#oh yeah also his scars a black because it looks cool and matches his face

[dulcamaraze]

@rat-rosemary

Hi sorry I lost the ask because i wanted to fix something

“I love faceless dream! Like where it is a void behind his mask” (it went something like that)

Couldn't decide if I wanted prison dream or normal so get both lol

As always send me how you see cdreams design and I'll draw it (eventually)

[bump1nthen1ght]

Sex on the Rocks (Merman x Reader)

Pairing: Male!Reader/Merman

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Established Relationship

Warnings: 18+ content under the cut!, Size Kink, Breeding Kink

Word Count: 2578 words

Summary: You and your boyfriend discover some new things about yourselves.

Request: May I request a Merman x Male Reader? With a size kink, and breeding kink if you're open to that. Thank you! ❤️

“Can you see it?”

“Nope! This rock’s a bit too slippery-” An unflattering yelp leaves you as your hand loses its grip on the stone, your wet feet lacking any grip as you slide off the boulder and back into the cold ocean water. Your head goes under for only a second before Juno grabs you by the armpits, yanking you back up.

You sputter and cough, collapsing back onto Juno’s chest as you shake water out of your hair. Juno cranes his neck forward, barely hiding a laugh.

“You good?”

“Y-yeah, just...lost my grip for a second.” You shrug off Juno’s hands. He quirks an eyebrow up, like he doesn’t believe you, and you roll your eyes. “The water’s like, five feet deep, I’ll survive.”

“I don’t know.” Juno teases, playing with your messy hair, “I know you humans aren’t the best at swimming. But don’t worry,” Juno throws his large arm around your shoulder, “I can be your Orca in shining armor.” Juno winks, a strand of his long, black hair falling over his shoulder. He looks like he belongs on a romance novel cover.

You push yourself off of  Juno’s chest, giving him a playful slap.“Okay, Romeo, whatever you say. But we should find a place to chill out if we want to catch the sunset.”

Juno laughs, pushing his hair out of his face before he nods.

The two of you usually come to this cove on your date nights, finding a nice spot on the beach to laze around and talk before watching the sun descend together. But some teenagers had decided to throw a huge bonfire this very night and the beach was way too crowded for any alone time. Juno’s idea had been to swim farther out into the sea and chill on some rocks, but so far none had been both comfortable and able to view the horizon.

The two of you look around, trying to find a rock safe enough for you to climb, before Juno hums.

“I got an idea.”

You barely have time to get out a ‘What” before Juno’s arms are wrapping around your knees and hoisting you up into the air, your hands scrambling to find purchase in his hair  as your legs wrap around his chest. Juno shows no sign of exertion as he presses up even higher, shifting his forearm to support your thighs and pointing you towards the sea. “How about that? Can you see it now?”

The wheeze that leaves you is a terrible impersonation of a ‘yes’, your face locked onto the ocean  as you feel your chest begin to burn with embarrassment.

Your ankles dig into Juno’s shoulder muscles, barely wrapping around his large torso as  his tree-trunk arms carry you like a bag of flour.

You knew Juno was strong; He’s a goddamn Killer Whale Merman with an upper body the size of a small table, of course he’s strong.

But wow, did the way he easily throw you around turn you on way more than you thought it would.

You nod your head, taking a deep breath as you try and focus on other things, not about  rock hard your boyfriend just got you.

Unfortunately for you, the position you're in has your crotch pressed right up against Juno’s chest, in between his strong pectoral muscles.

Juno’s eyes drop to your navel, clearly noticing your growing bulge. His expression doesn’t even shift;  His arms just loosen and let your body drop down, until you and him are face to face.

“Are you hard right now?”

You nod, trying to play it cool. It wasn’t as  if this was  weird, you two were dating, but  something about getting a boner from something so simple had you a little embarrassed. Like you were 13 years old again, sneaking peeks at porno magazines and Monster Manuals under your covers late at night.

“Was it because I picked you up?”

You pause, nodding slower this time as you avert your gaze. But a claw comes under your chin, tilting it towards Juno with a slow, controlled push.

Juno had always been a huge teddy bear. You wouldn’t think it, what with the rows of sharp teeth, his long claws, and the myriad of scars that decorate his back and shoulders. But he was as sweet and docile as an Orca Merman could be.

But the look in his eyes at this moment sends a shiver down your spine; They’re so intense and focussed, if you didn’t know better you would think you were about to become his next meal. He rolls his gaze up and down your body, noting how your breath catches when he moves his hand down your neck. He runs his hand downward, thumb brushing against your collarbone and his claws tickling your pulse point. He licks his lips and the smirk he gives you might be the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.

“Oh, you like that? Then how about,” In a quick movement, he presses his body up against yours, forcing you against a nearby rock, “This?”

Water drips from his chest and onto your face as he pins one of his hands right next to your face, looking down at you with a sultry look. You suck in a harried breath as an overwhelming heat resonates in your belly. The end of his tail curls around your ankles under the water and his other hand wraps around your neck. His grip is light, but it serves as a reminder of how easily he can pin you down, how vulnerable you are in his large, very large hands.

‘Thats, uh,” You suck up the excess saliva building in your mouth, “That’s...r-really good.”

“Hmm?” Juno chuckles, playfully squeezing your neck before his hand drops down to your chest. He pushes his palm into your skin and flexes out his fingers, covering a good portion of your upper half. “You like being pinned, my little mate?”

Words have fully departed from your mind, so you just nod your head, breathless.

Juno leans down and places a gentle kiss on your jaw. It’s light and delicate, like the Juno you know, but the heat it spreads across your body is anything but.

“Naughty boy.” He whispers in your ear, before licking a stripe up your neck. You lean and curve your neck into his mouth, desperate for his affectionate kisses and nips. His teeth just barely meet your skin, enough to leave little bruises and send shocks across skin. “I can’t wait to fill you up.” Juno wraps his atoms under your thighs, yanking them around his hips and forcing you upward. Your crotch presses against his navel as he shifts you both toward a flatbed of stone. “You’ll look so good, dripping with my seed.” Juno hoists your body up onto the rock, his large hand pressing against your stomach and pushing you onto your back. You do so easily, the cold surface feeling especially icy against your flushed skin. Juno pulls himself over you, his triceps bulging as he lays his massive form on top of you. As he rests on his forearms, careful not to crush you under his weight, water drips from his soaked hair and onto your face. “My pretty boy. My beautiful, fuckable, mate.” Juno purrs, claws stroking the side of your face.

You weave your hands around his neck, pulling him down for a searing kiss. His tongue easily overwhelms yours as his large chest presses down into you. Your hands travel to his back and clench around his shoulder muscles, craving the feeling of his skin on yours. He’s so much taller than you that you barely reach his lower abdomen, but you fumble your hand downwards to his slit, eyes still clenched shut as you make out.

The hardness of his exposed shaft finds your fingers, dripping with his pre-cum and hot against your palm. You squeeze, clumsily and fervently, and Juno chuckles.

“So eager.” He pulls away, a long strand of saliva connecting you two. “Don’t worry, it’ll be deep,” Juno thrusts into your hand with a grunt, “deep inside you soon.”

With a soft pat on your cheek, Juno scoots himself down your body until his face is level with your crotch. He grabs the tent in your swim shorts, giving it a playful squeeze before grabbing the bottom of your thighs and lifting you up. You shimmy your hips to get the article of clothing off, but before it can even go past your ankles, Juno presses your lower half upwards and folds you in two.

You crane your neck forward, trying to see Juno’s next move, before the feeling of his hot tongue on your ass sends your head back against the rock. You let out a groan as Juno’s tongue begins to prod the ring of muscle, his large fingers leaving indents on your legs as he voraciously digs in.

Jun has always been quite dexterous with his long tongue; On your first date he showed off how easily he could tie a cherry stem into a knot, which had done things to your body not exactly appropriate for a first meeting. It’s also slightly ribbed at the sides, teasing your insides at just the right spots and adding an extra hint of friction as he reaches far inside you. You pant and claw at the rock below you, before finding purchase in Juno’s hair. Your climax grows steadier and steadier. It strains your shoulders and neck, but you try and peer up and look at how perfectly he eats your ass out.

Knife sharp, baby blue eyes meet yours, and it’s like a gallon of ice-water has just washed over you, goosebumps rising all over your skin as Juno sends you a wink.

You’ve never seen this playful, dominating side of him before. You can’t help but thank your improper boner for awakening it inside him. Especially when he hits that part- that part-ooooh.

Juno detaches with a pop, his tongue sliding out of your ass as he licks his lips. With one hand still firmly gripped around your thigh, he pushes himself up so you’re face to face. His long fingers splay out next to your neck, his palm easily matching the size of your head, as you give him a dazed and pleasured look.

“You ready?”

You nod, drool pooling in your mouth as your eyes wander up and down his body, your lower half seizing as he playfully squeezes your thigh. He removes it to grab his shaft, spitting into his palm as he strokes and places his tip at your entrance.

“Tell me if the stretch is too much, okay?” Juno whispers, that familiar sweetness back in his voice. You nod, but all you’re focused on is that little bit of pressure, teasing what's to come.

Juno slowly inserts himself and  he both of you throw your heads back with a groan. He worries his  bottom lip as he sinks farther and farther into you, pressing your thighs up to your chest. The harsh scrape of stone rings in your ears as his claws dig into the rock, small pebbles flying outward as he leaves long, white marks below him.

Your eyes roll into the back of your head as Juno finally reaches his base, comfortably seating himself inside you with a small roll of his hips. His chuckle is stuttered, peppered with a moan as he gives another tiny thrust.

“Hm, good job, taking me all the way in. For a second I thought I might be too-” Juno humps with a little more vigor, forcing the air out of your lungs, “Big for you.”

You shake your head. “N-No. You’re just-Ah!-right.”

Juno laughs again, giving you a small peck on the cheek.

“Good.”

With that, Juno slowly amps his pace, adding more thrusts with a lot more power. His jutting  hip bones dig into your  ass cheeks as he punctuates each thrust; Grinding deliciously against your prostate before pulling out until only the tip is left. He moves the hand by your head up to your other thigh, clutching tight as he lays his weight against your lower body. Your knees have been pressed into your collarbone, the stretch a little uncomfortable for your lower back, but the shockwaves of ecstasy do everything to relieve it.

“Don’t think-” Ungh “I’ve ever been this deep in you before.” Ah “Can’t wait to f-fill you, it will be so delicious.”

Your tongue has started to fall out of your mouth as your brain grows fuzzy, your only responses being slurred “Yes” and “Uh-huh.”

“You’re going to look so good, dripping with my cum. I’ll pump you so full, my beautiful little mate.” Juno’s claws dig into your skin, leaving small, white half-moons in the meat of your thigh. “Perfect little breeder. You’ll take it all, huh? Don’t want to waste-” Juno gives a harsh thrust, “a-” and then another, “-drop.”

You nod, movement uncoordinated as  your climax begins to reach its peak. The burning in your gut feels red-hot, and you wrap your ankles around Juno’s lower bag, urging him to go deeper, hit even harder. Juno lets out a delicious moan.

“You want it? Say it, beg for my cum.”

Juno slows down his thrusts, getting tantalizing close to your deepest spot before pulling out. You whimper.

“Please, please! Give me your cum, give me it, all of it!”

Juno leans down and gives you a long, passionate kiss, before resuming his pace. Your lower half begins to  jerk as you get closer, closer, closer-”

“Ungh, cumming!” Juno roars as the two of you climax together, his dick pouring thick load after load into your ass. You can feel it seep into your skin, dripping out of your ass as Juno rides out his own orgasm with tiny humps. The shiny substance coats his navel and crotch, catching the setting sun as he finally pulls out.

Your legs scream with relief as they uncurl, relaxing your legs onto the cool stone below. Juno unfurls his claws and collapses next to you, chest heaving and his skin flushed pink. The sound of your breath and the crashing waves is all that lingers, both of you too tired to even form a thought.

A shaky claw pets the side of your face, pushing some unruly hair out of the way. You turn your neck to  the side, enjoying Juno’s content and debauched face.

“We should,” He sighs, “Do that position more often.”

All you can do is nod, leaning just close enough to give your boyfriend a bunny kiss.

“Yeah, definitely.”

As the two of you catch your breath,you notice the blend of purples and pink hues off the sky above. You crane your neck upward a tiny bit and catch the slightest bit  of yellow, hinting a trail to the sunset, still out of your view.

You cuddle up to Juno’s chest, resting your head on his pecks, and point upwards.

“Do you see the colors?”

“Yeah,” Juno whispers, a claw playing with your hair, “It’s beautiful.”

The sun falls far away, the night sky darkening into a pitch black, with few spots free of light pollution. The wind brings a chill and you know the swim back is going to be a bitch on your muscles.

But in the arms of your boyfriend, everything feels perfect.

[headcanons-n-shit]

How about FFXIV guys + X'rhun Tia reacting to a WoL who's worried about how much their experiences are changing them?

(I'm thinking especially about some of the crap the WoL goes through in Shadowbringers, but overall / class-quest-related is also tasty!)

I have. So Many Thoughts About This :)

Thancred

Its funny. You two kinda match now.

The scar is an ugly thing, a once deep and terrible wound, the eye beneath entirely destroyed-- it will be some time before someone can make you a false replacement. You trace the very edge of it and frown.

Thancred very gently helps you wrap your eye up the first time, showing you how to make the black wrappings stay in place, how to tuck the ends so that it wont come undone even in the most vigorous combat. He carefully pulls your hair back from your face so you cant hide behind it as he kisses your temple.

"See?" He jokes, like you cant hear the warmth and love in his voice. "Like nothing even happened."

Urianger

Being bound to the King of Fairies has... Side effects.

You frown at your face in the mirror, pulling at the flush skin of your cheeks. They seem like such innocent things, like freckles but a bit bigger, darker, and when you run your fingers over them it almost feels like bark. But its a change to your body that you didnt necessarily welcome and--

Urianger pulls your hands away with an indulgent expression. "Stop picking," he chides, pressing kisses to your knuckles. "What would Feo Ul sayth?" He moves to press a kiss to your cheeks, right atop the new marks, and you blush. "Sapling to tree: look how you bloom for me. My love, need I spin you a thread of how beautiful thou are in thine spring...?"

G’raha

"Open the door. Please?"

You’re sitting on the floor of your room in the Rising Stones. Which. You want to be sitting on the bed, or at least on a chair, but. It’s not even that you dont fit, its these stupid useless--

You hear the sound of an Allagan artifact activating and frown, but you still don’t turn around.

“Oh, sweetheart...” G’raha sighs. You still don’t look up at him even as he comes to sit in front of you, pulling your hands into his and away from the feathers. How can you look at him? You won, sure, you beat the Lightwardens, you defeated the Light itself within you, you made it home with him, but. It was different when you showed the Exarch the wings the Light had left you with and he promised to find a solution. Now that they’ve carried over unto the Source...

“My angel,” he says, leaning forward to rest his forehead against yours. “My fierce falcon, my beautiful dove--”

His voice gets sappier and sappier and you can’t help it: you laugh.

Estinien

It’s. Such a stupid thing to be bothered by.

Your hair falls. So much shorter than it used to be, shorn by the hands of well-meaning healers and. It’ll grow back, yeah. But it’s still gone now. And it still. Bothers you.

Estinien hums behind you, pulling a few locks back from your face so they they won’t fall in your eyes, and you almost brush him off, it’s too short to reach behind your ear and it’ll just fall back. But he slides something in your hair, cool and sharp and heavy, and--

It’s a pin, you realize as you run your fingers over it. A simple little metal thing, decorated with little stones down half the length of it and ended with... a flower? No, too sharp. A snowflake? And you don’t even get the chance to see, because he gently puts his chin on top of your head and pulls you into a firm hug.

(”Estinien,” you ask later, flipping the gorgeously-crafted pin between your fingers. It looks like it came straight from Serendipity’s workshop. “How much did this cost?!”)

(That he doesn’t answer is. Very telling.)

Aymeric

There’s a new outfit waiting for you in your room in the Borel house. 

You kind of want to ignore it, honestly. Curl up in your bed, go to sleep. Try again tomorrow. But you did promise Aymeric that you would attend with him, and. This looks expensive. Perfectly fitted for you, all deep blue and rich black and. Open down the back, crossed with delicate golden chains that you know would highlight the thick, long scar Nidhogg left you with instead of hide it.

“You look wonderful,” Aymeric murmurs as you take your place at his side, letting him walk you into the party with one of his hands stretching hot and fearless over that horrible scar. “Awe-inspiring. Sublime. See how they watch us? Watch you? Covetous and envy: you are a treasure, a jewel...”

Haurchefant

He’s by your bedside when you wake.

Swathed in bandages, and you know what you’ve lost, you remember the light, the fear, and. And you had made your peace with that, in that brief moment before the impact that had knocked you unconscious. Which. Doesn’t make the lack of weight any easier to bear.

But he’s there by your bedside when you wake. Head pillowed on his arms, perfectly taking up the space left by your missing arm. You don’t even know what wakes him, but you get to watch him groggily raise his head off his arms, wiping at his sleep-thick eyes, mouth ticking up in a little smile just at the sight of you.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough and gravelly as he reaches out and cradles your cheek in his hands, and you don’t even realize you’re crying until the tears are caught between your skin and his. “C’mon now. A smile better suits a hero like you.”

Sidurgu

It shouldn’t bother you. It’s a sign of the life you’ve lived. Proof you’re still alive. Remnants of the people you’ve saved.

“By picking your own body apart,” Fray mutters darkly.

You can see Sidurgu coming up behind you in the mirror. Already armorless, like you, his chest bare and equally covered in scars. He sweeps his hands up your back, but unlike Fray he doesn’t pick at your scars. He traces them reverently, like he’s counting them. Runs his thumbs over the arrow marks, slides his knuckles up and down long slashes, gently digs his nails into patches of burns so you’ll feel the pressure.

We’re alive, he doesn’t say, but you hear it anyways as his hands come to rest on your stomach, over Zenos’s last ‘token of affection’. We’re alive, he doesn’t say as he presses a kiss to the side of your neck. We’re alive. We’re alive.

BONUS

X’rhun

He finds you sitting in front of the mirror in your inn room, frowning at your own expression.

"Love?" he asks softly, padding up behind you to lean over your shoulder and try to see what you see. He sees your face, regal as ever. He loves the curve of your jaw, and the shape of your nose, and the way your lips curl-- though he would much prefer you smiling.

He follows your pointing finger and cannot help but laugh.

"Its not funny!" You bark, trying to push him off as he falls over you, drapping his arms over your shoulders and laughing into your hair. "Rhun! Im too young to have wrinkles!!"

You struggle halfheartedly as he drags you to bed. Cmon, he's going to show you just how young the two of you still are.

[mothwithapencil]

ALSO ALSO ALSO

I'm on board with the Ghetsis has chronic pain thing.

And like you know how he slams his cane on the ground? I think that doing that, like, fucking hurts like hell for him. But he does it to try to ground himself bc 1) he doesn't really know what else to do and hes really desperate to not lose his cool in most situations 2) it scares the shit out of people, which in turn makes him feel less vulnerable.

He's like, TERRIFIED of feeling "exposed" or vulnerable. He can't let other people see him in a "weakened" state to the point where there's only like three people he'll eat in front of bc god forbid anyone find out that he does in fact require food to live. You know, like a human or something. Likewise, I think he also has pain medication prescribed to him but he hates taking it and will absolutely refuse to unless Colress literally begs him to take it. Oh, yeah. Colress is also the reason why Ghetsis actually starts going to the doctor and even therapy sometimes. And yeah...he DEFINITELY tricked out the cane too just to get ghetsis to use it

Ok I'm still working on a response for your last ask but GOD THIS ALL OF IT IS SO TRUE. ALL OF IT. I was just thinking about it earlier too. Ghetsis is absolutely terrified of being perceived and vulnerable. He can't let anyone know he's a human being, a mortal man with weaknesses, someone who can be hurt, someone who can die. This is why I think he covers the scars on his face with makeup. He hides all evidence of him being capable of being harmed, because Gods can't be harmed!

With the Cane, I've put a lot of thought into this. The cane itself is white, and it contrasts a lot with the dark overall colors of Neo Team Plasma. It looks like one of two things happened with it:

1. He had that cane during BW. The colors match better. He didn't use it because of that fear of looking weak. By the time BW2 came around, he was hardly able to walk normally. When Colress comes back to Unova and finds out about what happened to Ghetsis' arm, he absolutely convinces him to use it again. The cane makes him look powerful! If someone is being stupid he can smack them with it! And Colress can even trick it out with Devices! Ghetsis likes those!

2. Ghetsis didn't have a cane in BW but still needed one. Suffered without one for so long he once again could hardly walk normally. Sometimes the Grunts would help him walk (see: they huddle around him when they walk away after his speeches :]). While the general Neo Team Plasma color is black, it should be noted almost everything associated with Colress is white. Perhaps Colress made a special cane just for him, which helped in convincing him to use it

I just think Colress took care of Ghetsis a lot during BW2. Before then Ghetsis was putting himself through hell out of fear. But Colress convinced him to allow himself fo be helped. Colress has seen parts of Ghetsis he wouldn't dare show anyone else. Colress was never intimidated by Ghetsis, and as such has the special ability to reach through all his emotional barriers and get right to his heart. And Ghetsis surprisingly doesn't feel the need to recoil. For the duration of BW2, I like to think Ghetsis could be fully "exposed" to Colress and Colress would hold him with gentle arms.

And every time I think about that it reminds me of how much weight Colress running to alola and proclaiming his hatred for Ghetsis holds.... :( He'll make up for it.... Someday...

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

Ok modern zuko would be an expert at breakdancing and sokka would be the guy who just bi-panicks whenever he does

(whoops, my hand slipped and I accidentally wrote a modern au headcanon turned zukka karate au one-shot) 

Okay but consider this instead: Zuko doesn’t know how to dance for shit and has horrible rhythm, but he is a GOD at martial arts. He’s been doing some type of style since he was a kid and is a full black belt by the time he hits high school. Martial arts was always something he excelled at, but it was also something that made him feel more secure. It was something he could work on to help him protect himself from his home life, even if it wasn’t enough most times. He specifically excels in weapons forms (I’m thinking twin sais) and you DO NOT want to spar with him. Because he may be skinny and shorter, but he’s quick and can hit hard at just the right spots. 

When he was younger he was obsessed mainly because he felt that belt rankings and trophies from competitions were a way to prove himself to his dad, but when he moved in with Iroh (who encouraged him to keep it up and was so proud of how talented and passionate he was about it), he basically used it in place of talking about his feelings. He didn’t talk about his home life or the shit Ozai did, instead, he put all his energy into his black belt levels, learning new weapons forms, and eventually into teaching new students as a junior instructor. 

At school, he’s awkward and asocial and just doesn’t have the energy for people. Zuko has little patience for asshole classmates who ask intrusive questions about his scar or spread rumors about where he got it. He eats lunch in his English classroom and would be a complete shut-in if Iroh didn’t get him to work part-time at the Jasmine Dragon. But in the dojo, he’s focused and is able to direct his energy into improving his forms and teaching younger teens. 

One of his newer students transferred from a different dojo after moving from a different state. He’s actually a freshman at Zuko’s high school but it’s not as if Zuko really interacted that much with him. This kid, Aang, is as talented and dedicated as he is, but has a long way to go to learn all the new katas. Zuko’s been dubbed the ‘scary’ trainer at the dojo. He’s the serious one who will yell if someone is goofing off and everyone’s seen that he has no problem using full force in a demonstration (little kids love him and he’s super nice to them, but he teaches the 12-15 age range). Plus there’s that scar, which doesn’t make him the most initially welcoming person. But this new kid Aang just latches onto Zuko immediately. He says hi to Zuko in the halls at school and works on his katas outside of regular practice times. At first Zuko thinks this sickeningly positive kid is annoying as crap, but warms up to him. He likes that Aang cares about martial arts and isn’t nice as a show, he’s just genuinely nice. 

And maybe he sees Aang hanging around school with a sophomore girl and her brother who just might be in Zuko’s calc class and English class. 

And maybe Zuko thinks this guy is insanely attractive and somehow incredibly funny even though most of his humor consists of the worst puns imaginable. 

But obviously, Zuko hasn’t attempted to ever actually talk to this guy. The most that he could classify as ‘talking’ to the cute, funny guy on the robotics club is the one day in English class when he had to respond to someone’s dumbass comment about Macbeth with what ended up being a ten minute spoken essay about obvious motifs and symbolism. To which Mr. Puns and Ponytail was very obviously paying great attention to and even gave Zuko a smile and thumbs up for. 

Zuko knows it’s pointless to engage. After all, he’s a senior and he doesn’t have any friends anyway. There’s no point in making any this year. Crushing on this guy from the comfortable position of the other side of the room is totally good enough for him. Totally. This is fine. He’s fine.  

Besides, he’s got competitions and if he doesn’t secure the regional championships this year he’s never going to get the chance after he goes to college. And he’s got his kids to train. Aang in particular is gearing up for his first debut into this area’s tournament. 

The tournament’s in October and usually, Zuko focuses on his own matches and performances, but Aang really wanted him to watch his set. So on this day, he stands on the sides of Aang’s zone instead of obsessively going through his katas in a corner.He’s not going to be able to watch the whole set because it overlaps with his own weapons portion, but he stands on the side and gives Aang a reassuring look that, ‘don’t worry, you’ll do great, you’re a talented kid,’ when his student looks over to him nervously. 

And wouldn’t you know it? Aang brought some friends to come watch. And one of them is Mr. Zuko’s Big Gay Crush. 

“Oh, hey Zuko,” are the words that come out of this guy's mouth that give Zuko a near-stroke. And damn if this guy’s eyes aren’t blue and pretty and he usually wears his hair in a ponytail at school, but now he’s wearing it down and Zuko wishes he could take screenshots with his brain because holy moly. 

“Hey.” Is the best that Zuko can get out of his dumb mouth. “You’re Sokka.” 

“Aang invited us to come watch,” Sokka nudges his head to indicate the ‘us’ includes his younger sister, who Zuko doesn’t know the name of. “How do you guys not get heatstroke during these things? It’s like a million degrees in here.” 

“Oh the gi’s pretty cold, I mean, it’s got air and stuff.” 

Zuko decided right there that he would be completely fine with being struck by lightning. Of course, that’s what his stupid brain would come up with. Of course, that’d be the thing he’d say in front of one of the smartest guys in his class. 

They watch Aang perform his set for the judges. Zuko recognizes that Aang took his advice when he said that he wasn’t putting enough force into his hits. He’s never seen Aang be as, well, aggressive isn’t the right word, but he’s definitely putting more power into his form. Zuko wouldn’t admit it, though, but only part of his attention was for Aang at the moment. The other part was for Sokka, who was smiling bright and pumping his fists when Aang completed a row of kicks. 

The small part of Zuko’s brain that wasn’t being taken up by watching Aang or trying to act normal around his crush noticed the clock on the wall indicating that the weapons portion would be starting in five minutes.  

“I’ve got to go do a thing so I’ll just, um, go do that now.” 

“Are you competing too?” Sokka asked. 

To this question Zuko just holds up his sais and raises his eyebrow as if to say ‘it’s a tournament, what do you think?’ Because yeah, he knows Sokka’s super smart, he’s seen him churn out calc answers at the speed of light and noticed his name on the robotics club awards update on the school’s website, but he’d also seen Sokka eat 5 packs of fundip at once on a dare and unironically wear a ‘women want me, fish fear me’ t-shirt for most of junior year. Somehow he had managed to fall for the smartest dumbass on earth. 

“Oh yeah, right.” Sokka eyes the sais and then looks right at Zuko’s face, “Aang says you’re really good.” 

Zuko decides that thinking about Aang talking to Sokka about him was something he didn’t need distracting him during his set. That was something he could anxious about later. 

“Hopefully good enough for those five assholes,” Zuko replies, gesturing to the panel of judges in the weapons section of the gymnasium. To his shock, Sokka laughs. It’s a nice laugh, too. And Zuko really hoped he could blame the blush that was one-hundred-percent creeping up his face on the lack of AC. 

“You know, you’re pretty funny man,” Sokka tells him. Zuko has no clue how to take that compliment, but he really does need to go. 

“Right,” he grins nervously and shifts his left foot around to bounce away, “well I have to go do my thing.” 

“Good luck!” 

That’s where Zuko thinks the beginning and end of his interaction with Sokka would be. 

The weapons portion thankfully goes by age. And since Zuko’s one of the youngest competitions, he gets to go first for his sai katas. This is what literal years of training have prepared him for. At regionals last year, the second advanced kata got him placed high enough to qualify for states. This is what he’s good at. He tells himself that a thousand times before starting his set. 

There’s not a thought in his head as Zuko goes through the form. The sais glide through his fingertips with every jab, block, and hook. The imaginary opponent doesn’t stand a chance. He’s cool and competent and graceful. It’s therapeutic in a sense. There’s enough adrenaline to make Zuko feel like he’s worth something, but more importantly, he knows he’s nailing this. Whatever the judges say about it, he knows that he’s perfected this form after practicing it at least a thousand times over three years. 

The judges agree with him. He’s the first competitor of the weapons portion but there isn’t really a doubt in their minds about who’s going to place. 

Zuko zones back in to the gym after bowing to the panel. He walks off, feeling lighter and letting a satisfactory smile take over his face. 

He expects the hug from Uncle and the proud smile from Sensei Piandao, but what he doesn’t expect is to see Sokka, eyes wide as globes, staring at him from the other side of the mat. 

Because what Zuko doesn’t know is that the second he turned his wrists in his first form during his hooks, Sokka’s brain went into Full Bi Panic Mode. 

And Zuko thinks the one conversation where he couldn’t talk like a human and wanted to die for most of it would be the only time Sokka would decide to willingly talk to him. Zuko is dead wrong. Sokka, in fact, has decided that this, this is the guy his Disaster Bi Brain has decided to latch onto. Sokka’s brain and all his squishy feelings have apparently decided to attach to this aloof kid with the scar who reserved his voice for eloquent, impassioned speeches about dramas and was apparently an actual god with weapons. Sokka decides that Zuko could roundhouse kick him in the side and he’d thank him. And right now Zuko’s looking at him with a dumbfounded expression, prompting Sokka to remember how to function so he can go over to congratulate Zuko and maybe ask if his dojo provides a free trial. 

So yeah, that one conversation ends up decisively not being the end of anything. 

[shortyisweird9]

'Lonely ghost serie'

Quiet Night - part I

Tw: swearing ⚠️

It all started on a quiet night, the raining outside trying desperately to calm your nerves. To stop this feeling of shutting down that creeps down your back.

You don't know why you feel like this, why your internal organs feel like they will give up on you any second, why your lungs seemed to be on the verge of collapsing, why you couldn't sleep and why you couldn't keep your mind quiet. Your anxiety made you feel like every you think you have will be gone on the blink of the eye, your depression made you feel worthless, just a waste of space, time, money and resources. A nothing that won't be missed if something were to happened to it. But they were wrong , you were more than that.

You sighed, licking your dry lips as your tired eyes watched the dark room. Shadows that made your imagination ran wilde. When you were a kid , you used to be afraid of the dark ,now you found solace in it. Shelter from the loud,obnoxious, scary world that was outside of your small house.

What I won't give from some water.

You didn't want to get up as you fixed your disheveled clothes on your plump body but you couldn't sleep on the overturned bed or have any wish to hop on YouTube or any crime investigation shows. You couldn't shout at your cat to bring you water, she will ignore you anyway.

You sighed, cleaning your eyes fron what remained of your tears before sucking in the walls of your mouth to create some interesting sounds of boredom.

As your mind did the excruciatingly hard task of thinking, your phone binged. A message but from who?

It was from your friend, Sabrina. She is an avid player of Among us even start a channel called dum Red where she and other classmates played. You are cool with the game ,not your favourite but a good pass up time.

"Hey, what's up?" She wrote.

"This early you are up?"

"Yeah ,why not."

"*?"

"You will be dead tomorrow. "

"I suffer for the entertainment of others."

You laughed as you imagined the face full of tiredness of your friend. You were the night owl of the group but she... she is an imposter. Trying to pass up as a night owl but she is just a morning seagull.

"So.. wanna come up on the feed? =))"

"Hmm..you sure? I don't want to fuck up your stream."

"Nonsense, they will love you."

You sighed, it's not like you had anything better to do.

"Fine."

"Yayyyy💖💖"

You groaned as your eyes burned from the brightness of the monitor, the writing hazy as ever. You moved to get your glasses from the night table, stretching and sighing when you heard the satisfying pop from your lower back. As you let Windows ran its course ,you grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, cold water was superior by a long shot. Your cat was watching you with her big yellow eyes. You baby talked with her for a bit ,petting her then washing your hands.

The invitation of the link long send ,was quickly tapped in.

"Hey ,guys! Welcome back!" Your friend's voice ran in your room before you entered the headphones cord.

"Guys, I told you it was pink. You never believe me."

You smiled as the usual banter raged on , nice to know that even at this hour people were more alive than asleep.

"Yeah, yeah. Roberts you always complain."

"Because I am always right."

"Cool your jets ,Jamal. Don't pull out the 9."

They laughed at their friend's expanse.

"Whatever."

"Um ,Red?"

"Yeah , Steve? What's up?"

"The sky."

"Robert, shut."

"Um..who is ghost?"

"Who? Ah! Everyone ,please say hi to my friend, Y- ghost!"

The loud chorus of salutations hit your ears as their characters circled around your still one. It was white with red pointy horns ,you liked the aesthetic of it.

"Um..ghost? Are you-..Are you there?"

"Ghost?"

You sighed, getting ready to talk after making sure it was on.

"Ghost? Hey, it's okay. We don't bite." A worried voice calm you a bit.

"Not too hard, ha."

"Ghost!"

"Ghost!"

"Ghost!"

They all began hitting on the desks with their fists to create a beat. Poor desks.

"Gho-"

"'Sup motherfuckers."

The quiet settled in, making your dread more prominent and your skin tingle. You wanted to say something but the boys and girls beat you to it:

"OH MY - FUCKING- GOD!"

"NO FUCKING WAY!"

"What the fuck? Sovereign is that you?"

"Red you didn't tell us your friends with a MOTHERFUCKING reaper."

You laughed as the voice changer made it deeper, mechanic but enought to ignite something judging by the face of your school pal , Matthew.

"What's the manner toots? My voice is too much to handle?"

They were quiet again as Matthew cleaned his throat to finally address.

"Very funny, best friend. I am dying of laughter. "

He smiled though, knowing you were just teasing him.

"The matter of death remains to be determine."

"Phew ,is it hot in here or it's just..."

"You. It's just you." You spoke watching the blond boy with milk skin and acne scars move his green shirt to cool off, you chuckled at this.

People are so easy to get a reaction from. Not like you, yourself, haven't been affected by the charm of a deep voice.

"Ready to play?" Came the cheery voice of Sabrina as you watched her move in the chair, playing with her sand blonde curls and wearing your lavender hoodie.

"You still haven't got me the hoodie back, Red."

"Yeah, Red. You don't want Sovereign daddy to be mad,do you?"

You snorted in an ugly manner at the nicknamed a dude called David put you. He had a small moustache, black curls fit in a square like afro. He may be the Arab friend Sabrina told you about. He seemed nice, maybe a bit shy but then again so were you. Hmm...not shy,more like reserved. You liked being alone but you also craved the touch of another being.

"Mommy, David, mommy. "

"Ooooh!"

"Alright you horny bitches ,time to play."

With that Sabrina began the match as your smirk grew when the word IMPOSTER was displayed on your screen.

Time to kill some bitches.

————————————————————

In the other corner of the internet, Corpse was getting ready to hop on another live stream with Jackie boy and Pewds. He loved how his life changed , how his supporters were kind and understanding. He was still nervous yes but the thrill was outweighed by the happiness of just being around so many good people.

His phone started to blow up as he was putting his headphones. People were tagging him on a small video of an Among us live stream, he pressed play not thinking much about the title of the video : HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!!

The film started with the host presenting their friends who seemed to by a bit scared of saying hi. The others started cheering them on but stopped abruptly when a deep mechanical voice hit their audio. It was from a voice changer no doubt but still..it shocked them as it did for him.

His eyes skipped on the funny comments left by his fans. Some where calling them his twin, other called for a collab and others thought it was actually he who spoke.

The other thing that stood out was the match. Ghost as she calls herself ended their match in one go... by killing all of them except the other imposter. He smiled at that , impressed of the skill of a casual player as her friend dum Red said she was.

A notification came from Discord, it was Lily. She send the same video he's been watching with the caption: Hey, guys! Look what I found.

The others flooded the chat with their own reaction as he drank his boba tea. The consensus was that they wanted to play with this person. His smile grew was the word 'yes' was sent.

This will be fun.

————————————————————

Hey guys! 💖

Hope you liked the first part of the serie! Feel free to comment your thoughts and opinions but please be nice and respectful. 👉🥺👈

Anyway, see yah!

[fallingfor-fics]

Teachers Pet- chapter 32: holiday break

All chapters 

chapter 31

"So y/n did you decide where you are gonna go for holiday break?" Hermione asked as I sat across from her and Ron, sitting awkwardly next to Harry, I didn't think about how I'd feel seeing him. It was weird but not uncomfortable. "Yeah I decided to just stay here." I said eating a piece of bacon.

 I had already informed Hermione of all the things that happened last night, except the whole Draco in a bathroom stall with Harry thing of course. I felt bad for not being able to tell, but it wasn't my place to say anything. Which reminded me, I looked down the table to see Ginny sitting with some friends. I wonder if Harry told her or broke up with her. I nudged his arm and asked him whispering the question to him, "Oh I um I didn't tell her anything, I think i'm gonna wait till after break, I don't want to ruin her trip home. Plus I'm going to be staying with the Weasleys. I don't want it to be awkward." he hushed back to me. I looked down at the girl, laughing with her friends, she looked at me and smiled and waved, I returned the gesture then looked at Harry. "Well I guess that's nice of you, you know even after you guys break up, she's still our friend and Ron's sister, so you're still gonna have to see her." I reminded him, "I just don't want to hurt her." he said looking down, picking at his food. I rested a hand on his, "I'm afraid that's gonna be a result no matter what, but a way to help ease her pain would be telling her everything, I'm sure she'll understand. She's sweet like that." He looked down the table at her and nodded in agreement. "I will." he said, sighing. "Will what?" Ron asked, "Make sure to keep you out of trouble." I said giving a sarcastic grin, "More like i've got to write to them everyday to make sure they haven't gotten into any sticky situations." Hermione said giggling. We all laughed along and finished our breakfast.

"I will catch you guys before you leave. I need to take care of something real quick." I said excusing myself and exiting the dining hall. I walked out and turned down the hallway, I had planned to go see Dumbledore since he never came to breakfast, but stopped by the entrance hall, I walked over to witness Professor Snape handing over a certain bloody, black eyed, blonde haired creep to some ministry officers and guards. What happened? I looked curiously and confused at the scene, why was his face all fucked up? I also saw Dumbledore standing there giving information to the men. "What happened to his face?" one guard questioned looking at Severus. "He fell." Severus drawled as they took Lockhart. "I'm telling you I didn't do a thing!" Gilderoy screeched, he was relentless, and an idiot for thinking they would listen. "Save it for the judge." an officer said scoffing. They dragged him off out of sight, Dumbledore following to see them out. I walked up to Snape who was watching them yank the still squirming fool. A slight grin to his face. "So he fell huh?" I said quietly, stopping a few feet behind him, also enjoying the scene. I wasn't sure if he wanted to talk to me anymore after what had happened, but despite his yelling, insults, and deceptions last night, I still wanted to be near him. "Yes because he is an imbecile." he responded, not turning to look at me. I practically burned holes into his back with my gaze, shifting down to his tightly clenched fist. I noticed it looked a little red on his knuckles and that's when I put two and two together. "Did he happen to fall on your fist?" I said laughing a bit, trying not to smile too much at the thought of Snape beating the crap out of Lockhart. "What?" he said furrowing his brows and looking at me, "Your fist Sir, it's a little roughed up." I said motioning to the hand. He quickly crossed his arms hiding it from sight as soon as he realized. "It's fine I don't think they noticed and I'm sure as heck not gonna say anything, plus it's not like Dumbledore couldn't tell. You were practically giddy watching him being dragged off." I said smiling, "I was not giddy." I just nodded smiling, "Thank you." I said looking into his coal black eyes. "For?" he questioned furrowing his brows, "Punching him for me." I said walking closer to him, his eyes followed me and he tensed up a bit. "Not everything is about you Ms. L/n. I hit him because he's an idiot and deserves it." he retorted his normal cold face along with his deep stern voice. I guess we are completely back to this, last name and everything. "Right," I said nodding " well I will catch you later, thank you for beating him up for being an idiot." I added turning and walking back down the hall, he could continue to be normal to me, but that doesn't mean I wasn't gonna at least try to be nice so I could maybe have a conversation with him about everything. I still had lots of questions.

Breakfast had ended and all the kids had begun to exit the hall, all of them in their friend groups, I went and found the group, including Ginny and Draco, and all the kids that were leaving got ready. "Are you sure you don't want to at least come with us to the station?" Draco asked for the second time now. "Yes I'm sure I don't feel like the trip." I reassured him. "Alright, well we are gonna be leaving soon, so Goodbye, I hope you find some fun stuff to do, you can always write to me as well." he said as I hugged him, "And us too!" Ginny said, turning from her conversation with Harry, giving me a hug as well. "I will keep all of this in mind." I said hugging Harry, Ron and Hermione too. I hated saying my goodbyes to my friends because that meant I was gonna be all alone. I was probably gonna be bored out of my mind, Draco told me to just try and sleep most of the day or visit Hogsmeade to pass the time. Which was convenient the first couple days, but it was the day before new years eve and I had already slept enough to last me a decade, and had already been to hogsmeade three times, all within the span of these five days. I had tried convincing Dumbledore to throw a little New years eve party for the remaining students and staff, but all he could agree on was a small firework show. Which alone took me an half hour of persuasive talk and a little bit of guilt tripping to get. I walked to the dining hall for dinner, nose in the book I had been reading, Lolita, I had paused reading for a moment when the yule ball got closer and I got distracted. As I walked down the hall I bumped into a figure, my book falling to the floor. Hoping it wasn't my professor, since I knew he was one of the only ones that stayed here at Hogwarts. "Oops my bad sorry, I wasn't paying attention." I said as the man kindly picked up my book, "That's quite alright." he said handing it to me, I smiled thanking him and he just gave a curious look when he read the title, when I realized his face I put my hands behind my back with it. I didn't recognize the man, he had light brown hair, pretty blue eyes, a small beard and mustache, and a few scars on his face. He had dark brown dress pants with a matching vest over a beige button up and tie. He was a fairly handsome man in all honesty. I smiled awkwardly when I realized I had been staring, I didn't want him to think I was trying to be rude. "I'm Y/n L/n a sixth year Slytherin." I said, smiling up at the man and extending one of my hands to shake, "I'm Remus Lupin, I'm going to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. '' he said, accepting my hand and shaking it softly. "Well I hope you aren't like the last one." I said in a more serious tone, but still with a small smile. "I can assure you I am nothing like that goon." he said grinning. I could tell I was going to like this teacher, he seemed nice and put together and normal. "Have you found your way around alright?" He put his hands in his pockets and nodded, "I actually used to attend Hogwarts as a boy, so I'm very familiar with the grounds." he said smiling. "Oh well that's good because this is my first year here so I don't know where every hall leads." I laughed lightly. "Well thank Merlin one of us knows." he chuckled joking, "What house are you in?" I asked after a moment. "I am in Gryffindor actually." I nodded in response, "Well it was nice to meet you, I look forward to your class and talking some more, also I have convinced Albus to have a firework show tomorrow night for new years, so I hope to see you there." I said smiling and patting his arm as I walked past him, "Great, I'll be there, it was nice meeting you as well." He smiled sweetly as I nodded and walked to the great hall.

This was my first time actually going to dinner, the past couple days I either spent it in Hogsmeade or ate in my room. I walked in getting the first glimpse of the students that stayed behind, most looked to be at least fifth years. I looked over to the staff table to see who stayed behind. I saw Trelawney, Hagrid, Filch, Madame Pomfrey, and my beloved Professor Snape. I looked around at the Slytherin table, not recognizing any of the students there and sighed, I looked over at the other tables and skimmed over the scattered students. I got to the Ravenclaw table and smiled when I saw Luna sitting and smiling reading a book. I walked over to her and sat down across from her, "Hey what are you reading?" I asked looking down at the cover, she smiled looking up at me, "Hello Y/n, and i'm reading The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud." she responded, closing her book and putting it down on the table. "What about you?" she said motioning to the book tucked in my arm. "Oh I don't know just some book called Lolita." I said awkwardly, hoping she hadn't read it before, I didn't want her to think I was odd. "What's it about?" she questioned with big eyes, "Um well, it's about a man and a girl he likes." I said trying to be as vague as possible. "Cool." I nodded, smiling awkwardly. We both looked over as Dumbledore walked in, he walked up to his podium and smiled. "Hello everyone, I hope you all are having a good break so far, I wanted to inform you of the small firework show my goddaughter has convinced me to have for new years. It will start at midnight obviously, and will take place in front of the lake. Now let's eat." he said as the food appeared. It wasn't as much as usual since there were only a handful of kids, but each table had its own as usual. "So lovely you convinced him to do that." Luna said, cutting her food. "Right? I thought, we are here for the new year and it's only a few of us so it would be fun, I'm glad he agreed." I smiled, taking a bite from a roll. "I love fireworks." she said quietly as she took a sip of her drink, I nodded in agreement with a full mouth. "Yeah they are real fun, " I said swallowing, " it was my sister's favorite part of the new year." I added smiling. "Yeah my mom loved them too." I was so happy to find out Luna was here, we may not be best friends, but she was still a friend of mine, and I knew she was happy to talk with and see me as well.

Once dinner ended, Luna and I went for a walk outside around the school, talking about all kinds of things. We hadn't even realized how much time had passed until it had gotten too dark to see clearly. "Wow it's already almost ten o'clock, we should probably start making our way back into the school." I said looking down at my watch. "Time really does fly when you're having fun." she said smiling, we walked up back into the school and I walked with her to her common room. "Do you want to come in and talk some more?" She offered, opening the door. I contemplated for a moment then nodded, "Yeah sure." I said as I followed her in. I gawked at the interior, it was beautiful in here. I followed her to the couch and we both sat down. "So did you hear about the new DADA teacher?" I asked, still looking around at the room. "No, what happened to Lockhart?" she said softly furrowing her brows. "Oh he um, he got arrested." I said playing with my fingers. "Really? Wow how interesting, who is replacing him?" she said, smiling at my amazement of the room. "This man named Remus Lupin. I ran into him and we talked, he seemed nice." I said smiling, "Oh the one that used to attend Hogwarts?" I nodded, "Yeah he's in Gryffindor. How'd you know about him?" I said furrowing my brows. "He was brought up by a painting I was talking with one day." she answered smiling softly. "Oh that's cool, what did they say about him?" she thought for a moment, "Just that his friends and him would cause trouble sometimes, and were a pretty tight-knit group and that there are rumours about him." I furrowed my brows, "what rumours?" I asked very intrigued, "Oh I don't know, just suspicions he's like a... werewolf or something. But I don't know those are just rumours and kids like to make up stuff all the time here." she said laughing, me laughing with her. "I wonder what the school was like back then." I said looking around the room. "I don't know, but i've heard stories." We continued for a few more hours, her telling me all the stories she had heard, and more about herself. I had a great time talking to her she was so nice and smart. She even told me her patronus was a hare, which tells you everything. She was very pleased to hear what mine was, she thought that was a sign that I was special, but I just laughed it off. Eventually we both started getting tired and I headed back to my room.

Taglist; @lovelyhoneylemon @juliijah

[setoangel01-fanfiction]

Gardening

Fandom: Final Fantasy 7

Pairing: Zack Fair x Aerith Gainsborough (zerith)

Rated: T

Story Summary: Zack brings Aerith a priceless gift, and during so, he's also unknowingly fulfilling many more of her tiny little wishes…she'll just have to think up some more. AKA, flowers get planted and a love flourishes…

...

A03

FanFiction.net

....

Today was going to be perfect.

The fresh scent of topsoil, the earth fragrant and fresh with new life begging to be nurtured under her experienced hands. The small seeds in paper packets and blooming bulbs in trays were nearly enough to bring tears of happiness to Aerith's rich green eyes.

Yet the euphoria she was feeling was nothing but a blip to the full force of the sun that was Zackary Fair.

It was amazing! Her SOLDIER came to visit her at her house rather than her church. Nothing new, but today was different! Instead of only being able to stay for an hour or two before being called off to save Midgar from certain doom, Zack was free to spend the entire day with her - the general's orders! Zack had to even show her Sephiroth's text to prove it and there it was in black and white.

...

"r u sure, seph?"

"For the third and last time, yes, Zackary. I am more than capable of handling things at ShrinRa for one day. Now, instead of continuing to inundate me with fruitless texts, go and have a pleasant day with your female companion."

"but seph! what if u need heelp?"

"That's an order, Fair!"

"...k thanks! see u 2maro! =-D"

"Affirmative. My office for briefing at 700 sharp."

"u got it!"

....

…Wow.

While wanting to reprimand Zack for using such terrible language and grammar to communicate with his superior officer, Aerith completely ignored it to focus on the amazing news! Spending the entire day with Zack was such an exceptionally rare treat she was fully determined to cherish; anting to savor every single, last solitary moment with her handsome blue-eyed boyfriend.

Yet among the gift of his own sunny presence (which would have been plenty enough for her), today, Zack came bearing physical gifts.

Unlike other girls, Aerith had never been someone to care for expensive trinkets to showcase affection such as jewellery, new clothes or purses even if Zack could easily afford it with his First Class paycheck. No, Aerith was far simpler; wanting nothing more than to spend time with him - and she always told him so. The most luxurious thing Zack had bought for her thus far was the bright pink ribbon she scarcely removed from her hair and some delightful floral perfume he mixed himself when they went out on their first date.

Yet instead of some fancy baubles or silk clothing peeking out at her from a large brown box he held out to her was something completely unexpected…

…Zack brought her flowers!

While she grew plenty of her own, Zack had brought her something she could have never found here - flowers cultivated outside of Midgar!

Zack had been deployed on so many missions all over Gaia lately, Junon, Costa Del Sol, and Kalm just to name a few. During these times, they would talk on the phone, text or he would simply send photos to her PHS from locations during his travels. In those small photos he sent, Aerith lit up seeing all the native fauna of the place where he happened to be staying and the flower pictures became a tradition between them. Whenever he'd leave on a mission, he left with a goodbye kiss and a promise to send her pictures of flowers that grew there, and for this past year, he had kept that promise.

But as Zack slowly tilted the box to present her with its contents, Aerith was nothing short of stunned.

Inside were multiple packets of seeds and bags of bulbs. All of the white and brown packaging had his adorably messy handwriting on each with the names of flowers he had sent her pictures of throughout the last year. Deciphering his writing, Aerith noticed the names of more common species from Kalm and Junon but among the packets, there were exotic species from Wutai and even from Banora. Oh! And there were sunflower seeds from Rocket Town!

But…wait, was that -

"...Gongaga?" Aerith asked, noticing the word and glancing up at her boyfriend questioningly.

"Heh. Yeah," Zack chuckled and Aerith noticed his right arm twitch as if he wanted to scratch the back of his head if his hands weren't occupied.

"...Wait, you went to visit your parents? You never told me that! How are they? When did you go see them?" the questions flew out of her mouth at an alarming rate.

Zack just smiled softly (he had such a wonderful smile), "I didn't."

At Aerith's befuddled expression, he clarified, "My mom actually sent them. I wrote her a letter about you - I told her my girlfriend loves to garden and grows flowers and well, the next thing I know, she's sending me back a letter with all these questions along with some seeds from the flowers she and my dad have been growing in the backyard since I was a kid." Zack chuckled nervously as if shy from the information and Aerith felt as if her heart was going to jump straight out of her chest.

Blinking, Aerith glanced back down to the box cradled in his hands, all the work of gathering seeds, drying them and labeling them must have taken forever and he never told her what he was doing!

How he listened so intently as she spoke during the time they spent together this past year, asked questions and was so genuinely interested about her hobby when most times, she thought he was simply indulging her. Yet he was learning so he could give this gift to her… Not to mention the bombshell of him writing a letter to his parents and mentioning her! Proudly calling her his girlfriend and even mentioning her hobbies!

A burning sensation grew in the back of her eyes and she felt a tear slip down her cheek.

"Uh…Aer, i-is everything alright?" Zack's voice broke thorough and she looked up at his adorably nervous face.

"...You really wrote a letter to your mom about m-me?"

"Well, yeah! And my dad too I guess. Uh…I-Is that okay? I thought it would be good to mention it since we've been together for over a year and she's been badgering me about telling her about you when I call, so I figured mentioning flowers would be a safe start-" Zack's voice faded as Aerith lifted her hands and gently cupped his sweet face between her palms. Not mindful of the tears that continually slipped down her cheeks, Aerith couldn't help but smile at Zack, a smile so wide, it made her cheeks ache.

…How did she get so lucky to have this beautiful angel literally drop into her life?

"It's more than okay. It's wonderful…You're wonderful…" she whispered, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones and tenderly caressing the scar on his jaw.

Aerith smiled tenderly as she felt his cheeks heat up under her palms. Zack's looked positively (and adorably) flustered at her comments; for once, she was the one to embarrass him and she relished it.

"Thanks… So are you," Zack replied, nuzzling his cheek against her palm. Such a sweet puppy…

Zack's face was so handsome and kind and eyes pretty and warm that Aerith simply couldn't resist pushing herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him. But before she even get close to closing the gap, her chest bumped right into the cardboard box and Zack yelped as he managed to catch it before it could fall or the seeds could get crushed between them as she regained her balance.

Zack laughed.

Aerith flushed a pink so deep it matched her ribbon.

Probably noticing how Aerith tensed in mortification of her actions, Zack's chuckling died out and he easily broke the tension by suggesting, "Hey, I'm all for kissing later, but how about we plant some of these first?" he nudged her hip softly with the box.

Aerith's face was still reddened but she flashed him a grateful smile. A deep breath later, the green eyed girl straightened her back and easily played along, "Planting new flowers sounds wonderful! But… you'll do exactly as I say this time? Because, Mr. Zackary Fair, if memory serves me right, I remember the last time you helped me try weeding the church…" she placed her hands on her hips and flashed him her best withering stare (it didn't work, he just bit his cheek to withhold laughter).

The longer she stared, Zack's grew sheepish at the memory of that fiasco, his cheeks a bright coral red against his tan skin, "Uh… well, in my defense, all those green stems look the same to me!"

Aerith's withering glare worked this time.

"Oh! O-Of course I'll follow your orders exactly! After all, you're the professional here! Whatever you need me to do, I'll do it!" he announced with determination and a blinding white smile.

"Yay! Just what I love to hear!" she bounced on her toes and clapped, completely breaking character before jumping right back in it with a stern voice, "Alright, First Class SOLDIER, Zack Fair, I order you to plant some flowers and perhaps do some weeding, but make sure to do it correctly this time! Do I make myself clear?"

"Ma'am, yes, Ma'am! Operation Midgar Full of Flowers, Wallet Full of Money shall commence immediately!" Zack stated loudly, finally maneuvered the box under one arm and gave her a full SOLDIER salute with rigid stance and stern expression.

Aerith just giggled into her palms before pushing at his shoulder as Zack yelped when the box nearly went flying out of his arms again.

.....

Scratch that earlier statement - today was definitely perfect.

A few hours later, the couple were knelt in a patch of soft dirt.

The rich brown loam permeating the air and making the normally rank Midgar air sweet and fragrant with the scent of flourishing life. Aerith was barefoot, boots discarded as she dug her toes into the cool grass and merely enjoyed the soft breeze as her fingers raked through the dirt under her palms. The brown soil staining her fingertips and getting under her nails and most likely staining the white and blue dress caught under her knees, but she couldn't care less.

Looking to her left was nothing short of perfection.

The flowers and grass, soil and the promise of new life with every seed planted didn't much matter compared to the man kneeling right next to her. Aerith smiled softy. Her emerald green eyes tracing over Zack's handsome face as he had his complete attention on the soil in front of him. While Zack was known to have the attention span of a puppy on a sugar rush most times, when he put his heart into something, Zack easily gave 110% of focus on that task like he was right now.

Ever so carefully, the SOLDIER listened to her instructions, following her along as she showed him how to plant the seeds he gave her. Till the soil, dig the holes to make sure they were deep enough and far enough apart not to interfere with the seedling next to them. Showed him how much water to give the freshly buried seeds, the perfect amount as to not dehydrate nor to drown. With each step and seed and bulb that he planted, his confidence grew until he was doing it on his own and Aerith couldn't be prouder of her first student!

Heart hammering as she took in Zack's concentrated expression, Aerith took his moment of distraction to complete what she tried earlier - this time with much more success.

Leaning forward on her knees, Aerith gingerly pressed her palms to his broad chest. The incredible firm large pecs under her wandering fingers inflated with Zack's surprised intake of breath as he looked at her in surprise at her forward action. Still retaining her nerve, Aerith grasped at his leather suspender straps, using them for balance as she eagerly pressed her lips against the corner of his plush smiling mouth.

The SOLDIER smiled warmly at her action. Hands wanting nothing to grab at her waist to pull her closer and kiss her properly but with the dirt covering his fingers, he resisted. Instead, he chased her retreating face, brushing his cheek on hers before letting his lips leave feathery strokes along her jaw before planting the softest kiss by her ear.

"What was that for? You trying to distract me?" he whispered and he bit his lip upon feeling her shiver as she nuzzled her face in his neck.

Aerith whole body felt electrified at Zack's question and his warm breath caressing her throat and loose tendrils of hair hanging by her ears. "No. Not really… What if I said I just wanted to?"

"...Oh really?" he asked, pulling back slightly and Aerith mourned the loss of his warmth for only a second as she caught his coy smile."Because if I didn't know better, I think you're just distracting me from gardening…"

"What if I am?" her mouth spoke before her brain even registered it. The words that left her mouth made her flush.

"Hmm... well, if that's the case, I'd say you win," he affirmed with the sexiest smirk she ever saw but before she could respond, Zack's mouth pressed against hers. His head tilting so he could slot his mouth perfectly against hers; the action had her toes curling against the grass as she bit back a rising moan. Aerith's hands grabbed at his raven hair, fingers eagerly cording through soft strands and desperately grasping at him to pull him closer.

Yet all too soon, Zack pulled his mouth away with a sinful pop as Aerith panted frantically, cheeks flushed and confused and a bit miffed that he dared to stop.

"So, since we're almost finished planting the dahlia's, how about we move over this hill and plant the sunflowers near the bridge?" Zack asked all too naturally before flashing her a devious wink.

Aerith was affronted for only a moment before she glared at him, "Nope. I'm in charge, remember?" with little hesitation, Aerith gently pushed aside the remaining seeds and bulbs and pushed Zack onto his back. The SOLDIER easily caving to her hands as she pressed at his shoulders til he rested among the soft grass, the bright green a beautiful contrast to his dark hair. "And I say that you're not allowed to get up until I say so, am I making myself clear, SOLDIER?

"Oh, yes..." he grunted lightly for show as she plopped down on his stomach guard. "Crystal clear, ma'am," he replied biting back a chuckle before she leaned over him and kissed him for all he was worth.

...After all, the seeds could always wait to be planted later…

[wdwmarveldisney]

Request

I didn’t think it was possible to love someone this much.” with Luke Patterson/ Charlie gillespie

Matchmakers

Luke Patterson x reader- slight Reggie Peters x oc

Requested

Prompt-"I didn't think it was possible to love someone this much,"

Summary: Reader is trying to match Reggie up with her new ghost friends and convinces Luke to help her. When planning, something happens that changes the way they look at each other for the rest of their ghost lives.

Masterlist

A/N: Ok so I got this request a little while ago and I have fully finished. Hope you like it. Also if you’re name is Kay, just change it. Not proofread.

(Gif isn’t mine)

You watched as they played, a smile finding its way to your lips as the three appeared around Julie. You sat next to Flynn watching as she jumped in shock at the sight of them and chuckled lightly at her expression. Of course, she didn't even know you were there because you were dead and you didn't appear like the boys. She only knew you existed through Julie who had quickly become someone you spent a lot of time with since you couldn't always deal with the boys. You also hung out with a ghost called Kay, a sweet girl who was a couple years older than you and had died in the 1940s. She had been very helpful sine you met her, similarly like Willie was to Alex except you two were just friends. You'd even spent a few hours in the garage with Kay who Reggie had taken a liking too. She reminded you of him in some ways and you were quick to try play matchmaker but it soon became clear to you that it wasn't a one person job. So you had roped Luke into it.

He had promised that after this rehearsal you two would head up to the small space in the garage because that was the only place where you wouldn't get interrupted and he also had to change his shirt apparently. As they practiced Edge of Great for the fifth time, you smiled to yourself, nodding along and mouthing the words. You saw a flash from outside and was quick to jump up and rush to the door to see Kay in her ripped jeans and Star Wars sweatshirt that she had stole from a shop down the road the other day when taking you to get a change of clothes. you had more opted towards black leggings, a red crop top and a navy leather jacket with your usual trainers. "Hey," She had pulled you into a quick side hug before the two of you headed inside to watch them finish rehearsal and as the boys disappeared from Flynn's view. Julie was quick to drag Flynn inside to get a drink and some food whilst you were quick to shove Kay towards Reggie, the two immediately starting a conversation about Star Wars with Alex sitting with them. The blonde sent you a smug look which confused you until you face where he kept glancing to and see Luke on the stairs staring at you. With a smile and a hate for stairs, you simply blip up to the area already sitting down on a a small stool. A grin found its way to your lips when Luke glared slightly as he appeared in front of you.

"Okay so, Reggie and Kay-" you started but shook his head lightly making you stop and raise an eyebrow in curiosity and annoyance. "What did you think? About the song?" Almost subconsciously, your arms cross as you lean forward ever so slightly, "You said you'd be a matchmaker with me," he pouted in that cute little way that made your heart soar and sagged his shoulders slightly. "Y/N," you rolled your eyes at his voice before giving in, nodding your head slightly as your features relaxed, "You guys were great, as usual," That made him grin like mad and you completely forgot what the conversation was about in the first place as he sat up taller. "Yeah?" You nod, before you backtracked remembering exactly why the two of you were sitting there. "Hey, stop distracting me!" He just laughed in response, searching through bags to his right for any clothes.

"Reggie and Kay, together. How do we do that? Ideas?" Luke's face contorted to one of concentration as he stared at the shirt he held and you sighed, knowing he wouldn't pay much attention. "How about a picnic date? And they could have a blanket," you paused, grabbing the old blanket from a box and laying it out between the two of you, not taking note of how all Luke's attention went to you at the word 'date'. "They can't have a picnic. They can't eat," You rolled your eyes, sitting down on the blanket and pulling next to you. "Well, they can go for a walk and sit on the blanket in the park and talk," Luke chuckled, shaking his head which made you raise an eyebrow at him. He noticed and, though it seemed impossible, his grin grew bigger, "Just thinking of all the people who'll stare at the floating blanket and then when its laid down. Great plan," You shoved his shoulder and almost in protest of your action, he wrapped his arm round your shoulders, "They can do it without the blanket," He suggested making a small smile appear on your face, "Yeah,"

"Hey, Kay, where did you get the scar on your palm?" Both you and Luke looked through the wooden banister to watch after hearing Alex's question. "Oh, I picked up a piece of hot charcoal when I was little," Kay looked down to her hand, running her thumb over the weirdly shaped mark as she spoke and the answer confused them all except Reggie, who simply said, "Cool!". Alex leaned forward ever so slightly, pulling a face as he mumbled, "That....okay," You laughed at your blonde best friend's reaction whilst Luke just smiled before he pulled you back next to him so you could continue to talk. "Alright, so we invite them to the park and then don't show up so they're left alone together and they walk, we watch," Luke stopped your explanation with a chuckle that made you look to him with a panicked expression, "What? What's wrong?"

"We're going to spy on them?" You rolled your eyes at the question, like it was a ridiculous question because essentially it was. "Yes, of course we're spying on them! We need to make sure it works," Luke just laughed, shaking his head as he looked away from you but somehow managed to shift closer. "Well, I'll probably be writing so I don't know if I'll make it," Just by the look on his face, the way he held back this massive grin and how he shrugged his shoulders, you knew he was messing with you. His face had scrunched up a little before the grin finally broke out and, just to annoy him back, you reached across and squeezing his cheek with a forced smile on your face, "You'll be there," He hit your hand away with a frown etching its way onto his face which made you chuckle. "I guess I could move a few things around," You nodded and it was a second before you both burst out laughing like two crazy people.

And then you noticed it. The lack of space between you two made panic begin to bubble in your stomach, anxiety kicking in. Luke hadn't seemed to notice it, talking about the plan but you had drowned out his voice unintentionally and instead was scanning his features. You bit your lip, trying to stop yourself from saying anything but you noticed how his lips stopped moving and how he now stared at you with just as much focus as you him. "I'm about to something," the whispered words had fallen from your lips without much thought and you took a deep breath before continuing, "And I don't know how it's going to go," and then you did it.

Fireworks felt like they were exploding in your stomach. Even with your current status as dead, you'd never felt more alive or more like a decision you made was right. It just fit and everything just worked out and... Oh my god, he's kissing back. He's actually doing that, lips melting against yours in the sweet gentle kiss that made you feel like you were cloud nine or that you had passed on. It's so amazing and scary and amazing and your brain can't seem to keep up with it. Well, apart from the fact you were kissing him. And he was kissing back.

He pulled away first, you chasing his lips before a small pout formed on your own when his wasn't there. He laughed, leaning down to rest his forehead against yours. At some point, your hands had gone to his shoulders and his to your cheeks. "I'm about to say something and I don't know how it's going to go," you smiled at him, that seemingly being enough encouragement for him, "I didn't think it was possible to love someone this much,"

“Not even Alex?”

“Shut up,” Safe to say you did but only because his lips met yours in another breathtaking kiss. And also it would be a good assumption that Reggie and Kay’s set up date went well and you two were terrible spies and that they knew all along.

[omgrachwrites]

Tell a Tale of You and Me - Chapter One

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: You knew that making a bet with Sirius Black was like making a deal with the devil but you just couldn’t help yourself. You had never been a heavenly woman.

Warnings: fluffy fluff, the gang being bff’s, Remus being adorable

Words: 1920

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy, please let me know what you think and if you would like to be tagged, I might make a playlist for this series! I love you all very much! xxx

Chapter One

You smiled in slight surprise as you walked into the bright kitchen and you saw your brother, Finn out of bed. He was actually smiling as he poured himself a glass of homemade pumpkin juice, his thick curls bouncing as he moved.

“Good to see that you’re out of bed, kid,” you grinned, ruffling his hair

Finn pouted at you before smiling himself, “I didn’t think that it was such a good idea isolating myself in bed, there’s nothing that I can do about my … problem,” the way he spoke made him sound much older than his eleven years, “and Dumbledore sent an owl to mum, telling her that I’m still allowed to come to Hogwarts.”

You smiled at him proudly as you too poured yourself a glass of iced pumpkin juice, you couldn’t wait to be sitting in the sunshine outside The Leaky Cauldron with your friends, “well, you’re braver than me and of course, Dumbledore would never turn anybody away. You belong at Hogwarts.”

You were pretty surprised that your mum had confided in Dumbledore about your brother’s affliction. She had kept it a well-guarded secret from the rest of the village; she was worried that it would affect her and your dad’s job at the Ministry. They were highly respected Aurors. They were nowhere to be seen at the present moment so you fixed your brother some lunch – a cheese and tomato sandwich with the crusts cut off and you cut the sandwich into triangles, it was the only way that Finn would eat it.

As Finn ate it, he looked at you, “are you going to be on the Quidditch team this year, Y/N?” he asked and you scoffed, sipping your pumpkin juice.

“I don’t think so, I’d love to but my stage fright would never let me, you know that,” you smiled at him cheerfully; you couldn’t feel too down on such a beautiful summer’s day.

Finn pouted at you, his eyes going round, “oh, I thought it would be pretty cool, going to my first Quidditch match and my sister being on the team.”

You grinned at him, he was your biggest supporter and you appreciated that more than anything else. You were saved by replying, for your parents walked out of the living room with a beautiful woman. She was beautiful but she had hard, sharp features, it was her grey eyes that marked her, though they had none of her son’s warmth.

“Ah, Y/N L/N, you definitely grew up in beauty and grace,” she smirked at you; there was no playful glint to it. It was quite menacing to be honest.

“Mrs Black, it’s good to see you,” you lied through gritted teeth; you would never forgive her, not after what she did to Sirius.

It seemed that Mrs Black picked out your lie because her smirk widened, “so, it’s you is it? You were the one who used to pine over my eldest son.”

“A lot has happened since then,” you bit back in a defensive tone, and it was true, a lot had happened since fourth year, that was three long years ago, “I’m going to meet the gang, so I’ll see you later, you little monkey,” you kissed the top of Finn’s head and you bade goodbye to your parents, ignoring Mrs Black.

You walked over to the white marble fireplace and flung your Floo Powder down carelessly, “Diagon Alley!” you shouted clearly and you disappeared in a whirl of green flames.

When you had reached Diagon Alley, you brushed the soot from your summer dress as you carried on towards The Leaky Cauldron. You grinned, shooting a wave at James and Lily who were sitting out in the warm sunshine. Lily’s hair shone like blazing fire in the sun. They had started dating at the end of the previous school year and they were the best couple that you knew.

You walked inside the cool pub – it was alive with many people and there were even creatures such as hags, you also saw some of your Hogwarts schoolmates – and you spotted the tousled hair boy at the bar. You smiled and made your way over to him.

“Hey cutie,” you grinned, standing on your tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Remus flushed a bright red colour across his scarred cheeks, you loved flirting with Remus but the both of you knew that you would only ever be good friends.

“Hey Y/N,” he grinned as he pulled you into a side hug, “how is your brother doing?”

You smiled, it was so sweet of him to ask, “he’s doing great thank you, and he’s taking it all in his stride. Much braver than I could ever be.”

Remus nodded, “he seems braver than all of us but it’s good that he’s doing well. If I can be of any help, you just let me know.”

You beamed, jumping slightly as you felt two strong arms wrap around you from behind, “looking as pretty as ever, Y/N,” Sirius said in your ear.

You giggled and turned around to give him a proper hug, it was so weird to see him not wearing his usual leather jacket, “you’re still a flirt I see,” you had once hated his flirtatious behaviour but you had recently realised that it was no use. He was never going to change.

Sirius smirked at you before his warm grey eyes looked at something in the distance, and he whistled beneath his breath, “I’ll catch up with you guys, yeah?” he flounced off without waiting for a reply. You and Remus rolled your eyes and shook your heads fondly before taking the iced Butterbeers outside. Iced Butterbeers sounded like a weird concept but it was surprisingly delicious!

“Hey lovers,” you grinned at James and Lily as you pulled out a chair and sat down, “where’s Wormtail?” you asked.

“He’s still on holiday, I think,” James started, sipping his Butterbeer, gaining a foamy moustache in the process, “he’s been pretty secretive lately, but I suppose it’s only to be expected now that we’re getting older,” he sighed, “where’s Sirius?”

Remus snickered around his glass, “annoying some girl, knowing him.”

Moments later, Sirius came wandering over to the table, slamming a box of chocolates down in the middle of the table before he slumped into the free seat with a glum look on his face, “Marlene rejected me,” he muttered before anybody could ask.

You and Lily exchanged amused glances; the both of you knew exactly why Marlene had rejected him. Though, you did feel sorry for Sirius, he probably hadn’t been rejected by a girl before, and if he had, you couldn’t remember it. You glanced at the box and saw that it was a box of chocolate cauldrons, the ones with the Firewhisky centre. They were both yours and Remus’ favourites.

“Well, how about we share them? It’s not as bad as it seems Sirius, trust me,” he looked up at you, giving you a grateful smile that only served to enhance his handsome features.

Your idea seemed to be a good one as the five of you filled yourselves up with iced Butterbeer and chocolate cauldrons; you all laughed and joked with one another. You all lamented over the fact that this was your last year at Hogwarts and reminisced about years gone by. That afternoon was one of the best in your life. You wished that you could all stay that way forever, young, and seventeen. Though, you knew that summer couldn’t last forever.

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

Sirius tapped his quill against his forehead, almost in an attempt to knock the answers from his head, he did kind of regret not doing it at James’ – he’d been living with his best mate for the past year and he couldn’t be happier. He had wanted to make the most of his last summer of freedom; he had spent the best part of it playing Quidditch with James. Sirius looked outside the compartment window at the rolling hills to distract himself from writing his essay.

The compartment door slid open and Y/N came walking in with a relieved smile as she sat down next to Remus, “everything alright?” Remus asked, not once looking up from his book.

“Yeah, everything is perfect,” she smiled, gazing out of the window.

Sirius sulked as he felt a twinge of jealousy; Y/N had been talking with his younger brother, Regulus. It had looked like she was really confiding in Regulus about something and Sirius just couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t talked to him. She wasn’t even friends with Regulus.

“What were you and Regulus talking about?” he narrowed his eyes at the pretty girl that was sitting opposite him and he ignored Lily’s smirk.

Y/N looked over at him with a mocking grin, “if you must know, your mum came over to my house over the summer to speak to my parents. I thought that Regulus might know why. I would have asked you but I think it’s plainly obvious that you wouldn’t know. I know how much you hate your mum.”

“Oh,” Sirius said lamely, the jealousy disapparated from his body, leaving him feeling pretty stupid.

“Were you jealous, Black?” Y/N smirked, causing Sirius to scowl at her.

“In your dreams, Y/L/N,” he muttered.

Lily laughed at this interaction as she leaned over James to speak to Y/N, “never mind about him, how is Finn feeling about his first year?”

Y/N sighed happily, “oh, he’s so excited, he’s just worried about getting put in Slytherin, I think he’s more worried about my reaction. So, I told him that no matter what happens, it’ll be okay and he’ll always be my little best mate.

“Well, Slughorn was a Slytherin and he’s a nice enough fellow, he didn’t go bad or anything like that,” Lily commented reasonable, causing Y/N to beam and nod at her.

“Everything really will be alright Y/N,” Peter spoke up, taking the words right out of Sirius’ mouth.

“Yeah I know, thank you Pete,” she gave him a pretty smile.

It seemed like all too soon that the six friends were sitting in the magnificent Great Hall as they waited for the sorting ceremony to start. While they were waiting, Y/N engaged Nearly Headless Nick in conversation about his summer. Nick was complaining that his request to join the headless hunt had once again been rejected. Sirius thought that it was very sweet of Y/N to take the time to speak to him. She tried to speak to all of the ghosts, even The Bloody Baron.

The boy’s marauding plans were interrupted by the start of the sorting ceremony; all six of them seemed to be holding their breath when the Sorting Hat was placed on Finn’s little curly head, “Slytherin!” the hat called out, and little Finn looked so nervous as he wandered over to the cheery Slytherin table.

Fury rose in Sirius as Lucius Malfoy looked through the sea of people to smirk at Y/N as Finn sat down next to him, “I’m sorry Y/N.”

She shrugged, smiling at him as Gryffindor gained their newest student, “well, it was definitely the worst case scenario. In a perfect world he’d be a Gryffindor,” she sighed and Sirius wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “as long as he doesn’t hang around with Malfoy then I’ll be pretty happy, thank you though,” she giggled and grinned as the sorting ceremony ended and the golden plates were filled with mountains of delicious foods.

--------------------- 

Taglist: open

@approved-by-dentists​

[schrijverr]

What’s up with that Sims guy?

After the Apocalypse Jon becomes an uni teacher, three students take in interest in what’s up with this weird new professor.

On AO3.

Ships: JonMartin

Warnings: none, but tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!

~~~~~~~~

Time and space moves differently around the Fears, something that could be confusing and strange, but also pretty handy as Jon and Martin had discovered during the Apocalypse. It meant that when they’d turned the world back to normal, banishing the Fears far away, no one had even noticed it had happened.

With Elias, uhm Jonah, gone their ties to the Institute had lessened. However, Jon was still depended on statements, but Martin had decided that being away from it all would be better for him, so Jon was now working part time, while Martin kept an eye on the place.

Which is how Jon had ended up as a professor at a university. He was filling in, because the current professor had gotten pregnant and they hadn’t been able to find someone more suitable than Jon to replace her temporarily.

Jon knew he didn’t have the credentials necessary, but he Knew everything with the help of the Beholding, so he hoped that would be enough to get him through the year.

So here he was, standing in front of a big hall that was slowly filling up with students, who were eyeing him with a mix of curiosity, confusion and uneasiness.

Once everyone had settled down he took a deep breath and started: “Hello everyone, I’m Jonathan Sims and I’m replacing your previous professor until she returns from her maternity leave. I have an oversight of what you all need to know and do this semester, so lets get started with that right away.”

~

Jane looked down at their new professor and shifted in her seat uneasily. He was strange, or at least had a strange aura surrounding him. Jane wasn’t once for judging on appearances, but it was hard not to wonder what the Hell had let a man such at him to this.

He was short, sure, but he wasn’t small and he had a big presence to make up for it. His black hair was streaked with gray, but he had a youthful face that didn’t quite match up, although the tiredness that hung around him seemed old.

Beside that he was also littered with scars. It was hard not to notice the white circles that contrasted with his dark skin, it could be acne scars if they hadn’t been on his exposed forearms as well and so perfectly round. And those weren’t even his only scars, the entire palm on his right had was covered with a burn mark and the open buttons on the top of his shirt exposed a white thin scar across his throat.

So, yeah, strange.

He started to introduce himself and his voice was posh and low, but overall pleasant to listen to, she supposed. This didn’t stop her from exchanging a small look with Jesse, her best friend. Jesse raised her brows at her and the message was received, they were so going to talk about this later.

Later came as soon as they were out the door. Jesse leaned over and said: “Tell me I wasn’t the only one who got a weird vibe from that guy.”

Jane laughed and shook her head and answered: “You weren’t, I mean, this who building is filled with stuffy academics and suddenly this random dude walks in with the scars of a thug? That’s weird.”

Jesse nodded and asked: “What do you think happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Jane shrugged, “But it seems pretty rude to just ask.”

Jesse sighed, then perked up with a realization: “We could plant a seed in Sams head.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Jane said, mischief bubbling up inside her eyes. They had known Sam since their first year and were pretty close with the guy. Sam was also known for not being the most delicate or observant and unafraid to ask personal questions. If he was curious, he would ask.

“I would.” Jesse grinned back, she tugged her along through the crowd with an: “Come on!”

They found Sam easy enough and Jesse plopped down next to him and started: “Hey, Sam. What did you think of our new professor?”

Sam shrugged and scratched his forehead as he said: “Dressed like every other pretentious asshole in here, posh accent. But seemed to know his stuff. Normal teacher if you ask me. Why?”

Jesse inflated: “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t even noticed!”

“Noticed what?” Sam asked with a frown.

“The scars.” Jane said.

“Oh, were they scars.” Sam said, “I thought he had weird freckles.”

“Weird fr-” Jesse began before cutting herself off and asking: “Aren’t you curious why they’re there? I’ve never seen scars like that.”

“And the burnt hand and the scar on his neck.” Jane continued, “Those don’t appear randomly.”

Both looked at her now, heads to the side in confusion. Jane said: “Oh, didn’t see those?”

Jesse and Sam shook their heads. “Well,” Jane explained, “He has this burn on his hand like he gripped a hot burning coal or something and this line here,” she drew on her neck with her finger to signal where it was, “like someone tried to slit his throat. Makes me wonder what he did before this job.”

The three of them fell silent. Lost in thought to what could’ve happened to their new mysterious professor before all of this.

~

The next lesson didn’t clear anything up in the slightest. While they were discussing the 17th century literature circles Sam had raised his hand signaling he had a question. Jane and Jesse, who had decided to sit behind him tensed up. He got called on and asked: “Dr. Sims, what did you do before this?”

Dr. Sims frowned and pushed up his glasses, before saying: “You don’t have to call me doctor, it wouldn’t be deserved. Just Sims is fine, or Mr. Sims if that feels better. And I’m the A- an archivist.”

“Am?” Sam blurted out.

Sims laughed humorlessly and said: “Yeah, part time now.”

Then he went back to the lesson and didn’t acknowledge any more questions about his life. Jane didn’t know how he did it, but he seemed to just know which people had questions about the lesson and which about him.

She walked out the hall with Sam and Jesse, who said: “That wasn’t insightful at all.”

Jane agreed: “Yeah, in what danger would an archivist be that leaves that kind of scarring?”

Sam shrugged and pulled out his phone as he said: “I can Google it.” the he muttered more to himself: “What kind of danger experiences an archivist, cool yeah.”

Jesse strained her neck to look on his screen and asked: ‘Well, what does it say?”

“Nothing much actually. Just a bunch of online archives and stuff.” Sam said.

Jane had a bit of a light bulb moment and suggested: “What if you type in Jonathan Sims?”

“Jonathan?” Jesse asked.

Jane shrugged and said: “It’s how he introduced himself during the first lecture.”

Sam typed in the name and his eyebrows crept further up to his hairline as he read the results of his search. Jesse couldn’t take it anymore and ripped the phone out of his hand, quickly scanning the page and gasping. Jane was now also curious and asked: “Well, tell me.”

She showed her the screen and Jane read the headlines. ‘Explosion at the Wax Museum, two survivors.’ The small excerpt reads: Last night there was an explosion at the wax museum, cause is still unknown, but suspected attack. Two survivors were found on the scene. Basira Hussain and Jonathan Sims, the latter of which is in a coma…

Underneath that is another headline. ‘Attack at the Magnus Institute unearths body of former archivist Gertrude Robinson’ with a picture of a big fire brigade, some police and an ambulance under it, she can vaguely make out Sims getting loaded into the back of one of them.

And lastly a small report into the murder of Gertrude Robinson, listing Jonathan Sims as one of the suspects along with one about an older guy, who was apparently found dead in Sims office.

Jane leaned back and whispered: “What the actual fuck.”

After that the rumors spread over the campus and by the time the next lecture rolled around the whole room was buzzing with nervous energy. Sims took one look around the room and sighed: “You are probably not going to let this go in favor of learning something that will actually be useful. Correct?”

A murmur went through the crowd, they had realized that the rumors had most likely reached Sims, but they hadn’t realized he’d be so straightforward about it.

“Okay.” Sims said, “I am willing to sacrifice ten minutes of my lecture for inquiries, but I will not promise to answer.”

Then he waited. Sam was the first to raise his hand and when called upon he asked: “How did you get the scars?”

Sims thought about it, the class thought he was thinking about how to bring it delicately and thoughtful, but inside Jons mind he heard Martin laugh at him and tell him he was an idiot after Jon had told someone the round scars had come from tripping. In hindsight it hadn’t been a good excuse, so Jon decided that vague was probably the safest way to go and said: “A workplace incident.”

Without raising his hand this time Sam asked: “Did it happen during the attack on your workplace? Why would anyone even attack archives?”

“The Archives are a small place in a big organization.” Jon began to explain, ignoring the fact that the Archives had been the target, “And in the end it turned out to be an aggressive infestation, just an accident.”

“Why your institute then?” Sam asked.

“Depends on if you believe in the paranormal, but you have to excuse me, Mr. Jacobs. It seems you are not the only one with questions.” Sims replied, then he turned to the other side and said: “Yes, Ms. Hendrickson?”

“Did you murder anyone?” she asked, clapping her hand over her mouth afterwards in shame of the question that she had blurted out.

Sims didn’t react to the harsh and accusatory question, just said: “If I murdered anyone, I wouldn’t be here, but in prison, don’t you agree?” then he smiled, but somehow Jane didn’t feel comforted by it.

Jesse spoke up, causing Jane to duck into herself in the hope that she wouldn’t be noticed in her seat next to Jesse. She asked: “Then who murdered them?”

Sims huffed a breath, blowing a strand of hair out of his face in the process and answered: “That would’ve been my former boss, I have to say I’m happy to see him gone and his replacement is more than capable.” he looked at the clock and clapped his hands, making more than a few people flinch. Then he stated: “That’s enough questions, time’s up. Lets get back to the symbolism in poetry during the Renaissance.”

And so life continued with Sims as their professor. There was still something uneasy about him, like he was just a sliver off in a way you couldn’t pinpoint, but felt in your bones.

But he was actually quite nice. Which was weird in itself, since he could be pretty prickly and snappy if he found your reasoning or answer particularly stupid or ignorant and he was generally grumpy, but that changed completely if you actually had a problem and needed help. He would listen and then explain with the things you could understand, it was as if he could look at you and know what you needed to understand. That was also strange, but it was nice to have someone explain so correctly.

He was also a walking encyclopedia. He had fun fact about everything and when they said everything they meant everything. When he noticed Mary had died her hair he said: “I like your hair, did you know hair dye contains over 5.000 chemicals.”

Then when Jamie asked what kind of tea he was drinking he answered: “Lady Grey, it was created by Twinings in the early 1990s to appeal to the Nordic market, which found Earl Grey too strong.”

While discussing Oscar Wilde he commented: “Funny how important this guy is, since he has only published one novel in his life.”

When Kyra stumbled in late telling him the taxi had broken, he replied with: “Well cars have about 30.000 parts, so it isn’t far fetched that something broke.”

The funniest part about it was that it just happened to slip out it seemed. He was also just as surprised as them when something like that tumbled out of his mouth and he always covered it up with a small cough, before ignoring it had happened and moving on with his lesson.

It had become a bit of a game among students to make him say a fun fact. Sims had caught on to it, but he didn’t seem to mind all that much, his lips only tightening the littlest amount and his eyes tiring slightly.

So all in all, after two moths of lessons they felt like they knew the guy. He was nice in a grumpy way, could tear you apart verbally if he wanted to, had a lot of facts and worked part time as an archivist, which was apparently a pretty dangerous job.

Jane, Jesse and Sam had become pretty close to him, often staying after class to ask a few questions about the subject, help clean up, try to pry into his private life. The last thing never seemed to work, but it was fun to try and Sims had never let on that he minded it. He even seemed to enjoy their little chats.

Then one time after class, he suddenly looked up, frowned and stalked out of the hall. Quickly sharing glances the three followed after him, curious what had gotten his attention so suddenly.

They walked through a bunch of the main halls, then through a few quiet corridors until they were much further than hearing range, making them slightly uncomfortable. There was a kid, first year probably, barely an adult still very much baby faced, crying on the floor, knees drawn tight to his chest.

Cautiously Sims approached him and gently lowered himself to the ground. The kid looked up at him with a startled face, but Sims shushed him and gently asked: “What’s wrong?”

There was something off about the words, something compelling. The kid starts to speak, he had a slightly northern accent: “It’s all so different here with the big buildings and large crowds with loads of people everywhere, still I’m all by myself. No one want to talk to the dumbass from north, who has trouble with the tubes, you know.” he sniffled a sad chuckle, “And everything is just so overwhelming and I have no one to guide me or to talk to and I hate it. Then I saw everyone just talking about a party and I know it’s dumb, but I heard them say they were going to invite everyone and someone asked even me, but then they laughed and said of course not and I just couldn’t anymore, so I went here and I cried.”

It seemed he was finished and went back to small sniffles and silent tears. Sims gently put a hand on the kids knee and said: “Did that help?”

“Yeah,” the kid looked at him, “bit cathartic, honestly. Sorry for the trouble.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, Edward.” Sims said.

The kid didn’t seem to realize it, but the three silent watchers noticed the kid had never mentioned his name.

Sims went on: “If you like, you can come over to my lecture hall. There are a few older years there, nice people, who I’m sure will want to help you. And a cup of tea.”

Edward rubbed his eyes and said: “They wouldn’t want to talk to me, I’m a loser and I don’t want the to think I’m even more one by telling them what happened.”

“I’m sure you won’t have. They’ve been where you are.” Sims responded, there was a bit of an edge to his voice and they realized he knew they were there and he was right. Jesse had been too brash, Jane too shy and Sam too blunt, it’s what had made them flock together. It was much better now, but they all remembered those awful first weeks. Without saying a word they hurried back to Sims hall.

When he came back they were making tea and lounging around. Jesse greeted him: “Hey, Sims. Where were you suddenly off to?”

Jane pushed her slightly and said: “Don’t pry.” then she turned back, “Want a cuppa, we just put on the kettle?”

Sims smiled and said: “I’d like that, could you make one for my friend, Edward here, as well. I had forgotten I was going to meet him, he’s curious about the Minor course and I thought maybe you could tell him a bit about it. If it isn’t any trouble, of course.”

“Of course not.” Jane smiled, then gestured to a chair: “Here, come sit with us.”

Edward did and later left feeling much better with a few new friends.

Friends, who were beginning to be suspicious about their teacher. They had a lengthy discussion about his knowing stuff and his spooky vibe. But no certain conclusion could be made and they decided that the mission for this year was finding out at least one personal fact about their teacher to prove he was at least somewhat normal.

They didn’t have to wait long. Their classes had been thrown around due to an unfortunate miscommunication. So two classes were switched, causing Sims to teach on Wednesday instead of Thursday for just one week. He looked a bit pale that day, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was the season, so no one spared it a second thought. Until a larger man came through the door after a gentle knock.

He was tall, about 6ft2, and chubby with a crème sweater and jeans. His face was freckled and he wore a gentle smile like it was second nature. His hair was curly and looked very soft, he in his entirety looked soft, you know, like the kind of person you know gives good hugs the moment you see them.

Sims was the only one who didn’t seem startled by his knock, just looked at the man and frowned as he said: “Martin, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry, sorry, Jon.” the man, Martin, said apologetically, “I know you said not to come and such, but I saw you had forgotten your statement and I know how you can get without them, so I thought I’d bring them to you.”

“I was going to read it tomorrow.” Sims said, “It can wait for one day. It’s not like it used to be.”

“Yeah, I know that as well, but we agreed that a rhythm would be good for you and your body to get used to.” Martin replied, holding out a folder.

Sims grabbed the folder and sighed: “You’re probably right, annoying as that may be, but couldn’t it wait till after I was done?”

“No, I’m meeting Daisy to discuss the proper storage of a Hunt artifact and you know how Daisy can be.” he answered.

“Yeah, I know.” Sims chuckled, absentmindedly touching the scar on his neck.

“Besides, I wanted to see you.” Martin said, then he brushed a lock of hair, that had freed itself from Sims’ messy bun, behind Sims ear and pecked him on the cheek. Turning to leave immediately after calling out over his shoulder: “Read it, Jon! And don’t forget to pick up milk on the way back if you want any good tea.”

Martin opened the door and Sims smiled, like a real and soft and dopey smile, as he touched his cheek and yelled back: “I will, say hi to Daisy from me.”

Then Martin was gone and the silence that had fallen over the hall with Martins entrance was broken. Multiple people called out questions and it was a bit of a chaos. It took a few minutes to get everyone settled down again and Sims returned to his lecture as if nothing happened. Sam called out from the second row: “Really, Sims? Nothing?”

Sims shoulders sagged, he had clearly hoped he could get away with it and was sad that it hadn’t worked. He said: “Mr. Jacobs, although I appreciate your interest in my personal life, I hope that I don’t have to explain how normal it is for my husband to come bring me something I forgot at home.”

The hall exploded again, but Sims ignored it all again telling them there were more important things to talk about, for example the lecture, which will be on the exam.

For Jane, Jesse and Sam it was enough. Their teacher was weird and off, but he was nice enough and if someone as soft looking as the Martin figure was willing to marry him, then he was good enough in their opinion and not worth the detective work.

[snapdragon-mina]

Sunflowers and Snakes

Pairing: Dabi x Reader x Hawks

A/n: Written for the Bnha spring time event. Hi @amaamajiki , I'm your anon! I really hope you like this lmao.

Word Count: 2.25k

Warnings: Sorta spoilers for bnha, swearing, blood mention, Suggestive themes(Very very minor)

For the first time in about a month, You could go home on time. The restaurant you worked in constantly asked for you to work overtime. The only reason you continuously agreed was for that sweet sweet paycheck. Fortunately, everyone else was at work and did their jobs, so you were free to go home and cuddle the shit out of your dog. 

When you got home, all you could hear was the sound of paws on wood before your life flashed before your eyes. Seems your dog missed you a little too much because he pounced, knocking you off balance, and eagerly started licking your face. 

"Okay! Okay! Hey let's make a deal. If you get off of me, I'll give you a surprise?" You held your dog away from your face with one arm, while wiping off the sheer amount of dog slobber that was on your face with the other. The dog paused as if he were thinking before moving off of you and sitting down with a sharp bark. 

"That's a good boy." You smiled at him before turning on the TV for background noise. You walked into the kitchen to fix your dog's food. After pouring the food into the bowl, you stuck a lil treat in there. Boom! Recipe for a happy Schnauzer. The moment you sat the bowl down, he shot forwards and barely gave you back out of the way. 

Shaking your head, you walked back into your living room and sat on the couch. Moments of complete peace were hard to come by. After the fall of All Might, nobody was really safe. I mean, Endeavor doesn't give a shit about his fans, so why should you trust him to protect you? 

From what you gathered, the number two hero, Hawks has actually started searching for his soulmate. When asked to show off his tattoo, he refused. Something about "The thrill of the hunt". 

Tattoos are typically two of a kind. Only two people would have the same tattoo. Speaking of soulmate tattoos, Yours was a Snake winding around a single sunflower. It was actually huge, since it covered your entire left arm. It was a really cool design when you think about it.

A small whine managed to shake you out of your thoughts. You got up, grabbed the yellow leash, and hooked it to the matching yellow collar your dog wore. "Come on pretty pup, it's been awhile since I've had time to go on a walk, huh?"

He barked in response as his stubby little tail wagged rapidly. You opened the door and locked it behind you before letting yourself be led by your dog. Around five minutes into the walk, you felt your arm grow warm. Apparently your soulmate was close. It was like a game of hot and cold until you bumped into a guy with a black trenchcoat. Your arm felt extremely hot, so you looked at him. 

"You gonna apologize? You were the one that bumped into me." He had a relatively bored tone of voice. He was eerily calm for someone to be in this scenario. It felt like his eyes were staring deeply into your soul.

"Yeah uh, sorry… But-" You couldn't even finish your sentence, because he walked off with a dismissive wave. You wanted to follow after him, but your dear dog had decided he wanted to shit right then and there. You were forced to wait on him to finish. 

After cleaning up and disposing of the waste, you just decided to go back home to get some much deserved rest.

•••

Two weeks later, you had a day off and it was really nice outside, so why not go for a walk through the forest? You went through your typical morning routine and got dressed. You fed your dog and took him out for a bit. "Alright pup, I'll be back soon, okay?" You blew a lil air kiss and left the house. 

After roughly 15 minutes, you reached a clearing in the forest. It was peaceful and nothing seemed to be out of place. There was a river a few steps away from you, and all sorts of flowers blooming. The trees actually provided very nice shade. You wouldn't mind living out here or at least somewhere just as peaceful as it was out here.

You took a deep breath and sat on a nearby stump, just taking in nature. You didn't get to enjoy the peace for long, due to the sudden burn on your left arm. Your soulmate was quickly approaching your location. You glanced around, but didn't see anyone. Yet your arm was getting warmer and warmer. 

Suddenly, a voice spoke out. "You're the person from that night, right?"

You recognized that voice. You focused on where the sound came from and fixated on where he was standing. He was leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. "Yeah, I am. Hey can I-"

"I'm not your soulmate." He interjected. You shot him a confused look. There was no way you were wrong about this. "Don't believe me? I don't even have a tattoo." He held up both of his scarred arms. 

This only served to confuse you more. "Yeah no, I'm right. There's no fucking way I'm wrong." You shot back. He raised an eyebrow at you. 

"Are you sure about that? People are born without soulmates, y'know." He said.

"Let's say you aren't my soulmate. Why the hell did you follow me here?" You sighed, already annoyed that he ruined your perfectly peaceful moment. 

"Because I know who is." 

"Why would you help me? You don't seem like the type to help someone just out of the kindness of your heart." You narrowed your eyes and he laughed. He laughed at you. 

"Oh trust me, I'll be getting a pretty little payment for this," His eyes shone with amusement. "Follow me."

He walked off. Bold of him to assume you were gonna follow him. You stayed put for a moment before ultimately realizing it was useless. You had to speed walk to catch up to him. He walked out of the forest and towards a building that was pretty much hidden from view. 

Your arm was still extremely warm, due to you being close to the strange man. Hold on. You don't even know his name and yet you followed him to some secluded building where he's probably gonna-

"Dabi." 

The statement broke you out of your train of thought. That was… weirdly coincidental. He suddenly announced his name just as your mind began to wander. "Yeah… I'm Y/l/n Y/n…" 

He just hummed in response, as he continued to lead you through the strange building. Eventually the two of you came to a stop. The both of you stood in front of a door that had been painted red. He didn't even bother knocking and simply opened the door, revealing none other than the number two hero. 

Hawks' head perked up at the sound of the door opening and grinned lazily. "Hey, thanks again for bringing her." He had a glint in his eyes. Like he knew something you didn't. 

"Mhm. I'm expecting my… you piece of shit." Dabi trailed off before there was suddenly emotion in his voice. It definitely wasn't a good one. Had something happened between the two of them? Should you leave? Yeah… you definitely should. Dabi seemed extremely hostile and you were getting bad vibes. You went to take a step back but paused when you felt a hand tightly grip your wrist. 

"Huh?"

"You aren't going anywhere" His eyes were still focused on Hawks. Nobody moved for a moment before suddenly, the hostility drained from the air. Dabi let go of your wrist and walked out of the room. 

"Hawks-"

"Call me Keigo."

"Okay, Keigo… can you explain to me why I'm here?" The past like 5 minutes was a trip from start to finish and you really wanted answers. Keigo patted the spot next to him, so you took a seat and waited for him to start. 

"Your arm still feels really warm despite Dabi no longer being in the room, right?" His feathers ruffled slightly as a breeze drifted through the window. You nodded, unsure of what to think before it hit you. His grin got wider and he removed his jacket. "Well, Y/n, we're soulmates." He held out his left arm for you to see. Low and behold, The exact same tattoo was covering it. 

You felt extremely happy that you'd found your soulmate, but still extremely confused. How did your tattoo still burn in Dabi's presence if Hawks was your soulmate? It didn't make sense. 

"I should probably explain Dabi since he won't do it himself, and you're probably hella confused. Dabi is also our soulmate." 

That… that actually makes sense. You nod as Hawks explains everything and suddenly he gets to a topic that you'd been curious about for a while now.

"Because of his scarring, he no longer has the tattoo. But nature had him covered because he developed a telepathic connection to both of us. Aka, he can very easily read our minds."

That made even more sense. But that doesn't explain why he refused you as a soulmate. You shook off that thought and decided to get to know Hawks a little better. Eventually the two of you came to an agreement. Since you liked to cook, and he liked eating, sometime this month, you'd bake or fry chicken for him. 

It was starting to get dark and your dog probably missed you, so you decided to try to find Dabi. 

Dabi did not want to be found. It took you 30 minutes to finally get to him, and when you did he ignored any small talk you tried to initiate. Eventually he grew tired of your shit. "Look, I'm not your soulmate. Leave me alone."

"Yeah? Bullshit. Hawks explained everything to me. Why are you brushing me off?" 

"I don't fucking need a soulmate. Certainly not someone like you or Hawks." He snarled, turning on his heels to walk away. 

"I don't care about what you think you need. You need us, you can't deny that!" You argued back. You were really starting to get sick of this.

"I can and I will." 

And with that, he walked away. You balled your hands into fists tightly. You would've stayed, but your dog needed someone to take care of him.

•••

Almost a month had gone by since that argument, between you and Dabi and you hadn't heard from him since. Hawks moved in and actively bothered the hell out of your dog. He would complain about him biting his feathers, but you would often catch him sleeping with y/d/n curled up at his side. 

You were in the middle of baking cookies when a crash could be heard from within the house. You grabbed a kitchen knife and went to investigate the sound. It couldn't have been the dog, he was asleep when the crash was heard. Silently walking into the room the sound was heard from, you were kinda shocked to see him. 

He had numerous cuts in various sizes on his body. All of them were bleeding. "I just need somewhere to lay low for a bit, I'll be gone by morning." 

"Dabi…" Your heart ached at the sight of him, but you refused to be someone he could walk all over. "Get out."

It seemed like he was too preoccupied to listen to your thoughts, because your words shocked him. "...Out? Y/n, it's me." 

"I know. But you said you didn't need us, yet here you are." You stood your ground and he stared up at you for a moment. He was analyzing you, seeming like he was studying you for a weakness he could exploit. 

He let out a sigh and spoke under his breath. You raised an eyebrow at this and he cleared his throat before speaking up. "...I'm sorry. I just… don't want the two of you dragged down with me."

"Elaborate." You demanded and he nodded. 

"I'm a villain, you're a civilian, and Hawks is the number two hero. Being associated with me is like killing your chances to actually do something with your life." He hissed out. Seemed like the pain from his wounds was getting to him. 

You helped him up and led him into the bathroom. There, you cleaned up and bandaged his wounds. He studied your face carefully and you worked. "No hard feelings?" 

"No hard feelings. But Keigo should be getting home soon, so you're gonna have to relay your little speech again." You snorted as you finished up. He stood up and walked out of the bathroom with you trailing behind him. 

The two of you walked into the kitchen. You pulled the cookies out of the oven and offered one up as a peace treaty. He rolled his eyes and pecked you on your lips as a peace treaty. 

A minute or so later, Hawks walked in. He noticed Dabi sitting on the counter with a chamomile flower crown on his head. How you managed to get him to wear that is unknown to humanity. 

"Yeah, I'm gonna live here from now on. And no, you won't be topping."

Hawks rolled his eyes as you laughed. "At least you're not being a pussy about soulmates anymore."

"Fuck you too."

[whootwhoot]

»»—— 𝘛𝘛𝘛𝘊 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 2: "𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘴" ——««

Akaashi Keiji x Fem! Reader

author’s notes: holy shit im so sorry for the not posting in such a long time ;-; i had stuff i needed to clean up + i was lazy- anyways this is the second chapter for my first long fic “Third Times The Charm” sorry for the delay ^^ compared to the previous one this one involves more conversations since im not good at writing movements lmAO enjoy uwu

☕ synopsis: Iwaizumi Y/n, a student who goes to Aoba Johsai as well as the second year manager for the school’s male volleyball team. What happens when she sets eyes on the cute setter from Fukurodani?

[ CHAPTER 2 - First texts ] 

“Oh shit.” 

Your phone screen fades to black as you sit there biting your lip. Baffled by how stupid you were, you slam your face into the pillow next to you.

“You had one chance, one chance and you did what? You forgot about it, your stupid brain forgot about it. Are you kidding me?”

You let out a loud groan as you sit back up, the bed sheet wrinkles while you release that breath of air you’ve been holding. Your hands wandered around your phone’s keyboard, too nervous to reply but too anxious not to. 

Akaashi seems like a genuine guy, he doesn’t show off or boast about himself. He’s just always there, the way he smiles when he successfully makes a perfect set, the way his delicate hands toss the ball, his eyes only focusing on you…

“Y/n! Get a grip! What are you even thinking?!” a couple more groans and turns on your bed and you are more awake than before. 

Honestly you never expected a reply from him at all. Sure, the idea of that crossed your mind, maybe more than several times but the thought of it actually happening? There’s no way.  

“It’s like my brain short circuited somehow.” you whisper while sitting up, leaning against the headboard of your mattress. 

Maybe the impression of you from your previous lover affected you more than you want to admit. “You’re annoying.” “Undeserving of love.” “No one can even stand a clingy person like you.” 

Your vision turns blurry as you feel cold tears gently running down your face. You wipe them away, hoping to erase the emotions bubbling up inside of you away too. 

The insecurities you try to push away seem to have formed a wall, a never ending wall that just stacks higher and higher. Just when you thought you have gotten over it, the tiniest shard of the most fragile moment can make you fall back down again.

The creaking sound of your room door makes you jump as your brother peeks his head inside your room. 

“Haji? It’s 2am you, you should be sleeping!” 

“You didn’t close the lights in your room so I thought I’d check up on you.”

“Your eyes look reddish, are you okay?” 

You lift your shoulders in a shrug, Hajime comes into your room and stands right in front of you and folds his arms. 

“Is this the older brother's lecturing time?” you ask while raising your eyebrow

“And for the record, I’m fine. You don’t have to-”

“I think I do.” Hajime stares at you intensely 

“You should've gotten over that jerk ages ago.”

“I know, I know” you release your breath and repeat the sentence he once told you  “The first love cuts the deepest, but not every cut leaves a scar.” 

“And?”

“Well, I don’t know but just… what makes you think I deserve love?”

“Iwaizumi Y/n, you are my sister. No one knows you better than I-”

“DOUBT! THERE’S NO WA-.”

“SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH.”

You laugh in amusement while Hajime licks his lips as his mouth forms a small smile. 

“Ok but the point is, you’ll find someone who’ll love you as much as you love them eventually. No one in the world is undeserving of love.”

You rest your chin on your palm while eyeing and slyly grinning towards your brother.

“Eww since when have you learned to be so cheesy?” 

“It’s called quality love advice, you should try them sometime.”

“YOU DUMBASS”

He ducks just in time to avoid the pillow you flung at him. 

“Stop yelling or the neighbours are going to hear you!”

He continues to laugh while rushing to the door. He stands at your door and gestures his hand at the light switch.

You grab your blanket and nod your head while laying down, the bed softly creaking causing him to chuckle. Hajime closes the lights and leaves your room quietly.

His warm words hang around  in the cold room as you slowly drift off to sleep. 

“Thanks Haiji-nisan.” 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

Hello, it’s me  😓

The girl who was randomly texting you last night 

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

No reply

You furiously type on your phone while staring at the screen intensely in hopes that he sees your messages. 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

I forgot about that photo 😓 😓 , I'm sorry if it seemed weird or uh rude

And uh i just hope that maybe we can get to know each other

Unknown:

Okay.

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

Okaayyy he replied,  so that’s a good sign… right? 

Biting your lips, you place your thumb on the phone to prevent the screen from fading and eventually closing. 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

Soooooooo I’m Iwaizumi Y/n  😇 😇

Unknown:

Akaashi Keiji.

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

“God damn it, he’s such a conversation killer.” you mumble under your breath 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

I’m from Aoba Johsai!! 

Akaashi: 

You’re the spikers younger sister? Iwaizumi?

Y/n:

Well duh  😂

Where are you from? 

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

You ran your hand through your hair, cringing at how hard you're trying. 

Maybe you could just tell him, you know like “Hey hot stuff, I think you attracted me with your stunning good looks so I want to date you.” you mock while pointing finger guns at the mirror. 

Just then, the familiar ringtone of your phone notification rings and you scramble to see who it was. 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

El is best girl:

Heyyyyy, you got the text yet? 

Y/n:

Yeah

El is best girl:

Daaaaaaamn I take it you're disappointed that it wasn't him who appeared on your notification?  😔 😔

Y/n:

NO NO NO OF COURSE NOT 

I love texting you  😘

El is best girl:

Awhh save it lmAO 

Did you text him back?

Y/n:

😤 He’s not giving anything to work with here 

El is best girl: 

Pshhh I mean just ask him how his day was or like 

At least try to keep the conversation going 

Y/n:

I'M TRYING

LIKE  😩

REALLY HARD HERE

El is best girl:

lmAoOOOO

Y/n:

HOLD UP HE JUST TEXTED ME 

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

You hurriedly press into your chat with Akaashi

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Akaashi:

I’m from Fukurodani.

Y/n:

Isn’t that just a few minutes away from my school 😮 ?

Akaashi:

I think so.

Y/n:

Cool 

Anyways

Um how was your day?

“Akaashi is typing”

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

“I can’t decide if he’s typing really slow or he’s sending a long text…” You decide to place your phone down and doodle on your papers while waiting for his reply. 

----

“Bokuto-san, she asked me how my day went.”

“Don’t reply to her anymore! Let her wait for you to text back, it builds a sense of mystery.” 

Bokuto suggests while winking. 

“Bokuto-san it’s not really nice to leave people on read.”

“Akaashi, I’m the ladies man, listen to me and your love life this time wouldn’t end like the last two.”

Akaashi can’t help but grin at his confident “wingman”, it’s no secret his past relationships were… well not that good, but to ask for Bokuto for help? 

“But-”

“Hey you were the one who asked for help when a girl texted you.” “Plus, didn’t you find her cute too? The short girl manager watched our match at camp.”

“What?”

“You were staring when she wasn’t looking, and after the first time you saw her from the bus you were trying to get to know which school bus it was.”

Akaashi’s jaw almost drops at his friend's observant nature that he didn’t know existed, apparently when it comes to love Bokuto isn’t as… well, dumb, as he seems. He tries to form words to deny Bokuto’s accusation but he can’t seem to find a reason to do so. 

“Also just play hard to get, girls love a challenge.”

“...” “Maybe I’ll wait a little longer before I reply to her.”

---- 

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

Um Akaashi?  😅

Uh  😅 😅

You know, if you’re not interested in talking to me you could’ve just said so

Akaashi:

Sorry I was busy, I had volleyball practice.

Y/n:

OH I’M SO SORRY 

I didn’t know you have practice on weekends ;-; 

Akaashi:

It’s all right.

Y/n:

Anyways how’s practice^^ was it fun?

Akaashi:

Yeah, it was like usual.

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

“HE’S” “SUCH” “A” “DRY” “TEXTER” “AAAAAAAAAAAA”

You scream inside your head while holding yourself back from banging your head on the table. 

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

Y/n:

Do you think we can maybe, meet up?  👉 👈

Like 

Uh  😶

Akaashi:

Date?

Y/n:

NO NO  😲 

I mean we never met of course not haahahahaha 

Akaashi:

Meeting up just to get to know each other then?

Y/n:

Ah yes that’s it, like a gathering

If you don’t mind 

Akaashi:

I’ll see if I’m available. 

Y/n:

Cool! Is next Sunday fine?

Akaashi:

We’ll see. 

Y/n:

...

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

----

╔═════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ══════╗

El is best girl:

Wowww playing hard to get huh 

He sure is a tricky one

Y/n:

I don’t think I like where this is going

El is best girl:

It lowkey kinda ruins the impression you have of him huh 

Ah well 

It’s probably his first time or something

Have a little hope  😔  

Y/n:

Well 

I have one week to prepare 

HAVE FAITH  😍 😍

El is best girl:

Hell yeah 

Any thoughts on where you’re taking him 

If you don’t I mayyyyy have suggestionsssssssss 

AHHAAHAHAHAHA

Y/n:

God damn it El 

We’ll just be talking okay 

I do have a place in mind though

El is best girl:

Go on

Y/n:

You know the ice cream shop? At the street? 

El to is best girl:

Ohh an ice cream shop 

Very intriguing  🥺

Don’t tell me it’s because of that article 

Y/n:

I mean

El is best girl:

LMAO you 

You seriously believe you can tell someone’s personality by their favourite ice cream flavour?

Grow a brain Y/n 

Y/n:

You’re one to talk  🙄 🙄

Anyways I’m off to prepare dinner for tonight

El is best girl:

Owh Iwaizumi-kun teaching you to cook again

Let’s hope you don’t bring the kitchen down with you okay dear

Y/n:

Sometimes I wonder how we’re friends

El is best girl:

Nah it’s simple really

You looooooooove me uwu

Y/n:

Ew

Go away 

El is best girl:

😳 😳 😳

╚═════ ∘◦ ❉ ◦∘ ══════╝

- end of chapter 2 -

« masterlist / previous / next »

(author’s end notes: i hope yall enjoyed this lmAO its pretty long ^^ anyways im writing their texts from y/n’s POV so the nicknames she gives her contacts might change owo)

[ashdumpsterpile]

ao3

It’s a sexy, sexy day when Beckett gets her promotion to the Cerritos.

She’s been a lower decks officer on the USS Vulker for six slutty years and it’s been the closest thing to paradise that she’s experienced since that time Marvin tried to snort Dorito dust and ended up summoning an ancient wish giving god when he sneezed it out on an alien substance Dr. L’Vertiss was analyzing as a possible cure for the parasites that were infecting the Academy.

Being a lower decks officer meant three things: contraband, causal hookups and constant disrespect of Starfleet Protocol. Everything Beckett wanted in a career. Fortunately, the Vulker was the bottom of the barrel when it came to starships, so they weren’t exactly looking too close to her record. Which was fine by Beckett, who was trying to fly under the radar ever since her mother had demoted her so hard, she’d ended up on a whole other ship, quadrants away from the Cerritos.

Thanks Mom.

So anyway, it’s a sexy, sexy day when her mother calls her, mainly because she’d just gotten out of alien jail and gotten a cool tat out of the deal, but also because she hasn’t heard for her mother in a while and, okay, maybe she misses her just a little bit. Even if she’s probably calling for Not Good Reasons.

Beckett flips her comm open and steels herself to get yelled at for whatever.

“I’m retiring,” are not the words Beckett is expecting. She squints suspiciously at her comm, vaguely concerned that a shapeshifter has replaced her mom.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not.”

“Beckett—”

“You love being Captain and sitting in the chair and telling Ransom to stop giving himself sexy eyes in every reflective surface! Why would you retire?”

Her mom pinches the bridge of her nose, looking tired. “This is why I wanted to tell you in person—”

“Tell me what in person—”

“—Shaxs is dead.”

Beckett stops walking. Blinks down at her comm. Once. Twice. “What.”

“So is half the crew. This is less of me retiring and more of me…cutting my losses before Starfleet officially demotes my ass.”

Beckett’s day is slowly turning into an unsexy day. “And you’re just letting them!? You’ve been a Captain for what—”

“Beck—”

“Fifteen years and a Starfleet Officer for even longer! They can’t demote you—”

“They can and they will. Look,” Mom sighs. “They’re putting together a new crew as soon as the Cerritos is given the clear. There’s barely anyone left from the main crew who even wants to stay after this mess.”

“What happened?”

“That’s classified,” Mom says, which Beckett takes to mean hack my official report if you want to know. “And don’t go digging for it,” she adds.

Beckett resists pouting, only because the situation is so. Weirdly serious.

“I’m not calling you because of that, however. Ransom is being transferred to the Titan. It’s only thanks to his initiative and Officer Boimler’s quick thinking that we’re even alive right now.”

The sound of the warp core, buzzing in the background, seems too loud, all of the sudden. Beckett swallows, feeling sick.

“Officer Boimler is being promoted to Captain. I’ve recommended you as his First Officer.”

Beckett doesn’t realize she’s laughing until she starts choking from it. A group of ensigns, clustered at the end of the hallway she’s standing in, give her weird looks before quickly vacating the area.

“That,” she says, once she’s caught her breath, “is the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

Mom gives Beckett her Captain™ face.

“I’m an ensign. Lower decks. Bottom of the barrel.” Beckett continues, grinning. “Not officer material.”

“Top of your class. Present in the Dominion War. Only gets demoted because she cares more about people than rules.” Mom gives a smug smile. “Perfect match for the Cerritos.”

There’s a weird, hot pressure in the corner of Beckett’s eyes. “Mom.”

“Boimler has a stick up his ass, he could use someone who loosens him up a little. Pays less attention to protocol,” Mom adds.

Beckett shakes her head, smiling. “I’d give him a heart attack a week in.”

“I’m counting on it. At least think about it, will you? And for god’s sake, go shower. I can see the filth on you, light years away.”

Beckett laughs, but this time it’s real. “Yeah Mom, I will.” Then, “I’m glad you like. Didn’t die or whatever.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “Thank you, problem child. So am I. I’ll take to you later.”

The connection blacks out, leaving Beckett staring at her own dim reflection in the screen.

She does look like shit. Maybe a shower isn’t a bad idea after all.

_____

The letter stays in her inbox for six unslutty days before she finally clicks on it. Turns out, even though Mom is no longer a Captain, her recommendation must’ve meant something because there it is, a nice, shiny, transfer request.

It’s signed Captain Brad Boimler and that is where Beckett draws the line because she is not working for someone named Brad.

Maybe if you had been on the Cerritos, Shaxs wouldn’t have died, a snide voice sounds in her brain. Beckett immediately shuts that voice down because that’s fucked up and she didn’t go through four years of Starfleet mandated therapy to still be fucked up.

(She’s still kinda fucked up, but that’s okay.)

Dad finally starts spamming her inbox—and she really wants to know how Mom got him on her side, they’ve barely spoken since the divorce—so Beckett, with great reluctance, reviews the transfer request again.

It’s bullshit.

“This is bullshit,” she tells Dad.

“I know, but if I have to get one more message from your mother, demanding why you haven’t taken the position—”

“Okay, fine I’ll do it, but only because I want to see why Mom promoted Brad to Captain.”

_____

Mom either promoted Brad to Captain because he was that good of a suck up or because his hair is super distracting. Either way, Beckett is two seconds away from saying fuck this shit and demoting her own ass back to the Vulker.

He walked through the door like a minute ago and she’s already had him pegged. His clothes are neatly pressed, hair perfectly coiffed, and his hands nervously flutter around, as if he’s unsure what he should be doing with them. He can’t have been an officer longer than a few months before he was promoted Captain, that’s for sure. Beckett literally has no idea what Mom was thinking when she gave him the chair.

She waves him down toward her table.

Brad takes one look at her unbuttoned collar, nonregulation boots, and unkempt hair and sighs. “Captain Freeman recommended you?” his voice is disbelieving.

“That’s the word, my dude.” Beckett leans back, eyeing him over the half empty glass of whiskey she’s been nursing. “Captain Brad, take a seat,” she says, in her Serious voice.

Captain Brad sits across from her. “It’s Captain Boimler, actually.”

“Brad’s fine.”

His eye twitches. “Officer Mariner—”

“Ensign,” she interrupts, cheerfully.

Brad pauses. Blinks. She gestures to the single pin in her collar.

“Oh. Wait. What?”

“Yeah, I was lower decks on the Vulker before Captain Freeman emotionally blackmailed me into meeting with you.”

She snaps her fingers at the bartender and gestures toward Brad while she waits for the man in question to process the fact that a lower decks ensign was being offered a First Officer promotion.

It, surprisingly, takes only a few seconds before he bounces back. “I didn’t have time to look at your file,” he admits, sounding a bit frustrated. “I’m usually more on top of my work but—”

“Don’t sweat it, Bradthaniel. If you’d read my file, I seriously doubt you’d have agreed to meet with me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You kill an Admiral or something?”

“Or something,” she agrees, mind flashing back to all of the redacted and classified sections of her file. The bartender places a glass of purple liquid in front of Brad and refills Beckett’s drink. Beckett salutes him lazily with her glass. “I’m more interested in you. How’d you land a captaincy at, what, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-nine,” he grits out, as if that still isn’t weirdly young to be that high in the chain of command. “How’d you get Freeman to recommend you?”

“Oh, I didn’t,” she flips her ponytail obnoxiously. “She called me.”

“Sure.”

“What, am I not ‘First Officer Material?’” she mocks, wrapping finger-quotes around her words.

He rolls his eyes. “No offense—”

“Complete offense already taken—”

“But you are the least promotable person I’ve ever met.”

Beckett grins. “Now you’re getting it. We got a Bridge Crew yet?”

“I—” he blinks at her for a moment. “I’m still trying to put the rest of the Bridge Crew together, but it’s been insane lining up schedules and—”

“Leave it to me.”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s my job. You manage me, I manage the crew. I’m basically a glorified secretary now.”

Brad looks like he’s seeing an error screen in front of his eyes. “So, you’re taking the job,” he concludes, voice hilariously defeated.

“Someone needs to make sure my M—uh, Captain Freeman’s ship doesn’t blow up.”

“I handled it fine the first time.” He rolls his eyes carelessly, which kind of pisses her off.

She gives him a smile. Knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Tell that to the 567 casualties.”

His face goes very pale. An incredible feat considering his already milky complexion. She can’t tell if he’s angry or about to cry. “Shut up. You weren’t even there, how would you know—"

“Yeah, you were there, so why the fuck didn’t you do something?” she hisses. All she can see is Shaxs’ scarred face in the back her head. She’d been a pain in the Bridge Crew’s asses, but most of them had been genuinely upset when she’d been transferred.

“You’re a pain in my ass, but you’ve got guts,” Shaxs had admitted once, looking impressed, which was his way of saying you’re fucking adopted go do 200 pushups.

Beckett has seen a lot of death in her 26 years, but this one hurts because this is her Mom’s family. Half of them are dead and she wasn’t there and fucking Brad was.

Fucking Brad is still staring at her, eyes unreadable, mouth set in a hard line. He snatches up the file and flips it open, fingers deftly shuffling through the printed-out paper documents she’d complied last night. “I’m overseeing ship repairs tomorrow. 0500 hours. Be there.”

“Wait what?” Beckett hears herself say, aware that she’s gaping at him.

“I’ll have to run these through background checks before I can approve them for transfer, and I’d like to meet with them in person before I make any decisions.”

“Dude.”

“What,” he snaps, eyes meeting hers defiantly.

“You’re seriously approving my transfer?”

“Do you not want me to?” his brow furrows in confusion.

“You called me the ‘least promotable person’ like ever! I just like insulted the fuck out of you!” she whisper-shrieks. “You’re supposed to get mad and tell me to fuck off back to whatever corner of the galaxy Freeman dragged my ass out of, not make me your First Fucking Officer.”

“Well I’m not. Congratulations First Officer Mariner, you’re expected to report for duty—”

“Oh fuck you—”

“On the Cerritos three weeks from now during her relaunch.”

Beckett is on the verge of stabbing this bastard in the eye with his own stylus. “But why?”

Brad pauses, halfway out of his seat, hands still clenched tightly around the file. “Why what?”

“Don’t be fucking coy, why are you approving my transfer, you absolute nugget,” she hisses.

“Captain Freeman recommended you.”

“Are you seriously that much of a suck up—”

“The Cerritos isn’t that great of a starship, but Captain Freeman is a good captain,” Brad interrupts. “We went through some real shit together. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. The least I can do is honor her last request.”

And with that, Brad stands up and sweeps out of the bar.

“Dramatic exits are my thing!” she shouts after him.

_____

She’s pissed, mostly because Brad had the actual audacity to approve her transfer, but also because how fucking dare he be an actual nice person?

Okay, maybe not a nice person, she decides, as she crawls out of bed at 4 fucking thirty am. Morning people are hell spawn, but he’s a decent person.

Whatever, it’s not as if she’s going to start liking him or trying to be his friend or whatever.

“If it doesn’t work out, I can get myself demoted in like two days,” she decides, out loud, tying her hair out of her eyes. Her reflection stares back at her, tired.

So of course, Brad is annoyingly awake.

“Of course you’re a fucking morning person,” she mutters, falling into step behind him.

“Haven’t had your coffee yet?” he snips back, eyes glued to his data padd.

She glares at his back, but makes no comment.

By the time Beckett is fully awake and functioning, she’s already dissociated three separate times and had a mini panic attack twice.

The ship is FUCKED.

The primary hull has been completely ripped apart, like something took a large bite out of the side, and both propulsion units are missing. Beckett peaks over Brad’s shoulder and gets a good look at the interior damage.

“You guys ejected the warp core?” she shrieks in his ear. “Dude that is so badass.”

Brad jumps and pushes her off him. “Wha—get off me, what are you doing—”

Beckett snatches the padd away from him and begins to rapidly scan through the damage reports. “Shit, it’s going to take weeks before we’re back in space. What’s the ETA on getting a new core in? Oooh, we should also add reflective panels, I hear the Enterprise is so bright, nothing ever gets done on there.”

Brad snatches his padd back. “Yeah, I think we can pass on that one.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Being a Starfleet Officer isn’t supposed to be fun—although I do find enjoyment in managing and organizing information—”

“Oh yawn, you’re a pencil pusher.”

“Did you just say ‘yawn’ out loud?”

“Do you need your hearing checked, Captain Brad?”

“It’s Boimler,” he hisses.

“Captain Boimler Brad,” she corrects, easily.

He stomps off, all huffy, but whatever. It’s not her fault Captain Brad doesn’t have a sense of humor.

_____

It takes about a month for the Cerritos to get back into working condition. Beckett would be impressed with how quickly Starfleet is able to get her back in commission, except for the fact that, well. It’s Starfleet. They’re great at what they do, even if what they do isn’t so great.

By then she’s already sent her Dad over seventeen furious voicemails and threatened her mother with six different kinds of legal action if she doesn’t “pick up her goddamn fucking comm.”

Mom does pick up her call and she does agree to meet with her.

“This is bullshit,” she says, after hugging the ever-living shit out of her favorite parent. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

Mom rolls her eyes. It’s like looking in a mirror. “Kiddo, I’ve never been able to make you do anything.”

This was probably true, but Beckett needs someone to blame. “He’s worse than you. Or Dad. Mom he likes paperwork. He’s a morning person. Yesterday he asked me my opinion on the Oxford comma.”

Mom makes a complicated face. Beckett suspects she’s trying not to laugh. “That does sound like Boimler,” she admits, sighing. “Please tell me you’re playing nice.”

Beckett decides not to tell her about the whole “I was a bitch to him because I have no idea how to grieve” deal. “Hey, I can be nice.”

“Hmm.”

“Okay, maybe I’m giving him a hard time, but come on! You could have chosen anyone to promote. Hell, you should have picked Ransom, not transferred him!”

“Ransom doesn’t have the head to make tough calls.”

“And Brad does?”

Mom gives her a look that says she knows something Beckett doesn’t. Beckett hates that look. “I think he knows what he’s doing when he forgets he’s in charge.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means give him a chance before you decided to drop him in a wormhole,” is the dry response she’s given.

Beckett makes no promises.

_____

The Cerritos leaves Starbase 375 on an uneventful day. About eighty percent of the original crew has been completely replaced, most notably, the Bridge Crew. Senior staff is now complied of Officer’s Captain Freeman had promoted before her resignation, but there’s are a few that Beckett herself has recommended. Seems like Brad had actually taken a look at the file.

Beckett takes her seat next to Captain Brad and prepares herself for the madness that’s going to commence from being First Officer on the lamest ship in Starfleet.

The Cerritos has been in deep space for three boring, uneventful weeks.

The only fun Beckett has found in any of it is by torturing Brad. And she’s not even trying! Beckett just has one of those personalities that rubs well-organized people the wrong way. Yes, sometimes she thrives off chaos, and yeah she does things in her own time, but it’s just who she is.

Brad doesn’t seem to appreciate any of her suggestions, calling most of them illegal and dangerous and being all shouty about it.

He’s also a huge stickler for regulations and shit. It’s way, way worse than working with Mom. Beckett’s about to start climbing walls from the sheer boredom of being a First Officer. The only thing she does anymore is sleep, paperwork and fight with Brad, rinse, repeat.

And then she meets Lieutenant D’Vana Tendi.

The first thing Beckett thinks when she runs into the hyperactive Orion is that if Dr. T’Ana had retired along with the rest of the senior crew, Tendi could have easily picked up the mantle. The girl’s a fucking prodigy, mad scientist level of genius.

The second thing Beckett thinks when she meets Tendi is I am way gayer than I thought I was.

“Hey, you’re Mariner!” Tendi chirps, excitedly bouncing up to her. Dr. T’Ana, who had been discussing something medical and boring with the Orion, groans and stomps off the minute she lays eyes on Beckett. Which, rude. Beckett didn’t want to talk to her anyway.

“Oh nice, my reputation proceeds me,” Beckett grins, brushing off her hurt. “As does yours, Lieutenant Tendi.”

Tendi’s cheeks turn a little blue.

There’s an amused snort behind her. “Already flirting with the locals, Mariner?” a familiar voice dryly asks.

Beckett’s mouth drops open. “Rutherford?”

Rutherford, who was messing anxiously with a cyber implant over his eye that he definitely did not have three years ago, grins at her. “Long time, no see!”  

Tendi whirls around. “You know Mariner?”

“She used to be lower decks with me,” he explains.

“Yeah, back in the day,” Beckett agrees, examining her nails. “It was pretty badass.”

Rutherford snorts and gives her a look which clearly conveys I know why you were transferred dumbass. Beckett gives him a look back and hopes it communicates to shut the fuck up.

“You driving Boimler crazy yet?” Rutherford asks, instead of spilling her dirty secrets.

Tendi does this cute snort/giggle thing behind her Padd. “Like you haven’t been present for his ‘daily complain about Marin—‘”

Rutherford lightly kicks Tendi who quite promptly shuts up.

Beckett frowns suspiciously at them.

“Anyway, it’s great to see you Mariner!” Rutherford continues. “Congrats on making First Officer by the way,” he adds in a tone of voice that implies that she will be telling him exactly how she had landed the position later.

“I guess my record speaks for itself.” Beckett smirks.

“Uh hu,” he eyes her disbelievingly. “See you at the bar after our shifts?”

Beckett sighs. “I’ll have to pass. Brad gave me so much fucking paperwork to do that I’ll never get a day off again.”

“Look at you following the rules!” Rutherford punches the air. “I knew you had it in you. I guess I’ll see you around!” He hops off the bio-bed and heads off toward Engineering.

Tendi frowns after him. “At least he still sounds like himself, right?”

That’s a weird thing to say. “Huh?”

The Orion blinks up at her, startled. “Oh, you don’t know? He was in an accident. Full year of his memory completely wiped. He remembers Brad, and you, I guess, but.” She looks down, defeated.

“Oh.” Beckett feels squeamish at the sudden emotion present in the conversation. “That, uh, that really sucks.”

“Yeah.” Tendi shakes herself. “Well, enough buffer time, I’d better get back to work. It was great meeting you, Mariner!”

“Likewise, Lieutenant Tendi,” Beckett flashes her most charming grin. “See you on the Bridge?”

Tendi glances back at Dr. T’Ana, who’s impatiently glaring at them. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

_____

The next few weeks go by in rapid succession. It’s either very very boring and leaves Mariner missing her life as a lower decks officer or it’s incredibly fast pace with weird shit that leaves her chasing the next adrenaline rush.

But of course most days it’s just Brad yelling at her.

“If you could have your report for Second Contact with the Diququeue’s by tomorrow morning, that would be great.”

“Uh huh.”

“Also, I need you to stop trying to pet J’viv, his culture finds it offensive.”

“Sure thing.”

 “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?!

_____

“Officer Mariner could you—what the fuck are you wearing.”

“Oh yeah, the Padroiques gave me this cool jacket.”

“I don’t even—what—Mariner, go take it off!”

“But it’s pink!”

“It’s putting hair all over my Bridge!”

“That’s not hair it’s—”

 “Oh my god just get rid of it.”

_____

“What the fuck was that!”

“That was me. Doing my job. First Officer stuff.”

“That was you practically starting a war with the Gorgonvians. Again.”

“Dude, their government is super corrupt!”

“That’s their problem! Stop antagonizing alien Ambassadors!”

_____

“Why would you tell them to go fuck themselves?!”

“They pissed me off!”

“I actually can’t handle you right now. Get off my Bridge and go irritate someone else.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

_____

“This isn’t working,” she tells Rutherford, snatching at his drink. He gives it up with a sigh and wearily watches her down the purple liquid.

“Maybe start listening to him for once? He is the captain.”

“And that isn’t weird to you? Dude, didn’t he start out lower decks?”

This gets an eye roll out of her usually positive friend. “We all started lower decks. That’s how Starfleet works.”

Beckett decides not to mention that it was definitely not how it worked for her, as that explanation would include revealing that she’s. Well. A Starfleet brat.

“Besides, he’s been a Lieutenant for about a year now and he really handled the Parkled crisis really well. Not that I remember,” he adds, looking a little downcast.

Beckett wrinkles her nose. “Wait, the Cerritos was taken down by Parkleds? No fucking way.” She pulls her data padd out and began tapping away.

“Please don’t hack any mission re—”

“Too late.”

“—ports. Oh shit.” Rutherford rubs at his human eye with one hand. “See this? This is why you’re driving Boimler up a wall.”

Beckett glares at him. “Brad needs to chill out.”

“You need to chill out,” he corrects and then winces. “Sorry, that came out mean. I mean, maybe just try being nice to him? Like what’s the worst that could happen?”

Beckett’s eyes narrow.

_____

“Here, Jen made coffee.”

“If you’re trying to poison me—”

“Why would I poison you?!”

Brad gives her a deadpan stare.

“With coffee!” she adds, for good measure. “I would never defile the gods’ nectar!”

“Ugh, fine,” he snatches at the mug. “Just please stop shouting.”

_____

“I don’t get it!” Beckett rants to Tendi, who’s frowning down at her data padd like it holds the secrets of the universe. “I’m being like super chill for once and he’s still mad!”

Rutherford, who’s doing something cool and science-y to the transporter pad, glances up. “Your version of chill involves way more stabbing than most peoples.”

Tendi nods, eyes still glued to her padd. “Maybe try not challenging Klingons to duels and Boimler will calm down.”

“Uh, he challenged me and then was a sore loser. Not my fault. And I bought Brad a milkshake afterwards to make up for it!”

“Boimler did say that it was unfairly delicious,” Tendi says, pensively.

“I don’t think that was a milkshake,” Rutherford mumbles.

“Point is, why doesn’t he like me yet! Everyone likes me except lame people!”

“So, you don’t think Boimler is lame anymore,” Tendi inquires, grinning at her.

“Shut up, he’s the lamest.”

Rutherford and Tendi share a conspiring look. “Sure.”

_____

So, Brad almost dies. And so do Tendi and Rutherford, because it seems that even though Brad is captain now, apparently the three of them are a tight little trio who’ve been getting up to no good the whole time Beckett was on the Vulker.

That explains a lot actually.

Anyway, there’s some Away Mission nonsense and Beckett just happens to be on the Cerritos because Brad claims that she’s too high strung and that he hasn’t had enough coffee to handle her.

Whatever.

Some shit goes down—again, Beckett isn’t there and doesn’t bother to find out the exact details until much much later—that involves Rutherford and Brad getting infected by some alien disease and suddenly Tendi is dealing with an outright war between the local Camisitites and the Federation and by the time Beckett gets their asses beamed back onto the Cerritos, it’s almost too late.

Rutherford is going to be fine, thanks to his cyborg implants but Brad isn’t looking too hot which means Beckett is Acting Captain.

Fucking great.

It takes her maybe two, three days tops to settle everything out with the irate Camisitite nation and find a cure, but it all works out in the end.

“If you want a Missions Report you can have it after I’ve taken a shower,” she informs a groggy Brad. He blinks up at her from his bio-bed, taking in her disheveled hair, bloodstained shirt, and exhausted expression.

“…cool,” he mutters. “Go away.”

She scoffs at him, dragging a seat up. “I’m good here, actually.”

Brad wakes himself up enough to give her a half-hearted scowl. “Do you ever do as you’re told?”

“Not really, no.” She examines her nails. “Your fault for signing my transfer.”

“So this has all been punishment? Because a good person talked you into a nice, well paying job that I signed off on. I don’t get you.”

“I don’t get you,” she retorts. “Command fucking sucks. It was way cooler when I was an ensign.”

“But you’re really good at it,” he says, surprised. “You’re smart and badass and like way better at everything than everyone else.”

“Wait what?”

“You could have everything! And you’re just wasting it? Do you want me to kick you off ship?”

“Maybe!”

“Well I’m not going to!”

“Why not?!”

He glares at her sullenly. “Figure it out yourself, if you’re so smart.”

_____

“I can’t figure it out!” she snaps, resuming her wild pacing.

Rutherford, who looks like his unending patience is finally, for once, running out, sighs.

(People seem to be doing that a lot around her recently.)

“Figure what out, Mariner?”

“Why did the bastard make me his First Officer?”

“Maybe he’s hot for you,” Tendi suggests, eyebrows wiggling up and down. Beckett shoves her face away.

“Shut up, no way.”

“Just ask him?” Rutherford suggests.

“I did! Like twice! First time he gave me stupid answer and second time he deflected.”

“He gave it to you because he likes you, dummy,” Rutherford says, giving her a friendly shove. “Not like that,” he adds, as Tendi began make kissy faces. “But like. He thinks you’re cool.”

“He thinks I’m cool,” Beckett parrots, unimpressed.

“You are pretty cool,” Tendi agrees. “You like kick everyone’s ass and are super smart and you have street cred.”

“Street cred,” Beckett repeats, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, we’ll go with that.”

“Point is,” Rutherford went on. “He thinks you’re cool. And you know what? I think you think he’s pretty cool.”

Beckett makes a face. “I do not, take that back.”

“You think it’s impressive that Freeman promoted him and it has you all pissy because she threw you off the ship, but you secretly think he’s smart and you think it’s funny that he gets all tied up in knots over protocol,” Rutherford summarizes.

“What are you, my therapist?” Beckett snaps.

“I’m you’re friend. And I think you could be his too if you tried?”

Beckett groans, dropping her face into Tendi’s shoulder. “Fine maybe you’re a little bit right. He hates me though.”

“Trust me, he doesn’t hate you,” Rutherford says, grin in her voice. “You annoy the fuck out of him, sure. But he likes you plenty or he’d have gotten rid of you already.”

“So what do I do?” she mumbles into Tendi’s uniform.

“Go apologize, dumbass,” Tendi advises, shrugging her off her shoulder.

“Ugh.”

_____

She finds him laying on one of the Observation Deck floors, a half-drained bottle of blue substance beside him. Before she can change her mind, she flops down into a seated position next to him. They’re drifting through hyperspace, creating that weird blue effect as their ship speeds past distant stars.

Beckett takes a swig of his contraband, grimacing at the bitter taste.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he says, staring blankly out into space.

Beckett feels surprise at his admission—yeah, this man is a bit of a wreck, but he seemed to the type of guy whose contingency plans had contingency plans—but decides not to show it.

“Congrats dumbass, neither to the rest of us.”

Brad frowns. “You always know what you’re doing.”

This actually coaxes a surprised laugh out of her. She collapses backward, laying on the cold deck beside him. “That’s where you’re definitely wrong, dude. I never know what I’m going to do until I do it. Could be committing arson today, could adopt one of those turtle-puppies we saw on Karklon III last week, the list goes on. We’re Starfleet Officers, we have to be flexible about shit,” she adds, turning her head look at him.

He continues to stare straight ahead of him. “I think you make a better Captain.”

Okay, so he’s in a brutally honest mood. She can chill with that.

“I think I’d get us killed in a week,” she counters, truthfully. “I’m way too impulsive to be in charge. For every badass rule breaker, we need pencil pushing stickler, ya know?”

“So what,” Brad turns his head to the side, squints at her skeptically. “Now you want to work together?”

She drops her chin into the palm of her hand, leaning on her elbow. “I’m just saying, maybe I could get myself demoted back to the fucking Vulkner again and maybe you resign your position and become one of those sad sad researchers that get eaten by their own plants and Starfleet discovers your remains six years later when they have to find a cure for a face-eating parasite or whatever. Or,” she continues, before he can interrupt, all pissy, “maybe you need to loosen up, and maybe I need to suck up to command a bit more.”

It’s the closest to an apology as he’s going to get from her.

(He’s been kind of a bitch too, and they both know it.)

Brad turns back to the window—if you can call the entire wall being made of glass a window—and sighs.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot,” he muses—his version of an apology as well, she notes—and then adds, “I can always demote you.”

“Ha! You couldn’t last a day in the chair without me and you know it,” she replies, smugly. “You pretend like you want constant order and everything to be perfectly organized and on schedule, but I know the truth.”

“Really now?” he dryly says. “And what’s that.”

She grins, leaning in. “You’re secretly a rebel.”

“Fuck off.”

“Pffft, I saw your eye twitching during our report to Admiral Travional. You were practically begging me to spill my coffee on him.”

“Okay, I did not tell you to do that—”

“Oh, and that sexy, sexy moment when Tendi punched Captain Lohnersen out? You never once wrote her up for—”

“He was harassing her, I wasn’t going to write her up when he clearly was disrespecting—”

Beckett dangles the bottle of ale in front of him. “Why Captain Brad. Is this. Gasp! Contraband?!”

Brad laughs, snatching the bottle away from her. “I found it in your quarters.”

“And just what were you doing in my quarters, my good sir?”

“I’ll have you know I was dropping off paperwork. That you still haven’t done. From three weeks ago.”

“And you just swiped it off my desk. Tsk, tsk.”

“Confiscated it,” he corrects, still grinning up at her. “For research purposes, of course.”

“Of course.” Beckett grabs the bottle again. Takes another swig. “Surprised you’re still conscious. This shit can blind you, ya know.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grabs the bottle back. “So maybe slow down.”

She rolls her eyes because she has clearly proven numerous times that she can hold her liquor but decides not the start anything. It’s weird, getting along with Brad, but not…unpleasant.

“Hey,” she says, poking his shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

His face looks pinched. “Thanks for not letting me die,” he replies, suddenly wary.

She scoffs. “Like I’d let anyone die under my watch.”

Brad sits up. “You mean like I did.”

“Oh.” Beckett blinks at him. “Oh shit. Dude, I was just being an asshole then, I didn’t mean it.”

“But you weren’t wrong. If I had been smarter or—”

“Dude, you cannot think like that,” Beckett grabs his shoulders and makes uncomfortably steady eye-contact. “Even if I had been on the Cerritos when shit went down, I don’t think I could have saved him. You guys were on a time crunch with no backup and I’m surprised Rutherford survived the explosion.”

Brad’s eyebrows furrow. “Wha—did you read Freeman’s Mission Report? I told you to stop—”

She waves him off.  “Doesn’t matter. Point is, stop beating yourself up over it. And stop letting assholes like me make you feel bad,” she adds, as an afterthought.

“Only if you stop challenging people to duels in the Jefferies Tubes,” he counters.

“Deal,” she lies. “You should get in on some of those duels, though. You seem like a sword guy.”

“I can’t even tell if that’s a euphemism or not,” he mumbles. “Are we cool?”

“The coolest,” she confirms. “At least until you see my Missions Report.”

Brad sighs deeply and flops back down. “I’m not even worrying about that right now.”

“Good, because I definitely broke like every protocol ever.”

“Of course you did.”

“And I told the Camisitite’s to call me Captain Mariner, First of her Name.”

“Oh my god—”

“And I challenged their leader to a duel.”

“Mariner what the fuck.”  

[navykangaroo59]

Crushes

Wolfstar (Sirius Black x Remus Lupin)

Word count: 4k

Warnings: no warnings apply :)

Summary: Remus Lupin didn’t ‘do’ crushes. He could count the number of people he’d ever fancied in his 19 years of life on one hand. That is, until university comes around.

Notes:

Hey so I wrote this in a day and read through it a few times, but that's it, so if there's mistakes I apologise.

In my mind, I've basically plonked the main characters into a University setting, and added new characters who aren't in the canon. Just the main ones. Cool.

Also there's lots of flashbacks in this, so I've tried to differentiate with ---, but if it's confusing let me know!

Scroll down to read :))

Remus Lupin didn’t ‘do’ crushes.

He could count the number of people he’d ever fancied in his 19 years of life on one hand.

Of course, he thought when he’d officially declared himself “Not Entirely StraightTM” it would all start to make sense: he’d be instantly attracted to people and understand what all his mates would go on about, waxing lyrical about their newest crush and how perfect they were. James said he instantly knew Lily was ‘The One’ (James’ words, not Remus’) when he first laid eyes on her, and Remus could not for the life of him understand it.

--- “… and then she turned around me and asked for a pen! Me, guys! SHE approached ME! Why is nobody as excited about this as I am???” ---

James had first seen Lily when he was round at Remus’. She’d walked into the kitchen, and James had gone completely slack-jawed. Remus introduced them. “Oh yeah, James, this is my flatmate, Lily.”

James had just stared.

Remus elbowed him in the side. “What the f-. Right. Yeah. Hi. James. Lily. Hi Lily. James.”

Lily gave a confused smile, before going back to the kettle.

When she’d left, James turned to Remus. “Dude. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

--- Sirius chuckled and slung an arm over his best mate’s shoulders. “Nah mate, we’re all over the moon for you – right guys?”

“Yeah, but I hate to see you if she ever says yes to going out with you. We’d have to give you CPR.” Remus replied drily. Sirius barked back a laugh and beamed at Remus; Remus ignored the warm feeling in his stomach. ---

The first time he’d fancied someone, he was 7 years old. Rebecca was clever, he remembered that much, and she had long hair that she wore in a single braid down the back of her head. He remembered always wanting to make her laugh and feeling so special when they were in the same group for reading. But, because he was 7 and a literal child, nothing happened. They grew apart, went to different secondary schools. They were friends on Facebook, and that was about it.

--- “Guys can you please shut up? I’m trying to get this done for half 1!” Peter was frantically typing God-knows-what on his laptop, looking slightly manic behind the eyes.

Sirius arched an eyebrow and showed him his watch. “Uh, mate, you know it’s now 2, right?”

“Ah fuck’s sake I’m gonna miss my fucking seminar fuck, fuck, fuck.” Peter quickly shoved his laptop away and ran out of the café, before turning back and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair. “See you guys later!” He called, causing a few people around them to turn their heads and tut. The others chuckled at their hopeless friend, and James started talking to Sirius about some football match or something. Remus took another sip of his tea.

---

The second time he’d liked someone, he was 14. He remembered desperately wanting to be friends with the new boy, because he was cool and clever and sarcastic and tall, and Remus liked how his hair flopped over his glasses. Remus liked him because he was unapologetically himself – he had a confidence to like what he liked without fear of ridicule. Remus wasn’t used to that. Like most teenagers, he was desperately self-conscious: tall, lanky and covered with scars from constant surgeries while growing up. Looking back, it’s clear that Remus clearly fancied Liam, but at the time he’d thought it was nothing more than a friend-crush. But they were 14, and Remus didn’t know he could like the same gender, so nothing happened.

--- “Remus?” Sirius asked, rudely forcing Remus out of his daydream.

“Hm?”

Sirius gave him an affectionate chuckle. “I said, are you doing anything tonight?”

“Oh. Nah, not really. I have some reading that needs doing before Monday, so I might head to the library when you guys head out.”

“Oh, Remus how we could all aspire to be you…”

Remus rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, I ask because we’re having a party at our flat tonight, and you’re coming.” Sirius beamed. 

Remus sighed. He wasn’t a huge fan of parties – too many people in too small a space – but he knew his friends loved them. For them, it was an excuse to drink and socialise, but he always ended up the one looking after James or Peter when they drank too much. 

Sirius smiled at him again. Remus could never resist that smile. “Fine.”

“Also, if you wanted to bring Lily that would also be very cool and very good…” James trailed off, looking down at his coffee. He knew that if James wasn’t hosting this party tonight, he’d be begging to come round to Remus’ in the off chance that Lily would briefly be in the kitchen when cooking dinner.

Remus couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure man, I’ll message the group chat – maybe Dorcas might want to come too?”

Sirius nodded his head and beamed at him. “Sure, more the merrier!”

---

Crush number 3: he was 17. Ana was funny and clever, and they’d bonded over their love of reading and their sarcastic sense of humour. They’d messaged every day while Remus was staying with his grandparents in Wales, and every day when she was on holiday in Spain. But they spent a long time apart, and Remus hadn’t been able to muster up the same feelings after a while. He broke it off with her after he got home. He did it over message. He wasn’t proud of that.

--- Sirius downed the last of his coffee, and with a dramatic flourish he stood up and shrugged his jacket on. “Ok lads, I have to go and argue with some absolute pricks. I will see you-” he winked at Remus, causing the other boy to go sightly pink, “-tonight.”

“It’s gonna be so good! And please remember to ask Lily?” James looked at Remus hopefully, warranting a quiet snort: “Yeah of course mate. No promises she’ll agree to come though.”

James shook his head, ever the optimist. “Cheers!” He ran out of the door after Sirius. ---

He’d started university in September last year, being put in halls with 5 other complete strangers. He’d taken a shine to one of them: a boy from Aberdeen. The entire flat had sat round the kitchen table, drinking and getting to know each other, but something about this boy caught Remus’ eye. He was tall, well-built, with dirty blonde hair he constantly styled away from his face, and a gentle Scottish accent. He was sarcastic, and funny, and Remus fell hard. The two flirted with each other constantly, becoming extremely tactile without even realising it. They stayed up until the early morning hours, just talking, one leaning on the other. They talked about previous crushes, and things that had shaped them as human beings. Remus thought he’d found his match.

One night, they were sat in the kitchen, the only two still awake, as per usual. Remus was leaning on Henry’s chest while they lay on the sofa, enjoying the quiet, and talking about anything that came to their minds. Remus was clutched with a sudden confidence. He turned his head, and kissed Henry on the cheek. Henry returned by pressing himself onto Remus’ lips: that was his first kiss.

--- Remus, still sipping his tea, struggled to suppress a shudder as he thought about how the relationship turned out. He took out a book and tried to become as engrossed as he normally did, but his brain wouldn’t stop the thoughts from flowing.

---

Nothing much happened after they kissed. Things went back to normal, except now Remus couldn’t stop his heart lurching whenever Henry entered the room. He wanted to be where the other boy was at all times.

One night, when the flat were watching a film, Henry and Remus were sharing a sofa and blanket. Halfway through, Remus felt Henry’s hand slowly wander to his inner thigh. He felt his phone buzz:

After the film, meet me in my room.

They kept that up for the next few months. Always at night, after everyone was asleep. It was established that this relationship was secret – they were friends with benefits, nothing more. They’d spend hours fooling around, eventually falling asleep next to each other, but Remus was never able to sleep. To be only friends with benefits killed Remus inside. He kept up with it because he couldn’t separate his feelings: he really liked Henry. He didn’t want this to stop.

Then Henry met a girl. As soon as he told Remus, Remus thought he was going to be sick. “It’s fine Remus! We can stop whatever thing we have. No feelings – clean break. Right?”

“Sure.” He’d said.

Remus wasn’t the same after that. He couldn’t eat; he felt constantly nauseous. He skipped lectures, he skipped going out with his friends. It was worse when Henry brought the girl to the flat. Remus would walk into the kitchen, see them making out on the sofa, and want to be sick or cry or scream, before running straight back to his room again.

Most of his flat didn’t notice his change in character, but nothing got past Lily. Lily was Remus’ closest friend, and the first friend he made at uni. One night, after he hadn’t eaten anything all day, Lily forced him to tell her everything. So, he did. And she didn’t judge. And for that he was incredibly grateful. She helped him get better.

He was grateful for his other friends too, although he didn’t confide in them as much as he did Lily. James and Sirius knew each other from secondary school, but it took a while for Remus and Sirius to meet. He’d met James from getting lost on the first day of uni, when both he and James arrived at the same room for completely different lectures. Turns out, James was in the next building – for a Geography student, James was so bad with directions – but they quickly became friends.

Crush number 5 started about a year ago: just before Summer break. James invited Remus (and, naturally, Lily) to a huge end-of-year party at his studio flat. Remus had been debriefed about James’ other two friends: “You’ll know which one’s Sirius and which one’s Peter: just look for the one that has to have a stupid name like Sirius Black.”

When they’d arrived, Remus’ first thought was that James was right. You instantly know which one is Sirius Black. His hair was raven-black (because of course it was), perfectly tousled, and in a bun that had the audacity not to look ridiculous. High cheekbones, sharp jawline, stormy grey eyes. You’d never be able to tell that this man and Remus were the same age: Remus with his second-hand jumpers and converse, compared to this Greek God of a human in his leather jacket and perfectly battered Doc Martins. Yeah, Remus guessed this was a man called Sirius Black.

He accidentally caught Sirius’ eye, and quickly looked away.

“Hey Sirius! Come meet my friends!” James hollered, and Sirius lifted an eyebrow. He wandered over, giving Remus and Lily and big grin. “Why, hello.”

After being introduced to Sirius and Peter, James quickly cornered Lily in a conversation, and Remus was left alone. He took a cider from the table, keen to avoid whatever drinking game was going on, and went to look for somewhere quiet. He ended up out on the balcony, enjoying the summer air and the bit of peace and quiet.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the glass door slide open and close behind him. “What’cha thinking about?”

Remus looked up, startled. Sirius stood next to him, 2 cider bottles hanging loosely from his fingers, gentle smile on his lips.

“Oh, nothing much. Just needed some air – there’s so many people in there.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

They collapsed into a comfortable silence for a bit, looking out on to the roads below. Sirius offered the second cider bottle to Remus, who took it.

“You know, I’m annoyed I didn’t meet you sooner.” Sirius mused, bringing the bottle to his lips.

Remus was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“James always talks about you – he’s really glad he met you. And any friend of James’ is a friend of mine: he’s practically my brother.”

Remus felt warm – he was glad he’d found James as a friend too. He was so worried about being an outcast, or a loner, or not being able to find anybody, then James had been a friend, and Lily had been there for him, and he finally felt wanted.

“Yeah, I’m glad I met him too. Although it doesn’t help that his main reason for coming round is to ogle at my flatmate…”

Sirius chuckled to himself. “I’m actually very excited to meet the infamous Lily who keeps shutting down his advances – I’ve not seen it happen yet, but it always sounds hilarious.”

Remus laughed. “You’re definitely missing out. I could write a book called ‘How Not to Ask Out a Girl: A Guide by James Potter’ from all the attempts I’ve seen.”

Sirius had a hearty laugh: the kind of laugh that didn’t care who heard it. 

They took another swig of their drinks. “You know, when James wasn’t allowed round yours earlier this year, I thought he was gonna lose his mind. It was kinda funny to see him pace the fucking walls like a trapped wild cat because he couldn’t see his friend or the ‘girl of his dreams’”. He used air quotes and gave a small laugh.

Remus instantly felt guilty. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought of the effect his low mental state would have had on James. He just assumed he would be fine with his other friends, but it seemed Remus’ friendship meant as much to James as James’ did to him.

“Ah shit, I’ve never actually apologised to James for that.”

“Apologise? Why would you apologise?”

Remus finished off his cider. “I wasn’t actually ill. Or rather, I was, but it wasn’t flu. I was in a bad way, but I didn’t tell anyone other than Lily. I don’t know, I didn’t want to scare James away with my mental health issues.” Remus gave a small nervous laugh, but Sirius looked at him intently.

“Do you mind me asking what happened?”

“Shit. No. It’s nothing. I’m sorry for bringing it up. You wouldn’t care. It’s nothing big, I promise.” Remus backtracked. He wasn’t about to offload his problems on to this – albeit gorgeous – complete stranger.

Sirius sighed. “That’s ok. You don’t have to talk to me. You have only just met me.” He gave a hopeful smile. “But I’m hoping we can become good friends?”

Remus blushed slightly, then coughed awkwardly. “I want another drink – any requests?”

Sirius laughed. “I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my room, I’ll grab it.” He walked towards the doors, then paused. “You can come with, if you want? It’s a lot warmer inside than out here.”

Remus blushed further. Before he realised it, he felt his head nodding, and his feet were following Sirius back into the party. Sirius immediately got pulled into a conversation - some argument between Pete and a girl Remus didn’t recognise - and Remus stood awkwardly on the sidelines, sipping his drink.

Eventually James called another round of beer pong, and Sirius was able to pull Remus away while most people were distracted. They left the main room, to the sounds of “Oh my god Potter you are going DOWN” as Lily versed James. Sirius laughed, and Remus tried to ignore the warm feeling of Sirius’ hand through his sleeve, and how his arm buzzed from where Sirius had grabbed him.

Sirius ushered them in, quickly closing the door and locking it behind him. “Sorry if this looks a bit suspicious – I just don’t like people I don’t know coming in my room looking for the bathroom. I promise you I’m not going to kill you.”

“That’s good to know, thank you.” Remus said drily, trying to ignore the situation he found himself in. Locked in a room with a very attractive man who he was clearly into. “Anyway, where’s this vodka then?”

Sirius grinned and reached to the back of the top of his wardrobe. His t-shirt hitched slightly, exposing his flesh, and Remus tried not to stare. He shook himself out of it, before smiling gratefully as he received the bottle from Sirius. He took a small swig and immediately shuddered. “That taste never gets better.” He pulled a face, handing the bottle back. Sirius laughed. He knocked his head back and drank some of the clear liquid. Unlike Remus, he had little reaction.

They spent the next hour or so in that room, passing the bottle back and forth. They sat in silence, until Remus, quite clearly drunk, announced, “You know, I’m so happy I found friends here. You’re my friend now.”

Sirius, not quite as drunk as Remus, grinned. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yes. And James is my friend. But I am a bad friend. Because I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t feeling good before.”

Sirius stayed quiet, but slowly put the bottle on the floor.

Remus kept talking: “I really liked this guy. He was amazing. We had the same sense of humour and he was attractive, and he found me attractive, which is really something rare.” Remus looked so earnest and gestured down at himself.

Sirius muttered under his breath. “You can’t believe that.”

Remus didn’t hear him. “And he flirted with me. And I thought we had a connection. But it turns out he didn’t like me back. He just wanted a mouth and an arse, and he would’ve taken any other person who had that too. He wanted friends with benefits, but I didn’t.” Remus went silent for a little bit. “I don’t want to be just a mouth and an arse, Sirius!” Horrifically, Remus’ eyes filled with tears. He was mortified. He was drunk, but he still didn’t want to cry in front of his new friend.

“Oh, Remus.” Sirius moved up the bed and hugged him tight.

“What if I can’t find anyone else Sirius? What if I’m destined to be nothing but a mouth and an arse for the next person? I really liked him! Now he’s with someone else! And he just threw me aside like I was nothing!”

Sirius rubbed comforting circles on Remus’ back while Remus sobbed into his shoulder.

“That really sucks, I’m sorry Remus. Why didn’t you tell James?”

“I was scared,” he hiccuped. “Sc-scared of being judged.”

Sirius took Remus firmly by the shoulders. “Remus - you should never be afraid of being judged. James adores you, and I think you’re amazing. I’m so glad I met you tonight - so you’re a part of our group now.”

Annoyingly, Remus burst into tears again. “I’ve never been part of a group before.”

The two of them sat there for a while, Sirius rubbing circles on Remus’ back, while Remus sobbed, finally coming to terms with how he was feeling about the entire situation. Sirius being so caring about someone who he knew so little about was enough to make Remus fall again.

 --- They arrived at La Casa de James y Sirius (it was James who named it, trying to get Lily to be impressed with him) at about half 9, holding a box of ciders. James enthusiastically opened the door to them, yelling his welcome and not being able to take his eyes off Lily for the entire time he was leading them into the party. Lily immediately went off to dance with James (secretly Remus thought she was beginning to like him).

He grabbed himself a drink and plonked himself down on the sofa, people-watching. He recognised a few people here: people from Sirius’ football practise, people from James’ course that he’d met at different parties, girls who seemed to have a sixth sense to follow Sirius wherever he went…

Sirius. He couldn’t see him.

Normally he’d be chatting up every living thing in the room – including Remus, but he knew that was just a joke. Sirius was always joking. Of course he was, they were best friends. But that didn’t help Remus’ poor heart.

Suddenly there was a large shout. “Truth or dare everyone! Everyone, sit down at the sofas and bring your drink!” Remus didn’t have time to move before numerous people were sitting down around him. He looked up and saw Sirius whispering conspiratorially with Lily, before barging through and plonking himself down on the arm of the chair next to Remus. “I’m so glad you could make it.” He winked at him.

“Sirius, there isn’t enough room on the arm of the chair for your arse - find somewhere else to sit.” Remus tutted, mainly because he was conscious that Sirius would slowly slide down and their legs would be touching, and he wouldn’t be able to think straight if that happened.

“Oh, what was that about my arse, Rem? But, I thank you for offering your lap as a substitute.” Sirius smirked, then plonked himself half on Remus and half on the arm of the chair, arm reaching round Remus’ shoulders. Remus’ heart skipped a beat. This is normal. Friends are touchy-feely. This happens all the time. He thought to himself. But he couldn’t stop his pulse racing a little faster than normal.

Lily raised an eyebrow at the display but said nothing. Remus had told her how he felt about Sirius a while back, but refused to act on it, and Lily found that infuriating. “At least I know where Potter stands with me – you should just tell him!”

“No, Lils, he’s my best friend. I’m not going to lose him.”

 James laughed at the two of them and began. “Ok! You pick truth or dare. Drink if you don’t answer the truth or do the dare. Easy. I’ll go first. Dare.” Sirius called out a suggestion. “Do a headstand!”

James grinned. “Gladly.” Obviously just eager to show off to Lily, he went to the wall and did something that somewhat resembled a headstand. Lily shook her head affectionately.

James came back to the circle, flushed red and hair tousled. “Ok I’m gonna choose…. Remus! Truth or dare!”

Oh, God. “Uh, truth, please.”

“Who’s the hottest boy here?”

Remus’ heart sped up. He decided to make a joke out of it. “I was gonna say James, but considering Sirius is within battering distance and I don’t fancy being slapped tonight, I’m gonna say him.”

Sirius laughed. “Oh, Remus, you’re too kind.” He brought his head down to Remus’ ear, his warm breath sending shivers down Remus’ spine, “I would’ve said you.”

Remus’ eyes opened wide, like a startled deer, but Sirius threw his head back nonchalantly, like nothing had been said. Had Remus imagined it?

“Remus, choose someone!” James shouted.

“Oh, r-right, ok. Sirius: truth or dare?”

“Dare me, baby.”

Lily jumped up. “I dare you to kiss Remus!”

Remus’ heart sank as James whooped and the crowd joined in. “Kiss kiss kiss!”. Not like this.

Sirius faltered ever-so-slightly. “Wait. No. I’m gonna drink.”

The group booed him, but Sirius just threw up two fingers, and ignored them.

Remus would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, but equally glad. He obviously wanted to kiss Sirius. So, so, badly. But he didn’t want it to happen this way. They were friends. He didn’t want to jeopardise that. 

The game went on pretty uneventfully. Sirius didn’t do anything else out of the ordinary. Peter was asked to kiss one of the girls, and everyone cheered him on, and when he was finished, he was blushing bright pink and looking slightly dazed.

Remus shuffled out from underneath Sirius, who looked slightly dejected at his leaving. He made his way to the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, he stared at the wall, lost in thought. The boy was so confusing! Remus thought he was straight! Now he was flirting! 

But he always flirted. Another part of his brain argued, that’s just who he was.

No. He wouldn’t think anything more of it. He’d lost a friend in Henry by acting on feelings and got hurt in the process. He didn’t want the same thing to happen with Sirius. 

He splashed some water on his face to cool himself down. God, why couldn’t things be easy?!

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and saw a message from Sirius. Meet me in my room. Please?

Ignoring the voice screaming at him that this was a mistake, Remus waited 5 minutes, taking deep breaths and figuring out his next course of action. He found himself stood outside of Sirius’ door, heart hammering against his chest. He knocked gently. 

“Come in.”

Sirius was sat on the bed, same position as a year ago when Remus broke down in his arms. He looked beautiful – he always did. He wasn’t wearing his jacket anymore, so Remus could see black ink peeking from under the sleeves of his t-shirt.

Remus shook his head and shut the door. In three steps, Sirius was directly in front of him, one hand on the door to the side of his head, the other shutting the door and locking it. Remus’ heart hammered inside his chest. This couldn’t be happening.

Sirius’ eyes flick to his lips, then back to his eyes. “Remus. Can I kiss you?”

Remus barely had the chance to say yes – oh my god, yes – before Sirius’ lips were crashing onto his. Remus didn’t know where to put his hands, so ran them through that oh-so-perfect hair, messing it up just a little bit more.

They pulled away, and Sirius looked even more beautiful – if that’s even possible – with his lips swollen and his hair messy. 

Remus placed his forehead on the other boy’s. “And here I was, thinking you were straight.”

Sirius chuckled deeply. “Not quite.”

Remus pulled away. “Sirius, please tell me you’re serious. I’m not losing another friendship after acting on urges.”

Sirius placed one hand on either side of Remus’ face, caressing it gently with his thumbs. “Remus Lupin, I have fancied you since I saw you staring at me when you first walked in. You’re beautiful. I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently and it’s been driving me mad because you’re so goddamn beautiful and you have no idea. You know the first time you were in this room, you said one of the main reasons you liked ‘he-who-must-not-be-named’ was because he flirted with you, and that was a miracle in itself. Do you not see how wrong you are? You’re so goddamn beautiful I could lose my mind over it.” He placed a small kiss on Remus’ lips.

Remus didn’t know what to say. He was so taken aback by all of it. “But… why now, why choose this moment to kiss me? To tell me this?”

Sirius had the nerve to look sheepish. “I might have asked Lily to shout that dare for the two of us to kiss. I was basically hoping you liked me back, and Lily told me to go for it. But, when I had to kiss you, I chickened out. Even when not-quite-sober, I was scared.”

He looked so vulnerable, so open. Remus placed one hand on the nape of Sirius’ neck and kissed him again. Passionately. Like this was the culmination of every single crush he’d ever had. This was what he’d been leading up to.

Remus Lupin didn’t ‘do’ crushes. He could count the number of people he’d ever fancied in his 19 years of life on one hand, and he didn’t want to count any higher.

[gideongrace]

For @harringrovetrashh 😊😊😊💜💜💜😍😍😍

//

There's this tiny, little, oddly upscale pub a few blocks from the bakery that's got these dark red walls, deep, velvet lined booths and waiters that wear fancy all-black suits and ties. 

And it also has truly excellent food, which is why they go. 

And the drinks are cheap, which is why they stay. Often for hours and hours, just talking about nothing at all in particular and everything they can think of, often at the exact same time.

So one night, after hours of doing just exactly that with Billy, Nancy and Jonathan, Steve starts telling them the story of how Dustin met his girlfriend, Kali. He goes into extravagant detail on just how awkward Dustin was being and how hard he had to work to get him a date. 

Nancy and Jonathan both laugh but Billy gives him this funny, one eyebrow raised, Oh, really? kind of look. Then he says, "Like you've never been weird." 

"W-well, I… I never said I wasn't," Steve says less than gracefully. He would have loved to have sounded cool and unaffected, but he knows he missed that mark so bad it's three towns over, sleeping soundly, completely and utterly unaware of his existence entirely. It might as well be in the next state, hell, a whole other country, for how badly he's missed it. 

So with this in mind, because of this, really, Billy, of course, keeps going.

"First day we met, you were so awkward," Billy says, tone teasing but eyes bright like he's decided to dig in, and Steve means really dig in, like full stop.

"Sounds about right," Nancy says knowingly. 

Steve is stunned into silence. 

Nancy laughs and reaches a hand across the table to put her hand over Steve's. "After high school, once you stopped with all that cool kid King Steve bullshit, you became the loveable, awkward dork you were always meant to be." She pauses and almost winks at him. Almost, but not quite. "I like you much better this way."

Billy laughs. "Wait. Excuse me, what? Did people actually call you that?"

Steve can feel his face getting embarrassingly warm. "They… ummm… they might have." 

This time Jonathan speaks up. "Oh, they totally did. They called him 'King Steve' and Steve 'The Hair' Harrington—"

"Now that one I can believe," Billy interjects. 

"He was the most popular kid in school because of his hair and the fact that his parents were never home," Nancy says, continuing on for Jonathan like he'd never even stopped, like they just share one brain now after all this time together, like she just knows exactly what he's going to say anyway. 

But underneath the table Billy's knee knocks gently into Steve's and Steve knows without Billy having to say it in words that Billy gets how much it sucks that his parents were never around. He knows that Billy understands the kind of scars that leaves behind. He wishes Billy didn't, he wishes he were alone in this, that the scars he's got in all his dark and quiet, broken places weren't perfectly matched in all of Billy's dark and quiet, broken places, but… they are. And it's sweet, what Billy is doing right now. 

Billy isn't that sweet for long, though; in the next instant he's right back to it, giving Nancy this dagger sharp grin and saying, "He 'was', huh?" He even licks his lips expertly, readying himself for the next juicy tidbit of gossip he thinks he's about to uncover.

Steve, unfortunately, knows better. Steve, unfortunately, knows that what Billy's about to uncover is more trap than treat.

And he's powerless to stop him.

"What changed?" 

It's like watching a car accident a split-second before it even happens. Steve's insides brace for impact as Nancy's face twists like she's been hit, her lips turning down at the corners and her eyebrows pulling together. Steve can feel the way Jonathan's hands reach out and grab at his knees from across the table, can sense the way his whole body goes tense just by looking at him and the way his shoulders twitch.

Or, in a word, it's bad.

Nancy, without saying anything, looks away and takes a long, slow sip of her wine. 

Jonathan, rather bravely in Steve's opinion, clears his throat and picks up the thread of the conversation. "He started dating Nancy."

Billy's eyes go wide. "What?" He waves wildly between Nancy and then Steve. "You two?" He looks caught between laughing and choking before settling on just straight up gawking. "How?"

Steve shrugs and looks over at Nancy. She refuses to look at him, instead deciding to look down at her hand that's still covering his.

She doesn't move it.

"I dunno," Steve says. He puts his other hand on top of hers. "There was just something about her." 

The tension breaks as Nancy smiles at this and it's shy at first but as she starts to lift her head, it grows into something bright, something warm. "He was sweet. Even though he pretended to be this cool jock, I knew he was a good person. A good man."

Billy just looks confused. "So…" he starts but trails off and Steve can tell he's trying to find a nice way to ask why they ever broke up if they loved each other so much.

Rather than wait out another live and in person car crash, Steve decides to just answer his unasked question and skip that part. "We broke up for a couple of reasons," he says and as he does so, he pulls his hand away from Nancy's, but he keeps his eyes on her.

She continues the story, picking it up like they're weaving a freaking friendship bracelet or something. 

"First," she says, her voice still cracking, even after all this time, "my best friend Barb died. She, uh—" The crack becomes a break and her hand slinks off of Steve's to rest with Jonathan's on the other side of the table, where it belongs. 

"Drowned," Steve says. "In my pool. At a party."

Next to him Billy goes tense and Steve's not a mind reader but he knows exactly what Billy is thinking. He's thinking, Shit, I should never have asked. He's thinking, Shit, this is my fault. Billy breathes out once and it leaves Steve with this ice cold feeling, this worry over what Billy's about to do, but then, surprisingly, maybe even to Billy himself, Billy melts. He wraps an arm around Steve's shoulder and draws him close, switches from ice to fire in an instant and starts pouring warmth into Steve just by gently touching him. 

Steve still feels cold, feels, sees, smells cold and imagines chlorine and bright, neon blue water but he stays quiet, letting someone else pick up the story. 

Nancy carries it on. "We…" She bites her lip and the hand holding the stem of her wine glass tightens until it's gripping hard enough Steve thinks he's about to hear the glass start cracking. "We were distracted. We weren't paying attention. She hadn't even been drinking, she just slipped and hit her head and fell in and…" Her hand drops from the glass and she shrinks in on herself. Jonathan wraps around her without even consciously seeming to decide to do so, it's just an instinct buried somewhere at the core of him to be protective and kind. And especially over Nancy, especially now.

And Billy, Billy's just as protective but he's ten times more wary. Billy's whole body goes tight again, goes rigid and under the table, next to Steve's thigh, Billy's hand clenches into a fist like he's just waiting for something to fight, for a monster to appear out of the table roaring and screaming, with its long, sharp claws brandished and teeth gnashing viciously. Or like he's expecting a man with a shotgun to come barrelling in through the front door and demanding everybody get down and make real good friends with the floor and they better do it real quick.

It's like he needs something, or someone, to fight. Like he's useless in this situation as it is. 

"So how did… when did… I mean, how did that lead to..." Billy stammers. His face is carefully blank or at least it's trying to be, but Steve can see the confusion and the panic peeling at the edges. He knows Billy too well not to, at this point.

Not that he's about to mention it, of course. Billy hates getting accused of having emotions in public, even if that 'public' is only a small bar filled only with two other very drunk patrons and a bored-looking bartender who seems much more invested in whatever's happening on her phone's screen than in anything that's happening in the bar. 

"Well, we didn't exactly… handle it well as a couple," Steve says, which is the kindest understatement he thinks may have ever been spoken in the English language. Maybe in any language. 

"And I was kind of in love with someone else…" Nancy says. 

"Yeah," Steve says. He feels frozen in time, feels glued to his seat, until he looks up and sees the way Nancy is staring at Jonathan and the way Jonathan is staring back at her, like they're the only two people who exist for each other in the whole entire universe and he feels himself settle back down into his bones. He can't be upset when they look at each other like that, he just can't. 

He can admit, however, he is big enough to admit, that sometimes it still stings a little, what happened between them, no matter how old the hurt might be. He is big enough to admit that there have been a few times, on his worst days, when Nancy's voice in his head chimes in with his father's and he hears her calling him 'bullshit'. He hears her asking him, begging him, pleading with him to just tell her why she wasn't good enough, why after sex with her just one time, he lost all interest. He didn't have a word for it then, didn't know what 'asexual' meant, then. And he didn't know how to be honest, then, either. With her or with himself.

But sometimes he's still just a little mad about it, internally (and only ever just internally) but then he sees them looking at each other like that and he can't be mad. He sees them looking at each other like that and he knows that everything the three of them went through together after Barb died was worth it. Because he's not really ever been mad at her, anyway, but at himself. For not having the right words. For not being honest. For not knowing. 

But he knows now. He's honest now. And she has Jonathan. And he has Billy. 

So he unclenches, a little. 

And then a lot.  

At his side, Billy's fist loosens up until it's just his hand and his hand starts stroking a long, soothing line along the seam of Steve's jeans like he can burn into Steve's skin through the fabric and Steve leans into the touch, pretends he can feel Billy's strong, sure fingers against his skin and he feels himself breathe, well and truly breathe properly for the first time in a while. 

He leans into Billy with his whole body and allows himself a moment to just enjoy it—Billy's warmth and the sure certainty he brings to every moment he's not looking for something to fight—before tuning back in to some conversation that seems to have progressed without him to hear Nancy saying, "I will never doubt again," in this soft and dream-like way that sounds like she's quoting something Steve is sure he's heard at least a hundred times before and yet is still having trouble placing. 

Jonathan clearly knows exactly what it's from, though because on hearing it he smiles at her, his expression just as soft, just as dream-like, and he says, "There will never be a need," like this is some commonly repeated joke the two of them share. 

And who knows, maybe it is?

Billy, for his part, snorts. "Really? The Princess Bride? You guys were watching The Princess Bride when you first said 'I love you' to each other?"

Nancy scowls at this but she's still all wrapped up in Jonathan so the look goes nowhere fast. "And what's wrong with The Princess Bride, huh?"

"Nothing," Billy says with this smile Steve just knows means trouble. "It's just a much nicer story than ours and I'm jealous, that's all." 

And Steve knows he's not going to be able to stop Billy from telling it, either, so he doesn't even bother. Doesn't even say a word. 

"The first time we said 'I love you' to each other was after a fight in a grocery store that started with Steve throwing—" Billy stops short to giggle like a freaking five year old. "That started with Steve throwing down an avocado and shouting"—again, more giggling— "'Fuck the avocadoes! We're leaving!'"

This time it's Nancy's eyes that go wide and Jonathan that says, "Wait. What?"

And then Steve and Billy have to explain that story.