#so now I’m doing basic black tea with no additives

[prozach27]

.

[june1109]

Honeysuckle’s and kisses don’t cover the devils scent

[part 1/?]

Chrollo x (Librarian!) Y/n

Description: Reader owns a Library in a small village on a tiny island. Chrollo is looking for a specific book to read. He goes to the library looking for the book on several occasions each time it was checked out on the upside (or is it?)he starts to take a liken to a certain librarian.

Backstory: Reader was a hunter but gave up on her dreams when she was 17 (She’s not a good fighter but does know a lot about nen) not wanting to waste the rest of her life she just decided to settle down and make memories in the village.

Warnings: !!!None so far just bad writing!!!

My fingers grazed over titles of books I knew by heart. I found the place the novel went and put the book about astronomy in its rightful place. I stood back up my oversized cardigan lifting from the floor. My feet sluggishly moved to the children’s section putting toys and coloring pages away until I heard the bell chime admittedly lighting my mood. A young stranger in an even stranger outfit.

(Change of POV)

There were finger puppets and pencils scattered on a tiny table. It piqued my interest but also worried me that this was a children’s library. A young woman approached me. Her hair [Unless you don’t have any :/] was (h/l) and a beautiful (h/c). She wore a big cardigan and pants that where too big and a little stained perhaps was paint or spilled food with a plain black top with pieces of white fur maybe a dogs but most likely a cat’s fur [he isn’t interested in her I just think that Chrollo would analyze everyone when he first meets them just to clarify].

“Hi, Can I help you with anything? I’m the librarian you can call me (Y/n). it’s a pleasure meeting you we don’t get a lot of visitors being the only village on a tiny unpopular island” She stuck her hand out it was littered with colorful bracelets and on the non dominant hand had additional doodles.I decided to accept the hand shake.

“My name is chrollo and I would like to check out a book called immortality is the Dilemma and savior of life.” [This is a book title I just made up but it’s basically about a vampire trying to escape the cage of immortality while a young man is hunting the vampire trying to gain mortality] I looked in her (E/c) reading them only to find nothing.

“Of course let me check if we have that for ya” (Y/n) walked behind the front desk entering the title.

“Oh shucks it looks like it’s checked out I’m so sorry, but would you like to stay for tea anyway?” I look down contemplating the offer of tea. I’m not busy and I have run out of tea and I am craving tea right now. I suppose it won’t be so bad.

“I don’t see why not” I sat down and a normal table unlike the tiny table across the library.

“What kind of tea would you like?” They probably don’t have many Judging by how small the town is.

“Anything is fine” I looked around the Libary more it was very small but not cramped. There was a kids section and they had computers. There was even a garden outside and a donation box. Oh how interesting humans are. Some are so generous well others are greedy and rotten to the core.

“Do you like milk and sugar in your tea?” Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“I would like a little teaspoon or so of sugar and no milk please and thank you” I smile softly to (Y/n). She is quite interesting.

I watched as leaves left the trees almost poetically as I waited. “So Chrollo where are you from?

“I’m just from a small island” I smile gently watching her face for anything.

“Really? That’s nice” We sat there for around an hour and a half having a decent conversation before screaming children in dragon onesies came stumbling through the door. There trainers rub dirt onto the carpet before walking in. This is quite a lively place for a Libary.

“Oh sorry I’m gonna go take care of those little dragons.” She sat down her cup. Straightening her shirt as she walked to the loud children with a general warm smile on her face [Y’all have a face right? If not L to you ig]. It made my heart warm seeing such kindness.

A/N

This is more of a pilot [which is why it’s so short] to see if I should actually write a story and if I’m any good because it would be my first so I’ll continue if this gets likes or someone suggests me to continue [which probably won’t happen]

[missbubblesoda]

early in the morning, especially when it rains, and a little before noon. (4)

erwin x fem!reader

chapters: (1) | (2) | (3) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | (11) | (12) | (13) | (14) | (15) | (16) | (17) | (18) | (19) | (20) | (21) | (22) | (23) | (24) | (25) | (26) | (27) | (28) | (29)

summary: I basically took Isayama’s work, forced it into a romance story, and made Erwin the love interest. Commander meets cadet and they fall in love (not instantly though)

notes: very berry canonverse (but some events were modified to fit my narrative), wasn’t intended to be this long, but it all is in the details right?

content warnings: smut where it fits (or where I make it fit. Also reader is NOT underage, so likewise, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, please.) slow burn (I really mean it. I’m not olympic diving into any form of smut for the first chapters). no angst. I dislike angst. I would never. I could never. (Although angst can be somewhat subjective so take it with a grain of salt?)

wc: 2.5k

“Everyone is to be positioned at fixed intervals, to extend the message relay range as far as possible.”

At the Survey Corps headquarters, time seemed to pass rather quickly. Two weeks had already gone by, and with them some of your insecurities. The more familiar you got with your job, the more comfortable you felt in your position. And the commander’s words had proven to be true: your days had grown repetitive indeed. But that was something you didn’t feel the slightest need to complain about. In a world where one moment you could be at home making breakfast, and the next, in a titan’s stomach, you found reassurance in the predictability of your job.

Every day, you woke up early, washed your face, walked into the office, disposed of the spent candle, replaced it, prepared the commander’s work space, received a thankful smile in return, brew his morning tea, received another one, organized his mail, wrote responses, then sent them, then trailed behind him, paused for lunch, then trailed behind him some more, sat at your desk, wrote reports, organized them, brought him his evening tea, heard a ‘thank you’, double-checked you had replaced the candle, asked if he needed anything else, got a ‘no’ followed by another ‘thank you’ and the respective smile that always came with it, bid him goodnight, wrote a diary entry, went to bed, and repeated it all over again the next day. Exhausting? No, not for you. Repetitive desk work happened to be your area of expertise. Oh, and once a week, you attended meetings like this one.

“A black smoke round will be fired as soon as an abnormal is sighted, which they will be since the area is full of them.”

From the secluded corner you liked to stand in, you listened attentively as the commander went over the formation one more time. Your eyes drifting from his face to the now familiar expedition plans that were laid out on the wooden table. Every morning, there was a new scribble on the paper, and it was getting increasingly difficult to see what was underneath. But maybe it was just you. Neither the commander nor his captains seemed to have any problem seeing through all the additional lines and hasty handwriting.

“And it’s primarily the forward recon soldier who will encounter them.”

The forward recon soldier. You checked in with your notes before fixing your eyes back on the table. Ever since you noticed it one morning while organizing his desk, you had been wondering if there was a particular reason why the commander assigned only one person for that position. The third column, however, was marked as multiple.

“Anyone who sees the flare should fire the same round to relay the signal”

And when the commander sees it, he’ll fire a green smoke round, and show the formation where to go. Impressive. The formation looked impressive enough on paper, but you wondered how it would look in real life, under actual life-threatening circumstances. And with the expedition quickly approaching, you were surprised to discover in yourself, even though slight, a tinge of excitement at the thought of seeing it all play out in the field. Impressive. The commander was really something. You thought as you watched him. Firing that green smoke round would be nerve-racking for anyone, knowing so many lives depended on whether you made the right call or not. A slip in judgement, even the slightest one, could mean his soldiers wouldn’t live to see another day. And yet, there he stood: solid and resolute.

Impressive, indeed. To think such complex strategy had been devised entirely by one man. Sleepless nights working tirelessly on his project. No, not his. Humanity’s. So many nights spent under the candle light, leaning over his desk, so focused, so determined. Just as he was now. And you couldn’t help but notice that the rumors you heard in the capital never mentioned how attractive he was. Sapphires instead of eyes; neatly combed hair, fair and trimmed short at the sides; well built and broad-shouldered, yet elegant and sophisticated. If one didn’t know any better, one could have assumed he descended from royalty.

“What do you think?” A question with your name attached at the end took you by surprise. The commander was talking to you. “I’ve noticed you’ve been staring at that one spot in the paper since the meeting started. What’s on your mind?”

“Sir, I-” the short woman with strawberry blonde hair, whose name, you had learned, was Petra, gave you an encouraging smile “I just think the third relay, the one in the third column, would work better as a one-person position” you explained, leaving your self-appointed confinement in the corner of the room to join them at the table “I mean, because of the place it is located in, I- I think it is unlikely that they will encounter a titan before the others” you said as you tried to focus your attention on the commander only, doing your best to make it past squad leader Miche’s sniffing and Captain Levi’s dead eyes. “And in the event that they do, I think it would be more efficient to use a strong soldier for that position, instead of multiple of average… strength” you continued, trying to convince yourself that ‘average’ wasn’t an insult “that- that way the strong soldiers could deal with the situation alone as a one-man team, and we would be able to send more people to the peripheral positions and support those who are more likely to find titans, like the recon soldiers, for example. I believe this way the chances of survival would be slightly higher for everyone” you concluded, relieved to have reached the end of your intervention “It’s just my opinion, sir.”

After, what you estimated, had been a century of the commander contemplating the paper before him, he finally grabbed his pencil and wrote something in his small black notebook. Then, he moved on to the next topic.

-

“You’re not one of many words, are you?”

“Sir?” You looked up from the papers you had been organizing.

“Strange. Something about you also tells me you are quite fond of talking. I can’t decide.”

Oh, you talked. Inside your head. There, you never shut up.

“I used to think it was an innate ability, you know, being able to choose one’s words intentionally” the commander told you as he drew his signature on a report “But one author I read once, said it was actually an acquired skill. And now I can’t decide either. But whatever it is, I respect that” he looked up and smiled softly “Today, however, was the first time I heard you string more than two sentences together. And I must say, I would be delighted to hear your input more often.”

You liked that. Very much. So you smiled back.

“Nanaba told me they had never heard a recruit speak so much for a first interview.” You had to pause what you were doing “She admitted she was overwhelmed at first, but then grateful, because, after such descriptive self-introduction, she knew exactly where to place you.” Did he know about all the things you told them? “I confess that, knowing that, it was starting to concern me, that you may be scared of me. That’s why you never talk. Am I that scary?”

Not scary. Intimidating maybe? But definitely not scary. So you shook your head lightly.

He smiled, looking a little bit defeated by the continuous silence on your end, and then said “In the future, share your ideas with us. There’s value in them. I won’t keep you any longer, you may go.”

But you didn’t move, instead you took a deep breath and opened your mouth. “I think that paper is a mess” you pointed to the formation plans “There’s so much written on it, and it’s getting difficult for me to understand what’s going on underneath. I mean, I understand because I saw it before it turned into the chaos that it is now, and because I go to the meetings every week, of course. And your explanations there are always very detailed. I think you’re great at explaining things by the way, you could explain chess to a titan. But I was just thinking, the other new recruits may find it rather confusing too. When we present the plan to them next week, they’re only gonna see scribbles and doodles and lines that go in all sorts of directions. And they’re gonna be left to wonder if your son grabbed his colored chalk and wrote on it while you were sleeping.”

He looked down at the paper, then back at you, and then threw his head back laughing.

“Very good. I’ll work on that tomorrow. Thanks” he concluded, seemingly satisfied.

“And also” he said as you were almost at the door “I don’t have a son.”

And you found yourself smiling back complicitly.

“Good night, commander”

-

You opened the map and when you saw it, it made you smile. The forward recon position was no longer a soldier but a squad.

Like hell you were going to let him rewrite the plans. This was the whole point of you being there, to take over trivial stuff like this so he could focus on more important things. So you showed up even earlier the next morning and started working on it.

When he opened the scroll later that day, his eyes immediately went to find you at your desk.

“Scribble on it as much as you like. I’ll make a new one when I see it starts getting messy” this time it was you giving him the reassuring smile.

-

“Erwin, it was about time you cleaned up that thing. It was starting to upset me.”

“It wasn’t me, Levi. The new recruits will be here” he pointed at the space between the wagon defense squad and the support squad. “They will be moving with the spare horses, as well as relaying signals.”

The one month anniversary of your enlistment had arrived, and the day of your first expedition beyond the walls was quickly approaching. As you had expected, the atmosphere at the headquarters had gotten more and more hectic. That week’s meeting had been significantly longer. They had taken hours going over each one of the soldiers individually, and deciding their positions in the formation.

Captain Levi’s squad was already in charge of Eren, so you assumed they would continue to serve that role for the expedition as well. But the commander hadn’t specified so, neither revealed their exact position yet. Not during the meeting, at least. You didn’t understand what was the reason behind all the secrecy. Did he suspect something was off? Was he worried someone might hurt Eren? If so, who and why? Eren’s name, however, wasn’t the only one missing. You couldn’t find yours anywhere on the paper.

“The forces this time are significantly smaller than in previous expeditions, we should concentrate on getting back with minimal losses. Any questions?”

“Yes, sir” you raised a hand “What is going to be my position?”

-

“Commander, please”

“I’m not risking losing my assistant to a titan” he said while opening the door to his office “I need you here, not in a titan’s belly.”

“If a titan grabs me I’ll scream for it to unhand me.” Not even you knew if that was supposed to be a joke “Unhand me, monster.”

He chuckled as he sat at his desk, still not bothering to look at you. “I can guarantee you that’s not the way things work out there.”

“I know those plans like the back of my hand. And that too” you said pointing at the map scroll he had just placed on the table. “Commander, I swear, when I close my eyes at night, I’m only able to see that thing. I’m forever haunted. By that and by your scribbles.”

“All the more reason to stay then” he looked rather amused, and for a brief moment you were tempted to ask if he derived some sort of enjoyment from the situation. But you settled for listening instead. “In the event we all perish out there, there needs to be someone left who’s able to pass on the knowledge to the next soldiers.”

“All the more reason to go then” you said as he gave his full attention to a pile of reports. What was he even doing? You were supposed to organize that later. “If you perish out there, so will my intentions of going beyond the walls. Because I’m not following anyone else out there.”

He put down the papers and finally looked at you. And something about his demeanor reminded you of that night.

Are you ready to die if I ordered to? But the memory didn’t make you think of him as much as it made you think of your past self. What would she say? How would she feel knowing that all it took was one month. One month working under Erwin Smith, and you were already begging to be taken on a suicide mission. Talk about unexpected.

“Commander, back then you said all the new recruits would join you in the expedition beyond the walls” You added in a composed manner, watching your tone the whole time because the last thing you wanted was to sound whiny. You knew that wouldn’t help. You needed to make him understand it was not an impulsive plea. Because it really wasn’t. You wholeheartedly believed you could be of some assistance out there. Maybe not fighting titans but helping with provisions, running spare horses, anything he needed. Him or anyone. Plus how would you call yourself a scout if you never, well… scouted.

He remained silent. So you took it as an indication that you could keep going.

“You said you wanted to hear my ideas. I can’t tell you what I think if I’m here and you’re miles away.” you stepped closer, the front of his desk meeting the front of your thighs. “Please, let me go with you.”

He stared back at you. All amusement seemed to have abandoned his eyes. But beyond that, it was difficult to guess what he was thinking. After a while, however, he spoke again.

“You’ll take the position to my immediate right.” You released the stiffness your muscles had been holding. The spearhead. Through your relief, you tried to go over the plans in your mind. “Don’t stray too far apart and keep your eyes open at all times.”

“Yes, sir” you didn’t try to hide the contentment in your smile.

-

next chapter

[gremlinshitposterthesecond]

Stress Management

A/N: Hello! I didn’t introduce myself the first time, I’m a horny goblin who only posts raunchy things after midnight when they’ve had their fill on fluff posts. I strive for the most vivid, vulgar scenes. I hope you enjoy the Pt. 2 of this exploration of a ‘What’s Mine is Yours” alternate timeline. Reminder that Kenshi still has his eyes and my OC is a black woman.

WARNING: This post contains graphic depictions of sex and includes discussion of polygamous sexual acts (M/M/M/M/F), oral (f!rec/m!rec), double penetration, (unprotected) P in V, and more. Minors DNI! Read at your own discretion!

Adelaide walked in through the door and kicked off her black heels haphazardly. It joined the mess of 4 other pairs of shoes as she stretched, popping some joints and pulling taunt muscles.

“How was your day?” Raiden made his way around the corner to greet her with a kiss.

“Pretty damn stressful honestly. I was by myself today since Johnny had scheduled interviews and people haven’t gotten the memo that I’m not the one to fuck around with.” Adelaide continued to get comfortable as she took her dreadlocks out of their professional bun and rubbed her scalp, sighing in relief.

“Come, sit down. I’ll have Lao make you some tea.” Raiden took her hand and guided her to the couch. He then walked away, probably to find the aforementioned man. He returned with him in tow before they split ways: Raiden back to Adelaide’s side and Lao to the kitchen.

Instead of sitting on the couch beside her, he took a spot in front of her facing away from the television. She was about to ask what he was doing but he silenced her with a look that said “Let me do this for you”. He began rolling up the leg of her dress pants and began massaging her calves and feet.

Adelaide let out a long sigh at the relief he was providing her before Lao came out with her tea. She also gave him a peck on the lips for his service and invited him to sit next to her.

“Thank you boys. I would rather not think for the remainder of the day.”

It was already late into the afternoon, basically transitioning into the evening. The good thing was that it was Friday, so Adelaide did not have to get up early from the comfort of Johnny’s king bed and untangle herself from the limbs of four different people.

“I need a nap.” Adelaide announced to seemingly no one.

Lao chuckled, “You sound like one of those bootleg devices when they need to be charged,” he stated before he mimicked the “Battery low” announcement.

Adelaide and Raiden laughed with him and she set the teacup on the coffee table before resting her head on Lao’s lap. He gingerly ran his hands through her hair. Raiden, who finally joined on the couch, still rubbed circles into her calf which allowed her to drift into sleep.

When she awoke, before she even opened her eyes, she was met with the sound of conversation. She made out Raiden and Lao’s voice with the addition of two others. She opened her eyes to see that Johnny and Kenshi had joined the relaxing session. Johnny spotted her first.

“She’s alive!” He proclaims, as if he was Dr. Frankenstein.

Rubbing her eyes and sitting up, Adelaide asked, “How long was I out?”

“Only about 30 minutes. We ordered takeout in the meantime if you don’t mind.” Kenshi held up his phone to show the status of the order.

As if on cue, Adelaide’s stomach growled.

“What’re we getting?”

“That place that sells both Chinese and Japanese cuisine.” Raiden stated, now with a hand on her thigh, still rubbing soft circles.

Johnny had gotten up from his position on the other couch with Kenshi before pushing Kung Lao out of the way, plopping himself next to Adelaide.

“Hey!” Lao said in an offended manner.

“Your cuddle time is up, Panda. I haven’t seen her all day and she’s my agent.” Like a child, Johnny stuck his tongue out. Also like a child, Kung Lao crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

“Speaking of,” Kenshi rose too.

“Noooo.” Raiden slumped down, using dead weight to his advantage as Kenshi tried lifting him away from Adelaide.

“Raiden, I swear to the Elder Gods —“ Kenshi grumbled through grit teeth as he dragged Raiden off the couch. “Are you seriously Earthrealm’s champion?”

Raiden accepted defeat as Kenshi managed to drag him off the couch and onto the floor before plopping himself down in his previous seat.

“You are all hopeless.” Adelaide smiled as she cradled Johnny and Kenshi’s heads. At the same time, Kenshi and Johnny turned their faces to her and gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

Checking her watch, she say that it was only 7 PM. “How long ‘til the food gets here?”

Kenshi checked his phone again, “35 minutes.”

She arose suddenly, causing the cuddle pile to collapse in and Johnny to let out a dejected whine.

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to take a quick shower.” She pat his head.

“Without me?” All the men said in unison.

“You guys are gross.”

After performing her usual routine, Adelaide came back downstairs to the living room much more comfortable. She wore one of Kenshi’s sweatpants that she had to roll up a few times and one of Raiden’s shirts that came down to her the middle of her thigh. She was just in time to see Raiden receiving multiple bags of food.

While she was distracted, Kenshi came up from behind and gave her a little tap on her ass.

“Looking good.” Kung Lao added who saw the quick interaction.

“You know, if you weren’t my agent, I’m sure someone would scout you for a model.” Johnny cooed.

Adelaide stood unamused in the entryway to the kitchen with her baggy clothes and acne patches plastered over her face.

“I look like a cryptid.”

“You look great, angel. Let’s watch a movie, yeah?” Kung Lao picked her up and carried her back the couch.

Johnny browsed through the steaming services raving about each movie he had seen before finally settling on one that was dramatic.

Already 10 minutes in, Adelaide shifted in her seat while picking up some fried rice with her chopsticks, “Ugh, I hate secondhand embarrassment, this could’ve been solved with a simple conversation.”

She was positioned between Raiden and Johnny while Kenshi laid in between Kung Lao’s legs, his head on his stomach.

“You’re thinking too much, my love.” Raiden went back to circling her thigh. Adelaide tried not to think about how high his hand was.

“I’m just saying…” her voice turned shy.

One of the actors in the movie began monologuing, which meant it was prime time for conversation.

Kenshi looked up from Lao’s lap and asked Adelaide about her day as he and Johnny weren’t around when she said the first time.

“I’m a little stressed. Most people don’t take me seriously so I have to be a hard ass and my brain has to be on all the time.”

Johnny wrapped a hand around her waist before cooing over her more.

“Aww poor baby. If they disrespect you let me know and I’ll be sure they are blacklisted.” He finished with a kiss to her neck.

Fighting a moan, Adelaide responded “I can take care of myself.”

Kenshi looked at Kung Lao who was already looking at him. Kenshi looked over at the trio and saw that Raiden and Johnny were also already looking at him, they were fighting back smirks. He loved that they all were on the same page.

Lao spoke next, “ But you always take care of everything. You take care of us, Johnny in more ways than one. He’s hopeless without you.”

“Watch it.”

Adelaide could barely make anything out of their words of affirmation as Raiden’s hand was ridiculously close to her core, still rubbing tight circles into her skin. She also realized that Johnny’s breath was on her neck.

Raiden set things in motion when his hand broke the waistband of the pants she was wearing. He laughed when he found out that was all she was wearing.

He whispered, “Maybe you need to stop thinking for a while.” as he trailed a finger up and down her wet slit.

Adelaide’s breath had become real heavy as she tried to shift in place only to realize that Johnny’s arm across her waist prevented her from moving.

She whined at her predicament. They became even louder when Raiden started kissing and licking her neck. The sounds were cut short when Johnny pressed his lips to hers, the make out intense and sloppy. Meanwhile, Raiden’s fingers shifted to rub her clit which made her jump in their hold and moan in Johnny’s mouth.

“There you go. Relax and let us take care of you.” Kenshi got off Kung Lao to get closer to the view. Lao followed suit.

“Take these off.” Kung Lao said, grabbing the waistband of her pants, pulling them down and off.

Now, she was on full display, one leg over Raiden’s lap, the other over Johnny’s, as Raiden toyed with her. Her shirt was pushed up to reveal her breasts.

Adelaide felt extreme heat creep up to her cheeks at how vulgar the wet sounds that were coming from her were and all Raiden and Johnny did was simply touch her.

Raiden spread his fingers which separated her lips and Kenshi watched as she clenched around nothing. Not being able to hold back anymore, Kenshi licked a stripe from her entrance all the way to her clit. The pressure and texture of Kenshi’s tongue made Adelaide throw her head back and her chest rose fully as she gasped.

“Pretty thing, all fucked out and we’ve barely begun.” Johnny teased. Kung Lao hummed in agreement, remembering the words she spoke to him about a week ago. Her legs were spread wide enough for both Kenshi and Lao to fit so as Kenshi moved back to readjust himself, Kung Lao took up the mantle and also tasted her. He reveled in her moans and whimpers as he sucked on her clit. Raiden joined in on the teasing, “You know, you should look at them when they please you. I haven’t heard a single ‘thank you’, yet.” He moved his hand from spreading her open to trace all over her body, pinching and rolling her nipples between his fingers.

Johnny co-signed, “Yeah, would be a shame to tell them to stop.” as he reached up from her waist to wrap a sturdy hand around her neck, forcing her to watch her defilement. He emphasized ‘stop’ and looked at Kung Lao to make sure he got the message who immediately detached his mouth from her. Not being able to taste directly from the source, Kenshi grabbed Lao’s chin and made out with him, groaning at the taste.

“No! Please! I-I’ve been good. I’ll remember my manners. Please don’t stop.” Adelaide rambled exasperated, her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes glazed over as she watched Kenshi and Lao.

“I can’t say no to that.” Kenshi spoke up, a string of spit still connecting him to Lao.

Raiden sucked her tongue and made out with her as approval and appeasement. He folded like a lawn chair every time she begged. He continued his ministrations on her chest. Johnny kissed her neck and shoulder, simultaneously nipping and licking over them.

Both wanting to taste her more, Kenshi and Kung Lao dove back in. Kenshi focused on her clit, tracing slow circles over it. Lao stiffened his tongue and prodded her entrance, flicking his tongue to find a hot spot.

Adelaide mewled at the dual pleasure. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

“Mhm,” was all Raiden said in response before pulling her back in to the kiss.

This continued for another minute or two before Adelaide was squealing and wriggling uncontrollably.

“I’m gonna make a messsss.” She announced, her eyes rolling to the back of her head.

“Aht aht. If you wanna cum, you’re gonna look at them and thank them, yeah?” Johnny said. In response, the men between her legs made their movements faster and added more pressure.

“Yes, sir. Oh God. Ken~. Lao~. Please. Please.” Adelaide opened her eyes to catch Kenshi and Lao looking right at her, groaning as she called their names. Adelaide gasped as without warning, her orgasm washed over her. She couldn’t even warn them or produce any sound at the intensity as it wracked her body. Raiden and Johnny stopped what they were doing to watch as Adelaide squirted.

“Shit…” Raiden bit his lip.

Kenshi caught the brunt of it, but allowed some to spill past his lips where Kung Lao caught it.

When it was over, Adelaide still twitched in aftershocks, but whispered a subtle “thank you”.

Kenshi and Kung Lao got up from their spots and made their way to their other partners on the couch. Kenshi climbed into Raiden’s lap, making sure to not crush Adelaide, and allowed the remaining liquid from her orgasm to drip into his mouth as they passionately kissed. Raiden groaned at the taste. Meanwhile, Johnny essentially attacked Kung Lao, pushing him back onto the ground and climbing on top of him. He pinned his wrists and assertively got a taste of his own.

After a few moments to regain her consciousness, Adelaide whimpered “Why am I the only one naked right now?”

The men around her chuckled before beginning to remove their clothes for her sake. Adelaide bit her own lip as Kenshi’s tattoos made themselves known again. Her eyes crossed over to Lao whose broad chest was now on display and Raiden whose lighting powers made themselves known, etching lighting streaks over his shoulders. Johnny’s v-like was so cut and delicious that Adelaide could spend all day tracing it.

She rose on shaky legs and approached Kenshi, who looked at her curiously as he began undoing the buttons on his pants. She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck before pulling him in for a kiss, tasting herself on his tongue. Kenshi pulled her closer by her waist before sitting down, pulling her on top of him. Immediately, Adelaide felt the intense bulge against her still soaking core. It’s as if Kenshi could read her mind, pulling his boxers down enough to reward her with a stiff cock.

She turned to face away from him before lifting herself over his member. With how wet she was, he was able to slip in easily, but it had been a minute since Adelaide had been involved in any of their activities so she went slow as the stretch nearly sent her over the edge. Once she finally sat at the base, she was ready to begin lifting her hips until her back met Kenshi’s chest. He threaded his arms under her knees then latched onto her shoulders, her thighs touching her chest. Leaning back a bit, he began thrusting up into her.

Adelaide’s eyes rolled back as she came around him. Having just begun, Kenshi was relentless in his attack, making her ride out her orgasm.

Ahead of them, Kenshi and Adelaide watched as Johnny sat against the couch with Kung Lao slobbering over his dick, saying the most raunchy things to rile him up further. He had an arch in his back as behind him, Raiden was delivering some pretty hard thrusts. Lao’s eyes only rolled back when Raiden called him a good boy for taking him so well. Of course, Johnny had broken out his second phone to record the act.

“Ken~ too much.” Adelaide whimpered as tears began to run down her cheeks.

“You can take it. Don’t you want to make the others feel good too?” He grit through his teeth.

“I’m gonna make a mess again.~” Adelaide struggled to take even breaths as it felt like Kenshi was punching it out of her.

“Fuck yeah. Gonna squirt all over me again, huh? I make you feel that good?”

“Yesss.” She squeaked as the squelching sound came back signaling another squirting orgasm.

At the same time, they heard Raiden giving Kung Lao his approval before he groaned, giving in to the overwhelming pleasure.

Good thing they have hard wood floors.

Kenshi thrust a couple more times before letting out a deep guttural moan himself, finishing inside of her.

Adelaide would’ve thought it was all over until she was lifted off Kenshi and turned around to face him. It was Johnny who had manhandled her back onto Kenshi’s dick.

“Shit, Johnny.” Kenshi put an arm over his eyes in slight overstimulation.

“Suck it up, baby. Once Raiden and I get ours, we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

Adelaide gripped Kenshi’s shoulder in anticipation. Johnny had a firm hand in between her shoulder blades to keep her down, chest-to-chest with Kenshi.

“Hold her for me, why don’t you?” Johnny requested as he tapped his own dick on Adelaide’s ass. Kenshi wrapped his arms around her as Johnny lined himself up with her entrance. Immediately, Adelaide’s eyes went wide.

“Johnny, it’s not going to fit!”

*WHACK*

A red handprint began to form on her right ass cheek.

“I’m sorry what was that? I don’t know who this ‘Johnny’ fellow is.”

“S-sir,” she began with a whimper, “I—“ but the words died in her throat.

“That’s what I thought.” Slowly, he began to push in. Adelaide could only whine in Kenshi’s ear at being stretched open even more. But with her being so wet, it was no issue, Jonny’s fit snuggly inside her alongside Kenshi.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

His answer came from Adelaide rocking her hips.

“Atta girl.” He growled, beginning to thrust to meet her. Kenshi shoved his face into Adelaide’s neck to silence his ragged breaths at the tight fit. Not only was Adelaide squeezing them hard, but he had the added friction of Johnny too.

Well, that was until Raiden appeared in his vision.

“You didn’t think you were getting away free, did you?” Raiden didn’t even give him time to answer, unhinging his jaw and sliding his cock down Kenshi’s throat. For better leverage to meet Johnny’s thrust, Adelaide propped herself up some. Now eye-level with Raiden’s hips, she plastered messy kisses around his v-line.

Raiden, although appreciative of the gesture, gripped her hair and turned her face towards another waiting cock: Kung Lao.

Salty from his previous orgasm, Adelaide took him down to the hilt. Lao, still sensitive, whined at how sloppy she was being, but made no effort to remove her. Rather, with a hand on the back of her head, he kept her really close to the base of his dick, pulling her back occasionally for air.

Meanwhile, Kenshi found his rhythm again. So as Johnny thrusted forward, he pulled back. And when Johnny pulled back, he thrusted forward. Adelaide nearly choked on Lao as the pattern gave her no time to recuperate. Over and over again, they hit a part inside her that made her head spin.

“Oh, you feel that Ken,” Johnny said between thrusts knowing he’d get no response seeing as his mouth was busy. “I think she’s gonna cum again. That’s a new record, no?”

“Fuck, you talk too much.” Raiden groaned before pulling Johnny in for a kiss.

“Oh sh—,” Lao was the first to go when Adelaide cupped his balls. He pushed her head until her nose was touching his happy trail making her take every last drop. He’d just have to hope that Johnny or Raiden didn’t notice he didn’t ask first.

It didn’t really matter all that much as Raiden stilled next. Breaking his kiss with Johnny, he began cursing, some English, some Chinese, as Kenshi’s throat also milked him unexpectedly, As he pulled out, there was an obscene amount of spit.

Once she was relinquished from Lao’s grasp, Adelaide tried to pull away, knowing that her next orgasm would be catastrophic. Johnny pulled her flush against his chest. One of his hands found purchase around her neck. The other reached down to encourage her orgasm by rubbing circles on her clit. “Take it like a good girl. No running.”

Now with his hands and mouth free, Kenshi sat up, immediately attaching his mouth to her nipple while his hands roamed her body. They still maintained their thrust pattern.

Adelaide was officially fucked out. There were no thoughts behind her eyes as she barreled toward her orgasm. She tried to formulate the words to announce it, but nothing but babbles came out. Johnny hummed in response. He was pressed against her ear and began whispering the raunchiest things in order to finally push her over the edge.

“Go ahead and cum, baby. Give us every last drop. Fucking hell,” Adelaide was gone. Her orgasm rocking through her entire body while she leaked around both Kenshi and Johnny. Kenshi followed behind, gripping her hips so hard he left crescent-shaped nail marks. All he could do was groan into her chest as the waves kept coming. Johnny kept thrusting and whispering as he arrived to his own orgasm, helping everyone ride it out.

“That’s right. Fuck you’re so good.” Johnny slowed his thrusts to a stop to catch his breath.

When Johnny released Adelaide from his constricted grip, she fell forward onto Kenshi who all but gladly fell back onto the couch. Johnny moved in silence, removing himself from behind Adelaide. As Kenshi began to soften, he pulled out as well. Johnny couldn’t help himself from taking a photo for later. Her thighs were wet from her own orgasms while a stream of cum began flowing from her entrance.

“I’ll grab towels.” Raiden had put his shorts back on before walking to the linen closet.

Johnny only nodded before collecting Adelaide from Kenshi. He laid her on top of him instead, rubbing her back and running his fingers through her hair as she made her way back to consciousness. He planted kisses on her forehead and whispered how good she was.

Kenshi was in a better state, only briefly being overstimulated. He rolled over to check on Adelaide, placing a hand on her lower back.

“You okay?”

“‘M more than okay.” She said contentedly.

“Stay still.” Raiden’s voice came from behind. Adelaide hissed a bit when she felt the wet cloth between her legs, but relaxed at the warm temperature. When he finished, he kissed her back.

“Sore?” Kung Lao returned also with some spare clothes.

“Feels nice.” She whispered. Raiden had been kind enough to clean Johnny and Kenshi as well before Kung Lao threw them the extra clothes.

“No pants.” Adelaide declared.

“Of course.” Kung Lao smiled as he helped her shimmy on one of his shirts. He then took the dirty pile and lowkey used one of Johnny’s shirts to clean up the mess they made of the wood floors.

“We still have some food left.” Johnny said.

“Please and thank you.” Kung Lao, after dropping the clothes in the hamper, was already on his way to the kitchen.

“Oh, now he knows his manners.” Raiden rolled his eyes, but followed him.

“You stay here and we’ll bring you what you want.” Johnny adjusted the sweatpants he was given.

“Any requests?” Kenshi peaked his head from the refrigerator.

“Orange chicken.” Feeling more like her normal self, Adelaide stretched, but made no move to stand.

In a few moments, they all returned to the couch with their food.

“Any suggestions seeing as the last movie watched us?” Raiden was now in control of the remote.

“Put on ‘The Lion King’, we’ll feel less inclined to temptation.” Adelaide smiled as she leaned against Lao with her feet in Kenshi’s lap.

“We watched that like 5 ti—“ Johnny tried to interrupt from his position between Raiden’s legs.

“NANTS INGONYAMA—“

[nuttytani]

Farewell, My Dear Boomer Lord

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Tartaglia | Childe x Zhongli and Xiao x Aether

Premise: Genshin Impact is back with a new addition to their movie franchise, with a talented and an exciting cast. What are you waiting for? Come find out who they are!

A/N: This is a social media au fic, except in text form… Just crossposting it from my ao3 (which you can read it here if you’d like!!) and this is the final chapter :DD

prev chapter

Ch 2 interview and behind the scenes

Spiral Abyss ✓ .  @ abyssalmoon

Farewell Archaic Lord : Zhongli, Aether, Xiao and Ajax talk 

1.9 M views 

Watch now 

—

( The screen brightens up, Xiao, Ajax, Aether and Zhongli can be seen sitting on black studio chairs. They wave at the camera )

Aether

So, how shall we begin ?

Charlotte

Hello hello! Hmm, now that I’m facing all of you, I have no idea what to ask- (looks at the camera sheepishly) 

Ajax (gets ready to leave)

Alright, that’s the end of the interview! Thank you everyone for watching– 

Zhongli (interrupts him by placing a hand on his shoulder and chuckles)

Not so fast, I’m afraid. 

Charlotte 

Very funny, Ajax. We’re not letting you go until all the tea is spilled! 

Hmmm.. Oh right! This reminds me, where is the Liyue trio? I had thought Ms. Ganyu and the others would be attending?

(Charlotte looks somewhere off camera, as if to confirm something. Some rustling and muffled noises of people talking can be heard)

Xiao

Ah yes, unfortunately they got caught up in some other work and couldn’t make it. It was last minute and they couldn’t inform you in time.

Zhongli 

Mmh, that is correct. 

Charlotte 

Awe,how unfortunate! We were quite excited to meet up with the bona fide Liyue Qixing. Next time, I suppose!

Okay, let’s start off now. Who among you guys messed up your dialogues the most? 

(Camera zooms in at Aether’s face, who looks quite embarrassed as everyone stares pointedly at him)

Aether

It was me, ‘m sorry. Are spoilers allowed? 

Xiao 

Obviously, go on. 

Aether 

Ahem so- I might have gotten super annoyed by the side quests that the uhh… Traveler received from Mr. Morax. Such stupid side quests! I felt annoyed on behalf of Traveler, I mean– going all the way to Mondstadt to BOIL A FREAKING STONE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?? And then walking all the way back to Liyue. Also, don’t forget about spending absurd amounts of money on FLOWERS– FLOWERS I TELL YOU!

(Aether does the jazz hands to express his frustration. Meanwhile, Zhongli observes bemusedly) 

So I may have said some things extremely off the script and we had to redo scenes. Multiple times. I’m so sorry guys! Blame Morax, he’s the problem. 

Ajax 

Yeah! We basically played “take a shot every time Aether says OH FUCK YOU”. I think it’s best to say we all got drunk, really really bad.

Xiao 

Hmph. You just can't hold your liquor. I was sober, thank you very much. 

Zhongli 

Oh? Really now? Ajax, where did that recording of him singing “My heart will go on” go? He did the entire Titanic ship pose and all.

(The camera zooms in again, now at a very red Xiao, who looks like he’s about to burst. To make it worse, Aether and Ajax are wheezing, trying to hold their laughs in but failing miserably)

Charlotte 

Is that so? I’d love to see that.

Xiao (looks at Zhongli in horror)

NO.

Zhongli 

Aha, so you do remember!

Charlotte 

Sounds like you all had a fun time during the shooting. Any interesting moments that you’d like to share?

Xiao

Oh yes definitely, I’m sure you all remember seeing a clip in which Morax stares at Tartaglia’s butt.

For those wondering, no, it was not part of the script. It was just Zhongli. All him, I swear. 

(Ajax visibly chokes on air and hides his face at Xiao’s comment, grumbling indistinctly) 

Zhongli (clears his throat)

Well I– it wasn’t on purpose… I was… Lost in… thoughts. Yes.

Aether 

Lost in a daydream, you mean to say. 

Charlotte (cackles and almost falls off of her chair)

Interesting! Well, let’s change the subject otherwise a few people might die from embarrassment here. Not that they haven't already. 

We can all agree that the scenes in the movie were absolutely epic! Such a beautiful landscape. And the sunset skies! Was it all CGI or did you all actually go to those gorgeous places? 

Ajax 

It was mostly real, a few things were CGI but honestly you could say 85% of it was the real deal. Acting in these areas was super difficult though. I mean, you can’t really control weather and most of the time, since we did a lot of shooting around mountain areas, it was WINDY and all the hair would keep going in my mouth, the hanfu wouldn’t stay in place… A nightmare honestly. 

Aether 

It wasn’t that bad though. 

Ajax 

Yes, it was that bad and you can’t change my mind! 

Charlotte 

Well Mr. Ajax, despite all your struggles, I must say your acting was superb. You had me gripping the edge of my seat! How thrilling! It’s hard to believe such a bubbly personality such as yours could act as a villain. I’ve heard that the directors saw you and called it.

Ajax 

Oh yeah. Umm, I’m surprised as well! This is my first acting experience honestly and sure, I’ve done concerts with Rosaline and Kabuki, but acting? Way above my paygrade. But they were super adamant I must audition for the role of Tartaglia. Next thing I know, I said a few lines and they picked me. 

Aether 

He was absolutely nuts, I swear. Super in character! Directors made the right choice, he looks and feels like THE living breathing Tartaglia. That one scene where he pulls out his water blades and does the cheeky toothy smile? That was all impromptu, off script. Ajax did all that and he didn't even realise it. 

Charlotte

Impressive! Also back to the hanfu and hair. Oh my god, you all looked stunning! The costumes were gorgeous and the hair! Looked so real.

Zhongli 

Mmhm, the costumes were all designed and made by Menogias. It’s always a pleasure to wear his hanfus, they really take your breath away. 

Xiao 

Yes, and it’s always a pleasant experience too. Which is rare, for such heavily embellished attire. You’d think they’d be heavy and itchy to wear but for some reason, Menogias makes only the best. It feels like you’re wearing pajamas. They're that comfortable. 

Aether

Agreed! Oh and by the way, we actually needed to grow our hair out for this movie. I mean, mainly me, Xiao and Ajax. Since Zhongli does a lot of historical movies and dramas, his hair is almost always long. I’m sure you must have noticed. 

Ajax (nods along) 

Yeah, it was all our hair. We had extensions in a few scenes but it was mostly just… us. Honestly, I didn't think I’d like long hair, since it seems to be quite a hassle to take care of, but I kinda enjoyed it. 

Xiao 

Mmhm. It wasn’t bad. Plus, the kids had fun braiding it. Mostly Qiqi, she’d see us and immediately give us those sparkly puppy dog eyes. She’d have fun braiding and we’d get a free hairstyle so, win win. 

Charlotte 

I can totally imagine the kids having fun, this is giving that tangled scene vibes right now. 

(Someone off camera comes and whispers into Charlotte’s ear and she looks surprised)

Oh dear! Time sure flies when in good company! I didn’t even notice that we’re almost about to go over your schedule. 

Zhongli 

Oh don’t worry about it, we can spare a few more minutes. This has been quite enjoyable. 

Charlotte 

Alright, let’s go through a few more questions then! I’ll go rapid fire speed, alright?

(Everyone says “yes ma'am!”) 

Any scenes that made you feel like you were in actual danger?

Aether 

Oh yeah, that one scene where I had to do the free fall and Xiao caught me. My heart almost jumped out of my chest!!

(The others nod) 

Xiao 

That scene was a bit scary. We had those rope contraption things holding us up, no idea what they’re called. Still, it felt awful. 

Charlotte 

Mhmm, the fans call it the moment “conqueror of demons falls in love with the traveler”. You were both gazing at each other quite intensely. 

Aether 

Trust me, it was the fear of falling. Nothing deep. 

(“Whatever you say bro,” Ajax adds sneakily)

Charlotte 

Any personal favourite scenes?

Zhongli 

Hmm if I had to choose, it’d definitely be the Osial part. From its release and battle, it was all incredible. 

Aether 

Definitely the Osial scene, but also the scene where Morax just sits… while drinking his oolong tea IN THE MIDDLE OF A TSUNAMI.

OH MY GOD. That was insane. Like dude– run for your life– then you remember he’s immortal. And also a bit wrong in the head. Rex Lapis apparently does not know how to behave like a human, even after living for thousands of years.

Ajax 

Oh preach. It was funny as hell. Zhongli came back looking like a wet rat too. 

Xiao 

We all looked like wet rats. Keqing took a picture of it too, she must have posted it somewhere. 

Charlotte

Well now I’m curious! Gotta look into Keqing’s skygram for that, huh? And thank you all for your precious time. I really enjoyed talking with you, it was lovely! 

Aether (grins at Charlotte)

Awee, thanks for having us!

Ajax (waves at the camera)

Let’s hope we meet again for another interview!

Zhongli 

Soon. Hopefully. Thank you, and have a good day everyone. 

Xiao

Mmh, bye. 

(screen fades out for a few seconds as the cast wave at the camera smiling, before you can hear someone talk in the background)

Xiao

Ajax, you better delete that singing video, otherwise you’re dead meat–

Bonus behind the scenes (leaked by yours truly, Keqing <3)

—

[ Attached : a picture of Zhongli, Aether, Ninnguang, Ajax, and Ganyu looking like soaked and pitiful wet rats as they throw up a peace sign at the camera. All looking beyond exhausted ]

Caption : How come I wasn’t invited for that anime beach scene? I feel sad and left out — Keqing:3

—

Aether and Zhongli

“Ah it seems I do not have mora.. Traveler would you be kind enough to–”

“Fuck off, get your fatuus wallet to get you mora.”

“That wasn't part of the script.”

“CUT! AETHER PLEASE, THIS IS THE 4TH TIME IN A ROW.”

“Sorry….”

—

Ajax and Zhongli

“I can't believe I was betrayed by someone whom I thought of as a friend. Was everything just a lie?”

“Hmm.”

“Xiansheng?”

“Hmmm.”

“Hello?? Earth to Zhongli??? Did you just zone out?”

“CUT! Zhongli, you can stare at Ajax’s ass, chest, waist, all you want but later. Please.”

“What–”

—

Xiao and Aether

“Madame Ping gave me a teapot. Umm..”

“Ah yes.. So I heard.”

“I’d like it if you’d come over once, maybe tonight– for dinner y’know?”

“Of course, you just need to call out my name.”

Someone yells off camera

“WHY DON’T YOU JUST STAY FOREVER?”

“Hu Tao, please be quiet!!!”

“Boohoo, I just wanted to do that Mulan scene. You’re no fun, fatui boy.”

“CUTTTTTTTTT!!! You rascals, go away!!! It’s not even your scene right now.”

[akkivee]

i tried out the hypmic teas!!!!!! i’m not a reputable tea drinker, since my preferred method of making tea is to pour boiling water on my tea bag and let it stew in liquid flames for minutes i’m sure feels like hours for the bag (i like my tea strong, scalded leaves be damned lmao) but i prepared it according to the directions and tasted it for there so it should be true to flavour lol

so the instructions for brewing the tea were as follows: 1️⃣ prepare a cup of 150ml (~2/3c) hot water 2️⃣ let it cool a bit and add the tea bag 3️⃣ let it steep for 3-4 minutes!!! so what i did was boil water and after adding the amount to my tea cup, i let it cool for 4 minutes and then steeped the bag for 4 minutes (…..and some change for the photos LOL)

❤️☕️: bb had a strawberry rooibos tea!!!! the tea had a very overpowering scent the moment i took it out and that was basically my warning LOL i wound up sipping that tea first and almost immediately sipped mtc’s, except that strawberry flavour lingers fr, so i almost did mtc a disservice. what was really neat about the tea tho is that for every moment the tea lingered on the tongue, the flavour changed and became bolder!!!!! i assume that was the strawberry notes changing to the rooibos notes but it was sick to experience lol!!!!

💙☕️: mtc’s flavour was yokohama afternoon tea!!!! it was an english black tea blend essentially lol but the downside of this is that, since it’s a tea i drink regularly and therefore over brew for my preferred tastes, it tasted weak to me lol, but that’s not the tea’s fault. i think it needed the boiling water personally!!!!! other than that tho, it was a lovely blend 😃

💛☕️: posse had a caramel and chestnut tea!!!!! it was a black tea blend tho, so again, it felt a little weak to me in the beginning. i wound up taking multiple sips to try and discern where the caramel and chestnut was coming from but when i could, i found it was similar to the bb tea where the flavours shifted over time. i wasn’t nearly as powerful as bb’s but i think that was again bc it was a black tea and needed hotter water to brew in. i added about 1/2tbs of sugar to each of these cups after my initial sips (i also like sugar in my tea lol i think it enhances flavour) and felt the flavours jumped more after that addition!!

🩶☕️: mtr had a jasmine tea and i’m not gonna lie lmao!!!!! after drinking this tea, it made me realise i had never had a jasmine tea that wasn’t over brewed LOL and i presume it’s bc cafes over brew for additives, but the astringency in those jasmine teas has always been off putting, even as someone who prefers astringency in black tea. now tho lol!!!!! it’s such a pleasantly flavourful tea i’m sorry we do your tea dirty lol!!!!!! thank you mtr for always guiding us to the light and showing me the error of my ways LOL

🧡☕️: dh had an apricot black tea!!!! and similar to all the other black teas before it, it needed a longer brew time or initial hotter water lol. like it came out of the bag smelling very strong so i had high expectations but was let down initially. but i was sipping on this tea as i typed this out lol with the bag still in the cup and MAN it’s such a nice flavour, especially with that added sugar!!! hotter water and a 7 minute steeping would absolutely do this tea justice 👌

💜☕️: bat’s flavour was kyouhou grape iirc???? and it’s the tea i’ve had the most trepidation about trying lol since jp grape tastes like medicine to me. i did have the bat grape candy tho and it tasted closer to grape jolly rancher that the medicinal taste i remember so i came in with a bit more hope lol!!!!! the bag had a very strong scent (it overpowered dh’s actually and dh’s was strong lol) but it’s a black tea so the flavour wasn’t as strong as it could have been. maybe that was in its favour tho bc the grape taste still shone thru even tho it probably could’ve used better brewing conditions!!!! and sugar definitely complimented that!!!! i also sipped this tea as i typed this out and tbh, that medicinal flavour became more pronounced as time went on, and it lingers lol, so i’d actually brew this as intended lol, maybe a bit longer to hit a stronger grape sweet spot

my favourite of the bunch just might be bb!!!!!

[pythianoracle]

PSA About Some Shady Shit on Tumblr

This post is to bring light to some shady marketing on tumblr. This is not about an individual, but rather as a company posing as an aesthetic/meme account in order to get people to buy from their shitty drop shipping company.

I am making this post because I am sick of covert marketing and drop shippers over charging for the same stuff that can be found for cheaper and by the actual company. I am also concerned for the possible hazard of drop shipped items that need to be food safe in order to use.

Tumblr user @/my-kawaii—world is a drop shipping company pretending to be an aesthetic blogger who happens to “find” links to all the products in posts. All these links lead to the same drop shipping company website: Lavender Constellation. Under the cut is evidence to support my claim.

Alt text has been added for accessibility.

Hey, so I’m really not one to make posts like this, but I saw something that rlly sketched me out that some people may want to be aware of.

So, someone I follow reblogged this really cute teapot that my-kawaii—world posted!

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet reposted by user my-kawaii—world on tumblr. The post reads “losing my mind over this frog teapot my best friend gave me”. Attached to the tweet are two images showing a green frog teapot with two black tadpole cups. ID END]

Seems innocent enough, right? But then you scroll to the end of the post.

[ID: A screenshot of the bottom of the previous post by my-kawaii—world. Attached is a link to a storefront in green and pink text that reads “**Update For the people asking I asked her and she bought the frog tea set HERE🐸. ID END]

I thought “dang, a ton of people must have been asking them if they went to all that extra effort”, so I decided to check the tags.

[ID: A screenshot of the post reblogs with the user names blocked out in red to respect privacy. From top to bottom, the tags read: #cat #basically #cats and #haha. ID END]

Why would people be tagging this with cats if it has nothing to do with cats? Looking further, if you open up a reblog, you see this.

[ID: A screenshot a reblog that shows a different tweet. Punctuation has been added to alt text for readability. The tweet reads as follows: “Me: Invents a device to talk to cats. Cat: Oh god, finally you understand me. When ever I meow for hours it’s because I want wet food. I know this was so opaque for you. Me: No no, I knew you want wet food the whole time, but you can’t have it whenever you want. Cat: (blank space) Me: (blank space) Cat: first of all, fuck you,”. ID END]

They’re retroactively editing their high note posts to give more credibility to the shit they’re selling. Here is the listing on the linked website

[ID: a screenshot of a website called “Lavender Constellation”. The website has a light purple background with darker purple text. The listing image is of a green frog teapot with two black tadpole cups on a pink background and labeled “TEA SET FROG & TADPOLE”. The item’s original price is listed as $149.95 USD and is listed as on sale for $79.99 USD. ID END]

Wow isn’t it so cool that it’s on sale right now? Save over $60 USD? What a steal! They also offer free world-wide shipping and have a coupon code you can use. Crazy.

Upon further digging, the real teapot is the frog from the サンアート aka sunart brand, specifically from their parent and child collection. And guess what? You can get it on Amazon for less than half the price, even after the “sale”.

[ID: a screenshot of the same green frog teapot and black tadpole cups listen on Amazon. At the bottom are options to select, including Frog Parent, Elephant Parent, and an additional one that is cut off. The frog parent is $32.96 USD and the elephant parent is $26.22 USD. ID END]

I looked into the brand and they seem to specifically make ceramics additionally, the options to pick less popular options that I don’t see nearly as many bootlegs of make me pretty confident this is the actual product.

This is far from the only post they’ve done this with. Looking at their blog, you’ll see a sea of ads for their original posts, all linking to the same store:

[ID: A screenshot of a post by my-kawaii—world. The post is cut off due to the size of the device it was taken on. In the screenshot, there is an image of a silver sword ring with a skull on the pommel and a chain connecting the pommel to the cross-guard. Below the image is a link that red, bolded, and underlined text that reads: “OMG, I FINALLY FOUND THE RIGHT WITH FREE SHIPPING!!!!”. ID END]

And then following the link, we get taken right back to the Lavender Constellation website:

[ID: A screenshot of the same Lavender Collection Website from before with a pale purple background and darker purple text. The listing photo is of a person’s hand with a silver ring in the shape of a sword. It has a skull on the pommel and a chain connecting the pommel to the cross-guard. The listing is labeled “STAINLESS STEEL GOTH SWORD RING” in purple text. ID END]

If you go to their page, you will see a ton of other examples of this. Hell, I have even more examples, but I feel this post is long enough as is. I’m frankly fed up with people doing this shit, especially charging over double the price of an original product for a shitty knock off.

I’m not going to comment of the safety of these products (i.e., if the knock off teapot is food safe or not) because I don’t plan on buying one to test for lead, but that is a genuine risk you have when buying drop shipped products. For example, counterfeit makeup is well known for containing chemicals that can be harmful to the skin due because they’re much cheaper than the skin safe stuff. Here is a research article that discusses some of the harmful effects that unregulated, counterfeit makeup can have on your skin. The article is open access, so don’t worry about being blocked by a paywall.

Again, I don’t know if the counterfeit teapot is food safe or not, I haven’t been able to find any posts discussing the bootleg, or even Lavendar Constellation as a whole, but with stuff like this, it’s much better to be safe than sorry.

I am positive my-kawaii—world and Lavender Constellation are not the only people running operations like this on tumblr, I’m sure there are a shit ton more. Most will probably run the same way as my-kawaii—world. Essentially if you go to a page that posts a ton of cute, aesthetic products and they link to the same website for every single thing, it’s probably a drop shipping scam.

I’m not someone who thinks I’m “morally superior” for buying only name brand stuff, hell I own a few bootleg plushies, but items that need to food safe are not something I personally would fuck around with. And even if these bootlegs are food safe, the fact that they are charging over double the price of the original is so ludicrous and inexcusable.

Personally, I recommend blocking the @/my-kawaii—world account. Don’t micromanage people who have already reblogged from them unless they’re a friend, mutual, etc. Basically, don’t harass strangers who happened to reblog the original post or the edited post. Just get the word out there about this account.

Do I think my post will shut down their site and drive them off Tumblr? Probably not. But the more people that know about this specific scam and scams like it, the better.

[lilolilyr]

List five things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last ten people who reblogged something from you. Spread the positivity!! (And obviously no pressure if you don't want to.)

Oh, i can’t believe I only now get around to answering this one, I love the 5 things ask! (got this one 6. Dezember 2022 o.O just over a year ago!)

Thanks so much for this ask, and thanks for the ‘no pressure’ addition too, some of those chain mails can be so pushy :D but for this, I come prepared! A while ago I started writing some down for this specific ask meme, both because it’s a nice thing to write it down when there’s something making you happy, and so the answers to this would have some variety :D

- Using the ginger from store bought (veggie)sushi boxes to make ginger tea aka gollum juice! Idk, it just fills me with such joy every time <3 I used to always throw out the ginger bc I don't like to eat it, and that's just wasteful, so I just didn't buy sushi boxes much, and then when I got into liking ginger tea, the whole ginger I'd buy is just too much for me to use, and not fresh ginger tea just doesn't taste right... but now that I thought of doing this, I get my sushi boxes and my tea and it's amazing! (from Sept 27)

- Wearing long skirts. I never used to - I think I was stuck on the image of them being stuffy and uncool, and I still remember reading one children's/teen book where the protagonist makes fun of the goodie two shoes girls in their plaid skirts... well, anyway, about a year ago or two, I was at a yard sale with my little sister, just looking around, she was looking for some necklaces and shirts I think while I wasn't really searching for anything for myself so I was just looking for her, when I saw this dark striped pleated skirt, and first when I tried it on I still wasn't sure about it but it was like 3€ so I took it anyway... and I haven't looked back since! I got another one in pink and beige at a store, and my favourite vintage green and gold patterned one on eBay, and two layered flowy ones in black and in white on holiday in Belgium last summer, and they're all so nice and swishy and I enjoy the aesthetic of long skirts immensely! There's also the added benefit of them not adding to my chronic pain - I basically just wore hotpants or harem trousers the years before bc I had finally figured out that wearing jeans made my legs ache a Lot (not necessarily while wearing it but also afterwards which is why I hadn't known before, only after not wearing them for a while and then trying some on again I noticed the difference) & maybe child me telling my parents that everything but pyjama pants were 'uncomfortable' and I wanted to wear them to primary school was onto sth lmao Anyway, so I had already found trousers that don't hurt me so the skirts didn't exactly change that, but I also like how they look and feel! (27.9.23)

- Lutschbonbons (it says this without any comment 29.11.21 xD I wonder what sweets I had been eating?)

- Doing crossword puzzles with my mom (9.5.2020 - jeez how long ago did I start writing these down and not use them? xD anyway I still love doing that! We meet weekly on a videocall)

- and right now: the sweet sweet relief of using the biteaway heat burn thingy to cure the itchiness of mosquito bites xD goddamn beasts are everywhere but They’ve Got No Power Here I have a mosquitonet and if one gets me while I’m not there I have my wonderful biteaway thanks again for that @lavendelhummel the thing’s a lifesaver!

[99liv3s]

The Baby Challenge

Note: I wrote this entire story using my phone, so any formatting issues are a result of this!

1

20 year old Lizzie Walker reached for her glass and sipped her tea, her green eyes still focused on her book, reading about fantasy worlds, magic, and heroes, through her small oval glasses.  Holding her novel in her left hand, she replaced her tea onto the table nearby and ran her hand through the bangs of her light brown hair, absentmindedly playing with her low pigtails as she continued to read, relaxing at her little outdoor table at the local coffee shop.  So engrossed in her book, she did not realize that someone was watching her from across the street, until he finally crossed over and came up to her table. 

The individual was a male, with short black hair and dressed in a blue shirt, jeans, and a gray jacket, and carrying what looked like a small briefcase.  He was barely taller than Lizzie, who was not very tall herself, and he also wore glasses, behind which were dark but seemingly kind eyes.   "Hi," he said to her as she looked him over.  He was kind of cute, but seemed quite average in appearance.  "My name is Daniel and I'm happy to meet you!" He introduced himself.  Lizzie smiled back politely, wondering why he had made the effort of speaking to her; very few people even bothered.  "Lizzie Walker," she responded tentatively, to which Daniel nodded.  "I know," he said.  "I've been studying you and your information for a while now!"  Lizzie glared at him suspiciously, but Daniel simply smiled wider in response.  "Don't worry, as weird as that sounds, I actually do have a reason."  As he said this, Daniel sat his briefcase down, opened it, and pulled out a folder which looked to contain medical files as well as other printouts.  He then took a seat at Lizzie's table across from her and placed the files on the table.   From what she could see, the files were all about her, but there was a paper on top which caught her interest: "Baby Challenge Experiment" was written at the top of it.  "I'm a scientist, see," Daniel began in explanation, "and you've been chosen for a very special experience, should you choose to accept!"  He motioned to the paper.  "You've played the computer game Sims, correct?"  Lizzie nodded.  "You've heard of the 100 baby challenge for that game??" Daniel asked.  Lizzie nodded at this too.  She had heard of it, but never tried it herself.  Apparently, the gist of the challenge was for the player to create a female Sim in game, and have that sim give birth to and raise 100 babies eventually.   There was more to it than that, but Lizzie only knew the basics.  "Well, some colleagues and I have proposed a kind of real life 100 Baby Challenge," Daniel continued.  Lizzie nodded again.  She had heard rumors of this, but knew very little about it, for information on it seemed scarce.  "It's a kind of experiment, and I've chosen you to be part of that experiment," Daniel said, smiling warmly to her.  Lizzie stared at him, processing this.  She had a lot of questions, but the first one she blurted out was: "Me?? Why me?? I'm like... a nobody!!"   Daniel smiled reassuringly at her.  "Well, in addition to having the right body for our needs, for you are a young healthy woman of childbearing age, we also were looking for someone open-minded and curious," Daniel answered.  Lizzie mulled this over; it was true that she was mostly curious and intrigued about this experiment, which helped to diminish her nervousness about this proposal.  As if he had read her mind, Daniel continued, "I should tell you that you're not expected to have 100 babies yourself... that's impossible."  "You'd be only a small but significant part of the project."  "Since real life obviously has more limits than Sims do, of course we had to change up some things."   "After brainstorming on this for months, we developed the experiment in its current form: You'll be one of a handful of women that have been recruited to participate!"  "I can tell you more, but it's under the condition that you accept my offer."  "It's completely voluntary, and if you refuse, you'll never hear from us again."  Lizzie thought for a moment.  It sounded dangerous and intimidating, but also interesting and a potentially unique experience.  In addition, she was more or less alone; her friends were all distant, she had a part-time job she only took to pay the bills, and she had not been in a relationship in a long time.  Today was no exception, and only recently had she been convinced that she would never have kids.   This experience Daniel proposed sounded life changing for the better, and Lizzie could not think of any reason to refuse.  The more she thought about it, the better it sounded.  "Um, ok, I accept!!" Lizzie responded.  "What do I have to do??" Daniel seemed to swell with happiness.  Smiling, he reached into his briefcase and took out another folder.  "Excellent!" he said, as he opened the folder and pulled out a pen.  "Once you're ready, you'll be taken to the facilities in the mountains where we have set up the project!"  "I'm going to live there?" Lizzie asked.  "Of course," Daniel responded.   "You'll live with some of the other girls of the experiment, and we'll provide for all your needs!"  "But, first," he tapped the papers in the new folder he had produced, "You must sign our contract!"  Lizzie hesitated a bit, feeling nervous.  The prospect of signing a contract hit home how life changing this experience was going to be.  Daniel passed the contract over to Lizzie, who read it silently: "This contract is a binding agreement that the signee is taking part in the proposed experiment known as the 100 Baby Experiment!  The girl that signs this contract gives consent for the use of her body for the experiment.  She will be expected to live in the experiment's facility along with other girls that have also signed and her general needs will be attended to.  Upon agreeing to take part, the signee is expected to successfully give birth to 5 healthy babies before being allowed to leave the facility.  The signee must maintain secrecy about this project at all times during and after the experiment.  The signee must also agree that she gives up each of her babies to the experiment caretakers (though, the ability to track and monitor the children's lives, and even visits to them later can be arranged).  Failure to comply with the agreed terms of this contract will result in major penalties to the signee." Lizzie took the pen from Daniel and signed her full name on the line at the bottom.  With a nod, Daniel packed the pen and all of the papers back into his briefcase.  Lizzie stood up as Daniel closed and locked it.  "Alright," Daniel said happily, as an SUV drove up to where they stood.  "We'll be ready to take you to the facility soon."   "You have time to return home and take care of any personal business you need to take care of!"  "A vehicle will be by in a few hours to transport you to the facility!"  "Next time we meet, it will be during the experiment!"  "Congratulations, and welcome to the 100 Baby Challenge Project!"  With that, Daniel climbed into the SUV and it drove off, leaving Lizzie standing beside her table, somewhat shocked in what she had just agreed to.

2

Lizzie had returned home and immediately called to quit her job.   Afterward, she had begun to pack a few clothes and other provisions, managing to fit everything into just one piece of luggage.  She looked around the house one last time, ensuring that she had taken care of everything, and also somewhat wondering when she would see it again.  A little over two hours later, a large van with no windows in the back, drove up to her house and stopped.  As Lizzie headed outside with her bag in tow, a young man exited the vehicle and smiled at her.  "Lizzie Walker, I'm here to take you to the facility for the Baby Challenge." He said, in a kind voice.  "Here, let me help you with that."  He reached around her for her luggage, and Lizzie let him take it.  "And don't worry about your house," the driver said to her, as he loaded Lizzie's bag into the van, "We have people that will take care of it while you are at the facility."  The driver then opened a back door and motioned for Lizzie to enter.  Lizzie climbed in, thinking to herself that she had just climbed into her new life, and that there was no going back now, and the driver shut the door behind her. As Lizzie had observed from the outside,  there were no windows.  A small light shined overhead as she climbed into a large seat and buckled a seat belt. She seemed to be alone, though there were other unoccupied seats, one to her right, and two behind her.  She looked ahead and saw that a barrier separated her section of the van from the driver's seat, and attached to this barrier was a tv screen.  Lizzie felt the van start to move and a few seconds after this, the screen came on, showing her a video.   "Welcome to the 100 Baby Challenge Experiment," a woman's voice said, narrating the video.  "You have joined an incredible passion project of our four founders, something unique that has never been attempted before!"  As Lizzie watched, some individuals began being shown on the screen.  "This project's idea was conceived by four prosperous and resourceful friends," the voice continued, and Lizzie immediately recognized the first person to appear.  "Daniel Jones, the inventor of the experimental and somewhat controversial Fast Pregnancy serum," a young woman in a black shirt and jeans with short auburn hair appeared on the screen.  "His wife, Rena Jones," "Harry Davis, inheritor of the renowned SouthStar software company," a tall young man with brown hair appeared after Rena, followed by a fourth male with blonde hair and blue eyes, "And Quinn Hayes, owner of a vast construction company."  "The four of them wished to use their resources and riches on  something new that had never been attempted before, and were inspired by the baby challenge of the same name from the Sims game."  "They decided to proceed with a real life version of said challenge, as it would be something unique, and would also be an excellent way to test the latest version of Daniel's serum, and additionally provide children for adoption to families that could not have children of their own."   "Realizing very early that there was only one female among them, and that it would be impossible for her to give birth to a hundred babies alone, the four of them began to revise the proposed project, until they came up with its current form; for genetic versatility, safety of the individuals in the project, and efficiency, it was decided that the founders would seek out nineteen other young women to join Rena in becoming the bearers of the babies, concluding that each of them could give birth to five babies healthily, totaling a hundred babies."  "And so, the search through internet and medical records for these young women began, as Quinn's construction company began construction of a semi-secret facility inside one of the nearby mountains, in which this experiment would occur."  The scenes on the video changed to view the mountains and several shots of underground rooms in various stages of construction.  "After many months, construction of the facilities is finally complete and recruitment of all of the child-bearers, scientists, and caretakers is underway."  "Congratulations, you have been chosen to be one of those child-bearers, contributing to the success of the project."  Lizzie watched, interested, as the video scenes changed again, showing her flashes and moving views of various rooms.  "It was decided that for further efficiency and comfort that the twenty child-bearers be split into four groups of 5, with each group living in a separate section of the facility, and the girls of each group being assigned a specific seeder, one of the 3 male founders or a fourth recruited male, who will provide the sperm for impregnation."   "You are assigned to Section C, and will live with four other girls also assigned to that section, until the conclusion of the project. "  "All your needs will be taken care of and the five of you will have freedom of movement in your section of the facility, where various provisions will be provided: A gym, a library, a general entertainment room, dining area, and personal bedrooms for each of you." "Daniel's serum is the key," the narration continued, as the screen changed to show a vial of liquid.  "Though controversial due to its potential risks, the Fast Pregnancy serum is used sporadically in various medical facilities and private hospitals to help accelerate pregnancy for medical reasons."  "A new, more controlled and stable variant of the serum will be used to help accelerate all pregnancies in the project to ensure the progress of the challenge."  "Once everyone has arrived at the facility, and the project begins, one random girl from each section will be called each week to report to the lab to be impregnated with their first child, until all child-bearers give birth to their babies, in which case the process is re-randomized and repeated again until each girl has given birth to five babies."  "Each baby born will be taken to our caretakers in a different part of the facility, where they will be cared for as they await adoption at the end of the experiment."  "Each pregnancy is expected to last 3 months, with weekly checkups being provided to all bearers in the experiment to ensure the health of each mother and child."  "Births will take place in the company of the other girls living in your section."  "Therefore, please acquaint yourself with your fellow child-bearers in your section, for you will live with them and you can provide support to each other during your pregnancies and births."  Lizzie felt the van begin to slow down as the images on the screen disappeared.  "You are now arriving at the facility, and will be escorted to your section by your driver," the narrator concluded.  "Your belongings will be taken to your personal room by our staff."  "Again, congratulations, and welcome to the 100 Baby Challenge."

3

Lizzie exited the vehicle and found herself in what looked like a parking structure.  Similar vans and other vehicles were parked here and though there were lights along the walls, Lizzie could see a bit of sunlight from a slit that seemed to run around the entire structure.   The sounds echoed as the driver shut the door of the van and the two of them walked to a door in a corner of the structure.  After watching that video, Lizzie had to admit to herself that she was more that a little nervous now, but her curiosity seemed to  overwhelm her nervousness, and so she steadied herself as they entered through the door.  This led them into a quieter, low lit, carpeted lobby-like room with a small fountain playing in the center, and various art decorations on the walls.  The driver motioned for Lizzie to follow him over to an elevator on the left wall.  As the two of them approached it, Lizzie saw that at the far end of the same wall was another elevator, and behind her, two more elevators were lined in the same positions on the opposite wall.   Lizzie read a letter C at the top of this elevator, as the driver typed in a code on a nearby panel, and the doors opened.  "Go on in," he told her, motioning to the elevator car inside.  "It will take you to your section of the facility, where everything should be all set for you!"   Slightly reluctantly, Lizzie stepped into the elevator.  The door shut behind her and she immediately began moving down. After a few seconds, the door opened again, inviting Lizzie into a wide open area.   The first thing she laid eyes on was a smiling girl that looked as if she had stopped mid-walk while passing the elevator, and was now standing directly in front of it.  This girl was taller than Lizzie, with tanned skin that looked as if she had spent a lot of time outdoors, long wavy black hair, brown eyes, and freckles, and she was dressed in a white shirt and cute denim overalls.  "Hi," she said brightly, as Lizzie stepped slowly out of the elevator.  "I'm Kaylyn!!"  "You're here for the project, like me!!"  Lizzie nodded, smiling shyly, seemingly infected with Kaylyn's excited energy.  "Lizzie Walker," Lizzie said, and was surprised when Kaylyn hugged her immediately, giggling.  "Sorry, I'm just so excited," Kaylyn said upon releasing Lizzie, who continued to smile.  "It's ok," Lizzie responded, as she began to look around, fully taking in the area she had stepped in for the first time with wonder.  "Wow!"  To the left and right of her were metal walkways that seemed to follow along the walls; Lizzie could see doors on these walls in both directions.  Directly in front of her, a ramp led down into a large open area that, at Lizzie's first glance, looked to be outdoors, and she had to remind herself that she was underground.  Though she could not see everything, it was clear that an artificial sun shined overhead, and there was grass and even a few various flowers surrounding a glass structure in the center of the room.  "I KNOW, right?" Kaylyn exclaimed, watching Lizzie take in her surroundings.  "Come on, let me show you around!"  Kaylyn led them down the ramp into the wide open space, where Lizzie took in more of the outdoor like area, noticing that she could hear outdoor sounds of birds and insects, thought she realized that they were no doubt artificial sounds.  Entering this open foyer, she immediately saw more of the glass structure in its center, as well as make out what she saw through the glass.  It looked like an exam room, for inside it, there looked to be an exam bed, a yoga ball, and a table.  "It's the birthing suite," Kaylyn said, catching Lizzie looking at the structure.  "This is where we'll have our babies when it's time!"  Lizzie looked closely and saw that, though the room inside was dark, because it was not yet in  use, she could see that an overhead light connected to a long arm and stirrups were attached to the bed.   "Isn't it exciting??" Kaylyn said brightly.  "I... I don't know..." Lizzie muttered, nervousness rising to the surface again.  "But, didn't you volunteer for this?" Kaylyn asked, not unkindly.  Lizzie looked back at the central structure, thinking.  "I was curious," she answered, looking back into Kaylyn's eyes.  "I've never had kids and figured I never would unless I did this, and it sounded very interesting..." Lizzie trailed off, thinking that she sounded quite out of her mind.   However, Kaylyn smiled kindly at her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.  "Hey, you'll do great," she said consolingly, rubbing Lizzie's arm.  "It's fine to be nervous, but it's all gonna be ok!"   "You're part of our little group now, and we're here for each other, right?"  Lizzie nodded.  Partly to take her mind off her nervousness, she asked, "So, why are you here, Kaylyn?? You don't seem nervous..."   This question seemed to bring back Kaylyn's excitement and she smiled wider.  "I've been here for a while," Kaylyn answered, and the two of them began walking again as they talked, making their way to the right of the birthing suite.  Lizzie could see a small pool a few feet behind it, and a wall at the end of the room, where two glass doors were positioned, one close to each end, but at this distance, Lizzie could not see through them.  "They approached me almost a month ago for this experiment, and I happily volunteered." Kaylyn continued, as they strolled through the foyer toward the wall and doors.  "I can't wait to get pregnant!!"  "Why?" Lizzie asked her, half amused, half alarmed.   Kaylyn laughed.  "I've been fascinated by pregnancy and birth since I was a kid," she answered.  "I grew up on a farm and watched a lot of the farm animals give birth!"  "Ever since I saw the first one, I've always been interested, wondering what being pregnant and giving birth would feel like, but I don't actually want a kid!"  "I don't really want to become a mom, and I was thinking about volunteering to become a surrogate when I was approached for this project."  "It seemed perfect!"  Lizzie considered this for a moment, then nodded, concluding that Kaylyn's reasons for being here were not so strange, and were just as reasonable as Lizzie's own curiosity leading her into this.   They stopped in front of the glass door at the far right of the wall, where Lizzie could see a sign over the door reading "Library".  "Here's the library," Kaylyn said, opening the door.  They stepped in, and Lizzie could see that they were in a moderately small but cozy room, though, she guessed, the room probably seemed smaller because of the bookcases that were positioned around the room.  Toward the back, there were a couple of  computers with desk chairs behind them, a few armchairs had been placed in the room, and Lizzie noticed that as soon as the door had shut behind them, most of the sounds from the foyer were muffled.   Lizzie smiled in spite of herself, thinking that this was likely the room she would be most comfortable in.  "The computers are all connected to the internet, so you can research anything!" Kaylyn explained.  "And as you noticed, this is the quietest room in the facility, so if you want to settle down with some quiet reading, this is the place to go!"   "Yeah, I love this room," Lizzie responded, her nervousness ebbing away again.  Kaylyn giggled, then motioned for Lizzie to follow her out.  The two of them turned to the left, toward a wide open doorway and walked through it, into a living room of sorts.  It was brightly lit via lamps and some overhead lights that, Lizzie saw, were controlled by a panel on the wall.  Two sofas and a rocking chair sat facing a large flat-screen television, and a few feet behind them, on the other side of the room, were a Foosball table and a ping-pong table.  On the wall opposite the doorway, a stereo was positioned.  "The general living area," Kaylyn said, gesturing around the room.  "Anytime we just want to relax, hangout, or have some fun together, we can come here."  "The TV has a lot of pre-programmed movies and shows, and the stereo the same with music."  As the two of them turned and walked back out into the foyer, Lizzie asked, "How do you know all of this?"  Kaylyn giggled and, as the two of them headed to the other glass door on the opposite side of the wall where the library entrance was, she responded, "When I said they recruited me about a month ago, it also means I was the first one to arrive here to this section!"  "It gave me a lot of time to explore everything!"  Lizzie nodded in understanding, as Kaylyn opened the glass door, which was marked "Gym" and the two girls entered. Lizzie looked around and saw that, although the room looked about as small as the library, there was an impressive amount of gym equipment in here: Two treadmills were positioned to the right of the door, facing that same wall the door was in.  On the wall in front of these treadmills were two more tv screens.  In the far right corner was a punching bag.   There were mirrors lining the back wall, and on the left side of the room were several weight machines, of which Lizzie, with her limited experience of being in a gym, could not fully identify.  There were also padded benches along the left side of the wall, beside the door.   Taking in the full appearance of the gym, Lizzie noticed that they were not alone.  A girl, who looked slightly younger than Lizzie, stood with one leg perched on one of the padded benches, tying her shoe.  She had light skin and dirty blonde hair in a long braid down part of her back, with bright blue eyes.  She wore a striped blue and white t-shirt and a short skirt, though Lizzie saw lying next to her on the bench was an athletic outfit that she had likely changed out of before they had arrived.  The girl looked up and made eye contact with first Kaylyn, then Lizzie, and smiled warmly.  "Summer, meet Lizzie Walker, the newest member of our little family," Kaylyn introduced.  "She just got here a few minutes ago and I've been showing here around."  Summer shook Lizzie's hand happily, looking her over.  "Glad to meet you, Lizzie," she said brightly.  "We're gonna have so much fun together!"  Lizzie noticed that Summer was covered in sweat as she beamed at the two of them.  "I can't wait to hear your story, but I need a shower first," Summer said, causing Kaylyn to chuckle softly.  "Let's get together later and talk!!"  "Kaylyn, I have a lot to tell you too!!"  "I heard rumors of..." "Shower first," Kaylyn said, still laughing softly.  "I think our new friend Lizzie would appreciate that!"  Summer grinned and nodded.  "Yeah, ok! See you girls later!" She responded, and with that, grabbed her gym clothes and walked out the door. "What's so funny?" Lizzie asked, as the two of them exited the gym and turned right, where there was another wide doorway directly opposite from the one leading to the living room and the two of them headed toward it.   Kaylyn giggled again and said, "It's no surprise that we found Summer in the gym!"  "She likes to stay active, and you'll soon realize that she spends most of her time in there!"  Lizzie nodded.  "She seemed really nice!" She said, and saw Kaylyn nod in agreement.  "She is very nice, cheerful, outgoing... in all the time she's been here, I don't think I've ever seen her upset by anything," Kaylyn said.  "She's really young," Lizzie thought, but as the two if them entered through the doorway, Lizzie was distracted by what she saw.  They had walked into a large dining area that looked to be about the same size as the living room.  A table was positioned in the center of the room, with five chairs around it.  Along the walls of the room were counters and kitchen appliances: a microwave, stove, refrigerator, blender, sink, and against the wall to the right, was what looked like a vending machine of some sort.  Sitting in one of the chairs, reading a book with her leg propped up on one end of the table was another young woman.  She had red hair and wore a casual shirt and jeans, similar to what Lizzie herself was wearing.  Upon hearing Lizzie and Kaylyn enter, the girl turned to look at them.  "Hi Kay..." she started, before her eyes fell on Lizzie. "Oh? Someone new?"  She gave a little wave toward Lizzie.  "Tina Crane," she said, introducing herself.  "Tina, this is Lizzie Walker," Kaylyn said.  "Yes, she's our newest roomie!"  Tina narrowed her eyes at Lizzie, who noticed they were bright blue.  "So, that makes four... we're waiting for one more."  "Yes, yes we are!" Kaylyn responded, seeming to regain some of her excitement again.  "It's gonna be great..."  "This is serious," Tina said sternly.  "Don't freak out our new friend with your crazy excitement."  With that, Tina turned back to her book, as Kaylyn stuck out her tongue at her.  "Come on," Kaylyn said, grabbing Lizzie's hand and leading her back out into the foyer. "Don't mind Tina," Kaylyn said, as the two of them made their way back to the wall where the elevator and the other doors were.  "She really is nice, but she's a more serious and less playful person than Summer and me."   "She's right, though... you're the fourth one to join us, so that means one more person will be here soon, then everything will begin!"  Kaylyn skipped excitedly as the two of them reached the ramp leading up to the elevator.  "Ok, I have two more things to show you and then we'll check out your room," she said.  She pointed right, toward a pair of white double doors at the end of the metal walkway on that side, somewhat to the left of the doorway leading into the dining area, though on a much closer wall.  A large sign said "Staff" above it.  "We can't go in there," Kaylyn said, "Or in there."  She then pointed to a similar set of doors to their left, positioned to the right of the doorway leading into the living room, though again on a closer wall.  Lizzie saw that, unlike the staff doors, these doors were windowed, and she could see a vast metallic hallway stretch beyond it, leading to who knew where.  A sign that read "Labs" was above it.  "Pretty sure those are the labs we go to get impregnated in," Kaylyn said, and turned to look at the staff room doors.  "And those are where the staff of this place comes from, you know, the janitors, cooks, repairmen..."  Kaylyn seemed to notice something suddenly.  "OOH, I forgot about this!" She exclaimed and led Lizzie over to the staff doors, where she noticed beside them, on the wall, a little intercom panel with a speaker and two buttons, one blue and one red.  "All of us can use that," Kaylyn told her.  "If we need anything, one of us can hit that blue button and call a staff member to come clean something, bring us a food item, fix something broken, you name it."  "Don't worry, they do also come around from time to time to check on us, so we don't have to rely on that."  Lizzie stored this information into her mind for later, where it joined all the other bits of information she had learned in such a short time.  She felt she was becoming overwhelmed, and something of this must have shown on her face, because Kaylyn gave her a concerned look, and said, "Ok, your room now, finally!"  "I think you could use some rest after such an eventful day."  Lizzie nodded, and the two of them walked back through the metal walkways.  Lizzie saw that the doors on the same wall as the elevator were all single, blank doors, three to the right of the elevator, and two to the left.  Written on the front of each door, toward the top, was a name, and before they had reached where the elevator was, they had passed Tina's room, then Summer's, and finally Kaylyn's.  "Ah, here we are," Kaylyn said, pointing to the first door to the left of the elevator, where Lizzie could see her own name written on it.  Looking at the only other door on her side of the metal walkways, she saw that it had no name on it, at least not yet.  "All the rooms are more or less the same," Kaylyn stated.  "They're small, but pretty comfortable!"   "Outside of sleeping, you probably won't spend much time in here anyway!"  "Your stuff should already have been brought here, so I'll leave you to it!"  "Come find me later if you want to talk more!"   Kaylyn grabbed Lizzie's shoulder lightly and smiled at her, before turning around and heading towards the dining area.  Lizzie watched her go for a few seconds, then opened the door to her bedroom and stepped inside. This was easily the smallest room she had seen so far.  A plain, single bed was positioned in the center of this room, and against the wall, almost right in front of the door was a wooden wardrobe.  Other than a table with a lamp on it in the far corner and a door on the wall to her left which, she discovered, led to a similarly sized bathroom, consisting of a toilet, sink, and shower, the room was quite plain.  Noting that her bag of luggage was sitting in the floor neatly on the right side of her bed, Lizzie collapsed backwards onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, her mind racing.  It would take her a while to get used to this experience, living in this facility.  Though, her mind had already been put at ease by the girls she had met, that she would be sharing at least the next few months of her life with.  She was especially grateful to Kaylyn, who had already made her feel welcome.  As crazy as this project was doubtless going to be, at the very least, Lizzie had made new friends that would be experiencing it with her, and that made her very happy.  She smiled and closed her eyes.

4

As the days passed, Lizzie began to get used to her new life at the facility.  It did not take her long to grow accustomed to living in her new surroundings, and she found that she had already established a general routine.  As she suspected, she loved the library the most; browsing books and researching various topics on the internet.   Occasionally, she would also join the others in the living area for a movie, a game or two of ping-pong, or just to hang out and talk.  She rarely frequented the gym or the pool, as she was not very athletic, but she found she enjoyed the company of one of her new friends whenever they decided to take a swim, during which she would settle on the grass beside the pool with a book or just to listen to the outdoor sounds, even if they and the sun overhead were artificial.  For mealtimes, it seemed that the girls had all agreed to each take turns cooking for the day; Ingredients and produce could be obtained from the vending machine thing in the dining area. Four days in, Lizzie had given her turn a try and found that she had enjoyed it, and had not done a bad job either. Lizzie had also learned much more about the other girls that she was already thinking of as her new family.  Living closely with three new friends had broken her shyness, and she happily joined in whenever the four girls began discussing each other and telling her their stories.  Lizzie learned that Summer was 18 years old, reaching 19 in only a few months, and that after she had been approached to join the experiment, she did not decide right away, and had told her close friends about the offer afterward.  Not fully realizing what she was getting into, she had made a bet with them, the losing condition being that she had to join the project.  It was still all a game to her, it seemed, but Summer had also confessed that she was happy to do it if it meant a family would finally be able to have a child. Tina, Lizzie had learned, was the same age as she was, and turned out to be quite nice, but was the most stern of the group.  The redhead had grown up in poverty, and only until she had reached her teens was she finally able to turn that around and at least make a comfortable life for herself, which explained her seriousness and lack of playfulness.  Her reason for joining the project, she told Lizzie, was because the founders offered to pay her family a life-changing amount of money if she did.  She loved her family very much, and considered a few months giving birth to a few babies a small price to pay to get them out of poverty.  This information gave Lizzie a newfound respect for Tina. Lizzie had already, in the short time she had known her, begun to think of Kaylyn as her best friend.  She had already told Lizzie much of her story the day they had met, but Lizzie did learn a few more things.  Kaylyn was the oldest of the four of them, at 24 years old, and she was indeed the first of their section to arrive at the facility, possibly even one of the first girls to join the project altogether.  As she had previously told Lizzie, her interest in pregnancy and birth started when she witnessed a cow giving birth on the farm in which she had lived, one day when she was very young.  Fascinated, she had spent her time growing up learning all she could about the subject, including witnessing and even assisting in other births from the animals on the farm.  When she turned 20, she had moved into the city to attend college, but after a few years, she realized that no career would satisfy her interest, almost obsession at this point, in pregnancy and birth, and had dropped out to consider other options.  She had been in the process of deciding either to return to the farm or become a surrogate carrier when she was approached for the project, and had accepted on the spot. Lizzie also quickly learned that it was normal for the girls to exchange rumors they had heard about the project and what was happening in the other sections; apparently the other girls would occasionally overhear the staff gossip about the project during the various times they would show up to work in this section.  The day after Lizzie had arrived, Summer had told the rest of them that she had heard a rumor that there was a fairy girl and a mermaid that was part of the project in another section.  This had sparked up a conversation about weather or not they all thought the rumor was true, with Kaylyn even mentioning that she had once heard a story about a girl named Hannah giving birth to a mermaid, in an effort to prove why she thought the rumor was indeed true.  Tina, of course, did not believe it, citing all of it as mere fantasy. Lizzie found that her natural curiosity was piqued from some of these rumors, even if she had no way of knowing if any of them were true.  Only one of them was she able to confirm: After a discussion among the girls about the Fast Pregnancy serum that was supposedly going to be used in the challenge, Lizzie had taken to the internet to research it, and had learned that, in a few years, if research and testing was successful, a more effective variant of the serum would be considered for an "Instant Pregnancy Experience" attraction that was planned for the future.   Lizzie was skeptical about the success of this, for she did not think that would take off, since there probably were not many people like Kaylyn out in the world. About eight days after Lizzie had arrived at the facility, the girls had just finished having a meal in the dining area together before going off to do their own separate things.  Lizzie's hand was on the push bar of the library door when she heard a ding from behind her.  She turned around to see the elevator doors open, and out stepped a pale-skinned young woman with black hair cut very short, looking around nervously and in awe.  Lizzie looked around, realizing who this person must be, but saw that they were alone in the foyer; Summer was in the gym, Kaylyn the bathroom, and Tina was still in the dining area, cleaning up from dinner.  Remembering how nervous she had been when she arrived, and how helpful it had been for Kaylyn to greet her, Lizzie walked over to the newcomer, whose brown eyes locked onto hers immediately.  "H...hi," the girl said uncertainly, as Lizzie closed the distance between them.  "Hi back," Lizzie responded, giving her a reassuring smile.  "I'm Lizzie!"  "What's your name??"  "Crystal," the newcomer replied, "Crystal Fuller!"  Lizzie held out her hand to her.  "Welcome, Crystal!"  "It's good to meet y..."   "OH MY GOSH!" A voice rang out from their right, as Kaylyn ran excitedly up to them.  "OH MY GOSH!!"  "Welcome!!"  "Welcome, new friend!"   "You're here!!"  "It's so exciting!"  Crystal gaped at Kaylyn, clearly taken aback by her rambling.  She looked at Lizzie, who smiled and said, "It's ok," to her reassuringly.  Kaylyn tried to calm herself, as Tina came into the foyer, clearly wondering what all the commotion was about.  "This is Crystal Fuller," Lizzie said to the two of them.  Tina waved, and Kaylyn embraced Crystal into a tight hug that Lizzie remembered all too well, making her grin even wider.  "Welcome!" Kaylyn said.  "I'm Kaylyn and that over there is Tina."  "Kaylyn, would you please calm down?" Tina said, as Kaylyn bounced on the ball of her feet.  "You're clearly freaking her out!"  Lizzie laughed, not being able to help it, and that seemed to calm Crystal, who smiled slightly as well.  "I've gotta give you the tour," Kaylyn blurted out.  "There's so much to show you!!"  "I want to do it," Lizzie found herself saying.  It seemed only fair and fitting for her to do so, since she was the last to arrive before Crystal and was also the first person Crystal had met.  Kaylyn nodded, still full of excited and happy energy.  "Yes, do it Lizzie!" She said.  "I can come with, to help, or... OH, you gotta meet Summer!!"  "I'll get Summer!!" And she dashed off toward the gym, leaving the three girls to stare after her.  The three of them burst out laughing, even Tina, who shook her head in exasperation. Hours later, Lizzie had completed showing Crystal around, with Kaylyn's help, of course, and she had met Summer.  The five girls had then convened in the dining area to exchange stories with their new friend over a shared meal.  Lizzie, and the rest of them, learned that Crystal was 21 years old and had a tattoo of a rose on her back, near her left shoulder.  She had recently gotten out of a bad relationship, which also had ended badly, and that she had been depressed and looking for new meaning to her life ever since.  When she was approached to join the experiment, Crystal had accepted, thinking that it would give her life new purpose. The four girls welcomed her with open arms and all shared their stories with her in turn, as well as answered her questions as best they could.  This seemed to make Crystal feel better and she admitted that she was happy to feel accepted and even loved again. The talk at the table had just turned to discussing rumors again when suddenly, the five girls heard what sounded like an intercom activate and a male voice began speaking: "Attention, members of section C, preparations are finally complete!" The voice was coming from the foyer, and so the five girls got to their feet in unison and left the dining area.  Standing in front of the doorway, they heard the voice speak again.  Lizzie thought that it sounded familiar.  "Everyone is now finally at the facility and the 100 baby challenge project is now officially beginning!"  "Each week, one of you will be randomly chosen to be impregnated, until all five of you are carrying your first babies!"  "The second group of babies will not begin to be conceived until every child of the first group has been born."  "When your name is given, please proceed through the lab doors, which will be unlocked for you, and make your way to your section's laboratory!"  "Do not worry, it will be easy to find!"  There was a pause, and then the voice finished with, "Tina Crane!"  All of the girls looked at Tina, who in turn stared at all of them.  After a few seconds, she nodded, her face set, and as Lizzie and the others watched, she walked slowly and calmly to the lab doors and entered them.

5

About 45 minutes after Tina had entered the lab area, she emerged from it, her expression unreadable.  The other four girls immediately crowded around her, and she stopped, with all of them standing in the foyer between the birthing suite and the doorway leading into the living area.  "I'm pregnant," Tina said, nonchalantly.  The others gasped, and Kaylyn cried, "What happened??"  "What was it like??"  "I can't tell you everything," Tina said seriously, before falling silent.  Kaylyn made an impatient noise, and Tina said, "Alright, I'll tell you what I can, but let's go get comfortable first!" The girls made their way into the living area and all took seats on the sofas, except Tina, who sat in the rocking chair.  All eyes were on her, and as Tina began to describe what had happened, the others hung onto her every word.  "Well, there really wasn't much to it," she explained.  "The scientist told me to get naked and he gave me a checkup."  "He then pulled out this large syringe full of stuff and injected it into my vagina!"  "After that, I put my clothes back on, and then he did another test, to confirm it worked I think, and then explained some stuff to me afterward!"  As she listened to this, Lizzie felt a bit of relief.  She was unsure exactly how the impregnation process was going to work, and had not been keen on possibly having to have sex with a random guy each time.  "What did he explain?" Kaylyn asked.  Tina thought for a bit, then responded, "Basically, that I'd be pregnant for about three months, that each trimester would last a month, and that starting next week, a scientist would give me weekly checkups in the birthing suite, to make sure everything was going well."  The rest of the girls all nodded and murmured.  "So, what does it feel like?" Kaylyn asked excitedly.  Tina rocked for a second and said, "It doesn't feel any different yet, really!"  "I'm sure that will come later!"  "The only thing I do feel at the moment..." Tina trailed off, looking pale, then she immediately jumped up and dashed out of the room.  "What..." Kaylyn began, before they all heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting.  "Oh..." Kaylyn finished with a rueful smile, understanding at once. After the shock and excitement about one of their number finally getting pregnant had worn off, the rest of the week seemed to pass by normally.  Tina did not seem all that different, other that a few more bouts of morning sickness, and Lizzie was also convinced that Tina's breasts had already grown slightly.  However, Tina was not yet showing, and so it was relatively easy to forget she was pregnant unless someone brought up the subject.  The one thing Lizzie did notice was a general feeling of anticipation; as the days grew closer to the next week, everyone was wondering nervously and excitedly about who the next one to be called to the labs would be.  Lizzie felt this too, and had buried herself in a book series she had found in the library in an attempt to take her mind off of it.  This had helped a bit, except that Kaylyn continued to bring up the topic in every conversation, and constantly interrogated Tina about the experience, to the point where Tina finally blew up in frustration, telling her, "For the love of everything, Kaylyn, leave me alone... you'll know soon enough!!"  Lizzie could not fault Kaylyn for this, as she seemed to be the most anxious of all of them, and also did not have a coping mechanism to take her mind off it, unlike Lizzie with her books, Summer with the gym, or Crystal watching romantic comedy movies.  Additionally, Lizzie suspected that Tina's frustration was made worse due to pregnancy mood swings, as she had noticed that, at times, Tina seemed more testy than usual. After a week had passed, Lizzie had come out of her room to see something new. The normally dark birthing suite in the center of the foyer was lit, and a female scientist was standing inside, using a stethoscope on Tina, who was sitting on the bed inside.  Lizzie watched interested for a few minutes, before the scientist pulled a curtain around where Tina was seated, temporarily blocking them from view.  Lizzie made her way to the dining area, where it was her turn to cook, and found the other three girls seated around the table.  "What is...?" Lizzie began, pointing behind her toward the suite.  "Weekly checkup," Kaylyn responded, as she set the table with plates.  "It's to make sure everything is going well."   "I don't know how they're gonna keep them up when all five of us are pregnant."  Lizzie nodded in understanding, and made her way to the stove.  "Wonder what happens if something does go wrong?" Crystal asked.  Kaylyn shrugged.  "They didn't say," she answered.  "I guess they're hoping they won't have to think about it unless it happens."  "Surely, that possibility came up when they were discussing this project," Summer said.  "I mean, there's 20 girls here, so there's a good chance something might happen."  Lizzie listened to the conversation as she cooked, thinking to herself.  It took her about 15 minutes to finish the meal, and was just wondering how long Tina would be having her checkup when her question was answered by Tina walking into the room.  "All done," she announced to them.  "Everything is going as it should!"  "I'm starving!!" That evening, Lizzie joined Kaylyn in a game of Foosball, with Crystal sitting in the rocking chair, reading a book.   Summer had decided she wanted to take a swim, and Tina was taking a shower in her bathroom.  The two girls were about to start on an epic tiebreaker when the voice came over the intercom again, and everyone in the room fell completely silent in anticipation.  "Attention, the labs have been prepared once again, and we are ready for the next candidate," it said.  After a few seconds pause, the voice announced, "Crystal Fuller!!"  Crystal jerked her head toward Lizzie and Kaylyn in shock.   Kaylyn gave her a reassuring little nod, then Crystal got out of her chair and walked out of the room.  Kaylyn stared into Lizzie's eyes, clearly a lot of thoughts running through her mind.  Lizzie could tell she was slightly disappointed that it was not her that was chosen next, but still clearly excited for Crystal.  As a result of Kaylyn now being quite distracted, Lizzie beat her in Foosball easily. By the time Crystal emerged from the labs, all the girls were now aware that she had been called in, and they crowded around her, to ask questions and, in the case of Tina, to wish her luck and encouragement.  Crystal seemed quite happy about the situation and gladly answered questions about her time in the lab.  Her story, Lizzie noted, was almost identical to Tina's, and she reassured them that the process was quite easy.  After an hour of talking, Crystal was no more successful at dealing with the nausea than Tina had been, and the girls had gone back to their normal routine, now aware that there were two pregnant among them. Upon reaching the third week since the project began, the tension and excitement began to build up again over who would be chosen next.   Lizzie had watched that morning as Tina had returned to the birthing suite for another checkup, and after it was over, the same female scientist had called out for Crystal to come to have her first.  Both girls reported afterward that they were doing great so far, and that no problems were anticipated.  Though still in her first trimester, Tina's stomach already seemed to be harder, and her boobs had noticeably grown a bit, and they all suspected that she would have a baby bump very soon. Restless, Kaylyn had taken to walking around all over the facility, in an attempt to calm her nerves.  Lizzie noticed that, even during mealtimes, Kaylyn was anxious, eating very little and seemingly unable to sit still. That evening, Lizzie found Kaylyn making laps around the birthing suite, wringing her hands as she paced silently.   Lizzie fell into step along with her and tried to strike up a conversation that she hoped would distract Kaylyn.  It was a mark of how tight their friendship was that Kaylyn seemed to visibly relax a bit just from Lizzie's presence.  "So, Kay, what's the latest you've heard??" Lizzie asked as they walked.  "Kaylyn thought for a moment, then said, "Well, I heard a weird rumor that one of the girls in another section was pregnant already when she came here, and that it was some sort of egg that was in her."  Lizzie's eyebrows raised as she stared at Kaylyn in surprise.  "Do you believe it's true?" She asked.  Kaylyn shook her head.  "Even with all the weird stories I've heard over the years, I don't believe this," she responded.  "The people behind the project would have done their homework and not let someone already pregnant in."  "They had all our latest medical files and stuff."  "But, what if even she didn't know?" Lizzie argued, and Kaylyn stopped.  "You bring up a good point," she said.  "It's possible, but I still don't believe it."  "They were very meticulous about who they chose for this!"  Lizzie nodded, but before she could say anything else, Kaylyn blurted out, "Thank you!"  "For what?" Lizzie asked, and Kaylyn grinned at her seriously.  "I know what you're trying to do, to get my mind off of it," she responded.  "You are such a good friend, Liz!"  "I want you to know that!"  Kaylyn put her hand on Lizzie's shoulder and rubbed it gently. "You know, because I was so weird with my pregnancy obsession all my life, I never really had many true friends until coming here."  Lizzie swallowed, sensing that a very deep moment was taking place right now; Kaylyn was being serious and sincere and that was quite unlike her.   "Well, you deserve it," Lizzie said, finding her voice.  "From the second I arrived here, you've been nothing but kind and welcoming to me, and that helped me settle in more than you realize."  "You're a very unique and kind person, Kay, and I'm happy to call you my best friend!" The two girls smiled at each other, each looking into the other's twinkling eyes.  Lizzie thought she saw a tear forming in her friend's brown eyes when her thoughts were interrupted by the intercom beep.   "Attention, the labs are ready once again, and we will be receiving our next candidate!" The voice said.  There was a pause, followed by, "Kaylyn Burke!"  Both girls gasped, then Kaylyn screamed!  "YES!!" she yelled in elation, jumping up and punching the air, laughing!  "YEESS!!"  "It's MY TURN!!"  "I'm GONNA GET PREGNANT!"  Kaylyn looked toward the lab doors and started panting profusely.  As Lizzie watched, Kaylyn was clearly showing signs of building up to an orgasm.  "Kay, go!" Lizzie encouraged, beaming at her.  At these words, Kaylyn almost ran to the lab door and passed beyond them excitedly.  "Good luck, Kaylyn," Lizzie said silently, smiling, as she turned and headed for the library.

6

Kaylyn was ecstatic about finally being pregnant, and as the week passed, it seemed that nothing could remove the smile on her face.   Knowing how much this meant to her, Lizzie was happy for her best friend, and was there to help her through the process, from the bouts of morning sickness to the other general changes her body was going through.  Lizzie had suspected that Tina's and Crystal's breasts had slightly grown at the end of their first weeks; there was no doubt about Kaylyn's!  Toward the final day of the week, Kaylyn's had tripled in size, which was somewhat surprising.  Kaylyn, however, laughed it off as just another way she was weird.  "Quite fitting," she had joked, "That the one who had the greatest pregnancy fetish should have the biggest breasts!" On the first day of the fourth week of the experiment, Lizzie had gotten up early to hold Kaylyn's hair back while she vomited again, and noticed that the female scientist had returned once again to the birthing suite, no doubt waiting to give checkups to the now three pregnant girls in Section C.  Tina was first, and as she lifted her shirt for the examination, Lizzie caught sight of a tiny bump forming, before the curtain was pulled around again.  Crystal had informed Lizzie, after having her checkup last week, that the curtain was for privacy while the scientist performed a vaginal examination, which made sense.  Crystal had also been told that once all the girls were pregnant, the scientist would probably stop using the curtain, and that each birth would definitely be open, and she had relayed this information to Lizzie and the others.  After Tina emerged from the birthing suite, Crystal entered for her examination, and then 16 minutes later, Kaylyn went in, for her first examination.  Kaylyn's seemed to take a bit longer, but once she had emerged, the five young women gathered in the dining area for lunch.  Kaylyn told them that the scientist was a bit surprised by how much more her body was changing compared to everyone else's, but had assured all three girls that everything seemed to still be progressing smoothly. That evening, Lizzie had dressed in her usual shirt and jeans, and had settled down into the grass on the far side of the foyer with a new book in hand, ready for a night of relaxing reading.  Kaylyn was lying face up in the pool, soaking contentedly.  Lizzie had just finished a few games of ping pong with Summer, who had retired to her bedroom, while Crystal was in the library using a computer, and Tina was in the gym on a treadmill.   Lizzie had just reached the end of a particularly interesting chapter of her book, when the familiar beep of the intercom sounded.  Kaylyn sat up at once and looked around at Lizzie in surprise, as the voice spoke, "Attention, section C, the labs are prepared and we are ready to receive the fourth candidate!" There was the usual pause, then, "Lizzie Walker!"  Lizzie felt her stomach drop, weather from excitement or nervousness, she did not know.  Kaylyn mouthed, "Yaass!" And gave Lizzie the thumbs up.  Reassured, Lizzie smiled at her and got to her feet.   Shaking slightly, she made her was slowly to the lab doors she had seen the others enter during their turns, and, swallowing her nerves, she pushed them open and stepped through. Lizzie found herself in a metallic hallway illuminated by lights running down the walls on each side.  It was completely at odds with the homey feel of the foyer and the rest of the section of the facility she lived in.  She timidly walked forward, listening to the sounds of her own footsteps echoing off the tiled floor.  As she reached the midway point of the hallway, she saw another hallway to the left.  Looking ahead to the other end of her hallway, she saw another set of glass door, which looked to lead to another foyer beyond them.  To the right of the meeting point where the left hallway connected to the one she was currently in, a single door with a C written on it stood on the wall.  Lizzie could see that further down her hallway was another door, and beside it, another hallway leading to the left.  As Lizzie approached the door with the C on it, she heard the door on the other side open and a short girl with braided brunette hair and olive skin stepped out and looked in Lizzie's direction.  The girl smiled, and Lizzie smiled back, seeming to steel herself.  As the girl turned and slowly made her way toward the doors at the far end of the hall, Lizzie opened the door she was standing in front of and entered it. She had entered what looked like a small exam room.  A hospital bed stood in the center of the room, and there was a counter along the wall with a sink built into it and a number of instruments, along with phials and beakers of liquid, sat on this counter.  Standing between the counter and the exam bed was a familiar face.  "Daniel?" Lizzie exclaimed, her anxiety melting away at the sight of him.  Daniel smiled as he motioned for Lizzie to sit on the bed.  "I told you we would meet again during the project." He said.  He looked just as Lizzie remembered: Kinda cute, but a bit on the short side, and average in appearance.  This time, instead of the grey jacket, he was wearing a white lab coat.  "So, as you probably guessed, I'm the seeder for your section," he said to her, and she stared at him, processing this.  "Yeah, it's my sperm that's being used to impregnate you and your fellow bearers!"  "It's you who keeps coming over the intercom, telling us who's been chosen," Lizzie said, to which Daniel nodded.  "I knew the voice sounded familiar."  "That's right," he confirmed, as he wrote something on a clipboard nearby.  "So, I'll need you to take everything off, and lay them on that chair over there," he motioned to a chair nearby that Lizzie had not at first seen, for he had been blocking it when she first arrived.  "And don't worry, I'm a scientist, and I've already done this same procedure on three other girls in your section, so I'm not going to see anything I haven't seen a hundred times before."  Lizzie nodded and proceeded to take all of her clothes off.  After she had done so, she sat on the bed, completely naked other than her bra, feeling a bit chilly and nervousness coming back again.  As much as she trusted Daniel, she was in an unorthodox position now, and the reality of what was about to happen to her began to set in.  Casting her mind around for a topic to take her mind off of this, she was suddenly reminded of a question she wanted to ask, as her eyes took in Daniel and a golden ring he wore on his finger.  "Can I ask you something?" She began reluctantly, and Daniel smiled warmly.  "Of course," he responded kindly.  "Well," Lizzie struggled, wishing not to sound accusing or judging, "You are married, right?"  "To one of the other founders of this project?"  "I saw it on that video when I was being brought here." Daniel nodded.  "Rena, yes, she's my wife." He said.  Lizzie looked into his eyes.  "Well, isn't Rena also one of the girls in the experiment??"  Lizzie asked, reluctantly.  Daniel continued to smile, as he motioned for Lizzie to lay back onto the bed.  "I see you've done your homework," Daniel said, amused.  "Yes, she is one of the girls in the project."  "She's in section A."  As Daniel began performing routine examinations on her, Lizzie asked, "So, doesn't that mean she's getting pregnant from someone other than you?"  Daniel turned to make more notes on his clipboard, and as he did so, responded, "You're asking if it bothers me that she's going to be carrying another man's babies for a while?"  "We discussed this at length, and in our eyes, it's not much different than Rena acting as a surrogate carrier for another family out there."  "That's how we're treating it, because basically it's true."   "It just happens to benefit the experiment in the process."  Lizzie mulled this over, as Daniel finished up his examinations.  The explanation, while a bit strange, did make sense to her.  In any case, if Daniel and Rena seemed happy with this arrangement, then who was she to judge? Daniel had instructed Lizzie to spread her legs, and after she did so, she watched as he filled a syringe with several different colored liquids, each from a different vial or beaker.  "This won't hurt a bit," Daniel reassured her.  He knelt between her legs and inserted the syringe into her vagina.  She took a sharp intake of breath as she felt the injection enter her, then Daniel stood back up and said, "That's it, you can put your clothes back on now."  Lizzie did so immediately and then sat back on the table, as Daniel began performing tests again.  This time, he used some sort of electronic object that seemed to be a scanner, waving it over Lizzie's body.  After doing this a few times, Daniel nodded in satisfaction and the made a final note on his clipboard.  "Ok, some final information, though you've probably heard this by now from some of the other girls," he said to her, and then he explained to Lizzie about how she would be pregnant for only 3 months, with each trimester lasting only a month, due to the test of the Fast Pregnancy serum, and that each week, she must report to the scientist for a weekly checkup.  Lizzie nodded her understanding of all this information as he presented it, then Daniel smiled again at her and said, "Well, you can return to your section's area!"  "Congratulations, you're now pregnant!!"

7

Lizzie felt a bit strange that she was now pregnant like the others, though admittedly, when she had emerged from the lab and the other girls had gathered around her, it was more for congratulations and encouragement, rather than curious questions.  This made sense, for everyone other than Summer was already pregnant themselves, and Summer had heard about the procedure three times already, and was therefore no longer as curious.  Kaylyn had pulled Lizzie into a happy hug, clearly excited that both she and her best friend was now pregnant, and it was clear that the other girls were just as supportive of her as they had all been of each other beforehand. Lizzie had experienced some morning sickness, but it did not seem as bad as most of the other girls had had it.  As the week passed, Lizzie had begun to do research on the pregnancy process, both online and from books she found in the library. She was unsure what had made her start this now, rather than the earlier weeks living in the facility before getting pregnant.  Perhaps now, with the reality of it settling in, she was more curious, or perhaps something in her brain had been triggered by the pregnancy itself.  In any case, she had learned quite a bit, and she and Kaylyn often shared information, for Kaylyn was generally knowledgeable about pregnancy, having done her own research over the years.  Once the week had passed, Lizzie had joined the other three girls in getting a checkup in the birthing suite, being the last to go in after Kaylyn.  As this was her first, Lizzie was somewhat more nervous about this than the others, but the scientist was incredibly kind and supportive, and it felt just like any other simple doctor visit, other than the vaginal examination.  The scientist assured her, as she had apparently done the others, that everything was proceeding normally and well.  That evening, Summer had been called to the labs, and after she had emerged, the five girls shared a special meal, Kaylyn's idea of course, that celebrated the fact that all five of them were now pregnant. Over the next few weeks, all of them began to notice the changes in their bodies.  The week after Summer had been impregnated, Tina had entered her second trimester, and was sporting a baby bump.  Kaylyn had squealed at this, and had insisted upon touching it, much to Tina's somewhat impatience.   However, Lizzie had noticed that Kaylyn's belly was not much smaller than Tina's, Kaylyn still only being in her first trimester.  The atmosphere among all five girls had become excited and anxious again; it was the first time any of them had gotten pregnant in their lives, and they were enjoying the process of experiencing it.  Each girl in turn began showing as time passed and all of their pregnancies progressed.   Lizzie noticed that each of their pregnancies seemed very unique: Kaylyn had the biggest belly of them all and even in her second trimester, looked to be in her third.  Kaylyn had found this very amusing and was quite happy about it.  She had joked that it seemed like her body was the one most willing to accept being pregnant, but Lizzie thought there might be some truth to this, with Kaylyn's belly and boobs much larger that anyone else's, despite being the third to get pregnant.  Tina, in her third trimester, seemed to personify the typical pregnant woman; rapid mood swings, protruding but not overly large belly, and a firm desire for the process to be over.  Crystal was showing as well, but as her body was a bit smaller and more petite than Tina's or Kaylyn's, her bump was slightly smaller than theirs.  Summer, as the last to get pregnant, started showing later that the other girls, but earlier than expected.  She continued to spend as much time in the gym as she could before her pregnancy made it difficult, and as a result was the most fit of the five of them. Lizzie, now late in her second trimester, had a noticeable, but small baby bump.  She had not begun to show until the second trimester had started, and Lizzie found that she could not stop touching or rubbing her own belly now that it was starting to become more orb-like.  She had been startled the first time she felt the baby inside her move, and the sensation had made her smile, despite hammering home the fact that she was pregnant.  She had remembered Kaylyn's squeal of delight when she had first felt hers move, and the two of them had spent a memorable night feeling each other's bellies.   Kaylyn's movement had been more pronounced; Lizzie could feel it even through her overalls, which somehow fit Kaylyn even with her large torpedo-like belly protruding out.  Kaylyn had also commented on how cute Lizzie's bump was, even if it was quite small. Though she was delighted and amazed with her pregnancy so far, Lizzie found that, even with one more trimester to go, she was already becoming anxious about the birth.  Talking to Kaylyn did not help with this, for Kaylyn was anticipating her own labor and delivery with great interest.   Therefore, Lizzie had taken to browsing the internet in an effort to research this topic, often spending many late nights alone in the library, rubbing her belly gently as she studied.  She had watched a number of birth videos and read a few articles about what to expect from labor and birth, though she knew that obviously this would be quite different from the actual experience.  Her curiosity leading her down the "giving birth" rabbit hole and her desire to consider all possibilities led her into researching strange rumors and stories about pregnancy and birth.  She had come across the article that Kaylyn had mentioned, talking about the girl named Hannah who claimed that she gave birth to a mermaid, and Lizzie's thoughts strayed around again to the rumor that there was a mermaid with them somewhere in the facility.   Continuing her research, among the various rumors of alien abductions and impregnations, she came across an article written by a teenager that claimed she had been a fairy in a past life before she had been "reborn" by her mother, a story that claimed that a mysterious game almost made a girl give birth in her early teens, and an article claiming that a woman had continuously given birth to herself for years, claiming a kind of immortality as a result.  Lizzie found all of these stories interesting, but was skeptical on weather or not any of these were true.  In any case, reading them had taken her nervousness about her own upcoming birth away, and she bookmarked the articles for later, thinking that Kaylyn would no doubt find them all interesting. Almost three months had passed, and all five girls were unmistakably pregnant now.  A checkup for each of them at the beginning of each week had become part of their normal routine, and all of them had become very exciting and anxious about giving birth soon.  They had started a sort of unofficial routine each morning of all of them feeling each other's bellies until they felt kicks, discussing their pregnancies, and comparing their bumps; Kaylyn's was the biggest, followed by Tina's, then Summer's, despite her being the last to get pregnant, followed by Crystal's.  Lizzie's bump was the smallest, though not by much, and Lizzie had long assumed that it was because she was such a small, thin person herself.  All five girls noted that, though there was a noticeable difference in the size of each other's bellies, the sizes were very close together.  As time of the girls' due dates approached, the scientist had told all of them that if assistance was needed because one of them was in labor, any of them could hit the red button on the intercom to summon her to the birthing suite, and also explained that each of them could choose what position they preferred to give birth in, when the time came.  Lizzie had gotten so used to both her new life in the facility and being pregnant that she could hardly believe three months had already passed, and she could tell that the other girls felt the same way.  Shortly in the final week of the third month, however, the passage of time immediately hit home; Tina, normally one of the first girls to wake up in the morning, waddled out of her room long after the other girls had started their day, and announced, "I... think I'm in labor!"

8

Lizzie and the other three girls waddled up to Tina and surrounded her as she clutched her belly with one hand, grimacing.  "How is it?" Kaylyn asked, holding her own torpedo sized belly, "How does it feel??"  Tina stood, breathing and grasping her belly for a few seconds, eyes closed.  Then, she nodded and said, "It does hurt, but it's ok!"  The girls murmured among themselves as Tina continued to rub her belly, her contractions seeming to subside for a time.  Lizzie's mind was racing, and she wondered if the serum that accelerated all their pregnancies would have any effect on the births as well.  Summer had moved forward to help Tina, but Tina waved her away.  "I'm alright, I think," she assured them.  "I don't think we should panic!"  "My water hasn't even broken yet!"

For several hours, the girls went back to somewhat their normal routine, though all of them decided to stay close to Tina, in case she needed help.  Tina spend most of her time doing her general activities: reading, cleaning, and organizing, although she was panting during most of them.  Occasionally, she would pause and grimace as the pain seemed to worsen, but overall she seemed to be taking her entire labor well.

Four hours later, however, Tina's panting  had gotten more intense, and was joined by slight moans.  Tina had dropped herself down into the rocking chair in the living room, rubbing her belly profusely and grimacing in pain, panting and moaning nonstop.  It was at this point that the other girls decided it was time to call the scientist in, and Crystal had hit the red button on the intercom.  The scientist arrived almost 10 minutes later, and told the girls to help Tina get to the birthing suite.  Lizzie and Crystal got on either side of Tina, lifted her gently by each arm, and slowly walked her to the center of the foyer, into the birthing suite, as Kaylyn walked behind her, rubbing her back, and Summer led the way, making sure the girls did not trip.  As soon as they all arrived, the girls helped Tina undress, and get situated in her preferred birthing position: standing while leaning onto the side of the bed.  The scientist began to examine her, as the other girls watched, each holding their belly silently.  As Tina's moans seemed to increase in pitch, her water broke, and the scientist declared that she was fully dilated and instructed her to push. 

Tina pushed, grunting and yelling out, more in effort than in pain.  Lizzie saw that Tina seemed to have a fair amount of pain tolerance, which was strained to its limit at the moment.  Tina pushed several more times, gripping the side of the bed tightly, with the other girls calling out encouragement to her, and then they all saw something peek out of her vagina.  Tina cried out and bent her knees slightly, still holding the bed for support as she pushed, and the girls watched the head slowly drop out of her, gravity seeming to help speed up the process.  With a mighty grunt, Tina gave one final push, and the scientist caught the baby as it was born.  The girls all cheered as the baby cried and Tina exhaled in exhaustion.  She had given birth to a healthy baby boy with dark hair, and once Tina had climbed into the bed, the scientist handed him to her as she cut the cord.  Tina smiled at the child as it wriggled in her arms, then allowed each of the other girls to hold him in turn. Kaylyn was beaming, the rest were smiling, and even Lizzie found herself grinning happily as she took the baby in her arms, holding it over her own ball-shaped belly.

Eventually, the scientist took the baby and informed Tina that she was taking him to the caretakers, and that, thanks to the fast pregnancy serum, Tina would recover from the trauma of childbirth in less than 24 hours, which amazed all the girls.  They stayed with Tina for the next hour, asking her questions about how the process of birth felt; most of these asked by Kaylyn of course.  Eventually, they all left the birthing suite, to allow Tina to get some rest.  Lizzie made her way to the library, to lose herself in a book, but found her mind wandering too much to be able to do this.  She absentmindedly rubbed her belly as she sat in one of the recliners in the Library, her thoughts replaying Tina's delivery over and over.  Lizzie had just witnessed her first live birth, excluding those she had seen in online videos, and to her, it did not seem too bad.

9

Because Crystal had been impregnated a week after Tina had been, all of the girls assumed Crystal would have her baby a week after Tina's baby had been born.  However, 3 days later, when the girls had noticed that Crystal had not left her room all morning, Lizzie had been sent in to find Crystal thrashing around in her bed, crying.  "I'm in so much pain," Crystal said upon catching sight of Lizzie.  "Oooh, it hurts!"   Lizzie called the other girls in, and Tina and Kaylyn helped Crystal waddle slowly out of her room and into the foyer, tears falling down her face as she moaned painfully.  "Ooohh, fuuuuck," Crystal trilled, as they walked toward the birthing suite.  "How long were you in labor?" Tina asked her.  "Were you not going to tell us?"  "I c.....couldn't m...move," Crystal breathed out between moans, "I...it hurt t..too BAAAAA!!" Crystal let out a cry of agony as her pain worsened.  Once the girls reached the birthing suite, Crystal began begging, "Sc...scientist!" "Call the... the scientist!"  "Please!"  As she cried and moaned again, her face buried in the birthing bed's pillow, Summer hit the red button on the intercom, she being the one closest to it. About 10 minutes later, while Crystal cried and moaned, the scientist came out of the staff door and made her way to the birthing suite.  Once she entered, the other four girls followed her inside and gathered around the laboring girl.  "Well, apparently it's time," the scientist said to Crystal cheerfully, to which Crystal replied with a loud cry.  The scientist, with the girls' help, undressed Crystal and got her positioned to check her dilation.  Lizzie was sure, based on Crystal's reactions, that she had to be fully dilated.  However, the scientist shook her head at all of them and said to Crystal, "Honey, you're still only about six centimeters!" "Ooooww!" "Ooohhh!" Crystal cried, "Oh this really hurts!"  Crystal looked into the scientist's eyes pleadingly.  "I...I want an epidural!" Please give me an epidural!"  The scientist shook her head, feeling for the young girl.  "I can't," she responded, "It is incompatible with the fast pregnancy serum, and could cause harm to the baby if I did."  "PLEASE!" Crystal begged, holding her belly and crying.  "Please, it hurts!"  "Please make it stop!" This continued for another hour; Crystal crying, moaning, and begging as the rest of the girls tried to console her, and the scientist continued to check her dilation every few minutes.  Crystal kept repositioning herself on the bed, trying anything for relief, but none came.  The scientist suggested that walking around might help, so the girls helped Crystal to her feet and they all began walking a lap around the birthing suite.  A few minutes into the walk, Crystal's moans sharpened and she began hysterically crying out, "AAAAHHH!" "P..PRESSURE!!"  "I NEED TO PUSH!"  But, as the scientist had just checked her dilation, and she was only eight centimeters, she forbade Crystal to push and told her to continue to walk.  Crystal and the rest finished their lap around the suite, Crystal continuously crying and begging to let her push.  They had all just returned inside the birthing suite when Crystal's water finally broke, and they helped her back over to the bed. It did not take long after that for Crystal to start screaming, her labor clearly in full force now.  The scientist instructed her to push as Crystal's legs trembled and she cried out, "AAAAAHHH!!" "OOOH FUCK!"   Crystal shook uncontrollably as she pushed, screaming at the top of her lungs.  Lizzie continued to watch, somewhat disturbed, before looking around at the others.  Kaylyn was laser focused on the birth, drinking in the entire moment with clear fascination.  Tina was situated nearby, giving out words of encouragement to Crystal, having gone through labor herself already.  Lizzie then looked over at Summer, to see that she was white as a sheet, clearly freaked out over what she was watching, her mouth slightly open in shock.  As she held her own belly with one hand, she trembled slightly, and though it looked like she wanted to take her eyes off Crystal, she could or would not, and Lizzie had to remind herself that Summer was the youngest one here, and barely out of her teens. "AAAAHHHH.... F...FUUUUUCCKK!" Crystal shouted, "OOOHH SHIT!"  The scientist held her legs open as Crystal screamed.  "GET IT OUT!! I WANT IT OUT!!"  "You can do it," Tina said to her, and was echoed by Kaylyn, "You got this, Crystal!"  Lizzie called out her own encouragement to Crystal, though noticing that Summer stayed silent.   Crystal cried out again, as the scientist continued to instruct, then suggested that Crystal change birthing positions.  Tina and the scientist helped her off the bed, and Crystal slumped to the floor, on all fours, screaming.  "AAAHHHHHH! PLEASE GET IT OUT!" she howled, before Lizzie saw a bulge in her vagina.  "You're getting it out," the scientist said to her.  "We see the head, right girls?"  They began to murmur in the affirmative, but then they were all drowned out by an even more shrill scream from Crystal.  "EEEEAAAAHHHH!!"  "IT BURNS!" "IT'S BURNING!!"  "Yes, that's normal," the scientist encouraged.  "Push through it, Crystal, you're almost done!"  Crystal howled as she pushed, her belly and head hanging down, and the head emerged, poking out of Crystal like an egg.  "AAHHHH!" "PULL IT OUT! PULL IT OUT! PULL IT OUUUUTT!" Crystal pleaded.  "One more push," the scientist responded.   Crying out in pain, Crystal pushed, her eyes squeezed shut and tilting her head back, until the baby fell out of her and into the scientist's arms. It was a boy, with black hair and a pale complexion, just like Crystal.  She was crying in relief as Tina helped her up slowly onto the bed.  Lizzie watched Kaylyn move forward smiling wide as the scientist handed the newborn to Crystal, but noticed that Summer had left the suite.  Lizzie went looking for her and found her in the living area, sitting on a sofa staring ahead at the blank television.  As Lizzie took a seat beside her, Summer's head snapped around to look straight into her eyes.  "Th... that was.. so intense," Summer squeaked out, still flushed.  "It was... so bad!"  Lizzie put a hand on Summer's shoulder.  "Did... did you see how much pain Crystal was in, Lizzie?" Summer asked, almost pleadingly.  Lizzie nodded, and Summer trembled.   "What if... is that how it's going to be??"  "I'm scared, Lizzie!!"   Lizzie pulled Summer into a comforting hug, as much as she could get away with, considering both of their large bellies.  "I don't know if I can do this," Summer blurted out fearfully.  "Hey, it's ok," Lizzie comforted her.  "You can do it."  "Just think of Tina's birth... she got through it just fine."  "But, that's Tina," Summer responded.   "Crystal's younger than her, and I'm the youngest!"  "It's gonna be horrible, I just know it!"  Lizzie grabbed Summer gently and looked into her eyes.  "Look, it's true that it might be rough and painful," Lizzie started, "and not all births are the same!"  "But, you're strong and healthy, and I know you can do it!"  Lizzie placed a hand on Summer's belly, and at the same time, took Summer's hand and placed it on her own belly.  "I'll be going before you, so just watch what I do," Lizzie continued.  "And don't worry, when the time comes, we'll all be with you the entire time."  Summer seemed to steel herself, encouraged by Lizzie's words.  "Ok, I'll try," she said, nodding firmly.  "I hope what we just saw was the worst of it!"

10

A full week passed since Tina and Crystal had given birth, and the two of them had recovered very quickly, even gaining very little post-pregnancy weight.  They had settled back into their normal routines, happy that they had carried their first babies to term and delivered them already.  Despite the pain of the births, the two of them admitted that they were ready to do it again soon, though they knew it would not happen until the others gave birth, and were perfectly fine with waiting.   Kaylyn was becoming quite anxious again, knowing that her time to give birth was coming soon, and she was very excited about it.  Kaylyn had finally switched her normal attire to a loose fitting pink nightgown, her overalls now no longer able to contain her huge protruding torpedo of a belly.  The full week after Crystal's baby had been born, Lizzie had sat down with Kaylyn alone in the living area and told her best friend all about Summer's fear and anticipation about giving birth, feeling that if there was one person in the facility that could truly help Summer, it was Kaylyn, the girl who was excited about the process, rather than afraid.  "Crystal's labor really freaked her out," Lizzie said, as she sat on one end of the sofa, rubbing her belly softly.  "She's worried it's gonna hurt too bad for her to handle!"   "I've tried talking to her, but...,"  Kaylyn nodded, rubbing her hands over her belly lovingly.  "I'll try to help her," she responded.   "Frankly, I'm jealous... I'd be over the moon about watching everyone else give birth before doing it myself!"  "Oh, shut up," Lizzie said, smiling, and Kaylyn chuckled!  "So, how are you feeling?" Lizzie asked, glancing at Kaylyn's huge bump, which she was still rubbing.   "Wonderful!" Kaylyn responded, sighing.  "Even better than usual today, which I didn't think was possible!"  Kaylyn leaned back, spreading her legs and closed her eyes, panting seeming in pleasure!  Lizzie watched as Kaylyn's belly seemed to pulsate slightly, and realization hit her.   "KAY, you're not in labor are you??" She asked loudly, to which Kaylyn simply nodded. "Damn it, Kaylyn, why did you not tell us?" Tina exclaimed.  Lizzie had helped Kaylyn to the birthing suite and then called all the other girls, letting them know what was happening.  The entire walk to the suite, Kaylyn was giggling and rubbing her belly, and upon arriving, she had settled on the birthing ball, rocking on it, holding her bump and smiling.  "Doesn't it hurt?" Lizzie asked, watching her friend bounce on the ball.  Kaylyn grimaced a bit but kept smiling.  "Yeah, it does, but it feels great!" She responded.  Crystal gaped at her in disbelief, Lizzie shook her head, and Tina almost shouted, "You are so weird, Kaylyn," with a slight laugh, seemingly both angry and amused.  Summer was hanging back, watching nervously from a distance.   "Should we call the scientist?" Tina asked, staring at Kaylyn.  Kaylyn panted for a few seconds, then responded, "I guess... I'm doing fine right now!" Kaylyn shrugged, still panting softly, though in pain or pleasure, Lizzie was not sure.  Perhaps it was both! A few hours later, Kaylyn had to admit that labor was getting quite painful now, but her spirits seemed to continue to be high.  Tina had asked again if they should call the scientist, but Kaylyn shook her head, telling her that it still was not too bad so far.  Her only request was that Lizzie stay with her.  "I'm not going anywhere," Lizzie had responded to this, smiling at her.  Tina had therefore returned to the dining area, to cook up dinner.  Summer continued to watch from the background, strolling around nervously.  Crystal sat on the bed and watched, as Lizzie knelt down as much as her own belly would allow, beside Kaylyn and held her hand.  Kaylyn's smile faded slightly as she grimaced and let out a moan.  "Ooh, that was a big one," she breathed, as Lizzie looked at her with concern.  Crystal stared at Kaylyn's huge belly and said softly to Lizzie, " The size of her belly... there has to be quite a big baby in there!"  "Oh, I really hope so," Kaylyn exclaimed, before crying out loudly, gripping Lizzie's hand tightly.  "Ok, that's it, we're calling the scientist," Crystal said, dropping off the bed.  Kaylyn tried to protest, but she was too busy panting, and Crystal had already sprinted out of the birthing suite. In the 20 minutes it took for the scientist to arrive, Kaylyn had begun to pant harder and moan more from pain than pleasure.  She was squeezing Lizzie's hand so hard, Lizzie lost feeling in it, but refused to let go.  Kaylyn's smile had disappeared, to be replaced with a painful expression as the contractions grew closer together, as well as worse.  The scientist immediately moved Kaylyn over to the bed and helped her undress, to check her dilation.  "Oh, wow, you're already dilated!" She said to Kaylyn in surprise, "You can pu..."  "Aaaaggghhhh!" Kaylyn yelled, pushing.  "Oooohhh God!"  Kaylyn let out a slight laugh as the contraction subsided, and she maneuvered to get off the bed.  "I want... I want to do this squatting..." Kaylyn said.  "Feels like I'm taking a sh...UUUGGHHH!" Kaylyn cried out again, squatting down, and Lizzie immediately saw a dark haired head poking out of Kaylyn's vagina.   "Hahh, hhaaahhh!" Kaylyn panted as the head began to drop out of her.   "It's coming very fast," the scientist said calmly, holding Kaylyn steady as she pushed.  "I KNOWWW!" Kaylyn screamed, and bore down again.  The baby dropped so fast, Lizzie barely had time to catch it. As Lizzie held the crying newborn girl, letting the scientist cut the cord, Kaylyn held onto the bed behind her, still panting.  The scientist, noticing something amiss, examined Kaylyn for a minute, then locked eyes with her.  "There's another one," she said.  "You were carrying twins!!"  Kaylyn simply burst out laughing, as the rest of the girls gasped and murmured in shock.  "Twins?" Lizzie squeaked, still holding Kaylyn's baby.  As Kaylyn began to squat and push again, Tina rushed forward and took the baby from Lizzie's arms, as Kaylyn quickly grabbed her hand again.  "Oooowwwwwaaahhhh!" Kaylyn bellowed as a second head appeared between her legs.  Summer had approached timidly to see what was happening, and watched as Kaylyn delivered the twin.  Lizzie could not read her expression, and therefore did not know if she was reassured or made even more terrified by Kaylyn's labor.  Kaylyn grunted and howled as the head popped out and hung out of her.  She steeled herself and with one final push, delivered the twin baby into the scientist's hands. "So, what happens if one of us has twins??" Crystal asked the scientist, as Kaylyn panted in relief, bent over the foot of the bed, catching her breath.  Lizzie held one of the twin girls, while the scientist held the other.  Both twins had been passed around for all the girls to hold, and the scientist was positioning her arms to allow her to carry both babies at the same time to the caretakers.  "It means that Kaylyn has already had two of her five, and therefore will only be required to have 3 more!" She responded, shifting her weight and taking the baby from Lizzie in her free arm.  "I'll have to speak with the others about this, but it technically means that during all of your final pregnancies, Kaylyn will probably be free to leave!"  "She won't like that," Lizzie thought to herself, smiling slightly.   The scientist left with the babies, and the girls all returned to the birthing suite, talking among themselves as Kaylyn lay in the bed, resting.  She protested immediately when Lizzie told her what the scientist had said about she possibly being free to leave early.  "If you think I would leave this facility while the four of you are still pregnant with your final babies, you're crazy," she said sternly.  "Even if they don't impregnate me the 5th time because I had twins, I'm still here to support all of you!"  Lizzie smiled at her, and watched as the others grinned as well.  Knowing Kaylyn, she would no doubt request to have a sixth baby even though it was not required.   Lizzie was standing next to Kaylyn's bed, and Kaylyn reached out a hand to touch Lizzie's protruding belly.  "You're next, you know," she said, smiling up at Lizzie.  "You'll do great!"  Lizzie nodded and smiled back at her, knowing what she said was true and feeling both excited and nervous. 

11

As the week following Kaylyn's twins' birth passed, Lizzie, knowing it would be her turn anytime now, began to feel very nervous and anxious.   Kaylyn recovered the day after her birth, and after getting back into her overalls, began to stay around Lizzie almost constantly, the two of them anticipating Lizzie going into labor any moment.  As if the baby inside her could also feel that time was growing close, it had been more active as of late: kicking inside her so much, it felt as though the baby was using her bladder as a soccer ball.  This, of course, kept Lizzie hovering in and around the bathroom even more than normal as of late, with the constant feeling of needing to pee now never-ending. The baby also seemed to feel much heavier to Lizzie, causing pressure on her back and pelvis.  She had taken to soaking in the pool on occasion, to deal with the discomfort.  Kaylyn told Lizzie that her cute baby bump seemed to be lower, but other than the added discomfort, Lizzie felt nothing else to indicate that she was in labor.  Kaylyn, bless her, was trying to talk to Lizzie to help take her mind off her displeasure and anxiety, but Kaylyn loved reliving her own birth, describing it in loving detail, and could scarcely talk of nothing else.  Also aware that Lizzie's time was close at hand, Tina and Crystal had offered words of encouragement to her as well, saying that if they could do it, then Lizzie could.  Summer tried to help too, but conversations with her usually just turned into hugging sessions, as the two of them were both equally nervous. Finally, after about 9 days had passed since Kaylyn had given birth, Lizzie was awoken by what was unmistakably a contraction, as well as painful pressure on her hips.  She reached over for her glasses and put them on, then rubbed her belly in an attempt to relieve it, crying out in a low moan.  Once the pain subsided enough that she felt like she could move, Lizzie got out of bed and waddled slowly to the door. Kaylyn was waiting for her outside her room, as she had been doing every morning since she herself had given birth.   Upon seeing the painful expression on Lizzie's face, as well as hearing her pants and soft moans, Kaylyn rushed forward to help her.  "It's happening??" She asked, staring at Lizzie as she slowly guided her down the steps.  Lizzie nodded, whimpering a bit.  "Y...yes," she squeaked out between pants.  "I... I definitely th..think I'm in.. l..labor!"   "GIRLS, IT'S TIME!" Kaylyn yelled out, as she guided Lizzie toward the birthing suite.  Each step was agony, for it seemed as if gravity was acting on the baby, pulling it down lower and lower.  A few times, Lizzie cried out loudly as the pain and pressure peaked, while Kaylyn held her steady, rubbing Lizzie's belly gently. By the time they got to the birthing suite, Lizzie was moaning loudly, feeling like a huge weight had settled into her pelvis.  With Kaylyn and Tina's help, she undressed from her shirt and loose jeans and crawled into the bed, as Crystal ran to call the scientist.  Summer hung back again, but Lizzie vaguely noticed that she was standing closer than she had been when Kaylyn was birthing.  Lizzie grimaced as a powerful contraction hit her, and Kaylyn offered her hand, which Lizzie gripped tightly.  The pain brought with it an increase to the pressure, and an urge to push!   "I gotta push," Lizzie squeaked out to Kaylyn, who shook her head.  "Not yet, wait until the scientist can check your dilation first!" She responded. "You're seven centimeters," the scientist declared 20 minutes later, after checking Lizzie's dilation.  Groaning and crying in pain, Lizzie writhed on the bed, feeling as though she was about to pass a bowling ball through her.  "Oooohh... I neeeeddd to push," she trilled.  Kaylyn suggested that using the birthing ball might help, and when Lizzie nodded her agreement, the girls helped her transition over to it.  Lizzie rocked and rolled slowly on the ball, letting out moans, pants, and cries of pain as the pressure held steady on her hips.  Her back ached severely, and she simultaneously felt as if she needed to pee and defecate all at once.  "Ooohhh... my back," Lizzie groaned, and Kaylyn immediately began to rub it, giving her some relief.   For another hour, Lizzie continued to moan and cry as she labored on the ball.  Just when she thought it could not get any worse, her water broke, and after it did, the urge to push increased ten-fold.  "OOOH, I GOTTA PUSH I GOTTA PUSH I GOTTA PUSH," Lizzie chanted, as the scientist ran over to check her.  "Ok, it's time, you're at full dilation," she announced over Lizzie's screams.  Kaylyn and Tina helped Lizzie back over to the bed and, with her request, positioned her legs into the stirrups.  "Aaaahhhh!" Lizzie cried out, feeling the pressure slam into her birth canal.  She pushed instinctively, gripping Kaylyn's hand and groaning.  As the contraction subsided, Lizzie slumped backward onto the pillow, crying in pain.  "You're doing so good, Liz," Kaylyn said happily to her.  Lizzie felt like her back was on fire, and her legs shook in the stirrups as she readied herself for another push.   "Uuuugghhh!! AAAHHHHH!!" She screamed, feeling the baby move down, stretching her cervix wide.  "You got this," Tina encouraged, standing beside Crystal at the foot of the bed.  "You so got this," Crystal echoed.  Kaylyn was directly behind Lizzie now, holding her arms back and wiping her hair and sweat off of her face, but this left Lizzie with nothing to hold onto for support.  "I got you," Kaylyn said over Lizzie's cries, but then she felt someone grip her hand, and turned to look into Summer's eyes.  Her left hand on her belly, and her right hand in Lizzie's, Summer nodded down at her.  Somehow, this gave Lizzie all the encouragement she needed. "The head is right there," the scientist announced, as Tina and Crystal cheered upon seeing it.  Lizzie howled in pain as she felt a burning sensation in her vagina.  As she bore down, she could feel herself opening and the baby's head passing through.  "It's crowning," the scientist said, wiping around the head with a cloth, which caused Lizzie to whimper as it touched her stretched sensitive pussy around the head.  "It's sunny side up!"  "One more push," the scientist called out, and all the other girls began cheering, "GO LIZZIE GO!"  Even Summer, who looked like she was going to be physically sick, cheered Lizzie on, and did not let go of her hand.   "Ready?" Kaylyn asked happily, and Lizzie barely had time to nod before yelling out in pain as she pushed, and the baby ejected from her with a pop and a gush of fluid. Lizzie lay panting on the bed in relief, her legs still in the stirrups, as her baby's cord was cut and the newborn was passed around for each of the girls to hold.  It was a girl, with sandy brown hair identical to Lizzie's, and once Lizzie was finally able to hold this child that had come out of her, she felt as though she was in love.  However, she then remembered the contract she signed, and how she would have to give up this child to the caretakers. Deciding then and there that she would definitely make arrangements to track and even visit her daughter whenever she could, Lizzie smiled down at the baby girl happily as it wriggled in her arms.  Kaylyn put an arm around her best friend as she cooed and talked cheerfully and playfully to Lizzie's baby.  Summer had left as soon as she had held the baby for a bit, and Lizzie suspected that she had likely gone to vomit, her body finally coming to terms with her nervousness.  "You did great," Crystal said to Lizzie, beaming, as Tina smiled at them from just outside the birthing suite, where she was talking to the scientist.  "You made that look so easy," she continued.  "That looked easy?" Lizzie asked with a snort of laughter.  "I was yelling my head off!"  "Yeah, and so was I, remember?" Crystal reminded her.  "But, I didn't hear you beg to stop the pain or get it out!"  "Hey, we all deal with pain in our own way," Kaylyn reassured her.  "Oh yeah, you're one to talk, miss "Oh, the pain feels so good!" even when you're having TWINS!" Crystal said to her.   Kaylyn grinned.  "Hey, I'm weird, remember??" She responded happily.   Lizzie smiled as she held her child up to breastfeed.  "I love you guys," she said weakly, which instantly shut them all up.

12

Perhaps it was because Summer was barely out of her teens, but almost two days later, after Lizzie had recovered, Summer had already gone into labor.  She waddled out of her room, looking shaken and holding her belly with one hand.  "I'm hurting!!" She said to the girls as they approached her.  Kaylyn put her hand on Summer's belly as she moaned out softly.  "Are you sure it's just not late pregnancy pains?" Tina asked.  "We all had them leading up to our times!"  "It's not," Kaylyn announced.  "She's having contractions!"  It was at that moment that her water broke, and a puddle formed at Summer's feet! Kaylyn and Lizzie guided the panting and moaning young mother to the birthing suite as Crystal attempted to prepare the room.  Tina, meanwhile, called the scientist, and as they all waited, Summer rocked on the birthing ball, low moaning to herself.  "You're doing great," Kaylyn reassured her.   "It hurts!" Summer breathed between moans, holding her belly.  Lizzie watched her and noted again how fit Summer was, due to all the time she had spent in the gym.  "If anyone could get through childbirth without too much trouble, it has to be Summer," she thought.  "Are you ok?" Kaylyn asked Summer, who panted for a bit, then said, seemingly surprised, "It hurts, but it... it's not too bad!"  Kaylyn nodded and gave Lizzie a small smile, which she returned.  Summer had been the girl most dreading her birth, to the point of sheer panic, but it was reassuring to see that Summer had seemed to worry too much about it. When the scientist arrived, she asked Summer to lay on the bed and spread her legs, so she could check her dilation.  Panting slightly, Summer complied, and the scientist declared that she was already 7 centimeters dilated.  "Wow, you're taking it like a champ," Kaylyn said to Summer after this examination, giving her a reassuring smile.  Summer smiled back slightly, panting softly.  "I... think I'd like to walk..." She said, getting up out of the bed. Summer had done more than walk. After 10 minutes of walking around, Summer found herself unfulfilled and so, in typical Summer fashion, she had made her way into the gym and got on the treadmill.  The other girls could not really hide their amusement over this, and so they all laughed and chatted with Summer as she dealt with her labor by jogging slightly on the treadmill.  Lizzie was amazed by Summer's stamina; while she had been pregnant, and especially in labor, Lizzie could barely walk, and certainly would not be able to jog on the treadmill. After about 30 minutes of this, Summer stopped the treadmill suddenly and slumped over the front of it, crying out loudly.  "Aaahhh, it hurts bad!!" She exclaimed, and Lizzie moved forward to rub her back.  At the same time, Kaylyn and Crystal hoisted Summer off the treadmill and began guiding her back to the birthing suite.  "No, I can't," she said panicked after she took two steps, "It's coming right now!! Aaaahhhh!!" Summer doubled over and spread her legs slightly.  "Uuuggghh, ooooohhhh!!" "Ooh, it feels like it's coming down right now!!"  Apparently, Summer's workout on the treadmill had worked too well, and labor was progressing fast.  Lizzie was just thinking how ironically fitting it would be for Summer to deliver here in the gym when Kaylyn spoke up, "I have an idea, but all of you will need to help!" The four girls had lifted Summer up off her feet completely, and together they had carried her all the way to the birthing suite.  Summer was howling the entire time, and as they lowered her gently onto the bed, her legs thrashed as she screamed.   "I...I'M PUSHING! AAAHHH, IT CAN'T WAIT!!" Summer bellowed.  The scientist checked her and nodded, astonished.  "Yeah, not only are you fully dilated, but the baby's already moving down!" She said.  "What did you do??"  Summer responded by screaming again, as a bulge popped up in her vagina.  "Summer, there's the head," Crystal called out over her moans.  As it emerged, Lizzie could see a tuft of blonde hair similar in color to Summer's. Screaming again, and spreading her legs wide, Summer pushed and the head moved a few more inches out.  "AAAAHH, IT BURNS!!" Summer yelled, thrashing around on the bed.  Kaylyn, Tina, and Lizzie all moved forward to hold her as the scientist said, "You're crowning!"  "GO Summer, you're almost there!!" Crystal cheered, and her encouragement was echoed by the others as Summer gathered her strength and pushed, her face screwed up in pain, crying out loudly.  After an entire 30 seconds of pushing, the baby slipped out of Summer, crying loudly. Summer had given birth to a girl, and as Lizzie had seen earlier, the baby had lots of blonde hair the same color as Summer's hair.  The scientist, as per their unofficial tradition, passed the baby around to let each girl hold her before giving her to Summer.  "You did it," Crystal said cheerfully to Summer, who was laughing softly as she held her daughter.  "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Kaylyn said, causing all the girls to giggle.  "You really did so great," Lizzie said to Summer, putting a hand gently on her shoulder.  "I know you were scared!"  "I was," Summer said, as she looked down at her baby, "But it was worth it!"  "I could do it again!"  "Me too!" Kaylyn said immediately, to no one's surprise.  Lizzie nodded, feeling at that moment that she too was quite willing to carry and give birth again.   This was what she signed up for, after all.  The scientist came in and took the baby after a final goodbye from Summer, and then left, leaving the girls alone and all non-pregnant for the first time in months. Over the next several days, Summer had recovered, and the five girls had gone back to their lives in the facility, feeling quite fulfilled and happy.  The knowledge that they had all successfully given birth to their babies and that those babies would be adopted by families that would love them soon, filled all the girls with great happiness.  Using the library computer, Lizzie had already found a website established for the experiment.  It was very secretive, at least on the surface, but there was also a very secure login screen.  Lizzie had been quite surprised when she entered her name and social security number as requested by the page, and she had been given access.  Apparently, all the girls involved in the experiment had been given access to the site, just by putting in their information.  Lizzie scrolled a bit to what she was looking for: tracking.  Here, she found her own picture and a list of how many babies she had delivered.  Obviously, there was only one entry on the list, and so she clicked it, and was treated with pictures, information, and even a running video of the caretaker in charge of taking care of the daughter Lizzie had birthed.  The caretaker was a young girl, barely older than Lizzie, with long blonde hair and light skin, whose name was Rose.  Lizzie found a live video of Rose breastfeeding Lizzie's unnamed baby, and watched it for a while, smiling happily.  Her heart swelled at the sight of her daughter being taken care of so well, and hoped she would bring joy to whoever ended up with her.  Bookmarking the site before closing it, Lizzie had just stood up from behind the computer and stretched when she heard a tone from the intercom in the foyer.  "Attention, all members of the project," a voice said, and Lizzie recognized it as Daniel's.  She quickly rushed outside, to see that the other girls had done the same.  "We are happy to announce that phase one of the challenge is complete and that 22 healthy babies have been born!" Daniel's voice continued.  "A week will pass, for general recovery and preparation, and then phase two will begin!"  "The names of all birthers will be randomized by our computer again, and the we will call the name of the first candidate from each section!"  There was a pause, then Daniel said, "I wish to congratulate all 20 birthers for your success in carrying and delivering the first babies for our little project!!"  "Here's hoping you will continue to be successful in your efforts!"  As the announcement ended, Lizzie turned to see smiles on all the other girls' faces, mirroring her own.  "So, wonder what's gonna happen next?" Kaylyn asked, brightly.

13

As announced, after a week passed by, the experiment started up again for phase two, with a newly randomized list.  Lizzie was the first to get pregnant this time, followed by Crystal, then Tina, then Summer, and finally Kaylyn last.  Lizzie was not sure if Kaylyn being last was because she had had twins previously, or if it was just a coincidence.   As the months passed, Lizzie had continued to use the facility's site to monitor her child, as well as learn more about the experiment itself.   During the week between the phases of the experiment, Lizzie learned that she could look up a list of all the girls in the experiment, and call up a list of their babies, as she had done hers.  Doing so, she discovered that, in addition to Kaylyn, a girl named Nikki in Section B was the other person to give birth to twins during phase one.  Lizzie also had entertained herself slightly by finding the babies of all of her new friends, to see how well they were being taken care of, and she was pleased to find that the caretakers were just as loving and caring to them as they had been to her own child. During the next few months, the girls had slipped back into a routine similar to the one they had enjoyed during their first pregnancies, with everything seeming to go smoothly.  Lizzie eventually gave birth to a boy this time, that was, in her opinion, a spitting image of Daniel.  Being the first to deliver meant that she spend the next couple of weeks effectively as midwife, as Crystal brought forth her next son, Tina a daughter, and Summer and Kaylyn both having boys as well.  Lizzie noted that the births in the second phase were not much more or less intense as those in the first, but with each girl having already gone through the process once before, they were more experienced and prepared this time around. Lizzie eventually spent almost two years total living in the facility as the experiment continued.  During that time, she had given birth to three more girls, which joined her first daughter and son with the caretakers, allowing her to meet her quota of five babies.  The other girls eventually also had given birth to their five babies, and as predicted, the facility staff had offered to let Kaylyn leave before phase 5 started, as thanks to her twins, she had already had her five babies, but she flat out refused, choosing to stay and support her friends in their final pregnancies and births.  Thankfully, there had been no other complications, other than Tina's third birth being breech, and close to the end of the 4th phase, an announcement had come over the entire facility saying that there would be slight delays, because someone in the facility was having triplets!  Lizzie had learned, via using the facility's site, that it had been Daniel's wife, Rena, who had birthed the triplets, inadvertently bringing her baby count to six! A week after Lizzie and her section had birthed their final babies, Daniel had announced to the entire facility that the 100 baby challenge was a success, with 104 successful babies born.  All the birthers had fulfilled their contracts, and were now free to leave, and Daniel informed everyone in that same announcement that in a few days, vehicles would be prepared for whoever needed them, to transport them back to their former lives.  After two years in the facility, Lizzie felt that it would now be a surreal, strange experience to go back to her former life, but she knew two things for certain: She would continue to keep in touch with her fellow birthers, who had become her newest family, and she would continue to track and even eventually make arrangements to visit all of the children she had birthed, wherever they would eventually end up. The day after the announcement, the five girls got a personal visit from the four founders of the facility!  They were going around to each section, thanking all of the birthers personally for their help in making the challenge a reality and success, and also asking each of the girls where they wanted to go from here, so they could be transported later.  Lizzie was happy to meet the other founders of the project, as the only one she had ever interacted with was Daniel, and she was slightly surprised when she noticed that Rena had a small baby bump as she stood next to her husband.  "Haven't you had enough?" Lizzie asked loudly with a laugh as she indicated Rena's belly, remembering that Rena had already given birth to six children during the project.  Rena smiled, but Daniel immediately put his arm around his wife and said happily to Lizzie, "This one is not for the experiment, this baby is ours!!"  Rena nodded, as Daniel kissed her cheek. As preparations to leave got underway, Lizzie found that emotions among the girls were running high, seeing as the five of them had spent almost two years together, during which time they had supported each others' pregnancies and births.  As a result of this, they had all grown super close, and the farewells they exchanged were tearful ones, despite all of them promising each other that they would stay in touch.  Lizzie learned that Tina and Summer were returning to their old lives, their reasons for joining the experiment now fulfilled.  Crystal was unsure where to go from here, but the two years seemed to have been therapeutic for her, and she was now open to new hope and possibilities moving forward.  As Lizzie spend her last day in the facility with her best friend, Kaylyn informed her that she had chosen not to return to her old life.  Kaylyn had spoken with Daniel during the founders' personal visit, and had agreed to stay and work with him to continue to perfect the Fast Pregnancy serum, acting, of course, as a test subject.  "Why am I not surprised?" Lizzie had responded, and the two girls laughed.   But, when Kaylyn asked Lizzie what her plans were upon leaving the facility, she could not answer.  Lizzie had no idea what to do now, for nothing in her life could possibly compare to this experience. After a final emotional farewell to the rest of the girls, Lizzie stepped into the elevator and returned to the lobby she had first laid eyes upon at the beginning of the experiment, two years ago.  When she was escorted out to the parking garage, she received one final surprise: Daniel was waiting there, to personally drive her back to her home.  As Daniel had been the one who had recruited her in the first place, it seemed to Lizzie that it was only fitting for everything to come full circle. During the drive home, where Lizzie sat in the front seat of Daniel's car, rather than the windowless back of the van that had first brought her to the mountain, the two of them spoke in length about the project's success.  "So, how do you feel??" Daniel asked her with a curious and yet concerned expression.  Lizzie thought for a moment, and smiled.  "I feel wonderful," she responded, and knew in her heart that it was true.  The project had been an amazing experience that had given her new friends, and the happy feeling that she had given five barren families somewhere out there, the joys of having children.   Daniel smiled.  "I'm happy to hear you say that," he stated.  "I've heard much the same from all the girls that took part in the project."   "Now that it's over, and successful, we plan to publicly announce our success soon."  "Given our plans for the future, as well as the sheer number of people involved with the project, it's doubtful we could keep it secret anymore in any event."  Lizzie nodded as she processed this information.  "Don't worry," Daniel added, "Other than to the families that will be adopting your babies, of course, we will keep you and all the other birthers anonymous when we go public."  "I know that would be an awkward way to get famous!"  Lizzie smiled, but then her mind went into overdrive, still wondering what her future plans were, and an idea formed.  Seeing Kaylyn in her mind's eye, Lizzie asked, "What if I didn't mind?"  Daniel, pulling into the driveway of Lizzie's house, turned to look at her, confused.  "I think... I would like to do some writing," she continued.  "Perhaps write a book about... all of this!"   "The experience of being in the project, and meeting new friends, and the pains and joys of having our babies..." She trailed off, watching Daniel's expression carefully.  "Would that be ok, since, well, the project is... was... your baby... no pun intended... and I know you want to be careful going public..."  Lizzie closed her mouth to stop her stammering.  "What is wrong with me?" She thought.  However, she saw Daniel give her a warm smile.  "Well, as we're planning to go public soon, I hereby declare the contract fulfilled, which means you are no longer sworn to secrecy," he said, grinning.  "You can do, and write, whatever you want!"  "In fact," he continued as he reached over and opened her door, "If that is your plan, then what if you and your book WAS how we went public??"  Lizzie gaped at him in surprise, and then, as she climbed out of his car, her face beamed happily, and she leaned in and said, "Where do I sign up??" End

[wind-becomes-lightning]

Just as friends.

(cover art done by @kankuroplease)

I'M OFFERING FANFICS IN EXCHANGE FOR A DONATION THAT HELPS THE PEOPLE IN UKRAINE. MORE INFO HERE

I finished another commissioned fic (through donation) and this time for @revefantastique! They were kind enough to donate a little and got this in return! This is their OC and I’m so glad they like the story ^-^

Pairing: Uchiha Obito x OC

4833 words

Phoenix decides to take her close friend Obito to a wedding of a schoolmate from highschool, but she makes it clear to him that it’s nothing but a platonical date. Maybe.

“Just take Obito”, Rin said, stretching her back out over the length of Phoenix’ couch in her little dormroom. “He spends time with you all the time anyway.” Phoenix paced the room, a tiny card turning around in her flat hand. It had been almost a year ago that she had been invited to the wedding of a friend from high school, a sort of lucky guy who had met his future partner already in his teenage years. She was excited for him of course, a little envious maybe, but excited. After all Asuma and her had been long term friends and his wife-to-be, Kurenai, was, as far as Phoenix could gather, a very good person. The trouble came with the invitation. People expected guests to bring partners to weddings, going alone as a woman was almost an invitation for creepy people to be all up in your business. Phoenix didnt want to go alone, so she had asked Rin, who, in her words, was “too busy right now with medical school” and “Konan”, her girlfriend.

Phoenix stopped the pacing for just a moment, throwing the envelope with the card to the table in front of her: “I can’t just take Obito”, she whined. “Taking a guy to a wedding has implications and I’m not sure I want him to think about them too much.” Rin let out a sharp breath of disapproval. “Take nobody then, coward.” Phoenix crossed her arms like a disobedient child: “You know I can’t do that.” Months ago when she had to send the Save-the-Date back she had still dated someone and thought she could take him with her, now she was alone again, but her card still had the plus one. Sure, she could have just called Asuma, apologised profusely, and asked for her additional person to be removed. But in her mind they probably had already set up everything that needed to be set up for a wedding of that size and in no way could she mess that up now. It was against her nature.

Rin leaned over the little coffee table with their tea cups on it and pulled Phoenix painfully by the ear: “Lady”, she said menacingly, “You have to make a choice. Either you go without someone and risk being embarrassed -” Phoenix chimed in: “Which I don’t want.” Rin continued “- or you just ask Obito. Just tell him that it is nothing more than a last minute date.” Phoenix squirmed a little, pulling at the seams of the jeans that she bought a little too tight with the implicit goal to lose some weight until these summer days. “Fine”, she said, reaching a conclusion finally, “I will ask him.” Rin leaned back again, not without rolling her eyes: “I can’t believe you guys aren’t dating already anyway. You hang out so often.” Phoenix bit her lip and said nothing. It was all a little more complicated than that.

Obito Uchiha was a good person, a loyal and proud person, a little goofy, a little embarrassed and easily angered, but overall he was a good guy. Phoenix had met him at her first class in university, right away, when she had heard him make a joke behind her and couldn’t help laughing at it. She knew nobody back then, all alone in the big city and basically immediately was added to him and his friend group. He was a tall guy, black hair and a circular scar shape on the right side of his face from an accident when he was a teenager. When Phoenix had finally mustered the courage to ask him about it he had just raised a brow and winked. “It was my hero moment”, he said, sounding so overly proud of himself, but not elaborating further. From what Phoenix gathered from Rin, he had saved another boy from certain death and been injured himself. Talking about a hero moment.

So they’d become fast friends, meeting regularly not only for studying but leisure time, playing video games, talking nerd stuff, the usual. Phoenix had valued their time together a lot always and noticed very quickly how much of an effort he was making to be a good friend to her, maybe too much sometimes. Obito smiled a lot around her, eyes shining each time they crossed hers - it could be intimidating. He told her he loved her red hair, he told her he loved the green eyes, and it was all a bit much sometimes. So yes, Obito would jump at the chance to go to the wedding with her, but would he understand that she meant it in a buddy-buddy, non romantic sort of way? Phoenix could not know that in advance. When she called him to ask she had therefore tried to make it very clear. “You come as my friend yeah? Just platonic besties having a nice day out.” Obito had laughed at the other end of the line: “Well, what else would it be?”

It had been relatively short notice and Phoenix had obviously been lucky that Obito still had time that specific June weekend. She got ready early enough, binding her hair up in a braid and then into a bun at the back of her head. It was supposed to get hot that day and she wanted to relieve herself of some of the heat on her neck. It was already bad enough to have red hair and light skin, which just led to red colour and sunburn, but she didn’t also need to sweat herself to death. She wore a light summer dress in mint green, which complimented her a lot and shoes with small heels. Not too much, as the wedding was going to be outside. Nobody liked falling over their feet on a green field of grass. She had decided to meet with Obito there, as the place was half way between her apartment and his and picking up the other seemed like an awful waste of gasoline, but when it was time to head out her apartment door rang anyway.

Phoenix staggered on her heels to the door, still pushing lipstick and a tiny hairbrush into her little side bag. She had no time for chit chat now, especially if it was that downstairs neighbour that always liked to tell her stories about his beautiful granddaughter. She ripped the door open without looking through it first and dropped her jaw a bit in surprise. “Hey-a '', Obito said, waving a little with his hand. She looked him up and down. He was wearing a suit made of light fabric in black and a white short-sleeved undershirt. He had the jacket thrown over his shoulder to give himself relief from the heat. His hair looked a little more clean than usual, as if he had tried to comb it for the first time. “I thought I’d come pick you up”, he smiled and winked a little. “I thought you’d get lost if you tried making your own way over there, besides, I'm coming with you as a guest anyway.” Obito didn’t know the bride or the groom. Phoenix ripped her eyes away from his torso, the outline of his abs visible ever so slightly through his shirt and nodded, a little beside herself: “Sure, alright, yeah, makes sense.“

“I’m sorry that I sprung myself on you”, Obito said, both hands on the steering wheel and eying her from the side. “I just know how you are with directions and so I felt it would probably be easier if I just drive us.” Phoenix tried very hard not to look at him, unsure why his more cleaned up look got to her all of a sudden. He looked good and yes, he had always been an outwardly good looking man, someone who other women swooned over, even though he had the scars, but in suit he just looked so specifically handsome. She blinked the thoughts out of her head. Platonic date, she told herself. It had been her own rule after all. “I could have just used Google maps or whatever”, Phoenix complained back, finally finding her own voice again. “Just because I got lost that one time…” He laughed: “I feel like I’ve seen you get lost many times.” She yawned as if she was uninterested in his fake knowledge: “Well at least I come on time if needed.” Obito was perpetually late for everything. “Hey, unfair, I came in time today.” That one time, she thought, but said nothing.

When they arrived at the ceremony site the usher greeted them with: “Wonderful day for an outdoor wedding, isn’t it?” and Obito, already sweating in the jacket he had just put on five minutes ago leaned over to Phoenix and whispered: “Maybe too good of a weather.” She could smell the cologne he had used and it was a pleasant smell. She pulled her head away from him so suddenly that he blinked in surprise. They found seats at the very end of the rows, Phoenix was not close enough to Asuma to consider sitting at the front. Instead they watched the ceremony from the end, which gave Obito ample possibilities to squirm around on his seat and complain about how warm he was. Silently and only to her of course. Phoenix hit him in the side at some point, whispering under her breath: “I’m trying to concentrate here.”

It was a hard feat however. The sun was scorching down over them, burning without mercy on their heads. Even Phoenix felt warm, despite her much lighter clothing and Obito, as well as other men, looked like he was going to pass out any second. The ceremony proceeded as normal, Asuma and Kurenai never letting their hands go off each other. It was cute, the way they were looking at each other with such devotion after what had essentially been a 10 year long relationship at this point. That one could love someone else so intensely for so long was something that Phoenix admired, always a little bit of a romantic at heart. Still, it was hot, sweat dripping down her back from her neck even though her hair was tied up, she looked at Obito again, he was clearly uncomfortable but also smiling, following along whatever was happening at the front.

One and half hours later the rings had been exchanged and first kisses were done, finally the guests could get up from their tiny plastic chairs and roam around a little, going to different places prepared with finger food and drinks. Obito grabbed Phoenix's hand immediately, pulling her up to him: “I need some air conditioning, what do you say?” Not waiting for an answer he pulled her into the little garden centre attached to the ceremony place, a tiny green house with a small bar attached behind and the bathrooms. This part of the house did have an air conditioner and so the both of them hid there, half standing on the steps to the cellar under it. “Ahh”, Obito sang, holding his head into the cool air. “I can feel like myself again.” He had left the jacket hanging, the sweat now making his shirt even more see through. Phoenix caught herself asking how she’d never noticed that he was this well trained. Without realising she moved her hand forward, touching the fabric. Obito looked down to her hand: “Huh?” and she pulled away immediately.

“Uh-uhm, I didn’t know you had two different kinds of skin textures,” she lied quickly, thinking of something Rin had told her years ago. After the accident they had patched Obito up with donated skin as opposed to his own, which was why his upper arm on the right and his upper chest looked a little differently. She could vaguely see it through the dress shirt, so she felt justified in bringing it up. “Oh, yeah?” Obito asked with an eyebrow raised. Somehow Phoenix felt that he was seeing through her weak excuse. “Yes, otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough of me.” He let his hands fly to his top button and opened it, then the second one. Her breath hitched in her throat as he took her fingers gently and placed it to his chest. “See?” he asked, moving her finger along the lines of skin meeting skin. “Those don’t only look different, they also feel different.”

Phoenix nodded quickly, pulling her fingers out of his hand. She suddenly felt very hot. This was a platonic date, she thought to herself. Those had been her terms. What the hell? Obito put his head to the side, buttoning the shirt back up: “You seem to have a red head. And I mean redder than usual. I hope you used sun block, because otherwise your face will be permanently this colour.” She took a breath to shake the intrusive thoughts out and then she looked back up at him defiantly: “What do you know, huh?” She picked him into his chest, but pulled her hand away instantly after. “I have seen you get sunburn about 50 times by now, Phoe, I’m just saying.” She pouted. How dare he use his knowledge against her. “Well at least I do tan. You just look like a pale stick all summer long.” Obito flicked his fingers against her head and grinned a little: “Keep telling yourself that.” She felt the spot on her head that he had touched like a burn.

They left the house about half an hour later, both now thoroughly cooled down. Most of the guests had moved to the part of the garden that threw more shadow, a nice, round place surrounded by flowers where tables had been set up. It was really very beautiful here and now that they weren’t directly under the sun again it also was much more bearable. Phoenix now led the way, Obito following on her toe, to find the bride and groom to officially congratulate them. Asuma was almost not recognizable without his usual cigarette in his mouth, but he was smiling from ear to ear when Phoenix hugged him. “I’m glad you came”, he said and added, nodding at Obito: “Is that your boyfriend?” She froze up for a second, whipping her head back to look at his reaction. Obito however just shrugged his shoulders and offered his hand over to Asuma: “Platonic date. She’s made that very clear.” Phoenix looked at her shoes. He didn’t have to say it so cooly. “Ahaha, yes, that sounds like Phoe”, Asuma laughed. “She is not really the commitment type.” Unfair and untrue, she thought, but the bridal couple was already whisked away somewhere else.

There was so much food to try out scattered around little plates. “My god, it was so worth it to come here with you”, Obito swooned with one look at the offer in front of him. They loaded their own plates with all kinds of goods and went back to the place where their seat cards had been placed. Someone had put out two glasses of wine for them, perfectly cooled for the warm day. Phoenix began eating and drinking, already feeling much better. There was only one other person from her highschool invited, sitting to her right. “You came without a partner, Genma?” Phoenix asked carefully. They hadn’t seen each other in years and so she didn’t want to step on his toes potentially. “I do these things alone”, he grinned, a toothpick stuck between his teeth. “Easier to meet people.” He winked at Obito. “People drink too much at weddings”, Obito nodded to agree with him. Phoenix looked from one to the other and then realised what they were suggesting. She frowned. “Well as long as you have fun.”

Obito left several times to get refills, each time he brought more wine over. Phoenix knew her tolerance level and it was soon reached, but she continued drinking anyway. “People drink too much at weddings”, Obito’s voice echoed in her mind and maybe he had a point, but she had too much fun to care. Her hands were more often than not touching his, softly, stroking over them with every joke he told or every story she ranted about. Obito never put his hand away, let her arm fall over his shoulder without any word against it. She wasn’t sure if he let it happen because it was her, because he wanted it to happen or because he saw it all as part of the friendship thing. After all, good friends were physically close all the time. Even cuddling just platonically. The way he looked at her though, when their eyes caught each other, seemed like there was something else on his mind. He watched her with complete interest and amusement and a little expectation. Like he wanted to see where it was going. Phoenix tried not to look at him too often.

“Do you wanna dance?” he asked in a half laugh, when the sun was finally setting and all the bellies had been filled with food and desert. Genma had disappeared with some other girl or whomever and they were alone next to each other. Obito had just let his eyes fall over the crowd of people and finally rested them on the few couples dancing. “I do not know how to dance”, Phoenix giggled, the wine glass moving dangerously in her hand. “Neither can I, or these people for that matter”, he pointed forward to a person shaking head and limps like they were trying to defend themselves from an attack by a swarm of bees. “Dancing is fun nonetheless”, he argued, looking back at her. She shook her shoulders a little and finished the rest of the wine. “Alright, sir, lead the way.” Obito grinned and theatrically offered her a hand, which she took. They walked to the dancefloor together.

It felt weirdly right to Phoenix to put her hands around his neck and have his hands on her hips. The music had changed to a slower song, by no means a ballad, but slow enough that dancing close together wasn’t odd if you’d watch it from the outside. She was thankful to have an excuse to flush herself against him, let her nose pull in the scent of him and his fragrance. So they swayed along, barely exchanging words. “You know I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to come with me or not”, she said finally, trying to keep her legs moving even with the alcohol clogging her brain. “I just didn’t know if you’d take it the right way, you know?” Obito looked down from under his black hair, one eyebrow raised just slightly. “Well I feel like you made it very clear to me on the phone when you called me about it, considering you went on and on for twenty minutes about how it's definitely not a date.” Phoenix blushed slightly, embarrassed at the memory. “I- I guess so”, she said.

“I’m just abiding by your rules”, he continued, stretching his neck out a little defensively. The question if he’d like to throw out the rules she’d set up burned on her tongue, but instead she said nothing. “She is not the commitment type” Asuma had said about her and maybe that was true to some extent. Admitting to feelings could be difficult for Phoenix at times. She was clumsy about them, afraid to be hurt, afraid to lose a good friend. What would happen if they actually started dating and it would not work out? Obito was way too important to be “wasted” like this. She put her head against his chest just for a second, because he was pulling away, a large smile on his face. “A photobox!” he yelled, pointing with a finger. “Ah what?” she asked, still hung up on her thought spiral. “Let’s just go. Follow me.” Obito took her hand and pulled her after him, something he’d done before many times, but which somehow felt so intimate now.

 Phoenix saw quickly enough what had gotten him so very excited. A photobox had been put up while they’d been eating. A little wooden structure with an automatic camera. There were all kinds of utensils around to wear for a picture and they’d come out immediately. Phoenix had never been to a wedding before, but she’d seen pictures of friends doing something similar at one party or another. “I love those things,” Obito grinned. “I love wearing disguises.” Phoenix heard herself giggle again: “You surely do like a good mask or two.” Obito was the known king of halloween, dressing up in the most creative costumes, all masked. He was good at absolutely melting into the character he was portraying and it was a mystery that he was not a theatre kid. Obito quickly picked the batman mask on the rack as if it had called to him. Phoenix put on white cat ears and when she turned to Obito he said: “Very cute” and touched the soft ears. “Very handsome”, she replied and poked his chest. She meant it.

They went into the photobox, there wasn’t that much space in it so they had to sit side by side. “Alright, there are four photos per strip, so make it count, Uchiha”, Phoenix said, waving a finger to the button of the machine. Obito laughed back, pulling a little at the ears on her head: “You don’t have to tell me twice, miss.” Phoenix hit the button and they got in pose. Peace sign, dab, Phoenix pulled Obito’s cheek and then for the last picture, he let his arm fall around her shoulder and pulled her close. She was so surprised by this that a little squeal left her mouth. “I think we got it”, he said happily after the light flashed for the last time and he bent forward to see the result being printed. Phoenix could hear her heart in her ears, a warm blush on her face.

“Obito”, she said slowly, trying to regain her breath. The other still was bent to the side to pick the pictures. “Hm?” he replied. “I-If the rules were not in place. Like, if we’d pretend there are no rules at all - lets say this box in itself is a lawless land. What would you do next?” Phoenix let out a sharp breath and she couldn’t quite believe she’d said it out loud. He moved his head back into the box, letting his dark eyes run over her thoroughly. “You mean the rules?” he asked carefully, not letting his eyes off her face. She looked away, not able to hold his gaze for very long now, embarrassed to have even said anything. “I-I -yeah- I mean, you know what, ignore it.” She fumbled with her fingers and talked quickly until he cut her off. “You say this box is a lawless land and the rules do not apply?” She looked up at him again. “That, yea, that is what I’m saying.” Obito stretched again and then grinned at her. “Let’s take some more pictures.”

He hit the button this time and immediately slung his arm around her. “Come closer,” he said, pulling her legs over his lap to wrap her up even tighter. “W-Why-” Phoenix began but he just nodded to the camera. The first flash went off. “Next”, he said, pulling her head down so it was against his shoulder. He put his chin on top of it. Flash. Phoenix could feel her insides run hot with nerves and excitement about what he would do next. “Now, now”, Obito mumbled and grabbed her chin to move it up so he could bury his head in Phoenix’ neck. “Ah, wait, Obi-” The flash went off again. Only one picture left, she thought and forgot how to breathe. The hand on Phoenix's chin trembled a little, but then he pulled her in and did exactly what she expected, maybe hoped, he’d do in this rule free box. The kiss was tender, nothing more than soft lips touching each other. Phoenix could taste the beer he had been drinking on his and undoubtedly he could feel the wine on hers. The flash went off, but they didn’t let go of each other, pulling away for a breath and going in again. The sweetness flooded her brain, engulfing her completely.

It was Obito that moved backwards first, the smile on his face wide. “Time to check the pictures, don’t you think?” Phoenix felt like she’d just been ripped out of a deep sleep, not yet ready to give up the close proximity to him, but he had already detangled himself from her and stepped out of the little structure. “Oh, wonderful”, he laughed and Phoenix finally followed him too. “God, no”, she threw a look at the pictures. She looked embarrassed and flustered on all of them, always side eyeing Obito. There was only the last one, the kiss, when she seemed fully relaxed, eyes closed, melted into him. She had to avert her eyes, it seemed too intimate to see herself doing it. “Can I keep those?” he asked in a friendly manner. “As a memory to hold on to?” She turned and looked at him. “Memory?” He put the pictures in his pants pocket: “Well we will leave lawless land behind us now, so I will need the memory. Oh- cupcakes!”

Phoenix watched him walk away and for a moment remained frozen in place. It was easy to deny her own feelings, keep a distance from someone in case of hurt or hurting, but it was much harder to deny them once they’d been captured on permanent pictures like that. If she’d let Obito drive her home now and they would go back to being the casual study-buddy, video game friends, then her true feelings would always be there for the world to see on this four picture strip in his pants pocket. There was no use in running from it really, no use lying to herself. She panicked a little about the revelation. How to approach the situation that she had messed up in the first place? After all, she had been responsible in talking endlessly about how they were and always would be platonic friends only.

She caught up with Obito at the buffet, he had just stuffed his face with a chocolate cupcake that in any other situation would have looked delicious to Phoenix, but she was too nervous to eat now. “Obito, can I chat with you for a second somewhere quieter?” He turned his head, cheeks still stuffed with cake. “Hmmsure”, he mumbled under his breath and she lead the way back into the greenhouse, back to the stairs to the cellar, the place they had hid in earlier in the day. The bar was now outside and so nobody was around except for the occasional footsteps of guests trying to visit the bathroom. Obito followed dutifully, finishing what he was eating. Phoenix did not dare look over her shoulder at him, didn’t dare wonder if he suspected something.

“So”, she said finally, facing him with her back against the wall. He was leaning against the wall on the opposite side, one step below her so that their height was matching up. “The rules, my stupid rules…” He cut her off with a sigh: “It’s not like I would do it again, you know, if you’re not interested.” He didn’t say what “it” was, but she had a pretty good idea. “No, ah, I fucked this up royally, didn’t I”, Phoenix ranted, more to herself. Obito widened his eyes in interest, but he did not say anything. “I was too guarded, okay? I admit to it. I like hanging out with you, Obito, I like what we have and I was scared I'd destroy that.” He nodded as if he’d known all of that. “So yes, I was scared. Not good with commitment as Asuma said.” She took a deep breath. “But now I would love to just, just, get rid of all of that. Ignore my own rules and - let’s just say we are here on a date date, not platonically. I-If you want of course.”

Obito laughed, not mean spirited, but rather relieved, maybe happy. Then he sighed. “Finally. I’ve been waiting all day. Not even all day, months. So many months.” The red in her face clashed with the red in her hair. “First of all”, he took her hand and entangled his fingers in hers. “Second of all, I agree with everything you just said, including your proposition.” Phoenix felt a little light in her head. “Lastly”, he said and stopped for a moment. “Lastly?” she asked, waiting for him to continue. Instead of speaking he took his free hand and pulled at her dress so that they moved closer to each other. 

They kissed again and it was even better than the first time.

[kenkamishiro]

Lost in Translation: Choujin X chapter 1

Fun fact, I was planning to do fan translations for Choujin X with a scan group until it could get a simulpub release, though I didn’t expect it to get one from the very first chapter lol. I’m happy though since it means everyone can read it right away and it doesn’t mess up my schedule.

So instead I’ll be making comparison notes between the EN and JP text to supplement the official translation. I’m not doing this because the official TL is bad (I actually think it’s pretty solid and I hope it will maintain this quality) but because it’s inevitable for something to be lost in translation, and it’s nice to have that additional context for theory crafting and whatnot.

If you want to read it on Twitter instead, the original thread is here, but this is the proofread and way more detailed version 😄

This translation isn’t wrong, but there’s an emphasis on それ (which is TLed as ‘it’) that connotes a stronger, “other, that thing” feeling that isn’t present here. The general idea behind this sentence is: That [becoming a Choujin] resembles more of a disease [than a transformation].

Ely talks like a tomboy, she uses rougher speech patterns and the pronoun オラ (ora), a derivative of the masculine 'ore'. But it's a bit old-fashioned (eg. すまなんだ) which makes sense considering her upbringing with her grandfather on a farm. Hence her country bumpkin speech pattern in English.

Not sure if I should use Ellie or Ely? Ellie makes more sense based on the kana, but Ishida explicitly called her Ely so I might stick with Ely for now... (also istg that blond guy with the huge chin is a reference, I've seen him somewhere)

Tokio, I know your teacher is annoying, but it's rude to call her that lol. This is basically the oppai equivalent of paisen (senpai backwards, it’s slangier). Similar thing actually happened with Ely describing her dream hubby as Goldilocks instead of blond; ‘kinpatsu’ (blond hair) was inverted to become ‘patsukin’, hence the translation as Goldilocks.

Kurohara Tokio (黒原トキオ) and Higashi Azuma (東アヅマ). Kurohara is a common surname, means 'black fields'. Tokio is in katakana, so it’s hard to say what kanji it could be. 'Toki' could be 時 (time) or 外喜 (outside + delight). The 'o' can be the common male name suffix 男 (boy).

But when I think of Tokio, I think of TK's song called 'tokio'. You can read the translated lyrics here. If these lyrics end up being relevant to Tokio's character development I will eat my shoe lol.

Higashi means 'east'. Azuma (which can also be romanized as Aduma, it’s a softer ‘zu’ sound which is why Tokio called Azuma ‘Aju’ earlier in the chapter before correcting himself) is an archaic form of ‘east’. So...this guy is literally East East. The Choujin X equivalent of Moon Moon 😂

Someone also informed me that Higashi Azuma is a station in Tokyo, though the kana are slightly different (アヅマ／あづま vs. あずま). They effectively sound the same though nowadays, if I have to be honest. It’s like comparing the difference between 애 and 에 in Korean.

Tbh this is minor, but worth mentioning just cause it changes the meaning a bit. Tokio is saying something more like, “Why are we even talking about this [the roly-polies] again?”

I think I heard people talking about how the official TL doesn’t match the original text, but personally I really like how this was translated! Sis is using the expression  「爪の垢を煎じて飲む」, which literally means “boiling the dirt under someone’s fingernails and drinking it”. By taking the dirt/grime under the fingernails of someone that you admire, and boiling it and drinking it like a tea, you can become more like them.

But because idioms don’t tend to directly translate well between languages, translators often have to adapt it so that the meaning still remains the same. In English the closest idiom we have to this is “rubbing off on someone.” The “holding hands” bit was added to replace the physical aspect of “taking the dirt from someone’s fingernails” and also contribute to Sis’s sassy and very informal way of speaking.

So Sis is saying in JP (ignoring her personal speech style for now):

You should take the dirt from under [Azuma's] fingernails and boil it so you can be more like him.

And now in ENG it becomes:

You guys should hold hands or something, then maybe he’ll rub off on you.

It now sounds natural in English, still carries the same meaning as the original text, and also suits the character’s speech pattern.

Moving on, in that same panel the literal TL of Tokio’s dialogue is, “Policeman Azuma got dispatched again today,” emphasizing Azuma’s heroic deeds along with his family connections to the police. Another thing I want to note is that this is the second time Azuma has been called 偉い (erai) so far - noble, and now great guy. I’ll just dump the general English definition of 偉い from Jisho here so you get the general idea:

Great; excellent; admirable; remarkable; distinguished; important; celebrated; famous; eminent

But you can tell from how people describe Azuma as 偉い that others look up to him, think he’s a great person and Mr. Perfect. Always being placed on a pedestal by others. (What are the odds this will affect his mentality after the Choujin serum?)

The meaning is still pretty much the same, but I’ll offer a slightly different perspective. Sis mentions that if she were Tokio, she’d burst from the [Azuma] complex. (Clearly Tokio and Azuma's relationship is gonna crack at some point)

Tokio mentions an idiom about hawks (taka) before recalling his childhood memory about vultures. Vultures are called 'hagewashi', but in the chapter it mentions they can also be called 'hagetaka' (buzzard/condor, literally bald hawk).

The kids call him names like "Hagetaka Tokio" and "Hageo". But Hagetaka Tokio only really works in JP cause Hagetaka kinda mimics his last name (Buzzard Tokio doesn't give the same vibe). Same with Hageo. Hage-o = Bald-o = Baldy.

I also think Buzzard was chosen over another name for a vulture like Condor because Buzzard can pass off as an insult.

I would have translated this as, “I wanted to be a lion too...” but this is just personal preference.

A continuation of the 「爪の垢を煎じて飲む」 expression Sis used earlier. Without the adapted idiom the exchange goes something like this:

Tokio: My sister said I should bring home the dirt from under your nails. Can I have some?

Azuma: ...huh? What for, that’s scary. No way.

Tokio: I have to boil it and drink it, apparently.

Azuma: Don’t even think about boiling or drinking it.

But since the 「爪の垢を煎じて飲む」 expression was modified to make it sound natural in English, it means this conversation has to be modified too.

JP: My sister said I should bring home the dirt from under your nails. Can I have some?

EN: My sister says we should hold hands...so I can be more like you. What do you think?

The “dirt from under your nails” part got adapted to “holding hands”, hence how the 1st line from Tokio becomes, “My sister says we should hold hands...so I can be more like you.” “Can I have some?” makes no sense now in this context now, so it was changed to “What do you think?” as a question to Azuma to keep the similar conversation flow going.

JP: ...huh? What for, that’s scary. No way.

EN: Huh? What’re you talking about? No thanks.

Azuma’s next line is similar enough to the JP text except for the removal of “scary”. I think the reason it was most likely removed is because leaving it as it is could be constituted as homophobic (2 boys holding hands, absolutely nothing scary about it as bible thumpers would like people to believe).

JP: I have to boil it and drink it, apparently.

EN: She said to hold hands so you’ll rub off on me.

Tokio’s response to that is explaining what he meant by his proposal. In the original text he lays out the latter half of the idiom (he doesn’t even realize it’s an expression, poor boy), and in English he does something similar by going into why his sister said they should hold hands (so Azuma can rub off on Tokio).

JP: Don’t even think about boiling or drinking it.

EN: C’mon. That’s not how things work.

Azuma’s then rebuts Tokio’s proposal as ridiculous. In the original text he drops a typical straight man response (don’t do *insert whatever ridiculous thing the idiot suggested*). But since Tokio’s proposal in English isn’t as preposterous, his rebuttal is toned down in response by telling him not to take it literally.

Ultimately, even though a lot of this dialogue was changed, I still think it was successful in maintaining the original’s intent. Tokio takes his sister’s sarcastic suggestion literally and brings it up to Azuma, who dismisses it as silly. It would be nice if we could keep the expression as it was in Japanese, but in instances like this where it’s played off of in multiple lines, that’s easier said than done.

軟体 isn’t an actual word, it’s made up of the kanji soft + body. So kinda like Elastigirl, but Flexi was chosen instead. It doesn’t sound 100% right, but I don’t think I could come up with anything better.

Replacing the しい in 楽しい with the C plus that elongated pronunciation makes Johnny sound even more like a stereotypical Yankee, which is why he sounds like that in English 😂

Random but I found it interesting how Azuma called Johnny a youkai (妖怪) instead of something like bakemono (化け物) or obake (お化け) since they’re shapeshifting monsters.

Tokio is worried that if he doesn't do something right now, he's going to lose his friendship with Azuma. The sentence is fine as it is though.

Azuma’s line can also be worded as, "No hard feelings, okay?"

Bestial = 獣化 (juuka) = beast+change = beast transformation

That’s it from me, if you have questions about the TL feel free to send an ask or reply to this post, I promise I’ll check my inbox more often this time 😂

[ibijau]

I don't think I've seen this anywhere (and if you know of any fics that do have this concept, please link!), but what if the events of MDZS (all media) was actually based on history within a modern AU of MDZS?

So like, as an example, you have people speculating whether or not Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were lovers or not in the same way people do with some real historical figures today, some theories that say Nie Huaisang orchestrated everything that go mostly ignored by everyone except those in the #NieHuaisangDidIt community because it's Nie Huaisang, who is largely remembered as a relatively harmless sect leader, etc... Some even still think the Yiling Patriarch was pure evil, though the novel, shows, and audio drama have since made this an unpopular opinion to have.

And then there's Wei Wuxian, be it through reincarnation with regained memories or immortality, listening to all of this in the background.

“I'm just saying that you wrote your thesis on him, so of course you're biased,” Jin Guangyao said. “There's no way Nie Huaisang organised all this. Everyone in that period agrees that he was so stupid he could barely do basic additions!”

“I have a phd and I can't count either,” Nie Huaisang countered. “Listen, I tell you, the proof is all there if you just look.”

Of course, they weren’t called Nie Huaisang and Jin Guangyao, not in this life, but Wei Wuxian wasn't good with names. In fact, after centuries of being alive, he was worse with names than he'd ever been. Thankfully, this crowd Lan Wangji and him had become friends with didn't mind at all the nicknames he'd picked for them.

“And I can prove that Jin Guangyao didn't even die, and made a name for himself in Japan,” Jin Guangyao retorted. “There's this Han man who suddenly appears out of nowhere in the Japanese court, claiming to know great magic, and...”

“Yes, I've seen the movie too,” Nie Huaisang yawned, taking another sip of his bubble tea.

Jin Guangyao went red and purple, while Wei Wuxian tried to hide a snicker. If there was one sure way to piss of Jin Guangyao, it was by mentioning that recent movie that had come out, very loosely inspired by a series of blog articles he'd written years ago when he was still a student. The inspiration was loose enough that he hadn't been involved in the process at all, because the scenarist had pretended they just happened to have come to the same conclusion.

It wasn't a bad movie, Wei Wuxian thought. It wasn't a goodone either, but he quite liked the actor who played Lan Wangji in it (Wei Wuxian himself wasn't part of the plot, sadly, on account of being officially dead by then), and the fight scenes were pretty fun. Besides, he felt like Jin Guangyao should have liked it even better than he did.

The actor playing him was the tallest member of the cast after all.

“I hope you choke on your tea,” Jin Guangyao muttered, to which Nie Huaisang answered with a bright grin.

It was about to devolve into a fight (an animated academic discussion, Jin Guangyao would have called it) when Lan Xichen entered the boba place, radiant as always. She ordered her own tea (plain black tea but with extra sugar and the sweetest fillings available, as usual) and sat with them, apparently oblivious to the adoration with which Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang gazed upon her.

Wei Wuxian had a bet going on with Jiang Cheng about which man would ask her out first in this life. He also had a bet going on with Jin Ling regarding whether anyone would dare ask her out at all. Wei Wuxian would have tried to help the matter, but Lan Wangji wouldn't allow it, worried for his sibling. A needless worry, Wei Wuxian thought. Lan Xichen was doing well for herself in this life, and so were the other two. Going into academia had been a great way for them to channel their lingering resentment. Their fight had almost never gotten physical in this life.

“I'm sorry for being late, jiejie wanted me to help her order something from overseas,” Lan Xichen apologised, smiling warmly. “I hope I didn't interrupt anything important? You seemed to be chatting, no?”

“We were talking about Guangyao's movie,” Nie Huaisang cheerfully answered.

Jin Guangyao looked about ready to murder him, but Lan Xichen just laughed in that sweet, careless way of hers and in a second both men had forgotten their previous argument.

“Oh, that reminds me, I brought something that might make you laugh,” she said, digging into her handbag. “It's in your field of study... in a manner of speaking.”

She put a book on the table. On the cover were two handsome young men, one dressed in black and carrying a flute, the other in white holding a bright sword. Above them, bold characters professed that this book was called “The Founder of Demonic Cultivation”.

Wei Wuxian's drink went the wrong way, and he nearly died coughing on a tapioca pearl. When everyone was sure that he wouldn't choke so stupidly, they all turned their attention back to the book.

“What's that?” Jin Guangyao asked.

“It's a danmei novel,” Lan Xichen explained, a spot of red on her cheeks. “Jiejie lent it to me the other day, and as soon as I started reading I realised the subject was... familiar. It's about Wei Wuxian. The real one I mean,” she added with a smile to Wei Wuxian who pretended to be fascinated by his bubble tea. “It's, ah... very creative. It takes liberties with some of the events, but, ah, it's very well written.”

“Wonderful, more fiction,” Jin Guangyao muttered.

Meanwhile, Nie Huaisang eagerly grabbed the book and started browsing it with hungry eyes. He had theories about that, too. Mostly, about the exact nature of Wei Wuxian's relationship with Jiang Cheng, which he had once explained to Wei Wuxian with far more details than the immortal would ever have cared to hear... and he hoped Jiang Cheng himself would never hear about it.

In fairness to Nie Huaisang though, his arguments had been very convincing, and Wei Wuxian would have had doubts, if he hadn't been married to Lan Wangji for over a thousand years.

“Oh, Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang grumbled, closing the book and sliding it back toward Lan Xichen. “I suppose I see the appeal, but there's really no evidence whatsoever in their case, you know?”

“We know,” Lan Xichen said with an indulgent smile.

“Now, Jiang Wanyin and him, on the other hand...”

“You people are obsessed with romance!” Jin Guangyao complained. “His relationship to Jiang Wanyin was platonic!”

Wei Wuxian distractedly nodded. That was indeed true.

“And so was his relationship to Lan Wangji,” Jin Guangyao added with a disgusted glare at the book.

Wei Wuxian grimaced. That was very much not true.

“From the letters I've read, I think in today's world, the Yiling Patriarch would probably be asexual,” Jin Guangyao argued. “Not that I particularly approve of using modern terminology to describe the sexuality of long dead people, but if you consider everything we know about him, then... are you ok?”

“Peachy,” Wei Wuxian coughed, trying not to burst out laughing. Jin Guangyao's pride was still a delicate thing in this life. “Hey, Xichen-jie, mind if I borrow that book until we meet again? I think Lan Zhan would love it.”

“Sure, I don't see why not.”

Wei Wuxian grinned, and pocketed the book.

Lan Wangji and him were going to have a good laugh that night, as they always did whenever someone wrote a new story about them.

[hackedmotionsensors]

I do this about once a year but here it is again

Hey so we all know I love coffee right? And I have a full caffeine addiction right?

This is just a reminder that energy drinks are

PHENOMINALLY

BAD FOR YOU

Especially if you’re a young adult or a teen (obviously don’t give them to children???). Older adults shouldn’t drink them either but I think you hit a certain age and the desire to slam a rockstar might not be as high. I think for the most part you hit your thirties and would rather be the sleepy time bear on the tea box rather than a MONSTERRRR.

But since there’s a new tiktok viral thread of some doofus marketing his energy drink (tho not using the hastag ad which is...illegal [Danny Gonzales has a whole video about it) and there are videos of kids who don’t normally drink tea or coffee trying these energy drinks bc they “taste like bubblegum and crack” and then absolutely losing it.

A link here is the health and human services government website

Here’s a Harvard article about it

Let me break down what I read this morning on about four different medical sites

Energy drinks companies are not mandated by any US Food and Drug law to list the quantity of their caffeine. A cup of coffee (about 8oz) will have around 100mg of caffeine in it. That’s black coffee straight from the coffee bean. No additives. 

A regular can of basically any energy drink will have about four times as much caffeine. And that’s from THE CAFFEINE aspect. That’s not adding in guarana, sugar, taurine, ginsing, vitamin b etc. They do not have to add the total quantity of all of this in the caffeine measurements if they even add it at all.

So not only have you quadrupled the caffeine content you’re also slamming a fuck ton of sugar. A 16 oz can of Rockstar will have 63mg of sugar in it. A kit-kat bar has 23g for a four bar serving. 

The other warning these sites gave were that things like red bull vodka are extremely dangerous but that’s more along the lines of slamming a bunch of caffeine and sugar with alcohol and not realizing how dehydrated you’ve become. Plus a stimulant and a depressant at the same time isn’t always a great idea. That’s a one way ticket to barf city.

Another thing and this is my number 1 reason why I tell people PLEASE do not drink energy drinks AT ALL. My first day on the job at the hospital and one of my patients (I delivered food so its not like I was a nurse or a doctor) was in the room because his kidneys had failed because he just kept slamming energy drinks. Now that’s probably an outlier but I think the environment behind energy drinks is more to do with RADICALLL COOL GUY E-SPORTS OR REGULAR SPORTS!! MOTOR BIKE YEAHHHH attitude (similar to the whole mountain dew do the dew vibe) combined with people who are forced to work excruciatingly long hours (Doctors, Nurses, College students, people with multiple jobs, people who have to wake up at extremely terrible hours like teamsters) and that rather than give them appropriate working hours so they aren’t burnt out they promote these horrible drinks to force them into working longer harder hours. Or people like twitch streamers or e-sports players who have promos or sponsors because whats one thing gamers love to do ? Stay up all night and day gaming. What can help you do that? Fucking energy drinks. Instead of giving proper hours and saying hey I’m gonna take a solid eight hours from gaming and I’m going to go the fuck to sleep they keep pumping these awful drinks into their system.

Again. I drink  AAA LOTTTTT of coffee. I was a barista. And the only time I’ve felt like my heart was going to EXPLODE was drinking a starbucks energy drink so I could stay awake in class. Nevermind that part of the problem was that I was working and going to school and drawing all day and night instead of going to sleep and drinking water.

Energy drinks are marketed to teens and young adults so basically this is a long post from an older person BEGGING YOU PLEASE do not drink Energy drinks. We’ve had coffee and tea for almost as long as humans have been alive. We KNOW what coffee and tea does. If you need a boost of energy you’re safer having a coffee or a candy bar or just getting a little bit of exerise. You’d be surprised what a walk around campus or the neighborhood can do. Or drink water. DRINK WATER!!!!!!!!!

YOU NEED WATER!!! Humans are basically houseplants. We need sunlight, water and fertilizer(or food if you will). 

[neo-shitty]

all the muggle things. — c.s

description. in which you and san spent the rest of your days after hogwarts getting the muggle experience.

pairings. slytherin!choi san x gender-neutral (wizard) reader (yes, this fic is house friendly)

genre. harry potter/hogwarts!au, fluff

warnings. mentions of injury. 

word count. 1.6k

writer’s notes. i don’t know why i never thought of writing a harry potter-inspired au before! also, it’s been a while since i’ve written for ateez. i hope this didn’t turn out so bad! 

inspired by option #1 (roommates au) + prompt #36 from this list (given by @kathyrncapp835​)+ prompt #46 from @ficscafe​‘s dialogue prompt event (given by @meaningfulmess​). prompt lines are bolded.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾  TERMINOLOGY GUIDE :: for the muggles, explained and simplified by yours truly

Muggle - someone who isn’t able to use magic / non-wizard

Lumos - spell that makes the tip of a wizard’s wand light up

Quidditch - a game for wizards that involves flying on brooms and shooting balls through hoops, basically basketball but more complex because there are three hoops and someone’s trying to catch an ‘i-am-speed’ ball that dictates the fate of the game in the end

Sectumsempra - a spell that lacerates the opponent

Wizarding War - the war between Voldemort’s side and Harry’s

Dark Mark - Voldermort’s mark

Nox - counter spell to Lumos that switches the wand’s light off

You tried your best to peer your eyes open when you heard the front door slam shut. You groaned, infuriated at how such simple tasks like breathing and opening your eyes required extra effort whenever you were sick. But getting sick was merely a consequence of your own actions, so you really didn’t have anyone else to blame but yourself.  

You managed to open one eye, fighting back the heavy eyelid that threatened to shut and you searched the room for other movements besides your own. 

“It’s 2AM, go back to sleep,” a voice said. Soon, it’s owner emerged from the shadows of the doorway.

Dressed in his all-black work uniform was San. His whole figure blended into the background too well that it almost seemed like he’d apparated back to your place. But with the faint sound of his footfalls, you concluded that he used the muggle way in.

You turned your head. You considered turning your whole body but everything felt sore and heavy. Plus, you were content with the way the comforter was wrapped around you—which was rare, even on better days. You watched San pass by the living room before heading to the kitchen. Though you couldn’t see him from the living room couch, you could see the shadow casted on the floorboards by the kitchen light he switched on. It danced as he moved around, probably to get a late night snack before heading to bed. You could hear him uttering hushed incantations followed by the faint clattering of kitchen metals.

“I’m glad you didn’t burn the house down while I was gone,” he said from the kitchen.

A smile crept up to your lips at his statement. You opened your mouth to utter a small thank you but you could only manage a whisper. You weren’t even sure if he even heard it from that far.

Moments later, he reappeared by the kitchen doorway. “But you were cutting it a bit too close though,” he continued, clutching a frying pan in his right hand. 

The pan—originally gray—was now blackened from the mishap earlier. You had fallen asleep in the middle of cooking your own dinner, only waking up to the smell of burnt meat. The scent had been that thick that it managed to seep through your clogged nostrils. It was that bad. You ended up ordering take out instead. You forgot that you didn’t clean up the evidence.

A croaky laugh escaped your lips as you recalled the accident. San only shook his head, disappearing back into the kitchen to put the pan back to the sink. When he came back, he had two cups in hand. He walked over to set both down on their respective coasters on the glass center table of your living room. When he reached over to turn the lights on you stopped him.

“Don’t turn the lights on,” you said, your voice barely audible but he hears it, stopping before the lamp fully on. “They’re too bright. It’ll give me another headache.”

You see his silhouette nod. You could hear him flipping his coat around, shuffling to find something. You didn’t know what he was searching for exactly and you opted to ask him. But you soon find out what it was when you hear him whisper.

“Lumos.”

Where San stood, an orb of light began to glow. You soon realized that the light came from the tip of a stick. He was holding the fir wand in his hand, controlling its brightness until it was just right. Soon, it illuminated the room with a faint light—bright enough for you to see outlines of the room and the furniture scattered but not bright enough to make your eyes water like the lamps did.

He walked over to where you were before leaving his hand outstretched. “Sit up to drink your leaf water,” he said, earning a chuckle from you.

“Leaf water,” you repeated in a hoarse voice before taking his hand in yours, clutching it as you helped yourself up. You crossed your legs, tucking each foot beneath the opposite leg in order to give room on the couch for San to sit. 

He handed you your cup of tea before he sat adjacent to you with his own cup in one hand and his wand in the other. Your eyes lingered on the wooden stick he gripped in his hand and on the fingers he had wrapped around it. All his rings were silver, representing the complementing color of his house, Slytherin. Or that was what you remembered of him back when you were still studying at Hogwarts.

You recalled when you used to watch him play Quidditch. He always kissed his rings first before putting on his gloves. He was deemed one of the more valuable players next to their seeker and you were just another student from another house. It wasn’t until your last school year at Hogwarts when you first interacted. The first time you both went beyond the occasional glances you shared whenever you were both in the same class. 

Though your first time meeting wasn’t the best setting for the start of something new.

You were tending to one injury after another, working with the school nurse to cater every student who ran to the infirmary for aid or additional support in the form of potions. San had walked in alone and upon catching sight of his green sigil, your first instinct was to cast a spell to disarm him. But he didn’t have his wand raised, nor did he show any indications that he was about to attack. Your guard was up; he was still a Slytherin and fighting for the opposing side.

But he was still a student of the school with a bleeding arm. The rip on his upper sleeve revealed enough of  his wound for your body to move on its own without much guidance. You led him to the nearest vacant bed, letting him standby until you got everything you needed from the cabinets. 

In the time you were treating the wound, you learned that it took him half the war and a Sectumsempra to the arm (which was originally aimed at his chest; thankfully he was able to dodge it—barely) to realize that he was fighting for the wrong side of the Wizarding War. He was glad he was going to sit out the rest of it and vowed to—and you quote—“Never do stupid shit again.”.

The Dark Mark was still tattooed on his arm, a permanent reminder of decisions that did more harm than good both to him and to the people around him. The tattoo faded over time as the population of evil wizards gradually decreased. 

Your brain was hot-wired to never trust a Slytherin. Or at least, it used to be. 

Much to your surprise, San did keep his words that night at the infirmary. He spent his years after Hogwarts atoning for all the damage he’d caused, dedicating nearly all his hours into hunting the last of the witches and wizards who still practiced the Dark Arts. 

San shifted beside you, leaning against the back of the couch before turning to look at you. He set his mug back down to its coaster before he pressed his palm against your forehead. 

“I’m feeling a bit better, don’t worry. I think I’ll be fine by morning.”

“I still don’t get why you let yourself be sick when you can just—” he flicked his wand, “—it away.” 

You set your own mug down after taking a sip, only noticing then that he pulled out the matching Hogwarts house coasters. His furrowed expression softened when you held his hand, peeling it off your forehead before sandwiching it between your cold ones.

“I’m trying to experience muggle living,” you answered. 

Slytherins normally weren’t the type who liked involving themselves with muggle things, more so with the muggle way of living. But San wasn’t always like other Slytherins. Cheesy, you thought. But it was a fact.

You held his stare when his eyes landed on yours. You knew his mind was brewing some sort of egoistic line or anything short yet clever to say. But you were faster.

“You did well today,” you told him, drawing random shapes and symbols on the back of his palm.

Even after hearing it everyday for the past few years, San’s heart still warmed upon hearing the words leave your lips. 

You said it the first time at the infirmary. At first, you were unsure if you were saying it to yourself as he heard you utter it after you patched him up. Later that day, you reassured him that it was meant for him. San, at the time, wasn’t too keen on accepting it. Nothing about what he did that day was worth the praise. But he soon realized you were referring to his decision to right his mistakes instead of staying ignorant.

You haven’t stopped saying it since then. The phrase became more of a part of your routine over time but it still held the same value as the first time you ever said it. You still smiled softly after saying it and you still looked at him fondly like you were genuinely proud of it. San was trained to easily catch  whenever people lied—be it in the form of speaking or in acting. But he never found any trace of ingenuity whenever it came to you. 

Somehow, that was enough to convince him that he could still make up for mistakes made in the past. It wasn’t too late yet. 

You catch the moment the corner of his lips curved up into a smile. One sly finger up, you were ready to—once again—poke the dimple on the side of his mouth.

He hated that. But if he were to be honest, he could never really hate anything you did. One ‘Nox’ and a flick of his wand later, the light on the tip of his wand disappeared—plunging the both of you into complete darkness before your finger could even touch his skin.

“I hate you,” you muttered under your breath, drawing your hand back and crossing them over your chest.

You couldn’t see him clearly in the dark but you could tell the smirk from his tone, “Of course you do.”

© neo-shitty, 2021

[theasstour]

𝐔𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟕.𝟕𝐤 𝐍𝐁: 𝐚𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐥, 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐚

Tuesday, 13 December 2017

Tooley Street was always busy, whether there were a horde of people walking to and from the riverside and underground, or cars driving by at a ridiculous speed. London Bridge station on the other side of the road to where Y/N and the gang sat at Caffé Nero, looked like a small insect in comparison to The Shard that reached like a pillar above the partly cloudy winter sky. The blue painted brick building beside it, The Shipwright Arms pub, was a lively addition to an otherwise very bleak street.

The winter wind by the riverside was horrendous, but Y/N had offered to come with Annalise on her cigarette break, so she had only herself to blame for exposing herself to more of the biting cold than completely necessary. From where the two were sitting, they could just make out Tower Bridge behind them, bare trees rising up along the streets that indicated summer was long gone and winter had arrived.

Y/N had spent a lot of time just sitting outside the last few days. Whether it was on a bench by Regent’s Canal, in the grass at Shoreditch Park, or at a table outside a café with a coffee in hand. She had just been sitting there, staring out at nothing. Thinking. All she had been doing since finding that watch was think.

She had tried to find some kind of logical explanation as to why that watch had the coordinates for her family’s Newport cabin, but there was none. What kind of connection did George have to Newport? To that cabin? Had he just fucked her and left it there because he knew who Y/N’s sister was? And where was George now? She had not seen him since that night in October, was he still around? Or had Y/N just missed him when he had been, and this had all just been a huge coincidence. But Y/N somehow knew, deep down, that this was far from a coincidence and she should not treat it as one.

“You have to come to Monnickendam,” Annalise said, blowing out a puff of white smoke.

Y/N looked away from a man across the street who was arguing passionately with someone on his phone. Shoving the thoughts of the watch that was laid on her desk in her room, out of her head. She had not told anyone about it, this was not something she wanted everyone to know about because she had no idea what it meant. The only person that knew was Harry, and she would like to keep it that way.

“I’ve never been to the Netherlands,” Y/N said.

“Even more of a reason to come.”

Y/N smiled. “Buzzing. I haven’t travelled much in Europe, mostly been to Brazil with my family.”

“When you come to Monnickendam, we have to take the train to, like, Germany or France. Andorra is also so beautiful, I think you’re gonna love it.”

“Make a roadtrip out of it.”

“Exactly.”

Y/N’s smile grew. “Had you been to London before you came here for school?”

Annalise brought the cigarette up to her mouth. “Loads of times.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we went here around Easter in 2012 the first time, and I fell in love. Went here four more times, then to an Open Day last year.”

Y/N nodded. “Was Helmond your first choice then? Did you like it the best?”

“No, Battersea was, but I’m happy I ended up at Helmond.” Annalise breathed out white vapour. “Helmond’s prettier.”

Y/N laughed. “The aesthetic is more important than the uni itself, innit? If you can’t take decent Instagram pictures there, what’s the point of spending the next three years at that place?”

Annalise laughed along with Y/N, taking a last drag. “I rarely use Instagram.”

“I used to. I loved to like document my life, to let all my friends and family know what I was doing at all times. But then I found Snapchat, and it’s just better.”

“You know that if you, like, save a picture or video in the Snapchat app, Snapchat owns it?”

Y/N blinked.

“At least what someone at home told me once.”

“Doesn’t Instagram do the same?” Y/N asked.

“Think so,” Annalise said, walking over to the litter and stumping her cigarette out in the ash tray on top of it. “Ground rule: don’t save anything onto social media. Anyone can save and see your pictures.”

“Basically,” Y/N mumbled, looking over at the man she had watched earlier. He was still arguing with someone over the phone.

“Ready to head back inside?” Annalise asked.

“Yeah.” Y/N got up and the two strolled back over to the Caffé Nero their three other mates were sat in. Thian, Hayden, and Chloe were all sat with their laptops in front of them and books in the centre of the table behind their screens. Chloe was talking animatedly as Y/N and Annalise approached, Hayden busy with something on the laptop in front of them while Thian sat with a book in his hands, looking at Chloe as she spoke. Y/N took off her puffer jacket, hanging it off the back of her chair as she sat down, adjusting her black V-neck jumper and loose denim jeans.

“…the problem isn’t that. The problem is the fact that they never clean up after themselves. That’s the problem,” Chloe said, groaning loudly. “And when I ask in the flat groupchat if anyone wanna be social, no one answers. I swear, all of them hate me.”

“Maybe they’re just busy,” Thian suggested.

“They always say that, but I know two of the boys are in Dave’s room playing something on that PlayStation.” Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. “Should I learn how to play FIFA?”

“You don’t have to impress them,” Y/N said, turning her laptop back on to finish the essay for Critical Reading that was due that Friday.

“No, I know. But if I want to hang out with anyone in my flat, I gotta do something. What games do you play in the PlayStation, Thian?”

Thian stared at Chloe for a second, mouth working before he mumbled, “I didn’t bring one to uni.”

“Alright, then what did you play at home?”

“Call of Duty.”

Chloe scrunched up her nose. “Isn’t that a war game?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah, I’m not into that.” Chloe grimaced, looking at something further away. “I’ve never really played PlayStation. One of the blokes I dated in college gamed a lot, but I couldn’t be asked to sit around and just watch.”

“The three in my flat play GTA,” Y/N said. “At least that’s what Nathan wants to play, Harry and Mason just go along.”

Chloe’s face instantly lit up. “Oh, my word, Y/N. You have to make Harry teach me how to play something on the PlayStation.”

There was a slight pang in Y/N’s chest at the sound of his name leaving Chloe’s lips in that way. Y/N opened, then closed her mouth, then opened it again. “I don’t really hang out with them when they play it. I’ve had so much to do these past months.”

“That’s fine, Nathan can keep us company,” Chloe said, leaning back in her seat. “Make Mason come, too. God-“ She grinned, letting her head fall between her shoulder blades. “-Your flatmates are fit.”

“Harry’s fitter than Mason,” Hayden chimed in.

“No, definitely Mason,” Annalise said.

“I can’t choose. Depends on my mood,” Chloe mused.

Thian kept quiet, staring pointedly at his laptop.

“Can you do it? Make them teach me?” Chloe begged, sticking her bottom lip out at Y/N.

Y/N took a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

Chloe grinned.

“They might be busy, too. Might not get to it till after Christmas break.”

Chloe waved her hand. “That’s fine. I just want to hang out with someone from my flat eventually.”

Y/N glanced down at her laptop again, trying to forget the conversation she had just had with the other three. Chloe continued chattering on about something of no significance, Y/N did not care to listen as she wanted to finish her essay before she had to leave for home coming Saturday. Though her coffee was cold now as she took a sip of it, Y/N still appreciated the taste of caffeine. It woke her up, made her more alert and focused.

Ever since she was seven years old, her papai had made her coffee to drink. He always said “coffee is as vital to a Brazilian’s existence as tea is to a Brit’s” and she had drunk it ever since. She loved the taste of it much more than tea, but seeing as tea was much easier to make, she had come to resort to it here in London. Home in Nottingham, there was always a brew in the making or one ready for whoever felt like having a cup, made with a proper coffee machine that Davi had invested proper money in. He had bought it back in 2001, and it worked just as well as it did back then. Y/N, like her papai, loved the coffee from that old coffee maker more than anything else. She could not wait until she was home with her parents so she could drink proper coffee all the time without going to the nearest coffee shop to do so. The instant coffee Nathan often made smelled and tasted rank, Y/N would have no other coffee than her papai’s and a cup made at a coffee shop.

“I’m gonna go buy a muff,” Hayden said, getting up from their chair. “This essay is doing my head in, I need something to sooth the pain.”

“Oh, could you buy me a scone?” Thian asked, putting his hands together as if he was begging on his knees. “I’ll pay with five stellar knock knock jokes.”

“Make it six.”

“Deal.”

The two shook hands and Hayden grinned as they looked at the other three. “Anything from the trolley, dears?”

Y/N and Annalise chuckled. “No thanks,” Y/N said, Annalise saying the same thing.

“No, I’ll just add to this,” Chloe said, patting at her stomach.

“Add to what?” Hayden asked.

“A belly.” Chloe gripped the little that was protruding from her tight denim jeans. “I’m trying to start working out for bikini season, to remove that extra uni weight, you know?”

Hayden looked absolutely lost, so did Thian, and Annalise looked to not be paying any attention at all. Y/N, however, felt a familiar pang in her chest. It was a small explosion she had felt before, one that would taint the rest of her day. Instinctively, she put her scarf around her chest, letting it fall over her stomach.

Hayden did not comment, instead they just walked up to the till, ready to tell the lady working there their order. The table fell silent, but not for the reason Y/N wanted it to. No, they were all just busy with their essays. Y/N knew that it would be impossible for her to concentrate on the assignment now that the only thing she would be thinking about for the rest of the day was Chloe’s comment. Chancing a look over at her friend, she saw her flicking through a book in her lap, completely unbothered, Annalise was cocking her head to the side as she wrote something on her Mac, while Thian was watching Hayden pay for their food. None of them had batted an eyelash. Which was nothing new, Y/N was used to no one picking up on covered up fatphobic comments.

She knew that Chloe had not said those things with her in mind, that the statement had been about her own body only. But Y/N could not help but feel the comment in her very soul. She could remember her mates from school in Nottingham making comments similar to that one, so hearing it wasn’t alien, but it stung as much as hearing it that first time.

“Here we go,” Hayden said, putting the scone down on Thian’s keyboard.

“Scones are so bloody good,” Thian moaned, taking a huge bite out of his. “If we had to fuck a food, I’d fuck scones.���

The table went quiet, all looking at Thian. He just continued on eating, humming some Alesso and Conor Maynard song that was always playing on the radio.

“Why did you just say that?” Hayden asked.

“Felt like sharing my thoughts with the class.”

Hayden raised their eyebrows before looking at the laptop in front of them. “The class did not need to know.”

Thian shrugged his shoulders and Annalise laughed, Chloe joining in after a little while. Y/N smiled at them, but her thoughts still drifted back to Chloe’s comments just a minute earlier. She spread her scarf out over her stomach, wishing she had worn something that wasn’t so tight fitted.

Friday, 15 December 2017

“Sorry we’re late,” Mason said as him and the rest of the rugby team streamed into the seminar room. Hayden, Y/N, Thian, Chloe, Annalise, Nathan, and Annalise’s two friends were all sat around one table, already having started a round of Uno.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hayden smiled. “I’ve put Uno decks on the other tables.”

“Cheers.”

Mason and the rest of the team sat down, all chatting amongst themselves and letting go of heavy sighs as they took their seats. It was clear that the last training session for the team this year had not only been cold, but also immensely tiring. They all looked very ready to travel home for Christmas break, and it looked like a few already had.

Y/N felt their struggle with the cold. She herself was wearing a mini linen skater dress in black. The skirt was loose, making it comfortable to hide her belly in – she had not stopped thinking about Chloe’s comment all week, but it would not stop her from looking really fucking good – and the waist was open, baring some of her skin and rib tattoo to everyone. Her skin protruded around the straps that were wrapped around her waist, connecting her skirt from her top, but there was nothing she could do about it, so she just tried to stay out of Chloe’s vision. The plunge neck revealed a very deep cleavage and skin, making it so Y/N had put on two silver necklaces to top of the outfit. The rest of the top had long sleeves and a nice collar, which was why Y/N had bought the dress. It was slutty, but in a modest way.

The rest of the gang around the table had also dressed up, ready to go out after this. They all had their last lecture of the semester today, meaning that their Christmas break had just started, and they wanted to celebrate before everyone travelled to their separate locations the next day. Chloe to Oxford, Thian to Bristol, Hayden to Sheffield, Annalise to Monnickendam, and Y/N back home to Nottingham. It would be weird not to meet up with them, to not go to lectures and stress about assignments for the next month. Then again, Annalise had made a Snapchat and Messenger group to ensure that the gang would talk every single day. And knowing her mates, Y/N was sure they would.

During a break between rounds, Y/N got up from their table after making sure that her polyamide shorts underneath her dress didn’t roll down her stomach. She wore them to prevent chafing, knowing that if she did not wear them underneath her skirt, it would be hard for her to wear anything the next day. She did the zip of her chunky sock boots before making her way over to Mason’s table.

“Alright, Y/N?” Mason said as she came closer, giving her a small smile.

“How’re you lot finding the society?” she asked, looking around the table, meeting Kai’s eyes.

Kai beamed. “Good, it’s nice to spend some time with the whole team off the rugby pitch.”

“You’re dressed up,” Mason pointed out. “What’s the occasion?”

“Uno Society.”

Mason smiled. “Trying to pull some rugby players, are ya?”

“No. No, rugby players.”

Mason only raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t believe her, smile widening.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re just as unbearable as Harry sometimes.”

“Nah, Harry’s worse than me.”

“Right.” Y/N took a big breath. “Chloe over there, the blonde,” Y/N said, motioning behind her with a nod of her head. Mason’s gaze immediately fell on Chloe. “She’s wondering if you and Harry can teach her how to play the PlayStation.”

Mason blinked, looking over at Kai as the bigger man clapped his hands together before laughing.

“Is that funny?” Y/N asked.

“No, it’s not. I just knew Kai would react like that,” Mason said. “But I’ll do it. After Christmas at some point.”

“Nice, I’ll tell her that, then.”

“Why does she need someone to teach her how to play PlayStation?” Kai asked, and though there was laughter in his voice, Y/N could tell his question was sincere.

“Some blokes in her flat never want to be social, they just stay in this one room playing PlayStation, and she’s kinda left out ‘cause she doesn’t really know how to play.”

“That might not work out,” Kai said, smiling still.

“Worth a shot, either way.”

“Maybe she just wanna spend time with this hunk,” Kai grinned, putting a hand on Mason’s shoulder. “Or the other hunk that’s not here.”

“Speaking of him,” Y/N said, putting a hand on her hip. “Not that I care, but where is he?”

Kai grinned, sitting back in his chair. “You don’t care? Not at all?”

“No, Y/N doesn’t like Harry much,” Mason explained, completely unbothered. “He’s working. The team’s popping by The Stag’s Head later to check on him since it’s his last shift and all that.”

Y/N nodded, suddenly remembering how Harry had told her that a few weeks ago.

“What’s the bellend done to you?” Kai asked.

“Another time, Kai. We’re in the middle of a round,” Mason said. “I’ll find a day that’s good for Chloe to come over.”

“Wicked,” Y/N smiled. “See ya.”

“Later, mate.”

Y/N walked back to her table, sitting down in her seat again. “Sorry,” she said when Hayden gave her a look. “Chloe, Mason said he could teach you how to play PlayStation sometime after Christmas break.”

Chloe squealed. “Really?!”

“Yeah, he’ll text me saying when.”

“Ahh! Buzzing!”

Y/N gave her a smile before the gang went back to playing.

Though she was physically present over the next hour or so, Y/N’s mind travelled back to the flat and the watch on her desk. Besides assignments, Christmas, and what Chloe said on Tuesday, that was all Y/N had spent her time thinking about. She would be in bed, about to go to sleep, then just get out of her bed and look at the watch, study it carefully. Maybe there was another message of sorts on it, maybe she was supposed to do something with it. But other days she did not want to touch that watch. There was something about it, something about how it had just been left in her possession so casually, something about the fact that she had not seen George since that night, that did not sit right with Y/N at all.

Throughout the rest of the night, after the Uno Society, while the gang was sat at a pub, and then dancing at a club later, Y/N could not bring herself to enjoy herself thoroughly. All her energy went back to that watch. She wanted to understand what it meant, why George had it, and what she was supposed to do with the information. Was she even supposed to do anything at all? It only made her want to travel down to Newport even more. She had to now. Her parents might think about getting rid of that cabin, but Y/N had to revisit it one last time before that happened.

Y/N did not drink that night; she was afraid of the conspiracy theories she would form if she did. She had one cocktail at the pub they went to, but could not do more than that, and her mates did not ask questions as to why she was not drinking, something she really appreciated. It was late when she announced she would be going home, and so she called Nathan and made him stay on the line with her as she took the tube back to Haggerston Station. Once she reached Orsman Road, she could hear his snores on the other end, and hung up halfway down the road to the flat. However, in the distance, she saw a stag’s head sign hanging out on a metal pole, protruding from the building opposite her flat building. She suddenly remembered what Mason said, and crossed the road, making her way over to the pub.

A small group of lads made their way out of the pub as Y/N reached it, the last one holding the door for her. She smiled and thanked him before walking inside. Now that she wasn’t affected by alcohol, Y/N was finally able to take in the pub properly without having the slight haze of alcohol taint it. The lights were comfortably dimmed, not too much so you could not read the menu, but just enough so that a person’s facial features would be a tad blurry. The red that ran along the wall behind the dark bar counter was subtle, giving the bar a sense of holding onto the secrets of each person who walked through the front doors, like a Victorian murder mystery. Y/N could see Sweeney Todd’s barber shop trapped in the same colours.

“Excuse me, miss,” a man walking out from behind the counter said, grey hair and broad shoulders. “We’re closed.”

“Oh,” she said, looking around the dark pub. “I… I thought I might find Harry here.”

The man narrowed his eyes a little. “He’s got a new girlfriend? So soon after the other ones?”

Y/N felt herself narrow her eyes back at the man. Girlfriend? Harry’s had girlfriends – plural – since he started working in The Stag’s Head? There was a very strange combination of a lot of different feelings that swarmed around Y/N’s body, suddenly making her feel seasick. She was about to abort her mission, to say she would just catch Harry at home, when there came a voice from the door leading out into the smoking area.

“Y/N,” Harry said, turning the lights off outside and closing the door. It looked as if he could not quite believe his eyes as he saw her standing there, like he had not thought she would ever show up to his work like this. Without seemingly able to help himself, his green eyes fell down to her green dress and her exposed legs. He quickly looked to his other co-worker, clearing his throat as he walked behind the pub counter. Y/N could swear she saw a slight pink hue to his cheekbones.

“I’ll leave if you’re busy.”

“No,” Harry said, the word coming out a little too quickly as if desperation got the better of him. “No. Not busy.”

The grey-haired man raised his eyebrows at Harry. He must have seen something in Harry’s demeanour, because he said, “You’ll be alright to close up on your own?”

Harry smiled. “It’ll be a nice way to end my time at Stag’s Head.”

“Nice,” the man Y/N now suspected was Harry’s boss, said. “Pop by with the keys tomorrow, will ya?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man gave both Harry and Y/N a smile each before he started on his walk up to his office. The pub was suddenly very quiet, not a single sound came from inside, just the distant siren outside and the low buzz of the city. A place that was usually bustling with noise, energy, and anticipation, was now left with the latter. Y/N looked around the place, unsure of what to do with herself now that it was only her and Harry there. Harry watched her, picking up the Cif spray from where it stood under the counter. She felt his gaze on her as she walked along the booths, touching the red velvet cushions, a rush of goosebumps travelling up her spine at the knowledge that she had his full attention.

She turned around, leaning her bum against a table as she took in the liquor behind Harry. He was washing the counter, looking over at Y/N again, eyes falling to her mid-area that was expanded slightly at the pressure the surface behind her was providing. He quickly looked away again, biting his lips together as he focused on the counter in front of him. Y/N could not help a small smile.

“What made you show up to my work, then?” he asked.

“Can’t a friend show up to another friend’s work?”

Harry let out a strangled chuckle. “Alright. That’s very nice of you, but I don’t buy that for a single second.”

Y/N raised her eyebrows. “You don’t?”

“There’s gotta have been another reason as to why.”

“Okay…? What’s that?”

Harry shrugged his shoulder, spraying more Cif onto the counter. “You were bored. You didn’t want to be around your other mates any longer. You wanted to see a delicious man with an irresistible Northern accent clean up a pub since it’s his last shift ever here tonight.”

Y/N let out a laugh, placing her hands on either side of the table beside her. “None of the above.”

“Alright,” Harry said, coming out from behind the pub. “What didn’t I cover?”

“You weren’t at the Uno Society meeting.”

The answer came so effortlessly, as if her subconscious had been holding onto the answer for Y/N until she was strong enough to know the real reason. Her hands instantly gripped the table harder, feeling embarrassed for admitting vulnerability so easily. She blamed how easy it was to talk to him, how he just seemed to throw a lasso around her deepest secrets, her most private desires, and drag them out of her.

Harry looked over at her from where he was cleaning the tables a bit further away in the pub. “Had work. Would’ve been there if I didn’t have to be here.”

She nodded, looking down at her black boots. For some reason, his words warmed something inside her. Hearing someone care about something she cared about made her feel special. Then again, someone she just met on the street could tell her they hated Marmite, something Y/N also did, and she would feel equally as fuzzy inside. Finding small bonds, small preferences, small somethings that connected you to other people, made you feel like you weren’t alone, but it also made you feel special, made you feel seen and understood. It was as if someone opened a door into their soul, and giving you a warm handshake, welcoming you into them and their life.

“The lads had a blast,” Harry said, now closer to Y/N as she had zoned out for a minute and some.

“They did?”

“Yeah, it’s nice to just sit down and relax like that. We don’t really get to do that.”

Y/N watched as Harry hovered by a table, leaning over it to clean it. His black tee shirt stretched over his broad back, his shoulder blades visibly working as he ran the cloth over the table in front of him. The outline of his muscles, the way they were so hard against the soft fabric of the tee shirt, made Y/N’s body feel very hot all of a sudden. He worked so carefully, sliding his hand holding the cloth so slowly over the table, paying it his undivided attention. She adjusted her position against her table, looking away from Harry as he stood back up, his black trousers that had been tight around his buttocks, slacking at the lack of pressure on the material. Get a fucking grip, Y/N screamed at herself in her head, focusing on the wall in front of her. She saw Harry look at her over his shoulder, gaze lingering on her for a few seconds. Y/N suddenly found it very hard to draw a proper breath.

“You’re mad I didn’t show up?” Harry asked.

Y/N was silent, her brain completely blank. “Didn’t show up…?”

She could see his smug smile in her peripheral vision. “Yeah.”

“To what?”

His smile widened and he focused on a table closer to her. “The Uno Society.”

She closed her eyes. Her checking out Harry while he had his back to her had not just made her forget the whole reason why she had showed up to The Stag’s Head in the first place. His body looking the way it did, him caring about the society, him teasing her to get a reaction out of her… Why the fuck did he have that effect on her?

“No,” Y/N said, refusing to look at him still. “I’m not mad.”

“Then why won’t you look at me right now?”

Y/N could feel her hands instinctively grabbing harder onto the table behind her. “No reason.”

“You know,” Harry started, she could hear the smirk in his voice. “You can try all you want, but I still know you.”

She huffed. “You wish.”

“I don’t gotta,” he said, chuckling a little. “Don’t gotta wish when I already do know you. Wish I knew you better, wish you’d just open up to me like you did so easily before, but that’s for a later time.”

That made her look over at Harry, her eyebrows drawn together as she just watched him clean yet another table. He… Did he really think she would one day open up to him again and they would go back to being friends like they used to? Was he really that optimistic? Had he thought about it? About them and their friendship? And what a future with her alongside him at uni would look like? Her eyes landed on his bicep as it flexed, holding his body weight as he leaned against the table again. Her gaze following his arm all the way down to his hand, long slender fingers wrapped around the edge of the table, and the thick veins over the dorsal part of his hand made something in Y/N’s brain short circuit. That along with the casual way he was leaning his hips against the table, staring down at it with his head cocked.

What the fuck, Y/N said to herself again, looking away from him. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?! How was she supposed to stay neutral, to not find him attractive, to not want to sink right back into old habits when she allowed herself to study him and look at him like that. She had to stop. This was getting out of hand.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet tonight,” Harry said, working slowly as he cleaned up the table in the booth beside the one she was stood leaning against.

“No, I’ve just got things on my mind.”

“What things?”

Your broad shoulders. Your hands. The way you stick your tongue out of your mouth when you are concentrating. But Y/N said none of those things, as doing so would sentence her to a lifetime of humiliation.

“Insignificant things.”

“When they’re taking up a lot of space in your head and preventing you from being present, they’re not insignificant,” Harry said, sounding a little serious all of a sudden. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, there’s nothing inherently bad on my mind, just… I’ve got a lot of… thoughts,” Y/N said, not knowing how else to explain it without giving something away.

“What thoughts?”

Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “Thought you did Architectural Studies, didn’t know you also had a degree in being Nosy.”

Harry let out a laugh, coming to stand in front of her with the spray and the cloth in his hands. “I’m very nosy.”

“Glad to hear you’re self-aware.”

“But right now I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Bloody hell, Y/N thought, could he just fucking stop being so nice? So fucking adorable? And fit? It made hating him so much harder than it already was.

“I’m okay.”

He took a step closer. “What’s been on your mind then?”

“Just… life.”

“Has uni exhausted you?”

“Yeah, but it’s not what I’m thinking about.”

Harry took another step closer. Y/N’s palms were suddenly very clammy.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked again, a small smile on his lips as if he was challenging her.

“Maybe you just have to face the fact that I won’t tell you and you can’t figure it out on your own.”

“Nah,” Harry said. “I’ll figure you out.”

Y/N watched as Harry took another step closer, her heart suddenly beating very fast inside her chest.

“I just gotta…” He trailed off, now standing directly in front of her. Tip of his shoes against the tip of hers. Without a warning of sorts, he leaned closer, bending over her until his head hovered beside her own. Chest wavering above hers, touching as she drew in a precipitous breath and he did the same. Their bodies did not brush against one another again, an invisible, burning shield was built to keep them apart the second their upper bodies made contact. As if the universe was telling them that by touching like that, the world would go up in total flames around them.

Harry’s sudden closeness made her breathe in a little too harshly, she was sure he must have heard it but she simply did not care. The reaction her body was having to him being so close was electric, it made all the hairs on her body stand on end. She didn’t know what he was doing that close to her, thinking at first that he must have wanted to whisper something in her ear, to say something to her that would undoubtedly make her glad she was leaning against something solid for support.

But she heard the familiar sound of the Cif spray, and a second later, Harry reached his cloth behind Y/N’s back, cleaning the table. She felt his breath against her neck, triggering something radioactive inside her. The oud aroma of his cologne, with notes of cedar, patchouli, and spicy saffron filled Y/N’s nostrils. In those seconds when Harry hovered above her like that, his warm body inches from hers, breath fanning against her skin, his aroma, and aura mere inches from hers, Y/N was conflicted as to if she wanted time to speed up or slow down some more. She knew that if she stayed like that, with Harry so close to her, for much longer she would go absolutely mad and have an impossible time resisting him if he were to try something like he had done in the living room the week before.

No sooner had she thought that, he pushed off, face lingering just centimetres from hers. “I just need to take a look,” he said, speaking as if he did not mind if the whole world was watching them. He raised his hand, about to touch her chin. For what reason, Y/N did not know, but she didn’t ask any questions. However, he stopped, as if touching her was something he could not do. Y/N was glad he hadn’t, because God knows how her body would have reacted had he tenderly touched her jawline like it looked like he wanted to.

“Take a look?” Y/N mumbled.

“At you.”

A small breath left her lips.

“Maybe the answer to what’s been on your mind is somewhere in your eyes,” he said, eyes suddenly falling to her lips. “Or your lips.” He glanced at her forehead. “Or in the slight lines that appear between your eyebrows when you’re deep in thought.” He looked down at her hands on the table edge. “Or the way you’re gripping the table so tight right now.”

Jesus Christ, she was about to explode. Y/N let go of it immediately, standing up and forcing Harry to take two steps back. His intense glance lingered on her, falling to her lips as she opened her mouth to take a breath.

“It’s getting late,” she said, fingering the hem of her leather jacket as her heart continued to hammer away inside her chest.

“Wait for me, yeah?” Harry walked over to the next table to clean it, doing it way faster than all the other ones. Biting his lip and moving his hand with the cloth over the table as if to make up for time spent on something else, cleaning very slowly and standing too close to her.

“No, I can walk home by myself.”

“I know you’re capable of walking, but I don’t like you being out in the streets all alone late at night.”

Y/N looked over at Harry as he cleaned the last booth, seeing the determination to finish as quickly as possible.

“It’s just across the road,” she said.

“Please just let me walk you across the road, then.” Harry walked behind the bar counter, putting the cleaning supplies away.

“You make me sound like an old lady.”

“Just-“ He appeared from behind the counter. “-Wait.” He then disappeared into the backroom where he only stayed for a few seconds. Y/N would have thought that since he enjoyed working at The Stag’s Head, he would have at least lingered for a few moments to take in the last time he would ever be back there. But instead, he emerged wearing his coat, locking the door behind him, mere seconds later. He turned the lights off, and, walking over to where Y/N was standing, placed a gentle hand to her lower back, guiding her in the direction of the door that she could only barely make out in the dark. Goosebumps instantly ran up Y/N’s back and she inhaled at the pressure of Harry’s hand on her body. He held the door open for her and Y/N stepped outside, watching as Harry locked the front doors to The Stag’s Head for the very last time.

He looked around them after locking the door, checking up and down the three streets that came to a crossroad just outside the pub. Once his eyes finally met Y/N’s again he gave her the smallest smile, then motioned for her to lead the way back to their flat. She wanted to roll her eyes, but she could not find it in herself to do just that in that moment. Though it was just across the road, she very much appreciated Harry’s company back to their flat. Distance was nothing when the roads were dark and the faces of the figures walking past were left blurred by the dim streetlamps.

Harry held the door for Y/N once again, letting her be the first to enter the building. She strolled upstairs, unlocking their front door and watching as Harry gestured for her to walk on inside. The flat was dark, except for the warm yellow lights Nathan had twined around the railing of their terrace and the changing colours of the luminous Christmas tree in the living room. The kitchen was usually left in darkness, as was the rest of the flat, but since their eyes were used to night outside, it wasn’t hard to navigate their way to the stairs. They took their jackets off, and without her leather jacket on, Y/N was very aware of how much of her skin was exposed to Harry. Her dress showed off her legs, arms, and parts of her back to him, and she knew that, if he walked behind her up the stairs, he would get a good look at her bum.

She took her boots off and started up the stairs with her purse in her hand, hearing Harry make his way up them as well. If any man were to walk behind her up the stairs, Harry was one she trusted not to take the mick, to not look up her skirt and make her feel uncomfortable. But… after everything… she still didn’t want him to see her knickers. However, facing her door, she heard Harry walking up the stairs. Taking a deep breath, she turned around to face him once he reached the first floor. What happened next happened so suddenly that Y/N barely managed to wrap her head around it before the moment was gone.

She had just turned around to face Harry when he walked up over to her. Taking a step back at the sudden closeness, she felt herself breathe in sharply as Harry’s face lingered only centimetres from her own again. Though the person standing in front of her was a man, a completely different person, something inside her brain took her back to that night when they were 16. He hadn’t been this close to her since then, had not touched her or looked at her like this since then. His eyes flicked down to her lips, and then to meet hers, wet lips parting as if the anticipation was killing him.

And Y/N had to painfully admit, it was killing her, too. As much as she had tried to fight it, it was impossible to now. She wanted Harry to kiss her. Not tenderly kiss her like you would peck a person you were in love with, or to gently rub his thumb over her cheek as a show of affection, or to hug her tight when they met up for lunch. No, she wanted him to fucking kiss her. She wanted him to grab her face and kiss her hard; desperately, needily. She wanted them to fumble to take each other’s clothes off, and for him to make up for how bad that first time together was. There was absolutely no denying it, Y/N wanted Harry. She really wanted him. All these months, all those moments spent trying to push the thought away, she simply could not anymore. There was a hunger inside her for him, but only in the sexual sense. She could never fall in love with this man, she just wanted to fuck him. And she wanted to fuck him bad.

Her own lips parted, and she looked into his eyes with an expression she hoped he could read, because she needed him to understand. Once again, Harry raised his hand, hovering between them as if he were unsure what to do with it. Fingers twitching, she could see he was conflicted, whether he should touch her cheek as it looked like he wanted to, or if he should stop himself. Y/N let her eyes fall to his hand, to tell him she wanted him to touch her. She wanted to feel him somewhere, anywhere on her. Just looking at him, she could see he wanted the same as her. He wanted to feel her body, to explore it in a completely different way to last time.

Harry’s hand fell out of view, and just as Y/N thought he was going to let it hang limply, uselessly, at his side, she felt something on her waist. A warm pressure, snaking around the black linen of her dress. She waited for him to pull her closer to him, for their torsos to connect, but it never happened.

“Y/N,” Harry whispered, eyes falling to her lips again.

She did not answer, instead just tilted her head so it would be easier for him to kiss her. With her eyelids hanging low over her eyes, her body language not showing any sign of protesting, and with her lips parted, Y/N hoped the message was coming across clearly. Harry leaned in closer, his nose almost touching hers. Her heart was beating so fast and hard it hurt. Her hands were clammy. All her attention focused on Harry and the electricity they created on that spot where his hand rested. He leaned down, lips hovering just over the crook of her neck, making her close her eyes. Breath against the hair of her shoulder, lightning shooting up Y/N’s back. He slowly leaned back out again, nose hovering beside hers. The anticipation was absolutely killing her.

“I…” But he drifted off, eyes falling to her lips again. She could feel his breath on her mouth, could smell his cologne. The tension was making her dizzy, she just wanted him to bloody kiss her already.

She was just about to do it herself when she felt his warm hand drop off her waist. She blinked, and the next second, Harry took a step back. He only looked at her, mouth working as if he was trying to find the right words to say, but there were none. So, as if blinking himself awake from a sort of dream, he took another step back. Suddenly, he opened the door into his room. He stopped in the doorway, looking back at Y/N. Again, he tried to say something that must have died on the tip of his tongue, because again, he did not utter a word. It looked like he physically could not say them out loud. Instead, he closed the door, leaving Y/N standing alone out in the dark hallway.

Y/N’s eyes rested on the door to the bathroom, trying to go over in her head where it had just happened. Had… Had Harry just walked away just now? Had he teased her in the pub, then done almost the same just now, only to walk away? What had gone wrong? Why had he not kissed her? What had made him step away? What had made him stop? Y/N could not answer a single one of the questions, and she doubted Harry would give her any. She closed her eyes, resting her head against her door behind her. This was exactly why she had not wanted to live with Harry, this was why she had not given in to his charms and flirts before. Now, because of what had just happened, because of how awkward that had just been, they were back to square one. Just living under the same roof as him infuriated her. She could not fucking stand Harry Styles.

NEXT UPDATE: Sunday, 4th April, 9PM GMT!

Huge thanks to my AMAZING beta readers! 🏛️ @aileenacoustic 🏛️ @devil-in-bw-the-sheets​​ 🏛️ @sunflowerstache​ 🏛️ @fromyourstrulyh​​ 🏛️

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[lovelylogans]

the words you read (my heart’s been displayed)

how did you know 'cause I never told but you found out I've got a crush on you the words you read, my heart's been displayed you found out I've got a crush on you —“crush on you,” the jets

warnings: awkward clueless teenagers, crushes, slightly overbearing matchmaking uncles, mentions of government surveillance, mostly fluff, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, secondary patton/roman and janus/remus

word count: 5,761

notes: this is for day 5 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “vocab card/skateboard” and i have decided to write about vocab card! please enjoy!

⁂

In Virgil’s opinion, Logan Sanders is the cutest boy in all of the sophomore grade.

He was the cutest boy in freshman year, too, and eighth grade, and seventh, and all the way back to kindergarten, but Logan’s changed over the summer. 

He’s sprouted up a few inches, so now he’s a half-head taller than Virgil. He still looks a little gangly, like he’s going to grow more. He’d always been shorter than Virgil before. He’d gotten new glasses, too, black frames that suit him way better than the silver ovals he’d used when they were little. His voice has gotten a bit deeper, his jawline’s gotten stronger, and Virgil’s helpless crush on him has only grown with Logan.

Logan isn’t just cute, either, he’s smart. He carries around stacks of notecards, blank and filled in, and there’s all sorts of things written on it—interesting fun facts and the latest slang terms, in rubber-banded stacks next to rubber-banded stacks of notecards of terms that will be on their next exam. Logan has a way of explaining anything and everything in a way that is really understandable and never makes you feel dumb. Logan’s always top of the class.

And to make matters worse, they’re next-door-locker-neighbors this year, because Chloe-who-was-between-them-alphabetically moved away. Which means that Virgil cannot quite get away with admiring Logan from afar, the way he has since they were little. Which means that when school starts, on the first day when Logan asks him what homeroom he’s in this year, Virgil’s brain can only go ahhhhHHHHHH and the fact that oh my God Logan is tall now oh my GOD Logan has the locker next to mine now! makes him delay his answer because he’s just staring at Logan, and Logan looks at him a little oddly and then repeats his question as if he thinks Virgil didn’t hear him, and Virgil kind of wants to crawl into his locker to hide there forever thanks.

“Oh,” he manages. He closes his locker. “Um. I’m in Mr. Morales’ homeroom this year.”

Logan smiles at him. Logan SMILES AT HIM. And then he says, “I am, as well. Perhaps we’ll be seated next to each other in homeroom, in addition to being locker neighbors. I would enjoy that.”

He would ENJOY THAT!!!!!

Logan clears his throat and fiddles with his glasses, finally just pushing them a little further up his nose, even though they’re pretty high up on his nose already. “Would you like to walk together to Mr. Morales’ classroom? I was in his home economics class last year, I know where it is.”

“Um, sure,” Virgil says, voice cracking embarrassingly, and he considers opening his locker back up again so that he can hide there. He’s pretty skinny, he might be able to fit.

So they walk to Mr. Morales’ classroom. Logan’s the one talking, mostly; Virgil’s grateful for that, because he’d probably just be rambling nervously the whole time, and it’d be tempting fate to have his voice crack in front of Logan again. But now he can just listen to Logan’s various opinions about their summer reading for their English class, which is much safer. He sure has a lot of opinions about it, which makes Virgil sweat a little nervously—Logan sounds like he’s ready to sit down and write an essay about it, as if they’re going to have to, and Virgil’s pretty sure that if he sat down to take a multiple-choice quiz about that book right now he’d flunk it.

They end up not being assigned to sit next to each other. Mr. Morales says to just sit wherever, since they’re all going to go to an assembly once he takes attendance anyways, and that he probably won’t assign seats for the whole year.

And then Logan ends up sitting next to him anyways.

Like he really meant that he’d like to be next to Virgil in homeroom.

Mr. Morales smiles at them, and then, inexplicably, gives Logan a double thumbs up? And then Logan’s cheeks go kind of red? Logan turns his face away from Mr. Morales, turning to more fully face Virgil.

“You were in his class last year, right?” Virgil says.

“Erm, yeah. Yes. I was.” Logan clears his throat, turning away from him. “He supervises my study hall, too.” Then he mumbles, “also he’s my uncle.”

“He’s your uncle?” Virgil repeats. This is news to him.

“Through marriage,” Logan explains. “Mr. Regnant is my father’s brother.”

Mr. Regnant is the arts-and-music teacher, and, though they don’t talk about it very much (students do, but then, students always gossip), Mr. Morales’ husband.

Mr. Regnant is also, not that Virgil would ever tell him so, Virgil’s favorite teacher.

“Which dad?” Virgil says, because Logan’s two dads were basically his only version of real-life gay representation when they were really little. He knows Mr. Sanders better than Logan’s other dad. 

Mr. Sanders always volunteered to be part of the PTA moms who supervised them during holiday parties and field trips, though, looking back, he doesn’t think the PTA moms liked him very much. The kids, on the other hand, loved Mr. Sanders, who would treat them like very short adults and once a year would bring in his mamba Eve for kids to pet and hold.

Logan’s other Dad had been the one who encouraged the kids to throw paints and roll around in the mud and tear things up. Logan’s other Dad had come to supervise one holiday party and was politely asked to never do so again.

“Not Pa—I mean, Janus,” Logan says, looking briefly embarrassed. “He’s Dad’s—Remus’—twin brother.”

Virgil makes an “ohhh” sound, because that makes sense. Now he’s thinking about it, Mr. Regnant and Logan’s dad really do look alike, if one looked past their contrasting senses of style. 

“That’s cool, though,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “That you’re related, I mean. Mr. Morales is really nice.”

“Yes, he is,” Logan says. “It’s been a bit strange to adjust to calling him Mr. Morales instead of Uncle Patton, though.”

“Yeah, I guess it probably would be,” Virgil says. 

The bell rings, and Mr. Morales ushers them off to the assembly.

Logan sits down next to him on the bleachers at the assembly, too. Their knees bump together as they listen to the principal welcome them back from summer vacation and give some announcements.

And Logan keeps sitting down next to him.

At lunch, in their two shared classes, in homeroom. He wishes Virgil a good morning and good afternoon every day at their locker. As the months of the school year slowly creep by, Virgil definitely does kind of feel like crawling into his locker, sometimes, but less and less so, because.

Because he and Logan are kind of friends now.

Logan asks him about his favorite hot beverage and then starts bringing him chai when he and his uncles stop by a café before school. Virgil sketches out drawings of astronauts and space when Logan goes on a loving tirade about it that lasts, on-and-off, for a week. 

He still definitely has a crush on Logan. His increased presence near him is both a blessing and a curse.

They share earbuds and laugh at videos in homeroom, they sit quietly side-by-side and do their homework together in study hall. Virgil even tags along, sometimes, when Logan takes time out of his day to visit his uncles. His uncles always seem delighted whenever Virgil drops by, which Virgil guesses makes sense—Mr. Morales is just kind of Like That, and he’s been taking classes with Mr. Regnant since freshman year, and they’ve been sassing at each other for just about as long.

Logan makes those visits rare, though. He always seems a little self-conscious about how excited his uncles are during their visits, the way they elbow Logan and give him thumbs-ups and wiggle their eyebrows. Virgil doesn’t really get it—he thinks it’s nice that his uncles are so excited to see Logan with his friend.

But then his mom unexpectedly comes by and drops off his lunch and ruffles Virgil’s hair right in front of Logan, and Virgil spends the rest of the day going beet red even Logan assures him that it’s okay and he thinks it’s nice, something in his brain... clicks. A little bit. Even though it doesn’t make sense.

Does Logan...?

No, his brain tells him. There’s no way.

But Virgil keeps an eye out for the next week anyways.

On Monday, Logan’s uncles give him a ride to school and also drive him by the café, so Logan hands over a chai for Virgil. Virgil smiles and thanks him.

Have Logan’s ears always gone red whenever Virgil thanks him for bringing him tea?

On Tuesday, their fingers brush when Logan’s passing over a stack of notecards for Virgil to study for an upcoming exam during their study hall. Simultaneously, they look away from each other, redirecting their attention to their textbooks.

Have they always done that?

On Wednesday, Logan and Virgil swing by Mr. Morales’ classroom. After Virgil laughs at a somewhat sarcastic comment that Logan says, and redirects his attention to the sketch he’s been doing to turn in for approval for his end-of-semester art project, he peeks through his bangs to see Mr. Morales waving his hands eagerly, and Logan go red and gesture sharply for him to stop.

Has Mr. Morales always been so excited whenever he and Logan spend time in his classroom?

On Thursday, Logan seems chilled by the overenthusiastic air conditioning, so Virgil gives him a spare hoodie he had in his locker. Logan looks at him, looks away, and then proceeds to huddle in Virgil’s hoodie for the rest of the day, even after the school adjusts the temperature and it isn’t quite so cold.

By then, his brain saying no way! No way, you cannot afford to be wrong on this so you aren’t even going to try, there’s no way—

It’s after school on Thursday, and Virgil makes sure Logan has already gone home when he descends the stairs to Mr. Regnant’s art-and-music studio.

“Oh, Virgil, hey,” Mr. Regnant says, distracted, looking up from the sheet music he’s laying out across four desks. “Gimme a second, I’ve got the feedback for your sketch on my desk somewhere—”

Virgil looks to Mr. Regnant’s desk. He can’t even see the mug of pens on his desk that Virgil knows is there, it’s so buried in papers and models and paint palette piles. It’s like an avalanche waiting to happen.

“Uh, that’s not—you can give it to me tomorrow,” Virgil says awkwardly. “Um. That’s not why I’m here.”

Mr. Regnant blinks at him. “All right.”

“I,” he wipes his hands on his jeans and grimaces, not quite believing that he’s about to do this. “I need advice.”

Mr. Regnant pauses, before he manages to find an empty desk and sets down the sheet music. “Okay.”

“Before I say anything,” he says. “I need you to give me this advice as Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Regnant says. “Yeah, ‘course, Virgil. I’m always—”

“Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club, is a separate person from Mr. Regnant, Logan’s Uncle Roman,” Virgil interrupts, twisting his fingers together anxiously. “Right?”

Mr. Regnant opens his mouth. Closes it. He gestures for Virgil to sit on one of the choir risers, settling there himself, but Virgil sits on the floor. This is a time in which floor-sitting is necessary.

“He could be,” Mr. Regnant says eventually.

“Well I need him to be,” Virgil snaps. “Okay?”

Mr. Regnant presses his lips together and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a little higher pitched. His lips twitch and he clears his throat. “Yeah! Yeah.”

“Oh my God, you’re about to laugh at me,” Virgil says, horrified. “I knew this was a terrible idea, forget it—”

“No!” Mr. Regnant says hastily. “No I’m not, no I’m not. I swear I’m not. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is not about to laugh.”

“Is Mr. Regnant Logan’s uncle about to laugh?!”

“I thought they were different people,” Mr. Regnant sasses back, seemingly on instinct, and Virgil buries his face in his hands and screams a little bit. Just a little bit.

“Shi—shoot, I mean shoot!” He says, and tugs lightly at Virgil’s arm. Virgil peeks at Mr. Regnant from between his fingers.

Mr. Regnant’s face is very serious. There is no more sign of lip-twitching, throat-clearing, or mirth in his eyes.

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is here and listening,” he says. “Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any relatives to speak of. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any twin brothers or nephews. What on earth even are those? Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA would have no idea. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA doesn’t even have parents, or a husband, that’s how absolutely relative-less he is. Okay?”

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is an asshole,” Virgil mutters.

“Faculty supervisor of the GSA is starting to not sound like words anymore,” Mr. Regnant says, “also, you are so lucky school is technically over, otherwise I would have totally given you a detention for language.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, you literally just almost swore.”

“Almost,” Mr. Regnant says, “is not the same as did. Now. What can I do for you, Virgil?”

Virgil takes a deep breath in.

“What do you do if you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

Mr. Regnant’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, but otherwise, he doesn’t react.

“You could talk to him?”

“Okay, maybe I should be more specific,” Virgil says, “What do you do if you have an anxiety disorder, and you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

“I know you’re not gonna like this,” Mr. Regnant says, “but my answer is still you could talk to him.” 

He holds up a hand before Virgil can protest. “I know it can be scary, I know it can be anxiety-inducing. I know that can be a deterrent for a perfectly neurotypical person, let alone someone who’s got a diagnosed anxiety disorder. But, I mean. Your only options, as I see them, are, A, tell him, or B, sit quietly and wait for him to maybe make the first move.”

“But how can I be sure?” He says.

“Well, why do you think he likes you back?” Mr. Regnant says reasonably.

So Virgil tells him. Virgil tells him all about it—thinking he was cute since they were kids, then suddenly becoming friends this year: the chai, the sketches, the music listening, the blushing and the awkward chats, and how they’re friends now but Virgil still really likes him in a romantic way.

“Does that sound like he likes me back?” he asks anxiously. 

Mr. Regnant bites his lip. “As the faculty supervisor of the GSA? I think it could definitely be likely.”

“Likely?” Virgil wails.

“Well, as the faculty supervisor of the GSA,” Mr. Regnant enunciates carefully, “I can’t be certain.”

“I can’t go and tell him based on if it’s just likely! I need to be sure he likes me back or else there’s a chance he says he doesn’t like me and then I’m going to have a heart attack and die!”

“Virgil! As the faculty supervisor of the GSA! I really think you should go for it!”

Mr. Regnant looks like he’s about to reach out and start shaking Virgil by the shoulders. His eyes are huge, the way he always looks at actors onstage who have forgotten their lines, like by just staring at them he’ll be able to psychically impart the script to them.

“Forget it,” Virgil groans and reaches for his backpack, swinging it over his shoulders and standing up. “I’m doomed to suffer in silence. Thanks, I guess, I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Please don’t tell anyone I told you all this.”

As Virgil is closing the classroom door behind him, he’s pretty sure he hears Mr. Regnant screeching.

Honestly, Virgil should be the one screeching. He can’t believe he just told him all that—who knows if Mr. Regnant will be able to keep the information of a crush concerning his nephew to himself?!

⁂

“Okay, here’s your mocha-with-extra-espresso, please don’t tell your Dads,” Uncle Patton says cheerfully, passing back a to-go cup to Logan. “And the chai! I think it’s very sweet that you keep getting this for him, kiddo.”

“Gestures are a good way to express affection,” Logan says anxiously, carefully setting the chai in a cupholder. “I’ve been trying to vary my approaches based off the five love languages. I’m not sure if it’s working.”

Uncle Roman in the passenger seat, his arm thrown over his eyes, makes a sound of great discontent, the way he’s been doing for the past week whenever Uncle Patton has tried to give him any advice concerning Virgil.

“Are you okay, Uncle Roman?” Logan asks again.

“Thinking about being the faculty supervisor to the GSA,” Uncle Roman moans, as if in pain.

“Is the club schedule about to be particularly busy?” Logan asks, frowning. “You typically enjoy your work with the GSA.”

“You could say that,” Uncle Roman says tightly, then groans again.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do personally, in order to relieve any undue stress,” Logan begins, but is cut off by Uncle Roman shrieking.

“Um,” Logan says, looking to Uncle Patton, who snorts, shaking his head.

“He just, um,” Uncle Patton says. “Well, I think something’s happened, except he told me he can’t tell me what it is without betraying someone’s trust, so.”

“I see,” Logan says, frowning, except for the part where he doesn’t see, really. But that happens fairly frequently with Papa and Dad. Honestly, it’s rather curious that Uncle Roman has not acted in a way that seems strange to outsiders. Dad does it all the time, and they’re twins.

Oh, well. He’s sure he’ll understand eventually.

“I’m fine,” Uncle Roman says, and he sniffs loudly. “I’m fine, it’s all—fine.”

Uncle Patton pats his hand sympathetically, before directing their car to school.

Logan sips his drink, before he says idly, “I think I’m going to tell him I’ve had a crush him today.”

Uncle Roman immediately spews coffee onto the windshield in an impressive spit-take. It is hilarious. Even though Uncle Roman is choking a little. 

Uncle Patton meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, his eyes bright with excitement. “Really?!”

“Really,” Logan confirms. “I mean, it’s been—it’s been a couple months. We are friendly enough. I do not think that Virgil will discard our friendship if I confess that I have had a crush on him since last year.”

“Well!” Uncle Patton says, so flustered that he accidentally turns on the windshield wipers when he means to signal a turn, and then when he tries to fix that he turns on his hazard lights, before he manages to get the car under control again. “Well, that’s great, kiddo! I’m so excited for you!”

“You are the smartest kid I know,” Uncle Roman says, turning in his seat to face Logan, his expression near-worshipful. “I love you.”

“Um. Thank you?”

“I know you don’t believe in psychics, but are you—?”

“Why are you bringing up psychics?” Logan says, perplexed. “I figured—well, I’ll tell him. And it is time that the Halloween festival will begin this weekend. That seems like a date that Virgil would enjoy.”

“Right,” Uncle Roman says. “Okay. Well—go for it! Please go for it!”

“I have already told you I will,” he says. 

“I think it’s gonna go great if you go for it!”

Strange. Uncle Roman is acting as if he has had too much caffeine. As far as Logan is aware, the beverage they have just stopped to get is his first coffee of the day, and he does not metabolize the effects of coffee that quickly.

“Right,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses and taking a sip of his coffee. Then, “Right.”

Then, “What if he says he doesn’t like me back?”

Uncle Roman throws his arm across his eyes and makes that same groaning sound again.

Uncle Patton absentmindedly reaches over and bracingly rubs Uncle Roman’s thigh, again meeting Logan’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Well, kiddo, if he says he doesn’t like you back,” he says, then frowns. “It’s understandable to be disappointed, or a little bit upset, but it’s important to accept his answer graciously and kindly. No means no. No is a full sentence. But Virgil seems like a very nice boy, I can’t imagine he’ll be very mean about it at all, and you two have gotten close over the past few months. It might be kind of awkward for a bit, but with a little work, your friendship will be able to survive it.”

“I suppose,” Logan says quietly, looking down at his lap.

“But,” Uncle Patton adds hastily, “I think the chances are really good for him saying yes to the date! We both do, don’t we, Roman?”

Uncle Roman lets out a very strangled “mm-hmm.”

Logan chews his lip, before he says timidly, “Can I borrow one of your phones to call my Dads?”

“Cupholder, just a bit in front of ya,” Patton says cheerfully. “You already know the password.”

Logan does. He swipes it in—his uncles’ wedding date—and presses on Papa’s contact number. Dad’s phone is lost more often than not, and almost always turns up in strange places, like inside the gateau he’d tried to make, or inside the neighbor’s rain gutters.

His father picks it up almost immediately.

“Patton, if this is about the adopt-a-thon, if I have told you once I have told you a thousand times—”

“Um, hi, Papa,” Logan says awkwardly; he does not want to get into the family squabble about sharing a pet between their households again. Eve is a sufficient pet, even if she’s not as cuddly as Uncle Patton might like.

His father’s voice transforms from chiding to concerned in a second. “Logan, is everything all right?”

“Yes, everyone is operating under adequate parameters,” Logan says. “Is Dad there?”

There’s the sound of something crashing in the background, as if on cue. Knowing Dad, it might have been.

“I’ll get him,” Papa says wearily.

He hears his Papa say Remus, our son is on the phone, please put down the—Uh, Jan, sexy-pie! I thought you were! On the way to work!—what the—REMUS, we’ve TALKED about this, how did you lay hands on a HERON—and then the conversation gets a good deal more muffled. He is pretty sure that Papa is shouting at Dad about capturing local wildlife again.

He waits patiently, before he hears the clatter of the phone being passed into someone’s hands, and Dad asks, “Did someone die?! Do you need help covering up a murder?!”

“Remus, please,” Papa groans, “the boy is too smart to implicate himself by opening the opportunity to be recorded over the phone lines.”

“That’s right, Logie-bear, the government is always watching,” Dad says solemnly. “Big brother, all hail. Also lean over and give my little brother a wet-willie for me, it’d be so funny—”

Logan, accustomed to conversations of this tone since birth, continues stolidly onward. “I’m going to tell Virgil I like him today.”

“Finally!” Dad hoots.

“That’s excellent, Logan,” Papa says placidly. “Please know that I am fully aware of the misogynistic roots of the what are your intentions discussion, and I’ve been doing research in order to make our version as feminist as possible. Also, your father has been warned to discuss minimal amounts of gore when he comes to our home.”

“What is the point of a shovel talk then!”

“We already agreed no shovel talk,” Papa says irritably. “When we threaten the boy, we’ll do it subtly.”

“Please don’t threaten him,” Logan says anxiously. “I don’t even know if he likes me back yet.”

“Of course he likes you back!” Dad says, outraged on his behalf. “Why the hell wouldn’t he like you back?!”

“How did you two know that you loved each other?” Logan asks. The question feels slightly childish, and he feels even more so when he curls up in his car seat, but he cannot deny the posture brings a certain level of comfort.

There’s a pregnant pause.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Papa says.

“I’m sixteen in a matter of weeks!”

Dad makes an absurd gagging noise, because he is ridiculously averse to the concept of Logan (and therefore, himself and Papa) aging. Logan thinks that it might have to do with a latent existential crisis, but he has not asked, because knowing Dad, he will spin it out into thirteen separate absurd reasons, and ten of them will make Logan cringe away, repulsed.

“Trust my judgment on this,” Papa says. “You do not want to know the origins of how our romance developed. However, when we actually had the discussion concerning feelings, your father—”

“I wrote him a beautiful letter in my best calligraphy,” Dad says proudly, then, “You probably don’t want to hear about the ink, do you?”

“Is it disgusting?” Logan asks warily.

“Quite, but,” then, in a voice that literally every other person wouldn’t realize is Papa’s version of profound sappiness, “that’s your father.” 

There is the sound of kissing. Logan resists the urge to make a gagging noise of his own, because somehow, he is the mature one in the entire family.

“As it is, just,” Papa says, then sighs. “I cannot believe I am about to give such... Pattonish advice. But. As it is, just be yourself. If this boy likes you back—”

“—as he should, and if he doesn’t he’s in desperate need of a lobotomy,” Dad mutters.

“—then he will like you for you, just the way you are,” Papa says, as if Dad had not said anything remotely worrying. “Tap into your strengths, Logan. You are intelligent, and observant, and thoughtful—”

“—and the best son there is—”

“Well, that goes without saying, clearly,” Papa says. “As long as your confession comes from you, then there is no way that it can go wrong. You are simply too excellent a person for it not to.”

“Even if it turns out he doesn’t like me?” Logan says timidly.

“If it does, then have your uncle forge an excuse note for you to get out of school early today and we’ll plot accordingly,” Papa says evasively. “But I do not think that outcome likely.”

Logan chews his lip. Papa is the best liar he knows, but—

But hearing his encouragement is too comforting to really analyze if he is lying.

“Thanks, Dads.”

“Knock him dead, kid!” Dad shouts. “And if he doesn’t then I will!”

“What did we just say about discussing potential evidence over the phone lines,” Papa scolds, and Logan hangs up, smiling.

Just be yourself.

Uncle Pattonish advice it may be, it has given him an idea.

⁂

Waiting over this past week to see if Mr. Regnant will crack and spill to Mr. Morales, or even worse, Logan himself, has been absolutely agonizing and Virgil’s kicking himself over going to Mr. Regnant for advice surrounding Logan at all.

That morning, though, Mr. Morales is at his desk, and a chai is waiting for Virgil at their usual spot, but Logan is nowhere to be seen. Virgil tries his hardest not to act too much like he’s keeping an eye out for Logan, but he is pretty sure he’s not succeeding, because Mr. Morales is smiling at him way too wide.

He actually seems really excited about something. Like, Mr. Morales usually gets excited when it’s fresh chocolate chip cookie day at lunch, but this is beyond the pale for fresh chocolate chip cookie day. Maybe the assembly they have today is something special? Except Virgil’s pretty sure it’s to pass out honors for the last quarter and talk about fall sports. That’s nothing particularly special.

Logan slides into his seat just before the bell rings, though, wrapping a rubber band around one of his notecard stacks. It’s a thin stack, it must be for something that’s just started; usually Logan compiles every unit of every class into thick stacks, able to be differentiated by the different colors of the notecards. These are just basic white ones.

He fiddles with it, darting looks to Virgil as Patton takes attendance, and, as they’re all filing out of the door, Logan holds out the stack of notecards.

“Here,” he blurts out.

Virgil blinks. “I don’t think we have a test soon?”

“They’re not for a test,” Logan says. “Just—take them. Read them during assembly. Please,” he adds belatedly.

“Uh,” Virgil says and takes them. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Logan says and nods. “Okay. Okay. Great! Um—please take your time to consider them carefully, and I await your response,” and then he practically runs off to fall into line near Mr. Regnant.

So that’s... weird.

But Virgil sticks the notecards into his hoodie pocket, anyways, ready to read them during assembly like Logan directed.

He waits until the principal is droning on about the importance of school spirit to take the notecards out of his pocket.

He spares a glance for Logan—who is several rows ahead, near the faculty, sitting next to Mr. Morales and Mr. Regnant, Mr. Morales occasionally reaching over to rub Logan’s shoulder bracingly—and then angles the notecards so that a teacher looking into the crowd wouldn’t really be able to see them.

He stares at the title on the top notecard. Blinks hard. Blinks again. Looks down at Logan’s back, then back to the notecard.

Reasons why I have a crush on Virgil.

He reaches over to pinch himself. Nope. Not dreaming, then.

And Logan really doesn’t seem like the type of person to make a joke like this.

He flips the cards and reads them slowly, savoring each and every word written in Logan’s blocky, neat script.

He is exceptionally witty.

He is knowledgeable about a great many things, such as music, art, spiders, novels, and mental health issues.

He is sarcastic.

He is thoughtful and deliberate in the formation of his opinions, even ones as small as the proper preparation of chai.

He is very handsome.

He is never rude without reason, and when he is rude, it is usually because the other person is “an asshole” and should be receiving backlash.

He is a remarkably talented artist.

Virgil keeps reading on, he is, he is, he is...

When he gets to the end—I would like to take you on a date. I would also like to be boyfriends, though I understand if you would like to table that conversation until we have established a rapport. Please let me know if you would be amenable to that suggestion.—he feels kind of dizzy. His throat is tight, his heart is pounding, and his hands are so sweaty he’s had to wipe them off on his jeans twice already.

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would think of him so highly? 

It’s like he’s describing someone entirely different—awkward, anxious Virgil couldn’t possibly be the snarky, witty, caring, deep-thinking guy that Logan’s writing about. There’s just no way. But, Virgil thinks, heart twisting, but Logan doesn’t lie about things like this. Is this the way Logan sees him?

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would have a crush on him at all?

He likes Virgil. He wants to take Virgil on a date. He wants Virgil to be his boyfriend.

There’s the rumbling of everyone standing up from the bleachers, and Virgil jumps—has it really been the entire assembly?—and hastily gets to his feet, so he won’t get swept up in the crowd of students returning to their classrooms.

As he’s heading for the door, Logan practically materializes in front of him, hugging his books tightly to his chest.

“Did you read them?” He asks fretfully. Now that Virgil’s close to him, face-to-face, he isn’t sure if he’s ever seen Logan so nervous. He isn’t sure if he’s seen Logan nervous at all. Logan’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, drumming his fingers on his books, holding the books like they’re a teddy bear.

“Do you,” Virgil says, his voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “You really like me?”

“Since last year,” Logan admits.

“I’ve liked you since kindergarten,” Virgil blurts out.

Logan blinks at him, jaw dropping. Then he says, “Really?!”

“Really,” Virgil promises. “My mom has this journal entry saved where I kept writing about how I was going to be Mr. Virgil Sanders, oh my God, she’s going to be so embarrassing about this—”

Logan snorts, ducking his head. “You’ve withstood my uncles handily.”

“Your uncles are cool, though,” Virgil says, confused.

“My uncles are embarrassing,” Logan says, “and my Dads are going to be so weird, I’m very sorry in advance, but—but if you can handle all of that, then I’d—I’d really like to take you out to the Halloween festival. I’d really really like that.”

Virgil’s smiling so wide that it hurts his face. “I’d really really like that too.”

And then the bell rings, and the pair of them jump at the sudden loud noise.

“I—we have to go to class,” Logan says, sounding very put out.

“Yeah,” Virgil says, then, “I’ll see you at lunch?”

Logan beams at him. “Lunch sounds wonderful.”

Virgil hesitates, before he reaches out and places a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He leans in and presses his lips to Logan’s cheek.

Logan’s bright red when he pulls away.

“Lunch?” Virgil confirms.

“Lunch,” Logan squeaks out, his voice cracking.

They emerge from under the bleachers, and have to split ways. Even when Mr. Regnant pulls him out into the hall under the guise of talking about his project and starts whisper-shouting about “do you know how HARD IT WAS to keep QUIET when i KNEW all along that you both LIKED each other bacK,” even when Mr. Morales ducks his head into his math class to pass over papers and gives Virgil some super-obvious thumbs up, even after he texts his Mom and his mom sends him screenfuls of exclamation points and immediately asks him to invite Logan over so that she can show Logan all of Virgil’s baby pictures—

Virgil cannot stop smiling.