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the1975attheirverybest · 9 months ago

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Queen of hearts

Acknowledgements and Disclaimers: this one goes out to all the moms out there. New moms. Experienced moms. Mom-to be. Yall are heroes man. All the love.

Shout out to the mutual who helped answer my pregnancy questions. Thanks for letting me pester you. You know who you are. Any mischaracterizations of pregnancy, labor, or postpartum are completely my own.

Warnings: brief depictions of labor. Mentions of depression. Also not proof read.

***

9 months had flown by like a dream. The whole thing had felt like a movie. And Matty, having made a career out of making life feel like a movie, was wary of the whole thing. Of course they’d had their ups and downs. Worrying over what constitutes a good parent and whether they were going to fuck this child up before it even had a chance to grow up and make its own mistakes. The occasional shock over how powerful and real hormone fluctuations can be. The Braxton Hicks scare. The late night cravings and the crying (some of which was done by him, if he’s being honest). Arguing over baby names, if the kid should be allowed to play football before a certain age lest they get injured. If, being the child of artists meant that the child would be sign up for music and art lessons, or if they would wait and see what the kid naturally gravitates towards. If gender-neutral clothing was inherently boring and lifeless, or, if it was ‘too woke’ to have a baby girl in a car onesie or a baby boy is a butterfly onesie. It was, after all, a pregnancy, not a walk in the park. But he’d loved and welcomed every bit of it. And so had Jo. He’d swelled with joy watching her nest and acquire baby clothes, paint the nursery, and start a vintage stuffie collection. He’d helped her curate a little library of children’s books for kids of all ages, to make sure their baby would be guaranteed a great start, no matter how advanced they turned out to be (Jo and Matty, were, of course, convinced that their child would be a genius). Looking back, even the labor and delivery process seemed perfect.

Jo had screamed at him the whole day.

“We can’t actually go to the hospital just yet. I called. The front desk woman told me to stay put and put on some yoga music.”

Jo had unleashed a string of obscenities upon him that he has chosen to omit from memory ( he remembers them perfectly. She had asked him if he was a demented fucker or if he would like this baby to come out or a teeny tiny hole in his penis instead). He had laughed, told her that she was funny and that he was falling in love with her all over again. She’d thrown the tv remote at his head, missing narrowly.

His gravest mistake, however, was trying to document everything. He’d brought a film camera into the delivery room, which the nurses had balked at. But Matty has been used to being called eccentric so he didn’t care. He wanted to remember every single moment of this day forever. And, when Jo had failed to convince him by making the same arguments that he often proposed at his own shows, for his own fans to put the camera away and just be in the moment, she’d decided to teach him an lesson by choosing not to warn him about the messiness of childbirth. The next thing she heard him say was “oh. So much blood.” Before he’d dropped the godforsaken camera to the floor, smashing it to bits. And ridding everyone of its evils forever.

“Oh my god, she’s here, Jo! I can see her head!” He’d rushed over to her, with tears in his eyes, squeezing her hand. “C’mon, Jo. You’ve got this! One more push.”

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. It’s too much. I just- she’s gonna have to stay in there forever.”

“‘fraid we can’t do that, Josephine” the doctor shook her head. “She’s almost out which means it’s tight on her now, if you don’t push, you’re hurting her.”

Jo instantly burst into tears.

“No, no, no! Baby don’t cry!” Matty cooed, then turned towards the doctor. “Why the fuck would you say something like that to her? Right now, as well! are you TRYING to upset my wife right in the middle of the birth of my child?” He hovered over Jo protectively, wiping her sweaty forehead with one of the rags that the nurses had brought in, and kissing her. “You’re okay, Jo. Our baby is going to be okay. Deep breaths, yeah?”

“You promise?” She whispered, too embarrassed for the nurses and doctor to hear.

Matty swears, this, was the moment that he became a dad. Knowing that his wife and child needed him to be the sane and steady one for the first time completely changed him as a person.

Though he had no business making these promises, he’d never felt more certain of anything in his life. “I promise, my love. I’ve got you. And you’ve got our baby. She really needs you right now. So….lets do this, yeah?”

Jo nodded, watching the nurse approach and take her hand to pull her back into position.

“C’mon,love. One more push?” The matronly lady encouraged.

Jo screamed as she gave it her all, Matty’s hand in hers.

“Great! You’re doing great, Josephine! Give me one more push!” The doctor smiled.

“You said that last time! Every single time you say this is gonna be the last push! You’re fuckin lying.”

With tears in her eyes, Jo screamed and cussed out everyone in the room, pushing with all her might, until finally, the baby was out. She heard cheering and congratulations erupt around the room which was her cue to lay back and finally relax.

“Dad, Would you like to do the honors? cut the umbilical cord?” The nurse had asked.

“Oh? I- erm I …should. But I don’t wanna leave you? But also I don’t wanna leave…her- I….” Years later, Matty would realize that it was, in fact, this moment, that had made him into a dad. The moment that he felt conflict between choosing to stay by Jo’s side and hold her hand through what she had just accomplished , or let go of her hand to go meet his daughter instead.

“Go, Matty, go.” Jo had encouraged him, her voice weak from screaming. She nodded as he hesitantly loosened his hold on her hand.

“Let’s fuckin do this!” His shaky hands took the surgical scissors from the doctor and made the cut. “Oh my fuckin god, hiiii” matty cried as he met his daughter for the first time. He almost reached out to take her into his arms but, then, realized that it should be Jo who gets to hold her first.

“Would you like to-“

“Yes, oh god, yes, please?” Jo sat up straight.

Matty, with fresh tears still running down his cheeks, leapt into action adjusting her pillows to support her back as she leaned forward to receive her child.

“Oh god, Matty, look. She’s so….”

“Perfect.”

Everything, about Sophia, from conception to birth, had been perfect. So, it was a complete shock to Matty (and to Jo) when things changed postpartum.

It all started with Jo sleeping in a bit more than usual. At first, Matty had written it off as her body recovering from labor. After all, she’d literally housed, sheltered, and built a human being from scratch for 9 months. She was entitled to a little bit of extra sleep if that’s what she needed. Besides, he saw this as his opportunity to step in. While Jo was pregnant, Matty felt limited in how much help he could be. He flew back and forth in between tour dates to be at doctors appointments, and to help purchase the crib and pick out the nursery colors. He drove across the country to make it to specialty bakeries and shops to fulfill the strange flavor combinations of pregnancy cravings. But none of it was comparable to literally being pregnant. So, it was only fair that he take on some of the work now that the child was born, and let Jo get her rest.

He wanted to be the best dad he possibly could. So, he dove in head first. And he missed the signs. It wasn’t until he was holding Sophia in his arms, looking at Jo, as she laid in bed, saying “it’s a baby, Matty. All it does is cry and sleep. What does it want from me?” That he realized something was deeply wrong. By then, it was too late.

Matty walked around the messy house, eyes blood shot and sore. Whether it was the crying or the lack of sleep, he wasn’t sure. He went into the kitchen, pulling out a massive trash bag and hauling in all the empty takeout containers that had been sitting there all week, shoving them all into the trash bag. He needed to step up his housekeeping game. At this rate, they’ll be living in squalor by the next few days.

He pulled the only clean mug left out of the cupboard and reached for the coffee machine that had been on since this morning, pouring himself a cup.

“Fuckin hell.” He whispered at nothing in particular. What time was it? What day of week or month even was it? He tapped his phone screen for answers. It was a Wednesday in the middle of the month. Just shy of noon. He knew that the best thing he could possibly do for his family right now would be to admit that he’s in over his head. And ask for help.

***

“Where is she now?” Adam asked, stirring the sugar into Matty’s tea before placing the mug in front of him.

“home. Erm….the cleaning service is working on the house. Her mom is there, too, to watch Sophia while she showers and stuff, so….”

Adam nodded, at a loss for words. He squeezed Matty’s shoulder gently.

“What do I do? How do I fix this?” Matty’s eyes darted between Adam and Carly, who wizzed around the kitchen, preparing dinner, with her son at her feet.

“You can’t fix it, mate.” Adam shrugged. Sheepishly.

“I know; I know. But- what do I do?”

Adam simply rubbed his friends back, searching his brain for any words of solace or wisdom.

“Matty, have you eaten anything today?” Carly asked, with her back to him, standing at the stove and stirring something that Matty couldn’t quite see.

He was offended by the question. He’d come to her with the biggest problem he’s ever had to face and her response was to ask if he was hungry? Speechless and indignant, he shook his head. “I have not. No.” He gritted, anger palpable in his voice.

Carly knew better than to take it personally.

***

Carly and Adam exchanged a look. Adam nodded, rising to his feet and taking his child from between his mother’s legs. “C’mon, little man. It’s time for bed. Let’s get into the bath. Give mummy and uncle Matty a bit of time to chat.”

Carly walked over to Matty at the dining table, setting down two huge containers in front of him. “This one’s soup. This one’s chicken and veg. Take them home. Freeze the leftovers and defrost as needed.”

“Carly, I-“

“Comfort food is good. For both of you.” She smiled brightly. “She won’t have an appetite but keep offering it to her anyway.”

“Right.”

“I’m gonna send you a list. Maybe pop into the shops on your way home and buy some of it. Baby cream, nipple pads, stuff like that.”

Matty nodded, dutifully.

“I’ll speak to Patricia and Charli and everybody. We’ll start a rotation. Check in on her and- maybe even send you off to the store a few times. There are just some girl things that she might not have on. Just some bits and bobs to make her life easier.”

“Hmm. Yeah. I suppose.”

“Matty, darling, you know who you need to speak to here. Who she needs to speak to. And it isn’t me, and it isn’t Adam, or George, or Ross, or even a doctor who will rattle off some statistics at her. Why haven’t you done it yet?”

***

Carly was right. Matty knew the person for the job. The reason that he hadn’t called his mom yet was because he was ashamed. Ashamed to admit, in front of her, that he had failed. He’d failed his wife. Failed his kid. Failed to do what he claimed his mother’s struggle had taught him. Failed to be patient, failed to be empathetic. He expected too much from her and he resented her when she wouldn’t rise to it. And he hated that about himself.

But his mom was always there. All he needed to do was call her and say “mum, I need you.”

Denise rushed over.

“Oh, matty, it’s okay.” She placed her hand over his. “It’s different when it’s your partner, isn’t it?”

“Why, though? It shouldn’t be! It’s not like she’s any more or less of a person, a woman, or a mother than you were when you had me!”

Denise rolled her eyes. They both knew Matty was smarter than this. “Yeah, but that doesn’t matter, does it? You were 17 when I told you about my depression. It had been 17 years. You’d seen me differently. And you knew I loved you because you’d felt it your whole life. You were only finding out about that stuff after the fact. This is not the same. Besides, the way that you feel about your partner is not supposed to be like the way that you feel about your mother, or if it is then I haven’t done my job raising you right.”

Matty frowned and licked his lips, searching his brain for a clever comeback.

“You feel like you’ve been abandoned. Like she’s left all the parenting on you and you’re trying your best but she’s not giving you much to work with.” Denise simply stated.

Matty laughed in disbelief. “That’s absurd. She hasn’t abandoned me.”

“Course, she hasn’t. She’s got an illness, she’s not a bad mother. But that’s what it feels like. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to be scared. You’re a new father too. You’ve got no idea what you’re doing and you want to be able to do turn to her but you can’t.”

“I- “ matty turned tongue-tied. Unsure how to respond. It made him uncomfortable to have his unspoken thoughts said out loud for him. “did dad ever…?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him. I didn’t really speak much to him at the time. Sort of….blamed him for it, actually. A part of me felt like, somehow, he had done this to me or something.”

Matty listened, wondering if Jo felt that way about him.

“In fact, why don’t you go do that right now. Call him round. I’ll get upstairs and check on Jo.”

***

Tim left Matty flipping through old photo albums and went to answer the door, smiling wide and proud when he was met with Louis at his brothers doorstep. “You’re joining the crew?”

“You didn’t think you’d have a party without me and I wouldn’t find out about it, did ya?” Louis winked. “Nah, mum called. Said to come to Matty’s instantly.”

“Get in there!” Denise appeared behind them. “And don’t call it a party that’s insensitive.”

She shut the door, beckoning both men to huddle in the corner with her.

“We’re all here for one thing and one thing only.” Denise spoke with the command of a military officer issuing orders . “To watch the baby for the next two days. We work in shifts. Louis, you’re young and still have your back. You’ll take the overnight shift. Tim you start now. I’ll step in between you two.”

The two men exchanged a smile, nodding.

“And if you want to be here off the clock, you are not a houseguest. You don’t just sit sound and expect to be catered to. Consider yourself a contributing member of the household. Roll up your sleeves and see what needs doing around here. Let’s give them some time and room to figure out what Jo needs.”

***

Matty felt his heart shatter into a million pieces inside his chest when he walked into their bedroom and saw Jo, hugging the duvet, with tears in her eyes.

He rushed over to her, but as he reached for her hand, he recalled all the times that he’d tried to initiate any form of physical intimacy over the last few weeks —a hug, a cuddle, a kiss, sex— only for her to turn him down. He pulled away, hesitant, and not wanting to pressure her into anything. He wasn’t sure if these attempts were his way of trying to comfort her or if it was himself who needed the comforting. He would never think that he could possibly understand what she was going through, but, he couldn’t deny that he needed her, too. So much so that he was certain a simple touch from her would bring him to his knees.

“Jo, Darling,” he whispered, “fuck. You have no idea how much I wish I could kiss you right now.“

Jo blushed as if it were the first time that he had ever looked at her that way.

“Your mom- Denise, she…well, she and I talked. I don’t think I’m okay, Matty.”

He sat on the bed, looking at her. She was a shell of the person that he’d fallen in love with. “It’s alright, baby-“

“How can it be alright? I’m a mother! I- I’m a danger to my own child. When I should be her first and fiercest protector!” Jo yelled, sobbing into her own hands.

The sound of her crying was worse than a knife to Matty’s chest.

“Well, it’s a good thing she’s got me, then, isn’t it?” Matty pulled her into his lap, laying her head against him.

“I love her…” Jo tried to convince herself of her own words “ I want to love her.”

“Course, you do, Jo. You’re just not able to feel much of anything right now. Because of what you’re going through. But, we’ll fix it. I promise. We will.” He planted a kiss to her head “I’m sorry, honey. I’m really sorry I let it get this bad.”

“Matty, it’s not your fault-“

“No, it is. I- I thought that I was being a good dad by prioritizing Sophia over you. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I thought it was what was best for us all.” She felt Matty’s tears dripping down onto her hair. “But it’s you, Jo. You’re what’s best for all three of us. Sophia and I need you. We’re nothing without you.”

Jo wished she had the will or capacity to comfort him, to want to hold her daughter in her arms. She knew it must be difficult on him, and she hated being a source of his pain.

“I’m sorry, Matty-“

“No!” She felt him stiffen. “Don’t. Don’t apologize. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you hear me? You’re not alone. Neither are Sophia and I. Look how many people it took to get us to talk” he giggled at the thought. “Look how many people love you and want to support you.”

He saw the beginnings of a smile on her face. “Carly has practically started a catering business trying to feed us. You should see our kitchen. It’s never been this stocked up even when we’re both at home.”

Jo let out a small chuckle, the first since Sophia was born.

To Matty, that small sound was like finding water in the middle of wandering the desert.

***

Matty walked up and down room at the pace that he had discovered was most comfortable for baby Sophia to nap. He rocked her gently in his arms whispering, “you’re gonna be a sweet quiet girl yeah? Look at mommy. She’s so pretty when she’s asleep next to your crib, don’t you think, Soph? You take after her, that’s for certain. Let’s go get mommy a blanket, yeah? Shall we? Look at you! Taking care of mommy already. Bestest baby in the world, you are.”

#valentine75 #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fluff #matty healy writing #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy imagine #matty healy x oc

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heygerald · 6 months ago

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Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 3

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic asshole. After their moment at the wrap party, Tom shows up at Parker's bookstore. How is it possible someone can be such an asshole when asking for a favor?

read the story here: prev / next

Two weeks later finds the weather outside shifting with the first hint of autumn; cooler temperatures in the morning greet Parker when she walks to work, and the coffee shop next door has started advertising their new fall drinks of pumpkin spice and cinnamon tea. She's seen her brother every day since the wrap party—partly because he always makes a point of taking some down time after finishing a movie to recover from his stunts, and partly because her and Jody have become fast friends—but she hasn't seen Tom since their moment in the bathroom.

She suspects that's for the best. The internet is flooded with paparazzi photos of him flouncing around town with models every other day, and she's still trying to forget how natural it felt to laugh with him.

But despite her brother's newly open schedule, and Jody's constant pestering to go spend a day at the beach, Parker finds her bookstore just as empty as always.

There are a few stragglers here and there throughout the day. Sometimes she gets lucky when a tour bus stops for gas and snacks, allowing an ensemble of tacky dressed tourists to flood her street for twenty minutes. On unlucky days, Mr. Chamberlain will stop in to peruse her historical section; but he doesn't have any sort of schedule or income, and those visits consist entirely of him describing last night's CSI episode to Parker before trying to set her up with his grandson. Once he bought a book from her dollar bin. He attempted to return it three days later.

On days like today, Parker is visited by a sixteen-year-old named Melissa who hangs out every so often while her mom attends overpriced Pilates in the studio down the block.

"...and then Peter was all 'no, sorry Mandy, I'm not interested". Like, hello! My name is Melissa and we've lived in the same neighborhood since we were four," said teenager was droning on from her spot atop the upcycled reading chair in the corner. She never failed to impress Parker with how much she could talk—the stories quite literally never stopped coming—while at the same time she managed to read about four books a week. Parker suspected that Melissa's brain represented something like the Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, when the music got a little too fast and the turns were a little too hard to keep up with. "Now, I have no idea what I'm going to do. There's no one else for me to ask since it's three weeks away."

Parker, only half-listening to the story, hummed from her spot two rows back. She had won several boxes of books at a local auction about a month ago and had done a pretty good job at pretending they didn't exist.

Ignoring the problem only lasted so long, however, and this morning she had ended up spilling coffee all over herself when her sneaker caught the edge of the box. Pride—and knees—damaged, she decided to tackle the issue first thing in the morning.

It was now four in the afternoon, and the books were mocking her.

"Can't you just go alone?" she asked.

"Go alone? Are you crazy! That's, like, really sad, Park," Melissa explained. She couldn't see her, but Parker could feel the judgmental look the teen girl was giving her. "Only losers go alone to dances."

"Baby did it."

"Who?"

"Baby. You know? You don't put Baby in a corner? That one."

A tut. "You should really update your references."

"Jesus. Since when did Dirty Dancing become an outdated reference?" she muttered while inspecting the spine of a mystery novel from the 70s. It had definitely seen better days, and when she shifted it, three pages fell out. Parker tossed it into the TRASH box with a sigh. "Is going to a dance with your friends considered outdated too?"

"That's the same thing as going alone," Melissa groaned.

"How? You're literally not alone."

"Because if I go with my friends, that means that I couldn't get anyone that wasn't a friend to agree to go with me. I don't need the whole school thinking that I'm a total loser."

"I went with my friends and had a blast. And I'm not a loser."

There was no response other than silence, and after a few moments Parker realized that if Melissa had nothing to say about the subject, she likely had nothing nice to say.

She cleared her throat before moving onto the next, and final, box hoping that there would be better books in it. So far, her KEEP pile was looking pathetically small compared to what was about to be binned. With a forced change of conversation, she asked, "hey, you grew up here, right?"

"Sure."

"Did you know the Sawyers?"

"Like, Miss Sawyer? Down on Oakcrest?"

"The fancy old house with the bushes shaped like dogs. I bought a bunch of books at her estate sale, and so far, they all suck. I thought she was supposed to be a big collector or something."

The sound of Melissa humming echoed throughout the empty store, and Parker peeked around the bookshelves to spot the girl lying upside down on the chair; Doc Martens stuck up in the air, long ponytail hanging to the ground as she played on her phone.

Parker rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, totally. But she collected those kid's books. Original copies or whatever. Mom said she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for some rabbit book."

"...Peter Rabbit?"

"I guess," Melissa shrugged. There was a loud smack of gum popping before her voice rang out, "she did a bunch of donations to local art musuems and galleries and stuff. A phila-something—"

"Philanthropist?"

"—and there was some big deal about her donating everything to some charity. Mom was talking about it. Which, like, good for them or whatever but I don't understand how donating an old book is helping solve world hunger."

Parker let her head drop against the beat-up cardboard box in front of her, something despondent and miserable sitting on her chest at the realization that she had wasted time and money on nothing but crap. "Well, I wish I knew that before I went into a bidding war over this garbage. Are the Hardy Boys still cool or is that dated too?"

A judgmental laugh floated back. "Um, their name is pronounced Hemsworth, Park."

"I meant—" she started, before realizing that this was a battle she was never going to win, and even if she wanted to try the musty smell resonating from these boxes of crap had burned through her daily allowance of braincells. Something Melissa didn't seem to worry about as she puffed from her vape pen. "Forget it."

Not so shockingly, Melissa did not, in fact, forget it. Instead, she spent the next ten minutes describing in scary detail each Hemsworth brother, their looks on a scale of one to ten, their best movies, and why Chris was the dreamiest of them all. His hair and eyes were a big selling point, apparently, and as Parker listened to the teenager drone on, she couldn't help but wonder if Chris Hemsworth used box dye too.

So wrapped up in her own world of book sorting, Parker didn't notice when the front door opened with a tinkle of the bell until the shop went eerily quiet. Melissa, it seemed, had finally found a reason to shut up.

"I never liked Chris all that much," Parker said as she slowly gathered the KEEP bin and hefted it off the floor. Her lower back ached at the strain. Jesus, maybe I am old. Moving towards the front counter, she continued musing, "There's something about him in the first Thor movie, when his eyebrows were all bleached, that kind of turned me off. I think there's a word for that, right? The ew or something...."

She spots Melissa first.

The girl is sitting upright in the chair now, face flushed a deep scarlet red with a book held tightly in her lap as she pretends to read through it. Her phone and vape are nowhere to be seen, and she doesn't so much as glance up when Parker strides by.

"What happened to you?" she asks with an amused quirk of the brow. Melissa doesn't respond, and Parker turns to set the heavy box of books on the front counter when she spots the other person in the room. "Oh, sorry. I was in the back. Can I help—?"

It shouldn't surprise her as much as it does, but Parker blinks to find Tom Ryder standing on the other side of the counter staring at her with raised brows.

Tom fucking Ryder.

He looks better than the last time she ran into him. He has a nice tan going underneath a funky pair of yellow sunglasses that are, in her opinion, too big for his face. They look a little absurd with the whitewashed denim jacket he's wearing, but the yellow matches the bedazzled t-shirt he has on underneath, so she suspects it's some sort of fashion statement. Paired with an expensive pair of well-polished boots, it all looks quite absurd standing in the middle of her dilapidated bookstore.

Even more so when Parker realizes she's wearing nothing but a pair of cheap cargo shorts and an oversized Twilight sweatshirt that was covering the coffee-stained shirt underneath. (Team Jacob, always).

"Tom. Um... are you looking for Colt or something?"

In typical Ryder fashion, he ignores her question entirely to do a slow spin; blue eyes tinted by his glasses trailing over everything in sight. She can feel the judgement from across the counter, and when he finally fixes his sights back on her, his smirk is rage inducing. "This is your store. Seriously?"

Parker promptly plants her hands onto her hips with a scathing glare.

"Ok, what do you want?"

"Jesus, no wonder this place is empty," he drawls, a pointed smile tossed towards Melissa's prone form as he leans an elbow onto the counter. At being noticed, the teenager ducks her head behind the spine of her book as if she had just been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Do you talk to all your customers like that?"

"Just the assholes," she retorts. Over Tom's shoulder she catches Melissa's book dropping down two inches, and the girl's face is completely aghast.

What are you doing! she mouths, that's Tom Ryder!

Parker rolls her eyes. As if she didn't know who the blinged-out asshole standing in her store was. Speaking of—he's still standing there smirking at her. "That's you, if I wasn't clear. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Tom snorts. "I think I got that after the fifth time you said it."

"And yet..." she gestures vaguely to him, then to her store.

Because he's never behaved like a normal person, however, Tom doesn't seem to mind the insult or the offhand comment that she didn't want to deal with him. Instead, he smiles while his gaze drifts from judging the bookstore to judging Parker. He gives her a glance over—up, down, lingering on her oversized sweatshirt, before going back up—and finishes with a snort. "If the door hits me, I'm suing for damages, and I doubt you could afford the lawsuit. Let alone a lawyer."

God! What. a. fucking. asshole!

Parker bites back the insult knowing that it won't do any good. They've played this game before, and clearly being called an asshole seemed to have lost some of its bite over the weeks. So instead, she forcefully returns her attention to the cardboard box and slowly starts sorting the books into categories. "Fine. Can you just tell me what you want so I can get back to my life?"

He shifts against the counter and over the mustiness she catches a waft of his cologne when he grabs a book at random from her pile. "Why else do people come to a bookstore? I want a book."

Parker snorts. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Seriously, what do you want?"

There's a moment of silence. She glances up to find him pointedly ignoring her as he flips through the book at random.

"You're... serious?"

He shrugs. "You said you have a bunch of sci-fi books."

"I'm surprised you even remember that given the whole," she sticks a finger into her mouth and mimes throwing up. He doesn't find it funny or cute and responds with a disgusted glare. Parker rolls her eyes with a shake of the head. "It was a—never mind. Why not order off of Amazon? I thought you said you've never even been to a bookstore before?"

This time, it's his turn to roll his eyes. He drops the book with a thwack before turning his attention to the overstuffed bookshelves at her left. At random, he starts ambling towards one. "You should be flattered that I picked your little store to start. Most people would kill to say that you know. Tom Ryder explores rundown bookstore in the shitty side of LA. If you had a picture, the paps would run it in every paper by tomorrow morning," he huffs.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to document this monumental occasion forever," she snarks, but follows after him anyway. His pattern is half-hearted; poking books here and there, glancing for hardly a second, before moving on. "And my store isn't rundown. It just has some... character."

He snorts over his shoulder. "That's what a Mom says when her daughter is ugly."

"Don't you go through PR training or something?" she scoffs as he diverts to a different aisle. "I can't imagine Gail would like to hear that particular opinion if I sold it to TMZ."

"Gail would sue you for everything you own," he laughed while flipping through an old copy of Gone with the Wind. Parker crosses her arms at him with a glare, and in response Tom flashes a too-white smile at her. "She freaked out about the mink rug, by the way. Was screaming and everything. It was hilarious."

Parker's heart stopped in her chest, but when there was no continuation of the joke—haha I can't wait to see you served with papers!—she furrowed her brows at him. "You didn't tell her it was my fault?"

A shrug as he shoved the book against her chest.

She huffed, turning the book over to check for damages, but when he turned his back... well, a part of her did wonder why he would keep that a secret if it was such a big deal. Was it to be nice? Or so he could hold it over her head indefinitely? Then again, if this was his attempt at blackmail, letting it go for two weeks seemed like the wrong way to go about it.

Deciding not to linger on unsolvable riddles, Parker returned the book to the end cap he had found it on and asked, "so, does this mean you've decided to audition for that sci-fi part after all?"

Her question went unanswered as Tom paused in front of the SEX & SEXUALITY section. He pulled a wrinkled copy of Fifty Shades of Grey off the shelf and waggled his brows at her pointedly. "Keeping the good stuff for yourself, huh?"

Parker responded by snagging the book out of his hand and stuffing it back into place. "You break it, you buy it applies here too, Ryder."

"Half this place is broken," he said with a pointed glance at the flickering overhead light. "I still can't believe you own this shithole."

"I happen to love this bookstore—"

"Oh, trust me, I can believe that you would own a bookstore," he said, and while there was nothing insulting about owning a bookstore on its own, the way that Tom spoke made it clear that owning a bookstore was not something he held in high regard. Then again, he spent all his time reading shitty scripts, so what would he know? "I just can't believe that you would own this bookstore. Like, you actually paid money for this place?"

"If you have to know, I used to be friends with the owner, and got a good deal on the property," she started to explain. He raised his brows at her while slowly perusing the RELIGION section, and Parker shook herself. She didn't need to explain anything to him of all people. The reminder helped her find some confidence, and she fluttered her hands at him irritably. "You know what—I don't need to explain myself to you. You've never even been to a bookstore before. What would you know about making sacrifices for something you believed in?"

Tom paused in his search. She saw his jaw clench, and eyes droop towards the creaky wooden floor beneath his shiny boots, and his comment from the other day drifted back to mind.

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, too, he had said.

And while guilt did block her throat up a bit—fucking asshole couldn't even let her defend herself without feeling bad about it—this time he didn't make any such reprimands. Instead, he just shrugged, before diving deeper into the store.

He cleared his throat. "I just expected it be nicer coming from you."

"Does something about me secretly scream rich girl to you?"

Tom harrumphed. "Trust me, no one is mistaking you for rich. Uptight, however..."

"Oh, ha, hilarious, Tom. God! You're such an asshole," she laughed, but it was a mean sound, paired with a mean insult. It failed to have the desired effect, however. In fact, Tom seemed to have shifted from hating the insult to owning it and looked far too amused for her liking. Frustrated, Parker decided the best plan of extermination was a straightforward shot. Through gritted teeth, she asked, "...what kind of sci-fi book do you want?"

The rhinestones on his shoulders sparkled as he shrugged. "I don't know. I need to understand what gets nerds so fucking excited about this shit. Not too nerdy, though. Alright? I'm not trying to be a Trekkie or whatever."

There were so many things wrong with that statement that Parker wasn't sure what to pick first. So, she pinched the bridge of her nose to point out, "I have a feeling the so-called nerds making up your potential fanbase aren't going to appreciate being talked about like that."

"Who's gonna tell them—you?" he asked with a derisive glance over.

It was definitely true what they said about Tom Ryder; his effect on women was instantaneous. Parker just doubted the tabloids were talking about migraines.

"The sci-fi section is on the right," she sighed while pushing past him. It was one of the larger sections she had; it hadn't been a lie to say the books weren't selling all that well despite being her favorite. "What have you read before?"

The blank look he gave her was response enough.

"Ah, right, maybe... Altered Carbon?"

"Isn't that a tv show?"

"Well, yeah, but it was a book first."

He glanced at the book in her hand, but clearly wasn't impressed. Leaning on the shelf, he said, "why the hell would I read that if I could just watch it?"

"Sound logic," she tutted with a narrow eyed look. Parker returned the book with an eyeroll. "Fahrenheit 451?"

"Read it in high school. Not impressed."

She trailed the shelf while muttering, listing books in her head before subconsciously crossing them off the list of something he was likely to read and enjoy. "I guess that means you wouldn't like The Illustrated Man or The Martian Chronicles," she said to herself.

His arm brushed her aside to pluck out a familiar novel. "Nerds love this," he said while already flipping through the pages. She was surprised the size didn't scare him off immediately.

"Nu-uh. No way," she shook her head.

"What?"

"Dune is not a starter book."

He furrowed his brows crossly. "You don't think I'm smart enough to read this shit or something?"

You shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answers to, her mother's voice echoed in the back of her head.

"Reading Dune as your first sci-fi book is like jumping straight into the deep end," she told him in a much more diplomatic approach. "If a sixteen year old wants to start drinking, you don't give him scotch, you give him a fruity cocktail."

Tom huffed; first through his nose and then through his mouth but stuffed the book back onto the shelf anyway. To which Parker then had to put it back on the correct shelf with a huff of her own.

"Don't be a baby and just trust me that Dune isn't a starter book. Okay?"

"Well—what is? You're supposed to be the expert here."

"If you weren't so picky it would be a lot easier..." she deadpanned but returned to her search anyway. Tom didn't seem to like waiting, and scowled at her as she shifted past him. She ignored him as best she could while squatting down to the lower shelves. "Arthur C. Clarke is one of the best sci-fi writers. He established a lot of rules that still exist in writing today. And films."

Parker pulled one of his novels, before moving towards Asimov, and then finally to Sagan. They were all slimmer novels than Dune, but no less complicated.

"Contact is my favorite," she said, shoving the books into Tom's arms. His denim was rough on her hands, and she tried not to think about how feverishly warm his skin had been the last time she had been this close to him. Swallowing, Parker remained on task. "But any of these should be good starter books for you to get into sci-fi with."

He glanced at the choices warily. "My audition is next week."

"Then I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to finish these if you're really serious about wanting to get that role," she chirped.

Together, they wound back towards the front counter. The TRASH boxes sat in the middle of the aisle, and she carefully toed them to the side before trailing past. While she was pretty sure he had been joking about suing her, a workplace hazard was the last thing she needed.

"How do you remember all of this?"

"Where stuff is? I spend almost all of my time arranging books. I'm uptight, remember?"

She felt more than saw his eyeroll. "These books, the authors. You, like, know everything about them."

Parker paused. It definitely wasn't a compliment, but it definitely felt like it could have been. Then again, this was Tom Ryder. When she glanced up from the counter, she found that he already has his nose back in his phone, and the conundrum of compliment versus not was thrown out the window. Parker shot him an unimpressed look to say, "please tell me that you're not on SparkNotes right now."

It was his turn to pause. "I'm just... reading the descriptions."

"Maybe that's why you can't understand why nerds like these books," she argued, hands planted firmly on her hips now. "Why would I go to watch one of your movies if I already looked the plot up on Wikipedia?"

He ignored her point entirely to smirk. "So, you do see my movies?"

"Goodbye, Tom."

"Relax. I'm not going to spoil them, alright? What's the fun in that when I could read them instead, and then leave you a bad review when the books end up being awful?"

"You mean have your assistants leave me a bad review."

He didn't seem impressed at the jab but didn't defend himself either. Most likely because they both knew she was right. Parker shot him a smug smile that he promptly rolled his eyes at. "Hilarious. Just tell me how much the books cost so I can leave before stepping on a rusty nail or something."

"Didn't you see the sign out front? Can't come in without a tetanus shot due to liability reasons."

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but when she glanced up at him, Tom was wiping a hand down his face. "How much for the books, smartass?"

Parker was pretty sure she could upsell him. There was no way that he knew those three books, decades old with ripped pages, were only worth fifteen bucks together. And with all the Gucci name brand bullshit that he wore, she was pretty sure she could get away with telling him the price was a hundred dollars and he wouldn't even blink an eye.

But he was also a customer, a somewhat work acquaintance, and someone she really didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary. Not to mention her brother's pseudo boss, and someone that knew she was guilty of wrecking a far more expensive rug than she could ever pay to fix.

"Just consider them a loan," she said before she could second guess herself. When Tom raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared into his hairline, she waved a hand at him while half-heartedly returning to her job of book sorting. "If you're that put-off by it you can always pay me an agent's fee if you get the part."

He stared at her for a long moment, not necessarily computing, definitely hearing static, before Tom spared her an over-the-top eyeroll that surely had to have hurt to perform.

From his pocket he pulled out a couple of crumpled bills and slapped them onto the counter. He didn't even look at how much money it was. Just shook his head at her, glasses bobbing on his nose, before he was on his way out the door.

"Hey! Don't you want your change—?"

The door shut with a ting.

On the counter sat seventy-three dollars. Parker wasn't sure if she should be offended or complimented.

From outside there was the sound of an obnoxiously loud car engine revving, alongside the thrum of music, before it tore off down the street.

"What a fucking asshole," she grumbled with the shake of her head.

But it wasn't exactly an asshole thing to do, when she thought about it. And she would know; every exchange they had since being introduced had Tom acting like an asshole to her.

Or, well, not every exchange. Not when he had been, almost, nice to her at Gail's party, if only for a few moments when no one else was around.

"OH. MY. GOD!" a shrill voice shrieked across the store, bouncing off of bookshelves, as two boots went crashing towards the window. Parker was reminded in no gentle terms that they had not, in fact, been alone when Melissa smudged her face against the glass to peer out onto the street. "Holy shit! That was Tom Ryder! Tom Ryder! Are you kidding me right now? TOM. RYDER."

"Yeah, Jesus, I know who that was," she winced, pinching her ear when she thought the girl's high pitch yelp may have burst an eardrum. There was definitely a ringing as Melissa tromped around.

"You—he—I can't believe after all of this time you never once mentioned that you're friends with Tom freaking Ryder!" she squeaked.

"Well, hang on, we're not—"

"How long have you known him? How do you know him? Do you have his phone number? Ohmygod everyone is going to flip when I tell them that you know him. Tom Ryder!" Melissa shouted, phone already in hand as she started typing. "My friend, my dear friend and favorite bookstore owner, is best friends with Tom Ryder! Did you see his latest movie, Good Cop, Bad Dog? Ugh! He's so hot!"

"We're not friends," she said immediately, not even bothering to dispute the fact that Good Cop, Bad Dog was a puff piece in an attempt to market him for younger fans. "He's actually kind of an asshole."

The teenager shot Parker a scandalized look, mouth popped open into an O as her brows lifted to her hairline. "What? Are you kidding me right now? He just drove all the way out here to ask for your recommendation for a sci-fi book! His house is, like, fifty minutes from here with traffic. Don't call him that when you just became so cool."

Parker frowned. "How do you know where he lives?" she asked, before adding with much more intensity, "hang on a second, am I not cool?"

But Melissa was already moving on, the sound of facetime dialing on her phone as she darted back outside in hopes of catching another glimpse of the celebrity. Parker, in response, caught her head between her hands with a low groan.

And yet, she couldn't help but think about what Melissa said.

Tom Ryder was a total, grade-A asshole... right?

She cast a despondant glance towards the crumpled bills on the counter, then the box of books at her side, before fishing her phone out of her back pocket, and pressing the second number on speed dial.

"Hey," she said, "do you want to get, like, really drunk tonight?"

Colt didn't bother to ask why before he was checking what ingredients he had in his fridge and offering to invite Jody and Dan over for dinner. Sometimes, she really loved her brother.

#plot bunny #the fall guy #tom ryder #tom ryder x ofc #original female character #tom ryder imagine #series?

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sometimesthatsbetter · 8 months ago

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Every thing i read in Febubary

I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game

The MC of this novel is so fucking silly cause who tf names their kid Ash 'Born hater' Everblack? Like i'm being for real right now, his mom literally called him her 'little hater'. Love that

So, a Korean gamer who was streaming about this old strategy game on hardmode where if you fail once the game resets. The guy got isekaied the moment he finished the game on stream and right in the middle of the battle field too, tough luck hater.

Before we go more in depth about this story I would recommend that you read the novel version, the manhwa seems a little tacky and i've seen alot of readers complain that the manhwa makes everything look cheaper.

So, one of reasons why it made on to my reading list is because it was recommended by my guy friends who has great taste for this kinda genre. It drew him in because it used actual strategies that he would also use in his game instead of throwing around random lingo in hopes to cater to gamers. Like every battle was truly suspenseful and the author isn't afraid to show that every victory requires a sacrifice. Also I've seen people praise the character development of this novel, everyone starts out a little stereotypical and annoying but they get their own story arcs to shine.

Another thing i like is that this story is about the fight against the end of the world. Like i know alot of stories with that kind of premise but rarely do i ever feel the urgencey as strongly as i do with this story. The last stand against a sea of monsters waiting to consume the world and the young prince who's tasked with the question of remaining human or turning into a monster to save his world. I love me some classical fantasy

Anyways, it has 500+ translated chapters and it's all free. Go read it now.

The problematic prince

If i'm being honest here i can think of at least 10 more manhwa crown princes who are even more problematic than the ML, especially that guy from the abandoned empress, yeah fuck you blueberry head.

So the story premise is the typical bad boy x good girl story trope. Our prince Bjorn keeps getting pestered by his ex wife whom he doesn't want contact with and our FL is being sold off to the highest bidder in society, shinnaigans happen and so the are married. That's the very shorten version of the plot

First thing that i noticed, the vibes. It gave off so much Edwardian, turn of the century energy that i adore. From the costuming to the city streets and the interactions between common people. Love it.

The author seems to have been blessed with amazing writing skills because oh my god did the writing style made me swoon. Erna, our FL, can be classified as one of those soft girl heroines but i feel like she's more than that. She knew what she had to do to keep her loved ones safe and always strived for better, she's not a cunning villainess nor a simpering coward. Erna never settled and kept enduring and trying new ways to connect with others around her even when she's being labelled as a home wrecker.

Also the nobilities and medias reaction to their marriage was incredibly realistic, i see alot of manhwas with rags to riches stories or men marrying women with horrendus reputations but never mention how powerful the influence of the peoples opinions. Here you can see that Bjorn and Erna's relationship, while rocky still holds strong, it seemed like they are truly in love and happy with their choices. Yet media still condemns her as a witch, a slut and a disgrace towards the royal family. It even lead to a attempt on Ernas life. Which shows you how easily the public can be whipped into a frenzy just because of a narritive that she is other woman.

The spirit queen

If i even find the author of this manhwa i would like to make out with them and have their babies, cause this kind of genious deserves to be preserved.

Do you want a story with proper drama? Do you want something that actually keeps it's momentum and doesn't half ass shit half way through? Do you want themes about power and how it turns people into the worse version of themselves? Well look no further. The spirit queen has your back

Another thing that i loved about this story was it's sympathy towards the working class. The servants in this aren't the stereotypical happy go lucky loyal maids that you see in manhwas, they also aren't evil back stabbing people either. They know that their lives are worthless when it comes to the upper classes so they do all that they can to survive and to protect their loved ones. And i respect that as hell, even if it made them do less than savory things.

Also i recently learned that the author, Tutu-nim, wrote and drew this manhwa on their own. A true girlboss

Run away with me, girl

Remember all those times you said that you can be a better husband for the FL? Well this is a lesbian romance based on that premise.

It's a bittersweet romance story about two girls who were high school friends meeting each other after 10 years. Maki, who is till doing her graduate courses while living with her mom and lamenting her loneliness, while Midori is engaged and pregnant and living that perfect, normal life she wanted. Of course everything is not as it seems, and that's what the author wanted to explore in the coming chapters of the story

It's a short read, about 16? 17? chapters. But the author manages to do so much in that short amount of time. Every character felt so real and complicated. At first when you see Midori and the way that she treated Maki after their reunion, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that Midori is just playing around with Makis feelings. Especially with the way that she flirts and then reminds Maki of her engagement to her boyfriend.

This manga has the most realistic, hut wrenching potrayals of abuse, love and hate i've seen in a while. And if i'm being honest there is a high chance i would do the same if i was stuck in their situation.

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lienspien · 6 months ago

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I feel like all the Skittles have SOME sort of weird thing that's going on with them. Tw mentions of blood and dissecting

Barty is batshit crazy. Wild, messy, and all over the place. Almost terrifying. He makes ur mom jokes and threatens to kill or hurt or fuck someone who's messing with him. He also learned how to do his own tatoos and piercings, thats why he has a new tattoo or piercing every month. He finds it fun and silly to be stabbing his ear and shoving a piercing through it, likes the sting cause it gives him adrenaline

And there's Pandora who says the most out of pocket shit. She has weird visions sometimes and seems to be everywhere and knows everything. And she's so incredibly calm while saying the wildest shit ever that it scares some people. People never hear her footsteps, and she just shows up randomly. Her voice is so calm and peaceful that it really doesn't fit her liking in scary creatures

Then Evan, who is just as off-putting as his sister. Unlike Barty, who is chaotic, he's more reserved and calm. But sometimes does creepy stuff and acts like it's normal. He is weirdly fascinated with disecting humans and animals. Also has a weird interest in teeth and dead animal corpses. He probably learned how to preserve them somehow. He has a like thing where dead butterflies are stuck to and he wakes up everyday to admire it as a way to start his day.

Dorcas has an interest in lucid dreaming and shifting and all things psychological. Sometimes she'll say stuff like "oh I sent a message to you in your dreams, you got it, right?" Most of the time, you probably won't get it, but it happens sometimes. Mostly to the slytherin Skittles and Marlene. She also learned to do nonverbal spells earlier in her years because it helps give her more control over her own mind. She has definitely learned and did research on why the imperius curse does what it does to its victims

And Regulus, though never to admit out loud, fucking loves astrology. He learned about it through Pandora, and since then he's been doing astrological readings. He just finds it cool how something like a time of birth, the position of a planet, the moon phase of your birth, and all can say a lot about a person.

Anyways it might not fit some characters but it's how I think of them and I love them this way cause imagine like Pandora walking up to Barty and say "certain plants can bloom above dead corpses" and Barty suggests that they have to see it happen for themselves

Or Dorcas coming up reg like "did you get my message?" And Regulus said "yeah, it's written in the stars that your relationship will go well don't worry and stop pestering me in my dreams"

Or Barty making a new piercing and Evan suggesting that he should make a piercing out of one of his insects legs and Barty was really close to doing it before Reg stopped them

Or Regulus catching squirrels for Pandora to keep in her little squirrel cage and have as a pet that'll probably die because Evan keeps feeding it the wrong food

Sometimes, the Skittles all get hurt except for Dorcas, and she says stuff like "yeah because the universe is protecting me. I'm their favourite mortal"

Barty getting slightly unsettled and maybe a bit flustered when he sees Evan so focused on learning how to use his new dissecting tool, just tweaking it here and there for his own liking yk

Regulus in a bad mood cause today's horoscope says that it's going to be shit.

Yeah they're weird

#slytherin skittles #dorcas meadowes #barty crouch jr #evan rosier #pandora rosier #pandora lovegood #regulus black #iliyas yaps #iliyas hcs

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yourlocalartsonist · 7 months ago

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ROTTMNT Moths Fly In Packs - Chapter Nine

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT I'M ALIVE AND I AM SO SORRY! It's been way too long and I'm genuinely sorry this chapter took several fucking months to make but IT'S FINALLY DONE! It ended up way longer than I intended man, I THOUGHT THIS WAS GONNA BE SHORT. It's my longest chapter yet fun fact. I don't even regret it really, it benefited so much from the extra effort. Hopefully the next few chapters won't take this long but I will refrain from jinxing myself again so🧍‍♀️Anyway enough blabbering, hope y'all enjoy this one ;w;

CREDIT To the MFIP Team: Thank you to @yosajaeofficial, @urlocalmj, misfortun3_ismyname (on TikTok), @chaoticspeedrun, @ramblehour and @goldanrabbit for being my lovely editors! MAN did they give this chapter a lot of polish-

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Chapter One

Disclaimer: Chapter involves verbal abuse/manipulation, harassment, gaslighting, depressive thoughts, violence, blood, mentions of a wounded limb, brief mentions of nausea, displayed anxiety, and curse words. If you're sensitive to that, scroll past and stay safe!

I rushed around my room throwing shit on as fast as I could. Not fast enough apparently, since my phone’s vibrating like it’s gonna explode.

It’s late as hell right now, but Zane insisted on meeting up. Pretty randomly at, like, 11pm on a school night. I was initially planning to reject the idea or ghost with the excuse of sleeping, but it’s been a good while since I actually did hang out with him. I know insomnia’s gonna keep me up for a bit anyway, so why the hell not? We might even have fun! Just wish he’d stop flooding my notifs like I didn't already say I was actively getting ready.

I looked in the mirror, checking to see if I was presentable enough for the outside realm. My reflection’s the same as always; for better or worse. Still the same pink dress, same green skirt, same boots. Can’t forget the gold earrings; the only emergency asset I held onto. I don’t know what I expected. I don’t have much to work with. Guess the gloves from Donnie are new, at least. But I’m still getting… bored? A change in appearance—even a small one—might be able to fill that hole for a while. Keep me distracted.

Maybe I could do something with my hair tonight? I still have Mi’s ribbon lying here somewhere.

I ignored Zane’s digital pestering and spent a few extra minutes shuffling through drawers and boxes, eventually finding her long, white ribbon—handmade from moth silk. She wore it all the time. I barely remember her hair being fully down unless she was sleeping or about to shower. Except for that one night, of course. The night she left and was never found again. She almost did take the ribbon with her. Had her hair done up in a bun and everything, even a little fancier than usual. But she took it off once she saw me behind her, barely reflected in the mirror. She crouched down, placed it in my tiny palms, and gave me her wonderfully warm smile. It’s the last thing she left me with. The last gift she could ever give me.

After that, the ribbon’s survived years of storage and then more years of… unconventional bullshit use. I know moth silk ain’t the weakest thing on Earth but I’ve deadass used this ribbon as a make-shift pulley system to sneak stuff into my room through the window before, some of which weighed more than me! Its got the endurance of a Nokia at this point.

I’ve barely used the ribbon for its intended purpose, though. I mean, how could I? I’m not my mom no matter how similar we look. Maybe this is a me-thing, but I always felt wearing the ribbon would be like replacing her with myself.

Although, I’m sure Mi would’ve loved it if I wore it.

Using the ribbon, I tied my hair into a ponytail and styled it as a loose bow, just to see how it would look. The white tails gently draped over my back down to my hips. I never quite realized how long the ribbon was before now. I don’t look as fancy or pretty as mom did, but it’s the best I’ve got. It… it doesn’t look bad, though, I think. It actually looks kinda nice! Maybe I’ll use it a bit more often.

My phone’s repeated buzzing snapped me out from my trance. “Alright, alright, shut up already.” I groaned. Zane’s growing impatient.

You: hey sorry I jsut finished getting ready

You: heading out the door now! :3

Fuck doors. Sneaking out became a whole lot easier ever since I did it from my window, but he doesn’t have to know that. I can already imagine him scolding me about the dangers of dropping down from high places, even with the fire escape there. He wouldn’t be wrong, per se, but at this point I’ve handled worse. Would probably send him into cardiac arrest if he knew what I’d actually been up to these few months.

I sprinted to the spot we agreed to meet up at. Zane was already there, leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets like always.

“Salena! Hey!” He lit up like a star when he saw me, beckoning me over.

God, for a sour person, he has such a sweet smile. He’s usually so good at being intimidating and frightening. Yet the second he brings out his smile, all that built-up fear washes away like it was never there to begin with.

“I almost thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Well, I figured I could use some fresh air.” I tilted my head to the side, eyeing his fit. “You left your sweater at home?”

“Hm?” He followed my gaze to his pitch black tank top in place of the usual outfit. “Oh, right! Yeah, the weather’s too hot for a sweater tonight. Forgot I changed it, really.”

Now that I’m looking closer, his choker’s missing too. It probably didn’t match with the top. Seems like it got swapped with a black watch on his left wrist that complimented the look way more. Doesn’t matter what he pretends to be though, I know Zane pays very close attention to his appearance. He’s gotta maintain the rep of our grade’s “Pretty Boy” after all. When it comes to him, every little detail matters.

Wait a sec…

“What happened to your arm?”

I couldn’t see ‘till he turned towards me but his left arm had a deep bluish-purple bruise spread across it. It looked like it was from something long like a pipe or a bat. Either way, it was gnarly enough to worry me.

“Oh that. It’s nothing too bad.” He shrugged.

“You kiddin’ me? It looks awful! What happened?” I carefully grabbed his arm and took a closer look at the mark. I wish Leo was here, but thankfully I’ve picked up a little medic knowledge from him so I can at least tell if a bone is broken or not.

“Hey, don’t get your feathers all fluffed! I got a little hurt rough-housing with the guys, that’s all. You know how they are.”

“Rough-housing? Or a secret murder attempt?” I was only being half sarcastic. It wouldn’t be out of character for them.

“Don’t worry! It’s really sweet of you to care, but they’d never dare hurt me on purpose! Now, on another note…“ He paused for a moment, taking a proper look at me. For a little bit, I couldn’t tell why he smirked. “Looks like someone wanted to look cute tonight, ey? You wore your hair up.”

“Huh?” I touched my hair, forgetting I changed it earlier. “Oh, um, yeah! I-I did! I thought I’d give it a try. Does it… um, you know, look too bad or weird or?…”

“No! No, it… it looks really pretty.” Oh god, that’s a relief to hear! I was so paranoid it wouldn’t suit— “I gotta ask, though.”

I caught him inching closer. I tried creating space, but quickly realized I was up against the wall again. Should’ve been more careful about that. His hand reached out, bringing back all sorts of cringe-inducing memories. He didn’t technically pin me like last time, but he tucked my bangs back behind my ear. Feeling his fingers come into contact with my skin almost feels just as nauseating, though.

“How’d you know I had a thing for girls in ponytails?”

And fuck, he made it weird again.

“Z-Zane?”

“Yeah?…” WHY ISN’T HE GETTING THE HINT!? “You know, you always look so soft when you dress up. You just bloom.”

“…So! What are we doing tonight?”

His smile slightly dropped, likely upset I ruined whatever moment he was trying to have. Honestly, didn’t matter to me, as shitty as that sounds. I just wanted to change the topic so he’d step back a bit. We go through this every time; this stupid ass, awkward aura. I wish it would stop happening.

On the bright side, he did step back and redirect his focus to answering my question. On the not so bright side, his answer was a pathetic shrug.

“I don’t know.”

“Y-you… What do you mean you don’t know? I snuck out here in the middle of the night, you told me it’d be something special! You’ve gotta have something planned.”

“Honest, I don’t! I thought it was beautiful outside and it reminded me of you. Wanted to see where such a lovely night could take us. I think that’s special enough, don’t you?”

“W-Well, I mean—“

He chuckled “What’s wrong? You’re not backing out now, are you?”

I may have praised his smile earlier, but right now it’s making my eye twitch. I’m a little peeved knowing he brought me out here for shits and giggles when I could’ve at least been resting in bed, replenishing some of my energy. I know I don’t have the best sleeping habits, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get tired from the constant action going on! I don’t even know how long he’s gonna keep me hostage for! But… he’s also right that it’d be kinda shitty to bail now. Besides, I’m already out here so…

I guess all that’s left to do is suck it up and try to make the best of it.

“Well, do you wanna… go for a walk or something?”

“Sounds perfect to me! Come on, hold my hand, Dove.”

For someone who supposedly didn’t have a plan, he sure took an awful lot of charge during that walk. He suggested we go to Central Park and practically dragged me there despite my common sense screaming to never go to that hellspawn at night. Although, I can’t complain too much. The park’s definitely the best place to see the stars, and tonight had clear skies! He made sure to keep a tight grip on me in case we ran into any classic New York weirdos anyway, so I should probably be less tense. I guess I got used to the guaranteed safety of having literal ninjas around me, I forgot what it was like hanging out with a regular person.

On top of that, Zane seemed really happy! Happier than I’ve seen him in a while, actually. He was giddily pointing out any interesting greenery we saw and rambling random facts he knew about them.

Even later, when we went and dined inside a relatively fancy restaurant, all he could focus on was the different plants they chose as decor. He’s such a huge nature geek, but he’d never let anyone know. Zane’s the type of guy to get 100% on a biology test and shamefully shove it in his backpack to avoid being labeled as a nerd. Being a nerd myself, I think it’s pretty cool, so I never understood it. But either way, I’m glad he feels safe around me. I’m glad he doesn’t hide around me.

I forgot about this side of him, I really did. The side that is my friend.

We were walking back to my place, taking in the bliss of the quiet night. Even if a part of me prefers the busier, noisy parts of the city, it’s really soothing to experience the calmer sides of it too. Everything about tonight feels nearly perfect. I’m surprised nothing ruined it. I’m debating if I could ruin it…

I really want to talk to him. I wanna bring up those photos, get some answers, put my strange emotions to rest once and for all. I wanna hear it from him that neither of them meant to hurt me. That this was just my mind screwing me over again. I need to know. I really need to know.

You know, friends are supposed to lend a shoulder when you need it.

I don’t want to ruin the night. But friendship takes risks sometimes. That’s what shows its strength, right?

I take a deep breath and go for the leap of faith.

“So, I was wondering—” “Salena, I wanted to ask—”

I really gotta work on my timing for these things.

“S-Sorry! You go first.”

He shook his head with a delicate smile. “Nah, it’s okay. You can go.”

“Are you sure? I-I mean it’s kinda complicated…”

“Yeah, I’m sure! I always love hearing you talk, anyway.”

“O-okay then, well…” My hands balled up into determined fists and I looked him right in the eyes. I have to put an end to this or I’ll never be able to move on. “I’ll be real, it might be a weird question.But you’re my friend and I really trust you a lot. I… I have to know this, so please don’t get mad.”

“Yeah…?” Why did he have to lean in closer…

I came this far, I’m not letting my tongue shut me up again.

“What’s going on with you and Jaiden?”

Immediately his demeanor changed. His posture slouched, the disappointment clear as day on his face. “Jaiden? You’re—you’re really thinking about… about them, now?”

“Yes, b-but I want to stop! That’s why I need to ask you this, so please bear with me, Zane.”

He leaned back with a hand on his hip, the other covering his face as he exhaled. “And here I was getting my hopes up for nothing.”

He would never think that I heard him; Zane’s a good whisperer. Unfortunately, my hearing rivals it.

He looked at me again; his eyes didn’t feel the same. “Okay, fine. What is it?”

I felt my stomach twist into itself. My chest began to ache. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was about to hurl.

It’s okay. Friends get a little upset at each other all the time. Doesn’t mean they’ll break apart. Don’t be a coward, Salena.

I told him about everything. The canceled plans, Jaiden’s distant behavior, the increase in their pics together on his Instagram. I vented about how frustrated I felt with seeing them spend so much time together and then completely ignore me. And then vented some more about how frustrated I felt from that frustration, how I knew it was wrong yet couldn’t help it seeping into my everyday life! I let out a lot of steam tonight, even things I didn’t plan on telling him. The only things I left out, honestly, were anything related to the turtles to hide their identity. And to avoid any irrelevant questions.

He seemed strangely chipper hearing all of this, a curiously amused smirk plastered on his face. Not the reaction I expected, but I guess it’s better than him flipping out like I thought he would.

“So, if I’m getting this right, you see me and Jaiden hanging out more often and it actually bothers you?”

“I don’t want it to but yeah, it bothers me a whole fucking lot. It’s taken over my life and I hate it! I hate being jealous! It’s so—“

“You’re jealous!? You’re jealous! Oh man, I can’t believe I am living in the same timeline where the Salena Moni is experiencing jealousy like every. Average. Lowlife. Person!”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and rub it in, why dontcha? That helps me so much.” I pouted.

He laughed, enjoying my misery. “I know, I’m sorry. Just, damn! Somewhere, pigs are flying aren’t they?” If Meat Sweats could fly, I’d be his murderous Cupid.

“Har har. I get it though. I mean, you know me! I’ve felt envious before, but jealous? How does anyone even deal with this…?” I held myself a little tighter.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Dove. It happens! Everyone gets a little jealous. It’s a normal thing to go through, Salena.”

“Yeah, I sure did want a normal life, so I guess I got what I wished for.” I can’t help feeling salty over all this.

He only laughed and patted my hair, fluffing up the ponytail a little.

“Hey, Zane? For the sake of my psyche, you sure I’m not a bad person for this?”

A tender sigh rang through my ears. “I’m sure. You could never be a bad person, Salena.”

…I never realized a husky voice like his could feel so honeyed.

But he’s right. I’m not a bad person, I’m just human. If both him and Raph said the same thing, it’s more likely to be true.

“And for the record, Jaiden and I are just friends right now. There’s nothing going on between us, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Uh… Cool? I… might be a little lost here. Why are you telling me that?”

“Reassurance, obviously.”

I blinked, not really getting it or knowing how to respond. He thought for a moment, then had a face of realization while he giggled.

“Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re actually that innocent! You’re so cute, I swear!” He booped my nose and leaned in again with a huge smile. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “You’re jealous because you have a crush.”

A crush?

“But why would I have a crush on Jaiden?”

“I’m just saying—Wait, rewind. A crush on Jaiden?” He physically paused for a bit before awkwardly laughing. “No, sweetie, you don’t get jealous of your crush, you get jealous of the people they’re with!”

“That’s why I’m asking. Why would I have a crush on Jaiden?”

…Why does the air feel colder all of a sudden?

The night was warm just a minute ago, but now it’s dead like the core of winter. His smile is long gone. His eyes, they’re slicing me in half. Is my breathing a little faster? He’s coming closer. I’m suddenly aware of just how alone we really are here in this silent little street.

“To be clear. Who are you jealous of.”

My throat clogged up. I blinked and lowered my eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears being fought back. I forgot this side of him, too. The side that made my heart close in on itself.

“Salena, don’t make me ask twice.”

“Of you.” I managed to let out. “J-jealous of you.”

He wouldn’t speak for a while. Only felt him staring me down like a predator stalking its prey, making me swallow to keep my throat from drying up. My hands felt so clammy, begging me to wipe them on my skirt. But I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t even look at him right now.

“Of fucking course you are.”

I knew it was coming, but I still flinched when he cursed with no shame, tugging his hair and punching the wall next to me. It’s stupid, isn’t it? I can handle giant mutants and a literal cult of evil, but Zane’s temper was not something to be messed with, and my unlucky ass did exactly that.

“Why did I ever expect anything different! Of course it’s me you’re jealous of! Why the fuck would you phrase it like that if you meant something else, god dammit!”

You’re gonna bleed if you keep doing that…

“Z-Zane, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t think it’d come off as me being jealous of Jaiden—“

“OBVIOUSLY, IT FUCKING WOULD!!!” He grabbed my shoulders, bringing me closer to him. I don’t know if it’d be an exaggeration to say I nearly got a panic attack from the action alone.

“When you say things like how you’re jealous of how much time Jaiden and I spend together, of course I think you’re jealous of them, not me! Why would I ever assume it was me! That never happens with anyone else! God, you’re such a fucking moron sometimes, I swear!”

“I'm sorry… P-please stop…”

“After everything we’ve fucking been through, everything I did for you! All you can ever do is somehow relate me back to Jaiden! There’s always someone else! I mean nothing to you, Salena! Don’t I!? I! Mean! Nothing!”

“I-I didn’t mean to, I promise—”

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER, IDIOT!”

He let go and pushed me back. Sometimes I overlook how much bigger Zane is compared to me. This is not one of those times.

“You know what? You know what’s funny, Salena? That night you’re so fucking fixated on, the one that’s consumed your ability to even think like a normal person? Yeah, I’ve got some news about that night.”

I just want to disappear…

“I asked Jaiden to go with me to that shitty party on purpose!”

…

What?

“I asked them on purpose, I posted those pictures on purpose! I did everything ‘cause I knew you’d see it! I thought maybe then, for once, you’d finally, finally feel a single ounce of longing for me! That was all I wanted!”

What.

“…You better be lying, Zane.”

“I’m not. And you deserve this.”

I glared at him the entire time while he was too focused on his own bullshit words to even notice. My arms burned with the sensation of my nails digging deeper and deeper. I hope they'll draw blood.

“You don’t understand, Salena! You keep saying all these… all these stupid fucking things that no one else says to me! Do you know what it does to me? If I had my way, I’d hold you forever and never let you go. No one’s shown me kindness like you.” I was so numb I couldn’t even react to him caressing my cheek. Only kept glaring.

“But then you barely ever give me the time of day! You’re barely ever with me! Fuck, honestly, you’re never with me anymore! I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not like you to say one thing and do another! You’re not that type of two-faced asshole! So why are you fucking acting like one!? Ever since that day you went to ‘hang out’ with that stupid drugged-out bitch you called a friend, you’ve never been the fucking same! With the way you act, I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if you got addicted and stay on the high 24/7!”

He’s… Is he talking about Mikey? That’s what this is about? Is he fucking serious right now.

“Who are you!? Where is my Salena?”

“Did you know Jaiden and I had plans that day?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m not stupid, I wasn’t gonna go that far. I wanted you to get a taste of what it felt to not be chosen, that’s it! Obviously, it was dumb to think it would work!” The dumb bitch sighed, exasperated. As if he had any right to be. “Seems you don’t have room for me in that big heart of yours after all, huh? Maybe I’m a dick for saying this, but it’s honestly karma that I happened to choose the one day you two were gonna hang out. That’s gotta be a sign, Salena.”

You never get the fucking hint, do you Zane Evans?

“I need to go.”

I couldn’t even get two steps in before he gripped my wrist to stop me.

“Wait, what do you mean go? Go where?”

“I meant exactly what I said! I’ve had enough. Now let go of me.”

I yanked my arm back and stormed off, Zane following close behind. At least, judging from the sound he was. I didn’t bother looking back.

“Hey! Your place is in the opposite direction!”

“Stop following me, I can go wherever I want!”

“Salena, seriously!? It’s already late, you’re gonna get lost! Come on, are you really that pissed off—”

“YES!!!”

I turned my heel and faced him.

“How are you even unsure of that!? You got upset I hung out with someone else for one day—a person I made plans with in advance, might I add—and you decided to take revenge on me!? Do you have any clue how fucked up that is!?”

“I got a little mad! So what? You’ve known me for two years! Stop overreacting about a harmless dig!”

“Harmless!? You have no idea what I’ve gone through this past month because of your little ‘harmless’ stunt! I’ve suffered so much because of you! I can’t even sleep because of you! God, sometimes you’re so—Ugh!”

I began counting down from ten to one, just like Raph taught. I shouldn’t say something I’ll regret later. Honestly, I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

He looked like a sad puppy. It’s clear he wasn’t expecting this. But somehow, my sympathy won’t halt my anger tonight.

“Salena, I… Look, I didn’t know you’d be so sensitive over this—“

“Zane, I really need to leave. I’m sorry I exploded like that, but it’s gonna happen again if I stay here any longer. So please, just stop following me. Hurting you would add more shit to my plate and I really don’t need that right now, okay?”

“N-no! Stay! I can make it up to you!”

“Another day, any day, but not now! Not now.”

I walked away and this time he didn’t follow.

“…Fine.”

I heard his footsteps stomp in the other direction, slowly fading away.

My own legs went faster till the wind consumed me.

The anger returned almost instantly after I knew he left. I’m happy I kept my cool during the end back there but holy fucking shit! What was he thinking!? I wanted answers tonight but I didn’t expect this! I thought I was overthinking again! I thought my brain made up the possibility that they ditched me intentionally! But no, turns out it wasn’t just Jaiden but Zane, too! What the fuck did I do to them? What did he mean I “deserved it”!?

I don’t get it, what is he expecting me to do? I know he… feels a certain way about me. But even then! I can’t just shit romantic feelings for him out my ass!

Ugh, so fucking stupid. I’m gonna lose my head if I keep thinking about this.

I wandered around the city some more and got back to the main road where a good handful of cars were passing again. It’s past 1am now and I’ve gotta get ready for school in less than five hours. But I know damn well I won’t sleep, not after this. I don’t wanna go home. Take me anywhere but home. I don’t feel like facing any of this right now, I…

I want somewhere I can feel safe for a while, just so the day won’t end on such a horrible note.

I pulled out my phone and opened the contacts. I wish I was one of those folks who didn’t have to think of someone before they dialed but alas, here I am.

I can’t talk to Jaiden.

I obviously can’t talk to Zane.

I don’t know if I can tell Casey any of this yet.

I’d love to talk to April but she’s probably asleep by now. But… but the guys might not be! They’re usually up at these sort of freakish hours of the night. I could try giving the group chat a call and hope for the best. I feel bad for bothering them so often but who else do I have right now?

It took three rings before the line went through.

“You are conversing with Donatell—Why is your screen so dark?”

Oh fucking lovely.

“H-hey, Donnie. Sorry, I didn’t realize it was a video call.”

As my luck would have it, Donnie was the one to pick up. No offense to him; he never did anything wrong. I’m just not entirely sure how he feels about me yet. So, having him answer when I’m already high on nerves isn’t what I pictured hoping for the best would result in. But he’s much, much better than being alone right now.

“Uh, what… Whatcha up to?”

“Oh, simply being my usual genius self to aid with our nightly hero duties! Sure, no regular teenager could detect a break-in on sensitive confidential info before the actual government could, but I, Othello Von Ryan, have proven to be no regular teen!”

“Yep, definitely the usual for you.”

Donnie’s def no less than Leo when it comes to being allergic to humility. Though, they both earned their egos. Donnie’s not wrong; not just any person could be nearly as smart as him.

“So, did you need anything fixed? You’re calling at a rather unusual hour for a school night.”

“Oh, no, not really. I mean, I was kinda out with a friend, but things… ended abruptly. I don’t really feel like sleeping right now. I wanted some company?”

He opened his mouth to respond but got interrupted by a familiar accent asking who was on the phone. The instant my name left his voice, three others repeated it with joy. My screen suddenly overflowed with four green goofballs all trying to fit in the camera’s scope at once.

“SALENA! How are you? How come you’re not asleep? Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“Mikey, it’s Salena, it’s way too early for them to sleep.”

“Wow, Leo, anyone ever tell you how funny you are?” My words didn’t match my tone. I wonder why.

“Leo, let ‘er breathe!” The camera shook as a red bandana came into frame. “Hey, but for real. Why you up so late, Salena? Somethin’ up?”

“Nah, just couldn’t sleep! I thought I’d call you guys for a bit, but from the sounds of it, y’all seem kinda busy.”

The camera moved again as the device got transferred to the next turtle. “Give me my—Ugh, there we go. And yes, you’re correct. We are actually busy with a mission tonight.”

I tried keeping my smile intact as I understandingly nodded my head. Is he mad at me for assuming they were free the exact moment I needed them to be? I mean, I’d be mad at me, so it’d make sense.

“Hey, but you know what?” Leo leaned next to Donnie, trying to see the screen. “You should totally join us! Tag along, have some fun, we’d all love that!”

You would?

“What? Nardo, what are you—“

“OMIGOSH, YEAH!” Mikey jumped in, knocking Donnie out of frame entirely. “If you’re not gonna sleep, we should totally hang out! I really miss you, Salena!”

“Uh, am I really the only one thinking it would be a bad idea to let the person who barely leaves their house join us on a mission to a highly-secured and regulated government facility?”

“Chillax, Don, she’ll be fine! You’ll be fine, right Salena?”

“I mean, uh—”

“See? What’d I tell ya, totally fine!”

“Raph agrees! Salena can handle herself.”

“Oh sure, I’m absolutely positive nothing could go wrong! He said without a trace of doubt.”

…I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect me or just doesn’t want me there. Neither option feels good right now, to be honest.

“C’mon, Dee, we’ve all seen her fight before! Including you, remember? When they helped us stop Meat Sweats?”

Mikey’s got a point. That was before I had any real battle experience, too! I don’t know why Donnie seems so hesitant about this. Or why it’s making me so pissy, actually.

Another car passed by and I lowered the volume a bit, remembering the time. Now that I’m actually near some apartments, I don’t wanna accidentally wake someone up. I really gotta save up for some new earbuds; my last ones broke like, a month ago and I can only make do for so long.

“Three to one, hermano. You’re outnumbered.”

“But—Sigh, forget it! Salena, I—“

“‘NOUGH SMALL TALK!” At this point, they’re just playing hot potato with Donnie’s phone. “Salena, hurry up! We’re boutta start the mission so don’t want ya missin’ out!”

“Ha! Almost made a pun!”

“Shut up, Leo. Anyways, we’re at uh… Uh… Hey, Donnie, where we at?”

I could hear him struggling for his phone in the distance. “You could just send our coordinates!”

“I could send her our coordinates! …How does Raph do that, again?”

The audio muffled as the phone shuffled back to its rightful owner. “God, I’m so gonna install security on this thing. Anyway, I’m sending our location to you right now. And as I was GOING TO SAY BEFORE! Salena, I look forward to seeing you again.”

He flashed a smile and part of my worries vanished. I’m still not sure how to read him but if he’s being nice, it can’t be all bad, right?

“OH, AND IF YA CAN, COULD YOU BRING ME A SNACK—“ Donnie hung up before the teddy bear could finish.

Luckily for him, his face beamed when I finally arrived around twenty minutes later and did, in fact, bring him a snack.

“Hey guys! Hope I didn’t take—“

I couldn’t even finish speaking before finding myself laughing on the floor with four giant turtles hounding me in hugs.

“It has been way too long since we’ve hugged!” Poor Mikey, I haven’t been able to see him in a hot minute. “Nice ponytail, by the way. Really makes your eyes pop.”

“Aww, thanks! I missed you guys too. Ugh, I really wish scheduling was easier! I’d hang out more often.”

“Dude, why waste time on schedules when you could just come over?”

“‘Xactly! Ain’t like you’re not welcome!”

“Oh. I-I mean, sure! If you guys really don’t have a problem with it…” I wonder if this is what it’s like to feel wanted.

“I just wanted you to get a taste of what it felt to not be chosen!”

…T-then again, they’re probably just being polite.

Click!

“And fits perfectly, just as the estimations foretold!” The fuck?

I looked down and saw a shiny black belt matching the arm wraps now resting above my hips. It’s actually fairly loose around my waist but I’m guessing that was the intention. There’s a giant pink button on the left with the same M-shaped logo as all of theirs. It looked super cool, honestly! Even seemed to match with my outfit!

“Woaaah, what is this thing?”

“Donnie. Really?” Leo didn’t sound impressed and neither did the others but, like, who cares! The belt’s dope as hell!

He ignored them and continued addressing me. “It basically functions both as your very own panic button and is a carrier for your sickles thanks to a highly specific magnetic attraction! Plus, it obviously helps tie in your outfit better ‘cause Great Galileo did you need some accessories.”

“Damn, I didn’t know my sickles were magnetic!”

“Oh, they weren’t before, I installed magnets in them last night.” With that, he pulled my fucking weapons seemingly out of his ass. Judging by everyone else’s groans though, I’m the only one who’s surprised and confused.

“Donald! What did we say about breaking into strangers’ homes!”

“Hey, I didn’t break in!… to a stranger’s home! I broke into Salena’s, Salena is not a stranger—OW, HEY!” Raph slapped the back of his head. One quick yet dramatic recovery later, we all began our route of sneaking into the building.

Security wasn’t monitoring the higher floors, so we only had to ninja our way up ‘till there and the rest was easy peasy. I tried focusing on the quick briefing I was receiving on the way up but my mind was admittedly elsewhere. Back to the weird situation I thought I dreamt up last night.

I don’t remember much. I was too tired to really register anything, and Donnie being a ninja probably enhanced that. But I do remember still hearing faint footsteps in my room; drawers being opened, the closet getting browsed. I was so out of it I figured I probably hallucinated everything. Either way, I was way too paralyzed to do anything; I couldn’t even put my phone back earlier. Kept passing in and out of consciousness. But it seemed like someone put it back for me. They helped my sloppy body into a position that wouldn’t leave me aching the next morning and pulled the covers up to tuck me in. What really sealed the whole dream theory to me was the metallic-textured “hand” that patted my head before they left and let the world return to tranquility.

I seriously did figure it was all a weird fever dream or some shit. Personally, I still feel like that’s more believable than it being Donnie all along. But staring down at my sickles, I guess I can’t really argue against the proof right in front of me.

“Gentlemen, here we are! The Techno Cosmic Research Institute! Otherwise known as”—the door opened as I returned back to present time—“The TCRI.”

The moon illuminated the flat, revealing that we were in a main lobby of some sorts. Huge and spacious, decorated with different plants I’m sure Zane would’ve gone crazy over.

…I shouldn’t think about him right now.

It was a huge and spacious lobby full of plants. The windows that were tinted from the outside now presented a full view of the city skyline. Doors were carved into the walls, transitioning to the other rooms. Some, like the several meeting rooms, were made with glass so I could vaguely make out the interior from here. Others were blocked by heavy, solid, metal doors, holding whatever secrets the government had behind them.

I felt strange setting foot in this place, like I wasn’t supposed to be here. Well, I guess we are breaking and entering, but it’s not that. It’s something else, something I can’t quite explain. Unrelated to the guys but personal to me. I feel I’m not wanted for a reason I’m not yet aware of. It’s freaking me out a little.

“So, what do the Purple Dragons want with this place again?”

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. I only caught a break-in to the system in general and tracked it back to Kendra, I don’t have info on what they’re trying to gain access to. Whatever it is, though, it has an impressively tight security system that’s nearly impossible to break! At least, not through their simple B-tier remote hacking.”

“If the Purple Dragons want it, then it’s gotta be something major.” I’ve known about them for a while thanks to April.

It kinda shocked me at first, not because a group of teens created a tech-smart gang but because April O’Neil was a loser to someone. Call me a little biased—and you’d be right—but I still think Kendra’s got rocks for brains if she ignores someone like April.

But that’s a mental essay for another day. Right now, Leo’s smirking. And if Leo’s smirking, things will either go amazingly well or horrifically wrong.

“So… If we’re already here, why don’t we just figure out what they want ourselves?”

Mikey propped his chin up on Leo’s shoulder. “You mean like, go and explore? Sounds rad to me!”

“Yeah! Sneak around, let Donnie do his nerdy smart people stuff and see what’s so great about this place, yeah?”

“Invade the privacy of our nation’s government and scavenge for confidential data!? Nardo, I love you!”

“Raph? Your call, buddy.”

He was shockingly quick to shrug. “Sure! Raph don’t see a problem with it. Sounds hella fun to me!”

“Uh, guys?” I raised my hand. “Isn’t this, like, highly illegal?”

“And?” They all said in unison. To be fair, legal doesn’t sound like them anyway.

“What are they gonna do? Arrest us?” His hand circled in front of his blue bandana.

“And don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble for anything that happens! Donnie can get rid of the evidence and no one will know you were here, right Dee?” Mikey shot a wink at Donnie.

“Affirmative!”

Dang, Mikey’s made a lot of good points tonight.

“Eh, you’re right. To hell with laws!” Passing up an opportunity to explore a space institution would be laughably unlike me, anyway!

We decided to split up and meet back at the main lobby in fifteen, assuming the Purple Dragons hadn't arrived by then. It’s kind of scary wandering on my own in this place. It still feels off to me, but at the same time, I’ve always wanted so desperately to walk through a facility like this. Fascinating space research, meeting after meeting to discuss whatever new breakthrough was made, access to a shit ton of databases and technologies I’ll never have the chance to use at home!? Everything about this place is perfect! It’s all I dreamed it to be.

So why won’t that damn feeling go away?

Whatever, it’s probably just tonight in general. I really, really, need to get over it and move on already or else I’m guaranteed to fuck up the whole mission.

I sighed and glanced down at my arm wraps, raising them to get a better look. Despite my flip-floppy mood, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s dorky but they do comfort me every now and then. They felt nice to wear and even looking at them made me all fuzzy and nostalgic. They feel like an older me even though I got them recently.

“I take it you liked them, then.”

His voice startled me, I thought everyone went their own ways but I guess Donnie was nearby.

“Yeah, I do! The belt, too, they’re really cool gifts! Thank you.” He lit up when he heard those magic words. Man, I can’t believe I forgot to thank him sooner. Poor guy was probably aching for some feedback.

“I-I actually always wondered how you made them. They feel really sturdy but like, it’s not heavy to wear, either, if that makes sense.”

“Oh yeah, totally!” He typed on the screen on his arm, booting up the scanning feature to make sure we didn’t miss anything. “It’s an intentional design choice. They are supposed to act as armor, so.”

“Woah, cool! Do they count as tactical gear? As in military grade and all that jazz?”

“What? No, that’s not even good quality, that’s just a buzzword. Military grade simply means they met the minimum stated requirements at the lowest unit price.”

“…”

“…Low budget, few money, lead to mid product, good enough for gullible minds and general public consumption.”

Ohhhh. “So they lied.”

“As per usual. It’s shit engineering in actuality.”

I pushed open one of the meeting rooms’ glass doors as Donnie’s shell held up a bright torch. We began scouting the area for anything interesting while continuing our talk. All this investigative work’s reminding me of April and the way she’d gush about doing the same. Completely understanding the appeal now; it feels so thrilling snooping around somewhere you’re not supposed to be! Especially when the law’s involved.

The room wasn’t anything unordinary. It looked like any other corporate meeting room. The long table leading to the small TV on the wall, decorative paintings and plants, the usual. Man, we probably should’ve gone into a more interesting—“OW!”

“…Watch your step.” He said after I already fell to my knees.

“Thanks for the very useful warning. What even was that?”

He shined the light closer to a… metal? No, definitely not entirely metal. A robot arm sloppily plopped on the floor. We couldn’t see what the arm was attached to, if it was attached to anything at all. It’s too long to trace back with the torch light from where we are. One thing’s for sure, though: It’s giant. The claw I tripped over is practically the same size as my head.

“Hmm…” He crouched closer to the arm, slowly inspecting it. “Weird. It looks like it’s made of some cheap plastic. Perhaps a prototype of some sorts.”

“I don’t think they’d make it this big if it was a prototype.” Maybe we could do a test to see what type of plastic it is. “You got any fire?”

“While I see your angle and would love to carry through that experiment, it’s probably not wise to burn something we don’t know the purpose of. Or, you know, alert the security of our presence from the alarms.”

“Yeah, fair…” Man, would’ve been hella fun, though.

We both stayed on the floor, a little stumped on what the hell this thing was. My eyes got bored after a while and wandered around the room again. The only interesting thing in here was this weird ass plastic arm, it’s pretty much useless looking around the room but it did keep me entertained. There were five plants in this room which explains the fresh smell, all of them were basic enough for me to recognize. Two zebra plants, a ponytail palm, and…

I ignored the plant on the table when I spotted something thin underneath it, hidden by the shadows. I think it’s a slip of paper?

Donnie’s sigh brought my attention back. “You know what, I’m gonna go to their computer lab to see if one of their databases has anything about this thing.”

“Aight, I’ll stay back and keep exploring. Good luck!”

Right as he left, I sped over to the mysterious paper, unable to contain my curiosity any longer. The table was tall enough for me to comfortably sit under, leaning over the paper on the floor to read it. It’s, coincidentally enough, about that puzzling arm. The incomplete text made it clear it was probably part of a stack of paper or a file and fell out. Sadly, it didn’t reveal much but what I could get out of it was that it’s an automated arm controlled by an AI system, mostly covered with polypropylene plastic. Heh, PP plastic. Oh, it was created for the purpose of security. Well that’s just fantastic. I should go warn the boys about it.

I quickly snapped a pic of the loose sheet, almost getting out from under the table.

…But I’m glad as hell I didn’t.

I heard it. A soft, mechanical hum as something slithered off the ground. I grabbed my sickles from their belt, trying to minimize my shaking. It took a few blinks and tries but I managed to turn invisible, watching the machine move through the darkness. How was it suddenly on?

Its movements were smooth and natural. Too natural for something meant to be robotic. It’s so eerily graceful, slithering through the air. The arm swiveled its claw around like an animal head checking its surroundings. It… It’s looking where I am. It’s looking at me. It shouldn’t be able to see me, I’m not supposed to be visible! But it won’t stop staring.

”FUCK!” I shrieked when it lunged at me, quickly slicing it before it could grab me. Thank god it’s just plastic… Why the fuck is it hollow?

That doesn’t make any sense! Shouldn’t there be wiring or something? Even if not to connect the AI, how the hell can it move like that without anything to mimic muscle!?

I gasped, turning my head to the side. I can hear something else. It’s gooey and mushy and…

It’s looping around the room.

It’s getting louder.

”W-what the hell?”

…I think I can see it now. Something solid but stretchy, resembling thick vines climbing up the plastic arm. I backed up, watching as it crawled over to the newly severed claw. It pulled the claw back to its other half and tightened around them. It glowed? A sickeningly blinding green color. Before I realized what was going on, the claw suddenly reattached as the vines slinked back into the darkness.

It saw me again and the chase resumed.

It’s so damn fast, I can barely outrun it! Dodging is saving my ass but it keeps knocking over any furniture I used against it!

I jumped when I heard Donnie from the comms. Wait, he installed comms on my arm wraps? Damn, I'm so frazzled, I forgot about those.

“What’s making all that racket? Everything okay over there?”

”You can hear that!?”

”Yeah, I’m literally right next door?”

”Well—SHIT!” Too fucking close, too fucking close! It almost fucking grabbed me! Fuck, my knees hurt from that! “SON OF A—Don’t worry, I can handle it! I’ll explain soon!”

I tried getting off the floor as quickly as possible but the claw pulled me back down. The four sharp grippers opened up like a mouth and a fucking chainsaw came out. It went straight for my head, life flashing before my eyes as my sickles blocked it by pure reflex, holding it back. It won’t back off! I can’t keep pushing forever! How the hell do I get out of this!?

“FIBONACCI!”

A spinning titanium blur whacked the arm back, grabbing its attention to the maniacally smiling turtle now dashing through the room. His arm reached out, grabbing his staff from mid-air, and chopped off the robot arm with a giant drill. I curled in on myself right before a bright, violet shield spread over me and kept the arm’s falling metal parts from landing on me.

“You know, that did not seem like ‘handling it’.”

My vision cleared to his hand offering to help me up. I’m suddenly getting deja vu from the other countless times my helpless damsel-wannabe ass needed a rescue. Panicked and guilt-ridden, I waved it off and got up on my own.

“We gotta get outta here right now!”

“What? Why? I already—”

The vines returned and began repeating their process of fixing the arm. Though this time, it seems to be going faster.

“Oh my banana pancakes! What is that!?”

“I don’t know but that’s why we’re leaving! Come on!”

I grabbed his hand and we ran out the room, running into the others in the main lobby.

”Leo! There’s—”

“Crazy killer robot arms, we know. Was just in the middle of talking about that, actually.” He gave a glance of disapproval to the pouting red giant next to Mikey. Who also looks hella annoyed. It would appear we’ve walked in on a teensy squabble.

I heard Donnie sigh beside me “Raph, please tell me you didn’t.” He left my clueless ass standing there to join in on their talk.

Wait—Oh god, not again!

Turning around, I grabbed my sickles. I heard it again. Managed to dodge just in time for its jab to my right. It seems the guys are too busy to notice and I really don’t wanna burden them again. I’ll solo this one!

“When I said we should go explore, I didn’t mean go ‘round pushing things! We’re in a government building, why would you touch anything!?”

I heard another hit coming and blocked it with the blade.

Yeah, I-I can totally take this! I should let them finish their conversation—Holy fuck, there’s more than one, fucking end my suffering already.

”I didn’t mean to! You guys know I got a weak spot, what was I supposed to do? If they didn’t want Raph to push the big, red button, maybe they shouldn’t make it big ‘n red!”

“Buddy, that’s not how that works and you know that.”

There’s three of them now and they’re so unreasonably fast! It’s so hard to keep up! Ugh, it almost feels like I am being punished after all.

My accidental yelp luckily got drowned by Mikey’s groan. “Man, just let it go! We can smell your ‘I know I fucked up but don’t wanna admit it ‘cause I’m the big brother’ stench!”

”THAT’S A DIFFERENT STENCH!”

”AHH!”

I really didn’t mean to blurt that out but the claw dug into my leg and yanked me off the ground! Guilt aside, it’s probably a good thing I caught their attention, especially since I dropped my sickles like a fucking moron!

“SALENA!” His sword slashed through the air but got promptly blocked and thrown back by another metal claw. A scary amount of them are showing up now! The guys are completely surrounded and I’m stuck useless, dangling in the air!

One of the arms came closer and opened its grippers, a scanner popping out this time, its red beam blinding my eyes. My breathing grew shallow, the commotion from below fading away. I’m getting lightheaded from being suspended upside down. I need to get out of this situation. But there’s nothing I can do. Just squint past the light and anxiously wait for its next move.

My ears burned from the claw’s monstrous shriek. It sounds like a fucking animalistic version of nails on a chalkboard! Why did it react to me like this? Why me? Aren’t we all intruders? Why is it just me!?

“You deserve this.”

Was he right?

I didn’t process getting swung in the air until I was let go with enough momentum to cause a crash through the decor. My arms shook as I tried lifting my body up. Everything hurts, everything fucking hurts! My ears, my arms, my legs! My head! I just wanted a little distraction tonight! Why is this happening?

Is this really my karma?

…Wait a sec.

When I managed to lift my head, I came face to face with a crack in the wall where the robot arms were emerging from. The vines I saw earlier turned out to be permanently merged with the arms at the roots and lead to… something behind the wall. The crack was too small to properly make much out but it looked like it was breathing?

Whatever, I don’t have time to be surprised. “Guys! The arms! They’re coming from over here!”

The crack’s small but just big enough for something slim! Like—

The claw dug into my leg once again and began dragging me away. “Leo! Donnie! One of your weapons can fit through!”

“Got it!”

“I’ll cover!”

Flashes of blue scattered around the lobby. Each portal and throw of his sword brought Leo closer and closer to the wall. I couldn’t watch for too long, though, as I found myself back in the air again. It froze my skin getting thrown across the room faster than before. This time, towards the glass windows.

Chains grabbed at my ankle and yanked me back to the ground away from my disastrous fate. I looked up to see the tangerine flashing a confident yet relieved smile at me. “Hey!”

“…Hey!”

Mystic metal clinked as Mikey pulled back some of the robot arms chasing after Leo to buy him more time. Raph and Donnie quickly shifted gears and guarded me to make sure the plastic freaks couldn’t grab me again. Mikey continued to aid Leo, bouncing all over the room, keeping the arms distracted with his flow and somehow, still bringing them back to where he originally stood: Away from Leo.

Finally, a sword was heard stabbing through the air and splashing through a soft, squishy substance. The arms dropped to the floor as the thing in the wall hissed in pain, slowly leading to the dreadfully awaited silence at last.

Mikey reached his hand out for me and pulled me up. “You good?”

“Not dead, yeah.”

“Guess that’s a start.”

I glanced to the side at Donnie staring blankly at me, confused until he walked over and held one of my arms to examine my wrap.

“Hmm, I wonder if there’s some modification I can do to your gloves that prevents your sickles from getting so easily lost.” I guess that’s why he was staring a minute ago.

“Honestly, that’d be great. I keep losing them, so…”

“Yeah, I was thinking—“

“Nerd-talk later! Do a med scan!” Leo shoved him out the way and accidentally knocked Mikey back. Didn’t seem like he noticed since he immediately started checking me for injuries. I don’t even know when he got here?

Donnie sighed but went through with it anyway, tapping on his wrist as he checked my vitals. “No broken bones, no internal bleeding, nothing too concerning to report thankfully. Salena, do you feel alright?”

“Mhm! Just some scratches here and there but I’ll live.”

“Just some scratches, hm? You forgettin’ something?” Leo pointed down to my horrifically bruised and bloody leg. Whoops.

“…I-I’ll still live.”

While Leo took care of bandaging my leg, the rest of us spent the next few minutes catching our breaths. Mikey laid on the floor, limbs starfished out, while Donnie was texting April and catching her up to speed. I can only imagine how devastated she’d be in the morning, finding out she missed all this action. It’d have been nice having her here, honestly.

Raph wasn’t near us, though. He stood by the wall where the once-breathing specimen was at. He kept peeking through the crack, rubbing his arm and looking hesitant about something.

“Raph?” My voice prompted the others to turn their attention to him.

“…Nobody else wonderin’ what the hell this thing could be? I know we’re only here to stop the Purple Dinos—“

“That’s Purple Dragons, Raphala.”

“—Whatever! But really, guys! After all that, we just gonna head home and forget about it?”

He’s not wrong.

Come to think of it, this place is government funded. There should be no reason why some foreign entity exists in a place like the TCRI. They’re supposed to do space research and nothing else. That’s what they’re paid for.

“You know what?” Donnie turned his phone off. “I could work on hacking through their system myself. I don’t know if it’ll prove successful, but I can try.”

I felt Mikey’s head drop on my shoulder. He sure loves doing that. “What do we do about the vine thingies?”

“Well, we can’t just—“ Leo paused, making eye contact with Raph. They shared a smirk and nodded.

“You thinkin’ what thinkin’ big bro?”

He chuckled, punching his fists together. “You bet!”

A bright red aura surrounded his figure as his arm reeled back and locked the sais in his hands.

“POWER PUNCH JUTSU!!!”

My body staggered as the ground shook upon impact, the dust clearing to reveal the tiny gap in the wall is suddenly a giant ass hole now.

“Man, y’all really don’t give a shit about government property, do ya?”

“Nope. But hey! It was def the right choice!” Raph’s snaggletooth gleamed through his mischievous smile.

The five of us stared through the hole, trying to comprehend the oversized specimen in front of us. It was a pulsing, yellow-green thing in the shape of a tall tube, wider on the top than the bottom. There were reddish lines on it zigzagging up and down almost like veins. It was punctured at its middle, caused by the blade of the katana that shot right through it a few moments ago.

“Ya know, it kind of resembles a plant. Which would explain the mystery vines, actually.”

“What plant, then? Ain’t no plant Raph knows of that throbs.”

He shook his head with a light shrug. “Sadly, I am not sure. It looks a little like a pitcher plant but also not really? They shouldn’t be luminescent or have vines emerging out like that. And also the throbbing, of course.”

Pitcher plant, ay? I’ve heard of that. They’re my favorite out of all the carnivorous jungle plants Zane rambled about once. Plants were actually one of the first things we had a genuine bond over, even if I’m pretty clueless about them. The way his eyes lit up when talking about them with so much love and adoration just melted me.

His eyes…

His godforsaken eyes…

“Salena?”

“Huh?” How long have I been spaced out?

“You sure you’re good? You seemed kinda out of it just now.” I forgot how close Mikey was to me, I should be more careful.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.”

“Really? ‘Cause lowkey, you’ve been off all night. I didn’t wanna say anything but…”

“Oh, no, no, I’m—“

“Actually, you did mention something happened between you and your friend earlier, remember? Before you called me.” This violet ass motherfucker did not just erm actually me at the worst time ever.

“That what this about, big man? Had another fight with your friend?” Why is everyone suddenly focused on me!?

“N-Not the same one! This is someone different, I promise! T-that’s not to say I have a problem with everyone! I just… Um…” Great going, Salena! Now they’ll think you’re just insufferable and incapable of friendship! “I-I don’t think we should be—Well, we kinda have worse issues to worry about, don’t we?”

“Kendra and her yes-men ain’t here yet. What I wanna know is why you’re so spacey tonight! Dr. Feelings can’t help if he can’t know!”

“It’s nothing! N-nothing too bad, at least. He just—A-actually, it was really mostly me so um… It’s hard to explain exactly…”

Geez, my palms are annoyingly sweaty. I really don’t wanna give them the wrong idea, it was just one fight! It’s not a representation of our entire relationship! But I know from experience any time I try talking about Zane to someone, they end up hating him and I don’t want that! Fuck, I should’ve been more careful. My stupid tongue-tied gibberish ain’t helping the situation, either!

My shoulders flinched when I saw Leo stand in front of me, hand on his hip as he faced towards his brothers. “Okay, hermanos, give her some space! Stop smothering! I know we’re all worried, I’m worried too, but if Salena doesn’t wanna talk, they shouldn’t be forced to.”

The others finally piped down. None of them looked happy about it—understandably so—but it seemed Leo was able to convince them to drop it, anyway. I really owe him one.

He peeked over his shoulder to glance back at me. “If you do wanna talk about something, though, we’re here for you.”

…It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t see how it’d help anything—

CRASH!!!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, HAVE WE NOT HAD ENOUGH SURPRISES FOR ONE NIGHT!?

“Good going, Jase. Real quiet of you.”

All of us, equally tense and gripping our weapons to stand guard, took a solid minute to process that the loud crash wasn’t another dumbass robot-plant-arm thing, but instead was Kendra and the other two stumbling through the main door they hacked open. Speak of the dragons and they arrive, I suppose.

She looked over at us and her sharp eyes drooped lower. “Of course.”

I only ever knew Kendra before tonight, none of the other members. Hate her guts since she’s forever engraved as April’s bully in my mind and doesn’t seem to have changed. Her movements and mannerisms still match the coy, conniving person I remember her to be, walking over in such a smug, superior way that screams “greater than thou”. Once, back when they were still in high school, April had a mini breakdown due to college applications kicking her ass. She was struggling and stressing over not getting accepted into a good amount of her options and believed she’d have to rely solely on her safeties at that point. Kendra really rubbed it in. Wouldn’t shut up about it, demeaning her for being a failure.

April knows damn well to never take Kendra seriously. However, it’s not a surprise those words still stung considering how stupidly frightening the whole college process is. Joke’s on Kendra, though. One of April’s main choices that had her wait-listed ended up accepting her in! As for Kendra? All hypocritical bark, no bite it seems.

“Hello, Von Ryan. How’s life?”

“Good, good. How about you, enjoying your—what’d you call it? ‘Intellectual freedom’?”

“Low blow even for you. You guys couldn’t fuck around here with your little toys another night?” She scoffed and rolled her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze drifted towards me as her brows furrowed more.

“Who’s that—Hold up. You… Yeah, I remember you!” She’s doing that annoying fake-nice tone she uses sometimes, the one that makes me wanna punch her in the face. “You’re that idiot kid April wouldn’t shut up about tutoring last year! What’s a teacher’s pet like you doing here?”

Mikey gasped and covered my ears like a parent to a toddler witnessing sailor-speak. “Hey! Don’t you dare talk about our friend like that!”

I honestly couldn’t care less what Kendra says about me. Personally, I’m more focused on the other two, right now. It’s my first time ever seeing them, I think Donnie said their names were Jason and Jeremy? They’ve been pretty quiet so far, standing at her side and smirking like Saturday-morning cartoon lackeys. One of them had a large, blocky figure, dark skin, and dyed green hair. His gold visor looked pretty cool, I’ll admit. The other—I could guess from his hunched demeanor alone—was definitely their token punching bag. He’s got these awkward gloves that are way too big for his hands. Dark eyes, short, black hair, and round… glasses…

NO FUCKING WAY!

“YOU—HIM! OH MY GOD! NOOOO, NO-NO-NO-NO! NO! NO!” Ain’t no motherfucking way this bitch is who I think he is, this has to be a prank! It has to! For the sake of my sanity! Oh, but it isn't! It’s fucking real!

“...Salena? You doin’ okay?” The others looked concerned at my sudden and dramatic outlash. Fucking of course, Donnie and Mikey wouldn’t know! Jason still had the bag over his head when he was around them! Fuck, why didn’t I just take it off right there!?

“Jason! That asshole was who we saved from Meatsweats a few months ago!”

Raph and Leo looked just as lost as before. Mikey and Donnie, on the other hand, went pale with shock.

“That was you!?” Donnie’s staff pointed directly at the fucker. “Why didn’t you say anything!? I know you recognized my voice!”

“I can’t believe Salena and I interrupted a perfectly nice day to save you of all folks! You ruined our lovely little ice cream date, dawg!”

“I was being kidnapped by a pig monster? Why would I reveal I’m a rival when you were the only help I had?”

“And yet, here you are, the very reason we’re stuck in this creepy facility, preventing you three from illegally accessing information and doing who knows what with it even though you now owe us one, YOU UNGRATEFUL MENACE!”

Before I could fix my brain enough to join in on justifiably shaming the idiot, I noticed Leo and Raph exchanging confused glances at each other.

“...What the hell is going on?”

“Raph don’t know.” They both looked at me for answers because the universe hates me.

I tearfully and shamefully explained the bullshit scenario we are now stuck in due to my impulsivity. “Donnie, Mikey, and I saved a guy from Meatsweats I think back in April? H-he had a bag over his head so they didn’t know what he looked like and I-I was the only one who saw him without it b-but I didn’t know he was part of the fucking Purple Dragons and—Fuck my life! My first ever save and it was a villain!?” The one time I actually did something useful…

God, there’s so much noise everywhere! Everyone’s arguing with each other or trying to get it to stop or whatever else is going on! My head hurts. Why did I even come here? I should’ve just went home. I should’ve stayed with Zane. I keep getting in the way, I keep making mistakes, I keep ruining things!

I have to keep my composure, though. I don’t wanna cry in a situation like this, not when I’ve already done enough harm.

“Wait a sec, where’s Jeremy?”

We all paused, the realization clearing up as we heard a cheer from another room. “Yes! I got in! I got past the system!”

“Holy shit, he’s in the computer lab! Quick, we—”

A bat hit Donnie straight on his stomach and knocked him back, Raph catching him so he wouldn’t fall to the floor.

Kendra clicked her tongue as she laughed. “I gotta hand it to ya, you morons somehow turned off these stupid security systems. Definitely the most annoying part I’d have had to figure out; I guess that’s why I wanted ‘em, anyway. I don’t know how you did it but congrats! You’re not completely useless.” It looked more like she was addressing Donnie over any of us.

“But now?” She and Jason blocked the door. Her bat stood by her side. “Stay out of my fucking way.”

Obviously, that’s not happening, so chaos erupted instead. One would think a Two VS. Five would be pretty easy to handle… until they saw how well Kendra used her bat, that is. She’s faster than I expected, able to zip around before anyone could properly react. Definitely has a strong arm, too. Then, of course, there’s the traitor. Jason pushed his glasses up his nose bridge and took out his own set of weapons. Or should I say, whipped them out. ‘Cause they’re actually fucking whips.

They were almost impossible to get by. Glowing in the dark room, buzzing from the static friction they made against each other.

He targeted them towards Leo who barely managed to dodge just in time. Mikey, not being as lucky, got smacked right in the face.

“OW! Hey! Since when did he even have those!?”

“Oh! Since last week, actually. I made them using—”

Either the bitch has good hearing or I was too loud when my sickle swung at his head. “Are ya dense!? How are you still tryna maintain small-talk after literally betraying us!? You know what I looked like, you wouldn’t have even said anything if I didn’t call you out! You lied to me! I saved you and you lied!”

“AH! The hell, man!? You’re gonna kill me for that!?”

“No!” The sickles weren’t sharp, only a little solid. I know I gotta resist. Unfortunately. “Just knock you out for a bit, you scheming piece of shit!”

I wish I could say I was making up for my several blunders tonight by at least being able to handle the living embodiment of a toothpick. My leg’s not super mangled up but, surprise-surprise, it’s hard to move at my fastest and dodge with it still being injured. He’s a little impressively good with those whips, too. It’s hard keeping track of where they both are at all times, the difficulty only increased by how quick he’s able to use them considering he’s only trained for a week. I’m trying my damn best with what I can.

“Oh my god, give it up with the guilt-tripping! I’m not gonna turn on my sister just ‘cause you saved me once!”

“Hell no! I risked turning into mutant-munchies for you—Hol’ up a sec.” The pure blasphemy that came out of his mouth shocked me so bad, I actually had to pause. “Kendra’s your sister? Ew, what’s that like?”

Yet another mistake on my part. One of the whips wrapped around my sickle to fling it and I—determined to not lose them again—got shot through the air along with it.

At this rate, I’ll be free-bird flying and crashing to the floor every five minutes. I don’t even feel like getting up anymore. Fuck, I don’t usually feel pain so easily.

Hm?

The battle ground’s a little chaotic so it’s hard to follow when in the middle of it. But, now that I’m seeing it from a distance, everyone’s intentions are suddenly ten times clearer. Kendra’s hovering towards a specific direction, dancing around the door to where Jeremy is. Jason’s distracting everyone and keeping them from paying attention to her. I have a feeling that’s very much so on purpose.

She’s starting to go in. I guess it doesn’t matter whether or not I want to, I gotta get up now. I closed my eyes and with whatever strength I had, used my sickles to turn invisible and go after her.

I snuck by Kendra and entered the lab. Jeremy was glued to the computer, staring at a loading screen. On the side of the PC was a USB stuck to the port. Of course, accidentally saving the villain wasn’t enough! They had to use the same shitty USB we went back for, too.

“Jeremy, status report!”

“It’s almost done downloading the files! Just a few more seconds and… We got it!”

“Nice work! Quick! Toss ‘em over!”

Oh boy, if Kendra’s able to gain the instructions for those freaky arms, who knows what she’ll make with it! I can’t let them get access to anything here!

Thus, following my usual rule of acting-without-thinking, I threw a sickle at the USB. I don’t know if it was my panic or my rage that caused it to be so sharp but it cut the USB in half mid-air and smashed straight into one of the PCs. My punishment for resorting to such destructively impulsive solutions was being greeted by the lovely melody of security sirens going off for breaking their important tech.

“No! My USB! There was so much stuff in that! Fuck!” She is so seriously distraught over the wrong thing.

Upon retrieving my sickle, I hadn’t realized I was flickering in and out of visibility till Kendra’s bat nearly made contact with my head. “You little skeeze! Do you have any idea how much of my progress you destroyed!”

“But that’s mine and Jason’s progress—“

“SHUT UP!” She snapped her head back to bark at him and I took my moment of escape, knocking her down out of my way. Still, she kept up by yanking at my leg and pulling me down with her, severely getting on my nerves by now.

So, I kicked her in the face.

She stayed there, groaning in pain, while her sidekick buddy checked on her. Sure, I could’ve kicked a little softer but I think a bloody nose is merciful enough for her.

I returned to the lobby, greeted by chaos more hectic than before. The alarms and sirens were still blaring, red lights flashing on and off the entire facility. Our oh so beloved security arm friends returned in even greater numbers now! If I believed in superstition, I’d believe this night was cursed.

Jason’s looking a little overwhelmed now having to solo both the Teenage Mutant Mad Dogz and the newly emerged robot claws, yet he’s still not giving in and letting the guys go in peace. Speaking of them, they’re scattered all over the place, trying to keep themselves and each other from getting yoinked and flung like I was earlier.

Donnie was the only one who managed to maneuver over to me.

“Salena!?”

“Donnie! What’s going on!? Where’d the stupid arms come from!?”

“Well, I suppose it’d be impractical if they only had one source of their weird mystic high-tech robots, so there’s that.” He spun his tech-bō and whacked away the claw that was following him. “What happened in there? You disappeared and then we heard a loud crash from that room and suddenly everything got dialed up to eleven!”

“Uh, yeah, my fault, I uh—Eek!” Thank god for reflexes, the only thing that let me slice at a robot arm before it sliced me. “Good news is, I destroyed the USB they were using so Kendra can’t access the government’s whatever-the-fuck anymore! Bad news, I also accidentally destroyed one of their computers in the process, set off the security alarms, and now we’re here. Sorry, haha…”

“You what!?”

“It was an accident, I swear! I really didn’t mean—”

“You annoying little twinkle-toes!” Kendra charged at us from behind and her bat swung directly at me. Thankfully, Donnie blocked it from knocking me dead and sent Kendra back a few steps.

“You know what? If you got Kendra this mad, then you’re forgiven for everything on my terms! Let’s go!” He grabbed my wrist and dragged us away from the bat-wielding maniac.

Though, I’m not sure whether a metal bat or metal claws are worse. A bunch of them charged towards me now that I got back within their sight.

“Move!” He shoved me out of the way of the monster claws.

I slid on the ground, actually keeping my balance this time, and swung at another claw coming from my right. Without having a moment to breathe, I ducked and slashed at one right above me. I would’ve missed the one coming from behind me, had Raph not been there and created a mystic shield. There’s so many all around the flat and it seems I’m still their favorite toy.

“Salena, try hidin’ somewhere!” He punched one of the claws straight on, the impact causing a loud clunk. “They keep coming after you!”

“I can’t! They saw me even when I turned invisible, they probably have a different type of vision or something!”

“Infrared vision, genius!” Kendra’s bat got caught by my sickle. She aimed for my torso this time, I’m surprised it wasn’t back at my head. “They were built with thermal sensors! Which I would’ve been able to shut off if somebody didn’t break the computers!”

“God, were you built to get on people’s nerves!?”

I’ve just about had it with her bullshit, reflected in my blades turning sharp enough to slice her bat in half. I elbowed her in the stomach and took the chance to roll over to a new spot. The closest I can get to hiding is continuously moving, staying in one place meant getting hoarded.

Mikey grumbled nearby, his nunchucks spinning in his hands. “Man, they’re too much! We gotta go! Leo?”

“A bit busy!” Busy was right, he’s cutting down a good number of the plastic pains with his katanas. There’s no good opportunity to use them as an escape portal, let alone any safe ones.

Beep! Beep!

Donnie raised his gauntlet up and flashed what I assume to be the building’s security cameras he hacked into. “Oh, no, no, no, guys! They’re sending actual human officers up now! What do we do!?”

Everyone’s panicked, shit’s fucked to the brim, and the constant beeps and shrieks are only making it harder to think! Kendra’s yelling about her bat, Mikey’s chosen to deal with the Purple Disasters while they’re bickering away, Raph’s boxing the claws and shielding Donnie, who’s frantically typing at his wristwatch to hack the security, and Leo’s… Screaming and getting flung. Sweet, we’ve matched now.

I ran over to Leo, guarding him from the arms trying to take advantage of the situation. “So, how’d you like your first flight?”

“I’d prefer it more if I was actually expecting it.” He got up almost as fast as he crashed down, not wasting a single second to getting back in the fight. “Ugh, I gotta get us out of here, but I need an opening!”

“Want me to try clearing something out?”

“You got any plans on how—Shit, get back!” His arm pushed me back behind him to avoid getting hit.

The white tails of my ribbon flew forward, slightly blocking my vision. I looked straight ahead, past the death machines and battle-ground chaos, and saw the glass windows showcasing the brightly-lit city night.

The ribbon…

…Bingo.

“I actually might.” I tugged at the silk tails and felt my hair flow down as it got undone. “Just trust me and get everyone out at the first opportunity you get!”

“Wait, what are you—”

I dashed past him before he could ask any questions, no real time for them now. My multitasking skills were given the ultimate test as I focused on darting across the room, intentionally getting the arms to gather and chase after me, while tying the ribbon to the handles of my sickles and connecting them together.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Mikey had managed to take out Kendra and her sidekicks. Don’t even gotta worry about them now, it’s going better than I thought! There was pounding at the door. Seems Donnie locked the officers out for now, but I doubt it’ll be long till they find a way to break in by force. Gotta move fast. This plan could fail horrifically, but it’s the best shot we’ve got!

With all the security arms focused on me now, the boys had a clear opening to leave. I sprinted to the windows, wound back my sickles, and broke the glass with a single throw.

Now or never!

“HOT SOUP!!!”

And out the window I went.

The air felt amazing, rushing by my skin as I let gravity take over the fall. I turned myself over, now looking up at the sky. The arms were shooting out the windows, unable to reach down any further to get me. A flash of blue from the inside indicated everyone was out safely. That’s my cue to prevent myself from dying now!

I held onto one of my sickles and swung the other one up. My spine tingled as a pink aura washed over my hand and over the sickle that I grabbed, trailing its way up the white silk ribbon…

Transforming it to chains!?

The pure white mystic chain clanked as it stretched out. The sickle I threw up now broke through the glass side of the building and continued shattering through it straight down. A few broken shards chipped at me as I snapped back to reality and remembered the original plan. I closed my eyes and refocused on the sickles. No thoughts, no distractions, no room for any of them. I have to breathe. I have to focus.

The blades morphed them into a stiff rubber. Too soft to break the glass, too strong to break itself in half, effectively yanking me to a stop.

I did it.

I actually fucking did it!

“Holy truffle mac and cheese, that was awesome!”

“I know!” I excitedly greeted Donnie who had flown over using his jet pack. “I can’t believe it went so well! You saw it all?”

“And recorded!” He turned his back towards me and pointed at his shell. “Need a ride?”

“Definitely.”

We cruised across the sky onto the roof of a nearby building where the rest of the guys were. The instant I hopped off Donnie’s shell, Leo jumped me with a hug, followed by several frantic checks to make sure all limbs were intact.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you dizzy? What’s wrong with you? You’re crazy! You’re crazy, you know that!?”

“Now who’s smothering them?” Mikey snickered at Leo, who looked relieved and on the verge of tears at the same time.

“Everyone shut up and look at this video first! You’ll probably forget whatever meaningless chitchat you were having, anyway!” Donnie hissed from glee, using his extra mechanical limbs to huddle us all around his phone that was playing the video of me from a few moments ago.

Looking at the footage now, it seemed the pink aura actually came from my whole body. It spread throughout my arms and circled past my hands, flowing to the white ribbon and replacing them with shimmering, white chains.

Mikey screamed from excitement, holding onto my hands. “MYSTIC CHAINS! Omigosh, we match now! We’re like twins!”

“I know! Isn’t it great!? We can be chain buddies—Eh, nevermind, that doesn’t sound right.”

We sat around for a while so Leo could help with all the cuts and microscopic bits of glass stuck to me. In the meantime, they were all curious how the chains even came to be, which I sadly didn’t have a clear answer for. I went ahead and reassured them my plan would’ve still worked with the ribbon itself, though. Speaking of, I can’t really get my ribbon back now. Sorry, Mi. However, I did figure out how to make the chains vanish and re-materialize, so at least I don’t have to learn a different fighting style!

Donnie was paying attention, I think. Just multitasking with a few holographic monitors up. He sighed and put ‘em away after a while.

“Yeah, no, sorry guys. Maybe my brain’s too fuzzy but I can’t hack into the actual database tonight.”

“No big deal, Don. Ya done enough.” Raph gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Hey, you guys wanna go grab some pizza? Raph could use a break.”

“Yeah, I think we all could.” Hopeful, green eyes faced towards me. “Salena? It’s late but… You wanna join us for a bit?”

It’s around 3am now. If I went home now, I’d only get three hours of sleep and that’s assuming I’ll conk out immediately. It’s not impossible, though, I can feel the energy crash creeping up from all the adrenaline. But, I don’t know. I don’t wanna go yet.

“I’m already out, aren’t I? Might as well!”

Turns out, for once tonight, I made the right choice. It was fun getting to be with them in a more casual manner. Just chilling at a park, enjoying some pizza, and re-energizing myself as I watched them goof around. I checked through my phone while I enjoyed the delicious cheesy glory.

Everything seemed normal.

Except for one tiny issue.

I was putting it off but Zane sent a voice note to me a few hours ago. I don’t have earbuds but everyone’s pretty distracted right now, anyway. I could listen to it. Maybe it’s… Maybe it’s better than I think it is.

I lowered the volume just to have it barely audible and clicked play.

“Hey. Um… I hope you’re home and safe now. I…” He sighed and went silent for a while.

“This wasn’t how I intended tonight to be. It was such a gorgeous night. The weather was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was all going so well. What happened? Why do we always end up like this?”

I wish I knew. Or that he knew. Maybe we could’ve helped each other if just one of us knew what was the problem.

“Everything in my life always goes so wrong. I’m so tired of it, Salena. You’re the only thing I haven’t messed up. I don’t want to mess this up. I just—” I could hear a creek from the door opening as someone came in the room. “Yeah, it’s on the floor, clean it up. I don’t know how, just go clean it!”

Sounds of glass being swept up filled the background atmosphere. Zane sighed again. “Sorry. One of my vases broke tonight. The cherry on top, right? Anyway, uh… I’ll just end it here. I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re dreaming of something nice. And I’m… I’m sorry.”

The voice note ended. It wasn’t that bad, I guess. I feel a little bad about earlier but I’m glad he apologized. I guess things are fine now. I should probably leave a text, it’d be wrong to hold a grudge if the situation’s already resolved.

You: hey i’m safe yea. I just wanna say i’m sorry too for lashing out like that earlier. I hope you’re sleeping well, sweet dreams and see ya tomorrow <3

There we go. Nothing to worry about now. Nothing to stress over.

A hand tapped at my shoulder. I raised my head to meet Mikey smiling down at me. “Mind if I sit? They’re bein’ a little loco even for my taste right now.”

I looked straight and saw Leo and Donnie arguing over whether pineapple belongs on pizza and Raph taking the opportunity to sneakily eat their slices. Pretty tame behavior from them, but Mikey’s tone was too lighthearted to be serious, anyway.

I shifted over on the bench and patted the empty space next to me. He sat down and brought his knees to his chest, his back leaning against my side. He shuffled with his phone for a bit before offering me one of his earbuds. “Wanna listen to Fall Out Boy with me?”

“Sure!”

I could use some music after tonight.

Next Chapter

This chapter was nearly 15K words btw-

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lady-lamb21 · 4 months ago

Text

Three Degrees in Monaco (Chapter 1)

word count: 2.7k

When he’d first told me that he wanted to go to Europe and see his family, I was thrilled. Theo doesn’t often allow himself to stray from his day’s monotony. He calls it his “extraordinary work ethic,” but I think if I weren’t in love with him, I’d probably argue that it’s more a gnarly concoction of laziness and fear.

When he’d first told me he made all the right calls, bought the right tickets, and was scheduled to jet off for the summer, that was when something started to bug me. I’d smiled, squeezed his shoulder, and put on the same sing-song voice my mother used to use when I would return from the front yard and give her what I liked to call a “garden gift.” So, this is what it feels like to get a handful of dirty, wriggling worms dumped into your lap.

Except, no. I should have been elated, not in part, not even mostly. Entirely and wholeheartedly excited for my friend. My best friend. Yet the thought of hearing his voice through a poor connection for the next three months was the only thing I could think about. That, sandwiched between my guilt and some other gummed-up feeling I can never quite interpret, was the start of the distancing; the not picking up the phone, the saying no when I could’ve and really should’ve said yes.

“I swear to god, if you tell me you still have a ‘shit-ton of laundry to do,’ I’m gonna lose it.” He’d laughed when he’d said it, but not the kind of laugh that means he’s found anything particularly funny. He never sounds mad even when he’s scolding, but if I could have seen his face, the crease between his brows, there’d be no doubt about it; he’d lost his patience with me.

“If you keep pestering me into taking up more of your time when I know you still have to pack, I’m gonna lose it! How ’bout that, hm?” I’m desperate for the right laugh because the right laugh means he’s not suspicious. It means he’s a clueless boy who’s not going to make me say goodbye. But he isn’t, and of course he will.

“Alright whatever, I need to talk to you and I’ve only got two days before I leave. Are you really gonna tell me you can’t come over for an hour? Just one hour?”

I’m so itchy in my clothes all of a sudden, and I want to tell him to leave me alone, have a good time, and never think about me again. I’m antsy to be an overly dramatic Hollywood starlet and make it all about me. But I don’t. Not out loud, at least.

“Okay, fine. But if I have to go to work on Monday in dirty tights, I’ll kill you.” There’s the laugh.

“I don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about that. Be at my place at six.”

I have to physically resist the urge to remind him that it’s not really his place, and that he has a far more generous sister than he often deserves. I’m sure he’s heard it enough already and the last thing I should be doing now is starting a fight.

When he opens the door, his embrace is familiar yet overwhelming all at once. I don’t listen to his small talk as we make our way through the kitchen, past the dining room, and up the stairs to his bedroom. I do, however, notice that it’s strayed from its typical catch-up questions and taken on an uncharacteristically lecturing tone, likely in response to my recent avoidance of him. I shouldn't be surprised by it. Our friendship dynamic has never been that of a cat and mouse. We talk about everything. Almost everything.

“So,” he starts. I suck in my breath and give a nod. Here we go. “I have some news.” Not what I was expecting, though still not inherently reassuring.

“Yes?”

“You know I’ve been planning my trip. . .”

“Uh huh?”

“It’s a pretty big trip, I mean, my whole family will be there. Well, not my sister but, you know.” Yes, I do.

“Yeah?”

“So, I’ve decided something.” Christ.

“Jesus, yes Theo! What’s your fucking news?”

The laugh returns. “Relax. I want you to come with me. Well, scratch that actually, you are coming with me. That’s all.”

Wait. “What?”

“Called your mom the other day. Said you wouldn’t mind. besides you’re not gonna keep working over the summer anyways, right?”

He’s smug beyond his years.

“So?! Maybe I do mind?! Maybe I mind very much!”

“C’mon! One last go, before school and all that. Plus, you totally don’t mind.”

“Theo!”

The cockiness is something I’m all too familiar with. However, I’m slightly taken aback by the persistence, like he’s desperate for me to go along. Even when he’s telling me what to do, he’s still asking. But he is right. One last go. And I don’t mind at all.

———

I don’t think I’m a very desirable travel companion. I don’t enjoy flying, though my distaste has little to do with any type of irrational fear. It’s something I would’ve liked to have sorted out a bit more before jetting off to college, but here I am the summer before. . .It’s really the entire physical experience. The cramped seating, the toilets, the tiny space shuttle-esque windows, so on and so forth. What’s there to like?

There was the phone call to my boss—the lie about some fictitious family member being struck with an even less legitimate fatal illness. There was the fact that for the entirety of the forty minutes it took for me to leave a part-time job—only five days before I was already planning to—I was thirteen again. I was crouched in the back of his sister’s coat closet with him, making horrendously executed prank calls, gagging at the Newport smoke stitched into her boyfriend’s coat, and clutching my stomach as it burned with our laughter.

There was the sleepover that we’d had the night before in order to be up and headed to the airport on time. There was the inky early morning sky, his bedroom window and his ninth-grade watercolor project that had earned its place on our school’s website that spring. There was his tired smile once he’d joined me upstairs from the living room couch, a jesting “and off we go” accompanying the expression. There was the “Give ’em hell” his sister had given us from the dimly lit kitchen table as we’d stiffly shuffled our suitcases into the hallway, accompanied by an overexaggerated kiss on my cheek, and the realization that I was in on a joke that wasn’t very funny.

There was the carry-on bag he’d yanked from my grasp as we clambered out of the taxi.

There was the mediocre airport breakfast sandwich alongside the somewhat mediocre—albeit endearingly so—conversation.

“My mom is gonna tell me I need a haircut, bet you five bucks,” he’d muttered through a mouthful of turkey bacon. After finally boarding, it wasn’t long before I drifted off. I woke up sometime in the final few hours of the flight, my head tucked in the crook of his neck over Nice and my stomach somewhere in my throat. I suppose there’s a decent amount to like.

———

I like to think I make up for my dormant presence on the plane during the train ride to Monaco. I’m a planner, a fact of which I’m both very proud and incredibly resentful. You don’t get many invites to exciting late-night excursions when you’re a planner, but you’re trusted, which feels like it means more. Sometimes. Whether I like it or not, it’s in my nature to bring apple slices with peanut butter, a booklet of crossword puzzles, and about four different playlists depending on how the scenery shifts throughout the ride. Theo is my favorite crossword partner, but only because he’s way worse at them.

About thirty minutes into our two-hour journey, he’s gone quiet, no longer bobbing along to the Paul Simon phase of our travel soundtrack. He’s terrible at pretending to pay attention to something. He doesn’t realize it but his eyes are his tell. They glaze over and gaze just beyond your face, almost over your shoulder. Self-conscious about the broadness of my own, I don’t entertain his disinterest in me for long.

“Leave the iron on?”

“Hm?” He looks at me as though I’ve just appeared from behind a tree.

“You leave your iron on back home, or something?”

“I don’t have an iron.”

As if you couldn’t tell. The blue, faux-satin button-down his aunt sent him last month for his eighteenth birthday already looks like a drugstore popcorn shirt.

“Where’d you go?” I try again, talking like a person this time.

“Nowhere really, just thinking.”

“About . . ?”

“I just, I don’t want her to ask about Anaïs . . . you know?”

I pause the fast-paced drums filtering through my earbuds as he removes the one I’d given him from his left ear.

“You know they’re probably gonna ask.” I’m trying to be sensitive, but he knows better than to think I’d lie to spare his feelings.

“But she’s not really asking. She’s just, like, waiting for me to say something she doesn’t like so she can explode.”

“I know.”

I do. His mother is painfully obvious when she knows what she wants and even more so when she doesn’t get it. Though I’ve only met her on four separate occasions, this has remained my consistent observation. The first was at kindergarten pickup. She hadn’t been hard to spot in a plum purple maxi skirt, flashy parakeet green earrings, and a bright red lip. Theo had grabbed my arm and all but dragged me to her, proudly introducing me as his new best friend. We’d only met the day before.

Our next two encounters were at funerals. The first was for Theo’s grandfather, a man I’d later come to adore. He’d taken over the kindergarten pickup after Theo’s mother had apparently gotten into a bit of a “tiff,” as he’d called it, with our head teacher. At his service, she had commissioned me—freshly twelve—to deliver the programs and point out his paintings along the back wall of the church to the incoming attendees. I thanked him in my prayer for the bracelet he’d gotten me in Cannes when I was nine. She gripped my hand once at the wake, over Aperol Spritzes.

The second funeral was for Theo’s uncle, who wasn’t really his uncle at all. He was the best friend of Theo’s father’s cousin and I’d only met him once at a dinner. When I first introduced myself, he’d placed his hand just a bit too low on my lower back. At his service, Theo’s mother hadn’t said one word to me, the only acknowledgment of my presence being a terse nod as I walked through the church’s side entrance. I sat in a back pew and skipped the Spritzes.

The last time I had seen her was two years ago, the day his parents decided to move back to Monaco. Apparently they’d been mulling the idea over for a couple of years by that point, but he’d never said a word of it to me. At eighteen now and looking back at our sixteen-year-old selves, I don’t think either of us would have been able to stomach it had it been said out loud. Anaïs’ miscarriage had been the catalyst. I remember that afternoon, when he appeared at my front door in a frantic state, out of breath from his sprint down the block. He choked out a horrifying recount of walking in on his sister in the bathroom—finding her hunched over and feverish on the cold, increasingly red tile—and immediately calling his mother. The three of us waited in silence on their porch for her to return home. As soon as she had, we piled into their 1997 Toyota Previa, with me sitting on the floor, Theo’s mother running reds all the way to the hospital. No one knew that Anaïs had been pregnant. She was nineteen. For the first time, I felt I’d learned something about Theo’s mom that maybe she hadn’t known: even the deepest love, while seemingly everlasting, is conditional.

———

“Hey, marmotte. . .”

“Hm?” I wake up only to find myself tucked back in his neck. How I’ve already managed to completely fatigue myself again, I’m not sure.

“Wake up, this is us.”

The Monaco-Monte-Carlo station is exactly as I’d hoped it would be and more. Sitting just slightly above the surrounding administrative area, it has a perfect, head-on view of the water. The buildings neighboring the coast are a patchwork of neon yellows, greens, and pinks, bounded above and below by a crisp blue sky and a bluer ocean. A rusty cliffside cradles the edge of town on one side, slicing through the harsh, high altitude wind, leaving those down below with nothing but a gentle breeze.

I’m taken out of my trance upon our exit as a vehicle emerges smoothly from behind the cliff. The roofless monorail slithers above the shoreline, between the rooftops, as if heading out to sea.

“I think I remember that?” He says it like a question, and a sad one at that. Theo was only three when his family left Europe for his father to join the American manufacturing boom. I know he loves our city, but I’m also painfully aware of his resentment for it. New York was not where he was meant to stick around, but upon being asked to choose, he’d stayed.

“Is there a bus we’re taking?”

Having interrupted his hazy train of thought, he turns from the coastline back to me wearing a challenging smile. “You can’t tell me you’re still tired, all you did was sleep!”

I grumble my way around a noncommittal answer, but gladly take his outstretched hand anyway. I shouldn’t complain, and I can’t as soon as I see his face taking it all in. It sends a flood of something wonderful through my system watching him ask for directions, speaking in a language he only ever gets to use on the phone. He tugs me behind him, taking long strides as if he were already completely familiar with his surroundings after just one point of an index finger. It’s just under a thirty-minute walk to his parent’s house, but we stop at the nearest ATM for a quick currency exchange about halfway through. I’m suddenly regretting my dedication to German in junior high, but there’s something about the way he’s teasing me today that I don’t mind.

“Are you hungry yet?”

I’m surprised he’s asking only five minutes away from the apartment. Surely his mother will be forcing her cooking on us as soon as we arrive. “You don’t want to wait until we get there?”

“Nope.” He’s not looking at me when he says it. The nerves have set in. Fair enough.

Generous as I am, I allow him to lead me slightly off course in search of somewhere to grab a quick bite. We settle on an espresso bar just slightly southwest of our destination. He’s gone quiet again, barely sipping his coffee in favor of watching the ripples forming in the cup.

“They’re gonna be excited to see you more than anything else.”

“Hm?”

Good grief, Theo.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I try again, a bit gentler this time. “They’ll just be happy you’re home.”

“Not worried. . .” he tapers off, but gives me an anxious little smile, as if to thank me for spelling it out. He’d foregone holding my hand once we’d become sure of our route. However, he takes it again in the moments leading up to our arrival, gripping my fingers tightly. It’s the only noticeable change from his otherwise calm exterior as he guides us through the congested foot traffic. My stupid mind doesn’t stop drifting between our intertwined hands and what we surely must look like to passers by. Get a grip.

Arriving at the square feels somewhat like entering the eye of a storm. It’s almost silent in comparison to the busy streets bleeding into its center. The complex’s front door is an orange-stained Canarywood with a dainty, metal handle. We walk into the vestibule and up the creaky, winding steps to the second floor. One more to go and we’re presented with a narrow hallway and another series of doors similar in design. Six, eight, and finally apartment ten.

He knocks twice.

Plum purple maxi skirt.

“Ah! Bienven– ah, tu as besoin d'une coupe de cheveux, mon fils!”

———

Hi! This is the first chapter of a short story I wrote back in my sophomore year of college for a fiction workshop class. It touches on themes of love, loss, family, friendship, substance abuse, and coming of age. If you liked it———let me know! I'd love to post the rest in the future if anybody would be interested. If you didn't like it———you and my fiction workshop have that in common... but thank you for reading it nonetheless <3

-I

P.S. One girl in my class was particularly pissed off by her need to Google Translate some bits. Apologies ;)

#artists on tumblr #creative writing #short story #writers and readers #writers on tumblr #female writers #writers and poets #writing #writerscommunity #fiction #short fiction #three degrees in monaco

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chrisevansonly · 2 years ago

Text

Happy International Women’s Day Blurb (Little Duck au🐣)

pairing: Chris Evans x Female Reader (Momma Evans)

summary: after a rough couple of days, you’re still not out of the woods, but that doesn’t stop Chris from spoiling you and little Arlie for International Women’s Day

warnings: none, mentions of pain, but just fluffy goodness

a/n: here is Women’s Day blurb 2/2! These were kinda fun to write, and I do have three full length fic ideas that will be coming out either today or within the week so keep an eye out for those! sending lots of love 🫶🏻

Giggles, baby noises and laughter had lulled you out of your sleep around 8:30 in the morning. You made note of the pestering pain that could still be felt throughout your body, thankfully it didn’t seem to be as bad as it was last night, but you were still slow to get up

Gently putting your feet on the hardwood, you slid your slippers on and grabbed the corner of your bed frame to life yourself up and out from the comforts of your blankets, a pained groan escaping you

Chris had told you to yell or text him to help when you needed it, but being the stubborn woman you were, you wanted to do everything yourself, though when you reached the top of the stairs, you felt too weak to attempt it yourself

“Honey?”

Almost instantly Chris appeared at the bottom of the stairs, Arlie following

“Momma! Come on Momma! Daddy has pwesents!!!”

Chris laughed shaking his head

“It’s supposed to be a surprise duck..”

“Oh…s’upise, it’s a s’upise Momma!”

You laughed, Arlie was horrible at keeping secrets and surprises, but it was the cutest thing ever, when something didn’t really need to be kept hidden of course

“Well i’d love to come see the surprise baby, i’ll meet you in the living room okay?”

Arlie nodded before running off another laugh escaping you, though you were trying not to laugh too much due to chest pain, it would never be possible in your household

Chris was already making his way up the stairs to you, a smile on his face despite the worry in his eyes

“You should have called, I would have helped you out of bed baby..”

“You already have to help with so much…I just needed to do it this morning”

He nodded, not offering a rebuttal because he’d be the same if the roles were reversed, and man did he wish they were

“How are you feeling? Any pain still?”

“Somewhat okay I suppose, still cramping in my stomach area, my chest is really bothering me amongst other things…slow and steady I guess”

Chris hummed in response before helping you get to the bottom of the stairs, offering to help you over to the couch but not before stopping to see Lisa and Wesley who were having a little sink bath

“Hi my handsome boy, oh look at you! You having a bath with Nana? hmm?”

Wesley offered a gummy smile your way, his hands splashing, more than happy to see his mom as you leaned down to press a few kisses to his little cheeks

“How are you this morning sweetheart?”

You sighed shrugging in Lisa’s direction

“Still not great but not horrible, I can’t thank you enough for all your help”

“Nonsense, I love being here and seeing my grand babies as much as I can, besides someone’s gotta make sure Chris holds it together”

You nodded laughing once again, wincing slightly at the tightness in your sternum, Arlie’s yelling didn’t allow you to think about it too much, as you were off to the living room, taking a spot next to her

“Look Momma, Daddy got us flowers!!!”

You widened your eyes at her excitement, another smile tugging at your lips, Chris coming over and sitting next to you

“Happy International Women’s Day to two of my favourite women”

Leaning over you pressed a kiss to his lips thanking him, Arlie squealing in excitement at her flowers and of course a few other little gifts Chris had got her

“I also have one more thing for you..”

He pulled a small box out from his sweater pocket and handed it to you, eager to see you open a gift he new not only would make you happy, but had more meaning now than it did before

Sliding off the top were two Volvo keys nestled gently amongst some little pieces of cut up tissue paper

“Chris….”

“I know, I know it’s extravagant and a big gift, but I know how much you loved that car, how it kept you and Arlie safe…and Volvo reached out to me wanting to help…so I wanted to replace your SUV that was written off after the accident, now I know our family will always be safe with you driving one of these again”

Chris was right, you’d never had a better car than your XC90, safety wise it was the best car for your family, but knowing Chris had gone out to replace your car and the company itself wanted to help, was enough to bring tears to your eyes

“Thank you so much honey, you have no idea what this means to me…I-I don’t even have the words right now, Arlie, Wes and I are so lucky to have you…”

Arlie noticing your tears came over to give you a hug, making sure to be extra gentle, and you held her to you

“Love you Daddy, love you Momma”

Hugs shared all around you didn’t know where to start in thanking Chris for this gift, but he would go to the ends of the earth to make sure you and his family were safe and taken care of, no matter what was thrown your way🤍

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flowerpotmage · 1 year ago

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Tight Grip, Broken Dam (6)

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You don’t question it anymore, when Miguel appears in your bed at night. He’s not there for sex, no, you’ve never even kissed—though you would be lying if you said you weren’t open to the idea of kissing him. He’s there for comfort. For rest. If only it could stay so simple.

Pair: Miguel O'Hara & GN!Reader

Notes: for series: slow burn, ambiguous relationship, found family dynamics, reader is in their late 20s. for chapter: miguel being... well. if you're here you're familiar with his shit. references to offscreen deaths. panic attacks and grief

Word Count: 3.5k

Read this chapter on Ao3 here. If you like my work, please consider leaving kudos there as well! You do not need an account to do so.

Author's Note: hiii!! you must be thinking "wtf, it's not monday/sunday where tumblr user flowerpotmage is?" and you'd be correct! i'm posting this chapter on my sunday before my night shift, as i'll be away from my laptop on monday/tuesday while i visit my mom.

i'm a little nervous about this chapter for some reason, so i rly rly hope you like it <3

Miguel does not think he’s catastrophizing.

He’s sure that Jess would disagree, if he confided in her what he was thinking. Scratch that, he knows she would if she knew any of what he was doing.

Peter probably would, too. Shocking Peter. If Miguel knew how many shocking Peter Parkers he’d have to deal with on a day to day basis he probably would have thought twice about inventing the damn multiversal watch.

So, as of now, Lyla is the only one saying anything about his behavior. She’s the only one who knows.

“I think you’re catastrophizing, boss.”

“I am not.”

“And I think you owe them an apology.”

Miguel doesn't disagree, but... “What do you know, Lyla? You’re a LYrate Lifeform Approximation.”

“A very good one with a deep understanding of human relationships and emotions since you lifted me out of being locked to your apartment and got me that upgrade from your old friend, Miguel.”

He huffs.

“I think you're self sabotaging out of a PTSD induced fear of loss.”

“Dios mío, Lyla, okay, will you just let me out of this damn bathroom?!”

Lyla does let him out, eventually (despite his growls of “Vete a la chingada!” when she initially refused), but it doesn't mean she leaves him alone. It's not that she keeps pestering him directly on the subject, but rather that she pokes at it around the edges, a toothpick testing the crust of bread in the oven. Little comments about how you would have been the perfect backup for this or that anomaly event, (“They’re benched until they’re healed, do not ping them.”) or randomly wondering aloud what you might be up to when he’s in the kitchen rinsing a plate (that immediately breaks under his abruptly tightened grip).

And his sleep is terrible. It's been a week and a half since he stepped foot in your dimension, longer since—

He tries not to think about it.

“You know, I can think of something that would help with that,” Lyla practically taunts him late at night when he's trying in vain to relax enough to find sleep

“No.”

The thing is, he shouldn't have gotten so used to it in the first place. Shouldn't have become dependent on you for a good night's sleep. Because how shocking embarrassing, crawling into your comrade’s bed like a child who can’t sleep without their parents.

But it helped. And Miguel had never been the best with impulse control.

Dana was proof enough of that, even before everything changed.

And now Gabriella, too.

He lets his mind wander to her, far more willing to linger on the ache of grief and well-deserved guilt than any fresh hurt. A reminder of why he does the work he does, validation for why he keeps everything where it is, why he tries not to let the other Spiders get too close.

He’s royally shocked that last one up, that's for sure.

You hear about the new Miguel before you see him from small group passing you in the hallway where you’re waiting to ambush Peter and chew him out for yesterday’s antics. Secretly, you’re also there because you're curious about this other Miguel and want to get a look at him when he arrives, mostly because of your Miguel having been so firmly against you joining the recruiting team.

So you’re waiting, casually, just past the opening where the lobby opens out into the larger HQ, when you overhear them.

“He’s so much friendlier,” comes one Spider-Woman’s hushed voice.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen our Miguel smile so much,” a Spider-Man replies. “Even if it is with closed lips.”

They pass by, off to wherever they’re headed, and then you hear Peter’s voice approaching just around the corner.

“Yeah, whoever designed the place had a real one for architecture–”

You push yourself off the wall, turning on the ball of your foot to stand in the doorway and block his path.

“Peter.” You greet him with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, feet planted shoulder-width apart. You vaguely register Jessica Drew and the very, very tall familiar figure beside her, but you have your sights forcibly fixed firmly on Peter for now.

Play it cool.

“Oh, there’s Garden-Spider!”

“It’s just Spider,” you suppress a smile, rolling your eyes. “He likes to call me that because I have so many pla…” You turn your gaze to the new Miguel, voice dying in your throat.

The first thing you notice about the new Miguel is how similar—no, nearly identical he looks to the one you already know. His hair is slightly different, a lock of it falling across his forehead instead of pushed back. His suit is darker, more matte and black instead of blue, and he’s wearing sunglasses even though you're all indoors.

But none of that is what killed your sentence dead in its tracks. Because the second thing you notice is how when he sees you, he looks like he’s encountered a ghost.

Peter, of course, goes to introduce you two, waving off your comment about his nickname for you. “New Miguel, this is–”

New Miguel whispers your name in what can only be utter disbelief.

“Oh boy,” Jess says.

“Um,” you say dumbly, the confidence in your posture going a bit slack.

To his credit, the new Miguel seems to pull himself together fairly quickly. He closes his mouth, and you recognize a familiar twitch in his jaw muscle just before his throat bobs in a nervous swallow.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just—didn’t expect…” he gives an apologetic, borderline sheepishly wry smile, and you see a glint of sharp teeth—of fangs—and suddenly you understand his slight mumbling, why he doesn’t open his mouth too wide. “Figures that there’d be a version of you that’s the hero out here in the multiverse.”

You give a nervous, forgiving smile and hold out your hand. “Sorry. Earth-7723,” you introduce yourself.

He looks at your hand, eyes glancing back up at you behind his tinted glasses before he accepts it with his own.

“Miguel, but I’m guessing you already know the other me I’m hearing about. Earth-209.”

“Earth-209 in the year 2099,” you quip. “Fun.”

He lets loose the barest chuckle, more of an amused huff really, as if the tension in his body won’t let him laugh properly. If you weren’t so familiar with your Miguel’s body language you probably wouldn’t have even noticed. It feels strange, being able to read a complete stranger so well. You wonder if he’s having the same experience, and how well he knows the you from Earth-209—because clearly he does know another version of you—and you also wonder if it’s as strange for him as it is for you to see such a familiar face on a stranger.

“Yeah,” he agrees, letting go of your hand; his own falls to his side. “Very fun.”

“We should get you to the Boss’s lab and introduce you,” Peter says after glancing between the two of you.

Jess nods. “I agree. You probably have questions.”

“You’re not off the hook,” you say to Peter with a pointed finger, trying to dredge back up your earlier determined mischief, doing your best to set aside the dizzy surrealism and unbalanced feeling from the brief interaction with Miguel 209.

“What did I ever do to you?” Peter says as the group begins to pass.

“Oh, don’t play innocent after that stunt yesterday.”

“What stunt?” Jess asks, raising an eyebrow, starting to smile.

“Oh, he knows.” You mirror her expression with your own raised eyebrow.

“Nope, I don’t. Bye!” Peter waves, hurrying the group along.

“No, I wanna know what's got Garden-Spider out for revenge,” Jess says even as she walks off with the two men, giving you a wave and a smile.

You watch them go, your arms now more wrapped around your middle than crossed. The new Miguel, Miguel 209, turns to look at you over his shoulder like he needs to check that you’re real.

You give him your own small smile and lift a hand in your own little farewell wave—one that he returns with a matching and equally small smile and the ghost of something sad in his brow as he turns back to watch where he’s walking.

The circumstances under which you had met your Miguel were much different. Part of your story was actually quite similar to Gwen’s, and many other Spider-People: hiding your identity from those you love, balancing the two worlds until one encroached on the other, a full scale incursion that ended in more than one life ruined and at least one snuffed out. An unavoidable event by all accounts, according to Miguel’s theory of canon events and every article about grief and guilt and control that you’ve read since.

It turns out that when you have great power, and a great deal of self-appointed responsibility, the guilt stage is hardest to overcome.

Then your dimension had its first anomaly. A copper steam-powered Rhino had wreaked a path of destruction through the underground subway. It was a miracle that nobody was killed. Well, more accurately it was because of him that people were able to walk away with their lives.

Once the scene had cleared, the panic hit you, raw and fresh as the cracked rubble. Damaged walls brought to mind an image of an entirely different event featuring more structural damage and death. As a result, when he went looking for the Spider he had helped in order to invite them to join his effort to keep the worlds intact, he found you where you were crouched behind a cracked pillar. Your knees were to your chest, your head in your hands, and your breath ragged.

“Hey,” he said, voice low as he knelt on one knee in front of you, barely more than a foot and a half away. “It’s okay. You did it.”

You looked up at him, your hands still cradled your head and your eyes now wide under your mask.

He had a hand held out to you, stretched out in an offer to help with standing up.

You glanced at it, at him, back at the hand. With a sharp movement that seemed to startle even his apparently cool and collected self, your hand darted out and grasped his, squeezing tight. He began to stand. You shook your head, and he froze.

“Sorry,” you managed to gasp out. “I ju—“ a desperate gasp for air interrupted your words, but you managed to continue: “I just need a second.”

He settled back down onto his knee. His hand adjusted to hold yours more gently.

“Breathe,” he said gently.

You did. And then you said: “You have a cool suit. What’s your deal?”

“I— what?”

“Your— your suit,” you said with a shaky, breathy laugh. “I like it.”

He hummed, a quiet thoughtful sound. “Thank you.”

“What’s your deal?” You asked again. “You’re… like me. But I haven’t seen you before.”

Then he gently squeezed your hand, letting go to rest his arm on his knee.

“I’m from another dimension.”

You linger around Earth-928, wandering and pacing the criss-crossed beams of Spider-HQ, exchanging polite hellos with other Spider-People.

Word about the new Miguel—Miguel-209—the one you can only refer to with clarifiers in your head because he’s not your Miguel and you need to differentiate or you’ll feel even more off kilter than you already do, has spread fast.

“I can’t believe there’s going to be another Miguel around.”

“Do you think he’ll co-lead?”

“I wonder how similar they look.”

“I bet he’s just as serious.”

“Do you think he’s as much of a leader type, or nah?”

“I heard he’s just as built–”

You swing up to one of the little used alcoves, a little space that feels like a cozy waiting room or one of those places in that mall you had found yourself in when you visited California as a child, styled with almost too firm armchairs and potted plants that gave the quiet corner the illusion of being shielded from passersby.

That’s where Jess finds you, strolling into the space like her belly has no impact on her.

You offer her a slight smile and a glance in greeting, shifting in your window seat to face her better when she takes a seat across from you, hand resting on her stomach.

“I think you need to talk to Miguel.”

“Which one?” you can’t help it, your mouth quirking up at the corners.

She chuckles. “Well, probably both at some point. But I’d give the new one some time to… adjust.”

You nod, then nod again at her belly. “Looks like everything’s still going well?”

She nods, smiling. “Last check up went great. Ten fingers and toes, two eyes, the whole nine yards.” (You hold back the impulse to quip ‘Wow, that’s a big baby.’) She pauses, and then sighs. “Listen. I’m sorry about the meeting yesterday.” When you look at her with a questioning frown, she elaborates: “Peter told me you hadn’t gotten the schedule.”

You look down, picking at nonexistent dirt on your suit. This one is new, a remake after your previous one had gotten shredded in the road-rash incident. “It’s fine, really. Miguel probably assumed I was still on… medical leave.” The last two words come out more bitter than you had intended.

Jess just watches you. “Your hands doing okay?”

You shift slightly, pulling off your gloves to present your palms to her, and she leans forward to look properly. The skin still has a slight irregular shine from the fresh scars, but only if you know what to look for.

“Looking good,” she says, leaning back into her seat.

“Do you wanna get some food?” you blurt.

She raises an eyebrow, and then laughs in pleasant surprise. “Sure.”

You’re closer to Peter than you are to Jess, but it’s still nice to spend time with her outside of meetings and anomaly wrangling. She’s telling the story of when she first met Gwen.

“I can’t believe she called him ‘Dark Garfield,’” you laugh. “How have I not heard about this before?”

Jess laughs and shakes her head, adjusting her grip on her burger. “I’m as surprised as you are. I guess Gwen tries not to brag, or something.”

You nod. “She’s a great kid.” You sigh. “I worry about her sometimes, honestly. I can’t imagine being Spider-Woman, or man, or any of it, so young.”

Jess sombers. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Miguel wonders how all the Peters do this, how they’ve all adjusted to being surrounded by alternate versions of themselves when it felt so strange for him just to be face to face with one of his own. It’s not that he didn’t know, not that he wasn’t aware of the other versions of himself in the multiverse.

He just didn’t expect to actually come face to face with one of his variants like this. One that was living. One that was also Spider-Man.

Miguel-209 had just left the lab with Peter following the latter's offer of a tour, leaving him alone in his lab with Lyla. He stands, hands braced against the console, head hanging low from his shoulders.

He pretends his chest doesn't feel tight.

“Do you think any other Miguels also-?”

“Lyla, please,” he cuts her off.

For once, she listens, falling silent.

Miguel takes a deep breath, pushing himself up on the exhale. “Did you add it to his file?”

“I did.”

Miguel nods. “Lock it.”

He doesn’t look at Lyla when she crosses her arms, creasing her brows under the pink glasses.

“It’s locked.”

He nods again, turning away further. One arm crosses over his chest, and much like when he paced the corner of the medical room a week ago, his elbow rests on his crossed arm and his fingers rest on his lips.

“They’re going to find out.”

“I know,” he says. “I know. And they should. But only from him. And I don’t need anyone else…” he trails off, unsure how the sentence ends. “It’s clearly private. For him,” he adds on at the end, gesturing his hand and resting his fingers back on his lips.

“And you trust Jess and Peter not to say anything?”

“Run daily reports,” Miguel says, changing the subject, lowering his arms to perch on his hips.

“You got it, boss.”

It had taken some very light convincing on his part (a portal) to get you to believe his story, and only slightly more after that (basic info on the multiverse and what he was aiming to do) to get you to join the Spider-Society.

Parker had been one of the first to welcome you, eventually dubbing you Garden-Spider when he visited your dimension and saw the greenery of your city, and more specifically, your apartment.

Then you hugged Miguel in his lab.

You still get embarrassed when you remember how the rest started. Another panic attack. More tears. You’d found that person’s shirt in your storage closet, and with nobody to call in your dimension who knew about both your lives, your first thought was him.

So you called. Not to ask for anything really, you’re not even sure why you did it. You suppose, if you think about it, your brain picked him as the most recent example of comfort and sympathy you’d experienced—though in the first month while getting to know him, those wouldn’t have been the words you would pick to describe Miguel O’Hara, even if they were now.

So, in a desperate grab for a lifeline, part of you had reached out before your conscious mind could stop the taps of your fingers.

“Is everything alright?” He asked when he answered, a holo-bust of his suit popping out of your watch.

“I—“ you gasped, trying to speak through your choked lungs. “I—“

“I’ll be right there.”

Not even fifteen seconds later a portal opened in your bedroom and Miguel stepped through. He crouched before you. “Are you injured?”

You shook your head, buried your face into your hands. “Sh-shit, n-no,” you managed to get out, and tried not to look at his thighs and the shape they made where they sat right in your line of sight. “I—Sorry—“

He didn’t say anything more, just moved closer and offered a hand as his mask receded. You nodded, and he rested it on your shoulder, eventually pulling you into a somewhat stiff hug, like he was trying to remember how they worked. Eventually he let go, once your breaths and tears had calmed.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Water,” you’d whispered, beyond mortified now that you had calmed down. “I can-“

But he was already up, leaving your room to find a cup for you. It took a minute, while he figured out your kitchen cabinets, but he returned with what you'd asked for.

“Peter’s right,” he said when he passed the cup into your hands. “You have a lot of plants.”

You laughed, then turned quiet, shy. “Thank you, Miguel. If… if you ever need…”

He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

It surprised both of you that it wasn't long before he called to cash in on your offer.

“Are you… Do you mind returning the favor again?” He asked through your watches, quoting you indirectly.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” you’d replied after a millisecond of surprise. “I can be there in–”

“No. I mean–” he huffed a sigh. “Is it alright if I come there?”

Another second of surprise. “Oh, of course,” you repeated.

“Thank you.”

That happened a few more times, the two of you ‘exchanging favors’ of comfort and rest between regular days around Spider-HQ and missions across the multiverse.

Until one mutually grueling day came around and the exhaustion was too much for even your super-powered bodies, and Miguel had helped you home from a mission.

“Shock, I just–”

“Yeah. I need to fucking lay down,” you’d laughed tiredly, and eased yourself down onto your bed. You didn't even take your suit off; still smeared with soot and grime and a little bit of someone else’s blood.

He chuckled at that, running a hand over his hair. “Yeah.”

By then you had gotten halfway decent at keeping your eyes to yourself, glancing away from the muscles of his arm and the way they moved.

“Come on,” you sighed. You patted the space on the bed next to you, exhausted and already melted into your bed. “You look like you need it too.”

Even with your eyes closed you felt him hesitate. But you left it alone and folded your hands over your stomach, one ankle over the other, letting him decide for himself what he wanted to do.

The soft sound of your floor creaking let you know he was walking around to the other side of your bed. The gentle dip of the mattress let you know when he was sitting, and then the weight next to you accompanied by the sound of fabric told you that he had laid down by your side.

His quiet sigh when he had gotten comfortable told you that he had, in fact, needed it too.

That was the best night’s sleep you’d had in months.

It was for him too.

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#miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o'hara x gender neutral reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel x reader #miguel x y/n #atsv x reader #x reader

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