#oh well I suppose she’s better off going to a kid who’d put her to good use and play with her

[bitchapalooza]

Sigh….. thinking about that Dj pon3 for 1.00$ I passed up at the flea market all because her tail was broken and I didn’t have the glue immediately at home to fix her…. I could’ve waited a couple weeks, I’m sorry Dj pon3 with the broken tail, I have failed you 😔

[sitkowski]

xo ( matt dierkes x oc)

pairing: matt dierkes x zephyr (oc) cw: no real warnings. a little bit of angst, a healthy dose of fluff, neighbors to lovers, making out, meddlesome…dogs? word count: 1.5k author's notes: this is my first matt centric fic (not the last there will be more of these two!!), and i had to fit him into the riptide verse. @darksigns-exe inspired the shirt that zephyr's wearing on their dinner (not) date 🫶🏻 title comes from the song by fall out boy (of course!). dividers by @sweetmelodygraphics 🩷

⇉ masterpost || taglist signups || riptide verse masterpost

Apparently before the band made their decision to take their break, Zeus learned a new trick while Matt was on tour. He learned how to unlock the back gate, which is why he’s gone when Matt opens the sliding glass door to call him back into the house. It would have been nice if the neighbor kid who’d been looking after the dogs had thought to tell him about Zeus’ new trick when he came home. Boo is just sitting there by the open gate, as if to prove that he knows he isn’t supposed to be on the other side of it.

He brings Boo inside, relatches the gate and grabs Zeus’ leash and a couple of treats in case he needs to be coerced back to the house. He doesn’t think he could have gotten far, he wasn’t outside that long. Matt walks out his front door, looking left and right to see if he spots him right away. It’s not until he steps off the porch that he realizes Zeus didn’t go far at all. He’s sitting in the front lawn across the road, and he’s not alone. The girl sitting with him isn’t someone he’s seen there before, but he assumes she lives there. His dog is all but in her lap, soaking up the attention she’s giving him.

Walking across the street, Matt calls out to him, and Zeus pops his head up, wagging his tail at the sight of him. The girl waves at him and stands up, keeping a hand on Zeus’ collar so Matt can clip on his leash.

“I’m sorry, he came running right over as I was coming out of my place,” she explains. “We kind of have a ritual, he and I.”

“He staged a prison break, he’s not usually supposed to be off leash out front without me. Did Clay let him loose a lot?”

“Oh no, not at all! I’d just say hi to him on his walks, maybe sneak in a treat or two,” She holds out her hand. “I’m Zephyr.”

“Matt,” he shakes her hand, and then looks down at Zeus. “This little criminal is Zeus, in case you didn’t know that already.”

Zephyr smiles brightly, reaching down to pat the top of his head, “Yeah, I read his tags.”

Matt feels himself blushing a little, and he nods, “Well, thanks for making sure he stayed put. I’m gonna have to secure the back gate better so he won’t get out again.”

“If he does, I’ll be sure to bring him back to you.” 

He thanks her again, and takes Zeus home. The gate is an easy fix, and both the dogs stay put. But now he sees Zephyr every morning, and every night when he walks the dogs. He feels like it would be rude to ignore her, so they stop and chat with each other. Boo and Zeus both seem familiar with her, and that itself is a green flag for him. He thinks it’s cute that she does have a bag of treats on her to sneak the dogs, apparently she does it for every dog in the neighborhood.

Eventually, it progresses to Zephyr coming on the walks with them, her holding onto Zeus’ leash and Matt with Boo’s. He tells her about touring, she tells him about her catering business. Somehow, these walks turn into her promising to make him dinner. Matt can’t believe that it’s happened as fast as it has, but time seems to slow down when they’re off tour and he has to get used to moving at a normal pace again. So, he agrees to dinner after Nicholas, Jolly and Noah all bully him into it via text messages when he tells them about Zephyr.

He tells himself it’s not a date, it’s just dinner between neighbors. Even though he doesn’t think that Mr. Birkhoff from next door has ever invited him over for anything ever. It’s been a few weeks of evening walks and long conversations, a few shared beers on his back porch while the dogs run around in the yard. And yeah, he’s thought about it being more, even when his mind is normally consumed with work and touring. This is the longest break they’ve had in a while, and he knows that everyone else is using it to their advantage. He should be too.

Matt almost talks himself out of it twice before he’s standing on Zephyr’s front porch one Friday evening. He rings the doorbell and waits, second guessing himself until the door opens and he sees her. She’s wearing a shirt that says #yeetisildur in elvish and he really hopes she can’t see the sudden hearts in his eyes right now. Smiling that bright smile of hers, Zephyr steps aside to let him in.

“Whatever you’re making smells great,” he compliments as she leads him into her kitchen.

“We’re having homemade mac and cheese, sriracha maple brussel sprouts and grilled chicken breasts.”

Matt leans against the counter, accepting the beer she offers him from the refrigerator. “Are you interested in locking me in your basement and making me your personal guinea pig?”

It sounds ridiculous when he says it but she still laughs, clinking her bottle against his. “Just so you know, there’s a homemade dessert for after.”

“No seriously, the band can figure out the sound without me.”

“It’s called sex in a pan.”

Obviously she was waiting to seize her moment, because she says it the second he takes a drink, and predictably, he chokes. Beer nearly shoots out of his nose, and Zephyr just giggles and pats him on the back before she passes him a paper towel.

“I couldn’t help it, I’m very sorry,” she says, “I promise to behave the rest of the night.”

Matt doubts it.

Dinner’s great, and Zephyr blushes every time he tells her how good it is. The conversation over dinner gets a little heavier than their usual night time walk chats; for a brief moment Matt thinks she’s eventually going to ask about how the band is handling the break. He didn’t miss seeing the familiar vinyls stacked by her record player, even though she’s got a whole bunch of random stuff there. But it wouldn’t be the first time. She doesn’t mention them once though. Instead, they’re talking about her dad who taught her how to cook before he passed away, and Matt’s got a feeling she doesn't talk about him often. 

After they eat and he has two pieces of the dessert that she made, Matt helps Zephyr with the dishes despite her protests. And when the night is over, she walks with him out onto her front porch, kisses his cheek softly to say goodnight, a barely there brush of her lips that he feels more than he should. She’s still standing there when Matt lets himself into his place, waiting for him to get inside.

Matt hasn’t done this in a long time. He doesn’t really know how to go about it with someone like Zephyr, who has no expectations of him. The longer he knows her, the closer they get. The more open she is with him. It’s a new feeling, becoming friends with someone and the crush just hitting him smack in the middle of his chest while they’re watching Chopped reruns at his place, a dog on either side of them.

They’re playfully arguing about which dish was going to make it through to the next round when Matt turns his head and leans in to kiss her. She doesn’t seem as if she’s expecting it, and he likes catching her by surprise. He starts to pull back but she reaches out and curls her hand around the back of his head, pulling him in and kissing him again. She sinks her fingers into his hair, deepening the kiss. They break apart once, to catch their breath, before she’s pulling him back in. Matt puts a hand on her thigh, trying to pull her closer. 

But then there’s a big problem, because Zeus realizes that someone else is getting attention, and leaps over Matt to worm his way between him and Zephyr. She lets out a surprised laugh, wrapping her arms around him and putting her chin on top of his head.

“Sorry, I think you have competition for my affections,” she says as Zeus’ tail keeps thumping against Matt’s chest. If he didn’t know any better, his damn dog was smiling at him. “Looks like you’ve gotta step up your game, Dierkes.”

Matt looks from her to Zeus, to Boo who seems content to just watch the steak being sliced on the screen. “Okay, who wants a treat? And to go play in the back yard where I can close the door for five minutes?”

Both dogs are up and running for the kitchen at the word treat and Zephyr grins, fisting her hand in Matt’s shirt to tug him closer for another kiss before they notice he’s not getting up yet.

⇉ taglist

@deathblacksmoke @ladyveronikawrites @circle-with-me @baddestomens

@dominuslunae @malice-ov-mercy @rumoured-whispers @cookiesupplier

@sorrowofsilence @collapsedglasshouses @thatchickwiththecamera @collidewiththesavannah

@th4t-em0-k1d @blackveilomens @illmakeyousaywow

if you ’d like to be added to the taglist, you can find the form at the top of this fic! thanks for reading/reblogging 🩷

[lokilickedme]

A phone conversation with my MIL yesterday.  My kids were witness to this insane exchange and are still in awe about the sheer mindboggling emptyheadedness on display.  The sad thing is that this isn’t even remotely out of the ordinary.

A true story, unfortunately.

*phone rings*

ME:  *sees it’s from MIL*

ME:  Ugh.  Here we go boys.

*accepts call against better judgement*

ME:  Hello P.

MIL:  OH GODDAMMIT THIS STUPID PHONE!!

ME:  *puts call on speaker for the boys*

MIL:  WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS STUPID THING?!

ME:  Hellooooo

MIL:  *incoherent bitching and heavy anger-breathing*

ME:  Hello hello HELLO HELLOOOO

MIL:  I HATE THIS PHONE - CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?  WHO’S THAT??

ME:  I can hear you.  Can you hear me?

MIL:  HELLO????

ME:  Hello, I’m here.

MIL:  HELLO?!?!  CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?!  WHO IS THIS?!??

ME:  Oh my god

MIL:  YEAH I CAN HEAR YOU WHAT THE - I’VE GOT TWO PHONES AND I HATE THIS ONE IT’S STUPID I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT -

ME:  I can hear you, P.  What do you need?

*call cuts out for several seconds*

ME:  Hello.  Hello.  HELLO.  Hello hellooooooo

MIL:  *batshit rambling in background, breaking up randomly*

ME:  I can’t hear you anymore, I’m going to hang up so you can call me back.

*more unhinged rambling cutting in and out, cursing and yelling about her phone*

ME:  Holy shit.  Okay I’m hanging up

MIL:  HELLO YEAH WHO IS THIS??

BIG:  How does she remember to breathe?

LITTLE:  Shut up I wanna hear this.  Get her, mom.

ME:  You called me, P.  Think, who did you call?

MIL:  I CALLED TOMMY AND I CALLED R AND THEN I GOT A CALL COMING IN AND I HATE THIS STUPID PHONE WHO IS THIS??

*call cuts out again*

ME:  Should I just hang up and decline when she calls back?

BIG:  We get to take a break from school while this is happening, right?

ME:  Sure why not

LITTLE:  FUCK YEAH GET HER MOM

ME:  Alright this is probably gonna take a while, somebody go get me a can of Pringles.

MIL:  WHO IS THIS?!?

ME:  Who’d you call?

MIL:  I CALLED TOMMY!!  I MADE TWO CALLS AND ONE DIDN’T ANSWER SO I CALLED THE OTHER ONE

ME:  Well it’s not Tommy, so who else did you call?  That’s who this is.

KIDS:  *dying laughing*

MIL:  YEAH I CALLED TWO PEOPLE, WHERE IS TOM??

ME:  He’s at the doctor’s office right now, you got me, I’m the other person you called.

MIL:  YEAH.  WHO ARE YOU??

*call cuts in and out, during which I can hear the staticky squall of MIL cursing like a sailor and apparently slamming her phone into a table*

MIL:  YEAH OKAY I THINK I GOT IT.  I HATE THIS PHONE!!

ME:  Yes I know, it sounds like an operator issue.  Can you hear me?

MIL:  YEAH I MADE TWO PHONE CALLS AND THIS IS THE ONE THAT I  - WHO IS THIS??

ME:  Geezus christ

MIL:  WHAT??

ME:  Nothing.

ME:  WHO DID YOU SAY THIS IS - ??

ME:  Michelle Obama

MIL:  OH. WELL HI

ME:  Oh my god.

MIL:  I GOT THIS BAD THING HAPPENING, MY LADY THAT I LOOK AFTER ON THURSDAYS, YOU KNOW HER??

ME:  No.

MIL:  WELL I TOLD THE GIRL AT THE DISPATCH OFFICE TO LET HER KNOW I WOULDN’T BE COMING TODAY BECAUSE OF THANKSGIVING LAST WEEK, YOU KNOW??

ME:  I...guess...okay

MIL:  SO SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO TELL HER NOT TO STRIP HER BEDSHEETS!!

ME:  What in the fresh hell.  Michelle Obama doesn’t think this is her business and would very much like to be excluded from the narrative.

MIL:  YEAH AND THE GIRL DIDN’T CALL HER AND SHE WENT AHEAD AND DID IT!!

ME:  Dear god the drama.  How high was the body count?

MIL:  WHAT??  YEAH NOBODY DIED!!  BUT I’D TOLD HER NOT TO STRIP HER BED!!  BUT SHE DIDN’T TELL HER SO NOW I GOT THIS BAD THING HAPPENING

ME:  *dying inside*  Let me guess, the old gal is mad at you now because she thinks you blew her off?

MIL:  WHAT???  YES!!!

ME:  *considers hanging up because she’ll call Tom as soon as I do and I can tag out and let him deal with her insane ass*

ME:  *seriously considers this*

ME:  *like really seriously*

ME:  *decides to be horrible instead*

ME:  Oh no P that’s terrible.  That poor old lady has no sheets on her bed and you’re not coming over to help her put them back on.  This is, like, the worst thing that could have possibly happened.  If I were you I would call that office girl and give her a piece of your mind.  Michelle Obama endorses this scenario.

MIL:  YEAH SO I GOT THESE TWO PHONES AND I HATE THIS ONE, I CALLED TWO PEOPLE AND THEN I GOT A CALL AT THE SAME TIME AND I DON’T KNOW - I JUST - WHO IS THIS???

ME:  Someone who’s aged sixteen years since the start of this conversation.  Who do you think you’re talking to?

MIL:  WELL I THINK I CALLED TOMMY!!  WHERE IS HE??

ME:  Okay listen -  I have a dentist appointment at 1:00 so you and me and the boys will go into town to do our usual stuff at 2:00 when I’m done - do you want to come over here at 2:00 or shall I come pick you up?

MIL:  OH I’LL COME OVER THERE, THAT’LL WORK BEST I THINK.

ME:  Okay, you come here at 2:00 then.  Do you know where you’re going?

MIL:  THIS PHONE ALWAYS MESSES UP, IT DROPS MY CALLS AND IT CUTS OUT -

ME:  P, do you know where you’re going at 2:00?

MIL:  YEAH I’M COMING OVER THERE!

ME:  Where, P?  Where are you going at 2:00?

MIL:  YEAH I’LL COME OVER THERE.  I TELL YA I GOT THIS STUPID PHONE THAT I JUST CAN’T -

ME:  Okay listen, I’m going to tell you what I want you to do -

*call starts cutting out again*

MIL:  YEAH YOU KNOW I HAVE TWO PHONES AND THE LANDLINE IS RIGHT NEXT TO ME, I HATE THIS CELLPHONE IT ALWAYS CUTS OUT LIKE THIS WHEN I’M IN THE HOUSE

ME:  Listen to me -

MIL:  I GOT A LOT GOING ON, NOT PHYSICALLY I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING BUT IN MY HEAD IT’S ALL REAL BUSY I SHOULD GO OUTSIDE THIS PHONE CUTS OUT ALL THE TIME, YOU KNOW??

ME:  Holy shit I’m going to die on this phonecall.  P LISTEN TO ME, GO OUTSIDE

MIL:  SO NOW I GOTTA CALL MY LADY AND I’M NOT REALLY SUPPOSED TO CALL HER, SHE CALLS ME BUT POLICY IS I CAN’T CALL HER -

*call cutting out randomly so all i hear is crazed rambling*

ME:  For fucks sake - GO OUTSIDE P I CAN’T HEAR YOU

MIL:  BECAUSE YOU KNOW I CALLED TWO PEOPLE -

ME:  Yes I know you called two people but one of them wasn’t your lady because it’s against policy for you to call her, so mark her off the list of people you might be talking to.  We’ve established one was Tom and this isn’t him because he’s at the doctor’s office so you got me.  So who else did you call?  Whoever that is is me.

MIL:  WHAT’S HE DOING??  WHY’S HE AT THE DOCTOR WHAT’S GOING ON??

ME:  It’s a new patient contact, he’s not sick.  Who else did you call, P?

MIL:  I CALLED TOMMY AND R, HELL I DON’T KNOW!!  WHO IS THIS??

ME:

ME:

ME:

ME:  Call Tommy again.

MIL:  OH, YEAH OKAY I’LL DO THAT

ME:  Geezus christ

*call disconnects*

ME:  *looks at the boys*

ME:

ME:

ME:  Should I?

BOYS:  Oh hell yeah

ME:  *thinks about it for just about two seconds*

ME:  *dials Tom*

TOM:  Yep?

ME:  Your mom’s lost her damn mind, she called me and never figured out who she was talking to, I told her I was Michelle Obama and she just said YEAH OKAY HI and launched in a dramatic retelling of her latest dementia drama.  Oh and she’s really mad at her phone.  And she has no clue who she just talked to for ten minutes.

TOM:

TOM:

TOM:  Did you tell her to call me

ME:  She was going to anyway.

TOM:  How bad is it?

ME:  Scale of one to ten?  About eight hundred and fifty four.

TOM:  Geezus.

*pause*

ME:  You just got the call didn’t you

TOM:  You owe me

ME:  She’s your mother, I don’t owe you shit, I just gave up a significant chunk of my life and a crap ton of brain cells messing with her.  Oh, ask her to elaborate on the bedstripping thing.

TOM:  THE WHAT

ME:  Better answer her call before she forgets who she’s calling.  Tell her you’re Barack Obama.

TOM:  WHAT -

ME:  *hangs up*

.

[robininthelabyrinth]

3. I have no idea if this time line would work, but MYX and XY get attached to each other, so when the time comes that MYX and XY need to leave Koi Tower, JGY helps them get married in secret and run away to Dongu. Anyways, a few years latter, JGY has a kid that needs to go and people in a removed location that owe him favors! Isn’t that a wonderful combination! A Jin(?) Rusong raised by Uncles Mo and Xue, or whatever they go by these days, would be very chaotic. Bonus: they start a relatively safe demonic cultivation sect, maybe with some guidance from the Nie (has NMJ never been killed by the Jin in this Au?), or more specifically, Huaisang. SL and XXC who got a happy ending decide to check out this no blood line sect (it looks slightly dubious, but surely can’t be to bad! Right?) A-Qing at least is enjoying her new friend -🟪🦋

Should Have Been Listening - ao3

“Let go of me.”

“I won’t,” Mo Xuanyu said, clutching Xue Yang’s arm. “I won’t, I won’t! You’re my only friend here!”

Xue Yang looked down at him in what he thought was mostly exasperation, but might have also been a little fondness – after all, if it’d been anyone else who’d grabbed him, he’d have stabbed them.

He still didn’t know why he didn’t stab Mo Xuanyu, too, but in all honesty, he wasn’t that interested in exploring it. He did what he wanted, and right now, he didn’t want to murder Mo Xuanyu.

Irritating as he sometimes was.

“Little brat,” he said. “I have important business to go do.”

“It’s not something that he ordered, though!”

“So what?” Xue Yang bristled. “I don’t just do what hetells me!”

“But that means he won’t cover for you, and that means you’ll get in trouble!” Mo Xuanyu argued. “How can I let you go all alone to get in trouble? You have to take me with you! What will you do without me? Who’ll keep you entertained and sneak sweets for you if not for me?”

Xue Yang’s lips twitched. Okay, maybe there was a reason he kept the brat around.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “This is something I’ve got to do – something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m going to kill a lot of people and get into a lot of trouble, more trouble than ever before. I’ll probably lose my life. How can I possibly take you with me?”

Mo Xuanyu scowled up at him. It was a very weak scowl – barely more than a pout. “You think that’s going to make me not want to come with you?”

Xue Yang’s eyebrows went up. “You cry at the sight of blood!”

“I cry at a lot of things!”

Xue Yang wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was true, Mo Xuanyu cried at a lot of things.

“Maybe if I come with you, it won’t be so bad!”

Yeeeeah, Xue Yang wasn’t going to count on that.

“Or maybe you don’t have to go…?”

“I have to go,” he explained. “If I don’t go, I can’t get revenge, and I have to have revenge.”

Mo Xuanyu blinked up at him.

“I don’t really understand, but okay,” he said, and tugged on his arm. “Let’s go together, then. I promise I won’t cry!”

-

He cried.

He cried a lot.

-

“Stop fucking crying.”

-

“Just – ugh. Listen. You’re ruining the mood.”

-

“If you can’t stop crying, go away. Now. Or I’ll stab you!”

-

“Okay, see, look, I just killed the leaders, see? Just the old men. Everyone else is just locked in their rooms. Once the sect leader comes back, I’ll kill him too, and that’ll be all. Okay? Everyone else lives. I promise. Now stop crying, okay?”

-

“I don’t want to know,” Jin Guangyao said when they got back. “I don’t want to know at all.”

“Good,” Xue Yang grumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Enough people heard about the reason for what you did that opinions are mixed as to whether your actions were the Chang clan’s just rewards for their former misdeeds or if they were actually wrong,” Jin Guangyao said. He looked irritated. “But you still killed high-ranking members of a sect, and you left enough alive that they’re demanding your head on a platter. You’re going to need to run away.”

Mo Xuanyu hesitantly gestured as if he wished to speak.

“Yes, you can go with him. Now that my father is dead, no one cares where you are.”

Mo Xuanyu beamed.

“You’re just going to let us go?” Xue Yang asked suspiciously. “That seems unlike you. What’s in it for you?”

“Oh, I’m not just going to let you go. I’m going to give you money, too,” Jin Guangyao said. “And all you need to do for me is one little tiny favor –”

Pity that that was when Xue Yang stopped listening, too busy staring at Mo Xuanyu’s delighted face and counting all the way he was in for it now.

-

“I’ve always wanted to take care of a baby,” Mo Xuanyu said happily.

“Good for you,” Xue Yang said darkly as he stalked through the streets.

He would rather that Jin Guangyao had needed a body buried and a death covered up or something – and judging by the baby’s perturbed expression, it probably agreed with him. Fuck, maybe Jin Guangyao had meant for them to murder the baby once they got it far enough out of the way. It was just as plausible as Mo Xuanyu's assumption that they were supposed to take care of it.

Damnit, maybe he should have been listening.

“Listen, neither of us are equipped to handle a baby. Go find a woman to help us – someone poor and helpless who doesn’t have any other choice.”

“Okay!”

-

Xue Yang shut his eyes. “What exactly,” he said slowly, “did you think I asked you to get us a woman for, exactly?”

“To…watch the baby?” Mo Xuanyu guessed. “When we’re busy or sleeping? Anyway, what’s wrong with A-Qing, anyway? She’s nice!”

“I’m not nice,” A-Qing said. The damn brat was smirking – and for once it wasn’t his damn brat, but some blind brat with a cocky expression. “I stole your wallet and you burst into tears and it was really embarrassing.”

“He does that,” Xue Yang said wearily. At least he’d noticed the theft this time – all of his lessons in ‘how not to be a sucker and get constantly taken advantage of’ were maybe having something of an impact. Maybe. “For some reason I’m apparently into it.”

He couldn’t explain it any other way.

“…loser.”

“I will stab you,” Xue Yang threatened. “I don’t care if you’re blind.”

“Won’t someone tell me why A-Qing isn’t a perfectly good babysitter?” Mo Xuanyu demanded. He was holding the baby in his arms again – the baby liked him more than it did Xue Yang, which meant that between Mo Xuanyu and the baby, the baby had better self-preservation instincts – and he was trying his best stern scowl which was of course barely more than a pout and a so-called ‘fierce’ expression that made Xue Yang want to laugh.

Not even Mo Xuanyu’s horrific make-up skills could make thatface intimidating. Or maybe it was just that the person behind the face was just so completely unthreatening that there was no help for it?

“Well? Tell me!”

Xue Yan opened his mouth, then shrugged and shut it again.

A-Qing patted Mo Xuanyu on the shoulder. “I’m too young. No milk.”

“…milk?”

“You know. The thing babies eat?”

“…milk,” Mo Xuanyu repeated, only now he looked absolutely heartbroken at having failed the mission that Xue Yang had assigned him almost entirely just to get him out of the way while Xue Yang collected some spare cash and threatened their way onto a ride out of this piece of shit town.

“It’s fine,” Xue Yang said hastily. “We’ll just get a goat or something, I don’t know.”

“Okay, I actually only came here to laugh at you,” A-Qing said. “But now I’m legitimately worried about this baby. Don’t you two know anything? How’d you even get a baby, anyway?”

-

“Stop laughing. It’s not that funny.”

-

“Seriously. Stop laughing, or I stab you.”

“Don’t worry, A-Qing,” Mo Xuanyu said. “He doesn’t mean it! Threats are just how he expresses affection!”

“It most certainly is not.”

“That is absolutely amazing,” A-Qing said, wiping her eyes. “Best thing I’ve ever heard., if by best I mean worse-but-hilarious. I mean. If that’s what he considers affection, what must his flirting be like?”

“No one is flirting with anyone!”

-

“Are you going to leave at some point?”

“Obviously not,” A-Qing said. She’d caught the same ride as them, using Xue Yang’s cash no less – Mo Xuanyu had insisted that it was the least they could do after the whole milk misunderstanding, which was stupid, she ought to be paying them for wasting their time. Xue Yang couldn’t wait to get rid of her, although he had to admit that she’d been pretty useful in terms of putting on the ‘poor sad blind girl and her two brothers all alone in the world’ act to get them a room at the inn at prices even Xue Yang felt comfortable paying. “Are you joking? This is so much funnier than walking by myself. Anyway, I enjoy watching people crash and burn.”

“Aren’t you too young to be such a bitch?” Xue Yang hissed. “And, I don’t know, blind?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t care what you –”

The sound of crying came from the other room.

It was quickly followed by a second set of crying.

Xue Yang felt the onset of a headache.

“…truce?” A-Qing suggested sweetly, as if she knew exactly how much it pissed him off and thought it was the funniest thing ever, which was…probably accurate, actually. “I’ll get the baby to stop crying if you do the same with Mo Xuanyu.”

Yeah, that was definitely a headache. The sort of headache called why do I like that brat.

Mo Xuanyu owed him so much candy for putting up with this shit.

“Fine,” Xue Yang said begrudgingly. “Truce. Temporarily. And then you leave!”

-

“So we live here now, huh?” A-Qing said, looking around the house they’d claimed. “That’s neat.”

“Why do you live with us again?” Xue Yang asked her, though by now he barely even meant it. A-Qing was clearly another one in the same mold as Mo Xuanyu: you just couldn’t say no to her…or, rather, you could, at length and top volume and with threats, only it just didn’t stick. “I definitely did not recall asking you to stay.”

Though it was nice to have someone else around that wasn’t going to get immediately ripped off by literally anyone who came their way. Mo Xuanyu’d started getting conned by the literal infant that they were taking care of – he was completely hopeless.

Also, questionably blind or not, at least A-Qing had no hesitation about beating people with her stick if they struck her the wrong way, which was a life approach Xue Yang agreed with wholeheartedly.

“She’s going to learn to cultivate!” Mo Xuanyu chirped from where he was applying his make-up. “Demonic cultivation, too! We had a whole discussion about it while you were out getting groceries!”

That made a certain amount of sense, Xue Yang supposed. You didn’t need talent to be a demonic cultivator – technically speaking, given his bloodline, Mo Xuanyu was more naturally gifted in cultivation than Xue Yang, which was just wrong on all sorts of levels – and it was certainly more effective a defense mechanism than A-Qing’s stick. If there were two of them, they could protect Mo Xuanyu and the baby more effectively, taking shifts when needed, and Mo Xuanyu, who was also going to learn demonic cultivation no matter how many times Xue Yang had to hammer it into his head, could be the last line of defense, largely since no one would ever expect him to be able to do…anything…and they’d be right, too.

So it wasn’t the craziest idea in the world, only…

“…who is she going to be learning from, exactly!?”

-

“Have you ever considered charging for your skill in teaching cultivation lessons instead of your skill in stabbing people?” A-Qing asked one day. They were lying on the ground and having the corpses they’d raised fan them to try to reduce the temperature – it was that sort of day. Also, Mo Xuanyu, who might’ve objected, wasn’t around. “You’re not actually that bad at this. Might be more profitable, and less work. Just a thought.”

“Shut up. I’m great at stabbing people.”

“Yeah, but then after a while we have to move because people get annoyed at that, and it’s getting a little annoying to have to pack up all the time.”

“We’d have to move anyway. We’re wanted criminals, remember?”

“We could be wanted criminals with a house. Besides, wouldn’t you like to be called Teacher Xue?”

“What? No. Gross.”

-

“So you see, it turns out that they were teaching demonic cultivation in a safe and organized fashion,” Xiao Xingchen explained enthusiastically. “They’d even gathered up their own little sect! And of course everyone heard what the Chang clan did, so there’s no need to worry about them going around and murdering people at random – it was a targeted revenge scheme.”

“We’re working on teaching them regular cultivation,” Song Lan agreed, nodding. “To help mitigate the negative effects of demonic cultivation…well, we started out by just teaching them.”

“It turned out that they’d been secretly teaching all of the local delinquents, too, or at least Mo-gongzi had been teaching a few and Mistress Qing was teaching a few others, and even Sect Leader Xue had a few disciples,” Xiao Xingchen said, politely omitting or possibly having not noticed the fact that Mo Xuanyu had been teaching his ‘friends’ (read: scammers trying to take advantage of him), while A-Qing and Xue Yang had each been trying to form competing gangs and/or obtain lackeys. Xue Yang didn’t mind the oversight, largely on account of the fact that A-Qing had been winning, damn her – he’d kept getting distracted by inventing new things. “And a few of them had real talent – and you know that Zichen and I have always wanted to start a sect of our own, with no bloodline ties –”

“We’re joining their sect,” Song Lan said. “We’ll be leading the orthodox side, while they lead the demonic cultivation aspect – safely, of course.”

“I guess it’s better than them being crazy,” Jiang Cheng said. He sounded dubious. “I don’t like it, but at least all the demonic cultivators can be in one spot, you know?”

He made it sound like they’d be dropping off new ones there in the future.

Like they’d opened up some sort of pet rescue and were taking in unwanted puppies or something.

“Agreed,” Nie Mingjue said. “To the extent that they aren’t causing active harm, containment seems an appropriate remedy here. Who seconds the motion?”

“I do,” Lan Xichen said, and smiled at the newly agreed-upon sect. “Welcome back to the cultivation world, Sect Leader Xue.”

-

“I don’t want to know,” Jin Guangyao said, glaring.

“Don’t worry,” Xue Yang told him. “This comes as much of a shock to me as to you.”

The glare intensified, but that was fine. Jin Guangyao’s facial expressions, however minor and generally overlooked, had been the only thing getting him through that awful, awful meeting just now where people kept trying to salute him and make him salute back and if he didn’t then he was letting down Mo Xuanyu (who would send him a sad look) and A-Qing (who would hear about it from Mo Xuanyu later and then find a way to step on his foot right when he was concentrating on something).

Not to mention their two new resident lovebirds, who looked so righteous and proper from the outside but who also may or may not have accidentally full-on actually resurrected some dead asshole cultivator more or less the first time they’d joined Xue Yang in his demonic cultivation laboratory – which would have been fine, you know, that happened in demonic cultivation though not normally to quite such a wow-is-he-actually-alive extent, except that the guy’s intermittent moments of clarity suggested that his two new sect members might have just brought back the Yiling Patriarch himself, which was going to make all of them wanted criminal again the second anyone found out about it.

Ugh.

Being called sect leader was completely not worth this shit.

Xue Yang comforted himself with the reminder that later today he was planning on publicly introducing Jin Guangyao to the Xue sect’s head junior disciple “Xue Song” and announcing loudly that the brat needed some lessons in manners, that he’d heard that that was Lianfeng-zun’s specialty, and nominating him to take care of the kid while they were visiting.

See how the fucker liked that.

“I always knew Xue-gege could do great things!” Mo Xuanyu said, clapping his hands as A-Qing rolled her (by now, Xue Yang was almost definitely sure not actually blind) eyes behind his back. “As long as I went with him!”

[wearywinchester]

Tempers

Dean Winchester x Female Reader

Summary: When a hunt goes wrong, anger flares and feelings come out.

Requested by Anonymous: This is sooo ''let's pretend they're all alive' but I think we all need something nice now, could you do one where reader is bobby's daughter and she's your typical I like makeup, short skirts and heels girl and they're all (reluctantly) working with the ghost facers for a case, dean gets protective around her bc she's bobby's daughter and not at all bc he likes her no no what gave you that idea hehehe

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: little bit of jealousy, injuries, mentions of blood, swearing, brief mentions of alcohol, fluff, kissing

Hunting with the Winchester’s.

No matter the case, hunting with those two never failed to be interesting. You’d like to think you were a good hunter, in fact you knew you were. You might not have been the best there is but there’s not one hunter out there that hasn’t made a handful of mistakes on the job. It was bound to happen sometime. But you’ve had a pretty good hunter to learn from—your dad.

He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of you hunting, not in the slightest and he tried his hardest to get you to go another direction with your life. But Bobby Singer was as stubborn as they come, so he should’ve expected his daughter to be just the same as himself. With all of the reluctance in the world, he taught you to be the hunter you are today, and that’s something he can feel confident in even though he might not admit it.

Dean hadn’t taken you too seriously the first time you’d accompanied them on a hunt for a vamp nest, treating you as if you were a child despite the mere one year age difference the two of you held. That quickly changed when you saved him from a great deal of danger that night; three vamps against a disarmed Dean surely wouldn’t have gone very well.

That was something you very much held over his head, giving it a good long while before you finally let him live it down save for a few mentions here and there.

Even then Dean was just as protective as he’d been since you were teens nearly ten years ago, you were Bobby’s daughter. That was always his reasoning for insisting you stay close to him on hunts, for losing his temper should the smallest of things happen to you. That was his reasoning for being adamant that you stay back on hunts he deemed too dangerous, trying his hardest to convince Bobby to stick with him on it. Bobby never disagrees with his reasoning, but he also knows you’re too stubborn for your own good.

Dean was the very same way.

The old house looked like something straight out of a movie, the stereotypical haunted house as boards stick haphazardly over broken windows and the grass is far too overgrown. Nearly every corner was littered with spiderwebs, the siding on the house covered in years of neglected dirt and moss. It was only perfectly fitting that it’d be haunted, otherwise that’d be a waste of an abandoned house.

You squinted up at it as you got out of the backseat of the Impala, turning back to look at the long driveway you’d just driven up, lined with old trees on either side before glancing back at the house. Your gaze shifts to Dean as you smooth out your jacket, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a grin.

“What?” You ask, eyes narrowed as you look up at the older Winchester.

“Nothing,” he chuckles, shrugging his shoulders, “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a pair of those ridiculously tall heels on. I have to say I’m shocked.”

You roll your eyes and bite the inside of your cheek as he nudges the toe of your tattered old boots, his smile still remaining as he looks down at you in amusement.

“Well I guess I’m full of surprises then, aren’t I?” You say as you rub your gloss in with a smack of your lips and brush past him to get to catch up to Sam, the smile you’d tried to stifle now tugging at your lips once your back was to him. But he knew it was there just as much as you saw his was when you turned back around to catch his expression.

He chuckled, brows soon furrowing as he shook his head. “Wait—what’s that supposed to mean?”

He slung his bag over his shoulder and quickened his pace, grumbling to himself about what your words could have meant as his brows furrowed. In a matter of moments you nearly smack into Sam, stopping just in time.

“What is it?”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Dean mutters, and when you look at him that crease between his brows deepens and his jaw tenses, eyes rolling and you follow his gaze to the ever familiar van that sat parked on the other side of the trees. “Looks like the ghostbusters beat us to it.”

Ghostfacers.

You were more than surprised when Dean had caved on working the hunt with them, not without a couple of eye rolls and a few choice words for the pair mumbled not so discreetly under his breath. But all things considered, after what happened the last time, you were surprised he’d gone through with it. Although, Harry and Ed weren’t planning on leaving anyway. They may have been more than just a little intimidated by that ever famous Dean Winchester glare, one that never worked on you, but they weren’t scared enough to back down much to Dean’s dismay.

The more people there were, the better, but that didn’t stop the older Winchester from being protective over you. In fact, you were certain he was even more so.

“Stay with me,” Dean said, his words serious as he put his arm out in front of you, his gaze over at the two less than desired guests and their cameras having been less than pleased. Especially with the way they smiled at you and acted like a couple of fools with a crush.

“What am I five, Dean?” You say, pushing his arm down as you quicken your pace to walk with him rather than behind him.

He narrows his eyes down at you as his lips purse till those dimples appeared that you’ve come to know oh so well, and rarely were they not from discontentment.

“Would you slow down?” He huffs, a smile tugging at your lips.

You sigh, shaking your head in amusement.

You failed to miss the way the back of his hand had brushed over your knuckles as you walked along the shadowed hallway, thick with cobwebs and rubble scattering across the scratched wood floors. You were starting to wonder if the action was a simple accident or if he’d felt the same spark of something you couldn’t quite pinpoint in his chest as you felt in yours.

It could have been nothing, probably was, but you shook it off when you turned around the corner and tried not to think about it again.

The hunt was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a simple salt and burn, and it was one spirit against five people. Harry and Ed weren’t the best of help, not really, but it was more than you walked in with and it should have been better. But it wasn’t.

The spirit turned out to be far more vengeful than she let on, and as Dean suspected, it wasn’t a good idea to split up. Not in a house that was three times bigger than it seemed with a more than violent spirit on the loose. It most certainly didn’t help that the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, the house dark enough to begin with even in daylight, it’s boarded up windows and burnt out lightbulbs working against you.

Had you not been there, Dean would more than readily have split up to cover more ground with the extra set of hands accompanying you this time, it only made sense to do so. But you were. You were there and you were just as stubborn as ever as you stood there in favor of the very idea that was just the opposite of what Dean wanted. What was a good idea to you and one to most was the worst thing he could possibly think of. He didn’t want you to stray far from him for reasons he’d never admit, not to you or himself, instead reasoning with a simple ‘because I said so’.

But that phrase didn’t work on you. It never did.

He knew. From the moment those two barreled down the stairs looking paler than the spirit you were after, holding all the hesitancy in the world in their body language he knew. The apologetic look Sam had given him wasn’t one that helped either, anger quick to spark within him as he closed his eyes for a moment. He should have known better than to believe they’d offer you any form of protection even though he knows you can hold your own. He should have known better than to quit arguing with you on the matter because maybe, just maybe you’d have given in and split up with him instead. Maybe you would still be with the group and not who knows where in this maze of a run down mansion.

It was a mess of maybe’s and what if’s that clouded his every thought.

But he didn’t argue and you were gone. You were swept away by Casper the not so friendly ghost and he was to blame. Bobby would be livid if he knew, he gets that, but Dean himself didn’t know what he’d do if something happened. He could deal with the wrath of Bobby Singer any day but he couldn’t deal with even just the thought of something happening to you and he couldn’t find it in him to grasp just why it was he felt that way. Maybe he could, but he doesn’t want to think about it.

“You what?” Dean asked, anger simmering in the pit of his stomach. His question was low and the two words were more than venomous, more than telling of just how angry he’d been. He heard exactly what Ed had told him not thirty seconds before, he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He could believe it actually, because it was Ed of all people, but that wasn’t the point.

Ed swallowed thickly and offered a nervous laugh in an attempt to stave off the tension that’d been building the moment they came back to Dean without you, backing up from the green eyed Winchester who’d been staring him down with a narrowed gaze. It wasn’t hard to see that his patience was wearing thin, and he knew he was pushing it the more he stalled. “She—she went ahead! It’s not like we could talk her out of it!”

His fists clenched and relaxed at his sides at the reasoning he just heard, crescent shaped imprints of his nails left behind on his palms in the wake of his increasing anger.

“You let her out of your sight?” He said, far louder than before. He grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pushed him against the dilapidated old wall, the wood creaking under the newfound pressure against it and a cloud of dust forming. He’s more than tense as Dean crinkles his shirt between his fists, knuckles ivory white and jaw clenched tightly. He could see every freckle and every ounce of emotion in Dean’s eyes, that’s how close he was. He could see the angry quiver in his bottom lip and the flare of his nostrils, could feel his breath hitting his face as he stood pinned to the wall and his glasses even fogged up.

“What, you thought you’d play ‘Mr. Tough Guy’, try and protect her? Huh? Cause you sure as hell didn’t do a good job,” Dean grits out frustratedly.

“She said she’d kick my ass if I didn’t let her go ahead!” He splutters, nearly nose to nose with him.

Dean nodded, the smile on his face bitter as he slid his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sweating bullets by that point as he buckled under the pressure of Dean’s distress. He let out a noise when he shook him slightly and he knows that’s not the answer Dean needs to hear right now. “We were on the second floor when a door slammed around the corner!”

“Actually, they all closed so it’s kinda hard to tell which one,” Harry chimed in, growing timid the more he spoke as he stepped closer to Sam as some form of protection. He scratched the back of his neck and laughed nervously when Dean’s stare fell on him.

“Dean, we’ll find her, okay? Right now we’re just wasting time,” Sam says, noting Ed was two seconds from fainting from the anger radiating off the older Winchester.

Dean pushed him back once more before releasing his grip on his shirt, wrinkled and disheveled from the tightness of his fists. It was becoming increasingly more apparent that this was about more than just protecting Bobby Singer’s daughter. It was about more than just his annoyance with anything and everything that has to do with Ghostfacers. It was you.

He was angry, livid, as he snagged the flashlight from the table, storming off on his own. Not without his anger getting the better of him, a nearby chair taking the brunt of his frustration as it hits the wall. He remembers just what happened the last time he got stuck working a hunt with them, and he tried his hardest not to think about it.

Meanwhile, you found yourself stuck locked in a room you knew you weren’t in before you were taken. A room you didn’t even know existed in this house to begin with. For being a run down old building, the flimsy doors were stronger than they looked, but you suppose the powers of the supernatural didn’t really care about things like that.

Your knuckles were an angry shade of red, fists sore and throbbing from having pounded them against the door for the better part of what had to be ten minutes in an attempt to escape or at least grab someone’s attention. You were tired as you slumped back against the wall, tucked within the sparse circle of salt you managed to make. Your phone was dead and your flashlight was gone, your energy seemingly just as drained as everything else.

You could feel the I told you so’s coming from Dean, you knew they’d be there ready and waiting if you get out of this. It’s not like it had been completely undeserved, but you didn’t want to hear it. You knew you more than likely looked worse for wear as you sat within that circle, knew by the way you saw smears of crimson on your fingers when you wiped your cheek. It was no secret that you messed up big time with this one, you’d admit that, but admitting it to yourself didn’t help you in that moment and you certainly wouldn’t say it to Dean.

You found there were a lot of things you were hesitant on admitting to Dean, and in the current moment you weren’t so sure if you’d have the chance to bring any of them to light. Maybe it was for the best anyway, could save yourself the embarrassment of having feelings for the older Winchester in the first place. Though you can’t tell what was scarier, the thought of his inevitable discontent with you and your hunting capabilities should you make it out alive, or the very real possibility that you wouldn’t make it out alive.

Yeah, you definitely couldn’t decide that one.

You weren’t sure how or when you found yourself pining over green eyes; the two of you bickered more often than not each and every time you saw one another. If it wasn’t over the smell of your perfume filling up the Impala, it was the way his cologne hung on you after he gave you a hug just to make that happen, just to ruffle your hair after you’d just done it. It was the softer smiles you shared with each other without even realizing it.

But it didn’t really matter, not now it didn’t.

You were caught up with the sting of embarrassment coursing through you from having gotten lost in the first place—you were so adamant that you could do it on your own. It happens to Sam all the time, it happens to Dean all the time, but you couldn’t stop the heat burning in your cheeks or the frustration building in your stomach.

You didn’t know how much time had passed nor did you have a second to think on it before she appeared in front of you in a matter of seconds. The look on her face had you sitting a little straighter, back pressing to the wall behind you as you eyed the pitiful salt ring around you. She laughed tauntingly and you were beginning to think even that wouldn’t protect you, you knew it wouldn’t judging by the way each and every granule began to sift away and break apart it’s protective ring.

You swallow thickly as your eyes widened, both your gaze and hers shifting to the door briefly as it rattled. “Y/n?”

Your breath hitched, only the smallest bit of relief washing over you as her attention returned to you almost immediately. “Dean!”

She didn’t seem to mind his attempts at busting the door down, nor the axe that split through the wood. She knew full well she could send him across the room with a simple twitch of her finger should he break through, watching as you scramble to your feet.

In a matter of seconds she’d appeared mere inches from you, her hand grabbing your face, cold and unforgiving. You didn’t know just what it was she’d been doing, but you were more than aware of the pain beginning to lance through you the moment she touched your skin.

It was near unbearable, a sharp burn radiating through you as a pressure squeezed in on you, intense and unwavering. You were quite sure you’d never felt something so intensely, the feeling nearly taking your breath away. Of all the hunts you’d been on, of all the injuries you walked away with, they’ve got nothing on this.

One thing she didn’t count on was the handful of salt you gathered in your palm, too caught up in your demise to see you’d snagged it from the protective ring she broke. You pressed your hand to her wrist and watched her face twist and contort in discomfort, the action searing her arm where you’d touched it and releasing her grip on you in an instant as if you were venomous.

She pushed you to the wall in retaliation with a simple move of her hand, and if you thought she’d been angry now, you surely were mistaken. You groaned as the fragile old wall behind you cracked and crumbled around you, slumping on the ground once more in exhaustion. You caught sight of Dean’s face as the door began to give way, livid yet holding something you couldn’t quite place as your heart hammered in your chest.

But luck seemed to be on your side just this once, fear flashing across her face as she stood mere inches from you. Her yelp was shrill as she stumbled backwards, having burned up in a blaze of misery and screams. Your chest heaved as your shoulders slumped in relief, the heat of her disappearance having fanned over you and the door breaking loose in a heap of shards and splinters.

The pain she’d caused had begun to ebb away and subside, leaving the ache to remain and the fatigue you felt to rest heavier in your body as you stood to your feet with a bit of unbalance.

Dean had crossed the room in a matter of a few strides, the axe clattering to the floor as his hand settled on your cheek. You looked miserable, mascara smudged and a frown on your busted lip.

“You okay?” He asked, the furrow deep between his brows.

“Do not say ‘I told you so’,” you grumble, half humorous as you look up at him.

His lips purse, his thumb swiping over the cut running along your cheek that he was less than pleased about. Any other time he might’ve laughed, but not this time. The worried crease between his brows and the way his lips pointed downward at the corners had been telling enough that he wasn’t happy with the predicament you’d gotten yourself into, that he was the complete opposite of thrilled at the close call that had his heart pounding and his stress in overdrive. But right now he was relieved. You were here and you were okay, attitude and all.

Sam was first to rush in, Harry next and Ed hot on his heels as they stepped over the rubble and splinters of the broken door.

Ed’s own relief washed over him, happy to not be on the receiving end of an angry Dean Winchester’s punch. “You found her—”

“Shut it.”

It’d been quiet the whole car ride home, no music on the radio, no conversation, no quick witted jokes or typical conversation. It was quiet and it was tense, near uncomfortable as Sam was stuck in the tension between two people he knows have something brewing between them. But he said nothing, pretending he didn’t see the way his brother’s gaze flickers to the rear view every other minute to see if you’re okay, his jaw tense and his grip on the wheel nearly too tight.

Bobby wasn’t thrilled to see the way that spirit roughed you up, more than a few choice words thrown Dean’s way with anger in his tone. He expected that much, having braced for it the whole ride back. He didn’t argue, didn’t do much more than nod and clench his jaw, and he didn’t say just how it was that it happened in the first place either.

Now you were wandering through your dad’s house, quiet unlike it had been just two hours earlier. Your dad and Sam had both been asleep, the early hours of dawn beginning to roll around as dawn approached. You knew better than to believe Dean would be sleeping too, your thoughts confirmed when the door to the bedroom he’d been crashing in was still open, bed empty and still untouched from when he’d haphazardly made it the morning before.

You sighed when you saw him, sitting by himself on the back porch swing and the moment you stepped outside you saw the half-drunk bottle of beer in his hand. His gaze lifted to you when he heard the creak of the door, averting his stare moments later.

“It’s late, sweetheart. Go to bed.”

“Then why aren’t you in bed?”

“Not tired,” he says, tipping his bottle against his lips as he takes another sip of his beer.

You huff out a soft sigh, arms crossing over your chest. That’s when he looks at you again, the dimness of the porch light having illuminated the jagged scratch on your cheek, freshly cleaned as well as the mascara that smudged under your eyes earlier. The tension in his jaw had yet to go away, obvious as ever.

“Are you going to be mad at me forever then?”

“‘M not mad anymore,” he says, and you knew for a fact that’d been a lie.

“You’re not that good a liar, Dean,” you say, watching him set his drink down and stand to his feet, leaning his weight on the wooden railing. “I had it handled, you know,” you say, watching his expression sour at your words.

You heard his scoff as you brushed past him, a sigh leaving your lips because you knew he’d react just the way he’d been acting. You were right with him, you were always right.

“Had it handled, my ass,” he said, quick to follow after you. “I told you not to do that.”

“Yeah, well I did it,” you said, and he turned in front of you and spun around, keeping you from walking any further.

“Would you quit it with the tough guy act? You’re hurt and you damn well know it, I know it. Hell, anyone can see that. So do yourself a favor and stop pretending like you had everything under control because I know you better than to believe that.”

Your brows furrow as you look up at him with a squinted gaze, watching as his chest rises and falls, at the way there was something more than anger pooling in his eyes as he looked at you. You’ve never seen him quite this upset over you before, not really, never seen him look at you that way before. He was angry, sure he was, but it was different.

He wasn’t wrong, you were hurting, it’s not everyday you’re on the receiving end of a vengeful spirits’ wrath. You went off on your own when you shouldn’t have been so bold and daring. But you were here. You were here and you were okay and you knew you were bound to do it again on another case. It was what being a hunter is about. You didn’t get this far by sitting back and letting the monsters out there come to you, you had to go out and look for them and if you got a few bumps and bruises then so be it.

“Why are you so mad, Dean?” You ask, watching his eyes roll. “You go out and do the same reckless things on a hunt, you’ve come out on the other side way worse than I did. But since it’s me, suddenly it’s a problem.”

“Exactly, it’s because it’s you!” He repeats, frustrated as ever as he throws his hands up. “And yeah I’m mad. I’m freakin’ pissed. You come in here thinking you’re invincible and you’re not Y/n. I’m mad because…” he paused, letting out a breath as he rubbed his face, hands running through his hair.

He looked at you then, expression softening as he calmed down a fraction. “Forget it.”

“No, not forget it,” you say, grabbing his wrist as he starts to walk away. His jaw was clenched as he looked down at you, swallowing thickly as the heaving of his chest slowed and his grip on the doorknob was tighter than ever.

This was the first time since you’d gotten back that he’d looked in your eyes for longer than a mere second or two. You knew he was on the brink of storming off to sulk in his own anger and guilt because that’s what he always did. You knew there was something more to it than just what he’d told you. He’d like to think that you’d believe that he wasn’t angry anymore, that he was over it. But Sam told you what happened back there, how upset he got with Ed and just how worried he’d been. It was growing increasingly obvious that there was more to it than that.

It was then that you noticed you’d still been holding onto his wrist and he didn’t pull away from you, didn’t make a move to.

You tilted your head to the side when you mulled things over, and that was when the sudden realization hit you like a ton of bricks, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corner of your mouth.

He rolls his eyes, “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t do that thing where you try and ‘read’ me,” he says, quoting the word.

“You were scared,” you said, smile widening a bit and he huffs, pulling his arm from your loose grip. You hit the nail right on the head.

“I was just doing what Bobby asked me to do,” he says, adamant that that was his reason for being as upset as he was. Definitely not over the feelings bubbling away in the pit of his stomach, just waiting to go ahead and boil over.

“No, you were scared, De,” you say as he starts to turn away from you in an attempt to hide the smile threatening to show. “You were scared that I got lost.”

You always did that. You always took his anger and made it something else entirely and he’d try his hardest to keep that wall up. He was mad at you, mad at you for putting yourself in the same kind of danger he allows himself to be in with every hunt he does. But if you keep poking and prodding him and calling him out on his true feelings with that smile that makes him weak in the knees he does know how long he’ll last.

“You got this all wrong, sweetheart.”

“Sam told me what happened with Ed back there.”

His expression changed, softened a bit before he played it off with that familiar smirk. “Yeah, Ed’s an idiot and he pushed my buttons.”

You nodded then, your smile more than telling that you didn’t believe a word he said. You heaved a sigh, a bit of disappointment burning in your chest at his words. Because maybe you did have it all wrong, maybe his stubborn reluctance to be honest was just him telling the truth. Maybe he was just doing what your dad asked him to do. Being protective was in his nature, you knew that for a fact.

You brushed past him on the porch and headed to the door, the chirping of the early morning birds sounding and giving you enough of a reminder that maybe you should go to bed. That maybe you’ll feel better with a few hours of sleep. That maybe they would be gone, Dean would be gone by the time you woke up and you wouldn’t have to face the fluttery feeling and the ache in your heart until the next time you see him.

You spin on your heel to find him already looking, your smile soft. “Goodnight, Dean.”

Without so much as a reply you twist the old brass doorknob, pushing the back door open before his hand grips your wrist. You turned back to look at him, brows furrowed as you gazed up at him. He swallows thickly as he looks at you, lips parting to speak but the very words he’d been thinking of so vividly were stuck on the top of his tongue.

His hand loosens around your wrist and the tips of his fingers slide down to your hand to envelope yours, calloused and warm and hesitant. He takes all but a few seconds of your curious gaze, of the questions sitting on your tongue before he dips down and presses his lips on yours. It’s soft, featherlight almost as he pulls away just as quickly.

He doesn’t stray too far, his nose brushing against yours as he swallows nervously, but the sight of your smile put him at ease. Had him kissing you with just a little more vigor as his hand drops yours in favor of pressing to your cheek, your own having settled in his arm. Your smiles mingle and press into each other, the kiss soft and languid as your cheeks burned under his touch.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” You murmur, and the way he hummed softly, the way he stole another kiss in favor of admitting you were was telling enough.

He pulls back to look at you, his lips kiss swollen and pink as the beginnings of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. His eyes bounce between yours and down to your lips, looking at you once more before he kisses you again. The anger he held is quick to melt when you look at him the way you do and he hates it, he loves it but he hates it because he really should be mad. You nearly got yourself killed and here he was weak in the knees and he knows you’ll be just as brave on the next hunt. He knows you’ll do just the same thing.

“Your dad’s gonna kill me,” he mumbles, smiling against your lips.

“Probably,” you say with a grin, his quiet laughter immediate as he pulls you closer.

But you were right. There was more to it than just protecting Bobby Singer’s daughter, there always was. As stubborn as Dean Winchester could be, you knew him better than that, and he knew you better than to believe you won’t make his heart race and his worry spike on every hunt after that. It’s just in your nature to be braver than ever.

But he’ll protect you each and every time.

—

Tags: @flamencodiva @stixnstripesworld @dean-is-sams-apple-pie @elegantbutedgy @humanmistakes @agalliasi @lanea-1 @campingmonkey

[selfawarejester]

So, someone requested a fic where Blue Team rescues a Child!Reader from a war zone, but unfortunately Tumblr ate the ask. If you’re the one who requested it, please enjoy!

EDIT: found a screenshot! @simp-for-fictional-men-only, hope you like this!

Blue Team x Child!Reader (Halo)

It’s been a long “day”, even by Spartan standards.

Blue Team had been trying to repel Covenant forces on an Outer Colonies planet for over a week… but it hadn’t been enough. Command had called an evacuation, and after destroying a base to help the efforts, Blue Team had been ordered to help with final evacuation calls in the nearest town.

On the Pelican ride to town, there was a brief moment where they thought it was a waste of resources to send Spartans for an evacuation op, especially because the other Spartan teams were still doing the best they could to strike back at the Covenant; not necessarily to stop them anymore, just to hold them back long enough for the civilians to escape and maybe a little revenge. The events of the week, coupled with the guilt of their brothers and sisters still risking their lives, weighed on them heavily.

But at the end of the day, they’re glad they did: they found a group in the Rec center, a dozen people in the boroughs, twenty in an apartment complex — the Marines wouldn’t have been able to lift most of the wreckage that blocked them from escaping.

By the time they’d gotten to the outskirts of town, Blue Team had been left alone to sweep through the dead town. Chief considered just going to meet up with the Marines — surely, they could match the pace of the overloaded Troop Transports — and this area was just dilapidated factories and shady looking establishments that had long since been stampeded.

But a need to fulfil his task to completion stayed his hand… and thank god it did.

At first, it was just soft sniffles that sounded from the inside of the rundown factory. Chief and Kelly, who’d partnered up to search this side of the district, thought it was one of the many Jackals that had been posted in the previous sector wandering, or a Grunt that had been left behind after the Jackals had entertained themselves (in which case, they should probably put the thing out of its misery), so they go inside.

Chief goes first, moving carefully through the debris so as to not dislodge the wreckage, or disturb the corpses of the few soldiers and more civilians. He retrieves their dog tags, securing them in one of the compartments of the MJOLNIR, and Kelly follows, stepping where he does.

Slowly, the sound becomes louder and louder, wheezing and snotty sobbing. Definitely an injured Grunt, he thinks. It’s coming from under a slab of concrete propped up against a wall. Kelly flanks to the right, while Chief goes to the left. He signals that he’ll lift it on the count of three, and grips the edge of the slab. When the slab gets tossed aside, Kelly raises her shotgun, pointing directly at the small figure.

You shriek and bury your head in your knees, pulled up to your chest. You couldn’t believe that after all the gross, awful things you’d had to sit through, holed up in this corner, you were just going to die.

But when nothing happens for a solid five seconds, you chance a peek over your knees and gasp. S-117 and S-087 are emblazoned across the chests of the armored giants… Spartans.

Kelly and Chief exchange confused gazes, having no idea how to deal with children. The last ones they’d had any interaction with was the Castoffs on Netherop, but they were more feral gremlins than they had been children.

(Kelly and Fred still aren’t entirely sure that the whole incident wasn’t a heat-induced hallucination.)

John really doesn’t want to go through another episode like it, but on the other hand, it would be easier if you were pelting rocks at them.

Kelly, being the more personable of the two, kneels to your height (or as close as a Spartan could get) and softly calls. “You don’t have to be scared. We’re here to help.”

You knew that — they were Spartans! The greatest heroes Humanity ever possessed! You were just shocked that you were getting rescued by them.

“Y-you’re Spartans.” You whisper dumbly, but you couldn’t help it! How are you supposed to be cool when you grew up with Master Chief’s action figure on your nightstand. “Like Master Chief.”

You can’t see it, but John can sense Kelly’s smirk as she looks over at him and points. “Well, that’s the man himself.”

* Oh no. By the way your wet, moved eyes stare up at him, it seems you’re a fan.

OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!!! You hope your pterodactyl screeching wasn’t external.

“Whoa.” This couldn’t be real. You’d passed out from exhaustion, and were dreaming all of this. That could be the only possibility!

John knows that this is the part where he says something witty or inspiring… but he really doesn’t know what to say, so he just awkwardly clears his throat. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head violently, a burning need to not disappoint your childhood hero, and clamber up to your feet… only to wince and lean against the wall, something sticky on your leg.

Now that you’re standing, he can see the dried blood around your ankle. “Hold still!” All the softness is gone from Kelly’s tone as she works on bandaging you up, but you don’t mind, appreciating how careful she’s being.

Co-ordinating with Linda, who informs him that there are patrols scouting the areas — probably only to get any survivors, and not to catch them, but they should still move — and Fred, who tells him that the convoy is flying off-planet via Pelicans in half an hour, John makes some quick calculations.

With the pace you’d set, hobbling alongside Kelly, whimpering every time you put your weight on your left foot, it would take them at least an hour. Too long.

“Whoa…” The sound comes unbidden from Fred when Kelly emerges, with you clutching at her hip, all bloody and dirty. A pang of sympathy strikes as he looks around and realizes all that you must have seen. He was well aware that normal children weren’t nearly as resilient as he and his siblings had been.

“….” He stays silent as you arrive in front of him, staring up at him with slight apprehension, heart racing as he tries to think of something to say — and for some reason, he lands on an awkward, weirdly Southern-sounding. “Hey champ!”

John and Kelly both shoot him weird looks, and he wants to dig a hole and die, when they hear it.

A small giggle falls from your lips, tiny hands covering your mouth as you try not to laugh. Fred sighs in relief, but his anxiety returns when Kelly’s joking voice comes over the comms saying “Well, I guess we know who’s taking care of them.”

Linda drops out of nowhere, and nearly scares you to death as you shriek and bump into John, holding his leg tightly. You don’t really notice how he freezes, confused again.

“…sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry, you think with a pout and drop from Chief’s leg, careful of your own busted ankle.

“That’s Linda, that’s Fred and I’m Kelly. You can just call him Chief. What’s your name?”

“Y-Y/N.”

“Alright. We won’t be able to make it if you’re walking, so you need to get on one of our backs.” Chief tells you, straight to business. “Which one of us do you feel comfortable with?”

He’s really hoping you pick Kelly or Fred. It wouldn’t exactly be a burden, you’re much tinier than the full grown people he’s had to carry out of a war zone, and you’re handling it much better as well, even though you’re barely ten years old.

“Um…” You look shyly up at Fred. “If you don’t really mind…”

*Aw. That’s… actually kind of sweet. Fred beckons you over, and hoists you up between his shoulders, giving you the rundown on what to do if people start shooting, and to hold on tight when he tells you to.

*You’re much more considerate than the freaked out VIPs he’s had to extract. But he still feels you twitch every time the wind causes something to clatter, so he decides to strike up conversation.

“So how did you wind up there?” It’s not until afterwards that he realizes that, unlike soldiers, civilians aren’t comfortable discussing stuff like that. But you answer that it was your dad’s factory, explaining that it was Bring Your Kid To Work Day.

The Spartans, specifically Kelly, asked you questions about it, having never heard of it themselves. After all, military settings rarely allowed such breaches of protocol.

You only trailed off as you got to the part where he told you to hide, and Fred lets it be.

When you finally get to the convoy, a nurse hurriedly tries to pull you away from the Spartans to help out, apologizing for not doing it sooner when Fred tells her it’s fine and that you can stay. After all, Kelly had fixed you up well, and you seemed terrified at the prospect of being left alone.

All that was left to do was fly up to the ship in outer orbit, with the rest of the survivors. Since there were such few Pelicans, everyone had been crammed into them, military and civilians alike. You’d simply wandered onto the one they’d been on, sandwiched between Chief and Fred.

Chief watches you picking at your shorts, and suddenly remembers the chocolate bar Sgt. Johnson keeps giving him - “you’re not yourself when you’re hungry, Chief” He’d snicker and then leave, Chief just standing there, not understanding the reference - but hey, chocolate was chocolate.

“Here. You did well.” Your eyes go wide, and for a second he thinks you’re going to refuse, but then you snatch it out of his hand and snarf it down. This is how it must feel to watch him eat.

“You’re going to like it up there.” Fred chimes in when your gaze starts getting distant again. “Space is really cool.”

In a twist of fate, you find one of your best friends when you arrive on the ship. Their parents promise to take care of you, and thank the Spartans.

When they start directing the survivors to their quarters, you hug every Spartan, even Linda… or their legs, since you couldn’t reach anything else. (Thankfully, you telegraph it pretty well, so they don’t accidentally smack you or something.)

John just stiffens and then nods, Fred pats you on the head awkwardly and shuffles away (he was very shocked by the affection), Kelly laughs and claps you on the shoulder, and Linda just hums and pets you on the head like a dog, walking away afterwards.

You go on to be a Marine yourself, finding yourself on the Halo campaign, where Chief and Cortana save you once more. You’re surprised he still remembers you.

You leave a bar of the same brand he gave you at his shrine, giving a heartfelt eulogy and catching up momentarily with the other members of Blue Team before you all leave again.

You almost faint when he shows up at Requiem, though. Don’t feel bad, as Lasky fanboys behind Chief for the whole campaign.

Palmer corrals you and Lasky into a break room to make fun of your behavior after it’s all over.

[professorspork]

If you're accepting non-superhell prompts, I'd love to see a conversation between Nora and Emerald! I've been REALLY loving these microfics, I've subscribed to you on Ao3, I'll read whatever else you write

[Gahhh that’s so nice you’re so nice!! thanks for being patient on this one, finding my Nora took some doing]

It’s occurring to Emerald that she’s never had a close female friend before.

You say that like you’ve ever had any friends before, the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Mercury needles her, but she brushes it aside. Like—okay, yeah, she’ll concede the point when it comes to Cinder. In hindsight, whatever they’d had going on between them may have been... super intense... but it probably had never been friendship, in the usual definition. But she and Mercury were friends, no matter what the judgy little shitstain version of him who lives in her head has to say about it. They’d always gotten along. Told each other stuff. It’s not like there’s more to it than that, right?

It had always been like that. Been—instinctive somehow, with guys. Before Cinder, on the street, it was always the men who’d been easiest to manipulate; who would empty their pockets for a smile and a sob story. And then she and Merc had been two sides of the same coin for so long, and then... well, Hazel’d liked her enough to die for her, apparently. (Which—that’s a door that she keeps closed, thanks. She shuts it firmly again, now.) Oscar seems fond of her, in a sweet, uncomplicated sort of way that she really doesn’t know what to do with, seeing as he shares headspace with like a trillion year old man and the idea that anything to do with that kid could be “uncomplicated” is batshit. Ren vouched for her once, and then again, and now he keeps doing it, like it’s habit, like she should just be used to the fact that people are going to have her back, to ask her if she’s eaten, to turn to her with a raised eyebrow in conversation like her opinion would be constructive.

Anyway.

Now that she’s noticed the pattern, it seems like the kind of thing she should probably… work on, or whatever. And Nora seems like an obvious place for Emerald to start. They’ve been thrown in together a lot, lately, Emerald and Oscar expected to fill in the gaps of what’s left of the old JNPR by default. Not that they’ve ever really had a conversation about it—Emerald can’t think of the last time Nora said two words to her that weren’t combat warnings like “more Grimm coming” or “on your left,” but. That’s probably just because things have been tense. She remembers Nora being friendly, on the whole of it. Off-puttingly friendly, even, back at Beacon.

How hard could it be?

The answer, it turns out, is absurdly hard. Nora’s barely ever in the temporary barracks they’re all living out of, instead always checking on the refugees, going on supply runs over esoteric requests, volunteering for extra patrols. Emerald used to find that kind of dogged do-goodery gag-inducing, but now that she’s been the helping hand herself a few times, she’s starting to see the appeal. The way people look at you when you’ve been of service, it’s—nice. Really nice. But Nora works utterly thankless jobs, the kind most people don’t even notice, let alone appreciate. And when they have their insufferably long leadership meetings and they’re talking about distribution of resources or whatever, Nora’s a fierce debater—jumping in to advocate for the people from Mantle sometimes even before May can. As far as Emerald can tell, she does this stuff just because... she believes in it. Because it’s the right thing to do, and someone has to.

She can’t imagine what it would feel like, to have the attention of someone like that turned on her. She’s craved it from the wrong people for so long, but now that she has her pick of options... she’s letting herself actually want the right kind, for once. She thinks.

Which is all to say that largely through no fault of her own, Emerald unexpectedly finds herself sitting with a profound, fervent desire for Nora Valkyrie to think she’s cool.

She hates that.

-

Fighting with Nora is easy.

(—er. Alongside. Fighting alongside Nora is easy. Emerald’s done fighting with these people. Very done.)

It’s weird, because Emerald’s finding working with a full team to be a real adjustment. When battles get big enough to merit it, she’s used to keeping to the sidelines to use her Semblance for nefarious purposes, or, in a jam, used to having Mercury’s six—literally, because all the forward momentum from his feet-first style always left his back wide open. Figuring out where to put herself so that Oscar can use her shoulder as a fulcrum as he dodges, or trying to aim for the Grimm Ren isn’t already shooting (ugh)—it’s taking work.

But somehow, it’s not work for Nora. Nora seems to anticipate with perfect ease how Emerald will move or what she’ll be doing; Nora bobs and weaves around their ragtag little band with her war hammer like it’s breathing.

It doesn’t bother Emerald until it does, and she means to bring it up casually but there’s never a good time. So it just… stews, and stews, until she can’t keep it bottled up anymore.

Which means that instead of the earnest question she intends it to be, it comes out like this:

“Okay, seriously? It’s creepy how you do that.”

It’s just the two of them, plus the handful of dweeby Atlesian tech-types they’re escorting back from their foray installing some fancy hydro-filtration modules on the outskirts of the camp. And it’s not like Emerald had felt outmatched by the half-dozen Ravagers that had decided they looked like lunch—she can shoot Ravagers in her sleep, at this point—but still. The way Nora had moved around her, it was like they’d been fighting side by side for years.

Nora just cocks her head to the side. “Do what?” she asks, like she hadn’t just basically read Emerald’s mind in front of the water nerds.

Emerald does a complicated gesture with her hands, wrist over wrist, and then flicking two fingers—trying to evoke the way Nora had flipped over Emerald’s back and then kicked off, just trusting Emerald would reel her back in with a chain in midair before a Grimm could fly away with her sorry ass. “That.”

“Oh!” Nora laughs and rubs at the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “It’s nothing. I guess it’s just not a big deal for me? Like—I was there when Ren built StormFlower. The cables are newish, but we practiced so much back in Atlas… I dunno. It’s just reflex, when your weapons are so similar. Fighting with you, it’s almost like fighting with him. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Nora swallows, then, and makes a face Emerald can’t interpret—disappointed, maybe, or ashamed. Which: good. She probably should be, taking things for granted like that.

“Well—just—” Emerald’s not even sure what she wants to say. Ask, next time? Don’t? “You shouldn’t make assumptions. I’m not your boyfriend, okay?”

The venom she puts behind the word is directed more at herself than Nora—frustrated, again, that she’s put herself in the position of wanting so desperately to be liked.

Pathetic.

Nora just nods, looking glum.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, cheeks pulling in a bitter smile. “You’d think I’d be able to keep that one straight, huh?”

She says it with such pointed irony that for a second Emerald wonders if she’d gotten it wrong somehow, but like—Nora and Ren are a thing, right? That’s—everyone knows that.

“Hey, what—?”

“Let’s just go,” Nora says, and Emerald automatically falls into line behind her.

They make the rest of the walk back in silence.

-

Sometimes at night, when she can’t sleep, Emerald likes to climb up to the roof of the barracks and look out over the refugee camp.

It’s—peaceful, is all. A good reminder of where she is; how far she’s come. The night sky in Vacuo has more stars than she’s ever seen, and being able to watch over all these people who have somehow become her responsibility… well.

A part of her will always be standing on the rooftop at Beacon, looking down on pure chaos as a queasy, frightened sensation twists in her gut and its noxious voice whispers you did this, you did this, you did this. What did you think was going to happen, you stupid little girl? You don’t get to feel sorry for it now.

But she does.

Weird how the only thing that’s helped is actually doing something about it.

She hears a scuffling noise over her shoulder, and she’s got Thief’s Respite drawn and ready before she can even really register what she’s heard. She relaxes when she sees it’s Nora at the other end of the barrels, unarmed and hands raised—a funny little smile on her face, like yeah, fair enough, I should have known better than to try and sneak up.

“Just me,” she says, unnecessarily.

Emerald holsters her guns. “Can I help you?” she asks, and—what is it about her voice, that makes sentences that would be nice if any other human said them come out straight-up hostile?

Nora shrugs, hands dropping to her sides. “I was hoping we could talk; I figured you’d come up here if I waited long enough.”

Well, see—what kind of lesson is she supposed to take from that? She’s been hoping for Nora to talk to her for weeks, and acting like a bitch is the thing that gets her what she wants? Good guys are supposed to know better.

And there’s the way she said it, too. Like everyone knows Emerald comes up here to brood; like it’s a big open secret. The knowledge sits uncomfortably in her stomach, makes her feel watched. Even now, even here, she can’t get a moment alone. Not really.

“What, so you’re spying on me now?”

Nora’s eyes narrow. “I have a pretty bad track record when it comes to losing people. Makes a girl want to put in a little hustle when it comes to keeping tabs on her friends.”

And Emerald would snark at that, or maybe apologize, or something, only—

Nora thinks they’re friends?

“Well, take a seat, I guess,” she mumbles, scooching to the side as though she needs to make room on the massive, empty roof.

Nora walks over and joins Emerald on the asphalt, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Seemingly unsure of where to start, she stares at her hands. Emerald stares too, but her eyes can’t help but wander—tracing the way scars, silvery in the moonlight, spiderweb up Nora’s bare wrists and forearms to fetter her shoulders, clavicle, neck. Like cracks in a pane of glass, right before it shatters.

(Only that’s not it at all, is it? It’s not a sign of weakness, but a warning of strength. I care this much, her scars announce to the word. You wanna try me?

Hazel’s arms always looked like that.)

Emerald doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence, sure that whatever she’d say would be incredibly stupid.

Luckily, Nora has no such qualms, and opens with: “I really admire you, you know?”

Emerald stares, jaw slack, certain she’s heard wrong. “I—what?” She’d say something defensive, like yeah right or you don’t have to make fun of me, only Nora’s eyes are so wide and so guileless they don’t leave any room for argument.

“I mean it,” Nora adds. “I know we don’t know all that much about each other, but… here’s what I do know: I can’t remember a time I saw you without Mercury right behind. Just like me’n Ren. And the way you fought for Cinder…” Nora smiles a sad, private little smile. “You don’t fight like that unless it’s personal; unless someone means something to you. Just like me’n Ren. And now you’re here. All on your own. And you didn’t have to be. That’s—don’t you think that’s crazy brave? I sure do.”

Of course she fucking doesn’t. Crazy brave would have been walking away the first, tenth, hundredth time she had a flash of panic about what she was doing. Or, better yet, doing something about it. Crazy brave is taking thirty thousand volts to get to your friends; it’s flooding your veins with pure crystalline power and saying Go, I’m doing what Gretchen would have done, it’s—

She closes that door.

“It’s not like I really had a choice,” she sighs, dodging the question.

“Oh, you know that’s not true,” Nora scoffs dismissively, tilting sideways to nudge Emerald with her shoulder.

And Emerald jolts, because—look, it’s not like no one touches her. They have to manhandle each other all the time in battle, and… and Oscar gives her high fives sometimes, which makes her embarrassingly pleased. But what Nora’s offering now, that kind of buddy-buddy casual contact…

… it’s been a while, is all.

“So, why did you want to talk to me?” Emerald asks, overwhelmed and suddenly desperate to find a way to get this conversation over with. She feels like she’s sprinted five miles; like she’s had the crap kicked out of her and she has to go somewhere to lick her wounds. Too much, too fast.

Nora laughs—a chuffing, cynical noise that doesn’t sound at all like her. “Looking for pointers? See, I’m trying this thing where I do things on my own, but I just—I suck at it. Like today; you saw. Even when I’m not with Ren, all I do is… is act exactly the same way I do when I’m with Ren. Like I literally don’t know how to exist without him, whether he’s actually there or not. And I know that’s not fair to anyone; I didn’t mean to treat you like—” She shakes her head, biting her lip. “You’re not just some stand-in. It’s not you at all. I’m just—broken, or something. One trick pony.”

“No, hey—”

“But you figured it out,” she barrels on, which is good, because Emerald doesn’t actually have a clue what she would have said there. “You don’t have anyone and somehow you’re just, like—good to go!” Nora says it cheerily, like it’s a compliment, but has the grace to balk a little when she hears how it sounds. “…sorry. That’s—sorry.”

Emerald shrugs, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin there. She feels like an idiot; building it up for weeks like spending time with Nora would solve all her problems when, surprise surprise, Nora’s just as fucked up as she is.

“Hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have any hot tips,” she mutters into the crooks of her elbows. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Like—you want to know the really sad part? I was just following your lead.”

“My…?” Nora can’t even finish repeating it, which: Emerald can’t blame her. It’s so dumb. “Huh?”

“Come on. You know.”

“I don’t,” Nora says, voice thick with exhaustion. Like she’s sick of herself. “Ask anyone—I’m not the brains of the operation.”

Hearing Nora talk about herself that way makes Emerald’s chest feel tight; like her ribs have locked in place so her lungs can’t expand. She doesn’t know how to explain it; not without sounding like a starry-eyed fangirl or a moron with a crush and that’s not what this—it’s only that—

She chooses to start a different way.

“You wanna know why I switched sides? Like, really why?”

Nora softens, and reaches out to touch the back of Emerald’s left hand, where it dangles over her knee. “Sure,” she says, but Emerald barely hears it; it’s taking all of her concentration not to clench her fist or pull away in response.

“I overheard Oscar—or, Ozpin, I guess, I don’t know—talking to Hazel about Salem, about her goals. And… listen. No one joins under Salem because they’re trying to kill the world, okay? I mean, no one but Tyrian, anyway. We were all just trying to… find ways to get by. And when Cinder found me, she—” Emerald swallows, hard. This cuts too deep, too close. It’s not something she can just say. “I wasn’t trying to be some big villain, or something. I was just—looking out for the people who were looking out for me. And why wouldn’t I? No one else ever seemed to think I was worth it.”

“Of course you are,” Nora cuts in, quiet but vehement. “Everyone is.”

“See, the worst part is that you mean that when you say it,” Emerald grumbles, scrubbing at her face until smears of color kaleidoscope behind her closed eyes. “I figured people like you didn’t exist, and then Cinder and Merc were glad to prove me right, and—I let them. You know? And maybe if I’d just held out a little longer…”

“You’re not the only one here who’s ashamed of her past. Harriet tried to blow up Mantle, like, a month ago.”

“That’s not—forget that. I’m talking about you. Nora.” It’s the first time she’s ever said her name like that—addressing her, in conversation. It feels… astonishingly intimate, for so small a thing. Emerald powers past it. “Every day, I see you do something ridiculous, like double back on a patrol because you forgot you promised some kid a candy bar, or something, and that—matters. To me. It’s so stupid, but it’s not, because… argh! I want—it’s—” She tries to get her mouth to form the words, that’s the kind of person I want to be, but they stop in her throat.

Still, Nora seems to get the message. Her eyes seem suspiciously shiny for a moment—but when she blinks, it’s gone. “I… thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Emerald grumbles. Saying it like she means it: seriously. Don’t mention it.

“I understand what you mean, though. For years, the only person who looked out for me was Ren. And if he’d said…” Nora trails off, then, cocking her head to the side as she works through something. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just. I remembered something. I was about to say that if Ren told me the only way for us to get by was a life of crime, or something, I would’ve taken his word for it, but—the opposite happened. We decided to enroll at Beacon. And that wasn’t his idea; it was mine. I always wanted to be a Huntress. To… to be the one strong enough to help people, instead of always needing the help. He wasn’t sure if we would make it, but I was. We were together, right? How could we lose?” She chuckles, a little, shaking her head at herself. “Get a load of that. He followed me.”

They smile at each other, then. Like they’ve figured out something profound. Maybe Nora has; Emerald hopes so.

“I’m glad you’re here, Emerald,” Nora says, and—there it is again. The frisson of electricity that comes with being referred to by name.

Of course, then Emerald ruins it by blurting out:

“Of course you are, all your other friends are dead.”

Which—“Fuck!” she sputters, because she didn’t mean to say that. What is wrong with her? “Sorry! Sorry.”

Nora only grins at her, feral and incisive. “Yeah, well. Yours are evil, so. Pick your poison. At least I’m proud of mine.”

Touché.

“Still glad I’m here?” Emerald jeers, because her first instinct is still to press on the bruise to see how much it hurts.

Nora laughs, and gets to her feet. “Believe it or not, yes. If putting your foot in your mouth was all it took to get booted from Hero Club, I’d have been kicked out a long time ago.” She reaches down to offer Emerald a hand; Emerald takes it, letting Nora pull her to standing. “Now go and get some rest, huh? None of us can ever sleep when you’re up here thinking so loud.”

“That an order?”

“Advice. Friends give it, from time to time.”

And—yeah. Maybe they do. 

[luminnara]

God Damn, Shit Sucking Vampires | Poly lost boys x oc CH 9

(oops no gif because the ones i want won’t upload right now)

Just as a reminder, lost boys requests are OPEN!

Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Tags:  @americancowgirl19 @ilikechocolatemilkh

Warnings: Blood, gore, vampire things

Hearing a strange voice in her head nearly drove Vera into a panic. When she realized she was hearing Max, she nearly flew into a second panic, the sire’s strong, firm voice only reassuring her that all of her fears were correct and he wasn’t going to like her very much. 

As she walked along the beach, bare toes sinking into the sand, Dwayne at her side, Vera briefly wondered how hard it would be to kill Max if it came down to a struggle. Did she have a chance against him? Maybe, if she stooped low enough to cry for her own sire, he would come and take care of it—

“Hey, chill out,” Dwayne said, stopping and turning towards her slightly. “What’s wrong?”

She realized she had halted and was simply standing there, staring at nothing as her mind raced. He could probably feel how freaked out she was getting, and as she looked at him, she found a gentle, understanding expression on his face. 

“C’mere,” he said, his voice low and rumbly and comforting. 

He opened his arms in invitation and she dove right in, moving quickly and desperately enough that she knocked him right onto his ass. He landed in the sand with a laugh, situating the two of them so that she could sit in his lap and they could face the dark, never ending ocean. 

“Did Max freak you out?” Dwayne asked as Vera tucked her head under his chin. 

“...a little.” 

“Why?”

She sighed. Something about Dwayne made her feel so safe that she was actually considering talking with him about things she hadn’t even told David yet. “Because I’m not used to this. I’m used to vampires who want me out of their territory the second I even get close, and I can’t really blame them.”

“This is your territory, too.” He said. “You’re the one who’ll be kicking people out of it now.”

“I don’t think Max is going to like me.” She grumbled. 

“Why not?”

She was quiet for a moment, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “Because he’ll see me as a threat.”

“Max isn’t like that.”

“You’re just saying that now because he’s your sire.”

“No, I’m saying it because I mean it.” Dwayne rested his cheek on the top of her head, his hand absentmindedly rubbing circles on her back. “Max wants a family. Now you’re part of that family.”

He sounded so sure of his own words that Vera was actually feeling inclined to believe him for a moment. “Parents don’t tend to like me.”

“Anyone who can handle having Paul in their pack can handle you.”

She scoffed. “He isn’t that bad.”

“Maybe to you.” Dwayne chuckled. He tightened his arms around her when he realized that his jokes weren’t very reassuring. “Max is a good man. A good sire.”

“Why?” Vera asked. “What does he do that makes you like him so much?”

“Well,” Dwayne situated them a bit better, getting more comfortable. “He’s fair. He acts stern, but...he sees himself as our father.”

“Don’t they always?” Vera grumbled. 

“He calls David his prodigal son, but he always wanted a whole family. He ended up with the four of us.”

“So, what? He plucked you all up out of the gutter and that makes him a good guy?”

“Why are you so determined to hate him?”

“I’m not!” she protested. “I’m just...wary.”

“Max gave us new lives.” Dwayne sighed. “He found us back in San Francisco after we got ourselves in some trouble with another vampire.”

Vera had to snort in amusement at that. “Seriously? Who’d you pick a fight with? Dracula?”

“Well…”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

He flashed her a smile. “How were we supposed to know who he was?”

“Humans really have no self preservation instincts, do they?”

“Apparently not.” Dwayne chuckled, squeezing her. 

“How long ago was it?”

“1906, same year as that big earthquake. Tore the whole city apart...it was the perfect time for four vampires to start learning how to survive, with all that chaos. People were dead, more were missing...nobody noticed a few more disappearing here and there.”

“Is that why Max and, uh...Vlad were there?” Vera asked. 

“I imagine.” Dwayne shrugged. “We resisted at first. David was especially pissed off.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Vera laughed quietly. 

“But...we took to the lifestyle pretty quickly.”

“And that’s that?” Vera asked. 

“That’s that.” he shrugged. “Max wants to be a father figure. He turned David because he wanted a son, and he taught him everything he knew. Then, he decided David needed companions, and he happened to find me not long after. Then the others. Max isn’t a bad guy, Vera. You’ll see.”

“That’s what everybody says about their own sire.” she said, looking out at the black waves as they crashed against the sand just a few feet in front of her. “Everyone wants to talk their sires up, because without them, we’re nothing. Just because your own sire is nice to you doesn’t mean he’ll be nice to me.”

“What’s so bad about your own that you think ours is so awful?”

The question hung in the air for a moment, Vera’s mouth pressing into a thin line. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Dwayne opened his eyes, rubbing his cheek over the top of her head affectionately. 

“I’m not.”

“I know that you are, though.”

Vera let out a frustrated noise, then heaved a sigh. Maybe talking about this could be good for her. Maybe verbalizing thoughts and fears that she’d been living with for centuries could finally help her get over them...and if anyone was a good listener, it would be Dwayne. 

“Okay, fine.” she said. “What’s so bad about my sire? Everything. Everything is what’s bad about him, literally.”

“Where’s he from?” Dwayne asked. 

“The old country. Like...the old old country.”

“Why are you so reluctant to talk about him?” Dwayne’s voice was low and gentle, barely audible over the sound of the waves. 

“Because he’s got a reputation.” she fiddled with the hem of her shorts. “Most older vampires know of him. You guys might not, and if we had a different situation, I’d say it should stay that way.”

“That serious, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“Hmm.” Dwayne’s chest rumbled. “The others should hear about this, too.”

“Yeah, they should.” she sighed again, her voice small. She felt small in general, all curled up in Dwayne’s lap like that. Small and helpless. She wasn’t, though, and she didn’t want them to think that she was. So she cleared her throat, trying to muster as much confidence as she could, ignoring the mild twisting in her gut. “I’ll tell you guys everything tomorrow night.”

Dwayne made a small, impatient sound. 

“Max will want to hear, too.”

“That’s a good point,” he admitted. “You know, I still need to hunt for you…”

Vera perked up slightly. The thought of food made the tight feeling in her chest loosen up slightly, and she looked at Dwayne eagerly. “Yes, please.”

He laughed, wrapping his arms around her as he stood and set her back on her feet. “Then let’s go find some snacks, Princess.”

-0-

“You know, we don’t have to do this. We could just go back to the cave--”

“What happened to that tough attitude you had a few days ago?” David raised an eyebrow, looking amused as he pulled Vera off the back of his bike.

“I’m still tough,” she growled, knowing that he could very easily feel how nervous she was. 

“Come on, babe,” Paul parked his bike next to David’s and bounded over to her. “You’ll be fine.”

“We’d never let anything happen to ya,” Marko said, following Paul. 

Vera knew he was telling the truth, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She had barely slept the entire day, waking up restless and on edge as soon as the sun disappeared, and it had taken a good deal of coaxing from David to even get her to leave the roost. They took Star and Laddie to the boardwalk, dropped them off with some cash, and then headed off to Max’s house.

David told Vera along the way that Star and Laddie weren’t allowed to know where Max lived. They really weren’t allowed to know anything about him in general, in order to protect him, so when the pack walked up to the front gate of their sire’s home, it was only the four boys who accompanied Vera. She didn’t mind; having Star around would have only put her more on edge, probably, and she had been glad to leave the halfling behind. 

As she faced the gated bridge that led to Max’s completely normal-looking, Californian home, Vera did everything she could to act confident. She squared her shoulders, held her chin up, and pretended that she had nothing to worry about...but the boys could see right through the facade, and as they joined her, they all fell into a little formation. In moments, Vera was surrounded by them, David offering his arm while the others stepped into their spots behind. It made her feel better, knowing that they were all there to protect her...but at the same time, she still wished they were all out wandering the boardwalk. 

“So brave,” David sneered as she took his arm. 

“Shut up.” she growled, vaguely aware of Dwayne’s hand on her lower back. 

“Relax,” Marko purred. 

“Don’t you dare tell me to relax, Marko, I swear—“

The barking of a rapidly approaching dog interrupted her, the sound of paws thumping rhythmically against the wooden walkway drawing her attention away from the boys. A big white hellhound was barreling towards the gate, all teeth and rage, and although it looked like it wanted to tear her limbs off, the sight of such a beast made Vera temporarily forget why she was so anxious. Even as it barked and snarled and threw itself against the gate, she thought that it was absolutely adorable.

“Oh, look at you!” She squealed as the boys all jumped back. When she took a step forward, David tried to yank her towards him, but she slipped away easily, too focused on this hellhound to care. 

“You’re such a big handsome boy,” she said, in a voice that made Paul jealous. 

“No fair,” he grumbled, crossing his arms. “Why’s the dumb dog get all that?”

Marko glanced at the taller blond nervously. “Don’t call him dumb, you remember what happened last time?”

Paul groaned, rolling his eyes at the memory of nearly losing a hand. 

The dog stopped barking as Vera approached, falling silent as it sniffed the air around her. The vicious look on its face was gone, replaced by curiosity, and when Vera ignored David’s irritated warnings and reached over the gate to pet it, the animal whined. 

“You must be Thorn,” Vera cooed, scratching behind its ears. “What a big, brave, hell-y hellhound you are, yes you are!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Paul said as he watched. 

“What?” Vera asked, looking over her shoulder at him. 

“Thorn doesn’t like any of us.” Marko huffed. “Why’s he like you so much?”

“Well...he can probably smell my sire on me,” Vera said. “Might remind him of home. Hellhounds usually like me because of that.”

“...Home?” Paul asked. 

“I’ll tell you later.”

“But I wanna know now!” he whined.

Thorn growled at him. 

“Thorn!” a male voice called from the other end of the little bridge. 

Vera immediately stiffened. The front door of the house had opened, and in it stood a man, wearing a very stylish suit and horn rimmed glasses. Thorn heeded his master’s call, giving Paul one last woof before trotting back towards Max. His departure freed the front gate, and David brushed past Vera to open it, taking her hand and leading the gang across the walkway. 

“Boys,” Max greeted as they approached him. He offered David a stern smile, one which David didn’t return, and when Max’s eyes fell upon Vera all tucked up against his side, his eyes narrowed slightly. “And you must be Vera.”

She didn’t like that he knew her name. It was inevitable that he’d find out what it was, but still...she kept clinging to the hope that maybe, he wouldn’t learn too much about her. The boys seemed so convinced that Max was just an annoying father, but as Vera took him in, she could see that behind the trendy, 80s-dad facade, there was an old, powerful vampire, and those were the kind she didn’t get along with very well. 

“Well, come in, everyone, before dinner gets cold. I made sure to get all your favorites, boys.” Max stepped to the side, inviting them over the threshold in a very courteous way, one that suggested he had nothing to fear from the boys or Vera.

“You shouldn’t have,” David sneered sarcastically as he walked in. 

“Would it kill you to be nice?” Vera hissed. 

He rolled his eyes.

Max noticed the exchange with a bemused expression on his face. “Go on in and sit down. The table’s already set.”

The house was nice. It wasn’t incredibly extravagant, by any means, but it was perfectly well decorated, modern art that Vera didn’t quite know how to appreciate hanging on the walls. Everything was clean and organized, not a speck of dust in sight, as opposed to the state of decay the boys kept their lair in. Max seemed to enjoy playing the role of a video store owner, and his home reflected that; if anyone came to visit, they wouldn’t see a single item out of place, nor would they have any reason to be suspicious of him. There were no torture devices, no loose vials of blood sitting around, no skulls or human skin nailed up. It looked so...normal. 

Vera almost stopped to wonder why exactly she was so nervous...and then she heard the whimpering.

“Geez, Max,” Paul remarked as they rounded the corner and entered the dining room, “you really shouldn’t have.”

“Well, fresh caught is always the best,” Max said. “Don’t you agree?”

“Hell yeah,” Marko growled, lips pulled back in a grin. 

The dining room table was covered in an array of meats, from a suckling pig in the center to a rack of ribs at the end. Six chairs surrounded the feast, plates and cutlery set out at each spot, with big glass goblets already half full of blood ready and waiting. Next to each chair stood a human, frozen due to both fear and Max’s vampire magic, a couple of them shaking and considerably more conscious than the others. 

Max walked to his place at the head of the table, Thorn at his side as he took his seat. David sat at the far end, facing him, his eyes dark and hungry as he held himself back. Dwayne sat at David’s left side, Vera at his right, while Paul and Marko took the remaining two chairs and tried not to completely lose their minds. They were shaking almost as much as the humans were, Paul looking at his blood donor eagerly while Marko held a little sneer on his face that suggested he was about ten seconds from ripping his apart.

“Dig in, everyone,” Max said, taking his cloth napkin and tucking it into his shirt collar. “But please try not to make a mess. There’s more than enough here for each of you.”

David immediately grabbed the arm of his meal, sinking his fangs in and taking a drink while Max preferred to drain his into the goblet he had set out for himself. Vera could only watch, stunned, as the carnage began, and before long, she was joining in. The human Max had caught for her was a middle aged clergyman, and she had to tear through his holy sleeve to get to his flesh. 

She didn’t mind, though; she very rarely ever got to eat members of the clergy. They were generally too much work to hunt down, and since she had an aversion to churches, well...like most vampires, she tended to leave them alone. It was hard to nab them without making a spectacle and letting the entire town know that something was amiss. So, all things considered, a little bit of extra work involving a mouthful of fabric was worth it. This was like a special treat for her, and she couldn’t help but drain him all in one go, still holding on even after he had collapsed in a bloodless heap on the floor. 

When she looked up, she realized that Max was watching her. 

“So,” he said, speaking over the hellish sounds of the others slurping up their meals, “I believe some congratulations are in order. Welcome to the family, Vera.”

She swallowed her last mouthful of blood and looked at him. “Uh...thanks. I-I mean, thank you.”

Max picked up his silverware, cutting a slice of ham for himself. “Where are you from, Vera?”

“I wander,” she said, following suit and stabbing her fork into a raw steak. 

“I’ve surmised that much,” Max chuckled good-naturedly. “I meant where are you from originally.”

“...oh.” She cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly. “Italy.”

“Italy!” Max exclaimed. “Such a lovely region. I haven’t visited The Mediterranean since I left the old country myself. If I didn’t have the shop here, perhaps I’d take a trip...have you been back recently?”

“No,” she crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to act like she wasn’t fidgeting. She took a bite of her steak, focusing on the blood as it trickled down her throat. 

Max reached for his goblet, raising the blood to his lips and taking a drink. “And your sire, is he still in Europe?”

Vera almost choked on her food. 

By this point, the boys were all watching. Paul was licking blood off his lips while Marko still had his dinner’s forearm in his mouth, but David and Dwayne were both focused solely on the conversation at hand, their eyes narrowed slightly as they listened. 

When she realized that everyone was waiting, Vera coughed into her fist, clearing her throat. “Y-yes, he is.”

Max’s eyes darkened, despite the smile on his face. “You know you need to tell me about him, Vera.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she lied, turning back to her steak. “Just an ancient vampire, out there in the old country. Not very exciting.”

“Exciting or not, I’d still prefer to know who he is.” Max said. 

She shrugged, reaching for her glass to take a nervous drink. “I doubt you’d know him.”

“When you drink that blood, you’ll be joining our family.”

She froze, hand on the stem of the glass.

“I’m sure your sire will be able to feel it. I’d hate to be rude and not even know his name in the event he visits one day.”

Vera stared at the blood—Max’s blood—as her fingers tightened around the stem. “You don’t want him to visit.”

“Oh?” Max asked, appearing as relaxed as ever. “Why not?”

“Because of who he is.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “And what he can do.”

Dwayne and David glanced at each other. 

When Max spoke again, his voice was softer, gentler than before. “What is your sire’s name, Vera?”

With a great deal of effort, she opened her eyes again, still staring into the blood rather than at any of them. 

“Asmodeus.” She said. “My sire is Asmodeus.”

[ragingbookdragon]

It's As Real As You And Me

Batsis x Kyle Rayner One-Shot

Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Explicit Language, Angst,

Author's Note: If you cry while writing, it means you're doing it right...right? -Thorne

**********************************************************************

“Do we have to get out of bed today?” he groaned, silencing the alarm that had been snoozed at least three times before. “I don’t wanna get out of bed today.”

She snorted at him, rolling rather slowly to face his bedside. “I don’t think we have to.” She said. “We’re old. We can do whatever we want.”

He thought for a moment, old eyes trying to focus on the woman beside him; but without his glasses he couldn’t see a damn thing. “Breakfast at Pop’s?”

“That sounds wonderful,” she replied, rising from the bed. “I’m showering first.”

“Oh no you don’t!” he retorted, trying to hurry after her and she laughed, pushing him back onto the bed.

“Stop that, Kyle, before you pop your hip outta place again.”

“Ah, it’ll pop back in, (Y/N). Quit worrying.”

(Y/N) frowned at him, pointing, “You keep on and I’ll talk the kids into putting us into an old folks’ home so I can keep an eye on you better.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Kyle griped. “We’d lose the only independence we’ve got, and you don’t wanna do that.”

They glared at each other for a minute before smiles split across their faces and they fell into laughter, pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you, Kyle Rayner.”

He gently raised a hand, caressing her cheek. “And I love you more, (Y/N) Rayner.” Pecking her lips three times, he pulled away and she helped him to his feet.

“C’mon. Let’s go get ready.” She said and he gasped dramatically.

“Well, Missus Rayner, you want to fool around in the shower? At our age?” he teased, and she rolled her eyes.

“God, it’s been like seven decades and you’re still the biggest skirt chasing dork ever.”

Kyle grinned at her. “I try.”

***

“Did KJ call you back like he said he was going too?”

“Mhm,” he answered, cutting into the waffles on his plate. “Spoke to him last night. Said he’d call again after he and Thomas get back from Vermont with Sophia and the other grandkids.” He looked at her, putting the fork in his mouth. “Martha Ann call you about Devin?”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes. “Yes. He’s gotten in trouble with GCPD again.” She waved it off, picking up her coffee cup. “I’ve half a mind to tell her to send our grandson to Jason and let him sort that boy out.”

Kyle snorted. “Jason would wear that kid like a slipper.”

“That’s what he needs.” She shot back. “This is the second time in a month that he’s been caught shoplifting. Mark my words, husband of mine, that boy’s a kleptomaniac and if Martha Ann doesn’t do something about it, he’s going to get worse.”

He placed a hand on hers. “You’re getting worked up again. Relax.”

“How many times have I told you not to tell me to relax?”

“I don’t know, how many times have I not listened?”

“Ass.”

“Old lady.”

“I swear I’ve never seen two elderly people more in love and so at odds with one another than I have you two.” They glanced up, seeing Stacy with the coffee pot and another plate of eggs and bacon. “Refills?”

(Y/N) smiled and held out her cup. “Thanks Stacy.”

“Of course!” she looked at her. “You two going anywhere after this?”

Kyle met (Y/N)’s gaze and offered a shrug; she nodded. “I suppose we could take a drive around the countryside. You know, like old people do on Sundays.”

Stacy laughed. “Missus Rayner, you don’t look a day over twenty-five. Now Mister Rayner, I’m afraid that white hair of yours tells me you are more than a few over twenty-five.”

He scowled at the waitress. “If there was ever a time I wish was still in my twenties, it’d be now.” He gestured to the walking cane. “Bum hip. Bum leg.”

“Bum head.” (Y/N) coughed under her breath and he glared at her.

“You think you’re funny.”

“I think I’m adorable.” She smirked, waggling her brows and Stacy merely laughed, wandering back into the kitchen. (Y/N) sighed. “It does make you think though…about the old days.”

Kyle nodded. “I wouldn’t trade our time for anything but...” he squeezed her hand. “I want to be back in that suit just for a minute.”

(Y/N) nodded. “Yeah…patrolling with dad and Dick and the others.” Her eyes started to moisten, and she inhaled sharply, dabbing at her eyes. “Sorry sweetheart.”

His smile held sympathy. “You never have to apologize, muse.” She saw his Adam’s apple bob slightly. “I miss them too.” His voice was rather hoarse, and they sat in silence the rest of the meal, remembering their dearest siblings and friends who’d passed on. Her father Bruce, and oldest brother Dick, both their wives too. And Kyle’s closest friends had all gone on too; Guy, John, and Hal had passed the month before.

The price of getting old, they guessed.

***

“I wish my hands were still able to hold pencils like I once could.”

(Y/N) rested her head on his shoulder, eyes scanning the expanse of the sunset before them. “I know what you mean.” She inhaled the scent of the freshly cut grass beside the shore. “Your painting of this would be beautiful.”

Kyle hummed. “Not as beautiful as you are.”

“I’m ninety-two and you’re telling me that even covered in wrinkles and white hair that I’m prettier than the skyline?”

He nodded. “Always have been.” He shifted until he could see her face. “Always will be, my beautiful muse.”

(Y/N) grinned like the heavens had split and leaned close, pecking his three times lips. “I love you, Kyle Rayner.”

“I love you more, (Y/N) Rayner.”

***

She turned the burner off, pouring the gravy into the boat, before setting it on the small table. “Dinner’s ready.” She called towards the living room. He’d gone into the old study when they’d gotten home and pulled out his art supplies, determined to prove he still had it.

(Y/N) frowned. “Sweetheart, dinner’s ready!” she called a little louder that time and then huffed a laugh. “Fool fell asleep.”

Wandering through the kitchen doorway into the living room, she saw him in his recliner, chin tucked into his chest, eyes closed. She sat on the side of his recliner and touched his shoulder. “Kyle, dinner’s on the table.” He didn’t open his eyes and she bent her head down to look at his face. “Kyle?”

She reached down and took one of his hands, it was cooling. “Sweetheart?” Something tightened in her throat and with her other hand, she gently pressed underneath his jaw, holding for a few seconds before she let out a pained breath. “Oh, Kyle.”

(Y/N) curled her hand tighter around his, leaning down to press her lips to his temple. She couldn’t bring herself to move as she let out a quiet sob, pressing her face into his hair. “I love you,” she whispered. “I hope you know that.” Her lips wobbled and tears cascaded down her cheeks. “I wouldn’t trade our seventy-five years for anything. We lived a beautiful life.”

She pulled away and gently took his glasses off his face, setting them onto the table. Her eyes fell to his lap where his other hand lay, a color pencil still held in it. (Y/N) felt a watery laugh bubble in her chest as she saw the last masterpiece he’d ever made.

A portrait of the sunset they'd been looking at that day. A beautiful blend of red, orange, pink, and purple cascading across the sheet like an explosion of the sky.

Her eyes fell across the words written in white along the edge,

To my beautiful muse. Always and forever.

He still had it.

And it was perfect.

***

“Julia, can you push me out onto the patio?” she asked, looking out the window. “I think I wanna sit outside for a few moments.”

The young woman, no older than twenty-two smiled brightly. “Of course, Miss Rayner!” she happily complied, pushing (Y/N)’s wheelchair out onto the cobblestone patio, sitting her next to the table. “Do you want me to bring your dinner to you?”

(Y/N) nodded. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in a few moments.”

Julia wandered off and she glanced towards the skyline. It had been about six months since she let her children talk her into getting an in-home nurse after he had passed. She had argued, but after falling twice, she knew it was time to have someone look after her. (Y/N) was adamant about not going to a senior citizens home; she wanted to stay in the home her and him had built until she went too.

Her children and grandchildren had visited her the week before, all having to return to their lives once school had started and jobs went back. She understood—(Y/N)’d once been a busy wife and mother too. But it was lonely without him, and she missed him dearly.

Her eyes found the skyline again and she sighed heavily, feeling rather tired all of the sudden. A little nap wouldn’t hurt. And she knew Julia wasn’t the best cook so it’d take a while before dinner would be ready.

Just a few minutes of sleep.

Just a few minutes.

Just a few—

***

A warm breeze blew across her skin, and she cracked her eyes open, glancing out the open window of her bedroom. It felt like a normal Saturday morning. The type of mornings where she’d wake up to Tim or Damian jumping on her bed and telling her to get down to breakfast.

She blinked a few moments, not registering a thing until someone chuckled beside her. “You’ve been sleeping pretty soundly, sweetheart.”

Looking over, her eyes widened as she saw her father before her, young and handsome like he’d once been, sitting on the side of her bed. “Dad?” she breathed, and he smiled.

“Hello (Y/N).”

She shot up in a second, wrapping her arms around his neck, his own winding around her waist. “Dad,” she cried, tears gathering in her eyes. “You’re here.”

“I think it’s you who’s here, (Y/N).”

“What?” she pulled away and looked at him; her eyes drifted to the mirror hanging beside her door and she caught sight of herself—it registered as she lifted her hands to her face, no more wrinkles, no more snow-white hair, no more aches and pains.

“Looks like I fell asleep for more than a few minutes, didn’t I, dad?” she laughed, though she felt a deep sorrow.

He smiled sadly at her. “It’s the best way to go.”

(Y/N)’s eyes filled with tears, and she gazed at him. “I’ve missed you so much, dad.”

“I’ve missed you more, sweetheart.” Bruce replied, gently thumbing her cheek. “All of you.” He smiled again. “But you’re here now…and there’s a lot of people waiting to see you.”

Standing from the bed, he held his hand out to her and she took it, letting him pull her up; he walked over to the door and opened it, pulling her along as he stepped through it.

The scenery shifted from that of her bedroom to the backyard of Wayne Manor and she looked out to a large picnic table and seated around it were all the family and friends she’d lost through the decades. Dick was waving like a maniac, Kori beside him doing the same. They both looked young too. Hal, Guy, and John were sitting on the other side, ribbing Wally, Roy, and Garth over something; they too were young.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Why is everybody young again?”

Bruce hummed. “We all return to the best moments in our lives. When we were our biggest and greatest.” He glanced over her at something and smiled. “There’s someone who’s been waiting for you.”

(Y/N) looked at him with pulled brows then over in the direction he was, and she brought a hand to her mouth. She broke into a dead sprint across the backyard, leaping into his open and waiting arms. He lifted her with ease, like he used to do when he was young. Spinning them around, he buried his face in her hair as she buried hers in his shoulder as she shook with sobs.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to have dinner with you one last time, (Y/N).”

She pulled away and placed her hands on his cheek, putting their foreheads together. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you, Kyle.”

He shook his head, smiling at her. “You were there.” He reached up, putting a hand on her cheek. “You look as beautiful as the day I left you.”

(Y/N)’s lips wobbled, but she smiled widely. “I love you, Kyle Rayner.”

“I love you more, (Y/N) Rayner.” He pecked her lips three times. “Forever.”

[redrobin-detective]

sleep like the dead

“And now, I, Technus, shall finally have my electronic vengeance on you, ghost child and conquer this puny human world!” Technus shrieked, exiting the portal in a suitably dramatic fashion. The various weapons around the lab shook and trembled from his power and static from his core crackled, raring for a fight with his favorite enemy. Only the Phantom didn’t appear.

“Hmm, maybe I wasn’t loud enough,” Technus mused before starting up again. “Pathetic Phantom! You can only hope your miniscule half human strength will be enough to take on my squiggling mess of the tangled wires of terror!” He threw back his head and cackled loudly, waiting for his nemesis to show and the battle to begin. His laughter petered out after a bit and the lab became silent once more.

“Well, now he’s just being rude,” Technus fumed, floating up through the ceiling. “Don’t ignore my threats, child. I know you’re here, I can feel your cold core.” He stopped once he reached the ghost boy’s human lair, hovering a few feet from the bed where his rival was sprawled out, sound asleep.

“Come ghost boy, it’s time for fisticuffs! I have some new moves and some great catchphrases I’m ready to try out on you!” The technology ghost exclaimed in excitement, miming some punches. Phantom didn’t answer, just kept laying there barely moving save for his soft, shallow breaths. Technus watched as his breath fogged with each exhale, his core’s ghost sense but it still didn’t awaken him. “Child? Have you expired?”

He leaned forward and gently poked the boy’s cheek. It was squishy but firm unlike a ghost’s exterior and he could feel the dense bone underneath. Phantom didn’t so much as twitch. Technus drew back his hand, unsure of what to do. He’d surprised the child while he was in bed before but he always woke up and they fell into the usual routine. But now he’d changed the script and if there was something ghosts didn’t like, it was change. He flew back down to the portal and sped into the Ghost Zone at top speed, searching for someone who would be able to help him understand. 

“Wow, baby pop whooped your butt that fast? Either he’s getting better or you’re getting more pathetic, my bet is the latter,” Ember teased as she strummed to herself from a floating rock near her lair.

“The ghost child won’t wake up and fight,” Technus said in a rush. “I went to the human world but no one answered my challenge. I went to his human lair and he was just lying on his bed thing and he wouldn’t move, even when I touched him.”

“That’s not like him, he’s usually more hopped up and ready to fight than a groupie on coke,” Ember frowned, setting aside her guitar. “Well come on, sparky, lets go check the kid out.” 

They developed something of an entourage making their way back to the human portal. A few of the locals had heard that the infamous half ghost child was behaving differently and well, curiosity didn’t stop when the cat was killed. Skulker chuckled menacingly under his breath, Youngblood bounced around the adults. Johnny and Kitty had been going to the real world anyway and decided to tag along. 

“Were his folks or Jazz home?" Johnny asked, riding his cycle slow enough to keep pace with the group. 

“Who?” Technus questioned, “er no, the annoying children always with him were not around for once.”

“Annoying yes but they don’t live- uh occupy the same lair as the brat,” Johnny explained. As a younger ghost who’d held onto his humanity more than some, he had a better grasp of human culture. “His parents, the crazy ghost hunters in the blue and orange jumpsuits. Or his sister, Jazz. She has red hair and is kind of a know it all. They’re his family, they live with him.”

“Oh those weirdos,” Youngblood said wrinkling his nose. “Always loud and shouting about ripping apart ghosts. They’re not even good hunters.”

“Obviously, they haven’t noticed they got a ghost living with ‘em,” Ember added with an eyeroll.

“It’s a very stressful situation, Danny was worried about what they’d do if they found out,” Kitty frowned before sticking her tongue out at Johnny. “Danny’s a good guy, at least he talked to me about things that mattered.”

“Good target practice, you mean,” Skulker declared as they entered through the portal. Instinctively they all looked up to where the ghost boy’s core was humming but sensed no movement. “Alright, I will admit that is weird. Let’s see what the whelp’s up to.”

It was a bit cramped, the five of them crammed into the small room especially when they were keeping their distance from the room’s only living occupant. He had not moved since Technus had last been in here. At their entrance, his breath fogged again and he shivered for a second before settling back down. 

“Well, he’s alive at least,” Johnny shrugged before leaning in close to examine him. “Kid looks wiped though.” He picked up the boy’s bony wrist which had been dangling off the bed, his fingers brushing the floor and held it up before dropping it. His knuckles rapped against the ground but he didn’t stir.

“Johnny, leave him alone, he’s trying to sleep,” Kitty hissed, yanking her boyfriend back by his ear. 

“Come on, I’m not doing anything bad,” Johnny defended. “But, come on, how often are we gonna get a chance like this?”

“Hmm is human sleep that interesting that the ghost child would ignore all of us?” Technus asked, floating over and laying himself down on the bed. He laid there on the bed next to the boy for a few moments. “I do not believe I’m doing this correctly.”

“Nah you gotta close your eyes and go off to dreamland,” Youngblood said, grabbing a sock off the floor and then some papers from the desk and began stacking them on the half ghost’s head. The boy still didn’t react in the slightest. 

“Is dreamland close? Another pocket dimension like the Zone?” Technus, ever the scientist, asked curiously.

“No, you idiot,” Ember sighed before tentatively reaching out and laying a hand on Phantom’s chest. “Yow, man that’s weird.”

“What?” Skulker asked, having been mostly content to watch until now. Youngblood had now piled several more items on the ghost boy’s head but he slept on, unawares.

“It’s just,” she scrunched up her face as she looked for the words, “I know what ghost cores feel like and I’ve been around enough humans to know the signs of life but he’s got both at once. His core flares and fades opposite his heart beat. It shouldn’t work but it does, somehow.”

“He is a most curious specimen, I rarely see Plasmius in his human skin so it’s hard to compare,” Skulker commented. “Of course Plasmius I can understand. He acts like a ghost, thinks like one. But the child, he’s certainly a ghost but he’s also decidingly... human.”

“That’s why we should be leaving him alone,” Kitty frowned, plucking Youngblood out of the air and moving him away from the sleeping teen. “If Danny isn’t waking up with all of us causing a racket then clearly he’s exhausted. We bother him enough, let him rest and fight him some other time.”

“But I wanted to fight now,” Technus whined, rolling over on the bed and resting one arm over the ghost boy’s body. “The Phantom surely wants to hear my latest monologue on how I’m the supreme ruler of everything electronic and beeping.”

“I know I don’t,” Youngblood shrugged.

“Me neither,” Johnny scoffed.

“Or me,” Ember muttered, putting her hands on her hips.

“Just let him rest,” Kitty said shooing the others back and gently brushing some of the kid’s hair out of his face revealing sallow features and dark marks under his eyes. “It’s hard enough being human much less a ghost on top of that; between fighting us and trying to have a normal life I bet he hardly gets any sleep. The least we can do is give him a break before he breaks.”

“I suppose it’s not sporting to kill a sleeping prey,” Skulker pouted. “And it’ll make his defeat more meaningful if he’s well rested and not uh,” he gestured to the Phantom’s general state of disarray. 

“Better appreciate it,” Ember sulked for a second, kicking away some pajama pants from the floor. “His stupid human life. I’d give anything to sleep again, just for a minute.” 

The ghosts sat in quiet contemplation for a moment, the dead looking enviously and curiously on the silent, sleeping boy, on a world they could only watch but not engage in. The moment was shattered by the front door slamming open.

“DANNO WE’RE HOME AND WE BROUGHT CHINESE!” Resonated through the house. Startled awake, the ghost child leapt out of the bed and hovered about a foot above it for a moment before sinking back down.

“Darn it Dad, I was napping,” Danny grumbled before he opened his eyes and saw several of his ghostly enemies standing awkwardly in his room. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Technus lounging on his bed. “What the-”

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Technus tittered happily, leaning into his personal space. “Ready to hear my spiel?” The temperature in the room dropped rapidly as his core ramped up and spilled over into his eyes which were no doubt glowing a fierce green.

“Get out of my room!” He shouted, reaching over to grab his emergency under the bed thermos but a sock falling from his hair into his face distracted him.

“Hey, just stopping by but we were just on our way out, sleep well, Danny sweetie!” Kitty said dragging the whole group through the floor. His core thrummed in agitation until he felt them cross the portal into the Ghost Zone. He sat there for a moment, shaking and panting from the adrenaline rush before he decided he really didn’t want to know. He flopped back onto the bed and reached over on his nightstand for the bottle Jazz had given him the other day.

“The heck is in this stupid sleep aid?”

[assaily]

I thought about saving this one, but i’ve been sharing it around for a while, so i may as well share it here, too.

Context: Allison and Diego borrow some empathy powers and use them to try and gain some insight on Five

Allison sipped her coffee for lack of anything better to do. She dallied for a time, unsure how to proceed, suddenly aware of the heavy weight that clung to them, and wondered if this was normal. It could have been exhaustion, considering the dark shadows beneath Five’s eyes. It felt deeper than just a bad night of sleep. This was what she’d been afraid of, what she was fully expecting to find and now found herself feeling diminished beneath.

“You hungry?” she asked when Five finished his coffee.

“No,” Five answered, the question hardly a blip on his radar.

“I could eat,” Diego said. Five usually said no to the offer of food unless it was put in front of him. He couldn’t resist once it was there, thankfully, so this little dance of two siblings pretending to cook for each other and secretly cooking for Five was not new. If Five himself noticed, he never said anything about it.

Allison got up from the table, snatching Five’s mug from beneath his fingers. He had been mindlessly tracing the rim and was genuinely startled from his thoughts when Allison took it from him. He said nothing, attention suddenly on her like a scalpel. She wasn’t sure if it was the power or her own imagination that made his scrutiny feel sharper than usual. She set a skillet to heat and refilled Five’s cup before taking it back to the table for him.

Suspicion burned at the hairs on her arms and she took a step back to meet Five’s piercing gaze. “What?” she asked.

“You’re being nice,” he muttered, an observation and a question rolled into one. He wanted to know why, he wanted to know what she wanted.

“Nothing,” she reassured without thinking. “I mean,” she corrected quickly when Diego gave her a sharp look. “I’m just feeling weird and you look tired. I miss my daughter,” she admitted, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

Five blinked, something swirling around them at her admittance, a little like irritation, a lot like muted affection. “I’m not your kid, Allison, you don’t need to dote on me.”

She smiled around the confusing mix dusting the room. “Refilling your coffee is hardly doting,” she replied in a daze.

He shrugged, eyes falling down from her, the sharp focus softening at last. He took a sip of the coffee and it tasted like acceptance. She turned back to the fridge, fighting a smile as she pulled the sausages from the top shelf and added them to the pan. Soon the kitchen was filled with the sounds of sizzling and the smell of food; the anxiety had eased into something quiet and tired and easy to ignore.

She whisked eggs in a bowl, added milk and cheese and cooked it in the same pan as the sausage drippings once they’d finished. She divvied the food up on three plates and set them on the table. The whole meal took her less than twenty minutes, hardly any trouble at all but it felt good to do something for them. It soured when a flood of dread and disgust spilled across the table the moment she put the plate in front of Five. Her movements stuttered, taken by surprise, hesitating to watch him spear a sausage with the fork and nibble on one end like he hadn’t felt anything.

She exchanged a look with Diego, who’d paused mid-bite to watch Five as well.

Irritation suddenly simmered between them, a striking indecisiveness between anger and the urge to flee, anxiety washing over them again. It happened so fast, her and Diego nearly drowned in it. She put her own plate down before she dropped it, and moved to sit. The scrape of the chair on the floor was like someone physically hitting her.

“Five,” she said, her voice swimming.

Diego put down his fork, food untouched, and reached across the table to put a hand on Five’s shoulder. The old man vanished in a pop of light and reappeared by the counter next to the coffee pot. He poured himself another cup, his body lax and his movements smooth in sharp contrast to swirl of indignant rage pounding at the walls.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on with you too, but I don’t want to be involved.” He took a long slurp from the coffee, turning to regard them over the rim of it. “Play your games with someone else.” And with that he disappeared in a pop of light, leaving behind the traces of bitter irritation.

-

“Maybe it was breakfast?”

“What was wrong with eggs and sausage?” Diego asked.

Allison had no idea. Five was a bit weird about food, but she supposed surviving a few decades in an apocalypse could mess with someone’s ability to have a healthy relationship with eating. He was so skinny, and seemed to get skinnier every day. It was a challenge getting him to eat.

“Maybe he doesn’t like them.”

“Does Five like anything?” Diego asked. “Besides coffee.”

“Fluffernutters,” Allison said. It was the only thing she’d ever seen him choose for himself, besides the time he pilfered all the canned peaches from the cupboards and Klaus found them stashed under his bed. “Fruit?”

For lunch Allison asked Mom to chop up a fruit salad. Five emerged from his room around eleven a.m. like clockwork, usually for coffee. He arrived in the kitchen through one his rips, immediately splashing the room with an emotion that tasted like gunmetal. Allison couldn’t describe it other than dark, sardonic, and irritable. It twisted with the bleeding rawness she had felt earlier. 

Five stopped in the doorway, dread spilling forth when he saw her and Diego waiting for him. And he knew they’d been waiting, she could feel him realize it, suspicion mixing with the dread. He scowled at them, a classically abrasive Five expression that she wouldn’t have blinked twice at yesterday.

It was surreal feeling the tumult underneath it.

Five went for the coffee. “Is there a reason you two are still here?”

“We live here,” Diego said.

“Don’t you have a job?” He said to Diego, voice and intonation both sharp and accusing.

“It’s my day off.”

“So you spend it sitting around the kitchen? What a productive use of your time.”

“Oh yeah?” Diego asked, temper flaring predictably. “What do you do around here all day? Huh?”

A bitterness, dark and sharp, encased the room like tar, bubbling with frustration and a delicately muted rage that felt utterly ancient. There was something there Allison wasn’t quite seeing, something deeper than whatever foul mood he was in.

“Why are you mad, Five?” Allison cut the tension like a knife, going against the grain.

“I’m not angry,” Five said, most definitely defending himself.

“You came down here and immediately started picking a fight,” she pointed out, watching his eyes dart from her to Diego and back again, caught out. 

He scoffed, glancing down at the coffee cup in his hand, and she felt him switch at the realization. “Oh,” he said, folding inward on himself. Anger still shimmered off him, but it felt like he was trying to pull it back in, drink it down with the bitter burn of coffee in his throat. “The math is being uncooperative,” he gestured above his head in the general direction of his room several floors above them.

“Well you don’t have to take it out on us, you ass,” Diego said, his voice forgiving despite his words.

Shame descended like a fog, settling like an ache against her breast bone. She gestured at the table, desperate to dissipate that cloud. “Mom made fruit.”

Five glanced at her from beneath his bangs but latched onto the change in subject. “Made, huh?”

“She didn’t ‘make’ the fruit, she cut it up though. Do you want some?”

There was a bubble of emotions that came up in the form of hesitation, it was old and complicated and Allison didn’t know how to sift through it fast enough to make any sense of it. Five pursed his lips, shrugged one shoulder and stepped over, holding his coffee in one hand casually. He considered the medley, genuinely perusing the selection, which was more than she could say for breakfast. He chose a pitted peach, cut in half, pulling it from the mix with slender fingers.

“That’s all?”

“Hmm?” he paused, dropping the peach-half back into the salad.

“You can take more,” she felt compelled to inform him.

“I know,” he said, which struck her for the lie it was. She had to swallow that quickly lest it show on her face.

“Get a bowl, take as much as you want.” He could take the whole damn thing, if it pleased him, and none of them would stop him or even admonish him.

The prickle of suspicion resurfaced, and he withdrew his hand away from the bowl, staring at her. His eyes flicked to Diego, mistrust wafting up like a foul smell. He leaned back, straightening to his full height and it was like a veil descended over him, and him alone. A muting of everything, like a layer of cloud, fog, or smoke that socked him in, pushing them out. He took a sip of his coffee, still watching them, before vanishing again in a pop of light.

Diego sighed, deflating next to her. “You can’t push directly, you keep spooking him.”

She groaned in frustration, pillowing her face on her arms on the table. “And here I thought this would be easier than trying to guess.”

She startled up when a returning pop announced Five’s re-arrival. He landed inches from the table wielding a knife from god knows where, which he used to spear several large pieces of fruit. He vanished again without pretense, leaving her stunned and blinking. 

From somewhere upstairs, peach flavored delight bloomed on her tongue.

[extremelyblackandwhite]

a year in the life | rockstar! s.s.

pairing: rockstar!sebastian stan x writer!reader

main work: i wanna know what love is

season: autumn 🍁

a/n: in celebration of 4 major works of mine turning one this year (my babies, cannot believe it’s been a year) and based on the reboot of gilmore girls, i will be revisiting my works per season. we are starting with autumn and rockstar!seb. hope you enjoy xx

Y/N laid on the big chez lounge couch in the middle of her living room, surrounded by her children’s toys, with a large bowl of Doritos on her lap as the Real Housewives played on the background. For the very first time since forever, she was alone at home; Jess and Marion were at their respective schools while Sebastian was busy in the studio, doing some rearrangements to a new album. She loved the three of them more than anything but she knew that she would’ve never had the chance to eat Doritos without Sebastian complaining it was unhealthy for her or her children trying to take a bite. Lately, all she wants is to lay low, bask in her leave from work and watch some trashy TV. 

As her eyes were getting heavier and heavier with sleep when the front door opened, sending her back into alert mood. Luckily, it wasn’t no one trying to break in but her husband who still couldn’t open doors without making a big ruckus about it. 

     - I’m sorry, bunny. -  he stepped back as he recognised his wife’s sleepy face. - I thought you’d be in the bedroom. 

     - Can’t move. - she pointed at her bulging bump covered by one of his old jumpers which seemed to be the only thing that fully covered her at this particular stage. Sebastian chuckled, walking over to her to quickly kiss her, hand caressing her bump through the jumper. - Didn’t expect you to be home so early.

      - I can see. - he pointed at the bowl of Doritos on her lap. - You’re supposed to be the prudent one. 

    - I’m carrying your offspring. It makes me make bad decisions. - she teased, cuddling against him as he sat by her side, worn out slightly loose black leather jacket still on. - How are the boys?

    - Fighting about who gets to be godfather this time.

    - Did you tell them my brother is gonna be the godfather?

    - Now, where would the fun be in that, bunny? - he smirked, with that boyish like looks he still managed to remain after all these years. 

    - Stop it. - she leaned towards him to kiss him. 

    - How are you feeling today? - his hand mindlessly rubbed her bump, feeling the little moves of the baby whenever the baby moved. - Little one is a bit feisty today.

    - It’s been like this all of last night. I think I might be closer to labour than we think.

    - Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve driven the kids to school, honey love. 

    - You needed to sleep. - she groaned as she stretched her legs. - Besides, Marion is staying with your mum today so I wanted to spend some time with her before she went. 

    - No kids tonight? - he leaned over to kiss her collarbone. - How long has it been?

    - As long as I’ve been pregnant. - she pushed him away playfully. - Jess is not going. 

    - Why not? Jess loves my mum. Is he sick? Urgh, is the flu going around his class again? We need to put him into a better school, those kids at his school are always s...

    - Seb, stop. - she rolled her eyes, smiling at the same time at how he’d gone from let it be to constant rambling about his children’s wellbeing. - He just wants to be home tonight and he’s been a little sad lately. 

    - You’re sure he’s not sick? Because there’s this private school which tests kids for all those flu things.

    - He’s not sick. He’s just got ... a bit of a lovebug. He got like this when I was last pregnant with Marion. 

    - Well, at least he hasn’t decided that the baby is just not coming. - Sebastian referred to Marion. Their daughter had just decided there was no baby coming around, even after being offered her own bedroom with her own bathroom, just for herself. - I’ll go pick him up, make it a whole thing. Maybe even pass by Al’s ... get you that pasta you really like. 

    - You’re just trying to make me forget that you’re the reason we’re moving houses. 

   - Y/N, this house has always been too small.

   - That’s because you need a whole room for your guitars alone. 

She’d spend the best part of her initial married years trying to convince Sebastian to either get a storage unit to put all his guitars in or to just merge it with his office yet, he’d always come back with an excuse. “Honey love, they need to be displayed”, “Bunny I would just get distracted if they were in my office” he would tell her with his rockstar like charm which she thought was strong enough to resist, yet how can she say no when he immediately shifts from boyish smile to having her pressed against the wall of that very same room, pounding into her as if he was an up and coming rockstar and her his favourite groupie. With the need for that bedroom, their once spacious apartment they bought when she was pregnant with Jess was becoming too small. Normally Y/N would be okay with it but being 8 months pregnant during the fall where it constantly rains in New York, moving seemed like the last thing she’d like to do and just thinking about it made her tired already. After all, she could barely walk to the kitchen without feeling tired or taking a short break in the middle of the path. She thought that after two pregnancies, the third one would be a walk in the park. Turns out it’s more like a run in the park, except the park is on fire and she’s barefoot. 

   - Honey love, asking me to get rid of my guitars is like asking you to get rid of your five copies of Emma.

   - They’re in different languages. - she argued back.

   - They’re different models, besides, we can finally have a guest bedroom. You always wanted a guest bedroom.

   - Sure then maybe my grandfather will come visit more often. How about that? - Sebastian chuckled at her answer. - I’m not joking. You get me pregnant, you get to be annoyed by my grandfather. 

   - You’re acting like this is my fault when you were the one who wore fishnets with a leather skirt. I’m only human. 

   - Fine, 10% my fault, 90% you fault. That’s my final offer.

   - You sure? 

   - Yes. You see, you are a sex maniac who cannot be controlled. 

   - That’s not what you wrote about me. - he smirked. - You said I had more soul than just a sex pot. 

   - Do not quote my own words at me.

   -  You bought my old guitar.

   - Urgh ... - she rolled her eyes. Sebastian grinned, happy he’d won the debate. - Just go make the other mums jealous please.

   - Look at you, using me for my sex appeal only.

   - No. I just really enjoy being the powerful mum. 

   - Yeah? What’s that like?

   - Constant questions about if we do weird sex blood rituals. Then mysterious answers, so they all fear you and don’t force you to attend PTA meetings on date nights. 

   - I gotta say, bunny ... we got this parenting thing covered. 

   - We do.

   - When I come back, you better not have a bowl of Doritos on your belly.

   - I’ll do whatever I want.

   - Sure, bunny, if you walk to the kitchen by yourself ...

   - Low move, Stan. Low.

   - You love me. - he chuckled, grabbing his keys from the trinket dish by the entry door. - See you soon, bunny.

   - Love you. - she scrunched her face in a little smile which he couldn’t help but smile back.

Sebastian liked to pick up Marion and Jess from school. His schedule normally meant Y/N, who had a more 9-5 job, was the one who’d do the drop offs and collections so he’d always meet them at home but whenever he could pick them up, he’d be the first one there. He just loved to see his two babies come out of school in their little uniforms which he incredibly hated when they first enrolled but now couldn’t help but find incredibly adorable. He also loved to see how both his children came out of school. Marion would be the one who’d take the longest, surrounded by all her friends and probably nursing a scrape or two on her knee as if kindergarten 2-3 year old was a big fighting ground while Jess would come out as quickly as he could. 

He parked slightly in front of his son’s school, coming out of the car and leaning against it. The parents’ eyes were immediately on him, maybe it was due to the star power or, most likely, it was because he was wearing a leather jacket, dark shades and his neck tattoo could be seen peaking out the collar of his jacket. His shoes crinkled the fallen leaves on the floor, avoiding those looks as he waited for his son. He knew who he was and he was not going to change it because he became a father, he is a good father, he knows that. The bell rang and a swarm of children came rushing out of the school, and they say birth rates are low. He took his sunglasses off, trying to pin point his son in the middle of all different aged children. 

   -  DAD! - he turned his head to the memorable voice, crutching down as he son rushed to him. Jess wrapped his arms around his father, little childish giggles as Sebastian pulled him off the floor.

   - Hey, buddy. How was school?

   - We did hand turkeys.

   - Hand turkeys? No way, that’s so cool. - he opened up the car’s passenger’s seat, sticking around to check if he fastened his seatbelt correctly before taking the driver’s seat. - It’s just gonna be us three today, bud. You, me and mummy. We getting Al’s and some ice cream. 

   - Why didn’t mummy come?

   - Mummy is very tired, buddy. The baby is kicking a lot, won’t let the baby sleep.

   - Oh ...  - Sebastian saw his son’s face grow sadder.

   - What do you want from Al’s, bud? You can get whatever you want.

   - Really?

   - Yeah.

The little restaurant had soon become a staple in their family life. Sebastian had. discovered by accident after accidentally burning dinner for Y/N’s. He wasn’t already too popular with Y/N’s family so he knew he had to fix it and there it was, the small little restaurant filled with delicious food. Now, it was just a Friday night tradition yet today was special, almost nostalgic to when Y/N, Sebastian and Jess had their first home. Back when Y/N and him were new parents and would trip on every toy in the apartment. God, those were the days. 

  - Dad? - Jess pulled at his sleeve while the two were waiting in the queue. 

  - Yeah, bud? - Sebastian picked him up, already understanding the signs of whenever he wanted to be held. 

  - I ... The baby’s not coming for a while, right? 

  - Why, Jessie? What did Marion say?

  - She didn’t say anything ... uhm, it’s gonna be three of us now. 

  - Yeah. We’re gonna get a new big place, we can even get a dog or a cat. You always wanted a cat, didn’t you? 

  - But, now I’m third.

  - What do you mean? - Sebastian furrowed his brows at the comment.

  - Well, when Marion was a baby you and mummy were always with her but she’s still a baby and now there’s a new baby, so I’m gonna be third. - Sebastian’s heart broke at that comment. Now it made sense. - And ... you’re not home a lot and mummy is gonna be busy with the baby.

  - Hey, you’re not third. - he rubbed his son’s back, kissing the side of his head, soothing him to the best of his ability. - You want me to be home more?

  - No, daddy ... you like doing music. 

  - Hm ... how about you come to the studio with me when you don’t have school?

  - Really? But you said I’m too little. 

  - Well, you’re gonna be a big brother again, I think it’s time.

  - Really?

  - Yeah. - he smiled him, his smile reflecting back at him. 

  - Faye. 

  - What?

  - We should name the baby Faye. 

  - Faye? You want your baby sister to be named Faye?

  - Yes.

  - Well ... Faye it is.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Hey does nie huisang's mother ever come back? I really liked the part where she doted and bonded with mingjue. I think even though she's not human she'd be even more delighted with him and more or less adopt him all over again after seeing how he cared so fiercely for huisang (also I don't think she'd care that guangyao has given up. Try to touch either of her kids and your a dead man... or maybe just mingjue? Since he's human and a LOT younger than her maybe she just goes around killing the people that have the capacity and wish to kill him)

spontaneous sequel to this morning’s fic (ao3 link here)

-

Huli jing were pretty rare, as spiritual beasts went, and that was generally considered to be a good thing - when they were bad, they were very very bad - but Nie Mingjue faithfully followed up on every possible lead regardless, putting it out among the other cultivation sects that he had a special interest and would appreciate - with monetary remuneration, even - a heads up should one ever show itself.

Mostly this meant following up on a lot of false leads, including, in one somewhat embarrassing case, an actual fox that had stolen the local farmer’s prize goose.

Still: family was family, and so he kept it up.

He had to stop during the war, naturally, and in the period immediately following it when his health had gotten very bad for a while, although luckily the dragon managed to fix it back up, and he’d been doing very well ever since. Lan Xichen had wondered if it was Clarity and Jin Guangyao had refused to talk to him for a month for some reason, but that wasn’t that important.

He was feeling better now, so he started following up on leads again. Nie Huaisang was coming up on his first quarter-century very soon, and that was supposed to be a big event - his first tail! - and books were all well and good but someone, anyone, with experience was better.

Ironically enough, he found what he was looking for on a scheduled hunt that wasn’t anything anyone had identified as a huli jing, but rather what appeared to be rather a great deal of nu gui appearing all at once near Lanling, enough to make a notorious womanizer like Jin Guangshan start to sweat. They’d all been making the rounds, all the various Great Sects together - even Jiang Cheng had joined in, as well as Lan Wangji, recently emerged from seclusion with a scowl firmly on his face.

“Why do you think they’re aiming at the Jin sect?” Lan Xichen wondered aloud as they walked around the edges of an abandoned village very close to Lanling - one of the trouble spots. “It’d be one thing if it were one of them, but so many...?”

“My theory is that someone is murdering all of Sect Leader Jin’s outside women so that they’ll go after him,” Jiang Cheng said, then glanced at Jin Guangyao. “No offense meant, of course.”

Jin Guangyao waved a hand dismissively. He’d started loosening up in the time since he met the dragon, revealing a bit more of his sharper and nastier side in a way that made Nie Mingjue respect him more than all of his fake softness had, and for some reason that had made Jiang Cheng warm right up to him. All for the good, in Nie Mingjue’s opinion, since they were all but co-raising that nephew of theirs...

“Who would do that, though?” he asked. “It’s as if they bear him a grudge, but it seems like a roundabout way of going about -”

“Dumpling!”

Nie Mingjue stopped moving.

There was a woman standing in the door to one of the village houses. Like a nu gui she was dressed all in red, but her flesh was ruddy and her complexion vibrant; her luxurious hair looped in a widow’s braids but her figure just as gorgeous as it had ever been.

She held out her hands towards Nie Mingjue, smiling. “Oh, cabbage bun, meat pie, my darling! How have you been?”

“...did she just...”

“Right to Chifeng-zun‘s face?”

Nie Mingjue put Baxia away.

“Mingjue-xiong?” Lan Xichen asked, frowning. “You should be careful; we had heard that this village was abandoned of all human life.”

“No one who calls Chifeng-zun a cabbage bun could be human,” Jiang Cheng mumbled under his breath. 

“Second mother?” Nie Mingjue called tentatively as he approached, and ignored how the cultivators around him all abruptly went silent and slack-jawed. “Is that you?”

“Naturally,” she said. “You don’t think I’d miss my baby’s birthday, do you? After you did such a good job taking care of him, too! Oh, my little carp, I’m sorry it took so long. I had to cut one off to escape, you understand, and once you do that you’re really rather stuck until you gather enough power to get back to full strength...would’ve been a touch awkward, wouldn’t you say?”

She certainly talked about as much as Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue reflected.

“He’ll be happy to see you,” he said. If this was the wrong huli jing - and he wouldn’t be shocked if it was, what with the way they changed faces - and a trick was being played, it wouldn’t work on Nie Huaisang. “Were you planning on staying long? Just the birthday, or...?”

He wasn’t giving up Nie Huaisang to anyone at all, not even his birth mother.

“I hadn’t quite decided,” she said, nodding in a way that meant that she understood his meaning and didn’t intend to dispute it; he relaxed at the sight of her agreement. “I got a little distracted, actually. Don’t think I didn’t hear about what that nasty man tried to do to you!”

“Nasty man?” Nie Mingjue asked, puzzled. “Do you mean Wen Ruohan? That was ages ago.”

“Not him, my gooey little egg! That nasty Jin sect leader, all sly and underhanded tricks - not that I mind sly and underhanded tricks, of course, least of all murderous ones - but I mean, really. The gall of that man, thinking he could snap up my little morsel before I could!”

“...does she like Chifeng-zun or want to eat him?” Jiang Cheng whispered.

“Unknown,” Lan Wangji murmured back.

“Shhh,” Lan Xichen said. “A-Yao, are you all right? You’ve gone terribly pale...”

“Anyway, chicken wing, I decided to bring back all of his nightmares to haunt him,” she chattered on cheerfully, throwing her head haughtily, the eyes of all the men and women irresistibly followed the graceful lines of her neck and shoulders, though most of them were able to pull their eyes away a moment later. That was her mercy, rather than their strength; she was a strong enough huli jing to entrap a sect leader, and Nie Mingjue’s father had been no slouch, even if he had bad taste in bed partners. “It’s been ever so much fun.”

Nie Mingjue sighed. “Second mother,” he said. “I thought I asked you not to kill people? As a special birthday favor to me?”

“Oh, pork chop, I know! I haven’t forgotten - no killing people around you, I remember, I remember. I haven’t killed anyone...well, in connection with this, anyway. I just had a little chat with some of my underworld friends and brought the ones who’d already died back.”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes shot straight to a - by now - even more pale Jin Guangyao. “Uh,” he said. “By chance, second mother, did you happen to pass by Yunping...?”

“Such a sweet little tanghulu you are! I could pop you right into my mouth and never frown.” He was only a few steps away from her now, and she danced forward to pat him on the cheek. “Don’t worry! I know how much you care for your friends. I made sure not to send A-Shi anywhere those mean old cultivators could get her.”

“A-Yao! Oh, someone help me, I think he’s stopped breathing - come, sit down -”

“You really need to stop bringing back nu gui,” Nie Mingjue decided to say instead of dealing with...that. “They’re not getting past Jinlin Tower’s defenses anyway, and we’re worried about collateral damage.”

His second mother heaved a sigh. “I know, I know,” she said. “I had the same thought as you, meatball, about the defenses. You caught me just as I finished upgrading.”

Nie Mingjue didn’t like the sound of that.

“Of course, it isn’t working out right,” she added, pouting. “You’d think someone who got accused of being a demon so often wouldn’t be so picky about who he’s being asked to murder.”

“I already told you that I’m not a vicious ghost!” a surprisingly familiar voice retorted from inside the house. “I refuse to go around killing people!”

“Oh no - now Jiang Cheng’s fallen down, too! Wangji, could you - Wangji? Wangji!”

Nie Mingjue covered his face with his hand. “You brought back Wei Wuxian.”

“I brought back Wei Wuxian,” his second mother agreed. “I thought it’d be poetic justice - the wronged man come back for revenge. But he’s being persnickety about it, so I have half a mind to just let him go.”

“Good idea,” Nie Mingjue said, deciding to just - let it go. Someone else could deal with it. Possibly Lan Xichen, since it sounded like everyone else had fainted. “Anyway, you’re far too busy to pursue vengeance right now.”

“I am?”

“I know how much you like to throw parties. Don’t you want to help me plan Huaisang’s twenty fifth?”

“Oh!” She clapped her hands. “Absolutely! We can invite positively everyone that tried to get in your way and show off how good a job raising him you did!”

Nie Mingjue thought back over all the creatures he’d ever encountered.

“We’re going to need a bigger venue.”

[five-rivers]

Danger First

Chapter 2

Heya @pocketramblr. I have no self-control.

.

Izuku expected his anxiety to subside, one way or another, once the exam was over.

As always, the universe set out to prove him wrong.

Home was more or less okay. But, for some reason, minor household repair issues started to bother him so much he spent the rest of weekend working on them

Then there was school, which was even more hellish than usual, despite being exactly the same as it had been since the sludge incident. Izuku was way too aware of how much of a threat everyone there was to him, specifically. Especially the teachers.

His hypervigilante state did keep him from getting poked (smacked) quite so much by the teachers, or cornered by 'fellow' students quite as much as usual, but it also led him to hide in the library storage room. He'd never be able to look at the librarian the same way again. Not knowing she kept multiple copies of books by anti-quirkless hate groups on hand.

And all through the week, he got nothing but silence from All Might.

But the end of the week came, and with it a letter from UA, which told him-

.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIRST PLACE?"

.

"I don't know, Nana, Banjo makes a good point."

"Don't take his side just because he was your predecessor. You all know a One for All holder would never resort to such devious- Yoichi, why are you making that face?"

"In an unjust world, bribery can be a tool for justice. I'm sure Eighth didn't have to, though."

"That's it, I'm not talking to any of you anymore."

.

"Anyway," said All Might, wiping blood from his mouth and glancing nervously at the other beachgoers. "Congratulations, young Midoriya."

Izuku felt his lip wobble. "You're not mad that I couldn't use One for All?"

"Not at all! Actually, in some ways this might be better. We'll have some time to experiment privately. And if you're in school when it finally turns on... well, we'll just say you're a late bloomer, alright?"

"Okay," sniffed Izuku, rubbing his eyes. "I just... I couldn't use it. What if-"

"Hey, hey, it's alright, my boy. No need to cry. You passed the entrance exam without using a quirk at all! You should be proud. Even with a quirk, it's an incredible accomplishment. Also, just so you know, I had nothing to do with the selection process. Just in case you were worried about favoritism."

Izuku sniffed and nodded.

.

"What a strangely specific denial."

"Uh, Banjo, usually I'd be reveling in the chaos, but I think Nana is seriously considering ghost murder right now. Maybe you shouldn't insult her kid anymore?"

"You and Hikage would protect me, right?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd sell you to Satan for one corn chip."

"So would I; it's been way too long since I've eaten. As long as it is Satan and not All for One, you've got my blessing."

.

"You certainly proved this old man wrong."

"You aren't old," protested Izuku.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that," said All Might. "Here, sit down with me," he said, settling on the sand.

Izuku hurried to follow suit, and for a while, they both just watched the ocean. It was nice, today.

"I owe you an apology, young Midoriya."

"H-huh?"

"For what I said on that roof," said All Might, "and for what I... implied later."

"You already apologized for the roof, though?" said Izuku, confused. "I mean, that day..."

"That's what I'm talking about," said All Might. "I shouldn't have- The way I apologized, when I offered you One for All... It was like saying that you couldn't do it without a quirk, that you needed a quirk to 'fix' yourself and... well, obviously I was wrong. Quirk or not, you're going to be an amazing hero."

.

"Oh," said Banjo, "I can already tell this is going to be a problem once he finds out about Danger Sense. Gonna blow a hole right through his confidence."

"Maybe he won't find out?" suggested Nana, who'd wrestled her murderous impulses into submission. Temporarily. "Danger Sense is pretty low key."

"I feel like I should be offended..." said Hikage. "But if I got offended, that would be offensive to people who don't have quirks..."

"I don't know," said En. "If someone insulted your legs by saying they were so skinny it was like they weren't even there, would you being offended be offensive to people who don't have legs? Or would the original statement be the offensive one?"

"Somehow, I feel more offended after that."

.

"Oh," said Izuku. He felt himself crying again. "Are you, um. You're not going to- Are you- Do you want it back?" he whispered. "One for All?"

"No, no, of course not. You... There's no one I'd rather have it. I'm just... even if you didn't, you could be a hero. But I'm hoping... I'm hoping you'll keep it."

Izuku swallowed and nodded. All Might awkwardly raised his arm.

"Do you mind if I...?"

"Sure?" said Izuku, not entirely sure what he was asking.

All Might put his arm around Izuku and gave him a sort of sideways hug. Izuku leaned into it. It was the safest he'd felt since the entrance exam.

Because, surprise, surprise, that anxiety hadn't gone away.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! Uh... it isn't important, it's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," said All Might, concerned.

"I, well, I, ever since the entrance exam... maybe even a little bit before? I've been really... jumpy? About everything. I think it's just because I'm a wreck, but..."

"Huh. Well, you know, that could be a facet of One for All."

"R-really?"

"After I got One for All, it seemed like it was easier for me to tell when people were in danger and needed help," said All Might. "S- A friend who knew about One for All used to joke it was my original quirk. But it was subtle and intermittent, not constant."

"Huh," said Izuku. "So... it might have been One for All all along? Trying to get me to help people?" He picked at his lower lip. "Maybe... I noticed a bunch of stuff I usually don't... I'm not sure I would have seen all the people in trouble during the exam."

.

"So much for not noticing-"

"His confidence... let him have it for at least a little while..."

"He seems to be taking it alright," said Yoichi, hopefully.

.

"I'm sure you would have helped them if you did notice, regardless," said All Might, "and that's what was really being measured, so my earlier point still stands."

Izuku nodded. "It would be really strange for a quirk to have two completely different applications like that."

"Yes, but One for All is a rather strange quirk, and I've seen odder split quirks." He fell silent for a moment. "I can't think of a way to test for it, though. Speaking of which, we should find some time to try and work on One for All before the school year starts. How do you feel about coming to UA after school?"

.

"Th-thank you for helping us with this, Recovery Girl!"

"It's no trouble, dear," said Recovery Girl. "I'd be here at this time, anyway. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to go through. Just try not to break too many bones."

Izuku nodded vigorously, still somewhat in awe of being in the presence of not one but two incredible pro heroes. And at UA.

It was like living in a dream.

Except for the highly suspicious mostly-hidden wall panels and the very intense feeling of being watched through camera by an incredibly threatening being. It was fine.

"Alright, young Midoriya! Are you ready?"

"Y-yeah!"

"Then come at me, you zygote!"

.

Nana stared at her (former) student in despair. "Toshi... why... out of all the people..."

"So, you admit he can make bad decisions-"

"Bad and immoral are two different things."

"I think calling people zygotes is pretty immoral, actually..."

Silently, Nana agreed.

.

Izuku blinked at All Might- not because of the zygote thing!

... Okay, partially because of the zygote thing.

But mostly because he was still in his skinny, prone-to-coughing-up-blood form.

"Are you sure?" Izuku asked. "What if I..." he trailed off, blushing. What he was about to say sounded so stupid, and more than a little conceited, but...

"Hey, even like this, I'm much tougher than I look, young Midori- Ahem, I mean, zygote!"

"Toshinori, don't you think role-playing as Gran Torino is a little much?" asked Recovery Girl.

"Ah, do you think so?"

Recovery Girl shot All Might a truly terrifying look, but Izuku's mind was on something completely different.

"Is- is Toshinori your name?" he asked, awed.

Blood drained out of All Might's face, making him look more skeletal than usual. Should Izuku not have asked? Was it supposed to be secret? Oh no...

"Please tell me you haven't been training this boy for most of a year without him even knowing your name."

"Oops?" said All Might, faintly.

.

"He did do that, didn't he?" asked Yoichi, his eyebrows almost touching his hairline. "Nana, your boy is a disaster."

"All of us were disasters. We're still disasters."

"I'm not."

"Hikage, you spent most of your adult life living in the woods, completely isolated from humanity."

"I know, it was great."

"Unbelievable."

.

"Back to what we were talking about before," said Mr. Yagi (Mr. Yagi! Izuku knew All Might's name! And had permission to use it!) after Recovery Girl was done scolding him. "Focus on actually hitting me before worrying about accidentally hurting me. Today, I just want to get a baseline. Next time, we can work on basic punches and throws."

"So, do I just-?"

"Yep, just come right at me!"

.

The next hour consisted mainly of Izuku being thrown bodily into various padded surfaces. Despits this, according to Mr. Yagi, he was much better at dodging than expected. As a bonus, although he certainly felt sore and bruised, he didn't break any bones.

He also didn't manage to activate One for All. Not even a little bit.

Nor did he on any of the other days leading up to his first day as a student at UA.

.

Aizawa Shouta, down two nights of sleep and dreading the new batch of bright eyed hero hopefuls he'd be teaching- and crushing the dreams of- next week, glared blearily at a computer screen. Currently, it displayed a student's name, a quirk name, and the single least helpful quirk description he'd ever seen. Which was saying something, because he'd seen Hizashi's original quirk description.

Midoriya Izuku

Quirk: undetermined

Description: None.

I am either too tired or too sober to deal with this, decided Shouta. However, sleep simply wasn't on the table, and getting drunk was illogical. In that case, simply not dealing with it was the only option.

Nevertheless, he picked up his phone and called Nezu.

"Good evening, Aizawa!" said the internally chipper maybe-rodent. "Or should I say good morning?"

"Midoriya Izuku."

"Ah, you're browsing your class list, I see. Any thoughts about their potential?"

"Illogical." It would be, to make a call about a student's potential without meeting them first.

"Quite so!"

"Midoriya. Quirk," grunted Shouta, reminding him why he was calling.

"Ah, yes, he is a strange case. He's listed as quirkless in the registry."

That woke Shouta up, just a little. He'd seen a handful of documents for the quirkless over the years. If Midoriya was quirkless, his file should read N/A, not undetermined.

"What?"

"I have reason to believe that he might have been diagnosed in error," said Nezu. "I am still investigating. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on him. Assuming, of course, that he isn't expelled!"

Shouta grunted and hung up. He minimized the window on his computer and pawed through his files until he found the entrance exam video for Midoriya.

A kid who passed the UA hero course practical entrance exam either entirely quirkless or with a subtle, stubborn, or invisible quirk on rescue points alone. A kid who seemed to run straight for danger on purpose (mostly on purpose, Shouta amended after seeing him collide with the invisible girl, coincidentally pushing her out of the way of some sort of water pressure quirk. There was just no way he could have known she was there). A kid who had almost certainly faced brutal quirk harassment since the time he was four and most likely possessed the self-confidence and trauma to match.

"Least he's good at dodging..." muttered Shouta. He rubbed at one grainy-feeling eye and pulled his sleeping bag closer around his shoulders. Kid wasn't all that bad at falling, either. Some light martial arts instruction, maybe?

He paused the video and reopened Midoriya's file, flipping to school and admission records and exam results. He usually didn't look closely at this part of the file, it was enough for him that the students passed, but, exceptions...

Speaking of exceptions, Midoriya's file was a mass of contradictions. Unusually high written test score that didn't correspond with middle school grades. Dozens of citations and black marks on his disciplinary record that should have kept him from even being invited to take the exam, but a letter of recommendation from All Might.

He frowned at the last one. There was no way...

He shook his head, and clicked on the link at the bottom of the file. It brought him to a herotube video about a year old. A hostage situation with a vaguely familiar middle schooler and slime-like villain. Also, a bunch of heroes, but none of them seemed to be addressing the suffocating child. Shouta felt his lips curl. Even if this was in the past...

Then Midoriya Izuku ran into the frame and tried to pull the other boy free, just seconds before All Might arrived and punched the villain so hard it started to rain. Then the video ended.

Alright, then.

Shouta's admittedly currently-less-than-razor-sharp mind presented him with two possibilities. One, Midoriya was All Might's secret child and All Might had bribed Nezu into letting him take the exams despite his less-than-stellar records. Two, this child had, with bloody fingernails, managed to claw a single spark of luck out of an otherwise bleak existence by impressing All Might enough that he got Nezu to ignore the otherwise damning records.

If the first, well, he had still passed the practical without use of any obvious quirk. He probably had some potential.

If the second... Shouta had been a hero long enough to recognize the circumstances that drove people to desperate, and sometimes unforgivable, acts. Dangling a single hope in front of someone only to snatch it away at the last minute...

Forget the maybe-quirk. This was the real conundrum of Midoriya Izuku.

The rat knew he wouldn't expel Midoriya with these stakes. It would be the height of irrationality.

(Even if he did turn out to be All Might's kid.)

What a pain.

He flipped through a few more profiles, quickly reviewing 1-B as well, before hitting redial on his phone.

"Calling again so soon?" asked Nezu with a squeaky chuckle.

"I want Monoma." He paused. "In my class," he elaborated.

"Oh? Whatever for?"

"If I'm going to have to figure out Midoriya's mystery quirk, I want to make it as easy for myself as possible."

There was silence on the other end of the like, and Shouta checked to see whether or not he'd hung up accidentally. He hadn't.

"I must say," said Nezu, finally, "I had not considered that solution. Depending on the mechanics of Monoma's quirk... I cannot think of any reason to deny your request."

That was a strange way of phrasing it.

"We'll exchange him with Bakugo, in that case."

"Not that I'm complaining," said Shouta, "but why him? Why not..." He racked his memory. "Mineta. He's got one of those body part quirks Kan likes."

Nezu chuckled again. "Normally, I would pick Mineta, but, by my calculations, a classroom that contained both Monoma and Bakugo would be demolished within thirty minutes of their arrival."

Shouta groaned. Why did they even let people like that in?

No, wait, he had an answer to that, actually.

"Forget a mouse, a dog, or a bear," said Shouta. "You're a sadist."

"Some certainly think so! But one thing's for sure! I'm the principal!"

.

The door to class 1-A sure was big... and intimidating... and radiating a faint sense of malaise. But, then, Izuku's middle school classroom had done far worse, so...

He opened the door. No Kacchan. Thank goodness. He must be in the class B, then, because there was no way he'd let Izuku beat him to school.

The strict boy from the entrance exam was there, though, and, oh, dear, he'd noticed Izuku and was coming right for him.

(Oh, gosh, and the invisible girl was here, too. He felt himself blushing furiously.)

Still better than Kacchan.

"Hello!" he said, rather loudly. "I'm from Somei Private Academy! My name is Iida Tenya!"

"Oh, uh, I- I'm from Aldera Middle School..." said Izuku. Was stating the name of your middle school a normal thing? He hadn't read about this in any manga... "I'm Midoriya Izuku."

"Pleased to meet you!" He moved his arm in a rather robotic fashion, taking a deep breath.

Oh, no, was he about to yell at Izuku again?

.

"Danger Sense isn't even going off right now, Izuku," said Yoichi, despairingly. "Why are you still so nervous?"

"Maybe we never really gave him Danger Sense after all, and it was his natural anxiety the whole time."

"Please stop denigrating my quirk."

.

"Midoriya... you... you perceived the true nature of the practical exam. Meanwhile, I was blind! I misjudged you! I hate to admit it, but you were the superior candidate."

Oh, that was nice, but... "I didn't perceive anything, though. I had no idea rescue points were a thing. I was mostly just trying not to die."

"Ah! That curly hair! It's Midoriya!"

"Oh! Um, Uraraka?" Please, please, let him have remembered her name right.

"Yeah!" said Uraraka, smiling brightly.

Augh! Too cute!

"I'm so glad you're in my class! I was so worried I wouldn't know anyone here."

"Y-yeah. T-this is Iida, by the way," said Izuku, trying to get attention off of himself.

"Nice to meet you, Iida."

"It's nice to meet you as well, Uraraka!"

"Yeah! So, we've got the entrance ceremony and guidance sessions today, right? I wonder who our teacher will be- They're all supposed to be pro heroes, right?"

"Um," started Izuku, "that-"

"If you're here to socialize, then get out."

.

"That's a teacher, huh," said Yoichi.

"Why are you saying that like you've never seen one before?" asked Banjo.

"I've seen teachers before," said Yoichi. "I've seen all of your teachers. The ones you've had while you had One for All."

"Okay, now you're saying that like you've never had teachers."

"Yeah, that is kind of strange, Yoichi," said Nana.

"I had professors," said Yoichi.

"Still weird."

"I went to college. And med school."

"Did you graduate?" asked En, interested.

"No."

"Why not?"

"My brother kidnapped me, kept me in a vault for a while, and then I died."

"I didn't know what I expected," said En, shaking his head.

"Wait, weren't there several years between the vault and the whole dying thing."

"Yeah, but I'm ignoring them."

"Because?" Banjo hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Second and Third.

"Yep," said Yoichi.

.

"Todoroki. You were the highest scorer on the Recommendation Exam. See how far you can throw this ball with your quirk. Stay in the circle. Anything else goes."

A boy with white and red hair stepped forward, scowling faintly. He took the ball and stared at it.

"Time is valuable, Todoroki."

And then there was a glacier.

Izuku felt his jaw drop. How was he supposed to compete with that?

.

"My name is Monoma," said a blonde boy, offering his hand.

Izuku stared at it a moment before remembering handshakes were a thing.

"Midoriya," he said.

Monoma then offered his hand to Uraraka and Iida as well. "I look forward to experiencing UA's superior brand of education with you," he said.

Izuku laughed nervously. "You're confident," he said, glancing at the track where two others students were doing sprints. It would be their turn soon.

"But of course!" Monoma struck a sort of pose, fingers splayed out on his chest. "I welcome this sort of challenge, this opportunity to prove myself! It just goes to show, UA only accepts the best of the best!"

Monoma was called away to the starting line a moment later. "Two good, one dud," he mumbled under his breath.

What did that mean?

Then Monoma was at the starting line, and he was using Iida's quirk. Did he have a copy quirk? That was so cool!

... Is that what he meant by good and dud? Did he... did he see that Izuku didn't have a quirk? Oh, no... What if he told everyone? Even if people were being nice to him now...

"What's wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"U-um," said Izuku. "Nothing?"

.

"Oh, gosh," said Yoichi, crying. "I just want to wrap him up in a warm blanket. You deserve friends."

"Yeah, kid, it'll be okay," said Banjo. "Bakugo's just a freak. And so was your whole school. Place gave me MLA flashbacks."

"Sure glad they aren't around anymore," agreed En.

.

All in all... Izuku didn't do terribly. Especially given that he didn't actually have a quirk, and this was a quirk assessment. At least, he didn't think he did. At least, he hadn't tripped or hurt himself.

It had, in fact, been a rather good day. No Kacchan. No bullies. The teacher had clear standards and requirements, and he stated them up front.

He had been getting... bad vibes... from the short, purple-haired kid, and he'd noticed other people frowning at him, especially the girls. But he hadn't been able to put his finger on why, even though he had been watching him carefully during his turns.

Other than that...

UA really was the best.

"By the way, no one's getting expelled. It was a logical ruse."

Monoma raised his hand.

"What is it?"

"I must object!" said Monoma.

"You... want someone to be expelled?"

"In fact, I insist! To allow this to continue would blemish the reputation of the school."

"Well said, Monoma!" exclaimed Iida. "Living up to the reputation of UA and all the alumni who have come before us is a duty of us students! But what blemish are you talking about? Surely, as Mr. Aizawa said, we all went plus ultra!"

"Maybe so, but my concern has more to do with moral standards!"

"If you kids keep going like this, I'm just going to go to sleep. You're giving me a headache."

Izuku caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and a wave of unease went through him. He turned to see-

"Hey! What are you doing?" he demanded, shocked and more than a little horrified.

Once again, he was mortally embarrassed on behalf of the invisible girl.

"I wasn't doing anything!" said the small purple boy.

"You were looking up her skirt!"

"It isn't like there's anything to see!"

The invisible girl gasped and quickly moved away. "Gross!" she said. "That's terrible!"

"See? See?" said Monoma, wildly. "This is what I'm talking about!"

"Next time," said Aizawa, "get to the point faster. Time is valuable. Mineta."

"What?"

"You're expelled."

"What? You can't do that!"

"Go complain to Nezu."

UA really was the best.

"Midoriya."

Okay, never mind. He was doomed. Completely doomed.

"Monoma. I want to talk to you after class. The rest of you are dismissed."

Midoriya stood nervously as Uraraka and Iida bid him goodbye. Was this it? Was Aizawa going to expel him after all? At least it wasn't in front of absolutely everyone... But what was Monoma doing here?

Speaking of which, Monoma looked nervous, too... Was he okay? Surely, Aizawa wasn't going to expel him, too.

"Is this about me using other people's quirks?" demanded Monoma. "Because you said anything goes! I wasn't cheating. You can't expel me!"

Oh. There was some trauma there. Izuku could tell. Did people make fun of him for his quirk?

"I'm not going to expel you," said Aizawa, looking up at them from where he laid in his sleeping bag in the grass. He almost looked like he was praying for patience. "I need to ask you some questions about your quirk. For future reference and to better serve your needs as a student. I know how tricky meta quirks can be."

"Oh," said Monoma, slightly deflating. Then he sent a curious glance at Midoriya. "Is he-?"

"His matter is slightly more sensitive. If you would like me to send him away while we talk, I can do that."

"No, no, it's fine." Monoma sniffed, his eyes suspiciously wet. "What's the question?"

"You copy quirks through DNA contact. Do you decide when to activate passive quirks you copy, or can you choose?"

"I can choose, as long as it's within my time limit."

"When you first make contact, can you tell what quirk a person has?"

Monoma shook his head. "No, sir, I have to activate it to do that, so I can get duds- oh, that is to say, quirks I can't use because I don't have the proper activation conditions, like Midoriya's. He's got some kind of stockpile. I can get duds without realizing it. But I can tell whether or not someone has a quirk."

"Were you able to test all your classmates' quirks today?"

"Not everyone, yet," said Monoma. "I usually try to avoid more extreme mutation quirks outside of controlled conditions."

Aizawa's head bobbed up and down minutely. "Great. That should be enough for now. You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir! I look forward to seeing your superior lesson plans tomorrow!" He paused. "Midoriya."

"H-have a good day, Monoma."

Monoma had felt One for All! What a relief. Izuku had been half worried he'd lost it somehow.

But why did Aizawa want him?

"Um, sir?" he asked. Sort of asked. 'Sir' alone wasn't a question, even if it was said in an inquisitive tone.

Aizawa's eyes turned red, and his hair started floating. Izuku felt... Huh. Calmer, somehow? He was no longer vaguely aware of how the light post over there could fall on him, or any of the other many minor dangers surround him and oh, gosh, he was no longer aware of the dangers! How was he supposed to stay safe like this, when he felt like he'd been blindfolded?

Aizawa blinked. Everything came back.

"Wow," said Izuku. "That was so cool! Was that your quirk? Is it an emotional quirk? It made me feel calmer at first, but then I was, I don't know, too calm, and it made me anxious, but then-"

"Problem child," said Aizawa, and Izuku froze at the reprimand. "What I just did was erase your quirk."

Erase?

His quirk?

"Oh my gosh! You're Eraserhead! I'm a huge fan!"

Aizawa closed his eyes. Was he counting? No? Did he fall asleep?

"You do know you're listed as quirkless, right?"

"Yes?"

"But you just had a reaction to my quirk that a quirkless person definitely should not have."

"O-oh?"

"Combined with Monoma's ability to sense your quirk, I'd say you are not, in fact, quirkless."

"But I have the toe joint?" Izuku wasn't sure why he'd said that. He shouldn't be arguing against this, because, as Aizawa had said, he did have a quirk. It just wasn't exactly his.

"Yeah, that's an old wives' tale."

"Really?"

"As real as my quirk counselor license. Whoever diagnosed you was a quack."

"O-oh."

"My initial impression from your entrance exam video is that you might have a sensory quirk of some kind. On the other hand, we should take Monoma's assessment into account, and consider stockpiles. Either way, I would like to schedule some time to test things out with you."

"You- You'd do that? For me? I mean, I don't want to be a bother-"

"This is literally my job."

"It... yeah, I guess so." His previous teachers would have considered it a bother. Except Mr. Yagi, but Mr. Yagi wasn't really a teacher. He was more of a... a mentor.

(Or a dad.)

(Oh, no, he did not just think that. Bad. Bad brain. Bad brain that read too much All Might RPF as a pre-teen.)

"Besides, even if your quirk doesn't have many applications in hero work, it will be useful for you to know what it is and how it affects you." Aizawa yawned. "Also, don't tell your class that I'm Eraserhead."

"O-okay," said Izuku. "Of course, sir, but... why?"

"I have two full time jobs. I get my entertainment where I can. You can go now. We'll schedule tomorrow."

Izuku nodded, and Aizawa just... zipped his sleeping bag the rest of the way closed and rolled over.

Was... was he just going to go to sleep here? In the middle of the field.

"Um? Mr. Aizawa?"

A grunt came from the sleeping bag.

"This is... isn't this kind of a dangerous place to sleep?"

"Go home, problem child."

"... okay."

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for the Avengers teaching you how to drive

Avengers x reader

warnings:

a/n:

prompt: anonymous: “hey! if it's not too much to ask... can i request an MCU Avengers headcanon of the team teaching teen!reader how to drive? i'm finally learning how to and it's absolutely terrifying (i really hope this sends properly because firefox crashed while i was trying to write it lol)”

firstly no one was very thrilled to be your teacher because getting in the car with an inexperienced driver just felt like a trap

and although they’d put themselves in much more dangerous situations than this

they all had the same thing to say:

“this is not how i want to go down”

but theyd FORBID anyone else from stepping in

“it’s okay, i’ll do it” -cap

“no, no, no. i dont think the one hundred year old man knows today’s road rules. i should teach y/n” -nat

“natasha, you’ve let me drive you before. was i that bad?” -cap

“im not having this discussion” -nat

“you should let vis do it, he might stay calm while y/n drives” -wanda

“what about sam—” -bucky

“no.” -sam

you were actually quietly watching them bicker about who’d have the honor of teaching you

“i dont let anyone else drive me, y/n. you’re not special. but i’ll give you a cool car when you get your license, deal?” -tony

“i’m not special?” -you

“sure you are kid, i just never want to get in a car that you’re driving is all” -tony, patting your head

“oh, okay” -you

the avengers actually decided that wanda was right and vision was probably the best equipped to teach you

they just had to see if you’d enjoy having him as a teacher

the team set up a little course at HQ with a LOT of cones

“how am i supposed to get around all of those?” -you

“you can use your powers!” -thor

“that’s against the rules!” -you

they had to take some of the cones away :(

all the avengers watched from the side of the course

“now, y/n, you need to shift into drive. press your foot on the brake and move this knob to the ‘D’ position” -vision

“which one is the brake?” -you

“...the left one” -vis

sam was recording on his phone

and had redwing do a bird’s eye view for “special footage”

“this should be good” -sam

as soon as you stepped on the gas, the car went speeding straight forward

sam was laughing his ass off but the rest of the avengers were terrified for you

you hit 6 cones before the brakes

“have some faith in them, guys” -wanda

“i just don’t think that’s possible. you guys okay in there?” -rhodey

“spectacular, thank you for your concern” -vis

you needed to try a different teacher

nat was next in line

“okay, so we probably should have mentioned how sensitive you have to be with the pedals. i know we dont do that on missions, but when you’re on the road, you have to watch all of your surroundings” -nat

she totally brought you straight into traffic because the only way you learn in through intense pressure and real world experience (according to her)

“hands at ten and two, right?” -you

“if that’s what you think” -nat

“that’s not helping” -you

screaming every time you turned

ESPECIALLY left hand turns (or right turns if you are not in the US but this takes place in the US i guess idk it’s whatever you want ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

redwing was still following you

everyone was watching the surveillance footage at HQ

“tony, you’re paying for any damages y/n makes, right?” -cap

“is that all im good for? my money?” -tony... “duh, of course i’m paying”

blowing past a red light

“you were supposed to stop” -nat

“what, now?” -you, braking in the middle of the intersection

*honking from all sides*

“what do you think, y/n?” -nat

cap was covering his eyes

“this is a disaster” -wanda

“takes one to know one” -tony, without thinking “oh my god, i’m sorry”

“lets just focus on y/n, maybe we can give them some feedback” -cap

nat made you drive into a parking lot

to park

“okay, just pull in straight. you have to be even in between the lines” -nat

“is that good?” -you

“y/n...you parked directly on top of the line” -nat

“...fuck” -you

next person to teach you was......

“come on, y/n. just go through the drive thru. i’ll pay for your chicken nuggets” -rhodey

“i dont really want chicken nuggets” -you

“fine, okay, you can get whatever you want. just go through the drive thru” -rhodey

you hit the curb

you actually rode the curb

“this is fine” -you

“well...you’re getting better” -rhodey

“dont sugarcoat it, man” -you

“come on! eyes on the road!” -rhodey

steve decided to step in and let you handle the driving on an actual mission

“at least here you’ll have some sort of free reign, that way you can get a better feeling of control when driving” -cap

“we dont like this plan” -all the avengers in the back of this big ass truck

redwing was following ofc

honestly,,,,, that plan wasn’t too bad

you did hit a few trees but this was a heavy duty vehicle

you’d have to do a lot more than that to hurt anything

“hey, this is actually pretty cool! i think ive got the hang of it!” -you

they scheduled you drivers test when you got back, but assured you that it wasnt the end of the world if you failed. you could retake it after some more practice

but you did end up passing it!!!! even tho there were a few mishaps

“mx. l/n, your turn signal” -instructor

“my what?” -you “oh crap”

but you got your license and the team took turns passing it around to take a look at it

“oh man, you look high as a kite. what’s going on with your face???” -tony

“shut up! no i dont!” -you

celebratory dinner!!!!

and sam put together a compilation of all your worst/best moments behind the wheel

“heres the one where they put it in reverse instead of park and started rolling backwards......and thats when they jumped out to try to stop it with their bare hands....oh no!!! they’re going down!!!!” -sam

“oh my god, nooo!” -you, burying your face in your hands

and to top it all off......tony bought you your own car (and got any modifications you wanted)

“i swear to god if you ask for flames on the sides, im donating it” -tony

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedficrecs // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisqueer // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @thisetaernallove // @ofthedewthesunlight // @canarypoint // @zoeyserpentluck // @randomawesomeperson102 // @spideyandtheboys // @ghost-bich // @wonderful-writer // @of-a-chaotic-mind // @groovyfluxie //

[imherongraystairstrash]

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, do you think Charles,Barbara, Eugenia and Anna were close? Anna maybe less because she’s closer in age to the merry thieves set and she probably ghosted Charles after the Ariadne engagement. Would you consider a fic of them all growing up, starting with them 4 as little kids and then slowly becoming teens and adults and then dealing with Barbara’s death. I think it would be a fun idea since nobody ever considers them to be a older merry thieves.

You can thank my social anxiety for this one bc I stress wrote it in school 🙃

TW: panic attacks, death

Title: When we were young

Characters: Barbara Lightwood, Anna Lightwood, Eugenia Lightwood, Cecily Lightwood, Gabriel Lightwood, Alexander Lightwood, Sophie Lightwood, Gideon Lightwood

Anna was sitting by the fire when Charles came into the room. She hated him. She truly did. But, somehow, at that moment, she felt strange. He looked at her and it took her many years back, to when they weren’t exactly friends, but  they were far from what they are now to each other.

…

“And that was how Consul Wentworth fixed the crisis of 1687.” Charles said with a satisfied smile to himself.

The Lightwood girls were his audience. Well, sort of. Eugenia’s cheek was resting on her fist, squishing the right side of her face as her lidded eyes approached shutting completely. Anna was slumped against Eugenia, her lips pressed together tightly and her eyes opened wide, staring at a fixed spot on the floor. Their luminous dark blue glittered in the witchlight, looking exquisitely uncanny. Barbara was mid-yawn, leaning on the leg of a sofa.

“Wow, Charles. Thanks for the history lesson.” Eugenia said, monotonously. It was evident that she’d inherited her mother’s sass from the day she was born, when Barbara had woken her up by exclaiming at the sight of her newborn sister, and Genie responded by pulling her sister’s hair.

“Oh, and in 1690-“

“NO!” All three Lightwood daughters shrieked.

“I’m still not done, though.” Said Charles.

“Yes, you are.” Eugenia said, standing up and settling the matter. “We are positively bored. There is absolutely nothing to do except listen to Charles talk about politics, and if those are the only two options, frankly, I’d rather be bored.” 

Charles crossed his arms. “Being an intellect is not boring.”

Little two year old Anna looked at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“I swear, Thomas is having a better time than we are,” Eugenia said glaring at to where their parents were, with the tiny, almost invisible baby nestled in Gideon’s arms, his fingers wrapped around Sophie's thumb. The parents were all laughing about something, which made Eugenia scowl even more. 

“To be an adult.” Barbara said, with a martyred sigh. 

“We needn’t be adults to have fun.” Charles said.

“I suppose you’re going to torture us with more political trivia.” 

“No,” Charles said. “I was going to suggest we go through the attic.” 

The girls looked up at this and Charles smirked, clearly proud of himself at having come up with a good idea. For once. 

“What is in the attic?” 

Charles shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s probably strange and obscure things. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff in our house.” 

Barbara and Eugenia exchanged a look before the eldest Lightwood sister turned to him. 

“We shall go and discover this mysterious attic you speak of.”

…

“What could this even be?” Barbara said, holding up a loose gear-like contraption. 

“Papa sometimes builds things out of clockwork.” Charles said, sitting cross legged. “Or, he used to at least.” 

 “That’s…” 

Genie and Charles looked at Barbara as she trailed off.

“Nevermind, I have no comment.”

Charles nodded as though that was a common reaction people had in terms of his father’s experiments. 

They rummaged through boxes upon boxes, finding momentos they didn’t understand such as papers upon papers of things that said many difficult words. They could distinguish a couple of words such as “infernal” and “devices”, however there were many that made no sense to them.

“What is a Mortmain?” Asked Genie.

“I think it’s an undead horse or something along those lines,” said Charles.

“Oh,” said Eugenia. “That’s disgusting.”

“Quite,” agreed Barbara.

Anna was toddling around the room, giggling. She almost tripped over a loose floorboard, and would have, had Charles not reached out and grabbed a hold of the back of her dress. 

“This is too dangerous for a small child like Anna,” Barbara said, ever the mother-goose. “I shall take her downstairs before she hurts herself.” 

Anna protested at first, but acquiesced once Barbara bribed her with the promise of dessert.

…

“What are you doing here?” Anna asked.

He looked up, his green eyes meeting her blue ones. 

…

Charles remembered that day like it was just yesterday. 

He and Eugenia had stayed behind rifling through boxes, which wasn’t unwelcome, as Eugenia and Charles had an easy, lighthearted and, at times, profound, friendship. Despite their age gap, they enjoyed each other’s company, though neither could say why. Perhaps, it was simply because they mocked each other. Or perhaps, it was sometimes they would occasionally talk about things such as philosophy, and whether what they were seeing was true, or the world was just a figment of their imaginations. Or a mixture of the two; they’d never really discussed it. 

Eugenia surprised him when she said, “do you ever feel… different from your parents?” 

Charles furrowed his brows, “in what aspect?”

“Love.” 

“Have you a suitor?” Charles inquired, intrigued.

“No. Actually, that was my question. I find that, sometimes, I don’t only enjoy the idea of a male suitor, but perhaps, I also enjoy the company of a woman. Perhaps.” She pressed her lips together tightly, as if forcing herself to stop speaking.

Charles looked at her, his bright green eyes wide. “I-um-…”

“But I’m not sure, of course.” Eugenia blurted out. “It’s not as if shadowhunters are precisely fond of that particular preference or-“

“Do you really think they wouldn’t like it?” Charles asked, softly. “Do you believe they will reject those who are like that?” 

Eugenia looked down. “I’m afraid I’m most sure of it.”

Charles had then realized that he couldn’t have both. There was no way around it. 

He knew his parents were happy and that love made them complete. However, they didn’t have to choose. They could be married and the idea wouldn’t affect their respective occupations. Charles, on the other hand, couldn’t be Consul and have the kind of love he wanted. He almost resented them because of it. They were able to do what they loved and nobody forced them to pick between one or the other. 

It was unfair. So incredibly unfair.

“I guess you better get rid of your feelings towards women than.” He said simply, “unless you’re willing to let something as simple as love get in the way of your dreams.”

“Dreams?” Eugenia asked, looking confused and a tiny bit hurt. 

 But Charles got up to go back downstairs to his parents, aunts and uncles.

… 

Charles slumped down in a chair and dug his fingers into his hair.

“She was just here.” He said quietly. “Babs, was just here.”

Anna felt sudden rage. “You are not allowed to mourn her.” 

Charles looked up. “Just because you don’t like me doesn’t mean I can’t be sad. She was my cousin too. Perhaps not by blood, but she was still a cousin.” He pressed his lips together angrily and stared fixedly at the witchlight stone that was illuminating the room. 

Anna, however, couldn’t find it in her to be diplomatic; she got up and left the room. 

…

Anna had never seen Eugenia look this way. She was always put together, posh. But now, she looked hollow. Like a shell of who she used to be. Anna wanted to go up to her, to say something, but she felt lost for words. What did you tell someone who lost a dear sister? If Anna felt sorrow, she couldn’t imagine what Eugenia was feeling. 

Her head was tilted upwards, looking up at the pyre where the corpse of her sister lay. Tears were streaming down her face, rolling down her cheeks, throat and chest, leaving streaks on her face that looked like the roots of a tree.

Sophie had her arm around her daughter. The sight of the four of them was very strange. There was a gap missing where Barbara should have been. She suddenly felt a hand take hold of her own. She looked to her right and saw her mother looking straight ahead, squeezing her daughter’s hand. Her father was looking down, holding Alex. Her baby brother was one of the few who looked up at the cousin who’d taught him to play simple songs on the piano, and had always let him sleep in her arms on New Year's eve.  

She didn’t know what he must have been thinking now, staring up at the pyre. 

Though, to be fair, she didn’t quite know what to think herself, as she looked up at the cousin who’s life was cut far too short.

…

Eugenia’s body didn’t feel like her own. She hadn’t felt this body was her own for a while. Even since Augustus and the secret she’d kept to herself.

This was somehow worse. To be torn away from your best friend, whom you’d shared a room with almost your entire life. Eugenia didn’t know how to live in a world without Barbara. Sometimes, in the rare moments when she forgot about her sadness, she’d call her sister’s name, ready to tell her about what had happened in her novel. Or find herself walking to Barbara’s room without thinking and then staring blankly at the door that has remained shut ever since the day she passed away.

A couple of weeks ago, she’d found a letter Barbara had sent her when she’d been in Idris. It was in between her copy of Jane Eyre. She couldn’t bring herself to read it in its entirety, but she stared at the signature blankly. 

Suddenly, she got the urge to run. So she ran. That’s how, an hour later, she’d gotten a small tattoo under her ankle that said “Sincerely, your favorite sister Babs.” 

It felt right to have Bab’s signature there, we’re only she could see. It made her feel accompanied everywhere she went, even though nobody else could see. 

Now, looking up at the pyre, her face tight from tears she’d left to dry, her mother weeping silently, she could almost imagine that her sister was there, simply caught in a slumber and that she’d wake up at any moment and come tumbling down, throwing herself in Eugenia’s arms.

Any moment now, she thought when the pyre burst into flames. 

“Ave atque vale, Barbara Lightwood.” The crowd said at once.

Eugenia shook her head and swayed on her feet. Her breathing became heavy and her fingers began prickling. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. No nononono. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, vaguely that it was her father’s. 

Not Barbara.

Not Babs.

“Calm down, Genie.”

Not her sister. Her sister couldn’t possibly be up there.

“Breathe Eugenia.”

She wanted to scream that she couldn’t, that she’d never breathe again, as long as her sister wasn’t breathing with her. Why did she have to live? She would have much preferred that Barbara live in her stead. 

The world was numb and fractured, never to be fixed again. 

…

(Don’t worry, Gideon was able to help Genie after the fic ends bc he’s the best dad)

Tagging: @tsccreatorsnet  @atla-lok143  @rinadragomir  @youngreckless  @autumnangel20  @julemmaes @cupcakesandkittens  @no-scones-allowed  @ninacarstairss  @stxr-thxif  @writeforjordelia  @icouldnotask @jordeliasupremacy  @cordelia-cardale  @will-effing-herondale  @axoloteca @heronstairs2014 @ilovemanicures @ti-bae-rius @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @readersconfessions812 @nightshade3465 @livvyheronstairs @zemiraa @proudtobealuthor @neurogliadudette @theenchanteddreamer @cheeseandmacarons

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