#more dramatically be Elliot GOODBYE

[valley-of-headcanons]

You asked for request so here’s a fun silly one. Bachelor reacting to the farmer getting annoyed and yelling “Bite me!” In the middle of a fight/argument. Do they? Don’t they? Or does it just had fuel to the fire? Enjoy and have fun~

bachelors reacting to “bite me!” || headcanons

in the middle of a small argument, your words move faster than your brain. well, here goes nothing!

warnings: slightly suggestive at times? not really tho

requested by: anon! hiya, thank you so much for requesting! sorry for the mini-hiatus. life moves so fast sometimes. this isn't really well written, i apologize, not my finest but i hope you enjoy it nonetheless! <3

alex

• Alex stared at you for a minute. The nature of the argument was playful, and your statement made him just want to tease you more. He playfully smirked at you, placing his hands on your hips with a small chuckle. He was pretty tall, so he was most likely looking down at you, a devilish grin on his lips.

• “Where?” he said, laughing softly. Seeing your face grow red, realizing what you've just said, he held back his laughter. He loved seeing you all flustered, and he's sure you just said that out of instinct. “Now you're getting all shy? You're no fun,” he fake-pouted. He released his grasp and watched you practically explode. It was really, really entertaining for him.

elliott

• Elliott wasn't expecting such a remark from you. He gasped playfully, placing a hand on his chest. It was like you had just insulted his entire family line and spit on his grave. How dare you say such a thing! He was really playing up his response, drawing it out in his dramatic way. That's just Elliot, and you absolutely love to see it.

• “Why would you say something so cruel?! To even suggest that I would do something as crude as biting you? That's preposterous! Gosh- that is so offensive- I don't think we should speak anymore. I will never utter a single word in your direction for the rest of eternity. Goodbye,” he said, his hand coming up to block you. He didn't mean it, he loves messing around in his own little way. What a man.

harvey

• Harvey's face flushed a bright red. He didn't expect such a comment, and it made his stomach do a somersault. He cleared his throat, taking a step back. Readjusting his coat, Harvey wracked his brain for things to say. You were so smug about it! You just stared at him with a big ole grin. Little bastard. He had no idea what to respond with, becoming a stuttering mess!

• “W-What?- wh- ... huh? H- ... How does that even come to mind in a situation like this? ... why would I bite you?- oh- you meant it as- ... I apologize for the misunderstanding- ... what do you mean, it's cute?!” he said, getting even more flustered as you kept going. The poor guy can never catch a break while you're around. You may be a menace to society, but you're Harvey's menace.

sam

• Sam says the phrase pretty often, so the fact that you started saying it practically warms his heart. But he's been waiting for the day someone says it to him. His perfect response, his perfect rebuttal. Sam doesn't get these moments often, so he's prepared! This is it, he's going to get you back so good! Hah, you're going to be practically speechless after you hear this!

• “Bite you? ... uhh- ... no, you probably taste like- ... hot dog water, or something else ... equally ... gross ... man, I really thought I had a good comeback this time,” Sam laughed, looking away nervously. He's just a little dumb, but you have to admit, it was probably the best response to that statement you've ever heard. So yeah, it did leave you speechless. Maybe not in the intended way, though.

sebastian

shane

• Sebastian softly smiled at your stupid little remark. It was cute, he had to admit. You were really cute in his eyes anyway. He loved you being “annoying,” even though others might not. It was amusing, and he loved every little aspect of you. Your little quirks are always fun to analyze on his end. So, he wanted to see how you'd react to this.

• “So you argued with me to ask me that? I would've done it without the argument, I'd bite you whenever,” he said, his face flushing softly. Yeah, he didn't think he'd say something like that either. You were bringing a playful and slightly more confident side out of him! Your face was just about as flushed as he was, both of you now sitting in flustered silence. How the tables have turned.

• Shane was going to fuck with you. Of course he was. His dry sense of humor, his slight pettiness. He loved fucking with you in little ways like this, especially when you were “upset.” His face was completely deadpan, staring at you for a few seconds. Silence filled the room for quite some time before he gave his response, leaving you questioning what was going through his head.

• “Disgusting. Why would you ever suggest that? That's fucking gross, man,” he'd say, before moving closer and softly sinking his teeth into your neck. He'd pull away, a smug grin on his face. “Don't ever suggest that again. Do you think that I'd do something as revolting as biting you? Geez, you need some serious therapy.”

[theresattrpgforthat]

any recommendations for time loop games? or if not anything involving time travel?

thanks :)

THEME: Time Loops

Hello friend! Fear not, I have a good number of time loop and time-loop adjacent games for you!

Project ECCO, by Elliot Davis.

Project ECCO is a game of time travel and cosmic horror—a solo journaling game with a twist. Time travel across the pages of a planner, writing in and marking up the dates based on prompts as you go, ultimately creating an artifact of your travels through time. 

You work for the mysterious organization known only as The Agency , tasked with tracking a time-consuming entity throughout an entire year. 

In the end, will you destroy the Entity? Do you dare question the Agency? Can you find yourself?

As a solo roleplaying game, Project ECCO is great if you can’t get a group together or if you want more narrative control over your story. This game involves travelling back and forth through time, but there’s also the possibility of ending up in a time loop. You can use different kinds of resolution mechanics to represent different kinds of time-travelling technology, such as a d6, a pack of tarot cards, and a coin.

If you want to listen to a dramatized play of this game, you can listen to the actual play of this as recorded by My First Dungeon!

Reset, by Alfredo Tarancón.

THE END IS NIGH. AGAIN. 

You're trapped. But not in a place, exactly, but in a moment. Something terrible is about to happen, and your mission is to prevent it. Unfortunately, every time you try, something goes wrong. Something changes. And you fail. Over and over again. You're caught in a time loop, and the only way out is to prevent the Event. But you're at your breakng point, and you won't be able to endure many more cycles. The human mind isn't prepared for something like this.

How many Resets do you have left before succumbing

WELCOME TO THE LOOP

RESET is a role-playing game in which you play as time travelers who must prevent a terrible Event from taking place. You belong to an organization that has the ability to send a team to Key Moments in history to try to prevent them from occurring. But it's not easy. The technology allows you to create temporal loops that help you decipher the mysteries behind the Events, but there's a limit to the number of times a person can experience the process. If you fail to decipher the events that converge to trigger the Event, your mind will end up being destroyed, as well as your body, jsut another victim of the Event. You can only exit the loop by preventing the Event… or by dying.

Breathless games are great for setting tension, using dwindling resources represented by different-sided dice. These dwindling resources alongside a time loop that can only go on for so many repetitions means that this is likely a good candidate for game groups that want suspense, and high stakes.

Time To Drop, by Marn S.

YOU are a member of a heist crew about to pull off ONE LAST JOB. You and your crew are under the impression that you only have 24 HOURS left with one another - 12 to finalize your preparation, and 12 to pull off the heist itself.

You and your crew are wrong.

You are about to find yourselves trapped in a loop of those same 24 hours, living and reliving them as many times as it takes to identify every complication, refine your plan, and get it right. No one besides your crew will remember the previous loops as clear as day, but make a strong enough impression on someone in one loop and it might carry to the next. What you do here matters. What you do here has to matter, if you ever want to say your final goodbyes and get out of the game for good.

Time to drop. Fuck shit up.

Time To Drop is a GM-less tabletop game where you and your friends take on the roles of a heist crew trapped in a time loop, trying to get their final job right and ride off into the sunset with the goods. You'll use dice and a tarot/oracle deck to determine and overcome Complications such as your Mark, and the Guard of the goods you're after, ally with NPCs, and spend downtime phases working through your feelings about the crew splitting up.

You’re going to need dice and a tarot deck to play this one. Time to Drop combines heist fiction with time loop fiction, putting a series of complications in front of your team that they’ll have to overcome if they want to get away scot-free. If you want an action-packed game with just enough structure to help you get from one point to the next, this might be the game for you.

What’s So Cool About Time Loops? By Max Kämmerer.

“What’s so cool about time loops?” Lots of things, honestly. But what is cool about your time loop? Play to find out! Climb out the trenches of a war. Celebrate a family holiday. Take your final exams. Experience the day a meteor crashes into the city. Play the championship-winning game. Or witness the assassination of a politician. Again, and again, and again…

At least until you manage to break the loop…

To do something in this game, you start with 2d6 and add or subtract dice according to helpful and unhelpful circumstances. Roll an 8 or higher and you succeed! For the GMs, there’s a page of advice as well as a roll table of suggestions as to scenarios that might be taking place or various reasons why the time loop started in the first place.

WSCA games are usually pretty simple, which means that you can make the stakes as big or a small as you like. If your group wants to navigate a small-stakes, everyday complication, you can do that, but you could also use this game to tell a story about highly-trained professionals in a doomsday situation.

Thrown for a Loop, by DMan1198.

Your players live in a highly advanced town filled with brilliant scientists and a state of the art super-collider, that seems to be having an issue. Now the day keeps resetting, and your players are the only ones that seem to be aware of it. Can they find the answer to why the day is resetting, or are they doomed to relive this day forever?

This is a pretty bare-bones document, but the premise is interesting. You are all citizens of a little town, with various roles that may help you figure out how to stop the time loop. The game relies on d100 rolls, so you’ll probably need a couple of d10s and that’s about it.

This is a game for folks who either want to collaboratively create their own town or have the GM come up with a town for the group to explore. The document has the basic rules of how to resove actions and a list of character types, but not much else.

Too O’Clock, by Xander Hinners.

Hey! Have you ever seen a sitcom or cartoon bottle episode where all its wacky hijinks are based on the main character being trapped in a time loop? TOO O'CLOCK is made specifically to model those episodes! You and a friend toss coins to shape your show's antics around the weekly aeso--

Hey! Have you ever seen in a story where a character trapped in a time loop uses their infinite redos to their advantage, to (re-re-re-)try achieving a goal with another character? TOO O'CLOCK is made specifically to model those scenes! You and a friend toss and collect coins to disco--

Hey! Have you ever been stuck repeating your life, trapped for what feels like a trillion seconds, echoing your experience over and over until every detail is etched into your skull and eroded again by its endless tides? I have. It's why I wrote TOO O'CLOCK; part memoir, part warning.

Too O-Clock follows the story of a single character as they try to navigate a time loop, using coins or another binary form of resolution. The story is a collaborative narrative, with the players able to take on different roles at different points. The game has 7 different iterations, with the 7th iteration looking very very different from the 1st. This game is a great candidate for a table that really loves the tactile sensation of moving tokens, flipping coins, and keeping track of stacks to help you map how far you’ve gone.

You Might Also Want to Check Out...

My Time Travel rec post!

[straw-hat-steph]

How I feel about WHO ??

Sebastian X GN Farmer - (dialogue heavy) one shot

Just over 800 words

The idea for this came from completing Leah’s six heart event in an attempt to be friends with everyone on my save file. You can mentally swap out Sebastian for another partner if you want! (as long as it isn’t Leah of course)

“Someone just knocked on the door !”

“Okay dont worry I’ll get it”

Half putting on their boots and half stumbling, y/n makes it to the front door. It’s not unusual for someone to be here during this time, offering seeds or stray pets but it's still exciting nonetheless, especially considering the farmer has been making an effort to become friends with more people in town.

“Oh Leah ! Hi” y/n said once they opened the door, surprised to see a new friend

“Hello y/n, beautiful day isnt it ? i hope its not too early but i have brought you a gift”

On the other side of the door, Sebastian’s interest is peaked, he picks up a fussing baby from the floor and slowly walks towards the entrance of the house.

“It’s a sculpture I’ve been working on, just for you” Leah explained, earning very different looks of shock and awe from both the farmer and Sebastian.

Y/n reaches out for the sculpture and places it delicately on the porch beside them.

“It’s called… ‘How i feel about y/n’. I hope you like it” the artist continues.

“It’s amazing Leah thank you so much but you didn't have to”

“Oh don't worry about it! You’ve been so nice to me lately, bringing me salads and bottles of wine from your farm. It’s a way of me repaying you”

“Well you didnt have to but thank you so much, I’ll have to find the perfect spot for it”

Y/n briefly looked round to see their husband looking at them from the kitchen with a puzzled look on their face.

“Okay well I wont keep you for any longer. Are you coming to the stardrop tonight ?”

“Yes I am! I have some diamonds and oranges that I need to give to Gus” Y/n exclaimed, happy that someone reminded them of their to-do list

“Okay?” Leah said, now sharing the same confused look as Sebastian “Well I’ll be sat at my regular table, I dont think Elliot is joining me anymore so it will be nice to have some company”

“Oh of course I’ll come over and say hello” the farmer smiled, excited to be making friends outside of their husband and his band mates.

After saying goodbye, y/n watches as Leah maneuvers around the various barns and coops before heading back down the path towards cindersap forest. They bring in the piece of art and look at their husband.

“That was nice of them-“

“How I feel about WHO?!” Sebastian shouted, a smile creeping onto their face, leaning on the kitchen counters like an angry parent.

Y/n pretends to tuck a piece of hair behind their ear before putting the piece down and walking up to Sebastian with outstretched arms.

“If you’re cheating on me you can just say so” He playfully bats the farmer away.

“Oh my god stop being so dramatic”

“No I mean it! I mean I would have to figure out how to get the kids’ beds in my moms basement but we would remain civil. As a child of divorce I understand completely”

“Please shut up she was just being nice”

Sebastian pulls the farmer in close, their faces even closer.

“We’re married with two kids and I’ve never made you a piece of art”

“Well maybe you should”

“Have you met my mum ?? Wood carving skills are in my genes”

“And yet here i am … artless”

Sebastian tips back his head and laughs. Y/n is so glad he’s not the jealous type.

“I guess after all this time, I didn’t realise I had competition”

“You got too comfortable then. My life is like a dating sim these days”

Y/n moves out of Sebastian’s arms and walks away, trying to carry on with whatever was happening before Leah showed up. Sebastian followed them anyway.

“Oh really?” He questioned, still smiling “tell me what else i have to compete with”

“Well … Elliot dedicated his new book to me”

Sebastian acts as if he’s been shot and stumbles slightly, making Y/n laugh this time

“And Shane let me meet his chickens”

He pretends to be shot in a different part of his body. Sometimes you wonder if anyone else sees how much of an idiot he really is.

“I can’t believe Shane showed you his c-“

“Chickens!” Y/n shouts while finally stepping out of the farmhouse door.

“I cant believe I’m in this house, raising our children and you’re flirting with all of Pelican Town!”

“But you’re the one I married” Y/n laughs “I guess something about the motorbike and board games put you above the rest”

“Good” he smiles before standing on his usual spot on the porch, watching their partner throw themselves into their work. It’s times like this when he thinks about how close he was to leaving this whole town and life behind.

BONUS:

“You’ve been staring at it for hours”

“I cant tell what its supposed to be”

“It’s how they feel about me”

“It’s weird”

“It’s art”

did you like it ?? you can find more here !!

[mikelogan]

context for each song under the cut and here are a couple gifsets of most moments

Are You Gonna Be My Girl is the first song played in the season opener and takes us through a montage of what has happened since the end of the previous season. Elliot is doing a fellowship at a different hospital, JD is living in a hotel and enjoying being an attending, and Turk and Carla are trying for a baby.

JD listens to and sings along with TOTO's Africa while taking a bath and eating Elliot's mango body butter on his day off.

Over the Rainbow, a cover version by Ted's Band in real life The Blanks, ends Scrubs 100th episode, which was inspired by The Wizard of Oz, in a crane shot of the hospital, with The Worthless Peons singing on the roof.

The Janitor is holding tryouts for an airband and The Todd auditions with Working for the Weekend. Turk comes in, makes fun of him, and then wows The Janitor and his friends with a dance to Poison. (Fun fact: Fortnite stole the dance Donald made up for this scene and he's gotten no credit or made any money from it.)

Hey Julie plays as JD and Julie's relationship moves quickly.

The Janitor's airband performs a dramatic lip-synced version of Boston's More Than A Feeling once Kelso re-allows such activities.

Fix You plays when Jason "Cabbage" is fired, but stops to say goodbye to Mrs. Wilk -- who is being discharged from the hospital -- first, infecting her and ultimately causing her death.

The Long Road plays at the end of My Five Stages when Mrs. Wilk passes away. JD and Perry share a moment on the roof of the hospital as a result.

When Perry makes a decision that results in the death of three patients, How To Save A Life plays as he walks out on his shift -- and JD.

Delirious Love is the final song in the season 5 finale, showing JD and Kim's romance igniting, Turk and Carla finding time for romance before their baby is born, and Jordan and Perry laughing together despite the shocking news that they're having another child.

[gradianmax]

Date Night || Malliot

Tagging: Max, @elliejamesrose

When: Tuesday, August 16th - evening

Where: Elliot’s Home, Silverstone Cinema

Warnings: nsfw - sexual conduct and strong language

Notes: Max is bolded, Elliot is italic

Max was on cloud nine when he woke up in Elliot's bed. They had a short but lovely morning together and kissed goodbye as they both started their days. He spent his work day in a daze. He paid barely any attention at all to his work as all he could think about was the previous night with Elliot and meeting up with him later that day. It went by rather quickly and he was able to duck out a little early to give himself enough time to finish up the night's preparations. He'd taken Marley's advice and she's secured the theater for him. He'd spent the last three days coming up with the little puzzle that would lead them to their destination. He wasn't that smart of a guy when it came to that type of thing so he hoped it was entertaining for Elliot. 

 Once he was sure everything was properly aligned he went to work on making himself presentable. He scrubbed himself clean of any trace of his shop and dressed to impress. Armed with his math equation and cipher he soon found himself at Elliot's door once more, knocking at 6:30 sharp.

Elliot thought for sure he was going to call out of work that day feeling still tired from the night before but knew the office would be busy. So after a few kisses and saying bye to Max he went to work. Not that he could really concentrate on the job, he just kept thinking about Max and blushing as the night replayed in his head.

He was excited for the date, perhaps a bit nervous still but excited nonetheless. He rushed through the days work and got home right into the shower to get ready for his date. He made sure to brush his teeth 3 times, not feeling clean enough and he put on his best pants and cashmere sweater. He couldn’t deny he really liked the way he looked.

He heard the knock right on time and he smiled at the man’s punctuality. He took one last look in the mirror and sprayed a bit of cologne before getting the door. “Hey handsome.”

Max's smiled brightened as the door opened to reveal his date. "That's my line. You look amazing," he said before stepping forward to steal a quick kiss. He looked the man up and down and smirked playfully. "First thing's first." He pulled a chocolate flower from behind his back and presented it to Elliot. "A rose, for my Rose. It's not real, obviously. Wasn't sure how you'd feel about having to keep a live one."

Elliot laughed at Max’s complaint and the cute kiss that followed after. He could feel the heat rise on his face with how cheesy Max was being. “Oh my god, you goofball.” He chuckled, giddy with excitement as he took the chocolate rose. “Thank you, love.” He smiled and leaned in himself to give the man a kiss. It was a fair assumption given Elliot didn’t have any plants in his home.

Max took Elliot's laughter as a win and beamed proudly. He pressed himself into the second kiss, wrapping his arm around Elliot's back and cupping his cheek. He smirked against his lips, separated for a moment, and then gave him another quick little peck. "AIright then, handsome. We've got a whole evening planned. Best not be late." He took hold of Elliot's hand and gave it a squeeze. 

The first thing he hoped his date would notice is that he was not driving his baby. He'd managed to convince the one guy at the shop with an automatic transmission to let him borrow it for the evening. He opened Elliot's door with a dramatic little bow as before and once he'd gotten into his own seat he immediately held out his hand with a grin. "I can hold it properly this time," he said smugly.

Elliot raised a brow to the man. “A whole event you say?” He pursed his lips into a smile. “Best not be late then.” He repeated as he let himself be led. The first thing he noticed was that he was being led to a different car, had the boy really bought another car just for him? He chuckled at the bow and got into the car. He was very impressed and had been the entire time of knowing Max at his attention to detail. “You are so impressive, you know that?” He complimented the boy with a smile and took his hand.

Max interlocked their fingers once Elliot gave him his hand. He brought it up to his mouth and gave him a playful kiss. "Oh, I know," he said smugly. "But, now it's your turn to be impressive." He was really excited to unveil is little plan, but also just a touch nervous that Elliot would either think it was lame or too much and not want to go along with it. He kept up his excitement despite those thoughts on nodded towards the glove compartment. "Open it up. You're going to tell me where to go." He'd cracked open a new little notebook for the occasion and it lay in the compartment with a pen just waiting for Elliot to take a look.

Elliot furrowed his brow not sure what Max was going on about but he sure did look excited. It was very cute how excited he was to reveal what he was talking about. Elliot looked down into the glove box and grabbed the notebook and pen. "What's this?" He asked with a small laugh. He looked at the pages puzzled for a moment before things began to click. "Be patient with me." He undersold himself. 

 It took him less than a few moments to start the equation as he scribbled down the page, getting the answer in under a minute. "42?" He hummed and continued on to the next part. He was uber focused on what the scrambled letters meant. His tongue prodded out if his lips as he concentrated on getting the answer. He was never really good at word problems. When it finally clicked he smiled to himself and counted down the alphabet, getting the answer to the cipher. "42 Silverstone way? The theatre?" He asked the man, looking up at him.

The look of concentration on Elliot's face as he quickly worked out the little puzzle was beyond endearing to Max. He finished it even faster than anticipated and he huffed out a laugh. "Theatre it is. I'm making the next one much harder," he warned. With the destination revealed Max took hold of Elliot's hand again and started them on their way. He was glad that phase one of the date had gone well and it just made him that much more excited for the rest of it. He'd have to send Marley some sort of gift for helping him to plan everything. She'd been a complete godsend.

Before long Max once again found himself holding the car door open for his date. He escorted him inside with a giddy smile on his face. They were met with a cinema employee who recognized him on sight and led them past the ticket booth. He eyed Elliot a few times wanting to gauge his reactions to everything as it unfolded. They were left at the door to one of the rooms with a quick, "Enjoy your evening," and Max said his thanks before they headed inside. He hadn't seen the set up in person and was thrilled by how it turned out. There, in the aisle usually reserved for breaking up the seating between front and back of the theater, was a table set up with drinks and two plates with silver covers.

Elliot grinned ear to ear, finally math was something that made him happy. He would do math all day if it meant being with Max. Maybe max was the one to make him fall back in love with his career. Make him not want music so much. He thought it was bizarre that they were going to the movies for a fancy first date but he would go anywhere with Max. He followed Max up to the theatre a little confused when they were escorted directly to an empty room. “Max, what is this?” He asked with a smile as he saw the table set up in the center. “Babe, you did all this?” He asked as he pulled on his arm with excitement.

Max grinned in triumph. He could hear the excitement in Elliot's voice and it was like music to his ears. "I had a lot of help," he admitted. "But yes. All for you." He held a chair for his date and pushed him in before taking his own seat. "I heard from a very reliable source that you are a fan of Italian food." He unveiled the plates which had been provided by a very nice restaurant a town over. "Not only that but," he nodded to the big screen as it slowly faded into the beginning of Moulin Rouge. He'd arranged to have the volume lower than the typical movie showing so they could better enjoy each other's company.

Elliot kissed Max’s cheek as he took he took a seat. It was all so much. No one had ever gone this far to prove that they wanted him. He was always the one doing the most for others and it was exhausting. He could feel tears well up in his eyes but thankfully he was keeping them at bay. He didn’t need to cry every time he saw Max. He took everything in and just when he thought it couldn’t get better, Nature Boy from Moulin Rouge began to play. He used his hand to cover the gasp that came to his mouth as he watched the huge screen light up with his favorite more. “Max!” He exclaimed softly and of course he couldn’t help the small tears now. He felt so embarrassed as he wiped them from his eyes.

Max gave Elliot a soft little smile and raised a hand to wipe gently at his tears with his thumb. "I'm going to take these as a compliment," he teased softly. He could tell the tears were more about being emotionally overwhelmed and not because he was upset over anything. He was glad he'd mustered up the balls to actually go through with over the top idea and made yet another mental note to make sure Marley was properly thanked for her help.

"I'm sorry." He said bashfully as he felt the other man help him wipe his tears, "It's just... No one has ever done anything like this for me before. They usually run when i deny them, you know, and I've never had anything like this." He spoke softly, opening up to the man. "I love this all. Thank you, Max."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Handsome." He pulled his hand back and took a bit of a deep breath, preparing himself for a serious moment. "You already know I've never done this. Truth is, I've never felt like this. You're... I don't know," he cut himself off with a small laugh. "There's just something about you, Elliot Rose. I want to get to know you better. So, here we are."

"It's hard to believe. You've been so amazing." He replied to the young man. "I don't really get what you see in me, Max. I'm not nearly as interesting or fun like Elton or half the people in this town. I work too much and I like order, and i can be difficult..." He didn't mean to talk down on himself but he was never the most secure person and he really didn't think he was special at all. He didn't feel like he deserved this. He took a sip of water, trying to ease his anxiety just a bit. "You don't need to wow me to get to know me better. I know I like the luxury and nice things and I get so caught up in all the materialistic shit but I just want you for you and I need you to know that."

Max understood what he was saying. Not seeing the good qualities in one's self was a pretty universal experience. He gave Elliot a shrug. "I get that," he admitted. "I don't know what you see in me either. The only thing I'm good for is sex and clearly that's not why you're here. But you are here, giving me a chance." He sat back in his seat with a smile. "Everyone's difficult in some way. Maybe my difficult and your difficult will work well together."

"Or perhaps we end up hating each other." He said realistically and gave a small shrug. He felt bad for giving Max such a hard time at first, felt bad for feeding into what Max thought badly for himself. "I've given you a chance because you're not what you think you are. You're kind and supportive. You care for your family, it seems like we share the same value's, no? You are very good at sex but I don't see that as a negative..." He paused with small blush. "I mean you put all this together for someone you barely know... It's so much effort that almost no one would waste their time on. You're consistent and you remember the details. I love that about you." He smiles, he just wanted Max to know how truly special he was.

Max smirked, "Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet, baby." The flirting came instinctively and he shook his head after saying it. "Sorry, habit." He genuinely appreciated the compliments and he was soon wearing a matching blush. "I actually have a really shit memory," he admitted after a moment. "I always have." It was an embarrassing fact that, quite literally, no one but Natasha was aware of. "I keep notebooks. Started when I was younger because I'd loose track of shit I was supposed to do, places I was supposed to be, things people told me. So, uh..." He blushed even deeper and turned his head. "Every time you tell me something about yourself I write it down so I don't forget."

"Well, that certainly takes a lot of effort, Max." He nodded. "And effort means a lot to me." he asserted. He reached across the table to take his hand and squeeze it. "You're more and an more interesting to me everyday." He smiled and looked down at the food which looked delicious. "Shall we eat?" He asked with a small laugh. He felt like they could compliment each other all night so best to save some stuff for later.

To be entirely honest, Max had been worried that Elliot would react worse to his admission; that'd he'd think it was strange or something. He gave a little sigh of relief and squeezed his hand in return. "Right back at you," he replied. He brought their hands up to give Elliot a little kiss. "We shall. I hope you like it." He looked up at the screen between bites. "You know, I've never actually seen this movie all the way through."

Elliot took back his hand after the kiss and began to eat with a smile. "God, this is delicious... You have to tell me where you go this from because i need to have them on speed-dial." He moaned as he took another mouthful. 

 "You've got to be joking me." He gave Max a disappointed look, it was playful but still pretty disappointing. "Moulin Rouge is one of the most important pieces and influential of art of our time. I mean Elephant Love Medley and Come What May are just... There are simply no words, Max."

Max chuckled at Elliot's enthusiasm for the food. He was definitely adding the restaurant to his list of go to places. "Maybe I'll take you there on the next date," he teased. 

 "Hey, clearly this was meant to be. Now I can experience it for the first time with its number one fan." He shook his head fondly. "I'm going to assume both of those are songs, by the way. But so far I'm more impressed by how hot Ewan McGregor used to be. Not that he's bad looking now, but still."

Elliot gave a small embarrassed shrug. "I'm not the number one fan... I just really like it, okay?" Elliot took another bite of food as he listened to the man. "Correct. Yeah Ewan is top tier in this movie. His voice was so perfect for this film. You can just hear the passion in vocals when he does Your Song. I've never head anything better." 

 Elliot finished his dinner and wiped his mouth, the distance between them was way to far for comfort. He got up and went over to Max and took his hand, pulling on it to follow him to the theater seats above them. He pushed the arm rests up to make room for the two of them. He then gently pushed Max down so he could sit, while Elliot made himself comfortable beside him and rested his head on his shoulder.

Max loved hearing the passion in Elliot's voice on the rare occasions that he spoke about music. But even in the short time he'd been getting to know him he'd already learned not to pursue the subject so he just nodded.

When they were finally sat next to each other Max put his free arm around Elliot's shoulder and held him close. They continued to hold hands and he pressed a kiss on the top of his date's head. Things were going perfectly and it was even more amazing than he'd imagined it to be. "You better not be smug if I end up really liking this by the end," he teased.

"I don't need to wait to be smug. I know you're going to like it... How could you not? it's my favorite." He said with big puppy dog eyes. His free hand ran up and down the mans chest over his shirt as he watched the screen, waiting for his favorite parts as there wasn't one he could choose. 

 The entire time they were watching the movie, Elliot couldn't keep his hands off the man, giving him small kisses on the cheek and his neck as well as just touching him to feel him close. They were finally at the finale and Elliot could help the tears rolling down his face. He'd be embarrassed if he wasn't expecting it but he knew he cried every time he watched the movie.

It was strange to think that sitting there watching a movie with Elliot was the most casual affection he'd ever received from someone outside of his family. He'd never thought of himself as a particularly affectionate or needy person,  but as it turns out he'd simply been deprived of it. He craved every single touch as they came and pressed back into every one of them. 

 He'd known the movie was going to have a sad ending so thankfully it didn't catch him by surprise. He did find himself tearing up just a tad despite that however. He kissed Elliot's temple softly and then leaned over to grab the box of Kleenex Marley had warned him to bring. "I came prepared," he said while handing him one.

Elliot looked over at Max who barely had any tears "How are you not a blubbering mess like i am?" He asked with a chuckle between tears and grabbing the kleenex from the man. He wiped his tears and then gently wipe the couple small one at the edge of Max's eyes. "God, you probably think I'm ridiculous." He sniffled.

"I think you're fucking adorable," he countered. "I just don't look nearly as cute after crying as you do. I've got to keep it locked down so my eyes don't puff up." He was mostly joking, but he did hate the way he looked after crying. Plus he'd put on just a touch of eyeliner for the occasion and he didn't want to ruin it.

He moved in close and cupped Elliot's cheek. "I like when you wipe my tears away though," he admitted. "Like you're taking care of me. Feels good." He still wasn't sure what he was doing as far as dating went and it compelled him to be as honest as possible. He didn't want to mess anything up with miscommunications.

"You could have fooled me." He said referring to last night when they were both a blubbering mess. He stroked his cheek with his thumb before leaning in to kiss him deeply. "I want to take care of you." he muttered softly not wanting to pull his lips from the others. He never imagined making out in a theater past his teen years but they did have the room all to themselves it would be a shame to not make most of it. 

 He continued to kiss the man, pushing himself off the seat to get a better angle. He reached for one of Max's hand and placed it on his waist. "Hold me like you mean it." He grinned into the kiss.

That was the first time he'd ever been told that. It brought up a well of longing inside him. He imagined he was going to experience a lot of firsts with Elliot. "I want to take care of you, too. But being taken care of feels nice." 

 He laughed at Elliot's teasing. Instead of simply touching him as directed he smirked and grabbed then man with both hands by the waist. He pulled him over and up onto his lap. "Careful what you wish for."

Elliot squealed into Max chest as he was pulled onto the man. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck. “Careful? Careful is my middle name.” He teased with a kiss as he rocked his hips lightly. Gosh he felt like he wanted to devour the man.

His hands found themselves running through the others hair as their lips met. “You look so gorgeous tonight, babe. You did so well.” He praised with a smile, pulling away to meet his eyes. Yeah he could definitely fall hard for this man.

Max was prepared to make a joke about threatening him with a good time, but the moment he heard the praise falling from Elliot's lips he couldn't contain his reaction. He moaned deeply into his mouth and when they separated he was left with an enormous blush. 'You did so well,' echoed in his head along side the noise he'd let out and he covered his eyes with his hand. "Oh my god."

Elliot loved heard the other moan but was a bit concerned when he pulled away covering his face. Elliot sat up in his lap and pouted. “Honey, are you alright?” He asked with furrowed brows as he brushed the others hair back with his hands and used the other to pry the man’s hand off his face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Max was not a shy guy. He'd done all manner of sexual activities with more people than he could count, but apparently having the cute guy he was really starting to care about tell him he did well was too much for him. He shook his head trying to backtrack his embarrassment. "No, no, nothing wrong, sorry." He rubbed his hands up and down Elliot's thighs gently. "Think you just got a bullseye on my new biggest turn on," he said with a laugh. "Probably not a good idea to explore it further while we're still in public is all."

Elliot raised a brow, not sure what Max was going on about, not exactly sure what the turn on was that had Max so flustered all of a sudden. But it did make him feel good that something he had done was affecting him in that way. “What is it?” He asked curiously with a laugh. 

 “Shall we go back to your place then? Maybe you can tell me more about this kink you have?” He bit his lip as he used his hands to rub his chest up to his shoulders.

Max loved feeling Elliot's hands on him. That combined with the news that his date wanted a happy ending to the evening had him smiling up at him. "I didn't not clean my place enough to have you over," he said with a chuckled. "But I'd love to go back to yours. You could take me into your bed and tell me what a good boy I've been for you today." It was a dangerous game to tease since just saying the words had Max hard and ready to go.

Elliot frowned a little bit at not getting to see Max’s place but he understood not being show ready. Maybe next time. “Back to mine it is.” He raised a brow and chuckled, of course it would be a praise kink. He honestly hadn’t meant it to rile him up, he really did think he was doing really well for it being his first date. “Alright, my good boy.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to his lips before standing from his lap.

Max groaned before standing beside him. "We may need to implement a 'no calling me that in public' rule," he joked. "I like it way too much."

He took hold of his date's hand again and gave the back of it a kiss. It was quickly becoming one of his favorite little shows of affection. He swung their hands between them as they walked back to the car, feeling giddy about how well the night had gone.

“Really, it’s that bad?” He chuckled as he took his hand and followed him to the car. He took hand again in the car as they drove back to his house. “Maybe we can set up the hot tub when we get to my place. It’s been a while since I’ve used it.” He suggested.

Max gasped dramatically. "Elliot Rose, are you trying to get me shirtless? On the first date?" He laughed, "A hot tub does actually sound really nice though." They eventually found themselves back at Elliot's front door. "Alright, before we go in I need the cliché end of date kiss," he said before arranging them in front of the door. They stood face to face and he held both of Elliot's hands in his. "I had a really nice time with you tonight."

Elliot rolled his eyes “Do you not remember last night?” He smiled contentedly as they arrived at his house and he was stopped before arriving at the door. “I also had a really great night. Just know you don’t need to go all out like that each time, okay? You’re great just as you are, baby.”

"Oh, I'll remember last night until the day I die, handsome," he teased. He shrugged at Elliot with a little smile. "I know. I just wanted to make our first date really special. I don't want you to think I'm just going through the motions to get into your pants. I'm in this. Like, all in."

Elliot nodded and pulled him in close. “I know honey. And you made it so special for me. It was the best first date I’d ever been on.” He took another step towards Max. “You’re so good to me. I’ve never had someone be so good for me, baby.”

Max let the words of praise wash over him. They brought forth conflicting feelings. Part of him wanted cuddle up to Elliot and beg the man to hold him and say nice things to him all night long. The other part of him wanted to drop to his knees where they stood and beg the man to fuck him hard. Either way he was turned on and barely controlling himself. "Fuck, I want to be good for you," he finally replied while letting his eyes fall shut.

Elliot let go of one of his hands to to run his thumb along his jaw. Seeing Max so vulnerable and so wrecked because of him was extremely attractive, Max was gorgeous. He leaned up and pressed his lips to the others softly. “Let’s go inside.” He murmured.

Max followed Elliot inside like a puppy, his head buzzing with desire. He took his shoes off quickly and had barely turned back towards his date before blurting out his desires. "Baby, can I go down on you?" He hadn't mean to say it so unromantically but it was suddenly the only thought in his mind. He licked his lips and took a deep breath to try to calm himself. "Totally fine if you don't want me to, obviously. But if you did, I'd be into it. Really into it."

Elliot fixed the shoes rapidly and gave the room a glance to make sure everything was in place before returning his attention to the man. He was a bit stunned at how forward Max was being but it didn’t bother him in any way, he was just curious. “You want to… really?” He asked, Elliot was never really a fan of going down on anyone, call him a bad partner but it just always gave him anxiety, he never thought he was doing it right and he’d never really been on the receiving end of someone who was great at it too.  But he did trust Max, he trusted him a lot. And just like Max was good for him he wanted to be good for Max. “You don’t want to hit the Hot tub first?”

Max nodded his head eagerly. "Fuck yeah, I want to," he told him enthusiastically. "But, yeah, obviously it doesn't have to be this second. We have the whole night. And the tub really does sound amazing. I just needed to get that off my chest, see if it's something you'd be into."

Elliot nodded “Okay, yeah that sounds nice, baby.” He assured him with a nervous smile. Max had done so much for him already, it was the least he could do for the man, if it’s really something he wanted. He took his hand and led him to the back of the house, another part Max had yet to see. In the back yard he had the pool, his hot tub and a gate that led straight to the beach. The tide was fairly high already and you could hear the waves crashing.

Max smiled at his date and followed him outside, happy that they were seemingly on the same page. His jaw dropped a bit as he took in the view. "Damn, Ellie. Fucking beautiful out here. Next date we should just sit out here and drink some wine, take in the sunset."

Elliot beamed, proud of his space and that Max seemed to like it. “I really like that idea.” He went over to start up the tub, letting it run as they got ready. He walked over to the small shower shed he had where he stored towels and his bathing suits. He began to undress tossing his dirty close into the hamper there, except for Max’s jacket which he hung on one of the hooks and without another thought dropped his drawers to replace them with the swim trunks he hand. Once he finished he tossed the other pair to Max.

Max decided to be a gentleman and did not at all stare at his date as he got changed. Instead he stood a respectful distance and only glanced every few seconds. "I'm going to start getting conditioned to be turned on by showers," he joked as he followed suit in rinsing off and getting into the trunks.

"Fuck, I can't even remember the last time I relaxed in a hot tub. You're going to spoil me."

Elliot didn’t mind the glances from Max, he knew they would happen anyway and he laughed at his comment, it was true, water seemed to always rile them up.

He walked up to the man and placed a hand on his chest. “I can’t wait to spoil you. You deserve it so much.” He kissed him before leading him to the water, going down the steps into the hot bubbling water. It felt so incredible he let out a soft moan.

Max hummed into the kiss and was left with a smile once they separated. He stepped into the tub after Elliot and echoed his moan. "Damn, that's nice." He took a seat and practically melted into it. "How do you not just fall asleep out here? So fucking relaxing."

Elliot chuckled “It’s hard not to, I’ve dozed off a couple times but not for too long.” He moved to sit next to the man and closed his eyes with him, feeling the bubbles and heat around him. It felt incredible. “This is exactly what you need after working on cars all day. Here scoot forward and find a jet.” He told the man as he actual got up to sit on the edge of the tub behind Max once he’d followed instructions. He then pulled him back gently so the jet was pulsating at his back while his hand went to his shoulders, starting a a nice deep massage. “How’s that, baby?”

Max closed his eyes and let his head fall back. The pulsing of the jet felt amazing on his lower back and Elliot's hands might as well be magical. He hummed in appreciation. "So good," he confirmed. "I knew you were going to spoil me. Fuck, I could sit here all night."

“That’s right, baby. Just relax. Let me make you feel good.” He whispered softly, leaning down to kiss his forehead. He knew he wasn’t the best at sex but he did give great massages. He worked his shoulders and neck a bit more, making sure to hit certain pressure points that he knew felt good. He was a good study from his own masseuse. He worked from his shoulders down his arms to what he could reach, then over his shoulders to his chest. He peppered the man’s face with kisses as he did.

Max was feeling conflicted again. He was so used to physical stimulus leading to sex that he almost couldn't help but be turned on by the massage. However, the combination of the words of praise and the little kisses he was being littered with made him feel fuzzy and soft more than horny. The one thing he wasn't confused on was that it was good. He moaned softly and sank back deeper into Elliot's hands. "Christ, never stop touching me."

Elliot shook his head with a laugh. Touching him would never be a problem, he loved having his hands on Max, he loved feeling the firmness and curves and just warmth, and he loved the way he smelled. It was addicting on all levels. “I actually need to get a better angle here…” he spoke experimentally as he stood from behind Max to get back into the water and straddle his lap. His hand went up to rub his temples immediately, watching the satisfaction of the gorgeous man in front of him. “There we go. How’s that feeling, sweet boy?”

There was a brief moment while Elliot was changing positions that his hands were disconnected from his skin and Max wined pathetically at the loss. The moment the man was on top of him Max wrapped his arms around his back and rolled his hips up to find some friction. He moaned loudly as he felt it. "Ah, fuck. Sorry, I'll behave." He settled himself down again, hips still, and tried to simply enjoy the tub and his wonderful date's skilled hands.

“It’s okay, baby.” Elliot bit his lip and proceeds to give Max a scalp massage as he rolls his hips, giving Max what he wanted. “I want to be good for you just like you’re good to me. So, so good for me, sweetheart.” He pressed his lips against the boys neck, leaving soft open mouth kisses along it and up his jaw, nipping lightly ever so often.

"You are good," he answered instantly. "So good for me too. So fucking perfect." His fingers dug into Elliot's hips and he whimpered at the triple threat of stimulation he was receiving. He'd never had so much emotional attachment to a sexual encounter before and it was driving him to the edge faster than anything had since he was a teen. "Ellie, baby," he moaned desperately, already sounding wrecked as he instinctively tilted his head to give the other man more access to his neck. "I'm sorry, I'm already so close. I'm about to make a mess of your hot tub."

He understood it, he understood why people had kinks. The whole good boy talk was getting to Elliot too and suddenly he didn’t mind that Max was about to come undone in the clean water. Elliot held onto Max and rolled his hips even harder, one hand leaving his hair and traced down his chest to his nipples, while the other tugged on his hair as his lips stayed attached to his skin, bruising it lightly as he nipped harder. “It’s okay, honey. I love it when you call me Ellie. Fuck.”

It didn't take much more after that. Seemingly the permission was all he'd needed. Max clung to Elliot desperately while savoring every single touch between them and chanting his name. "Ellie, Ellie, Ellie- fuck. Oh, fuck!" He bucked up against him and shuttered as his orgasm ripped through him. The combination of the pleasure and the heat had his head feeling fuzzy and amazing. He fell backwards against the wall of the tub and practically panted, trying to catch his breath. "I want to suck you," he muttered, not wasting any time. He wanted to feel Elliot heavy in his mouth. "I'll be good if you let me. Promise."

Watching Max enjoy what Elliot was giving him was the biggest turn on yet and he was achingly hard in his swim trunks. “That’s right. Such a good boy for me, baby.” He whispered as the man let go under him. He rocked his hips gently as the man came down and back to him. He didn’t waste a moment letting him know his continued desires. He couldn’t say not to him. “Where do you want me?”

Max blinked up at Elliot and then turned his head to look behind them. "Back, where you were." Even with his orgasm clouded brain he figured the most comfortable place in their current location would be to have Elliot sitting on the edge as he had been moments before. He picked him up and set him in place. He turned around and kneeled in his seat between Elliot's legs. He stretched his arms out to the floor on either side of him and lowered his head to start kissing along the waistband of his date's trunks. "Can I?"

Elliot felt paralyzed by lust and nerves as the man picked him up and sat him on the edge. He had so many thoughts rushing through his head that it suddenly felt blank and now Max was touching him and kissing his skin. It made him shutter lightly and his dick twitch in his shorts. Of course he wanted this. Who wouldn’t want this? He nodded at Max and shut his eyes, letting it happen.

Max couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. He'd been given the go ahead but when he looked up at Elliot's closed eyes he wondered. He stopped and reached a hand up to cup his cheek. "Ellie, baby. You alright? You sure you want this? It's okay if you don't." He may have been misreading things but he just wanted to be sure before they went any further. There was nothing wrong with checking in every once in a while.

Elliot shook his head as he cupped Max’s  face with his hands. “No, I-… I trust you, Max.” He chewed on his lip, feeling more and more anxious. He normally didn’t like the attention the focus on him. It was very overwhelming to him. He also didn’t feel like he deserved it and He was scared he wouldn’t like it to be quite honest. He pouted at the boy. “I’m sorry, I’m just…” he raise a hand to hide his face, slumped over on the edge. “I just want to be good for you.” He whispered.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Ellie." His head had come back to him and he was thinking more clearly. "You've been absolutely perfect." He grabbed Elliot's hands and started kissing his knuckles. "Not to be a dramatic bitch, but this might be the best night of my life. I've never had so much fun spending time with someone before. Plus you just made me cum harder than I think I ever have. So, not getting to suck you off in no way ruins the night. I promise." He didn't want Elliot to feel like he had to do things or compromise himself for him. 

 "We can get you off another way if you want," he offered with another kiss to his hand. "Or if you're not in the mood we can just keep soaking. Or head to bed? You can be big spoon this time," he teased.

If he was honest, Elliot was already getting soft from the extreme overwhelm and anxiety he was feeling. He felt relief that Max didn’t want to push him into anything, only because Elliot was certain he would do anything for the man at this point. “I think I just want to go to bed.” He let out a soft shaky sigh of relief.

Max smiled up at him and leaned forward to give Elliot a chaste kiss to the lips. "Then bed it is, baby." He was beyond glad he'd trusted his instincts and checked in with Elliot instead of pushing ahead.

He stood up from the tub and pulled Elliot along with him back to the shower to quickly rinse off. "Can I borrow those sweatpants again, Ellie?" Now that he knew Elliot enjoyed the nickname he was sure to start overusing it.

Once Elliot’s anxiety was triggered, it was hard for him to let go of it. It has always been that way, ever since he was a little boy. Worse part was sometimes he didn’t understand why he was so anxious but it was overwhelming.

He turned off the hot tub before heading over to the showers, turning around halfway to make sure he had actually turned it off. He counted the towels in the shower room, trying to make count of how many should be in there before grabbing two and making a mental note. He nodded at the boy as they went up stairs to his bedroom. Elliot made a bee line to where the pants usually were but he didn’t see them. This frustrated Elliot immensely. “They’re supposed to be here.” He whispered to himself not remembering that laundry wasn’t done until Wednesday, in his state of overwhelm, and it would still be in the hamper from this morning. He rummaged through more of his clothes, upset that he couldn’t find the one piece of clothing that Max liked.

Max tried to stay out of Elliot's way for the most part as he watched the man rustle around. He could tell he was becoming upset but he didn't have much experience interacting with this type of anxiety. He figured staying calm and trying to be supportive was the best course of action available to him.

"Are they still dirty? I can just wear anything, baby. Hell, I'll go nude if it doesn't bother you."

Max’s voice seemed to snap Elliot out of his downward spiral and shove through some common sense in his brain. Elliot took a few deep breaths and rubbed his face with his hand, embarrassed. “They should be the first item on top in the hamper.” He huffed quietly, he was extremely embarrassed by his behavior. He grabbed his own sleeping pants from the closet where he always had them and put them on before returning to the bedroom.

Max nodded and quickly changed into the sweats after grabbing them from the hamper. He was fine going without a shirt so long as Elliot didn't mind. He looked down at his chest and grinned at the faint marks he saw developing there. He was happy to keep them exposed.

He flopped down on the bed before Elliot and tried to think of something to distract the man from his troubles. "Want to hear something crazy?"

Elliot found the man already sitting in bed and he raised a brow. “What’s that?” He asked. He was a bit curious as he wrapped his arms around himself.

"Last night was the first time I've ever spent a full night sleeping with someone next to me. And it was probably one of the best sleeps I've ever had." He grinned and patted the spot beside him. "I'll say it again, you're gonna spoil me, Ellie."

Elliot found it a little hard to believe since he himself had many adult or even drunken sleepovers with his hookups in the past. But he had to remember, not all people were the same or had the experiences.  Elliot sighed softly and joined the man on the bed, crawling up behind him. He liked having the man feel taken care of.

He wrapped his arms around Max and kissed the top of his head as he gently played with his curls. “I think you’re one of the best things to ever happen to me in a very long time.”

Max stilled at the words, taken by surprise. He buried his head against Elliot's neck to ensure that his face was out of view. He wasn't sure he could handle any eye contact with how emotional he was suddenly feeling. His fingers curled against Elliot's skin. "You mean that?"

Elliot had always been very emotional, he was constantly getting himself hurt because of how deeply he felt things and how truly he expressed himself. For Elliot and relationships it was always all or nothing, either he wasn’t that into you or he was all in, and having sex really solidified that. He’d been hurt many times in the past that he really thought he would never find someone to accept him as he was. People always ran away whenever he said something that was really deep and followed through because he actually meant it.

Max, he was different and Elliot couldn’t quite put his finger on why but he trusted him. He could feel how pure his energy was, even if maybe his body wasn’t the purest. He had a feeling Max wouldn’t run, still he held back a bit. “I mean it very much.” He looked down at the man, seeing the light of the moon touch his cheek. He wish he could see his eyes, see what he was thinking. “I know it sounds crazy because I can’t even believe it myself but I can’t picture myself with anyone else.”

Max closed his eyes and held onto Elliot. He raised his leg to drape over the man's hip and squeezed tighter. "Good," he said simply with just a touch of sated jealousy in his tone. "Anyone else wants you they'll have to fucking fight me, because I'm not letting you go, Ellie."

It was crazy to think that he hadn’t really started paying attention to Max until last week, when they had grown up in the same town their whole life. He was glad they could fix that and now he couldn’t imagine his life without Max in it. “You’re gonna fight people for me, baby?” He chuckled sweetly. “I adore you.”

"Hell yeah, I will," he exclaimed. He pulled away from the cuddle just far enough to turn and show off his flexed abdominal. He gave them a pat and smirked. "You see these? And these?" He raised his arm and flexed his biceps as well. "I'll scare anyone who tries away." He laughed and laid back down to continue their cuddling. "You know, in a respectful, non controlling way. Like... defending your honor and shit, but not being the creep that says you can't talk to other  people."

Elliot rolled his eyes playfully as the man flexed in front of him. “Okay, mister tough guy.” He chuckled. He kissed him before he laid back down and let out a soft yawn. “Let’s get some sleep, yeah?”

Max echoed the yawn immediately and shifted to press his back up against Elliot's chest. He grabbed his arm and pulled it around his waist. After a moment or two he broke the silence with a smile. "Hey, you remember when you said you adore me? That's was pretty chill. You could like, text that shit to me sometimes. Make me smile at my phone like an idiot in front of the guys at work."

Elliot raised a brow with a smile, his eyes shutting closed as he held Max in his arms. He couldn’t be happier. “Oh yeah? I’ll try to remember that.” He kissed the back of his head.

[waitimcomingtoo]

would it be too much to ask for another part of plank all over me? maybe this time is an autocomplete interview with both of them and there‘s rumors going around that they’re engaged or that she’s pregnant so they’re acting all mysterious for it... thank you so much ❤️ i loooove your stories!!

Plank All Over Me - Autocomplete Interview Edition

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Synopsis: You and Tom do a WIRED autocomplete interview

Disclaimer: you do not have to have read the other parts to understand this, but check them out ;)

Plank All Over Me

Yoga Edition

Couples Tag

Prank Interview

Waitimcomingtoo Masterlist

“Hi, I’m Andrew Garfield.” Tom smiled at the camera.

“And I’m Emma Stone.” You blew a kiss at it.

“And this is our weird Autocomplete Interview.” Tom finished.

“It’s WIRED.” You giggled at his mistake.

“What’s wired?” Tom asked you.

“Nothing’s wired. The channel is WIRED.” You corrected. “You said “weird”.”

“My apologies.” Tom said to the camera and he rested his hand on your knee. “This is our WIRED Autocomplete Interview.”

“Dyslexic king.” You praised and Tom laughed. 

“I like how these videos gradually get more and more chaotic as we make them.” He smiled at the thought of the other stupid videos you’d done together.

“I can’t wait to be 80 and playing with puppies over at Buzzfeed.” You joked.

“You and me both, darling.” Tom leaned in and kissed you. “Should we start with mine or yours?” He asked as he picked up the boards of questions.

“I like to save the best for last, so yours first.” You quipped and Tom gave the camera a blank stare.

“Isn’t she sweet?” Tom said sarcastically. You picked up his first board and peeled off the first strip of paper.

“Who is…Tom Holland.” Tom read off the board.

“I bet my mom was the one who googled that when I told her we were dating.” You said and Tom laughed.

“My mom probably googles “who does Tom Holland think he is?” when I’m acting up.” Tom added.

“Oh my God.” You covered your mouth with your hands. “Have I ever told you when your mom and I call you when you’re acting up?”

“No, what?” Tom inquired.

“No. I can’t.” You shook your head. “It’s our secret.”

“What? You have to tell me.” Tom shook your arm like a little kid. “Please?”

“Fine.” You sighed. “We call you Bitchy Elliot.”

“WHAT?” Tom screamed and you bent over laughing. “WHAT?”

“You wanted to know!” You reminded him.

“Bitchy Elliot? That’s not even clever.” He scoffed.

“It’s clever.” You disagreed. Tom picked up the board and dramatically ripped off a strip of paper.

“Who is Tom Holland…civil war.” You read amidst your giggles.

“Like who do I play?” Tom asked the camera.

“No, silly. They’re asking if you were on the North side or the South side of the American civil war.” You replied as if it were obvious.

“Oh, well I’m from Southwest-“ Tom began.

“The south was the racist side.” You interrupted.

“North.” Tom said definitively.

“I knew you didn’t know enough about American history to answer that question.” You laughed as you peeled the next strip off.

“Who is Tom Holland…girlfriend.” Tom read off the board.

“Whoever she is, I bet she loves proper grammar.” You poked fun at the phrasing.

“Y/n almost canceled our first date because I texted her and used the wrong form of “your”.” Tom told the camera.

“I think I was being completely reasonable.” You defended.

“Were you?” Tom squinted at you.

“Yes.” You answered and brushed his hair back. “Next question.”

“Where did Tom Holland…college.” Tom asked as he peeled the strip off.

“Oh God, where did Tom Holland college?” You asked in sarcastic amazement.

“I didn’t college.” Tom answered. “And I don’t think whoever asked this question did either.”

“Where did Tom Holland…meet Y/n.” You asked as you revealed the next question.

“We met over at BBC Radio 1 when we did the Plank All Over Me Challenge.” Tom replied with a smile.

“And I haven’t been unable to get rid of him since.” You said sadly. Tom rolled his eyes and peeled off the next question.

“Shut up.” He teased. “You love me.”

“Most days.” You agreed.

“Is Tom Holland…in the MCU.” Tom read off the board.

“He is!” You said excitedly. “I actually almost left the MCU when the Sony/Disney thing was going on because I didn’t want to be in it if Tom wasn’t.”

“She was two seconds away from not renewing her contract for Venom 2, so you have me thank for it happening.” Tom boated.

“Or we have the cast and crew to thank.” You suggested.

“Or me.” Tom shrugged as he revealed the next question. “Is Tom Holland…taller than Y/n.”

“You could ask “is Tom Holland taller than…” and no matter who you fill in the blank with, the answer would be no.” You stated.

“Haha!” Tom said sarcastically. “Read the next question.”

“Anything for you, shorty.” You laced your fingers though his and kissed the back of his hand. “Is Tom Holland…engaged.” You smirked a little when you read the question. Engagement rumors had been off the charts lately and you and Tom decided to be vague.

“I don’t know, is he?” Tom looked at the camera and tilted his head.

“Like engaged to a girl or engaged in combat?” You stroked your chin.

“Well he’s definitely not engaged in combat.” Tom confirmed and wiped his brow.

“So is he engaged to a girl?” You kept up the act.

“I can’t tell. He’s very mysterious. And very handsome.” He added.

“I wouldn’t go that far but he is pretty private about his personal life. I wish I could ask him.” You leaned your chin on your hand and sighed.

“I heard he’s pretty difficult to get a hold of.” Tom said sadly.

“Yeah. Maybe someone should give him a ring, see if he’ll answer.” You looked at the camera and shrugged. Tom peeled off the next question and dropped the paper on the floor.

“Is Tom Holland…British.” He read.

“He’s Australian.” You answered confidently as you revealed the next question.

“Does Tom Holland…drive.” He read off the board.

“No. He usually winds up his ears and flies off.” You said into the camera with a straight face. “They flutter like butterfly wings and that’s how we get around.”

“I think I know the answer to “is Tom Holland engaged?” now.” Tom mumbled.

“What’s the answer?” You asked him.

“No.” He told you before breaking into laughter. You cupped his face and kissed him swiftly as an apology.

“Was that your last one?” You asked when you noticed the lack of boards.

“Oh I guess it was.” Tom looked around. “Your turn.”

“Who is Y/n L/n…mcu.” You read. “Uh I play Iron Man.”

“She plays Iron Man very well.” Tom added as he peeled off the next question. “Is Y/n L/n…pregnant. Wow, second question.”

“Do I look pregnant?” You sassed the camera.

“Is Y/n L/n…engaged.” Tom read the next one.

“Nope, just pregnant.” You nodded.

“Is Y/n L/n…married.” Tom revealed the following question.

“Married to the money.” You answered and Tom chuckled.

“Is Y/n L/n…Tom Holland’s girlfriend.” Tom smiled as he read the next one.

“Depends on who you ask.” You shrugged.

“No, always.” Tom said, a little offended.

“Depends.” You shrugged again.

“Depends on what? Who would say no?” Tom questioned you.

“Me, if a cute boy asked.” You joked. He made a face and you laughed before kissing him.

“Is Y/n L/n…engaged to Tom Holland.” Tom read the next one.

“Im engaged in this conversation with Tom Holland.” You replied.

“Why does everyone keep asking if we’re engaged?” Tom asked with fake curiosity.

“Because we are.” You deadpanned.

“Oh right.” Tom matched your seriousness before you both burst into laughter.

“They’re probably asking because of the prank interview we did with Conor and Josh.” You reminded him.

“We didn’t say we were engaged.” Tom said.

“But we talked about marriage.” You countered.

“Guys, we’re not engaged.” Tom said to the camera.

“But Tom is pregnant.” You pointed at the camera. Tom laughed before peeled off the next question.

“Did Y/n L/n…win the plank challenge.” He read.

“I don’t even remem-“ You started.

“I won.” Tom stated. “I hold the record.”

“Well there you have it.” You laughed.

“Did Y/n L/n-“ He started to read the next one.

“Ryan Reynolds.” You cut him off.

“Oh okay.” Tom nodded as he peeled the next one. “Does Y/n L/n…have a boyfriend.”

“See the above answer.” You smiled at the camera.

“This is a video. There is no above answer.” Tom sassed. “And your boyfriend is not Ryan Reynolds.” He added quietly.

“Don’t remind me.” You sighed sadly. Tom made a mock hurt face and you pouted.

“Aw.” You laughed. “I love you.” You pulled him close to you and covered his face in kisses.

“Okay. I love you too.” Tom kissed your cheek. “There’s one more. Does Y/n L/n…John Mulaney.”

“I genuinely do not know how to answer that question.” You said after a minute of silence.

“I genuinely don’t know if that is a question.” Tom added.

“I think that’s a great way to end the interview.” You laughed. “Thanks John Mulaney.”

“Thank you for watching our Autocomplete Interview.” Tom grinned. “I’m Tom Holland.”

“And I’m engaged to Tom Holland.” You finally confirmed as you held up the hand with the ring. “Goodbye!”

Tag List 🏷

@maybemona @foreverxholland @writing-for-hours-on-end @lavender-writer @captainmandeestudent17 @whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings @ultrunning @imyourliquor-youremypoison @theolwebshooter @andreasworlsboring101 @guksmyfav @waiting-to-be-myself @letsloveimagines @peterparkoure @a-villain-vying-for-attention @m19friend @justcallmehitgirl @averyfosterthoughts @jackiehollanderr @tiny-friggin-human @celestial-skylines @loveat2am @mara-twins @iamaunicorn4704 @delicately-important-trash @mjspxrker @spideygirl2003 @the-crazy-fanfictionist @kii-mii @maryjanee23 @spacebitch2 @vgiselle @geeksareunique @emmamarshmellow

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

77 Minutes | Five Hargreeves

✦ pairing — Five Hargreeves x Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 1.7k

✦ summary — you’re not having a good day — Five isn’t either and things only seem to be getting worse.

✦ warnings — spoilers for season 2, some angst, mentions of blood and violence, mentions of death, language, a little bit of fluff.

════════════════════════

You were having a bad week, and that day only proved that it would get worse if you didn’t find a solution quickly.

Luther and Diego had been in the middle of threatening to kill a lady through the phone when you arrived, Elliot was dead, you didn’t know where Five was, and you were on a time limit to save the world.

There was also the fact that you hated your temporary job, but that was a petty complaint. People were the worst, honestly, you were still getting used to being around them after years only around Five.

Five sadly stared at Elliot, covering him with the sheet Luther had draped over him again.

“Are you okay?” he asked you, eyes analyzing your face and body in search for injuries.

“I wasn’t here when it happened,” you assured him, observing the curling and uncurling of his blood-stained fingers around the handle of the briefcase he was carrying.

Unfazed by the familiar sight before you, slightly bothered by the fact that taking blood off white clothes had never Five’s most developed skill, you rummaged through the belongings you had bought hours ago.

He stored the briefcase in a safe spot, immediately trying to shimmy his blazer off.

Walking into the bathroom as Diego and Luther questioned him, he gave you a thankful nod when the clean shirt caught his attention.

It wasn’t like you could blame them for being shocked by the sight of Five covered in blood, but you didn’t want to partake in the interrogatory. You knew better. They should have known better, too.

“Five,” Luther pressed, “what did you do?”

Five cursed, shaky hands worsening the red splotches on his shirt as he tried to take his vest off.

You gently removed his hands, helping him to slide the item off and dropping it to the side.

He grunted in acknowledgment, not in the mood to anger you by ignoring your actions. As attractive as he found your angry version, he was tired.

He made a motion with his finger for you to turn around. You did so, facing Diego and Luther as you heard him run more water.

The shuffling behind you helped you guess what he was doing. You rested your head on the doorway, watching Luther fumble with his luggage as he struggled to open it.

“You can face me again, sweetheart.”

The uncharacteristic soft tone caught you off guard. Five could get to be extremely sweet if he wanted, but there was something off this time. He was a private person, not the type of person to use pet names in front of his siblings.

“So I found a way home,” he announced, putting his tie back on.

“What?” Luther inquired, too surprised to be able to hide it. “How?”

“All the details are irrelevant, but... I made a deal to get back to our timeline.”

The shakiness in his voice got on your nerves. Five wasn’t one for getting antsy, much less when solving a problem. And what kind of deal was he talking about?

“What about doomsday?” Diego asked the important question.

“Won’t happen.”

“And the 2019 apocalypse?” Luther followed Diego’s example.

“Everything will be back to normal. All right?” Five glared at his brothers. “Now, no more questions.”

Feeling as though the latter statement was directed at yourself, you followed him and his brothers.

Five put the blazer back on, declaring, “We gotta go. We have to find the others, right?”

He gave clear instructions. Luther would get Allison, Diego would get Klaus, he would get Vanya, you would bury Elliott.

“Now, we meet back in the arrival alley in 77 minutes.”

You frowned. Time limits when it came to time travel had never been a good sign.

He handed you and his brothers synchronized watches. You reached for your gloves, putting them on before clasping the watch on top.

Diego was skeptical. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You show up drenched in blood and expect us to believe everything’s gonna go back to normal if we go home now?”

“Elliot just got killed because of us,” Five sneered.

“What about dad? What about JFK?”

Here we go again...

“Diego, we have a chance to go home and make things right. We are taking it.”

“I have to say goodbye to Lila.”

“Lila doesn’t give a shit about you, Diego! She never did.”

You winced. That had been harsh, even for being something coming from Five. You could tell Diego really cared, he was failing miserably to hide his hurt.

“Lila is one of them. She’s a member of the Commission.”

“Not possible.”

“She was just using you to get to me.” Condescendingly, Five added, “You’re the Oswald of this story, my friend. The goddamned patsy.”

Raising his voice, Diego said, “Just because you found someone who is insane enough to want to be with you, doesn’t mean that everyone wants you.” He turned to look at you briefly, “no offense, you’re lovely, but in—“

Five interrupted his brother, approaching him and hissing, “If you don’t do this, I’ll kill you myself. Got it?”

You were truly worried now. That had been unprompted. Before you could say or ask anything, Five teleported. The whooshing sound made you cringe for the first time since you met him.

With a sigh, you kept yourself from entering in a self-absorptive moment. Everything would be okay in less than 70 minutes, there was no use in focusing on things that would only make you lose time.

Walking towards Elliot, you double-checked to make sure you had taken the car keys already.

Diego stopped you from carrying Elliot. “I’ll bury him after getting Klaus. He’s not far away from here.” You were about to deny him, but he pleaded in a low voice, “Please, (Name).”

Damn Diego and his puppy eyes. Nodding, you slid your hand into your pocket and withdrew the keys.

════════════════════════

Five paced. From left to right, from bottom to top. Luther shifted in his spot, checking his watch every few seconds.

Diego was nowhere to be seen, Vanya and Allison were late too. Five was shocked by the fact that a seemingly hangover Klaus had gotten there in time yet his more responsible siblings couldn’t be bothered.

The briefcase charged, Luther and you cursed sadly along with Five who threw the item off. As the briefcase disappeared, Five got angrier.

Sighing, he angrily lamented, “We were that close. That close!”

“Now what?”

“Now nothing, Luther. All right? Make your peace with God.”

“W—What?”

Luther’s confusion would’ve been endearing in any other circumstance, but you were sure Five was about to explode.

“What about Allison and Vanya?”

“Screw them both! They should have been here.”

“What about Diego?” Klaus chimed in.

“Screw Diego, all right? Screw everybody!” he yelled. “(Name) and I were better off on our own in the apocalypse.”

You looked down, avoiding Luther and Klaus. Five didn’t mean it, he would never mean something as brutal as that — not toward his siblings whom he had missed so deeply throughout those years.

Five tended to be hyperbolic, adrenaline got the best of him nine out of ten times. It had always worked in your favor until now. And even now, he must’ve been planning something else already.

“Five, come on!”

“You know what, Luther? It’s every sibling for himself now. How ‘bout that?”

Turning around, Five pulled the door open, slamming it shut after crossing the doorway.

Klaus whimpered, “Did Five just get meaner?”

“I’ll handle Five,” Luther assured. “You two go get the others.”

You shook your head. “It’s my fault that Diego isn’t here, I’ll talk to Five. You two follow the plan to get the others and I’ll see you here later.”

Walking up the stairs, you perked your ears to assess where Five could’ve been. He was being dramatic, and he wanted to be found, perhaps even followed — you knew because he would’ve teleported if that wasn’t the case.

Five was still pacing in the bedroom. He didn’t acknowledge you as you entered, too busy mumbling things to himself.

You weren’t interested in deciphering whatever he was saying under his breath, you wanted him to tell you what was really going on.

And he knew, after so many years together he had to know. Resting your back on the wooden door, you patiently waited for him to be done.

His pent-up frustrations had never bothered you. Perhaps because you had met him in a stressful situation, but mostly because you loved him.

“I’m going to do the unthinkable.”

“Of course you are.”

Five stared at you through his eyelashes. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Then what do we have time for, Five?”

“I don’t want to fight. Not right now.”

“You just want to break the most important rule of time travel,” you deadpanned, mocking him.

“I killed The Board for nothing, (Name)!”

“We can fix it!”

“You’re not surprised? I wasn’t supposed to kill anymore!” He kicked the bed, huffing out of his nostrils.

“Oh, come on,” you breathed out, getting rid of the uncomfortable watch and leaving it on the first surface you found. “We will always be assassins, Five. The difference now is that we’re doing it on our own terms.”

Sitting down on the edge of the bed with his head between his trembling hands, he let out a sob.

God, what a fucking awful day. You pushed yourself off the door. Walking towards him, slowly in case he wanted to have space, you discarded your gloves.

Taking the spot on the bed beside him, you placed your hand on his back and rubbed it. When he didn’t make a move to push you away, you wrapped your arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. “It’s okay. I’m here with you.”

Shifting, he wrapped both arms around you as he buried his face in the joint of your shoulder and neck. His shaky frame under your embrace broke your heart.

“The Handler tricked me — there wasn’t supposed to be a time limit.”

If he wasn’t so distressed, you would’ve punched him for making a deal with The Handler from all people.

“Vanya tried to fight me earlier,” he sniffed, resting his cheek on your shoulder. “Then after promising she’d be here she couldn’t do a simple task.”

“Have you considered the possibility that something happened to her, Allison, and Diego?”

“Who knows,” he grunted. “We have other things to worry about now.”

“Yeah,” you mumbled. Closing your eyes, you rested your head on top of his.

You just wanted a few minutes of silence in his embrace, holding him close like you used to after rough missions. And by the way his arms tightened around you, you asserted that he wanted the same.

[afandommultiverse]

My Girl - Magna Swing (LEMON)

Word Count - 2744 Summary - REQUESTED. See it was requested but I lost it so here is the lay down. Your a noble, you’ve been ‘friends’ with Magna for years and now, you’ve found out you're to be married.  A/n - hell's yeahs man! I'm really bored with this coronation quarantine so here is some smut. Sorry, if it's a little OOC.

Y/n P.O.V Magna first met you while he was in the city. He was making his way to the old alley that covered the black market when he heard you scream. Of course, Magna being the manly man he is, ran towards the scream. There he found you, being pushed around by two kids.

"Hey! Leave her alone you little mongrels!" Magna ran over and grabbed the kids back the back of their shirts and held them up.

"What do you think you're doing hurtin' a lady!?" The two boys grumbled and tried to kick out of Magna's grasp.

"Lady? Yeah right, Y/n's no lady. She's our sister!" Magna stilled. Should he put the kids down? But, they'd seem to be really hurting you. Magna flicked his eyes towards you, you were wiping small tears away from your eyes and holding yourself away from him and the boys.

"Even worse!" He dropped the kids and spun them around to face him.

"Now quit being mean to your sister and act like men!" The two boys shrugged Magna off and scoffed.

"Yeah, whatever. Come on, Elliot, it's almost time for training."

"Hey, where are you-" Magna stopped and looked down at the hand that had been placed on his arm. He followed the hand to the beautiful face of you. You smiled sweetly at him and spoke,

"Don't bother, they don't listen to anyone." Quickly, you retracted your hand and held it out for Magna to shake.

"I'm Y/n, from house L/n,"

"Ahh, a Nobel," Magna swooped down and took your hand looking you in the eyes as he kissed the top of your hand.

"It's a pleasure," You blushed softly and giggled at the magic knight's antics. Your eyes looked down at his cloak, noticing the black bull crest.

"What brings you to the city, Mr. Black bull?"

And that's where it all began... At first, You and Magna would just keep bumping into each other, in the market or on the street. And Magna would usually have to save you from something, whether it was others being mean to you, or you almost dropping something due to your clumsiness, he was always saving you. And one day he said something about it.

"Maybe you'll just have to hire me when you go out from now on Y/n," and you did. Whenever you left the house for long shopping trips and short vacations, you paid for his service from the Black bulls. Your family didn't much care for you so what you did with your monthly cut of coin was none of their concern.

This arrangement went on for years, at first nothing but friendly conversation and fun hangouts. But somewhere during the long years, you stopped paying for his services and just showed up when you wanted him for something, and Magna had no problem with doing it for free, at first he didn't even notice you were not paying! He was just happy to be with you when he could. And sure, this annoyed the absolute fuck out of Captain Yami, but you always paid off Magna's medical bills so it worked itself out.

~~~

Y/n P.O.V

Tears pricked my eyes as I stared down at the floor beneath me. My ears seemed to be ringing. A ring was placed in front of me. I stared at the glinting diamond in objection.

"And when do we marry?" I choked out. Trying to stop myself from crying in front of everyone.

"Oh quit the dramatics, Henry is a lovely boy and you're lucky to be engaged to him." My mother spouted looking down at me in disapproval.

"Yes, I'm sorry mother." I looked back down.

"You'll be wed in 3 months. Now put on that ring and a smile, darling." Her mother plastered a fake smile and slipped the ring on my finger harshly. I nodded and stood and walked out of the study. As soon as my back hit the door, I felt the dam break. Quickly I ran for my room and locked the door. I wept in my bed for hours, turning away everyone knocking at my door.

Days passed and I finally felt ready to leave the dull room. It was thick with grief and it was suffocating. I had decided to stay in our cabin in the clover forest for a few days to get away from the wedding preparations and thoughts of being shackled to a man for the rest of my life.

I packed my bags quickly and readied a driver to take me to the Black bulls hideout. When I arrived, I began my search for Magna. It was still quite early and no one was awake, even though it was 9:30 in the morning.

"Magna?" I knocked on his door and pushed it open.

"Magna are you awake-" Oh Magna was awake all right, awake and soaking wet with a loose towel around his hips. He combed his wet hair back a bit and turned to look at me.

"Oh hey, Y/n!" He immediately walked over to give me a hug but I halted him, pressing my hand against his naked chest without even thinking about it. My hand warmed at the touch and I pulled away quickly holding it like it was burned.

"Maybe when you get some clothes on, hmm?"

"Oh yeah... sorry!" Magna looked down at me for a bit before turning to change and letting me exit.

~~~

"So, what's up, Y/n?" I turned to find Magna dressed and ready looking at me a huge grin. I smiled a little back and walked up to him.

"I'm here to humbly ask for your service to escort me to my cabin, good sir," I spoke with a posh voice and drawled out my arms in a way that made it more dramatic. Magna burst out laughing and I smiled watching him.

"M'lady," Magna bowed towards the door and led me to the crazy cyclone.

"Why a trip to the cabin? Something up?" Magna knew me so well.

"I'll tell you when we get there."

~~~

"YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED?!" Magna yelled looking at me in exasperation. I sighed and sat down next to him.

"Apparently..." I grumbled, dropping my head on his shoulder and slouching against him.

"I-I'm sorry," Magna slowly moved his arm around me and pulled me closer, speaking into my hair.

"It's fine, I mean I knew it was gonna happen someday," I whispered.

"That doesn't make it any less fair." I sighed and nodded, looking up at him. I studied his features. I always loved Magna's hair, it was always so wild and just him. And his eyes were gorgeous when he would finally drop his glasses. Such a pretty blue.

"Y/n?"

"Do you want to spend the night?" I suddenly asked. Magna looked at me for a bit before jumping up.

"HELL YEAH.l! SLEEPOVER! LET'S GO!"

The night went on with the two of us just talking. We ate dinner together and then went and sat in the living room beside the fire. Eventually, when it hit twelve and the creepy old lock rang, Magna and I decided to go to bed.

I showed Magna to his bed and rushed off to go find my own as I fought the cold. I quickly climbed into bed and pulled the covers over me so I could sleep.

But I couldn't.

All I wanted was to go to bed but my body was wired and my belly was ticklish. I felt an unbearable aching between my legs and I couldn't stop it. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

"Not again." I groaned covering my face with my arms. This has been happening lately, as soon as I say goodbye to Magna all I could do was need him again but... in a different way.

My mind has been whispering to my imagination lately and it has not been innocent. I couldn't help but think of his hot hands on me, in places he shouldn't be touching out of wedlock. It was wrong to think about, he wasn't even my boyfriend!

I sighed and clenched my thighs a little tighter.

Maybe he wouldn't mind? God! What was I thinking? Magna liking me? It's crazy! I'm just some weak Nobel no one cares for, he wouldn't want me... But, he does always look at me a little longer than others. And he was always complimenting me and he did flirt! Maybe I should just try? Hell, I'm going to be married in 3 months. Who cares!

I stood from my bed and crept down the stairs to Magna's door and held my hand up to knock.

Henry won't tell the difference between virgin or not right?

But before I could drop my wrist to knock, the door opened and there stood Magna. Stripped to only a pair of cloth pants, tight around his thighs and further up. His hair was tousled and he looked down at me surprised.

"Y/n."

"Magna."

5 seconds. 5 seconds before we both grabbed for each other and kissed lovingly. My arms wrapped around Magna's neck and my hands curled into his hair. His arms drifted past my waist and lifted me to wrap around his hips.

He pressed me against the wall and pushed against me connecting our lips again. He kissed me softly, letting me catch on to the rhythm. Without meaning to, I ground my hips against Magna and moaned softly, letting him slip his tongue in my mouth and thrust against my center. I pulled away from Magna for air and felt him drift down my neck, leaving soft kisses and bites.

"M-Magna, wait," I breathed, pushing away from him a bit.

"Princess?" He looked at me in concern and worry.

"Mags, I- ... I've never... well... you know?" I whispered, embarrassed for having to tell him. Magna stopped for a second staring at me. His eyes were intense and I couldn't help but look away, feeling ashamed.

"I'm sorry," I felt like crying. God this is so embarrassing!

"Hey," Magna grabbed my chin and turned my face to face him, he looked at me and smiled softly.

"What are ya sorry about? You don't need to be experienced, we don't even have to do that. Y/n, I want you to be comfortable, and I want to go at your pace because I'm a man and that's the manly thing to do!" I laughed softly and wrapped my arms around him softly and smiled.

"You really mean it?"

"Of course! Lying is unmanly!" I shook my head and smirked.

"Then can we... continue?" I asked shyly, barely holding eye contact.

"Ab-SO-lutly!" Magna smiled and picked me off the wall and turned us to lay on the bed.

"Tell me to slow down if you need to, okay?" I stared into his eyes and nodded softly before leaning forward to bite at his lip softly. I watched as his pupils swallowed the blue of his eyes and he groaned as he leaned down to follow my kiss feverishly.

His hands fell down my sides, rubbing at my skin underneath the fabric, his warm hands heating my skin. His hands slid under my nightgown and ran softly up my thighs to grip at my hips firmly making me squirm and open my legs for him. My knees squeezed at his sides as he pressed his hips against me and his arms slid my gown up. I sat up a little and threw the nightgown somewhere in the room. I covered myself a little, shy of his reaction.

"You're so gorgeous." He whispered. I blushed and looked at him as he dove down and took a breast in his mouth and one in his hand. I squirmed underneath him as he pulled at me gently, rotating my nipple in one hand. I rocked my hips against him moaning into the thick air. His other hand slid to the band of my underwear and cupped me gently. He rubbed at my folds softly and kissed at my throat. His kisses moved lower, passed my breasts and reached my navel. I shivered, curious about what he was doing. He removed his hand and went to pull off my underwear, throwing it to the side when they were off. He spread me slowly and leaned down. He pressed soft kisses against my thighs, tickling my core in desire.

"Magna what are- oh!" I felt the flat of his tongue lick against me as his kisses led down the apex of my thighs.

"Mag-naa..." I felt as though I should stop him but it felt so good. His tongue lapped at me gently churning my loins in knots, heat growing in my stomach. I fought to close my thighs but Magna's strong arms held me open and braced me against him, no pulling away or pushing against. Magna licked and sucked gingerly at me. I couldn't help but moan loudly and grip at his hair, pulling it even, making him moan faintly.

It felt like a string was held taut within me and one moment it snapped and I was in pure euphoria. My thighs shook hard and I gripped Magna's hair harshly. I panted heavily as I relaxed, finally my thighs were released but I didn't have the power to move them for a second. I pulled Magna towards me and kissed him sloppily, tasting myself slightly. Magna pulled away and looked down at me, pulling my leg to wrap around him nimbly.

"Are you still sure about this?" He leaned down and waited for my confirmation. I leaned up and kissed him slowly before pulling away.

"More than ever." Magna pressed forward, inching himself slowly. I felt the pressure of him press against me, my walls finally giving away and accepting the rest of him wholly. I moaned between discomfort and pleasure, my stomach burning with earnest. I relaxed around him and rocked against him, needy for him to move again.

He sighed heavily and pulled back before sliding in again slowly. I felt him drag against me and begged for him to go faster, myself burning with need.

"Magna- Please." I cried. He sped up, pressing me deeper into the bed beneath us. I gripped at his back and dug my nails into his shoulders, trying to limit my cries.

"Oh princess, please let me hear you." He finished his request with a deep thrust making me release my captive lip and moan directly into his air. He nipped my neck and chuckled darkly.

"Thank you, Darling." I continued to moan loudly clawing at Magna. Magna would hit certain spots making me edge closer to my end. And just like before white-hot pleasure filled my senses and I pulled tightly against Magna, wrapping my legs around him making him cum inside me. Magna groaned and held me tightly pumping a few times before finally stopping and pulling out. I panted hard and felt Magna collapse beside me. Suddenly he jumped up.

"Oh shit! Oh sorry! Fuck!" Magna jumped up and ran to the bathroom before coming back with a wet towel. He pulled apart my legs gently and wiped softly at my puffy lips. Overstimulated and sensitive I could barely ask him what's wrong.

"Magna? W-WHat are you doing?" I tried to squirm away.

"I-I came inside you..." He said quietly. I paused before laughing slightly. Magna looked at me.

"What's so funny? I could get you pregnant! You're gonna be married in 3 months!" Magna whispered-shouted while I tried to stop laughing.

"Says who?"

"What?"

"Who says I have to get married?" Magna watched me as I got up and faced him on the bed.

"Your parents..?" I sighed and looked away.

"What if... what if I didn't go back home, and instead I-... I went back with you?" I held my breath, hoping I didn't scare Magna, or that he didn't really like me; he just wanted my body.

"I would love that!" I looked up at him and smiled excitedly.

"Really?"

"Hell yeah! You'd be my girl, and I could show you off whenever I want! And you could help with initiations! Oh, and strip poker! Y/n we HAVE to play!" I laughed at Magna's antics, trying not to cry.

"Magna?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Princess."

[rye-views]

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) dir. Steven Spielberg. 7.4/10

Harvey a cutie. UGH.

Why does everyone have to scream? I hate screaming. Elliot is so screamy and dramatic sometimes. This is why it’s so hard to take you seriously. I get he’s a kid tho.

Cool biking.

Lilo and Stitch similarity amirite.

I love that the aliens are botanists.

Spoiler: [About an extraterrestrial showing up to a town and being discovered by a little boy named Elliot. They name him E.T. He was left behind by his kind and is now trying to get back in contact with them. Elliot keeps E.T. a secret and takes care of him along with his little sister and older brother who didn’t believe him. E.T. quickly learns to speak English. E.T. manages to create a phone that can contact home but there isn’t any luck. The government is out looking for the alien and invades this family’s home. E.T. is slowly dying and is also connected to Elliot. The government try to save him but end up hurting him more and later announce his death. He ends up surviving only to the knowledge of Elliot. Kids work together to get E.T. back to his spaceship because his kind are back for him. The government chase them when they realize the alien is alive again. They say their heartfelt goodbyes and E.T. goes back home.]

[chelseaheskett]

5:22PM, THURSDAY. JANUARY 30TH, 2020.

She hated the idea of Elliot having to do more work after a full day at the office, preparing to take his first solo case to court—but the box for Vanessa’s new bed frame, leaned against the wall in the twins room, was starting to create a safety hazard. Late in the week, when he got home from work, Chelsea greeted him with a kiss and a proposition. The babies were napping in the playpen downstairs, so it gave them the perfect window of opportunity to finally set it up. Well... Chelsea was there for moral support. Verbal encouragement! She was there to supervise. She couldn’t reach down and hand him any of his tools, or anything, so she relaxed into the rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom, sipping on a cool glass of lemonade. “Where are the coveralls!?” She whined when he came into the room and settled onto the floor. Much to her dismay, Elliot had stripped down to a loose white tank top and sweat pants. Chelsea wasn’t happy about it! No matter how good he looked otherwise! Sex fantasies aside, though, they had a job to do. 

Halfway through, when the bottom of the bed frame was all screwed together, Elliot got the best of her. She’d been distracting him the entire time with her running commentary: constantly telling him how good he looked, how much she loved him, how hot this whole thing was making her feel. She got down on the floor under the guise of offering him some assistance, but really it was just an excuse to get close and touch him. His skin was shiny with sweat, his hair was falling all over his face. The touching started out semi innocent. A hand on his back, at the base of his neck, on his bicep. Brushing the hair off his forehead. Kissing him on the cheek, just because she could. Trailing her mouth down to his throat, and kissing his sweet spot until he squirmed. Her hands started to stray, too, until Elliot dropped the screwdriver and construction on the bed momentarily halted. 

Chelsea had to let him finish putting the bed frame together all by his lonesome. A baby monitor went off a few minutes post-orgasm, and Chelsea went and tended to the kids with wobbly legs walking down the stairs. Fed them and started on dinner for her and Elliot while he worked. Took Vanessa to unveil her big girl bed after bath time. She climbed straight over the railing, instead of crawling through the appropriate opening, and squealed. Chelsea scoffed to hide her laughter. “Puppy dog!” Vanessa pointed to one printed on her bed sheets. She’d been a huge help in picking them out when they went shopping the previous weekend. Elliot had to tuck her in. Like Jack’s bed, it was too low to the ground for Chelsea and her pregnant belly. She was getting so big, thirty-two weeks along now, that it was hard to even hold Isaac, and lift him into his crib. Her little boy seemed happy in his cot. Didn’t care too much about Vanessa’s new bed, thank God. Chelsea cuddled him and said goodnight.

Somehow, but somehow not surprising, Elliot was strong enough to move Vanessa’s old crib into their bedroom all by himself. Chelsea kept forgetting about it, and practically tripped over it multiple times in the middle of the night on her way to the toilet. The baby was constantly putting hard pressure on her bladder, and flaring up bursts of pain in her abdomen on and off all night. Elliot must’ve fallen asleep before she did, for once. She felt utterly exhausted and like she’d gotten no sleep whatsoever by the time morning came and Elliot kissed her goodbye, like always, before leaving for work. “Mornin’.” Chelsea mumbled, stretching her arms out. Her bed hair was sticking up in all angles and he smoothed some of it down and out of her face. “Oh, I bet Isaac loved that.” She smiled, sleepy. Elliot kissed her temple and his lips lingered. Chelsea whinged and reached for his tie to pull him back into bed. He was running late. Right! He had court for his case today! “Okay, go, go! Good luck, honey. Not that you need it!” Tomorrow was the weekend—they could cuddle in bed as much as they wanted to then. She adjusted his tie with one eye open. “Okay, baby.” Every other Friday was always when custody week started with Jenny. Chelsea would just have to stack all the babies in the car and pick her up from school later on in the day. Elliot kissed her on the mouth this time. Chelsea sighed into it. “I love you, too! Bye, gorgeous!” She replied, calling out when the warmth of his body was gone and she could hear the bedroom door lightly close behind him. 

12:59PM, FRIDAY. JANUARY 31ST, 2020.

The day was meant to be uneventful. She hadn’t been to the grocery store in awhile, because she absolutely refused to shove all three toddlers into a single shopping cart. A week without her Mom’s help at home and being in constant pain because of the baby was really starting to suck. Donna had been trying to catch up all week, so they could finally talk about the elephant in the room, but Chelsea always had an excuse. Today, she thought she might use it to her advantage. Get it over and done with and get something out of it. She called her phone early morning and Christian answered it. Chelsea tried not to give her emotions away, and politely asked if she could speak to her Mom. Didn’t trade any more niceties, didn’t do small talk. When her Mom got on the other end of the phone, Chelsea simply asked if she could look after the kids for an hour while she went food shopping, and suggested they finally sit down and talk when she got home. Her Mom was eager. Agreed, and didn’t mention the fact that Christian was there, at her house, answering her phone. Disgusting. 

Chelsea shot Elliot through a message, knowing it’d probably take a while to get a response when he had court. She got a reply a little while later, but by that point her phone was in her back pocket, and she was stuck in the kitchen arguing with her Mom. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want him anywhere near me or my family! Period!” Chelsea spun around, dropping the dishes from lunch into the sink. “You know what, Mom? Do whatever the hell you want! You’ve obviously made up your mind if he’s sleeping over at your house.” Chelsea pulled a face, clearly repulsed. 

“Watch how you talk to me, Chelsea.” Donna retorted, like she was still a little girl and not a full grown ass adult. Sure, maybe Chelsea was acting a little bit like a brat, or a child throwing a tantrum, but... this wasn’t okay! How was she meant to just sit still and take this? She refused to accept this. Nope. It wasn’t happening. 

“What do you want me to say, Mom? Do you want me to just lie and say that I’m happy for you? Because I’m not! I’m not happy! I’m fucking furious!” Chelsea cussed. Ignored the literal swear jar, half-stuffed with dollar bills, only a small distance away from her on the kitchen counter. “And the fact that you can’t understand why makes it even worse!” Chelsea’s voice was going hoarse. “Put yourself in my shoes for... for just a second, okay? Your boyfriend assaulted me, he assaulted my husband—”

Donna cut her off. “I know that! I know! I’m not completely blinded by love that—”

“Love?” It knocked the wind out of her entire body. Chelsea squinted at her mother. “This has to be some sort of sick, twisted joke! How can you love him after what he did to me? I’m your child, for God’s sake!” The tears prickled her eyes. 

Her mother took a step forward, almost pleading with her. Chelsea was grateful that they had the kitchen island keeping them apart. “People make mistakes, honey—”

“What, like Elliot?” Chelsea spat, recounting their argument last week. “You might be all about forgiveness, Mom, but trust me when I say that I will never forgive you for throwing that in my face.” She tried her best to keep her voice even and strong. Spoke with conviction.

“You never even let me finish what I was trying to say last week! Stop being so stubborn and listen to me! Please!” 

“No, you listen! As long as you’re seeing Christian, I don’t wanna see you. You can come here, you can see the kids, because they love you and they miss you, but... but that’s it. I’ll be nice, I’ll be polite, but you and me? We don’t have a relationship anymore. I’m done!”

Donna started crying before Chelsea did. “Chels, please—”

“Whatever, I... I’m leaving. I’m going to the store. I can’t even look at you right now.” Chelsea grabbed a tea towel and wiped the soap off her hands. Dramatically threw it onto the counter and started off to leave the room.

“Don’t you dare walk out on me, Chelsea Grace!”

“Yeah? Watch me.” She called over her shoulder. Hastily grabbed her purse and keys from the table in the entryway and slammed the front door behind her. It was loud enough to possibly wake up one or all of the babies from their afternoon nap, but that was her Mom’s problem now. Chelsea waddled to her car, hands gripping her swollen stomach, and slammed that door open and closed, too. Turned the A/C on full blast, to give herself some air. Get her breathing back under control. She drove around the corner from the house to sit and park the car there. Just until she could calm down long enough to make the short drive to the grocery store. 

After a few minutes of meditative breathing, and stroking her stomach, Chelsea’s phone buzzed with a message. She was surprised when MY BABY 💞 💖💕 flashed on the screen; fully expecting her mother to be bombarding her with notifications after their argument. Chelsea opened the text, quickly scanned over the message. She was too keyed up to reply. Locked her phone and dropped it into her cup holder, leaving Elliot unanswered. For now, at least. She shifted gears and started to drive. Blasted the radio, so she didn’t have to think. Repeated eggs, over and over under her breath, so she wouldn’t forget.

Grocery shopping was nice. Distracting. She got a couple cereal boxes of cinnamon toast crunch for Jenny. Filled a cart to the brim with food and fruit and diapers. Got supplies so she could make them enchiladas for dinner. Chelsea’s feet were sore and swollen. She’d only been walking around for half an hour, tops, and she was already exhausted. She arched her back and stretched, feeling achey all over. The baby was misbehaving. She was almost at the checkout with her shopping cart when she remembered eggs. Huffing, she rolled her cart down a couple more aisles until she found them. She reached up to grab a carton and toss it into her cart. 

She felt the pressure build up in her abdomen. It built until she could feel it pop, and then release, and fluid started to trickle down between her thighs. “Shit!” Chelsea cursed. She fumbled and the carton of eggs splattered on the floor, all yolk and eggshells and amniotic fluid. She was wearing a dress, so the water dripped right down her legs and pooled at her feet. Soaked her sneakers. The fluid was blood-tinged, from what she could see past the cracked eggs. “Oh God, oh no.” She gripped the handlebars of the shopping cart, breath accelerating. It was gushing out of her, without any signs of stopping.

“Hey, are you alright?” One of the grocers approached, wearing a uniform and carrying a yellow caution cone, ready to clean up her mess.

Chelsea was hunched over, one hand white-knuckling the bars on the cart and the other cradling her stomach, as if she could hold herself together. As if she had the power to stop this from happening. “I think my—my water just broke, but I... I’m not ready. It’s too early.” Chelsea said, voice shrill, breath ragged. 

The guy looked like he was barely out of high school. His face went a little pale. “I... I’ll...” He stammered. “I’ll call 911.” He pulled a cellphone out of his back pocket. Someone else walked over; another shopper, Chelsea assumed. An older woman. A stranger with kind eyes. She started rubbing her back for some comfort. “Is there anyone I can call for you, darling?” The nice lady asked, pressing circles into her skin. 

“My husband. He’s in court right now, he’s—he’s a defense attorney, I—” Just to clarify, so the woman didn’t get the wrong idea. Chelsea sifted through her purse to retrieve her phone. 

“An ambulance is on the way.” The kid said, still looking alarmed.

Elliot’s number was at the top of her favourites list. Next to her Mom, and Macy, and Caleb, and Amy, and Lola. Chelsea thumbed over his contact info to call him. It went straight to voicemail. “His phone must be off.” Chelsea cried, raking a hand through her hair. She tried again, for good measure. And again. And again. Nothing. “I’m only thirty-two weeks along, I can’t—I can’t be doing this.” The lady hushed her, told her to breathe, guided her through it. Chelsea was trying her hardest not to keep track of the amount of blood in the fluid on the floor. The grocer left and came back with another caution sign. People around them stared, looked concerned. Tears were streaming down her face, and fluid was still dripping down her legs. “Please, God.” Chelsea prayed through a sob. 

Her first contraction came when the paramedics loaded her up into the back of the ambulance. She gritted her teeth and cried out in agony. Fisted the sheet on the gurney. “Is he gonna be okay? It’s too early. It’s too early!” Chelsea rushed through asking when the pain finally passed. One of the paramedics stayed in the back with her, hooking her up to machines and checking her vitals, while the other one drove. No sirens, Chelsea noticed. The paramedic reassured her. Asked her some questions: if this was her first pregnancy, if she’d ever had complications like this before. Asked about the gestational diabetes. Asked if they could call someone else for her, since Elliot still wasn’t answering his phone. The paramedic took hold of Chelsea’s phone and dialled through to her Mom. 

The woman quickly explained the situation to Donna over the phone. Chelsea could hear Isaac crying in the background, even with the receiver covered. After a minute, the paramedic put the phone on loud speaker. “Chelsea, honey, are you okay? What can I do?” 

“I need... I need you to get a hold of Elliot. Please. I don’t know how, I just...” Chelsea’s mouth was dry. “He’s in court, he’s with Macy. Call Amy, or something, I don’t know. Get word to him somehow, please. Please.” She was still panicked. “I can’t do this! Not now.” She cried some more. “Mom, I’m scared.” 

“I know, honey. I know. It’s going to be okay. Let me go so I can get in touch with him, or someone at the courthouse. You and bub are gonna be fine, okay?” Chelsea nodded, even if her mother couldn’t see it. “I’ll see you soon, hon.” Donna hung up. Chelsea didn’t get a chance to say anything else. Not a goodbye, nothing. She shoved her phone back into her bag. Braced herself for her next contraction.

They stuck her into a birthing suite as soon as they arrived at the hospital. A nurse helped her out of her wet clothes and got her into a hospital gown. Slowly walked her over to the bed and got her to sit down, propped up by some pillows. Chelsea kept her phone close, squeezed inside her palm in case Elliot called. Or her Mom. The OB/GYN on call came in to examine her. Left Chelsea crying for a minute or two to discuss something with a nurse or a midwife or whoever holding a tablet in the corner of the room. “She was here, what? Christmas Eve? Who was on that night? They should’ve picked this up.” The doctor said, hushed and frustrated. “Oh, Johnson? Figures.” Chelsea pretended like she wasn’t listening in on their conversation, but a spike in her heart monitor gave her away. The doctor, Dr. Hernandez, typed some notes onto the tablet before coming back over to sit between Chelsea’s legs. 

“So, Chelsea, you’ve got what’s called an incompetent cervix. Or cervical insufficiency—not that it sounds much better, as a term, but... what that means is that your cervix has already begun to shorten... dilate pre-term.” Dr. Hernandez said, sympathy showing on her face as she explained. Chelsea whimpered. Scrunched up her face, completely confused and trying to control her reactions to the pain she was feeling. “Basically your cervix isn’t strong enough to withstand the weight of the baby. Most likely brought on by the fact that your previous pregnancy was carrying twins.” She continued. “And even though you’re only thirty-two weeks along, he’s a big boy. Top percentile, I saw in your notes.” She smiled, as if this was meant to be comforting. “So it makes sense that this has happened. I’m sorry this wasn’t picked up on sooner. You’ve been regularly attending all of your appointments?”

Chelsea nodded around a sob. “Can you—can you fix it?” She pleaded.

“Normally, if detected early, yes. But with your membranes already having been ruptured—with your water already broken, it’s not safe. There’s risk of infection for you and the baby if we don’t get him out soon. And you’re already dilated a couple centimetres. So we’ll monitor you for the next couple of hours and see how things progress.” 

Chelsea’s breathing was laboured. “No, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t have this baby now. I can’t.” She shook her head. “I can’t do this. I can’t—I need my husband. I can’t do this without him. I need him here.” She rambled through her tears, frantic. “I don’t wanna do this.” Like she had any other choice, at this point. 

“You’re still a few hours off, in my opinion. He should get here before the baby comes.” The doctor reassured her. Lightly patted her forearm. “You won’t be alone. I’ll be here every step of the way.” Chelsea cried harder, because it wasn’t the same. Her Mom had been there for Jack. Her Mom and Elliot had been there for the twins. Now she was virtually alone. No family, no support. She’d practically disowned her mother a couple of hours ago, anyway! Chelsea was starting to hiccup, she was crying so heavily. “What’s your pain level at?” Dr. Hernandez asked. Chelsea simply shrugged, trying her best to calm herself down. “You’re highly distressed right now, Chelsea. I’m going to suggest that I give you a sedative, and something else to numb some of the labour pains. Is that okay?” Chelsea nodded, head dipped back into the pillows, eyes closed. Willing this not to happen, willing it all to be over.

Exhaustion set in. Everything felt fuzzy, because of the drugs. She kept her phone balanced on her chest, waiting for some sort of update from someone. Her Mom, or Elliot, or anybody. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been waiting. How many contractions she’d cried through, all on her own. She was all alone. Her head swimming, like she was drunk. She had to fight to keep her eyes open. The doctor hadn’t been back in awhile. Chelsea had to wonder if anybody, hospital staff or not, would come to check up on her. If anybody cared, at this point. She felt about ready to fade away. 

One of the monitors started rapidly beeping. Chelsea struggled to lift her head off her pillow in time for one of the nurses to run in. “Code pink!” She shouted out into the hallway. Pushed a button on the wall, and the speakers overhead repeated her phrase: CODE PINK, BED 13. CODE PINK.

“What’s happening?” Chelsea mumbled. Tried to prop herself up on her elbows, but the nurse forced her back down. Adjusted the gurney so it was flat, so Chelsea was completely lying down. Pulled the railings up, ready for transport. A team of doctors rushed into the room. She hadn’t seen any of them before. They started wheeling her out of the birthing suite. Dr. Hernandez was suddenly there by Chelsea’s side, hands gripping around the bed railing to help push her to their next destination.

“Okay, Chelsea. The baby’s heart rate dropped dangerously low, so we’re taking you in for an emergency c-section now. We’re gonna get this little guy out, safe and happy. Okay? Do you understand?” She was too doped up on drugs to properly respond. Kind of nodded. Felt too numb and exhausted to fully understand the weight of what the doctor was saying. Dangerously low, thirty-two weeks along, emergency c-section. Safe and happy. The baby would be safe and happy. Everything would be okay. Okay. She understood. “We’re gonna put you under general anaesthesia. We need to hurry—to make sure the baby is doing okay.” The doctor continued to explain.

It happened pretty fast once they got inside the operating room. They transferred her from the bed onto the table. Roped her off from the chest down, so she couldn’t see anything. The anaesthesiologist got her mask ready, holding it by her face. Dr. Hernandez paid her a visit one final time. “You ready to meet your son?” She asked, hopeful and optimistic. 

“His name is Luca.” Chelsea said, groggy. “Luca Elliot.”

They made her count. Count down to blacking out, with the mask finally covering her face. Chelsea didn’t want to count. For once, she didn’t. Her eyes fluttered shut, trying to fight it. Still trying to stop this from happening. Wanting it to be Elliot’s face hovering over her, not some nameless doctor. Not anybody else. No numbers, only Elliot. In her daze, she tried to picture him. The lines around his mouth and his eyes when he smiled. Only Elliot. Chelsea sucked in her last breath, until everything faded and disappeared around her. Until everything emptied out and there was nothing but darkness. 

“Mr. Holt.” The doctor called out, grabbing Elliot’s attention. Still in her scrubs. Now that it was all over and done with, she could explain it to him properly. The man stood from his waiting room chair, expectant. Frantic. 

“During the c-section, your wife’s bladder was lacerated—which isn’t something unheard of happening during these types of emergency abdominal procedures. She lost a lot of blood, so we had to keep her under anaesthesia and prolong surgery to make the appropriate repairs. Do a blood transfusion. Her bladder is fixed, but she’ll have to use a foley catheter for a few weeks. They’re wheeling her into recovery now. You should be able to see her in a little while.” Dr. Hernandez smiled, polite and professional. 

Her gaze drifted to, who she assumed was, Chelsea’s mother. They had the same face. The woman was pushing a stroller back and forth in a steady rhythm with her foot. “There was, however, another complication during the reparative surgery. Cardiac issues run in the family?” She remembered what it said on the family medical history in Chelsea’s chart. “Midway through surgery, Chelsea's heart gave out. She flatlined. We lost her for a few moments, but managed to revive her. She’s stable now, thankfully, and we’ll be closely monitoring her and her heart over the coming days. Our best cardiologist is on it.” If that was any comfort. It couldn’t’ve been easy news to digest. It never was.

A nurse walked past and Dr. Hernandez stopped her in her tracks by catching her arm. “Hey, would you please show Mr. Holt here to the NICU?” She asked. Looked at Elliot. “You should be able to see your son, now.” Smiled, again. “I’ll have someone come get you when your wife is out of recovery and ready to have visitors.” The doctor squeezed his arm before turning to leave, ducking back into recovery to tend to his wife. 

[duckduck-buck]

Puppy meets probie

 Oops I did it again! Here’s the 3rd installment of my series “Puppy meets...”. Most likely the last one as well...or the second to last. I don’t know. This one features some Jealous Buck and is unnecessarily long. I definitely recommend reading it on AO3 just because it looks better there but here you go.

——

Eddie would like to start by saying that for once, this is not on him. He isn’t the jealous one this time. In fact, he’s nothing but an innocent bystander, forced to watch his boyfriend get all huffy because of his irrational jealousy. Very irrational.

How the tables have turned.

He now understands why Hen and Chimney never stopped mocking him, back in the days he would get ridiculously jealous of Princeton...or of Leopold. To his defense, Leopold was and still is a little shit who wants all of Buck’s attention. Just saying.

So, yeah, Eddie’s not the jealous one and Buck is. It reminds him of the first time he had met Buck, back when he had first arrive. The guy had huffed and acted like an asshole for a whole day just to turn out to be one of the most genuine and kind person Eddie has ever met. Evan Buckley is the softest dork Eddie Diaz has had the chance to meet, do not be fooled by his height and cocky attitude.

Eddie loves Buck with all his heart, but if he has to hear him complain about how ‘Princeton doesn’t love him anymore’ one more time, he’s going to have to kill him.

Ok. That’s a lie. He could never, but he would find a way to shut him up. Mark his words.

Was he that ridiculous when he was jealous of Princeton?

(not Leopold, his jealousy because of Leopold was VALID)

.

Puppy meets Probie

.

Princeton is mad at Buck. Or at least that’s what the blond firefighter thinks if his rant about how ‘Princeton absolutely despises him now’ means anything—which can’t be more wrong. The dog adores Buck just as much as the firefighter loves him. No, seriously, they say dogs are men’s best friends but Princeton and Buck? That’s another level of man to animal friendship. They do everything together. Eddie is pretty sure Buck gets the dog a puppy coffee at Starbucks at least once a week. He brings him everywhere, the beach, the park, Athena’s—Eddie still can’t believe how much Buck has her wrapped around his little finger, because he distinctly remembers her saying that no dogs will ever put a paw in her house. How convincing.—. Buck is the one who takes care of Princeton the most at the station and outside of it. They are always together—with Eddie too because, it’s Buck&Eddie and not Buck and Eddie, never forget.

That’s kind of the problem. You see, the reason for Buck’s melodrama is the lack of time the man and his dog—and let’s face it, Princeton is Buck’s dog and Buck is Princeton’s human—have been spending together. And it’s all because of a new recruit.

It’s not everyday the 118 gets a new recruit. In fact, the last recruit they’ve had was Eddie. It was a surprise to all of them that anyone would be willing to join them after the firetruck explosion affair and the incident with the well. The 118 is known to be...hum...very accident prone.

The new probie is nice, younger than any of them, a little bit of a hot-head but good at his job. He is pretty nervous around them all, particularly Buck which still surprises everyone. In the firehouse, Buck has to be the least intimidating person around despite being one of the tallest. He’s just a giant dork, that’s common knowledge.

Anyway, the new guy, Elliot Morgan, is very sweet, always ready to help and very easily excited. They welcome him with open arms—Eddie did smirk at Buck at that and asked him if he was going to be mean to the new guy like he did with him. Buck answered by sticking his tongue out.—, they even invite him over for drinks with the whole station—except for Bobby and Davis—to celebrate his arrival with them.

So yeah, probie is nice and they all appreciate him, including Princeton.

Particularly Princeton.

That’s a problem. A very big problem.

.

They are all together in the loft, chatting about everything and anything, waiting for the alarm to rig at anytime.

Usually Princeton would be near Buck, laying down by his feet, just existing, and Eddie would fake being jealous, much to his boyfriend’s amusement and the others teasing. Keyword being usually.

“Where’s your twin?”, Hen, who’s sitting in front of Buck, says as she looks for Princeton.

Buck shrugs but he’s also confused, Princeton is nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t know, he’s usually right here. Have you seen him?”, Buck frowns in concern.

Deciding that he should go and find the dog, the firefighter gets up and is about to go down the stairs to get him when Princeton suddenly appears...with Elliot by his side. Buck goes to pet him but the dog sidestep him and follows their new recruit instead, who is completely oblivious to the situation.

Hen and Eddie exchange surprised glances and Chimney is staring at Princeton who is sitting beside probie and looking at him as if he hung the moon.

Oh.

That’s not normal.

That’s a Buck stare. The one Princeton gives Buck. Only Buck. Buck who seems as confused as all of them, hand still outstretched and a completely lost look on his face.

“...Princeton?”

The golden retriever doesn’t even turn to look at him, ignores him completely and continue to look at the probie who’s talking in hushed tone with another firefighter and remains oblivious to the situation.

If looks could kill, the beam above Elliot would have fallen and crushed him under its weight, killing him instantly.

Who knew Evan Buckley could look so mean?

And they call Eddie dramatic? Please.

.

Buck would like to say that it doesn’t sting one bit. He would like to say that his pride isn’t damaged, that he isn’t saddened at all, that he doesn’t take it as betrayal, that he doesn’t care at all. But as he look at probie and Princeton having the time of their lives, cuddling without a care of the world, as if they were best friend, the jealousy he’s feeling goes up tenfold.

He is supposed to be the one with Princeton right now. The dog has been ignoring him for three days straight and everyone has noticed it. Everyone but probie who continues to be his sunshiny, oblivious self—which rude, Buck is supposed to be the sunshine one—.

The thing is, Buck can’t even blame the guy, he’s done nothing wrong. Elliot is just happy because Elliot loves dog. He’s giving all of his attention and affection to Princeton. He even takes him in some nights. Like tonight for example.

The problem is that tonight, Buck is supposed to bring Princeton with him to his apartment. So imagine his surprise when the dog follows Elliot out instead of him.

“Princeton?”, he yells to get his attention.

Their new recruit startles and turns around. When he sees Buck’s frown he smiles shakily.

“Hum...is...is everything alright?”, he stammers out, looking anywhere but at Buck’s face.

And the thing is, Buck wants to be mad, wants to ask him what the hell does he think he’s doing and where is he taking Princeton, but the dog isn’t even paying attention to him and the kid looks like he’s ready to bolt. Swallowing his jealousy, he relaxes his face.

“It’s nothing Elliot, you’re taking Princeton in tonight right?”

“Ah! Yes! Why, am I not supposed to? Is he supposed to stay at the firehouse tonight? I can leave him!”, the young man nervously says, glancing sadly at the golden retriever beside him.

“No don’t worry. Have a nice night, man.”

With a wide grin, the probationary firefighter grins and waves goodbye, walking away to his car with Princeton by his side. Buck watches them go and, after a minute, feels a hand on his shoulder. Eddie.

“Let’s ride together? Chris is at Abuela’s tonight. We can come in together tomorrow.”

“Yeah...”

Buck ends up pouting for the whole ride from the fire station to his apartment.

.

“But you have Leopold?”

“Not anymore...she’s always with Charles X now.”, Buck huffs, his eyes on the two cats who are playing a little bit further away.

“And Charles X? I mean he seemed pretty attached to you when I first got him.”

“Yeah but now he just hangs out with Leopold.”

Remember when Eddie said Leopold was an attention seeker and stealer? Yeah. It’s still true.

“I just can’t believe he forgot tonight was Buck-ston night”, Buck says around his beer.

Eddie snorts and shakes his head. Buck-ston nights are not a thing, if it was, it would happen way too often.

“So what? You’re gonna tell probie to not approach Princeton? Or better, get a new dog to occupy him?”

“I’m not you mister Let’s-buy-a-new-kitten because I’m jealous of Leopold.”, Buck grins playfully, “And that would be mean, Prince is allowed to hang out with everyone.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t pout and complain the whole way to your apartment.”

“He forgot our Buck-ston night! It’s tradition! I thought you were a traditional man, you’re supposed to understand.”

Eddie chuckles at his boyfriend’s antics. The blond is pouting a little—even he denies it—, his pink lips slick with beer and h’s still complaining about Princeton absence. Suddenly, an idea comes into Eddie’s mind. He loves Buck with all his heart but knowing the man, if he does not change the subject, he will end up rambling about Princeton and Elliot the whole night. Eddie doesn’t want to listen to that. He has other plans.

“Evan.”

The blond doesn’t seem to register the mention of his name and continues his rant. Annoyed by the lack of response, he decides to change tactic. With a burst of strength, Eddie lifts Buck onto the counter and stands between his legs, a smug smirk on his face.

“So? Wanna keep complaining about Princeton or...”, he trails off, his eyes switching between staring into baby blues’ and rosy lips.

“Depends...are you going to do anything or just stand there looking all smug?”

Eddie’s smirk widen and his hands tighten around Buck’s hips. He gets closer to his boyfriend whose arms are now around his neck, and lets his lips hover over Buck’s, not quite touching.

“And what if I just stayed there?”, he whispers as he feels Buck’s breath hitch. Eddie knows how much he loves this little thing between them, some sort of game of who will give in to the thick sexual tension around them.

“And what if you didn’t?”

Eddie brushes his lips over Buck’s, and when the younger thinks he’s going to go for a kiss, he moves to the side, mouthing at Buck’s jaw instead. The blond’s arms around his neck tighten and one of his hands find itself tangled in short brown strands. Eddie continues peppering opened-mouth kisses along Buck’s jaw and slowly goes lower, for his neck.

“Eds...”, Buck lets out a soft sigh, tugging at the hairs in his hand.

Eddie hums, scrapping his teeth on that one sensitive spot and slips his hands under the cotton shirt, touching smooth skin and a rock hard body. He then lifts his head up, leaving Buck’s neck alone and drops a tender kiss on his lips. One becomes two, three, four and soon they are exchanging deeper and longer kisses, pulling each other in, closer, so close. Hands start to wander, a caress here, a brush of fingers there, a clutch or a tug. They are panting when they separate, Eddie’s hair is a mess, Buck’s shirt is all askew, their lips and cheeks are flushed and their pupils are blown wide and they are incredibly happy.

“We should...”

“Yeah...”

Let’s just say that Princeton and Elliot are the furthest thing from Evan Buckley’s mind the whole night, instead, his brain is filled with Eddie Diaz. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie and only Eddie...

His neighbors can confirm.

.

Eddie needs to have a conversation of the utmost importance with one Princeton...Buckley? 118? With Princeton. Yes, he is very much aware that Princeton is a dog, thank you very much, but the dog is a golden retriever and he read somewhere—Ok, Buck told him— that they are very intelligent so Prince will understand him.

The firefighter corners the dog while everyone is busy around the firehouse and crouches in front of him. Princeton, the good boy that he is, gets closer to him, tail wagging in happiness. Eddie pats his head, unable to resist and after looking around to make sure no one was around, started talking.

“Now listen you adorable little shit, you know how I started to appreciate you right? And I let you be Buck’s best friend? If you want that to continue you can’t pull shit like that.”, he stares at Princeton in the eyes and watches as the dog cocks his head to the side in confusion, “Don’t act all cute, you know what you’ve done! Buck needs love alright and you’ve been ditching your duties mister, you’re supposed to give him love everyday, all day. He’s pouting Prince! Pouting. Ok, maybe not pouting, but he’s complaining. A lot. So you gotta apologize man, and give him lots of love.”

Princeton stares at him, now sitting in front of him, head still on side, and his tongue hanging out.

“What’s wrong with you? I thought you loved Buck! You can’t just ditch him because there’s a new guy, man, that’s not fair! Remember who gave you that firetruck toy you love so much? What does Elliot even have that Buck doesn’t? I mean, kid’s nice but he doesn’t love you the way Evan does, I thought you knew that. You know that right? Stop looking at me like that you giant goofball, you need to go and apolo—”

“Are you seriously scolding Princeton right now?”

Eddie startles, loses balance and falls on his butt. He turns around and sees Chimney smirking down at him, Hen with her phone out, most likely recording him, and Bobby who’s shaking his head in fond exasperation. Before he says anything, he looks around trying to see if Elliot, or worse, Buck was around and heard his little conversation with the station’s mascot. Thankfully neither of them were in sight.

Refocusing on his three teammates, he clears his throat and gets up from his spot on the floor, cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Hen is still filming, trying her best to contain her laughter.

“Hum...how, how much did you hear?”

“All of it man, all of it.”

“Seriously Eddie? Scolding a dog because your boyfriend is jealous of probie? A dog?”

“It’s Princeton!”, Eddie groans, glaring at the dog who’s looking at him innocently beside him, “He’s like Buck’s best buddy!”

“Still a dog.”, Hen shakes her head at him, pulling her phone down, “Damn, I’m so sending this to everyone.”

“Can’t believe I used to think of you as one of the sane ones, Eddie.”, Bobby says with a smile.

“Him? A sane one? Please Bobby, he bought a whole cat to distract Leopold.”

“Modern problems requires modern solutions.”

“That’s not how it works!” Chimney throws his arms up, shaking his head at Eddie’s ridiculous motto, “You can’t keep saying that every time Charles X is brought up.”

Hen laughs suddenly watching the video she had just taken, “Edmundo Diaz, I’m so playing this the day of your wedding.”

They continue to tease him—even Bobby—until they get tired of him. Firefighter Johnson makes the mistake of passing by them and Hen goes after him, talking about a video she needs to show him.

Eddie knows that soon the whole station—plus Karen, Athena and Maddie—would have seen the video and truly hopes it never reaches Buck nor Elliot.

He also hopes Princeton did understand everything he had said. He will make him watch the video to remind him if he has to.

But first, he needs to drown in his embarrassment.

.

Just as Eddie thought, the video has been seen by almost everyone in the firehouse. They all snicker at him whenever he passes them and it goes on until he gets off his shift. He refuses to admit that it was quite funny to watch.

The thing is that now, everyone is aware of the Buck-Princeton-Elliot issue...and that’s how Elliot who has been oblivious to everything, learns about it...and has a mini freakout.

It’s all thanks to three other firefighters who, maybe, should have checked their surroundings before speaking. Just maybe.

“Hey! Teagan, do you think probie is going to stay here long?”, Brett nudges his co-worker as they clean one of the trucks.

“What do you mean? Morgan’s pretty neat, does his job, shows up on time, hasn’t set the kitchen on fire so far, which is far better than you and you’re still here.”, she replies with a raised eyebrow, “Why? Did he tell you something?”

“You haven’t seen the video?”

“The one with Diaz? Sure. What does that have to do with anything? I thought we’d established that whenever Buckley is involved we shouldn’t try to understand him?”

“Exactly.” Villegas pipes up from the inside of the truck, “Imagine if Princeton doesn’t listen to what he said, what do you think will happen?”

“Villegas, Brett, please don’t tell me you think Diaz would do something to Morgan because of Princeton.”

“I mean, there’s no way we’re getting rid of the dog, you know that, so probie it is.”, Brett looks at her with an amused grin.

“Cap would—”

“—Please Teagan, we all know how Cap loves Buckley like a son. He would do anything for the kid. And Diaz would totally support this. They might even get Han and Wilson on the case.”

“I refuse to believe Cap would fire probie just for Buckley’s pretty eyes.”, Teagan snorts, shaking her head at the thought of such thing happening, “And even if he did, what if Morgan goes and complain about that? Abuse of power or something. This station is on the news pretty often, we don’t need anymore attention.”

“Buckley’s eyes do be pretty.”, Brett mutters. Teagan and Villegas both ignore him.

“Did you know they nicknamed us the hell-station? As if the 136 don’t almost die every two weeks.”

The three laugh lightly and resume to their tasks, changing the subject to the 136 last stunts and comparing it to their own.

Unbeknown to them, a certain probationary firefighter heard everything.

Elliot Morgan does the only thing he can do, he freaks out.

.

To say that no one was ready for what happened would be an understatement. A bomb going off in the station had more chance to happen than that. Honestly.

Buck really doesn’t know how he ended up with an armful of Elliot Morgan, with tears in his eyes and snot up his nose, at seven-something in the evening, in front of everyone. He really doesn’t but damn, would he like to.

It goes like this.

They are all gathered up in the loft, chatting in small groups except for Elliot. Bobby and Johnson are behind the stove, both listening to Hen, Eddie, Chim and Buck. The four were in an animated debate about summer camps.

“I don’t even know why you’re in this conversation Chim, you don’t have children.”, Hen looks at her best friend slyly as she says this.

“Hey! Buckaroo here doesn’t have children neither but you’re not telling him anything!”

“I will have you know Chim that I am Eddie’s proud co-parent and I love Christopher as if he was my son.”, Buck says from where he’s standing.

Cue heart eyes between their station’s lovebirds much to their dismay.

“Great Chimney, you set them off.”, Hen complains but everyone can see the fond smile plastered on her face.

The two star protesting, saying that they aren’t doing anything wrong. Hen and Chimney soon join in with teases to everyone else’s amusement. Bobby shakes his head at their behavior and gently tells them to calm down.

When Elliot enters the loft, however, everyone can sense the tension in his shoulders and the way he’s avoiding anyone’s eyes. They all quiet down but try to not make their worry known and continue with their antics. Focused on the new recruit, Bobby’s about to ask him what’s wrong when he speaks before him.

“Please don’t fire me!”

Every firefighters in the loft stops what they are doing, their attention on the very nervous probie who had just shouted. Hen exchanges worried glances with Eddie, Buck and Chimney. They are all confused with what’s happening.

“Is there a reason for me to fire you?”, Bobby asks slowly with a slight frown. Elliot has been a very good probationary firefighter so far, what could he have done to warrant him to get fired.

Instead of answering him, the kid throws himself in Buck’s arms, who is startled by the sudden weight in his arms, and starts crying right there. Everyone seems shocked by Elliot’s behavior.

“I’m so sorry!”, the young man says between soft sobs and incoherent mutters, “I didn’t know!”

“Wh—Elliot what are you talking about?”, Buck looks around with wide eyes, trying to find someone who may know why their new recruits was sobbing in his arms.

“I swear I didn’t know! Please don’t ask captain Nash to fire me!��

The collective gasp that resonates through the loft is not dramatic at all.

“Why would I ask Cap to fire you Elliot?”, Buck tries to soothe him, still completely lost by what’s happening, “Did something happen? Is it the Jeep? You nicked it or something? It’s totally cool dude, shit happen. I wouldn’t ask Bobby to fire yo—”

“No! Because of Princeton!”

“Prince...ton? What’s going on with him? Did you give him something he shouldn’t eat? It was chocolate wasn’t it? We can go to the vet, don’t worry, he will be fine.”

“No! I didn’t give him anything! I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to approach him!”

By now, the situation seems to dawn on the rest of the firehouse, everyone looks like they finally understand what’s happening and the reason behind Elliot freak out. Everyone but Buck.

“Elliot, I really don’t understand what you’re talking about. Princeton is the firehouse’s mascot, everyone is allowed to approach him. Bobby can’t fire you because you’re spending time with the station’s dog...”, Buck looks even more lost as he ruffles Elliot’s hair.

“But...the video?”, Elliot sniffles, letting go of Buck who winces at the wet spots on his LAFD shirt.

At the mention of the video, everyone’s eyes snap to Eddie whose eyes are wide. Hen has the audacity to smirk at his embarrassment. Buck, thankfully, doesn’t notice the attention that’s on his boyfriend.

“What video?”, he asks slowly.

“The one with Eddie and Princeton? Where he tells him about how you weren’t happy that I played with him?”

Eddie has the decency to smile sheepishly at Buck’s questioning glare.

“I didn’t exactly say that.”, the man mutters.

“And what Teagan, Villegas and Brett said? About Captain Nash firing me if you asked him to?”

The three firefighters startle at the mention of their names. They look at each other before looking back at the still panicked probie.

“But probie, we never told you that?”, Teagan tells him carefully, trying to remember if they had actually talked with him.

“No, you didn’t. I heard you. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I was working on the ambo and I hear you. I heard what you said about Captain Nash doing anything for Buck’s pretty eyes because he’s his son. And that he would fire me because I made Buck unhappy! I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to!”

Both Buck and Bobby are lightly blushing, stunned by what Elliot had just said. It’s no secret that Bobby is Buck’s father figure and Buck is like a son to their captain, but that doesn’t mean they are used to hearing it.

“My...pretty eyes?”

“The prettiest.”, Eddie says under his breath and, thankfully, no one hears.

“Probie,”, Brett snorts from his place beside Teagan, “We were joking around. Cap would never do that to you. We’re really sorry but none of what we said was serious.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Buckley wouldn’t ask anyone to fire you neither, have you seen the guy?”

“A whole ass puppy.”, Hen chimes in with a smile.

“Hey!”

Everyone start laughing, the tension in the loft finally receding and a lighter atmosphere comes around them.

“So I’m not getting fired...?”

“No one is getting fired kiddo”, Bobby smiles softly.

“And me taking care of Princeton...?”

“Was never a problem in the first place.”, Buck nods.

“So the video...?”

“That’s totally on me.”, Eddie smiles sheepishly.

“Elliot, you know how Eds and I are together right?”, at the younger’s nod, Buck continues, “Well, at the beginning I was kind of jealous, cause I was used to having Princeton by my side like, all the time. Completely irrational, you’ve done nothing wrong, and, well, I may have complained once or twice to Eddie here.”

“Oh...”

Elliot seems to finally realize the way he has freaked out in front of everyone and flushes lightly under the attention. Granted, Eddie and Buck are the ones who were ‘exposed’ and kind of ridiculed but he is the one who had cried and begged to not be fired. Maybe he had overreacted a little. Just a little. What can he say, he really likes the 118.

“Come on dude, let’s go and see how Princeton is doing. I’m sure he misses having company.”

Elliot beams and goes down the stairs, calling out for the station’s dog. Before joining him, Buck looks at Eddie and grins slyly.

“So...”, he singsongs, “do I get to see that video?”

“Absolutely, I’m sure you will love it Buckaroo. Eddie here went all out to remind Princeton how much love he’s supposed to give you.”, Chimney laughs, phone already in hands.

“Great! Send it over, I’m sure Abuela, Pepa and Carla will love to see how much of a gentleman Eddie is.”, Buck’s grin widens, happy to be able to make fun of his partner, and his eyes are still on Eddie, “You really have my back in any situation don’t you?”

“Well, I did say I would.”

“I’ll just have to marry you if you keep that up.”

And with that Buck is gone, calling out for Princeton and Elliot. The loft stays eerily silent for three to five seconds, every firefighters too shocked to do anything but stare, jaw-slacked and eyes wide, at an equally shocked Eddie.

“D-did...did he just...”, he croaks out.

“Holy shit...”

“Oh my god!”, Hen lets out loudly, “Buck wants to marry Eddie.”

Suddenly, chaos takes back its place in the loft. Everyone is speaking at the same time, Chimney is typing frantically multiple texts to Maddie, Bobby is tearing up and Johnson is patting him on the back with an happy smile on his face, Hen and Teagan are already browsing the web, looking for venues and decoration ideas and comparing the prices, and Villegas and Brett are trying to make Eddie come out of his trance.

It’s not a proposal, not really, they all know that. Buck hasn’t even realized the gravity of his sentence, too busy caring for Princeton with their probie. It’s not a proposal but it’s something, a statement, an opening to a new chapter of their lives, a ‘I think we should get married’, a ‘I wanna marry you one day’, a ‘I don’t see myself with anyone other than...you.’.

It’s not a proposal but it’s a projection in the future.

And that’s all that matters.

[eddiesasspbrak]

When I’m With You Ch.1

Eddie can't stand the barista at his favorite coffee shop. Richie has fallen in love with the man he sees twice a week. Stan is dating someone but won't let his friends meet them. Ben is in love with Beverly, but is so afraid of scaring her away he's not moving forward. Chaotic friends navigating college together.

Read on AO3

Ch.2

6k+ words

“Please.” Ben begged, gripping his friend’s shoulders from behind as he followed him into the classroom.

“No.” Eddie slapped his hands away and sat in his preferred seat.

“But she’s so pretty and perfect and I want to go out with her.”

“Then you ask her out.”

“I can’t. What if she says no?”

“She can still say no if I ask her for you.” Eddie pointed out, unzipping his bag and pulling out his notebook and a pen.

“If she says no to you, I won’t die of embarrassment.” Ben plopped down into his seat beside Eddie, frowning.

Eddie rolled his eyes and opened his notebook to a fresh, clean page. Ben, one of his best friends, wanted to ask out a girl they met on campus. He fell in love with her at first sight and had been trying to work up the courage to ask her out for months. Every time he saw her, he turned into a babbling mess and lost his nerve. Eddie made the mistake of letting him know that she was in one of his classes and now he was determined to get Eddie’s help asking her out.

“What if I just invite her to hang out with us and conveniently get a call and leave you two alone?” Eddie suggested, taking pity on his sulking friend.

Ben perked up and thought that over. “That could work. Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“We have class today. I’ll ask her when I see her.”

Ben leaned over and placed his head on Eddie’s shoulder, a big grin on his face. His arms snaked around Eddie’s middle and he hugged him tight. Eddie sighed, but patted his arm and dropped his cheek to the top of Ben’s head.

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” Ben said.

“You bet your ass you will.” Eddie responded.

They separated as the professor stood from the front desk and began speaking. Ben was positively beaming for the entire class and Eddie swore he saw him scribbling her name in his notebook instead of taking notes. Honestly, he was jealous of his friend. He’d finally come out when he’d come to college, except to his mom, and hadn’t had much luck in the relationship department. He did make out with an average looking guy at a party, but it hadn’t been great, and he spent the next two weeks ignoring his texts. Why he even gave the guy his number he’ll never know. Blame it on desperation and alcohol.

*

Eddie would forever kick himself for signing up for an early class this semester. Ben was always perky in the morning, up early to go for a jog before the sun was even up. Eddie, on the other hand, was not a morning person. If Ben didn’t call him, he would never get up in time for class. He was lucky to stay awake until the end of class. He said goodbye to Ben and immediately made his way across campus and into town where a little coffee shop waited.

Eddie had begun frequenting this shop after his early class for a caffeinated pick me up. It was close to the building his class was located in and by the time he got there the line wasn’t too awfully long. It gave Eddie plenty of time to drink his coffee and relax before he had to head off to his next class. There were big, squishy chairs all over the café that Eddie really liked. He’d almost fallen asleep in them countless times, but he couldn’t resist. Most of the other patrons were always on their way somewhere else so early in the morning so it was mostly empty and quiet too and the music was never played too loud over the speakers. It was Eddie’s favorite place and almost perfect.

As he entered the shop and joined the queue, he groaned inwardly at the person behind the counter. Yes, this place was almost perfect, except for the man who seemed to work this shift every day that Eddie had class. He was very friendly, smiled at every customer. More accurately, he was smiling at whatever stupid joke he’d just made about their order or their name. He had no filter and it annoyed Eddie endlessly. He was the definition of a man child. He recognized Eddie every time and already knew what he was going to order. A medium coffee, black.

Eddie dreaded having to interact with him again. It’s like he had an ongoing bet with himself, whether he could make Eddie laugh and piss him off first. It was usually the latter. The most annoying thing he did, in Eddie’s opinion, was the way he wrote his name on his cup. The very first time he’d simply made the mistake of spelling his name like ‘Eddy’. Whatever, that was fine. It didn’t bother him. Ever since then, though, it seemed like he tried to mess up his name in new and unusual ways. How does one misspell the name Edward? Some notable names he’d written down in the past were: Eugene, Edwin, Elliot, Eduardo, Emmett, Eli, and Eileen. However, when he would call out the name for the order he always said ‘Eddie’, so he knew exactly what he was doing, and it was infuriating.

Despite how annoying he was, he was also extremely efficient at his job combined with the guy making the drinks. The line moved quickly and there wasn’t a long wait for your drink to be delivered, even the complicated ones. Which meant that Eddie only had to stand at the counter for a short amount of time. As long as the cashier was willing to leave him alone. Which was extremely unlikely. When it was Eddie’s turn in line, he was met with a wide, crooked grin.

“Good morning, Eddie. It’s Thursday.” The man said.

“Yes. It is.” Eddie responded, hoping he wouldn’t continue. “I’ll have-.”

“Medium coffee. Black. Right?”

Eddie nodded, already holding the cash in his hand for the other to take. The guy punched a few buttons on the screen before looking back at Eddie, ignoring the money in his hand.

“You’re late today. I was beginning to wonder if you skipped class today.” He said, leaning his hip against the counter.

Eddie looked back to see there was no one in line behind him and he sighed. He’d made the mistake on his first trip to the coffee shop of telling this man that he had taken on an early Tuesday, Thursday class in passing. He regretted giving him any personal information about him as he absorbed it like a dry sponge.

“Class ran a little long. Here, my money.” Eddie held his hand a little higher, in his line of sight.

“I was sure you had stood me up for our weekly date.” He winked, still ignoring the money.

“I just come here to get coffee.”

“Oh, Eddie, we both know that it’s not the coffee that keeps you coming back here. You come here to ogle me while I make your coffee. It’s my wit and wiles that have you drawn to this little coffee shop twice a week.” He was very dramatic as he spoke, putting his hand to his forehead and leaning across the counter. “I’m beginning to think there is no morning class that has you making the trip here. You can deny it all you want, my dear but I know what your ulterior motives are.” He placed one finger beneath Eddie’s chin and tilted his head up a bit.

Eddie’s face turned bright red as he leaned away and swatted his hand away. This was typical and Eddie honestly couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be flirting with him or if he just liked the way Eddie reacted. For instance, at the moment Eddie was flustered and unable to keep his cool any longer.

“Can you please stop and just take my fucking money.” He grumbled, holding the money out again.

He grinned exceptionally wide and took the money, very slowly counting it out and putting it in the register. “There’s no need to use such language, my dear. I know you can’t stand to be around me for too long lest you leap over this counter and do indecent things.”

Eddie positively fumed as he waited for him to fiddle with the register as if he was getting change. He knew exactly how much he had to pay so he always had exact change. It was all just for show to keep him standing there that much longer. While he waited, trying to calm himself, he dropped two dollars in the tip jar, he may hate the guy, but he wasn’t an asshole. Unable to calm himself completely, he tapped his foot impatiently while waiting for his receipt. He really didn’t need it, but it was like a compulsion to keep every receipt he received. He finally handed over his receipt and turned to the other guy behind the counter.

“I’ll make this one, Mikey.”

The other guy, Mike, looked over to see Eddie before smiling and shaking his head. So, it wasn’t just in his imagination. Even his coworker could tell that this guy just enjoyed annoying Eddie as long as he possibly could.

Eddie carefully folded his receipt in half and tucked it in his pocket as he walked to the end of the counter to wait for his coffee. He watched as the guy took a cup and scribbled something on it with marker. Eddie could already feel the annoyance for whatever name he was given today. The ever-present grin on his face didn’t help as he poured the coffee into the cup and put a lid and cardboard sleeve onto it.

“Coffee for Eddie.” He said, holding the cup high in the air, too high for Eddie to reach.

Eddie just stared up, refusing to jump to try and get the cup from him. He was too tired for this shit and he hoped the daggers he was mentally sending to the other showed on his face. He smiled down at him, and waited, expectantly.

“Can I just have my coffee?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, of course. I need a thank you first though.”

Eddie sighed loudly and a bit more dramatically than necessary to show how over this routine he was. “Thank you.” He grumbled.

“Thank you…what?” He asked.

“Thank you, Richie.” Eddie said through clenched teeth.

Finally, the cup was lowered to his hands and he snatched it away carefully, storming away from the counter and to the farther chair from the counter that was currently available. He looked down at the cup and just above the cardboard sleeve the name “Estiban” was written. Mike came to stand beside Richie, slapping a hand down on his shoulder.

“Why do you do that to him?” He asked with a smile.

“He’s cute. I like the faces he makes when he’s mad.” Richie shrugged.

“You know he hates you, right?”

“Nah. I’m going to marry that man one day.”

Mike laughed as the bell above the door chimed and they went back to their stations to wait for the next order. Richie could clearly see Eddie sitting in the large chair, sipping his coffee and looking like he might fall asleep. As he took the next customer’s order and entered it on the screen, he stole glances over at the tired boy. Richie couldn’t help smiling as he fought to keep his eyes open while taking another sip from his cup, his face scrunching up in disgust from the taste. It was like this every time, he hated the coffee, but he kept coming back and ordering it and drinking every last drop. Richie was smitten.

*

When Eddie arrived at his afternoon class, Bev was already there, her bag in the seat beside her to save it for him. As he approached, she moved her bag and smiled at him. She was annoyingly beautiful, and Eddie understood why Ben was so in love with her. If he liked girls, he’d probably be in love with her too. He greeted her and took his seat, immediately putting his head down on his arms, staring up at her sideways.

“I’m exhausted.” He said, followed by a yawn.

“Aren’t you always?”

“Yes.”

She grinned at him and pulled her phone from her pocket. She was really into fashion design and would often show him what pieces she was working on or had finished. She opened her camera roll and slid her phone across the table to him. He lifted his head and looked down at the pictures of a dress hung from a hanger, only one sleeve attached.

“I can’t decide if I like it with sleeves or not.” She explained. “The original sketch had sleeves, but then I really liked the way it was looking and once I attached one sleeve, I just wasn’t sure anymore.”

Eddie covered half the picture with his hand before switching and doing the same to the other side. He liked that she asked his opinion, especially seeing as she made fun of his fashion sense relentlessly. It showed that she trusted his opinion and he liked knowing that. He really enjoyed their friendship and silently hoped that if she dated Ben and they broke up, it wouldn’t somehow impact their relationship. He’d really hate to lose her.

“I like it without the sleeve.” He finally said after looking at each side several times.

“Right? Ok, it’s decided. Thanks.” She leaned over and put her arm around him in a half hug, kissing his cheek.

He rubbed at his cheek with his sleeve, knowing there was bound to be a red lipstick mark left behind. Now seemed like a good time to ask her to hang out and he honestly worried he’d forget if he didn’t ask her soon. He just had to be casual about it. “So, hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Mmmm, I was going to get drinks with a friend.” She said, taking her phone back and sliding it back into her pocket.

“Ben and I are doing the same. We should meet up, go together.”

“Yea, that sounds good.” She smiled brightly. “I could use a buffer anyway. My friend can be a bit…much.”

“Oh, joy. Please bring them.” Eddie was sarcastic and it made Bev snort out a laugh.

“He’s really not that bad. He just gets very mouthy when he drinks. More than usual anyway.”

“Well, luckily I’ll have a few drinks in me too.”

Eddie pulled his phone out and sent a quick text to Ben. ‘Talked to Bev. She’s down. Tomorrow night. Bringing a friend though.’ A second later Ben responded with a smiley face. Eddie already knew that Ben wouldn’t worry about the addition of a fourth person. He knew that Eddie would be able to distract the friend and he tried not to let that bother him. After all, it was mostly his idea to begin with so he couldn’t be too upset at the idea of being left with Bev’s friend.

*

There were few things Eddie enjoyed more than anything else. He enjoyed cleaning, organization, spending time with his friends. But the thing he enjoyed most was sitting in his quiet apartment, completely alone, enjoying the rest of his free afternoon. He’d picked up lunch on the way home and sat at his kitchen counter to eat it, scrolling through social media on his phone. After he cleaned up his lunch dishes, he moved to the living room to do some reading for class. This time of day on a Thursday most everyone was out so he couldn’t even hear his neighbors through the walls. It was utter bliss, until.

Eddie jolted when he heard the music and groaned dramatically as he flopped back on his couch. Every so often, one of his neighbors down the hall chose to listen to their music at an obnoxiously loud volume. And every time, Eddie silently hated them. It wasn’t even good music half the time, and even when it was, he didn’t want to hear it thumping through the walls and into his apartment. He stood and went to his bedroom, retrieving his earplugs from his bedside table.

He pressed them into his ears as he made his way back to the couch. They blocked out most of the noise, but he could steal hear it and feel the thump, thump, thump in his chest from the beat. There was no way he was going to finish his reading now or take a much needed nap. The buzz from the coffee he’d had a few hours earlier was long gone and he wasn’t willing to go back for another. One interaction with Richie a day was enough for him. He really ought to buy a coffee pot for his apartment. At least one of the little pod ones that made one cup at a time. He would save money and wouldn’t have to ever go to that coffee shop again. His life would be Richie free and he’d have coffee in class instead of after. He pulled out his phone to make a note to himself to price coffee machines when he saw he missed a text from Bev.

Bev: Hey, do you know what bar you’re going to yet?

Eddie: We haven’t really discussed it. Some place local, I guess. Maybe near campus

Bev: Have you heard of My Mom’s Bar? It’s down on Engle.

Eddie: I’ve heard of it, never been there though

Bev: It’s one of my favorites. Doesn’t get to crazy even on Fridays. You down?

Eddie: I’ll talk to Ben, but it should be fine

He switched from the conversation with Bev to the one with Ben and typed a quick message to him.

Eddie: Bev wants to go to My Mom’s Bar. Is that ok with you?

Ben: Your mom owns a bar?

Eddie: What? No. That’s the name of the place.

Ben: oooooh. Yea that’s fine. I’ll go anywhere as long as Bev is there.

Eddie: Even a gay bar?

Ben: As long as she doesn’t fall for another girl or a bi dude while we’re there. That could happen anywhere though

Eddie: True

He let Bev know that they were fine with her pick and they made arrangements to meet there around ten. He gave the information to Ben, planned to meet up at Eddie’s place beforehand. The idea of going out the following night and socializing was already so tiring. He liked spending time with his friends, but this wasn’t a regular social call. He’d have to interact with someone he didn’t know, orchestrate a plan and an excuse for him and the stranger to leave them alone. He really felt like he needed that nap now and silently cursed the inconsiderate neighbor with the clearly broken headphones.

*

Eddie spent most of his Friday at home alone, working on homework and finally finishing the reading he needed to do for class. If he was going to spend the evening in a crowded bar, interacting with strangers, then he wasn’t going to have a single second of human interaction the rest of the day. Eddie valued his alone time and he wasn’t going to feel bad about it.

It was now evening. He’d eaten a light dinner, knowing well that Ben would order bar food and how he was incapable of ignoring it when he’d been drinking. Still, he wasn’t willing to drink on an empty stomach. He prided himself on the fact that he had never once had a hangover or puked from drinking and he wasn’t about to start now.

Ben arrived at his door while he was still trying to decide if his outfit was fine for going out with friends. It was cold out, the winter months only half over, so he chose one of his favorite sweaters that was just slightly too big for him. He chose jeans, which he wouldn’t usually pair with this sweater, but he figured it was appropriate for a casual night out. Especially since he didn’t expect to be there too long. He and Ben had worked out a signal for when he was ready for Eddie to leave them. He hoped it wouldn’t take too long for him to work up the courage.

When Eddie opened the door a few minutes after buzzing him in through the downstairs door, Ben was bouncing on the balls of his feet with nervous energy. The smile on his face looked slightly panicked and Eddie couldn’t help but laugh. Ben’s smile fell away and he immediately looked down at himself.

“Is it my outfit? Is it stupid?” Ben asked.

“Your outfit is fine. I was laughing at how crazy you look.” Eddie giggled, stepping aside for Ben to enter.

“I look crazy? Should I cancel? What if Bev thinks I’m crazy?”

“You just need to calm down. You’ve hung out with her before. She likes you.”

“Does she though?” He placed his hands on Eddie’s shoulders and shook him slightly. “Is this all a big mistake?”

“Jesus…maybe you should do a shot or six before she gets to the bar.” Eddie shook Ben loose so he could go to the couch to slip his shoes on. “If you get too nervous then I’ll just stay. I won’t leave until you give me the signal.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise. Please chill.”

Eddie grabbed his jacket and his keys and double checked that he had his phone before ushering Ben back out the door and toward the elevator. Ben’s nerves didn’t settle on the way out to the waiting uber Eddie had ordered, and he babbled on and on about Bev to their poor driver. When they arrived at the bar, Eddie practically had to pull him from the backseat of the car and mentally made a note to give their driver a glowing review.

As they showed their IDs at the door, Eddie hoped that Ben’s nervousness wouldn’t be considered suspicious as neither one looked their age. Somehow, they got in without issue and Eddie did a scan of the place. It wasn’t huge. The floor plan was open, the bar against the wall to the left of the door and tabled scattered across the room. They didn’t see Bev yet and Eddie wasn’t sure if that was good for Ben’s nerves or absolutely terrible.

“Let’s get a table while there’s still some open.” Eddie said, grabbing Ben’s arm and steering him to a table near the wall.

They sat, Eddie’s back to the door and Ben across from him. Which maybe wasn’t the best seating arrangement as Ben’s eyes were fixed to the door. Part of Eddie knew that things would get easier when Beverly arrived. She had a way of breaking Ben out of his shell. Any idiot could see they were made for each other and, while Eddie really didn’t want to be there, he was happy to help them get one step closer to being together.

“Should we order drinks now? Or do we wait?” Ben asked, quickly glancing at Eddie before looking back to the door.

“We’re not losing our table. Just wait until they get here.” Eddie was already so tired.

“Should I offer to pay for her? What if…she…” Ben’s voice trailed off as a light flush flooded his cheeks with color.

Eddie was sure that meant Bev had arrived and he lightly kicked him under the table. “Be cool. You’re drooling.”

“Hey boys.” Bev said as she approached.

Ben stood abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor as it was pushed back with the movement. Eddie winced at the sound and gave him a look that said, ‘what the fuck?’. He always did this, acting like he needed to stand as soon as she entered the room like some dude in a Jane Austen novel.

“Hello, Beverly. You look nice.” Ben said, the words tumbling from his mouth.

“Thank you, Benjamin.” She grinned. “Hey Eddie.” She patted him on the shoulder and moved to sit beside Ben.

Eddie looked over his shoulder and saw no fourth person coming to join them. Maybe this would be easier than he thought. He looked back to them in time to see Ben nearly miss his chair when he went to sit down. Luckily, Bev was looking down at her phone and didn’t notice. Eddie stifled the laugh that nearly broke free, trying to save his friend any embarrassment.

“I thought you were bringing a friend.” Eddie said, bringing Bev’s attention back to the table.

“I did. He’s outside talking to the dude checking IDs. When we were walking to the door, he pulled a fake mustache from his pocket and intentionally gave the guy a really shitty fake ID. It had a picture of some guy like twice our age, bald, with a mustache. I left him there while he tried to prove it was a joke and that his actual ID was real.” She rolled her eyes, but she was grinning from ear to ear.

“What if he doesn’t make it in?” Ben asked.

“His loss. I told him to stop pulling shit like this.” She shrugged, before nodding toward the door. “There he is.”

Eddie turned to look, and his stomach dropped to the floor. He quickly turned back to the table and tried to make himself invisible. He’d been worried about having to hang out with this stranger, dreading what an awful night it would be. He just never considered how awful it truly could be. The last person he wanted to see had just strode into the bar, tucking a fake mustache back into his pocket.

“How’d you manage to convince him, Richie?” Bev asked, leaning back in her seat.

“I asked him if he really thought I’d be stupid enough to use a fake ID that looked that bad. He said yes but let me in anyway.” He responded, putting his hands on the back of the only empty seat beside Eddie.

“Idiot.” Bev laughed. “Well, introductions are necessary, I guess. This is Ben, and this is Eddie.”

Eddie gave up trying to make himself disappear when Bev said his name. He looked up into the glasses covered eyes of none other than Richie, the barista from the café. The man who made his Tuesday and Thursday coffee runs so detestable. The grin on his face was hard to ignore and Eddie wished he’d gotten a drink before they arrived.

“Holy shit, Eddie.” Richie said, finally sitting in the chair. “I’ve never seen you out in the wild like this.”

“You two know each other?” Bev asked, looking between the two.

“Eds here comes into the shop twice a week to grace me with his presence.”

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie said, leaning against the wall and hoping he could somehow fuse through it.

Richie, thankfully, turned to look at Ben instead. “So, this is Ben? He’s hot.”

Ben smiled as the color on his cheeks grew darker. “Oh, I, um…you…you too?” He said, visible flustered.

“Don’t embarrass him Richie.” Bev scolded with a smile. “As punishment, you will be fetching the first round.”

“Yes milady.” Richie said as he stood and swooped down into a dramatic bow.

“I can help carry drinks.” Ben chimed in, standing quickly.

Eddie hated himself. Hated that he cared so dearly for his friend and his desire to fall in love. Hated the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “Stay. I’ll help.” He put his hand out to Ben, urging him to sit as he stood.

Richie seemed surprised as they walked side by side to the bar. Eddie tried not to look at him, really not wanting to interact with him. This was, of course, a good chance to let him know of the plan. Hopefully, Richie wasn’t interested in Beverly. If he was, he could potentially ruin the night for Ben and then he’d have to hate him even more than he did before.

“You’re not going to cheat on me, are you?” Richie asked, just as Eddie was about to open his mouth.

“What?” He narrowed his eyes at the other.

“Their menu says they offer coffee.” Richie pointed up at the chalkboard menu above the bar. “I know it will be hard to resist but drinking another man’s coffee does constitute cheating in my books.”

“Oh my God.” Eddie sighed. “I think I need something a little stronger if I’m going to survive a night out with you and your jokes.” He shot back.

Richie grinned and chuckled. “So, I should get you drunk to make you like me. Good to know.”

Eddie was going to say something along the lines of ‘no amount of alcohol will make me like you’ when the bartender came over to take their order. They opened a joint tab and ordered a round of beer, a light beer for Eddie. Each grabbed two bottles and carried them back to the table where Bev was telling Ben a story.

“So, he jumped from the roof of the fake building swinging the wooden sword down like it was a guitar he was going to smash and when it hit the stage it broke. The top part flew across the room and hit Jared in the arm. He stumbled back trying to get away from it and fell right off the stage and now he’s in a cast.” She was saying.

Eddie handed a beer to Ben and reclaimed his seat. “What are you talking about?” He asked.

“I was telling Ben the reason we aren’t allowed to use wooden swords in class anymore. They’re all rubber now and for a while we had to use long balloons until the rubber ones came in.”

“In my defense, I didn’t think the sword would break.” Richie said as he sat.

“Maybe so, but your actions still caused poor Jared to break his ankle.” Bev said, taking a swig of her beer.

“You go to the same school?” Eddie asked, looking at Richie. He’d never seen him on campus, never saw him with Bev. She’d never even mentioned him before as a friend.

“Theater major.” He said.

“Why is that not surprising.”

“I can’t tell if that was an insult or not.” Bev laughed.

Eddie shrugged. Their conversation continued this way for a while, discussions of school and classes and how each of them met. Beverly hadn’t known that Eddie and Ben had actually grown up together in a small rural town. Ben was visibly embarrassed when Eddie pulled out his phone and found some old pictures of them from middle school. Bev and Richie loved the photos though and teased them for how dorky they looked.

“So, wait, you actually carried a fanny pack?” Richie was laughing.

The drinks had been flowing for a while by this point and each of them was more than a little tipsy. As predicted, Ben had suggested ordering some bar food for the table. Beverly had been more than willing to order food, going to the bar and grabbing a menu. Half empty plates of wings, pretzel sticks with beer cheese, mozzarella sticks and fries sat between them.

“Why is that funny, asshole?” Eddie asked, pointing at him with the top of his bottle.

“No, it’s uh…” Richie laughed again. “I’m sure you were very fashionable.”

“It wasn’t about fashion. It was about function. I kept my inhaler in there.”

“Isn’t that what pockets are for?”

“I need another drink. Ben?” Bev said, standing.

Ben nodded and stood, following after Bev. Eddie reached over and grabbed another fry from the plate, washing it down with a mouthful of beer. He knew that Richie was watching him, but he tried to ignore it. They’d been bickering all night and he wanted just a second of peace and silence. Of course, Richie wasn’t about to comply with his wishes.

“Tell me something.” He said with a smile.

“Ok, you’re not funny.” Eddie said, making himself laugh in his buzzed state.

“No. Tell me why you always order black coffee when you seem to hate it.”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You look like you want to die whenever you take a sip.”

Eddie had never realized that Richie watched him while he sat in the café and drank his coffee. It made him feel slightly embarrassed and a little uncomfortable. He knew the guy liked to tease him and test out stupid jokes on him, but he didn’t know that he paid so much attention to him.

“My friend Stanley says you just have to get used to drinking black coffee and eventually you’ll love it.” He explained.

Richie laughed. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

“It’s better than loading it down with a bunch of cream and sugar and flavored syrup. It’s empty calories.”

“Ok, so you don’t want added calories in your coffee, you drink light beer, but I just watched you help the rest of us devour a bunch of fried foods. Explain.”

“It’s not like I’m counting calories or anything. I just don’t think it’s smart to drink your calories. If you drink sugary crap all day then you’ll gain weight and spike your blood sugar. It’s not good for you.”

“So, then what do you drink?”

“Water, mostly. Sometimes I indulge in a soda with my meal if I’m so inclined.”

“Oh my God. You’re like an old man.”

“Fuck you. I just care about my body.” Eddie said, downing the last of his beer. He looked to the bar to see if Bev and Ben were headed back with another round yet, but he couldn’t see them. “Where did they go?”

Richie looked back and scanned the bar only to come up empty. “Must have left.”

“What the hell. Why wouldn’t he tell me he was leaving?”

“It wasn’t his choice. Bev had this plan from the start to ditch us so she could spend some time alone with him.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Eddie now realized that he never did get the chance to tell Richie about their plan. “Ben was supposed to give me a signal to leave them alone here. I can’t believe you didn’t warn me.”

“You didn’t warn me about your plan. What were you going to do with me?”

“I don’t know. I figured I’d just go home.”

Richie raised his eyebrows and grinned. “So, you were planning to take me home?

“Oh, fuck off. You know what I meant.” Eddie stood and grabbed his jacket. “Well, if they’re gone, I’m leaving too.”

Eddie slipped his jacket on, not catching the way Richie’s smile finally fell away and was replaced with a frown. He stood as well and followed Eddie to the bar. They closed out their tab and split the cost, though Eddie planned to get at least half of that back from Ben for ditching him without warning. He resisted the urge to pull his phone out and text him to let him know he sucked, but he was with Bev and that’s what he wanted. Why did he have to be such a supportive friend?

Without saying goodbye, Eddie turned to leave but Richie was close on his heels. They walked out into the night and Eddie realized he hadn’t even bothered to order an uber. He pulled his phone out and opened the app, only to realize that Richie was staring down at him expectantly.

“What?” He asked, glancing at him before turning his attention back to his phone.

“Before you head home do you want to get some…ice cream?” He asked.

Eddie finally looked at him. “It’s like thirty degrees out here. There’s snow on the ground. And you want ice cream?”

Richie shrugged. “Yes?”

“Yea, I’ll pass.”

“Ok, it doesn’t have to be ice cream. There’s a 24-hour diner close by with really good pie.”

“I think I’d rather go home and sleep.”

“I’ll treat.”

Eddie’s fingers paused on his screen. He really didn’t want to spend any more time with this man, but he knew of the diner he was talking about and their pie was amazing. It was the offer to pay for him that really had him considering saying yes. He was going to respond when Richie’s phone chimed. He pulled it from his pocket and frowned down at the screen.

“Shit. I um…I have to go somewhere but…rain check on the pie?” He asked, giving him a sheepish smile.

Eddie couldn’t help thinking he looked disappointed. “Yea. Maybe.”

Richie said goodbye with that same look for disappointment still on his face as he rushed off down the street. Eddie was lucky enough to get an uber that was already close by. As soon as he got home, he collapsed on his couch and sent a text to Ben.

Eddie: You left me alone with Richie. You owe me. Big

He didn’t expect to hear from him until tomorrow with a full report of what happened with Beverly. Eddie was happy for his friend. He could tell that Bev liked him too and he wanted them to be together. Wanted them both to be happy. He just couldn’t help but feel jealous. He wanted to like someone, to have someone like him back. Longed for companionship and love. He fell asleep on the couch remembering the look Richie had given him when he left and wondering where he had to rush off to.

[andiandyandee]

We Are Going to Be Friends Pt. 2

Yeah I know I literally just posted the first part don’t worry about it.

Words: 1333

Tag List: @princemesscharming @datfearlessfangirl @cas-is-a-hunter (i haven’t tagged you in the last few but you did ask to be tagged in the original. Let me know if you want to stay on the tag list, I don’t mind either way.) @illogicalthinking Let me know if you want tagged!

The Series on Ao3  | Last Words: Pt. 1 & Pt. 2  |  Run From What’s Comfortable | The Kids Will be Alright, Eventually.  | We Are Going to Be Friends: Part 1

Kay here’s the fic

As soon as the bell rang and Mrs. White dismissed them, Logan shot out of the room. He dropped his books off at his locker and headed toward the lunch room. L was already at a table with his friends, but he waved Logan over anyway. “There he is! Guys, this is my wonderful little-”

     “I’m four inches taller than you” L glared at him.

     “-Okay whatever, YOUNGER brother, Lo!” Everyone at the table waved, except two at the back who were looking at him slightly suspiciously. One of them spoke up,

     “Aren’t you the kid who pushed the Sanders twins this morning?” Logan blushed bright red. L raised his eyebrows and smirked at his brother.

     “How could you have possibly already gotten in a fight? You’ve been here five hours!” Logan opened his mouth to explain, but the other guy cut him off.

     “Oh no, it wasn’t a fight. They were in front of his locker and he just moved them. No struggle at all. Pushed ‘em aside like they weighed like, 40 pounds.” L snorted. 

     “I don’t know the Sanders twins well. They aren’t going to murder him or anything, right?” It was at that moment that said twins appeared behind Logan,   Remus scooping him up bridal style.  Logan let out what could only be described as a screech.  

     “Put me down, you great buffoon!” Roman laughed at that, but Remus just grinned. L shot to his feet, immediately trying to come to his brother’s rescue, but finding that there wasn’t much he could actually do. The twins started to walk towards a table that wasn’t too far away from where L and his friends were. “What do you think you’re doing‽” 

    “Kidnapping you! You’re sitting with us.” Remus said with a grin. Logan opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off. “No ifs, ands, or asses, Erlenmeyer Trash!” Logan raised an eyebrow.

    “I don’t think that’s the saying-” Remus cut him off.

    “I said what I said.” He unceremoniously dropped Logan into a chair at a table already occupied by an eclectic group of what Logan assumed were theater kids, jocks, and general preps. There were also two people with paint on their clothes and arms, who Logan assumed were either set designers or just particularly messy artists. “This is Logan, we’re keeping him.” Nobody at the table argued. Remus sat next to Logan, pulling out a grocery bag from his backpack. Roman did the same, both of the twins tossing them on the table and immediately passing out food to everyone sitting there. Roman sat an apple and water in front of Logan, and Remus handed him what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “No food allergies, right?” Logan shook his head, bewildered. Everyone else at the table just took the food like this was completely normal. 

    “Uh, can I ask why-” One of the people with paint on them answered his question.

    “At some point last year we were all at The Sanders’ house and someone mentioned the food was totally inedible, so their Dad started packing lunches en masse. There’s pretty much always extras, so don’t worry, you aren’t taking anyone’s.” Logan looked even more confused at that. 

    “Your Dad just decided to feed an army of teenagers because school lunch food doesn’t taste good?” Roman shrugged and nodded. “Isn’t that, oh I don’t know, incredibly expensive?” The same kid who answered Logan’s question laughed. 

        “Dude. Sanders. Like, Thomas Sanders.” They said, as if that was an answer in and of itself. 

    “Like.. Actor, Thomas Sanders?” Logan asked, staring at the twins who were nodding, already eating their food. “Well, I guess that explains the dramatics, then.” Logan snorted, and the rest of the table let out laughs of varying degrees. Roman scoffed. 

    “You have room to talk. You literally stomped through a group of people and shoved us just so you could hang up your jacket!” Logan had the sense to look slightly embarrassed at that. 

        “Ah- sorry, about that. I wasn’t in a great mood. No coffee this morning.”  The table laughed again, and the group fell into easy conversation. Logan was surprised that even though all of the people seemed to be older than him, and had clearly been friends for a while, they easily added him into their conversations, immediately teasing and joking with him like they had known him as long as everyone else. It was nice. 

    After lunch, the group split up again, and Logan headed back to his locker. L was standing there with a smug look on his face. “Soo… I see you’re making friends. What happened to ‘high schoolers are all immature and ridiculous, and I refuse to bother myself with them’, huh? You seem to have bothered yourself with like twelve of them. ” Logan groaned. 

    “ I did no such thing. I was kidnapped.” He opened his locker and grabbed the notebooks and folders he would need for his last two classes. “And besides, I think they only asked me to sit with them because I told Remus I would help him with our English class.” Logan admitted. He hadn’t made the connection until he started speaking, but it seemed obvious now that he thought of it. It wasn’t friendship, it was convenience. 

    “I don’t know if that’s true, buddy-” Someone came up behind them, dropping a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He turned and was met with a few of the people from the lunch table. 

    “Hey, Lo! What class are you heading to now? Is it a freshman class or-” 

    “I’m going to Biology, with Mr. Stewart.” Two of them in the back ‘wooped’ at that. Logan thought their names were Kai and Elliot. They were the two artists. “Why.. woop?” The one who had asked, was his name Evan?, groaned. 

    “Damn, I’m going to pre-calc with Sloane. I was hoping you would be in that class too, literally nobody I know is in there.” He glanced at Elliot and Kai. “I think the woop was because they’re in class with you.” Evan laughed. “What about last period? Who do you have?” Logan checked his schedule. 

    “Uh, trig with Mr. Padley.” Evan nodded.

    “Yeah, we just call him Sloane. He’s a cool dude. Anyone gonna be in that class with Lo?” The group shook their heads. “Daamn, that sucks dude. Anyway, see ya later!” Evan waved, heading off towards the math wing with most of the group. Kai and Elliot stayed behind. Logan was mildly surprised, but simply waved his goodbye to his brother, who had a big grin on his face, and walked with them to their shared class. 

    The classroom was set up at high top tables, three stools to a table, much to Logan’s relief. That meant that whoever he sat with would have someone else to talk to, and he wouldn’t have to make friends with someone in order to keep the peace if their seats they picked today became their permanent places. He was glancing around the room, trying to decide where to sit when he heard his name being called. Kai was looking at him like he was losing his mind. 

    “You gonna come sit down, or are you waiting for a written invitation, Lo?” He laughed. Elliot rolled their eyes.

    “He probably doesn’t want to sit next to you, loser. Trade me spots.” Kai pretended to be offended as Logan slowly made his way over to them.

    “Apologies. I did not realize I was welcome to sit with you.” Logan said quietly, setting his notebooks down in the far corner so he wouldn’t be in Kai’s way. 

    “What, did you think we were going to make you sit by yourself?” Elliot looked genuinely confused. Kai had a similar look of confusion on his face. 

    “Well, I uh-” It was at that moment Mr. Stewart came in, immediately going into how he would tolerate ‘No Nonsense’, so the conversation was cut short, saving Logan from embarrassing himself again.

Pls comment and reblog and like I crave human interaction.

[valkerymillenia]

Umbrella Academy

season 2, episode 7

More thoughts and live blogged reactions.

1982. I'm assuming Five used a briefcase... But in s1 we saw that the briefcase travels are tracked (Hazel and Cha-Cha got reprimanded for Klaus's Vietnam trip) so I'm not sure how the board doesn't know someone is coming... I might be overthinking.

Five being creepy.

Is that a Fudge Nutter like Handler mentioned in season 1? Oh, it is.

Jesus, Five! Anger management for you, old man.

AAHH! THEY LET FIVE SAY FUCK! Fucking finally! 🤣

How did nobody notice that destruction? 😆

Oh, the axe! Is Five going to go all American psycho? Because I'd love to see that.

HOLY SHIT!

That smile!

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!

Is he using tiny time travel bursts like Reggie said? Or a briefcase? Or is he just that fast?

AJ hiding under the table 😆

Pausing to drink water and grin, what a psycho, I love him.

He's definitely using time jumps but they are so controlled that I'm guessing briefcase or Handler little time stopping trick. I'm so proud of my mass murder baby.

... Vending machine? Lady, you have interesting priorities.

CRICKET BAT!

Wait! AJ's human body feels pain? How?

Please make Five swallow the fish like in the comics! Please, please, please, please.

The dancers are just like

I LOVE FIVE! The lengths this little killer will go for his family are unbelievable, nobody should ever doubt his love and devotion for them ever again.

This whole murder scene was incredible and Five's obvious glee made it even better. FEAR HIM!

Jesus, Klaus is so afraid of being possessed that he's afraid to sleep and Ben just mocks him? 😘💋 I get that this is supposed to be a funny 'brothers messing with each other' kind of thing but Klaus feels so unsafe that it makes me uncomfortable. What happened to you, Ben, when did you become so dark? You were the nice one!

Ben just getting closer and closer every time Klaus closes his eyes just gave me Doctor Who flashbacks.

"I hate your face" "I hate all of you" - Don't say that boys! You know you love each other.

Ok, Ben has a point. I'm actually liking this conversation. And I'm liking that Klaus is starting to understand his brother.

Ok, this is such a brother conversation. And Klaus constantly pretending not to know who Jill is 😆

Ground rules... Well, at least it's consensual now. That's something. See? Communication works.

Damn, the tension at the lunch table cut be cut with a knife. I'm scared what Carl is going to do.

Ray and Allison have a lovely relationship but I finally identified the problem, the tension I was feeling between since them a few eps back. It's not about Allison's secrets at all, is about Ray being so obsessed with his crusade that he completely overlooks Allison's feelings, he only pays attention to her when they are on the page about the mission. He sees her powers and his first thought is 'we could use this for the cause', Allison is clearly distressed and sad and even says she doesn't feel well and all he can think about is the damn JFK meeting. He's not a bad person and he's not doing it on purpose but he has a workaholic one-track mind that could easy turn into neglect for Allison. He clearly loves her and I'm rooting for them so much but I know that if asked to choose between Allison and his cause, he'll pick his cause.

So Five is done with the killing. I figured this might weigh on his conscience, it's one thing to kill for a greater good or survival, coldly and detached, it's another thing to slaughter for selfish reasons (even if his selfish reasons are a greater good).

Handler going all mom on him and wiping his face. 😆

"What I did today, I did for my family" -we know, baby, and they better respect you for it. You love then so much.

90 minutes??? Wtf, I knew Handler would try to screw Five over but that's just cruel, she's forcing him to uproot the family without even giving them time to say goodbye and that's even IF he can get to all of them on time.

It's not a name, you idiots. Also, that's Olga, not öga.

Don't harass the poor woman... Oh God, you guys are such morons... Diego, you dramatic little bitch...

"Wrong number. Have a lovely day" 🤣🤣🤣

I love the new dumbass buddy cop dynamic between Diego and Luther. This is the sort of positive brotherly dynamic they always should have had instead of being pitted against each other all their lives.

"you have some blood on you" "a lot of blood, actually. Five, what did you do?" -the casual, mildly annoyed way they ask is hilarious, if they knew what he did they'd be horrified (and possibly impressed).

Handler's militaristic chic dress is fabulous. I personally don't like it very much (or the message it sends) but it's haute couture and incredibly designed. Also, the bleached hair is back!

"any questions?" And then she leaves without listening. Power move 😏

Luther trying to comfort Diego like the dork he is. 🤣

Really though, I feel bad for Diego, and Five is under so much pressure that I don't blame him for snapping.

"I'm shy" -are you, Klaus? Are you really? You keep walking around in underwear in front of dozens of people, you're not shy.

So is Klaus lactose intolerant?

Ok, so far the possession thing is not as bad as some people were claiming. So far.

"stay focused" *giggle* -oh Ben, you dork 😆

Ahah, Ben enjoying all the different sensory stimuli. Adorable. He's just so happy, poor boy.

Dirt angels. SO CUTE ❤️

I know this all supposed to be cute and all but it would also be a perfect moment for Ben for experience Klaus's powers (the constant hauntings) as well as his addiction and the claustrophobic expectations of the cult. It would be an excellent chance to make Ben understand why Klaus is the way he is, seeing as Klaus is making a huge effort (and sacrifice) to do the same for Ben. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening because I think they want to keep this part about Ben.

By end of season 1 Klaus cried that people still didn't take him seriously, his compassion despite all his suffering made him likeable and deep, but this season he's back to being the family joke, I don't like that there's no resolution to that. But let's see where this goes, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Oh God, Carl's talk is freaking me out.

"who I am is not a disease" -very powerful LGBT+ statement considering it's the 60s!!!!

Oh, the blackmail...

Everybody keeps expecting Vanya to explode every time she gets emotional but this scene proves how much control she truly has. Respect!

Oh, finally Claire is mentioned! I've been rather upset that Allison hasn't mentioned her daughter even once this season (does Ray even know he has a stepdaughter?) seeing as most of her arc in season 1 revolved around her love and guilt over Claire.

Luther is right when he says they don't get live formal lives because they are special but Allison is even more right when she says that's not fair. This is why this family needs to stick together and love each other, they are the only ones that can really understand each other's struggles.

"hope" -Luther, you really are such a sweet summer child.

OH! I CAN FINALLY SEE ALLISON'S SCAR! The lighting in this scene makes it really obvious. Finally.

Ben and the strawberry. 🤣

"you're different today. You're dorkier" ah! First time anyone called Ben 'Sassy' Hargreeves dorky.

Oh Ben, you're adorable... Wait, "smell your hair"? What the fuck, Ben? You weirdo.

Holy crap! Jill is really forward, isn't she? Hippies, man.

Ben stuttering! 😆🤣 He died a virgin, didn't he?

It's funny but please tell me he isn't actually considering that in his brother's body...

Wait, did Klaus slap him because he doesn't want to have sex or because he's trying to stop Ben from ruining his own chance by saying too much?

Actually, I'm almost sure it's the second one, Klaus is playing wingman on his own body!

WHAT????

Ok so Ben IS a virgin but "you, me and Keechie"? What the fuck, Klaus? You slept with the fanatical crybaby and your brother's crush????

"Klaus, you're so filthy!" "Yes, you are, daddy." -Ben, this girl is not right for you. Run, boy!

AHAHAHAH ASDFGDDGGHSGSGASFHDBKDIS 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 DIEGO CALLING HIM DADDY!

Wait, AJ can speak without the body/suit/whatever?

Handler is going a little bit fascist dictator, isn't she?

Gotta admit, Handler really is such a mom in her own twisted way.

Ben giggling when he talks to Diego. Cute.

"Luther sniffs Dad's underwear" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

AWWWWWWWW, BEN AND DIEGO! THE CHILDHOOD HIJINKS! THE HUG!

GOD, THE HUG! ❤️

I need all the siblings hugging Ben now!

"you stay in this body, we need someone responsible behind the wheel" -Diego, I understand what you mean given the situation, but you playing obvious favorites between your brothers when free will and body autonomy are on the line is a little creepy.

"no one is insignificant" -that line is so loaded when used on Vanya.

Oh no, Vanya and Five playing the blame game is so bad... They used to be so close... They are both under so much pressure, this won't end well.

Oh boy, Five looks like he's on the verge of crying and Vanya sees that! I bet that's why she backed down. 😲😢

The Lila and Diego conversation is heartbreaking without even trying...

Is that Elliot? Is Diego burying Elliot because nobody else will? Diego really does have a heart of gold.

Don't drinkit! I'm pretty sure Lila is drugging you.

Yup, there it is.

What is she planning?

Once again, it's all about the movement with Ray.

"I would take my one year with you over a lifetime with anybody else." 😭 Oh Ray ❤️

But I get the feeling this won't end so easily.

There it is, the Swedes just arrived. And the smart assholes went right for Allison's throat.

You don't need the coffee can, Sissy. The Hargreeves are loaded.

Sissy, hurry up.

BEN, YOU ARE SUCH A 90s KID!!! So the Backstreet Boys are Ben's fault, God, I love this dork 🤣

Come on, Allison, you can fight better than this!

Good girl!

Klaus and Ben running and fighting each other at the same time 😆

Holy shit, that is some Exorcist level vomiting!

Poor Klaus, I totally get Ben's side in this (pretty sure he was trying to save Klaus by getting him to Five ASAP) but this whole thing made me mildly uncomfortable. Klaus just keeps sacrificing for everyone and nobody respects his boundaries.

Holy shit, Allison! That is so cruel! I like it though, so ruthless and vicious. 😈

Problem- Allison can't just leave Ray with a white corpse in the house. Especially not in Texas, death penalty and all.

Oh Sissy, you dumbass. You're a sweetheart but also a dumbass.

Ok, Lila is pretty insane. That's for sure.

Five:

"I don't want to hurt you" - well, Vanya warned them.

My baby is getting really good with her powers.

I hope that hit to the head doesn't give Vanya her memory back, that's so cliché and convenient, or would be really bad writing.

SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN. I'm dying to see more!!!!!!

[lorspolairepeluche]

Favorite Writing 2019

ringing out this dumpster fire of a year by talking about the nice things i made during it. 2019 was pretty good for writing, having contained two-thirds of my last year of college (including my final portfolio for my creative writing major). under the cut are several handfuls of my favorite lines/passages/whatever i’ve written this year, sorted by what they’re from.

from Laudata Fidelis

“Lafi…”

The whisper is strangled, nearly gone, but it pierces its way into Lafi’s ears, and she turns her head on the ground, tearing her eyes from Killough’s sword, just in time to see Gendra’s hand outstretched for her. Lafi smiles, a small, bitter thing. We died together fourteen years ago too, didn’t we? “Close your eyes, Gendra.” This will be no crack on the head. There will be no surviving this.

Lafi considers for a moment before asking him the same question she asked his wife two weeks before: “Do you think I’m Aegri?”

She sees René look at her again out of the corner of her eye, head cocked like a curious dog’s. Finally, he asks, “Does it matter if I do or don’t? For that matter, does it matter if you are?”

“If you’re not open to change, sometimes change opens you,” René murmurs. When Lafi gives him a raised eyebrow and quirked mouth, he adds, “I mean, in the opens-you-from-neck-to-navel sense. It’s not a pretty metaphor. It’s what change did to me when I wasn’t ready.”

“That pack we were hunting last week has been a thorn in our side for ages. We got most of ‘em, oh, nine or so years back? But Claudia got clawed—ha, clawed—she’d kill me for laughing at that—got clawed up pretty bad. Lost that eye.”

[Nagendra. Thursday 10:28 am] The hunters corner Rene and are about to shoot him when (as he tells it) Justy shows up out of nowhere swinging a baseball bat and hollering HOME RUN as she cracks one across the back of his head.

[Me. Thursday 10:28 am] Holy shit.

[Nagendra. Thursday 10:28 am] Honestly when I heard that I knew exactly why Rene fell in love with her.

Justy’s really just an ordinary human who got caught up in this. She’s taken to it like a duck to water, but how did a woman ignorant enough to hit a hunter in the head with a baseball bat—yelling “home run,” no less—become the serious, motherly Guillory she is? (Does she still have the baseball bat?)

Killough has grabbed the creature’s focus and holds it tight as he says, “Hello. Goodbye.”

Lafi feels the magic move in the air—and settle in her arms. She looks up at Killough, shocked—is he setting the thing on me?—and is looking at the barrel of Killough’s pistol. “Killo—”

He fires.

Lafi’s ears ring with the sound of the shot for a few seconds before she realizes the sudden difference: the weight in her arms is heavier. The cub isn’t just asleep anymore, not with a bullet trail clear through its skull and its blood seeping into Lafi’s shirt.

“Wow, Laffy, are all your friends as rude as you?” Bridget asks snidely.

“Yes,” Lafi deadpans. “Absolutely gauche. Please get out of my seat.”

“I think it’s you who’s being rude.” Nagendra doesn’t raise her voice, but it catches everyone’s attention anyway as she steps just a little closer to Taylor. It’s dark and almost sibilant, and Lafi glances at her in alarm. Please don’t do anything stupid. “After all, there were already lunch trays at these seats.” Her face is neutral, maybe even an inch into pleasant, and somehow unnerving. “With food on them.” She leans down, just a little. “Our food.” It hits Lafi like lightning exactly why Nagendra’s so unsettling: she has let her pupils change to snakelike slits. “So please. May we have our seats back?”

Lafi Ness’s List Of Facts

One, Nagendra is half-dragon.

Two, I am a mage.

Three, I’ve known Nagendra for a week and a half, and only because the people Nagendra lives with kidnapped me.

Four, Nagendra does not have a crush on me.

Five. I do not have a crush on Nagendra.

Lafi’s sure that if she were a cartoon, her eyes would have sparkles in them as she watches Nagendra raise her arms above her head, relaxing before flexing her shoulders. Wings erupt from her shoulder blades, at first stumps, then small, folded things, then flaring out into true, membranous wings. Scales peek out from her skin, starting at her wing joints and adding one by one in an outward wave, over her shoulders and her arms until they cover her fingers and grow claws to replace her fingernails, down her torso to her legs as she kicks off her shoes and her feet become clawed too, up her neck and shooting up the sides of her face. When she blinks her eyes open, her pupils are slits again, and horns grow out from under her hair as she rolls her neck, her shoulders, her ankles, flares her wings until they settle to fold on her back. Nagendra shrugs awkwardly, a stark contrast to the grace of her transformation. “Well — what do you think?”

“I think…that was incredible,” Lafi breathes.

Nagendra flares her wings. “Come on. Let me show you how they work.”

“Oh, are there extra pectoral muscles to make them fla—AAAAAAHHHHHH!” Lafi’s question makes a quick swan-dive into a holler of fright as her feet suddenly leave the ground, Nagendra’s hands firmly holding hers as she takes off. “Ow!” she shouts as soon as her vertigo has passed. “Do you know how much that hurts my shoulders?”

“You big baby! I do this with Will all the time!”

“Will’s like, six! I’m much larger than her, and my shoulders are probably way less…mobile…”

“We’ll say I fought her and won,” Gloria says. “Elliot will believe that.”

“Not if it looks like I won.” Claudia flicks her wand, and Gloria slams back the few inches into the wall. “You two kids escaped during the fight, got that?” She almost has a gleam of amusement in her eye as Gloria groans more in annoyance than pain.

“Oh, so I see we’re going right back to the old days,” Gloria mutters, standing up and dusting herself off. “What are you two waiting for? Go!”

The dragon — it’s hard to think of her as Amy just yet — awkwardly shuffles around to let her head face Lafi. “I can at least get my wings spread this way — wow. Wings. I have wings.”

Despite every other dire thing happening outside this alley, Lafi can’t help but grin at the sight of the dragon’s snout scrunching up like her nose does in human form. Okay, yeah. That’s Amy.

She barely has time to look at Nagendra and smile and say, “Hey,” before Gendra closes the three steps’ distance to the bed, grabs Lafi’s chin — not ungently — and kisses her.

It’s kind of an awkward position for Lafi, so she just grabs Nagendra’s arm with one hand and hangs on for dear life as the kiss extends into way longer than their first one did. Gloria finally has to cough to let them know she’s still there.

Nagendra only pulls away to say, “You and Claudia were nonstop PDA that night in the lobby,” before going right back to kissing Lafi.

Lafi breaks away just a few seconds later to laugh. “Wow. Did you miss me that bad?”

“Look, I’ve gotten all of one chance before now to do that, and it was right after I almost died.” Nagendra presses her lips to Lafi’s forehead this time. “So sue me for being impatient to do it again.”

She still can’t walk loosely, or she pulls on the healing scar, even though the stitches are gone, but it’s worth it to push open the door to the office, bow over-dramatically, and say, “Baroness.”

“Shut up,” Gloria says good-naturedly after she swallows a gulp of her coffee.

“The pack says you’ve been hanging out at their house every weekend.”

“Yeah, uh, they’re my friends.” Lafi shrugs.

“And you would probably like us to not hunt your girlfriend?” Gloria sips from her coffee again, eyebrows raised pointedly over the mug.

Lafi’s face heats up, but she manages a level, “That would…be nice.”

from “The Apple and the Rose” 

                                   SNOW (CONT’D.)

                    I would like a bridge, please.

She steps out — and her foot is met by branches twisting themselves into a bridge. Little flowers bloom along the sides as Snow makes her way over the stream. Briar grins.

                                  BRIAR

                   You’re a natural.

                                 SNOW

                  Only following suit. Are you coming?

Briar follows Snow across the bridge, and from her first step, the bridge changes to mahogany where she touches it, rhododendron flowers bloom from the sides, and it becomes polished, as if newly built by hand and not by imagination. Briar changes too. For a longer moment than before, with chin held high, hand elegantly grazing along the handrail, and back straight and proud, she is the hundred-year-old queen she was meant to be.

Then she steps off the bridge, and the moment is gone, but she is smiling now.

                                 BRIAR

                 It’s the way to break my curse. After                 one hundred years...true love’s kiss.                 You’re that true love, Snow. If I kiss you...                 I wake up. And I leave you here. Alone.

Snow considers, her eyes on Briar’s. Briar is desperate with her dilemma.

Snow steps forward, takes Briar’s face in her hands, and pulls her down to kiss her. Despite what she’s just said, Briar holds her close and kisses her harder.

After a few seconds, Snow breaks the kiss, puts her finger on Briar’s lips, and whispers:

                                SNOW

                Find me.

                                                                                    CUT TO:

INT. BRIAR’S BEDROOM - DAY

CLOSE ON BRIAR’S FACE

Briar’s eyes fly open.

from “Intelligence,” pilot episode of Star Trek: Magellan

                               K’RALTA

               You have your orders, Krya.

Krya shoots K’Ralta a glare.

                               KRYA

               SoH Hu’tegh petaQ.

Her statement startles Sloan, but she doesn’t notice as she storms past him out of the office.

                               K’RALTA

               You’ll have to excuse the Commander.                I don’t think she’s aware you                understand Klingon.

                               SLOAN

               …Sir?

                               K’RALTA

               A shame, really, that she doesn’t put                more effort into learning to curse                properly, when that’s mostly what she                does when she speaks Klingon.

                              TASOVA

              This isn’t the first ship named Enterprise               I’ve ever served on. Yeah. I served under               Kirk. Patched him up several times, too.               So don’t doubt me, Lieutenant: any fight               you tell me about, Kirk was in it first.

                             MAGELLAN

             I was programmed from the first to              understand that not everyone would accept              me as more than the standard computer,              and certainly not as a person.

Arisawa frowns, but turns back to her stage.

                            ARISAWA

                    (still yelling)

            Well, if you can choose a favorite rock             song, you’re a person by my reckoning!             Come on!

She runs back out to center stage, slinging the guitar’s strap around her neck and skidding to a halt before—

CLOSE ON GUITAR

—striking a chord.

from the untitled story of Team MCHN and Team WBAT

Helia and Celeste and Nebula follow Taiyang, but Matu doesn’t need his guidance at all; they follow the path their heart remembers, even if every step hurts because they know what they’ll find at the end of it—and what they won’t find.

The door comes into sight, and they’re almost surprised to find that Boreas has kept it painted the same midnight blue.

The door comes into sight, and a shard of the past stabs into their heart—the window next to it isn’t fogged with the steam from the kettle.

The door comes into sight, and Matu’s muscle memory stops them short, expecting a bright-eyed blond girl to come crashing out the door and right into them, yelling for a sparring match.

The door does not open. Ourana isn’t there. The shard in Matu’s heart twists.

from the untitled story of Siobhan Killdeer, Sawbones Alchemist

“I was going to get my State Alchemist certification then too, but…well, I was a medic in Ishval. I didn’t want to be another human weapon.”

“Aren’t you a medical alchemist? They would have kept you on as a medic, right?”

Siobhan looked up at Edward, and her bright, casual tone disappeared. “Yes. I’m a medical alchemist. I know all the best ways to heal the human body. I also know all the worst ways to hurt it. Which do you think the bastards would have had me using in a war of extermination?”

“I’ve never…I don’t know best what to say here, but I want to put that ring on your finger. If you’ll have me.”

“I already said yes.” Siobhan’s arms curl around his chest, making sure he can feel as much of her as possible above his waist. “I’ll have you. Every inch of you, Jean Havoc, if you’ll have me in return.”

“Of course. I hope I always will.”

“Jean, one more thing before I fall asleep.”

“Yeah?”

“Shave your goddamn chin mange. I’m not marrying you with that awful beard.”

He rumbles with laughter against her, and she lets out a laugh of her own on a breath as he says, “Maybe when you get back again. See if you like it then.”

“I won’t, I promise.” And echoed in the words: I’ll come back. I promise.

from various “found” poetry cobbled together for a class winter term

a pale king

the voice says faintly, “Ah...my greatest failure.” no regard for what you could be, Are you sorry? sharp and angry. I thought I had paid the perfect cost Yes. Yes, I am sorry. (you never said that) “Father,”

Volatile Explosives

“So when did you build a cannon?” I was insane. a genius, “Genius he may be, but he’s still off his fucking rocker.” Yes, that’s true. But about the cannon… It’ll break after just one shot. “One shot?” I’ll try not to make any mistakes. “Ah, excellent!” What do you think? “About what?”

All Lit Up (And I Start To Smile)

This is gonna be a train wreck of happiness.

It’s many hundred miles, and it won’t be long.

If you hear sirens, come kiss me goodbye.

So if you need me…start screaming.

I’m out of my head, of my heart, of my mind.

Don’t sacrifice temporal accuracy for enthusiasm.

Don’t let me falter; don’t let me hide; don’t let the earth in me subside.

Do not go far from me.

I have lived o’er my lives without number.

If we’re going to be damned, let us be damned for what we really are.

Get busy growing or stand in place and decay.

Nor are you just another biological organism.

The universe is expanding, and so should you.

Why change the past when you can own this day?

Drive blind on an untethered joyride through hell.

Sound the horn and call the cry;

I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon.

It’s still you looking out.

Life needs things to live.

Life needs love to live.

Long may your innocence reign,

And God bless the grass.

Be bold. Be brave. Be courageous. Black alert.

Tinkerty tonk.

from “Emma,” a retelling of Bluebeard

She reaches to the very back of her closet as soon as she gets to her room and yanks out a wooden hanger with black draped over it. She dons the three-piece suit carefully. This is her wedding attire, not the stupid, flouncy dress she wore to marry him. This is what she would have worn to marry Lizzie.

Lizzie who has absolutely no reason to come after Emma, or to call 911, or to even listen to the messages she left. Lizzie who she left when she cowed to Mom’s insistence. Poor Lizzie. Poor, dearest Lizzie. Emma blows a kiss out the window for her. It feels like too little, too late.

from “Patrick, Donald, and the Great Ride,” a short play written for the family reunion in August

DONALD: He searched us. What, did he think we were smuggling guns in? Tequila? Bubblegum?

from “Drawing From...: On Writing, Life, and the Writing Life,” the introductory essay to my final portfolio

My kindergarten pièce de résistance was written in a fit of pique. Mrs. Steuber had read us a poem about a teddy bear, fluffy and perfect—except it was far from perfect. It was a brown teddy bear, and I knew better than the author that white teddy bears were the way to go, evidenced by my own beloved Snowball. So, armed with colorful markers, I rewrote the poem to be about the proper color bear.

Eighteen years later, a lot of my writing comes from the same well of indignation inside me.

There’s really no other way to come up with the line “I cast ‘healing word’ on Big Thokk, and the word is ‘dumbass’” than when my kleptomaniac traveling partner knocks himself out trying to steal gems and I, the long-suffering healer, have to get him back on his feet.

Echoes and echoes and echoes, from Ancient Greece to mid-20th-century Maryland, to 21st-century Illinois.

And as I write this, I’m in a minivan with my friends, Peter driving us to Chicago as Marion plays “This Year” by the Mountain Goats from her phone, and we sing along with gusto: “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me!” Well, hopefully it won’t kill me. I’ll take a step back, a breath, make sure I have my words with me, and treat the cliff as a starting block like every one I’ve dove off to begin a race. Even if I don’t know what I’m swimming when I hit the water—or if I’ll hit the water at all—I’ll step up, I’ll take my mark, and I’ll go.

i’ll end there; i think “this year” is an appropriate place to end 2019. happy new year, you series of disasters of a decade. you made me who i am; thanks for that. i’m going on ahead now.

(i am gonna make it through this year if it kills me...)

[oneletteredwondered]

Uuuhhhh sanders sides mental hospital au with a bunch of cliches that literally no one asked for but it's also a soulmate au????

uhh warnings for disorder talk, suicide mention, swearing?

Polyamsanders mostly

Main story line?

When Virgil was a kid his parents were nice and all, but they did punish him for seemingly random things

They had him do chores a very specific way and if it wasn't done that way, he had to do it again and again to make sure it was proper

It resulted in him having a very high anxiety disorder, both socially and in general

He found he couldn't talk to a lot of people afraid to mess up, and over thinking how he messed up

Especially when it came to his soulmates

Had never written to them, refused to look at their notes, didn't think he would be able to keep them with how he is

Does not do well in messy environments, not necessarily OCD, but close

When he managed to move out his anxiety left his home foodless, and he couldn't talk to get food, so he went hungry

Ended up a cycle and punishment system for himself

Can't talk so can't eat, couldn't talk don't deserve to eat

Someone found him passed out in the laundry room of his apartment complex

Doctors found him extremely malnourished and unable to communicate, so they sent him to the mental hospital to get better

Virgil had the absolute worst time adjusting, had multiple panic attacks every day for like a week straight

He wouldn't talk to anyone and could barely be forced out of bed to join group sessions or meal times

Barely ate anything and almost passed out again

After two weeks of straight up anxiety and no food exhaustion, he finally got tired enough to actually talk to his therapist

Dr Picani is wonderful, says things light hearted and never tries to pry. The kind of therapist to make a small joke or reference to make sure his clients aren't having huge breakdowns

Virgil does open up to him, they decide to tackle the anorexia first

It's difficult to convince Virgil he’s worthy of eating and that food should never under any circumstances be used negatively

But they manages to get him to at least eat something and that's a start

The first time Picani asks about virgil’s soulmate, Virgil has a panic attack

And every time after as well

Come to find out the word 'soulmate' is triggering to him

Sudden flashes of hunger pains and a blinding feeling he's not worth it

They start using the word heartbound

Virgil starts trying to hang out and talk to some of the other residents

Has a panic attack before he can say hi, but the others walk him back to his room and invite him to hang out later

He does, and its good for his recovery

It takes some time to get virgil proper anxiety medication, his body rejects the first two, throwing up and feeling too tired

Virgil wants to stop feeling helpless and so scared all the time, wants to start getting better

They get him on a small dose of one kind, and it works for a while

Picani convinces Virgil that even if he wants to get better on his own, his heartbounds deserve to know he exists, that Virgil shouldn't be afraid to do so

So Virgil does, with overwhelming support from people he doesn't know

He doesn't talk to them, but he no longer hides their notes from himself

Visiting/progress update day is coming up, and with Picani there to tell him it's okay, Virgil writes the address of the hospital asking them to come

He gets confirmation and is able to calm himself out of an attack before it can really start

It's a good day

They carefully raise his dosage till he can be more personable, more himself

He's shaking visiting day, a message on his arm that his heartbounds will be wearing black, blue, and red respectively

So when three people walk in, one in a black button up with the sleeves rolled up to their elbows, another in a blue tee with a design on it that looks like it could be a grandma sweater, and another in a red shirt with white sleeves and heeled boots, Virgil almost faints

There's a lot going for him and it's hard to handle

So the one in the blue sweater is the first to notice Virgil staring bugeyed at them and just knows

So they all go over to him and Virgil stands in a daze and just falls into their arms, clinging to each of them with all he has

They whisper words of encouragement and love and someone is kissing his head and hands and gosh there's a lot going on

The actual session is good, Picani tells virgil’s heartbounds his progress (eating more, anxiety medication getting to the right spot, self confidence boosted) and they are so happy and proud!!!!

Almost a panic attack when they mention 'soulmate', Virgil manages to coax himself out of it while Picani carefully explains triggers

It's a tearful and loving goodbye and Virgil is sure he might just explode because his mind had thought about this moment before and it's never been this good and this is real and oh god hes crying and now the other ones are crying and hugging him and it's a lot

He's damn exhausted at the end of the day

But he has his heartbound now, and it's okay

Eventually he does get out, better, happier, healthier, and his heartbound are 170% so ready to have him in their lives

Other character notes

Picani and Logan are brothers, Picani is older by 6 years

Picani has cute art all over his session room, also a bunch of blankets

Always has candy

Studied psychology because of his soulmate, wanted to help them get better

Turns out you can't be your soulmates therapist so oops

He likes his job a lot anyways

Logan is a history professor

He's also on the autistic spectrum

Very sound sensitive

Doesn't understand social cues a lot, not sure how to properly small talk, and ends up leaving out information that might be important

Such as telling his brother Picani that he has another soulmate who is in therapy who finally talked to him, the day Virgil writes to his soulmates for the first time

He doesn't understand why he's being teased for this

Gets in the habit of telling Virgil "this is a comfortable silence for me" because sometimes Logan will just stop and think and its.. very quiet

He also says obvious things, because honestly, it's nice for Virgil

"I find your company an enjoyable addition to my life" "this conversation is pleasant, I am just done talking now"

Hyperfixation on space and stars and history

Stims upset but clenching and unclenching his hands, happy stims by tapping

Patton works at a daycare center

Has adhd

It's hard for him to sit still and focus, can't remember a lot of things no matter how often hes been told

Has every single fidget product ever

Works best when he has three things to do at once

When he gets into hyperfocus, it's really difficult to get him out of it

Ends up skipping meals and other daily activities because of it

Wet himself once because he knew that if he moved from his spot he would never get back into the same groove

He's very embarrassed by this fact

Hyperfixates on dog and cat breeds

Roman does a bunch of shit

Acts, dances, designs, creates, anything that involves doing and 'art' has doing it

Has manic depressive bipolar disorder

His room is atrocious and there are half finished projects everywhere

He can never seem to complete anything, and when he does he hates it

His depressive episodes come about after finishing things or having not finished something in a long time

He feels worthless and that he can't do anything

His lows are not often, but they hit hard.

He's very dead to the world in such a state, likes it when Logan reads to him

Was treated by Picani too

They have all been living together for three years before getting their first message from virgil

Patton FLIPPED OUT, Roman screamed, and Logan kind of just went 'oh' but they could tell he was happy because he kept tapping his hands to his legs

At the hospital virgil made friends with the following people:

Elliot is one of the first to welcome Virgil and always invited Virgil to hang with the rest of them, no matter how many times Virgil said no

Virgil walks past the hang out room, he calls to ask if he wants to hang out, virgil shakes his head hard and runs. every day for like a month until virgil says yes.

Got really happy when Virgil said yes

In the hospital to get over trauma from an abusive relationship, flinches a lot

Declan, is, an asshole

He's also a pathological liar

has scratches down the side of his face from when one of his parents threw a vase at him

No one knows what is real name is, said is was felio, fabian, Damien, declan, dimitri, dolos, lionel, loki, belial, cody, and on one momentous occasion, Samantha

Most of the names he give a start with d, so most just call him Dee or declan, its the name he gives out most

Sometimes hell ask to be called a certain name for a day, everyone just rolls with it

Declan learned to lie and lie well due to overly strict and picky parents, it was to protect himself from them and even protect his older brother who was a lot softer than him

older brother, who is actually called fabian, is there for him on visiting day.

Will say something, wince, take a deep breath, then say the truth with a lot of effort

Writing is so much easier for him

Has insane trust issues, his name being one of them, only his family really know it

Has only told his soulmate his name

Picani knows his name, won’t tell anyone

Remy

Is also an asshole but like in a nice way?

Fucking loud to compensate for how tired he really is

In his own words, ‘has insomnia and is depressed A-F’

Wanted to kill himself

Will claim Starbucks saved his life to be dramatic, only few people know why, declan virgil and picani know

Remy is the kind of depressed where he wouldn’t kill himself because of 'future obligation’

'My parents aren’t home I could easily do it but I told them I would feed the cats and they wont get fed if i do it now’ or 'i have so much time but I told my friend i would edit their essay and I need to do that first’

Went out with friends to just dick around, got a stupid fancy drink at Starbucks, and told his mom about it when he got home

Decided he would kill himself tomorrow, he gave his friends one last good memory, told his mom he loved her, he was ready

Next day his mom give a him a 50$ gift card to starbucks, told him it’s for him and his friends because that’s the happiest she’s seen him in so long

He fucking broke down because he can’t kill himself now, he can’t waste her money or her kindness but he’s so fucking tired and so done and he can’t do it anymore

She supports him as best she can and gets him to the hospital

During visiting day she brings his friends, all wearing matching sunglasses, and a coffee carrier with like five different drinks all for him

They all scream at each other happily and they talk about how much better he looks, how much happier

His friends are the slowmo super heroes and sun and moon

No one in the hospital knows his soulmate or if he even has one

uhh taadaa! do with this what you will