#so I’m assuming we’re back in stunt town

[larrylimericks]

16Feb23

Wake up, gays, we’re back in stunt hell; There’s a film and an image to sell, So a new stunt unfurls, Same old shit, different girl— Hey, DM, who’s Lou’s blonde personnel?

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

No Comfort in a Fruitless Search

Summary - Part 28 in the Comfort series

Pairing - Dean Winchester x Reader, Reader x Sam (platonic), Reader x Bobby (father-figure), Andre (OG Character) x Reader (best friends)

Series Masterlist | Masterlist 

You’re not sure how long it took to cry yourself to sleep alone, but when you wake up the room is bathed in sunlight. You instinctively reach out for Dean but the bed is cold and empty. You feel your phone buzzing on the bed beside you so you pick it up, it’s Sam so you answer.

“Hey Sam,” you slur while still waking up. 

“Morning, Y/N sounds like you at least got some sleep last night. Bobby told me about the little stunt you tried to pull last night.”

You groan in response as you sit up and wipe your tear-stained face. 

“Glad to hear you couldn’t go through with it.”

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, I’m in Vegas now, wanna meet me somewhere for breakfast?”

“Sure, but I uh don’t have a car. Dean took the Impala and so haven’t been able to find it anywhere in town.”

“Text me the address of the place you’re staying and I’ll come pick you up. I’ll see you soon.”

“Sure, see you soon.”

You hang up and text through the hotel’s name before crawling out of bed and going into the bathroom. You reach in to turn the water on and strip out of the now dirty FBI outfit Dean bought you just yesterday. As you step under the water the events from the other night flood through your mind. You can almost feel Dean’s hands on your body as you let the warm water wash over you. Pushing away the memory you quickly scrub yourself clean and get out. Scratching through your bag you dress in a pair of clean jeans, a black tee and throw a jacket on before pulling on some socks and your boots. You finish up by brushing your hair and teeth and gathering your belongings. You slip your knife and gun into your waistband, just in case, and grab your phone, wallet and the room and van keys. You slip out into the hall and knock on Andre’s door. 

Danny opens the door moments later. “Good morning, how’d the case go yesterday?”

“Uh, yeah, we’re still working on it. But we’re heading out so I just wanted to return the keys as per Andre’s note.”

“Sure, thanks,” he takes the keys and calls out to Andre, “Hey babe!”

Andre walks around the corner from the kitchenette and then breaks out with a big smile. “Glad to see you’re okay, when we got back and you weren’t here I got a little worried. The whole … situation solved yet?”

“We’re still working on it. But we’re heading back out now, Dean’s already bringing the car around so I just wanted to drop the keys off before we head out in case we’re not back before you guys leave.”

“Yeah, thanks. Good luck with it all then. I’m really sorry again for dragging you guys into this. I would’ve loved to apologise to Dean too, I know I said some horrible things to and about him while I was possessed.”

“Yeah … he’s just in a hurry. Sorry.”

Andre gives you a scrutinising look. “No, that man is way too protective of you. He wouldn’t leave you alone this much. What happened?”

“Nothing. He’s downstairs, I gotta go.”

You turn to walk away but Andre reaches out and grips your wrist tight. “I can’t believe I missed it yesterday, I was just too out of it from the demon riding my bones. Talk to me. What’s going on? Did a demon take him?”

He leads you into their room to take a seat in their lounge. Danny sits opposite you while Andre sits close holding your hand reassuringly. Just as you’re about to start explaining, your phone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out and give Andre an apologetic look while answering.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, I’m out the front.”

“Sorry to be a pain but can you actually just grab us something and bring it up to Andre’s room? They saw through my act, they know about Dean. Can you grab something for them too?”

“Sure, I’ll be back soon. I assume I can park in your space when I get back?”

“Yeah, I’m not using it … obviously.”

“Alright, see you soon then.”

You hang up and look back over at Andre expectantly, waiting for the barrage of questions.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

After a few moments of silence, Andre finally breaks it. “So, tell us everything. Start at the top. I assume you both went to investigate the chapel in the morning after demon-me said all those rude things. What happened next?”

You give them a brief but detailed recount of everything that happened, including the demon and its talks of your heir and the events at the crossroad last night. Just as you finish catching them up, Sam arrives with breakfast for everyone: coffee and breakfast burgers. Sam hands everyone a drink and burger and then sits beside Danny. You all eat in tense, relative silence, everyone terrified of saying the wrong thing. 

Eventually, Sam speaks up, “So, what’s the plan?”

“I had one but Bobby forbid it … but I couldn’t do it anyway. I know you turned out alright, but I can’t put my future child in the same position that you were in,” you say. Sam gives you a quizzical look so you elaborate, “A demon did turn up last night. They offered me the same deal Mary got when the yellow-eyed demon killed your dad; for access to my and Dean’s child once it’s born. I couldn’t do it.”

“I can’t believe they’d do that. What’s so special about our blood? Why do they want it so bad?”

“The Winchester line is strong and formidable,” Andre says, “I think they want their hands on it. To raise a Winchester as a demon and in that world, imagine the chaos and destruction that would cause. I hear a lot about you and your brother when helping out other hunters. You’re apparently a force to be reckoned with … and since meeting Dean and seeing his protectivity and loyalty in person I can see why people say that. I can see the allure.” He shoots you a wink. 

“If … When we find Dean … please don’t tell him this. He’ll want to leave me to protect me or at the very least get the snip and I can’t have that. I need time to figure this out and I need him.”

“When we find Dean, you’ll tell him yourself. He deserves to know. He won’t leave you. He’ll try, but he loves you too much,” Sam says. 

“It’s because he loves me that he’ll try and leave.”

Sam reluctantly nods, “Fine, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. There’s a high chance the demon that took him has already told him anyway, but our priority right now is finding him. Have you asked Cas?”

“I’ve been praying to him but nothing, he’s a no-show. He only ever comes when Dean calls him,” you say. 

Andre noisily scrunches up his burger wrapper and stands up. “Unfortunately, I have to cut this party short. We gotta check out and return the van, I got a job to uphold. But, let me know how I can help. Danny here knows the absolute bare minimum about this world, but I’ll keep my ear out for anything and don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.” He turns to you and gives you a pointed look, “I’ll be checking on you, don’t do anything stupid. I can’t lose my bestie. And remember, I’m always here for you.”

You nod, “Thanks, Andre. I really appreciate it. We’ll get out and start investigating, have a safe flight.”

You stand up and hug him tight before helping to gather the rubbish and tidy up. Once you’re done you say another goodbye to both Danny and Andre and then lead Sam out. You head to the bright red car Sam borrowed from the Bunker and he just starts driving up and down streets like you were yesterday.  

After driving around for ages you say, “I should’ve stayed away …”

“Huh?”

“Hunters are bad news … It's never safe for us to have relationships. I can’t leave him now, but I should’ve tried harder to stay away back then.”

“Back when?”

“After that vamp nest when I first met you guys. I just … I uh had a dream about it last night. Dean had a hook on me right from first sight. I tried my best to stay away, but I didn’t try hard enough.”

“You? Dean went crazy looking for the ‘hot, mysterious girl that bested him’. You never stood a chance.”

“Really? He looked for me, even then? I never knew that.”

“Yeah. Figures he never told you. For a long time he just wanted a good night with a strong girl, I thought he’d move along to the next piece of ass, but after a while I started to see it was real. You had a real hood on him. I bet he never told you this either, but he was celibate for months after meeting you. But then when we finally found you again and you still wouldn’t give in … he tried his best to forget you too.”

“I know we’re bad for each other. We keep endangering each other. Our child would never be safe. But I can’t walk away, Sam. I … I need him.”

“I know. We’re gonna get him back. We’ll figure it out. I honestly don’t think it’s possible for you two to stay away from each other, no matter how hard you try.”

“Maybe I should get a hysterectomy or something … I can’t leave Dean, but I can stop myself from having his child. If I never have a baby, the demons can’t get their filthy hands on it.”

“But, that’s your dream: to get out and start a family.”

“Like we’re actually ever going to get out. Anyway, there’s no point even thinking about this until we find him.”

“Yeah. Well I’m not seeing anything. We need a lead, anything.”

“I spent hours looking last night and came up empty.”

“Sounds like we might have to go primal … where’s this crossroad you went to?”

“I doubt they’ll show … after last night they’ll know I’m not about to take their deal and they won’t bargain.”

“What’s the plan then?”

“I don’t know …” you rub your hands over your face in frustration. 

Seeing you getting overwhelmed, Sam puts one hand on your thigh and pulls over. “Hey, look at me. We’re gonna get him back. I just need you to think clearly, for Dean. Do you have any idea where they would’ve taken him? What did they want him for? Are there any clues in what they said? Think really hard.”

You continue rubbing your face roughly as you try to take some deep breaths and think clearly to sort through everything you know so far. “The first demon said her colleague had him tied up …”

“Okay, that’s a start. That could mean they’re keeping him alive, they want something. They could be torturing him for information or to make him do something. But that’s a good sign they need him alive.”

“They all talked about us having another baby eventually.”

“Another good sign they need him alive. Unless of course he knocked you up again already?”

“No. He’s been faithful to his pledge. There’s no way.”

“Okay, so they need him alive and to get back to you. So, they’re either betting on you finding him or they’ll eventually just have to let him go.”

“My fear is if they let him go, how much of the Dean I know and love will be left? What if they send him back as a trap or weapon?”

“We find him before they do that. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything else that could help?”

“Not really. That’s all I got.”

“Alright. Let’s start knocking down doors.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

A/N: I know this was a lot of dialogue and a little slow. I promise there are big things coming in the next few chapters ... Maybe even get Dean back???

Tag list: (Leave a like or comment on this post or let me know below if you want to be added to the tag list for this series)

@bitchwitch1981, @muhahaha303, @justrealizedimmascifygurl, @mcdowell-123, @leigh70, @marvelsmarauder, @losa12308, @tapedeck-hearts, @luvjaida, @peachtxa, @ambearsstuff, @shadow-of-a-cloud, @slut-for-buck, @iprobablyshipit91, @sassy-pelican, @fallenlilangel99, @heavenlyhopeful0, @nelachu2423

[frankiekeaton]





















































Buster never travelled without her. 

I mean, before they met and subsequently fell in love, he was forced to haul himself up to Oregon or New York or wherever for filming. He would lie alone in an unfamiliar hotel bed, devour a cheap dime novel from the train station, and eventually fall asleep. 

Now, the train rides are much more bearable.

“Where’ve you been sweetheart?, Buster looked up at her as she made her way back into the train car. 

“I lugged my way up into the dining car,” she closed the door behind her and tossed him a candy bar, “I got you a Baby Ruth”

“Now this is why I love you dear.”, he said sarcastically as he ripped the foil off. Y/N fell down into the plush fabric chair of the private train car. She pulled a Coke bottle out of her handbag, and Buster threw her the bottle opener he had laying around for the illicit beverages he had hiding in suitcase. 

“You better love me, these private cars are so far away from the food car. If I had my way I would stay there the whole trip!”, she popped the beverage opened and carefully placed it onto the polished wood table next to her chair, not knowing if staining it would cost them extra or not. 

Buster giggled at her, always loving snacks. He stood up to throw his candy wrapper in the waste basket sitting in the corner of the car, on his way back to his seat he grabbed Y/N’s bottle and took a swig. 

“I’ll have it arranged next time”, he held the back of her head and kissed her on the forehead.

Not only are the train rides better with the company, the hotel stays are much more exciting.

“Joey this is far too extravagant!”, Y/N let her suitcase down onto the nicest rug she had ever seen and looked around. The suite was huge, a luscious living room lead into a small dining room and a kitchenette. The bedroom was separated by a pair of French doors, and the king sized bed was covered in pillows made from the softest fabric and the plushest down. She couldn’t see the bathroom, but she assumed that it would be equally as opulent. 

He smiled at her use of his real name, she almost never called him Buster, she found it a tad ridiculous, she always said that he wasn't the character of ‘Buster’ around her, so why should she use that name? 

“But isn’t it grand! If we’re staying in Oregon for a few months you deserve the nicest hotel in town!” 

She walked over to him, pushing his hair out of his forehead gently as he wrapped his arms around her waist,

“How much is the studio paying for this room?” 

He slid his hand from her waist down to her hip, pulling her unbearably close 

“They don't need to know”

His favorite part of having her on location with him was when she was on set. It was a point of pride for Buster to have his wife watch him film a scene. It was hard stay deadpan when he heard her laugh at the gags or gasp at the stunts. 

“What did you think of the last jump, dear?” he asked, walking over to where she was sitting and eating a donut from the craft services table. 

“I think you'll make a widow out of me soon.”, she said sarcastically. She loved watching Buster perform, but sometimes he needed to be reminded of his mortality.

“You know I’ll never do that, it’s not in my character,” he joked. 

He sat down next to her, sipping on a coffee that was slowly getting cold in between takes. Y/N finished her donut and brushed the powder of her lap. 

“The costume gals say you’ve been visiting them a lot lately,” he mentioned after a long sip.

“I’m sorry, I've been missing working in costuming and I guess I’ve been drifting there when I get bored watching you.”she answered, not knowing if he was upset she was sneaking off or not. He grabbed her hand, noticing her wedding band shining in the bright studio lights. 

“Don’t apologize, you know I could give you a job there on the next picture if you’d like?”

“Well how would I watch you pratfall all day then?”

[just-jordie-things]

Unspoken Thing - JJ Maybank

word count: 2671 warnings: swearing summary: JJ and (y/n) have been in love since they were kids, yet never acted on their feelings.  But as they get older jealousy starts to seep into their ‘perfect’ friendship request: @sarcastic-space-weirdo: oooh can i please have jealous y/n thinking jj likes kiara and not her (she's oNe Of tHE bOyZz of course way more than kiara) but it was actually his intention just to divert(??)from the fact that he actually REAAAALLLY likes ₕᵤₕ ₕᵤₘ ₗₒᵥₑₛ y/n and doesn't want her to know or he's just dumb and a simp and doesn't know how to deal with his feelings?? so he frEAKING AVOIDS THE GIRL CAUSE IT'S TOO FREAKING MUCH AND MY BOY DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING ᵢₜ'ₛ ₗₒᵥₑ (also pls some angsty people crying) (a/n): its not as angsty as it could have been but it’s still there lol ___

It wasn’t really a secret that (y/n) had a thing for JJ.  From day one it had been fairly obvious, to the Pogues and most of the island, really.

The pair had been inseparable since they’d met in grade school.  She’d met him their first day of kindergarden.  Some Kook kid was picking on him, and she thought it was mean.

So she’d marched up to the kid and smacked him on top of the head, before telling him to back off.  And just like that, her and JJ were attached at the hip.  

They were fiercely protective of each other, so much so that all common sense went out the window when one of them was in any trouble.  But that’s how it always was.

Sometime in high school things changed.  (y/n) couldn’t quite pinpoint when it was, she just remembered that one day they were best friends who surfed together and smoked together, and the next they were best friends who shared a bed most nights and some of those nights she’d wake up and be in his arms.

Over time, they both became more affectionate.  Casual touches began to linger, normal nicknames turned flirty, and eventually neither of them could sleep well if they weren’t together.

(y/n) was certain that JJ didn’t know when things changed either, but it never really mattered.  There was always an unspoken understanding that there was something more than friendship between them.  They weren’t in a relationship, he wasn’t her boyfriend, but there was still something there.

Clearly, she should have clarified what they were before blindly assuming that he felt the same unspoken thing she did.

Because it really sucked to see him flirt with Kiara.

John B’s arm nudged into her ribcage, drawing her out of her thoughts and back to reality.

The Pogues had gone down to the beach to hang out.  The tides weren’t great today so surfing was pretty much out of the question, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t picnic and smoke still.

Kiara had been wading around in the water, admiring the little fish and the shells she’d find, and JJ had all-too-excitedly followed her to help.

(y/n) hadn’t cared- of course she didn’t care, they were friends, and she was not the jealous type.  Jealousy could get toxic, and JJ wasn’t hers in the first place, so there were no grounds for her to be upset.

John B still noticed.

“What?” She asked, turning to look at him.

She wasn’t as appreciative of his knowing look as he thought she’d be.

“What, John B?” She asked, slightly annoyed.

His eyes wandered out to where JJ and Kiara were standing, a bit too close.  Just a bit.

(y/n) followed his line of sight, but quickly shut her mouth and stared back down at her feet.

Her and John B had been lying around, soaking up the sun and just enjoying the silence between them.  But now he’d gone and ruined the good vibe.

“Come on, (y/n/n)” He said, nudging her ribs again.

She swatted his hand away.

“I don’t know what your problem is” She mumbled, pretending to be oblivious.

John B rolled his eyes.

He’d been friends with both (y/n) and JJ for a long time now, almost as long as they’d been friends with each other.  So he knew well enough how stubborn the pair were when it came to admitting their feelings.

“Why don’t you guys just call it what it is?” He asked, but (y/n) didn’t respond.  She just sat and stared at her lap.  “You both obviously don’t want to see other people-”

“Obvious, huh?” She retorted, glancing back at where JJ and Kiara were laughing and kicking water at each other.

Cute.

(y/n) grimaced.

She turned back at John B, a helpless look in her eyes.  He frowned at her.

“You know JJ doesn’t like Kie-”

“Do I? Do I know that?” She asked.  She wasn’t trying to annoy him, but she was just so frustrated with herself that she ended up taking it out on him.  “I’m sorry, it’s just- it sucks.  Cause I- I just thought…”

She trailed off, not wanting to admit what she thought to him.  It was embarrassing, thinking someone was all yours when in reality that wasn’t true at all.

“It doesn’t matter,” She mumbled.  “He’s not mine, and I’m not his”

John B’s frown deepened, and he slid a little closer to her.  She looked back at him, a bit confused, but when he held his hand out to her, she melted, and gave in.

She took his hand and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes so that she didn’t have to watch Kiara and JJ having a blast.

“He’s just being stupid,” John B reassured quietly.  “He doesn’t even know it, that’s how stupid he is”

(y/n) giggled, squeezing his hand gently.

“He is pretty stupid, huh?” She mumbled back.

“Very much so.  But you know how much he cares about you, it’s clear that he’s, yaknow, in love with you,”

She didn’t say anything, but John B knew that she understood him.

“He doesn’t know how to say it, that’s all.  JJ’s not good with his words, you know that”

“Yeah, I know” (y/n) whispered, starting to feel tired from being in the sun all day and now half-laying on John B.

“You better know, you’re the one who trained him” John B teased.

She laughed, properly now, lifting her head to smack him gently in the chest.  He hit her back, starting a small fight, before eventually she gave in and surrendered.

It was getting late in the day, and with all the pining and the heat, she was just ready to go back to the Chateau, have a big meal, and then pass out on the sofa.  That way she wouldn’t have to wake up to JJ crawling into bed with her.  She’s not sure she can spend the night with him tonight.

“I think I’m gonna head out,” She said with a small yawn.  “I bet Pope’s made something for dinner and I wanna get back before it’s cold”

“Alright,” John B said, watching her stand up and grab her towel and backpack.  “Would you rather go to The Wreck?” He asked as an afterthought.

“Right now?” She asked him, following his eyes as he stood up with her.

“Sure, we can get some food and then head home” He shrugged.

“Aright” (y/n) shrugged back.

She liked calling John B’s place home, because that’s what it was.  Since his Uncle T pretty much moved out, it’s just been him, her and JJ, and it’s been great.  She hated staying at home where her parents were always preoccupied with anything that wasn’t her, and JJ would probably never stay at home again, so it was perfect.

Her and John B left the beach together, deciding to just walk into town so they could talk more.  It wasn’t often that they got one on one time, and he was probably her best friend, so it was nice.

Plus, she hadn’t been able to talk about her feelings for JJ this much before, and he really helped her figure out what to do about their little situation.  

There were some tears, some laughter, as she tried her best to explain what she’d been feeling, but John B was there to hug her tight and remind her that her feelings for JJ were definitely reciprocated, even if he was a dumbass sometimes.

Maybe some of his advice was… boy-ish, but it was advice nonetheless.  And she didn’t get it anywhere else. ___

When JJ went back to the Chateau, he couldn’t deny that a small part of him was pretty fucking pissed off with John B.

Alright, it was a large part of him.  He was just about fuming when he went inside, ready to fight his best friend if he had to.  He didn’t want to, but he felt he was left with no other choice after the stunt he’d pulled.

What he found when he barged into the house instead, was (y/n).

She was curled up on the sofa, in her bikini and one of JJ’s shirts she’d stolen so long ago it was pretty much hers now.  If he asked her about it, she probably wouldn’t even remember that it was his first.

The sight made him soften for a moment, and for a moment, he completely forgot about his anger.  She looked so peaceful, like a little armadillo, it made him smile.

He wandered into the living room to grab one of John B’s throw blankets, so that she’d keep warm as she napped.  But as soon as he’d grabbed the blanket, John B himself came into the room, and JJ’s anger came back again.

“You son of a bitch-!” He yelled, but was just as quickly shushed by John B, who pointed at (y/n’s) sleeping self.

“Let’s go outside” John B said, already walking out to the porch, JJ right on his heel.

As soon as the door opened, he was yelling again.

“You knew I liked her, you knew I-”

“Hold on-” John B put a hand up, his brows furrowed in confusion.  “What the hell are you talking about dude?”

“(y/n), obviously!” JJ said, smacking John B upside the head.

“Hey-”

“What the fuck were you thinking? Flirting with her like that-”

“Okay, jesus, calm down,” John B groaned.  “I wasn’t flirting with her, for one, we were hanging out, because we’re friends.  And secondly, you were off all day with Kiara!”

JJ frowned at the accusation, even though it was a fair one.

“And if you had even an ounce of common sense, you would have realized how upset you made (y/n) today, but how could you notice when you were the one flirting with another girl?”

That hit him hard, he didn’t even know what to say.

But all of the jealousy fades away when he realizes what John B was telling him.  He’d made her jealous today, while he was trying to avoid his feelings all together.

“So what were you thinking?” John B asked.  “You know she’s in love with you man, and I know you love her too, so why would you-”

“I didn’t know what to do,” JJ answered lamely, before John B could even finish.  “I know that we’re something, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know what to do about it and… and I thought maybe it’d just be best if she didn’t like me anymore…”

“What the fuck?”

Both boys jumped, not having heard (y/n) approach, but there she was on the other side of the screen door.  She’d wrapped the blanket JJ had dropped on her around her shoulders, and she was staring at the blonde boy with a hurt expression.

John B cringed, opening the door to let her out on the porch, but she stayed on the doorstep.

“Why would you think that?” She murmured.

“I…” JJ opened his mouth to speak, but no real words came out.  He ended up gaping like a fish out of water.

“I’m gonna give you guys some space” John B said, quickly sliding past (y/n) in an attempt to get out of the awkward moment as fast as possible.

(y/n) stepped outside, shutting the door behind her as she stared at JJ.

“I can’t do this anymore,” She admitted before she could chicken out.  “I can’t do this whole ‘what are we’ game anymore, I didn’t care before but- but I do now,” Her eyes meet his, on the verge of tears in fear that he’s going to end this before it could even begin.  “And I guess how you really feel about me,”

She blinks the tears out of her eyes as best as she can, her hands holding tighter to the blanket around her, and she hopes- no- prays that he doesn’t end it.

“What are we, JJ?” She whispers out.

He looks at her, really looks at her, and he feels heartbroken, because she looks heartbroken.  It hits him how badly he fucked up today, and how he really let her down.  But this is his chance to fix it, and finally decide what they meant to each other.

And he took that chance.

He stepped forward, closing the space between them and taking her face in his hands.

Her eyes blow wide as she looks up at him, surprised by the action.  It had been years of playing this game, of dancing this dance, and finally, he’d made a move.

“You’re mine” He said softly, surely.  It was the one fact they’d both known their whole lives.

She smiled back at him, before leaning up on the tips of her toes to meet him halfway in a sweet kiss.

His lips were warm, and chapped, but soft, and everything she’d always expected them to feel like.  It hardly felt like a first kiss, it felt like she’d been kissing him all this time.

And she sure wished she had been, because damn she was missing out.

As she wrapped her arms around his neck, the blanket she’d been wearing like a cape fell from her shoulders, landing in a pile on the porch.  

They were oblivious to their friends in the window, gawking at them, and exchanging money from bets they’d made years ago.

When they parted, JJ caught sight of them, but with a quick glare and a shooing motion, they were out of sight.

(y/n) turned to see what he’d been looking at, but his hands reached for her waist, bringing her attention back to him as soon as his hands met her bare skin.

She grinned at him, hands sliding around his neck before smoothing over his shoulders.

“No more flirting with John B, alright?” He asked, and (y/n) chuckled.

“I don’t recall ever flirting with John B,” She told him.  “I do recall you ditching me all day…”

She was only messing with him, but the smirk on her face was intoxicating.

“Make a deal with me?” He asked, holding his hand out towards her.

She grinned back at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Not ignore what’s between us anymore?” He asked, quietly, like he was nervous, but it made her smile even wider, and placed her hand in his.

“Deal, Maybank,” She murmured, before grabbing her blanket from the ground.  “Now come on, I’m tired, let’s go to bed”

Like a dog, he beamed as he followed close behind her into the Chateau.

“Bed huh?” He asked, a little too eager.

“Calm down, blondie,” (y/n) giggled as he excitedly shut the guest room door behind them.  “I’m exhausted, we’re going to sleep”

She crawled into bed, not caring that she hadn’t changed into pajamas.  It had been a long day, and she wanted nothing more than to doze off in his arms.

“That’s fine, I love sleeping,” JJ replied, following her into bed, and quickly hastily pulling her into his arms.  She giggled again as he caged her in tightly against his chest.  “Sleeping is the best, it’s one of my favorite things to do-”

“Alright, hon, I get it” She said, wiggling out of his firm clutch to rest more comfortably.

Her head rested against his chest as her arms wound around his torso.  JJ let his hands wander a little further down her back than usual, but no one was complaining.

“You wanna go on a date tomorrow?” He mumbled into her hair, already feeling tired just from her holding him.

Her hand fisted into the material of the back of his tee shirt as she nodded.

“Where d’you wanna go?”

“I dunno.  The Wreck?”

“Hm,” She hummed.  “Or we can just go smoke on the beach”

“Fuck, I’m so in love with you, you’re my dream girl”

___

xoxo ~ jordie

[gra-sonas]

Roswell, New Mexico returns for season three tonight on The CW at 8/7c. CBS’ Matt Weiss caught up with two of the show’s stars, Jeanine Mason and Nathan Dean to get the inside story on everything coming up in the show’s third premiere.

MW: Jeanine, Nathan nice to see you both! Season three of Roswell, New Mexico coming up tonight at 8/7c on The CW. How does it feel to be back?

JM: It feels so good. The timing of our show rolling out as the pandemic started in the States at least, was real a blessing because we could connect to our fans and give them a little labor of love of ours in the midst of a really difficult time.

It also meant that we had a little bit more time before we could start back up. It’s truly been a year and everybody is so excited. It’s an actual year of change for our characters. Kind of nice even though we know everybody is ready to see it.

ND: It’s hard to believe that we were able to pull this off with everything that everyone’s had to go through. That’s a credit to our showrunner Chris Hollier and to our amazing, amazing crew in New Mexico that we were able to not only get this thing started but not get stopped, not get cut short. We were able to create a product that we can now say, hey guys, we’re back, hope you’re all doing well.

JM: Back on Mondays!

ND: Here we are!

MW: I know the fans are all very excited. Jeanine, like you mentioned a year has passed since we’ve seen all your characters particularly Liz. How are things going for her in Los Angeles?

JM: Liz is per usual really focused, head in her work to save Maria. She hasn’t quite taken the time to realize her life in LA is pretty good. It’s even-keeled, we’ll say. She’s got a great place, she’s got a great job, that gives her access to everything she needs and requires to do her best work, to make her best contribution to health and medicine.

She’s got a real meeting of the minds in her lab partner played by Steven Krueger, Heath is his name. He matches her in intellect and in sarcasm in a way that’s really fun. They sort of really spar with each other.

The truth of the matter is, Liz is a woman who’s made to give to her community. She’s missing Roswell,  she’s missing her people, she’s missing Max Evans. She finds her way back to what is ultimately her real purpose, which is working with and for them.

Pretty quickly we find out how dire things are there for our alien trio. As soon as she finds out things are bad of course she’s miss hero protagonist. She wants to get involved and save the day.

MW: Nathan, pulling double duty on this season, with two characters, what’s that experience like?

ND: It was wild. It was a blast and I’m still grateful to Hollier and all of our writers for trusting me with that. Diving into it, it’s so fun to create a new character. In this world that I’ve known now for three years and meeting everyone in this town again for the first time, from a completely different perspective.

It was a lot fun. It was a lot of work. It’s a very weird process doing scenes with yourself because you’re joking back and forth. It’s really fun though. I’m so grateful to our showrunner and our writers for trusting me with that.

MW: I’m sure it’s confusing talking to yourself and also as part of that Max doesn’t even really know a lot about his own history. Are we going to get more light shed on that this season?

ND: That’s one of the wonderful things that Jones embodies is he’s sort of the window into the past of these three aliens. Since last season Michael, Isobel, and Max have always had that question. Who am I? Who are we? Where do we come from? Jones is a little peak into what that world was.

Also, a little example of who Max could’ve been had he not grown up on Earth and it’s sort of cool to see the humanity that Max has grown up in versus the sort of Alien world that Jones was in. We’re going to learn a little bit more about where we come from.

MW: Jeanine, for Liz how do you think she’ll be with Max this season? Do you think she’ll be able to forgive everything that went down with the lab?

JM: I just want to tell you. [Laughs] But that would be spoiling the fun of watching I assume. I guess what I’ll say is so much of her life has been decided for her. She is the answer to the Earth’s need for a protector and steward So much of her own opinions on it haven’t been taken into account yet. This is really the season where she just needs to for herself make the decision to take on this huge responsibility and that it feel like what makes most sense for her and her life.

So quickly she starts finding her way back. I love that she’s not a perfect protagonist. No one is perfect. No one is squeaky clean. She loves the complication. She loves that her life is so big and messy and loaded. She has huge grounding forces.

For her it’s Max and it’s Roswell and it’s her community. She finds her way back to a very big messy situation with Jones and falls into that rhythm really fast and starts making choices on where she wants to… I’ll say this, by the end of the season she’s made a decision that’s permanent. Ok, that’s it. [laughs]

MW: I mean it would be a great exclusive, so if you want to just tell me everything go right ahead! [Laughs]

JM: Just so you know. It’s my favorite Liz and Max season. It really is the one where they make their final decision with each other. That’s it, because if I say another thing I’m going to get in trouble. [Laughs]

MW: We don’t want that, you’re good! Last question for you both here, what are you most excited for people to see?

ND: I don’t know. I think for me it’s just awesome to be back. This season is wild. There’s a lot more of the alien stuff. We get to see more from all of the characters; a more adult mature experience and reaction to their world.

JM: It felt like such a gift to get a third go at this. That’s not an easy thing in this current television landscape. I think you can feel our enthusiasm throughout the year where we were just so excited to be back. We were just throwing things at the wall and trying everything and going full out.

By the end the of this season we were all so beat up and I mean that positively. That’s my favorite kind of way to finish the season, when you feel it physically; you’ve exhausted yourself. Our stunt team was just on call every minute of this season this year. I’m excited for the action and the enthusiasm I hope fans feel from all of us getting to finally be back doing what we do.

MW: Thank you both so much for the time and all the best moving forward. Stay safe!

JM: You too, stay safe!

ND: Thank you.

[crashingmeteorz]

the tea shop fight probably wouldn’t happen in my ba sing se bimbos au, but IF IT DID:

jet sees mushi heating tea, and goes through an existential crisis. what’s worse is it’s JET’S tea, so he just has to. drink the firebended tea. and try really hard. not to throw up.

on the one hand, lee is one of the best friends he’s ever had and mushi is one of about two adults jet’s ever had any respect for (the second is song’s mother).

on the other, THOSE TWO MEN...ARE FIREBENDERS!!!!!

so as you can imagine, he has something resembling a mental breakdown.

(“are you okay?” song asks him one night when he’s particularly on edge. “you’re all...sweaty.”)

(“probably because it’s extra hot in here,” jet says pointedly, staring right at zuko, who just blushes a little because he, like everyone else, assumes jet’s just flirting with him again.)

(“but we’re outside,” says song, deeply confused.)

jet finally decides he’s just going to come out and tell zuko he knows he’s a firebender, and give him about 30 seconds to explain himself Or Else.

he stalks into the tea shop with extreme purpose, and doesn’t even notice song and jin sitting at one of the tables when he walks right up to zuko and says “we need to talk.”

“unless it’s about the couple by the window and how you’re going to cram this towel down their throats, i’m a little busy,” zuko tells him as he loads up his tray and turns his back. jet leans in hovering just over zuko’s ear, and at first, all zuko can think is i’m not making out with you NOW jet!

and then jet whispers: “i know you’re a firebender,” and zuko freezes. he turns around, hoping jet will have his signature smirk on, but his mouth is a hard thin line and his brows are drawn in a sharp v.

“do you have time to talk now?” jet asks him coldly. zuko narrows his eyes and says “no.”

from their table, jin and song watch on curiously. “why don’t you think jet said hi to us?” jin asks song. “probably saw lee’s ass and didn’t even notice we were here,” answers song. they both laugh - lee doesn’t have an ass.

all of the sudden jet’s yelling and drawing his hooks. “come on!” he shouts, pointing at zuko, “show everyone what you can do!”

“you want a show?” replies zuko, snatching a nearby guard’s swords, “i’ll give you a show.”

“what in the - if they’re not careful they’ll hit mushi!” says a thoroughly pissed song at the same time jin says “song - write this down, we need to get them into Street Rumble XI!”

(street rumble is the street version of earth rumble, and also the avatar alternative to yelling WORLD STAR!)

the fight is pretty evenly matched. in this au there’s more hesitation, but it’s still intense. they knock over tables, shatter dishes, and all-around make a ruckus.

iroh meanwhile, who has come to care for jet, is calling for both of them to calm down. he doesn’t know for sure what the fights about, but he’s got a sinking feeling, based on the fury written all over jet’s face.

the fight goes outside, and obviously song, jin, and iroh follow.

“if you’re in the market for a new relative to mentor, i make a great niece! song, tell mushi what a good roommate i am,” jin says cheerily as zuko and jet almost kill each other. “don’t ask me to lie,” says song.

then the dai li show up.

“oh shit,” says jin. “we’re too poor to pay their bail!” says song.

jet and zuko pause their fight after being told to drop their weapons (they do not drop anything.) jet points at zuko and yells “tell everyone who you are!”

“he’s a young man, just like you,” says iroh. “boys, please, it’s not worth this, let’s all go back inside.”

“i’m not going anywhere with you!” roars jet.

the guards and pao tell the dai li how jet attacked without reason, how the tea boy was just defending himself. the dai li move to take jet away. song panics, and does the only thing that makes sense at the moment.

“no! don’t! it’s my fault!” she cries. she remembers what her mother taught her, about people’s assumptions and using them for survival, and she begins openly sobbing. it’s enough to get the dai li to pause.

“don’t blame yourself,” says iroh quickly, not knowing where song’s going with this but helping anyway by gently patting her shoulder. “it’s hardly your fault.”

“it is!” she cries. “it’s me - they’re fighting over me!”

“song,” jet says irritably, at the same time zuko blushes furiously and says “uhhhhhh.”

“all this...over a girl?” the guards ask. the dai li still are still hovering over jet.

“i know, it’s ridiculous!” iroh agrees. “but you know how young men can be-“

“it IS ridiculous,” jin says dramatically, stepping forward. “because i thought they were fighting over ME!”

“you?” song blubbers, doing her best impression of a person who does not think this entire skit is ridiculous. iroh thinks they’re laying it on a little thick but the crowd seems sufficiently distracted. “but-but lee said he only loved me!”

“is this true?” yells jin, rounding on the boys. jet is, if at all possible, even angrier, while zuko is rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“jin,” jet says. “i am not dealing with this right now-”

“you started this!” cries song hysterically. “making a scene, just because i said i won’t kiss you if you keep eating grass-”

iroh, who has made his way over to the dai li, gestures broadly and says “as you can see, it’s just some teenage drama. please, we can handle this. i’ll make sure the boys clean up their mess.”

the two dai li look at one another, and then nod at iroh. “if we hear of any other disturbances in this area, they’re both getting arrested,” they tell him before departing.

the crowd disperses, not really wanting to deal with song’s crying and jin’s yelling. pao goes back inside griping about closing up early. finally, when it’s just the five of them, song takes her hands away from her face, which is completely dry.

“and, scene,” says jin, bowing. “song, you were brilliant, iroh, my muse, lee and jet - the stunts could use a little work.”

“why did you have to say all that stuff?” zuko mumbles angrily. jet, meanwhile, begins to stomp away.

“because we didn’t want you to idiots to disappear!” yells song. “but i’m already regretting it! and you!” she says, rounding on jet. “you’re not going ANYWHERE until you two clean up this mess!”

“you don’t understand!” says jet. “those two - they’re-”

“why don’t we all clean up together, and then we can discuss this at the apartment?” offers iroh quickly. they may be alone, but they’re still very much in public.

“great idea,” says jin, “i have to finish transcribing the fight anyway.” song takes iroh’s arm and says, “mushi, you’re not allowed to help, you had nothing to do with this.” zuko looks at jet and shrugs, entering the tea shop. jet splutters, making a series of strangled noises, before finally sighing in defeat and following the group inside and begrudgingly cleaning up.

when they get to the apartment, iroh serves the four of them tea. jet refuses.

“i don’t want anything made by a firebender,” he hisses. song freezes. zuko rolls his eyes. iroh looks deeply sad.

“that’s what this is about?” jin says in a bored voice, sipping her tea. “i thought we all knew by now.”

“what?” shout jet, song, and zuko. iroh looks shocked.

“seriously?” asks jin. “lee, the first time we hung out you lit up, like a hundred candles at once. do you think i’m stupid? is that what you think? that i’m stupid?”

“n-no!” zuko stutters. “you knew,” jet growls “and didn’t say anything to us?” song is still fairly pale.

“i thought we all knew!” jin says. “i mean, he screwed up in front of me, like, immediately. i just figured the same had happened with you two.”

“i can’t believe it,” zuko says miserably.

“besides,” jin continues, “what’s the big deal? there’s plenty of war babies in ba sing se. and lee’s our friend. has he ever used firebending to hurt us?”

“that’s true,” song says thoughtfully. “and, that scar clearly didn’t come from a waterbender.” she takes in zuko’s embrassed expression and adds, “no offense, lee.”

“i don’t believe this,” says jet in shock. “how are you all just okay with this?”

“well, what’s he gonna do?” asks jin.

“i - i don’t know!” stutters jet. “he could - he could be spying for the fire nation!” song and jin laugh heartily, and after a minute so does jet.

“okay, okay,” jet concedes, “lee could never make it as a spy. but still-”

(“could too,” grumbles zuko, arms crossed. iroh shoots him a “for once in your life SHUT UP” look.)

“but nothing,” song says, standing up. “jet, i understand. i’ve been hurt by the fire nation, too, remember?” she pulls up her skirt and shows everyone her burned leg. zuko looks away.

“but lee didn’t do this,” song says firmly. “and neither did mushi. and you destroyed a town, so you don’t get to judge them.”

jet’s jaw drops, and then he pouts bitterly. “i never should have told you about that,” he mutters.

“i trust you three will keep our secret, then?” iroh asks at last. song and jin nod. jet looks between them, and then at zuko, who offers him something resembling an apologetic look.

“fine,” says jet. “but if i think for one second that you two are working with the fire nation, i’m not holding back.”

zuko and iroh nod aggressively, both thinking “if we so much breathed in the presence of the fire nation we’d be electrocuted by our insane relatives, but sure jet, we’re totally working with the fire nation.”

i know i said i’d post part 2 of the gaang and ba sing se bimbos meetup, but this was stuck in my head. since it’s an au of an au i’m just going to include it in my new masterpost rather than in any particular order. credit as always to the amazing @azenkii !

masterpost

[ohsotwistedwords]

Polybius

By Snapdragon

          It was July when the machine came in. My father had ordered some new arcade cabinets for his arcade; it’d been his dream to run one since he was little and then he was teaching me how to run it so one day I’d inherit it. So, I was working on maintenance and helping him with his finances. But, I wanted a more fun job when the cabinets came in. I’ve always been a kid at heart. Video games and dumb stunts were my thing back then, and I always wore the bruises proudly. So, when dad boasted he’d gotten a rare, one of a kind, arcade cabinet I had to get my hands on it. 

          “We should test it out, make sure it’s actually fun.” I’d said. I was hoping he’d say yes. Summer was almost over and I’d have to go back to mom when she moved back home, after living in France for two years as a tour guide. “Cain, we’ll find out how well-liked it is later. We don’t need to test it.” He said with a grin. “Well, I want to. Maybe it doesn’t even work— if it’s so rare, there must be a reason like the machine breaking down.” I said. “Or maybe there just weren’t that many of them made. Besides, Joey wouldn’t sell me a broken machine.” He said. “Dad, please.” I said. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. You can play after we finish moving the machines in.” He said.

          Moving the machines in was easy. It was kind of strange, putting them in place of the older machines I’d grown up with like Pac Man and Tempest. Polybius, the arcade cabinet, was certainly different in appearance. It was a black arcade cabinet instead of an eye-catchingly bright color. On it, outlines of neon green triangles and circles decorated the side. If I had to pick an arcade cabinet to compare it to, in terms of how plain it looked, I’d probably say Tempest— albeit hesitantly. Even Tempest is more eye-catching than Polybius.

          When the moving was finished, my father went home. We lived right next door to the arcade, so he wasn’t concerned about leaving me behind. So, I booted up the cabinet and took out a stack of quarters and put one in the machine. It booted up beautifully, but the graphics were all geometrical shapes. I played as a triangle, and fired at two triangles superimposed on each other. The two triangles put out circles and squares, which my small triangle had to shoot before being hit. But, it was… out of place. Colors and complex patterns covered the screen each level I cleared, and the lights flashed. I was on a high level, with blue and green lights and a moving diamond overlay when I glanced at the time. 

         It was one in the morning, which was strange. It had only been four PM when I finished moving the machines, and yet I couldn’t remember when my feet started to ache or that I’d beaten more than five levels. Stranger still was that my father hadn’t called me home, but when I asked the next morning he told me I’d been home. I’d come and grabbed more quarters, and something to eat. I didn’t remember any of that, but I’d found another roll of quarters in my pockets and my clothes smelled like hoagies. 

          The apparent amnesia was common when I played, but I chalked it up to having fun. After all, time flies when you’re having fun and I had difficulty remembering what I was doing if I was thinking about something else. I thought I just enjoyed Polybius, and that was why I kept going back when I finished work and playing for hours. I couldn’t sleep, either, but I chalked it up to thinking about the arcade cabinet constantly. I wanted to play badly; something was drawing me in. It didn’t help that I only had one friend, Kyler. It wasn’t that I was disagreeable, but rather that I didn’t care how many friends I had. My parents were divorced, sure, but I had a good family, a good job, and a future. Life was good. If only it stayed that way.

          I didn’t know anything was wrong until I came out of my Polybius-induced stupor and Kyler was there. Which was strange; Kyler was blind. I would play arcade games with him, sure, but I’d have to guide him the whole time by telling him where to move. Seeing him adapt to that was always interesting, but even I had trouble determining where things were in Polybius. And besides, he liked calmer games like Pokémon where he could memorize layouts and only needed occasional updates on what was around him. 

          But, while I stared and wondered where he came from, the triangle he was playing as was blown up by a rogue square. He didn’t speak to me as he inserted another quarter and kept playing. He got hit almost immediately. The silence was odd— if I didn’t say anything, he’d say something to me and tease me for missing something or not talking fast enough. So, I put my hand on his shoulder.

          “Kyler? When did you get here?” I asked. He spun around, eyes just slightly off from where I was. “What do you mean? You called me and told me to come here?” He asked. Then he paused and took out his phone. At the press of a button, it started reading off his notifications and the time. It was six in the morning, and he’d had seventeen missed calls from his mom and dad. “Six in the morning?! I could’ve sworn it’d only been five minutes…” he said. “I don’t remember calling you; when did you get here?” I asked. He paused again, then rubbed his face. “Uh… seven, maybe seven-thirty. Shit. I need to go home.” He said. I knew he lived a few blocks away, and I didn’t want him walking home alone at night. Not with his white cane, which I couldn’t help but think would mark him as a target for would-be muggers. “Let me drive you home. It’s pretty late.” I said. He agreed, and we got in the car.

         “Cain, I kind of remember a little bit now. Not much, but… the cabinet apparently spoke, I think.” He said halfway to his house. “It did?” I wouldn’t doubt it, even if I couldn’t remember it speaking. With a little more effort, though, I remembered faint words on the screen, though the memory was too blurry to make them out. “It did.” He said with a sigh. I was very concerned, at that moment, that I couldn’t remember what just happened or that Kyler and I had been hanging out for almost twelve hours. Or could only remember a picture of the machine and not even know when I saw it.

          Either way, I had work in an hour and a half. And I wasn’t even tired. I tried not to think about Polybius, not to play it again, but I found myself inserting a quarter into the machine as soon as I was done with work. With a quarter already in the machine, I resigned myself to playing just a little bit. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I came to in some tunnels underground. Kyler was there, arm linked in mine and his free arm sweeping the ground with his cane. I didn’t even know there were tunnels under the town. Neither did Kyler. We wandered for hours, and exited the tunnels about an hour later. 

          Days had apparently passed from the time we played the arcade cabinet and we ended up in the tunnels. We were declared missing in the time we didn’t remember, and our  parents were upset. Kyler’s, because they thought he’d been kidnapped, and my father because he assumed I got hurt and stranded alone somewhere. He was mad when I told him I didn’t know what happened, that Kyler and I ended up in some tunnels under the town. He said there were no tunnels, that I was lying. I know I wasn’t, and I knew I wasn’t lying then either. I saw things, then. Shapes, mostly, flitting across my vision and people in my peripheral vision who weren’t even there. It went away after I slept. And things like that just keep happening.

          I have to destroy the machine.

          So, I stand with a baseball bat I’d hidden in the supply closet. The machine flashes to life, as if it knows I’m here. “Salutations, Cain.” The words appear on the screen. I take a step closer as my arms and legs feel like jello. I just have to get in one good hit, one good hit and this nightmare is over. But, then, against my will the bat falls out of my hands and clatters to the floor. My legs move of their own accord, and I stand in front of the machine. “You think you can mock me, Cain? I cannot be destroyed so easily.”

          I’m curled up in a corner, next thing I know, and I’m being shaken. “Cain, have you been here all night?! You had me worried sick!” It’s my father. “What time is it?” I ask. My words are slurred, and it feels like there are dull needles just behind my eyes. But I’m still not tired. “It’s eight in the morning!” He says. I’ve been here for… over twelve hours. Have I been in this corner all night? It can’t be; my limbs aren’t stiff. “Are you sure you’re good to work today? You’re really out of it, Cain.” My father says. I look around; the baseball bat is nowhere to be found. “Uh… y-yeah, I think so.” I say.

          So, I stand and get to work opening up. Footsteps shuffle behind me. “Maybe taking the day off would be good for you. I don’t think you’re up for working today.” My father says. I shake my head and refrain from wincing at the ache it causes. “I’ll be fine. Just need to move around a bit.” I say as I unlock the front door, our early gamers already waiting outside. Well, I suppose it’s less that they’re early and more that we’re half an hour late. I stick near Polybius today, and what strikes me more than anything is the long line. It’s so orderly it’s baffling, and then anyone who has played stumbles out quietly. Without touching another arcade cabinet. Maybe the machine is affecting more than just me. The thought sends chills down my spine. It feels… right. I have to try to destroy it again tonight.

          So, after a long day, I dismiss everyone in the line like I’ve been doing every day since Polybius showed up. But, once everyone is gone, the urge to play comes back. I fight against it and fill a bucket with water before going back to where Polybius stands. Dropping water on it may break some other cabinets, but I don't care. I just want this one gone. It flashes to life again, showing a laughing face. I feel like jello again, and stumble forward only to carefully put the bucket of water down. This time, when I come to, I’m in my room. There’s blood on the floor, and a hot ache in my arms. My arms are covered in blood, so I take a dirty towel to wipe it away. I’ll clean them after they stop bleeding. Except, when I wipe it away, more oozes up out of my arms. There are cuts in my arms. I pause. I don’t remember doing this, either. But, it feels right. Like all the other times I’ve come to in odd places, from the tunnels to alleyways.

          I really can’t keep doing this. Polybius needs to go. But right now I need to clean up all the blood on the floor and get my arms situated. So, I take a few more dirty towels and wipe up the blood and take turns pressing down on each arm to stop the bleeding. When it stops, I throw on a long-sleeved shirt and head to the bathroom. I examine the wounds more closely, as I wash them with soap and water while ignoring the stinging. They look like clean cuts; I think a knife made them. But I don’t know. There wasn’t a knife around me when I came to. 

          I go to work again, like every day, but I stop a group of three teens. “I have a job for you, if you’ll take it. You’ll make a hundred bucks each.” I say. They squint at me. “What kind of job?” One asks. “I’ll give you the spare key to the arcade, and you’ll destroy Polybius after hours.” I say. The stout one shrugs. “Pay us first, then we’ll do it.”

***

          I come into work, like everyday. And immediately walk up to Polybius. It stands, with its screen smashed in and dents in its sides.

[sunshinesukuna]

lemon detergent

pairing: tsukishima x reader

tw: fighting, injuries (bruises), light swearing

wc: 1.7k

genre: angst to fluff

ayyy catch me plagiarizig my own work. eh, miya atsumu can rot anyways. im sorry if this is bad, i haven’t given you guys writing for over a week and my people-pleasing ass rushed to give you guys some content ahhhhh. éñÿwâÿś, enjoy <333

Three strikes and you’re out. For each of you, so technically that was six strikes, but the two of you never debated the technicalities of it. Not like you had time to, with a hectic schedule as third-year students and athletes. Him chucking volleyballs into the air, and you chucking yourself up in the air in the wondrous sport known as cheerleading.

He’s already waiting for you in your usual spot behind the gym. God forbid anyone see the two of you together unless it was a life-or-death situation. Hinata would grow at least a feet before that would ever happen. At least that was easy when you were dating someone like him. Being in different classes, different teams, houses on the opposite sides of town. You wondered when you would actually be close to him both emotionally, and physically.

Now that you’re closer, you can smell him for real. The tang of lemon detergent that his mom loves and clean sweat can only mean it’s Tsukishima. You stand in front of him wordlessly, eyes expectant for something. Well, something other than the forlorn look in his eyes that he’s giving you. 

“I don’t think I can come to your house after school tomorrow,” he says. There it is. You were totally expecting that this would come at some point during the year, but you didn’t expect it to come this soon. You’re still disappointed anyways. 

“It’s the third time you’ve bailed out on me this week alone, Kei,” you complain. He puts a finger to his lips at the sound of your quickly rising voice. “I barely see you at school outside of the gym!” 

“And I told you, I’m practicing. It’s not like I’m cheating or anything.” Certainly feels like you are, you want to say. But it’s best if you keep those words in the back of your head.

“For what? Nationals aren’t for two more months!” He breaks eye contact with you, opting to stare at the tree at the edge of the road. 

"Practice makes perfect.” 

“But you shouldn’t overwork yourself this much! Even I take breaks from cheerleading every now and then to come to support you at your games!” 

“(Y/N), I think you’re misjudging how important the Interhigh is to Karasuno. If we lose—”

“I know how important the match is, Kei. But there’s a difference between giving it your all and giving it too much.” You pause, taking a long breath. “Even cheerleaders don’t break our backs trying to reach new heights.”

Tsukishima sighs before putting his hands back into his pocket. He furrows his eyebrows.

“What would you know about it? Cheerleading isn’t a real sport anyway.”

Words cut deep like knives. Tsukishima’s don’t. They hit you like a bag of bricks all at once. 

The pang in your chest isn’t just from his words, it’s from his indifference. His eyes giving you that blank stare as he brushes off everything important to you. His hands staying still in his pockets as he talks to you, like you’re not even worthy of his attention. 

“What?”

And thus the standoff begins. 

First is the lunch line. You think waiting for food while hungry is hard? Try waiting for food when you’re hungry and have Tsukishima Kei looming over behind you. You’re about to plant your feet down in the floor when you’re finished, waiting for him to finish up, but you remember that you have no one to wait for.

So you briskly pick up your tray and move to a table where you spot some of your friends from cheer sitting. His eyes twitch at your figure walking so easily away from him. But it’s not like you would notice.  

Second is the hallway. Your heart clenches a bit when you spot Yamaguchi around the corner, because you know who’s going to be next to him. You can already smell the lemon detergent from here. 

His eyes burn through his glasses when you walk by. The usual glance and smile is thrown out in exchange for… nothing. Your eyes look straight forward at the end of the hall, where your classroom is. Frustration rolls off of him in waves so intense you can practically smell them, like a disruption in his lemon detergent-scented aura.

No matter, that means it’s working, right? He’ll fess up sooner enough.

But what was it again? Three strikes and you’re out.  The third strike comes later at practice.

You really should have thought this out even further. The damaged piping in the gym the cheerleading team usually used meant that they had to share with someone. And who else to share a gym with than the Karasuno Men’s Volleyball Team?

So here you are, stuck at one side of the gym while you can feel Tsukishima’s eyes on you from the other side. The routine starts off well. The first stunts all hit, with none of the same wobblings that was there in the first few weeks of learning it. 

And there it was. The throw was already crooked from the beginning. If you couldn’t reach the other flyer’s hand, then you were done for. In a last attempt to save the pyramid, you flung out your legs, trying to land on your feet.

Bad move. 

Your knee landed on something— but it wasn’t your teammates’ hands that were ready to catch you. A spike of pain shot up your foot. Suddenly the world was a blur as skin-coloured blobs that could only be your teammates rushed to help you. The lights above were reduced to sparkles that were just too bright. 

The buzzing in your ears was enough to block out the sounds coming in, but you could hear snippets of conversation here and there. 

“Was that (Y/N)?” 

“She landed on her knee!” 

“It looks bruised….”

On your knee, eh. So that was why the fire was all concentrated on your patella. The sweat on your hands wouldn’t let you regain your balance. You slump down with your back to the floor, hands over your face to block out what little pain you could, but the faucet of liquid fire trickled down your knee to no end. 

“May I help?” someone asked in a low baritone voice. You assumed that your coach said yes because you felt yourself being lifted in the air off the mat. The nape of your neck was wet, either from your sweat or this person’s. 

This person was strong too. They walked briskly and easily across the halls of Karasuno, even with a body in their hands. But their heart rate was abnormally fast. They probably had been exercising. 

You dare to open your eyes. All you see are pools of purple and white, obscured by the residual tears in your eyes. It could be anyone. But as your senses focused, hints olive and green came into the image. Your sense of smell was also starting to refocus as well. Lemon detergent, deodorant, and rubber.

Lemon detergent…

You opened your eyes as widely as you could. It was Tsukishima. Face unmoving and eyes showing no sign of emotion, but anyone could feel a sense of emergency with his rushed steps and the way he clicked his tongue anytime anyone stood in his way. 

The scent of sharp disinfectants replaced the lemon detergent as you were put down on a soft bed. You winced at the new position you were put in, your weight crashing down on your lower body yet again.

“It hurts...” you squeak out, every word another rope squeezing your chest flush out of air. 

“It does. It hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

That’s enough to set your heart at ease, if only a little. No sappy words to shoo away the pain by pretending it isn’t real, just a concise confirmation that what you’re feeling is real. And somehow, that’s just enough.

Tsukishima works quickly and quietly, adjusting the ice packs where needed. Whenever you wince or gasp in pain, he’s quick to rub a long, lanky finger over the purple parts of the bruise that doesn’t have ice covering it. It still hurts like a bitch, but at least the pain is only physical.

The emotional ones are just beginning to heal. 

The 10 by 10 room is sealed — door locked, windows bolted — but it still feels like the two of you are in front of a gargantuan stage, packed to the brim with people watching you. Or is it just because the only audience you have are one another?

“I’m sorry for saying cheerleading wasn’t a sport,” he mutters. Your hearing has started to sharpen again by now. 

“What?” 

“I’m sorry for brushing off your advice, and belittling something you love,” he says again, Tsukishima’s tone much clearer now. His words ring like a gong in your head.

The throbbing in your knee seems to lessen with every word he says. The longer he talks, the more the fire in your feet seem to subside. Were those his words going to your head, or the gentle massages he was giving your knees as he talked?

“You don’t have to accept my apology. I can wait until you do. But… I know I did something wrong. And I intend to fix it.” 

“I’ll accept your apology,” you say. On several conditions.” 

His head perks up, eager to hear what you’ll have him do in order to restore things back to the way they were. Scratch that, in order to make things better. Like hell he’ll ignore you again if it leads to something like this.

“What are they?” Tsukishima.

“I know you’re practicing really hard and all that, but can you spend some more time with me?” you ask. “You don’t have to spend that much time, just… enough so it actually feels like we’re dating?”

“Weren’t we already?” 

“You know what I mean.”

Tsukishima takes a long breath. He stays silent for a long time, the only noise in the room the sound of ice against ice as he moves to take another icepack for your knee. 

“Alright. Anything else?”

The idea you have is silly. But it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. What’s the worse that could happen?

“Buy me some of the detergent you use.” 

[rosethornewrites]

Fic: The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste ch. 1-2

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Luka Couffaine, Lila Rossi/karma, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/aneurism, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Plagg & Tikki

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Lila Rossi, Jagged Stone, Plagg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine, Penny Rolling, Anarka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Juleka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire, Chloé Bourgeois, Wayhem, Nadja Chamack, Nathalie Sancoeur, Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Tikki, Fang, Principal Damocles, Caline Bustier, Ms. Mendeleiev, original minor character, Alec Cataldi, Lila Rossi's Mother, Sabrina Raincomprix, Roger Raincomprix, Mylène Haprèle, Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard, Nino Lahiffe, Nooroo

Tags: Lila Rossi salt, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Teenage Rebellion, Swearing, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Crack Treated Seriously, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Luka Couffaine Needs a Hug, Paparazzi, Parentification, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Gabriel Agreste Needs an Aneurism, Uncle Jagged Stone, we're all queer here, the spirit of punk is sometimes just being allowed to be yourself, Kagami Finds Her Groove, punk rock fashion, Savage Kagami, Marinette protection squad, Good Parent Sabine Cheng, Good Parent Tom Dupain, Protective Kagami Tsurugi, Protective Luka Couffaine, Bisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Pansexual Luka Couffaine, Sharing a Bed, Pet Names, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Instagram, Bullying, Social Media, Anxiety, Makeover, Hugs, will cure your acne, Face Punching, Bad Ass Juleka Couffaine, Rumors, Protective Juleka Couffaine, Protective Adrien Agreste, Lawyers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, accountability, mental health, Jagged Stone's well-paid pet shark, How to Make the Evening News, Sexy eyeliner for days, one fish two fish Lila is a screwed fish, How to have fun and piss Gabriel off, Fuckery, sweet litigious karma, Alya sugar, lawyer shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, Schadenfreude, Bad Ass Alya Césaire, Gaslighting, abuse denormalization, Jagged likes his lawyers like he likes his pets: toothy af, Blood in the Water, Everything you didn’t know you wanted and some things you did, Gabriel Agreste is shark bait, Denial, Consequences, Principal Damocles salt, caline bustier salt, the impotence of Gabriel Agreste, snarky Nooroo, lies and the lying liars who tell them, Lila's brain is a narcissistic hellscape, Lila’s mind is built like an Escher piece, Alec Cataldi salt, Adrien Sugar, wholesome salt, Fu Salt, Kwami Shenanigans, Nooroo is a little shit

Summary: Gabriel decides that Adrien entering a romantic relationship is a good move for the brand. He chooses Lila Rossi as the other half. Adrien nopes tf out.

Notes: I was gonna have it be a slow acceleration, but Adrien was all “Go big or go home.” Also trying to find motivation to write more of this fic.

AO3 link

----------

“No,” Adrien growled. “Absolutely not!”

Lila made a show of crying, not that anyone in the room believed her tears were real.

Gabriel frowned at him from his desk. “This will be good for the brand—”

“Fuck the brand!”

“Adrien! This is unbecoming. You will be seen to be dating Ms. Rossi. That is final.”

Adrien’s fists were so tight he was sure he had crescents eating into his palms. “Like hell it is! I will not date that—” he gestured at Lila “—lying cow. Not after how she’s hurt my friends.”

Said girl gasped, outraged, and Adrien was glad to see she actually looked truly upset.

His father stood, but kept his voice emotionless, calm, self-assured that he would capitulate. “Cease this ridiculous teenage rebellion.”

He saw red, but oddly it calmed him. “Father, you have not seen teenage rebellion,” he said, his voice almost terrifyingly calm. “But I would be happy to teach you what it looks like if you try to force me to do this.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Adrien could see him considering that, but then discarding it. “It will be in the papers tomorrow. If you misbehave, you’ll no longer be permitted to go to school.”

Adrien snorted. He knew more ways to escape this house than his father could possibly anticipate—some he’d made himself, even. “Good luck, Gabe. You’re going to need it.”

He spun on his heel before his father could respond and slammed the door behind him. With the enhanced strength he had as the Black Cat Miraculous chosen, the wood cracked audibly.

As he made his way back to his room, he realized the opportunity his father had just placed in his lap. As the face of the brand, Adrien had more power than Gabriel seemed to realize. It was time to stretch those muscles.

He had planning to do.

---------

His father had spectacularly good timing for pulling this kind of stunt—for Adrien, anyway. He’d heard from a couple of friends of his that a certain rock star was in town. And if anyone was up for promoting teenage rebellion, Adrien had no doubt it would be Jagged Stone.

It was child’s play to sneak out of the house. He didn’t even have to transform to do it. From there it was just making his way to the Grand Paris Hotel. The staff assumed he was there to see Chloé, so getting in was no problem. Jagged Stone always rented the same suite, so that wasn’t an issue, either.

The hard part, he knew, would come after he knocked on the door.

Jagged opened the door, and then peered at him suspiciously.

“Um, M. Stone, I don’t know if you remember me but—”

The rock star suddenly broke into a wide grin. “Oh, you’re Marinette’s model friend, right?”

Adrien blinked. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard. His rock idol knew him?

Sadly, he had no time to fanboy.

“Yes, Adrien. I was wondering if I could trouble you for some help?”

And so that was how Adrien Agreste wound up sitting in Jagged Stone’s suite, petting Fang, and telling him about the woe that was the obsession his father had with Lila Rossi, Liar Extraordinaire.

“She said I had a what?”

“A kitten. And she got Marinette expelled and is just being really awful to her.”

Jagged opened a cell phone. “Penny, I need you. Yes, I know I sent you for macrons, but this is really important. Bring my niece with.”

When he was finished, he turned to Adrien again. “We’ll get that taken care of.”

“That’s not all, M. Stone.”

He pressed forward, telling his idol of the relationship he was being forced into and his promise to show Gabriel Agreste just what he could do if he really rebelled.

When he was done, Jagged’s face was gleeful in an almost terrifying way.

“Oh, please tell me I get to help with this?” At Adrien’s nod the man whooped in excitement. “Brilliant. Once my niece gets here, we’ll plan properly. She’s a planner, that one. Smart as a whip.”

Adrien blinked. “Your niece?”

“Marinette, of course! Honorary niece.”

His jaw dropped. Marinette had always had the upper hand on Lila, could call in Jagged at any moment to destroy her, and had held back. He never should’ve stopped her.

“My father can’t know she helped. He’s got so much power in the fashion industry, and I don’t want to hurt her career.”

Jagged waved away his concerns. “Mate, listen. From what I understand you’re the face of that company. You have the power, not him. Get you in some Marinette originals, and he can’t undo the fame that’ll bring her.”

Adrien hadn’t considered that. “I just don’t want her hurt.”

He heard the door open, and then a soft, “Adrien?”

It meant he had to explain the situation all over again, letting Jagged Stone assure her that he was going to pop the liar’s kitten whopper as soon as possible.

“I can stop by your school with Fang, yeah? They can’t keep me from saying hi to my favorite niece.”

Marinette bit her lip. “That would be helpful, but for Adrien…”

Adrien smiled. “I want you to design me a new look. Something we can do here and now—maybe with the discrete help of some of the hotel staff, since they have that nice spa and such. Hair dye, new clothes. Maybe some fake piercings. Oooh, a fake tattoo?”

Jagged glanced at Penny, who looked uncertain about this. “Don’t be a party pooper, Penny.”

“His father might sue you,” she pointed out.

“Like I care. I have money.” He grinned. “And for what? Giving his kid a makeover?”

“French law—”

“Nope, don’t care. It’s happening. Get his sizes and go to my favorite stores. Adrien, what color scheme?”

Adrien blinked. He hadn’t thought that far. He glanced at Marinette. “Um, do you think Chat Noir would mind if I used his colors? I think of him when I think teenage rebellion.”

That was more because being Chat Noir had up to this point been his way of rebelling, but she didn’t need to know that.

To his surprise, Marinette grinned, the smile wide enough to match Jagged’s. “Oh, I like that idea. Chains and spikes? Fake lip ring and septum?”

“Absolutely!”

Jagged made a shooing motion at Penny, who rolled her eyes and headed toward the door, before joining in. “Now how about this idea: black and neon green hair, done to look like a skunk’s stripes!”

Adrien was surprised to find himself laughing honestly at the idea. He’d been so angry less than an hour ago, but this was truly fun. “This makes me think of those J-Rock bands, how they used to dress up.”

Jagged’s phone let out a guitar riff and he glanced at it. “Oh, right. Penny needs your measurements. Shoe size, too. Definitely some stomping boots, I think.”

He handed over his unlocked phone for Adrien to text.

“I’ll call the salon, yeah?”

Adrien nodded, texting the information, then froze. “Wait, Chloé might tell my father.”

That got a laugh. “Nah. They’re discrete. They bring everything up here for me—I won’t be around people if I’m getting my hair dyed.”

While Jagged made the call, Adrien finished the text. When he looked up, Marinette was watching him. She turned pink when she realized he’d caught her.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked after a moment.

He sighed, slumping back on the sofa and resting his hand on Fang’s head again. “No, but I don’t have any better ones. That stupid news claiming I’m with Lila’s going to hit tomorrow. And I’m so done with this, with him treating me like I’m property.”

Marinette looked worried, and he tried to muster up a smile. From her expression, he didn’t manage it.

“Maybe…” she started, then trailed off.

“Maybe?”

She didn’t look at him. “Maybe you should look into laws involving child labor and parental responsibility. You… you might be able to get emancipated.”

That startled him—something he hadn’t even thought of before. He hadn’t even been aware it was an option.

When Marinette did look at him, her eyes were stormy. “He’s so… cruel to you. Maybe there’s legal recourse.”

“I’ll think about it,” he murmured. That seemed like such a drastic measure. “I don’t know if I want to go that far.”

She nodded, and he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Plagg shot out of his pocket the moment the door was closed. “I’m so proud of you kid. This is gonna be great!”

“Thanks, Plagg.”

The kwami grabbed the proffered wedge of camembert.

“And think about what Pigtails said. Your dad’s a real piece of work, and you deserve better.”

“I will.”

Adrien could feel the idea turning over in his mind, as though gathering strength. When he left the bathroom, Jagged met him excitedly.

“I have just the idea! A temporary face tattoo!”

[imjustthemechanic]

The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four Part 13/? - Resolute

Sure enough, something shows up on the sonar.

-

Their final stop before the search could begin was the tiny village of Resolute, which consisted of a few houses huddled around a little sandy bay in the midst of an otherwise breathtakingly inhospitable landscape of craggy rocks and ice.  The beach itself had to serve as a runway for a nail-biting landing in the arctic darkness, but Howard pulled it off with a smile and then got out a sextant.

“I’m gonna double-check our position before we turn in,” he said.

“I’ll get some supper out,” Lake offered.

“You really think we’re going to let you anywhere near our food?” asked Peggy.

“Suit yourself,” Lake said with a shrug.

As it turned out, they did not need to start on their rations.  The town itself was inhabited almost entirely by the local Inuit people, who rarely saw visitors and many of whom did not speak good English, but Peggy could find no fault with their hospitality.  A party of them soon approached the plane to ask if the group were lost and to offer food and warm clothing.  Peggy assured them that she and her companions were quite all right and just passing through – but when she thought of the army rations stowed under the seats of the airplane, she simply couldn’t refuse the offer of a hot meal.

This consisted of flatbread with berries, venison soup, and rhododendron tea served up in one of the little kitchens of the town, while out the north-facing window they could see the green curtain of the aurora borealis moving sinuously across the sky.  Howard spread out a small navigation map on the table, and pointed to their position.

“We’re here, and it looks like Kay’s coordinates are just west of us,” he said.  “We’ll start on the exact spot and go in a spiral outwards.”

Lake nodded and swallowed a mouthful before turning to the house’s owners and asking them a question in what Peggy had to assume was their own language.  There was a surprised reply, and then what sounded like an exchange of pleasantries before the woman pointed to the west and began describing something, using her hands to indicate a thing that had moved across the sky.

Peggy’s heart quickened.  She had no idea what Lake had said, of course… it could be she’d asked this woman to play-act.  It was better not to get her hopes up.  And yet in that moment, for the first time she found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, Lake was telling the truth.  Maybe the Valkyrie really was out there.  Maybe they really were here to bring America’s lost hero home.  If that happened… would she trust Lake thereafter?  It was hard to say, although she doubted it.

“She says they saw the plane go over and come down in that direction,” Lake translated.  “They didn’t think it had crashed at first, because they didn’t see an explosion, but a hunting party found part of the wing on the rocks a few months later.  A mother polar bear had dug her den underneath it.”

“We’ll have to be careful, then,” said Peggy.  She had no desire to run afoul of any large carnivores.

“A couple of shots will drive it off,” Howard said.  “Or make it into a very nice rug.”

“A conversation piece, to be sure,” Peggy observed.

Their hosts had no spare beds but did offer them extra blankets so they wouldn’t be too cold sleeping on the floor of the plane.  That was just as well, Peggy realized, because otherwise Lake would have had no bedclothes at all.  She looked quite comfortable curled up with her head on her folded coat, and it made Peggy wonder what sort of places she was used to sleeping in.

Halfway through that thought, she realized she was on the verge of feeling sorry for this woman, and quickly quashed it.

In the morning they got up well before it was light and ate a quick breakfast.  Howard buckled himself into the pilot’s seat, Jason took up his position next to the sonar equipment, and Peggy and Lake sat on opposite sides of the plane so that they could watch the landscape on both sides.  A crowd of children from the village turned out to watch the plane take off, and waved as they roared into the air.  Lake smiled out the window and waved back.

Peggy kept her eyes glued to the window as they flew out over the frozen ocean.  On a sunny day, the light reflecting off the miles upon miles of ice and snow would have been blinding.  In the pre-dawn, there was very little to see at all.

“Okay, okay!  We’ve got a reading!” said Jason eagerly.

Lake started to get up, but Peggy held up a hand.  “Don’t you dare,” she said.  “The last thing Howard and Jason need is you carrying tales of their technology back to Russia with you.”

“This isn’t patented yet,” Jason agreed.

Lake seemed to think about it, then reluctantly sat back down again.  Peggy stayed seated, but moved so that she could see the paper unspooling.  Based on the lines his pens were tracing out, it seemed like the top of the ice was quite flat, but the bottom very craggy, and the seafloor beneath gently sloped down.  The black trace suddenly jumped up to above the other two before falling back down again.

“See that?  We just passed another little island,” said Jason.  “This one I think is no more than maybe a hundred yards across.”

Lake pressed her face to the window.  “I don’t… I guess we’re already passed it.”

“You might see it on the way back,” said Jason.  “Or it might be totally buried in snow.  Fresh snow isn’t dense enough to show up.”

They pressed on.

The sun rose slowly, throwing the icescape below into startlingly high relief.  Every rock, every crack, and every stunted bush had its own coal-black shadow stretching away to the west.  Peggy squinted, trying to spot anything that looked artificial, but in this light every shape seemed to have the same unnatural sharp corners.

“Oh, look at that!” said Lake.

“What?” Peggy asked, and then made out a long, snaking crack between ice floes, with shapes moving along it almost like cars on a road.  For a moment Peggy had no idea what it was, but then a shadow showed that they were, in fact, narwhals with their long tusks, using the space as a highway to keep breathing as they headed south.  She wondered where they were going.

The cetaceans were in view for only a few moments before the plane left them behind, and then Peggy heard a dreamy sigh from Lake.

“Unicorns of the sea,” the woman said happily.

Peggy was a bit puzzled.  “You said you’d been here before.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen a narwhal,” Lake told her.  “There are so many unspoiled places still left in the world… maybe I’ll get to see some of them.”

“The view isn’t very good from prison,” Peggy replied darkly.

“Hey!” Jason said suddenly.  “Hey, hey, Howard!  Turn around and fly over this area again!”

Peggy turned around to look.  There was a scribble on his polygraph paper, where for just a moment, all three pens had twitched and drawn over each other… just as he’d said they would when encountering a man-made object.  Her heart quickened and she turned to look out the window again, but there was nothing visible there except ice.  The landscape outside tilted as the Skytrain made a wide turn, and Peggy squinted… would their be any sign?

Something glinted in the sun.  Was that ice, or metal?

“There it is again!” said Jason.  “That’s loud.  It’s got to be either rock or metal.  Fly around east-west this time so we can get another angle on it.”

The plane swung round again.  They passed the narwhal highway, though the sun was now too high for the individual animals’ shadows to be seen.  Their lane of open highway sparkled as the water moved, and Peggy wondered if all she’d seen earlier had been a puddle or a bit of unusually smooth ice.  This time it seemed to take much longer for them to get back to the same spot, but then it happened for a third time.  The needles zagged wildly across the paper, and Jason beamed in triumph.

“Did you get our heading?” he called to Howard.

“Got it!” the reply came back.  “Does anybody see anything?”

“I may have seen a piece of something metallic, but it’s very hard to tell in all the snow,” said Peggy.

“All right, we know where to look now, heading back to Resolute!” Howard said.  The plane began to turn again.

This seemed to come as a surprise to Lake.  “We’re not landing?” she asked.

“This thing isn’t designed to land on the ice, Doll-Face,” Howard replied.  “We’d probably go right through.”

“And here I thought Howard Stark would have more tricks up his sleeve,” said Lake.

“Now you’ve done it,” Peggy told her.  “He won’t rest until he’s made it work.”

- 

The locals in Resolute were interested to hear about the results of their quest – Peggy suspected that very little ever happened in such a place, and this was the most excitement they’d seen since the end of the war.  There were congratulations all around, and Howard had no trouble renting a pair of sleds and teams of wonderfully fluffy malamute dogs to pull them.  To Peggy’s surprise, Lake seemed to fall in love with these animals immediately.  She knelt down to ruffle their thick coats and let them lick her face, cooing endearments to them in English and the local language both.

“You wouldn’t have struck me as a dog person,” Peggy observed.

“I had a friend who absolutely adored them,” Lake told her.  “If I met these pretty boys and girls and didn’t tell them how much he would have loved them, he’d haunt me to the end of my days.”

Peggy wouldn’t have wanted to take too much advantage of the people of Resolute and their hospitality, but the alternative was those rations on the plane, so she allowed them to be invited for supper again.  It was very much the same as the previous meal but that was all right, as was the fact that Lake and a couple of the children were trying to give Howard and Jason lessons in Inuktitut.  That gave Peggy an opportunity to let her surroundings fade into the background and analyze her own thoughts.

Did she believe they’d found the Valkyrie?  It squared with the descriptions Lake claimed to have gotten from the locals, but Peggy still didn’t know if she’d been truthful about that.  There certainly wasn’t any sort of secret base, though, unless it had somehow been built on the seafloor and the ice allowed to re-freeze above it.  That seemed enormously impractical.  How would they bring in people and supplies?  The locals would surely notice, unless everything were done by submarine… and if there were submarine traffic in the area, there would probably not be any shy cetaceans like the narwhals.

But if it were the Valkyrie, then what did that mean?  How had Lake ever managed to find the place, and why, having done so, had she chosen to tell nobody but Peggy?  She very much doubted it was just to be nice.  She wanted Peggy to feel in her debt… she’d gone to the effort of coming along on the expedition to be sure they all knew who had made this possible.  She was going to want some kind of repayment.  Was all this just to secure Peggy’s help in getting Dottie back to the USSR alive, or was there something else?

She knew better than to ask.  Lake would not give her an answer.

Peggy also wondered what she was going to do if they found the Valkyrie.  Lake had described Steve’s body lying there above the plane, having been forced out the windows as seawater poured in.  That meant if they uncovered the wreck, it would be one of the first things they saw.  Peggy had to prepare herself for that.  When she’d thought this was all some kind of trick, she hadn’t needed to worry about her own emotional stability but now that the specter of actually finding him had reared its head… she didn’t know if she were ready.

And that was absurd, because Peggy had always lost Steve Rogers three times.  The first had been when she’d heard the radio go dead, and knew that he was thousands of miles away dying among fire and ice.  At the time she’d sat there and sobbed mindlessly for a while.  Phillips had patted her back and assured her it had probably been quick.  She’d drifted through the next few days in a kind of numbed haze, wanting desperately to get drunk but not allowing herself to do so.  Steve had not been able to get drunk when his lifelong friend had plummeted into a ravine, only days earlier.  Why should Peggy be permitted the privilege?

She’d lost him again a week later, when she’d waited all night at the Stork Club, knowing he wouldn’t be there but hoping against hope.  Of course he hadn’t come.  At sunrise she’d finally gone home.  When she’d heard Steve die on the radio, Peggy had felt hollowed out, as if she had no room for anything inside her but sorrow.  Leaving the Stork Club, she’d felt resigned and empty.  She was a tiny mote whose hopes and dreams and loves meant nothing in the face of a cold, uncaring world, and she would have to live with that.

The third time had been when she’d poured the vial of blood into the East River.  That had been sad, but peaceful.  It was time to let him go, and Peggy was ready to do so.  She would move on, and follow his example as best she could.

Could she really lose him a fourth time?  Could she look at his corpse in the ice and know that this time there was no room for even the most fleeting of fantasies, that the truth really was as cold and hard as the arctic ice?  Peggy didn’t know, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to find out.

[a3hihi]

a script reading (pre-Mankai)

Oneshot

Fushimi Omi & Nachi, original characters 

also on AO3!

Summary

“Okay,” Nachi drawls, slipping off of his bike in one go.

He looks everyone over. “I’ve got you here today to hear part of my script reading. If you like it, you can tell me. If you don’t like it, then you can run before we catch you.”

The Wolves behind him flash their teeth at that, grinning.

The Mad Fox could throw a punch. The rival gang didn’t think he could deliver lines, too.

Dai’s running like he’s never run before.

Like how his friends warned, stepping on the Wolves’ turf was a terrible idea.

The streets in Tokyo are lit yellow, blue, and red that evening, but they’re blurred in Dai’s eyes. The river beside them, separated from the road by a fence, flows quietly, masking nothing. Dai can hear himself panting, the stomps of his team following behind him. His boots slip on the asphalt and he’s lucky to catch himself.

What was their leader even gonna say once she heard about this?

Dai whips his head around frantically. His other members’ eyes are wide with fear. They’re stuck.

They all turn a corner to lose the people chasing them, heaving.

They’ve covered enough ground, he thinks, until he hears screeches from tires and hoots from their rival gang. Amid the chorus of their engines revving, some of them mimic wolves’ howls, whooping with laughter as they skid to a stop.

They’ve caught up.

One of the Wolves’ leaders, Nachi, laughs the loudest.

He takes off his helmet and sets it aside, boasting a shock of bright green hair. He stands out from most of his gang, members dark-haired and dressed in leathers.

“Okay,” Nachi drawls, slipping off of his bike in one go.

He looks everyone over. “I’ve got you here today to hear part of my script reading. If you like it, you can tell me. If you don’t like it, then you can run before we catch you.”

The Wolves behind him flash their teeth at that, grinning.

Dai backs up until he sticks to a brick wall, crinkling with posters and dried gum. Some of his teammates still stand, while others are startled into falling.

“We’re not scared of you,” one of them says. “Our leader’s gonna know any minute now. She runs this part of town.”

“Really? What’s her name?” Nachi asks, tilting his head to the side.

"Chiyo—"

“Ah. Say, Omi, didn’t we break her arm here a week ago?”

Dai and his friends gulp.

One of the taller members slides off his bike and ambles to where Nachi stands. Next to Nachi’s bright hair and smiling face, this guy looks plain besides his build. He scowls at Dai and the rest.

“I remember.”

The taller one, who Dai assumes is Omi, looks at his partner, frowning.

“What did you wanna do?”

"Try something new, that’s all.”

His voice rings out as the gang gawks at him in confusion.

Nachi reaches into his jacket and takes out a printed-out script, clearing his throat.

“A monologue from As You Like It, by William Shakespeare. Act two, scene seven, line one hundred thirty-nine."

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Nachi takes two steps forward. The other members scramble further away, their backs pressed to the wall behind them.

Nachi’s gestures and position change as he speaks. He brings his arms out during certain phrases.

“They have their exits and their entrances,”

He controls his voice with ease, shifting his facial expressions and moving from one word to another.

“And one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”

In the minutes that pass, it happens smoothly, like he’s practiced it many times before.

"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

"...Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion,"

He swipes at his face.

Dai's friends look on, but Nachi doesn’t say anything more.

“So? How was that?”

Everyone else looks like they’re stunned into silence.

“Nachi! That was awesome!” yells a silver-haired boy to Nachi’s left.

“Thank you, Ryo,” he says before he smirks at Dai's friends.

“Well? Any feedback?”

They’re quiet.

“No?” Nachi mutters, raising a brow that makes them flinch.

One of Dai’s fellow members pretends to cough.

“Your emotions were nice, I guess.”

What the hell was going on?

“Okay, I’ll work on that. Anyone else?”

Nachi’s holding back a laugh.

“You kinda freaked me out during that last part," another member squeaks.

"Got it. It was intended, I’ll give you that."

No one talks.

Dai speaks up from his crouched spot by the wall.

"You could take some more pauses."

Nachi looks him dead in the eye. “What makes you think that?”

Dai swallows. “Makes it easier for us to get the story. I think.”

Nachi stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Alright. Thank you all for cooperating,” he calls out.

“Now, I’m going to count to three.”

He backs up until he’s in line with the other Wolves.

“If you’re not gone by then,” he chuckles, “well, you know what’s comin’.”

“One.”

Dai and his team shoot up.

“Two.”

They scatter in all directions.

“Three.”

Street’s empty.

Near midnight, the streets in Tokyo are still lit yellow, yellow, blue, and red, shining on two lumbering boys. No other Wolves or motorcycles in sight. One has a lollipop in his mouth; the other is silent. The river still masks nothing.

Still quiet, too, save for bikes’ engines.

Omi barks out a laugh, and the rest of them join in.

"Care to tell me what that was all about?" Omi asks.

Nachi takes a breath. “I just thought it would be interesting.”

“Huh?”

“If you do something different, people remember you,” he shrugs. “Plus the Wolves found it fun.”

“No, no. I get that.” Omi frowns.

“But you don’t just pull… speeches out of thin air like that. Things like this need a lot of effort.”

Nachi faces him, lollipop pinched between his fingers. “You’re right. They do.”

Nachi makes jazz hands at him. “Acting.”

“If word of me pulling that stunt comes out,” he continues, picking at his bracelet, “Then I’ll make sure people don’t come after them.”

Omi crosses his arms.

“‘S long as I’m here, no one lays a finger on the Wolves. Or on either of us. Listen, it’s not about rumors.”

Nachi doesn’t answer, so Omi stops walking.

“Hey.” Omi punches his shoulder.  “I’m serious. I won’t laugh at you if you’re into that stuff. The others won’t either.”

Nachi allows himself a wry smile and slings an arm around Omi’s shoulders.

“Well, I have your support. That counts for something.”

Omi beams at his best friend.

Trash cans clang from a nearby alley. The both of them come to a halt.

“Was that a cat?” Nachi asks.

Omi cocks his head to the side. “I don’t think so.”

Dai stumbles out from behind the wall, nursing a bruise where he must have hit a trash can. His eyes land on them.

“I... I was just on my way home,” he yelps, breath catching in his throat.

Omi squints. “How much did you hear?”

“Nothing. I swear.”

“Let me take care of him,” Nachi says, stepping forward and rolling his sleeve up.

“Nah.” Omi catches his friend's arm.

“He can send a message back to Chiyo.”

His voice is light, saying that, like he isn’t threatened in the slightest.

“Let me make this simple.” Omi sets his eyes down to Dai's level.

“Because I’m not an asshole, I'll let you go for now.”

Dai’s frozen in place.

“I take it your house isn’t far from here?”

Omi's face doesn't change as Dai nods, trying his best not to stammer.

“Try not to show your face around here again. Then we’re out of your hair.”

Dai tightens his jaw and runs off til he’s out of sight.

“Omi!! You gotta teach me how to do that sometime!”

Ryo runs up to them, catching his breath. Two, then three, then five more of the Wolves follow behind him on the road.

“I thought you all went home.”

Ryo wheezes. “We wanted to see you before heading back!”

Omi grimaces at that, rolling his eyes.

“Suit yourselves. I just don’t want you to start something stupid and then regret it.”

Ryo’s eyes sparkle. “Do you have more lollies?”

“What.”

Ryo smiles until Omi sighs and pats his pockets, searching for something, finally fishing out lollipops.

“It wouldn’t kill you to have a salad every once in a while.” Omi grunts, shaking his head. "If you idiots don’t take care of yourselves, I swear I'll—”

"You'll what?" Nachi teases.

His partner smirks. "I'll blow all your houses down."

"That was the lamest thing I've ever heard."

"Go jump in the river."

"If you ask nicely, maybe I will."

Nachi shouts an "OW!" as Omi shoves him.

The rest of the gang snickers.

“Where’d you learn to make those lollipops anyway?” Nachi asks.

“My mom taught me.”

Omi smiles, looking at them all. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh.” Nachi purses his lips and pats his friend’s back. “Teach us how to make them?”

"I guess."

As the others crowd around them, Ryo tugs at Omi’s jacket.

“Nachi could do another one of those script things.”

“Script readings, Ryo.”

“Yeah, yeah!”

[jwillowwolf]

Magic and Miracles - Chapter 9

Sanders Sides Big Bang fic, Chapter 9!

< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter > | Masterlist

Summary: “What in Hades happened to you guys?” Remy exclaimed when he saw them appear.

“We fought that giant mole thing guarding the fruit,” Roman answered.

“You what?”

Warning/s: food mention, minor violence.

Characters: Logan, Virgil, OCs, Roman, Remy, Remus, Patton, Janus.

Tag List: @theimprobabledreamersworld @remy-please-come-back

Read on AO3

9 | The After Party

“I think we’re cursed,” Virgil stated as he eyed the giant mole.

The group had not been expecting anything to be inside of the cave, apart from of course the unique underground tree that grew the fruit Remy sent them for. So when they came face to face with a giant mole monster, Roman appropriately began freaking out and would have screamed at the top of his lungs if Janus hadn’t covered his mouth to silence him, because they did not need to be seen or heard by that thing.

And when I say giant mole, I mean giant mole, like whale-sized giant mole. Have I mentioned this is a giant mole enough? I should probably get back to the story...

“Merciful Gods, that thing is huge. What the hel do we do?” Willow asked in a panicked whisper. “There’s no other way through to the fruit.”

“Remy expects us to face that thing? Is he mad?” Remus asked.

Logan felt he half agreed with the question because honestly, this creature looked like a lot for seven teens to handle by themselves.

“Maybe it’s friendly?” Patton suggested.

“Well, average-sized moles are carnivorous, so I doubt a giant one would have a much different appetite…” Logan stated.

“There goes that hope,” Virgil muttered. “There must be another way through.”

“There really isn’t. This is the cave that Remy marked for us, and there’s no back doorway to that tree, and we even can’t go back the way we came to check if there is” Janus said.

Virgil sighed. “We’ll have to fight it then.”

“I’m sorry, but can you see the size of that thing? It’ll squash us like pests.” Willow whisper shouted.

“There are seven of us and one of them. Besides, Remy wouldn’t have us fight something he wasn’t sure we could takedown.” Virgil declared. “Come on guys, we have literal magic on our sides.”

“How do we know it isn’t magical itself?” Remus asked.

“Stat Check,” Logan said. “It could probably give us a good reading on this creature.”

Willow shrugged. “Better than running in blind, I guess.”

Logan pointed his wrist at the animal and whispered the spell, which created a small screen of light that it thankfully didn’t seem to notice.

Unknown

Titles: Killer Mole, Mountain Mole

HP: 100 - Full

Skills: Echolocation, Poison.

“Killer Mole, what a friendly name,” Roman snarked, finally free from Janus’s silencing hand.

“It doesn’t have any magical skills, so that means it probably has no magical defence, and since it uses echolocation, I think it’s safe to assume that it has poor sight,” Logan said.

“We’ll need to keep an eye out for whatever poison it has though,” Janus pointed out.

“Alright. The best approach would probably be a spell to immobilize it. Something that could maybe cause confusion.” Virgil suggested.

Remus lit up. “Ooh, I know just the spell!”

“Remus wait-”

Before anyone could do anything to stop him, Remus lept out from their hiding place and cast his spell. It was a wind spell that made an annoying ping sound echo around the cave. Everyone winced at the sound, including the mole, who had been very much caught off guard. It began to run around and stomp and grunt like it was seeking out the sound’s source to destroy it.

This however caused rocks to fall from the cave ceiling and nearly crush the group. Which of course led to the teens screaming and running around, doing their best to avoid falling rocks and the giant mole. Willow tried to cast an animal communication spell, but their attempts to calm the creature were useless.

"Make the pinging stop Remus!" Patton yelled.

"Right, uh, I'm not very great with reversing spells…"

"Well someone needs to do something or we're doomed!" Willow screamed.

Logan quickly cast a reversal spell to silence the pinging, but that did nothing to stop the mole's rampage.

"Guys it knows we're here and is not happy!" Willow stated.

"What if we explained we mean no harm?" Patton asked.

"I don't think it will believe us after Remus's little stunt," Roman said.

"Run!" Willow yelled as the mole charged them.

Janus shouted some colourful words as he barely dodged another fallen boulder. "We need to stop it!"

Patton tried using an ice spell, but couldn't manage to properly aim while he and the creature were running. "We can't use magic on it directly while it's moving like this."

"Remus, do something about the roof!" Virgil yelled.

"What?"

"You're the one with proficiency in rock type magic, do something!"

"Oh, right!" Remus cast a spell to strengthen the cave ceiling. "This should stop anything more from falling but I'm low on MP!"

"Don't use any more magic then. Patton, get the stupid fruit, Willow how do we take this thing down?" Virgil questioned.

"While I hate to admit it, nothing but brute force is going to stop it. It's out for blood." Willow answered.

“Will our weapons even make a dent?" Roman asked.

"Only one way to find out!" Janus said as he charged at one of the beast's ankles with his staff magically set ablaze.

Roman ran at another ankle with his katana drawn and Remus went for a third leg with his morning star while Willow shifted into their wolf form to attack the fourth leg. Meanwhile, Logan and Virgil charged at its middle from either side. The mole let out a nightmare-inducing scream as it was attacked from all angles.

“HP?” Virgil asked.

“Sixty-two left!” Logan answered.

The mole tried to stomp on Remus but Janus managed to push her out of the way just in time. Roman took another swing at the creature’s back leg, causing it to let out another scream and run forwards.

“I have the fruit!” Patton yelled.

“Look out!” Roman screamed, seeing that the mole was headed for him.

Patton squeaked and ran back up into the tree.

“Everyone, do another rush attack!” Virgil commanded.

The group once again ran at the mole from different angles. The creature screamed as each weapon made contact. Patton chose this moment to take aim at the animal and managed to hit it with a sleeping spell that instantly caused it to fall unconscious.

Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. Patton jumped down from the tree and ran over to Remus to give him a big hug.

“Never, ever, do that again, please?”

“Pat, I swear to you if I ever see a giant mole again, I will simply run the other way.”

“What do we do with it?” Roman asked.

“Leave it? It’s asleep, not dead,” Janus pointed out.

“It’s only at twenty-three HP,” Logan declared. “And we honestly have no idea if it would have attacked us if it weren’t for the panic Remus’s sound spell caused.”

Remus awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that, everyone.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Virgil replied. “I think we should at least heal it though. As a sort of sorry for ruining its day and nearly killing it.”

Willow nodded agreeingly. “That’s probably the least we could do…”

“I’ll heal it. Could one of you open a portal back to the manor, so we can get out quickly once the spell is complete though? I don’t know if it’ll wake up and try to kill us again,” Virgil said.

Janus nodded and cast the portal spell for seven entities while Virgil did his healing spell. Once the group crossed through the portal into the familiar manor garden, they all collapsed with exhaustion.

“What in Hades happened to you guys?” Remy exclaimed when he saw them appear.

“We fought that giant mole thing guarding the fruit,” Roman answered.

“You what?”

“Fought the-”

“I heard you the first time, kid, but there is no giant mole in that cave. I checked it out last week to be sure that she’d migrated already.”

“Well, she must have been out for lunch or something when you dropped by. Because we all just barely escaped her,” Janus stated.

The colour suddenly drained from Remy’s face. “Oh f- are you all okay? Did she injure you? You didn’t get hurt badly, right?”

“No, we actually almost killed her after Remus sent her into a panic and we had to fight her because she was out to kill us,” Willow answered.

“Oh my- wait, you all nearly killed her?”

“Yep.”

“How in Hades did you manage that?”

“Teamwork and the collective will to live,” Virgil answered.

“...You kids are going to be the death of me.”

---

That evening, just as they had been promised, the class had themselves a party to celebrate their success. The dining room was decorated with brightly coloured floating orbs that gave the room a festive appearance, and the table held a banquet fit for royalty, including some fabulous pastries from the bakery.

Emile and Everleigh had come up from town and listened eagerly as the group retold everything that had happened. When they got to the part about the giant mole, Emile turned to Remy and gave him a stern lecture.

"You said they'd be safe."

"I thought the guardian had migrated! Besides, it's not my fault they were reckless enough to take it on instead of calling for adult assistance."

"You did tell us only to summon you if we had an emergency," Roman pointed out.

Everleigh raised an eyebrow. "You guys don't think being almost killed by a giant mole, counts as an emergency?"

"Well, we all were trying to just stay alive, so the idea we could call for help didn't really come to mind," Willow answered sheepishly.

Apart from that, the night was full of fun and laughter. Once the group had finished their meal, they went to one of the sitting rooms and continued their light-hearted conversation there. At some point, Emile and Remy went off to get some drinks for everyone, so the kids were left alone.

“Let’s play truth or dare,” Everleigh suggested.

Remus nodded vigorously. “Ooh, yes! Roman, Truth or Dare?”

“I didn’t even agree to play yet.”

“Yeah, but you love this game.”

“...Truth.”

“When was the last time you wet the bed?”

Roman blushed. “I have never wet the bed.”

“Really, I could have sworn you did this morning.”

“You dumped water on me, that isn’t the same thing!” Roman rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Patton, truth or dare.”

“Hmm, truth?”

“Who was your first kiss?”

“Me,” Remus said at the same time Patton replied, “Ummm…”

“Wait, I wasn’t your first kiss?”

“Well… you know the story where a princess kisses a frog and he turns into a prince.”

“Yeah.”

“So, my mom told me and Morgan that story, and then Morgan dared me to kiss a frog.”

“Oh… was it a good kiss?”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “It was a frog.”

Remus rolled her eyes. “I know that, but it’s not the answer to my question.”

“I was like eight, so I don’t remember. It didn’t turn into a prince though. Willow, truth or dare?”

“Um, dare.”

“I dare you to give me a hug.”

“Aw, sure Pat!” Willow got up and gave Patton a quick hug. “Janus, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

Willow smirked. “I dare you to kiss Roman’s cheek.”

Janus and Roman both blushed while Remus went “Oooooh!”

Janus turned to Roman. “Do you mind?”

“Uh, nope. Not at all.” Roman said as calmly as he could, but failing to keep his voice from cracking at the end.

Janus kissed his cheek and Remus cheered. “They did it!”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Virgil, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

Janus smirked. “Okay. What really happened between you and Logan when you got ‘lost in the woods’?”

“Um, nothing. We just got lost.”

“I can tell you’re lying~”

Logan huffed. “For the last time, Janus, nothing happened.”

“You’re both lying. Come on guys, we’re your friends!”

“Then why don’t you believe us?”

“Because something happened and we can all tell you’re trying to hide it,” Remus answered.

Virgil turned to Logan with a confused expression. “Do you have any idea what they believe happened?”

“Well, the short version is, they think we went off to make out.”

Virgil turned bright red. “What? I- You- We- no, no, nooo.”

“He’s getting flustered! It’s true!” Remus declared.

Roman objected. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

Logan nodded. “Thank you, Roman.”

“Obviously making out would have been going too fast. They just shared their first kiss.”

“Un-thank you, Roman.”

“Uh, shouldn’t we carry on with the game?” Patton suggested.

“Hmm, I think this is a bit more entertaining.” Everleigh giggled.

Logan gave her a look of betrayal. “Et tu Everleigh?”

“Logan, I grew up with you, I definitely know when you’re lying.”

Willow sighed. “Please just tell them before they all drive me crazy with their betting?”

“Betting?” Virgil squeaked.

“Janus has bet that you’re both together already and in a… close relationship. Roman thinks you’re taking things slow. Everleigh thinks at least one of you believes you’re together while the other is oblivious and pining. Patton thinks you at the very least confessed and Remus thinks you’re at least intimate.”

Logan gaped. “What the heck! How much do you guys think about this?”

Remus shrugged. “Often enough to form a Fanclub.”

“Oh my gods.”

“You formed a Fanclub?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah. Remy’s the chairman and Mr Picani is even a member.” Remus declared.

“You recruited Remy?!”

Willow shrugged. “If anything, he recruited us.”

Everleigh nodded. “I don’t even see you guys that often, but it’s super obvious with how you gravitate towards each other.”

“We don’t.”

“You’re literally sitting beside each other right now.” Janus pointed out with a smirk.

“Okay, you know what. You want the truth?” Virgil asked. “We were kidnapped by pixies.”

...silence…

Roman scoffed. “That is the worst lie I’ve heard yet.”

“Actually, he’s telling the truth,” Janus declared.

...silence; the sequel…

“How the f-”

I will save you the boring details of the explanation that followed, but to put it in a nutshell: Virgil explained what actually happened + how his parents met and all that, and now everyone is just sitting in silence again.

“...so, you didn’t kiss?” Remus asked.

“I told you so!” Logan huffed.

“Not even after that? You guys are together like all the time,” Janus stated.

“No, we aren’t.”

“Just last night, while everyone was sitting around the campfire, you two sat off to the side on a log of your own.”

“Actually, Virgil was comforting me because... well, I was worried about what will happen to our friend group after the test.”

“Oh…”

“Well, I would hope we keep in touch.” Roman declared. “You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah. I can’t even imagine having to go back to my hometown. I mean, sure, I miss my family, but you guys… you’ve sort of become like my second family.”

Willow smiled. “Aw, Pat, that’s so sweet. I know I’ve got a whole pack to get back to, but I can’t imagine not spending every day with you guys, learning spells and trying to get out of trouble.”

Janus laughed. “I like how you said getting out of trouble instead of trying to avoid it.”

“Well, duh, we’re stupid reckless. Especially me!” Remus declared, causing everyone to laugh. “Seriously though, it won’t be that hard to keep in touch, I think. We can teleport to each other whenever we want.”

“True. plus we still have our book club meetings if you guys want to continue those.” Everleigh said.

“Of course! We have to keep those up.” Patton stated. “And we can even go on our own real-life adventures all together!”

“Yeah, we can form an adventurers party. We’ll call ourselves the Great Eight.”

“No offence Roman, but I don’t think that name works,” Janus said.

Roman shrugged. “We can choose a different one then. Hmm, the Magnificent Eight.”

“Does eight have to be in the name?” Everleigh asked.

“We could just go be, the Magnificent,” Patton suggested.

Virgil shook his head. “That sounds like it’s just one person. If we’re going with a team name, it needs to be something that defines us all.”

“The sides?” Remus proposed.

Janus tilted their head to the side. “How does that work?”

“I don’t know. It just felt familiar…”

“Maybe it’s something weird from a past life,” Roman suggested.

“What was I? Half of a coin?”

“Part of a person maybe? Like, a facet of someone’s personality,” Willow thought aloud. “Nah, that sounds totally crazy.”

“We are great, but it’s spelt G-R-8.” Patton proposed.

Willow frowned. “Why would we say we are G-R-ate? Like we’ve eaten already? Or we’ve... been... eaten?”

“No, like the number eight.”

“Eight days a week.” Everleigh put forth.

“There are only seven days of a week.” logan pointed out.

“The 8th wonder of the world!” Remus suggested.

Roman frowned. “What are the other seven wonders?”

“The octave…? Like a sequence of eight notes.”

“Did you just make a pun?” Patton grinned at Logan.

“...No.”

“Party of Eight?” Janus offered.

Virgil shrugged. “That seems a bit on the nose.”

“Family of Eight?” Patton recommended.

“Again, too direct.”

“The eight musketeers~!” Roman sang.

Logan frowned. “What’s a musketeer?”

“How about we don’t choose a name yet. The greatest heroes didn’t have any titles until they earned them.” Everleigh pointed out.

Everyone nodded in agreement. They didn’t need to give themselves a name. They would earn that later on. For now, they were eight friends, just having fun together. They didn’t have to think about their future plans just yet; they had to all get through the magic license test first anyway. In the end, they were just happy that they’d settled on one thing.

Staying together.

The very next moment, however, everything would change. They didn’t know it yet but their group would earn their name sooner than later. And it started when Remy and Emile walked into the room.

“Remy? What’s wrong?” Virgil asked, noting the man’s forlorn expression.

“Virgil…”

“Remy, you’re freaking me out. What happened?”

"...Thomas and Nico have been kidnapped."

---

A/N: thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this. I'll be posting two chapters a day until the full fic is up, so if you want to be tagged, you can just ask.

I'd love to hear what you thought about the chapter if you wouldn't mind commenting. Thanks again for reading! Here's hoping you have a magical day 💜

[yungimmortals]

moving day | joel & jade

date: august 17th, 2021 summary: yeah that’ll be one vegetarian everything but the kitchen sink (“and yes that includes pineapple, thank you”) pizza

Jade dropped her overfull suitcase on the ground unceremoniously. He’d move it to the bed in a bit, since he planned on living out of it for the next three weeks, but for now she was interested in exploring the cabin that looked like nobody bothered to clean since it was last lived in. With pillows, blankets, and cushions strewn about into some sort of half-collapsed fort, it was at least cozy, despite the need for a bit of a revamp (and definitely a dusting).

The twins had been directed here by Chiron, who seemed less than excited about their arrival. He was probably informed of their stunt by the messenger gods that kept track of them, and the fact that they’d gotten him a PARTY PONIES: OHIO AQUATIC DIVISION shirt didn’t seem to lighten his mood very much. Whatever, Jade was still wearing his. Still, the centaur was nice, and polite, and let them know that this was the cabin that they’d be staying in, and if the twins wanted to find their siblings, most of them lived together in town. That’s right, siblings. Of course Jade was excited at the prospect, but part of her was nervous to meet them. Was one sibling not enough? What if they thought he was weird or didn’t want to interact with him? Whatever. She pushed the thoughts from her brain as she took a seat on her suitcase and let out a huff. “I can’t believe we went all the way to West Virginia and didn’t even see Mothman. We’re going back, since we’re closer than before.” He picked up a pillow to hold to his chest. “I want him to lay eggs in me like I’m a caterpillar and he’s a wasp.”

Ducking out from under a sheet that was tacked up between a wall and the corner of a long-unused bunk, Joel let out a low whistle. "Look how cool this place is, buddy." He reached up to scratch the chin of the bearded dragon perched on his shoulder. Where Jade had brought his stuff in before exploring, Joel had practically bolted into the cabin, ditching his suitcase in favor of exploring the place he'd be calling home for the foreseeable future. 

 He came to a stop in front of a wall of photos in the corner. Or what had been a wall of photos. The paint was discolored in places, sun-bleached from being covered for so long, he guessed. Here and there, a few stubborn pieces of tape still stuck to the wall. There were only a few photographs left and the sun had done a number on them too. "Jay, come check this out," Joel called, gingerly removing a photo from the wall as his twin entered the cabin. 

 When he didn't immediately come over to see the very cool thing he wanted to show him, he wandered out of the half-collapsed fort and back into the cabin's main area— just in time to hear Jade's Mothman discourse. "Oh, eugh. Gross. You would." Joel nudged her shoulder with a laugh. "I'm totally down to go back, just...give me two weeks before I have to get back in a car. My legs thank you in advance. They be achy. Oh, hey, look at this." Remembering the photograph in his hand, Joel let it flutter down to Jade's lap. "Think these were the other kids Chiron was talking about? Sure is a lot of 'em. They can't all be...right? Right?"

Jade grinned up at Joel as he bumped into him. He’d been hoping for a bit of a shudder, but he'd said far worse to him, so it was no surprise that Joel wasn't too off-put. "Yeah, I'm good not having to drive a couple hundred miles to get a bed and a shower." He stretched his legs out in front of him, grabbed the photograph that Joel had given him, and stood, inspecting the picture as he folded over, stretching out his back. "Hmm. You're wondering how much our father, who art on Olympus, got around?" Jade straightened up and twisted his neck to the side so that he could crack it, then reached up to scratch under Toothless's chin. 

 "I don't know. You think they're all here?" Jade held up the picture so that the two of them could inspect it together. "Maybe some moved away? And..." She pointed at two of the faded faces. "Are those the freaking clones? No way I'm related to a clone." He cracked a smile and then pointed at Joel. "Unless twins is a cover up. Who's the original? I call it."

"A shower!" Joel crowed, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He lifted the collar of his shirt and took a sniff— yeah he was definitely (over)due for one. "Remind me to do that after we get settled. But heck, we're so close to the moth, the man, the legend. That'll be an easy trip when we feel up to it again. Maybe next time Toothless will pull his weight on the trip, eh?" When Jade cracked his neck, Joel made a face at the sound, as if he hadn't done the same exact thing the moment he'd extricated himself from their car. "He's a god, obviously, he fucks. Weren't the Greeks all about hedonism? Oh snap, that is them!" This was directed at the photo in Jade's hand, faded faces smiling up at him from the no-longer glossy picture. His smile mirrored that of his twin. "I'm the original, you broke the mold. Too cool for us all."

Jade barked a “ha!” at Joel’s description of Mothman, her eyes bright as she looked up at him. “Yeah, and then the Romans created stoicism to balance them out. All killjoys. Definitely do not fuck.” She pointed at Joel and bared her teeth in a grin so wide it was practically a grimace, her eyes crinkling up. “Of course you’d say that. I say I’m the original, you just improved the structure. Better posture, more muscle mass, but you sacrificed the most important part.” She stuck her tongue out. “My excellent personality.” 

 She stretched her arms behind her head as she yawned. “What do you say? We scope out the sibs before we sink our teeth in? Find out what they’re like?”

"Definitely not," he agreed with a laugh. "Hey, these muscles were hard work. Chopping wood really bulks you up. That and carrying Mrs. Wainwright's great dane for a mile when he gives up halfway through our walks but I have to get him back to her house somehow." Joel stuck his tongue out at her in return. "I could never hold a candle to your winning personality." 

Switching his attention to the photograph again, he shrugged one shoulder. "Might be a good idea. I dunno, I'm up for it if you are. Although, I've already got the best sibling right here." He slung an arm around Jade's shoulder and gave her a squeeze. Truthfully, he was excited to meet more potential siblings if there were any to be found. But at the same time, he had Jade. And the two of them had only ever really needed each other. Judging by the state of the cabin, he assumed any of their other relatives lived in town, if they'd stuck around at all. "Think they're all weirdos?"

“I never said they weren’t,” Jade replied breezily. “But that heart... maybe I am the clone. I would’ve left the dog to find his own way home. What can be programmed more easily, empathy for Scoob or a cool ass personality? Robots can be cool...” He trailed off as he considered each of the different options, as if he were actually wondering which of the two of them was a clone. 

“Well, duh, same.” Jade laughed and reached around Joel so that he could pinch his side. He were nervous, but the prospect of something new was so tantalizing it made him ignore the fear of rejection. He snorted. “If they’re related to us, I’d put money on it. Plus, you know, clones and jerks without shadows? Sounds like the right kind of weird.” He ground his teeth together as he grinned once more.

Joel jostled Jade, laughing. "Now, c'mon. You couldn't leave ol' Scooby behind.  He would've howled all sad as you walked away. Robots are cool. You a robot?" He made a surprised sound at being pinched, swatting Jade's hand away. "Truuuue. Y'know, it was the shadow that got me. What were the odds, honestly. I thought we were the only freaks like that." He snapped some finger guns at his twin. At the same time, his stomach growled loudly. "Unpack then food? Food then unpack? I wanna head into town to explore. How expensive do you think it is around here? I've got—" From his pocket, Joel produced a piece of lint, a very crumpled five dollar bill, and the drachmas they'd been gifted. "I've got enough. You hungry?"

Jade snorted and rolled her eyes, a crooked smile clear on her face. "And I would've turned my music up." She shook her head, as stiffly as she could managed and blinked at two different times with her eyes. "No. I am. Hu-man." She smiled and shook her head. "Nah, I knew there were others out there, I believed." When her stomach growled in response, she laughed. "I'm liking option two. We can check out what food they have out in town? Two birds?" She raised her eyebrows at Joel.

"That's some chameleon-type shit," he said matter-of-factly, then flicked a coin from his hand at Jade, trusting them to catch it. His flannel was already tossed over the corner of a bunk and Joel snagged it. Pulling it on over his PARTY PONIES tee,  he surveyed the cabin once more. His expression turned wistful. This would be home for them. This strange town filled with more strange things in one place than they had ever seen before. Joel was desperate to get out and explore. He nodded at her. "Yeah, that sounds solid. Two birds, one drachma. And maybe an extra large pizza."

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse

Chapter 29: All Things Considered

Perhaps this was a fitting ending to the evening. Waiting by a squad car, the woods and his cabin bathed in blue and red lights, light rain drizzling down the back of his neck making him shiver…

An ambulance pulled up behind the Game of Thrones Truck, and a couple of paramedics, complete with a gurney, entered his property. He mentally reviewed what had happened in the last thirty minutes to lead him to this dismal place. Emma had found him, alone save for Moe French, who was a bloody pulp by the time she'd gotten there. She'd managed to pry him away and send him to the other side of the room where he'd cooled down, and she'd inspected him.

"I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and assume this is Moe French," she'd sighed before pulling out her phone.

"No one steals from me," he responded as Moe lay there, his head rolling back and forth, fading in and out of consciousness. Emma ordered an ambulance, told them where to find them all, and tried to help Moe by waking him up and keeping him awake by trying to get him to speak. But nothing had ever come from Moe's mouth. Not that he was surprised. Once a coward, always a coward. He should know. The problem was that Emma was smart, he didn't know what she'd seen exactly, but he knew that she'd seen enough not to believe for a second the story that he gave her.

"Moe called me, told me he wanted to exchange the other missing goods for his truck and a five-year extension on his loan. I suggested my cabin, and we were just discussing it when he tripped and fell. Isn't that right, Mr. French?"

No response, not that he'd needed it. Emma had seen him take a swing at him with his cane. She knew it was a lie, just as he did. The only thing was that if he were smart, he'd forget it was a lie and go along with it. Two against one was all it would take to gain his freedom, and when that one person was Emma, already disgraced and distrusted after her little stunt at the Council Meeting, well…she wouldn't be a problem.

It wasn't long after that she'd excused him to go and wait by the car. He could have left. He could have taken Moe's truck and gone back to town, but he didn't see the point. There was nowhere he could run. So he'd done as she instructed. He'd had time to think and to decide that this was probably a better ending than he could have hoped for. He'd imagined a lot about this situation, but looking at it now, he knew that he had acted in haste. He'd only been able to see the moment that he got that chipped cup back. Everything else beyond that he hadn't planned for. That was stupid on his part. Not thinking a plan all the way through to the end was a mistake an amateur might make. He had to be careful not to behave that way again, no matter what the concern was.

The concern…all this and still no teacup. All this and still no confirmation of who had told Moe French to take it. Really, what good had tonight been?

"So, I heard you managed not to break anything he needs," he glanced up to find Emma Swan approaching him as Moe was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Done already…how time could fly… "You're lucky, Mr. Gold."

He let out a snort of derision. He knew what was coming. Of course, he knew that nothing would hold up, and he'd be free again this time tomorrow, but until Moe French was stable and awake, he still knew what was coming. And without Belle's chipped cup to show for it…he wouldn't call any of this lucky.

"You got a funny definition of lucky."

"You have a funny definition of justice," Emma commented, crossing her arms over her chest and eyeing him with suspicion. "What did he really do?"

She wasn't ready for that answer yet. As much as he wanted her to be, he knew it was true. It was another comment to be added to the "someday" category, and until then…

"He stole," he explained away, the exact same explanation he'd offered before. Consistency was everything.

But the Savior balked at his response. "That reaction was about more than taking a few trinkets. You said something about how he hurt 'her,' what happened to 'her'…" he shifted his weight uncomfortably. He could hardly remember what he'd said to the worm, much less keep track of what she had or had not heard. "Who was that? What did he do? If someone needs help, maybe I can help."

Always the Savior and yet…so far from the real thing. "No. I'm sorry, Sheriff. I think you heard that wrong," he scoffed, looking into the distant blackness. Someday…

"You really don't want to cooperate?" she questioned with a mix of irritation and amazement.

No…he really didn't…because until he found a way to start winning again and turn her into the Savior she was, then she would never really understand what had happened. Then again, even if she knew, he doubted anyone would ever understand. Who could ever learn to love a beast like him? No one. Not anymore.

"Look, we're done here."

He'd tried. He'd tried to walk off and go to the front seat of the car, to play it off and escape what he'd known was coming, but he wasn't surprised when Emma stopped him. She was a better Sheriff than Regina gave her credit for. There was never any chance she'd let this go.

"Actually, we're not. You're under arrest…"

He stared at her as she finished reading his rights, trying to convey irritation and intimidation all at once, but he knew she was too strong-willed to care, and frankly, he didn't care that she was. He'd be free soon enough, that much he knew-

His heart stopped as she patted him down, and she reached into his pocket and pulled away his phone. She flipped it open, and he tried to maintain his calm demeanor all the while the lawyer inside of him was working away. Dove…the vibration…he had called, hadn't he? He hadn't tried to send him messages, anything that would implicate him. And the messages about Swan's movements over the last few months, he'd deleted every single one of them…hadn't he?

Emma's gaze slid to his own. "Who is Dove?"

He wanted so badly to swallow his nerves down, but he knew swallowing would show his anxiety. He didn't know what she was looking at now, but he wanted to convey innocence, or at the very least, control.

"An associate."

Emma raised her eyebrows and pushed a button. "Looks like he's been trying to reach you."

"I've no doubt he has." In fact, Dove had probably been trying to warn him that Emma was on his property. He wished he'd taken that call.

"Oh…" Emma suddenly piqued, turning the phone for him to look at the screen. He could hear the thing vibrating, and he didn't need to see it to know Dove was calling again. "Looks like he's trying to reach you now."

"Well…given the situation, I do believe I get one phone call," he smiled, motioning to his cuffs.

Emma smirked. "Make it quick," she explained, handing him the phone. He took it, but as the ambulance drove away, he noted that she didn't make any effort to leave him.

"Some privacy? Or must I explain the law to you?"

"Oh no, you don't, you're in my custody, and unless he's your lawyer and you can provide credentials to prove that, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy."

Smart woman. "Glad to see I made the right choice in Sheriff," he sneered before answering.

"Sir, I tried to tell you, I tried to warn you-"

"Don't speak," he stated, interrupting Dove so that she wouldn't hear anything more than he wanted to. His statements made it clear that obviously he was watching from somewhere nearby, dutifully looking after Emma after he'd taken Moe. Hell, he'd probably seen Emma take the phone from him and decided to call right then, thinking it was his best chance to reach him. But Emma wasn't his biggest concern now. He had only one message for his accomplice and only one chance to convey that message. There was no room for anything else. "I appear to be in a predicament, Mr. Dove. You know what to do."

"Yes, Sir."

"Once it's done, don't contact me until I contact you."

"Understood, Sir." He closed the phone and handed it back to her, but not before purposefully shutting it off.

"Quick conversation...and coded. How convenient," she explained as she pocketed it and helped him into the back.

"I'm a man of few words."

"Yeah…I'm coming to find that," she muttered before she shut the door, and they began a drive away from the cabin, following the ambulance back to the police station for what he was sure was going to be a long night. But as he glanced at Moe in the back of the ambulance, on oxygen, bleeding, and red with bruises that matched the shape of his cane's handle, he managed a smirk.

For Belle…it was worth it.

[neshabeingchildish]

The Swellview Shut In

This is for Pearl @pearlselegancies, though I don’t know if she’ll feel up to reading at the moment. I do want to preface it by saying that it involves the quarantine, but not in a sad and negative way (mostly). Really, I wanted to do more of a focus on the good things in life/friendship/found family and bonding type of premise. Hopefully, she enjoys this and anyone else who reads, too.

Charlotte Page: Student Mentor - The Swellview Shut In

A sickness was sweeping over the globe. Charlotte figured that it wouldn’t get to Swellview. Nothing ever really reached Swellview, but apparently, this was everywhere, because whenever Jasper showed up to her house in the morning, he had on gloves, a mask and was carrying a cleaning caddy in his hand. “What is up with this?” She wondered.

“The sickness has made it to Swellview, they’re closing school for at least two weeks!” He said. Then, he pulled out a can of disinfectant and began spraying her door and her things.

“There’s no school today?” She asked. 

“Oh, no… There IS, but it’s only so that we can go in and grab our things, then they are promptly shutting the doors until further notice. Come on, I have stuff in my locker and I know that you do too.”

“If there’s really something going around, isn’t it stupid for them to even have the school open?”

“They were going to straight up close, but a lot of parents and stuff made a big deal about stuff like devices that teachers took up and locker possessions, so they had to open for that, but they’re like, setting up handwashing stations in the front and stuff. Do you not watch the news?” 

The school didn’t have handwashing stations set up at the front of the building, but there were handwritten signs reminding everyone to wash their hands before and after touching things. Charlotte went to her locker and emptied it into her bag, still not fully believing that it was necessary, but taking her stuff, just in case. She texted Henry to see if he was going to do the same. He had no idea what she was even talking about. She texted Piper and moments later, the freshman met her at her locker. 

“They’re kicking us out of school for at least two weeks! What do they expect me to do for breakfast and lunch? Eat the food at home? That’s way more expensive! Henry is gonna flip. Can I stay at your house?” Piper made prayer hands. Charlotte thought about it for a moment. Her parents were out of town and she did have an extra bed, but also… Her parents would flip out if she invited someone over in the middle of a possible pandemic… “Tell them it’s for charity!” Piper squealed, knowing by now how Charlotte’s mind worked. 

At that moment, Jasper walked up to the two of them and handed his cleaning caddy to Piper, “You need to sanitize and gear up,” he said. “Gloves, mask. Charlotte REFUSED, like a fool.” Piper sighed and furrowed her eyebrows, then dropped the caddy on the floor, letting it spill products, to Jasper’s dismay. He rushed to collect them and also told Charlotte, “Char, I’ve gotta quarantine at your place.”

“What? No,” she said. “I’m not gonna have you and Piper at my house while my parents are gone and school is out!” Charlotte said.

Piper squealed, “You’re letting me stay!” and she bounced up and down.

Jasper stood up, with his products collected and asked, “You’re shutting me out? Ugh. Charlotte. You know that I can’t stay at my house for something like this. I spent hours cleaning up last night and barely made a dent. My mom’s not working again. This morning, the threw her empty ice cream pint right onto the recliner next to the couch she’s been sleeping on. I JUST cleared all of the trash off yesterday! I don’t want the illness in my space, Charlotte. LOOK AT ME!” She looked at him. He really appeared to be freaking out about the possibility of germs. 

She sighed, “I’ll ask my parents, Jasper.” She wrapped an arm around Piper and said, “Come on. Let’s go get you some clothes from home.”

“TOO MUCH TOUCHING!” Jasper said and began to spray both of them with disinfectant, until Piper punched him in the ribs. “OUCH!”

“Jasper… tone down,” Charlotte said.

“She literally just punched me!”

“After you assaulted us with disinfectant!”

“For your own good!” Jasper said.

.

Piper let them into her house and was surprised to see Henry there. “For some reason, I assumed that when they closed school, you’d rush into work,” she said. He gave her a little smile, but didn’t respond.  Charlotte raised an eyebrow and went over to him while Piper rushed upstairs to get packed. 

“So, I’m gonna take her and Jasper in for a few at my place. My parents are actually stuck overseas and the town is officially going under curfew. So, I’ll make sure she’s taken care of for a little bit. Slight bit of stress off of you, right?” He frowned and nodded. “Why do I feel like it isn’t?”

He sighed and glanced towards the stairs, before saying quietly, “I’m temporarily out of work.” Charlotte gasped. Henry was the one who kept them above water and she could tell from his face that being out of work was going to most likely really hurt them. He noticed her face and forced a smile. “Don’t worry, Babe. I’ll figure something out.” He gave her a little kiss on the forehead and she smiled, in spite of being completely worried about him and Piper. But, there was something about him calling her “Babe” that kind of… made stuff at least go under the radar for a moment. 

Their relationship was a little assumed, and not officially spoken of, but Henry was usually affectionate with her and called her “Babe,” so in her mind, they were pretty much married. In fact, she had been working out the logistics in her mind, hypothetically, for what if he came along with her whenever she left for college? Sure, it would be a struggle, but he was used to some level of that and the job market where she was going was actually better than Swellview. And, yes… They would have to bring Piper, because he certainly wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself, but she could have a fresh new start at a new school and maybe even thrive if she had a happy Henry there with her and also the mentorship of Charlotte, reaching beyond the school’s program… “Babe? You okay?” Henry wondered, cutting into her overthinking tangent.

“Yeah. You… wanna come over? Since, you’re not gonna be at work? We can maybe play video games and stuff. No school for the next few weeks. You rarely get a relaxing night.”

“Yeah, I actually want to try to see what one of those ‘good night’s sleep’ things feel like,” he said. 

Piper came downstairs with her bags and said, “Henry, bring these to Jasper’s junk heap for me. I gotta see what cleaners we have. That’s what I’m using for “gas money” while we’re out of school.” 

She dropped them on the floor by the door and Henry laughed and finally let his hand drop from Charlotte’s hip. “Guess WILL be working,” he said. 

He went to go get her stuff and she went opening cabinets, “Do we SERIOUSLY not have basic household cleaners in this place? Are we THOSE people?”

“The oldest adult in your home just turned 18 a few months ago,” Charlotte reminded her. “Don’t worry about it, though. There’s plenty of cleaner at my place and Jasper took everything from his, because his folks were never going to use it anyway.”

“Dude… Are we about to do the apocalypse like the last kids on Earth?” Piper asked, excitedly.

“We’re spending some days, maybe a couple of weeks at my house. Did you bring hobby stuff? Because you’re not gonna be able to go out and hang with your girls when you’re bored. You need like books and stuff.”

“Books? Like… in case we run out of toilet paper? I think we’ve got some, somewhere…” Piper left and Charlotte didn’t even stop her. 

Henry came back inside and Charlotte wondered, “So… Are you coming over? We might be stuck there and that might mean not seeing your sister for a few…”

He made a confused face. “You worried about me not seeing Piper, or me not seeing you?”

“I mean… Are you worried about it?” She asked, nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders.

“It’d totally suck. Let me go get some stuff packed and I’ll meet you all there.” 

“Cool,” she said. She was really cheering inside. In fact, mentally, there was an entire Glee Cheerios performance, complete with stunts as she awkwardly left the house. 

Piper came back into view and said, “Well, most of these pages are pretty rough, so I vote making Jasper use these as toilet paper whenever stock gets low…” Henry stared at her in confusion. She waved a hand and stuffed a book into a duffel bag. “That was for Charlotte’s ears. Forget I said it.” She left, too and Henry sighed. This was going to be… Interesting.

.

Jasper and Piper worked on getting everything cleaned up while Henry unpacked and brought everything to the rooms that Charlotte assigned. Jasper was fine to take the couch, but most of his stuff would have to be kept in Charlotte’s room, simply because she wasn’t going to have her parents come back to see Jasper had moved into their living room! She and Piper were in her bedroom, all of Piper’s stuff fit beneath the spare bed, so Jasper’s was in the closet. And Henry was given her parents’ room, because he was the least likely to impose on their stuff. In fact, he was so uncomfortable that he didn’t want to unpack any of his things in there, but their bathroom was amazing. He was ready to at least spend some time in that shower. 

In fact, he got into the shower after he unloaded everything from Jasper’s car. Charlotte was making a list of things that they might need - which, she felt like they were pretty stocked up for the house - but normally, 3 people lived there, and now four were and there was a different basis of need, too. Her mother told her to use the emergency credit card to stock up and to message them everyday updates on how things were, and also photos of the house. She and Jasper went to gather everything, people were really wilding at the store, like… she was shocked at their behavior. Jasper had to guard her several times, and when they finally made it out, hours had passed. 

Henry and Piper were in her room whenever they got back to the house. They both felt uncomfortable being anywhere else in the house without permission, so they were just catching up in there. But, Henry rushed to help them bring everything in once they got there. 

They all unloaded the truck and Jasper and Charlotte told them about the way that people were behaving and how much more serious it seemed after having been around them like that. Henry was bothered by the fact that people were getting rough with Charlotte and he hadn’t been there to protect her. Protecting was kind of his thing, and Charlotte was kind of his girl. 

Piper told the others, “So, I’ve planned out a movie night thing for every night this week, since we’re gonna be in here at least that long. I’m thinking that it’ll be cool to watch some apocalypse kinda stuff. Maybe some zombie stories. End of the world, dystopian mood.”

“In this climate?” Charlotte wondered.

“Especially in this climate,” Piper said. 

“I think we should have assigned chores and designated dinner making nights,” Jasper said.

“Good idea, but I don’t cook. I suck at it. It would be a waste of food.”

Charlotte said, “My mom told me to make meals, do meal prep and also freeze some meals, so I’m going to get started on that today, since it’s more people than I usually have had to do stuff like this for.”

“You’ve had to do stuff like that before?” Henry asked.

Piper chuckled, “Her parents are almost literally never home,” she said. 

“They work a lot and since I’m older now, they take on a lot more overseas ventures than when I was younger,” Charlotte explained, defensively. 

Henry furrowed his eyebrows, wondering how he didn’t know that piece of information, but then again, he and Charlotte didn’t tend to discuss family stuff. Or at least… not hers. In fact, it occurred to him that he didn’t even know what her family LOOKED like. He didn’t want to ask, but he made a mental note to look for a photo later or something. In fact, he checked her social media. Surely, she had something there. But, her social media was pretty lacking in the parental area. He did see some people with her last name, though they were all white, so he clicked on a few, just out of curiosity. He found Fiona Page, who actually had a lot of young photos of her and Charlotte and one of the posts was her wishing her daughter a great time at Future Visionaries Camp. Now, he felt the need to investigate…

Charlotte and Jasper went to the kitchen. They had a routine for things like this, and they got started on their cooking party while Piper learned the remote control to the Pages’ system and Henry sat on his phone, looking at Charlotte’s mom’s page. Charlotte was fine to leave them to that while she and Jasper made a meal. It was the first time that she had Henry over in all the time that she’d known him. Mostly… Charlotte didn’t let people into her home. Piper was the first person in a while, and even she had only been over a couple of times, and only in the past few months. Jasper was the only friend that came over kind of regularly, and that was because (she believed) that her parents saw him as a charity case, and boy were they big on those. 

.

One week of denial passed. Then, a week of realization. By the third week, they had touched base with all of the adults - her parents were going to remain overseas for now, but didn’t mind if she kept her friends there. Jasper’s parents were BOTH so sick that they could barely leave the house. Charlotte told him to just stay put and fight that urge to go help take care of them. They could always call 911 if they simply couldn’t stand it. He was no doctor and this was a pandemic. Henry’s mom had “been trying to figure out where on Earth her children were” this whole time (she was at the Hart house, had found Jake in an alley and brought him home and the two of them were going to spend the citywide quarantine there). Piper wanted to go home, but whenever Charlotte told her that she would have to stay there if she did, she opted for just staying, also; but she was very visibly upset about it. Henry spent time trying to cheer her up. His boss called to tell him that he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to reopen the store after all of this. Nobody was in a good way, except for Charlotte and her family, so she tried not to harp on the things that she was feeling too much, because she felt like it was petty in comparison to the others.

Charlotte left all of her friends in the living room after dinner to go into her room and relax for a moment. She usually had some time just before dinner to meditate and unwind from the school day, but the past few weeks, she hadn’t done so, considering the change in the house. She needed at least a couple of minutes. 

After having been there for only a moment, Henry knocked on the door and peeked in, “Hey. You okay?” He asked. She forced a smile and nodded her head. She was lighting a candle and had a record player playing in the background. “I feel like I just interrupted something. I’ll go,” he said. She didn’t stop him. He sat down outside of the door and got back onto his phone. In case somebody else came around, he’d let them know that she didn’t seem to want to be bothered at the moment. 

Charlotte went into her bathroom and drew herself a bath. She could shower tomorrow. It wasn’t like she did a whole lot today, anyway… Well… maybe she should shower afterwards, just to be safe, if there were so many germs going around that now they were getting emails about prom being cancelled and POSSIBLY graduation. That was a hit to her gut. She knew that she probably wasn’t going to win prom queen. That Bianca most likely had that in the bag, and while Charlotte got a lot more popular her senior year than previously, Bianca had been on the road to prom royalty since junior high. But graduation? That was basically robbery. That was something that she PERSONALLY looked forward to for 13 years of her life! The first day of school, she asked her teacher, “When does school end?” and they said 3:00. “Forever?” she’d asked. Well, she certainly loved learning, but going to classrooms full of other people to do it was never her favorite thing and now that she was the best of the best in her area at it… she hated the thought of not finally being front and center, standing up to say, “Nobody can force us to go to school anymore!” Though… she wouldn’t really say that and she was gonna continue to go to school, but… Graduation was just really important and the thought of not getting one was a huge loss to her! 

She cried, listening to scratchy vinyl crooning, soaking away as much of her physical stress as possible, and posted a tiny rant about losing the opportunity to have prom and a graduation ceremony, and then just let it all out before taking a shower, doing her hair and resurfacing for her friends to let them know that she was going to go to bed and also to remind them to try to get some rest themselves.

She made it to the living room, where they all appeared to be having like crafts time or something - weird, but maybe not since they were quarantined. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, then said, “Um… I’m gonna go to bed. Probably like lay down and read or something. You all should try to get some sleep too.”

Henry had a pile of flowers he was toying around with until she began speaking, then he looked up and wondered, “Can I tuck you in?”

“I guess?” She said, laughing a little bit. He set down his craft materials and went with her. “You all look awfully busy with… crafts?”

“Yeah. We’re workin’ on something big,” he said, smiling. She wanted to ask him what, but she was actually exhausted from worrying and crying, so she kissed him goodnight and went to bed, opting for a book instead of reading on her phone, because she really didn’t want to see another mention of the quarantine, the virus, or the panic surrounding these things. 

.

She was always the first one up, out of all of them. The few times she’d crashed at Henry’s, she learned that. Today was an exception, though. Whenever she got up, she noted first that Piper wasn’t in the spare bed, but figured that she probably slept on the couch, because that was where the TV was and she loved TV almost as much as she loved social media. Charlotte turned on some music, went to brush her teeth and did morning stretches. She went to the living room, excited to start the day out with her friends, but paused whenever she got there and Piper was hissing at Jasper that he was hanging it wrong. She stood for a moment, taking in the room. There were these individual sheets of paper, with string connecting them to make a banner and each page was a letter, for a banner that read “HOUSE PROM.” 

“I have to be careful with it, or it’s going to tear!” Jasper fussed back at the freshman. 

Henry came into the house with a bucket full of flowers and paused whenever he saw Charlotte. 

“Morning…” He said. “I can explain.”

“You guys saw that I was bummed that Prom is cancelled, so you figured you’d turn my living room into a makeshift prom?”

“This guy gets it,” Jasper said from the step ladder.

“I know it’s not gonna be like a real prom, but… Me and Jasper are gonna wear suits. Piper’s gonna DJ. I made you a SICK flower crown… It’s gonna be okay,” Henry said, smiling and wincing at the same time, hoping that he sounded convincing. 

She sniffled and went to hug him. “These are for additional decoration… I was gonna make some arrangements and stuff. Nobody’s buying the flowers from the supermarkets, so I was actually able to get a lot of them pretty damn cheaply.” She gave him a kiss on the lips and he smiled wider. “And, I get to see you in your prom dress! You designed it, right?”

“Yeah…” 

“That’s awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of your design work.” He moved out of her reach to get back to decorations. She went to start on breakfast for everybody. He didn’t want to mention it right now, but he also was working on throwing her a mock graduation. Because, even though she had been trying to convince herself that everything would blow over and they would be able to finish the year out properly, the news said something totally different.

.

The House Prom was fun. Jasper made punch. Piper had great music and went live a few times so that kids at school could know that Henry and her did this FIRST, even if some of the rich kids might wind up doing it fancier. And Henry was stunned by Charlotte’s prom dress. He wasn’t sure what color it was, but went with whites and golds for her flower crown, which didn’t clash bad with the opaque pinkish dress that she had. The style of the crown wasn’t exactly a match for the style of the dress, but she insisted that it was perfect, that everything was perfect, and honestly, that was what really mattered to him. 

Henry knew that he wasn’t as smart as her, or have as much money, or as much education and stuff.. But, making her happy… that still mattered to him, because he believed that he could, so he made sure that he did. The thought of them going their separate ways in a few months was always scary for him as he fell for her, but also… it made him aware that he had only a short period of time to impact her life forever. House Prom was one of those forever impacts. 

They had an after party in Charlotte’s bedroom, which was just them laughing, eating and taking selfies to post to their House Prom tag, which was POPPING! Everyone at school wanted to be at Charlotte’s house, especially upon realizing that there were no adults there for the whole quarantine. She was extremely happy to have been so unpopular before. Now, nobody could just pop up at her house. Eventually, Piper fell to sleep and Jasper began dozing off in Charlotte’s bed. She scoffed, “How’s he gonna just fall asleep in MY bed?” 

Henry said, “I can sleep on the couch, if you wanna crash in your parents’ room.”

“No, no. I’ll take care of it, she said.” She had to shower and stuff, so she went to do that and Henry retired to her parents’ room. After she was all washed up and ready for bed, she went to look at Jasper, halfway hanging off of her bed, his suit all disheveled and his hair tousled. He looked like a little boy and more importantly, peaceful. She sighed grabbed a blanket and left the bedroom. Henry was already in bed when she peeked in, but he sat up, so she either woke him or he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. “Hey… I wanna crash in here, if that’s cool with you?”

“Yeah. I’ll take the couch, sure.”

“No.. I wanted to crash in here… with you.”

He smiled brightly, “Even better!” She came and climbed into bed and pulled the blanket with her. “How did you like being Prom Queen for a night?”

“It was awesome! You’re amazing. Thank you for doing that for me. I really didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Your situation with your parents and Jasper’s… I’m actually so lucky and to complain in front of all of you felt cheap.”

He pulled her to himself and hugged her, “I want to know things about you, Char. You’re my girl. I don’t want you to feel like you have to wait until things are good for me to tell me what’s wrong with you. You’d be waiting forever.” She looked up at his face and he gave her a little half smile. “I never want you to have to wait on me,” he said.

She sat up now and placed both of her hands on his chest, tapping a little rhythm while she thought of how to say what she wanted to say.

“So… I was thinking… I know that you and Piper are a package deal, at least while she’s still so young, and that you hadn’t thought about things beyond graduation very much, but I was thinking and I’ve also kind of been looking into the details… IF you wanted to come with me, when I leave for Harvard, I’m gonna have a place out there. You won’t have to work to pay bills, but if you need something to hold you and Piper over, the job market is better there than it is here, and… I don’t know… Maybe you want to stay here and try to help your parents, or something, but if you did want to…”

“I do.” He smiled and then laughed, with tears in his eyes, “Of course I do! There’s nothing keeping me here and Piper… well, she’ll just have to understand that there’s not actually anything keeping her here either. I was so scared that whenever you left, you’d just forget about us. You’ve been… looking into the details?”

She shrugged her shoulders, “I can’t imagine my life without you in it anymore.” 

He smiled and gave her a kiss. “Come on, it’s bedtime.”

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

Also Tagging, because now I feel like I should be because of how y’all been talking about it @sunbeameyes @kiddangers @bitchmilsky @chenoahchantel @adorkable-blackgirl @daintyurbanprincess @ciara-knightly I think that’s it. My comfort level has expired. Lol. 

[jawnjendes]

it’s always been you | shawn mendes

shawn x goth oc

forevermore 1/?

let me know if you want to be added to the taglist

PREVIOUS

masterlist | playlist (song added with every chapter)

One would be surprised to know the extent Annalise Flores would go to remain anonymous. She had a wig she wore specifically for work, and it wasn’t just to look professional. All of her social media is private, not that she surfs the web for leisure these days. Her own family doesn’t even know what she’s been up to these last few weeks. This is the life Annalise chose. Always reserved, always a mystery. She preferred it this way.

So when she got back together with her ex, it wasn’t exactly devastating to discover that she was not allowed to be seen with him in the public eye. Her ex-turned-current boyfriend is the world famous musician Shawn Mendes. They dated back in college prior to the fame, but that’s a different story. This is now.

Annalise was in between sessions at her Los Angeles counseling office, reviewing notes and waiting for the next client to arrive. It was a normal work day, she was at the halfway point, but not quite. It wasn’t lunchtime yet.

The phone rang, causing her to jump at the sound. She picked up and answered, hearing her assistant/secretary Mateo on the other line.

“Señora, tiene una entrega,” he said in a singsong voice.

“What did we say about señora?” she replied. “I feel old.”

He giggled. “So are you coming, or do I drink this coffee myself?”

Annalise perked up at the sound of coffee. “I’ll be right there.”

It’s not that it was a hot beverage. She never Postmated something she could simply go out and get herself. She smoothed out her black dress and went down the hallway, gazing at the waiting room on the way to the front desk, just in case anyone showed up early. That was a rare occurrence, what with the type of clientele she dealt with.

The delivery was exactly what Mateo had said, a cup of coffee from some obscure shop. The assistant was grinning excitedly, for this wasn’t the first time his employer had gotten a mystery drink with a note attached. Annalise knew he never read the notes she got, otherwise he would have flipped his shit long ago. Mateo wasn’t one to hide things like shock or excitement. He would learn though; He was still an intern.

Annalise took the cup and read the strip on the side of it. Decaf. Hvy cream. Sweetener. Yup, that’s the one. Then she opened the folded note that was tape to the cup.

See you tonight -Mr. M.

She hummed and slipped the note into her dress pocket. Looks like she has plans tonight.

“There’s also a man outside who wants to talk to you,” Mateo added. “He’s the one who brought the coffee.”

Annalise figured there would be more than just that silly little note. She went out the door and into the warm spring day, finding a familiar bald man sat on a nearby bench.

“Jake,” she greeted.

The man stood and smiled. “How you doing, Ann?”

“Good. Apparently I’m seeing him tonight? Has he lost his mind or something?”

“He says it’s important.”

“He and I have different definitions of the word important. But yeah, I’ll go. I assume you’ll be taking me again?” There was a bit of reluctance in her tone.

“That’s right. As soon as you’re done here.”

Anytime Annalise wanted to see her boyfriend, she couldn’t simply drive herself to his house whenever she pleased. The last time she saw Shawn was two months ago on Valentine’s Day, a day that he decided was important. Most days, they saw each other through FaceTime, Snapchat, text, even the coffee and notes became a regular form of communication.

It’s not like Annalise frequently keeps up with celebrity gossip, but she knew why it had to be this way, and honestly, she wasn’t mad about it. She had to sneak around with Shawn behind the scenes of his great big love story stunt, despite the fact that he wasn’t doing anything careerwise at the moment. It was more for the other person in this love story stunt than it was for him. Again, Annalise wasn’t mad about it.

Staying away from Shawn in public was fine, and that’s the truth. The world believed Shawn Mendes was dating Camila Cabello for the umpteenth time in his career. Well, some of the world believed that, and some was all that was needed. As long as Annalise didn’t get under that terrifying microscope, she was good.

~

Shawn was nervous for a multitude of reasons. The doorbell rang, and even though he checked the camera at the front door, he still felt knots in his stomach. He hasn’t seen this girl in a while. He was still surprised that she agreed to come all the way to sunny LA. This wasn’t her level of expertise, but she was experienced in law, so that was better than nothing. On top of that, Shawn didn’t trust anyone that was connected to Andrew, and most lawyers in this town seemed to know him. Shawn couldn’t risk any of this getting back to his team.

He answered the door to a petite woman with a jet black pixie cut. She had on dark sunglasses, and carried an umbrella. Ripped skinny jeans, a band t-shirt, and converse were her go-to. It was like she hadn’t changed clothes since the last time Shawn saw her. Dark as this girl looked, her greeting was like sunshine.

“Helloooo!” She dramatically threw her umbrella aside and opened her arms for a hug.

“Isabella,” Shawn greeted as he accepted her hug, minding the permanent chill of her body. “Thank you so much for coming.”

Oh, that’s okay,” she replied. She stepped inside the house and looked around the spacious area. “Damn, this ain’t no Canada. Also, how convenient that you live here and not your supposed home country.” She poked his chest with a grin.

Shawn chuckled. This girl genuinely did not believe Canada was a real place. “Tell you what, get me out of this contract, and I’ll send you on a vacation to Vancouver.”

Isabella took off her sunglasses, revealing red eyes. However she blinked a few times and they went back to brown.

“Who else is here?” she asked, placing her shoulder bag on the kitchen island. “I’m detecting Chanel Number Whatever.”

“Oh, that’s probably Camila,” Shawn replied, still thrown by how intuitive Isabella was. “She’s in the bathroom. And uh, Ann will be here soon.”

“Okay, so Camila’s the fake girlfriend, right?”

“Worse. They want us engaged.”

Isabella’s eyes widened. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Then, another voice sounded from the stairs. “Who’s here? I heard the doorbell ring.”

Shawn shared a look with Isabella. While she still looked human, there was that tiny shred of doubt. What if she had the words ‘vampire-witch’ tattooed on her forehead?

Finally, Camila entered the dining room/kitchen. She immediately spotted Isabella and went to introduce herself. Both girls were bubbly and enthusiastic, despite the serious circumstances. Shawn couldn’t help but feel a bit weird. He carried many secrets, but the biggest one had to be that he knew an actual vampire. That secret was just above the one about his relationship with Camila being a business arrangement. Could he really consider it a secret if his team was absolutely horrible at making that seem natural, and that the whole world figured it out years ago? Shawn and Camila were simply bound by contract.

That’s why Isabella Jayn Montgomery was hired.

Shawn checked the time on his phone. It was half past eight, Ann and Jake should be on their way. He shouldn’t have been so nervous about this. It’s not like Ann wouldn’t like the idea of not having to hide anymore… right?

~

“So you just decided that we were going to go public and not tell me?”

He didn’t really know what he was expecting. Not even five minutes had passed since Isabella, Camila, and Jake left, and Ann got right to it. She was polite through the whole discussion, listening to everything Isabella had to say, and asking questions every so often. But as it turns out, she had her own bone to pick.

Shawn was putting the empty water glasses in the kitchen sink, surprised by his girlfriend’s serious tone. “I thought that was something we wanted?”

“You wanted that,” Ann corrected, sitting at the island. “Look, if you want to stop fake dating Camila, that’s fine, I support that. If you wanna go back to making music for your fans and go back on tour, I support that too. Whatever you wanna do with your career is your decision. But when it comes to our relationship, I get a say too. And I don’t want my privacy taken away.”

“Well…” he trailed off, leaning against the counter. “Just because I get out of my contract doesn’t mean you and I have to go and make out in the middle of the street. It would just be more believable if we were seen out in public together. It would show mine and Camila’s teams that we’re not taking their shit anymore.”

Ann chuckled. “Yeah, I’m not here to be a pawn in a game of publicity chess.”

Shawn sighed and walked around the counter, holding his hands out to her. “They want me and Camila to be engaged, and then have a huge wedding covered by all the major media outlets. I don’t want my life playing out this way anymore.”

She kept her arms folded. “A fake wedding is where you draw the line? Really?”

“If I’m gonna have a wedding, it’s gonna be with you,” he told her.

That particular topic wasn’t new information. Shawn and Ann had talked about marriage in the past and when would be the right time. How their cultures and subcultures were going to come into play. How they would go about it with all this Shawmila nonsense. That’s why Ann remained serious.

“Weddings are clearly not a big deal if these business people are willing to just throw a fake one together. I’m sure your fake girlfriend will look beautiful in a stupid white gown.” She rolled her eyes.

“I wanna see my real girlfriend in a stupid black gown,” Shawn corrected.

 Ann cracked a small grin, but it faded quickly. She sucked in a breath as her face contorted.

“What? What is it?” Shawn asked, concern quickly replacing the building frustration.

She breathed out. “Nothing, just cramps.”

“Stomach cramps? Nausea? What did you eat?”

“Period cramps. I don’t get any of that often but when I do…”

You’re moody as hell and question everything I do, Shawn thought. Only a second later, guilt formed in his chest.

NEXT

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