#my computer is so slow i spent ten minutes trying to make this post.

[magicalmegan]

happy new year everyone! here's hoping things end up well in 2025!!

i spent an entire hour trying to figure out how to compress my png and ended up having to download my art as a jpg. the world is cruel.

[hanckocks-dagger]

(In other words)

masterlist

John Hancock x gn!Reader

Description: While high on Hancock's couch, you get ready to tell him you're leaving Goodneighbor tomorrow. Trouble is, the thought of kissing him just keeps distracting you.

Tags: First kiss, getting together, Hancock is a simp. Reader could be viewed as SoSu or not. No pronouns used for reader, no use off y/n

Warnings: Recreational drug use (jet), smoking, canon typical swearing.

Cross posted on my ao3!

You were leaving Goodneighbor tomorrow. Sitting idle made you antsy, and it had already been several days since the urge to wander had struck. You'd only stuck around because... well.

"You want another hit?" Hancock asked from the other end of the couch, head lolling on the back of it, dark eyes turned to yours, canister of jet held out to you.

After a long moment of consideration, your jet-addled brain working overtime to comprehend, you shook your head mutely. Hancock shrugged his shoulder and stuck the canister into his mouth.

"Fhoot-eulf," He said incomprehensibly around the spout, then pressed down on the mechanism. His whole body sagged further into the couch, somehow managing to look even calmer than he had after the last three hits of Jet. Even if ghouls really did have higher chem resistance than lowly humans like yourself, you were sure Hancock topped them all. You'd had one Jet to his four, and he'd also spent the morning working his way through a Brandy bottle, which you'd always found made your heavy-limbed high feel a little more like paralysis than a comforting buzz.

Probably a good ten seconds after Hancock had spoken, you let out a muffled, "hmm?", cheek smushed into the couch so you could keep staring at him.

Those black eyes, momentarily distracted by the Jet in his hands, turned to find yours again, crinkled at the corners. His smile, ever charming, lingered on the verge of turning mean. He did like to tease you about being a lightweight.

Instead, he leant to the edge of the couch and hooked you by your socked feet, tugging them into his lap, dragging you a few inches closer to him.

"Nothing, sweetheart."

He patted one of your knees placatingly, the way one pet a startled a horse. Or (you thought, a few painfully slow seconds later), that was to say, the way one used to pet a startled horse. Seeing as they were extinct now, or possibly mutated into something hideously unrecognizable.

Hancock's hand, warm on your knee, disappeared after a minute. Or after a few seconds, seeing as trying to keep a grasp on time on Jet was a losing game. He dug into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Ever generous, he offered you one. You nodded, but could seem to make your hand rise up to take it from him.

He grinned, placing it between his lips. You wanted to disagree with this, but your vocal chords didn't want to respond either, and no words were coming to mind anyway. Sober, you would realize these were the classic signs of the Jet comedown, that momentary disconnect between body and mind, which unnerved you enough to take a few days off before finally succumbing to Hancock's next offer.

High, though, you were left to watch as Hancock raised the lighter to the cigarette, lighting it with a deep inhale, before plucking it from his mouth and passing it over. He blew the smoke teasingly into your face, laughing when you scrunched your nose in distaste.

"All the drugs a person could need. A warm bed, semi-clean streets." He said, a new cigarette between his teeth, "Honestly, I don't know why outsiders are always badmouthing Goodneighbor. Best fucking place in the Commonwealth."

Slowly, like an overloaded computer rebooting, your body came back online. You picked the cigarette from your lips, flicked ash from the end of it, ignored the thought of how it had been in his mouth before yours.

"You might be a bit biased, Hancock."

He laughed back at you, gravelly, that mix of ghoul and smoker and just pure... him.

He had been dropping these comments increasingly over the last few days, probably picking up at your unease. It was probably why he had suggested the two of you stay up in his office getting high for the night instead of going down to the Third Rail. Crowds made you antsy, the heat from bodies and the din of echoing small talk reminding you all the more of the open, fresh air you were missing.

Hancock was clever, he knew what was coming even without you spelling it out for him. Over the months since you'd discovered Goodneighbor, you'd been crashing in the Statehouse whenever you found your way to this area of Boston, preferring it to the stifling atmosphere of Diamond City. (Or so you told yourself, the truth might be you preferred the company).

He also clearly knew some of the affinity you held for him, the way you'd let him charm you into sticking around almost a week after you'd planned to leave.

"Still," He said, "One of the better places to be, hmm? Well, as long as you stay on the Mayor's good side." He winked at you.

Yet, he was too proud to come right out and beg for you to stay.

You could always ask him what he wanted. But you worried that his answer might be enough to sway you.

"Oh yeah," You deflected instead, ignoring the spark his wink shot down your spine, ordering your traitorous heart not to beat faster. "Heard the guy's a bit of a dick."

"Oh, he's a lot worse than that," His hand snuck back onto your leg, making a slow path up your calf, "But not to pretty things like you."

It was your turn to laugh, ignoring the heating in your cheeks, ignoring the goosebumps his touch left in it's wake. "John," You said, mock scandalized, "I thought you were an intellectual. Is a pretty face really all it takes?"

He had been slowly easing closer to you, or maybe he had been pulling you closer to him. When he leant over to stub his cigarette, his shoulder brushed yours.

"'M not easy. But I'm smart enough to know that when you find something this pretty in an ugly world, you hold on tight." He'd moved in close, hand reaching your upper thigh. With the other, he plucked the cigarette from your lips, down nearly to the filter, and flicked it to the side, not breaking eye contact. You could feel his breath tickling your nose, smelling like cigarettes and the slightly metallic taste jet left in your mouth. It made you lightheaded, entire mind screaming that he was about to kiss you, finally, after months of flirting and opportunities neither one of you had taken.

Instead, though, he squeezed your thigh and pulled back, eyes trained on you, a curious glint in them, like he was watching your reaction.

For just a moment, like you were a magnet following his pull, you followed after him, hand sliding downwards as if to bring his hand back to where it had been, keep it there, keep him there.

Then, the rational part of your brain, offline since before you'd accepted that hit of Jet, kicked in, screaming at you about everything that could go wrong. Taking this from a friendship to... something more would complicate everything. You didn't have the time or the energy to spend on a relationship, you didn't want to be chained to a settlement. If word got out about your... whatever it would be, you might lose out on deals with some of the seedier members of the community, you might lose trust with others. In other places, a relationship with a Ghoul might even be enough to have you barred from entry.

But, a traitorous voice from the back of your mind whispered, none of those really mattered. The truth of it was, after everything that had happened to you, if you were to let this go any further and something were to happen to him, it would break you.

So, you pulled back, shutting your eyes and taking a steadying breath. Your hand, halfway to grabbing his, stopped and balled into a fist, dropping back to your side.

You wracked your brain for something to say, something joking to diffuse the tension and return things to the way they were.

You heard Hancock shift besides you and allowed yourself a little breath of relief, assuming he'd gotten the hint and backed off, tired of waiting for someone who chickened out at every opportunity.

Instead, though, you were surprised to find his warm hand on your cheek, felt the corner of his hat press softly against your forehead. You opened your eyes, found him looking at you, almost desperate.

"Maybe I'm wrong," he started, voice pitched low and quiet, less sure of himself than you were used to, "In which case you just tell me. But I get the feeling it ain't that. I see the way you looked at me. I know you know how I've been looking at you."

You swallowed, traitorous body responding before your mind can butt in. You nodded, hand coming to grasp onto his bicep, wanting more than anything for him to move closer, to remove the patch of air the two of you were both breathing.

"So tell me," His voice had dropped to a whisper, like he was speaking with a startled animal. "Why won't you kiss me?"

You exhaled, a shaky thing. For some reason your eyes stung, and suddenly you were fighting off the urge to cry. Your grip on Hancock's arm tightened, not wanting him to let go.

Words escaped you, but you worried he'd take your silence the wrong way. You used your free hand to move the front of his hat high enough that it wouldn't poke you and leant your forehead to his. You shut your eyes again, partly to hide the tears that you couldn't seem to stop from forming, partly to embrace the moment better.

Hancock's thumb stroked slowly across your cheekbone. He whispered your name. Worried your voice would break, you nodded against him, eyes still squeezed shut, afraid of moving from this moment, of going forward or pulling back.

Quiet, he said, "Please kiss me."

You dug down, finding the person who sleeps under the open sky of the wasteland, who fights off hordes of ferals, sneaks through Gunner camps, takes on Deathclaws and survives.

You pressed your lips to his.

Warm, softer than you had envisioned, just like the man himself. Hancock's other hand rose to your cheek, so he was cupping your face in his hands, pulling you even closer. You let him take the lead, tilting your head gently, licking against your lips. You opened your lips for him easily, your hands wrapping around the back of his neck, leaving the two of you chest to chest, you halfway in his lap as he licked into your mouth, ravenous as if he had been starving for you.

You never wanted it to end, wanted to spend every moment of the rest of your life pressed to him, feeling his hands on you, his lips on yours, his tongue exploring your mouth.

When the tears slipped out, you almost thought it wouldn't matter, thinking you could keep the kiss going, sure you would survive without breathing, so long as he didn't stop kissing you.

But then a hitching sob rose from your chest and you were pulling away despite yourself, tucking your wet face into the crook of his neck. His hands wrapped around your waist, settling you properly against him.

You swallowed any other rogue sounds, blinked rapidly to try to rid yourself of the tears, trying to pull yourself together so you could face Hancock again. One of his hands was rubbing soothingly along your back, the other having worked it's way up to your hair, gentle fingers smoothing out tangles, rubbing along your scalp.

It took longer than you would have liked to pull yourself together, and a bit longer than that to gather the courage to look at Hancock, sniffling lightly.

His smile was tight, self conscious, as if he genuinely believed you could have been crying because of his kiss.

You didn't even let him get through his dejected, "That bad, huh?" before you were spitting it out, desperate for him to understand that it wasn't his fault, "I'm leaving Goodneighbor tomorrow." You got it out fast, as if it left a bad taste on your tongue.

He blinked, insecurity fading from his expression, replaced by genuine confusion.

You continued, desperate to repair your faux-pas, to make him understand your thought process, why it would lead you to tears; "This just... makes it that much harder to go."

You ran your hand down his chest, anxiously fiddling with the stitching on his lapels, "Hanc- John, please believe me, I've been wanting to do that for fucking ages, I just-"

The gentle press of his lips against yours cut you off, a quick press of heat and then gone again. This time you did chase after him, managing to get in a peck against upturned lips before he was pulling away.

It was your turn to be confused, pulling back to look at his smiling face, wondering if all that drug use had finally fried his brain.

"That's what's got you so worried?" He asked, voice soft.

You blinked at him before giving a small nod, expecting him to tell you to just stay with him, pressure already building behind your eyes as you imagined explaining to him that you just weren't made for sitting idle.

"So, then, when do we leave?"

"We?" You whispered, not trusting your voice.

"If you're alright with delaying the departure a bit, I should probably wait for the ne'er do wells to sleep off the hangover to give a little speech, pretty sure it's bad form for the Mayor to up and vanish. Then again, it's me we're talkin' about, they should know better than to–"

You pressed your lips to his, partly from exhilaration, partly for him to shut up long enough for you to process the information he'd presented you with. You'd never considered asking Hancock to leave his town. In your mind, he was Goodneighbor, the very best of it.

You pull away, running a finger across Hancock's cheek, feeling the muscles jump under you as he gives you a soft smile.

"Are you sure?" You ask.

"Love, I'd like to see anyone try to stop me."

Notes:

Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment, or request something, or just come chat with me!

[kremlin]

i figure most human behaviour that, not only doesn’t occur in other animals but has zero connection to animal behavior is basically distantly rooted in the known fear of inevitable death. let me be clear. cats and shit don’t know they’re gonna die. we do. we have thoughts. we know it’s coming. we think we’re gonna be rich, bullshit like that, most humans believe in magic and most humans doubt that math is a universal or consistent thing. total nonsense right. but everyone knows their ass is gonna die. before you write me off as some dumbass reciting basic 101 level university lectures just Trust Me I’m An Engineer. anyways. being human and dying are somewhat one in the same.

“if i do nonhuman things i can cheat the reaper.” short and sweet. if i can beat zelda faster than anyone i can outrun the reaper. and you know what, fuck it, i’m scared shitless of dying. it’s gonna hurt really bad no doubt. what if the brain destroyal process makes time slow down in my perception and it’s not just like five seconds of bleeding out or fire ant bites or however you go. Scary. so i’ll play along:

i am an average american man and i enjoy bad game runescape. it’s a computer game. MMO. kill monster get loot. sell what i don’t want to other players for gold. spamming chat with “SELLING BOWSTRINGS 200gp” for an hour “sucks” so the devs add a grand exchange where you can post buy/sell orders for a given item+price to maximize gameplay efficiency and minimize social interaction.

like any other MMO you can pay some sketchy website real money for ingame gold farmer by chinese gold farmers. totally against the rules. remember this

so the first thing that comes to any male aged 23-27 mind is “buy low sell high” basic bitch shit. no good. there’s a 5% tax that’ll wipe out your profit margin intended to eliminate this behavior (you’re supposed to friggen kill monsters). but everyone thinks they’re a genius and can beat the system and that there is a secret george soros style illuminati group that is holding the secrets, blah blah blah, whatever, and this comes as a coping mechanism after losing your shirt after trying to beat the market (success rate of 0%).

here is where people mostly quit thinking: if you do the math, which takes about ten minutes and can be done on one side of a sheet of paper with the most basic calculator, it’s easy to figure out that the amount of gold you’d need to play dirty (buy out all the available Feathers or Fire Runes or whatever) in order to corner the market would be so high that there is no possible way for a character to hold that much without having spent IRL money for gold. you’d get autobanned.

SO..finally, go on the ol’ www.reddit.com, and make a really really professional-to-professional sounding post advertising a “service”. Saturate the fuck out of it with dense but very real financial jargon. the “service” (which needs to be obscured enough with plausible and relevant language) is a hedging service aimed at make-believe market players who are buying and selling such huge amounts of items and gold (usually in anticipation of a game update that will speculatively introduce a sudden, dramatic, and capitalizable price change for some item). you need it to be as alien-sounding and foreign as possible but with enough believability and clarity that a handful of reddit jackasses will figure out what the fuck your post is about. whenever pressed further, act totally puzzled and make it very clear that this is not a service relevant to “individual entertainment-motivated” players or some shit. no matter what amount of gold anyone quotes at you, just act puzzled and if that amount is 1/1000th the amount one of your “normal” clients deal with. you need to do all of this extremely artfully. and by “you”, i’ve been meaning to write “me”. really lay it on thick that whatever you’re “doing” is totally unavailable to them and that you want zero to do with them.

so now theyre still mostly totally confused but enough is made clear that their interest is piqued. got my hook in em. some guy will copy/paste wikipedia shit in an obnoxiously long and pseudointellectual, contemptible but characteristically reddit guy style what you’re “selling” actually is in the most exhausting, hand-holdingest way to his fellow reddit gamers. with complete tone of authority.

inevitably one of them will put on their sherlock holmes hat and go deep undercover, emailing me posing as an interested party. bingo. now i get to really lay on the WTF and go off the rails asking about vouchers from One Of The Big Seven, but oh no, you can’t get one of them to vouch for you, that’s fine, it makes sense, we’re the only firm that deals with unvouched, that’s our market, well, one of them at least. Just give me a rough rundown of your entry criteria, dwell time, risk tolerance, fuckin “Gamma Ratio”, you know, all the basic stuff, and i’ll have the team generate a .xlsx for you to plug your data into to get a rough feel for what the final contract might be like.

(lololol) But REMEMBER, that excel sheet is seeded, output is fuzzed and salted and if you share it or try and sell it to our competitors, it will be fuzzy enough to be worthless to them but obvious to us who leaked what. this is the only way we’re able to integrate unvouched clients without untenable premiums and while managing our risk levels

blah blah blah blah, i go on and on and on and the guy on the other end is developing a scab from constant head-scratching. and that’s about the maximum real-world harm i’m willing to inflict. i know this sounds like an elaborate as fuck confidence scam but it isn’t. that shit makes me sick. i’d literally slam my arms in a car door before taking a cent from all this. hell, i’ll go out of my way to guarantee i don’t even piss anyone off or offend them or anything.

your guess is as good as mine but i do stuff like this constantly for anything i know well enough and the example i gave above is just a pretty low quality one i made up on the spot. this is a public blog after all.

anyways, cheers, hoping this saves me from dying or whatever the hell i was talking about before that could have probably been cut out. Namaste. Mahala.

[scoopsgf]

can i get a good night’s sleep? can i PLEASE get a good night’s sleep?!

or: five times peter parker doesn’t sleep + the one time he does

my contribution to the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange! this is for @snarky-drabbles - I hope you enjoy it! 

1. 

The first time is actually just the first in a while. Peter’s had problems sleeping ever since he was a little kid; it was just one issue of many that stacked up on top of each other, resulting in his personal belief that he must be the most difficult kid to look after on the planet.

Asthma meant hundreds of dollars spent on inhalers, covering what their shitty insurance didn’t. His poor eyesight was the same story and the bullies that used to break his glasses had never helped. But it wasn’t just physical crap, of course: he’s had anxiety for as long as he can remember.

There are cute side-effects like panic attacks and nausea, not to mention the constant sense of impending doom he’s been nursing since… well, birth, probably. When he was younger he’d worry about whether or not the taxi driver had enough gas in his car to get them where they needed to go, or maybe Ben would get shot at work (ironically enough, he’d never worried that Ben would get shot off-duty, and there is a teeny superstitious sliver of him that believes maybe if he had considered the possibility it never would have happened, like some kind of a reverse jinx or something).

One of the other cute things that comes along with it is insomnia.

So here he is, pacing in his kitchen at three in the morning because May isn’t home yet.

Her shift ended at two. She’s usually back within a half hour considering the hospital isn’t far, hence his agitation.

He’s tried calling and texting to no avail, and he keeps telling himself that everything is fine, that she probably just got held up; meanwhile his subconscious provides a great slideshow of mental images that speak to the opposite—her getting kidnapped because somehow someone links her to Spider-Man, her getting hit with a car, mugged, shot, slipping on black ice—and that’s actually not far-fetched considering it’s January, there’s a lot of it, and so he pulls out his phone and types, You didn’t slip on black ice and die did you? to May.

No little dots appear to signify that she’s typing. The message doesn’t even change from ‘delivered’ to ‘read’.

She has her read receipts on. She’s promised him. There’s no reason she’d change that, right? But maybe she accidentally switched them off when she was scrolling through her settings.

He calls her.

“Hi, this is May Parker, I’m unavailable at the moment but if you leave me a message I’ll get back to you as soon as—”

Peter hangs up with a dissatisfied grunt.

It’s only then that he realises, to his great dismay, that he’s paced all the way onto the ceiling.

In his shock he loses concentration and falls. “Ow, fuck.” He pulls his aching knee to his chest. It’ll no doubt be bruised soon. “God has forsaken me.”

He picks up his now cracked phone and texts Ned:

I just fell off the ceiling at 3 AM in the morning

Don’t ask me what I was doing on it

Every bone in my body is broken :(

No reply comes which is pretty typical; Ned probably passed out in front of his PC like, hours ago. Peter can picture it: the light of his computer screen casting a blue glow over everything in the room, his head probably tucked into his arms to muffle his snores (and there’s also probably a bowl of stale popcorn spilled across his floor at this point), his creepy mother lurking in the doorway—or worse, trying to find out how to snoop through his laptop while he’s out of it.

Peter could totally go swing down there and help the guy out. It would be something to do anyway.

But no. The door is too far. His suit… too much work. It’s definitely better to just stay here curled up under the table like a little turtle.

But wait—a blanket.

Is it worth the effort? Probably. Peter scans his immediate surroundings and, oh boy, Lady Fate is actually on his side tonight because there’s a gigantic purple fluffy one hanging off the couch and it only takes a little bit of physical exertion to yank it down and wrap it around his body.

He burrows deeper into it and scrolls through Instagram. MJ posted a picture of a banana today. Literally like, just a banana. No caption, no explanation on her story, nothing.

Peter double taps it and comments: i hope u asked before u took his jacket

No like. No reply. That makes sense. It is three in the fucking morning, after all.

No. Three thirty. It’s been an hour and a half.

What had May said once? That it was okay to call someone if she was two hours late?

Peter tries texting and calling one more time and then just sits there, staring at his home screen and watching the minutes pass. At exactly four AM after much deliberation and stomach churning, he calls someone else.

Three rings later: “I’m in Vienna right now so this better be good.”

Peter feels even more nauseous than before. “Oh,” he says. “I guess—never mind, then. Sorry.”

“Wait, wait, that was just for show and I’m greatly intrigued as to why you’re calling me so… early? Late? Anyway I’m out of the conference room now so lay it on me.”

Against his will, Peter’s lip quirks up. “Um, it’s kind of stupid—”

“Nothing is ever stupid,” Tony says. “Especially when it’s coming from the brain of a kid with an intelligence quotient of 260.”

He feels his cheeks heat up and then it all just comes tumbling out, “It’s really late and May was supposed to be off at two and home by two-thirty, but she’s not and I don’t know what to do. I tried calling and texting but she’s not replying and I know that I’m probably just building it up in my head but I can’t help freaking out because like, what if she got stabbed or slipped on black ice or—”

“Hey Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“Breathe.”

Tony’s voice has softened immeasurably. Something uncoils in Peter’s stomach. He flops onto his side and closes his eyes. “I’m breathing.”

“That’s good, kiddo. Now just hang on a sec, I’m gonna call the hospital.”

“What? Why?”

“Well she works there, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“And you haven’t tried calling them yet, correct?”

“...Correct.”

“Ergo,” Tony says.

“But I—”

“Yeah?”

Peter bites his lip and then he just blurts it: “I don’t want you to hang up.”

He feels like such a child but the thought of losing connection with Tony is literally making his heart palpitate and his palms sweat. He needs someone. He needs an adult.

“Well lucky for us both I have two phones.”

Peter cracks an eye. “You what?”

“I’m Tony Stark, don’t question it. Hang on, let me just—hello, hi, um, I need this room. No, it can’t wait. Yes the whole room. Yes locked. I don’t know, five minutes? Ten? An hour? No, I’m not joking. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Bye now.” Something slams shut—the door to the office Tony just stole, probably. “Okay, just a sec, I have the number for the reception desk she works at in my phone.”

Peter, for some reason, feels immeasurably comforted by that. He sits in silence gnawing on his lip while Tony has a somewhat muffled conversation he can’t hear the other side of. Then, “You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Okay, well, they said she’s covering for someone and can’t get to the phone because a baby had to have emergency surgery so she’s literally in the OR as we speak. Pretty badass and not bad as far as excuses go. Now that you know she’s fine and not dead by ice, how about you get some shut-eye, okay kid?”

Peter swallows. “Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Tony.”

“No Mr. Stark this time, huh?”

“It’s too late for formalities.”

“I see,” Tony replies. “Sleep, okay?”

“Okay.”

The line goes dead. Peter, slightly relieved but not fully consoled, rolls over to face the door. He doesn’t sleep at all that night and is still there when May comes home at six in the morning with bagels and apologies.

—

2. 

The anniversary of Ben’s death is always super weird.

This time it takes him a few minutes to remember what day it is: he’s in the middle of brushing his teeth and then it hits him like a train: oh, it’s been three years.

Then comes May. She usually tries to cook something for breakfast but like always it burns. He leaves the bathroom to the sound of the smoke alarm and fans a cookie sheet at the screeching little device while she swears up and down in Italian.

“It’s okay, May, really—”

“No, it’s not!” She snaps, tossing a batch of blackened cinnamon rolls into the trash. “I just want this day to be easy for you!”

Peter goes over to her and, after kicking the oven door shut with his foot, pulls her into his arms. May starts to cry even though she tries not to; sniffles turn into barely stifled sobs. He knows that it’s harder for her than it is for him. Ben was her husband and they’d been married for thirteen years when he died. Sometimes he still catches her looking to see if he’s laughing too when they watch TV, only to find an empty recliner.

“It’s okay for it to be a bad day,” he whispers. “You know that, right? I mean, I love you to pieces, May, but I don’t wanna see you bending over backwards for me.”

“But that’s my job, doofus.”

Peter pulls back. He’s an inch taller than her now. “No it’s not. We take care of each other, okay?”

Then comes school. Ned usually hovers nervously like an agitated gnat, too afraid to say anything, not sure if he should act normal or be sad in solidarity, which means it’s kind of Peter’s job to set the tone. As he’s putting his combination in for his locker he asks, “So did you beat that level of Obra Dinn last night?”

Ned, shoulders slumping with relief, starts to ramble on about how hard it was to do and how it took him like, thirty whole tries.

They go to class. Peter zones out. He doesn’t bother making more web fluid or ditching and he gets so inside his own head that Coach Wilson compliments him again during gym class. Peter deliberately slows down after that, even if it’s kind of irritating; being physically active actually helps work off his anger.

Because that’s what he is more than anything else: angry. At the mugger, yeah, but at himself more than anything else. It was his fault that they were out that night, anyway. It’s a wonder that May doesn’t hate his fucking guts.

When school is up Peter comes home to an empty house. He thinks about going on patrol but doesn’t really feel up to it, and then he feels bad for not wanting to do it because like, what if someone is dying?

So he puts on the suit and swings from rooftop to rooftop, but there’s no action today. Peter eventually settles on a fire escape with a burrito. A stray cat hops up after a while and, despite his matted fur and crazy eyes, Peter decides he has a kind of quiet dignity about him and names him Charles.

“Do you like beef?” He asks, holding some out for Charles to sniff. The cat yowls and, without any warning other than that, nearly chomps Peter’s fingers off to get the meat.

“Ow, jeez!” Peter shakes his wrist. “I was literally giving it to you for free, but go off I guess.”

Charles blinks his big brown marble eyes and then literally jumps off the fucking ledge. Peter leans over and watches him scamper across the street, somehow not getting hit by any traffic. Sometimes he thinks his spidey sense is more like feline sense in that way: he could probably manage the same thing with his eyes closed.

After a while the sun sets and all of the streetlights turn on. Peter does another patrol around the immediate vicinity but again, nothing. He stays out anyway though because he’d rather do his Chemistry homework behind a dumpster than sit alone in the apartment with nothing but the quiet for company. At least out and about there are sewer rats and mangy dogs and shady characters who actually just turn out to be skateboarders.

Peter is almost done with his assignment when the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He looks up and finds Iron Man himself coming in for a landing. The suit drops with a barely audible clunk; it’s Mark 54, the sleekest and most lightweight model yet.

“Oh thank God,” says Tony’s voice, “you’re not dead.”

Peter frowns even though Tony can’t see it. “No,” he agrees slowly. “Why would I be dead? What are you doing here?”

“Well, your aunt called me in a panic at around four when she got home and you weren’t there, and then I checked the scanners and saw that you’d been here, completely stationary, for like five whole hours—needless to say I had a little bit of a heart attack and here I am, relieved and also mildly infuriated. Care to explain, young padawan?”

Peter opens his mouth to speak. Closes it. Opens it again and, “It’s four AM?”

“Four fifteen,” Tony corrects.

“I didn’t even—I didn’t know! Shit, May’s totally gonna kill me, I might as well be dead—”

“Woah woah woah,” the faceplate lifts, “calm down, okay? No one is mad. Just, uh, concerned, I promise.”

Peter is still frantically packing up his school supplies and not really listening. He only stops when Tony gently touches him by lightly gripping his elbow. “Kid?”

Peter stares down at the older man’s hand. Behind the mask his eyes start to burn. “Ben died.”

“Pardon?”

“Ben died,” he repeats louder. “In this alley. Two years ago.”

All at once Tony’s face falls. He moves to sit by Peter on the grimy floor of the alley while the suit hovers nearby, a hollow shell, just the way Peter feels now.

“Kid,” Tony says, “take off the mask.”

“What? No, I’m in public—”

“No one’s around,” Tony says. “Just take it off, okay?”

Peter does, reluctantly peeling it back to reveal his tear-stained cheeks. Tony stares for a second and then, almost hesitantly, he wraps his arms around Peter. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I—” he chokes. “I’m just so tired. I’m tired of having to watch May be strong for me when I can’t be strong back, and I’m tired of Ben not being around. I miss him and it—it’s not fair.”

“Of course it’s not. It’s never fair. That’s why it hurts, kiddo. You’ve got all this love and no place to put it.”

Peter bites his lip to stop it from quivering and looks away, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I just feel pathetic.”

“Don’t,” Tony says firmly. “I felt the same way after my mom died and it… In some ways I don’t think the feeling ever actually went away, but uh, take it from someone who’s had a lot more time to process: no one is expecting anything from you, okay? And I can guarantee there’s not a single human that thinks two years is long enough to be perfectly fine again. You’re allowed to still be upset about this.”

And Peter is. He’s really, really fucking upset about it and so tired of holding it in. Tony pulls him against his chest when Peter starts to cry and it sort of seems like he’ll never be able to stop. There’s just so much, so much guilt and pain and all kinds of other bullshit that he refuses to lay on May.

So he lays it on Tony. And it’s surprisingly not horrible or awkward or even the end of the world.

“You good?” the older man asks, when Peter finally sobers up enough to wipe his cheeks dry and take a few steadying breaths.

“Yeah,” he says, voice ragged and awful-sounding. “Um, sorry. For freaking you and May out and ruining your shirt, I mean.”

“You know there’s this really snazzy invention called a washing machine—”

“Oh my god, shut up.”

Tony laughs and it makes Peter laugh too, and the tension between them just sort of dissipates. “Speaking of clothes,” Tony claps his hands together, “you got any to wear in that backpack?”

“Uh, jeans and a hoodie?”

“Fantastic, incredible. Throw them on, I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

“But what if someone sees?!”

“Let ’em. I’ll have Pep release a statement claiming you as my personal assistant or head intern or something.”

“That’s totally unrealistic.”

“Do I care? No. Just—okay? Up and at ’em, make haste, come on. What do you feel like, pancakes or waffles?”

They bicker about which is better the entire way to the little diner Tony choses, and Peter comes home full an hour later. May is fast asleep at the kitchen table. He kisses her forehead and starts on breakfast for her.

—

3. 

He’s thirty minutes into helping MJ study for her AP French test when she finally gets a question wrong. “‘Il n'est pas clair que’?” Peter queries, holding up the flash card.

“‘It’s not certain that’?”

He makes a pitying noise. “Close. ‘It’s not clear that’.”

“What’s not clear, exactly? That if I see one more word in French I’m gonna blow my brains out?”

Peter snorts. “No, actually it says more clarification is required on how much you like your boyfriend. Suggestions to improve that include: a hug, a kiss, both—”

“Neither?”

He pouts. “Mean.”

MJ rolls her eyes, but she kisses him first. She tastes like the Twizzlers they’ve been eating and her hands are in his hair and she laughs when he presses his lips to her cheeks and nose and forehead.

They somehow end up in an incredibly compromising position. “You know,” MJ muses, “I don’t think I’ve been studying the right kind of French.”

Peter, hovering over her (oops), nods in agreement. “This kind is definitely way better.”

She wraps her arms around his neck and he’s so consumed with this: her and him and the smell of her jasmine shampoo—that he almost doesn’t hear it.

Almost.

Peter rips away abruptly. “What was that?”

She groans. “God, you’re such a dog sometimes.”

He ignores her, sitting alert with his eyes narrowed at the window and, sure enough, there it is again: a faint, blood-curdling scream. “Someone’s being attacked or something. Maybe four blocks away tops.”

MJ squints. “Don’t tell me you can echolocate.”

“I—” Peter’s mouth snaps shut and then opens again. “I actually don’t know. Anyway, I gotta go.”

He presses a quick kiss to her cheek, throws on his jacket, and quickly ducks out her fire escape (which happens to be the same way that he came in). He slips the mask on and tosses his hood up; it’s raining in heavy, icy sheets and Peter is drenched within seconds of swinging. He remembers the first time he’d gone out during a storm; the webbing he’d made hadn’t held up because the chemical formula hadn’t accounted for the massive amounts of water-based reaction, so the biocables had evaporated as they left his shooters. Thankfully he hadn’t jumped first that day, otherwise he would be a Peter Pancake.

Another scream sounds. Peter follows it and winds up latched onto the side of a two-story brick building. There’s an incredibly dark alley below, but a quick flash of lightning tells him everything he needs to know: one man is trying to wrestle a woman down, while another is rifling through her purse. He’s also holding a gun.

“Oh, cute,” he mutters sarcastically.

Peter tries to time it right: he takes aim and shoots a web right at the weapon with the next bout of lightning, but to his immense misfortune, the armed mugger had already seen him and was aiming right back. The bullet hits Peter in the side.

“Ow,” he says, “that was uncalled for.”

He drops. His side is throbbing and hot but he ignores it in favour of disarming the guy who shot him. It’s a brief struggle but Peter ends up whacking the gun out of his hand and webbing it to the wall opposite. Then he knocks the guy out with a solid upper cross to the temple.

Peter rounds. The assailant has already fled, leaving the woman shivering but relatively unharmed.

“You okay, ma’am?” he asks.

“Me? That guy shot you!”

Peter looks down at his side which is now stained with blood. “Oh, yeah.”

He’d actually forgotten for half a second. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, he’s starting to really feel it: a burning sensation in his abdomen, an aching that pulses from his stomach to his chest. Ah. Wonderful.

A little dazed, he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. Super healing. Are you good? You need me to call you a cab?”

“What? No, um—the police station is like, down the block, I can go get them.”

“Are you sure? Because I can totally do that—”

“I can handle myself,” she says sharply, bending down to pick up her purse and the discarded items within. “It’s just… there were two of them and there was a gun and—”

“I get it,” Peter says, his hand pressing harder into his side as the world grows blurrier around the edges. “You really don’t want me to at least walk you down?”

“I’ll take a taxi,” she says. “You just, um, get yourself fixed up, okay? And thanks.”

“Yeah, sure, anytime! But, y’know, preferably never again,” Peter says, and proceeds to swing away.

—

Tony doesn’t expect to get woken up at two AM after only just falling asleep five minutes before, but such is life; FRIDAY’s voice bleeds through the speakers above to inform him that Spider-Man is currently rifling through the Med-Bay and bleeding from a wound on his side.

Pepper looks at him. “You heard that too, right? That was real?”

“It was real.”

They both scramble out of bed. Tony takes the lead, throwing on his jacket as he runs toward the elevator. It’s times like these when every second stretches out into an eternity; it takes maybe five of them to get from their floor to the Med-Bay, but it feels like forever.

The doors open and there’s Peter, perched on a gurney with his shirt gone and a whole lot of blood staining his side. He’s bent awkwardly, clearly trying to feel his way around whatever wound he’s got.

“Um,” Tony says, approaching, “What.”

Peter looks up and—yeah, he’s lost a lot more blood than Tony had originally thought. His face is fucking drained. “Hey,” he says, offering a jaunty wave before returning his attention to his side. “I got shot.”

“Oh!” Tony nods. “Oh, okay. What the fuck, kiddo?”

“I know, right?” Peter glances up. “Hey, Pepper.”

“Peter,” she returns. “Do you mind if I wash my hands and take a look at that?”

“If you want. It’s kinda gross, though.”

“Believe me, I’ve seen worse.”

Through this exchange Tony was already washing up, and now he dons a pair of gloves and sits on the rolling stool. “Looks like it’s through and through,” he tells Pep over his shoulder. “Could you grab a couple suture kits and, uh, the stuff?”

Pepper makes a face. “The stuff?”

“You know,” Tony says, “The Good Stuff.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, that stuff.”

Tony feels around the area. “Do you know what kind of gun was used?”

“Looked like your standard nine mil,” Peter replies. His voice is growing a little slurred.

That’s good though, about the gun. Means there’s probably not any bullet fragments to worry about. Tony grabs a load of gauze and presses it against the wound. He checks Peter’s pulse while he’s at it and finds that it’s slowed considerably. “We’re gonna have to get you some blood, too. A neg, right?”

“Yuppers.”

Tony excuses that because after all, the kid is bleeding out on a table. Said kid actually starts to swing his legs back and forth and, yeah, that’s not gonna fly. “Do me a favour and lay back? I’m gonna put this towel right under you for now.”

Peter doesn’t have any arguments, or if he does, he doesn’t vocalise them. Pepper comes back in with the kits and drugs and, because she’s just smarter than him like that, bags of blood.

Tony grabs the vials first and loads up a syringe. Peter is pretty numb to all of it until the needle goes in. Then he frowns. “Why are you injecting me with alien blood?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “It’s not alien blood, it’s a pain killer. A serious one at that, so you’re probably gonna feel a little out of it for a while, okay?”

Peter frowns. “Is it for Steve?”

Tony tenses, but it’s only for a second. “Yes,” he says, somewhat tightly.

“Ugh. What a turd, Mr. Stark. You’re giving me turd vitamins!” Tony scoffs while Pepper laughs. Peter notices. “See? She thinks I’m funny.”

“You’re not helping me here,” Tony says to her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Here, have some thread.”

Tony sighs. “Just stay still for me, okay?”

Peter does. Pepper passes him various supplies and they work together to sew up both ends of the gunshot wound. By the time they’re done, Peter hasn’t moved once, but his eyes are open and he’s frowning.

“How do you feel?”

“Wired,” he says.

“Seriously? Bruce never said anything about the side-effects, but I figured they’d be like normal pain-killers; make you drowsy and all that.”

“No,” Peter sits up quickly and doesn’t even flinch. “I feel like I just got steroids or something. Are you—are you actually telling me that Captain America’s drugs are infused with a stimulant? What, so he can keep fighting even when he’s in the middle of dying?”

Tony blinks. “Well that was smart of dear Banner.”

“Yeah, or insane.” Peter flexes his hands. “I feel like I need to go for a run, or like, break something.”

“Let’s avoid that,” Tony says, pushing him back down. “You need to heal, not mess yourself up even more, understood?”

Peter stares. “Is it normal to see sounds?”

Pepper bursts out laughing again. “I’m sorry,” she says when Tony glares. “Really, I am, I promise. Peter, honey, how about we get you to a bedroom where you can rest up? We’ll call your aunt and explain everything.”

—

Everything is going fine until May asks, “How did you get to the Tower so quick, then?”

Peter blinks. “Hmm? Pardon?”

“If you were at Ned’s,” May says, “how’d you manage to swing all the way across town?”

Peter opens his mouth and closes it. “I, uh… well, funny story, um… I wasn’t actually at Ned’s?”

There’s a pause over the phone. Pepper, who’s holding it, raises an eyebrow. May says: “You told me you were going to Ned’s, Peter.”

His face feels hot. He hopes it isn’t red. Both Pepper and Tony—from the doorway with his hands stuffed in his sweatpant pockets—are staring. It’s almost as bad as if May were really here.

“Well I was going to Ned’s, but then I changed my mind and went somewhere else and oh—look at the time! I think we’re going through a tunnel—”

“Don’t even try to pull that crap! That’s it, I’m coming over there—”

“May,” Peter says, serious now, “you’re in the middle of a shift, there’s people dying. Just—I’m perfectly fine, I took my Captain America drugs and everything is gonna be okay.”

“But you lied to me.”

“No, I changed my mind.”

“And went where?”

“Irrelevant.”

“Peter.”

“May.”

She groans from the other end of the line and demands to speak to Pepper one on one. Tony’s fiancé grins and switches off speaker, before slipping out with a bright laugh to finish off the conversation. Tony stares expectantly. “So where were you?”

“Oh my god, not you too. You know, on second thought, I actually am completely exhausted and—”

“Uh, nope,” Tony flops down onto the bed. “Fess up.”

Peter sighs. He squirms down and covers his pillow with a head. “No.”

Tony joins him under it. “Tell me.”

Peter scowls. He rolls onto his side so they’re facing one another. “I was with my girlfriend.”

“Oooo—”

“Shush! It’s… it’s really not a big deal and I haven’t told May yet because MJ and I haven’t even really talked about it and it all happened super fast and—” he remembers to breathe, “I just… I always tell May everything, you know? But I kind of just felt like… this was something I had to figure out first on my own. Maybe it’s stupid, but I know she’s gonna be super hurt when she finds out it’s been a month and I haven’t said anything—”

“Kid,” Tony cuts in. “Calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Peter promises, because he is. He’s also just incredibly hyper and stressed.

“It’s a normal instinct to want to figure things out and define them before you start announcing them to the world. I get that. But you’re still a kid, Pete, and even if you don’t want people prying into your love life, we still need to know where you are in case something goes wrong.”

Peter harrumphs as he turns away. “There’s a tracker on my phone and my suit. It would be easier to find me than anything else.”

Tony clicks his tongue. “You got a point there.”

“I just wanted time.”

“I know.”

“But I really like her, okay? Like she’s so smart and she’s got this really dark sense of humour and she’s actually kind of terrifying sometimes—”

“Oh, the scary ones are always fun.”

They stay up talking through the night and, when the sun comes up, Pepper joins them with a tray of freshly made blueberry waffles. May arrives around the same time and, looking too tired to be mad, simply drops onto the bed with them and steals what’s left of his food.

—

4. 

Peter is on patrol when he hears it:

a soft, quiet yelping coming from somewhere down below the rooftop he’s perched on.

At first he figures he’s imagining things, but then his ears perk again. He leans over the building’s edge to find the source of the noise.

In the dark it’s hard to make anything out, so he climbs slowly down the side of the wall, squinting. There’s another yelp and a low whine, almost pained. Peter zeroes in on the sound and creeps toward a set of dumpsters; they’re so full of trash they’re overflowing, and it’s underneath a broken down cardboard box that he finds it... 

A puppy.

Now, Peter is no liar. He’s wanted a dog since he was like, a fetus. The words ‘A dog’ have been on every birthday and Christmas list for as long as he can remember. It’s only recently, in the years since Ben’s death, that he’s pretty much given up—after all, May is so overworked and they can barely afford to feed themselves. How could they afford a pet?

But also…

This is the cutest dog he’s ever seen.

It’s tiny and fluffy and brown and has the biggest, saddest eyes he’s ever seen.

Peter kind of just stands there staring like an idiot for a good few seconds and then slowly kneels down. “Um, hi,” he says, in the gentlest voice he can manage. The puppy, who can’t be older than a few weeks and looks completely starved and exhausted, whines in response.

Peter holds out his hand for the dog to sniff. It lifts its head lazily and leans forward, nose twitching and dry. “You need water, huh? Come on, I know a place.”

—

“Shelob,” Tony greets without looking up from whatever project he’s working on. “What can I do for you at… one in the fucking morning?”

“I need your help with something, but you have to promise you won’t get mad or make me get rid of him—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what have you done now?”

“He was just so helpless and cold and small and…” Peter swallows and reveals the puppy, presently wrapped up in his hoodie. “Meet Nugget.”

Tony’s face is the epitome of Disappointed Dad. He stares, open-mouthed, and after a second his shoulders fall. “Well, fuck.”

Peter snuggles Nugget against his chest and steps closer, but then Tony holds up a hand to stop him. “Nah-ah! Not until that thing gets a flea bath!”

Hope sparks in Peter’s chest. “You mean we can keep him?”

“I mean there’s no way I’m getting near him until I know I won’t break out in hives.”

“That’s not how fleas work.”

“Do I care? No. Come on, let’s go to the bathroom.”

—

“Why do you have flea shampoo?”

Peter’s inquiry is made tentatively. They both have their hands in the sud-filled sink as they systematically wash Nugget’s fur.

“There was… an incident a while ago. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Peter stares. Blinks. “Okay. Well, I think he’s clean.”

Nugget barks as if in agreement, and so Peter and Tony lift him out of the basin and set him on a pile of no doubt expensive, fluffy white towels. Tony takes the lead after that. He’s surprisingly gentle and patient with the yapping, impatient puppy—even when Nugget tries to claw at him and shake himself dry, Tony never loses his cool.

A few minutes later they’re sitting on their stomachs watching Nugget stomp around on a blanket. There’s water in a bowl for him at one corner and a plate of chopped up chicken at another.

“I can’t take him home,” Peter says morosely after a few minutes. “May won’t let me keep him.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Where does she even think you are right now?”

“...In my bed.”

“Wow,” Tony says, deadpan. “Okay, well, I most certainly can’t keep him either.”

“What?! Why not?!”

Tony sighs. “I’m Iron Man, if you hadn’t noticed, kiddo—”

“Oh, what, so you’re too tough to look after him?”

“No, I’m too busy. I spend like, twenty-three out of twenty-four hours in a day in my shop and the rest of the time I’m on my knees apologising to Pepper and begging for forgiveness. There’s no time in-between to feed the pup, walk the pup—”

“I could come by,” Peter blurts. “Like, once a day, and I could make sure he’s eaten and play with him and stuff. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger—”

“Except to press ‘purchase’ on my shopping cart full of dog food—”

“Tony,” Peter cuts in, pleading, “please? I can’t just drop him off at some kennel so they can—” he covers the dog’s ears, “so they can euthanize him in a week when no one buys him. He deserves so much better, you know?”

Tony frowns, considering it, and Peter waits with his breath caught in his throat until, “God, fine.”

“Yes!”

“But! But! A pet is a serious responsibility, okay? You might as well be adopting a child—”

“What would you know about raising kids?” Peter asks, only jokingly, but Tony just stares and then, for some reason, smiles.

“You have to make sure he’s happy,” Tony says. “You have to be there for him in whatever way he needs, alright? I’ll set up a pen in the penthouse and you can make sure he works off his energy there, and if I have time I’ll even take you both to the park. And if he ever happens to pee on my carpet, I’m counting on you to clean it up.”

“Don’t you have, like, housekeepers for that sort of thing?”

“Yeah, but this is character building stuff.”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll clean up the pee.”

They continue to iron out the details for a while and bicker over whether Nugget’s last name should be Parker or Stark, and it’s only when Pepper walks in—still in her pajamas, bleary eyed and complaining that they woke her up—that they both decide it should be ‘Potts’.

—

5. (+1)

It starts with a headache.

He’s bent over his desk studying for a Calc test when the throbbing begins. It’s not so bad at first, but after a half hour or so his vision is swimming and he keeps having to take breaks to massage his temples and close his eyes. The equations are all blending together and he can’t think straight anymore.

Peter decides to give up right around then. After all, if he’s not gonna retain any of the information, why bother?

May pokes and prods through dinner. Peter tries to fool her by acting like everything is normal and okay and even manages to make her laugh once or twice.

Inside, dread is coiling through his stomach like an irritated snake. He knows what’s coming next; after all, he doesn’t really get sick anymore, so what else could it be?

Peter tries to sleep but ends up tossing and turning for most of the night. He falls into some kind of half-conscious daze at around four in the morning and rouses about twenty minutes later, soaked with sweat and aching everywhere.

Feeling like he’s gonna vomit, Peter kicks off his blankets and strips the sheets off his bed. He takes his shirt off because the fabric is too abrasive against his skin and it’s like he can feel every fibre tickling against it, grating and chafing. He curls up into a tight ball and covers his ears with his hands to block out the now amplified sounds of the city: car alarms, dogs barking, music playing.

Normally Peter loves the way New York is never silent. Now, he just wishes everyone would shut the fuck up for once.

When he stumbles out of his room a little while later, May is already gone. She’d told him the night before that she had an early shift and for once he’s actually grateful. Haltingly, Peter gets ready for school. He’s already skipped three days this month and if he misses this Calc quiz he’s gonna fucking bomb the class.

May would kill him.

It’s better to suffer a little than die.

Brushing his teeth makes his head spin and the minute he wriggles into his clothes he feels like a caged animal about to claw his skin off. Everything takes so much longer than normal. He doesn’t eat because the mere thought of food makes the back of his throat sting with bile.

On the train, he closes his eyes and rests his head against the cool glass of the window, trying to tune out the constant screeching of the rails. One day, on God, he will make it a personal project to oil every fucking line in the subway.

At his fifth stop, an old lady boards and all the seats are taken.

Peter swallows thickly and stands. Black spots dance in his vision and he grabs onto the overhead bar—something he hasn’t actually needed to use since he was a little kid—and tries not to pass out.

He almost misses the stop to get to school, but slips out at the last second, millimetres away from getting his backpack caught in the doors. Peter is hot all over and lightheaded as he makes his way out of the station. It’s even hotter up above, what with summer coming now and all.

Peter is late and he doesn’t need his watch to tell; Flash’s car is already parked out front instead of zooming through the drop off to run him over (which, hey, silver lining), and the majority of the student body is already inside.

Peter has to stop multiple times on his way to Spanish just to breathe. By the time he gets there he’s at least ten minutes late for roll call.

“Mr. Parker,” his teacher greets, unimpressed. “So glad you could join us.”

Peter makes a noise and takes the proffered quiz. He wonders absently why some people choose to teach. What is it, like, some kind of power trip for them?

He has five minutes to finish the quiz but doesn’t make it past the first question. Ned volunteers to collect them and stops at Peter’s desk while Professor Scott outlines today’s lesson plan.

“Dude,” he whisper-hisses, “you look like complete shit. What on Earth are you doing here right now?”

“Test,” Peter mutters dully, resting his cheek on his hand and closing his eyes. “Here you go. Didn’t finish it.”

Ned takes it carefully, holding it with two fingers like it’s covered in disease. “Do you want me to get the nurse or something?”

Peter hums. “No. Just… headache.”

Slowly Ned backs away. “Um—”

“Mr. Leeds!” Professor Scott says, loudly. Ned jumps. “Is there a problem back there?”

Yes, Peter thinks. You’re the human version of nails on a fucking chalk board. Please, for the love of all that is holy, just start on the vocab.

Only he accidentally says all of that out loud.

The whole class is staring. Flash is slack-jawed. Betty Brant’s eyes are the size of small moons.

“Parker,” Scott grits out—and Peter has denominated him to just Scott now out of reciprocation and spite; “You just earned yourself a shiny new detention. I’d like you to take this slip to the principal’s office. Please.”

Oh, thank God. At least it’ll be quiet there.

Peter stands and brushes past Ned and it literally feels like flames of hell are licking against his skin. He almost vomits. This is decidedly not good.

He takes the paper. “Gladly, good sir.”

When he’s gone, there’s an outburst of muttering that his enhancements let him hear. It only makes the overload worse. Peter covers his ears with his hands again and, overcome with a sudden wave of vertigo, ducks into the bathroom.

He barely makes it to the toilet before emptying his stomach of last night’s food.

Peter sags against the wall, panting. He keeps his eyes closed and waits for the world to stop spinning. About ten minutes later, the smell of jasmine shampoo—normally welcome—causes him to lean over and retch again.

MJ pokes her head inside the unlocked stall. “Jesus,” she whispers. The second her hands touch his body he flinches and she immediately retracts them. “Fuck, sorry. Ned said you wigged out in Spanish. I looked for you in the Principal's office but you weren’t there and... What’s—what’s wrong? I thought you couldn’t even get sick.”

“Bad headache,” he mutters, spitting into the toilet. It’s easier than explaining about his freakish mutations and how they sometimes go completely haywire, leaving him on edge and nauseous and irritable.

MJ grabs him some toilet paper to wipe his mouth with. “Did you take anything?”

“Pain meds don’t work on me.”

“Does May know? You should have called in.”

“Couldn’t. Can’t miss my test.”

She sighs. “Your final is like fifty percent of your grade and you could pass it with your eyes closed. You can miss your test, you’re just afraid of getting anything lower than an A.”

Peter is silent. “You got me there.”

MJ’s hand twitches like she wants to touch him but knows she can’t. “You need to go home. Lie down, get some rest.”

“May is working,” Peter says, “and if I have to take the subway again right now I’ll die. I really will. It’s so—the smell and the noise and I can’t sit down and—”

“Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Just give it.”

She’s holding her hand out for it and giving him a no-nonsense expression that kind of reminds Peter of Pepper Potts on a rampage. He’s seen what happens to Tony when he crosses her, so he fishes his phone out of his pocket and hands it over.

“Hold on.”

She stands and leaves. Peter closes his eyes again. He tunes out her conversation because if he doesn’t, he’s absolutely gonna vomit again and nobody wants that.

MJ slips back inside the stall. “Okay, solved. Do you still feel like you’re gonna vomit?”

Peter thinks about it. “No.”

“Good. We’re gonna go to the nurse, okay?”

“Oh boy.”

—

Tony Stark walks into Peter’s school and finds the hallways empty. The classroom doors are shut and the muted sounds of teachers lecturing are the only signs that anyone is here at all.

He finds Peter in the infirmary, sitting on the examination table with the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes.

He’s at his side in an instant. “Kid?”

It’s surprise that gets Peter’s eyes open, but the little spider baby immediately regrets it. He flinches and sucks in a sharp breath. “Tony,” he whispers, like the name is all he can manage and the questions will have to wait for later.

Tony looks him over. There are no obvious injuries. The girl on the phone had said it was just a headache, but Tony is way more experienced with Peter’s brand of bullshit and knows there’s usually something else going on beneath the surface.

“I’m gonna go talk to the nurse and then get you out of here, okay?”

A nod.

It’s always a bad thing when he doesn’t argue. Peter Parker would start a fight about what kind of pizza to order, even if you suggest the kind he really wants, just to be a stubborn little shit about things.

Tony slips out of the exam room. The nurse looks up when he enters her office. “Oh my—Mr. Stark?!”

“Yes, hello,” Tony takes a cautious step forward as she stands. He doesn’t bother to sit. “I’m here to pick up the little gremlin in there.”

Her face flushes. “I didn’t know you’d been called, I—I figured I would just let him wait it out, you know? He didn’t want to be touched, so it was hard to figure out what was up and—so it’s real? About the internship?”

“Of course. Why would he lie?”

She opens her mouth. Closes it. “Well… you know how kids can be.”

“Do I?”

She doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.

Tony sighs. “Look, Nurse—uh, Timms—Nurse Timms, can I please just sign the kid out and take him home? He’s clearly in pain here.”

She starts rifling through her desk for a form. “I mean, I can admit you to take him home, but I really suggest you talk with the principal first—Peter was given a detention before he was brought to my ward, see, and I was—” she shakes her head. “I thought he might be faking.”

Tony stares without blinking for a whole five seconds and then, “Detention? For what?”

“I heard he bad-mouthed a teacher or something. But to be fair, Professor Scott isn’t exactly what I’d call patient.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Tony takes the form she hands him to sign, “my kid doesn’t fake. He has a condition, see. Gets uh… overloaded. Sounds, smells, it can be too much for him. Probably why he snapped.”

“That… that makes sense.”

“Yes,” he says succinctly, and hands the paper back. “You’d know that if you bothered to ask. Anyway, I’ll be going. Thanks for the help, Nurse Times.”

“Uh, it’s—it’s Timms—”

The door shuts behind him.

—

MJ was forced to go back to class. She’d argued and protested but Nurse Timms was insistent. So, MJ had relented. She’d pressed the lightest of kisses on his forehead and it surprisingly hadn’t felt that bad, and then she’d gone.

Tony Stark had shown up about twenty minutes later and it’s just when Peter’s starting to think it was all just a vivid hallucination that the smell of coffee and motor oil fills his senses again. It’s overwhelming but not debilitating.

“Kiddo,” Tony whispers, “is it okay to touch you?”

Peter cracks an eye. Everything is bright but Tony’s suit is mercifully black, so he focuses on that. “I don’t know. I don’t wanna move.”

“Well I gotta get you outta here somehow.”

“But my detention—”

“I already got you out of it,” Tony says breezily. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Tony,” Peter says, cheeks flushing. “You can’t just bribe my principal into—”

“I didn’t bribe anyone. I just explained the situation and besides, Morita’s an old friend.”

Peter closes his eyes again as he frowns. “You’re friends with my principal?”

“I’m a benefactor for your school, too,” Tony says. “But don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.”

Something shifts in the air. Tony is sitting now. “Happy’s waiting outside,” he says, “but whenever you’re ready.”

Peter thinks about it for a few seconds and decides it’s gonna have to happen at some point, anyway. Might as well rip the band-aid off now. Slowly he takes a deep breath and manages to sit up with Tony’s help. The older man tries to avoid touching him as much as possible, but surprisingly enough the weight of his hand against Peter’s spine isn’t crushing or aggravating. It doesn’t hurt.

“Baby steps,” Tony says softly. “We’ll take you out the side door, okay?”

Even getting to the door is slow going but Tony doesn’t seem to mind. Right before they open it, Tony stops and pulls his sunglasses off. “Here, try these.”

Peter puts them on. He feels ridiculous because like, they work on Tony who was literally born in the seventies, but Peter really doesn’t dig the groovy shades. Regardless they’re better than nothing and even help a little.

The halls are empty again. Most of the students will be in the gym right about now, or the cafeteria for lunch. They don’t run into anybody on the way out and as soon as they’re in the back of the car, Peter sags against Tony’s side. He feels like he’s just run ten miles.

“Drive, Hogan,” Tony says, and then the partition glides up.

For a few seconds it’s almost completely quiet. Noise suppression tech, Peter realises, and he feels like he could cry from relief. For the first time in hours there’s just… nothing. No traffic, no dozens of students talking at once. The air conditioning unit is filtered, so he’s not being attacked with the smell of body odour and clashing perfume scents and Axe cologne. There’s just Tony and beautiful, amazing, showstopping silence.

Tony shifts a little. “Better?”

Peter nods, figuring it’s still probably not safe to speak.

“We’ll be there soon,” Tony says softly.

—

Peter doesn’t remember much after the car ride. He can vaguely recall protesting getting out of the Audi, and he remembers Tony assuring him that everything would be okay, and the next thing he knows he’s lying on his back in an utterly dark bedroom. The walls are insulated just like the car had been, so there’s just no sound, and the bed sheets probably have the highest thread count of all time.

Something shifts beside Peter and he realises Tony is there, feeling his forehead.

“What—?”

“Oh, hey,” Tony greets. “I think you might’ve blacked out there. All the noise hit you at once when we got out of the car and you just…”

“I fainted?”

Tony snorts softly. “Relax. It happens to the best of us. How do you feel, Webster?”

Peter hums. “Bad.”

“Let’s try a scale of one to ten.”

“Okay,” Peter says. “Ten.” Tony lets out a little grunt at that and so Peter elaborates, “It was at like, a twenty this morning, so.”

“Ah, I see.” Tony’s grip shifts to Peter’s wrist to measure his pulse. “This okay?”

“It’s fine.”

And it really is. He doesn’t feel like burning his skin off or anything. Tony’s hands are just warm.

“Any idea what brought this on?”

Peter shifts a little. “I uh… haven’t been sleeping a lot lately.” He swallows. “Like, at all.”

“And how long’s that been going on for?”

“I don’t know. On and off for a few weeks, I guess.”

“Jesus,” Tony sighs and pulls his hand away. He rakes it through his hair. “Kiddo, what have we said about communication? Does May know?”

“....No?”

There’s a long pause where Tony just kind of sits there thinking, like he wants to say whatever comes next carefully. He massages his temples and then: “Alright, scooch over.”

“What?”

“Make room for me.”

Peter blinks and then, tentatively, scoots over a little to allow Tony room to lie down. The older man does, arching his back a little and grunting in pain because he’s like, ancient. They’re not touching, but very slowly Peter starts inching closer again. Eventually he works up the courage to try resting his head on Tony’s chest, which is terrifying not only because it’s Tony Stark, but also because he’d rather not have his brain implode.

Nothing happens. “Your fabric softener must be like, super expensive,” he whispers, because this is actually better than the sheets.

Tony snorts. “I’ll ask Pep about it.”

Peter makes a noncommittal noise and before he knows it, his eyes are closing. For once they actually feel heavy, and the steady rhythm of Tony’s heart beat is soothing, dependable.

Tony’s hands brush lightly over Peter’s hair and then thread through it. “Too much?”

“No,” Peter promises. “Good.”

And so Tony’s fingers run through his curls over and over, gently, lightly. His thumb sweeps over Peter’s cheek once, too, and then he starts muttering in Italian.

Peter cracks an eye. “Are you telling me your grocery shopping list?”

Tony laughs a little. “My mom used to do it for me,” he says. “Something about just hearing her speak the language made me feel… relaxed, I guess. Didn’t matter what she was saying.”

Peter smiles and wraps an arm around Tony’s torso. “Tell me something else.”

“You wanna hear about the time I almost blew up a Chem lab?”

“Uh, duh.”

So Tony launches into it, speaking in a low voice and absently twisting one of Peter’s curls around his finger. It feels nice and the headache is fading fast.

Peter sleeps. 

[deja-you]

times new roman | episode ten

t. jefferson x reader

summary: in this final episode, thomas wants more than just a date.

word count: 1.6k

a/n: this is the final installment of this series! this has been a joy to create, and all my love goes out to those of you who have stuck through it all <3

masterlist | previous

“You have to be anywhere today?”

Thomas tapped his fingers against Y/n’s bare skin to a melody he was making up in his head. He had spent the last few minutes minutes memorizing the tide of her breathing and internally debating whether or not to ask the question he had just asked. Thomas knew he would have to ask eventually, but he hated the thought that maybe Y/n did have somewhere to be. 

She turned on her side to face him, admiring his features. “Not really. Is this you trying to kick me out of your apartment?”

He grinned. “The opposite. Wonderin’ if I can stay in bed with you all day.” 

Y/n hummed softly. “I think that could be arranged. But we’re going to have to find something to do to occupy the time.”

“Oh?” Thomas raised an eyebrow, his lips pulling up into a suggestive smirk. “You plan on doing that all day? Angel, last night was amazing, but I don’t know how much stamina I have in me. Maybe if I got some Gatora--”

“Shut up!” She snorted and slapped his chest. “I meant an activity like reading. Good lord.”

“Well that sounds enjoyable, too. You want to pick something out from my personal library?” He asked. 

“Thomas Jefferson, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Thank you for finally asking.”

Y/n climbed out of bed wearing only the Thomas’s shirt she had stolen last night and walked over to the door. She paused in the doorframe and glanced back at him. “You coming?”

He looked her up and down, his arms folding behind his head as he leaned back against the headboard. “Don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the view.”

She scoffed and moved out of his sight. Thomas sighed softly, eventually pulling himself out of the warm bed to follow her into his living room. She was standing at one bookcase, her back to him. Thomas wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and pressed gentle kisses to her shoulders.

“Are you religious?”

She was leafing through his Bible. It wasn’t much of a Bible. The way he had cut out passages of scripture.

He didn’t know how to answer her at first. Did she want him to say yes? Would she like it if he told her he read the Bible and prayed? He knew her too well for that. She wanted to hear the truth. 

“I am religious,” Thomas responded. It wasn’t a lie. “Very, deeply religious.”

Y/n frowned and held up a page from the Old Testament that had been mostly cut out.

“You can’t just pick and choose the parts of the Bible that you like and cut out the sections you don’t like.”

“I know.”

“It’s all or nothing. You can’t have the best parts of religion without the worst parts. You understand that, right?” Y/n desperately needed for him to understand.

“Angel, this isn’t about the Bible, is it?” Thomas said it like a question to be polite, but they both knew the answer. “It’s all a metaphor for you and me.”

She shrugged. “Everything is a metaphor for you and me.”

They were both quiet for a moment. She slid the Bible back onto his bookshelf next to a series of Ralph Ellison works and Kurt Vonnegut novels. Y/n decided on A Farewell to Arms, removed it from the shelf, and turned back to Thomas.

“Just don’t cut out the parts of me you don’t like, okay?” 

His large hands covered Y/n’s and he brought her hand up to his lips to kiss each finger carelessly. “There’s nothing about you I could cut out. I love each and every part of you.”

This seemed to reassure Y/n enough, a small smile appearing on her face. 

“What? What is it?”

Y/n had been minding her business, reading through her burrowed book, when she felt Thomas’s eyes on her. He had clearly been staring at her with something on his mind. 

Thomas just smiled and shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Well now you have to tell me,” Y/n insisted, setting down the book. 

“Angel, please,” he shook his head and laughed lowly.

She narrowed her eyes and sat up to get a better look at him. “Thomas Jefferson, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“You really want to know?”

“That’s why I’m asking,” Y/n said in exasperation. 

“Okay, okay,” he chuckled. Thomas pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked into her eyes. “I was just thinking about how much I like waking up to the sight of you reading in my bed. It feels so natural.”

A slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Well I like waking up in your bed. You’ve got a nice mattress.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow but he was still grinning. “You tellin’ me you only stick around because I have a nice mattress?”

“I suppose there might be a few other reasons,” she teased. “But it’s mostly about the mattress.”

He scoffed and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. Thomas’s lips found her neck and he left little kisses along her collarbone. “That’s too bad. I’m practically obsessed with you.”

“Are you?” She hummed dismissively.

“Mmhmm,” he mumbled his words against her skin. “I’m in love with you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “What?”

She shifted on the bed and placed two fingers under Thomas’s chin to bring his eyes up to meet her’s. “You love me?”

He froze, wondering if he should take the words back. But he meant them. 

“I love you,” he said more firmly. “I do. And I want to wake up next to you every day. I want to see you wearing my t-shirts and reading my books in my bed. I want you. All of you. I want you to be my girlfriend.”

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally. “I don’t know.”

Y/n couldn’t resist teasing him a little more, and she almost felt bad when he tensed up beside her. 

“Oh, well that’s ok--”

“I never did get that boyfriend application from you, did I?” She grinned. “I remember being promised MLA format.”

She searched his face to see his reaction, but he completely retracted his body from her’s. Her mouth fell open as he climbed out of bed, his warmth leaving her. 

“Thomas? Where are you...?”

He exited the room, and then came back a few minutes later with his laptop in hand. Thomas hopped back on the bed and turned on his computer.

“What are you doing?” Y/n asked, suppressing a smile.

Thomas gave her the most serious look she had ever seen from him. “I’m working on my application.”

“You know I was joking, right?” She laughed, but he was already opening up a Word document. “You don’t need to write an application.”

Thomas changed the Calibri font to Times New Roman and began working on his heading. “I promised you an application in MLA, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” Y/n shook her head.

“Shh,” he hushed. “I need to come up with a good hook. Should I start with a question? A quote? No, that’s too basic.”

Y/n was about to try to tell Thomas he was being too extra, but she could tell he was already too invested in writing up his application. She shook her head again, and turned her attention back to the book in her hand when she came to terms with the fact that Thomas wasn’t going to stop until he was finished. 

Maybe 30 minutes later, Thomas declared he was done. He slid the laptop over to Y/n, and she sighed dramatically as she began to read through the document. 

“You count cooking as a skill?” Y/n asked skeptically. “You only cook macaroni and cheese.”

“Yeah, and it’s damn good. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, angel,” he shrugged.

“It’s not. Not good, that is,” Y/n muttered under her breath, continuing to scroll through his application. “‘Devilishly handsome’? Really? Really?”

“You know that part is true. Don’t even pretend.”

A few minutes later, Y/n had finished reading the application Thomas had spent way too much time writing. He appraised her with bright eyes, waiting to hear her verdict.

“Well?”

“Well,” she strung it out a little bit longer, amused by the slight nervousness that hid behind Thomas’s eyes. “After reviewing your application... I’m happy to inform you that you got the job as Y/n Washington’s boyfriend.”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air and leaped out of the bed to take a victory lap. Thomas returned a few seconds later to pull Y/n into a tight hug and placed kisses to her cheeks, lips, neck, and arms.

“I nailed the conclusion, didn’t I? I felt really good about that.” 

She laughed and pressed her lips to his again to get him to shut up. When they pulled apart, he gasped and grabbed his phone off the bed.

“I need to post about this.”

She rolled her eyes when she finally set down the phone and snuggled into Thomas’s side. Y/n breathed in the scent of his t-shirt and sighed in contentment. 

“This is good, right?” Thomas said softly. “You and I? This is good?”

“It’s more than good. It’s us. I love us,” she replied. 

Y/n listened to the beat of his heart and knew that hers was in sync with his. She threaded her fingers through his, and with the other hand, she held open the book she had borrowed from Thomas’s library. Y/n’s eyes were drawn to a line in the book Thomas had underlined who knows how long ago, and she smiled softly.

You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got. 

tag list:

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so this is the end loves! thanks for sticking with me through this. if you want to keep reading my works, i have a new series (angel wings + wedding rings) coming out. let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist :)

[riversofmars]

Could you do a story where Thirteen bumps into the tenth doctor and Donna and thirteen pretends that she's not the doctor but then post-library river comes along and causes mischief please? Also I REALLY love your fics, especially The Oncoming Storm! Yours were the first fanfics I read and they're one of the few I like (I'm picky) so thanks for doing such brilliant stories!

Aww thank you so much, that’s very kind of you to say!! Sorry this took a little while longer, hope the wait was worth it! Turned out a bit longer than expected. Hope it sort of fits the brief lol! Really hope you like it!

Rating: G

Ship: Ten/River, Thirteen/River

Word count: 2400

Read on AO3 or below

River Song Has Been Saved

“Hang on a minute, Doctor.“ Donna walked back over to the TARDIS doors after the Doctor had closed them with a snap of his fingers. She thought she’d seen something, just as the doors had closed.

“What’s wrong?“ The Doctor frowned and followed her, both sticking their heads out.

“Oi, lady!“ Donna called stopping a young woman that had just strolled past the TARDIS and was heading back deeper into the Library. Everyone was supposed to be evacuated by now.

“Sorry?“ The woman looked around, blonde hair framing soft features and big eyes. She looked to them as if she hadn’t expected them to be there.

“You can’t go in there.“ The Doctor gestured to the door that lead further into the Library as they stepped out of the TARDIS again. Only a moment longer and they would have taken off and missed her sneaking in here.

“Ahh… so close. Just a bit too early, wasn’t I, hate it when I do that…“ The blonde said to herself more than anything else.

“Did you just come here? The planet has been sealed off for a hundred years, how did you…“ The Doctor frowned, confused as to how she’d got in.

“Yeah, been meaning to check it out.“ The woman grinned. “The hair is magnificent, isn’t it.“ She eyed the Doctor up who looked back at her utterly bewildered. There was something familiar about her.

“Do I know you?“ He asked.

“No absolutely not, never mind me, I’m sure you got important things to do, so.“ She gave a little wave, intend on heading off.

“You can’t go in there, we’re evacuating the planet.“ Donna backed up the Doctor.

“I know, you have a nice day now.“ The woman grinned.

“Sorry, I can’t let you do that.“ The Doctor was quick to overtake her and step in her way. “This place is gonna get swallowed up by flesh eating darkness soon, you might want to head out not in?“

“I got to check something out of the library, I’ll only be a minute.“ She waved off his warning and tried to push past him. “And like you say, the window of opportunity is closing, so, you should probably leave this place yourselves…“

“And you can’t find your book any other place?“ Donna asked dumbfounded.

“One of a kind, sorry, got to run.“ The blonde replied with a grin pushing past him.

“Alright, have a nice day as well.“ The Doctor let her pass.

“Thanks!“ She grinned and sprinted off.

“Doctor, you're not just gonna let her go, are you?“ Donna asked thoroughly confused watching her leave.

“Not a chance. Just giving her a head start.“ The Doctor winked and they headed after her, careful not to be spotted. They took cover behind some tables in the main area as the blonde headed straight for a computer terminal.

“That was close, stupid box, always with the timing…“  She was mumbling to herself. “Couldn’t have hung on two minutes…“ Without further ado, she started pulling some sort of electrical equipment from the pockets of her impressive coat. There were a lot of parts to it and Donna couldn’t believe it all somehow fit into her pockets. They watched her as she hooked up the equipment to the computer.

“What is she doing?“ Donna whispered to the Doctor who shrugged.

“I’m more concerned with who she is… whatever she is doing, that’s complicated tech…“ He mused, watching in fascination as she continued her work.

“Ouch… alright then.“ The blonde pulled her hands away as she seemed to have gotten an electric shock. She stood and engaged the computer terminal. “CAL, hi, sorry, I know, bit confusing, different face.“ She started talking to the computer and the Doctor and Donna exchanged concerned looks. How did she know about CAL? What she was saying was making very little sense to them without the second half of the conversation. They couldn’t make out what CAL responded. “Just popping in to get what’s mine, alright? Don’t freak out, it’s really me. Can you put her on?“ There was a moment of silence. Neither Donna nor the Doctor said anything but there were only very few people she should be looking to talk to on that computer. This was about to get even more investing than the whole experience had been already. “Hello Sweetie. Surprise! This is gonna be great, you’re gonna love this, had Dorium track it down for me, took a while but here we are.“ The woman sounded thoroughly excited. “Get you coat, honey, let’s see if it works.“ She took a step backwards and pulled something from her coat pocket, pointing it at the computer. Sparks flew and the mechanism engaged.

“Can’t have come cheap, that.“

“Dorium Maldovar is known drive a hard bargain, she must be a hacker or criminal of some kind to have those kinds of ties.“ The Doctor mused, trying to make sense of what they were picking up.

“Perhaps Dorium just owes her a favour…“

“Dorium doesn’t do favours.“ He huffed. It was a ridiculous notion.

“He will.“

“Doctor.“ Donna touched her hand to his arm.

“Shush, Donna, I don’t want to lose the element of surprise.“ He kept his eyes firmly on the woman in the middle of the room who was looking around now, apparently waiting to see if whatever she had tried to do had worked.

“Doctor.“ Donna repeated.

“How much longer until he notices, you think?“

“Doctor?!“ Donna grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder and pulled him around.

“Donna, what?!“ He growled but stopped dead in his tacks when he found River Song standing behind them. He had been having a conversation with her without even realising it. She was dressed in a white flowing dress, a stark contrast to the environmental suit he’d only seen her in, and a grinned spread across her beautiful features.

“Hello, Sweetie.“ She chuckled.

“Oh my God, River, what, how…“ The Doctor couldn’t find words.

“Well, Sweetie, what do you think?“ River grinned at the Doctor.

“Of what?“ He was still in shock. He had watched her die only hours ago, he had managed to somehow, miraculously save her consciousness and now suddenly she was here again? “How did you get out of the computer? What did she do?“

“Some sort of teleport I believe, but like a really clever 3D printer, materialise the body, download the consciousness, boom, brand new wife.“ River explained, enjoying the dumbfound expression on both their faces.

“River!!“ The blonde had finally spotted her and River waved to her.

“Speaking of wife…“ River smirked and the Doctor exclaimed:

“Wife?! I thought you and me, we…“ He looked around to the woman heading straight for them, feeling a wave of jealousy. He knew he’d technically only met River today but he knew how important she would become to him.

“We are.“ River chuckled giving his an amused smirk: “But you know, you can’t talk, all I’m gonna say is: Elizabeth I… so…“ She couldn’t carry on as the blonde rushed around the counter and threw herself at River who pulled her close and twirled her around.

“River.“ The mystery woman took her face in her hands, tears welling up in her eyes, clearly overcome with emotion.

“Hello, Sweetie.“ River smiled the softest of smiles and leaned in to kiss her.

“Sooo… how do you feel about this?“ Donna looked to the Doctor, feeling like they were intruding on a private moment. “You think we should go, or…“ She could tell from the annoyed expression on the Doctor’s face, however, that he had no intention of just leaving it be. He pulled himself up to full height and cleared his throat.

“Okay, so thank you for saving my future…“

“Wife.“ River helpfully supplied the word as they stopped kissing and just held each other close.

“Whatever she is. But who are you?“ He jabbed his finger at the blonde.

“You haven’t figured it out yet?“ The woman let go of River, seemingly reluctantly, and turned to face him. She kept her hand intertwined with River’s.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy River isn’t dead but my future self spent a lot of time thinking about how to save her and then you just waltz in here having to do one better?“ The Doctor crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Well, sadly, you’ll not remember that I came here.“ The woman replied.  

“What?“ Donna was utterly confused now.

“Why not?“ The Doctor demanded to know, unsure whether or not that was supposed to be a threat.

“God, you’re slow. Did I give you a concussion when I knocked you out?“ River raised her eyebrows playfully.

“Maybe it’s cause of the hair spray…“ The blonde mused.

“I don’t use…“ The Doctor was going to protest but River had already changed directions:

“Don’t tell me you’re not using hairspray now.“ She ran her hand through the other woman’s blonde bob.

“Naturally falls like that, thank you very much.“ She huffed in response. “Regeneration is a lottery as you should know by now.“

“Are you a timelord?!“ The Doctor exclaimed, not sure how to interpret the statement.

“Yes.“ The blonde replied in amusement.  

“But I thought I was the last…“ The Doctor stared back at her in shock.

“Yes, which makes me…“

“You can’t be.“ He shook his head.

“Yes I am the…“ The blonde started but the didn’t allow her to finish.

“You can’t be the Master, he…“

“So close.“ The mystery woman sighed hanging her head theatrically.

“It’s like watching one of those dumb and dumber movies, isn’t it.“ River chuckled to Donna who had long given up trying to follow.

“Hang on!“ The Doctor exclaimed as the penny dropped.

“Yes, crossing time streams, you won’t remember this because you are crossing your own time stream right now! I am you.“ The blonde Doctor sighed, she couldn’t believe she had to spell it out for him like that.

“Pretty boy and pretty girl.“ Donna found herself chuckling almost involuntarily.

“Aren’t they?“ River agreed with a smirk. “The mind races.“

“River. Shut up!“ The Doctor chanted in unison.

“But you’re short!“ The younger Doctor groaned in annoyance as he looked her up and down.

“I am actually rather average height, as it happens! Why does everyone call me small?!“ The older Doctor huffed. “Did I really use to be so obsessed with my height?!“

“Size isn’t everything, darling.“ River pipped up.

“Still not ginger then.“ The younger Doctor carried on.

“None of the next four, no.“ She replied with a shrug.  

“Four more regenerations and only now did you work out how to save her?“ He exclaimed looking to River.

“I actually gave her the screwdriver last time we met, thank you very much. One step at a time.“ The older Doctor huffed and turned to her wife: “I booked that suite on Darillium again, by the way, for a few nights, just, you know, if you haven’t got any other plans.“

“Well, this is going to be a whole new experience.“ River smirked looking her up and down. This was the first she was seeing of her spouse’s most recent regeneration and she was beyond intrigued.

“Like it?“ The blonde Doctor asked with a little smirk and River grinned:

“Love it.“

“I don’t like her. Do you like her?“ The younger Doctor turned to Donna, just as his future self pulled their wife in for another kiss.

“Are you jealous of yourself?“ Donna teased and he gave her a playful shove.

“So you’re really him? Just older?“ Donna turned to the future Doctor, still struggling to believe that they were the same person. She knew what regeneration meant but it wasn’t like she’d ever seen the result of one.

“Different face, same dumbass.“ The Doctor retorted with a grin.

“Well done for saving her, Doctor.“ Donna smiled as they looked to River who said her goodbyes to the younger Doctor at present. “She really needed you, this version of you.“ Donna thought back to how devastated River had been at the total lack of recognition on the Doctor’s part. She had missed her Doctor so very much.

“I know. I remember.“ The Doctor gave a sad sort of smile as she thought back to when she had first met River, remembering the pain and sorrow in her eyes. “Donna, I can’t know, you know. You can’t tell me, else I might not get here, details my change and a paradox will be created if I know River lived.“ The Doctor turned to her to explain and Donna nodded slowly, they had mentioned it on the way back to the TARDIS already. This Doctor’s TARDIS was parked right behind their’s where they hadn’t been able to spot it as they got out. “Just be there for him. He’s already struggling, even if he doesn’t show it, even if he doesn’t know her yet, he still knows what and who he’s lost.“ The Doctor tried her best to explain to her what was going on in her younger self’s head.

“How long as it been for you? Since she died. How long have had to carry that with you?“ Donna asked taking her hand comfortingly.

“Some questions are better left unanswered.“ The Doctor shook her head and smiled. “It was good to see you, Donna.“ She pulled her into a hug.

“It was good to meet you, this version of you.“ Donna smiled and let her go, just as River and the other Doctor joined them.

“Well done, Doctor.“ The younger Doctor smiled and extended his hand to her.

“You too, Doctor.“ The blonde smile in return and shook his hand.

“You sure you don’t want to come in for a cup of tea, or…“ River suggested pointing to the TARDIS:

“Down, girl.“ The older Doctor smirked and took her hand in hers.

“You’ll be seeing me again soon, Doctor.“ River smiled at the younger Doctor who grinned:

“I look forward to it.“

“No telling.“ The older Doctor reminded Donna who nodded and smiled:

“My lips are sealed.“

“Now about that suite.“ River smirked at her wife as they turned to their TARDIS.

“Think the TARDIS bedroom will do for now, don’t you?“ The Doctor chuckled as she unlocked the door.

“Bedroom, kitchen, console room, wardrobe hall…“ River smirked and pulled her inside.

“Good for you, Doctor, so you’re not an eternal virgin then.“ Donna teased pulling her Doctor along to their TARDIS before he could get any more jealous.

[letterstomilen]

i discuss the classification of igneous petrology as you fall asleep during my lecture (PART 1) (ASMR)

Childe/Zhongli, Alternate Universe (read part 2 here) When Childe's younger sister tells him about the volunteer at the library, he does not make the connection between that and his new favorite ASMR YouTuber, Rex Lapis.

Childe has a very effective method of getting through college. His little sister, who’s caught him making coffee at three in the morning on more than one occasion the past week alone, would beg to differ. 

“You’re the best older brother,” she starts off, and he’s sure she’s trying to convince herself more than him at this point, “but you need to fix your sleeping habits.” Then, because she’s his little sister, she’d flash him a smile and pat his shoulder reassuringly.

(The comment is not lost on him though. He understands his sleeping situation will eventually wear him down if it hadn’t already, but he believes if he’ll drink a coffee every morning and a Monster every night, he’ll get through three days. By the third day, he’ll hardly be coherent but that doesn’t matter because he’ll conk out for the next twelve hours and then repeat.)

“Don’t worry, Tonia,” he says, trying to sound as reassuring as possible as he contemplates whether it’s worth it or not to swallow a pill of 5-hour energy with his morning coffee. “Once break ends, I’ll get back to normal.”

“You said that six seasons ago.”

Childe frowns, trying to remember if his sleeping schedule was this dysfunctional last year. “Huh?”

“The Walking Dead seasons,” Tonia clarifies, as if she’s not twelve years old and the show is for grown adults. He thinks. He hasn’t checked Commonsensemedia ever since La Signora labeled him as a “helicopter parent” and his Netflix tab has been playing How to Get Away with Murder as background noise for the past few weeks.

Isn’t it a show about zombies though? Tonia’s sheepish smile tells it all, because it’s the same exact guilty look he had when he got caught red-handed as a kid.

(Once he remembers later, Childe promises himself, he’ll check out The Walking Dead.)

“Oh. Well. I have a lot of shows to catch up on, you know. Not to mention a ton of my professors gave me reading for over the break.”

A half lie. They did give him a lot of reading because each professor assumed that their classes were his only one, and with seven days left, he still has a textbook worth of reading to go through. But there are no shows that Childe would sacrifice his precious sleep for. As a matter of fact, he would love to sleep. He’s spent the majority of his classes back in high school sleeping and faking attention, saving his grade at the last minute — it was quite the extreme sport really, if he says so himself.

Whenever he tries to sleep recently, his thoughts run at several hundred miles per hour, and he spends several hours staring at the ceiling before succumbing to the computer at his desk and watching trashy movies. At this point, he must have gone through the entire romance comedy list on Netflix. (Not a proud point in his life but if anybody ever wanted him to give a list of best to worst romance comedy movies, he now has one.)

Tonia, on the other hand, isn’t incredibly convinced.

Admittedly, the excuse was lame. Also, he can’t easily lie to his little sister, who’s far shrewder than he takes her for at times.

“You never start your reading in advance. You like to speed read it right before your class or watch a five-minute video on the chapters while your teachers take attendance. But that’s… uh, ‘a bad work ethic.’” Tonia looks immensely proud of herself as she says this, finishing it off with, “Zhongli told me that.”

“Zhongli?” he repeats, trying to remember if that’s one of her classmates or some stranger that’s hoping to kidnap his sister.

“The guy that volunteers at the library sometimes. He recommended me a loot of good books to read, but he talks like an old man.”

“How old?” Childe can tell she’s enjoying this — talking about her new friend at the library that he’ll probably have to run a background check on.

“Like he’s in his sixties or something. But he looks… actually, he looks your age! And he’s a student too. I told him all about you.”

Well, that doesn’t sound very reassuring coming from the mouth of a twelve-year-old. He’s not sure if that translates to his social security number, his current dilemma, or just that he’s her older brother.

“Like all of the stories you told me when I was a kid. And then when Lumine came to pick me up, she stayed to show him pictures of you too.”

“Of course she did,” he mumbles, ruffling her hair. One of these days he’s going to move without telling his classmates and the twins won’t enter his apartment unannounced. (But Tonia adores their company and the stories they tell her far too much for him to actually do it. But that doesn’t mean he’s above making threats when they tell his little sister about the bet he made about white-out and how it could dye hair. The jury is still out on this one.) “She’s just mad because I get away with it and she doesn’t. But don’t do it yourself. It’s a bad habit,” he adds, remembering that he should at least try to be a good influence on his younger sister when he can.

“Okaaay,” she says unconvincingly, before shaking her hair and running off to her room with lunch he prepared for her.

Watching her close the door and no doubt continue her binge of The Walking Dead, he takes out his phone and texts Lumine.

 Childe

12:35

ur a horrible influence on tonia

 Childe

12:35

and whos this ZHONGLI

 Childe

12:35

also is twd appropriate for 12 y/os

 Twin 1

12:37

a normal person would say hi

 Twin 1

12:37

also 1. me n aether watched it when we were 12 so probably and 2. some guy at the library that also goes to our school

 Well. At least he’s somebody they know. But The Walking Dead?

 Childe

12:38

thats not very convincing

 Childe

12:38

also dont ppl DIE? get BITTEN???? what if she gets nightmares

 Twin 1

12:39

isnt she 12 r u telling me u weren’t watching R rated movies at 12

 Childe

12:42

thats very different from a 10 season long show that is hailed as “one of the greatest horror shows in history” and “paved the way for post-apocalyptic horror”

 Twin 1

12:42

well if she has trouble sleeping she could always watch asmr. that helps me during midterms idk

 Childe

12:42

whats asmr

 Childe

12:43

asking for my sister btw

 Twin 1

12:44

A feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound.

 Childe

12:45

wtf?

 Twin 1

12:45

people on the internet make random sounds or just talk into a mic n its supposed to be very relaxing. how have u never found out abt this?????

 Childe

12:45

idk the only thing on my youtube recommended r greatest stunts and chapter review videos

 Twin 1

12:47

… makes sense

 Twin 1

12:47

check out rex lapis’ channel he looks like ur type

 Childe

12:48

i thought we were talking about my sister????

 Twin 1

12:50

[message screenshots.jpg]

 Twin 1

12:50

ya she told me everything

 Twin 1

12:50

have fun i need to convince aether to not commit arson bc of his TA

 Childe

12:51

hope he does it

He opens his Youtube app, typing in Rex Lapis and expecting Lumine’s suggestion to be a joke. Despite them being friends for nearly two years now, she’s never made any indication of knowing his type. And he’s sure he’s never been that vocal about it either, only shooting appreciative looks at history majors and paying more attention than necessary to the TA for ‘Tradition of Justice and Law.’ (It’s unfortunate that those short-term crushes never led to anything, but maybe that’s for the better seeing that Childe has never understood the appeal of relationships.)

It is an ASMR channel, judging by the ASMR playlist he finds as he scrolls through the account. The icon shows no face — only a microphone — which leaves him skeptical. Most of the video titles belong in a petrology lecture as well, which makes him even more convinced that it’s a joke. He finds a few readings of ancient literature and decides to pick ‘I discuss the classification of igneous petrology as you fall asleep during my lecture (PART 1) (ASMR)’ because that’s exactly what he needs. (Not the very moment — but ten hours later when he’s in the bed memorizing the pattern of his ceiling wondering why he stole from his fifth grade teacher’s candy jar during lunch.)

When Childe opens the video, he damn near gasps.

The man in the video is exactly his type. His eyes are a soft amber color, framed with long lashes, and it’s almost enough for him to lose his dignity and message Lumine a long thank you text about how she is always right and he’ll pay for her coffee for the following week.  He smiles at the screen, albeit a little sheepishly, dark hair framing his face with a long ponytail that Childe can’t see the end of. On his right ear, there are a pair of earrings with a single feather that brush against his neck when he moves his head.

Even before he speaks, Childe is mesmerized, sure he’ll already memorize his features from the curve of his nose to the way he tilts his head, displaying the expanse of his neck.

Really — he reminds him of actors in historical dramas, the way he sits regally, and how he speaks. His voice is low and slow as he adopts a careful manner of speaking, leaning into the mic.

“I’m Rex Lapis, and I’ll be discussing igneous petrology today, which is part one in a three-part petrology series. I apologize in advance, seeing that my knowledge is limited compared to many petrologists out there but my friend Venti said that many of my viewers are here for my voice, so I’m very excited to start today’s video.”

Holy shit.

For the following week, Childe learns less about petrology, the philosophy of economics, and historical revisionism concerning matters of war and more about Rex Lapis, who is not in love with his voice but often finds himself in the middle of long tangents without explanations. His favorite book series is the Legend of the Lone Sword, which he says he’ll look forward to reading out loud for the channel. (Childe replays that part of the video again and again, captivated by his excitement as he mindlessly taps the mic while he speaks, his tangent cutting off mid-word — as it usually does, much to his dismay.)

His guilty obsession is not lost on Tonia, who realizes that instead of drinking Monster every night he’s been engrossed in his phone completely, often not noticing her or when the water starts bubbling. But because his sleeping schedule has been alleviated, she says nothing until Lumine comes over as she always does, not forgetting their weekly schedule of watching trashy movies while leeching off of Childe’s food.

Because he doesn’t trust the twins with the kitchen — even if they can cook — she instead spends her time sitting next to Tonia and spreading more of her anti-Childe propaganda while they wait. This usually involves Tonia occasionally calling out Childe’s name and asking, “Is that true?” or “Did you really do that?”

This time is different though.

Worried that Lumine finally decided to show Tonia a video of last semester’s presentation, he leans over, looking at the computer screen.

And he’s wrong. Unfortunately. Maybe it should’ve been his presentation because even if he botched it and accidentally projected his work process — screaming notes and all — to the class instead of his actual presentation, it would’ve been better than the two of them watching one of Rex Lapis’ videos together.

The ‘I read Erosion: Essays of Undoing to you as it rains outside’ video, to be specific, which is where Rex Lapis is embarrassed by Venti mid video when asked if this was his idea of a date with a lover. (And then it ends with Rex Lapis asking for video suggestions from the commentors, his face still flushed from the previous comments.)

Oh God — oh fuck.

“So he is your type,” Lumine says, her expression a bit too smug for his liking. Tonia looks half awake, scrolling through articles as the video plays, more interested in ‘Top 10 Glenn Rhee Moments’ than Childe’s crush. Her expression is a bit guilty as she does so — she’s biting her lip and avoiding his gaze, but he assumes that it’s just because they went through his YouTube history.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that statement,” he retorts, but the YouTube history she pulls up once Tonia hands the computer over to her says it all. (It’s quite mortifying, really — even Tonia is giving him a look, but it’s not as bad as Lumine’s shit eating grin.)

“Well… he does have a nice voice,” Childe finally says, thinking that perfectly encompasses his most recent obsession. Because he does have a nice voice — it’s soothing and speaks to him without really speaking to him directly. (The good looks are a bonus, he assures himself. A fantastic bonus, but a bonus nonetheless.)

“He does,” Tonia confirms, smiling toothily up at him, and he resists the urge to ruffle her hair with Lumine staring at him so skeptically. “But I don’t understand much of what he’s saying. He — heh — talks like an old man.”

“Don’t worry, Tonia, your brother likes him because he’s attractive,” Lumine informs her, now fast forwarding on one of Rex Lapis’ videos. “Did you know that he lives nearby?”

“Huh?”

The knife he’s holding clatters to the floor, and the two look down and back up at him with— hold on, why does it feel like they’re in on a secret he doesn’t know about?

“Yeah, he’s working on his grad thesis I think… Aether told me it was about something on history,” she muses. “That’s why I recommended his channel to you. He’s a bit of a celebrity in his department.” Childe’s sure his jaw dropped now, trying to maintain his facial expression as he takes out a new knife to chop up the onions.

“Really,” he tries to say as calmly as possible, wondering how he should accompany Aether to his lectures without trying to seem as obvious as possible. His voice is a bit shaky he realizes but he can’t quite make the connection between Rex Lapis and actual graduate student that goes to his university.

“Yeah, actually…” Lumine is definitely pretending to think now, enjoying this far too much. “He—”

“It’s Zhongli!” his little sister yells excitedly, practically jumping up and down at this point as if she won the lottery. “Zhongli runs an ASMR channel and he talks just like that in real life! Right, Lumine?”

“Yeah.”

Childe sighs, holding a hand up to his face. The realization that he’s been obsessed with the same guy that hears about every stupid thing he did secondhand is way too much — and the fact that he’s been listening to his voice every night before he went to bed the past week is way too much. He’s sure his face is redder than before judging by the amused expressions on Lumine’s and Tonia’s faces — really, they’re mirror images of each other right now.

Not for the first time, Childe swears to himself that he’ll never let her into his apartment without signing a contract ever again.

[tomtenadia]

Island Dreams - Chapter 12

Hello lovlies,

here we are with chapter 12. This should be, according to my plans, the last of the very angsty chapters. Now things should start to head towards fluff. I kinda plotted the ideas for all chapters and in a moment of inspiration I wrote a moment with plenty of fluff. They are getting there. Also, please don't hate Elias. He loves her. He really does. They are both just very impulsive.

At the very beginning Rowan says "mo chridhe" well, I am not going to give you a translation this time. Aelin will discover its meaning in the next chapter. You just have to sit tight a bit longer.

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

Days rolled over quickly and Aelin’s d-day had eventually arrived. It was the day she was meant to meet with Elias. She had been nervous and in a bad mood since she had received the message and didn’t get any closer to figuring out a way to let the man down gently.

So that morning she had woken up as usual, scoffed the remnants of the chocolate cake she had bought from Maeve’s and tried to instil in herself the idea that everything will be okay. Rowan had given her again the morning off and she was quite happy since she had to go and get herself a laptop. She was quite serious in her goal of finding a job as a doctor on the islands and she definitely needed her own computer.

Elias had kindly recommended her a place in town and she decided she could go on foot. The day was going to be nice again and she craved the fresh air. With the address in her hands she was surprised that she found it without the need of the GPS on her phone and happiness took her at the realisation that she was getting very familiar with the town. A few more years, she told her herself, and I will be a local. Elias had been amazing as his usual and had given her some info on what to look for in a laptop and she was grateful for his help and felt horrible at the idea of how much pain she was going to cause him. Half an hour later she had a box under her arm and she was on her way to the bookshop. She missed Rowan. “Madainn mhath!” She greeted him with a huge smile, her mood suddenly improving at the sight of him. That day he was wearing a green hoodie that almost matched his eyes and her heart skipped a beat. “Madainn mhath, mo chridhe.” Aelin walked to him and dumped her box on the floor “What was the last part?” Rowan’s face turned red at the realisation that he had spoken too much “It means my menace.” He lied and she knew it. She was still learning Gaelic, but she had a feeling he had used a term of endearment. It was the loving tone and the hint of a smile that betrayed him. She just had to try and figure out the meaning on her own. Problem was she had no idea how to write down the word. In her basic lessons of Gaelic from Rowan she had soon realised that often Gaelic would pronounce far less letters than the ones written down and some sounds were not written the way she thought. “Sure, keep your secrets.” Gently she poked him on the shoulder. A totally pointless gesture. Given his muscles he probably didn’t even feel her. “What do you have there?” He pointed at the box. “I bought a laptop. You know… for work stuff…” grabbing her belongings she went for his office where she got ready for another day. Nervousness knotted her stomach. After the day had spent gallivanting around a part of Scotland she felt as if the energy between them had shifted again and she had no idea how to address it. “I phoned back the school and I told them that I will give it a try.” He said calmly while typing away on the keyboard. Aelin stared at him amazed “Ro, it’s wonderful.” And she meant it. He nodded timidly. “You don’t seem convinced.” She moved a step closer and her hand landed on his arm and the tightness in her chest loosened a bit when he did not shy away from that contact. He shook his head “I am okay. I really like the idea. It’s just the whole going back to a swimming pool without competing it feels alien.” “I am freaking out about the idea of going back to work in an hospital.” she confessed knowing exactly where he was coming from. The idea of being a doctor again was wonderful but a part of her was terrified at the idea that what happened in London might have broken her completely. He looked at her in understanding. “When it happens, you will be incredible.” He finally looked at her and she noticed the sincerity of his words in his eyes. “Sure, Buzzard, but for now I want to redo the whole fantasy section. It’s bugging me and we need a new display.” And she crossed her arms at her chest “You finish that paperwork. I am on a mission.” She added cracking her hands and marching to her favourite corner of the bookshop. Rowan laughed and kissed her head “Go, have fun.” In response she gave him a grin. Ten minutes later all the books were on the floor, the shelves in the Fantasy section were empty and Aelin was sitting down on the floor reading a book. “You are supposed to organise them and put them back, not read them.” Rowan admonished her from the counter. “Shhh… I am in the zone.” “No you are in the way.” And with his head he pointed at a couple of customers. “I am sorry,” she apologised jumping back on her feet “I am redoing this section. If you need any help, let me know, please.” “We were looking for the fiction section.” Aelin walked them to the correct area “If you need any recommendations, Rowan is your man.” The couple thanked them and she went back to her job. She picked up the book she was reading and gave it to Rowan, “set it aside. I am buying it later.” “You are just as bad as me.” “That’s why you love me.” Shit. “I meany you love working with me.” She corrected herself but the damage was done. So far, their plan of taking it slow did not include using the l-word. Yet. “Who told you I love working with you? Look at the mess you make of my poor books.” He pretended to be stern but she noticed the light in his eyes and the very slight uptick on the right side of his lips. He was trying not to laugh. “I should really start calling you menace instead of Fireheart.” Aelin stuck her tongue out and went back to work. It took her a few hours but the shelves were now more to her liking and she took a step back to admire her work. Rowan joined her to have a look at her project. “Right here in the centre at eye level I placed the book of the month. The two red bars at its side bring it out to attention and the plastic holder underneath has a message that says something about the book and entices the potential reader.” She explained to him “we should have more around the shop. More book recommendations.” Then she took a photo with her mobile “And this will be our official social media post. “I love it.” “And I am amazing.” He laughed “you are amazing.” His arms went around her waist. The two customer had paid and left and they were alone so he could let himself go with a bit of PDA. She stared up at him and his heart began racing and in that exact moment she decided to lean against his chest and hoped she could not hear his heart pumping hard “I love your hoodie.” “Well, you can’t have this one. Buy your own one.” She caressed his pecs and felt his muscles underneath “But if I buy my own one than it won’t smell like you.” Rowan’s hand went onto hers “You buy one, then I will wear it so it smells like me. How does it sound?” “Pinky promise?”she lifted her hand with her pinky extended. “What are you? Five?” She looked at him with puppy eyes and he rolled his in acceptance. “Fine.” He yielded. “Pinky promise.” He was doomed. He was so madly in love with her that he would even swear a pinky promise just to see her give him the smile that would melt his heart. “Ro?” He looked down to her while never breaking their embrace. “You know I have dinner with Elias tonight.” Rowan’s body went rigid. She had mentioned that. She had explained to him why she had to do it and although he had supported her, he had openly admitted to her that he was jealous. He wanted her to dump the guy and screw his feeling, but that was not what Aelin wanted. And doing that would make her miserable and that’s the last thing he wanted. “I remember.” That’s all he could muster. “And you are mad at me.” “I am not. I told you.” She pulled away from him and he missed the contact with her body. “I need to do this, okay? You know I have to do this if we want to… well… whatever is the next step in our relationship.” She sounded almost hurt and it broke his heart. “Aelin, I know. And I am not mad.” He pulled her to him again “I am just being selfish and a lot jealous.” “I don’t love him, Ro.” I love you, you idiot. “But I owe him. He has always been nice to me and he deserves the truth.” “I know.” He kissed her temple “I know.” They pulled apart as soon as they heard a customer enter the shop. The rest of the afternoon continued with them adding suggestions around the shop and Rowan beginning to post confidently on the shop’s Facebook page about all the books of the months they had chosen. Aelin had told him they already had five followers, but he had no idea what she was talking about, he just trusted her. “Go home.” He had told her later on that evening “You need to get ready.” “I can stay.” But he shook his head. “We are closing in an hour anyway. I will be okay.” She kissed his cheek “I will see you tomorrow.” He bushed her hand in response “I trust you.” She nodded, collected all of her stuff and left.

Aelin got home from the shop a bit early so she could have the time to take a shower and get properly dressed. She pulled off Rowan’s hoodie and stopped thinking about his expression when she reminded him that she was going out with Elias. He was aware that she wanted to let the man down gently and Rowan in the end understood. I trust you he had told her before letting her go. Aelin had been grateful for that week that Elias had been away because she had the chance to analyse her feeling, her growing feelings for Rowan. They had the best time together and she longed for the moment she would stop feeling like she was cheating on Elias every time she touched Rowan. She needed closure, but she also had to do it in a way not to break the man’s heart. At 7pm Elias rang the bell to her house and when she opened the door he was standing in front of her. He had a pair of jeans on, a shirt and a blue jumper on top of it, looking neat and very charming. But the pang of attraction she had felt at the beginning was not there anymore. She, had opted for a smart casual attire as well, not wanting to dress up too much and give the wrong idea. “Hi you.” His expression lit up with one of his bright and dazzling smile while his arm went around her waist pulling her close for a quick kiss that she allowed. “I hope you like seafood.” Aelin nodded scared about what emotions her voice would betray. “Then let’s go.” Once outside she noticed his car was not around. “We are walking,” he said when he noticed her looking for the vehicle. His hand was extended in front of him and she took it very reluctantly. “How…” she stumbled on her words “How was Glasgow.” “I love the city, but work was so boring but I had to do it. I spent the week in never-ending meetings. And missed you of course.” He squeezed the hand. “How was yours?” Shit. “Fine, I have been working at the bookshop and on Saturday and Sunday I was out exploring.” “Have you been somewhere nice?” Lie. Lie, her brain kept telling her. “On Sunday I went across the water to Ullapool and drove around a bit. I was reading my guide on Saturday evening and when it seemed doable I just went for it.” And she hoped he believed her. “I wish I could have come with you, I know the area very well.” So does Rowan. Ten minutes later they reached the restaurant: the Harbour kitchen, apparently a great place for seafood freshly caught. Or at least that was what the locals said. Elias had reserved a table and when it was time to sit down he was a proper gentleman and pulled the chair out for her “M’lady…” He sat down as well and the waiter brought the menu while Elias ordered a bottle of wine. “You drink, don’t you?” Aelin nodded. She looked at the menu and the food sounded amazing. ‘This is one of my favourite places, the food here is great.” She could see the joy in him. She kept her gaze on the menu, using the excuse she could not make up her mind. They were silent for a moment and she welcome the respite. How was she supposed to break up with him? Did she just tell him whatever there was between it was over? That she loved Rowan? She almost growled. She hadn’t been able to speak to Lysandra and now she had no idea on how to do it properly. “Aelin?” She looked up and noticed that the waiter was there at her side. Apologising, she placed her order and Elias extended his arm and placed his hand on hers on the table and she almost flinched. “How is the bookshop?” He asked and she noticed that it costed him to show interest in something he had clearly admitted to be against. “Busy. I have set up Rowan with a Facebook page and Instagram fro the shop and we are working on online ordering. Plus, tourist season has started, so nice and busy.” Her tone was flat and he noticed it. “You seem pretty invested in that shop.”and there it was, his hate for the choice she had made of working there instead of going back to her old job. A waste he had called it. “Just helping a friend.” And she looked outside the window ignoring his gaze. Ignoring the pain his words were causing. “Sounds like is not a good business manager if he needs a doctor to help him.” Aelin grabbed her glass and took a sip of the wine to try and hide her gritted teeth. What happened to the nice guy she met on the beach? Jealousy, her brain told her. “He just doesn’t use Facebook. Some people don’t feel the need to be on social media and there is nothing wrong with it.” She might have uttered those words with a bit more venom than intended. At her sharp tone his hand clench a little in annoyance and he was about to add another snarky remark when their food arrived and she thanked that now she had an excuse to stay in silence at least for a while. This was not going well, but he was clearly insulting Rowan and his job and she could not allow that. “Are you enjoying the food?” He added after five minutes of neither of them uttering a word. His tone had lost the loving edge it had when they first arrived. “Yeah, it’s nice.” Her response was almost devoid of all emotions. ‘What?” He asked when he noticed her reaction “Are you mad at me because I insulted you book buddy?” Aelin grabbed the glass and almost threw it in his face and stormed out of the restaurant but she could not cause a scene. So she breathed in and counted till 10 “Just tired.” “I have been looking forward to see you for days. I was not expecting this.” He whispered through gritted teeth. “I am sorry I forgot my red carpet and the roses, your highness, I am ready for my ten lashes.” And the fire-bitch queen, as Chaol used to call her, was back in full swing. Good job, Aelin. She hated the words as soon as they left her mouth. But the damage was done and once again she was going to pay for her inability to filter her thoughts before talking. She had not meant to fight with him, but apparently fate had other plans in mind for her. She was so tired of fighting. “You are not yourself tonight. Is it because of him?” Elias was jealous, that was blatantly clear. She might have been impulsive, but he had been downright arrogant. “I told you I am tired.” And she slammed her fork on the plate a bit too hard. “Well, take a day off. I am sure book boy can work on his own for a day.” Aelin stood and grabbed her bag.”You know what?” She whispered trying not to cause a scene. “If you can’t talk about Rowan without insulting him, we are done here.” She was about to leave when he grabbed her wrist but she pulled free and left the restaurant.

Elias went to pay quickly and ran after her “Aelin.” He shouted a few times but she ignored him. Eventually he caught up and gently grabbed her writs “Aelin…” his tone suddenly much more gentle than what had been in the restaurant. He had behaved horribly. All he wanted was a nice night with her. However, he could not forget that he had spent a whole week agonising over the fact that she was alone in the shop with Rowan and it drove him mad because, yes, he was so damn jealous. “I am so sorry.” When she turned Elias noticed she was in tears and his heart sank “Elias this is not working.” She blurted out while sobbing “Whatever this is… I can’t” “I love working at the bookshop and until I feel ready to be a doctor again that is what I will do. And I am tired of listening to you insulting the shop and Rowan.” He was not ready for the look full of hurt in her eyes. He wanted to see her smile and nothing more. “This is not working, Elias. We are not working and I am sick and tired of being in pain.” He stared at her and for a while he was immobile as if stunned by her words. “You love him, don’t you?” Elias’ voice was almost a whisper but she heard him nonetheless. In frustration his hands ran through his hair and he groaned “I have been such a stupid fool not to notice.” In the meantime, Aelin had taken a seat on one of the benches at the marina while Elias was not towering in front of her and she kept avoiding his gaze like the coward she felt. “That’s why you almost ignored me while I was away. And why your texts were cold all of a sudden.” Aelin didn’t answer and kept staring at the small fishing boats moored at the pier, while tears kept flowing down her cheeks “I had to sort out my feelings.” “Clearly not your feelings for me.” She clenched her fingers “Life happens,” her tone almost a growl. “No, annoying bookseller happened. You were fine until you started working there.” His anger back in his words. She finally found the strength to stand and face him “This is between me and you. Damn it, Elias we were not together, we were still trying to figure out things. It’s my feelings okay? I am the one who fell in love with him, so leave Rowan out of this.” She shouted, now clenching both hands in fists “I am the one who is so messed up and could not make up her bloody mind. Blame me for this.” Suddenly her back was at him again “This is not how it was meant to go down.” She leaned against the wall of the pier. She turned and he was in front of her. In a swift movement he kissed her “tell me you don’t feel anything. Have the guts to tell me that the time we spent together meant nothing. Be truthful, damn it. I deserve it.” Her hand went in front of her mouth to stifle the sob rippling through her “I loved the time I spent with you.” She finally looked at him and the pain she saw in his eyes almost broke her “But my feelings for Rowan developed before the ones I had for you had time to form.” It was a pathetic excuse but it was all she could give him just now. She started shaking and he offered her his jacket. “You are cold,” his voice soft again. “Don’t be nice to me. I don’t deserve it.” She refused the jacket. “Aelin… I am sorry for what I said.” He moved a step closer, he could not see her in that much pain. She did not answer for a moment “I didn’t want to hurt you.” She sobbed tears flowing again “I am so bad at this, but I didn’t want to hurt you.” “I know.” He pushed behind her ear a rebellious lock of hair “Let me walk you home, you are freezing.” Aelin nodded and they walked back to her place in silence. Once in front of her house they stopped. Aelin took out of her purse “Let me pay for half of the dinner.” His hand stopped her “Don’t even think about it.” “But… I have been horrible to you.” “I don’t care, I am not letting you pay.” And caressed her cheek “Can we talk tomorrow? In a more civilised way? I accept your feelings. I really do, but if we have to part I want to do it in a better fashion. Tonight’s fight was nasty and I’d hate to remember our time together having such a brutal ending.” Aelin managed a faint smile “Yeah. Yeah, it sounds good.” And Aelin’s heart felt all of a sudden lighter. “Good.” He kissed her cheek “I’ll text you tomorrow with an ETA of when I am meant to finish work. Is it okay with you?” “Yes, Elias.” He winked at her and left. Aelin stood outside the house and stared at the sea for a while, but when the wind picked up again she ran back in the house. She changed in her jammies and plopped on the sofa with a cup of chamomile tea. She felt horrible after the horrible dinner they had. But she was looking forward discussing things with him in a more civilised way. She hated the fight and all she had said. She did care about him, just not in the way he hoped. She sighed and grabbed the book on the coffee table. Her mobile lay beside it and when she retrieved it she found a text from Rowan How was the evening? Are you okay? Disaster was all she texted back. A couple of minutes later his reply came Would you like to talk about it? And laughed. Rowan was still coming to grasp the whole texting thing and she loved the fact that he always used proper grammar, punctuation and never contracted any words. Not yet she replied. Please, take the morning off tomorrow. I will handle the hordes of tourists on my own. I will see you in the afternoon. She laughed. K. <3 XOXO was her reply and she waited to see his. Is that a sort of secret code? Good night, grandpa. A smile appeared on her face. She adored their banter and mocking him for his limited knowledge of certain aspect of technology was fun, although she found it quite attractive and fascinating.

In the end she decided to go to bed instead. And before switching off the light she flipped through the pictures she had taken of their adventure and chose one of the two of them together as a home screen. “Night, Buzzard.”

[tundrainafrica]

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (3/17)

Summary:  “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Note: This has been sitting on my computer untouched for a while, along with the timeline I prepared for a multichapter fic. Will probs go back to it soon. Feedback is very much appreciated.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Link to cross-postings: AO3

The forms were so painfully boring, Levi almost regretted agreeing to meet Moblit. One of the few things, if not the only thing, stopping him from backing out of the study then and there, was the hope it could give him an excuse to see her again. He planned to ease himself into the process of meeting her, not wanting to make a complete fool or a complete stalker of himself.

There was the option to ask for her number. The option to ask for her schedule. Or he could maybe just scan through enough pages on google to find some hint as to what the hell she does, where she goes and where he could possibly “accidentally” meet her. The last option had proved ineffective, Levi spent a good few hours a day doing just that. Just in case maybe, the links he found through google do change.

The sheer embarrassment and conflicted feelings that came with having delusion drive his actions, had Levi worse off than before. Although the nightmares that left him in pain in the mornings had become few and far between, he could not help but think that possibly the reason why was because he barely got any sleep anymore, kept awake by his brain trying to process that relationship he had with Hange and the story that was made known to him.

His five hours a night had dwindled into three when classes started. His brain having no time to process the dreams during classes and training, Levi found himself taking up more time lying awake in bed, building the world his dreams were telling him about and how Hange fit into all of it.    

The lack of sleep caught up to him particularly when he was sifting through the pages of waivers and information sheets in the coffee shop near campus at nine in the morning. The words started to blur into blobs and Levi became aware of how much he hated Calibri as a font, a small issue in the grand scheme of things. Lacking sleep and utterly frustrated at his lack of progress though, Levi was finding many reasons not to read them.

He eventually gave up, instead checking box after box after box. “When do you need this?” Levi asked Moblit who sat in front of him.

“As soon as possible… But I really recommend you read ---”

“Well, how much time are you gonna give me to read?”

“I don’t have any classes today so I’m pretty much free the whole day.”

“Same.” He felt the venom in his tone particularly resonate and a part of him regretted it as he said it. That day was particularly special. He had no class. With their coach out on a meeting with other schools to discuss the tournaments and line ups this year, he had given the players a day off. Levi pretty much had that whole day to himself yet, he still went to the trouble of dressing up just to meet Moblit only to find out he’d be going through pages worth of documents while half awake. “I’ll just get a cup of coffee.”

Levi was already halfway out of seat when Moblit took out his wallet.  

“Let me pay for it.” Moblit handed Levi a few bills. He had an apologetic look on his face as if he did understand the inconvenience the study would cause anyone. The look Moblit gave him suddenly made Levi self conscious about the tone he had been answering Moblit with since a while ago.

Levi took the money with a small nod of thanks. It was free coffee after all and he did not have much leeway given his monthly allowance.

When Levi got back to their table black coffee in one hand, he could see that Moblit had reorganized the papers, the uncompleted page sitting neatly on top. He had also opened the sandwich he had bought half an hour ago and was eating it already

“Before I forget, did you bring Hange’s keychain?” Moblit asked in between bites.

“Ah, I forgot about that.” Levi kept his tone emotionless for fear of having his guilt take over him. In fact, he never did forget about the keychain. It sat on the side table next to his bed, a glimmer of hope that that morning in the track wouldn't be the last time he saw her.

“Maybe I could come back to your dorm with you and get it after this?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m not going straight to the dorm. I have plans after this.” A blatant lie. Levi rarely forgot plans.

“Really?”

Levi made a show of going through his phone as he sat down. “Sorry, I didn’t check my calendar this morning. It looks like I have to work on my own stuff for my thesis with my groupmates.” Seniors did not have as many classes as lowerclassmen so the excuse for classes probably would not have worked. As Levi also was aware, the weight of the responsibility lost by only having two classes a week was replaced with the weight of the expectation of creating their own research to add to the body of knowledge in their major.

“How long is your meeting? Maybe I could stop by...” Moblit looked unsure about his own suggestion as if he too understood too the importance of thesis for any senior.

“I dunno. It’s our first meeting and it’s pretty important since we still don’t have much planned.” At that moment, Levi thanked the heavens for his course. He was taking an interdisciplinary track so people had the option to do their thesis by group or individually. His choice of his classes had made it so that he had to do his thesis individually. Moblit did not need to know that much though.

The magic word “thesis” eventually did work in the conversation between the two seniors and finally, Moblit had dropped his shoulders in defeat. “Sorry if I’m being a little pushy. I guess that keychain is just pretty important to me too. I was the one who gave it to her.”  

Levi studied the face of Moblit as they talked. Molit did not have the most memorable face so Levi had not figured it out at first glance. As he allowed himself a few seconds to focus on his features and match it to those in his dream, he realized that Moblit was the same soldier who was constantly following Hange in his dreams. “You two must be close,” Levi said. Hange and I were close too.

"We're childhood friends.”

Levi found himself envying Moblit’s place in Hange’s life. Not wanting to engage that thought though, he instead decided to digress into something more positive for him. “So you'd know why she seemed pretty enthusiastic about her thesis.”

“She’s just passionate and gets a little too excited at times.” Moblit gave an embarrassed smile from what could have been second hand embarrassment. “I really hope you didn’t end up hating her. She really wanted to get to know you.”

“Oh really?” Then why doesn’t she. Levi added to himself.

“She’s been studying athletes since we were in high school. One of our friends was actually the subject of our final thesis for high school and Hange won best research with her. She wanted to move on to studying more high level athletes and she was talking non stop about the possibility of working with an athlete here. Then when we were scouting around for athletes to possibly study, she started showing me a lot of videos of you. She could talk non stop about your form, the height you achieved, your body control. I guess that was until you guys ended up meeting...” Moblit looked like he was aware of the weight of that statement and had tried to lighten the mood with a light laugh.

Levi rearranged that last sentence in his head. Until she met me.

Moblit had trailed off from there and Levi wondered how what kind of face he was making for Moblit to realize he had felt guilty about it.

Moblit gave Levi a consoling look. “She seems to be progressing well with Elijah though.”

For a second, Levi could not fathom how Moblit got the idea that that sentence could console him. In fact, just knowing that Hange had gotten over him so fast, had his chest knotting up.

On the outside though, he made sure to raise his eyebrows and nod, to look at least a little surprised and interested. “How’s her research so far?”

Moblit shook his head in amazement. “She's working at a much faster pace than I am. After what happened with you, it’s pretty admirable she bounced back so fast.”

“I don’t hate her. I could work with her if she really wants to.”

“God, this makes me think I should have started earlier." Moblit rested his forehead on his palm. "Your suggestion might be hard... Last time I checked, she was neck deep in her research with Elijah already.”

Even as a senior, there were places on campus Levi had never visited. All of his classes were clustered in one small area of the campus.  The track he would rush to train in would be just a five minute walk away, his dorm a fifteen minute walk or a five minute bike.

He never had any reason to visit the other side which housed the science students and the laboratories. Possibly, one of the reasons why he had never met Hange until that day in the track.

It was a ten minute walk from his dormitory, in a completely different direction from his buildings and the track. He decided to abandon his bike for the more flexible option of walking. He did not know if they had have any place to park a bike nor how long he would be there. More importantly, he wanted the freedom of slowing his pace without considering the traffic as he took in the unfamiliar scenery.

Third floor. Fritz Hall.

In fact, he did not need the directions to the biology department. He could have easily asked anyone among the students there. The more important information was the room number and the laboratory name.

He clutched the keychain in his pocket and  took the stairs two at a time arriving into a narrow corridor that stretched into both directions.

Thesis labs. Or that was how Mobilit described them. Each biology professor managed a laboratory for students. There were those who focused on internal medicine, those who focused on epidemiology. In each of those rooms was an office and a lab for senior students doing research under the guidance of a professor of a similar specialty.

If he wanted to find Hange, the office was their best chance. Room 301. It would be at one of the ends of the corridors. He only had to figure out the order of the numbers and from there, walk towards the end of the hall. He gripped the handle of the door and pushed it down, only pushing slightly at the door to open a crack wide enough to peek in.

“May I help you?”

“You’re Erwin Smith…” Just like with Hange, Levi had quickly picked up the name as he saw him.

“Yes I am. Nice to meet you.” Erwin did not look surprised to see that someone had named him by face. That was enough of a hint for Levi to realize that that man was probably their professor on top of how he dressed and how he carried himself.

“I’m looking for Hange Zoe.” Levi decided at that moment not to lie. He was sure he could find a reason to justify wanting to give it directly to Hange. He did not want to consider it at that moment. He just wanted to see her.

“She has class now but you can wait for her inside the lab." He gave Levi a onceover. You must be Elijah then.”

Levi gave a subtle nod, hoping Erwin would at least not take that as a full yes later on. At that point in time, he just wanted to minimize the questions he might need to answer. HIs heart was beating hard and his mind was racing. He had gone behind Moblit’s back, taking note of the schedule shared to him and picking a time where Moblit would not be in the office. Pretense and lies were nothing new to Levi but the presence of Erwin in the room particularly made Levi feel dirty for going through all that just to meet one person. With Erwin in front of him, for the first time he felt guilty lying.

"It's obvious from your build that you've been jumping and running your whole life. I hope you could give Hange some good data. All she’s been talking about was this study since I agreed to take her in."

“What’s her research about?” Was she enjoying working with Elijah so far? Was she happy? There were too many things Levi had wanted to ask but he found himself treading along the narrow path of things only Elijah would have known.

Erwin looked at him questioningly. “She wants to do a case study. I expected she’d at least tell you that much.” He shook his head and smiled. “She always had trouble explaining science jargon to the average person.”

Levi wanted to kick himself. Erwin at least answered his own question on any suspicion he might have about Levi (or Elijah.)

“Elijah, do me a favor and ask her yourself. I’d rather Hange also learned how to communicate science to the average person.” Erwin tapped Levi on the shoulder. “Make yourself at home. NIfa’s in the laboratory right now so she can keep you company. You can also use the computer while waiting.”

Levi only noticed the book bag Erwin was holding to his side as he looked back at him. He could not help but feel a bout of disappointment as he saw the professor walk away. It felt like there was still a lot to learn from him.

Levi entered the laboratory to find a woman with auburn hair hunched over a microscope. “Where’s Erwin going?” He asked.

“Erwin?” Nifa looked up from her  “Doctor Smith you mean?”

Nifa. That’s her name. Oddly, Levi did not need to ask for her name either.

Nifa only confirmed it a second later after chastising him for calling Erwin his first name. ‘Doctor Smith did not roll out of Levi’s tongue as well as Erwin. The most Levi could hope for was he never faced a situation where he had to call him by name again. A long shot if he ended up working with Hange or Moblit. At the same time, a worry he did not want to occupy himself with again.

“Hange’s class ends at two so you’re gonna have to wait an extra thirty minutes. You can use the computer over there to pass the time.”

Levi looked down at his phone to see only one bar on the upper right.

“Yeah, problems about being stationed at the corner of the building. No signal. And the wifi is only strong enough for a laptop.” Nifa gestured at her own laptop next to the microscope.

Levi walked towards the computer. It was an older model but it looked well loved. He only had to click on his mouse for the screen to boot up to the home screen with some desktop background which looked like some campaign for underprivileged kids and untapped potentials.

He clicked on the google chrome icon. The option to restore pages from a previous session popped up. He had considered completely ignoring it but he considered it might be someone’s precious browsing history and instead decided to leave it on and to just open an incognito instead for his own personal browsing

He was ready to open one up when he saw the tabs that had opened up in front of him.

Ackerman bags gold, Miller silver in the Collegiate Cup.

Levi looked to the profile on the right to see that it was Hange’s Google profile logged into the account. She was researching him?

That small glimmer of what could have been happiness dissipated as soon as Levi figured out the pattern of the articles.

It wasn’t about him.

High Jump Superstar Miller breaks record in high school meet.

Miller commits to Paradis University.

College sophomore Miller bags gold in Horizontal Jump Event.

It was torture looking through the multiple tabs that reopened. As painful as it was, he still  wanted to confirm if Hange really was ‘neck deep’ in her research. The bookmarked pages, he also decided to take a peek at had confirmed his fear. There were fifty if not a hundred tabs with article titles mentioning that one athlete.

Levi found himself closing the tabs as he went through them, a small rebellion to the reality in front of him. Hange probably bookmarked them if she needed them anyway. He stopped as he came across a Youtube video towards the end of the string of tabs.

WATCH: College Junior Ackerman beats both personal and national record for the High Jump Category.

Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup with record breaking height.

Levi recognized those tournaments. Those were his best jumps, one of them the most recent one he had performed, only earlier that year.

Watching the videos with the commentary felt surreal. In the interviews, he was the one answering the questions but somehow, Levi felt like he was still learning something new from the version of himself of the screen. He never did pay too much attention during interviews, only asking the questions when asked in the manner Coach Greg had directed him too.

Not wanting to confuse himself any longer with what seemed like another out of body experience, he focused again on Hange’s Gmail account which was logged into Youtube. Just to make sure his conclusion had been real. She was still watching his videos.

She had committed to working with Elijah. Why?  

“Miller was slated to be the new superstar in Paradis University with a vertical jump of 8 centimeters  and a promising record height differential of 40 centimeters.”

Levi jumped as he heard someone talk behind him. How long has she been there? It was her voice. Yet at the same time, it was too uncharacteristically serious he did not want to believe it was her. As Levi slowly looked behind me, she only continued to talk.

“But then four years ago, Coach Gregory Rivers scouts a new kid from a small town five hours away from the city. The kid had potential. Enough potential to maybe play backup to Elijah Miller. Levi Ackerman with a vertical leap of 76 centimeters and a record height differential of 37 centimeters.”

“Elijah Miller had a higher overall record. Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete too." Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete . Those were the two athletes who had cooperated with Hange's study back in high school. Levi had made sure to read her old research, in case he would have to use them to convince her to reconsider him.

“Your numbers in high school weren’t groundbreaking. Unless we consider that you’re 157 centimeters tall." The wonder was back in her voice, completely replacing what he realized was the scientist in her talking. "You did not have the height but you had remarkable control, the core strength, the leg power and the flexibility to fly over the bar even when you’re so close to it. That was what Gregory Rivers saw in you when he scouted you for Paradis University. What he didn't expect was for you to outshine Miller or even the seniors."

Hange came up behind him and grabbed the mouse. As Levi watched her go through the bookmarks, he realized if he had scrolled further, he would have seen more bookmarks.

Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup.

Super rookie carries Paradis to nationals.

She clicked one of the bookmarks and played the the video that came up. Levi could only watch silently as the Levi on the screen ran towards the bar, and propelled himself through the air. His vertical was definitely much higher than 37 centimeters at that point. In college though, no one in his team was counting anymore. The importance was he got through every jump without ever touching the bar.

"I wanna know Levi. From a nobody from a no name school, how did your height differential increase twofold. More importantly, how is it that you've not failed a single jump since you entered university? It's amazing. The amount of balance, core strength and body control to keep your body flexible enough not to hit the bar. The amount of leg strength needed to jump that high. You really must be superhuman.”

“I’m not.” Regretfully, Levi’s denial was enough for Hange to snap out of her state of what seemed like euphoria.

Hange put her hand to her mouth. "Sorry, I talked too much." With that, she resisted the closeness and was once again a meter away just standing awkwardly behind him. "I guess I should go back to work. Did Moblit tell you what time he'll be coming?"

"Moblit's not coming today."

"Oh... Can I help you with something?" Once again, Hange was watching her words and her movements with him. That was not the Hange from his dreams. The Hange that had introduced herself the first time they had met on the track. It pained Levi to see her like that and he wanted to make it right.

Levi had prepared himself for possible interactions when he read through Hange's old works. At that moment, Levi took control of his feelings. " I came here because I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to consider." He kept his words as careful as Hange's were with him. "I read your case study on Nanaba Briete and Mike Zacharius. And I thought I could probably provide you with similar data, maybe better data. Let me jump for you."

"Levi…"

"No. I wanna jump for you." Levi did not know what Hange had planned to say. At that point, he did not want to give her any doubts to build on.

This time I'm not going to lose you. A voice inside him said. It disappeared soon after and Levi wondered when he had he lost her.

[theblekromantik]

a quarantine walk

a/n: i’m back! i haven’t posted any writing in a while, but i kind of like this one!

warnings/notes: steve x reader. fluff. some suggestive sexual themes, but not really. steve not knowing how to use technology (what a shock!). all my characters are black.

summary: you and steve take your daily quarantine walk.

word count: 1481

“Ooh!” You exclaim, “Babe, take a picture of me!”

You lay your eyes upon the vibrant grass, and the flora that had reemerged after winter had released its life from its chilly claws. There is an assortment of daffodils, tulips, and other types of flowers you could not quite identify, all still either waking up to sun or blooming. The chirping cicadas did much to compliment the atmosphere as the ringing of their bodies closely resemble a wind-chime sounding somewhere in the vicinity.

You crouch down next to the multicoloured blossoms, while your boyfriend Steve fumbles for his phone in his pocket.

“You are so adorable,” Steve beams.

“I know.”

The two of you were on your daily quarantine walk. As enjoyable as it was the first couple of months, you and Steve could no longer stand being inside. The stale, recycled air of your shared apartment had grown to make you uncomfortable. And the familiarity of the space had you bordering on insane. You loved it, for you both took the time to curate it, but you had reached the point where if you stared long enough, furniture began to move. So, you opted for a change in scenery. You would much rather choose to remain sane than forever paranoid.

Steve, now squinting behind his phone both trying to evade the intensity of the sun and focus the back camera, looked hopeless. Though he came out of the ice years ago, modern technology like cellphones and even computers were things he still had to get accustomed to. Prior to this, his entire like consisted of clunky, dial radios and boxy televisions that were nearly thicker than his arms!

“Baby, you good?”

“Yeah,” However, he did not sound so sure, “I’m just…it’s…”

“Steve, just tap the screen, and it’ll focus.” You groan, tension building in your knees, “My legs are getting tired!”

“Here we go, here we go…There! Now…” There was a series of shutters and snaps. “Pose for me, darlin’.”

You pose, and there are a couple of serious, genuine poses. But then, you become silly and start to make funny faces at the camera and move your body so that you nearly trip over yourself. And all the while, Steve is smiling to himself behind the camera. God, how lucky he is for you. He couldn’t imagine being cooped inside with anyone else. Not even Bucky, which really says something.

After a while, you stand and basically pounced on Steve for the photos.

“Lemme see, lemme see!” You insist, grabbing the phone from him and swiping through the tens of photos. “Wait, these are actually nice!”

“Were you expecting anything less?” He gestures for you to place a kiss on his cheek, which you happily oblige.

“You know, for a hundred-and-two-year old, you actually snapped on these.”

“Snapped?”

You chuckle, finding his confusion at modern slang endearing. “You—you did good, Steve.”

You see his cheeks become a couple shades of pink as he smiles toward the grown then at you.

“So, ice cream?”

“Oh my God, Steve. You read my mind!”

He grabs your palm into his clammy one, and you relish in the fact that you’ve made him a bit bashful. Even though you’ve been dating for years and, literally, know each other inside and out, there are times where he reacts to you like he’s just met you. Like he’s reliving his precious first moments with you. The two of you head down through the park, the breeze contrasting both the feeling of the warm cobblestone emitting through your shoes and the heat of Steve’s hand.

-

Steve hands some money to the cashier, while you take both of the ice cream cones from the woman behind the counter. Two scoops of mint chocolate chip for you, and the two scoops of vanilla for him (though he was anything but that).

You begin licking your delicious dessert, and Steve thanks the cashier. And as you exit the shop, the tiny bells above the door ring. A little jingle that resonates within your heart.

The sun, now setting and partially illuminating the sidewalk through the trees, melts the ice cream and leaves it to melt onto your fingers and drip onto the ground. It was a messy sight, but a mess shared and created by the both of you.

“Steve.”

“Hm?” You chuckle at the sight of him, the melted off-white cream vacationing on his chin. “What is it?”

“You have a little…” You look into his bright, blue eager eyes, then wipe the residue from his face and lick it. Amusement grows on Steve’s face as he grabs the nape of your neck with his clear hand, bringing your head towards him.

He whispers, “I love you,” before fluttering his eyes closes and attaching his lips to yours.

You release a contented sigh and can’t help but to bite your bottom lip.

“You taste good.”

“I know.”

Giggling, you nudge him.

You and Steve continue to walk through the park, picking small flowers and making a game out of how many people you’ve seen without masks.

“Let me put this behind your ear,” you say, picking out a yellow dandelion from the ground.

He agrees, and you slide his blond hairs back and stick the flower on top of his ear.

“How do I look?” He looks at you like you’re the only person in the multiverse.

His lips twitch, and there’s a grin coming on. An expression reserved for you and you only. Your heart swells at the intimacy of it. These are the types of moments you cherished. Being with Steve is like a breath of fresh air. He constantly renews and refreshes you. He understands you completely and you him. Nothing could come between you, not even the impending doom cast upon planet Earth.

The two of you stroll further, and he snuggles you closer to him when the two of you encounter a couple of parents playing with their young children on the swings.

-

Before you knew it, you had arrived back at your apartment building, the cracked crimson brick and gum-spotted concrete more enticing than it was when you left merely hours ago.

Walking up to the steps, to the entrance, you exclaim, relieved, “Thank goodness, I’m all sticky now,” referring to the treat you had eaten.

Unbeknownst to you, Steve looks up at you, smirking. He has other ideas. “Let’s get you inside.”

He reaches behind you with his broad arms and opened one of the double doors, allowing you to enter first. The lobby was filled with all kinds of furniture: a combination of black leather couches and sofas before a stone fireplace and a rug with a series of intricate patterns.

You had never really taken the time to notice how well-decorated the area was before. But now that the world had forced you to slow down your workload, you welcomed the simpler pleasures of life. The cool, recycled air fills your lungs again, but this time the sensation is quite pleasant. You glance over at Steve, who appears to also be delighted by this moment, breathing in the same air again. As strange is it is, it makes you feel safe, knowing that it is something that you and the love of your life share and that also fills your beloved home. It is your sustenance, for other than the obvious reason of nurturing your existence. It comforts you in a way that the outside cannot, as wonderful as the outdoors are. It is yours, something that you can take from while simultaneously give back to. With that, you and Steve head into the elevator and onto your floor.

When you reach your door, you start fumbling in your bag for your keys. You could have sworn you placed them in one of the smaller pockets shortly after departing from your apartment.

“Babe, can you check your pockets?”

Steve begins patting himself in a frenzy, like ants have crawled up his leg and up into his shorts.

“Nothing.” He mutters, “Let’s retrace our steps.”

“Okay,” You mumble to yourself, “Okay, we left…I had the keys…dah, dah, dah… we left the building, still had them…”

You recalled your walk, flashes of the day coming back to you at once. You remember beginning to walk and still having them, for you could hear them jingle in your bag. But when did the jingling stop?

“We were walking , and then we stopped to take pictures at the flowers…I crouched down and—”

The realization dawns on you suddenly. “Oh, my God!”

The keys had fallen from your bag around the top of your walk, and you carried on.

Slapping yourself on the forehead, you cry, “Oh! We have to go back now!”

Steve chuckles. He can’t even be upset, for any minute with you is a minute well-spent.

[gansey-just-gansey]

The Princess and the Half Bloods part seven

They drove to Leo’s house first. When they pulled up, the garage door was open, showing an old car and a pair of legs sticking out from underneath it. Percy rolled the window down.

“Hey Ms. Valdez. Is Leo even awake yet?” Percy called out.

“Yes, I just saw him eating.” A woman emerged from the depths of the car, t-shirt and jeans splattered with oil and grease. “Leo!” she yelled. “Percy y una chica estan aqui! Ven aqui!”

“Yo se, Mama. I heard them pull up,” Leo said, appearing in the doorway to the house. “Estamos ir a la casa de Jason. Don’t wait up, okay?”

“Toma tu tarea, por favor. I don’t want you to fall behind, mijo.”

“Si, Mama,” he sighed, shoving his backpack into the backseat ahead of him. “Let’s get out of here before she starts looking up what schoolwork I’m missing and makes me play catch up on that, too.” Percy pulled out of the driveway with a wave at Ms. Valdez.

“Do you have homework you need to get done?” Annabeth asked.

“Yeah, but it’s not important. We practice pretty much the whole day so I won’t even have time to do it, were I inclined to.”

“I promised Chiron I would keep you guys on track with school. You can’t fail and get grounded and miss a night at The Big House.”

“Well Saturdays are off limits, we definitely have to keep up with our practices,” Percy interjected. “And Sundays are usually working on developing songs.”

“When do you typically do homework then?”

Percy and Leo shared a look in the rearview mirror. “Whenever I have the spare time,” Percy said with a shrug.

“I see. So you just don’t, right?” she asked, exasperated.

“Not usually, no,” he admitted.

Annabeth sighed. “Piper, Hazel, and Frank meet up with me on Tuesdays so we can work on our homework together. I’ll help with anything you need. We usually go to a coffee shop but all seven of us would take up a lot of room. I’ll have to talk to Piper about letting us use her house instead.”

“If we have to study, a tricked out mansion isn’t a bad place to do it in,” Leo said, perking up.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “So how long does practice last?”

“You’ll be getting home pretty late, if that’s okay with you. The garage has been soundproofed after a lot of complaints from Jason’s neighbors, so we can practice well into the night without having to worry about keeping anyone up,” Percy explained.

“That’s fine with me, I don’t think my dad is expecting me back for dinner anyway.”

They pulled up to the Grace house, parking behind the van on the street. Jason came out to meet them as they got out.

“Hey guys, girl,” he said, nodding to Annabeth.

“Unlock the van, I need to make sure my baby remains unscathed,” Leo called, pulling on the back door of the vehicle.

“Your girlfriend is just fine, Leo,” Jason said, but pulled out his keys and unlocked the doors anyway. Leo started checking over his drum set. “Everything is all set up for practice, just gotta get the drums in there.”

“Cool,” Percy said. He went around to the trunk of his car and grabbed his guitar. “We’re going to do a playthrough of all our songs and covers for Annabeth today.”

“Sounds like a plan. Mom is out for the day, possibly the night. Either way, I doubt we’ll see her.” It was only a little bitter. Annabeth wondered at the relationship there, but didn’t feel it would be appropriate for her to ask.

She followed Percy and Jason into the garage, leaving Leo to struggle with the drum set on his own after he insisted she let him carry it himself. The other two started checking that their guitars were tuned while they waited. Annabeth booted up her laptop and started setting up a YouTube channel for them. She created a new email for the band and used it to make the account.

Piper texted her while Leo was finishing putting up the drums: Are you awake? The band was a hit, obviously.

Yeah, she sent back. I’m at their practice right now. Setting up social media for them before they start at the bar.

The reply came almost immediately. Without me???? Annabeth chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Percy inquired.

“Piper. Hey, is it cool if she comes and helps me set up all this social media for you guys? She’s like, a PR goddess.”

“Yes. Yeah, of course. She’s totally welcome here,” Jason stuttered out.

Annabeth texted Piper the address with no explanation and put down her phone in favor of the computer. She didn’t have to wait long before her phone was buzzing with another text from Piper.

I’m here but no one else is? I’ve been ringing the doorbell for like five minutes.

“Oops, shit,” Annabeth muttered as she got up from the beanbag she had taken over when she came in.

The boys all looked up from their instruments. “Something wrong?” Percy asked.

“Piper,” she said as she opened the door that exited to the front yard. “Hey, we’re back here. Sorry, it’s soundproofed.”

“There you are,” Piper said. “I was beginning to think they had kidnapped and murdered you.”

“Not yet. I think they were just about to start, yeah?” It turned into a question at the end as she looked toward the band.

“Yeah. We’re going to start with our covers. Ready?” Percy asked the others. They murmured their assent and it was quiet for a minute until they started playing. The first song they played was After Midnight again. Percy winked at her just before he started singing.

Most of their covers were songs that Annabeth knew, Blink 182 and Sum 41 and the entirety of the Green Day album that Percy said had inspired him to start playing. There were a few she didn’t recognize, some from a band called Waterparks that Annabeth vowed to listen to when she had the free time because The Half Bloods played them so perfectly, and some from Taking Back Sunday, New Found Glory, and other bands she’d never even heard of. She was glad for their long list of covers that they could pull songs from to play during their sets so they didn’t play the same songs every weekend. They could play a couple original songs and a bunch of covers each time and people wouldn’t get bored.

Annabeth watched them play, making a note in her phone of each song. When they took breaks for water and just giving their arms a rest, Piper and Annabeth busied themselves with setting up an account on every major social media platform for them. She added them all to a group chat and sent the login info for all the accounts. Piper took a picture of them while they were playing and set it as their profile picture.

“Until we can get a professional in, it’ll do,” she said, nodding to herself.

They took a longer break once they’d exhausted their list of covers. It was already near dinner time, so they all piled into Jason’s van and went through the Wendy’s drive through. The boys refused to let the girls pay and split the bill three ways as a thanks for the work they were doing.

“So we were talking,” Percy said once they were back in the garage and eating, “and we were thinking that we’re going to use the extra ten percent you wouldn’t take for things for the band. Like the photoshoot you were talking about and like recording time and stuff.”

“That’s actually a very good idea,” Annabeth approved. She probably should’ve thought about that herself.

“Would you mind taking care of that money? I’d probably lose it or accidentally spend it.”

“I can put it in a separate account that’s only for band stuff. I’ll probably be the one booking everything anyway so I might as well. I’ll go make the bank account this week.”

“You’re a godsend,” Jason said with his mouth full of fries. Piper laughed and he tried to quickly swallow it all but only choked. She laughed harder as Leo pounded on his back.

“Okay, enough fucking around. Let’s get playing our originals,” Percy said, grabbing his guitar. Annabeth settled deeper into the beanbag she had claimed. Her part of the job was over for the day and she could truly enjoy watching the band play their originals with no distractions.

They played their whole CD through, followed by a couple others that they hadn’t had an opportunity to record. Percy and Jason were perfect, their voices harmonizing beautifully. Leo was a beast, slamming out the beats with no more than a thirty second break between songs.

Things slowed and relaxed as they started playing parts of unfinished songs and suggesting changes and additions. Jason nailed down a bridge for one song and Leo played around with a solo until it was up to his standards, then pushed it a little farther, a little faster. Percy strummed and hummed mostly to himself in one of the corners, trying to find words to fit his little riff. Annabeth watched, enraptured, as they worked their magic. Piper spent most of the time setting up little details like bios on the social media accounts and circling the boys to take more pictures for Instagram. She handed her phone over to Annabeth so she could pick out which pictures were good enough to post. She sent the ones she liked to herself so she could post them.

Eventually Piper had to leave because her dad was supposed to fly home early tomorrow to spend the week with her before setting off for another film next weekend. After she left, Annabeth put up the pictures on Insta and Facebook, then turned off her phone and leaned her head back. The music that The Half Bloods played wasn’t exactly lullaby material, but the party the night before had really taken it out of her and she’d been on the whole day since she woke up. She drifted off.

She woke to Percy gently shaking her. “Hey, it’s time to go. We’re finished for the night.”

The bean bag was not the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on, leaving her with a stiff neck and heavy arms. She blinked blearily and stood, grabbing for her bag, but Percy already had it packed and slung over his shoulder. She smiled sleepily at him, and Percy responded with a brilliant one of his own, grabbing her hand to guide her clumsy limbs to the car.

“Could you carry my shit, too?” Leo called after them. “I’m not holding your hand, though.”

“Get your shit in the car and let’s go,” Percy said, flipping him off. Leo grumbled to himself about how he was tired too but got in the car after Percy had deposited her safely in the passenger seat.

As they drove Leo home, Annabeth pulled out her phone to check notifications on the band accounts. They already had three followers: Piper, Hazel, and Frank. Piper must’ve texted the others.

There was another post in addition to the pictures of the band playing that she didn’t remember making. She clicked on it, worried that she had accidentally posted something that wasn’t meant for the official account.

“Late night band practice. Catch us live @thebighouse every Friday and Saturday starting this weekend!” the caption read. It was a picture of Annabeth, curled up on the bean bag, asleep. Percy crouched next to her with a smirk, one hand making the peace sign and the other taking the picture.

Annabeth smiled to herself and watched the houses fly by as Percy sped away.

[lifeinahole27]

CS ff: “Walking the Tightrope” (Chapter 4/10) (au)

Summary: Killian’s daily routines are a matter of habit. When he wakes up late one morning, his routines all change for the better. Emma doesn’t care about routines, but she does care about Killian, no matter how reluctant she is to admit it to herself.

Rating: E (much later in the story)

Content Warnings: Maybe some strong language. 

A Special Thank You: My continued gratitude to my lovely friends, @captainstudmuffin and @phiralovesloki. And a heap of love to @captainswanbigbang for putting this together and helping me accomplish this.

A/N: Without going into too much detail, I’m moving to a twice-a-week posting schedule. Mental health and mental illness are truly fickle things. This is the only way I can control mine right now. If I’d had my way, I would’ve posted the rest of the story in one go and taken a few months away from all social media. This was the proposed solution. Thank you for all the support and love over the last five years. It’s been my favorite adventure, so far. 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | 

Find it on Ao3 & FFN!

-x-

Chapter 4: Middle of the Road

October 25: Friday 

Friday is another night out at the Rabbit Hole, and for once Killian is there before her instead of the other way around. He’s in the middle of some animated story about lobsters, much to the amusement of those in attendance judging by their rapt expressions. There are two seats open at the table. One is the safe option, across from Killian and next to David. Or the other option is to sit at the head of this cacophony of tables and next to Killian directly. 

His gaze flicks over to her, as if he senses her thoughts, and as the story wraps up to the raucous laughter of their whole group, he puts on a satisfied little smile and lifts his hand in greeting. 

It looks as though he’s gotten the approval of both Snow and David, so that’s a mark in the right column. 

When her drink is set down in front of her, she wanders over, making a split second decision to sit at the head of the table. 

“Seems like I missed the best part of the evening,” she says as she settles in beside him.

“Long story short, the lobsters won the battle,” Killian tells her, smiling and sipping from the bottle in front of him. “How was your day at work, Swan?”

“David hit a new record in computer freeze-ups, so it was a little long.”

“It’s not my fault the computers are still running Windows 95,” David argues, his scowl not directed at Emma but at the ancient technology they’re currently running in the station. 

“And it’s not my fault you just decided this year that you wanted to start digitizing the last fifty years of records we have,” Emma retorts, losing the battle with herself and sticking her tongue out at David when he does the same to her. “Also, I would definitely argue that it is your fault that our equipment is so damn old.”

“Have you spoken to Regina about upgrade budgets?” This comes from the other end of the table, where Robin is seated, and almost every head swivels to look at him. “Ah, that’s right. You’re all terrified of my fiance. How silly of me to forget.” The blase tone has no offense to it; Robin is simply used to the stunned silence he gets at the obvious suggestion of asking Mayor Mills for budget increases in certain departments. It’s no big deal to him, the guy dating her, because one day he walked into her office to talk to her about a playground rebuild and suddenly they were seen everywhere.

Of course, back then, everywhere they were seen included heavy amounts of arguing. Then, suddenly, one day they were everywhere and making out. So that was an interesting development for a sleepy little town. 

“You know, I forgot that since she started dating you she’s been much easier to talk to,” Emma mentions. “Maybe I’ll schedule an appointment with her and ask about getting some upgrades in the station.”

“It’s best that you do this one on your own. She’s still mad at me for dragging a pack of dogs through those daffodils she had in front of Town Hall,” David admits.

“Only a little, mate,” Robin adds, winking when David looks at him. 

“Isn’t it rather handy to have the expat club around, love?” Killian nudges her with his elbow when he says it, grinning wide when she makes eye contact.

“It’s not so bad, I guess,” she responds with her own smile back. 

After a couple hours, the length of the day starts to weigh on her and she can feel her eyes drooping shut even with the group still in full swing. 

“Okay, I’m calling it a night,” she announces to their side of the table. 

“I’ll walk with you, Swan, if you’ll allow me. I’m at the end of my night, as well.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to dismiss him, but Snow catches her eye and gives her one of her meaningful looks. She gives one of her own back, indicating that yeah, fine, okay she gets the message.

“Okay. Let’s go,” she says lamely, instead of whatever objection had been waiting.

Outside, they both take a moment to adjust to the quiet and the wind, with Emma pulling out her beanie and pulling it on snugly.

“I need to remember my own,” Killian says, indicating the hat on her head. “You’d think I would be better suited for cold weather given the track record of my home country.”

“After I moved back it was a struggle to get used to the temperatures again,” Emma admits.

“Moved back?”

“From Florida. I spent three years down there,” she says, leaving out all the rest of the story on purpose. But the answer seems to suit Killian just fine. 

“I never officially lived anywhere else until I moved here,” he tells her as they walk down the street. “Visited a lot of places in the Navy, but official, permanent addresses were all in the same town.”

“The Navy, huh?”

“Aye. One day you’ll get to hear all about my sordid but charming history,” he says, a teasing note to the words. 

It’s so easy, walking the short distance with him. She almost tells him she can take the rest alone when they hit their corner but she resists, instead leading him again along the path to her building. He stops when she does, still standing a respectable distance away. 

“Thanks for walking with me,” she says quietly. In truth, she wants to ask him up for a cup of coffee or something, but she can’t remember the last time she’s had a man in her home and now doesn’t feel like a good time to try when it’s getting late and she wasn’t lying about how tired she is.

“Always a pleasure. Goodnight.”

She responds in kind, itching like she did that first time he walked her home to reach out, to have some form of physical signature to end the evening. 

He’s just turning away when she moves again, grabbing his arm and going for a quick kiss on his cheek but he turns and the peck ends landing right on the corner of his mouth. Rather than sink into the comforting embrace of awkwardness, she stands her ground against the urge to run.

“Thank you again,” he tells him.

“For what?”

“Everything. Walking me home. Understanding. Not pushing me. I’m trying to get on the same level, and I wanted you to know that.” 

“All at your own pace, Swan. Goodnight,” he says again, his smile tinged with peace.

She makes sure to give him one last wave and smile when she gets to the door, liking the way this night ended much more than the last time he walked her home. 

-x- October 30: Wednesday

While Storybrooke is a small town, it doesn’t mean Mayor Mills has an abundance of time. As such, Emma can’t get an appointment until Wednesday. It’s something to break up the monotony of the day, however, so she doesn’t mind. Right before lunch time, she heads to the stately office building and waits her turn behind various townspeople requests.

It’s such a simple meeting, with professional courtesies and barely any spare chatting or gossip. Regina’s never really been the type, even before she got together with Robin. While he’s certainly made her more approachable, the meeting is still over about ten minutes after it begins, and Emma comes away from it with more than she anticipated.

Armed with her upgrades budget and a wishlist a mile long, Emma heads outside and starts walking back to the station. Across the street is NeverEndings and she slows down a bit, weighing the decision to go in. Ultimately, the idea of surprising Killian and maybe asking him if he wants to grab lunch with her is what sends her crossing, pulling open the heavy wooden door and rushing into the reception area. 

The last couple days have been really nice with him. They walk together in the mornings, and sometimes she loops her arm through his while they cross the street. She has snuck him two kisses outside of the library so that Granny doesn’t see it when he leaves her at the front of the diner. 

And today, she didn’t even have to stop at the diner. Instead, Killian was waiting at their corner with a second mug of coffee. The least she can do is give him his afternoon caffeine fix. 

It turns out the office building is a little more active during the day compared to when she brought him his dinner. She stands there in shock for a moment, remembering that there are people that work here that aren’t Killian, or Will, or Robin, and trying to decide if this really was a good idea. 

She’s just about to turn around and head out again when the secretary, a woman named Anna, calls out to her. 

“It’s nice to see you, Emma! It’s been too long! Is there anything I can help you with today?”

“Um, I’m actually here to see Killian? Killian Jones?”

“He’s in his office. Do you need me to take you back?”

“No, thanks. I know the way. Thanks Anna.”

It looks like Anna is about to launch into something else to say - the woman has a penchant for talking far too much but is one of the nicest people she’s ever met - but Emma moves quickly beyond the desk and back towards the office she knows. 

She weaves her way through the halls again, finding Killian’s door wide open this time. He’s not alone, however, and she startles when she sees a young teenager sitting in the chair across from Killian’s desk. Like he can sense she’s there, the man in question glances away from his computer screen and makes eye contact with her. 

“Ah, Swan! Good afternoon. Henry, just give me one moment,” he tells the young man in the chair, starting to rise from his own. 

“Sorry, I didn’t -” 

The boy turns then, curious brown eyes landing on her, so familiar that it steals all the breath in her lungs momentarily. Even his hair looks the same color as Neal’s. 

“I didn’t know you were busy. Never mind,” she says quickly, turning from the door and all but running back out through the front doors before Killian even has a chance to finish standing up.

“Emma?” 

His voice follows her down the hallway, but she doesn’t slow down, doesn’t even stop to consider what this may look like to him. The only thing she’s concerned with is getting away from the memories she wishes she could forget. 

Her feet take her to Granny’s - something about this place is the heart of Storybrooke and so everyone always ends up here one way or another - but it’s mostly a trip for comfort rather than necessity this time.

In that regard, the proprietress must sense her needs, because she’s handing over a bear claw fresh from the fryer while Emma waits for her usual lunch to cook. Directly after, a mug of hot cocoa is placed in front of her, cinnamon already sprinkled over the whipped cream. 

“How much do I owe you?”

“Same as always,” Granny says without slowing down in her movements behind the counter. “Dessert’s on me. The hot chocolate is from that one over there.”

Emma glances to where she’s pointing, expecting to see David or Ruby or anyone besides Will settling into a booth along the windows. He raises his own mug and turns back to his conversation with Belle, but she has a feeling that’s not the end of the moment just yet. 

She’s halfway through pushing her lunch around her plate when Will wanders over and props against the counter where she’s seated. 

“Did she put the rum in it like I asked?” he asks, pointing to the mug in her hands. Suddenly, she wonders if there was a different tang to the usual comfort today but Will’s smile is one she recognizes. “Only joking, lass. I know you’re on the clock. But surely you could’ve used it with the way you looked when you ran from the office.”

“You saw that?” She wants to cringe, to run away and hide again, but Will isn’t judging her so it’s not the end of the world. 

“Sped right past me as I was on my way back to Killian’s office. You know him and I go way back?”

“I thought you just met when he moved here.”

“Hardly. Met right before he joined the Navy through some literary club thing he was in. He was interning at the London branch when this position opened up and I told Robin to hire him and stop having all those brains wasted on fetching coffee and being a gopher.”

“Leaving England for a junior editor position had to be a big decision. Why would he come all this way for a spot he probably would’ve gotten if he stuck it out over there?”

“That’s all his story to tell you. But there is something I’ll tell you about Killian,” Will starts, and Emma won’t lie and say her heart doesn’t stutter at the words. She’s expecting the worst, as always, but she nods at him to continue.

“He hasn’t been in a relationship for a long time. Had his heart broken clean in two. If I’m not mistaken, that’s something the two of you have in common,” he says gently. There’s something about the way he says it. This is a level of friendship they’ve never crossed, preferring witty banter and faked hatred to show their friendly affection for each other instead.

“I’m guessing he doesn’t know you’re telling me this?” Emma asks.

“No. Probably tell me to mind me own bloody business. But it’s funny. About a month and a half ago he started smiling the way he did, before life got to him.” He gives her a look at that, before Belle is back by his side. Her fingers link with his like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it, and the sight makes something in Emma’s stomach clench with want. 

They turn to leave her, but Emma calls back to Will before he gets too far.

“Thanks. I’ll try not to be too mean to you from now on,” she says.

“Bollocks! That’s half the fun of it!” he exclaims, grinning ear to ear and turning around as Emma laughs. 

She doesn’t particularly want to return to the station but knows she should go back to work. The rest of her day is spent intently focusing on the files she’s copying. When David leaves for the day, she tells him to go on ahead. If he’s worried, he knows better than to push for information right now, which works just fine for her. She’ll talk when she’s ready.

When the last file of her stack is completed, she finally shuts everything down, looking up to find Mulan kicked back at her desk and reading a book. 

“Never thought you’d give up,” the other woman mutters without looking away. “Go home. David delivered food to your apartment over an hour ago.”

“I’m going. But not because you told me to,” Emma points out. She stands, bending and twisting and stretching until all the pops and cracks from her back have helped ease some of the pain she feels. 

With more amiable separating words from both of them, Emma finally leaves Mulan to take over the next shift, knowing that Phillip will probably be in after his aptly named son, Phillip, is put to bed for the evening. Her walk home is trudging, at best. Even knowing that David dropped off food for her isn’t helping pick up her feet any. 

The shock of seeing a kid look that much like Neal is enough to sour a whole day, if not the whole rest of the week. 

It’s not just that Neal left her, and that he left in the middle of the night while she slept, but that he did it because he thought Emma was pregnant. There was no indication that she even was. She had a stomach bug, three days of her head in the toilet which was preceded by her mentioning she had a craving for Granny’s grilled cheese sandwiches and a chocolate milkshake from back home.

Not even bothering to do the math or ask about her cycle, he just assumed that the cravings and the vomiting meant she was pregnant. They’d had sex once. For roughly thirty seconds until he complained that she was too tight and he pulled out. And he’d been wearing a condom. 

The anger of it starts fueling her into moving again, and she almost rushes right past Granny’s when she hears the calling of her name. 

“Evening, Swan!” Killian greets her from where he’s kicked back in one of the chairs on the patio, even though it’s far too cold to be sitting out here like that.

She waves, something jerky and unsure, and keeps moving along. She had no intentions of waltzing into his office and then fleeing like it was the scene of a crime this morning, and it’s mostly embarrassment that has her feet moving quicker. 

“Come on, Swan. Don’t make a man drink alone.”

“Not in the mood for a drink. Or a man,” she says, half-zoned out and just wanting to get home to try to process the rest of her emotions. 

“Emma, sweetheart?” he asks, hurt evident in his voice, and when she doesn’t slow down he gets up from the chair he was in and moves after her. “Wait a moment, Swan. What’s happened? What did I do between this morning and when you stopped by my office?” 

The fact that he thinks it’s his fault is what has her slowing minimally and letting him catch her around the forearm with his prosthetic hook. He uses that momentum to coax her to turn around, and the look on his face is finally what makes her cave. He doesn’t deserve the brunt of her fuckery. He’s been so patient through everything else, and while any other man in her life would’ve probably run at her first change of heart, this one has stood nearby with no pressure, no conditions asked. She fights through that heavy feeling in her chest, past the lump in her throat, so she can maybe even try to explain what happened. 

“It’s not you. I just… was reminded of my past and why I’m not good at this kind of thing.

“You’ve got to trust that I have no ill intentions here.”

“You think this is because I don’t trust you?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Of course I trust you. But it doesn’t change the fact that everyone I’ve ever been with has left me behind.” It’s probably the first time Emma has ever admitted any of this out loud, and suddenly what she thought was just a slight case of emotions feels a lot more like a boulder sitting in her stomach. For the tiniest moment, she’s afraid she’ll start crying. Her voice is almost garbled when she speaks again, fighting past the emotions welling up. “Neal, Graham… even Walsh. They left me in one way or another.” He doesn’t know them yet, doesn’t know what they did, but letting their names out into the open takes away some of their power.

Moving just a bit closer, Killian holds eye contact with her, probably just as much for him as for her. “Well, love. You don’t have to worry about me. I may leave this area on occasions, but I’ve no intention of leaving you unless you tell me to.”

It could just be an empty promise, but coming from Killian it sounds like a genuine one. She nods, just a fraction of her chin tilting down, to show him she understands. He moves forward the rest of the way, his intent clear without being overpowering. And then he’s kissing her, his arm coming snugly around her waist. 

It’s different from their first kiss and the small affectionate gestures they’ve shared recently. There’s something more than intention behind it and without the spontaneous factor involved, it’s calmer if not less intense. It doesn’t occur to her to be ashamed that they are standing in the middle of the street because how can she care about anything else when Killian is doing his best to remind her what human connection feels like with each subsequent press of his lips? 

This is enough for now, the start of a new routine for them. She always just assumed he was some nerdy dude with an office job, but really, Killian is like twenty things all wrapped into one and she’s discovering she’s eager to uncover each layer of him one at a time. 

With that thought, her final hang-ups fall away and she surrenders instead to the warm lips attached to the man that has changed her mind about dating. She thinks to tell him that, but then he’s shifting, his hand sliding into her hair as his left arm pulls her closer and then she’s all but crawling into his jacket. He’s warm, chasing away the chill she’s felt not just because of the temperatures but because of the hole she let herself sink into earlier. Chest to chest, she can feel the sound that rumbles through him when she wraps her arms around his waist. 

There’s a part of her that wants to know, desperately, why she was resisting this - resisting him, but she knows there’s still miles to go before all the dark spots fall away from her memories. This is a good start, though. It’s just them, figuring things out and also making out like they’re a couple of teenagers.

“There are better places to do that than the middle of the road.” It’s Granny’s voice that springs them apart. 

“Seriously?!” Emma says, looking over Killian’s shoulder at the older woman. 

Granny just gives her one of her patented looks and goes back inside, leaving them alone again.

“Would it be all right if I walked you home?”

“Sure. I’d like that,” Emma answers, taking his hand as they start heading that way. “Are you dressing up for Halloween tomorrow?”

“Aye. Quite the get-up I’ve got, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

He hums his agreement, but not saying anything more about it. “How about you, love? What have you cooked up for a costume?”

“I don’t normally dress up,” Emma admits. “But I think I can pull something together easily enough.” Even as she says it, she’s thinking of the parts of a suit she has at home. Surely she can pull that off with a couple accessories, right? It’s too good of an idea not to try, and so even though she's sad to say goodnight to Killian after the moment they’ve just had, she’s also excited to get inside and go tearing through her closet.

She makes sure to thoroughly kiss him goodnight before she does, however.

-x-

Chapter 5

[cstormsinukagblog]

Fast Food Thief

A/N I do not own Inuyasha or any characters. This is not an original idea. I read a post a while back and the idea popped into my head to do it Inukag style. The idea is here. This is a modern day Inukag au. I hope you enjoy. I needed a pick-me-up. Have a good Saturday!

Tags for people who have requested it:  @akitokihojo @alannada @mamabearcat @Cammysanstuff @eternalnight8806-3 @feudalpriestess98 @hinezumi @Juliatheanimelover7 @keichanz @littlemissinukag @noviceotakus-blog @petri808 @shinidamachu @Stuckinthewrongworld @witchygirl99 @xfangheartx

This day was going to suck. Her coffee pot was broken, so she was going to have to stop somewhere. She goes to get dressed to go to work, and apparently the dry cleaners failed to get the ink stain out of her favorite blouse. She stomps her feet like a young child throwing a tantrum. But it did relieve some of the irritation. She selects another outfit, gets dressed in a hurry, then rushes out the door. She parks on the street and heads into the cafe on the way and realizes too late the line was too long. She tries to wait it out, but is definitely going to be late. She gives up after the line seems to have barely moved after ten minutes. She is almost there and actually it doesn’t seem like she is going to be late until she hears sirens. She pulls over diligently and sees fire trucks zoom past her and stop a little ways ahead of her. Traffic is not at a standstill. She was only 18 minutes late, and it didn’t seem like anyone had noticed. She sunk into her desk just in time for her boss to yell her name. She jumps up, and he is glaring at her. 

“Yes, Mr. Naraku?” Her voice is still slightly out of breath, which is exacerbated by her nerves.

His glare almost seems to get worse, “in my office, please.”

Her head sinks as she nods in response, then follows him to his office. He motions for her to sit in the chair across from his desk and she barely sits on the edge of the seat, terrified of what he wants.

“You need to stop making it such a habit to waltz in late, Miss Higurashi. Why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t fire you?”

Her eyes went wide and she could feel tears welling, which she struggles to blink back. Her voice comes out in a rush, “Mr. Naraku, this is only the second time I’ve been late in a year. I am so sorry, but I am always on time. It’s just been a very bad morning. There was a fire in an apartment building and traffic wasn’t moving.” 

Her head sinks to her chest, and she misses the evil smile spread across his face. Her heart is pounding and she can’t breathe.

His voice comes out with a greasy quality, “Very well. Do not be late again. If you do, we will have to let you go. You already have 2 write-ups. I should give you your third today. But I’m feeling generous. Perhaps after work you can come talk to me about getting those write-ups removed. I’m sure we can work something out.”

She can feel his eyes travel up and down her body and she represses a shiver. “If I have time after work, I will come back, Mr. Naraku.” She is hoping so hard that he won’t know she’s lying. She knows exactly what he wants, and she would rather lose her job than do what she’s sure he’s insinuating.

She works through her first break, only stopping to run to the restroom. She had to avoid any chance to be alone with him. She didn’t want to lose this job, but she would have to start job hunting tonight. Her lunch couldn’t come soon enough. Her stomach was grumbling. She went to the breakroom to grab her lunch from the fridge to find it gone. This day seriously couldn’t get any worse.

She leaves to try to run to the fast-food restaurant down the street, but she’s only halfway there and she knows she’s never gonna have time. She stops into a little corner store and grabs a pop and a bag of chips and runs back, barely making it in time. Before she sits, she sees Mr. Naraku glance at his watch and give her a look as if to say, “cutting it close.”

She slumps at her desk and sets her head down for a moment. This day is terrible. After a few seconds she calms her breathing and sits back up getting back to work. She opens her bag of chips and starts snacking between typing. The rest of the day seems to be uneventful, and she is so relieved by that. She sees Mr. Naraku staring at her as she finishes closing up things for the day. Once she shuts down her computer and cleans up her station, she clocks out, and pretends to get a phone call.

As she walks by his office, she tries to look guilty and apologize, “I’m sorry, Mr. Naraku. It’s my mom. She needs me to come help her. I’ll be on time tomorrow, I promise.”

He sneers in irritation, “If not you might as well not come in at all Miss Higurashi.”

She nods and looks down as she walks out of the office doors, then she practically sprints to her car. Her stomach is cramping from not having any real food all day. She stops in at the drive thru for the WacDonald’s on the way home. She tried to order her usual, but apparently there was an issue and they had a recall on their chicken patties. As she is sitting there debating on what to order the car behind her honks.

This is definitely the last straw. She glances back in the rearview window and she can see white hair and dog ears on a very handsome face, sitting in a convertible.

Fuck him. She places her order and drives forward to wait her turn to get to the pay window. She debates for a minute, then remembers a post on something similar. She’s usually not so mean, but this has been enough. When she gets to the window, she tells the cashier she wants to pay for the order for the car behind her, but she needs a receipt for both orders. The young kid smiles and mutters something like, “that’s nice of you.” Which she tries not to laugh at. What she is planning is not nice at all.

As she pulls up to the food window, she tells the person that she has 2 orders and shows both receipts. She gets her order and his. Pulls up a bit, flips him off and drives away. Fuck that guy!

~~~~~~~

Inuyasha is in a hurry. As usual. His day hasn’t been bad, but he needs a fucking vacation. Not that he couldn’t take one. Hell, he could take a 3 month hiatus and still be fine. But he needed to work. If he didn’t work, he thought too much. So he worked about 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. He liked to be kept busy. He pulled into the WacDonald’s and was irritated to see so many cars in the drive thru. He could go in, it would probably be faster, but fuck that. He didn’t want to get out of his car. So he pulled in behind this purple sedan. He needed to get home. He had shit to do.

After a couple minutes, the cars hadn’t moved nearly as fast as they needed to. When the purple sedan finally got to the mic to order, the dumb bitch took forever. He could feel a growl rumbling in his chest and he honked his horn at her. He could see her glare at him in her rearview mirror, but at least it made her put in her stupid order. He pulled up and put in his order, quick and easy.

He pulled back up behind her at the pay window and saw her and the cashier send a look back at him. Was she really telling on him? What is this elementary school? He let out a “keh” and waited to pull up to pay. When he pulled up to the pay window, he had cash ready, but the cashier looked at him and seemed all lovey dovey.

“The lady in front of you paid for your food.”

His hand dropped. Wow, he was an asshole. He honked at her because she wasn’t ordering fast enough for him, and she decided to be nice in retaliation. Damn, what a classy lady. Here he was calling her a bitch in his mind, and she was definitely nicer than he had expected.

He saw her get two bags of food. No wonder it had taken her so long, she was ordering for a group. He really was an asshole. He pulls up to the window and says quite calmly what his order was, and the cashier looks confused.

“The lady in the purple sedan just paid for it for me.”

The cashier’s mouth drops, “Umm… She paid for 2 orders and showed me the receipt. She took both orders.”

Inuyasha’s mouth drops open. She wasn’t classy, but damn was she fucking brilliant. He pulled out and jumped on the road, following the purple sedan. She drove to a local park and went and sat under a pavilion. He held back a bit so she wouldn’t know he had followed her.

As soon as she slumps down on a bench, he jumps out of his car and stomps over to her.

“Hey, Bitch! You fucking stole my food!”

She looks up, absolutely shocked, and slightly terrified. 

“That was my fucking order at the WacDonald’s. Now give me my fucking food!”

She seems to recoup quickly and snaps back at him, “Excuse me, but you didn’t pay for anything, that is your problem. I paid for food and I get to have the food. Your loss, loser.”

He growls low at the word loser and fights to keep his anger in check. “Bitch, that isn’t fucking fair. You paid before I got there. But I ordered the fucking food and you will give it to me.”

She just glares at him, “You should have gotten back in line at the drive thru. It’s not my problem. Sometimes mistakes are made. I placed an order, paid for food. And got all the food I paid for. Maybe if you weren’t such a jerk, you wouldn't have these problems. But no, you have no patience, like the 2 minutes I spent putting my order in slowed you down so damn much. How much time have you wasted following me all the way to the park and now yelling at me. You could have got back in line, ordered your food and been on your way. So you weren’t in a hurry, you were just being rude. You deserve it. Besides, you didn’t pay for it so I didn’t steal it. I bought it.”

She stands up and walks back to her car carrying both bags of food, “Now I’m going home. If you follow me there, I’ll be forced to call the police.”

He growls at her, then stops mid growl and bursts out laughing. Everything she had said was completely true. He could have been home sitting on his soft comfy couch, and eating trash food, but here he was yelling at a stranger. For food he hadn’t even paid for.

She seems more afraid of his laughter than his growling. “You’re right. I was an asshole. But I have to bow down to the bigger asshole. You, wench, are a much bigger asshole than I am. I cannot compete. Now, if I pay you for my food, will you give me the damn bag?”

She seems to contemplate it for a minute, then nods. “On one condition. You cannot ever honk at someone in a drive thru again. I need to know you at least learned your lesson.”

He smirks at her and he feels his fang peek out. “Yeah, alright. I won’t honk in drive thrus anymore. What an important lesson. I am so glad you taught me right from wrong.”

He pulls out the money he had for his order and she trades him for the bag. After he turns to walk back to his car, he can detect a change in her scent. He turns back to see her entire body deflate as she sinks back onto the bench. Then the scent of tears hits him. Fuck he wasn’t that much of an asshole was he?

He rushes back, “Hey. What the hell, wench?”

She sucks in a breath and tries to compose herself as he stops next to her. She clears her throat and mumbles a “What?” in response, and for some reason her tears are killing him.

“Was I that much of an asshole? What did I do to make ya cry?”

She shakes her head in response. “It wasn’t you. Just go. Just take your stupid food and go.”

He drops the bag on the ground at her feet and sits down next to her. “Yeah, I don’t think so. What happened to the spunky woman who just let me have it? I’ve never been so intimidated by a human before. Now you’re gonna let my opinion of ya fade so quickly?”

She growls pretty impressively for a human, “What the fuck should I care about your opinion of me? I don’t even know you, you jerk!”

He doesn’t know why, but he instinctively wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. He hears her gasp against him. Fuck, what was wrong with him? He is practically molesting some woman he doesn’t even know! Then her head turns into his chest and her arms come up around his back. He can feel her tears through his shirt, and his heart is breaking slightly. This strong, smart, and wonderful woman is in his arms sobbing, and grabbing his shirt like her life depended on it. He holds her until her sobbing stops. He doesn’t say anything about it, and just sits holding her until she pulls away.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t even know you. That was definitely terrible of me. Please forgive me.”

He cuts her off, by gently placing his hand against her cheek being careful of his claws, “Are ya better now?”

She nods slowly and gives him a watery smile. “Yes, thank you. For everything.”

He nods back and his smirk returns, “Anytime. M’name’s Inuyasha. Maybe we can do this again sometime. Maybe even without all the yelling, and rude names.”

She snickers in response then nods again, “My name is Kagome.”

He shakes his head at her, “Nah, I like Wench better.”

Her smile disappears, “You are such a jerk! Why are you still here?”

He feels his smirk spread, “I can’t resist a Wench in Distress.”

She rolls her eyes, and the smile comes back. “You know what, I think I’ve dated too many jerks. I think I will have to say no to getting together another time.”

“Keh, dating. Aren’t we presumptuous?” Her mouth drops open, and she resembles the cutest carp he’d ever seen. “I mean we barely know each other and you already want to date me. I know I’m a catch, but damn wench. Slow down.”

“My name is Kagome. Ka-Go-Me! Get it right.” She stands up and stomps over to her car and climbs in, slamming the door. He glances down and sees her bag of food and proceeds to grab it, dangling it in front of himself so she can easily see it and he can hear her frustrated scream from inside of her car. He can’t stop himself from opening the bag and stealing one of her fries. Now her frustrated scream has become an angry growl. He pulls out a pen and writes something on the bag. He walks over to her car and puts the bag on the hood of her car. Climbs in his car and speeds off. She’ll call. He absolutely knows it.

She gets out of her car and grabs her bag. His writing is a lot neater than she expected.

Ok Ka-Go-Me Call me Inuyasha and his number.

She was definitely going to have to call him...

[hadestownmodern]

The Fight (3/?)

My favorite moments are when Annika texts me and says “hey did you ever post that one fic?” and the answer is usually either no or oh, I forgot I even wrote that.

-that’s the content you’ll get after the fight. For now, enjoy. I promise a soft resolution is in your future.

-Danielle

-----------

Persephone is quiet.

              Uncharacteristically so; she carries the weight of Orpheus’s departure the night before heavily on her chest. She hadn’t said much to Hades upon their return home, needing time to process what had happened much in the way Orpheus had.

              Eurydice had been different.

              She’d thought it from the beginning, that first day of the year when she’d stumbled into her classroom just a minute late and looking frazzled-slightly unkempt. She’d sat in the front row and immediately began following right along, keeping pace without the age-old excuses and what have I missed. She’d hopped in on their first debate; a warm-up, an introduction to the material they’d be discussing throughout the year. Persephone knew the short girl with the cropped haircut was different when she volleyed back not only opinions, but fact-based ideas. She’d impressed her from the beginning.

              And then she’d become a sort of friend.

              She’d sit with Persephone after class when she could, talking little details of her life. She had three jobs. She had no family. She lived alone, but she was contented with things for what they were worth. The more they talked, the more Persephone admired her character; quick-witted, intelligent, and more mature than the other kids in her classes. This girl with no family had become a constant in her life, a presence she’d looked forward to seeing.

              She’s not sure she wants to see Eurydice again.

              She carries the memories of those times-just she and Eurydice talking, laughing. Eurydice had talked so sweetly about Orpheus, too-in the beginning she’d let off a smile almost shy in nature, something Persephone never thought she’d see on the girl with the tough exterior. With Orpheus she was soft-hearted, gentle. He spoke countless monologues to Persephone of how much she meant to him-he still does.

              Persephone settles herself into class with the same sort of dissatisfaction she’d had the day before; Eurydice is in this lecture too, making the avoidance that much more difficult. A piece of her heart had twisted when she’d been so cold yesterday, but the separation between Eurydice as a friend and Eurydice as the girl who’d made her son cry had kept itself clear in her mind. As much as she loves Eurydice, the boundary of trust had been broken.

              She thinks of Calliope-young, like Eurydice. Headstrong like Eurydice. The unmentionable thought crosses her mind and she wishes she hadn’t thought about it at all-what if she decides to be just like Calliope? Persephone knows that they’d would be able to handle it-this time even better than before with the experience under their belts. Orpheus, however…there’s love at stake in this scenario, and his heart had shattered at the thought of one night away from Eurydice. She’s not sure he would be able to make it through much else without breaking completely.

              The clock ticks away and Persephone avoids starting the discussion; Eurydice’s usual seat-front row, right next to the door-is empty. Five minutes pass from the start of class, then ten, and she still hasn’t shown. Persephone struggles through writing her notes on the board, on answering questions that feel pointless within the scope of the situation at hand. Eurydice, firm in her determination to make a life for herself, had never missed a class before. Even while sick or exhausted from long shifts at work she’d come in, spend her breaks taking short naps on the small couch in Persephone’s office. Absence had never been an option.

              Her mind wanders to the conversation she’d had with Orpheus the night before; Orpheus, who had been so brokenhearted, still defending her without a second thought. While it killed her to see him so upset, his unwavering optimism brought her conflict she could not seem to shake. Eurydice had brought him lower than she’d ever seen him. She’d made him a mess and then hadn’t come home. She’d worried him sick, and yet he still said not one bad word about her.

              Eurydice stuck in her mind, too.

              Eurydice, who’s more to her than just an extension of Orpheus. She’d been her friend first-her favorite student-someone she’d felt the unshakable drive to nurture, to protect. Eurydice had first been the girl who’d spend time with her after class, the girl from the broken home, the girl who thanked her for seeing her as more than just someone to pity. She valued Eurydice. She still does.

              Persephone ends class with half an hour to spare, barely remembering the lecture she’d set out to teach. The students seem relieved as they go, scribbling down last minute details from the board before packing up and thanking her for the extra time. The sound of their appreciation is just muttering to her ears. Preoccupied, she packs up and quickly returns home-there’s only an hour until Junie is done at school, only an hour of privacy. On a typical day, she’d swing by and grab her early. Today, she needs the extra moment of clear headspace.

              Returning home she can hear Hades shuffling around in the office, an unusual occurrence for a weekday afternoon. She’d left him in there this morning with a fresh cup of black coffee and a kiss on his cheek, expecting a late night. He chose typically to work at his own high-rise office, where the distractions of being home aren’t a temptation. She tosses her keys in the bowl by the door, hangs her coat and calls his name. He answers with a muttered ‘in here’ and she can’t help but laugh to herself as she makes her way to the door.

              He’s slightly hunched over a stack of documents, written on with his frighteningly neat lettering in sharp black pen. There’s a discarded stack in the corner, marked up with red ink and notes she’s sure he’d made with his same sort of concentrated grumbling. Thankful for the distraction, Persephone wraps her arms gently around him from behind, resting her hands on his chest and her head on his shoulder.

              “What are you working on?” Hades sighs at the contact, leans back against her and pinches the bridge of his nose tiredly. With half of a grunt, he brings a stapled stack of papers to her hands. Reading the title she moves away from him, breezing through the pages with a wide-eyed look of horror.

              “What happened?” She paces briskly, unable to settle her body as she scans line after line of legal jargon written up neatly. “What the hell happened in the four hour block of time I was working? Is this why she wasn’t in class today?”

              Persephone holds the papers up with thin-lined lips and an angry brow, reading and re-reading. The word custody sticks out like a knife to the heart.

              “She’s really going to try and take this baby away from him? I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that she would try to…to…to swindle him like that. She’s not that kind of person. She wouldn’t do this to him. Who in their right minds has the fucking nerve to even try to,”

              “-Seph,” He has to repeat her name several times before she can hear him through her ranting, face growing red as the stapled papers rustle with the violent wave of her hands. “Seph, sit down.”

              “I’m not sitting down!”

              “Then just listen.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. She stands next to the window, looking down at the street below. Her body slows with her breath as she concentrates, attempting to pull herself back from the dizzying anger. He leans back in his chair, folds his hands over his lap. “This is just a precaution.”

              “Why?”

              “She chose to run away, Persephone. She chose to run instead of talking it out. One bad thing and she was gone. She’s not us, love. She’s young, she lacks life experience…She’s headstrong and she refuses help. I don’t trust it. And when she does decide to run there’s a child involved. I’m not letting her take that child away from our son.”

He turns his attention back to the computer, back to the task at hand. Persephone lowers herself onto his lap, watching. He’s scrolling through files-her files. The more he reads the slower he scrolls, lips moving silently, Persephone pressing herself against him again. He can feel the hitch of her breath in her throat, her arms tightening around him. It’s a difficult read, even for a seasoned veteran in court. He’d become so used to representing wealthy businesses that he’d forgotten what it was like on this side, the side where Eurydice had spent most of her childhood testifying against foster parents who had failed her, against the father who willingly gave her up. She’d testified for herself, for the right to leave the system that had made her life a living hell of bouncing from one terrible home to another.

              There’d been hope in the first one, a hope that must’ve stung as the family moved away without her, chose a warmer climate over the child they’d sworn to give their love. He wonders briefly what they must have told her, only eight years old and living with them for a full year. He wonders briefly, and then Persephone ducks her head against his chest.

              “I can’t read it anymore,” He switches tasks while she moves herself to his lap, venturing into records which hold her address. Even Hades, hardened by the protection of his son, startles with the new information.

              “She didn’t come to class?” Persephone shakes her head against him. “Has Orpheus heard from Eurydice today?”

              Sensing the sudden urgency in her husband’s tone of voice, she casts a glance at the screen. She immediately knows the street name, the neighborhood clear in her mind. While she hadn’t grown up in the city as Hades had, college had taught her many things. One of those things was that the neighborhood address next to Eurydice’s name often spelled bad news; violence, an underground drug system, and a heavy rotation of cop cars and ambulances. Panic seeps through her, beginning in a light tingling of her fingers and toes, the mask of her face.

              Her mind begins recreating the scenarios she’d read about while in school.

              In each one of the scenarios, Eurydice is dead.

              She’s unaware of the phone being pulled from her hand until Hades brings her back to his lap, words of comfort attempting to quell each of the horrific scenes from her head. Persephone vividly recalls the way she’d acted in class the day before, how she’d shut her down so vehemently, so angrily. She’d been in pain-whether from the baby growing against her tiny frame or Persephone’s cold shoulder-and the responsibility of it all comes in crushing force.

              “I abandoned her.” She chokes out the words in a breathless realization. “I’m no better than her father-than those people…I’m no better than Calliope.”

              “Don’t say that.”              

              “What if she’s dead, Hades? You know that neighborhood.”

              “She’s not dead. She’s not dead, and she chose to leave. You chose to protect our son, that does not make you like Calliope. That makes you a mother. His mother, not hers.”

              “I have to call him.” She takes the phone back, but not before Hades can switch it over to speaker. They only have to wait one ring. Orpheus lets out a melancholy greeting over the sound of running water and clinking dishware. For a moment, Persephone isn’t sure what to say-how to broach the subject without coming off too strong. Then, the horrific images flash through her mind again; Eurydice, with her apartment broken into. Eurydice fighting. Eurydice, pregnant and defending herself alone-Eurydice losing.

              “Have you heard from her today?”

              “Not yet.”

              “Okay.” She repeats the word a few times, mulling over reality in her head. Things are fuzzy in a world where she longs to do nothing more than protect Orpheus, where Eurydice had been her friend first and the concept of custody moves in and out with armed robberies and gun fights. She leans forward again, re-reading the address on the screen. “I need you to go to her apartment then.”

              “She needs time, I want to give her what she needs. I miss her but…do you really think it’s a good idea?”

              “Orpheus, she didn’t come to class today.”

              “She didn’t have work-she didn’t have anything, I don’t think. But she wouldn’t just skip, that’s not her. You know her.”

              “Orpheus, go.”

              “I don’t-I don’t know where she lives.”

              “Okay.” Persephone sighs, Hades taking the phone from her hands. In all of the madness, it doesn’t shock Persephone that Orpheus had gone this long without knowing. Eurydice is receptive-intuitive. She’s sure she predicted the response that is currently happening, Orpheus’s hurried running around the apartment a surefire sign of panic.

              “She’s dead, isn’t she.”

              “She’s not dead, why are you both just assuming that she died? It’s okay, Orpheus. Just follow our directions and keep breathing.” He does so dutifully, narrating his hop from stop to stop on the subway just enough for Persephone to gather a clear mental picture of where he is.

              Orpheus speaks to soothe himself in the way he has since he was a boy; repeating small mantras over and over, talking through the situation at hand. Young Orpheus had repeated well wishes on spelling tests, had mumbled to himself during little league tee ball. Now, he repeats one phrase over out loud, hitting Persephone’s heart with his anxious, cracking voice each time.

              She’s alright. We’re alright. Eurydice’s okay.

[thewritingstar]

Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince (Chapter 1)

Pairing: Blossutch (Blossom x Butch)

Fandom: Powerpuff Girls

Rating: M (drug use, mature themes, it’s butch do I even need to explain??)

Summary: An Ivy League school and a plan in place, Blossom has everything in order. But when a person from her past suddenly shows up, she wonders if her plans could be slightly rearranged.

I hope you all enjoy this new Wip that I am determined to finish!!! Enjoy!!! Also I’m on mobile so I’ll put the keep reading thing once I get on a computer sorry for the long post lol

———

“Bubbles, please stop crying.” Blossom patted her sobbing sisters back. She let out a laugh as Bubbles finally pulled away and squished her cheeks. 

“But I'm going to miss you!” The tears were coming again and Blossom pulled her into one last hug. 

Buttercup only huffed as she placed the last box on the ground. “Bubbles she is going to a college only three hours away from ours. We can fly in less than twenty minutes to see her.” 

It was true. Blossom had gotten into every single college she applied to, no surprise there and only the ivy league schools would be suffice for her. On the other hand Bubbles and Buttercup were attending the same college on the opposite side of the city, Buttercup on a full ride for sports and Bubbles in one of the top art and fashion programs around. Their sister almost went to that school but after a smack to the face and yelling about going to the best school, Buttercup made sure her sister only got the best, afterall who was going to brag at Thanksgiving dinner? 

“I know. I know but it just feels weird.” She shrugged before opening up a compact mirror and fixing her makeup. it closed with a pop. “I mean we all haven’t really been apart like ever.”

The thought did startle Blossom but that’s degree plaster on her wall protected by glass was the goal and if she had to be away from her sisters for a little bit, then so be it.

“She’s going to be fine Bubs.” And after a few more minutes of a goodbyes, Blossom was left alone in her apartment. 

Her sisters got roomed together but Blossom knew she was a fragile person to live with. It was better to live by herself than try and work out a routine with a random stranger, plus the dorms were right next to all the frat houses and Blossom cringed every time she went near them. 

How could such a presteigne school allow such juvenile behavior? She would never know. 

It only took an hour for everything to be in place thanks to her super speed and pre-planning of the layout. It was a simple apartment. One bedroom with a small kitchenette and a living room, nothing fancy but had a few places to study and get work done, perfect.

Not to mention her bulletin board that already had her schedule up with prime study times and library hours, this was gonna be fun.

By the time she was done and took a shower, her stomach grumbled and she knew she should eat. It was no secret that Blossom wasn’t the best in the kitchn. Okay it was known that she was the worst but she knew how to boil water and use the microwave, but eating at all the small local cafes seemed much more appealing. 

With her purse in hand she made her way out. 

“Um excuse me?” A voice came just as she was locking her door. “You must be Blossom”

Blossom wanted to turn back around and go into her room. Yes she might have been one of the most famous people on the face of the earth but the girl was one for her alone time. She put on a smile and was ready to meet the fan, she loved meeting fans she was just hungry.

She looked up at the girl with bright blue eyes and long brown hair. A gasp leaving her lips and she squealed. “Robin!”

Her childhood friend who sadly moved a city over during middle school was now staring back at her. “Hey Blossy.” She giggled as she was pulled into a hug. “I would say I am surprised to see you but I’m not.”

Blossom could hardly contain her excitement as Robin wrapped an arm around her own, a little trait that she did with everyone, and they walked down the hall. “Dinner time?”

“Absolutely, we have so much to catch up on.” Blossom smiled back. 

--

“I can’t believe you actually had to fight a monster on prom.” Robin laughed as she bit into her sandwich and Blossom rolled her eyes playfully. 

“Really? I'm not.” 

In that moment Blossom was thankful that Robin was there. Out of all their friends in school, she had always been the most genuine. Never once did the girls status affect their relationship and she never worried about any information about them getting leaked, unlike some of their classmates. 

To be honest she was afraid to be on her own. Her sisters were still together and she had no one. She was a peoples person but not in the way Bubbles was. It was hard for her to deeply connect to people unless it was intellguiet. 

“Soooo.” Robin started. “Did the boys go to high school with you?” She asked eagerly. 

It took a moment for Blossom to process it. The boys? And then it hit her. Robin had been a fangirl, like most, when the boys had joined the school system at the age of 16. Of course she was gone before that had happened and only knew them as the counterparts who tried to kill the girls every once in a while but it didn’t stop her from eyeing them. 

“They went to the rival high school.” Blossom said unenthusiastically as she patted her mouth with a napkin. “We all got along fine, just slight teasing.”

“Did you date any of them? I always thought you and the red one, Brick was it? Would end up a thing.” 

“Why would you think that?”

“Bubbles and Boomer did. I followed her on social media and saw all the cute couple posts about them but someone.” She looked at Blossom. “Didn’t have social media.” 

Blossom could see how everyone thought Brick and her would end up together. But to everyone dismay, they were only friends, maybe. And well, he was more occupied in the boy population than the girls. Of course she was one of the few to know that and they spent just as much time arguing about Shakespeare as they did bonding over the hottest member of boy bands. 

“I have a private instagram that you can have. Brick and I are just friends, well he’s more like my best friend” 

“That's too bad, I always thought you would end up with a ruff.” Robin laughed as she took Blossom's phone and plugged in her new number and every single social media she could find. 

She got her phone back after a minute and dropped some bills on the table. “Sorry to disappoint but he doesn’t swing that way.” 

“Oh really?” This surprised Robin. 

She laughed a little. “Actually we tried to date.” Robin almost spit out her drink. “He took me on a date and when he kissed me it felt wrong, no spark, nothing. It was werid since we are counterparts but afterwards he told me that he was gay and was just making sure.” 

“That's sweet.”

“So now we just braid each other's hair and judge people while complaining that we are single.” 

“What about the green one?” Robin eyed her. “I don’t think Buttercup was into him right? But you could be. Imagine it, the bad boy and the good girl.” Robin was practically blushing.

“Absolutely not.” Blossom almost laughed. “I don’t even think he would go to college and plus, we don’t have anything in common.”

The brunette shrugged and picked up her jacket. “Don’t worry Bloss, this is college. We will find you a hot piece of ass to match with your fine ass.” 

A loud laugh left her lips. “Thank you Robin. Now I heard there is a bakery near here that is to die for.” 

“Oh you and your sweets.” 

----

By the time her alarm went off, Blossom had already been on a morning run, ornginzed her books and ate at the small bakery that had the most amazing danishes. Unlike most people, she lived on the thrill of first days of school. 

She made sure to double lock her door as she strutted out of her appartment and took in the fresh autum air. There was still about an hour before class but so she could walk as slow as she wanted. 

The leaves where starting to tint to a rustic brown and crumble underneath her pumps, she was always a show fantaic and adored walking in heels even though she was already 5′6. There was something about being taller than most of the girls around her that provided a staggering connfiedcen in her, plus it made her more intrmidating against villains. Sometimes she wore 5 inch heels just to be 6 ft tall for the hell of it. 

The walk to the main campus buildings took her past the majority of the socail houses. She eyed one of the frat houses that she wouldn’t bother knowing its name and a glare and bad taste formed in her mouth. She wondered why people even bothered going to college if they were just going to mess around and not do their work. 

She huffed. She didn’t have time for those silly parties and games, she worked to damn hard to be the top of her class and she was determine to conquer this school too. And the school for her masters and eventally doctoral. She was going to be a leading chemist after all and follow in her fathers foot steps. He nearly cried when she said she wanted to work in his lab one day. 

By the time she got to class, and stopped for a tall iced coffee, extra vanilla for her sweet tooth, class would begin in just ten mintues. 

She was thrilled for her class. Professor Keene was amoung one of the smartest and well known chemists in the contry and when Blossom found out she was going to be learning from her, she almost blew up the house from exictemnt. 

She took a seat in the middle row of the lecture hall and was happy that she wasn’t the only student in there. The class began to fill in but she was engaged in her book so she didn’t notcie anyone who was shuffling in the seat behind or around her. She thought about turning around and intrducing herself to other students. She felt a little bad about how stand offish she could be but she was a famous superhero so not wanting to be the center of attention was something she strived for. Unless it was for grades, then she would gladly take her crown. 

Her phone buzzed quietly in the pocket of her skirt. A small smile came to her lips as she read the text from her sister group chat. 

Bubbles: Hope you have a good day at school sis!

Buttercup: i hate this already 

Blossom: Miss you!

She placed the device away as her closed her book and took out her text book. 

“Hey can I borrow a pencil?” A voice came from her right and she reached into her bag and grabbed one without hesitation. 

“Here you go.” She smiled brightly and as soon as her eyes locked onto his, she let out a gasp and nearly choked on air. 

A smirk appeared on his face as took the pencil from her hand, their fingers touched and she felt a jolt of electriy run through her body. Those dark green eyes that she knew all too well pierced through her soul as she gaped at him. 

“Butch?” 

“The one and only.” he winked and she only narrowed her eyes at him. His being in his prescne had set a shiver down her spine and she thought she wouldn’t see him again, espcecially not at a place like this. 

“How the fuck did you get into college.” She blurted out. She never meant to be rude but could you blame her? 

The smirk fell instantyl as he raised a brow. “That wasn’t very nice.” His smirk reteruned quickly. “When the fuck do you cuss Pink?” He disregearded the isnult and instead leaned closer towards her. “Its pretty hot babe.” 

Ugh those winks made her mad. Remindered her too much of there teenage years. 

She wanted to yell at him for the use of the pet name but soon the professor walked in and Blossom almost forgot that she was in class. She shot him a glare and he only laughed as roll was being called. She could feel his eyes on her occsianlly and wanted nothing more than to freeze his hand and punch him in the stomach.

Her eyes stayed glue to the board and her ears listened delicatly to the lecture. she ignored every time he poked her with a pencil or said something that only super hearing could pick up. 

“I could squash him like a bug.” She mumbled under her breath and she knew he heard, and was proabbly smiling and thinking dirty thoughts. Ugh. 

“Alright that wraps up day one. I am cutting class shorter so that you all have time to get settle and situated.” And with that she packed up her breifcase and made her way out. Blossom admired how she held herself so well, all she saw was a image of what she wanted to be. A respectable woman of science. 

Blossom looked down at her notes and smiled proudly at how neat they were. she had spent all of high school learning differnt technquies for optimal note taking and she had mastered it like a sience. 

“So Pink.” Butch intterupted her thoughts and she turned to look at him, she almost forgot he was there...almost. 

“What?” 

“Wanna hang out?” He asked innocently. He even batted his eyelashes for an effect and Blossom fianlly finished packing up. The room around them had cleared out so they were the last two in the room. 

“No not really.” 

He scoffed at her and dramatically leaned in his seat. “Come on babe.”

“Don’t call me babe.”

“You never yelled at Brick for saying it.”

She turned and rolled her eyes. “First of all Brick is my best friend, secondly, he calls me Toots.” 

“So that's why I’m claiming Babe.”

“No!”

“Don’t tell me Boomer has that one? Because thats not fair, hes got Pigtails already, you should learn to share.” He was acting like a child. 

“Ew no Boomer calls me nothing and neither will you.” She got up from her seat and left class, of course he was hot on her heels. 

She didn’t bother walking fast as he would just catch her anyways and she had a feeling he wasn’t leaving her side any time soon, great.

“I like those shoes Pink.” He whistled. 

“Stop staring at my legs.” She knew she should have worn black leggings instead of nude, fuck, it didn’t even matter, boys would find a way to make an outfit sexualized anyways. 

He fake scoffed, he does that alot she noticed. “I would never look at your long goddess like legs and wonder what they would feel like wrapped around my waist as I-” 

She hit him on the side of the head as he opened the door to exit the building. “In your dreams perv.”

“You better beileve in my dreams.” She ignored him and it was well past noon, she should get food. 

“Wanna grab lunch?” He asked as if he read her mind. She probably should say no but she was too hungry to even care. 

“Fine.” She’ll be “everything nice” for now. 

--

Everything nice her ass. Sure she was a sweet girl but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t put her foot down on bad behvior. Actually yes she would, she was Blossom after all. Bossy Blossy is what Buttercup always said. But scolding Butch, who is 19 mind you, for chewing with his mouth open was not being bossy, just a decdent human being. 

“So high school? Did you graduate?” She asked him with a teasing tone. 

During their high school years, the boys went to one on the oppsite side of town, probably for the fact that middle school was spent trying not to kill each other. I mean when you are born to kill someone, takes a while to get over it. 

As the crime rate for the RowdyRuffs died down, and ya know the whole Boomer and Bubbles hooking up thing, they all decided to be civil with each other. Butch had taken up the sport of ‘flirithng with every girl he sees and pissing of BC because he felt like it. And Brick just wanted to beat Blossom in all things academic, they always tied. 

Butch shurgged. “Nothing to tell, got to graduate, almost failed doing so too but I had my share of fun.” 

Blossom took a sip of her lemonade. “How did you get here then?” 

“Oh that. Yes how did I, Butch Jojo end up at this ivy league school? Well babe-”

“No”

“Yes. I am what you called, athetically inclined. Buttercup got a full ride on that basketball scholarship and I got the same, kinda of a greens thing.” He winked and she thought it over. It made sense that he would get a sports schaolrship but why here. 

“Aren’t there other schools with better sport programs?”

“Sounds like you don’t want me here.” He gave her a pout.

“Not thats not it-”

“Relax babe, im teasing.” He stole one of her fries. Bitch. “I got them from all over but I didn’t want to go where Buttercup and the lovesick puppies were, I’m never living with Boomer again, superhearing is a curse when Bubbles is over.” He made a face and Blossom nodded as she emeber that one time she caught them-ew nevermind. 

“So not there, what about Bricks school.”

“And have him up my ass constantly, no thanks. I needed to breath fresh air, plus the frat that I joined is top notch.” 

She almost gaged. “Frat?” Why was she surpised? 

He notced the hint of disapointment but brushed it off. “Yep. Apprently four other guys got the schalrship from that fraternity alone. If you get it and accept, you have to be there for at least two years, which means party, booze and babes.” He winked and it was her turn to scoff. 

She stabbed a piece of lettuce from her salad. “Well you must be enjoying yourself then.” She had lost her appetite suddenly. 

“Aww you’re the only girl I have eyes for doll.” That didn’t make her feel better and it shouldn’t have anyways.

“I would say don’t do anything stupid while you’re there but we both know thats not possible.”

“You flatter me Pink, thinking im the dumb one when blueberry boy is the offical Dumbest of the Dumb.”

“I’d be careful Butch, he passed high school with good grades.” 

“And yet im at an ivy league school and hes not.” 

“Touche” 

“So which frat did you get into?” She asked out of politeness but that smirk that showed his slightly sharper than normal teeth already had her regretting it.  

   ---

She shouldn’t have been shocked. No really. The fact that she was staring at the notorious frat house wasn’t even the worse part, it was how she didn’t connect the dots sooner. Of course he was in the highest ranked frat, Alpha Alp. 

“Welcome home babe.” He winked and her eyes widened before offering her most polite smile, ya know the ones reserved for the press.

He hung an arm around her shoulder and lead her up the path way to the front door. Her eyes turned to the lawn, which was scattered with beer cans, cigarette buds and oh my, is that underwear? Why is she not surpised. 

The house itself looked like it had alot of money invested in it and the boys who lived here were all proabbly from rich familes where daddy was sending them for a bussiness degree and to fuck around. She hated it. 

Frats to her were the lowest point of college. Everyone here didn’t even work to get in, well not everyone, and they just got to party and spend money. The amount of horror stories that came from this house alone made her shutter. 

There were handprints made of paint lining the wooden deck, presumabley of all the past members and a dark green print with ‘Butch’ sctarched in looked to be apart of the newest batch. She found it oddly charming in some sort of sick twisted way. 

He opened the door with a loud slam and she knew that if he was back home, Brick would have yelled at him for being obnoxious and brash. She couldn’t blame him. 

“Hey boys.” He yelled at the five guys surrouding the tv with more booze on the table. It was only a little bit past noon. 

“Sup Butch. Ooo got a new toy and its only the first day!” One of them cheered and Blossom instantly scoffed and glared at him. 

Butch sensed the disconfort immediately. “Actually boys.” He sneered with a smile. “This lovely lady is just an old friend who is smarter than all of you dimwits combined.” Blossom was now being pulled towards the right side of the house and up a flight of stairs. 

That was a smart move Blossom thought. He knew better than to piss of a red. Sure the greens were the toughest and the blues could cry and throw the worst tantrums but the reds, making them mad was a death wish that only few had endorsed and would like to keep it that way.

They passed some more of his frat brothers, each giving them a wolf whistle, wink or a high five and each one made Blossom shiver. Before more things could be said Butch had closed the door of his room, ignoring all the hooping and hollering. 

He let out a sigh and turned to Blossom who was sporting a frown. 

“Sorry about that Bloss” He smiled lightly and she only shrugged. 

“I didn’t expect anything less.” She replied as she turned to absorb the atmosphere

It was a simple room. Two beds, she assumed there was a roommate, dark oak furniture and a suitcase thrown on the ground. Clearly he hadn’t finished moving in. However when she turned to his desk there had been a sign of clear drug use. 

“Did you snort cocaine before class?” She asked. 

“Would you believe me if i said it was a pixie stick?”

“No.”

“Okay then.” He shrugged and plopped onto the bed. “So Pink, whatcha you wanna do?” He wiggled his eyebrows and she glared.

—

He had won this round of Go Fish. Of course she had already beat him five times but he said she couldn’t leave until he had a taste of victory or a taste of her lips, she chose the first one obviously.

“In ya face Pinky.” He flicked her bow and she rolled her eyes. He liked the bow. Even though it seemed childish to wear it, it screamed power and authority. Ever since he was a kid, he waited until he saw that flash of velvet red before starting a duel between the groups.

“One against five isn’t very good odds.”

“Maybe not but it just shows that I don’t give up. Now how about some poker, we can make it strip poker if ya like.” Again with the winks.

She shook her head. “The day I play strip poker is the day hell freezes over.” She looked out the window and saw the golden sky. “I should probably go, it’s getting late.”

It just registered that she had been here since noon and now it was almost 5 pm. How?

He frown and she thought he looked cute. No. He looked fine, not cute. Not cute.

She stood and slipped back on her shoes. Her eyes now level with his. She didn’t realize how tall he was compared to her. Sure she was only 5’8 in these shoes but she wasn’t used to someone being taller than her, specially since all the other Puffs and Ruffs fell below her.

He finished shoving the cards in his nightstand which probably had a stash of weed, cigarettes and snacks that again, probably laced with weed. He was lucky that the chemical x in his body reversed any damage those caused or else she would have scolded him more than usual.

“Well we can get dinner, there’s this really good place that has the best pizza.”

She thought about it and almost agreed. “Well pizza sounds good but I promised Robin that we would have sushi and movie night.”

“Can I-“

“Sorry Butch, it’s ladies night.” She shrugged and finally managed to get out the door before his puppy eyes showed up.

She ignored all the stares and teasing that the other frat house mates made as she walked out the door. The green ruff was right behind her and even though she couldn’t see him, she had a feeling that dark glare was being pointed in their direction.

“You don’t need to walk me home, im a big girl.”

“I know I just felt like it.” He clicked his tongue. “Ya know babe.” She shoved him. “This is the longest time we’ve ever hung out, jusy the two of us.”

“What are you implying?” Her voice was cold.

“Nothing doll. Just, it’s nice.” He fell silent after that and took in the fresh air.

The walk to her apartment wasn’t that far but when she arrived at the steps, she was a little sad.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Butch, do your homework.” She slightly scolded.

He leaned against the handrail. “Are you gonna punish me if I do bad?” That smirk again, ugh.

A dangerous thought got into her head as she leaned closer to him, their noses barely touching and she could see his eyes slightly widen and pink dust his cheeks.

“Maybe.” And as soon as he blinked, she was already walking up the stairs to her apartment.

His eyes blew wider than before as he realized just how close she was and that damn smirk. A smile grew on his face as he pushed off the rails and headed back to his own place.

“Game on Blossy.” He whispered to himself.

—

Robin was finishing the last of her food when Blossom told her about today.

“It’s not a big deal but we’ve never really hung out before.” Why did she feel weird.

“Is he hot?”

“Robin”

“Hey I haven’t seen him since middle school and if he was a hottie back then, imagine him now.”

Blossom didn’t want to admit that Butch was hot, but he was. Slightly tanned skin with dark raven hair and of course he was ripped and tone. She saw the way his arm flexed every time he grabbed a new card and yeah maybe he was attractive, so what?

“He’s fine.” Liar. “You would probably kill over if you saw him so it’s best to keep your distance.”

A laugh bubbled out of Robin and Blossom finished her own food.

“But it’s nice to have him around, much different from Boomer or Brick. Carefree and fun, dare I say.”

Robin nodded and the girls fell back into a comfortable silence as the movie played.

“Would you date him?” She asked out of no where. “I’d bet he date you.”

“He would date anything that moves.”

“Anwser the question Bloss.” Robin was now playing with fire. Blossoms love life had never been a top priority and now with the added stress of college, it may never be.

She thought about it and shook her head. “No.”

Robin only shrugged and became engrossed with the film again. Blossom sat there wondering why she didn’t believe herself when she said no.

She pushed those feelings aside and watched the screen as the man brought the woman into a passionate kiss with a beautiful sunset behind them. Deep down she wanted that to be her.

————-

Ahhh first chapter of my newest PPG fic!!! This is dedicated and practally for all the lovely people in the fandom!!!

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I'm a little late to the party but for the ask meme: Danny Phantom 5, 13, 14, 18, 20 + Trans!Danny headcanons. I know that wasn't on the list but I have a feeling you'll do it for me anyway ;)

MY NEWEST BOY.  For this ask meme!  Also thisgot long so I made a separate post about trans Danny because I care about it alot byeeeeee.

5)  Guilty pleasures

Barring times where he’s being, A, imprisoned, or, B, hunted forfun and profit, Danny actually—really likes the Ghost Zone.  It’s soothing in a way that he’s pretty sureis not quite right, in a way that Sam and Tucker and Jazz do not seem toagree with, but he likes it there.  Theslow, billowing curls of green drift through the air like nebulae, currents of energyrather than wind that he could drift on like thick water if he wanted, dottedwith doors and islands that orbit whatever passes for gravity wells in a skyscapeof ectoplasm.  Almost every touchstone inthe Ghost Zone moves, although most have a predictable pattern—about once everyten months, Danny tries not to use the Fenton portal if he can avoid it, onaccount of how it comes out practically on top of Walker’s prison—and learningthe rhythms of it is sort of like a hobby, at this point.  Danny doesn’t have a ton of time to kill, buthe’s figured out that, as long as he’s in ghost form, he can go for a longtime without feeling hungry or thirsty or tired, in the Ghost Zone, so onetime he told Jazz he was going to try his hand at cartography and spent theentirety of his parents’ five day out-of-state conference coasting on ectoplasmand trying to plot the place.  It cameout looking kind of like a star map, full of arrows trying to indicate movementdirection and a lot of scribbled notes like Pretty sure Clockwork moved thisand AVOID and Possibly Vlad’s portal, maybe close this.  

Danny doesn’t talk about it much, because the Ghost Zone makes hisfriends, his family, jittery.  He’s prettysure they’re worried he’ll decide not to come back some day.

13) What gets them flustered

One time a reporter manages to get a camera intoDanny’s face before he can book it after a fight, and she’s smart enough toalready be asking her first question before he realizes what was happening.

She’s also smart enough to start her first questionwith “Excuse me, Inviso-bill–”

“It’s Phantom,” he snaps,looking around in annoyance, and the reporter smothers a triumphant smirk.

“Yes, Phantom.  What made you become a hero,Phantom?”

Phantom just hangs there in the air for a moment, gapingat her, and then squeaks, “Excuse me?”

“You’re a ghost,” the reporter says, keeping aprofessionally straight face and a neutral, friendly tone.  “Whatmade you decide to be a hero?”

“I–didn’t?”  Phantom scratches a hand backthrough his hair, and the reporter silently thanks whatever quirk of ghostlyfunction is bringing a green glow like a blush to his cheeks and throat andears.  She’s going to lock down a raise with this interview, even if heflies off right this second–the first person to interview Amity Park’s ownsuperhero.  And he’s blushing.  “I’mjust keeping things under control, you know?”

The reporter grins.  “Well,” she says withfalse nonchalance, “would you mind answering a few questions?”

“Uh,” Phantom says.  “I have to–go.”

He turns invisible and makes a break for it,and the reporter’s fifty-second clip of a conversation runs on the local newsfive times in the next seven hours.  She gets a reputation for being ableto snag the neighborhood super for a few seconds, sometimes even multipleminutes.  She discovers real quick thathe’ll blush pretty reliably the second she drops the H word.

14) Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Danny works hard to seem helpless at school.  It kind of makes him crawl the walls, but he workshard, okay?  He lets himself getpushed around, he occasionally gets punched in the face, he does his best toconceal it when a year or two of ghost hunting as a full time job starts toshow in his human form, he spends a lot of time and energy projecting a façade oflocal hopeless wallflower.  He can’thelp seeming like a delinquent, given that he’s been living the C-average lifestyleby the skin of his teeth and misses about three class periods on a good week,but at least he can seem like a delinquent who would never, ever be a candidatefor competence.  He’s protecting a secretidentity out here.  Official Team PhantomPolicy, much as everyone might hate it, is that no one intervenes with Danny’scharade.  It gives Tucker hives and Samhas a hit list of bullies, but Danny’s always quick to smile off their concernand get on with his life.  He has ahealing factor and it’s been years since Dash was actually concerning tohim except as a potential stalker, Danny can stand to bite his tongue and take it.

Aaaaaaand then when he’s sixteen, Dash punchesTucker, instead.  Over some pettynothing, something that Tucker doesn’t even remember afterward—refusing to makea fake ID for him?  Laughing at Dash forfumbling a catch at the game on Saturday? Joking about how Dash’s grades were even worse than Danny’s?  It could’ve been anything.  It didn’t really even register with Tucker assomething worth getting punched over, whatever it was, but he guesses thatbullies can have bad days too.

So Tucker says whatever he says, and Dash whipsaround and sucker punches him, a swift hidden jab that only someone alreadywatching would see.  And then–

And then Danny dislocates Dash’s shoulder.  It’s not on purpose and it’s not subtle.  Tucker doesn’t really remember what happened—hewas a little busy gasping for air. Mostly he just remembers the crash of someone being slammed into a locker,and Danny’s voice, deep and un-Danny-like, snarling You don’t touch them,and a shout, a howl of pain and shock. By the time Tucker can stand upright, wheezing and clinging to Sam,every kid in the silent hallway is staring wide-eyed at Danny, skinny weakDanny Fenton who isn’t really so skinny and weak anymore.  Danny’s stepping back from Dash, who’sclutching at a shoulder that looks wrong under his letterman jacket, andDanny looks mildly horrified with himself, but he’s still standing betweenTucker and Dash.  

When the teachers show up, Danny goes quietly to theprincipal’s office, and gives a plain-spoken explanation of what happened—Dash punchedhis best friend, Danny slammed him into the wall, and somewhere in there hepopped Dash’s shoulder out of place.  He getssuspended for two weeks and detention for the next month, which he cooperateswith, and non-negotiable anger management counselling, which he mostly just…doesn’tattend.  Danny has decided that he doesn’tdo school counselling anymore, thanks.

After he comes back, Danny slips back into therhythm of things without any change in his behavior, but—it’s hard for everyoneto forget that they watched Dash’s favorite punching bag nearly put the king ofthe school through a wall.

Sam and Tucker enjoy a very peaceful remainder oftheir high school career.

18) Things they’ll never admit

Danny has not and will not talk to anyone about the accident withthe portal.  The actual events, yeah.  But he’s thought about it, and—they just don’tneed to know.  Sam already frettedherself blue over the Lichtenberg figure lacing up Phantom’s left arm to hisheart.  They don’t need to know how clearhis memory of being electrocuted is.

(Jazz watches Danny skirt around the Specter Deflector with abouta five foot radius of nervous respect, and she makes some educated guessesabout why, exactly, her brother doesn’t like being shocked.  But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, for once,she’s not going to wring it out of him.)

20) What Ifs/Alternate Timelines

I’m sure everyone and their cousin has done this but…I love Jazz and Danny’s relationship.  

So.

Jazz has been keeping an eye on herbrother for…ever.  This is partly becauseshe’s a worrier by nature and partly because their parents are both brilliantand affectionate and completely hopelessly scatterbrained.  Jack and Maddie are fine and all, but alsoJazz is frequently awestruck that she and Danny lived long enough to be able totake care of themselves.  Holy shitis she ever going to write a memoir.  TheChristmas I Re-killed the Turkey or something.  So when their parents are out for the day andshe wanders through the living room into the kitchen to see if the Nilla Wafershave been contaminated yet, and she realizes that she hasn’t seen Danny in fourhours, she starts looking around.  

Sam and Tucker’s bags are in hisbedroom, and all three of them have left their jackets by the door.  It’s a cool autumn, and Tucker complainsconstantly that he’s not built for the cold, he’s built for indoor rooms fullof computers, so they wouldn’t have gone out. The TV is off.  Danny’s room isempty.  It’s not dark enough yet forDanny to have dragged them up to the roof for stargazing.  

It’s about this point where Jazzstarts to feel like something is about to go horribly wrong.

She passes the door to the lab andhears Sam’s voice echo up the stairs, and then—

“Fine, fine,” Danny says from thebasement.  “It doesn’t even work.”

Jazz opens the door, already composinga lecture about not poking around in the lab (for Danny) and a lecture aboutremembering to lock the lab when they’re going to be out all day (for herparents), and starts down the stairs.

The crack-boom of the portalkicking on hits like a thunderclap, and then there’s a scream, someonewailing like they’re being killed.

Jazz never does remember how she gotdown the rest of the stairs, but she makes it just in time to see her brotherstumble out of the glowing green portal and fall straight through Sam’s armsand collapse into a pile of black-clad limbs and shocking white hair.