#scenes that inspired this whole monstrosity.

[apocalypticdemon]

for the wip title ask game:

'the droning engine'

oh boy, this is my super self-indulgent fic, lmao. I've been super into IndyCar my whole life, as is the rest of my family, so it's my IndyCar AU for the Terror (with a focus on fitzier as the narrative drive behind it).

It's kind of unwieldy and a bigger project than I thought it would be, so it's still very much in the works/in the planning stages while i draft prose as it comes to me, but I've been poking at it in my free time. The basic premise is Crozier is an older driver, signed to team Terror, a smaller team, but one that generally is in good standing. He's got a really odd rivalry with Fitzjames, and this comes to a head at the start of the work, when the Terror management signs James on as a driver. Basically, the plot is going to stretch over the entirety of an IndyCar season, and I'm going to try to hit major plot beats from the show in this story as the characters all vie for the championship for the season. Some stuff gets changed around, just to make things work, but that's the general premise.

I have it planned for the final driver lineup for team Terror to be Crozier, Fitzjames, Silna, and I think Little, but that's still in flux. Hickey was on the team, but gets let go after publicly starting a fight with Silna and suffering the consequences, lol. He continues to scheme in the background as the season continues to unfold, because a different team snaps him up pretty quickly. Is it conventional for how drivers are passed around and contracts are signed? no, probably not, but I do what I want, lol.

I have plans for general plot beats, how I want to draw narrative similarities for things like the no good, very bad wardroom dinner from the first episode, carnivale, and character deaths in the show without...... actually killing anybody, because I can't really have that.

I want the vibes for the fitzier part of the story to be the kind of "they would absolutely fuck several times before actually talking about their feelings" kind of dynamic, so I think that's the route I'm going to take and have their relationship really blossom towards the end of the season, but i'm also still planning out the specifics of that one. I really like the added tension of a secret relationship, given that they're on the same team and that motorsports doesn't necessarily have the most.... open-minded audience (it's very fun being an unpatriotic queer person at these events. i am....... very much in the minority there), so I want to play with that a bit, too. I thought I had a neat and tidy plan, but it rather started crumbling in my hands when i sat down to actually try to write it, so I think I'm going to be wrangling this one for a bit.

but i'm very excited to actually get to it someday! i know this write-up is very rambly and a bit unhinged, but i truly have so many thoughts about it that it's hard to organize into a coherent, short summary, lol. I have a lot of personal history tied up in this, too, so it's hard not to just go on cool tangents about the sport. this project has taken a back seat as my master's work ramps up, since it's just.... so much bigger than i thought it would be. but i really want to work on it over this winter break, creative juices willing.

and as thanks for reading........... all of this rambling, lol, here's a snippet from my draft of the "birdshit island"-cum-team-dinner scene:

Francis is at the end of his patience with the man, at this point in the day, and snaps. “Why don’t you tell us all about that crash in Monterey, James? That one was rather spectacular, if I remember right.” Fitzjames sours immediately, frowning and gritting his teeth. Francis has exactly a half a second of deep satisfaction at the expression before Blanky viciously kicks him in the shins under the table. Francis winces and glares at him, leaning down to rub at the spot. It had hurt, damn it. That prosthetic leg wasn’t soft by any stretch of the imagination.

[krokodilsredimudil]

the Poltergeist trilogy | Stranger things

It's super obvious how the first Poltergeist movie inspired Stranger Things, a girl gets lost in another dimension (kidnapped by ghosts, that is). Both the movie and the show were inspired by this episode of the Twilight Zone.

However, for some reason I've never watched the last two movies. So let's have a look at parallels.

Here I'm talking about some similar scenes, the new leak, Holly, Henry, trope subversion and some other things.

The main character Carol Anne is clairvoyant, as are her mother and grandmother. She senses ghosts and' knows things'. In the first movie she was kidnapped into 'the other side', her parents had to travel there to save her.

In the second movie her clairvoyance is shown more explicitly.

Carol Anne is drawing 'the Beast' (the main ghost-antagonist) however, she is not aware who that is at the moment

both scenes are referencing the one from Poltergeist. Henry's drawing scene does that as well

Also it's interesting that Holly is present in the scene with Max, because she looks like Carol Anne and she sensed Demogorgon (?) in s1 and the episode is literally called 'Holly Jolly'.

As for the newest leak with 'Henry' and 'Holly' (we still don't know anything about these characters so '')

This is the scene people are talking about:

This creepy looking dude is a ghost stuck between worlds, he's trying to get lots of souls and enter the afterlife. He seeks Carol Anne for that, she's like a beacon for the lost souls and her innocence can lead him ‘into the light’

His name is Henry Kane.

But that's like Henry Creel!!!! Evil Henry is collecting kids' souls, you'd probably say?

Not really. While the Duffers love their references, they also love their trope subversion.

Let's have a look at Damien Thorn (Omen) and Henry as seen in s4 flashbacks (from this post)

So back to the leak. 'Henry's wearing a hat and is talking to a blonde girl = that's enough for the audience to draw the similarities between the two scenes.

I believe it's another trope subversion by the brothers, in the video (which i can't link) 'Holly' is smiling?? Totally very creepy and uncomfortable, sure

As for the whole plot, of course love and family can beat the bad guy.

From the First Shadow animated teaser

Some other things I noticed in Poltergeist II:

There's a tunnel system underneath the house where the main characters lived in Poltergeist I.

The father of the family, Steven, threw up a slug which developed into this monstrosity.

As for Poltergeist III … It’s terrible, let’s not talk about it lol

Okay, I still have to

Kane this time can't enter the real world and travels through mirrors using reflections against the characters

Love wins of course

Something something how Will was saved because there were people who loved him and never gave up

[yonderghostshistories]

I’m gonna do my own lil tag game, this time…..it’s-

……MONTY PYTHON RELATED!

SPECIFICALLY,

How did you (yes, you, the mutual and/or other Tumblr user reading this) get into Monty Python?

To elaborate, what is your Monty Python Fan Origin Story? To further elaborate, how did you become aware of and become a fan of Monty Python? Tag 6 or more (or less, it’s absolutely fine either way!) of your mutuals!

I’ll start first. I first became (properly) aware of Monty Python when I was (and still am) in the Six Idiots/ThemThere Fandom (if you don’t know who the Six Idiots/ThemThere are, they’re a British Comedy Troupe consisting of the following 6 members; Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. They were first originally together in the children’s historical comedy sketch show “Horrible Histories” which ran from 2009 to 2014, and since then have went on to create, write and star in the following projects, such as the fantasy comedy “Yonderland”, the Shakespeare comedy film “Bill” (2015) and the supernatural family BBC sitcom “Ghosts”) and I saw a video compilation on YouTube comparing clips/scenes from various Six Idiots/ThemThere projects and their inspirations from clips/scenes from various Monty Python projects, which really cemented in my head (especially after becoming a Python fan) that the Six Idiots truly are the “Monty Python” of this generation, or at least the Six Idiots are like Gen Z Monty Python (imo that is).

Anyway, starting in 2023, when I was on holiday with my family to see my grandparents in India, I started watching the MP films (specifically Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979)) for the first time on my (barely working) laptop when both movies were freely available to watch in their entirety on YouTube (shocking, I know right?). And tbh, they were absolutely HILARIOUS! (Plus it was at this time that I had realised my first actual proper bisexual awakening when especially watching LoB, specifically the scenes where both Brian and Judith were naked, and thankfully my parents weren’t there to witness this absolute monstrosity (to them at least) and I have to say, thanks LoB :))👍🩷💜💙)

Then when I came back home to England, I watched The Meaning of Life (1983) (because pirating it on my nearly battered old laptop was really hard cuz it kept annoyingly pausing at random points in the movie) and so I asked either my mum or brother (I can’t remember exactly lol) to rent the movie MoL on Amazon Prime, and after watching it, I have to say, it was also pretty amazing! I think MoL is my personal favourite movie of the bunch tbh, cuz in a weird, surreally Pythonesque avante garde way, it was very emotional and cathartic (to me at least) and it felt fitting as a finale to Python as a whole (at least at the time).

After that, I became REALLY, like, REALLY into Python, I watched some of the sketches, some clips of the films, I bought some of the merchandise, I watched and bought DVDs of some of the Pythons’ other projects, etc.

My first Python crush was Terry Jones, but now my 2 absolute crushes are now firmly Graham Chapman AND Terry Jones, BUT….my 3-way Python crushes are; Graham Chapman, Terry Jones AND Michael Palin (tho I do love them all tbh as (as my mum says) im a diplomat lmao, so I do love Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam equally too, but for the latter 3 I’m not as attracted to them as the former 3, if that makes sense?). Also, I absolutely STAN Carol Cleveland, Connie Booth and Neil Innes, THEYRE THE BEST FR AHHHH

Plus being in the MP fandom has genuinely made my life better, as I met some of my most WONDERFUL and LOVELY and KIND mutuals of all time, especially my bestest of ALL online bestie friends, @commonguttersnipe !! (Love you Commie darling <33, and she also makes pretty great MP fanfics imo too :))🫶❤️)

Ok, so uhh…..that’s my Monty Python Fan Origin Story.

I now tag: @commonguttersnipe @thehistoryone @michael-palin-is-the-loml

@knoxoverstreet16 @chapmanzz @vilhjalmr

[lockdaisy]

How Resident Evil 4 Remake Makes it More Explicit that Leon’s Life SUCKS

While Resident Evil 4 Remake's new introduction insinuates it, supplemental material makes it explicitly clear that the ONLY reason Leon joined the government as a special agent after the events of RE2 was because they threatened to MURDER Sherry, a little girl, if he refused to work for them. In other words, Leon gave up his freedom for Sherry's safety. Actually, to put it even more bluntly, it means that the US government essentially enslaved Leon, who was already severely traumatized by the events of Raccoon City, and forced him to continuously re-traumatize himself over and over again by forcing him to undergo brutal training and throw himself into life-threatening missions where he endlessly has to fight against bioterrorist monstrosities

(I’ll add the rest under a read more to avoid cluttering the tag)

This fact adds a lot of tragic irony to the story and a lot of tragic elements to Leon's character as a whole. First, Leon, who the government enslaved into working for them by threatening a girl he viewed as his daughter figure, was assigned to rescue Ashley, the daughter of the president of the US government, and I can barely believe that the government had the temerity to give Leon that mission in light of his circumstances

Second, it makes the scene where Ashley, inspired by Leon, excitedly talks about her desire to become an agent "just like Leon" and go on missions "protecting the US from any and all threats" take a far more tragically ironic, painful turn since, unbeknownst to her, Leon very much did not willingly join the government, and she's talking about protecting the very government that enslaved her savior

Third, it really highlights Leon's inherent kindness. Although you could argue that Leon had no choice but to save Ashley, there was nothing that forced him to be kind to her. Even though Leon has all the reason in the world to hate her, since she's the daughter of one of the men who enslaved him, he nevertheless was nothing but kind, patient, and selfless to her, which emphasizes the intrinsic goodness of Leon's character

Fourth, it really makes RE4's ending a lot more bittersweet and Leon's character a lot more tragic. Considering the fact that Leon singlehandedly rescued the President's daughter, you'd think that that would've been enough for the government to grant Leon and Sherry their freedom, right? You'd think that President Graham, who must have known about Leon's circumstances and who is completely beholden to him for saving his daughter's life and preventing a huge bioterrorist catastrophe in the United States, would set Leon and Sherry free, right? Wrong. From what we saw in the other games and movies, Leon is still enslaved. In fact, in RE6, it was even made clear that they not only refused to grant Leon and Sherry their freedom, but that they didn't even allow Leon to watch Sherry, the girl he sacrificed his freedom for, grow up, and they put him and Sherry under the control of the legitimately monstrous Derek Simmons. So even though Leon sacrificed his freedom for Sherry, just because Simmons hated him due to the fact that he thought that he was “stealing” Ada from him, he was basically NEVER allowed to visit Sherry. And since RE6 made it clear that Leon became highly suicidal and that the only reason that he forced himself to stay alive was to protect Sherry, it really just makes Leon's life all the more tragic. He saved the President's daughter, he saved the world, again and again, but nobody will ever save him, and he will forever remain enslaved by the U.S. government

And... overall while I love the fact that they did imply it, since they never even did that much in the original RE4, I do wish that the game made it more explicitly clear that Leon was forced to work for the government against his will because 1) it adds a really fascinating element to Leon's character since he is the only member of the cast who was essentially enslaved in the fight against bioterrorism, 2) it would have really strengthened the parallels between Leon and Krauser since it would make it more clear that the US government screwed them both over in their own ways, and 3) it really explains Leon's grumpier, more cynical attitude in the game

I also think it's strange that Capcom goes back and forth between acknowledging and ignoring this part of Leon's character and lore, and I think it's kind of sad since it distorts the perception of Leon's character as a whole in the fandom. For example, in Infinite Darkness, it can basically be argued that the reason why Leon did what he did at the end was because he CAN’T go against the government's wishes without endangering Sherry's life. (And I’m not blaming Claire for being mad at him, either, since there’s a good chance that he kept the fact that they’re holding Sherry’s life over his head a secret from her in order to protect her from being targeted by the government). Instead, because Capcom doesn't really focus on his circumstances, it just makes it look like he's a government shill

It’s just... so tragic. Unlike Jill, Chris, and Claire, Leon literally had no choice in his career against bioterrorism. He didn’t become a special agent of his own volition; he was enslaved. And the only reason Claire didn’t end up in the exact same circumstances was because Leon, knowing that she still needed to find her brother Chris, encouraged her to go look for him, promising that it would be ok for her to do so since he would look after Sherry. And because of that, Claire left before she could get captured by the government like Leon and Sherry did, and so she got to have her freedom. And the only reason why Leon is still enslaved to this very day is because he cares about Sherry’s safety so much that he was willing to sacrifice his freedom for her. In other words, Leon ended up suffering because of his kindness. He was punished for being kind

And despite all that, even though his kindness directly contributes to his suffering, Leon still chooses to be kind and selfless anyway, and that’s just so... 

I love him

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  Capriciously_Terminal! @capriciouslyterminal has 106 fics on ao3 in the Stranger Things fandom and 105 of them are in the Steddie tag!

@mustardyellowlilac recommends the following works by Capriciously_Terminal:

Where the Sun Can't Reach

Spit Me out, You Don't Know Where I've Been

It's the Ritual of the Thing

Baby I'm Your Man (Don't Fear the Reaper)

It's as if she writes memories, rather than stories, and that makes them tangible and devastating -- @mustardyellowlilac

Below the cut, @capriciouslyterminal answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I started writing Steddie because the characters of Steve and Eddie have such specific and human voices that I literally couldn’t get them out of my head after watching the first drop of S4. (Also I’d just gotten a new puppy who didn’t love sleeping through the night so I had plenty of time to think). The more I wrote for them the deeper I found myself in their voices and thinking about what they could do and I had to keep going until I ran out of steam.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I love a good “Steddie interwoven into previous seasons’ canon events” story. Especially if an author makes it SO specific. I want Steve and Eddie in Starcourt. I want Eddie Munson popping up at the pumpkin patch. I want Eddie Munson in the background at Starcourt drooling. I want him to spend this whole time watching Steve’s character growth and finding it impossibly hot before getting twisted up in the horror.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

I definitely love adding Eddie Munson to canon (thinking about him and life-guard Steve Harrington is where this all began, afterall). However I think that I, as a person, am just as obsessed with The Horrors. As such adding monstrosity/new flavors of spooky to this show was my favorite thing to do.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I can narrow it down to two! My favorite piece of Steddie fic that changed my brain chemistry has got to be fastcardotmp3’s “that’s just wasteland, baby!” (https://archiveofourown.org/works/42351597) because the scene in the lake? The genuine wonderful take on in media res apocalypse living? Dot’s talent for characterization/love? I’ll never live it down. Actually, go read everything by fastcardotmp3. Do yourself a favor. The other has to be “every mistake was made purposefully” by birthdaycandles (https://archiveofourown.org/works/41795838/chapters/104862381). It turns out I’m a sucker for excellent narration and watching Steddie/plot shenanigans from Tommy Hagan’s prickly point of view. It gave me everything I’ve ever wanted.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I always wanted to write a When Harry Met Sally AU about Steve and Eddie meeting throughout their lives/development. I don’t know if I’ll ever pick it up again but it’s still there knocking at the back of my mind. I’ve also got like fifteen of the drabbles in i love you you dope with bits of continuation in my head too.

What is your writing process like?

In general, my writing is a very all or nothing process. It’s either going to go all day, through meals, and not stop until the idea is finished OR I’m going to be stalled completely. Generally, though, if I’m in my crazy inspired phase I’ll have an idea (specifically the beginning of something) and if that idea sticks in my head for more than a single day then I probably can’t leave it until it’s done. However, this did change with my writing i love you you dope. I decided to answer p0ck3tf0x's "100 Ways to Say I Love You" list one prompt at a time. Once a day. RIP. This led to a writing process which was more of a sit down after work and immediately write the first thing you could think of until it’s done kind of affair. I can’t recommend that style lol. It led to some pretty intense burnout by the end but I am proud of how many ideas came because of it. It showed that, through tenacity, most ideas could be something worth pursuing.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I can’t help but put first and second person pronouns in descriptions as if speaking to the reader and I’m a frequent and blatant tense shifter. It’s all over the place at times lol. I also LOVE a good stream of consciousness description, flitting from one image to another, which probably lead to these grammatical quirks and a shit ton of run-on sentences.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Before I started writing i love you you dope I very much preferred finishing my writing before I posted it. It took ages but nothing felt worse than having to leave something unfinished because I’d lost the plot (which has happened several times).  However, part of the draw of i love you you dope was that (as a challenge) I had to write and post daily. While I learned I can write on such a grueling schedule, I can safely say after finishing it that I prefer having the time to ensure something’s to my standards. Or, at least, until I’m tired of looking at it and just want other people to see it.

Which fic are you most proud of?

If we branch outside of my Steddie work it’s a fic for a little show called Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency that I think I’ll never top. A Road Song in Quartet that Smells like a Trio is basically my novel/brain-child about my favorite rowdy vampire boys and I have to shout it out everywhere I go. However, to stick to the Steddie, I had such a great time with characterization in writing It’s the Ritual of the Thing. Some of those descriptions are still some of my best work. Or, I’d have to say, Can We Both Be Lonely If We’re Both Looking at Each Other? It’s an AU modeled after the world of The Magnus Archives Podcast and not only was I proud of the way I was able to layer monstrosity on both Eddie and Steve but I just loved the world. I actually planned out a whole main plot for the world that never saw the light of day.

How did you get the idea for Baby I'm Your Man (Don't Fear the Reaper)?

I can’t remember which came first, the title or the idea of Eddie meeting Death as played by Steve Harrington, but the song title by Blue Öyster Cult had definitely been sitting in my head for a while. The idea initially started as a Seventh Seal reference with Eddie having to challenge Death with Steve Harrington’s face to a game of basketball but that scene wasn’t working so instead we got a trip through various S4 locales and a fun Death with good hair.

When writing Spit Me out, You Don't Know Where I've Been, what was something you didn’t expect?

I honestly didn’t know if anyone would vibe with the language/story. For a fic that focused a lot on unease, offal, and how hard it would be to picture a future in a small town I was waiting for people to not touch this one with a ten foot pole. So to hear that it actually channeled people’s feelings or that it was something that people enjoyed (as opposed to just me shouting stressful things at the sky) was a big expectation dodge.

What inspired It's the Ritual of the Thing?

When I was in high school I had a friend who asked me out once, the first person to ever do so, and my first instinctual response was to genuinely ask him why he was really calling me after school. He insisted that he really did want to ask me out and for some reason that made my blood run cold. The date did not go well, obviously, but I remembered the gut punch to think someone wouldn’t want you/the desire to say no just because it frightened you for years afterwards. It felt like such an Eddie thing to feel, especially if Steve Harrington was the one to ask him out. Honestly…I poured a lot of my own worldview into Eddie Munson as I wrote him and that’s where a lot of this came from.

What was your favorite part to write from Ritual of the Thing?

I’d have to say it’s a toss up between two parts. Firstly, I’ll never get over the descriptive imagery in the beginning (I’ll never forget lines like “Suddenly it’s like he’s a Jack-O-Lantern with his mouth carved open. A candle sits on his tongue and its light is shining out of his eyes”). It was the kind of sentence I was thrilled to read after I wrote it. Secondly, I was really proud of Eddie and Robin’s conversation after Steve told her about his asking Eddie out. I loved both of their voices in that moment and the thought of Robin trying to explain how much Steve could love you even after you’d had to let him down…and her little fake nightmare discussion.

How do/did you feel writing Where the Sun Can't Reach?

On one hand it felt like I was exorcizing something because I show my class The Sandlot once a year and that means for one day I watch the scene where the kid fakes drowning to make-out with the lifeguard four times. That’s too many times. I had to process that. But I do remember that feeling of loneliness that could come with summer. That could come with wishing for a room somewhere with someone you loved when it felt impossible. I remember when the smallest of things could mean the world when you had nothing else…so in a way maybe I was exorcizing that too.

What was the most difficult part of writing Where the Sun Can't Reach?

Besides the jokey answer of reliving the aforementioned scene from The Sandlot on purpose, I’d have to say trying to accurately consider the physics/feelings of Eddie’s trip into the water. The feelings/actual consequences of hitting his head. I’m not too sure I got the details right but I remember working on it so many times that I eventually threw in the towel and went with what I had.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I think…it’s gotta go to my lone vampire Steddie fic I Go Hungry Every Night. The whole thing’s one big treatise to Upside Down skinned vampires and food/service as a love language? And also the fact that I love vampires/monstrosity. I just went way too hard with the line: “If you asked Steve what the opposite of tracing constellations in someone’s freckles in the afterglow would be he’d say this, making shapes in the pieces of the wound they’ve given you. The one that weeps red slowly.”

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

While I wish I did, and I’m always thinking about various unfinished fics in the strangest moments of my life, I think I’m pretty knocked from my Steddie writing mojo. I love you you dope was an incredible process and I am so proud of it…but I think it cauterized my writing brain for Steddie. I’d love for people to poke around the fics I wrote and I will say that other people’s intrigue sometimes pulls my attention back to old ideas…but I do believe I’m a bit out to pasture here lol.

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Writing Steddie was something that kept me sane during a really stressful transition from college to adulthood. These characters and all the people I got to meet/talk with in this fandom have been one of the greatest joys in my life. I’m so honored, like honestly floored, that anyone would nominate me for something like this. The thing about writing fic is that oftentimes when you start it can feel like you can’t possibly amount to what other people do. Like you’re just a little voice that doesn’t have anything special about it even when you tried so hard. But I stand as someone who felt that way and still found that people did enjoy what I wrote and if I can do it, honestly, anyone can. <3

Thank you to our author, @capriciouslyterminal, and our nominator, @mustardyellowlilac! See more of Capriciously_Terminal's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[emotionalsupportaudino]

Spoilers for Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays

I can't stop thinking about the bride. The scene with the bride. Spoilers ahead.

These scenes written as scripts itched my brain in a lot of ways. There was something surreal about them, I couldn't figure out if they were telling the future or if they were on another world or if they were Misha trying to puzzle through what was wrong through scripts.

And when I realized what they were like three minutes ago, I realized it was fucking brilliant.

It was a script because it was an AI nanobot of Misha. He was literally moving on a script. Holy shit. Holy shit that was brilliant and such a clever way to explain what was happening without explaining what was happening, I can't believe I missed it at first.

But there is something so haunting about the bride, because she is a horror of, well, straightness. And I feel like there's so many layers to what she says to the guards at Misha's house:

"Lately I've been noticing something strange about the things I do. There's an inertia to it all. Like, I know what's going to happen before it happens, because it's already written."

There's a lot of ways to read that. The obvious: she's literally on a script. But I think, also, The Bride being the one to point that out really speaks to growing up socialized as a woman. So much of life feels plotted out for you, you're expected to start planning your wedding when you're barely old enough to write, kids are given dress up wedding gowns (I had one! It was from a my size barbie). There are so many expectations placed on women, and so many different ways that it feels like you're stuck on a track.

But I am a little haunted by the way I see the scene play out in my head. There's this vicious killing of two guards, this woman in a white short gown with lace sleeves, with a skintight white sequined mask all but glowing in the moonlight. And just utter silence as she lugs away her bodies and unmasks herself and vanishes into the night. This understanding that she maybe didn't necessarily want to do this, as a character. The understanding that, really, she has no wants as an AI monstrosity.

But I can't help but bring myself to have some pity for her. This woman in white who exists in the story for less than ten pages, massacres guards to leave characters I actually care about open for serious harm, and just... leaves, in near silence, passing the plot and moving on. (seriously though i did NOT enjoy when I realized, no, Tara was actually getting hurt I will fight people over Tara for the rest of my life I am love her.)

And I wonder what Misha was thinking when he wrote The Bride. I wonder if the inspiration for her, which had to have been his pressure to be straight, changed over his life. I wonder if being out would make him look back on her and think that it wasn't her fault, like how he told the Smoker it wasn't his fault. I wonder if he would develop more story for her, more reason for her to be the way she is, I wonder what the story for Wedding Night was. I'm imagining him going back and writing a prequel, like X and Pearl where The bride gets a story to be understood.

I am going to be spending so much time thinking about this specific one. Maybe it's because we get so much about Mrs. Why and The Smoker, but I am intrigued by the bride. She terrifies me. I see her moving in a way I can't explain, but I desperately want to.

Nine pages. There's a whole ass novel, but those nine pages. I'm fixated on them. It makes no damn sense.

... Compels me, though.

[pilot-nobody]

Director's commentary on "Hell is What you Make"!

So, that monstrosity started when miguelryan left a very nice comment on "Love and Loathing" which said that it was sad that Tessie wasn't around to see what her boys became.

And I said, you know what! She should see the whole tragedy that is the O'Reily brothers; that would be fun! Many months later and I finally got "Hell is What you Make" done!!!!!!

That said it went in a few directions that I wasn't expecting...

But first the title was inspired by the song "This Is Gonna Hurt" by Sixx:A.M. (there is a slower acoustic version that I really love and that is kinda perfect for Tessie, I just can't find it anymore....)

And originally the main ghost that I wanted Tessie to interact with was Dino Ortolani instead of Ricardo Alvarez. But Dino was too antagonistic and distracting (plus I didn't want to go into mafia politics) and I wanted Tessie fall collapse into herself by herself, not having some one "push" her to it, if that makes sense. And then I remembered Ricardo and he fit sooo much better.

Also he is a character that I felt semi-comfortable writing just because I figured that there was less for me to mess up....

And then Tessie just had soooooo much to say and do, much more then I had originally anticipated! Had to cut some things out because of it. Like I wanted a scene where Cloutier or Meehan tried to comfort her and basically she feeds him to the "cold hell". Again I just thought it was too violent for where she was currently at so...

And I have some thoughts on the whole epilogue and the Ricardo/Tessie situation like Tessie wanted to just kill EVERYONE and Ricardo wanted to spare Eduardo and Miguel. Dealers choice on if he succeeded or not. (also dealers choice and if Eduardo and Miguel are trapped with Ricardo a la Cyril style) But I see that as the one major contention between them And that Ricardo's territory is generally higher up closer to the sun and he lets pigeons hang out on the roof sometimes. And Tessie is very much in the bowels of Oz.

Another way that it could have ended was Tessie trying to make a new family with Ricardo and Cyril in the most unhinged way possible. But I think the ending I went with works better!

Ok, sorry for the rambling, hopefully this all makes sense!! :P

[mxmollusca]

for the "get to know your fic writer meme"! 4, 17, 46, 54! and if you have one that you REALLY want to answer but no one's asked it yet, this is your wild card to answer a question of your choosing 😌

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Whatever I'm currently learning about worms its way into my writing. An Arm and a Leg and The Sticking Place are rooted in my love of cephalopods, and my philosophical interest in body neutrality and self-love through self-discovery. In Favor With Their Stars and The Ship of Theseus stem from my interests in AI, space exploration, engineering, humanism, bodies, neurodiversity, and personhood. Wave Hello to the Void is an ode to monstrosity, gender, the interrelationship between hyperfixation and passion, interconnectedness, and physics. A lot of my stories are seeded by poetry I read. I get a lot of inspiration from images, metaphor, and turns of phrase that make me reconsider how I view the world. I love the ways in which Rae Armantrout, Jane Wong, Maggie Nelson, and Robert Wood Lynn have made me reconsider my POV in particular.

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult?

Body doubling and rubbering ducking with my betas. Most of my problems with writing come from being slow and struggling to initiate the task. With a buddy writing at the same time (Discord sprinties ftw), I am able to at least get something on the page, and having the cheerleader there to give some immediate feedback will usually be enough reinforcement to unstick me. Same works for my original writing, which is why I find having a writing group to be indispensable.

46. How would you describe your style?

Lyrical? Maybe a bit self-indulgent. I'll get a turn of phrase stuck in my head and sometimes I'll write a whole scene just so I can use it. But that's one of the great things about fanfiction---at the end of the day, I'm writing it for myself. I am going to write it in the way that feels best to me, and sometimes that way is floridly.

54. What's your favorite part of the fanfiction writing process?

I love the editing process. I love getting feedback and implementing it. I love seeing something from another perspective, making tweaks, and seeing the quality improve. I also love it when my betas yell at me in the comments. A well-timed 🔥 emoji does so much for my motivation.

get to know your fic writer challenge

[lunarsilkscreen]

The complexity of "The Incredibles"

Buddy Pine looked up to Mr. incredible as a father figure, and instead of teaching this kid exactly how to help people the right way; as he was inspired to do. He stated outright that the burgeoning Eminem was an inferior person not capable of helping anybody and should just go away.

Bob Par treated him like the poor little red headed step-child he saw him as.

Exactly how to help people, what counts as helping people, and what is the right way in which to help others is the *key theme* to this movie. And while working at his soul crushing job, Bob lost his temper and took it out on his boss.

Of course; his boss didn't know he was a super. The Supers were all in witness protection. From his perspective; Gilbert Hugh was protecting Bob from his *own* mistakes.

Par on the other hand was a direct cause in the firm he worked for to lose a lot of money; because he didn't follow the protocols, and authorized every claim that passed by his desk.

He never verified if any of his customers were at fault; as far as Gilbert knew: Bob was a lazy worker who didn't do anything besides approve the applications on his desk.

This comes to a head, when Hugh stops Bob from stopping a mugging. This scene is framed as the Boss going on a power trip against somebody who is superior to him. Bob felt like a dog on a leash. But Gilbert was protecting him from himself (and racking up his own insurance bill the company would have to pay for.)

And there's another take; Bob didn't know if this "Mugging" was self-defense and he didn't care to find out.

He just wanted to live out his "Hero" Fantasy. The same attitude he had when Incrediboy got in his way.

Why were the supers all in witness protection you ask? Because they had a habit of doing damage first and asking questions later. Living this sleek nighttime fame, while taking on none of the responsibility or consequences for the negative outcomes of their actions.

The government was essentially paying them to stay out of the way and to stop doing damage. That was their Job.

<aside>Let's take a step back and admire the naming choice "incredible" as in "Not Credible". It's an excellent naming choice.</aside>

<aside>If this sounds familiar to another movie by Mike Judge; "Office Space" you've got it. Where the unreliable protagonist abuses the power he's entrusted with.</aside>

<aside>This style of messaging being purely entertaining to kids, but attempting to appeal to parents and older audiences with much deeper messaging and imagery is really an amazing construct that is prevalent in all of Judd's work.</aside>

And this extends well past this; after losing his job, Bob is contacted by a secret organization in order to "relive his glory days" and jumps at the chance to do so.

However; this is where the story loses coherency. We as the audience don't actually know what is the right thing anymore. We start to see the entire plot through the eyes of the unreliable narrative.

Because Bob sees all of these things as his own person enemy, and worries about how he's getting old and obsolete. And starts literally fighting the future that will make him obsolete; we as the audience can no longer discern right or wrong and we root for the good guys.

Because Syndrome, and his monstrosity literally built to make Supers obsolete, becomes a weapon for evil as far as the story goes.

But if we look at it from an alternate perspective; Syndrome had worked his whole life to protect the world. He started at a young age, and when he was rejected by his hero; he started seeing the world differently. He started seeing the damage and the reckless behavior that Supers routinely displayed in the pursuit of the clout that comes from being "The Hero".

He was protecting the world from the threat supers demonstrated, and something even stronger than they were. Possibly even stronger than Jack -Jack.

Syndrome didn't have the experience or wisdom that the Incredibles had, but he still showed a work ethic and dedication they did not. He probably shouldn't've called child services on them though... That was a bad move.

After tearing apart his dreams, treating him awfully, Mr. Incredible [terminated] his biggest fan, without any evidence at all that he was the cause of the other Super's death.

<aside>A lot of the spin-off stuff tries to create a solution for this, including creating a kind of jumping point for "brain in a jar" or matrix style world building. But the truth is; Bob didn't even know how old the deceased were, as far as he knew he was watching simulations of heroes who died of old age in Incredibles 1.</aside>

Instead of helping out the next generation of superhero; the Incredibles showcased a war between generations. One that Bob Par started with his inability to let go of the feeling of superiority and being the only one who can do the right thing.

What did Syndrome do? He created a situation where the supers, and his Hero didn't have to live in hiding anymore. He played the heel because despite the Par family's intense self-absorbed nature; they were in fact being treated like second class citizens.

He created a world where people were free to be Super. Just like he said he would, and unlike Mr. Incredible; he didn't do it for the clout.

"Oh noo, I've lost control of my custom built robot with millions of safe guards against this exact thing happening. WHATEVER WILL I DO?" - Syndrome Sarcastically

[thatonesongyouretryingtoremember]

SONG SONG SONG SONG

tell me what you mean by angela is jane ives pleaseee

EHEHHEHEHEHE MY BAYBEE ANGELA IVES

BASICALLY this revolves around

When El was trying to become Jane, she used Angela as her inspiration.

The real Jane Ives (or at least the girl Terry thought was hers who she flashed back to- I believe that this IS Jane bc how else did Terry find her and because El's birth memory does not match Terry's) is blonde and wore normie clothes. While it is possible she was moved to the Gown Facility, likely, in fact, based on a convo in NINA, her hair color would not change all the way to dark brown in the consecutive four years necessary to become Killer Ellie, aka the El we see at the very END of NINA who was the HNL Murderer. Since Jane is not Killer Ellie, she can't be El since El's initial flashback is of Killer Ellie pre-NINA

As a blonde (via flashback), Jane Ives is likely El's "opposite" like when Will's eyes changed to symbolize his new personality, or the Blonde Mother pattern, and any number of inter-timeline hair/eyes clues of that nature. Angela fits the bill as an opposite since she is popular and a bully.

Angela likely developed her bullying patterns because of trauma, and I realized that it lines up with the lab, ie: wanting to be the teacher's favorite, so much so that she is paralleled to 002

As @/henrysglock so kindly pointed out to me, Angela's outfit is the inverse of El's. She wears a ring on the opposite finger, a watch not a hairband, same hairstyle as El but with a high pony, etc.

Angela is weirdly obsessed with Hopper. The writers chose for El's school project to be about Hopper, and for Angela to pick on her for this project not once but twice, AND for Angela to bring up Hopper again at the Rink-O-Mania. She then targets El's lack of this supportive father- and I believe this is because whoever adopted Angela isn't like him, or because they are and she feels insecure in maintaining her situation thereof. Either way, growing up with a Brenner and losing Kali make her fixate on someone like Hopper, who El specifically says protected her, a fact Angela points out at the rink.

Angela and Troy, are like, the only bullies who don't get backstory. HOWEVER, Troy got a scene with his mother in ST1, which is already more exposition than Angela, plus if he's actually on the basketball team, then he might get screentime next szn. If Angela is accrual the outlier here, what was the reason? /rhetorical

The fuckin angst potential. I'm biased as fuck and I admit it. Not only that but the narrative potential. The whole point of timeline theory within a show who's meta is about the cycle of abuse and bigotry? The whole Multi Henry thing is meant to show how variables can affect outcome- ie: some Henrys become Vecna. SOME older brothers become like their fathers and others don't. This carries over to SOME Ellies kill more than others (including our lovely leading lady, whose arc about accepting her supposed monstrosity as a part of a whole is looking suspiciously complete) and SOME Ellies become Angelas.

ANGEL. HER NAME HAS FUCKIN ANGEL IN IT. As we know, as "Angel" is the person whom the memory of brings a Curse victim back to reality via the victim's will to live. Victor's Angels are his family members, and Max's are- get this, Lucas and El and her wider friend group. Not only this, but Max sang Madonna's "Angel" in El's bedroom in ST3. I'm not sure what the implication quite is here, if it's more than "She's an alternate timeline version of a girl who is somebody's angel", but I think it had to mean SOMETHING.

I THINK that's all for right now. I'm still kinda obsessed though

ALSO WELCOME BACCK

[tinypandacakes]

Me when trapper keeper updated: *tears my shirt into pieces* *gnaws the bars of my enclosure* ITS HEREEE

ahem, ok anyways THAT CHAPTER WAS A ROLLERCOASTER GODDAMN it felt like i was walking on eggshells when i read through, the mood was literally 'scared & horny' i screamed when the reader was caught like ofmdnfjdjd the fucking secondhand embarassment im gonna cry

The last part tho... 👀

P.S thank u dear author for having a sexy brain and for updating the fic which was a mood boost, amazing writing as always, may the both sides of your pillow be cold always 🛐

Ahhhh I’m so glad you liked it!!! Scared and horny is definitely the vibe :3

This whole fic was inspired by 2 scenes (one of which was the ending scene of chapter 5) that are in my catalogue of scenes/stories I play in my mind as I’m falling asleep. And now it’s ballooned into a 22 chapter monstrosity lol

Thank you for the kind words 💕 It always makes me so happy to hear that people like my stories too! No longer just trapped in my head on repeat :3

[soullessjack]

yeah! like whether he’s aware of it or not, jack thrives way more in frenzied chaotic situations than he does in normal/mundane situations—the only question is if that speaks to his true innate nature as a Nephil being the “dominant” heritage over the nurture of Kelly and TFW.

and ofc that’s not to say he doesn’t have natural qualities from Kelly or their human heritage, or even that all their outward kindness and positivity is a total farce. They really are a sweetheart, and even a bleeding heart sometimes, just one whose bleeding heart can twist up horribly with anger or grief. like, take this whole scene where they look Like That—

at jack’s core all they really want is to be loved and wanted and accepted, and the fact that this is a direct reaction from Sam and Dean rejecting him, that this utter monstrosity is only lashing out in a pain of being rejected and betrayed. the way something so innocent and simple as wanting to be loved can be twisted into something like this, really is one of the key elements of his character I think.

and I also think that that balance between those parts of himself is always what he’s struggled to find and maintain, because as soon as he thinks he’s either mediated or found a side to settle on, something happens that rips him out of place and says “No, you don’t belong there actually.”

and going back on the “primitive fear response,” thing, I’ve always considered jack to have a very defensive nature overall; throughout 13x01, he never outright attacks or shows hostility to anyone unless it’s a direct reaction to them acting first—Dean shooting at him, Sam tasering him in the back, etc. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the iron giant, but if you haven’t, watch it. it’s a literal masterpiece of both animation and storytelling and is rife with sooo many parallels to jack that it almost sickens me.

but anyways, without saying too much, one of the details of the iron giant is that he’s a 50 foot tall childlike amnesiac robot with a defense mechanism that completely weaponizes him and is triggered by the sight of other weaponry—particularly guns, for the narrative’s sake. the film was directed by Brad Bird and morbidly inspired by the death of his sister via gunshot, as in his grief he wondered “What if a gun was alive and didn’t want to be a gun?” and thus we got the iron giant! Even without seeing the movie I’m sure you can see the Jack parallels in that sentence alone anyways lol. but basically, the Giant reacts purely out of defense and is otherwise not an active threat when shown kindness, like jack.

I had somewhere to go with this but I just lost it. Oh well!

todays tally on the “things about jack that have been almost erased by the baby au” is just how truly genuinely insane (and funny) they are. they pretended to be a coke addict to sneak into rehab and get kaia. their attempt at making friends was teaching the Lebanon kids knife combat because he hasn’t had any other socialization outside of constant war and violence. he loves hunting and he loved the war torn apocalypse refugee camp despite their constant risks of death and loss and suffering.

he straight up fucking decapitated a Gorgon with a fucking sword and just stepped over the headless corpse like an ugly carpet. they disobeyed Death Herself just to save someone they vaguely remember caring about and having responsibility over, then blackmailed the fucking reaper that was sent to watch him into keeping quiet or else Billie would kill her for failing to keep him in line. he attempted to strangle someone in a fit of rage that was so bad it took three gunshots fired into his back to snap him out of it.

some of his personality trait in the fucking wiki are literally how his “protective instincts are in fact, so strong that he will retaliate or turn against anyone if they have hurt someone he cares about” and how “because of Jack’s desire to protect his loved ones, he can show a ruthless side to himself at times.” he used necromancy, magic so evil and dark and potent that the self proclaimed evil skank Rowena Macleod wouldn’t dare to use it, just to bring Mary back.

they were smiling the whole time they fought Michael and especially when they exorcised/killed him. they were smiling and enjoyed torturing Nick and it was literally canonically in-script described as a cathartic kill. when the last Grigori had him bound and held at knifepoint in the church he smiled and said “You can’t kill me” and was still smiling while talking about the other Grigori he’d killed and eaten the literal fucking hearts of.

jack is canonically wanted by the fbi since dean opened a file at some point after Mary’s death + jacks disappearance, and alongside having multiple charges pending on said file, they’re considered armed and dangerous, too. They’re also literally personally hated and personally murdered by God Himself.

But we stay silly :3

[imnotwolverine]

Stuck

Henry Cavill x reader fanfiction 

Author’s note: A little drabble inspired by me and my boyfriend getting our Christmas tree yesterday. We’re a little early this year, but being in another lockdown, I convinced my boyfriend that a few weeks earlier wouldn’t hurt. And goodness do I love anything Christmas! I hope you do too ❤

Warnings: fluff, some horniness 

---

‘It’s not gonna fit!’ I yelped, flailing my arms out to stop the Christmas tree from squashing me into the hallway wall. Behind the large green mass of piney scent I could hear Henry’s iconic little chuckle. 

‘That’s what she..’ 

‘HEN!’ 

‘Okay hold on love. Just lead it into the corner--yes--NO hold!’ 

The tree scraped and fought its way through the narrow corridor, making it near impossible to guide as Henry’s mighty arms just kept pushing the thing on. Nasty branches poked and stabbed in places where I had preferred they hadn’t. 

‘STOP! Henry!’

‘Love you gotta..’

‘HEN!’ 

Finally the tree stopped moving and a large hand brushed through, pushing aside some branches so he could see me. ‘What?’ He raised an innocent eyebrow. I sighed with exasperation. 

‘It’s not gonna fit!’ 

Henry smirked. ‘I’ve managed to get bigger inside.’ 

‘Well, that’s what he said.’ 

He chuckled in disbelief. ‘Is that cheeky talk young lady? It’s that some tree is in the way. Otherwise --’

I rolled my eyes, then decided to play along, moaning playfully. ‘Oh Henry! It’s soooo BIG! It will --’ I writhed against the doorpost behind me, just far enough away so he couldn’t reach me. ‘..never fit!’ 

‘Love..! The neighbour--’ His hand disappeared and a moment later I heard the front door being shut. Oh damn I forgot about that! Smirking, I waited for the next thing to happen. Would he try to get this darn monstrosity of a tree in the living room, or would he just plow it down to get to me? I cooed softly, luring him in. 

‘You okay there babe?’ I asked. Henry muttered, softly scolding himself for living in a Mews-home with a hallway “made for hobbits”. Finally the tree started moving and I could not help but laugh as I watched a scene unfold of Henry trying to push his large body through a very stubborn mass of spiky branches that slapped and scratched where-ever they could. 

‘Need some help?’ I pulled a branch away so I could see his face as it stood there all squashed and awkward. 

‘Darn this tree.’ He muttered, pushing even harder, but only making the whole tree move into an even more awkward position. It looked quite hilarious with his limbs half sticking through, face squashed between two particularly stubborn branches. 

‘Is it too big honey?’ 

Henry shot me a warning glance. 

‘Need me to fetch some lube maybe?’ 

‘Sweetheart..’ 

I sniffled, biting my lip. ‘Okay, okay.’ Stepping forward, I used all my not-so-mighty power to pull some more branches aside. 

This was all it took, along with some cracking branches, for Henry to make his way to my side of the tree. It was still very much stuck in the middle of the hallway, but at least he had escaped. Henry gasped, looking back at the tree like it had just totally betrayed him. 

‘You oka--?’ 

Before I could reach out a hand he was already on me, cold lips fighting me back into the wall. This time there was no escaping. Not with a tree blocking the exit anyway. I hummed into his kiss, challenging him a little more. 

‘So-mm-jealous of a tree now hmm? Just because I think it’s ...mmm...big?’ 

He leaned back for just a moment, then shrugged his boulder-like shoulders. ‘Well, might have overshot it with the tree a touch. But I’ve got something else that’s big...’ He put both hands around me, his face a mixture of playful, eager, arousal. 

I played along. ‘Mmm?’

He leaned back in close, lips hovering over mine, teasing. ‘And I’m quite sure..’ 

‘What?’ I looked into the blurry haze of his lustful eyes, smiling mischievously. 

‘..might have to check though..’

‘Ooh..!’ My smile grew as well. 

‘..that it will fit.’ He whispered, kissing me.This time more slowly. 

Outside London roared in all its endless zooming of cars and busses, engines and people. But inside it was just us. Together, warm and cosy. 

And quite stuck, too.

[teamhappyme]

your heart was glass, i dropped it (champagne problems)

peter stone x female!reader

word count: 15,526 (a monstrosity)

warnings: canon typical mentions of violence, rape, and death, brief allusions to sex (blink and you’ll miss it), mentions of anxiety & depression

a/n: hi friends, i’m back from my little break and reduced screen time to post this monstrosity of a piece i’ve been working on for just shy of six months now. this took everything in me to write, and it has my heart forever and ever. i hope you all can find some enjoyment in it and it doesn’t suck too bad - shoutout to red @hurricanejjareau eau for inspiring me to write this, sticking with me as I teased her for months about this, and the gif credit (i didn’t ask this time because i wanted to surprise you with posting this in the middle of the day so i hope you don’t mind tehehehe)

It was the middle of winter, the grey February sky felt like it would never leave, and the endless melting snow piles were keeping your feet frozen for days. That’s what normally went through your head as you walked to the courthouse; but today you were worried about the grey clouds looming over your ADA’s head, and the uncertain future ahead of him.

You were having a hard time keeping up with Liv as she practically ran up the steps of One Hogan Place, splashing through every puddle without another glance. You followed her in and up the two flights of stairs, yelling out that the trial was in part thirteen. 

By the time you got to the third floor, the hallway was void of any press that you assumed would be there. The two of you were running late, coming straight from a crime scene. You knew that they would break for lunch soon, but Liv insisted on going to support Barba. 

You approached the grand oak doors to the courtroom, Liv trying her best to open them without a sound. The prosecution had a witness on the stand, and a few heads turned to look at who entered. 

Not wanting to disrupt the flow of the trial, the two of you stayed standing in the back of the courtroom, listening in as the prosecutor finished with the witness, turning to make his way back to the bench. 

That’s when you saw him. And for a split second, you got to look at him without being seen. To take in the presence of the poised attorney without the burning glare of his eyes on you. 

But inevitably, those blue eyes met your own, knocking every thought out of your head that wasn’t Peter Stone. 

In that moment you were twenty five again, standing in front of the Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, making the hardest decision of your young life. Looking at Peter Stone, down on one knee with a ring box propped open, tears in your eyes as you gave him the answer he never expected to hear: no.

The judge was speaking now, drawing your attention back to the courtroom. You hadn’t even noticed Peter’s back was facing you again.

Court would reconvene after lunch, and you took this as an opportunity to clear your head. 

“I’m going to run out and grab us some coffee.” You muttered to Liv before exiting through the oak doors. 

It was your turn to run down the stairs now, not giving a second thought to bumped shoulders or slippery marble steps. You needed fresh air, a deep breath, and caffeine to prepare you for what was about to happen. 

You never thought he’d come back to New York. The Peter Stone you knew wanted to make a name for himself, separate from his father’s shadow. Chicago was his fresh start; one that you couldn’t be a part of.

New York was your home. You lived in the city your whole life, meeting Peter when you moved a block away from him your freshman year of high school. You stumbled into him on your way to the subway; your school uniforms matched, creating a quick conversation that bled into a beautiful friendship as you continued to spend mornings, then afternoons, and entire weekends together.

By the end of that school year, you considered Peter Stone one of your best friends. The two of you spent weekends riding the subway through the boroughs, accompanying each other to Mets games, and after some time, confiding in each other when life got to be too much to handle on your own. 

You felt comfortable around each other, and that friendship laid the groundwork for a relationship between the two of you your senior year of high school. 

It happened on a random Tuesday night, walking back from an ice cream run when things shifted. Peter stopped in front of a vendor selling half price flowers, buying the last bouquet of purple tulips they had. He made an offhand comment about how they were your favorite, handing them to you with a shy smile on his face. And before you let the feelings you had for him dissipate, you pushed up on your tiptoes, placed a chaste kiss on his cheek, and reached for his hand.

And for eight years, you two continued to be each other’s person. Supporting, uplifting, and loving one another, even from eight hundred miles apart. 

But even an eleven year partnership can crumble under the toughest circumstances.

“Detective!” You looked back to the coffee cart, grabbing the drinks for you and Liv before heading back up the marble steps. 

Liv came into your line of vision, standing next to a pillar and gesturing flagrantly with her arms. As you stepped closer you saw she was engaged in a conversation with Peter Stone.

More accurately, she was engaged in an argument with Peter Stone.

You stepped up next to her, listening as she defended Barba with a slight shake in her voice. 

“I’m talking about a decent man who did a decent thing.” She finished, looking over at you just long enough to take the coffee from your hand. You clocked the pooling tears in her eyes, and the way she swallowed around the lump in her throat. Barba meant more to her than you could ever know.

“Lieutenant, let’s head back inside,” you started, wanting to get her out of this situation without causing anyone any harm. You motioned to the doors of the courthouse, not daring a glance at Peter as she shifted her weight, getting ready to walk away.

But he was saying your name, in a softer voice than he used with Liv, and you slowly met his gaze.

You hadn’t seen him in person in seven years. His hair was a little darker now, dirty blonde roots kept shorter on the sides and styled to perfection; if he was going to be a cocky prosecutor he had to look the part.

A small part of you wanted to smile at him, wrap your arms around him, and make a joke about how long it’s been since the Mets have had a decent starting pitcher. Yeah, a small part of you wishes you could be with Peter, your best friend, one more time in the city.

But the larger part of you knew that wasn’t a possibility anymore; that that relationship was severed seven years ago, along with that girl you used to be. 

“Do you two know each other?” Liv asks, breaking you from your spiraling thoughts. 

You look at her, then quickly back to Peter, not knowing how to answer her question. You see his jaw clench the slightest bit, before he speaks up again. 

“We used to. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab a coffee before we reconvene.”

Liv watched him walk down the steps as you kept your gaze on the wall in front of you. You felt her eyes move from him to you, ignoring her as you led the walk back inside.

She was silent as you two waited for the elevator this time, presumably trying to figure out how in the world this situation could have gotten any stranger. She looked over at you once more as the doors closed and you pressed the button for the third floor. 

“So,” she started, knowing she was going to ask again. “How do you know Peter Stone?”

You surprised yourself with the scoff that escaped your lips. Your lives had been intertwined for more than a decade, until it all came crashing down. It would be easier to explain how you didn’t know him. 

“He proposed to me seven years ago.” You looked over at your Lieutenant after a few more seconds in silence, her eyes widened in shock. “Maybe I’ll enlighten you once this is all over.”

****

Only a few days after Barba was found not guilty, Peter Stone was appointed the new ADA for SVU. You were shocked, not only that he was offered the position, but that he accepted. Working for one of his father’s oldest friends and bosses, in the same building Ben Stone had become a legend, was never what Peter wanted for himself.

But that was the old Peter. You didn’t know this new one.

Liv had pulled you in first when she got the news. After your confession at the courthouse, she wanted to have a conversation with you to make sure you were comfortable with the decision, and that it wouldn’t affect your work. 

She didn’t ask for any more information on the subject, which you were grateful for. It was a messy sequence of events that not even you and Peter could fully comprehend at the time. 

You did however let the rest of the squad know your history with Stone. After an awkward, and rather uncomfortable experience during your first interrogation together, you knew you had to come clean. It wasn’t fair to their work environment, and you told them you would try to work on the professional nature of the relationship. 

It had been two weeks since he came aboard, and he was about to get his hands on his first messy special victims case. And to make matters worse, it was Sonny’s niece. 

After getting her disclosure in the station, Peter joined you and Liv outside of interrogation to discuss logistics. 

“Another male student spent the night in her room? Don’t you think that’s something she should have mentioned?”

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t assaulted,” you replied, your tone coming across sharper than you meant it to. He held your stare, his face impossible to read. It always was.

“It’s not uncommon for a victim to leave out part of her story,” Liv interrupted, trying to get to the bottom of this. “She was probably embarrassed. Listen, college age assaults are rarely a clean narrative. There can be alcohol involved, the victim can feel conflicted, there’s self blame. It’s complicated.”

He sighed. “Okay. I’ll follow your lead. You’ll follow up with Mia?”

“Yes. The RA too.” Liv confirmed. 

“Listen, we get it. You need a case you can prosecute. SVU isn’t the same as trying homicides. But I believe her, we all believe her. She needs you to be on her side too.” You explained. 

“I am. But I also need a case that won’t bounce on a motion to dismiss.” You scoffed while crossing your arms over your chest. 

“Understood, Counselor.” Liv ended the conversation, giving a nod to the two of you before going back in to talk to the kid.

Liv left the two of you in the hallway, eyes trained on the one way mirror to avoid looking at one another. You hadn’t directly spoken in the weeks that he’d been settling in here. It wasn’t out of spite, at least not on your end. You were thrown back into each other’s lives without any notice, and you needed a minute to gather your thoughts before talking to the man who was once your entire world.

“Do you need anything else, other than confirmed statements from the RA and Mia?” You asked, turning to look at Peter. 

“No. That should be it for the case.” He started, stepping back from the glass. “But I think we would both benefit from having our own conversation about,” He motioned between the two of you, and let out a sigh. “This situation.”

“I agree with you. But, now isn’t the best time.” You looked out into the squadroom, Rollins, Carisi, and Fin seated around the round table, trying to find something else to help Mia. “Sonny, and Mia, really need us to focus on this case.”

He nodded, while sticking his hands in his pockets. “Alright. Then I’ll talk to you later, Detective.”

You watched as he walked out through the squadroom, giving a nod to the rest of the squad at the table. You followed out a few seconds later, heading straight to the breakroom to pour a cup of coffee.

“Everything alright?” Rollins asked, and grabbed her own mug. “Looked a little tense in there.”

“Amanda, why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask me?” You knew Rollins had been itching to get the details about you and Peter since the moment you told her there was history. You understood the intrigue; you’d been dying to ask Liv about her and Barba after you witnessed their charged goodbye from a distance. 

“So you and Stone,” she started, and you let out a shallow laugh. “What happened between the two of you?”

You took a minute to formulate a response. It was confusing, the way your relationship with Peter had progressed from teenagers to young adults. He was the only constant in your life, and then, he was gone.

“We’ve been in each other’s lives since we were fourteen.”

“Fourteen? Wow. I don’t think I’ve kept a friendship, never mind a relationship, with anyone for nearly twenty years.”

“Well, we were friends first, for a long time. Believe it or not, he wasn’t always this confident and cocky,” you said with a smile. “We spent a lot of time learning about each other. We built a strong friendship that just naturally formed into partners and a relationship. But we didn’t stay those kids forever; we wanted different things, and we wanted to be selfish. Me a little more so than him.”

“That’s what your twenties are for, though. And if he couldn’t handle that, that’s his loss.”

“It was mine, actually.” Her eyes widened the slightest bit. “I didn’t want to figure things out, I didn’t want to compromise. I was afraid. Peter was sure of us, but I just couldn’t meet him there.”

You’d laid it all out for Amanda, and you watched as she took a few seconds to register the information.

“And you haven’t spoken in…”

“Seven years. Felt like I’d lost a part of myself for a while. Felt like my family lost a part of themselves for a while.”

After eight years together, people were bound to get attached. Your parents, your siblings, they were devastated when you told them. And things never really went back to normal.

“So, what happens now?” She questioned, that familiar smirk settling back on her face. “If my ex showed up out of the blue, no matter how much time has passed, I think some feelings might resurface.”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” you interjected, not wanting to answer her question. Because you weren’t too sure how you were feeling about the reunion yourself.

“I don’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t be nosy about your lives, though.”

You took a sip of your coffee, wincing a little at the bitter punch it packed. 

“I’m not really sure,” you started. “Still trying to get used to seeing him walk in here like he owns the place.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put him in his place for you.” you laughed as she gave your shoulder a squeeze. “And I’ll help you out too, if you need.”

“I know,” she left you in the breakroom, a chance to recover and regroup before focusing on helping another friend. 

When everything first happened, you never thought you’d be able to get to a place where you could use a nonchalant tone describing your relationship with Peter. The time you spent together was too important, too consuming to mention in a brief conversation. But with distance, and time, it got easier, narrowing the story down to a few short sentences. 

It still hurt, and it would continue to hurt every time you told it. At least now, the pain only lasted for those few short sentences.

****

Two weeks later, once Mia’s trial was over, you found yourself walking down the hall to Peter’s office. It was a grueling trial for everyone involved, especially Carisi. You knew the guilt he carried for lying, and causing his niece more pain, but she got justice. And you would remind him of that for as long as he needed.

You expected to see Carmen at her desk as you rounded the corner, but instead you were greeted with an empty desk. The blinds were drawn in the office, but you could see an orange light peeking through the wooden slats. 

You took a breath, working up the courage to knock. Things were still tense between him and the squad, but you were hoping that after this case, after he got justice for Mia, things could start to settle. 

You gave three strong knocks, and got a ‘come in’ in response. When you opened the door, you were met with a shirtless Peter Stone, his toned torso on full display. 

That’s certainly something you haven’t seen in a while.

“Oh, sorry,” you muttered out and quickly turned around, hoping your cheeks weren’t as red as 

they felt. 

“It’s fine, I told you to come in.” You locked your eyes on the door until he told you he was decent. When you turned back around, you took in his casual appearance; a sweater and jeans replaced the sharp suit he had on earlier in the day. “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to thank you for not ripping Carisi’s head off after what happened when he testified. He really cares about his family, and sometimes it can get messy.”

“Well, what good would he be to anyone without a head.” He quipped, a small smile etched on his face. You forgot how infectious his grin could be, as you felt your own lips turn into a smile.

Your eyes followed Peter around his office, as he put away files, fastened his watch back on his wrist, and pushed his chair in behind his desk. He was already settled in here, comfortable in this space and his job. One that you were tangled into.

“Is there something else on your mind?” He asked, as you continued to dig your toe into the carpet, your anxious ticks giving you away.

“I figured we could finally talk about this working together situation,” you started, suddenly feeling extremely nervous in front of him. “Unless you have somewhere to be.”

“No, now’s a good time.” He motioned for you to take a seat at the round table, and he joined you on your right. 

For the first time in your life, you felt unsteady around Peter Stone. There was a time when he was the only person you wanted to talk to, the only person you felt truly yourself around. But now, you didn’t know the man sitting three feet away from you.

All because you said no.

“I want you to know that I didn’t intend on coming back to New York to take this job. If I knew you were here before Jack asked me to take Barba’s case, I wouldn’t have accepted.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about me when deciding to accept a job,” you said.

“I know. But, I want you to know that I didn’t come back home to seek you out, or open up what happened in the past. I just came home to bury my father, settle his things, and get back to Chicago.”

You went to Ben’s funeral, stood at the back of the church and listened as Jack McCoy delivered a touching eulogy. You didn’t even know Peter was there until Rafael told you he spotted him in the second pew. 

You had a front row seat to the complicated relationship between father and son, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Peter didn’t show.

“I’m sorry about Ben’s passing, Peter. I sent flowers for the last address I had for you, but clearly, you never got them.” He let out a little laugh. “I would’ve told you so at the funeral, but I didn’t know if you were there.”

“I didn’t know you were there either. I’m surprised that you went, you didn’t have to go.”

“Of course I went,” you started, your voice steadier now. “It doesn’t matter what happened between us, he was a decent man. And he,” you paused. 

‘He gave me you,’ is what you wanted to say. 

“He was your father.”

You opened the door to the past now, and both of you realized it. But the only way you were going to get through this awkward stage was talking about it.

“I don’t want things to be uncomfortable between us. I want us to be able to coexist, at least in a professional capacity, so that we don’t need a buffer every time we’re working on a case together. Now, with that being said,” he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You should probably use the quiet of my office right now to get out any anger you have towards me.”

“Peter, I’m not angry with you. At least not for the reasons you think. I am mad that you prosecuted one of my friends and colleagues, but I understand why you did it. If anyone should be frustrated it’s you.” he looked over at you, waiting for you to continue. “I left you standing in the middle of Chicago without so much as a goodbye. You deserved an explanation, but I acted like a coward.”

“You weren’t a coward.” He said, and let out a sigh. “We were just kids back then. We had no idea what we were doing. You aren’t the only one to blame for the way things ended.”

“But I’m the one who turned down the man on one knee.” 

You saw the twitch in his jaw as he settled against the back of his chair. The two of you never spoke about the proposal after it happened. You really did leave Peter standing in front of Lake Michigan, repeatedly telling him you couldn’t say yes, until you just walked away. You turned your back on the best person you ever knew, because you were afraid.

You’ve rationalized your decision to say no so many times; you were too young, you were starting your careers in different cities, and you felt like the two of you were in completely different headspaces. And in the moment where you should’ve felt the closest to him, you felt like you were completely alone.

“I wish I hadn’t walked away like that.” you started, meeting his gaze. “You were my best friend, Peter. Eleven years we knew each other, and I turned my back on you like that.” you snapped your fingers, and tried to swallow the lump in your throat. “Even though our relationship ended that day, our friendship didn’t have to. And I’m sorry that I took that away from you.”

Neither of you moved for a few seconds; It’s not everyday you have a conversation about your almost proposal with your ex. So you just watched him, with a hazy gaze, and waited for him to acknowledge what you said. 

“But I’ll make you the same offer; you can capitalize on the privacy and get your anger out on me for leaving right now.”

“I’m not mad at you. I was upset, and confused for a few months, but I worked through it.” He ran a hand through his slightly fussed hair as he collected his thoughts. “I accepted why you left the way that you did. But more than anything, I missed my friend. And now, I wish we didn’t feel like strangers around each other.” 

“Me either.” 

Before either of you could break another silence, the office phone started to ring. Carmen wasn’t here to intercept the call, going directly to the source. 

“Do you need to get that?” You asked, as he made no movement to stand up from his seat. 

“They’ll leave a message if it’s important. I’m technically off the clock,” he referenced his casual clothing, and you smiled in return. 

“I know that we’ve been through a lot together, and apart, but if we’re going to be working together, and existing in the same city, I would like to try to be friends again.” You offered up.

“I don’t think we ever stopped being friends. We know too much about each other.”

“Like how you broke your wrist while riding down the handrail in the subway,” you rattled off, your heart racing the slightest bit after falling back into step with him. 

But then you heard him laugh. Not as easy and carefree as it used to be, but it was still Peter.

“Hey, at least I didn’t trip over my own two feet and sprain an ankle in a soccer game,”

“I was tripped!” You exclaimed, stubborn and defensive as ever. “The only yellow card I ever got. That ref deserved my outburst, cause that girl tripped me.”

“Whatever you say,” he said in a teasing tone, and you lightly shoved his shoulder. 

“You know I’m right,” you murmured back, catching the smallest smile on his face. 

It felt… okay again between the two of you. Nothing was going to change overnight, or even after one conversation, but it was a start. It was fixing the foundation to an old friendship.

****

Over the course of the next two months, Peter started to acclimate to working for the special victims unit. Sonny began gravitating towards him, the new ADA wasn’t grilling him about being a wanna-be lawyer like Barba used to. Fin and Liv warmed up to him little by little as well, seeing him earn his stripes in action. Rollins, on the other hand, still wasn’t ready to support him one hundred percent yet. And selfishly, you were glad she didn’t roll over. He needed to continue to prove himself if he’s going to make a difference here.

The two of you were getting along as well as most casual coworkers do. You talked through the cases, sat in on trial preps, and ran some interrogations together. There weren’t any more uncomfortable encounters or frustrated conversations. All the personal stuff was squared away, so you could focus on the important tasks at hand.

He continued to let Liv guide him through cases, reminding him that it’s about the victims more than it is the defendant, and that we’re not going to win them all. 

But there were still moments, like this trafficking case, that Peter refused to bend his black or white perception of the law for. 

“You’re serious.” He deadpanned, not amused by this meeting.

You and Amanda had found a discrepancy in Miguel Lopez’s testimony. He admitted to burning Lourdes in the apartment, but she never told him to say that. It was something his guilty conscience admitted to, giving too much of the truth away. 

“Yes, I’m serious.” Liv responded.

Peter and Liv had been at each other’s throats throughout the investigation. Liv, and everyone in the squad, believed Lourdes was raped by Miguel. With all of your combined years in SVU, you knew when a victim was lying and telling the truth. Peter, keeping the law close to his chest, couldn’t accept the allegations without any evidence. 

“It won’t hold up in court.” He muttered back, as you gripped the edges of the table even tighter, knowing Liv wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Miguel Lopez raped and tortured Lourdes. She’s not mistaken. His confession to her, his confession to me, was real.”

“It’s not on tape.”

“I was there. I heard it!” Liv exclaimed. “This is my word!”

“You are not thinking clearly,” 

“Peter.” you interjected, voice firm, and you caught his gaze for a second. But he continued.

“You are choosing to believe what you want to believe.”

“Peter!” It was your turn to shout, everyone growing silent as you walked past him, a “let’s go,” leaving your lips as you led the way to interrogation one. 

You heard his feet scuffing the linoleum floor the entire walk, like a child who didn’t get the toy they wanted at the store. Once the two of you were in there, you shut the door and prepared to lay into him. 

“What is the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with me? All of you are convinced that Lourdes was trafficked and raped by Miguel Lopez, yet there is absolutely no physical evidence that proves your claim.”

“You don’t believe Liv? You don’t believe that what she witnessed for four hours wasn’t true?” You questioned, not willing to believe that Peter saw through this girl.

“I think something did happen to her,” he started. “But we don’t know if it was Miguel. And even if it was, that doesn’t entitle her to seek revenge.”

“But it does entitle her to claim what was once hers.” You crossed your arms over your chest, willing yourself to hold your ground against him. “And if revenge is part of that, then… then so be it.”

You saw the twitch in his jaw, and the way his eyes fell the slightest bit. 

“You don’t believe that.” He said, his tone soft, and filled with disbelief. He didn’t know the woman standing in front of him anymore.

“I do.” He shook his head, not willing to believe it. “Peter, you’ve only been here a few months. This has been my reality for five years. Listening to hundreds of victims tell their stories, their fears, how their lives were changed forever because of one awful moment. I’ve watched victims take the stand and look their abuser in the eye, and I’ve watched victims cower away in absolute terror. And on rare occasions, I’ve seen them take matters into their own hands. And I support whatever they need to do in order to take back their lives, even what Lourdes did to Miguel.”

“And the man that died? The man she killed along the way?” His voice was so cold, so completely detached from the complex situation in front of him. 

“I don’t support blind rage and murder, if that’s what you’re asking me. That man shouldn’t have died at Lourdes’ hand. But he was involved in trafficking, raping, and torturing women. So, I’d say justice was served in the end. And before you say it’s a jury’s job to bring justice, look me in the eye and tell me that you’d rather have them both go free than have been killed in a fit of justified rage.” He bowed his head, knowing he didn’t want them to go free, knowing that you would win this discussion. “The law isn’t black and white, as much as you wish it could be. It’s complicated, and unfair, and most of the time, doesn’t do as much as we want it to. So, I’m going to take a win when I can.”

He nodded, but before he could respond, his phone started to ring. He greeted Fin on the other end of the line, and you watched his jaw tense right back up. His hand was curled into a fist, slowly beginning to flex it open and shut. His tells hadn’t changed in ten years.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, as he ended the call. He walked across the room and opened the door, pausing in the doorway for a second.

“They took Pam.”

The next thirty minutes were a whirlwind. You and Amanda tried to track any and every member from the cartel to New York and the facility Pam was staying at while Liv and Peter tracked down Miguel and brought him in for interrogation. They only took fifteen minutes to break him, and the four of you were off to the warehouse they were keeping Pam.

You and Rollins jumped in the backseat, Peter riding shotgun as Liv gunned it on the highway. Peter was silent the entire ride, but sat alert with his back straight, hand clutching the grab handle for dear life. 

When you finally got there Fin, Carisi, and a swarm of patrol cars were waiting for you. Liv threw a vest to Peter, quickly strapping himself in before running through the crowd of people.

You entered the warehouse in single file, finding the trafficked girls locked up in a cage. After letting them go and directing them out with a SWAT member, you resumed running to the action.

Liv and Sonny led the way with Peter behind their backs, as you, Fin and Amanda came close behind. You congregated behind the SWAT shields, and that’s when you finally caught a glimpse of Pam. 

The last time you saw Pam was about four years ago. She was at a facility in the city, and you were still trying to rationalize the decision you made three years prior. Ever since you met Pam, you loved spending time with her. She joked with Peter when you guys were young, and she often ganged up on him with you. Even when she was first put in a facility, and the schizophrenia got worse, she still put a smile on your face.

Years had gone by, but she looked the same; long strawberry blonde hair, gaping eyes, and a youthful face. One that was now filled with horror as Diego held a rifle to her head.

You heard the man in question shouting about guns, and Liv bickering with ESU to let her take control. But all that focus left you as Peter took a step forward, hands raised in the air.

You moved to step with him, but Sonny placed a hand on your shoulder, holding you back. The five of you had created a second line of defense now, waiting to see how this was going to play out.

“Peter!” Pam exclaimed, as he finally stepped out in front of the shields. He was vulnerable, even with a vest, and you tried again to take a step towards him. But Sonny’s grip was firm on your shoulder, and you yielded to the reminder.

“Peter,” she whimpered out, losing hope, and giving in to the fear.

There was more shouting, more demands being made, but your eyes were glued on the two siblings in front of you. 

All of a sudden, Diego loosened his grip on Pam, and she started walking towards you.

“Peter!” She called out, a quarter of the way there, when you saw Diego raise the rifle. Before you could even react, he opened fire on Pam, knocking her to the ground.

Everyone moved in an instant, dozens of rounds being fired, your ears already ringing from the noise. It lasted thirty seconds before Diego slumped into the front seat of his jeep, bullet wounds covering his body.

Your heart was racing as you lowered your gun, checking to make sure you were all okay. 

But then you saw Peter, hovering over Pam’s bloody body, begging her to stay alive. All you could hear were her whimpers, struggling to stay alive, and the strain in Peter’s voice as he yelled for a medic. 

You covered your mouth and turned away from the scene in front of you, as Liv walked over to Peter, laying a hand on his shoulder.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, and tried your hardest to blink away the tears forming in your eyes. But you felt Sonny’s hand find your shoulder again, gently turning you around, so you could let your tears fall in hiding.

-

The following night, you went down to One Hogan Place to check in on Peter. 

He rode back to the city with Liv yesterday, but none of you have seen or heard from him since. On your way out of the precinct tonight, you called Carmen to see if he was in. She said he let her go at lunch, but he didn’t show any signs of leaving with her.

As you approached his door, his shades were drawn, but you could see the flicker of a light on. You didn’t bother knocking before you entered, knowing you would go in no matter the answer.

The door swung open to his office, and you saw Peter Stone sitting on the couch, bottle of whiskey on the coffee table, and his head in his hands. 

You tried to shut the door quietly, but the old office doors let out a high squeak, getting Peter to raise his head. You took a breath as you looked over his appearance: his eyes were red, his face looking worn from the sleep you’re sure he didn’t get. 

But neither of you say anything, not knowing how to approach this conversation. 

As coworkers. As exes. As friends.

So you start simple. You start with the good. 

“The feds rounded up all of Miguel’s associates on both sides of the border.”

“That’s good.” He nodded, his grip on the whiskey glass loosening.

But he can’t look back up at you. He stares at the glass in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. He’s swallowing his emotions, you think to yourself. He’s exerting every ounce of physical strength he has to keep himself grounded and from falling apart. Some things never change.

“Peter, I’m so sorry.” You choke out, trying not to break in front of him. Even with seven years spent apart, you still feel everything he does. You still feel like your lives are tied together.

“All I can remember right now, is when I was nine, playing stick ball with my buddies in the schoolyard, Pam showed up with a bloody lip.” He let out a sigh and swallowed around the lump in his throat. “She said Billy Collier pushed her down the stairs, and I beat the living hell out of him.”

“He always was an asshole,” you added, involuntarily. You quickly apologized, but noticed the smallest shadow of a smile across his face. But it didn’t last, as you watched his fingers circle the rim of his glass, and he locked his eyes on the table once more. 

“I didn’t even hesitate to absolutely destroy the kid that hurt my sister. And now,” he shook his head. “She had a gun pointed at her head, and I just stood there and watched.”

“If you had tried anything, he would’ve killed you too. You talked to her, Peter. You tried to calm her down, to let her know you were there for her.”

He nodded, brushing his hand down his face. He looked exhausted.

“You don’t have to be here, you don’t have to stay.” He said, which in turn only made you move across the room and sit down next to him.

“I’m not going anywhere. Pam was family to me, you were family to me,” you felt a tear escape as you assured him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Without tearing his gaze from that spot on the table, he reached over with his right hand. You grabbed it without hesitation, as he twined your fingers together, and finally let out a breath.

“There was nothing you could have done, Peter.” He nodded while slowly lifting his head.

“The last thing,” his voice was shaky, and you just wanted him to let go. “The last thing she said was Peter. She hasn’t recognized me in years, and the moment she’s about to die,”

With your free hand, you pulled him into you, letting him cry onto your shoulder for as long as he needed to. You let go of his hand so you could run your fingers through his hair, in an attempt to comfort him. To let him know that he didn’t have to shoulder these emotions and this pain alone. 

Without thinking, you pressed a kiss to the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. It was the one thing that could get him to calm down, and breathe when you were together. It wasn’t your place anymore, to be comforting and kissing a man that wasn’t yours. 

But he needed the familiarity. He needed to be held by someone who knew him, and cared for him, and saw him the same way his family did. He needed you.

So he held on tighter after that, adjusting himself so that his head was resting against your own. He listened to your heartbeat, sporadic at first, but he listened for seconds, minutes, hours. He doesn’t know how long. All he knows is that eventually, his heartbeat slowed down, and matched the rhythm of your own.

****

“Here are your coffees, Detective.”

“Thank you, have a good one.” You left a dollar in the tip jar before grabbing the coffees, smiling at the barista before walking out of the cafe.

Carisi was waiting for you out on the sidewalk, thanking you as you handed him his second dose of caffeine for the day. 

“You’re welcome.” You started the walk back to the precinct, taking advantage of the warm September weather before the air turned brisk. “Now, why did you rush me out of the precinct twenty minutes ago as soon as Stone stepped in for interrogation?” 

Sonny let out a sigh before taking a sip of his coffee. Three years spent partnered together and working across a desk from one another, you got to know each other well.

“Have you talked to Stone at all about Pam?” he started, glancing over at you to make sure it was okay to continue. “I mean, I know you’ve spoken about work, and cases, but you guys were close once, and I wanted to make sure he’s checking in with someone who can really understand him.”

It’s been two months since Pam died, and Peter hasn’t talked to you about it since that night in his office. You sat with him for almost two hours, holding onto each other until he felt strong enough to let go.

You tried to bring it up since then, but you were always shut down with a poor excuse.  He needed to prep for a trial, he was meeting with Jack McCoy, or he was just too tired to talk about  it today. Whatever the excuse was, you didn’t push him. He would come to you if he wanted your help.

“No, I haven’t. But I’m not entirely sure I would be his first choice as a confidant.” he nodded. But Carisi’s inquiries only sparked your curiosity. “Why, is there something I should know?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, debating if he should tell you what Peter’s been up to these past few months.

“I don’t think it’s anything serious, but ever since everything happened, he’s been calling me to go out for a drink almost every night. At first, I joined him every time he asked. I knew he needed a friend, and I wanted to support him in any way I could. But after a few weeks, the calls didn’t subside, and neither did the drinks. Before everything happened, and I would meet him at Forlini’s, it would be strictly beer before a trial. Now he goes straight for the 60 proof whiskey, averaging half a bottle a night.”

“Still? Maybe he’s tapered off,”

“No, I still check in on him, once or twice a week. Same routine. But it was a few weeks ago, God I probably shouldn’t even tell you this,” He started rambling, but you tugged on his arm to get him to stop.

“Just spit it out, Carisi.”

“You and Rollins were at Rikers talking Caputo into testifying, but that was the first day of the trial. We were ten minutes out from opening testimonies and no one had seen or heard from him. I stopped by his apartment, flashed the badge to get up since he wasn’t answering any of our calls, and I was met with a pretty drained Peter Stone at the door. He begged me to wait in the lobby, said he just needed a few minutes for the ibuprofen to kick in. As he shut the door on me, I saw two other women in the apartment with him.”

Your movements stalled for a second, completely forgetting you were in the middle of a sidewalk in New York City. 

“Women? As in, plural?” You asked, too caught up on that piece of information to care if you came off as the nosy ex.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but it seems out of his behavior.” He said with a sheepish look on his face.

“Well, I wouldn’t know, seeing as it’s been seven years since he’s shared anything with me. You seem to be the closest friend he has, so if you think that’s out of behavior for him, then I trust you.”

“It is.” You nodded, and followed along as Carisi started walking again. “I’m just worried about him. And I know you are too, even if things are different between the two of you now.”

“I am. Thank you, Sonny. You’re a good friend, to both of us.” 

The short walk back to the precinct was quiet after that, as you tried to plan what you would say to Peter once you got the chance.

When the two of you got back, the squadroom was empty, Rollins and Liv watching the interrogation in her office.

“Did you guys pick someone up for the Ferncroft kidnapping?” Sonny asked as the two of you settled in with the others. Fin was leading the interrogation, Peter sitting patiently across from the suspect. 

“Yeah, this is Monica Strauss. She nannied for the family up until a few months ago, and we found her brother’s DNA on site. Trying to see if she will give us anything on him.”

“Do you think she did it?” You asked, watching as Peter stood up from his seat.

“No, I think she was just a stepping stone to get to the Ferncroft’s.” Liv added. You watched for the next few minutes as Fin and Peter danced around the table, pressing into Monica.

Until something finally cracked. 

Peter slammed his hands down on the table, causing Monica, and most of you on this side of the glass to flinch. 

“Your brother’s DNA is all over that apartment! If you want to protect him, if you want to be a half decent sibling to him, you will tell us where he is right now. If you don’t, I’ll charge him with kidnapping, and be sure to let him know you wouldn’t do anything to help him.”

“Get him out of there,” you said at the same time Liv started knocking on the glass. You watched as Fin exited first, Peter still leaning on the table. 

“How does it feel, knowing you were so close to saving your brother, but couldn’t?”

Liv banged on the glass harder after his admission, waiting for him at the door connecting the two rooms. 

“I had her. She was gonna give him up.”

“You’re not a detective, Counselor. You crossed a line in there.” Liv said as he crossed his arms over his chest, resembling an upset child.

“Because all of you play by the rules 24/7, right?” 

You looked over at Liv, a mix of disgust and empathy covering her face. You were ready for her to rip him a new one, right in front of the whole squad. Instead, her eyes met your own, asking you for any help in this situation; one that was clearly more than just this case. 

“Give us the room?” You asked, and your Lieutenant nodded, leading the charge out of her office as her comrades followed behind her.

As the door closed to her office, you caught the scoff that left Peter’s mouth.

“Are you going to give me a lecture on interrogation etiquette now? Explain to me how things  work in SVU, because I’m so incapable of doing anything right?”

“No, that’s not my job.” You watched as he leaned against the mirror. You could see Monica being taken back into holding by Fin. “How are you holding up, Peter?”

He tucked his chin to his chest, not bothering to hide the morose laugh he let out. “I’m fine. There’s nothing to be held up on. Pam’s dead, I’m alive. No point in dwelling on the past.”

“So an outburst about sibling obligation has nothing to do with Pam? Just a coincidence?” 

“There’s nothing deeper to unpack here. My sister died. I buried her, I settled her affairs, and I came back to work. Nothing spectacular for you to try and fix.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Peter.”

He pushed off the wall, walking toward you now. “What, what is this act you're pulling on me now? All this pity, this misplaced guilt and grief, are you projecting it on me?”

You rolled your eyes. “You know what, some of us are genuinely worried about you. You watched your sister get shot to death in front of your eyes, so God forbid we try and check in on you once in a while.”

“And I told you I was fine.”

“And your version of fine is drinking half a bottle of whiskey then bringing home some girls for a night you can’t even remember seven nights a week?”

The sentence spilled out of you before you even realized what you were saying. But now it was out there, lingering in the space between the two of you, waiting for one of you to pick it back up. 

It was your turn to cross your arms now, on the defensive, as you waited for him to respond.

“Carisi has a big mouth I see.” He muttered out, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“He was worried about you. I’m worried about you. That’s not you, Peter.”

“How do you know who I am anymore? You left the old me seven years ago.”

You took half a step back, as if the words physically toppled over you.

“I thought we talked through this,” your voice was quieter now, and you felt infinitely smaller. The conversation included you now. “You said you understood why I had to leave.”

“And you believed me?” He exasperated. “I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you, and you just walked away like we were nothing.” He ran a frustrated hand over his face before continuing. “So yeah, this is me now. I go to bars, I bring home women I don’t know, and do the same thing all over again the next day. And when Pam died, and you said that we were like family, things got worse. Or really, this just showed me who I really am.”

“You’re going to blame me for turning down your proposal for the shitty life you’re living now?” You were over being sympathetic now. “Did you ever stop to think why I said no? Why I walked away from you after eleven years by your side?”

“I don’t want to get into this,” he started, trying to change the subject.

“No, you opened the door, let’s have it out.” You gestured into the room, no one else surrounding you. “I walked away from you, and you're still pissed off about it.”

“You left me standing in the middle of Chicago, looking like a fucking idiot. Of course I’m still pissed about it!”

“You’re mad about me ending it, or about your reputation, Peter?” You shook your head. “I spent the last three years of our relationship compromising for you. You wanted to give baseball a real shot, and I supported you, flying out whenever I could to go see your games. And when you got hurt and had to turn in your uniform, I supported your decision to stay in Chicago and go to law school. And again, I flew out whenever you needed me to reassure you that you could do this. I was constantly bending over backwards just to please you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me any of this?” he asked, his voice matching your level. “You, you told me you wanted to get married. You told me you wanted us to move back to New York, live in a brownstone and have a family. You told me you wanted me.”

You felt tears starting to form in your eyes, knowing how much you broke him. How much pain and doubt you put him through by cutting him off that day in Chicago. 

“I did want you, Peter. But I was scared. You were Peter Stone, you were making a name for yourself in Chicago. Everywhere we went, people knew who you were. I was afraid that one day, you’d look at me, and wonder why the hell you stayed with me for so long when you could’ve had everything and more in Chicago. I was afraid that I was going to lose myself, trying to compete with people in a brand new city. I’d already sacrificed so much for you, hid so many of my fears, my accomplishments, my feelings from you those last few years. And when you got down on one knee, in the middle of the city, I just couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t picture you spending the rest of your life with me.”

He shook his head, quickly bringing his hand up to swipe away a tear that fell. 

“I would have given all of that up for you. I would have done anything for you to believe that.” He picked up his briefcase, letting you know he was done with this conversation. 

“Where are you going? We can’t just leave the conversation like this,” you said, your tone coming off desperate as you watched him open the door. 

“I have to prep a witness. Besides, I’ve waited seven years for this conversation, I think I can wait a little longer.”

“Peter, don’t-” but your sentence was cut off by the slamming of Liv’s door behind him. 

You leaned on the back of the chair, dipping your head as you repressed the sobs creeping up your throat.

You spent the past seven years rationalizing that decision, trying to make yourself believe that everything was okay between the two of you. But you broke both of your hearts that day, and you did it all over again after this conversation.

“Hey, Liv needs us to go check up on a witness. I’ll meet you by the car?” Sonny asked, poking his head into the room.

You straightened, keeping your back turned to him. You sniffled quietly and gently wiped at your eyes. “Yeah I’ll meet you down there in five. Just gonna stop in the bathroom.”

“Okay.” He knocked twice on the door as he left, and you took a moment to take a deep breath.

This conversation was far from over.

**** 

After a few hours of tracking down a witness and convincing them to testify, the sun was already starting to set in the city. Carisi was dying to grab dinner, but you had other plans for your evening. 

He pulled up in front of One Hogan, the normally packed stairs pretty empty after six o’clock. 

“Are you sure he’s even here? He’s had a pretty light case load this week, maybe he called it an early night to catch up on some rest.”

“I know he’s here, Sonny.”

“Is this about what happened earlier?” You looked over at him, his blue eyes widening in sympathy for you. “The walls aren’t soundproof, and you guys weren’t exactly whispering.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t really planning for an argument when I decided to talk to him.”

He nodded, a small smile creeping across his face. “Fair enough.”

“Thanks for dropping me off. I’ll see you in the morning.” You gently closed the car door, tapping twice on the window before making your way up the courthouse steps. 

You took the elevator up to the eighth floor, wasting no time once you stepped onto the old grey carpet of the DA’s office. You hadn’t prepared what you were going to say, but you didn’t need to. You were still reeling from the argument just a few hours earlier, and you were done tiptoeing around the situation.

As you turned down the hallway, you caught Carmen’s eye at the copy machine.

“Is he in his office?”

“Yes,” She started, as you walked past her and toward his office door. “But Detective, he asked not to be disturbed by any calls or visitors.”

You could see him through the wooden slats trying to cover the windows, reviewing paperwork at his desk. 

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not just any visitor,” you said before opening his door, no knock given for a warning. He looked up from his papers, his face annoyingly stoic upon your entrance.

“You can’t just blame me for ruining your life then walk out of the precinct like a goddamn coward.”

“Mr. Stone,” Carmen came in after you, interrupting any Momentum you were trying to create. “I’m sorry, I tried to tell her you weren’t available.”

 “It’s okay, Carmen. We’re fine, thank you.” She nodded, exiting the office as quick as she entered, slowly closing the door behind her. He looked back at you. “You were saying?”

 “Don’t act all smug and innocent now that we’re on your territory.”

 “Well, what do you want me to say? You want me to apologize? Fine, I’m sorry that you were so miserable in our relationship that you couldn’t tell me about it,”

 “Stop putting words in my mouth!” You exclaimed while running a frustrated hand through your hair. He let out a sigh, gathering himself for a few seconds, before moving to lean against the front of his desk.

 He crossed his arms over his chest, still defensive, as you got ready to speak again.

“I have relived that moment in front of Lake Michigan over, and over, and over again in my head. I’ve gone through every scenario, trying to find the one where I say yes without either one of us feeling like we compromised a part of ourselves to make it work, but there isn’t one. And that truth hurts me just as much as it hurts you.

“I should’ve talked to you about how I was feeling,” you admitted. “When you told me you were going to give baseball a real shot, I was terrified that I would lose you. You were in a new city, living your dream, with guys your age and reputations that could get you anything you ever wanted. I trusted you, I don’t want you to doubt that, but I just couldn’t help but think you would leave me for it. For more independence, more freedom. And every time I thought about telling you, everytime I thought about asking for reassurance, I would see you play. And you belonged on the mound. You would find me after every game, with a smile that was larger than life plastered on your face, and I would forget all about it. I saw how happy you were, and that made it all worth it for me.

“But then you got hurt, you turned the jersey in, and went back out there for law school. And again, I was terrified that you were going to leave me. I was a rookie cop in Brooklyn, working shitty hours almost a thousand miles away. I never doubted that you would become a great lawyer, but your ambition scared me. Because I didn’t know what I wanted other than you. I didn’t need anything else except you.

“I did want to marry you. I wanted to live in a brownstone with you, start a family, all of it. That wasn’t a lie. But doubt and insecurity are powerful and all consuming. And I quickly realized, if I was unhappy with myself now, how was I going to feel about myself in ten years? Twenty, even? I needed to grow without you, I needed to figure out what I wanted as an individual before I could be with you.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly articulate that feeling to you when you were down on one knee. Hell, I couldn’t even articulate the feeling for myself until months after the fact. I started going to therapy, believe it or not.” 

You looked over at Peter, not being able to hold eye contact through your explanation for longer than five seconds. But his gaze was unwavering, and a small nod from him let you know it was okay to continue. 

“A lot of that inadequacy I felt with you turned into misplaced anger, usually toward you, because you didn’t try to help me. Which took a lot of sessions for me to understand that you weren’t being a narcissist, you just didn’t know.” He let out a small laugh, making you feel a little better about the situation. “There was a lot of stuff that I had to work through on my own, that I should’ve been working on since I was younger, but I had a pretty good friend that kept me happy and loved me long enough for me to ignore it.”

“Yeah, well he had a lot of shit to work through on his own, too.” You smiled, walking over to join him in leaning against his desk. He uncrossed his arms, now lightly gripping the edge of his desk. “I’m sorry for being petty and talking over you. I’ve been told I’m kind of an asshole outside of the courtroom.”

“Who told you that, Liv or Rollins?”

“Both of them.” He said and you couldn’t help but laugh. They were going to make sure he knew his place in the squad. 

The anger you walked in here with quickly dissipated once you got him to listen to you. That was something that never changed, nearly two decades knowing him and he still remained obstinate as ever. 

After a few seconds in silence, you wondered if this is what closure felt like. It felt like a weight had been lifted off your chest, sitting there ever since you saw Peter prosecuting Barba. You felt the grief of your relationship finally lighten up, letting you think about your time together without the failed proposal looming over your head. 

 “Do you remember the first time you kissed me?” you asked, all the confidence you strode in here with had left your voice, now sounding like a shy little girl. “We were outside of the drug store on the corner of our block. It was almost midnight, I have no idea why we went there-”

“We were looking for rainbow sprinkles,” he interrupted. You looked over at him, shocked that he would remember such a small detail. “We were making ice cream sundaes, and we only had chocolate jimmies at my house. You were insistent on having rainbow sprinkles on top of your sundae, so we ran down the street before the store closed. We got the last tub, and when we walked out of there, you had the biggest smile on your face. You were standing under a monstrosity of a streetlight, the yellow light showcasing your fuzzy pajama pants and slippers, and I thought you were beautiful. So I kissed you, and prayed that you felt the same way, even though I had a pretty good feeling that kiss on the cheek you gave me a few days before meant you did.”

He looked over at you once he was done, not even trying to hide the tears that had so clearly formed in your eyes. You forgot about this feeling with Peter. You missed this feeling with Peter.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you.” Your voice only wavered the slightest bit.

“I know. I’m sorry too.”

A single tear traced your cheek, giving you a chance to look away from him. A few more fell as you wiped them away, giving you a few seconds to spin the conversation to keep you from crying any more.

“I know you didn’t want to talk about it earlier, and I’m not going to force you to now, but I want you to know I’m here for you. What happened to Pam, it’s not a normal grieving process. I know you said you’ve changed, and you can deal with it any way you want. But I’m the only one left that knew her the way you did. And maybe talking about it, and remembering how much you loved each other could help.”

He nodded, his jaw clenching once again to remain neutral. 

“Maybe,” That was a start.

You sat there for another minute, enjoying the amicable silence as long as you could before you had to go.

“I should probably head out. If I leave now, I can probably catch Rollins and Carisi before they’ve ordered anything for dinner.” Pushing off his desk, you grabbed your sweater and phone that you must have thrown onto the chair in your fit of rage. You didn’t remember any of that. “Thank you for listening. I’m glad we could talk through everything, finally.”

“Me too. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

You nodded. “Tomorrow, bright and early.”

You made your way to the door, but pulled your hand off the handle when you heard your name. 

“Rollins and Carisi,” Peter started. “Are they together?”

You smiled. “They should be. They’re both a little too blind to see though. Maybe you could work on Carisi during your weekly drinks together.”

Teasing each other like you didn’t just talk through your seven year relationship. I guess closure really can work. 

He gave you a smirk in return. “Maybe.”

****

“Carisi, I’m only coming to this stupid thing because you said you’d buy me a real dinner afterward.” You muttered out as you held the hem of your dress in your hand and started walking up the grand stairs.

“Listen, we just gotta stay for an hour, two tops, so I can talk to some of the Brooklyn DAs. Then I promise I’ll buy you a milkshake and fries.” He extended his left arm out to you, and linked them together. 

“What about a burger?”

“Your dinner order is going to cost more than these tickets,” he said and you let out a laugh.

“Well this was a perfect opportunity to ask Rollins out on a date, and you whiffed. So, now you pay the price.”

You didn’t miss the way his cheeks turned rosy red as you made it to the entrance of the gala.

“For your information, I was going to ask her. Then she mentioned it was Jesse’s dance recital, and I couldn’t ask after that. Besides, our first date shouldn’t be a work event.”

The two of you went through the metal detectors, Carisi showing your tickets before entering the main ballroom. 

You looked over at him in his gray tux, hair perfectly styled, and the comforting smile resting on his face that just made him Sonny Carisi. And you were happy he was finally going to take control of his life. 

“She’s going to say yes,” you started as he grabbed two champagne flutes off a passing tray. “No matter when you ask her, no matter the occasion, she’s going to say yes to you.” 

“I hope so.” He said with a shy smile, as he led the way to the first suits of the night.

When you were little, you always dreamt of going to an event like this. Dressing up in a fancy gown, heels so high they made your feet scream, hair and make up done like you were a movie star, and dancing and laughing the night away. 

The Gala for the District Attorneys of the Five Boroughs was not what you dreamt of. You had the pretty dress from Nordstrom Rack, little block heels from TjMaxx, and your normal makeup routine matched with a bolder lip and simple hair. There was no one to impress here; the DAs office was a place you tried to steer clear of.

You’d been here an hour, and Carisi had already introduced you to six different DAs from the Brooklyn office. He was a natural with them all, anyone that got a chance to talk to Sonny Carisi always loved him. They talked about recent SVU cases, upcoming Brooklyn cases, and some new Supreme Court rulings. Honestly, the conversations were what you imagined law school lectures sounded like. 

After the third introduction, you started to zone out after learning their names. You listened for keywords, made appropriate gestures to seem like you were listening intently, and chimed in if Carisi prompted you to. Most of the time, you sipped your champagne, scanned the room every few minutes, and rolled your sore ankles for some relief. 

You tuned back into this conversation as Carisi started his farewells, adding a goodbye and nice to meet you before he led the way to a free hightop to lean against. 

“I don’t know how you can have the same conversations with these people that lack so much personality. I feel like my brain is going to rot in here.”

“Well if I’m going to break into any of the DAs offices, I need to do some ass kissing.”

It had been two years since he passed the Bar exam, but he gave no intentions of moving outside of the squadroom to the courtroom until now. Realistically, you knew this day was coming. But even two years later, you still weren’t ready for the change. 

“You’re really going through with this?”

“Well I can’t just sit on law school loans and a degree and not use it,” he started, his face slowly changing after looking at you. “What’s going on in that tired head?”

“Nothing,” you sighed. “I’m just gonna miss you. Almost four years we spent pissing each other off during stakeouts and memorizing coffee orders. It's gonna be hard to replace you as a partner.”

He smiled, reaching over the table to give your hand a squeeze. “I know. I’m gonna miss you too. Especially the little paper balls you throw onto my desk every afternoon.” You laughed as he pulled his hand back. “But I’m just changing jobs. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“And I’ll see you when you come to pick up Rollins from the station for date nights,” you teased and he rolled his eyes. 

He grabbed another two champagne flutes from the bar, handing one bubbly glass to you.

“Hey, Stone’s here.” Your eyes widened as Sonny waved him over, standing out of your line of sight. “I didn’t think he was the gala type.”

“He isn’t.” You murmured out before Peter stepped up to your hightop.

He was in his classic black suit without a tie, not wasting any time getting changed for an event he probably didn’t even want to be at.

“Hey guys.”

“Hey. I didn’t think you’d be one to attend a work sanctioned event.” Carisi said, getting a small smile out of you.

“Well you think right. Jack McCoy thought it would be good if I dropped by for a little while, mingled with some of my colleagues.”

“And how’s that going?” You asked.

“Awfully mundane.” He answered with a smile. “What about you guys? Two cops at a lawyer ego fest? Nothing better to do on a Wednesday night?”

“I’m trying to get my name out there, make some connections with DAs throughout the boroughs. And my partner here agreed to tag along.”

“He bribed me with fries and a milkshake.” You clarified.

“Of course he did. Cookie dough from the Bryer’s family stand?”

“Obviously.” 

Carisi looked at the two of you, quickly falling into place even after years apart. Even though he didn’t witness the years you two were together, moments like these would come along, and he could only imagine how happy the two of you must have been.

“I just saw the Manhattan DA by the bar,” Carisi interrupted, drawing your attention back to him. “I guess you can sit this one out, five conversations later I think I have it down.”

“Are you sure?” You asked. “I’m sure the sixth person I’ve met tonight wouldn’t wince after finding out I’m a cop.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Keep your wise mouth over here, please.” He joked as he excused himself from the table. 

You and Peter watched him head over to the bar, introducing himself to a brunette woman who you now know is the Manhattan DA. Barely thirty seconds into meeting her and she already has a smile on her face. That’s Sonny Carisi for you.

You looked away from the conversation between the two lawyers, about to ask Peter about the case you guys were currently working on, but he was already looking at you.

“What?” You asked defensively, tucking a piece of hair behind your ears and quickly glancing down at your outfit. “Do I look like an idiot? I’m trying to blend in with the white collar crowd,” 

You pinched the fabric of your dress and let it flow, gesturing to the elegant piece of clothing you bought just for this occasion.

“No, you look fine.” His eyes softened and looked you over one more time. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” It was only a matter of seconds before your cheeks started to warm. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

“Well, a suit is very versatile. Works in a courtroom, interrogations, and even galas.”

“Lucky you. I haven’t been in a gown since prom. I should’ve just kept that dress, it would’ve been a statement piece over ten years later.”

“I’m not so sure the purple and yellow swirls would have helped Carisi win over any of the DAs.” Peter commented with a small smile.

But you had forgotten he was your date. You forgot he knew exactly what that hideous dress looked like. You forgot that you two danced the night away. You forgot for a minute that he’s the reason you can’t listen to Coldplay’s yellow. 

You forgot, for the smallest moment, that you had even been together.

And what a scary moment it was.

“Hey,” He ducked his head, his eyes meeting you at your level. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you shook your head and took a sip of your champagne. “Just remembering that awful, awful dress.”

Before you were thrown off any more in this conversation, Jack McCoy approached your table.

“Counselor,” he rested a hand on Peter’s shoulder, a smile gracing both of their faces. “Glad to see you could make it.”

“Well my boss didn’t really give me a choice. He’s kind of a pain in the ass.” They exchanged a look, and you had to stifle the laugh rising in your throat.

“Jack, I’m sure you remember the Detective,” Peter said, moving the conversation to you. 

Jack shook your hand, and you gave him your best smile. “I believe we’ve crossed paths once or twice. She may have even told me off about prosecuting one Rafael Barba.”

“I would say I’m sorry, but I told him off too.” you pointed to Peter, rolling his eyes. “But we’re all just doing our job.”

“I like her,” Jack said with a smile. “She reminds me a lot of a young baseball player I knew once.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t you have other DA’s to piss off here tonight?” Peter interrupted. 

“I do. It was nice to see you, Detective,” you smiled as he took a step away from the table. “And don’t think you can skip out on the dance floor tonight, Stone.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Peter ended it, Jack giving a slight wave behind his back. 

He turned back to you, his smile never wavering. How was he not nervous around you? 

Ever since he came back from Chicago, you had to think about what you said a little more than normal. Not to mention bury the guilt and anger you still felt.

But he just looked at you like nothing ever happened. Like nothing destroyed the relationship you two once had. Your stomach was in knots anytime you caught a glimpse of him. You couldn’t form a coherent thought around him, your mind kept going back to that one awful day in Chicago, where you changed your lives forever. It was why you were so defensive that first day outside the courthouse, during his first interrogation, really up until Pam’s death, when you knew he needed someone that could understand the grief he was in. 

You wanted to push past it. You wanted to smile like Peter did, be able to reminisce about high school and college without the hurt seeping into your chest. You’d gotten closure, yelled and screamed, insulted and forgave one another, but there was something still holding you back. 

“Hey,” for the second time tonight, Peter lowered himself to your level, giving you that annoyingly charming crooked smile, before asking “are you alright?”

“No,” you answered honestly, and without thinking through an explanation. “Why do you remember the color of my prom dress?”

“What?” He asked, a bit incredulous, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips.

“Why do you remember the color of my prom dress?” you asked again, as if you were asking a simple question as what’s the weather like outside. “How do you remember all of this stuff? Our  first kiss, the fact that I only like rainbow sprinkles, when I sprained my fucking ankle in soccer,”

“Why does any of this matter?” He interrupted, taking a step closer to you.

“Because you talk about these things as if everything was sunshine and rainbows between us, like we lived on fucking cloud nine and drank nothing but champagne and happiness. And that’s, that’s not how it was.”

Your voice was rising, catching the eye of some prominent lawyers, including Sonny and the Manhattan DA. 

You lowered your head, gathering your clutch and slipping your heels back on. “I should go before I embarrass Carisi,”

“Don’t leave, not like this,” Peter grabbed your arm as you tried to walk away from the table, making you pause for a second, before brushing him off. 

“Tell Carisi I’ll see him tomorrow.” Your voice was half an octave lower, eyes straight ahead as you started walking toward the exit.

Peter called out for you once, and then twice, but stopped at the same time you heard some gangly footsteps catching up with you. You halted once you approached the steps, listening as Sonny asked you to wait, and the tears started to fall. 

What a night.

****

“Go home, Rollins. I’ll finish up here, the girls will be excited to see you.”

“Ok. But if anything comes up, call me. I‘ll probably just be sleeping on the couch.”

“Okay,” you said with a laugh. “Liv and I can hold down the fort.”

She packed up her bag and tidied her desk for the night, waving goodbye as she had her nanny on the phone.

You refocused on the paperwork in front of you, sighing at the thick stack waiting to be finished. 

Getting through half the stack was your goal for tonight, and by 7:30, your hand was cramping as you were a few shy of completion. They could wait until tomorrow.

Before you pack up your things and rush out the door, you stop in at your Lieutenant’s office, Liv still chugging away at her own desk. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Hey Liv, do you need anything before I head out?”

Her head snapped up, and you saw the grimace of pain on her face. The crick in her neck was something you were all too familiar with. 

“No, no, I’m good.” She cracked her knuckles and stretched a little in her chair. “In all honesty I didn’t even know you were still here. Thought you left with Rollins a few hours ago.”

“Wanted to get a head start on paperwork. Besides, she deserved an early night with the girls for once.”

You guys had been busy for weeks, case after case being thrown at you, you barely had time to think about what you were going to eat for dinner. 

“Just trying to catch up, huh? Not avoiding anything?”

“There’s nothing in my life to avoid, unless you count the stack of unopened mail on my counter or the weeks of Say Yes to the Dress episodes in my DVR.”

The knock on Liv’s opened door paused the conversation, as you turned to look at the visitor. 

“Sorry to interrupt,”

This guy is fucking everywhere. 

“You’re not interrupting, Peter. We’re both about to head out, unless you need something from me,” Liv answered.

You focused on the floor, wanting to be anywhere in the world except back in this office with Peter. This place was full of bad mojo for the two of you. 

“No, I actually came to talk to the detective.” He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded cautious, and once you looked back at him, you saw the nerves painted across his face. 

Good. He was finally as terrified as you were to talk. 

“Let me grab my bag, and we can walk out.”

You exchanged goodbye’s with Olivia before quickly, and rather clumsily, knocking your bag into the side of Carisi’s metal desk on the way out. You didn’t even bother packing up your desk; Peter was making you nervous just by watching you in your space. 

“So, what did you want to talk about? Is it the Mendoza case?” You asked as the two of you stepped onto the elevator and he pressed the button for level 1.

“No. I wanted to talk about the other night.”

The gala.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Am I seriously going to have to pry every piece of information out of you from here on out?” He had an attitude, not putting up with your act of deniability. 

The doors opened to the lobby, and you led the way out to the street. You walked down the sidewalk a little bit before stopping in front of a quieter spot near the cruiser parking lot.

The sun set about half an hour ago, so the only light source you had was the bright yellow lamp post beating down on the two of you. It didn’t matter that he was standing under the fluorescent bulb; Peter was glowing in his white button down and overcoat. 

He always seemed to glow.

“Well you wanted to talk, so get to speaking before I change my mind.”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like none of this matters to you!” he exclaimed, your eyes widening the slightest bit. It was usually you making the most noise. “From the moment you saw me in the courtroom a year ago, you’ve been avoiding me and every conversation about us. It took you weeks just to talk to me about our working situation, never mind our friendship. You keep me at an arm's length, bringing up our past and things we used to do, only to shut it down the minute I reminisce about something we did that made me so fucking happy. I thought we talked through this a month ago, said our peace and moved on. I thought we were comfortable with each other again.”

“We are,” you mustered out.

“Then why can’t you talk to me anymore?” He asked, and you could hear the genuity in his voice. “At the gala, you were the one that brought up the stupid prom dress. We were laughing, having a good time, and it felt like normal, until I said you wore a purple dress. And then you shut down, distanced yourself from me again, leaving me on an island filled with our past, letting me second guess every single moment we shared together. Wondering if you felt the same about the midnight ice cream runs, Sunday subway rides, crying in the back of my dads fucking station wagon when he told me about Pam, ”

He ran a hand through his hair, catching his breath in the process. You barely noticed the tremor as he raised his hand. 

“Did our relationship not mean the same to you?”

For the second time in your life, you felt what could only be described as heartbreak. In the literal, physical meaning, the ache in your chest felt like your heart had split in two. And both times, it was because of Peter Stone. 

“Of course it meant the same to me, Peter. I remember the first day I met you, that stupid lopsided grin you had didn’t leave your face the entire subway ride. You were the only person at school that talked to me, the new girl, for two months.”

You smiled as you began to remember nearly every interaction you shared.

“I remember the first time I met your father and Pam, she wouldn’t stop teasing you about me. I remember the Red Sox vs. Yankees game we went to sophomore year and you had to give me your Mariano Rivera jersey after some drunk guy spilled his beer all over me. I remember tutoring you in Spanish, bribing you with nickels to use at the stupid toy machine at the corner store. I remember your first cell phone number, and the way you ended your voicemail with an ‘okay, that sounded like shit. Oh fuck, i’m still recording!’ and couldn’t figure out how to fix it for weeks. 

“In my apartment, I have the ticket stub from the first Mets game we went to. I pressed one of the purple tulips you gave me a week before we started dating and I keep it in my favorite book. I kept the receipt from our first date, I kept the boarding pass to my first plane ticket to Chicago. In the back of my closet, I still have your Cubs jersey on a hanger.

“I remember being happy with you, Peter. I remember our first kiss so clearly, I remember when you said ‘I love you’ in the library, I remember you teaching me how to slow dance for my cousin’s wedding, I remember our first time and how incredibly safe you made me feel. I remember being loved by you every single day for eight years.”

There were tears in your eyes now as you took a breath, but he never once looked away from you. 

“Every time I see you, all I can think about is you kneeling in front of me as I destroy what we had. And I know I don’t deserve to feel this heartbroken about the situation that I caused, but I do.”

A tear rolled down your cheek, but you didn’t even flinch.

“I’m never going to find something like that again, a love that made me feel seen, even in my worst moments, despite my own shortcomings. I was stubborn, and took too long to understand myself. I realized this all too late, but I’ve accepted it.”

“I don’t blame you,” he finally interrupted, taking the smallest step toward you. You shook your head, the movement causing more tears to fall. He took the last two steps to reach you, grabbing your hands in his own. “And I know, it's going to take a lot more than me telling you that to convince you, but we have to start somewhere. We hurt each other in different ways whether we meant to or not. So, please listen to me when I say I don’t blame you.

“As for finding a relationship like ours again, I don’t think I’ll be able to find something like it, or something that surpasses it, at that rate. And I don’t want to. Because I only want to feel that all consuming love with you.”

“Peter,” you started, clearing your throat and wiping away your tears. “The last thing you want is to go through this again.”

“When are you going to understand that my feelings for you never went away?” He started, and you felt your heart rate quicken. “You were more than just a girl I wanted to marry. You were my best friend. And being without you these last few years has been incredibly lonely.” 

He took a minute to think about what he was going to say next, his brows furrowing and then relaxing a few times to make sure he got it right.

“I want you in my life. As my colleague, as my friend, and my partner. But if you don’t want that, I’m willing to take whatever you’ll give me. But please, please don’t cut me out again.”

It was his eyes that began to fill with tears now, the light catching the blue irises fighting to keep the tears in. Part of you wished he would just let go, stop trying to contain himself and his emotions. 

But you were doing the exact same thing.

“I’m scared we’re going to fail again.” You admitted, and Peter just smiled in return. 

Finally. You were letting him in.

“How do you know it’s going to fail if you don’t even give it a chance?”

You took a deep breath as he rubbed his thumb across your knuckles.

“No one knows me better than you do,”

“And that terrifies you.” He finished, a small smile resting on his face. “It’s terrifying for me too. But it saves me a lot of time not having to learn your birthday or favorite color.”

He got the smallest smile out of you. “I am terrified, and also feel strangely at peace, and I’m still going to be sorry.”

Before you could continue self flagellating, he rested his hand on the side of your face, and gently placed his lips over yours. It was chaste, incredibly sweet as you remembered what he tasted like, and lasted only a few seconds longer than the first one you shared sixteen years ago.

He pulled away slowly, running his thumb across your cheek in the gentlest manner. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, okay?”

You nodded, as he kissed you again, in the same chaste yet heart shattering way. When he pulled away, he was quick to pull you back to him, placing a kiss on your forehead before tucking you under his chin, his arms securely wrapped around your waist.

You tucked yourself into his neck, gently running your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. And, because you could, you placed a kiss to the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder, without feeling embarrassed about it this time.

Because he was yours again. And you weren’t going to let him go this time.

“I love you,” you whispered into his skin, and pressed your lips to the same spot once again.

You felt the curve of his lips as he kissed your head, “I love you too,” murmured into your hair and the empty city block around you.

Or so you thought.

About fifty feet away, standing in the back entrance to the precinct, were Sonny and Amanda, spying on the spectacle between the two of you.

“How do we tell her that we caught a case after this?” Carisi asked, tearing his eyes away from your embrace and down at Amanda.

“The same way you told me. Over a second date dinner before we even got the bread.” She teased, getting him to roll his eyes. 

She reached for his hand as he began to walk away, gently squeezing to let him know she understood the circumstances, and that it didn’t change anything.

The soft smile he gave her in return nearly killed her. 

“Hey Romeo and Juliet!” Rollins shouted, in an attempt to both get your attention and reclaim her strong demeanor. “We got a case, so if you could wrap up the balcony scene, that would be great.”

You flinched the slightest bit when you heard Rollins shout at you, quickly settling back into Peter’s chest as he gently squeezed your sides.

“Busted already. Thought we’d at least have a couple days to figure this out for ourselves.”

You pulled away just far enough so you could look up at him and admire his sparkling blue eyes. 

“We will. But until then, business as usual.” 

“But no self-sabotage or flagellating.” He added. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

You smiled and rose onto your tiptoes to kiss him, starting in the same slow way you always did, enjoying the lazy way your lips moved together. This is what heaven felt like, and you remember now why you never felt anxious in Peter’s presence. 

He started to pull away, but you snuck in a few more small kisses, the smile on his face growing after each one. 

“I’ll call you when I can, okay?” 

He kept his eyes on yours as he took a second before answering, a deep breath in and out, replaced by a beautiful Peter smile. 

“Okay.”

It was hard to explain what happened in that moment he took for himself, but you knew it was for you. To show you he loved, respected, and accepted you for who you were in the past, and who you are now. And it’s all you could ever ask for.

****

tags: @hurricanejjareau @qvid-pro-qvo @duchesschameleon​ @averyhotchner​

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

Oooh is it a typewriter that does the DING! every time you go to a new line? Because I love that, but I could never use it myself, too distracting.

———————————————————————

Okay so the easy answer for how I write is pen and paper, but I have a long answer for you because why not.

My first/second drafts (take the word “draft” loosely btw) are nearly always on paper. Usually I write out my idea for a scene first in pen (mostly in [brackets] like you said you do, with specific lines of dialogue I want to hit), tab it (orange or yellow usually, depending on how much work is to be done [I have a whole system 💀]) and there’s my first draft. For my second draft I write it out longhand (again in pen) getting in as much of the final detail as I can. Usually I have the first draft in one notebook and write out the second in another—sometimes, if I’m feeling really inspired, I write it out without having to do that first rough sketch of a first draft. These always end up being a lot cleaner (somehow), so it’s what I aim for if I can. I tag these pink once they’re done.

[I have 5?? Notebooks for BDOR, another 2 for my Nano this year (neither full (sigh)), and another for random few for random ideas (that has also been slowly consumed by Linked Universe XD). Gimme a minute and I’ll send a picture lol]

3rd draft! Digitize! There are some apps I’ve seen that claim to be able to take a picture of your handwritten stuff and digitize, but I have not found one for my awful mix of cursive and print, so I just type it all again. I specifically use the app Danger Notes for this so I don’t try to edit and get hung up. Once the whole thing is down, only then do I go back through the document. Here is where I (briefly) look for spelling errors, tense errors, typos, etc. If there are any brackets left at this point (such as you use them, @needfantasticstories ), I flesh them out here, and if there are any big changes I want to make, I do so here as well. This step has helped with my typing speed tremendously over the years XD.

4th draft! I cut each chapter into 200-300 word bits (usually following specific character interactions, descriptions, general vibes) and put them into their own separate pages documents (I have 250 some at my last count for BDOR). I put this nifty little thing \/\/\/

———————————————————————

which I have saved on my phone and computer as /line underneath those words and completely rewrite. I copy and paste what I have exactly as I want it to be, edit what I don’t, until everything is under the line. This edit focuses more on style.

5th draft! Once all those little pieces are rewritten how I want them to be, I take them all into one pages document! Then I reread and make sure that every bit I isolated actually makes sense in context, again look for typos, etc. Basically finalize the chapter as a whole.

6th draft! Paste it into my final document (splitting between arc 1 and arc 2) (im on pages rn but I may switch to google docs, it’s so much more convenient) and then reread again and go analyze with my idiotically complicated detail/subplot tracker document. Skip, you’ve already seen this monstrosity, but if anyone else wants to see it too let me know XD, it does contain slight spoilers. Whatever things I find that I want to add or edit from that document I change, and then whoop de doo we’re done!

Idk, it’s what I like to do. I realize it’s a bit backwards (going little details to large instead of vise versa on editing leaves me open to dumb typos or having to trash work I’ve put a lot of effort into after I realize it doesn’t fit) but it works for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Through what medium do you primarily write? (Pencil, computer, voice to type, old timer typewriter, what?)

I do have a typewriter, but I have no idea how it works. Got it cheap at a yard sale.

I use Google Docs. I turn the page black and write in white text, put individual ideas in brackets, add mood pictures, and go. I’m comfortable with the formatting options, and it’s faster than Word for me. Plus, if I lose my hands or something I can always dictate into it.

How about you?

[herstroywritten]

Darn Pigtails

Hello! I genuinely have no excuse for this monstrosity of a piece that I agonized over for the past few days instead of focusing on my uni work. I’ve spent the last month obsessing over Fate and Rivusa (the latter has been a life long obsession and Fate has only added fuel to the fire, with just one scene...). Yes, I am a part of that clown circus and honestly, I’m proud. I’ve always been a writer, but never posted anything but I figure here goes nothing. I was very inspired by some very talented writers in this tiny little club that’s been created on here for this ship (you all know them by now...). I couldn’t resist adding my own (not so) little addition to the collection. I don’t currently have an account on ao3 or anything, so this is just what’s happening. Be warned, it’s long and maybe excessive (8k words, oops). Other than that, enjoy and feel free to let me know your thoughts!

It started with pigtails.

He'd seen Dowling parading her around the square as students fought tooth and nail to kill the fake dummies that seemed to embody their realistic counterparts more than they should have. She's had a raincoat on at the time, not that he would have cared what she was wearing because… how could he notice anything but the pigtails? Fucking pigtails! Long enough to reach her waist, dark enough to have him thinking that the darkest of night skies must have been modeled after that same color, and pin-straight from root to tip. She walked by, lavender sweater and loose jeans, and that's the first thing he noticed. Her pigtails. He felt his tongue move, the tip pressed against the top of his mouth, ready to make a crude comment about how he'd love to tug on those pigtails in more than one scenario because honestly, was he not supposed to with the way that they swung about perfectly matching the sway of her hips? His eyes lit up as he just about let the words tumble out, and then she let her eyes lift to meet his as she made her way through the specialists' training grounds. Brown eyes lingered over his green ones for longer than any normal interaction accounts for, before dropping downward to the rest of his form. His mouth quirked into a smirk.

 "Oh," he thought. "So this is how we're going to play this game."

 Never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a game or a challenge. And it just so happened that this particular game, the cat and mouse chase, was one of his favorites. So he figured, if she could stare at him like that, it would only be rude not to return the favor. He turned around, let his eyes fully graze over her whole figure the way he'd been too distracted to do before, and that's when he noted the stick she held. Whatever dumb comment he'd been so eager to make about her pigtails was quickly replaced by, "You like holding that big stick?"

 He'd hoped for a reaction. And boy did he get one, a swift and lithe little trick she'd been hiding, seemingly waiting for the chance to pull it out. And even though he'd been training his whole life to defend himself, he just about let her jab his left eye out because he was so very much intrigued by the way her hair swayed to meet her movements and her brown eyes that bore into him with rage. Yeah, this was going to be all kinds of fun.

 "I think I just threw up," she said, her face twisting into clear disdain. But her eyes sparkled and he thought maybe her hair is not the only thing the night sky was modeled after. He'd seen her before, somewhere in the background perhaps. Class? No. If she were a specialist and in his classes, there was no way in hell he wouldn't remember her. The cafeteria? Probably, there was only one place to get food in this godforsaken place and he doubted she hadn't made her way down there at least once. The Alfea hallways? Again, not unlikely. And that's when it clicked into place. She was one of the too many to remember (in his opinion) roommates of Sky's new obsession- Bloom. The four, sometimes five, of them were always together, huddled up beside one another in the cafeteria benches or on the way to classes. Honestly, now that he thought about it, was there ever a time when he'd seen those girls- besides Stella- alone? He definitely had never seen her alone. "Well, better take advantage of the chance," he thought. So, he dug into her, asked about her little run around the training grounds with the headmistress. He wanted to see how far he could push her rage, how willing she was to give him a good show. Between comments about dancing and fairies versus specialists, her eyes flashed purple and he soon realized that he'd bit off more than he could chew. As if her natural brown irises weren't alluring enough, the way they looked when he powers took over held a whole other sense of siren's lure within them. It took him a second to realize what was happening, that she was reading him. And he would have let her continue too, if it meant that he could hold her attention just a little while longer and feel whatever kind of electricity was rippling between the two of them for a few more minutes. Too bad she chose that moment to let him know exactly what she was doing, and exactly how he felt.

 "You really hate being here, don't you?"

 In this school, yes. Here, right now, with her eyes all over him and his hands twitching to edge upwards and brush his hands against those darn pigtails? No. No, he would have loved to stay right here just a little longer. But he was more scared of whatever hell she'd dig up from within him, so instead he told her to stay the fuck out of his head. He caught a glimpse of her prideful smirk, taunting him about this lost battle and her evident win, right before he whirled around and walked his way back to wherever his legs would lead him.

 Passing by the guy he'd seen constantly following her around like a lost puppy dog, the one he assumed was her boyfriend, he murmured under his breath something along the lines of "Good luck with that one."

 And then he was gone. But not before he remembered that he hadn't caught her name. No matter. As previously mentioned, never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a challenge. She'd won this battle, but he was going to win the war.

_______________________________________________________________

The next time he found himself in her company only, the world had flipped on its axis.

Dowling and Silva were gone and Harvey had turned into a muted professor, almost never seen anywhere except in the greenhouse when he had classes to run. The new headmistress, Rosalind, ruled with a grip tougher than steel. Andreas was  the male version of her, so not any better. Fairies were being forced into combat positions, whether they liked it or not, and upperclassmen specialists were forced into being their mentors, whether they liked it or not. Classes were stricter. You miss one lesson, you make up two class times in personal training with either Andreas or Rosalind herself. At first, everyone'd thought that was a stupid rule. Who doesn’t want a one-on-one with the professors? It took just one dumb third-year specialist missing his first lesson on the first day of the second term for everyone to realize that these training sessions were practically abuse covered with a prettier name.

But the thing that had changed the most, the thing that he couldn't even begin to name, was whatever the hell was happening to his mind. He no longer knew where his day started and where it ended. He knew he must have gotten up every morning and  gone to classes and eaten to sustain his body for the brutal training session that followed and delt with whatever else needed dealing with. And yet, he remembered none of it. None of it except the moments spent chasing Sky around (which inevitably meant chasing the Winx suite around), the moments spent training his new fairy mentee- Musa, and the nightly runs to Dowling's- no, Rosalind's- office where he involuntarily spilled every little detail about his day. His mind had become an utter blur, his thoughts were no longer his own. He knew somewhere in his mind that he needed to stop, had tried endlessly to stop, but the more he held back from Rosalind's spell, the faster his words seem to come out. So, he'd stopped trying to fight it.

It was to his horror when he had been assigned Musa for training. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Of course they were going to pair him with a Winx suitemate, he just had expected it to be Bloom. Bloom was who they wanted details on after all. Even Stella would have made more sense, what with her mother being so very controlling. But no. Bloom went to Sky, Stella to some third year specialist, and he got Musa. If guilt wasn't already shredding him to pieces, it would be now.

He tried to console himself with the fact that he was better prepared to handle her this time. He'd spent enough time with Sky and the girls to have picked up the little details about her. She constantly listened to music to block out the world, she liked wearing shorts and miniskirts (a fact he quite enjoyed), she had an unhealthy obsession with bomber jackets (a fact he could do without when she was also wearing lacy silks under those same jackets), she liked pancakes for breakfast (but only when they were drenched with maple syrup), and the list goes on. His personal favorite fact, however, was that her hair was always immaculate and never the same two days in a row.

The point was, he could do this. All he had to do was train her. No talking necessary. She sure as hell was not about to strike up conversation with him if he didn't bother her. So, he'd keep his mouth shut and just teach her what he needed to teach her. Then he'd leave. That way, when his legs would inevitably carry him to Rosalind at midnight on the dot, he'd have nothing to give her but a good rundown of what moves they had practiced.

How wrong he had been.

He had clearly overestimated his ability to not falter in front of her, because the second she walked into the mat, he knew he'd have to say something.

This time, her hair was in tightly wound braids. Two of them, wrapping vertically down her scalp like fine rope. This time, he wants to undo her hair, to tug the black elastic ties out of place and run his fingers through each threaded piece until the strands lay about her shoulders in waves. He'd like to know what she looks like with her hair down, like fully down.

As if the hair wasn’t enough, she was also dressed in the tight female version of the specialist gear. It's all green woven material that crosses her chest, black mesh that lines her sides, and tight leggings that bring an ungodly amount of attention to her ass.

So, he slips up. "If I knew this is what you'd look like in a uniform-" he starts, but never finishes.

"Don't you dare finish that thought," she warns, voice dripping with a no-nonsense attitude.

"What's gotten into you?"

"It has not been my day. Hell, it has not been my week."

"It hasn't been anyone's week," he feels the need to remind her. And when she looks at him with those eyes, he wonders if she can read right through him without having to use her magic.

"Yeah, well. Let's just say I'm having a particularly more-so-than-average-shit day. So I'd appreciate it if you kept the comments to yourself." She's frustrated, he can see it. She's giving him the perfect out of a bad situation. She's begging him not to talk to her and that's exactly what he needs but goddamn it, he can't back away from a challenge even when his mind is in literal hell.

"What, can't handle me?" She scoffs at that.

"I can handle you just fine. I've been handling other's comments and thoughts since my powers started showing up. That's not the problem.

"What is the problem then?" He's digging, searching for something. For what, he's not sure. She's just finished lacing up her boots. She looks at him then, stares him down.

"The problem is I don’t want to handle you right now, Riven." And with that, she shoves past him to the center of the mat. But he's not done yet.

"You sure about that? I've never met a girl who doesn’t want to handle me before…" He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she chuckles a little at his antics.

"Yeah, no. But even if I did want to, you'd really have to do better than that.

"What, the line wasn't up to your standards?"

"Was it up to yours?"

"Not my best, I'll admit. But I make do. And you can't tell me Harvey Jr. has done any better." Rage flushes through her features at that particular comment. He watches as her cheeks flush bright red and as the flush slowly spreads to her neck and below the rounded collar of her uniform, slowly cursing whoever created the damn thing for not making it a V-neck. 

"Ooh, a reaction! Go on, then. Tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours."

"None of your fucking business."

"It never is, and yet I'd love to know."

"Seriously, Riven. Let's just not talk." She wound up, ready to burst. Her hands are balled into fists by her side and her back is arched towards him in anger. She's a spring ready to jump, and he wants to see how high she can reach.

He goes for the typical line, "Trouble in paradise, then?"

Turns out she can jump pretty damn high, something he expected. What he didn't expect was for her to jump him. She pushes him with so much force that he barely catches himself before he falls. Tears stream down her face as she punches at his chest (hopelessly, he notes… he's got a lot to teach her). He lets her continue the onslaught on his chest, is impressed by her force and strength and persistence even if the form is all wrong. When she finally stops, the tears do too. All that's left are her hiccups and his eyes following her every movement. He watches her dry her eyes vigorously, hears her curse him and the school and herself… and Sam? He's not sure what's happening right now, not sure why his arms suddenly want to wind around her frame and pull her in, or why his heart clenches at the sight of her tears. He chooses to ignore it all.

They continue the rest of the training session in silence, with him only speaking to direct her movements and point out a thing or two about her form. Later that night, after running through his nightly routine with Rosalind, he finds out from Sky that Bloom was especially distressed today because Musa was especially distressed today because Musa and Sam had decided to call it quits. Riven feels light-headed at that news,  and he's still not exactly sure why his body is so adamant about reacting to news involving her.

He rolls into bed, thinking bitterly to himself that he won today. He won this battle. So why does it feel like he lost it?

______________________________________________________________

They continue their training sessions in silence for a while, until eventually a banter sparks between the two of them. He's not quite sure how it happens, just as he's not quite sure how anything happens anymore. He assumes he probably made some joke about how good her legs looked in those damn tights or about how she desperately needed help with her fighting stance. Maybe he just wore her down with his constant questions. He doesn't really care, to be honest. He knows he should care, in the same way that he knows he should actually avoid talking to her instead of showing up every day eager to see her. He just can’t bring himself to do it, not when she shows up in that uniform every day or when she looks at him with so much pride when she finally nails a move they've been working on for so long, and definitely not when she starts to initiate the playful conversations with the same smirk that he would maybe like to kiss off her face. There's so many things he should do at the end of the day, but he does none of them. He just lets whatever happens happen, and it kind of works out for a bit. They tease each other, teeter-tottering somewhere between playful and full on flirting. They fight in close combat corners, sometimes ending up on top of each other. Those days are a personal favorite of Riven's, especially when she's on top of him and he can feel her thighs straining against his waist as she pins his arms above his head. (He may have taught her that one move just for this moment. He felt it was a shame to not put those dance-trained legs of hers to use.)

The perfectly odd tightrope they walk snaps on a Wednesday afternoon, after they've finished training and are walking toward the benches that hold their water bottles. He takes a swing of his water, and then looks up from his seat to see her standing up and chugging her own bottle. A loose droplet slips past her lips and down her uniform's tank top. He follows it with his eyes, not even bothering to hide the very obvious motion even as she finishes her drink, looks at him with a raised eyebrow, and then chuckles at him while rolling her eyes.

"You could be a little less obvious, you know." She calls him out casually. He smirks at the comment before dragging his eyes back up to her brown orbs.

" Subtle isn't really my forte. Besides what fun would it be if you didn't know I was staring at you?"

She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away. "You're gonna give some poor girl a heart attack one day if you look at her like that." It's a teasing remark, but he feels his adrenaline hike up at her comment. The game is back on.

"Some poor girl, huh?" He leans into her on the bench, invades her personal space. She blushes, looks directly ahead, and he thinks he's winning another one of the many secret battles they seem to find themselves fighting. Then, she turns to him and looks him dead in the eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" He didn't expect that. Again, he knows he should just leave or say no. Anything to avoid a conversation that could lead to more than just a flirting banter, anything to avoid something that Rosalind may actually be interested in. But she's looking up at him with wide eyes and he's convinced he's become weak and that she's won this battle because he can't bring himself to say no.

"Uh… sure?"

She looks around nervously, as if deciding whether to ask what's on her mind or not. Finally, she leans close to him and asks in a slow and quiet voice, "Where do you sneak off to every night at midnight?" He pulls back from her faster than he thought he would ever be able to pull away from her, blinking down at her now shocked face.

"How-"

"How do I know? You have a roommate, Riven. He hears you leave every night and says nothing about it, but he's been worried about you. He says you've been acting different… For what it's worth, I think he's right. Especially when we're not in training sessions, you're completely out of it. I know this has been a rough mon-"

This is it. She's dug deep enough that she has hit rock bottom, she's found the dead-end at the bottom of his soul. He has to let this banter go now. He can't have her asking questions he'll then have to report back to Rosalind.

"You know nothing." He words are curt and sharp. She flinches at their edge, but doesn’t back down. It's one of his favorite things about her, her persistence.

"You can talk to me if something is wrong, you know? Or to Sky or the girls… you can talk to any of us…" He watches as her eyebrows furrow, traces the line they form down her nose to her lips and then back to her eyes. And that's when he notices that her eyes have changed color to purple. He grabbed her hand quickly and firmly, enough to break her concentration but not enough to hurt her (God, even in his rage, it would never be enough to hurt her).

"I've told you not to do that. Not to use your damn mind powers on me." His voice is strained, laced with anger and something resembling fear. 

"I'm trying-"

"I don't care what you're trying. You shouldn’t be in there. You shouldn't be in my brain. There's nothing in there worth your time or energy and there never will be."

And with that he spins on his heel and marches into the forest behind the training grounds. He doesn’t turn around, but if he did, he would have seen Sky moving out of the shadows and heading toward Musa.

"Did you do it?"

It takes her a second to interpret his question. She still staring into the distance as Riven's figure fades out of view, her eyes finally returning to their normal brown color. She continues to stare at the dot in the distance, unwilling to look away as if she's daring him to turn around and spare her one last glance. He doesn't.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." She finally turns to Sky. "He's completely blocked from my powers. Dowling was right, he's under some sort of mind control."

______________________________________________________________

It’s 2AM by the time Riven finally makes his way to the room he shares with Sky. He's once again not really sure where his day went or what he did after he flipped on Musa and marched his way into the woods after their little spat. He remembers anger, a lot of anger. He's angry at her for trying to dig into his brain when they had already established that he hated it. He was angry at Dowling for dying (at least, he assumes she's dead because where else would she be?) and leaving the school to the psychopath that is Rosalind. He's angry at Rosalind for manipulating him, controlling his mind. He's angry at Beatrix for getting him into this stupid mess. But mostly, he's angry with himself for letting it all happened, for somehow always making the wrong move at the wrong time, for managing to screw up his own life in such a grand manner that it constitutes an award (truly, he's outdone himself this time). He's mad at himself for not being able to control his own mind, for letting Rosalind take up residence in his brain and being able to do nothing about it. He's even angry at himself for not just standing there and letting Musa read his emotions, because maybe if she did then she'd know the hell he was in. His brain was constantly pulling in all different directions, trying desperately to get away from the constraints of Rosalind's spell. Headaches are nonending and thoughts leave as soon as they come. It's like there's two people waging war within him, but one of them brought swords to a gunfight and is losing horribly. But it’s a war he feels he should fight on his own, and maybe that's why he didn't let her read him. As much as he hates to admit it, the mind control and guilt was breaking him but he could handle that. What he couldn't handle, however, was getting her involved in this stupid mess by mistake, which would inevitably lead to Rosalind getting ahold of her as well. God knows there's only so much room left in hell or sins, and he'd be damned if he hadn't already filled all the available spots.

He was glad for the day to finally be over, glad to be heading to bed (not sleep though, sleep did not exist when his mind was in so much pain all the fucking time). It seemed the world had other plans for him, however, because upon opening the door to his dorm, he was met with a sight that he both dreaded and wanted to burn into his memory for the rest of however long he had to live before Rosalind finally took pity on him and bent his brain to death. 

Perched on his bed, leaning forward ever so slightly, elbows meeting her knees, and head bend toward the floor was Musa. From his angle, he could only see her side profile, but apparently that's all his body needed to be automatically sent into a frenzy. The first thing he notices was, not to his surprise, the hair. She'd replaced her training braids with buns, big ones that hang precariously form her head as tendrils of her dark hair fell in loose waves and framed her face. He again found himself wondering what she would look like with all of her hair fully down. His fingers itched to burrow into those carefully constructed space buns and pull their pins out of place, just to see if she'd look half as beautiful with her hair down as she did with her hair up.

He stood like that for a while, taking her in and letting her continue to stare at the dark wooden floors with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He's not sure when, but eventually she turned toward the door, eyebrows first shooting up when she noticed him staring at her, and then falling back into place as she shot him a shy mile from across the room.

"Hey," came her greeting in a small voice.

"What the hell are you doing here?" His question was harsh, but he knew himself well to know that if he even let just one layer of himself down with her, he may as well just lay down all his defenses. She had a way of getting him to speak and break down and he wasn't about to let himself get her mixed up in whatever evil plan he'd been helping construct against his will.

Too bad for him, because it seemed Musa had been expecting a fight and was ready to fire back his quips with some of her own. She simply rolled her eyes and casually stated, "Well, then, straight to it, are we?"

"If you're looking for Sky or Bloom, they're probably in a dark hallway somewhere snogging each other half to death," he answered. She grimaced at the image.

"Yeah, no. I'm not here for Bloom or Sky."

"Then you're not here for anyone." She gave him a pointed look at that phrase. He wisely chose to ignore it and instead made his way to the couch in the middle of the room, throwing his jacket somewhere on it.

"What, that's all you have today? I'm standing on your bed, we're alone in your bedroom, I'm in a miniskirt… and you're not going to make a comment about showing me a good time? You're losing your touch, Riv." She was teasing him, he could tell by the light tone of her voice. Maybe she liked to see his reactions the way he so enjoyed watching her react to his own snarky comments. Maybe she saw enough into his brain earlier to have dug up some of his fantasies. Damn her, he'd been avoiding looking anywhere but her face since he walked in, and now here she was basically challenging him to do more. Damn him and his inability to back down from a game he was so clearly not apt to win at the moment. He turned around and finally got a good look at her. She was indeed in a miniskirt, under which she had tucked a lacy white top that was very clearly meant to showcase the black bra she wore underneath the pitiful excuse of a shirt. Her signature red bomber jacket hung from her shoulders and the black boots she had on were laced all the way up to her kneecaps.

This must be it, he thought. This must be his punishment for spilling his guts to Rosalind every night. Or maybe, his guilt and the pain throbbing through his veins had finally won out and he was finally cracking under all that pressure. That's fine. He wasn't even surprised this is what his brain chose to tease him with at the brink of destruction. He figured she'd be the one to shatter him, it was only a matter of time.

"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" Her voice broke him out of his trance. Ok, maybe he wasn't imagining her.

He sighed, defeated and broken and just tired. "Why are you here, Musa?"

It’s a staring match now. He watches as her eyes soften and the sarcasm leaves her features.

"I couldn’t read you earlier today. In the training grounds-" No. Anything but this conversation.

"Maybe you should consider working on those powers of yours then. Seems to me like you're the one losing your touch."

"I'm serious, Riven-"

"I am too."

"Jesus, Riven, let me just finish!" Anger sparked in her features. "You're loud, Riven." He scoffed at that. "Your emotions, I mean. They're usually loud… but they're also lively and harmonious, in a weird way that I can't seem to figure out. Lately, however, they've been quiet… as if they don't exist at all. And at first I thought it was me, I thought I was getting better at controlling my powers. But when I tried to read you today, I felt nothing…" There is was, she had figured it out, and now she looked at him as if he was a science experiment she couldn’t quite figure out.

"… Maybe my hearts just finally turned to stone." He tried for a joke. She did not find it amusing.

"I know, Riven." He's not sure what that was supposed to mean. What did she know? That he was a horrible person? That he'd snitched on her and all their friends (were they his friends?) to the queen of evil? Or worse, that his body lit up whenever she was around?

"Cryptic, but ok. I guess between that line and the fact that you somehow snuck into my room, you could make the whole 'good girl turned bad, mysterious girl' vibe work. Honored I'm the first you're trying it out on. If you'd like to take it a step further, the bed's right behind you." She may have the upper hand in this game, but he's still a stubborn ass.

"Seriously, Riven. I'm not kidding." She took a step toward him. Wrong move, angel.

"I know you're not. That shirt doesn't exactly scream 'kidding'. Tell me, did you just choose the first thing you found in your closet to put on?" He took a step forward this time, one long stride before they stood chest to chest and he hooked his finger under her chin. "Or is that shirt part of this whole 'mystery girl' scheme? Because, I won't lie, it's working." He sees her shiver at his words and doesn't bother to hide the smirk that graces his face. Finally, things were getting interesting. "Wonder if it looks half as good on my bedroom floor…" He noticed her eyes flicker downward, to is lips, but they moved back up just as quickly. He stared right back at her, watching as she struggled to make up her mind about where to slap him for that last comment. He didn't have to wait too long for a response.

"I'm sure you do." Her words came as a whisper, and the smirk that followed was just as alluring. He barely had time to process the meaning behind it all, before she crashed her body onto him and her lips found his. Her hands gripped into the sides of his t-shirt, keeping him to her with such force that he vaguely wondered why in the world she felt the need to do that when he wouldn't dream of walking away from this, from her. It's frantic and it's rushed. One of his hands find her waist, pulls her impossibly closer to him. His other hand delves into the hair at the back of her head before sliding to the side and pulling at the pins that hold her right bun in place. It takes him pulling out just one pin and the structure falls apart, her hair tumbling around them and cocooning them in place. He hears her gasp, her hands finally unlatching from his shirt as she splays them apart over his muscles, moves them up to his shoulders. 

He's moving backward, whether to ask her if this okay or make a comment about that noise she just made, he's not sure. He never gets the chance. She pulls his to her again, kisses him like she's been starved in a thirsting in wasteland for days and he's the first sign of water she's stumbled upon, bites his lip- fucking bites his lip and sucks on it and pulls it with her teeth… and he thinks that her being here could not have been his punishment. This, right here, her kissing him like this, this is his punishment. This is his pain finally taking over and shattering his soul.

Maybe Rosalind somehow found out about his little crush and is getting payback for the fact that he didn't show up for their nightly midnight story time. Maybe, he's already dead and in hell and some devil out there is playing a cruel, cruel trick on his brain. Maybe that's why his body is shaking, literally shaking, and his mind feels like its tearing apart. He feels Musa's hands on his scalp, her palms splayed out at his temples and fingers tightly wound into his hair. Again, he is surprised at the sheer force she seems to pour into her touch, anchoring him to her as though he could ever want to leave her embrace.

He's so wrapped up in his thoughts and in her touch that he barely hears the whimpers of pain coming from her or feels the tears streaming down her face as she hold him to her. When he finally feels the tears trickle between their lips, be pulls back (genuinely, pulls back because her fingers are still forcing him to her), opens his eyes to find her already looking back at him. But instead of the brown irises she wore when this rough little make out session started, her eyes are now purple. And her face is red. She looks exhausted. He feels exhausted. 

He's about to ask her what's wrong, if she's ok, if her powers are going haywire. But he's so dizzy and so tired and suddenly he's leaning on her and she's pulling him onto the bed. She looks down at him, whispers "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over in his ear and he finds himself wondering what she's sorry about and where the pain that haunted him for weeks has gone before he slowly sinks into oblivion.

________________________________________________________________

He wakes up and she's gone.

It's Sky who sits next to him the next day, Sky and Headmistress Dowling of all people. He mumbles something about being dead and hallucinating, but Sky just laughs and tells him he's happy to have him back.

It takes a good few hours to catch him up on all the shit he's missed while he was being controlled by Rosalind. Apparently, Dowling was stuck under a bunch of plants? The girls somehow managed to free her with some potion from a cousin of Terra's. Turns out they've been sneaking out every night, pretending to go to parties and instead heading outside the barrier trying to find clues on what the hell Rosalind is up to. That would explain Musa's choice of clothing the other night. 

Sky tells him it was the girls' idea to keep him out of the loop at the beginning, worried that his weird obsession with Beatrix and her even weirder obsession with him would lead to Andreas and Rosalind finding out. Sky swears they were going to tell him eventually, and Riven has to tell him that he's glad they didn't. That's when Sky tells him what he'd already guessed. It was Musa who refused to tell him even after time has passed, sensing that something was wrong in his mind. Her being in their room the other night had been no mistake, but an orchestrated move. She'd practiced with Dowling for weeks, training to unlock his brain, pull it apart so that she could mentally remove Rosalind's control from his brain by sheer willpower and might, and then put it all back together as best she could. 

He's instinctively proud of her, she did it. But, he also wishes she'd done it with less kissing and in some less distracting attire, but he probably deserves the type of torture that will surely follow as a result of last night. After they fill him in, Sky throws his gear at him and tells him to get dressed and ready.

"We leave tonight."

"What? Where are we going?"

"That's a bit complicated." It's Dowling who answers this time. "Silva and Professor Harvey will meet us in the woods beyond the barrier. We will lead you the rest of the way. We're going to collect forces. There will be a war, and Rosalind will know that something is wrong when you miss your nightly meeting with her for the second time in a row. The Winx suite is already with Silva and Ben. They're waiting for us."

They leave the dorms using Stella's ring, which she has given to Dowling as a backup to her magic, which Rosalind is be able to track within school grounds. When they arrive to the location in the woods, Riven is only slightly surprised to find Sam among the girls. He's leaning on a tree, talking to Silva and his father, both of which look like they haven't slept for days. The girls are gathered together by a fallen tree. Musa is in the middle of them, huddled into herself, as Terra and a new girl with brown skin and long honey-brown hair rub her back. Stella, Bloom, and Aisha stand back, watching Musa with worry evident in their eyes. 

It's Stella who notices them first. She wipes the worry off her face with mastered ease that only comes with practice, straightens up her back, shoots Musa a look and calls loudly, "There you are! Took you guys long enough!"

From then on, it’s a quick fill-in on what the plan is, an awkward introduction to the Harvey cousin whose name he can't remember because his mind was too stuck on the girl whose hair is back in those buns he managed to loosen yesterday, and a small little "welcome back to the good side" before they're trekking their way through the woods.

He stands behind her the whole time. Watches as she follows the professors, but stands at the tail end of the line the girls have formed. She looks tired, the bags under her eyes tell him that the girls have probably been out here all night. He wonders how much of her energy it took to tear and mend his brain, if anyone bothered to let her rest after she did it. He wishes he was braver, wishes he could walk up to her and… what, thank her? Ask her why she did it? Why kiss him and then cure him? She could have just as easily done it while he was asleep. He bides his time, observes as one by one the girls take turns standing next to her, linking their arms with hers, smiling down at her, whispering who knows what in her ear and earning a laugh form her every now and then. He likes her laugh, it's cute.

He's currently watching as Bloom pull Musa to her and makes some joke about chickens, when he feels a punch land on his right arm.

"Are you as stupid as you look?" He turns to find that Stella has somehow walked backwards and is now next to him.

"Missed you too, princess," he mutters back.

"Oh, cut the bullcrap, Riven. You've been staring at her for the last two hours and I told her I wouldn't say anything but honestly, you two are hopeless. I've never met two people so oblivious in my life."

"I don’t know what you're talking about." he starts.

"Like shit you don't. If you don't know it yet, figure it out." And just like that she's running ahead and linking her right arm with Musa's as Bloom tries for another joke, this one about pigs that fly.

He tries to ignore Stella's stupid comment. Honestly, he figures it's probably safer to stare at her and look like a total creep than try to talk to her and make sense of his feeling about who the fuck knows what anymore. But Stella's words ring through his mind and he lets himself believe that maybe, just maybe…

In the end, he convinces himself that the reason he walks up to her once Bloom goes to hold Sky's hand and Stella moves in on the new girl to make conversation is because Stella offered him a challenge, and he likes to win at those. (He's heading straight for a loss, he's fully aware of that, but whatever.) 

"Long time no see," he jokes when he reaches her side. She cranes her neck up at him, not surprised to see him.

"Thought I heard your loud-ass emotions coming closer."

"Yeah, I've been told they can be quite the riot." He shoots her a smirk and she smiles up at him.

"Who told you that?"

"Oh, you know. Just some girl."

"Some girl, huh?"

"Yeah. Then she gave me a good snogging before tearing my brain to pieces without my knowing it."

"Mmm. She seems like a handful."

"Tell me about it." Her eyes fall downward and he doesn't need to be an empath to see the gears turning in her head.

"I'm sorry," she starts, "About that. I didn't want to do it, I know you have me reading your emotions."

"Yeah, but I hated having them controlled by someone else even more…" There's a pause and he quickly moves to fill it, scared that whatever courage juice that's coursing through his veins will run out soon. "Thank you, by the way." And he means it. He hopes she can sense the sincerity coming from him because he only has so many words in his vocabulary when it comes to her and fears he's already run out of them when she turns to look at him once more.

They've fallen behind the group at this point. He figures he won't get the chance to do this again for a while, so he asks her the question that been running rampant through his mind. It's pathetic, really. They're headed to god knows where to do god knows what and instead of worrying about the fact that war is coming or even being slightly concerned that he's just had his mind abused and prodded around by an evil mastermind, his biggest worry is if this girl really wanted to kiss him or if she just did it for show.

"So, umm, just so we're clear… did you mean it?" If he felt dumb thinking it, he feels like a world-class idiot saying it out loud.

"Mean what?" She stares back at him intensely, and he thinks to himself in an amused manner that they seem to be making a habit of staring at each other for longer than average periods of time. "The part about you being loud? Cuz, yeah, I meant every word. You're a walking catastrophe." She's smirking at him. He rolls his eyes her words.

"Couldn't care less about that. In fact, I'm glad my emotions are as obnoxious as I am- means they've been driving you crazy for a while now." Her smile falters a bit at that line. "What I want to know," he continues. "Is if you kiss everyone whose mind you go digging into like that." He still has not taken his eyes off her, and he's not going to start now, when she blushes and ducks her head under the collar of her red bomber jacket.

"That was a… last minute choice."

"What for?"

"I had to get close enough to you to make contact. I've only been practicing with Dowling for a few weeks and I didn’t want to screw it up. I can't really do the whole mind thing without some sort of contact just yet…" Her words drift off.

"Hand holding didn't cut it? Had to go for a full make-out session, complete with lip biting and everything?" He watches as she shivers into her coat, arms wrapped around herself.

"You would've pushed me away."

"How did you know I wouldn't push you away while kissing me?" She mutters something under her breath. He doesn’t catch it, not between that stupid jacket that she's using to shield her face. He gently takes a step forward, catches her chin between his fingers just as he had done the night before, makes her meet his eyes. "Come again?"

She sucks in a breath, her eyes waver to something behind him when she finally lets it out, "We both know you weren't going to say no to me throwing myself at you."

"And if I did?" He doesn't know who he's kidding, but it’s still a game and he's still playing to… lose?

She's still staring behind him when she frowns and says, "Then we would have seen just how great this shirt would have looked on your bedroom floor, after all."

And goddamn it, her words send his blood boiling. He's about to kiss her senseless, but he refuses to do it if she's not staring at him when he asks one last question.

With his finger still hooked under her chin and them standing mere inches away, he whispered into the air between them, "Look at me, Musa."

Her eyes slowly move to meet his. He gives up his last question, which just so happens to be his first, "Did you mean it?" And when her small "Yes" makes its way through her lips as her steady brown eyes catch his green ones, that's all the confirmation he needs.

His finger leaves her chin and moves to her head and then he's pulling her in, closer and closer and closer until she's all he can feel and smell and see and breathe. And she responds with the same vigor she used last night, wasting no time to wrap her arms around his neck and lock him to her. It's a new kind of game, one where they battle for dominance until they both run out of breath and need to break free. It makes him stronger, it breaks him down, it makes him wonder why the hell he ever wanted to win against her when he could instead let her win and lose himself to her as he is right now. And when his hands pull the pins from both buns from her hair as he kisses down her neck, she groans in half pleasure and half annoyance.

"I'll have to fix them again now," she whines, pouting her bottom lip out, which he takes as an invitation to bite and pull on it.

"You'll manage. Let me just have this now. I've been waiting a while to see you with your hair fully down." She scoffs but lets him stare at her in awe once he finds it in him to pull back from her lips in order to get a view his handiwork.

And to think, it all started with some fucking pigtails.