always be worth it.

 And then on a day like any other May Parker´s heart failed her, and without a single warning, both of them were hurled straight into the impossible.

 Grief was…

blurry.

It made everything around you fade into spots of either red hot pain or complete numbness, and whichever one it was, you couldn´t escape it some days. He would know.

Peter dealt with it a hell of a lot better than Tony himself had done when he was 21, but he could still see himself there, mad and lost and so achingly confused, filled with screaming questions no one could possibly give answers to.

Peter cried. He went out as Spiderman, returning later and later, screaming at Tony when he tried to get him to stay. He didn´t know what to do anymore, didn´t know how to get to him.

May´d loved her nephew above all things. If there was one thing Tony was absolutely certain of in this new swirling world of legal papers and sobs masked with yelling and mixed feelings, it was that from now on, he´d have to do the same.

He´d been sitting in that plastic chair for four hours, barely moving, when someone came barreling in.

He stood up quickly, knowing immediately who it was, trying to make enough sense of the half-finished speech at the tip of his tongue to say it out loud. “May.I´m-“

“Don´t.”

That shut him up.

Firm footsteps resonated on the tiled floor as she came up closer to him. He expected her to scream at him like she´d done all those months before when she´d found out about Spiderman, only now he´d gladly accept any other feeling that wasn´t the crippling guilt currently eating his insides. He´d fucked up, and Peter´d paid the price for it. He deserved every fragment of the storm coming his way.

Instead, May Parker stared at him for a long second, and the next she had her arms around him in a fierce hug.

“Thank you.”

Any coherent thought trying to find its way into his mind promptly disappeared after those two words. May spoke gently, but her stance was firm as she held him.

“You got to him in time. You saved him, and as soon as he gets better we´re going to go in and he´s going to see us and I´ll tell him off and it´s all going to be fine. Okay?”

“I didn´t-“

“You saved him. You did. I saw you running inside that building to get him, on the news. I know together you´ve got a guilt complex the size of Canada but Peter is going to be fine and what he needs right now is people who love him to be close, so we can save the misplaced sorry´s for when my nephew´s out of surgery, yeah?”

She pulled back slightly, and he could see his own fear mirrored in her eyes, but there was trust there too. And love. Love gentle enough to be all-encompassing. And for once, his guilt wasn´t enough to overpower how much he cared for the kid.

He loved Peter too.  

“How-how ‘do you even do this? How do you deal with wanting to protect him from everything, how do you just not- implode or something-?” He was a mess, but May just smiled through misty eyes and hugged him again.

“You learn. Welcome to parenthood with a teenager, where half of you wants to see him succeed and go further than you thought possible and then the other half thinks keeping him cooped up at home with fifty blankets and a gallon of ice cream is the best idea since ever”

Tony managed a short laugh at that. “But something tells me you´ll get the hang of it, Tony. Something tells me you´re going to love him no matter what, and that´s already the most important part done”

Those words came back to him whenever he felt he was doing more harm than good by deciding to adopt Peter.

It was a whole different level of delicate now, and his attempts at being a normal parent didn´t always end well, but Peter´s fierce hugs reminded him a little of someone else´s, and he held on to the hope everything could work itself out as long as they kept trying.

 Time runs strangely.

It can never quite mend the pain completely, but given it´s gentle enough, time can help.

The weird thing though, is how you can’t pinpoint the exact moment feeling okay doesn’t seem foreign to you anymore.

Maybe it starts when he takes the kid to school again and finds the note he packed in his lunch hung in Peter’s room a few days later.

Maybe it’s when he wakes up and realizes Peter slept through the night without a nightmare for the first time in weeks.

Or when he makes a particularly bad pun as he’s helping him with calculus homework and the kid laughs so much the tears running down his face don´t make him feel terrible for once.

…it could possibly be when Peter’s so sleep deprived one night he whispers a gentle “I love you” before drifting off, effectively making Tony blub like a baby once he´s sure the kid´s asleep.

And yes, there’re still bad days with screaming, and there’re still moments where he feels like the least capable human on earth for this job, but he just won’t give up, on either of them.

He vowed to try, didn´t he?  

It´s been 8 months since he took Peter in, and things he´d have never imagined doing are quickly becoming commonplace now. Packing lunches, helping with English essays, occasionally dragging his butt halfway across the city to save his kid from yet another weirdo in a tacky suit, not to toot his own horn, but he thinks he´s definitely getting the hang of it all now.

So it should all be chill when he finds out he´s going to attend the parent-teacher conference at Midtown in a few months, but oh look at that, he’s panicking.

As much as he tried sheltering Peter from it at first, word that Tony Stark had been seen with a teenager soon got round, and within a day every reporter in New York seemed just about ready to trade an arm and a leg for some more dirt on Ironman.

Fun.

Pepper´d dealt with the brunt of it, so it wasn´t as if the world didn´t know about Peter by now, but the thought of waltzing directly into the school when every pair of eyes would be fixed on both of them didn´t exactly make him want to skip in joy, see.

Then again, Peter was the smartest freaking kid in the whole school, and the thought of teasing him lightly in front of his teachers was…yeah, okay, he was pretty sure he could work something out.  

———————————————————————————

It was a beautiful Friday morning, they only had a few more teachers to go, and Tony was so glad he´d rescheduled three work meetings earlier this week to be here, because it was freaking glorious.

Peter was blushing bright red from all the compliments his teacher´s had told him all day. They were only allowed about 10 minutes to talk with each one, lots of kids and all that, but everyone had something positive to say about him.

Most teachers did a pretty good job of not letting a vein pop out of their forehead when they shook hands with Tony, but others seemed to have mini freak outs until they focused on Peter and regained their composure. He wasn´t at all surprised when they showed him Peter´s perfect grades, but God, he was proud.

He knew all the credit in raising Peter to be the wonder he was belonged to May and Ben, but he darn almost melted when Peter beamed at him as Mr. Del showed him a perfect test score in advanced chemistry for an exam he´d helped Peter study for a few months prior. Maybe he actually wasn´t screwing up at this parenting thing.

He knew the teachers were anxious when he asked questions (hey, he had no idea what a parent-teacher conference was like 3 months ago, he did his research), but they softened slightly whenever they turned to look at Peter.

He got it; the kid was pretty hard not to love.

Mr. Del was sitting across from them now, the man visibly nervous at being in front of Tony Stark, but smiling genuinely all the same as he talked about Peter´s work in class.

“There´ve been a few late assignments here and there, but nothing major in terms of academic development. I feel sleeping earlier could be a good idea though” Peter smiled sheepishly, probably remembering all the times Ned´ had to poke him awake in class after patrol got a little too long. Tony made a mental note to check up on it.

“His essay on analytical chemistry in an applicable field was particularly impressive” Mr. Harrington took out a thick cream folder, flipping through it until he came across Peter´s, “I showed it to some of my colleagues and it´s got some real potential. If you give some more thought to it, Peter, this could really make a difference.”

Peter´s ears were positively beetroot by now and he stuttered out a thank you, smiling. Tony felt about three seconds away from exploding with pride, but he just grinned at Peter, knocking their shoulders together gently. This, this right here was nice.

Peter´d worked hard for this, spending uncountable nights staying up late finishing projects or homework, studying for hours before an exam, still muttering formulas sleepily as Tony carried him up to bed.  

He might be Tony Stark´s adopted son (months of it and the word still made his heart go full on Speedy Gonzales when he thought about it, but in a nice way, in the best way), but he had no doubt in his mind Peter´s grades had definitely been earned by him fairly.

And later, when they´re having a celebratory pizza night/movie marathon, when he´s surrounded by a blanket fort and a kid that definitely does not have the right to make him feel as mushy as he does, he thinks back to when something like this seemed impossible, and smiles.

Life´s unexpected, alright.

Somehow, he thinks he loves it this way anyway.

(many virtual hugs to all of you!)

@friendly-neighborhood-exchange​

It´s also on my ao3

[writershapeholeonthedoor]

Dino Gear - Supercop

Read at AO3

That day turned out to be one of the worst days in Lena Luthor’s life. And she had a lot of days were people tried to kill her, including her mother and her bother, she was kidnapped more times than she was comfortable with and she did pretty much looked like a walking target to whatever shit the universe decided to throw her away, but, pushing all of that to the side, that was one of the worst days in her life.

She woke up late, which was a first in her life, after staying awake until very very late talking with Kara over texts. Her friend seemed bored and with insomnia and kept texting her the most random things for hours, going from asking her silly questions like her favourite color to sending pics of animals she found cute. And, for a reason she would like not to adress in the moment, Lena had stayed up with her until her friend finally fell asleep – or at least until she took more than five minutes to text her again. So when her alarm went off at 6am like usual, she didn’t heard it.

Jess saw her basically running to her office two hours after she was supposed to be there, but she was gracefull enough not to mention it while informing Lena of all the things she had pushed on her schedule. Because of her delay, Lena had even more meetings to attend in the afternoon and she had a board meeting and so many meetings that, by the time she exited the last one, she had lost count of which one that was.

She also hadn’t eaten nothing all day. Literally. She was late for work so she had to skip breakfest, she was in a meeting during lunch and another meeting after that. Lena spent all afternoon talking with stubborn, blockhead, white male, and by the time she realized she still had to put some solid food on her body it was already too late to ask Jess to grab her something.

To top all of that - because what more did she needed really? – she had to stay until late at her office, trying to finish some reports and working on some things she had promissed Winn she would take a look at. Not to mention that, in her rush to make everything on time, she didn’t had time to talk with Kara all day, even if she saw that her best friend had texted her more than once through the day. By the time she called her driver, Lena’s head was feeling twice it’s size.

She wanted nothing more than take her uncomfortable clothes off and go to bed. She had a terrible migraine, her body was tired and honestly her bed was just too inviting in the moment.

Lena had managed to take a quick shower and put her old National City University hoodie, and was on her way to pour some wine to herself, when there was a knock on the door. Her heart jumped against her chest at the sudden loud sound in her quiet apartment, but the panic quickly soothe when her brain started to work. There was only one person that would be allowed to go up by security without her being informed before.

What exactly Kara was doing on her door at 00:14am was beyond her, but Lena knew it was better ask her than keep asking herself instead. She sighed, putting down the wine bottle, and started making her way to the door. Lena loved her friend, she really did, but she wasn’t in the mood to entertain her that night. Her head hurt and she was tired, and it wasn’t even wednesday yet.

She took a deep breath before opening the door, ready to break Kara’s excited little heart, but then she had to stop short on her tracks when she took in whatever her friend was wearing.

Her hand instantly flew to her mouth to hide her laugh behind her palm, but it was already too late by the look on Kara’s face.

“Special delivery for miss Luthor!” Kara exclamed in her most cheerful tone, raising her hand that was holding a plastic bag to show her that she had, indeed, something with her.

Lena shook her head, her hand dropping back to the door handle, her smile almost too big to be comfortable. “Please, tell me this isn’t happening right now.”  She said with a scoff.

Kara raised one eyebrow at her, but her smiley face was just too happy for it to stay like that for too long. “You like my dino gear, don’t you?” Her eyes moved up, clearly trying to look at the said clothing item, before coming back to stare at Lena with that bright glint on the blue orbs.

Lena looked at her friend from head to toe, still smiling, and quirked her eyebrows to what she saw. Kara’s bottom half was rather normal, just some old sneackers and a maybe too large grey hoodie pants with CatCo symbol on it, but her top half was something entirely different. She was using what had to be the ugliest sweater Lena had ever saw. It was a dark shade of blue, with a large green and yellow dinosaur on it, and it would have being an attrocity if she wasn’t looking so cute while wearing it. And, in her head, Kara was wearing a black cap with a green dinosaour being mounted by a green smiley alien, full with stars and planets around them and a fluffly coloured woolen ball on top. In the bottom, the phrase “Give me some space” was written in white and red, making everything even better.

Kara looked ridiculous, but, oh so cute. Especially with that easy smile of her and her face full of freckles around her nose that Lena could see thanks to the fact that her friend wasn’t wearing any make up.

“I heard you had a rough day.” Kara offered as an explanation, raising the bag again. “I thought I would show up to make you smile a little bit.” She wiggled her eyebrows and her cap moved along with it. “With kale to help me out.”

Lena couldn’t hold back anymore, she laughed openly now. “Jesus, Kara, you’re the best, I love you.” She shook her head again.

They hadn’t said it before, not even in a friendly way. They had said how much the other meant for each other, how much they cared, how far they would go for each other, but, for some reason, it felt different that time. Lena could hear in her own voice how blunt out honest she was when she spilled the words without thinking. She didn’t sounded like a thankful friend, no. She sounded like a in love fool, like her heart had just spit out of her mouth.

And apparently Kara had also realized it because all laugh and smile left her beautiful face when she stared back at Lena in shock. So Lena also stoped laughing, because clearly her friend was not amused anymore, and her heart started beating fast inside her chest, begging her to find a way to get out of the mess she dug herself and not ruin things for them, because having Kara as her friend was better than not having Kara at all.

“I, uh-“ Lena cleared her throat twice before she was able to speak again. “What’s in the bag?” She clinged visibly to her stupid question and clear attempt to find another thing to talk about.

But Kara wasn’t having it. “What did you just said?”

“What?” Not the best time to play dumb, Lena realized too late. Not the best way to get her out of that mess.

“You-“ Kara pointed at her with a shaking finger and wide eyes. “You said you- You said- You just...” Ok, so clearly she wasn’t the only one who had no idea what to say. “You said you love me.” Kara whispered the words almost in reverence.

Lena wanted to play dumb again, at least she would be able to buy her some time before having to answer the though questions, but she doubted that saying ‘No, I didn’t’ was going to sound any better than whatever crap she could come up with. Her brain was way too tired for that conversation to be happening.

So she went all the way around. “Yes, I did.” Lena crossed her arms in front of her chest, trying to embrace herself for the impact.

“Wow.” Kara whispered in awe while nodding along with it. “That’s some big news.”

“Kara, look, I’m sorry. I haven’t slept very well and I also didn’t eat anything all day, and I really want to go to bed, so...” It was the lamest excuse she ever gave anyone, but she couldn’t think straight when Kara was staring at her like that. It made her inside all mushy and warm, and it made her really nervous.

“I love you too.”

“What?”

“I love you too, Lena.” Kara repeated, her growing smile getting bigger and bigger by the second. “As like more than friends kind of love you.”

“You really do?” Lena never felt more nervous or hopefull in her entire life before and it showed on how low her voice became suddenly, the words barely audible for any human.

But Kara smiled at her again and, with a wink, said: “Well, I did used this thing in public, didn’t I?”

The CEO chuckled and shook her head. “To be fair, I think you would use it regardless.”

“That’s not the point here.” They shared a light moment where they both giggled like school girls about to kiss their crush, but suddenly Kara became very serious and she looked even more nervous than before.

“What?” It was ringing way too many bells inside her head and Lena didn’t liked it.

Kara’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she looked down at her dirty sneakers so she wouldn’t have to see Lena’s reaction to what she was about to say. “I- Lena, I can’t do this, not without telling you the whole truth, it’s not fair with you and...”

“Kara.” Lena interrupted her gently. She hesitated only for a second before she reached out to grab Kara’s hand that wasn’t grasping the bag. The brunette coaxed her to come foward, but the blonde only followed her once she looked around and realized she was still literally standing in the hallway. “I think I know what...”

“I’m Supergirl.” Kara blurred out suddenly. She was still looking down, but after her outburst she looked up to meet the emerald eyes that made her feel so many things. Lena had raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t let go of her hand, so she took it as a good sign. “I’m Supergirl and I love you, Lena.” She stated, straightening her posture and stuffing her chest to give the impression that she was more confident than she really was.

Lena’s eyes softened and she took a step back, than another one, until she finally raised her other hand to push a stray of hair behind her ear, the touch almost making Kara combust in place. “I knew the first part, just for the record.” She claimed with a little amusement. “Quite hard to miss it. The rest is kind of surprising, not going to lie.”

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

“Kara, I don’t want you to take it the wrong way, really.” Lena paused and bit her bottom lip. For a second, the hero thought she was about to be rejected, but then she saw the corners of Lena’s mouth trembling slightly as she fought a smile. “But it’s really hard to take you serious when you’re wearing this hat and this sweater.”

Kara nodded and pretended to think for a second. “I can compromise with the hat, but I really like this sweater.”

Lena chuckled softly. “I think you look quite cute with it.” She raised both hands, using one to remove Kara’s Alien-Mounting-A-Dinosaur gear and the other one to brush the blonde curls away from her face. Her heart swell with love when Kara closed her eyes and leaned to her touch. “I will never say it again, so you better save this in your memory, but I did enjoyed the dino gear too. It made me smile.”

“That’s all I want.” Kara confessed as she leaned for their first kiss.

A week later, after Kara convinced Lena to a late walk through her block, people would see Lena using the dino gear while trying to convince Kara that she wasn’t cold enough to use the damn sweater.

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Captain Cold and Me (chapter 1 of 6)

Sara Lance, unbeknownst to her high school classmates, has connections to some of Star City's most popular super-powered heroes--but no powers of her own. Then the mysterious Captain Cold saves her from an attack…and does his best to convince her that he’s not the bad guy everyone seems to think he is. And maybe not all of the "good guys" should be trusted...

Author's note: This story is a weird amalgamation of things. It started when I saw a book titled "The Supervillain and Me" (check it out!) on the YA shelves at Barnes & Noble. That, of course, gave me CaptainCanary vibes. After I bought and read it, they were even stronger. I posted about that on Tumblr, and people encouraged me to write the CC high school AU I was considering.

So I did! It takes the skeleton of the book (which is very much its own thing-again, read it!)-at least at first-adds some (very adapted) Arrowverse characters and plots, and stirs it up with my own weird imagination. I own nothing of this but my own words, and I make no money off it.

This will be six chapters (all but one already complete), posted one a day until Tuesday. Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta, and to @sylvanheather for her thoughts! And happy birthday to @dragonydreams!

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

“Sara! Sara, did you hear?”

Sara Lance closed her eyes in resignation as she heard the footsteps of Felicity Smoak, her best friend, hurrying up behind her in the halls of Star City’s Kanigher-Broome High School. She loved Felicity, she really did, but she knew what was coming here, or suspected at any rate, and she really didn’t want to talk about it.

Felicity, however, was going to tell her anyway.

“Principal Hunter got a special guest for the assembly today,” she said breathlessly, adjusting the strap of her backpack where it was slung over her shoulder, swiping her dark hair with its blond roots out of her face. “Do you know who it is?”

Sara could guess.

“Nope,” she said, however, continuing to stroll toward physics class. “No idea. Fliss, did you finish your lab report yet? I want to ask Dr. Stein…”

“Sa-ra!” Felicity actually stomped her foot. “This is important! Don’t you think it’s probably a super? Should I go fix my hair? Redo my makeup before the assembly? We need to get there early so we can get a seat!”

Felicity had a real thing for supers—and the top team in Star City right now was the Black Canary and the Green Arrow. Sara’s friend had a massive crush on the Arrow (maybe on the Canary too), but she didn’t know what Sara did: That the Black Canary was Sara’s annoying big sister, Laurel, and the Arrow was Laurel’s rich-boy boyfriend, Oliver Queen. 

Sara had known Laurel and all her quirks since birth, and she’d known Ollie for nearly as long as she could remember. It was tough to be awe-inspired by the girl who continually left sopping-wet towels on the bathroom floor or the boy who’d once been so helpless without servants that he’d kept buying new underwear rather than admit he didn’t know how to use the washing machine.

They’d both acquired their powers (for Laurel, a sonic scream, flight and a degree of invulnerability, and for Ollie, perfect aim, a literal inability to miss his mark, in addition to greater strength and agility) at about the same time, a handful of years ago, around their 16th birthdays, just like most supers. While Sara’s parents had made sure Laurel had a chance to learn and become accustomed to her powers, they’d balked at letting her take on the role of a public superhero despite her wishes.

Oliver hadn’t even entertained the notion, as far as Sara knew. He’d happily used his aim to win drinks in darts tournaments at Star City’s (not so) finest bars, and his strength to impress girls who weren’t Laurel.

Until the day everything changed.

It’d been an assassination attempt, everyone said, one that targeted both Commissioner Quentin Lance and Ollie’s mother, Moira Queen, who’d been mayor at the time. A massive earthquake centered on the old City Hall, undeniably unnatural, as it hadn’t affected anything outside a relatively small radius. At first, everyone had suspected a super gone rogue, before investigation had revealed the device detonated by a disgruntled former police officer.

Quentin and Moira had survived. Dinah, Sara and Laurel’s mother, who’d been on her way into the building to meet her husband for lunch, had not. Neither had Tommy Merlyn, Ollie’s best and oldest friend and the son of Moira’s deputy mayor. He’d been sitting on the front steps, waiting for his perpetually late friend to show up.

They didn’t have costumes or names yet, and they wouldn’t go patrolling for a few months. But in many ways, that was the day the Black Canary and the Green Arrow were born.

And then there was Sara, just a few years younger. Sara didn’t have powers. She had a second-degree black belt—about to test for third--but no powers.

It wasn’t good enough. It would never be good enough. Sara sighed. Felicity, unaware of her thoughts, elbowed her.

“Come on!” she said. “Earth to Sara Lance! What do you think?”

“I think I want to skip it,” Sara muttered, shifting her own backpack.

“Skip English class?” Felicity blinked at her. “That’s not like you.”

Apparently, Sara had completely missed the thread of this conversation. She sighed again. “No. Never mind.” She gave her friend a onceover. “You look fine. And we get there early if you want. Just don’t expect me to squeal and wave and go all fangirl with you.”

Felicity grinned and gave her a one-armed hug. “Sara, I just don’t get you at times, but you’re the best.”

“You know it.”

Felicity (and Sara) had guessed right. The Green Arrow in his hood and green leather and Black Canary in her black leather and domino mask had strolled out onto the stage at the assembly, exhorting the students not to bully each other and to stay in school, etc., etc. Sara had rolled her eyes so hard they hurt, while Felicity did indeed squeal and wave and go all fangirl. She was still gushing when the assembly let out, and they headed for what Principal Hunter called the senior Creators Club—and Sara privately called Kanigher-Broome’s catchall hangout for Star City’s young, social and slightly geeky.

Sara’s father didn’t really like her being home on her own any more, not since…since her mother died. He was still concerned that the would-be killer (who had died in prison last year) hadn’t acted alone, and that the whole family could be a target. Quentin not only went armed as part of his commissioner duties, he often had an entourage with him at all times—and Laurel was the Black Canary. Sara was…just Sara. So, to keep her dad happy, she stayed at school a little longer, working on whatever homework or projects came her way, chatting with Felicity and other classmates, pretending things were…normal.

“Did you see? The Green Arrow winked at me, Sara!” Felicity did a little dance step in the corridor on their way toward the senior lounge, dodging students headed in the other direction. “He did! I swear it. Right at me.”

Ollie had probably been winking at Sara. He knew perfectly well that she hated when he and Laurel made appearances at her school. “Mmhmm,” she agreed absently. “That Green Arrow. Quite the flirt.” Ollie was a flirt, or he had been. The Green Arrow was anything but.

“Do you think I should go blond again?” Felicity stopped, facing Sara, wrapping her fingers around a tendril of her hair and holding it out to inspect it critically. “I like the goth-y look,” she commented, starting to turn to head toward the lounge again, “but…oof!”

She collided right with a tall, thin boy, knocking his bag out of his hands and knocking her own glasses off her face. Grasping desperately for them, she grabbed the edges of his worn black jacket instead, the glasses clattering to the floor. The boy reacted with a startled noise and stepped back, tripping over his own bag, making a faint sound of pain as he did so.

Sara stepped forward in concern, reaching out to steady him, even as Felicity stooped and felt around for her glasses. But he caught himself without incident, shaking his head, and Sara stopped wondering if she’d imagined that pained gasp.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

The boy, who had dark, very short hair with what might even be a few glints of premature silver in it, was still looking aside, stooping to reclaim his bag.

“I’m all right,” he said in a low tone as he straightened. “Really. Thanks.”

Felicity gave a cry of victory and stuffed her glasses back on to her face, standing again. ”Sorry!” she told the boy cheerfully, then frowned. “Wait. Do I know you?”

He gave an almost curt shake of his head, looking at Felicity, then finally glancing at Sara. His eyes—an icy blue that was so striking that Sara sucked in a breath--widened, and he turned away abruptly. Sara blinked, watching him duck into the senior lounge. He’d been quite good-lucking, really, she thought. Those cheekbones and eyelashes were totally unfair in addition to those eyes.

“Sara! Sara!”

Felicity would keep Sara-ing her until she responded. With a sigh, she looked at her friend, who was still gaping at the door to the lounge. “What?”

The other girl looked upset, for some reason. “Don’t you know who that was?”

“…no?” The boy had looked vaguely familiar, though everything about him—his hunched shoulders, his downcast eyes—screamed that he didn’t want to be noticed.

“That was Leonard Snart. Snart, Sara!”

The world stopped. “Oh.”

Snart. The son of Lewis Snart, the crooked officer who’d tried to arrange for her dad’s assassination, who’d rocked Star City with the explosion that had killed her mother and so many others. For a moment, Sara couldn’t breathe. The memories were still so strong…the search for survivors, the hunt for suspects, the news that’d trickled out about motives and targets. The trial, which had, mercifully, been extremely brief.

“How do you know?” she asked numbly, stepping to the side to let other seniors by. “I mean. I know he had two kids, a son and daughter. But neither of them went here…before…”

Felicity sighed, running a hand through her hair. Her gaze was sympathetic and troubled.

“Remember that hackerspace thing I was involved with a few years back?” she asked. “Over in the East Side? I ran into him there once or twice. Never talked, barely knew his name. He’s a quiet kid. It took me a minute to recognize him here. He shaved off his curls.” She glanced away. “It’s not like I was going to bring it up after. But…Snart. Sort of a memorable name.”

“Yeah.” Sara stood, frozen, another moment, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he had anything to do with it. I just…I thought both of them went into foster care in Central. I remember reading…”

She’d once read the articles about the case obsessively, determined to figure out if anything could have saved her mom, could prevent something like that from ever happening again. She’d always wondered if Laurel or Ollie could have, if they’d been using their powers for hero-ing back then. But it was the kind of thing she’d never had the heart to ask.

“I know.” Felicity’s voice was low. She sighed again. “I can’t figure out why he’d even want to come back here.”

“Um. I might know something about that…”

Both of them turned at the sheepish voice behind them. Barry Allen, shuffling his feet, gave them an uncertain grin. Felicity squeaked and put her hands on her hips. She’d dated Barry briefly, but while it hadn’t lasted, they were still friends. And as Sara well knew, withholding information was majorly against the Felicity’s-friend code.

“Spill, Allen,” she said, fiercely enough that Barry paled a little.

“Well, not really the reasons,” he clarified, switching his gaze to Sara, his cheeks a little pink. She smiled despite herself. Barry was such a lovable dork. “But some of the story behind it.”

Felicity folded her arms and fixed him with a glare that was probably supposed to be intimidating, then gave him a regal nod, as if to tell him to carry on with it.

“My dad met him, Snart—uh, Len—in Central City, when he was there doing some, ah, charity work.” Barry continued. Sara remembered that his dad was a doctor, and that his family was originally from Central. “His little sister, she’s happy there, in school, with a good family, but Len wanted to come back here to at least finish school.” He bit his lip. “Dad helped him with the emancipation paperwork. I don’t know where he’s living, but he’s come by our house for dinner once or twice, at my parents’ insistence. Doesn’t talk much.” He sighed. “Be nice to him, OK? He’s had a rough road, but he’s an OK guy. There’s good in him.”

His pleading gaze was on Sara, who really had no intention of holding Leonard Snart responsible for his father’s misdeeds. She nodded, then smirked, deciding to try to lighten the mood a little.

“Aww,” she teased. “Gotta crush on him, Barry? He is really cute.”

Barry blinked, then turned pinker. “What? No! Uh. Not that I have a problem with that.”

Barry and his current girlfriend, Iris West, were currently the leading contenders for most likely to get married right after graduation. It was just a lot of fun to tease him about it.

Felicity got a particularly evil look on her face, but Sara, still smirking, cut back in.

“Of course I’ll be nice to him,” she said, then sobered. “Having a horrible parent doesn’t make him a bad person.” She nibbled her lip a little, thinking. “He’s kinda one of his dad’s victims too, in a way, isn’t he?”

Barry nodded, growing serious himself. “Yeah. I mean…he hated the guy. Hated. It’s not like he’s talked about it, really, but…”

“Join the crowd,” Sara murmured, as Felicity nodded next to her. “No worries, Bar. In fact…”

She shouldered her backpack, took a deep breath, and headed for the lounge. “In fact, I think there’s something I need to do.”

She could hear Barry and Felicity following her, but she ignored them, stopping in the entrance and scanning the room. There. The dark-haired boy was sitting by himself at a table in the far corner, pulling a laptop out of his much-abused bag and opening it on the table. He glanced up as she approached, a flash of something darting over his face, and Sara felt a pang of empathy.

“Hey,” she said as he met her eyes, his own gaze opaque. “I just wanted to say, sorry about my friend. She’s a klutz.” She took a deep breath (ignoring Felicity’s protests behind her), then held out her hand. “I’m Sara Lance.”

The boy—Leonard—held her gaze for a long moment, then stood. He was tall, Sara thought, eying him. And…yeah. Cute. Hot, really. Mm. He didn’t look like a senior in high school. College student, at least.

“Hey,” he said in return, so quietly that she could barely hear him. “It’s OK.” He shrugged. “It was an accident.”

“Your laptop’s all right?” Sara darted a look down at it. It was an old machine, she thought. But that didn’t mean it didn’t mean a lot to him.

“It’s fine.” The corner of his mouth tugged up a little, a tiny little smile, but a smile nonetheless. Sara felt like she’d won a victory. Then he reached out and took her proffered hand.

A firm, calloused grip, one that didn’t back down because she was a girl. Sara liked that. And he didn’t seem to find her gesture overly formal because they were only in high school. His handshake was steady, and so were his eyes, and damn…

“Leonard Snart,” he said so quietly that she could barely hear him.

“Pleased to meet you, Leonard,” she said quietly in return. “Glad you’re OK.”

She’d been pulled away from Leonard nearly immediately, and that was OK too. Felicity had wanted to talk about the physics lab she’d been uninterested in earlier, and then to gush about the Green Arrow and the Black Canary some more. Then Barry and Iris had come over, asking about the upcoming talent show, and she’d gotten distracted again.

When the club hours had ended and they’d all been told to go home, Sara glanced around, but Leonard Snart was already gone. She shook her head, then bade other friends farewell and walked with Felicity toward the parking lot, where the other girl turned to her.

“Do you need a ride home?” Felicity asked, a touch distractedly. “It’s no problem. I can drop you off on the way.”

Felicity drove like a bat out of hell. Sara loved her friend, but she was actually glad to have an excuse not to trust her life to the Fliss-mobile today.

“Nah. My dad is actually home tonight. He wants us all to have dinner together, for once,” she demurred. “Should be here soon.”

Felicity gave her a cheerful wave, then headed toward her old Cobalt, peeling out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires. Sara shook her head, then checked her phone.

Nothing. But after only a few moments, it chimed. Sara, watching the other seniors trickle out one by one, checked it again.

“Sorry, honey,” her dad texted. “Stuck here late. Can Felicity give you a ride?”

Sara bit her lip. Why hadn’t he sent that a few moments ago? But she’d thought that this dinner thing might actually happen. She could text Laurel, but her sister and Ollie almost certainly had something more important going on. Hero-ing and whatnot.

“Sure,” she texted back after a moment. “See you later.”

Then she started for home.

It wasn’t a long walk, really. But with the level of violence in Star City these days, neither her dad nor her sister usually liked her walking home alone, especially not later in the day. Whatever. Sara had a black belt. She could take care of herself. Her grip tightened on her backpack. Right? She’d be fine.

Sara was crossing the railroad tracks just outside the edge of the Glades when she heard the footsteps. Two people, at a guess. Well. People went for walks here too. Probably. She listened, heart beating just a little faster, then scanned the street ahead of her. Stores and other businesses closed down early here these days. Nothing seemed to be open, and traffic was nonexistent.

She picked up the pace, just a little. The footsteps picked up too. And then they were three sets. Four?

Sara abandoned her pretense and ran. There had to be someplace she could duck into, she thought, her own heartbeat echoing in her ears. There had to be!

A male voice behind her called out something in a snarl. Sara didn’t look back, pelting down the uneven sidewalk, scanning the quiet street, wondering if she should yell or...

Someone grabbed her backpack, jerking her to a stop, and Sara kept enough presence of mind to turn fighting. She lashed out at the man with a hand, fingers stiff, jabbing toward his eyes and connecting. He yelped, putting his hands to his face, and she pulled away, turning to run ahead.

But there were two more men there, young and scruffy, thin and looking a bit strung out. Sara didn’t hesitate. She struck out at one’s face, then kicked hard at his kneecap, sending him tumbling to the ground, then rounded on the other, who gaped at her a moment, apparently stunned by her reaction.

Sara drove her foot into his groin without a flicker of sympathy, stepping past him as he folded, drawing a breath to run again. She’d done it, she’d defended herself, she could...

The first man, however, hadn’t been as down for the count as she’d hoped. An arm looped around her neck even as she took a step, pulling her back again, and...damn. Something cold and metal pressed against the skin just under her right ear, something sharp.

“Money!” her captor hissed in her ear, arm tightening. Sara could hear the groans from the other two, interspersed with cursing. She tried to take a deep breath, thinking about what she had in her bag.

“I don’t have any,” she said after a moment. “I don’t! Really. Look!”

“Yeah, right!” The knife pricked harder...but then the man did move it, reaching down toward her bag, and his other arm loosened just a little.

Sara took advantage of it. She stomped on the instep of his foot, hard, then threw an elbow right into his solar plexus when his grip loosened. He crumbled and she turned to run again, taking a step, then two...

“OK, pretty girl, freeze!”

There had been a fourth man. And he had a gun. Which was now pointed right at her head.

Sara froze.

The man was to her right, but she could see him, and the gun, out of the corner of her eye. He held it steady and seemed far more calm and competent than the other men. Which made him far scarier.

For a long moment, he studied her, then let out a snort of laughter. Sara wanted to bristle at the derision...but she didn’t dare move a muscle. Supers were said to have a sixth sense about people in trouble, and while Laurel and Oliver said it was nebulous and impossible to measure, there was a measure of truth to it. Surely one of them would come to her rescue? It would be mortifying...but at this point...

“Someone will pay ransom for you,” the other man said, finally. “Girl like you in a place like this? Someone’s gotta be looking for you.” He chuckled again. It was not a nice chuckle. “Maybe we’ll even give you back. Maybe not.”

Sara took a slow breath. She couldn’t let this man just kidnap her. And she had to move before the other men regrouped. They were all getting to their feet, muttering to each other.

Then there was a noise to her left, a thud as if of someone landing on the ground. A sense of chill. Sara nearly looked, hoping for Laurel or Oliver, but the gun was still pointed at her and...

“Duck—and close your eyes!”

This isn’t the time to look a gift hero in the mouth. Err, something like that. Sara did as she was told, dropping to a knee and squeezing her eyes shut.

The blast of cold came from the left, so close to Sara’s face that she could feel the frost forming on her eyelashes. Somewhere, a corner of her brain registered that was new, that there wasn’t a super with ice powers in Star City, or none that she knew of. (Or that Felicity knew of, which was even more conclusive.) She heard yelps from the men and the crackle of what seemed to be ice, and braced for the crack of a gunshot...but none came. Just more thuds, as if of bodies falling to the ground.

“OK. You can look.”

Sara opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the four men, all stretched out on the ground, all covered by a sheen of frost. A sigh of relief escaped her lips even as she flinched, wondering.

“Are they...”

“They’re just out...cold. You all right?”

Sara looked up.

The figure in front of her, extending a hand to help her up, was no one she’d ever seen before. Black pants, black boots…and then a blue parka over the top, fur-fringed hood pulled up over his head. His face was obscured by a pair of goggles, but a smile tugged at his mouth as he looked at her.

“It’s OK,” he said, keeping the hand extended. “I don’t bite. Unless it’s frostbite. Heh. Maybe that’s a potential name.”

Bad puns. Why did supers love them so much? Sara stared at him long enough that the smile fled, but he kept the hand held out to her.

Male, from the voice. And about her age, also from the voice. Sara frowned, trying to place it, but then took the offered hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

“Um,” she said. “Thanks. Really. I thought I had that, but...the gun...”

“I saw. You were badass. I just figured I should help out.” The tone was admiring. And he still had her hand. Sara looked down at it, noting that he also wore black gloves, but the super let go then, taking a step back courteously.

“You’re new,” she said, still a little shell-shocked. “Ice powers. That’s...new.”

“Yeah. Sort of.” The boy...man?...walked over to the four men and studied them. “I’ll alert the cops that they’re here. They’ll thaw out soon enough. We should get going...hey, wait!”

Sara had already turned away and started walking as fast as she could, not quite running. The super caught up to her easily, though, jogging along next to her, glancing her way.

“That was really impressive,” he said. “What...what’s your name?”

This guy, hero or not, was starting to annoy her. Sara frowned at him, although she kept walking.

“I said thank you,” she gritted out. “What do you want?”

“Just making conversation.” He almost sounded hurt. “Hey, like you said, I’m new. Thought maybe...”

“You thought wrong.” Sara took a breath and stopped. “Look. Iceman, or whatever your name is...”

“I think that one’s taken.” The drawl was amused. He smirked at her, an infectious expression, and she almost smirked back. But...she already knew far too much about two of the city’s main supers. She didn’t need, or want, to know any more.

“Thank you,” she said again, trying to project sincerity. “Truly. Now, I have to get home.”

He nodded, but didn’t move, the smirk fading into something more...wistful? Somehow it touched a chord, and Sara studied him a moment longer, intrigued despite herself. Then, cursing her curiosity, she turned and headed down the street.

And that jerk kept following her.

“I could see you home,” he said.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You are fine,” he retorted. “But I can still make sure you get there...”

“Goodbye, Iceman.”

A sigh. Then: “Goodbye, Sara.”

She whipped around, but he was gone already, apparently faded into the trees at the side of the street in one of those near-patented super moves.

Ass. Sara studied the trees, curiosity surging again, then turned and headed home as fast as she could, feeling the irritating sense of someone watching her the entire way. She made it in the door, slamming and locking it behind her, then dropped her backpack on the floor and closed her eyes.

She’d been rescued by the world’s most infuriating superhero.

Par for the course.

[thecitrinefox]

Foundations

(8.4k fic for sterek week ‘17, day 1, alpha/emissary, warnings for brief language and violence)

“What the fuck.”

Derek thinks he’s probably seen this kid around town for years. He has vague recollections of seeing him at holiday parties or town events, fidgeting next to the Sheriff and his wife before she died. Maybe he got invited to one of Cora’s birthday parties at some point, since they’re in the same grade. Hell, the kid is a sophomore now like Cora and Derek is a senior, which means they’ve been going to the same school for over a year so chances are they’ve been somewhere in the school at the same time. But despite this, apparently they’ve never met because surely, surely if they’d ever spoken or touched, or looked into each other’s eyes, Derek would have noticed this.

This being the buzzing across his skin, the loud thump of his own heartbeat, in time with the rhythmic beating in the chest of the kid in front of him, each of their eyes wide with shock. Derek can’t quite get himself to drop the kid’s wrist where he’d grabbed it after bumping directly into him in the crowded hallway of the school’s math wing.

“What the fuck,” the kid hisses again, but doesn’t pull his arm away. Can’t seem to tear his eyes away either, and Derek thinks they have at least that in common. They’re crouched in the middle of the hallway, a textbook and notebook spilled haphazardly on the floor between them, and students awkwardly around them. Derek thinks a couple of people say something to them, telling them to move, but it sounds like it’s coming from miles away so he ignores it

“Are you okay?” Derek asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and the kid is staring at him like Derek is the one who’s done something wrong here.

“Am I okay?” the kid parrots, almost angrily. “Am I okay?? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, we just bumped into each other,” Derek points out.

“Then what the hell is…” the kid trails off, spastically waving his free hand between them instead of finishing his sentence.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Derek says. He jumps the same time as the kid does, when someone puts a hand on the kid’s shoulder. It’s one of his friends, Derek thinks vaguely, although he doesn’t know his name.

“We’re gonna be late for chemistry,” the friend says, and the kid jerks his wrist almost violently out of Derek’s hand, finally. They both look down at their own hands, and Derek thinks that he must’ve thought that letting go would get rid of that weird feeling too, but it hasn’t stopped, has gotten worse maybe. Derek picks up the books on the floor and hands them over and they both stand, awkwardly.

“We’ll continue this later,” the kid hisses even as his friend drags him off, and Derek wants to say ‘what this’, but even if he doesn’t know what this is, as the buzzing of his body increases the further away he gets, he thinks that maybe the kid is right and it’s not something they can ignore.

XX

He doesn’t see the kid for the rest of the day, although during lunch period he skips out on the cafeteria and instead tracks down last year’s yearbook in the library. Stiles Stilinski it says, and it’s weird, but could be weirder. His own parents gave his sisters rhyming names, so it’s not like the Hales are in a place to judge. The freshman year photo is goofy as all get out, and makes him kind of want to avoid him entirely, but clearly something happened, possibly of a supernatural nature and he thinks that these things tend to get worse, not better if ignored, so he should probably track this Stiles down and try to figure it out, or at least convince Stiles that there’s some kind of perfectly reasonable, not-supernatural reason for their electrifying first meeting.

XX

“I’m thinking this is just some sort of freak atmospheric thing,” Derek says. “Static electricity maybe? You said this hasn’t happened with anyone else?”

“Static electricity, really, that’s what you’re going with,” Stiles says, crossing his arms and looking unimpressed when Derek manages to corner him behind the gym after school the next day. “If it was static electricity it would’ve been a brief shock, then we’d be done, but I’ve felt like I was crawling out of my skin for the past twenty-four hours in a way that’s extreme even for me. And if it was atmospheric I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have happened to just us in the middle of a crowded school hallway. Do better.”

“Look I don’t know what it is, maybe it’ll wear off,” Derek says.

“Just admit you did some kind of freaky werewolf thing to me, okay,” Stiles says, leaning in and lowering his voice. Derek forces himself to stay still and not jerk back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek says awkwardly. He’s usually pretty good at covering up any evidence of his being a werewolf, but then again he’s never been directly accused of it either.

“Look,” Stiles says. “Don’t you think we’re a little past the point of you playing dumb? Whatever this...thing is, it has something to do with your werewolf shit, okay. Everyone knows Beacon Hills is weird, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that the Hales are at the epicenter of it. At first I thought maybe you guys were mobsters or something, like some sort of organized crime family gone suburban...”

Derek scoffs.

“Don’t even,” Stiles warns. “You guys are crazy rich, super hot, and involved in everything. Your family is weirdly codependent and loyal, and even you have to admit that your uncle Peter is sketchy as shit.”

“Okay well you have a point there,” Derek admits, thinking about how Peter has been acting even more squirrelly than usual lately.

“So...werewolves,” Stiles prompts.

“Fine,” Derek says, feeling the situation spiraling desperately out of control. His heart rate is increasing, and even though Stiles looks calm he can hear it increase to match. “We’re werewolves, you got me.”

“Okay that’s great, but like I said I already knew that. Weirdo family that lives in the woods, reports of howling even though there are no wolves in California, years ago there were a bunch of suspicious animal attacks, it wasn’t that hard to narrow down once you knew what to look for,” Stiles says.

“Most people wouldn’t immediately jump to something that is widely known to be mythical like werewolves,” Derek says.

“Well I’m not most people,” Stiles says.

“I’m getting that,” Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay what do you want to know.”

“What the hell is going on,” Stiles exclaims. “What was that, that...vibration or shock or whatever the hell you did to me when we collided. I’m pretty sure you can’t turn people into a werewolf just by touching, and besides I’m the same weak scrawny human I always was, but you did something.”

“That wasn’t me,” Derek says. He rolls his eyes when Stiles groans. “No really. I have no more idea what that was than you do. But I agree, something happened. Ever since we touched it’s like...”

“Like a constant buzzing that only goes away when we’re near?” Stiles says, looking away and blushing. “Like you can’t stop thinking about me? Like you can hear my heartbeat from across the school?”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “So wait, you feel it too? You can hear my heartbeat? That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Werewolves shouldn’t be possible,” Stiles snarks. “Do better. C’mon, man. I only realized werewolves were real like a year ago. I’ve been researching as much as I can, but I’m pretty sure at least seventy-five percent of what I come across has been bullshit and it’s not like I have someone I can just ask. Hey, what about your mom. I mean, she’s the Alpha right, I got that much at least after sorting through a lot of really questionable internet content. If she’s the leader of your pack she has to know what this is.”

“No,” Derek says firmly. “Whatever this is, I want to know more about it before we even think about going to my mom. She can be pretty...intense about stuff. And also...”

“You don’t want her finding out about your secret human girlfriend?” Stiles asks. “Yeah I know about Paige. And I know you guys think you’re being sneaky, but if I noticed, odds are other people have too. Although people are pretty unobservant, so who knows, maybe not.”

“Shit,” Derek says. “Look, it’s not like we’re completely banned from dating or being friends with humans, but it always makes things more complicated. Keeping what we are a secret is the most important thing we learn. I’m not sure how my mom would react to you knowing, and I’m not sure how to talk to her about it without telling her you’re feeling this stuff too. Besides, I know I said I didn’t do anything, but you’re human and I can’t help but feel like maybe this is my fault.”

“Okay well having been to your house for some of your mom’s fancy Christmas shindigs I know you guys have a freaking library in it. There has to be something in there that can help us,” Stiles says. “Like maybe on the shelves that have locked screens over them?”

“If my mom catches me stealing books I’m not supposed to be looking at, she’ll kill me,” Derek says.

“Well I’ve seen the way you guys sniff everything, there is literally no way I’m going to be able to sneak in and steal something, I’m guessing one of the many many werewolves who live in your goddamn mansion will smell a human from a mile away,” Stiles says. “Dude, you gotta work with me here. Do you want to figure this out or not.”

“I do,” Derek says. Right now his whole being is humming with a weird combination of excitement and content, but he knows as soon as he and Stiles split up that the weird buzzing, the headache, the loud thump of Stiles’ heartbeat even from a distance will spark up again and he knows they can’t live this way indefinitely.

“Okay, so try to find some kind of books that might help us figure this out. You don’t even have to read them, just bring them to me, I’m good at research,” Stiles says.

“I’m not an idiot, I can help research,” Derek says defensively. “I do well at school, and I do know a lot about supernatural creatures, I just haven’t learned about this.”

“Fine, okay,” Stiles says, holding his hands out placatingly. “So I have lacrosse practice right after school, and you have basketball tomorrow evening right. There should be like an hour or two between them, we can meet in one of the French classrooms, they never lock those cause there’s nothing to steal in them. If you can get some books on, I don’t know, weird werewolf magic or whatever then we can try to figure this out, okay? Maybe your mom, or heaven forbid, my dad, never even need to know about any of this, we can get rid of it on our own.”

“Okay,” Derek agrees grudgingly. It’s not like he has a better idea.

“And try to be sneakier about it than you are when you’re meeting up with Paige,” Stiles says with a smirk. “Unless you want everyone to think you’ve got two secret lovers.”

“Please don’t ever say that word again,” Derek says, turning and leaving without saying goodbye. He can hear Stiles chuckling at his own joke behind him and rolls his eyes. Of all the people to get some weird link to, it has to be Stiles. What did he do to deserve this.

XX

“Dude, you’re late,” Stiles grumps, his feet swinging and hitting the legs of the desk he’s sitting on.

“Sorry, I think Peter knows about Paige,” Derek says, dumping the heavy bag of books he’d managed to grab onto another desk. “He’s been creeping around the school and he keeps asking me weird questions. It took a while to shake him. I’m meeting her later tonight, but I think he thought I was going to meet her now, I don’t know he kept making vague insinuations about what I’m up to. He definitely knows something. I got the books though, and I don’t think anyone noticed.”

“Great, well hand ‘em over, we don’t have a lot of time,” Stiles says, hopping down and making gimme motions with his hands. Derek splits up the books, and they sit, beginning to flip through them. Stiles whips out a notebook and starts taking notes, which Derek ignores. He can’t imagine what his mom would say if she knew Derek was sharing this information with some random human, but somehow it feels right, the two of them sitting here and working together. The time flies by and before he knows it, his phone alarm is going off, letting him know he has to get to practice.

“I have to go,” Derek says. “I didn’t find anything useful. You?”

“Maybe,” Stiles says. Derek tries to take the books from him, but Stiles grabs one back, clutching it protectively to his chest.

“Stiles, my mom’s gonna notice if these books are missing,” Derek says, packing the others up.

“So put the others back,” Stiles says. “I think this one will be useful, just let me have it for the night and I’ll give it back tomorrow.”

Derek thinks for a moment. His mom really will kill him if she thinks he’s been stealing books from her library that he’s not supposed to touch in the first place, but he’s already running late for practice and he doesn’t have time to argue with Stiles. Plus they really do need to figure this out and between practice, family dinner and meeting up with Paige he won’t have time to read through the book himself.

“Fine,” Derek says. “But you have to give it back to me tomorrow, okay. And let me know if you find something.”

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Same Bat-time, same Bat-place,” Stiles says with a grin.

“Ugh,” Derek says, half-heartedly as he rushes out the door.

XX

The next day when Derek gets to the classroom it’s empty. He sits on one of the desks, waiting, thinking about how he could be spending this time with Paige rather than waiting about for some random sophomore. She’s been patient with him, about his need to keep their relationship a secret. Sometimes he wonders if maybe she’s so patient about it because she’s embarrassed to be seen with him but he quickly squashes down that thought. She likes him, he knows she does. But he knows he doesn’t make it easy, and the more times he has to make excuses that he can’t see her the worse it’ll get, he thinks.

He’s just about to give up, and text her to see if maybe they can’t make out in his car for a while in the school parking lot before basketball practice when Stiles stumbles, wheezing into the room. Derek should’ve known Stiles was getting close when the tightness in his chest eased and his skin stopped crawling quite so much.

“Oh thank god, you’re here,” Stiles says, collapsing into one of the chairs. He fumbles at his bag and hands over the book, which Derek checks over and then puts in his own bag protectively. “Sorry, just took me a while to photocopy the whole thing. Lots of nickels, and man, those old texts just don’t copy well, lemme tell you.”

“Well?” Derek demands, feeling less and less patient by the second. “Did you find anything or didn’t you?”

“I mean, maybe?” Stiles hedges. “Okay, so I’ve only read the thing once, and it’s not like, super clear about everything, plus it’s kind of old timey so the language is strange....”

“Get on with it,” Derek grumbles.

“Okay, okay,” Stiles says. “So this book mostly focuses on Emissaries, you know what those are?”

“I’m a werewolf, not an idiot,” Derek says. It’s weirdly freeing to be able to say that kind of thing, and his chest loosens even further, despite himself. He tries to ignore the feeling. “Every pack or Alpha has their own Emissary, someone, generally a human, who can do magic and guide and help them when they need it. They keep the balance.”

“Right,” Stiles says, nodding. “Okay so this is like, totally crazy, and might be wrong, but so far the only time I’ve seen stuff in the books about some kind of weirdo meeting between a werewolf and a human is in the book about Emissaries. Apparently sometimes when an Alpha meets their Emissary they feel it physically. Because the Emissary’s spark doesn’t totally come online until they meet maybe? I don’t know it wasn’t totally clear, but it sounded kind of like what happened to us maybe?”

“I’m not an Alpha,” Derek points out. “And last I checked, you coudn’t do magic.”

“Look, I didn’t say it was definitely an Alpha-Emissary thing,” Stiles says. “Just that it was the closest thing I’d found and we should look into it more.”

“Fine,” Derek says, writing down his phone number and email address and handing it over. “Send me copies of the pages you copied. We’ll look into it. Anything else?”

“Other than your attitude problem? No,” Stiles says, although he smiles as he looks at the slip of paper, and immediately taking his phone out to add Derek’s number. Derek sighs, already regretting the decision. But it’s not like they can meet up every day, he knows it’ll be easier to just text. His phone buzzes, and he sighs heavily as he checks it.

HEY ALPHA

“I’m not an Alpha,” Derek says, walking out. “And you’re not an Emissary.”

XX

Derek may not be an Alpha, but the more they research and the more Stiles learns, the less convinced Derek is that Stiles isn’t an Emissary. They maybe meet face to face once or twice a week, but Stiles texts Derek constantly, making him realize that Stiles probably doesn’t have too many friends outside of Scott, who he mentions occasionally, and who Derek sees him with in hallways occasionally. Derek would try to keep their meetings to just text and email, but if they go too long without standing close to each other, hands brushing as Stiles gestures while talking, then they both get too irritable, too on edge. So they meet a couple times a week between practices to check in and to exchange books. So far Stiles has been like a sponge when it comes to soaking in information about the supernatural world, but despite their continued research they still haven’t come up with anything more convincing than an Alpha-Emissary bond. Stiles has an uncanny knack for understanding how magic works though, and while he hasn’t done anything too impressive yet, at least to Derek’s eyes, occasionally he can make sparks just from snapping his fingers, and has almost encyclopedic knowledge of herbs, stones and other materials that an Emissary might use. Derek thinks he’ll almost be disappointed when they inevitably find out the truth of what’s going on, that this was just some sort of freak occurrence, and the bond is broken.

Paige is beginning to realize something is up as well, Derek thinks. How, he’s not sure, because he was already keeping the werewolf thing a secret from her, so what’s one more thing? But Paige is sharp, and observant and actually a lot like Stiles, when Derek thinks about it, which he tries not to. He wonders if they’d get along if they ever met, or if they’d be so similar that their clever sarcastic natures would clash too much and they’d hate each other. Derek isn’t sure which situation would be worse, so mostly he’s just grateful that he’s managed to keep these two parts of his life separate.

He does feel a little guilty that Stiles knows about Paige, when Paige doesn’t know about Stiles, especially since Paige is his girlfriend. He tries to justify it to himself that he didn’t tell Stiles about Paige, Stiles figured it out, and also technically, if Stiles really is an Emissary, that falls under the category of Werewolf Stuff, and so really the Stiles secret is just another part of the original big werewolf secret he’s been keeping all his life.

It’s maybe a shitty way of justifying it, but Derek doesn’t know what else to do.

The autumn months fly by, and Peter is getting stranger by the day, Paige is beginning to get impatient with him, and even Derek’s mom is beginning to look at him like she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s been pulling away from his family a little, he knows, and he knows it’s probably raised questions but he can’t outright lie to any of them, they’d be on him in a heartbeat. Still, talking to them like nothing is going on is becoming harder by the day. He’s beginning to think that maybe he should just tell his mom what’s been going on, and accept the consequences, but the longer he goes without telling her the worse it feels.

And then suddenly it’s December and the winter holidays are upon them and everyone is busy busy busy with the end of semester and holiday stuff, and Derek thinks maybe this will give him a brief reprieve from everything he’s been hiding. He knows Paige will be busy with her family, and he shouldn’t feel relief about that, but he does. He needs to get her some kind of present but he thinks maybe he can give it to her in January, once things settle down. Stiles has been bugging him for more books to read as well, more stuff to learn, but Derek can’t risk taking more from his mother’s library. He thinks maybe after the holidays are over if they can find a day to sneak off, he’ll drive Stiles to a bookstore he knows carries supernatural tomes a couple hours away and buy him a couple volumes of his choosing, ones that Stiles will be able to keep, not just hastily make crappy photocopies of or hurriedly rush through before Derek has to put it back.

After the holidays, he thinks. And then he’ll think about telling his mom. About Paige, about Stiles, about all of it. She’ll be mad, but she’ll know what to do. He knew things didn’t just go away when you tried to ignore them, and this experience is definitive proof. Not that Stiles agrees, of course, the less his dad knows about his problems the better, according to Stiles. Sometimes he’ll make jokes about being a burden, either to his dad or to Derek, and Derek thinks maybe they aren’t really jokes but also he doesn’t know what to say to that, so usually he just rolls his eyes and changes the subject. He guesses that Stiles thinks he’s a burden to Derek because he makes Derek spend time with him and steal books, and makes his heart feel anxious and his muscles buzz when they’re apart, but then what will Derek do, he thinks sometimes, when they do manage to fix this and all that goes away? When he and Stiles no longer have a reason to see each other?

It hasn’t happened yet, so he puts it out of his mind. Between school and research and Paige and his family’s Christmas preparations he just doesn’t have the time to dwell on that.

XX

The Hale’s Annual Holiday Party happens a couple days before Christmas this year. Winter break has started, and normally Derek loves these things, but Paige and Stiles are going to be there with their parents this year and Derek’s imagination has been going wild with all the ways that this could go wrong.

It’s fine at first. His family loves the holidays, so does the town and so as people filter in and the Hales get to let loose a little, and just be normal, everyone is in a good mood and it’s infectious. The tightness in Derek’s chest and the anxiety buzzing through his skin starts to ease, and he enjoys himself, right up until the Sheriff and his son show up and are re-introduced to everyone and Derek realizes just why that is. Paige, and her parents, show up less than ten minutes later, and even though Stiles’s presence has eased the physical tension he’d had, he can’t help but let the anxiety creep in as he tries not to watch either Paige or Stiles circulate the party.

Derek spends an hour ignoring both of them until all of a sudden he wonders if maybe his avoidance is suspicious in and of itself. He tracks down Stiles, idiotically finding him lingering by the punch bowl, underneath one of the plastic mistletoe’s that have been scattered about the place. To his relief he doesn’t even have to pick a fight, Stiles just launches into a rant about the poisonous qualities of mistletoe and the consent issues arising from from the kissing tradition associated with it which he’d apparently only really become aware of when he’d tried to kiss someone named Lydia under it a couple years ago and been slapped and had a drink thrown in his face. He’d only been trying to kiss her cheek, and they’d been about fourteen at the time, but still, it had left an impression. Derek is about halfway through his own rejoinder on how nobody has to kiss anybody they don’t want to, it’s just a decoration and since it’s plastic it’s unlikely to poison anyone, but then he sees Paige, trying to catch his eye from across the room, before disappearing out the back door. Derek looks around, but nobody seems to be paying them attention. Thankfully Stiles just rolls his eyes, then nods at the back door where Paige had disappeared before helping himself to more punch.

Derek goes.

Paige is waiting for him on one of the benches out in the garden. They don’t get much snow in California, even up north, but it’s cold, the ground hard and frozen, and Derek can see Paige’s breath as she shivers slightly.

“Sorry,” Derek says automatically as he sits down next to her. He thinks that this is the sort of situation where he should offer her his coat, but he’s only wearing a button-up shirt and he can’t give her that. Stupid, he thinks. He never plans stuff out like he should.

“Are you cheating on me?” Paige asks, bluntly.

“What?” Derek exclaims. He glances back at the house, but the party inside is slightly raucous at this point and he thinks nobody should be able to hear them out here, not even with werewolf hearing. “No, what?”

“Don’t act dumb, I know you’ve been sneaking around with the Sheriff’s son,” Paige says. She doesn’t even look that angry, but there’s a glint in her eye that defies Derek to contradict her. “I mean, if you’re having some kind of crisis here about Stiles being a boy, I get that, but I don’t understand why you’ve kept things going with me, it’s not like I’m a beard since nobody knows about us.”

“Oh god,” Derek says. “No, okay, I know how it looks, but I swear there’s nothing happening like that between me and Stiles. I would never cheat on you, you have to believe me. I’m not like that.”

“Okay so why are the two of you sneaking around?” Paige says, then pauses. “Is it a werewolf thing?”

Derek feels his jaw drop.

“What,” Paige says with a shrug. “You guys are really not as subtle about this stuff as you think you are.”

“Yeah but most people don’t see shifty behavior and immediately think werewolves,” Derek hisses, not even bothering to deny it. This is his life now, he thinks resigned. Hales have kept their secret for hundreds of years, and he’s been on this planet for less than eighteen years and yet Derek has already fucked it all up. God he’s the worst. Two humans figuring out his secret in less than six months, that’s gotta be some kind of record.

“Okay so what’s going on then? Stiles isn’t a werewolf, right? But he knows about you guys? Sometimes at school he stares at me, like he knows something I don’t, but I do know, so he has to know,” Paige says, grabbing Derek’s hand. “There’s always weird stuff going on in this town, are you guys like, detectives.”

“We’re not detectives, jeez,” Derek says, although he laces their fingers together, feeling a swell of relief to tell the truth, along with some kind of strange strange swell of something else, like he doesn’t quite want to tell her about Stiles, even though it’s not what she’d thought. “Something has been happening to Stiles. We’re trying to figure it out. It’s not a big deal, and it’s not really my story to tell.”

“Okay,” Paige agrees, although she seems disappointed. “But the werewolf thing is why you don’t want to tell your family about us, right.”

“Yeah,” Derek reassures her quickly. “I mean, that and they’re pretty nosy and overbearing, it’s the worst. Look, if you want me to, I’ll tell them about you. We can go in right now.”

“No, it’s okay,” Paige says, untangling their hands and standing up. “Let’s not rush into things. But you can talk to me about stuff, you know. I can keep your secrets.”

“Thanks,” Derek says, feeling unsure. Not about whether he can trust Paige, he thinks he can, but unsure about whether he wants to tell her about things. About Stiles. Whether he should tell his family about his girlfriend anyways, even if it complicates things. He thinks maybe he should want to, at least, but he doesn’t.

He stays outside while she goes back in to her parents. He can’t hear her voice once it’s swallowed up by the noise of the party, but he can track Stiles’ heartbeat as he moves about the house, then eventually leaves with his father. He’s feeling more and more tense as the distance between them increases that he almost misses it when Peter joins him in the garden.

“Interesting party,” Peter says. “Interesting guests.”

“Sure,” Derek says, although he isn’t sure about what Peter wants. He wonders how he could have ever hero-worshipped Peter as he’d done when he was younger. Too naive, maybe, to see the kinds of games his uncle was so fond of playing. Even now that he knows they’re there, he still can’t always evade their traps.

“Love is the most important thing in the world, most people think,” Peter says, gaze heavy on Derek’s face. “Most people would do anything for it, right.”

“I guess,” Derek agrees. “Excuse me.”

He walks inside, but feels Peter’s eyes on him for the rest of the night.

XX

“I have to say, the school wouldn’t have been my choice of romantic rendez-vous spots for New Years, but I’ll take it,” Derek says. It’s a week later, and he’d finally managed to slip away from his family’s New Year’s Eve celebration to meet Paige in the hall outside the music room at the school. He’s not sure why she’d texted him to meet here of all places, but after their last awkward encounter he thinks he should make an effort regardless.

“What do you mean it wouldn’t be your choice, Derek, you chose it,” Paige says. She’s dressed comfortably, like she’d been planning on an early night and not like she was here on a romantic date with her boyfriend.

“I didn’t choose it,” Derek says slowly. “Wait, you didn’t text me?”

“You texted me,” Paige huffs. “Wait, if you didn’t…”

Paige breaks off as a distant growl rumbles through the halls.

“Please tell me that this is just a prank, and that was somebody in your family just having some fun welcoming me to knowing about werewolves,” Paige says, grabbing Derek’s hand. He pulls her closer, placing his body between her and the noise from down the hall. He can hear the distant screech of claws being run over the metal of lockers, and he herds her with his body further down the hall.

“I really wish I could,” Derek says. “Run!”

Paige, thankfully, doesn’t hesitate. Derek doesn’t usually think of Beacon Hills High as being exceptionally large, but right now the hallways seem endless as they run down them. He can hear the strange werewolf behind them, gaining on them. It sounds large, steady, and Derek thinks it must be an Alpha. He doesn’t know what it wants with them, but clearly no Alpha would confront the son of Talia Hale alone at night if they didn’t mean some sort of ill will.

Derek is so pumped up with adrenaline, his claws and fangs coming out unbidden as he prepares for fight even as they choose the flight option, that he almost doesn’t notice it when the usual buzzing starts to dim again. It’s only when he hears Stiles’ heartbeat twin with his own that he realizes that he’s here at the school too.

“No,” Derek grits out. He’s beginning to realize they can’t outrun the Alpha behind them so he’s started considering his options for hiding Paige or fighting, but then there are claws raking down his back, and he tries to push Paige forward, but she falls too, a couple feet ahead of him.

“Run,” Derek shouts at her, even as he tries to turn and swipes his claws across the Alpha’s chest. The Alpha is even larger than Derek had realized, and barely even flinches, digging his own claws into Derek’s soft exposed belly. Derek screams, can’t help it, but the Alpha seems less interested in him, gripping his throat and tossing Derek to the side. Derek tries to catch his breath, struggling to sit up and before he knows it Paige is by his side, helping him up.

“You need to run,” Derek rasps at her as the Alpha moves towards them.

“You must be the girl,” the Alpha growls, and Derek feebly tries to push her behind him. He thinks maybe if he attacks the Alpha with all he’s got, he can distract it enough that Paige can get away, only the steady beat in his ears is getting louder and before Derek can move, the door behind the Alpha is swinging open and there’s Stiles. Derek can only look on in horror as Stiles hits the Alpha across the head with baseball bat. The Alpha is temporarily stunned, long enough for Paige to haul Derek up and help him move down the hall slightly, but then the Alpha is turning behind him and grabbing Stiles, his claws digging mercilessly into Stiles’ shoulder before tossing him aside too.

“No,” Derek shouts before he can help it. The Alpha is once again heading towards them and Derek tries to shield Paige, but Stiles is forcing himself up and reaching out, tossing something into the air and Derek has one brief moment where he thinks maybe Stiles is trying to douse the Alpha in wolfsbane, only then Stiles claps his hands together, one pale but strong, the other dripping with blood from his injured shoulder. It doesn’t seem to make a difference though, because the ash he’d thought was wolfsbane is actually mountain ash, something that becomes apparent when it sails past the Alpha’s head and lands in a perfect circle around Derek and Paige, protecting them.

I didn’t know he could do that, Derek thinks dumbly.

“Paige, whatever happens, you guys stay in the circle,” Stiles shouts at them, collapsing onto his knees. The Alpha slams a fist towards Derek’s face, and Paige flinches behind him, but the circle holds strong, and the Alpha’s fist stops half a foot away from them, the barrier sparking slightly as it’s hit.

“Stiles,” Derek shouts helplessly, putting his own hand out and hitting the barrier. The Alpha in front of him smirks, like he just gave something away.

“I was promised a new beta, and I’m gonna get one,” the hulking Alpha says, turning back towards Stiles.

“Oh god,” Derek hears Paige gasp behind him, but his whole body feels like it’s on fire now. He pounds against the barrier keeping him in as the Alpha walks down the hall, grabbing Stiles roughly by the arm and dragging him back in front of where Derek is trapped.

“If you touch him, I’ll kill you,” Derek screams. It feels like he’s burning up from the inside out, but the barrier almost feels like it has some give to it. Like he’s moving in slow motion, but he’s moving.

The Alpha slams Stiles down on the ground in front of them, a loud crack resounding through the hall as Stiles’ arm snaps and Stiles screams. Paige is crying behind him and Derek thinks he’s going mad at this point, beating wildly against the barrier.

“He’ll make a good beta, a good pet,” the Alpha says with a smirk. “If he survives of course. These kinds of turns often don’t.”

“Stay in the circle, Derek,” Stiles says, and there’s blood on his mouth and he’s crying, probably despite himself. “It’s not your fault, please, just…”

The Alpha opens his mouth, fangs glistening, and Derek can’t watch Stiles be hurt by this Alpha, can’t watch him get turned against his will by someone else, can’t watch him die if he rejects the bite, as it happens when someone with a strong will or conflicted nature gets bitten when they don’t want to be.

Derek looks down and meets Stiles’ eyes. Stiles looks calm, staring back, like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere than here, protecting Derek.

The mountain ash barrier snaps, Derek can feel it bend to his will in an instant and then he’s through, tackling the Alpha to the ground, several feet away from both Stiles and Paige. The fight is fast and mean, and Derek thinks he doesn’t care what happens to him, as long as Stiles and Paige are safe. The Alpha has a grip on his throat that he just barely manages to break away from and he takes a couple steps back to catch his breath, feeling furious and more wolflike than he ever has before, his eyes glowing. The Alpha looks up and falters.

“What…” the Alpha says, staring at him. “Not possible.”

“If you touch them I’ll kill you,” Derek growls, and he feels powerful, more powerful than he ever has, and he wonders if that’s what all this with Stiles was. Some kind of power they’d both tapped into without being able to access it. Well he can feel it now. He wonders if Stiles can feel it too.

Derek lunges at the Alpha, feeling invincible and the Alpha must see that in his expression because he turns and runs. For a second it feels like victory, then it just feels confusing.

“Derek!” Paige shouts, and Derek turns and jogs back to where Paige has managed to haul Stiles into the ash circle. He’s bleeding, his eyes unfocused, and Paige only looks marginally better, her face bruised, hands bloody where they’re pressed against Stiles’ chest.

“Call your mom,” Stiles says, weakly. Derek nods, because yes, his Alpha needs to know about this other Alpha who was on Hale territory, attacking their Pack. He leans his head back and howls, the reverberations deeper and louder than he’s used to.

“I meant like, call her on your cell phone, but okay,” Stiles jokes.

“Break the circle,” Derek commands.

“You break it,” Stiles replies childishly. “You did before, and how the fuck did you do that dude, I thought werewolves were kept out by that shit.”

“I...don’t know,” Derek admits. “Add that to the list of things we don’t know.”

“Ugh, I hate not knowing things,” Stiles says.

“Yeah I know,” Derek says. He reaches out his hand though, and finds he can wave away the mountain ash, creating a hole he can lurch through in order to touch Paige’s face, making sure she’s okay, before putting his hands on Stiles, trying to take as much pain as possible. His arms are lined with black, and he feels guilt roiling through him. Neither Stiles nor Paige would be here tonight if it wasn’t for him, he thinks. He may not have been the one to call them here, but they never would have even known about werewolves otherwise.

“Derek, your eyes,” Paige says, reaching a hand out to his face, before pulling it back.

“What?” Derek asks, glancing down at Stiles, who is also staring at him in wonder.

“They’re red,” Stiles says.

In the distance Derek can hear his Pack getting closer, the uneven sirens of police and ambulances not far behind them. Their reckoning is here.

XX

Derek ends up having to wear a bandage and a sling. He’d been covered in too much blood when the authorities had shown up, to reasonably pretend he hadn’t been injured, and while they’d managed to keep him from being seen by a doctor, thanks in part to an amiable nurse named Melissa, they’d still needed some visual representation that he’d been hurt and was healing like any other human, and so Derek had been convinced that wearing his arm in a sling for a while was the easiest way to do that.

Derek had thought that talking to the police (especially the Sheriff, Stiles’ father) would be the hardest part, but it turned out that other than omitting a couple salient details, telling the truth in their statements was the easiest way of this whole thing. Derek and Paige were secretly dating, yes. They had met up at the school to make out on New Years Eve, yes. They were violently attacked by some man, yes. They didn’t know him, no. They didn’t know why Stiles showed up, no, but Stiles was odd, wasn’t he. He turned up where he wasn’t wanted sometimes. They didn’t know what that man wanted from them, no. They thought he had a knife maybe, he was crazy, who knew why crazy people did things.

It was all pretty straight forward. Talia even said she thought maybe the Sheriff would be an asset, if he was in the know about werewolves, they’d have to think about it, and put it to a Pack vote.

Derek didn’t know how he felt about that.

Stiles had to spend some time in the hospital. He’d had a collapsed lung, and they’d had to put pins in to set some of the bones broken in his shoulder. While he was in surgery, after they’d made their statement to the police and they’d watched the Sheriff pace aimlessly and anxiously around the waiting room before being ushered out for coffee by Melissa, the nurse with knowing eyes, after Paige had been dragged out of the hospital by her parents who’d given Derek dark looks, that he thought he deserved, he finally turned towards his mother.

“This is all my fault,” Derek says, burying his face in his hands.

“Did you hurt Stiles?” Talia asks beside him. “Did you give Paige those bruises? Put that fear in her eyes?”

“No,” Derek says immediately. “I’d never hurt them. But I didn’t tell you I was dating Paige. I didn’t tell you something was going on with Stiles. If I’d told you this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Maybe,” Talia says. “Derek show me your eyes.”

“No,” Derek says, covering them with his hands. But Talia reaches out, turning his chin so he can’t look away. He finally opens his eyes, letting their true color shine through.

“A True Alpha isn’t something to be ashamed of,” Talia says after a moment. “It’s something to be celebrated.”

“You aren’t mad?” Derek asks, feeling small despite everything that had happened that night.

“I’m not going to tell you that I’m not upset that you hid all of this from me,” Talia says, releasing him and sitting back. “But part of that is on me. You didn’t feel safe coming to me with this. Either with your relationship or your bond with your Emissary. I guess I wasn’t expecting these things from you, but that’s no excuse. You should have felt comfortable coming to me with these things, and you didn’t. Derek, you’re so responsible most of the time, sometimes I forget how young you still are. I’m sorry I made you think you had to hide these things.”

“I should have told you,” Derek says. “I don’t understand why I am an Alpha, I messed everything up. Stiles and Paige almost died. I never wanted to be an Alpha in the first place.”

“The best Alphas never do,” Talia says with a sigh. “I think that’s why you got this power. You were willing to give up your life to protect them. That meant something.”

“Is Stiles really my Emissary? And how come we formed that bond before I was even an Alpha?” Derek asks.

“I don’t have all the answers,” Talia says, putting her arm around his shoulders. Derek leans against her. He may be an Alpha now, but Talia is still his mom. “I just know that this was meant to be. We’ll take it one day at a time from now on. And I promise you, whoever set this up with this Alpha will pay.”

“Now that I do believe,” Derek chuckles. He can hear Stiles’ heartbeat, steady even in surgery and listens, grateful he has this proof even across the hospital that Stiles might be okay.

XX

It’s two more days before Derek manages to talk to Stiles or Paige. Sheriff Stilinski has apparently been let in on their supernatural secret and taken it basically as well as they could have hoped for. Derek had thought maybe it would make the Sheriff hate him, but instead he finds the Sheriff slapping him on the shoulder and telling him he hopes that maybe he could use his supernatural powers to keep Stiles out of trouble.

“Honestly, of the two of you, I’m more worried about you in this whole magical partnership thing,” the Sheriff says, and Derek doesn’t really know what to say to that. For the first couple days Stiles is hopped up enough on pain medication that Derek can’t really talk to him. Instead he manages to sit down properly with Paige, now that everything is out in the open.

“Look, I like you, and I don’t even mind the werewolf thing,” Paige says, sitting on her living room couch with him, her parents lingering in the kitchen nearby. “But it seems like you have a lot of stuff to figure out now, and my parents will feel better if I’m somewhere safer than Beacon Hills. I can focus on my music, and you can learn to be an Alpha. Just not together. But I want to stay in touch, if that’s something you’d want. It’s okay if you don’t, but I figured, if you needed someone to talk to, who knows about werewolves but isn’t in your Pack, I could be that person.”

It’s well...it hurts. To put it bluntly. It’s Derek’s first real break-up and it hurts, but part of him thinks it should hurt more. But Paige is alive, and mostly unharmed, and Stiles is alive, and less unharmed but healing, and Derek thinks all things considered they got lucky. And if that means that Paige needs to go live her life, whole and healthy somewhere else, well, he can’t be too bitter about that. She kisses him on the cheek, and he flashes his eyes at her as he leaves and she just laughs, delightedly. She’s not afraid of him, not any part, and he thinks he’s glad to have her in his life, in whatever capacity he can have her.

It’s another day before the Sheriff lets Derek know that not only is Stiles finally properly awake, but he’s been complaining all day about Derek’s absence in his hospital room. It takes Derek most of the morning to convince himself to go visit, nervous even if he doesn’t quite know why.

“I cannot believe you,” Stiles complains as soon as Derek walks into the hospital room. “You guys told my fucking dad while I was too unconscious to argue with it?”

“Well telling the Sheriff that werewolves are real and that I’m the reason you got so hurt wasn’t my first choice,” Derek protests, dropping into the chair next to Stiles’ hospital bed. “But apparently becoming a True Alpha at seventeen doesn’t actually give you that many privileges. This is still my mom’s territory and it’s her choice I guess.”

“True Alpha, huh,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes as Derek flashes his red at him. “I’m sure that’s not going to go to your head at all. Whatever happened to that whole ���Oh Stiles you can’t be an Emissary because I’m not an Alpha’ thing, huh.”

“Things changed,” Derek says, shrugging.

“Thanks, by the way,” Stiles says, looking away. “For, you know, uh, saving me.”

“I think you saved me first,” Derek points out. “And besides, who would do research for me, if you weren’t around anymore.”

“Oh is that why you’re keeping me around?” Stiles asks. “For research purposes? I thought maybe it was my badass mountain ash throwing skills.”

“Those weren’t too bad,” Derek admits, taking Stiles’ hand in his own. The unsettling buzzing from before is gone now, he thinks, now it’s more just a gentle hum of anticipation. “So does showing up and protecting me with mountain ash mean you’ll be my Emissary? It’s your choice.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure I made my choice back when I hounded you into stealing your mom’s books for me,” Stiles scoffs. “Like I’d let anyone else look after you. You’d get yourself killed. Dumbass.”

“Of all the people I could have developed an Emissary link to,” Derek says fondly, pressing his cheek to Stiles’ hand. “What did I do to deserve you.”

“Must’ve done something really good in a past life,” Stiles says. “Since you’re not that impressive in this one.”

“Yeah, must’ve. Well in that case, Emissary, if you’re fully on board, looks like we’re in it for the long haul,” Derek says, relief and anticipation pouring through his body, the link between them humming happily.

“Can’t wait,” Stiles says with a smirk. “Alpha.”

[noteatingfortwo]

A Birth Experience

Bags packed, we were ready to go to Oxford for the weekend to help Nic’s friend Ian sort out his stuff having had to leave for Singapore in a hurry and as an excuse of a final weekend getaway before baby arrived.

Of course, in the Valolas world this meant that baby was likely to come this weekend.

25th July 6am, I awoke with period cramps. From reading a number of positive birth stories, I knew this was an early sign of labour, but partially in denial and not wanting to defer from our weekend getaway plans, I pushed these aside. However, my body had other ideas and continued down the labour track as I got up to go to the loo from slight leakage. Again, I tried to sleep through this, and the cramps, but at 9am, as if to confirm it was really happening, I had heavier leakage and a sticky clear mucus on tissue, which could only be my mucus plug. I also felt the urge to do a poo but nothing came.

After telling Nic and giving Ian a quick call, we decided instead to do a day trip to Oxford as from this point labour could still be a day or two away. Perhaps instinctively I knew that baby would arrive early as I had worked late into the night the previous night to finish off the project profitability report for work which gave me slight closure. However, it was still 2 weeks before our due date of 8th August and we weren’t quite ready.

We loaded up the car and headed out on our way to Oxford, stopping off for a hearty MacDonalds sausage mcmuffin along the way. It was as if the universe was trying to tell us something! I have always thought God has a sense of humour, particularly when it comes to us but he dropped us a number of hints. First there was the dad licence plate on a car in front of us, then talk about babies on the news and finally a billboard with ‘Nappy Days’ advertised. 

We arrived in Oxford some 2.5 hours later. Ian’s apartment was nice; overlooking the river and I suddenly felt slight FOMO at not being able to live out my weekend getaway - the tapas place I had booked for dinner, the Cotswolds walk I had planned for the Sunday etc. Still, we continued with the task at hand, sorting out Ian’s stuff into throw, recycle and ship piles. Midway through and when we were contemplating whether to go out for lunch or order in, I felt a trickle and rushed to the loo. It was as I had read in books, heard from NCT and in our positive birth company videos - a ‘straw coloured discharge’. It wasn’t the Hollywood gush of water but my waters had indeed broke at around 1pm. 

This set Nic into action mode as he called Ian to enable Plan B. Nic handed an unfriendly, unenthusiastic Singaporean, a fellow course mate of Ian’s the keys and informed her that I was in labour, to which she responded ‘poor thing’ and with that we were back on the road home.  

Along the way, I managed to call Lewisham Birth Centre at the hospital to let them know my waters broke to which they asked us to come in to check. We arrived at the hospital at 4pm, no contractions but they confirmed my waters had indeed broken and after doing a vaginal examination (ouch!) also confirmed I was not dilated but I was to return in 24 hours if not earlier if there was no immediate onset of labour. Since there was no immediate rush, we took this opportunity to go to Tesco to do a quick grocery shop for when we returned home from the hospital (which I was expecting to be Sunday 26th at the latest), even buying a birthday cake as Julia from NCT had suggested (I was not baking one!). 

Back home, we realised in all the excitement, we had skipped lunch but anticipating a long wait ahead, filled up on an early dinner of tortellini with spinach in a mascarpone sauce whilst watching Netflix. Also anticipating that I would go into labour in the next 24 hours, I did a quick email handover at work so I could have closure and wrote my love letter/card to Nic. 

I ate a quarter pack of dates to hopefully naturally induce labour and finally around 9pm, I started to get very mild contractions maybe 10 -15 minutes apart. I was hopeful that this was all the pain I was going to feel and that the pain was overrated but unfortunately I was in store for so much more. I bounced around on my birth ball, knelt down by the bed as the contractions came closer and closer together and I monitored them on my contractions app. By 10pm, I started to get 3 every 10 minutes, a prerequisite of getting admitted into the hospital. I endured this for an hour and a half, feeling quite proud and also hopeful that once at the hospital, as in seemingly all of the positive birth stories I had read, I would be able to find out I was so far dilated that birth was imminent. My dreams were crushed when upon another vaginal examination in hospital, I found I was only 3cm dilated. 

We were led into a birth centre room anyway and pretty much left to our own devices. It was a nice set up, though chilly, with a double bed, sofa, birthing pool and a private room. We made ourselves comfortable putting up fairy lights, music on and working through my contractions together as they got stronger and stronger. 

The rest was all a blur. The contractions got progressively stronger and less manageable. I kept feeling like I wanted to go to the toilet but was unable to. Nic was my rock and strength all the way, feeding me bits of croissant to keep my strength up, holding me through the contractions, if I had to do it myself, think I would have just broken down. I went from wanting a completely natural birth to taking all the pain killers they offered me - paracetamol, codeine, pethidine and of course gas and air. 6 hours later, they measured how far I was dilated again, still 3cm. I was close to breaking point after hearing that and in so much pain. The pethidine gave temporary relief as I tried to ‘rest’ between contractions. 

I kept getting the ‘urge to push’ that was talked about on all of the positive birthing company videos except that they told me specifically NOT to push as my cervix wasn’t dilated and this basically meant I would be pushing against a wall which would bleed. It was excruciating pain but somehow I got through this through inhaling gas and air like my life depended on it.

Next thing I knew, I was being measured again. 9cm dilated. I felt a sense of relief, like I wasn’t imagining that the contractions were indeed getting stronger and more intense. Still I had to wait for that last cm. Chris (a midwife with pink hair) and another lady came in to monitor me and baby every 15 minutes. To allow baby room to descend further, they had to empty my bladder with a catheter but baby was apparently sitting on my urethra and so they poked and prodded around and were unable to find it. IT WAS EXTREMELY PAINFUL. Another two senior midwives came in to help with this, I inhaled gas and air so violently that I was almost scared it would give me brain damage as I almost blacked out with the light headedness. I vaguely remember 4 midwives standing over me with Nic holding my hand beside me and a curly haired one telling me I was doing so well. I didn’t feel like I was doing well and badly wanted it to be over. At last I was able to feel temporary relief from them finally managing to connect the catheter and release my bladder.

9cm dilated meant I was able to finally go into the water bath. It was warm and I felt temporary relief as Nic held my hand and I managed my contractions in the water, still holding back the urge to push. Finally, I got the go ahead from the midwife to push. However, at this point it was around 11am on 26th July and I was so exhausted from no sleep and barely any food that I had little energy left to push, I sucked on the energy sweets, hoping that it might bring me that boost of energy I needed. Sadly, though I moved in position to push in the water, the contractions had slowed and I pushed with all my might to no avail. This definitely was not the ‘urge to push’ and breathing the baby out through down breathing as we had watched in hypnobirthing. 

After trying in the water for ages with the encouragement and direction of the two midwives, we decided to try pushing on the bed. They were both getting increasingly worried about the risk of infection given that my waters had broken more than 24 hours before and so called in the senior midwives for assistance as well. I was completely drained of energy, but tried my best to stay motivated to push. They could barely see the head of baby though and apparently her head was turned, in a back to back position so we needed to turn her before she could come out although they kept reassuring me they could literally feel her head right at the entrance. I had to give up the gas and air so I could push better so the pain was the worst I had ever experienced. I tried different positions, on my side, on my back, on a toilet like seat, on my other side but nothing worked. They gave me energy in the form of HP ready salted crisps in between contractions and the midwives were so good in motivating me to march and squat to urge the contractions on to give a boost to the pushing. I pushed so hard that I squeezed Nic and the midwife’s hand probably to breaking point. But still no progress. It was beyond disappointing. All through this though, baby somehow remained calm and her heartrate was normal which was reassuring.

From there, there was no choice but to wheel me upstairs to the delivery suite for intervention. I was put on a hospital bed and immediately several people came around me offering this, that and the other. The contractions were still coming but at lower frequency and they encouraged me to continue pushing but I was completely drained of energy. I was to be given some kind of spinal epidural and the baby was to be turned around by forceps and brought out. The staff were very matter of fact and I was wheeled into the operating theatre very quickly for fear of risk of infection.

The operating theatre was as scary as it looks on Greys’ Anatomy. There were at least a dozen people surrounding me. They introduced themselves one by one but I couldn’t take it all in. It was intimidating and I just wanted it to be over. I was given the injection in my spine and told not to move. They tested it was worked by spraying a cold spray from my waist down and asking if I could feel it. I couldn’t. It was a scary feeling in itself, not being able to feel your own lower body but this also meant I couldn’t feel the pain of the contractions. I remember touching my leg and thinking I had touched someone else and so apologised but looking up and seeing it was my own legs up in stirrups. 

From here, while they worked on me below, I decided to shut my eyes to shield myself from the blood and whatever they were doing down there. They made a cut - an episiotomy to assist with the giant forceps they were going to shove up there. Nic was on my left side but I could barely focus. A woman had her hand on my stomach to feel the contractions for me and directed me to push. I tried so hard to ‘push’; there was no sensation or feeling of pushing or even direction when she asked me to imagine doing the biggest poo I had ever done, there was simply nothing down there.

At last, I heard them vaguely say they could see the head. I had pushed the head out! I couldn’t feel anything and there was the sensation that I was in fact watching this happen to myself from up above. Then with a few more contractions, I ‘gently’ pushed the rest of the body out. I felt a little emptiness inside my belly. They lifted baby up and congratulated us. Nic teared up. I think I teared but partially out of relief. I felt so distanced from the experience and delirious. Nic went to cut the umbilical cord and they brought baby over to the scales to weigh her and do their checks. I thought I heard her cries but was so faint, I closed my eyes. I heard them busying around me, counting up the pieces of equipment, at one point it seemed like they had lost a piece of rag, I shut this out mentally. They helped me deliver the placenta and sewed me up for what seemed like ages. I was told I had lost 1.3 litres of blood when the norm is 500ml. It was all just a blur until they put baby, all red and covered in white gunk on top of me. 6.34pm she was born weighing a mere 2.64kg.

We had done it! Baby was out in the world and alive and kicking! I felt such relief and couldn’t believe she was really ours! She was so much smaller and skinnier than I had imagined, I couldn’t believe she was really here!

[mandimormon-blog]

Fridge Perks

The new year is here and I'm happy to report we had a stupendous first week of 2017!  We took advantage of one of our experience gifts, and on Monday we left for Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio.  It was a popular time of the year to say the least, still decked out from the holiday.  4 children, 2 adults, and 3-hour drive wasn't horrible at all!  Actually, I highly recommend this resort for a short getaway, if you have little swimmers.  We do.  Our children reminisce about our pool days, from summer, constantly.  They love water.  One super-duper perk for our family was one of the dining restaurants had gluten-free items on their menu.  This takes the pressure off for finding hopeful alternatives. But life's a picnic for we, of the gluten-free variety.  Literally, we take food wherever we go.

  This water-park had fabulous water slides!  Even a family slide to fit up to five riders.  A wave pool, kiddie slides, lily pads, and a splash-park in an 84 degree environment.  We went four different times.  This resort also included a spa for little girls, an arcade, black light mini-golf, and bowling.  There was so much to do we didn't have to leave at all, over our 3 day, 2 night stay.   That's my review, sorry if it was boring or not your thing, good trip.  Will we go back?  Maybe, but we like to try new experiences and that's checked off the list.  On Wednesday, as we departed for home, I decided I'd had enough JUNK and eating junky.  Do you ever get that feeling?  Bloated, with a mind-fog, and no energy, at all?  That was me.  I felt just blah, so I decided  I would just go ahead and start following the Autoimmune Protocol.  Of course, this was after I ate a bag of inorganic M&M's and chamomile tea with honey, for breakfast.  

On our journey back home, we popped off the Interstate to Kroger in Crawfordsville, to grab lunch and a few organic items for my AIP.  Good gracious, I skipped on the $8.29 coconut butter.  

Back to school for our kiddos, on Thursday, and they were excited to go!  In fact, Remi made all A's, Reis averaged all A's, and Jude forgot his report card at school.  This scenario sounds about spot on.   This day for me was Detox Bath Day, followed with chamomile, yoga and laundry.  My deep, inspired thoughts included while building our next home, a deeper, wider tub, and hiring a personal chef.  I've noticed a pattern in my life.   How have I not realized this before?  No clue, except I'm guessing it's a subconscious habit.  As I go through my tasks of daily living, when I subconsciously finish a task, I automatically go to the refrigerator, for my reward.  For example, I finished multiple loads of laundry. What's the first thing I do? Open the fridge. I finish mopping the floor and vacuuming the entire house.  What's next?  Open the fridge. I finish cleaning the bathroom.  Open the fridge. *Palm to the face*  What am I doing?  This is a habit I have to break, especially with the Autoimmune Protocol, I'm limited with my food options and since a majority of it is organic, I can't be wasteful and just veg out whenever I please.

I purchased four snap-ware containers from Menard's and prepped a cookie sheet of veggies and fish + chicken, and then separated it into four separate meals.  It literally took one hour, for four lunches (or dinners) for myself.  I opted for broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, and mushrooms, as sides.  They may sound starchy, typically I avoid starchy veggies, but since I'm completely grainless, starched veggies are perfect. 

I saw a few friends on Facebook posting the following status update with a few minor changes such a booze:  Today marks my first week without a drop of alcohol.  Running 5 miles each day and yoga before breakfast. I've stopped eating meat, dairy, flour and sugar. All fruit and veggies are organic. No GMO'S. The change in my body has already been fantastic! I feel great! I plan to make this my new lifestyle. Zero soda. Eating a healthy diet that is completely vegan, gluten-free and sugar-free. And working out for two hours every day! I don't know whose status this is, but it said to copy and paste... I was so thrilled for the person when I started reading it but then I was like what, wait.. really?  It is truly funny but come on, these are good goals!  Let's build others up for wanting to better themselves instead or poking fun when they want to change their life.  :D  So, let me be real and say today would be day five and I feel like a new person.

Reflecting on previous goals where I've learned something every darn time.  > In 2014, I went sugar-free.  I stayed sugar-free the entire year except for a slip up in August and another in late December.  Ran my first full marathon.  > In 2015, I went vegetarian for a while slowly worked into Pescatarian (fish).   > In 2016, my husband and I went vegan for a month together, as we completed the 21-day Daniel Fast.  I continued for 3 months, after that.  Ran another marathon.  > In 2017, Autoimmune Paleo - for my Autoimmune disorder.  It's an elimination diet that will clearly indicate what is right, for me personally, and what isn't right. 

What have I learned?  Well, I've learned we all make goals and being able to do ANY of it takes diligence, obedience, discipline, and growth!  Why are we here? Growth.  Being the best version of ourselves for our personal happiness, combating illness or depression, and for our families.  Our spouses, children and family deserve all we can give them, right?  Right.  They do.  What's given me the strength to know I can do whatever I set my mind to?  I've said it before.  The Gospel.  All of those terms, I used previously, (diligence, discipline, obedience, growth) are just a few of the attributes I’ve developed (even if just a little bit) from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  When I realized I could do something really hard, something I felt was really hard in the moment, it helped me do another, then another.  We are given weaknesses to make us humble and then strong or develop those into our strengths, as mentioned in the book of Ether, in the scriptures.   Which may sound backwards but we’re here to learn and grow.  If we think back on our life, it’s a continual learning process from birth.  We constantly evolve into a different person, changing and growing. Personally, I’m grateful for that because the person I was 15 years ago is not who I am now, even five years ago, I’m different. We may make resolutions and keep a few of them, or maybe one, or not keep any, but that's ok.  If we tried and we're constantly trying, every experience helps us become.  

[qiaobaifashion]

New Post has been published on http://www.qiaobaifashion.com/jewel-of-the-month-part-ii-abigails-engagement-ring/

Jewel of the Month, Part II: Abigail’s Engagement Ring

Every day, I get three or four emails in which someone claims to be a “big fan” of my blog and offers me $50 to publish a guest post (which often includes the dreaded “infographic”). Of course, anyone who truly is a big fan of this blog might have noticed that I haven’t had a sponsored post in my entire 10 years of blogging. But hope springs eternal, and spammers gotta spam in case I finally break down.

Now the writers of spammy emails are going to have new ammunition against me, because Part II of December 2017’s Jewel of the Month post has been guest-written by the recently engaged Abigail and I didn’t even ask her for the $50! Dang! This guest post came about because I like to interview my engagement-ring customers about everything from how they met, how they designed their rings, and how the proposal went. Then I write them up. Here are a few of the previous ones.

Olivia and John

Lori and Brian

Heather and Jeff

When I asked Abigail if she would answer a few questions about how she and fiancé Max wound up skipping down the path to marital bliss, she came back with an entire blog post COMPLETE WITH A MEME AND SCREENSHOTS that had me literally laughing out loud … and then ugly crying because I got so emotional. Without further ado, here’s Abigail and a story about a sapphire-halo engagement ring.

A post shared by Wendy Brandes Jewelry PR (@wendybrandesjewelry) on Nov 17, 2017 at 1:26pm PST

THE ABIGAIL AND MAX CHRONICLES BY ABIGAIL, IN HER OWN WORDS AND IMAGES (with very light editing by Wendy)

I’ll start out by saying my fiancé, Max, knew he wanted to marry me before I was sure what to think of him. And as awkward as that sounds now, it was actually potentially more embarrassing at the time — if, that is, Wendy hadn’t entered our lives.

My charming, optimistic guy decided just five short months into dating that I was the one for him, and he bought a diamond last January with his year-end bonus money. While we had talked about kids and marriage early on — because we met in our mid-30s and that’s what we both wanted — we hadn’t really planned that far ahead with each other. He wanted to surprise me, but he also wanted to make sure it was something I liked, so he recruited Wendy to help.

I really don’t know what he was thinking — though seeing how things worked out and how much we really love each other and fit together now, maybe he was ahead of the game — but at the time, I wasn’t picking up the signals. Instead, I started to fear the commitment of even moving in together. So when, after I got to know Wendy and her amazing husband over dinner early in the year, Wendy reached out and asked me to lunch, I never suspected she was a secret agent for my then-boyfriend trying to find out what type of engagement ring I wanted. [WENDY’S NOTE: I’m still convinced I asked Abigail to lunch just because I liked her and that the timing of the engagement-ring mission was a coincidence!]

I remember us having a great time talking, but when she casually dropped the question, “So come on, tell me, what type of ring are you looking for when you and Max get engaged,” I couldn’t even fathom an answer.

She unbeknownst to me reported this dilemma back to the now-starting-to-doubt, would-be groom. He dropped some hints later on, but I think the only thing I expressed to him over this time was that I really didn’t want someone to surprise me with a ring without consulting me (poor guy).

At this point, I was definitely giving him mixed signals. Sure, I was the one who had told him just two months into dating that we should move in together. It’s just that when he agreed in January (and secretly bought the diamond) … I became afraid. This meme pretty much described how I was feeling:

In May, the issue of moving in together came up again, and I postponed it a second time. Max reached his breaking point. Now it was his turn to take me to lunch. We had what I recall as our “are you in or out” conversation. He straight up told me he’d gotten the rock — but it was clear this wasn’t a proposal. This was him saying, “This is how serious I am about you and I don’t think you’re that serious about me.” I was overwhelmed! I had to think alone for a while. I then spoke with my friend Miriam, who was one of the first people to meet him and who knows me really well. She basically said, “What the hell are you waiting for!?”

That very weekend we found the apartment we’re now living in together. He put me in touch with Wendy shortly thereafter and told me that she had been holding this beautiful diamond all year. Haha! I had no clue! She was so crafty. Wendy and I soon starting working together to create my vision for the perfect engagement ring. I had fallen in love with the idea of an engagement ring with colored gems in a halo around the diamond. Once colored gems were on my mind, I thought of the gorgeous blue of the sapphire in Princess Kate’s ring.

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So that’s what we were shooting for, along with some elements of Wendy’s awesome style.

You know the wise words of George W. Bush, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again”? Apparently, for me, that’s not true because after we agreed on the ring design early in the fall, Wendy told me it wouldn’t be ready until December. Now, instead of dragging my feet, I wanted everything done yesterday, which enabled Wendy and Max to have some fun at my expense while they worked to get the ring finished for November. They emailed each other:

That same day, this is Max texting with me.

The second-to-last Thursday in November — shortly before we were about to go on a romantic trip to Paris — I came home after a rough day to the lights turned low, music playing, flowers out, and a bunch of pictures of us laid out on the counter. I didn’t get the hint again! I thought Max was just being nice. He took out a couple of champagne flutes from the cabinet and said I should grab some bubbly from the fridge — where lo and behold the most beautiful ring I ever could have imagined was waiting, tied around the champagne!! I turned around and he was on one knee! I was so surprised and overwhelmed with joy, I said “Yes!” and burst into tears.

She was still wearing her scrubs! Glad they matched the ring.

The ring … I can’t say how amazing it turned out. It’s just gorgeous craft and designed to perfection. I’m so happy and grateful to Wendy for her guidance with my wonderful, prescient, (and sneaky) man.

This sweet couple will have a whole blog post coming soon. We had the honor of creating a one-of-a-kind, custom ring that perfectly fit this bride’s style. When the blog post is live, you’ll also learn about our sneaky side-gig: helping to plan the proposal itself!⠀ 💘💘💘 #WendyBrandesWedding #beplatinum #oneofakind #engagementring ⠀ -⠀ -⠀ -⠀ #engaged #congrats #platinum #roundcut #diamond #diamonds #sapphire #artdeco #artdecojewelry #vintage #halo #shesaidyes #proposal #alternativeengagementrings #alternativebride #offbeatbride #sapphirering #showmeyourrings #customjewelry #customengagementring #hautejoaillierie #unboxing #bridal #bride #engagement

A post shared by Wendy Brandes Jewelry PR (@wendybrandesjewelry) on Nov 17, 2017 at 10:30am PST

This is Wendy again. Thanks to Abigail and Max choosing me to make this important piece of jewelry for them, for sharing their story with us all, and providing yet more proof that you can ask a woman to help design her own engagement ring and still surprise her with it! I’m also delighted that Abigail used Kermit to explain her sudden-onset fear of commitment, an issue that I danced around in the engagement-ring video I posted yesterday AND in my back-in-the-day conversation with poor Max. I was like, “Um, dude, she’s just very distracted by work right now”!

Another ring photo!

If you missed yesterday’s video about Abigail, Max, and engagement-ring design in general, check it out now. Any questions about a custom engagement ring of your own? Send ’em to me at info at wendybrandes dot com.

[writingblankspaces]

Shutterbug (Part 2)

Yoonmin

PG-13

"These are some of the best pictures you've taken this semester Mr. Min, I'm impressed," Professor Kim sighed, a small smile on his face as he handed Yoongi his final grade.

That would've been great if Yoongi had heard, but he was preoccupied with examining the sloppily rendered A at the top of the paper.

He still had a few other exams to worry about, but considering he'd been flirting with a D average in Professor Kim's class, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest. In fact, he was so happy, that once he had his confirmation that he was going to pass the class with a high C, he picked up his bag despite vaguely hearing the professor state that class wasn't over and left.

After unlocking the door and slipping out his shoes, Yoongi wanted to celebrate his passing by eating the leftovers in the fridge, but when he walked into the kitchen, he saw Jimin seated at the table while Jin cooked something that vaguely smelled like one of his favorite stews, but spicier.

"What are you doing here?" Common sense said that when you liked someone, you usually treated them nicer than anyone else but for Min Yoongi, it was the polar opposite and unfortunate for Park Jimin, he was Yoongi's current target.

"Is that how you greet guests Min Yoongi? Especially one who helped you?" Jin asked, turned from the large pot to eye him. Unconsciously he shrunk back, but he kept his eyes on Jimin, trying to figure out why the boy was at his apartment again.

He came home to relax and congratulate himself, not be worked up into a frustrated and flustered frenzy (whether he showed it outwardly or not) by the object of his awkwardly placed affections.

Jimin looked up from his book with a smile "A book I needed for class fell out my backpack a few days ago. Hyung found it and I happened to run into him. After class, which I didn't know we both had, he invited me over for lunch."

"So are you buddies now then?" He knew he should stop going out of his way to sound like an asshole, but he couldn't stop. The more he saw Jimin, the deeper he was pulled in by him. 

Exactly what attracted him outside of Jimin's looks and cheeky attitude, Yoongi wasn't sure.

He was sure, however, that he was getting himself into something big. Bigger than he ever thought he could manage.

Unlike his usual dread for the sweltering hot summer, he welcomed the heat with his business degree in hand and several job offers on the table.

Having moved out his apartment shared with Jin following graduation, his parents agreed to help pay for a studio apartment near the business district until he got on his feet. This meant that he never had to worry about Namjoon's heavy footsteps or Jin's surprisingly high-pitched moans anymore.

He did miss the home cooked meals, general cleanliness and—he hated to admit it—Jin's occasional nagging. There had been something comfortable about having someone to mom him for the four years of his undergrad. It'd motivated him to do his assignments, study and attempt to do his best.

Now there was no Jin to literally roll him out of bed in the morning or to cook him food after a particularly draining day, instead, it was just him.

Yoongi had always been a bit of a loner anyway, but after spending years of being surrounded by an extrovert like Jin, it'd become almost draining to be back by himself.

That didn't last long though.

Two weeks into the summer, his phone lit up on his desk, and after looking at the time on the top of the screen of his laptop, he decided to take his lunch break to answer it.

"You know damn well I'm at work. What?" There he was again, being unnecessarily mean to Jimin, but at that point, Jimin had learned to ignore him.

"I need a place to stay for a few months. At least until school starts again in the Fall," despite the news, Jimin sounded excited and Yoongi found himself drawn in, genuinely curious as to why Jimin sounded ecstatic about being temporarily homeless. "I got offered a job at the community center by your apartment and they're willing to pay me twice what I'm getting working on campus. Plus I don't have to file papers, I get to dance."

Just like Yoongi loved taking pictures, Jimin loved dancing and constantly moving. It was another reason why Yoongi couldn't figure out why Jimin interested him so much since they weren't anything alike, especially in their hobbies.

"Where would you even sleep?" Silence fell between them and Jimin laughed.

"On your couch? Unless you have some reason that I can't. Did you get yourself a girlfriend?" He couldn't help himself as he let out a snort.

Him?

A girlfriend?

Clearly, Jimin wasn't good at picking up on signs.

"No, I just didn't think it would be comfortable enough for you to live on for the two and half months." When he finished talking, he could've sworn he heard Jimin sign into the receiver.

Why a sigh? Was he annoyed? Had Jimin finally grown tired of his abrasive personality? Or perhaps it was one of relief? Did Jimin like him? Was this a feeler to see if he was currently single?

So many thoughts rushed through his head and he ended up missing everything Jimin babbled about, only responding with a hum that sealed his fate.

"I'll be over after three. Thanks so much, you're a lifesaver hyung." Only after he hung up did he realize he'd just condemned himself to share a small space with a man that'd been the source of many of his unintentional post-pubescent wet dreams since their initial meeting.

Suddenly Yoongi began dreading the summer.

He was supposed to be looking over reports for an upcoming presentation, but all he could concentrate on the droplets of water that dripped down the base of Jimin's neck and continued down the deep v of One Piece sleep shirt.

"You should dry yourself off completely. That's how people get sick," Yoongi sighed, shoving his reading glasses back into place on his nose.

Jimin had been staying at his apartment for all of two weeks and while he had plenty of things to complain about, like how Jimin never wore pants once he shut the door or how he always seemed to be looking at him when he thought Yoongi wasn't paying attention, he couldn't bring himself to.

He loved the distractions from what was proving to be a very monotonous existence.

"We should go out so you can take pictures." See, that was another thing about Jimin that kept Yoongi's attention. He was incredibly perceptive and conscious of others, so he always seemed to know when Yoongi felt down or if he was in a bad mood.

The idea of touching his camera after nearly a month of disuse to take pictures of Jimin made his heart skip and set a fresh swarm of butterflies loose in his stomach.

"Sure, you should put on pants first though." Jimin grinned and got up from the small table in the kitchen area before he headed to the closet where Yoongi shared half the space with him.

After nearly thirty minutes, Jimin was dressed and surprisingly put together in black jeans, a loose tank top that threatened to slide down his shoulders and some sneakers. Yoongi, on the other hand, wasn't as put together in his black joggers, ratty white t-shirt and black hat.

At least, he thought he wasn't until Jimin surveyed his outfit and made a noise of satisfaction. It was the first time Jimin had ever mildly approved of his outfit choice since his graduation when his mom forced him to wear a suit. 

Jimin’s short fingers twisted the knob on the radio until he settled on his favorite radio station, nodding his head along to deep bass of some pop song Yoongi had never heard of. 

Out the corner of his eye, he could see Jimin really getting into the song and once what Yoongi assumed to be the chorus started, he began to sing quietly, looking out the window as they sailed through the traffic-less streets.

What started as a drive to find a place for pictures turned into a one-man show after he gave Jimin full reign of the AUX. From Beyonce to the musical stylings of a trot singer he couldn’t put his finger on, Jimin’s singing got louder and more confident as the songs continued to play on shuffle.

He was mid serenade when he spotted a potential place and pointed it out, Yoongi immediately switching lanes and pulling into the nearest parking lot. 

“We’ve lost a lot of sunlight, but we can still make it work,” Yoongi sighed as he turned off the car and climbed out, examining the area. Despite it being a park, there weren’t any kids milling about and it was surprisingly quiet.

Camera in hand, Yoongi watched as Jimin eyed the monkey bars in curiosity before he eventually jumped up and hung, shooting Yoongi a grin. 

snap. 

snap. 

In a series of quick movements that Yoongi was barely able to catch, Jimin hooked his legs onto the bars and hung upside down, making monkey noises in Yoongi’s direction.

Instead of taking pictures as Jimin probably intended, Yoongi broke into laughter, his eyes watering as his entire body shook. 

“You look ridiculous,” Yoongi eventually stuttered, wiping the tears from his eyes. Jimin glared at him and let out a huff of faux annoyance.

Carefully, he lowered himself down and landed on his feet, his cheeks still flushed red. Yoongi took a few pictures as Jimin re-orientated himself, then followed him when he headed toward the small garden situated to the far left.

More than a 100 pictures and a loud rumble of Jimin’s stomach later, Yoongi announced that he was satisfied and suggested that they go eat. Jimin’s eyes widened and he enthusiastically led the way back to the car.

“What you feel like eating?” Yoongi asked as he scanned all of the nearby restaurants. There was a silence and when he got to a red light, he looked at Jimin and saw that he was still pondering the question.

“You feel like Thai?” Really Yoongi was hungry as well so he could eat anything. He knew that Jimin, however, was extremely picky, so he immediately agreed and started in the direction of the nearest Thai restaurant. 

After several mouthfuls of rice and yellow curry, Jimin’s already high mood skyrocketed.

If he had been anyone else, Yoongi would’ve made some bullshit excuse to check out the conversation, but since it was Jimin, he found that he didn’t mind listening. One minute Jimin was complaining about the more reluctant students in his classes, then at another, he was praising the same people for making an effort.

“You’re off on Wednesday’s right? You should come to class to me. You could use the exercise,” Jimin muttered as he gave Yoongi a once-over. Yoongi widened his eyes and gaped his mouth in mock insult, putting his hands on his chest.

Again, only Jimin could get away with something like that. 

Yoongi wasn’t terribly out of shape, but he wasn’t exactly addicted to exercise either. Now that he didn’t have to walk miles across campus to get where he needed to go, the amount of exercise and physical activity he was getting was at an all time low. 

He eventually caved when Jimin gave him a less than impressive look, mumbling a low “yeah, sure.” After all, he never could say no to Jimin. 

After an uneventful ride home where Jimin fell asleep and smudged up Yoongi’s window, they got home and Yoongi was forced to wake him up.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” Jimin moaned with his eyes closed and smacked his lips, maneuvering his shoulder away from Yoongi’s reach.

Yoongi tried again, reaching over to give Jimin’s shoulder a harder shake. 

The action earned him a smack on the hand and Yoongi leaned over, unbuckling Jimin’s seatbelt. As the belt retracted near the window, he smacked Jimin’s arm with an exasperated “yah!” 

Jimin startled awake immediately and flinched, hitting his head on the roof of the car with a drowsy “I’m up!” When his eyes focused and he saw Yoongi shaking with laughter, Jimin’s lips tipped into a pout. 

“You didn’t have to yell...” Jimin’s voice got pitchy as he whined and Yoongi laughed harder, remarking how he sounded like a kid.