#my new year’s resolution should be no contact i’m so serious

[ailichi]

I need not to be reading Walt Whitman approx. an hour after my parents telling me I’m going to die alone and lonely and unloved because I’m just so hateable. but whatever

[thomine]

sincere sins & serious schemes : thoma

pair: thoma x reader info: teen & up, corruption, manipulation, homicide, bad parenting, brief mention of starvation, emotional manipulation, power imbalance, ambiguous ending, not proofread

summary: you cover up your brother’s crime to repay what he did for you many years back. it comes back to bite you in an innocent request for a date.

word count: 2.8k words series: day 13 of au august 2023 / prompt: noir links: work tag

You’ve explored less travelled paths of Inazuma City with Thoma while on the hunt for criminals, sticking closer than peas in a pod for it was easier to deal with danger than imagine the other out of sight.

He’s the first person you seek after successfully connecting clues all night, knocking on his door at ungodly hours. You’ve lost count how many times he’s apologised for his small apartment. He says he should be a gentleman to send you home, but he never does and replaces your toothbrush in his washroom every three months.

Your close relationship with him is a common topic of discussion during lunch in Inazuma Detective Agency as your distant colleagues make bets like little kids while giggling to themselves. They have lots say when justifying that you and Thoma might cross that line, but they forget to factor your division in their judgements.

“Kamisato Ayato, Sir,” you greet as your leader steps out of the board meeting. Thoma—the closest you can describe their complicated relationship is that he is Ayato’s secretary—follows tightly behind, and he smiles at you as if he wasn’t trapped in a room for 3 hours. “What was the conclusion of the case?”

Your leader clicks his tongue. What scares you is how his quaint smile is present on his handsome features. If you didn’t catch his flash of annoyance, Ayato’s disdained tone when he replies can cause a whiplash.

“They’re doing this on purpose.” His eyes gloss over the group of men that came out of the room with him. They cluster at the exit, eager to go home. Ayato pulls his bangs back, resolution burning in his eyes. You lower your gaze just to reduce clashing with his.

With a sigh, hands falling to his sides, he adds, “They’re certain the recently arrested man is the culprit and will be imprisoning him without a hearing. There are details I want to iron out, so I’ll postpone the briefing. I won’t let this rest.”

Ayato’s voice is dangerously soft. You give him a minute to ruminate in his thoughts—nothing more and nothing less.

“It should be expected. They hold the power to label someone guilty, not evidence,” you quip, torso bent in a subtle bow out of respect but also from freshly acquired fear. Ayato is not someone to mess with, and this topic of the recent culprit you captured…

“I know that look,” Thoma butts into the conversation, an accusatory finger pointing at Ayato. “You’re going to lock yourself in your office again. Won’t your sister be disappointed?”

It is at this moment their squabble fades to background noise. There are more pressing matters to think about than eavesdrop on the private life of your boss.

Tonight, you’ll be meeting your brother. The plan was to get your hands on the brief so you can discuss things with him. Now that you don’t know the specifics, you aren’t sure how to proceed. At least there is hope that—

“Besides,” Ayato’s voice cuts through your thoughts. You raise your head to give him respectful eye contact since he sounds like he’s addressing you, but he’s focused on Thoma instead. “I don’t want to hold anyone back. The day is ending, and I’m sure there are things both of you—” he finally glances at you “—have to do just as I have work to finish. A new case was brought to my attention, and I don’t want those corrupted officials to get their hands on it before I crack it open.”

The clock ticks.

You have 2 and a half hours before you meet with your brother. 2 and a half hours to run through everything and calculate how you might have underestimated the danger Ayato brings to the situation.

You bow when your boss leaves, and you thought Thoma will say goodbye. Perhaps berate his boss like childhood friends do on the importance of self-care before he does, but you find yourself caught in his sight instead.

“Is there something on my face?” you ask.

“No,” he replies, looking away for a second.  “I do have something to ask.”

“If it’s about the drug seller that just got apprehended, I think it is best to ask Ayato. You know better than anyone this case was a burden for me. I just… want to rest.”

“Then…” he rubs his neck. You cross your arms. Hesitant Thoma is a new side of him you’ve never saw in the years you work with him. “If you’d like to rest, may I propose going out for dinner with me?”

“Where is this coming from?” Your head spins. You’ve cracked complicated cases that were top headline news, yet you cannot wrap your head around his question. “Are you going to discuss the new case Ayato brought up? We aren’t supposed to talk about it before an official assignment… not like the others.”

If there were no cases, there would be no opportunity to walk around Inazuma City with Thoma. If there were no clues, you would not find yourself sleeping on his old couch. Determined to build Ayato’s hopeful vision of the city, Thoma and you dance at the edges of that line.

“Can’t I make a personal request?” He gives you a cheeky smile, hands in his pockets and even for his tall stature he looks like a small, shy boy in front of you. “You… don’t see me as only a work partner, do you?”

You blink, straightening your back before slouching and staring at the ground.

Do you?

But you have your brother to meet.

“How about another day—”

“There’s a discount at Uyuu restaurant. 10% off selected meals and your favourite so happens to be part of that list.”

When you don’t reply, he chips in, “Since it’s a date, I’ll pay.”

A date.

“Does… Ayato know of…” you awkwardly gesture between you and him, “… this?”

“Well… That… would I do something he wouldn’t agree with?”

There’s a thin layer of red on his cheeks as he gives a sheepish smile. His touch is something you’re so used to that you didn’t notice him holding your hands until you feel resistance trying to scratch your cheek.

You never thought of Thoma being anything more due to the sheer impossibility of it among other reasons. This feels like a dead lead, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t heating up at the way he takes a few steps forward with those pleading puppy green eyes.

Why does everything have to always be thought out so carefully? You think, exhausted, defeated, and surrendering to the tiny voice in your heart.

“Now?” You ask.

“Now.”

“I’m not the best dressed though…”

“I’ve seen you in the ugliest pyjamas. Does wearing your best erase that memory from my mind?”

You attempt to hit him but fail because of his hands holding yours, and he laughs. It’s a moment of happiness, you suppose, but his grip is strong and tight.

If you said no, would he let you go?

It is past 10 minutes from the time you promised to meet your brother, but you’re stuck between a wall and Thoma. He has his lips all over yours, and as much as you wish you can enjoy this apparent moment of bliss, anxieties pile up with each passing second.

You press against his chest a second time. He hesitates, and you take that opportunity to turn your head, unable to look at his eyes. This is not something you can enjoy—not when you hold a large secret.

To your luck, your phone chimes. You create more space between you and him so you can stand without the wall.

“Sorry, I…” you say, a hand reaching into your pocket for your phone. It must be your brother, waiting helplessly outside your apartment. If you aren’t going to tell him you’re held back by a clandestine kiss, you better start thinking of excuses. “I really have to go. It was… nice, i guess.”

Thoma rubs the nape of his neck, apologetic. He looks like a puppy, and you want to envelope him in a hug to reassure him that he’s not the one at fault here—in every sense of the word—but your phone chimes again and your brother barely double texts due to his limited credit.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” Thoma asks, green eyes staring at the ground. The guilt in you solidifies. Does he really like you that much?

Your throat tightens.

“Yes. And I guess we’ll… talk about this some other day?”

“Right,” Thoma flushes. “We’ll talk about it.”

Awkwardly, you make your way out of the alleyways. You expect something—he calls out your name or grabs your wrist—but you slip out of his grasp like water. Just seconds ago, he held you with a grip so firm that his gentleness was easy to forget and now it’s like all of it was for naught. There’s no time to piece this situation because your phone chimes again.

Brother: There’s someone lingering near your apartment. Claims she’s your neighbour—Momoyo—but something’s off about her. I didn’t think it’s safe for me to stay so I wandered for a while. I’ll let you know where to meet. Brother: Planning to go to the garden behind your apartment. Act normal. Brother: The pavilion on the outskirts of the north-west gate.

He’s more demanding than usual. The night is getting weirder. You just want to sleep, but in order to save your ass as well, this meeting is necessary.

You: On my way. Give me 5.

At the pavilion, your brother reads a book. When he sees you, he discards it and drops to his knees. The book was a front, and underneath, your brother hosts great grief. In seconds, his eyes are pooling with regret. He grabs your hands and you’re tired of being treated like an object, but at his plea, you have greater things to be concerned about.

“Someone found out.”

“What?” you ask, feeling blood seep from your body. You want to puke. “They found out. You mean…”

“No, not the drug case. Something else. I didn’t want to trouble you and planned to take this to my grave, but I need your help. Someone is going after me. They know that I killed—”

“You what?” You tear your hand out of his grasp, unbothered by the friction burns due to his strong clasp. It’s proven to be a mistake when your body grows light, and you stumble backwards. If not for the pavilion seats, you would have fallen to the floor. “Where is all this coming from? You could have started with something… more digestible?” You glare at him, but that only worsens the volume of his tears. “A drug case is already tough to manage. A murder is not something I can cover.”

He holds your hands again with both arms, pulling himself closer to you. Lower lips trembling, he barely squeaks out his reply.

“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here. I was the one who saved leftover food for you. I was the one who encouraged you to join the Detective Agency. You should repay me, shouldn’t you?”

“This was all part of your ploy, isn’t it? You wanted me to get this position so you could puppeteer me to your liking.” You take a deep breath and let it out in a held-back groan. “And here I thought it was worth repaying your faux kindness. You’re just like our parents. You don’t care about me.”

“You misunderstand. You managed to bribe them. Are you sure they stand for justice? You know very well that those bozos don’t care about us—about you. Do they even know you?”

Thoma flashes across your mind. Perhaps there is another reason why both of you can’t cross that line. The world of the personal heart, of broken childhoods and wretched upbringings, is too much of a burden to share. Thoma only knew the version you wanted him to know.

Would he still want to kiss you if he learned you’ve betrayed everything he stands for? You don’t understand him well enough to be confident you have a conclusion, but one thing is for certain: unlike your brother, the people you called family, he had a heart.

You hope you didn’t break it.

“Why else would I be in my pitiful state?” your brother adds. “Have you thought about that?”

His anguish has turned into anger, voice bordering on a shout if not for the soft chatter in the background, a reminder that even if the pavilion is secluded, there are still ears.

“After our parents died, I couldn’t get myself back on my feet,@ he says. “I may be the favoured one, but do they really have much to give? I had a fling shortly after their funeral. She wanted to keep the child, so we fought. It did not end well.”

He returns to his melancholic mien. A fool will believe his remorse. Unfortunately, you were a fool before. Give him an inch and he will demand a mile.

 “I kept the secret really well, but I’m afraid… not anymore.”

“If you are truly regretful of your actions, you’d go to jail. Willingly. Not drag me around.”

“But you see…” his voice is threateningly soft. “If I get caught… they’ll find out your crimes too. How you covered for my drug case by accusing an innocent man… would you really want that to happen?”

Your stomach churns.

Your voice is played on radio. It scratches and glitches at times, but your confession is clear, and so is Ayato’s disappointment.

Thoma stands at the far side of the room. Ayato is a man who takes his work seriously. He does intensive background checks on everyone who joins his team, and that is a double-edged sword. If he knew you had this characteristic, he would have found a way to silently discard you as if things just never aligned. You stayed in his team for 3 years.

When he approached Thoma and proposed a plan, he was shocked how you are part of this web of lies. He didn’t want to believe it, but the facts have been laid bare.

The kiss tastes sour in his mouth. He didn’t want to play with strings like that, but he knew Ayato needed someone to attach a voice recorder on you before they missed the chance, and you are always cautious even around someone who you’ve hung out with for years.

But you were completely unguarded when he kissed you.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. He just hopes he did not break your heart that has already been tattered and torn if your conversation with your brother is anything to go by.

He twirls a pen between his fingers. When it flies out of his hand, he lets it roll on the ground. What’s done is done.

The conversation between you and your brother have long been in the back of his mind. He just needed you to admit that you resorted to dirty tricks and his job is done.

However, your voice pricks his attention. Your words are grounded, and it’s the first he’s heard you so resolute. You’ve always been sort of a push-over when it comes to people’s demands. Why else would you stay overnight in his house despite how often both of you agree it is best if you return?

“No.” The recorded glitches. “I’m not like you. I made a mistake, and you showed me that, so I’m going to own it. What was I thinking? Believing I had someone I could trust?” The record glitches again, but the crack in your voice resonances in Ayato’s private office.

“I should have known,” you continue after a loud thud. Ayato’s back faces Thoma. His posture has not changed. His head rests on his tented fingers. “If you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t have roped me in this situation in the first place. You want an upper hand, and I’m not giving it to you.”

There is crunch of dirt followed by the distant call of your brother’s voice. Ayato turns the radio down. He’s smiling.

“Did you…” Thoma starts, picking up the pen on the floor. “You knew this would happen.”

“It was a risk,” Ayato admits. “The tip Momoyo gave of the killer for the lady and the child was weak, and I didn’t expect to get this much information on it… I guess it was a risk worth taking.”

Ayato gets up from his chair and takes out the thumb drive. He hands it over to Thoma.

“What will happen to… my partner?”

Ayato only glances at Thoma before he walks out.

In the silence, Thoma confirms three things.

One: Ayato will give further instructions once you make your move. Two: Ayato’s impressions towards you are mixed after your betrayal of the division’s values… but, and lastly, there is hope for your return.

He did not comment on Thoma calling you his partner—although whether it remains as work partners is an answer Ayato cannot give.

author's note: normally a kiss scene would elevate a fic from ambiguous (indicated by x) to romantic (indicated by /), but i feel the scene is not as straightforward, so there's leeway of interpretation. also, in the spirit of noir, i wrote this fic with a darker undertone in mine, even if the ending is slightly hopeful (depending on how you read it). do check out the author's commentary for more of my thought process!

[hmslusitania]

A meta about Buck and Eddie’s current relationships compared to their past relationships (but it's under a cut so that I don’t have to tag the characters for people who have them blocked, thereby putting this into those characters’ Tumblr-wide tags and summoning angry stans back to my inbox)

Because I haven’t seen anyone else mention this and it’s sort of been driving me nuts. On the one hand there’s a relationship where it’s:

someone he was previously with and this is a renewal of what might have been

someone who he has serious sexual chemistry with but a blatant emotional disconnect

who he separated from and time (roughly two years) has passed during which interim there has been no contact between them

and now they’re trying it again and although he clearly forgives her for past transgressions he still doesn’t trust her when it comes to the most important things, even if he's enjoying spending time with her to a certain extent

but he’s decided to have her back in his life after some negotiation which definitely included her saying at least one excoriating thing against his character that cut directly to the heart of his insecurities that made him feel like he'd failed and needed to do better ("I needed you to have my back" vs "You're so needy")

And when it was Eddie and Shannon, the resolution of that relationship was Eddie deciding that he wanted to try and make it work, build a family and a future together, only for Shannon to bail on him (again). And obviously we haven’t seen the end of Buck and Taylor but based on everything we’ve seen about Buck’s development and growth, it seems pretty clear that what he’s looking for in the long run is to build a family and a future, most likely with children.

Now, we don’t know enough about Taylor to know how she feels about that sort of future trajectory but based on the very little we do know about her, I would hazard that this sort of future seems…unlikely as something she might want.

And obviously, the relationships came about in different circumstances, but the structure of season 4 Bucktaylor versus season 2 Eddie and Shannon feels like a funhouse mirror to me.

And then on the other hand, there’s a relationship where:

It starts after they met once a while ago

With a person who is also presented as a contrast and possibly a more reasonable choice than the other relationship mentioned above (“Ali’s a more grown up and less wild choice than Taylor” vs “such a healthy choice moving on from Shannon with Ana”)

Which begins with a coffee date

And which is all the development we really get in the relationship until an episode that seriously implies doom ahead

And ends with him getting severely whumped

with her there for the initial homecoming

But there’s something kinda off about that homecoming (Ali being unsure the firefighter lifestyle is for her; Eddie kissing Ana on the cheek the same way he kissed his grandmother?? Like my dude my guy there are perfectly acceptable chaste and polite ways to kiss someone on the mouth if you’re worried about scandalising the Youths or the Elders and that ain’t one of ‘em)

And the resolution of that relationship is that Ali was gone without ever officially saying the words “we should break up” before the next season began, and based on behind the scenes sleuthing while it seems like we will see Ana at least once at the start of season 5, it doesn’t seem to be a significant presence.

And idk!! I don’t know what to do with this, but like it seems really obvious to me that in a structural way, Taylor is Buck’s Shannon and Ana is Eddie’s Ali, even while the characters of Taylor and Shannon don't really resemble each other (and I'd argue we don't actually know enough about either Ana or Ali to say how alike or different they were/are, but they don't strike me as similar people), and I hope the boys both get the same as things out of these relationships as the other did -- just with better resolutions.

I want Buck to be in this relationship and evaluate what he wants from his future the way Eddie figured out he wanted to try being in a family, but I want him to have the opportunity Eddie didn’t and I want him to come to the conclusion that if he wants that future, it’s not going to be with Taylor because that’s just not who she is. And I want him to get the opportunity to end it on his terms in the way Eddie never got to.

And I want Eddie to — god I’m sorry this somehow circles back around to my entire shitpost about getting back on the horse/learning you don’t like horses — but I want him to acknowledge that his relationship with Ana, while important for his growth and for moving on after the traumatic end of the most significant relationship he’d had before, simply doesn’t go beyond that. It’s a relationship and it’s “nice” and “easy” but it’s not where his heart is and even though ending a relationship always hurts a little, it won’t devastate him. But most importantly, I want him to get to acknowledge that he’s choosing what he wants, which Buck sort of didn’t get to do with Ali because she made that choice for him.

And then, because I’m me, once they’ve gone through each other’s relationship mistakes and hopefully learned from each other’s example how to do it better, I want them to embark, nervously but so glad to be doing it, on something new and untried together.

ETA: Eddie and Ana’s first date was explicitly not coffee, but it had the same vibe as Buck and Ali’s first (coffee) date in that it was a casual café setting and we know nothing of it after the initial “its nice we’re doing this right?”

ETA(2): Both Shannon and Taylor have “changed” when they’re brought in to be love interests in season 2 and 4 respectively but Shannon’s change ultimately turned out to be insufficient for building their relationship forward. We have yet to see how deep Taylor’s apparent change runs and it’s clear that so far Buck does not trust it.

[whereflowersbloom]

Morning after

The smell of freshly baked croissants and coffee woke her up. Raven hardly ever felt so rested, even after spending an hour meditating before going to sleep, opening her eyes and getting accustomed to the morning light of the sun that illuminated her room through the windows. She turned on her back and nestled in this new, previously unknown feeling. She was strangely calm as if everything was in the right place, and every possible problem remained in the past.

Maybe that’s what genuine serenity feels like, she thought to herself.

But how did she end up in this situation? They became friends. Best friends, even. They talked about everything including their most intimate thoughts. She told herself it was enough or deceived herself into believing so. There was no line for them to cross but a secret and deep part of her soul definitely understood and sought the need to feel wanted and loved and fulfilled. Not like she hadn’t thought of Damian that way before. There was such a terrible tension between them sometimes when they were both sitting on her the sofa watching old classic films or reading books they both enjoyed. She craved the heat of Damian’s embrace. She remembered how it felt to have him curled around her, how gently his thumb stroked her cheek, how his muscles flexed against her, and she wishes he would hold her again.

Damian was like a compass for Raven if she felt like she might lose her way, and that kind of thing never happened to her. Not often at least.

As usual Damian went jogging as it had become his habit thanks to Jon, who craved the sunlight as soon as he opened his eyes, persistently asking him to be his partner. A surprising string elbow in the ribs by Jon gave him the second push to voice his feelings for Raven. Later, he visited a local bakery that made exquisite chocolate croissants, as he memorized Raven’s favorites. Then he returned home with a sudden thought it was the high time to turn his quiet feelings for Raven into something serious. He wanted to fool himself at first, but as it turned out, he was too fucking smart to believe a single word of the downright falsehood he made up in his mind in order to excuse himself from the imminent truth. He was in love with her.

She was about to get out of bed to stretch her muscles when Damian walked into the room carrying a tray with breakfast: hot coffee, steaming Earl Grey, croissants and juicy autumnal fruit. She wanted to approach him, wrap her arms around him and kiss him on the neck, the sensitive spot she discovered last night, but they were not yet at that stage of the relationship. As the matter of fact, she did not know exactly who they were to each other now. Maybe nothing had changed. After all, it had been just a few kisses last night, letting go, a carpet diem kind of moment. Maybe Damian didn’t want things to change between them.

"Good morning.” Damian muttered, sending her one of his radiant, sincere smiles that made her legs weak. "Did you sleep well?"

“Yes. Better than most days. I didn’t know if you would come back...” She kept her own voice soft, matching his tone, afraid to burst the strange bubble they found themselves in. Controlling her anxiety was easier said than done.

“I simply needed time to clear my mind.” His expression was solemn. “We must discuss last night’s event.” He mumbled under his breath, voice deadly calm, a convincing facade, fighting to distract the both of them from his own wild whirlwind of emotions as he left the tray at the bedside table. No woman in his life had ever truly enchanted him in the way she did. He would not give her up.

Her lower lip trembled slightly. She repeated her mantra over ten times until she calmed her nerves. Damian was her closest friend, and she cared about not ruining the special bond between them. They said it was easier to move on as long as you were merely lovers, but what when you are so much more. She felt like a teenager who was falling in love for the first time. Not that she was that much older at the age of 19. She had experience in meaningless romances, short-lived, Wally, Garfield, but she knew nothing about true love. Their bond was beyond comprehensible lines of poetry. More than it being undefinable, it was the freeness to be defined, the way as open interpretations take you.

“We don’t have to to this now. In fact, nothing has to change.” She spoke tentatively, unsure whether she’s more concerned how this would shape their friendship or embarrassed she let herself cross a line. Slowly passing around the room folding her arms across her chest.

The distress was heavy in her chest, stirred with a fog of uncertainty.

At this, Damian’s eyes sparkled with determination and objection regarding her statement. Before she registered what he was doing, he grabbed her hand. “I do not want to leave things exactly as they used to be. Not before last night.” He held her gaze and rubbed his thumb over the backside of her hand, reveling in the softness of her skin.

There’s a fluttering in her stomach, and she’s taken aback at the intensity of it. Butterflied filled with hope and wish. There was hope of light after all darks, hope of happiness after grief, hope of a new colorful sunrise, a chapter to be rewritten.

“It was just a kiss..” In a trice, breaking off the contact. She lied and immediately regretted it. Damian stood next to her with a disbelieving expression on his face. There was a hint of indignation but it vanished quickly.

“You and I both know it meant more than a kiss. I do not need the gift of empathy to see it.” Damian stated sharply, his features hardened at his resolution. He was tired of constantly feeling this weight on his shoulders. What was the point of deceiving themselves any longer? If he didn’t know better, he would say she was avoiding him like a plague.

Letting out a breath she had been holding in since Damian entered her bedroom, Raven felt a weight being lifted off her chest. “Damian...I” She started, but never managed to finish interrupted by an unexpected question.

"Do you have any plans for today?" He left the question hanging in the air.

With brows furrowed in confusion she found herself unable to command her mouth to utter anything. Her heart thudded out of her chest. The normally unflappable last daughter of Azarath knocked for a loop by the close proximity of her stunning teammate.

Raven parted her lips and closed them again.

“It seems we are free to do as we please today. Clear schedule. No training or missions. He shrugged casually, willing his breath to remain steady, years of boiling emotions teetering over the edge of his elegant, suave composure

Raven blinked. Amethysts widening.

“I thought we could go somewhere. You and I” Damian licked his lips, swallowing the nerves in his chest as her eyes widen a fraction at his proposal. "There's a new Parisian café in the city I think you might like.”

Her lips curved up into a sweet smile, growing wider and more radiant as she thought of sitting in Parisian cafe with Damian, enjoying a minute of bliss to be in the other’s company.

“Are you asking me on a date, Damian Wayne?” She blurted with a momentary astonished look, even as she realized the implication of his words. Was this truly happening? She asked herself mentally.

“I’m courting you properly, Raven. So yes, I’m asking you out.” His shoulders ease from their tensed position, subconsciously hunched in nerves to what she’d respond.

It was surreal, talking about what a few minutes ago had been unbearable chains, restrained by her own fears and inner demons. Ethereal strands of thread that could be snapped by a mere jerk of fingers. He wanted more. He wanted her.

“I don’t know, Damian.” She bit her lip still indecisive, gaze away from his face. Once again mind invaded by intrusive negative thoughts. What if it didn’t work? What if she lost control? The numerous what if’s haunted her like never ending nightmares.

Taking a step closer, something in his emerald sparked with an idea and firmness of not quitting. “Any chance I can persuade you to change your mind then?” He crooned in her ear, nipping at it just slightly, taking her breath away. She wondered how long she could resist his gravitational pull for so long.

Raven hesitated for a good few seconds before finally resigning herself to the fact that whatever she did. She couldn’t fight this anymore. She loved him. “I can think of a few ways.” She was surprised at her own boldness, snaking slender arms around his torso. He pressed his built body against hers closer, placing tender, teasing kisses along her neck. Whilst she was glad that he was enjoying himself, she was going to completely lose it if she remained flush against him for much longer. Her entire core heated with want for him. He smirked at the effect he had on her with his natural charm. This confident, cocky air. This was so him and content and not bothering to mask it. No filters.

“Is that a yes?” He whispered and there was no missing the boyish grin spread over his tanned cheeks. Hooking a finger under her chin and brought her face level with his own.

“I suppose you earned a date, Mr. Wayne.” She laughed feverishly. Gently, stroking his palm with her thumb. Enjoying the calloused yet silky skin of an accomplished swordsman and fighter.

An audible sigh left Damian’s mouth as his muscles relaxed with her nestled in his arms. She could sense his relief. Yes, perhaps a change could be good, opening herself to feel again. A new chapter of light and joy.

Notes: I know I have disappeared and haven’t updated in forever but I’m still sick and weak. Also working on the fanzine project. I should be done in a week though. But meanwhile have this short damirae. Not my best but I hope you enjoy it 💖💖💜💜

@deepbreadlover @tweepunkgrl @alerialblu @chromium7sky @kallura-juniblade @cayeeast

I miss you all and youre all welcome to message me. I feel a bit disconnected from the world.

Also I’d like to use to wish @shewhowillnotbenamed1 a happy birthday!! Thank you for blessing us with your beautiful wiring and your friendship 😊😊🥰💜💖

[mandilflorian]

Laws of Motion

Marcus Moreno x Reader (fem)

Rating: +18 (minors do NOT interact)

warnings: light smut, dry humping/making out, egregious physics jokes, if i’m missing anything i’m sorry!

word count: 1.8k

A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! My resolution is to write more and I’m happy to kick off the new year with a smutty little marcus one shot! I haven’t posted fic in a long time and I apologize if my grammar is off. I have a basic understanding of physics lol so if it’s not accurate then I also apologize for that. I hope you all had a happy holidays. Enjoy!

• • •

Marcus Moreno had been on you all day. A lingering touch as you exchange files and cups of coffee to each other at the office. A hand on the small of your back as he passes you by in a hallway with more than enough space for two people to walk. It’s deliberate. You’ve been craving his touch for a few weeks now. Both too busy with work to truly feel each other. The want has been building and you might just combust if you wait another moment to have him.

He stops by your office during your lunch break, sitting on the edge and playing with the Newton’s Cradle on your desk. Stopping the motion of the cradle in it tracks before gently lifting a finger of one side and allowing it to fall, continuing its demonstration. You watch his ministration while sipping on your coffee, lost in the thought of his hands working you in similar ways. He can read you very well, and he takes note of your distracted state.

“Did you know,” he interrupts your thought and you look to find him staring into your eyes with a glare you can’t quite read. “By lifting one side, you are creating potential energy. And when you release it-“ He releases the ball and the cradle begins its demonstration again, all while keeping his eyes locked on you. “It converts to kinetic energy and transfers that energy to each ball until it gains the momentum to propel the last one forward. And the cycle repeats. Creating a seemingly infinite motion.”

You hide your smile behind your hand, trying to hold your giggling from him. He is prone to scientific tangents and you are in constant fascination with the Heroic, but the simplicity of this is just too cute. “Marcus, I am well aware of the mechanisms of a Newton’s Cradle.”

He drops his hand into his lap and fiddles with a loose thread from his jeans as you set your coffee mug down next to him. Before you’re able to move your hand away he quickly takes it into his and intertwines them.

You look back into his eyes to find them dark and serious. What you couldn’t read before, becomes abundantly clear. He wants you. While the direction of the conversation only serves to confuse you, Marcus continues.

“Maybe we should turn our potential energy,” he lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “into something kinetic.”

The contact sends a jolt to your hand and up your arm. Your chest tightens until you realize what he just said. It’s a moment of silence before it’s filled with your laughter. Loud and booming through your office as you try and fail to contain yourself. Marcus drops your hand and stands next to you. “Alright, Geez. It was corny, I get it.” He pats your back as you wipe the tears pricking your sight.

“I’m- I- Oh my god, Marcus, I’m so sorry- I can’t- I- Did you just u-use a physics pick-up line on me?” You hold your palm to your chest, taking a deep breath and letting a few giggles escape.

“Yeah, Yeah I get it. I was trying to be romantic.” He shakes his head and adjusts his glasses. You stand and wrap your arms around his waist. “Baby, I love you, but that was a little too cheesy to be sexy.” You tell him as you rub between the planes of his shoulders.

“Hmm.” He grunts and pushes his tongue against his cheek. “Guess it just needs a little momentum.” He smiles down at you and you raise your brow.

“Was that another pick-up line?” You grin up at him and he meets you with a kiss, pulling away reluctantly and walking toward your office door.

“I’ll see you after work, baby.”

• • •

Finally, you’ve found yourselves back at Marcus’s house. Your relationship wasn’t new by any means. It wasn’t a secret, but you were still being slowly introduced to The Moreno’s family dynamic. You didn’t want to freak Missy out, so you both kept any and all public displays of affection to a minimum. This, mixed with your busy schedules, has left you both high and dry. Tonight, however, Missy was attending a sleepover with her new friends, which gave you the perfect opportunity to be intimate.

You’re barely through the door before Marcus has you pressed against it, pulling you against his chest and pushing against your hips with his own. You wrap your arms around his neck and card your hands through his hair as his tongue glides along your lower lip. He sucks on it and releases it with a graze of his teeth, drawing a moan from you. He grins, knowing he has you in the palm of his hands. Growing impatient with his teasing, you grip the curls by the nape of his neck, dragging him back to your lips. Your faces meeting in a clash of lips and teeth, and your noses pressed to the other’s cheek. His glasses push at an odd angle against his forehead and you take a moment to lift them and set them aside, safely.

“Couch?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

He turns you around and guides you backwards, his lips attached to your neck as your knees meet the cushions and you fall into a tangle of limbs, only separating long enough for you to kick your heels off, pull your pants down and toss them over the side of the couch while he shucks off his leather jacket.

Marcus grips your thighs and pulls you so you fall, unceremoniously, straddling his lap. The zipper of his jeans rubbing deliciously against your clit through your panties. You move at a steady rhythm against each other for a few minutes and he groans beneath you, feeling his cock harden through his jeans.

One particular thrust catches on your sensitive nub and you throw your head back. Marcus takes you in with lust-blown, nearly black eyes. He clenches his jaw, baring his teeth. He wraps his leg around the back of one of your knees and pulls on your hips, flipping you over and onto your back. He then pins you hands above your head and pauses to study you.

His show of strength has you clenching your thighs to ease the loss of pressure from changing positions. “Baby? Why’d you stop?” You try to grind against him, but he takes one of his hands from above your head to pin your waist to the couch.

“Have you heard of Newton’s Laws of Motion?”

You give him a curious look. What is going on with him today? “Marcus, we are in the middle of something a little more important, so it’s kind of hard to remember-“

Marcus moves a strand of your hair behind your ear and leans in to whisper. “Sweetheart, when i’m done, you’ll be reciting them.” The feel of his lips along your neck is the olive branch he extends from your brief disruption.

He grinds against you with a slow and steady pace. Not quite enough pressure, but at least you’re moving. “The first law states that a body in motion stays in motion, and a body at rest-‘ he stills your hips and you whine at the loss of friction. “will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it.” He releases your hands and you tug on his belt loops in protest as he begins to move again to your relief. He grabs your hips and holds your center against his thigh, applying a little more pressure, but still keeping that slow rhythm.

“This brings us to our second law. The acceleration of an object is dependent on force and mass. Try to move against me.” You rid yourself of your lustful daze long enough to listen. You try to grind up into him. You’re barely able to move him, much less yourself. “Not quite.” He tuts. “I am the mass. You have to generate enough force to move me. Try again.” he says in a raspy voice that drives you to do as he says. This time you grind against his thigh with enough force to move him and pick up the pace. “There it is, baby.” You nearly fall apart at his words. This is so much hotter than you imagined and you are quickly reaching your peak just from rubbing against him.

“Now for the third law.” He grasps your thighs and holds you to him as he starts to move in tandem with you. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” With every push of your hips, he returns in kind. dragging his restrained cock against your clothed center. Your vision is blurring and you’re not sure you’ll last much longer, surprised that Marcus has managed as long as he has.

A husky moan escapes Marcus’s lips as he stills your movements to control his own strokes. “I-I’m close, baby. uuuhhhhh F-fuck.” He pushes your shirt over your chest to reveal your pebbled nipples. He kisses up your sternum and nips under your breast. Your breath hitches as he takes a nipple into his mouth and pulls it taut between his teeth.

“Oh, Fuck! Marcus!” His thrusts, just the right speed and pressure, paired with his mouth on your tits. It has you seeing stars. Your pussy constricts with blinding pleasure as you cum. Marcus is not far behind as his steady stride becomes erratic. He grunts and his hips stutter against yours, gripping your biceps while he rides the high of his orgasm.“Fuck.” he collapses on top of you, knocking the wind out of you.

“Ugh! Marcus, baby…” You push him into a more comfortable position for the both of you, his torso between your legs and head resting on your chest. “Sorry, we didn’t make it past the living room this time, honey…” He huffs, rubbing next to your panty line over the dips of your hips.

“Hey, you won’t see me complaining.” You pull his shirt over his head to get you both more comfortable. “Hey, Marcus?”

“Yeah, baby?” He tilts his head to look up to you with those beautiful brown eyes that you’ve fallen for countless times.

“That…. was sexy as hell.” you bite your lip. His smirk grows to a toothy grin.

“Yeah? You think so?”

You nod your head, mirroring his expression. “Yeah, you were really cute at work with those pick-up lines, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn’t into any of it. But this was something else entirely.”

He chuckles and starts to stand. You groan at the loss of him, not wanting to part just yet. But he has other ideas. He leans over you and picks you up, throwing you over his shoulder. You squeal in protest and he smacks your ass. You realize he’s leading you to the bedroom.

“Don’t worry, baby, we still have plenty of energy to transfer, tonight.”

[cherrybracelets]

dance in the dark (one)

words: 4.5k | warnings: 18+ content. smut, drugs and alcohol mentions. mentions of blood, weapons, serial killers, cults, etc. DO NOT interact with this fic if you are under 18

masterlist | requests

pairing: professor!spencer reid x student!reader

an: this is part one of a continuing prof reid fic, i have no update schedule for this so please bare with me lmk what you would like to see also send more prof reid requests i wanna do little non plot side blurbs to this fic with your ideas!!!!

What do you think the crowd at a sleazy downtown bar on a Wednesday night looks like? Here’s a hint- it’s pretty pathetic. If you’re at this place on a week day, really any night at all, you’re probably not in the best place. And that was true, for you. Although from the outside it appeared you had everything completely together, the truth you tried so desperately to lock inside was clawing it’s way out- and you weren’t sure how much longer you could hold yourself together. 

Tomorrow was the start of your last year in grad school, something that should be a major accomplishment. But you were transferring here, after some unfortunate events that happened last semester. You’re not talking about that, though, remember? It’s a new year, a new city; you had the chance to move on from your past. But the only way you could do that is if you... kept it locked inside. 

But you’d been doing that all summer, pretending to be someone you’re not, even using a fake name with strangers. You could completely reinvent yourself, and no one would ever know. And as you downed another jack and coke, you stared in curiosity at the lonely man on the other end of the bar, flipping through pages of what seemed like an exceptionally boring book. 

He caught you looking at him, to which you quickly glanced away to pretend you weren’t, but you caught a slight smile out of the corner of your eye. You stared at the rows of alcohol behind you, avoiding looking in any direction, especially his. But you felt yourself smiling, a handsome man who had no idea who you were. Who didn’t know your name. That was something you couldn’t say before you were here. 

“That guy down there bought this for ya,” the bartender huffed, his deep and raspy voice perfect matching his large and intimidating exterior. You smiled down at the glass, a perfectly mixed Jack & Coke with a lime. You raised the glass up to him and shook it, letting the ice clang against the glass. 

“Thanks for the drink,” you said, raising your voice so he could here you. 

“I’m not... super great at the ‘walking up to a pretty girl and saying hi, thing’. So I figured that was my best bet.” He smiled, taking a slow sip of his own drink, which looked like scotch. 

“Can I come sit with you?” You asked, looking at the empty seat next to him. 

“Of course,” he grinned, clearing his papers and readjusting himself in the seat. “I’m, uh, Spencer, by the way.” 

(Y/N),” you responded, playing with the straw in your drink. 

“Can I ask you something, (Y/N)?” He asked, a serious tone to his voice. 

“Of course,” you replied, hesitantly. 

“Are you having an exceptionally bad day?”

“Hmm,” you thought, your eyes locked on the handsome man in front of you. “I think I’m having an exceptionally bad year, maybe years plural.” 

He laughed quietly, a deep chuckle, a relatable response. He knew more than anyone how miserable life could be. But this week, and most specifically today, has been exhausting for him. And he saw you, he saw the perfect way to relieve some stress. 

It didn’t take much longer until you were back at his place, making out on the overly expensive leather couch in the living room. His hands climbing up your body, nails digging into your flesh each time he grinded himself into you. Your hands were tangled in his hair, the smell of fresh strawberries and a hint of coconut from his shampoo. 

By the time you were both completely naked, he already had his mouth exploring your clit, his tongue playing games with you. He bit down on your inner thighs, sucking and nibbling at your lips. He added two fingers into you slowly, curling them perfectly to hit the right spot every time. 

“I think I’m gonna cum,” you moaned, your body writhing with pleasure, his mouth and fingers still taking care of you. He quickly stopped at your words, sitting up and pulling his fingers out of you. He licked his hand, tasting you, a devilish grin on his face. 

“You can cum when I tell you to cum. Turn over.” He commanded, grabbing your hips and flipping you over to him. He pushed on the center of your back and you arched, pushing your ass up for him. You could feel him position himself at your entrance, and slowly sliding himself in. You were surprised by his length, a slow whimper escaping your lips. 

“Am I too big for you, baby? Can you handle it?” He sounded concerned, but an underlying tone of sarcasm and gloat in his voice. 

“I’ll be fine,” you muttered, determined to take him. You felt the palm of his hand on your ass, rubbing the cheek slowly. It quickly lifted off, and came back down hard, a loud slap as his hand hit your bare cheek. You whines loudly, a mix of pain and pleasure overcoming you as he started to fuck you faster and deeper. 

You felt him deep inside of you. He was the biggest you’d ever had, and with ever pump into you he seemed to climb deeper. The feeling of being under him, his length fully overcoming your body- you felt so submissive, you belonged to him. His hands gripped tightly into your hips, pulling you back into him as he pounded in and out. 

“Can you handle this baby girl?” He yelled out, his hand grabbing a fistful of your hair and pulling your head back towards him. You yelped as he did that, the feeling of your hair being pulled sending shivers down your spine. 

“I fucking love it,” you responded, feeling the need to praise the man who was in charge of your body right now. 

“I want you to cum,” he instructed, his voice stern. You worried about what he’d do if you didn’t follow his instructions. You let yourself succumb to him, giving him full control of your pleasure. You started to feel a warmth spreading through you, preparing your body for a high of pleasure. After a few more seconds, you finally reached your peak, loudly announcing it to Spencer and whoever else could hear. 

The sound of the pleasure he brought you, Spencer came quickly after that, pulling himself out of you at the last minute and cumming on your back. He pushed you down flat afterwards, and you laid there with him for a moment. He stared at you, covered in him, his property. In that moment, you belonged to him. 

After you cleaned yourself off, you threw your clothes back on and got yourself together. 

“I gotta go, I’m starting class tomorrow,” you explained, trying to sneak out without being awkward. 

“I’ll see you again soon. Our story isn’t over,” he muttered, pointing towards the door and winking. You laughed initially, but realized how weird the comment actually was as you were walking out. 

Luckily, your Uber only took a few minutes, and didn’t force you to talk. You scrolled mindlessly through instagram, thinking about classes, the thought of Spencer still stuck in your mind. As weird as it was to say, you truly didn’t think it would be the last time you saw it. You had a weird feeling deep inside that he was a very important person. 

But, it didn’t matter, because you lived in a city with 700,000 people, and the chances of seeing him were slim to none. You didn’t even have a last name to find him on socials. You didn’t know his job, if he was even from here. In fact, you were quite surprised to realize you had just let a man you barely know fuck you like that. But damn, you did not regret it. 

You crashed as soon as you got back to your apartment, setting your alarm for class tomorrow and passing out as soon as your head hit the pillow. You had your usual string of nightmares, waking up every few hours, covered in sweat, your heart beating through your chest. You took a few sips of water and fell back asleep, only for the whole cycle to repeat a mere hour later. When your alarm finally woke you up, you were groggy and nauseous, another night of no sleep taking effect on you. You dragged yourself out of bed, silently hopped in the shower and let the hot water cleanse the night away from you. 

You brewed a weak cup of coffee, poured it into a travel mug and headed out the door. You were terrified of today, a heavy pit sitting in your stomach. You kept your headphones in the entire commute to the school, drowning out the conversations of others around you. There was no possible way they could know you here, but you still always felt that the whispers were about you. You avoided as much eye contact and interaction as you could, walking through the campus. 

Luckily the building where your class was wasn’t too far, and you got there relatively quickly. Your first class was called Mass Atrocity: Early Warning and Prevention, technically and elective course, but something you were extremely interested in. Your program was called Conflict Analysis and Resolution. You wanted to be badass, take down cults and serial killers, talking them off a ledge. You wanted to go back in time and prevent Waco. You knew you could do all of these things, you knew you could be the best, because your brother was a killer. 

It was why you moved from your hometown. After he was found out, it was unbearable to be around people who knew you. You couldn’t escape the hate, the public humiliation. You hated him just as much as anyone, but that didn’t matter. People were convinced you two were killers together, especially since everyone knew what you wanted to do with your life and knew you to be a huge true crime junky. 

You had to get away from there, escape your past identity. You could’ve stopped him, if you knew what was happening. But the truth was, you had no idea. And you hated that, you shamed yourself every day for not catching on to him. You, of all people, should have known. But now, you will spend the rest of your life stopping anyone you can. You had too, you couldn’t let them hurt their families the way your brother hurt yours.

So here you were, in a brand new city, a new last name, a new life. You had a chance to start over, be a new person. You could learn from some of the best professors, at one of the best schools in the country, only a few miles from DC. Homeland security, the FBI, CIA… everything you had ever wanted, right here. Sitting in this classroom, people filling in around you, you had your whole life ahead of you. Your future was unfolding itself right in front of you. 

And then he walked in. A brown leather briefcase to match a blue suit, his hair sloppily pulled behind his ears, a tie loosely around his neck as if he got ready in a hurry this morning. He probably overslept, since he was out late at a bar and brought a girl home. You stared at him, your stomach flipping as he took his laptop out of his bag and began to set up for his lecture. You tried to get up and leave, turn around and pretend you never saw him, but you were trapped on either side, unable to escape. You slouched in your chair, hiding behind your laptop. 

“Good morning everyone,” he said, his voice raspy and low, a clear sign of exhaustion. “I am Dr. Reid, although I would prefer Spencer. I teach a lot of the courses for Conflict Analysis, so you better get used to seeing a lot of me.” Spencer laughed lightly, his eyes scanning the crowd to see his new students. He looked approving, nodding over the people, and then his eyes caught you. 

He stopped in his tracks, locked on your face, your eyes moving quickly in random directions to avoid his gaze. You finally caught him, and he furrowed his brows at you, a look of disappointment. He looked away quickly and scanned the rest of the crowd, still looking discontent as he tried to shake the confusion away and begin his lecture.

He didn’t look at you once through the entire class. You were smart and took your notes silently, not asking questions or making a sound. He was an extremely captivating person, his stories and the way he taught so encapsulating. He was brilliant, by far the smartest person you ever had the pleasure of meeting. There wasn’t a thing he didn’t know the answer too, and you had so much you wanted to ask. You knew he could answer so many questions for you, specifically about your brother. But you vowed to never speak of him again, especially to a professor that you not only admire, but recklessly fucked just the night before. 

Spencer wrapped up class, giving everyone a few final notes and instructions before saying his goodbyes. Before everyone was out of their seat, he interrupted the shuffle to say one final thing. 

“Miss. Isaacs, could you speak to me for a moment regarding your registration?” He looked up at you for the first time in ninety minutes, and looked desperate. Your fake last name still rang odd in your ears, and it took you a moment to realize that he was asking for you. You nodded to him submissively, walking out the aisle and down the stairs to meet him at the podium. 

“Do you mind if we go to my office?” He asked loudly, making sure the other students heard him speaking normally to you.

“Sure,” you whispered, following him out the door and down a hallway of offices. He stopped at his, fumbled with the keys, and opened the door to a very tidy office. You closed the door behind you and sat on one of the two chairs that were for visitors. He walked behind the desk and sat in his chair, a frustrated groan as he sat back. 

“We need to talk about this.” He snapped, knowing that you knew exactly what he was talking about. “I can’t have slept with… a student.” 

“Listen, I promise I won’t say a word, okay? I can transfer out of your class too, make it not an issue…” 

“You have to take my classes to graduate. I’m…” he softened, leaning back in his chair and taking a deep breath. “I’m not gonna ask you to do that. You’re extremely bright… I remember getting your application. You deserve a spot here… I just don’t want you to lose that because of this…” He rubbed his hand over his chin, trying not to raise his voice too loud. 

“Thank you for saying that. You were brilliant out there today… I was completely enamored by you. Why did you leave the BAU to teach?” You asked abruptly, only realizing how inappropriate it was to ask that after it had already come out of your mouth.

“You know, that’s probably pretty personal, you don't have to answer that.” You covered your face awkwardly, wishing now you could just leave and not make this interaction any worse. 

“No… it’s okay. There was just… so much pain all the time. And most people take that as ‘I couldn’t handle that pain anymore,’ but truthfully, I had become so numb to it, it scared me. I needed to get out so I could learn to feel again.” Spencer looked at you, his heart feeling a thousand times lighter after speaking his truth. “I’ve never told anyone that. Not quite sure why I told you.” 

“I… I’m really sorry. Sometimes it is really easier to pretend things don’t affect you than deal with your true feelings. I can really relate to that,” you laughed, remembering all the pain you were currently trying to escape. 

“You are very, very beautiful,” Spencer interjected, his eyes exploring you, his mouth slightly open in concentration as he focused on your almost perfect facial features. 

“Thank you, Dr. Reid,” you whispered, feeling a creeping heat on your face as your cheeks began to blush. 

“I’d appreciate it if you called me Spencer.” He moved his eyes from your body to your own eyes, staring right through you. You felt completely unlocked in that moment, like he could see right into your brain and read your thoughts and secrets like a book. You knew you could close yourself up, hide away from him, but a part of you didn’t want to. The exhaustion of holding a heavy secret around ate away at you, and it would be more than nice to have someone who could carry that weight with you. 

But not him, he was your Professor, and this was your future. You broke your gaze with him and sat up straight, looking away. You scanned through pictures on his wall, the same group of people in multiple photos. He had many books on the wall, some in languages you didn’t even recognize. There were piles of magazines and papers on the floors, a layer of dust on the frame of the floor, and a fireplace that was littered with ash. The air held a musty stench, with a hint of air freshener trying desperately, and failing, to make the room smell good. 

At first glance, this office seemed tidy, that of a person with their life together. But the details were where that theory fell apart. He was holding on to his exterior, pretending he was okay, but inside this man was a mess. He was exhausted, overworked, and due to the multiple empty scotch glasses lying around, heavily drinking.

“You alright?” Spencer asked, his voice breaking you out of your own thoughts. 

“‘Sorry. Zoned out for a second…” you muttered, still looking around the room, trying to notice any other displacements. “I should probably get going.” You stood up quickly, grabbing your jacket and bag and heading for the door. 

“You’re in another one of my classes tomorrow. I checked your schedule,” he hesitated, looking at his computer for confirmation. “Will I see you?” 

“I guess I don’t have a choice, right?” You raised your eyebrows at him, waiting for another comment, but he had none. You left after a few seconds, closing the door behind you as you left. You leaned up against the wall outside of the office, trying to ground yourself. You took a few deep breaths and checked the time, realizing you needed to get to your next class soon. You quickly walked to the stairs and headed towards your next class, your head still buzzing from Spencer that you weren’t even sure if you’d be able to comprehend anything. You took a seat in the next room, putting your head down in embarrassment as you waited for class to begin. 

The next day you got to sleep in a bit more, but it didn’t make much of a difference. You still spent most of the night dealing with nightmares of your brother, but you had a new dream that scared you more than any of the others. You were sitting in one of Spencer’s classes, taking notes casually as he lectured. As he continued his powerpoint, the lights went dark and the slide changed to a picture of your brother. Everyone started pointing at you, calling you a killer, screaming profane things about your family. A light shined on Spencer, who was pointing and laughing with the rest of the crowd, walking towards you and pointing a gun to your head. Right before he pulled the trigger, he whispered “No one will ever love a killer.” His finger pressed down, igniting the gun, and…

Bam. You woke up. You felt sick, your heart racing and the contents of your stomach lurching around. You ran to the bathroom, vomiting as soon as you reached the toilet. You sat back against the cool tub, the cold feeling amazing against your hot flesh. You checked the time- 2:43 AM. You walked back to your bed and grabbed your phone, scrolling through instagram and twitter, trying to calm your mind. You had made brand new accounts with your new persona, paying bots to follow you so it looked legit. You didn’t want to post anything anyways, but you did love looking at baby animal pictures on the internet.

You were still feeling kind of out of it, and you reached onto your nightstand to grab your bowl. You smoked a little bit, trying to calm your body down enough to fall back asleep. Sometimes the marijuana and sleeping pills are the only things that calm you down. But you were feeling a little loopy tonight, and as you stared at your phone and tried to shove your anxiety deep down, you made a fatal mistake. 

New email: 

To: Dr. Spencer Reid, PhD

Subject: Empty

What do you do make the pain go away?

Sent from my iPhone. 

You locked your phone and placed it down on the nightstand, curling up in your bed and falling asleep. You surprisingly slept through the rest of the night without issue, waking up from a deep sleep as your alarm went off a few hours later. You had effectively forgotten about the email, and didn’t have any reminder of it since Spencer had yet to respond. You casually made yourself breakfast, preparing mentally to see Spencer in class again this morning. 

You left promptly after cleaning up, making sure you wouldn’t miss your bus to campus. You rode the commute with your headphones in, still ignoring the conversations of the strangers around you. You felt better today, at least knowing you’d be more prepared to see Spencer today than yesterday. All of that confidence immediately drained from your body as your phone vibrated, alerting you to a new text. Who the hell could be texting you? Almost no one knew this number. 

Maybe: Spencer Reid

In regards to your email- you can never get rid of the pain. I wish I had a better answer. 

You stared in awe at your screen, rereading the message a thousand times. At first you were confused, what email? But then you remembered, the fuzzy letters on the screen as you emailed him last night. Fuck. This wasn’t good. You opened the message, but didn’t respond, hoping he would see that if you read it and didn’t respond he would get the hint. There was no way you could go walk in class right now and go see him. But your bus stopped, right where you needed to get off, and although you desperately tried not to, your body got up and walked off the bus. 

You continued to walk all the way to your classroom, sitting suspiciously close to the front. A part of you wanted him, the part of you that craved destruction and drama, the part of you that you saw your brother in. It scared you, because each and every day you felt that part of you come to the surface a little more. 

Spencer walked in shyly, immediately scanning the crowd to find you. When your eyes locked, his face read a bit of relief, as if he was worried you wouldn’t come. He, too, wanted to see you. In all honesty, he couldn’t stop thinking about you since that night you spent together. He didn’t look at you long, realizing he had to start class at some point. He went through a similar introduction as yesterday, changing up a few things to meet this course’s curriculum. 

When he started teaching his content, you became just as lost in his words as you did yesterday. You listened intently to every word, felt the emotion as he did, even found yourself on the verge of tears as he wrapped up his lecture. You were stuck in awe, unable to move from your seat as he finished up class. He didn’t ask to speak to you this time, he just walked out the door without another glance in your direction. 

You needed to speak to him, at least to explain the late night email. You left the room and headed in the direction to his office, hoping you could catch him before a mob of other students. You could imagine you weren’t the only one who was engulfed by him. He was hot, and there were plenty of other girls in your class who would have their eyes on him. You started wondering how many students he’d fucked before you and felt sick, a wave of green envy washing over you. It was weird, how hurt you’d been at the thought of him with someone else, considering you aren’t even together. 

You made it to his office, and luckily there wasn’t anyone else around. You knocked lightly on the door and heard a muffled “Come in.” You opened the door to Spencer writing on some paper, his demeanor slightly surprised as you came through the door. 

“Mind if I close this?” You asked, motioning to the door. He nodded and put down his pen, sitting back in his chair. 

“What can I do for you?” 

“The email… and the text…” You looked down at the ground, now feeling embarrassed in his presence. 

“Sorry to have texted you out of the blue… I got your number from the student directory. All the, uh, staff emails are monitored, and I figured it would be best if we kept our conversation… private.” He bit his lip submissively, playing with his nails. 

“Why does it need to be private? It was nothing bad…” you enticed, watching the small smile on his face as you spoke.

“I’m afraid that it might end up there.” He dragged his eyes up to yours, meeting your gaze, seemingly digging into your soul once again. “Why?” 

“You know why.” 

“Tell me.” You waited for his response, trying yourself to now see through him, read what he was thinking. 

“I don’t think I can stay away from you. Something is drawing me to you and I can’t pull away anymore.” 

You stood up from your chair, walking slowly behind his desk and standing in front of him. He uncrossed his legs and looked up at you, your head tilted down as you looked at the man in front of you. You bent down on your knees between his legs, taking his face in your hands and kissing him. He kissed you slowly at first, surprise lingering in his lips, before embracing you, moving with much more aggression as he pulled you into him. 

You broke away from the kiss, leaving him confused as you stood up and walked to the other side of the desk. You sat back in your chair and stared at him, waiting for him to say something. Anything. 

“Can I take you to dinner tonight?” He asked, breathlessly. 

“Of course. 8PM work?”

[s-creations]

Two Steps Forward

Panchito has a heavy question on his mind. Something that he's worried that could make or break this relationship with the two people he loves the most. But he has to ask.

Fandom: DuckTales 2017 / The Three Caballeros       Rating: General Audience       Relationships/Pairings:  José  Carioca/Donald Duck/Panchito Pistoles Additional Tags: Discussion of Marriage, MArriage, Struggling New Life, Living Together, Minor Discussion of Racism, And I Mean Minor, Nervous Discussion, Happy Ending.

Part of a Series Called: We’re the Three- Sorry, Six Caballeros!

Heads up for everyone! Please note in the tagging section, I have made mention of racism being present in this story. It's nothing super impactful overall, but more of a show of frustration and to act as a sort of barrier. It's nothing that should make anyone feel uncomfortable, but I still wanted to make mention of is at it's still there.

With that being said, please enjoy!

Panchito knew what he brought to their relationship. He was the more chipper out of the three. Always with a smile, the positive outlook on the situation, to offer a good laugh to lighten the mood. Most would assume he was a bit ‘simple minded’. That the attitude came from not knowing what was happening. 

 But if he wasn’t paying attention, how would he know when to cheer people up?

 It was a subtle skill he held. One he’d developed and perfected over the years with having to deal with a large family. Taking in what was happening and finding a good resolution. Understanding what the best outcome would be to spare everyone emotionally. Something he was having difficulty figuring out for this current situation. 

 Even with him and José having full citizenship, there were still a number of obstacles they couldn’t figure out how to get over. 

 The parrot was the only one out of the three that held a proper job. It was easy to transfer his position from one airport to another. He still had steady hours and proper insurance. A good income that helped supply the household. But that’s pretty much where the ease stopped. 

 It seemed realtors and landlords were overly cautious about renting to anyone recently immigrated. Even if said person had a secured job. Even then, there weren’t that many options available to them that made the trio thrilled enough to move. It was expensive to live in the city. Or anywhere near it. Every place they were shown was just as cramped as the boathouse and in a worse state of upkeep. One place being more duct tape than actual building materials. It honestly wasn’t worth the move. All decided it would be better to do so when the other two found stable jobs to help with their income. Which Panchito hoped would be soon because the boathouse was very cramped now with the extra boxes. 

 But even getting a job was becoming a struggle for both him and Donald. The duck had the unfortunate issue of having a bit of a criminal record. His temper caused him to be tossed from a number of businesses and blacklisted as being someone who was unreliable. Which aggravated the other two to no end because they knew of Donald’s work ethic. The duck was more than reliable if given a proper chance. Which a lot of businesses didn’t feel the need to do. 

 For Panchito, he had the trouble of finding a performance company that didn’t treat his heritage like a novelty. He was a serious performer, not a trinket for people to patronize! He wasn’t meant to play for families who used his heritage as a theme. Playing songs from his childhood dressed in an overly offensive outfit while privileged families broke apart dollar store bought pinatas. He should be playing at cumpleaños and quinceañeras. To people who would actually respect his work. He was not a trinket! 

 After a month of searching, it was starting to become a trudge to find a job. 

 Another concern was the health coverage for the triplets. Even if hatching was a natural process, there were still a number of worries. Donald had the cheapest version of healthcare his non-income could provide. Which still left a lot of out of pocket expenses. José offered to help, to take the full burden. Only to have that shot down when the parrot was told he’s not a legal guardian to the eggs. 

 “But, we are helping care for the triplets and I am making the offer. How is that not enough?” José argued in disbelief. 

 Donald just shrugged and shook his head. “You’re not related to them, so it won’t be allowed. That’s just the bottom line. We’d have to get married before we could do anything about it.”

 That caused Panchito to perk up at that. His mind rolling the idea of possible marriage around in his head. 

 He knew what the risk could be. Truthfully, the three hadn’t properly dated for a long time. Maybe only close to a year. Donald had left and returned to his family after a short while of them being together. A promise from him that he’d return after another year and they could continue to explore the world together. After a year, however, it became clear Donald wouldn’t be able to keep that promise. Even if the duck kept contact as best he could, it wasn’t the same. 

 They never truly ‘broke up’. But Panchito really questioned if they had started dating all those years ago. They loved each other. That was never a question. Confessions were shared and an understanding was created, but they never said they were in a relationship. It was sort of just a silent understanding between the three of them. What worried the rooster was the fact he was thinking of an offer that could scare the other two away. And that scared him to think he could lose Donald and José just as soon as they were together once again. 

 Donald was a wreck at the moment. No matter what the duck said to convince otherwise. He’d just lost his family, either to the stars or because he cut them out, and had taken in three eggs without questioning how hard it was going to be to raise them. Even with José and Panchito back in his life to help, there were still a number of things that Donald had to worry about. A suggestion of marriage, of another huge life event after losing so much, might cause the duck to shut down and turn away from them. 

 José, while having a very forward and suave personality in public, was actually reserved when only around Donald and Panchito. They were aware of the parrot’s past ‘relationships’. Which were honestly nothing more than numerous one night stands. He never talked about his family. Panchito could only conclude on his own that any relation the parrot could have with his parents was a negative one. The rooster was worried he and Donald were the first people to give José an actual loving relationship. Something as extreme and rather permanent as marriage might cause the parrot to run. 

 Even with the possible threat of losing two people he cared so much about, marrying was a thought that hadn’t left Panchito’s mind as days passed. A want that grew stronger with each night that passed with them pressed close in the hammock. The rooster resting in the middle. Donald tucked right under his chin with José using the red feathered chest as a pillow. Arms and legs tangled together and all covered by a well-worn quilt. 

 As he lays awake, eyes watching the night sky as it passes, Panchito knows he wants this. He wanted it, wanted them, and he never wanted to let go. 

 He was going to make sure it happened. 

 Panchito was an early riser. Skillful at slipping out between the other two and standing on the cold floor without making a noise. He waited a few moments to make sure the others remained asleep. Looking back to watch as Donald and José shuffled closer together to reclaim the warmth that had left. The duck wrapped every limp around the parrot, José muttering as he nuzzled under Donald’s chin. Panchito gave a small smile before collecting the eggs, wrapping them up with an overly fluffy blanket and moving them to the kitchen. 

 Once the eggs were settled and still on the kitchen table, Panchito flipped on the radio to let music chase the quiet away. Loud enough to be heard, but not enough to wake the others. With that set, he turned his attention to making breakfast. The small buffet of different dishes was near completion when Donald and José shuffled out from the bedroom. The duck looked more awake than the parrot. Both took a seat at the table to wait for the still cooking food. Donald talked gently to the eggs while José leaned against his hand, eyes closing again. 

 Panchito soon joined them. A plate put before each to let them take their needed fill of food. A quiet mumble of ‘Thanks.’ sounded before all started eating. His heart was hammering as he started to eat as well, knowing he needed the others to be a little more awake before broaching the subject. 

 Absolutely not stalling because he was terrified with where this could lead. 

 “Panchito? Are you okay? You are quiet this morning.”

 The rooster was a little embarrassed at how far he jumped. Eyes darting up to José before flickering between him and Donald. “Uh, yes. I’m fine. Just...I have something on my mind?”

 “Do you want to talk about it?” The duck asked this time. 

 Unsure of what to say, Panchito stalled for time by plucking at the small feathers on his fingers and wrist. Only for Donald to reach over and halt him. 

 “I want to get married.” Well, there goes all that subtly and structured argument he’d been trying to build up. Panchito felt his feathers ruffle in embarrassment, eyes darting down as the other’s exchanged looks of surprise.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask like that.” The rooster groaned. 

 “What...brought this on?” Donald asked. 

 “I...just… We’ve been talking a lot about what we need to do to care for the eggs. And how it seems that we can’t move forward because our credit, or our finances, or that just being together doesn’t count as being ‘stable’. And you made a casual comment about being married would really benefit us. Which got me thinking about marrying you two and how much I really wanted to and I…”

 Panchito exhaled slowly, leg bouncing as he squeezed Donald’s hands. “I don’t want to lose you two and I...I really like the idea of us marrying and I… I love you two, so much. I love the eggs and I want to give them the best. I don’t need or even want fanfare about it all. I just...I want...to marry...you two…”

 With that, it fell quiet. Shoulders slumped as he leaned back into the padded seat. His eyes remained on the table, not wanting to see the other’s looks of possible disgust or rejection. It was such a poor argument (it wasn’t even an argument, he wasn’t sure what that rambling counted for) and he was already worried the other two weren’t ready for this. If they had been on the fence about this then Panchito did not win them over. 

 What was he thinking?

 He couldn’t have been better prepared for this?

Make a list. Pros and cons to make his case. Why did he just dive head first into this? He’s such an idiot. No sane person just asks something so heavy and so suddenly. They were going to leave him because they’re going to realize how much of an idiot he was. He was going to lose them.

 He felt so sick, he wanted to cry-

 “I was honestly thinking the same thing.” Panchito’s head shot up so quickly José actually flinched. The parrot recovered quickly, giving a small smile before continuing. “I know it is a large step forward, but...I don’t want to lose you two. I want to spend the rest of my life with the both of you.”

 José reached over to take a hand from both Panchito and Donald. “I wish to marry you two.”

 Heart beating furiously, Panchito beamed and gave a gentle squeeze to the parrot’s hand. Both turned to face Donald who still looked stunned. 

 “Is this moving too fast?” the rooster asked worriedly, “I-I really didn’t want to push you-”

 “No, no, you’re fine.  It’s just…” Donald laughed softly, “People normally get on one knee to propose.”

 “Oh, well, by all means. If we need to do this properly.” 

 “No, I was joking!” Donald laughed as Panchito slid from the booth. Making a large show of getting on his knee, flipping his crown back and setting his face as serious as he could. It didn’t help that Donald was laughing still, clearly flustered. “Donald Duck. José Carioca. Will you do me the great honor of allowing me to take your hands in marriage?”

 “So salacious,” José smiled, “Did you even ask my father if he approved of this?”

 “...I’d rather not. He scares me.”

 Donald doubled over in laughter at that. The parrot playfully rolled his eyes as he sighed dramatically. “Well, I suppose that does not truly need to happen… Very well, I accept.” 

 “This is the strangest proposal that I’ve ever seen.” Donald wheezed.

 Panchito pouted. “This is supposed to be serious and heartfelt.”

 “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, hold on.” Taking a few deep breaths, the duck collected himself  the best he could. Feathers still ruffled as he said, “I happily accept as well.” 

 Being mindful of the eggs resting nearby, Panchito clambered onto the table. Close enough to pull the other birds into a deep kiss. He wished he had enough room to dance and jump without the worry of breaking something important. Or that he could yell with joyful abandonment without disturbing the neighbors. But he was more than content with being squished between his fiancées as the sun fully rose into the sky. 

 They were married two weeks later. No fanfare, no family members physically present (Panchito’s family watched and cheered from a computer screen), they didn’t even bother with rings. All deciding it would be better to save up for a larger place to live. 

 The rooster didn’t want to say the written paper that officially announced their marriage was any sort of a good luck charm. But it seemed after said event, things started to look up. Panchito was able to get a ‘non-themed’ position with an entertaining business. A small company that catered to the minority families located in Duckberg and the surrounding towns. Donald eventually decided he would just be a stay at home parent. Knowing someone would need to keep an eye on the triplets once they hatched. 

 “We’ll save on babysitters this way.” The duck concluded with a shrug. 

 They were able to find a comfortable apartment next. Three bedrooms, two baths, and positioned perfectly in the suburbs near Duckberg. There was a bit of a commute, but one they were more than willing to put up with for the price of the place. There was a bittersweet moment when the boathouse was finally sold. José and Panchito recognized how hard Donald had worked to get a place of his own after the fall out. But it was forgiven and forgotten rather quickly when the money was spent on a large bed and three cribs. 

 “We’ll get a hammock when we buy a house.” José promised.

 Donald laughed softly. “I’ll be fine with an actual bed for awhile. Shockingly, back support sounds more appealing.”

 It took a few weeks to properly settle in. The big pieces of furniture were placed first, allowing for some semblance of a layout. José would be called away for a few days at a time, so Panchito and Donald focused on putting the smaller items in place when the parrot wasn’t there. The rooster was more than thrilled when he had an entire set of shelves for his heirlooms. While one of the rooms was specifically made up to be the nursery, Donald wanted the eggs to be nearby for the time being. One of the cribs having been set up in their large bedroom close to the bed. 

 “It’s just until they’ve hatched.” Donald concluded.

 Panchito laughed softly. “Or until you feel okay with leaving them alone. Which will probably be never.”

 “Shut up.”

 They eventually fell into a comfortable routine. José was gone for most days but slipped into the others arms easily every time he returned home. Panchito and Donald kept all as orderly as they could at the homestead. The rooster content with his new career. Even if it wasn’t the record label he had always dreamed about as a child. He had a home, a job, and happily married to the two people he cared so much about.

 When he woke early, before the sun had even started to crest over the horizon. Pressed against a clinging duck and parrot that were resting on either side of him. Eggs resting in the nearby crib being illuminated by a nightlight. Panchito would realize, with a watery smile and warmth in his chest, he wouldn’t change this for anything. 

 This was his new dream and he was happily living it. 

[rayshippouuchiha]

Kisuke gonna be totally jealous someone got into Ichigos pants and is going to finally get through his thick skull he wants to put a ring on it? Berry and Baby AU

Kisuke follows the readings to the last place he expects.

But then, all things considered, maybe he should have gone straight to Ichigo’s apartment in the first place.  Powerless or not it wouldn’t surprise Kisuke at all to find Ichigo at the center of some new mess.

Ichigo has that sort of gravity to him, that ability to pull people and monsters alike in. 

Kisuke himself is proof of that.

So, really, Ichigo probably should have been his first stop but he’s here now so really that’s all that matters.

Plus he has, perhaps, missed Ichigo and the late night tea and conversation they used to share.  A bit.  Maybe.

So, one hand fiddling with his hat and the other clutching his cobbled together sensor, Kisuke straightens his shoulders and knocks.

“Who the hell could that be?” Ichigo’s voice is clear through the thin door of the apartment.  “Fuck where’s my shirt?”

There’s a thump, a whimper Kisuke can’t place, and some mix of curiosity and worry drives Kisuke to knock again.

“Just a minute,” Ichigo calls louder.  There’s another low whimper and then Ichigo, voice rough, whispers.  “Just be patient baby, Daddy’ll be back in a minute”

Kisuke feels the blood in his body struggle to rush two places at once.

And then Ichigo pulls the door open and everything is so much worse.

“Geta-boshi?” Ichigo blinks at him, hair a mess, shirt gone, and a acre of golden skin showing above dark green sweatpants hanging low on his hips.

Kisuke bites back what he refuses to admit might be a whine and clears his throat roughly.  He resolutely does not think about who else might be in that apartment with Ichigo and what they might have been doing to make him look like that.

“Ah Kurosaki-kun,” Kisuke says as calmly as he can, free hand whipping out his fan to cover the slight flush on his cheeks.  “It’s been a while.”

“Over a year with no contact,” Ichigo says flatly.  “So why’re you here now?”

Kisuke resists the urge the wince.  Time, it seems, will always be his enemy in one way or another.

“More than enough time for you to miss me then,” Kisuke replies as cheerfully as he can.  “And I’m here because I picked up some interesting readings on an unusual energy spike while working on ... another project.”  Kisuke waves his scanner in Ichigo’s direction.  “Those readings led me here.  I didn’t mean to interrupt your ... private time.”

“Figures,” Ichigo mutters before he sighs, reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and then steps back and waves Kisuke inside.  “I know why you’re here.  Come on.”

Mystified Kisuke steps in, waits for Ichigo to close and lock the door behind him, and then follows him down the tiny hallway.  And if he takes a moment to stare at the play of Ichigo’s back muscles, somehow even more sculpted than before despite his lack of powers, well that’s Kisuke’s business.

“Right,” Ichigo says as he moves across the room and towards what looks like a clothes basket laying on the floor beside the couch.  He swoops down, picks something up, and then turns around.  “This is why you’re here I’m guessing.”

And Kisuke’s brain abruptly freezes because ...

“That,” Kisuke hears himself say from a distance, “is a baby.”

“Yeah genius,” Ichigo says dryly, “I’ve noticed.”

“A baby,” Kisuke steps forward a bit, eyes tracking from Ichigo’s orange hair to the wild tufts of matching hair on the baby’s head.  “A baby, baby.  That looks like you.  Did you ... did you let someone not me clone you?  Cause I thought we talked about that?”

“What the hell Geta-boshi? No.” Ichigo barks.  “I didn’t let anyone clone me you idiot.”

“Then you ...” Kisuke thinks he might feel a bit faint.  “Then that’s your baby.  Your actual baby.  Who?” Kisuke clears his throat.  “Who’s the mother?  Inoue-chan perhaps?”

“God no,” Ichigo practically shudders.  “I haven’t seen her or the others in almost as long as you.  No I woke up two days ago and the baby was in bed with me, asleep on my chest.”

“And you didn’t call me?” Kisuke demands, brain automatically switching tracks as he steps forward, scanner pointed at the baby that’s most certainly giving off some odd energy readings.  “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Why would I?” Ichigo snaps back.  “I haven’t seen you in almost a year and a half.  Didn’t think you’d pick up even if I did call.”

Kisuke rears back just a bit stung, more than a bit guilty.

“Ichigo,” Kisuke starts, formalities abruptly falling to the wayside.

“Look,” Ichigo looks suddenly tired and he shifts to curl the baby closer to his chest, “it doesn’t matter.  Don’t care what your readings say I didn’t call cause I don’t need anything.  I’ve got plans to go shopping this afternoon and get everything set up and then I’ll be good so just ... just go home Kisuke.”

“You can’t be serious,” Kisuke still feels more than a bit thrown.

“I am,” Ichigo shrugs just a bit, shifts to press a kiss to the crown of the baby’s head.  “I’m keeping the kid.  He’s mine now.  Think I’ll call him Mikan. Kurosaki Mikan. Kind of has a nice ring to it.”

Kisuke definitely feels more than a bit faint now.  Because only Ichigo could wake up to a mysterious baby that looks like his own child, decide that means it now belongs to him, and then name it tangerine.

[imaginejamesandsirius]

Can you please write a fic where James is a rich,star footballer and Sirius comes in to work as his super hott personal bodyguard??? And then James starts crushing on him hard but Sirius is hesitant because he could lose his job over this!!!! Please please please write this... I am a biiiig fan of your work... God Bless❤️

"What? I don't need a bodyguard," James said. The very idea was preposterous. 

Coach glared at him, but the rest of the team was slightly more reserved in staring him down. The whole administrative team was there, from the head coach to the team's PR representative. "There have been threats." 

"So? I also got threatened when I was seventeen and nothing ever came of it." 

The team manager jumped in then. "This isn't a schoolyard threat made because you stole someone's girlfriend. Or- whatever," he said, fumbling a little-- as he always did-- when he said something thoughtless and remembered that James was gay afterwards. That being said, James definitely had stolen some girlfriends at school because it was the best approximation he could get for what attraction to women was. "These are extremely conservative people who want you dead and aren't shy about showing they're serious," the team manager continued. "Even if they don't manage to kill you, they could permanently injure you, effectively ending your career. Is that what you want?" 

James huffed, knowing that he was being a little petulant and not caring. "No," he admitted. If he'd been just talking to his mates, he never would've admitted it, but they'd all gotten together to sit him down and make sure he listened to them; they wouldn't have bothered if they weren't seriously concerned. 

"Then get a goddamn bodyguard," Coach said. "It won't be forever-- just until these people realise they have better things to do with their time than harass a popular footballer." 

"Fine." If James had known it would be this much trouble to come out, he wouldn't have done it. He'd just been thinking that he might like to date someone for real. He'd also thought about himself when he was younger and how he could've figured out that he fancied men before he was twenty sodding three if one of his favourite footie players had been gay (and out. He wasn't discounting the idea entirely just because they hadn't said anything.). "I don't know where to find one though." 

"We've got a list of possibilities," someone else said, handing James a sheet of paper-- for the life of him, James couldn't remember what she did, but in his defense, he'd only met her once as an introduction and then seen her in passing at the past six years of holiday parties. On the paper was a list of agencies, their websites, and phone numbers to contact them. There wasn't any mention of price, but it's not like James was pressed for cash or anything. Hell, he'd already reached his lifetime savings amount and didn't really know what to do with the salary he was still getting. Might as well use some of it to stay safe and pacify his bosses. 

*

James had weighed all his options and looked at all of the information he'd been given, and he still couldn't decide. He'd handed the list to Remus, and he'd picked one at random; James took his choice as a good decision and called the company up. They made everything so easy for him that he was beginning to think Remus had special choosing powers. From now on, James was going to run his decisions by Remus before doing anything. 

And then he actually met his bodyguard. He couldn't decide if this was better than before, or worse. Either way, he didn't think asking Remus for advice would really be the way that he wanted for his life to go. 

He was told that his bodyguard's name was Sirius, and they had a first meeting at the company to sort out a few details. If James was a smart person, he would've taken one look at Sirius and said, "Thanks but no thanks, can I get someone else?" But James wasn't smart. He was a dumbarse. A dumbarse that let his heart make decisions for him. Sirius was, in a word, gorgeous. He had a face that looked like it belonged on the cover of a magazine, and a smile that stopped James's breath in its tracks. He was sure that Sirius was good at his job, but James rather doubted his decision to accept him as a bodyguard. He wasn't going to be able to focus for shite. 

James explained the situation to Sirius-- the boring stuff, about why he needed a bodyguard-- and he didn't blink at him being bent. Either he already knew that because he followed football, he didn't care, or he cared but was a very good actor. James imagined that there was a certain amount of acting as a bodyguard, but he'd also like to think that Sirius wouldn't have accepted if it bothered him. 

James had been afraid that Sirius was going to walk slightly to the side and behind him and stay resolutely silent the whole time, but he carried a conversation alright as they walked to James's car. "I'm sure you get this all the time and you're annoyed with it, but why's your name Sirius?" 

The look on Sirius's face showed that he was very much used to the question, even though he didn't look annoyed by it. "Named after the star in Canis Major. Being named after stars is sort of a family thing." 

"Really?" James asked. He was instantly charmed. Sirius hadn't even put much effort into it, but James was head over heels after exchanging two words with him. 

"Mmhmm. My brother's Regulus, my father and great-grandfather were both Orion, and I've got a cousin named Bellatrix." 

"Wow. Your family must've been made fun of a lot when they were kids." 

Sirius snorted, and James looked at him curiously. 

"What?" 

"I wouldn't call any of us... well-behaved children. Got in a lot of fights." 

"Ah, and it led to you being a bodyguard?" 

Sirius shrugged with an easygoing smirk. "Might as well do something you're good at, right?" 

*

"It's total rubbish that they're putting McLaggen in before you," Sirius said one day after practice. 

"Right?" Then he paused. Sirius hadn't been around long enough to be so certain of that. Which meant, "I knew you were a fan. Why didn't you say anything?" 

"I didn't want to freak you out. You're dealing with enough right now that I didn't want for you to worry about your bodyguard fawning over you." 

"Aww, you fawn over me?" James asked, unable to help a pleased smile. 

"It's called knowing who the best is," Sirius said with a wink. 

*

"You don't get along with your brother?" James asked. Personally, he didn't have any siblings, but from what he understood, those relationships were often complicated. Lily, for example, cared about her sister even though-- as far as James could tell-- she was kind of an irredeemable twat that didn't seem to like Lily at all. 

Sirius shrugged. "He wants to like our parents, but now that he disagrees with them on everything, it's not easy. I keep telling him that his life would be easier if he stopped talking to them, but he feels all guilty about it." He rolled his eyes expressively. "I think he thinks that he owes them for them not being worse." 

"You both should get new parents," James said. "I volunteer my own." 

"I think you stop needing new parents when you're an adult." 

"Words that can only be spoken by someone with shite parents. Maybe you don't need parents anymore, but if Regulus is still trying to connect with them, it means he needs someone. My parents are great. Mum will probably see him smile once and then demand he come to Saturday night dinners for the next ten years." 

Sirius snickered. 

"Oh, I'm not joking," James insisted. "Lily and I haven't been together since we were eighteen, and she still comes over for dinner when she can make it." 

"Only you would be on such great terms with your ex that your parents would do that." 

"Bold of you to assume my parents wouldn't have done it whether we were on good terms or not. They blood adore her, and that didn't stop because we weren't dating anymore. I swear, they love every single friend I let them meet. If I introduced them to your brother? He wouldn't make it out of that house without them knowing his favourite dessert. He wouldn't stand a chance." 

"Maybe that's what he needs," Sirius said, sounding amused. "We'll have to set that up when this all blows over." 

*

James's first problem with Sirius had been that he was so gorgeous James couldn't think for shite. His second problem with Sirius was that he was an attractive person all around, not just in his face. Honestly, who had decided that someone should get to be that pretty and also be that funny? It wasn't fair to the rest of humanity. 

He'd never been shy, so he told Sirius that he fancied him shortly after figuring it out. Thinking a bloke was fit as hell was one thing. Actually fancying him was quite another. People were fit all the time, and James had never lost sleep over it. He knew he'd regret it if he sat around and pined after Sirius uselessly though. 

He told Sirius, and Sirius looked at him for a second, then blinked. "Erm. James, I can't- I could get fired for dating a client." 

"Right." That made sense. "I hadn't thought of that." He really hadn't thought about it, but who'd want to hire a bodyguard that had a history of hooking up with who they were protecting? Hell, the company could get looked into for solicitation if it happened often enough. If James had thought of that, he would've kept his mouth shut until the end of Sirius's employment with him. "Just... y'know, if you were interested, I'm probably not going to need a bodyguard for much longer." He'd checked back in with the admin team, and they'd said that by next year, he should be good. New information was popping up on people that James's despisers hated more, so they were starting to leave him alone. At least, that's what he'd gotten from the conversation even if it wasn't entirely accurate. 

"I know," Sirius said with half a smile. "I was there for that conversation, remember?" 

"I'd forgotten," James admitted, a little ashamed. He wasn't the best at paying attention to several things at once when he really cared about one of them more than the others. In that case, he ended up thinking about the one thing and trying desperately to pay attention to the rest. That day, he was pretty sure he'd been so focused on getting his life back to normal that he'd ignored Sirius, and even the talk about their upcoming game. 

*

"Bloody hell," Sirius said, one arm around James as he half-carried, half-guided him down the street so they could catch a cab. "I signed up to be your bodyguard, not your designated driver." Despite his complaining, he didn't sound upset, more amused. 

"You could be both," James said slowly, having to put more effort into his words than usual since he was sloshed. He preferred speaking Hindi when he was pissed; it was just easier than English. He didn't think Sirius knew Hindi though, and the only thing he wanted right now was to enjoy Sirius's company. 

Sirius laughed. "Maybe so, but I preferred just doing one." 

"Heeeey, you could do the partner thing soon." 

"I don't remember mentioning a partner thing." 

James licked his lips as he tried to remember what the phrase he'd first used was. "Designated driver. Only, instead of just dragging me to a car, we'd be getting sloshed together." 

"That does sound more fun." 

James was always talkative, but now that he was sloshed, he wasn't stopping. He really liked Sirius. He liked him for lots of reasons, but right now he liked that Sirius was encouraging him. He wasn't getting mad at James for continuing to talk all through the cab ride, or as he helped him up the stairs to his flat. "You're so wonderful," James mumbled. 

"Thanks," Sirius said with a laugh. He fished around James's pockets for his keys. James turned and rested his head on Sirius's shoulder, which did make it easier, but somehow he thought that wasn't what James had had in mind. 

"You're so pretty," he said, turning his face into Sirius's neck. 

"Thanks," he said again. "It's nice to be appreciated." 

"In all my life, I've never met someone that made me feel like you do," James said. 

"I don't know what you just said, but I'm going to assume it was complimentary." 

James nodded. He kissed Sirius's neck because it was there. "The prettiest damn thing I've ever seen." 

Sirius swallowed thickly. He didn't need to understand the language to know that whatever James said was something he would appreciate. The kiss sent tingles down his spine, and James's mouth was still resting close enough to him that Sirius could feel his breath hot against his skin. "As much as we would enjoy that, I thought we agreed to wait." 

"You're right. You're just so pretty," he whined. "It's really not fair. You should try to be less pretty; it would make my life easier." 

"You can live with it," Sirius said. He finally found the keys and put it in the door for him. He unlocked it and pushed the door open. James looked pretty comfy where he was, and it made shuffling him inside his flat a bit harder than getting him here had been. "C'mon mate, you've got to get in bed." 

"But you're not there," James said, sounding awfully petulant about it. 

Sirius chuckled. "No, but you'll get to sleep just fine without it." 

"That's what you think." 

"Love, you're drunk enough that you'll definitely pass out before the night's through." 

"Aww, you called me 'love'. No one's ever done that before." 

"Really?" 

James nodded again, but since he wasn't leaning on Sirius as heavily this time, he swayed a little. Sirius was still right next to him though, so he was able to keep him from falling over. "My last boyfriend called me 'babe' but I sort of hated it." 

"You do seem like you'd prefer the sweeter pet names. Sweetheart, things like that." 

"Feel free to call me sweetheart as much as you want." 

"I think I will. After I stop working on protecting you, that is. We've still got to wait, remember?" 

"What I remember is issuing an invitation that never got an answer." 

"I assumed you knew my answer. Or was I not obvious enough about my interest?" Sirius asked quietly. 

"I would say that subtlety passes me by," James said. "But I got it now, thanks. You sure I can't convince you to stay?" 

"Not while I'm working for you, and definitely not while you're sloshed." Sirius brought him to his room and took off his shoes when he collapsed back on the bed. "If you want to get undressed more, you're going to have to do it yourself, sweetheart," he said, then kissed James's forehead. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

*

The day for James to no longer need a bodyguard felt like it took forever, but he could grudgingly admit that it had been a good idea. None of it had been serious, but he was told-- by Sirius-- that that's because having a bodyguard was often a large deterrent. In his time as James's bodyguard, Sirius successfully intimidated several people and got physical with one. James would be lying if he said that it hadn't been hot to watch, but he also wasn't going to say that out loud-- it made him feel like he was the heroine in a teen adventure book. 

"So, do I have to take you on a date before I get to kiss you?" James asked. 

"I wouldn't want you to think I'm easy," Sirius replied with a wink. 

"You like curry? I know a good place." 

Sirius made a face. "I only like it from one restaurant, and it's all the way up in Wales." 

"Wait," James said slowly, a smile creeping across his face, "are you talking about Andi's?" 

"Yes, you know it?" 

"Bloody love it. I can't make the trip as much as I want, but if you're willing, we can definitely go up there." 

"I can think of worse things than spending time with you on the way to the best curry in the UK," Sirius said. 

*

James rented a car because it was easier than taking a cab that far, and it was definitely more private than a train-- which would only be able to take them part of the way anyhow. He wanted for them to be alone anyways, so that they could catch up on all the flirting they'd missed. Not to say that there had been a drought of flirting while Sirius was his bodyguard, but after they agreed to date when his contract was up, they'd tried to tone it down. 

They didn't have to worry about that anymore. 

The drive was okay, dinner was great, and Sirius snogged him for a bit after they got back in the car but before they drove back to London. 

"How the hell do you feel even better than you look?" James whispered, stealing another kiss. 

Sirius chuckled. "I was about to ask you the same question, love." 

[inkribbon796]

It’s Not Rabies, It’s . . . Ch. 3

Summary: Lunky gets to meet some more of the family.

A/N: This was a suggestion-request from the anon Nightfall on AO3. Which resulted in this story and since this one was getting a bit long it inspired a bit for the Visitation Day on Sunday which will be a lot less angsty.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Chapter 3: Meet the Family

Bim was on stage when, apparently, Dark had contacted Wilford, saying to come to the Manor when they both finished up at the studio.

Which Dark tended not to do unless it was something serious. Usually he ordered Illinois and Yan to jump at his command.

But Wil took him home and they found Dark’s office empty. Which was strange because all his important meetings with them were in there.

There was talking in the living room and Wil quickly poked his head out of the room and let out a delighted gasp.

“Now who is this delightful little configuration of being?” Wilford threw open the door and Bim followed more hesitantly.

Bim stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Dark with a child in his arms. He looked at that kid and he could feel his hackles rising.

“Hello,” Wil leaned in close to the child, bracing his hands on his knees. “Are you lucky number seven?”

The spawnling screeched at Wil.

Wilford chuckled, absolutely delighted. “Is that so?”

The madman looked up at Dark with a huge smile, “Their hiss sounds a bit like your echo, Darky.”

“They’re Kay’s child,” Dark told Wil. “Their name is Lunky.”

“Really?” Wil’s enthusiasm didn’t dampen, he clapped his hands on his knees and stood up to look around. “Where is that boy?”

“Hey dad,” King smiled and waved at Wil from where he was sitting in an armchair.

“Congratulations my boy,” Wil moved to his side to clap his hand on King’s shoulder. “Who’s the lucky partner I’ve never met?”

“No one,” King told him. “I got stabbed by a soul splitter and almost died. It gave me a kid instead.”

“That sounds fake as shit,” Bim told him.

Lunky made a little screech.

Wilford roared with laughter, “Learn quick, don’t you?”

King surged up, “Are you teaching my kid to curse, I have to deal with that later.”

“Kid’ll learn sooner rather than later when Anti shows up,” Bim defended with a huge smile on his face as King stomped over to him.

Before King could shake or punch his younger brother, Dark spoke up, “Let’s not Kay.”

The animal magnet threw his arms up in the air, and glared at Bim, “Next time I get you alone you insufferable brat.”

Bim gave him a sharp toothy smile, “Try it Dolittle.”

“Bim, if you keep antagonizing him, you might not win,” Dark warned.

“So to clear the air, this is my nephew?” Bim asked, walking over to the spawnling who maintained eye contact with Bim and both of them began a low warning growl as Bim approached.

“Bim,” Dark warned, shielding Lunky with his aura. “They’re not competition, leave them alone.”

“That’s not why I’m growling,” Bim growled defensively.

“Then why are you growling?” Wil chuckled, leaning his elbows on the back of the couch and resting his chin on the palm of his hands.

Bim glared at Wil before huffing in frustration at Lunky.

“To answer your earlier question, no Lunky is not your brother. You were, to quote Beauregard, a “creation of pure science” and since I killed the other scientists it’s not happening again anytime soon. Besides there are already six of you, and you are all grown adults. Having another child would serve no purpose.”

“I could get a sister,” Yan called as she ran from upstairs with a binder of colored squares and started holding the colors up next to Lunky’s face. “What’s a girl gotta do to get some quality girl time around here?”

“I don’t control that,” Dark reminded her, neither he nor King moving Lunky away from her.

“Come now Darky, we’d get to have another angel running around the house,” Wil pouted.

“That’s what grandchildren are for,” Dark reminded.

“Yes but we have to give them back,” Wilford frowned sadly. Then he seemed to think about that. “We could not give them back.”

“Dad, I am right here,” King reminded. “We don’t live here.”

“A shame,” Wil commented, then he held his hands out. “May I hold them, pretty please?”

“Just don’t kidnap them,” King allowed.

Dark passed Lunky over to Wil, Lunky made an unhappy screeching cry and tried to hold onto Dark’s coat.

Wil chuckled, “Don’t worry, I’ll give you back to him.”

Lunky was suddenly very quiet, going completely limp, their eyes large dark orbs as they started devouring Wil’s aura.

“What a little delight,” Wil smiled. “Can they talk to animals too?”

“No, it’d be so much easier if they could,” King sighed.

Dark walked over and lessened the spells keeping Lunky 3-D and they popped back into their actual form. Wil almost dropped them but Dark caught the spawnling.

Lunky quickly stretched onto the wall and started investigating the room.

“Huh,” Bim commented, “weird gift, do they sleep on a drawing of a bed or an actual bed.”

King let out a bubbling, uncomfortable laugh, “They don’t.”

“What? Sleep?” Bim asked.

“Yes,” King answered. “I’ve barely been sleeping.”

Dark pulled a scroll from the Void and passed it over to King, “This is what I used to use on all of you.”

Looking Dark dead in the eye, King said, “You are the best, if this even works half as well as it did on me.”

Dark smirked at him.

The conversation kept going and Bim went off to hunt again and Wil raced off to the attic with Yan to find something. Leaving Dark, the Host, and King alone with Lunky in the living room. The spawnling seemed to be resting but King knew it wouldn’t last and he would actually go to sleep.

Lunky was resting against Dark’s shoulder, still a flat image, and Dark was just sitting in one of the armchairs, watching them rest.

“You know,” King commented. “When they’re like this, I kinda forget they can be an absolute nightmare.”

“Hopefully that spell works for you,” Dark replied.

“How long did it take Bim to start talking?” King asked. “We came in when he was already talking and walking.”

“We got Bim when he was eight months old, he was walking before he started talking. Wil accidentally said the word “fuck” and that was his first word. I was furious. He started talking when he was almost two. Lunky is a little bit more developed than Bim was. However, Bim was completely artificial.”

King made a face that showed that he wasn’t too reassured by those words. “Okay so should I be doing something?”

“The Host should suggest that there is a strong possibility that Lunky could never be able to fully speak,” the Host warned.

The room went quiet.

“Is that caused by something in their aura?” Dark asked.

“It is something within Lunky’s nature,” the Host reported. “There is a possibility that the Host is wrong, but the Host doubts that.”

“Okay,” King said.

Dark frowned, “A large portion of the heroes can sign, you and Illinois can sign, so can I, Wilford seemed to be able to read his mind. Communication shouldn’t be an issue. It would be a shame if we wasted their time and sanity trying to push them to communicate in a way that makes them uncomfortable.”

“Yeah,” King was very quick to agree, taking in a huge breath and nodding, looking more resolute by the second. “I can talk to birds and dogs. Humans are just another animal, right?”

“Some more so than others,” Dark offered as a barbed comment.

King looked nervous as he looked at Lunky, “I just don’t want to hurt them. I want them to be happy and safe.”

“You’ll do fine,” Dark reassured.

“Because you raised six kids?” King tried to smile.

“Well experience certainly helps,” Dark smiled. “But I meant to say that you won’t be trying to raise this one in secret like I did with all of you.”

“How did you manage that, anyways?” King asked. “We went to Disneyland one year. Dad broke an entire rollercoaster and killed fifteen people.”

“I used the Anomaly to perfectly replicate areas we wished to take you,” Dark answered. “I even replicated police involvement to keep your father entertained.”

“You absolute ass,” King cursed. “You took us to bootleg Disneyland?”

The Host chuckled at that.

“I will have you know it took a full year to investigate the entire park, including how character actors and crowds reacted,” Dark defended. “Did you expect me to bring Wil, Bim, and Arthur to an actual theme park and have nothing happen?”

“Fair,” King grumbled, and then groaned as he checked his phone. “Alright let’s get back to the base.”

“Before you leave,” Dark held up his hand and a necklace with an eye design on it. It swirled with a myriad of colors. “Something I had to learn the hard way. Spawnlings require aura to survive and grow. Like physical activity for a human. Their own will not feed them. So you have a choice: human or demonic aura.”

“To eat?” A pit formed in King’s heart.

“Yes, a new spawnling can strip all the aura from a human and render them a hollow, dry husk, matured demons have more control over it,” Dark warned. “What would you like to feed your child?”

“Uh, how do I get demon aura?” King asked apprehensively.

“Well now that depends, either an older, more experienced demon can donate their aura to a younger one, helping that spawnling grow stronger,” Dark explained. “Or you could kill a lesser, weaker demon and take all their aura to make oneself more powerful.”

That alarmed King instantly. “Demons can actually die?”

“Not from a single hit or even a volley of hits, killing a demon is a drawn out process but if the lesser is significantly weaker and the other demon is significantly stronger the fight is almost not fair. I have to kill some upstart every couple of months who tries to wander into Egoton thinking they can just take over. Typically I can just run them out and if they’re smart they won’t come back, other demons not so much. Why not put all that energy to good use?”

“O-Okay,” King allowed.

“I figured you would side with the humans so I took the time to mix my own aura with another demon’s that I recently subdued,” Dark told him. “At Lunky’s current appetite this should last him a couple months.”

King moved to put on the necklace but Dark stopped him. “Try to avoid putting it on, we wouldn’t want Lunky to associate you with food, now would we? You have far less aura than I do.”

“Right,” King pocketed the necklace and King took Lunky back who was upset to leave Dark’s arms and aura, but was quieted when they were given the necklace to chew on. Wil and Dark said their goodbyes. The Host took Lunky and King back to the base.

A calm settling back over the city.

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine Advent Drabble Challenge 2020 - “Meeting in the Middle” (Rated PG13)

Summary: A petty argument between Kurt and Blaine leads to a heavy confession. (2133 words)

Notes: Written for the @klaineadvent Drabble Challenge 2020 prompt 'meet'. Warning for mention of Blaine’s infidelity and a mention of sexual harassment.

Read on AO3.

“It’s a reindeer.”

“It is not a reindeer.”

“That is absolutely a reindeer.”

Blaine huffs, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away from his husband, leaving enough leeway so that he can still give him a serious case of side-eye. “It can’t be a reindeer!”

“Why not?” Kurt snaps. “Because you say so?”

“Look at those stumpy antlers. Reindeer have huge antlers!”

“How do you know? Huh? Do you suddenly work for Wild America? Did you get an internship you’re not telling me about? Did you take a Learning Annex course?”

“No ...” Blaine gears up for an argument, a bullet-pointed list prepared for his defense perched on the tip of his tongue, waiting to launch. But at the last minute, he shifts in his seat and backs down. “I just … I just … know. All right?”

“Right. Because you know everything.”

“I never said that.”

“You implied it! You’re apparently some unsung expert in the field of zoology! Meanwhile, it seems that the longer we stay married, the less you know me!”

"That's finally something we can agree about!"

"Oh! So you admit you don't know me?"

"No! You don't know me!"

“Maybe I don't know you! But you should know by now that I can’t tank a relationship with a high-profile client every time your ego gets a little bruised!”

"What? Do you honestly think ...?" Blaine stares at his husband - hurt and heartbreak filling his eyes when Kurt doesn't back down, not even an inch. "I'm right," he says sadly, inching away even further. "You don't know me."

“Oh my God!” Santana groans from the back seat. “Can you both put a pause on acting like drama llamas for five seconds!? We are going to die out here! If I don't get to see my wife and daughter again because of you two Necco wafers, I am going to find you guys in the afterlife and ruin every sexual experience you attempt to have!"

"Don't talk to me about being a drama llama," Kurt grumbles. "He's the one who started it."

"Fine," Blaine says, defeated. "I started it. Does that make you feel better? Does that make everything okay again? Because doing this after every Vogue function is getting exhausting." 

"It's not every Vogue function," Kurt concedes. "Just the ones Trevor Atley attends. You know, my new client who's about to elevate my status as a fashion editor? The one you seem to think is always flirting with me?"

"Maybe you should just start leaving me at home."

"Maybe I should!"

"Quit it!" Santana scolds. "Both of you! You're not in high school anymore."

"Thank God," both men mutter in unison.

"Everyone knows the two of you love each other more than your Gucci luggage, so why don't we set the angst aside and focus on the issue at hand. How are we getting out of this mess?"

Neither Kurt nor Blaine answer, staring out their respective windows, doing their best to ignore the problem.

And each other.

Santana sighs in frustration. "Do you two need the number of a good couples' counselor?" she offers. "Because I have one I can give you if it will bring you guys back to reality!”

Kurt and Blaine perk up, turning their attention back to the conversation.

“You and Brittany went to counseling?” Blaine asks.

“Well ... yeah," Santana replies self-consciously. "There’s no shame in that."

"Why?" Kurt asks. "If you don't mind me asking?"

Santana shrugs. She may have minded any other time, but she'll come clean, seeing as this is an emergency. 

"There was a time when Brittany thought the ghost of Lord Tubbington was trying to split us up."

"O-oh," Blaine says. "That's ... interesting."

"I personally thought, you know, it might not be that. That it might be something deeper. So we went to a professional and talked things out.”

“Wow," Kurt says. "That’s very mature of you guys.”

“Yeah, well, we have our moments. I wish it was contagious!"

Kurt and Blaine roll their eyes and retreat to the safety of their corners.

"Look," Santana tries, desperate for a resolution, "I think you guys might be suffering from a good, old-fashioned failure to communicate.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because most couples do. You spend so much time with one another, you get to a point where you assume you can read each other’s minds. Then you get offended when that’s not the case.”

“So what are we supposed to do about that now? How’s that going to get us out of the hole that we’re in?”

“Why don’t you start one truth at a time? Meet in the middle. Kurt, you reveal something to Blaine, and for every one thing you tell him, he has to tell you one thing back.”

Blaine wraps his arms defiantly over his chest, looking more like a pouting middle schooler than a grown man. “I will if he will." 

"Will you?" Kurt bites. "Because you seem to think there are things I can’t handle before you even tell me what they are!"

"Because you usually go off the deep end no matter what I say! Especially if you think I'm keeping a secret!"

"Well, excuse me, but the last time you kept secrets from me, you’d slept with someone else!"

The car becomes tight with quiet until Blaine sighs. "Fair enough."

"Sometimes I get the feeling that you're waiting for me to do the same," Kurt continues. "That no matter how much I tell you I love you, that I forgive you, you're waiting for me to find an opportunity to hurt you.”

"Ooo. Kurt starts out strong," Santana says, taking it upon herself to moderate. "Blaine? Your turn."

Blaine shoots Santana an unamused look. “I used to feel that way. I'll admit it. Because I thought I would definitely deserve it if you did cheat on me. But that's not the case here. Not with Trevor. The truth is …" Blaine curls against the window a bit, curls in on himself a bit "... I don’t like him. At all. It’s not even a personality thing. He makes me uncomfortable. Like ... Terry Crews … Brendan Fraser … uncomfortable.”

The air around them is tense. It's cold. So cold that Kurt's hands hurt. But he feels none of it.

He feels nothing.

He's gone numb.

Blaine's confession is nowhere in the vicinity of what Kurt expected to hear. He thought for sure that this entire issue surrounded Blaine's jealousy. His insecurity. Kurt's suspicions had been corroborated by reliable sources.

Namely Isabelle.

The Vogue gossip mill didn't work in his favor this time.

But he shouldn't need it. How did he not catch on to this?

“Do you mean to tell me …” Kurt swallows hard, already planning the outfit he’s going to wear when he rips that asshole Trevor a new one “… he touched you?”

“N-not yet.”

“Not yet! What do you mean not yet!?”

“I’ve heard rumors. And he … he looks at me. Makes comments. I know if it came down to it, I could handle myself with him … physically. But there’s so much more to consider."

"Consider? What else is there to consider? What are you weighing against the possibility of sexual assault?" Kurt screeches when he should remain calm, but he can't help himself. He didn't have a clue about this! But he's not just pissed at Trevor.

He's livid at himself.

"I was afraid it would put your job at stake. And my reputation. If I call him out on rumors and I’m wrong, it could tank both of our careers. Neither of us would ever work again. But I don’t want to wait until he does something. I don’t ... I don't want to be touched. Not by him.”

“Oh, honey. Of course not." Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's shoulder and waits, sees if he wants to be comforted. A single touch is all it takes for Blaine to roll towards his husband and melt in his arms. "I'm nice to him because of that stupid contract, but I can't stand him, to be honest. The whole night, I was hoping you would come over, hang all over me, stake your claim like a Neanderthal. It didn't dawn on me that there might be some other reason you were keeping your distance."

"I should have told you.”

Kurt squeezes Blaine tight. “Yes, you should have told me!" 

“I’m sorry, Kurt. I just got … overwhelmed. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t want you to do anything that would jeopardize this contract, but …”

“Blaine! You’re my husband! No contract in the world means more to me than you!”

“I ... didn’t know what to do.”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do," Kurt says, his voice shaking with rage. "In the morning, we’re going to call Isabelle, and contact the legal team at Vogue for a consult. Then we’ll hit this asshole with a two-fisted punch. I’ll have my team do an expose, try to find anyone who might be willing to blow the whistle on this guy. But we’ll also run a series of PSAs on sexual harassment, and how it can affect anyone. You’ll be in one of them! That way, even if we never say this guy’s name out loud, he’ll know we have his number. If he doesn’t start backing down after that, then I’ll invite him to an intimate lunch at my office, talk things out one-on-one.”

“Make that two-on-two,” Santana pipes up from the backseat. “It’s more fun when we threaten assholes together, remember?” She offers Kurt her fist to bump, and, caught up in the moment, he does.

Blaine straightens up, finds a tissue to blot his eyes. “You guys don’t have to do all that.”

“Yes, we do!" Kurt says, concerned that his husband would consider backing down from this fight, especially seeing that Kurt was in a similar boat when the two of them first met. At the time, it was Blaine coming to the rescue, back when the only thing at stake was a mark on his so-called permanent record. Now they're older, and the stakes are higher, which is why Kurt has to do everything he can to return the favor. "I’m not standing for this, Blaine! Not in a million years!”

Blaine smiles at his passionate husband, looking more relaxed than he has over the past three weeks of functions and parties. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

Blaine leans forward and gives his husband a kiss - a small kiss at first, but it goes on longer ... and longer, Santana grimacing as she sinks into her seat, praying the leather will swallow her whole and shoot her out the exhaust pipe to freedom. But then the car rocks back and forth, and oh!

How quickly they forget.

Kurt and Blaine get so wrapped up in one another, in love and relief, they don't seem to notice when the car shakes again, more violently.

But Santana, in the middle of sending a text to her wife, pops up.

“Great!" Santana cheers in an anxious voice. "We have a plan to deal with that asshole, and love is the law of the land again! Fantastic! Now - how are we going to handle Rudolph the Red-nosed Roid machine?” She gestures out the window to their original problem, the one they forgot about in the heat of the moment - a giant buck standing in front of Blaine's BMW, head lowered, ramming into the bumper as if attempting to flip them over.

He may have stubby antlers, but he sure knows how to use them.

“We should call 9-1-1," Kurt says.

“I’m calling Triple A," Blaine says.

“What is Triple A going to do?” Kurt snaps.

“I don’t know. But they might be a bit better prepared than 9-1-1.”

“How in the world do you figure that?”

“Because Triple A’s sole purpose is helping motorists out of a jam. They might have deer deterrent or a special horn or something.”

“What!?”

“It makes sense, Kurt!”

“No it doesn’t!”

"And what are the police going to do?"

"Hello? Police have guns!"

“Before the two of you get started again, this is what we’re going to do." Santana points to Blaine. "You call Triple A." She points to Kurt. "You call 9-1-1. Meanwhile, I’m going to save the day.”

“Who are you calling?” Kurt asks.

“Domino's Pizza.”

“And why is that considered saving the day?"

“I'll bet you $50 delivery will not only get here faster, they’ll be packing mace. Plus, they'll bring food. Listening to the two of you bitch really drains the life out of a person.”

[your-1up-girl]

The Flower and The Fighter: Their Resolution

My next piece for @aerith-week I am actually very happy with how this turned out and I hope you all enjoy it as well. Day 7: Cherish the Memories

Word Count: 2127

Pairing: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart

Read on Ao3

Tifa didn’t understand why she was suddenly awoken during the middle of the night. Nor did she understand why Marlene wasn’t in the bed next to her or why Barret and Cloud were no longer against the wall of the room they all shared. Tifa looked around. This must have been Aerith’s room, she thought. Small potted plants were along the windowsill. Flowered vines swayed from the warm breeze as they draped out the window. Photos of Aerith with different people from the sector were on the floating shelves in her room. Tifa got out of bed to examine one. Aerith was with the children of the orphanage. Behind the group, was a mural of flowers in the shape of a Chocobo. All of the pictures seemed to be of Aerith helping someone; even the ones that captured her as a little girl showed her assisting Elmyra in the kitchen or the garden

A smile came across the fighter’s features. It seems as though this kindness was not a new found thing. This made Tifa feel even more guilty. Had they taken advantage of that kindness? Aerith gave herself up for Marlene. This whole rescue mission is all her fault. If she hadn’t gone to see Corneo, had she just stayed and done her best to get people to safety when they could have. Jessie and Biggs; could she have saved them? Tifa put the picture down and leaned against the wall. She hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Processing guilt, grief, and loss, that was something she always found herself troubled with; after everything that she had been through you would think it would all just become second nature. But this was different. It was never to this degree.

Aerith.

Aerith changed everything. The young flower peddler had, in a short period of time, found a way into Tifa’s heart and she wasn’t leaving that spot for a while, if ever. Cloud was kind, a friend from childhood whom she loved yes, but her feelings for him never went past platonic. When it came to Aerith however, she could envision a future. A future of them together, a place where Aerith could plant and sell all the flowers she desired. It would put her current house to shame. Tifa would want to help her start a small flower shoppe if that’s what she wanted. They would work together, take walks to and from work or just wherever their hearts desired. They would talk about everything and nothing all at once. And at night they would hold each other, finding the purest form of comfort in each other’s warmth.

Even if it was just a moment, Tifa could remember how soft Aerith’s hands were. She loved those hands. Delicate, yet strong. When they held each other at the train graveyard, Tifa remembered that Aerith was scared and that frightened the fighter more than any ghost could. Tifa didn’t want Aerith to have that fear in her ever again. She hugged herself as her back slid down against the wall until she was able to hug her knees to her chest.

Aerith–

She wished she could always comfort Aerith. To hold and embrace Aerith. To love Aerith. Tifa snapped herself out of this stupor when a tear landed on her forearm.

“Crying won’t solve anything.” She spoke in a whispered exhale and took a sharp breath in to prevent anymore tears. “But damn does it feel good right now.” With one more deep breath and Tifa stood up to get some water down stairs, she assumed Elmyra wouldn’t mind.

Once in the kitchen, Tifa grabbed a cup and was about to fill it when she saw a distinct silhouette out the window. Her hair and dress blew in the light breeze and the light from the plate above gave this figure a soft glow. Tifa nearly dropped the glass in the sink. This had to be a dream, the rational part of her brain told her this was just a dream. And yet, as Tifa stepped outside, there was that small part of her that wanted it to be real. Begged it to be real. What threw her off was the sky. It was alive with streaks of blues, white, purples, and greens. And stars adorn the deep blue above. “So this is a dream then.”

All the while Aerith patiently waited for Tifa to arrive. She too was admiring the sky and the colors that graced them this night. But Aerith couldn’t focus, because she once again found herself at a loss for words. Talking to Barret was like talking to a father figure to her, and Cloud was similar to catching up with an old friend. However Tifa was something completely different. There was so much she wanted to say but could not even fathom on where to begin.

Tifa...Tifa was different. Aerith knew in her teenage years that she liked girls and boys and kept an open mind for both. She never felt nervous around anyone. She considered it her own personal challenge to getting to know anyone and everyone. If anything, she caused other people to get tongue tied. Everything just came so natural with Tifa. It never felt like flirting with Tifa because Aerith felt like she knew her all their lives. Here comes that dread again. Why was it that every time the idea of being with Tifa came to mind, her heart sank a bit? “Would it really be that bad,” she murmured?

That foreboding feeling wasn't something she felt this whole time but only recently. It was those floating, faceless husks. Whenever they came by it felt as if a part of her went missing. Even if that part came back, for that moment, something was gone. But rarely, they would bring her a part that she didn’t know she needed. And it would always feel the same way she felt when around Tifa. Safe, home, like being welcomed by a lost lover. Recently however, emotions that were once welcomed turned to heartache when the husks came along. The sudden shift in sentiment frightened Aerith. It’s like the husks were trying to warn her. Warn her to not imagine this life she dreamed of. That’s why she had to meet Tifa.

“Aerith?” She turned and Tifa stood about two feet away. Her heart sank again. the look in her eyes, the strain in her voice the brunette knew too well because she felt the exact same way. But, Aerith did her best to smile and to maybe lift the mood. Mess with Tifa for a second. Get her flustered.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Aerith never broke eye contact. The smile turned more genuine when she saw that Tifa had a blush to her cheeks and stammered a bit.

“Ye-what?”

“The sky, silly. It was like this when I went to see Cloud.”

“You saw Cloud too? So this is a dream?” Tifa approached her, still weary that if she moved too fast, the scene would collapse.

“Hmm...Maybe.”

“Aerith? Are you okay, everyone is worried about you. Did they hurt you?” No more smiles, nothing seemed to lighten the mood.

“Are you worried about me too, Tifa?” The flirtatious tone was gone, replaced by something serious, somber. She wanted an honest answer. It was a side Tifa wasn’t used to coming from the flower girl.

“I was worried the moment you left to save Marlene.” She walked closer, “I was worried about you when I saw you got an audition with Corneo. I was worried when we fell into the sewers. And I was scared half to death when I thought I lost you to the ghosts at the station graveyard.” There's those tears again, but she couldn’t help it. “I was afraid of losing you then, I don’t want to lose you now.” This time Aerith closed the distance between them.

“That’s...that’s an awful lot of emotion for a friend.” Her eyes were downcast as she spoke “You’re more than that to me.”

Aerith’s eyes shot up; wide-eyed and glassy, “Tifa-”

“I can’t bear the thought of losing you. I met you and I felt this intense, indescribable feeling. It wasn’t like anything I felt with anyone else. Not Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, Barret...not Cloud,” her green eyes widened at the final name., “I look at you Aerith and I feel secure. When I’m with you, I’m at home.” When Aerith smiled Tifa thought that it was for happiness, but when a small sob broke and she moved back, Tifa paled.

“I wish you didn’t say that.”

“Why? Aerith what-”

“I love you Tifa, more than I thought I could ever love another person. But we can’t..I can’t..” With a deep breath she said, “You can’t be in love with me.” Tifa shook her head. The broken look was too much so she turned away and continued. “I should have said something before it got too far. I’m so sorry, but this feeling that you have is not real.”

“How can you-”

“It will pass. This is just a fleeting-”

“A flower shop!”

Aerith looked back, “What?”

“Seventh Heaven, we could turn it into a flower shop if they ever fix the plate. Or we could open one above the plate or past the wall! I know how much you love flowers and each one has a different meaning right? You could tell the whole world about them. Cloud could make deliveries for us if the customer lives far. And we could get a house with enough land for you to grow as many flowers as you like. We would run the shop together and live our lives together.”

“I see. So, you’ve given this some thought then?”

“I’ve never really thought about a future. I was always just telling myself to just get through the day, week, whatever. But when I met you, I wanted to think about the years ahead of me, not just the hours, but the lifetime I could spend with you.”

Aerith was crying now but doing her best to say composed, “You-you’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be you know.”

“You're afraid of the unknown. I can see it in your eyes. You don’t have to be Aerith, I’m here with you.”

“You're right. I am afraid.” Her green eyes met Tifa’s ruby ones in this moment of unscripted honesty. “I’m afraid of the sky, the world outside of the wall. I’m afraid of-of this future you want for us.” She came closer, “I didn’t consider the future either. You’re right. The unknown, it terrifies me. But with you-” Aerith held Tifa’s cheek, her ring finger wiping a tear, “You make me feel like I can conquer anything it throws at me.” Carefully, Aerith wrapped her arms up and across Tifa’s back, her head finding sanctuary in the crook of her neck. “And that too terrifies me.” Tifa followed suit but hugged around her waist, her head leaning close to Aerith’s.

“Please, don’t be afraid when I’m here.”

Aerith wished she could stay like this forever, but knew this couldn’t last--at least for right now. They separated just enough for their foreheads to lean against one another. Eyes closed and cheeks stained from their previous moment of lament. Aerith then whispered, “It’s time to go.” She could feel Tifa’s head shake; she held her tighter.

“I’m coming to get you, I promise.”

“I know. Thank you.” It was as soft as this fleeting moment. Tifa then felt nothing against her and saw Aerith walking away from where they had previously embraced. Aerith appeared to be made of whips of green that reformed to her body as she walked away. “Sorry, it’s the only way I could get you to leave. Or else I’m sure you would stay here forever, right?” She winked at Tifa. There was the flirtatious nature everyone knew.

It made Tifa smile; she rubbed one eye and replied, “You know I wouldn’t want it any other way.” With that she woke up. Lying in the bed, she could make out small fits of laughter probably from Marlene helping Elmyra. Cloud and Barret approached when they saw her sit up.

“You alright Tifa? Cloud said that you were crying but we couldn’t wake you up.” Barret kneeled next to the bed Cloud following suit.

“Did she see you too?” Cloud asked.

“Huh? Oh you mean Aerith? Yeah…I saw her. We-we talked.”

“And?”

With newfound determination, stemming from anger, loss, and love, Tifa threw the sheets off of her, put her boots back on and pushed past Barret and Cloud. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let them hurt Aerith.”

[allsassnoclass]

i cannot help myself i'm sorry here's another one: “No, mom, don’t tell him/her I said that about him/her!” with mashton please i love you i love your mashton i love your writing

I! love! mashton!!!! in case anyone didn’t know!!!

This one takes place in the same college AU as this fic but it is also very much a standalone

mashton: “No, mom, don’t tell him I said that about him!”

Michael is incredibly nervous.  He's not having a panic attack, but that's mostly because Ashton is standing next to him, holding his hand and with just as much tension coursing through his bloodstream, even though Ashton is trying so hard to hide it and be reassuring.

Michael has never met someone's family before.  Well, obviously he's been to Calum's house and met his family, but he's never been introduced to family members as someone's boyfriend.  All of his brief relationships in high school were very surface-level, nothing lasting long enough to require a meeting with family, and when Ashton first broached the idea of meeting his, Michael reacted like a deer in headlights.

"Your family?" he had asked.

"Yeah," Ashton said.  "My mom and siblings are coming up from family weekend, and they want to meet you."

"They want to meet me?" Ashton had nodded, and said please and that it would mean a lot to him, and at that point Michael was powerless to refuse.

He likes what this represents, in any case.  It's a lot of pressure, because Ashton adores his family and Michael wants them to like him, but Ashton wouldn't ask him to meet them if he wasn't serious about this.  Everything about their relationship feels so casual and effortless, and it's nice to have an indicator that they're not just passing time together, because Michael certainly has fallen head-over-heels.

Still, now that they're standing outside of the restaurant, the panicky feeling is definitely overshadowing how nice it is that Ashton wants to meet this relationship milestone with him.

"What if they don't like me," Michael says.

"They'll like you," Ashton replies, staring at the restaurant resolutely.  "They'll like you.  Just try not to get overwhelmed, okay?  They can be a lot.  They might be embarrassing, so don't think differently of me afterwards."

"I won't," he says.  Ashton squeezes his hand, then pulls him towards the restaurant.

Michael can tell the moment Ashton spots his family by the way he lights up.  All of the tension leaves his body, and they bypass the hostess and navigate to the table like it's a lighthouse in a storm.  Before they fully reach it, Ashton's brother is out of his seat and running towards them, flinging his arms around Ashton's middle at breakneck speed.

"Hey Harry," Ashton laughs beneath called greetings from the rest of the family.  "I'm glad to see you, too."

"I missed you," Harry says, then pulls away from the hug and studies Michael critically.  Michael straightens up.  He feels like he should be in a tie, or something.  This feels more important than meeting royalty would, and Michael definitely would be wearing a tie if he was saying hello to a monarch.

"Hi," Harry says, sticking out his hand.  "I'm Harry."

"I'm Michael," he says, cautiously taking the outstretched hand.  Harry gives it one solid shake, then beams.  He and Ashton have the same smile, and Michael feels himself relax a fraction.

Ashton's mom and sister join them, tugging Ashton in for hugs and giving quick introductions to Michael while he mostly tries to stay out of the way of this family reunion and simultaneously make a good impression.  When they descend into their seats, Michael is relieved to see that they left a spot by Ashton open for him.  He didn't think they'd split them up, but it's reassuring to have confirmation that they can brush elbows and knock knees if Michael needs it.

Michael is going to need it.  He's already wondering if they'll judge him based on what he orders, and he hasn't even seen the menu yet.

"So," Anne-Marie says when they sit, "we know what's going on with Ashton, because he calls home all the time, but what about you, Michael?  How's your semester going?  Ashton said you're a music major."

"Music business," he says, because he sounds much more likely to get a job that way.  "I want to write music for video games, or be a music supervisor."

"What's that?" Harry asks, and Michael explains about how he'd choose and acquire the rights for different songs in the background of movie trailers or tv shows.  Harry then asks about his favorite video games, and Michael finds himself settling into an easy conversation with him.  He wishes that Harry could be the only one he's meeting right now, because 11 year old boys are easier to talk to than 14 year old girls or his boyfriend's mom.

Michael answers sporadic questions from the rest of the family until their food arrives, at which point he finally gets a break.  Ashton asks Lauren about something at school they talked about on a recent phone call, and Michael tries to be attentive even though he has no context.  He's so confused trying to figure out the situation that he blurts questions before thinking, and Lauren launches into a story involving her, her friends, a teacher, and a game of truth-or-dare that makes Anne-Marie roll her eyes while hiding a smile.  Lauren looks immensely pleased when he laughs with her.  Something in his stomach unclenches the more the family talks over each other with him joining in.

He can do this.  This is fine.  Ashton’s family is funny, kind, and happy to have him here.  Michael knows that Ashton can tell when he relaxes, because Ashton’s smiles get wider and he touches Michael more, little brushes of their hands or pressing their shoes together under the table.  Neither of them overly indulge in PDA, but Michael loves every piece of contact.  It’s easier to make conversation with Anne-Marie once Ashton drapes his arm across the back of his chair.

Anne-Marie orders dessert, because “this counts as a very special occasion,” and Ashton alternates between taking spoonfuls of Michael’s sundae and forkfuls of the cake Lauren and Harry are supposed to be sharing.  Anne-Marie watches with a smile on her face and a fancy cappuccino in front of her.

“It’s been so good to meet you, Michael,” she says.  “Once Ashton called you the love of his life, we couldn’t get down here fast enough.”  Ashton’s fork clatters onto the plate.

“No, Mom, don’t tell him I said that about him!”

Michael turns and blinks at him.  He knows what the words mean in theory, but his mind is still whirring like a computer trying to open too many files.

“The love of your life?”

Ashton scrunches down in his seat, cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink.

“Oh,” Anne-Marie says.  “Have you not told him yet?  I’m sorry, honey.”

Michael barely hears her.  He clears his throat.

“That’s, um… Those are some big words to be throwing around.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you yet,” he mumbles.  “You don’t have to say it back, or anything, but it’s out there now.”

It’s too early for Michael to say those words.  They might be true, but they’re still so young, and the relationship is so new in the grand scheme of things.  Michael doesn’t want to say them until he knows they’re true without a shadow of a doubt.  Once he calls Ashton the love of his life, he never wants to have to take it back.

He reaches out and squeezes one of Ashton’s hands, then brings it to his lips so he can kiss the back of it.

“I love you, too,” he says.  It’s a compromise, but it’s not a rejection and Ashton gets that.  His lips turn up slightly, then he gives his mom a look.

“If you have anything else to embarrass me with, now would be the time, Mumma.”

“Well,” Anne-Marie says, “I do have a few of your baby pictures on my phone.”

“I want to see those!” Michael says.  The kids roll their eyes and Ashton groans, but he doesn’t let go of Michael’s hand, keeping their fingers tangled while they lean forward to look at a young Ashton giggle at the camera.  Michael can see this scene and dozens like it playing out in the future in different settings.  Eventually, he’ll get to see Ashton’s childhood home and the physical photo albums that these pictures are housed in.  Maybe he’ll get to attend Irwin family reunions and build his own inside jokes with Harry and Lauren.

Michael glances at Ashton out of the corner of his eye, but Ashton catches him and smiles.  He’s not the love of his life yet, but he very well could be someday.  His family isn’t Michael’s family, but he thinks they could be, at some point in the distant future.

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 23]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright! Let’s go!

Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite it being late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight, so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. That in mind, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time. Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you here and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my second question!” he called back to Remus.

“It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

“My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So, could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

“Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted with and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.” He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look back at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

“I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

“I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

 Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Pat said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

 Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

 The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

 “Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

 “Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

 Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

14656

Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

 Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

 “I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

 “Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

15080

“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

 Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

 Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

15412

“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

 “Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

 “What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

 Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

 “What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

 “I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

 After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

 As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Pat smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

 Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

 “It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

 Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

 Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

 Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

 “You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

 Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

 “Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

 Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

 Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

 When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

 He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

 “What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

 “Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

 “Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

 Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

 Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

 He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

 He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

19053

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

[fanficflaneuse]

Life in Black - The Pilot

Index 

Episode 1: The Pilot 

A/N: GIF is not mine, I found it on Giphy. I hope you like this experiment. It is a mixture of narration and scriptwriting. 

Words: 2341 

Summary: Bellatrix decides she wants to live with her younger sister and her brother-in-law. 

Opening Sequence 

Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy sat in front of each other. Just like every morning, they took breakfast in the porch, overlooking the gardens. Narcissa insisted it reminded her of her homeland and Lucius knew better than to challenge her. He indulged her instead. He read The Daily Prophet as she drank her tea.

Narcissa was in the middle of a story about the preparations for the Paris Wizarding Fashion Week, when they were shaken by a loud bang from the house. The couple ran inside, wands out and faces full of concern. The elves ran frantically to the living room. As they approached, Narcissa relaxed and Lucius tensed even more.

“Bella!” said Narcissa, approaching her eldest sister and giving her a hug. Lucius took a deep breath, bracing himself up for whatever was coming; Bellatrix and him were barely on speaking terms.

“About time you came to greet me, sister” she answered.

“We weren’t expecting you,” mentioned Lucius.

“Do you hear something, Cissy?” said Bellatrix, pretending her brother-in-law wasn’t in the room.

Narcissa rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here, Bella? I thought you and Rodolphus had moved back to Paris?”

“Don’t even mention him to me. We’re getting a divorce,” she said casually, not a hint of sorrow or melancholy in her voice.

Both Lucius and Narcissa eyed her warily. “I am so sorry, sister,” said Narcissa after a moment of awkward silence.

“Oh, don’t be. It was doomed from the beginning.”

“That’s what happens when you marry for convenience,” Narcissa said, shaking her head at the memory of Bellatrix’s rushed, loveless marriage.

“If the other option was to end with a slob like your husband, then no thank you.”

“Excuse you?” he said, outraged.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD.

(Narcissa sits on a very elegant armchair. The room is full of paintings and photographs staring at her. In the back of the room, above a marble chimney, there’s a very big portrait in which Lucius and Narcissa stand on either side of a teenager. He resembles Lucius and smiles awkwardly.)

“My sister...she’s truly something. I can’t really put it into words,” she says, politely smiling at the camera.  

(Lucius comes into focus. He’s sitting on another armchair).

“She’s crazy,” he adds, deadly serious. Narcissa frowned at him.

(Bellatrix comes into focus, half sitting on Narcissa’s chair arm).

“Excuse you?” she exclaims, mimicking his previous outburst.

[Back to scene]

Lucius and Bella bickered for a while. Even the elves stuffed their ears with cotton balls so they didn’t have to hear them. Narcissa grew bored a few minutes into their petty drama; it was always the same with them. This time, though, the fact that Bellatrix had decided to move in with them without even asking made their usual passive aggressiveness less passive and more aggressive.

After Lucius stormed off and Bellatrix chose to establish herself in the closest room to theirs, Narcissa decided to call the big guns (also known as her sister Andromeda). She knew her sisters didn’t have a good relationship, but she was also sure she couldn’t deal Bella full time on her own.

(BELLATRIX LESTRANGE) TALKING HEAD.

(Bellatrix sits cross-legged on a champagne coloured divan. It’s placed in front of a big window that oversees the Malfoy gardens. As she talks, a flock of albino peacocks runs in the background).

“My relationship with Andromeda? Oh, it’s nonexistence. Since she married that mudbl- oh right, everyone’s offended by everything nowadays. So, the pc term is muggleborn, right? Well, ever since she married that muggleborn and had a half blood spawn of the devil I decided I just have one sister. She also married an absolute tosser, but at least he brought a pure last name to the table.”

[Back to scene]

Andromeda appeared a few hours later, ready to see her sister for the first time since she got engaged. The two estranged sisters bared a very close resemblance. They were both tall women with curly hair, big, blue eyes, long eyelashes, thin lips and sharp jaw. Anyhow, as they sat by either side of Narcissa, she thought there couldn’t be in the world two more different people. Andromeda’s soft, brown curls in a fancy updo complemented her face and made her look younger. Her eyes were full of kindness and patience. Their older sister, on the other hand, had a thick, raven hair, which looked as though she had hardly combed it. It made her come across as a patient of St. Mungo’s fourth floor.

The sisters sipped tea stiffly and avoided eye contact. Narcissa decided that the feud needed to end, for her own mental wellbeing.

“Andy, Bella is now living with us here,” she said.

“What?” Andromeda now looked at her older sister, trying to the decipher the mask of indifference Bellatrix had always worn.

“Go ahead, laugh all you want,” said Bellatrix, a sardonic smile on her face.

Andromeda was left speechless for a few seconds. Narcissa could see her sister’s mind working and tried to amend Bella’s words.

“She meant -”

“Do you really think I’m so heartless, Bellatrix?”

“Well, you did change your beloved family for a dick,” she shot.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD

“I really can’t blame Andy.”

She has a knowing smile as she says this.

(Lucius comes into focus).

He smirks and nods.

[Back to scene]

“Well, Bella, at least I was transparent with my intentions. What were yours exactly? Have a pure and most noble last name and a bit on the side? We’ve all heard about that one, even Cissy, even if she pretends not to.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Andromeda.”

“Tom Riddle. Does it ring a bell? Toujours pur and all that crap only to end your marriage for a fling with none other than an ex - convict,” she spat.

“You’ll drown in your self righteousness, dear. How bored you must be with that husband of yours and all our stupid social norms.”

“You’re talking to me about social norms? You burned my face out of the family’s tapestry when I got engaged to Ted.”

“It was just a game and Cissy fixed it.”

“Just a game? For whom? An arsonist?”

“Your insufferable! Always thinking you’re the better sister, the prettier sister, the perfect sister.”

“I am the prettier sister,” said Narcissa flatly; she had already grown bored of Bella bickering with everyone.

“I never said that!”

“You thought about it! I know you did. You think I’m unbalanced. You think I should be in an insane asylum or something, but I’ll tell you what, I’m smarter than you are. Wait till I fix my hair and climb out of the pit of desperation I’m in and I’ll even be prettier than you are.”

“It’s not a competition, Bella,” reminded Narcissa, “although if it was none of you would stand a chance against me.”

As always, the older sisters ignored the youngest one and concentrated on outsmarting one another. A loud bang came from the other end of the room. Narcissa, cigarette in one hand and lighter in the other, turned her head to see her cousin, Sirius and his husband, Remus. She shot them an almost pleading look as they took seats by her side as Andy and Bella had long since discarded their place.

“Cissa, toss me the light,” he said, lying back on the couch.

“No, no, darling. This is bad for your health,” she answered as she put the cigarette between her lips.  

Sirius raised a brow. “You taught me how to smoke,” he remarked.

As she refused again and he was about to give her some new argument, Remus put his hand on his spouse’s thigh. “Remember your new year’s resolutions,” he said in a sing-song voice.

Sirius groaned.

“What brings you two here. It’s been a while,” said Narcissa.

“Andy told us you invited her and we wanted to make sure Bellatrix didn’t rip her head off,” shrugged Remus.

(ANDROMEDA TONKS) TALKING HEAD

(Andromeda sits on a grey, L shaped couch. Her living room is small and cozy. It looks exceptionally clean. She’s surrounded by plants. Behind her, there’s a big shelf full of frayed books).

“Rip my head off? What, because I’m the only one of the Blacks who wouldn’t be diagnosed as a loony then I’d let Bella walk all over me? No, sir. I showed them right then and there I could also roast someone.”

She looks pleased with herself, but her smile falters a few seconds later.

“Is roast a real term? Did I used it correctly?”

[Back to scene]

Lucius had also joined the others in the drawing room. He cheered on Andromeda every time she said something particularly witty to Bellatrix.

“You go, ‘Meda!” he said after she remarked how everyone breathed a little more peacefully after she moved out.

Andromeda looked at him straight in the eye. “I know you’re my brother in law, but we’re not there yet, honey.”

“I hate her,” he said pointing at Bellatrix, “isn’t that enough?”

The three sisters looked at him, eyebrows elegantly raised.

“Whatever you say now will determine your faith, Lucius,” taunted Sirius.

“I’m also married to her,” Lucius continued, this time pointing at Narcissa, “so you should consider yourself lucky she didn’t run off and have a baby with a convicted felon.”

Remus snorted obnoxiously.

(NARCISSA MALFOY) TALKING HEAD

“I couldn’t smoke while I was pregnant with Draco. Hardest nine months of my life,” she says with a grimace, “it was all worth it, though. I’m living the dream. I mean, who doesn’t want to be in charge of a fifteen years old boy who only babbles about one of his classmates?”

She doesn’t look very convinced.

[Back to scene]

Sirius had joined in the roasting now. Bellatrix had mentioned something about her not being invited to his wedding with Remus. He, in turn, spilling the family tea all over the living room’s floor.

“I never really cared that you were a twi-”

“Tais toi!” screeched Narcissa, not wanting her sister to literally taunt their cousin once again for his sexual orientation. Bella knew exactly who else in the family she was mocking and Narcissa was having absolutely none of that.

DISSOLVE TO: the whole family sitting like scolded kids. Narcissa furiously pacing in front of them.

“This ends here!” she announced, “I’m tired of the Blacks being the absolute worst family in the history of families.”

“What is she saying?” Remus whispered to Sirius while Narcissa kept rambling.

“Shhh,” Sirius mumbled back, “I can barely understand. Somehow her accent keeps getting thicker and thicker.”

“Sirius,” she said. Her cousin perked up at the mention of his name. “When was the last time you saw Nymphadora?”

“Uhh, yesterday?”

“What?!” she exclaimed, “so you see each other regularly?”

“We go to work together.”

“You work?” she asked, even more surprised than before.

“I own a bar,” he shrugged, not surprised that his cousin didn’t know of his whereabouts.

“Of course you do,” interjected Bellatrix, “and what does dearest Nymphadora do?”

“She’s an auror,” Andromeda answered, not allowing any biting remark to come from her sister’s malicious lips.

Narcissa looked at Andromeda curiously. She tried her best to be close with both her sisters and yet somehow she didn’t know know Nymphadora was an auror. In her mind, for some reason, her metamorphmagus niece was still in Hogwarts.  

“She sees Lucius at the Ministry all the time. Just last week she told me they chatted on the elevator,” said Sirius.  

Narcissa shot his husband an accusing look.

“I’ve seen her a couple of times, but I never thought she worked there. I just assumed she roamed the building for...reasons.”

Andy facepalmed as Bella cackled.

“Alright, well those days are over.”

“What days?” asked Remus, afraid to know the answer.

“The days of us not knowing what each other are up to. Auntie Walburga died three years ago,” she said. Andromeda patted Sirius’ back when he frowned at the mention of his satirical mother. “She was the last one of our parents’ generation. It is our chance to start anew, to accept each other. So, it’s decided. We’re having dinner tonight.”

The rest of the family joined in a collective whine, but accepted. Everyone knew better than to mess with Narcissa once she was set on something.

A few hours later, the elves placed all sorts of delicacies at the table. Draco was granted permission to apparate from the school back home, arriving as the rest of the family took their sits. He frowned as he sat by his aunt Bella’s side, who only talked about how he looked like his good for nothing father. He sent a pitiful look at his cousin Nymphadora, who smiled amusedly at him as she tried to start a conversation with Regulus. Sirius and Ted were already talking like old friends and Remus and Lucius shared a laugh at Professor Snape’s expense. Andromeda looked satisfied. Narcissa, at the head of the table, eyed her family proudly.

“Levitate the potatoes my way, please Nymphadora?” said Draco. He wasn’t particularly close with his cousin, but he knew she hated the name.

“Don’t. Call. Me. Nymphadora!” she said as she pushed the potatoes a bit too harshly towards him. Her changed from purple to a shade of red.

“I like you already,” said Bella.

“That’s a very bad sign,” muttered Remus.

(LUCIUS MALFOY) TALKING HEAD.

(Lucius sits on the same elegant armchair as before. He has his legs crossed and the attitude of a dandy).

“Life is full of changes. Some big, some small. I learned a long time ago you can fight it or try to make the best of it. And that's all a lot easier if you've got people who love you to help you face whatever life throws at you,” he says, an affectionate smile on his face.

He then frowns worriedly. “I just hope my house doesn’t become the designated place of gathering. My peacocks couldn’t take it.”

Roll Credits 

[theres-a-goldensky]

32 Reddie Fic Recs

In honor of the joy I feel in finally getting out of this miserably terrible fucking year of my life, I thought I’d do something fun and make up a list of Reddie fic recs, since this has fandom has taken over my life recently. Strap in, friends. This is gonna be a long one.

These recs are in the order in which I read them. 

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

IT chapter 2 list part two - Reddie

Good Omens fic

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

Various BL Series fic (fandoms: Love By Chance, TharnType, 2Moons series, My Engineer, Until We Meet Again, 2gether, History3: Trapped)

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

All fics are Reddie, all are complete.

** - denotes personal favorite

1. first love / late spring by vowelinthug - ~36,000 words, explicit - They both survive It, but not without some injuries, both physical and psychological. Richie takes Eddie to a secluded cabin to help him recover. And then they accidentally make a podcast. Nice slowburn, a good Richie characterization. I liked the conversations between the two of them, in particular one about Richie’s disdain for shoes that was pitch perfect.

The doctor’s evil eye is on both of them now. “Your friend is gonna be fine. Broken collarbone and a lot of blood loss, but the arm stays on, for now anyway.” Probably at the way Richie sags in relief so hard he groans in pain, the doctor stops looking so severe. “He’s a tough guy. I’ve never seen anyone regain consciousness from that much blood loss just to give me a full medical history.”

“Oh my god,” says Richie, covering his mouth. “I like him so much.”

Bill pats his shoulder in sympathy.

2. the fireworks that go off when you smile by zach_stone - ~10,000 words, teen - Post-movie the adult Losers, including Stan, go on a vacation together. There’s just lots of Richie staring at a wet, shirtless Eddie and pining.

Richie blinks at him, his stomach doing a fucking somersault, pinned under Eddie’s weirdly passionate stare. He swallows another mouthful of beer to stall for time, shifting his gaze away. Spread out before him, the lake looks like flat, black glass. “Jeez, is the risk analyst really telling me to ignore the risks? What’s the world coming to?” he manages to joke.

He expects Eddie to roll his eyes, to huff and lean away again, but he doesn’t. He says, still earnest, “I just think some things are worth the risk.”

And Richie doesn’t know  what  the fuck to do with that. He resolutely tells himself not to puke on Ben and Beverly’s porch, because he thinks if he did it would just be the words  I love Eddie Kaspbrak a hundred times over, all puddled on the slats of wood. He stands up rather abruptly. “I should go to bed,” he says, aware that he’s talking too loud, being too fucking obvious. “I’m jetlagged as fuck. Also maybe a little drunk.”

3. oh, i want the truth to be known by ShowMeAHero - ~7000 words, explicit - Richie sees Eddie die in the deadlights and then manages to save him at the last second, but It skewers him instead. I’m honestly not sure why there isn’t more fic with this premise, because Richie sacrificing his own safety for Eddie and then Eddie losing his shit is absolutely, 100% my jam.

The claw isn’t in Eddie’s chest. Instead, it’s in Richie’s, caught in his side, pinning him to the ground. He chokes on a scream, caught in his throat, and pushes at Eddie, just trying to get them away. He rolls into him, ripping Pennywise’s claw through his side to get away, but once he’s free, he’s scrambling into a half-stumble and dragging Eddie with him until they’re hidden under an outcropping of rock. His side is bleeding, he can feel it, and his entire fucking abdomen hurts, and, for a moment, it’s all he can process.

“Holy shit, Richie,” Eddie exclaims. The pain shuffles to the back of Richie’s mind so he can focus on Eddie instead. He sounds winded, but he’s fucking alive, unhurt and breathing and okay, and Richie huffs a laugh. He’s in so much fucking pain, but he can’t even figure out where it’s all originating from, and the only thought cycling through his brain is it’s okay, he’s okay, Eddie’s okay, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, over and over.

4. we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright)  by buckyjerkbarnes - ~9,000 words, teen - Richie and the other Losers in the hospital after killing It, waiting for news on Eddie. Richie has a bit of a breakdown.

The ambulance ride had been the longest twenty minutes of Richie’s life. He'd tried not to get in the way of the EMTs who worked frantically to keep Eddie alive; who were far more patient with him than Richie likely deserved. By the time they'd rolled up to the emergency entrance at the hospital, Ben stamping his breaks as the rest of the Losers came to a grinding halt not fifteen yards away, Richie was still a sobbing mess. He couldn't see through the cracked lens of his glasses, and when Eddie, who had not opened his eyes or said a word since they were still in the sewers, was about to be wheeled out of sight, Richie made like a battering ram and lunged towards the pair of swinging doors.

“Sir!" An orderly yelped. "You can’t—!"

And Stan, who had materialized at Richie's elbow, told the orderly: "He's the husband."

5. ** It’s Hard to Tell Sometimes by gallopingmelancholia - ~21,000 words, explicit - Eddie divorces his wife and moves to LA to live with Richie. Richie promptly has like five emotional meltdowns over it. So much pining. So much. This is one of very few that has Eddie in the hospital for a realistic amount of time, which I appreciate. When writers have been hoping out of bed after a day or whatever, it really throws me out of the story.

“When can we see him?” Mike asks.

“He’s asleep, but we’ll send in a nurse when he wakes up. I wouldn’t expect it until tomorrow morning at the earliest. He’s been through quite a lot, eleven hours of surgery, and is on a lot of pain medication.”

“Will he survive? What’s the percentage? He’ll want to know the probability, he’s a risk analyst,” Richie says.

The doctor hesitates. “The chances he makes it through the night are 65%.”

“That’s not bad!” Richie says even as his heart drops to somewhere in the region of his feet. The others look at him pitifully. “Tell him we’re here and we love him. Tell him the Losers are here and we’ll see him soon.”

6. ** it’s a nice day to start again by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~6000 words, teen - Post-movie, Eddie wakes up one morning to discover that Richie and a woman had a shotgun wedding in Vegas the night before. Great, sad-but-trying-not-to-show-it Eddie here. (And yes, Richie is a total disaster gay who marries a woman on a whim.)

 “Are you sitting down?”

 “I didn’t even get out of bed yet! Bev please just tell me what the fuck is happening.”

 “Sorry, I’m sorry. Just- Richie got married.”

 “What? No he didn’t,” Eddie scoffs, throwing the covers off. “I’m not - he’s not even dating anybody, I see him all the time. It’s probably just a big joke or something, that’s-”

 “He got married, in Vegas. It’s all over Twitter, and he- he sent pictures to the group chat last night. She’s some other comedian. None of us have ever met her, he didn’t invite any of us.”

7. Oh, But He Makes You Laugh by MellytheHun - ~9,000 words, mature - Teenage Eddie has to deal with some serious jealousy when a new friend enters their group. This one has a good, slow realization on Eddie’s part.

The boy is in their grade, though not part of their social sphere; he’s nearly as tall as Richie, with light eyes, and walnut colored hair. Eddie recognizes him from his AP bio class, but can’t inwardly recall his name.

The boy nods toward Stanley while keeping eye-contact with Richie, and informs him, “alligators - they can grow up to twenty feet.”

Richie opens his mouth to argue with the new kid, but he’s cut off.

“Which is weird, cause they usually only grow four.”

Eddie watches in abject bewilderment as a hearty, genuine laugh  is startled out of Richie.

8. Richie Tozier: Pray Away the Gay by QueerOnTilMorning - ~4,500 words, teen - The official transcript of Richie Tozier’s comeback Netflix special. A lot of writers try to do Richie’s stand-up routine, but not many can nail it. This one feels realistic and contains actual, like, jokes and stuff.

Because I grew up in this little town called Derry, Maine--nope, absolutely not, do not cheer for that. Fuck Derry! I had this friend, for years he thought I was lactose intolerant, because he'd mention dairy and I'd be like "fuck Derry! Derry tried to fucking kill me!" No, I can eat cheese, I just hate my hometown. They did not fuck with the gays, in Derry. That's probably why I dress so shitty. It's a survival thing. I was already super into dudes. If I had developed fashion sense on top of that? No. Oh my God. It was so--I was so fucking scared all the time.

 And like, to put this in perspective, has anyone ever heard of Henry Bowers? Any true crime fans in the house? Henry Bowers, the baby serial killer? Yeah, you listened to that podcast! My friend Bill was on that podcast, doesn't he have a sexy voice? Anyway, Henry Bowers, also known very creatively as The Derry Killer, murdered a bunch of kids the summer we were thirteen. I say we, because that dude was in my fucking class. There was an active serial killer in Derry during my childhood and still, still my greatest fear was that someone would find out I was gay.

9. RICHIE TOZIER IS...THE COMEBACK CLOWN by owlinaminor & tinypersonhotel - ~11,500, teen - An excellent multimedia fic about Richie’s life with Eddie post-movie.

While Richie Tozier never stops talking, Eddie Kaspbrak never stops moving. Listening to a conversation between the two men is akin to watching a pinball machine with two balls going at once, slamming into each other and the walls and the levers and each other, lighting up their surroundings in a trance as mesmerizing as it is chaotic. (Kaspbrack laughed when I told him this metaphor—apparently Tozier spent many an afternoon at the town arcade when they were kids.)

Over the course of one twenty-minute walk with their dog, a beagle named Stanley, through their L.A. neighborhood, they manage to call off their engagement, call it back on, invite me, uninvite me, call the engagement off again, debate eloping, call the whole thing back on but disinvite everyone except me, and finally agree on what color napkins to have at the reception.

10. ** The Jenga Dream Date by stitchy - ~15,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie domestic fluff that starts at Ben and Bev’s wedding. It feels so sweet, and you can just see the happiness radiating off the screen. This is truly the ending they deserve.

Then a seriously, unbearably cute thought occurs to Richie. A thought he can’t immediately share with Eddie, because Bill and Mike each independently cornered him and made him swear not to steal Bev and Ben’s thunder.

Ah, fuck it.

“I can’t think why we would possibly be in another situation in the near future where there’s dancing but also my mother is there for some reason, but holy shit, Eds! I have got to see you dance with Mom. During this very special situation. For which I will make hand calligraphed invitations and hire a photographer and-”

Eddie’s eyes dart in either direction before he lets out a short, slightly hysterical laugh. “Uhhh, I  also have no idea when or why that would happen, or what sort of event that would be appropriate for.”

11. Bad Parts In by 50artists - ~9,000 words, not rated - It’s Richie that ends up in the hospital after it all goes down, and Eddie who has the crisis. And also some serious misapprehensions.

"I feel like Richie might be  slightly  weirded out," Eddie says dryly. "Like oh, hey, we've not spoken for decades and you're the straightest man I know, but it turns out I have been subconsciously in love with you since we were teenagers. I dunno, might make things a bit awkward."

"I'm sorry," says Beverly, "just to clarify, Richie Tozier is the straightest man you know?"

"Dude, have you seen his comedy? It's all, 'I love fucking chicks while drinking beer and watching football'."

"You mean the material that Richie doesn't write himself?'

12. ** We Found Love in a Chili’s ToGo by Amuly - ~14,000, explicit - Richie confesses his feelings to Eddie in the airport before they both headed back to their own lives. This is such a lovely story about friendship and love and putting yourself back together. And there’s some A+++ phone sex.

“Nah, Eds. It’s because I had a big gay crush and needed Stan to bitch at about it.”

Eddie frowned, then shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why you couldn’t bitch at me about it.”

“Well bitching about your secret crush to your secret crush is generally frowned upon, Eds. Kinda fucks up the ‘secret’ part.”

Eddie, bless his tiny heart, didn’t get it for a second. His expression scrunched up, about to say something stupid back to Richie, when his brain processed Richie’s words. In a second his expression fell open, jaw actually agape.

“Oh look: drinks!” Richie grabbed his marg, licking and drinking without even letting the waitress set it down onto the tabletop. Eddie barely had the courtesy left to let her set his down before he was grabbing at it.

13. ** Ask Me About My New Material by twoseas - ~7,000 words, explicit - I could read 10,000 stories about a confused and horny Eddie jerking it to Richie’s stand up without understanding why before they meet again in Derry. This one has a great Richie, who reacts like he got hit in the face with a bat when the truth comes out.

In the restaurant, as the gong resounded around them, Eddie looked up at a four-eyed, messy, middle aged Trashmouth and suddenly it all clicked.

 He had two thoughts.

Oh, he realized, it’s because I’m in love with the dumbass.

And, Aw fuck.

14. No Parenthesis by pineapplecrushface - 13,000 words, explicit - In the deadlights, Stan gives Richie some instructions on how to bring him back. Spoilers: it involves an orgy. And Richie and Eddie dealing with their feelings.

“Okay,” Mike said, holding his hands out to placate him, and honestly Richie was really fucking sick of Mike saying crazy shit and then somehow—somehow!—convincing them to do it anyway. “I’m not saying we have to do it. I’m just saying, the ritual exists and we could do it, and now that it’s out there, I feel like you should all have the choice.”

“Great. I choose no. I’m fucking leaving before I get ritualed into giving all my money to a cult leader and I end up spending the rest of my sad short life on an alpaca farm,” Richie said, standing up too fast and stalking across the room.

“Richie,” Bev said, and she sounded, unbelievably, like she was not thinking this was completely insane.

“Are you fucking serious?” He whirled around to look at them. They were all giving him varying levels of Richie, be reasonable, which was a look he was familiar with, but not when it came to sex rituals, for some fucking reason.

15. ** Stupid Deep series by anonymous - ~50,000 words, explicit - Richie has a huge dick, and Eddie is obsessed with it. Come for the super, super hot sex, stay for the sweet romance, twist of angst and happy ending.

It’s been five months since then, and Eddie has spent at least 40% of that time thinking about Richie’s big fucking dick. He spends about 20% working from home, 20% arguing with Richie about dumb shit, and the remaining 30% sleeping—this adds up to 110%, but that’s because there’s overlap between the sleeping and the thinking about Richie’s huge dick in the form of extremely graphic dreams.

He thinks about Richie’s dick in the shower. He thinks about Richie’s dick when they’re watching TV together. He thinks about Richie’s dick when he’s trying to eat breakfast. He hasn’t even seen it hard. But god, he thinks about it. Thinks about it hot and thick in his hand, thinks about it twitching as Eddie strokes it, thinks about it stretching his lips, thinks about it leaking precum all over Eddie’s fingers and tongue and stomach. And, most importantly—most vividly—he thinks about Richie’s dick inside of him, filling him up, fucking him.

At the same time, Eddie also spent a good amount of time, woven through the rest of his daily activities, falling so deeply in love with his best-friend-cum-roommate that it was disturbing at best. There was pining. There were lingering glances. There was lying on Richie’s bed while he was out just to ease the ache in his chest with Richie’s warm, familiar scent, which is disgusting and Eddie hates to think about it. There were, in Eddie’s darkest moments, daydreams about Richie holding his hand and kissing him and telling Eddie he’s in love with him. Like a fucking sap.

16. I’m quite alright hiding today by remusjohn - ~7,000 words, explicit - Eddie kisses Richie out of the deadlights, but Richie doesn’t know if that means anything.

On the first night they don’t do much of anything. They unpack (well, Eddie unpacks his massive bags while Richie tries to figure out how to sign in to his Netflix account on the tiny TV in the living room), and they order in, and they argue over what to watch while they’re eating, and Eddie falls asleep some hours later with his head tucked into Richie’s shoulder, and Richie tries not to think too much of it.

There’s been a lot of that, the last couple of days. Richie doesn’t know how to say, You kissed me to wake me up from the deadlights and I don’t know if you did it to save my life or if there’s something else too, but it’s kind of killing me, man.

So Richie doesn’t say anything at all.

17. Haunt Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me by Vulcanodon - ~20,000 words, explicit - AU where Eddie and Richie are ghost hunters who get stuck in a very trippy haunted house. This concept really shouldn’t work, and I’m not big on AUs in the fandom, but the relationship between the two of them really sells it. And, obviously, the pining. There’s so much.

The only time Eddie has ever witnessed Richie freaking out was when they had been fucking about in the woods near Montana for their werewolf episode. Eddie had been walking backwards, trying to get Richie and a creepy footprint in frame when he had suddenly felt nothing but air behind him. He had fallen for an impressively long time down the hill, blacking out briefly when a branch caught his head and when he came to Richie had been leaning over him, white and frantic, hands all fisted up in Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie, Eddie, Eds, Richie had said, nearly crying. Are you alright, can you talk?

Is my camera broken? Eddie had managed woozily to say, and for a moment Eddie had thought Richie might do something crazy like slap him or even kiss him.

He hadn’t done either in the end and Eddie remembers the disappointment, even with the haze of a mild concussion.

18. Five Times The Losers Gave Richie Permission by toomuchrootbeer -  ~11,000 words, mature - Each loser tries to let Richie know that they know in their own special way.  

“No I don’t mind,” Stan says evenly, shrugging his shoulders like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I don’t mind any of it.”

“Cool,” Richie chirps, grabbing his backpack off of the grass and pushing himself to his feet. “Pip pip Edward,” he calls. “Shall we endeavor to find you a cleaner wardrobe?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie says back, but there is no venom behind his words.

But then Stan is reaching out, gripping Richie’s arm, “Dude what are you-”

“I don’t mind any of it, Tozier,” he repeats, voice lower and his words somehow more weighty, fixing Richie with an indecipherable look. “And I don’t think any of the other Losers would mind it either. If you wanted to,” he jerks his head in the direction of Eddie, “you know.”

19. String Theory by neverfaraway - ~17,000 words, mature - Richie starts slowly regaining his memories and has a disturbing experience in the deadlights.

The thing is, Richie knows this is a version of himself and Eddie that never existed. He can taste the pretence on the tip of his tongue, but the sticky air seems to sharpen and solidify around him. He can’t remember where he was before this moment, watching his fingers alight on the buckle of Eddie’s hundred-dollar belt.

The Voice wavers and Richie comes pouring through the cracks. It's painful to watch the careful way he places his hands on Eddie’s skin. "Fuck, I missed you," he says. "Even when I couldn't remember, I had a hole right through me, straight through the middle. You left a fucking entry and exit wound."

"Damnit, Richie," Eddie mutters, blinking rapidly. "Beep, beep."

20. hoping to be found by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~25,000 words, mature - Things don’t magically work out after Derry for Eddie. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he goes back to Myra and his depressig life. But at least now he has his friends. He has Richie.

With his memories back now, with all the knowledge of his mother and his placebos and his fake inhaler and his friends, it feels like Eddie has been living the last 27 years in sickly, yellow sepia tones. His memories and even the brief time he spent with everyone at the Chinese restaurant shine in his mind in vivid technicolor, and everything else pales in comparison.

He thought he would die, and now he doesn’t have a plan. His life in New York is miserable and cramped and leaves him feeling small, so he puts it off as long as he can.

The drive isn’t long, even with Eddie taking his time. He takes a detour just to drive along the coast and see the ocean, and stops at any given exit or National Forest along the way that strikes his fancy. He’s still home before nightfall.

21. After Derry series by pineapplecrushface - ~47,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie are both pining and miserable disasters post-movie. Until they finally get their shit together and figure some things out.

He woke when Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and touched his back, under his disgusting shirt. “Hey,” he said. “Your turn. I mean, your turn after I wash my hand again. What did you lie down in?”

“Your mom,” he said, sitting up and glaring at Eddie, who was half-naked, a towel wrapped around his waist. “How do you all look so good and I ended up looking like fucking Christopher Lloyd? Like, not young Christopher Lloyd. Present day.”

Eddie’s hand was still tucked under his shirt, rubbing a path across his lower back. “I guess you did grow into your looks.”

“Oh, fuck you, you weirdly muscular little shitweasel,” Richie said, escaping to the shower so he didn’t have to look at the slope of Eddie’s arms. He was weak for that, the line of a man’s shoulders and back. He was weak for all of Eddie, really. After everything he had seen, he guessed it was something he could admit to himself. There was no panic left in it.

22. for better, for worse by kaspbrak_kid - ~26,000 words, not rated - Eddie has just gotten through a messy divorce and is trying to deal with the fact that he’s been in love with Richie for 30 years, and then he has to go to Ben and Bev’s wedding. Not a great combination of things.

Eddie blows out a shaky breath and puts down his phone, then picks it back up again, restless. He scrolls up through his and Richie’s texts.

They’re not that frequent. They talk in the group chat, mostly. Eddie thinks about texting him all the time, several times a day, and then never does. It’s all just stupid shit, anyway. A dream he had or a movie he saw on TV that he remembers Richie used to like, and does he still like it? Some things his therapist tells him he should say, like that he’s been in love with Richie for somewhere between six months and thirty-odd years.

Instead, most of their private texts are just inane bickering, or Richie trying out jokes on him, or Eddie telling Richie how to clean the cut he just accidentally gave himself opening a can. He could have just googled it. But he asked Eddie.

23. feet on the ground, head in the sky by peggyolson - ~21,000 words, teen - I’m kind of a sucker for the slowburn, falling in love over distance trope. This one does it well, with bonus Richie dealing with his issues and figuring shit out.

Mostly, though, it’s just a slight tug at the back of his mind, another part of his day. A mumbled  let me call Eddie, like an afterthought, while he’s tapping his foot in line at Whole Foods.

Eddie always, always answers.

“Edward Kaspbrak,” he chirps during business hours, dry and glib, and Richie will respond in a deep, exaggerated baritone with something awful like  Mr. Kaspbrak, your test results are in and unfortunately you  will  keep shrinking at an alarming rate for the rest of your life, something barely funny that he says just to get a reaction.

(It had been  such  a mistake to give Richie his work number.)

24. it’s about time that you just unwind by fuckener - ~9,500 words, explicit - Eddie finds out that Richie is gay via his stand-up and promptly loses his mind.

“Yeah? Mine was weird, guys, I’m not going to lie. I came up with this really good idea on how to cause total chaos at a family event, you wanna hear it?” There it was - glasses adjustment, not even past the one minute mark. “If you really want to shake up another dull as fuck Thanksgiving with your parents, just wait ‘til you’re in your forties and your elderly father is spooning out his first helping of mashed potatoes for the night and then drop the bomb that you’ve been gay the whole time. Boom, happy Thanksgiving. Pass the sweet corn, I want to fuck the huge green dude on the can.” People laughed. Richie did that thing with his face between a smile and a scowl. “It’s the long game, yeah, but -”

Eddie slammed his laptop shut.

25. feel this burning, love of mine by floatingonthelehigh - 17,000 words, mature - The clown is a bastard. Richie gets a second chance.

“Don’t leave,” Eddie says quietly, and god  fucking  damn it, it breaks him that Eddie thinks he ever would.

“No,  fuck no, Eddie. I’m not going to.” He adjusts his grip on the jacket against Eddie’s stomach, winces when Eddie gasps in pain. Richie’s lip shakes again as he just keeps talking. “Frankly I’m insulted that you’d think I’d leave you, after just remembering you're my best fucking friend in the world, after twenty seven fucking years. My clown-murdering partner in crime! How could I ever leave you? Fuck no, I’m not leaving you, Eds. Idiot,” He laughs emptily, rubbing Eddie’s cheek, and pauses, beginning to nod to himself as a goal flits into his mind. “I’m going to pick you up, I’m going to get you out of here, to a hospital. Right now. And—” Eddie’s grip on his arm tightens, and he stops.

26. hey there demons (it's me, ya boi) by dharmainitiative - 12,000 words, teen - Is this another ghosthunters AU? Why, yes it is. I don’t know why there are two of these, but I enjoyed them both. This one is much lighter, and I really liked the way that the writer creates a very lived-in feeling as soon as you jump into this universe.

 As it was, BuzzFeed wasn’t a bad place to work, despite all the shit Richie gave it. He was paid well, there were always a bunch of cushy chairs everywhere, and the food that got brought in for lunch everyday was way better than the shitty grilled cheeses he ate at home for dinner. And despite what Richie expected, his coworkers were actually pretty cool, all things considered. Sure, they were all millenials who thought landing an internship at BuzzFeed was the height of success, but most of them were friendly, and occasionally funny, and like Richie, just excited to get paid to do something that required little to no effort.

 Most of them, at least. There was also Eddie Kaspbrak.

 Richie met Eddie his first day at BuzzFeed, when he was shown his desk and the incessantly chatty intern that sat at the desk right next to him. Working side by side — literally — let Richie learn a lot of things about Eddie Kaspbrak: he was a neurotic hypochondriac, exclusively owned Polo shirts, and talked faster than Richie could even blink.

27. New Page, Same Old Book by Rend_Herring - 17,000 words, explicit - Post-movie, Eddie divorces his wife, moves across the country and makes himself comfortable in Richie’s home. Richie is totally fine and not freaking out at all.

He clips the wall coming into the foyer, practically crashes over the little table he uses to stack mail—fumbles around with the chain, the deadbolt, before finally wrenching open the door.  It doesn’t occur to him until he’s sending it bouncing back against the doorstop, that it might have been a good idea to check the peephole and make sure it actually  wasn’t  some asshole out for a smash and grab in the middle of the night, or worse — a  fan.  

Richie would be less dumbfounded by either option.

He squints at the person standing in front of him, blinks.

“I’ve had this dream before,” Richie says, voice still croaky from sleep, “usually you’re wearing less clothes.”

“Jesus christ,” Eddie sighs, and rolls his eyes when Richie jumps back a bit, genuinely startled that it’s  not some manufacturing of his sordid imagination.  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”

28. Drives Me Wild by rustywrites - ~4,000 words, explicit - Eddie and Richie have hotel sex after RIchie wins himself an Emmy.

"I thought I told you no more jokes about how much you love my dick," Eddie says, shifting to straddle Richie's waist in earnest, rolling his hips downward just to emphasize his point, no doubt. His hands are braced on both of Richie's shoulders, pinning him back with his bodyweight, while Richie's hands are on his waist, holding him in place. It's not the most comfortable position, all things considered--Richie's knees are bent over the end of the mattress, his feet still on the floor, and they're both still in their fucking monkey suits.

Richie had tried to make the case with his agent and his manager that he should be allowed to attend the Emmys in the same clothes he always wore (jeans, a shitty t-shirt, a semi-fashionable jacket, you know, the works.) They were good enough for his specials, one of which had earned him the nomination to begin with, but both Anna and Johnathan had pushed back hard, and when Eddie had not-so-subtly sided with them, well. Suit and tie it was.

29. Rewrite by sachi_sama - ~13,000 words, mature - Stan is dead, but somehow only Eddie can see him as they race to beat It. That’s...probably not a good sign. (note: Stan stays dead in this fic.)

“Whoa. Hey, Eds, you being a weepy drunk over there?” Richie asks, and he scoots over into Stan's seemingly empty chair, and Stan vanishes as Richie's hand is suddenly on Eddie's shoulder.

“I just—I saw...” Eddie pauses, and he wipes his hands over his eyes, sniffling. When's the last time he cried? It makes his head hurt every time. “Fuck. I'm sorry, guys.” He stands abruptly. “I'm gonna go splash some water on my face.” He hurriedly exits the room and he hears Mike asking what he saw, but Eddie is already power-walking across the restaurant to the bathroom, aware Dead Stan is hot on his heels.

“Lucky. The bathroom is empty,” Stan says as he leans against the wall. Eddie looks at him, really looks, and he sees the blood on Stan's wrists.

30. ** we are all going forward, none of us are going back series by theappliepielifestyle - ~21,000 words, teen - Richie gets stuck in a time loop and forced to repeat their last stand at Neibolt over and over until he gets it right.

Richie hears himself finish saying Let’s kill this clown  and it’s only when he finishes forming the  n  that reality sets in. What the  fuck -

He whirls around. Everyone’s standing around him, just like they were last night - they’re in front of the fucking house, it’s standing again.

“What the fuck,” Richie croaks. “No, come on - what’s going on? Ohhhh fuck.”

He only lets himself stare at it for a few seconds of unbridled hate before he keeps looking at the others, who are now staring at him, pausing from where they’d all taken a step towards the house before looking back and stopping to watch Richie’s nervous breakdown.

31. ** keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice. by theapplepielifestyle - 16,000 words, teen - Eddie dies, sort of, and meets Stan in the afterlife. The two of them realize that they can communicate with their friends in their dreams. Eddie has to watch Richie slowly breakdown in his absence.

32. ** happily ever afters all the way around series by theapplepielifestyle - ~35,000 words, teen - I have so much appreciation for this author’s desire to fix the ending by any means necessary. In this one, that good old turtle lends a hand and sends Richie back in time to fix everything. It’s...a lot.

Then it smooths out into an actual scene, if jumpy: a sigil on wooden boards that look a lot like the floor of Richie’s apartment. The sigil is probably drawn in blood, but it could also be red paint. Although Richie’s being  very  optimistic about that. Anyway, the dream is mostly that: the sigil being drawn, slow and precise, by Richie. It’s dark in the dream, and the sigil being drawn is overcut with more fleeting images, chased with sounds: Stan’s bloody hand dangling out of a bath. Stan as a kid, on the tail end of saying something as he walks home in the evening. Eddie with blank eyed, slumped in IT’s lair. Eddie as a kid, in mid-argument in the clubhouse. A voice so deep and impossible that it hurts, a voice that reminds him of the turtle’s gaze:  come back come back you can change the -

At the end of the dream, the scene will stabilize. Dream-Richie will say some shit he can't make out. Then he'll say the one thing he can make out, which is: I’m coming.

And then he’ll wake up.

LINK TO REDDIE FIC REC LIST PART TWO