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watevermelon · 4 years

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Expectations | Shirabu Kenjirou x Reader

✧ Summary: Having attended Shiratorizawa Academy from junior high, you were familiar with most of the students in your year. They were average, nothing special — until a certain vbc setter, from god knows whatever small town junior high he crawled out of, changed up your world. -> Tag: maybe language cause it’s shirabu; fluff and jealousy + slight angst

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Shirabu Kenjirō was a living, breathing pillar of salt. And it was rightly so. He was the friend, the shoulder to cry on, and the person that everyone viewed as reliable. This was not entirely a bad thing, since he was viewed as much more dependable than others. And this idea was not limited to volleyball. But being placed in that category separated him from the very people who put him there. The girls viewed him as, at most, a friend. He was the king and leader of the friend zone.

It was the end of his second-year and he would soon be taking over as captain of the boys’ volleyball team. He justified lack of love life on the fact that he had bigger things to focus on. And after their crushing defeat, Shirabu reasoned that Shiratorizawa needed a focused captain to lead them to victory.

But the road to triumph was… rather lonely.

Shirabu had his team with him one-hundred percent and silently appreciated them for their confidence and own unfailing determination (he won't admit out loud!) But it seemed like he was surrounded by couples. His kouhai, Goshiki Tsutomu, found comfort in another first-year that was a regular on the women's volleyball team.

Couples were disgusting.

Of course, majority of the members of the male volleyball were single. Ushijima was a super volleyball idiot and his focus seemed to never stray from the sport. But even with his cinnamon roll personality, the female base of Shiratorizawa seemed to flock to him. He was undoubtedly very handsome and tall. His grades were well above average and his fan club was incredibly prominent. Ushijima had all the makings of a great man and was noticed as such by a large pool of the student body. The difference was that Ushijima was willingly single.

Shirabu, deep in the non-explored depths of his heart, wanted to be noticed like his Senpai. When playing volleyball, Shirabu strived to be the type of setter that went by unnoticed and drew out the strength of his ace. And he knew the consequences of such. But still. He was the main setter on a highly prominent team and his skills are not hard to notice.

Maybe it was his rough personality? Pft. He would never change that for a person, no matter how special.

Shirabu was above average height and had amazing grades in a prestigious powerhouse. What wasn’t there to like? His sense of style was trendy and he was complimented on his clothes more than once. He as not too preppy like Goshiki and not too wild like Tendou. Was it his looks? His bangs were unusual, but they weren't as bad as coconut-head/bowl/Goshiki. Since entering adolescence, he failed to ever break-out and was blessed with marvelous clear skin. On more than one occasion, he would stare at the mirror and truly wonder just why.

Why was no one interested?

Enter you.

You attended Shiratorizawa in both middle and high school. Coming from a wealthy family, there was nothing standing in your way. You were fairly popular and had seen the multiple personalities flit through your advanced classes. And in your first-year came Shirabu, an outsider to Shiratorizawa from a lower-class middle school. After being in the system for three-years, you knew almost everyone and seeing a new face was refreshing.

From the very start, you wanted to bet to know him more. But he was incredibly reclusive and mysterious to the general student body. Nobody could answer your questions. Well. Nobody except a certain Salami and volleyball idiot. You shared an advanced statistics class with the two third-year volleyball players in your first year and from them you were able to peer more and more into the life of Shirabu Kenjirō.

“Why do you want to know, (F/N)-chan?” Tendou instigated, “You have a crush on him?”

“Please, Salami calm down.” He raised his hands and gasped, “Come on. There isn’t a single person in this school who I don’t know and suddenly nobody knows anything about him?”

“He is smart and adaptable.” Ushijima chimed in.

“And a little shit, that’s for sure.” Tendou stated. You rolled your eyes and returned your attention back to the statistics teacher. Sure, you wanted to learn more. But this class was hella hard and you still needed good grades. Eventually, you were able to gradually acquire more information and Kenjirō. You learned that he was the only player from the boys’ volleyball team to not get into Shiratorizawa with a sports scholarship. Instead, he got in on his own accord through the arduous exams and good grades.

The more you discovered, the more you liked him.

Shirabu had a work ethic that you hadn't seen in a while. Being in this particular school-system for so long ruined your perception of it. You perceived most of your classmates to have a truly pretentious or judgmental personality, but showing to be as sweet as honey to your face. Of course they wanted to be your friend, who wouldn't with your last name?

He hadn't.

Shirabu was straight-forward with a tongue laced with salt. Sign you the fuck up!

He had no qualms about talking back to you and you looked forward to your daily banter with an odd smile. It was strange. You could get any nice, sweet boy in the whole school. But what was the point if they didn't mean it? Shirabu was honest - a trait that should never be given up, even if it offended others. You would rather have someone give you genuine advice - even if it was mostly mean - rather than an empty friendship.

You had majority of the same classes together for the second year in a row. And you were the only person who would had the immediate desire to sit next to Shirabu as a partner. You silently viewed him as a friend, but there was always this barrier that you could never get over for your friendship to deepen. His time was always dedicated to volleyball. And you did not play any sports anymore.

You watched the volleyball team's crushing defeat to Karasuno and the heartbreak it caused to so many people, Shirabu included. The women's team was resorted to tears and you could not even look at the men for too long. Reon and Semi were so sweet and you wished you could protect them for all the bad in the world. You had never seen Shirabu cry before.

Shirabu... He seemed to only display emotion around his team. And this made sense since those were the people that he was closest too. The rare occasion you had seen his smile was when you had watched a game. They had an overwhelming victory against Johzenji High and you spotted the small grin on Shirabu after he scored the winning point. Your heart could barely take it. You only wished that he showed that side more to you...

He was friendly, but distant enough for you to want more. Shirabu was not cold to you and his harsh chitchat did not hold any true malice behind his words. But he never opened up to you. You wanted to learn more about him personally and if you wanted to, you would have to pry and almost force him to speak. He would give curt answers and then be done with the conversation. But, on more than one occasion, you would spot him typing away on his phone. It was no secret that the boys’ and girls’ volleyball team were fairly close and had a groupchat shared amongst them. You silently wondered if he was texting a girl from the team.

That thought had you instantly deflated and made you wondering if you ever had a chance with Shirabu. You were not one to be easily defeated, but with every brief conversation and blank expression he gave you, you considered giving up altogether. This happened around Valentine’s Day of your first-year. Shirabu was abnormally delighted and even smiled in the classroom at someone’s joke. You figured that sure, it was the day of love and he probably had something lined up for himself and his significant other – that was why he was so happy. And it hurt your heart. He smiled, but it was never because of you.

From there forward, you tended to avoid him to evade the imminent heartache every time you saw him. This was hard since you literally sat next to each other in most classes, but something entirely doable. You would leave the classroom immediately after class, show up right before it started, and not initiate conversation. It was always you that had previously opened up discussion, so when you had stopped there was little to none at all.

Shirabu caught up to your change and silently questioned it. On multiple occasions, you would catch him observing you from the corner of your eye and you silently hoped he would not question you outloud. Within a week, he was ready to corner you.

You were at your locker right after class, ready to pack-up and head over to photography club. He was silently bounding towards you and when you closed the locker he was standing right-there before your eyes.

“Did I do something to offend you?” He asked the moment your locker closed.

“No…” You stated haphazardly, clutching your backpack.

“You’re never his quiet or shy.” He noted, “Did something else happen?”

“I have to get to photography club…” Shirabu put his arm on the locker and blocked your exit. He was tall and there was no way you could out-run him, you were trapped.

“Don’t lie. We know it starts in twenty-minutes. You might be on the executive board, but you have a lot of time.” He sighed out, locking to the ceiling and then back to you. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“… Am I your friend, Shirabu?”

“Of course.” He did not hesitate to answer. “And it’s Kenjirō.”

“What?”

“Call me by my first name.”

“Oh.” You paused and let the name roll of your tongue, “Then you should call me by my first name too, Kenjirō-kun.” His eyes widened at the added suffix and a rosy dust covered his cheeks.

“Was that it?” He asked, “Come on, (F/N). That’s an immature reason to ignore me.”

“How was I supposed to know?” You questioned, “It never seems like you actually want to talk to me.”

“I’m talking to you now.”

“Outside of this!” You were beyond frustrated, “Ugh I’m fine now go away.” You lightly pushed his arm, but he did not budge.

“As if that would convince me.”

“You are so annoying.” You commented, “You never initiated conversation. I thought I was just bothering you.”

His gaze on you softened and you could not break the eye-contact, “You’re an idiot.” He teased and then ruffled your hair. That was the first time he had ever done physical-contact with you and you almost exploded then and there.

“I’m an idiot?” You repeated before walking away mid-sentence, “I’m hoping you treat your girlfriend better.”

He paused and let us hand drop down to grab your elbow before you go away. “Girlfriend? Where did this come up?”

“I thought…” Shit, you let that thought slip out-loud, “The men and women volleyball teams are close. And I’ve only ever seen you hang-out outside of class with them and those girls. I just assume...”

“You assumed wrong.” He quickly cut-off, “Ugh. What am I going to do with you?” He asked as he grabbed you into a hug. You returned the affection and you knew that a blush must have stained your face! And what was that question?

Shirabu continued, “So was that the real problem? You were jealous of my supposed ‘girlfriend?’” He laughed at his question and you were going to die from his smile. God it was so rare and you wished he graced you with it more!

“No! Don’t get too ahead of yourself!” You yelled back, but it was muffled against his chest. He leaned back to see your face and teased you for your embarrassed expression.

“You’re an idiot.” He laughed again.

Since then, your friendship with Kenjirō was gradually improving. But it seemed that there was this silent barrier that you could not overcome. You could talk about your problems, but not about his. And since then, he had not initiated any physical contact. If you ever brushed hands or simply leaned against him, he should shift away and pretend it never happened! Did you really make any progress?

Finals were coming up and that was giving you one last chance to spend time with Shirabu before the end of the schoolyear. Sure, you could always ask your father and he had the power to put you two in the same class again next year - But! Did you want to waste your last year together pinning after him?

Your study group was comprised of yourself, Shirabu, Kawanishi, and two people from his class. Kawanishi was in Class 5, which was also advanced, but he was so damn lazy! You saw his potential and only wished that he tried harder and quit fucking around.

The three other members of the group were missing that night and the two of you were left alone to grovel over English. Your English was better than Shirabu’s but the opposite could be said about history. You paired each other well and aided the other's faults.

You commented on this once jokingly, saying, "You complete me!" He simply rolled his eyes and brushed it off before continuing to study.

Damn. This boy cannot take a hint.

You attempted to show the boy your advances. But it seemed Shirabu would shut you down at every try, almost like he knew what you were doing and was firmly against it. A part of you considered backing down. He had made his intentions clear for two straight-years, maybe you should not waste another year on someone who obviously does not want your attention?

That thought last for a second before you waved it off. There was no one else you were even remotely interested in. If he said no, that’s fine. But you were probably not going to peruse anyone else.

Both you and Shirabu were spacing out from over-reading the textbook and happened to make eye contact. "What's on your mind?" You asked.

"Things you cannot understand."

"You really think that low of me?"

"No. I'm going to be the captain of the volleyball team in a few weeks."

"Wow."

"There's no way your pampered ass would get it."

"You think about my ass?" You teased, but he pretended to ignore the question. You spent enough time with him to notice the minute narrowing of his eyes and the slight curve in the corner of his left lip.

Damn, this boy had you bad.

"I'm sure you'll do fine, Kenjirō." You comforted, "You're very smart and reliable. I believe that your training won't betray you."

"Reliable..." He murmured. "That's exactly what I'm talking about."

"What do you mean?"

He scoffed at your question, "Exactly. You won't understand."

"Then explain it to me!" You exclaimed.

"Why should I?" He seemed just as inflamed.

"Because I care about you! You big, dumb, idiot!"

Shirabu paused before fully looking at you, surprise evident. "Well, everyone expects this idiot to be reliable and lead the team. But..."

"But...?"

"That's all that people expect from me. To be the smart one. To live to everyone's expectations and shoulder the border of living up to the name ''powerhouse.'" He was getting more agitated and louder with each word.

"Woah, calm down."

"I can't calm down! In a few weeks, I'll lose the ace that I've admired for years and majority of our regular team! How am I supposed to fill in their shoes when we're losing one of the top 3 spikers in the country?"

You had no shame in grabbing his chin and turning his full attention to you. "Listen here you idiot. Don't interrupt me! I said don't! I stopped sports, but I know this is something entirely inevitable. Your senpai's are moving onto the next phase of their lives, but it's not something you can stop or change. You have to accept the future and make the most out of it and I know you will. Shiratorizawa is not the only school with graduation. Your rivals and others will lose their precious third-years and its then will you be able to analyze them and attack. But you need to calm the fuck down."

Shirabu was hanging onto every word. Nodding at some parts and fully taking in what you were trying to convey. At the end of your speech, he pushed your hands away from his face with a slight rosy dust on his cheeks. No woman, outside of his mother, had ever done that to him before.

"You're a real pain, (F/N)." he started, "But thanks. I needed that."

"No problem, I just want you to know that I can be here for you." You extended your hand to cover his own on the desk.

His eyes latched onto your hand before he averted his gaze and attempted to pull his hand away. You kept a tight enough grip to keep it in place, but not enough to hurt. "Must you touch me so much?"

"You are such a tsundere, oh my god." You commented, "Of course, I had to like you."

He stilled and looked directly into your eyes, as if that would confirm your previous statement. "Are you really that surprised?" You asked. "You're really handsome and you have the type of personality that I find most attractive."

"Tsundere?" He joked.

"No. You're honest." You admitted, "You're not like the rest of them, who only see dollar signs when they see me. You've roasted my ass multiple times in class and I wouldn't have it any other way. You say the truth and don't sugar-coat your words for anyone."

"I like you." You simply stated. You watched the words seem to finally reach something in his mind and at this point he seemed to panic. He pulled his hand away and you did not hide your outward hurt. Shirabu made a lame excuse and quickly packed up his stuff to leave.

You never felt more sad and alone.

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Shirabu was freaking the fuck out. He wanted someone to notice him and it had to be you??? You were beautiful and nearly perfect in every way. Your beauty went beyond the physical level and you were blessed with intelligence and an even greater family tree.

None of this mattered to him before. You were his friend and classmate and probably the one person in class who did not endlessly irritate him. How could you possibly have feelings for him? He didn't deserve you, not a bit. He had an endless list of faults, including his knowingly sarcastic personality, and you were the friendliest person in school! No way. You could be happier with literally anyone else.

He could not deny all your positive traits, even though he made an effort to ridicule you. You were an overall amazing person and he could not deny his latent crush on you. But he had squashed it since your friendship was mostly comprised of friendly banter. You could never have feelings for him, he previously thought. So he would rather treasure your friendship and watch you from the sideline.

However, Shirabu had to admit that it was a dick move of him just to leave you there after your confession. He was usually the type to speak his mind and your feelings must have blinded his brain. He set-out to clear the air and admit why.

In class the next day, you were nowhere to be found and refused to respond to calls and texts. Seeing you so affected, Shirabu could not help but feel like a huge ass. He owed you big-time, but he had to start somewhere: an apology. Shirabu had to clear the air and make it known that he appreciated your affections, even if he had to deny them. He was not above annoying you and did such continually.

Knocking on your dorm room, he showed up right at your front door.

Shirabu heard movement inside, but not closer to the door. He called your phone again and heard the ringtone go off from within, just for you to mute it. He knocked about eleven more times before you opened the door.

"What do you want?!" You asked as you swung the door open with full force.

"To clear the misunderstanding, (F/N)."

"God, you are so annoying. Did you know that?"

"You are too. Now hear me out, you crazy."

"Excuse me?!"

"Please." You sighed and moved aside for him to enter and he did such. He uncharacteristically took your hand and guided you to sit-down on your bed.

He paused, as if to fully think about his words, before sitting next to you. "You need someone who has time for you."

"What?"

"I'll be the captain soon and I do not want to disappoint anyone. I'll be busy and unable to be the proper boyfriend."

"Is that your only complaint to this relationship?"

"No."

"What else?"

"You deserve someone who can make you happy."

You gave a small laughed and asked, "Who says you don't already make me happy?"

He stared at your for a moment before asking, "What?"

"I don't want someone who you think will make me happier with kind words or bullshit. I want someone honest." You candidly admitted, "And we are friends already. I know you're dedicated to volleyball and I don't want that to change. I already know how you are and that’s why I like you more than anyone else. You alone can make me happy. For someone smart, why is this so hard for you to understand?"

He sputtered, unable to give a cohesive reply and for once you saw be great Shirabu struggle over his usually articulate words.

"Wait." You realized that he had multiple complaints about this relationship before you interrupted him. "Just be straight with me. Do you have feelings for me?"

It was at this moment that Shirabu had the clearest view of you. You were in the closest proximity than ever before, sharing a seat on your bed! He could gaze clearly into your eyes and sense the distress and vulnerability from your previous words. He stretched the silence and you took that as a rejection. He immediately rectified the situation by grabbing your hand and placing a light kiss at the top.

"I never thought you were interested in me." He admitted, "I thought I was deep in the friend zone. So I would have rather kept your friendship than risked ruining it."

"You're an idiot." You smiled grabbing his wrist to pull him closer. He obliged and allowed you to place a light kiss on his cheek.

"Now will you be my boyfriend or will I have to convince you?" You whispered in his ear to tease him and could literally see the shiver go down his back as he stiffened.

When you pulled away, his eyes were half-lidded and you silently wondered if his dominant attitude translated romantically.

You didn't have to wonder long since he returned the favor and went even further, nibbling your ear lightly before placing butterfly kisses around your neck. "Maybe you'll have to convince me."

You laughed before wrapping your arms around his neck, quickly taking command and enveloping his lips against your's. However, you did not have it for long and the setter was quick to flip the positions and hover over you. He gave one his rare smiles and you felt one breaking out across you'rs, stretching from ear to ear. Shirabu, who was in no rush, descended back down to your silky lips - noses bumping and hands fisting into each other's hair. His grip was firm, but not tight enough to hurt. You moaned, unintentionally, and he took that as an invitation to lick the entrance to your cavern. You parted your lips quickly, eager to feel his tongue against yours. The rest of the day went by ignored, the two of you enveloped in each other's affection with not a single care in the world.

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calamitykaty · 4 years

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A Twist of Fate

Charlie x Fem! Reader

Word count:7670

Warnings: Slight Swearing, I think that’s it?

Requested: Sorta? It’s a multi writer topic by @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic revolving around the idea of y/n finding an ad to rent a date for Thanksgiving. *You can find the first writers fic HERE

A/N: HUGE thank you to @dream-a-little-bigger-x for reading every rough draft of this that I sent her, along with bouncing ideas with me! Also a huge thank you to @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic for supporting me when I got stuck and reading my super rough draft!

I wasn’t gonna post this until tomorrow but now I have a Christmas Reggie fic that I want to post tomorrow so...Happy Reading.

Y/N wrapped the buffalo plaid scarf around her neck and pulled her favorite slouchy red beanie over her thick mop of curls. Her cellphone was pressed between her right shoulder and ear as she buttoned up her navy peacoat and half-listened to her mom rattle off the preparations she needed to make for Thanksgiving.

“Mom, I really need to…” Y/N attempted to interject only to be cut off by her mother. She placed the phone on speaker and set it down on the counter while she slipped her feet into a pair of black boots. She had stopped listening to her mother’s droning voice nearly a half-hour beforehand, but her ears perked up when her mother asked the dreaded question.

“Are you bringing Noah this year honey? I know you guys like to alternate holidays with his family, but your Aunt Martha is going to make it this year and she is just tickled to finally get to meet him.”

Y/N pursed her lips and ran a hand over her face, she hadn’t told anyone that Noah broke things off with her two months prior. She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret for so long, but her mom loved Noah and she just knew she would blame her for ruining a good thing. She had been dating Noah for three years and it was perfect until Noah started talking about marriage and Y/N began to realize that she couldn’t picture her entire life with him. Noah felt like a moment in time to her, not an eternity.

“I’ll have to check, Mom, I don’t know what Noah is doing yet.” Y/N settled on a half-truth to buy herself some time. She placed her elbows on the edge of the counter and rested her head in her hands.

“Honey, I need to know by the end of the week, okay?”

She could hear the irritation in her mother's voice at the non-answer that Y/N had given to her. Her mother was a meticulous planner and she could not stand curve balls making a mess of her perfect holiday plans. Her mother treated every holiday as if the editors of Better Homes & Gardens were going to drop in at any moment and do a two-page spread on her decor and perfect meal.

“Got it, mom! I have to go!” Y/N quickly ended the phone call and shoved her phone into her pocket. She huffed out a heavy sigh and made her way to her front door, grabbing her keys from the catch-all bowl on the table next to the door. She quickly locked up her apartment and rushed down the two flights of stairs to the small community lobby. She adjusted the scarf around her neck and reached for the door but stopped as a new flyer on the community board caught her eye. She took a step back and ripped the paper from the thumbtack that held it to the cork board and shoved it into her coat pocket before pulling the door open.

Her hair whipped around her face as she stepped outside and was met with the cool autumn breeze that had settled in over the last month. Y/N looked both ways before stepping off of the sidewalk and hurrying across the street where her best friend, Leigha, was already waiting for her inside the small corner cafe.

“How is it that I have to drive from the other side of town and can make it on time but you literally live across the street and can’t?” Leigha teased as Y/N unraveled her scarf and took her coat off, draping both over the back of her chair before sitting down.

“Sorry! Sorry! My mother…” Y/N rolled her eyes as she recalled the phone call.

“Enough said!” Leigha laughed, she had one of those laughs that turned heads. Her laugh was always a little too loud and sometimes she would snort, it always caused Y/N to break into a fit of giggles. Leigha had been Y/N’s roommate all the way through college and they had been inseparable since the very first day they had met.

“So,” Leigha crossed her arms on top of the table,” did you work up the courage to tell her about Noah?”

Y/N shifted her gaze across the cafe and bit her lip “not exactly…”

“You are unbelievable, y/n ” Leigha sighed, exasperated.

Y/N snapped her eyes back to Leigha and held her hands up in defense “I tried! Well...I mean…I tried to try…”

“You know if you show up stag and your mother already has a place setting for a plus one, you might as well just go ahead and bury yourself, honestly” Leigha tutted.

“That’s why I have a plan!” Y/N turned around and rustled through the pockets of her peacoat before placing the crumpled flyer on the table. She smoothed her hands over the paper and pushed it towards the middle of the table.

Leigha snatched the paper up as the waitress came over and took their orders, Leigha ordered a blueberry scone with a chai tea while Y/N ordered a croissant with a side of strawberry preserves and a coffee.

“I mean…” Leigha read over the paper before sliding it back over to Y/N, “you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Y/N bit her lip and stared down at the flyer, re-reading it for the fourth time before she pulled out her phone and scanned the QR code to bring up the app.

“I can’t believe I am actually this desperate to try to literally purchase a date a week before Thanksgiving.” She muttered as she began to fill out her profile.

“Wait! Thanksgiving is next week? As in a week from today? I haven’t even made my Thanksgiving Pinterest board yet!” Leigha panicked and grabbed her face.

Y/N looked up from her phone and shook her head at Leigha’s antics “why do you need a Pinterest board? You literally do the same thing every single year.”

“Yeah…” Leigha jutted her bottom lip out in a pout, “but I want people to think that I am making all of these intricate and super cute appetizers and stuff. It’s the illusion that I care about!”

Y/N looked up and thanked the waitress as she set the food and coffee down in front of her before turning her attention back to Leigha who was eagerly biting into her scone.

“Help me answer these?” She passed her phone over to the girl and picked up the knife, spreading the strawberry preserves onto her croissant.

“Beach or Mountains?” Leigha readout with her mouth half full.

“Mountains!” Both girls yelled out at the same time and burst into giggles. They continued down the row of questions, passing the phone back and forth until Y/N finally hit the submit button. Leigha practically yanked the phone from Y/N’s hand as the algorithm began to shoot out potential matches. Her thumb scrolled through the pictures at lighting speed before she stopped and slowly scrolled back up before thrusting the phone in Y/N’s face.

“This one! Oh my god, this one! And if you don’t select the platinum package so that boy can say he loves you then I will literally never speak to you again!”

Y/N wiped the jam from her chin and grabbed the phone from Leigha. He was cute, there was no doubt about that but unlike Leigha, she cared about what his profile said about him. She scrolled through his pictures, one of him playing guitar, one hiking, one surrounded by friends around a campfire. Lover of nature, endless adventure, campfire songs, and sharing the love with my friends. I’ll jump if you jump, let’s take this plunge together?

She felt her lips curl up into a soft smile as she whispered his name to herself, liking the way that it rolled so easily off of her tongue.

“I told yooouuuu!” Leigha sang out and crossed her arms over her chest, a smug look on her face.

Y/N placed the phone on the table and tried to control the blush that she could fill rising to her cheeks, “calm down,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m paying for a Thanksgiving date, not falling in love.” She selected the platinum option and typed in her credit card number before clicking the purchase open without a second hesitation.

“I better be your maid of honor!” Leigha teased as the two girls dropped the appropriate amount of money onto the table and began to layer their coats and scarves back on. Y/N pulled the girl into a hug and placed a kiss on her cheek before heading back across the street towards her apartment.

She had just placed the keys back into her catch-all bowl by the door when her phone began to ding. She felt her heart begin to race as she saw the approval message on her screen that Charlie had accepted her request to rent him as her Thanksgiving date.

“Oh my god...okay...okay, this is fine...everything is fine.” She muttered to herself as she received another notification that Charlie had messaged her. She set her phone down on the counter and peeled her coat and scarf off before slipping her feet out of her boots. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and grabbed her phone, refusing to look at it until she had settled in on her couch. She crossed her feet under her and pulled a throw pillow to her chest before finally sliding up on the notification and reading the message that he sent.

Let's get to know each other? Lunch tomorrow?

Y/N hesitated for a moment before her fingertips began to slide across the keyboard on her screen.

Sounds good! How do you feel about chicken & waffles? I know a place!

She read over what she had sent several times, worried that she sounded too eager. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she waited for his response, watching as several dots appeared and disappeared several times on her screen before he finally sent his response.

A girl after my own heart! How is 12:30? Send me the address?

She felt her cheeks grow warm at his response and mentally reminded herself that he was just being kind and that she was quite literally paying for him.

500 Rue Kennedy Dieppe, NB. and 12:30 is perfect! I’ll see you then!

Y/N took a deep breath and closed the app before her thumb hovered over her mother’s contact. She quickly clicked on her number and quietly whispered to herself “please don’t answer, please don’t answer, please don’t answer.”

“Thank god!” she exclaimed as the phone sent her to voicemail. She rolled her eyes at her mother’s elaborate message before finally being told to leave her message at the sound of the beep.

“Hi, mom...it’s me...I just wanted to let you know that you will need to make sure to set an extra place setting for thanksgiving. Love you.” She rattled off, keeping the message vague but to the point.

The following day Y/N stood inside of her closet staring at her assortment of clothes trying to decide what said “I'm cool and definitely not desperate even though I paid for a date for Thanksgiving because my family is insane.”

She pulled a mustard yellow cable knit sweater from a hanger and laid it out on her bed before heading back to her closet. Her fingers sorted through the variety of skirts before settling on a silky, pleated navy skirt that was cinched at the waist. She laid the skirt out next to the sweater before moving over to her vanity.

She sat on the poof chair and stared at her reflection for a brief moment before pulling the small drawer to the left open and lining up her primers, eye palette, eyeliner, mascara, and her signature red lipstick. She grabbed the mason jar that sat on the right tableside of the vanity and grabbed the appropriate brushes, lining those up as well.

She used her middle finger of her right hand to gently swipe the eyeshadow primer onto her eyelids before dusting the brush across a shimmery gold eyeshadow. She used a maroon eyeshadow on her crease and slowly blended the colors until she achieved a golden and subtle smokey eye.Y/N shook her hands out to steady her nerves before slowly pulling the liquid eyeliner across her eyelids and flicking it softly at the end for a subtle cat-eye before she carefully built volume on her eyelashes with the mascara. Finally, she grabbed the matte red lipstick and carefully swiped it across her lips before blotting them with a tissue.

Y/N jumped at the sound of her phone vibrating on her nightstand. She moved across the room and grabbed the phone from the charger.

See you soon!

She felt the nerves settle back into her stomach and wiped her clammy hands on her pajama pants before quickly undressing. She pulled the yellow cable knit sweater over her head, careful not to let it touch her face. She followed that by pulling on the pleated navy skirt, the fabric falling just above her knee. She pulled on the fabric of the sweater at her waist so that it slightly hung over the waistband of the skirt before she slipped her feet into a pair of black pointed flats. She took one last look at herself in the mirror and pulled her curls over her shoulders before grabbing her purse and slinging it across her body.

Y/N entered the bustling restaurant and let her eyes wander across the tables trying to find Charlie. She wrung her hands together and pulled her lips into a thin line when she didn’t see him, her heart dropping at the thought that she had been stood up or even worse, that she had really fallen for a scam. She turned on her left foot and reached for the door, barely pulling it open before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She let go of the door, resulting in a soft thud as it closed.

“Y/N? You weren’t about to bail on me were you?” The soft voice teased as she turned around.

“I thought you had stood me up, actually.” She could feel the blush that dusted across her cheeks at the accusation. Her left hand fell to her right wrist, her fingers loosely wrapping around it as she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes and offered an apologetic smile.

Charlie’s green eyes crinkled at the edges and his nose scrunched up as he laughed “take the money and run, I wish I would have thought of that!”

“Oh..” Y/N looked back at the door and then back towards Charlie, “if you don’t want to do this, it’s fi--”

Charlie smiled softly at her “I was just teasing, I didn’t want to sit at the table by myself in case you didn’t show and have to do the walk of shame, so I was at the bar.”

Charlie placed his right hand on the small of her back and guided her to a table in the middle of the bustling restaurant. He pulled her chair out for her before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. Y/N tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced at the menu, though she already knew what she was going to order. The waiter, a young kid, probably seventeen stopped by their table and quickly took their order.

Y/N finally looked up to find Charlie staring at her, his face cradled in his hands with his elbows propped up on the table.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why a very beautiful girl would need to rent a date for a Holiday.”

Y/N felt herself blush at his compliment and shrugged her left shoulder “I got dumped.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry”

She smiled and waved him off “It’s no big deal, we wanted different things out of life. He wanted marriage and I,” she hesitated, she hadn’t talked about this with anyone other than Leigha.

“You what?”

“I want adventure and I know that sounds silly. Like, of course, you can have adventure and marriage but Noah,” she paused, “that’s my ex.”

Charlie nodded and gestured for her to continue, “Noah works in the financial district and he wanted marriage and kids and stability….and I barely know what I want to eat for breakfast let alone what I want for eternity.”

“You’re a free spirit, nothing wrong with that!” Charlie interjected and Y/N felt her first genuine smile of the night spread across her face.

“You get it.”

“I do get it.”

Y/N thanked the waiter as he sat down two beers along with their orders of chicken and waffles, before turning back to Charlie.

“So, tell me about your family. What should I prepare myself for?” Charlie lifted the pint glass to his lips and took a sip of the amber-colored beer.

‘Well,” Y/N blew air into her cheeks and sighed, “my mother thinks she’s Martha Stewart. So be sure to compliment the decor as soon as you see her. You’ll win her over for sure...and maybe don’t mention the whole free spirit thing or you will definitely end up on her list of terrible suitors that I have brought home.”

“Noted.” Charlie nodded before adding, “and your dad?”

“My dad is easy going, just talk about beer and hockey and you'll be fine.”

Charlie threw his head back in laughter and Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the way his whole face lit up when he laughed. She felt a flutter in her stomach as Charlie leaned forward so that his forearms rested on the table and his fingers lightly brushed across hers before he pulled back. Y/n pulled her hands off of the table and dropped them into her lap, her fingers lightly traced over the silky fabric of her skirt.

“Is everything okay?”

Y/N inhaled a sharp breath and rolled her bottom lip into her mouth before exhaling, “yeah, but I should probably tell you something,” she looked up at Charlie through her eyelashes.

“Well, c’mon then..” Charlie teased after several seconds of silence.

“My folks don’t exactly know that Noah and I are….done...and I know there’s going to be a big event made of it when they find out.”

“Oof…” Charlie sighed and took a swig from his beer and a bite of his food.

Y/N felt her heart beating in her ears, “I understand if you, I mean if this is too much and you want to back out.”

Charlie looked at her with a playful smirk, “are you actually going to eat that or?” He pointed at her untouched plate of food with his fork.

“W-what?” Y/N looked down at her food and back up at Charlie before letting a smile slip onto her face. She didn’t understand how someone she had just met could put her nerves at ease without even trying.

Charlie let his fork clatter on his plate before leaning forward on his elbows. Y/N watched with furrowed brows as he grabbed the maple syrup and poured it in a circle over her chicken before he leaned back into his seat and met her eyes with a soft smile on his face.

Y/N picked up her fork and knife and cut into her maple drenched chicken before popping a small bite into her mouth, “are you happy now?” she teased Charlie before putting her fork back down.

Charlie tried to hold back the smile that threatened to take over his face as he nodded his head.

“So, what’s our story going to be? It’s gonna have to be a good one if I have to upstage Noah to win over your folks.”

The two spent the next hour concocting a believable, but very romantic story of how they met. They talked about their likes and dislikes, their quirks and habits, and all of the little things that couples are supposed to know about each other,

Y/N felt butterflies erupt in her stomach as Charlie walked her to her car, his left hand just barely brushing against hers. She mentally scolded herself for feeling jittery over a guy that was simply fulfilling his job, but she also couldn’t help but hope that maybe he was feeling their connection too.

“I’ll pick you up next Wednesday at 4 pm, yeah?” Charlie asked as they arrived at her car. Y/n tucked her hair behind her right ear and nodded.

She felt her breath hitch as Charlie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek before walking backward and sending her a wave.

A week later and Y/N found herself pulling on a green sequined, long sleeve dress, the hem set just above her knees. It was her go-to holiday dress, classic but not too formal. She painted her face with gold eyeshadow, a sharp winged eyeliner, and her classic red lips. Her hair hung over her shoulders in cascading curls. She sat on her bed, fastening a pair of strappy black heels when her phone dinged. She fastened the buckles of her heels and grabbed her phone, a smile instantly sliding onto her face at Charlie letting her know he’d be at her place in five minutes.

She stood up and checked her appearance one final time before grabbing her gold clutch handbag and shoving her phone into it, just as Charlie knocked on her door. She quickly made her way to the front door and turned the lock before pulling the door open.

“Wow…” Charlie breathed out as she came into full view.

Y/N shyly smiled back at the boy, thankful that the blush she had on her cheeks already would mask the red glow that she could feel heating up her face.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she teased, her eyes trailing from his brown wing toed shoes up to his pristine white button-up and finally to his slightly coiffed hair.

“Shall we?” Charlie extended his arm out to Y/N after she locked her door. She looped her right arm through his left, her hand resting lightly on his forearm as they made their way through the corridor and outside to Charlie’s car.

He opened the passenger side door for her and waited for her to get situated before closing the door and running around to the other side of the car. Their forty-minute drive was mostly silent as Y/N worked to calm her nerves down. She knew that she was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she showed up with Charlie in place of Noah and she was trying to memorize all of the details that they had agreed on a week prior.

“Are you okay?” Charlie glanced over at her for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the road, his left hand took hold of the steering wheel as his right hand settled on her bare knee.

His hand was warm against her cold skin and Y/N wasn’t sure why but she found her left hand moving to settle on top of his hand. Without hesitation, Charlie flipped his hand over and let her palm fall into his before his fingers slid between hers and gently curled.

“Just nervous…”

Charlie lightly squeezed her hand before letting out a small chuckle “if I didn’t know any better, I would think that you’re the one about to meet my family.”

“Oh, I’m not nervous about them meeting you, they’ll love you,” Y/N clarified,” I’m nervous about the terrible things that I know my mother is going to say to me about ending things with Noah.”

Charlie licked his lips as he pulled into her parents’ driveway. He pulled his right hand free from hers and put the car in park before turning slightly in his seat to face her.

“You know that nothing she says is going to be true, right? You don’t have to live by someone else's timeline for your life.”

Y/N pushed down the warming feeling in her heart and nodded her head at his words.

“Yeah, I know...are you ready?”

Charlie smiled brightly at her and pulled the keys from the ignition before getting out of the car. He double-stepped around the car to the passenger door and pulled it open for her, waiting for her to get out before closing the door.

He slid his left palm into her right hand and tangled their fingers together before placing a soft kiss on her hairline and whispered “let’s put on a show.”

Y/N could feel the nervous energy erupting in her stomach as they stood outside of her childhood home. She took a deep breath before twisting the doorknob and pushing the red front door open. They were met with the warm heat of the home and the smell of cinnamon as soon as they stepped inside. Charlie let his eyes wander across the walls of the entryway, scanning the line of pictures before tugging Y/N over to one.

“This is you, yeah?” The question was rhetorical as it had been obvious that it was her in the picture. She stood on a cliffside, at the top of a mountain with a bright smile on her face, her childhood dog, Rex, beside her and the ocean behind her.

“Yeah, I was seventeen and went backpacking by myself for the first time. My mom was so mad. This family that was passing by was kind enough to capture the moment for me and my dad insisted that it be hung on the wall of accomplishments…” Y/N rambled off the story before letting her eyes move from the picture and up to Charlie.

Charlie smiled down at her and laughed, “this is gonna sound insane, but I think that was my family that stopped and took the picture.”

Y/N pulled her brows forward so that her forehead was pinched in the middle “shut up! No it wasn’t!” she finally exclaimed.

“Rex….the dog’s name was Rex. I remember because I thought you were pretty and I got flustered and I said something dumb about Rex from Toy Story.”

Y/N’s eyes grew wide as Charlie recounted the story and she felt her cheeks growing red at the revelation “well, this is a weird twist in fate--”

She was cut off by the sound of her dad’s deep voice bellowing her name as he turned the corner. Charlie pulled her into his side and let his right-hand rest on her hip, while her right hand rested on his chest.

“Well, this certainly isn’t Noah!” Her father exclaimed a large smile on his face and his eyes soft. He had never been the biggest fan of Noah’s to begin with.

Charlie dropped his hand from her waist and stepped forward with it stretched out towards her dad, “Charlie Gillespie, sir.” He was taken aback when her dad threw his head back in laughter and pulled him in for a full bear hug.

“Nice to meet you, son”

Y/N giggled at her dad’s antics, he had always been the type to do things like that. He was a stout man with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. He had graying hair and a well-kept beard and he radiated kindness.

“And you, little missy, are going to have a lot of explaining to do to your mother.” Y/N pulled back from her dad's embrace and blew the air out of her cheeks.

“Yeah, I know…”

Her dad gently squeezed her arm and gave her a reassuring smile before leaving the two to grab a beer from the kitchen.

“Why do I have the overwhelming feeling to call your dad pops and ask him over to mine to watch hockey?” Charlie joked.

Y/N shrugged and tangled her fingers with his, “I told you he was the easy one. Are you ready for the rest?”

“Lead the way, beautiful.”

Y/N tugged on Charlie’s hand and he followed behind her as they made their way to the den where her brothers were corralled around and a card table, intense looks on each of their faces as they held their cards close to their bodies. Their wives were set on the opposite side of the room. Y/N could feel the three women’s eyes on her as she entered the room with Charlie and she knew their hushed whispers were aimed at her and the fact that Charlie was very much not Noah.

Her youngest brother, Josh, was the first of the three boys to look up and notice her. He dropped his cards on the table, face down, and scooted his chair back against the hardwood floors.

“Junebug!” He yelled as he practically launched himself towards her. Y/N exploded into a fit of giggles as her feet left the floor and he twirled her around in circles. Josh was three years younger than her, sitting at nineteen but she had always been the closest with him. Her giggles quieted down as he sat her back down and turned to Charlie.

“Well, you’re not Noah.” Josh quipped with a playful smirk on his face.

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck and laughed “I have a feeling I am going to be getting that a lot today.”

“You play poker?” Josh eyeballed him.

“I know my way around a deck of cards, yeah.” Charlie shrugged.

Josh turned to Y/N and lightly punched her shoulder, “looks like you got yourself an upgrade, Junebug!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her brother and wished Charlie luck as he was pulled over to the table and introduced to her two older brothers, Samuel and Michael. She felt her shoulders relax for a moment as the table erupted with laughter from something Charlie had said. He looked up from his cards and shot her a wink before turning his attention back to the game at hand.

Y/N glanced back at Charlie one last time before making her way over to the prying eyes of Amy and Melissa, the wives of Samuel and Michael. The two women each held a mug of her mother’s homemade cider in their manicured hands.

“Who’s the cutie?” Amy was the first to speak, her left eyebrow raised as she asked the question.

Y/N looked over her shoulder for a moment with a smile before turning back around “Charlie…”

“Oh! Well, you’ve certainly never said Noah’s name like that before!” Melissa looked at Y/N with wide eyes.

Y/N shook her head at the two gossipy women “like what?’

Amy and Melissa both shot knowing looks to each other before Amy quipped, “sweetie, that boy’s name left your lips like honey falling from a spoon.”

“It did not!’

“You can deny it all you want, but we both heard it!” Melissa declared and brought her mug up to her lips, taking a sip of the warm cider.

“Looks like I’m out boys!” Y/N heard from the other side of the room. She glanced over her shoulder to find Charlie laying his cards down on the table before he slid out of his chair. She smiled at him as he made his way over to her. He stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist and tugged her back into his chest, his head resting on her shoulder.

“Charlie, these are my sister-in-laws, Amy, and Melissa.”

“Very nice to meet both of you.” Charlie beamed at the two women.

Melissa and Amy stood up at the sound of heels clicking against the tile floor of the kitchen. Melissa made her way around Y/N and she gently squeezed Charlies’s bicep, “good luck honey.”

Charlie pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek and tightened his arms around her waist as he felt her body tense in his arms.

“You’ve got this,” Charlie reassured before loosening his grip on her and letting her grab his hand.

Y/N sucked in a deep breath and gently pulled Charlie behind her as she navigated through the formal dining room and towards the kitchen where her mother was sure to be found.

She stopped just inside the doorway to the kitchen and turned to face Charlie, “you can still get out of this, ya know?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Charlie placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around, nudging her into the kitchen while he followed.

Y/N stood silently for a minute as she watched her mother pull the green bean casserole from the oven and wipe her hands across her floral apron. Her mother was a thin woman with auburn hair that was almost always pulled into a chignon.

“Mom? Can I talk to you?” Y/N hesitantly asked, suddenly feeling less like a twenty-two year old woman and more like a twelve-year old child.

“What do you want to talk about, dear? Because if it’s about Noah,” her mother grabbed a wooden spoon and stirred the brown gravy that was simmering on the stove, “then I frankly don’t have time to listen to your childish reasons for ending the only good thing you had.”

“You know?” Y/N choked out

Her mother grabbed the pepper grinder and began to twist the top over another pot of food, “I called Noah after we spoke last week since you couldn’t give me a straight answer when I called you.”

“Oh…” Y/N placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and gently pushed him backward. Her eyes pleading with him to give her a minute. She didn’t want him to bear witness to the reprimanding she knew was about to come. Charlie hesitantly left her side and waited on the other side of the door.

Her mother finally turned around to face Y/N. She placed her hands on the edge of the counter, her knuckles white from the tight grip.

“Honestly, y/n. I don’t know why you can’t get your life together. You graduated college just to throw away your education for this silly photography hobby of yours and now you threw away a perfectly acceptable relationship because you want to travel and have adventures? You’re not a child, anymore, y/n. When is this going to stop? When are you going to grow up?”

Y/N stood silently as the words washed over her. She could feel the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and let out a shaky breath.

“I…”

“What? You what, Y/N? What explanation could you possibly have this time?” Her mother cut her off.

Charlie pushed himself off of the wall he had been leaning on from the other side of the door and quickly made his way back into the kitchen. He felt her mother’s eyes on him as he quickly pressed a kiss to Y/N’s cheek, his hand sliding across the middle of her back before he put on his best smile and made his way over to her mother.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Y/L/N. My mother would be insanely envious of the spread you’ve created, it’s magazine worthy!”

“Thank you, dear. You are much too kind! I am so sorry, but I don’t believe I caught your name?”

Y/N looked down at the floor and smiled to herself at the charm that Charlie exuded as he introduced himself to her mother and offered to help her bring the endless amounts of food to the formal dining room for her.

“I’ll go gather everyone.” Y/N shot an appreciative smile to Charlie before she made her way back to the den to gather the rest of the family into the dining room.

Y/N made her way over to the empty chair next to Charlie, the latter getting out of his own chair to pull her chair out for her before sitting back down. He placed his hand on the inside of her thigh and let his thumb rub circles on the top of her leg.

Her dad stood at the top of the table and carved the turkey while small talk was exchanged between her brothers and their wives and suddenly the question finally came from her mother.

“So, how did you two meet?”

Y/N glanced over at Charlie not sure if he was going to take the lead or not and was surprised when he started spitting out a story that was definitely not the one they had agreed on during their lunch meeting,

“I met your daughter several years ago on a hiking trip with my family,” Charlie paused and looked over at her before continuing, “my older brother, Patrick actually took that photo that you have on your wall in the entryway!”

Y/N’s heart was beating erratically as Charlie squeezed her knee before turning his focus back to her mother “your daughter took my breath away that day and I kicked myself for weeks for not getting her number and just having this missed connection. I guess you could call it a twist of fate, really, that I found her again.”

Y/N’s mother smiled at the two of them and Y/N felt her body tense for just a moment before relief rushed over her at her mother’s words “that may be the most romantic thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Can we eat now or?” Josh hesitantly asked as he grabbed the plate of yams and began piling a portion onto his plate.

Y/N felt at ease for the rest of the evening as their shared meal went off without a hitch. Her family shared embarrassing stories of her with Charlie and she sipped glasses of wine as he endlessly complimented her. Her heart felt full as the night drew to a close and her dad pulled out the last Thanksgiving tradition. The wishbone was passed around the table until it landed in her hands. She turned to Charlie and gestured for him to grab the other end of the bone. They both tugged on the bone with their eyes closed until it snapped.

Y/N opened her eyes and looked down at the fractured bone in her hand and then over to Charlie who was holding the larger side.

“Make a wish,” she whispered to him with a soft smile on her face. Charlie shook his head and kissed her forehead.

“I don’t have to, I’ve got everything I want right here.”

Y/N dropped her eyes to the table and reminded herself that as much as she felt the connection between her and Charlie, that he was just playing a role.

She looked up as the sound of chairs sliding against the floor filled the room. She followed suit and slowly stood up from her chair.

“Do you need help, mom?”

“You go ahead and head out honey, I know you have a long drive.”

Y/N made her rounds of goodbye to her family before looking back at Charlie and grabbing his hand. They silently walked to his car and he opened the car door for her. Y/N hummed along to the songs that played on the radio during the drive back to her place. She tried to ignore the heat that she felt in her stomach as Charlie’s thumb ran across her knuckles every now and then. She watched the cars that passed by them, red tail lights lighting up her face as they drove on the highway. Before she knew it they were parked outside of her apartment.

“I guess this is it then…” Charlie looked over at Y/N as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

“I guess so.” Y/N agreed, her right hand rested on the door handle as she looked at Charlie, her eyes searching for any indication that he didn’t want her to leave. She let her hand pull on the door handle when Charlie didn’t respond.

She swung the car door open and stepped out into the street before making her way to the sidewalk. She turned around at the sound of another car door shutting and was taken aback by Charlie running over to her side

“I should walk you to your door,” Charlie answered the silent question

Y/N smiled and led the way through the apartment corridor until they stood outside of her door, her keys dangling in her left hand. She looked up at Charlie and smiled, “you didn’t have to see me inside, ya know?”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand and shrugged, “all part of the job.”

Y/N felt her smile falter and turned around to place the key into the lock of her apartment door. She quickly turned the key and opened the door before stepping inside. She turned to look at Charlie one last time, “well, thank you for giving me my money’s worth,” she let her eyes fall from his.

“Goodbye, Charlie.” She closed the door and dropped her keys into the catch-all bowl before kicking her heels off and making her way over to the couch. She let her body slump into the soft cushions and pulled her phone out to call the only person that was going to understand.

“Tell me everything!” Leigha demanded as soon as her face appeared on the phone.

‘Well,” Y/N sighed, “I think I accidentally started to fall in love with him.”

Leigha couldn’t stop the giddy laughter that erupted from her small frame “I knew this was going to happen! I so called this!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at her best friend and poked her bottom lip out in a pout “it’s not funny Lee...I’m never gonna see him again and now I have all of these feelings to deal with.”

“You don’t know that!” Leigha argued

“I appreciate that you’re a hopeless romantic, Lee, but I was nothing but a paying customer to him...he basically said so himself.” Y/N frowned, thinking back to Charlie’s words as he walked her to her door.

“Oh...hun, I’m so sorry.”

Y/N let a sad smile slip onto her face, “I’m gonna go to bed, coffee tomorrow morning?”

Y/N hung her phone up and pulled herself up from the couch. She shuffled through the apartment until she reached her room and slowly peeled the sequined dress from her body. She made her way to the vanity and grabbed a makeup wipe and slowly removed the makeup from her face before she crawled into bed and pulled the covers tight around her body.

It was 8 am when Y/N was pulled from her slumber by her phone blaring the ringtone that Leigha insisted she set for herself. She rolled over with her eyes still closed and fumbled around for her phone before slowly cracking her eyes to hit the green button.

“What?” Y/N grumpily answered

“Don’t what me!” Leigha chastised, “there’s a cute boy at the cafe and he just ordered your order! Like to the T!”

Y/N set up in her bed and pressed her fingers into her eyes, rubbing the sleep away in small circles.

“Ok? And?”

“AND?! AND!!! His name is Charlie! I swear to god if you don’t get out of bed and make yourself look decent, I will literally kill you!”

Y/N dropped her phone onto her bed and pulled the covers back. She quickly made her way to her bathroom and brushed her teeth. She stared at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers through her messy bed head, her curls tangling together between her fingers.

“Shit..okay….okay…” She muttered to herself and opted to twist her hair up into a top knot. She secured it with a hair tie and ran back to her room where she threw on a pair of black leggings and an oversized jumper. Her heart nearly leaped out of her chest when she heard a knock on her door.

She wiped her hands on her leggings and quickly made her way to her front door. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves before reaching forward to unlock the door. Her hand shook as she turned the doorknob and slowly pulled the door open. Stood on the other side was Charlie with a small brown bag and a hot coffee extended out to her.

Y/N stepped to the side and opened the door wider, allowing Charlie to come in.

“What are you doing here?” She asked as she took the bag and coffee from his hands. She sat the bag on the counter and pulled the cup to her lips, taking a small sip. She hummed to herself as the warm liquid slid down her throat.

Charlie stepped forward and hesitantly took the drink from her hands, setting it on the counter behind her. Y/N watched anxiously as Charlie’s eyes moved across her face, flickering between her eyes and lips several times before he lifted his hands and placed one on her right cheek while the other cradled her neck.

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Charlie whispered into the space between them before catching her lips with his. Charlie pulled away before Y/N had a chance to react, his face glowing red as he held his bottom teeth between his top two teeth.

“Is this free of charge?” Y/N joked as she placed her hands on Charlie’s chest and leaned forward, bringing her lips back to his.

@straywonpil @siennanoelle01 @choppedhoundsludgeclod @cool-ultra-nerd @hxney-bunches-x @crybabyddl @sorryyoureoutofmyleague @dream-a-little-bigger-x @kcd15 @all-in-fangirl @ifilwtmfc @onlygetaway @iainttakingshitfromnobody @angryknightstatesmantrash @jazzyhales @bathtimejish @lanasfandoms @miranda0102 @emotionalbruv @aliandthephantoms @multifandombabies @kinda-really-lost @5sosmukefan @alexpjoyner @mo-d3ans @hannahhistorian92 @sunsetcurvenotsunsetswerve @i-should-be-writing-my-own-fic @sunflowerbecca @n0wornever @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic

#charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie #luke patterson #charlie gillespie one shot #charlie gillespie fanfic #jatp #julie and the phantoms #julie and the fat ones #julie and the himbos #julie and the phantoms fanfic #luke patterson fanfic

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rodeoxqueen · 4 years

Text

Of Lacking Spectacle(s)-Vergil/Reader

Summary: Vergil is a lot of things. Vergil is the Dark Slayer, The Alpha and The Omega, and the eldest son of Sparda. Vergil is also….in need of glasses?

Tags/Warnings: Suggestive Ending, Gender-Neutral Reader, Dante Read The Lord Of The Flies, Inspired By Vergil’s Buddy Holly Glasses Mod

Read It On AO3

Thank you @drusoona for sending me the pictures of Vergil that inspired this. The title is a reference to Gus Dapperton’s song Of Lacking Spectacle.

-Rodeo

(Picture Credits: @drusoona)

Vergil was always so precise and capable, sensing demons from distances away and predicting attacks with pinpoint accuracy.

He was intense, his eyes purely focused on the task ahead of himself. A man of pure drive and prowess. And he was your man.

It came gradually, something he tried to ignore. A few sentences of blurred lines would quickly flicker back to clarity. A small pain that flashed behind his eyes after reading in a room too dark.

It didn’t look obvious to anyone. Even to his ever-doting beloved. He was the son of Sparda, a demon that surpassed Death multiple times. There was no way he could have failing vision. Impossible, he would scoff to himself as he rubbed his eyes.

This statement soon turned from ignorance to denial of a very real problem Vergil avoided showing. His always narrowed stare hid it quite well.

An anthill turned into a mountain he could no longer stamp down. And his beloved had already watched it build up for some time, waiting for the stubborn devil to say something about it.

Which he didn’t.

So when you were cooking some mac and cheese from a recipe you found from a friend who knew a friend who knew a friend who asked her son for the recipe, you decided to strike up the question.

“Vergil.”

“That is my name, yes,” Vergil said from the couch, enraptured in a new book you bought him. You rolled your eyes at him.

“Are you having vision problems?”

“Of course not.” Hand on your hip, you pointed your rue-covered spatula at him.

“Then why is your nose literally in that book?” Vergil used to always be found with his book at arms-length as he would silently recite the words.

He stilled. He quickly readjusted himself and coughed.

Jackpot.

“I haven’t a clue what you mean.”

“Don’t lie to me in front of my macaroni.” You threaten, stirring the pot. He sighs.

“My vision is just fine.” Vergil insists, squinting at the blurred words.

“Vergil, I think you have vision problems.”

“That’s foolishness.”

“Why so?”

“My father was a powerful demon, bad vision should not run in our family-”

“Didn’t your dad wear a monocle?”

His mouth dries and his eyes widen in realization. Oh god it was genetic. You have won the tirade and you puff your chest out.

“How about I take you to the eye doctor? I can call later and set up an appointment.” Vergil has closed the book and chosen instead to look at you.

The macaroni is boiling, a u-shaped pasta you are rather fond of. Your apron is speckled with flour and you twiddle the spoon in your hand.

“Come on, it’ll be super quick. Just read some letters off a wall.” You say as you add burrata into the cheese blend. Vergil always liked that kind of cheese.

When you went grocery shopping, he really thought you wouldn’t notice him taking more than three samples of it when no one was looking before walking off like a successful sample thief.

Upon the sound of a bag of his favorite cheese opening, Vergil got up. You smile. You go to offer him a bit before quickly snatching it away from his hand. He tuts at you.

“You can have some if you agree.”

“Agree to what?” You sigh.

“Eye doctor.”

“No need. I am fine.”

You turn to stir the pot of delicious pasta before going back to lecturing this stubborn devil.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been squinting more and having headaches.” You state. Vergil scolds himself, thinking he was much more hidden about his new problem.

He is quiet as he stares off into the pot of macaroni.

“Please? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” You put your other hand on his cheek. He looks at you finally, ice-blue glaciers warming at your loving and concerned expression.

God, his mate was so soft. He pulls your non-occupied hand to his other cheek-

And snatches the bit of burrata out of your fingers with his mouth. You make an offended noise at his trickery.

“Very well.” He muses.

You call up a local eye doctor after a hearty bowl of mac and cheese.

Taking Vergil to the doctor was like taking a cat to the vet. He sat in the waiting room with his arms crossed and eyes intensely out-alphaing everyone in his general proximity.

When they finally call your names, the ice was broken and people finally felt safe to breathe in his absence.

The eye doctor guides Vergil to the examination room. Vergil does not like it already. Why would you do this to him?

He waits at the door, waiting for you to come in with him.

“Sir, this is more of a personal test.” You shrug and blow him a kiss as he is ushered into the room

“How long has it been since you’ve had an eye test?” The doctor asks, Vergil taking a seat with a strange contraption before him.

“I have never had an eye test.” Vergil declares. The doctor laughs and swings the phoropter down. Vergil flinches slightly.

“Whoa now. Just set your chin here and look into the eye holes. This isn’t some medieval torture device.” He growls at the humiliation before doing so.

A series of lenses swiping through and the repeating question “which one looks clearer” later, Vergil is liberated from the examination room. He is greeted to you sitting and waiting for him.

“It wasn’t too bad, right?” You ask. Vergil nods. You turn to the doctor.

“So how is his vision?” The doctor flips through a few notes.

“Well, the letter Z was on the board and I asked him what he saw and he said triangle.” The doctor flips through a few notes.

“Your husband is in dire need of glasses.” Vergil raises an eyebrow at that statement.

Your husband, he likes that. You don’t even correct him.

Luckily, this clinic also sold frames and Vergil is able to pick out a few while you do the paperwork.

You remember Vergil has no taste and quickly go to help him.

“No, no, well maybe, no, ew.” You respond as Vergil swaps various frames about.

“My love, I simply need the lenses. These materials mean nothing.” He argues as you deny the tenth pair of frames.

“Well, you’re very handsome and I’d like you to get a nice pair that matches.” You say. You go to make a smug face at him when you realize he has finally walked away to pick out his own.

You immediately drop the frames you were holding when Vergil places a certain pair of thick black-colored glasses upon his nose.

“We’ll take them.”

Several weeks later, Vergil is bestowed his new reading glasses. He finds his problem vanishes quickly and he can now read at a decent distance away. You seem to greatly appreciate them. Strange. On jobs, he usually takes them off and stores them in the little case he was given.

He thought of it as weakness. If his own body was failing to maintain 20/20 vision, he should be ashamed. In the demon world, any bit of weakness meant imminent death.

Yet, he told himself he wasn’t in Hell anymore. He was having breakfast with his beloved and he was safe. And he was privileged to be allowed for his body to take a break and age as it should have, his vision waning as a normal man would have at his age.

You kiss him goodbye for another day of work and you push his glasses up as they tip slightly down. His nose does the little scrunch you love so much. So much, you kiss him on the bridge of the nose. He purrs and promptly cuts a portal to work.

He walks into Devil May Cry to work with his brother. Dante is upstairs, the sounds of a shower happening.

Vergil takes to the paperwork his brother has ditched doing once more, typing on a clunky keyboard. You had insisted to pay extra for blue-light protection and he finds it is so much easier to see the computer screen.

Finally, the water is shut off. His idiot brother is done wasting work hours. Well, when is he not?

Vergil continues looking through yellowed documents as Dante passes by, smelling like strawberry soap marketed for children.

Dante walks forward but then puts himself in reverse to see Vergil with glasses on again.

“Yes?” Vergil grits his teeth.

“Those are glasses.” Dante starts.

“Yes, yes they are.”

Dante snorts and points at him.

“Buddy Holly looking ass bitch.” Vergil stops and glares at his brother.

“I don’t even know who that is.”

Dante wheezes at he keeps looking at Vergil.

“Of course you don’t, you bag of bones! You look like a college RA.”

“Dante, get to work-”

“What are you going to do? Tell the dean on me? Is that why you were gone a couple weeks ago?”

“I had an appointment-”

“I hAd aN aPpOiNtMeNt.” Dante mocks.

“That’s rich coming from someone without insurance coverage-”

His spectacles are snatched from his face. Dante puts them on.

“How do you see with these on? Damn, you’re legally blind.”

“That’s why they’re mine-hand them over!”

“You sound like Piggy from Lord of the Flies. My specs! My specs!” Dante mocks in a terrible English accent.

Vergil growls in anger.

When Vergil comes home with his glasses off, you wonder why. The blue devil comes behind you while you make some soup, hands on your waist and breathing in the scent of your shampoo.

He’s quiet and in a way that is not his usual silence. He seems to have something on his mind. This time, you choose not to push it and let him be.

It isn’t until you’re both in bed, the lamp on as Vergil goes to take out a new novel. He hesitates when he reaches for his black glasses.

“My love?”

“Yes, Vergil?”

“Who’s Buddy Holly?”

Weird question but okay.

You search up the name on your phone and show him a picture. He puts on his glasses.

“Why would Dante think I look like that?” He asks himself with a frown. Upon realization, you put your hand on your mouth and fight back a laugh.

“Did Dante say that?” Vergil rolls his eyes.

“Of course he did, amongst other things.”

“Well, I think you look very nice. Like a very sexy college professor.” Vergil smugly looks at your bedroom eyes. The novel is long abandoned on the table.

Before he can pounce on you, he goes to take off his spectacles. You snatch them and place them back on his face.

“Keep them on this time.” You bite your bottom lip teasingly.

Vergil purrs.

He might get used to this.

[More Photos Of Vergil’s Mod-Credited To @drusoona]

#vergil x reader #vergil sparda #vergil imagines #devil may cry imagines #devil may cry imagine #dmc vergil #vergil #fluff #devil may cry #devil may cry vergil #gender neutral reader #rodeo used butcherknives' recipe for this fic #rodeo is lactose intolerant and a bite of mac and cheese will vibe check her straight to hell #drusoona's pictures

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jaeminscoffee · 3 years

Note

Hewo <3

Idk if u can do this (idk how much u know about this situation tbf) but I get motor tics in my head (like my head will just randomly move - Tourette syndrome)

So it would mean a lot to me if u could do the dreamies reaction to seeing u tic for the first time (like non verbal tics) 👉🏻👈🏻

I tried!! I'm pretty sure this isn't probably what you wanted but i really did try, i swear. Let me know if there's any incorrect implications of the tic in the reaction! Anddd your feedback would be highly appreciated! Happy reading ❤:

Mark:

First time he'd see you during one of your episodes would be when he was teaching you his favorite tune on his guitar. He'd be shocked, to say nonetheless since he'd never seen you like this before as you had been doing a considerably good job at avoiding him when you thought you'd be getting a round of your tics.

"Hey.." he'd approach you cautiously the moment you feel yourself subsiding from the episode at the sight of your lightly glazed and wet eyes. "Hey.. Why are you crying, love?" he'd be wary to wrap his arms around you, luring you into his embrace. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that-" your voice betrays you with the evident crack as you lower your head in embarrassment. "Why're you sorry? There's literally nothing to be sorry about-"

"I'm just embarrassed, alright? I just let my super cute boyfriend see one of my defects." you choke out.

"I think me noticing you like that just made our bond stronger. One less secret to hide now, am i right?" he'd chuckle-

"And hey, you're super cute too"

Renjun:

It'd happen when you played the role of a muse when Renjun impulsively decided to draw a portrait of you since, "art should be hung up on the walls but if i hang you up there, I'd be sentenced to life prison or execution so no thank you."

At first he'd be slightly annoyed since you did just move which can potentially ruin his painting. He'd go off on you, but lets you slide this one time off with a warning. When you kept going at it however, he'd lose it and scold you, demanding you to stay still. But then he'd notice how you weren't necessarily doing it on purpose and was just something that you couldn't handle, help, or have a say in, so he'd patiently wait until you stilled and showed no potential signs of going into an episode again and approach you, grasping onto your shoulder blades while pressing down from the back of your head to your shoulders are slightly below the biceps, massaging the area soothingly.

"Does your neck hurt? Point out where it hurts the most, I'll soothe it out for you. House chores on me for this week, I'm sorry for losing my temper, darling"

Jeno:

Probably happens when you're seated at the bleachers during one of his soccer practices. He's always been a little protective over you since you did mention about your tics to him at the early stages of your relationship and even had voiced out your insecurities that came along with it.

Jeno would notice sudden movements from your end (which was relatively easy to notice since you were practically the only soul at the right hand top of the seats) and realise that you were experiencing one of your episodes.

Though, this movement definitely doesn't go unnoticed by his teammates and the cheerleaders team. For some messed up reason, the jerks would start laughing, definitely going up and beyond to even mocking you. That would tick Jeno off. Who do they think they are to make fun of his girl?

He'd run up to you with a bottle of water when he notices you shake from anxiety and stands in front of you before turning to face the heartless crowd.

"Hey assholes! Mind your own business, will you?"

Haechan:

Let's say, You'd first experience an episode in front of him during a couple's game night. Jaemin and his girlfriend in a team, Mark and his in one, Jisung and his another and then there's you and Hyuck.

Right during the game point you'd feel yourself moving involuntarily, leading to the two of you losing the game. And you know how competitive he is so you'd only feel guilty about it. But here's the catch, Haechan had an idea of your motor tics. He'd just never been there to experience it.

He'd notice you getting all teary eyed and would be quick to console you, "Listen, look we lost because i went easy on them, you know i could've smashed them all in one go,"

"No. We lost because of my stupid tics, I'm sorry" you'd sob back a reply.

"You're sorry for having something you never asked for? No. Be sorry for not giving me a consolation kiss, doll" he'd try diverting the attention onto another topic to distract you from your self wallowing.

Jaemin-

Baking nights for sure.

In this scenario, let's say you aren't really insecure about your motor tics and that you weren't necessarily hiding yourself from Jaemin because knowing him and how trustworthy he is (not that the others are not) you'd be confident enough to tell him all about you.

You'd be standing next to him as you watch him put all the ingredients into a bowl when you'd feel yourself going into an episode. Startled by your own involuntary movements you'd quickly grab onto his apron and wait patiently for yourself to still.

Once you do, you look up to see Jaemin looking down at you with utmost adoration (like, you can literally see hearts and rainbows and stars in his eyes) as he slowly turns to you,

"Did you know? You look like a puppy drying itself after a shower when you do that"

Chenle-

You'd be at a basketball date with Chenle when he'd first see you.

It's probably his loud scream from near you that triggered it after he scored a hoop but you'd immediately crouch down in order to not fall painfully onto your butt at the sudden movement.

Chenle would be quick to rush over to you and inquire if you're okay, "I'm fine, it's just the tics, I'm fine i swear,"

After ensuring that you are, infact okay he'd immediately get back to teasing you, "You see, i know your neck or head probably hurts right now but uhm.. My five dollars, loser?"

He wouldn't be the type to push onto the topic unless you bring up the topic yourself, instead he'd divert the attention onto something totally unrelated.

Jisung-

You'd be having a study date at the library when it takes place.

It's the stress from the hours of studying without any other movement that triggers the tics. In all, you'd be in a very sensitive state once your movements come to a stop.

Taking a notice on the situation Jisung would quickly clear up the place and drag you out to the open but does not bring up the topic (no matter how curious or concerned he is) since you probably don't have the energy in you to explain it out to him.

"Let's take a break, studies are secondary, we could always catch- oh! Isn't that the bakery that sells your favorite cheesecake?"

He'd pamper you with literally everything just to drive you into a much positive mind set.

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yakumtsaki · 4 years

Photo

Ok hope you guys are sitting down, because apparently our greek house is now a towering ZIGGURAT of campus culture!!! I mean with members as illustrious as these, it was the only logical outcome:

Gen 3 has moved in, and everyone is thinking of resident King B Ti-Ning, but Ti-Ning is thinking about Frances ❤️ I might have been against this couple last gen because I wanted Ti-Ning for Jojo but honestly it feels like Ti + Fran were meant to be, they really are eternally into each other..

..as are Angel and Wulf, whose effortless happiness is seriously starting to piss me off when for all my toiling I can’t get Sophie and Shaj’s relationship points above a pathetic 10.

Indeed, these 2 would rather socialize with literally anyone but each other, and I don’t want to sound paranoid but I’m starting to feel they’re doing it on purpose. This is our 3rd semester and Sophie is friends/best friends with EVERYONE BUT SHAJAR. I think they have interacted a total of 4 times-

-wow sorry make that 5, things are really heating up! At this rate they’ll have their first kiss by generation 7.

Yes, yes, excellent, play catch with Wulf and Angel, it’s imperative that you develop these relationships with the most obvious spares ever. I’m legit starting to reconsider my entire gameplay style, this laissez faire bs is clearly not working.

-Well *we* don’t have any such problems, do we Donnie? 🌸

-We sure don’t, my beautiful moonflower!

-And that’s why we’ll win! People want heirs who have their crap together! Huhu! 💗

Then we can clearly count out these two, who have been getting high non-stop since they stepped into the building.

-Do you think there’s any way we can monetize this activity, babe?

-There must be, darling, I mean if people won’t pay to see us levitate then what the hell will they pay for?

I don’t know Wulf, but clearly paying for your tuition was money well-spent.

It’s really time to shape up around here, everyone’s grades other than brainchad Sophie’s are absolutely demoralizing.

-Well if we must waste time skilling, I insist Ti-Ning and I do it on the same mirror!

Frances there’s another mirror right down the hallway, like literally 5 steps from you-

-It’s too far away!! Why are you always sabotaging our relationship?

-Pay that buzzkill no mind, dear, she’s just bitter because she took Sophie out of the townie pool for nothing.

We don’t know that yet! They might still get together!

See, here they are, spending some quality time! I can hear wedding bells already.

-Shajar, I must say, if you’re as good at politics as you are at bowling, you will make an excellent Buzzfeed unpaid content creator.

-How about I throw this ball at your head, see if my aim improves?

Ugh Sophie, why are you are so cool and life-ruining?? Just do me this favor and get with Shajar, I’ll literally give you ANYTHING you want.

-Bribery might have worked with whatever idiots you previously married into this shitshow, but it won’t work with me! This drum set is pretty fun though.

You like the drum set??? I’ll get you 50 of them!!

-Wtf would I do with 50 drum sets?

I’m just demonstrating how committed I am to your happiness should you choose to join our legacy!

-Well demonstrate it somewhere else.

Ok Sophie, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but you leave me no choice..

..it’s time for you to get fit so you check Shajar’s fitness turn on! She also has a fatness turn on but I felt making you fat would be out of character since as a townie you were always jogging. I honestly couldn’t believe you weren’t already fit when I brought you to college.

-It won’t work! You can’t force chemistry!

Yea you absolutely can actually, so time to get ripped!

Speaking of chemistry, Mitch Indie passes by and hugely gets along with Shajar thanks to both of them being super into politics. If we’re gonna go with a dude that’s actually not a bad way to go, they have a lot in common, including a sim of their own gender they clearly belong with.

Things with Mitch are going shockingly well, Shajar even LAUGHS at his joke, have we ever seen her laugh before?? But then, suddenly..

..MICKEY DOSSER shows up, and he checks both Shajar’s fatness turn on and cleanliness turn off! Well Mitch, valiant effort, but I guess if we’re going with a guy it’s gonna be Mickey, fml.

Shajar and Mickey are getting along pretty well, honestly I’m not opposed to this pairing although it is of course not ideal, but when the ideal match is being a giant pain in the ass I guess there’s not much one can do.

-So what, I get fucking heatstroke from working out in the desert and Mickey Dosser gets laid??

Well I don’t know what to tell you Sophie, Shajar’s been obsessed with you for like 5 sim years now, at some point I’ll have to marry her off!

-Marry her off then and see if I care!

I will!

-Fine!

Finer!

-Finest!

Ok enough! I’m not making you work out anymore, do whatever you want.

-Like I need your permission, Sophie Miguel always does whatever she wants! And if she suddenly wants to keep working out, she will!

YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY

#gen 2 #ts2

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cashmeremars · 4 years

Text

dating seulgi || k.sg

pairing: seulgi x fem!reader

summary: seulgi is your girlfriend, here’s how it goes....

genre: fluff, angst, domestic!au, idol x non-idol reader

word count: 3.1k (whoops)

a/n: basically my dream life

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

how you met:

you’ve always been very art-inclined but never did much with it but sketch and paint in your apartment, so your friends thought it would be a good idea to enrol you in an art class (without your knowledge)

At first you weren’t very fond of the idea because you never really shared your art with anyone, and going to an art class meant that you would have to share your art with a bunch of random strangers and a professional art teacher (which is super nerve-wracking)

your friends manage to convince you, but not without your constant protests

the day of the first art class comes and you decide that if you’re gonna be surrounded by strangers for the first time, you might as well look nice, especially if your art is gonna suck

you had approximately 5 minutes to gather your art supplies and get in your car before you were gonna be late (because you spent too much time on your appearance)

you manage to arrive to the art studio in time and find a seat next to a girl that looked all too familiar to you

as soon as you sit down you can feel her looking at you, when you look up, she whips her head back towards her canvas

The teacher walks in and starts teaching. your first assignment was to draw a fruit bowl but in the most abstract way possible

as everyone starts to unpack their supplies to draw, you realize that you left your sketching pencil at home (typical)

you panic for a little bit before you turn to the girl next to you

As you look at her, you realize just how pretty she is; her dark hair and bangs frame her pale face beautifully as her cheeks are dusted with faint strokes of pink that match her lips

She turns to glance at you and you realize that you’ve been staring at her for too long. She raises an eyebrow at you before you speak

“Hey, um, i was being really stupid this morning and forgot my pencil. Can i borrow one of yours?” you stammer as you look at her with wide eyes

she giggles softly to herself as her eyes crinkle into little crescent moons, she hands you one of her pencils and then extends her hand out to you

“I’m Seulgi, you must be new to this class?” she asks with a smile

You introduce yourself before answering her question “yeah, my friends kind of forced me to do this, i’m not sure if it’ll be fun or not”

“Well if you’re not having fun then you can just talk to me. I like keeping people company”

You smile at her softly before turning your head back to your canvas. For the rest of the class you and seulgi find each other speaking to each other, or stealing shy glances at one another

After an hour, everyone’s sketches were complete. You hear a gasp next to you and quickly turn your head towards Seulgi

“Oh my god, that’s amazing” Seulgi says as she gapes directly at your artwork

Your first instinct is to cover up your canvas, but seulgi’s gasp attracts the attention of your classmates as they all move towards you to look at your art

As you get showered with compliments you can’t help but blush since everyone's reactions were so unexpected

The commotion near your canvas calms down as everyone goes around admiring each other’s artwork

“You’re so cute when you’re shy” seulgi says quietly beside you

“What? O-oh thank you. You’re pretty too” you stutter

Everyone begins to pack their bags to leave. When you turn to hand seulgi her pencil, you realize that she’s gone

You being to pack your things more frantically so you can try to see if she’s still hanging around the building

As you rush out of the room you bump directly into seulgi with a huff, she turns around startled before she realizes that it’s just you

“Um, I just wanted to return your pencil. I didn’t know if you had left the building already” you say as you hand her the pencil

She reaches to grab it and your fingers caress each other gently before she looks up at you with a sweet smile

“Thank you, you art is amazing by the way. I wish I could draw like that” she says as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear

“What? Seulgi, your art is quite literally the best I’ve seen in awhile. If anything, I should be jealous of you” you exclaim with wide eyes. It was ridiculous to think that Seulgi’s art was anything less than astonishing.

“Oh thank you. Hey, did you enjoy the class? I really hope you can come back” Seulgi says as she lightly taps your forearm

“Honestly, it was actually pretty enjoyable. I really loved being in an environment where everyone has the same goals. Especially with classmates as supportive as you” you reply

“Good, hopefully you’ll remember your pencil or anything. Not that I mind if you don’t” she jokes

“Please, I’ll definitely remember it next time” you reply with a chuckle

After a while of speaking, you and seulgi exchange numbers as you head towards your car

“Hey, have I seen you somewhere? You seem really familiar, but I don’t know how” you ask as you reach your car

Seulgi visibly hesitates for a bit before she replies “I’m an idol. Seulgi from Red Velvet” she replies with awkward jazz hands

Then it all hits you. You’d often see red velvet on TV and Seulgi was always the one that stood out to you the most

“Oh. Well I think that Seulgi from art class rolls off the tongue better” you reply with a wink.

She laughs before a car pulls up and honks at her

“Oh, my managers here. I’ll text you, if you want me to” she replies with shy eyes

“Of course I’d want you to text me. I’ll see you later Seulgi” you say before opening your car door. She waves at you before walking away and into the car. She rolls down the window before shouting out another goodbye with a wide smile and both of her hands waving

You roll your eyes at her playfully before waving again and heading into your car. You drive home with a smile stuck on your face as you remember her smile.

When your friends asked you about how the art class went, you told them everything that happened. They teased you for a bit but were also happy that you made a new friend that shares the same hobbies as you, although they insisted that you wanted her to be more than your friend

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

dates:

You and seulgi had been hanging out for the past 3 months (usually after your art classes) and she’d quickly become one of your closest friends over the course of those 3 months

You and seulgi were having an art-picnic at the park. You’d both decided it would be fun if you drew sketches of each other to your best abilities.

Obviously you tried really hard on your sketch of seulgi (which wasn’t all that hard considering how many times you’ve mindlessly doodled her, you’d basically memorized her facial features)

The wind was blowing your hair in your face but that didn’t stop you from completing your sketch of her

You look up at Seulgi to catch any more details that you might’ve missed and you notice that she’s smiling shyly as her face starts to blush while she draws you. You raise your eyebrow at her but she doesn’t notice.

A little while later she flicks her wrist upwards while semi-yelling “Done!” with a bright smile

You finish yours soon after with a smile. The drawing looks exactly like her; from the stray hair of her bangs to the tiny little freckles on her cheeks.

You both stare at each other for a bit before she motions towards your sketchbook, waiting for you to share yours first.

You hesitate before turning your sketchbook towards her. You close your eyes and wait for her reaction. You hear a gasp as she quickly takes the sketchbook out of your hands and examines it.

You open your eyes and look at her as she gapes at your drawing.

She looks up at you with bright eyes as she starts to gush at your drawing “this looks exactly like me” she says with a smile. “Do you mind if i keep it?” she asks quietly

“Uh. yeah, of course. I mean I drew it for you anyways” you say with a nervous chuckle

There’s a bit of silence as you watch her admire your drawing. Her eyes glimmer like the sun reflecting the ocean in a way that looks like she’s about to tear up

She suddenly looks up at you before she takes a deep breath. She puts your sketch down and holds hers up towards you. She smiles nervously at you before she turns her sketchbook towards you

There’s a nearly perfect portrait of you sketched onto the paper. She even managed to perfect your hair flying in the wind.

You grab the sketch from her in awe and begin to inspect it closely. Seulgi’s attention to detail never fails to surprise you

As you look even closer at the portrait, you notice a bit of handwriting at the bottom. You slightly squint your eyes at it before your jaw slowly starts to hang open

“I know this might seem a bit awkward but I really feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Please don’t hate me, but do you maybe kinda wanna go on a date sometime?” it says in scribbled handwriting

You dropped the sketch and engulfed her in a long loNG hug (and she started crying aw)

The rest of your picnic was just you guys staring at each other and giggling

Your first date lasted around 48 hours because Seulgi insisted that she takes you on a roadtrip to her favourite places (but you wouldn’t have asked for anything more)

You and seulgi will go on dates anywhere

You’ve gone bowling, arcading, canoeing, hiking, karaoke, and tree climbing (which was kind of weird but you guys had fun)

On your 100 day anniversary, seulgi takes you out on a date to the lake where you ride those cute swan boats

You then shared a red velvet cake (wink wink) before heading over to your apartment to binge movies

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

kisses:

Even though she’s your girlfriend, seulgi is still pretty shy about kissing you (which also makes you shy)

Your first kiss was actually on your first date

You were both sitting in the swan boats, pedaling lightly as you laughed along with each other. At one point you both fell into a comfortable silence

She was brushed a piece of hair behind your ear before leaning in slowly and capturing her soft lips with yours

It was a very wholesome kiss that left her blushing aggressively when you pulled away

You leaned back in for another kiss (which she obviously granted) and that was your first kiss !!!

Seulgi’s kisses depend on the situation, for example;

Good luck kisses - these are usually the kisses that you give seulgi before she has to go to rehearsal or days of the group’s comebacks. These kisses are always very sweet and long and filled with encouraging words between each one. You grab her face with both hands and plant a big kiss before whispering good luck and patting her cheek.

Goodnight kisses - these kisses usually happen at the end of each date when seulgi has to head back to the dorms. you guys usually spend at least 10 minutes saying goodbye to each other before one of you actually ends up leaving. These kisses are usually very soft and linger for much longer than they should, as they’re accompanied with soft whispers of how much you enjoyed the day.

Greeting kisses - these happen when you meet up before a date, before art class, or literally just anytime you see her. When you see each other, she usually engulfs you in a warm bear hug. They’re usually just soft little pecks, maybe three in a row and then you guys are off catching up on each other’s lives

Adoration kisses - these ones usually come out of nowhere. These happen on your dates when one of you gets so caught up in admiring the other that you kind of slip into your own world, where they’re the only other person that exists. You can’t think of anything but them. So you lean in and kiss her, again, again, and again, until you get lost in the moment.

Morning kisses - these happen at the crack of dawn. you're both still half asleep, but not enough to not acknowledge the others’ presence. Seulgi will usually wrap her arm across your chest without even realizing it, and you instinctively lean in closer. You both squint at each other, seulgi’s hair is all over her face and the sight always makes you laugh. Seulgi groans quietly as she stretches, her leg falls over yours and she nuzzles her head into your side. She lazily lands a kiss on your cheek and neck before slowly falling back asleep

Comforting kisses - the most heartbreaking kisses that you and seulgi share. Sometimes you’ll visit the dorm to hang out with seulgi and find her laying on her bed unmoving, and with shaky breaths. You quietly whisper her name and your heart breaks as she turns to look at you with red eyes and tear stained cheeks. You’d always heard about how tough it was being an idol, but seulgi never opened up to you about it because she wanted to be herself around you, not “Red Velvet’s Seulgi”, so seeing the effects of it firsthand was nothing less than shocking for you. You rush to hold her in your arms as she cries into your shoulder. You whisper that you’ll be there for her and that you’ll listen when she’s ready. Quietly rubbing her back, you plant soft kisses on her forehead and cheeks between your whispers as she slowly calms down.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

arguments:

You and seulgi rarely argue because you’re both mature adults that value communication

But when you do argue it can get pretty bad

You never really argue about petty things, so that’s why things can get pretty tense when you argue about serious things

The tension in the room when you guys argue is scary for anyone that happens to be in the room

You can quite literally feel how angry the two of you are

Your voices are always very tight and low when you guys are arguing and it would give anyone goosebumps

It gets to the point where you both just decide that you’re tired of talking in circles so someone usually storms out and goes home

You won’t speak to each other for a couple of days (like absolutely no contact at all)

Then one of you will text the other asking to come over and then y’all manage to sort it out, apologize, and go back to how things were before

Your relationship is ultimately very healthy so arguments aren’t exactly a huge problem for you

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

her love languages:

Words of affirmation - seulgi loves when you give her words of affirmation randomly throughout the day. Little compliments and random praise really makes her day. It could be about a new decoration she put up in her room, a dish she made, or even a hairstyle she tried out. The blush that graces her face is the most adorable part of it all, which only encourages you to compliment her more. Seulgi also loves to give you words of affirmation, but they always make her shy and flustered. It’s the cutest sight to see.

Quality time - you and seulgi are basically inseparable. You both always have so much to talk about and so much to do, that you never actually get bored of each other. However, both of you are extremely busy (seulgi more than you), so when you do get free time, you are ALWAYS together. Seeing her face after such a long time apart makes you never want to leave her again. You both spend an hour catching up on each other’s lives, and then you do some fun stuff together. This can include watching movies, learning dances together, biking, drawing, baking, etc. There’s nothing you two haven’t done.

Gifts - seulgi believes that the best gift you can give someone comes directly from the heart, so she’s a huge fan of home-made gifts. This can go from drawings/paintings she’s made of you, cute little bracelets with your nick-names or initials on them, little sweaters and hats she’s knitted for you. Whenever seulgi has to travel for promotions or tours, she’ll bring back cute little trinkets that she said reminded her of you. You have a whole collection of keychains, stuffed animals, and little postcards that seulgi has sent you while she was abroad. Seulgi’s favourite gifts from you are the ones that you’ve put a lot of thought into. For example, a handwritten love letter, tickets to a movie she’s been talking about, homemade little videos edits that you’ve collected of her, posters of her favourite art pieces, etc. In your relationship, thoughtful gifts mean more than expensive gifts.

Acts of service - your friendship and relationship literally started off with an act of service when she lent you her pencil. You two are constantly doing things for the other. Oh, you were planning to throw out the garbage? I did that an hour ago. You’re hungry? Great, I just finished making you a three course meal just for fun. There’s just something about surprising one another with finishing little tasks for each other each day that’s especially heartwarming. It’s not anything special, but it shows that you care about each other, and it also makes things less stressful for one another.

Physical touch - i feel like i’ve already established that seulgi lOVES physical affection. She would cuddle you for the rest of her life if she could. Although the two of you aren’t into PDA, when you’re alone you’re basically stuck to each other. You’re always holding hands, giving each other pecks, playing with each other’s hands, brushing each other’s hair, squeezing each other’s cheeks. You simply can’t get enough of each other and it’s adorable.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

masterlist

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#seulgi fluff #kang seulgi fluff #red velvet fluff #red velvet imagine #red velvet smut #red velvet fanfic #red velvet fic #red velvet fanfiction #seulgi smut #seulgi fanfic #seulgi imagine #seulgi headcanon #red velvet headcanon #seulgi fanfiction #kang seulgi headcanon #kang seulgi fanfic #kang seulgi imagine #kang seulgi smut

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finnsucks23 · 4 years

Note

Hiya! Can I request Shinsou dating a soft! Girl who is the total opposite to him in every way because she dresses all cute with pastel colours, has a beauty routine and lots of plushies on her bed 🥺 But the one thing they do agree on is music because she listens to similar emo bands that he does hehe ☺️

A/N: Okay so fun fact, this is basically me and my boyfriend. I think the best way to describe us is Denki and Shinsou because that's literally just how we are, I'm annoyingly cute and he is super fucking emo and sad boy all the time. ANYWAYS ON TO THE FIC-

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

No one truly expected to see the sight before them, it would honestly surprise anyone.

Of course people made theories, claiming that you must've been under his control and that he was wrongly using his quirk yet again.

But of course, whenever those frowning classmates would question you, you could only giggle and shake your head as you softly spoke.

"No! He would never do that, I love him wholeheartedly!" Your nose would crinkle as you would cross your heart with your nimble fingers, making your classmates question you even more.

However, every morning you stood there, holding his hand as the black hoodie you dawned (that draped a little past your thighs) was a stark contrast to your school uniform and the bubble pink makeup you wore.

A pink and glittery bandaid was slapped across the bridge of your nose, in sloppy black writing it said: PUNK.

Something that Shinsou himself added to your daily wear, assuring you and telling you how cute you still looked.

Hitoshi actually had no clue how he got here, he had been watching you for years. Always staying far away as to not scare you off, the last thing he wanted was for you to believe he was villian.

Everyone else thought so.

So why wouldn't you?

He thought you would think he was despicable, or that you would believe he was trying to use his quirk.

You were the only one he would never use it on, even during training, if he was put against you- he would simply forfeit. No matter how much you yelled at him, or even when you cornered him in the hallways to ask why he didn't like you as tears gathered in your eyes.

So, you started to follow him. Everywhere.

You didn't give up, you simply wanted to be his friend.

And so you would talk, and talk, and talk. Even without a response from the grumbling, slouched over, stubborn teenager, you still pushed him to open up.

He never told you to stop, so you just took it as a good sign, only your suspicions had been confirmed when you were sick one day.

You had to stay in your dorm as you sneezed and sniffled away, holding your favorite stuffed animal close as you watched YouTube and played your favorite music as you inevitably grew bored by the second.

There was a sudden knock on your door, and as you checked the time only to see class was still going on, you grew fearful that it was a villian or something bizarre.

Slowly, you trembled as you opened the door only to be met with the chest of your familiar non verbal friend. Your face blossomed with color as he handed you a bowl of hot ramen.

"Wh-what?" You were taken back as you looked up at him, he was flushed from his neck up as he just handed it to you and turned around.

Before he could go, you grabbed his wrist and pulled him into your room. You smiled sheepishly as you tried to move your stuffed animals out of the way so he couldn't see them, only to stop when he grabbed your favorite one and held it to his chest.

"Cute." He mumbled.

And that was the first word he ever spoke to you, as you smiled and and nodded, you set the ramen in your desk.

"I know he is, he is my favorite." You swallowed back your stutters, only to be surprised as you heard his deep chuckle.

"Not the toy, Y/n. You are cute." His sleepy grin had set your heart on fire as you huffed out a startled response.

"I- what? No! Nononono!" You walked towards him, a pout in your face as you snatched the stuffie from him. You held it in front of his face.

"He is cute!" You shook the raccoon, "not me" you stuck out your tongue in disgust making Hitoshi laugh even more.

"Whatever, I honestly didn't expect you to listen to this type of music though-" he hummed, looking at your tv as a familiar video played.

"Ih yeah- no one really expects it. I kinda just keep to myself." You sighed, sitting on your bed as you patted the spot next to you. Shinsou plopped next to you, and leaned back on his elbow so he could be face to face with you.

"That's strange since you forced me into being your friend." You grinned, you couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed as you chuckled.

"So we are friends." You said triumphantly, smoothing out your sweatpants.

He only hummed, moving a much large hand to cover your own as you froze.

"Yeah. But I was hoping I could be your boyfriend at some point." He said so nonchalantly it made you shiver.

"Hitoshi Shinsou, is this your way of asking me on a date?" You worked an eyebrow, trying and failing to hold back a smile.

"And if it was?" He pushed further, making you giggle.

"If it was, I'd have no choice but to say yes" you shrugged, letting our a fake sigh as he chuckled.

"Okay then. Let's go on a date." His lilac eyes dug into your skin as you felt like you were on fire.

All you wanted to do was dance and scream into your pillows, but you remained cool as he stood up and opened your door.

"Feel better soon, I made the Ramen myself, even. Be thankful." He mumbled, making you laugh.

"Yes sir, I will see you later." You scrunched your nose as you grabbed a pillow and hid your face as you heard the door click shut.

You immediately began to scream, not knowing he was listening to you with a smile on his face.

#my hero fanfic #my hero imagines #mha #shinsou x reader #hitoshi shinso x reader #hitoshi x reader #x reader

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burnedbyshoto · 5 years

Text

Awaken

Kinktober Day 4 ~ kink: bondage, praise

pairing: todoroki shouto x fem!reader

warnings: smut, cursing

word count: 4,707

a/n: happy two month anniversary lovelies!!!!! we been here a full ass 60 days OMGGG well, have some shouto smut because we all know I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!! anyways sorry for yet another late upload, I got into a deep conversation with my roomie when I wasnt yet done with this

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Todoroki Shouto was an intriguing man.

When you first met him five years ago, in high school, you would have never thought you were going to be friends. He was rather cold, aloof, and sometimes rude. No amount of attractiveness could make that up to you, so you were hardly what you would consider friends.

Even after Shouto seemed to begin to overcome some of his demons. You were turned off by the idea of being his friend that you spent the rest of the first semester uncaring. You had no opinions for the powerful boy.

It wasn’t until he apologized to you during the summer training camp. An apology that caught you off guard, did you finally think you could become friends.

You two were fast friends at that too! Shouto and you had your own respective friend groups in your first year. But two times a week the two of you would eat lunch together.

So it went. The next two years of U.A. were incredible, the two of you helping each other out with areas of weakness. The areas you lacked in, Shouto excelled in, and vice versa. So it was no wonder the two of you were always paired up to spar.

It wasn’t until the third year when you sat with your entire class around you, did something happen. You and Shouto were having your own conversation outside of the one the class was having. Your hands shoving a grinning Shouto whenever he said something annoying.

“You guys are fucking disgusting,” Bakugou’s irritated voice snapped at the two of you during a moment of silence. Everyone was staring at the two of you, and Shouto and you were nonetheless wiser to it. “We’re trying to fucking eat here, could you for one damn minute stop fucking flirting?!”

Your cheeks flushed red.

Shouto stilled next to you.

Your eyes flashed over to Mina and Hagakure who were gaping. The girls were your closest friends here. You knew that those two, in particular, liked Shouto still. Which was why you never made a move, why you denied your feelings for Shouto for two years now.

“Oh my god, Kacchan!” Midoriya’s snickering voice sent everyone’s attention to the green-haired boy. He was sitting next to Bakugou. “No one says anything when you flirt with—“

“SHUT THE FUCK UP SHIT-KU!” Bakugou raged sending the conversation into a whole new tangent.

You and Shouto, however, stayed silent next to each other. Refusing to look at one another.

At the end of the day, you packed your bags, talking with Mina who was waiting for you to walk back to the dorms. You pulled on your jacket and said your goodbyes to the last lingering classmates in the room. It was, for the most part, the old Dekusquad as they had been playing a card game. Because they didn’t want it to be with the entire class, they stayed in the classroom.

You enjoyed finishing your homework in the classroom. So Mina would stay here with you as she would hang out with Uraraka and Tsu in the meantime.

You and Mina chatted about today’s lessons, as most conversations went. Mina was not that confident in her understanding of things. It wasn’t to say she was stupid. In fact, if you excluded Momo who was, in fact, a genius. The difference between the two spots in class and Mina’s spot was a total of six wrong questions. Yes, everyone had dramatically improved over the years.

“You know, y/n-chan,” Mina said clasping her hands together. “If you like Todoroki-kun, you should go for it!”

You snap your head to the pink girl who was grinning at you, a knowing look on her face. “Mina, but you—“

“Nuh-uh, girl, we all see how the two of you act with each other. It’s disgusting and super cute!” Mina sighs, the romantic in her shining right now. “Toru-chan and I are in love with his face and body! That’s all! Have you ever seen us have an actual conversation with him?”

“Well, that’s because you two, even three years later, drool when he talks to you instead of responding back!” You laugh, trying to mask your discomfort. Shouto couldn’t like you, you knew that he liked someone in the class, and you figure it was Momo. Of course, it was the worst girl to have a crush on, but you understood why he would! Momo was amazing but super gay.

“Even if you never existed, if you never came to U.A., it wouldn’t have changed anything!” Mina insisted, her hands squishing your cheeks between her hands as she stared at you. The two of you stopped moving as your face flushed embarrassed looking down at the ground. “If you like Todoroki-kun, go for it!”

“Mina, he doesn’t even like me though!” You say with a sad smile, but Mina laughs so hard your eyes widen as she sinks to the ground in tears. “Mina!”

“Girl, you’re literally the only person in the entire world who calls him ‘Shouto-kun,’ and he likes it!” Mina gasps as she lies on the floor, a loopy grin on her face. “Hop on that dick, please!”

“Y/n-chan,” Shouto’s voice is distant. You shriek feeling as if you had gotten caught doing something dangerous. Mina gets off the floor and throws her arm around you as the two of you await Shouto.

Your eyes stare at Shouto who looks like he ran the entire time to catch up with you. His shirt partially untucked, his tie loose, and without his jacket, he stares at the two of you. Your hands trying to hide your burning cheeks.

“Could I take y/n from you, for a bit Ashido?” Shouto asks turning his attention to Mina who nodded.

“Remember, Todoroki-kun, y/n loves caramel chocolates!” Mina says with a nod before she grins, laughing and running away as you begin to squeak in embarrassment.

You reluctantly return your attention to Shouto who stares at you. His eyes swimming in confusion.

“You look disgusting, where’s the proper Shouto I know?” You say, not wanting to look at Shouto instead tugging at his untucked shirt. Your fingers tightening his tie as he goes to tuck in his shirt.

Shouto never stops looking at you, his lips pursed as you finally reach his gaze. “I need to tell you something.” He begins, and your stomach flips and flops. “Well, I should’ve done it earlier, but I just didn’t.”

You can’t deny that your heart begins to pound as he reaches his hand into his pocket, and your breathing stops. What in the actual fuck was he—?

“Your eraser, you forgot it,” Shouto says placing your white eraser into the palm of your hand and you freeze. Your soul freezing up and cracking into a million pieces as you take it with a quick nod.

“Oh… I could’ve just gotten it back tomorrow, Shouto-kun!” You squeak snatching the eraser from his hands and shift your backpack so you can throw it in. Your cheeks burn as you bow in thanks, turning on your heel so that you could run to Mina and start crying.

Before you could get that far away, his hands clenched on your wrist and pull you back in. You stumble into his chest, your hands pressed flat against his chest.

You feel a hammering heartbeat, but you’re too afraid to ask if it’s his or yours. “I like you,” Shouto admits, and you snap your head up towards his, your cheeks burning red.

“I… you… oh my god…” You feel faint as you attempt to understand, your head spinning as he’s intoxicatingly too close. His body burning and freezing you. His fresh detergent smell overwhelming your person.

Ever so the reactionary person, you can’t conjure the words to reciprocate his feelings. So instead, you lean up to press your lips clumsily against his own. It’s short, soft, and sweet.

Blushes exploding over both your faces as you nod, “I’ll see you later?” You ask, your voice pitching.

“Yes, tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

His lips are back on yours and you can only think of throwing your arms around his neck. You kiss him with enough passion to make Shouto pull away prematurely.

Both your cheeks are blazing hot and without saying much, the two of you walk away from each other. Both of you unaware of the screaming onlookers of your classmates. All who had been trying to get the two of you to confess for a solid year now.

That was two years ago.

Now at twenty years old, you stared at your boyfriend who was eating his bowl of rice and salmon. His eyes concentrated on the food as you pushed yours around distracted.

You loved Shouto, truly you did. But your sex life was a means… of a mockery.

To put it in simpler terms, making out was much more exciting than fucking, and it made no sense to you. You could be grinding away on his lap. His hands roaming your figure as another simple kiss turned into a make-out session. You were on your shared bed, clothes stripped off, and you sunk into his dick. Like clockwork, he froze up.

All passion and intensity went and Shouto stared up at you with lit eyes as you would attempt to get the two of you off.

Even when he came, he was quiet, his eyes fluttering shut as he would fight the loudness of his orgasm. Panting as you felt nowhere near done, at first it was okay. But given it was nearing a year since the first time the two of you had sex for the first time, you were sick of it.

You loved being on top, you enjoyed it so much! But Shouto took it in a way that he was unresponsive and just sort of laid there. You were twenty and wanted to get dicked down so good by your insanely hot and amazing boyfriend.

So with regrets and no regrets, you asked the girls for help. They all seemed to be having a better sex life than you were anyways.

The six of you boiled it down to doing two things to get Shouto to snap out of this shell he sunk himself into.

Bondage and praise.

You had to admit, the first few times having sex was extremely awkward, so you never praised him. But in a non-sexual environment, Shouto loved praise. Hell, he had hugged you for twenty minutes after you praised him for his meal cooking.

You had no idea how things were going to go tonight, but you had made a plan and you prayed something was going to work.

You stood up from the kitchen table and went over to Shouto and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back.” You promise as you walk over to your bedroom.

You got onto your hands and knees as you reached underneath your bed and you dragged out a box. Opening it, you smile seeing what you were going to need for the night. You let out a shaky breath as you put it back under the bed.

Shouto and you had vanilla sex, you knew that. It seemed that in order to break him, you would have to crank it up from vanilla to kinky in one go.

You returned to the kitchen as Shouto was staring at his phone. “Midoriya and Iida want to go to a store later tonight,” Shouto informs you as you draped over his shoulder. Your chin perched onto the crook of his neck. “Do you want to come with me?”

“That sounds like a bro date.” You admit as the corners of your mouth brush against his sensitive skin. You delight at the goosebumps that flash against his skin, and the shiver that goes down his spine. “Isn’t it for his wedding suit?”

“It’s the final fitting,” Shouto nods as his hand grasps yours and he places a gentle kiss to it. “Do you want to come with us? I’ll be leaving in an hour, and it shouldn’t take long.”

You smirk, well it seems you only had an hour to get what you wanted. You two were Pro-Heroes, you always performed better on a time limit. “No, you should enjoy the time with your friends!” You finally say and Shouto sighs.

“They’re your friends, too!”

“Well, I’m not sitting on his side during the ceremony.” You tease as you nuzzle your nose into his neck. “But since you have an hour, wanna make out?”

You say this as easily as you can, hoping to catch him off guard. But it seems that Shouto was expecting that question as he shrugs, “I guess that would be okay.” He teases and you snort as you are quick to straddle his hips despite him still eating.

Your eyebrow quirks to match his own as Shouto drops his chopsticks to hold your waist. “I love you, Shouto.” You say as you run your fingers through his hair, your eyes kind as you stare at his handsome face. His eyes were light as they stare at you, love and joy reflecting as your thumb traces his scar burn. Something that never truly embarrassed him. Something that never failed to remind him of why he was a hero, and something that he loved wholly because of you.

His eyes flutter closed as you press warm kisses against the heated flesh. A content hum escaping his mouth as you do so.

You pepper kisses around his face, placing one on his forehead, temples, cheeks, noses, eyelids, chin, jaw, and finally, you press one onto his mouth. His mouth doesn’t hesitate to press against yours, his lips never losing contact with yours.

Your hands hold his face to yours as your head tilts to the right. His nose pressing softly against your cheek as his hands grip your hips. You smirk as you roll your hips, your weight shifting so that you’re now on top of his dick. Shouto reacts the way you hoped he would, his hands slipping underneath your shirt to lay on your skin. His calloused fingers tracing shapes onto your skin.

You break away from him, Shouto trying to follow your mouth. Your heart is hammering as you’re almost embarrassed to say what you need to say. Your lips pressing against his ear. “I love when you touch my skin like that, it makes me feel so good.”

You make those words feel as alluring as you can. Despite the embarrassment that fills you from those words. Shouto stills completely underneath you, and you’re unsure if you broke him in a good way or a bad way. You return your lips onto him, hoping that you could move on.

His hips twitch from under you, and you can feel his arousal.

Oh… he did like that.

It’s more minutes of making out, your hips continuing to roll on top of his. Shouto’s pants filling the air as you were merciless in your teasing. Shouto grumbles as he pulls away, his mouth on your neck. Sucking and biting his way down your neck. You moan at the feeling, your heart hammering as you cry his name. “Yes Shouto, keep biting me like that, oh god yes, I love it so much!” You praise and Shouto curses into your neck. “Keep going, Shouto, you’re doing so well.”

As if willed by Kami herself, Shouto yanks you closer to him. His hips bucking against your ass as his mouth refuses to give you mercy as he sucks and bites down your neck even more. Your mind is dizzy as his hands grip your breasts and you toss your head back as your arch into his groping hands. “Fuck… you’re perfect, shit Shouto! Don’t stop!”

A strangled moan escapes his mouth as your head returns to kiss him, his lips eager to meet yours again. You squeak as he sits up with no warning, his hands clutching your ass as he begins walking to your shared room. A heated pressure begins to form as you anticipate what’s to come. You know that if you don’t act quickly, he’s going to flip you on top of him and go stiff for the rest of the night.

Your fingers begin yanking his shirt over his head, your lips breaking for less than a second to do that. Shouto is able to remove your shirt with ease with only one hand. He sits down on the bed, your knees sinking into the soft mattress.

You pull away reluctantly, your chest heaving as you shake your head, “Wait!” You say as you watch as Shouto’s eyes open with curiosity. His eyebrows scrunched as if he was trying to figure out what he did wrong. “I want to try something new…” You gasp trying to collect your breath.

“What?” Shouto asks most likely unaware of what you said.

You get off Shouto and walk to your side of the bed, pulling out the box. You take out a black rope, “I want you… I want you to tie me up.” You demand, and you look into his eyes that widen slightly.

His nod is minuscule, you almost miss it, but with awkward movements, your at the head of the bed. You are slipping the rope between the spaces and you lay down on the bed as Shouto is above you. His face unsure, unknowing.

His hands knot the rope around your wrists, and your breath hitches each time as you stare at him. Your chest rapidly rising and falling as he looks at your form. “Keep being good for me,” The words roll off your tongue, hoping it’s praiseful enough to incite action for him.

“I… I don’t—“

“Yes you can, my love,” You say your eyelashes fluttering. “You got this. You always make me feel content and happy.”

Shouto stills from above you, his eyes locking on yours and he leans down and presses a kiss to your lips.

He breaks away, panting in the thought of what’s to come.

“What if I fuck up?” Shouto asks his hands sliding down your torso, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

“Shhh,” You disagree, now regretting the ropes as you can’t pull him in. Was he really just insecure this entire time? “You’re doing perfectly? Okay? You got this.”

Shouto stares at you, a fire in his eyes. It’s dim, wavering, and unsure, but it’s there. He presses his hands by your head, and you can’t help but shift in anticipation as he leans down. His lips gliding over yours soft and smooth.

Not one to shy away, you pressed your tongue against his lower lip and smiled as he opened his mouth. His tongue letting yours dance with him.

Shouto pulls away, his chest heaving as he shakes his head. “No.” He snaps and your furrow your eyes confused.

“No—?”

“You want me to be dominant… don’t you?” He asks sharply, his eyes scouring yours. “I know I’m not the best in bed, and this is your way of helping me.”

“Shouto…”

“Stop, y/n, it’s okay…” Shouto says his hands raking through his hair. “Please… let me be the one to take charge.”

All you can do is stare at him, ambition and fire in his face burning you as you feel your arousal spike. You nod your head, agreeing to his terms, and his mouth is on yours again.

Hesitant yet demanding.

You gasp as he splits open your legs and settles between them. His tongue immediately lashing into your mouth. You shudder against him as his tongue traces the roof of your mouth, his fingers gripping at your waist.

Your hands tug at the ropes, and you sadly moan at the denial of raking your fingers through his hair. You gasp as his lips trail down your neck. His tongue softly pressing against the hickies he had early engraved into your skin. “Keep going lower,” You pant, your eyes screwed as you pant.

Shouto still against the valley between your breasts, and he shakes his head. “You’re going to have to stop praising me…” He shudders as his left-hand grasps your bra in his fingers. “It’s making me want to lose my control.”

“I want to see you lose control,” You tease, your eyes staring at him through your eyelashes. “You want to do it, no? Do it.”

Shouto snarls against your skin, and your bra reduced to ashes as you gasp in shock. He doesn’t give you time to reprimand you as his mouth is surrounding your nipple. His tongue flicking your pert nipples in his mouth. “Fuck, baby, yes oh my god that feels so great!” You cry out, your chest arching off the bed. You jut your hips up off the bed in an attempt to get some form of friction with him.

His right-hand rolls your right nipple, his teeth biting down on your sensitive nipples. You shriek softly, this new feeling overwhelming. His free hands gently touch the underside of your breast and you gasp again, and Shouto pulls away. Your breast gleams with his saliva, and you moan as his fingers gently grind against your crotch.

“You’re doing so well,” You groan as Shouto’s fingers undo your shorts. Shouto heaves again as he pulls off your shorts, staring at your soaked panties, and he chuckles.

“You’re so wet…” Shouto says, a curious tone to his voice as he shifts backward, his finger ghosting where your slit is. You squirm slightly. Your hands fighting against the restraints once again as you shudder.

Shouto rolls his finger against his thumb, “All this just for me?”

“You make me feel so fucking good…” You whine, and your hips try to reach out to his hand, desperate for friction.

“Am… Am I doing alright?” Shouto asks, and you blink again, your mouth falling slightly. Your heart swelling even more so for the man between your legs.

“You’re doing perfectly, keep going.” You say biting down on your lip as he nods, full of insecurity again. “Shoucchan, I am so fucking wet right now, and you did that all on your own… I want you... so badly.”

His lips pressed into a fine line, as he nods again, this time confidence once again filling his form. Before you could react, your panties were thrown off, and his tongue is between your folds.

You scream his name, your knees clenching around his head as his tongue teases your entrance. His eyes search yours, and your legs shakily release your vice grip around his head. His eyes are looking at you for help, and you nod your head, unable to come up with words. “That’s good, baby… fuck, it’s good!! Why not try--aahh my god--try using your fingeRS!” You squeak, your hips rolling into his flickering tongue. Your body is unable to handle the feeling of him.

Your belly fills with liquid heat as tingles shoot down your legs. The coil in your stomach tightening with every passing lick.

Two fingers curl as they enter you, and you shake against him. The overstimulation was quickly getting to you and your legs thrash around.

His nose brushes against your clit, and you sob out his name. You want nothing more than to tug on his hair and to bring his soaked lips to yours as you ride him, but you’re unable to do that. Another finger enters you, and his free hand presses into your clit.

The pressure builds up higher and higher. Your hips are relentlessly rolling into his mouth and fingers.

“I’m going to… shit… Imma--!” His mouth leaves your pussy. You pant as you looked at him with pained eyes as he wipes his mouth which is coated with your juices.

“I can’t believe I didn’t let you do this earlier.” Shouto murmurs as he licks your juices off his fingers, grinning slightly as he does so. “Did that feel good?”

You don’t know whether to praise him or to berate him for having you on edge like that.

“I just…” Shouto sighs as he takes off his pants. “I want to see you around my cock…”

You whine softly at those words. Your arms once more tugging at the restraints as Shouto undresses completely. Your wet your lips again as the tip of his cock teases your entrance. “Are you ready?” You ask, your eyes locking onto his, Shouto looks worried but he nods his head.

“Yes.”

With a hand to guide his cock into your soaked folds, you yelp as he thrusts into you. Burying his length to its entirety into your heated cave.

“Oh my god, your dick feels so good!” You moan as your hips wiggle in an attempt to get him to move. “Baby, you’re so perfect to me.”

A growl leaves his lips, and the next thing you know Shouto’s hips are drilling into yours. His movements are sharp, rough, and fast. Your arms pulling yet again on the restraints. As you ever so desperately want to feel his toned body under your fingers.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking tight…” Shouto groans as you nod your head pathetically in agreement.

His grip is leaving bruises on your waist. You let out another lewd noise at the sound of his body intercepting yours. “Don’t stop, you’re doing so well. Shouto, oh my god, please go faster, you’re so amazing!” You shriek as his arm moves your leg to his shoulder.

His penetration deepens and you pull against the restraints. Your body moving towards the bed, and Shouto is quick to follow after you. His thrusting never waiver once, his grip leaving your locked leg to press flat onto your clit. You shudder against him.

Sharp pants escape his mouth as he places his hands onto the pillow by your head. Your leg hooked around his shoulder stretching as your hips meet his with every thrust. Your arousal intensifies as a burning pressure erupts within you. Your head falling backward as you lacked the energy to keep it up. “Look at me,” Shouto growls. The pleasure burns through your veins. It almost prohibits you from staring into his mismatched eyes.

Shouto drops to his forearm, and you scream, the tip of his dick brushing against your g-spot.

“Did you like that?” Shouto snarls against your throat. You nod your head as he angles himself into the same position and rocks even harder. Even further than before. Your body is trembling underneath his own. Languid moans seeping from your mouth in harmony with Shouto’s grunts.

“You’re so fucking amazing!” You sob as the heat within your core is overwhelming. Your breathing hitching with every slam of his hips.

“Come for me?” Shouto almost pleads against your neck, and you nod frantically.

The pressure breaks, and you come hard onto his dick, your mouth open as his lips messily press against yours. You cry his name as you pathetically squirm underneath him. Your pussy clenching around his dick with every thrust. The tingles spreading throughout your body as he chases your orgasm.

You feel Shouto curse against your throat. And with a stuttering thrust, expels his sticky and hot seed within you.

Shouto pulls away from you, sweat dripping down his face as he smiles. His hands wipe his forehead as he puts your leg back onto the mattress. He presses another soft kiss to your lips as he stands up and grabs his phone.

Looking at the screen he smirks before dressing himself.

Despite your high, your whine at the fact that he was dressing without untying your wrists first.

“Shoucchan--?”

“I have to go now, love,” Shouto admits as he presses another kiss to your bruised lips. “I’m not quite done with you yet, you’re just going to have to wait for me to come back? Okay?”

He doesn’t give you time to reject those thoughts as he slips out of the room. Ignoring the pleading calls for him to get back. The sounds of you thrashing against the mattress making him smile as he leaves.

Oh yeah, you had definitely awakened something within him.

#todoroki shouto #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki smut #bnha #bnha x reader #mha #mha x reader #burnedbyshoto does kinktober

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shyrose57 · 3 years

Note

Brothers anon, sorry I've been gone for a while. To be honest I found out about Pokémon Uranium and I've been playing it non-stop for the last few days. And now I have a massive brain fart and can not remember a certain event in the story for the life of me for some reason. I know it happened I just don't know what happened.

14: They'd both roll into a ball and if you throw them fast and hard enough it'll be like playing bowling! It happens when their all asleep, and about a month after Foolish. It happens because while everyone else is sleeping, Ranbob isnt, as he just cant sleep. So he's sat just outside the cave they stopped in, staring at the stars. When Raq sneaks up behind him, originally he planned to get Ran by using a mix of posion and slowness, but upon seeing Ranbob he takes advantage and gets him instead. So he shots him with a slowness/fatigue arrow and when Ranbob eventually falls asleep, he comes and gets him. Because he wants Ran though he leaves a message in enderian, then takes Ranbob to a camp with a few other hunters.

Ran is pissed and acts impulsively, though his anger is used to mask the desperation, horror, and sadness he feels. Everyone else are also mad yet scared, and are stuck between immediately going to help or taking time to come up with a plan. Specifically between Watson, Isaac, and Benjamin wanting to wait to come up with a plan. And Grievous, Cletus, and Jackie wanting to immediately go rescue him. While Charles focuses more on making sure Ran doesnt run off without anyone else...which he does anyway. They eventually settle on planning but that's ruined when Ran runs off and everyone has to scramble to wake up and follow after him.

They get him back within a week actually so very fast. They get him back by Ran running off to the camp he had seen remains of eailer (it looked like a often camped at spot so it makes sense to check there) and since he got there at night no one saw him. Which gave him a chance to look around and find where Ranbob was. By the time the others caught up to him, the sun was rising and he was running to hide in the forest. They spend the next day observing the camp and what everyone does, then that night they launch a suprise attack where Ran manages to grab his brother and run away. Though he does get shot.

In the aftermath Ran is poisoned with the same stuff his currently barely lucid brother is, and barely manage to get them to a safe spot. Where the others eventually find them and take to watching over and eventually grabbing them and running futher away. And when their finally in a safe spot and the brothers are awake and left alone, theres a bit of a heart to heart between the two that allows each to tell their side of things, and opens tons of doors for them. The heart to heart ends with them both apologizing and hugging, and at a later time (not sure when yet) during the night they comfort eachother and end up sleeping next to eachother.

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

Not super often, but it comes into play for little stuff. Like the entire group is just mining when Ranboo just runs into a gaint vein of emeralds. Oh yes, he actually walks into a lake to get something he dropped when suddenly he's in extreme pain. And while the others treat his burns his brother is just silently disappointed that he didn't know he couldn't go into water. Ran knows well enough to avoid it from his time alone, Ranbob after the above accident tries to avoid water but forgets at time, while Ranboo will avoid water he also is the kind of person to just step into water because he can (its like that moment in one of his streams where they where talking about lactose intolerance people and how they just chug milk because they refuse to let natural selection take them.).

Stealing items (which will get them almost killed), hiding things from people, the typical putting their bedroll over a hole, pushing Phil into water and running from him when he emerges pissed, etc.

They have 3 main ones 1. Something malfunctioned with Karl's time traveling watch and sent all of them back to a time already visited, and because of the malfunction the watch as almost completely broke, leaving them stuck until its fixed. 2. Dream is behind it since he's in both worlds and found a way to break the time barrier and sent them back so they wouldn't get in his way. 3. God hates them.

They do! Because they are stuck in the future. And because everything else that used to cause the anger and sparks the fights are gone now, and any current existing spite or problems between people are put on hold so they can find out how to escape. And with those factors out of the way they manage to actually talk and get to know eachother.

I like to think that Techno and Phil have never gotten along with Dream (the only reason Techno ever worked with Dream is because it was for a common goal/interest, and it took more priority than killing eachother), and want to kill him for multiple reasons (Tommy, Wilbur, Ranboo, Fundy, etc) and will gladly take any excuse to kill him. The fact Dream went this far to harm this many people makes them disgusted and determined to finally follow through and kill him. There no real start to the ire between them all, they just never liked Dream from the start and all he's done has done nothing but depend it. Brfore knowing their reasons for being hesitant, their mad that Tubbo and Karl are even hesitanting in killing Dream. But after their explanation for their hesitation, everyone actually freezes and realizes, "Oh shit their right." And instead start to plan to find a soild way home first that won't collapse on them, then kill Dream. Which is easier said than done.

He said what I said last time with the Technoblade stuff. But he also just kinda yelled at them about how Ran needs to stop ignoring evidence and how Ranbob needs to stand up for himself. He also empathizes that they need to think of how the others view this all, how it affects them, how they focused solely on themselves and now need to start focusing on others.

Also you got a cat? May I see cat or no?

Pokemon are always awesome. Is the game any good? But good to have you back, Brothers Anon.

14: They could make a game out of it, when they're bored. Ill-advised, but certainly an interesting time!

Why does Raq know Enderian? How's Ranbob's time at the camp, if he's even aware of it, since you said he's out of it? Ran gets shot? If Ranbob's barely lucid, how does it effect Ran? How does that go, with both of them out of it?

They hug? Does Ran admit he was worried? Do they do this when they're more lucid, or no? How's the morning after this whole show go?

-----------

Can you imagine how everybody feels? They're mining for hours, Ranboo, five minutes in, comes out with half a stack of emeralds. The confusion, the bewilderment. Beautiful.

Ranbob: Oops, dropped something.

Water: *burns him*

Ranbob: *shocked pikachu face*

*Months later*

Ranbob: Oops, dropped something-

They just? Walk into water sometimes? Good lord, their poor groups. Imagine having to try and keep your endermen friends from taking a tip purely out of spite.

It sounds like these guys have more of a death wish than anything. Pushing Phil into water is just asking to die.

Pfft. God hates them? Who proposed that one? Hilarious image that invokes. They're all just sitting in a circle, throwing out ideas, very tired. Someone throws out theory number three. Everyone agrees immediately.

Very nice! Are we getting more found family here?

This implies Techno to be fairly closer with the mentioned people, if he's angry with Dream for what was done to them. What's his relationship with them all in this AU?

How does that whole thing go, with them originally being upset with Karl and Tubbo? Is it something that just comes out immediately, and is quickly resolved, or is it something that rolls out over the course of a few days?

Ranboo has very good advice, but also, like? Mr. Typically And Possibly Literally Spineless telling his descendant to stand up for himself? How did his group react to that?

Here is the kitty in question, Muff.

She's very energetic, but she plays a bit rough, and keeps gnawing on my fingers.

#Brothers AU #dream smp #dream smp au #tales from the smp #ranbob #ranboo #tubbo #technoblade #karl jacobs

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b4kuch1n · 4 years

Text

The Future Is In Space! (and so is the rest of you)

Okay, so. Gordon should’ve seen this coming.

And he did, to be fair: Joshua’s always loved space. Joshua loved the idea of flying cars when he was a tiny little thing, if the fact that all of the toy cars he had were thrown with intense force at one point or another meant something, and he clapped at the night sky once when Gordon got them both stuck at a gas station in the middle of nowhere due to… circumstances… which was super, ultra, uber cute as fuck . Especially because Gordon had just applauded him for singing along to a song on the radio when they parked, and that was very possibly the first time Joshua registered clapping as a possible positive reaction to something he likes, or whatever like that. Gordon Freeman has a PhD in theoretical physics and theoretical physics only.

The point is that Gordon loves Joshua so fucking much. No, the point is that Joshua has always liked space. He chose for himself a set of space-themed PJs when Gordon took him to the mall, and he likes food with weird colors because that’s “alien food”, and he has given away all of the toy cars he had to make space for toy space ships of many sizes, and Gordon has had to have a conversation with him once about upending a dusty fish bowl onto his own head so he could look like an astronaut. He doesn’t do that anymore, because Joshua is genuinely a really smart kid who just needs the required pieces of information to put things together by himself.

Gordon loves him so much.

Gordon also has only experienced a single year of relatively radiation-free, sludge-free, organic, non-Black Mesa- poisoned air and also freedom (to an extent) since. You know. Almost dying and also losing his right arm in Black Mesa. Where he jumped into a few portals, one of which leading to an alien world called Xen, where he had to kill what seemed to him at the time a spiteful god against his own existence.

That, and not the Joshua-loves-space part, is the part he didn’t see coming. Hadn’t. Still doesn’t, if he can be honest for a minute. There are days it still doesn’t feel real, just to contrast nicely with the days when what’s left of his right arm and his right shoulder hurt, and days when power outage hit unexpectedly and the lights went out without warning, and days when he fights to not let some stupid fucked up slights against him go because that’s just how the world is that’s how things are now keep your head down and don’t think Gordon just shoot just let your trigger finger pull itself in you are in a comedy of error a laugh track a monkey on a leash just dance just move your feet j

Hey, no digging your heels in there. Throw yourself off your rhythm, Gordon. Joshua. Joshua loves space. Joshua is going to an elementary school now. Joshua just came home from a “career” day, and the parent invited to speak is a retired astronaut.

Joshua said: “I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up!”

Joshua likes numbers. Somewhat. He’s not averse to them, at the very least, and homework’s kind of bullshit from the concept to the execution but when Gordon and Tommy and Coomer sit down to keep him engaged while he does it he has fun with math homework. He likes video games, he likes the puzzles in the youth magazines they signed up for at his school, he likes messing with shape blocks and pulls out some cool combinations Gordon doesn’t see coming sometimes. Joshua is a smart kid that enjoys a fair challenge. Joshua is totally astronaut materials.

Joshua is going to space.

Joshua is absolutely going to space.

Xen is, coincidentally, also in space.

Gordon is calm. He totally has a good poker face. He performs well under pressure, especially very specific types of pressure, e.g. when there are rules in place he can cling to and ground out an appropriate plan of action. He could improvise a presentation in class in a pinch, because he knew what presentations are and what he’s been working on and what the teacher expected. He could jimmy his car out of an ice patch, because he knew how cars work and how ice acts. He can smile and say “That’s great, Joshie! You just gotta work hard for it, and then you’ll be in space in no time.”

Gordon has an image he can provide to show how he feels.

[Picture ID: a drawing of Gordon Freeman standing in front of his son Joshua, cut off at their chest. Gordon is a tall man, a bit heavyset, with tan skin and mid-back length, messy curly brown hair that’s greyed at his temples due to stress from surviving the hellhole that is Black Mesa and Xen. He’s wearing his comfortable worn-and-faded t-shirt, which is orange with a very faded graphic printed on the front. Joshua is a young boy with brown skin and short dark curly hair, brown eyes that’s brimming with light and happiness, and a wide happy smile. He’s wearing a light green t-shirt. Gordon is smiling at him, with another shot of his face enlarged and superimposed on the drawing right next to his head. This Gordon is screaming. This Gordon is screaming his heart out, and his face is scrunched up while his mouth opens wide, and he’s screaming a silent scream and he will never stop.]

---

Contrary to how it appears to everyone, Benrey doesn’t live full time at the Freemans’.

Well. He does “sleep” there. If he actually sleeps. That’s one of the questions that Gordon has had ever since Black Mesa that he never got to or bothered to ask, and then when they had to defeat Benrey in the final boss fight he thought that was it with his chance to ever ask. And then Benrey came back and the situation took a hard left into throw-the-whole-suitcase-out awkwardness and Gordon thought it better to never bring those questions up ever again. It’s. Ongoing. Like his climb back into being a normal, mostly law abiding, neutral good citizen, who has no ties to that research facility that blew up and opened a portal to hell in space.

It helps that Benrey really is just… a dude. Now that he’s not eighty feet tall and clipping through walls anymore, he can definitely pass as someone who just really loves to mess with people for a laugh. Which… well, Gordon’s judgement of character is probably better discarded in the kitchen trash compactor now, but he’s not gonna lie and say that’s all Benrey seems to him. He doesn’t even mess with people for laugh, not really. He is just. Like that. He’s an alien, but in the sense that’s…

Well, to Benrey, humans are alien. So that’s that.

And also Black Mesa did stretch the definition of ‘human’ in the physical sense pretty thin. So, again, that’s that. It all fits together like sliced pita bread.

The other thing that helps is that Gordon has the tendency to forget about risks or consequences when they are not directly in front of him, which he sometimes overcorrects, but this time around it helps move the sentiment into the philosophical window pretty quick, and then he can throw a brick through that one, because philosophy sucks ass. Gordon’s moving along well! He only had to change prosthetics twice because the first two were in order too heavy for his shoulder and too energy consuming, and all three are fully covered by the overlords that didn’t want Black Mesa to become a Thing in history, and now he works remotely for a uni that just lets whatever happen. It’s chill. It’s mostly chill.

He could’ve just chugged along never thinking even an inch deeper about Benrey’s Benrey-ness again, and Benrey makes that easy, because Benrey loves walking around and looking at things and being a bit of a spectacle with a straight face. Okay, Gordon doesn’t know for sure if Benrey loves doing those things, because he’s not Benrey. He just knows that Benrey does those things, frequently, and with an expertise that baffles even him, who knows full well how Benrey is. Well enough. Awkward territory, all of this is, really. The Point Is that Benrey actually doesn’t appear at home too much! He plays games through the night sometimes, sure, and ever since he called second dibs on any cereal in the apartment he always appears at the right time to claim that, but the whole thing is. Balanced. Benrey doesn’t seem to have physical personal belongings outside of the PS3 and four copies of Heavenly Sword he lugged back one day (the rest of the game library everyone kinda chimed in here and there to build up, because console is common ground fair use for everyone, while PC is where Gordon streams and also works, so it’s off limit), and he rarely uses utensils to eat anything, so to anyone but the team it’d seem like he’s barely there at all. Except for his presence of course. That’s… a lot harder to negotiate.

Gordon’s gotten very, extremely good at it though. It’s his life. Things fit together, mostly. He can deal, he has been dealing, and it’s even been fun. It’s definitely really funny here and there.

Gordon’s about to break the equilibrium. Introduce a nasty new specimen into the scene.

“Bro I knocked for a hot minute,” Benrey says, at the same time as Gordon’s blurting out, “I need to go back to Xen.”

“Huh.”

“Wha- Why do you knock? You’ve never knocked. You’ve literally only ever broken in.”

“Wanna… start now.” Benrey intones in that exact way, and then knocks on the door again. It doesn’t even sound good. These doors are all made with the weird thick composite that makes a dull plastic sound when knocked on.

“Don’t do that, just use the doorbell if you want to-” Gordon catches himself. “No matter. I need to go back to Xen. As soon as possible, but anytime in the next… twelve years… will work.”

Benrey just looks at him for a long time. An extended minute. Maybe even two.

Gordon is just staring back.

“You’re at. The door.” Benrey says, in a low voice. Gordon blinks. “Rude… rude little boy Freeman, huh.”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Benrey-”

“Gonna let me in? Soon? ‘s bad etiquette… greeter… doesn’t even let guests in. Bet your wares aren’t even good.”

“Alright! Alright.” Gordon snaps, but he also does step back for Benrey to walk in, which. Really, that’s never been necessary. Benrey’s always come in and out as he pleases. Usually Gordon just walks out into the living room and Benrey’s already on the couch playing whatever game catches his eyes on that day. The decorum of knocking and walking in is simply never present.

Well, Benrey does knock on Joshua’s bedroom door. But that’s it.

They walk together into the living room, then Benrey situates himself on the couch, and Gordon settles on the carpeted floor next to the table to observe him. He’s never seen Benrey actually fold his limbs up into the position he’s usually already in when walked in on before. It’s mostly normal movements, which still catches Gordon off-guard a bit.

“Nice couch you’ve got here,” Benrey says, and pulls out his phone to fiddle with. It’s a Nokia 2700 Classic, with a theme downloaded from the Ovi Store, and a firefighter-themed 2D platformer that does get insanely hard in places. Tommy got him a snazzier Blackberry a while back, but he refused that one. Gordon didn’t really get it, but. Whatever.

“It’s always been here,” Gordon replies on reflex.

“Liar… Gordon Lie… man.” Benrey seems to need to chew on that one for a second. “Gordon Lieman. This building’s like. Ten years old.”

“That’s practically forever dude. That’s longer than they sent me to MIT for. Joshua’s not even that old.”

“He’s gonna. In… seven… years.”

Gordon remembers what he needs to talk with Benrey about again. “Goddamnit,” he slaps his own face - not with the hard prosthetic this time, thank you very much. Took him six months of HEV training and a year with a prosthetic to get it to heart. “Okay, so. Xen.”

“Wait. Math’s wrong… eleven. Years.”

“Don’t distract me! Xen!” Gordon throws his arms up, finally making Benrey actually look at him proper. “Joshua wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.”

Benrey puts his phone down.

“Yeah,” Gordon scrubs his face, with his flesh hand. “So I need to… do something about Xen. I have a plan. I need to find materials, and then I need a way to Xen…”

“What’s an astronaut.”

“A- no.” Gordon sits up straight. “No, you’re fucking with me. You’re doing this on purpose. I’m fucking about to go nuts, dude.”

Benrey looks him up and down, makes sure his head movement is clear in the dark living room, lit only by the lamppost outside the window. “Yeah,” he says, “no shit. You wanna go back to… Xen… and stuff. Freeman lost his mind.”

Gordon opens his mouth to retort, but then closes it with a click. “Okay,” he mumbles after a moment of thinking it over, “okay. I get where you’re coming from.”

“Haha, get it. ‘cause I’m from. Xen. And shit.”

“Not funny, dude.” It is a bit funny. “But I’m not- okay, so, listen, Joshua’s a determined kid, alright? He’s smart, and he’s healthy, and he likes space. He’s… the chance of him becoming an astronaut is not zero.” Gordon pulls his legs up to his chest. “If it’s up to me, it’s gonna be a hundred percent, ‘cause that’d make him so happy. But even if I’m not the one writing the almighty script I’m still gonna do my best to help him if he’s serious.”

Benrey continues looking at him. “Uh-huh.”

“And… that includes. Never letting him near Xen.”

“Mm.”

“And I know, I know Xen’s like. Ten fucking floating rocks at least a million Texas lengths away from Earth, but it’s still there, y’know? It’s still there. You’re from there! You know it’s still…”

“Yeah?”

“... I. Want to blow Xen up.”

Benrey settles into the draw-me-like-a-French-girl pose. “Sounds good. How’re we doing that.”

“Well, we’ll need explosives that can actually detonate in Xen’s climate, and acquiring that’s gonna put me on so many shitlist-” Gordon almost physically grabs his own hand to yank himself back to Benrey’s answer. “Wait. Are you really just… relenting? Are you actually in this now. Benrey?”

“Say more about the explosive though.” Benrey blinks innocently at him. “Please? Explosive cool. Maybe illegal. Super cool though.”

Gordon is not doing the frog mouth thing. He’s not. He’s totally not. He sighs a long sigh; there, no more rude expression. “I am only thinking about using explosives, because it’s costly and we’re gonna have to transport it. So you have nothing to snitch about. Who would you even snitch to, anyway? Fucking- we are under an indefinite two-way nondisclosure clause, if any of us ever open our mouth to a stranger about that we’re gonna get sacked, but. Wait are you even involved in that? You came back after we signed those papers. Well Tommy’s officially ‘representing’ us, so it’s all tangential kinda, so maybe he can just add you, but why would you-”

“No explosive run huh… What’re you gonna… use. Then.”

“-subject yourself to the law- alright, yeah uh. To be honest I was thinking raw force? Because I do have around twelve years to make this work, and Coomer has insane strength that has leveled a Xen island before, and Bubby is… I think he just isn’t aware that there’s supposed to be a limit to human strength at all. They forget to put that in when they pumped him with knowledge juice. He can- wait, Bubby can just make fire. He can maybe negate the climate conditions for us, so explosives are still in the question here, and- Darnold, last I heard he’s doing some ‘Sour Patch Kids but real’ stuff… sounds like seriously corrosive stuff… We can. We can have a plan.”

Benrey is on his phone again. “Nice.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Gordon dry swallows some dust from the carpet. He realizes he’s gripping on it pretty hard with his prosthetic; he’s close to ripping a chunk of it out. He takes a deep breath and relaxes the plastic hand. “We’re gonna need to make and test the explosives, and we’re. I need to tell everyone. Convince them to help. And we’ll need a portal back to Xen.”

Benrey’s still clicking away on his phone - probably playing that firefighter game again - but he’s looking at Gordon at the same time. Gordon looks up just in time to catch the sharp grin disappearing from his face.

Alright. Maybe Benrey does love doing Benrey things. At least one of them’s actively enjoying this.

---

Gordon’s well aware how ridiculous he is. Is sometimes seen as. Perceived as. Terminologies.

Mostly he copes fine with that. He’s lived it for as long as he’s alive. Most decisions he makes are met with a raised eyebrow at the sublest and outright laughter at the rudest. Transitioning, that was a long, long period of his parents going from “haha funny joke but don’t tell it in public yeah” to “oh shit that’s for real huh? That’s for real” to confused, but silent, silence. Him applying for MIT and seeking a scholarship was definitely the career advisor at his high school laughing uncomfortably for a long time, because Gordon’s never held down a project properly, has he? How’s he doing this? And then him adopting Joshua officially was at least ten separate conversations with Joshua’s grandparents patting him on the back, it’s okay if you don’t! We can care for him. It’s nice to have children around the house again! We know you’re busy! We know there’s things youngsters like you want to do before getting tied down with children. Trust us, we know. You don’t have to .

Gordon knows. He’s never had to make any of the decisions he actively made, but one, that’s why they’re decisions and not punishments , and two, in many ways including cerebral, he did. Kind of have to. In many ways those are the only steps that make sense for him to take. They were the foundation to who he is as a person, with a sense of self that must be supernaturally obscure, because he’s. He’s got a lot of things to balance. A lot of tight ropes to walk.

Gordon’s many things, a lot of those he doesn’t fucking recall himself. Maybe that’s by itself absurd enough. He’s had a lot of time to learn, and a bit of time to relearn, being okay with being absurd.

Black Mesa “helped”, in the same way it spared the rest of him when it got his arm cut the fuck off. It’s a horror comedy. It gave him a bit of a new perspective on absurdity.

“Don’t you dare,” Gordon grouches, because he’s learning. He’s always learning. “Don’t use the a-word.”

Bubby puts his arm together in front of his chest. “I’m not about to! Don’t presume you know what I will do.”

In a way Bubby’s incredulous look stings worse than Benrey’s deflection, Gordon reasons, because Benrey has emotional (?) stakes in Xen’s existence. Maybe he has an external heart or something that’s still beating and keeping him alive on Xen, though Gordon hopes he’d’ve at least been transparent about that when they talked about blowing the place up. Bubby though, Bubby doesn’t have emotional ties to many things altogether. Bubby’s also a tube baby who sets himself on fire with his thoughts. Himself and other people and/or objects. Not as absurd as Benrey being Benrey, but absurd enough to be way above Gordon on the a-scale, and thus has no rights to call Gordon absurd.

“You have to admit though,” Bubby says after a moment of silence.

Gordon takes a deep breath. “No, actually, I don’t have to admit shit,” he says, with what he can call patience with just a little bit of definition stretching, “you ever thought of that? I actually can just never admit that blowing up a whole planetoid system is a bit out-of-the-box thinking of me. I can just say that it’s totally normal and expected behavior of me, and what’re you gonna do with that? Huh? Do go on.”

“Oh don’t be pissy at me,” Bubby huffs, and goes back to staring at the buoy bobbing on the water surface, tied to his fishing line. “You’re scaring away the fish, Gordon. Everyone knows you don’t talk and stomp around on the piers while people are fishing. It’s rude.”

“You’re literally only trying to see if you can set a fish on fire as a prank,” Gordon points out, more for his own sanity than to prove anything to anyone, least of all Bubby.

Benrey looks like he’s ignoring Gordon and Bubby’s exchange, just sitting at the edge of the piers, legs swinging evenly, but Gordon well knows he’s listening in. If not because he’s somewhat invested then because most things that frustrate Gordon is great entertainment to him.

He is, maybe, a bit, somewhat invested though, must be. He brought Gordon to where Bubby and Coomer are camping, afterall. No reasons else to do it, especially when they have time to wait for them to come back to civilization. Twelve years, in fact.

Gordon can wait (he can forget, but in his book that’s the same as waiting, really), and he doesn’t begrudge Bubby and Coomer’s “honeymoon trip”, which has consisted thus far of them trampling about in ~~nature~~ , e.g. deep ends of the world that they do not and should not have access to, but somehow end up in anyway. Gordon only knew because Coomer’s grown fond of taking pictures, and once in a while if they get wifi he sends everyone some. The most memorable one was a pitch black square except for two dots of light in the distance, with the geotag pointing to them being in the Mariana trench.

They’re having fun, and Darnold and Tommy take effort to “decontaminate” them between trips, as well as make them learn wildlife interaction guidelines (Bubby probably already knew, but he didn’t care, and still nobody’s sure if he cares now), so Gordon doesn’t mind. Has no reason to mind. Until now, but only a tiny bit.

They decided to stop in a seaside town somewhere up North three days ago, and wifi’s spotty at best but Coomer still managed to send them pictures again - of him fighting a dolphin and Bubby making fun of a goat skeleton in a museum - and then Gordon got tired of staying up thinking about Xen at night and shot his shot. It took them another day to check their message again, and Bubby replied saying “don’t third wheel other people, weirdo” and Gordon just sighed and resigned himself to staying up way too late for another week or so. But then Benrey asked him to go to GameStop with him, which. Admittedly that was suspicious as hell, but Gordon reasoned Benrey knocked and asked to be let in the other day, so what the fuck, right. And then he stepped through the GameStop’s door, noticing the glass being darker than usual, and ended up on this piers where Bubby’s been trying to have a laugh at some poor fish’s expense.

Bubby made fun of him for third wheeling again, despite Benrey also being right there, and despite Coomer not even being there.

“Did you guys have a fight or something?” Gordon asked, because maybe he can be a little bit spiteful. He’s allowed.

“No,” Bubby grumbled. “Harold impressed Gregory with his punching power, so he’s invited to the Punching Tournament. I don’t like being in water for a long time so I stayed. Their sandwich’s not even good.”

Gregory turned out to be the giant squid that lives a few kilometers off the shore, and another few kilometers under the sea level.

“I’m gonna issue an a-word ban, actually,” Gordon declares, when he comes back to where Bubby’s sitting on his journey to wear a track into the piers. “I think that’s more conducive to real conversations.”

He’s being distracted, he knows. And maybe he’s letting himself be a bit distracted, so he can have a minute to improvise a script. Benrey just fast traveled him here, he did not prepare any materials, he doesn’t even have his notebook with him. That’s where all of his plans are! And his doodles. Mostly his doodles, but that’s a part of his thinking process, so he’s allowed.

“Alright, Mister Fucking-Insane-Person,” Bubby shrugs.

“Doctor.”

“Oh, my bad! Doctor Fucking-Insane-Person.”

“Also that’s a ban dodge and you know it. Also you still don’t have any rights to call me anything! I refuse to submit in this matter.”

Bubby turns around fully to put his hand on crossed legs and stare at Gordon. “You sure, Gordon? Are you very sure about that, when you warp out of thin air to where I am missing my husband very much and not torturing fishes for fun, saying things about blowing Xen up ? Is that not ragingly absurd, Doctor ?”

Gordon takes another deep breath. For his own benefit. For his own wellbeing. “Okay, one, Benrey warped me here, I was not responsible for that. Two, you’re trying to set fishes on fire, and your husband is punching more fishes while a giant squid cheers him on, probably. And three, which part of blowing Xen up is absurd, now? Feel free to elaborate on it. I’m all ears.”

“The very idea of it!” Bubby exclaims, accidentally shoving his fishing rod off the optimal position, chasing away the few fishes not shunned by his radiating malicious intent yet. “Who even thinks of that?”

“Me,” Gordon snaps back, “and you guys kinda ruined what ‘absurd’ even means at all for me, so don’t try me at it.”

Bubby shuts his mouth with a click, but his brows are still furrowed in the exact way that claims, loudly even if soundlessly, that he thinks that’s stupid.

“No, go on, Doctor Bubby,” Gordon presses. “You’ve got the quiz. Try your hand at it again, go ahead.”

“Alright, then, how are we even doing it? If we’re doing it. And there’s no we yet, mind you.”

“I- okay.” Gordon holds his hands up. “I’ll admit I do not have the specifics yet. But logistically at least, it’s entirely possible. We’ll need,” he calculates a number real quick, “thirteen hundred pounds of column charge slurry, but if we have something high corrosive we can wrap up safely until detonation we’ll need even less. We can. Make that much. If we have Darnold’s help. We need access to Xen itself, which Tommy has the biggest chance to get. We’ll need to put the explosives deeper into the ground than surface level, so we’ll need to dig some holes, but with Doctor Coomer’s strength we can take care of that. And then we’ll need to trip it, and that might pose a problem in Xen’s climate, but we can manage a chemical fuse, or. Y’know. Just burn it hot enough to explode, which.”

He ends that speech with a vague and a bit jerky wave of his hand towards Bubby.

Bubby just blinks. “Huh.”

Benrey snickers under his breath, either at a fish or at Bubby’s reaction, Gordon doesn’t know. He wouldn’t even be able to guess, since Benrey still has his back to the entire commotion.

Gordon catches himself holding his breath, so he consciously exhales slowly. It’s okay. It’s whatever. He has twelve years. He can take some detours if necessary. He can forget, even. Maybe.

“That Doctorate turns out to be for something, huh,” Bubby continues. “That does sound pretty plausible, afterall.”

“Huh,” Gordon’s turn to blink. “Wait, that’s it? You’re in now?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bubby swings his arm out, “even though I’d like to be testy for a while longer, I also want to blow things up. Outside is very large, but it severely lacks opportunities to see things explode, so I’ll have to make it happen myself now.”

That’s a tiny bit worrying, but Gordon’ll take it. He’s used to Bubby being a tiny bit worrying anyway. Wouldn’t be Bubby without it.

“Now shoo,” Bubby turns around to fiddle with his fishing rod again, carefully moving it back to the optimal position, “you chased all the fishes off. Gonna have to start my work from the beginning now. It’s hard work tricking fishes, you know.”

“Don’t tell Coomer,” Gordon warns, “I want to let him know myself.”

“Sure, sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“Aren’t you ever.”

Gordon figures he’s done all he can on that front.

Benrey catches up with him when he’s walked away dramatically for a few minutes and is now at the main street of the town. “Rudeman.”

Gordon did forget him at the piers, so that’s on him. “Sorry, but also, do you have a plan to get us home, or what? ‘Cause I don’t have my car and I’m not hitching a random ride if I can help it.”

“Gotta... find a GameStop first. Score some Sports Champions 2 for the. PS3.”

“Alright.” Gordon nods. “Wait, do you need a GameStop to transport us? Is that a thing?”

“Huh,” Benrey just looks at him, and then pulls out his brick phone.

Gordon rolls his eyes, but then catches a glimpse of the screen, and sees the digital clock. “It’s- fuck, it’s almost five! Joshua’s almost home.”

“Oh look, no GameStop on the… roadside. What’re we gonna do.”

“Benrey, you- goddamnit,” Gordon frantically pulls his phone out of his pocket. He tries to yank his right arm out of Benrey’s hold to hold it steady, but Benrey doesn’t yield. “Fucking, let me,” he unlocks it and finds Joshua’s number, which is on top, because he added ‘01’ before his name, because he’s had plenty of experiences with arranging files so they don’t disappear on him, “c’mon, c’mon… Hey Joshie! Are you at school right now?”

“Hi Dad, yes,” Joshua answers, at the same time Gordon registers that he’s walking, Benrey pulling on his arm.

“Sorry I called in the middle of class, buddy, but we’re gonna. I’m gonna be a bit late home, okay? I’m outside right now, but I’m on my way- oh, no, we.”

They’re in his living room. Gordon puts his arm, just released, on top of the couch. This is his couch. The bowl of cereal he finished right before Benrey dragged him out’s still on the table. The PS3 lays silent in the TV cabinet, as it’s always been. He does go around the table to put his free hand on all of these things just to be sure.

“Dad?” Joshua asks from the other end of the line. “Are you okay?”

“I.” Gordon dry swallows. “No, yeah I- I got home. Me and Benrey were out for a bit and we got? Lost? But we found our way back, and I’m. I’m home now. I was really worried I wouldn’t make it back in time to open the door for you, so I called! But I’m home now.”

“That’s good!” Joshua says, even though Gordon can still hear worry in his voice. Sweet kid, his boy is. “Thank you for telling me in ad-advance.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your class. Dad’ll be more careful next time.”

“It’s okay. What are we having tonight?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, holds it in for a moment, and then breathes it out, slowly. “We can have mac and cheese again, or we can try our hand at naan and make some soup to go with it,” he says, willing his voice to calm down. “We still have the yeast Ms. Juney gave us last month, right? We can go get bread flour when you’re home.”

“Okay.”

“Go back to class, buddy. See you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah. Can we have chowder tonight too?”

Gordon laughs. “We’ll look into it, but sure! If we can find the ingredients for it. Alright, bye now. Love you, honey.”

“Okay,” Joshua says again, and when Gordon’s about to move the phone from his ear, he adds, “Love you too, Dad.” And then he hangs up.

Gordon goes to the couch and sits down. He’s maybe cradling his phone a bit. It’s still warm from him gripping on it way too hard. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“That went well, huh,” Benrey says, from the hallway. Gordon looks up to see him closing the door behind him, what looks like a copy of Sports Champions 2 for the PS3 in hand.

Gordon laughs, again, for real this time. “That’s- where'd you even get that?

---

They did make naan, or a version of it. Joshua likes messing with flour, Gordon caught him walking his fingers through the bowl, leaving tiny “footprints”. They couldn’t agree on a fish to put in the chowder, so they shelved that plan and bought some canned beef-and-vegetables soup instead. The naan turned out… fine. They tasted enough like naan, and Gordon only burned like two. Which was maybe thanks to the apartment’s stove top burning a bit less hot than it did the last time they used it; Gordon made a mental note to check on the gas or. Whatever one does. When that happened. He just needed to look up a number, call it, and stand next to the (hopefully) professional who would come while they did their work.

Benrey sat at the couch while the Freemans cooked and ate their dinner, either being on his phone or scrolling idly through the PS3’s library. Joshua asked if he could try and throw naan pieces into Benrey’s mouth from the kitchen table, which Gordon allowed, but with the preset limit of only three pieces, and the condition that he picked up the ones that missed himself. He then asked Benrey very politely if he could open his mouth to catch the bread, and then made a lot of mental calculations before throwing each piece. The first one missed, but the other two were snatched up by Benrey in a somewhat shark-like display, which Joshua clapped excitedly for.

Gordon heard Benrey come to the kitchen table, which Joshua was wiping off with the designated kitchen rag (the fourth one this month alone; it feels like someone’s eating them as they’re replaced sometimes), while he was cleaning the dishes. “Hey lil’ gamer dude,” Benrey said, and Gordon could hear him rustle around in a pocket of his puffy vest. “Scored big in the. Minigame.”

“Thank you,” Joshua replied politely.

“Here’s your price,” Benrey said. Gordon assumed Joshua was holding out his hands to receive whatever Benrey gave him, because he couldn’t hear any noise that thing made, just Joshua’s little excited gasp.

“It’s like the... Intarna-Internation… nal… Space Station!”

“Huh,” Gordon could hear Benrey blink, “that’s what it is…”

“Yeah! These are, here, they’re solar panels! They charge the batteries in here.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you Benrey!”

“Yeah, GG.” And then Benrey shuffled back to the couch, if Gordon interpreted the noises correctly.

Joshua held onto the price trinket until he asked Gordon to put it in the tool cabinet, along with the cake moulds and decoration kit courtesy of Gordon’s hectic MIT years. It was… Gordon could see why Joshua thought that was where it should go. It could be considered a cookie cutter, if the shape weren’t kinda suboptimal for a cookie. It also did look like the ISS, with wings and all.

Nobody in this household’s baked anything sweet in this apartment for at least a year, but. Well. Never say no to free, reusable stuff.

Gordon’s phone vibrates when he’s just sat down at the kitchen table again, a mug of garbage instant coffee in hand. He abandons it to go get his phone from where it’s charging on the living room table.

It’s Coomer. “It’s Coomer,” Gordon says out loud. “That’s weird- he’s. He doesn’t call.”

“He’s calling. Now.” Benrey says from where he’s sitting, on the couch. Gordon takes a deep breath and doesn’t deign it worth a rebuttal. He accepts the call instead.

“Hello Gordon! I heard you want to blow Xen up.”

Gordon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Bubby told you.”

“He did! In great details!”

“I- alright, whatever, I didn’t expect actual results with that one anyway.” Gordon remembers about his coffee. He comes back to where it’s waiting for him on the kitchen table, and takes himself a generous sip, letting it burn his mouth. “Fuck!” He sets the cup down maybe a bit forcefully. “Oh that’s a bad decision. What did- what did he tell you?”

Coomer takes a moment to gather his thoughts, leaving a blank minute where sounds of the wind and waves on the shore come through his mic. Gordon hopes he isn’t thinking about sleeping out there tonight, for the full nature flavor or whatever. “ A large part of his speech was about explosion! And how big and grand it would be. And also about how much he fucking hates Xen!”

“Glad we agree on that front,” Gordon mumbles.

“So am I! I also fucking hate Xen!”

“That’s. That’s fair, really, it’s a garbage place. But- did he, like. Have you heard anything about the actual plan? Did he tell you anything about the actual plan I definitely mentioned to him?”

Coomer pauses for another moment, probably to recall. “Nope! Not a word about a plan-”

“I fucking knew it,” Gordon mumbles.

“-though that is very thorough of you, Gordon!”

"Okay, listen,” Gordon picks his mug of coffee up and starts pacing. “I actually don’t… have all of it yet. I know me and Benrey are in,” he flicks his gaze to Benrey again, who does nothing to deny the statement, “and Bubby’s now in as well. I still need to- okay, the plan’s basically that we find or make enough explosive for the ten asteroids on Xen, we bury it at the core of said asteroids, and we blow that up so it blows Xen up. I have- I don’t know the specifics of how to make that much explosive yet, but I’ll convince Darnold somehow, and if he sits this one out then we’ll borrow his lab when he’s not using it. And I’ll ask Tommy about a way back to Xen, his. His dad’s done that plenty. He doesn’t seem to like Xen much, right? That’s the impression I got, so we can spin this into us doing him a favor or something. And then we transport the explosive to Xen, I can borrow a truck for that, I know someone, and then we dig into the ground there, that’s where we can really use your superstrength, and then we put the explosive in and. Set it on fire. Bubby, uh, agreed to take care of that.”

Another beat of silence follows Gordon’s speech. He seems to have been making that one a lot recently, mostly to himself, in his room, while writing things down in his notebook. He finds himself chewing on his own lip, so he makes himself stop and takes another gulp of the coffee, which has thankfully cooled down to gulp-appropriate temperature.

When Coomer speaks again, he seems to have chosen his words carefully. “I will need to ‘sleep’ on this, Gordon. You are right in your assessment that you do not have your plan together yet!”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “It’s okay,” he says, as much to Coomer as to himself. “It’s true. It’s half-thought up right now. I still need to figure out- figure out Darnold and Tommy and Mr. Coolatta. I, yeah,” his voice’s dropped to a mumble by now, “I think I need to sleep on it too.”

“Gordon.” The rustles that accompany Coomer’s voice gives the impression that he’s sitting down onto the pebble-littered beach as he speaks. “I would like to see Xen obliterated, and I think we can get it done.”

“That’s,” Gordon stops on his pacing in the kitchen, “That’s not. It’s okay if you’re not interested, Coomer. You don’t have to walk it back on me.”

“Please do not question my fucking hatred for Xen, Gordon.”

“O-okay.”

“But I am not in favor of hazy dreams anymore. I have gotten to see a lot during my ‘honeymoon’, and now I have broken free, and mere words on a script cannot placate me. I would like to see proof that it’s possible before I participate.”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“I believe you can do it, Gordon!”

“Thank you,” Gordon says, a little bit dazed, while Bubby’s voice comes through from a distance at the same time, “Are you reciting poetry again?”

“In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?” Coomer answers. “On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

“Stop praising that tiger while I’m right here!”

“I’ll,” Gordon says before Coomer can get fully caught up in Bubby’s antics again, “I’ll come back to you with. The details. When I’ve hashed it out. Thanks for,” he exhales, “thanks for holding out for me, Coomer.”

“So it is, Gordon, so it will be!”

Coomer hangs up there, and Gordon sits down at the kitchen table again. He finishes the mug of coffee in one long gulp. It’s gone a little bit more room-temperature than he likes.

“Sleep on it,” he mumbles, “good advice.”

“You should. Do that.” Benrey says from the couch. “Sleep good for body for soul.”

“You know what, when you’re right,” Gordon says, and stands up and goes brush his teeth. He then sits down at his work table and writes down questions until four in the morning.

---

Gordon used to suck at making phone calls. He’s kind of a champion at it now.

Funny thing is there’s an epiphany to it as well: he didn’t grow up with cell phones, so making phone calls was a hierarchical thing for him until he was like. Twenty years old. Kids used the landline when absolutely necessary only, and adults used it whenever they damn well pleased, because they paid for it and they had businesses to take care of . And Gordon was… not much of a rule breaker, surprisingly enough. Oh he fell short of where rules lay plenty, but he didn’t really intentionally break them. So he took calls when his parents said he could and when he absolutely needed to, and that habit persisted well into his adulthood.

He might also just be not very good at holding his tongue when speaking and. That was no good for phone calls. Kiddies phone calls. ‘cause he just realized one day that adults said whatever the fuck they wanted on the phone really, and nobody chastised them for it, no divine punishment, no sudden death round.

A sermon on self-love, that was; Gordon just takes phone calls now. Worst case scenario, he just turns his brain off and lets his mouth do its work. When people don’t presume they know better than him, they don’t presume he’s talking out of his ass ninety percent of the time.

That’s- that’s what he thought. Gordon’s wrong, a little bit. He can be wrong. Has been wrong plenty before. He can correct himself, here, he’s gonna do it right now: worst case scenario, he has to recite his plan, conceived so far in total isolation from anyone he knows and whose opinions he cares about, to the person who’s the most skittish and averse to what his plan is bringing about among those people, over the phone, where he can’t see and gauge body language and facial expressions.

Gordon would… like to meet Darnold face to face for this. But. It’s work. It’s, well, it’s closer to work than to play, given that he’s gotten mildly stressed out over it, and their lunch at the only Taco Bell in the whole desert is strictly pleasant, not-work talk only. And Gordon really, really enjoys those lunch dates, because he never has to think about damage control or having an identity crisis in the middle of one. They’re just nice, normal, a tiny bit shouty (the Taco Bell is usually packed and the acoustic’s not good, but it’s a Taco Bell, and it’s a ritual now), mostly jovial, lunch with a friend, eating subpar food he’s learned to enjoy. They don’t talk about what happened at Black Mesa, they don’t talk about work in general, they don’t even talk about soda outside of appraising the gaudy color combinations for any new sponsored drink. They talk about Joshua, about Darnold’s cat Lumbar Support, about Coomer and Bubby’s travelling, about new game releases, about Sega vs. Nintendo, about the weather.

Gordon doesn’t want to fall short of where the rules lie, not this time. So he calls.

“Doctor Freeman?” Darnold answers with the title, which sets the tone pretty well. Gordon takes a deep breath and steels himself.

“Doctor Pepper.” He pauses. “Darnold. Hey. I, uh, I’ve got a thing I wanna ask.”

“Go ahead!” Darnold goes quiet for a moment, to finish his sandwich, Gordon’d guess. He’s called in the middle of Darnold’s lunch break. “I must preface however that we’re working outside of office hours, and I can only advise you at the moment. Anything further will have to go through the… official channels.”

“Okay, that’s alright. I just.” Gordon worries his lips. He realizes he’s tugging pretty hard on his left sleeve; he makes himself let go. “I have a. Plan. That’ll need your expertise.”

“I’d be delighted to help then! Feel free to share more.”

“It’s about, uh.” Gordon takes another deep breath. He’s been consuming a lot of oxygen recently. “IwanttoblowXenup?”

Darnold goes, predictably, quiet for a moment. It doesn’t sting less when it’s predictable.

When he speaks again, it’s in a clipped, professional-but-barely tone. “Please say that again, but slowly.”

Gordon closes his eyes against the sunlight streaming in from the window in his bedroom. “I want to. Blow Xen up.”

“Gordon,” Darnold sighs. “Doctor Freeman.”

“I know.”

“Your megalomaniacal tendencies have grown since we last met.”

“It’s not- I’m not doing it for fun!” Gordon throws his free arm up. “Okay, this is genuinely a lot of effort and stress for something I’d do for pleasure, Darnold. I also couldn’t care less about fucking Xen - okay that’s not true, I’ve lost like a week of sleep over blowing it up, that’s not not caring, but like. I can’t. I need it to not be there,” he stands up from his bed and starts pacing, “and I have. A plan. Half of one. About that much. So it’s not hopeless-”

“Gordon, please slow down.”

“-as long as I have your help and- and Tommy’s, okay, I will. uh.” He taps on his thigh with his free hand too, for good measure. Go the whole nine yard with fidgeting, why not. “I. So, Joshua wants to be an astronaut,” he intones, and for the first time in a while he’s reminded again of how this started, how it took over his life for a hot minute, and it almost gives him the hiccups, “and. Y’know. Xen is in space. So it needs to not be there anymore. So I want to. Blow it up.”

Darnold goes silent again. Gordon thinks he can hear the epiphany punch the air out of him. Fuck, he hates phone calls.

“As much as I want to berate you about how you’re treating this matter and yourself,” Darnold resumes primly after a moment, “my lunch break is ending in exactly fifty-two seconds, and this sandwich will take me another two bites to get through. I’ll see you in the Taco Bell’s parking lot at three AM this afternoon, Gordon. Drink water.”

He hangs up. Gordon goes drink water.

Benrey clips into the apartment when Gordon’s on his third mug of iced water. “Whoa, hydration streak,” he says, settling himself on the kitchen table.

“I can go a bit crazy,” Gordon mumbles. “I’m allowed a little bit of funk and insanity. This is my house.”

“It’s… actually. MFA’s.”

Gordon groans. “Don’t fucking remind me. I tried to forget that. Also it actually belongs to the NRC, since they apparently can just scare MFA into giving employees housing, which I’m really fucking horrified by, but I’m choosing to not think about it, and you can’t make me.”

“It can be mine soon.”

“Do not attack and dethrone Nils Diaz.”

Benrey huffs. “Killjoy Freeman.” He shifts his pose so he’s sitting up straighter. “You wanna… try out Premium Water? Free trial for a week, you can manually cancel your. Subscription. After.”

Gordon stares at him. “What’s Premium Water.”

Benrey opens his jaws, wide, showing his teeth. He points inside as if there’s anything Gordon wants to find at all in there at the moment. Then he closes it with a click and stares back at Gordon.

Gordon just sighs. “No, Benrey.”

“Guaranteed beddy bye time, no charge,” Benrey blinks at him. “Black Mesa Sweet Voice™ a hundred percent effective. Five stars… satisfaction… rating.”

“You’re fucking lying, because I’d never leave it five stars. You get three at best.”

“Gonna catch you when you fall off the. Chair. Gonna be romantic.”

Gordon laughs. “No, not allowed.” He sighs and finishes the mug of water like it’s mead and he’s some Dungeons and Dragons elven ranger. He gives himself brain freeze. “Ah, fuck, oof,” he slaps his own forehead, “bad decision. Bad decision. Okay, I. I appreciate you asking instead of just going for it, but that’s the reality of asking, right? The person you ask can say no. And you’ve just gotta learn how to deal with it.”

Benrey just keeps staring at him, but he’s used to that now. It’s only a tiny bit unnerving. “How’s learning’s... satisfaction rate.”

Gordon sighs again. “It sucks ass. Fucking hate learning.”

Benrey grins at him, and then he checks his phone and it’s already time to go.

“Drink this,” Darnold says immediately when Gordon climbs into the shotgun seat of his car, and holds out a beaker of bubbling purple liquid.

Gordon just stares at it. “Darnold, what is this.”

Darnold sighs. “It’s the Potion of Not Telling. I also drank a sample before coming here,” he holds up an empty beaker with some of the same purple liquid at the bottom. “It blows us up if we tell our employers what we’re up to.”

Gordon ponders this very carefully. “Does. Tommy, for example. Does he count as my ‘employer’?”

“No,” Darnold says. “‘Employers’ only cover people and/or establishments you’re currently under an employee contract with and receiving salary from.”

“Alright,” Gordon intones carefully, and downs the whole beaker. It tastes like… the jello packaged like seahorses Tommy brings over sometimes. The red ones, specifically. It makes him feel a bit bloated, immediately, and he rubs his side a bit anxiously when he sits down in the car. “You’re actually under NDAs at all times, huh,” he says, as an opening line.

“Same as you, Gordon.” Darnold takes the beaker back from Gordon’s hand and puts it in with the other one. “Black Mesa seeked me out and offered to find me a position in a brewery, as well as fund any of my independent ventures, as long as I do not say a word about what… transpired… back there. The official record’s that I was stranded on an island with curious dino-esque creatures for four years, instead of worked in Black Mesa’s mixology department, and honed my craft with their help, using the fruits native to that island.”

Gordon laughs, and rubs his face with the prosthetic hand. It’s like putting your face on the car’s dashboard. “Sounds like them alright. At least yours sounds exciting, instead of fucking insane. They said I was ‘chasing an entropy in the desert’ and it ‘ate my hand’. What the fuck does that even mean?”

“We attempted feats of miracle, only it was not under their accountability,” Darnold says, “and we were punished for it. No matter, we have more important things at hand. What is this plan you’ve cooked up, Gordon?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, finding it easier than it’s been for a while, and relays what he’s got down of the blow-Xen-up plan to Darnold. They never look at each other meanwhile, both staring at the cars lined up haphazardly in the lane across from them, Gordon in a barren calmness as words leave his mouth, Darnold with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his whole presence compacted into a contemplative, silent piece.

“That is an intense reaction to a faraway threat, Gordon,” Darnold says when Gordon’s speech is over. “Xen is not only at least a galaxy away, but also a few dimensions over, if I understand the briefing right. I haven’t thought about that wretched place for almost a year.”

“Sorry,” Gordon says, not really feeling any of it, but making the effort.

“You don’t have to. I understand where you’re coming from.” Darnold taps idly on his own arm. “I was… extracted… swiftly from Black Mesa after I met you and your friends. I did not witness what happened after, but I saw… enough.” He takes a deep breath as well. “We can all have intense reactions to anything.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not maladaptive,” Gordon says. He’s gone to therapy. It was really good for helping him build a system that filters out the things that actually fucks him up and makes some sense of the rest, but it doesn’t lift him out of the comedy of his life itself. It can’t. That’s not what therapy’s for.

“Indeed,” Darnold says. “But I can’t be the judge of that. My domain lies with potion mixing, and I dare say I am a true expert at it, but I can’t claim expertise at other people’s life. Especially not yours.”

“I get it,” Gordon nods. The world kinda bobs a tiny bit when he does that. “I. Know not to indulge my impulse mostly. But sometimes decisions come back to haunt me, and those are usually just about choosing one furniture over another, or tying my shoelaces in the bunny ears way instead of the circle way and having them undone in the middle of a meeting and stepping on them and falling on my face, but this time it’s. It’s Joshua’s life. And there’s just no limit anymore to what can happen, not since.” He swallows. “Black Mesa.”

Darnold nods.

Gordon blinks. “I know it’s a little bit crazy.”

“It might be,” Darnold says, “but as a famous mixologist once said: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if that gain is just your peace of mind.”

Gordon lets out the breath he isn’t even aware he’s been holding. “Thank you.”

“You do not need to,” Darnold smiles, “I do stand to gain from this as well, since I really need to test this flavouring that’s supposed to land on pleasantly tart on the taste scale but goes into intestine-destroyingly sour territory instead. I need to know what makes it that corrosive, and testing on humans is entirely unethical.”

---

Gordon got home before Joshua. Benrey’s also not home. He lays down on the couch and takes a nap.

He wakes to a quilt over most of him, light turned on in the living room and in the kitchen, and silent chatter. His sense of smell kicks in a minute or so into him still laying on the couch, blinking up at the ceiling; he smells fish sauce and sugar cooking.

“Tommy’s over,” he mumbles.

“He awakes,” Benrey says, seemingly into thin air. Gordon feels the couch shift minutely as Benrey makes to stand up from where he’s sitting leaning back on it. “Good eatin’. I’ll go get the. Food. Coloring.”

When Gordon’s gathered enough of himself to sit up, Benrey’s nowhere to be seen. Tommy’s shifting something animatedly on the stove, while Joshua carefully carries one bowl at a time to the kitchen table.

“Hey Dad!” Joshua says when he catches Gordon’s eyes. He puts the bowl he’s carrying down to free his hand for waving. Gordon waves back.

“Hey Joshie, hey Tommy. What’re you guys making?”

“Caramelized pork b-belly!” Tommy says from his stove station. “And... sautéed vegetable medley.”

“With rice!” Joshua adds.

“A perfectly balanced meal.”

“I picked the vege-ta-bles!”

Gordon folds the quilt to busy his hands. This one’s definitely not his. He may have one somewhere in the closet, but it hasn’t made an appearance in… six months. He thinks. “What did you get for us, buddy?”

“Carrot!” Joshua holds up a finger. “It has a lot of vita- vitamin… A.”

“Awesome,” Gordon says and goes over to the kitchen table to high five Joshua. “What else did you choose?”

“String beans!”

“Oh?” Joshua hasn’t been much for that.

“Uncle Tommy’s gonna teach me how to eat them!”

“A dash of- of flavour, packed in one Kn●rr’s Complete Seasoning packet, is all you’ll need!” Tommy switches to a lower voice when Gordon peers over his shoulder at the pan on the stove. “That is not true. Kn●rr is only… fit to be- be on the floor.”

“Are- you’re not putting that in then?”

“No, I just use salt and pepper.”

Joshua giggles. Tommy extends a hand that Joshua can slap on in place of a high five.

Gordon gets out the utensils - spoon for Joshua, chopsticks for him and Tommy - and brings the rice cooker to the table once the light’s jumped to orange. He plates the pork, scooping Joshua’s helping into his personal plate first, while Tommy finishes with the vegetables. Tommy lets Joshua choose which vegetables to go on his plate; Joshua bravely gets a little bit of everything.

They eat dinner on top of companionable conversation, Gordon and Tommy taking turns asking Joshua about school and other things.

“I heard you want to- to be an astronaut,” Tommy asks. Joshua dutifully finishes his mouthful before answering.

“Yes! I want to go to space!”

“Do you want to meet- aliens?”

“Yeah!” Joshua’s excitement cools down a little bit as he scoops up another spoonful of rice with a piece of string bean carefully balanced on top. “I read the Wiki-pea-dia about it though. They say there’s no dis-discernable e-vidence of aliens yet. We sent the Voyager Golden Records an’ they haven’t… answered yet.”

“That’s how p-physical mails are,” Tommy smiles while getting himself a piece of the caramelized pork. “It used to take… weeks... before we hear from our friends who are far away. And the- the universe doesn’t have a… an Everywhere Wifi Network yet.”

Joshua shares a conspiratory look with Gordon and mouths not yet . Gordon laughs. Gordon’s clutching his bowl maybe a bit too tight.

“You can become an astronaut and- meet aliens. In space,” Tommy waves his chopsticks with a flourish.

“I’ll teach them what- what e-mails are!”

“It’ll take a- a lot of hard work, and you have to be able to eat string beans.” Tommy takes an exaggerated look at Joshua’s plate, now cleaned of food. “Oh! Would you l-look at that! Mister Joshua Freeman is… perfect astronaut materials, according to… the NASA guidelines.”

Joshua beams with a pride that knocks something loose in Gordon’s chest.

They finish dinner and clean up together, then Gordon sends Joshua back to his room to do his homework, agreeing to an hour of video game after if he can get it done before nine. Gordon cleans the dishes while Tommy puts the kettle on and makes them both hot chocolate.

“I bought some-something for Joshua today,” Tommy prompts. Gordon looks back to see him hold up the exact same cookie-cutter-thing Benrey gave Joshua the other day.

“Oh- oh my god.” Gordon laughs. “Holy shit?”

“Wh-what’s the matter, Gordon?”

“Do you guys have like a hivemind or something?” Gordon pulls off a glove to open the tool cabinet and pull Benrey’s gift out. “Benrey gave Joshua this. I don’t even- what’re these supposed to be? Where d’you guys even get them from?”

“It’s the- International Space Station Biscuit Cutter!” Tommy puffs out his chest, slightly indignant, but definitely bemused as well. “They’re issued by- NASA, cut from the s-scrap metal of the hulls of… prototype spaceships. They’re very rare!”

Gordon stares at the one in his hand. “And now we have two of them.”

“They’re… very valuable! You can sell them for a high price.”

Gordon smiles. He puts Benrey’s apparently rare and expensive gift back into the tool cabinet and puts the glove back on. “You’ve gotta ask Joshua about that. It’s for him, afterall.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, crumbled into grains only by the click-clack of dishes in the sink and the water running from the faucet. Gordon weaves himself into a solid piece of nerve, bracing, bracing.

Tommy’s… better acquainted with the crazies of these things than most, maybe. He’s apparently said “fuck it” to the administrative work that his dad would’ve liked to hand back to him at one point, and just. Got a PhD in nuclear physics instead. Gordon’s been through something like that, and from experience he can tell that it would’ve taken real nerve to do it. He also can tell that no matter what it still rubs off on you, and you don’t recover from that kinda consistent exposure to idiosyncrasies, because you don’t ever feel like there’s anything to recover from , really. It’s just how it is, and the world’s off-kilter, not you. Like Benrey, Tommy’s world runs on a different axis, and he and the rest of them are, in many ways, looking both through strange eyes.

Gordon’s a little bit jealous of that. He’s honestly not sure if he can ever fully get Tommy, but then. Plenty of people never get him, and here he is. He can learn to wear it as well as Tommy, one day.

Right now though. Tommy’s important to the plan. Gordon knows that, in a theoretical way. Ha, theoretical…

“I would like to not be insane,” Gordon says, more to himself, at the same time as Tommy setting his cup of hot chocolate down and saying, “Benrey… told me.”

“Oh… I. That’s? Good?”

“Wha- you’re not insane , Gordon!” Tommy waves his hand. Gordon can hear it, even if he can’t see it. “You’re… creative.”

“Thanks Tommy,” Gordon says with a huff of laughter that he doesn’t think reaches Tommy at all. “I. I get it though. I got Bubby to turn around on it, but everyone else did say that it’s a little bit fucked up that I thought of doing that at all.”

“But they… agreed on helping you anyway.”

Gordon taps on the metal wall of the sink. “That’s… yeah. Well, other than Coomer.”

“Doctor Coomer doesn’t think you’re crazy,” Tommy protests. “He just has... boundaries.”

“That’s fair. He’s allowed that. He more than deserves that.” Gordon blinks. “Wait- why am I arguing down on my side? I need you to be on board for the plan to work.” He laughs, bowing down over the sink. He’s shaking a little bit. “Wow. I’m a little bit gone. Can I be a little bit gone?”

“You’re… totally allowed, Gordon” He feels Tommy tug on his elbow. With a deep breath, he lets go of where he’s gripping on the edge of the sink with white knuckles, and lets Tommy lead him to the kitchen table. He dutifully sits himself down on a chair, lets Tommy take off the gloves, and holds the cup of hot chocolate Tommy pushes into his hands carefully. “It’s your house.”

“It’s MFA’s.”

“It’s yours,” Tommy says, determinedly, and Gordon takes a deep breath and sidesteps every implications that has. “You can have your fears, and… and your plans, and your hopes. For Joshua. It’s your place, Gordon.”

Gordon takes a shaky sip of the hot chocolate. Tommy puts on the gloves and finishes washing the dishes for him.

“Sorry,” Gordon says, mostly aiming at the dishes thing, but. He also just kinda wants to put that out there.

“There’s nothing to be… be sorry for,” Tommy replies, amidst the noises of the dishes and the water running.

Tommy talks while Gordon drinks his hot chocolate; in the end, whether he wants to or not, he’s accepted a bit of the job the Gman holds. Gordon knows this, that’s how Tommy vouched for and kept the Science Team from a much worse fate than relative freedom except for a story no sane man’d believe anyway. Mister Coolatta Senior seemed to be impressed by the choice, aside from all the worries that come with it.

“He’s… he’s proud of me,” Tommy says, softly. “I know he only wants what’s best for me.”

“He’s been awfully accommodating,” Gordon says, remembering about the movie night they had after Tommy’s birthday bash last year. That man pulled a gun on him. As if he’d walk out on Tommy, if Tommy’d asked for him to stay around.

“He… doesn’t involve me… with his problems,” Tommy says. “Some parents do that.”

Gordon can’t find anything to say to that, so he finishes his hot chocolate.

“I got a vote when they brought Xen up the-the other day,” Tommy says, when the dishes have all been cleaned and put on the rack to dry. He pulls out the chair next to Gordon and picks up his cup of hot chocolate. It’s still steaming, somehow. “I-they were thinking it was- it’s too risky to leave a bridging point open like that. They want to… demolish it.”

Gordon chuckles, and then it becomes a full body laugh, and then he’s curling up on himself, the empty cup between his hands. He shouldn’t clutch it like this, it might break. He’s broken the handle off of a mug before, when one of his old prosthetic wasn’t calibrated perfectly. He can’t stop laughing though. Not enough to let go of the cup now.

“Holy shit,” he wheezes. “holy motherfucking shit. We’re doing it. We’re doing it? Xen’s fucking going down.”

“It sure is!” Tommy says, and claps a polite golf clap for Gordon’s victory.

---

Gordon does have shit he needs to do for the online classes he teaches, but outside of it he’s still way too idle. He and Joshua go to the aquarium and the museum whenever the schedule works out, and once in a while they drive by Roswell to catch a plane taking off into the sky, and he does grocery runs and tries to clean around the house and do laundry on a timetable, and there’s always the PS3 Benrey dragged back that’s now public good, as well as his probably too long Steam list, but. Gordon’s shit at talking himself into and out of doing things. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to start doing something, so there’s a black hole of time between him thinking “I should get to this” and him actually doing it. And Joshua’s life isn’t just him; his son’s going to school now, and he’s made friends at school, and he talks to them on the phone and goes hang out with them on weekend afternoons.

Gordon’s not as good at holding onto time anymore, now that things’ve. Changed.

So figuring the explosives out’s been good for him. It’s just what he does back in uni again, except without a supervisor, without having to write anything down properly (just legibly’s enough), and without peer review. It’s mostly math, but with the spirit of two middle schoolers stealing sodium crumbs from the school lab to throw into puddles. It’s closer to play than he expected. Closer than playing Horse Simulator 3D on the PS3.

He and Darnold spend the day building the corrosion rate equation, pouring Darnold’s concoction on rocks Gordon figures have the same make-up as the ground on Xen. Benrey doesn’t bring the venture up often, but every other day Gordon finds clumps of dirt and random rocks that weigh suspiciously little for their size in his glove compartment. He brings those in for the pour test as well, and they build a simulation based on them.

Balancing the corrosion with the heat’s a bit tricky; Gordon needs to know how hot Bubby’s ignition can go, since their number’s high. He was about to shoot Bubby a call when Coomer’s latest photo arrived. Gordon recognized the street in it.

They put the project on hold for an afternoon so Tommy and Darnold can have the lab to decontaminate Coomer and Bubby. Gordon spends that afternoon getting the air fryer he ordered last week out of the box while Benrey reads the manual out loud wrongly. He calls Joshua to let him know they’re having guests over that evening, thankfully in the middle of the school recess this time. Gordon tries to remember Joshua’s exact timetable at school, he really does. It’s just not fruitful a task.

When Joshua arrives home, Gordon’s in the middle of arguing with Bubby over how much water’s left in air fried food. “Hey Granpa! Hey Bubby!” Joshua waves at Coomer and Bubby, “hey Uncle Tommy! Hey Doctor Darnold! Hey Benrey! Hey Dad!”

Gordon steals the chance to close the air fryer while Bubby’s joining in with the “Hey Joshua!” chorus and distracted. “We’re making spring rolls and egg rolls!” He calls after Joshua, who’s in his room putting his backpack away. “You can choose the filling yourself!”

The kitchen barely fits everyone, so comes dinnertime they move the living room table up next to the TV cabinet to make space for the spare straw mat, and lay out a tablecloth on top for good measure (Gordon’s had enough experience to remember to do that). They sit on the floor in the living room together, almost shoulder to shoulder, and at some point the conversation gets away from Gordon entirely. He just nods when Joshua points at something he wants and gets some in the bowl for him.

“I’ve heard somebody wants to become an astronaut,” He hears Coomer say at one point.

Joshua puffs out his chest proudly.

“Doesn’t everybody at some point,” Bubby says. “I wanted to be an astronaut too, when I was forty.”

“Oh I have seen the photos,” Coomer continues, a gentle light in his eyes, “It is very beautiful out there.”

Joshua asks for help with his homework after dinner, and Tommy and Darnold sit down with him for that. Benrey joins Gordon at the sink while he’s pouring dish soap into one of the large bowls they used. He doesn’t know what to do but blink at him, dumbfounded.

“Check this out,” Benrey says, and spits lime green into the sink. When the light clears, the dishes have become spotless.

Gordon stares at the sink. “I- you- th- is that- you can do that? ” He points at the plates. leaning on the sink’s edge.

Benrey grins. “New… new skill acquired bro. Just got the EXP for it.”

“You spent your EXP on dish cleaning ?”

“We should conserve water, Gordon!” Coomer declares from behind him next to the kitchen table. “Water shortage is caused by corporate greed, but with certain individual actions we can improve the situation ourselves!”

“Please don’t kill Mark Schneider.”

“Worry not, Doctor Freeman! His death will not be by my hand directly!”

Gordon laughs, helplessly. “Everything happens so much,” he laments, only semi-jokingly, as he takes off the cleaning gloves and puts the plates on the rack.

“Keep up, Doctor Freeman,” Bubby says.

“They certainly do,” Coomer says, much more nicely. “I’ve heard your plan is soon coming to fruition!”

Gordon nods. “Yeah, it’s. Yeah. We were,” he swallows, “Darnold and I, we were about to ask for Bubby to let us test his fire. Figure out if he can reach the ignition point we need.”

“Well now, that sounds like a challenge,” Bubby says.

Gordon finds a price tag still stuck on one of the bowls that he’s very sure wasn’t there when it was brought out. “Benrey,” he groans. Benrey just gives him a shit eating grin. “You’ll need to hold a temperature for about three minutes, and then the mixture takes care of the rest,” he says to Bubby, while swatting Benrey on the shoulder.

“Just three minutes, isn’t it.”

“Do not try and stay for more. I’m serious. When it explodes it’s gonna turn seriously corrosive. You’re gonna be sludge ten seconds after it gets on you.”

Gordon can hear Bubby blink. “Oh- oh. This is serious huh. We are blowing Xen up.”

“We are, darling,” Coomer affirms.

Bubby shifts on his chair. “I’ll need. A minute.”

When Gordon’s done with the dishes, he turns back to the kitchen table to catch Bubby letting go of Coomer after a hug. “Son of a bitch, you went for it, you motherfucker,” Bubby says, a bit too loudly, fixing his glasses.

Benrey sings a very high note over his voice. “Language!” Gordon hisses.

“Oh, sorry.” Bubby pats his own mouth. “Forgive a man, I’m still working through it.” He switches to a mumble, seemingly only to himself. “It’s real. I’m gonna set Xen on fire. Gonna show Black Mesa what for. It’s really gonna happen…”

Coomer pats Bubby on the back lightly, making him almost hit his face on the table. “We’ll finally move fully away from the game, my dear Professor,” he says, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling very wide.

“I can be your Professor,” Bubby mumbles. “I can blow Xen up.”

“ We can blow Xen up,” Gordon corrects him. “Me and Darnold didn’t agonize over a- darn modifier for a week and a half so you can set our work on fire and take all the credits.”

“Hush, let me process things, you rude bastard.” Benrey censors bastard with another burst of pinkish light.

“I can see the other end,” Coomer says, cheerfully. “Now, Gordon, I’ve heard you need help digging into the core of a few asteroids?”

---

They mark a date for the excursion.

He ‘woke up’ early, and made himself and Joshua an actual breakfast for a change while Benrey finished off the box of cereal that was open. “Dad’s got a work thing coming up,” he told Joshua while scooping extra egg onto his plate. “I’m gonna have to stay on site for a night.”

“So you’re not going home tonight?” Joshua asked, taking the plate handed to him by Gordon, but making no move to go back to his chair.

Gordon nodded. “I’ll be home tomorrow though, but you’re gonna have to stay at your grandparents’ tonight. I’m gonna come pick you up at their place tomorrow afternoon. You should pack a spare change of clothes and your pajamas to bring to school.”

“Okay,” Joshua said. And then, “What’re you staying on-site for?”

“I’m,” Gordon said, “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this, yeah? I’m blowing asteroids up.”

He could see Joshua’s eyes brighten. It was visible . “ In space ?”

“Yes,” Gordon laughed. “But it’s very experimental, which means…”

“It’s not ready for the public eye yet,” Joshua whispered, almost reverently.

Gordon laughed again, and took off the mitten on his hand to ruffle Joshua’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay staying at your grandparents’ place? If you don’t like that I can ask someone else to come over instead.”

“It’s okay,” Joshua said, finally content to go sit down again. “Can I bring my skate shoes?”

“Sure thing, put them in a bag.”

Gordon called Joshua’s grandparents to let them know to pick him up at five (Joshua chimed in to ask them to remind him about the roller skates), and then Joshua got his backpack and spare clothes and bag for the shoes and the house was once again vacant.

They don’t have a vehicle, but Tommy sings and Bubby joins in and Darnold keeps a beat and after a while Benrey starts playing songs out of the shitty speaker on his phone. Gordon’s even spent the day before sleepless, but that’s kind of everyday now. He hadn’t anticipated having to get used to a day having twenty four hours again, but well. He hadn’t anticipated anything while going through Black Mesa, really. It wasn’t really ideal thinking-far-ahead environment.

Benrey seems bouncier when he’s on Xen. Gordon didn’t think about it, but when he steps through the portal he has a flash of that image from what feels like a lifetime ago: Benrey giant as the Earth itself, blocking everything else in sight, his form longing to catch up with his already immense, oppressive presence. Taller than any walls, any mountains, any barriers between himself and a measly human’s fleeting existence.

Gordon shakes his head. At his least incomprehensible, Benrey’s said it was “a show”. “Like. Cable TV. A television series,” Gordon’s asked.

“Like a cutscene,” Benrey’s replied, as if Gordon was the one too slow for the course.

Benrey now felt nothing like whatever that was that happened to him and the Science Team last year. Benrey now felt just… like a dude. Doing a barrel roll, while saying “Ooooo barrel roll” with a straight face. While his Nokia 2700’s still crushing whatever song it’s playing into oblivion.

Gordon doesn’t deal in implications anymore, so he starts singing along to whatever everyone else’s singing as well, and focuses on carrying their homemade Xen-specific dynamite blocks to where they’re going to dig their largest hole into the core of this wretched piece of rock.

It takes a day, kind of; he doesn’t sleep, out here in the thin atmosphere of Xen, where the stars don’t blink and red light comes in a hue from inside the dirt. He doesn’t have to force himself to go lay down at midnight like back home, he just sits down, at the edge of the portal, when the explosives have all been installed, and watch Coomer and Bubby ready themselves.

They can hear Bubby’s cackles ringing in Xen’s air and also in their comms, as he lays in Coomer’s arms and they race the fire, starting from the outer ring of asteroids to the main Xen island. They jump from rock to rock, red light trailing after them while the dirt itself breaks apart, not with a boom, but with the sound of bubbles breaking after a wave crashes on the shore. Xen glows brighter than it probably ever has, in its disintegration.

Benrey sings a few vacant notes, standing on nothingness; the light from his mouth blends in almost perfectly with Xen’s dying light.

“You got all of your belongings outta there?” Gordon asks, half as a jab, half serious. “Didn’t leave anything important in your old apartment?”

Benrey doesn’t answer, for a moment. When he does, it’s just to mumble, “oh look, there’s fireworks.”

---

They got home early from it.

Gordon takes a nap on the couch; he only wakes up from Benrey turning the sound up to max and then shooting a rocket at a truck in Far Cry 3. “Dude,” he throws an arm up over his face, and winces when it’s the plastic arm. “What the fuck.”

“Go pick Joshua up,” Benrey says, definitely too conversationally, and barely understandable under the noises from the game. “Gordon. Sleepman.”

“You’re slipping,” Gordon comments as he wrestles himself out of Tommy’s quilt. He forgot to give it back to Tommy, he realizes sleepily, picking up the phone he left charging on the living room table. It’s seven already.

The drive to Joshua’s grandparents’ place is not a long one. He finds Joshua sitting at the porch of the little house, backpack and the bag with the roller skates at his feet. Joshua jumps up at the sight of Gordon’s car, and before he can walk through the gate he’s already found his arms full of his son.

Joshua clings to his neck with a death grip. “I’m sorry I’m late,” Gordon says. “I was tired, so I took a nap, and forgot the time.”

“It’s okay,” Joshua mumbles, “you were tired.”

“I blew up so many asteroids though.” Gordon says, and Joshua laughs.

They drive home after saying goodbye to Joshua’s grandparents (Joshua’s grandpa put a wrapped up pot pie in Gordon’s hands with an iron grip and a gaze that communicated clearly what would happen if he refused it), and Joshua agreed to take a detour to the Roswell airport for the night. Gordon absentmindedly texts Benrey taking the kid to watch airplanes, get your own food , and puts his phone away for the drive. The radio’s on, but Joshua doesn’t sing along. Gordon’s vocal cord’s still tired from Xen (no more, Xen-no-more it is, there’s just a vast of empty space inbetween dimensions there now) so he also stays silent.

They get ice cream at a drive-thru on the way, and then they’re at the highway, parking on the roadside, looking over the rail at the airport. A plane leaves the ground there and goes into the air. Gordon’s struck by how different it is from a bird or a moth; nothing about the plane communicates any internal movement, it just. Moves. Up and up. Like a JPEG sliding across the screen under someone’s puppeteering with a mouse.

Joshua stares at the plane, unblinking. “Is it dangerous in space, Dad?” He asks.

Gordon taps his hand on the steering wheel. “It’s.” He starts saying, but stops to clear his throat. “It can be. There’s a lot of math going into making things that bring a human into space, and a lot of different people doing different parts of that math, and. Sometimes some people do their math wrong. Sometimes they try something new, and we don’t have the good math for that new thing yet. Sometimes new things break into the old math, and we need to. Work around that new thing.”

“What happens if,” Joshua swallows, “someone does the math wrong?”

“We try to catch it,” Gordon says. “That’s why there are so many people doing the math. So if someone gives the wrong answer, they can spot it early, and fix it.”

“What if nobody does,” Joshua says. He’s still looking through the car’s window, at the stroke of cloud the plane’s long flown past.

Gordon puts his hands on the gear stick. “That’s very, very rare to happen,” he intones carefully. “They have to check, over and over, before they send a ship into space.”

Joshua turns from the window to Gordon. He looks at Gordon’s prosthetic hand, on the gear stick. “I’ve only found books about spaceships that have gone to space,” he says, quiet.

Gordon turns over, and holds out that hand. Joshua climbs over the gear stick to give him another hug. “Experiments are important to those ships too,” Gordon says. “They give the people who make the ships important information to make them safe.”

Joshua just buries himself in Gordon’s arms.

“I’m really sorry I came home late and didn’t call you, Joshua,” Gordon says, and hugs his son tighter. “I won’t do that again. I’ll always call when I’m home late.”

“I don’t have to be an astronaut,” Joshua mumbles.

“Oh, no- nononono, listen,” Gordon says into his hair, with all the determination he can muster up. “Listen, Joshua, you become whoever you want to, okay? You don’t have to be anything, but you don’t have to not be anything either. That’s my mistake, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re good. You’re good. You’ll be an incredible astronaut. You’ll be the first man on Mars. Jupiter, even.”

“Jupiter is a gas giant,” Joshua mumbles. “There isn't any land to land on.”

Gordon nods. “That’s why it’s called landing , I get it.”

---

They drive home after, and Joshua asks to sit with Gordon while he and Benrey play Mario Kart. Gordon agrees, which means he has to clamp down on any curse he almost lets out when someone bumps him off the damn road, while Benrey does some magic or whatever on his screen. Who the hell knows.

After their third match, Benrey elbows Gordon in the arm to signify a break. “Beddy bye hour,” he says, not even looking at Gordon, “for… babies. Hattrick means I make the rules.”

“You didn’t come first in the second match,” Gordon argues, but quiets down when he looks down to see Joshua asleep leaning on him. “Okay, don’t fucking choose Toon Link for me again while I’m away,” he points a finger at Benrey, who’s residing smugly in the to-be-chaos of his own making. “I’m fucking serious.”

He carries Joshua to his bedroom and tucks him in, and then detours to the kitchen for some water.

“Ooh, hydration,” Benrey comments idly.

“What d’you know about it,” Gordon mumbles when he settles back down on the couch. He looks at the TV screen to find Inkling on one of the shitty bikes. “What the hell man, this bike sucks ass. Fucking Shit Taste McGee over here.”

Benrey laughs.

Gordon plays the game, while thinking about the sendoff party they’re throwing for Bubby and Coomer next week, before the grandpas go off gallivanting in yet another forbidden corner of the Earth. Coomer lovingly calls it their “honeymoon”, but Gordon has full faith this is gonna be what they do forever. Or at least until they’re bored of Earth, and start aiming for the Moon instead. Probably not a bad place to be in.

“Thinking Xen thoughts, aren’t’cha,” Benrey says, while sending a shell after some poor computer character.

Gordon grins. “Ha! Sike! I’m not even thinking about Xen.” He pauses, catching the full force of a fireball a Mario shoots at him. “I haven’t thought about Xen at all actually. Since I got home with Joshua.”

“Achievement unlocked,” Benrey says, and extends a hand. Gordon stares at it.

“Wh- huh?”

“High five, idiot.”

“Oh,” Gordon says, and slaps that hand. Benrey’s eyes widen at the noise.

“Yo that’s a. Crunchy noise.” He claps his hands together, and he’s laughing now, light flowing out in a thread of something like baby blue. “This rules,” he says happily.

Gordon smiles, and then some motherfucker flings a shell at him, so he falls off the road again.

He stays up way too late again, and time doesn’t stop slipping, and when Darnold gives him a vial of neutralizer for the Potion of Not Telling at their little party the week after it gives him something like mania and he hugs Coomer like an idiot while the old man slaps his back in a motion that’s supposed to be comforting. He sleeps that off as well afterwards, and wakes up to Tommy surfing the channels on his TV, complaining about lack of daytime talk shows. When he forgets about the scheduled blackout a month after, he still calls the concierge with shaking hands and then climbs into his bed like he’s four again and there’s a storm outside. He still thinks about Black Mesa, and about Xen.

There’s just a little addendum now, that he can remind myself of.

It’s weird how quickly it blends into everything else, but. Well. It’s weird everything .

He makes cookies again, comes the winter, and teaches himself how to decorate cookies, just to have something to do. Joshua throws his pencil onto the notebook one day to go dig out the lumpy, supposedly-ISS-shaped cookie cutters from the tool cabinet.

“Careful,” Gordon calls after him.

Joshua toddles back with the cookie cutters in hand. “Can we have ISS cookies?” He asks.

Gordon says yes. He also looks up a buncha references, prints them out, and tries to get the cookies exactly correct, making two “outside” cookies and an “inside” one, with schematics of the inner chambers of the ISS drawn on. Joshua loves it.

“Here’s where the astronauts sleep,” He points at the spot that’s supposed to be the service module, and Gordon’s proud of getting that part right on the cookie.

He ruffles Joshua’s hair again. “Hey, maybe you’ll sleep there in twenty years,” he says, and marvels at the levity to that sentence. Just a little bit. It’s washed away with Joshua’s smile, and then they busy themselves with folding bags for the cookies instead.

#hlvrai #gordon feetman #joshua freeman #benrey #tommy coolatta #dr. harold coomer #bubby #darnold pepper #fanfiction #ask to tag #+ one art inside but it mostly has to do with the fic #I will. draw more from this fic and put them in as time goes on #the formatting's a bit wack bc I just copied the formatting from ao3 #I will come back to fix stuff up later #okay now I take more naps #have a good day! and also thank you for reading this fic if you do!

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