#quiz that wouldn’t be all that difficult if we just read the assigned readings but. why would we do that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lilliagradiewrites · 4 years ago

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go get her, kid. (peter parker)

Summary: Peter Parker is hopelessly in love with Tony Starks’ teenage daughter, and Stark encourages him to shoot his shot.

WC: 7.4k (holy shit)

Warnings: Bad language, , really nothing else. A lot of cute peter and a painful amount fluff. A tiny bit of angst too.

A/N: I found myself watching Tom Holland interview clips today and I just couldn’t help myself. Here we are: my first peter parker/ spiderman one shot! I have some Harry and Jj pieces in the works, so keep eyes out for that!

LET’S DO IT!!!

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Peter found himself in this position far too often. Staring at you shamelessly while you worked away at whatever was on your desk, usually a school assignment or some tech project. His crush had been going on for quite some time, but it was getting more and more difficult to hide.

You and Peter had been best friends ever since your dad first recruited him. Something clicked between the two of you, causing an instant friendship. As time went on, you grew closer and closer to the superhero, and he quickly became your best friend. You began surrounding yourself with his friends without even realizing it, becoming close with Ned and MJ almost instantly. They were great people, and you loved being around them, but something about Peter was just different. Your energies matched perfectly for some reason. He got your humour, liked the same things as you, plus he was a great conversationalist and an even better listener. Some of your favorite memories were made with Peter.

Despite knowing practically everything about the boy, you were completely oblivious about his huge crush on you. Ned was the only person who truly knew, though many other people had their suspicions. The Avengers had an idea about it, considering you were what he talked about 90 percent of the time. MJ could tell because of the way he looked at you. When he looked your way, his pupils enlarged, his cheeks went pink, and the look on his face was entirely lovey-dovey. It was so obvious just in the way he gazed at you when you spoke.

He was looking at you in that way now, though you weren’t aware. He was meant to be studying (it was the whole reason he came over to your house, or at least that’s the reason he told you), but he couldn’t bring himself to care about chemistry homework when you looked so damn beautiful. Your hair was pulled back into a low ponytail keeping it away from your face as you worked. Your hands flew across the keyboard on your laptop, typing out something Peter probably wouldn’t understand. He was smart, sure, but you were intelligent in a different way. You were insightful and observant, you got things other people couldn’t begin to process. Your brain understood things in a different capacity than most. Peter assumes you got this trait from your father, who was the exact same way.

“What’re you typing? Something for school?”

You nodded, your attention not wavering from the laptop screen. “Yeah, an assignment for AP Lit.”

“Oh, that one project you told me about? With the essay and the powerpoint?”

You nodded again. “Mhm.”

Peter furrowed his brows, moving off your bed to come stand near you at your desk in an attempt to get a better look at what you were working so eagerly on. “I thought that project wasn’t due for another month.

“It’s not. I had an idea for the essay, and I figured if I get started early, I have more time to edit and perfect it.”

“You’re such a perfectionist.” Peter says with a light chuckle, looking at the state of your desk. It was both chaotic and organized at the same time. Pens, highlighters, pieces of paper, a book with annotations scribbled in the margins, notebooks with neat class notes printed inside of them in your pretty handwriting. They were all scattered about the surface, but Peter knew you well enough to know that there was always a method to your madness. As you observed longer, he realized that all of the items were in different sections on your desk, based on categories and subjects. He smiled lightly, realizing that this messy but technically neat surface was probably a very accurate representation of what goes on in your mind.

You finished the paragraph you were typing with a flourish, a satisfied smile resting on your lips. “There. I have a basic outline done for the essay portion. Obviously, I’ll have to go back and add a little more and elaborate on the points, but the basics are there.”

Peter glanced up at your laptop screen. His eyes were met with a never ending sea of typed out words. He smiled; this was so you. Your ‘outline’ is another student's essay doubled.

“You’re gonna write more than that?”

You looked back at him, and he saw your face for the first time during the encounter. His cheeks went slightly pink at the sight of you, and he prayed that you didn’t notice.

You didn’t, or perhaps you just didn’t say anything. You continued on with the conversation without skipping a beat, and relief washed over Peter because of this.

“Of course I am.” You stated with furrowed brows, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “This is so boring and basic, and has no detail whatsoever. Anybody who reads the summary of the book online could write this. I want my teacher to know that I thoroughly read and understood the novel, you know? I don’t want to submit some surface-level shit, I want to really pick apart the undertones of and the meaning behind the story.”

Peter nods, pretending to understand what you meant. He’d barely been paying attention to the words you were saying, too encapsulated with your beautiful eyes to do so. You turned back around towards your work, causing your best friend to snap out of his trance-like state.

“Do you wanna watch a movie or something? I’m bored.”

You had now picked up a pencil and a highlighter, working on the chemistry notes he was supposed to be taking. “Don’t you have work to do, Pete?”

“...No.”

You paused your writing to gaze at him skeptically.

“So you did your book report for english?”

“Yes.”

“Your worksheets for pre-calc?”

“Mhm.”

“You read the assigned chapters for Pschycology and finished the quiz you had to take on them?”

A nod was your only answer.

“What about chem? We have notes, essay questions, assigned reading, and a formulas worksheet due next tuesday. Have you done all of that?”

Peter hesitated for a moment. “Yes, I have.” It was a clear lie. “Can we watch a movie now?”

“There’s no way you did all of that. Go finish your work, and then we can watch a movie.”

A groan escapes Peters lips as he turns, resting against your desk. “But that’ll take forever. Your dad kicks me out at 11:00. We’ll never have time to watch one.” He whines.

You smile slightly, unable to fight it. Not replying to your friend, you spin around in your chair, raising your voice slightly, “FRIDAY, connect to dad please.”, the command directed to nowhere in particular.

“Connecting to Mr. Stark.” The familiar robotic voice echoes throughout your room.

“What’s up, Y/N/N?”

“Hey, Dad? Can Peter stay a bit later tonight?”

“Why?” Your dad’s voice replies through a hidden speaker, his tone almost accusatory.

“Because he wants to watch a movie but I won’t let him until we’re done with homework. We won’t have enough time to finish the movie if he leaves at normal curfew? Pleeeaseee, Dad?”

You can hear your father sigh. “Fine, but only because it’s not a school night and I’m feeling generous. He’s gotta be gone by one though, no exceptions.”

Both of you smiled widely, and you erupted in cheers. “Thanks, Dad!”

“Kid, be ready for training at eight. A later curfew doesn’t mean an exception from your early morning saturday sessions.” The statement was directed at Peter, who nodded, despite your father not being able to see him.

“Got it, Mr. Stark.”

“FRIDAY, disconnect.” You heard Tony’s voice from the other side.

“Disconnected.” The sound of the AI confirming the command filled your room, and the space fell into a brief silence once again.

You spun in your chair, turning to face Peter with a smug smile on your face. “There, now we can get our work done, and watch a movie. Satisfied?”

Peter nodded, giving a roll of his eyes and heading back over to his workspace on your bed, plopping down and continuing his assignments.

An hour and half later, Peter gave a heavy sigh, finally closing his textbook with a smile. “All done!” he announced proudly.

“With everything?”

“Yes, everything.”

You closed your notebook you’d been working in, standing up. “Great. I’ve been done for half an hour, I’ve been working on future assignments while I waited for you to finish up. Ready to watch that movie?”

Peter nodded excitedly. He loved watching movies with you, because you always cuddled up close to him on your bed while you watched. Peter loved being in close proximity to you, even though it made him a little nervous.

“What do you wanna watch?” He asked, beginning to clear his things off your bed.

“I don’t know. We can discuss while we go make popcorn.”

Peter’s eyes lit up; he loved popcorn.

“Okay!” He tossed the rest of his things in his school bag, zipping it up quickly and dropping it in the corner of your room. “Lets go!”

You chuckled at his childlike behavior, following him out of your bedroom door towards your kitchen. The entire journey down the stairs, down the hall, and to the kitchen was filled with Peter going on and on about movies he wanted to see.

You grabbed the microwave popcorn from the pantry, unwrapping it and tossing it in, starting up the machine.

You continued to listen to Peter as soft popping sounds filled your kitchen.

“Oh, you guys have Disney plus, right? What if we watched that new star wars show thingy? The mandalorian?”

You smiled at this statement. Though you didn’t see the boy in any way but a friend (at least that’s what you told yourself), you found Peter’s Star Wars obsession very cute.

“I mean, I would watch that, but I don’t think I’d understand it.”

Peter’s brows furrowed. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve never seen the movies.”

You watched in amusement as Peter’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock. “You’ve NEVER seen the Star Wars movies? Are you kidding me, Y/N?”

You laughed at his reaction, moving to fetch the fully popped popcorn from the microwave and transfer it into a bowl. “No, I’m not kidding. I’ve been meaning to watch them forever, but I guess I never got around to it.”

“I can’t believe this!” Peter exclaims in disbelief. “We’ve been friends for a year and a half now, and you’ve never seen the Star Wars movies? This is insane! I talk about them so much… did you just never understand what I was talking about?”

You shook your head, chuckling. “Nope, I never have. I kinda just let you talk about it, because I planned on watching the movies. I figured I’d understand what you meant when I watched them.”

“Holy shit… we’re watching the first one tonight, Y/N. No arguments, we’re doing it.”

You grabbed the now prepared bowl of popcorn, smiling at your friend. “Alright, let’s do it.”

You headed back up the stairs, the sound of your footsteps accompanied with the sound of Peter murmuring in disbelief as you made your way to your room.

Once the two of you arrived at your destination, you closed the door, placing the bowl of popcorn on your still cluttered desk.

Peter climbed into your bed, while you rummaged through your drawers in search of comfy clothes. “I’m gonna change into pj’s before we start, i want to be comfy.”

Peter nodded. “FRIDAY, put Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on Y/N’s TV.” He spoke out in a slightly raised voice. The movie appeared on your screen, waiting to be started as you changed.

A few moments later, you emerged from your bathroom, now wearing a pair of Nike shorts and a slightly oversized t-shirt.

“Y/N, this is about to change your li-” Peter’s voice trailed off as he looked at you. The oversized shirt you were wearing… was his.

He choked on the piece of popcorn he’d been eating. “I-is that my shirt?”

You looked down on what you were wearing, realizing that it was, in fact, Peter's. “Oh shit. Yeah, sorry. You left it at the lab once, dad gave it to me to give to you, and I guess it just got mixed in with my clothes. I’ll wash it and give it back.

Peter shook his head, coughing again. “No, it’s okay. You can keep it. It looks better on you anyway.” his cheeks went pink as he realized what had just left his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say the last part.

Your cheeks went even pinker at the compliment, which you couldn’t deny made your stomach flutter a little bit. “Okay, thanks.” You smiled at your friend, climbing into the bed beside him. You cuddled in close to him, probably closer than need be, but Peter didn’t seem to mind.

“FRIDAY, start the movie.”

---

A few hours later, the credits were rolling, and Peter was red in the face. You had fallen asleep halfway through the movie, and had moved even closer to him in your slumber. You were now full-on cuddling the boy, and he had no idea what to do. Your leg was moved over his, your head lay on his chest. One arm thrown around his waist. He liked having you this close, but his stomach was in a constant state of butterflies, and he was worried that the sound of his heart beating loudly in his chest would wake you.

He didn’t know what time it was, but it must’ve been close to one, because a knock sounded from the other side of your bedroom door.

Without waiting for an answer, Tony entered the room. “Alright, kids, it’s almost curfew, time to wrap it up…”

His eyes landed on you and Peter, cuddled up in your bed.

“Kid, what the hell is going on here?”

“Mr. Stark! Um, Y/N fell asleep while we were watching the movie and she kinda… I don’t know.. Ended up like this? Nothing’s going on, I swear, it’s just… I didn’t want to wake her up…”

Peter’s face was the color of a tomato at this point. Stark still had his suspicions about the boy’s intentions, but had a feeling that Peter was telling the truth. “Alright, then. You’d better get your ass home and get some sleep. Like I said, you don’t get a free pass from training because you were cuddling with my daughter till one am.”

Peter’s eyes went wide. “No, Mr. Stark, I- We weren’t… I Wasn’t…”

Stark chuckled at the boy’s flustered state. “I’m screwing with you, Kid. Now get the hell out of my house. I’ll see you at 8 AM sharp at the compound”

Peter nodded frantically. “Yes, sir. 8 AM. Got it.”

Tony turned and left without another word, leaving Peter slightly panicked. Did Mr. Stark think that something was going on between him and Y/N? Would he be mad if there was? Peter didn’t know what to think, but he knew that he should probably leave before Tony decided to come back.

Peter climbed carefully out from underneath Y/N, setting her head gently on her pillow. He tried his very best not to wake her as he moved out of the bed.

“Goodnight, Y/N. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Love you lots.” Peter whispered to his ‘best friend’, planting a sweet kiss on her forehead. With that, he slid your window open, climbing out of it and swinging his way home.

Peter was completely oblivious to the fact that Tony had been standing quietly outside your door when Peter said his goodbyes, and Tony saw the entire encounter. The ‘goodnight’, the ‘i love you’, the sweet forehead kiss.

Tony had his suspicions, but that night it was confirmed: his newest recruit had it bad for his daughter.

Strangely, Tony didn’t find himself terribly angry over it.

The next morning, you awoke to the sound of your alarm blaring frustratingly loud. You groaned at the noise, picking up your phone to turn it off. The time on your phone screen read 7:00 AM. Groaning again, you pulled yourself reluctantly out of bed. As much as you hated getting up out of bed, you knew you had to if you ever wanted to complete your training. Your father had promised you that you’d get a spot on his team if you trained hard enough, and you were extremely determined. It had been your dream for years to become an Avenger, so you had been training your ass off for months to earn your spot.

This is how all of your Saturdays had begun for many weeks. An alarm going off at seven in the morning, waking you up to get ready for training at eight. It was a normal routine for you at this point, but for some reason the early wake up never got easier.

You moved about your regular morning routine, heading straight for your bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. Once your basic hygiene was done, you brushed through your hair, changed into some clothes (your training uniform was at the compound), grabbed your phone, and headed downstairs.

You made a beeline for the kitchen, where your father was already making his morning coffee. When he noticed your presence, he gave you a tired smile.

“Morning, Y/N/N. Sleep well?”

Still half asleep, you gave an exhausted nod. “I shouldn’t have stayed up that late last night. I’ll yell at Peter when I see him. He always manages to convince me to let him stay late.”

For some reason, your father gave a light chuckle at your words. “I bet he does, sweetheart.”

Your brows furrowed at his statement. Something about his tone of voice didn’t sit right with you. “What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, making your way over to fix yourself a cup of coffee.

Your father smiled smugly at you, passing over the coffee pot and a mug. “Nothing, honey. Be ready in fifteen.”

Still suspicious, your eyes followed him as he placed his coffee mug in the sink and moved from the room. Why was he acting like this? Did Peter do something last night? You remembered falling asleep halfway through the movie, not being able to make it through the whole thing. Had something happened while you were sleeping?

Deciding not to let it bother you, you pushed the interaction from your mind, focusing solely on fixing your coffee. You were barely functional without it, and you knew you needed to be fully aware for training. You had to prove to your father that you could keep up with the Avengers, and that you’d be a useful asset to their team.

You downed the coffee quickly, knowing you had only a few minutes left to get ready. When your father gave you a time warning, he always meant it. And, you knew all too well, he would leave you behind if you were going to make him late.

He’d done it twice before.

Once you had finished chugging the remnants of your coffee, you placed the mug neatly in the sink, right beside where your father had left his. The drink had been an instant pick-me-up, and you automatically felt more awake. You found yourself getting more and more excited for the day ahead of you. Though waking up early on saturday mornings was a pain in the ass, you did enjoy training. You got to exercise, learn about cool technology, and screw around with your best friend. What wasn’t there to like?

Now that your best friend had crossed your mind, you pulled out your phone to text him. You sent him a message every morning, or he sent one to you. It was just a thing the two of you did. Over the past year the two of you had been close, it became some sort of routine.

Y/N/N: morning spidey. u awake?

Within moments, he was typing out a reply. He always answered your messages quickly.

Spidey: yes i am :) ready for training? I’m gonna kick ur ass in sprints today

You chuckled lightly at his response. You and Peter had always been insanely competitive towards each other, and it really jumped out during training. Unfortunately for you, Peter usually won the challenges. You always blamed it on the fact that he had more experience and super strength; he blamed it on the fact that ‘you suck’ and ‘he’s just that awesome’.

Y/N/N: u can try, but idk how that will work out. I’ve beaten u in all of the other sprints for weeks.

Spidey: doesn’t matter. I’m showing out today

Spidey: bring ur a-game, irongirl.

You smiled at the message.

Y/N/N: always do, spiderboy

He started typing back immediately, and you knew exactly why. He called you irongirl to screw with you, so you had begun calling him spiderboy to get on his nerves. It worked every time.

Spidey: Y/N!!! It’s spiderman!!!

Y/N/N: spiderboy!!! It’s nova!!!

Spidey: ugh. Ur impossible.

You grinned widely. Your playful banter with Peter has always been one of your favorite parts of the friendship.

Y/N/N: but u love me anyways :)))) see u soon

Spidey: u better be glad i do. see u soon

You reread the texts, unable to fight the smile on your face. Everytime you interact with Peter, you remember how much you truly love him. Being an avenger, and the daughter of one of the smartest and most famous men on the planet, wasn’t easy. Peter was the only one who had a taste of the madness that was your life. Having him around was having a sense of normalcy, and so were incredibly grateful for him.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of your voice being called from the front door of your house.

“Y/N! Time to leave!” Without hesitation, you locked your phone, slipping it into the pocket of your sweatpants.

You hurried towards the front door, not wanting to be left behind again. When you arrived, your father was already standing there, holding the door open. You gave him a smile and a quick thank you for holding the door, then made your way out. The driver was already waiting patiently in front of your house. This was one of your dad’s six drivers.

“Morning, Bernard.” You say kindly to the driver, climbing into the back seat of the range rover. “How are you today?”

“I’m doing wonderful, Y/N. How are you?” The older man replied. You really liked Bernard, he was one of your favorite drivers. He was an older man, in his mid seventies, and you found him to be the sweetest person in the universe. Sometimes, he’d bring you your favorite candy when he used to pick you up from school, and he was always so considerate and kind.

“I’m good. Tired, but good.”

The man smiled at your reply. By this point, your dad had finished locking up the front door of the house, and he climbed in the backseat beside you.

“Good morning, Mr. Stark.” Bernard said professionally to his new passenger, and your dad nodded as a reply.

“Morning, bernard.”

The conversation ended there between the two men. Your father wasn’t a very social person with people he didn’t know, and Bernard was aware of this fact. He mostly talked to you when you were in the car, and Tony went on his phone and did Lord knows what.

“How is Dorothy doing? Is she feeling better?” You asked the man as he began pulling out of your driveway. Dorothy was Bernard’s wife, and she’d gotten sick the week prior. Given her age, Bernard was very worried about her.

Bernard smiled at your question. “Much, much better. They released her from the hospital yesterday, she’s back home and doing great. Thanks for asking.”

“Of course!” You grinned back. “Did you ever find out what she had?”

“Pneumonia, just a very bad case of it.”

You nodded in understanding. “Well, I’m glad she’s better! I was worried when you first told me.”

The conversation continued, talking about anything and everything as you drove to the compound. He told you about his wife, his four kids and what they’re doing. His granddaughter had a baby a few days before, and he was extremely excited about it.

After a 20 minute drive, you pulled up to the building you knew so well. Bernard went to the normal procedure of getting through the front gates, and then pulled up to the front of the compound.

“Well, here we are.” Bernard announced, parking the vehicle. You and your father began climbing out of the backseat.

“Thank you, bernard. Tell your granddaughter I said congratulations!”

He wished you a kind goodbye, and then you were gone, leaving the car and heading towards the compound.

When you walked into the main section of the building, you spotted your best friend in the kitchen. You had to admit, he looked incredible, standing near an open window in the early morning light. He was already dressed in his sleek, black training uniform. It was tight against his body, showing off his muscled body. Sometimes, you forget how beautiful Peter is.

“You’re staring…” A singsong voice came in your ear. You whipped your head towards the voice to see your father walking away from you, smirking. You stood there, feeling slightly confused. Had you really been staring at Peter?

At times, you forget that Peter is only your best friend. The two of you act like an old married sometimes. You spend all of your time together, and you know each other so well.

Strange feelings you couldn’t understand had crept up on you before, especially recently. You couldn’t deny Peter was attractive, and he was a great person, too. How could you not love him? The issue is, you found yourself loving him in a different way than before…

You shook your head, clearing your thoughts. You couldn’t be thinking about this right now, it’s not the place or time. Peter was standing right in front of you, and you needed to be focused for training.

You could process your feelings and emotions at a later time.

You began walking up to Peter, who was leaning up against the counter holding a cup of coffee.

“Morning, loser.” You said teasingly, greeting your friend. His head snapped in your direction, and he smiled when his eyes found you. (You thought you could see his cheeks go pink, too, but you forced yourself to ignore it.)

“Hey! How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good.” You replied, leaning against the counter beside him. “I didn’t even notice that you left last night, I was really out. Did my Dad come in and tell you to leave?”

The pink in Peter’s cheeks darkened at your statement. Of course, this was the perfect time for your father to reenter the room. “Yeah, I did. He seemed very comfortable, but I kicked him out at one.”

Peter and your father were making direct eye contact. Your dad had that stupid smirk on his face, and peter was bright red.

You looked between the two of them, not knowing what to think. Before, you were just suspicious, but now it was confirmed: something happened last night between the two of them, and you were determined to find out what.

Hours later, you’re completely exhausted from training. You worked your ass off, and had successfully beat Peter in sprints.

“That’s right! You lost! How amazing is spiderboy now?”

Peter rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. “Whatever, Y/N. I let you win.”

Your jaw dropped. “You did not! I won because I’m better!”

Peter just smiled at you. You took a swig of the water bottle in your hands, turning around to look at your friend as you did.

The sight you were met with was very sweet. Peter stood there, smiling at you with a look you could only describe as adoration. You looked back at him, a small grin resting on your face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” The brunette boy says cheekily.

“Why are YOU looking at ME like that, Parker?”

You took a step closer to him, his eyes widening slightly at your movement. He said nothing in response to your question (though it felt more like an accusation), and you smiled again.”Got nothing to say?” Your voice was barely a whisper.

“Parker!” You jumped what felt like 20 feet in the air at the sound of Natasha’s voice, breaking up the little moment between you and Peter.

You stepped back away from him, and you couldn’t help but notice the sadness flash across his face before he turned to the other woman in the room.

“Yeah, Nat?”

“Tony needs your help in the lab. I believe his exact words were ‘he needs to be here in five or I’ll kill him.’ A few minutes have already passed, I’d start running if I were you.”

Peter’s eyes widened for the second time. “Oh, shit, okay. Thanks, Nat.” He turned his head quickly in your direction. “I’ll meet you in your room when I’m done, okay?”

You nodded with a smile. Peter planted a quick kiss on your forehead before jetting off in the direction of the lounge.

Grinning to yourself, you turned towards the sink, your back facing Natasha. You begin cleaning out your now empty water bottle, thinking over the previous interaction with Peter. You loved when he kissed your forehead.

“So, how long have you liked him?” You were so deep in thought, Natasha’s voice made you jump once again. When you’d fully processed her words, your cheeks went pink.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh, don’t give me that. I know you like him.”

“Like who?” Play dumb. That’ll throw her off your trail… right?

“Peter! Come on, you’re caught. Just admit it, Y/n, you’re making things harder on yourself.”

Finally, you sighed. Drying your hands on a towel, you turned reluctantly back towards Nathasha. “Is it really that obvious?”

The woman broke out into a grin at your words. “Of course it is! You two are hopelessly in love with each other. It’s almost hard to watch.”

Your cheeks went pink at her statement. “With each other? Oh, no. You mean I’m hopelessly in love with him. It’s not mutual. I’m just his best friend.”

Nat rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, come on! ‘Just his best friend’ my ass. He loves you, Y/N. He’s even more obvious than you are.”

You shook your head quickly. “No, I promise you’re wrong.”

She looked at you pointedly. “I was right about you, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, but…” Your voice trailed off. You couldn’t argue with that. Nat grinned smugly at your reaction.

“That’s what I thought. Please confess to him when he meets you in your room later. It’s painful to watch, I can’t do it any longer.” And with that, Natasha was gone, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

Was it really thought obvious? Could everyone tell how you felt about peter? You could hardly even tell how you felt about him; the line between best friend and crush had been blurred for so long. If everyone could tell that you were hopelessly in love with your best friend, you would be incredibly embarrassed.

Even worse… what if Peter could tell that your in love with him?

You shook your head, as if clearing your thoughts. No. You couldn’t think like that. Of course he didn’t know; he would’ve said something.

Right?

Sighing, you walked off towards your room to take a shower, pretending you weren’t going to think of him while you were in there.

---

While Natasha was exposing your feelings, you were completely oblivious to the fact that Tony was doing the same thing to Peter in the lab.

When the boy walked in, Peter fully expected that he was being called for one of three reasons.

One: Tony had a new mission for Peter.

Two: Tony needed help with an experiment.

Or, three (the scariest option): Tony wanted to scold him for (albeit unintentionally) cuddling with his daughter the night before.

Peter could only be described as apprehensive as he walked carefully into the lab, where Tony was hunched over a table, working on something that Peter couldn’t see.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter spoke nervously, a timid way of letting Tony know of his presence. “Nat said you needed me. Is that true, or was she just trying to get rid of me?”

“No, no, I called for you.” Tony replied. He made a few last touches on whatever he was working on, then turned around towards peter. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Okay, option two is eliminated. Now, the question at hand is: will it be option one or three?

“Oh, okay. What about?” Peter said casually (or at least, that's how he hoped it came across.)

Tony gave a pointed look to the boy before speaking again. “My daughter.”

Peter’s eyes widened slightly.

Shit, shit, shit.

Option three it is.

“Is this about last night sir? I swear I can explain-” Peter was quickly speaking.

But, before he could finish, Tony was cutting him off.

“This isn’t about last night, kid. I mean, it kind of is, but not really.”

Peter’s brow furrowed.

Unknown option number four?

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I saw what happened before you left last night. The forehead kiss, the ‘I love you,’ all of it.”

Peter was bright red in seconds. “Oh…”

“Do you love my daughter, Peter?”

The boy’s cheeks somehow managed to go a darker shade of pink.

“I-I uh.. O-of course I do, she’s, uh, she’s my best friend.” Peter stammered out.

Tony narrowed his eyes. “That’s not what I mean, Peter.” The man says, his tone borderline accusatory. “Do you love her, love her?”

Silence. Peter didn’t know what to say, so he opted for nothing at all.

“I already know the answer, Peter, so you might as well just come out and say it.”

Peter pondered his next move. If he played his cards wrong, this conversation could end in him losing his life. Tony Stark was not one to be messed with, especially when it comes to Y/N.

On the other hand, Tony Stark was not one to be lied to, either.

Peter sighed, accepting his fate. “How did you know?”

Much to Peter’s surprise, Tony gave a small smile. “I see the way you look at her, kid. I’ve looked at many girls like that in my day. That enamoured look. You're in love with my daughter, and I have some questions.”

“Questions?”

“Yes, questions, kid. Keep up.”

Peter nodded. “Alright.”

“How long?” Tony asked.

“How long…?” Peter didn’t understand what Tony was aking.

“How long have you been in love with Y/N! How long have you known?”

Peter looked away, breaking eye contact momentarily out of nerves.

When did he begin loving you? Now that he’s truly thinking about it, he can’t really remember.

Maybe it was the first mission that the two of you did together, back when you still known as irongirl. It was a bank robbery, an easy task that Tony had given for your very first mission.

Maybe it was that one time when you dragged him out of bed at 6 AM so that you could show him your favorite coffee shop.

Perhaps it was when you took that faithful mission to Asgard, when you gained your powers accidentally, earning your new title as Nova.

Or, it could be the time that you and him stayed up late binge watching a show he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you that night. You looked so beautiful that night, getting excited as something cool happened in the show. Your hair was tied back, wearing an oversized shirt, your face makeup free. He couldn’t help but smile as you laughed, and didn’t think he’d ever heard a more beautiful sound in the world.

Yeah, he thinks it was that night.

“Um… about ten months ago, I think? That’s when I realized, but I think I’ve loved her for longer. I just forced myself not to acknowledge it, I guess.”

Tony nodded in understanding. “I get that. What is it about her?”

Another question the boy had to think about.

“There’s a lot of things, I think. Like how excited she gets when she talks about things she’s passionate about. Oh, and the way she laughs when something’s funny in a movie or a show or something. And the way she sends me memes or videos that she thinks are funny. They’re usually not very funny, but of course I think it’s hilarious just because she sent it to me. And she always listens to me when I talk, even if I’m talking about something stupid and boring like science stuff I think is interesting. She talks back to me like she cares what I’m saying, and I know she probably doesn’t, but she acts like she does, and that’s enough. She always drags me out to go on adventures, or, at least, that’s what she calls them. Usually it’s just going to get coffee or try out some new restaurant she heard about but it’s still fun. She’s just so amazing, and I think she makes me the best version of myself.”

The rant ended, and for a moment, Peter forgot that Tony was even in the room.

“Damn. I wasn’t expecting that. I’m impressed, kid. To be honest, I expected some shallow answer like ‘she looks hot in her suit’ or something like that.”

“No, sir. Of course, she’s beautiful, but Y/N is just so much more than that.”

Tony gave another sweet smile to the boy in front of him.

“She likes you, too, you know.”

Peter’s head snapped toward Tony again.

What the hell did he just say?

“What?”

“Y/N. She likes you.”

“No way. She just sees me as her best friend. I’m probably like a brother to her. She doesn’t like me like that.”

“But she does, kid. I know my daughter better than I know myself. She is head over heels for you, spidey. Which is why you should tell her how you feel.”

“Tell her how I feel? Why would I do that?”

“Because she likes you, too, and then you two will be stupid kids in love.”

“Are you serious?”

“Aren’t I always?”

Peter paused for a moment. “I thought you’d kill me when you found out I liked your daughter, not convince me to go talk to her about it.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you, kid. I brought you in here with the intention of killing you, or just telling you to stay away from my daughter. But after you went on that little rant about why you loved her, I just couldn’t tell you to keep away from her. You really love her, kid, I can tell. So go talk to her.”

“You’re sure you won’t be mad if I ask her out?”

Tony shook his head and smiled.

“Go get her, kid.”

-------

Freshly clean and feeling a significant amount better, you sat on your bed scrolling on your phone. Thoughts of Peter had begun to fade (mainly because you forced them out of your mind) and that helped to keep you from stressing about what’s to come.

You had decided to confess how you feel to Peter.

True, this plan could ruin everything. Today could be the day you lost your best friend, and that thought made you want to cry.

But today could also be the day you finally get to kiss the boy you’ve loved forever, and that thought also made you want to cry.

You didn't have much time to think about it further, however, because Peter was knocking on your bedroom door.

“Y/N? It’s me. Can I come in?”

You paused immediately, your heart rating speeding up.

Oh, shit. This is it. This could be the beginning or the end of you and Peter Parker.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself. It was now or never.

“Yeah, Petey, come on in.”

The door opened, and the boy you loved so much walked in. His cheeks were pink, you noticed. His cheeks only went pink when he’s nervous. Why was he nervous?

You could tell by his damp hair that he had also showered before coming to your room.

“I need to talk to you about something.” He rushes out.

Oh.

“Same.” is your reply. What else are you meant to say?

“Oh, really? Well, uh, you can go first. I’ll wait.”

You shook your head frantically. “No, you first. You said it first, so it’s only right that you go.”

Peter’s hand went to the back of his neck, rubbing it. Another nervous habit of his.

“Can I sit down?”

You nodded. Why was he even asking? Usually he’d just plop down whenever he pleased, no questions asked. This behavior was very out of character for the boy you knew so well.

The boy sat down on the edge of your bed, and then took a deep breath. “Okay. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I just have to. I don’t want you to hate me, and I really hope this doesn’t affect our friendship, but…”

Peter paused for a moment, and looked into your eyes. They were brimming with concern, and he just couldn’t hold it back anymore. He broke the eye contact you’d been maintaining, mustered up all the courage he could, and then blurted it out.

“I’m in love with you. I have been for I don’t know how long. I wasn’t planning on telling you, because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but it was starting to get physically painful and I just- I can’t hide it anymore. I love you and I’m sorry.”

Peter clenched his eyes shut, unable to look at your face. He waited (very anxiously) for a reaction, but it never came. Eventually, he opened his eyes, gaining the burst of bravery it took to look at you.

Your jaw was dropped, the expression on your face unreadable.

Oh, no. No no no no no. He’d fucked up. He fucked everything up and now you were never going to speak to him again. He’d lost you. Damn you, Tony Stark.

“Y/N…” He began his apology solemnly. “I’m-”

But he never got to finish his sentence.

Because you were pouncing on him before he had the chance to.

You were on him within seconds, kissing him with so much intensity that he fell back on the bed. He was taken aback for a moment, but quickly kissed you back.

For a moment, the two of you just lay there, wrapped in one another, kissing like there was no tomorrow.

A kiss that made up for all the ones both of you had longed to have in the months before.

You pulled away gently, looking into Peter’s eyes.

“I have loved you for so fucking long, Peter. I was going to tell you that I loved you today.”

“Are you serious?”

You laughed lightly. “Of course I’m serious, you dumbass.”

“Hey!” Peter feigned offense.

You pecked his lips. “You’re a cute dumbass, though.” And then you were kissing him again, and it’s all you could’ve asked for.

----

After a while, the two of you had finally tired each other out, and now you sat cuddled against each other on your bed. No movie or show was playing; it was just you and Peter, listening to each other’s breathing and the sound of your heartbeats.

You looked up at the beautiful boy you were cuddling with, only to find he was already looking down at you.

“Aren’t you going to ask me out, Parker?”

Peter’s eyes widened, and his cheeks went red (for the millionth time that day.)

“Oh, yeah, I- I just thought- nevermind, uh- Y/N, will-”

“Yes, of course I’ll be your girlfriend, Petey.” You cut him off, saving him a few extra minutes of nervous stammering.

He smiled sheepishly at you, then leaned down to bring you into a kiss.

You cuddled back down into his chest, smiling warmly.

You can confidently say that right now, in this moment, you are the happiest you’ve ever been.

#peter parker #peter parker one shot #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #peter parker angst peter parker fanfiction #peter parker x reader #marvel fanfiction #mcu

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mqgriett · 4 years ago

Text

Crosshair- The Exam

Prompt: “You’re the only thing that matters”

Pairings: Crosshair x Fem!reader

Warnings: none!

Summary: you’ve been studying your ass off for a month trying to prepare for the exam that will dictate whether or not you get to go back to the 104th battalion as a medic.

Notes: IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG thank you sm for requesting @lightning-wolffe

You shut off your data pad and pushed it under your armpit, squeezing it with your bicep to not let it fall from your grip as you open your textbook. Before you received the chance to re-read your highlighted notes you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“I heard that your boys landed in Hangar 5.” Kix chirped, pointing behind him with his thumb. He ran his opposite hand through his short brown hair, smiling kindly.

You hummed in response, your attention mostly focused on your annotations. The big exam, one that basically determined whether or not you were allowed to return to your assigned Clone Force, was in three days. Every quiet moment was spent with you cracking open a textbook or reviewing your notes. Now that you thought about it, when was the last time you ate… or slept?

Kix quickened his pace and moved in front of you, using his index finger to push your book down to properly view your face. “You know the exam isn’t for another three days, right?” he asked.

You pressed your lips in a thin line, “Unfortunately not everyone has a memory like yours. I need to study.” you said, closing your book and bopping him on the head with it lightly.

He took the textbook from your hands, holding it up in the air until it was out of your reach. “Fives!” he called to someone you couldn’t see, “Batchers still here?”

Behind you, the ARC trooper nodded, “Gonna be here for the next coupla hours. Engine is shot.”

Kix let his guard down just long enough for you to grab your study materials back. You gently nudged him to the side and walked past, just wanting to get back to your quarters and study.

The medic gave up, hurrying to catch up with Fives as you walked in the opposite direction.

Were you dying to see the Bad Batch? Absolutely.

Did you have the time to? Unfortunately not.

Someone (a medic from the 212th apparently, but you tried not to believe rumors) had fucked up a month ago, and it costs you your privilege of being an on-site medic. All field nurses were sent back to Coruscant to retake the big medical exam to prove that they could still serve as medics.

Unlike Kix, you took it very seriously. Getting anything below a 80% would make your chances of returning small. Only the top 45% of nurses would go back to their battalions while the other 55% stayed on Coruscant to continue their studies.

The large metal door to your room slid open as you scanned your hand and you stepped inside. Without looking up, you wandered to your desk, which was covered in an assortment of different papers and sticky notes.

Still reading your textbook, you typed in the access code for your online notes. After a few seconds an automated female voice began to quiz you on questions you had written down two weeks ago.

You stood up and undressed yourself, lazily pulling a dark brown shirt over your head and letting your hair fall loose from the bun that had sat on your head for the majority of the day.

“Define Choledocholithiasis.” said the voice.

“Stones in the gallbladder or common bile duct” you replied effortlessly, shuffling to your bathroom to fill the water compartment for your caf.

You plugged the machine into the wall, allowing the slow drip of heavenly brown liquid to start as you sat back down at your desk. It gave you a moment to think about everything. Realistically, you were more qualified than half the shinies going in to take the exam.

Kriff, you were wasting your time here.

You pushed back from your desk and slid on the first pair of shoes that were near your door.

The halls had quieted down for the most part, most of the clones eating dinner or heading to bed if they had an early start tomorrow morning.

Massaging your scalp and yawning, you made your way to Hangar 5.

You looked a little tired, but it didn’t matter as long as you got to see Crosshair. You knew none of them would care but especially not him, in the small window of time you two got alone he frequently told you how much he loved your messy hair. He wasn’t much of a verbal communicator when it came to your relationship, but he always made up for it in physical gestures.

Rounding the final corner, your eyes began to scan the busy hangar for the marauder. You took back your thought from earlier, seeing that Hangar 5 was a lot more busy than you had anticipated.

At least two different squadrons were shipping out, from what you could tell it was the 104th and 312th battalions. The blurred figures of grey and green armor made it difficult to keep your focus on one thing at a time.

You carefully started to walk along the wall, ducking until a small cruiser as a short cut.

After another ten minutes of searching you finally spotted a familiar face in the bottom right corner of the hangar.

Tech typed away at his data pad, turning to shout something up at Wrecker, who was sitting on the top of the ship and swinging his legs like a mad man.

Despite the excitement bubbling in your stomach, you took your time walking over to them. It was nice to just observe and laugh at their behavior for a few minutes, it lifted your spirits.

Once you were within vision to Wrecker, he didn’t hesitate to point and shout at you from the top of the Marauder.

“Tech!” You called as he mindlessly searched for you in the crowd of people.

He grinned widely, opening his arms up as you jogged over to him. He hugged you tightly, another pair of large arms suddenly wrapping around both of you.

Wrecker finally set you two down, giving you an individual hug and swaying you from side to side. At one point you were almost choking.

“Thought you were studying for the exam.” Tech said skeptically, eyeing you as if you would ever hide something from him.

You shrugged, “priorities” you peeked over his shoulder, looking for a specific person.

Tech noticed your wandering eyes and smiled, “Cross is taking inventory with Cody.”

“Where’s Sarg?” you asked, linking your arm into his.

“Talking to some of the blue regs.” Wrecker replied loudly, making a few of the 501st soldiers turn to look at him. The large clone was never one to be secretive when it came to addressing the other clones as “regs”. It often drew attention to the group, not necessarily the good kind either.

From a distance you could see Hunter walking back towards the Marauder with Fives, both of them with their helmets at their hips.

Sarg’s eyes lit up at the sight of you, his pace quickening as his urge to be with you grew. He hugged your torso tightly, allowing his arm to sling around your shoulder loosely afterwards.

“It’s been a while.” He said, gently nudging you away from Fives before the ARC trooper could talk.

“It’s been two months. And I always call.” You replied, smiling.

“You look exhausted.” Hunter pointed out quickly, looking down at the bags under your eyes.

You shrugged, “could say the same for you Sarg.”

You four situated yourselves underneath the Marauder, sitting on top of a few power supplies and food crates. Hunter sat next to you, Wrecker and Tech mirroring both of you.

“We were told you wouldn’t be coming down.” Hunter said, leaning back on his elbows.

You raised a skeptical brow, “who told you that?”

“Fives” he answered nonchalantly, “why else would I be talking to him?”

His comment made your eyes roll, “be nice.” You warned, poking his stomach where armor didn’t cover him.

Hunter swatted your hand away, briefly turning his head and smiling. “Look who’s back,” he jutted his thumb behind him, pointing to the two other clones making their way back to the ship.

Cody held a clipboard loosely at his side as he spoke to Crosshair, who carried his helmet against his hip. The 212th trooper laughed at something he said before saluting the sniper and walking in the opposite direction.

You always seemed to forget how handsome Cross was in person. The blue hologram of him during your brief calls did nothing for his strong jawline and high cheekbones. The scruff along his jaw and neck was slightly more visible now, a grey shadow lingering along it.

Pushing yourself off the crate, you broke into a swift jog towards him. For someone with perfect eyesight, he didn’t notice you coming until you were a few meters away.

He opened his arms up, catching you perfectly as you jumped to him.

His long arms held your waist completely as he lowered you to the ground, back arched due to his height compared to yours.“Didn't think you would come.” he said softly in your ear, his voice alone producing butterflies in your stomach.

“I wanted to see you.” you replied, pulling away from him and moving to his side.

Crosshair sent a small smirk to you, which was enough to indicate that he felt the same way.

You walked side by side back to the rest of the group, shoulders touching and hands grazing against one another’s. The gestures were sweet, like the type you would make in school when you were younger. They were enough to make the other person feel loved without drawing too much attention.

The Bad Batch, plus you, sat underneath their ship once more as the rest of the 104th took off in their ships. You waved to Sinker and Comet from the opposite side of the hangar, tossing over-dramatic kisses in their direction while they climbed up the steps. Another mission for them, one that you wouldn’t be going to.

“When do you expect to return?” Tech asked from the top of his crate. You had situated yourself on a lower case, one that was used to store bombs and other small explosives. It kept you about seven or eight inches off the ground while Crosshair took your spot next to Hunter.

You let out a long sigh, “I don’t even know if I’ll go back.”

“They need ya out there.” Wrecker replied, crossing his large legs like a child would.

Crosshair could sense your unease and pushed himself off the crate, settling on the ground in front of you and leaning back so his head pressed against your chest. He let out a small chuckle, no doubt feeling your heartbeat quicken for a few moments. “They’ll take you back.” he said calmly, reaching for your hand and placing it atop his head.

You began to run your fingers through his short, grey hair. “If I don’t get above an 80% then I’m not going back.” You mumbled.

“Why 80?” Hunter asked innocently.

“Because she’s a girl.” Wrecker replied loudly, having absolutely zero common sense as to who could be listening.

Crosshair tense underneath you, muscles tightening against your legs, “Wrecker.” he seethed, using his brother’s full name.

Your face dropped, cheeks heating up. He was right, but hearing someone finally say it out loud made it worse. That was the real reason you had been dedicating so many weeks to studying. Even if Kix received a 45% and you an 80%, they would choose him over you. Clones were bred to be intelligent. You were just a girl who somehow got Senator Palpatine to assign you to a clone squadron.

You wiggled your way out from under Crosshair, stepping over the low crate of explosives and walking up the steps of the Marauder. It was cold inside but the chill felt so nice against your hot body.

In all honesty, you wanted to cry. You wanted to go back to your room and bawl your eyes out until you physically couldn’t produce tears anymore. But you knew you couldn’t, that would be showing weakness.

Soft footsteps echoed behind you, Cross’s monotone voice ringing in your ears shortly after, “he didn’t mean that.”

You shook your head, “No no, he’s right.”

He took a few steps towards you, gently reaching for your wrist and pulling you into him. He rested his chin on your head, “you’ll do great on the exam.”

You pushed off of him, needing a bit of air to keep from crying. You shook your wrists out and looked up at the ceiling, it helped a little bit. “Just nervous.” you muttered.

He stayed silent, not exactly sure how to comfort you. Words frequently failed him and in the rare occasion that you were upset Tech was able to calm you down, but not this time. Crosshair wanted to make you feel better, no matter what it took.

You hated being this vulnerable around anyone, the panic in your stomach growing every second of silence that passed.

Taking a deep breath, you began to walk past him, “I need to go, you have more important things to-”

He caught your bicep and spun you back around, other hand holding the small of your back as he kissed you. It was a deep, passionate, yet chaste, kiss. You melted into his grip, leaning backwards to force his lips onto yours more. You held the sides of his face, the small scruff on his jaw feeling immaculate against your own.

He rested your foreheads together and quietly, barely audibly, whispered, “you’re the only thing that matters.”

You were about to kiss him again when Hunter, Tech, and Wrecker walked through the door.

Hunter smiled, “Guess who’s got a new nurse on the team.”

Your head cocked to the side, Wrecker looking like he was about to explode from excitement at any moment. “We do!” he bellowed, “and it’s you!”

Mouth hanging open, you looked from Crosshair to the other three. “What?”

“Welcome to Clone Force 99, medic.” Hunter answered proudly.

#clone trooper crosshair #crosshair x reader #clone trooper hunter #clone trooper wrecker #clone trooper tech #clone trooper echo #badbatch #bad batch #clone force 99 #bad batch x reader

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minchanslut · 4 years ago

Text

At Your Service

Pairing: F!Reader x Escort!MinChan Word count: 2.4K

You sighed deeply, feeling the warm water cascade down your shoulders, taking some of the tension you had built up on your muscles along with it, but that alone wasn’t enough. The immense stress that your job put on you along with so many nights of sleeping alone had started to get to you. You wouldn’t say that you were one to feel incomplete while not in the company of a significant other, but as your needs grew, you found it harder to satiate them yourself, often leaving yourself feeling unsatisfied. You craved the touch of someone else.

Of course, you attempted to follow the trend of meeting people on dating apps and engaging in one night stands, but you were quick to realise that it simply wasn’t for you after having two separate experiences which left you deeply disappointed, and wondering whether men were even able to make women orgasm anymore. After telling your friend of your encounters and how you’ve given up hope on dating apps she suggested you hire an escort, if what you were looking for was just great sex. You dismissed her idea, saying that such a service would only be a waste of money and that you were bound to find someone who would be able to give you what you need, for free at that. But you had no such luck, not even after four months. It was almost as frustrating for your friend as it was for you, seeing as she had to put up with your constant whining and complaining. Even after months had passed she was still adamant about how you should at least try her suggestion, claiming that she heard of an extremely luxurious escort lounge through a coworker. It took some time, but eventually you gave in and decided to test the waters, though still quite skeptical, you had little hopes for what was to come. You had made an “appointment”, as they called it, about a week before, telling yourself you needed time to prepare, both physically and mentally. The website, which insured complete secrecy, offered a wide variety of escorts to choose from, which only made it harder for you to take your pick. After spending hours scrolling on your phone, reading the description provided of each escort and thoroughly analyzing their photos, you decided to go for a guy named Chris. His photo provided a glimpse of his toned muscles and charming smile, but not much else. You chose not to dwindle on your decision for too long, fearing that you would change your mind and end up back at square one.

A week later you found yourself walking through the doors of a lavish club which seemed more like a 5-star hotel. There were both men and women dressed in expensive attire throughout the room. You timidly searched for the front desk, hoping whoever was there wouldn’t poke fun at your anxious state. Thankfully you were greeted with an understanding smile by a woman named Mia, who gave you a brief explanation of how everything worked. She would tell you which room your escort would be waiting in, and would announce to them that you were on your way and all you had to do was make it there in one piece. Seemed simple enough. Before you left she assured you that you had nothing to be worried about and that you were in good hands.

“It’s not too late to turn back.” you told yourself, but if you did so you would lose both the experience and your deposit. Before you knew it you were already standing in front of Chris’ room, realizing then there really was no turning back. Chris was already standing at the door frame by the time you arrived. He greeted you with a smile, and allowed you to come inside, immediately offering you something to drink. You admitted to being too nervous to drink anything and he nodded in understanding.

“Is there anything I can do to help ease your nerves? You know, before we start?”

You could only shrug, scratching your head awkwardly.

“Okay how about, I eat your pussy? Would that calm you down a bit?”

You felt your cheeks heat up at his coarseness, but you went along with it nonetheless. That is why you were here after all.

Chris approached you slowly, sitting down on the bed beside you, helping you out of both your bottoms before ridding himself of his shirt. You couldn’t help but stare at his toned arms and defined abs, and you would’ve stared at them for much longer if his touch hadn’t pulled you away from your thoughts. He instructed you to straddle him as he laid down. He chuckled when you gave him a confused look.

“This way you can set your own pace, is that alright?”

You decided to go along with it,as you figured that he would know what he’s doing. He guided you towards his face, your aching pussy spread out in front of him.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

You took a deep breath and lowered yourself, providing Chris with direct access to your heat. He placed kitten licks on your clit, allowing you to get accustomed to the situation before wrapping his lips around the small bud and sucking harshly. You got the impression that Chris was enjoying himself just as much as you were, as he was moaning against your clit, the vibrations making your legs shake in pleasure. Chris’ hands found themselves holding onto your waist, helping you maintain balance as you grinded against his tongue, practically fucking his face. Your moans grew louder as your orgasm approached, your toes curled up as you pulled away, your pussy convulsing vigorously. You collapsed beside him as he sat up, wiping your juices from his chin with the back of his hand.

“Do you need a minute or do you wanna go again?”

You asked yourself if he was insane, how could you go again after cumming that intensely. And yet no more than 5 minutes after your first orgasm you found yourself on all fours in front of Chris, who was thrusting into you at an incredible speed. He had his chest pressed against your back and you could feel his chiseled abs on your skin. He had one hand supporting his weight and the other rubbing your clit. Every so often he would plant chaste kisses on your back and shoulders, followed by praise that made you melt.

“You feel so good, I won’t last much longer, shit.”

And he really didn’t, though neither did you. But mere moments later you were right back where you started, ready for another round.

From then on you found yourself seeing Chris once a month, twice if you were lucky.

You felt your muscles contort, an evident frown forming on your face as you refreshed the page once more only to receive the same notification. Due to your busy schedule the days you could make an appointment to see Chris were very limited, but luck had always been on your side and you were able to see him on the days you were free without any difficulties, until now that is. Your frustration grew as you continuously refreshed the website but were still met with the words “No slots available”

You could easily be considered a regular there, but you hadn’t been with anyone other than Chris. You were unsure whether to just give up and visit the following month, maybe even making an appointment several weeks in advance this time, or to simply go for someone else. You really didn’t feel like going through the trouble of searching for someone else, seeing as it was already difficult for you to pick the first time. You were close to giving up on your search until you discovered a rather convenient quiz the website provided, which claimed to help you find the perfect sexual partner for you. After hesitantly clicking on the link you were redirected to a page with various questions regarding your kinks, desires and fantasies. It was a rather quick quiz that certainly didn’t beat around the bush. After calculating your results you were met with the name Minho in bold letters, along with a short description of him right beside his photo. You opted to trust their recommendation and booked a session with Minho for later that week.

You walked into the building with less confidence than in the recent months, yet still not as apprehensive as the first time. You were nervous about what this new experience might be like, but you were excited nonetheless, wondering what Minho would do differently than Chris. Heading over to the front desk you greeted the receptionist whom you’ve grown fairly friendly with over the recent months. You made casual small talk as she typed away on her computer before stopping abruptly and looking up at you with a puzzled look on her face.

“Do you not have a session with Chris tonight?”

Your cheeks flushed as you avoided her gaze, announcing that you were, in fact, there to see Minho. She cocked her eyebrow at you, smirking slightly and continued without another word. You shrugged it off, bidding her a farewell as you began heading towards the room you had been assigned, rolling your eyes when she shouted “Have fun!” from behind you.

You knocked twice and Minho opened the door almost immediately, clearly expecting you.

He was dressed simply, button up and black dress pants. His hair was pushed back, slightly damp from what you assumed was gel. He invited you inside and was quick to comment about how he had seen you before but never expected you to go for anyone other than Chris.

“It’s quite an honor, actually, to have some fun with Chris’ plaything. Or is it the other way around, hm?”

There was only silence, which caused Minho to sigh. He made his way behind you, helping you slip off your coat as he whispered in your ear.

“No need to be so tense, I’m here to help you unwind after all.”

He ran his hands up and down your arms as he nipped and sucked on the exposed area of your neck. His hands then traveled to your sides, fingers gently tugging at the hem of your shirt before pulling it over your head. His fingers softly traced the skin of your abdomen while he walked forward, leading you towards the bed. He planted wet kisses down your spine, getting lower with each kiss and pulling down your pants in the process. Once you were left in nothing but your undergarments he gently pushed you down onto the bed. You were at a 90 degree angle, your upper body laying on the bed as your knees pressed onto the floor supporting your lower half. Minho ran his hand up and down your back, humming at your reaction.

“Eager, aren’t we? Maybe I should just give you what you want.”

He wasted no time waiting for an answer as he placed a small kiss on your pussy through your panties. He moved onto your inner thighs, leaving chaste kisses on the supple skin. He could feel your legs beginning to shake with anticipation and he was quick to return his attention to your aching pussy, licking a long stripe up your clothed folds. Minho pushed your panties aside as he pressed his finger against your entrance.

“Shit, you’re already getting wet, but you can do better than that, right?”

He slid his finger in deeper, curling it upwards as his lips found their way around your clit, sucking on the bundle of nerves. He pumped his finger in and out of you at a slow pace, taking care to give enough attention to your clit. He withdrew his finger, only to collect your juices with his index and middle finger before sliding them back in, groaning in satisfaction.

“You’re taking my fingers so well, can’t believe you’re so tight after being such a whore for Chris”

You felt yourself clench at his words, burying your face in the sheets to muffle your whine.

Your relationship with Chris was purely one of give and take. He provided you with a service which you paid for. You had no feelings for him and were sure he had none for you. Yet, choosing Minho over him this one time felt as if you were being unfaithful, but it also made your pussy ache with need for Minho’s touch. You wanted to feel him inside you, and you desperately wanted him to be the one to make you cum over and over again. He picked up his pace and had replaced his mouth with his thumb, which was now rubbing circles on your clit.

Minho caught on to your attempt at trying to keep yourself quiet and clicked his tongue. With his free hand he grabbed hold of your hair, raising your head slightly so that your face was no longer against the mattress. His new position meant that it was now harder for him to reach your clit, but his index and middle finger never once stopped pumping in and out of you.

“Now, now, if you don’t make any sound how am I supposed to know whether or not I’m doing a good job. Just for that I might not allow you to cum.”

“No, please, I’m so close.”

Your words caused him to smirk, seemingly strengthening his ego.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’d much rather have you cum on my cock, what do you say?” he said, removing his fingers from your heat. He helped you up, allowing you to sit on the bed properly. You eyed him closely as he removed his belt, his pants following soon after. He was left in only his white button up, of which half the buttons were now undone, and his boxers, the shape of his hard cock clearly visible. Minho unclasped your bra and helped you out of your panties, before slipping out of his boxers himself. He took the time to roll a condom onto his length, spreading your wetness onto the head of his dick. He pulled away for a moment, rubbing his thumb over your clit, followed but his palm slapping your pussy a few times. You felt your legs twitch as you ached to be filled up once more. He lined himself up at your entrance, but to your dismay stopping halfway to look over at the door which had previously been locked, swing open.

You glanced over Minho’s shoulder to see Chris, who still hadn’t finished his sentence, come through the door calling your name, clearly not knowing you would be preoccupied with Minho.

“Mia told me that you’d be in this room, my session got canceled so I figured we could have some fun. Oh, am I interrupting?”

#bang chan smut #lee know smut #skz smut #stray kids smut #chris bang smut #lee minho smut #stray kids lee minho smut #bang chan scenarios #skz chan smut #skz chris smut #stray kids chan smut #stray kids chris smut #skz lee minho smut #skz lee know smut #stray kids lee know smut #lee minho scenarios #lee know scenarios #skz scenarios

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onceuponaloonatic · 4 years ago

Text

so it turned into 8K oops... anyway this is like a samihyo prequel of sorts? please enjoy !!

tw: panic attacks, mentions of abuse, separation anxiety, and vomit

Mina wouldn’t say she loved her job. She didn’t hate it, of course, she had been the one who had decided to become a Japanese literature professor in the first place, but she didn’t love it either. She liked teaching, and all of her students had always raved about how good she was at lecturing and how she always took the time to properly answer their questions. She was fine with writing and grading tests, she always tried to write fair game tests that were designed with the idea most of her students could pass it, provided they put in the work to pass. None of those things ever really bothered, there was only one thing Mina absolutely hated about her job. And that was grading essays.

Since she taught a literature class, she knew she had to assign essays. The logical part of her knew they were important educational tools to help her students further their understanding of literature, but the illogical part of her never wanted to assign them. Because grading them took so much energy and always took so long. “You look like you're having a good time.” She loved Sana. She really did. But she couldn’t help but want to wipe that stupid smirk off of her face as she looked at Mina. Sana taught physics, so essays weren’t something she had to assign very often if at all. Of course Sana still had to grade homework assignments and tests, but they usually were a lot quicker to grade than essays. “I hate you.” Mina rolled her eyes, flipping to the next page. The essay she was grading had so many issues, she could tell it was written at four am probably after a couple cups of coffee. This was one of the reasons she hated teaching the lower-level classes, the essays were always so messy and rushed. “You know I’m joking right?” Sana wrapped her arms around Mina from behind. “I doubt it sometimes.” Mina sighed, relaxing in Sana’s arms. “Did you need something or are you just here to hug me?” “Hug you,” Sana answered easily. “Jihyo is busy with office hours and I needed to hug one of you or I would go crazy.” “My office hours start soon too Sana.” One quick glance to her clock and she knew they would be starting in fifteen minutes. “Don’t you have a lecture soon?” “I do.” Sana yawned. “Just a little longer. You know I didn’t sleep well last night.” “And who’s fault is that?” Mina questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Last night was your idea.” “Well I wasn’t the one who got carried away now am I?” Sana giggled. “I would have been satisfied after one.” “You're lying and you know it.” Mina rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you have a doctor's appointment after your class today.” “Oh fuck.” Sana cursed. “I forgot.” She let out a loud whine as she tightened her grip on Mina. “I wanted to go home and nap.”

“We can reschedule.” Mina nodded.

“No. This is important.” Sana sighed. “We’ve been at this for so long. There’s really no point in giving up now.” “I know.” Mina sighed, tilting her head back to look Sana in the eyes. “This isn’t your fault, you know that right?”

“I know. Who knew having a baby was so difficult.” Sana did have a point. They were already almost four years into trying to have a baby. Originally, Mina had tried to carry, but after running some tests they found out she was infertile. She really hadn’t been expecting that, and it had absolutely crushed her when she found out. They had taken some time away while they decided what to do next. Jihyo had been infertile ever since a car accident when she was young. They had known about that long before trying to have a baby, so they knew if they wanted to have a baby biologically Sana was their only real option. After a while, Sana decided to start trying to get the procedure. They were all already in their mid-thirties when Mina had first tried to get pregnant, and now four years later Sana had reached the point that if she did get pregnant it would be a geriatric pregnancy. It didn’t stop her from trying, but it had inhibited her fertility quite a bit. Waiting to have kids had sounded like a good idea for the three of them when they were young. Since all three of them were professors, they didn’t start with all the money in the world. Over time, it had accumulated and now they were quite comfortable, but it hadn’t started that way. Mina and Jihyo had both been on the fence about kids in the first place, and they had agreed only once they felt completely ready. Sana never wanted to rush them, so she had been patient. Of course, their friends had all had kids already. They would babysit them quite a bit, which usually fulfilled Sana’s desire to be around kids for a while. Once they finally were ready, things were suddenly much harder. They had wasted almost a year and a half with Mina, and between that and deciding to start again with Sana, time had just made things hard. They had agreed that if by the time Sana turned forty she wasn’t pregnant they were going to give up and try to find another way. Adoption was always still possible, they had to remind themselves of that sometimes. “Tell me about it. Who knows though, maybe this time things will be different.” Sana giggled at her statement, kissing her forehead. “It’s nice you think that,” Sana whispered. “I should be getting ready for my class. I love you.” “I love you too. I’ll come to get you after my office hours end and we can walk over to the architecture building together okay?” Sana nodded happily at her statement. The two of them had lucked out, the physical sciences building and the literature building were right next to each other, so seeing each other was always easy. Jihyo on the other hand wasn’t as lucky, as the architecture building was all the way across campus. They all still made an effort to see each other at work, but it was difficult sometimes when Jihyo was almost a fifteen-minute walk away. “Yup. See you then.” Mina gave Sana another kiss as she left.

Mina had gotten to Sana’s classroom just in time to see the end of her lecture. She had always loved watching Sana talk about physics. Her wife was always so passionate about it, and she always looked so happy talking about things Mina could barely begin to understand. A lot of people were confused when Sana told them her job, thinking she didn’t look like or act like the type to be a physics professor, but Mina knew they were wrong. Sana loved physics, and teaching it had been a life dream of hers. Honestly, it was sometimes funny how different her and Sana’s jobs were. They were both professors, but how their classes were run and what they did was completely different. Sana did research projects, labs, and lectured while Mina did the opposite. She wrote and read theses, read essays, and spent most of her classes debating things with her students. Even the type of student they had were completely different. Sometimes one of Jihyo’s students would end up in one of Sana’s statics classes if she was teaching it that semester, and they could talk about the student at home. Mina sometimes felt jealous, but she also knew it would probably be weird for their students to have both of them when they were married. She also knew it would be weird if one of her students took a class with either of her wives, considering how completely different their departments were. “And make sure you finish problems 10 through 29 before the next class. We will be having a quiz next week over electrostatics and superposition so be sure to study. Have a good weekend!” And just like that students started to rush out of Sana’s class. It was a Friday afternoon, so Mina was sure most of them wanted to get home and let loose for the weekend. Her students were always like that on Fridays too. Some of them hung around after class to ask Sana questions, but Mina just waited for them to eventually trickle out to enter Sana’s classroom. “Hey darling.” Sana greeted her in Japanese. “Give me a moment to get my stuff.” “Of course.” Mina smiled at her, playing with the wedding band on her finger. “Take all the time you need.” Sana gathered a stack of papers off her desk, putting them safe in her work bag before going to erase the white board she had used to write one. Mina would offer her help, but she got a little lost just looking at the whiteboard. Sana’s handwriting was very neat, and she was sure if she had even the slightest clue what was happening in her wife’s class, following along with her work would be easy. But since physics had always gone so far over her head, she was just left to stare at it in confusion. Mina had sat in on one of Sana’s classes once, and she just spent the entire time so confused and struggling to keep up or pay attention. To be fair, the one time Sana sat into one of Mina’s classes, she fell asleep. Neither knew what was going on in the others subjects, but they enjoyed it.

“Are Hyo’s office hours over yet?” Sana broke her out of her trance. She noticed the whiteboard was completely clean and Sana had her briefcase in one hand. “Oh they are about to be over. You know she always has to have long ones since she is dealing with senior design projects.” Mina looked at her smart watch. Sana and Jihyo had gotten it for her for Christmas. She had recently taken up working out with Momo, and it was nice for keeping track of that type of stuff. Though Sana and Jihyo would always make fun of her when she would obsessively stare at how many calories she burned a day or how many steps she took. She just told them it was nice to know those types of things. “Since it’s the end of the year I’m sure she has an office full of seniors freaking out about their projects.” “Probably. I’m happy the physics department doesn’t have senior design projects. I think Nayeon Unnie’s department has them too and she always gets so stressed this time of year. You think the kids would learn to stop procrastinating.” Sana yawned. “Didn’t you write your entire thesis like a few days before it was due?” Mina giggled at her wife.

“No. I wrote it two weeks before it was due.” Sana rolled her eyes. “Plus it was good anyway.” “It was good.” Mina knew nothing about physics but she knew it had been good enough to get published in some fancy physics journal. She had helped Sana edit it, but still to this day knew nothing of what her thesis was about. Something about string theory. Mina honestly still had no clue. “But you shouldn’t judge the students. You were the same way in college.” “Well I got away without having to panic and go to my teachers’ office hours at the last minute.” Sana mentioned, eyeing Mina. “I’m just that naturally intelligent.” “Uh-huh.” Mina rolled her eyes. “Naturally intelligent. Yeah that’s one way of putting it.” “Hey!” Sana pouted. “I’m kidding. You are very smart baby.” Mina leaned in to kiss Sana’s cheek. “Thank you.” Sana smiled. “You're very smart too.” “In a different way though.” Mina mentioned. “Physics has never made any sense to me.” “Well it’s not like literary analysis is something I have ever been able to do.” Sana giggled. “Literature classes were the bane of my existence in high school.” “I remember. You would always whine to me you had no idea how to write an essay.” Mina laughed, swinging their hands. “I still don’t.” Sana nodded, taking in a deep breath. It was starting to get warmer as summer was fastly approaching. With Mina’s birthday about a week in the past they knew that the weather was just going to get warmer and warmer. “You have written papers that have been published before.” Mina rolled her eyes.

“Yes but those aren’t essays. Writing those is fun, writing essays is not.” Sana answered.

“You sound like my students. They hate essays too.” Mina giggled.

“Who doesn’t?” “I don’t.” “You hate grading essays.” Sana pointed out. “Grading essays is different.” Mina nodded. “Grading essays involves reading through so much bullshit, it always is so easy to tell who has no idea what’s going on. Plus I hate giving people bad grades.” “Even if they really deserve it?” Sana joked, getting her keycard out once they approached the architecture building so they could get in. “Yeah even then. Failing people isn’t fun.” “Well no it’s not fun, but there’s always that one student who doesn’t take your class seriously and doesn’t do any work and bombs all the tests. They deserve to fail.” Sana swiped her card and they went in. The doors were normally unlocked but since it was late on a Friday not all of them were. Some of the doors had been left unlocked for the students, but only really the ones by the main entrance. Since they always entered at a side entrance closer to Jihyo’s office, they always had to use their faculty key cards to get in. “Well yes I suppose. There was that one kid in my class who never turned in a single essay and left most of his final blank. I obviously had to fail him.�� Mina had always liked the architecture building. The outside looked like all the other buildings on campus, but the inside was really pretty. She supposed that made sense for the college of architecture, but it was still nice to see. Jihyo’s office was right by the entrance, and there was a student in her office when they approached. She waved to them through her open door before turning back to the giant sheet of paper in front of her. The student looked tired and stressed, and Mina and Sana could both sympathize with her. Whatever she was working on looked like a lot. After a few minutes she seems to get her question answered, thanking Jihyo and leaving, her paper gathered in her arm and a cup of coffee in her free hand. “Hey baby.” Sana was the first one to give Jihyo a kiss on the cheek. “All done?” “Yup.” Jihyo nodded, stretching her back and looking Sana in the eyes. “Are you ready for your doctor's appointment?”

“I think so. We’ve done this so many times before I honestly think I’m on autopilot with these things now.” Sana giggled. “Check in, go take a pregnancy test, get a negative, talk to our doctor, get a shot, hope it works, and then go repeat the process when it doesn’t.”

“You never know. It could work this time.” Mina spoke up as she came in, Jihyo gesturing her over to her side so she could give her a kiss on the cheek. “It could.” Sana blew a chunk of hair out of her face. “But we say that every time.” “We never know though, Mina is right. It could work this time.” “Yeah.” Sana sighed. “We’ll see.” “Giving up is the worst thing we can do. Just stay positive.” Jihyo rubbed Sana’s leg affectionately, giving her the most positive smile she could. “It has to work eventually right?” “I suppose.” Sana hugged Jihyo tighter. “I hope it works soon.” “Me too darling.”

Sana had established a routine at the doctors appointments. They went the same every time, and after doing this for nearly two years they had just become habitual. At first she was a lot more emotional and excited for them, but now she had learned getting her hopes up too much would just hurt her in the end. She wanted it to work, she wanted it to work so badly, but she also knew she had no control on if it worked or not. The appointment progresses exactly like Sana predicted it would. She had been through this so many times, and who knew how many more times she was going to have to go through it. After it’s over, she makes Mina and Jihyo take her home so she can nap before she has to grade homework and eat dinner. They both happily let her nap, Jihyo going over some projects while Mina prepared dinner. They were used to this, Sana usually got tired after the procedure. They never knew if it was a side effect or it was something more emotionally based, but letting Sana sleep had always been good. “How was your day?” Mina hummed as she cooked. She had always enjoyed cooking, but cooking for the loves of her life was even better. Sana was a horrible cook, and they tried to only let her in the kitchen when it was something so easy even Sana couldn’t mess it up. Jihyo was better, and she would cook when Mina was tired, but she would be the first to admit she couldn’t even hold a candle to Mina’s cooking. Mina had grown up cooking with her mom and brother, it was something she just loved doing. She hoped their child would cook with Mina one day. “Okay.” Jihyo giggled as Mina worked. It was always so funny seeing Mina like this, being so adorable and domestic. Jihyo had loved it when they first moved in together, and she still loved it now. “Senior projects have eaten up my time again, like they do every year. What about you?” “Well I’ve read almost a hundred absolutely terrible essays about The Tale of Genji and a couple not so bad ones. No outstanding ones, but most of my students are burned out juniors, so that’s to be expected.” Mina answered honestly. “Teaching juniors is always so interesting. Most of the ones in my department are just trying to suck up to me because they seem to think I can get them an internship.” Jihyo laughed, putting her pen down and walking over to Mina, hugging her from behind. “But besides that, do you think it worked this time?” Jihyo and Mina always had conversations like this the day Sana got the procedure. They would wait until she was asleep to slip into the other room and ask each other if they really think it worked this time. They didn’t want to stress Sana out too much, so they tried to keep their honest opinions for quiet discussions when she was asleep. “I’m hopeful. The doctor said we have a fifty-fifty chance this time.” Mina nodded, her shoulders relaxing as Jihyo held her. “What do you think?” “I think it worked.” Jihyo answered honestly. “Well I mean we won’t know that for a while- but this time I feel lucky.” “You’ve said that before.” Mina giggled when Jihyo kissed the side of her neck, her hand twitching from where it was stirring the soup she was cooking. “Well I really believe it this time.” Jihyo retorted, leaving another butterfly kiss to Mina’s neck. “Just wait, you’ll see. I’m just worried about Sana, I’m scared she’s giving up. You know it will never work if she gives up.” “Well I hope you're right about it working, but I think Sana’s fine. She’s just trying not to get her hopes up too much every single time, I know she would do that when we first started and I think it became too much for her.” Mina was about to turn around and give Jihyo a kiss when Jihyo’s phone lit up, buzzing violently on the counter. Jihyo eyed it with an annoyed expression before Mina pushed her towards her phone.

“It’s just Nayeon.” Jihyo rolled her eyes, rejecting the call and putting her phone down.

“You should have answered it. It could have been important.” Mina giggled at her wife’s annoyance.

“It’s Nayeon, it’s never important.” Jihyo sighed when her ringer went off again. “I swear that woman doesn’t know when to give up.” “Well you may as well answer it. You know how Nayeon is, she’s going to keep pestering you until you answer.” Mina pointed out. “Fine.” Jihyo grumbled, accepting the call and putting Nayeon on speaker.“What do you want?”

“Jihyo guess what?” “No.” Jihyo answered, causing Mina to giggle. “Rude. You were supposed to say what.” Nayeon huffed. “Anyway, we got another dog.” “You got a what?” Jihyo asked in disbelief. She knew Nayeon and Momo were both impulsive, but sometimes it astounded her how they were able to make big decisions like this so easily. “Yup. His name is Boo. Kazumi found him on her way home from school and begged to keep him.” Nayeon happily recounted. “You know you really should stop spoiling her.” Jihyo caught Mina’s eyes as she talked to Nayeon. She picked up her phone and brought it over to where Mina was, wrapping her arms around Mina’s waist from behind. “We don’t spoil her. We just make her happy.” Both Jihyo and Mina had to roll their eyes at that. Kazumi was spoiled. They loved their niece to death but they both knew it. Haneul and Jae were too, but Kazumi was especially spoiled. “Besides she said she’s going to take care of it.” “Do you really think she will?” Jihyo asked, tightening her grip on Mina. “She’s twelve, I doubt she is going to be the best at taking care of a dog.”

“Agree to disagree.” Jihyo could tell Nayeon was rolling her eyes at her. “Anyway, because of the new dog-”

“No.” Jihyo didn’t even have to hear Nayeon’s question. “You didn’t even let me ask.” Nayeon pouted. “Im Nayeon I have known you for almost thirty years now, I know you were going to ask me to babysit your pets when you and Momo went out for some kind of romantic getaway.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. She turned when she heard some movement behind them, finding Sana standing in the entrance to their kitchen with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her hair messy. She giggled at Sana’s half asleep appearance and waved her over to them. Sana was always so clingy right after she woke up. Every morning she had to hug both of them for at least a few minutes. Mina and JIhyo were used to it, just budgeting some extra time into their morning for Sana’s hugs.

“No, no I wasn’t going to ask that.” Nayeon’s tone became a bit more serious. “Actually, I was going to ask if because of the dog I could come grab a few things from your house. I know you have some of Kookeu’s stuff lying around and we didn’t have time to stop at the pet store.” Jihyo immediately noticed Nayeon’s change in tone. She wasn’t telling Jihyo something. Even Mina could tell. “You can come over whenever you want Nayeon.” Mina spoke up for the first time. “Oh hi Mina.” Nayeon giggled when she heard Mina’s voice. “Thanks. You're amazing. Jihyo is always so mean to me.” “I am not mean to you.” Jihyo pouted. It melted quickly, once Sana got her attention with a little yawn. “Morning.” Jihyo whispered to Sana. Sana smiled at her and pulled her into a kiss.

“Yes you are. You’ve been bullying me since we were little.” Nayeon huffed. “I have not.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. “Anyway, come over whenever but don’t bring the Kookeu or the new dog-”

“Thank you so much, bye Jihyo!” Jihyo groaned as Nayeon hung up on her. “She’s bringing the damn dog isn’t she?”

“I don’t understand why you hate Kookeu.” Mina hummed as she continued cooking, chopping some carrots up for them.

“He always bites me.” Jihyo pouted. “It hurts.” “They are barely love bites.” Mina giggled. “You are adorable, I know you secretly like him.” “I do not.” Jihyo pouted. Sana gave her another kiss and she melted immediately. “Yes I know you're still here.” Jihyo giggled as her attention was turned to Sana. “So needy.”

“M’ not needy.” Sana pouted. “Just want kisses. Mina doesn’t kiss me when she’s cooking anymore.”

“Yeah I learned that one the hard way.” Mina giggled. She couldn’t count the number of times innocent kisses while she was cooking had ended in disaster. Especially when the kisses involved Sana. Jihyo was tamer, but she could also be a disaster when she wanted to. “You can go back to sleep if you need, dinner should be another twenty minutes at least.” “No. I need to grade homework.” Sana yawned, kissing Jihyo again. “Need help?” Jihyo offered.

“Baby you haven’t done physics since you were nineteen.” Sana nodded. Jihyo had taken some physics classes in college, but nothing like what Sana had taken. “I can still help. Did you make an answer key?” She doesn’t know why she asked, Jihyo knew Sana did. Sana had always been the type to go the whole nine yards for her students, anything she could do to assist their learning Sana did. Jihyo had always admired Sana for that. “Uh-hum. But it’s okay. It’s just homework, it shouldn’t take too long. I give them one hundred as long as they finish, I just like correcting their work when they are wrong.” Sana nodded, yawning once more before walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down. “But, after dinner.” “Work can wait until after dinner.” Jihyo smiled at Sana and then turned back to Mina. “Need any help?”

“Sure.” Mina smiled at Jihyo before moving to let her help. Sana smiled at the scene of her two wives, she really did get so lucky to have them.

Nayeon comes over before they finish dinner. Sana gets up to greet her, a blanket still wrapped around her as Nayeon comes in. “Hi Sana.” Nayeon giggled at Sana’s appearance. She had Kookeu with her on a leash, having walked him from her house over to theirs. “You look tired. Rough night?” Nayeon winked at her and Sana smiled. “You know it.” Sana played along. “Was your appointment today?” Nayeon let Kookeu off of his leash, the small dog running over to Sana’s leg and sniffing it. Sana smiled and bent down to pick the little furball up. “Yeah.” Sana yawned, using her free hand to pet Kookeu behind the ears. “How did it go?” “They always go the same Nayeon.” Sana answered, her smile slowly fading. She didn’t like talking about this much, but she knew she couldn’t hide from Nayeon. Nayeon had known her since she was eighteen, and now that she was nearing forty they had been through just about everything together. Sure, Nayeon was closer to her wife, but it didn’t mean she didn’t do everything for Sana too. “I know, but you know it can take a while for this stuff to work. We were at this for three years before we had Kazumi.” Nayeon gave Sana a reassuring smile. “It will work out.” “I don’t know… I’m older now. The chances just keep getting smaller and smaller.” Sana let Kookeu down when the dog started squirming. “Trust me, just keep with it. I almost gave up before we had Kazumi. But things worked out then and I think they will now.” Sana immediately noticed something was off about Nayeon. Of course her words were nice, but the bags under her eyes and the forced smile were starting to show through the longer she was in their house. “Thank you… But Nayeon, what’s wrong?” Sana didn’t like dancing around subjects. “I-” Nayeon sighed. “Momo and I fought again.” Sana thought it was strange Momo didn’t contact her about that. Usually when they fought Nayeon would run to Jihyo and Momo would run to Sana and Mina. Sana had known Momo since she was born, she never kept anything from her. Momo was as close to a sister as Sana had ever gotten, and the two had never kept anything from each other. “Again?” Sana asked. “This happened recently?” All couples fought. Sana, Jihyo, and Mina fought. Nayeon and Momo fought. It was normal. But Sana hadn’t heard about the two of them fighting recently. “I- I’ll tell you over dinner.” Nayeon sighed, rubbing one eye. “Who invited you to dinner?” Sana teased. “I could just take Kookeu and make you go home.” “You wouldn’t.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. Both knew she was right. Nayeon and Momo had been coming over for so long, for as long as they had been together. And Sana was fine with that. She loved having the two of them over.“Are your wives in the kitchen?” “Yeah.” Sana nodded. “Dinner should almost be ready.”

“Did Mina cook?” When Sana nodded Nayeon let out a small thank god before going off towards the living room. Sana trailed behind her, smiling when she saw her wives. “Woah.” Was the first thing Jihyo said to Nayeon. “You saw me this morning.” Nayeon rolled her eyes.

“I thought that was just grumpy morning Nayeon. This is not what I was expecting.” Nayeon had always been good at pretending she was okay. Especially over the phone. She had done it countless times and it always frustrated Jihyo to no end. She wished Nayeon could just tell her when she was upset. “We left the dog stuff on the table. Is it okay I put Kookeu outside?” Mina asked.

“Is the gate closed?” Mina nodded in response. The table had already been set, and Mina had just wordlessly added an extra plate for Nayeon. They had been here a million times, and Mina guessed they would be here a million more. Not that Mina minded. She liked helping their friends. “Then it should be fine. He’s been restless all day and I think he’s a little mad. All the kids' attention was on the new dog and not him.” “I would be mad if I was him.” Sana giggled. “He’s always loved attention.”

“Yes well I’ve always loved giving it to him.” Nayeon eyed the glass door to their backyard. Kookeu was running around with a chew toy he had left the last time he had been over to their house. “Thank you for dinner.” “Im Nayeon? Thanking me? There must be something wrong.” Nayeon nearly elbowed Jihyo but held back. “I fought with Momo.” Nayeon started, her fingers pausing as she looked over the food. It looked good, it always did. Mina had always been such a good chef. “You two fight all the time.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. “No. We fought for real.” Nayeon sighed. “We have been talking about maybe adopting again but we can’t really agree on it. Last night everything just kind of exploded. We said so many bad things- I said so many bad things. I know Momo is just being realistic and is looking out for us but I feel like she isn’t listening to me. haneul heard us, we thought she was asleep, but she heard us. And I guess- I guess we set her off. We try not to argue in front of her and Jae- well Kazumi too but you get it. I spent almost the entire night calming her down and this morning Momo wouldn’t even look at me.” All three of them had to take a second to think about everything Nayeon had just told them. haneul had always hated yelling. Jae was better, but Haneul had always struggled with yelling. Even now, years since they had adopted them she hated it. “When she came home today she was ignoring me. I know she was probably angry about the dog too, but Kazumi… She was so insistent on us keeping Boo. She can be so stubborn sometimes. Momo was just so mad at me. I needed an excuse to leave.” “You know… I think Momo is just afraid.” Surprisingly enough Mina was the first to voice it. Nayeon would have expected that forward of a comment from Jihyo or Sana, but never from Mina. “Haneul and Jae, and honestly Kazumi too, have all been through a lot. Kazumi less so than the twins… But you know losing Momo’s mother was hard on her. It was hard on Momo too. I think she’s just afraid that if you guys adopt again it will be difficult for them. I know you think they will probably be fine because they are older, but think about last night. Haneul had a panic attack because of yelling, what if you guys adopt a kid and they accidentally set her off? Jae and Kazumi know not to do anything like that because they grew up with Haneul, but I think Momo is afraid that introducing a new person into that equation might be stressful for Haneul. And there’s also the feat they may think you guys are trying to replace them.” “Mina is right Nayeonie. Adoption is so incredibly complicated. Yes it’s worth it, but there’s also so much that goes into it. Momo has always been afraid of change. And I know it’s partially my fault, but it’s how she is.” Sana spoke up after her wife, taking one of Mina’s hands and squeezing it.

“You should give Momo a bit of space. Let her speak. You really didn’t help things by bringing a random dog home.” Jihyo joked, poking Nayeon’s side. “Look, we are happy to let you stay here for a night or two, just to give Momo some space to think. Give you some space to cool down. You probably haven’t taken some time to yourself since this all happened. I think it’s for the best you do.” Jihyo mentioned taking one of Nayeon’s hands similar to the way her wives were holding hands. “Thank you… Momo didn’t want me to talk to you guys about any of this. She said you guys had too much stress and I shouldn’t bother you… That woman always has this habit of bottling things up at the worst times.” Nayeon sighed. “But she does have a point, I know you guys are going through a rough time.” “I wouldn’t say it’s rough.” Sana spoke up. “It’s just tiring. But we aren’t too stressed, at least I don’t think we are right?” She looked at Mina and Jihyo with such wide eyes both of their hearts ached. Having a baby had been so difficult on all three of them, but they had tried to stay calm for so long. All three knew internally they were going to reach a breaking point soon, none of them were just ready to admit it yet. “Right.” All three of them hated lying, but they didn’t know what else they were supposed to say.

“Momo?” Sana had been surprised when Momo had called her. Jihyo had texted her saying they were going to keep Nayeon for the night according to her Momo had just texted back a thumbs up emoji. Sana knew Momo would want to talk to her eventually, but knowing her she expected that to be tomorrow. Momo had a nasty habit of stopping by Sana’s office at work. Momo didn’t usually have too much to do during the day, as her studio only had a few classes during the early part of the day. Sometimes she would come to Sana’a office under the guise that Nayeon had kicked her out of hers and she was bored. Others she would come to complain about Nayeon. Sana never really minded, most of her students were absolutely terrible about coming to office hours and she was bored sitting there by herself grading. It was nice to have someone to talk to sometimes, and god knows how many times she had showed up at Momo’s studio to complain about something Mina or Jihyo did. “Aunt Sana?” “Kazumi?” Sana asked, a bit confused. “Why are you calling me?” “Because my moms don’t think I’m ready for a phone. Can you put my mom on? I want to talk to her.” “Sure.” Sana sighed and stood up from the table. She was still exhausted from earlier and really was ready to sleep, but she had to finish her grading today. Mina and Jihyo were also grading various students' work, all three of them slumped over their living room table with mountains of work to grade. They had been there hundreds of times, and Sana wouldn’t say she hated it. It was just, kind of boring. Nayeon was in the other room, watching a drama on her laptop. Sana sometimes cursed the fact the mechanical engineering department had so many TAs willing to grade. The physics department had TAs too, but there really weren’t that many compared to the mechanical engineering department. The mechanical engineering department was much more competitive though, and had a lot more students, so there were more of them that wanted to be TAs. Sana got her attention and handed her phone to her immediately. “Hm?” Nayeon asked.

“Your daughter wants to talk to you.” Sana was a bit confused as to why Kazumi had called her instead of just calling Nayeon. She knew Nayeon could be bad about charging her phone sometimes, so the thought crossed her mind that Nayeon’s phone could just be dead. Sana decided to give them some privacy as she went back to the grading table. “Who was it?” Jihyo hummed and wrapped her right arm around Sana, holding a pen in her left.

“Kazumi. She wanted to talk to Nayeon about something.” Sana answered. “I’m guessing she’s just a little stressed Nayeon is gone. ”

“She has always been pretty clingy. When she was little, babysitting her could be difficult if it was overnight.” Mina hummed. “It was always weird to me because Haneul and Jae seemed fine, but Kazumi would always throw little fits until we called one of them and they calmed her down.”

“Some kids are just like that. She’s growing out of it. Slowly. I’m sure tonight it was scary for her because Nayeon was there earlier and never came back. ” Jihyo remarked. “Hey… Do you think our child will be clingy?” There was a heavy silence that came over them when Jihyo said that. They tried not to talk about it too much, what their child would be like. They had a lot in the beginning of the process, but now years later they knew that would give all of them false hope. This entire situation was a careful balance of being hopeful and realistic. “Knowing Sana, yes.” Mina was the first to speak up, a teasing smile on her face. She was doing her best to lighten the atmosphere, she didn’t want to get into this right now. Not with Nayeon here. “Hey.” Sana whined. “I wasn’t that clingy when I was little.” “So it started when you were older? Or did it start when you met us?” Jihyo tried to be as careful about the topic as possible. Sana hated talking about the past before she met the two of them. She hadn’t known Sana for as long as Mina did, and to be honest even now she felt like she didn’t know as much about Sana’s past as Mina did. Mina had met Sana in high school, and Jihyo didn’t meet either of them until college. Mina had been there at one of the lowest points in Sana’s life, and Jihyo didn’t meet her until later.

“She really wasn’t this clingy in high school.” Mina commented. “Well when we were asleep she would always try to cuddle up to me or Momo, but other than that she really wasn’t clingy.” Mina eyed Sana with baited breath. Sana didn’t like it when they talked about high school too much, but she seemed fine, still looking over papers. She was wearing her glasses (thankfully, Mina had argued with Sana so many times to just wear them), her attention on the paper in front of her. Sana’s face when she was concentrating was always so adorable. “It really all started when we started dating.”

“Cute.” Jihyo giggled, knowing they had completely lost Sana’s attention to the paper in front of her. Nayeon comes back into the living room later, giving Sana her phone back and tears on her face.

“What did Kazumi say?” Jihyo asked. She had finished grading, and was now waiting for her wives to finish so they could get on with their night. “She asked me if we were getting a divorce.” Nayeon sighed, slumping down on the couch. “She said she’s not little anymore so I shouldn’t lie to her. And that she’s seen how we haven’t been as affectionate lately and how much we’ve been fighting. And then Jae took the phone from her when she started crying.”

“That’s a difficult subject when you're twelve.” Jihyo nodded, getting off the floor to slump onto the couch with Nayeon. “Do you want to get divorced?” “God no- no. Not over this. We can work it out. Kazumi is just overthinking.” Nayeon sighed. “Is she?” Jihyo asked, looking into Nayeon’s eyes. “I-yeah. She’s always had a bit of separation anxiety. Momo says she’s growing out of it- but I’m still worried. I’ve been talking to the twins therapist about her, and she thinks it might be good for her to start seeing her if she starts to get any worse.” Nayeon commented, seeing Sana and Mina still working. “It’s nothing to be worried about. I promise.” “Okay.” Jihyo nodded, opening her arms for Nayeon. Nayeon accepted them and relaxed in her embrace, letting her oldest friend hold her while she thought about what to do next.

Nayeon and Momo work things out (like they always do) not two days later. Jihyo had always admired the two of them for that. Even if the fight seemed to be really bad, both were good about talking about how they were feeling and what they needed to do to resolve the issue. From what Jihyo understood, they were going to wait a few years before trying their hand at fostering for a little while. It seemed like a good compromise. Nayeon had always loved children and just wanted to help all of the ones she could, Jihyo had always understood tht and she honestly thought it was so sweet her friend was so excited to help kids out.

In terms of their own relationship, things were only getting worse. It started with little comments here and there about how if it had worked Sana would start feeling symptoms by now since it had been almost two months since and that they needed to book the next appointment. Sana didn’t seem too jazzed about that. And when she expressed that, they had erupted in a huge argument. They hadn’t yelled at each other like that in years, and honestly Jihyo thinks it might have been the worst argument they had ever had.

“You're giving up? After all this time- all this money we’ve put into this- your just going to give up?!” Mina was by far the most upset, which was triggering both of them.

“I can’t keep doing this Mina! We’re just- we keep pretending we’re fine but we all know that we aren’t!” Sana responded. Her hands were clenched and tears were brimming at the edge of her vision.

“Stop! Just- stop it. Yelling isn’t going to solve this.” Jihyo could feel a headache coming on. “But you agree with me right?” Mina asked, teary eyes as she looked at Jihyo. Jihyo knew Mina had been the most hurt by this entire process. First she was told she was infertile and then it wasn’t working with Sana- she had a lot to be stressed about. “We’ve invested so much in this- we can’t just give up!” “I can’t do this anymore Mina! It hurts me so much to see a negative test- to have a period! To see how sad it makes both of you! I can’t keep failing you both! I can’t-I can’t-” Jihyo could tell Sana had reached her breaking point. Honestly they all saw this coming, but it was still difficult to watch.

“Breathe Sana,” Jihyo tried to take one of her hands but Sana shrugged her off. “Don’t touch me!” Everything was silent after that. Mina grabbed her coat and left, but both of them knew where she was going. Mina was going to cool off at Jeongyeon and Dahyun’s house while Sana and Jihyo tried to not scream at each other anymore. Sana was in the corner of their bedroom, curled into a tiny ball and shaking. Jihyo knew this pose, this was Sana trying to calm herself down. Sometimes Jihyo forgot Sana had grown up in an abusive household, but times like this served as a painful reminder that her wife had been through so much when she was young. Jihyo watched her carefully as Sana’s breathing evened out and she pulled a blanket around herself

“Sana?” Sana ignored her. “Hey baby, can I touch you?” Sana spared her a look at that, slowly nodding. When Mina was like this, she didn’t like being touched. Jihyo had gotten used to waiting to touch Mina until the younger one intatied. But Sana wasn’t like that. She liked being touched when she was like this. Jihyo wrapped her arms around Sana and held her close, smelling the shampoo she had always loved. She knew what it was now, her and Sana had been sharing a shower for almost ten years now she was familiar with her wife’s shampoo brand, but it had always smelled so good to her. “M’ sorry.” Sana muttered after a while. “No-no sweetie I’m sorry.” Jihyo sighed. “I wasn’t thinking about how stressful this all must have been on you.” “Why hasn’t it ever worked?” Jihyo’s heart was breaking at Sana’s tiny voice. She felt her shoulder getting wet from where Sana’s face was buried in it, but she didn’t mind. “I don’t know… No one said this was easy.” Jihyo muttered, tucking Sana’s hair behind her ear. She went back to their screaming match from earlier, thinking of everything Sana had said. “You know this isn’t your fault right?” Sana stayed quiet at that. “Sana… This isn’t your fault. You are not a failure. You have absolutely no control whether or not this works.” “But- I- it feels like my fault. You guys want a baby so bad- I want a baby so bad but I can’t- I can’t do it and that’s frustrating.” Sana muttered. “I know it is sweetheart. It is. But it’s not your fault. You are doing so good. I’m so proud of how hard you have worked so far, but if you are done… Let’s be done.” Jihyo whispered. “We can take some time away. Maybe reconsider adopting. But I think we should take a little break before we do that. How does that sound to you?” Sana nodded at that, cuddling closer to Jihyo. Jihyo had always been the rock in their relationship. Of the three of them, she was able to keep her emotions in check the most. She never really had outbursts, and she was able to keep her composure in situations like their fight. “Good.” Jihyo kissed the top of her head. “We can talk to Mina about this tomorrow. You know how she is- she was just really invested in this. But she will be okay, she wants us to be happy more than anything.” “Mina won’t leave us?” If Jihyo’s heart wasn’t broken before it was now. Sana had healed a lot from when Jihyo first met her, but there were still times where her old insecurities would bubble back to the surface. “No.” Jihyo nodded. “Mina won’t leave us.” She hoped to god that was true, but she knew Mina. Mina wouldn’t leave them over something like that. Sana looked ready to fall asleep against her shoulder, but suddenly she was pulling away and jumping out of bed. Jihyo was spooked by the sudden movement, following Sana with a rapid heartbeat as her wife ran to the bathroom.

It wasn’t much later that Sana threw up. Not just once, multiple times. Tears rushed down her cheeks as Jihyo held her hair back and rubbed her back. Jihyo thought this was probably just a side effect from earlier, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts about how Sana had never thrown up from her panic attacks before, and the other implications to sudden sickness like that. And she wasn’t the only one thinking about that.

Mina didn’t come home the next morning. Jihyo knew she needed more time to think and sort through her emotions, but she was still worried. She texted Jeongyeon and Dahyun, and they said they were taking good care of Mina and that she was eating and safe. Jihyo was relieved at that, because honestly that was better than Sana.

Sana threw up again the next morning, and after she had refused to eat breakfast. By lunch, Sana was understandably starving and ate more than Jihyo had seen her eat in a while. She was happy about that, but that food had just caused Sana to throw up again. They had monitored her for signs of a fever, but it seemed she didn’t have one.

Sana made Jihyo go to work that afternoon. Both had taken the morning off, but Jihyo had been expected to work in the afternoon unlike Sana. Sana had practically forced her to go, promising to eat more and that she would be fine by herself. It didn’t stop Jihyo from obsessively texting her before her class started. Sana liked the time away from Jihyo. She knew her body better than anyone else, she knew something was wrong. And she knew it was one of two things either one she was coming down with a stomach bug for the first time in ten years or she was pregnant. Honestly even if the latter made more sense, they couldn’t help but think the former was the one that was true. She knew it was the less likely option logically, but she just couldn’t get her hopes again. Especially since it had all been so sudden. Sure she had felt a bit nauseous a couple times in the past few weeks but she had never had anything like that. It just seemed so sudden. They had a stash of pregnancy tests under their sink. Because they had been through this so many times before, and it had never worked, not even once. Sana didn’t know why she was even doing this. It never worked. But she pushed herself to do it anyway. Sure she felt a bit off, but she had also been through a lot lately. Plus her period had never been regular. That didn’t mean she was pregnant. It couldn’t have worked now. There was no way. When Jihyo got home, she found Sana on the couch crying. When she asked why, she said they would need to wait until Mina got home for her to tell her why.

Mina comes home after dinner. Jihyo could tell she was trying to be careful around both of them, but can tell she’s calmed down. They all know they need to talk, but they spend most of the night dancing around the subject with small pleasantries until Sana practically forces them to talk. “I’m sorry.” Mina sighed. “I was just frustrated, I should have listened sooner. If you want to give up for now, it might be for the best.”

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have yelled.” Sana mentioned, her finger twirling together that way they always did when she was nervous. Jihyo knew Sana was keeping something from them, she just couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. “I’m sorry to both of you. Screaming was not the correct response.” Jihyo sighed. “I think taking some time away might be for the best. We can think and come up with a plan for maybe looking into adoption.” “That sounds like a good idea. This has been bothering all of us for a while. As scary as it sounds time away might be for the best.” Mina agreed, noticing how fidgety Sana was being. “What is it?” “I agree we shouldn’t do the procedure again… But I don’t think we should look into adoption.” Sana confused them both with that. Sana had talked to both of them in the past about how if the biological thing didn’t work she was open to adoption, so the change felt both sudden and unexpected. “What do you mean?”

“Adoption is great and all, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be looking into it right now.” Sana looked at both of them before taking each of their hands. “Because I’m pregnant.”

Mina and Jihyo had both never been more shocked. “I-Is this a joke as a punishment for yesterday or-”

“No.” Sana stopped Mina’s rambling. “I’m actually pregnant.” Jihyo didn’t say anything, just tackled Sana in a hug and rained kisses on her cheeks. “I love you so much.” Jihyo whispered. “Me too.” Mina couldn’t stop sobbing as she joined the hug. “I love you both so much too.” Sana had never been happier than that moment, except maybe on their wedding day, but honestly, Sana didn’t think that counted. This was her happiest moment.

#twice #minatozaki sana #myoui mina #park jihyo #namo #im nayeon #hirai momo #this is basically a fic chapter oops #misahyo #misahyo au

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ikingsley · 4 years ago

Text

Ina x MC: That Day

Loosely based on chapter 6 of QB. Read the other parts of the series here: The Dance, A Small Detour, One Chance.

Summary: Ina and Luna discuss their past.

Warnings: Sadness, I guess. Warning for coming out stories?

Tag: @samanthadalton @domakir @kulaykape @hellyeah90sbaby @dopeyouth @kwaj05 @thedaft1 @swimmingshoebakerydreamer (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed)

Author’s Notes: Sorry, I’ve been real busy, but here’s another installment of my series.

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Luna strolled into Ina’s office at a quarter past seven. It’d been a long day for both of them. Ina had a full day of lectures and quizzes while Luna had midterms approaching.

“Professor,” Luna said, putting down her bags.

“Good evening, Luna. How are you?”

The two made small talk while Ina pulled the stack of quizzes she needed graded. But as well as Ina could hide her emotions, Luna felt there was something off about Ina.

“Here’s the answer key,” Ina began. “It’s all multiple choice so it shouldn’t take too long.”

Ina handed Luna a red pen. But Luna wasn’t paying attention to Ina. Instead, she scoured through the stack of papers, pulling one out and comparing the answers.

“Whose is that?” Ina peered over Luna’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s right. You took this quiz today.”

Luna hummed in reply. “Aww man. I got one wrong.”

This time, it was Ina’s turn to tease Luna. “Nerd,” she scoffed.

“Shut up.”

The two worked in silence, except for Ina going ham on her keyboard. That research paper wasn’t going to write itself.

“Why are you typing so vigorously?” Luna commented absent-mindedly.

“Hmm...I don’t know, maybe because this paper’s due at midnight,” Ina said quite uncharacteristically. Ina, the polite and beloved anthropology professor, was not one to be so brash.

Rude! For no reason! Luna thought. While Luna was pondering the true reason for Ina’s disrespect, Ina stood up and began pacing back and forth. Finally, she stopped, slumping onto the couch that sat at the corner of the room.

“Ina?” Luna questioned, getting off of her chair. Like usual, her initial intuition was spot-on, something was, in fact, off.

Ina laid on the couch, her head resting on the couch’s arm. When Luna finally approached it, she took a look at Ina. Her face was slightly glossy, tear-stained.

“Scoot over,” Luna said firmly.

Ina huffed a little, but she moved further into the couch. Luna faced Ina, acting as a handkerchief, wiping away Ina’s tears.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Luna finally broke the silence.

“No.”

“Okay. We can just lie here together. It’s okay.” Luna wrapped her arms around Ina. Ina subsequently buried her face in her shoulder, her tears falling slowly, wetting Luna’s shirt.

The two stayed like this for a few more moments, until Ina sat up, wiping the lasts of her tears. “I apologize, Luna. I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t need to-”

“Please, I want to. I feel like you should know.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“I am.” Ina had gained her confidence back. “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I trust you. Maybe it’s naive or too early, but well...I feel like I could tell you anything, and you wouldn’t judge me. So here goes.”

And boy, did Ina open up. It was unlike anything Luna had ever witnessed from the mysterious professor. But she wasn’t complaining. This was arguably what she loved most about Ina.

“It was my freshman year of high school and I was sitting in my US history class. I was such a little nerd,” Ina recalled fondly. “Anyway, this girl walked into my class and god, I was smitten. What she made me feel...I’d never felt before. I mean, I hadn’t been with any guy, but this was different. Sure I’d thought some guys were attractive, but every time I looked at her, I got butterflies.”

“Aww! I’m imagining a little nerdy Ina staring at a pretty high schooler now.”

“Mhm. Well, we got assigned each other for a project. And we hit it off. She was brilliant, passionate, caring...I really liked her, but I thought it was just as friends. One afternoon, we went to the library together to prepare for the presentation of the project. She asked me if I liked girls, and I hadn’t really considered it. Some sort of internalized homophobia, I guess. I went home that day just deep in thought. But God, she made me feel so alive. It was something I’d never experienced before. And then I just started thinking of kissing her and I never wanted to stop. I think I knew then and there that I liked women.”

“Well? What happened after?” Luna asked, invested in Ina’s anecdote.

“A few days later, some teacher was berating her for not knowing an answer to something rather trivial and I found myself defending her. I guess my protective side came out.”

“Not the only thing that came out then...” Luna smirked.

Ina scoffed but had a huge grin on her face. But just as quickly as it appeared, her smile faded.

“When we left school that day, she uh thanked me with a kiss. And that’s how I knew for sure that I liked her. A lot. I asked her out a few weeks later and we were together for a little over a year. At the time, she meant the world to me. We’d do everything together and she was my first for a lot of things, my first kiss, my first love...”

“A year? That is...surprisingly long for a relationship at that time. Why’d it end?”

“Her parents were incredibly supportive. They knew about us since the beginning of the relationship. Mine...did not know. I had told Lilian, and she listened and supported me a lot. We were always pretty close. Well, after a year together, Emma asked to meet my conservative parents. I was both giddy and nervous, but I thought I was ready. I truly thought love was unconditional. Maybe I was naive to think acceptance was guaranteed. And well, I told my parents that I had someone special for them to meet. In retrospect, I should’ve told them more details. Maybe they were expecting a dashing young man that could escort me to Prom in the following year or whatnot. And well, Emma came over for dinner and I told my parents about us. They...were shocked. Their perfect little nerdy daughter was gay. They didn’t handle themselves well that night. They said some unforgivable things to Emma. We tried to work through it, but we were young and broke up a few weeks after that.”

“Ina, I’m so sorry.”

“I...it’s okay. It’s been a while now. They didn’t throw me out of the house, but they didn’t talk about my sexuality at all. Emma was always my ‘friend.’ No one in the extended family knew. It was like they were ashamed of me. Lilian was the wild child and I was the apple of my parents’ eyes, but they never looked at me the same after that dinner. It was a tough time. Lilian and my friends at school supported me. If it weren’t for them...I don’t know where I’d be now.”

Luna caressed Ina’s check, wiping away the flowing tears.

“I just existed in their house for a while. I had a brief period of dating guys who were’t too good for me, probably out of my parents lack of support. Trying to be straight. But there was never any feelings between the two of us. They just...weren’t Emma. The last guy I dated was sweet, but I felt nothing for him romantically. And then Lilian was pregnant. And that was the last straw for my parents. They kicked out Lilian and I left with her. After all those years of her supporting me, I needed to support her. They said some inexcusable things to her and I’m glad we left. But it was incredibly difficult. Lilian and I struggled a lot. We had to work odd jobs just to pay rent whilst still going to school. Today’s the anniversary of them kicking us out. Today I have to be strong for Lilian’s sake, but I lost my parents that day too. I guess it all just hit me now.”

“You don’t need to apologize. Come here.”

Luna wrapped Ina in her arms once more. Then, she held Ina’s face, staring intensely into her eyes.

“You are the strongest woman I know. Strongest person I know. But it’s okay to not be strong too. You don’t need to pretend to be strong 24/7. Strength and weakness...that’s what makes us human.”

Ina smiled at Luna, tears falling freely. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Ina then leaned in, closing the gap between them. She captured Luna’s lips slowly, but as the kiss prolonged, the passion increased. When they finally pulled away, both women were out of breath.

Ina cleared her throat, standing up and beckoning Luna to get on her feet.

“Dance with me.”

Luna took a second to play a song on her phone, but she then gratefully accepted, leaning into Ina’s arms as they moved slowly.

Tu cabeza en mi hombro

Quiero yo tener siempre

Acaríciame, cielo

Si me quieres tú

Ina smiled again at Luna, a hand rising from Luna’s waist to cup her cheek.

“I hope your coming out story is better than mine,” she jested.

“Well, yeah I guess. When my family moved to the States from Venezuela, my mom always emphasized the importance of getting a good education, being prudent, all of that. I was very involved in high school, and I was a part of a lot of science extracurriculars. My freshman year of high school, my mom forced me to join mock trial to improve my public speaking. I thought it was useless since I knew I wanted to do neuroscience. She drove me to every practice, every conference...I fell in love with it. The more I did research for trials, the more passionate I became about public policy, law, and civil rights. And of course, gay rights. I guess that’s how I knew. Mind you, I was one of those kids who cuffed their jeans and got called out for not sitting in chairs properly.”

“It makes so much sense now. And you are...extremely well-spoken. Anyway, how’d you tell your parents?”

“We were at a mock trial competition. I had just used Obergefell v. Hodges as legal precedent to win the trial. My parents picked me up and I told them all about the case. My dad kinda stopped me mid-sentence and asked me if I had anything to tell them.”

“And?”

“I told them, but they said they already knew. They didn’t care who I’d be with, as long as they’re someone decent, kind, protective...the whole nine yards. The only problem is that they’re just very nosy about my love life. If I texted someone and smiled they’d look to see who it is. They also acted as if each person I’d bring home to meet them was the love of my life.”

Unreasonable jealousy flashed through Ina’s eyes, but her voice remained steady. “Did you bring a lot of people home to meet your parents?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Luna smiled smugly.

#ina x mc #ina kingsley #queen b #luna garcia

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its-abbyyyyy · 3 years ago

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10 Tips for Freshmen Year

1. Be prepared!! (but not too prepared)

I know that you may think you know this already, but on my first day of freshmen year I came to class with a thirty-pound backpack and could barely move by the end of the day. You really only need the bare minimum (notebook, pencil, other stuff on the syllabus), so don't waste your energy carrying around stuff you don't need! Also, take advantage of your locker.

2. Take awesome notes!

If you're in an exciting class, you'll want to absorb as much knowledge as you can. If you're in a boring class, you'll want to have something to do. Either way, notetaking is the way to go. I always bring one notebook to school to save space in my bag, then when I get home, I recopy my notes into different notebooks to make them neater. Another tip- do each chapter or unit with a different colored pen. For example, I did one chapter in orange, another in blue, another in green... This makes it a lot easier to find information you need when you're studying. Even when the teacher doesn't insist on taking notes, they will help.

3. Study. Study. Study.

When I was in middle school, I never really learned how to study effectively. One big tip? Make flashcards on actual paper. Even if you don't use them much, writing and searching for the information will help you remember so much more. Having a parent or family member quiz you is great, but studying with a friend in your class is so much better. They'll know more of the material than a parent, plus you're guaranteed a good time. I've studied for biology a lot this year with a close friend and not only did I get good grades, but I also had some of my best memories of freshman year.

Also: word clues help so much, especially when you're trying to memorize people for history or something. I had a hard time during the evolution unit remembering the names of scientists, so I came up with clues. For example, Thomas Malthus proposed that humans would grow faster than food needed to supply them. Malthus -> Mouth-us -> food.

4. Be yourself and be confident!!

I know, I know. But hear me out. High school is all about finding your people and you aren't going to find them if you spend all your time pretending to be someone else. Not everyone is going to like you, no matter what you do.

I have a really difficult time with the confidence part, but one thing that has helped me is having a morning routine. Before I get out of the car in the morning, I always say to myself, "Carpe diem. Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary." (yes, I'm a movie nerd. how ever did you know?) But whatever works for you!

5. Try new things. You won't regret it.

I tried sooo many different things: I became a part of the band, I joined clubs, I was on the track team... Not all of them worked out for me, but the ones that did, I wouldn't trade them for the world. I'm not the most athletic person, but the track team gave me a whole new community and an extraordinary role model for a coach, and this was all because I stepped out of my comfort zone.

I also tried band this year, and I'll admit that I was skeptical that we would play lame music or everyone would be better than me. I was completely wrong and now the band is like a second family to me. Even if you don't think you'll be good, even if you aren't super excited about it, try it. Maybe you'll hate it, but maybe you'll love it or even just make a few friends along the way.

6. Talk to people!

I know this one's obvious, but I feel like it should be said. Some of my best friends now, I just met them by making small talk in class. Get to know a few people in each of your classes and extracurriculars well, then just tag along with them and you'll eventually be absorbed into their friend group. At the beginning of the year, I was a loner and always read my book during lunch; now I have three different groups to sit with! It's always worth putting yourself out there, trust me.

7. If you like someone, wait a week or two.

Liking someone in high school is a constant struggle between throwing caution to the wind and not embarrassing yourself. My rule of thumb is to wait two weeks. A lot of times, your crush is just based on looks or a first impression, or you're just liking someone for the sake of liking someone. But if you still have feelings after that long, well... you only live once. You might as well have some crazy stories to tell someday.

8. Be polite to your teachers!

No one likes a teacher's pet, but just being polite can go miles. Just wave in the hallways, say "hi" and "bye" at the beginning and end of class, and answer a question every now and then. In my Spanish class this year, a lot of people were standoffish towards our teacher and ended up getting called on more than people raising their hands, so...

It really helps build relationships as well. Getting early to band class on Mondays and talking about music with my teacher allowed me to use the practice room instead of going to a study hall twice a week. I greeted my English teacher at the beginning of every class and asked her about a book I had recently read and I got an amazing final grade in the class. I waved to my computer science teacher in the hallway and ended up being able to watch Netflix when I was done with my work.

That being said, don't take advantage of their generosity!!

9. Always take someone up on the opportunity to do something fun.

I shied away from hanging out with people outside of school at the beginning of the year, but I eventually came out of my shell. Going on long drives, jamming along to music in study hall, or just playing a simple game of football can easily become your favorite part of the year. Don't miss out on it!

10. Make friends with the upperclassmen.

Seriously. This helps you out so much. They can give you so much advice because they were just in your shoes, and they can even help you with homework and help you out with your teachers. If you're doing a sport and you get to know a few juniors and seniors, then you've got a built-in support squad. I was on a team this year and the loudest cheering didn't come from my friends, it came from the upperclassmen. They really aren't scary, more often than not, they take you under your wing and guide you through high school.

Having upperclassmen as friends also comes with a huge advantage. I tried out for the musical this year and didn't get a part, but I got to know a bunch of juniors in the band that happened to be theatre kids. Now, they say that they will spend hours helping me with my audition and even fight to the death to make sure that I get a part. (hopefully they were being dramatic.)

A side note to that- get to know people in your own grade as well. You don't want to have friends that are all juniors and seniors because they will graduate and it'll break your heart.

Bonus tip cause I feel like it- take care of your mental health!!

This is so important. If something about school is affecting your mental health drastically, talk to a parent or a friend or a teacher or the school counselor. I reached out several times this year and it was terrifying but it helped me so much.

Your mental health should come before your schoolwork. Always.

If you need a break, take a break. Drink water. Have a snack. Listen to music. Sleep. Go on a walk. FaceTime a friend. Do whatever you need to do, and if you miss an assignment because of that, chances are that your teacher will understand.

If you ever need someone to talk to, I'd be happy to help out! <3

#advice #mental health #high school #original post

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ambenya · 4 years ago

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Lumity Month 2020 Day 2- Studying Together

So this is day two of @lumity-month. This became a lot longer than I meant for it to but I really hope everyone enjoys this. It was a lot of fun to write even though I was sick while writing and I’m sorry if the ending is kind of rushed.

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

Luz was standing at her locker talking with Gus and Willow about how things were going now with Lilith living at the Owl House when she saw Amity walking down the hallway.

“Hey, Amity!” Luz said waving at the green-haired girl who jumped at the sound of her name.

Amity waved and walked over to Luz and the others. “Hi Luz, Willow, and Gus. How are you all doing today?” Amity asked with a small smile and her cheeks a light shade of pink.

“We’ve been pretty good today,” Willow said with a smile. Her and Amity still weren’t the best of friends, but they had been getting along more recently.

“Yeah, Luz was just telling us about Eda and Lilith’s prank war that they have going on,” Gus said chuckling.

Amity giggled at the thought of her mentor and Luz’s mentor pranking each other like they were still teenagers.

“I assume Eda is winning?” Amity asked the Latina with a playful smirk.

Luz felt herself turn a little pink from how Amity was looking at her. She quickly shook her head trying to get rid of her blush before answering her friend.

“Yeah, but Lilith has some pretty good pranks surprisingly as well. Honestly, it’s been pretty calm since everything and life seems almost normal now.” Luz said with a small chuckle.

The warning bell suddenly screamed telling all the students to get to their classes soon. Willow and Gus headed off to their classes which were in the opposite direction of Luz and Amity’s classes.

The two girls decided to walk to their classes together. The walk was quiet seeing as the two of them were both feeling too shy to say anything. Amity was scared of making a fool of herself in front of her crush while Luz was trying to figure out why she was suddenly blushing and feeling shy around the green-haired witch.

Right before Amity went into her classroom Luz remembered that she had wanted to ask Amity something important.

“Umm, Amity, there was actually something I have been meaning to ask you. If it’s not too much trouble.” Luz said with a small smile to the witch girl.

“Sure! What is it you need, Luz?” Amity said blushing with a little too much excitement.

Luz giggled at Amity’s reaction before asking, “I was wondering if we could study together after school today? If it’s not a bother for you?” Luz felt her cheeks get warm again.

“Yes!” Amity shouted before blushing bright red and reeling back some.

“I mean… Yeah, I would like to study together after school with you. How about in my secret hideout in the library so no one bothers us?” Amity asked her cheeks still pink while tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear shyly.

“Sounds like a plan! See you later, Amity.” Luz said grinning and waving before walking off to her class that was a few doors down.

As she continued to walk Luz thought about Amity and their study session later. ‘I’m so glad Amity said yes. She’s so smart so she should help me with the more difficult stuff. Not mention cute… Wait!’ Luz realized what she had thought and quickly shook her head and blushed.

‘Where did that come from? I mean, okay, Amity is cute. It’s perfectly normal to think your friend is cute or even beautiful which Amity definitely is. It’s not like you have a crush on her or anything.’ Luz thought as she brushed away her thoughts.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” She said before walking into her class.

The day went by quickly and before she knew it Luz was on her way to lunch. She walked into the lunchroom to see Willow, Gus, and, to her surprise, Amity sitting at the table together eating their lunches and talking.

Amity happened to look over and saw Luz standing there staring at them. Amity offered a small smile and wave at her crush while her cheeks turned a light pink.

Luz felt her face go bright red as she thought about how cute the green-haired witch looked when her face turned pink.

Realizing that she was still standing there and staring, the Latina smiled back and walked to her friends and sat down.

“Hey, you guys. So, what are we talking about?” Luz asked as she pulled out her lunch bag. Ever since Lilith had moved in and started teaching Luz how to cook Luz had started bringing her own lunch to school.

“I was just telling these two about how one of the other kids in my class tried to grow a rose bush for our assignment today and the poor thing almost got eaten by it. Thankfully, the teacher stepped in to help and the student didn’t get hurt.” Willow informed Luz about what she had told the others.

“Well, that’s good that everyone was safe,” Amity said with a small smile and a sigh of relief.

Lunch went by fast with Gus talking about some of the human things he found out about recently, Willow talking about her plants and how she was getting better at talking to everyone, Luz talking about some of the recent antics at the Owl House, and even Amity talked about siblings.

Luz found that she was distracted by Amity during all of lunch. She felt her heart skip every time she heard Amity’s cute laugh. She found herself wondering how soft Amity’s hair is and thinking about how cute the witch looked when she got flustered.

Luz found herself unable to concentrate for the rest of the school day. The brunette found her thoughts constantly going back to Amity.

On her way to the library where she was meeting Amity, Luz tried to make sense of her thoughts about the girl before she somehow made a fool of herself when she was alone with her.

‘Why am I thinking of Amity like this? I mean sure I’ve thought she was attractive before but who hasn’t? However, now all I can think about is her. Why am I acting this way? The only time I have seen this is when the characters in the fanfics I read have a…’ Luz stopped walking and suddenly realized something.

“Oh, I have a crush on Amity…” Luz said out loud to herself her cheeks turning red.

‘Of course, I have a crush on her. She’s cute, smart, secretly a dork, and just amazing. Who wouldn’t have a thing for her? And now I’m going to the library to study with her in her secret hideout… It will be fine just stay calm and everything will be fine.’ Luz thought as she started walking again feeling her cheeks getting warmer.

When Luz had arrived, she noticed Amity was already there waiting while reading a book by the steps for her.

Luz found herself admiring just how beautiful the witch girl was before she called out to her.

“Hey, Amity!” Luz said as she ran up to the green-haired girl.

Amity turned to see Luz coming up to her with a bright smile on her face. “Oh, hi Luz. Are you ready to get started?” Amity said with a small smile and a light blush. Luz felt herself smile as she noticed how cute Amity looked when she blushed.

“Sure! Thank you for doing this.” Luz said smiling at the green-haired witch as the two of them began walking to where the secret hideout was.

“You’re welcome, Luz. I’m glad I am able to be of some help.” Amity said feeling her cheeks turn warm again.

The two stayed silent the rest of the walk through the library so as not to bother anyone until the entered the hideaway and the door closed behind them.

“Well, make yourself comfortable. You should know where everything is by now.” Amity said as she set her schoolbooks on the desk and sat down in the chair.

Luz blushed before going over to one of the big pillows that Amity had laying around and sitting down and getting her books out as well.

“So, what were you planning on studying? I might be able to help.” Amity asked looking at Luz who had opened her history textbook to read the pages the teacher had assigned.

“Well, I’ve been having a hard time with history since y’know I didn’t grow up here. Plus, we have a test soon, so I really need to try extra hard to learn everything. Anyway, I should be okay right now but maybe here later you could quiz me?” Luz said with a soft smile to the witch.

Amity’s face turned red and she looked away hoping Luz didn’t notice it. “Sure, just let me know when you want me to.” She said as she opened her textbook.

The two stayed in a comfortable silence as they worked individually. A few times Luz would sneak a few glances at the green-haired girl. She found it cute how Amity had such a serious look on her face when she was focused.

Luz noticed that as Amity was thinking she would tap her pencil on the table and when she seemed frustrated her ears would point downward.

Suddenly Amity glanced at Luz and their eyes met causing them both to turn bright red and look away. The atmosphere of the room suddenly awkward. Luz felt bad for getting caught staring and possibly making Amity uncomfortable.

“Sorry, you just look cute when you are focused on your work.” Luz found herself saying looking back at the young witch.

Hearing what Luz said Amity turned even redder as she looked at the human in surprise. She saw the soft smile Luz was giving her.

“Uh, thank you… Y-you look cute when focused as well…” Amity said with a shy smile as she looked down as she played with the edge of her shirt.

Luz blushed, even more, when she realized that Amity had been sneaking looks at her as well. She couldn’t help but grin at hearing Amity’s words.

“Thank you, Amity. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.” Luz responded scooting close enough to put her hand on Amity’s and looked into her eyes.

The two stayed like that just staring at each other for about a minute before Luz withdrew her hand and backed up.

“Anyway, I’m ready to be quizzed if you’re still willing to,” Luz said with a nervous grin while scratching the back of her head.

Amity giggled before grabbing a pillow and sitting on the floor next to Luz. “Of course, I am still willing to help.”

Amity quizzed Luz for about an hour before they decided that they should finish up and head home. As they left the library right before they parted ways the two stopped not wanting to leave.

“Well, thank you for all your help Amity. I should be able to pass that test now.” Luz said smiling brightly at her crush.

“You’re welcome, Luz. I’ll see you around.” Amity said as she waved bye to Luz.

They both started to walk away but then Luz stopped and turned back around. “Hey, Amity!” Luz called out to the green-haired witch.

Amity turned back around to look back at Luz, who seemed to be nervous. “Yes, Luz?” She asked.

“Y’know, I wouldn’t mind doing this again sometime… That is if it’s okay with you?” Luz said as she rubbed her arm nervous.

Amity looked at her for a few seconds and then seemed like she was thinking of something before she walked up to Luz suddenly.

Luz thought she had done something to upset Amity and was about to say something when suddenly she felt something soft on her cheek. Only when Amity pulled away did Luz realize that Amity had kissed her on the cheek.

Before Luz could say anything, Amity responded to her question, “I’d like that too, Luz. See you at school tomorrow.” Amity said blushing before running off home.

Luz turned bright red and grinned to herself. She couldn’t believe it Amity had kissed her cheek.

“Maybe Amity has a crush on me too…” Luz said quietly to herself as her grin grew as she turned and made her way home.

If only Luz knew how right she was…

#the owl house #lumity #lumity month #lumity month 2020 #luz x amity #toh lumity #toh amity #toh luz #toh #amity blight #luz noceda

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malecsecretsanta · 4 years ago

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Merry Christmas, cor321!

For @cor321 Hiiii! I really hope you like this story, I tried to incorporate some tropes you mentioned. I enjoyed writing this for you :) Happy holidays!

Read On AO3

*****

Misery ²

The door opened, and in stumbled Alec Lightwood’s roommate, Magnus Bane, with his date– both giggling and cheeks pink, nuzzling each other’s noses, both smelling of alcohol.

From his desk on the far right side of the room, Alec looked up from the textbook he was reading. He rolled his eyes and sighed. What was this, the weekend?

No, it was only Wednesday, with classes tomorrow.

In fact, he was trying to read up for a quiz tomorrow. Not to be subject to this racket…

No doubt they had just come from one of the bars on the edge of campus. Maybe Magnus had even picked his date up tonight, as Alec didn’t recognize him.

It was an ongoing pattern with Magnus to hit up the bars nearby, and then either come back alone, slightly giggly from being buzzed, or with his latest hookup – as it was, Alec was starting to lose track of Magnus’s ever shifting schedule. As a creature of habit, this made Alec’s head spin.

Magnus and his date finally walked into the room and came face to face with Alec.

And of course Magnus was dressed to the nines, even overly so, Alec noted, scrutinizing his outfit from head to toe. Dark black hair done up in a quiff with dark red highlights, eyes lined with red and black liner, then clad in his form fitting maroon racer leather jacket, white tee, and slim black pants and low ankle boots.

Not to mention the number of silver necklaces adorning his neck and chest.

The longer Alec looked at him, he felt a slight tightness in his chest, a feeling that he wasn’t sure he was ready to reconcile within himself.

He turned away, feeling slightly flustered.

“Oh, you’re home,” Magnus said distractedly.

“Well, I’ve only been sitting here all night, and I was here when you first opened the door,” Alec stated dryly. “And you only just noticed me over here, now? But, oh I see -- you were otherwise preoccupied…”

He nodded at Magnus’s date, who now looked like he was attempting to shrink into the background. He was clearly uncomfortable about the tension between the two roommates.

“By the way, he has a name. Elias,” Magnus stated. “And he’s a great guy.”

“And…it’s also Wednesday night, and some of us still have classes the next morning,” Alec pointed out.

“Hey, Magnus,” Elias interjected, sounding incredibly uncomfortable, “Maybe he’s got a point. There are classes tomorrow still. How about we go out Friday night instead?”

Magnus whirled around to face his date. “Wait, you’re leaving?” he huffed.

Elias gestured between them. “There’s obviously something here that I shouldn’t get in the middle of. It’s okay,” he said.

Magnus, however, had already turned back toward Alec, and the two roommates were glaring at one another like no one’s business.

“Uh, okay. I’m leaving,” Elias said to no one as he quickly left.

The silence that followed his departure was jarring, and the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped to subzero with the way the roommates were locked in a glaring contest. Neither looked away.

Then in the next minute, Alec just rolled his eyes and sighed, sitting back down, and trying again to concentrate on his books.

Magnus huffed in turn, as he went to his side of the room. He opened up his mini-refrigerator, taking out a beer and taking a swig.

“Hey, shouldn’t you slow down? You just got back from the bar, didn’t you?” a snide voice said from the other side of the desk.

If Magnus’s eyes were laser guns, they would have burned a hole through the back of the desk.

Shut up, Magnus thought, crossly, as he tossed back the rest of the beer.

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

It was just Alec’s luck to end up having Magnus as his roommate in his junior year of college.

Alec had initially planned to move into a double with his brother, Jace. But then Jace had accepted an offer to another university at the last minute.

When Alec had found that out, he had groaned.

Now he was stuck with a double room, whereas he could have just applied for a single room to begin with!

The idea of having to share a room with a stranger was bad enough, especially with any habits they would bring about them.

Not that Alec was completely anal regarding his habits.

But he certainly had his share of bad experiences in the past.

Was it too much to ask to keep a room clean, no dishes in the sink, and everything in their rightful place?

Or having quiet hours when they should be quiet?

From past history, his roommates tended to fall short of these ideals within a short period of time, and it would always end up in a fight between them.

He was just not a roommate type of person. Hell, he just wasn’t a people type of person. He just preferred his own space above all else.

Alec didn’t think that was too much to ask.

As the time grew near, he eventually became more accepting of the idea of having a dormmate, as there was really nothing he could do about it. So why fight it?

He even got to the point where he had nearly convinced himself that most people were reasonable and able to maintain mutual consideration and respect…

But that was before Magnus Bane, his would-be roommate, barged through the door, his luggage and belongings falling from his arms. Walking in, he all but collapsed on the common area couch.

“Oh my god,” Magnus complained, bringing one hand to his forehead in dramatic fashion, ”That trek up four flights of stairs was killer, why couldn’t they have given us an option to select ground floor?” Then came a whole slew of moans and lamenting.

Alec just stared at this spectacle, his mouth dropping open, as his brain couldn’t even believe that anyone could be this dramatic.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, where I’m from, most people would say hi to their new roommate and shake hands,” he offered in a sardonic tone of voice.

That made Magnus stop his dramatics, as he turned.

The surprise on his face made it clear that he definitely hadn’t noticed Alec until then.

Alec wasn’t really surprised by that. Not many noticed him outright. There really wasn’t all that much to notice. Anyway, it didn’t bother Alec too much, as he preferred not to be in the spotlight anyway.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Magnus said, suddenly affecting a dulcet tone of voice. It was very musical, low, and sweet. As he looked directly at Alec, his brown eyes with glints of gold dilated as he surveyed Alec. “I’m Magnus. Magnus Bane. I guess I’m your new roommate.”

His whole demeanor – along with his necklaces, crisp form-fitting leather jacket and black pants, and that silver earcuff on his left ear, not to mention his expertly lined black and silver eyelids – was enough to throw Alec off his regular standoffish-whatever type of attitude when acknowledging someone.

Alec, for once, was tongue-tied. He didn’t know how to act…

“Ah, hello,” he managed, his throat dry. What was this? Why was his heart suddenly pounding?

He didn’t like this feeling at all. But, actually, he had no idea what this feeling was.

Bottom line, he was uncomfortable.

He was … breathless, nervous. He was…UGH. HE DISLIKED THIS FEELING.

Yea, that must be it. There was something off about this.

He decided, right then and there, that he did not like his new roommate for making him feel like this.

“I’m Alec. Alec Lightwood,” he continued, finding it easier to find his voice, now that he had resolved his inner feelings in the meantime. “You have your space, and I have mine. As long as we mind ourselves and give consideration to one another, things should be fine.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow upon receiving Alec’s words.

Oh, is this how it is? he thought. A smile crept across his face.

“So,” he said, using his lowest purr while looking at Alec under lowered lashes., “Alec, eh? Is that short for Alexander?”

Wow, even just attempting this line on this guy was making him nauseous. Funny, how he would be motivated to use this line on others. But for some reason, he just felt like he wanted to annoy the shit out of this guy…

The guy’s eyebrows shot up, clearly taken aback by his response.

“Uh…” the guy said. “Yea, actually it is. But no one calls me that. It’s just Alec…”

Magnus smirked. “Alexander, it is,” he said flippantly. Then bit back a grin as the guy scowled.

“Suit yourself,” Alec said curtly. “It doesn’t matter to me. Anyway, I already picked the right side, so the left side’s yours.” He gestured briefly to the bed, desk and space to the left to him. And with that, he retreated behind his desk, leaving Magnus just standing there, looking after him with his mouth falling half-open, and indignant.

The nerve! Boy, that guy’s stiff as hell, he thought, starting to get annoyed.

As far as he was concerned, it was a waste of time to be uptight. Wasn’t it much easier just to be more open and accepting about things? Why so angry, dude?

He shook his head in disbelief. But then he sighed.

This was his room assignment and roommate for this school year. Unfortunately, there were no other rooms available. He would just make do with this situation – at least until the next signup, which was in June.

He just prayed that it wouldn’t be too difficult living with Alec Lightwood.

His roommate continued to survey him, his eyes lingering upon his face which registered something akin to confusion – probably due to the duo-colored eyeliner he was wearing. Then he shook his head, huffed, and turned to walk back into his space.

Magnus was left with mixed feelings, standing there.

Oh well, he thought, so much for the welcome brigade. Great first day…

Such a shame, Magnus couldn’t help thinking as his thoughts went back to his roommate. So stuck up. But attractive.

Definitely attractive. Such nice hazel eyes, thick dark hair, and great build. Truthfully, he was totally Magnus’s type.

It was just too bad that he was stuck-up and annoying. And the way Alec had balked at his face, with his makeup and eyeliner, he probably also “didn’t approve of alternative lifestyles.” But oh well, this was something Magnus was used to, ever since he himself had come out during middle school, and facing those with dissenting opinions. Yea, they could all go to hell for all he cared. He was proud of himself and his lifestyle; and determined to have a great year at school.

Neither a crappy person nor a bad situation could take that away from him…

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

Months later…

Magnus hugged his books to his chest, as he climbed the stairs of his dorm building, huffing and puffing when he finally reached his floor. Again he cursed inwardly at the three flights of stairs he had to climb, just to get to his room.

Then again, his brain suggested helpfully, you didn’t really need to wear your stiletto boots today, did you? Just because that guy in lab was cute…

Oh be quiet, Magnus thought, wrinkling his nose.

As he approached his dorm room, another thought popped up in his head.

God, he hoped Alec wasn’t back yet. Or, maybe he hoped that he was there? Anyway, he was confused enough about him as it was. Today had also been his long day, and he was exhausted.

He didn’t know if he had the strength within him to endure something unexpected…

For the life of him, he couldn’t figure Alec out….

And, usually, Magnus was pretty good at those things…

…………………..

Ever since that first day, it had been nothing but snarkiness from Alec. Even when they were across the room from one another, somehow Magnus could still imagine the snideness being projected toward him by Alec.

Right against his back, like some stinging sixth sense, as if laser beams were shooting straight at him.

This animosity was getting ridiculous.

Magnus’s thoughts briefly went to the last guy he’d been seeing, Elias, which was actually just under two month ago.

Unlike others, Elias had tolerated Alec being around, even with him being something awful.

After a while, Alec had even grunted a sullen “Hello” or even a small wave whenever Magnus had brought Elias over to hang out.

That was uncharacteristically responsive for Alec, and Magnus was still weirded out by it.

Anyway, the thing with Elias had ended after maybe two weeks or so.

Since then, Magnus had not brought anyone back to the room. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to encounter how weird Alec could get at times…

And could someone be more nitpicky about things? For instance, he left one plate lying around in the sink one night a few weeks ago, and Alec had been ready to tear his head off.

Well, okay, he admitted, perhaps it was more than just one plate.

Maybe a few plates…and maybe even much more than that.

His mind went back to two days ago, when he had inadvertently hosted an impromptu dinner party for his three study buddies that he had brought over to go over notes for his History midterm.

Two of them, who had walked back with Magnus, had casually suggested getting carryout from the local Chinese restaurant since it was getting close to dinnertime. That had seemed quite reasonable to Magnus.

And so they had.

The third guy, Marcus, who had come about an hour later, carrying two bottles of wine --- well Magnus hadn’t asked him to do so.

Before long, they were all eating, and studying, and having a light glass of wine – and it was actually kinda odd, but it was working. They were actually getting some studying done, and yet somehow it had become very much a dinner party – in Magnus’s room.

Things were going great.

And then the key turned in the lock. Magnus froze, as his roommate, Alec, walked in.

The glare they all received from Alec, immediately as he walked in the door, was enough to freeze everything in the room.

Beside him, Magnus could feel the study group tense up.

Pretty much how everyone acted around Alec, when he was being Mr. Uptight.

Magnus felt a flare of irritation rise upon within him, as Alec cleared his throat in a very exaggerated way. He tensed up even further as Alec’s eyes scanned the room. He saw his gaze fall upon the plates and glasses strewn all over the coffee table.

Feeling an accusatory statement coming on, Magnus decided to beat him to the punch.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were coming back early from class,” Magnus offered as a way of apology. “We would have gone elsewhere –”

But instead of accepting the apology, Alec’s face slowly turned red, as his mouth pressed into even firmer of a line.

“Oh? And why is that?” Alec said, his voice tight. “Because you never think of asking me if you can have people over to our room? Or that you never tell me about these things at all?”

Then his gaze seemed to freeze as he saw the books all over the couch next to them. And his face suddenly paled.

“Uh, e-excuse me,” he stammered. This was followed by an abrupt turn as he half-walked, half-stumbled to his side of the room.

Wait…

Magnus’s annoyance suddenly turned to confusion.

Had he detected a note of embarrassment in his voice?

Hmm, that was new…

Oh, man, he soo didn’t want to get dragged into whatever Alec was going through right now…

“Uh, Magnus?” One of the guys, Marcus, was talking to him. He turned to him, albeit distracted.

“Yes?” he asked absentmindedly.

“You don’t look like you’re in the mindset to study right now. We can take a break for a bit -- we’ve been at this for awhile now,” Marcus observed. He nodded in the direction that Alec had stomped off to. “Don’t you think you should take care of that before it gets worse?”

The look on his face indicated that he already thought that it had…

“Hmm, maybe you’re right,” Magnus mused. “Thanks, Marcus.” He smiled at him gratefully.

Taking a deep breath, Magnus made his way toward Alec’s side of the room.

He found Alec sitting on his bed, huddled in the corner with a book, which was completely obscuring his face.

Ah, he’s busy, probably best to leave him alone….

But something made him stay.

“Uh, Alexander?” he ventured hesitantly.

No response. Ah well, Magnus thought. Okay, play it that way, then…

He turned to leave.

“Uh, I didn’t realize you were studying,” a gruff voice emerged from behind the book. “I didn’t mean to overreact.”

Magnus stopped where he stood and then slowly turned around. Alec’s tone had been equally hesitant and unsure.

Now, how was he supposed to act? Magnus ran his fingers through his hair, feeling slightly distressed. He wasn’t used to feeling so off-balance. He usually prided himself in being able to take on any type of situation or confrontation.

And yet, now he was nearly speechless.

“Uh,” he said finally. “That’s okay. I mean, things did get really disorganized. Dinner was definitely not on the agenda when we first planned things. And Marcus, he brought the wine over, not me…”

While Magnus was talking, Alec had emerged from behind the book, his hazel eyes intense and piercing, causing Magnus to nearly choke upon his words.

Oh my, he thought. If he had thought that his roommate’s eyes were beautiful on that first day…well right now, that had been elevated to another level.

They were…incredible - the way they looked at him, searchingly, as if seeking something that had yet to be found.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Alec continued, his voice softening slightly, now with a nice gravelly texture to his baritone voice. He seemed to avert his gaze for a moment, seemingly preoccupied.

Magnus resisted the shiver that nearly shot down his spine at the sound of the voice.

“That’s quite alright,” he said, managing to keep his voice even. He took a deep breath. “Not to worry though, we will clean up after we are done.”

Alec nodded.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. He looked up just then and their gazes met. Magnus inhaled sharply.

There was an expression in Alec’s eyes that he wasn’t able to recognize. Regardless, neither of them could look away.

For Magnus, funny things were starting to happen. Like wind rushing past his ears, and his heart was suddenly pounding madly.

His throat was also, suddenly, incredibly dry.

He attempted to clear his throat. “Well,” he said, putting on a smile in an effort to quell the tension that had seemingly appeared, “You’re welcome to come out and have some wine with us, as well as the rest of the food if you’d like. There’s plenty. I don’t know if you’ve eaten yet…”

Alec’s eyes appeared to widen at that. “Oh,” he said. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to impose…”

His eyes again seemed to search Magnus’s face intensely. Magnus felt his cheeks turn pink upon his gaze.

“No, no trouble at all,” Magnus found himself saying. “The guys are really cool too. They won’t mind. In fact, Marcus was the one who insisted I come in to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh really?” Alec said, surprised. Something appeared to shift in his facial expression just then, and the beginnings of a smile started to appear. “Well, that’s nice of him. Tell him I appreciate it.”

Magnus attempted to keep his expression even, as his brain nearly imploded.

Wait, was Alec Lightwood, grumpy roommate Alec Lightwood, actually…smiling?

He didn’t even know if he remembered him ever smiling, not even on the first day that they met.

And that was months ago…

“You can come out and tell him yourself. Seriously, they’re cool,” Magnus insisted, suddenly making it his mission to bring Alec out of his shell.

Alec continued to look at him for another minute.

And then, he slowly nodded.

He got off the bed and stood in front of Magnus, shifting uncomfortably as he didn't seem certain on what to do next.

“C’mon,” Magnus said, in as gentle of a voice as he could muster amidst the awkwardness.

He started to walk forward, turning back briefly to make sure Alec was following.

“Okay,” Alec said gruffly. He followed him out.

The chorus of “Hellos” directly toward Alec made Magnus smile.

………………….

Yea, that had been an interesting evening, Magnus mused as he paused right outside his own door.

And, a bit odd at the same time.

That evening had turned out to be full of surprises.

He could have sworn that he caught Alec looking his way once or twice as the night progressed. But then he would look away immediately with a flush upon his cheeks. It had made Magnus a bit flustered, a feeling he wasn’t accustomed to having.

And especially not toward Alec Lightwood of all people…

Once the initial introductions had been made, everyone had settled back in their seats with their drinks. Alec had then cracked a joke, which everyone laughed at.

Including himself, to his surprise.

And then Alec had proceeded to down a glass of white wine, his normally stoic, grouchy looking face softening into a smile with wonderful crinkles to the corner of his eyes.

The whole effect was simply magnetic, causing Magnus to nearly lose his breath as his heart stuttered. Again, he felt the stirrings that he had, upon that first day he had encountered Alec…

Oh god, what was happening to him?? Magnus thought.

Magnus had just stared at Alec in wonder, his mouth slightly agape. Who was this guy, again?

One minute, Alec was practically lashing out at him over some preconceived notion of what was going on –and the next minute, he had comfortably settled in – a completely different person.

Well, at least it appeared so, in front of company…

……………….

Magnus came back to the present, continuing to stare at the door in front of him.

Where his enigma of a roommate was possibly on the other side.

Was Alec like Jekyll and Hyde, where one wouldn’t know which personality was going to emerge at any given moment? Ugh, he wouldn’t want that type of situation...

Or even worse, was Alec the type who was absolutely amazing with everyone else, yet was still crappy when it was the two of them, alone –?

Magnus huffed, shaking his head, as he dug into his jacket pocket for his key.

Alec was definitely beautiful but too much of a wild card for his taste.

Yea, the last thing he needed was to be anywhere alone with this guy, ever --

Not finding his key, Magnus juggled his books as he fished deeper into his pockets, which caused his books to tumble out of his grasp. In an attempt to hold onto them, Magnus stumbled backward.

And then - he must have landed wrong upon his heel, because now he was on the way to the floor.

His books landed on the floor with a loud clatter, followed by him falling onto his butt.

“Damn!” Magnus cursed, his hand flying to his rear. That was not a soft fall by any means.

Although, Magnus thought ruefully, it was more that his pride was wounded as opposed to any real pain.

He was just glad no one had seen this happen, or he would never live it down.

Just great, he thought, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

Gingerly, he got up onto on one knee and proceeded to pick up his books.

What else could go wrong today?

“Hello?” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

Before Magnus could react or stand up, the door had opened ajar and a curious looking Alec Lightwood had poked his head out. He looked left and right, before his eyes went downward.

And now he was looking at Magnus, crouched on the floor, his books partially in hand, looking up at him.

Oh god, of all the people to see him like this…

Alec’s eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he gasped. “Did you trip and fall? Well, no wonder, those boots look like an accident waiting to happen, with those heels. I mean, they look really nice and all, but functional they totally aren’t…”

Alec’s cheeks had gone full on red as he spoke.

Was Alec…babbling? Magnus thought, confused. And…did he just say my boots looked…nice?

He reached out a hand toward Magnus, who just stared dumbly at the hand.

“Here, I’m trying to help you up,” Alec said gently.

“Thanks,” Magnus mumbled. “I did fall before. Sorry I’m like this…”

Magnus grasped Alec’s hand, which was fleshy and warm as his fingers closed around his, and allowed him to pull him up. He shifted his books in his arms so they were more orderly.

“Here, come inside and sit down,” Alec said. “I was just about to have some tea. Would you like some?”

“S-Sure,” Magnus said, feeling his cheeks burn as he followed Alec into the room. He was feeling very on edge, just like that other night – certainly not accustomed to this Alec Lightwood.

Someone who graciously helped him up after he had fallen…and who was now offering him tea?

As Magnus sat down on the couch, Alec excused himself to go get the tea.

Magnus set his books down, and suddenly he felt kinda weird, his hands flitting about. Finally, he settled for crossing his legs, and clasping his hands as he rested them on one knee.

Alec came back in the room just then, holding a very familiar mug by the handle. That was Magnus’s favorite cup.

Magnus just stared at him.

Alec seemed to recoil slightly under Magnus’s scrutiny.

“Ah,” he said in a hesitant tone of voice, his eyes going to the cup, “Don’t you always use this mug? I just assumed it was your go-to mug.”

“Ah, yes, it is. I just didn’t know you were aware of that,” Magnus said, surprised.

Alec handed the mug to Magnus, who took it in both hands.

“Thank you,” Magnus said breathily, suddenly feeling shy. He closed his eyes as he took in the aroma of the tea. Peppermint.

Then he realized that Alec was watching him closely, the corner of his lips slightly upturned.

“It’s my favorite type of tea to have, especially after a long day,” he said. “I even added a dollop of raw honey in yours, I’ve seen you use that from time to time in your drinks. I hope you don’t mind.”

And now…Alec’s cheeks had turned a slight pink.

“No, t-that’s fine,” Magnus said quietly. “I love it.” He sipped at the tea. Delicious, and totally hitting the spot.

“Long day, eh?” Alec said in a sympathetic tone of voice.

Magnus snorted, momentarily forgetting the awkwardness he was feeling just a moment ago. “You don’t know the half of it…”

And before he knew it, he was telling Alec about the crappy day he had had. Minutes turned into a half-hour. Then an hour. Then two…

It was so surreal, how much they were getting along.

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

Alec was having the most out of body experience he could ever recall having. And he could barely breathe.

Here he was, sitting across from his roommate, whom he had been at odds with for months, and here they were having tea, with Magnus talking animatedly in that musical voice of his. Which Alec could have listened to for hours on end.

Just as long as his gorgeous soft brown eyes, and warm smile were completely directed toward him as he threw his head back and laughed.

It was such a beautiful sight, he basked in it.

He no longer remembered why they were at odds with one another. In fact, perhaps it wasn’t that they were at odds with one another -- rather, it was more displaced, in terms of how he had reacted upon first seeing Magnus.

Magnus, who had completely upended Alec’s life in every way since he first stepped into the room.

Who had affected Alec like no other.

Alec hadn’t had much experience with these things – let alone meeting anyone he was ever interested in – to really know what that feeling was.

In fact, it had taken him a few months to figure out exactly why Magnus had affected him so. He had found Magnus attractive from day one – but didn’t know how to admit it to himself. So he had done the exact opposite thing that he should have done. He’d shut himself off from him, acted all distant, for fear that he would be read like an open book.

Then to see Magnus flirt with others, go out every night, and bring home different people every night – it had sent him into a tailspin. He had not been prepared for that, and it had wrecked him in all ways imaginable.

Then that had, in turn, caused him to close himself off further – even as he went deeper into despair. He hated the feeling. Jealousy was such a useless emotion. But yet it was there, wrapping its thorny vines around his heart, piercing different parts of his heart and psyche just that bit further with every different person that would pass through that door.

But by the time Alec decided that he wanted to try to turn things around, the animosity between them had already gone too far, and he couldn’t figure out a way around it.

Until that night, when he had mistakenly called out Magnus for throwing a get-together when it was just a study group.

Embarrassed at having made such a colossal error of judgment, he had fled to the security of his corner, determined never to show his face to Magnus again. But, Magnus, to his credit – had extended an olive branch to him, even though he hadn’t deserved it.

After that day, he had started to come to terms with his attraction and feelings for Magnus.

Which just seemed to be getting stronger, the more he was sitting here and talking to Magnus. God was he beautiful.

Then his insecurities started getting hold of him. What would Magnus ever see in someone like him? There was nothing special about Alec. He was the complete opposite of Magnus, who commanded a presence whenever he walked into a room.

It was something that Alec could never even begin to know about….

“Alexander?” God, it was that voice again…

Then Alec blinked, as he realized he had zoned out slightly, as Magnus was trying to get his attention.

He gulped, his eyes meeting seemingly curious brown eyes. Which were looking intensely at him.

Were there always gold glints in there? Or was that a trick of the light?

It unnerved him. He wasn’t used to having Magnus gaze upon him in that way.

….

Meanwhile, Magnus was definitely experiencing a moment here, upon seeing Alec with the most curious, doe-eyed look, his hazel eyes holding a hopeful yet apprehensive look.

Directed at him.

Magnus inhaled sharply. Magnus knew that look, from his prior experience with dating and first-meets.

Alec liked him.

Well, at the very least, Alec was attracted to him. Magnus was surprised. Up until now, he hadn’t picked up on it at all.

It was strangely comforting though, knowing that he wasn’t alone with his feelings….

Magnus laughed softly to himself, as he leaned forward in his seat.

This seemed to evoke a reaction in Alec, who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off him…

Magnus berated himself for being so uncertain about things. In other situations, he would have already been tossing off flirty one-liners galore, making the object of his attention blush fiercely.

But Magnus already knew – that was different from anything he had ever experienced before.

And thus demanded a different approach.

Magnus hummed as he thought about it for a moment.

Oh to hell with it, he thought. Totally going for broke.

After all, Magnus could have still read things wrong…and it wasn’t as if he was laying everything down on the line, like he had a huge crush or something.

And perhaps, that was what made his decision so easy in the end – that there wasn’t as much vested in this, just yet.

Still, though, his brain thought, rejection either way would still be less than desirable –

Magnus quickly pushed his pride and ego aside. Time to focus on the task at hand, before he lost his nerve…

“So, maybe I’m being a bit presumptuous,” Magnus said finally. “But I’m typically not one to mince words. Am I wrong to think that there’s something here?”

With a flourish of his hand, he gestured between them both.

……………………

Alec swallowed hard as Magnus’s question registered in his head.

He could only gaze at Magnus’s face – it was beautiful, and everything he’d ever wanted. And suddenly, there was only one answer he could really give.

The truth.

“No,” Alec said, choking slightly on his words. “You aren’t wrong in thinking that.” He paused, trying to figure out how to frame his words best. “I’m sorry I acted so horribly these past few months. I was going through a lot. I also never really dated before, or had someone I was interested in so quickly –”

Magnus held up a finger and Alec stopped talking. “Well,” he said. “There is one thing I want to know from you.”

“Yes?” At that moment, Alec would have agreed to anything Magnus was asking…

“How do you feel about us being roommates? Does that make this whole situation awkward to you?” Magnus asked seriously. “Because I understand if it does –”

Alec grimaced. “True, this could have been a less awkward arrangement,” he admitted. “But then again, perhaps this was probably for the best.”

At that, Magnus’s eyes lit up with interest. “Oh, really? How so?” he asked.

“Well,” Alec said, “I was supposed to dorm with my brother Jace, that’s why we signed up for a double. But then he left me at the last minute to go to school with his girlfriend, so there was a vacancy available. If I had no one else to room with, I would have probably applied for a single.” He then looked directly at Magnus. “This is going to be shocking, but I’m not really all that great with people,” he said to Magnus, with a straight face.

Immediately he saw Magnus’s eyes twinkle as he bit his lip.

“No, you don’t say,” Magnus said, shaking his head in denial, even as he attempted to keep from laughing.

“So,” Alec concluded, “If we hadn’t become roommates, who knows if I would have even met you. I mean, look at you. And look at me. You’re so outgoing and gorgeous, and I prefer to be alone with my books –”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” Magnus breathed, his eyes flying wide open as he looked at Alec.

Alec shrugged, as a smile crept upon his face.

“Yea, I do,” he said. “But you already knew that about yourself…”

Magnus appeared to ponder that statement for a moment, before a big smile appeared upon his face.

“Well, so I’ve been told,” he cracked, making Alec giggle.

Then his face grew serious. “But actually, it sounds wonderful, coming from you. Thank you,” he said softly.

Their gazes met and locked.

Feeling brave all of a sudden, Alec slowly reached over with his hand to entwine his fingers with Magnus’s. Magnus’s eyes sparkled as he beamed at Alec, which made him feel warm all over.

They looked at one another, for what seemed like the longest time.

“What comes next?” Alec wondered..

Magnus hummed. “How about a date?” he asked. “Would you go out on a date with me, Alexander Lightwood?”

Alec’s heart had never felt so full, ever…

“Yes,” he said. “I would love to go out on a date with you, Magnus Bane.

Suddenly, Alec realized that Magnus had steadily moved closer to him in the past few minutes.

And now there was a devilish look in his soft brown eyes. “Should we seal it with a kiss?” he asked softly, his voice nearly a purr.

It sent chills down Alec’s spine, he could barely think. And suddenly his palms were really sweaty.

”Uh, yea,” he gulped. “T-That sounds like a good idea. I- I actually never…”

Whatever he was going to say was lost as Magnus closed the distance between them, his soft lips pressing against his. Alec’s heart started beating wildly with butterflies going crazy at the bottom of his gut. And then he felt his tongue gently sweep over the top of his lip, and it was the most incredible feeling ever.

Magnus moaned slightly as his hands moved to the nape of Alec’s neck, entangling his fingers through his thick hair. That just felt so amazing, Alec moaned softly in return, as he did similarly with his lips and tongue.

When they disengaged from one another, both were breathing hard.

“Damn, that was awesome,” Alec breathed, laughing softly. “I hope that wasn’t too bad, on my part. I certainly don’t mind practicing more… especially if it’s with you.”

Magnus grinned widely.

“You weren’t too bad at all, pretty good, actually. But you know what the perfect thing is about all of this?” he asked, as he leaned his forehead in toward Alec’s.

Alec looked at him inquisitively, with a smile on his face.

“Since we are roommates, we have all the time and opportunity to practice. I have so much yet to show you,” he whispered.

“I certainly like the sound of that,” Alec said shyly.

Magnus only laughed as he leaned in to kiss him again.

#cor321 #malecsanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

9 notes · View notes

queenieroselove · 5 years ago

Text

sprace story

Anthony felt like an idiot… this was going to be a difficult semester… and it was only his second semester. Last semester was difficult too. Would every semester be like this? Was he really actually going to be able to handle college? Or should he drop out now? For now, he would drown his sorrows in his coffee… or not. He had an assignment to turn in in twenty minutes, even if he failed his first friday quiz of the semester.

He dutifully completed the assignment, with a few minutes to spare. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to an hour of algebra. What to do with his down time…. Rest.

Anthony laid his head down on the table, absentmindedly scribbling on a napkin. He had a habit of just scribbling and jotting thoughts down without thinking about it. Absentmindedly he left the written on napkin on the table before getting up and heading to class.

Sean was tired. That would be the least of it. Why in the hell had he taken a fucking english class at eight A.M.? He couldn’t have chosen something more boring, but it was on the list of gen ed courses required to graduate and he just wanted to get it over with. Coffee. That would help. He had two hours before his next class. And he enjoyed his routine of just spending those two hours in the campus coffee shop, working. He could start the outline of the paper Dr. Brenton spent an hour talking about. He also needed to review his notes for the biology lecture and do his daily spanish. Sean wasn’t exactly the most book smark, but he needed to keep this scholarship, that meant work.

His usual table was open, and coffee in hand (black, medium roast) he got to work. He couldn’t help but sneer in disgust when he saw the last person left a napkin. Rude. The barista wasn’t paid enough to clean up after the rich snobs who came to school here. Then he noticed the writing. “Here lies my GPA - Official COD: College Algebra.” He scoffed, but it secretly made him laugh in his head. College Algebra was pretty easy for him, but he’d heard a lot of the people in his class were worried.

He couldn’t help himself as he left a note on a sticky note and taped it down. Maybe the person would be back later. Why the hell not? “That class isn’t too bad if you study instead of leaving notes everywhere.” Alright, now it was time for him to work.

The next day Anthony returned to his table. This time with a friend, who promptly noticed the post it note taped to the table. “Hey, what’s this?” Albert wondered allowed, pulling the note up. “Someone leave you a note? Secret admirer.” He teased, raising his eyebrows when Anthony took the post it from his hand.

“None of your business, Al.” Anthony defensively said, even though it really seemed like nothing at this point, just some better than you remark from one of the stuck up upperclassman most likely. Just in case though, He crossed off the remark, and wrote a quick reply before taping it down again.

“So you think your smart? - A”

The next day there was a reply: “I know I’m smart - S”

The notes continued like that, back and forth every weekday for the next few weeks. Slowly they began getting more personal. Nothing to identify either boy, but smaller details, such as:

“Froo Froo drinks are for fools. Try coffee. - S”

“Bold of you to assume I am not a fool. Root beer runs through my veins and Caramel Frappes are my soul. I’ll sooner have a root canal then give up good drinks.- A”

“With all that sugar the root canal may be coming soon. - S”

Despite the generally serious nature of the notes, Anthony couldn’t help but imagine S as a secretly playful person. Someone to joke with back and forth on the matter but would still sneak a frappe when no one’s looking. Anothony also began to wonder, who S actually was.

Sean wouldn’t admit it, but he was curious too. He wanted to know who A was, despite his friends snickers and jokes. The problem was… this was Sean’s final semester. His time was running short. He did have an idea that it was someone who left the coffee shop just before he got there. How else would the note be so reliable. Surely someone else would have thrown the paper away.

He couldn’t ask his friends to watch for him though, that would lead to never-ending jokes. Sean would just have to skip class this week. He hadn’t missed this class yet this semester. He could reasonably miss one day.

That is why Sean found himself at a different table than usual, skipping his first class of the day. He had to admit it did feel good to not listen to a dull speech from an overpaid, overpraised professor. Sean tried to be discreet as he watched from across the room. Today, no one came to the table. Disappointment filled him as he left the shop. No more notes came after that. Sean couldn’t figure out what he had done to upset A, and his friends no longer found it a topic to joke about.

Anthony felt guilty. He truly did. He saw Sean sitting there, watching the table, he suspected, and everything fell into place. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Sean. Actually it was the opposite. Sean caught Anthony’s eye ages ago, but, he wasn’t the type of person Sean would like. He knew that, why bother going in to have his heart broken?

So he stopped. From then on he made do with the shitty coffee in the cafeteria. He studied in the library. “That is what it’s for, right?,” Anthony explained when Albert questioned him. “Besides, I’m running short on cash.” The coffee shop was generally the first luxury students were forced to give up when the cash ran low. No one would question it.

But then he felt regret on top of the guilt because what if he made a mistake and Sean was actual his fairy tale prince? So what if he wasn’t the type of guy Sean probably wanted, someone smart, handsome, stylish. They had been trading notes for weeks, and Sean had to tell he wasn’t that bright from the very start. So, Anthony decided to do something. He would be brave, he promised himself.

He was still telling himself that when he got dressed for coffee the next morning. Not just for coffee though. He decided to skip his usual sweat pants. Jeans would look better. And maybe not a ratty tshirt from some athletic event he attended over the years. He had collected some nicer clothes for job interviews, scholarship interviews, and things like that. He chose a plain blue sweater. Albert said it looked good on him in the store.

Anthony reminded himself to brave again as he walked across campus to the coffee house. He would stay late today, he promised himself, and if things went badly he could hurry off to class. Sean wouldn’t be there yet, but he was sure that Sean wouldn’t have stopped coming to the shop. Then he remembered he stopped going to the shop.

So that’s where Anthony stayed, looking up and around the shop every five minutes or so. He ordered a caramel frappe, his favorite, but he couldn’t seem to drink it. Or focus on the work infront of him.

After what felt like five nervous hours Sean finally came into the shop. He ordered his plain black coffee, and without even looking at the table Sean sat down across from Anthony tiredly. It only took him a second to realize he wasn’t alone, and when Sean did he quickly and politely apologized and got up.

“Wait!”Anthony quickly spoke up. “Don’t leave” Sean eyed him suspiciously and Anthony remembered Sean had no clue that he left the notes. “Those notes, they were from me.” Anthony admitted quieter.

Sean looked over him again, this time closer, as he sat down. This was him? He was an underclassman Sean had seen around before. Tall, lanky, hung out with some of the jocks and always seemed to have a joke to make instead of actually work. But… he had to admit when he was around Sean usually laughed at the jokes. Actually looking him over Sean decided the boy wasn’t bad looking.

“So,” Anthony started. “Sorry I quit leaving them. I saw you here one day when I was on my way in and figured you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. It wasn’t anything personal or nothing, just… sorta what was going through my head. You seemed smart in the notes. And, I’m not. Oh, sorry, my name is Anthony. Guess we never did get to that.”

“So you made the choice for me,” Sean probed further, seeing the nervous energy run through Anthony. Anthony shook his head, but Sean realized he can be intimidating, and probably was then. He reached out his hand to shake Anthony’s, which Anthony took. “I’m Sean…. If I said let’s get dinner tomorrow would you ghost me?” It wasn’t the best, but it was his attempt at a joke. He had been hit by another fleeting moment of why the hell not mentality.

Anthony actually laughed, although Sean wasn’t sure if it was out of politeness or because the joke was actually funny.

Sean did however, notice a note taped to the table then. With a quiet smirk he picked up the note and read the words “Dinner instead of coffee this time? - A” Sean laughed this time, holding up the note, “Guess we’re on the same thought process.”

Anthony, gaining courage back, promised himself to be brave one more time as he calmly took the letter from Sean’s hand and wrote on it once more: “Kiss me” . He passed it back to Sean, who raised an eyebrow and laughed as he got up and put on his coat. “Maybe if you show up tonight, lover boy. Six. Right here.”

Anthony, beet red merely shook his head in agreement. He had been brave. Perhaps it didn’t end with the kiss, but at least he got the boy.

i hope enjoyed this story. thank you to @ askmidtownnewsies for helping me write it i really appreciate it thank you so much

my giftee is for @ k-woodsies

#newsies-secret- santa #askmidtownnewsies

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with-a-gilded-quill · 5 years ago

Text

The Fae in the Forest: Chapter One

It was a day like any other. Autumn had come to the central midwest, in the little town of Spring Green, Illinois. It was hardly large enough to place itself on a map, with a population of 500 people, and nothing to see except a library, a park, a gas station, and an abandoned house that even some of the adults were sure was haunted. The town, like most Illinoian towns, was surrounded by dense fields of corn and lush green forests. It was only able to be accessed from a fifteen minute drive down country roads.

The town was rather ordinary. Those who lived their all their life and never left didn’t believe it was different than any other town. Those who visited felt strange there, as if it had birthed a culture known only to those who had lived there forever. The visitors, generally speaking, were right. Most of the townsfolk never even knew what was so odd about their town. Most of the people who left never came back.

***

The world was spinning, spinning, a dizzying swirl of bright fall leaves in front of her eyes, burgundy and violent crimson and goldenrod and burnt orange all at once. More of them fell from the trees with every gust of wind as she lay beneath them, drifting downward to rest beside their other fallen brethren. The sounds - the rustling of dead leaves, the melody the wind played as it wove between limbs - were comforting. Autumn had always been a time of magic. Anything in the world could happen, and that was why she was here.

She did not want to return to the house she’d stormed out of seven years ago. There was a reason she had left there in the first place. But here she was, being called back from the comfort of her new home, in a new town, with her new life states away, to crash in an old friend’s basement.

A lonely reddened maple leaf fell on her face rather unexpectedly as it descended toward the rest of its family. She sat up, taking the leaf gingerly between her fingers, and sighed. She thought of her childhood, of building leaf piles and jumping into them, as if that had ever been any fun at all, and everyone didn’t just end up stabbed by twigs or with bugs in their hair. But kids never cared about any of that, and maybe that was the fun in it all.

She was lost in her own thoughts by the time she heard the voice calling her. It had begun, quite ruthlessly, to rain, and the deep, billowy sound was whipped this way and that in the furious blustering wind. Despite it not being too far away, it was still almost lost to the storm. It was calling her inside. Reluctant, but willing, she conceded and headed toward the house, slipping in through the back door, pulling her worn green flannel tight around her It was meant to provide warmth and comfort, but seeing as it was entirely soaked in rain - as was the rest of her - it did no good for anyone, except for making her feel more cold.

The voice matched the man it came from. He was tall, a towering 6’4, a giant compared to her, who was not taller than a measly 5’3 (and by most accounts, was a perfectly even 5’2). He had an abundance of muscles from his work in a lumber yard. It seemed he had the lumberjack look down to a T, and it suited him well, with his black beard, long curly hair, and his assortment of solid colored gingham button-ups, soft with the same flannel material currently wrapped around her torso, only almost always far less wet. But looks, of course, were often deceiving, and anyone that knew anything about Cedric Perez would know that he was perhaps the kindest, most caring, most sensitive person they had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

“Hazel, you’ll catch your death in that rain out there, y’know. C’mon, we’ve got coffee for ya, kid.” Cedric said, beaming, as she slipped between him and the door, knocking into his arm on purpose. Hazel glowered at the towering man in the way only a best friend could, more annoyed than angry. Cedric Murphy was exactly one year younger than Hazel to the day, even though he looked like he was old enough to be her dad. Often, Cedric did indeed act like he was. Most people would say he was too nice and too caring for his own good. This did nothing to stop Cedric from being either of those things.

“Thanks, mom.” Hazel said, wrapping her arms around herself before she finally thought better of it and stripped of her flannel, leaving her in only an equally soaked black tank top. Hazel shuddered from a sudden rush of chill, before a fuzzy green pullover sailed its way right into her face. It was Cedric’s, of course, judging by the size of it, and Hazel gratefully slipped it on over her head, relishing in the warmth of the soft fleece. There in the kitchen, Hazel leaned back against the counter and slid slowly - and even a bit dramatically - to the linoleum floor, sitting with a thump. Cedric joined her there, slightly more gracefully, and handed her a blue mug decorated with small white stars, and steaming with a hot, caramel colored liquid, not unlike the warm shade of his own hand.

“Just the way you like it.” Cedric said, grinning. “Creamer. No sugar. Now drink up. You’re freezing.” Hazel was. This was not difficult to discern, as the shivers that took over her body were dramatic and obvious. “What were you doing out there, anyway?” Cedric continued, doing his best to sound very stern and accusatory. Hazel sighed, loudly.

“I was just thinking.” Hazel muttered over her mug. As much as Cedric liked to make fun of her for lying in the rain, he understood the simple need to be alone. Sometimes, thought Hazel, the cold and the rain understood her better than any person ever could. Cedric understood that, too, at least enough to give her many free rain-laying passes. There was a long moment where Hazel wouldn’t meet his eyes. She must have looked particularly tired or cold to Cedric, because he had left to get a blanket and returned with it, throwing it over her rather unceremoniously. Ordinarily, this gesture would have been seen as sweet or romantic, but this time it ended up just funny, as the blanket, much like the fleece, hit Hazel in the face and shrouded her. For a few minutes, she refused to move it. It was a wonder she didn’t spill a drop of coffee.

“Emily and Percy are downstairs,” Cedric said, taking a seat again in front of Hazel, and nudging her with his foot. She grimaced in a way that accurately described how she felt, although it didn’t seem to get the message across, as Cedric just kept on talking. “You know. Doin’ the do. Cuddlin’ naked. The body dance.” Hazel removed the shroud of blanket from her face for the express purpose of glaring daggers into him, before simply tearing her gaze away and shrugging.

“No one calls it ‘the body dance’, you egg.” Hazel scoffed. The situation was complicated. Emily met Percy during their junior year of high school gym class. They began dating a week after, and were essentially inseparable from that moment on, until just after high school, when they broke up for three months so Percy could go to Math Camp. When he returned in the fall, Percy and Emily fell into each other’s arms like long lost lovers once again.

“You wanna tell me again what the big deal is with the two of them?” Cedric asked, his tone taking on something far more serious than he had sounded even with his condemnation of the rain. Hazel shrugged.

“I just don’t know him. That’s all,” Hazel said. “I wasn’t really friends with Emily in high school, you know that. We might have spoken sometimes, but that was it. She was friendly to me. Guess time weathered away the deep loathing she had for me.” A silent pause, then, and a perfect moment for Hazel to sip her coffee. It was still hot enough to scald her tongue, and she savored the warm feeling of it as it entered her belly. Cedric remained silent, as if asking for more details. Hazel closed her eyes, feeling for the words, before she said, “We were inseparable in middle school. Together all the time, no matter what, basically twins; that sort of thing. In English class, we refused to be separated and talked our teacher into letting us sit next to each other every semester. Luckily, we were good students, and smart, and given the privilege of mostly doing whatever we wanted. When we were assigned to read books, we would make sure we read the book ahead of time, getting us out of class assignments as long as we passed the quiz we were given. We loved all the same weird things, too, you know? Weird clothes, anime, J-pop, books, alternative music: all the things that made you an outcast in middle school. But Emily was always more popular than me, if you could even call what she was “popular”. For all her strangeness, she was beautiful: tall, long blonde hair, pale skin, freckles, and the brightest green eyes I’d ever seen, as bright as emeralds.” Hazel paused here to steal a glance at Cedric, who was watching with a little knowing grin. Hazel pressed her lips together, and then let her face go slack. “I… might have loved her a little bit. We were like magnets.”

Cedric listened. He was good at that, listening. He always had been. It was part of what made him such a wonderful friend. His ability to empathize and understand and learn from others was unmatched. It came, he often said, from being almost always misunderstood, and treated like some kind of criminal delinquent. When Hazel seemed done speaking, Cedric nudged her again. “And?” He prompted, leaning forward. “So what? What happened between you two?”

“And then everything fell apart.” Hazel said, grasping her mug in her hands as tightly as she could, feeling the warmth of the drink within it seeping into her palms, warming her up. “There was one summer day in the woods… I thought it was going to be like every other day, but it wasn’t. I can still see it if I close my eyes, if I think about it. The smell of hot, rotting flesh, the blood… all the blood. And that was it for us. There was no going back.” Hazel closed her eyes, as if remembering. “I miss her sometimes, of course. Sure, once in a while we would talk, but that hardly felt like enough.” Hazel was glad for Cedric. Without him, she didn’t think she would have ever made another friend. She never felt lonely around him. He made the dark days brighter. He could make her laugh, and he always knew when all she needed was a good cry. Besides, the two were now the most inseparable of friends: approaching 22, one would think their interests would differ greatly from when the were younger. They’d be right, but not in the ways most would expect. Instead of j-pop, anime, and scene kid clothes, Hazel and Cedric’s interests lined up on an entirely new scale: both enjoyed punk clothing, rock music, comic books, Disney movies, and, perhaps most relatable, girls. They could talk about girls for hours.

“Then it was high school.” Hazel said, and looked up at her still-silent friend, who was staring with big, round eyes. “I was very gay, and you were there, big and burly by nature, and the new guy.” Cedric smiled. He remembered. He was protective by nature, too, and went out of his way to intimidate anyone who had anything to say about Hazel and her romantic interests. “And then there was Emily, smiling at me occasionally, letting me know that it was okay. That she was glad she knew me.” Hazel released a slow, long sigh, and grimaced. “And then there was Percy.”

Cedric opened his mouth, ready to offer encouragement to continue her little story. But he did not get so far. Just then, the basement door opened.

#writing #my writing #original #oc #fantasy #horror #ya #young adult #story #the fae in the forest #tfitf

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wxnnabe · 6 years ago

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number 6 w narancia Mayhaps?

@ narancia is best friend, what a tip top friend good on ya mum

You once drew comfort in the trio often sat in the park on a bench or lounging on a picnic rug. After a frustrating day of school, you would pass by the trio of misfits often-when you first saw them, you recognised them almost straight away-the mafioso of Passione, at least in the neighbourhood you resided in, were treated with respect. Bruno Buccellati was, after all, a good man, and his actions followed his name like a trail of evidence to that claim. You would only have to ask around a bit to know half of the ways he would go above and beyond for the rest of the community, and it was hard to admit that he was actually and probably very capable of murder. The trio here were amongst his little rag tag team-you would see them fleetingly, around about the city.

But you managed to notice them parked next to the water fountain first when you heard a commotion happening as you turned to the very opening coming home from school one evening. Two of the boys were tackling each other, pens and books flying. It seemed like any attempts at a peaceful picnic were lost, and you couldn’t help but think this wasn’t the first time as the third one had sat back and complained for them to knock it off. You felt something hit your leg, and as you bent down you found a pen-probably from all the fighting happening almost right in front of you. You picked it up, and for a brief moment glanced at the fight unfurling in front of you.

As luck would have it, your eyes caught on a book that was thrown onto the edge of a plate, smashing the plate and propelling some of the shards to your crouched figure. The bits of broken china and food on the plate were flying right at you, aimed for your face. Your hands flew up to protect yourself, and you barely managed to protect your face from the flying pieces of cake and fine china debris. Finally, the two stopped fighting to the crash of the plate and the scuffle and a muttered curse as you struggled to find your footing with a searing pain that was now throbbing through your arm. There was a sudden silence as their friend flew into action, calmly walking toward you.

“Ah, now look what you’ve done!” He calls out to them, and the two break apart, the blond one straightening up his bizarre suit. The other huffed slightly, but peered over to what had gotten his friend so worked up. You looked to the man looming in front of you. He was equally dressed in an insane get-up that you would have laughed at if not for your current situation. He gave you a wary once over, and you realised that you were still holding onto the pen in your hand. Words tumbled out of you in a stammer as your brain tried to keep up with what was happening.

“S-sorry I just, thought this was yours and I was gonna slide it back to you-” The one with the bandanna cut you off, pointing to your left hand.

“Hey, you’re bleeding!” He looked mildly concerned, though you could still see the cautious look from his friend in his eyes. Your eyes glanced from his to the man in front of you, to your hand as you bent it over to have a proper look where the throbbing was coming from. Sure enough, a piece of the plate had wedged itself into your arm, blood trickling down from your elbow. You blinked as a drop trickled down from the wound to the tip of your elbow. You let out a small mutter of “ouch” before extending your arm slightly as the blood dripped onto the pavement. The boy in front of you held your hand, and tilted your arm slightly to get a better look.

“Tsk…hey, at least next time watch out for your surroundings, you two!” The boy who was crouched next to you flashed you a warm smile.

“You’re in good hands, honey!”

You later learnt of their names. Guido Mista, the one who would playfully flirt with pretty girls and trembled at the sight of anything in pairs of fours. Pannacotta Fugo, one of the boys fighting, was smart and kind, but you learnt quickly not to tease his temper. And the last, Narancia Ghirga, he one who called out to you; he was energetic, and loud-but their was a fierce loyalty and trust that he gave to his friends you almost envied.

Often times, one of the others from the gang would tag along with them. Abbacchio and Giorno were nice, but reserved. Fugo explained they were often there so your little group wouldn’t turn into a four.You’d like to say that you were friends with them, but Fugo would deny it.

“You don’t want to be friends with us. You don’t want anything to do with us, if you can help it,” It frustrated him, when you hung out with them, but he eventually got used to it. Mista seemed indifferent to you; you had your suspicions he was simply acting cool, though, because he’d be all over you the moment you offered to shout them a pizza. Narancia did warm up to you, and would now welcome you every time you turned through the park. You would chat with the three casually, and Narancia would quiz you on school and your assignments. He seemed to pale as you described the multitude of your work, and Fugo would hastily change the subject. Narancia confided in you later on that he had dropped out very young, and was trying to study to finish his schooling.

“That’s really amazing, Narancia! If you ever need any help, just ask yeah?” You were sat cross legged next to Narancia, with Fugo chatting with Giorno about the book he was reading next to him and Mista off buying a pizza, losing some bet the group were haggling over before you came by.

“Yeah, I guess…studying’s a pain in the ass, so thanks for offering,” He grumbles, and you laugh.

“If it wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be worth doing right?” He gave you a mischievous grin.

“Right. Oh, and who are you again? Some kind of old wise master?” You were about to playfully smack him when Mista slides some pizza boxes down and plonks himself down with a loud sigh.

“Man, can we wait ‘til there’s five of us to start makin’ bets?” Narancia gives him a smug grin as his mouth is already stuffed with a slice of pizza.

“But then we won’t be able to exploit you and your phobia!” Mista looks about ready to cause a scene, but Giorno cuts in between the two and opens another box.

“It’s not like your short on cash,” Mista takes another slice, and sighs again, his tone pointed to the boy next to you as he speaks up.

“I just don’t like watching my money drain to a rigged bet, that’s all,” Narancia picks up on this, and leans back to catch Mista’s eyes.

“Oi, we didn’t rig it at all! Your just obsessing over nothing is all!” Mista stands to this, his slice long forgotten.

“Hey, don’t make me go over this again! I’m serious, four really is bad news!” While the two bickered on, Giorno had turned to you with a curious look.

“Why are you always here?” Despite how it was posed, his tone and expression didn’t look malicious. And though he had asked you with a serene smile, you could see he wanted an answer that satisfied the question. You pondered for a while. Surely you knew that they were dangerous? If the wrong person saw you hanging out with them, they could get the wrong idea about you…or, even worse, what you meant to them. Being kidnapped and held for ransom wasn’t exactly on your bucket list.

“Well…I mean I guess you guys are like my friends, right?” You considered them close. Narancia especially. For some reason, the two of you just clicked, and a couple of times he would even walk you home from school, just to get some time in to vent or ask you about your day. You’d gotten pretty adept to calming him down from his outbursts, and you’d like to say he’s made you a bit more confident to just have fun. You really did look forward to hanging out with them.

“Have you ever taken any thought to if you got hurt because of that?” Fugo snaps at you, but his eyes betray his worry. You note that he doesn’t shoot down the prospect of ‘friends’ with some relief.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” Narancia startles you, jumping into the conversation.His attention turned away from Mista, he’s now looking directly at you with a deadly serious tone in his voice. In your peripheral, you can see Giorno smiling, though you can’t bring yourself to break eye contact with those violet eyes. He looks dead serious.

“Sorry?” Your still reeling from that statement, No one’s going to hurt you. How on earth could he be so sure?

“I said, no one’s going to hurt you. No one will hurt you, not on my watch!” He gives you a grin, and suddenly he’s back to his normal self again. He takes a playful bite out of the slice of pizza in your hands, and with a “Hey!” he laughs, and the dark mood from the conversation is long forgotten.

#whoops I forgot the read more #this one's a long one #I just wanted to demonstrate narancia being a very protective friend #narancia ghirga #writing.meme

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thearkhound · 5 years ago

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Kazuhiko Uehara interview with MSX Magazine (2005)

This is the second Konami-themed interview featured in a 2005 commemorative issue of MSX Magazine, following the previous translated Hideo Kojima posted here. This time the person being interviewed is Kazuhiko Uehara, who joined Konami as a sound designer in 1986 (the same year Hideo Kojima himself joined), where he worked on games such as Space Manbow and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. He was involved with the creation of the SCC sound chip that Konami employed in many of their later MSX games, starting with 1987′s Gradius 2 (aka Nemesis 2), although it was originally designed for their racing game F1 Spirit.

At the time interview was published Uehara-san was an executive producer at Pawapuro Production, a subsidiary of Konami that were involved in the development of various sports games for the Japanese market, most notably the Power Pro Baseball series, which the studio took its name from.

The interview was conducted at Osaka two days after the Kojima interview at Roppongi Hills and it started with the MSX Magazine editorial staff showing of Gekitotsu Pennant Race, a baseball game by Konami for the MSX running on the MSX Game Reader.

SCC: A Sound Chip Born From The Rivalry With The Famicom

Uehara: Amazing! The SCC sounds like it should. I made this “strike” sound effect. Wow, it brings me back! Gekitotsu was made with the SCC from get-go. This was the beginning of the Power Pro series.

MSX Magazine: The reason we created the MSX Game Reader was because we wanted to play your company’s games (on a current computer). There were many models of the MSX back in the day and the tone of the PSG sounds differed between them. Why was that?

There were a few reasons. Some MSX models have balance differences between the PSG and SCC, so the bass output might had varied between them. Personally I really liked how the Yamaha models sounded. Speaking of which, I have some old documents here that could help me remember things. Wait a moment. (Mr. Uehara takes out a bulky file). Because I worked on the previous program, I gathered documentation of how to control the work, algorithm and such. However, this is all the documentation that remains that hasn’t been thrown out yet.

When you joined Konami, did you became involved with hardware? When I heard about it from interviews and such, I thought the SCC chip was built on a hardware level.

Not at all. I was involved with software, or rather I should say I was a “sound creator”. When I’ve joined Konami there was the MSX Team, the Famicom Team and the Arcade Team. The Arcade Team was the most abundant and flourishing when it came to sound sources. That was followed by the Famicom Team, which had one more sound port (than the MSX). But I was assigned to the MSX division (laughs). Its stock PSG sound source could only produce three types of sounds, so I couldn’t helped it but feel envious.

Mr. Kojima told us the same thing. (laughs)

I really regretted it. I was wondering whether it was possible to increase the number of sound ports on an MSX. At the time there was this application called “Idea Notes”, in which employees of Konami would submit ideas directly to the President. There I suggested exploring the possibility of using an additional sound source that could be employed through the MSX’s cartridge slot. I’m not sure if this suggestion was what caught their attention, but we were given the go ahead to develop the SCC chip and that’s how it came to be.

Was your frustration with competing against the Famicom’s sound source your initial reason for making the SCC chip?

That’s exactly the reason. The MSX is supposed to be from the same generation as the Famicom, yet...

It seems that everyone else felt that way too about the MSX. When you joined the MSX department, you had a feeling that you were missing out. So there was much joy when the SCC appeared. With such sound chip, the MSX could finally compete against the Famicom.

Nemesis 2 was the first game to employ the SCC, but we originally developed it for F-1 Spirit. Due to scheduling changes, Nemesis 2 ended up being released first.

Creating A Waveform By Trial & Error, Sometimes Using A Bug

There’s an “editor” referenced in this document. Did you happen to create a tone editor?

Yes. We made a so-called tone editor, which would later be known as a “synthesizer”.

There was once a time when music was composed with raw hexadecimal data.

That’s how it was when I’ve joined Konami. It took way too much time and effort, so we developed various tools to increase our efficiency.

That was the wave form of the SCC.

I think it might been with Space Manbow or Metal Gear 2, but there was an instance in which the waveform was being overwritten by the software.

You mean the “Waveform Change Program”.

That’s right. That was it.

When Scitron released one of their game music albums the other day [TL’s note: Likely referencing to The Legend of Game Music Premium Box set, which contains a CD consisting exclusively of MSX shoot-’em-up music], I heard a story that Ms. Miki Higashino, who was involved with the music of the original Gradius, tried to remake the first stage music from Space Manbow on an SCC for another shoot-’em-up, but she had problem trying to make it sound different from the original.

That’s because it was a very difficult system to work with. The truth is that there was a bug in the sound loading program. Under certain conditions it would fly into the program data instead of the waveform data. Because of this adding any additional programming would’ve altered the sound. It was a huge bug, but I choose not to fix since it ended up producing interesting sound that wouldn’t had been possible otherwise.

Because of such accidents that an amazing soundtrack like Space Manbow was possible. It’s such an awesome heavy sound.

It’s a coincidence that such a bug exists. The waveform produces sounds like that, no matter where they’re reading the data from.

We heard that during the recording of Space Manbow they would bring in 8 MSX computers into the studio, synchronize them by connecting a custom-build interface into each of their ports, and then collect all the sounds with a mixer.

That was precisely the development board for the SCC, which was around the size of two MSX units. We worked it so that each port would sound off one by one, but it felt so good. Different EQ and effects were applied to each port.

It seems quite difficult to produce the tone of the SCC.

Nowadays you can use a so-called “Pro Tools” to view the waveform, but such things wasn’t possible back then. Strictly speaking, if it had a round shape, it would make a round sound and if it was a sharp shape it would be a sharp sound, so there was already a process of trial and error. As I’ve explained before about the Waveform Editor, the method would involve drawing a waveform and then distributing the spots over it, so that also caused some trial and error. At the first it was just a theory, and then we tried to apply it.

Konami’s mainly used the SCC chip instead of other sound sources such as OPLL or FM.

The MSX Team wasn’t used to FM sound sources, since there was naturally a lot of restrictions involved. If you look at Konami as a whole (and not just the MSX department), we did have the know-how of using FM sounds, since we employed it in many arcade games, but in terms of familiarity the SCC was still preferable.

The Sound & Soul of the SCC Still Lives

The MSX used PSG and FM as sound sources in addition to the SCC, but the SCC was unique to the MSX, so its tone was pretty fascinating. Even nowadays it’s being used on a genre in the music scene known as “Chiptune”.

Is that so? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that. The hardware was cheap, so it could be a bit noisy. But since the sound wasn’t clear, a loud noise could be interpreted as a harmonic overtone. I think that could be part of its charms.

As a sound source based on waveform memory, the SCC had a clearly different tone compared to other sound sources such as PSG or the PC Engine. Was that a conscious decision?

There was no reverb or delay on the hardware. Because of that, the SCC relied on data tremendously. There’s only 8 sound ports used, including the 3 ports used by the stock PSG sound source, but basically it sounds dull having only one tone come out from one port at a time. With a keytone there, it ends up using two ports as an echo port, but if you have the sub-port do some amount of interruptions and lower the volume, you’ll end up producing some incredible sounds.

There are people still making music on the MSX that are familiar with such techniques. Techniques that were made by Konami.

Even now, I always tell the sound team that “our work is influential and our jobs are very important, so you must absolutely never cut corners no matter what.” It is a sound that enters your ears without knowing it, which is why I think it’s some people are influenced by it.

The spirit of the SCC seems to be refusing to die.

Sometimes, even within Konami, someone will ask me about a certain sound effect. For example, the alert sound in Metal Gear when Snake gets discovered, that was composed specifically for that game. Then there’s the item acquisition sound in Parodius, which sounds similar to a ding dong sound in a TV quiz show. Those kind of simple sounds are archived somewhere.

Sometimes when they play such a sound effect on TV, I would go “ah”.

You recognized that sound! That’s nice! Actually, those sounds are from on a library CD. It seems to be played in various places since it’s free to use.

Speaking of sound effects, I love the sound effects of King’s Valley 2. They’re very fun to listen to, especially the sound effect of the flying knife.

I still don’t know how that particular sound effect came to be. I was once asked how I did that, but it was actually the result of a hardware bug. I have no way of reproducing that sound. It actually happened that way.

You probably come up with many sounds ideas while on a ride.

There was a point where I was trying to make all sorts of sound effects I could think of. To give an extreme example, there was one time I tried to make the sound effect for the first step, second step, and third step different for each step. The closest I ever got to do something like that was for SD Snatcher.

Certainly, the “boh” sound effect when you reach the harbor in that game is an example of that. Or the background noise when you enter the game center.

But in the end I came to the conclusion that a good sound effect can be used multiple times. You can use the same sound effect in various places and nobody would noticed it. In the end, I would be fixated on a particular sound that I put all my heart into. So I became more focused on trying to make good sound effects instead.

Memories of Working With The MSX Team

Is there a particular game that you have fondest memories working on, Mr Uehara?

Well, it was before the SCC was made, but the first game I worked on when I’ve joined Konami was The Maze of Galious. But the first music I’ve ever composed was the ending theme to Vampire Killer [an MSX2 version of the original Castlevania that was made in parallel with the Famicom Disk System version]. I did something unusual when composing this track and that was using a “1 Port Echo”. There was no one else doing that back in those days and since it was being used for a whole music track, it ended up consuming a large amount of data. But when it comes to actually playing the games, my favorite is Nemesis 2.

There many people who proclaim that Nemesis 2 is the best shoot-’em-up they ever played in their lives. Recently Konami released Gradius V for the PlayStation 2, which continues the story of the MSX Gradius series. After 20 years of losing hope, we can finally destroy the final boss [Dr. Venom].

Back then I would often be asked if “you could only bring one game with you to a deserted island, which one it would be?” Without hesitation I would often reply Nemesis 2. Besides that, I also loved Gekitosu Pennant Race. It was the precursor to our current Power Pro series. In terms of sound, I was satisfied with how SD Snatcher and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake turned out. I hope that you agree.

According to Mr. Kojima earlier, because the MSX team weren’t selling as much as the Famicom team, they were given much greater leeway and because of that there was less compromise with the quality.

That’s right. That’s something we tried to uphold. I think the MSX team were the most conscious of what the Konami brand meant.

That’s because they were assigned to do MSX games.

At first I wondered “Why MSX?”, but in retrospect it was an absolutely necessary first step.

We didn’t love the MSX at first either, but we eventually learned to appreciate the platform. It wasn’t something we wanted at first, but we were assigned to.

After the MSX department was disbanded, Kojima moved on to work on the PC [TL’s note: Uehara is likely referring to the NEC platforms rather than the PC as we know it in the traditional sense, since Kojima worked on Snatcher for the PC Engine in 1992 and Policenauts for the PC-9821 in 1994 after his MSX days were over], while I shifted my focus to the Super Famicom. I still wanted to work together with Kojima, but at the same time everyone wanted to work on the Super Famicom. My boss at the time nominated me to be in charge of the sound effects for the Super Famicom department since I’ve proven myself with the MSX. I was pretty flattered that they thought highly of my work, but then Kojima accused me of betrayal. (laughs)

It seems like it was a wonderful period for both of you.

We created the Konami Sound with that kind of feeling, which is why it’s amazing that even Power Pro series still has that Konami sound. Nowadays I barely do any sound work since I’ve been promoted to producer, but the younger staff members have almost no tangible memories of what’s been taught to them.

Perhaps it’s the DNA.

Maybe that’s it. It sounds like the Konami Sound no matter who is listening it. It’s something that’s been passed on.

One last question. What does SCC stands for? I heard it could mean “Sound Creative Chip” or “Sound Customize Chip”, but a official meaning was never given to MSX Magazine back in the day.

Wasn’t it written here somewhere? Let me check for a moment! (starts opening a document). I’m sure it was written somewhere. I’ll have to ask some of the other people involved and ask them about it. That will be my homework.

Oh. We’ll ask you again if we do another interview (laughs). Thanks for your time.

#Konami #MSX #SCC #Nemesis #Gradius #Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake #Snatcher #Metal Gear #F1 Spirit

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frostedpuffs · 7 years ago

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A Simple Suggestion - Ch.5

A Simple Suggestion Summary: Breaks from patrol often allow time for Ladybug and Chat Noir to talk and be themselves. But when a silly joke starts to seem all that…well, not silly, the two find themselves considering something neither of them had ever before: moving in together. The tricky part is still keeping their identities a secret. Rated: T+ Pairing(s): Ladybug/Chat Noir, Adrien/Marinette

Chapter 5 - A Deal Word count: 6,192 Also read on: ao3

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Finding out that the beautiful apartment she'd had her hopes set on had been taken was disappointing, to say the least.

With a sigh, Marinette flopped down onto her bed and frowned deeply into her pillow. She couldn't believe it. She and Chat had been so ready to move, and they had been sure that apartment had been the one for them...but they had acted too late.

Someone else—whoever that person, or people, may be—had beaten them to the punch.

She and Chat Noir really should have sealed the deal sooner. While they both were still so new to the whole apartment-hunting business, Marinette really hadn't expected their apartment to go to soon.

(Well, it wasn't "theirs." It never really had been.)

Chat Noir had done his best to comfort her. She was still sad, though. It really had been perfect.

The apartment was large with a homey feel, had a beautiful garden terrace and two bedrooms big enough to keep her sewing supplies and a queen-sized bed, as well as being in a safe location with a view overlooking the Seine. All of those were nice qualities, of course, but her favorite attribute of the apartment was its spacious living room with floor-to-ceiling windows. She could imagine herself sitting on the couch, sketching and listening to her favorite music as sunlight streamed in like golden wisps of warmth onto the hardwood floor...

She daydreamed about it extensively. What it would be like to live there, to wake up in the morning and open the burgundy curtains to a view of the sunrise over the city. She would make a pot of coffee for her and Chat Noir. Maybe she'd even pick up breakfast at her parent's bakery and bring it home for them to share because they made the best pastries. Perhaps she'd do some yoga in the living room—there was certainly enough space—and after she could take a shower in one of the two pristine bathrooms before spending the day relaxing on the terrace.

Continue reading on ao3 or under the cut! ↓

Marinette's heart sunk as she remembered that she wouldn't be able to live those fantasies in that perfect apartment. It was gone; taken; occupied. Not theirs. A whimper of disappointment rose in her throat and slipped from her lips before she could suppress it.

(Marinette wouldn't admit it to Chat Noir, but she had cried on the way home. Just a little bit.)

"I'm so mad," she muttered to nobody in particular. "How could we be so—so stupid?"

"What do you mean?" Flitting over to rest on her shoulder, Tikki's tiny mouth turned downward, paw stroking the top of Marinette's head. Her indigo eyes softened at the sight of her Ladybug in distress.

Marinette turned on her back to stare at the ceiling. "The apartment. The one that was so perfect. We should have just taken it the moment we saw it. Now somebody else owns it and… and I'm still here!"

"Marinette, it's okay," Tikki told her. "You and Chat Noir will find another place just as special. And, if it doesn't seem special at first, you two can make it that way."

"You're sweet, Tikki."

"Besides," Tikki continued. "Wasn't that apartment over budget? I know you weren't happy with the idea of Chat Noir paying more per month than you."

Marinette hummed in thought, chewing on her bottom lip as she mulled over her reply. "You're right," she said. "I'd forgotten about that. I would have ended up feeling so guilty."

Even if Chat Noir insisted that he didn't mind paying more, Marinette did. She didn't want to live in a place where he fronted most of the money. She'd feel like a freeloader.

"It was farther away from your parents' house, too." With a stretch of her legs, Tikki curled up into a ball on Marinette's pillow and nestled into a more comfortable position. "I know it was beautiful, Marinette, but I think it was a good thing you didn't get that one. In the end, things would have been harder for you."

Tikki had a point. Although the apartment had seemingly been the best choice, perhaps, Marinette thought, she had been blinded by its appearance. The rent was horrendously expensive compared to her monthly earnings, and the distance between her work and back would have been difficult due to the fact that she was yet to own a car, and using Ladybug as a transportation method wasn't something she liked to do often.

Besides, she didn't want to rush into things. She and Chat still had a lot to figure out, and signing a lease on the first apartment they came across was a little risky. There would be others, and Marinette definitely wanted to have the opportunity to tour and look around them before they made a final decision. How she and Chat Noir would do that, she wasn't sure yet, but…

Well, they'd find a way. They always did.

"Thanks for the advice, Tikki," Marinette said, tickling under her companion's chin. Tikki giggled in response.

With a smile on her face that was much more relaxed than it had been an hour prior, Marinette sat up and stretched her arms high above her head. It was late; after she and Chat had discovered their apartment was occupied, patrol had resumed. It went on for a lot longer than Marinette had expected, but she blamed the bad news for her sluggish behavior. Now, it was nearing midnight, and she had an eight A.M. class in the morning.

(She wanted to be annoyed at Chat Noir for being so nice and fun to spend time with, but she couldn't find the will to be. He made her feel like she never wanted their patrols to end.)

She hauled herself out of bed with an apology to Tikki for stirring her. Changing into a pair of pajamas and speeding through her nightly routine of teeth brushing and face washing, Marinette slipped right back under her duvet just as the clock struck twelve, the comfort of her bed familiar and welcoming. As she nuzzled her face into her pillow, she sighed. Tomorrow was another day.

"I hope we find something that'll be nice to live in," Marinette said, thinking out loud.

Tikki lifted her head from Marinette's pillow and smiled encouragingly. "Wasn't there a smaller apartment? I remember there being another that was your second choice."

With an intense yawn that made the corners of Marinette's eyes prick with tears, she nodded in recollection, eyes widening and heart skipping a beat from excitement. "Right!" she exclaimed. "I'd forgotten about that, Tikki. It was small, but… nice. There was definitely enough room for the both of us if we squeezed. Only one bathroom, though…"

"You can take turns," Tikki offered.

"The kitchen was super tiny," Marinette continued. "But that's okay because Chat's told me before that he has no idea how to cook, so I'll really be the only one using it on a daily basis. It didn't have a washer or dryer, but I think there's a laundromat around the corner…"

Tikki's voice became quieter as she began to drift off to sleep. "That's good, Marinette."

"...it did seem really cozy. Comfortable, almost."

"So you like it?"

After a moment of deliberation, Marinette nodded. "Yeah," she said, fluffing up one of her pillows and turning onto her side, head resting on her forearm. "Yeah. It's only twelve minutes away, too, and in a nice part of town right next to a park. I could take walks there. It's close to my work, too, and rent would be cheaper." A grin split her face as she closed her eyes, images of a small apartment adorned by homey decorations and warm lighting filling her head. "I'm sure it'll be just fine."

Tikki mumbled a sleepy reply, but Marinette didn't quite catch it. She was too busy fidgeting with excitement, because tomorrow—tomorrow, she would tell Chat Noir about the other apartment, and they'd make it theirs if he was willing.

Theirs. The word echoed in her head over and over again.

They would own their own place. A home where she could live with the one person she trusted more than anyone else in the world. They could stay up late watching movies on weekends, eat ice cream straight from the tub, or play their favorite video games together. They could even build blanket forts or- or make dinner together as best friends. Heck, they could even sit in their pajamas all day without a care in the world. It would be like a never-ending sleepover with Chat Noir.

Part of Marinette was nervous about being around him nearly twenty-four-seven when they didn't know each other's identities, but she urged herself not to worry so much. She trusted Chat Noir, after all, and he'd never purposefully infringe on her privacy. Things would be okay. They were close friends; everything would work out just fine.

As she felt herself slipping into peaceful dreams, Marinette was positively beaming.

It was a rough day.

Nearly missing her first class that morning because her alarm hadn't gone off, Marinette had sat through her classes unable to focus due to thoughts of her and Chat Noir's apartment on the mind. She'd completely blanked during a quiz, found her stomach rumbling loudly during a lecture because she'd forgotten to eat, and had accidentally left her notes on the history of fashion at home when they were absolutely necessary for the day's assignment.

It was safe to say her morning had started out unpleasant, but she was determined not to let it get to her. Thoughts of meeting up with her partner later that night to tell him about her findings urged her to keep moving through the day with her head held high.

Marinette gave a brief glance at her phone to check the time as she walked down the street. It was one in the afternoon, past the usual time she ate lunch. With the added hunger from a breakfast forgotten, her stomach was growling up a hungry storm, and she couldn't wait to step inside the downstairs of the bakery to get a whiff of fresh bread and make some food for herself before she had to rush off to work.

The air was starting to get warmer. Marinette relished in the ability to wear skirts again after such a cold winter, and she was thankful the chilly weather had subsided for the season. Smiling up at the sunshine, she took in a long, deep breath and sighed, enjoying the way the rays of light warmed her skin. It was a beautiful day, really—the clouds were so puffy and white that Marinette wanted to transform just to get closer to them. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could even touch one.

The sky was so blue today. So blue and bright and dotted with white clouds. One in particular caught her eye and she grinned up at it, thinking it looked exactly like a ca—

"Woah!"

Stumbling into a broad chest, Marinette's arms flailed and her legs wobbled before she fell back towards the sidewalk. Blurs of light from staring at the sky filled her vision, and as an arm connected with the small of her back, she was left feeling weightless and dazed.

Had she tripped over something…?

"You might want to watch where you're going," a cheerful voice laughed, obvious mirth in the stranger's tone. "You're going to hurt yourself like that, Marinette."

Blinking to rid the circles from her gaze, Marinette swiveled her head up to stare at the figure as he brought her to her feet. It took her a moment to come to terms with where she was and who she was talking to, and as her eyes adjusted to the sight of tall, blond and handsome, her heart practically leaped out of her chest.

It was Adrien. Adrien Agreste; the boy she hadn't seen since Christmas and hadn't spoken to since their slightly-drunken conversation by the punch bowl.

"Adrien?" she asked, unable to suppress the surprise in her voice. Oh, god, she probably looked like the same old maladroit girl she was back in collége and lycée, staring at the sky and bumping right into him without a shred of awareness. Her cheeks reddened just from the sheer embarrassment of the situation.

Adrien beamed at her, his smile as bright as the sun that had temporarily blinded her. "Hey, Marinette. Long time no see, huh?"

His hand was still on her bicep. The contact felt nicer than she'd liked to admit.

(The small, touch-starved part of her didn't want him to ever let go.)

After a moment of staring Marinette figured it would be polite of her to answer, so she offered her hand in a wave. "Adrien! H-hi- hey! It's been forever! What are…" Oh god, she thought, his eyes are even greener than I remember. "...what are you doing on this side of town?"

It was odd for Adrien to be so close to the bakery. He was usually in different parts of the city during the day, sometimes even out of it completely for his modeling—that's what Nino said, anyways—so… what was he doing here?

Adrien went to play with the hairs on the nape of his neck. It was a tell-tale old habit of his that Marinette had picked up on years ago. "Ah, well," he said with a high-pitched laugh. "I was actually on my way to see you. You see, I have a silly favor to ask."

Marinette blinked. "A favor?"

What kind of favor would Adrien possibly need from her? They hadn't even spoken in five months. The only way she'd kept up with what he was doing was through Nino!

Somewhere deep inside of her, Marinette wanted to be annoyed that he just turned up out of nowhere to ask her for something, but he was just too damn cute to turn away. Besides, Adrien was the sweetest person she'd ever met in her life, and he'd never asked her for a favor before. If he was coming to her after they hadn't spoken in what felt like forever, well, it had to be something important, right?

Adrien opened his mouth to speak but promptly closed it as Marinette's stomach let out a plea for food. The sound had her blush deepening to a crimson, and she self-consciously placed a hand on her belly. It didn't seem to phase Adrien, though—he simply smiled and pointed a thumb towards the bakery doors. "You want to go inside?"

Marinette hadn't even noticed she'd made it home. With a nod, she led him around to the back door that led up to the apartment rather than taking him through the front. "Let's go this way. My parents would probably attack you with love and free pastries if they saw you."

Adrien laughed, and it was a gorgeous sound. "Is that such a bad thing?"

"Yes." Fishing her keys out of her pocket and unlocking the door, Marinette threw him a smile over her shoulder. "They'd fatten you up until you're rolling out the door and down the street. Too much of a good thing, you know?" The door opened, and Marinette found herself feeling light on her feet as Adrien held it for her. He was still such a gentleman after all the years they had known each other.

"Aw, there's no harm in that," Adrien countered, shutting the door behind him and following her up the stairs. "I could stand to gain a little pastry weight."

Your dad would kill you though, she thought bitterly. Just for that, she'd take out some cookies for him to eat upstairs. Maybe shove some in a bag for him to slip home for later.

"I'll sneak you some," Marinette said with a grin. "On the house."

Adrien touched a hand to his chest as they made it upstairs, his lips twitching into a grin. "How sweet."

Marinette paused in the middle of the doorway to look over her shoulder with a cocked brow. "Adrien, was that a pun?"

Adrien merely smirked, a chuckle causing his voice to waver as he said, "Maybe."

Marinette gave a playful roll of her eyes in response.

Things were quiet as she made her lunch. Adrien sat on the couch with one of his legs propped over the other, leisurely fiddling with his phone while Marinette did what she needed. She only had an hour before she had to leave for work, and she was thankful she could at least spend time with an old friend while she ate. Usually, she sat alone upstairs while her parents worked down below, passing the time by watching YouTube videos or chatting with Tikki. Adrien visiting was a nice way to mix things up—even if it was a tad awkward.

"So…" Marinette said as she sat next to him on the couch, a little farther away than what she would normally consider a friendly distance. "You had a favor to ask?"

Adrien looked up from his phone and pocketed it, hand retreating to the back of his neck as his eyes averted her own. It was like a switch had been flicked—he'd gone from relaxing on her couch in one moment to an anxious teenager the next. Marinette crossed her legs and placed a hand on her elbow (a habit she'd never grown out of), cocking her head to the side as she watched her friend mull over something that was obviously eating at him. It was like he was afraid to say whatever was on his mind; as if she would get upset at him or something like that.

"Adrien?" she asked after a silence that had been a little too long to be comfortable. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, but it was an obvious lie by the way his voice cracked. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I'm okay. I'm sorry, I just realized how rude of me it is to pop back into your life after not speaking to you for a while only to ask something from you. I didn't even think about that until now." His shoulders wilted and he looked positively deflated as Marinette gazed over him.

The sight caused her to want to reach out to him, and her fingers twitched from anticipated contact, but she refrained. He was right—it was a tad rude of him to do so, especially after they hadn't seen each other in months, but it was clear that hadn't been his intention. He was in need of something; whatever it was, Marinette wanted to help him. So what if it had been five months? They were still friends whether or not they were close anymore. She'd be willing to do anything for him so long as it was within reason.

Shaking her head, Marinette laid her hands on her lap to keep them from touching him. "Nonsense," she said. "It's okay, Adrien. It's nice to see you again and I don't mind giving you help if you need it. What is it?"

He was quiet. His eyes flickered to meet hers for a fleeting moment before they glanced away again, and he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his white hoodie in a motion that seemed self-conscious. Resting both feet on the floor, Adrien murmured, "I kind of messed up, and said something I shouldn't have, and now I'm in trouble."

Marinette's eyes widened and her voice caught in her throat. "Wh-what? Trouble?"

Adrien shook his head. "No, that's not right. I'm sorry, I worded that wrong." Leaning forward, he clasped his hands together and tapped his thumbs against themselves, thinking. "So, I'm moving out in a few weeks, right? And I go to tell my dad about it last night. The only problem is I'm moving out with someone I can't let him know about, so I sort of told him I was living with a friend of mine that he knows and likes. Which is good and all, because he believed it, but… Now he wants to meet her. But he can't do that because… Well." He squinted in thought, eyes pausing on her own. "Well, she has her reasons."

All Marinette could offer him was a confused stare. What on Earth was he talking about?

Seeming to catch on to her perplexity, Adrien sighed. "To put it simply, I'm moving out with a person my dad can't meet. So… I need someone to help me convince him I'm moving in with someone he can trust."

A bubble of anxiety began to stir within Marinette's chest. She was beginning to get a vague idea of where this was going and wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the whole idea just yet. "I'm sorry," she said, voice soft. "I don't want to sound rude, Adrien, but what does this have to do with me?"

Adrien visibly cringed. "About that," he said, shoulders hunching. "I… I panicked. I panicked and spat out the first name that came to my mind when my father asked who my roommate was going to be, and I…" As if to hide his face, he buried his face in his hands and groaned. "I said I was moving in with you. But I'm obviously not, so I-"

Marinette's eyes widened to the size of a dinner plate. "With me?" She felt speechless. While flattered she was the first person he thought of, her tongue fumbled to form words and her mind was reeling with the thought of how ironic this whole situation was. Adrien was moving out with someone his father couldn't meet, and she was doing the exact same thing—moving in with her partner whose identity had to remain a secret. It certainly made the whole "meeting the parents" thing difficult. Living with Chat Noir was something she'd been looking forward to, but she hadn't exactly thought out how she'd allow her parents to meet her roommate (if they would at all.)

"I know, I'm sorry," Adrien said, deflated. "I really screwed up and I understand if you're mad at me. I'm really sorry for coming over here, actually." Sitting up, Adrien combed his fingers through his hair and shot a quick glance at the door—a sign Marinette could interpret as his desire to leave. "It was so stupid of me to turn up here to ask this of you, and I'm really realizing that the more I talk about this. Fuck, Mari, I'm sorry-"

Marinette had missed that nickname.

As Adrien rambled on about how sorry he was, Marinette contemplated the idea. It wasn't a bad one, per se, just something she hadn't expected. She wasn't sure who the girl Adrien was moving out with was or why she needed to be kept a secret from his dad, but that wasn't any of her business. Truthfully, if she played along with Adrien's plan, it might end up working out in her favor as well. Surely if she pretended to be Adrien's roommate for the sake of his father, he could do the same for her?

"Adrien," she said, scooting closer to lay a hand on his arm. "Relax. It's not a big deal."

Adrien's viridian eyes sparkled with relief. "It's not?"

"No," Marinette laughed. It was kind of silly, actually. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It is a little crappy that you just sprung this on me out of nowhere, but I don't mind helping you out. Actually, I'm kind of in a similar situation. I'm also moving out soon."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," Adrien winced. But at the mention of her moving out, he perked up and asked, "Wait… Really? You excited?"

Marinette nodded. "Mhm." She crossed her legs and leaned back into the cushions of her couch, eyes resting comfortably on the ceiling. "Believe it or not, the person I'm moving out with is someone I have to keep secret from my parents, too. Not because they'd get mad or anything, but… Well, he has his reasons."

Adrien laughed as she tossed him a wink.

"Anyways," she continued. "I can't stand liars or being one myself, but I'll make you a deal: I'll convince your dad that I'm the person you're moving out with if you pretend to be the person that I'm moving out with. So then there'll be no questions and both our parents will think we're living together when we're really not. Sound good?"

Adrien merely nodded, taken aback by her response.

While the thought of lying to her parents (or anyone, really) was absolutely grating, Marinette knew she didn't really have much of a choice when her identity was at stake. Revealing herself to her parents was against the rules and incredibly dangerous; it wasn't worth getting upset over a little white lie when putting her parents jeopardy was far worse of an outcome.

"So?" Marinette held out a hand, pink-painted nails contrasting against Adrien's tanned skin. "We have a deal?"

"Yes!" Adrien exclaimed, his voice high-pitched and eyes bright. He grasped her hand firmly and gave it a shake so forceful that Marinette's whole arm was taken into the movement. "Yes, oh my goodness, thank you so much, Marinette. I promise I'll pay you back somehow. Y-you want to go to lunch or have me cover your rent for a month or something?"

"There's no need for that," Marinette said, lips curling upward into a smile. "You're already paying me back by telling a lie for me."

Adrien's grin reached his eyes, and the dimples on his cheeks became prominent as he teased, "Now there's a thought. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, telling a lie?"

Her expression flattened at his joke and she wanted to look displeased, but she couldn't find it within herself to suppress the grin that stretched across her face. "Keep making cracks like that, Agreste, and the deal's off."

"You'd do that to me?" he asked in mock offense. "But we're friends, Marinette. That hurts."

"Yeah, yeah." Marinette waved him off with a giggle—that was probably full of a little too much delight—and stood from her spot on the couch to sit at the dinner table, where her lunch sat on a plate. "So, when am I convincing your dad that I'm your new roommate?"

Adrien joined her at the table, sitting backwards on one of the chairs. "Not sure just yet. I'll probably have Nathalie set up a night where we can have dinner and allow you guys to get acquainted. It might not be for a while yet, but I'll try to get him to free up some time soon. I'm trying to get out as quickly as I can."

"In a big hurry?" Marinette asked. She took a bite of her food and her mood was immediately improved just from the taste alone; she hadn't realized how hungry she was until now.

"Sort of."

She swallowed her food before asking, "Why's that?"

Adrien offered a shrug, his expression hardening. "Ol' Père isn't any more fun to live with than he was when I was a kid. Guess I'm just so excited to finally have my own place with someone I love rather than spend my days alone at the manor."

With someone he- he loves?

That thought took Marinette by surprise. Though, she supposed it shouldn't have. Adrien was twenty, devilishly handsome with the soul of an angel—it was no shocker that he was in a relationship. She wanted to be jealous and a small part of her was, but she had to remind herself that she had no reason to be. Adrien deserved someone who made him happy. She would find someone someday who made her happy, too.

"It's nice that you're moving in with someone you care about," Marinette said, resting her sandwich back on the plate. "I'm excited that I finally get to move out too. Even though I've always loved living with my parents, they're so nosey! It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I'm getting my own place, especially with someone I trust more than anybody. It's a nice feeling, knowing you can live with somebody and not worry. A safe feeling."

Adrien nodded, voice breathy. "Yeah, I know what you mean. The girl I'm moving in with, she's like… My everything. And I'm so happy we're going to share a place together. It's all I've ever wanted, really." His cheeks heated to a light shade of red, and the corners of his eyes crinkled from how wide his smile grew. He was so happy, so excited; the joy to be living with someone he loved was clear on his face.

Marinette felt the joy radiating from him. It made her smile stretch across her face. All his life Adrien had done things for others without question, and now he was finally doing something for himself. His girlfriend—at least, that's who Marinette assumed she was—sounded like she made his life a wonderful experience, and he appeared absolutely radiant in that moment. Marinette's heart warmed at the thought of how much happier Adrien must be.

While she was a little sad they hadn't kept up with each other, she was glad they were getting to talk and catch up now. It was so nice just to hear his voice again.

"I'm glad you and your girlfriend get to have a place together," Marinette said sweetly. "It must be such a great feeling to be able to look forward to waking up next to the person you love every day. I'm so happy for you, Adrien."

Adrien let out a soft laugh. "Oh," he said, gaze lowering to the table as his cheeks became crimson. "That's sweet of you, Marinette, but we're not dating. Just really good friends. Thank you though."

"Oh!" Marinette blinked in surprise. Huh, funny… With the way he talked about her, it was like they'd been in love for years. Unless…

"Ohhhh," she said slyly, the truth dawning on her. "You like her, though."

The tips of his ears darkening, Adrien tried to scoff but whatever noise came out sounded weak and unconvincing. "Wha- no! No, I don't… I meant love as in, like, friendship-"

She gave him a flat stare, and Adrien submitted.

"Okay, okay, you got me," he sighed, holding his hands up in defeat. "But she doesn't know and I don't think I'll ever work up the guts to tell her."

"Why not?" With how dopey his smile got whenever he mentioned her, Marinette was sure there was no way in hell he would be able to keep that information private for long.

Clicking his teeth, Adrien shrugged, offering nothing more than a shake of his head.

"Adrien…" Marinette rested her cheek on her palm, smile knowing. Oh man, she didn't even need an answer. She could clearly remember how tongue-tied she used to get around him back in lycée when she was head-over-heels for his kind soul. "If you really love her, you gotta tell her."

Well, now you're just being a hypocrite, she thought to herself. Here she was giving Adrien advice she had never followed herself. For a brief second she wondered what things would have been like if she had confessed, but there was no use dwelling on the what-ifs. She didn't like him like that anymore, and that was okay.

Adrien gave another shake of his head. "Mm, I would, but… She doesn't like me that way."

"No?" Marinette asked. "How can you tell?"

"Well, we joke a lot," Adrien said. "I'm pretty sure I've dug myself a hole of 'flirting so much she thinks I'm joking' so deep that it's impossible for me to climb out of it at this point."

"You? Flirting?" Marinette laughed at the thought. She didn't think she'd ever seen Adrien flirt a day in her life. "I don't think I believe you, Adrien."

Adrien raised a brow with a quirk of the corner of his lips. "Well you see, Marinette, I'm very different around her. She knows me like nobody else."

Marinette could say the same for herself about Chat Noir. While she didn't love him romantically, she did love him as a best friend, and the way she acted around him was unlike the way she acted around anyone else. She was excited to live in the same space as him and to share her life with him—the most she could behind a mask, anyways.

"I understand that," Marinette said. "I'm like that with the guy I'm going to be living with. It's nice to have someone you can completely be yourself around."

Nodding, Adrien gazed at her with a warm smile on his face, and Marinette was about to offer to get him the pastries she'd promised when his phone buzzed.

"Shoot," he said as he read over whatever text was sent his way. "I'm sorry Mari, but I've gotta run. Got to meet a photographer in thirty minutes. I'll give you a call when I can get my dad to come for a dinner, though."

As he stood from his seat, Marinette nodded, standing with him. "Sounds good. You still have my number?"

With a quick flip through his contacts, Adrien held his phone up for her to see. "Yep. What nights are you usually free?"

"I always have Fridays off," she said. "Except for late Friday nights, because I usually meet Ch-" She clapped a hand to her mouth. Fuck, don't tell him you meet Chat Noir for patrols, stupid! "...meet up with a friend to hang out."

If Adrien noticed her slip-up, he didn't mention it. "Alright. I'll schedule it for one of the upcoming Fridays then." His phone buzzed once more and he glared down at it before shoving it in his pocket. "I'll see you around?"

"Definitely. Keep in touch, okay? I-" Marinette's face softened as she glanced away, pink dusting the edges of her cheeks. "I've missed you."

There was a pause. Adrien turned, irides glowing like a ray of sunshine and dimples showing as his grin grew three times its previous size. He stood still for a moment, and Marinette was sure he was going to return the sentiment before walking out, but instead he reached out and-

-and he hugged her.

He hugged her and it felt so nice that Marinette wanted to bury herself within his warmth. With his arms around her back and his body leaning forward because he was nearly a foot taller than her at this point, she swore that she'd never felt so light in her life. Clouds—she was on clouds. He smelled like heaven and she was on clouds.

(She wasn't sure why she was feeling so weird just from being hugged by him. Weird in a good way, but still weird.

She didn't like him like that anymore. She'd stopped ages ago when they drifted apart…

She didn't. She didn't, she didn't, she…

Oh, who was she kidding.)

As Adrien pulled away from the hug, he flashed her one of his smiles that she had grown to love so much over the years and patted her shoulder, his large hand encompassing it completely. Marinette's legs felt like jello.

"I'll text you, okay?" he said, turning the knob on the door. "I promise I'll do better at keeping in contact this time. We're going to need to if we're both helping each other out in this sticky situation."

Marinette nodded, letting out a faint, "Yeah."

"It was good to see you again, Mari." With a final squeeze of her hand, Adrien turned and walked out the door, calling over his shoulder, "I'll see you later!"

"Yeah," Marinette breathed. Her feet were glued to the floor.

Yeah.

When she watched him walk down the street from the upstairs window, she kicked herself for forgetting to give him the pastries she'd promised.

Marinette went to work that night feeling weightless and distracted. She had picked up a shift from her coworker at the local fabric shop she'd come to adore over the years, and was thankful it wasn't a long one—only five hours—so she could immediately transform the moment she clocked out.

She wasn't feeling like herself. Growing up with ADHD made her used to dealing with constant distraction, and by now she wasn't phased by the inability to focus at times, but this… This was different. This was very, very different.

She sorted fabric at a slow pace, hummed to herself as she cleaned the bathrooms (forgetting where she was in the middle of the task), and even managed to snag herself when she was cutting a strip of wool for a customer. She didn't notice the pain, though, and the blood that dripped from her fingertips was lazily cleaned ten minutes after the initial incision.

Her boss asked if everything was alright, and Marinette wasn't sure what to say. She didn't even know the answer to that question herself.

Alya had always told her that she fell in love too easily.

She had never expected herself to fall back in love just as quickly, though.

#ladynoir #adrinette #adrienette #ml fic #miraculous ladybug #my writing #my writings #miraculous #a simple suggestion #asimp #text post

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Online Cheating Charges Upend Dartmouth Medical School HANOVER, N.H. — Sirey Zhang, a first-year student at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, was on spring break in March when he received an email from administrators accusing him of cheating. Dartmouth had reviewed Mr. Zhang’s online activity on Canvas, its learning management system, during three remote exams, the email said. The data indicated that he had looked up course material related to one question during each test, honor code violations that could lead to expulsion, the email said. Mr. Zhang, 22, said he had not cheated. But when the school’s student affairs office suggested he would have a better outcome if he expressed remorse and pleaded guilty, he said he felt he had little choice but to agree. Now he faces suspension and a misconduct mark on his academic record that could derail his dream of becoming a pediatrician. “What has happened to me in the last month, despite not cheating, has resulted in one of the most terrifying, isolating experiences of my life,” said Mr. Zhang, who has filed an appeal. He is one of 17 medical students whom Dartmouth recently accused of cheating on remote tests while in-person exams were shut down because of the coronavirus. The allegations have prompted an on-campus protest, letters of concern to school administrators from more than two dozen faculty members and complaints of unfair treatment from the student government, turning the pastoral Ivy League campus into a national battleground over escalating school surveillance during the pandemic. At the heart of the accusations is Dartmouth’s use of the Canvas system to retroactively track student activity during remote exams without their knowledge. In the process, the medical school may have overstepped by using certain online activity data to try to pinpoint cheating, leading to some erroneous accusations, according to independent technology experts, a review of the software code and school documents obtained by The New York Times. Dartmouth’s drive to root out cheating provides a sobering case study of how the coronavirus has accelerated colleges’ reliance on technology, normalizing student tracking in ways that are likely to endure after the pandemic. While universities have long used anti-plagiarism software and other anti-cheating apps, the pandemic has pushed hundreds of schools that switched to remote learning to embrace more invasive tools. Over the last year, many have required students to download software that can take over their computers during remote exams or use webcams to monitor their eye movements for possibly suspicious activity, even as technology experts have warned that such tools can be invasive, insecure, unfair and inaccurate. Some universities are now facing a backlash over the technology. A few, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recently said they would cease using the exam-monitoring tools. “These kinds of technical solutions to academic misconduct seem like a magic bullet,” said Shaanan Cohney, a cybersecurity lecturer at the University of Melbourne who researches remote learning software. But “universities which lack some of the structure or the expertise to understand these issues on a deeper level end up running into really significant trouble.” At Dartmouth, the use of Canvas in the cheating investigation was unusual because the software was not designed as a forensic tool. Instead, professors post assignments on it and students submit their homework through it. That has raised questions about Dartmouth’s methodology. While some students may have cheated, technology experts said, it would be difficult for a disciplinary committee to distinguish cheating from noncheating based on the data snapshots that Dartmouth provided to accused students. And in an analysis of the Canvas software code, The Times found instances in which the system automatically generated activity data even when no one was using a device. “If other schools follow the precedent that Dartmouth is setting here, any student can be accused based on the flimsiest technical evidence,” said Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, who analyzed Dartmouth’s methodology. Seven of the 17 accused students have had their cases dismissed. In at least one of those cases, administrators said, “automated Canvas processes are likely to have created the data that was seen rather than deliberate activity by the user,” according to a school email that students made public. The 10 others have been expelled, suspended or received course failures and unprofessional-conduct marks on their records that could curtail their medical careers. Nine pleaded guilty, including Mr. Zhang, according to school documents; some have filed appeals. Some accused students said Dartmouth had hamstrung their ability to defend themselves. They said they had less than 48 hours to respond to the charges, were not provided complete data logs for the exams, were advised to plead guilty though they denied cheating or were given just two minutes to make their case in online hearings, according to six of the students and a review of documents. Five of the students declined to be named for fear of reprisals by Dartmouth. Duane A. Compton, the dean of the Geisel School, said in an interview that its methods for identifying possible cheating cases were fair and valid. Administrators investigated carefully, he said, and provided accused students with all the data on which the cheating charges were based. He denied that the student affairs office had advised those who said they had not cheated to plead guilty. Dr. Compton acknowledged that the investigation had caused distress on campus. But he said Geisel, founded in 1797 and one of the nation’s oldest medical schools, was obligated to hold its students accountable. “We take academic integrity very seriously,” he said. “We wouldn’t want people to be able to be eligible for a medical license without really having the appropriate training.” Updated May 8, 2021, 5:12 p.m. ET Instructure, the company that owns Canvas, did not return requests for comment. A Hunt Begins In January, a faculty member reported possible cheating during remote exams, Dr. Compton said. Geisel opened an investigation. To hinder online cheating, Geisel requires students to turn on ExamSoft — a separate tool that prevents them from looking up study materials during tests — on the laptop or tablet on which they take exams. The school also requires students to keep a backup device nearby. The faculty member’s report made administrators concerned that some students may have used their backup device to look at course material on Canvas while taking tests on their primary device. Geisel’s Committee on Student Performance and Conduct, a faculty group with student members that investigates academic integrity cases, then asked the school’s technology staff to audit Canvas activity during 18 remote exams that all first- and second-year students had taken during the academic year. The review looked at more than 3,000 exams since last fall. The tech staff then developed a system to recognize online activity patterns that might signal cheating, said Sean McNamara, Dartmouth’s senior director of information security. The pattern typically showed activity on a Canvas course home page — on, say, neurology — during an exam followed by activity on a Canvas study page, like a practice quiz, related to the test question. “You see that pattern of essentially a human reading the content and selecting where they’re going on the page,” Mr. McNamara said. “The data is very clear in describing that behavior.” The audit identified 38 potential cheating cases. But the committee quickly eliminated some of those because one professor had directed students to use Canvas, Dr. Compton said. In emails sent in mid-March, the committee told the 17 accused students that an analysis showed they had been active on relevant Canvas pages during one or more exams. The emails contained spreadsheets with the exam’s name, the test question number, time stamps and the names of Canvas pages that showed online activity. Questions Arise Almost immediately, questions emerged over whether the committee had mistaken automated activity on Canvas for human activity, based on a limited subset of exam data. Geisel students said they often had dozens of course pages open on Canvas, which they rarely logged out of. Those pages can automatically generate activity data even when no one is looking at them, according to The Times’s analysis and technology experts. School officials said that their analysis, which they hired a legal consulting firm to validate, discounted automated activity and that accused students had been given all necessary data in their cases. Class Disrupted Updated May 5, 2021 The latest on how the pandemic is reshaping education. But at least two students told the committee in March that the audit had misinterpreted automated Canvas activity as human cheating. The committee dismissed the charges against them. In another case, a professor notified the committee that the Canvas pages used as evidence contained no information related to the exam questions his student was accused of cheating on, according to an analysis submitted to the committee. The student has appealed. The committee has also not provided students with the wording of the exam questions they were accused of cheating on, complete Canvas activity logs for the exams, the amount of time spent on each Canvas page and data on whether the system flagged their page activity as automated or user-initiated, according to documents. Dartmouth declined to comment on the data issues, citing the appeals. Mr. Quintin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation compared Dartmouth’s methods to accusing someone of stealing a piece of fruit in a grocery store by presenting a snapshot of that person touching an orange, but not releasing video footage showing whether the person later put back the orange, bought it or pocketed it without paying. Dr. Compton said the committee’s dismissal of cases over time validated its methodology. “The fact that we had a large number of students and we were very deliberate about eliminating a large, large fraction or majority of those students from consideration,” he said, “I think actually makes the case well for us trying to be really careful about this.” Campus Tensions Tensions flared in early April when an anonymous student account on Instagram posted about the cheating charges. Soon after, Dartmouth issued a social media policy warning that students’ anonymous posts “may still be traced back” to them. Around the same time, Geisel administrators held a virtual forum and were barraged with questions about the investigation. The conduct review committee then issued decisions in 10 of the cases, telling several students that they would be expelled, suspending others and requiring some to retake courses or repeat a year of school at a cost of nearly $70,000. Many on campus were outraged. On April 21, dozens of students in white lab coats gathered in the rain in front of Dr. Compton’s office to protest. Some held signs that said “BELIEVE YOUR STUDENTS” and “DUE PROCESS FOR ALL” in indigo letters, which dissolved in the rain into blue splotches. Several students said they were now so afraid of being unfairly targeted in a data-mining dragnet that they had pushed the medical school to offer in-person exams with human proctors. Others said they had advised prospective medical students against coming to Dartmouth. “Some students have built their whole lives around medical school and now they’re being thrown out like they’re worthless,” said Meredith Ryan, a fourth-year medical student not connected to the investigation. That same day, more than two dozen members of Dartmouth’s faculty wrote a letter to Dr. Compton saying that the cheating inquiry had created “deep mistrust” on campus and that the school should “make amends with the students falsely accused.” In an email to students and faculty a week later, Dr. Compton apologized that Geisel’s handling of the cases had “added to the already high levels of stress and alienation” of the pandemic and said the school was working to improve its procedures. The medical school has already made one change that could reduce the risk of false cheating allegations. For remote exams, new guidelines said, students are now “expected to log out of Canvas on all devices prior to testing.” Mr. Zhang, the first-year student, said the investigation had shaken his faith in an institution he loves. He had decided to become a doctor, he said, to address disparities in health care access after he won a fellowship as a Dartmouth undergraduate to study medicine in Tanzania. Mr. Zhang said he felt compelled to speak publicly to help reform a process he found traumatizing. “I’m terrified,” he said. “But if me speaking up means that there’s at least one student in the future who doesn’t have to feel the way that I did, then it’s all worthwhile.” Source link Orbem News #Charges #Cheating #Dartmouth #medical #Online #school #upend

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