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movedto-erodasghosts · 4 years ago

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moved to @erodasghosts

a spinoff fic for perennial by @peeterparkr. i highly recommend reading it :)

pairing: tom holland x reader / timothée chalamet x reader

need to know: this could be read alone but i highly suggest reading perennial! for background... tom and y/n were childhood enemies that ended up falling for one another over time, but tom ended up breaking things off. y/n met and dated timmy at a vulnerable time, and he seemed to be the perfect answer to her problems. emma is timmy’s friend, y/n’s too. rome is where tom truly broke y/n’s heart for the first time, and that is what led to her ending up with timmy. timmy had proposed to y/n, but she wasn’t sure about where her feelings were. y/n wrote a script about it all, talking about the heartbreak she experienced through it, which led to the second huge downfall in their relationship and so she ran to LA to give tom space... i think that is all? and that’s what you missed on glee :)

description: tom broke y/n’s heart, again, and timothée wants to be there to help her

warning/s: none

word count: ~6.2k

a/n: a huge thanks to nancy for letting me write this and for helping me so much to write it! also i am bad at fic titles so :)

check out my other fic based off of perennial/perfidy

masterlist

not my gif

It was hard to tell what was worse, the pain of knowing she had broken his heart or the burning she still felt rising from beneath her scars that he had left on her after Rome. She wasn’t quite sure why she still felt this need to blame herself, as if there was only one person to blame, but it was easier to accept it was all her fault.

Y/n’s job at the flower shop was meant to help distract her, to give her something to focus on other than what had happened with Tom. In reality, she had just zoned out for the most part, absentmindedly piecing together bouquets together. In an attempt to actually distract herself she decided she would learn the meanings of the different flowers, though she wasn’t sure how well it was sticking.

She carefully rearranged the flowers in front of her, listening as Timothée spoke on. How long had she been working on that same bouquet? Seemed like seconds, but at the same time hours. Getting lost in her own thoughts and paying little to no attention to the things around her seemed to become easier and easier for her to do. She was still processing the things she had said to Tom, and the things that he said in return, so not much else appeared to matter.

Going to LA had been the perfect opportunity for her to get away, she needed to give him space. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder if it was the right choice. Emma would of course catch her in these moments, soon after taking her to try some new distraction. Undoubtedly, nothing was working as a real distraction, though. Actively avoiding thinking about the situation only made her think about it more. Facing it head on wasn’t really possible, as there was no way Tom would be reaching out to her, or that she would be reaching out for him again. She had no other choice, it seemed, than to sit in her pain and accept the truth of her actions.

“Y/n?” Tim tapped her shoulder, “Are you alright?”

Her eyes refocused as she finished the flower arrangement and pulled herself out of her thoughts, “Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”

Tim smiled weakly, trying to offer even the smallest bits of sympathy. He glanced at her bouquet, “I was just wondering if you wanted to go to that old ice cream stand after your shift ends?”

“That’d be great!” Emma chimed in, “Y/n, you can leave early and I’ll take over.”

“Oh, I--

“You’re going,” Emma said sternly as she raised a brow. “It’s close by, and you’ve hardly been anywhere other than the apartment and shop for days.”

Maybe that was true, but y/n didn’t want to think about it, not really. Emma was doing what she could to give different forms of distraction, hoping something might stick. They were both healing from a pain, and Emma had decided to run from her own. She wouldn’t force y/n into some form of coping that she didn’t want to try, but she was doing what worked for her, even as she was becoming less and less sure of just how effective it was.

“Emma, come on.” Tim leaned against the counter, “She doesn’t have to go.”

“She needs to,” she took a hold of y/n’s shoulders, leading her to the other side of the counter and grabbing Tim along her way. “It’ll be quick, it’s blazing hot out today and I expect the two of you to bring me back pasta from that one dinner.”

“Anything else, your majesty?” Y/n joked, a playful smile growing on her lips. She figured it was hopeless to fight Emma on whether she should go or not.

“Yes, actually. If you’re going to end up going on one of your…” Emma wiggled her fingers at the pair, “Tim and y/n walks, don’t bother with the pasta. It’ll just be… gross.” Her nose scrunched at the thought.

Tim chuckled, “Tim and y/n walks?”

“You know, where you get side tracked by some perfectly placed distraction, end up taking a long walk and talking about life and all of it’s drama and woes. Suddenly, the rain begins to fall!” Emma dramatically trickled her fingers down like rain. “Oh, but there is something else distracting you, and it’s worth getting caught in the rain. All of this, and not to mention you haven’t even made it to your initial destination.”

“Okay, okay. I think we get the point.” Tim pushed Emma’s hands down, “No need for the theatrics.”

“Ironic coming from you, hmm?” Emma grinned.

“You’re right!” Y/n interrupted them, gaining both of their attention. “I could use a quick trip like that. Maybe it’ll pull me out of this...” she sighed, “maybe it’ll be the perfect distraction.

Neither Tim nor Emma really bought it, they both knew distractions didn’t work for y/n, no matter how much Emma wished they would. But they would take what they could at that point, unsure of what else they could really try.

“Thank you,” Emma took her place behind the counter. “I’ll see you two later, then.”

She had been right, y/n did need to get out and do something other than work, even if it was something so small as a walk for ice cream. She was doing herself no favors sitting around and thinking on and on about what could’ve been, or even what was. Her regrets would stick with her no matter what she did, though.

Emma’s distractions could only do so much, and their effects would only last for so long. Y/n wasn’t sure that she could just forget what had happened, and she was less sure that she had even wanted to forget. It was what Emma had claimed to be the best solution, to just let it go and move on like you weren’t coming out of a life changing relationship, if that’s what it could be called. But nothing about forgetting seemed easier than living with the pain. Where would one even start with forgetting, y/n had wondered.

She could start with forgetting his touch and how the butterflies in her stomach would flutter every time he reached out for her. Or, maybe it would be easier to forget the way she would catch him gazing over with a philomathic look in his eyes, as if he couldn’t take enough of her in. She could forget about the late nights, hidden away from everyone else, just the two of them as they fell further back into one another’s arms, getting much too comfortable it seemed. Maybe, though, it would be easiest to start with forgetting all the damage she had done to him.

To let go of her guilt she would have to let go of all the things that reminded her of the love in their relationships, and to let go of all of the gentle, loving memories she would have to let go of her guilt.

Holding onto the pieces that were good only caused her to feel a stronger guilt, as if she didn’t have the right to hold on anymore. She knew what it felt like to be broken by someone that you put so much of yourself into, she still remembered when Tom had actually been the one to break her heart. That’s what Emma couldn’t understand about the guilt she had been feeling. Why would she feel any guilt when Tom broke her first, and one would argue that he had with more intention.

Still, y/n felt this endless stinging pain telling her it was all her fault striking her every night since she left for LA. Had she not said the things she did about him this issue would be nonexistent. She felt what she said, though, every bit of it. Tom broke her. He had been the one to leave her feeling like a fool, as if he could ever love someone like her. Tom had given her false hope time and time again that he would give her the love she dreamed of with him. And, despite it all, she had still said that he was the one. The one that she would always end up falling back to. The one that she would always love, over herself it even seemed.

And he had given her the chance to live her dreams with him again. The chance to love him, the chance to let herself become comfortable around him, the chance to fall in love again. And they had fallen in love, Tom seemed to let it stick this time around too. Then she said what she felt about him before. She brought up her feelings of betrayal and distrust, and he took them out of context and ran with the idea that she still pictured him as this monster that simply shattered her heart. But she didn’t explain herself, and how could she? They were all things that she had thought of him before.

But he proved it all to be wrong, and she had said that too. She said that he showed her love in a light she never imagined she would experience first hand, and that he had made her find love in things that she always found easier to cover with shame. He made her a better person, above everything else. Above the pain he had inflicted, he had been much more loving in his ways now. And she took that from him. She reminded him of who he had been, and pointed out pain he never even knew he had caused. She made him second guess himself, just as he had done to her before.

She couldn’t let go of the memories of how he made her feel loved. She had to use them to remind herself that she took that love away from him, that she was finally in the place she always wished to be in with him and she took it away from herself. They were no longer memories of peace and security, they were memories used to inflict pain while reminding herself of what she had done.

It was more than she didn’t want to forget. It was that she couldn’t forget, she would never allow herself to.

So, Emma’s distractions weren’t of use to y/n, it wasn’t what she was looking for. She was looking for all the reasons she could find to aim the blame on herself. She would sit and think of all of their memories together, connecting them with some reason as to why that was just another piece of how she led to breaking his heart.

She wondered, too, if she possibly hurt him more by going to LA. She was curious if he missed her in the way she missed him when her heart was broken by him. Did he stay up late into the nights, wondering when she might call? Waiting for her to return and pick up his broken pieces?

No, probably not. He wasn’t such a fool as she was. She had shattered his heart, he probably was doing all he could to forget she even existed, something similar to the way that Emma coped. But if he loved her, how would he forget her? The only thing that made y/n come to terms, at the very least, with the pain he caused her was meeting Timothée.

Tim gave her all the tools she needed to mend her heart when Tom had done his damage. He walked into her life at the right time, and he swore to never walk out. He offered her security, comfort. He fixed her broken heart, showed her how to love herself and others again.

Y/n feared Tom might find someone like Tim, someone to fix his shattered heart. It wouldn’t be bad, not really. In a way, she wished he might find someone like Timothée that could help him after what she had done, but at the same time she wanted him to confide in her. She wanted to offer Tom a solution to fix himself, she now had all the knowledge on how to do it from personal experience, she could share the information with him.

Instead, she gave him space, plenty of it. She went to LA to leave him be, feeling she had caused more than enough problems. And she had to learn how to love herself again, how to allow herself to feel deserving of it after doing something so cruel. And there Timothée was, offering his advice and care once again.

“Really, if you don’t want to go we can just go to the apartment,” Tim offered, holding the shop door open for her as they exited.

She shook her head, “No, I could use this.”

“Alright,” he nodded, “then off we go.”

He awkwardly stuffed his hands into his pockets as they made their way to the ice cream stand. Emma had known that y/n didn’t heal in the same way, and that she would rather sit in her feelings for some time, allowing everything to soak in, but Emma saw the way that she had also gotten to a point where she was no longer doing in a way to heal, but she was coming from a place of guilt. Tim saw it too, and he had come to an agreement with Emma that they needed to step in and to do what they could to help her.

No, Emma didn’t heal in the way that y/n did, but Tim would know how to help her. Emma saw the risk in this too, though. She knew that if Tim wasn’t careful he could easily over step, and it was something she worried could happen. She had warned him not to expect anything from y/n, and to not just cause her more pain, but this was a risk she had to take because no one knew y/n in the way that Tim did, not to Emma’s knowledge.

“So, what was that bouquet you were putting together?” Tim spoke, raising a brow out of curiosity.

“Umm... “ she paused to think. “I’m not completely sure, I’m still learning. I guess I was just putting together what worked, you know?”

He figured there was more to it than that though, she had seemed to be doing a lot of her speaking through flowers for the past few days. “I think I recognized Queen Anne’s lace? Forget-me-nots were in there, they can be…” he paused to think, “remembrance, right?”

“They can, yeah.” Y/n’s lips pressed together as she mumbled, “I think I could use a break from flowers,” she rubbed her palms together, “How’ve you been? I mean, I know we… kind of are living together and all, but… how are you?”

She hadn’t seen much of Tim or Emma, not really. They shared an apartment and passed one another daily but y/n had been so shut off that she couldn’t recall the last conversation she had with either of them. Another thing she would have to scold herself for. Emma and Tim didn’t mind, they took no offense, they knew she needed time, but she couldn’t help but feel guilt for not keeping up with them.

“I, umm…” Tim cleared his throat, “I’m doing good. You know, I think we all really needed LA.” I mean, we haven’t been here long, but I think it’s been good. I’m glad to be spending time with you again.”

She hadn’t thought about it much before, too wrapped up in her worries about Tom, but it had been a long time since she had spent time around Tim. And she had missed it, though she didn’t realize just how much she had.

Things with Tim were always so simple. He always had the right answers and the perfect words to say. There was this resting guilt she felt with him too, because he was so perfectly kind to her. He offered her all that he could, even now. She couldn’t understand why he was still there, why he would miss spending time with her, she must’ve shattered his heart as well.

It was beyond that with Tim, really. He had fixed her. He had cared for her when Tom decided he wouldn’t anymore. Tim helped her to become herself again, he introduced her to what a loving relationship meant. He gave her an example of what a boyfriend that only wanted their partner to be happy and well was like when Tom had broken all the expectations she had. And he had loved her, deeply.

It wasn’t clear to her why she couldn’t love him in the way that he loved her, she wished she had the answer. He was everything she needed, everything that one could ask for, and he had come into her life at just the right time, every single time. So she wasn’t sure why she left him, or why she had declined his proposal, and that frustrated her more. Timothée was the perfect partner, the easy answer. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t be with him.

He deserved better too, at least that’s what y/n believed. He deserved someone that would love him the same way that he would love them. Someone that wasn’t broken, or that hadn’t broken others before. Someone that didn’t depend so heavily on him to fix them only to be given nothing in return.

Tim didn’t want anything in return from her though, he only ever asked to have her love. And he said that he would wait, that he would give her the time and space to think of what she needed and what she really wanted. That’s how she ended up with Tom again, only to break his heart. It felt so childish to her that she bounced back and forth between the two, and she felt that she was dreadful for dragging the both of them into a time where she felt so indecisive. They both deserved better, though Tim might say Tom deserved much less than she offered him and Tom would say the same about him.

“You know, I…” Tim began, “I know that you’re going through a lot right now.” Emma wouldn’t want him to bring it up, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I’m sorry about how things went with him, truly.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she raised a hand to stop him. “Really, it’s fine.”

“No, but, I know you,” he smiled weakly. “You’ve been so quiet lately, and you’ve kept yourself in your room. I just…” He stopped walking, resting his hand on her shoulder to stop her too. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

She didn’t. It had all been her fault, he was only trying to make it easier for her but she had to acknowledge the truth. Or, her version of the truth.

“But it is, Tim.” She fiddled with one of her rings, doing what she could to avoid looking at him.

“No, y/n, it’s not. You didn’t want things to go that way, there was no way you could’ve known.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not my fault,” she muttered. “I mean, I finally was happy with him and then I had to—“

“Go and say how he made you feel?” He sighed, “Y/n, he… you said that he broke you, that…” he glanced, moving his hand back into his pocket. “You told me that he made you question if you were worth loving. He made you question the trust you put into other people, and he made you second guess yourself with everything. And I’m not… I’m not trying to attack him or to argue him versus me,” Emma would disagree. “But you said he broke you, and all you did was say how he made you feel. If he can’t handle that, maybe he never should’ve done it.”

Tim was frustrated too, and not just because she had, for whatever reason, fallen for Tom. It was more than that. He felt that it wasn’t fair that she would blame yourself for such a thing when Tom had truly broken her heart. Tom made her change who she was. She had to learn a new routine, to figure out how to love herself again, to allow herself to let others care for her. To Timothée, Tom was simply now paying the consequences of his actions. Why would anyone ever feel guilt over such a person?

“But I didn’t have to say those things…” her voice was weak, tired. “I didn’t have to say that he… that he ruined me. I mean, he showed me so much too, you know? He really… he made me feel loved too.”

“When? Before or after he broke your heart?” Tim questioned, “Oh, and was it before the first time he broke your heart, or the second time? I mean, he’s been horrible to you, y/n.” He rolled his eyes, irritated by the idea of forgiving Tom. “And, I mean… I thought you were like childhood enemies, right? He, c’mon, he always picked on you growing up, isn’t that what you said?”

He had. They had known each other all their lives, and for a majority of their time together they had only fought back and forth. And it was always about the smallest of things. He’d tell her the color of her dress looked horrible on her, or that her hair was a complete mess right before she was going for an interview. And she’d do just the same back to him, usually picking at him for his motormouth or inability to mind his business. But it was never ending, just the two eating away at each other nonstop.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I… it’s not my place to say anything about him really. I’m just trying to understand why you’re letting him take more of your time, especially when he couldn’t even be bothered to hear you out about your own feelings. He took what small information made him the victim and he ran with that.” He could feel the frustration rising again. “You wrote out how he made you feel, how he ruined you and turned your life upside down, and he has the nerve to act like he isn’t at fault here?”

Tom hadn’t finished reading everything she had written about him, only the most dreadful of words. Of course he was upset, having only read a portion of it. What Tim couldn’t understand is how Tom felt he had the right to be angry at y/n when he had read how Tom made her feel. Why did he think he could mad when seeing what damage he had caused her? How was that fair? And how was it fair that even after all of that damage, y/n still loved Tom, not that he would know because he had refused to read that far in.

“Why would he want to keep reading after what I said about him?” She pulled her arms closer against her chest. “If someone told you that you ruined them would you want to hear them out?”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. It was easy for him to say that he would hear her out, because that is what he truly felt he would do. But he wasn’t Tom, and Tim was more level headed than most people, always doing what he could to collect all the information possible.

Tim struggled with the entire situation because he couldn’t see what she saw, and he wanted to avoid the idea that Tom could be forgiven. Why forgive Tom at all when he wasn’t going to even try putting anything into the relationship? He so easily walked away, and once again there Timmy was to help her, not that she had even asked.

It wasn’t that Tim wanted to always have this fight of who was better, him or Tom, but he failed to see how overlooked his actions were. He offered her support, reassurance. He helped her pick herself up again, and he helped her remember that she was worth love. He only ever wanted her to be happy, and Tom seemed to always have a complete negative effect on her. She always walked away from Tom with tears in her eyes, searching for reasons as to why it was her fault when it wasn’t so simple. Had Tom been able to make her smile, and to make that smile last, Timmy wouldn’t mind so much, because at least then he would know she was happy.

“But why Tom? What has he done for you?” Tim turned his body to face her’s, shaking his head in disbelief. “He’s proven that all he does is hurt you, time and time again, and yet you still feel this guilt? I just… why?”

“Because I… I can’t just forget about him. And maybe I should hate him, I know you think I should, but I can’t.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, moving to sit on a bench along the sidewalk. “I know he wasn’t always… kind to me, but I wasn’t to him either. And he did, he did show me this…” her breathing began to calm, “he showed me that I was worth something. He finally opened himself up to me, we finally could let our guards down. And it, for once, at least sometimes, it was like I didn’t have to fight for his attention, like it was just me and him.”

Timmy couldn’t picture Tom ever being capable of making her feel that way, he seemed too obsessed with himself and with this “competition” the pair had going on. He also couldn’t see why y/n would even want or care to have Tom’s attention in such a way, what did it matter when he was always so cruel? It wasn’t for him to understand, that’s what he had to say to himself. And one can’t exactly control their feelings and who they are directed towards, that was something Tim was getting to know too well.

“I know that Emma thinks I should just forget Tom, and that you wish I could just let him go, but what if it’s just not that easy?” She looked to him, searching for yet another answer she knew she wouldn’t find.

He stepped beside her, taking a seat too. “It’s not that easy, I know.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, hands folding together as he thought. “I know you don’t need me to point out all the things he did to you, but it…” he chuckled quietly… “it really sucks to watch you be in so much pain over a guy that-“ he stopped himself. “I hate to see you hurting.”

She knew Tim meant well, he only ever wanted what was best for her. She was well aware, too, that Tim didn’t have the full story of her relationship with Tom, it was something she wasn’t even sure she knew the whole story of.

Her mind had been malicious before, and a part of her knew that it was being overly judgmental in this case, but she refused to let the issue be chalked up to nothing more than cruel intentions from her childhood enemy. She felt at fault this time, as she couldn’t always simply blame Tom. To her, it was that she was now taking accountability for all of the damage she had caused him too. She had faced how he hurt her, and how it was something they both worked past, but now it was about what she had done to him. This was something, she figured, Tim could never understand.

“I appreciate that you want to be here for me, Emma too, but…” her hand rested on his arm, “I think this isn’t something you can help me come over. I need to work myself through it.”

She could always do with Tim’s advice, but she was getting tired of it when it came to Tom. It was the same thing over and over, about how none of it was her fault and about how Tom was disregarding her completely. Tim didn’t know everything, and he didn’t understand Tom in the way that y/n did. He didn’t have advice to offer that y/n needed, or wanted, to hear in the moment, and that was something he was becoming more and more aware of.

His gazed stayed forward, hand reaching back to rest on top of hers. “Okay, yeah. I get it, you need some more space?”

In a way she did need space, knowing no one really understood what she was going through. No one would see how the blame was on her, no one but Tom maybe. Everyone else wanted to paint Tom as the villain, and why wouldn’t they after everything she had said? No one knew about the butterflies, his philomathic gaze, or even the late nights spent in one another’s arms. No, people had only ever seen them at their worst.

Yes, she needed space, but she also needed a reminder that she was more than a screw up. More than the girl that walked in, destroyed a person’s life, and walked out. And she was more than that, much much more, but it was easier to convince herself that she was the problem.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

Tim wasn’t sure what other response he expected to hear, but it was so unsatisfactory to hear her confirm her own confliction. She didn’t want to be alone, but it’s what she felt she deserved.

“I…” she thought, “I want you to be here, but I need to… I need this to be only my problem.” She pulled her hand away, locking her fingers together. “I don’t want you or Emma to worry about how I’m handling it, I have it under control.”

He didn’t believe that it was true, if anything she seemed to have no control at the moment. He wasn’t going to say that to her, and he thought she really could have a better handle on it than what it seemed. But he was growing tired of fighting her about Tom, about whether he was or wasn’t worth it.

“Okay, I… if that’s what you need, I’ll do my best to do that for you.” He looked back at her, “I’m here for you, so whatever you need me to do… of course.”

Tim knew he shouldn’t have said anything from the start, Emma had warned him against it, but to hear y/n tell him that she simply wanted left in her thoughts was a shock for him. A part of him was expecting her to need him, or at least someone, to talk to about it all, but she was asking to be left alone.

Her thoughts had been too complicated for her to explain to others, she wasn’t sure where they had ended and began anymore. It was a constant loop of searching for answers to problems she knew likely only existed in her head.

Even after Rome, after Tom had taken her heart and torn it to shreds, she couldn’t completely blame him. There was always something, even if it was the most minor of details, that she would make connect back to her to explain why she led to the downfall of it all. She knew Tom played a role too, of course, but he wasn’t her number one enemy. He had called her names, mocked her as she did nothing more than exist, and he had allowed her to make herself vulnerable, but she had decided to open herself up to him.

Y/n wasn’t to completely the one to blame either, and no matter how many times everyone around her would repeat that to her, she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to.

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I do appreciate you trying to help.”

And she did appreciate it, it wasn’t a lie. It was nice to know that he still cared, and Emma too, especially when she had been feeling that everyone was currently against her. She didn’t understand why Tim still stayed, after everything she had put him through, but she was happy to always have him. She felt guilt, though, as if she was holding him back.

“Of course. I just want what’s best for you,” he spoke softly.

What was expected of Timothée in this time where he was forced to watch someone he loved continuously eat away at themselves? He watched as she blamed herself, thinking of every counter argument he could that would prove her innocence, though it wasn’t something that should’ve needed to be proven. He wanted to speak up, to assure her it wasn’t all on her. He wanted to be there for her, and to remind her that she wasn’t to blame. But that wasn’t what she wanted from him, all she wanted was space? She had expected Tim to let her continue blaming beating herself further down, something he did his best to help her work against.

This time around she wasn’t asking for Tim’s help, and had actually asked him to take a step back and give her space. And he would gladly do so, as he had told her, because he didn’t want to upset her or hurt her more than she already had been. He knew that she’d likely just let her feelings fester, she already had been for weeks, but she still had to cope with her feelings in her own way.

He knew she would rather sit in her room, hugging her stuffed frog and listening to music full blast as she cried through all of her pain, but she wasn’t even doing that at the time, she just sat in silence as she judged herself over and over. And he had been wondering what her could do for her, if not be her shoulder to cry on again. Neither Tim nor Emma had much to offer her at the time, and that was something that Emma could accept more easily. But Emma’s relationship with y/n hadn’t began with her helping y/n learn how to nurture herself again.

She said what she wanted now though, so he didn’t feel so lost. She wanted space, and as shocking as it was to him, he would give that to her. She needed to heal again, and maybe now she had all of the tools to do so, or maybe she just didn’t want assistance. Whatever the reason, Tim had decided to still do his best to show her he was still there, that he would always have a helping hand to offer her.

“So,” Tim stood again, doing what he could to just let it go, “let’s go get that ice cream?”

Tim could easily deliver on her request, all she needed was space. Y/n had liked how smoothly Tim was able to just move along. He didn’t hang on his emotions or drag things out to but much more dramatic and theatrical than necessary. He was straight to the point, and he had always been more direct when expressing himself. He had been so different than Tom in that way.

She always had to guess Tom’s mood, and she had always questioned what his feelings for her really were. He had talked to her about how he had liked her for years, which she found nearly impossible to believe because of how they had always treated one another. But was suddenly so sincere when telling her how he cared for her, and that was what made her soften herself around him more.

Y/n also had hidden her feelings for Tom for a long time, and she had began to wonder if they had both hidden for similar reasons. She was always afraid to be vulnerable around him because he would just respond to her with some snarky comment, but she had done just the same back. It was no surprise that they had feared letting the other know how they felt. Timothée could never understand how a relationship could be built on a foundation of fear.

Tom, somehow, was not a villain in this case, which Tim knew, as much as he hated it. Tom had been hurt, truly taken back by the way that y/n had described him in her script, and knowing that it was going to be so public. He deserved to be told how he hurt her, though. He needed to understand the trauma he had put her through, the trauma that Tim had to help her overcome. But Tom was no villain, that was too harsh a title to give to anyone Tim thought.

“Right, the ice cream.” She stood slowly, adding a small smile, “And we can’t forget Emma’s pasta.”

“No, of course we can’t,” he laughed.

Emma’s pasta hadn’t been ruined by a “Tim and y/n walk” that time, as it turned into something much less enjoyable. It was a needed conversation, but still one they both likely would’ve preferred to avoid.

#timothee chalamet x reader #tom holland x reader #timothée chalamet x reader #timothee chalamet x you #timothee chalamet x y/n #timothée chalamet x you #timothée chalamet x y/n #timothée chalamet imagine #timothee chalamet imagine #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland imagine #perennial #tom holland angst #tom holland x reader angst #timothée chalamet x reader angst #timothee chalamet x reader angst #timmy chalamet x reader #tim chalamet x reader

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dans-den · 3 years ago

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Fairly Odder Review

Hey what's going on guys?! Dan here and today I'm going to be giving you a review of Paramount Plus's new show, The Fairly OddParents! Fairly Odder

Now what more can be said other than this show is a masterpiece! I mean come on, best show on Paramount Plus!

10/10 baby! that's all I have to say, see ya!

......

April Fools Bitch!

Like I'd ever give this garbage a 10/10, hell nah! There is so much to dislike about this show that this post will probably run pass the word count on newgrounds and possibly even tumblr despite it not having one, so I'm gonna do my best to be as brief and concise as I can about this and why this is literally the worst reboot or revival I've seen in a long time.

Now I grew up as a fan of the Fairly Oddparents series, I remember as far back as 1999 and 2000 when the show was in it's "Oh Yeah! Cartoons!" phase before it was greenlit for its own series and even those early phases (which is far better than this travesty here). So I wont let too much of my Bias judge how I see this show. Understandably a sequel, revival or reboot won't always live up to the original's standards and should be treated as its own thing. That said, this show even on its own standing, is just awful. Nothing about it is funny, nothing about it is charming, nothing about it is memorable. To be honest I don't know why this show was conceptualized, if you took the Fairly Oddparents name out of this, it would be the most generic Nick sitcom out there. To be honest, this show looks like it didn't start out as Fairly Odder, looks like an average Nick Sitcom then last minute decided to slap the Fairly Oddparents name to the show for marketing. They should have just left the series name alone, they could have just made a new IP. If they had done that I wouldn't be this harsh on my review hell I wouldn't have made this review in the first place! This goes to show that they didn't have any faith in the show and just relying on brand recognition rather than putting effort into an actual show. Fucking Marvin Marvin starring Lucas Cruikshank (aka Fred) was a more memorable and enjoyable show than Fairly Odder.

Now last week I watch an 8 minute sneak peek video of the first episode that was uploaded by Nick on their YouTube channel and this was to meant to build hype and excitement for the shows release. However, I watched the clip and instantly regretted it. Everything I feared about the show, was in the clip therefore would be in the show. It had a god damn laugh track just like every other Nick sitcom, the characters were extremely generic, painfully awkward, annoyingly goofy or down right creepy, and the setting was just like every other setting in a nick sitcom. It honestly looked like asset flips like the background looked like it was used from the Thundermans show, nothing about the setting indicates that they were in Dimmsdale other than some little Easter eggs here and there.

The characters as I mentioned are all generic Nick sitcom characters, the main cast are your standard child protagonists with Viv as the awkward girl who can't socially interact to save her life, Roy her step brother whos the popular kid everyone loves and he's not quite the brightest, Zina who's the friend of Viv and has a crush on Roy but she's like stalking him and taking pics of him from the corner which is super creepy and I'd argue isn't really funny, and the parents who are high school sweethearts and are all wacky and lovey dovey but neglects their own kids feelings sometimes because they're narcissist's. They also have live action portrayals of Timmy Turner and Vicky who are probably the worst portrayals of the characters I've ever seen and it's not just in regards to the animated series, this is also compared to the live action movies made a decade ago. If you don't know, there were three live action Fairly Oddparent movies starring Drake Bell as Timmy Turner in the early 2010's and in that movie, the fairy's were done with CGI rather than being 2D like in this show. The movies weren't perfect because bringing 2D to 3D or any realism will always be a challenge, however I feel those three live action movies stayed more faithful to the source material rather than this show that has completely abandoned the Fairly Oddparents lore and the charm that made this show amazing. Timmy is now a supporting character which is to be expected in this show but Vicky is now a creepy teacher who acts more like a Harley Quinn sidekick who loves Mr. Crocker a bit too much instead of the Tyrant she use to be.

As I mentioned, the show does the live action Nick sitcom formula, but also adds in 2D animation as well and to be honest that's a great idea on paper, but the execution is something that requires time and effort. This blend of animation and realism can be done right if done with proper care and passion, the best example of this is the classic movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Even more recent examples of this can be seen in "Smiling Friends" which is one of my favorite shows at this moment in time. Smiling Friends has a variety of animation and realism that blends well because its all done with proper care and passion. There's 2D, 3D, Claymation, hand drawn, real people in it and so much more and nothing ever feels out of place, its all done beautifully. Fairly Odder just puts a green screen and computer generates the animation and it looks so terrible and out of place. The animation is so rough and rigid and doesn't fit at all with the realism of the show. This tells me that they didn't put any passion or proper care into this show, this was meant to be a shameless cash grab and it seemed to be rushed to meet a deadline.

They brought back Butch Hartman to Co-produce the show and to be honest, I'm not surprised that he's behind the show. Butch Hartman use to be one of the most beloved artists and animators in the entertainment industry and I loved a lot of his shows growing up. I loved Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom and even Tuff Puppy which was argued as one of his worse shows but I honestly thought it was funny and entertaining. However, Butch hasn't been seen positively lately due to a couple scandals and accusations. There was his whole Oaxis Kickstarter which was out of touch and sounded like a real scam. Then there was the scandal almost a year ago where he was accused of plagiarizing and selling someone else's art for hundreds of dollars on commissions. To me it seems he decided to do this as yet another blatant cash grab for him which I understand he wants to get paid and needs to work, but it's just disappointing that he's just cashing in the most shameless way possible. He was an artist we all loved and now he's just a shell of his former self.

Now some of you might be wondering why they didn't they bring Drake Bell back as live action Timmy and for those who don't know, Drake Bell was arrested and pleaded guilty for attempted child endangerment and a misdemeanor charge of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles back in June of 2021 so right now he's in some serious hot water and Nick wants nothing to do with him obviously. So with Nickelodeon not having their golden boy, they had to find someone else for the role and Caleb Pierce the actor for Timmy got the job. I'm sure he'll do fine, but he doesn't really pull off the best Timmy Turner and Drake Bell's portrayal was at least more believable as a grown up Timmy Turner.

They did get the original voice cast for Cosmo, Wanda, Jorgen and Mr. Crocker which is literally the only positive thing I can say about this show but even that's being generous here because the fairies are all animated poorly. Mr. Crocker is animated too because he's in a jail cell in what I imagine is Fairy World since Jorgen is the warden there. So I guess you're only animated when you're in Fairy World? I guess that's why Crocker is the only human animated in this show.

Overall, this show is just a lazy cash grab at what was once one of the best shows on Nickelodeon and the Kids animation as a whole. I couldn't even bare through the first episode because it was just awful and boring and I'm not gonna watch the other 12 episode on Paramount. I said back in my Turning Red Review that I don't like when movies or shows are exclusive to the streaming service because not everyone has access to it, but in this case, it's better it stays on paramount and never branches out anywhere else other than the occasional YouTube clips. They should have just scrapped this project and never released it because this is the worst show I've seen not only this year but of all time.

plugging this into my rating I give it:

1/10.

Just save yourselves the time and binge watch anything else because this garbage reminded me to just binge watch the original animated series on Paramount Plus. I would never recommend this to anyone unless it was for a joke but even that's too cruel and inhumane.

That's about it, see ya!

#dans-den #tv show #review #fairly oddparents #fairly odder #paramount plus #nickelodeon #april fools #april fools day #disappoinment

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bechloeislegit · 3 years ago

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My Spy - EPILOGUE

Set fives years after Beca and Chloe [finally] got back together. Warning: Lots of fluff ahead.

I know I'm late posting this, but I just love this AU so much I wanted to keep going. I do intend to come back to it for some one-shots and such at a later date. Enjoy!

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Beca woke to her alarm and immediately shut it off. She snuggled closer to Chloe and exhaled a sigh of contentment.

"Happy Anniversary," Beca mumbled.

"Mmmm," Chloe mumbled. "What anniversary is today?"

Beca pulled back to look at Chloe.

"You don't remember?" Beca asked. "It's been five years since you moved to LA; five years ago today since you moved in with me."

"Oh," Chloe said, kissing Beca behind her ear. "Maybe we should celebrate."

"Dinner out tonight?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of something we could do now. In bed."

Chloe kissed Beca's lips. Beca moaned and pulled away.

"I have to be in the studio in less than an hour," Beca said. "I really don't want to go in all hot and bothered. Raincheck after we get back from dinner?"

"Okay," Chloe sighed. "But I'm going to hold you to that."

"I promise," Beca said, giving Chloe a chaste kiss on the lips. "I'm going to take a quick, mostly cold shower, and get ready for work."

Chloe reached for Beca. Beca moved out of her reach and slipped out of bed, quickly rushing into their ensuite to shower.

"I love you!" Chloe called after Beca as she closed the bathroom door.

Beca poked her head out the door, smiled, and said, "I love you, too."

A few seconds later, Chloe smiled when she heard the shower start and then Beca's squeal as she stepped under what was most definitely cold water.

~~ My Spy ~~

After work, Beca came through the front door of her LA home to find Chloe sitting on the couch, talking on the phone. She set her bag by the door and made her way over to Chloe. Beca laid on her back, putting her head in Chloe's lap.

Chloe continued her conversation and started playing with Beca's hair. She slid her fingers through to lift the strands before letting them fall back down to settle around her lap.

"Beca just got home and we're going out to dinner, Aunt Peggy," Chloe said, smiling down at Beca. "I'll be sure and tell her. Okay, I'll talk to you later."

Chloe ended the call and leaned down to kiss Beca. "Aunt Peggy says Hi."

"Hi," Beca said, smiling and sitting up to thoroughly kiss Chloe. "How was your day?"

"It was quite exciting," Chloe said. "And a little bit heartbreaking."

"Oh," Beca said. "How so?"

"Well, at recess, Timmy Dexter lost a tooth on the playground," Chloe said. "We spent almost twenty minutes looking for it. We didn't find it and he was quite upset because he didn't have anything to leave for the tooth fairy. I felt so bad for him."

Beca chuckled and said, "I can't wait until we have to deal with things like the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus."

"I'm just glad that we'll be dealing with all those things together."

"You're such a cheeseball," Beca said, smiling at Chloe. "And I love you even more for it."

"Good," Chloe said, giving Beca a quick kiss. "Because you're stuck with me for life."

"That's one life sentence I don't mind serving," Beca said. "As long as I'm serving it with you."

"Now, who's the cheeseball?" Chloe said, chuckling as she stood. "Where do you want to go for dinner?"

"I've been craving Mexican food all day," Beca said.

"Are you craving Mexican food?" Chloe asked with a sly smile. "Or is Baby Beale craving Mexican food?"

"What?" Beca asked in astonishment. "How did you know? I was going to surprise you and tell you at dinner."

"Babe," Chloe said, smiling at Beca. "I wasn't totally positive, but I had my suspicions. And you just confirmed that I was right. So, when are we due?"

"I'm only about six weeks pregnant now," Beca said. "So, we're due sometime in mid-to late-November."

"I'm so happy right now," Chloe said, as a tear ran down her face.

Beca stood and pulled Chloe to her. She wiped the tear from Chloe's cheek with her thumb.

"Our lives are truly about to change," Beca said. "For the better. I can't believe I got pregnant on the first try."

"I know," Chloe sniffled. "I can't wait to tell Aunt Peggy. She's going to be over the moon."

"I can't wait to tell the Bellas," Beca said. "We were the first to get married and now we're the second to get pregnant."

"Is everything a competition with you and the Bellas?" Chloe asked, chuckling.

"Yes, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm, um, we're winning," Beca said, kissing Chloe.

They kissed for a few minutes and Chloe pulled back.

"Do you still want to go out to eat?"

"We can just order something for delivery."

"Or, we just skip dinner for now and finish what we started this morning."

"I like the way you think."

Beca grabbed Chloe's hand and pulled her up the stairs to their bedroom. Chloe giggled the entire way.

~~ My Spy ~~

A few hours later, Beca and Chloe were sitting up in bed, eating from a tray that Chloe had put together for them.

"I almost forgot," Beca said, grabbing some grapes from the tray, and popping one in her mouth. "Amy called me today."

"Really?" Chloe said, biting into a cracker with cheese. "What did she want?"

"She's decided she's done seeing the World," Beca said, popping another grape into her mouth. "And she's planning to relocate here to LA. She wanted to know if she could stay with us while she looked for a house to buy."

"When will she be here?" Chloe asked, finishing her cracker.

"She's planning on coming back to the states in early September," Beca said. "I told her I'd have to discuss it with you first. It's a ways off so we have plenty of time before we have to give her an answer."

"Why wait?" Chloe asked with a laugh. "She's a Bella and she's family. We both know she'll be staying here. You could have just told her yes when you were talking to her."

"I know," Beca said. "But she called right after Dr. Matthews called to tell me I was pregnant. And I was too excited to say much of anything to her. I'll tell her she can stay with us, but she has to be out by the time the baby gets here. I'll tell her after we let the Bellas know I'm pregnant."

"That's a good idea," Chloe said. "How and when are we going to tell the Bellas?"

"We can tell them once I hit the three-month mark," Beca suggested. "Everyone is scattered all over and the easiest way to tell everyone at once is on a Skype or Zoom call."

"I like that idea," Chloe said, biting on her lower lip. "So, um, speaking of the baby, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"You're not sorry I'm the one carrying it are you?" Beca asked, her voice tinged with concern. "You're still okay with that, right?"

"Of course, I'm okay with it," Chloe said, turning Beca's hand to intertwine their fingers. "I promise, everything's fine. In fact, everything's perfect. I've never been happier."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"I was hoping that I could put in my notice at the end of this school year," Chloe said, looking down at their intertwined hands. "I really want to be a stay-at-home mom."

"I thought you liked your job," Beca said.

"I love my job," Chloe said, lifting her eyes to look at Beca. "I just love the idea of being a stay-at-home mom more."

Chloe sighed and ran her free hand through her hair. "I want to be involved in every aspect of our kid growing up. I hope that's okay."

"It's more than okay with me," Beca said, smiling at Chloe. "I don't want our kids raised by nannies. I'm actually envious of you. If you made more money as a teacher, I'd quit my job and stay at home with the baby myself."

"I'm so glad you're okay with me quitting and staying at home," Chloe squealed and threw herself onto Beca, causing Beca to fall back onto the bed with Chloe on top of her.

"I guess we're done eating," Beca said, raising her head to capture Chloe's lips in a kiss.

"Maybe you are," Chloe said against Beca's lips. "But I'm just getting started."

"Oh, okay," Beca said as Chloe moved her lips to Beca's jaw and then down her neck. "Mmmm!"

Chloe continued dropping kisses down Beca's body. After momentarily stopping to give some attention to each of Beca's breasts, Chloe kissed Beca's stomach and continued moving down, causing Beca's hips to lift off the bed when Chloe's tongue found its mark.

"Yes!" Beca cried out, moaning again as she spread her legs to give Chloe more room.

~~ My Spy ~~

A month later, Beca and Chloe were enjoying a quiet evening at home. Beca had just completed arrangements to have a Zoom call with the Bellas to tell them about Beca's pregnancy.

"We're scheduled to do a Zoom videoconference with the Bellas on Saturday," Beca said. "It's confirmed for ten in the morning to accommodate for the time difference in Mykonos for Aubrey."

"Okay," Chloe said. "I want to call Aunt Peggy and tell her today if that's okay with you?"

"Is everything okay?" Beca asked, looking at Chloe.

"What do you mean? Everything's fine."

"You act like you need my permission to do stuff," Beca said. "You know you don't need my permission to call Aunt Peggy or do anything else you want, right? I love you and trust your judgment without question."

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, wringing her hands. "I'm just really nervous about the whole pregnancy and becoming a mom thing."

"I'm nervous about all of it, too," Beca admitted, smiling softly. "But, I'm also very excited about it. We're going to be the best moms ever. Now, let's call Aunt Peggy and tell her the news, okay?"

"Okay," Chloe said, pulling out her phone. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"Of course, I know that," Beca said, pulling Chloe into a kiss. "I love you, too. Now, stop stalling and call Aunt Peggy."

"Yes, ma'am," Chloe said and placed the call.

"Chloe, dear, how are you?" Peggy's voice came through the phone. "How's Beca?"

"We're both good," Chloe said. "We have some news to tell you."

"Oh," Peggy said. "Who's pregnant? You or Beca?"

"Beca is," Chloe said. "But, uh, how, um, how could you possibly know that's what I was going to tell you? We never told you we were trying."

"I'm so happy and excited for you," Aunt Peggy said, ignoring the question. "When is Beca due? Are you going to find out the sex? Do you have names picked out?"

Chloe laughed. "Slow down," she said. "The baby is due in November and we haven't discussed finding out the sex. So, no names have been picked out either."

"I can't wait to tell your Uncle Matt," Peggy said. "I'm sure he'll be as thrilled as I am."

Beca walked to stand next to Chloe, causing her to look at Beca.

"Ask her if they want to come here for Thanksgiving," Beca whispered. "And meet the baby."

Chloe nodded and said, "Aunt Peggy, we know it's a few months off, but Beca wants to know if you guys want to come here for Thanksgiving. I mean, the baby should be here by then and it would be the perfect time for you to meet him. Or her."

"I'd love that," Peggy said. "And I don't see any reason why we couldn't, but I'll talk to your Uncle Matt and let you know for sure."

"Okay," Chloe said. "Give Uncle Matt our best. We love you."

"We love you, too," Peggy said. "Congratulations and I'll talk to you soon. Bye, Chloe."

"Bye, Aunt Peggy," Chloe said and ended the call.

"So?" Beca prompted.

"She thinks they'll be here," Chloe said. "She needs to check with Uncle Matt and she'll let us know for sure."

~~ My Spy ~~

Saturday morning found Beca and Chloe sitting in front of Beca's laptop waiting for the Bellas to join the Zoom call. Beca was chewing her thumbnail as her leg bounced up and down. Chloe reached over and gently placed a hand on Beca's leg.

"I'm sorry," Beca said. "I'm just so nervous. I know they'll be happy for us."

"It's okay, babe," Chloe said. "It will be fine."

Chloe leaned in and kissed Beca. As she started to pull back, Beca grabbed her behind the head and held her in place while she deepened the kiss. Chloe put her hands on Beca's waist and melted into the kiss.

The laptop pinged indicating people were joining the call. Beca and Chloe looked at the screen to see that several of the girls were smiling back at them.

"Oh, um, hey guys," Beca said, blushing as she gently pushed Chloe from her. "We, um, we'll wait until everyone is on before we get started, okay?"

Chloe sat back and took Beca's hand in hers.

"Okay," Jessica and Ashley said.

Emily, Flo, and Aubrey all nodded to signify their agreement.

"Hey, Pitches!" Amy yelled out from the screen.

"Glad you could join us, Amy," Beca said. "Oh, hey, Stacie. Will we get to see Bella, too?"

"Not today," Stacie said. "She's with my mom."

"That's too bad," Emily said.

CR and Lily joined the call and it looked as if everyone was connected.

"Beca, I think we're all here now," Aubrey said, getting everyone's attention. "So, what's going on?"

"Are one of you pregnant?" Stacie asked, causing Beca's head to snap over and look at her through the screen.

"There's no surprising anyone is there?" Beca huffed to Chloe.

Chloe smiled and kissed her cheek. She turned toward the screen and said, "Beca's pregnant and she's due in November."

"That's aca-awesome," Aubrey said. "Congratulations!"

"Yeah, congratulations you guys," Emily squealed.

"I knew it!" Stacie yelled.

"Maybe we should invite whoever wants to come for Thanksgiving here," Chloe leaned in and whispered in Beca's ear. "Make it a real family affair."

"Should we?"

"Yeah. We can have Thanksgiving together and they can meet the baby, too."

"Sounds like a-"

"What are you two whispering about?" Amy asked, causing all the girls to stare at Beca and Chloe through their computer screens.

"Um, we were just talking and wanted to know if any of you can or want to come here for Thanksgiving," Chloe said. "We'll supply all the food and you can all meet the baby. He or she should be here by then."

"I'd love to," CR said. "Can't wait to meet Baby Beale."

"I'll already be there," Amy said.

Emily squealed and accepted the invitation.

"I accept, too," Aubrey said. "I'll be coming back to the U.S. in October, so I can be in LA for Thanksgiving."

The rest of the Bellas accepted and they agreed to discuss it further as time got closer.

~~ My Spy ~~

Chloe's last day of teaching was bittersweet. She loved her students and had become friends with several of the teachers. The day was over and her students had given her flowers and all hugged her as they were leaving.

Chloe was looking around the room one last time, ensuring she hadn't forgotten anything, when Sandy Clark, one of the teachers, walked in carrying a bottle of champagne.

"We can't have you leaving without a little celebration," Sandy said, waving the champagne toward Chloe. "Come with me. The others are waiting in the Teacher's Lounge."

Chloe smiled and followed Sandy out the door.

"Surprise!" Everyone yelled as soon as Chloe entered the room.

Chloe gasped and placed her hand over her heart.

"You guys!" Chloe exclaimed, looking around the room at the decorations.

Not only were they giving her a going-away party, but they were also combining it with a baby shower.

"Beca!" Chloe squealed, seeing Beca standing at the back of the group.

"Hey," Beca said as Chloe pulled her into a quick kiss.

"I thought you were in the studio all day," Chloe said.

"I actually worked from home until I had to leave to come to this," Beca said, chuckling. "Eleanor over there was quite persuasive in her instance that I be here. They pulled the loud surprise on me when I walked in, too."

Chloe looked over at Eleanor and smiled.

"We can't have a baby shower without both mothers, can we?" Eleanor said.

"This is all so amazing," Chloe said.

"Here," Sandy said, handing Chloe a glass of champagne.

Chloe took the glass and looked at Beca.

"Go ahead," Beca said. "I took a Lyft so I could ride home with you. Drink up and I'll drive us both home."

"God, I love you," Chloe said, kissing Beca and then taking a sip of champagne.

"Here you go, Beca," Eleanor said, handing Beca a ginger ale. "Some bubbly for the little mama without actually drinking the bubbly."

Beca laughed and took the drink. "Thank you."

"Okay, everyone," Eleanor said. "Eat up so we can get to the presents!"

Everyone started chattering and making their plates. Chloe made a plate for her and Beca to share. Beca had made plans to take Chloe out to celebrate her last day of work and they didn't want to spoil their dinner.

Once everyone had their fill, Sandy and Eleanor gathered everyone around Beca and Chloe.

"Chloe," Sandy said, holding out a box wrapped in pink and blue bunnies. "This is from me."

Chloe took the box and handed it to Beca.

"Babe, why don't you open it?"

"Let's open it together," Beca said.

She and Chloe pulled at the paper and opened the box.

Everyone 'oohed' and 'awwed' over the onesies in the box.

"They're so small," Beca exclaimed as she held them up.

~~ My Spy ~~

Amy moved to LA but did not stay with Beca and Chloe. She found and bought a home online.

"You bought a house without seeing it first?" Beca asked as she spoke to Amy on the phone.

"I saw the pictures, Beca," Amy said. "It has everything I was looking for. And the fact that it's only two blocks from you is an added bonus."

"When do you move in?"

"At the end of September," Amy said. "I'll just be traveling until then. I've hired a decorator and will have everything already set up when I move in. I won't have to worry about any of that normal moving stuff."

Beca chuckled. "I can't wait to see it. And you. I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too. And, don't worry, I'll send you an invite to my epic housewarming party," Amy said. "Gotta go, my date's here."

"Have fun," Beca said, ending the call.

~~ My Spy ~~

Summer quickly faded into Fall and Beca's pregnancy advanced as it should. Regular checkups indicated that all was going well.

Chloe didn't have work anymore so she kept herself busy by working on the nursery. It was her pet project and she was trying to make it perfect for their soon-to-be addition to the family. Her biggest decision to date was what color to paint the walls. The couple had opted not to find out the sex of the baby; they wanted to be surprised so Chloe was looking for a neutral color.

Early one Wednesday morning in late October, Chloe was startled awake by the ringing of her phone. She heard and felt Beca stirring beside her and quickly grabbed the phone off the nightstand.

"Hello," Chloe croaked out in answering the phone.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"This is Carol Baxter," the voice said. "I'm sorry for calling so early but, I was wondering if you would be willing to come in and substitute for Sandy's class?"

"Is she okay?" Chloe asked, sitting up in bed.

"Her father passed away last night and she has to go to Wisconsin," Carol said. "She thinks she'll be gone for a week. I just need you to sub for today while I find someone to take the rest of the time she's out."

"I'll do it," Chloe said. "And I can do the whole week."

"Are you sure?" Carol asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," Chloe said, getting out of bed. "I'll be there by eight."

"Thank you, so much, Chloe," Carol said. "I certainly do appreciate it. I know the kids and teachers will love seeing you again."

"Thank you, Carol," Chloe said. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"What's going on?" Beca asked as soon as Chloe ended the call.

"Carol asked me to sub for Sandy," Chloe said. "Sandy's dad passed away and she has to go out of town for a week."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Beca mumble sleepily. "I don't have to be in the studio for a few more hours. I think I'm going to go back to bed for a while."

Chloe went to Beca's side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Beca.

"Have a good day," Chloe said. "I'll see you when you get home."

Late that day, Beca came home to find Chloe sitting on the couch with papers all around. Beca joined Chloe and moved some of the papers so she could sit down.

"What's going on here?" Beca asked, looking at one of the papers.

"Just grading some papers," Chloe said, smiling. "It was great seeing everyone today. I missed them."

"Are you rethinking your decision to quit?"

"God, no," Chloe said quickly. "I'm all in to be a stay-at-home mom. Seeing the kids today made me even more excited about our own kids. Watching them grow and go off to school. Helping with their homework. Being there for their first steps, first words, all their firsts. I don't want to miss any of that."

"I love how much you love me and our baby," Beca said, smiling.

"I do love you both," Chloe said, pulling Beca into a kiss. "Very much."

Chloe kept her arm around Beca's shoulders, and Beca snuggled into her side.

"What's for dinner?" Beca asked.

~~ My Spy ~~

October moved into November and Chloe was becoming a nervous wreck. Every time Beca so much as groaned or put her hand to her stomach, Chloe was by her side to make sure she was okay.

After about the fiftieth time in a week of this happening, Beca was becoming frustrated.

"Babe," Beca said the next time it happened. "I'm fine. You need to relax. All this checking on me is making me frustrated and anxious. That's not good for me or the baby. So, please, if you love me, you'll relax, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, shaking out her hands. "I'm just so nervous about everything. I mean, the nursery is ready and we have all the big stuff we need. But, what about the little stuff? Do we have enough diapers for when we bring the baby home? Do we need more bottles? Can we-"

"Babe," Beca interrupted, with a gentle smile. "We're ready. I promise. We have everything we need to start out and can get whatever else we need when the need arises."

"You're right," Chloe said, taking a deep breath and letting it out. "I'll relax and let mother nature take its course."

"Thank you," Beca said.

Chloe kept her promise until Beca's due date came and went. Chloe became anxious again and Beca had enough the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

"Chloe," Beca said. "I made a list of things we need for Thanksgiving dinner. Would you mind doing the grocery shopping today? I want to make some dishes in advance so we can enjoy having everyone here and not be in the kitchen all day."

"Sure, babe," Chloe said. "Will you be okay by yourself while I'm gone?"

"Yes, Chloe," Beca said. "I'll be fine. I'll keep my phone on me and call you if anything happens, okay?"

Chloe breathed in through her nose and chewed her lip. "Okay, I'll go. But you'd better keep your phone on you and call me if you so much as feel a twinge."

Beca smiled as she leaned in to kiss Chloe. "I promise."

Chloe had been gone about an hour and was in the middle of the grocery store when her phone rang. She quickly pulled it out expecting to see Beca's name on the caller ID; instead, it was Amy's.

"Amy?" Chloe answered the call. "What-"

"Chloe, you have to get to the hospital," Amy blurted out.

"What?" Chloe asked, stopping her cart in the middle of the aisle.

"Beca's at the hospital," Amy said. "She's in labor and she's shouting for you."

"What hospital?" Chloe asked, abandoning her cart and sprinting toward the exit.

"LA Presbyterian," Amy said. "You'd better hurry."

"I'm on my way," Chloe said, unlocking the car door. "Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Amy said. "See you soon."

Chloe drove calmly but quickly to the hospital. She pulled into the parking lot and rushed inside to the main desk.

"I'm Chloe Beale," Chloe told the receptionist. "My wife was just brought in. She's in labor."

"One moment, ma'am," the receptionist said. "What's your wife's name?"

"Chloe!"

Chloe jerked her head around to see Amy and several of the Bellas standing a few feet away.

"Thank goodness, you're here," Emily said as she rushed over to Chloe, grabbing her arm. "Come on."

Chloe rushed off with Emily and joined the other girls.

"Are Beca and the baby okay?" Chloe asked.

"We haven't heard anything yet," Aubrey said.

"How are you all here?" Chloe asked, looking around at everyone.

"We all came early to give you guys a surprise Baby Shower," Jessica replied. "Turns out, we were the ones who were surprised."

"Yeah," Ashley said. "We went to your house and Beca answered doubled over and told us she was in labor. Everything started happening so fast."

"We thought we were going to be delivering the baby ourselves," Stacie said.

"Family of Rebeca Beale?" a voice called out, causing all the girls to turn toward the sound.

"Um, I'm her wife," Chloe said, stepping forward.

"I'm Dr. Johnson," the man said. "Congratulations, you have a son."

The girls gathered around Chloe and started chatting and oohing and awwing over the fact that Beca and Chloe had a son.

Chloe's eyes were wide as she stood there stunned. "I have a son?"

"Yes," Dr. Johnson said. "Would you like to see your wife and son?"

Chloe swallowed and nodded her head.

"Follow me," Dr. Johnson said, smiling at Chloe.

Chloe followed Dr. Johnson and entered the room where he held the door open for her.

"Chloe!" Beca cried out. "We have a son."

"I heard," Chloe said, as she rushed over to Beca's bedside.

Chloe looked down at the newborn cradled in Beca's arms. Tears started streaming down her face.

"He's beautiful," Chloe whispered in awe. "And, so tiny."

Chloe sniffled and wiped at the tears on her face.

"I can't believe I missed his birth," Chloe said.

"I'm sorry," Beca said, reaching up to cup Chloe's face. "It all happened so fast. If the Bellas hadn't shown up when they did, I might have had him on our living room floor."

Chloe chuckled as she sat on the side of the bed, her eyes never leaving the baby. "That would have been quite the story to tell."

"So," Beca said. "What are we going to name him?"

"Can we name him after my dad?" Chloe asked.

"I'd love that," Beca said, looking down at the baby. "He looks a bit like a William. Or maybe a Billy."

"Billy Beale," Chloe said, looking down as the baby stretched and yawned in Beca's arms. "I think he likes it."

Beca looked down at her son and said, "Billy Beale I'd like to introduce you to your mama." Beca then turned to look up at Chloe. "Mama, meet your son, William "Billy" Beale."

Chloe gently took the baby from Beca and bounced him lightly in her arms.

"Hello, son," Chloe whispered.

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

A/N: I know, I know, I left it open-ended because I really like this AU and I may come back to them later for some holiday one-shots.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end. This is not goodbye, it's just ta-ta for now.

#bechloe fanfiction #bechloe #beca mitchell #pitch perfect #bechloeislegit

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davidobitch · 4 years ago

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Traditions | Timothee Chalamet

okay so I’m well aware I don’t ever write for Timothee Chalamet but I really wanted to write this and it didn’t seem fitting for anyone else I usually write about?? I hope you like it even though the timing is like...18 days late...oops

I didn’t proof read this so my apologies if it sounds like a 5th grader wrote it.

anything written in italics is the past! enjoy xx

3 years. 156 weeks. 1,095 days.

That’s how long you’ve spent with Timothee. You love him with everything you have inside you but things haven’t been okay lately, not for the past year almost. Neither of you wanted this to be ‘right person, wrong time’. You both tried to fight for your relationship to work out and go back to how things used to be...but that was up until last month.

Timothee has been busy with his movies and you’ve been busy with your business. With the year coming to an end, you both and to get everything done before the new year. You tried not to think that this was the end. You kept telling yourself that it was only for this month then you and Timothee could go back to working everything out. But part of you knew that maybe this really was the end.

You were just getting home from a launch party when Timothee was getting ready to leave.

“Hi,” you said quietly, dropping your purse on the table, “Another shoot?” you kept your eyes on your boyfriend, watching him go over his mental checklist of everything he needed.

Timothee nodded his head, turning in circles looking for what was probably his keys. You glanced behind him, seeing them in the other room on the coffee table.

Passing by him, Timothee followed you with his eyes hoping you weren’t walking away from him without a goodbye. He heard his keys jingle in your shot and let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he breathed out, standing in front of you. His hand lingered on yours, letting his fingers trace your bones.

“Promise me you’ll be back tonight?” your stare was fixed on your intertwined hands, not wanting him to let go.

Timothee squeezed your hand before pulling away, “Of course. You know I’ll be here.”

You and Timothee always threw a New Years Eve party, it was something both of you looked forward to each year.

He gave you a quick kiss before leaving the house, letting silence seep through the walls. It hasn’t been long since you started staying at Timothee’s daily. It’s only been a year, if that, which ironically is when everything started going wrong in the relationship. Coincidence? Probably, but you refused to believe that. Most nights you couldn’t help but wonder if you moving in was the reason you guys started fighting almost weekly.

Shaking yourself from your thoughts, you started picking up around the place, wanting the house to be spotless by tonight.

You have sent Timothee countless texts reminding him what time people will be over and last minute things he needed to buy. It’s been three hours and you haven’t heard back from him. You assumed he was just getting caught up in shooting or discussing work stuff, but when another three hours passed by with no call or texts, you had a bad feeling he was bailing out tonight.

You texted Timmy again, another reminder of what time to be home and asking him to pick up the rest of the party stuff for you. You begged him not to be late tonight, or even just not show up at all. Time was slowly running out and you decided to just run out and buy everything yourself. On the verge of tears, you called Timothee and to your dismay...it went straight to voicemail. You tried holding in your cries as you left him yet another message, telling him tonight was make or break the relationship. It was either he shows up by midnight or you pack your bags tomorrow morning and move out. You didn’t care anymore as you let your feelings out fully for the first time in months.

You needed the drive home to clear your head and gather yourself before having to pretend your relationship is perfect.

It was just barely 9pm and you still had to hurry up and be ready by 10. You called a couple friends to come over early to help finish setting up so you can shower and look presentable.

“Thank you guys so much,” you said as you entered the kitchen where your friends were arranging the cups and drinks, “T’s been so caught up at work today. I just- I love you guys.”

“We love you of course,” your friend, Ashley says as she grabs a bottle of tequila and 3 glasses, “To a new year,” she says, raising her glass.

“To a new year,” you and your other friend say in unison.

The liquid burns as it travels down your throat, warming your entire body. You took another shot before going back to finish getting ready.

You picked out your best little black dress, wanting Timothee to see what he’s losing if he decides to not show up tonight. Your hair was curled, your face was glammed up, and you were ready to black out everything tonight.

You finished just in time for all your’s and Timothee’s friends to show up, letting the night begin.

You were about 5 tequila shots and 3 drinks in when the clock hit 11:45. You checked your phone seeing you had no calls or texts from your boyfriend. You were losing hope with every passing second and you didn’t care to hide it anymore.

You were on the balcony with your friends when your mouth started to ramble. “T isn’t coming tonight. Or at least I don’t think he is. He’s been gone for the past 15 hours and I’m pretty sure we’re breaking up tonight. Fuck we should’ve broken up a year ago. You know nothing has been the same since I moved in?” You took another drink before continuing, silently hoping your friends would cut you off any second now, “We haven’t had sex in god knows how long. I don’t get to see him for longer than 4 minutes a day. We tried so hard to make things work which was such a bullshit move.” You let out a shaky breath, knowing you were a couple words away from crying and that was the last thing you wanted to do tonight. Finishing off your drink, you closed your eyes and let the night breeze calm you down.

“We see more than you think, y/n,” Ashley says, pouring half of her cup into yours, “We just don’t say anything. You know we love you and we will continue to support you no matter what you choose to do.”

“And don’t give up on Timmy not coming just yet. He still has 5 minutes!” you sip on your drink, trying to remain optimistic. Olivia’s right, he still has time..but if he hasn’t showed up in the past 5 hours, he’s not going to in the next 5 minutes.

“I really thought he was the one, y’know?” you mutter into your cup, watching the liquid swish from side to side.

Your friends wrap their arms around you, pulling you in for a group hug. “Come on, let’s do a couple shots before the ball drops.” Olivia pulls you back inside and to the kitchen, placing 2 shot glasses in front of each of you.

“Cheers to 2021. A year of new beginnings and more memories than we will remember!” Ashley yells, bringing her glass up.

11:58. You knocked one of the shots back, allowing it to fog your brain.

“Cheers to y/n, for being the toughest bitch we know,” Olivia shouts as she raises her glass, you and Ashlet following her actions.

11:59. Another shot down.

You glanced around the room as there was 30 seconds left in the year. No tall, lanky, brown haired boy in sight. You wanted to cry and scream and run out of the house but instead, you grabbed the bottle of vodka and made your way to the balcony.

You caught your friends attention, shaking your head as if to tell them you’re fine but not to follow you. The glass door slid shut behind you as everyone started counting down.

“10!”

“Kiss me tonight,” you boldly said to Timothee, “None of our friends are single. We’re the only losers who have nobody. So be my new year’s kiss.” The first new year’s eve you and Timmy spent together. Your first year of being friends.

“9!”

“Are you going to force me into kissing you again?” Timothee jokes as he comes up behind you, almost causing you to spill your drink from scaring you.

“First of all, you can’t creep up on a girl like that!” you swatted at his chest before taking a sip of your drink, “Second of all, I didn’t force you to do anything.” Everyone around you was counting down, “Third of all,” just as the clock hit 12:00, you pulled Tim’s face to your level, gently pressing your lips to his, “absolutely.”

“8!”

You had spent the entire night by Timothee’s side. This was your first year spending New Years with just him and his hometown friends. You felt lost without your usual crew bullying you into kissing Timmy for another year. “What do you say we do this every year,” Timothee nuzzled his head into the crook of your neck, placing light kisses on your skin.

You let out a giggle, confused at his choice of words, “T we do this every year already,” you turned around to face him, your hands playing with the bottom of his shirt.

“No I mean as a couple. I want you to be my girlfriend,”

“7!”

“I love you,” Timothee drunkenly yelled in your ear, causing a bright smile to spread across your face.

“You’re drunk, baby,” you rolled your eyes. Neither of you have said the L word before and this wasn’t the way you expected it to happen.

“Maybe, but I don’t want to spend another year not telling you every day.”

“6!”

“Timmy!” you yelled over the music, wrapping your arms around his waist, “You have 5 seconds to kiss me or I’m finding another boy!” you giggled as Timothee turned around in your arms, grabbing your face and pulling you into him just as the new year hit.

“5!”

You were crowded into a small corner of your friends kitchen, having been forced to spend the night with them instead of your boyfriend. Timothee was out in New York for a photoshoot and couldn’t make it home in time for your “tradition”.

“I wish you were here,” you mumbled, making a pouty face at your phone screen, “Now I have to kiss Ashley this year and that’s not fun!” You yelled, hoping she would hear you from across the way. You changed your camera to face here, showing Timothee her middle finger in the air, “See, she’s mean. And so are you for not being here.”

Your eyes wandered to the time on the stove clock, seeing as it just hit midnight.

“Happy new year, baby,” Timothee says. You look down at your phone screen to see the facetime was over. Confused as to how the call ended but you could still hear his voice, you glanced up at your friends to see them all staring at you with giddy smiles.

“Can you turn around and kiss me already?” Tears blurred your vision as you quickly spun around and jumped into your boyfriend’s arms.

“4!”

“Please please please don’t hate me,” Timothee says as he wraps his arms around you. “I didn’t realize the time and I know I fucked up, but you know I wouldn’t miss this for the world, y/n” This was the first year he almost missed being your new year’s kiss and as much as you wanted to kill him for it, you knew it wasn’t his fault.

“You’re so fucking lucky you’re cute,” you said, shaking your head and pulling on his shirt, bringing his body into yours.

“3!”

Another shot in your system, trying to rid the memories of the past 7 New Year’s Eve nights. Your mind started playing games with you. Timothee’s voice was echoing all around you, like he was actually with you.

“2!”

“Baby,” you could hear Timmy say, but you tried to push it out of your thoughts. “Please don’t ignore me. I’m so fucking sorry,” You could smell his cologne behind you as a warm touch could be felt on your wrist. Your breath was shaky as you turned to face the man behind you, hoping this was reality and you weren’t drunkenly imagining this.

“1!”

“I’m here. I’m always going to be here. For the next whatever years, I’m 100% here. No more long days without you. No more missing date nights. This is my promise to you, y/n.” Timothee says, his eyes filled with liquid.

“Happy new year!”

You threw your arms around his neck, almost falling backwards as you crashed your lips into his. “I love you, forever.” you muttered against his lips, “Thank you, T.”

*****

“Why can’t we just spend this year at home with our friends like we always do?” you asked Timothee as he pulled you out onto the balcony with him. This year he took you to Paris for New Years Eve and as grateful as you were for this mini trip, you didn’t want to break tradition.

“Because like you said, we spend every year at home with our friends. It’s never been just us.”

Ever since he promised to put more time into the relationship, everything has been almost perfect. Of course you still had your occasional fight, but that’s to be expected and it was never over anything stupid. Well...most of the time.

“I guess it would be nice to spend it alone,” you leaned your head against Timothee’s chest as you took in the site in front of you.

The hotel room had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower, dead center in front of you. You’ve seen the structure many times in the past but it was never this beautiful.

“I love you, you know that?” he whispers against your neck, his hands gently squeezing your hips.

You nodded but stayed silent, letting the music from inside fill the space around you. Timothee started to sway with you as your favorite song started to play in the background.

“I would love to assume it’s such a coincidence that Robbers is playing right now,” you smiled, teasing your boyfriend, “But I guess I should give you credit for planning this.”

Timothee takes your hand in his and spins you around into him as his other hand settles on your hip.

The two of you danced around the balcony together as your song went on and all of Paris could be heard counting down the end of the year.

“Last year I made you a promise to put more effort in. We had a hard year and I know I put you through a lot and I can’t apologize enough for that, baby. But here we are 365 days later, getting to have another new year’s kiss together. I thank you every day for forcing me to kiss you all those years ago ‘cause we both know I would have never had the balls to make the move.” Timothee’s voice was soft, barely even audible with all the other noise happening around you. “But a lot has changed since that first kiss. A lot between us but also with us separately. I never want to spend New Years, let alone any day, without you.” Timothee abruptly stopped moving and pulled away from you as fireworks were being set off all around the city. You pulled your eyes from him for a split second to watch the sky light up with different colors.

What you didn’t expect to see when you brought your attention back to him, was Timmy on one knee, with a ring being held up towards you.

“I’m making another promise to you, to love you forever, to always put you first. You’ve been my life for the past 6 years and even though we were together for only 4 of those years, I still couldn’t imagine you not being in my life. You’re my best friend. Mon amour. I want to spend every waking moment with you. I want you to yell at me when my socks are in random parts of the house. I want to have little mini versions of us running around and drawing on walls. When all my dreams come true, you’re the one I want next to me. It’s you, baby. It’s always been you. Marry me, y/n.”

Your hand flew to your mouth as you vigorously nodded your head. You didn’t give Timothee the chance to stand up before you fell to your knees in front of him, falling into his arms. “Of course I’ll marry you, T. You’re the only person I ever want to spend my life with. I love you so so much, mon amour.” You cried as you placed kisses all over his face.

#Timothy chalamet #Timothee chalamet imagine #tchal #tc #masterlist #prompt #imagine #timmy chalamet #timothee fanfic

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bitters-enthusiast · 4 years ago

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birthday fic but belated

@timmys-and-scribbles i love you and i am sorry in advance if this is long and cheesy but

1. that’s julian and

2. that’s just showbiz babey

happy belated birthday bestie i hope you enjoy

“No, you don’t understand! Please, I’ll-- I’ll beg on my knees if I have to!”

Julian could be seen, and probably heard, from a block away pleading a poor man operating a gondola on the canal, and it didn’t look much like the man was giving in to him either.

The man shook his head, planting his hands on his hips. “You-- you don’t have to get on your knees. But I still can’t do it, I’m sorry. It’s too short notice.”

The sob that came from the redhead next was anything but subtle, and he shoved his face in his hands. “Please. Please, sir, everyone else has cancelled on me. Don’t you want to be the minority?? Wouldn’t that be a more interesting story for you?? Please, I’ll pay double, I just need this ride tonight. It doesn’t have to be all night, even just an hour if I could--”

The gondola rower rolled his eyes. The dramatics were a bit much, but Julian had good selling points. “Fine! Fine, if it means you’ll leave me alone and I can get back to work, I’ll do it for double.”

Julian almost screamed in excitement, and grabbed the man by his shoulders. He gave him a little shake, beaming a smile from ear to ear. “Thank you! Thank you, you’ve saved me. Thank you. I’ll see you in a few hours!”

After having shaken this man nearly to death, Julian decided it was time to start grocery shopping. If he was going to plan the perfect dinner for his perfect partner in crime, he wanted to have the perfect ingredients. After all, a pirate couldn’t ask someone to court him if he didn’t at least offer food and drink. . . right?

He didn’t want to stress about it. This day was already a long time coming, but every time he thought he’d worked up the courage, he found it all lost again when Julianne teased him, or plotted with him another sneaky escapade. This woman definitely, without realizing, always kept him on his toes. And he wanted to return the favor, at least for tonight. Besides, a fun date never hurt anybody, even if he didn’t wind up asking her to be his girlfriend.

The doctor spent about an hour or so shopping around for a dinner worth remembering. It took some time thinking of recipes he knew from the top of his head, but he settled on something fond from his childhood. Something Mazelinka almost always made, and almost everyone always liked it: soup. You couldn’t go wrong with a perfect soup dish paired with bread. Plus, looking for fresh ingredients and bartering with the merchants kept his mind off of the pent up anxiety he was feeling about everything. At least a dinner he was making by himself couldn’t be cancelled last minute.

He’d finally settled on everything he needed, and was beginning to head back to the ship. He was carelessly swinging his bags back and forth, whistling a merry little tune to keep him in high spirits.

The high spirits lasted all of five minutes to keep his mind off his worries.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Julianne, speaking to a familiar baker about eating some lunch. She was ordering some food when she caught him out of the corner of her eye, and excitedly called him over.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

She wouldn’t notice the bags, right? Of course she’d notice the bags. But he could just pass it off as stuff for the crew! Or maybe he could just pretend as if he didn’t see her--

Of course he couldn’t do that.

Awkwardly, he put his arms behind his back, the bags hanging over them. He gave a strange smile and headed toward Juli, giving a head nod of acknowledgement.

“Heyyyyyyyy... how are, uh-- whatcha up to?”

The woman raised a brow, a smile on her lips as she had just finished joking with the baker. “I’m........ ordering food. Why are you being weird?”

Uh oh.

Julian gave a dismissive ‘psh”, his face turning into an expression of confusion. “I’m not being weird. You’re weird for asking that, Juli. Anyway, what’s on the menu? What’s, uh, what’s for lunch?”

Julianne immediately knew something was up, but she wouldn’t press him about it until later. For now, she’d give him a bit of a hard time about it to see if he’d spill. “Food. Looks like,” she leaned over a bit, just a small part of his groceries in view, “you also have food on the menu.”

He leaned the opposite way, trying to make the bags less noticeable from her angle. “Oh. Oh! These, right. Yeah, Cap sent me out for errands today. You know those men, uh, always hungry! Yeah, can’t go forever without snacking, even if there’s only four of them on ship!”

A small laugh came from Juli. Yeah, she’d have to find out later. “Right. Well, I have to go eat before I go back to my own errands. Would you like to join?”

Why’d she have to be so sweet?? It made him all the more nervous, and he wasn’t being a very convincing actor at the moment. “Oh, I wish I could, darling! But Cap has been on my ass this morning about staying on task! We all know how, um, fleeting time is! I’ve gotta go, don’t worry about me, I’ll see you later on board, right?”

Her eyebrow still raised, she adjusted her own bag and nodded. “Ri--”

“Okay! Perfect! Amazing, and even perfect, you could say. Oh. Wait, I said perfect twice. Anyway, farewell! See you tonight.”

Juli watched as Julian walked away backward, still trying to hide his groceries. As he finally got further away, he tried turning away quickly to take off running, but accidentally bumped into a busy woman passing by. He apologized promptly and profusely, making sure she was at least okay before taking off again.

Yeah, he was up to something.

It finally had gotten darker outside, the sun setting as Julian strode back toward the boat. After a few hours, he had prepared dinner, finalized the gondola plans, and had even set up an nice surprise afterward to make sure everything was picture perfect. As if he hadn’t used the word ‘perfect’ to describe what he was going for all day. With his hands in his pockets, he’d finally settled down on his way back toward the ship, fairly confident in how the night would go.. at least for now.

As he got closer to his familiar home of sorts, excited to meet Julianne and to get the night started after all this planning he’d done, Julian stops aboard the ramp of the ship, watching as Juli was mid-conversation with his crewmate and co-captain, Gerard.

Damn it. Here we go.

Forcing a smile, he stepped closer to hear their conversation.

A hearty laugh came from the crewmate, one that sounded incredibly devious to Julian’s desperate ears. “He really lied to your face like that, Miss Juli? Ah, you know I’d never treat you that way~”

Shut up. Shut up, Gerry. Not tonight.

Julianne would have been seen to smirk, rolling her eyes. “It’s not that he lied maliciously. I’ll still get him back for lying. But I know he’s doing something behind my back. I’m just confused as to what it is.”

Gerard leaned back against the rail of the ship, giving a nonchalant shrug. “Still. You know, it’s taken him far too long to commit to you. Maybe it’s time you give the ol’ captain a try. I,” a puff of his chest, and he placed his hand upon his heart, “wouldn’t have made you wait this long for me to meet up after lying to you, maiden.”

It was taking everything in Julian to not barge into their conversation immediately. The confidence he’d built on the way back was slowly diminishing, but he’d wait a few more seconds to see where this conversation went.

“Co-captain, Gerard.” Julianne shook her head in amusement, also taking a seat on a nearby barrel. Might as well make herself comfortable as she waited. “How would Zora feel if she heard you giving yourself all the credit?”

“Hopefully very, very awfully.” Gerard chuckled as he ran his fingers through his hair. “But my point remains. See how he still isn’t here? That just proves my--”

If Julian wasn’t known for dramatic entrances, then the sky wasn’t known to be blue. As if on cue, interrupting Gerard as he tried to make his “point” was easy as pie for Julian, and he climbed aboard with the biggest, most confident grin he could muster to save face. “Julianne, my love!” He greeted as if she were the biggest and most important guest he could ever serve, stepping between the two to swoop her into a hug. “I’m terribly sorry it took me so long to get back! I got caught in a scuffle between two men arguing, and you know I can’t resist a good fight.” The last lines were said between almost-gritted teeth, and Julianne pulled away from his hug reluctantly.

Like her expression was before at the marketplace, she had her eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Is that so? They didn’t happen to also be the ones to eat your snacks, were they?”

Gerard chuckled from behind, making himself comfortable both physically and in conversation. “I’d say Ilyushka has a bit of a hole to dig himself out of here, hmm?”

Begrudgingly, Julian turned to look at Gerard with the same forced smile.

“Don’t you have a hole to dig yourself into, co-captain? Go find some buried treasure.”

A laugh from the man, as well as a clever reply, “Ah, but why would I go search for one when there’s one perfectly right before my eyes?” He flashed a smile in Julianne’s direction, and then gave an innocent, seemingly curious head tilt to Julian. “Oh, unless you couldn’t see that for yourself. It seems that eyepatch gets in the way of you looking past yourself and seeing what’s in front of you.”

The smirk began to fall from the redhead’s face, and he tried not to ball up a fist onto his friend right about now. In the end, he knew Gerry was teasing, but it didn’t make the blow less hard on his ego.

Julianne wasn’t naive to the tension; she started to make off-topic conversation. “I think Gerard is talking about the wine that Zora brought back after making a deal with the bartender down the street. Something about bringing back some of that Salty Bitters stuff from Vesuvia that you like so much. He wanted to advertise something new.”

“Right. The wine is the treasure I was talking about.” A final chuckle from Gerard and he stood, clapping a hand against Julian’s shoulder. “Save me some dessert, Ilya. You know where my room is. Send her my way.”

“Bye, Gerry. Have a good night.” Julian pulled away slightly, looking his friend up and down.

Gerard gave a hum of triumph, and pulled his hand away. On his way toward the steps downstairs, he gave a final “You know I will.” in reply.

Once he was finally out of view, Julian deemed it safe to turn back to Juli for conversation. “I am.... so, so sorry, Juli. I know you’ve been waiting for a while.”

“I know you heard the conversation with Gerard.” She replied, placing her hands upon his shoulders. “I’ve been here for a whole of ten minutes. You know how he is. Dramatic.”

He gave a soft scoff in return, rolling his eyes. “More than I am sometimes.”

With a laugh, Julianne pulled her hands away, but not before giving him a gentle pat to the face. “Not quite.” Getting up from the seat she’d made herself, she patted down the dirt that’d gotten on her dress from doing so. “Anyway, are you finally done acting weird, or are you going to keep me on my toes.”

“Well.......” Julian gave a shrug, “Hopefully the latter. But not in a bad way, I swear. I do.”

The woman only gave him a pointed glare in response. In defense, he gently took hold of her hand, and began to lead her off the ship.

“Here. Just follow me.”

The doctor had finally gotten Juli all to himself. After all the shenanigans of the day, he could finally wind down and listen to her talk about her day. Her errands, odd customers, the odds and ends of magic that he enjoyed listening to her go on and on about. It was what gave him some sense of normalcy among the absurdity that he endured on the regular. The gondola ride had gone smoothly, and he had definitely given the rower far more than he was worth. If not just for the theatrics and the experience, he hoped that Juli enjoyed it. Maybe she’d grown suspicious of him throughout the day, but he wanted to make it up to her.

They talked about a woman who’d called Julianne in to help cleanse her home, not knowing the “cleanse” wasn’t anything spiritual -- it was because the woman had attempted far too many cleaning spells and caused an overgrowth in weeds in her garden and magic cobwebs in her corners. Julianne had to explain that “cleansing” a house didn’t actually mean to clean it.

How cute. How cute, how cute.

An hour or so had gone by, and after their ride, they both thanked the rower tremendously. They’d even gotten a complimentary bottle of wine and a basket of fruit -- or maybe the rower was being kind since Julian had paid him so handsomely.

Then, he took Julianne back toward the shore.

He had taken hold of her hand and not let go, leading her down the beach close to the docks their ship had stopped on. He was sure she probably thought something odd was going to happen by the end of the night, but he wanted to make sure she enjoyed her time nonetheless.

As they walked, he made soft conversation.

“You know, the ocean is a view I could never get sick of. It’s so beautiful. And when the moonlight hits it just right--” he gave a chef’s kiss of sorts with his free hand.

“I guess that’s a good thing, considering you’re on a ship the majority of your time.” Juli teased, giving him a gentle nudge. “But I think so too. It’s very captivating. Calming, even.”

“Like you, hmm?” Turning his gaze from the ocean to Juli, he gave a wink.

With a fond roll of her eyes, she laughed a little. “You’re still being weird.”

“What? No. This is just regular ol’ Ilya.”

“Yeah. Weird.”

He grinned in turn, a grin full of absolute adoration. It was getting easier to rebuild that confidence from earlier.

They continued their playful banter, all the way up until hey reached a hidden little cove, a tucked away cave of sorts, with a light shining from within. They were far away enough now that the lamps in town seemed like blur now, and Julian preferred it that way for what he had been planning.

Julianne stopped, looking up at her partner with a confused expression. “What’s this?”

He let go of her hand, make sure he didn’t seem as if he were coming off maliciously. They had met, after all, under the guise that he was a murderer on the run. Julian offered one of his grins, the sweet kind, the kind that made you want to follow him into the unknown on an adventure you wouldn’t want to return from.

“Just dinner. You trust me, right? You don’t still think I’m a weirdo?”

“Well. I definitely do.”

A laugh came from Julian, and he just shook his head. He continued forward into the cave, giving her a nod to follow.

She did, and as they entered, a small table Julian had stolen off the ship was sitting in the middle of the cave, lit candles surrounding it in the sand below to keep light inside. On the table sat dinner: two bowls covered to stay warm, bread on either side of them, a great big glass of wine in the center of the table, and two glasses for one each.

With a great big swoop of his arm, he gestured toward the set up with a smile.

“Well, here’s the thing I was acting strange about. I just wanted... to set up something nice for the both of us.”

After her jaw had dropped at the initial shock, Juli turned to the man with a growing smile, and she genuinely looked impressed. “I’m surprised you could keep a secret this long.” Although she teased, she found his dinner setup rather charming. Nothing short of the extravagance he made for himself since the day she met him.

He continued forward once more, pulling one of the chairs out for her to sit. Once she was seated, he also took a seat, and began to pour them each a glass of wine to drink.

“Also, I stole this wine. This is the one Zora brought back, and Gerard is probably looking for now. Serves him right trying to steal my thunder.”

The woman laughs, reaching for her glass once it’s filled. “They’re going to kill you.”

He shrugged yet again, his signature smirk puling at his lips. “Worth it, if not just for the thrill of the escape.”

As Julian reached to uncover the bowls, a warm, earthy and flavorful aroma takes over the cave, and he explains his escapade to gather ingredients. Making the food proved to be a pain, having to bribe the ship’s cook to let him take over the kitchen to prepare their food, and to help him set everything up while he was out on the gondola ride with Julianne. He talked about how he now owed the cook kitchen duty for a week, and had to scrub the inside of the old hearth to make up for it. But it was worth it for him, to see how much she enjoyed his childhood favorite food. All the more memories to create, even if it was just soup.

Throughout dinner, it seemed as though Julian had about finished off the bottle of wine by himself. He was getting a little tipsy, and a bit more nervous toward the end of them eating. If only he had more liquid courage to help him out.

Julianne noticed how awkward he’d begun to get as dinner went on. When they finally cleared their bowls, he started going on about the importance of the correct shoes in acting. Something was up.

She reached for his hands, which were getting ready to pour the last few drops of alcohol into his glass.

“Ilya, tell me what’s the matter.” Her voice was soft compared to his big, velvety tone. He couldn’t help himself, not in this state of mind.

“I- no, nothing’s the matter! I’m just saying, how can you frolic about in a tunic and boots? Sure they look great for the aesthetic and for the costume, but you need the smaller and more rounded shoes to move around the stage more fleetly.”

“You’re talking about shoes, Julian, after we just had a nice dinner in a fancy set up in a remote cave.” She laughed a little at the situation, and gave his hands a little squeeze. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She was right. And he knew that she was. He hadn’t spent all day preparing for this moment to talk about how quick your movements need to be on stage. He had put all of this off long enough. Hell, for months. He was surprised she’d even stuck around that long, unless she thought this was all totally platonic.

“Yeah. Yes. Yes, there-- there is something I have on my mind.” He let out a slow sigh, mentally preparing himself for his little speech. He knew that she would listen to every word, even if he slurred and stuttered his way through it. Her touch gave him a bit of sobering up, and in turn, he moved his hands to grab hers instead, leaning in closer to her presence.

“I.. hm. I’ve known you for quite a while now. And, for some reason, it feels like I’ve known you far longer than the several months we’ve been adventuring together. I don’t even know if that’s what you’d call it-- never mind. Regardless, darling, it feels like I’ve known you longer than a lifetime. Like I’ve known you since a life too distant to remember. And you... Julianne, you just seem so familiar. You met me thinking that I was a murderer. A fugitive. And even then, even after you thought I was using you, you stuck. You stuck with me. Up until then, I struggled so hard to find something like home. You gave me a chance, and I can tell you haven’t regretted it thus far. I just... don’t ever want to have to just remember you again. I want you to stick around. You’re perfect to be around. My perfect adventuring find. My... my perfect partner. We’ve never made any official call for what this is, and... I know this is all so ridiculous and grandiose and seems like some sort of proposal. In... in a way, it is. I just--” he lets his head fall, and he takes a pause, before he looked back up into Julianne’s face. “Please, little dove, would you give a pirate a chance and just call yourself mine already?”

...

Julianne, flustered, and unsure of how to respond in the immediate moment, searched Julian’s eyes for his genuine feelings. It was a long search -- after all, he’d just poured his onto the table, practically. This wasn’t at all a surprise, they had in fact been in some rut of infatuation without ever having admitted it to one another. It was always just implied. But here they were now, Julian basking in all of his monologuing glory...

Before she could respond, he was quick to make a joke, giving her hands a squeeze as she did his before he had come clean. “Plus, now I’m less likely to get in trouble for starting a fight with Gerard, seeing as how we’d be an official couple rather than just flirting, fleeting friends.”

Julianne shook her head, letting it fall as she let out a laugh. “You... are quite simply the most unbearable person I’ve ever met. In the best way possible.” Looking back up, he simply gave a friendly and teasing shrug in response, and she leaned in to seal the space between them with a kiss.

It wasn’t long before it grew passionate, one full of longing and hope from both of them. It would be hard for Julian to pull away, had he not been wait for a response. Before he let the kiss get carried away, he pulled back, a hand pressed to Juli’s face.

“So?”

She looked him in the eyes, lifted a hand toward his face, and promptly gave him a flick to the nose.

“Ow!?” His brow furrowed, “What was that for??”

“For lying to my face earlier. I just needed you to know I didn’t forget.”

A huffy laugh came from the redhead as he reached to rub at his nose, now stinging slightly in pain. “Alright. Noted.”

She offered a final, soft smile, reaching to gently swipe her thumb over his nose in comfort. The woman then reached in for a soft peck. “I’ll be your girlfriend, Ilya. Or rather, your co-captain.”

Julian beamed taking her face into both of his hands. “Oh, I’m so glad. As co-captain, can your first duty be to teach me an adjective other than ‘perfect’? I’m a doctor, not a novelist.”

“Sure. But only if you teach me one rather than ‘weird’,” Juli offered in reply.

“Good, good. But uh, can we wait until after dessert?”

“Didn’t Gerard ask you to save him some?”

“Oh, no. Gerry can starve. I’m sneaking dessert back into my room.”

98 notes · View notes

peeterparkr · 4 years ago

Text

perennial;tom holland|one.

chapter one: yellow chrysanthemums

↳ flower meaning: neglected love or sorrow.

story summary: After the war, Tom let the flowers die of thirst, Harry decided to water dry flowers and Timmy never stopped taking care of his. But flowers speak for us, flowers have meanings. And like flowers, maybe you’ll keep on blooming, it’ll be up to you if you decide to wither. And it’ll be up to you what flower you end up choosing.

chapter summary: the explanation, the flower shop

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: angst

word count: 7.9k

prologue next chapter perennial masterlist.

perfidy ( series masterlist)

wanna be tagged?

hi, first chapter is here, cry with me :) thank you to @peachybloomss for beta reading and being the real MVP

There are flowers that are popular among people. Most of them we don’t know the meaning to. There are the obvious ones, like roses. Romance, love, passion. But roses have been used too many times, it’s a shame, they’ve lost so much meaning. How can something so beautiful and incredible wear out? People who give out flowers without meaning anything barely can see the beauty behind them. That’s the problem with red roses. People now give them out without meaning it.

They usually let them dry out. Yes, that’s the problem. They let the flower die by itself in one empty vase.

Sometimes we give them our meaning. Most times we don’t. We choose them because they’re pretty, because of the colour. After all, they match our personalities. It seems to be a shame when you let something so beautiful die.

Some people like flowers now and then, they use them for seasonal colour. It doesn’t matter then what type of flowers you give them. There are people who give out flowers to ask for forgiveness, some others because they were minded by someone else, some others because they like the pretty smell.

How can someone let something so beautiful die?

That’s the only question Tom had when he heard it: ‘She’s gone.’ Had she given up so easily?

She hadn’t waited. She hadn’t tried to reach out for him. And it didn’t make sense.

Except she had. And Tom was cursing when he hadn’t answered. He still had a voicemail.

“Where did she go?” Tom asked the girl standing in front of him.

“I—I am not supposed to tell anyone,” she said. “However, she asked me to buy daffodils every day to give you, I guess she didn’t think I could only buy some and keep them in a pot, but she told me you give you some daffodils, yeah, if you ever came and look, here they go, good thing I did buy them today.” Cherry—that was her name, handed him some yellow flowers.

“What—?” Tom was confused. He didn’t want to believe it.

“New beginnings,” Cherry grinned. “Take what you want from that—“She was about to close the door.

Tom stopped her. “Why did she go?”

Cherry rolled her eyes. “Daffodils.”

“What—?” Tom blinked.

Cherry sighed. “Daffodils. New beginnings, now—They’re perennial, to take care of them—“

That’s all Tom needed to know, he guessed. New beginnings. But it barely made any sense.

He didn’t want to be rude to Cherry, but he barely paid any attention to her. He really didn’t care about flowers. Just the ones he had bought. What had Cherry said they were?

Chamomiles. Primroses. Heleniums. Yellow flowers.

“Did you hurt her?” Cherry had asked. “Or why did you bring her these flowers?”

“Yellow flowers have meaning to us,” he had explained.

Yellow flowers.

Just like the flower pot in his car. Daffodils. Stupid flowers that gave him no explanation.

New beginnings.

He had left Cherry because he really didn’t want to explain it to her. Cherry was clueless about it. How this was horrible.

Y/N was gone.

Why had she left?

Tom looked back at it. It could’ve been easier. As if he had just walked out of a war zone.

He had noticed how y/n’s apartment had felt cold. And it probably didn’t have anything to do with Cherry or that y/n had left. That apartment felt like it had been freezing for a while.

And even if Tom had known that they had been crushed from the start, he hadn’t expected her to run away. Y/N didn’t do that. Sure, she reserved herself. He knew that she stopped going out, and he knew that she would be alone all the time. But she never left. She never did that.

Y/N was gone.

It didn’t make any sense. She had thrown it all away and they were back in the start. Back where y/n had been. Roles switched. Now there was Tom, hurt.

Tom now knew how it felt to be hurt by yellow flowers. He felt like he was drowning. And she wasn’t there. He felt stupid. Very stupid. Of course, y/n would leave. Y/N was selfish and y/n was stupid.

And he loved her. He was the idiot. He still loved him.

And Tom didn’t understand why this was all so complicated, because he was angry, but he felt guilty. Because he should’ve gone and searched for her earlier. He should’ve read her letter earlier, but pride was stupid.

And it was clear, even if New York had been only for a short time, it was not a hoax. He needed a reason, another reason to love her. Because he didn’t have many reasons to love her, but love per se. He was losing control.

There was Tom, trying to call her but it sent him straight to voicemail. What would Tom do with some perennial daffodils? Let them die of thirst? He didn’t want to take care of those stupid flowers.

Flowers? That was her way of saying goodbye? New beginnings. His life was pathetic now.

He needed answers. He had a pain in his chest, intermittent pressing. This was the first time one of them ever forgave each other. But had they? Because he was angry at her again.

He still had her voicemail. Did he have the courage to hear it?

Maybe there were answers.

“Tom, I know—I know you won’t talk to me,” she started, her voice was cracking. “I—I’m sorry. Maybe you have read the letter I gave to you. You probably haven’t. Or if you did then I guess—It’s lost, isn’t it? I’m just—You’re the only one I care about right now. You were right, I may deserve to be lonely.”

Tom felt a headache growing. She really didn’t deserve it.

“But I don’t want to be,” she continued. “I can’t—I really. A chance was presented okay? And if you—Please call me back. I don’t know if I should take it or not, and I know you don’t care, I know but… I guess I don’t even know I really, really wanted us to work out and I hope you can forgive me someday. I’m just so confused because there’s a chance to start a new life and I’m not sure if I want to. It’s not in London, I’d be leaving and—Maybe it’s for the best, you probably don’t want to see me anymore. I just feel like I’m drowning Tom and maybe this is the only way out. I know there are a million things I should say to you but right now I just—I’m sorry, Tom.”

Did he blame her? It had taken him a while to listen to her. He was hurt, though. She shouldn’t have left. Now he had everything to remember her. Because why had she given him everything?

Maybe it was her way of saying goodbye. She said she wanted to erase herself of the narrative. But it felt… incomplete.

And he thought about it, had anyone talked to her those days? Even if he had been angry. Maybe she really was alone. Because who did she have? Her brother?

New beginnings. Did he need to have one, too? But he didn’t feel like having one. Not right now. Where had she gone to?

He needed answers.

Rome? New York? She wouldn’t.

She said she didn’t want to go back to another war. And in her mind they would be infinite.

He did blame her. She threw everything away, she gave up on him.

But then he thought about it. How this had turned out. He had to look back. Was y/n hurt, too? How hurt had she been?

This time, the last time. How many times had she not felt the way Tom was feeling?

Nothing good starts when someone enters war. Someone will get hurt. And maybe y/n had been right.

Tom should’ve known better, she would be the first one to leave, no matter what. Because it would’ve led nowhere. They had started declaring war and they had walked out of a battlefield.

Had she left with Tim? Had she left because of Harry?

The second question was really the answer he needed to. Tom was, even if it was arrogant to admit, sure y/n loved him. Maybe that’s why all of this didn’t click. She had left.

Though Tom was hurt he wanted her to know this time it was different, this time he really didn’t care about their past. Not the bad one at least. He cared about the one he could build up. Whatever had happened to them, he wished it hadn’t. He needed to look out for her. He didn’t care anymore about this.

Nothing could save him but her. Did he have to move on? Finally move on.

But he couldn’t because they were meant to be and they made sense. And it made no sense.

Maybe y/n had run out of hope. But god, why hadn’t she fought more? She could’ve tried a bit more.

Unless… she hadn’t wanted to. After all she had written the letter before Harry had kissed her. Had it awakened anything in her?

But Harry said it hadn’t.

He waited a few hours to call her again. There he was, on his bed, staring at the ceiling waiting for answers, updating every five seconds every single social media of hers. She hadn’t deleted anything. That was good, right?

But she gave no sign of her new location. So he called her.

It finally rang, a few times. But then—

“Tom,” her voice was low.

He couldn’t speak. He lost his breath.

“Tom? Are you—are you there?”

He hung up, quickly. He couldn’t talk to her. He couldn’t say anything. Why had he called?

She called him.

He answered.

“Tom?” She said again.

“You left,” that’s the only thing he could word out.

“I’m sorry,” she said. He could tell she was already crying.

“What for?” He asked.

“Everything.”

Tom gulped as he sat up. He was nervous, he cracked his fingers anxiously. “Why did you leave?”

She didn’t answer right away, he heard her sigh. “Because knowing us,” she sighed. “This is the best that I could do.”

“Why?” Tom questioned.

“Because Tom—Look where we were standing okay, and—Though I—really wanted this to work, I love you so much but after— I don’t know if it can ever—“

“You gave up.”

She stayed quiet.

“You gave up,” he stated again.

“I’d never give up on you,” she admitted quietly.

“Then what are you doing?” Tom ran a hand through his hair, before standing up.

“Tom maybe this time we were through,” she said. “I—And I know it’s stupid.”

“You think?” He frowned as he paced around the room. “If we love each other—“

“Yes, Tom but we cant pretend that all of this didn’t happen, and look at the way it started okay? We need to heal, completely. And maybe we will see.”

“But right now—“

“Is there really anything we can do?” She asked, she was stressed.

“You could’ve stayed, for starters.”

“I didn’t leave for the sake of leaving, I was going to stay,” she admitted. “Because I thought you would show up.”

“And I did, and you were gone,” he gulped as he plopped back on his bed.

“I had to go,” she sighed. “And I’m going to miss you, god, I’ve missed you all this time.”

“Then—come back, or… I can’t be okay with knowing I let you go again, okay? I can’t.”

“But you didn’t, you did show up,” she gulped. “This one is on me, Tom.”

“Where are you?” He asked.

“Los Angeles.”

“Okay, I’m going, I’ll take the first flight—“

“I—But, Tom I need time. You need time,” she cried.

“Time for what?”

“Healing.”

“Fuck that,” he sat up again. “I love you, I need you. We will heal together.”

“Tommy. Please.”

“No, you're throwing us away,” Tom snapped.

“No, I am not, I love you,” she sighed. “That’s why—“

“What the hell then?”

“Tom we can't start out again with wounds, or else we will end up in the same place,” she explained.

“Is this about Harry?”

Quiet. She went bloody quiet. This had to be about Harry. And that didn’t make sense.

“Y/N?”

“It’s complicated,” she admitted. “It’s not in the way you think okay? you need to fix everything with your brother. He matters more than I do.”

“What the fuck—?” He frowned. “What about the letter? And the DVD?”

“Take it as my collateral,” she said. “I love you, that’s not changing.”

“Do you love Harry?”

“Tom, I had to go because he still… You saw it, didn’t you? He fucking kissed me, and I can’t--I don’t want to hurt him.”

“But you have no trouble hurting me,” Tom pointed out. “I’m right here y/n.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Tom,” she said. “But Tom, we can’t, we can’t pretend it didn’t happen, okay? And I’m gonna go back, okay? I need time to think about everything.”

“Y/N this is fucking stupid we both said it how we hated that we loved each other and never did anything.”

“I am doing something because I love you, I am letting you heal.”

“If you love me then you wouldn’t have left,” Tom snapped.

“If I had stayed, do you think we would’ve worked out?” She questioned him.

“Yes,” he lied.

“You don’t believe that,” she stated.

“So you’re asking me to move on, then?” He frowned.

“I—“ she didn’t say anything.

“Are you?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“So you’re asking me to stay here waiting for you like a complete idiot?”

“No,” she sighed.

“What do you want then?”

“I don’t know Tom.” She was so stressed.

“You want me to see other people, then?” He asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Y/N?”

“I don’t--but” She sighed. “I guess you can do whatever you want.”

“Well, why not be together? if that’s what I want. ”

“I don’t know Tom, we are fighting already, see? This is my point-”

“I’m fucking asking why you left,” Tom said. “I’m… And daffodils?”

She was crying now, he could hear it in her voice and he could hear the deep breath she’d taken.

“I’ll go to L.A.,” he said.

“No, Tom, you’re missing the point,” she sighed. “Just a little time, that’s all I need.”

“No, y/n, you gave up,” he sighed.

She sighed. “Maybe I did! ” she snapped. “But because I thought I had lost everything, and I kind of did, alright? I did one bad thing and I lost everything, and I know, I know, it was bad, but what do I have left, Tom? You do understand that--Maybe I was thinking, hey look at us, we kept hurting each other, and-”

“Y/N you’re making no sense, I’m going to go to L.A,” he stated.

“If you love me you’ll understand why I need time,” she sighed.

He clenched his jaw. “Why L.A.?” He questioned.

“It’s not a hey, I’m escaping to find myself, okay? I actually did have a reason to come here, I’m...Look, originally Cherry told me to switch places with her, then Timmy and Emma--”

“Tim?” Tom frowned.

“They’re coming to LA, too,” she said.

And it made sense, she was crawling back to Tim, that’s what it all was. This was her going to the happy place, just like she had done after Rome.

“Tim, huh.”

“But I didn’t accept their offer,” she continued.

“But Tim?” He scoffed. “You’re throwing us away y/n, literally all the good things, you said fuck them, right?”

“Tom I’m telling you I’m not doing that, are you even listening to me? I- We need to heal.”

He sighed. “And are you listening to me? If you’re gone, how the hell am I supposed to heal? We should work it out, okay? I’m trying to go back to what we were in New York!”

“But that’s not us, okay, not right now, this is us, I know, Tom, I want to… Fuck I know, and I won’t be able to move on, okay? This is not me running away from you, this is me trying to make some sense of myself.”

“And you go with Timmy!” He yelled.

“I’m not going with him!” She snapped. “And even if--He was the only one who acted as a friend, I have no one Tom, I really have nobody maybe I need a friend-”

“You have me!” He pointed out.

“Do I? Am I supposed to go to you when you’re the one I’m crying for?” She said. “I need to--”

“You’re not the only one who’s sad, you know?”

She sighed. “But think about it, will we work?” She questioned.

Now it was Tom’s turn not to answer. He maybe didn’t believe they could work but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to fight for it.

“Honestly, Tom, how many things have we--Have we let go because of each other?” She questioned. “I’m…”

“You don’t want us to work.”

“I do, that’s why we need to wait, okay? Then we can try again,” she sighed.

“This is me trying, y/n,” he pleaded.

“I can’t let myself try something right now knowing I hurt you,” she said. “I can’t forgive myself.”

“And I can’t forgive myself, either,” he admitted. “Why LA?”

“They’re making my script,” she said.

He sighed. “The same script that made this whole mess?”

“Yes, Tom but--”

“That’s just fucking great, y/n.”

“I-”

“No, you’re right, I should move on.” He hung up.

Tom laid down, staring at the window. The moon wasn’t there, neither the stars, only dark clouds. He really wished she hadn’t left. Because he was not going to search for her.

And y/n on the other side of the line wished he really hadn’t hung up, but she knew that it would make no sense on calling him. He had called her just as she had arrived at her aunt’s place, she hadn’t walked into her place yet and had sat on her suitcase as she talked to him. And she couldn’t believe it, she was crying outside a flower shop, with a suitcase and her backpack. The sun was about to set. How pathetic did she look?

So good for her new beginnings.

But she walked in, with barely any emotion left. She wished too she hadn’t left, but there was nothing she could do now, or was there?

Maybe she did want Tom to go and look for her, and she really wished he was as stubborn as usual, and she wished that he wouldn’t listen to her. It’s funny how they never said what they truly meant. Because y/n still felt guilty and that’s probably why she didn’t want to see him, because she feared she’d hurt him again. And y/n was angry, too. She’d done one thing wrong and all had blown up.

How many times had Tom hurt her? He had built it around that. Y/N still needed to heal that. Because even after everything, she was still aching. You know, you can never truly heal from a broken heart. Once your heart is broken, it can’t be mended again. The pieces never really set.

But when will she see him again? Maybe after this Tom didn’t want to see her. And this was her fault, she had left with no goodbye. And she wished she’d given him one last kiss, had she known the one she’d given him would be the last, she would’ve made it last longer. She would’ve treasured it.

And why had he said that? Didn’t he remember? Why and how everything happened? Because she had been hurt, too. But she still wanted him. And she had apologized but he hadn’t, and maybe he didn’t have to, but she wanted to hear an apology, and he hadn’t given it to her.

Why did they always put each other through hell? Why couldn’t she just forget her pride and forget everything and run back into his arms when that’s all she wanted. But she needed to protect her heart, let it heal. And let him heal, otherwise they’d end up in the same place. But they didn’t work, or did they?

That’s the only question y/n had, because they had New York, but it seemed like only part of their imagination, and sure, it had been perfect. But it was like they had ignored it. This was them, the yelling over the phone, the stupidity.

No, she wouldn’t pull any more perfidies and she knew Tom wouldn’t either, but she didn’t know if they could go through it again, she didn’t know if their love would foresee their pain, one can only ignore it for a while. And she knew they’d probably bring it back. Unless they healed, she knew that once Tom healed, he’d rather sleep alone. Because he would see it. Would she, though?

But she hadn’t left because she wanted to run away from him. She had left because there was a chance, and at least she could try to make the script something beautiful. Like they had, their love story. Turn the ugly things into good ones, turn the tears from sorrow into tears from laughter. It definitely wasn’t perfect, but it was theirs. And it probably had ended now all because she had left.

But then again, she really needed to make something beautiful out of that mess, and maybe this time, make sure Tom reads it until the end.

She feared Tom would move on, carry on. He had said it: ‘see other people’. She hadn’t even thought about that. She wouldn’t.

But she had to get him out of her head, she needed to see her aunt. She had decided to stay with her until Emma and Tim arrived, they’d look for an apartment for the three of them.

Was that wrong? Living with her ex? But nothing would happen, she knew that. Her heart only belonged to Tom.

How stupid it was, the sky had never looked so pretty. A perfect sunset that was the warm hug she needed. She needed a new beginning.

She wiped off the tears, and walked into the coffee and flower shop, y/n guessed that since it was in LA, it probably had to be more than flowers. A bell rang as soon as y/n had walked in, the smell of coffee and flowers filled up her nose, and the woman working on the counter looked up.

Auntie Eliza, she hadn't seen her in a while. The woman was what you’d expect from someone who owns a flower shop in Los Angeles. She wore long skirts, and her hair up in a messy bun, it seemed like the woman flowed, in a way, she seemed calm, and had bracelets and many earrings, and rings, many rings. So different from y/n’s mother who was a business woman and always very neat looking, but one could see the resemblance. The woman was gorgeous, no wonder Cherry looked like an actual model.

“Y/N, dear,” the woman grinned. “I’m glad you’re finally here!”

She approached her to give her a hug, and y/n only smiled.

“Have you been crying my dear?” She asked right away.

Sometimes it’s easier to let it out on a stranger than on people you’re closest with. They don’t judge. And though she was family, she was merely a stranger. She’d seen her just a few times, her mother and her were not that close and living in different countries.

But y/n never really liked to open to strangers. Or to anyone in general.

“I… No, not really,” she gulped. “I’m probably allergic to the… weather here in LA,” she lied. She looked around the shop, it looked like the perfect place to cry in, to find a new beginning in. It was… just the calm she needed after crying over the phone.

Her aunt laughed. “Oh, let’s hope not! I’ll show you your room in a bit, it’s upstairs if you want to go by yourself, second room to the right,” she said. “I’m glad you’re staying here for a few days, you could help me out with the shop,” she said. “It’s been a mess, really, since Cherry left.” her aunt said. “Let me…” She took out her phone. “I’m texting your mother to let her know you’re here already. How is she by the way?”

“Good, good,” y/n said. “Fine.”

“She told me you really needed a break,” She smiled, looking up. “So I’m going to assume your allergies come from said break you really need.”

Y/N gulped. “I-” She sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You haven’t changed,” Eliza laughed. “Still that same y/n that dresses up like you’re Marty McFly’s girlfriend.”

Y/N grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I guess,” she chuckled.

“I was about to close the shop,” Eliza said as she pranced around the room. “I was going to water the flowers and clean up,” she explained. “Are you too tired or would you mind helping me? It’s okay if you want to rest.”

“No, I’ll… help you.”

She gave her some

That had helped her. Get a little bit distracted at least. Somehow the flowers had her full attention. It was so nice. Except whenever she saw yellow flowers of course. That’s when it stung.

“These ones are pretty,” y/n pointed out as she was delicately touching the petals of some yellow flowers.

“Hm?” Eliza looked up. “Oh, the yellow chrysanthemum,” Eliza nodded. She then stared at her. “Why do you like them?”

“They’re yellow,” y/n said.

Eliza nodded. “Most yellow flowers mean joy,” she explained. “Not those ones, though. Those mean neglected love”

Y/N scoffed. “Leave it to me to find the only ones that mean something sad”

Aunt Eliza watched her. “Flowers speak for us,” she said. “This break will suit you, y/n,” she said. “Your mother told me what happened.”

“She did?” Y/N sighed. Her mother had told her yet nobody had really seen if she was okay. Maybe that was why y/n had run away, if nobody would care then she’d go to somewhere where she could be happy, at least. Or pretend to be, at least. “Funny, thought she didn’t know.”

“Yes, she did” Eliza nodded. “Don’t be hard on your mother, it’s her best friend’s sons we’re talking about, and Elaine was never good with comforting.”

Y/N nodded.

“And as far as I know, you’re not exactly the one to speak the most about your feelings,” Eliza commented.

“No, I don’t speak about them, I write them,” she said. “But that’s what led me to a mess. To do the worst thing I could’ve done, hurt the love of my life and push away my best friend.”

“But it also opened a door to Hollywood,” her aunt pointed out. She walked over. “The chrysanthemum, you know, no matter how sad its meaning is… they still make the sorrow pretty, don’t you think?”

Maybe it was pretty. Time to make her sorrow pretty. Yellow. Yellow meant joy and happiness and cheerfulness. Maybe it was time to change the meaning of yellow flowers.

But she wanted to go back to Tom. She wouldn’t carry on, though.

Tom who probably would move on, who would try to move on. Yes, he would try to. Because Tom couldn’t understand anything.

Tom thought maybe she was right, maybe y/n had robbed him of being happy, he thought about it, how he was always angry because of her. Because he couldn’t have her and when he had they fucked it all up. Except in New York, or Rome.

But that… hadn’t been them. And he wondered if something had gone different, where would it have led?

He looked at the daffodils and then at his phone, waiting for her to call again. She didn’t.

But he made the decision, he had to move on. She had made the decision for both of them, hadn’t she? Maybe she was right, maybe they needed to finally carry on. But he didn’t want to.

The next days were awful. And he kept waiting for another call. She never called him. But he wasn’t feeling alright.

Of course, he didn’t tell Harry, did Harry know? Was Harry aware that y/n was gone?

He didn’t tell Harrison. He talked to nobody. He didn’t want to explain it. Because this was pathetic.

He did go to the doctor, though, he didn’t understand what was going on. With his body, his mind, his heart.

“Your body's going through withdrawal from love. You got used to having this exchange of happy chemicals between you and the person you were with. And now it’s gone and it’s normal to have a physical reaction. You’re experiencing high levels of stress which releases cortisol in the body. You’re grieving, Tom.”

That’s what they had said. He felt stupid after going to the doctor. He hadn’t really believed it, when he had read it. Heartbreaks making him… sick?

How did he not see it? Y/N had said it, how she had gone to the doctor, too. Was this her plan? To make him feel like she had before?

The doctor had said: Let yourself feel, go out with friends. Keep yourself busy.

But he didn’t want to.

With his airpods plugged in the whole time, sad songs to make him even sadder. His heart was aching, because the girl he loved was gone. Because she had given up. He couldn’t stomach it. He did water the flower pot, though. Cherry had warned him they would dry out but that they’d end up blooming again, eventually.

Tom had been spending time with Cherry, the girl was nice. She searched for him, asking him to show her around the city. And for those few days, it kept him busy .It was nice to have someone out of the whole damn circle of hell. It was easier, in a way. Because Cherry didn’t judge him, and she didn’t ask awkward questions about y/n. A new friend, Cherry, she made him smile again, nothing else, she was so different, maybe because she was from outside his usual type of friends.

She was one of the few people that barely knew about Tom and y/n. She knew the whole: “Enemies” thing. But she was making him forget his sorrow. Because Cherry didn’t know about anything else but their childhood, before the yellow flowers.

“What happened with y/n?” She did ask, at one point.

“Nothing.”

“I’m no idiot, Tom, your flowers spoke, and hers did, too,” Cherry said.

Tom really couldn’t tell her. “We both hurt each other.”

“I can tell,” Cherry said. “Her yellow roses and tulips? She was asking for forgiveness.”

“Yellow flowers mean a lot to us, that’s it,” he admitted.

“And what flowers will mean something to us, then?” She had asked.

Tom didn’t even know what she meant by that. And honestly, didn’t know if he could care. His mind went back to y/n.

When things were simpler.

He missed y/n. That was something that he couldn’t help.

Had she stayed, what would’ve happened? Would they have just ignored it and ended up in between the sheets one Saturday evening with rain pouring down? Passionate kissing, with crescent moon shaped scars on his back. Sweat dripping down, and gentle moans, and sighs, and eye rolling toe curling movements. Exploring and memorizing each other’s bodies. Again, and again.

Ignoring everything that could happen and everything that had happened. Them from New York.

But maybe that’s what had saved them back then, not talking about who they really were, because they had ignored everything else in New York. Maybe y/n was right, New York wasn’t them. New York was a fantasy. A fantasy that Tom couldn’t keep out of his mind. But that was not them, not entirely.

This, their yelling, and the ignoring and the pride speaking was them, with problems and fights and ignoring each other. That’s who they were. He couldn’t deny it.

Maybe they were both. And he knew that one didn’t erase the other. But he knew that one was stronger.

But he loved y/n. And maybe her hope was gone, but she was still the love of his life, no matter how horrible this had gone , he could never love someone as much. And he could try. To move on; he had to go on. But how could he? If she was the only thing in his mind.

They hadn’t really tried, if he really thought about it, it’s like they had only had a trial. But now the years didn’t make sense, because even if they’d built up this, he couldn’t deny that they had built it upon insults, and hatred and broken hearts. Maybe she was right.

Did he have to move on? He didn’t want to. However, he knew… that maybe it was for the best.

He really didn’t want to move on, so he had called his agent, because maybe something could work out. And maybe it made no sense, but he could pretend he was okay. Maybe it was because he was greedy, or very stupid, but he wanted her to believe that fine, she had decided to leave, but that he’ll be fine.

He was fine, a nice song would be playing in the background. Believing he was the only one crying.

Was he, really?

Did she miss his lips as much as he missed hers? The dexterity that they’d both shown they could be able of. It was stupid, yelling at the wind for answers. And who else would she go kiss now? That’s what Tom feared, that she’d find somebody else. Or Timmy? Tom wasn’t prepared to see her move on. Because that’s what she’d asked him, to carry on. And though he would forget his sorrow for a few minutes when he was around Cherry, his mind would go back to y/n, and his heart would keep on aching.

But Tom knew he had to talk to Harry, and he went and searched for his brother. Harry hadn’t been talking to him. And Tom knew that if anybody understood y/n was Harry. Though Tom wasn’t as sure.

Tom felt different. All his life he had been told that he didn’t know y/n, but did he really not know her?

Not like Harry. Harry probably was the only person in the world that had learned to understand y/n. Except Tom knew, the only thing Harry had never understood about y/n was why she kept choosing Tom.

Harry had initially not wanted to talk to Tom. He truly didn’t want to. But he had agreed to see him. Their parents had been very careful around them, they were angry at Tom, understandable.

“She’s gone,” Tom said, after a while. They had been sitting outside their parents house, the treehouse only standing there as a reminder for Tom to ache even more. He felt it again, that pressing on his chest. “Left weeks ago.”

“I know,” Harry said, crossing his arms. “Found out the day she left,” Harry told him. “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Tom frowned. So Harry had gone to look out for her.

“I didn’t, either” Tom said. “It was too late.”

Harry shrugged.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said. The apology seemed simple but it carried too much weight. Tom had never been good at apologies, no matter how many times he had apologized to y/n throughout his whole life he’d never found a way to make them mean what he really meant.

Harry clenched his jaw. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“I’m pretty sure she left because of me,” Harry said.

And there it was, the way Harry understood y/n. The way Harry knew y/n head to toe, from the meaning behind her words and thoughts she could get. Spoken words and silences.

“Where did she go?” Harry asked. “I saw her before she left.”

Tom felt… different. Even Harry had come earlier. “What happened?” Tom asked, curiously.

“She initially didn’t want to see me, as if she was hiding from me. She felt guilty. And she-- She,” sighed. “I don’t know.”

Tom didn’t talk.

“I guess I wanted an answer,” Harry admitted. “I didn’t--I don’t know.”

“You still love her, right?”

Harry grimaced as he shifted in his seat. He gulped as he played with his phone. “I asked her what I could’ve done better. If in another lifetime it could’ve been me,” Harry said. “She didn’t have an answer.”

There was that fear Tom had always had, how selfish it was of Tom, he was so arrogant.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said again. “I know you are in love with her, and she is in love with you, but I couldn’t help but wonder, you know, the late nights, the laughing, the stories we made, the photographs hanging here and there. The way she knows me and the way I know her, and because the story was built up that way, you know? And now I’m here knowing I fucked it up, because now the weekends will come and she won’t be there, and I know that I’ll find something funny and I won’t be able to send it to her. I will have to watch those movies alone, and I don’t know… I don’t understand my heart,” Harry admitted. “Because I lost her forever, and I know that. And I… I read the script. And I know it, I need her, you know? It’s hard because what I feared the most was losing her friendship and now I don’t have anyone to talk with, she’s the only person I could trust on this, and I can’t believe I fucked it up so much by not thinking about her, about you. I shouldn’t have kissed her. Because maybe, seeing the story now it probably only meant that we were supposed to be friends.”

Tom felt guilty again.

“But you know, even.... Even if I wonder if she misses me, I know… I know that it’ll never be the way she feels about you, you know? And I don’t… want her, too.”

Tom looked away. “I can’t hide it anymore, Harry,” he said. “I know you love her and I spent my whole life trying to make her love you and I guess I never stopped to see how I felt, you know?”

Harry finally looked at his brother.

“And I know it, I’m stupid for doing that, but I still… now I saw it, I accepted it and I wanted it to work this time, and I know that this last time… I just wanted to erase everything I’ve done, but maybe y/n’s right we can’t really ignore who we are, and we can build it up from there and we can’t pretend it didn’t happen, but then she wrote me something and I saw it and… And Harry I...I know you loved her, but I am so in love with her, too and I… I couldn’t even tell her I was sorry, too.”

Harry kept quiet.

“I am so in love with her, and I can’t get why she left is she loves me, too.”

“She did one bad thing and it all blew up in her face, meanwhile you spent your entire life hurting her and no one really gave you shit for it,” Harry pointed out. “I understand why she left. I would’ve too.”

Tom frowned.

“I thought about it, how we didn’t… We were too busy with ourselves blaming it on her and we didn’t stop to see what we did wrong,” Harry continued. “I got angry at her for never telling me about her feelings but I never really said anything either, I got angry at her for not kissing me back when I shouldn’t have done it. Yes, you got angry at her for writing a script where she was taking revenge but you never stopped to think how much you’ve hurt her among the years, and how she’s doubted herself for her entire life because of every single comment you’ve directed her way,” Harry said. “I know y/n, but I still can’t figure that one out, how even after everything she decided to open her heart to you,” Harry scoffed. “I’m not trying to blame it on you, but-”

“I… hadn’t thought about that,” Tom admitted. “But why did she give up just now after we knew we could-”

“Now we both know how it feels to be rejected by y/n,” Harry joked. “Maybe you should read her script,” Harry said. “You’d understand it,” Harry nodded. “You’ve always said she never noticed, but she did, she was the only one to notice that you could have feelings for her.”

“I’m just--I don’t understand how she threw away all our progress, you know?”

“Was she the one to throw it out?” Harry questioned.

Tom frowned.

“Before the… incident,” Harry said. “She told me about the script,” Harry admitted. “And how she had no idea how to tell you, but that she wanted to, she was trying to find a way to tell you but you had already pushed her away.”

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then I exploded and did what I did best, hurt her.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you even know all of this?” TOm frowned.

Harry chuckled. “I’ve spent my whole life listening to her rant about you, she never understood you and… I read the script, Tom.”

“I just want to get her back,” Tom sighed.

“And I want Emma back,” Harry said. “But here we are both.”

“Emma, then?”

“Yes,” Harry sighed. “She’s the love of my life and I was stupid enough to get my heart be confused.”

Tom understood, though. He would’ve been confused. Tom himself had been confused about it.

“I guess when Emma threw the ring at my face, I thought--You can’t lose more, you know?” Harry sighed. “But it was stupid to think, I don’t know, I was broken hearted, I dunno, I think I searched for y/n because I was too broken hearted. It’s easy to look for some familiarity you know?”

Tom shrugged. “Dunno.”

“And now I’m… I miss Emma too much, and I can’t seem to deal with the heartbreak, I lost the love of my life and my best friend all in the matter of days,” Harry coughed. “I dunno.”

“So you don’t have feelings for y/n anymore?” Tom questioned.

“I don’t know, but even if I did that shouldn’t fucking stop you, Tom.”

“I-- You don’t mean that.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, because she was supposed to love you, and you love her.”

“I don’t miss her that much,” Tom lied. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to admit it. “How am I--- fuck, I do, and I’ve never felt this bad, I went to the doctor, and I… I still can’t,” Tom knew his voice was cracking and his fingers were shaking. “I just… For the first time, I know Harry, I know you loved her but--”

“No, no,” Harry shook his head. “I… I’d rather let her be happy with you.”

“But it doesn’t matter now, she left and fuck, it’s all shit right now,” Tom said. “And she didn’t accept my… I don’t know.”

“Well, go after her,” Harry frowned.

“She told me not to,” Tom gulped.

“You don’t know her at all, do you?” Harry shook his head. “You know, there’s a part of me that really wants to help you out with this. So my advice is go after her.”

Tom gulped. “I know her enough to know she really doesn’t want me to be there.”

Harry clenched his jaw. “How stupid would it be of me if I helped you get the girl?” He asked to the air, mostly to himself. “I could easily sabotage you, I won’t but… Do I want to help yet another guy get the girl I was in love with my whole life?”

Tom gulped. “I’m not asking for help,” Tom said.

“I know,” Harry said. “I wouldn’t do it for you,” he shrugged. “But maybe that would be my way of telling her I fucked up and that I’m sorry,” Harry groaned. “And if I make sure she knows I was the one to help you and then… If she’s with you, then I’ll be with Emma, and I know that’s the most selfish reason I could come up with but I--I don’t know.

Tom chuckled. “That’s the most selfless selfish thing one could do,” Tom shrugged.

“Where did she go?” Asked Harry. “If I know her enough she probably finally went to Greece, to start her Mamma Mia fantasy,” he laughed. “But guess I don’t know her anymore. And Emma’s gone, too.”

“Los Angeles,” Tom said. “They’re making her script,” Tom explained. “Emma is in LA, too, with Timmy.”

Harry looked up, hopeful. A ray of sunshine hit Harry.

“Tom you do realize that this is even easier than you thought?”

And it probably was, especially with Harry’s new plan or idea or whatever he was coming up with, but Tom really, wasn’t brilliant. Because maybe it was easy seeing it all from outside the problem. But Tom hadn’t been careful. Tom never stopped to see his actions.

And y/n, she really didn’t want to move on. She had continued to work at the shop in her free time, she liked to be surrounded by flowers. Learning its meaning and drinking coffee, making corrections to the script, helping her aunt.

Maybe it really was fine making her sorrow prettier, and she really was trying to keep herself busy, going out, having fun or pretending to have fun, with her new roommates, Tim and Emma.

Pretending to be fine. Not wanting to move on just yet. And she wouldn’t have made the decision to move on until she had seen it, and y/n thought about it, how she wasn’t the kind of flower that was popular among people, she wasn’t the type of flower that people knew the meaning to. And maybe she finally understood how it felt to finally die out of thirst.

Maybe y/n shouldn’t have gone back on social media, and maybe it had been a mistake to follow her cousin’s Instagram. She probably should’ve gone out with Tim and Emma instead. She wouldn’t have seen it, and realized that maybe Tom had let the flowers she’d given him dry out.

A picture of Cherry’s lips on Tom’s cheek had taken away the little hope y/n barely had. As if someone had drowned her in her room and there was no escape. Funnily enough, drowning and everything, y/n thought about it, maybe she was the kind of flower that people let die of thirst in an empty vase.

prologue next chapter perennial masterlist.

perfidy ( series masterlist)

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phoenix-manga · 4 years ago

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The Real Idols at VDC

Everyone was excited for the VDC, people who work in the media gathered at the purple stage venue to get a shot of two of the most popular models in Twisted Wonderland. The blonde -haired young man known for his beautiful yet professional attitude, Vil Schoenheit, and the black-haired boy with an adorable face that was rising in the ranks, Neige Leblanche.

The VDC was a one in a million for fans of both males, they were waiting to see what they will bring to the stage. The media only focused on those two, leaving the other participants in the shadows.

But maybe that’s a good thing, this way NRC and RSA will get the shock of their lives when certain students from an academy far off in the mountains would come and steal the spotlight from both of them.

A young lady with dark blue hair, tied in side ponytail with a feathered-crown, wearing a red, blue and yellow uniform was walking to the venue for rehearsals alongside another girl with short pinkish hair, she wore a ribbon with a crown on her head and wore a teal and dark green uniform. From around them, she kept hearing people gushing about who was going to win between Neige and Vil. With a frustrated sigh she looks at the colosseum with a look of mild annoyance.

Evonie: NRC and RSA really sure do love hogging the spotlight… I can barely remember the names of the other schools competing!

But I guess that’s just the reality of media… even though our school is a pro at these contests, people didn’t even mention DCA at all…

Allison: You sure are getting pumped up for the championship, aren’t yah Ev? Chill out, it’s not like it’s any different from our usual idol concerts at campus

It was an attempt at cooling down her dark-haired companion but it just made her more determined. As a student who was known for singing and dancing, it was expected for them to be kind of miffed if the people forget their school. But in Evonie’s case, being someone who held a seat as a top idol in DCA might have been a good reason.

The two reach the venue and shows a staff their stage pass, Allison can faintly hear the music from the person currently rehearsing. Everyone backstage was busy hyping themselves up for the competition, the sight alone sparks the Evonie’s competitive spirit.

She’ll make sure that the audience will know who the stage truly belongs to. When the person’s performance ended, a staff called their school, signaling that it was their turn to go on stage. Allison follows Evonie as they go towards the open stage onto an eager crowd.

Announcer: Next performer from Diamond Crown Academy, please enter the stage

Student A: Diamond Crown Academy?... That’s the all-girls school, right?

Student B: I know that school! That school is famous for the idol competitions on and off campus!

Student C: My sister was obsessed with one of the students of that school!

Student D: How could you not know DCA? They had a joint school festival for RSA and NRC! I was there!

The crowd was filled with murmurs and eventually they reached the ears of the NRC team. The first years held confused looks while their seniors were used to the murmuring around them, as if it was normal. From the looks of it, they seem to recognize one of the girls, Vil and Rook that is. Epel piped up and asked Rook what was the fuss all about.

Rook: DCA is an all-girls academy, although not as famous as RSA and NRC, they have an excellent reputation. The one thing that they’re famous for is their idol competitions… and it looks like we will be able to witness a spectacular show

I especially can’t wait to see how princess de pommes and lapin fougueux perform~ Her gaze carries an eternal fire, beaute!

Deuce: I haven’t heard of DCA… this is my first time hearing about them

Jamil: You freshmen only know about NRC and RSA… of course you wouldn’t know about that school…

Kalim: We know someone from that school! She’s a prin-

Jamil: You’re gonna start babbling, so shut it…

Ace: Are they really that good? Seems too good to be true, no one has said anything about DCA until now

Vil: Such uncultured potatoes, you don’t understand the standards of that academy… A variety of educational fields as well as the idol training is the hot topic amongst the girls back in Pyroxene. Although we are focused on taking down RSA’s representative, don’t underestimate them either

And the reason why we haven’t heard anything is because the audience was too busy talking about the battle between NRC and RSA, but there have been mentions of DCA in magicam.

Ace: I-Is that so?...

Rook: You’ll understand once you find out for yourself!

Vil isn’t one to give empty praises, they now know that DCA is something to consider. The first years decided to look to the stage, they will see what Vil meant when the students of DCA don’t joke around when it comes to contests like the VDC.

Announcer: Representative of Diamond Crown Academy will be performing an original song… Eternally Flickering Flame, please begin rehearsal!

youtube

The music started off with a loud blast of rock followed by a gothic symphony that captured everyone’s attention, Evonie sings the first lyrics with a loud yet harmonic tune, her movements are graceful with a hint of aggression.

When it was Allison’s turn to sing, she sang with so much energy and her dance, although not as graceful, was very cheerful and all over the place that made some of the people watching tap to the rhythm.

At the two of them were synchronized in their dance and their voices, although were a contrast, created a pleasing harmony. The first years were watching with wide-eyes, no wonder Vil said that they were not to be underestimated. They thought back to their strict training during the past weeks and they wondered how hard these girls trained to be able to give this performance.

It was already hard to sing and dance, but putting magic into the mix? That’s a new level of intensity.

Epel: I… can’t look away!

Deuce: They’re casting magic?! Usually, its at the end of the performance, but here they’re using it throughout the song!

Rook: You are yet to see the main event, mon ami~

At the climax of the song, Evonie and Allison’s rings glowed red and light blue as an orb of light went up the sky and a burst of magic created an illusion of a gloomy forest with black rabbits and flying bats around a silhouette of a crescent moon.

When a chime of a clock was heard, the illusion shatters the moon and it dissolves into the scenery to turn the dark colors of the forest into a red background of crystals and gemstones with black thorns growing from the ground.

They finish the song with a pose with the illusion around them creating an outstanding finish.

The crowd didn’t expect the use of magic to create effects, but it was mesmerizing to look at, all eyes were on them, faces in awe and mouths agape. When their performance ended and the illusion faded, a loud applause fills the venue as students cheered.

TV Staff: That performance gave me goosebumps!

Audience: Seems like DCA is going all out today, huh?

I thought the other performances were good but damn, DCA goes all out!

They’d win for sure!

Neige and Vil will be performing too, but I can’t help but admire DCA’s performance!

Evonie felt proud for some of the comments she hears as her and Allison exit the stage. As soon as every participant was done with rehearsals, the two decided to head to the food booth for a light snack before the performance. Evonie was quietly assessing the choices and thinking deeply on which would be better to eat and won’t make her feel like throwing up when she performs, while Allison was chewing on a chocolate bar.

Evonie was unaware of a small presence behind her until something grabbed her hand, she was startled by the sudden touch and looked to her side only to see one of the dwarves from the rehearsals. “Toby” was what his name was, looking at her with his goofy grin and asymmetric, purple hair.

Toby: Miss Evonie! Timmy is a huge fan of yours, and so am I! The flashy magic you put on stage was super cool!”

Timmy: T-Toby! Don’t rush at her like th-that! And why’d you have to tell her that I’m a fan?! So, embarrassing!!!!

Evonie was frozen, not in fear but in restraint. The dwarves were so cute and she was tempted to pick them up and hold them close to her like a plush. But that would be rude because they’re college students and they are NOT children even if they look like one. Allison was snickering and greeted the dwarves too.

Allison: Aww, Ev, you got a fan!

Evonie: I-I… uhh!

Toby still held her hand and was looking up at her with his doe eyes, it took almost all of her self-restraint to act professional with the dwarf.

Evonie: I-it’s an honor that you like my performances, I am thankful!

Toby: I’ve seen you in that one play about the six queens too! You looked so pretty! Do you wanna come with us to see our other friends? Dominic and the others saw your work too, oh but Gran is not into idols that much…

Timmy: T-Toby! We shouldn’t impose on her and besides, w-we need to stick together! M-Miss Evonie, it was nice meeting you but we need to leave!

Timmy grabs ahold of Toby who was pouting along the way as the two scampered off into the crowd, leaving Evonie behind. Evonie takes a deep breath while Allison looks at the crowd before facing her.

Allison: I don’t see any of my fans… boohoo, quit stealing all my potential fan members!

Evonie: If you had been taking the time to actually participate in SOME venues then you might have had one…

Allison: It isn’t my fault most of the performances they want is girly!

While they were bickering, they don’t notice a grim fight against an overblotted dorm leader was taking place in the colosseum.

[END]

#phnx #dca stories #dca #diamond crown academy #twst oc #twisted wonderland #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #ace trappola #deuce spade #jamil viper #kalim al asim #epel felmier #toby #timmy #rsa #royal sword academy

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hiyadarlingirl · 3 years ago

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Timothée x Zendaya slow burn

Synopsys: timothee and zendaya on the set of dune. Timothee develops a thing for Zendaya, but Zendaya is still with Tom Holland

Words: 1k

Warnings: none

Hello my loves,

Here is part 1 of a slow burn love story between timothee and zendaya. Hope you enjoy! Reblog and share if you want

Love ya a lottos! Kisses Murphy

“Timothée, are you awake?” A female voice sounded from far away. “Tim?” I blinked. A girl hang over me, smiling, curls crowning her face. Her skin glistened, little droplets of sweat scattered over her face. I wiped a hand across my own forehead, wet.

It was hot in the desert and I was not used to this kind of heat. She clearly was, her eyes were bright and awake, no sign of exhaustion or discomfort. I smiled at her. ‘Hi Zee’ ‘Are you alive? Stavros is making mint lemonade, do you want as well?’ “Yes please.” I replied and got my stiff limps to push myself up in a sitting position. She disappeared for a moment, then came back with a carafe and two glasses. She sat next to me, long legs stretched in front, ankles crossed. She was wearing a Greek dress, sand-colored, tied at one shoulder. Aphrodite, I thought but didn’t say it. Today was a resting day, no filming. I could’ve sat in my trailer, there was air conditioning inside but I had decided earlier that day to sit outside in the shade and read for a bit, after which I’d fallen asleep until Zendaya found me. I looked at her as she poured lemonade in a glass and handed it to me. My throat was dry and I felt dehydrated, this was heaven sent. The glass felt icy cold in my warm hand as I gulped it down in mere seconds.

This was not the first time we met but it was the first time we were alone together. I felt awkward and looked at her shyly for a brief moment while she elegantly took small sips as she looked over the vast plain of sand. I shouldn’t have chugged mine down like that, I thought. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt while coming up with things to say. She seemed more comfortable with the silence than I was.

‘Do you need help running over your lines?’

She looked at me and smiled. ‘No I think I got them down, it’s not that much I have to remember.’

‘Right.’ I nodded. Silence.

‘How are you handling the sweltering heat?’ I asked, not able to come up with a more interesting question. ‘Are you used to it yet?’

She laughed now, soft but genuine. ‘Sweltering… I love the words you use.’ She uncrossed her ankles and leaned back on her elbows. ‘I’ve been born and raised in California, the heat has become part of my DNA I think.’

I nodded. ‘Of course of course that makes sense’

‘You’re from new York right?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, I am, yes.’

‘I love new York’

‘You do?’

‘I really do yes, I love the hustle and bustle. I love the cold and snow in winter.’

‘Yea it’s great.’

‘Maybe I will move there someday in the near future, I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘What part.’

‘I don’t know yet.. haven’t been around enough to know the best places.’

‘You should visit after shooting, I’ll show you around.’

‘That’d be great, thanks’

Silence. She looked at her wrist where she wore an elegant rosé colored watch. ‘I promised to call my mum’ She said. ‘I’ll be right back okay?’ I nodded. She stood up and walked to her trailer. I contemplated whether to stay here. I had a starting headache and felt nauseous from the heat. I decided to head to the main tent. Jason and Javier were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, playing chess. I could tell Javier was losing by his contorted face and whispered cuss-words..

I sat next to them. ‘Timmy’ Javier mumbled without looking up.

‘How’s it going’ I asked.

‘That bastard is winning from me three times over.’ Javier growled.

It was Jason’s turn. Confidently he looked at the board for only a moment, then moved his bishop.

‘Tonto del culo Jason….’ Javier ran his hand through his hair. ‘I lost. Again.’

Jason laughed. ‘You shouldn’t have moved your knight, that was your first mistake.

‘Si, si.’ He raised his hands in defense. ‘Timothee, your turn.’

‘Ehhhh Im not good, really im not.’

‘You should learn.’ Jason said. ‘We’ll practice.’

Javier stood up and I took his place. We put the pieces back in their starting position and started playing. The first time I lost within five minutes. The second time it took him ten minutes and the third time we were still playing after fifteen minutes and he still hadn’t won. I was contemplating whether to trade my bishop for his rook when Zendaya walked in.

‘I was looking for you.’ She said, then realized I was concentrating. ‘Oh sorry.’

I looked up and smiled at her. ‘No worries.’

‘Can I play you after?’ She asked. I nodded, then tried to refocus on the game.

I traded my bishop for Jason’s rook but by doing so made a fatal mistake of forgetting to protect my queen and one minute later I lost the game.

Zendaya took Jasons place. ‘You any good?’ I asked. ‘Not at all she replied.’

We played. I won. We played again, I won again but got lucky, I had made many mistakes as I had trouble concentrating. Third time she was winning but her phone started ringing, breaking the silence.

‘I’m sorry, I gotta take this.’ She said and stood up. I nodded and looked at her back as she walked away.

‘Hi Tom.’ I could hear her say before she disappeared out of sight.

#zendaya x timothée #timothée imagine #timothée fanfic #timothëe chalamet fanfic #Timothëe chalamet x zendaya #Timothée and zendaya #dune #Zendaya and tom holland #tom holland x zendaya #tom holland x zen #dune fanfic

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years ago

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Deja Vu pt6

Hey guys! Surprise!! Have twenty pages of Dee picking a fight on TV. For those who are new around, [here’s] the first chapter and for those who need a refresher [here’s] the previous chapter!

Summary: Remus and Dee confront The Prince on live TV. Things go downhill rather quickly.

Word Count: 10447

TW: temporary character death, blood,

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

Remus is twenty-one and he thinks that people might not actually be worth saving at all.

There’s an electricity in the air, a buzzing so loud that he can almost taste it as he shifts his weight between his feet. There are so many people around him, nearly too many, packed together like sardines in all the crevices that they can fit. Remus wants so badly to kick his leg out just to see if with one nudge he could toppled the human domino train down all the way, but Dee gives his hand a small, gentle squeeze.

His hand is warm, his touch intoxicating in a way that no drug could ever hope to be. Remus has felt it before, in futures that never happened, but it still feels unreal as it's going on. He thinks maybe, possibly that he’s stuck right now, right this second and that his real body is somewhere else bleeding out on the ground.

But he also thinks, traitorously, stupidly, suicidally, that he doesn’t mind as long as he gets to keep feeling Dee’s hand in his right now.

Dee’s touch is featherlight, but Remus is hyperaware of every atom in his body at these moments: Dee goes on to talk about so many things, but Remus’s brain only hears touch, warmth, Dee, Dee, Dee. And the Shapeshifter has to say his name at least four times before Remus realizes that time is passing and he’s not passing with it.

It should be annoying-- Remus thinks that Roman would have tried throttling him by now--but Dee just gives him a wispy, honeyed smile and does it again, like seeing Remus short circuit is somehow the best sight in the world.

Which is sweet, sugary, splendid. It might even mean that Dee intends to stick around after those feelings fade away to the bitter acquired taste that is Remus’s company after a year. So very few people ever got past that: the kids at school had flocked to Roman’s cotton candy exterior and had eaten him all up and then got burned when they mistakenly thought that Remus was anything like his twin outside his face.

(He wonders even now if Roman still shares that face with him. Did he dye his hair? Get piercings? Or did he cover his mirrors so he wouldn’t have to remember Remus existed at all? Does Roman think about Remus nearly as much as Remus thinks about Roman?)

Oh wait, Remus knows the answer to that last one.

Dee squeezes his hand again, even without looking. He insisted on dressing presentably today: shining shoes and one of his new suits tailored to his exact size and a flattering face that just screams trust me with all your finances, I won’t rob you blind, Grannie! When they were getting their coffees, the woman in front of them had called him a gentleman and Remus almost choked on his drink at that. A pretty face, a kind gesture, a mask and Dee wore his like a skin walking alien and no one was any wiser about it. Except Remus.

He reaches over and steals Dee’s latte from his hand. Dee tenses, then relaxes and watches with an amused smile as Remus sniffs it.

“Not nearly enough vodka in this,” he decides and Dee laughs.

“Ah, yes, because the girl at the counter is surely old enough to be serving alcohol,” Dee says. “And the last thing I want to do is be on TV drunk.”

His nose scrunches up at the detestable thought, but Remus thinks it’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Dee? On TV? With no inhibitions? Remus listened to his late-night rambles on the flaws of society when there was nothing but sleep deprivation weighing on their souls and Remus was moved enough to find himself here today. There was something about his honesty, his psychological approaches, his confidence, that made him so trustworthy. He was a leader at heart and Remus was happy to follow him, even if it meant going right off a cliff.

(Not like he hadn’t done that a time or fifty before. And besides, Dee could grow wings if he wanted. He’d catch both of them and fly them to safety.)

“A dash of vodka is just liquid courage,” Remus says.

Dee turns his green eyes on him, the light through the window making sparkles in his irises, or maybe that’s just Dee doing subtle magic of his own. Whatever it was Remus decides he doesn’t ever want to look away again. Dee's eyes are priceless; Remus wouldn’t be surprised if Dee had stolen a hundred jadeite stones and shoved them in his eyes for safekeeping.

“Who needs liquid courage--” Dee says “--when I have you?”

Remus tips back Dee’s latte and slurps it so that his tongue burns right out of his mouth, because then at least there’s a reason for the mortifying smoldering all over his face. Dee reaches up and rubs the pad of his thumb over Remus’s cheek, tickling his mustache ever so slightly and laughs again.

“Darling,” he says. “You’re too easy.”

“You going to do something about it?” Remus challenges. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it right here, over this table, you know. Might wanna make sure little Timmy over there is covering his eyes first though. He doesn’t need his awakening until a few more years down the line.”

They’re close enough to the other customers that an elder woman with a pocket dog in her purse gives him a glare and a teenage girl in a sweater turns bright pink and stares out the window just a bit too hard. There’s a good chance that Remus could get both of them to do something more, but before he can open his mouth again, Dee is leaning in.

He’s using his usual height today, which means that Remus is just a bit taller, but Dee makes those three inches feel like hairbreadths. His breath is warm on Remus’s neck, and it sends shivers down his back when the phantom feeling brushes over his skin. He smells like cardamom, and Remus’s mouth freezes, his words long lost and forgotten in the prospect of Dee saying literally anything at all.

But in the end Dee just wordlessly hums and drops back to his flat foot.

It takes Remus a whole second to remember how to breathe. And another to realize that Dee took back his latte and was drinking it like he was entirely unaware of what he had just done to Remus, except that his lips slip off the rim on his cup and they’re curled upwards in that absolutely sensual smirk of his.

“It’s almost time,” the shapeshifter says moving on casually while Remus tries not to let his brain melt right out of his ears. “I should go get into place.” He peeks at Remus and glances away just as quickly. “You…you’re sure that you’re alright to do this, Remus? You don’t have to if it will hurt you.”

Remus wonders vainly if Dee was aware that the term “Martyr” was engraved on his ribcage, imprinted on his heart, seared into his soul. If there was ever a choice between himself and someone else getting hurt, Remus wouldn’t hesitate, and he never had. If Roman had ever looked, like truly looked, he might have noticed that, and then maybe things would have turned out even marginally different. But this time around, Remus nods at Dee and squeezes his hand back so hard that his fingers lose their blood flow.

“It’s not gonna hurt me,” Remus says, which might be a lie and not even a believable one, but they both pretend. “Besides, this means something to you, doesn’t it?”

Dee’s shoulders tense, and resettle, as if he’s reminding himself that Remus is not a threat. He licks his lips, chasing after the taste of espresso. “It does,” he says and it shouldn’t feel like Dee is telling him some big surprise secret, because they spent the past three days planning this whole thing out on the floor of their hotel room while Remus rolled that casino coin between his fingers and thought about how Dee’s hair looks soft and fluffy when he’s just waking up.

“Remus…” Dee starts. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet. About me. And… this.”

Whatever this is. He’s hesitating again, hovering like he’s on top of a fence topped with barbed wire and he knows that he needs to pick a side but can’t quite decide which side will hurt less: the spikes or the lava? Remus shakes away the unneeded thoughts to focus in on the trepidation in Dee’s expression, but as soon as he zeroes in on it, Dee smooths it out.

“Timing,” he says almost as if to himself. Then, “I’ll tell you after we do this. I owe… I owe you that much.”

Remus doesn’t think there’s a single thing that Dee could ever owe him at all. Not when Dee pulled his bleeding body off the balcony, not when Dee kissed him with all the tenderness in the world, not when Dee stayed with him in the face of literally everything. Dee can’t possibly owe him anything when Remus is the one standing here with a power that’s not even helpful unless it’s killing Remus, and Dee is out here trying to save lives with what he has.

But Remus is decently sure that if he opens his mouth to say any of that, what will come out will be something undoubtedly more emotional than they have time for and will probably scare Dee away entirely: a love confession, a proposal, matching headstones for their graves that they’ll probably be in much sooner than either of them would like.

“And Remus?” Dee says, like he doesn’t notice that he’s literally the only thing that matters in Remus’s little world. He gives Remus’s hand another meaningful squeeze. Then he pops up on his toes to brush a kiss to his cheek in a way that makes Remus feel like a middle school girl in a catholic school discovering how attractive boys are for the first time.

His heart beats so hard he thinks he can taste it around the coffee and whatever the hell it is that Dee tastes like.

“Thank you,” Dee says with sincerity.

“If we were characters in a book, this is the part where right before the author kills you off for dramatic effect.” Remus reaches out and clinks his cup with Dee’s. “Don’t make it that easy.”

Dee snorts in that very dignified way of his. “Of course, what was I thinking? My apologies. Here I was, assuming that the soothsayer might be able to help me to cheat Death but apparently I was mistaken.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right there in your ear, Despacito,” Remus says pointing towards the earpiece he’s wearing. “You won’t be able to get me out of your mind even if you wanted me to!”

Dee smiles, quick and wonderful and Remus drinks in the sight like it’s the newest liquid craze, better than the latte in Dee’s hands, or the ice coffee in his own, or fresh drinking water in the middle of the desert. Dee’s hand drip, drip, drips right out of Remus’s, although the atoms in his fingers don’t stop tingling with sensation.

“I look forward to it,” Dee says as final parting and then he weaves his way out of the café. Remus bites his plastic straw and follows with his eyes until he can’t anymore. The people around them move out of the way for him because Dee gives off that aura of someone important and no one wants to be caught dead getting dirt on his freshly polished oxfords.

For all their planning, Remus still feels a little nervous with everything going on. They gathered as much information as they could about the day: the new registration office was being set up in a public library as a temporary location and it was closed for activity outside of the registration. Remus took particular pleasure in reading the heartwarming amount of public backlash about that from regular people who just really liked the library for some reason. The building is a lucky four stories tall-- which Remus thinks is nice. The library back in his hometown was two, poorly funded, and he’d been banned from visiting when he was ten because he’d seen the old librarian fall off a ladder and tried to help her by grabbing which did not go over remotely well.

The street is casual: a bunch of modern buildings with local shops and boutiques. Dee got sidetracked two days ago picking out new shoes from a window display and chatting with the owner who surprisingly was very informative.

“The Prince? My niece thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” the older woman said while packing up a pair of single strap monks.

“Oh?” Dee said conversationally which made Remus look up from where he was flicking through a rack of sun dresses.

“I think he has a few screws loose,” the woman said. “No child his age should be running around in a costume like that. He’s just inviting danger to himself, not to mention those around him. In fact, Linda-- you know Linda right? She owns the chocolatiering place on fourth street? It’s got lovely chocolate strawberries-- Linda said over our weekly tea that if she got the chance, she would punch him in the face!" the woman chuckled. "But I don't blame her at all. All this nonsense about super powers and abilities and someone might start looking twice at how her baby girl can get any animal to eat out of her hand."

Dee raised an eyebrow. And the lady waved off his unasked question.

"Magic ability or pure coincidence! I don't care about any of that! If that FBE comes knocking on Linda's door the whole group of us shop owners are ready to stand up against them. Linda’s little girl belongs right here with her family and not anywhere near some secret government building or on some watchlist like a criminal!"

They left after that and paid a visit to the chocolate shop on fourth street. And what do you know, the little shop received a generous cash award from a lesser known chocolate secret society group thing. Remus doesn't remember the actual name Dee used, but he does remember that they were selling dinosaur shaped chocolates and he bought a box just so he could bite the heads off all of them.

The main street leading to the library-turned-registration office was closed off completely and marked that way with crowd control fences, which might have been for the best. In just the two days leading up to the grand opening, the city’s population seemed to have doubled. Remus was moderately amused by it, watching from the window of their hotel room: people came from the woodwork, springing into the city with the rigour of a bunch of busy ants who were so completely unaware of the exterminator coming.

Dee didn’t let him try looking to the future more than a few times and to be very ridiculously honest, Remus is kinda grateful for it. Every time he looks he feels something off about himself, something he can’t put a name to, something he can’t put a finger on. It just seems that one minute he’s fine and the next he’s hacking up blood.

Which by the way, means he’s dying according to WebMD and Google. Remus doesn’t let Dee see the worst of it, but the nosebleeds are stronger, and Dee’s not exactly stupid. He can tell that Remus is using more tissues, that he’s holding them to his face longer, that he’s pale and tired and his hands are colder to the touch.

They don’t talk about it. Not really.

They should.

But if there’s one thing that Remus’s mother taught him, it’s that if you avoid talking about something for long enough it will disappear and you’ll forget about it.

Perhaps the biggest thorn in their sides-- both of their sides and their lungs and the back of their necks right through the medulas killing them instantly-- is the charming Prince himself! The character seems to be everywhere and nowhere all at once: the news has him stopping burglaries and home invasions up and down the east coast, calming down violent criminals, and helping little old ladies cross the street, and flashing his award-winning, crowd-hypnotising smile at the cameras. And yet for all the several hours worth of footage that Dee and him had scoured through, neither of them can quite figure out what The Prince’s power is.

It’s mental, at least. Something to do with information based on what Remus can come up with. He can tell from the way that the guy reacts in the middle of any confrontation: there’s a moment where green lights flash in his eyes, flickering so quickly it might have been a trick of the camera if Remus hadn’t caught it so many times on so many different occasions. One moment he’s acting one way, the next he’s changing course entirely, moving or stopping or avoiding. Like he knows what’s going to happen.

Like he can see the future.

But somehow he avoided all the fun nosebleeds and the feeling of death over his shoulder. Like maybe when his power manifested people actually believed him! Like maybe his friends didn’t shove him away and maybe his mother loved him and maybe he stayed home and watched Disney movies with his brother all night when they were seventeen instead of letting him go to a party where everything went wrong.

Remus’s hands shook far more than they had any right to when he first made the connection, first made the comment, first made the joke out loud for Dee to laugh at without pay attention to what he was actually saying. Then he dry heaved into a trash can for fifteen minutes while Dee rubbed his back and pointedly waited for an explanation that Remus didn’t give him because Roman is nothing and no one and he doesn’t matter when Remus has Dee.

“Perhaps he’s a mind reader,” Dee suggested.

Whatever he ends up being, Remus decides that The Prince better hope he figures out some shit with Dee. Because if Remus has to enter the ring, he doesn’t think the Prince will be leaving it in anything other than a body bag.

“You seem very… invested in him,” Dee said when Remus told him as much over a breakfast of french toast and eggs at a dinner where the waitress didn’t tell them to stop making out in any flickers of the future he blinked at. Dee was choosing his words carefully. Too carefully.

“His face is very punchable,” Remus said, squeezing ketchup in his orange juice. “I’m surprised no one else sees it! Don’t you just get filled with rage when you look at him?”

The way Dee blinked said a lot, but Remus pretended not to notice as he used a straw to stir his drink and poured a bit of syrup in too. For flavor and fun. Dee doesn’t say anything more on the topic, and Remus doesn’t ask because he gets the feeling Dee will tell him the truth if he does.

And Remus doesn’t think that this is a truth that Dee wants to tell right now.

Maybe later. After Dee’s dragged the Propaganda Prince from his golden pedestal and Remus has had his fun in the mix. After they stop the FBE from their nefarious plans. After.

Remus tastes the word in his mouth and he’s not sure why it feels so foreign to him. It’s a strange mixture of bitter and unforgettable, of sweet and strange, of something he’s never tried before and might never get to taste again.

It’s better than blood. Less red too.

Remus taps his foot as he watches out the window of the coffee shop. There are a lot of people inside here and he’s not sure how many of them are regulars compared to how many of them want to just watch the possible freaks that have to walk down the street and enter the building pretending like they can’t feel all the world watching them do it.

Remus isn’t even one of the suckers doing it, but he can understand how it might make someone queasy. The number of eyes looking, watching, remembering them is something of a curse; the cameras are blatantly obvious and the gawking of the other people is unignorable. If things were different, Remus wonders if he might have been nervous about this, about entering the building, about taking a step out of line and telling the whole world what he could do.

It was supposed to be a secret, right? At least that’s what his mother had always encouraged him to believe. She told him to stop talking, to stop crying, to shut up and pretend nothing was happening, smile at the cashier, Remus, but don’t tell her that you can see her tripping over her shoe laces and cracking her head on the floor. When people asked his mother how her children were, she never had enough to say about Roman’s achievements.

Remus sticks his straw all the way in his mouth until it pokes his uvula and his eyes water.

She tried.

And in the end it wasn’t enough, isn’t enough, because now she talked so much about Roman that she didn’t even remember that he existed anymore. He’s grown up and she’s still the same.

He wonders if she would even recognize him if they passed each other on the street.

Something to think about. Perhaps he can convince Dee to take a trip with him to the other side of the country, to his hometown, to his old neighborhood. He’s sure that by now they have enough cash for a couple dozen eggs that belong on the outside of his old two story suburban house. After all this, after they save the day, after they put Princey boy in his place. After.

The clock on his phone ticks down, and Remus feels like his chest is going to explode if his heart gets any faster. The FBE registration office opens at ten a.m. and he’s not entirely certain the world will still be standing by ten oh five, but that’s what makes everything fun, isn’t it?

The coffee shop customers shuffle and move like a complex organism trying to rip itself apart but never quite managing it. Outside there are more people, pressed together, close enough to be touching, to be talking, to be nervous and excited and emotional. Camera flashes go off, news crews stand in the middle of the street with microphones interviewing the normal people who are treating this like a festival or a parade rather than the thinly veiled death threat it is.

They’re packed so closely together that Remus has a hard time seeing over their heads, and peeking at the temporary stage that’s been set up in front of the entrance to the library. There’s a podium on it, though, and decorations of a brilliant red, white, and blue, along with speakers and microphones being tested for the brilliant speech that the Prince is going to give for his adoring fans. There’s security and police patrolling everywhere, news crews and reporters and civilians watching with bated breath as the time draws near.

Part of Remus wants to wonder why here, why now, why did the Prince choose to come cross country out of the blue like this? Surely he could get just as much adoration from his fans in New York.

There must have been something that happened on the East Coast that drove him out here. Bad publicity that might make him look bad-- for a moment Remus entertains the idea that the Superhero managed to kill someone and now the FBE was graciously covering it up and sending him to Oregon so that he stays out of the way, stays out of trouble.

Too bad for him; Remus and Dee had claimed this part of the country as their own playground and they brought nothing but trouble with them.

Dee would take extra special delight in taking a bat to the Prince’s glass house reputation if the man let him. Remus would take extra special delight in watching Dee do it.

Remus tapped the screen of his phone again, checking the time. Dee should be in place by now, hiding among the normal people, slipping between the patrolling law enforcers, and plotting the best place to be in order to make his grand entrance.

((It was adorable watching Dee figure out what he wanted it to be: the man curled up in a sweatshirt with hair still wet from his shower and chewing the end of a pencil in between spitballing ideas at Remus. His eyes seemed to glow when he got excited, and they were hypnotizing to look at, swirling with all the colors: grey blue, jade, hazel, silver. Whenever he liked an idea he scribbled it down on a piece of paper and smiled with his fangs out and Remus had to resist the urge to kiss him again, lest they fall behind in their planning phase due to an excessive make out session.))

In the end, planning this whole thing wasn’t all that much different from their other heists: the casino where they met, the fancy banks, the jewelry stores, a privately owned winery. There was less of Remus looking at the future, true, but that just meant that they spent more time lying next to each other scouring the internet on their individual phones for relevant information and eating chocolate dinosaurs.

The clock strikes thirty-till ten and the whole world seems to hold its breath. Remus can feel it, the way the air holds itself and suddenly the whole coffeeshop, the patrons, the cashiers and the machines go quiet with anticipation.

“There!” yells a kid from a window seat, covered in chocolate from a partially devoured muffin and bouncing on the cushion. He presses both his hands to the cleaned window, as if he can phase right through it if he pushes himself hard enough. “There! It’s a car!”

“Where? I wanna see!”

“Is it The Prince?”

“The Prince! Move I want to see!”

Remus barely has time to brace himself before there are people pressing up against him, strangers shoving and pushing and yelling and trying to get to the window to see exactly what is going on. Remus himself leaves a nice face print to the glass that he suspects the long suffering employees are going to have blast cleaning later.

Assuming that the shop is still standing after all this.

Someone’s elbow goes into Remus’s spine and for a second Remus blinks and there’s a guy standing over him, pressing a hand to his pulse, and the manager at the front desk of their hotel is screaming again. Remus hisses out a harsh breath that fogs up the window and scrubs the thought, the concept, the memory from his mind. Because he’s not dead, he’s not dying, he’s not on the hood of a car. And the last thing he needs is to forget that.

The car that the kid had pointed out was actually a caravan of cars: black nondescript SUVs with tinted windows and tires thick enough to be bulletproof. The type of cars celebrities and CEOs and politicians ride around in when their limos are being deep cleaned. The crowd blockers leave more than enough room for the cars to parade through the street right to the stage. Someone outside even sets off a confetti cannon so it rains red and gold and white paper through the air.

Remus grinds his morals together and shoves himself backwards, knocking into about six more people who are swarming for his spot so quickly, so frantically, so vehemently, that Remus doesn’t actually make out any of their faces or forms or bodies. The whole shop was swarmed with people, but now all the bodies were pressed against the street windows and Remus thinks if they were on a boat, they would have capsized. He tugs the front of his leather jacket to straighten it and elbows his way through the front doors and out into the street.

Outside it’s not much easier to see anything. The cheering crowd is the most annoying thing ever. Although the hand made signs people are waving are a close second. Remus fights the urge to knock several of them out of people’s hands because the crowd control are watching like hawks and--

-- “HEY! HEY!” one of the uniformed guys yells at him. Remus flips him the bird, and because he’s so busy laughing at the guy he misses the sign holder’s left fist coming for his face.--

-- “HEY! HEY!” one of the uniformed guys yells at him. Remus flips him the bird, and because Remus knows better now he manages to dodge the incoming fist and drive his elbow up under his attacker’s guard and right into his diaphragm. There’s an exhilarating feeling flowing through him as the crowd around him jostles and shouts and falls to chaos in a way that completely derails the plan Dee worked so hard to put together.--

--Remus tears himself back to the present, stumbling slightly over a swaying ground. He coughs into his fist as his body is checked by a passerby into the outside wall of the coffee shop. There are flecks of red, so small Remus wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t looking for them. That’s good, that’s great, that’s fine.

He’s fine.

The crowd pulses and the volume of dissonant cheering increases tenfold. Remus wipes his hand on his thigh and looks up to see over through the crowd for what was happening, although he already has a good idea. The cars must have completed their slow circuit and the doors of one of them must have popped open for the guest of honor to step out.

Another burst of confetti shoots out filling the air with white pieces of paper that almost look like snow. Remus ignores them mostly as he slips through the crowd in ways that his body probably shouldn’t be able to move: under an elbow here, passing a shoulder there, winking at the college student his face is three inches from as he scoots between him and an older woman with a crying child on her hip. He feels his spine crack more than he hears it as he moves.

He makes it to the crowd barriers with an impressive number of bruises, a bit of coffee from an off balanced teenager, and a scrap where someone hit him with one of those stupid signs. He’s close enough to the stage that his skin itches, that his throat burns, that his toes curl; the Prince isn’t even looking his way but Remus thinks that the white of his super suit would look excellent covered in his blood. There’s a rapier at his side that glistens in the sunlight, silver and shining and ready for use although Remus has yet to see him actually use it as a weapon rather than a fancy prop.

The Prince is an actor on a stage waving to his fans, a red herring meant to distract everyone from the implications of the FBE headquarters right behind him. He blows a kiss to the crowd and Remus gets the urge to punch his face again.

Instead he presses up against the barrier wall, hooking his arms around the metal bars to hold himself in place and watches with his tongue in his cheek. He nods at the techie standing on the other side: a guy with hefty headphones, bright purple hair, and a mouth mask with an anime character on it from a show Remus vaguely recognizes. The guy squints at him suspiciously for a moment but ultimately just shrugs and goes back to writing something in a pocket notebook and leaning against the side of a News Crew van he presumably works for.

On stage, The Prince approaches the podium waving still and smiling twice as broadly as before. Remus isn’t sure how anyone can look at him and think “safety” when his charming show of teeth also makes it look like his mouth was going to split his entire head open. A police line-up stands along the wings of the stage, like he’s a real prince about to address a nation.

Someone Remus doesn’t recognize is also on the stage in a suit. The Prince grins and shakes the guys hand like they’re old friends. They pose for a camera flash for a moment, sharing a laugh that can’t possibly be that funny, and the new techie rolls his eyes so hard his head shakes. Another person from the crew joins him standing side-by-side and they share a short conversation that leaves the one with the headphones glaring.

The guy on stage claps The Prince on the back and offers him the podium with microphones before stepping back clapping enthusiastically.

Remus thinks boredly that it would have been funnier if Dee were up there, dressed up in a stranger’s skin and stepping back only so that The Prince never gets to see the knife Dee shoves in his neck. But Remus knows Dee better than that; he’d never kill, and he'd definitely never deliver a fatal blow when his victim didn’t know his name.

(Remus wonders distantly, when he realized how much names meant to Dee. Was it before Dee offered up his name at that casino? Or later when Dee was breathing into Remus’s mouth and Remus was trying to figure out what was wrong with himself? Dee wanted people to know his name, wanted people to remember him when he left, wanted them to recognize him-- but he also didn’t and Remus isn’t sure how to solve that puzzle yet so he sticks it in the back of his mind to work on when its just the two of them alone in a hotel room in the dark.)

The Prince winks to someone in the crowd and finishes his last wave. Remus glances back at the line of SUVs but no one else comes out of them-- which isn’t that weird? Remus seems to recall the Prince being very specific that he had a team and a partner and yet he’s up there all alone receiving all the glory.

Of course they could just be shy, but based on how little information there actually is about the team and partner existing, Remus thinks that maybe it’s a farce meant to placate children’s dreams of being on a super team with their super hero!

(Remus is not alone in this thinking either. Dee’s favorite website called AnxiTEA has several dozen articles written about how The Prince sucks and that he’s just doing all this for publicity and recognition-- along with a carefully worded warning that if The Prince begins losing either of those things, he’s most likely going to become feral and turn on them all.)

Remus adjusts the earpiece in his ear just as The Prince opens his mouth to start off that particularly exciting, bold, inspiring speech of his. But before he gets more than a syllable out, a shadow floods from overhead.

The crowd collectively gasps and screams, spreading apart in every which direction; Remus lets out a hefty groan as the guy next to him bowls into his shoulder and he nearly flings over the fence. The techie on the other side drops his little notebook in shock, and his friend pulls out a phone immediately.

The shadow sweeps downward through the air like the largest bird in history. Remus laughs as he watches, Dee’s wings glisten with black wings that glisten yellow when the sun reflects off them. In fact just watching him, Remus has a hard time believing that Dee didn’t grow up with wings attached to his back. He makes floating and flying and landing look graceful, ethereal, easy and breathless and exhilarating. Dee lands on the stage due left of The Prince, safely with his knees bent to absorb the shock. When he stands back up, his blond hair flows slightly in the kickback wind and his trustable dark eyes sparkle.

(He went with the black and yellow color scheme. That had been Remus’s favorite option. The black of his suit makes the shimmers of gold look expensive, dangerous, and untouchable. Although, Remus is a little biased on the front that he always thinks Dee looks dangerous and untouchable. He’s a caution sign, a warning, and Remus can’t wait for The Prince to ignore it.)

“Hello,” Dee says and Remus thinks he can hear his barely concealed laughter over all the crowd's confused chaos. The police line behind The Prince lurch into movement at the sound of his voice, but the hero himself throws out an arm and stops them where they stand with hands on their tasers.

Dee raises an eyebrow, a polite expression on his face. And the Prince mirrors him.

“Oh wonderful!” the hero says in a confident tone, in a reassuring tone, in a placating tone that tells the audiences watching that there’s nothing to fear from the black winged Angel that just descended down on them like a herald of Death. Dee’s eyes shine with amusement that Remus can pick out even from over here. “Another friend like me!”

The Prince offers a hand to Dee, a handshake. Remus digs his teeth into his tongue as he watches Dee take it from above, like he’s royalty allowing the poor publicity prince to greet him.

“Not quite like you, my dear Prince,” Dee says. “If the wings weren’t a dead give away already.”

The Prince’s lips tighten. Remus thinks that his expression screams “calculating”. He looks at Dee like he’s still trying to figure out if he’s a friend or foe, and Dee’s body language offers no hints at all.

Or well, maybe a few hints. Remus can see it, because he can see Dee: the tilt of his head is a challenge, the light in his eyes is condescending, the openness of his body facing the crowd speaks in volume of who he’s actually there for. Remus can read every bit of Dee and it sends a shiver down his back to realize.

The crowd bobs and murmurs, unsure of what to do with the surprise visitation. Several camera flashes go off like someone is trying to prove to themselves that the wings are real. The techie on the other side of the barrier reaches up and hooks a finger over his mouth mask as if he’s debating ripping it off to breathe easier. Remus digs his chin into the metal bars of the crowd barrier and wishes he had some popcorn.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Prince,” Dee says silky smooth.

“Good things I hope,” The Prince says back. “I would love to sit down and have a conversation with a fan as elegant as yourself, but I really must be getting back on schedule. I’d be happy to sign somethin--”

Dee laughs pleasantly, although Remus thinks he should be swinging to dislodge the superheroes head from his neck.

“You are a riot!” Dee takes a few steps forward. “You think I’m up here to get your autograph?”

The Prince’s eyes narrow slightly. “Aren’t you?”

Dee flexes his wings just as slightly, letting them shimmer so beautifully for the crowd up front to see. “Oh no. I must confess I’m not much of a fan at all. I’d really much rather skip to the debate portion of this.”

“The debate,” The Prince repeats like he hasn’t ever heard the word before. Remus half expects him to snap at that guy behind him to offer up a dictionary so he can read the Webster definition before he responds. But in the end the Prince merely moves his arm back and settles his right hand on the hilt of his rapier.

“I’ve been fascinated by you, Prince,” Dee continues, gliding around him and stretching his wings so that the police line is forced to take another step back or get bumped. Dee circles the hero much like a snake starting to coil around its prey before the final strike. He’s slow and methodical and Remus doesn’t think anyone can look away from him. He knows he can’t. “They call you a superhero. The first real life one to walk the streets.”

The Prince follows Dee’s motions with his head. “I have no control over what the media says.”

Dee gives him another condescending look. Remus thinks it’s eerily similar to the ones that his teachers used to give him when Remus insisted that the other kids shoved him on the playground when he did nothing to them first.

“Of course you don’t,” Dee says. “The media can be rather misleading at times. After all they said that my way of handling an out of control child with an arbitrary grasp on fire was fallible. Incorrect. Deplorable.” Dee stops just over the Prince’s left shoulder and tilts his head. “Villainous.”

The Prince blinks, stiffening.

“Oh,” he says. “You were the one at the mall. In Idaho.”

“Yes,” Dee says. “And if I had done nothing, that child would have continued to operate under the impression that killing is an acceptable punishment for petty thievery. And yet I’ve received nothing but bad press, criticisms, insults for what I did while you get praise and recognition from your… adoring fans. I would say that’s quite unfair don’t you think?”

The Prince’s nose twitches. Remus watches his hand on his rapier tighten, but he refrains from drawing and making the first blow in front of a billion witnesses. The cameras couldn’t draw away even if they tried.

“Perhaps if you had tried talking first, rather than jumping straight to violence--”

Dee tuts and presses a hand to his chest. “I so do love how much you know about what happened there! With all the completely accurate information and that confident tone you’re wielding, my prince, one might be convinced that you had been there and watched that child nearly kill three innocent people after I attempted the talking part first.”

The Prince’s jaw set.

“Oh? Nothing to say?” Dee lowers his chin to look The Prince dead in the eyes. “The truth is that the child in question decided to attack a man robbing a previously insured jewelry store-- most likely out of desperation-- and decided to attempt to burn him alive. The action of which nearly killed me and my… partner if it hadn’t been for a spot of good luck. Then when I attempted to help preserve the criminal from the life threatening third degree burns he was suffering, the child called me a villain and demanded I and another brave bystander back away from the man so that he could die.”

Dee’s eyes flash blue and green and then a cold steel blue before they settle back on the silent superhero. “You and your original way of thinking are an inspiration to us all.”

The Prince’s face twitches again, the whole thing this time, twisting into a not-very-nice expression for just the briefest of seconds before he remembers that there’s a captive audience watching this play out. He takes a deep steadying breath and lets it out again.

“I apologize,” he says. “I jumped to a conclusion. You made an acceptable call in the face of a diffic--”

“I made the only call,” Dee inserts harshly. “And I don’t want your apology. Words mean nothing.”

“What are you here for then?” The Prince asks, and Remus can’t help the feral smile that etches across his features. He leans forward as far as he can without tipping the fence because he doesn’t want to miss a single second of this.

“Oh, that would be simple,” Dee says. “I want you to explain to the world, why you are trying to get hundreds of people killed.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I don’t suppose you would.” Dee says. “I can’t imagine that you’ve had to do a lot of critical thinking these past few weeks.”

The Prince scowls and opens his pretty little mouth, but Dee waves him off with a clandestine motion. There’s a delicious looking smirk on Dee’s lips: something that Remus thinks he can spend all day staring at. He’s having fun up there with all the attention on him, having fun with people hanging on his every word, having fun leading The Prince around like a dog on a leash. A showboat, a leader, an actor-- but Dee’s the director too, telling the cameras where to point and what to frame because this is his show, even if no one else realizes it yet.

“I’ve been following the FBE for a while now. You can imagine that as someone with an ability I tend to be interested in politics that directly affect me, as all good upstanding Americans should.” Dee flutters his wings a bit again. “However, I can’t imagine why anyone-- certainly not someone with the brains such as yourself-- would purposely align yourself to their less than noble intentions. They aim to take advantage of people like us, and you are using your… well earned celebrity status to convince the people that this is acceptable. Good, even! Surely you don’t truly believe that the FBE and Madam Secretary of Defense have your best interests at heart?”

The Prince shifts his weight around, looking for all intents and purposes like he was ready to leap across the stage and make Dee eat his own words, in the end he just settled back down.

“I do actually,” The Prince says. “I’ve been working with them for a while-- all of my team has. Madam Witchall has been a great help in getting this project on its feet so that the FBE can provide aid to--”

"I guess what it boils down to is this," Dee says, steam-rolling everything else the Prince might have wanted to say. Remus can pick the irritation out of his clipped tone, simmering under the guise of being passion rather than anger. "How much do you trust your government? How much faith do you put in people, Princeps?

"This is, after all, the same congregation that sends military recruiters to the more impoverished schools in America and hounds kids until they believe that their only option to get into college is to sign up for the military. Is that what they did to you as well? Convinced you, you were dangerous and unable to control yourself and that they could help you?"

The Prince’s jaw tightens so hard that even Remus can see it from where he’s standing. He wants to laugh, but he puts his hand in his mouth instead. The crowd is murmuring, mesmerized by the sheer audacity of this shapeshifter to show up and question the morals of their beloved hero. It would be funny, if Remus doesn’t close his eyes and see Dee’s charred corpse from that kid at the mall not so long ago whenever he tries to sleep.

Hero idealization was a dangerous thing. It needs to be nipped in its bud before it strangles everyone; luckily there’s no one better with a pair of shears than Dee.

"I do believe that’s none of your business," The Prince says.

"But it is," Dee coos just a bit too sweetly. His words come out slick with honey. "Because you are also a person of ability and I happen to care a great deal about people with abilities."

"We have a duty to those less fortunate than--"

"We--" Dee cuts him off sharply “--do not have a duty to anyone for anything."

He takes a breath, recenters himself, and when his eyes open again, they’re a piercing green that pins the hero to place on the stage for everyone to see. "In case you’ve forgotten, my dear Prince, we are mere humans, too. Not everyone wants to grow up to punch each other in the face. Some of us would like to live a normal life, without being forced into superhero dramatics."

His easy dismissal is inviting danger to come knocking. Remus likes that about him, the fearlessness. Did it come from after he had met Remus, or was it something Dee had grown up with? A symbol of faith in Remus’s abilities or a symptom of delusion? The mystery is tantalizing on Remus’s--

--tongue. Remus savors the taste of it with a grin. It’s so much better than blood, so much better than slushies, so much better than french toast and eggs and only one step down from the taste of actually kissing Dee.

Remus blinks, pressing against the barrier, his eyes catching sight of something else amongst the crowd although he isn’t sure what it is at first. A flash of a camera? A pushing shoving motion? It's something and Remus tries to follow it but it’s gone in the next half blink and he’s not sure what it was at all.

Then everyone is screaming and the crowd is in chaos and Remus gets slammed into the barrier again and shoved along it for a sharp second before he hits the ground. The noise roars over his thoughts, over his breathing, over his ability to comprehend anything that’s not how he’s being stepped on by careless bystanders fleeing the streets. Someone trips over him, someone steps on his ankle, someone kicks the back of his head and his lungs burn and his eyes itch and he knows he missed something---

--Tongue. Remus savors the taste with a hint of confusion. It’s better than blood that’s in his throat, than slushies in his memories, than french toast and eggs and only one step down from actually kissing Dee.

Remus blinks, pressing against the barrier, his eyes catching sight of something else amongst the crowd although he isn’t sure what it is at first, and doesn’t bother caring, because something else is happening and he needs to know what it is that causes the crowd to splinter apart like shattered glass. Dee is talking on stage, winding up the toy Prince to dance to his tune, and Remus is watching with his heart in his throat and unable to hear a word of it.

Then Remus blinks and Dee is not standing on stage because the shapeshifter’s body is morphing exactly the way it shouldn’t be. The crowd screams, and Dee’s eyes are empty in a way that Remus has seen a million times and abhors unlike anything else in the world.

Dee is not standing on stage because he’s actually fallen off it onto the asphalt ground below and there’s a spray of red mist in the air where he had been standing before. Remus is body-checked into the crowd barrier, and skimmed along it, until he hits the ground and feels himself get trampled over, but it doesn’t matter because he knows what he saw.

Dee is not standing on stage because he’s dead with a bullet in his head from---

---Tongue. Remus does not savor anything about the taste because whenever he closes his eyes the only thing he can see is Dee’s dead body and the only thing he can feel is copper clawing its way up his throat with the blind terror.

Remus leaps over the barrier, causing everyone around him to yell. The techie with the purple bangs in particular jumps back, but Remus ignores them in favor of watching, because Dee hasn’t seen him and doesn’t know what's coming and Remus wants to scream at the top of his lungs because watching Dee die never gets any easier to see.

It’s a bullet to the head. From the right temple through his brain at a downwards angle and Remus feels the blood sprinkle over him like sea spray straight from his darkest nightmares. He barely even notices, barely recognizes it, barely cares about it at all, because the next thing he knows Dee’s body is following it down right into Remus’s arms and unseeing blue-grey eyes stare at an empty sky.

The Prince is there too, mouth open and horrified, and even though everyone is screaming Remus can hear him start to say a phrase, a word, a syllable, “Re--”---

--Tongue. Remus’s mouth tastes like blood and absolutely nothing else because Dee is going to die from a shot through the head from a sniper, a shooter, an asshole and Remus thought maybe that Dee was over exaggerating before with his whole “the government is going to turn us all into weapons or eliminate us” rhetoric, but Remus thinks that he should have paid attention a little harder. Listened a little more. Believed a little better.

He stares at the building behind them, the library that’s being passed off as the FBE and the dark tinted windows that make the upper floors look abandoned completely. It’s like watching….it’s like…. it’s …

There’s a flash, a flicker. Then a heartbeat and then Dee is dying, dying, dead all alone and Remus feels himself body-checked back by a faceless person in the crowd and tossed to the ground to be trampled to death too.---

--tongue. Remus spits blood out of his mouth curling in on himself to stop anyone else from seeing because fuck him. He presses two fingers to his ear piece and pretends poorly that his throat doesn’t feel like someone took a pack of razor blades to it.

“Sniper shot, fourth floor, third window over,” Remus rasps. His heart pounds in his throat, in his skull, behind his eyes in a way that makes him want to tear his skin off to get the feeling to stop. Blood floods over his fingers, smearing on his chin, and across his sleeves no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it.

“One minute, forty seconds,” Remus coughs, and stares at the drips that hit the lower half of his shin, the toe of his boots, the asphalt.

Dee doesn’t react. Not at all and Remus wants to scream because he can feel time passing and he can’t stop the future from happening. He can’t, he can’t he can’t he can’t--

"You heard me, right?" Remus says maybe a little hysterically, because fuck, if they got this far and their mics weren’t even working and Remus just got the only person who ever mattered to him killed on live TV.

At this distance, Remus doesn’t know if he can make it, but even if he does, even if he tackles Dee down from the stage and the bullet misses them both it will go straight into the crowd, and there are people in this crowd-- people with lives, with families, with friends. They might have abilities, or they might not, but once that shot is fired the entire street will become a riot. Remus can hear the screams in his ears, ringing there so loudly it makes the present sound like a graveyard.

"I hear you," Dee says airily, acting like he’s talking to the superhero, but the words loosen the knot in Remus's chest, because he changed his speech, changed his stance, changed how much he knows about the future and now things will be different. The Prince eyes him rightfully warily, because Dee’s biggest weapons are knowledge and words.

"I hear you,” Dee says again directly to the hero, “I hear that you’ve been brainwashed into thinking that you owe something to the people who helped you control your ability, but the truth is… you could have done it without them, on your own. You certainly have the brains and the intuition for it."

He offers a hand out to the hero, casually, fluidly, and Remus almost laughs. He thinks if he opens his mouth again then only thing that will come out is blood and the people next to him will definitely notice that.

"Come with me, Prince of the People," Dee says right as the sniper lines up the shot. "Let’s discuss a better way to protect innocen--"

The gunshot is silent. Remus almost misses it in the collective intake of breath from every living thing in a ninety mile radius. Dee’s hand is out and the bullet catches the sunlight in a brilliant single flash.

-- through his brain at a downwards angle and Remus feels the blood sprinkle over him like sea spray straight from his darkest nightmares. He barely even notices, barely recognizes it, barely cares about it at all, because the next thing he knows Dee’s body is following it down right into Remus’s--

Dee’s skin ripples, his wings disappear. At this distance, Remus can’t tell what it turns into, what he impersonates, what he becomes that can fend off a bullet, but in the end it doesn’t matter at all because The Prince leaps forward with his sword drawn.

Remus blinks and the world feels like it tilts on its axis, spinning faster under his feet. He hugs the crowd barrier to steady himself. That… that isn’t possible. This isn’t what he saw. But there it is: The Prince wraps himself between Dee and the bullet, and draws his rapier so quickly that Remus almost misses it happening. It shouldn’t be possible-- It can’t be possible, but he’s faster than the bullet and somehow the piece of metal veers off trajectory into the stage at their feet and embeds itself there.

“That’s--” Remus’s breath catches, clumping up in a knot in the back of his throat that tastes a lot like blood.

The people in the crowd scream, the people near the front shove to move back, to get away, to find shelter and safety from bullets that were only targeting one man on stage. The police guard springs into actions that Remus can’t focus on because he’s so busy trying to remain upright when gravity is trying to drag him straight down to Hell.

“Are you alright?” The Prince asks, lowering his rapier.

“I--Dee--” Remus stutters.

“Was that... going to hit me…?” Dee asks in a tone that suggests that all the oxygen left the atmosphere.

“I don’t-- I can’t--” Remus swallows a mouth full of blood and it goes down his throat like thick, slow slugs trying to suffocate him. “I swear--”

“Have no fear,” The Prince says. “I’ll protect you. As long as I’m here, no harm will come to you. You have my word.”

“Re,” Dee says. He sounds like he’s several distant planets away. Remus’s hands are red and sticky and he swears if he closes his eyes that he can feel the misty spray of grey matter over his face when Dee falls from the stage, when his body lands in Remus’s arms, when those empty eyes stare up at him and see none of the grief in Remus’s eyes.

“I watched you,” Remus chokes.

He saw it. He knows he saw it and it was real and Dee died and Remus was left all alone like every nightmare he’s ever had. Dee died up on stage in front of the whole world and Remus saw his whole world shatter.

It happened.

“You can’t see the future, Remus!” Roman yelled four years ago and Remus has proved him wrong a hundred billion times over since then. He shouldn’t have to keep reminding himself of that.

“You died,” Remus says. “You died and I watched and I’m sorry-- I’m sorry, sor--”

“That’s all I needed to know, darling,” Dee tells him.

“Pardon?” The Prince asks, realizing maybe for the first time that Dee isn’t talking to him.

“You’re clever, Prince,” Dee says loudly, and Remus hears him so clearly in his earpiece it stabilizes him even when the world spins under his feet. Dee shoves himself out of the hero’s hold, stepping back twice, and looking downright murderous. “Far more clever than I gave you credit for! Did you just try to have me shot? Killed? All so you could look like the dashing hero on screen?”

“What?” the hero says and because he’s an actor Remus almost believes that he’s confused and not threatened.

“You just tried to kill me!” Dee snarls. “In front of all these people?! Because I dared ask a few questions about your motives?!”

The Prince stares at him, and Remus imagines his insufferable mouth is twitching into an awkward smile, like this is a joke that he doesn’t understand but doesn’t want to be rude.

“I assure you that is not the case here,” he says. “In fact I believe it’s far more likely that you arranged to have yourself attacked on this stage to emphasize a point on your part. I suspect you might have some type of protection against bullets, but even if you did I could not stand idle when there is a chance of you being hurt.”

“How noble,” Dee says. “Throwing yourself in front of everyone and asking nothing in return no matter the situation. A true hero complex.”

The Prince’s grip on his rapier tightens, but he says nothing.

“You say such pretty words, Prince,” Dee says. “Tell such convincing lies. You want people to step up and join you in a game of play pretend without realizing there are deadly consequences when abilities get out of control. You want people to follow you, to sing your praises, to believe you can do no wrong…. You’re the hero, of course! They’ll be so enamored with you, they won’t notice you leading them straight off a cliff.”

For a second the world stops turning, time stops passing, the crowd stops moving. Remus feels every atom in the air pressing up against him, itching, pulling, compressing against his skin as his heart pounds in his chest like some type of creature trying to escape his ribcage. There’s a ringing in his ears made from the silence between Dee and The Prince and it’s louder than any scream that the crowd makes, any gunshot a sniper takes, any calm Dee fakes.

“And I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” Dee offers a complimentary shrug and then he launches across the stage, aiming for The Prince’s throat.

[Chapter Seven]

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