#none of this counts my permas

[jelfish-aether]

the thing is. the thing about me is. i’m so normal about imperials. so normal.

[matthewtkachuk]

bad at love

Breaking your brother's only unspoken rule—don't date his teammates—has never been an issue in your adult life. Until now.

pairing: jt compher x reader

warnings: angstttt, smut, a minor car accident with mentions of injury (broken bone/concussion), and the usual (alcohol, swearing, etc. etc.)

word count: 4.9k

a/n: hiiiiii @comphy-and-cozy i'm your super secret fic exchange writer! sorry this is a day late and a dollar short. one of these days @wyattjohnston is going to perma-ban me from participating in exchanges. until that date she remains my ever loyal editor. mad thanks to @thomasschabot for reading it first and telling me they loved it even though they're contractually obligated to do so and for physically being there when the fic idea popped into my head <3

It’s not the first time you’ve shown up at your big brother’s house with a face full of tears and a couple bags full of all your worldly possessions. Despite your best efforts and well intentions—if you had to guess—it likely won’t be the last. 

It is the first time you’ve done so with him being a married man, and so it’s your sister-in-law whose comfort you really seek and are expecting to pop up behind the slowly opening door in front of you. 

Unfortunately for you, and for the poor soul you really don’t know that well, it’s not Kenzy who opens the door but the over-the-summer pick-up from Colorado. 

If it had been any of the other, more tenured of your brother's teammates, you might have been waved inside with nothing more than a sympathetic glance and an unspoken ‘again?’. 

Instead, JT’s look of utter confusion has quickly evolved into something more akin to a quiet rage, and you’re reminded that he is a big brother himself. The look is familiar to you, having inspired a similar one on Dylan’s face more times than you can count. 

It’s been a really fucking long day, and you don’t have the emotional bandwidth to have any sort of reckoning with some guy you barely know in your brothers drive way. 

JT’s in the middle of some sort of sentence that begins and also ends with “What—” as you none too gently push past him in order to finally gain entry to the house. 

The mix of sympathy and feigned disinterest that greets you on the faces of your brothers teammates who occupy the large sitting room has your stomach rolling uncomfortably. It seemed like the entirety of the Detroit Red Wings were always around to witness your spectacular failures. What must they think, watching you disappear with the next great love of your life, only to reappear once again with bags packed in a manner of months?

You could hazard a guess at what your brother thinks, the variants of ‘I told you so’ that live and die on his tongue without ever leaving his lips. He wraps you up in an infamous Larkin hug that serves to fix a tiny crack of your broken heart, and so you revel in it like you used to revel in the comfort when the pain you felt was because of falling off the monkey bars when you were a kid. 

But, he has a house full of hockey players to entertain and Kenzy has a glass of wine with your name on it. Dylan returns to the living room and you slide out to the back porch with your sister-in-law, briefly catching the eye of the one who let you in. You don’t see the telltale signs of judgment reflecting back at you, but maybe something else entirely. 

Outside you pour your soul alongside the Malbec. Curled up on the wicker chair under a blanket you tell Kenzy about Owen and the promises he failed to keep. She oohs and ahs at the appropriate times, commiserating without belittling you. 

By the end of the night your heart—and the bottle of wine—feels a little lighter. There’s a little less shame as you make yourself at home in the spare bedroom that might as well permanently be yours. 

Owen visits you in your sleep, breaking your heart again and again until his face morphs into one with a ginger beard and kind eyes. 

-

Those kind eyes become a fixture in your post breakup life. If he’s not hanging around your brother's house, he’s bumping into you at the local coffee shop you frequent when you’re in Detroit. If he’s at neither, he’s obviously at the games you attend in support of Dylan alongside Kenzy. 

At Dylan’s, you barely speak to his teammates and friends beyond simple pleasantries. At your coffee shop, it starts at small talk but grows to be considerable conversations that dip just below surface level. 

It’s at Little Caesars Arena where he really endears himself to you though. Warm ups are arguably your favorite part of the games you attend. You like to look out at the signs, from the heartwarming to the obscene—picking out your favorites and giggling about the latter with your sister in law. 

Dylan’s always been really good about tossing kids pucks, and his big bleeding heart only grew larger when he got the red C strapped to his chest. Some of the other guys, even some of the so-called vets are less good about it. 

JT’s just like Dylan, maybe even a little kinder hearted. He takes the time to read the signs that are meant for him, never turns down a trade for a puck and even gives a stick to a kid whose sign says he came all the way from Denver to watch him, his favorite player, play in Detroit. 

It warms your heart. 

So much so you don’t even notice you’re staring until Dylan’s slamming himself into the boards in front of you to startle his wife. She rolls her eyes and calls him a name not worth repeating while you try to pretend like you weren’t just fixated on his teammate. 

The thing is Dylan has never outright said his teammates are off limits. Not since you were a teenager making eyes at his USNTDP teammates anyway. 

The memory keeps you from looking JT’s way the rest of the warmups, but once the puck drops your eyes can’t help but wander. 

-

Wandering appears to be your specialty, considering you’ve gotten yourself lost in the underbelly of the arena. 

Your first mistake was leaving Ken’s side—she was your ferryman, guiding you down the River Styx, and without her, you were lost in Hell. 

Were you overdramatic? Maybe. Were you lost with no hope of getting out? Still overdramatic, but definitely a possibility. 

The walls begin to look the same, and you’re half worried you’ve accidentally fallen into a back room or something stupid when you stumble upon the one who caught your eye earlier. 

‘Stumble upon’ is a gracious way of saying you absolutely smack into him and fall on your ass. 

He hauls you up effortlessly with one hand and your skin burns beneath his grasp. 

“What are you doing?” you both say in near unison before he laughs. 

“I was getting my shoulder checked out, what are you doing all the way over here? Are you lost?”

Regardless of what he was doing, JT obviously has more of a reason to be found wandering the halls of the arena. And he’s right, you’re most definitely lost but you play it off like he’s crazy. 

“Me? Lost? No, I know exactly where we are,” you bluff. 

JT’s eyebrows raise and he nods slowly. “Which is…?”

Well, he’s called your bluff but he also gave you a key context clue. “Near the athletic trainer, obviously.” 

He laughs again and it has your cheeks feeling hot. 

“Okay fine, maybe I’m a little bit lost and maybe I was contemplating how I’d be trapped down here forever before you knocked me over.”

“I’m sorry, but you ran into me.” You roll your eyes and begin to argue, but he doesn’t let that happen. “Doesn’t matter, I can help you find your way out.”

You swoon dramatically, only half joking as you reply “My hero.”

Now that you’re no longer focused on navigating your way out of Pan’s Labyrinth, you’re free to focus on your close proximity to JT. Based on the way his eyes dart between meeting your own and staring at your lips, you assume he’s just as aware.

Is this not what you’ve been wanting since you knocked on Dylan’s door? But that’s part of the problem, and you’re sure JT is thinking the same. Not only is your brother his teammate—and you’ve always been off limits to your brother's teammates to your chagrin growing up—but he’s JT’s captain, too. There’s a million ways this thing could go wrong and blow up in both of your faces. 

You could get caught, and be forced to sit with Dyl’s disappointment. You could hurt the one person in your life who consistently showed up for you and loved you and cared for you. 

Not to mention you could risk it all for nothing—could crash and burn spectacularly as you were wont to do. Could fuck it all up with not only your brother, but JT too and be left with nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d gone behind your brother’s back, but you had a sneaking suspicion things would be worse than they were when you were 15 to his 16. 

Ultimately you decide fuck it, because what’s life without a little risk?

Tentatively, you slide your hand over the rough beard covering his jaw. When he doesn’t flinch or move away from you, you lean in closer. 

He’s not pulling away, but he’s also not moving closer, letting you make the first move. 

It’s probably a terrible fucking idea, but you’ve never been accused of being someone who makes good decisions when it comes to romantic partners. 

The first press of your lips to his is cautious, barely a brushing of your mouths, just to get a taste. Quickly you become a woman obsessed. Unable to get enough, the kisses turn frenetic, bordering on sloppy. 

He reciprocates in kind, his mouth hot and heavy on yours while his hands grasp and pull and hold. His very essence consumes you, taking over all of your five senses and pulling noises from you that you didn’t know existed. 

If your arm burned from his grasp earlier, your entire body has caught fire. 

You’re unaware or probably more accurately uncaring of your public nature, despite your earlier hesitance. Now you just want more and more and more of JT, as much as he is willing to give and maybe even a little more. 

He seems to be on the same page, entire body wrapping around you and pulling you deeper and deeper. 

Unconsciously your hands begin to pull at the waistband of his pants and it’s then that the two of you finally separate. 

You’re worried you’re going to find regret in his eyes and excuses on his tongue, but he’s just looking at you intently. 

“Not like this,” he says. “Not here.”

“I don’t want to wait,” you protest, but he shushes you with his mouth. 

“It’ll be worth the wait.” 

And worth the wait it is. 

-

It's sexy at first. Clandestine meetings in dark hallways, sneaking in and out of JT’s apartment that’s on the same floor as Jake Walman’s, covert texts and quiet phone calls where you get off on the sound of each other's voices. 

It doesn’t take long for you to want more, though. To fantasize about not just what his calloused hands can do to your body, but what it would be like to hold one in your own while walking down the street. To show up at a home game and have everyone know you were there to support not only your brother, but JT too. 

It’s a fantasy that is only stoked by the comfort you feel walking around JT’s apartment in just his t-shirt with his number on the shoulder. By nights spent together at his dinner table, on his couch, in his bed. By sweet texts and stupid memes and random photos of things that made him think of you. 

You don’t dare speak your desires out loud though. For fear of JT not wanting the same thing or for fear that he would, you’re not quite sure. 

It’s a tough situation to be in. One where you’re worried you're heading to a fork in the road that has JT on one side and your brother on the other. 

You have no delusions about the two paths eventually forging back together again, know that you’ve come dangerously close to that intersection marked with a big fat caution sign. 

Probably you should speak to JT, get on the same page about where you’ve been and where you’re going. Following that, assuming he secretly yearns for the same thing you do, you should probably then come clean to Dylan. 

Probably you should do a lot of things, but unfortunately what is done in the dark always comes to the light and sometimes it happens quicker than you can make your mind up. 

-

A road win presumably has JT in a good mood. He’s texted you letting you know he’ll be home before midnight, requesting your presence in his bed. 

It’s an easy yes, considering you’re already in the aforementioned bed. It’s nice to get out of Dylan’s house, of the suffocating feeling that you’re intruding in someone else’s home, on someone else’s life. 

There’s really nothing particularly sexy about the way he finds you, but his eyes darken upon finding you curled up in his bed just the same. You’re not attempting to recreate a sexy pose from a boudoir photo shoot, and one of JT’s shirts and a pair of boy shorts aren’t exactly fancy lingerie. 

That doesn’t stop him from dropping his bag dramatically and stripping from his dress shirt and pants. 

“Awfully presumptuous,” you say as if the very fact that you’re in his bed in not much more clothing than he is. 

He shrugs, “Not presuming anything. I’m fine if you just want to sleep, but I’m sure as shit not going to sleep in those dress pants. Bad enough I had to sit through a plane ride like that.”

His tone is teasing, but the implication that he would be just as fine falling asleep beside you as anything else pretty well takes all the fight out of you. 

“C’mere,” you say instead of a catchy comeback, lifting the covers and inviting him into his own bed. 

He wastes no time sliding in beside you and curling up around your body. “Hi.”

You snort and hide your face in his neck. “Corny.”

“I’ll show you corny,” he says, but you shush him by pulling his face closer to yours until your lips brush. 

“Thought I was presumptuous,” he says upon breaking the kiss. 

You roll your eyes—“Shut up.”—and kiss him again. 

He doesn’t manage to keep his mouth shut, but at least this time it’s to slip his tongue into your mouth. 

The temperature of the room rapidly increases—between the weight of his body covering your own and your body’s reaction to his fervid kiss, you feel the need to lose at least one item of clothing. 

“I need—“

Luckily he quickly understands what you’re trying to accomplish by pulling at the hem of your shirt, lifting off of you long enough to assist in removing it from your body. 

He makes a noise of appreciation at the bare skin revealed to him before diving back into your lips, this time with one hand cupping your right breast. 

Appreciative noises of your own build in your throat when that hand slides down your body to dip into your underwear. It’s teasing touches at first, until you reciprocate by cupping him through his boxer-briefs. 

Finally you both shed that last remaining layer, uncaring of where they end up in the bedroom. There’s a brief pause while he rolls on a condom and then he’s entering your body like it was made for him and him alone. 

There’s no rush about his pace, just gentle thrusts and soft moans and sweet praises. 

Sex with JT is so good, better than with anyone else you’ve ever been with. He’s the very opposite of a lazy, selfish lover. It’s like your needs and your pleasure come first, and you certainly do too. 

The positioning of your bodies is so intimate, bodies close, mouths slotted over each other with intermingling breaths. 

You worry you’re getting too caught up in that intimacy, possibly running in a direction not quite warranted and so you seek to depersonalize it a touch. 

“Let me,” you say softly while gently pressing a hand against his shoulder, indicating you want him to lay on his back. He moves willingly, even helping you climb atop him. 

It feels just as good with you on top, and the bit of distance between your upper halves means you can breathe a bit better. 

It’s easy to get lost in the feeling, to tilt your head back and focus on your movements and the feel of his bruising grip on your hips. 

Feeling the pressure build in your stomach, you slide a hand down your abdomen to where your bodies meet while the other grasps your breast just for something to hold on to. The added friction to your clit is pulling you closer and closer as you move on top of him. 

He’s staring up at you with lust filled eyes, mouth open in a mix of awe and pleasure. A look of almost disbelief on his face. His hands are still on your hips, now helping the movement of your body on his when your body lights up like the fourth of July with your orgasm. 

It’s hard to keep moving while in the throes of pleasure, but it’s like JT can read your mind, gripping your hips and thrusting up into you until he finishes too. 

Your whole body tingles as you collapse on top of him, relishing in the feel of his arms wrapping around your body. Leisurely you kiss for a minute, until your heart rate returns to normal and you feel like you’re not likely to fall over when going to the bathroom to clean up. 

When you return, you’ve slipped on one of his shirts once again. There's a soft look on his face as you crawl into bed beside him. It only cracks when you quietly whisper, “should we order pizza?”

“I think you’re the girl of my dreams,” he laughs. 

The room is quiet, filled with only the sounds of your breathing and occasional kissing as you wait for the delivery. 

Finally the doorbell rings. “I got it,” you tell JT and pull on a pair of discarded sweatpants before pulling the drawstring so they don’t fall. 

You don’t bother to check the peephole, certain it’s your food which turns out to be a giant mistake. 

Not only is it not your pizza, it’s also the last person you want to catch you with sex hair in oversized clothing that obviously belongs to the guy you’ve just had sex with. 

Dylan’s mouth has dropped so far down it would be comical if it wasn’t also horrifying. 

“Dylan I–” you start to explain yourself but pause midway through. How could you even begin to explain?

“I can’t believe this.” He shakes his head, hands curling at his side. “Actually no, I can’t believe this from JT, I can definitely believe this from you.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you snap. 

Your brother laughs sardonically, “Well you’re not exactly known for making the right decisions when it comes to relationships.”

JT exits his room, no doubt lured by the loud voices and the lack of food. “Hey man, come on, let's talk about this like adults.”

“Like adults?” Dylan is incensed in a way you’ve never seen before. “Now you want to talk about things like adults? The time to talk was before you started sleeping with my sister behind my back.”

“I’m sorry you found out like this–” JT continues to try to defend himself, defend you while you stand there speechless. 

Dylan interrupts, “Sorry I found out or sorry you got caught?”

JT goes to respond but Dylan cuts him off again. “I trusted you dude. I told you she was off limits, and not only did you ignore me, you went behind my back.” He then turns to you. “And you? My teammate? Seriously? You couldn’t have chosen literally any other douchebag to treat you wrong?”

That snaps you out of your stupor. “JT doesn’t treat me bad!”

A different kind of look crosses your older brother's face then. “Well when he does, don’t come running back to my house and crying to me.” 

Dylan slams the door and you sit in the quiet of the room for a minute with your ears ringing. 

The reality of the situation hits you. 

“I can’t stay there, God not only am I a fuck up but I’m homeless too.”

“You can always stay here,” JT offers and it really bothers you that you can’t tell if he wants you to, or if he’s just offering because of his hand in the most recent blow up of your life. 

“I’m pretty sure his baby sister shacking up with his teammate he doesn’t want her with isn’t exactly going to win me any favors with Dyl,” you reply. 

“Well I’m pretty sure he’d rather you be here than living on the street.”

Ordinarily you think that would probably be true but the look on his face when you opened JT’s door is seared into your mind. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

-

In the end you do move your things into JT’s apartment. Kenzy is the accomplice to your crime, helping you pack your things while the team has practice, wrapping you in her arms and telling you that he just needs some time. 

“He loves you,” she says. 

You’re not so sure. 

That’s probably overdramatic. You’re sure he loves you, and you sure hope he forgives you. You’re just worried that this time you’ve both done and said things you can’t take back and you’re not sure how things will move forward from here. 

It’s not all bad though. 

Living with JT is surprisingly easy, even right one might say. You fit directly into each other's lives like perfect puzzle pieces. His strict routines of practices and morning skates and games—both home and away—allow you the space to complete your own work on your own time. Cooking pregame meals together and curling up beside him when he takes his pregame naps quickly become some of your favorite activities. 

You dance around the feelings talk, never quite broaching the subject. But it can’t feel this right if it’s all one sided, all in your head, right?

He’s even kind enough to let you drive his SUV even though the price tag makes you nervous every time you’re behind the wheel. You’re not a bad driver, as evidenced by the fact JT lets you drive the Audi, but you are possibly on this side of over cautious as a result of a bad car accident in high school. 

Three home games after your fight with Dylan and approximately zero words or text messages exchanged between the two of you, you find yourself in the passenger seat. 

“I could have taken the bus,” you protest weakly, almost knowing exactly what JT’s response will be. 

“Over my dead body,” he laughs, eyes flickering over to you before focusing on the traffic in front of him. “Just pick me up after practice or text me if you’re still out and I’ll find a ride.” 

“I’m not gonna leave you stranded at the arena, of course I’ll be there after you’re done.” 

It’s oddly domestic, kissing JT across the console and then sliding into the driver’s seat that he vacates. You wait as he grabs his gear and walks away, you do really love watching him walk away. 

The moment is cut short by catching a glimpse of your brother's vehicle. He’s not in it, obviously already inside the arena, but the sight of it makes your stomach clench all the same. 

Thoughts of Dylan and his disappointment and worry that he’ll never forgive you flood your mind the entire drive. So much so that when the next light turns green, you let off the gas without realizing that there is a larger SUV running the red. 

It all happens so fast. The screeching of tires, the crunching of metal, the pop of airbags going off and then a blinding pain in your wrist. 

In the end, you’re pushed into the wrong lane of traffic, the other vehicle damn near in the passenger seat you occupied only fifteen minutes ago. There’s a distinct ringing in your ears and you offhandedly wonder if this is what it feels like to get boarded. 

“Are you okay? I’m calling 911.” The words sound like they’re underwater, and it takes you several seconds to realize they’re being spoken to you. Turning your head to the side, you try to get the words out to say you’re fine, but you’re blocked by the airbag that has gone off near your head. 

Emergency services come quickly, a perk of living in Detroit you suppose. Embarrassingly, it takes the jaws of life to peel off the driver's side door to get you out. A cop takes your statement and then you end up in the back of an ambulance. Despite your assurances that you’re fine, one raised eyebrow from the female paramedic and the idea that you’ve probably broken your wrist has you agreeing to the ER visit. 

It’s then that someone asks you if there’s anyone you want to call. Heartbreakingly, your first thought is Dylan and your second thought is you’re not sure he’ll pick up. 

Your third thought is JT and his SUV that you’ve probably totaled. 

One of the paramedics helps you dial the equipment manager’s number, the one you were instructed to only ever use in case of emergencies. If ever there was a reason…

When he picks up the phone, you have to explain that you’ve gotten into a tiny fender bender and if you could please speak with JT and yes I mean JT not Dylan. 

“Are you okay?” JT all but demands when he picks up the phone. 

“I’m totally fine,” you fib, and then concede based on that same female paramedic once again raising an eyebrow. “Okay so I might have broken my wrist but–”

“Which hospital are you going to?” he interrupts. 

You tell him, but try to say, “It’s okay you don’t have to–”

He interrupts again, “I’ll be right there.”

He hangs up quicker than you can ask how he’s going to get there without the car that you’ve wrecked. 

True to his word, he’s sitting on a chair in your hospital room when you return from getting an x-ray. He stands abruptly upon your entrance and takes the three strides to stand in front of you before hesitating, like you’re made of glass. 

You take matters into your own hands and slide your good arm around his back, careful to not jostle your injured wrist. There's a slight tremor to his body that you feel run through yours. 

“I’m okay,” you say comfortingly, rubbing your good hand along his back before pausing. “Your car though….”

The tears are already starting to pool in your waterline as he pulls back. 

His hands slide to cup your jaw as he speaks seriously, “I don’t give a damn about the car. It can be replaced, you can’t.” A tear slips out before you can stop it and he brushes it away with his thumb before kissing you softly. “I care about you. So much. And that phone call scared the shit out of me.”

Despite the less than stellar background and circumstances, his words have your heart leaping in your chest. “I really care about you too,” you whisper and kiss him again. 

“Where is she?” you hear coming down the hall and it occurs to you that your brother is still your emergency contact. 

“Did you tell him?” you ask JT who promptly shakes his head. 

You don’t even have time to step back from JT’s embrace before Dylan comes crashing into the room. JT wisely pulls away and gives Dylan the space to place his hands on your shoulders and scan for any signs of injury. 

“I’m okay,” you reassure him but the words feel hollow considering they’re the first you’ve said to him in more than a week. “Broken wrist they’re gonna cast and probably a concussion. Can’t say the same for the car.”

Eerily similar to JT, Dylan replies, “Cars can be replaced–”

“But I can’t,” you say in unison with him. “I know, JT said the same thing.” 

It’s like Dylan remembers his teammate then, eyes sliding over to where JT stands and then back down to your slowly purpling wrist. 

The room is silent except for the sounds of medical equipment and the faint sounds occurring outside the door. 

“I’m sorry,” you say in unison with your brother again. 

“No, I'm sorry,” he says first. “I’m your big brother and I’ve seen you get your heart broken too many times. I’m always going to worry about you but I was out of line.”

“I’m sorry we went behind your backs and I’m sorry you found out that way. We should have just talked to you, I should have just talked to you.” 

“Truce?” he asks, like you’re 10 and 11 again, fighting over something silly and trivial. 

“Truce,” you confirm, hissing when you knock your broken wrist as you pull him in for a hug. 

Later, when you’ve gotten over the guilt of totaling JT’s barely used Audi and the cast on your wrist is long gone,  it’ll be a fun story to tell at parties. About how it took an idiot running a red light for you to define your relationship with JT and to reconcile with your brother. 

[professorspork]

GLUTTONY or ILLUSION?

23. GLUTTONY - How many notebooks do you have?

I have several, and I use basically none of them. I always keep a small notebook in my purse in case Inspiration Strikes and then just write things in my Notes app instead; I find I'm overall a much better and more productive writer digitally, when I can bounce back and forth and move things around as I go.

That said, if AquaNotes counts as a notebook I will shill for them until the end of time THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT NOTEBOOK IN THE WORLD EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO WRITE IDEAS DOWN IN THE SHOWER

28. ILLUSION - What is the best line of description in your WIP?

Ooo. I am very not good at picking favorites like this, but I think there's one I have to share because it took me like two hours to craft to my satisfaction. It's better in context, but please enjoy:

It’s just… now that Blake has the full context for her own attraction, looking at Yang anew is like—like stargazing from the deck of the last ferry out to Menagerie. Like watching the night sky bloom and thicken with brilliance as the hazy perma-glow that blankets the mainland recedes, the brightest stars only getting brighter as, moment by moment, once-hidden galaxies reveal themselves and the constellations sharpen into crystalline clarity. It’s realizing that—despite how it may appear—the heavens haven’t changed. All that’s changed is your own appreciation, once you’ve understood the previous limitations on your perspective.

[tveitertotwrites]

Girls Morning

Book: Red Carpet Diaries

Characters: Brooklyn Moore, Victoria Fontaine

Warnings: None

Rating: General

Category: Fluff

Word Count: 611

Summary: Brooklyn and Victoria have a little girls' morning together, doing a couple of fun activities.

A/N: Submission for CFWC You Go Girls! Event

.......................

Brooklyn was never normally up at around 5 am, but today was a different day. At the last monthly group lunch, Victoria had invited Brooklyn to spend the morning with her and do a bunch of activities. The first one involved a 5:30 gym session, which she was not looking forward to.

Brooklyn made it to the gym at around 5:28, with her workout drink and matching blue sports bra and leggings set, along with the same color bag. She looked around and saw Victoria stretching over by the treadmills before making her way over there. When Brooklyn was about 7 feet away, Victoria noticed her coming and stood up with a small smile on her face.

“There you are. Worried you weren’t going to come.” Victoria said.

“No, I wouldn’t do that. Even though sleeping in sounded so good.”

The two women shared a little laugh as Victoria made her way to the treadmill, to which Brooklyn followed suit. Both of them put the speed to make it a light jog, which made Brooklyn take a deep breath as she could tell that the gym session was going to feel longer than it was actually going to be.

“We’re going to start with 2-3 miles before doing something else.”

Brooklyn’s eyes widened a little as she sighed and continued her jog. A little over a half hour later, the two of them had finished their workout and were getting ready for the other activities Victoria had planned. They then walked next door to a small diner for breakfast.

“It smells really good here.” Brooklyn said.

“Wait until you have had a stack of Bailey’s blueberry pancakes. I always get them when I come here.”

“I didn’t know you knew the people who work here.”

“Actually, Bailey and his wife Mary are the owner’s and good family friends. Bailey just likes to come in and work for the community who he respects and respects him.”

The two women then ordered their food and drink before continuing to chat about work, family and other things. When their food arrived and the two of them dug into their food, Brooklyn realized how right Victoria was about the pancakes.

“Told you they’re great.”

“Yeah they are.”

The two women chuckled and they ate and talked. Once they were done, Victoria drove the two of them across town to a smaller building that looked like it could be a small apartment complex.

“Where are we?”

“At the only nail salon I trust to do my nails, minus my personal hair and makeup team or dresser.”

As soon as the two of them made it through the doorway, they were immediately sat down in chairs and were asked a bunch of questions about what they wanted for their nails and toes. Not long after everything was started, someone came up to each of them and started applying a face mask.

“How did I not know about this place?”

“Because it’s in a kind of hidden area and I wanted to keep this place to myself.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

It wasn’t long before the two women were done and paid for and were on their way back to Brooklyn’s apartment. They started having a good conversation in the kitchen before making their way over to the couch and watched a movie.

“I think this morning was really fun.” Brooklyn said.

“It was. I underestimated how fun it is to have someone with you doing fun activities.”

Once the movie was over, the two women said their goodbyes and went on with their day, texting each other about the idea of doing it again soon.

Perma Tags: @bendriversolo @crazy-loca-blog @rookiemartin @zahrachoices

@choicesficwriterscreations

[grumpygreenwitch]

Machina Ex Machina 4-5

I'm not entirely sure if I can update links before the posts are actually, er, posted. So if there's holes in the link collection below, give me a few days. I usually update them all in a lump.

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FOUR

Ilo City rested on a narrow strip of land that left it surrounded by the Sea of Simulation on three sides. It had long grown used to being flooded by the whims of the tide, and no new Sector could be laid out without a requisite number of tidal shelters, meant to accommodate the entire population if need be. Even if only a single sector of Ilo survived, the city’s population would remain standing.

No one had foreseen those shelters having to fend off an entire city falling from the sky. During the first Spirestorm, Halcyon had lost nearly a third of its population. Ilo was counting more than half gone. The Island had been completely obliterated.

The Grid felt a ripple of panic go through its entirety. No one, not even the oldest programs, had ever seen the Spires active in such a fashion; they’d only ever gone live to bring about each generation of programs. Obviously no one believed the unseen, unknown, nonexistent so-called ‘Users’ were suddenly going to show up just to erase all that they had (supposedly) created, but again…

The attacks, if that’s what they were, had happened almost exactly a millicycle apart. The Grid’s entire population held their breaths as another millicycle came and went without a Spire having a genocidal tantrum, and an all-cities meeting was called. Normally the cities of the Grid ran their own matters without interference or input from anyone else but, given the circumstances, even Om’s SysAdmin had showed up, inasmuch as he could.

Adas was standing a step beside and behind Endos, who was himself standing a few paces to the left of PEN, Halcyon’s own SysAdmin. Once a simple first-gen, PEN was one of the few programs of that generation that had naturally upgraded. It was a tall, stately presence in robes of purest violet accented with blue and indigo circuitry. Over it all it wore a darker shawl that shimmered, its weave constantly in motion; Adas had seen a few as they’d come into the city; it was a perma-Cosmetic rotating through the names of all the programs that had been lost in Halcyon.

“I’m glad to see all of us present, in one way or another,” PEN declared to the eight or so projections standing in a circle on the Halcyon CommCon’s main floor. “I ask only that we mourn Aeolus’ absence as the loss it is.”

“So there are no survivors from the Island at all?” one of the other SysAdmins asked, her tone wounded and full of shock.

“None,” Endos replied. “I have also commanded Ilo to be evacuated, at least until we find answers.” He shrugged eloquently. “We’re just too close to the Spire to allow for appropriate advance warning.”

Gungnir scoffed. “What would you consider enough distance for advance warning, Endos?” The SysAdmin for Pevir countered. “You can barely see Halcyon’s Spire from the Souk, and yet here we are.”

“We’re not attacking the Spires,” Endos gritted out. “This isn’t the time to bring up that dead pixel yet again.”

His fellow SysAdmin, a last-gen with a long, blood-colored mohawk and armor that rippled with red and orange circuitry, put his hands up. “Then I won’t suggest common sense,” he declared. “But I will offer all of Pevir’s fleets if someone should want to have them at hand.”

“You want us to invite your battleships into our space?” Glim exclaimed. “Should we also swear allegiance preemptively?”

“That is a very short-sighted response to a very generous offer,” a calm, roughly electronic voice declared, and every SysAdmin turned to the screen in question. Om was the smallest of the cities, the most remote. The city dwelt on the Spire itself, and it was inhabited by programs that most everyone considered… weird, to begin with, interested in matters of abstraction, rather than reality. But OM had been SysAdmin of the city since its inception; he’d been around nearly since the inception of the Grid. He was one of the oldest programs still in existence, if not the oldest, and no one could tell if he’d founded the city, or if he’d renamed himself after it. Though the connection was so bad that his image was full of static and his voice full of noise, his presence still carried the weight of a program who had borne witness to Grid events most there couldn’t even fathom. The unfortunately poor projection made it impossible to guess at his height, which kept on jumping, or his build, which seemed to be fairly solid most of the time. He spoke with a seasoned, calm male voice, and the pale blue of his circuitry was so hard to render that he looked like the most basic of first-gens. Whenever he showed up to a meeting, which was exceedingly rare, he made it a point to speak in a clipped, formal fashion just so the commline wouldn’t make a hash of his words. “I for one would welcome one of Pevir’s ships, if he can spare it for Om. His fastest.”

The meeting went silent as they all realized what Gungnir had actually offered, an offer which only OM had readily understood. Pevir wasn’t offering its battleships to fend off an attack; they were being offered to evacuate the cities.

Gungnir turned to someone not shown on his projection, then back to the meeting. “It will be sent at once. It’s… It’s a long way to Om from here, old friend.”

OM gestured lightly, his mostly featureless face nonetheless showing a grin. “Then we will hope that there is no need for it to make haste.”

“We can’t just… abandon our cities, can we?” Another SysAdmin hesitated.

“Gungnir, you don’t have enough ships to evacuate us all,” Endos pointed out.

“I do.” The SysAdmin’s smile was fierce and humorless.

“Have you built yet more useless -” Glim began.

“He does,” PEN interrupted her, eyes on Pevir’s projection, “if he sends the entire fleet out. All of Pevir’s ships.”

Glim gaped in disbelief. Gungnir shrugged, looking deeply amused. “I don’t imagine any of you are going to attack Pevir at this time. So optimistic of me, I know.”

“We weren’t going to attack you at all to begin with,” ACM, Flow’s SysAdmin and Pevir’s crankiest neighbor, muttered.

Privately, Adas thought that perhaps Pevir had a point: without a Spire to defend against, they didn’t have to worry about getting derezzed into a crater. For that matter, Pevir had destroyed its Spire and nothing had happened to the city. Why were the Spires important enough to preserve?

Almost immediately, her instincts recoiled from the question. Of course they were important. It didn’t even bear thinking about it. She shook her head minutely and focused on the meeting.

“Halcyon is the largest, not the oldest. Om is,” OM was saying. “We are also the smallest, though.”

“Is is a population factor, then? Ilo might have been the second largest -”

“Pevir is the second largest city on the Grid,” Gungnir interrupted. “First now, I guess.” He grimaced.

“Pevir is not at risk, and thank goodness for that,” PEN declared mildly. “I’m not sure your people would be willing to evacuate if they were.”

Gungnir grinned. “Every enemy can be beat. It just takes enough tries to figure out how.”

PEN just rubbed at its forehead. Glim rolled her eyes.

“Where did the Island and Ilo rank?” Endos turned to Adas.

“Third and fourth, in that order.”

The meeting was silent. “Who’s the fifth?” Gungnir asked.

“We are,” Glim breathed out in a frightened little whisper. “Ark.”

“The fleet is on its way.”

“Every sensor on your Spire, Glim,” Endos suggested.

“There’s not even a storm around it right now,” she protested breathlessly, even as she turned away to give directions to her staff.

“We cannot all move to Pevir,” OM reminded everyone. “Choice aside, the area around Pevir is not energy-rich. She does not have the resources to support much more in the matter of population than she already does.”

“And moving programs around will just make someone else a target, if it’s size we’re looking at,” Gungnir added. “For that matter, you said Ilo’s evacuating to Halcyon. What’s that do to your local headcount, PEN?”

PEN turned to Endos, who turned to Adas. Her faceplate flickered momentarily, and her energy levels faltered with an answer she didn’t want to give out loud.

PEN drew itself up very straight. “We will keep an intensive watch on our Spire. Let us go on the belief that if there is to be another event, and if it is indeed targeting cities according to population density, both Ark and Halcyon are first in line. Offense is, at the moment, unlikely. All our efforts must focus on defense and evacuation. Is there any other information we can share?”

There wasn’t, of course. The meeting dissolved into mostly individual conversations as the SysAdmins tried to sort out how to keep themselves from becoming a target.

Endos turned to PEN. “If you wish Ilo to -”

He was interrupted by an upraised hand from the other SysAdmin. “You will be a target wherever you go. We will be a target wherever we stand. Nothing has changed. Continue with the evacuation.”

Endos nodded his gratitude, and as PEN turned its attention back to another matter, Ilo’s SysAdmin turned to Adas. “I’m going back to Ilo to oversee the evacuation. I want you to stay here and oversee this end of it.”

Adas felt her energy bottom out. “What?!”

Endos caught her shoulders. “I need you here, Adas. You have to be Ilo’s voice in Halcyon.”

But… But Ilo was her home, overseeing such things was her job! Why did she have to stay in this unfamiliar, greedy, horrible, no-good -

You’d be angry. You’d be very angry. But you’d be there doing the job.

She drew herself up straight. Angry, yes. But anger didn’t excuse her from doing her duty. “Yes, sir.”

Endos smiled his gratitude at her and then turned to the circle of programs that were working the consoles along the perimeter of the meeting room, out of sight but in charge of all the details that went with such a momentous meeting. “Please inform PEN accordingly. Adas speaks with Ilo’s voice while this situation is ongoing.” He waited for a few nods of acknowledgment before hurrying away.

Adas drew a deep breath. Well, fine. She’d just… She’d make a Little Ilo in Halcyon, away from their weirdness about transactions and whatnot. She turned to the nearest program. “Where’s the sector designated for the Ilo evacuees?”

He handed over a tablet with the information, and she nodded. It looked to be sufficient space, in an older manufacturing area. Nothing that couldn’t be repurposed with the right equipment. “What about security? Supplies? Restructuring crews?” The programs around her gave her blank looks. “Do you expect the incoming programs to sleep on the floor with the gridbugs?”

“Uh…”

She huffed angrily. “Don’t be useless at me, do your job. I need someone in security, supplies and construction to come speak with me. Either that, or tell me where to find them.”

They scrambled to give her the information, which had her going all over a city she didn’t know, with transportation she didn’t understand. What was a ‘spiral’? What were ‘boards’? She stepped out of the meeting room and into a multi-tiered courtyard with elegant light-sculptures scattered throughout, and saw a few groups of programs gathered here and there. A familiar ID pinged her senses. Oh, finally! Someone useful! She made a beeline for the group before she realized what she was doing, and by the time her common sense caught up to her, the six or seven black-masked Sentries had all turned to stare at her. “Um.”

“I know her,” GAM’s voice informed the others. The hyperbolic attention that had slammed into Adas like a wall eased up somewhat, and they turned their attention to one another once again.

“GAM, a word with you, please?” she asked meekly.

He stepped away from the group and closer to her.

“Thank you,” she murmured. It had just come to her that the only reason she was still standing there fretting about her people and her city was him.

He shrugged minutely. “Didn’t do much, did I?”

“A lot of programs are alive because of you,” she told him tartly.

“A lot of them aren’t.”

“Did you expect to save the whole city?”

A sound of amusement came through the black faceplate. “See, logic tells me there was no way. My core? That one wanted me to save two.”

She stared at him.

“What did you want?”

“Oh! Um. Ilo is evacuating, and most of the population is coming here.”

“Aware of that. I think the whole of Sector 42 has been set aside for you.”

“Yes, but that’s all that’s been done.” She gestured at him, suspecting that she wouldn’t have to explain.

She didn’t. “What, no -?” He let out an exasperated sound at her expression, and turned back to the other Sentries. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Janus!”

Another Sentry approached them. Adas could barely tell them apart, if only because the newcomer was a sliver shorter, and perhaps not as broad across the chest. “Problem?”

“No one’s cleared Forty-Two to make sure it’s safe for habitation. Or, you know. Safe, in general.”

Janus groaned. “Why am I not surprised. I’ll get on it.”

“There’s no debris or anything from the… from the event?” she asked GAM as Janus meandered off to speak to another group.

“We didn’t take any damage,” he reminded her. “But Forty-Two’s an old manufacturing Sector, there’s probably junk all over it. Didn’t they assign you some sort of removal crew?”

“No.”

“Do you have any help at all?!”

She stared at him and he sighed, hanging his head.

“I do have the names and coordinates of some programs that might be helpful, but it’s telling me to use this ‘spiral’ thing. I can drive if someone gives me a baton. I’m proficient with both a lightcycle and a crawler.” She offered the tablet.

“The roads are for walking, and batons aren’t cheap,” he replied automatically, taking the tablet. “Come on, I’ll show you how to navigate the Spiral.”

She trotted after him. “But… A baton? You had a baton.”

“Yes, and it’s going to be expensive to replace.”

She huffed in exasperation, and they rode down a lift in silence. “Does everything have a price in Halcyon?”

“Walking in the door doesn’t,” he replied, arms crossed. “Refueling doesn’t. When your people come in, they’re probably going to be given a soukscan.”

“A what?”

He lifted his hand, his armor receding so he could show her the pale white circuit sitting just under the skin of the back of his hand. He curled his fist, and it tightened into a bright glyph, shifting position so it rested across his knuckles. “A soukscan. It’s how you track transactions in Halcyon.”

“We don’t… We don’t do that in Ilo, we don’t do any of your bean-counting thing.”

“No. But here you and your people will have to. Didn’t you get one when you came in?” When she shook her head, he made a little amused sound. “So technically, you’re in Halcyon illegally.”

“What?!” She puffed up in indignation until she realized he was teasing her. “I am here as a representative of my city,” she declared primly. “I’m not joining yours. Wait. Is that how you track the population of the city? With those soukscan things?”

“Yes.”

She hopped on a line immediately, her faceplate bright with calculations.

“What are you doing?”

“Telling your SysAdmin that the Ilo refugees absolutely cannot be given soukscans.”

“Then they won’t be able to get anything for themselves!”

“Do you have to pay for energy?” she demanded.

“No, but -!”

“Population is how the Spires are choosing targets,” she told him. “If Halcyon reads at the same level the last event left it at, there’s a chance there won’t be any more events here, even with all the Ilo refugees on-site.”

He was silent as she sorted through communication channels and messages, getting on top of a pile of issues that was trying to grow before she could do anything about it. She only noticed the silence after the most urgent matters had been dealt with.

“Population. That’s what’s triggering this?”

“It’s the going theory,” she admitted, belatedly realizing that she probably ought not to be blurting out major SysAdmin information in front of just anyone. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” She glanced up at the black faceplate.

And told him everything that had been said at the meeting. It was impossible to tell what he thought about it all through the black faceplate. “Do you ever take your helm off?”

“Not if I don’t have to,” he replied distractedly. “With it I’m a Sentry. I’m part of the Wall. If you have faith in the Wall, you have faith in me. Without it I’m just GAM. And GAM might not be someone to trust.”

“Well, I trust GAM,” she countered tartly. The lift doors opened and she stepped out on ground level, looking around and seeing nothing but rising buildings and the odd program hurrying this way and that. No vehicles of any kind, she realized for the first time. The last machine she’d seen was the jet that had brought her and Endos from Ilo to Halcyon.

He followed her out of the lift almost belatedly. “This way.”

She trotted after him.

FIVE

GAM rode with Ilo’s GO4 all the way to Sector 42, because after the first meeting he had the nasty suspicion that, if he didn’t, no one was going to want to listen to her until she bit someone’s head off. Which, he’d come to realize, the little actuarial program was entirely willing, ready and able to do.

It was an eye-opening revelation, and it worried him a little how delighted he was to discover it – but he was. The Ilosian had no behavioral filter. She didn’t count her beans before she spoke to someone, just to see what she could get away with. She had zero beans; she had no soukscan. She had nothing to sell, nothing to buy, and nothing to lose.

They watched as the reconstruction crews repurposed all the detritus that cycles of abandonment had left behind, using the mass to turn warehouses into heavily reinforced habitation cubes, clearing out old manufacturing stock and machinery, making room for ETCs, communication points and other general necessities, all the while keeping in mind the wholesale destruction that had just hit Ilo and doing their best with the materials at hand to plan against a potential third onslaught. GAM wasn’t sure who’d be footing the bill for it, but when the first sailer came in and the Ilosians began to flow into the Sector, carrying what little they’d been able to salvage of their lives, he didn’t care. It felt, finally, as if he were doing something to help, when in Ilo itself he’d been able to do nothing except dig through crushed buildings in the hopes of finding something other than disk shards.

With Halcyon shifting into its downtime millicycle, an Ilosian program brought Adas and him cups of energy while she spoke to what seemed to be Sector Leads. It caught him off-guard, being given something and not having to pay for it. The Ilosian watched in fascination as he held onto the cup and drained the energy remotely from it.

“Not even for that, huh?” Adas asked, downing half the cup in one go. “You don’t have to stay, you know. You probably have things to do.”

“I did. Until we realized there was no City Security watching after you and your people.”

“‘We’?”

“WallSec.” He pointed to the three black-and-violet figures filtering Ilosians at the ramp coming down from the sailer’s landing port. “We oversee everyone coming into Halcyon. And since City Security hasn’t even shown up, I guess I’m with you until they do.”

She sipped at the cup. “And you’re allowed to do that? Just… decide that we’re your job now?” She squinted at him. “You’re not just a Sentry, are you.”

“I am a Sentry.” There was amusement in his voice. “A Wall Sentry. The safety of everyone inside Halcyon City is my responsibility. The moment your people walked in, they became my job.”

She gave him a very suspicious look, sipping at the energy, but another Ilosian chose that moment to rush up to her and hand her a small bundle. “Oh, thank goodness.” She took it and unwrapped it. “Here. I’m sorry, but your Spiral is horrible. I feel like I’m going to miss a step and fall between the boards just looking at it.”

“It takes…” He lost the thread of his words when he saw what she was offering him. “Some getting used to.”

It was a multi-purpose baton, the activity lines on it gleaming in the white and blue of Ilo.

“Well, take it. It’s the least I can do. I’d forgotten you lost yours in Ilo.” There was a second baton in the bundle, which she secured to herself. “It’s just a crawler, though.”

“You should keep it,” he said slowly. “You could make a small fortune selling it here.”

Adas made a rude sound. “We won’t stay here long enough to need Halcyonite beans,” she told him. “Take it. If…” She faltered, but rallied swiftly. “If something happens, I’d rather know you’re fully upgraded to do your job. Of protecting us, you know.”

GAM took the baton gently. “It doesn’t feel any different.”

“It’s a baton, how different can it be?”

“You’d be surprised.” He examined the glowing lines bisecting the device; at least one of them was active. “Multi-purpose batons are rare here in Halcyon.”

“Well, try not to lose it, then,” she replied cheekily. They both looked up as the sailer on the ground deployed its wings and lifted up until it could hitch itself to the nearest data-line, making room for a smaller sibling that was already on approach. “That should be it,” she informed him.

“HEY!”

The shout made her jump and drop the cup, whirling around, but GAM was already prowling away from her, radiating menace in a way she’d not seen from the Sentry before. He pointed at a knot of Ilosians with the baton. “YOU!”

They stared at him, frozen in uncertainty. “Not you, move!” he barked at them. That, they understood, and scattered away from his path as he stalked closer. “YOU!” he snarled.

The Halcyonite program who’d been hiding behind the Ilosians, and rifling through the boxes of supplies Adas had spent an entire millicycle securing for them, froze for all of a picocycle.

Then it took off like a small skiff on a big line.

GAM was after the rogue in an instant, a runaway freight lift. “WallSec 42!” he called out into a dedicated comm-line. “Janus, there’s a breach somewhere in the Sector, I’m in pursuit of a scavenger.”

“Deploying search Bits,” his fellow Sentry replied at once. “Do you need backup?”

“It’s one scavenger.” The program in question, a low-energy figure ahead of him, twisted around a corner and under a set of massive pipes that had not yet been repurposed. GAM leapt over them and closed the distance. “Find that breach and seal it. These programs have been through enough. CitySec ought to have done that much.”

“Yeah, well, they’re claiming since the Ilosians don’t have soukscans, they’re not CitySec’s problem.” Janus’ tone dripped his opinion on that information, and it wasn’t flattering of their fellow officers.

The rogue leapt with impossible grace up, caught the bottom of an old surveillance platform, and used it to further launch themselves onto a rooftop, racing along. GAM didn’t bother following; he wasn’t sure the old platform would take his weight. He was fairly certain the roof wouldn’t. Instead he threw himself through a window into the low building and ran on, head twisted up to follow the scavenger by the dim glow coming off them and shining through the gaps in the roof.

When the thief leapt down he put on a burst of speed and nearly caught them at the door, but some sort of thin rope leapt at him and slashed for his faceplate, and he had to duck, his grab going wide.

What was that?! In all his cycles of service he’d never seen anything like the weapon the program had just used. Was it even a weapon? An Upgrade? A Cosmetic? A patch? GAM picked up speed again and ran on. The rogue twisted around another corner; the Sentry followed and nearly got himself derezzed when a thin pipe came at him out of nowhere and nearly caught him at throat height. He bent down and slid under it on his knees.

“Now you’re making me angry,” he ground out as he sprang back up and raced through a narrow, debris-filled space between two warehouses.

The rogue ran out into a yard full of broken, rusted containers, and dashed into the maze, seeking freedom, but when GAM came out of the chokepoint he was done with games. He pursued until the edge of the tiny wasteland, picked up a piece of material as big as his chest, and threw it as hard as he could.

He caught the scavenger at the knees. The rogue program went down with a yowl, crashing into crates and reducing them to even more tattered bits and pieces. GAM ran up to them, found them rolled into a disoriented ball. Their hair, which was much brighter than the rest of their circuitry, was twisting this way and that like a bunch of severed live wires.

It wasn’t a weapon, or an upgrade, or a patch. GAM’s senses were telling him that it was part of the rogue, for all that it looked so different from them. He rolled the program over with a foot, grabbed them by the throat, and lifted them up. There was enough of a difference in height between them that the rogue was suddenly nearly two feet off the ground, clawing helplessly at the Sentry’s arm. “The Ilosians don’t have it hard enough, you have to steal from them?” he demanded.

“Hey, man, life’s hard for everyone!” the rogue replied angrily. She was a first-gen, though her face had more definition than most. Her body was all straight, simple lines, and her voice had the soft burr that identified most of them, though softened some by a feminine Cosmetic. Her hair lashed out at him again, but this time he called the bluff and the dreadlocks pummeled weakly against his armor. She tried to kick him, but GAM stretched out his arm and she couldn’t reach him. She barely weighted anything. “Let go!”

“Sure. When you’re in containment.”

“Charge me the stupid fine and let me go!”

“So you don’t need to steal, is what I’m hearing. You were doing it just because, if you can pay the fine.”

She writhed angrily in his grip and he shook her once, sharply. “Cut it out! You’ve got one good thing going for you, and that’s that now we know there’s a breach between Sectors. You want a favor from me, you better be showing me where that breach is.”

“Oh, go lick a power line, CitySec,” she shot back, though she was hanging more or less limp in his grip after the shake.

GAM paused at that. “You might want to take a second look, rogue.”

She did. More startling by far, so did her hair. Every dreadlock came up, and tiny optical interfaces irised open at the tip of each one. “Oh.” Her voice went faint, and even her hair looked taken aback. “Oh, gridbugs, you’re WallSec.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” GAM clipped out. “You just spent the last few picocycles getting firmly on my bad side, rogue. Do you want a moment to re-evaluate your priorities?”

“I mean, is it gonna make a difference?”

GAM couldn’t help but be amused. Scared, but not cowed. “It might. About that breach?”

“It’s not a breach,” she strangled out, and he lowered her to her feet but did not release his grip on her throat. “It’s an old delivery system. The seals degraded a few cycles back.” She eyed him warily. “You wouldn’t fit.”

“Funny. Coordinates, please,” he demanded, all courtesy. “Janus, you still listening?”

“Glorying in your brilliant handling of the matter,” his fellow Sentry confirmed, his amusement obvious. The thief muttered out a set of coordinates. “I’ll handle this one myself, GAM.” The line closed.

GAM eyed the thief. The thief eyed him back, exponentially. “Your name and assigned Sector,” he demanded.

“Ugh.” She rolled her actual eyes. “Look, WallSec, there’s no one t-”

She stopped looking at him. Every single one of her eyes shifted just enough that GAM knew he was no longer the focus of her attention. He also knew it wasn’t an attack, or a cohort of the thief, simply because the angle of her attention was too steep. He knew, in fact, exactly was she was looking at. And he knew, without looking himself, that bypassing the soukscans had not worked.

The Sentry whipped around. He didn’t notice, but the thief did, that he shoved her behind him as if he could shield her from what was coming.

Halcyon’s Spire was activating once again. Electric power lined its circuitry, the storm around it feeding it from a wall of electric bolts that was increasing even as the storm itself expanded monstrously. Like a filling energy pipe, the blinding light was rising toward the top with implacable speed.

GAM yanked the thief forward. “Run.”

“Where?!” she demanded.

“The Ilosian buildings are reinforced. Run!” he shouted at her, and they both did as alarms began to bellow through the city once again.

[dollwritesarchive]

" i'll walk you home. " shang chi

this screams protective bff who caught feelings!shang chi and no i am not taking criticism 🥰

𝓈𝒶𝒻𝑒𝓉𝓎 𝓃𝑒𝓉

fandom marvel

featuring shang-chi x BFF!reader (f)

rating sfw, but heed warnings

content warning reader is very drunk (practically incoherent), her date is a creep and tries to gaslight/take advantage of her, some swearing, confrontation, unrequited pining (him)

summary shang-chi makes sure you get home safely.

word count 1.4k / mini musing

attention don’t ever, ever, ever go out with a stranger without letting someone (friend or family) know where you’re going and how long you’re supposed to be there! also, please please be wary and careful when drinking alcohol with strangers AND REMEMBER that if some asshole ever tries anything like this on you: shang chi said YOU’RE A TEN, YOU DONT OWE HIM SHIT. do not repost or translate. reblog & give feedback 💗 every reblog is a kiss for shang-chi on his pretty little face.

the two of you had an agreement, made upon the creation of your tinder account. you would text with a code, a simple one, if you were ever in trouble while out on a date, and you would always keep your location on for him.

for a while, the agreement seemed silly. sure, the guys you’d meet online either wanted anonymous hookups or had a bad habit of ghosting or a plethora of issues with a crazy ex, but they were never… predatory. Shang-Chi was simply being the over-protective best friend, you thought, and while you were grateful he cared so much, you didn’t believe you’d actually need to use the code.

until tonight.

⚠️⚠️⚠️

thankfully, it was just emojis, because you were having a difficult time seeing past the haze as you wobble atop cumbersome and expensive stiletto pumps. the strobe lights were making you feel sick, and you couldn’t tell if you had one or three cellphones in your palm.

“Come on, pretty girl, let’s get outta here.”

“No,” you mumble, but the man whose name currently escapes you has already grabbed your bicep and is guiding you towards the door, none too gently. “No, I want to stay and wai—t on my friend. I just texted him!” you didn’t want to go, but your feet were trying to walk, at the very least, so this man wouldn’t drag you. “I want to wait on Shang-Chi—“

“Why’d you go and do that, huh?” he asks, turning to look down at you. he might’ve been trying to look hurt, or maybe it was his intent to look as angry as he did, but either way it made a knot tie itself in your gut. “We were having fun, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, but—“

“Weren’t you having fun with me? You told me you were having a blast, remember? You said you wanted me to take you home with me.”

you scrunch your nose. you were almost sure you didn’t say that… did you? “I… did?”

“Yeah,” he insists, pulling you outside. the neons from the signs on the windows hurts your eyes and one hand flees to shield your face from them, “that’s why I got us an uber, silly.”

“Oh.” confused, with your head swimming, it’s the only response you can give. you don’t remember telling him to get an uber, and you definitely don’t remember wanting to go home with him, but you were so wasted that you couldn’t be sure if you really did. your date walks ahead to grab the door to the backseat for you to get in.

staring at the ground with a perma-pout upon your countenance, you stumble on to the gritty concrete and misstep. the pin-like heel on your shoe snaps against the ill-distribution of your weight and the unfortunate, awkward footing. you crumble to the ground with your palms outstretched in an attempt to break your fall with a low huff. “Owie.” you mumble beneath your breath, just as another car, this one red in hue, pulls into the parking space beside your uber, and someone familiar steps out of the backseat.

“Shang-Chi!” your pronunciation of his name is slurred heavily by the numbing of booze-saturated tiers, but you feel a wave of relief as he hurries over and takes both of your hands to pull you to your feet. hardly aware of the red uber backing out of the space and driving off, you stare at your friend in disbelief. “You got here fast!” or did you text him a long time before? time seemed to move differently the more inebriated you became.

“Of course I did,” he exhales, holding your hands closer to examine them, “are you okay?” glancing down at them, too, you realize they’re covered in tiny scrapes from when you fell, with microscopic rock-shaped dents in your skin. his brows furrowed, and he uses his digits to sweep any minuscule debris off of them.

“She’s fine.” your date speaks up as he staggers towards you, but you take note of the way Shang-Chi angles his body in front of yours, creating a human wedge between you and he. the date holds out his hand, “C’mon, sweetheart. I’ll take you home—“

you shake your head, sheepish, but it’s your friend who speaks. “Nah, she’s good, man. I got her. You have yourself a good night.”

“Hey, man,” your date grinds his teeth, taking a step closer and glares at Shang-Chi, “I paid for her drinks and her ride. What, I’m supposed to get nothing? Don’t be a cockblock.”

Shang-Chi’s eyes are usually the warmest you’ve ever seen, like soft moonstones. however, when that final sentence filled the atmosphere between them, you could swear his eyes went black with anger. “Hey man,” he mutters, reaching into his pocket and grabbing his wallet, “let me cover that for you.” there’s an acidic bite to his tone as he stuffs two twenty dollar bills against the man’s chest with a flat palm and a smack that resonates in the night air around you, “And just, while I’m in a giving mood, have some advice to go with that. You take a lady out, pay for her drinks, and expect to get something in return, you deserve someone like me to knock your dick in the dirt. This girl right here?” waving his hand in gesture to you, he glares at the fuming man before him, “she’s a ten, and she doesn’t owe you shit. Remember that, playboy.”

whether he wanted to or not, your creepshow date backed off. grumbling to himself, he slams the door of the uber and the car takes off. Shang-Chi has already turned his attention back to you, grabbing your hand. “Come on,” he says, the softness returning to his velvety voice, “I’ll walk you home.”

“I can’t,” you whine, stumbling forward with your bottom lip sticking out. pointing down at your feet, you add like a child that is sad that her favorite toy is broken, “my shoe…”

he takes a moment to look at the shoe, kneeling down, and pats both of his shoulders. “Hands here.” you do as instructed, steadying yourself against the sturdiness of the broad expanse. “Right foot,” you lift your right foot, the one with the mangled stiletto, and he slides it off. to describe the relief your foot felt after the killer accessory had been subtracted would’ve been impossible. “Left.” you lift your left foot, and he takes that one off, too. when he’s finished, he clutches them together in one hand and whirls around, offering his back to you. “All right, now hop on.”

normally, you would’ve been excited; piggyback rides were always a staple in your friendship, but you felt a strange, sinking guilt as you latch on to him, and he begins to trek the crosswalk. why did he have to come and save you from some creep? why was it his responsibility to make sure you weren’t coaxed into doing something you’d regret? it didn’t seem fair to you— and so, you nuzzle your face into the nape of his neck, arms hanging loosely around his shoulders. “Sorry,” you mumble, half coherent with your cheek smushed into his skin. you can smell the scent of his shampoo, feel the dampness in his short tendrils, and you wonder if he had been just out of the shower, about to lie down and sleep for the night. the thought makes the guilt in you flare.

“C’mon now, don’t say that.” he insists, chortling softly. “You don’t have to be sorry. None of that was your fault, you know that, right? You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”

your lids are heavy, so you close them, your mind beginning to numb with impending exhaustion. “I’m sorry that you have to take care of me… it shouldn’t be up to you.”

Shang-Chi takes a while to respond, because every response upon his tongue would’ve been a confession. his heart was beating wildly out of tempo at the prospect of telling you how he felt, but finally he settles for a, “I’ll always take care of you. You know that, don’t you?”

you don’t answer him. at first, he’s unsure if he’s said something wrong. then, he feels steady breath against the nape of his neck, and he realizes you’d fallen asleep.

maybe next time, he thinks, holding your legs close to his ribs.

[harleybeaumont]

Cordonian Ghost Hunters

Episode 1 - The Decuir Hotel: New Orleans, LA

Book - TRR AU

Pairings - none so far

Synopsis - Three lifelong friends have a terrifying encounter with the paranormal that changes the course of their lives. Determined to find answers, they travel the world, investigating unexplained phenomena and documenting their findings. Drake, the unapologetic skeptic, Max the true believer, and Liam the analytical linchpin that holds the team together become the worldwide sensation known as.. The Cordonian Ghost Hunters. 

A/N - This fic started with me and @angelasscribbles​ discussing how we wanted to write something with a ‘horror feel’ to it, and we both came up with different ideas. Go read hers, if you haven't! Thanks to Angela and @txemrn​ for brainstorming with me and helping me come up with ideas to get this started! And thank you Angela for literally writing the synopsis for me when I finished this fic and couldn’t get my brain to form another coherent thought. Lol

A/N 2-  I plan on having several more chapters as the guys go to different haunted locations across the world. I’m open to location suggestions if you have them. I’m tagging those who are on my perma tag list and a couple others who have asked, but if anyone wants on or off the list let me know! <3

Chapter Warnings - supernatural creepiness, hauntings, language, mentions of death

Word Count - 7,300 (Sorry! This first chapter is long because it explains the backstory of how everything came to be. The next chapters won't be this long!)

Episode 1 - The Decuir Hotel: New Orleans, LA

The air was thick and damp with humidity as they stepped out of the car. The sounds of cicadas and crickets played a melody that filled the warm night air around them. South Louisiana. This was stop number three on their tour of historical locations around America. 

Liam was given permission to take a break from his royal duties after he convinced his father that he needed to travel the world and “find himself.” His older brother Leo had already gone through his social season and was engaged to a gorgeous woman from Monterisso named Katalina. Liam actually liked her, and it was nice seeing his brother happy. He knew they would make a great king and queen for Cordonia someday. 

Liam convinced Drake and Maxwell to travel with him, telling them they could choose the first two stops on their tour of America. 

Their first stop was chosen by Maxwell- Las Vegas. The ‘entertainment capital of the world’ had proven to be just that. During their stay the guys visited several clubs, bars, casinos, shows, and even went skydiving. 

The second stop was chosen by Drake - Tennessee. First they went to Nashville, so Drake could visit where his mother was born. The next stop was the Jack Daniels whiskey tasting tour, which the guys figured was the real reason Drake wanted to go to Tennessee in the first place. 

Liam’s choice surprised everyone - New Orleans, Louisiana. When Maxwell and Drake asked why, he said he always wanted to visit during Mardi Gras. Fortunately for him, the guys had no idea that Mardi Gras was months away, so they didn’t suspect the real reason he wanted to go. Growing up, Liam was always interested in ghost stories and haunted houses, and the rich history in Southern Louisiana intrigued him. He loved watching documentaries about voodoo, haunted old buildings, creepy tombs and graveyards, ghosts and witchcraft. Louisiana had it all. 

Liam grinned as he stepped onto the enormous wrap around porch of the three hundred year old building. “The Decuir Hotel.” He looked up at the imposing structure in awe. “This place is gorgeous, right?”

“It’s something.” Drake said, peering into a window. “I can’t believe they let you rent out this entire hotel for the night. They must think you’re a pompous ass, needing a whole hotel for yourself!” Drake chuckled, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder.

Liam laughed. “Well, they were more than happy to accommodate my request after I gave the staff compensation for missing a night of work. Not to mention paying to rent out every room.”

“Wait..” Max looked at him incredulously. “You sent all the staff home? So.. it’s just us staying here? Not another single person inside?!”

“Nope. We’re just waiting for Bastien’s guys to finish doing a sweep of the building, so we can head inside.”  Liam smirked, turning back to the door. 

“Why did you send all the employees home?” Drake arched an eyebrow.

Liam grinned and shrugged. “To see if it’s really haunted.”

Max and Drake both turned to Liam in surprise. “Li, you can’t be serious.”

Liam ignored Drake, running his hand across the wooden banister. “Wouldn’t that be fascinating though? This hotel is three hundred years old! Can you imagine how many people stayed here over the years?”

“I think it’s creepy.” Max couldn’t help but shiver as he stepped close behind Drake and Liam in front of the old hotel. He wasn’t sure why, but something about this place sent a chill down his spine. He couldn’t help but be curious about the amount of people who probably died here, hell, who were probably killed here. After all, certain parts of the south held a dark history of contemptible injustice and mistreatment. If there were any malevolent spirits, this is probably the place they would hang out at.

Drake clapped Maxwell on the back with a chuckle. “Dude, you don't really believe in ghosts, do you?”

Max glared at him. “Of course I believe in ghosts! And if you knew what was good for you, you would too! Haven’t you seen Poltergeist?!”

Liam gestured behind them toward the two palace guards who had ridden with them in the car. “Max, there is a guard stationed at every door, and-” he checked the text he just got from Bastien. “-they are done with their sweep and it’s completely empty. It’s safe.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Oh ya, I’m sure the fucking undead give a shit about ‘palace guards.’ Dammit Liam, get with the program! They can walk through walls! What makes you think they are going to be intimidated by our meager, mortal forms! We’re just pathetic sacks of flesh to them!”

The loud laugh that burst out of Drake made Maxwell jump in surprise. “What the actual fuck are you talking about, Beaumont?”

“I don’t know!” Max shuddered as he stepped closer to Liam. “I just want to get through this night as quickly as possible.”

Liam paused before opening the door. “You can always sleep in the car if you want.”

“Oh ya, so the Rougarou can bust out the windows and drag me into the night before devouring the flesh from my bones? No thank you.”

Liam shook his head with a smile and pushed open the heavy, ornate door.

The first thing he noticed when stepping into the grand entryway was the smell. It wasn’t a bad smell, just.. old. Slightly musty. Liam was used to being in old places. After all, he lived in a palace with literally hundreds of years of history in it, but something about this place was just different. It was like you were breathing in the life and memories of the building. 

The next thing he noticed was how dark it was. Being that this hotel was built in the 1700’s, of course it originally had no electricity, but renovators had put in lights, plumbing, and (thankfully) air conditioning. Noting that they wanted to keep the historic feel of the building, each room was usually only lit by artificial candles and lanterns. 

The third thing Liam noticed when they entered the foyer was the overall feeling of the building. Something that warmed and chilled him at the same time. It was quiet and empty, yet somehow it felt like the hotel was full of life. Liam couldn’t help but feel a thrill go through him, as this was the exact reason he wanted to come here in the first place. He knew the history here, although he didn’t dare mention it to Maxwell. He couldn’t wait to explore each room further. 

“Your Highness.” Bastien nodded to Liam as he made his way over. “A guard will be stationed outside of your room and at each entrance throughout the night to ensure your safety.”

Liam smiled. “You know what.. That won’t be necessary.”

“But, your father insisted-” 

“You can set up a perimeter outside if you want, but tonight I just want the three of us to be inside.”

Bastien opened and closed his mouth a couple times, trying to decide whether to obey Constantine or Liam in this situation. “Are you sure, sir?”

Liam clapped Bastien on the back. “It’s ok, Bas. I trust that your guys checked this place out thoroughly. It’ll be fine.”

Basien gave the orders for the guards to go outside and once the place was empty, Maxwell looked at him wide eyed. “Liam! What the hell? You said the guards were here and we were gonna be safe from ghosts!”

Drake laughed. “And you said that the guards wouldn’t help anyway. Something about them hating our fleshy sacks or something..” Drake couldn’t help but laugh harder at Maxwell’s indignant expression.

“You know how much I want to laugh at the fact that you just said ‘fleshy sacks’? But I can't! That’s how fucking creeped out I am by this place.”

“If you’re gonna bitch all night, then I’ll lock your ass in a closet.” Drake said as he tossed his bag into a corner of the foyer and plopped down in an antique chair.

“You wouldn’t dare!” Maxwell glared at Drake. “Liam, do you hear what this asshole is-” Max stopped as he realized Liam was removing several different items from his backpack and placing them on the front desk. “What's all that?”

Liam shot a quick glance to Maxwell, then continued unloading his bag. “Just some stuff I thought we could use to maximize our experience here.”

Drake made his way over and picked up what looked like a small camera. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a thermal camera.” Liam grinned. “It can detect the presence of heat energy and can measure thermal changes wherever you point it.”

Drake groaned. “Oh Li, not you too. You really believe in all this haunted shit?”

“Of course I do!” Liam pulled out three walkie talkies and digital recorders. “Get ready boys. Tonight we’re going ghost hunting.”

________________________________________________________

“You can't be serious!” Maxwell backed away, heading toward the front door. “You know what.. I think I’ll take my chances outside with the Rougarou.”

“Go ahead.” Drake gestured to the door. “I know you’re a coward. Go sleep in the car.”

“Coward?” Maxwell glared at Drake with his hands on his hips.

Drake shrugged. “It’s ok, man. I won’t tell anyone that you practically pissed your pants as soon as we got inside.”

“I didn’t! No.. you know what? I’m not sleeping in the car while you post a pic on insta of you and Liam living it up in this hotel with the hashtag ‘max is a pussy.’ Nope. Sorry Drake, I'm staying here.”

Drake shared an amused look with Liam, who turned away to hide his laughter. They knew Max too well and that trick always worked on him. Liam handed Maxwell a walkie talkie and winked. “Ok then. Welcome to the team.”

“Right.” Maxwell took it nervously. “Well, I hardly doubt there will be any ghosts anyway with the Mardi Gras parade coming by. When does it start anyway? I thought there’d be more people outside by now.”

“Errr.. about that..”

_________________________________________________

Liam decided to set up their ghost hunting headquarters in the grand ballroom since it was in the center of the hotel. It had been remodeled slightly, but the ornate artwork, decorations, and sparkling crystal chandelier were authentic to the original design.

“Why is it so dark in here?” Drake asked as he looked around the room. “Did you tell them to keep the lights off to make it extra creepy?”

Liam chuckled as he handed each of them a flashlight. “Something like that.”

Drake picked up several pieces of expensive looking equipment from the table. “How’d you get your old man to let you buy all this stuff? I know he’s not the type to condone ‘ghost hunting’.”

Liam smirked. “Travel expenses.”

“Right.” Drake couldn’t help but chuckle. If Liam was going to waste his fathers money on this, he was all for it. Constantine spent enough of Cordonia’s money on balls and parades and other useless bullshit to promote his image. 

Maxwell sighed defeatedly, only slightly resolved to the fact that he was not going to get to party during Mardi Gras. “What does this do?” Max hesitantly held up something that looked like a walkie talkie with several small buttons on it.

“That’s what they call a ‘spirit box’. It continuously sweeps through different radio frequencies, and entities can manipulate it to talk to us. In real time!” Liam giggled with glee as he turned it on, holding it out so they could hear the radio static and white noise. “It kind of.. Gives them the energy they need to communicate. Hopefully someone will talk to us tonight! Wouldn’t that be awesome!?”

“No, it would not be awesome.” Maxwell shuddered at the thought, and picked up another device from the table. “Don’t tell me ghosts can use a digital recorder to talk to us. Bertrand uses these all the time, then gives them to me to upload to his computer. I told him he could use an app that translates voice to text, but you know he likes the sound of his own voice.”

“Oh ya.” Liam grinned. “We’re each gonna have one of these tonight. We can ask questions, and once we play back the digital recorder, we’ll see if they answered! Might need to upload them to the computer and use a program to sharpen them up or enhance the sound. Think you could do that, Max?”

“Me?” Maxwell’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Ya. You said you do it for Bert all the time.” Liam grinned broadly and clapped Maxwell on the back. “Hey, you can be our tech guy tonight!”

Despite the fear of possibly hearing a voice from ‘the beyond’, Maxwell felt a swell of pride inside that he could actually be useful for once. “O-okay. Ya. Ya, I can do that!” Maxwell grinned, nodding his head enthusiastically. 

“Who’s ready to get started?!” Liam clapped his hands together in excitement and Max jumped back, startled. 

“Shit, Liam.” Maxwell ran his shaking hands through his hair and sat in a chair. “If we’re doing this.. At least tell us what to expect. Like.. What kind of paranormal stuff goes on here?”

Liam sat across from Drake and Maxwell with his hands steepled, trying to look as dramatic as possible. “Let me tell you about Sally. You see, she was the daughter of the former owners of this hotel back in the 1800’s. She was very mischievous, constantly playing tricks on the other guests in the hotel. Well.. unfortunately that led to her untimely demise. She, uh-”

“Don’t.” Maxwell shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope. Don’t wanna hear about the creepy child ghost anymore. Next, please.”

Liam thumbed through some of the papers he had printed out. “Well, there have been various sightings believed to be former guests who perished in the hotel over the years. People have seen a lady in a Victorian dress pass through the halls. Um.. a man in a top hat seems to hang out around the front desk occasionally. But room 413 is the one with the most activity. A woman is said to have died in that very room, and often makes her presence known to the guests who dare to sleep there. Many have even reported finding mysterious scratch marks on their body when they awoke the next morning. It’s where we’re staying tonight.”

“Of course it is.” Maxwell stood up and made his way across the ballroom, flashlight in hand. “Can we at least get a snack in the kitchen first? I’d like to have something sweet for my last meal.”

Drake rolled his eyes and followed Max across the room, heading toward the kitchen. 

“Alright, we can eat first.” Liam chuckled and grabbed his own flashlight, preparing to follow them. The horrific sound of a man’s scream coming from their direction caused his blood to run cold.

“What the hell?” Liam took off after them, sprinting across the ballroom and down the hall toward the kitchen. He froze when he saw Maxwell standing a few feet away from a small girl wearing a white dress. 

“Oh my god, it’s Sally!!” Maxwell shrieked before scrambling back across the room behind Drake.

Just then, the kitchen lights flicked on and Bastien and a man entered. “I apologize if we frightened you all.” The man said with a smile. “I’m the head chef here, Maurice, and this is my daughter Amelia. When she heard there was a real prince staying here, she insisted I bring her along to meet you.”

“Holy shit.” Maxwell whispered in relief, holding his hand over his pounding heart. Drake laughed hysterically and Liam gave Maurice an apologetic smile. 

“I’m sorry Maurice.” Liam nodded politely to the man and crouched down to the little girl's level. “I hope my friends didn’t scare you.” Liam stage whispered to Amelia. “The one wearing the squid shirt is a bit of a chicken.” Amelia put her hand over her mouth and giggled as she looked at Maxwell. 

“It’s quite alright.” Maurice smiled. “I just wanted to let you know that the kitchen is yours for the night. In the refrigerator, I have several Louisiana dishes prepared that you may not be familiar with. But anything you want is yours - Gumbo, etouffee, jambalaya, red beans and rice. Truly, help yourself.”

“Oh my god, yes.” Drake grinned, already helping himself to the contents of the large refrigerator. 

“Thank you so much, Maurice. That’s very kind of you.” Liam chuckled. “We will definitely take you up on that offer.”

Maurice bowed. “Well, we’ll get out of your hair and let you enjoy your night, Your Highness.”

“Wait.” Liam stopped the man, who was following Bastien out of the room. “How long have you been working here?”

“Hmm. I’d say over twenty years.”

Liam nodded. “And have you ever seen anything.. Uh, paranormal here?”

Maurice’s face sobered as he shared a look with his daughter. “I should say so. Just.. don’t provoke them.”

Liam felt a chill run through his body. “What?”

“I’m sorry.” Maurice chuckled. “You must think I’m talking crazy.”

Maxwell and Drake were both listening intently now as well. “No, I don’t think that at all.” Liam said. “Please tell me what you mean.”

“There are several residual spirits here. They’re basically just stuck in time.. Going through the motions day after day, unaware of life carrying on around them.” Maurice lowered his voice, leaning closer to Liam. “And there are some.. Who are very much aware. Some who.. Play tricks, or make their presence known in other ways.”

“Like S-sally?” Maxwell’s voice trembled and he clung to Drake’s bicep tightly.

“Yes. However, she is one of the friendly ones.”

“And some are..” Maxwell gulped. “Unfriendly?”

Maurice forced a smile. “Like I said.. Just.. don’t provoke them and you’ll be fine.” With that, he took his daughter’s hand and followed Bastien out of the room and into the dark hallway. Liam, Drake, and Max stood unmoving in the empty kitchen, as they heard the men's footsteps grow fainter, then the sound of the main doors opening, closing, and locking once again.

“Ok, I changed my mind.” Max wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing them vigorously as if trying to get warm. “I’m not hungry. Definitely lost my appetite.”

“Well I’m not letting this go to waste.” Drake continued piling food onto a plate and put it in the microwave. “You know they’re just telling you what you want to hear. Trying to play into the whole ‘haunted hotel’ thing.”

Liam was still standing in place, while Maurice’s words echoed in his head. ‘Don't provoke them.’ When he bought all the ghost hunting equipment, he had just planned on talking to them.. That wasn’t provoking was it? Nah, he thought. “Drake, you can't seriously think that all the people who have had ghost encounters here and seen the same things are lying. And Maurice has been here for over twenty years! I think he’s telling the truth.”

Drake blew on a spoonful of steaming hot jambalaya. “Naw, man. That’s because you always wanna see the best in everyone. I’m telling you.. It’s all a bit.” Drake took a bite and closed his eyes, savoring the spicy dish. “Oh my god, you have to try this.”

Liam and Max fixed themselves a plate and the three friends sat at a small table in the kitchen discussing the food. Maxwell even seemed to start relaxing as they laughed and joked together. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, and a loud clang echoing from the direction of the ballroom halted their conversation.

The guys looked toward the direction of the sound and then back at each other. Liam wiped his mouth and stood up, making his way toward the door.

“Liam!” Max grabbed his arm to stop his friend. “Don’t! It’s the ghosts! They want us gone!” Max looked frantically around the room, suddenly feeling like there was someone watching him that he couldn’t see.

Drake sighed. “No. It’s probably Bastien again. You gotta tell him to stop letting people in here or Beaumont is gonna shit himself.”

Drake clicked on his flashlight and pushed past Liam, heading down the hall toward the ballroom. There were only a few dim candelabras on the wall lighting his way, and Drake couldn’t help but feel a little creeped out by how dark it was. Not that he thought there were ghosts. No, Drake Walker did not believe in ghosts.. However, the darkness had him feeling like he was not in control of the situation. “Huh.” Drake stopped and furrowed his brow once he reached the table with their equipment. “Li, you must have left the spirit box thingy on the edge of the table.” He stooped down to pick it up.

“No.” Liam shook his head softly. “It was in the middle of the table, Drake.”

Drake rolled his eyes. “Or so you think.”

Liam felt chills go down his spine. He knew he put the spirit box directly in the center of the table. He took it from Drake and clicked it on. The static and random radio noise rang out, echoing through the ballroom. They saw a flashlight streaming into the room as Maxwell entered hurriedly.

Suddenly the spirit box let out a noise that sounded like different syllables being sounded out. Liam quickly gave Max a camera to start filming, while he held the spirit box out in front of him. “Um.. is, uh.. Anyone in here with us?”

The radio crackling stopped for a moment and the three of them heard a distinct “yes.”

Liam’s entire body erupted in goosebumps and he nearly dropped the spirit box in shock. Max was trembling and Drake was looking around wide eyed. Liam summoned all his courage and spoke again. “Um.. do you want to tell us your name?”

Again, static and crackling with just barely a hint of different syllables.

Liam waited with bated breath, but there was nothing. After five more minutes, he sat the spirit box back on the table. “Can you believe that?!” He grinned at Max and Drake.

Drake rolled his eyes. “That thing probably just picked up some trucker’s radio frequency or something.”

Liam and Max both started talking animatedly. 

“No way!

 It was definitely someone trying to contact us!” 

Max shivered. “Or someone trying to tell us to get out!”

“There is a logical explanation for everything!” Drake raised his voice to talk over them.

“John.”

The men halted their conversation and spun back around to the noise that had come from the spirit box. Liam gulped and spoke to the dark, empty room in front of him, “W-what did you say?” 

Once again the static crackled until a distorted, faint, male voice said, “John.”

______________________________________

After another hour of Liam trying to speak to ‘John’ and Maxwell trying not to cry, they decided to move on to a different room. Liam gave Drake the thermal camera, and he and Maxwell each took a night vision camera of their own. 

Liam flipped the camera around to show his face and started talking into it. “Ok, so far we have footage of an EVP from a man named ‘John’-”

Drake cut him off with a smirk. “Unless Max forgot to hit record, or his hands shook so much the camera broke.”

“Hush.” Liam shot Drake a warning look before speaking to the camera again. “Now we're making our way to the front desk where people often see a man with a top hat.”

“I fucking hate this.” Max whispered as they made their way down a long hallway, and Liam turned the camera to focus on Maxwell.

“You’re on camera, Max.” Liam grinned. “Say hi!”

“Ya, hi everyone. Look, if you find my body in the morning, I need to make sure my conscience is clear so that I can move on to the afterlife. Tell Bertrand that a few years ago, I borrowed his toothbrush to get the gunk out of his watch.”

“What?” Drake’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Why would you do that?”

“I had to borrow Bert’s watch one time to impress a date, and by the end of the night we ended up wrestling in the mud. I took off my clothes but forgot about the watch, so of course it got dirty!”

“Mud wrestling? Who the hell did you go mud wrestling with? Surely not a noble!” 

“Oh you’d be surprised.” 

“Who was it!? Oh my god, don’t tell me it was-” Drake stopped himself. “You know what, I don’t wanna know.”

Maxwell sighed. “So anyway, I had to clean the dried dirt and whatever else out of the watch and I wasn't about to use my own toothbrush, because eww!”

Drake rubbed a hand down his face in exasperation. “Why didn’t you just get a new toothbrush to clean it? Surely there were extras in your house? Or why didn’t you use literally anything else to clean it besides your brother’s fucking toothbrush!?”

“Drake, if I knew the answer to that question, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place!”

“Shut up, both of you.” Liam scolded them quietly, once they reached the lobby where the front desk was located. “Drake, turn on the thermal camera and look around.”

“Yes sir.” Drake mocked and fiddled with the camera until it was turned on.

“Let me know if you see anything.” Liam whispered.

Drake sighed and scanned the room, turning in a slow circle. He paused for a moment, and looked up from the camera, then back at it again. “Liam, what’s this purplish blue spot?” He asked in confusion. 

Liam ran over to Drake and looked down at the camera where a tall form, resembling a human, appeared unmoving across the room. “That means there's something cold over there.” Liam whispered while chills once again ran down his spine.

Drake spoke quietly, desperately trying to keep a level head. “That must be like.. From the AC or something, right?”

Max scurried behind the two of them, glancing down at the thermal camera and wishing he hadn’t. “Oh shit. It’s gotta be the top hat guy. Oh shit, oh shit.”

Liam aimed his camera down at the thermal camera screen, then back up to the empty spot across the room. When he looked back down at the thermal camera, the image was gone. “Oh my god.” He whispered.

“Maybe.. Uh.” Drake stammered. “Maybe the AC shut off and that’s why it’s gone.”

Liam and Max both gave him a deadpan stare, and Drake looked away uncomfortably. 

Liam grinned as a thrill ran through his body, then turned the camera to face himself once again. “So that’s TWO different paranormal encounters we’ve had so far in just a matter of hours! Agh, I can't wait to get to our room and communicate with the spirits in there!”

“Wait, what?!” Max whirled around to face his friend. “Maurice said don’t provoke them!”

“I'm not going to provoke them! Just.. talk to them a little. And see if they want to talk back.”

Drake remained silent as he followed the two of them up the stairs, still holding the thermal camera out in front of him, scanning as he walked. Once they reached the fourth floor, they made their way down the hallway, pausing at door number 413.

Liam entered first with his camera on night vision, scanning the room slowly. “Drake, you got anything on the thermal?”

Drake checked the room and shook his head. Liam flipped on the lights and saw that their bags had already been brought up for them. He dropped down on the bed. “Well it’s 2 am, we can go around the hotel with the spirit box and digital recorders, or stay in here and see if we get anything. What do you guys wanna do?”

“Sleep.” Drake said with a yawn.

“You can’t be serious!” Liam looked at him in dismay. “We’re not going to sleep yet! We have a whole haunted hotel to ourselves for the night, we have to make the most out of it!”

“Look, I’m tired as shit from all the traveling we’ve done lately. And I don’t want to stay up all night trying to talk to or video things that aren't there!”

“Fine! Go!” Liam waved him away. “But you can stay in another room. I have work to do.”

Drake rolled his eyes and grabbed his bag off the floor, slinging it over his shoulder. “I didn’t want to sleep in that little bed with the two of you anyway!”

Liam gave Drake the master keycard and he made his way a few doors down, opening a room for himself.

Liam lay back on the bed and sighed in exasperation. Why was Drake always so difficult? “Well Max, I guess it’s just the two of us.”

“I never thought I'd say this but.. I’m kinda with Drake.”

Liam bolted upright. “What?!”

“Not that I don’t believe in ghosts.. I’ve just kinda had my fill. I’d rather stay in a room that’s not haunted and get some sleep.”

“Max, not you too!”

“Sorry..” Maxwell gave him an apologetic glance before heading out and down the hallway to get the keycard from Drake. “I’ll take the room next to yours, ok Liam? Well.. maybe not right next to yours in case the ghost forgets which room is theirs and accidentally go into mine. I’ll be a couple doors down and across the hall.”

“Fine.” Liam waved him away with a sigh. He set up a camera on a tripod in the corner of the room and turned on the digital recorder. “Guess I’m doing this on my own.”

That night, Maxwell and Drake both lay in bed in different rooms of the Decuir Hotel preparing for a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards.

_____________________________________________

Drake

After a long shower, Drake pulled on a tshirt and sweatpants, brushed his teeth, and climbed into the plush, queen sized bed. It was already 3 am, and he was exhausted. Tonight had been a ridiculous waste of time. Liam seemed to enjoy it, and Drake enjoyed laughing at Maxwell, but all this ghost and haunted business was just absurd. There was a logical explanation for everything. Everything! Sure the voice in the ballroom was.. weird. And the cold ‘figure’ across the room in the lobby was.. unusual, but that didn’t mean it was anything that couldn’t be explained. Drake pulled the blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes.

He lay in bed trying to relax, hoping that he could fall asleep, when a rush of cold air blew across his cheek. He opened his eyes and touched his face. Must be the air conditioner. Yep, that’s all. He rolled over on his side in the pitch black room, facing the door to the hallway. A faint but firm pressure on his leg caused him to bolt upright and kick off the blankets, certain that a rat or something was crawling on the bed. He threw on the lights and searched the entire room, but found nothing. Drake couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine, but he reprimanded himself. He was just being stupid. Maxwell and Liam must have gotten to him. The room was quiet, the only sound coming from the occasional car driving past from the street below. A soft buzz filled his ears and the bedroom lights flickered slightly.

“What the fuck..” Drake reached up and tapped the lightbulb a few times and it stopped. He chuckled to himself. “See, theres a reasonable explanation for everything.”

“Drake.” 

A blast of cold air against the back of his neck and the sound of his name uttered in an echoing whisper, caused him to dash across the room. He fumbled for the thermal camera that was on the dresser and clicked it on, pointing it to where he had just been standing. His breathing was erratic as he watched a cold figure move across the room and disappear completely. 

_________________________________________________

Maxwell

The first thing Maxwell did when he entered his room was flip on every light: the bedroom, all the lamps, bathroom, and even the closet. Next was the television. He turned on a rerun of SNL so that he could lighten his mood and fill the room with some kind of happiness to cover the fact that everywhere in this hotel felt dark and creepy. He realized he still had the camera Liam had given him, and he turned the screen toward him and pushed record. “So, it is now exactly 3 am, aka the witching hour. I am officially resigning from this ghost hunting stuff that Liam was so kind to spring on me under the pretense of being able to party my ass off at Mardi Gras!” He shook his head in mock offense, speaking to the camera with a grin. “Thanks a lot, Liam! I could have tons of plastic beads around my neck right now, but noooo! I’m in the fucking Stanley hotel, feeling like any minute, someone is going to yell ‘REDRUM’ from out in the hallway! Like seriously-” 

A noise from the hallway stopped him, and Max turned toward the door with a jerk. 

He crawled to the edge of the bed slowly, trying not to make a sound as he listened intently. A distant childlike laugh from the other side of his door left his body frozen in terror. “What the-” Maxwell whispered and remembering he still had the camera in his hands, aimed it toward the door to the hallway. He muted the tv and climbed out of bed, nervously making his way across the room toward the door. Suddenly, he heard the heavy thumping of someone running down the hallway, and the jovial childlike laughter filled his ears once again.

Maxwell’s body was flooded with adrenaline and before he realized what he was doing, he threw open the door and stuck his head out into the hallway. Instead of seeing a child, he caught a quick glimpse of a man in the distance with brown hair turning the corner at the far end of the hallway. “Damn it, Drake! Fuck you, that’s not funny!”

Max went back inside his room and slammed the door closed in frustration. He tossed the camera onto the bed and stalked into the bathroom to wash his face. As he looked in the mirror, he heard the laughter once again outside of his door. He shook his head and yelled out, “I never knew you could make your voice that high pitched, Walker. Fuck off!”

Instead of another laugh, this time there was a knock at the door. Followed by another, louder series of knocks, that became more insistent. Max sighed and threw the door open. “Yes, Dra-”

No one.

Max peeked his head out but once again the long hallway was empty and completely silent. Then the heavy thumping of feet running across the floor echoed through the hallway, growing louder and louder as they seemed to get closer to his room. Max dashed back inside and slammed the door behind him, locking it and crawling under the blankets trembling as he pulled out his phone to call Liam. No signal. Of course.

_____________________________________________

Liam

With his friends abandoning him, Liam was determined to get more hard evidence by himself. He sat on the bed with a camera on a tripod across the room facing him, and the spirit box on the dresser beside him. “Ok.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s see how haunted this room really is.”

Liam turned off the lights and closed his eyes. “Is there anyone here with me?”

Silence.

He chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought. “I know you’re here. Come talk to me.”

Silence.

Liam sighed. He wanted more evidence. No, he needed more evidence. He needed to show Drake and Max what they missed out on by not staying. Don’t provoke them. Nah, he wasn’t going to provoke them.. Just tease them a little to get them to respond. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and grabbed the digital recorder, pressing record. If the spirit box wasn’t picking anything up, maybe the digital recorder would show something when they reviewed it later. He checked the clock on the bedside table. 2:59 am. 

 “Come on, talk to me. Show yourself! I want to show my friends that you’re real.” Liam knew Max would hate him for saying this, but he needed results. “If you won’t talk to me, go talk to them! They’re just a few doors away. They’d love to meet you.”

Silence.

The spirit box still only crackled with the same old static, and not a single blip. “What, are you afraid of me?!” Liam raised his voice, trying to bait someone into responding. He decided to channel his inner Olivia.. If that didn’t work, he didn’t know what would. “Wow.. I thought the spirits here would be more impressive, but you are pathetic! This has really been a waste of my time.”

Liam waited for what seemed like an eternity, listening intently.

The spirit box made a few incoherent noises that sent shivers down his spine. Someone took the bait.

A robotic sounding female voice manifested over the static. “No.”

Liam’s breath quickened and his heart was beating a mile a minute. “No? What do you mean no? No, you don’t want to talk to me?”

The spirit box crackled again. “Go.”

Liam had goosebumps on top of his goosebumps. He tried to speak, but his voice cracked and his throat was dry. “A-are you telling me to go, or to not go?”

Silence.

Liam furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of this. Maybe Drake was right. Maybe this was just picking up someone's radio frequency or something. He turned on the lights and searched through his backpack for the thermal camera, then remembered Drake had it. Liam reached out for the doorknob when suddenly a stinging pain radiated down his forearms and the spirit box crackled with the same distorted female voice.

“Stay.”

_________________________________________________

“Never again!” Maxwell shook his head as he made his way out of the hotel and onto the sidewalk, where the sun shone brightly. “God, I can’t wait to get out of here and get back to my normal, boring, unhaunted home!”

Drake hadn’t spoken a word all morning, but followed behind Max. “Ya, I’m ready to get home too.”

Maxwell quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really?! Mr. I-don't-believe-in-ghosts! Something happened to you too last night, didn’t it?”

“Nah. I slept like a baby.” Drake looked away, trying to seem nonchalant. There was no way in hell he was going to speak a word about what happened in his room last night. He wasn’t even sure what had happened. “I just miss my whiskey cellar.”

“Of course.” Max chuckled as he sat his bag down on a bench on the street. The city was alive again and people hurried past on their way to work or wherever their busy lives took them. Faint jazz music poured out of a nearby cafe where patrons enjoyed coffee and beignets. A souvenir shop across the street with a display window full of alligator heads and tie dye t-shirts, flipped their sign to ‘open’. A man and woman busking outside of a nearby library sang zydeco music while playing the accordion.

Liam shook the hotel manager’s hand, thanking him, before following his friends out to the street. “Well, that was an experience we’ll never forget.”

Maxwell shuddered. “But my therapist will be working overtime to try and remedy that.”

They climbed into the back of the limo and Max checked his Instagram account. “Guys, oh my god.”

“What’s up?” Liam leaned over to view Maxwell’s phone.

“I put some of the footage on Instagram early this morning, because God knows I wasn’t sleeping. Hell, I may never sleep again.” Maxwell shook his head to clear the memories from the night before. “But anyway.. I uploaded some of the footage, and people are loving it!”

Drake scoffed. “Yes I’m sure dozens of people around Cordonia have liked it.”

“Try 3.3 million people around the world in the last 2 hours.” Max smirked, holding it out for Drake to see. “They’re calling us the Cordonian ghost hunters.”

Liam chuckled. “That’s cute.”

Maxwell scrolled through thousands of comments, in awe. “Guys.. we’re famous!”

Drake rolled his eyes, taking a bite of a croissant that Bastien had picked up for them that morning. “You know Liam is literally a prince. He doesn’t need this to make him famous.”

Maxwell grinned as he read. “Oh my god, Drake, you're famous! Listen to this. ‘Drake Walker is so hot! Like, can I die and come back as a ghost so I can haunt him?’”

Drake blushed and snatched the phone. “It doesn’t say that!”

“Does too!” Max grabbed the phone back, and soon they were all laughing and smiling at the comments.

“This was fun.” Liam grinned at his friends as they made their way down the road toward the airport, preparing to return to Cordonia.

“I mean..” Drake shrugged. 

Max smiled. “If you overlook the paralyzing terror and traumatizing memories that will haunt me for the rest of my life.. Then ya, it was fun!”

Liam couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face as an idea brewed in his head. “What if.. We became the Cordonian ghost hunters? Like, for real.”

Drake and Max looked at Liam and back at each other. Liam spoke up again. “We could travel all around the world. People could send us recommendations for different haunted places and we could stay there and film it.”

“Seriously?” Drake arched an eyebrow and smirked. “This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you don’t want to go back home and start training for a spot on the council, would it?”

Liam feigned offense. “Of course not!”

Max continued to scroll through his phone in awe. “We could make our own insta page for it! Ahh! Guys, let’s do it!”

“Really?!” Drake asked in disbelief. “You were scared shitless back there! You want to go to more ‘haunted’ places and do that all over again?”

“Not really!” Max shrugged. “But come on, we’re badass ghost hunters! How fucking cool is that?”

Liam laughed and the two of them stared at Drake hopefully. After a moment he threw his hands up and sighed. “Fine. Fine, let’s do it.”

“Yes!” Max began shimmying in his seat excitedly.

Liam knocked on the privacy window between the front and back seats, and Bastien rolled it down. “Bastien, change of plans. We’re not going back to Cordonia. We’re going to hunt more ghosts.”

“Sir?” Bastien looked at Liam incredulously.

Drake chuckled. “Ya, Bas, just don’t let any more random people into the hotel in the middle of the night and scare Max to death again.”

“I'm confused.” Bastien furrowed his brow as he looked between the three friends curiously. “Let random people into the hotel?”

“He means the chef and his daughter.” Max said as he chewed a croissant. “Which by the way, did he make these? They're freaking delicious!”

Bastien still looked utterly lost. “I didn’t let anyone into the hotel last night. Liam, you told me that no one was to enter, so not a soul passed through those doors until morning. Not even me.”

The three friends stared at each other in horror, as they made their way through the busy streets in South Louisiana. The air was thick and damp with humidity and the cicadas and crickets played a melody that filled the warm air.

 Max took a deep breath and added a comment to the page. “Where should we go next?”

[utilitycaster]

May I ask why you are not too upset about the idea that Orym, Fearne, and maybe Laudna have perma died? To me, it feels like such an uninteresting and jagged pill to swallow, but I’m interested in your perspective.

So, actually, I am upset, notably about Fearne who I really like and whose story interests me. I both like Orym as a character within the game, and also have a lot of issues with his character concept, and therefore I find myself feeling really conflicted here in that like...Liam can do so much better, and this feels like at least a somewhat more apt ending for him than for Fearne, but it still does not feel great. I'm not counting my chickens before they...die, so I'm not really counting Laudna here in my considerations even though her death is possible and I'd find it...complicated in the way Orym's is re: character concept, and more unsatisfying. With that said, I agree that none of the deaths feel well done or satisfying.

But more generally: my throughline for a while has been that I've felt the pacing and character prep has felt off, and I've been very open about this, and so this is to an extent a "maybe if you burn enough down, something more interesting will arise from the ashes". This is something of a tangent that I won't get into because it's getting late but I've been talking a lot, but I am more interested in the plots that aren't related to the whole moon/assassin stuff, even though I genuinely love moon and deity lore and want to see Ludinus, because the moon stuff has just been lore dropped and shoved down our throats unendingly, whereas the Gorgynei and Hishari and Aeormaton stuff have all been enticingly vague. It's at a point where I'm like "maybe if we kill off/Dark Phoenix control the people with moon connections, and Treshi, and hell, Eshteross, we can have a story that it actually feels the characters are running instead of being run through." It is absolutely not ideal. I will not like it. But it feels like one of the better options.

[genevievemd]

6 for E and G and 19 and 30 for B and N (combined or separate you choose 😘)

A Kiss of Relief

Book: Open Heart (Bk 2, Ch 11) Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Genevieve McClure) Word Count: 339 Rating: T Category: Angsty Fluff Trope(s):

Summary: Ethan gives in to his desires once Gen is free from the toxin. 

Warnings: none

A/N: Not me writing another thing for ch 11... but like this prompt was meant for it. 

(tags under readmore)

Sweet Affectionate Moments Prompts

His arms wrap around her, holding Genevieve against him as tightly as he dares. Feeling her tears mingle with his own in the somewhat empty hallway. 

The last twenty-four hours have been the most agonizing of his life. Proving to Ethan once and for all that Gen had become so much more than his resident, his friend. She was the love of his life, even if it was too soon to admit it to anyone but himself. 

The reset, the distance, his dimwitted convictions, none of it mattered anymore. 

The only thing that mattered now was finding a way to be with her, completely. 

Ethan pulls back, feeling eternally grateful when his rookie looks up at him with hopeful, joyful, green eyes. Their shared smiles saying more than words ever could. 

Taking a breath, he looks up and down the hallway, cataloguing the few nurses still moving about the floor. Taking down hazmat signs and restriction tape. Without giving himself a moment to overthink, Ethan moves his hands to her arms, gently walking then back into the room and away from prying eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Gen looks up at him again, whispering in confusion.

“I need to make sure we don’t have an audience.” 

“For what?” 

Slowly, Ethan cradles her face in his hands, the cool touch of her skin so soothing it brings tears to his eyes. He dips down, delicately pressing his lips to hers. Both sighing in relief at the sensation of kissing again. 

Something he hasn’t done since the asinine softball game against Mass Kenmore weeks ago. And something he hasn’t stopped thinking about since. 

Before they get carried away, Ethan pulls back. Eyes closing and resting his forehead against her own. 

“Let’s get you to a new room.” 

“Okay.” Her voice still stays at a whisper, as if she’s afraid to break whatever spell he’s been cast under.

But it would never be broken, and Ethan fully intends of losing himself completely to her enchantment the moment she’s released from the hospital.

A/N: Short and Sweet

Tag Lists:

Perma: @terrm9 @potionsprefect @iemcpbchoices @lacroixrookie @coffeeheartaddict2 @queencarb @lucy-268 @custaroonie @maurine07 @gryffindordaughterofathena @ohchoices @choicesaddict5 @fireycookie @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @oldminniemcg @kalinahonore @taniasethi @mrs-ramsey @shanzay44 @stygianflood @uneravine @openheartfan @fayeswiftie @stateofgracious @sophxwithers @estellaelysian @mm2305 @withbeautyandrage-archive @udishaman @mercury84choices @silma-words @headoverheelsforramsey @iloveethanramsey @choiceskatie @mainstreetreader @bizarrestarrysky @starryeyedrookie @itsjustwinter @rebekah-trader @dorisz @quixoticdreamer16 @lady-calypso @writer-ish @perriewinklenerdie @sophiexx34 @lsvdw-blog @toadfrog26 @ilikeyellingatmyscreen @somersetmummy  @tsrookie @caroldxnvxrs @lilaccatholic @mia143 @wanderingamongthewildflowers @liaromancewriter @pixelnutrookie @chemist-ana @crazy-loca-blog @rookiemartin @natureblooms24 @dr-addieramsey @rosebudde @anonymousrookie @peonierose @jerzwriter

Fic: @overwhelminglyaquarius @me-and-my-choices @schnitzelbutterfingers @a-crepusculo @drakewalkerfantasy @adrex04 @drariellevalentine @openheartthot  @aworldoffandoms  @elwetritsche75 @emotionalswift2 @thegreentwin @starrystarrytrouble @utterlyinevitable @jooous  @xxsugarplumfluffsxx @alexabeta @nikki-2406 @jamespotterthefirst @vi-writes-stuff @audburn 

[liberty-barnes]

The Braid

Kaz Brekker x Reader

Request: Hi! I saw your comeback sleepover post! If you’re up for it and want to, could you do prompt #3 “stop moving and let me braid your hair” with Kaz Brekker from Shadow and Bone? Thank you!!!

Warnings: mentions of Kaz’s touch aversion, fluffy shit

Word Count: 630 words

Estimated Reading Time: 2.5 minutes

A/N: Kaz deserves all the good in the world and anyone that says otherwise will meet my fists with their face.

Masterlist | Miah’s Comeback Sleepover

You took your hair out of its ponytail for what felt like the hundredth time in the last five minutes. Your last hair tie has reached that point. You know the one. The point where three loops are too tight and give you unforgiving headaches, but two loops aren’t tight enough, and it comes apart every thirty seconds.

Still, it was better to have to constantly redo it than to spend the rest of your night with your head pounding.

“What about here?”

You pointed at the southeast entrance, expertly retying your hair while Kaz looked over your proposition.

“That could work, but guards pass by every thirty seconds so we’d have a very small window of opportunity.”

You nodded and leaned on your elbows, hair already starting to droop.

“That does sound a bit tight. Let’s try to find a better option and keep this as a plan B.”

You went back to analysing the blueprints, feeling your hair falling further and further. When you went to fix up your hair, Kaz’s voice rang out.

“Why don’t you just braid it so it doesn’t keep falling?”

You looked at him and shrugged.

“Takes too long. Don’t have the patience. Makes my arms hurt to have them up for so long.”

He rolled his eyes harder than anyone should be able to.

“Well, it’s distracting to have you fix up your hair every five minutes.”

You huffed, and kept it down, putting the hair tie around your wrist. The next few minutes were spent looking for more possible entrances, shutting down every single one of them, and blowing your hair out of your face.

“Okay, that’s it.”

Kaz brought one of the padded benches closer to his chair and motioned for you to sit down.

“What are you doing?”

“Ending this madness, now sit.”

You did as told. Despite being your… something… Kaz was still one of the deadliest men you’ve ever met. It’s best not to test your luck.

You felt his gloved hands running through your hair, undoing the knots as best he could without a brush before a medium-sized chunk of your hair from near your forehead was being separated into the three.

“Wha-”

You tried to turn towards the mirror on your left, trying to see what he was doing, but a quick pull of your hair stopped you.

“Stop moving and let me braid your hair.”

You stilled right away, feeling him take strands of hair periodically to add to the growing braid running down the middle of your head.

“So, where’d you learn to french braid?”

You could feel him tensing behind you, probably ready to say that it’s none of your business. Fortunately for your curiosity, Kaz had been making an effort to be more open with you.

“I used to have long hair when I was younger. I learned how to braid so I’d keep the hair out of my face during heists before I got tired of it and decided to cut it off.”

Two whole sentences’ worth of information about his past. You smiled and closed your eyes, simply enjoying his fingers running through your head. A year ago, it would have been impossible for you to even sit this close to him, and yet, here you were, with his hands in your hair and feeling his body heat closer than you ever had before.

You took the hair tie from your wrist and raised it towards him with two fingers so he wouldn’t have to touch yours if he didn’t want to. Braiding your hair was already a huge step.

You felt the very tip of his gloved fingers brush yours and stay for a couple of seconds before he tied off the braid.

“There. Now I can focus.”

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

Taglists: (if your name is striked through it means for some reason tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you)

PERMA TAG

@adriannajackson123 @evermoreholland @inlovewithmobtom @andycanbeemotional @officiallyunofficialperson @lost-in-the-stars03 @jeezkiddo @a-singleboat @parkersbliss @highlydisfunctional1 @inthecornerchair @harishaanne @anjalika03 @peterspideyy @lozzypoz321 @mendes-marvel @sovereignparker @sofyluv17 @dracoswhore007

SHADOW AND BONE

@thegirlwiththeimpala @olkathechaoticfox

[hopelessromantic1352]

New Beginnings - Chapter 9

The next couple/few chapters may be short, but I’m loving where this series is headed. This chapter is more jealous Thomas and shows how this couple is battling their own issues separately.

Word Count: 1,625

Warnings: None

Perma tags: @drstrange46ers

Thomas tags: @alleksa16 @alj4890 @choicesmakemychoices @marycarrillo21 @lxaah11 @kuladekiwi @ajayismybae @choices-dan @miss-indecisive-says @mfackenthal @ethanplaysfavorites @amillionmoonsred @usuallyamazinglyaverage @thethots-plicken @hhiggs @jlpplays1 @lilyoffandoms

“Alex, I can’t take it anymore.” Samuel motions between the two of them, “I can’t stop myself anymore.”

Alexandria grins up at him with a warm smile, nearing him slowly, “So you feel the same?”

Nearly growling, he sweeps her up in his arms, “I have since I first met you.”

The two embrace a passionate kiss, on screen their lust will be palpable, but between Ryan and Natalia it’s a bit awkward. Anyone watching couldn’t tell the difference, but that meant trouble for a certain someone in charge.

Thomas’ jaw clenches so tightly a sharp pain shoots through his teeth, his hands grip the armrests of his director’s chair and his knuckles turn white from the force. He is trying to stay quiet, he knows it’s just for the movie, he knows there are no feelings there and he knows it’s not real. But, lord, it feels real.

When the actors break away, an adoring look is on Natalia’s pretty face. Her hand slips up to Samuel’s jaw, caressing it softly. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

“Cut!”

His voice, more like a roar, carried so much frustration, anger, and pure loathing than he intended. It rang out so loud the entire studio was silent afterwards.

When all eyes settle on him, including Natalia’s worried orbs, he stares at Ryan with a deep scowl.

“Prepare for the next scene.” He stands, walking to the craft services table and getting himself a cup of coffee.

He immediately takes a drink, ignoring the burn of his mouth. When Natalia sidles up to him, pouring herself a cup of hot water and adding an earl grey tea bag, she quietly clears her throat.

“What did I do wrong?”

Thomas bristles at the question, “What did you do wrong?”

Surprised by the elevated tone in his voice, she widens her eyes and snaps her focus to him. Her hand stills on the spoon stirring her tea.

“Surprisingly, you did nothing wrong. You have been nothing but perfect. I am not certain if this was a good idea.” He angrily motions to the entire set.

“What do you—“

Thomas cuts her off quickly.

“Nothing. Continue on, I know you are enjoying this.”

He stalks off, leaving his nearly full cup of black coffee steaming on the table.

Her eyebrows furrow together in confusion and her bottom lip trembles as she begins backing away from the table.

Overhearing everything, Ryan had come up behind them.

“Natalia, wait.” Ryan reaches for her, but she shakes her head and turns away, going to the empty film room.

She slams the door, the sound echoing through the silent studio. Thomas sags in his chair, running hand over his face while whispers carry out over the room.

“What is going on between those two?”

“Haven't you heard? She’s staying at his house.”

“So she slept her way into this deal?”

Thomas turns his menacing voice on the crew gossiping. “If I were you three, I would shut my mouth before one, or all of you lose your jobs. Ms. York has exuded talent that not only sent her book to the New York Times bestseller list, but also caught my eye and my agent’s eye. Not only is she a talented author, as you can clearly see with your own deplorable eyes, she is quite talented at acting.”

The three crew members nod in agreement and scurry away as quickly as they can. Thomas lets out a deep breath through his teeth, running a hand through his hair and groaning quietly.

“Hunt, we need to talk.” Ryan’s usually charming voice is clipped and he wears an irritated look on his face.

Thomas turns, raising an eyebrow, “About?”

“Natalia turned me down because of you, right?” He watches as his old friend tenses, but his face shows no emotion. “You could have just come to me. We’ve been friends for how long? If I had known, I never would’ve jeopardized anything between you two.”

The director feels his body sag with… relief and embarrassment. Although his face is devoid of emotion, he nods, showing the gratefulness in his eyes.

“I should have acted with more maturity than I did. This was not something I was certain about until recently.” After clearly his throat, Thomas continues, “You always have been the heartthrob in Hollywood. I am just the old… grouch, as Holly refers to me.”

Ryan smirks goodnaturedly, “Well, obviously you got something she likes more than what I’ve got. And that’s saying something.” He winks and grips his friend’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about me. I want the best for you.”

After a tight nod and thank you, Thomas goes to inform Holly that they are finished for the day.

“I agree that we had a good day going and got a lot done, but what in the heck happened back there?” The screenwriter’s baffled and exasperated look earns her a frown from the director.

“A mistake. Now, if you do not mind, send everyone home. I have something that requires my immediate attention.”

Buttoning his blazer, Thomas stalks towards the film room, ignoring the dispersing crew. When he arrives outside the door, he knocks softly. After no response, he knocks louder.

“Natalia? It’s Thomas. I have something I want… no, I need to say.”

He hears a muffled sniffle and then footsteps, followed by the door unlocking. Although it remains closed, he takes that as an invitation. Slowly, carefully, he opens the door and sees the beautiful woman who he’s taken with sitting on the floor against the wall. Tears stain her cheeks and her eyes are red, her arms are wrapped around herself. When her eyes finally look up at him, he sees the brokenness clouding them.

Thomas shakes his head, mumbling obscenities at himself, as he reaches her, he kneels down in front of her. “Natalia, I came to apologize.”

She doesn’t look up at him again, urging him to continue, “Jealousy… is not something I am familiar with. Not to this extent. What I feel for you is more intense than anything I have ever felt for any person. Seeing you and Summers locked in a… passionate embrace, albeit fake, was still difficult for myself to watch. I know you do not see anything in him, but when I cannot openly express the fondness my heart feels for you, it…”

“Hurts?” She finally looks up at him, eyes dried but still red rimmed and her voice is hoarse. “Because believe me, I understand.”

Watching him wince was satisfying for Natalia, but she allows him to continue.

“I am beyond sorry, Natalia. I am angry at myself for hurting you and not putting your emotions first. I understand if you stay angry at me for some time, I just wanted to ensure I made you know that I regret my actions entirely.”

Thomas stands, brushing his knees off and turns, heading for the door. Hearing her clear her throat makes him stop. He slowly turns and she walks quickly to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“We have both seen sides of people who betrayed us, I understand where you are coming from, but after last time… I just assumed you got over whatever got under your skin. We talked, I reassured you, we made up.” Natalia’s cheek presses against his chest and he presses his hand against the back of her head, the other on her waist.

“I know. I am truly sorry.”

They both enjoy a moment of silence, basking in each other’s comfort. When Thomas steps back, he places a gentle hand under her chin, lifting it softly so he can kiss her. It’s the sweetest kiss they’ve shared. He tries to convey his regrets into it, showing her how much he cares for her. As they break apart, her eyes may still be red, but they hold the care and comfort he was accustomed to.

“I also had something else weighing on my mind.” He runs a hand through his hair, clearing his throat. “I want to fly to New York soon so we can film scenes there as well.”

Natalia’s eyes snap to his, her shoulders tensing visibly. “When?”

His cheeks burn slightly under her scrutinizing gaze, “As soon as possible. I spoke with the mayor, he will allow us to film in Central Park and if there is a street that we need to use, he will assist in any way possible.”

“Thomas, if it is something that must absolutely happen, I will not put up a fight. It will be lovely to go back to New York, I just… I have no doubt my family will find out as well.”

He sees her chewing on her bottom lip, her forehead creased with worry and her fingers tremble slightly as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Knowing this is causing an undeniable amount of stress, he goes to her and holds her in a tight embrace.

“No matter the circumstances, I will be beside you every step of the way.” Closing his eyes, he presses a lingering kiss to the top of her head. “I must say, although I have been to New York multiple times, going with you is something I very much look forward to.”

Feeling him and hearing his reassurances allow her to melt. It reminds her of why she fell for the man and why she trusts him completely. While her trust and comfort in him is absolute, the wretched memories of her father and that lifestyle still linger in the forefront of her mind.

There was a reason she left and that reason will find her as soon as she steps foot onto their soil.

[gryffindordaughterofathena]

TWIN FLAMES

Book : Open Heart

Pairing : Jackie Varma x Aurora Emery

Word Count : 132 words

Rating : General

Category : Fluff

Trope : None

Warning : None

Summary : They are twin flames, burning together in an endless flame.

A/N : @headoverheelsforramsey sent me the prompt "how dare (you)" for A and J, hope you like it Sruti 💜

<<send me a prompt for a microfic>>

Swirling brown meets steadfast black.

And neither looks away. Challenging the other to fold.

Neither does.

Endless emotions float in the air surrounding them, teasing, taunting, daring, accusing.

Testing the boundary of friendship and romance.

Accusing each other, holding each other accountable.

Brown eyes say, how dare you make me feel?

Black eyes reply, how dare you twist my heart?

Black counters, how dare you hold my beating heart in the palm of your hand?

Brown screams, how dare you tear me apart?

And they leap together. Friendship. Attraction. Love. Two beating hearts. Two fluttering souls. Two slender hands. Four closed eyes. Intertwined together twisting turning weaving together.

And in the moment of greatest weakness (or strength?) their lips come together.

Eyes do the speaking, hearts beat, moments swirl in the depths of emotions....

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+

@choicesficwriterscreations | @openheartfanfics

[jamespotterthefirst]

Most Beautiful (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC  (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 600 Summary: Their first morning together. Set after the events of Ch. 15, Book 1 Warning: Alluded adult content 

Prompt: #48. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”   50 Ways to Say “I Love You” prompts

Ethan tore his eyes away from his bedroom ceiling as she stirred next to him. Halfway between sleep and consciousness, she mumbled something against his chest and he grinned, grateful she was still half asleep and unable to see. Her warm hand settled on his chest, right above his beating heart. It was a wonder that its fierce rhythm, pounding against his skin like a drum, was not enough to jolt her awake.

 It was the first time they awoke together, after a long night (and morning) of getting lost in one another. The blissful hours spent worshiping every inch of her body would remain embossed in his mind for the rest of his days, he was sure of it. Now, in the pale gray light of the dawn, the reality of their situation started to slowly settle into place like a thick, suffocating fog. 

Despite how lost to the world they had been only hours prior, there would still be a trial. The fate of the career she had worked so hard to attain would be decided soon. And regardless of her loving reassurances, Ethan still felt responsible. If he hadn't failed her… If he hadn't fallen in love with her… None of this would have happened. 

Yet, his stomach swooped when her bare body scooped closer to his, seeking the comfort that was hers and always would be. Feeling selfish, his eyes hungrily fell on her peaceful, sleeping face. He traced every detail from the graceful slope of her nose, to the rosy pout of her lips—lips that were currently curling into a sleepy smile. 

“I can feel you staring, you know.” Her voice was thick with sleep. 

Ethan laughed softly, unabashed at being caught. She opened her eyes to peer up at him, only to beam and join in on his amusement. 

“Good morning,” she said, sitting up on the bed. Ethan missed the warmth of her body at once. 

“Good morning,” he replied, still admiring how lovely she looked by morning light. This had become his favorite way of seeing her. 

Lilac, on the other hand, must've guessed where his thoughts were because she blushed and jumped out of bed in a haste, pulling the sheets to cover her body. She stopped in front of the mirror mounted above his dresser and groaned when she took in her reflection. 

“Oh God, I look like a mess.” 

Her fingers moved to comb out the messy knots of her hair. It was a shame because it was the sexiest part about her current appearance. Ethan was behind her in seconds, his arms embracing her from behind, his fingers skimming the exposed skin of her thigh. 

“Why didn't you tell me I looked like this?” 

“Like what? Like you spent the whole night in my bed?” 

Lilac had no reply. Probably because he was currently distracting her by kissing the column of her neck. 

“Besides,” Ethan said in a low, husky murmur against her throat. “I was too distracted by what your mouth was doing the first time you woke me up.”

Now that he mentioned it, that occurrence was probably how her hair got into its current state. Ethan's fingers had gotten lost in the silky tendrils as she worked, slightly pulling when she had added her tongue to her movements. The mere memory had his body ready for her again. 

In the reflection, Lilac looked hazed by his kisses but still unconvinced. His hands settled on her hips as he gently spun her around to face him. 

“You,” he started, kissing her forehead, “are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her blush deepened as she searched his eyes. When she found only unshakeable honesty there, she smiled and kissed his cheek. 

“You don't have to say that to get lucky,” she teased. 

“That's not why I'm saying it. And I'm already lucky.” To prove it, he held her tighter. 

It was her turn to kiss his neck. She made a deliberate movement to let the sheets covering her fall to the floor. “You're about to get luckier.”

****

50 Ways to Say “I Love You” prompts | Prompts Masterlist

A/N: Because in my vision, these two had multiple rounds that night (but more on that later).

This one was requested months ago. I wrote it then and never published it. I’m sorry whoever requested it. Sometimes anxiety and self-doubt are a bitch.

To be published soon:

Ethan babysitting (request)

Setting up Naveen (old request)

“Don’t move - I’ll get it for you” (request)

“You don’t have to pretend with me” (request)

WIP:

Admission (Pictagram ch 13)

By Morning Light (Part 3 of As Long as You Love Me So)

various 50 Ways to Say ILY requests

Untitled Ethan x MC sm*t 

Perma Tags (All Works/Edits)

@openheart12​, @takeharryandgo​ , @aestheticartsx​, @rookie-ramsey​ , @utterlyinevitable​, @doilooklikeiknow​, @snesdudes​, @paulfwesley​, @nikki-2406​, @mvalentine​, @casey-v​, @blossomanarchy​, @rookieoh​, @lucy-268​, @maurine07​, @bellcat2010​ , @iemcpbchoices​ , @potionsprefect​ , @heauxplesslydevoted​ , @writinghereandthere​ , @schnitzelbutterfingers​ , @gryffindordaughterofathena​ , @lovingramsey​ , @dr-ramseys-rookie​ , @udishaman​ , @forallthatitsworth​ , @canigetanawwjunk​, @thegreentwin​ , @blainehellyes​ , @parkerattano​ , @lady-calypso​ , @nazarihoe​ , @rookiemarsswiftie​ , @queencarb​ , @fayeswiftie​ , @trappedinfanfiction​ , @alina-yol-ramsey​ , @chasingrobbie​ , @ashiiknees​ , @professorkingslay​ , @whimsicallywayward15​ , @mysticalgalaxysstuff​ , @red-rookie​ , @bluebellot​ , @ramseysrookiex​ , @i-bloody-love-drake-walker , @interobanginyourmom​ , @mercury84choices​ , @drariellevalentine​ , @caroldxnvxrs​, @gardeningoumet , @enmchoices​, @ethanrcmsey​, @lilypills​ , @choices-lurker​, @riyana , @mj-angels​

Except Bryce x MC: @openheartthot​ , @casey-v​ , @binny1985​ , @tsrookie​, @perriewinklenerdie​ , @drakewalkerfantasy​ ,

@choicesfanaf​ (except Bryce x MC/ Blaine x MC)

Open Heart- Ethan x f!MC Only

@octobereighth​,   @helloblueeyedcat​ , @genevievemd​ ,  @stygianflood​ , @ohchoices​,  @choicesaddict5​​   , @aworldoffandoms​​, @mysticaurathings​​ , @myusualnerdyself​​ , @ruinedbypixels​​, @custaroonie​​, @caseyvalentineramsey​​, @jooous​​, @aarisa-frost​​, @sizzlinhcashherohumanoid , @oldminniemcg​

Unsorted tags (Assumed Ethan x MC)

*Please message me if you want to be moved or removed <3

@kites-in-our-skies​​,  @kingliam2019​​,  @cinnamonspongecake​​,  @ethxnrxmsey​​, @missmiimiie​​, @jens-diamondchoices​​,, @apphia12​​, @kalogh​​, @binny1985​​, @queenbirbs​​, @honeyandsunfl0wers​​, @newcolonies​​, @lilyvalentine​​, @rigatonireid​​,   @nooruleman​​,  @lonely-mxxnlight​​, @shadynaturehilariouscookie​​ @togetherwearerapture​​,  @rookiemarsswiftie​​,   @hatescapsicum​​, @choices-lurker​​, @kiara-36​​, @junehiratas​​, @danijimenezv​​, @macy-ray85​​, @adrex04​​,  @sanchita012​​, @overwhelminglyaquarius​​ , @scorpiochick8​​, @skylarklyon​​, @starrystarrytrouble​​,   @a-crepusculo​​, @quacksonlover​​ , @ramseyandrys​​, @whatchique​​, @varikasnuori​​, @dimitriwife​​,  @shanzay44​​, @fabi-en-ciel​​, @trebondialanna​​,  @ashiiknees​​,   @alookseeblog​​, @whimsicallywayward15​​

@emotionalswift2,  @lion-ess24,

[monsoonblooms12]

Belamour (Ethan x f!MC)

Summary: Set after Book 3, Pooja finally gets Ethan to dance in the rain.

A/N: A silly something born out of my love for rains and my binge listening to 80s Bollywood classics (I have no idea what kinda mess this is tbh). Also, my first song based fic🤎

A/N 2: The song lyrics are indented (Translation in parenthesis)

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)

Rating: General

Word Count: around 1.5K

Category: Total fluff

Warnings: None that I noticed

Song Inspiration: Aaj Kal Yaad Kuch by Mohammed Aziz

READ ON AO3

A pair of summery blue orbs insistently stare at the world beyond the glass windows.

A world that was now being washed by the consistent droplets that came down from the adobe of clouds to meet their origin.

Their drum was usually henotic, tranquil for him.

But at the moment, it only added to his irritation and deepened the void of disappointment that had formed in his chest.

In another room of the same house, a pair of amber orbs watched the magic of nature with a child-like wonder.

The pleasant, dewy petrichor spread around her, and the mellifluous tunes of Earth's own orchestra made her forget the fast turns her life went through in the past day.

In the faint light, she picked up her hand and let the jewel, the stone that was nothing less than a promise of forever, shine like the billion stars that dot the sky at nights that are devoid of clouds.

As the iridescent lights make her eyes sparkle, a vague idea forms in her brain.

Her thoughts float to reach the person who gifted her happiness, and a smile lit up on her face.

There was a mix of challenge and love in the quest she was about to partake and she was determined to succeed.

In slow, soundless steps, she made her way out of the room and out of the house.

A blur went past and his trained eyes were quick enough to catch the motion.

Shaking his head with realization, he followed behind.

As the steps took him down, and he stood under the shade of the multi-floored skyrise, she stayed yards away from it.

Her hair was wet, her skirt twirling, her face bright and beautiful.

He felt his heart race, whispering an urge to join with hers.

He restrained himself, but the scene in front of him was so spectacular that he doubted just how long his restraint would last.

After what felt like an eternity, she turned to him, half of her face golden under the street lights, the other half bearing the monotones of black and white.

She looked like the personification of their love.

Her life the golden, and his the black and white.

He could write sonnets to describe the picture-perfect scene that played before him like a film, but all he did was stand still, unable to tear his eyes away, unable to speak the words that hadn't already been spoken, his well-thumbed thesaurus gathering dust in the labyrinths of his mind.

She looked at him with a longing, a spoken call for him to join her as the rains continued to fall and purify the earth.

All he did was shake his head in silence.

She took it as a challenge, and he already knew how it was going to end.

For a minute he got lost in her memories, reminiscences from a time, from a moment that passed too quick, yet slow enough for him to remember every moment of it.

And suddenly, the faint tunes of a song brought him back to the present.

Every word of the foreign seeming language lucid clear, setting in a cascade of emotions and bringing pictures etched in past pages of the novel of life, making him go on a trip down the memory lane.

Aajkal Yad Kuch Aur Rehta Nahi

(Nowadays I don't seem to remember anything else)

Ek Bas Aapki Yad Aane Ke Bad

(Once your memories enchant me)

Yaad Aane Se Pehle Chale Aaiye

(Please come to me before the memories reach me)

Aur Phir Jaiye Jan Jane Ke Bad

(And then leave only after my breath leaves me)

The truth of the words came with an epiphany.

Every day of knowing her had been a way of painting the monotones of his life in colours he thought didn't belong to him.

Every moment she had ever spent away from him had made him yearn for her more than ever.

And yet he was foolish enough to think that miles of distance and hundreds of hours could make him forget her.

All the distress he felt could have been so easily ended if she had been with him then.

And now, as he dreams of an aeon with her, he promises to only let her go when his breath leaves him alone.

Apni Aankhon Me Mujhko Basa Lijiye

(Allow me to settle in the world of your eyes)

Apne Dil Me Mera Ghar Bana Dijiye

(Make a home for me in your heart)

Kya Karu Dil Kahi Aur Lagta Nahi

Pyar Me Aapse Dil Lagane Ke Bad

(What's the fault of mine if I can't concentrate on anything other than you, since our hearts connected by the string of love)

As the minutes pass by, melting into each other to form an hour, he loses all tracks of time.

And amidst the sweven he was living in right now, at a moment he could not pinpoint, she had taken his hand into hers and now he stood, lost in the amber of her eyes, forgetting all about the shower that now fell upon him.

As she continued to mutter the tunes in a harmony that went on in rhythm with the rain, he wished he could live in the world of her orbs.

To see the world as she saw it, to live the life from her perspective.

All he wanted was home in her heart, a tiny place on the lands of her soul.

Ishq Ke Maine Kitne Fasane Sune

(I have heard many tales of epic romances)

Husb Ke Kitne Kisse Purane Sune

(And stories about beautiful people from bygone eras)

Aisa Lagta Hai Phir Is Tarah Tut Kar

Pyar Hamne Kiya Ek Zamane Ke Bad

(But I feel I have been broken and got mended by love after centuries)

In muted harmonies, the two of them twirled, forgetting the world around them.

The way their eyes held onto each other, as if holding onto their lives, reminded him of the tales of love the folklores talk about.

The romances of princesses and maidens, and of beauties who earned their fairytale.

But as her palm stroked his cheek in a feather-light motion, he concluded that all those tales faint in front of the story of theirs.

There were no royals, no cruel witches setting up spells and no poisoned apples.

There were just two people, broken by the storms life made them navigate through, fitting perfectly as if parts of a whole.

He tried to remember if he had ever experienced anything as he did now, his lip tracing her ear as his hands wrapped around her waist.

It didn't even take him a second to know the answer.

He hadn't.

Aapka Naam Dil Se Nikalta Nahi

(Your name never leaves my heart)

Dillagi Me Koi Zor Chalta Nahi

Dillagi Me Koi Zor Chalta Nahi

(No force is strong enough to stop the meet of two hearts)

Aapko Bhul Jane Ki Koshish Bhi Ki

(I tried a hundred times to forget you)

Aur Tadpa Hun Main Bhool Jaane Ke Baad

(And suffered a suffering of pain and agony once I forgot you)

The rains accelerate and become a downpour. The mist envelops them but there was no care for the changing environment.

The distance between them ceases to exist as their hearts finally get the pleasure of beating in unison.

In the next moments, she whispers close to his ear, the last of the melody, and it's his story.

The story of how he couldn't get rid of the five-lettered name since the first time he ever came to know about it.

Of how no force in the world could stop two hearts from meeting if that's what destiny had in plan for them.

Who one loves and who loves them back determines so much in one life.

And for him, it was a chance, a risk he was scared to take, dreading the destruction it may cause.

After all when had anything ever-blossoming flowers in the city of his soul?

But this time not only did spring finally arrived with its flowery footsteps but also led to a discovery of himself, a part of him that was buried under layers of snow from the winter that reigned in his life for years.

She taps twice on his heart, indicating how he had tried to forget her, all those years ago. And how he broke himself in the process.

As she hummed the last lines, he bowed down in front of the forces that brought the two of them together.

He thanked the stars which aligned the way did to let him fall for her and agreed to hide, to let the rains fall, to let him have this night with her.

And looked in awe at the woman who brought about the sweetest catastrophe mankind has ever known.

And without uttering a word, he picks her and kisses her, saying all that was left unsaid with it.

PS: I actually have another version of the song, that I sung specifically to go with this, but Tumblr is giving me troubles to upload it. Do let me know if you would like to hear it someday.

Anyways, If you are reading this, I am very grateful for you. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day🤎

Tags🤎(Please let me know if you would like to be added or removed):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @izzyourresidentlawyer @phoenixrising308 @adiehardfan @quixoticdreamer16 @a-crepusculo @cordonianruby @gryffindordaughterofathena

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@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 6

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Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

Just remembered I had a plot so oops

Marinette wasn’t stupid. Nino had a brother only a few years older than Robin, and that brother had never acted so young or clingy at Robin’s age (and it surely wasn’t a thing about Robin, because she had yet to see him cling to anyone else). She knew that Robin was just using her to mess with Red Robin.

But she didn’t particularly mind. It was kind of funny to watch Red getting all worked up over his little brother and friend being close. She was glad she had her mask, because otherwise she definitely would have given away the act by this point.

Robin, for his part, had been upping things more and more every time he saw her. She wasn’t sure whether this was because he knew that she knew or because he was testing the limits of what he could do without her saying anything.

Red looked like he was at his wit’s end with Robin held out a hand for Marinette right before crossing a street. She took it, which was when he finally snapped:

“He’s twelve, not five!”

She pulled her face into a mock frown. “Are you saying that twelve-year-olds should get hit by cars, Red?”

Red Robin sputtered.

“Miss Ladybug, why is he so mean to me?” Robin asked with wide eyes. She could see the corner of his lips twitching in an effort not to smile.

She winked. His eyes narrowed just slightly then he widened them back to their wide-eyed sadness.

“I don’t know, sweetie. He’s just a meanie, I guess.”

Red Robin threw his hands up in either anger or defeat. It didn’t really matter which one it was, they counted it as a win.

~

Tim wasn’t surprised to walk into the Batcave one day and see Marinette’s face on the Batcomputer. The only thing he didn’t know was whether she was up there because they had figured out her identity or because Tim had started hanging out with her as a civilian.

He took a long sip of his coffee as he considered this, then he trudged over. Might as well find out.

“Hey guys,” he announced his presence.

He watched Duke out of the corner of his eyes. Duke was the newest of them, he could usually count on him to have more pronounced reactions.

Duke didn’t seem all that awkward. So it must have been them finding out her identity.

Tim sidled up beside them. “Sure that’s her?”

Bruce, never one for using his words when he didn’t have to, held up a small container of blood.

He hummed his understanding and intended for that to be the end of the conversation… but it was getting increasingly hard to ignore the eyes boreing into the side of his head. Tim fought to keep a straight face and unclench his jaw and ignore the stupid ‘d-d-don’t be suspicious’ song playing in his head.

And then Cass tapped him on the shoulder and he cursed quietly.

“Fine. Fine. I knew. Happy?”

Cass was not. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I saw her run into an alleyway and I followed -- obviously, it’s Gotham and alleyways are dangerous -- and she transformed right in front of me.”

She nodded and let it go.

Bruce, however, did not.

“You knew her identity and didn’t think to tell us?”

“I thought to tell you, I just didn’t,” he said with a cheeky grin.

Ah. The Disappointed Dad Stare. He had certainly not missed that.

His grin melted into an awkward smile. “It felt weird to reveal her. She clearly cares about her identity since she hasn’t told us herself yet, I figured I’d respect that as long as I could.”

“... you weren’t making progress on her identity on purpose. God, that makes so much more sense,” muttered Steph.

He shrugged. “Easy to avoid someone’s identity when you know who it is.”

Bruce was still looking at him disapprovingly.

“Don’t worry, I have contingencies,” Tim said.

His father relaxed, finally. He motioned for him to go on.

“Well, a few need confirmation. I still don’t know if her yoyo can be cut and it’s hard to tell if other people can unzip her hood or not. But if the hood is open then The Flash or Superman can easily get the earrings from her -- beyond those she’d just a normal person with some fighting skills, same contingencies as The Arrows or any of us. If not then Green Lantern can probably neutralize her.”

Bruce nodded.

The other kids looked mildly concerned.

“Wait, he has contingencies for us?” Duke said.

Bruce was back to looking dismayed. Tim showed them all where their files were (he wouldn’t hack them for them, obviously, he didn’t want to break the news of exactly how messed up Bruce’s contingencies were). He could practically see all the sweat beading itself on his forehead beneath his cowl.

(Tim hid his smile. He’d finally gotten revenge for the time he’d made him stay inside after The Chloroform Incident. And revenge was sweet.)

… it wasn’t until he started seeing his siblings on the rooftop across from Marinette’s apartment that he thought that, maybe, he should have gotten them into their files. It definitely would have distracted them from the Marinette Is Ladybug situation.

At least Cass trusted Marinette -- she would have slipped up and showed her intentions at least once by now -- and therefore wasn’t likely to come by. Cass would be the one to figure out that Tim coming up to the roof was more than him just checking on his siblings.

The first person that came by was Damian. Fair enough, he’d been around Marinette the shortest amount of time and what little friendship they had was based on his lies.

Now, the youngest sibling sat, cross-legged on the rooftop. He was sketching in his sketchbook between quick glances over at Marinette. He looked up when Tim pulled himself over the side and squinted at him.

“Drake.”

“Dami,” Tim greeted, because it always annoyed his younger brother when he used the nickname. “Having fun spying on Marinette?”

Damian was silent for a few moments before clicking his tongue. “She needs to close her blinds more often.”

“Aw, do you care about her?” Tim teased, reaching over to ruffle his brother’s hair.

He pushed his hand away. “She’s a Gothamite and is therefore under our protection.”

Tim snickered and shook his head, taking a seat beside him on the rooftop. “We can tell Duke about it once everyone else has had their chance at checking her out. He’s the only one that can get away with asking her to close it.”

Damian nodded firmly.

Tim hid the fond smile on his face by diverting his brother’s attention: “So, what’re you sketching?”

Damian’s eyes lit up.

The next person to drop by was Bruce himself. He was sitting there, in all black despite the fact that it was less useful during the day, with full spy equipment.

Tim dropped down beside him and was offered a set of headphones. The two of them stayed there in silence for a long time, listening to Marinette going about her day. She was currently cooking something and singing along to a song:

“I always feel like... somebOdy’s watching meeEe… andIhavenoprivacy~.”

Tim was choosing to ignore the song choice in favor of giggling about her inability to hit the notes. He could feel Bruce watching him out of the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything and neither did Tim.

Next was Steph.

Steph raised her eyebrows at Tim when she saw him.

“Come here often?” She asked in a tone that was only half-joking.

“Only recently,” he lied. “Trying to figure out if any of you trust my judgement.”

“Doubtful.”

“Yeah, Duke is my last hope.”

She snickered and shook her head. “To be fair, you’re whipped. You could have been biased.”

“But I’m not.”

“But you’re not,” she conceded, then turned her gaze back on Marinette. “She’s cute. I approve.”

“Glad to know you trust her.”

“I wasn’t talking about it like that and you know it,” Steph said with a wink.

Tim blushed and pushed her face away. “You’re the worst.”

~

Marinette was having a little difficulty figuring out the not-quite-a-language that the bats spoke with her. She wanted to learn it because she cared about Black Bat and, though she could use ASL, it was clear that she wasn’t comfortable with any particular language… but wow was it hard to learn a language when there wasn’t any actual language involved.

Thankfully, Signal had said he would teach her since he had learned it the most recently and therefore might have an easier time teaching it.

Now, it was just after they had finished their lessons for the day and the two of them were relaxing together between their patrols. He had his head in her lap as they both scrolled through Twitter, occasionally laughing and showing each other the dumb things that the other bats had supposedly done. Her favorite so far was the picture someone had discreetly taken of Robin while he was petting their dog.

And then Signal suddenly sat up straight, eyes so wide beneath his domino that she swore that the lenses were going to pop out.

“Uh --?”

“We need to go,” he said.

She felt his hand wrap around her wrist and now she was being dragged somewhere else --.

There was a rush of air and next thing she knew she was being held just barely off the ground.

She blinked all the dryness out of her eyes and then looked up to see that her captor was none other than Superman himself. He had grabbed both of them and taken them to where the Batcomputer was, holding her by her hood and Signal by the back of his shirt. He looked angry, but not particularly at her. She followed his gaze to where Batman was sitting in his Batchair.

“B --.”

“Batman,” said Batman sternly.

Oh, so Superman got to know his secret identity and she didn’t?

(She was ignoring the fact that Batman’s civilian name started with a B.)

“Batman, what do I have here?”

“Two children?”

“Two. Metas.”

“Technically, Ladybug isn’t a meta. Her powers were given to her by a god that lives in her earrings,” Batman informed him.

Marinette tried not to smile too much. Look at how much he had grown. He was using her excuses now.

Superman’s eyes narrowed. She’d say something about how ‘if looks could kill, Batman would be dead’... but, considering the fact that Superman could kill someone with a single look, it didn’t really work.

“And is the god allowed in Gotham?”

Batman didn’t have an excuse for that one. He just grunted a specific grunt which Marinette had learned meant: “What’s your point?”

Superman also knew this specific grunt, apparently. “My point is that the last time I was in Gotham you put kryptonite in my coffee! You said no metas, and we listened, but now you have two!”

“They’re my kids.”

Marinette blinked. “News to me.”

Signal tried to reach across Superman to punch her arm. Superman was a very wide not-man, so he came up short.

“Do you want to be kicked out of Gotham?”

“Guess I’ve always wanted family here,” she said quickly.

Superman squinted at them for a long time before, finally, dropping them.

“You’re lifting your no meta rule.”

“No --.”

“Yes. If even you’re not going to listen to it, neither should we.”

Batman didn’t seem happy. Superman didn’t seem to care. Probably because he was a good head taller and had far more superpowers than Batman did.

Superman left soon after.

Marinette knew it wasn’t the time, because Batman was back to his Batbrooding, but she couldn’t help the grin slowly spreading across her face.

“So, Dad, can I have the new Xbox for Christmas?”

~

Duke had visited Marinette. Tim hadn’t seen him visit, but he definitely had because Marinette had closed her blinds and they hadn’t been open in days. She was still in Gotham, though, she had gone on patrols and, as far as he could tell, she didn’t have any places in Gotham in her name. She had to still be in the apartment, so Duke must have visited as Signal and told her to close them.

And he should have been happy about this. It was far safer that way. The less people knew that there was a woman living alone in that apartment the better.

… but he couldn’t help but be concerned.

The blinds being closed was his best indication of when she was about to leave or currently not home. He didn’t like that he no longer had a way of figuring that out. How was he supposed to watch over her while she was getting groceries if he never knew when she was going?

He gives her a necklace with a tracker in it the next time he sees her as Tim.

She raised her eyebrows at the box he was holding out to her. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to propose?” She joked, but he could hear the slight wariness bleeding into her tone.

He grins easily. “It’s just to thank you for the outfit you’re making me.”

“You pay me,” she said. “That’s thanks enough for me.”

“Maybe I just feel a little bad about guilting you into making it in the first place.”

She hesitates, but he could see the shiny red gem inlaid in it winning her over. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t a gold digger, she was a fashion designer and he had purposefully chosen a common gem color so she’d be more inclined to wear it more often. It worked with a lot of outfits and it came from someone she -- hopefully -- considered a friend? There was little reason to say no.

As expected, she gave in.

She turned around and he carefully clasped it behind her neck. He pressed a tiny kiss to the back of her head.

When she turned back around her face was redder than the gem. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her along to the newest attraction.

~

Marinette fell back on her bed with a huff.

“Tikkiiiiiiiii,” she complained.

The kwami slipped out of her purse and came up to float above her face. “Did you enjoy your date?”

“It wasn’t --!”

Tikki laughed at her dismay. Because Tikki sucked.

She dropped the pillow back beside herself and curled up in what had used to be Tim’s jacket (she wasn’t joking when she’d taken it, he was never getting it back).

“Tim better be Red Robin. I’m not doing the whole ‘two crushes at once’ thing again.”

~

You know, there were actually times where Tim felt bad about chipping Marinette. He wasn’t out of it enough to think that it wasn’t messed up, he knew that there was a reason he didn’t want the other bats to know.

And he knew that, if he had to keep his habits from fellow bats, his habits had to be pretty bad. Every single one of them had a tendency to watch over their loved ones from time to time, it just came with the territory of having friends that are a) vigilantes/heroes/Rogues, b) stupid enough to live in Gotham, or c) an unfortunate mix of both. And, really, when you have the entire world at your fingertips it’s hard not to cross a few lines from time to time.

But Tim couldn’t bring himself to care about that line when she didn’t seem to care about her own safety.

She left the house constantly. Tim was beginning to suspect that she’d had her blinds open so often in order to feel closer to people rather than because she liked sunning herself. This would be fine… if she wasn’t leaving as a civilian. Marinette cared about her secret identity almost as much as Bruce did, so he knew that she probably wouldn’t try too hard to escape attackers for fear of them finding out who she was through her very particular fighting style. The bats had drilled her on the best ways to deal with being held at gunpoint and everything, but not every criminal was completely predictable. Bruce’s parents were a prime example of that.

She also had a tendency to take food without checking to see if it was laced. She did it especially when Tim handed her food and, while he liked that she trusted him, he didn’t love that she was as trusting of him as she was.

Marinette had trouble detecting when people were watching her, too. He figured it was just a byproduct of having most of the stuff she did as Ladybug filmed by tv crews and random civilians… but understanding why she was like that didn’t make him any less concerned about it.

Most damning, however, was how she dealt with catcalling.

Tim never felt a need to intervene when any of his siblings got catcalled on the job. He could trust them to tell whoever it was to stop with however much politeness was correct for the situation (usually not that much).

(The only exception was Damian because, unlike everyone else, Damian was still very obviously a minor. And even then the temptation to beat them up was mostly sated by the fact that Damian knew far more nonlethal ways to hurt them than he did.)

But the few times Marinette had gotten catcalled in front of him she… had just very politely asked them not to say that? And, when they didn’t stop, she had just sat there in her discomfort until they were done?

And Tim had done nothing but watch in stunned silence the first few times. It hadn’t been on purpose, he had just… not been expecting it. She usually acted far more confident, usually had some sort of retort on her tongue, why was this any different?

He didn’t know. Both he and Steph had tried to ask but she shut down both times and they didn’t want her to be more upset than she already was so they’d stopped trying.

The bats just silently agreed to check in on her through comms when she was quiet for too long and, if she didn’t respond, head towards her last known location and start looking.

So, yeah, his paranoia wasn’t completely unfounded.

~

Marinette blinked at the envelope Black Bat had handed her.

She turned it over in her hands, wondering if it was some kind of test, but that wasn’t really as much of a Black Bat thing as it was a Batman or Red Robin thing. So, she figured it probably wasn’t dangerous. She still found herself examining it. It was done in an old style, with a rough and slightly yellowed paper, a red wax seal with a pointy hat emblem she didn’t recognize, and ‘Ladybug’ written across the front in gorgeous calligraphy.

“Uh…?”

Black Bat only smiled at her and made a motion to open it.

Marinette hesitantly opened the letter and pulled out more weird paper. It was splattered with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. In the same elegant script that had decorated the front, it read:

Your spirit has been summoned to my annual Halloween Party!

Dress to kill!

This was followed by a bunch of directions and timings and stuff about RSVP-ing.

Marinette looked at Black Bat, somehow even more confused than she had been before.

Thankfully, Red Robin chose that moment to run down the stairs, waving his invitation excitedly.

He stopped short when he saw Marinette already holding her invitation and huffed, sending Black Bat a halfhearted glare. “I wanted to tell her.”

Black Bat’s smile morphed into a smirk.

“Rude,” Red said. Then, he turned to Marinette. “We got invited to his Halloween Party!”

“Yeah… whose Halloween Party, exactly?”

“Scarecrow’s, of course!”

… what?

[argylemnwrites]

Sliding In

Pairing: Logan x MC (Ellie Whitnall) - referenced

Book: Ride or Die (~27 years later)

Word Count: ~1200

Rating: PG

Summary: An innocent question prompts some reflection

Author’s Note: Written for @rodappreciationweek Day 1 - Logan. It’s kind of more of a teaser for my upcoming MC piece than anything, but I figured it might be a fun contribution to the Time Capsule Challenge! And yes, this is my same MC from my RODAW Colt x MC pieces from last year. My ROD MC was with Logan until the “it was all planned” reveal, which pushed her to fully embrace her connection/attraction to Colt. This is set about 14 years after the end of those stories as a point of reference.

“Dad, when was the last time you went on a date?”

Logan glanced up from the email he was reading, caught off guard by his daughter’s question. “What?”

“When did you last go on a date?” Lily persisted from across the table, her algebra homework scattered in front of her.

“Why are you asking, Ladybug?”

Lily rolled her eyes at the nickname, one she used to smile widely at when she was little, clinging to Logan’s arm. But now that she was officially a teenager, she was way too mature for it, or so she said. “Just curious. Like, when we’re at Mom and Amy’s, do you go out?”

“Sometimes. Last weekend I went to a Rangers game with some guys from work.”

“That’s not what I meant. Do you go out go out?”

“Don’t you have homework that needs your attention?”

Lily shook her head, adjusting her glasses just slightly. “It’s not due until Thursday. Why won’t you answer my question?”

“Because I’m the dad, and it’s none of your business.”

“Uhh, I’m not little like Landon! It’s not fair for you to blow me off like that!”

“Lily, come on. There is no way you care that much about my social life. So what actually brought on this line of questioning?”

Lily bit her lip and twisted her pencil through her fingers before she asked, “Did you hear that Dani’s parents are getting a divorce?”

Logan resisted the urge to laugh. His daughter was about to try to set him up with her best friend’s mother. This was going to be interesting.

“Yes, your mother told me.”

“Right… well, Dani’s mom is nice, isn’t she?”

“Uh huh,” Logan glanced back at his laptop, pretending to read over the agenda for the meeting tomorrow he had open.

“Dad, stop it! You know what I mean!”

“I do, Lily. But sorry, I don’t do set ups.”

“Ugggh,” she groaned out with a sigh as rolled her shoulders. “Why not?”

“Let’s just say the last time I was set up with someone, it ended pretty badly.”

Lily seemed to accept his answer, though not without a massive sigh and another eye roll, but her topic of conversation stuck with him all night long. Past tucking in Landon and calling out for Lily to get off her phone and go to sleep.

Sitting in bed, he pulled out his own phone. He hadn’t really thought about her in years. And while every so often she would drift across his mind, it had been almost two decades since he last saw her. But even though Kaneko’s instructions to pursue Ellie Whitnall hadn’t exactly been a traditional set up, it was close enough that he was thinking about her now.

He hadn’t kept track of her after they all split up. Not that he hadn’t wanted to. But she needed space, from the whole Mercy Park Crew really, but from him in particular. He’d hurt her, violated her trust, broken what they had. She deserved a wonderful life where she could succeed and thrive without a bunch of wanted criminals holding her back. He’d known if he knew where she was and what she was up to, it would have been too hard to stay away. He would have been behind the wheel in an instant, drawn back to her side.

So back when they’d all gone their separate ways, he’d made the choice to let her be. He resisted the urge to check in, to see where she was, how she was doing. At first, it felt nearly impossible. But as time marched on, the desire to search for her, either digitally or in person, faded into something more manageable. Cold, lonely nights eventually shifted into a new life and existence as he moved from Detroit down to Dallas. He got his GED and got hired on the design team at Toyota. He met Lucy, got married, had two children. His life filled with new joys, ones he never could have dared to dream of. Thoughts of Ellie shifted from a deep pang to a fleeting nostalgic glow. Not for the life he lived back when he knew her, and certainly not for the role he played in the destruction of their relationship, but for the way his first love shaped him. For the hope and compassion she’d introduced to his life, without which, there was no way he would be where he was today.

He wondered, for the first time in quite some time, what she was up to. How she was doing. He hoped she was at least as happy as he was. She deserved that much. Hell, she deserved much more than that. He was divorced, trying to figure out the coparenting thing with his ex and her girlfriend. It had taken him a long time to find steady work. While all of those struggles were manageable, particularly compared to his teenage years, they still weren’t ideal. And if anyone should have an ideal life, it was her.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, why he started to search “Ellie Whitnall” tonight of all nights. He had no idea if she was still in LA or even if Whitnall was still her last name. She could easily be married at this point, although searches for “Ellie Kaneko” didn’t bring up any results. He scrolled through dozens of Ellie Whitnalls on Pictagram, trying not to imagine his daughter screeching out that only “old people” were on Pictagram anymore, glancing at faces, trying to see if any of them looked familiar. But maybe twenty or twenty-five profiles down, he stopped in his tracks.

It was her. She looked so similar. Her hair was a bit shorter, and she didn’t look like a teenager anymore, but he didn’t need the frequent location tags of Los Angeles to know it was her. She looked just like she always had in so many ways. Same thoughtful eyes. Same wide smile. Same little crinkle of her eyebrow when she laughed.

Seeing her again, even just through a screen, was how he always knew it would be. He scrolled through her posts, ravenous to see more of her, to catch any glimpses of her life that he could. She had a daughter, who looked to be a few years older than Lily, with dark brown hair and Ellie’s nose. She seemed to have a close group of friends, as she posted numerous photos of her with the same six women. She didn’t seem to have a partner, though. And there was no ring on her finger.

He had no excuse for what he did next, nothing to blame it on other than seeing her again tripped something inside him. It wasn’t exactly regret or hope or expectation. More a curiosity than anything. After all, he’d always been drawn to her quiet intensity. But for whatever reason, he swiped, pulling up the option to send her a DM.

Hey Troublemaker. It’s been a while

Perma: @mom2000aggie @octobereighth @kingliam2019 @lovingchoices14

ROD: @burnsoslow @mskaneko @iplaydrake @louvregirl

Logan x MC: @ridemelikeiamyourdevoregt​