#pretend it hasn’t been a month since I last posted….oops

[nutsackx]

POKÉMON X THE OUTSIDERS AU

info under images lol

if anyone reposts these like the cowboy or scientist au I’m deleting my whole account watch your bakc

I’m gonna preface this by saying I haven’t played or even really indulged in Pokémon for like… 7 years so forgive me if any of this is off or doesn’t make sense…

ANYWAY!!

Original gang is just the Curtis brothers. Ponyboy, after years of putting it off to put time into school, decides he’s finally ready to try being a Pokémon trainer (he’s a bit of a late bloomer, starting at 14 instead of ten…yikes). Usually, their father would’ve helped him on his journey….but he’s, dead, so. 

Darry agrees to help him, eventually Soda gets dragged along too because he’s worried Pony and Darry fighting 24/7 will ruin the experience for Ponyboy. And, Soda, being a Pokémon ranger, has a lot more knowledge than even Darry about how to safely go about this. 

First they come across Steve. Soda and him are already besties, of course. And they have kinda a rivalry going on where they are constantly tryin to one-up each other (all in good faith lmao). It’s not until Steve starts talking about how he started with Pokémon that Darry realizes just how different it was than when he was starting out. Steve agrees to come along, mainly saying he thinks Pony’s gonna get himself killed cus’ he SUCKS!!

After all the yada yada and defeating his first gym leader, Pony finds a dead Radicate and REFUSES to move on until they give the poor creature a proper burial. Since they’re already relatively close, Darry redirects the group to Lavender Town. 

While inside Pokémon tower, they come across a decrepit, old, decaying black-belt class trainer (Mr.Miyagi ((yeah I put him in here, what are you gonna do about it?)),sorry for all the mean adjectives) who of course starts being an old man and going on and on about the boy he fosters there and how weird he’s acting lately (Darry refuses to interrupt because he RESPECTS HIS ELDERS!!!). 

Mr.Miyagi admits that not being around people his age has probably messed with his development, practically calling the boy a hermit, and asks the guys to bring him along in exchange for a very strong Gengar (for Pony, ofc). Darry, upon hearing that the boy is a strong fighter and MUCH quieter then the rest of the freaks he’s dealing with, agrees. 

They go from floor to floor looking for him, eventually finding a cloaked figure on some fuckass floor idk. It takes a minute but they’re like, damn, this hoe possessed! And they battle him, he’s hard to beat but they do it eventually, yada yada. Johnny then takes the hood off, apologizes profusely, and explains that he’s a channeler but not really good at his job yet. (also imagine him with the most fuckass stutter, like Shaky from rdr)

The guys inform him about their promise to Mr.Miyagi, Johnny’s upset for t-minus two minutes before he’s just like “whatever okay” and joins them. (Quickly becomes the favorite, ofc, because he can actually shut his damn mouth). 

They move on to the next gym, yk how it goes…but yeah they come across a traveling circus. And you’ll NEVER GUESS WHO IS A CLOWN!! 

So anyway, Clown-bit, we love him. They come across him, agree to fight so he’ll give them some food and pokeballs, and Pony beats his ASS. 

They don’t really invite Two-Bit along (they think he’s annoying…who doesn’t?) but he just joins anyway. Imagine like constant clown puns. Also he and Johnny quickly take a liking to each other cus’ they’re both kinda outcasts of the group (Johnny’s known the guys for like, a week…and Two-bit Just showed up. Also, we need more Johnny and Two-Bit friend content so).

They keep going, Pony defeats a few more gym leaders, and takes notice that a lot of them seem to recognize someone on their team. When he askes, Johnny admits to being the son of one of the elite four. At first, Pony is thrilled by the info, until he pries a little more and realizes Johnny’s father was an abusive asshole and pretty much sent him away to Pokémon tower to force him into becoming a trainer. Yikes. 

Anyway, on their journey they come across some UGLY blonde guy, like one of those biker trainer classes yk..? Anyway yeah it’s Dallas, shocker. He kinda just gets in their way and refuses to move until they ALL battle him. Obviously, they don’t wanna do that, a lot of work for some ugly freak (did I mention he’s ugly?). 

They agree to let Ponyboy fight him, but he uh…loses. After a bit of back and forth Dallas agrees to let them go if they help him get to the Indigo Plateau in Kanto, so he can face off against the Elite Four there (his bike is old, cus yk…he’s poor.) 

Darry at this point has an entire league of teenagers following him around, so he’s like what’s one more? And boom they move on. 

I don’t have much planned out from here (this was all pulled from my ass anyway). Maybe the Shepards can be like…the Team Rocket of this AU?? And Soc’s are the gym leaders. 

Also, Yeah Cherry and Marcia are both Kanto elite four cus I SAID SO!!! And uh…Johnny and Cherry are dating because it’s MY AU AND I DO WHAT I WANT!!!! She’s the breadwinner and that’s okay, we love her for it <3

twobit prolly falls in love with Marcia when he sees her but idk if she’d reciprocate with an actual clown. Mayeb Randy lowered her standards???

anyway. That is all. Might flesh this out more if the obsession grows, or it’ll die in a week like the Crazy Scientist stuff. Oh well!

EXPLANATION OF DESIGNS/MORE INFO—

Ponyboy

CLASS: Youngster 

Ngl his design took very little time…..oops

his cap hides a really bad dye job, and he refuses to take it off

He chose squirtle as his starter, idrk why but squirtle just suits him. Maybe cus he almost drowned!!

Would’ve fought to the DEATH if he didn’t get squirtle. This boy knows what he wants 

He has a little pokeball necklace that his mom got him as a joke, will kill someone for it 

He deffo has a really nerdy messenger bag that he keeps all of his stuff in

He’s scared of his own Beedrill 

He does NOT need those glasses. But he likes them becuase he thinks they make him look more professional (everyone can tell they’re blue light glasses)

Sodapop

CLASS: Pokémon Ranger

LOVES his job and therefore is almost always seen in uniform

he loves electric/steel type Pokémon cus they reminds him of cars, so his hair is usually sticking up because of static electricity 

has a whistle, but Darrel stole it and tossed it into the forest VERY early into the journey 

yellow is his favorite color cus I said so

Raichu is his PRIZED Pokémon 

He’s kinda like Snow White the Pokémon love him 

His Flareon and Johnny’s Espeon are best friends 

Darrel

CLASS: Veteran 

Wanted to be a football player, but couldn’t because that wouldn’t keep the family afloat, that’s why his outfit has the numbers on it. 

Lot of scars, some from football and some from his days as a trainer 

His outfit used to have sleeves, but he found them annoying and just shopped them off one day 

Always keeps the spare pokeballs on him 

In highschool he had his hair grown out, but chopped it after their folks died because his father was always trying to get him to cut it 

I don’t really have a backstory for his necklace, buts it fire okay

Treats his Pokémon VERY well, if there was a trainer rating website he would be top 5

Picks his Pokémon based on size and strength

Two-Bit

CLASS: CLOWN

Obviously he’s a clown so, that explains the outfit 

NEVER seen without the makeup, even when it rains or he’s sleeping…that stuff is ON THERE

He has false lashes on his waterline, and yes they’re pink 

He is incapable of being quiet because of all the bells 

The hat doesn’t come off. if it did his hair under there would be hella matted 

All of Two’s Pokémon are just as annoying as he is, he hides earplugs in his shoes for people (they never take them) 

FATASS can and will eat anything in sight

Mr.Mime is his favorite of all his Pokémon….they ate both annoying together and everyone hates them for it 

Johnny

CLASS: Channeler 

the scar on his eye is from his father 😬 from when he figured out Miyagi wasn’t actually training him to be the next member of the Elite Four…. the eye is blue because of some psychic shit idk 

His outfit is from Miyagi entirely, the sleeves used to be connected, but he found it too annoying to fight in those so he tore them (Miyagi was secretly VERY unsettled) 

If you look really closely he has purple eyeliner

Johnny refuses to cut his hair, so it’s usually in a braid to be out of his way, he lets it down sometimes 

He has the little flower charm connected to his belt…what a cutie 

His hood is actually up a LOT, most of the time his face is obscured 

There’s flames on his sleeve….wonder why (not the reason you think okay. His father was a fire type trainer…JOHNNY LIVES IN THIS AU OKAY.)

also the metal things around his arm are like…incredibly heavy. Mr.Miyagi put them in originally so he could build muscle while doing everyday things, but Johnny insists on keeping the on forever. 

Loves all of his Pokémon equally, and they love him back. Always has atleast one out of their Pokeball so he doesn’t get lonely….my baby 

He doesn’t even like the color purple that much it’s just kinda his thing now 

Pokémon FLOCK to this man 

Dallas

CLASS: Biker

Tore the sleeves off of his jacket as well…they really like doing that 

YELLOW teeth and GREASY hair he does not take care of himself

Really likes dog-looking Pokémon 

Has an empty slot because one of his Pokémon just DIED LMAO (idk which one. Oh well) 

Has rips in his jeans, does not plan on fixing it 

Hand-carved his belt buckle. The ‘win’ in Winston is underlined. Ignore the fact that this idiot keeps fucking losing 

The bandages are protecting nothing. He thinks it makes him look cool

Pokémon are revolted by him. Like, his own literally hate him. 

Steve

Class: Hooligan

kind of an ass, but he looks cool

any cutscene of him he’s making sure his hair is still spiked trust

loves steel type Pokémon because…cars

his favorite color is green, making any green Pokémon his all time favorite

for being a little shit, he treats his Pokémon rather well

has studs ALL over his back, once leaned back on Soda and has never heard the end of the pain he caused

he has a tongue piercing….so….

when the gang is lacking resources, he and Dallas are the first to steal

[captain-stab-a-hoe]

So one person encouraged me to post this fic i made on Tumblr so...y e a h

Fair warning my grammar sucks and my writing is cringe but if I die then I die i guess. Just scroll pass if you don't wanna read cause I'm on mobile and i don't know how to cut it off to make this shorter.

Xue Yang hasn't cried in...he doesn’t even know how long. The last time he can remember crying was when he was small and weak. When Chan Cian crushed whatever innocence was left at the time and sealed the fate of him and his sect. What reason was there to cry after that? Nobody helped when he did cry out. Those looks of pity and disgust directed at an unfortunate little thing. 

No matter how much you cry, no matter how much you beg and weep out of pain for mercy, you’ll never be more than a disgusting annoyance. 

That’s the cruel lesson Xue Yang learned that day. So, no matter how much he was stabbed, beaten, and bloodied, he never cried after that day. He’d say it’s a good thing. Who doesn’t love the sweet expressions those pretentious pricks make when Xue Yang doesn’t drop to his knees in front of them? It’s even better when a ruthless sneer is the last thing they ever see before their eyes are gouged out. 

But sometimes there are those days. Those days when the phantom pain from his missing pinky gets too much, when Xue Yang has to pick himself up after a brutal fight, or when he can’t bring himself to sleep for days to avoid being that dirty, crying child in his dreams. Those days when Xue Yang feels a sting in his eye he still doesn’t cry. 

Living with Xiao Xingchen is weird for Xue Yang. Xiao XIngchen is the definition of vulnerable in his eyes. Before him and Xiao XIngchen started living together, Xue Yang thought he was another privileged asshole, trying to be seen as “fair” and “just” for fame and a good reputation. Now that he’s gotten a good look at the daozhang, Xue Yang thinks he’s just really stupid. Maybe naive was the right word, but Xue Yang couldn’t care less. He just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Xiao XIngchen wears most of his emotions on his sleeve if you cared enough to pay attention. When Xiao XIngchen helps villages with fierce corpse problems, he will tell people to keep their gifts with a smile. He doesn’t even try to pose as a humble hero, that’s just how he is and it’s brutally honest.  He makes himself approachable to everybody with that damn smile on his face. He’s also blind on top of everything else.

Xue Yang hates it. He hates how easy it is to manipulate and take advantage of the daoshi. During his first few months with Xiao Xingchen, he found it satisfying. He let his enemy stay right under his nose, believing the words that came out of Xue Yang’s without a doubt. It was so perfect for a while. But now Xue Yang’s nothing short of annoyed. People had the same idea when they looked at Xiao XIngchen too. 

A naive blind man? Who better to scam and get rid of these rotten vegetables too!? It’s not like he’d do anything about it anyways. Stupid daoshi! 

Who did these people think they were anyways? Doesn’t matter when Xue Yang set them straight with just a nasty glare and maybe a viscously stabbed potato or two. But more importantly, what the fuck did Xiao XIngchen think he was doing? Watching him chop carrots from the side, Xue Yang could only get frustrated at how trusting Xiao Xingchen was. It’s not as if he’s become protective or anything. Actually, he’s more confused and irritated than anything else by this point. 

“I can feel you staring at me.” Xiao Xingchen interrupted his train of thought.

“Hm? Oh I’m just thinking about things.” 

Xiao Xingchen hums in thought. “What kind of things?”  

“Do I need to tell you?” 

 “Ah well…” Xiao XIngchen puts the chopped carrots into a pot of boiling water with other vegetables in it. “I guess you don’t.”

Xue Yang pouted as he leaned against the wall behind him. “Actually, I wanna tell you.” Xiao Xingchen turned to face his direction. “Oh? Really?”

Xue Yang hummed, pretending to be in deep thought. “Oops. I was lying, daozhang! I don’t wanna say anything now.” 

Xiao Xingchen chuckled. “Ah Xiao You, that was a little mean,” 

“Why don’t you do anything about it?” Xue Yang didn’t mean to sound so serious when he said that, but Xiao XIngchen was irritating him. 

Why are you so accepting of this, Xiao Xingchen?  

The daoshi stopped smiling and frowned. “What do you mean?” 

“You always believe people so easily, and if you find out it was a lie you just let it pass. You even believe me without question, even though I’m just a complete stranger.”

Xiao Xingchen shook his head, the smile returning to his face. “Xiao You, do you think it’s wrong to trust people because you want to?” 

At that Xue Yang scoffed. “I don’t have a reason to trust people. Nobody is ever true with their intentions, and people take, daozhang. But you just keep giving, like it doesn’t bite you in the ass.” 

“Ah, well putting it like that is…” Xiao Xingchen smiled sheepishly. He turned back to stir the pot of soup. “I guess you do have a point. But not everybody is like that. I mean I trust you and I think that’s ok.” 

Xue Yang rolled his eyes. 

Oh if only you knew. 

“What if it wasn’t, daozhang?”

“I can’t be worried about if I should trust somebody all the time. I like you, Xiao You, so I want to trust you too.” Xiao XIngchen turned to Xue Yang with that same smile. 

“Do you think it’s ok to trust me?” He didn’t have an answer.

After dinner, Xue yang sat by the small fire he made outside. He hadn't said much since Xiao Xingchen asked him such a weird question. 

Do you think it's ok to trust me? 

Xue Yang has avoided trusting people for a long time. Last time he trusted anybody, he lost his damn pinky. So, why didn't Xue Yang just say "no" ? Xue Yang has never been open. He never confided in or cried to anyone. Yet Xiao Xingchen of all people just had to go and ask that. How dare he make Xue Yang feel at loss for words. It would've been so easy for Xue Yang to just slit his throat right then and there. Why didn't he do it then?

He must've been too frustrated with his thoughts since he didn't even notice the focus of his frustration sitting next to him. 

"You've been awfully quiet, Xiao You."

"I've just been thinking…"

"About what?"

"You already know the answer to that." Xue yang rolled his eyes. " Daozhang is too cruel sometimes." 

Xiao Xingchen smiled sheepishly, patting Xue Yang on his arm. "You are right, as always. You'll make it sound bad if you say it like that though."

Xue Yang brought his knees to his chest and sighed. He didn't know what was going on with himself. It's like he was facing some sort of confusing mess on the inside and he didn't like it. What did that shorty call it? Being emotional? Bah! This is so stupid! He couldn't go on being silent like this though

"I don't know…" 

"Hm?" Xiao Xingchen tilted his head to the side.

"I don't know if it's ok to trust you."

Xiao Xingchen smiled and reassuringly rubbed Xue Yang's back. "What do you feel in your heart, Xiao You? Do you feel as if it will hurt to trust?"

Xue Yang unconsciously leaned into his touch. It felt comforting, and that scared him. Xue Yang has always just done whatever he wanted. But the thing is, he wants to trust Xiao Xingchen. He couldn't say it to him though. Besides the whole lying about his identity thing, he just doesn't know how to handle it.

"I understand trust comes with the risk of being hurt. I know how that feels…" A sad smile appeared before Xiao Xingchen continued.

"But, I didn’t regret trusting them. I don't regret trusting you either, Xiao You. You never let anybody get close to you, right?”

 "Daozhang…"

"It’s ok to show emotions to people. To let yourself be vulnerable sometimes." Xiao Xingchen took a wrapped candy from his sleeve and put it in Xue Yang's hand. 

"It's ok to let yourself feel happy with someone."  He closed his hands around Xue Yang's.

“I want you to know that it’s okay to cry.  You’ve been here for me. Let me do the same, Xiao You." 

Xue Yang felt himself tremble. No, he didn't cry.

"Xiao Xingchen…" He heard his voice break. He still didn't cry. 

He let himself be held and comforted like a small child. He still fought back tears. A part of him didn't think he would let himself stop fighting. But, still...

I trust you. But, I don’t think I can say it yet.

[press-x-tojason]

Giant Bomb is dead, and I care way less than I thought I would. Probably because 83% of the people who I ever cared about had already left or died, or were already relegated to reduced content roles. 

Honestly, though, the writing’s been on the wall for a bit. They haven’t had anything worthy of paying for premium in several years, and, even though they’ve had well over a year to figure out a plan for the COVID era, they maybe made it a month with their plans to have a series of streams daily. I actually managed to forget I followed them on Twitch at all, for about 4 months, because they only streamed the podcasts and the occasional former Harmonix employee (who was literally paid to make content with their games while employed at Giant Bomb, which was funny because he blocked me on Twitter for making a post, addressing no one, back in 2014, which was asking about the legitimacy of the leaked list of “games “””””journalists”””””” who had taken money from publishers for positive reviews, a list which included him and multiple then-coworkers. I didn’t follow him, he didn’t follow me. He was manually searching the keywords, because he was, and is, a prick.) solo Rock Band stream in the last 8 months or so. Even when Jeff would manage to do one of his 20 streams from home a year, it would be on his own channel. There was just no content. And they’re surprised their “pay for our unique premium content!” model failed. They always “feigned” anger at Dan for “making” them do the Mario Party Parties, and literally never promoted his and Drew’s Metal Gear series after the first game... but I bet that, when only those, UPF, and the ad-free versions of the podcasts were premium features, those two series were keeping them afloat. Well, that and the remaining goodwill they miraculously managed to hold onto for a few years after Ryan died.  Shit, I follow several people who are GB staff-adjacent, and... I can’t think of the last time they mentioned anything that happened on-site. Even the people who’ve been directly supporting them for over 10 years were out. 

But yeah, the site is super dead. They pretended in the announcements like they’re going to make a go of it still, but... you’ve got like 4 content people left, and the only one people give a shit about is Jeff. You just saw 3/4 of the side of the site that was still trying these past several months jump ship in a 3 month span. One of those was, by nearly any definition, a founding member. Of which you had already lost one, and are losing another from the main side. Jeff’s been way less active until the last week or two, probably because he heard they were leaving and was like “oops, should probably check on the ship that’s been sinking for years!” Then you have Jason “The Human Mumble” Oestricher, the charisma vacuum, whose legitimate public-facing reaction to first hearing that all but one of his GB predecessors were going to be gone. was, and I quote, “Hoo Boy.” Ben and Jan are the definition of “fine”. They would have been great, as they are today, as secondary members 8-10 years ago. But carry the site, they cannot. They’re down to, what, 5 named members now? It hasn’t been that dire since the beginning of 2009, before they hired Drew, when they hadn’t even started the P4 endurance run. You know, that surprise massive, internet-changing thing that essentially popularized the Let’s Play concept, loosening its definition and making it something that could be as personality-driven as game-driven, made simply to give them something to put on the website, beyond the rare review and, slightly later, quick look. This kinda illustrates the problem with modern Giant Bomb. When they were figuring shit out, flying by the seats of their pants, they came up with great shit, and they gave enough of a shit to make it happen. 0.000% chance they do a 10 hour Thanksgiving Kinect stream if the Kinect was new today. 0.000% chance the core members would have done an endurance run in the last 10 years if CT and Shenmue (which I haven’t watched) weren’t driven by the younger members. And you could see it in the fact that they never made a real, true mobile app. The number one thing that would have made them indispensable this past decade, an app to integrate premium features, the podcast, their video player, etc. all in one place in a mobile-friendly package, that could sync with the website... and they never even raised the idea publicly. I wonder how much of the innovation was the group think-tank of the first 5 years. Beyond Dan’s couple major contributions, I don’t think they added a single new type of content after 2012, which... still means the last 6.5 years lacked any semblance of innovation. I guess that’s a big part of why I fell off tremendously quickly after late 2014. There was just nothing new, and believe me, I was looking. I wanted reasons to stay watching. I supported them with my dollar. I believed in those brave early days. And I went back yesterday to watch the DP endurance run from VJ again. I still miss that rapport. And really, that hurt, too. Vinny moving back east, less than a year after Ryan passed... short term, it was fine. You had more people than ever to cover the gaps. But the spark was gone. The chemistry made the site. When I think of Giant Bomb, I still think of Jeff, Vinny, and Ryan, first and foremost. Those early podcasts, the NintenDownloads, the crazy tangents that everyone could seamlessly follow up on(well, except Brad, because he essentially slept through most of the podcasts, unless he was talking about the thing he did that week), the weird high-concept GOTY stuff... it wasn’t perfect, but you were entertained. You laughed. You were engaged. It never felt like you were watching them working, even though you could see the work they put in. It felt like, when they released something, you were experiencing a group of legitimate friends doing what they wanted to do anyways.(And boy have I seen enough groups do everything they can to NOT be enjoying doing that, and break up as a result due to hating the jobs that they chose to do). 

Part of me would love to make it as simple as “Ryan died, and so did the original spirit”, and... to a degree, it’s true. If you go back to any retrospective they’ve done about the founding of the site, or the podcast they recorded after Ryan passed, you can’t help but recognize that Giant Bomb never happens if these core members don’t all quit their jobs, led by Ryan,  because they respect their boss/manager, Jeff, and know he’s doing the right things(for them, for the reader/viewer, etc.) ahead of what GameSpot management wants him to do. Jeff could have been left in the wilderness, trying find a spot elsewhere, with the rumor going around between executives that Jeff wasn’t going to help them promote anything, essentially killing their revenue. He would have been done in terms of getting employed by a major site. But Ryan first, and soon after, Vinny and Brad, gave up their jobs to make this fledgling little project go. As much as the ERs brought me in and gave the impression that Jeff and Vinny were the long-standing duo, no, it was Ryan who was Jeff’s partner in crime. And, 8 years later, I can comfortably say... Giant Bomb never recovered from losing him. 

But it was so much more. Everything that set them apart slowly went away,  in time. I don’t think they’ve posted reviews for games in consecutive MONTHS since 2017; 2018 at the latest. They have done one Endurance Run in 9 years. They have not had a meaningful live event in 6 years. Unprofessional Fridays were more formulaic and lesser in volume and frequency after the major players started moving east. The lack of coordination between coasts killed the camaraderie, to the point that I think one of the last 5 true gameplay crossovers was their series of 2016-2017 PUBG shitfests. I remember when Vinny starting GBEast was supposed to be the start of a new era of content, and... it was, but not in a positive way, like it sounded. When half of each side seemed to constantly have no interest in making anything, nothing got made. But I guess that’s what happens when your second in command in one of your headquarters is just a former marketing grunt with an attitude problem, and the guy with the biggest ego on the team is the one who refuses to move to join either side, and just pushes out the most self-important drivel as a header to what were literally just copy-pasted articles from other sites every week while sitting at his desk, dreaming of the days Gawker would pay him to plagiarize political drivel instead, because that’s what really gets the soulless clicks. One of your founding members becomes depressed due to losing his two closest work friends, one for real, one to a 3000 mile separation, within a year, while the other one who is left virtually stopped playing anything but DOTA 2 for 2 years. Suddenly your most prominent personalities are the 2 new guys(one the aforementioned charisma vacuum, the other a walking mark) and your previously-mostly-off-camera producer who is best known to the wider Internet for... blinking. So, yeah, lifeless. And NOW, all you’ve got is old melancholy dad, charisma vacuum dad, and the two ADHD kids whose defining trait is that they choose to exclusively refer to their partners as “my partner” in voices that make it sound like they are embarrassed to have partners, while also talking more about what their partners are doing than what they do.  It’s confounding.

But yeah, TL:DR: RIP zombie Giant Bomb. Glad you’re finally getting taken behind the shed. It took 3 years too long, minimum.

[bytheangell]

Believe in Something Beautiful

(Read on AO3) (I tried to post this on the ask itself but Tumblr had a crisis and it got all messed up so I had to delete it and make a separate post OOPS) -------------

The opportunity Isabelle gets to study with the Iron Sisters is a once and a lifetime offer, and that’s on top of the fact that it’s something she’s personally dreamt of since she was a little girl. So of course Jace doesn’t so much as blink before agreeing to take over as temporary Head of the Institute while she’s away.

“Are you sure?” she asks for the millionth time before leaving as if this will be the time he suddenly decides to change his mind. “I know you hate the deskwork side of things, and-”

“Iz, it’s fine. It’ll just be a few months, I can handle it. I promise not to let the place burn down while you’re gone.”

The reservations she has are true, of course, but he isn’t going to admit that he’s secretly loathing not only being mostly resigned to an office for the duration of her trip but feeling much more alone without Alec or her around. Instead, he gives her a bright smile and shoos her out the door before she can stall any longer.

The first few days are definitely an adjustment but Jace actually kind of likes the new role once he gets into it. The paperwork sucks, sure, but he makes good use of the still impressively stocked drink cart Alec brought in when he was Head of the Institute, as well as the upgraded plush sofa Isabelle insisted on. All in all being stuck in this particular office isn’t too bad… at least not for the first few weeks.

After that Jace starts to go a little stir-crazy. He tries to keep up with his training, whether it’s with the other Shadowhunters or Simon or just on his own in the training room, but every time he does he’s pulled away for another debriefing or meeting, which leads to more reports until the day is over and it’s already time to go home.

Going ‘home’ nowadays, more often than not, has meant going back to Simon’s apartment. Sometimes Jace stays the night at the Institute but usually only when it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise, he makes his way to Simon’s place for some quality time with his boyfriend. No matter how tired he is at the end of the day he’s rejuvenated by the sight of Simon, always eager to see him and listen to him complain about whatever nonsense he had to deal with that day. It’s a relationship Jace never saw coming, one he never would’ve imagined for himself in a million years, but’s it’s good. If he wasn’t afraid of jinxing it he might go so far as to say it’s perfect.

Things stay that way until a couple of months into Izzy’s absence. Jace can’t place it at first, just a lingering uncertainty which isn’t something he’s used to feeling. It doesn’t click until he’s training with some of the guys at the Institute and someone pokes a sparring staff at his stomach, making a joke about how he’s getting soft - literally - since taking over for Izzy. It’s an off-handed comment, nothing worse than Jace has said about any of them at one time or another and just meant to poke fun, but it hits something much deeper and Jace finds he can’t let the words slide off him like he normally does. He laughs with the others, of course, and thoroughly kicks their asses during the part of the session he manages to participate in before he’s pulled away to go over something strange on the surveillance cameras, but the words stick with him.

Soft. Jace Wayland has been called a number of things in his life, but soft has never been one of them before now.

When he’s changing in his room to go meet up with Simon, Jace spends a long time looking at himself in the mirror. He isn’t overweight, not given his body’s starting status of ‘abs-sculpted-like-a-statue’s’, but that only makes the lack of definition that much more obvious to him now. Simon hasn’t said anything but surely he’s noticed too, how could he not? Telling himself it isn’t a big deal Jace slips on a fresh shirt and a decent pair of dark jeans to meet Simon after work.

After dinner, sitting on the sofa with Simon’s hands sliding under his t-shirt and up his sides while they make out, Jace is acutely aware of the fact that there’s more to slide over now. When Simon pulls Jace closer by the waist he tenses at the touch as if aware for the first time of the way Simon’s fingers dip into the flesh there.

“Everything alright?” Simon asks, stopping when Jace freezes up.

“I-” Jace starts, uncertain. “I don’t feel so great, actually. Might be something I ate. Mind if we... just don’t, tonight?” Jace feels immediately guilty for the half-truth. He doesn’t feel well all of a sudden but he knows exactly why, and it isn’t bad seafood.

“Of course,” Simon says easily, shifting so Jace can reposition himself next to Simon on the sofa. “Do you need anything? I could run to the store and get some medicine.”

Simon’s immediate concern only doubles Jace’s guilt. “No, I’ll be alright,” Jace insists, wondering if that’s a lie too as Simon turns on the TV until they both fall asleep on the sofa.

---

Jace leaves Simon’s place early enough the next morning to get in an hour-long run before he needs to be at the Institute. He knows it isn’t going to do much - it’s taken months of letting himself go to get this bad, he isn’t going to fix it with a day of jogging, but it feels better than doing nothing. For a few days he makes excuses to not go back to Simon’s place: waiting for a late patrol to come back, covering a security shift, even as lame of an excuse as ‘i’m too tired’ when there really is no other reason he can give.

He doesn’t lie… he just doesn’t add that he’s the one going out of his way to make sure he has things keeping him ‘stuck’ at the Institute at night, though he knows this can’t last forever.

So Jace starts to get clever. Whenever things start to get heated on the nights he does go back to Simon’s, Jace immediately takes control, insisting that he’s going to take care of Simon. It’s actually one of Jace’s favorite things, to watch the way Simon falls apart beneath Jace’s touches, the way he’s so blissed out by the end of a very thorough blowjob that he doesn’t argue too much when Jace insists he doesn’t want anything himself. The sex - the few times Jace lets things get that far - is rushed and always with the lights off, with Jace keeping as much clothing on as possible and almost always finding an excuse to not be able to stay afterward to cuddle.

He hopes, a bit naively, that as long as they’re still having sex that Simon won’t notice anything is wrong. Jace can’t remember the last time he let Simon see him naked, something that used to be very common for them, and he knows the lack of that sort of intimacy won’t go unnoticed forever. With all his other tactics Jace buys himself an extra week or two until Simon’s asking him if something’s wrong again.

“You just seem… distant lately,” Simon continues, concern written all over his face. Jace can’t stand the fact that he caused this gap between them but he can’t bring himself to admit what’s bothering him, either. He’s ruining everything and for what? Simon clearly doesn’t care.

Still, he can’t silence the voice in the back of his head reminding him that this isn’t who Simon signed up for. Jace is all quick wit and sarcasm, he’s confidence and an ego larger than all of Brooklyn. That’s who Simon fell for and expects from him, so that’s who Jace needs to be. He needs to figure out how to feel like himself again, and fast.

“Just a lot on my mind, work stuff. It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Jace says, leaning in to give Simon a quick kiss.

“You know you can talk to me, right? About work, or whatever else is going on?” Simon offers.

“Yeah, of course I do,” Jace agrees quickly.

He then proceeds to bury every worry he has deep down into the back of his mind and does his best not to think about it, let alone talk about it, again.

---

Jace continues to make excuses, manipulate any intimate encounters for minimum contact, or just flat-out avoiding Simon entirely. Avoiding is easier than lying and Jace gets better at it as the days pass. Or maybe he just gets more used to it… he isn’t sure he likes the implication of either option.

At first, Simon tries to fight him on it - rearranging his schedule so he can visit Jace at the Institute, trying to insist Jace come over no matter how late it is, doing his best to puppy-dog-eye Jace into staying in bed for more than 5 seconds - but Jace manages to pull himself away every time.

After a while, Simon stops trying so hard. Then Simon stops trying entirely. After not hearing from Simon for two days in a row Jace ends up calling him instead of the other way around.

“Hey, I hadn’t heard from you in a while, I was starting to worry,” Jace says, relieved when Simon picks up.

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” Simon says, his tone casual. Jace can practically hear the shrug behind the words.

“What do you mean?” Jace asks, though he thinks he has a good idea.

“I mean, every time I’ve tried to make plans you blow them off anyway, so I figured I’d stop trying and you could just call me if you ever felt like leaving the Institute again,” Simon replies, and this time there’s a bit of an edge to his tone.

Jace deserves that, but he doesn’t expect it. Not from Simon.

Fuck, what is he doing? He could feel the gap between them forming, he knew he was the cause, and he still let things get so far that Simon has all but given up on him from the sound of it.

“I’m Sorry, Si.” That much isn’t a lie. Jace is sorry.

“Don’t be sorry,” Simon tells him, sounding sad and defeated, and about as tired as Jace keeps claiming to be. “If you’re bored with me just tell me, and we can stop pretending.”

There’s silence over the phone line while Jace processes those words. Is that really what Simon thinks? Is that what Jace let Simon think all this time?

“I’m not,” Jace insists. “It isn’t you, Simon, I swear.”

There’s a long pause, and with obvious reluctance Simon slowly asks, “Is there someone else?”

Jace can hear the fear in his voice, the dread of what answer may come from asking, and his heart breaks knowing it’s all his fault that Simon has these doubts about them.

“No,” Jace says, just as quickly as before. He’s messed things up worse than he realized and wonders if there’s going to be anything to salvage once he’s finally honest with Simon. He has to be honest now - there’s no other option. “We should talk, but not on the phone. Are you-” Jace starts to ask if Simon is free but remembers that he volunteered to take Underhill’s security shift that night so he could go on a date with Lorenzo. Of course, he took it to avoid Simon not knowing everything was going to go so wrong, so quickly. Overly aware of how bad this is going to look now of all times, Jace sighs. “I have to stay late tonight,” Jace winces as he admits. “But tomorrow? First thing in the morning. I’ll come straight over after the shift and we’ll talk.”

“Sure,” Simon agrees easily enough, except Jace knows him well enough to the doubt there, the way he doesn’t get his hopes up that Jace will follow through this time.

“I promise. As soon as the replacement shows up I’m gone. You’re my priority.” He’s already making a note to cancel a mid-day meeting he planned on attending after a few hours of rest, and one later in the afternoon just in case.

Just in case what? In case it takes all day to convince Simon to forgive him? In case Simon doesn’t forgive him and Jace is left to pick up the pieces of his failed relationship? Jace shakes the thought from his head, hoping he hasn’t messed things up that irreparably.

“I love you, Simon,” Jace tells him, holding his breath for the seconds that stretch on after his words before Simon sighs.

“I love you too, Jace.”

The line goes dead and Jace stares at the phone in his hand for several long minutes before pocketing it. The rest of the night is spent counting the seconds until the morning shift will take over while also dreading that moment in equal measure. What is he going to say? He has plenty of time to think about it left alone for most of the night, but he hates everything he comes up with. It doesn’t feel like enough, or it feels like too much, or it feels like he’s making excuses.

A few hours later, tired and weary, he’s out of time to think. The fresh air during his walk to Simon’s works well to clear his head and he reminds himself of one thing: he loves Simon, and he needs to figure out what he can do to fix what he broke. If he starts there then the rest will hopefully fall into place. It isn’t like he has many other options.

Jace knocks on the door and waits with bated breath.

“You’re here,” Simon says when he opens it, and Jace tries not to feel as hurt as he does by the surprised words. He deserves that. He deserves so much worse than that.

“I am,” Jace says. I always will be, if you let me. Please, let me stay, he wants to beg, but doesn’t. Simon steps aside and Jace goes in, making an immediate beeline for the sofa. He’s too anxious to sit, however, and stands back up almost immediately.

“I’m sorry,” Jace starts. It’s the simplest place.

“For…?” Simon prompts.

“For making you think you did something wrong. For avoiding you, instead of telling you what was bothering me.” Jace is certain there’s more than that he should apologize for but it seems like a good starting point. “It just felt so ridiculous, and I figured I’d just get over it… but I didn’t, and it was easier to avoid than admit until we talked last night and I realized how bad I let everything get and I- I don’t want to lose you, Simon.”

Simon, who was doing a very good job standing with his arms crossed looking unimpressed, softens considerably at that. “If it’s bothering you that much it isn’t ridiculous. And I kept telling you that you can talk to me, I wish that you had.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jace admits. “But I am now,” he adds hopefully. It might be too little too late but he has to try.

“So?” Simon prompts again, not letting up. “Do I get to know why my boyfriend’s been avoiding me, or are you just going to say sorry and try to pretend it never happened?”

“I was embarrassed because of the weight I put on.” Jace has to force the words out, already hating himself the moment he hears them leave his lips.

Jace expects Simon to laugh but instead Simon looks him up-and-down in consideration. “I wondered… but you have to know I don’t care about that, right?”

“You might not, but I do.” Jace frowns. “I didn’t realize just how much until I started going out of my way to avoid you even seeing me, let alone touching me.”

“That’s when you started insisting on all those ridiculous quickies,” Simon pieces together, shaking his head. “I should’ve realized.”

“No, I should’ve said something. I thought if I kept it up once and a while it’d be enough to hold things over until I got… comfortable again.”

Simon snorts at that, then looks immediately apologetic. “Sorry. I know this is serious, and the sex is great and all, but you do know I’m dating you for more than just that, right?”

Jace manages a small laugh at that. “I figured it was probably a 75/25 split,” he jokes back. This is a good sign, right? If Simons’ laughing, even for a second, maybe he doesn’t totally hate him.

“My point,” Simon reels the conversation back in. “Is that you should’ve said you were uncomfortable. We could’ve stopped things for a while, or forever if that’s what you want. I’m dating you because I like you, not because of your body. Though, I mean, it is an amazing body.”

“It was stupid,” Jace argues. “I overreacted.”

“Did you?” Simon says, raising an eyebrow. “You still feel that way, don’t you? Even now?”

Jace almost opens his mouth to say that he doesn’t, that everything is fine and he just wants to go back to the way things were before, but he knows it’d be a lie. And he just got done apologizing for not being honest in the first place. It’s a hit to his pride but he knows he needs to tell Simon the truth even if he isn’t happy about it.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jace admits, not meeting Simon’s gaze.

“If it bothers you then it isn’t stupid. I’m mad you didn’t tell me, but I’m not mad you’re uncomfortable. Honestly? I love your body like this. Every last inch of it, whether those inches were there before or not. Hell, it’s nice to have the playing field evened out a bit since I’ll never have your Adonis-abs,” Simon says, and though he eyes Jace’s body he doesn’t make a move to reach out for him.

“Yeah, well, that makes one of us,” Jace mutters, crossing his arms in front of him self-consciously. He hates the space between them, he wants to reach out and pull Simon close and never let him go again, certainly not for as long as he has recently, but he still can’t bring himself to do it.

Simon seems to sense that, too. “But it doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it if you aren’t. I’ll tell you what - let’s just put a hard stop on anything physical until you’re comfortable with it again. But when you are - and I mean the second you give me the okay - I get to show you exactly how beautiful I think you are. Whether you look like you did six months ago, or like you do now, or if you put on 100 more pounds, I’m always going to think you’re gorgeous, and I’m going to remind you every day so you never forget it again, starting now. Jace Wayland, you are the single most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Jace mentally curses the traitorous flush that he feels in his cheeks at the declaration, but smiles. “Thanks, Simon,” he says.

It’s tempting to say that he’s fine, to pull Simon into a kiss he knows after this long won’t stay chaste for long, but he doesn’t want to end up right back where he started and he definitely doesn’t want to risk pushing Simon away again.

“Do you think we could just take a nap? I’m exhausted, and I miss falling asleep with you.” Jace knows after everything he has no right to ask, but any concerns are gone the moment Simon nods eagerly and smiles.

Simon holds true to what he said earlier, stripping down to his boxers before getting into bed, waiting to see where Jace decides to position himself and what he wants to do. Simon doesn’t push things, and when Jace settles in behind him to wrap his arm around Simon - a deliberate choice, they both know now - Simon only shifts slightly to fit in his hold easier, not saying a word.

Feeling more relaxed than he has in weeks, Jace falls asleep almost immediately.

---

When Jace wakes up it’s to Simon running his fingers gently through a loose strand of hair that fell over his face while he slept. At some point Simon must’ve woken up and turned to face Jace, content to simply wait for him to wake up rather than leave.

“Good afternoon, beautiful,” Simon says, and Jace shakes his head.

“You’re really sticking to that, aren’t you?” Jace says, a little surprised.

“Of course I am. I meant it. Until you believe it yourself I’ll just have to believe it enough for the both of us.” Simon gives a little shrug with the one shoulder he can move, and Jace is filled with such a sudden and overwhelming sense of certainty that Simon really does mean it, that he isn’t just saying it to make Jace feel better, that he doesn’t know what to do with the emotion that comes with the realization.

“I wish I could see what you see,” Jace mumbles out the passing thought, still so half-asleep that he doesn’t even realize he said it out loud until Simon replies.

“Maybe I can convince you,” Simon offers.

Jace considers the offer for the second time that day. “And how, exactly, would you do that?”

Simon shifts backward so he can sit back on his heels, leaning over Jace as he lays on the bed. “If you’re uncomfortable you’ll tell me to stop, right?”

Jace nods, and Simon pauses an extra second but seems satisfied with his answer. Jace wants to see what he can manage because he misses this. He misses them, and even just spending this morning back with Simon with everything out in the open is doing wonders to ease some of the discomfort he felt before.

“Well,” Simon starts, pushing the comforter off of them entirely to move so that he’s straddling Jace, kneeling on either side of his thighs. “I’d start by saying I’ve noticed you growing your hair out, and I love the way it lifts when the wind catches it just right,” Simon brings a hand up to comb through the light, loose pieces of Jace’s hair that flop into his face when they aren’t styled back, like right now.

“Then I’d tell you how beautiful your cheeks are when they get that little tinge of blush you can’t hide when you’re embarrassed,” Simon continues, leaning over to place a kiss on each of Jace’s cheekbones. Jace can feel that very same blush form there, warm under the cool touch of Simon’s lips, and Simon smiles down at him as he pulls back again. “There it is. Beautiful.”

Simon moves his gaze to Jace’s lips, placing a kiss there, this one lingering long enough that Jace tries to lean up into it just as Simon pulls away again, but not before he catches Jace’s bottom lip in his teeth for just a second before moving down his jawline and onto his neck. Jace tilts his head back to give Simon more access, shuddering at the barely-there scrape of fangs against his throat as Simon speaks in between each kiss. “And how beautiful you are when you open up for me like this,” Simon says, peppering kisses in between. Jace barely manages to hold back a moan as Simon sucks a mark onto the skin just above his collarbone.

Simon sits back again, resting on Jace’s thighs while his hands trail down Jace’s arms.

“I’d tell you how I can’t see your arms without remembering every time you used them to pin me against a wall or lift me up onto a table with such irresistible strength,” Simon continues, his hands moving from Jace’s arms to grab the bottom of Jace’s t-shirt and pull it off over his head, giving him access to Jace’s chest. Simon rocks his hips ever so slightly with the action and Jace’s breath catches, instinctively arching his body up off the bed to chase the brief friction.

“I’d tell you that ever since you started putting on weight-” Simon’s words slow deliberately, his eyes full of lust and wanting as they trail down Jace’s body, followed by that gentle caress of his fingertips again. “-I’ve dreamt about the way it’d feel when I held on to it while I fucked you, imagined the beautiful marks I’d leave there, the soft skin bruised over and scratched-”

“Fuck, Si,” Jace barely manages to breathe out, eyes closed as he pictures it and… yeah, okay, maybe he can see what Simon sees. Simon’s words make him want it too, his thoughts lost in the knowledge that it’ll be so much better than he can even imagine, if only because it’s them, and suddenly Jace is entirely incapable of finding anything unappealing in the idea of giving himself over entirely to Simon. Everything he built up in his head, all the reservations and self-consciousness, fade to nothing but distant background noise while he’s here in Simon’s arms.

Simon, goddamn him, hovers over him, smirking.

For the first time in weeks Jace feels desire without reservation wash over him, but it isn’t desire in spite of the idea of Simon touching him - it’s because of the idea of Simon’s hands on him, revering his body just as it is now, that has every nerve in his body tingling in anticipation. Jace had been so trapped in his own head and his inability to feel nothing but disgust over the changes in his body that he didn’t even consider the possibility that Simon might actually like them, or at least not hate them the way Jace did.

“Show me,” Jace says suddenly, and Simon wastes no time bringing his hands from Jace’s shoulders down his chest, teasing gentle touches along his sides.

“So beautiful,” Simon repeats, peppering kisses down his stomach, his hip bones, stopping right at the line of Jace’s boxers to look back up at him in question one last time. Jace nods, not trusting his words just then, and a minute later both his and Simon’s underwear are discarded on the floor next to the bed.

“You’re perfect, Jace,” Simon tells him, and Jace can feel the heat rise not just in his cheeks but everywhere, his entire body alight with the effect Simon’s words have on him. “And all mine. I’m so lucky to have you like this all. to. my. self.” Simon emphasizes each word with a small bite, two on the inside of each thigh.

“I think I’m the lucky one,” Jace says, letting out a small gasp as Simon begins to stretch him. All thoughts, positive or negative, leave him entirely as Jace loses himself to the passion of the moment, to the feeling of being wanted, of being longed for.

True to his word, Simon never lets Jace forget exactly why he’s here and why they’re doing this. Jace is surprised when, after all their time apart recently and all the buildup, Simon takes things slowly. He never stops telling Jace how beautiful he is as he’s keeping his promise of marking every inch of skin he can, always returning to slide his hands over Jace’s stomach and sides and thighs, gripping them tight, giving them the most attention.

Jace embraces every new sensation - the way it feels to have Simon’s fingers press into areas of him that were nothing but unforgiving bone and muscle before, appreciating the way their bodies seem to blend and connect in ways they didn’t before.

Jace is aware of every time Simon glances up at his face just to double-check he’s still alright, still with him. Jace is aware that every touch, even the rough ones, are a reassurance and a comfort.

Jace is aware that this is Simon taking care of him, mind, body, and soul, from start to finish. And he knows that care doesn’t end now that they’re lying next to each other again to catch their breaths.

“That… was…” Simon starts, but Jace cuts him off.

“Beautiful?” Jace suggests, with the slightest teasing tone to his words. “I know.”

“Do you?” Simon asks, not teasing at all, and Jace’s taunting smirk fades to something softer.

Jace spent his entire life being who he thought others expected him to be, living up to the expectations set by those around him. There was always a push to do better, to be better, that he’s never felt satisfied with where he is at any given time. There’s always something to change, something to improve. But here, now, with Simon, he feels like for the first time he’s able to be okay with who he is and the way things are right now. That he’s fine, just like this.

“Yeah,” he says, probably about as surprised as Simon to find that he isn’t just saying it to deflect now - he actually means it this time. “Yeah, I do.”

[pandawritespoorly]

A Shy ‘Sparrow’: Chapter 4 - Changes

@starpony999

Author’s Note: Eyy, it's been a while hasn't it? Well here I am! With a new chapter too! I've written more for this story, and I'm getting a better idea of how long it'll be, so I might change the chapter count to a rough estimate once I've posted this.

Chapter Summary: The side effects of a broken miraculous are beginning to catch up with Marinette.

First | Previous | ???

A month since Alya posted that picture, and things aren’t going well. The amount of attacks has almost doubled, and Marinette can’t help but feel that Hawkmoth is targeting her.

If he is, it’s working, because she’s been getting worse, fast.

Alya now shows up at the bakery to walk with her to school each day, because no one wants her to faint in the middle of the street. If Alya is absent, then Adrien or Nino will come to get her.

Her parents have been sending her to a doctor for a while now. She was prescribed something a week ago, and it’ll be starting to take effect properly around… today, actually.

She and Alya arrive at school together as usual. What isn’t usual is that for whatever reason, the school’s population is buzzing in excitement about some girl who transferred in.

“Well, she sounds interesting…” Alya remarks, unsure. The stories seem off somehow.

Marinette hums. She’s not sure about this new girl either.

Her classmates are gathered around a desk in the front. Not tightly, just all facing that way and closer than they normally would be.

“...my sprained wrist hasn’t healed properly, because- Oh! Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. Well, I guess you all seem pretty trustworthy,” the girl looks around carefully. She’s dressed in a gray romper with an orange jacket. Her hair is tied into two ponytails in the front. They resemble sausages more than anything.

It’s certainly a… unique look.

“See, I’m actually Sparrow! Chat and I are dating- Oops! We didn’t want that to be public ye-”

“I don’t believe you,” Marinette cuts in. Another wave of dizziness passes over her, and she clutches at Alya gently, swaying.

Crocodile tears come to the girl’s eyes, “H-how c-c-could you say th-that? I work so much for th-this c-c-city, and this i-i-is the th-thanks I get?” Marinette collapses, falling to the floor. Her classmates gasp, and several rush to help her.

“Oh, so now she’s pretending t-to be sick so that y-you’ll all believe her-” New Girl sneers.

Everyone falls silent, processing what the new girl said.

“What,” Adrien snarls. She pales, but attempts to continue.

“W-well, she c-c-clearly is jealous, and is tr-trying to discredit me, and is looking for sympathy p-points by pretending to-”

“Oh, shut it!” Alya snaps, “Mari has been sick for weeks. I have to walk her to school everyday so that she doesn’t collapse in the street, and just because she didn’t believe your frankly outlandish tall tales, you’re saying that she’s faking it?”

“W-well no-”

“Really? Because that’s what it sounded like to me,” Adrien growls.

“I sh-should go. Jag-”

“Just leave.” Nino glares, “You aren’t welcome here.”

The girl makes her escape, and the class turns their full attention on their favorite pigtailed designer.

Max is muttering medical statistics to Rose and Juleka who are doing their best to revive her. Soon enough, she stirs, putting a hand to her head and groaning.

Both girls hug her, and Max sighs in relief.

“Maybe you should head home, Mari…” Alya hugs her.

“No, I’ll just go to the nurse first, if I need to go home, I’ll call Maman or Papa.” Marinette suggests, “You shouldn’t miss class.”

“Alright…”

After everyone wishes her well and she makes her way to the nurse. Of course, then she hears the sounds of an attack.

No break for her, huh?

Hurrying out the door of the school, she ducks into an alley to transform.

“Duusu, Spread My Feathers!”

Instead of the usual warm calming feeling of magic washing over her, it feels like searing fire. Every bone feels like it’s splintering and her muscles tense. She’s stumbling, but that is barely registered amidst the tidal wave of pain she is drowning in. She coughs, choking on nothing as her throat struggles to function.

Her back hits a wall, and she slides to the ground, falling until she’s nothing but a limp body on the ground, spasming occasionally.

She needs to detransform. She needs to detransform right this second.

Just thinking takes immense effort, so talking is out of the question. She’s relieved when she registers the sound of beeping from far, far away.

A voice echoes around her, something blue flying around above her, mumbling about medication.

“Wha’?” Nothing is coming into focus, but at least the pain is fading, even if she feels sore and utterly exhausted,

“I- I didn’t want to say anything, because it wasn’t completely certain to happen, but often, magic doesn’t mix well with medicine…” the blue thing chirps.

Kwami, she can barely understand French words, let alone identify… anything.

“Wha’?” Everything is swimming again, she still can’t move properly.

The blue thing rushes towards her - hiding, she thinks - as something dark lands in the alley.

“Good Kwami, what happened to you Ma- Miss?”

The dark thing crouches near her, and she does her best to repeat the blue thing’s - Duusu’s - words.

“...medzz...bad..reacshhun…” she manages.

“You had a bad reaction to your medication.” He - Chat Noir - repeats, looking for clarification.

She nods almost imperceptibly, trying to move upright but instead finds that her arms give out and she returns to the ground.

“I can take you home.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “Uh, where do you live?”

Marinette does her best to mumble ‘bakery’ and hopes she gets the message across properly. She’s entirely spent.

Chat Noir picks her up as gently as possible, and hurries to get her home without jostling her too much. He hands her off to her parents, doing his best to explain what she’d told him.

They nod, and her Papa takes her to bed while Maman calls the doctor. It doesn’t take long for her to give in to the exhaustion, falling into a restless sleep.

She wakes up a few hours later, feeling weak and tired.

“Duusu?” She croaks. The Kwami immediately flies up to her, looking relieved that she’s awake.

“Marinette! How are you feeling?” She’s uncharacteristically uncomposed, flitting around distractedly looking over her holder.

“Just… really tired. My head hurts, I’m kind of sore…?” She holds her head, staring off in space until something occurs to her. “The akuma! I can’t leave Chat alone!”

She stands quickly trying to get to her balcony, only to fall back onto her bed, feeling shaky.

“Marinette, that was hours ago. You aren’t well.”

“What happened?” She can’t really remember anything past transforming.

“It- I’m sorry. The miraculous uses some of your energy to transform, usually it wouldn’t be noticable, but… it’s broken. It’s trying to use your energy to heal itself, but that’s not going to work. The medication blocked that, but by transforming, you forcibly went against that… so it didn’t end well. My last chosen-” Duusu’s voice cracks, and she tears up, “Oh, Emilie, my poor little peachick…”

She shakes herself out of her mind after a moment, “Since you are younger, there was a chance that the medication wouldn’t have done anything, maybe even help, so I didn’t want to worry you…”

Marinette sighs. “It’s alright Duusu, it’s not your fault the brooch is cracked. Though, maybe I should be trying to fix it. How can I do that?”

Duusu pauses to think. This girl has proven to be very capable, and is certainly responsible. She’s ready to know about the Guardian.

“There’s a Guardian of the miraculous. They are responsible for taking care of and protecting the miraculouses. He is in Paris, that much I am sure of. He is the one who gave Chat Noir his miraculous, and he is in possession of Tikki. Together, they would be able to fix it.”

“Great!” Marinette cheers, “So just tell Chat I need to see the guardian?”

“...no. The Guardian is meant to stay a secret and it’s possible that Chat does not even know of their existence. If you were to out them, it would not look good for you. If Chat does know, he’s probably doing his best to protect him as well, given Hawkmoth’s goal. Telling him that you have to meet with the Guardian and Tikki? It wouldn’t be a good look.”

“Especially after I missed an attack…”

Duusu nods regretfully.

“Can I make sentimonsters for searching? To try and track him down?”

“I suppose. Depending on which Kwami they are the holder of it may not be as effective, but there’s no way of telling.”

---

The peahen heroine is transformed, out on patrol. Her sentimonster already healed the minimal damage from the attack. She’d rested enough earlier that she feels comfortable making another.

Touching another amok to her brooch, she allows the sentimonster to take shape. A dark crow forms in front of her, waiting for instruction.

She holds her hands out to let it rest. “Find the Guardian. Find Tikki. That’s all. Do your best,” she whispers, kissing its forehead and letting it fly away.

A Cat hero in the shadows hears the words and frowns.

That’s not right.

---

Author’s Note: Crows are predators to turtles, you know.

Did I come up with some magical nonsense as to why Marinette can't use medication for the sake of angst? Yes. Yes I did.

This story might be moving faster than you were expecting, but I never intended for it to be as long as With Time. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

Stay safe, and have a wonderful day and night! ☀️🌙

[shadowofthelamp]

Year in Review: Writing

So, I can’t do the ‘year in review’ for art because... yeah, I didn’t really draw that much this year. So I decided to trawl through my writing tag for one favorite piece per month, and a pulled few paragraphs from each! Basically everything here is Zim except for the one tendershipping week thing, lmao, oops.

Some months had slim pickings but I still do like every one of these and it was a nice reflection.

January: Arrival

Her skin was tinted a sickly green, more like decomposing flesh than irken or human. Dib swallowed, but her breathing seemed to be even when he placed a hand to her kind of chubby chest, so that was probably just how their skin colors mixed, right? Besides, the lighting in the lab was always weird. Her mouth was gummy with no teeth yet, but her vocal cords were functioning perfectly. He was going to need hearing aids by his twenties, between her and Zim.

She had four fingers and three toes, which he kind of expected, as well as a nose but no ears. That made sense, if she had antennae, but it was still strange to run his fingers along the sides of her head and just feel smooth skin.

Her eyes… they were Zim’s through and through, deep ruby with the color filling the sclera. Did irkens even have sclera if they only had one color? Under the lab’s lights and mixed with the way everything on her slightly shimmered from the sticky goo she'd been coated in, she was like a section of space stolen into the little room and it took his breath away. The water blurring his vision didn’t help as he wiped it away with his sleeve, shifting her to one arm. She was so small...

__________

February: WLOD Dib meets Twix, alt version

It’s fascinating, to see what could have gone right. The 1001 here had gangly, underdeveloped limbs, and wispy hair that never quite got clean from the showers. This version wasn’t fat or anything, but definitely had more meat on its bones.

He examined the goggles- peering through them, they altered its vision because they made the lab beyond the ‘glass’ blurry. Curious, very curious. He was about to pop the lens out when it began to stir, tugging at the metal restraints with a clatter.

_________

March: Zibvoid

He talked to himself.

He talked to himself.

He talked to Zim, who hadn’t said a word since he’d died, but maybe he was just giving him the silent treatment.

Round and round, the generator buzzed like a bee and a hospital and a bug zapper that would draw in prey like flies to a web, except he was the spider now and the Zims were the moths.

Dib. Dib Dib Dib Dib Zim Dibdibdibdibzimdibdibzimdib. The names popped off his tongue as he rolled them both in his mouth, over and over until they didn’t seem like names at all anymore.

__________

April: Sturdy Branches (I know the date’s different on ao3 but it was first posted April)

Her dad is either singing or talking to himself as he vacuumed inside the house with a sway in his hips. At least you’re pretty sure it’s her dad? You haven’t seen a picture of him or anything, but he’s about the same age as your dad, so he’s too old to be a brother and too young to be a grandpa, and she hasn’t mentioned any uncles. A babysitter, maybe, but that doesn’t really make sense since Tulip isn’t home yet- ah!

She’s talking to someone as she turns the corner, bouncing her backpack. It’s lilac and circular, as well as covered in buttons. The Ranger helmet is in her backpack or still in her locker, but either way, she’s not wearing it anymore. She’s got the boots on, though. You adjust the binoculars a bit, but you aren’t good enough at lip-reading yet to tell what she’s saying. Whatever it is, it’s making the girl she’s talking to laugh. Maybe she’ll tell you tomorrow in class or at lunch if you pull her to sit at your table again. She has more friends at the middle table, but they don’t like sitting next to you after the beetle incident, and she doesn’t seem to mind. She always has a big smile when you start talking, and she’d say something if she didn’t like you, right? Pretty much everybody else does.

_________

May: Do Something For You (TD spoilers!)

Dib had never really thought ahead to having a family, but she was pretty much everything she’d want in one. She was an assistant and a partner, she was invested in the paranormal, she hated Zim- but on the other hand, she didn’t want him hurt? She seemed weirdly invested in making sure he didn’t get caught, actually. Eh, she’d hit him pretty hard, so it wasn’t like she was opposed to him getting his rightful dues for being an evil space monster.

It was relatively simple- she was just worried if he died then her timeline would be destabilized, which was a decent enough concern. Zim had to be important to his life for years to come, in one way or another. But whatever they were dealing with in the future, it had to be better with Zim out of the way earlier, right?

__________

June: Unnamed capture au drabble

“Why do you even give me these stupid scripts if you don’t like me doing them?” Dib folded his arms, kneading the ball in his palm. “Just get a robot or something.” He snorted. “I mean, it’d probably break, like half the stuff you touch.”

Zim’s hands curled into fists. “Take that back, you- you- worm!”

Dib quirked an eyebrow. “What, touched a nerve? When I was a kid, half the stuff you made broke, it’s just a fact. You only conquered Earth because this place is a trash heap and your garbage is slightly better than ours.” Over a year in Zim’s presence without too many galling injuries and a lifetime of not being able to keep his mouth shut made him bold. “Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re probably broken yoursel-” He was cut off with a Pak leg aimed directly at his throat, prodding in just deep enough to draw a drop of blood down the alien metal.

Zim’s eyes were narrowed, but something was watering on the edges, and Dib swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing just below the leg’s tip.

“Zim. Is. Not. Broken.”

___________

July: Laughter

Ryou couldn't stand the lights on one minute and then hated having them off the next. The shadows bled from the way the light reflected off the couch, how it seemed to devour the wall behind it, and he swore he could still hear the voice in his mind. (Was that himself? Had he started thinking of himself as a separate voice? It had been ages since he'd really been alone, even though anyone outside him would have wondered about the boy who talked to his reflection like it was an old friend.)

He wished he could talk to Ryou. Ryou who had seemed so pliable as a child but had proved entertaining, a match for the fire, (heh, fire, even though it wasn't that funny, in fact, it wasn't funny at all, but what did he have but jokes? it wasn't like he could cry anymore) who carved out rules for use of the body with gritted teeth and tugged at the rope of the Ring so hard it had chafed his neck. He'd respected him. From a soft child, he'd hardened and grown firm, grown powerful, grown to be worthy. What were the odds fate had given him a chance at the same time someone had handed a young Yugi the box with the Puzzle? A roll of the dice. (The Gods having a last laugh, perhaps..)

Ryou dug his nails into the wood of the desk so hard that it made crescents, tiny moons in the umber that dug splinters into his pale fingers. The little model of the Thief King sat, as he always did, half-hidden on his shelf behind the pieces of Zorc. He'd never bothered to glue the monster back together but felt oddly reluctant to just incinerate the figures and be done with them. Both of them. Either of them. Maybe he just didn't want to pretend it had never happened. (Maybe he was worried he'd forget, thoughts and memories swept away by the sands of time, trickling down the hourglass, minute by minute, day by day, as he aged the way the Spirit had never been allowed to.)

___________

August: New Mission

It had been a month.

Nebula Twix had survived. She’d had to be popped into the healing pod when she had an allergic reaction to the oatmeal Dib had tried to feed her when it had inflamed her spooch, and Gir had tried to eat her head the one second Zim’s back had been turned, and she made goo from both ends a lot, but otherwise, she was perfectly fine!

And with that, Zim had come to a crossroads. It seemed that he was, indeed, in this for the long heel. (He was pretty sure that was the phrase. Humans liked large feet and large boots, so it made sense.) He could either continue to keep her a secret, or he could pass on his success to the Tallests.

Creating slaves out of the species marked for invasion was pretty common- something like 85% of invaders did it. But creating hybrids? That number was much lower. (Besides, they were usually disposed of as soon as the invasion was complete.) And irkens having those hybrids from their own bodies, and not just mixing them out of genetic slurry and quickly aging them up in time-fields? Almost completely unheard of. Zim was the pioneer in that area.

Also, having smeets from one’s body may have been a tad illegal, considering how hard it had been to find good information and judging from the fact that all irkens found to do it were brought in for experimentation. But no matter! Zim was nothing if not very, very good at things few other irkens dared to do, ready to drive the Empire forward by any means possible. They would have to appreciate that!

__________

September: Twix finds out she’s pregnant

Secondary life-form detected, the chamber chimed.

“Oh, gross, I’ve got a tapeworm? Well, flush it out.” Twix rolled her eyes, going back to the computer.

Lifeform has elements of Pak user.

Her finger froze on the ‘b’ key. “It… what? Analyze species origin.”

The chamber hummed around Twix as sweat dripped down the skin of her neck. There was a tiny 'ding!’ like a kitchen timer.

Lifeform is too underdeveloped to make more than approximations, but is roughly 25% irken and 75% Dominant Earth Species.

Her scream rattled the walls.

__________

October: Best-Laid Plans

“Of course, Number One.” Two turned his head slightly, and Dib jolted- he hadn’t directly commanded him to do that. “Your plan is perfect.” He blinked slowly- much slower than most Zims. Most Zims were utterly manic, back and forth and back and forth, loud and brutal and dangerous, but Two- Two had always worshiped him. Maybe even more than the rest. It had been nice, to be admired so heavily. Two had adored the personal attention when he was turned into an errand boy.

Dib might miss him.

He shook that thought out of his head, gripping both sides of Two’s face with his index finger and thumb, nails (not claws, they weren’t claws) digging into the cheeks.

“You belong to me.” Two didn’t respond, and Dib dug in a little further.  Irken skin was thicker than a human’s, with a single drop of pink blood oozing over Dib’s fingernail and leaving a barely-perceptible damp trail. “Respond. Who do you belong to?”

“I belong to you, Number One.”

___________

November: Desperation (warning if you click through for impalement)

Dib’s lips were on Zim’s before he even knew what he was doing. “You’re not dying on me, you little bastard,” he hissed, fumbling to hold up the body as Zim nearly coughed blood directly into Dib’s mouth. It was salty and sweet all in one, but Dib couldn’t linger on the taste. Zim’s fingers grasped at his shirt, and Dib took that as a sign that it was working, pressing their lips together hard enough to bruise the capillaries.  

There was a click. Dib breathed in blood and out carbon dioxide, sputtering and swallowing it down so Zim wouldn’t die like this-

Something red-hot and metallic climbed over his arm before digging into his spine, and he realized that the body had gone entirely limp before there was electricity and then there was nothing.

____________

December: Freak

Twix grit her teeth. “How am I supposed to trust you if you’ll just- just do that?”

“How am I supposed to drop my whole social life because you can’t help being the weirdest person in school?” Tulip shot back. “I do care about you, but it’s so, so hard sometimes, because you just don’t know how to act, and sometimes I’m sick of waiting for you to play catchup just because your parents are the town freaks!” She slapped her hands over her mouth and took a step back.

Twix’s eye twitched under her goggles. “At least they’re freaks that love me. I’ll see you tomorrow, third period.”

“Twix-”

“I said,” Twix said through gritted teeth, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get out before I reactivate the security.”

Tulip got out, and Twix buried her face in a couch pillow and screamed.

[seeaddywrite]

the miracle of us || advent day 4 for @roswellprompts

i think this qualifies as actual fluff?? someone tell me if i wrote real fluff?! i was procrastinating on some homework today & wanted to write something & happened to see someone reblog the advent post from roswellprompts, sooo i picked this one & wrote some echo. i hope someone enjoys it; i did! :) unbeta-ed & i didn’t even proofread, so i’m sure typos abound. sorry!

the prompt i chose was max + miracles, & i am like two hours early, oops?

“So you’re really not even going to put up a Christmas tree?” Liz asks, her fingers tangling with Max’s as they lounge on his couch. She’s reclining back against him, legs stretched out along his much longer ones, and the warmth of her skin is bleeding through the thin cotton of her tank top straight into his bare chest. It’s late, late enough that they should both be asleep or risk a long, exhausted next day, but Max can’t bring himself to move and break the bubble of quiet intimacy they’ve created.

Max sighs, a little dramatic, and tilts his head. “Have you been talking to my sister?” he asks suspiciously, enough of a twist to his lips for Liz to know that he’s teasing. Isobel had been over that morning -- and every morning, at least, since his return from the foggy, grey place he still isn’t quite willing to call death two weeks prior. As usual, she’d made a point of reminding Max that the holidays are only a few weeks out, and his living room is practically made for hosting the perfect Christmas meal. Whatever that means.

Liz chuckles quietly, seeming just as loathe to shatter the peaceful moment as Max. “She’s pretty disappointed she couldn’t pout and convince you to have a big party here,” she answers, turning so that she can nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder. “But putting up a tree doesn’t mean that you have to do that.” 

“I’ve never decorated this place for the holidays,” Max admits, shifting in the sofa so that Liz’s back aligns more comfortably against him. “I’ve always spent Christmas with my parents, at their place, so I never needed to. Mom and Isobel go crazy enough with the holly and tinsel for all of us.” 

It’s the truth, though not the whole of why Max isn’t particularly keen on celebrating this year. Not that Liz gives him a chance to try to hide that from her; he’s not sure whether there’s still some residual connection between them from his handprint, or if she’s just somehow able to read him that well, but she sits up and turns to face him, one eyebrow raised in askance. 

“And?” she prompts, certainty that Max had more to say coloring the word. “Come on, Max, you don’t expect me to believe Isobel’s upset because you’re planning on celebrating the same way you have for the last decade, do you?” 

The words hit in one of the tender spots left behind by Max’s absence for the last several months, and he drops Liz’s gaze, focusing on keeping his breath and countenance even. He’s mended most of the fences destroyed by the unwelcome sacrifice he made -- Isobel and Michael still watch him warily when they think he’s not looking, but they’ve both finally begun to accept that Max has no plans of going anywhere anytime soon and don’t seem quite as panicked when he goes for a walk on his own. Alex Manes and Maria both still look a little stunned when he walks into the room, like he’s a miracle made flesh, but thankfully, it never lasts more than a moment or two before they’re back to normal. Valenti is, mercifully, more concerned with the miracles Max can work with his hands, and Rosa is singularly unimpressed with anything he does, so there’s some normalcy to be found if he’s willing to look for it. 

Then, of course, there’s Liz. Liz, who’d been so incandescently furious with him when she dragged him back from the grey place that she had kissed him hard enough to draw blood, then only spoken to him in sharp, Spanish curses for at least three days before her barriers finally crumbled. Since then, Liz has spent every night in Max’s arms, no matter what her days brought, and Max won’t pretend that her steady presence hasn’t been keeping him sane as he stays hidden and secluded in the house. 

And that, the fact that he’s essentially a prisoner in his own home, is the crux of the holiday issue. 

“Max?” 

He looks back up at Liz, sighing at himself when he realizes he’d gone silent for too long again. Max knows he’s developed a tendency to get lost in thought since his return, and isn’t naive enough to think that the habit isn’t worrying the people who care about him. “Sorry,” he says quickly, reaching out to drag his fingertips across Liz’s cheek in a brief caress. “And you’re right. It’s not quite that simple.” He frowns, trying to choose the right words to explain without making it obvious that he’s feeling sorry for himself. “Obviously, I can’t go spend the holiday with my family this year, since they think I’m --” 

“Dead?” Liz supplies, and Max winces. 

He’s avoided using that word in relation to himself whenever possible, and it’s still strange to hear others use it, even though Isobel and Michael had thrown at him like a weapon after Liz’s serums somehow managed to bring him back. “You were fucking dead, Max! We all moved on without you!” from Michael’s lips is one that still haunts his nightmares, despite the apology he’d gotten a few days later. Because the truth is that Michael was right. The world had moved forward with Max for nearly a year. His family, his loved ones -- they’d all grieved and moved on, and now, no matter how happy they are to have him back, Max is stuck in limbo while they all live their lives. 

“Right,” he agrees quietly. “The town, my parents -- almost everyone thinks that I’m gone, and that doesn’t feel like something to celebrate.” Isobel disagrees, of course, which is why Max is even having this conversation with Liz in the first place. It scares her, he thinks, that Max is still so withdrawn from the rest of the world -- he can feel her frustration, her worry, that he’s still got one foot in the grave. But until they find a plausible lie for how he’s returned to Roswell, they can’t risk everyone knowing, and Max has to stay hidden. Stay stagnant.

Quiet descends on them for a moment, the peace from earlier destroyed by Max’s own frustration. He wishes he knew what to say to bring it back, but before he can open his mouth to try, Liz is leaning forward on her knees to take both of Max’s hands between her own. 

“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way,” she says earnestly, squeezing his fingers until Max looks up and catches her determined gaze. “Maybe everyone doesn’t know it yet, but you’re alive, Max. And I know that this is going to sound crazy, since you’re supposed to be the optimist in this relationship and I’m supposed to stick to the science -- but the fact that you’re here right now, holding my hand? Talking to me, after bringing Rosa back and dying yourself?”

Liz’s voice is soft, and full of wonder as she speaks. As if her brain and determination weren’t at least ninety percent of the reason that Max had made it back. “That’s a miracle, Max,” she continues, bringing his knuckles to her lips and kissing them once, tenderly. “You’re a miracle. And that’s something to celebrate.”

Heat suffuses Max’s cheeks and ears, and he shakes his head vehemently. “You made that happen, Liz,” he tells her, tugging her in against his chest and wrapping his arms around her waist. “The only miracle in my life is you.” His lips press against the crown of her head, and Max ignores the way the soft strands tickle his nose in favor of breathing in her familiar rose-scented shampoo. 

Max knows that most people on the outside looking in at his life might argue what he’d said. They’d see his powers, his superhuman healing hands and his supposedly god-like abilities, the fact that he’d brought a girl back to life and somehow defeated death himself, as evidence that he can work miracles. But the fact of the matter is that Max isn’t a god. He’s not a miracle, or a miracle worker. He’s an alien, one who’s going to have to fight the desire to heighten his powers by killing for the rest of his life. Everything remarkable that he’s done is tainted by that truth. 

At heart, Max is just a man, in love with a woman who’s more miraculous than anything he could ever do. 

“You are such a sap,” Liz teases, relaxing into his embrace with a contented sigh. “But I’ll let you get away with it because it’s late, I’m tired, and you’re comfortable.” There’s the flutter of lips at the base of his neck, and Liz shifts until Max is all but cradling her against him, supporting most of her weight. “But just -- think about it, okay? A tree? It’d be nice for us to be able to celebrate together, even if it’s just the two of us after I see Papa and Rosa. I won’t even tell Isobel, if you don’t want me to.” 

Max huffs a laugh and gives into the impulse to stroke her hair with his fingertips. “I think she’ll notice when stops by to visit,” he points out pragmatically. “And I’ve never been very good at keeping secrets from her. We can do dinner here for Christmas, if anyone wants to come. It’d be nice, to have everyone here at once.” Less lonely, at least for a night. And Max had to admit that some lights and decorations might make the house feel more like his again, after so long elsewhere. 

Liz smiles sleepily up at him and presses a clumsy kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Christmas with the family we chose,” she murmurs. “And maybe Christmas Eve with just the two of us, to celebrate the miracle of us.” 

This time, it’s Max that snorts. “And you say I’m a sap!” he teases, tugging at a long strand of hair near where it fell onto her back. 

Liz hums contentedly, nuzzling back into his chest and finally allowing her eyes to close. “You love me anyway,” she says on a yawn, and Max is hard-pressed to feel any of the disconnection or isolation that seemed so all-encompassing earlier in the evening. 

“I do,” Max agrees in a whisper, and reaches out with his power to turn out the lights. As he drags a blanket from the back of the couch to cover them both for the night, he spares a glance to the empty space in the living room where Isobel had stood, insisting it was perfect for a tree. 

Maybe this Christmas wouldn’t be what he was used to, and maybe the sting of missing his parents and his freedom would hurt, but Liz is right. Max has plenty to celebrate, this year.

[omgsomeonesomewhereonearth]

Of Vices and Virtue Prologue

Chapter One

Warnings: Shitty parents, implied abuse, Virgil is very sad, swearing, negative self talk

Summary: This is basically a fantasy/royalty AU. A group of boys escape their royal responsibilities and hang out on the ocean having adventures (and falling in love oops). This chapter is really sad, but it gets happier, I promise.

Pairings: no pairings in this chapter, but the fic is leading up to Prinxiety and Logicality

Note: This is my first ever time writing fanfiction, and my first time posting my writing online, so please bear with me, and constructive criticism is very welcome. 

Virgil

“Breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, breathe out for eight seconds. Four, seven eight.” The numbers bounced around Virgil’s head as he scrambled desperately for any kind of control over his feelings. Focusing carefully on one particularly shabby scuff mark on his boots, Virgil continued to breathe, slowly and deliberately, until his pulse slowed to a normal pace, and he felt the waves of panic and nausea roll off his shoulders. A clever little trick his sister had taught him to keep himself calm at royal events, back in the days when his parents didn’t mind his existence being publicly acknowledged by their royal friends. The idea that a simple breathing trick could somehow alleviate all his panic seemed ridiculous, but it had worked.

Only once his hands had stopped shaking did Virgil allow himself to look up. In the comforting darkness of his own bedchamber, the ahead seemed a little less terrifying. He could face this. Allowing himself another deep breath, Virgil looked up at the embroidered tapestry in front of him and poured out his woes to a small sequined dragon.

Every once in a while, the king and queen were struck with the unpleasant reminder that the younger of their two offspring still existed and that they had yet to figure out what to do with him. As a result, a note had been written out in his mother’s neat, slanting script and delivered via many palace servants to Virgil’s quarters asking that he

” kindly join us in the dining room, your father and I have much to discuss with you. Arrive precisely at the twentieth hour and please try to make yourself presentable for once.”

Virgil had scrunched the piece of parchment up and kicked it across the room. He’d sworn he’d never go. Then he’d remembered exactly what happened the last time he’d disobeyed direct orders. He walked across the room and picked up the balled-up note. He’d straightened it out. He’d even mumbled an apology to the empty room, which had felt incredibly stupid. And he’d made an effort to straighten out his purple hair, donned formal attire, and made his way down the winding palace steps. It had been a long time since Virgil had set foot in the dining room. Since his sister had left he’d stopped spending much time in any of the rooms that weren’t his own shadowy quarters, hating how big and drafty the place felt without the only safe presence in his life.

His parents had looked up when he’d entered, but neither of them had spoken. His stomach twisted as he recognised the hidden words behind their cold eyes, a language of its own, so deeply etched into his mind that he could never stop understanding it, never stopped obeying it. They were testing him. Did their son remember how to greet his betters, or had all their years of training been a waste? He wanted to scream. He’d been hiding up in his room for months, he wanted to say, ever since his sister had left, he’d been shutting himself away, doing his best to sink deeper and deeper into the shadows. They hadn’t said, or done a single thing. The few times he’d let himself be seen they’d ignored him. They didn’t want him to be there any more than he did. So, what the fuck was this, he wanted to ask. Months of brushing past him in the corridors, barely glancing his way, and suddenly they wanted to see him? To ‘discuss’ something? To throw dumb fucking tests at him as if they hadn’t spent almost a full fucking year pretending he didn’t exist? Knowing that he’d never ask any of the questions seething in his mind, he cleared his throat and bowed, keeping his back straight as possible.

“Good evening mother, good evening father.” Wait, was he meant to say ‘Your Majesties’? No, surely not, this was fine, he was fine, he’d done okay.

He rose just in time to see his parents glance at each other.

Shit.

Wishing he could run away, Virgil hastily took a seat at the table, wincing as he realised he’d forgotten to receive permission. He busied himself by staring down at his scuffed old boots, the one small act of rebellion he’d allowed himself for tonight, cherishing the way the shabby leather stood out against the soft dining room carpet.

“Ahem.”

His mother’s sharp, pointed cough drew his attention back to his parents.

“Virgil, how nice to see you out of your chambers.” The sweet words were underlined with a very deliberate, raised eyebrow. Sit up straight.

His father leaned forward in his seat, his dark eyes focused very closely on Virgil’s. he felt a little like a rat in a trap.

“As you know Virgil, your sister Phoebe is away.” A pause.

Did they want him to say something here? What was he even meant to say? ‘No, really? My only friend in this shitty life? She’s gone? I hadn’t cared to notice.’ He settled on a nod, hoping his face betrayed no vulnerability.

“As we speak right now, Phoebe is receiving lessons from some of the most renowned scholars in all the land. She is on her way to becoming an incredibly accomplished woman.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable, unwavering. Virgil wondered if his father had ever talked about him like that.

No idiot, of course he hasn’t, you’re not Phoebe. You’re not smart or talented or charismatic, you hide when strangers approach you, there’s literally nothing to be proud of-

“Virgil.” His snapped out of his thoughts to meet his mothers steely gaze. Please be normal for once in your life.

“Mother?”

“Your father asked you a question Virgil, ‘why do you think your sister is doing all of this?’”

“Because, umm, because she-” he looked across the table at his fathers pointed frown. Stop stuttering and speak up. “Because she’s going to be queen. She’s preparing to take the throne.”

“Very good, Virgil.” He did not miss the sarcastic edge behind his father’s honeyed voice. “Your sister will one day rule our kingdom, and she is currently working on improving her mind and abilities so she can one day be a queen of your mother’s calibre.” Virgil wanted him to shut up, wished he had the guts to tell him that his sister was already ten times the ruler either of them would ever be.

His father was talking again.

“This is your sister’s duty, and she is fulfilling it. In return for doing so, she will be rewarded handsomely, in riches, power, and respect. But what of your duty?”

“uh... what?” Two glares from across the table. “Sorry, I beg your pardon?”

His mother leaned forward on a table and smiled at him, the special smile she reserved for negotiations, and interrogations. The smile that reminded Virgil of a wildcat on the prowl. He wondered vaguely if she was about to convince him to trade his life away, or sentence him to the death. Or, he thought wryly, maybe she’ll skip all the bullshit and rip my head off my shoulders right now.

“Now, I know that your birth was not as prominent as that of your sister’s.”

“…”

“But you do hold some importance in the state of our kingdom.”

“…”

“And now that you’re of age, we have some very important things to consider.” Virgil’s heart sunk.

[phanlight]

The Boy on the Blue Moon Dreams of Sun

prompt: dan is a theatre kid who hasn't had his first kiss but has to kiss someone for a show. he doesn't want his first kiss to be wasted so he tries to get it done properly beforehand & he meets phil and w/e you can take it from there!!!

““Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what we’ve spent the past ten minutes doing?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

GUESS WHICH BITCH IS BACK AND WRITING AGAIN (spoiler: IT ME)

I thought it was about time I branched out a bit and tried my hand at a theatre au. This was so much fun to write (albeit kinda hard as despite being a literature student my Romeo and Juliet knowledge is a little subpar lmao lets hope I at least sort of did it justice tho) and deffo has more than ur daily dosage of angsty teenage actor!dan so look forward to that. thank u to the lovely anon who prompted me with this! (also yes i’m still relying on ptv lyrics for my song titles after 3 years sh)

Also I’m sorry if the writing in this is a lil inconsistent. I started this fic literally over a year ago and abandoned it for ages before finding and continuing it again. The first half was written in literally like mid 2016 (from which point my writing has obv improved a lot) and since then I’ve been working on it sporadically so if it feels like halfway through my writing style suddenly changes then that’s why OOPS soz

This was not supposed to be this long im so sorry wtf 13k ??? fuks sake

It’s the first time Dan’s ever been pissed off with being cast a lead role in a play.

He usually loves it – he loves the attention, loves having a ripped up script full of highlighted lines and more soliloquies to memorise than he can even keep count of. He shines under the warmth of the spotlight, lapping up the attention like a hungry cat, and when the applause ripples throughout the audience at the end, he can’t get enough of the sound.

It’s just- well, there’s one problem with his part.

It’s nothing he has against Romeo, not necessarily, and the piece itself is okay – Dan’s copy of the popular play in question is already crumpled with annotations; small post-it notes spilling fluorescent colours out of every crease (studying English literature alongside Drama always comes in handy as far as Shakespeare is concerned) and Romeo has a decent amount to say.

The problem is, he’s going to have to kiss someone.

Dan Howell, the one who snaps up almost every single role he auditions for, the one with a clay personality that can be moulded perfectly into whatever role he’s going for next, the one who lives the stage and breathes the lights, who was once described as ‘the heart and soul’ of the local theatre, is going to have to kiss someone.

And believe it or not, Dan Howell, the same seventeen-year-old who breezes through auditions leaving a flutter of girls at his feet, the same guy who was once rumoured to have made out with three people at the Les Miserables afterparty and the same guy who once had to reject two people in one night, has never actually kissed anyone before. Not properly, anyway.

Granted, he’s been extremely close to it a fair few times – having been in and out of auditions and callbacks since the age of about five, he’s come into contact with a considerable number of roles that involve love interests; only last month was his character Eddie supposed to kiss the love of his life, Alexandra, in the back of a car at a drive-in cinema. It was a play that one of the drama students had written; set in the fifties, all red-and-white ice cream parlours and hand jives and high school dances and Marilyn Monroe posters. Dan had enjoyed playing his part, and not just because it was the only opportunity he’d get to sport a black leather jacket (though he did decide leather looked really quite hot on him after that play. It’s almost a shame he’s vegetarian), but because the minor obstacle could, like every single other time, be solved with a stage kiss. Just a few seconds of his back to the audience, being agonisingly close to someone else’s lips, before pulling away and raking though his mind to try and remember the next line. It’s always worked for him, every time.

Except for this. Because the director, a Lucy Howcroft with a loud voice and a bossy personality, has only gone and booked them the Round at the Old Vic theatre. Which would be fine, of course it would; it’s one of the most popular theatres in the city and the theatre group is going to get a huge reputation for this afterwards, but it’s not so handy as far as stage-kissing is concerned. When you’re being stared at from every angle three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around, there’s no way you can get away with only partially leaning in to kiss.

“Are you sure there’s no way around this?” Dan had insisted when he’d stolen a moment after rehearsal to talk to Lucy. She’d been clearing her desk – a papery mountain range, and had looked a bit too busy to talk, but Dan would rather discuss this with her one-on-one instead of having to voice his feelings with twenty other pairs of eyes staring at him.

“For someone who just bagged yet another lead role, I would’ve thought you’d be a little more gracious than this,” Lucy had muttered, snapping a file shut. “I didn’t have to cast you, y’know.”

“It’s not- I am grateful, you know I am, it’s just-“

“Is there a problem with the casting of Juliet?” she’d offered, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Dan had insisted. “She’s fine.”

“The costume, then?” she’d tried. “I’m not a bloody mind reader, Dan. Help me out a bit here.”

Dan had shut his eyes and taken a deep breath, trying to comb the tangle of words in his head into some kind of coherent sentence.

“I mean- I just- the venue,” he gulped. “It’s- there’s a bit of a problem.”

“What about it?” Lucy sighed, irritation tracing the edges of her tone. “I fail to see what’s so problematic about getting a slot at the Old Vic of all places, but if you have any objections, then do enlighten me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just-“ Dan gulped, not really too sure how far he’s going to get with this. The bitterness already in her tone didn’t sound at all promising. “I don’t know. Do we have to perform in the round?”

“Christ, is performing in one of the most popular theatres in London that much of a chore?”

“No, no, I just-“ he gulped, trying to work out how the hell he’d word this without sounding like a twat. “I’ve never really… you know. Performed in an environment like that before.”

“You’ve been acting for twelve years,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure you have enough experience to be able to deal with a round stage instead of a rectangular one.”

“But- like, isn’t the round meant for- like… you know, Greek plays and shit?”

“It used to be,” she’d said, taking care to apply extra emphasis on the past tense. “Since when were you so hung up on the traditions of theatre, anyway?” she’d added after a pause. “Only last week were you totally in favour of the idea of having a rap battle in the middle of Othello.”

Dan had frowned, because that wasn’t really fair – sure, a rap battle isn’t exactly a common feature of Shakespeare’s plays, but no one could deny that Louis, playing Iago, was pretty good at freestyling whenever a mic was thrown in his direction. Despite not adhering to the conventions of traditional English theatre, it certainly made the play more entertaining.

“It’s just gonna be- you know. It’s gonna take some getting used to,” he’d mumbled instead.

“You have three months to get used to it,” she’d pointed out. “I’m sure you and the rest of the cast will have familiarised yourself with it by the time the production comes around.”

“But- the round is traditionally meant for-“

“Look, if you’re going to get so archaic about it, I can always build a time machine, book the open-air Globe for, like, sometime four-hundred years ago, and you can spend the next three days picking rotten tomatoes out of your hair,” she said. “Does that sound better?”

“They only did that to bad actors,” Dan had pointed out. Lucy rolled her eyes.

“And you know what makes a good actor, Dan?” she retorted. “Flexibility. The willingness to branch out of your comfort zone.”

Dan had sighed. He’s not going to get anywhere with this, is he?

“You know what?” he’d finally shaken his head, defeated. “Forget it.”

She watched him turn on his heel with a raised eyebrow. “See you Tuesday, then? First read-through of the script is at eleven in the morning.”

“See you then,” Dan muttered, not even bothering to turn around.

He let the door slam behind him.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t want to kiss anyone – (quite the contrary, really. He loves the idea of it, loves the thought of someone’s lips pressed up against his, the world slowing down around them and his heart feeling like fire. He’s always tried to incorporate that feeling into his acting, letting his passion leak into every character he’s cast, but when the stage lights are off and the curtain is down, his attraction to his colleagues ends there) – it’s just- well, he doesn’t really think he’s found the right person to share the real experience with, yet. His fellow actors and actresses aren’t unattractive by any means, but he doesn’t look at any of them and find himself struck by the desire to taste their lips and whisper incoherence into their ears like Eddie was supposed to do in the back of that car.

Seventeen, and still hasn’t had his first kiss. Still doesn’t want to waste it, at that.

Pathetic.

-

Technicians don’t get paid enough, Phil thinks.

He’s spent the day holed up in the trap room, devouring what was left in the back of the fridge (including a half-opened pack of Doritos that tasted like they expired about five years ago) and puzzling over this fucking broken light board that everyone had very kindly left him to take care of. It had already taken him over half an hour to get one of the chunky old Mac laptops up and running again (seriously, who in this day and age is still using an iBook?) and even then it only really half-functions – a handful of keys are missing, the trackpad only ever seems to work when it feels like it, and there’s a huge hairline crack right across the screen. Phil’s spent so long cursing through gritted teeth and smacking the table in frustration every time the damn thing freezes that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he ended up contributing to those cracks by the end of the day. Maybe that’s how they ended up there in the first place.

“You alright?” the door suddenly opens and a voice – Nick, Phil presumes, breaks the aching silence that the room has been blanketed in for the past four hours. Finally, Phil sighs, feeling a pinch of anger melt away. Human company.

“Been better,” Phil mumbles, popping a couple of grapes into his mouth. Been better, he scoffs to himself. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been worse.

“Chuck me a coke, will you?” he pulls up a chair and puts his feet on it, perching on the edge of the table. Phil heaves out a sigh – that involves getting up – but musters up enough energy to lean over and yank the fridge open. He tosses him a can, and Nick catches it expertly.

“Nice of you to show up,” Phil rolls his eyes. “Only four hours late this time. That’s an hour and a half off your personal best.”

“They said they didn’t need me here ‘till three,” he protests, popping the can open and taking a few gulps. “They said you had it all under control.”

His sentence is punctuated by a burp. Phil grimaces.

“Under control,” Phil snorts. That’ll be the fucking day.

“What did they leave you here to do?” he frowns.

“Only fix this entire fucking thing,” Phil nods over to the stupid light board. God, he’s sick of the sight of it. “Beats me what’s wrong with it. I’ve only just managed to get this dinosaur up and running,” he gestures to the corpse of a laptop in front of him, “let alone look at that.”

“Fuck me, man,” Nick sighs out a heavy breath. “If I knew, I could have come in earlier to help you out a bit. You should have texted me.”

“It’s fine,” Phil sighs even though- well, it’s not, really. There’s only so many hours of broken technology and out-of-date food one can take. “It’s not your fault,” he adds truthfully.

“They’re twats sometimes, aren’t they?” Nick lowers his voice, despite the fact they’re literally underground here, beneath the earshot of everyone.

“I’ll say,” Phil widens his eyes, trying to click something and- nope, it’s fucking frozen again. “For fuck’s sake. They’re all bloody loaded, too. You would have thought with the money they have, they could fork out a little for equipment that at least half-functions, right?”

“Yup,” Nick sighs. “Guess bookings for overpriced fancy-ass theatres are higher up on their agenda, though.”

Phil can’t argue with that. Apparently they’re going to have to wire up something in the Old Vic, of all places, next week. Phil dreads to think how much hiring that place out for even a few hours is going to cost, let alone booking it for three nights.

Probably more than enough to buy a better fucking laptop.

-

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but-“

“No- no,” Lucy holds up her hand. “Come on, Dan. More emotion than that. You’re telling the love of your life that even the moon is envious of her beauty. At least pretend to put some passion into it.”

Dan rolls his eyes – only the fourth time he’s had to repeat this fucking soliloquy in the past fifteen minutes. He’s pretty sure he’s only one “no, no, it’s too (insert adjective here)” away from giving up with this whole thing altogether. He’d rather have played Benvolio anyway.

“Come on,” Lucy continues. “We’ll take it from Be not her maid…”

Dan shuts his eyes, scrapes up the remaining traces of his sanity, and takes another breath.

“Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!

It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?

Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—

I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they retur-“

“No, no-“ she interrupts him again and for fuck’s sake, at this rate, Dan won’t even need to spend any time in his bedroom going over his lines. He’s pretty sure he’s memorised half of the monologues already just from recapping in rehearsals alone.

“Come on, really feel it,” she pleads. “You can’t say something as romantic as that with a face like yours – you’re literally saying that two stars in the sky have gone away and they’re asking Juliet’s eyes to shine in their place until they return.”

Dan balls his fists, ready to snap back that yes, he’s fully fucking aware of what’s going on in the play thank you very much, in case she hadn’t forgotten he did actually study it for three separate exams and subsequent exposure to the text in question has made him rather familiar with the occurrences currently taking place, but they’re all interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Lucy huffs, mildly irritated.

The door knob jitters, then twists.

“Hiya,” a black-haired boy nods tiredly, pushing through the crack in the door. Dan immediately recognises him – one of the tech guys, he thinks, but he isn’t entirely certain. He’s never really spoken to any of the crew before; they tend to keep well out of the limelight (they’d rather control it instead).

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks, before turning to Dan and Alexandra (his Juliet). “You two, take five. Be ready to take it from the top.”

They both relax and take a seat on one of the upturned wooden boxes. It isn’t until Dan takes the weight off of his legs he realises how much they’ve been aching – fuck, he really needs to get back to that gym.

“Any luck?” she says to Mr. Black-Hair. He’s holding a laptop that looks as if it’s seen better years, never mind days, and a long cord of wire that snakes around his fist.

“Nothing at all,” he sighs, flicking a strand of his fringe out of his eyes. His hair looks as if it hasn’t seen a hairbrush for days, but there’s something about the way it sits shaggily on his head that kind-of suits him (Dan wishes he could pull off messy hair – he only attempted ditching the straighteners once and spent the rest of the day wondering if any birds had mistaken his head for a nest).

He doesn’t realise he’s been staring until he catches the tail end of Alexandra’s sentence and realises he hasn’t actually been listening for the past minute or so.

“What was that, sorry?”

“I asked you how you were finding Romeo so far,” she repeats.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah- he’s fine,” Dan says, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Black-Hair. He’s lost the thread of their conversation (he’s no lip reader) but by the looks of it, it seems as if there’s a problem with one of the laptops.

“Are you sure?” Alexandra frowns. Dan looks at her, but his glance is soon pulled back to the technician.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs. “You don’t really- I don’t know, you just don’t seem to be… you know. That into it, y’know?”

“Wait-“ Dan shakes his head, trying to focus on their conversation instead of the one a few metres away from. “Hang on- what? What makes you say that?”

She raises her eyebrows, as if to say ‘really?’. Dan’s expression remains carefully blank.

“Come on, Dan. We wouldn’t have had to repeat this stupid scene like, five times if you were actually into it. I’ve seen you do way better than this.”

“Oh, not you as well,” Dan groans, deflating. He’s pretty sure that exact sentence had fallen from Lucy’s lips not so long ago. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of having to sit and listen to people tell him that he ‘can do way better’ and ask ‘is everything all right, Dan? Nothing bothering you, is there?’ because he’s just ‘not himself’ at the moment.

That’s the most ridiculous one, he thinks, because for Christ’s sake, he’s an actor. He’s never himself.

“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Alexandra says, backtracking. “You know I don’t. I just- I think I overheard Lucy say you had a problem with something or other last week?”

“Did you,” Dan mumbles, unable to keep the bitter sarcasm out of his town. Alexandra remains unfazed.

“What was that about, though?” she remains unfazed. “Nothing to do with the casting, is it?”

“You really think it’s to do with the casting?” Dan stares at her in disbelief, before scoffing. “Yeah, like, I’m gutted to have bagged the lead role alongside you at one of the best theatres in the country. How am I going to cope?”

Not entirely truthful, but not a complete lie either.

“Just making sure,” a grin tugs at her lips, and she flicks a curl of red hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t have much of a problem with it myself, to be honest.”

“That’s reassuring,” Dan smirks sarcastically, but his tone is fairly benign. There’s certainly no denying she’s fucking gorgeous and it’s really no wonder she’s Juliet – she has hair the colour of a sunset falling down her back in ruby curls, emerald eyes framed by a curl of long eyelashes and cherry red lips that stretch into a wide smile whenever Dan cracks a joke, giving way to a small dimple on the side of her cheek. Her skin is pale, the colour of moonlight, almost, and he idly thinks, just for a fleeting second, that the moon probably would be jealous of her. She’s beautiful.

“Certainly don’t have a problem with getting to snog you in front of a thousand people, I must be honest,” she adds, and Dan’s stomach drops and his grin vanishes. Shit.

He wrings out a laugh, internally wincing at how false it sounds. “Yeah, I- um-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone mutters a few footsteps away from them. He snaps his head up, and Lucy plus Mr. Black-Hair are hunched over the desk, clearly getting nowhere with the absolute disaster they call an iBook.

“Wait- what’s the problem?” Dan suddenly gets up. He feels a little bad for leaving Alexandra so abruptly so he throws her a little apologetic ‘be right back’ glance, but he can’t help it – he might actually be able to help, here.

He shoves down the other voice in the back of his mind, the ‘or rather you’re just grabbing at any opportunity to avoid any potential conversation about the kiss you fucking wimp’

“It’s okay, Dan, sit back down. I’ll be with you both in a second,” Lucy calls over her shoulder.

“No, really,” Dan insists. “I know a thing or two about Macs. I have one myself, and-“ he catches Lucy drawing in a breath, ready to protest, and he regrets the spill of words almost as soon as they come out – fuck, why can’t he just keep his mouth shut? – but Mr. Black-Hair turns around, an eyebrow quirked upwards.

“Really?” his stare is the colour of ice, the sky on a December morning, but it’s weirdly warm at the same time.

“I- uh, yeah,” Dan stutters when he remembers how to talk again. “I’ve always had Macs. They’re great when they decide to work, but they can be a bitch when they begin to act up, and-“ he cuts himself off with an awkward shrug, “yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” the technician smirks. “This bastard-” he nods to the chunky white rectangle in his arms, “took me like, half an hour to boot up alone. And now it’s been frozen for like- twice as long as that. I’ve only had chance to type in my password so far.”

Lucy’s still standing in the middle of them and it’s getting a bit difficult to ignore the stony glare burning into Dan’s peripheral vision right now and even harder to avoid eye contact with her, but it doesn’t stop him from offering some help, albeit rather inappropriately timed.

“I- um, have my MacBook with me if that helps?” Dan offers, trying not to feel the heat of his blush when Mr. Black-Hair looks straight at him. “I mean- if you don’t need it that’s fine, but like- it’ll function a bit better than that thing,” he shrugs. “I dunno. It would probably save you a lot of time.”

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow. “Like, with you right now?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I mean – I haven’t got my charger on me, but it’s on, like, eighty percent. Should be fine.”

“I mean-“ he throws a permission-seeking glance, towards Lucy, who Dan is pretty sure would be having steam coming out of her ears would it be humanly possible. She fixes Dan with a hard stare, a real ‘go on; be my guest’ look that’s always comes across as more of a dare than permission, a challenge for his conscience, but he can’t help an apologetic smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s cool with you, right?” his lips say before his mind catches up.

Lucy rolls her eyes in defeat. “If you absolutely must. But only- only because I could do with the extra time to independently go over one of Alexandra’s soliloquy.”

His face breaks out into a grin, and he’s not that sure why. “Thanks, Luce. I owe you one.”

“Don’t you make a habit of this, though. Remember; this is your own rehearsal time you’re sacrificing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan calls over his shoulder, trailing off. Mr. Black-Hair holds the door open behind him, and suddenly they’re out of the rehearsal studio and walking in a weird mutual silence sitting in a strange middle ground between comfortable and uncomfortable, across the car park and over to the actual theatre.

“Are you alright to do this, yeah?” Mr. Black-Hair (Dan seriously needs to come up with more imaginative mental nicknames for people) breaks the silence on their walk down to the trap room.

“It’s no problem at all,” he smirks as another wooden step groans under his foot. “Anything to get out of rehearsal.”

Dan’s never really been here before, never touched the underground territory where the technicians lurked, but there’s something about the atmosphere of this place that grips him.

-

Half an hour passes, and Dan couldn’t really tell you why he’s still sitting down here, still sitting on a revolving chair with a rip in the upholstery, under half-broken beams, tables that look like they’re seconds away from collapsing, and a lot of weird technology that he’d never even attempt to get his head around (seriously – do they even need this many buttons?). He’d given his laptop to Black Hair to receive a very emphatic ‘thank you, like seriously you’re a fucking lifesaver if I spent a second longer with that piece of shit I really don’t know what I would have done’ and the job had been done in seconds. Since then, a casual conversation had been struck up and Dan finds he doesn’t actually want to go back upstairs just yet.

“You two sounded really good in there,” Black Hair comments. They’d been talking about the play. “From what I heard, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, trying to ignore the quiet blush that warms his cheeks. There’s nothing quite like someone complimenting his acting. “Clearly not good enough for Lucy, though.”

“Few things are, Dan,” he sighs, and Dan only finds it half-weird that this guy knows his name, but Dan doesn’t actually know his. It’s unnerving, sure, but nothing he’s a stranger to. “She’s been on at you all morning.”

“Yeah,” Dan pauses, before adding an apologetic “sorry, I- um, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“It’s fine. I’m Phil,” he grins, and Dan thanks his lucky stars there’s finally a name to put to the face.

Dan studies him briefly, and frowns. “You do look familiar, actually.”

“Yeah – I do all the donkey work downstairs,” he grins. “You may have seen me emerge from the cave every now and then.”

Dan chuckles, deciding there and then that he likes Phil.

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Dan asks, studying the square lights looming above them, one of which he notices is stuttering slightly, flickering on and off every now and then.

Phil shrugs, not taking his eyes off of the screen. “Kinda. But I mean – I have my little crew down here, y’know? There’s five of us. We just like- keep each other company. Help each other whenever we need to,” he glances at Dan. “Oh, and sneak up to the theatre and watch you guys every now and then.”

Dan giggles. “Brilliant. Must be a nice little community, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Phil hesitates. “Or perhaps ‘support group’ might be a more appropriate term. For the poor sods who have to put up with shitty laptops and gross food.”

Dan laughs, and helps himself to another Dorito.

-

“Okay, right- Dan, sorry if this sounds a bit weird because- like, we’ve pretty much only just met, but like- um- I was wondering if you wanted to-“

“Phil,” Dan cuts him off. As an actor, there’s something about hearing people stutter and ramble without really saying anything that tends to grate on him. “I’d love to.”

“Really? Well, I-“ Phil stops and frowns. “Hang on a second. How did you know I was gonna ask you to hang out?”

Dan shrugs like he hasn’t spent the last thirteen years mastering the sciences of body language and speech and how they can be applied to the acting world. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

Phil smiles. “I mean- would you? Like, really?”

“Of course,” Dan says.

“Well yeah, like- I don’t have to be home for a while yet, and I have a car so we could just like- drive around for a bit? Go to town if you want?”

Dan smiles, and repeats what he said before he even knew what Phil was going to say.

“Yeah. I’d love to.”

-                                          

It’s a bit of a weird result to come out of lending his laptop to a stranger for a while, but it’s how Dan finds himself spending the evening sat in the passenger seat on the top of a car park roof, blasting some weird indie song from the depth of Phil’s Spotify and watching the sun sink further behind the buildings, painting the sky warmer with every slow minute that passes on the dashboard clock.

They’d had a drive around the city together, sometimes talking, sometimes letting lulls in the conversation give way to thoughtful silences, both of them tapping away to Phil’s music taste, but Dan thinks it’s been about fifteen minutes since either of them last said anything.

“So,” Phil is the first to break the silence. He flicks the last of his cigarette out of the window (Dan had insisted on rolling down the windows before he did that – there’s no way he’s going home stinking of an ashtray). “Tell me about yourself.”

Dan looks up from his phone at that, his heart thudding.

“You what?”

“You know,” Phil’s gaze doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on the view in front of the windscreen. They’d picked a spot at the very top of a multi-storey car park overlooking everything, leaving the city a pool of lights and colours and life far beneath them. “I don’t really know you. So tell me about yourself.”

“I- um-“ Dan gulps. This wasn’t really a question he came prepared for. He shrugs. “I don’t really know what there is to tell, if I’m honest.”

“Oh, now come on,” Phil presses. “Just- anything. Your hobbies. Your life. Your dreams. What you want to be when you’re older.”

“I feel like I’m in a bloody job interview,” Dan chuckles. Phil’s lips quirk upwards in response.

“You are. I’m interviewing you to see if you’re fit for the job of being mates with me.”

“The ‘job’?” Dan frowns. “Like it’s a chore?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Phil grins. “Now, come on. I wanna hear about you.”

Dan gulps, silence falling for the first time in a while.

“I- um, well I think my hobby is probably pretty obvious, for a start,” Dan begins. Phil rolls his eyes. “And what I wanna be when I’m older, too. I’m gonna do a degree in Drama, I reckon.”

“What else are you into, then?”

Dan stops for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Phil presses, flicking his lighter and sparking up another cigarette. “You must have other interests besides acting. You got a girlfriend?”

Dan clams up. “Um- no.”

“Oh. Boyfriend, then?” he quirks his eyebrows, and Dan shakes his head miserably.

“Afraid not.”

“Glad we established that,” Phil smirks, but Dan doesn’t really smile back.

He chews on the inside of his lip, having a staring contest with a pair of headlights sliding across one of the roads beneath them.

“What music are you into, then?”

Dan swallows, trying to think. It’s like someone’s scraped over his mind with an eraser, rubbing out his interests and his life and his personality, all pencilled in with weak lines.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs. “This and that. I like whatever this is,” he nods to the Spotify track on Phil’s phone. “Bit of Indie, it’s good. Oh, and I love- what are they called? Pink Floyd?”

“Floyd’s good,” Phil agrees. “And Nirvana.”

“Yeah,” Dan gulps, feeling another silence probe the conversation.

“You into the Smashing Pumpkins?”

Dan shakes his head.

“Oh, okay. Slaves?”

Dan shakes his head again.

“Genesis?”

“Never even heard of them.”

“Cobalt Night?”

Dan shakes his head again

Phil cackles. “Oh Christ. You do realise I made that last band up?”

“Oh god,” Dan can feel his cheeks burn peony. “I’m not doing myself any favours here, am I?”

“Don’t worry, I’m only messing with you,” Phil says. “I think it would be more embarrassing if you said yes, to be honest.”

“True,” Dan shrugs, feeling Phil’s stare burn into his side profile. He sits back further in his seat, keeping his stare.

“You’re not really into much, are you?

Dan shrugs.

“I’m more into Musical Theatre, really. Ever since we did a production of Hamilton I haven’t really been able to get that rap out of my head,” he chuckles.

“Right,” Phil sits up a little bit and clears his throat. “Well we’ve established your music taste and your hobby. Who are your favourite actors, then?”

It’s like someone’s flicked a switch inside Dan. His eyes light up.

“-and Leonardo DiCaprio, oh my God, don’t even get me started on him. I mean- who wouldn’t fuck young Leo? Have you even seen him in Titanic? And Romeo and Juliet too, Jesus Christ he’s gorgeous. He’s so fucking gorgeous. I’m not gonna do Romeo’s role any justice when he’s my competition, am I?”

Phil just nods and says the odd ‘hm’, listening to Dan’s stream of consciousness.

“-and Helena Bonham-Carter, what a fucking legend, man. She’s just- her character is just so versatile, you know? I mean- there’s a good reason she’s in literally everything, and that’s because she’s fucking amazing- have you seen Fight Club? You must have seen it, it’s incredible. She’s incredible. It’s a bit of a mind fuck if I’m honest, what with the split personality thing and everything, but- oh God, Brad Pitt is so good in it too. And he’s pretty hot, I’m not gonna lie. Well, until he grew out his hair and looked a bit like a farmer. But- where was I? Oh yeah, Helena Bonham Carter-”

“She was good in Sweeney Todd, too,” Phil comments, and he’s off again.

“-like, that was the first time I ever saw Johnny Depp act, and by Christ that film creeped me out. I mean- I was only like, seven when I watched it so of course it was gross, like, what seven year old watches people do- you know, that, to paying customers? I feel sorry for the poor sods who just went in there wanting to give their beards a trim. But- yeah, they were both really good in Sweeney Todd. I had a bit of a crush on Helena- and Johnny too, for that matter, I mean come on, who didn’t? But then I found out Johnny Depp is a bit of a dick in real life so I went off him after that. But Helena’s still cool, obviously.”

“She’s good, yeah,” Phil nibbles at a protruding hangnail on his thumb.

“And- oh god, who’s another good actor? Oh, don’t even get me started on Morgan Freeman. Absolute fucking legend. Like, oh my god. Him and that other one- god, what’s his name? The guy from Donnie Darko?”

Dan’s brain is moving far too quickly for Phil to keep up and he has no idea what the correlation between Morgan Freeman and Donnie Darko is, but he gives it a shot anyway.

“Jake Gyllenhaal?”

“Yes. Yes, oh my god, that’s the one,” Dan’s face breaks out into a grin. “Fuck, Donnie Darko. What a film, man. My friend has a tattoo of it, and-“

It continues like this, Dan chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen and Phil counting the glitters of passion in his eyes, before they’re both interrupted by a buzzing on Dan’s lap.

“Oh shit,” he grabs his phone. “It’s my mum.”

Phil doesn’t know what she’s saying on the other end of the line, but judging by Dan’s apologies it sounds like he’s stayed out here for a little too long.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbles, tugging on his seatbelt. “Lost track of time a bit, there.”

“Clearly,” Phil grins.

“This was good, though,” Dan says. “Like, really good. Thanks for, you know. Suggesting this.”

“Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again soon, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what I’ve spent the past like- hour doing?” he glances at the clock and shit, has it really been that long? It’s pitch black outside, the only light coming from the glitter of the city beneath them (shit, it really is beautiful from up here) and he was supposed to be home forty-five minutes ago.

“Yeah,” Phil says, starting up the engine. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

The next few days pass in a blur of line-learning, enduring Lucy’s lectures about how he just ‘isn’t putting enough ‘oomph’ into it, come on now, we’ll take it from the top one more time’ and Dan has to act like he actually gives more of a shit about what Romeo’s saying right now than what Phil had said in that car a few days ago. He has to act like it isn’t what he’d been reciting over and over in his mind, the words digging grooves into the back of his mind and making themselves at home.

He has to act like there’s more to his fucking life than acting.

-

The next time Dan sees Phil, they’re both cooped up in a control room eating lunch in a companionable silence; Dan going over his lines and Phil puzzling over these two wires that are, according to him, sly bastards that won’t fucking go in these holes Jesus Christ, to which Dan had shut his eyes and prayed to god no-one outside the room had caught that out of context. There’s a huge control panel, rows and rows of buttons and sound mixers and, as Dan had very accurately christened them, “slidey-things” in front of them. He has no idea what any of this stuff is, no idea what a “cross-fader” is or what the hell a “submaster” is supposed to do, but every now and then Phil will casually lean over and flick a switch or press a button and a stage light beneath them will change.

“What’s up?”

Dan looks up from his script. He’s been poring over his lines for so long he’s pretty sure stripes of yellow highlighter are now permanently inked into the back of his mind, now.

“What? Nothing.”

Phil swings his legs off of the bar they’d been resting against. They’re halfway through sharing a KitKat (Dan had taken a trip down to the Co-op at the beginning of the lunch break and returned with a bag so heavy with food it had left a dent in his hand, insisting Phil can’t be living on stale crisps his entire life) and watching a rehearsal, one Dan doesn’t have to be in for once, through a pane of glass.

“You’re going to have to do better if you want to convince me, Mr. Theatre Kid,” Phil reaches over to the bowl in front of them and plucks a grape from the stem. “I thought you were good at acting.”

“What do you want me to do; leap up and perform a jig?” Dan turns a page, the paper rustling a bit too loudly. “I’m fine, Phil. Stop reading into things too much.”

Phil stares at him. “You’re sat there with a face as long as my leg, and I’m reading into things?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Be careful. If you stare at that page any longer it’ll probably burst into flames.”

“Shut up,” Dan mutters, the edge in his voice a little too sharp for it to slip by as a joke.

Phil does.

Dan sighs. “Sorry, I just-“

“Rehearsals getting to you?” he suggests softly. Dan doesn’t plan on letting the real problem slip; Christ, he can only imagine the havoc that would ensue if it got around that as well as obsessing over acting he’s also never actually kissed anyone, so he quickly takes Phil up on that.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I mean- Romeo’s a good character to play, I guess, but he does have an awful lot to say.”

“You’ll be okay,” Phil reassures him. “You still have months of time left to memorise your lines. When’s the play?”

“Seventh of February,” Dan says. Two months from now.

“There we go,” Phil says. “You have plenty of time yet.”

“I guess so,” Dan shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done this millions of times before,” Phil says. “You’ll be fine; I know you will. You’re a natural.”

Dan wishes he knew the half, he really does, but there’s just something about Phil’s smile that makes him almost want to believe him.

-

Dan manages to tell Phil a little bit more about himself next time they’re on the roof together, and in return, he learns a bit about Phil too.

“Well, when I was acti-“

“Nuh-uh,” Phil interrupts him. “No acting talk, remember?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s relevant to what I was gonna say. It’s an important part of the story.”

“Wherever the hell you can fit acting into a story about you and your friends getting drunk and stealing a supermarket trolley because you couldn’t afford a taxi, I’d be very impressed.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dan grins, and that was the only time acting came into conversation that night.

-

Dan learns Phil is eighteen, that he’d failed his driving test three times before passing because he was driving on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, and swears he’s going to give up smoking next year, he promises. He learns that his favourite colour is blue because he likes the way the colour skates across the ocean water in the summer, and that he used to be scared of dogs before his parents got him a puppy for Christmas, a bouncy Labrador called Daisy with a love for the sun and walks down to the beach.

“I fucking love dogs,” Dan beams.

“So do I, now. Took me long enough,” Phil agrees, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Daisy’s so cute, oh my god. You will love her.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, but there’s something about the definite use of ‘you will’ that he likes.

He, in turn, finds that he does have some thoughts and feelings and dreams hidden away in there, beneath the façade of scripts and stage lights and acting. He finds he does have stuff to say, stuff that isn’t always attached to a web stringing back to the theatre. He tells Phil all about his cat, Ozzy (a little shit who takes great pleasure in knocking all his belongings off of his desk and sleeping on his laptop, but he loves him anyway) his annoying next-door neighbours who don’t seem to see any problem with blasting ABBA at three in the morning, and they manage to find common bands they both like. Oasis is playing when the sun sinks, the sky darkens, and the city lights up beneath them.

“God, I love this one,” Phil mumbles, his speech obscured by the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Don’t Look Back In Anger. It’s one of their best.”

“Oh god, yeah,” Dan agrees, tapping along to the chorus. “That and Stand By Me. Oh god, and Champagne Supernova, too.”

Phil grins at that, and leans forward, picking his phone up from the dashboard. Before Dan has a chance to question him, the chorus stops dead in its tracks, and an acoustic softness follows the sudden silence, a series of guitar chords that are just that bit too familiar. He grins.

“I always think the intro sounds a bit like Wonderwall,” Phil comments, putting his phone down and leaning back in the seat.

“Yeah,” Dan sighs, leaning back in his own seat and turning his gaze to the city beneath them, staring at lights and roads and buildings until they pool into a hazy amber blur in his vision.

How many special people change,

How many lives are living strange,

Where were you while we were getting high?

Slowly walking down the hall,

Faster than a cannonball

Where were you while we were getting high?

 Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova in the sky.

Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova;

A champagne supernova in the sky.

They don’t say anything, instead letting Liam Gallagher do the talking, but sly glances are exchanged from under brown fringes and black eyelashes.

-

“Nice up here, isn’t it?”

It’s only until Phil breaks the silence they’ve lapsed into that Dan realises the song has drawn to a close. He slides his gaze from the city and over to Phil, over to his thoughtful stare skating along the skyline, the ruffled sweep of black hair coating his fringe, and the orange glow of a cigarette tip poking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes flicker over to Dan’s.

Dan looks back over to the city.

“Yeah.”

“I always come up here.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes a little look over the city is just what you need to clear your head. It just puts everything in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dan swallows. “It really does.”

There’s a litter of thoughts and worries in his mind, buried deep and multiplying with every day that drags past, every day that pulls him closer and closer to the production, to the hundreds of burning stares in the audience seats, to his colleague’s lips. He’s been longing for a break from it. Just a few hours of silence, a few quiet moments that don’t have to be spent combing over every single thought in his head, thinking and thinking until it inflates into anxiety, spilling into the pit of his stomach and clawing at the edges as it goes.

And the more he counts the city lights, the more he feels the cold night air stroke his cheeks and the engines reverberating around the car park levels beneath them, the more he reckons a more few nights up here. It’s the remedy he needs; just him, Phil and the lights.

Their eyes meet seconds after, and Dan can feel the question he’s vowed to ask Phil before the end of the night already beginning to rest on his lips, on the cusp of speech.

“When can we do this again?”

-

The late nights begin to pass more frequently in a spinning blur of city nights, passenger seats and conversations, all whispers and cold air and stolen glances. Dan can feel himself unravelling like a threadbare blanket, his carefully constructed personas and characters fraying at the edges with every hour spent up on the top of the city with a boy whose lips spill truths like water, and it isn’t long until Dan finds cracks in his paper personalities and begins to feel more and more honesty begin to seep through. He finds that no, he doesn’t have to spin false anecdotes like cotton and lie about his interests and find a way of linking everything back to acting, hooking every little quirk and element to his personality back to the stage. He doesn’t have to impress Phil with his knowledge of Hollywood throughout the years and he doesn’t have to act like he loves things he’s never actually heard of and he doesn’t have to lock his feelings away and throw away the key.

He doesn’t have to pretend.

-

It’s all okay until they fall onto the topic of previous relationships.

It’s been a good night. They’d visited the car park again, but this time without the car (it was warm enough to leave it in the driveway and make their own way up the concrete staircases, glass bottles in plastic bags clinking around their legs). They’d situated themselves in the very same parking space, the one second to the right and next to a beacon, but they’d traded car seats for a picnic blanket, headlights for phone torches and gear sticks for bottle openers.

“Yeah, like- fuck, she wasn’t a good kisser at all, was Mary. I mean- we were in year nine and she tried, bless her, and God knows so did I. But you know, with that as my first impression of kissing, when it was over I was like ‘what the fuck is all the fuss about?’” Phil chuckles, and Dan pretends to grin.

“Yeah, I mean-“ he shrugs, staring down at his lap. “I’ve had my fair share of bad kisses in my time.”

The ease with which the lie rolls off of his tongue almost takes him by surprise. It’s been a while since he’s lied about himself to Phil, and it feels strange.

“I can imagine,” Phil says, before frowning. “But you’re an actor. So you must be an excellent kisser, right? What with all the practice you guys have.”

Dan frowns, looking up from his bottle. “You what?”

“Oh come on. I saw what went on in the back of that car last term. Eddie and Alexandra. That play involved more lip-on-lip action than the fucking Notebook.”

Dan smiles at that, remembering the play adaptation they actually did of that when he was in year ten. He doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry over the sheer amount of starring roles he’s had that are heavily eloped in some kind of romantic storyline.

“Us actors have our techniques,” he says carefully.

Phil’s eyes widen at that. “You do? Like what?”

Dan shrugs, taking another sip of beer. “Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Phil shuffles closer, a flicker of eagerness in his cerulean stare and shit, Dan’s beginning to regret opening his mouth now. “Come on. What techniques do you have? I could use a few tips myself.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, his eyes firmly locked onto the spread of amber lights in front of them.

“I doubt you’d ever want to use these kinds of techniques on anyone,” he says, a hint of humour drying his speech. “I imagine stage-kissing on a real date would be quite a deal-breaker.”

“Stage kissing, huh?” Phil widens his eyes. “How does that differentiate from a real kiss, then?”

“Well,” Dan takes another sip of his drink, his vision beginning to slow down. “First of all, it’s not really a kiss at all.”

“Huh?” Phil frowns.

“I mean- not usually. There are different kinds of stage-kisses, but most of them don’t involve, you know,” he smirks, reusing Phil’s rather vulgar term of “lip-on-lip action”.

“So you guys don’t actually kiss?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Nope.”

“But-… how does that work?”

Alcoholic courage swims through Dan’s veins at that. He glances at Phil.

The words are a whisper, a dare almost, and it isn’t until Phil nods that Dan realises he’s actually said it out loud.

“Want me to show you?”

“Yeah, go on,” Phil’s tone is casual, soft almost, but his eyes are glittering.

“Okay, well- come over here,” he beckons.

Phil does as he’s told, shuffling up on his knees until he’s facing Dan.

“One of the actors needs to have their back to the audience,” Dan says. “So, let’s say the wall over there is the audience,” he nods over Phil’s shoulder to the stretch of concrete watching them.

“Alright. The wall’s the audience. Now what?”

“Now,” Dan gulps, feeling his heart begin to pick up the pace because shit, this is really happening now. “So, what you do is, like, just lean in normally for a kiss, but stop just as your lips are about to touch.”

Phil scoffs. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Look, do you want me to show you or not?”

“Nah, nah, I’m kidding,” Phil says. “C’mon, then. Show me how it’s done in Hollywood.”

“You dick,” Dan mumbles, but he’s leaning in.

Phil gets closer, his face begins to crawl up to Dan’s until their noses are brushing and his fringe is a tickle on Dan’s cheek and his breath mixes with Dan’s own, warm and languid through parted lips and fuck, Dan’s heart is really thudding now. His legs feel like jelly and his lungs feel like fire and there’s something warm and fiery swirling in the pit of his stomach, something alien, something that he’s certainly never felt before with any other colleague he’s come this agonisingly close to kissing.

They stay there for what feels like minutes, lips hovering, warmth tingling and the city still thundering beneath them, and it’s Phil who pulls away first.

“Impressive,” he smiles, eyes glittering with nonchalance. “Frustrating, but impressive. Is that your go-to one, then?”

It takes three swigs of beer to calm Dan down before he can speak again.

“I mean- um, yeah. Though sometimes if you’re, like, sitting really far over to the side in the audience you might be able to tell that they’re not actually kissing, so,” he shrugs. “It just depends on the stage, I guess.”

“Right,” Phil nods, swigging from his own bottle. “You, er- you mentioned a few other types, right?”

The thought of coming that close to Phil’s lips again sends the strange flame of warmth flooding back into Dan’s stomach. He all but chokes on his mouthful of drink.

“Er- yeah,” he stutters. “There are a few others,” he gulps again and shit, what’s up with him?

Dan doesn’t really know what’s happening, doesn’t know why being within a metre radius of this guy is already making him feel far more than he’d ever felt with any colleague, kissing or not, but it doesn’t stop him from beckoning the older boy over and showing him kiss number two, their lips locked together with nothing except Dan’s thumb in between them. He can feel the warmth of Phil’s mouth against his skin, the hot movement of Phil’s breath through his nose and the tickle of his hair against his cheek again. When he parts his mouth, Dan feels the tiniest touch of lip against his. It’s only the very corner and can’t have lasted for longer than a millisecond, but the feeling comes back like a spark to a flame and he’s beginning to find it difficult to balance and oh, shit.

They break apart, eyes searching each other’s, and it’s the first time Dan’s feeling like this post-‘kiss’ without having to throw on a character like an old shirt. He doesn’t have to follow anything up with someone else’s speech, with a fake accent and a stupid costume and a mannerism that doesn’t quite fit.

For once, he doesn’t feel like he has to act.

Phil narrows his eyes after a few silent seconds, fighting back a smirk.

Dan frowns, the post-stage kiss high beginning to melt away.

“What?”

“Is that seriously it?” Phil says.

“Yeah,” Dan moves away, trying to ignore the surge of electricity he had felt upon edging within a few millimetres of the other boy’s lips, the city a roar beneath them.

“I don’t know why I feel so disappointed,” Phil smirks. “From where I sit, looking at you lot doing all your stuff down on the stage, it looks a whole sight more realistic than that.”

Dan looks back out to the city.

“Yeah, well,” he says, feeling his heart slow down. “Acting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

-

“So. You and Alexandra, eh?”

Dan glares at him. Dawn is beginning to throw pastel colours into the blackness of the sky. It’s still dark enough to see the stars, fainter twinkles against the sweep of indigo above them, but it’s light enough for them to see each other, to make out feint outlines of faces in the low pre-sunrise light, eyes half-lidded and shadowed from the sleepless hours. It must be pushing four in the morning, and they’ve been here since eleven o’clock, leaving their parents with promises that they’re spending the night round each other’s houses to make a few preparations for the play.

(If reciting Romeo’s Balcony Scene soliloquy through giggles and slightly drunken slurs counts as preparation, then at least half of that promise is true).

“We’re not an item,” Dan mumbles, taking a drag from his cigarette. It tastes strange, kind-of like dirt and ash and tar and he’s not a smoker and probably never will be, but Phil had offered him one and- well, fuck it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But you guys are performing in the round, aren’t you?” Phil narrows his eyes, and Dan swears he leans an inch or two closer before whispering, “your stage kisses won’t work from that angle, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dan shuts his eyes. So far he’d been doing quite a grand job of pushing that worry to the back of his mind, burying it deep into his consciousness. The whole reason he’s up here altogether is to escape it.

Phil hesitates.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t you want to kiss Alexandra?”

Dan gulps, the taste of alcohol souring on his tongue a little.

“It’s not that,” he says. “I mean- a kiss is a kiss, right? It’s all part of the job, and-“

“But you don’t fancy her,” Phil says.

Dan frowns. “Well- no, of course not. She’s a colleague.”

“I know,” Phil says. “It makes a difference though, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Kissing someone you don’t fancy. It’s weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain this lie. “I- er, yeah. I usually stick to stage-kissing on the job, to be honest,” he shrugs. “It’s just easier than kissing someone you don’t really have feelings for.”

“Have you never, you know, properly kissed anyone before, then?”

Dan takes a deep breath. Lies can flow like water when he wants them to; he’s a master at concealing the truth behind a blanket of fabrication and deception, but there’s something about talking to Phil that makes falsehood sour on his tongue.

He lets it out in a deep sigh, feeling his chest deflate and his heart thud. Fuck it.

“You know what?,” he begins. “No. I haven’t. I don’t know if you can tell, but- yeah. I dunno, I guess that’s why I’m so stressed about this shit with Alexandra. And like- I know that probably makes me a fucking loser for never having kissed anyone at the age I am now, and probably even more of a loser that I want my first one to be with someone special, but- fuck, I don’t know,” he swallows, feeling the knot of anxiety in his chest loosen a little. “No. I haven’t. Okay?”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He bites his lip and averts his eyes down to the neck of his bottle. He fiddles with the loose cap, letting it fall through the spaces between his fingers with a sharp clink.

Dan doesn’t like that, doesn’t like the silence. The knot returns.

“What?”

“I- er- that wasn’t really what I meant,” Phil finally says.

The knot tightens.

“What do you mean it’s not what you meant?”

“I meant have you properly kissed anyone on stage before,” Phil glances up. “Not in general.”

Dan’s stomach drops. Oh fuck.

He open his mouth, but no speech follows. No amount of words can haul himself out of his hole now. Shit.

“I mean-“ he finally speaks again after a silence, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he desperately tries to smooth over. “Oh, shit,” he deflates, feeling the pit of his stomach begin to churn due to the abundance of the night’s alcohol. There’s no point trying to clamber out of the hole he’s just dug himself. He’ll only deepen it.

“Have you really never kissed anyone?” Phil asks in a quieter voice, but he doesn’t sound surprised. Or humoured. Or any other emotion Dan had feared. Just… curious. “Like, at all?”

Dan gulps, the beer a sour swirl in the pit of his stomach. Maybe the sixth bottle was a mistake.

“Well there’s no point denying it now, is there?” Dan finally mumbles, his eyes fixed on a dent in the concrete not far from where they’re sitting. “No. I haven’t.”

The gentle thrum of city engines fills the silence between them, and the three seconds Phil doesn’t say anything for might as well have been days.

“Yep,” Dan breaks the quietness once it borders on unbearable. “There you go. You think I’m a fucking weirdo now, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” Phil replies, and his voice is unusually calm. Dan looks up, his eyes meeting a soft expression, and for some reason he really didn’t expect Phil to react like this.

“So-“ Dan shakes his head. “What? You’re not gonna take the piss? Laugh at me? Say I’m a fucking weirdo that only lied to you to try and look cool?”

The truth scratches his heart, but it needs to be said.

“Why the fuck would I laugh at you?” Phil frowns, and there’s something about the sincerity in his voice that, beneath the turmoil, Dan finds weirdly comforting.

“I mean,” Phil begins. “I’m surprised, don’t get me wrong. Only because you’re an actor and- well, let’s face it, you’re fucking gorgeous too, but-“ he shakes his head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m the first to say I’d much rather make sure my first kiss means something. If anything, I agree with you on that.”

“You’re not pissed off that I lied to you?” Dan gulps down another mouthful of lukewarm alcohol.

“Of course not, you twat,” Phil says. “I mean, I get why you did, but there was no need to. Really.”

“I know,” Dan sighs, picking at the label on his glass bottle until the paper frays at the edges.

“Wanna know something?” Phil says, his eyes not moving from the soft sweep of stars above them, dimmed by the early morning light.

Dan takes his eyes away from the sky. “What?”

“If you’re a liar, then so am I,” Phil tells the stars.

Dan frowns. “You what?”

Phil’s eyes flick back down to earth, meeting Dan’s gaze. “I lied too.”

Dan gulps, his heart thudding. “About what?”

Phil forces a chuckle, but it’s drained of humour. “Do I have to spell it out to you? I haven’t kissed anyone either.”

The words ring in Dan’s ears moments after, Phil’s voice an echo above the roar of the city below.

“Wait-…” is the only word that passes Dan’s lips in the next passing minute or so. “But-…”

“Yeah,” Phil shrugs. “Turns out you’re not the only one, are you?”

“But-…” Dan shakes his head. “Why did you lie about it too?”

Phil just shrugs and says, “same reasons you did.”

Dan tries, he really tries, to comb through the tangle of confusion in his mind right now, but the best response he can come up with after a moment or two of silence isn’t the most articulate.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, and they descend into quietness again.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Phil is the first to break the silence. “That we feel the need to lie about that.”

“It’s society’s fault for making us feel as if being over the age of about fifteen without having shoved a tongue down anyone’s throat is a failure.”

Phil grimaces. “I’ve never understood the attraction of that, you know. Like, I get making out and stuff, but why would you want to literally devour the person next to you? When I saw kissing scenes as a kid I thought they were actually trying to eat each other.”

“I know,” Dan takes a sip of beer, the alcohol slipping down with a little more ease now. “It sounds grim. I don’t know how people do it. At least with acting on stage you don’t have that problem.”

“True,” Phil mirrors his actions, pulling his drink away from his lips and tracing the rim of the bottle with the tip of his thumb, staring down the tube-shaped glass into the remains of the flat beer, swimming lukewarm and flat at the bottom of the bottle. Only when he glances up a few seconds later does Dan realise he’s been staring.

Dan smirks.

“What are you grinning at?”

“Just-…” he shakes his head and shit, he’s definitely had enough to drink tonight. He can feel the alcohol-induced honesty begin leaking through his parted lips and he knows he’ll probably end up saying something he’ll regret tomorrow morning but- oh, fuck it. “The thought of you having never kissed anyone. It just- doesn’t make sense to me like- look at you. How?”

He’s not really sure where the line between a compliment and a very sorry attempt at flirting is drawn but he’s pretty sure he’s fallen somewhere in the middle.

Phil’s gaze lingers a few seconds too long. “I could ask you the same thing. I mean- come on, look at you. A guy like you must have been drowned in opportunities.”

They’re both a bit too drunk, a bit too cold and there’s something about the atmosphere of an empty car park at fuck-knows-o’clock that warps reality just a little. Dan blinks and the city lights don’t unblur and he feels a bit like he’s in a dream.

“Yeah, I-…” he shrugs. “I’ve had my fair share of offers, I won’t lie.”

“I’ll bet,” Phil interjects, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t either,” Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking. “I just-… yeah, I dunno. I didn’t really wanna waste it, but I never really found someone I liked enough.”

“That’s nice, that is,” Phil says, and though Dan scours his tone of voice for a trace of sarcasm or mockery, but Phil’s eyes glitter earnestly. “No, like, really. Most teenagers just, you know, dive straight into it. Slam their face against anything with a pulse that crosses their path. But the fact you care enough to wait,” he glances up, eyeing the boy beside him carefully. “That’s rare. Kinda admirable in a way.”

“Were you the same, then?”

Phil nods without any hesitation. “A hundred percent.”

Dan nods understandingly, taking another sip of beer, and the two of them watch the town sleep for a quiet moment before Phil speaks up again.

“Oh, come here,” he stretches out his arms. “You look like you’re seconds away from hypothermia, for Christ’s sake.”

Dan leans into his chest, closing his eyes and snuggling into the Topman denim of Phil’s jacket. “I don’t really think a car park roof is the most suitable drinking spot,” he mumbles, his speech slightly obscured by his rattling jaw.

“Not at five a.m. in December at least,” Phil says. “It’s a lot nicer in summer, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dan says, and the indirect promise that they’ll come out here and do this again makes Phil smile.

It’s quiet, serene and blue, and Dan loses count of the minutes that drip by until he hears Phil’s voice again, shattering his trance dancing on the fragile edge of drunken consciousness.

“Dan?” it’s only a half-whisper, but it still makes him jump.

The younger boy turns his head, his brown hair tousling against Phil’s denim chest until they’re eye-to-eye.

Phil lowers his gaze, but this time his eyes don’t flicker back up to Dan’s. Dan parts his mouth in response, but before he can say anything, there’s a surge forward and a soft pair of lips on his.

A jolt of adrenaline, shock, and a general ‘holy-fucking-shit-this-can’t-be-happening’ feeling shimmers through his body as he kisses back, and despite his embarrassing inexperience when it comes to anything remotely romantic, his lips move perfectly in time with Phil’s, their mouths melting together in flawless harmony.

Phil’s the one to break away, and Dan misses his lips the second the cold morning air touches his mouth. He frowns, studying Phil’s expression half-hidden by his mop of black hair, but the older boy refuses eye contact.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came ov-“

“Don’t apologise,” Dan cuts him off immediately, his hand hovering over Phil’s arm in quiet protest. “Just-…” he gulps. “Do it again,”

Phil’s head snaps up, his eyes boring into the brown stare in mild confusion.

“Please,” Dan mouths, and Phil doesn’t need to be told twice.

They kiss for longer, deeper, slightly parted lips and slow breathing and the teal glow of 5am light and shit, this was certainly worth a seventeen year wait. Phil’s lips feel like warmth and taste like tobacco and he feels a gentle comb of shy fingertips through his hair and yep, he can definitely see what all the fuss is about now.

When they break apart for the second time, all blushes and broken breaths, they’re both grinning. Phil drops his gaze with a bashful chuckle.

“Well,” Dan breathes. He’s still sitting close, their upper arms touching but neither of them really wanting to move away.

“Well,” Phil says, almost in agreement. They’re bathed in silence once again, but this time it’s comfortable.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Dan begins, looking out over the city. “That was definitely worth the wait.”

Phil tilts his head down, their noses almost touching. “Yeah?”

“For sure,” Dan cranes his neck up a little and pecks Phil’s lips again. The other boy grins, pulling his jacket further over Dan’s shoulders.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime then, won’t we?” Phil’s eyes glitter.

Dan grins, glancing at the view spread in front of them. The sun is beginning to awaken and there are fewer streetlights illuminating the land below and it’s cold and wow, they should really think about heading home soon. Dan hasn’t checked his phone in hours and he’s sure it can’t be running on anything much more than a measly four percent.

“Definitely,” he says, then hesitates. “Although, well.”

“Well what?”

Dan flicks his eyes up at the boy above him, tired brown against weary blue.

“Perhaps next time we should choose somewhere a little warmer than a car park,” he says in a soft voice, before adding, “I can barely feel my arse right now.”

Phil bursts out laughing, and then a pair of lips are on his for the third time.

-

The next couple of weeks rush by in a flurry of rehearsals, meetings, crumpled scripts and weird costumes that itch around the collar. Dan and Phil spend most of their time three storeys apart, meaning secret rendezvous up in the control room or down in the trap room are often necessary. The closer the big day creeps, the hotter the atmosphere becomes with stress, so it’s nice to leave the tension with the stage and the equally tense co-workers and escape for a bit.

“For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart aga- oh for fuck’s sake, you’re not even listening.”

Phil looks up from his phone, a giggling smirk still lingering on his face. “Huh?”

“Come on, Phil. You said you’d go through this with me and you’re sat there playing around with bloody Snapchat filters.”

“Sorry, sorry – I am listening, it’s just-“ his eyes flicker back down to the screen in front of him. “That’s hideous. Who even makes these filters? I look like a toe.”

“Can unflattering photos of you not wait five minutes until I’ve finished this? We’re literally nearly done anyway. We only have, like, one more paragraph to g-” Phil interrupts him by flipping the phone around to face the other boy. A bald, rather unsightly version of Phil with weird eyes stares back. Dan’s eyes widen in horror. “Fuck, that really is hideous.”

“I know,” Phil shudders. “I didn’t even know my face could do that,” he glances back at the screen and pulls a couple of experimental faces. “Would you still be with me if I looked like that?”

“Nope,” Dan replies semi-seriously, rolling his eyes when Phil pouts.

“What about if I looked like this?” Phil turns the phone around. He looks a lot better this time, but a little bit too much like an animal. Dan’s never really understood the national attraction towards ‘dog filters’.

“Probably. The ears might get in the way a bit, though,” he chuckles, before urging, “now come on. We haven’t got long left now.”

Phil agrees, albeit reluctantly. He swings his legs off the table, grabs Dan’s battered highlighted mess of a script sitting in front of him and they pick up from where they left off, something about ‘worms that are thy chamber maids’, ‘everlasting rest’ and ‘inauspicious stars’ (whatever the fuck that adjective means). They last a grand total of fifteen seconds before Dan’s voice is interrupted by a shriek of laughter.

“Oh, fucking hell that’s bad!” Phil cackles. Dan groans, wondering for a fleeting second where the best place to launch Phil’s phone might be.

“That’s it,” he loses it, suddenly leaping across the table and swiping the irritating rectangle of interest straight from Phil’s hand. His smile vanishes in seconds.

“Aw, what?!”

“You have five seconds to put this stupid fucking thing away, or else it’s going out there,” he points to the window behind them. Phil follows his gaze, his eyes widening. They can see the majority of the town from up here. That’s a long drop.

He turns his head back around. They’re nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye.

“Fine,” Phil smiles, the tips of their noses brushing together. “But just so you know, seeing you angry just makes me want to kiss you more.”

Dan rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide his smirk. “Are you still gonna want to kiss me when your phone ends up on the ground?”

“What do you mean ‘when’? I’ve put it away now,” he points to the bulge in his back pocket.

Dan fixes him with a glare.

“Come on,” Phil leans forward as Dan leans back. “Just one?” he pleads, his eyes big and blue.

He shakes his head and pulls away, a grin curling at his lips. His eyes flicker back to Phil, a brown gaze that lingers too long.

“Afterwards,” he says in a voice like velvet.

Phil rolls his eyes, flopping back onto the chair. “Fine. Bloody hell, it’s like being back at school.”

Dan pretends not to hear that last comment. “Come on, we’ll take it from “world-wearied flesh…”

Phil’s phone doesn’t move once from his pocket after that. The promise of Dan’s lips after rehearsal is more tempting than any filter some dumb app has to offer.

-

“How do I look?”

Phil eyes him up and down, a smirk playing at his lips. “Hot.”

The comment receives a soft punch to his upper arm.

“Behave,” Dan turns back to the mirror, twining a lock of perfectly sprayed hair that he was specifically instructed not to touch around his fingers. “Are you sure? I feel like I look like a-“

He’s interrupted by a pair of soft lips for a few seconds.

“That’s really not helping the nerves,” Dan breathes once they break away.

Phil grins. “You look fine. You know you do. Now quit playing with your hair before Alexa sees.”

Dan doesn’t think Alexa, the make-up artist, is capable of seeing anything that isn’t within a thirty-centimetre radius of her own face right now. She’s been hurrying around backstage all evening; powdering this, curling that, flitting from actor-to-actor so quickly it makes Dan out of breath to even watch her. She certainly hasn’t done a bad job though, he thinks, as he inspects his reflection. A slightly dishevelled, 15th-century version of himself stares back, all weird leather and burgundy velvet and wow, perhaps he should sport an Elizabethan tunic more often.

“Suits you,” Phil smiles as if he’d read his mind. Dan adjusts the collar accordingly.

“D��you reckon?”  

“Yeah,” Phil eyes him up and down again. “Most people here kinda look like twats in their costume, but you really actually pull that off.”

“Um- thanks? I think?” Dan smirks, frowning at his reflection. He doesn’t mention it has anything to do with his long-standing ability to morph into literally anyone he likes (he’d often been described by many make-up artists as having a “chameleon face” which he hopes is a reference to his adaptability to blend into multiple characters as opposed to resembling a lizard), and instead accepts the ever-so-slightly backhanded compliment.

“What are you doing down here?” someone with an updo the size of Jupiter asks Phil, sauntering past in something that really rather resembles a cupcake. Phil was right, Dan thinks. They do look a bit ridiculous. “They need you upstairs in five minutes.”

“Oh shit,” Phil glances at his watch. “Okay. Gotta go before Nick kills me.”

“Alright,” Dan smiles, pulling him in for a quick hug.

“Good luck,” he whispers into his shoulder. “You’ll fucking kill it.”

Dan tightens his grip around his arms. “Thank you.”

The word has multiple other meanings, and judging by the glitter in Phil’s eye when he pulls away, he thinks he understands every single one.

-

That night, Dan lavishes in warm spotlights and painted wooden sets resembling palaces and balconies, and he feels alive.

That night, the finest Elizabethan literature spills from his lips, flowing as easily as water, his voice shaping every monologue, soliloquy and duologue perfectly.

That night, there are another pair of lips on his; only this time painted red and totally professional. It feels strange, alien, and not a single trace of the spark in his heart that Phil’s lips ignite can be found, but it’s work. It’s courage.

And that night, someone up in the control booth watches through the pane of glass over all the light boards and buttons and wires, and smiles.

As if it’s been almost a year since my last oneshot??? Wtf this must CHANGE I’m getting back into writing (properly this time I swear) so there’s a lot more where this came from. Feedback is always appreciated whether it be good or bad so pls let me know how you found this! Feels so good to be doing this again u have nooo idea holy shit <3

[elane-in-the-shadows]

Red Queen Fan Fiction - Growing Up

800 followers celebration! Thanks for joining <3

This is set in the same universe as the Fade Modern AU, to be found here:

A New Place

Growing Up

The Dinner

Roman Holiday

The Wedding

A/N: This is actually a prequel

Find this on wattpad and on AO3

Mare POV

I wake up with a gasp. I squint at the sunlight, quickly occupied with making sure that I’m home and that I’m alone. The relief about this is embarrassing, meaning I’ve believed I really could’ve done something very stupid last night, like going home with my date, or bringing him here. It would’ve been easy, since I’m the only one at home for the next nine days while my parents and Gisa are on vacation in Mexico, my brothers having already moved out. And here I am, staying behind in the void between graduation, college and all that’ll come after, to decide what I’ll do with my life. But instead of finding myself, I hug my pillow at 1 pm, confused over boy issues.

I still feel his warm hands on my waist, his lips on my neck and mouth. He tasted of the fruity cocktails we had. No point to deny it, a look in the mirror assures me he’s left his mark on me. Oh great, as if I don’t look wasted enough. My hair, with its ends recently dyed purple, is a shaggy mess and my make-up’s all-over the place. From the bathroom, I glance over my shoulder, as if Cal would magically appear after all. But no. Despite how it seems, despite the hangover lingering in my stomach, head, and muscles, I did say no to him. The memories are coming back. It came very close to it, because if I’m honest, I have considered spending the night of our fifth date with him, especially during the event. If only he’d never told me about that.

In the end, I decide for a run to chase off last night. Funny that I literally try to run away from my problems and decisions to make, but I guess physical activity is better than playing around with my phone. I don’t fool myself with pretending I’d look up colleges or jobs again, because I know I won’t. I mean, I’m sure I want to spend this year with work and travel, even if it’s another kind of procrastination. But I know I’m not ready, and this is the best chance to live on the road and see the world, as I’ve always dreamed of. Then I’ll have enough time and freedom to figure out if I want to study electric engineering (“that’ll mean a lot of extra learning, Ms. Barrow, do you have the stamina for that?”), politics (“not many career options there”), or something “reasonable” and wholly boring like economics.

I won’t feel bad for choosing freedom when the savings of my family, myself and my scholarship allow me to take a gap year – maybe I��ll even earn some extra money during the time. But that isn’t the reason, that is –

I curse. Just when I’m at the door, I realize I don’t have the key. Great, that’s the reason. I’m not even responsible enough to think of locking and unlocking the flat myself, as I’m still used to someone else being at home. It’s strange to be alone here, although loneliness hasn’t kicked in yet. I have my friends, even Cal, and for now, having the place to myself has been fun. But I gulp at imagining several months without my family. My lovely, chaotic family who always –

The bell rings, just when I’ve grabbed the key. I sigh, rushing to the door. Who I meet isn’t some post guy or neighbour, but my brother Shade, with his baby daughter in his arms. Their sight alone lifts my mood immediately.

“Hi,” he greets me. “Is everyone here?”

I grin. “You got the week wrong. They went on vacation three days ago.” I stand akimbo. “There’s only me.”

“Oh.” He flushes and curses silently. How controlled he is, since although the baby’s only a few months old, he doesn’t curse in front of her. “Well, I’d hug you, but I don’t have a hand free.” He winks at me.

“I’ve missed you too,” I say, a little sarcastically. “Wanna come in?”

“I see you’ve been almost out anyway, and what’s the point if there’s no one else? Let’s have a walk, Clara will like it too,” he says and even baby Clara smiles back at him.

He hugs me once we’re on the corridor and he’s put Clara back in her basket. It’s irksome, but I still have to go on my toes to reach his neck and he laughs at it, which quickly turns into a yawn. While I’m at it, I use the chance to rub his head. “Tired dad, hmm?” I tease.

“You’ve no idea,” he murmurs and sighs, then picks up Clara and walks ahead out of the building. “Could be worse,” he admits. “She only wakes like three times a night, and Diana’s already decided to adapt to her sleeping rhythm. Which means my girls sleep basically all day.”

His girls. There’s always this spark in his eyes when he talks about his girlfriend Diana, or now of their daughter, and I can’t not be envious of his easy and beautiful and perfect relationship. “Where’s Diana now?” I ask.

“Ill, down with a summer cold. I thought I give her some time to rest where she won’t fuss over Clara instead of herself, and go visit the family.” He tries to smile but actually, he looks regretful. Like he missed the chance to fuss and worry over a sick Diana. I assume he sees something in that, that Diana, who’s a very austere person at first glance, opens up to him the most. And because she makes the same eyes at Shade as he does at her.

Yet, despite the apparent stress and worries, he looks so happy, on top of it all. He has a cool girlfriend, lives with her in their own flat, has a job, attends college and now has a baby to take care of as well. All of him screams “responsible adult” at me and tells me how I lack, how I fall flat in comparison. I wish I could be like him, so determined, without doubts.

But I also miss the not-so-long-ago days of our childhood and our pranks and parties and fun together with Kilorn. Kilorn had the ideas, Shade planned, and I executed them. Now, I think we’re still the same people deep down, but Shade managed to move on and grow up while I’m stuck.

“Mare?” His face is a question mark, he must’ve talked to me before.

“Oops, I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head to hide the flush. “What did you say?”

He squints at the sunlight as he looks down the road. “Would you like some ice-cream?” he asks.

“Sure.”

“Good. Is the shop still on Yew Street around the corner?”

“Yes – “

“Cool, will you hold Clara for a second?”

“Umm, what?!” I gasp. “And you didn’t ask what I’d like.”

He winks at me. “Trust me. I think I can still guess your favourites.” And thus, he shoves the basket into my arms and dashes off.

Trust me, huh? I move us to a bench close-by. A slightly bigger thing to trust me with his child. Fortunately, she’s asleep. Please God, let her stay that way. It’s difficult enough to wield the big basket in my short arms, I couldn’t deal with a wailing babe as well. A really cute babe though. So tiny – compared to anyone else at least. Shade said something about her being a big baby once, but looking at her small fingers and features makes me almost forget how terrible I am with children. Almost.

Her eyelids flutter. Damn –

“Already done, Mare!” I hear Shade call, extending his hand with the ice cone.

“Thank you so much!” I exclaim with relief. He’s bought me mango and cherry, truly what I would’ve ordered for myself. Although I’m hungrier than that, with a very empty stomach that two balls of ice cream will hardly fill. Suddenly I’m glad he didn’t notice that. I’d feel bad if he bought me something larger, and idiot me didn’t bring money with me either. Shit. I know he has to be frugal with money, yet I let him invite me. Better I offer him dinner later on, if I manage to prepare something halfway delicious.

Shade’s attention is back on the baby. She has woken up, but instead of crying, she smiles at her father rubbing her belly and grabs for his fingers. It’s lovely. But I also see the rings under his eyes, or how my skin has gotten much darker from time in the sun than his. Shade doesn’t have time to spare with hanging out in the sun, I remember. Maybe this is the first free time outside he’s had in weeks, and he chose to spend it with me. Let’s make it worth it.

I start to talk about my graduation, Kilorn, Gisa, and the stuff our parents were up to lately. He laughs frequently, but glances back at Clara every few seconds, his hand always close to her body.

“Now, what about last night?” he asks out of a sudden, almost jokingly.  Like he’s unaware what a delicate topic this is, not even guessing it when I stare at him with an open mouth because I don’t know how to begin.

“It was fun yesterday,” I say. “I went out, with Cal. We’ve been on dates for a few weeks now, and … and …” Shade nods in understanding, but he has no idea. Not about how good it felt to have this boy smiling at me like I was the most desirable person in the world, how a touch of his chased away all my insecurities – for a moment at least – and lit me up with confidence, only to let these feelings extinguish and crush with his off-hand revelation that then filled me with bitter guilt.

My cheeks heat, my eyes water. No. I don’t want to remember, but –

Suddenly, I’m in Shade’s arms, listening to his sorrys. He even has a hanky ready for me. “Shh,” he mutters, “shh, Clara, everything’s alright –”

I jerk away. “Did you just call me ‘Clara’?!”

He goes red as a cherry. “Umm … did I? Sorry Mare, I must be used to it already, hehe.”

I cackle, or try to, because it hurts with my tearstained face. The drops won’t stop rolling and I hold on to the new hanky Shade produces. He continues to hold my hand while Clara, in her basket, looks up to me from the ground.

“Cal is …” I begin, “I mean, yesterday, he told me about his own plans. He starts college soon, and now he’s found out his half-brother will study at the same one. They’ll have a family dinner soon, a premier for them. That all sounded odd, of course, but I didn’t prod openly. So I wondered whether he and his brother have the same age, and then he looked embarrassed and nodded. ‘It’s a long and complicated story, Mare,’ he said. ‘Nothing to be proud of.’ And I thought, ‘oh saucy details, cool that he trusts me with them’, ignorant fool that I was.” I sniff. “He explained that his mom was his father’s paramour, and when she got pregnant with Cal, his father divorced his first wife. Months later, the ex-wife sent a letter with a photo of their newborn son and called her ex out terribly, but then she wouldn’t let her child meet his father or brother.

“Over the years, the relationship improved little and they got actually very worried about … ‘Maven’, since his mother didn’t seem like the best of people. And that,” I stress, “was the moment I went from curious to shocked.”

“You mean,” Shade guesses, „Maven as in your ex-boyfriend?”

“Yes,” I hiss. “Exactly him. And Maven even told me about his horrible mother, the father he never sees, and the half-brother he doesn’t know!” I bury my face in my hands and hanky to mute my sobs.

Maven, my first crush and boyfriend, with who I shared our first kiss and first sex. During the last year of middle school and the whole of high school, he meant the world to me. He understood all of me, the doubt and the dreams, the dark days and the light, and I hoped to be the same to him. Yet, in the last months, there grew a distance between us. He became extremely ambitious, almost obsessed about getting into a certain college. He was much less open to me, even when I would’ve needed support to find my way, too, or to decide whether a gap year was the right choice. I knew he had problems with anxiety, more severe than the melancholy lingering in me, but never before did that separate us. I didn’t want to leave him because it was too hard to deal with him, but in the end, three months ago, I decided to make a clean cut before my travels and his studies put also a physical distance between us.

“I felt bad about it, about breaking his heart, immediately. And now, imagining he learns I dated and made out with his estranged half-brother?” My voice goes up with a wail, and Shade pulls me closer again.

“It’s okay, Mare, you’ll see,” he whispers. “Don’t ... feel guilty. You aren’t, well, indebted to care for him.”

“But – “

“Nor do you have to erase him from your life. Maybe offer him another goodbye, like invite to your farewell party?” he proposes.

I snort. “As long as Cal doesn’t show up there too.”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “Well, how they reunite and maybe become a family isn’t your problem to solve either. Look, you could also chat with, ah, both of them while you’re away? Perhaps it’ll work out with a little distance.”

I nod, knowing how reasonable his ideas are. And possibly he’s right, and all will work out. But knowledge won’t heal my heart, not Maven’s. Nor will it make an apology to Cal.

“I really like him, you know. Cal, I mean.” I sigh. “Of course, I’m aware it can’t last while I’m abroad. And that was okay, because he started as a mere distraction. But now …” I shrug. “Sometimes, I think it’d be nice if he came with me. Or if we met every now and then, if possible. He has the money for it.”

Shade snorts.

“Yes, you can get annoyed about that,” I admit.

“That’s not what I mean,” he objects.

“Oh?”

“No, I wondered if he’s aware what it’ll mean for you to travel alone.”

I straighten. “Don’t.”

“Mare – “

“No, Shade, I’m not a baby,” I insist. “I want this, and I always did. I might be irresponsible, reckless, and up in the clouds at times, but I’m not a naïve fool. I know what I’m getting into, that it may be dangerous, or that I’ll have to sleep under a bridge for a night, or wear my clothes for a whole week. But that’s the challenge of freedom, and I’m excited for it.” And despite my former tears and the hangover, I smile. “I’ll be on my own, and I’ll miss you, but the prospect fills me with confidence.”

He sighs and embraces me. “Sorry, I totally understand that,” he says. “It may sound a little odd, but Clara felt like a challenge too, before she was born. Diana wanted her so much, but she was insecure too. And we had to encourage each other all the time, assuring us we’d make it.” He sighs deeply.

“I think you’re doing great,” I say.

He smiles weakly. “Thanks. But once she was born? Everything changed. She was laid in my arms, Dee couldn’t stop crying, and I thought, ‘damn, you can’t fuck this up.’ Now we had all the responsibility for this little person, to raise her and make her happy, and it was just … too great.” He swallows and looks down at his child. “Great as in good, but also …” He hesitates.

“I know.” I nod. As in heavy, huge, incomprehensible.

He inclines his head. After a while, he adds, “so, besides all that, I need to keep her safe, and myself and Dee too. I can’t just do what I want, I have to think of her first. I can’t be on my own any longer.

“But that doesn’t mean what you’re doing is irresponsible in any way, Mare. You’ll look after yourself. You may f… make mistakes or not, but you’ll learn a lot anyway, and not before you’ve done it. You have to dare it first, as we had to dare to have Clara.”

I smile. “I knew you’d phrase it better than me.”

“I major in philosophy.” He grins and gives me a shove. “We have new priorities now, and live away from each other, but I’ll always be your brother.”

“My favourite one,” I say and hug him.

A/N: Sorry this rather alludes to Marecal than being about them. i hope I didn’t wake false expectations and enjoed anyway ^^°

Thanks to @clarafarleybarrow @moikorolrezni and @inopinion for advice!

@lilyharvord  @mareshmallow @redqueenfandom @selenbean-beany @wrenskonos @kihlorn @greenfeldbramlouis @head-full-of-books @eurydicel @morebooks-pls @scarletguardsource @choosemarecal @duqrte @hannaharies @proudsmiler16 @indiefangirlflash

[foolscapper]

Exploding Head Syndrome: A MCU Post-IW Fanfic | Ch. 3

(READ IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.)

"I can promise you, it's no mistake — the Guardians and those who were behind on Titan, they will be arriving on Earth sooner than later," T'Challa later tells him, over the translucent feed glowing from the center island of his work space, and Tony's eyes flutter closed with overwhelming relief. Watching transfixed as the people he cared about reappeared in his life, sprouting like seeds after one hell of a metaphorical volcanic eruption? It was almost too much. He'd lived with the deaths of billions for far too long, and though the world is alight with celebration and confusion and everything in-between, the feeling hadn't settled between Tony's ribs until Sam Wilson walked his way into the room with a lopsided grin, or when doors parted and Wanda's furrowed brow and uncertain expression graced the halls of the headquarters. People were alive again, and all it cost Tony personally was a broken arm and leg and ribs and — okay, the healing process wasn't the best, but Wakanda sure did make it easier. Everyone had hoped the snap would be set straight the moment that purple bastard's blood bleached the ground, but not so — no, it took another month just to figure out how to reverse it, none of which would have been possible if not for Captain Marvel. She'd come and gone like an angel, and if Tony were a man toeing the line for an early grave, he'd offer a smooch of gratitude. Italian-style. He's got at least 10 or 20% in his bloodline somewhere. She'd taken the Power Stone and vanished into the stratosphere (too literally) with it. That leaves five stones that needed to be displaced securely. Thor would see to the Reality Stone. The Guardians wanted to return the Soul Stone. And of course Strange had a raging boner for the Time Stone. The Space Stone... The Mind Stone... who knows. Still working on it.

But Tony couldn't care less about those shiny bits of misery; he's given up enough of his time the last two fucking years (and then some) in a cold sweat about stones that he'd lob into the sun if he could. No, he wants to see Peter. That's the last piece, the thing that he tosses and turns over, the one good thing that came out of Germany that day — meeting this kid, but also damning him by proxy, and fuck if he didn't want to fix that. Once Peter is back home with his ridiculously attractive aunt, goofing off and building weird robots with his pal Fred, stammering about some girl that looked at him funny while he helps Tony in the lab... that's gonna be the real endgame. That's when it all actually ends and he can close his eyes and actually rest.

"I'm eager to finally meet this kid without a mask, after all proud parent talk," Steve says from the couch in the break room. He hadn't been able to stand for very long anymore after what Thanos had done to his knee a month back, but Tony's at least helped hook him up with a prototype brace he'd started way back when for Rhodey. It whirs a little when he straightens his leg out. Despite the new scars that grace them — one on the arm here, another on the forehead here, the imprint of a stab wound— Wait a goddamn minute. He glowers at Steve. "It's not 'proud parent talk'." "If it quacks like a duck," Sam says as he walks by with a cereal bowl, like he's drifting along on conveyor belt that dispenses wise cracks. "Begone, Wilson, you wretched creature," is the apt reply, as Tony wags a hand for him to leave (he already has). "And he's a — good kid, so yeah, maybe I talked up a big game for him so he starts off on the right foot. Someone has to prep you so his awkward puberty-stricken self doesn't ruin his credibility right off the bat." Steve just shakes his head, smiling at the ground. He looks so much younger than he had even just a couple months ago. But maybe that's all of them. There's a light in their eyes, a feeling of victory they hadn't felt in over two years. We've won. Vision would think so, too. Him and his stupid sweater vests, and his terrible cooking, and his scarring everyone else by ignoring doors. ... He'd be proud of them. Tony's sure of it.

  "Aaww, look at that... Proof that Tony Stark has a heart." And then, gone. Every night.

His heart is hammering in his chest when the Benatar touches down on the central landing pad, which is stupid and unprofessional; Tony Stark does not anxiously flutter around like a student worried about their test grades; he scores 101% every time. But now he's here, and his palms are sweating, and Pepper is telling him it's gonna be okay — "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good." — and to relax before he sprouts a couple more gray hairs to add to the others — "I don't wanna go, please, sir, I don't wanna go...!" — and Rhodey grips his shoulder, tight enough to hurt. He blinks. "Hey," is all his friend says, but it grounds him. Tony nods. I'm alright. There are few people in the facility that are aware of the post, or traumatic, or stress. Pepper and Rhodey and Happy are his key confidants when he detaches from all common sense and loses himself to places like Kunar, or the emptiness of space, or — or places like Titan. It's gotten better, but only before it's gotten much worse, and the months that followed the dusting of half the universe he was hardly capable of handling standing on his own two feet, let alone moving to solve anything. "Hey, it's all good," he'd tell them at 3 a.m. in the lab, "I took a Xanax." Beside him, Rocket and Groot stand transfixed, and Tony can only imagine how much more wrecked Rocket is about all of this — it's been two years since he's seen his family alive. He honestly wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull him away from the tree-kid when he'd been flown back in, and though the raccoon will never hearken back to that moment he'd cried into Groot's chest, it'll at least be a reminder that good things come to those who wait. And drink excessively.

The doors of the Benatar open to a field littered with curious Avengers and workers, and the first to step out is Drax and Mantis — well, more like rush out, and Groot and Rocket are running to meet them with outstretched arms, as you'd expect from sweet reunions; and yeah, Tony's glad, Tony's grinning. More good news playing out right in front of him, fruits of their overworked, overwrought labor. From where they all stand, they can crane their heads to the side and listen for Rocket's wobbly, teary berating: "You freaking morons! How dare you guys just go off and get yourselves killed — this is what happens when you're not being babysat by yours truly, you bastards, you — " Quill emerges from the shadows of the craft's interior soon after, a sad smile gracing his lips as he drops a hand on Groot's jagged scalp. Not quite a whole family. Tony can see that in the weary lines of Quill's face. And he hasn't forgotten the desperation he himself felt, knowing that the Star-Lord had been one step away from exploding on Thanos back on Titan... knowing there was no way to turn the tide in their favor, once the floodgates were smashed into chalky bits. Quill turns, locks eyes with Tony, and... something shifts in his expression. Something drops. Worse — Something is wrong. The thought occurs to Tony, the moment he realizes that nobody should've been leaping out of that ship before Peter Parker. That kid had a hell of a time on Titan, yes — that'd be an understatement. But he's Pete, the teenager who can't seem to sit still for five minutes, the plucky one with a five-mile long list of shower thoughts and embarrassing factoids, the pain in the ass who doesn't do a single thing he's told, because he's going through a super-teen rebellion phase. Tony's worked too closely with him the years before Thanos; he knows him too well; he'd be out here already like a lightning bolt, smiling like nothing's wrong and cashing in on a real hug for once (and Tony'd let him and pretend it was grudgingly, but everyone knows better)— (— nobody is listening, they just talk about their day and nobody is looking at this kid in this photograph: the kid with the curvy brown hair and pinching, smiling eyes and thin lips, he's only a kid, he's missing, does nobody see that? But Pepper just puts her hands up at the sides of her head and shrugs like he's out of his mind, and she's talking about being behind schedule —) He dreamed this, like he dreams everything. Quill steps toward Tony and away from the Guardians as they stand on the ship's ramp, one hand out, placating, brow furrowed. "Stark, man, I'm sorry; we didn't want to tell you over some shitty line, but there's something..." His voice tapers off as Strange and Peter walk out from the darkness. Peter isn't smiling, he isn't frowning, he isn't anything. He's just looking at Tony — through Tony — and the scarred hand on his shoulder is doing all the leading. What do they mean? Something's what? He's whole and healthy, isn't he? There's not a scratch on Parker's head, not like the scars the Avengers have collected the last couple of months. He's fine, he's safe— (No. No no no, look at him, why - why are you not looking at him?" Tony asks, curled fingers pecking over the shirt on his chest, right where his blue heart used to be, and he's so fucking angry that Happy said it Pepper said it Steve said it Everyone says it, the same thing, different voices: "It's a black box, Tony. It's just a black box. The picture's not developed. Something got screwed up, sorry.) "Tony, something went wrong," Strange starts, in rhythm with the pounding of Tony's heart. "He didn't come back with the rest of us." If he doesn't breathe right now, he won't stay upright for long. Peter's eyes are looking right through him, and his arms dangle at his sides, which doesn't make any sense, because that kid could never keep his arms still for five goddamn seconds— ("Could you not move while I adjust these? Lord, do you want to plummet to your doom because they jam?" "Oh, oop, sorry, Mr. Stark!") Morgan whines uncomfortably in Pepper's arms, tired of standing in the heat. "Mama, m'tired." Steve hobbles forward, and he's saying something, but Tony can't hear it anymore. Peter was the endgame. Tony's having a hard time remembering how he crossed the distance from the grassy knoll to Peter, and he can't really recollect how his hands ended up on either side of the kid's face, looking for any sign that things are actually messed up — but before he knows it, he's gripping the kid's shoulders just as tightly as Rhodey had gripped his own, his hands trembling. "Pete, kid, c'mon. Say something. If you don't say something I'm gonna seriously lose it here. Don't fucking do this." A pair of headphones rattle around Pete's neck. Tony's shaking him. Maybe he'll come to, like a half-drowned puppy you pull out of the gutter. Then just as suddenly he's not shaking him, because Quill is prying his hands back from the kid protectively, and Strange's palm is pushing Tony's shoulder to put some distance between him and the boy. Everyone knows Peter is a special case, for him. A special mission set aside to complete. He promised May. He promised Peter. He held him while he disintegrated. He washed him down a sink and apologized in multitudes. Someone seethes, "What do you mean, he didn't come back? What do you mean?" and he recognizes it belatedly as his own. "Tony, look at me," Strange orders, and usually Tony would tell someone like the good doctor to shove his orders up his own ass, but for once he listens. Quill and Strange stand like guards posted at a gate, safeguarding the unresponsive boy, and Tony's senses come back to him like eardrums popping on an airplane. Strange continues in that agonizingly calm way, "You're having a panic attack. You're no good to the kid like this." He takes a step back, eyes burning, tongue heavy in his mouth. Usually, he has a funny quip he can sling to defend himself, or some jagged-edged retort that's bitter enough to cut through just about anything. But he has nothing to offer, right now. He just stares blankly, remembers how to breathe again, and turns his head away. Focus. Focus. Okayokayokay, you're a billionaire genius with a complex full of smart-asses, you've got magical glowy rocks, you've got Wakanda on speed dial. "What happened?" Answers, he needs answers. "He is not in there," Mantis meekly replies. It's not the answer he's looking for. "Judging from what we've gathered," Strange clarifies, "His body has likely somehow resurrected — without his mind." "What does that mean, exactly?" Happy asks, voice edged with frustration, with disbelief (when did he get there? when did he end up standing beside Pete with his hand hovering so helplessly?). "How does that happen?" ("I don't feel so good.") "Get him in the medical wing. Now," Tony orders, cutting through the quiet. He is more than ready to bury the coiling, ugly panic brewing under the surface now, turning to Bruce — who stands sheepishly to the side, concern and sympathy casting shadows on his face. He's told him plenty of stories, told him how excited Peter was to ever get the chance to meet him. The kid loved Bruce Banner more than he loved the Hulk; Bruce was beyond happy to hear it, smiling down at his work. Thor's not here — he's not here yet. Pete wanted to meet Thor, too. He wanted to meet everyone, without the mask. And that 'everyone' is here now, looking at him with little else they can do (this isn't a battle, they can't fight this), and Tony grits his teeth and promises Peter one more thing: he's not gonna lose it right now, when he needs him the most. He turns and plants a firm hand on Pete's shoulder again, this time looking into his eyes and steeling himself for the way nobody looks back. He tells Bruce, "I'm gonna need your help again. If this little asshole thinks he can Casper out on us, he's got another fucking thing coming." He'll have to call a rain check on that whole concept of resting. Good to know his nightmares are as reliable as ever, though.

[galathynius]

Under the Mistletoe - Rowaelin Modern Christmas AU

I made cookies all day today and was feeling festive so I decided to write a cute Rowaelin Christmas fic! It ended up being a lot longer than I meant for it to be though, oops.

Prompt: Are you the one putting mistletoe absolutely everywhere in this apartment building, or do you just happen to be in the right place at the right time every single time I walk under it AU (Credit to this Christmas AU post. Request another one in my ask box if you want!) 

I would greatly appreciate it if you reblog because I don’t have many followers and don’t get much exposure. Merry Christmas!

For the fourth time that week, Rowan passed under the mistletoe hanging above the doorframe of the apartment building at the same time as Aelin did. As always, he pretended not to notice it. He was starting to get a little suspicious. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

He grimaced to himself as they entered the elevator together. Rowan and Aelin were acquaintances; they lived on the same floor and he had talked to her a few times at their neighbor Aedion’s many parties and whatnot, but that was about it. Aelin was friendly enough that normally he might make small talk on the ride up to the seventh floor, but the mistletoe business made Rowan feel uncomfortable. Was she offended by the fact that he hadn’t even acknowledged the situation? He hoped that maybe she hadn’t noticed it was there.

Today Aelin’s arms were loaded with shopping bags. She caught Rowan looking at them and flashed him a sheepish grin. “Last minute Christmas shopping,” she said. “I don’t know how it got to be three days away.”

Rowan smiled in return, but it felt awkward on his lips. Mercifully, the elevator dinged, saving him from having to come up with a response. The doors opened and he let her go first. Rowan tried very hard not to look up at the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling as they neared her door. Aelin was busy fumbling with her keys and didn’t seem to see it there.

“Do you need some help?” he asked. His natural chivalry kicked in despite the awkward situation. You’re making it awkward, you buzzard, he thought to himself. I bet she hasn’t even noticed.

“No, I’ve got it, but thank you,” she said, opening her door. She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Are you going to Aedion’s Christmas Eve party?”

Rowan’s thoughts had wandered back to the mistletoe, so it took him a moment to process what she had asked. “Oh, uh, yes.”

She smiled and nodded. “Guess I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, guess so.” Rowan managed to give her a half smile before she shut the door. Real eloquent, Rowan. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling again, figuring he’d probably bump into her under some mistletoe again before Aedion’s party. You should just kiss her, a voice in the back of his mind said. You know you want to. He huffed a breath, making his way to his apartment. No, I don’t, he told himself as he fit the key into the lock, but he knew it was a lie. She probably doesn’t want me to kiss her anyway. Not that telling himself that actually made him want to do it any less.

He sighed, resisting the urge to bang his head repeatedly against the door he had just closed. He couldn’t deny that she was gorgeous, with her light hair and blue and gold eyes, and the self-confidence she paraded around with. And what he’d seen of her personality amused and intrigued him. He wanted to know everything about her, to be the one person she trusted with that precious knowledge.

Damn it.

Rowan didn’t know when, exactly, he had started feeling this way, but the mistletoe certainly wasn’t helping things.

As Aelin wrapped her many presents, her mind wandered to Rowan and how many times she had ended up, not entirely coincidentally, under a piece of mistletoe with him. Not that he’d seemed to notice that it was there. Or maybe he had and was pointedly ignoring it. She tried not to think about it being a blatant rejection, but she knew that he was always aware of his surroundings and likely noticed that it was everywhere. She didn’t know where it came from, but she wasn’t complaining, although it did sting a little every time another opportunity passed by unseized. She supposed she could make the first move, but he had never shown any interest in having such a thing happen, and she couldn’t bear to embarrass herself in such a way. She had a couple more days to feel him out, but she was beginning to doubt that anything would come of it.

The phone rang. It was Lysandra. “Hey girl!” she exclaimed when Aelin answered. Aelin smiled faintly, but didn’t feel up to matching her friend’s enthusiasm.

“What’s up?”

“I need your opinion on which dress I should wear to Aedion’s party.”

Aelin sat down on the couch. She honestly wasn’t surprised; Lysandra was famous for multiple wardrobe changes. It made planning for any kind of outfit coordination difficult. “I thought you decided on the blue one two days ago.”

“I did, but now I’m thinking either the purple or the red.”

Aelin laughed. “As I recall, you ruled that out entirely.”

“Yeah, but I just got this killer new red lipstick and I want to wear it.”

“Red lipstick goes with anything,” Aelin told her. “There’s no way it won’t look good on you. Aedion will go crazy.”

That was exactly what Lysandra wanted to hear. She and Aedion had started dating about two months ago, and they were still in the honeymoon phase. “That’s the goal. I think the red dress would complement it best. Ooh! Could I borrow your silver heels?”

Aelin sighed, but she was smiling. “I guess. But only because I like you.”

Lysandra squealed. “This is why we’re best friends. And on that note, why does my best friend sound so down? Disappointed that your secret crush won’t take my hints and just kiss you already?”

Aelin sat up straight. “You hung all that mistletoe up? You don’t even live in this building!”

“Of course it was me! Someone had to do something, because you certainly wouldn’t do it yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, you and I both know that if you were gonna make a move you would have done it by now.”

Aelin stammered a halfhearted start to a protest, then sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s not interested. I’m almost positive he’s noticed it and he won’t even acknowledge that it’s there.”

“I’m sorry, girl, I really thought this would help. Maybe he’s shy. You’ve still got a few days to try to make something happen. It might work out.”

Aelin hoped she was right.

The next day, as Aelin was coming back from the library and Rowan from the grocery store, they passed under the front doorway at the same time again. Aelin struggled to keep her face passive, as if she hadn’t noticed the small branch above her. Little did she know that Rowan was dealing with the same internal struggle. It became more difficult as they entered, discovering that a whole line of mistletoe had been hung all the way to the elevator. Aelin felt heat creeping up her neck to her cheeks. Rowan dug his nails into his palms. He briefly considered taking the stairs, but thought better of it when he realized that Aelin had definitely seen the mistletoe. It would be obvious that he was trying to avoid her, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings because she would probably take it the wrong way.

“Who hung all this?” he found himself asking as Aelin pressed the elevator button. He hadn’t really expected her to answer, so he was surprised when she did.

“Someone overly enthusiastic, I’m sure,” she said wryly.

Rowan thought he’d be granted a reprieve when he entered the elevator, but he was sorely mistaken. The whole ceiling was covered in mistletoe. Aelin’s blush increased.

“I wonder how many people have actually kissed under this,” she murmured, not realizing she’d said it aloud. Rowan looked at her. She was staring up at the carpet of green. He felt his self-control slipping away. Worse, he felt himself not wanting to hold on to it. Before he even realized he was doing it, he set his grocery bags down, pressed the emergency stop on the elevator, and stepped toward her.

“Guess we better just embrace it,” he said, and braced himself for the inevitable rejection. What was he doing? Aelin turned to look at him. Rowan couldn’t read her expression. He was about to apologize and step away when she dropped her bag of books with a thunk and moved to meet him. When their lips met, everything melted away. It was exactly what they had been waiting for. When they finally pulled apart, their faces were still only inches away from each other.

“You know, mistletoe is poisonous,” Rowan breathed. Aelin’s laugh warmed his face, and he kissed her again.

When Aelin arrived at the party on Christmas Eve, Rowan was already there, talking to Lysandra and Aedion. His eyes immediately went to Aelin, who blushed. Lysandra gave Aelin a knowing look as they embraced, before she pulled Aedion away, claiming they had more guests to greet. Aelin hadn’t seen Rowan since the elevator incident, but she noticed that there was considerably less mistletoe hanging in their apartment building. Aedion had seen Rowan and Aelin exiting the elevator, faces flushed and eyes bright, and had likely told Lysandra that her meddling had worked.

Now they stood in front of each other, and Aelin wasn’t exactly sure what to say. She was praying that it hadn’t been a fluke.

“Hi,” Rowan said softly.

“Hey,” Aelin responded, still blushing. “Merry Christmas.”

Rowan smiled, and Aelin’s stomach knotted. “Merry Christmas.” His gaze slid upward and Aelin’s followed it to a familiar green plant hanging above them. When she looked back at him he was watching her. A small smile tugged up the corners of her lips. “Guess we better just embrace it.”

[deadmansqira]

Romance Headcanons

name: Yoshikage Kira

nickname: please do not.

gender:  Male!

romantic orientation:  short answer; demiromantic.

Long answer; Yoshikage grew up in a society that shamed homosexuality as wrong, and in a household that consisted of two older, military family parents with generations of homophobia to bring down on his head. So, even though he's always felt the same towards men and women, he's come to believe it's disgusting, it's wrong and there's something wrong with him if he should develop feelings for a man.

Also, his idea of romance is so warped. His parents were distant to both him and each other, and he saw few displays of affection in his life. Since they treated him like a trophy that could bring more to their name, he came to believe that love was mostly ownership. That the "real thing" in literature was a lie created by men who couldn't handle the truth that was 'the world is miserable'.

preferred pet names:  Darling is the one hell default too; he hasn't experimented with pet names much. I'm sure he would absolutely love to come up with new ones. Also, "princess" would be one that comes up often.

relationship status:  Please donate hand?

favorite canon ship:  It's debatable Canon, but I do like Kirabu. I'm so hyped abt @unsatisfiedhand being here.

favorite non-canon ship: 

HEAVY BREATHING. I've been legitimately writing Kira with Dio as a ship with the datemate @caelifluus for months and we have so much development and theories and aus and work and I'm so fucking weak for them.

But I also have a super soft ship with @bubblemom and a really good one with Kars @king-carrion and

The potential for more with @bxckstabbed like??? Angst ghosts??? Their relationship in the past??? Villain Reimi???

And then and then @loyallyiced the nonromantic SDC au sibling type relationship they have!!!

Just please ship with me I'll 100% be into it if it doesn't end in immediate murder.

opinion on true love: It doesn't exist. People who pursue romance and love are people who are afraid of being alone. He thinks they're all finding a way to settle, to pretend that they're contended in their lives and their relationship when they're wasting time and not finding any real meaning. Really, he's just bitter. When he was a kid he really, really wanted to get married and be with somebody that made him honestly happy.

opinion on love at first sight: Nope, that also doesn't exist. How could it? You couldn't tell anything about a person just by glancing at them. After all, nobody would look at him and accuse him of being a serial killer.

how ‘romantic’ are they?: If you can actually make him fall for you, he's going to be incredibly romantic. Yoshikage's memory is super super good, and very accurate. On top of that, he's attentive. Even without his partner telling him their favorite meal or movie or song, he'll catch on to the way their eyes light up when they experience it, or how they're humming it constantly. He'll plan outings- in town, out of town - try to make every weekend something they could experience together, cook for them. He wants to be close and he wants to give comfort because he's lacked it for so long, and really, honestly, he just wants to spoil them.

ideal physical traits: Beautiful hands; skin that's soft and we'll taken care of instead of cracked. Well trimmed nails, painted, without chipped nail polish. He really likes people with nice teeth and lips, but he mostly sees people for their hands and skin.

ideal personality traits: Intelligence! He values somebody who is able to challenge him intellectually or at least end up in long discussions about a book or a certain aspect of philosophy. He also values spontaneity a ton, since he is the kind of person who creates and then never changes his plans; it keeps him on his feet. Something he doesn't realize he needs but is important, though, is patience. Yoshikage would be difficult to romance, because he has years of armor built up, and would have a crisis of the self, especially if he ended up with another man.

unattractive physical traits: Cracked skin and hands, a visible lack of physical care.

unattractive personality traits: Laziness, recklessness. People who actively act out and cause scenes. Those who don't bother to learn when the chance is permitted to them, sloppy people.

ideal date:  picnic! He would love to go out for lunch on a nice cloudless spring or summer afternoon, set out a blanket and eat homemade sandwhiches.

do they have a type?: People with ugly personalities and beautiful skin. I mean, that's his murdering type.

For an actual date, he's into people who display a certain passion for things- whatever it might be. It sends him through these phases of irritated then jealous and finally inspired, which he desperately needs. He values intelligence; someone he can talk to and can challenge him intellectually! He also always seems to end up shipped with people who are either super soft or equally amoral. Oops?

average relationship length:  Depends on the season. His dates last a bit longer in the colder seasons, since they don't rot as fast.

With people who would be living he would only go for a long term thing though. When he's in it, he's in it for a long time.

preferred non-sexual intimacy: Laying down in bed or across a couch, holding his lover and just reading, or talking softly together. ALSO COOKING TOGETHER!!!! that's the big one

commitment level: Deep! When Yoshikage commits to something he does it with all his heart and soul. A relationship with him would be very, very serious.

opinion of public affection: He gets really really EMBARRASSED! Public affection just isn't super big in Japan and he feels like he's attracting attention to himself. But he loves holding hands. That should be obvious.

past relationships?: 47 severed hands. No living people.

tagged by: @caelifluus

tagging: literally everybody who hasn't done this do this??? @bxckstabbed (and all ur muses), @unsatisfiedhand @ciliegia-sours @bubblemom @schioccare everybody!!! Do iT!!!! I love reading headcanon posts feed my addiction.

[the-classical-system]

...has anyone seen Courtney?

cw: abuse mention

tl;dr— I/ we could seriously use some advice while we’re waiting to see our new therapist later this week. This is a super long post with lots of exposition, but the gist of it is, we feel like we’ve totally lost the ANP who was the primary fronter for most of our life and now we’re all in the middle of an unmanageable fucking identity crisis— especially Blake, since we’ve all been realizing more and more recently that they honestly feel like the host and not another EP (like we all thought). [Also I would put a page break right here but I can’t figure out how and I gave up.]

Alex has like 17 different chronic illnesses/ disorders (actually I think that number is higher now maybe? I don’t think anyone has updated the medical ID with the recent diagnoses) and more than a few of them require a shit ton of self-awareness & self-care, as well as actual active management.

The biggest “fire” in our body right now is the gastroparesis (paralyzed stomach, and our lower GI seems to be fairly paralyzed as well but tests & scans for that are being done in the coming weeks). It’s another thing that Alex was born with and even though every single one of us felt & knew that something was seriously wrong with our digestive system, our parents medically gaslighted us into thinking that we were normal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fast-forward to three months ago [fuck it’s only been three months?!] and we were at the point where we couldn’t keep down more than 1-2 ounces of water every hour [we also have POTS by the way, so that did great things for our fucking circulatory system & blood pressure lol] and could only eat maybe 2 ounces of food throughout the day. After a few episodes that turned out to be hypoglycemic attacks, and finally a literal hypoglycemic coma, we were admitted to the hospital for a week so they could try to stabilize our body. The doctors decided to put in a PICC (central line) so we can “eat” through an IV at home. The plan was to see if being on TPN would allow our body to stabilize to the point where we can tolerate enough meal replacements/ fluid.... but it’s been three weeks of this and there’s been maybe a 5% improvement, if we’re being generous. So now the doctors are considering PEG-J tubes in the near future. We’re supposed to go see the GI again soon, but........ Courtney was the only one who can deal with the medical shit & doctors & medical gaslighting & internal gaslighting. Blake & I just... can’t. I mean we totally *can* because Blake is the extra self-aware & smart one, but when we do, it ends up with a psych consult (and one time a 5150 which was just fucking perfect).

...but Courtney hasn’t been around at fucking all since the coma. When Blake & I looked back the other day, we realized Courtney had been our primary fronter for the majority of our life. I think Blake/ Alison/ I almost always co-fronted but Courtney is the only one who is good at pretending everything is normal, that WE are totally normal, at thinking oh sure there was some bad shit that happened but I’m totally fine... etc. She also seemed to be pretty much the only one who was in relationships with almost all of our significant others, with the exception of the first person we dated [that seemed to be primarily Blake & I with Courtney as the co-fronter?], *including* our most recent girlfriend over the last three years.

Now none of us know why or how this could make sense because we know that parts don’t just disappear.... so I’m just going to describe it as best I can. None of us have felt/ seen/ heard Courtney since right before we went into the coma in May.

Blake is pretty artistic and one of their favorite stims is mindless sketching, and oftentimes now when they’re really stressed but can’t get themself to talk to anyone they’ll just sketch our headspace or do sketches of how we see ourselves, etc. In every one of their dozens of sketches of the headspace, Courtney still has a room— but it’s vacant. None of her shit is there, just the furniture, and it looks & feels like a professional cleaning crew came in and sterilized the room. None of us, not even Blake, can *feel* her there the way we feel each other in the headspace or just in general— even when we don’t know who exactly we’re feeling we can still tell they’re there. Courtney’s room just has the exact feeling of a vacant hospital room that’s been cleaned out.

There are also all of these new gaps in our memories— primarily from the last 13 years, and the gaps stop after we were admitted to the hospital. Now that our internal communication is a lot stronger, Blake & Alison & I have started to be able to be coconscious enough to share memories with each other and to write things to each other to read when our spectrum brain is too much to handle— but *none* of us can fucking remember large swaths of time from when we were around the non-physically abusive parents, or when we were with Arik or Katy or Annie. And we only broke up with Annie super recently, plus it was the first relationship (aside from Court) that was NOT abusive)... so I really feel like there’s no reason a part would need to hide the memories with Annie at least.

Fuck that was so long, oops. Anyway, if anyone could provide some input into seemingly having lost the primary fronter completely, that would be super great. Blake is having an existential crisis & Alison is pissed at Blake for being honest with someone we like & I’m just dysfunctional as fuck lol so I kind of need at least one of them in order to function? Oh and c has been flooding the system with almost constant emotional flashbacks.... it’s been real fun recently.

Help I need an adult

[pokeallthelawyers]

Outlines for the olwy spinoffs

Lydia and Sarah present: What Could Have Been

[or: our more or less verbatim notes on the stories for olwyverse we were planning, listed more or less in the order we were going to write them]

Our doubts are traitors - Peter’s tumblr

Chapter 5: 9 - 14

Balth and peter ignoring ea/o, repairing relationship, all those cute moments where peter is freaking out internally but just Really Really cares about balth

Co Drunk AMA with Jaquie

Missing moment = Jaquie and Peter getting drunk together

Post movie night -- talk about how ridiculous flatmates are--Talk about magic?

“Denying something isn’t going to magically make the problem go away” - “stfu i don’t want to talk about this” - change of subject but elephant in room, setting up for faustus character development

Chapter 6: Faustus

Talking about play, hyping up play

Missing moment = after party with Jaquie and Costa

Chapter 7: Faustus - 15 (clusterfuck around magic thing)

Missing moment = conversation with Rosa

Trying to get him to understand balth’s situation

Coming to terms with the whole magic thing

Chapter 8: 15 - end of the fic

Peter missing balth

Missing moment = when Balthazar gets back from Auckland, conversation, fluff

Can’t be sure it’s going to work out but it’s worth trying anyway

Talking about rosa leaving: “i’m sorry you had to leave her but i’m glad you could stay”, dealing with the grief of losing his entire people

Talk about the whole elf thing, peter’s opinions about magic (has a lot of work to do, needs to come to terms with accidentally hurting balth/dealing with that)

Relationship, if they want to try a long term relationship, not sure if it’s the best/smartest thing but they want to try anyway (addressing insecurities?)

Not with the eyes but with the mind - Chelsaige

Both povs

When they met + the beginnings of their relationship

Lock eyes across the crowd at one of the gatherings

C: “can i buy you a drink?” P: “i don’t drink” C: “great, me neither!”

Chelsey shows paige her tree, first time paige shows chelsey her music

Melancholy convo about lifespans, “i want a future with you, no matter how long that’s going to be”

Talking about having their own place and starting a garden together one day

Flower imagery

Sweet are the uses of adversity - Manderking

Text fic! + six irl scenes where they meet (Jaquie POV)

Jaquie slips number into freddie’s purse at faustus, freddie almost doesn’t text her but then decides to on a whim (like how often is she spontaneous and just does things because they fall into her lap?? Like why the fuck not, let’s do something for HER for a change)

Neither of them really expect it to go anywhere except when it does start jaquie is charmed by how easily flustered Freddie gets [honestly how can she not, it’s kind of adorable] and Freddie thinks jaquie is… one of the funniest people she’s ever talked to?

Plus their differing views on magic result in some interesting debates. Mostly it ends up in jaquie gently pushing her toward her side though because jaquie is very persuasive when she wants to be

Both of them find this new acquaintanceship… refreshing

They start texting hardcore, as in, like, every single day

Jaquie flirts bc jaquie has no chill; Freddie tries to be chill that cute girl is flirting with her but very clearly isn’t

1st IRL scene - Jaquie hangs with peter at the flat, freddie runs into them by accident

Freddie lowkey pretends she hasn’t been texting her nonstop for a week but jaquie ruins that by making eyes at her

Afterward Peter is like “doth mine eyes deceive me?? Does Jaquie have a crush on one of my flatmates????”

“Oh my fucking god shut up”

Pete is just delighted that he finally has ammunition against Jaquie for teasing him about Balth

2nd IRL scene - study date

Set up - j texting about being bored, f is studying, jaquie’s like “ooh that’s better than nothing i can totally help you study” and fred’s like “I really doubt you’d be of much help” but she also tells her she’s at the library so jaquie just takes it as confirmation that she can come

Freddie’s freaking out over an exam or essay or something and jaquie actually does help her calm down

Maybe there’s some very platonic and soothing hand holding i dunno. At some point jaquie says, quietly, “you’ve got this,” and Freddie nods and steels herself and crushes this thing she has to work on

Jaquie is absolutely not a proud girlfriend. She is a proud platonic friend at best

3rd IRL scene - Jaquie complains about work, freddie decides to surprise visit her at the bar to cheer her up

“How do you know where I work???” “Um you work with Peter right? I just asked him”

Jaquie is, like, knocked on her ass

Cute girl asked about her workplace and came all this way just to cheer her up? Fuuuuuuuck

The moment where Jaquie is like “holy shit i like her”

4th IRL scene - watching/shit-talking shitty movies together

Basically their first hang out that is planned and not spontaneous

Their one scene in the show is watching a movie; freddie’s thing is shitty movies; jaquie’s thing is shit-talking; could we make it more obvious

It’s in Freddie’s room and it’s TOTALLY NOT A DATE

But it’s dark and jaquie is sitting really close to Freddie and at some point she puts her arm around Freddie and Freddie doesn’t push it off and then they’re kind of cuddling and jaquie is slowly dying a little

Probably at some point the movie ends and they lock eyes and just kind of stare at each other for a while in the dark silence and they can kind of tell that there’s something there but neither of them are brave enough to make that next step so jaquie’s like “... i should go home” and Freddie just says “okay” and… that’s that

Freddie fucks up [chapter 15], doesn’t text jaquie for like a day after which really worries Jaquie because they’ve been texting constantly every day for the last like month

Finally Freddie texts her like “I fucked up”

5th IRL scene - jaquie comes over and comforts her

Afterward, texting w increasing romantic tension that both of them can feel but neither of them really call out [especially since neither of them are really talking about the Clusterfuck] so they’re both just like Hardcore Suffering

Finally freddie is about leave for her parents house, doesn’t know if she’ll return to Wellington, texts jaquie her good byes but jaquie doesn’t reply bc she is hauling ass to freddie’s house

Fred is all busy being sad that jaquie won’t answer and then she opens the door and is totally rendered speechless because cute girl on doorstep?

Breathlessly, jaquie says “i think we should date!”

Freddie: “?!?!?!?!?!?!” Still incapable of human speech

Jaquie says in a rush something to the effect of “listen like i know i’m sort of an asshole sometimes and i know you get easily freaked out but you’re really sweet and funny and beautiful and we work really well together and i wasn’t going to say anything because i want to respect your boundaries but you’re going and i don’t know when the next time i’ll get to see you is and i don’t want you to leave without knowing that I - “

Freddie still can’t speak lol she just repeats kind of dumbly “knowing that you what?” Her heart is beating so fucking fast

Jaquie’s like “can i - can i kiss you?”

Commence literally the gayest kiss the world has ever seen

And jaquie whispers, “Will you be my girlfriend?” And Freddie just smiles and says, “I thought you’d never ask” or something equally sappy and terrible and it’s super gay and then they ride off into a gay sunset

What fools these mortals be - Kit (aka the loss highlights reel)

Significant years in his life

Bad experience with a family--warded against fae w/o knowing he was one

Confirmation of being aroace

Exploration of beginnings and being banished from the fae

Background to kit’s motivation in ch15

“Oh brother” background

Background to convo with balth in ch14

“In my vast experience,” Kit adds, “it doesn’t always matter when you leave. Sometimes, it feels like seeing them die kills you, too. Sometimes every last moment you have with them is worth all the ones you don’t. Sometimes it takes a year to smile again. Sometimes it takes three hundred. But if you leave now, or if you stay watch them fade over the course of the century, it doesn’t matter. It hurts, you cry, you mend, you smile. That’s just the way it is, man.”

All of our secrets are out now oops. If there’s anything about this verse that you’re curious about, feel free to send us an ask. -L+S

[proofthatihaveaheart]

end of year 2019 recs

this was meant to be posted two months ago and then it got buried in my drafts and i forgot that it existed while i started a new fic rec list for the first quarter of this year oops

[1 Borderlands, 1 Good Omens, 1 Life is Strange, 1 Marvel, 1 She-Ra, 9 Steven Universe, 1 Tangled, 1 The Adventure Zone, 1 The Last of Us, 2 The Umbrella Academy]

Borderlands

Burn Out by snufflyphoenix (VH1 gang, 5k):  As Mordecai and Brick prepare to ship out to Athenas as the Crimson Raiders' B Team with Not So Tiny Tina, Lilith worries about their safety and starts to wonder how she's going to manage without them now she's gotten so used to them always being with her again. She contemplates their relationship; how it's changed since when they first met and how they're going to manage going forwards with the world turned upside down again. [This fic balances tenderness and comfort and grief so well while capturing the dynamics between these characters and I just really love it.] 

Good Omens

Choose Your Faces Wisely by Poetry (Aziraphale/Crowley, 5k):  In a world where humans wear their souls on the outside, Crowley and Aziraphale learn to make their own. [Daemon AU! It’s well-written with lots of references, cool concepts about the daemons of supernatural beings, and strong character moments.]

Life is Strange

migratory animals by swapcats (Chloe/Max, 11k): “Here,” you say, tossing the photo her way. “Check it out. Blackwell was insane for kicking me out, right?”You give her your best grin. It’s not very good, but she’s not looking, anyway. She twists the photo in her hands, turns it upright, and does nothing but blink at it.For a moment, you’re scared she’s going to fall in. Not because it’s a photo -- it isn’t even of her, isn’t more than a few hours in the past -- but because you’re more convinced than terrified that she’s just going to up and vanish. If it’s not time-bullshit, then it’ll be her having enough of putting up with your bullshit; she’s got her family out there, over in Seattle, and you’ve got a beat up truck and a few thousand dollars to your name. [Road trip fic! Full of pining and a careful exploration of their traumas and healing, it serves as a perfect epilogue to their adventure]

Marvel

dance, dance (we’re falling apart to half-time) by gleesquid (Gwen/MJ, 4k): “We were going to go dancing. Peter and I, I mean. We could still go. You and me, that is, it’s not like we need Peter to dance, or any boys at all, and he’s not very good anyways –,”“Gwen Stacy,” Mary Jane said and Gwen faltered at the sound of her own name on foreign lips. “It’s like you read my mind.”Or: Gwen and MJ will always be each other's favorite dance partner. [A perfect fic about Gwen and MJ’s growing friendship and feelings, with lots of dancing thrown in. The build-up is fantastic and it’s romantic and it’s very much them.]

She-ra

I Can Make You Stronger by inkubusmb (Glimmer, 7k): "You can really make me that powerful?""You think of yourself only as a princess, but you're the child of a great sorcerer. You have a more powerful connection to magic then you've ever realized. Let me show you."Shadow Weaver couldn't be trusted. Glimmer knew that.But after losing her mother, she knew she had to get stronger. Strong enough to protect her friends from the same fate. Strong enough to destroy the Horde.And Shadow Weaver was the only one who could give her that power. [A neat character study of something that very well might happen in s4 - Glimmer learning magic from Shadow Weaver.]

Steven Universe

Before We Turn to Dust by Mintly (Ruby/Sapphire, 6k): Their days were dirt roads and endless blue sky. It would be freedom, except it wasn't. Sapphire is a quiet country storefront and Ruby dreams. [Human!AU set in a small rural town. The writing is beautiful, the relationship and yearning between Sapphire and Ruby comes through clearly, and the atmosphere shines. It’s really good and even if you’re not a human AU fan, you should check it out.]

Cleave by susan_voight, thingswithwings (Ruby/Sapphire, 8k): “Tell me a story,” Steven asks, as he shuts his eyes. Garnet, as far as she has the capacity for it, is surprised; Steven is seventeen, and while he still has a tendency towards whimsy, he hasn’t asked for this particular indulgence for years. Not since he was a lot smaller. Garnet feels a little angry at herself for not having noticed that earlier; she feels regretful, too, that she can never seem to see any part of Steven’s adulthood coming in advance. [Garnet tells Steven a story about Ruby and Sapphire and the time they had to separate for a mission. It’s absolutely lovely, a great study of their relationship and how they grow to be even stronger.]

Little Rebellions by CompletelyDifferent (gen, 58k):  Not all Pearls have the chance to run off to another planet and take up arms. Not all fights are grand and romantic. These are the little rebellions- little, but just as defiant. [A wonderful set of interconnected one-shots centered around themes of rebellion and freedom. And all the good world-building! I loved them all.]

Only Human by mllelaurel (gen, 23k):  When a malfunctioning artifact temporarily (they hope!) turns them all human, the Gems must face down a monster infestation, while dealing with the loss of their normal powers and their own sudden fragility. [This very much reads like a multi-episode arc and it’s absolutely delightful. The insecurities and vulnerabilities the Gems struggle with are ones that are always there, but they’ve been magnified and brought to the surface with their human state and it’s just really well-done.] 

Pushing By Like Hearts by mautadite (Lapis/Peridot, 13k): “Sounds like you’re really counting on that road trip magic.”(Peridot and Lapis do Midway City, and Empire City, and Plateau Ville, and all the places in between.) [Peridot and Lapis go on a road trip and it’s wonderful. Love the imagery, the development of their relationship, and the characterization.]

starwalker’s birthday by the_sockpuppet (Pearl/Garnet, 11k):  Garnet wonders if she is Rose’s replacement. Pearl wonders how Garnet could love her. [I love this fic and the way it navigates their relationship and all the insecurities they bring along to it. The focus is very much on communication and being open and working through things, and it’s very good.]

the meek shall inherit the earth by Ushio (Pearl gen, 958): "Where was her Pearl?" asks Blue Zircon. Well. She was holding the sword. [Even though this was supremely jossed, it makes for a good, poetic read.]

Waltz of the Nian by QuickYoke (Lapis/Peridot, 6k): Lapis doesn't understand fusion at heart, but she does know she's an unideal partner for it. Set after the season 3 finale. [A character study of Lapis and her relationship to fusion, and the moments when Lapis almost fuses with Peridot. It’s well-written and it handles the subject of trauma + navigating boundaries and intimacy beautifully.]

where we love is home by possibilityleft (Pearl/Garnet, 532): "You're looking at me differently now," Garnet says.Slight Pearl/Garnet. Post-regeneration for them both, Garnet and Pearl have a discussion. [Early rebellion days, a short conversation that holds a lot inside it.] 

Tangled the Series

strings by pathygen (Cassandra-centric, 19k):  The weight of the stone should be concerning, but it’s not. She’s never been unfamiliar with weight. [This fic is a fascinating exploration of what could happen with the Moonstone and the ghost. It’s also a fascinating story of becoming lost in your own anger and insecurity, how that can twist you and make you someone you’re not. It’s dark and painful and I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t tear myself away from what was going on. It’s also a slow build to the final confrontation, which is stunning and one of my favorite moments in any fics I’ve read this year.] 

The Adventure Zone 

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by fishycorvid (Taako-centric, 28k): The funeral of one of the birds should have more attendants than this, some part of Taako thinks. But Magnus hadn’t wanted that, of course; he’d told Taako as much decades ago, just a few years after the Day of Story and Song. Taako had laughed then, told him he’d regret it when there weren’t any adoring fans weeping and tossing flowers into his grave. Taako isn’t laughing now, here in this clearing with the body that used to be his friend. (What comes after the end.) [As you might expect from the summary and warning about character death,this fic is painful. You will cry and your heart will hurt. But it’s also very well-written and a beautiful exploration of grief and having to live on and how sometimes things don’t work. Sometimes you pretend you’re fine but you’re not, you’re on a self-destructive spiral. That said, it’s also juxtaposed with some really lovely moments between Taako and his family, his friends. Highly recommend!] 

The Last of Us

landscape by januarys (gen, 854): It's the moments that define who they are, the spaces in between, and as the seasons fade into one. [A lovely stream of moments over the course of the game between Joel and Ellie.]

The Umbrella Academy

Keep Trying by pprfaith (Vanya & Klaus, 8k): At thirteen, a drunk Klaus goes wandering the mansion instead of locking himself into his room. Seventeen years down the line, he saves the world. In between, they're all just trying not to drown. (Klaus and Vanya against the world.) [This fic is lovely and healing and imagines a different world where things are still messed up because Reginald is the worst dad but there’s also support and comfort and learning how to trust.]

Try Again by pprfaith (gen, 57k):   They have outlived their father. They've managed to fix themselves. A little. Sort of. So from here on out, things should be peachy, right? [The Hargreeves get the healing and recovery they deserve, lots of good sibling dynamics, confronting what Reginald did to them, I really love this fic.]